Family Matters
Title: Family Matters
Word Count: 3,079
Rating: R for violence and a lot of cursing.
Summary: Come here. I'm going to teach you a lesson, whether you like it or not. I don't really care if you listen, one way or another, but I'm going to try and teach you anyway. Let me tell you of my family, how I came to meet them and became the monster you see today.
Come here. I'm going to teach you a lesson, whether you like it or not. I don't really care if you listen, one way or another, but I'm going to try and teach you anyway. Christ, maybe the changes that I’ve been going through have been messing with my head or something, but I think there is a potential in you to change. So I’m going to be kind and leave with a lesson. Don’t worry; you won’t die until my story is over.
I suppose I should start at the beginning: Family is a weird thing for me. I mean it always has been a bit weird for me, I guess, but lately it just seems to have gotten a lot stranger. Mommy shot Daddy when I was five and ever since then family dinners have always been a bit awkward. Oh he didn't die, if that's what you are wondering. She shot him right in the head but the fucker was just too stubborn to die. Now he just sits there with the scars piled up around the hole where his eye used to be, like a fucking ghost around the house. Still smiles at dinner though, smiles right at her and calls her darling like nothing ever happened. Don't feel too bad for him though; Daddy snorted away most of our money growing up so the fucker really deserved that bullet.
I used to think his eye scar was ugly, but I guess that I don't have any right to say things like that anymore. I mean was never that pretty to look at growing up, I never meant to imply that. I always had awkward limbs, puffy cheeks, and a belly that stuck out over the edge of my pants. I got picked on a lot, even beyond the teenage years where everyone got picked on for something. Eventually you live for a long enough period of time like that and you become bitter. I was really bad, like cursing at homeless guys in the street and telling girls that they were dykes for not wanting to fuck me when I was drunk in a bar. That was me, not pretty but that was me.
Should have known that living like an asshole in New York City would have gotten me in trouble. This city is one that is known for eating people alive. Ha! Eating people alive, the whole phrase seems a bit like a joke to me now. I'm sure you don't think the joke is very funny, if I had just been stabbed I wouldn't either. Just take my word that it is hilarious given my current lifestyle.
So I was walking down the street in the middle of October at like ten o'clock at night, pissed off because I had just gotten into a fight with Mommy dearest. There was a man on the side of the street, asking for change and bundled up from head to toe in scarves and coats. Apparently that was all I needed to fly into a rage. I told him that he needed to stop being so fucking lazy and get a job; I got really into his face. It was like he was the perfect pin cushion, you know? What the fuck was this skinny little dude with lesions on his face going to do to me? So I let loose my great and terrible rage at this guy and went on my way, feeling bizarrely self-satisfied.
The story should have ended there, but it didn't. You see that homeless man wasn't exactly as powerless as he looked. He must've followed me for five blocks, though how he did so I'm not exactly sure. I didn't see anyone following me, but as I passed one of the alleyways near my house there he was. I know it was him because he smelled the same, like a mixture of sewage, old beer, and cranberries. He grabbed onto my arm and pulled me into the alley way; I was no strong-man but I was not exactly made of straw either yet he was able to pull me in effortlessly. Two hundred pounds at the time and he pulled me in like I weighed twenty.
Before I could react he had me pinned to a wall. The look on his face man, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was all animal, I tell you, and that animal was fucking hungry. He grew fangs and bit into my neck. I wanted to cry out for help, I wanted to scream, but part of it just felt so good that my mouth just stopped working. Still feel kind of guilty about that actually; I mean what kind of sick fuck takes pleasure in getting attacked in an alleyway?
When I woke up it was dark and I was in somewhere cold and wet that smelled like shit, literally. My body felt like it had gotten hit by a truck. Slowly I began to move my body around, assessing the damage. Everything still moved, so I assumed I was fine. That's when I saw my face in the mirror that hung from a wall, the sole object in the room lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. I was covered from the mouth down in blood and half of my face swollen up like a balloon.
I screamed then, but only the sound of my own voice came back to greet me. I fell backwards and then my hands bent in a way that they should have never been able to. I bent the bone backwards and it made kind of an S-shape, which hurt just as much as you would expect a bone bending to hurt. I tried desperately to straighten it out, but the pain got to be too much so I made my peace with the fact that my wrist was going to be in a spiral: it wasn't like I needed my right hand anyway. I sat there for a minute or two just feeling the electric shock of pain rattle through my body, thinking about how my bones had gotten so weak and generally being a self-pitying S.O.B.
