When Hell Hath Fury

Marco was no stranger to anger. He’d been angry when his classmates picked on him at school for being the smallest kid in his class. He’d been angry whenever he saw his drunk, deadbeat dad beat on his mom, angry when she would stand there helplessly, hopelessly, taking the abuse. He’d been angry when his father, the man who was supposed to protect him, would hit him until he couldn’t move. Anger was what he felt when his poor, failed excuse for parents let their friends do unspeakable things to him for some meager sums. Anger when his dad finally snapped, killing his mother in front of him and leaving the boy  at the mercy of the foster system while he rotted in a prison cell for the rest of his life. Anger, when once again, he was the target of the other children’s torment in the orphanage. 

So, no, the boy was no stranger to anger. The boy had long since become one with the white hot feeling that coursed through his veins every second of every day because that was all he’d ever had and all he’d ever known.

However, as he stood in the doorway of his best friend, Leo’s house the feeling in his bones wasn’t anger. Marco had always been a pale, scrawny looking kid but now he looked even more sickly and frail than usual, as if the gentle breeze that blew through this rundown, decrepit house would blow him away into the sun setting along the horizon behind him. 

Around him, the slums remained as lively and bustling as they always were on a Friday evening as many came to pilfer and barter for goods to get their impoverished families through the week. Dozens of people, young and old, in varying degrees of tattered clothing, hurried around briskly from house to house and stall to stall. Every now and then, they’d pass by Leo’s house to peer in through the open door or shattered windows and balk, before speeding off. 

Of course, Marco took no notice, the external noise couldn’t get through the deafening ringing in his ears as tears filled his deep, dark, brown eyes blurring his vision. The first tears he’d shed since he first learned to speak, back when his life started to become the hell that it is. He didn’t even notice as gravel and broken glass scrapped his legs bloody. Since when had he been kneeling? Ah, he vaguely realized, his legs had given out under him. 

Even as he stared at it, Marco couldn’t quite comprehend what he saw. In the center of the family room, there lay Leo’s broken form, crumpled in a pool of his own blood. At first, he refused to believe it - that this was his friend, the one who he’d known since kindergarten, who’d been his salvation in this inescapable hell that was his life. No, this can’t be the same boy who would give him some of his food when he didn’t have any, who stood up for him when the bullies had made him their favorite punching bag, who ran away with him whenever he needed to escape first his parents’ abuse and eventually, the torment of the other foster kids. No, that boy was a lively, kind and gentle spirit with an impish grin practically etched onto his lightly freckled face and piercing green eyes that whispered nothing but secrets and mischief. That boy who always took care of others more than he did himself. He was the life of the party wherever he went, always making the day of whoever he came across just that bit brighter with some joke, story, or witty remark spewing from his thin, chapped lips nonstop as he gesticulated wildly every word; that boy was never down, never broken, and least of all, never still. But Marco knew immediately seeing those familiar brown curls frosted with bits of blue from when the two went spray painting just last week that stuck out from the curled figure on the floor. 

On shaky feet, he dragged himself over to his friend, raising the dead boy's head onto his lap, unconcerned as the sea of red soaked through one of his only good sets of clothes. He stroked his hand through his friend’s locks carefully to avoid the gash on his forehead as he let the tears rain onto the lifeless face below him. He chuckled bitterly as he noticed his friend donned his favored Queens tee. Then, he froze sharply, eyes squinting at the scar that had been etched into Leo’s hand before he let out a guttural scream of pure undiluted pain that ripped through his throat leaving it raw. 

Marco knew anger well but this - this feeling was unfamiliar to him. If anger was hot, barbaric, foolish and consumed one’s body, this feeling that overflowed through him was cold,  insatiable as it threatened to devour him and everything around him. His blood, which never stopped boiling, was now like permafrost in his veins. As he waited for his vision to turn red, all he felt was this new feeling churning deep down, ripping through his trembling form, sharpening all his senses, and steeling all his nerves. He was startled as he recognized the feeling, this indeed was anger, but on a level he’d never felt before beyond rage. This was fury, cold as ice, seizing every cell in his being. 

He took a few breaths trying to get used to this new sensation before he stood up. The symbol engraved in Leo’s palm gave him an idea of who had done this to him. As he walked out of the house, through the newly formed crowd his shout had drawn, caked in dirt and blood, he knew this was the final straw. Hell hath no fury than a woman scorned; no, it was the man who has nothing left to lose that should be feared most. In the memory of the boy who’d saved him, but who he, in turn, had been unable to save when it mattered most, he’d show everyone what true hell looked like before he razed everything to the floor. Just as there were no gods who delivered him from his suffering all these years, there would be no gods to deliver anyone who stood in his way from his wrath because he’d kill them too.