“Mom, are you sure you can drive?” Jack asked, but his question received no response.
Jack was starting to feel very uncomfortable, not understanding why his mother was acting so cold and distant. The rest of the drive was in relative silence, Jack not knowing how to react to this sudden change.
Soon, they reached their apartment building.
“Jack, we need to discuss some things,” His mother finally spoke, as they reached their doorstep, taking out her key and unlocking the front door.
“Okay mom, but are you sure you don’t want to take a rest first?” He asked, but his mom just waved her hand, indicating that he was to sit on the dining table.
Jack complied.
“Jack, I’m not going to sugar coat this. We don’t have enough for this month’’s rent. I’m going to go to work tomorrow, make some calls, and see if someone’s willing to put us up for a few weeks. You don’t need to go to school for now, just stay at home until I figure something out. Okay?” His mother asked, and for a second Jack saw the shadow of her old self peeking out, concerned about his well being, but only for a second.
The next few days were a blur in Jack memories, and it only got blurrier from here on out. But his mother used to make meals for him in the morning, then disappear for most of the day, before arriving at night, with the same, placid expression on her face. He was given strict instructions not to open the door unless she knocked thrice in quick succession, and that was that- he spent most of the day reading comics, playing on his handheld console, and chowing down on the excessive amount of food his mom left for him.
Perhaps it was three, or perhaps five, but Jack still remembered when he let her inside, only to hear the words,
“Pack up. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
“So soon?” Jack asked, wondering how his mother had managed to work out alternative accommodation this fast.
“Yes. Our landlord was kind enough, and agreed to forgive this month’s rent if we moved out by tomorrow. I already managed to work out… an arrangement. You’ll just have to adjust until I get my next paycheck.”
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The next day.
After an hour’s drive, Jack found himself staring down at…. A motorhome, of all things. A trailer. This, Jack had not expected. A six foot one obese man walked out of the doorway, dressed in nothing but a white tank top and black shorts, a bottle of beer clutched in his right hand.
A motorhome outside town was not what Jack had expected, but it was in surprisingly good condition. Jack supposed it was better than staying on the streets, especially in a city where he’d hear at least three to four distant gunshots go off every night from his block.
“Hey, there. You must be Jack, eh little man?” The man gave Jack a little friendly head rub, before he pulled his mother into a hug, making Jack squirm slightly
“I didn’t think you’d actually come, Agnes,” The man said with slight surprise, and then welcomed them in.
The man, as Jack came to know him, was called Jim. Both his parents had died at a young age, and upon turning eighteen he’d inherited an impressive sum. He invested a quarter of it into a motorhome, two quarters into the stock market, and the rest was kept in his bank for day to day expenses. Long story short, Jim believed himself to be a trader.
The motorhome was surprisingly comfortable from the inside, having two bed rooms, one having a queen sized bed, and the other a king sized bed, with only one bathroom in the larger room.
The first three months went by in relative comfort, as Jack had started going back to school, driven by his mother every morning before work. Jim and his mother got along well, but he always had this odd feeling that his mother was putting on an act every time he saw her with Jim. She never smiled after the accident, but when she was with Jim she would put on a smile, that just didn’t feel right to him.
It was after, the day that the stock market crashed, that Jim’s demeanor changed. He had overheard enough of their conversation to know that Jim had lost a significant amount of money. Then he started to notice the bruises on his mother’s body. The late night screaming fights kept Jack awake up till late at night, but it was mostly Jim that was doing the screaming. One morning,on his way to school, Jack awoke only to see a sharp cut across his mother’s cheek, still not fully scabbed.
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“Mom, why don’t we just move out,” Jack asked, unable to describe the mix of anger and fear he felt at seeing his mother like that.
His mother remained silent.
Then she answered.
“Jim needed some money to cover his losses,” she answered, causing Jack to feel sick at the thought of his mother’s hard earned money going to that fat slob.
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After a month, it was his turn. One day, when his mother was out for groceries, Jim called him over. Without saying anything, and without reason, he punched him in the abdomen, knocking the wind out of his lungs in one blow, sending him sprawling to the ground. Grasping, coughing, begging for air, for it to finally respond before everything went black.
“If you tell your mother about this, I’ll throw you both out to the streets. Do you want that, Jack? Do you want that!” Jim screamed at Jack, for no fault of his own, before kicking him again.
Jack did not know why, but he obeyed. He wished for his mother to notice, after all how could she not notice when he was in such pain? But his mother’s expression never changed when looking at him, as if she knew but ignored it.
Each day, every day, there was only one thought that kept Jack sane: he wanted to survive the day, only to know if tomorrow held anything different for him. It was a twisted curiosity borne of desperation, wondering if someone would save him like in those comic books he liked to read before.
He did not know how many days passed like this. For him there was no concept of time anymore, only the next day. The next day was what mattered.
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It was late at night.
Jack heard Jim scream at his mother again, except the words this time were far too alarming for him to ignore.
“You cheated on me, didn’t you. You fucking whore, I’ll kill you!” he screamed, causing Jack to head for the door. A burst of terror ran up his spine, immobilizing him. What would he do against Jim? What could he do? Going out there meant pain, he would just get the air knocked out of his lungs until he wished he was dead.
No, no, no… was the next day worth it if he couldn’t see his mother? She might have changed, but Jack knew she still loved him deep down.
Jack burst out of the door, only to see Jim,using his bulk and muscle to push his mother away. He couldn’t even react, as he saw her head slam against the marble kitchen furnishing of the RV, blood spilling all over the kitchen table and the floor, and his mother hitting the ground.
Jim looked ashen at his actions, looking at his own shaking hands with horror in his eyes.
Jack saw his mother’s bloodied body, and in that moment there was only one thing he felt:
Hate. Endless Hatred. Hate, Hate, Hate!
The world turned crimson. Unknown to Jack himself, at this moment his eyes were glowing, practically shining, in a deep, blood red crimson. His skin changed into a washed out, bordering on translucent white and two small baby fangs protruded out of his upper jaw.
In the crimson world, Jack was invincible. But he was too young to understand the physiological changes he had undergone.
For there was only one thought in his mind:
Kill.
He moved. Moved so fast that it was nigh imperceivable by the human eye. Nothing had shifted in the surroundings, and even Jim was standing where he originally was- except with one small difference.
His head was dangling from Jack’s right hand, who had held it up with curiosity in his eyes. In the world of crimson, the human seemed more pathetic than scary.
He tossed it aside with disdain, a disdain that seemed to emanate from his very bloodline itself.
In the world of crimson, Jack felt some movement behind him. He turned around, only to see his mother standing there, completely unscathed.
“You managed to awaken after all, son,” Jack stared at her, and their eyes had made eye contact. Jack felt that he was looking at his mother for the first time, the crimson world seeming to be almost subservient to the woman in front of him. If his crimson world was a room, hers was an entire, kingdom, no a planet
“I had not wished to bring you into this world. But I fear that wretched divinity’s remains will soon come and claim this world, bloodshed and wrath consuming it.. I cannot take you with me either, for even I am not sure to survive the pursuit of an Empyrean. All I can leave you behind is this lesson, son. Perhaps it will help you survive. Now sleep,” She said, and for a moment Jack saw his old mother, the mother that had pampered him, cared for him and loved him with all her heart. But that was only an instant, to be replaced with cruelty and indifference in the next.
She chanted two words in rapid succession, "Yaksina Samui," the meaning of which Jack could automatically understand for some reason.
'Bloodline Seal.'
Then he fainted.