A Special Child

The static

(Fun fact this chapter was meant to be a Halloween special surprise. But after I posted it on my Tumblr account I completely forgot to post it on Wattpad. So you guys get to have a little nightmare before Christmas. Hehehe...)

It turns out that the cold of fall was the last push Mono needed to finally accept to stay inside my house most of the time.

Of course, I was extremely relieved that he managed to settle before the first snowfall. A tiny kid like him doesn't belong in the cold!

Even if he still wanted to go outside whenever the sky allowed it and often sneaked out the window, I felt a lot better knowing he was gonna come back inside when it'd get too cold.

However, staying inside brought out a whole new kind of quirks from him...

Mainly, he absolutely hated the TV. The first time I turned the TV on, he stood up in a flash ready to bolt, and stared at the screen intensely for a few minutes, a few times turning his glance to stare at me instead... before quietly leaving the room.

He couldn't say a word, even when I called his name or offered to turn the TV off... The TV put him in a total alert mode.

Yet oddly enough, his clear mistrust of TV never caused him to leave the house when I turned the TV on. Nope... Instead he just hid in an other room... And often peeked into the TV room to stare at me.

And never responding to anything I said.

I knew he was a strange child, but that was the creepiest thing he had ever done so far...

Because of that, I tried to watch TV as little as possible, but... If I wasn't working, or spending time with Mono, I didn't have much else to do other than watching TV... Being single living in an isolated area and all... So I tried to explore the issue with him during dinner...

"Mono, are you scared of TV?..."

He hesitated for just a few seconds, and nodded while stabbing his food with his fork.

"Why?" I asked.

"...The things... on the other side..."

"Oh... Well... You know, things in the TV aren't really real! Think if it like words in a book!... It's all just tiny lights making up pictures... pixels and static..."

He looked up at me after the word static, then back at his food.

"Things... hide... in the static..." He said...

I blinked, a little out of words for a moment.

"...Uh... What... kind of things?" I asked.

"...Don't know... But they hate me... They hate kids..."

"Aww, Mono... Nobody in this house hates you, you know?..."

"..." He mumbled something... I couldn't make out what.

"What was that?"

"..."

"...Well, anyway... I don't think there's anything in the TV, Mono... I watched TV for a very, very long time... I'm doing okay, see?"

He seemed to be paying attention to what I was saying, occasionally looking up at me a few times at me while he was eating...That should be a good sign.

"... And you know, i know some very funny cartoons I think you'd like!..."

"..." He remained silent.

"...Would you like to take a closer look at TV later?... I'll be right there just in case..."