Trigger Warning-Implied reference of bullying.
Rain lashed across the old window panes. It was pitch dark outside. Not a single star was visible through the clouds. Within the confines of an old farmhouse that Jessica once considered as her place of solace ended up being warped into something else entirely.
Hunched over with her hands resting on her knees. Her chest burned, starved for oxygen as she dry heaved. Taking a deep breath then slowly exhaled as she calmed herself down. The scent alone was enough to churn her stomach, a vile concoction of blood and viscera mingling with the remnants of her fear.
She lifted her head, taking in the scene—a grotesque tableau of blood, bone, and organs splattered on the walls like a macabre art installation. It was the closest thing she could liken to her former tormentors, now rendered into unrecognizable parts. Her body trembled, and anyone would forgive her if she broke down. But no tears came.
Tears had never stopped them from chasing her, cornering her, holding her down as she pleaded for mercy, crying out in pain as they beat her.
She straightened, her gaze unwavering, her mind a tumultuous sea of past horrors and present triumph. The brutality of what she’d done was a mirror to the brutality she’d endured. Each act of violence she inflicted was a reclamation, a piece of herself torn away and now viciously reattached. The catharsis was bitter, tainted by the irreversible transformation it marked.
She thought of their faces, twisted with cruelty, now twisted with something else entirely. Her thoughts flickered back to the dark corners of her mind, to the nights she spent nursing bruises and broken spirits. Every insult, every punch, every humiliating laugh was paid back in kind, with interest.
The air was thick with the metallic scent of blood, a scent she knew too well. She remembered the first time she tasted her own blood, the sharp tang of it, mingled with the salt of her tears. Those days were gone, replaced by this nightmarish victory. Her tormentors were no longer threats; they were warnings for what's to come.
She exhaled slowly, feeling the tension in her muscles, the echoes of their jeers still faintly ringing in her ears. She had become something else, something beyond the girl they had tormented. She was the reaper of their sins, the embodiment of their worst fears.
She whispered to the silence, her voice carrying a cold finality, "They had it coming."
