The Eden Projects (FINAL EDITING)

Chapter 5. Euphoria.

-Earlier-

Adam radiated malevolence.

People often said it lived on his skin, caught in his breath, and rode the air toward whoever he wished. His very frame seemed to stand because of it. The weight of his gaze alone could make The Rim feel smaller, following its people like the devil himself. He owned this Rim, and in turn, it bowed before him. The god of the anthill. A junkyard guard dog. This was his purpose, and he pursued it with a frantic certainty.

His sons were meant to be an extension of his will. Instead, they were disappointments.

Just like their mothers.

Everything Adam believed about himself skewed the day they were born.

Kasper, his first, was pathetic. Weak. Just like the woman who'd tried to protect him.

"Looks like a ghost, Lillian," Adam had muttered. "Probably ain't gonna make it."

Lillian never looked away from the baby. "Call him Kasper."

Adam snorted, catching the loving look she held toward the sickly little bundle of newborn humanity. "Why?"

"Names make you stay." Her fingers tightened around the blanket draped over her arm as she peered through the nursery glass. "Kasper's got as good a chance as any of us." A small smile found her. "Can't you see it? He's gonna grow so strong..." She couldn't take her eyes off him. "Just look at him." Her voice softened to little more than a whisper. "He's everything."

Adam looked from her to the child one last time.

"...Alright, Lil." He shrugged. "Kasper it is."

That was good enough.

The spelling was wrong, but nobody cared enough to fix it.

And so Adam's war on goodness began.

Every attempt to harden the boy only seemed to deepen the hatred. What did he know? Adam could feel it spreading through the house. It ricocheted off the walls, crept through the hallways, gnawed at the trim like woodlice, eating away at what little patience he had left.

No son of his should have moved the way Kasper did.

Scurrying.

Flinching.

Sneaking through cupboards in search of food.

Adam knew the sound of every floorboard in the house. He could tell when Kasper woke by the pattern of creaks drifting down the hallway. Every morning he heard the boy come back into being, and with him came another day of disappointment.

No son of Adam would ever cower.

So Kasper wasn't his son anymore.

Just another mouth he was expected to feed. Another responsibility forced onto him by weaker people. He never understood why the boy looked at him the way he did. Like every lesson was a punishment. Like every raised voice was cruelty. Adam had been trying to make him strong from the day he was born. 

The world didn't care about soft boys. 

Soft boys died. 

If Kasper couldn't survive his father, he'd never survive anyone else.

The bottles helped.

For a little while.

They dulled the disappointment. Quieted the anger, and made it easier to look at the stranger wandering through his home wearing his son's face and Lillian's terrible green eyes.