Eventually I realized that I was hungry, like hadn't eaten in two weeks hungry. I've always hated being hungry, I never liked the feeling of emptiness that came with not having food. I mean, I guess no one ever really likes being hungry, but it always seemed to affect me more than others. So this thing felt like it was the end of the fucking world when it hit me with its full force. I climbed to my feet the best I could, but it turns out that all my bones decided to get soft as cottage cheese left to rot in the trash. My ankle did the weird bendy thing that my arm did and I screamed. Somewhere in the darkness I heard someone make soft clicking sounds with their tongue against their teeth.
"Someone! Help me! I'm stuck here and my leg is broken!" I cried out, a door opened in response. I felt like the god I never believed in had just opened the door for me, a feeling that was swiftly shot down as I heard the metal clang of a door closing not soon after wards. No words came to greet me, but I did hear a skittering across the stone. I looked down and saw five rats there, big New York City sewer rats. Normally I would be repulsed by such things, but let me tell you once you get to that level of hungry everything seems to be delicious. I was proud that I was able to last about five minutes before I flew upon them in a hungry frenzy. It didn't even matter that it hurt like a motherfucking bitch when I grabbed onto them, I just bit into them and ate them raw. Afterwards I could feel new pointed fangs sticking out of my mouth. I was so shocked that all I could think of was "Well that's new."
I lived that way for a time, though I have no clue how long. I would sit there moaning softly and every once in a while I would notice that my body had a new modification that wasn't there before. My spine grew as twisted as my wrists and ankles, my ankles grew fat and bloated 'til they melded with my feet, my fat grew blobby and started pussing through my skin, my skin grew mottled with brown and covered in spines. Whenever I got hungry I would let out a growl that got progressively more and more bestial as the hours became days and more rats would be let into my chamber. Then one day the door just stayed open and no more rats came in. I cautiously climbed to my feet and found that they once more supported my weight, even though they were bent like corkscrews. One foot in front of another I made my way out from my prison.
On unsure feet I made my way forward through halls of putrid stone and slime, my own skin making a slimy trail on the walls when I would fall against them after losing my balance. I felt like I was the minotaur in the motherfucking labyrinth ‘til I saw a doorway in front of me. The promise of freedom was enough to push me forward, my atrophied muscles screaming in protest as I did so. I paused, gasping for air, at the mouth of the doorway as I clutched onto the threshold.
"I wouldn't go out there if I were you," said a rasping female voice from.
"Fuck you," I screamed diving out of the secret door I found before another lunatic could grab me.
I came out in the backroom of a bar, I could tell from the amount of booze that was piled up in towers around me. It was only me and several cases of low grade grain alcohol, but I could hear the roar of the crowd from behind the door in front of me. The crowd, I thought, surely the crowd would help. If I went into the middle of public area then whatever sick fucko that had captured me wouldn't be able to take me back. I made my way forward expecting salvation.
Hey now, don't zone out on me now. You aren't losing that much blood from the wounds, so at least do me the courtesy of paying attention when I speak. I swear the nerve of some people is disgusting.
So I made my way out of the room on corkscrew limbs and walked into the middle of the crowd. It was a busy night, it must have been a weekend; how long was I out for? Last I remember it was Monday, and now it was the weekend. Those bastards had held me for at least a week, maybe more considering the level of starvation I felt in those chambers.
At first the crowd didn't notice me there; freaks appear all the time in the Big Apple. I made sure that they noticed me; I started crying out "Help! Help!" at the top of my lungs. Everyone in the bar went silent and stared at me with looks of confusion and then horror. I made my way forward towards someone, "Please, let me borrow your cell phone." I asked kindly.
That's when the crowd began to scream bloody murder. A few of the young teenagers passed out just from looking at me. "Please help me!" I said, though now my voice sounded more like a growl, "I've been kidnapped” I reached out to a pretty young Indian woman at the bar and she recoiled from my hand. My eyes fell upon her neck and I could see her pulse racing. Part of me wanted very badly to dig my teeth into her neck at that moment; the other part of me was repulsed that my mind would ever conjure up such an image. I guess I must have looked a bit too hungrily at her because some muscled dude pulled her away and hid her behind his mass.
