Chapter 32 - The incident

Two decades prior, Adam was a young ten-year-old boy living a rather normal life. He had friends at school and enjoyed playing games and reading. His mother was a nurse and would spend weekends with him at the park or on trips.

Three days after his eleventh birthday, it was Saturday, and therefore his parents were off work. It was his belated birthday treat to be able to go out to the amusement park a few hours away. His father drove them there but couldn’t stay since he was called away by work almost immediately when they arrived.

It was disappointing for Adam since he looked forward to the fun ahead and wanted his father to be there too. But the excitement of the amusement park soon engulfed him as he and his mother went on various rides. Several hours passed and they ate lunch in the lakeside picnic area.

“Mom, I want to do the pirate sword fighting next.” Said a very enthusiastic Adam who had recently spotted the activity on their way to the picnic area.

“Okay, but be careful now, you don’t want to hurt the other kids”

Adam responded with a large smile as he imagined himself winning in sword fighting against all the other kids.

Little did he know, this was the last genuinely happy moment he would experience.

The pirate activity was a foam arena with different costumes like eye patches and pirate hats with curved foam swords. Most of the kids played in different sections of the area based on age group. He played with the kids around his age as he thrust and slashed his foam sword, imagining the game to be a real pirate battle. He moved with unexpected agility and rarely got hit by the other kids.

The parents all stayed on the outskirts of the area as they watched over their respective children. Most would talk amongst themselves and Adam's mother called to him a few times to tell him to take it easy. He was a true ninja in her eyes and easily the most athletic child there. Yet she didn’t want him to go too far and upset the other kids, she could see their frustration at constantly losing against him and refusing to play with him one by one.

Adam didn’t care about the other kids as his pride and superior ability made him feel like the pirate king he was pretending to be. When the kids his age stopped playing with him, he moved to join the group of older boys. Even the young teenagers he was now sword-fighting with couldn’t seem to land a hit on him despite their more developed bodies.

He would roll on the ground with front and backrolls like he had learned in gym class, and to his delight, he could accurately predict the opponent's moves and evade like a real ninja. In sports, he didn’t like running or wrestling, but intuition about his opponent's movement was his specialty. As a result, the older boys started to get more and more frustrated that this young kid kept getting the better of them, but unlike the younger kids, they didn’t back down when outmatched.

The older boys had slowly surrounded him, all with their own respective frustration at his talent in swordplay. Even if it was all pretend, getting outdone by an eleven-year-old hurt the pride of the older boys. A plump black haired boy in particular was swinging at him without restraint. The toy sword wouldn’t usually hurt when used by a playful kid, but this boy seemed like he had entered puberty with large red spots adorning his face. The teenager was using his superior size to try and corner Adam who was far too happy at the unfolding events, the anger and frustration on the faces of the older boy proving how great he was.

But despite how nimble he was, Adam was ultimately limited by his stamina, and it was running low now. He was a kid full of energy but had already played with the younger kids before coming over. The spotty boy took advantage of that to finally get revenge on the kid who had humiliated him by smacking the toy sword at Adam’s face with unrestrained force.

Adam was struck a few times as he covered his face and laughed. But the strikes didn’t stop, he then also realized how hard the boy was hitting him and glanced up. The expression on the black-haired boy was one of anger with no sign of stopping. Adam instinctively knew that the older boy wouldn’t stop hitting him as hard as possible unless Adam begged him to stop or if he started crying. The thought enraged Adam, he had only been playing but this boy was taking things too far, and even worse, he was looking down on the young Adam.

Rage engulfed his mind as the expression he now dawned mirrored the older boy, a face of anger and resentment. He felt the same as the boy as if he had mirrored his emotions. The urge in the back of his mind always got louder when he was playing games like football and it had been whispering to him even now as he played pirate. The tingling in his mind intensified as he matched the boy's mood. Suddenly, he shifted his head back to avoid the descending strike. He thrust forward and to the side to pass by the attacking sword, and he flung his own at the boy's face.

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The other older kids around him had stopped playing and simply watched as Adam attacked like an enraged animal, slashing and stabbing his sword at the bully's face. The sign had warned not to target the face but the older boy had started it by repeatedly striking his head. In his mind, the game was over, this was war.

The escalation was rapid and intense as the older boy dropped his foam pirate sword and tried to grab Adam. He wanted to thump him but so did Adam, their feelings were one and the same as of fighting a reflection. He had never given in to the urge in his mind as much as now and the anger he felt was intoxicating. The reason was, that he knew it was what this previously unknown boy felt towards him except instead of anger at himself, he targeted the teenager's anger back at him, this snowballed into a mad rage as he felt the bully desire to cause him severe harm, a feeling that built and grew with his own desire for retribution and to prove his superiority.

