Guardian

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== 2:32 pm Friday Jan 14th ==
What a way to start the year, only fourteen days in and I’m already leaving behind everything I once knew. This was all made possible by my ‘genius’ dad who decided we needed a change of location. His idea of location is to a place called Evelwood, which I know not much of. All I know is that it’s small, near Scotland, and part of the countryside. As a boy brought up in a city environment, and actually quite enjoyed living there, I wasn’t too happy to hear about the move. I was raised in London, where there were always new faces to see and places to be. In Evelwood however, there will always be same faces and places, making life there not very exciting. I made some friends in London as well and they were some of the best people to hang out and have a laugh with, but none of that matters now.
I’m currently writing this in the car at the start of the five-hour journey north. The reason I’m writing this is to record the awful time I will have in the new town and send it to you guys (Steve, Derek, Angela, whoever’s reading this) to tell you how I’m doing. Expect these regularly and I hope you will have a better time than I will.
== 10:04 pm Friday Jan. 14th ==
Well the journey took longer than expected as we were caught up in some heavy traffic (there might have also been an accident, I’m not sure) but I’m here safe and sound. During the journey, my dad started humming the Cheers theme and emphasized the lyrics ‘Sometimes you outta go where everybody knows your name’ in an attempt to win me over. I couldn’t stay too mad at him though; he is my father after all. Well, that all changed when I found out why we moved in the first place. It all became apparent when we pulled up to our new home. It was a garage, A GODDAMN GARAGE! This rage may not be too clear to you guys, mainly because I never mentioned my dad much in conversation, but he had a strange and quite cliché hobby.
Though he worked as a mechanic, he was also an inventor, quite a good one too. He liked to get bits of scrap around the workshop, fashion them into a circuit and hook up a small battery to it to see if he came out successful, in which surprisingly, most times it did. He built most of the stuff in the house (I mean, “Who needs an expensive can opener? It’s just a blade and a motor!”) And most of it still works as well as it did back then. Despite being a great inventor, I’m still quite furious at the fact he moved us all the way to the other side of the country for a large garage! Yes, I see it’s a hobby of his and yes, I know he’s really good at it (maybe too good in my opinion), but was it worth it to move all this way and to leave everything we created behind for this? Not in my eyes it isn’t. I’ve got to help unpack now and officially move in, I’ll continue tomorrow.
== 11:17 am Saturday Jan. 15th ==
Well the weekend is here, which means no school for two days, and how am I going to celebrate? Well I can’t hang out with you guys and I can’t really go on my laptop as the internet hasn’t been set up yet, which doesn’t leave me much left. I decided to go explore the house and see what I could find.
The house is two stories high and is quite spacious inside. There are fourteen rooms, seven downstairs, six upstairs and a basement. The garage is a separate building and is placed to the left of the house, facing out into the street. It is quite big for a garage and included a small second floor, which is accessible by a ladder at the back. Currently, the place is empty apart from boxes, marked with the words ‘Garage’ scrawled in black marker, covering the left wall. It had two large metal doors that can be controlled by a panel on the inside of the room, what you would usually expect a typical garage to have.
I couldn’t find anything strange in the house apart from a small door in my bedroom that lead to a small space that I could easily fit in. My dad doesn’t know about this door yet and I’ll intend to keep the knowledge of its existence to myself for now. It’s currently hidden behind some cardboard boxes so no troubles there. I’ll try and find something to do in the mean time and unpack. I’ll tell you if anything happens in the meantime.
== 3:22 pm Sunday Jan. 16th ==
Holy crap! I completely forgot it was my birthday in a week. With my mind trying to adjust to the new environment, it must have been blocked out of my head. This is making me even more depressed because it’s my 16th and I won’t be with you guys to party with. So far, I do not like the new location.
