It was dark and the street lamps were being lit. I sat on a rooftop eating a steamed bun waiting. Tonight was the night that everything should happen I was excited. I brought food and was waiting for the show to start. I wish I had popcorn I thought to myself for the thirtieth time tonight. It wasn't going to belong and I knew it. I sat back alone and enjoying it. I looked up at the moon and realized I never stopped in this life or my last to just enjoy the beauty. In my last life, My parents showed the world that we were the perfect family day in and out we had to show that everything was perfect. Nothing was wrong. Behind closed doors, my father mercilessly beat me.
I remember how he would beat me and I would ask why he was hitting me. He stared down at my bruised body with contempt. He silently stared at me and said a sentence I think still moves my life till this day. "Because your weaker than me and I can." He went right back to hitting me. I was living in a type of hell only some in the world could relate too. I would cook dinner for my parents my mother just stared at me sometimes. Other times she would mock me as my father beat me. They were two peas in a pod. Slowly I grew in this environment. I worked out when I could let the beatings be a little easier to bear. I then hit elementary school and the beatings became precise and easy to cover. I tried my hardest studying and school became a place for me to stay away. I worked my ass off and did my best.
Throughout I was mentally and physically abused. I went to Middle school and the beatings and mental abuse remained no matter how hard I tried nothing changed how they treated me. I was a straight-A student through hard work I was in clubs but nothing that allowed to show my bruises. At home, I then cooked cleaned and was beaten. It was a routine for me. I always kept up physical training though. I hid it from my parents and the beatings hurt less and less. When High school came around I was being scouted for clubs and other activities. I continued my pace though. Study and clubs that hid all my abuse from the world around me. I never had friends. My Family liked to hit and abuse me I had nothing. Life was studying, Clubs, and abuse. I did not know anything else.
One day though a boy the same age as me approached me. We started talking and getting to know each other. I never found out why he approached me when no one else ever did but he changed my destiny. He talked me into learning how to street fight nothing trained pure dirty tactics that were aimed to do maximum damage for the least cost. He started to get me into light drugs that made me loosen up. Weed became a hit for me. I was so uptight all the time that the first time relaxing after having it blew my mind. I never knew you could just do nothing.
Eventually, he introduced me to his other friends and I fell further into what others called the bad kids. I learned how to bully and things like that and I became labeled as a bad kid by the principal. The teachers started to hate me as for the first time I started to enjoy my life. I continued my studies and my grades were still A's around the board. They never caught on to anything I was doing. But still, I received abuse. I still came home after school with my new friends and cleaned cooked food then received my mandatory beatings from my father. I never knew what I did. I did everything I could to stop it thinking it was normal to be treated like that. It was my normal. Everyone got that I thought.
I was Dumb during those times I thought as I give myself a depreciating grin. It wasn't until I went to a friend's place and the place was a mess. I walked in and started to clean. His parents and he looked at me as I continued to clean their place even though I looked like a gang member. He asked me if I had OCD I told him to my knowledge I didn't. He asked me several questions and so I answered. "Well I was helping you out man, I didn't want your beatings after I left to be harder than normal since you were hanging out with me." That answer left him flabbergasted. He had no idea how to respond.
That was the last day we talked after that he stopped contacting me. I stared at the moon reminiscing to the beginning of my life noticing it in hindsight as the hell it was. It was all I knew though and no one woke me up. But suspicion at that time started to grow from his reaction. I started to go to other friend's places and anything I did to help lessen the beatings they were to receive later became a rumor among my 'friends'.
One day the leader of the gang Derek talked to me was when everything added up. He was a tall black guy and he sat me down. "Hey Salvie, hows home life?" he asked me no walk around nothing. I told him I was getting used to the pain of the higher level of beatings that came at me and that with my cooking and cleaning skills improving they take less time. He looked at me with such pity that the next sentence woke me up. "Salvie, No one is supposed to beat their kids Salvie that isn't normal. You make it sound like everyone does it and it makes people uncomfortable." I looked at him amazed and I paled.
My life was in a spiral then I had no idea how to react. I yelled at him crying I screamed at him. I hit him I died a little that day it was my innocence the thing that woke me up to how cruel my world was. The entire time he took whatever I dished out no matter what. With my strength, I knew I hurt him but I raged letting out emotions that I never knew I had. I continued till night fell and that night for the first time in more than a decade I did not go home and cook dinner. After I raged he just hugged me as I cried in his arms.
Derek, I miss you. My mood was bad as I reminisced on the rooftop waiting. I was hoping for the show to start as melancholy grasped me.
I remember the next day when I went home after sleeping at Derek's place. I was beaten and beaten into the ground. For the first time that I knew of instead of insulting me or degrading me my mother started hitting me too. I was dying inside that day emotions flooded me and I snapped. I just laid there pissed off at my powerlessness I had nothing in life constantly beaten and degraded. My life was entirely about serving them and received almost nothing in return. I changed that day what they did and said mattered less and less. I stopped caring what others did to me. My mind continued to change under their merciless fists. That was the last day I was ever in their house. I left and stayed with friends as I finished high school. I was further in Gang activities and was doing more and more crimes. I got to point that Derek looked at my calm face and asked me to kill someone. I never regretted that kill nothing mattered. I went into the rival gang leader's house with a gun and I shot each of his family members.
It was after that I graduated high school. In school, I was the top of my grade and everyone thought I would go to university to continue my education. My cold mind now had new ambitions. I rose in the world of gangs and was an executioner. I was ruthless in my killings and more people feared me. That fear became a power for me. and it was the first time in my life that I was in control.
I thrived in that environment for a few years from gang war to territory battles. I learned how to shoot guns and maximize my efficiency I became a scary bitch. I cared little for my own body though and was with many men during this time. I trained and sold myself out as I continued to be an efficient killing machine. Everyone respected me. Then one day a battle between us and a much larger gang broke out. We received bad information and I was with a lot of my crew.
The Enemy gang viciously slaughtered us as I learned what real fear was. Just as the fighting came to a head my instinct screamed at me and I ran. I hid in a dumpster just out of sight of two corners where a panic from our shooting started and they lost me. I was the only survivor of that battle. I cried after I heard the footsteps stop around me and got out of there just as police started to show up.
After that Derek, the man who woke me up died to assassination by the rival gang. I ran and decided if I was going to play the gang game I was going to win next time. I started by gathering all the remnants of the gang into a new city and started an extortion scheme. It grew and I started an underground loan scheme with strip clubs and things to launder the money. Things grew and grew quickly it took a year before we became a gang with money and more territory. The money brought new hands and my schemes ran deeper. Police started looking into us and my blackmail and bribe schemes started.
My life became more and more complex as I basked in the money and power I never had. My gang turned to a giant. I started to expand to other cities growing my scheme and my web. I increased my subordinates and they took territories all over the country. Then to other countries.
I went back to my home city where that gang ruthlessly killed my fellow members and destroyed the gang. It was a brutal sweep that left nothing behind. Citizens were begging the government to do stuff about us and with an exchange I gave up some low members to continue business in the dark.
It wasn't until the leaders that I had so much against finally couldn't take it anymore that I died. Here I was though. Starting again from scratch with my slaves who will never betray me starting a new net. My smile returns and I see flames start to rise as I take another bite of my meat bun waiting to see if I need to join the fun.