I Was Born To Suffer

My very first memory brings me back to when I was three years old; It consists of my mother trying to stay positive, as she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Though I was far too young to understand the concept of death, the words: “You have two months left to live,†will forever remain with me until the day I die.
Most of the following months are nothing but a blur of hospital visits and my mother hunched over a toilet, sick from the chemo therapy. She was dry heaving, and rapidly deteriorating to an emaciated remnant of a former human being.
At the end she was too weak to even get out of bed, so they moved her to a hospice care facility, where she’d spend the rest of her days suffering under the cold florescent lights. I remember crying a lot, the only parent in my life had been reduced to a frail, broken creature, too delirious to even recognise me.
That’s the final memory I have of our time together, but that is not the way she died.
During her final days I held her hand for hours on end, wishing for her to come back and take care of me, the world was big and scary, I couldn’t bare the thought of being alone in it. I’m not sure what triggered it, nor do I know why such a curse would be bestowed upon a three year old kid, but as I tightly gripped her hand something happened between us.
The air fell silent in anticipation, my hand felt as if it were on fire, and my mother arched her back from muscle spasms, where she remained frozen, her hand tightly grabbing my own.
Within seconds her complexion turned from deathly pale to a healthy pink colour, the bags under her eyes all but vanished, and the skinny frame that carried her around, somehow filled out.
For the briefest of moments our luck seemed to turn.
She seemed perfectly healthy, but it had taken a toll on my young body. As my mother had healed before my eyes the disease had seemingly transferred to myself, bubbling up to the surface in the shape of blisters and sores on my skin, I had not contracted the cancer, but I had taken her pain away.
Before either of us could figure out what happened, I passed out on the floor of the clinic.
The doctors were quick to do a full diagnostic screening of my mother, all the while I was in a coma, Despite it all, I healed quickly, but weeks would pass before I would actually regain consciousness.
While I slept, my mother had endured an overabundance of scans and biopsies. The results were devastating. Even with her appearing absolutely healthy, she was still riddled with tumours. While her suffering had disappeared, the prognosis hadn’t changed in the least.
A couple of weeks later my mother succumbed to her illness, and I was left all alone in the world.
It didn’t take long before the secret came out into the open, the rumours appeared in the papers. ‘The miracle child’ they called me, or ‘the angel of life.’ Thinking back it’s a painfully ironic name considering I hadn’t actually saved anyone, and death had still come marching despite what the stories told of my allegedly heroic efforts.
No sooner had they buried my mother, before they put me into a foster home; One for children with special needs and disabilities. Not that I required anything they could offer, but they housed quite a few dying orphans, and they foolishly believed that I could help cure them.
For days on end they would ask and pry about the events surrounding my mother’s death, but I was too young and not in control of my mystical abilities. Hell, I had been at the brink of death myself.
Once they somewhat figured out how my powers worked; I would sit in the clinic holding the hands of sickly children. It only worked in terminal cases, as they quickly realised, and it didn’t work as a cure.
Each time I came in physical contact with someone close to death, they would miraculously heal, but only from an outside perspective. They would appear healthy, but were still just as sick as they had been moments before.
All I could do was to transfer the pain and suffering to myself. experience the horrors of their disease and let them pass peacefully, but each time I used my powers I would fall unconscious, first for weeks, then days, and after a while I could completely recover in about twelve hours.
A few years went by like that, the carers desperately trying to figure out how I worked, as they waited for my powers to evolve. Still, I was a child that had grown up not knowing anything but suffering.
For every day that passed and another child died, I could see the disappointment in their eyes, I wasn’t the saviour they had waited for.
On one particular day after I turned twelve, a man showed up at the children’s home. He was middle aged, and dressed in an impeccably tailored suit. The carers immediately fell in love with his charming facade. He appeared as a great, wealthy man, and he had come to adopt a child, but not just any child.
He wanted me.
He smiled at me, made me feel safe for the short first visit, asking peculiar questions for the entirety of his stay. It didn’t take long, even for my immature brain to realise that he too wished to take advantage of my power, and like with everyone else, I expected him to use me as a tool and nothing more.
