“Fine! I’m sick of this place anyways!”

*SLAM*

Markus let out a deep sigh as he shut himself into his bedroom, listening to the general chaos that came with having so many little brothers and sisters trying to kill each other downstairs. Well, not literally, but with all the stress it brought, they might as well have been.

The man rubbed his face with his hands, his form shaking with suppressed anger. He hated every single one of those little shits with everything he had. All while his mother screamed her lungs out at them AND at him! There is no justice…

“Everything I do for this place, this family… What’s the damn point?” he muttered to himself, just kinda standing there in front of his closed door as his mind began to wander randomly... He felt a certain… buzzing at the back of his skull. His medication was wearing off for the day - probably the only thing keeping him from committing several acts of assault and murder.

ADHD, stress, and anger issues: a bad combo.

The twenty-year old looked around his old messy bedroom, violent fantasies playing out in his head as he started towards the small laptop he had taken for his schoolwork. He pulled out his earbuds and turned on the machine, then knelt down near an old, beat up book bag that he stored his meds in. He peered inside the three bottles; a few days’ worth of those precious mind-clearing tablets. He swore under his breath. He hated being almost out of meds; it stressed him out. Like a lot of things. And people.

Markus then turned to look at himself in the mirror, judging himself. He was clad in a simple pair of blue jeans, as well as a college t-shirt and a grey Black Mesa hoodie with a broken zipper. His skin was mostly pale, being helped along by his preference towards indoor activities. His legs and arms were darker, but only just a little. He had brown eyes, bloodshot and tired, never mind the bags under his eyes. His hair, too, was brown, messy and moderately long. It probably didn’t help that he couldn’t stop playing with it when idle. He gritted his teeth at himself, revealing mostly white teeth, but some rather glaring… “fangs” from a lack of braces when he was younger. “I need to shave,” he thought, looking away from the reflective glass and rubbing his fledgling goatee. He hated shaving.

As the laptop chimed to signal its readiness, he sat down, logged in, and checked his email, all while his earbuds remained coiled around his left palm. He didn’t feel like listening to anything anymore or even trying to play any games. He just let the ear-clinging buds dangle from his hand idly.

“Jesus fuck… I gotta get out of here…” he said to himself for what was probably the 30th time that week alone. If this were a cartoon, his entire face would be tomato red and steam would be steadily flowing from his ears. He thought of where he could go.

He could “hide” at his dad’s place… he had the key and was relatively welcome there. He could see about staying with his friend Eric… That’s it, actually. Markus felt a little bit depressed as he realized that; the socially awkward male never had very many friends. Most of them were online, and the ones he had met in real life had either moved away or hadn’t been seen since high school.

Maybe he could just run out to get some food. He had forgotten how hungry he actually was until now. Maybe it was time to put those birthday gift cards to use after all.

Eventually, he shut down the laptop and grabbed that same book bag, dumping everything but the pill bottles out of it. “… Fuck it. I’m leaving. I’ll figure everything else out when I’m in the car.” He said to himself, carrying his bag to his closet and dresser as he began to pack a few changes of clothes. A flash of lightning from the window startled him just a little. Markus had forgotten about the predicted storm coming. But he paid little mind to it.

After quickly stuffing his backpack with things he would need, he grabbed the things he wanted. His wallet, keys, tablet, phone, chargers for the both, and all the change he could fit in his pocket. He was a poor guy; all the nice things he had were gifts, really. Not that he could complain about that much.

As he zipped up his backpack, he remained in his crouching position, just thinking as he zoned out on the sights of its shiny metal zippers. In the process of packing up, he had had a chance to calm down a little, allowing clearer second thoughts to rise. “… Maybe I should come back after I eat after all… Mom needs all the help she can get…” he said to himself.

“... Then again, I need to get the fuck out of here before I lose it, and a meal isn’t going to stop me from beating Norman’s face into the kitchen counters…”

“Does it really matter that much?”