So anyway, some things have changed since the last time I wrote. For one thing, my Internet’s back (cue fanfare)! Unfortunately, it’s quite slow and I can only play flash games at the moment, which doesn’t bother me at all. There are some awesome flash games out there and I’ve enjoyed all the time I’ve spent on them. Something else that has changed is that everything is unpacked and set up. My bed is comfy as it ever was and I decided to place my inflatable sofa in front of the small door I’m hiding to make sure it was hidden fully. We now have a games room, which is pretty cool. It has the old cheap pool table in the centre (which my dad rebuilt with wood and varnished) and some miscellaneous board games in one corner. It still sucks here though, despite all this, and it sucks even more that I have school tomorrow. I’ll write after school, until then, I’m out.
== 3:30 pm Monday Jan. 17th ==
School sucks. That’s pretty much sums it up.
== 4:05 pm Tuesday Jan. 18th ==
Sorry I didn’t write much yesterday, I just didn’t feel in the right mind to do it. I’ll try and update you with what’s been happening so far.
As you would have guessed from my previous update, school didn’t go well for me. I got ridiculed by the students, got in a fight, and went home feeling very depressed. My school is a place called St. Bernard’s Academy. It is full of extremely religious teachers, very judgmental students, and a janitor who is actually kind of nice (well doesn't insult me at least). The minute I walked in, I knew I wouldn’t make any friends when they found out I’m from London. I never really knew this but apparently the north and the south of England have a hatred for each other. When they heard my London accent, they hissed and pointed at me like I was sunlight to a vampire (the cool ones). I decided to sit at the back of the class in every lesson so I could try to avoid contact with as many people as possible.
I thought the teachers would be better, but that’s clearly not the case here! They detested me, but not because I was from down south this time. As previously mentioned, the teachers here are obsessed, and I mean obsessed, with Christianity. They worship god at the start of every class and made sure that every student prayed with them, regardless of their own religion. So as you would have guessed, an atheist wouldn’t go well with these teachers. This is where I come into the situation. They are not openly aggressive but get on my back about everything. It’s frustrating and I can’t learn from these people if I can’t stop thinking about their next action against me!
During one of my breaks, some guy thought it would be funny to bring my family into this. What did he start with? Yo mama jokes! I swear to god, fucking yo mama jokes! I would’ve been able to get through it but these weren’t the funny yo mama jokes everyone loves, these were directly insulting. “Yo mama’s so dumb, she didn’t know what parenting was and raised you!” “Yo mama’s so ugly, your father slept with her.”
They went on and on. That’s when he said “Yo mama’s so dumb, she killed herself instead of killing you.” I punched him in the fucking throat. He coughed and I hit him in the stomach. He kneeled to the ground as I kicked him over and over. The teachers rushed over to me and held me by my arms. I spat in that fucker’s face and stared directly into his eyes, filled with rage, and said “Try that again and I’ll bury you with her.”
That was all yesterday and things have been the same today. I’m suspecting this is going to be a reoccurring thing, so I’ll only update when something out of the norm happens.
== 3:55 pm Wednesday Jan. 19th ==
Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! I never knew this could happen around here but someone got murdered in cold blood, and not just anyone, but the guy I had a fight with! I know he said those things about my mother but I can’t help but feel sorry for him, but also terrified! I mean a life’s a life, regardless of whom it belonged to! I said that I would kill him but I didn’t think he would actually end up dead the following day! Luckily, many witnesses saw a large black figure zoom by and slash his neck in the middle of the street, signifying it wasn't me. This is too much to handle, I’ll update when I get over this.
== 2:00 pm Friday Jan. 21st ==
School was let out for a couple of days as I try to recollect my thoughts. I would be over the death of the bully but today didn’t help. I guessed that since I said that to him on Monday, everyone would’ve thought I’d had done it. Thank god I was proven innocent though, otherwise I don’t think I could prove that it wasn’t me.
Turns out that, despite the evidence, some people still think I did it. Some of these people were the bully’s underlings in his little street gang. I had a run in with them today and they were furious. Here's what happened.
