The Child

7

I wake up, seeing Cain's sleeping face below mine. I notice his face covered in crumbs and I chuckle, brushing them off.

He chuckles, opening his eyes as I brush off his face.

"What have you been getting into, messy one."I ask quietly.

He shows me an opened back of potato chips and I chuckle, looking over at Ace who was aggressively asleep on the couch.

"Did Ace buy them for you?"I ask.

He nods and smiles as he looks up at me.

"You're in a good mood, hm? Did you have a good dream?"I ask softly.

He nods.

"I had a dream about my family mommy."he says.

"Awe, what were me and uncle Ace doing?"I smile.

"Not you and uncle Ace. You and daddy."he says, making my smile fade.

"Daddy?"I say, making him nod.

"You never tell me about daddy. What was he like?"He asks quietly.

I huff and look over at Ace who was asleep.

"Well...he was..tall and very handsome. He...loved you very much."I say quietly.

"Did he love you too, mommy?"he asks.

The question makes me huff and hesitant to answer.

"Well, yes. I suppose he did."I say softly.

This makes him smile.

"Could you tell me more about my daddy?"he asks quietly.

"I-i don't think right now is a good time to talk about your father, Cain."I say quietly, making him huff.

"Okay mommy."

....

"Alright buddy, 10 fingers."Ace says, bent down and holding his hands towards Cain.

Cain smiles and gives Ace a double high five.

"Already, get on in there boyo."Ace says, standing.

Cain chuckles as he runs into the school building.

Ace breathes deeply as he gets back into the car.

"He's getting more excited for school of late."he says.

"Because that incredible teacher keeps teaching him about bugs."Alice chuckles.

"I still have an off feeling about him."Ace says.

"We saw his eyes Ace."Alice explains.

"Well, some things you can just feel."Ace says, looking at the school before driving off.

...

"How've you been feeling, Cain?"Johnathan asks.

"I feel good. Strong."Cain smiles.

"Good. You want to keep getting stronger, so you can be your strongest when your father gets here."Johnathan explains.

"When will he be here? I want to meet him Mr. B."Cain pouts.

"I know my little entomologist. But your father is very sick, the body he's in has an illness. So he needs lots of power to be able to see you."Johnathan says, pulling another terrarium out from under his desk, this one filled with moist dirt.

"Worms?"Cain says, picking up his lunch box.

"Ah, well no. This is a collection of bugs I was going to use to teach you more about your powers, young Cain."he says, opening the terrarium and carefully placing his hand inside.

He takes out a large spider as he places his other hand into the cage, pulling out a wasp.

Cain gasps at the large buzzing wasp in Johnathan's hand.

"This, is a tarantula hawk. And it's natural prey, the zebra tarantula. Now, this wasp has already eaten, and if it eats too much it'll overfill itself and die, so it avoids the prey as much as possible."Johnathan explains.

"That's so gnarly!"Cain says.

"Now, watch this."Johnathan says, taking off his glasses.

He looks deeply at the wasp. Then, without warning, the wasp begins attacking the tarantula and Cain gasps.

"You see, Cain. The same way I have dominion over insects, and animals, you have dominion over people. Would you like to try it out?"Johnathan smiles.

Cain nods excitedly.

...

They had migrated over to the window overlooking the playground.

"Don't you love that big slide."Johnathan asks, referring to the very tall and swirling slide in the center of the playground.

Cain nods, looking at the long line of students waiting to go down.

"Look at the girl in top of the slide. Not the very first one, but the girl behind her."Johnathan says.

"Okay."Cain says, looking at the girl.

"When the girl in front of her stands up, I want you to make her push her off."

Cain looks up at Johnathan, whom he admired.

"What if she gets hurt?"he asks with concern.

"Well, you want to be strong when you meet your father, right?"Johnathan asks.

Cain nods.

"Then hurting a few people surely wouldn't be too much?"he says.

Cain nods again and then looks at the girl. Outside, the girl feels a sharp pain in her ear, and hisses.

Johnathan watches, proud as Cain's eyes glow yellow.

"Good. Good, keep going."Johnathan praises.

Back to the girl outside, her eyes feel heavy and her head begins to throb. She hears voices in her ear, telling her to push. Push what.

Then her eyes lock with her best friend that was about to stand before her.

Her breathing hitches, and her eyes glow slightly yellow as she watches her friend slowly stand.

Her nose begins to bleed as she tunes out all noise aside from her best friend, who was positioning to sit down on the slide.

Then without warning, she grabs her best friends hair and then aggressively pushes her off the slide. The girl screams as she falls forward and hits her neck against the slide before falling to the ground like a rag doll.

Cain felt nothing as he saw. Johnathan slowly leans down to Cain's ear and then whispers something to him. Then he puts on his glasses and walks back to his desk.

Then the dazed girl at the top of the slide steps, simply let's herself go, falling down and landing on the asphalt.

Cain takes into consideration what Johnathan had said to him.

"....take as many as you'd like, young master..."

Cain's eyes grow more yellow and a small smile smears his face.