"Someone call the police!" a man screamed and I felt a temporary thrill of elation. Surely the police would help a man who was just assaulted and held prisoner for who knows how long? Then I saw all the phones flipping open to film me; I guess I must have looked quite a sight, even in New York City. Slowly it began to sink in, the police wouldn't be coming to help me-they'd be coming to contain me. I howled loudly upon this realization setting. "It's a monster! This is the real deal, dude!" cried a tan man in a business suit.
"No! Please! I'm just human! I'm just a guy like you! I swear!" I was screaming now, and I could feel tears flowing down my face. I wiped some of them away and noticed that my hands were bright crimson. Even I screamed in horror at that sight, recoiling into a corner that was made blessedly clear by the crowd. I just curled up into a ball and wept pitifully.
The bartender seemed unphased by everything that was going on and began to laugh. He laughed louder and louder ‘til the screams around us slowly went silent as they became confused by the sudden change in emotion. He stood on the bar and announced, "Alright everybody! You just survived the Fear Challenge! I'd like to thank our kind actor, Benjamin for helping us all scare you silly! Here's your host, Jimmy Katrel!"
On that cue the smiling host walked out of the back room, though I don't know where he came from since I was just back there and there was no one but me when I was there. I looked up with tears still on my face as the host made his way towards me. He lifted his hand down to me and I took it with confusion on my face. "Alright, take a bow Benjamin!" He said, his voice booming and his arm wrapped around me. Awkwardly I bowed, feeling like I had walked into a Twilight Zone episode. We stood there for a few minutes while he smiled and the bar relaxed around us. Then he gently guided me into the back room, assuring the people that all the drinks were on the show for the night.
As soon as we were in the back room the host's demeanor changed to angry and taciturn. "You really are a piece of work, you know that boy?" said the host's face, but the voice sounded like the rasping woman from the darkness.
"Who are you?" I barked out, trying to wipe the blood off of my fingers.
There was a ripple across, his flesh and suddenly standing before me was a thin crone dressed in a long red skirt and black knitted sweater. Her face was thin, just way too thin to supposed to be able to function. In fact the entirety of her body seemed just way too thin, like she would blow away in the wind, but her voice was strong when she spoke, "Name's Celine. You must be new."
"New to what?"
She shook her head, making soft clicking sounds against her teeth that sent shivers down my spine. "Follow me and I'll get you introduced to your new life."
With that she turned on her heel and started back into the dark hole that I crawled my way out of. I followed her since she seemed to be the only one around here who had any clue what was going on. My eyes adjusted to the darkness as we walked ‘til eventually I could see the patterns of the bricks standing out, see the sluice of water that we walked through. Kind of wish I didn't have to see half of the things I saw floating down that river, but I saw it nonetheless.
"You know you're lucky that we found you," she said, never turning back to face me but talking to me still. "If it had been the other guys they would have just let you fry."
"What other guys? What the hell happened to me? Who are we?"
She laughed at me, her laugh sounding like sandpaper, "I suppose that's always the question, isn't it? Who are we? Some call us monsters. Others call us creeps, or masks. Me? I call us a family."
"There's more than two of us?"
"There's an army. Don't worry, the confusion is normal. Everything will make sense in time. We all were like that once."
She led me through twisting mazes within the labyrinth ‘til we reached the epicenter. I could hear the whispers as I entered the room. Scanning the walls I saw so many just like me, like how I now was. I saw people with limbs that had entirely more joints than they were supposed to have. I saw people whose faces looked like they had been punched in, yet they still continued to blink and more despite everything being a giant pulp. I saw things with spines, with too many eyes, with holes all over their bodies, things that were joined at the hips. In fact, everywhere I looked it felt like I was seeing a new horror that I was never supposed to see.
"Welcome to the clan, young one." said the rasping voiced woman who was altogether too thin, motioning with big arms like this was a grand unveiling.
So that's my family now. It took adjusting to call them that, they are not exactly the easiest to get to know or to get close to after all. Sometimes I still meet a member and shudder when I look at them. The family I have is still fucked up, still ugly as it ever was, but somehow it still feels more like home than that little slice of perfect suburbia did. They look out for me now, they care for me.
And you? If I were you I'd think twice about the next time you think it's funny to kick someone when they're down. Next time you just might find yourself part of the family. We clear? Good. Now get yourself to a hospital if you are still able to crawl.
