Avenging Maria

Chapter Five-The List of Things

Mazon walked into his home for the first time that week, unknowing what to expect. He took off his shoes and went to the kitchen, dumping his backpack at the table and grabbing an apple to eat. He made his way to his father's office as he took a bite, knocking on the closed door when he arrived.

"Come in," Derek said, turning around to face him as Maze entered. Derek gestured towards the armchair in the corner, and Maze walked over and sat down.

"What did you need me for, Sir?" Mazon asked. He took another bite of the apple.

"I realized," Derek started, but stopped as soon as he began. Mazon watched as he closed his eyes and sighed, as if collecting himself a moment. When he reopened them, he focused his energy on making a fireball in his hands, then danced it over his arms as he talked. "I never told you about your mother."

"What do you mean?" Mazon asked, taking a hesitant glance at the picture on his father's desk. It showed his father, a good twenty-five years younger, sitting at the kitchen table. In the seat beside him was Mazon's mother, feeding his older sister, Galilea, birthday cake. There had once been another picture on his desk of a similar scene, but it was Mazon in the birthday seat. It was taken on his first birthday, and by his sixth it was burnt to crisps in his father's hands.

"You know her and your sister went missing one night," Derek said, the ball turning slightly blue as he put more energy into it. "And you know the police gave up searching. But I never told you how I didn't."

Mazon watched the ball turning different shades at his father's will. He could feel the heat radiating off from where he sat, and he started to get a bit terrified as its heat sizzled against his skin. He stared at it and waited uneasily for his father to continue.

"They went missing fifteen years ago yesterday," Derek mumbled. He kept his gaze on the fire, watching as it hissed between his fingers. He was in complete control of it, expecting every pop that erupted, even though each one made Mazon flinch. It started to lick up his arms in streaks, winding its way around in spirals. "And I knew immediately that it was a wind descendant who took them. When I got home from my business trip, it looked like a tornado had blown through the house. You were under some rubble crying, and I knew damn well that the police wouldn't be able to find the culprit, so I left then and there to go search."

Mazon ignored the fact that his father abandoned his three year old self with no one--and buried under half the house.

"I was gone for a week before I gave up. I knew if I didn't get back to you they'd take you away." At this, Derek looked up at Mazon briefly. There was a hint of sadness in Derek's eyes, as if he missed the thought of his son too. "So I came back for a month and researched from home. We stayed at your grandparent's house up in West while they rebuilt the house, and then I was off again to look for them while your grandparents watched you. I had a strong lead that they had gone to Wisconsin. I searched every damn inch of that state, and it wasn't until I was in the northwest corner that I found it.

"A two story shack, surrounded on either side by nothing for miles. The structure was falling to pieces when I got there. I entered the first floor and saw nothing, but when I made it to the second..." Derek broke off, staring at the fire before him. It turned completely blue as tears welled up in his eyes, but he blinked them away. The color never changed back. "He had cut your mother to shreds. He bled her out. I searched the house for your sister, and at first I couldn't find anything. I had given up after nearly tearing the place apart, I thought maybe he still had her, that she was still alive..." The fire made its way further up Derek's arm, all the way to his shoulders, hissing and popping relentlessly as his emotions went haywire.

"I saw it when I was carrying your mother's body back to the car. A small piece of paper on top of what I had previously thought was just dirt. Her ashes were piled on the ground outside, accompanied by some bullshit prophecy scribbled on a shred of paper."