I was walking from the local supermarket with freshly bought milk when they found me. They pulled me into the nearest alleyway and snuck behind one of the buildings nearby. They grabbed me by my arms and held me up so my stomach was facing them. I wasn’t too worried, I was beat up a lot back in London, but that’s when one of them pulled out a knife. This is the point where I started screaming and struggling to get free. They covered my mouth and started the procedure. He got the knife close to the raw skin of my stomach, literally inches away, but then stopped. I looked up into his expressionless face, just before he leaned to the right and collapsed. I thought he must have slipped but that’s when I noticed the blood pool get increasingly bigger the longer I stared at it. There was a chunk missing out of the front of his throat, which I guessed took out his voice box too, as he tried to make a sound with his mouth but nothing came out except escaping air and bubbling blood.
The underlings let go of me and rushed over to their friend's bloody corpse, staring at him with the utmost horror. One of them turned around to attack me in a fit of revenge and confusion, grabbing the knife that was once in the pool of blood. I braced myself but saw that he fell to the ground too, a large slash on his back. The crowd turned around and repeated the actions of their freshly dead brother. Again and again the underlings attacked me, and each one falling to their own different demise. I was soon surrounded in heaps of lifeless flesh. I just ran.
You may be thinking I’ve been pretty calm though this message, and it does seem to be that way. The truth is I’m absolutely terrified. Somehow, all the fear in me has took away my ability to emote. I can’t express anything. There are terrible things happening in this town and all I can do is sit here and write. I’ll update when I can be me again.
== 12:53 pm Saturday Jan. 22nd ==
The news came on the TV of the recent killings. It was caught on CCTV footage and it showed everything before my eyes. The guys held me up, and the boss produced the knife. He was then about to put it into me, like before. I tried to focus on the screen to see what happened next and saw something disturbing. Just as the boss was about to fall over, a silhouette flashed upon the screen, passing by him. Just as the lightning fast silhouette disappeared, the boss proceeded to fall over and do what he did yesterday. I kept watching. The first underling came to attack me and there it was again, the black silhouette. I just stared at the screen as the silhouette appeared again and again, taking each of them down with a swift movement, in the exact same fashion as yesterday. The news seemed to have labelled the black figure as the Evelwood Beast.
I should have mentioned that I never told my father about this, as I couldn’t face him in the state I was in, so when he saw the news with me at lunch, he turned and looked at me. He whispered with a quivering voice, tears in his eyes, “Did this actually happen to you?”
I nodded. He jumped forward and hugged me, crying. I did the same.
After a few minutes, he turned to me and said, “I didn’t want you to find out this way.” I looked at him puzzled and sort of scared. I asked what he was talking about and he responded quite joyfully, “You don’t know? Oh thank god, that would have ruined the surprise!”
I just stared at him, trying to see who was in front of me as I asked. He just said that I’d have to wait for tomorrow as he left the room. not only did I forget my birthday was tomorrow again, but now my dad has something hidden from me related to this incident. I just don't know what to think anymore.
== 6:42 pm Sunday Jan. 23rd ==
Things today were… well… different. It was my birthday and I did get a few gifts but that’s not what I’m focusing on right now.
All the time today was spent thinking what my father had in store for me. I was curious and terrified at the same time. It was somehow linked to the murders of the gang members but my dad was so cheerful about that I hadn’t noticed something on the TV. I needed to know what was going on. At three o’clock exactly, my father called me down into the garage. I made my way down there, kind of frightened as I opened the door to the sight of my dad smiling and staring directly at me. I stood in front of him and he started of the conversation very strangely, by apologizing. He said that he wasn’t there for me when I needed him most and seeing that I was getting into trouble very quickly and frequently, he felt guilty that he wasn’t there as a parent and a role model to guide me on the right path. That was the point when he pulled out the switch from behind his back. I just stared at him and then the switch as he flicked it. I braced myself and for about ten seconds, but nothing happened. I looked left and right to see any changes and stared at my father, who seemed to be just as confused as I was. He bowed his head and said I could leave. I turned around and walked straight into the large metal creature behind me.