Word Count: 3,079
Rating: R for violence and a lot of cursing.
Summary: Come here. I'm going to teach you a lesson, whether you like it or not. I don't really care if you listen, one way or another, but I'm going to try and teach you anyway. Let me tell you of my family, how I came to meet them and became the monster you see today.
Come here. I'm going to teach you a lesson, whether you like it or not. I don't really care if you listen, one way or another, but I'm going to try and teach you anyway. Christ, maybe the changes that I’ve been going through have been messing with my head or something, but I think there is a potential in you to change. So I’m going to be kind and leave with a lesson. Don’t worry; you won’t die until my story is over.
I suppose I should start at the beginning: Family is a weird thing for me. I mean it always has been a bit weird for me, I guess, but lately it just seems to have gotten a lot stranger. Mommy shot Daddy when I was five and ever since then family dinners have always been a bit awkward. Oh he didn't die, if that's what you are wondering. She shot him right in the head but the fucker was just too stubborn to die. Now he just sits there with the scars piled up around the hole where his eye used to be, like a fucking ghost around the house. Still smiles at dinner though, smiles right at her and calls her darling like nothing ever happened. Don't feel too bad for him though; Daddy snorted away most of our money growing up so the fucker really deserved that bullet.
I used to think his eye scar was ugly, but I guess that I don't have any right to say things like that anymore. I mean was never that pretty to look at growing up, I never meant to imply that. I always had awkward limbs, puffy cheeks, and a belly that stuck out over the edge of my pants. I got picked on a lot, even beyond the teenage years where everyone got picked on for something. Eventually you live for a long enough period of time like that and you become bitter. I was really bad, like cursing at homeless guys in the street and telling girls that they were dykes for not wanting to fuck me when I was drunk in a bar. That was me, not pretty but that was me.
Should have known that living like an asshole in New York City would have gotten me in trouble. This city is one that is known for eating people alive. Ha! Eating people alive, the whole phrase seems a bit like a joke to me now. I'm sure you don't think the joke is very funny, if I had just been stabbed I wouldn't either. Just take my word that it is hilarious given my current lifestyle.
So I was walking down the street in the middle of October at like ten o'clock at night, pissed off because I had just gotten into a fight with Mommy dearest. There was a man on the side of the street, asking for change and bundled up from head to toe in scarves and coats. Apparently that was all I needed to fly into a rage. I told him that he needed to stop being so fucking lazy and get a job; I got really into his face. It was like he was the perfect pin cushion, you know? What the fuck was this skinny little dude with lesions on his face going to do to me? So I let loose my great and terrible rage at this guy and went on my way, feeling bizarrely self-satisfied.
The story should have ended there, but it didn't. You see that homeless man wasn't exactly as powerless as he looked. He must've followed me for five blocks, though how he did so I'm not exactly sure. I didn't see anyone following me, but as I passed one of the alleyways near my house there he was. I know it was him because he smelled the same, like a mixture of sewage, old beer, and cranberries. He grabbed onto my arm and pulled me into the alley way; I was no strong-man but I was not exactly made of straw either yet he was able to pull me in effortlessly. Two hundred pounds at the time and he pulled me in like I weighed twenty.
Before I could react he had me pinned to a wall. The look on his face man, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was all animal, I tell you, and that animal was fucking hungry. He grew fangs and bit into my neck. I wanted to cry out for help, I wanted to scream, but part of it just felt so good that my mouth just stopped working. Still feel kind of guilty about that actually; I mean what kind of sick fuck takes pleasure in getting attacked in an alleyway?
When I woke up it was dark and I was in somewhere cold and wet that smelled like shit, literally. My body felt like it had gotten hit by a truck. Slowly I began to move my body around, assessing the damage. Everything still moved, so I assumed I was fine. That's when I saw my face in the mirror that hung from a wall, the sole object in the room lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. I was covered from the mouth down in blood and half of my face swollen up like a balloon.
I screamed then, but only the sound of my own voice came back to greet me. I fell backwards and then my hands bent in a way that they should have never been able to. I bent the bone backwards and it made kind of an S-shape, which hurt just as much as you would expect a bone bending to hurt. I tried desperately to straighten it out, but the pain got to be too much so I made my peace with the fact that my wrist was going to be in a spiral: it wasn't like I needed my right hand anyway. I sat there for a minute or two just feeling the electric shock of pain rattle through my body, thinking about how my bones had gotten so weak and generally being a self-pitying S.O.B.
