The Eden Projects (EDITING)

Chapter 11. Where it began.

6 Years ago...

It was a Sunday when Kasper finally died. 

Regardless of the way in which it had happened; he had done it. 

Kasper as he was, had died. So it was a Sunday on which he had been reborn. A muggy, meaningless, maniacal Sunday. In a small apartment, with three doors, two rooms, and two tenants. Above a grease-filled vat now stained with his own bloody vomit, with hands balled in infantile fists holding fast to the death they had known with the pot swirling in mercurous ebbs. He had died and was brutally brought back, and the devils were out to feast; Kasper's were biting at the bit to join them, and everyone wanted something, and he was nothing... and... and... and...

"I'm going home." Kasper muttered.

"Wait, why?" Zak worked at stapling a tarp over the broken window of his upper room apartment. The day had turned from strange, to horrid faster than the weather could adapt. 

Archer was set to sweeping up the shattered glass that remained of the floor length window. A mess of feathers floated around, softly blown by the incoming breeze. Kasper lied through his teeth. "I'm worried about Zero. I- I'll get him and bring him back here. I can't leave him." 

Zak nodded, and went back to work. 

"Who's Zero?" Archer asked. 

Zak responded. "His kid brother." 

Adams bloodline. Though short, was kept a local secret. Anyone that wasn't within a few miles of the Farrow house had no knowledge of exactly who, or what made its bed in Adam's den. Let alone children. TWO, to be exact. Closing the door to the upstairs studio Kasper trotted down the steps and into the garage. The large plucked feathers still sat in puddled blood where a rusty chain now hung half draped over a chair. So it really did happen. The horrors that occurred over the hours following his meet with the strange boy at Abram's house were beyond words. The boy, Ace, who he was sure had killed him and erased the rest of the day. Zak and Archer returned the favor for hours after Kasper lost his grip on life. 

Then he was back. His neck hurt, and blood was pouring from his eyes and ears. Springing like welting roses from his pores, and pulsing up from his pitted insides and worse yet, he remembered the sting of a needle. Nothing more. 

In the end they got nothing from Ace in a way of explanation.

In the end whatever thing it was that Ace was there to do had been done.

 Kasper grimaced at the thought of the noise that came from the garage below him. 

They felt more than justified to torture Ace. Kasper wondered if their cruelty was from an entirely different source, not from what was done to him. Maybe for Abe. Who still remained missing. Regardless, something was slicking its way through his veins and it made every inch of him crawl. 

He was alive again.

Kasper pulled his bike from the truck bed and set to riding down the road. This isn't happening. He felt woozy, as if he had just stepped off a hard rocking ship. The sidewalk warped and swirled gripping his stomach with vomitus fits. It was all moving. His feet plunged towards it with every turn of the pedals. Further down, always further down. Never up. He muttered something even he couldn't make out. "Wings... he had wings- this isn't real." His tire slipped sideways and he swerved towards the grass; around a pothole, and back out into the street. What did he do? Not much provoked genuine shock from Kasper, but the existence of whatever Ace was did. Something was so terribly off about the day. He flew out the window... "This isn't real."