I almost screamed as I stared into its ‘face’. It was made of black shiny metal and looked more organic than alive. It was stood on all fours and had four short but flexible legs. It had a tail that was pointed upwards just as scaled as its legs. Its face was long and crescent-shaped from the side, and had eight green lenses in the middle of its face, all in varying size, and all of them were facing me.
My dad patted me on the shoulder and I let out a quick yelp. He just smiled at me and said, “Don’t be frightened! This is the thing I wanted to show you! When I was talking about never being there for you, I figured out a way around it.”
He looked at me chuckling, gesturing his hands so they could attract attention to the monster stood before me. I stared straight into my dad's eyes and asked him as plainly as I could, “When did you think this was a good idea?”
My dad just looked up and pondered; stroking what stubble he had on his chin. “It just felt like you needed a friend and a guardian with you, you are getting into trouble a lot.”
He looked at me with open eyes and sighed. “Look, I have a big project coming up and I will be working constantly, so I won’t see you often. This is here so you at least have a friend for once.”
He smiled meekly at me. I really wanted to say what was on my mind at that point, that this thing was a murderer, but I couldn’t. It was just that all the hard work my father had put into this for my benefit would've broke his heart if I declined it. “Fine” I said softly “I’ll give it a try.”
This is very strange now, I have a new pet that has saved my life through murder and is wanted by the police. The even stranger thing is that it’s a robot that my father created in the hopes of it protecting me and becoming my new friend. I’m not having a great birthday but it could be worse. Hope things in London are good. I’ll write tomorrow.
== 4:11 pm Monday Jan 24th ==
Okay, today was amazing. I literally have never felt better. Let me explain.
In the morning, I did my usual thing by getting out of bed, brushing my teeth, getting changed, and going downstairs to make myself some buttered toast. When I got down there however, sitting on the table was freshly made buttered toast. I don’t know why or what reason but it seemed like my dad made it. I grabbed the plate and was heading to the garage to thank him but I saw through the window that he was in the middle of his work. Confused, I headed to the table and sat down. I ate my buttered toast and was going to get a glass of milk from the fridge. Just as I stood up though, a blast of air went passed me and as if by magic, on the table, was in fact, a glass of milk. I drank the milk, thinking. That’s when I remembered my ‘guardian’ of sorts. He was lightning fast and somehow knew my daily routine. My dad must have done it and I was somewhat thankful for it cutting down the energy I would need to use to prepare my breakfast.
I looked at my watch and almost gagged on the milk, still in my mouth. I swallowed my milk quickly and ran outside. At that point in time, I was late for school. I ran as fast as I could down the street, secretly knowing that I wouldn't make it in time, despite all the effort I was putting into my sprint. That was when it happened. Something grabbed my arm and held me in place as I sped at unimaginable speeds down the street. I was about to scream when I saw the face of my ‘guardian’ lower down before me. After realizing I was traveling to school, plus the fact I was out of harms way, I had never felt so alive. My mind was rushing as I felt the air blow my hair back. Everything in my sight was a blur and I enjoyed every second of it. It was incredible. Without any indication or warning, I was on my feet again, in front of my classroom door, exactly on time.
The rest of my day went the same way as the first part of my day, perfectly. When people went to hit me, they ended up hitting themselves. When people tried to throw food at me, they themselves would get a face full of it. When anyone angered me, they would find themselves locked in the nearest closet. I knew it was all the work of my guardian and I didn’t intend to stop any of his actions. This is how my birthday should have been.
It’s the little things my guardian did as well. I realized during the day that I forgot my lunch and then suddenly, it’s in my hand. I didn’t even make my lunch this morning and there it is, right in front of me. It improves on my little mistakes as well as protects me and keeps me company. I know that he’ll be watching over me at all times, and I’m perfectly fine with that.
As soon as school ended, I rushed home to write about today and how spectacular it’s been. I hope you guys don’t miss me too much. I’ll write soon and I’m looking forward to tomorrow as well.
