The Victim

"What goes around, comes around."

Or so it has been said. What that basically means is that every bad thing you do will come back and bite you in the ass. But you never know when and you never know where. It's almost like all the bad stuff you've ever done is waiting for one prime moment to completely devastate you.

Now that's a scary thought, all the bad things you've ever done coming back at you in one second. Think about that if you can. What would you do? Would you die? Would your friends be there? Your family? How will you get by?

Think about it!


The bell rang and the seventh-grade English class was set to begin. A boy sat in the front of the class, eager to learn. He adjusted his thick glasses to focus on the blackboard. Just as he slid back into his chair, a slap came and hit him on the back of the head. It knocked his glasses halfway off his face and rocked him forward into the desk. He looked back and saw his "arch-rival", his enemy, his tormentor.

The bully snickered at him and whispered to him, "whatcha gonna do about it, you dork!"

The bully got a good chuckle out of that one. He knew his victim would do nothing. In fact, he just turned back around and refocused on the lesson. Another slap, followed by another, then the pokes of a pencil on the back of his head.

This scene had repeated itself for days upon weeks upon months. The teacher did nothing, neither did his parents. He felt trapped in an eternal hell and this boy was his Satan. He was friendly, nothing about him to dislike, he was just too smart, and weird.

However, today was to be different. Much different.

He casually reached into his backpack and drew out a pistol that he had brought to school knowing that this would happen. He was prepared.

He put the butt of the gun firmly in his hands, swung around and pointed it right between his tormentors eyes. The class let out a collective gasp and squeal, followed by a biting silence. The dork was in tears, he slowly stood up and began to speak.

"Three years I have put up with you," he sobbed, "three long, hellacious years. No more, no more! I want you to realize I could kill you now if I wanted to. But that would be too good for scum like you. No, I'm gong to let you live. A far worse punishment."

With that said, he leaned over his abuser, put the gun squarely in his mouth and squeezed the trigger. Many of the girls in the class screamed in terror. His body slowly slumped onto the floor. He was dead, free!"

Twenty years later…

The abuser had grown up. He is now a big-time loan-handler. Today he sits in his plush office. One of his clients has come to him with a problem.

"I'm sorry I can't make the payments. I just lost my job, my son is in the hospital and there just isn't enough money. I will pay you back with interest as soon as I can, I promise!"

"I haven't seen a dime out of you for three months, how do I know you will keep your promise!?"

"You have my-my-my word!"

"I can't pay the bank with your word. I'm sorry, I have to foreclose, I can't lose money on every sob story that walks into my office." He stamped the papers quickly.

"Please! I'll work for you! I'll do anything you ask and how! I have many skills, please don't do this!"

"Too late, it's been done."

The man fell to his knees, sobbing his eyes out, muttering how much a failure he was. "You heartless bastard, you coward, you, you, damn you, go to hell for all I care!"

The banker tapped his intercom and asked security to "show him the door."

The man wiped the tears from his eyes and said, "No thank you, I can find my own way out, you cruel son of a bitch!"

"But a rich son of a bitch."

The man left.

The banker spun around in his chair and stared at the cityscape that laid out before him. However, he felt the presence of someone else in the room. He spun back around expecting to see his secretary but rather he saw an adult figure of the boy who shot himself all those years ago, inches from his face.

He instantly knew who it was, "You! But I thought you died!"

The intruder said nothing.

"Is it you?"

"No, it is me."

"It has to be you, only you could say something so stupid."

"So nice to see you've changed so much."

"I'm a better person now."

"No, merely a wealthier one. You just threw that poor man out onto the street while his child is in the hospital."
"He was just trying to get out of paying his bills." The banker reached for a cigar. "Wait a minute, what am I doing? Talking to you. How did you know that? Who really are you? Is this some kind of twisted joke?"

"No joke and that man wasn't lying. His factory closed down and his child has a spinal degeneration disorder. I looked into it before I came." He sneered a little, "don't worry though, he won't die, he'll just be paralyzed. You don't have to worry about the loss of a life. However, with proper medical care he could walk again. But not now."

"So I'll send him a card. It makes no difference to me as long as I make my fortune." He looked around his office, "I made all of this, now if I had let people like him slow me down it would have taken an eternity. Just realize you aren't going to slow me down either though."

With a little more work you could have made hundreds of lives better…"

"Oh please, take your violins home with you. I don't know how you got past security but you aren't going to alter the course of my life. In fact, I'm going to call those lazy idiots right now to get your ass out of here!"

"I wouldn't do that…"

The millionaire reached over to his intercom and touched the button only to have it throw sparks back at him, slightly burning his hand.

"Holy shit!"

"I came here to talk to you, hoping you would change. My death should have served as warning enough, but it didn't. You don't need a lesson, you deserve retribution, punishment, and you shall get it!"

Now the grown dork slowly walked over to his former assailent only to have him back up. He screamed for help, it didn't come, it was as if noone could hear him. The dork placed his hand on the throat of the tycoon and lifted him by his neck into the air.

He held him there for a few seconds. All his millions of dollars could say at that moment was, "Please don't hurt me, put me down, mercy!!!"

A weak cry, he obviously couldn't breathe. The dork gave a reply, "Of course."

