Chapter 63 - Just Like Their Fathers : Part 3

"Al!"

Cain staggered his way out of the bed he was on, running into his bleeding and chained up best friend.

"What-" He choked, trembling hands trying to free Alfred from the chains. "What happened to you?"

Alfred looked up at his best friend and smiled through his bleeding lips. "No big deal, just a few bruises here and there." The red-haired teen winced when Cain tugged one of the chains that bruised his wrist. "It hurts like hell, though, not going to lie." He tried to joke to calm the panicked Vergessene teen.

Cain widened his blue eyes when he inspected his best friend's bruises. The teen quickly snapped his head toward his father angrily. Ocean eyes spit with fire like a burning end of a cigarette.

"What did you do to him." The teen spat, gritting his teeth as he spoke.

The father's warm eyes turned cold when he met Cain's burning ones. His veil swirled around alongside his green robe. "We want you to kill him, of course." He easily stated, as if it was an obvious answer.

"..what?"

"We decided to kidnap him and make you kill him right after." His father continued. The blood on his neck already went down onto the collar of his robe, painting it red.

"We need to do it for your own beings, for your ritual." He added as he tilted his head and formed a deadly smile for his firstborn. "Besides, you'll do to for the family, right?"

"You are fucking kidding me." Cain flatly uttered with full of disbelief in his eyes as he watched his own criminal father. The moon shone dimly from the window, staring and judging the messed up Vergessene family.

"You think you can just hide the fact that you are a literal criminal for- for 17 years of my life and thought that I would just accept it right off the bat?" The teen rephrased all his father's statements with a slight deride.

"And even kill my own damn best friend?" He continued, pointing at Alfred that was trying his best to hold the pain off.

"Yes, of course." The number one criminal answered effortlessly. The man's dangerous eyes vaguely blinked behind the veil that was covering his whole face. "I want you to have a normal life before getting into criminal life."

"You should be thankful for that." He paused, side-eyeing the red-haired teen before diverting his gaze back at his son. "Your own brother never had a normal life like you."

"A normal life?" Cain repeated his father's words in a slight sneer. If a normal life was everything that he ever had before today, then he would never want normal life to happen in his life.

"Are you serious right now?" Cain darted, laughing at his father a little. "You must be joking because it's way too funny."

"I've lived as an outcast of my own family because you never wanted even to see me right in my eyes or just tell me that I'm enough." He brokenly stated. Everything that was happening right now felt like a fever dream that could actually kill him.

"I tried my best to be perfect for you," he paused, painting a smile full of irony on his face. "-but now I understand why it's not enough."

The memory of how he tried to be perfect at everything, trying to gain his father's attention, working on making everything right just so he could feel like he was enough, like he was meant to be in the family went fast in his head.

"I can't even hang out with my own little brother or have a normal sibling relationship because you always keep him away from me."

Another memory of him watching Raziel from afar, having so little time to just tell a few jokes or stories from each other. The thought flew in his head for a mere second, remembering how everything was never normal for both of them.

"My mother is not even there!"

Cain remembered how he would stare at his mother's photograph, waiting for her to come home after being gone for years, missing out how Cain had already grown up and never got to celebrate a single mother's day.

"If you call being alone and left out normal, then you are way sicker than what the news told that you are." He coldly stated like a piece of ice that pierced into one's heart and mercilessly froze it.

The green robe main stayed silent at the statement, eyes full of hidden emotions and thoughts as they did a staring contest between a father and a son.

"Now, now, honey. Don't say things like that to your father." A woman with short black hair wearing a black trench coat and a black cloth over her eyes got in the room, trying to calm the tension down with her sweetened voice.

"No, you shut up!" Cain snapped as he failed to contain his anger any longer. "You were never even there for me, so you don't get a say in this shit."

The woman looked startled for a second, almost like Cain's words hurt her. Though her face quickly morphed into something dark, something sinister.

"I don't like the way you talk, young man." She began as her short black hair started to inhumanly stretch, becoming longer and longer as the second passed. "Maybe we should teach you a lesson before we do the ritual, hm?"