Eventually I realized that I was hungry, like hadn't eaten in two weeks hungry. I've always hated being hungry, I never liked the feeling of emptiness that came with not having food. I mean, I guess no one ever really likes being hungry, but it always seemed to affect me more than others. So this thing felt like it was the end of the fucking world when it hit me with its full force. I climbed to my feet the best I could, but it turns out that all my bones decided to get soft as cottage cheese left to rot in the trash. My ankle did the weird bendy thing that my arm did and I screamed. Somewhere in the darkness I heard someone make soft clicking sounds with their tongue against their teeth.
"Someone! Help me! I'm stuck here and my leg is broken!" I cried out, a door opened in response. I felt like the god I never believed in had just opened the door for me, a feeling that was swiftly shot down as I heard the metal clang of a door closing not soon after wards. No words came to greet me, but I did hear a skittering across the stone. I looked down and saw five rats there, big New York City sewer rats. Normally I would be repulsed by such things, but let me tell you once you get to that level of hungry everything seems to be delicious. I was proud that I was able to last about five minutes before I flew upon them in a hungry frenzy. It didn't even matter that it hurt like a motherfucking bitch when I grabbed onto them, I just bit into them and ate them raw. Afterwards I could feel new pointed fangs sticking out of my mouth. I was so shocked that all I could think of was "Well that's new."
I lived that way for a time, though I have no clue how long. I would sit there moaning softly and every once in a while I would notice that my body had a new modification that wasn't there before. My spine grew as twisted as my wrists and ankles, my ankles grew fat and bloated 'til they melded with my feet, my fat grew blobby and started pussing through my skin, my skin grew mottled with brown and covered in spines. Whenever I got hungry I would let out a growl that got progressively more and more bestial as the hours became days and more rats would be let into my chamber. Then one day the door just stayed open and no more rats came in. I cautiously climbed to my feet and found that they once more supported my weight, even though they were bent like corkscrews. One foot in front of another I made my way out from my prison.
On unsure feet I made my way forward through halls of putrid stone and slime, my own skin making a slimy trail on the walls when I would fall against them after losing my balance. I felt like I was the minotaur in the motherfucking labyrinth ‘til I saw a doorway in front of me. The promise of freedom was enough to push me forward, my atrophied muscles screaming in protest as I did so. I paused, gasping for air, at the mouth of the doorway as I clutched onto the threshold.
"I wouldn't go out there if I were you," said a rasping female voice from.
"Fuck you," I screamed diving out of the secret door I found before another lunatic could grab me.
I came out in the backroom of a bar, I could tell from the amount of booze that was piled up in towers around me. It was only me and several cases of low grade grain alcohol, but I could hear the roar of the crowd from behind the door in front of me. The crowd, I thought, surely the crowd would help. If I went into the middle of public area then whatever sick fucko that had captured me wouldn't be able to take me back. I made my way forward expecting salvation.
Hey now, don't zone out on me now. You aren't losing that much blood from the wounds, so at least do me the courtesy of paying attention when I speak. I swear the nerve of some people is disgusting.
So I made my way out of the room on corkscrew limbs and walked into the middle of the crowd. It was a busy night, it must have been a weekend; how long was I out for? Last I remember it was Monday, and now it was the weekend. Those bastards had held me for at least a week, maybe more considering the level of starvation I felt in those chambers.
At first the crowd didn't notice me there; freaks appear all the time in the Big Apple. I made sure that they noticed me; I started crying out "Help! Help!" at the top of my lungs. Everyone in the bar went silent and stared at me with looks of confusion and then horror. I made my way forward towards someone, "Please, let me borrow your cell phone." I asked kindly.
That's when the crowd began to scream bloody murder. A few of the young teenagers passed out just from looking at me. "Please help me!" I said, though now my voice sounded more like a growl, "I've been kidnapped” I reached out to a pretty young Indian woman at the bar and she recoiled from my hand. My eyes fell upon her neck and I could see her pulse racing. Part of me wanted very badly to dig my teeth into her neck at that moment; the other part of me was repulsed that my mind would ever conjure up such an image. I guess I must have looked a bit too hungrily at her because some muscled dude pulled her away and hid her behind his mass.