“… Yeah.”

“… Cross that bridge when you get to it, Markus.”

After the brief conversation he had had with himself, he stood up and slung the slightly heavy backpack over his shoulders, and left his bedroom, locking the door behind him. Markus let out a deep sigh as he went downstairs, watching one of his brothers and one of his sisters rolling on the floor, fighting. With his mother busy in the other room, he ran to break it up.

“Ryan! Kayla! STOP!” he loudly screamed, jumping down the rest of the stairs and attempting to pry the kids off of each other. The boy named Ryan took exception to this. He started screaming accusations and various immature things at his younger sister while she, too, screamed accusations and various immature things.

“Get out of here! To your rooms! NOW!” Markus screamed, already feeling his anger rising. Kayla ran off to the stairs, but instead made a hard right and ran to tattle some more. “What the hell did I just say!” Markus spat, starting to run after her to stop her. That little girl had a knack for getting him into trouble, after all. And Ryan was a dick; he thought it would be funny to kick at his big brother’s legs.

He lost it.

The adult stopped in his tracks, spinning around to face the boy. “… Are you fucking KIDDING ME?!!” he shouted, grabbing Ryan’s shirt and lifting him up off the ground by it. “You NEVER attack me! Or any of your siblings! UNDERSTAND!!?” Markus yelled like a drill instructor.

He was none too pleased when Ryan started screaming back. “BUT KAYLA WAS HITT-“ His ears ringing from the kid’s unfathomably loud voice, he lashed out, throwing the kid to the floor. “YOU LITTLE SH-“ Markus cried, bringing his right leg up in preparation to stomp when he realized his mother was watching. She stared daggers at her eldest son, whom lowered his leg and turned towards her. “Get out.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Markus walked away from his little brother and brushed past his mother as Kayla and Ryan yelled and hid respectively. “Don’t count on me to be back tonight. I’ve just decided that you can all go fuck yourselves.” And with those words, Markus left the house, immediately feeling rain on his face and clothes. He could care less at this point. He walked to the family’s garage, opening it.
Within rested two vehicles. One was a dark blue minivan, covered in his mother’s braggings over her Irish heritage and red hair. Or should I say bumper stickers. Markus’s vehicle was MUCH sexier: a beige Toyota from 2001… A jalopy, really. The rear bumper was hanging on by a cord and the right turn signal had been knocked out of its socket, though still functioned. The internal driver’s side door handle had broken off recently, and he had to roll down his window and use the outer handle whenever he wanted to get out. The fuel needle was stuck on empty and his check engine light was perpetually on. It was truly a glorious piece of shit.

Markus got in and put his backpack in the passenger seat, starting his car as he put on the belt. AC/DC started blasting from his stereo and he rushed to turn it down. He had forgotten how loud he had had it. “… Jesus fucking Christ… My ears…” he scolded himself, putting the beat up 4 door in drive and rolling out of the garage, away from his home.

As he drove, though, his thoughts returned to the despicability of what his little siblings had done. His mother always got mad at him for getting mad at them. Apparently age meant patience… or it was supposed to. This meant that the shittiest of the siblings could do the most despicable, detestable, and utterly irritating things right in front of him and he couldn’t do a damn thing. “… Remind me never to have kids.” He said to himself, getting on the freeway and just driving south. At this point, he had forgotten where he was going, and was just driving for its own sake.

Markus just drove for several miles, passing many familiar exits on his way to absolutely nowhere. He kept going, the outer city giving way to farmland and woodlands. The rain pattered against his windshield in a dull, but melodic beat, and the more he listened to it, the more he realized that it was soothing. He turned off the radio and drove in silence, the rain droplets reflecting off his headlights in the near-night darkness. “....... You’ll have to go back eventually, Markus.” He said aloud.

“I know.” Markus said in return.

“You should probably turn around at the next chance you get.”

“I know.”

“And you’ll probably want to apologize to mom.”

