𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐎𝐒 | liam stewart [1]

𝟎. 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐨𝐬

"what are you?" 

"pure chaos"

| 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐚 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐦 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐭 |

"Henry, what's wrong?" Pandora asked, staring at her best friend. His eyes glowed red and his hands shook in a perpetual jerk. "Henry?" Pandora tried to shake her friend but he wouldn't repsond. "Miss?" Pandora called, putting her hand up. People turned to look at her and Henry. Pandora hissed, moving her hands away as Henry's skin started to glow. She scrambled off her chair into another goggling student. The table Henry was holding started to glow like piping hot metal. Suddenly, Henry collapsed on the floor, his nose bleeding out onto the classroom floor. Pandora ran forward, shaking her friend as the teacher called for immediate help. Pandora didn't remember the screams she cried out as teachers dragged her away from her friend. His eyes were back to hazel but they'd lost their usual glaze. 

Every war starts quietly. Pandora's started with her best friend. Henry was the first to die. In their class at least. A month later, half of her class was dead. She didn't know why she wasn't. 

"Scientists have now developed a name for this mysterious and highly contagious disease. I.A.A.N as they now call it. There seems to be no cure to the pain parents are feeling. Nearly 90% of America's children are now dead," The new channel played in the background as Pandora walked in the front door. "If you see any suspicious power-related activities in your child or the children around you. Please immediately call the CPC."  She'd walked home, the schools announcing that they had official shut due to the new child-carrying disease. "Cook dinner for me, wretch," Pandora's father slurred, clinking together the bottles of beer he'd drank. "I wonder why you haven't died yet. Would sure be easier for me. You're a mother-killer after all," James cooed, continuing to watch the news. Pandora was only 10 but for those 10 years of her life, her father had never called her by her real name. "Mother-killer" or "murderer" were his top favourites. Pandora didn't know how her mother had died, apart from that it was the same day she was born. 

Pandora said nothing, turning on the stove and pulling a chair out to reach the Mac'N'Cheese box. She stirred the pasta together, adding in the powder since her father couldn't be bothered to get actual cheese. "Ready yet, brat?" He called, his heavy footfalls making Pandora keep her head down. "Nearly," She squeaked, fear bubbling in her stomach. "Good," He said, pulling out a chair and sitting on it. "Haven't evem set the table, lazy bitch," He commented, moving to grab knives and forks. Pandora kept her head down as she used the oversized oven gloves to bring the macaroni to the table. "Sorry," She answered, letting him take more than his half of the food. Pandora had been malnourished her entire life, as soon as her mother died her father had taken to drinking. He spent all his money on beer, only partially sober when her went to work - but that was the best you were going to get. He never bought her proper food, just boxes and tins with the cheapest label. 

"You haven't even seasoned it," He shook his head, slamming his fist on the table. Pandora jumped, keeping her eyes focused on the empty plate. "Useless," He shook his head, looking to his daughter to see tears rolling down her cheeks. "You're crying? Pathetic, useless, murderer is crying?" He asked, the girl shaking her head and wiping the tears. "I'll give you something to cry about," James picked himself up, grabbing her by her hair and dragging her to the tiled floor. "PLEASE I DIDN'T MEAN TO!" She cried, her high-pitched screams swallowed by her father's shouting. "You should've been the one to die. YOU SHOULD'VE DIED!" James yelled, kicking her in the ribs and smacking her face with his fist. "I'm sorry," She whined between her sobs. "SAY IT!" He ordered, enticing fear in the young girl as he punched her more. "I SHOULD'VE DIED!" She screamed, tears falling in rivulets down her rosey cheeks. She repeated it over and over until her father got tired of the kicking and took his food to the other room. 

She crawled to her bed, a flat mattress on the floor of a spare room. James had sold the bed for more alcohol money. "I will kill him," She promised to herself, wiping the tears as she lay down. Her knees curled up to her stomach as she cried. She ignored the bruises which she knew would form all over her body the next day. Her body stilled, any movement causing a flame of pain to soar through her. She rubbed away the blood from her nose and the cut which appeared on her eyebrow. "I will murder him." 

When Pandora woke up, she wasn't expecting to be taken away by two men in neon yellow hazmat suits. But they weren't expecting the chaos she would cause.