In short, Adam's rage grew out of control as he clawed and punched the larger boy. It was only seconds earlier that all the kids were simply having fun, but his sudden violent brawl caused all the kids to stop and turn in the direction of the scene. A few adults were already making their way to break up the fight including his mother.

The scene would have shocked most parents, not only at the sudden violence but at the fact that the much smaller child was absolutely dominating the bigger teenager. The child was mostly unharmed as he expertly avoided desperate kicks and swings from the teenager. His agility and reaction speed far surpassed what any child should be capable of, but the sheer amount of blood coming from the black-haired boy's face also demonstrates his ability to cause severe damage.

The teenager's anger was more intoxicating than ever as he was forced back by the uncontrollable young boy. His nose was broken and his eye had been punched so hard that he struggled to open it. He didn't know if he had lost any teeth but tasted blood in his mouth. The child didn't only target his face though as his pinky finger had been bent backwards after he failed to punch the little shit. One might assume the teenager would feel a level of fear at the savagery performed in only a few seconds, but the older boy had never understood fear. He was mainly familiar with a single emotion, anger.

When the adults reached the fight after a few seconds, the older boy was grabbed and dragged away. Many things would anger the emotionally unstable child, minor inconveniences would cause him to fume with anger. He usually took out this anger against classmates he disliked and often got in trouble because of his usually irrational tantrums. As a result, the fight with the eleven-year-old caused him severe anger, not only for losing to him in a play fight but also for being unable to beat him up like he was used to at school. He was even more angry that the adults immediately took him away as if it was his fault despite the crazy boy causing him to bleed.

As Adam saw the older boy being led away and several adults blocking his path in between the two, the feeling in his mind exploded far beyond anything prior even during the fight, mainly because this wasn't simply anger, it was true unfiltered hatred. Adam dodged away from adults attempting to restrain him as his mind was overloaded with uncontrollable emotions. Adam was no longer in control as the world around him became distant. Something else had taken over, a demon copy of anger seeking the destruction of everything and everyone.

The world seemed distant as the previously almost unperceivable feeling at the back of his mind that could tell him how honest his friend was being or how his football opponent would move, had now risen to become an almost audible noise that seemed to grow louder with every second while pushing his consciousness further and further away.

He didn't register his name repeatedly being called… he couldn't really hear anything anymore as if he had been submerged under water. His body moved on its own when a hand grabbed his shoulder. The demon of hatred and destruction that was possessing his mind was the one who reacted as if watching a movie, he emotionally observed from the farthest confines of his mind as the alternate version of Adam, a being of pure hatred and destruction, lashed out at the hand's owner.

A scream finally pierced the deafening noise that had overtaken his mind and the demon of hatred vanished instantly as he recognized the voice. Once more at the helm of his own body, he looked out and to the side at his screaming mother. She had grabbed his shoulder but now fell backward while shaking. Her scream wasn't even a full screech as it abruptly cut off when she was halfway to the floor. By the time she landed, she was dead.

Adam's father was called to inform him of an incident by the police, but the face he made when he arrived as well as his mother's final moments haunted Adam's nightmares for years afterward. Her mother was declared to have died from a heart attack brought on by shock. The fight wasn't pursued any further in light of the older boy's known behavioral issues and the death of Adam's mother.

Ever since that day, he had forced the feeling in his mind to go away. The anger he felt scared him, not because he lost control, but because it wasn't his anger. He was only a kid and he didn't know what happened so he associated everything bad about that day with that tingling in the back of his mind and crushed it whenever it resurfaced. He would take headache medicine to dull his mind for years until he discovered drinking.

Despite only being a teenager, he would often ‘borrow’ some of his dad's alcohol since he wasn't around much after the incident. He never did return to his former self and Adam wouldn't ever see him smile again. Admittedly, that was mainly because he wasn't around much, but he didn't completely abandon Adam, as the teenager still lived at home and ate the food his father bought. But in the back of his mind, he probably knew that Adam had a significant role in his wife's death… A role that was far more direct than either had previously been aware of.

Adam balled his eyes out in the dark tunnel as the past blended with the present. His sharper mind made the experience even worse as the previously locked-away memories all came rushing out of him clear as ever, like a raging flood that threatened to drown him with his own tears.

He hadn't understood what made him so angry or why his mother had died so suddenly but now he realized. She was the first person whose soul he had destroyed.