I could already picture it on the walls and on the concrete like paint on a canvas. It would be beautiful to watch that deep red that once ran through the veins of my tormentor now run slowly down the brick wall of an alleyway. Sweet. Revenge would taste as sweet as the honey my mother would bring home for me when I was a kid. Destiny knew as well as I did that those days were over because she was the only person I had left after both my parents tragically died in a car accident. We were best friends when we were little, but when high school came, Destiny changed… and so did I.

At first, it hurt to think about seeing my parents’ blood splattered all over the dashboard of their beat-up Nissan, but as I grew older and the scene replayed in my mind, it became intoxicating. The faces of my beloved mom and dad seemed to fade. Maybe it was because I didn’t remember their faces, or because I only desired to see the blood.

After my parents died, I missed them dearly and wanted nothing more than to hear them call me their “little angel.” I went to school through the pain of their loss but was never greeted with sympathy or kindness, just remarks about how ugly, weird, or dumb I was. I lived with Destiny since the day of the accident. Her parents took me in and I’m sure they wanted me to feel loved, but they never loved me as parents. How could they ever love such a burden? Destiny even started chiming in on the insults at school. The only person I had left to count on abandon me. That’s when things started to get… interesting.

I stared spending more time by myself on the streets, thinking. Thinking about the pain, the blood, and how much easier life would be if the torment could just stop. When I did go home, I would look in the mirror and I convinced myself that the things people were saying were true. However, it would still send a shooting pain through my heart when I heard those words in the hallways. I don’t exactly know when or how it came about, but I trained myself to turn that sting of the words into a burning fire of hatred and disgust. Soon that’s all there was left of me. The little angel my parents had seen in me had become a devil disguised as a 17-year-old girl.

Well, the day had finally come when the torture would stop forever. I saw the girl that once loved me walking toward me in the alley next to my school. Knife in hand, we came closer and closer. My heart was racing; I had waited and thought so long of how I would slaughter her. Gently, I decided… slowly. I wanted to watch her fade, to watch the sparkle drain from her beautiful eyes. At last, I was close enough to see her clearly. I plunged the knife straight through her heart. It was liberating to know it was over for good. I wouldn’t suffer anymore. My vision became blurry and it was harder to see my reflection in the mirror at the end of the alley. I fell to my knees and just felt the drips of blood slowly run down my chest, staining my white t-shirt, running down my stomach. I thought of the kids at school, especially Destiny. She may have betrayed me, but she would miss our laughs and childhood memories. I closed my eyes and let my mind – for the first time since the accident – be at peace. My burden, my devil had drained out of me with the blood and I seemed to be the little girl again who only missed her parents. I couldn’t wait to see mommy and daddy.