The tip of her hair turned sharp as it glinted under the dim moonlight. The stray hairs sprout in the air, waiting to stab the firstborn Vergessene at any given moment.

Cain did not even have the time to take what was actually happening right in front of him when the hair turned his way, aiming at his being.

Right before the hair went into Cain's shoulders, the teen dropped himself to the ground, trying to dodge them from stabbing him or even killing him.

The hair accidentally slashed the chains that were holding Alfred and set him free.

"What the fuck." Alfred unconsciously spoke, freezing as he watched Cain on the ground dumbfounded. Cain returned the stare with an equally confused and terrified gaze.

The hairs turned at the both of them and tried to stab the pair of best friends again. Cain quickly grabbed the red-haired teen and jumped onto the window near him, letting the hairs pierce onto the floor instead of hurting them. They both landed on the ground outside the cottage with pieces of broken glasses everywhere.

The two took no time to breathe when they quickly got up and ran away from the cottage like their life depended on it.

Which it probably was.

They both ran with adrenaline adorning their whole beings. But then Cain stopped so suddenly and quickly followed by Alfred when they saw Raziel standing in front of them, quietly in between the silent forest.

Knives started to fly out of Raziel's pockets, circling on its owner's back as they aimed at Cain and Alfred. "Sorry, brother."

Right after the youngest Vergessene said that, the knives began to fly at them at a fast speed, almost leaving no time for them to dodge away as some of the knives successfully sliced their skins.

"You too?!" Cain shouted while desperately trying to avoid the deadly flying knives.

Alfred threw a rock at Raziel's eyes which quickly dodged it easily with a knife before grabbing Cain's hand to run after swimmingly distracting the youngest Vergessene with a single stone.

Their chest raised up and down like they were running out of air as they kept running for their life. "Cain, what the hell is up with your brother? No," He paused as he jumped over some falling branches.

"What the fuck is your family?"

Cain glared at Alfred. "You think I know?!"

They separated ways for a moment to avoid a big tree before reuniting again. "If I know even a single shit of any of these, I won't be running away right now and probably kill you!"

"Kill me?! You would kill me?" Alfred asked in between his heaving breath.

Cain grabbed Alfred's hand when the red-haired teen almost bumped onto a tree. "It's a 'what if' scenario, dumbass."

When they managed to get out of the cursed forest, the two felt like their life span was increasing. A sigh of relief adorned the air as they both dropped onto the ground.

"That was... something." Alfred began, ignoring the bruises and cuts on his body. "I was not expecting to get kidnapped while watching Spongebob. That was such an uncool scenario like in the movie." He tried to joke to calm the tense atmosphere between them as they stared at the forest entrance.

The red-haired teen looked over to his best friend sadly, knowing that this was such a shocking experience for Cain to take. He did not even think about how hurt he was when all his worry turned over the Vergessene.

"I have nowhere else to run," Cain whispered, eyes locked onto the forest with horror mixed with hurt. He turned his head over to Alfred with tears that tried to fall off his blue eyes.

"I don't know where to go." He added. Lips began to tremble as he began to realize how messed up everything was.

"I don't even know my own family anymore." He choked when the lump in his throat got bigger, trying to eat him alive from the sorrow within him.

"But you do know your best friend," Alfred answered truthfully, offering his bruised hand over to Cain with a smile.

"And your best friend will say that you should stay with him and figure everything out together."

✵✵✵✵✵✵

"I have nowhere else to run," Axel whispered. He turned his head over to Rune with tears that tried to fall off his blue eyes. One was a fake blue, and one was a real one.

"I don't know where to go." He added. Lips began to tremble as he began to realize how messed up everything was.

"I don't even know my own family anymore." He choked when the lump in his throat got bigger, trying to eat him alive from the sorrow within him.

"But you do know your best friend," Rune smiled truthfully as she let go of their hugs, tilting her head fondly, causing her red ponytail to bounce a little.

"And your best friend will say that you should stay with her and figure everything out together."