After offering a significant sum the orphanage agreed to put me up for adoption officially. For the years I had stayed there we were no closer to finding out how my powers worked, and they had little faith I could ever do more than take away people’s pain.
“Death is death, with our without the pain.†I could hear them say amongst themselves. They could probably do more with the money he offered than with my analgesic abilities.
“If you come with me, we can help people together.†He said with love in his words, promising the best of intentions.
His name was Peter, simple enough. He told me last names were unimportant and served little more than to help the government put us on paper, categorising what they had no business getting involved with.
There’s not really any way of talking around it; Peter was a con artist, medicine man, faith healer, whatever you want to call him, and a damn good one at that. With me by his side he would be able to gather more riches than he ever dreamed of.
Quickly after my ‘adoption,’ he started offering people a cure for anything from sepsis to cancer, and after hearing about miracles the papers claimed I could perform, people were quick to line up and pay extraordinary amounts just to get a chance to meet me.
“We are giving them hope!†He would say. “We’ll take their pain away!â€
Of course, seeing as people wouldn’t survive longer even after having me drain their symptoms. We promised to cure people, give them their life back, and in return they gave us their life savings, some clients even going as far as rejecting proper medical care in order to pay us.
One client every other day would be all we accepted, just enough time for me to heal in between sessions. I would suffer their pain over and over, never having more than a few hours, maybe a day of relief.
“At least you won’t die, do you really want these people to suffer for their remaining few weeks?†Peter said.
For years I stayed by his side. I never had a real father figure, barely any parental figure at that; So, with some cognitive dissonance, I tricked myself into believing he actually cared about these people, and about me.
I was nothing but a stupid child lost in the world, never having a friend nor any family to protect me.
We could never stay in the same place for more than a month or two, before our clients started falling over dead. After all, we had promised them a cure but it was all a ruse, and as they saw the truth for themselves we left whichever city we resided in. We travelled cross country by train, bus and rented cars from sketchy dealers, anything that could go relatively hidden under the radar.
As we boarded trains, I would glance over at families, friends, lovers embracing each other, to welcome or saying goodbye. I knew I could never experience these emotions, I hadn’t that far, yet I longed for it.
To love is not something you learn, it’s an intrinsic human emotion, and without it, life just seems a bit gray. My life went by, dragging me along without ever being known, loved or missed.
By the age of eighteen, you could name any terminal disease, and I could tell you I’d seen it. Hopeless cases of people so near death they could barely classify as human beings anymore. Emaciated, skeletal figures walked into Peter’s mobile ‘clinic,’ dreaming about a cure. Of course, he promised that and more.
As I got older I started to see through his facade. I suspected the lies would catch up with us eventually, but he would manipulate the truth with lies of good intentions, just like he had the day we met.
“We’re giving them peace, and hope, is that truly such a horrible thing?†Is what he told me, and I foolishly believed him for far too long.
Time went by, and the sessions became more intense, I could handle my ability better, take more pain without falling unconscious, but with increasing demands I simply couldn’t keep up.
As we had started I only dealt with two or three clients a week, but Peter started getting greedier, increasing the numbers to one session a day. The pain piled up upon itself for each new client, and day by day I got weaker.
One client was an elderly woman dying from lung cancer. The perfect reward from years of smoking.
The cancer drained from her pale face as if connected to me by an intravenous line. Her complexion improving by the second, and her face once contorted in pain turned to one of relief.
Blisters formed on my skin, my nose and ears started to bleed. Moments later I had turned to a complete mess, riddled with the diseases of other people, but the client was satisfied, thinking she had just found the miracle cure she so desperately sought after.
After the session I went to lie down on my bed, but there would be no time to rest, as Peter barged in demanding I get ready for our next client.
I could barely move, let alone deal with another person’s illness. I just shook my head, and in response Peter hoisted me off the bed and angrily shouted at me to stop being such a whiny bitch.
He had always been like that, but that was the first time I truly understood that I was nothing more than a tool to him. The veil of lies had finally fallen off.
