“Ag,” he grunted, retracting his hand quickly and watching as the blood dribbled down the back of it, forming a small pool at the tips of his fingers before falling away. Sneering down at it, his pupils tiny and focused, he spun around and planted the heel of his boot into his television. Once again, hot sparks cascaded out of the fragmented box, tumbling downward like rainwater, the embers they created dancing about wildly. The sparks shimmered down toward the broken whiskey bottle. There was a sound like the rush of air as the rank brown liquid ignited, becoming flame almost immediately. The fire swept over the floor, traveling along the drops made by the alcohol until it was everywhere. It reached the pictures and papers in the center of the room, their edges beginning to curl as they were lit aflame and consumed.
Xander’s eyes went wide, reflecting the fire as it sprang up all around him, its red and blue and yellow fingers reaching out to enclose around him like a fist.
He grabbed a small black throw pillow off of his bed and started slamming it down against the flames, each beat stomping out a small section as the impact snuffed the air out of the area and smothered it. Smoke billowed toward the ceiling as he wailed harder, his mouth contorted, blending desperation and anger as the last of the fire went out with feathers and smoke still hanging in the air but slowly settling to normal.
He started to sob the way a child sobs as he looked down upon the destroyed items, charred and blackened beyond recognition. He gripped both edges of the pillow and was about to pull it apart, then buried his face into it instead. His tears soaked into the smooth fabric as it rubbed soot off onto his cheeks. His whole body shook and convulsed, urging several times from the pit of his stomach as though he were about to vomit, but instead just bringing more tears and a fresh bout of sobs. He stayed that way for thirty minutes, until all the smoke had cleared out of the room and the smell of alcohol had started to fade.
When he looked up and opened his eyes, he saw the one thing that had escaped the fire intact: a picture of her, all dressed up to go to the prom that he had clipped from an old yearbook.
When are you going to stop?
Xander lay on the ground, broken and beaten by Sara’s current boyfriend, Julian Grendel. Blood seeped from his upper lip, making the bottom of his face warm and wet.
“When are you going to stop doing this?” she had asked him, using his shirt to wipe a bit of the blood away.
He looked up at her and smiled, the motion stinging the tender flesh around his mouth. “I guess when I start winning fights.”
“Not that,” she giggled, wiping more blood from his forehead. “This. Chasing after every boy I go out with like some ... jealous father.”
“Oh,” Xander said, looking downward. “I guess when you start going out with reasonable guys.”
“What do you mean?”
“Gee, I wonder. Grendel, Derek, Sud, Tommy, Randy, Travis, Cecil... the list goes on. Cathy always says that you go through them like popcorn at a chick-flick. Serial boyfriends, I think she called them. Guys that are... Okay, but they don’t deserve you. You deserve someone special. Someone who’ll treat you right and make you feel good and... and not look at you like you’re an object. You’re better then you think you are, y’ know. You deserve better than you think you do.”
She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “That was the nicest thing anyone ever said to me.” She smiled. “Make me a promise.”
“Anything.”
“Don’t ever give up.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t ever stop protecting me. And when I finally do find that guy you were talking about, protect someone else. This world needs a protector, Xander.”
“I promise.”
“Don’t ever give up.”
“I won’t,” he said, emptying the bullets from the gun onto the floor with a series of metallic clinks. Tears streamed down his face as his eyes turned black, his heart pounding in his chest as he felt his blood pressure climb to levels normally fatal. This time he made no effort to halt it.
The skin on his wrists began to swell as the pressure built there, growing more and more with each passing second.
Through his open mouth, his teeth could plainly be seen grinding together as he tried not to scream, every cell in his body trying to fight for its life, failing, and then being re-written. His gums started to bleed as new teeth were cut again, the old ones cutting long rivets in the roof of his mouth as they were forced aside. After a moment only the new were visible, over two inches long each and the yellow of putrid urine.
His jaw popped out on one side all on its own, hanging on a few inches below where it had been by a tedious strand of flesh and tenue. After a moment, it healed itself, the muscle weaving its way down to meet in as the other side of his face fractured itself as well, making room for the massive set of jowls he would soon possess.
There was a pounding in his skull as it became thicker and broader across the forehead, reshaping his
