𝕯𝖎𝖆𝖇𝖔𝖑𝖎𝖐 𝕷𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖘: 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕱𝖆𝖙𝖊

Chapter 13

Kanato knew he was in a dream, just from the fact that he had his teddy by his side. His small hands felt his teddy's plush fur bristle against his own clammy hands, as he looked up into the void surrounding him. He laughed nervously at himself, saying, "What sort of fantasies am I having?" Stepping forward, his feet dipping into mush, dissolving around his shoes like clear water, but muddy beyond areas of his contact. He clutched his teddy harder, as he noticed the familiar stench of decay and death around him, engulfing him into a nostalgia that he longed to forget. He trudged forward, with his arms outstretched, feeling for the walls or railings, whatever he could grab around in the dark. How come he couldn't see? What was so dark around him that he, being a creature of the night, couldn't perceive it? He racked his head for answers, but found none, even when he reached the edge of the mush, his foot striking against a stone pavement. The world suddenly came to life, as the light flooded his vision, bringing forth a migraine in his head. He was knocked to his knees, as he realised where he was.

A familiar sense of dread filled his heart, as he was already clawing back towards the way he came from, his school shirt and jacket messed from rolling in the muddy water beneath him. It was no less than a dungeon from his childhood. The sewers beneath the castle. Dying humans and their corpses lay behind iron bars, sucked dry to the bone, their paper thin skin now bluish white from the complete exsanguination. He'd never been to the sewers after his mother died. It was always a harrowing experience. Not because of the bodies littered around in the prison cells, but because of another fact, something he had shoved in the back of his mind for so long.

Despite him running, he found himself in a dingy cell, locked from the outside. His first instinct was to scream for help, but his calls soon turned to sobs when he saw the scene in front of him.

There was his mother, naked, as always, her mouth smudged with crimson blood, and as always, an unknown male on top of her, both of their bodies moving. He shut his eyes, he turned away, dropping his teddy in the process. His mother must have noticed him, because she started uttering something in her unintelligible speech, slurred by the increased intoxication of blood and years of vocal disuse. Her tongue betrayed her as she tried to form the words that Kanato knew very well, in fact, they were engraved in his memory, etched in the stone walls of his conscience. He might as well have the same words carved into his gravestone when he died.

"Kanato," his mother gained the power of speech, her voice hoarse and scratchy, "My songbird, will you sing a song for mommy?"

Kanato screamed at the top of his lungs, waking himself up. His hands clutched the edge of the desk he had snoozed off on. Drenched in cold sweat, he looked up to see Ayato, confused and worried. They were in the empty class, Kanato's books by the table.

"Oi, Kanato," Ayato said, his eyebrows knotted in concern, "What happened?"

Kanato shook his head. When he'd confessed it to Ayato about their mother and her numerous lovers, he had been furious. Ayato didn't have a soft spot for his mother, but he didn't stand anybody disrespecting her. Since then, Kanato had endured night after night, as he was dragged by his mother, into the depths of the sewers, where his mother relished in blood and lust alike. He'd be forced to sing for her as she did unspeakable things with her partners.

"Hey,"Ayato said, becoming irritated. "If there's nothing worrying you then what's making you sweat?"

"Stop it Ayato," Kanato barked, silencing his older brother. He grabbed his books, looking at the wall clock in the classroom. "I better go," Kanato rushed as he swiped the books on the table, impatient to get out of the strangulating atmosphere.

"Kanato..." Ayato shouted at him as he disappeared from his sight.

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