Ourselves : A BL Horror Novel

Chapter Seven - Pain to Learn From

The open rose gold Macbook Pro sat in the slender waist of the young man as he ignored his desire to sleep. Rejuvenated by the cuts of human meat, Zhao was googling away on the chaise in the large library as he often did. Rebekah the cook of the household had bought him a Shepard's pie that smelled of human blood and he had ate half of it but was more focused on his search to eat any more. The amount of violent attacks involving humans biting humans was growing slowly. When he had first started the search six weeks ago it had been to see if their were other demons in the city of Avalon like him and his father.

But what he had found had been in much worse. There was something out there making human beings act like Demons. It was the only logical explanation for why there had been fifty violent attacks in the last month and a half.

"William could not explain his desire to bite his friend March but upon returning to his senses he violently vomited the portion of March's left breast he had consumed," Zhao read out loud. He closed his eyes, worry settling in behind his eyes. There was no way to explain to Keaton that he felt that whatever was causing these random acts of violence had to be related to him. That the guilt of it was eating its way through him, that had been what had led him to that roof. He felt the presence before the Macbook was pressed closed, a Demon was in the room with it. The feeling of a Demon was like a stone falling into a serene body of water. He felt the air around him ripple as the power of it met his own, he was calm knowing that this far into the Mansion the only Demon had to be his father Shin Huang.

Shin stands six foot five inches, his skin the color of freshly fallen snow due to his demonic ancestry.. His long shrewd eyes a mixture of red and brown always seemed appraising. His nose long with a small curve at the end above a long cupid's bow mouth was the only indicator the two were related. His hair was raven's black and pulled away from his head in a long straight pony tail. His lean frame dressed in a cotton shirt and slacks despite being at home always made Zhao dress well in kind. His father has a unique sense of style that no matter the situation, one should look their best.

"What are you working on Son?" Shin asked sitting beside him on the chaise and staring at him intently. Zhao thought for a moment, he knew his father only asked questions when he felt he already knew the answer.

"A personal project, looking at the recent amount of Demon like deaths in the city." Zhao said waiting for his father's reaction. To say that Shin was shrewdwould be an understatement the man was inscrutable. Shin sat silently for a moment just looking at him. It made Zhao uncomfortable and he looked at the Apple on the front of the laptop instead. Finally Shin spoke,

"The recent attacks are just sign of the fragile minds of humanity. It has nothing to do with us, so don't worry about it." Shin said solemnly.

"But Pa, fifty deaths, that's too many for insanity to be the cause," Zhao exclaimed standing with his computer under an arm.

"Do you have proof of this, that these deaths are at all related to one another," Shin asked, his voice soft with an edge at his son's raised voice. He watched his son, read his body language, listened to the tones of passion in his voice. Before his son could answer he responded to his own question.

"It is interesting that human beings are trying cannibalism as a murder weapon. But as interesting as it is, not all deaths happened that way. Only a third if I remember correctly from what I have seen on the news. And in your browser history. My son it is a fools errand to begin to connect fifty deaths by nothing more than the FACT that most were non violent before the psychotic break. Which what all these deaths were. Whether it was a mouth or a hammer or an Ipad remains indiscriminate to the fact no Demon was involved in this Folie e Deux which there isn't. You have been busy I will give you that. But idle wastes of time aside, what did you do to your mother's home." Shin concluded with a question to slit the throat of Zhao's thought process.
The self righteous anger Zhao had been filled with ran cold at the mention of the home he set fire to. He felt fear slowly fill his body like ice in his veins.

"It is a good rule of thumb to believe I know everything my son does," Shin said and the softness was gone, replaced by a placid coldness. He rose and came face to face with his son. His anger causing the whites of his eyes to vanish as blood vessels released and crimson became the only color that showed. Zhao had no illusion that his father wasn't aware of the destruction he had created in that home.

"Pa I...." Zhao stuttered as his father took a step closer and he took a step back. The skin on either side of of Shin's head tore with small spurts of blood as porcelain colored bone with sharpened ends grew out of the holes pointing up forming horns.

"You murdered someone, you set fire to a home, you were seen by witnesses. So many lives I had to end to cover your shit. To hide the fact that my son is a fool," Shin shouted into his son's face. Shin's face was contorted as his fangs grew in between his once perfect teeth. Zhao had always known to fear his father, had heard the stories of his anger but never been the focal point of it. It was like standing in the eye of a maelstrom.

"Please don't kill me," Zhao begged, before he could think to move his father's fingers stabbed through the skin of his stomach like five small blunt knives. Zhao cried out in agony as his father slowly made a fist, blood gushing from the wounds and as he pulled his fist back and Zhao screamed at the skin and organs being twisted and pulled away from his body. Shin watched his pain, watched his son's tears and prayed this punishment would serve to stop such reckless behavior. Releasing Zhao's skin and spleen the young man fell to the ground shaking violently.

"You will not do whatever you want blindly again ...will you?" Shin asked as his horns retracted back into his skull, blinking his eyes became their normal shade.

"No Pa," Zhao whimpered as he held his ruined side trying to keep his organs in. Shin smiled as he crouched down beside his child. He pulled him off the bloody ground into an embrace. He stroked Zhao's tear stained cheek lovingly as he said into his hair.

"Happy Birthday my flesh and blood," the words chilled Zhao to the bone but he was powerless to move away from his father who carried him up in his long lean arms. Shin stomped on the laptop as he walked from the room carrying the full grown man as if he were a child. The wait staff of twenty all stood in a semi circle at the library entrance. They looked horrified, some stricken with the sight of their young master held by his father.

"Work," Shin commanded and all the maids and butlers scuttled to find work to do. He walked the young man up the beautiful spiral stair case past the portrait done in oils of Retsuko and on the second floor. Shin felt the beautiful eyes of the portrait on him as he passed it. Silently he asked for her forgiveness as he moved on. He walked to Zhao's room and with one hand opened the door and walked into the room.

He had rarely been his son's room. Looking at the black and white photos on the walls was a shock to him. He set his long since sleeping son in his bed and walked to the wall of photos. There were eleven sets of five, each photo a different scenery or person. Most of the wait staff were in the photos. In his presence they never smiled like they did in these photos. He looked back at his child, at his flesh and blood and felt guilt. It was a foreign emotion to him, one he rarely felt. Only once he felt anything a kin to this well of sadness, and that had been when he had turned his back on his wife.

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