Kane & Lilith

Chapter One: The beginning

Kane sat, despising the narrow walls of the cubicle he found himself in. The walls, gray and dull, cluttered in frames of picture-perfect people he'd never known. Partial to blame was his own wicked thinking, though it was John and Betty that drove him to this madness. They were the only two of his coworkers whose age tripled his own. Walking the halls with their white hair and saggy red skin, reminding everyone that they were once a couple by chance, but a husband and wife by choice.

He didn't understand it, but he admired it. For a relationship to last that long, one must either be extremely lucky or extremely hated. Whichever one it was, it didn't matter because, though he admired it, their relationship was not what consumed him with madness. It was the constant questions of curiosity that followed the origin of his family. Who were they? Where were they? If not on the walls of his cubicles and were they proud of the path he had taken in life? Truth was, he didn't know. His life was far too complicated to make sense of it.

The only thing that made sense to him was to silence their prying and make mend of his grievance and he didn't have to lift a finger. The oxygen tank confined to their side was a reminder that they would croak at any moment. Until then, he decided the smart decision was to go to the only place he knew would solve his problems—the DSH, a haven of solutions. It was close in proximity and filled to the brim with supplies of all kinds- toys, books, candles, and his now favorite... photographs.

The times he spent in DSH, examining for the perfect family with the same skin tone and bone structure, he realized photographs were so easy to manipulate yet capture. Families dressed for every season, so happy exuding brightness, yet most of them were missing something natural that only the eyes gave away. Out of hundreds of frames and beautiful faces, only one caught his attention. A family of three: two small children and a mother. They weren't the prettiest sight, no doubt from the woman's peculiar DNA and now in pretending his, but they were one thing and that was a natural happiness. In fact, whenever he looked at many of the backgrounds edited with their face and paired with his, the yearn to escape the mundanity of Advocate Care was almost bearable. However, when it wasn't, he resorted to playing games like sudoku to pass the time by, but even numbers on a board game can be an endless sequence. Round and round it went like the headache that had come with force since he started this job.

To end the headache, he dug into his lower pocket and pulled out a bottle of tylenol. It rattled like a failed hydraulic valve when he lifted it upside down and took two pills. Then he looked to the left of him, where his boss sat two corridors down, to make sure that he didn't gather any unwanted attention. When he was sure that his boss wasn't looking, he placed the number nine three squares to the right and two squares below a bold fonted five. As a child, his mother planted in his mind that games were for individuals looking for an escape, but what she failed to realize was that she was his game, a sick and twisted maze he had yet to find his way out of. And the world? Well... it was his escape, one that he failed to venture into. Now that he was older, forty, with the IQ of triple his age, he came to believe that games were obsolete; like his mother, aged and tiring. But not sudoku. It had its purpose. Even if the numbers were an endless cycle, it still passed the time by. At least it did until the human version of a headache stuck his underdeveloped body into his cubicle. 

"Lavretsky," said an agitated voice from behind. 

Lavretsky was Kane's last name given to him by his father, whom he had never met. His mother told him that his father had died in Afghanistan, but Kane knew never to trust the words of a scorned woman, even if the woman was his own mother.

"Boss?" He answered, recognizing the high pitch voice with authority. It took everything in him not to jump from his chair and glide his hand against the man's bald head.