== 4:07 pm Tuesday Jan. 25th ==
I don’t know how it was possible, but today was even better. More people tried to get me and got served their own just desserts. The teachers are still passively aggressive but I got used to that very quickly, and I don’t care about them anyway. The trips to and from school never get old. I could live like this forever.
== 4:12 pm Wednesday Jan. 26th ==
Today was okay I guess. I figured out that more and more people hate me because I’m untouchable now and they try to do more harmful things to me like throw the school trays at me, but they got the tray in the face themselves. When people insult me now, I get angry and they disappear. I’m thinking that the harsher the action towards me, the harsher the punishment. I need to think this over.
== 4:02 pm Thursday Jan. 27th ==
I’m not sure how to say this, but I’m starting to feel sorry for all the people hating me and trying to abuse me. More and more come up against me and they end up becoming more and more injured. Some are even disappearing. When they try to hurt me, physically or otherwise, I get more and more angry and feel more alone than ever. As that happens, my guardian responds for me and punishes them, turning my anger into sorrow. I don’t know what to say or do.
== 4:05 pm Friday Jan. 28th ==
Okay, this needs to stop now. More and more students are disappearing and I feel like it’s all my fault. I know that the more they can’t hurt me, the more they want to hurt me, and every time they do try, I still get furious, but then they get punished. I really want this to end soon. I’m going to go speak to my dad about this and try and put an end to these actions.
== 7:34 pm Friday Jan 28th ==
I don’t know what to think now. I told my dad everything that has been going on but all he does is shrug and say, “Well, he is protecting you.”
My dad was acting strangely before when he didn’t really react to the actual murders of the others on the CCTV footage on the news. He seems to not be affected by the supposed ‘Evelwood Beast’ stories on TV either, even though the vast majority of them are true. I don’t know what to think anymore. Hell, I don’t even know if I can trust my own dad anymore. I’m scared but also determined to stop this once and for all. I’ll get back to you once I’ve found some answers.
== 3:22pm Saturday Jan. 29th ==
It being the weekend, I had some spare time on my hands, which was useful as I had some investigating to do. I don’t know if my dad was an ally or an enemy in this so I left him out of it. Luckily, he was working today so that gave me some spare time to check around the house for clues.
I first went to his bedroom to see if I could find anything there. I looked under the bed, in the drawers, even in the bedding, but nothing came up. I was about to leave the room when I saw something catch my attention in the corner of my eye. Stuffed in between the wall and the back of the bed was a crumpled up piece of red paper. I knew that my dad used red paper for ideas and sketches, and blue paper for finalised blueprints. I reached in and took it out, flattening out the crumbled paper. It seemed to be a sketch of a previous prototype of the guardian. I guessed this as it has the same body parts but the posture was off. it had long front legs and short back legs, making it lean back in an awkward position. Also displayed on the red piece of paper was… a remote control? Things in my head started clicking into place. My dad didn’t care about the CCTV footage or the things I told him. My dad also must have tried to hide this from me when I told him that I had problems with it. He only seems to care about the protection of me so much that he went out of his way to build a large robot dedicated to protecting me. As far as I know, artificial intelligence hasn’t been fully developed by actual scientists, so it can’t be powered by that. If he was controlling it the whole time, he’s killed and made people disappear for my sake when I didn’t want him to. He thinks he knows better than the one he’s protecting. I wanted to stop this before, but what do I do now?