With that he threw him down onto his desk, breaking it right down the middle. As the dork left, all that remained was a broken desk and a broken man.

A day later…

The hospital was teeming with activity, two doctors stopped to review a patient's chart. The female doctor spoke first.

"Holy cow, what hit him, a wrecking ball, a Mack truck?"

The male doctor flipped a few more pages and spoke, "might as well have been. Not only did he shatter his spine in five different places but he broke a solid oak desk. Not just some cheap card table but a 200 lb. oak desk!"

"The police don't know, he keeps giving the name of some kid who killed himself right in front of his face twenty years ago, the poor guy has probably lost it."

"So what can we do for the poor guy?"

Well, we can't do anything about his face…"

the woman was startled, "His face?"

"Well, you see, on his desk he had a vile of fountain pen ink. When the desk broke, the vial spilled all over his face. Since he was unconscious, he didn't wipe it off and it soaked clean through the skin. Now it only covers his right cheek, but it may take years to come out, or, it may never come out. A dermatologist is scheduled to look at him tomorrow."

"What can we do about his back?"

"Well, we can put him on the list of candidates to receive that experimental spinal regeneration. That has a high chance of repairing his back, that's all that we can do…"

"Really?"

"Yeah, you know that boy a couple of rooms down, the one with the degrading spine. The one where his father can't afford any more treatment?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"This guy threw that family out of their house! By the way, this guy ain't so poor, the guy's a millionaire."

"Well, we can't put him on the list then. This surgery is only for those people who couldn't normally afford it on their own. If it's approved he can afford it easy and have it done a little later. See to it that the dermatologist looks at him tomorrow and when the sedatives wear off break the bad news to him as gently as possible. Don't tell him about the operation either, let him find out later."

"Isn't that kind of cruel?" said the female doctor. "First of all, it's the rules, we have no choice, second, isn't what he did kind of cruel? Can't say he didn't deserve it."

Well, time passed slowly and great change came. First the crip millionaire, as he is known now, lost his company when the man he booted sued and won millions. Apparently, somehow he had paid all his bills and he got booted on a computer error. Somehow. Well, that boy's son had the regeneration treatment and is healthy and as active as any boy should be. But the millionaire lost it all in the suit.

What was left was spent quickly to keep from falling behind on his medical bills and to buy the equipment needed to keep alive and active. With what little money he had after all of that he bought a squatter shack and lived the life of a beggar for many a year.

However, everyday as he worked his little street corner, some teenage boys would come up and taunt the crippled freak. They laughed not so much at his handicap as his face. The ink never did wear off and the doctors had tried many things in a desperate attempt to remove the stain but never succeeded. He was branded for life.

One day, he had taken enough of the taunting and the teasing. When the teens came back to harass him, he pulled out the revolver that he had bought from a pawn shop a few days earlier. When one of the kids came to poke him in the head as they had done in days and weeks gone by, he pulled out the revolver and shot himself in the temple. Knocking his wheelchair off to the side.

No one cried when he died. What friends he had left him before he ever became a crip. His family had disowned him. He had no one. All his greed and his money had only bought him more misery than he could ever inflict on others.

However, somewhere nearby that bloodied street corner two eyes laid a gaze to the whole fiasco. Two eyes eagerly watched, two dark brown eyes.

Those eyes belonged to the face, that belonged to the boy, who all those years ago shot himself in much the same fashion. He turned the other cheek and smiled, quietly to himself, satisfaction. He now knew that his former tormentor, turned millionaire, turned crip, turned corpse, knew what pain was like, that he felt the horrors that he had inflicted on others. Yes, satisfaction is the word.

Then he disappeared, this time, for the last time.

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9 Responses to The Victim

  1. xguardian angelx says:

    this is a strange story one of those you know can have one of two outcomes tormentor becomes victim but his victim forgives
    or
    tormentor becomes victim and his victim enjiys every minute
    this story is great as it depicted the latter unlike most people who would opt for the former to often the victim in stories is to quick to forgive and forget this is wrong
    also shame on the teacher and doubly on his parents i hope the people who recognise themselves in this story learn from it

  2. Jade says:

    tormentor 2 victim
    if the original victim enjoys the pain of the tormentor isnt that just as sick ?

  3. Robyn says:

    Mm…is it a bad thing that I like this one best? It's great…sick in the best possible way…

  4. Andy Lace says:

    Comment ca va?

  5. Cinnamon Girl says:

    Wonderful story, very thought provoking.. Although I have to agree with Jade, a bit contradictory.. The tormentor does in the end become a victim, but does not also the victim become the tormentor? What makes him any better, except that his cruelties were justified..

  6. Arachne says:

    wow…that's all i can say, i love how the story starts and ends but i love it all together, the beginning just sets the tone to the entire story and the end….i'm at a loss for words, great job!

  7. RougeInuyasha says:

    This is not justice it's karma..so don't get that confused…
    and before I forget…Good job.

    Darkest Blessings

  8. brandon peterson says:

    the lives of those that destroy others, will remain destroyed for the rest of theirs.

  9. lestat says:

    Very good,
    The bully got what he deserves, theres a saying that reminds me. " Those who die deserves to live,
    those who live deserve to die." this is true inthe end any mortals will reseeve gods punishment.

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