“I’m fully aware.”

“…”

“…”

Markus did as he had been instructed by himself, starting to drive back home as he played out scenarios of his return in his head. Very few of them were good.

So wrapped up in these unpleasant attempts to predict his future was he that he didn’t notice a rapidly gaining set of headlights behind him. And by the time he did…

You can probably guess, but I’ll spell it out for you anyways on the off chance you’re a first grader.

Markus noticed the glare of the approaching vehicle’s lights and looked in his mirror, his unfocused brain taking a second to register that the now apparent SUV was driving at well over the legal speed limit. It swiftly approached his jalopy’s rear, and Markus… well, he panicked. He quickly jerked the wheel to the right as the bigger car behind him hit him from behind. This did not end well.

Just before he was hit, he slammed on the brakes as hard as he possibly could, but what good would that do when the impact sent his sedan careening off the road. The male frantically tried to steer back onto the highway, but it didn’t make it any better. No, this practically killed him itself.

“FUCK YOU PHYSICS!” would be fitting last words for Markus as his panic put the car in a sideways roll, shattering his windows and his bones with each landing.

At last, his now-totaled car came to rest on its wheels in the ditch on the side of the road. Markus lay with his head against the steering wheel, the airbag having failed to deploy at all. And so he lay there, his eyes shut tightly and his teeth clenched. Shattered glass was everywhere, having cut his skin and let blood flow from many deep cuts. He coughed harshly, trying to reach for his seat belt buckle and releasing it. “GAHGHH!” came a loud cry from the pained adult… his arms must have been broken… so much for the no-broken-bone streak he had been carrying for the last 20 years.

His vision was fading… “Gahgh… no… fuckyoustayawake…” he growled weakly at himself, trying to use his other hand to reach for his cell phone to call for help. But the man just couldn’t do it in his crumpled, pained, broken state. He breathed heavily, fighting the oncoming loss of consciousness as long as he could before he eventually lost.
Once someone saw the wrecked vehicle on the side of the road, they called the police (the SUV’s driver never did, for whatever reason), whom arrived on the scene shortly after… Or they would have, if there WAS a scene.
The evidence was all there. The broken glass, the flattened grass, the skid marks on the highway pavement… but it seemed that the car and its deceased occupant had just… vanished.

---

Darkness. Nothing but darkness. He couldn’t see anything, not even his own body. “… Am I dead? Or just out cold? … If this is death, then being dead fucking blows.” Markus said to himself.

“… Oh… that was rather unfortunate… Hahahaha… Well, we can’t have that…” That voice was… how to describe it… smug like… someone who’s smug about something. Markus never could name tones of voices.

“… Nghh… who’s there…”

“Oh, I’m nopony special… Just a witness to your… *ahem* unfortunate accident.”

“… So help me god, I will fuck you up.”

“OH MY! Such anger! And here I was about to give you a chance to… shall we say, get back up.”

“… *sigh* Go on.”

“I can bring you back to the land of the living a-“

“So I AM dead.”

“How very observant. Now let me finish. I can bring you back from the dead… but on one little condition.”

“Of course. Because nothing is free!”

“You have one month to steal the Chaos Orb, and bring it to a place called the Eris Shrine.”

“… You are aware this isn’t some shitty RPG, right?”

“You can’t prove that.”

“… Fuck you. I’ll do it.”

“EXCELLENT!”

“You’re evil, aren’t you?”

“…”

“Definitely evil.”

“…”

“…. Wel- GHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARAHHGHHHHH!” the human screamed as an immense pain hit him. Maybe it was a continuation of the pain he felt pre-mortem. Maybe it was a lot of other things. Who could say; the only light came from two tiny "cracks" above him, and by the time the pain had passed, he had passed out.

Author's Notes:

If I'm lucky, I might post chapter two tomorrow. We'll see.

Feedback would be greatly loved. Hell, if you want me to put more time into this, leave comments!