Chapter 144: You Enjoy The Emotion Of Fear

The rapist’s mind was a storm of terror and confusion. He had killed before, many times, and had watched the light fade from dozens of eyes.

One of the things he liked to do was to touch the body of the recently dead so he could feel the heat leaving their bodies, and that was why he liked to rape dying women, because the fact that their life was leaving white he was pushing his seed inside theor cold bodies was a sort of power he knew he could never have in any normal setting.

He understood death, he understood depravity with a chilling completeness, and yet, he did not understand this.

The boy, no, the thing that wore the boy’s skin, crouched there with its head tilted a little too much, as if it did not know the limitations to the angle of a neck, or maybe it did know but could not possibly care.

Still, it was those yellow eyes gleaming like coins dropped in blood that held the rapist’s attention. He had once seen a serpent-like Rune Beast with similar eyes, but those eyes were fit for serpents, not seven-year-old boys.

The smile on the boy’s face was too wide, too knowing, the smile of something that had never learned what smiles were supposed to mean, and yet the man knew that whatever this thing was, it had indeed been interested in the act he was having with the dying woman.

Twisting his head in another direction, the boy repeated for the third time, “I asked you a question, mister.”

The voice was still a child’s, clear and bright, like the voice of a boy asking his father why the sky was blue, or whether spiders dreamed. That was what made it worse.

There was a curiosity in the child that could not be faked. The child did not see anything wrong with what was happening, and in fact, it seemed to be very interested in what the actions of the rapist were doing to the woman below, and the man had stood beside the sickest of individual and he knew the eyes of someone who luxuriated in the suffering of others.

The rapist’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again, yet no sound came out. His body, which had been so eager moments before, now refused to obey even the simplest command that his mind was screaming at him to do.

“Move! By the love of all the fallen gods, turn around and fucking run!” Everything inside him was screaming, but his muscles could as well be made of stone, and while his heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

Fear… fear like no other held him in place, and it seemed so inconceivable that he was feeling such fear against a being that was not even a damn Siphon… but the sound and the sight of the boy’s guts moving around was enough evidence to his panicked mind that this was not a freaking child.

The boy sighed, in an almost petulant manner, like a child denied a treat. “That’s rude, you know. Mother always said it was rude to ignore people when they speak to you.”

His gaze drifted to the woman beneath the rapist. Her eyes were still open and watching the boy, though the light in them was fading fast. A single tear traced a path through the blood on her cheek.

The boy’s expression softened. For a moment, he looked like a normal child seeing his mother in pain. Then the boy closed his eyes and shivered in enjoyment.

“Oh, this is good,” he whispered. “You’re still here inside me. Good. I wanted you to see. Is this what despair, pain, and fear feel like?”

He looked back at the rapist, it was a deep look at the man who had been responsible for giving him so much pleasure in such a short amount of time, for a being who was used to not having anything of note happening for a vast stretch of time.

There was an eerie fondness in the eyes of the boy, and then that softness suddenly vanished like mist before fire.

“You took something from me, mister. You took my time. My life. My mother’s life.” He ticked each point off on tiny fingers. “That’s three things. Do you know what happens when you take three things from someone?”

The rapist’s throat worked, and as a reward for his effort, a whimper escaped from his mouth as drool began to pour out of it; he was not aware that tears and snot had been pouring down his face for a while.

The boy smiled again, and the rapist was expecting fangs, but there were just normal teeth, small and white, and glistening in the morning sun.

“You get to give three things back… again… again and again, until you can give no more… hehehehehehehehehe.”

While laughing, the boy stood up, but his movement was wrong, as it was too fluid, almost like his bones were hinged in places where bones should not hinge.

The wound on his stomach had closed, but the skin there moved, rippled, as though something beneath was alive and shifting. The boy might remain like a child on the surface, but everything inside him was rapidly changing.

Whether it was by miracle, his body had finally had enough, or the boy was finally ready to release him, the rapist finally found his voice, and it came out as a croak, like everything from him had been drained.

“What… what are you?”

The boy paused and seemed to consider the question seriously, his head tilting one way and then the other.

“I don’t know yet. I think a lot of me was shattered, and that was before I was broken and sent down from the highest heaven,” he admitted. “But I think… I think I’m going to find out.” Then he smiled at the rapist, “And I think you’re going to help me to remember what I am.”

The boy began to walk towards the man while slowly raising his hand, and this was what finally broke the paralysis of the rapist, and he scrambled backward, away from the woman’s body, and from the monster in the shape of a child, hands and feet scrabbling in the filth of the alley. He crashed into a wall, spun, tried to run… and stopped.

Because the boy was already there, standing in front of him and smiling with his hand still reaching for him.

“No running, mister. We’re not done playing.”

The rapist swung a fist fueled by pure panic. He was close to being a peak Fury Forge who focused on his strength and durability, and his blow was strong enough to shatter stone. What was amazing was that a metallic glow covered the hands of the man, meaning he had a talent, and someone with a talent would not be unknown in the city.

However, this powerful blow passed through the boy like smoke, and the boy giggled, bright and joyful, and it was the most horrifying sound the rapist had ever heard.

“That tickles.”

The boy had never stopped reaching for the man, and finally, his small hand touched the rapist’s chest. It was a light touch, barely more than a caress, and yet, the rapist screamed as if he was being branded by hot metal.

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