The Boy Nobody Saw
845 Words
Flashback Aaron POV
He was ten years old the first time he killed.
And no one suspected a thing.
Aaron Cole sat barefoot on the back porch steps, mud on his ankles, blood crusted beneath his fingernails. A deep, raw stillness had settled over the house, like a final exhale. The woods behind the trailer rustled faintly, but inside the walls—inside his world—there was silence.
No more screaming.
No more breaking glass.
No more fists flying through the air with his name behind them.
Inside, his parents lay dead.
Aaron didn’t feel guilty. Or fear. Or even triumph. He just felt... quiet.
For the first time in his life, the noise was gone.
It had started the same way most nights did—with pain.
His father had come home angry and drunk. His mother had been drunk since noon. They blamed him for everything: for the bills they couldn't pay, for the food that spoiled, for the bruises they wore from fighting each other. His father snapped his belt from the loops of his jeans with a practised motion, the way he always did.
"On your knees, little freak."
Aaron stood frozen in the hallway.
Then, calmly, he turned and walked into the kitchen.
He opened the drawer where the knives were kept. Choose the longest one.
That night, he didn’t feel afraid. He felt clear.
The first stab wasn’t perfect. His father screamed, twisted, and fought.
But Aaron was small and fast and was done being powerless.
He drove the blade in again and again, cutting through years of fear. The man collapsed, blood seeping out in slow rivers, pooling under the dirty floorboards. Aaron stood over him, panting, blood spattered across his face.
His mother staggered into the room, screaming.
“What did you do?” she shrieked, lunging at him, nails out.
He met her with the same blade, slashing, cutting, pushing her back.
And when she finally fell—twitching and gasping—he stood over both of them, the knife trembling in his hand.
He could’ve stopped there.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he went to the bathroom. Took his mother’s sewing kit from beneath the sink. Returned to the bodies. Kneeling beside his father, he peeled the bloodied shirt up, revealing his belly.
Aaron stared at the flesh. Blank. Canvas.
He threaded the needle with shaking fingers, coated in blood. The first stitch was slow. Shaky.
G.
He carved it in shallow cuts first, then traced each line with the thread, knotting it carefully beneath the skin.
U.
The skin stretched. The blood made the needle slip.
I.
He worked through it, steadying his breath, ignoring the way his fingers cramped.
L. T. Y.
When he was finished, he sat back and stared.
GUILTY, stitched in jagged red across his father’s stomach.
He did the same to his mother.
It took hours. He didn’t rush.
Because this wasn’t punishment.
It was true.
The neighbours called the cops around 2 a.m.
They heard nothing but silence all day and grew suspicious. The responding officers found the boy curled up on the porch steps, his clothes soaked with blood and rainwater.
He didn’t cry. He didn’t run.
He looked at them with hollow eyes and said, “I woke up and they were dead.”
That was all.
They ruled it a murder-suicide.
An abusive, alcoholic father kills his wife, then himself. The boy—a victim—survived. Everyone felt sorry for him. Teachers left him alone. Social workers filled in boxes and said he’d need therapy.
No one asked about the stitching.
They assumed it was part of the madness. Part of the man’s breakdown.
No one suspected the boy.
He was scrawny. Quiet. Broken-looking.
Who would believe a ten-year-old could do something so… calculated?
Only one person in the world knew the truth.
And he liked it that way.
In foster care, he was the good kid.
Did his homework. Stayed out of trouble. Smiled when people expected it. He learned how to mimic emotions, how to mirror people’s behaviours. He grew polite, helpful, and invisible.
But deep inside, the same fire that burned that night in the trailer never went out.
The stitching had meant something.
It hadn’t just been anger.
It had been a statement.
A confession etched into someone else's skin—when no one would ever listen to his words.
Years later, when he saw the black thread kill's work, he recognised it instantly.
The same hunger. The same fury. The same justice was carved into flesh like scripture.
They left the word behind like he had.
GUILTY.
Only, where his first kills had been personal, theirs were righteous.
There was the only other soul who had understood the art.
And now, he wanted to perfect it.
Not just to honour her work—but to surpass it.
Because Aaron Cole had been born in blood.
And no matter how clean his adult life looked, he knew exactly who he was:
The monster everyone had overlooked.
The boy nobody saw.
- Writer
