The Emperor [EDITING]

03

KAISER
AGE FIVE

Last week, I fell.
I fell and I bled, it didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. I barely felt it. Xan found me when I was licking the blood. I don't know why I did that. I just wanted to taste it, I guess.

"You can't do that, Kai." He whisper-yelled at me looking around like the boogeyman would come out and take me away for what I did.

"You think your blood tastes the same?" I asked instead of agreeing, why shouldn't I? People did worse. I only tasted my blood. But the thought of other's appealed to me much more.

"Kaiser, you can't do that. Especially in front of Ma' and Pa'." My big brother didn't understand me, he kept lecturing me. I didn't want to be lectured. I didn't do anything wrong. But, I would admit that I was curious about what he was thinking. I wanted to poke a hole in his head and see how his thoughts worked. I still do.

"Why not?"
"Ma' would be scared." He sighed, he didn't look at me once, he was just glaring at my wound. The idea of Ma' fearing me occurred as the best he ever had. I could already imagine her eyes widening, her lips parting, her hands shaking, and I would do anything to hear her scream at the top of her lungs.

Probably, most kids don't want that.
They want their mother to be happy, proud, fearless, they want their mother to love them, care for them, protect them. Me? I want Ma' to run just so I can catch her and capture her fear.

"You think?" He finally looked up to stare at the grin on my face and rolled his eyes. He definitely didn't agree.

"I'm gonna clean you up and we'll go back to the house, alright?" That infuriated me. I couldn't taste my own blood. I couldn't taste other's. Now I couldn't even keep the gorgeous dark red on me? Life is unfair, Alexander thought he was being reasonable but really he was just killing all my excitement.

"I don't wanna clean up. I like the color." I growled, I still remember the urge to capture the color in the back of my head, but even last week I knew nothing would be as bright as seeing it in front of my eyes.

"I know. But you have to, Kai." Then, Xan hurried to grab a bottle of water and a towel to take away the beautiful red covering my flesh. I whispered it goodbye and allowed him to work.

       It has been a whole week, and yet. I can't shake the color out of my mind.

Alexander didn't say anything about animals, and while being five is already big enough all I'm able to catch is rabbits. And luckily, there's so many rabbits in the forest behind the house. So many. I spent my week thinking about how I could catch one correctly.

Pa' says I'm trying to grow too fast, he says I should occupy myself driving small cars and playing soccer with my brothers but that seems stupid.

Azie can't even run without falling and Xan isn't a fair player, he always cheats and that enrages me because he's a sore loser. So I don't play with them.

Instead, I watch inside the little hole on Pa's office door to see what he is doing. Xan says information is power. I want power. I want more power than anyone.

But I also heard Pa' once saying that fear is power, that this is why kids stay still. They're afraid of monsters. He said adults aren't so different, while kids grow out of their fear, adults are always afraid. I just had to be the scariest monster.