Eighteen years on this God-forsaken planet; Without a friend, without a family, all alone, and created just to suffer.
Peter wanted me to do more sessions, gesturing to his absolutely packed appointed book.
“Are you really going to deny their pleads for help? Besides, how else are we going to pay for your private teachers, without money?â€
He dragged me into the room with our next customer, putting on his friendly facade just as we entered the room. He spoke with such caring words, giving off the appearance of genuine concern for the client. As always, he required the payment before any ‘treatment,’ took place.
The client had been accompanied by what I assume was her mother, but she herself was a young, bald lady dressed in pants and a shirt that seemed either a size too small or a size too big, an odd mixture of what I assumed to be second hand clothes. She was so sickly and small, but I could tell she used to be quite pretty, something remained in her eyes, a glimpse of something beautiful not yet destroyed by disease.
Together they scrounged up a pile of crumbled up notes, just enough to pay the bill, and Peter accepted it without hesitating.
She looked at my tired face and asked if I was okay to do this. Peter answered for me, saying that it wouldn’t be a problem. I wanted to tell them the truth, but I couldn’t find the words to destroy their hope.
I grabbed her hand tightly, and she smiled back at me immediately. Her colour returned, and her eyes filled up with what I can only describe as life.
Seeing as I was already in quite a bad shape, it was too much for me and I fell off the chair, letting go of the girl in the process. She started to fade back into sickness as soon as we disconnected.
“What are you doing?†Peter asked furiously. He bent down and pulled me back up, forcefully placing my hand back on the girl, who had gone from hopeful to frightened.
“You are not going to let me down.†He said.
My hand was placed on top of hers, and Peter held me firmly. I could feel bruises forming beneath his grips, but I was too weak to fight back. The lady started to heal, but as she did something was happening to Peter.
In stead of the usual blisters and sores forming on my skin, they were moving over to Peter where he stood. He gasped, but was unable to move, much less let go of my hand. For each passing second he turned paler, his hair started sloughing off alongside chunks of skin and flesh, even his teeth seemed to fall apart as he desperately tried to let go off me, but he was stuck.
By the time anyone realised what was happening, he fell over, dead even before he hit the ground.
The girl screamed in shock at what had just happened before her eyes, unable to believe that had been the plan.
Peter, the man had been all I’d ever known growing up, and he was finally gone, leaving me with a mixture of relief and sadness, as far as abusive families go, it was all I had.
I looked at the girl, she seemed perfectly healthy like all the others, but something in her eyes appeared different, as if a disease had never existed within her in the first place. I knew it in my heart that I had truly cured someone for the first time in my life.
It only came at the cost of another life.
She was terrified, but I didn’t care. I simply handed them their money back. I told them to leave, and to never speak of this with anyone. I didn’t need their money, Peter had enough stored away, enough to let me lead a comfortable life in peace.

---

With my newfound freedom the years flew by. I put a great deal of money into education, and before I knew it I had become a nurse. I figured that would be the best way to use my abilities, taking away the pain of suffering people just at the end station of life.
These days I usually stay late into the night when I know someone is about to die in unbearable pain. I wait until I’m all alone with the patients, and then I take away their suffering, better to let them die with a smile, even though I can’t save all of them.
On a rare occasion though, I’ll be stuck with someone not deserving of a second chance. Drunk drivers crashing into other cars, killing happy, innocent families, or gang members hurting random pedestrians as some sick recruitment ceremony.
These are my favourite patients.
I have enough pull with the administration to arrange which patient is kept in which bed, to a certain extent at least, and whenever possible I put the worst next to the best. It’s the only way I can really save a life, taking it from awful people and giving it to someone more deserving.
No one suspects a thing, and though I’ll never have a normal life, at least it’ll be worthwhile if I can make sure I leave an impact.
I’ve become pretty good at reading people, looking into their hearts, seeing what they’ve done with their lives.
One day you might find me at the hospital, you won’t know who I am, but one thing is for certain.
You won't have to suffer anymore.


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