Chapter 12

Dark and Light. Without light the silhouettes of beings and structures in the night would be extremely hard for one to even get a glimpse of moving vehicles. The lights were bright in the dark as it encompass on every place as if it tries the best as it could to conceal the night. And the night shrouds the moving silhouettes in between alleys.

Ted looks outside with a bored look in his face inside the black limousine. He looks contemplatively as if there were machines in his brain working to get in a conclusion. But he wasn't thinking of what he sees in his view but planning on his next step once he takes a step out of the car.

'He's not going to be happy.' He sighs heavily as the car stops in front of a manor. Each step he took was heavy but noiseless. He plastered a smile on his face as big and wide as he could make it so. But his eyes betrays his smile as his whole countenance shows impassiveness as he knocks on the door three times before turning the knob and pushing the door open.

There were voices on his left and so he took a turn and came upon a woman carrying a plate of vegetables.

"Teddy, you're just in time. Come in and eat." His mother calls out for him to eat as he steps into the dining room.

"You're late." There was a cold voice in his right. Taking a look, he sees a man in a white long sleeved shirt with a black tie looking at him disapprovingly. He took a glance on the second seat on the left side of his father... His younger brother whose hands keep fiddling at each other and eyes on the floor while glancing at him time to time.

"I'm sorry, father. I was busy with my duties at school as Hadrian is on sick leave." He says respectfully while looking on the floor to show his submission. His father didn't speak, allowing him to sit down as his mother looks at them both with a serene look on her face. He gave a smile to his younger brother as he sat on the chair on the left side of his father as his mother sat on his father's right side. They ate in silence until his mother spoke.

"So, Ted. How's school?" His mother asks him. There were no concern no curiosity on her voice as she smiles at him.

"It was fine mother, same as always." He answered her as he stopped eating.

"I hope your grades haven't gone down considering you're always busy." His mother points out to him, warning him.

"Let's hope it doesn't." His father says, the implications in his words tells him the consequence if even one decimal drops.

He didn't say anything to that sentence. Knowing that whatever he says will only be answered back with an angry tone. When they had finished eating and had just started on wiping their mouth with a white towel sprawled on their knees, his father opened his mouth and said something that made him stop.

"Go in the room." My mother didn't say anything as she took the plates into the kitchen. His younger brother became stiff with fear in his eyes. But he wasn't telling it to his mother nor his younger brother. He was ordering him personally to go.

"Yes...father." I stopped wiping my mouth and laid it on my lap. There was a red spot on the white and once spotless cloth. He placed a hand on his lips and looked at his fingers to see blood on it.

He stood up and placed the cloth on the table. He didn't look at anyone, even to his younger brother looking at his back. Each step he took was heavier than the other. He stopped on a door and stepped in. The room was a little bit dark even though the lights were on, there were no beds, only candles on tables and chairs in front of it. There was a cross on the wall where light was the strongest.

He heard the door open and looked behind him. His father came in, and as he stepped inside the room his heart felt heavier and his fear became prominent. His father's eyes seemed to gleam in red and shining in the dark, as if he was a prey ready to be killed.

"Take off your shirt." He ordered and I did. The atmosphere was heavy inside the room as I took off my shirt and let it fall on the ground.

"Kneel." The order was simple and so he knelt on the dais in front of the cross with his arms in front of him. He heard a metal clanking at each other. The buckle was taken off...he heard a snap as the belt was hurriedly removed from his pants.

He heard his father's heavy and loud steps as he neared in each passing breath.

"Start." At first he heard a harsh wind of sound as the belt was risen up and then harshly slapped on the flesh of his back. The leather was rough and as it rose up, it revealed the plush pink flesh showing the effect of the rough leather.

"...who has become such, not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life." Five.

"For it is fitting for us to have such a high priest who is loyal, innocent, undefiled, separated from the sinners and exalted above the heavens." Eight.

"They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might." Eleven. There were lines on his back with red seeping out of it.

"...the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." Twenty. Then the sound stopped but the ache in his back continues to hurt. He feels his flesh hot and the liquid dripping on his back.

There was a bang sound as the door closed. He hears his father's heavy steps as it continues to sound smaller and smaller.

This was the norm in his life, a father who preaches for peace and love but doesn't even look at his wife and treats his children coldly while his mother doesn't care, only seeing glory and honor of being the wife of a famed pastor. His father was once a soldier who had survived years of working for the government in war which made people in church and outside to look at him with nothing but gratitude and praises him with words as if he was a God to them.

He was strict and heavy handed to his children. So, whenever he has time he uses his words, and his heavy and calloused hand to teach us a lesson.

He stands up shakily, his legs trembling from the kneeling and he quivered from the cold. Even the smallest step can make his back hurt. He took his shirt and left the room, leaving the candles lit and the blood to dry on the floor.

BANG!

The door closed.