BEASTLY || CHASE STEIN (EDITING)

chapter eighteen

DARKNESS. PAIN. SCREAMS. AGONY.

"Close your eyes baby, everything will be okay, you trust me, right? You trust mommy? Garfield?"

"M-mama?" four year old Garfield called out softly clutching his pyjama top in a tight grip. In that moment, his voice wavered the way it did when he had a nightmare and his mother's warm smile was nowhere in sight, causing the little boy to shake in terror because who was gonna scare away the monsters? The boy's eyes welled up with tears as he pulled his knees close to his chest, curling up into a small ball as he looked around timidly.

"Ready. Set. Go!"

The sound of his mother's voice reverberating in his head as he recalls when his mother would chase him around the house relentlessly with a pan on her head and a mop as a sword. Life had been..blissful back then, quiet, tame - such a shame his childhood was much darker than this.

"Did it work? Dale, is it working?"

Voices cried and wailed, gradually getting louder as a child's scratchy groan and screech of pain grasped his subconscious mind's attention, "You're a horrible excuse for a son! You're the reason I'm the way I am! You're the reason your father is dead. Why are you so pathetic? Huh? Answer me! " Marie Logan's intoxicated slur screams as Garfield screeches, feeling himself delving deeper into his memory. He was eight, sitting on the stairs after sneaking out of his room due to the sound of his mother's return only to witness the effects of drugs. A child should never have to see that.

"I think so Marie? I don't know, okay? I've never seen anything like it!" Dale snapped back, as his wife searched the spread out notes in front of her in a quick haste, Marie's arms firmly crossed as she narrowed her eyes, "Well figure it out then..we have to figure it out."

The voices seemingly got louder, slipping within the confines of his mind as they taunted him from inside his own head. A child being rushed somewhere, the wheels of the stretcher clicking against the tiled floor. Bliding fluorescent lights flashing continuously brightening up the darkness of his mind with blurry faces guiding him into the light.

"someterse, garras, rabia, asesinato, monstruos."

Writhing in agony, a small child can be seen clutching his stomach as searing pain coursed through his veins, every muscle and sinew contorting in ways he couldn't comprehend. The once-familiar sensation of his skin stretched and twisted, as if betraying his very essence. His cries echoed through the stillness of the night, a haunting melody of anguish and despair. With each passing moment, the boy felt himself slipping further into an abyss of darkness, his humanity slowly unravelling as an otherworldly force consumed him from within. Bones elongated, flesh tore, and a primal instinct surged to the forefront of his consciousness, overwhelming his senses with a hunger he could not quell. His mind became a battleground, torn between the remnants of his humanity and the primal urges of the creature he was becoming.

"It worked."

●□◇□●

"Hey, this is Beast Boy's phone, if you want weed you called the wrong number my burner phone is 07654 54-," is what Chase hears for the sixth time, only that this time he doesn't chuckle or leave a message. Instead of calling Garfield again or even Gert for the third time, he calls Karolina.

"Chase? Everything okay?" Karolina asks as she answers her phone wondering if something was wrong especially since recently there was no good news when phone calls were being made.

"My dad, He-He's hurt. Well, I mean, we both are, but he's definitely worse." Chase says as he paces in his room reminiscing the past hour in his mind and then reflects back on the night Amy died as he whispers to himself, "How did everything get so messed up?"