Monster Children

[KamiKaze]

((Nora Moriarty continued from And When You Go, Don’t Return to Me My Love))
((TW: violence towards insects. May tag for additional stuff upon request))

She curled up on the bed, whimpering.

Why did she run away?

Anatoly was like her, kinda. Nora needed blood transfusions because of the way her toxins worked. It was a hemotoxin, they told her. That meant that it attacked the blood cells and circulatory system. That meant that she had anemia.

She too was a vampire. A monster. One with a sharp bite.

Nora laughed a little at her own… joke? She guessed. But still.

Maybe she could have heard him out. One monster to another.

Hm. Monster was such a subjective term.

Did you know Nora went to a support group? It was for people who had innately disabling Gifts. More Curses, like hers. One girl had to cut off benign tumors on a regular basis, resulting in ugly scarring and gashes throughout her body. A boy had two pairs of lungs and no room for all of them. Another boy couldn’t speak, only sing, which made things even more awkward than you’d expect. Yet another girl had to go to the hospital once a year to remove her heart, which would grow back and then rot inside her chest.

They talked about a lot of things. About how the word ‘Gift’ had a lot of implications. Like, it implies that no matter what, you were supposed to look at it positively. That it was, well, a Gift, from God, from your own biology, whatever.

But, one thing they talked about was how, when you get down to it, the subject of what makes a Gift a disability or not is socially constructed. Sure, you have things like Nora’s, things like Anatoly’s. But then, Auggie couldn’t use technology, Kyle was like her brother in that they both couldn’t speak due to their physiology, and Sayuna had to wear a blindfold. Were they ‘disabled’, then? Or did they just have different needs?

And that’s the thing about Gifts. It’s hard to figure out what is and isn’t normally life-affecting when literally everyone’s biology was so different.

The reason why she went to that support group was that she was having a hard time adjusting in Freshman year. It was the first time she’d been to a public school, and it was… rough. There were a few unwritten rules that weren’t obvious to glean from books and movies. So, she’d often have to step away to breathe because she was convinced that she was going to be kicked out, or bullied, or something else over something minor.. Apparently someone told her parents, and that’s when she started going.

It was funny in retrospect, because who gets expelled over spilling pens all over the floor during English class? And people were reasonably supportive. But like…

It still hurt to see people flashing around their good Gifts, making friends, dating, talking about all the fun things they were able to do as kids.

And the more time she got to think here, the more angry she got. Not only about that, but at herself. People had much worse than her. So why was she complaining? Why was she being selfish?

And why…

The thing was, Nora was sick, and she knew that one day her toxins could kill her. Her family told her that her doctors said she didn’t have a great longterm prognosis when she was younger. That it was a miracle she was alive.

And yet, she killed Orion.

Technically, yes and no. Orion was poisoned, but Joel finished the job. So it was a sick person who could feasibly die anyways trying to get a bit of extra time because…? Because she was scared.

God, you’re hopeless Nora.

Stupid girl.

It’s because you’re a coward. You didn’t fend for yourself at the rock fight, for one. You just hid behind Melodie and Rusty.

…

Melodie was here. She had an idea before, but the idea hit her like a sack of bricks to the stomach when she fully realized the possibility.

Could she face her after what happened?

Probably not.

Nora pulled her legs closer. Her head hurt. Her skin felt clammy. She felt dizzy.

Eventually, she stood up on her wavering legs and looked out the window. Nora had taken off her sweater earlier. Too hot, and yet, it flashed with cold a few times. She could see a purplish bruise forming on her left arm.

Nora looked outside. A few bugs scattered here and there, dancing on the window. A large cockroach scurried on the other side of the glass, which had cracked and looked like a spider’s web.

Isabella had died some time ago, she heard.

She was a force of terror, to the point where they couldn’t even approach the compound because there were so many ways someone could kill with bugs. And yet, she was out, too. Maybe she was too prominent, maybe she slipped up, maybe she lost a fight. Either way, Nora was alive, and Isabella wasn’t.

Nora looked down at the ground. How high up was she?

She stepped away, and she heard a noise underneath her feet.

At first, she thought it was some shattered glass. But she looked down, and–

Another cockroach. Its body had compressed under her foot, but it was still twitching.

Somewhere in the back of her head, Nora remembered Isabella hated it when people hurt bugs.


But her foot came down a second time.

A third time.

A fourth time.

A fifth time.

Eventually, the cockroach stopped moving.


Nora felt tears running down her face. Remember that Isabella was a creep and that so many other people gave her reasons to hate them.

Then, she sat back down on the bed.

… She realized she could have been safe.

If she hadn’t poisoned Orion, she and he and Lucine and Joel could have stuck it out. They were working fine before Owl spoke up. Then, then… she swapped the bottles, and…

Oh no, she also realized.

Nora had memorized what quartz looked like, but she was also way too lucky to find some. And… and… it was way easier for her to swap the bottles than she expected. As if… luck was on her side.

She clasped a hand to her mouth, despite knowing how bad of an idea it was. Nora felt her breath brush against her fingers in rapid beats. Her heart ached.

Nora couldn’t shake the possibility, that Joel inadvertently helped her poison Orion. Her breathing filled the room, leaking out into the hallway.

((Nora Moriarty continued in Your Luck Has Run Out))