PEEKABOO..

BASED ON A TRUE STORY.

AUTHOR: MARYAM NAJAATH ALI NIYAZ

A COMIC EMPIRE BOOK

Chapter 1:

Meet the gang

It was a normal night for the Cameron family, dinner ready, lights on, and of course, Mom playing with baby Xander. But little did they know the ‘happy little surprise’ they were getting.

‘Peekaboo’ said Mom to little Xander, squealing with delight, he looked at mom and gave a big hug. But before he let go a crippling voice whispered in an eerie tune :

“ I see you …”. Mom was a bit concerned, but shook it off, but as soon as she forgot a hitman jumped on top of her and … stabbed her to death. He was hired by a company attacking people with children, no other information was known about them at the time. Xander’s mom was a single parent, so the baby stood crying, with blood splattered all over him and his fragile, forever scarred memory. The scene looked like a roller had squished her with spikes. The baby and mom’s dead and broken body was found after 1 painstaking, miserable day. Because no-one wanted to adopt Xander, he went to an adoption center. His 2 year’s time there wasn’t amazing, to say the least. The doctors had diagnosed him with social anxiety, making it hard to make friends, or even communicate with the helpers there.

It was a miracle when someone decided to adopt him. Mr. Josiah Hamilton, his name was. Xander was much more social than before, and really liked staying there. Once he was 5 or so, he asked if Mr. Josiah had pictures of him as a baby.

The only pictures he had were the ones of the ‘incident’ so he gave them, thinking he wouldn’t remember. But he did. He remembered the blood, the gore, the hitman and the way he stabbed his mom constantly, and of course, the fact that he was playing Peekaboo.

All of it rushed back. He was only 6 or so at the time, but he already had gotten a different mindset, to seek sweet, sweet revenge. His fake ‘happy’ expression was so easy to spot that you would have as well been staring through glass. That determination, confidence and pure anger was enough to drive him crazy. And that mindset became more and more ‘demonic’ as the years went by.

8 to 10 years in the future, Xander was suffering from depression. Kids would tease at him in hallways and push him onto balconies. Everytime that happened he would pray that he would fall off and go back to his mother. But, he still wanted revenge.

Who killed her ? What company even is that ? Why did they kill her ? Was it a mistake ? A million thoughts rushed his head at once.

He was puzzled and frustrated on what to do, now that his adoptive father lost hope of helping his way out. So, as most teenagers do, they did what they thought was the best choice, and this ‘best choice’ was killing others until they surrendered themselves. That wasn’t an amazing choice, even for him. But, he waited for when to strike, for now, he needed information on that treacherous company. He searched and searched, and to his amazement he figured out the name of the company, Roschel C.O. It was a weird name to call, basically a gang, but Xander guessed it was to hide their main purpose so that it sounds unbelievable to anyone without a keen eye. He googled the company, and … nothing. They hid their intel so well that google had no search predictions or results. That just made it harder for him to avenge mom. Getting more desperate by the minute, he looked through other browsers, and read books, but nothing. It was as if the company never existed. But clearly it did.

After relentless searching, he went up to the dark web, a place where no-one

would dare venture into. But, Xander thought to himself for a bit, “If I don’t avenge her I would have no purpose, I would be empty. I’d rather try something other than nothing”. And, there it was. A 3 page-long article about the infamous ‘Roschel C.O.’ .

As a matter of fact, that name was just a quote on quote ‘public image’ , the real name was ‘ Mr Darkside ’ . A ‘perfect’ name for a horrible gang. Xander sprinted to ‘St. Marlin', in hopes of murdering at least one of them. He planned carefully and came up with a plan. In homage to his mother’s brutal death, he’d softly say ‘’Peekaboo’’ and then catch up on them after a short amount of time. Weapon of choice? A sharp little dagger from his adoptive father’s closet. And of course, stabbing. They would soon have lost 1 member to one of their own victims. He came back with blood on his hands, stained white clothes and a little treat, the eye of the victim he killed. After that, he felt … different. Like he was made to do this, like he could kill millions for his own little fun. That drove a small grin down his face, like a psychopath in action.

Now, that murder was life changing, he chose a path he built himself. A path that was leading to nothing but the ashes of hell itself. Xander was, at this point, “broken” … ? Nobody understands why he does so, no-one understands, and they will never understand. He’s more than just different.

2 years later, he’s run away to a place where he feels safe, with a gang. They called themselves “MOMMA’S NIGHTMARE”. Once again, a homage to Xander’s deceased mother. He brought some recruits, Ander, Damian, Riley, Millie, Alex and his assistant, Matt. They were ‘tight’ as they described their relationship. They were wanted, assassins. They loved to sing songs together, no matter how violent they were, that was the one thing that calmed them down. It was an amazing sight, listening to their amazing voices, pure talent and harmonies. There was never a dull moment when they were enjoying themselves. That just shows that everyone has a soft spot for something, or someone. But when they want to go and have some fun, there’s no stopping them. But they did break one time, when they lost a member, Alex. They don’t really like talking about it, but they really like to pretend he’s still there, just hiding in the midst of all their emotional chaos and train wrecks.

Alex is a story for another day, but their most recent heist is most definitely something to wonder about. The time is 3:46 am, a number dials a strange-looking man, ‘’+1 6890 54390 2098’’ . He was puzzled, so he decided to tell the caller he got the wrong number. On the other line is Matt, ready to distract the guy for a good amount of time. Then comes Millie, pretending to trip on a rock. Now that the man is busy, Xander comes up to him and slices his throat. It was their usual drill, just tweaked to make it seem different. The sheer amount of planning it takes to get away with murder is just as time-consuming and tiring as doing the killing itself. Just like learning for a test is as hard as doing the test itself.

And as always, Millie and Damian were fighting. But today was really a blow-up. They were arguing about who was responsible for Alex’s death, a topic they hate talking about, as I said before. They were both hurt and angry. So now is a good time to talk about how he died. It was September 2018, the weather was screaming at them to go in, due to the horrendous storm outside. But Millie was excited for this specific kill, so they went on to their target destination. Halfway through, Alex felt a weird feeling in his stomach, like a quick needle or something, but it was actually a gunshot. Damian told the others to carry along and that he would get medical care for Alex, but no-one would have been able to run such a far distance in time for medical services. And .... that’s how they lost Alex. Nobody knows who shot the gun, they believed it was a stray bullet.

But they should have gotten over it by now, right? They never did, that disturbing scene never swept away from their minds. But why are they suddenly fighting over it? Well, whenever they both get angry, no matter what sort of secret it was, they would throw the dirt. And so, Damian decided to give her some of “her own medicine”. Millie snapped and threw all that back at him, surprising Damian, as she would never do that. They both were angry at each other for a while after that. Then, they pulled of a stunt that was just… unbelievable and dumb. They went on a roof with a head-to-head combat. Of course they both gave themselves a ton of bruises.

To be continued …