My name is Mel and it was a normal day in my tattered life. My grades were slipping, again, and I decided to avoid going straight home to my foster parents. I took the long way home where I would usually kick an old dusty bottle down the train tracks until I cut through a hole in a fence, as a short cut. No trains passed through here because the tracks haven't been used in over 30 years, but it was still a forbidden area with tons of "No Trespassing" signs. Like usual, I ignored the signs and brooded over my report card. I don't fail because I'm stupid. However, I just blank out during an exam if there are too many other noises. Sometimes, all I need is a bit more time to finish and I swear I'll pass, but my foster parents never understand, they don't even make an attempt to. To them, I'm just a check, so they make sure I look presentable for school, since the place is crawling with social workers who can report them. However, at home, I'm treated like a mangy dog that has rabies. They don't touch me, talk to me, or even pretend I exist. My foster parents just make sure I'm fed and tell me "get lost!". I've tried to "get lost" many times before, but they just report it to the police and make up this sob story that turns me into the troubled villain, and them into my heroes for adopting me. When I feel the least amount of love, like I do today looking at these failing grades, I take a walk by the tracks with a joint to clear my head. "Four more years," I chant, with every step, hoping they're not as slow and painful as the heat scorching the back of my neck.

Today's walk on the tracks feels different. Although it was a Friday, it felt like a mixture of doom and hopelessness. The sky whose sun once roasted me, ducked behind a thick gray cloud as if it had the same feeling I did. The darkening sky almost made it hard for me to see the red purse peeking out from a pile of rubble. This was perfect! There's got to be something of value in there that I could sell for money. I walked over to the purse, looking around to see is anyone could be a witness to this and grabbed the purse. From the corner of my eye, I saw a shoe, which I slightly ignored and continued to search the purse. I found some twenties rolled up in a sock, a gold watch, and a wallet. There was also a woman's ID card along with some credit cards that I wouldn't even give a second thought about using. I've spent enough time in juvie for running away to know that cards were no good and I wasn't trying to go back there for something that stupid. I shoved what I could into my pockets and kept on moving before someone saw me.

The list of items I was going to spend the money on kept me distracted from the image I thought I'd seen. The shoe seemed weird, but I couldn't care less now that I'd gotten some money. I slowly approached the hole in the fence and made my way home. I showed my foster parents the report card and surprisingly, they were calm about it. They told me they spoke to my teacher and were taking me to see a specialist. Apparently, my teacher had been observing my behavior in class, as opposed to my meekness while taking a test. He even referred the specialist to my foster parents since he noticed a learning disability when it came to testing. Therefore, for the next few weeks, I would be seeing a specialist to create a comprehensive plan to work with my needs and improve my grades. This was the first piece of good news I've gotten in years. I was in danger of being held back in the ninth grade for the second time, but there was hope for me and I ran with it. As for my focus, it quickly left the news I'd just received and reverted back to the walk I took earlier. I couldn't shake the feeling I got back there. Thankfully, I wasn't grounded and banished to my room as punishment for my grades, so I decided to go back to the tracks tomorrow.

I woke up early and made my way through my short-cut-hole-in-the-fence. I would retrace my steps to where I first got the feeling and investigate. Before I could get there, I saw the shoe again and vaguely remembered that I'd questioned it for a second too. Approaching the shoe closely, yet cautiously, I noticed a leg and then what appeared to be a woman's body. She was dead and my first instinct was to run far way. I kept on running for what felt like forever and stumbled breathlessly into the police station. I made the report to the Sheriff, who I knew from my constant getting in trouble with the law. He mentored me, so I knew I could trust him with this information. In between breaths I told him, "Sheriff Baley... I... found... a body... by the... the... tracks!"

His eyes shot open like someone was prying the lids apart and he shouted, "WHERE? SHOW ME!" I motioned towards the tracks and he grabbed my arm as if it wasn't attached to my body, tugging me to the patrol car. I shook my shock and snapped into navigation mode so that I could lead him to the body. We drove for a great distance, but my nerves were like a radar for how close were getting. When the Sheriff stepped out of the car and realized I wasn't lying, he called for backup. The body became an instant crime scene and he took me back to the station to make an official report. I felt like crap, not only because I discovered the body of a dead woman, but because I remembered that I robbed that dead woman just a few hours earlier. Consequently, specifically driven by guilt, I told the truth in the report:

I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing, when I found the purse and came back to do God knows what till I eventually found the body.

I wasn't in trouble this time. I was actually the break in a missing person's case and everyone quickly overlooked the other details of my discovery. I helped some poor family find out the truth about their lost loved one and was rewarded for finding the body. This unpleasant discovery turned my life in a new direction. I was no longer "Malice Mel" but a Hero.

But... Good things are short lived in my life.

The other part that became a continuation in my dread was, when I was 14 years old, I found the body of a dead woman and later discovered she was my mom. After the body was identified and all the clues pointed to a string of other murders, things came to light like who she was and why she was killed. The lady I discovered fell into the hands of the town's local serial killer. Finding the body gave the cops clues to catching the sick bastard, yet that wasn't all. He was a creep, but he only trapped and killed women who gave their kids up to the system. The News said something like he was a surrogate killer that worked for an adoption agency and found his victims there. He was also a child of the foster care system which screwed him up badly. After the death of his biological mother, he eventually lost his marbles and it was the stressor which triggered him to act out his twisted fantasies. He then made it his mission to inflict the same pain he felt for years on women like my mother and his.

I never got the opportunity to know her, but I met her by chance that day. I robbed my own dead mother. As if I wasn't already feeling like a bad person, that made it worse. It's crazy how life is and how mere coincidence can kick you when you are already down.