Fear (TordTom)

Prologue

  Tom was led through the tiny, dark hallway. His small hand grasped firmly on the tall man guiding him through the tunnel. It was cold, and the little boy shivered involuntarily, hating the cold, hating everything about this place.

Every day it was the same thing. Tests, tests, and more tests. The child remembered his days with his parents. He always had them by his side, through thick and thin. They were always there for him. They were experiments like he was now. After a horrible accident, they had been transformed into humanoid objects. Who knew a pineapple and a bowling ball could love each other, much less have a child?

  That was when his mom passed away. "A horrible miscarriage" the doctors and nurses would say. "A beautiful baby...boy, unfortunately with no mother to hold him in her arms."

It was Tom and his dad now. His father would always say, "Tommy, my boy, your eyes remind me so much of your mother! Oh, if only she was here with us now." Yeah, Tom wished that too. He would always look into the mirror. He would always stare into his reflection, and into the deep, black voids he called his eyes. And he would wonder what his mother was like. Her smile, her eyes. Would she fill the house with the sweet smell of cooked treats? Would she laugh and sing and play with him?

He imagined her now. He would always do that when he was afraid. His fears would always claw at his head, and then he would imagine her. He felt safe and comforted, and soon the fears would melt back into his mind, and he would be okay.

He would also imagine his father, who died after hanging himself. Tom remembered it all too well. He had come inside the house after a long afternoon playing with his stuffed teddy in the backyard. When he entered the house, he could hear the static sounds from the T.V playing softly, like an eerie melody that sent tiny shivers down his back. The air in the house was cold. Goosebumps appeared on his arms, making him rub them involuntarily. "Dad?" he called out. The only thing that answered him was silence.

He walked around the dark house and looked for his father. First, he checked the office room, where his dad usually spent his afternoons doing work on the computer. Empty. Next, Tom checked the kitchen. When his dad cooked, he couldn't hear Tom call out to him because of the stove making loud noises sometimes. As soon as he walked into the kitchen, the air changed. It felt thicker, and it reeked of a smell he couldn't recognize. Gulping, Tom checked the living room.

And he screamed.

His dad had a rope around his neck. He hung from one of the support beams on the ceiling, which were there for decorative purposes. His eyes looked lifeless from his glasses, and goo spilled out from his pineapple skin. Blood mixed with the yellowish substance, and the mixture spilled onto the floor, decorating the couches underneath him with color.

Tom relented the fact that his dad killed himself. Didn't he realize he had a child to take care of? At the same time, Tom knew he wouldn't be able to live anymore if his beloved died. He was torn, and the battle would sometimes wage in his head when he thought about his parents.

"Focus, child." The man's voice was firm and harsh, and he tugged Tom away from a support beam in the middle of the hallway. He was surprised that the people here thought he was blind. It seemed like that at first glance, with his eyes and all, but he could see very clearly. What he didn't like was when they treated him as a helpless blind child. They thought they were helping him by trying to eliminate his "blindness" but at the same time they were using him as a guinea pig for their experiments. He didn't feel like telling them about his vision now anyways. Every time he would try to tell the doctors, they would caress him with their gentle words, politely reminding him that he was in the wrong, and they were in the right.

The doctors were horrible here. They would starve him sometimes, and when he begged to eat, they would brandish a belt or a whip or some torture tool and beat him with it. Tom would look into the mirror of his tiny little cell and stare at the bruises, the cuts, the scars that decorated his body. He would flinch at the littlest things and cry so much when they beat him. He wished he had someone to protect him, to care for him, and to love him, however those people were already gone now, and there was nothing he could do.

"This way, now." The man led him into a bright white room. A hospital bed was centered in the middle of the room. It looked extremely large for his size, a child of 5 years. Straps ran parallel to each other and a large IV was next to it, its contents full of a white, dripping liquid. Near the bed was a small metal table with a syringe filled with purple liquid and a clear cap that covered the long needle. A little window was positioned on one of the walls facing directly in front of the bed. Tom could see a few men and women inside that closed off room already.

"Hurry up." The man growled, pushing him in the direction of the bed. Tom cried out as he was shoved to the ground. The man kicked him. "Get up!" he shouted, and Tom shakily got up, wiping forming tears away from his eyes. He climbed on top of the bed and a few seconds later a woman came in and clipped the straps across his body. He didn't ask why. He already knew how bad the liquid was going to be. It would make him shake and tremble and scream so horribly that he would have to be strapped down to contain himself.

Then a man appeared from the large metal door he had entered from. He looked at Tom. "Now, little one, can you hear me?" When Tom nodded, he continued. "We've been working on a special formula that will hopefully cure your blindness. Are you ready?" Tom didn't answer that question, and the doctor, a middle aged man with a balding, fat head, glared at him. "Whatever. It's not like you can say no or escape anyways."

Stiffening, Tom watched the man grab the syringe. He popped the cap off, walked towards Tom, and with no warning whatsoever, plunged the needle into his head.

Why his head? Well, they thought Tom had a special gland in his brain like his parents did when they had been altered. Unfortunately, Tom did not, and when the chemicals in the serum were injected into his brain, the gland they thought was the one his parents had, a spirit was formed. This spirit needed to eat, and the little guy swam around in Tom's brain. It landed into the "fears" part of his brain and nested in there.

It caused Tom to have the worst headache in his life. His head pounded so much it felt like his skull was cracked in two and his brain was spilling out from the gaping hole. Fear ran through his head, it hurts, it hurts, IT HURTS. He thrashed in his bed, screaming with so much agony it caused the scientist to jump.

The spirit reacted when this part of his brain activated. The more the fear gland was used, the bigger it got, and if it was big enough it caused Tom to be possessed by a monster he couldn't control. That spirit had grown a big size by now.

Tom began to hurt even more. His body began to transform as the spirit controlled his mind. Parts of his skin started to turn black, and his hands grew bigger and transformed into huge, black claws. His ears were growing and soon looked like elven ears and purple horns formed on his head. His eyes were purple and full of rage. He roared and thrashed even fiercer.

You can probably guess what happened after that. Tom broke free of the straps and began to terrorize the scientists. He killed two who were inside the room with him and injured several that were contained inside the small room. He was soon reverted after being knocked out from exhaustion. Instead of killing him, however, one scientist decided to let him be free. He had family that had started to worry about him now, and they were at risk of being discovered. So, they sent him off to his auntie Alice. The woman was quite surprised when her sister's pride and joy showed up at her door accompanied by a man she had never seen in her life. Tom guessed shock was why she decided to adopt him.

At least he was treated well there. His aunt wasn't married but had a stable job as a pharmacist. She would always make the best apple pie he had ever tasted when she came home late from work. She payed attention to him. She loved him. After a while he came to think of her as his mother rather than his aunt.

Then she made him go to school. That made him nervous. He knew he would get bullied because of his eyes. He didn't want to be afraid, but his fears got to him that night before his first day of school and he turned into his monster. Tom was a little bit more in control now, so for about an hour he was curled into a little monster ball in the corner of his baby blue bedroom.

He hoped that he would make friends. He hoped he wouldn't get bullied.

He really hoped he wouldn't have to be afraid anymore.

UM, well this is my first TomTord book. 1690 words, phew! I wanted to make it longer but why not make a few chapters about Tom's childhood years? Then I can go over the gang more in detail when they meet!

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