Languor || Zhong Chenle

Younger

His hands are trembling. His Cheeks are rosy with his nose sniffling from the cold. His fingertips are as pale as the fog under the somber night.

The boy is turning six years old yet his body is small with his bones stand out beneath his skin.

His knees are barely supporting his body.

"Your body is worthless."

A voice that is familiar with the little boy's ears whispered again.

"Don't ever refuse to do the prayer or the demon will destroy your soul."

He nod.

A loud noice tears the night apart.

Before the droplets of the boy's tears fused with the rain, a wound on his back bleed.

The whip had crossed the bare skin of his already bruised back.

"That is going to remove your sin," said the voice with it's heavy breath danggling on the words.

The owner of the voice walk past the boy.

Five other boys ran to the wounded boy.

"Chenle, it must hurt so bad," said one of them.

The five other boys wailed. They are way too young to witness such gnarly scene, yet they don't even have the idea to stop it.

The boy in the middle doesn't shed a single tear.The Empty stare from his eyes is enough to make the others understand.

He is traumatized.

The little boy named Chenle encountered his first trauma.

"That is the boy that refused the prayer," an old lady points at the little Chenle while whispering at her partner.

"His parents died, he must be entitled because of that."

The eleven years old boy looks at them. Again, his eyes doesn't tear up. Instead, a wry expression appear on his face.

With a smile the boy said,

"My sin had been removed."

The two people hide their laugh.

"You refused in the first place, maybe the demons would eat your soul tonight."

Young Chenle retreats his smile.

"I will do the prayer tonight," he said with certainty, "Father will make me pure again."

That night is the second encounter of the young Chenle with his trauma.

Little did he know, the prayer are just another way to adress rape.

The putrid smell of blood still lingers on his mind after.

His legs are numb.

His back is sore to the point he can only feel his arms and head.

"Am i pure again father?"

The boy said expecting a salvation for refusing to do this prayer before.

The one that raped the boy is also the owner of the voice that the young boy called Father.

Without having the time to hear his 'father's answer, suddenly his vision blur.

And this moment marks the third encounter of the young Chenle with his trauma.

Which tears his conciousness into two to cope with his memory.

He is no longer alone within his body.

But the other part of him is foreign.

Inside the boy's head the other part of himself flashes a sinister smirk

"You are going to be like him."

Chenle let out an eerie scream before losing his conciousness.

At that time, no one knows about the other part of Chenle that formed through the encouters with his traumas.