The Limit

Ricky wasn't your average teenager boy that you'd call ordinary. He was, well, different. He did everything differently. Didn't go down, wasn't very social, didn't play many sports. He had very little inclination towards academics and the list goes on. He was unlike anyone else in his family. That's what he was aiming to become, after all. He hated his family, and wanted to be different. 

His family wasn't bad, but they weren't the best either. Ricky was a different kid, but they didn't understand this. They tried to change him to become like everyone else, which deeply angered Ricky. He was born with immediate anger tendencies, which only showed now, when he was 14 years old.

Even though they weren't physical, it was kind of abuse for Ricky.

Despite all this, Ricky never showed any anger, frustration or sadness. For his family, he was the ideal punching bag to relieve all their stress. 

He was blessed with one good ability though: he had a very strong mind. No matter what anyone said to him, he was able to suppress his anger...for the time being at least. His actions could never be influenced by anyone else. 

He was the definition of someone being in control.

But this didn't mean he didn't have his meltdowns. He would occasionally lock himself in his room and let out all his suppressed wrath on any dummies around him. He'd take his time, brutally punching the (non)living daylights out of soft toy characters, each blow relieving his mind. He'd then look at himself in the mirror, and he'd try his best to cover up the showing glints of redness. Then he'd straighten his curly brown hair and walk out of the room, a mask of calmness on his face.

However, this cycle of getting hurt, relieving his anger and showing calmness ended when his father got a promotion. Mark getting a promotion wasn't the bad part: the bad part was that they had to relocate across the city for an estimated time of 24 months, at the very least. Mark didn't tell anyone why, but he simply said, "It's for work. It'll be over soon."

The downside about the relocation was that their new apartment didn't have many rooms. Just one room for Ricky's parents, one for his grandparents and...that was it. No room for him.

No relief for him.

Due to the new relocation, everyone in the family got cranky and stressed upon, because each one took time to adapt to their new lives. And therefore, they needed to relieve their stress. They did this by mostly leaving the house, but every other day, they'd start shouting and arguing with Ricky.

He was able to sustain a few weeks of this, but he started experiencing a little bit of discomfort around in the fifth week. It was starting to reach his limits. The rage could no longer be controlled, and since he couldn't exert it, it became....him. It became a part of him. It coursed through his blood, constant pain and rage; there was no escaping it. And not before long, it took over him.

He was the rage.

One fine evening, when Mark was out, Ricky's grandfather returned home with the worst mood ever. He had been fired from his job because he couldn't complete a deciding delivery. His job was to deliver customers food, but he always reached late. And as a result, he was shooed away. And what was left was an angry and unstable old man, who definitely needed to relieve stress. And that's when he saw Ricky.

He walked over to him and asked him whether he had studied for the next exam. Ricky stuttered at first, because he wasn't used to this stern voice of his grandfather, but shook his head.

And then the old man raised his hand and slapped the young boy's face. It was an intentional, hard and unexpected blow that got the boy disoriented at first. He felt lost, but took a minute and regained his balance. His grandfather kept ranting and shouting at him, but Ricky couldn't hear anything anymore.

It was time.

A surge of redness started penetrating his mind, his head, and started coursing through his body. He could no longer think; all he saw was redness. It had engulfed him, and it was too much to contain. His arms started to redden, his eyes started gleaming with a red aura. The redness wasn't abstract anymore, it became a part of him, and physically showed on his body. He started glowing with it, and that's when his grandfather stopped talking. He looked in disbelief at what was now a red, glowing and devilish form of Ricky.

Ricky couldn't hold it in anymore. It was time to relieve himself. He raised his hand as high as he could, and with a deep breath, throbbed it down into his grandfather's chest. The shockwave was immediate, and a red wave of energy erupted from the point of impact, steadily advancing all around them. His grandfather was sent backwards to the wall, and after a few seconds of glowing, he started to fade away. 

Ricky's grandmother came to see what happened, and as the shockwave reached her, she too started glowing with the red aura, and faded away. The shockwave then spread to his mother's room, and after a slight scream, there was silence. She was gone too.

The wave of redness consumed many more people in the building before finally fading away itself.

Ricky landed back on the ground with a hard thud. The redness vanished from his body and he wasn't glowing anymore. He looked around him and saw that everything had been destroyed. The table, the chairs, it was as if there had been a huge explosion in there. 

So much...pain....he didn't know how to feel. He didn't know what to think. He never wanted to hurt his family. But he ended up becoming just like them, and as a result, he had killed them.

After a little time of thinking about what he'd done, a pale and tired Ricky walked out of the building and looked up at the sky. He kept looking that way, before withering away into the sunset.