"Someone call the police!" a man screamed and I felt a temporary thrill of elation. Surely the police would help a man who was just assaulted and held prisoner for who knows how long? Then I saw all the phones flipping open to film me; I guess I must have looked quite a sight, even in New York City. Slowly it began to sink in, the police wouldn't be coming to help me-they'd be coming to contain me. I howled loudly upon this realization setting. "It's a monster! This is the real deal, dude!" cried a tan man in a business suit.
"No! Please! I'm just human! I'm just a guy like you! I swear!" I was screaming now, and I could feel tears flowing down my face. I wiped some of them away and noticed that my hands were bright crimson. Even I screamed in horror at that sight, recoiling into a corner that was made blessedly clear by the crowd. I just curled up into a ball and wept pitifully.
The bartender seemed unphased by everything that was going on and began to laugh. He laughed louder and louder ‘til the screams around us slowly went silent as they became confused by the sudden change in emotion. He stood on the bar and announced, "Alright everybody! You just survived the Fear Challenge! I'd like to thank our kind actor, Benjamin for helping us all scare you silly! Here's your host, Jimmy Katrel!"
On that cue the smiling host walked out of the back room, though I don't know where he came from since I was just back there and there was no one but me when I was there. I looked up with tears still on my face as the host made his way towards me. He lifted his hand down to me and I took it with confusion on my face. "Alright, take a bow Benjamin!" He said, his voice booming and his arm wrapped around me. Awkwardly I bowed, feeling like I had walked into a Twilight Zone episode. We stood there for a few minutes while he smiled and the bar relaxed around us. Then he gently guided me into the back room, assuring the people that all the drinks were on the show for the night.
As soon as we were in the back room the host's demeanor changed to angry and taciturn. "You really are a piece of work, you know that boy?" said the host's face, but the voice sounded like the rasping woman from the darkness.
"Who are you?" I barked out, trying to wipe the blood off of my fingers.
There was a ripple across, his flesh and suddenly standing before me was a thin crone dressed in a long red skirt and black knitted sweater. Her face was thin, just way too thin to supposed to be able to function. In fact the entirety of her body seemed just way too thin, like she would blow away in the wind, but her voice was strong when she spoke, "Name's Celine. You must be new."
"New to what?"
She shook her head, making soft clicking sounds against her teeth that sent shivers down my spine. "Follow me and I'll get you introduced to your new life."
With that she turned on her heel and started back into the dark hole that I crawled my way out of. I followed her since she seemed to be the only one around here who had any clue what was going on. My eyes adjusted to the darkness as we walked ‘til eventually I could see the patterns of the bricks standing out, see the sluice of water that we walked through. Kind of wish I didn't have to see half of the things I saw floating down that river, but I saw it nonetheless.
"You know you're lucky that we found you," she said, never turning back to face me but talking to me still. "If it had been the other guys they would have just let you fry."
"What other guys? What the hell happened to me? Who are we?"
She laughed at me, her laugh sounding like sandpaper, "I suppose that's always the question, isn't it? Who are we? Some call us monsters. Others call us creeps, or masks. Me? I call us a family."
"There's more than two of us?"
"There's an army. Don't worry, the confusion is normal. Everything will make sense in time. We all were like that once."
She led me through twisting mazes within the labyrinth ‘til we reached the epicenter. I could hear the whispers as I entered the room. Scanning the walls I saw so many just like me, like how I now was. I saw people with limbs that had entirely more joints than they were supposed to have. I saw people whose faces looked like they had been punched in, yet they still continued to blink and more despite everything being a giant pulp. I saw things with spines, with too many eyes, with holes all over their bodies, things that were joined at the hips. In fact, everywhere I looked it felt like I was seeing a new horror that I was never supposed to see.
"Welcome to the clan, young one." said the rasping voiced woman who was altogether too thin, motioning with big arms like this was a grand unveiling.
So that's my family now. It took adjusting to call them that, they are not exactly the easiest to get to know or to get close to after all. Sometimes I still meet a member and shudder when I look at them. The family I have is still fucked up, still ugly as it ever was, but somehow it still feels more like home than that little slice of perfect suburbia did. They look out for me now, they care for me.
And you? If I were you I'd think twice about the next time you think it's funny to kick someone when they're down. Next time you just might find yourself part of the family. We clear? Good. Now get yourself to a hospital if you are still able to crawl.