Brute

Once upon a time there was a kind, sweet girl that lived all alone in the big city. Her demeanor was overshadowed only by her beauty--skin like a bowl of sweet milk, hair like gold spun from sunlight, and a smile like the dawn eclipsing the distant hills. Her sweetheart, a strong, strapping lad who loved her very dearly, was off to war in a land beyond the sea, and the girl pined for him daily. But the girl was also very determined, and worked long hours at the factory to provide for his eventual return. The hard, grueling work quickly dulled her golden hair and chafed her lovely skin, but no matter what the hours or how back breaking the labor, nothing could take away her radiant smile--not even the crow-like, dour women who worked with her and deceed her single life as morally unfit, or the supervisors who goggled at her body or gave her sharp painful slaps to her backside. No, no matter the circumstances or conditions, the girl's smile shone forward, powered by the thought of her sweetheart, her lovely boy gone off to fight for all that was good and right.

One dismal day the girl received a letter at the factory--her grandmother and only surviving relative was ill, and wished to see her one last time. Understandably, the sweet girl was distraught, and after work walked the long and frightening streets of the city to her grandmother's house, which was all the way across town. While on the trek, she passed through a particularly seedy area and was accosted by a crew of ruffians who ogled at her in the same way her supervisors always did. The girl ran as fast as her dainty feet could carry her, but the ruffians were savvy and knew this area of the city far better than she--before long they had her cornered in a dark alley and, one by one, had their way with her. Through the pain and the humiliation, the girl thought only of her sweetheart, and his love for her. The girl woke some time later, bruised and battered and sore, but she was still very determined. She picked herself off the cold, stinking ground and continued to her grandmother's house--she was on her deathbed, after all, and this would be the last chance she would ever have to look into the face of one of her family. Eventually she made it to her grandmother's door, only to learn that she had passed away just moments before. Stunned, the girl quickly left, her numbed mind astray while her body found its own way back to her tiny home across town.

Month passed, and the war ended. The girl's handsome beau finally made it back home, only to find his precious flower had wilted in his absence--the factory had eroded her looks, and the broad curve of her belly from underneath her sunny dress spoke of other indiscretions. The girl, teary eyed now, tried to explain the rape and the ruffians and her dead grandmother, but the soldier would hear nothing of it--he simply left her at the door, more numb than she had ever been. That was when her smile, that glimpse of heaven, strangled and died in her chest forever.

Years passed, as they always will. The girl gave birth to a son, a warped and deformed child that would always remind her of her sweetheart and that this thing, this monster, was the reason behind her abandonment. The babe quickly grew and grew and grew at an enormous rate, until at age 10 the son was as big if not bigger than the girl herself. The girl still worked her fingers to the bone every day, and would come home and take care of her son as any mother would, but there was no love behind it--that had all been murdered with the death of her smile. The son grew up to be a hulking brute of a man with a twisted arm and a face like melted butter, but enormously strong for all that. His soul quickly grew as twisted as his body, some say because of his love-starved heart, others because of the people that would gawk at him and call him horrible names. Regardless of the reason, the brute found himself truly good at only one thing--bullying others. This talent quickly led to a career in the crime as the brute worked for hire as a bravo and sometime hitman. Another war sprung up as some terrible king in a far away land killed thousands for the sake of his ideal, but the brute never found himself involved in it--unlike his ertstwhile father, the boy's deformities proved him unfit for the draft Instead he became more and more powerful and influential in the mafia, leaving his now ailing mother behind as he moved into a much nicer area of the city and a much larger home. With his power rose his infamy, as his face and arm always picked him out of any crowd and labeled him for what he truly was--a heartless monster. Eventually, the mobster caught the interest of someone far more monstrous than he could ever be--the Master of the Estate. Who knows the Master's true motivations in this tale? One can guess that he was amused by this malformed murderer, seeing the capacity for violence and hatred coupled with only the barest skeleton of moral structure, reflected purely by his unsightly appearance. Perhaps it appealed to the Master's inner monster, perhaps he merely thought this creature needed to be taken down a peg or two...who knows really? All that is known is that the brute was captured, taken as easily as a babe and drug through the Hedge with the last sight of the mortal world etched indelibly in his inner eye--the Statue of Liberty, glowing in the arc lights not too far from the heist he was working on. The Statue would haunt his dreams and pervade his nightmares from that point onward, bringing him solace and comfort during the hard times, making the terrible things that happened to him that much more brutal for the brief surcease.

For years beyond counting the Master tortured the brute, physically and mentally, and there was little he could do to defend himself. The butt of everyone's jokes, the personification of everything ugly and low about humanity, the brute was allowed only to eat scraps from the table and sometimes would have no food or nourishment for days at a time. The brute would be forced to crouch at the Master's feet during parties, bloody and pustuled from some agonizing torture, and the Master's guests would spit on him as they passed. Even the Master's other servants were allowed to bully him, which some of them did every occasion they were able to. Even through the gross mistreatment, the brute continuted to grow, fueled perhaps by the very anger and pain that was spoon fed him every day, until he resembled the very ogres and trolls that roamed Arcadia--a massive creature, twisted and gnarled as a tree trunk, immensely strong but completely broken in mind and spirit, a toy for the lovely and cold denizens of that awful place. And every night Liberty would come to him in his dreams and coddle him in her massive stone arms and sing him into deeper, trouble free sleep...

And now, surprisingly, he is free. Lady Liberty finally guided him home, her beacon shining like a luminous tear in the darkness, promising rest and peace at last. The conditions of his escape are jumbled and confusing to him, but that does not in any way refute the fact that he is, once again, in the mortal world...a world that has changed considerably since he was last here. Right now, he has no idea what to do, no idea what will become of him...but he has others that share in his exile. It is only a matter of time before they begin torturing and abusing him too. But what is he to do? With the mortal world back, he begins to remember the person he was before...could he be that remorseless, that brutal, once again? Can he raise a massive fist and smite down another, weaker than him, after decades with him as the victim?