chapter 1: the unfortunate fox

12:32 am, it was a cold night. desolate woods nearby a highway thrashed from an approaching storm as a kid sat on a stump, staring blankly at the dirt and rotting leaves. he was only just 18, fresh out of a cell he called his home. what he just witnessed in these last few hours had broke him. what was once a person- if he could even call himself that, was now a shell. devoid of life, devoid of his emotion, devoid of his thoughts. his name no longer belonged to him, he killed the person who gave it to him.

a snap of a nearby branch woke him out of his dissociation. he took a glance at the watch on his wrist. 12:54. a full 20 minutes has passed since he sat down. he looked around, wondering what the curious snapping noise was. cold winds danced around his neck, causing his hair to stand. let out a shaky, broken sigh and ran his dirty blood covered hands through his matted reddish pink hair. a trait he got from his mother. his mother. thats all he used to think about, how much he loved his mother.

but now shes gone. she had no surviving relatives as far as he knew, and she was also the only one with his hair. a rare genetic trait. he thought of his mother as an endangered animal, who was the last of her kind, because there was no one like her. she had an unreasonable amount of courage, she fought and bit to protect her offspring, and she took it on one who ended up being what killed her off.

he remembered the scene just how it looked. boiler room, after a chase that hurt both him and his mother, a screwdriver he took from a nearby toolbox, used to repair and fix; was used as his weapon of choice. he first plunged it into her thigh, as a means of severing any way for her to escape. his thrust of the blade stopped once it her bone. she let out no scream, and it brought some kind of feeling he hadn't felt before to him, a cold sinking feeling- that embedded itself since he left the facility. he couldn't say it though. the thought of such a word was impossible to him.

it was empathy. a word banned in his "household" by his father. while he was a shadow of his mother, his darkness was his fathers. as the screwdriver stopped, he dragged it down with such force it ripped through the skin and flesh, blood trickiling down and onto the floor. small splatters and bits sprayed onto his hand, and the flow of the wound began to increase in speed. yet she continued to keep her silence. "you've given a good strike, now finish with the final act." he turned, seeing two bright pinpoint eyes staring at him from the darkness of the boiler room.

his father slowly stepped out of the void, yet it made no difference to his apperance. he was so dark, the ambient lighting of the room didn't illuminate him, nor did the flashlight dropped on the floor. the only thing visible about him was his luminescent eyes and his off white teeth. he looked up at his father, slowly releasing the grip on the screwdriver, leaving it in his mother's thigh.

"no no, don't mind me. you have a task at hand right now, continue." he chuckled. his mother looked up at both of them, eyes glaring. she let out a grunt as she began to stand. he turned back around, and ripped the screwdriver out, causing her to collapse from the burning pain in her thigh. a small puddle of blood had begun to form, and soaked into the concrete flooring. yet for so much pain she was as just as silent as she was before. his father gently grabbed his hand and guided the screwdriver. "you remember how do this. for quick and silent, plunge and rip the throat out, removes the vocal chords and results in a quick death by suffocation." his father's fingers trailed the length of the screwdriver, taking a small bit of the blood off and playing with it between his fingers.

"for long and painful, go for the heart. 3 clean stabs through the breastplate should do it." he looked back down at his mother.

"sam.. honey. i know you don't want to do t-this. i raised you right. but maybe my baby is gone. all thats left of y-you is your father. but look down. look deep down, think-" his father stepped in and kicked her in the open wound, causing her to squirm and groan a bit in pain.

"shut up. you put lies into my creation, you taught it to be just like you. human. gross, fleshy emotional human. but! by severing this connection, he'll be perfect!" sam looked up at his father again, shaking a bit. tears welted in his eyes. "is it true? am i .. human?"

snapping back to reality, he again glanced down at his watch. 1:12 am. it had begun to rain. he slowly stood up, brushing the drops of rain that stuck to him off his nylon white jumpsuit. he looked down at his chest, and noticed a white patch with an eye logo embroidery sewn into the patch. he glared and tugged at the patch until it ripped from his jumpsuit, tossing it to the ground.

1:32. after a bit of walking he stumbled upon a cabin in the woods. a small oil lamp placed on the porch illuminated his surrounding, but as far as he could tell the cabin was vacant of its owner. he stepped up onto the porch and crouched down, scanning it carefully. he listened, as hard as could without letting the wind and rain distract him, and heard no footsteps inside of the home. no lights illuminated the inside of the home. he slowly approached the door and began to jiggle the knob slightly, checking to see if it was unlocked. after a push, the door swung open violently, forced by the wind, and all he could see was darkness.

he was taken by surprise and ran inside the home, forcing the door shut with a hard slam. the darkness was overwhelming, and the only light that came in was from the lamp outside, which was facing the full forces of the storm. he walked around for a bit, holding his arms out to search to something, a wall or a table, to guide himself in the dark.

MORE TO COME ....