Keep still

Burden

I was so young when it happened... It was a hot day, I remember I was playing in the backyard of my house. My dad just had come back from work, he had left his case on the step near the door, and I was curious. Too curious. I began to make an inventory of the bag. Something called my attention. A kind of black sphere, spirals of fume evolving inside. I took it in my hands, fascinated. And It began to talk to me. It was whispering.

"Do you know really who your parents are?" "Did they ever told you the truth? You're someone special, Nolan, you have to know it... Don't let them rule your life..."

I was literally hypnotised. I asked what did I have to do. "Let me access to your beautiful mind, Nolan. I just need one, one little drop of your blood." I obeyed immediately. A sharp thing...This stone over there... The palm of my hand... And this voice keeping saying "you'll be powerful..."... My hand's skin didn't resist long. It didn't hurt at all, I felt nothing. I approached my bleeding palm of the globe, which was turning more and more black. I was about to stick it to the cold surface.

-NOLAN!!

I turned my head. My father was rushing to me with a face I never had seen him before.

-DON'T TOUCH THE ORB NOLAN DON'T TOUCH IT PLEASE!!

Too late. I pressed my hand on the sphere. Then, I felt it. The suffering. As if it was pulling my life out of me. It hurt so bad! I began to scream, face turned to the sky. A black veil darkened my eyes. I looked at the orb: the smoke was getting out of the hole my blood had done on the material. It formed a "human" shadow, as far as we could call it human. It laughed at my father:

-Did you ever think you could inprison me ? You were mistaken then; you should never had done this.

He stared at me and with a frightening smile:

-Your son will pay for it. He will become the evil you and your organization tried to eradicate for centuries. He will be the most powerful of us, and you'll have no choice than kill him, or let him destroy your world!

It seemed to be too much for my father. He grabbed me by my shirt and told me:

-Stay away, in any case.

He had his angry voice, and his look was so scary I wouldn't have wanted to be the "ghost" for all the gold in the world. I stepped back while my father stood before the being. He addressed to It:

-I am not mistaken. And don't touch my son again.

As he was saying that, a dazzling light came out of his hand. It became an orb, the same where "the thing" was inprisonned. And he threw it to the ghost, with a surprising velocity. It expanded to become a sock wave which stroke the monster. It screamed with a terrible voice and distorted, seeming to suffer awfully. A flash occurred. I closed my eyes, and when I reopened them, the monster was gone, vanished like a bad dream. I saw my father coming to me, and my mother too, her attention called by the noises. He explained her in a few words what just happened. She took my hand, and looked at the scratch: in its place was a black star, which fastly disappeared. Worried, I asked what it was. My father looked at it, and sighted:

-Well, you got infected by a Shadow, the spirit you just saw.

- What is going to happen to me?

My dad didn't have the strength to answer. My mum continued in his place, with her irreplaceable smile:

-Don't worry, we'll be there, honey, we will take care of you. Just don't tell anybody. It will be our little secret.

I shook my head yes, and looked at them both. My mum was trying to keep smiling, but my dad couldn't. I said to him:

-I am so sorry to have touched your things... It won't happen again I promise!

He smiled.

-I really hope so, my boy... And don't worry for that, he said about my hand, It won't last long.

I smiled with him, and closed my fist, hiding forever my secret.

Or so I thought.