1 Jake's Misfortune.

A young man stood on a chair under a ceiling fan. A rope hung from it, dangling in the air of the small hotel room. The knot in the rope was tight, it wouldn't break unless a tremendous amount of force was brought upon it, this was good.

The young man quietly put the rope around his neck and closed his eyes. He lifted his foot to take a step into the empty air in front of him.

Suddenly a song started playing from the his back pocket, it was his alarm. This was his favourite song, no matter how many times it woke him up he would always end up singing along before turning it off.

The man returned his feet back to the chair underneath him and pulled out his phone. The bright screen lit up his face in the darkness of the room. He had smooth, shiny black hair that would make any girl jealous, his vacant staring grey eyes shone in the darkness, his pale skin was near perfect until it came to the left side of his face. Anyone who looked at it would be scared of the man, there was a large red burn all up the side of his face. It looked quite fresh, like it was done recently. It was.

The man's name was Jake, he was 6 foot 2, had quite a muscular build and had turned 18 that October. He was a student at the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts in New York City. He was studying creative writing and urban studies and was enjoying it.

However the only way he could afford to go to college was to take out a huge loan. He wasn't originally from New York, he had flown over from Manchester, England in August. His mother had died when he was eight years old and his only remaining family, his dad, had died that July in a car accident. He felt like his life was going down hill, he had no one to turn to so he decided that he needed a fresh start and moved to New York and enrolled in Lang.

He thought he would be able to forget about everything and move on, but life doesn't always go the way you planned.

When he moved, he had no where to live so he started subletting an apartment near by the school. He didn't have much money either so he took out a loan from his landlord, who happened to be a money lender as well, this was a bad idea. His landlord was not a good guy, he said that he needed to pay the money back weekly so Jake got a job right away, he worked two different jobs in order to get enough to pay him back.

One day whilst he was walking back from the convenience store where his second job was he was jumped and dragged into a back alley by three guys and beaten to a pulp. He managed to keep his life, but the pay check which he just received was not so lucky. The men took the money and left Jake in the alley, groaning in pain. He managed to make his way back to the apartment but what awaited him was the landlord with a giant grin on his face, he was posting a notice on the door which said 'EVICTION' in big red letters.

Once Jake saw his face he knew that the landlord knew what had happened, he had done this to Jake. But why?

It turned out that he landlord was just a really bad guy, he got his kicks from making people feel worthless and beating them down until they couldn't take it anymore. That is pretty much exactly what happened for the first three weeks in New York, he would get paid then get beaten. After those three weeks he was evicted and was forced to ask for help.

The only people he knew where his school mates and his co-workers. He decided to ask his boss whom he had come to like if he could stay at the store. She said yes but also asked about why he needed to stay there, he told her everything and she let him stay in the storage room. She even got a bed for him to sleep on whilst he was there.

Three weeks after that he was again jumped and was taken somewhere after they knocked him out. He awoke with a start due to a horrible pain all down the left side of his body. He quickly stood whilst screaming in pain. He looked around the place he was at and his own body only to find that he was in a broom cupboard.

He only now realised the reason for his pain. laid on the ground was a large saucepan which was filled with boiling hot water, whoever put him here must have placed it on top of the closet door so it would fall on his head when opened. Luckily he had kicked the door open in his sleep and knocked it down onto only half his body.

He quickly stumbled out of the now open cupboard door and rushed out of the building onto the street. He didn't have his phone with him for some reason so he walked outside to ask someone to call an ambulance.

As he stumbled onto the sidewalk he saw a group of young men and women walking towards him. He shouted to them for help and a few men quickly rushed over, it turns out that they were some of Jake's classmates. Upon seeing his condition the men quickly called for an ambulance. At that point the rest of the group came over, upon seeing him they all gasped loudly, a few of the girls even let out a scream.

It was at that point that Jake fainted into darkness.

He awoke to the strong smell of medicine, he looked around to find he was in a hospital room. He sat up groggily trying to take in his surroundings, he was startled by a gasp from his left side. He turned only to notice he couldn't see who it was that he startled due to his still blurry vision. Jake pushed himself up on the bed only to wince in pain and drop back down again.

It was at this point that the person to his left grabbed his wrist and started talking in a comforting tone. As Jake was still only semi-conscious he didn't actually hear what the person had said but the soothing tone of voice comforted him nonetheless.

When he finally began to regain his senses, he saw a younger woman was holding his wrist as he looked at her in shock for a moment.

"Hello....Hello! Can you hear me? Are you okay? How do you feel?" the woman asked with a worried expression on her face. It was only now that Jake answered with a quick nod which he immediately regretted as a shooting pain shot up and down his left side as soon as he did. He winced in pain before asking the woman in a hoarse voice "What's going on?"

The woman, who he found out was his doctor, explained what had happened and how severe the injury was, he would not need surgery for now but he would be scarred like this for the rest of his life due to the severity of the burn. He would not be able to get a skin graft, not that he could afford one anyway, and he would end up looking like a freak for the rest of his life.

The doctor explained that he was lucky to be alive, she couldn't explain how he was. Apparently the burn only affected his epidermis and did not spread all that much into his dermis, which given how bad the burn was it should have. She said he was lucky and this was not the end but Jake had just blanked at this point.

He had lost everything, his Mum, his Dad, his house and now his skin too. It was at this moment he decided that he had had enough, he made a decision. He would kill those that made him this way then off himself.