== 9:52 pm Saturday Jan. 29th ==
I killed him. I went up to him with a sledgehammer and swung it as hard as I could into his head. I wish I could've done something else but I had no over choice. I’m in tears. I didn’t know what to do or how to stop him. I couldn’t find the remote anywhere and the guardian didn’t show any signs of stopping. I didn’t see any seams or cracks on the outer shell of its body I could jam a screwdriver into to try and damage it. I did what I could to make it stop. I stood over his corpse for a while, looking at what I did. I did it for the greater good of all those who come in contact with me. Tears are streaming down my face now and I’m taking the body upstairs to hide it in the room behind my inflatable sofa. My dad’s currently in a black bin bag and he’s slipping out of my hands due to the sweat on my palms and the fact his body’s really heavy. I’m in my room and I’m moving the inflatable sofa now to get to the door. I’m sorry mother but this had to be done for the greater good. I’m sorry dad for not being a better son. I sho-
== 9:59pm Saturday Jan. 29th ==
I’m trying to type this after vomiting so much. I didn’t expect was what just happened a mere few minutes ago. The thing I saw is now burnt into my eyelids and I don’t think I can get rid of it. As soon as I opened the door to the secret room behind my sofa, I came face-to-face with the mangled corpses of all the students that disappeared not long ago. Their joints were twisted in unimaginable ways and their bodies were crushed together, making a large, solid mass of flesh. Each body was contorted in such a way that it fit in the small room. The shape of it all filled every nook and cranny of the space it fit in. The smell emanating from it was unbearable. My eyes watered and I started vomiting. I was crying so hard as the vomit just came out in what seemed like an endless stream. After a while, it stopped and here I am now, mentally scarred. The worst part about this is that I have to live the rest of my life with that memory in my head. I’m going to try and go to sleep after what I’ve just witnessed.
== 10:22 pm Sunday Jan. 30th ==
I didn’t sleep. I just stayed up all night thinking constantly about what I’ve done. I have run out of things to say. I headed downstairs into the kitchen and almost screamed. On the kitchen table, in plain view, was a plate of fresh buttered toast. My mind went blank for a second as I figured out the reality of my actions. The guardian was still working. I ran upstairs to see my father on the floor in my room and he was indeed there and he was definitely dead, I mean his skull was cracked open for fuck’s sake! My father wasn’t controlling him. I had killed my father for no reason but a measly suspicion. I just couldn’t accept this. I ran to my father’s bedroom and picked up the red paper of the ground and checked it was the same as when I saw it last. It was exactly the same as I had seen it before.i don't get wha-... My heart stopped. I looked down at the paper as I slowly turned it over and read the words in big, bold letters ‘REJECTED CONCEPT’. How could I have been so stupid? He never used the body for the guardian so that left open the option of him changing the controls.
I needed answers soon. I rushed to the garage and yanked the drawers in the desk open. I riffled through the documents with ungodly speed until I found the actual blueprints of the beast. As soon as I found them, I swept everything that was on the desk at that point onto the floor and laid the blueprints out flat. It consisted of two pages. I checked the first one. This seemed to be the actual build of the beast itself. I looked at every working part and read through every annotation. I found a component on the guardian's head that was labelled 'Wireless receiver'. This confirmed the suspicions that it wasn’t AI and that it was controlled by some living being. I flicked to the second page. On this page was the actual control device. The device was shaped like a pin and had only one button. I was confused and desperate for answers so I read the only annotation on the page.
It read 'Red button is on/off switch. Insert point of device into the user’s cerebellum. Sync up subconscious mind with user interface via computer.' My mind hung on the word ‘user’. My father couldn’t have been the user and if anyone else was the user, they would have to know where I was 24/7, which left only one possibility.
That’s when I grabbed the wrench from the nearby toolbox. I tried to swing it against my head as hard as I could. The wrench was thrown out of my hand by an unknown force. The airborne tool hit the wall with great speed and made a hole in the brickwork on the other side of the room. I wanted to react but I was too slow. Black metal braces fitted around my arms and legs, making it impossible for me to move. I felt a pulling force from the braces as I was attached to my guardian’s back as it sped through the garage door and into the open world, taking me with it. Somehow, I know what’s going to happen and there’s no way I can stop it. I apologize sincerely in advance. It seems like my subconscious mind has gained a thirst for blood. All I can say is it is a monster and it has been unleashed upon the world.
Category:Appealed Stories
Category:Science
Category:Mental Illness