Dichotomy

"Mom… dad…"

His parents laid in pools of their own blood, heavily scarred, and heavily wounded.

Their perpetrator stood across, watching. It was a boy who'd had his limits exceeded, and who let himself lose control. A boy who let his heart be fully indulged in the substance of anger that wrapped his heart.

Abel saw the sight. His heart picked up pace, alarmed by the critical condition he saw his parents in. As he was about to rush forward to check on his parents, a familiar raspy voice interrupted him in his tracks.

"Don't."

"H-Huh?"

"They're not dead, are they?"

Abel shook his head. "I-I don't know… They look really hurt…"

The voice scoffed. "You just saw them didn't you? At the dinner table, your parents. They weren't hurt."

Abel gulped. He didn't understand what he was seeing.

"Those people are your parents, but this is the past."

"So they're okay?"

The voice scoffed again. "Sure. They're watching you laugh uncontrollably right now. Out there in the real world."

"W-What?"

"You don't realize it, but you're within your mind right now."

Abel looked at his surroundings. The hazy blue that fogged the area, and the misty scent of dew that touched his skin, it was all too unreal.

"Why am I here?" He looked at the scene in the living room. "Why am I being shown this?"

"Do you recognize anything?"

He looked at the man and woman who laid in their blood. "Yeah… Those are my parents…"

"Anything else?"

Abel looked deeper. He took a glance at the boy who stood across. It was the same boy he'd seen abused in his previous flashbacks. But nothing added up.

"I've been seeing memories of a boy… This boy…" He pointed at the one in the scene. "Brown hair, red eyes, and scrawny scratched-up skin. I kept having visions of his… torment." Abel looked at his parents who laid limp. "Torment he received from my parents…?"

He stood still. Giving his mind time to gather his thoughts, things still didn't align. "Why were my parents in those memories? That boy isn't even me… My parents never did that to me…"

"You see Abel… Those memories aren't exactly yours…"

He grabbed his head. "Then whose were they?"

The boy with bloodied hands began to emit a glow, as if being highlighted by the voice who spoke. "His. Mine."

The scene suddenly vanished. The boy, his parents, the blood, all gone. What was left was an empty living room.

"Y-Yours? Wait… Who are you…? Who is this?"

The voice laughed faintly. "Has it been that long Abel? How could you forget… I even 'saved' you."

Abel was forced back into his own memories.

It was a year ago. The color was white. The situation was fatal. A wall of blood and debris quickly approached him, and in that moment of fear and paralysis, he was told quickly—"Drive yourself into the wall." Doing so would save his life. Any later, Abel would've been shredded on the spot.

Revisiting the memory, Abel had opened up an entire part of his mind he'd locked off for the past year. "A.X.A…" He muttered to himself.

"That's right Abel… Do you still recall what happened there?"

An increasing red light, which gradually burned his skin. A violent shaking inside a metal machine. A slow, yet painful loss of his mind; the feeling of his brain being split in half.

Screams.

"You remember it all, don't you Abel? You just chose to ignore it. You chose to pretend like it never happened."

"No… You're wrong… This is just a nightmare… It was all just a nightmare..."

"There you go again, continuing to deny the ideas and rejecting the trauma. Have you forgotten I'm also here? I know what you do with your mind. I can see it all."

"No… Stop…"

"I've been waiting for a long time, you know. I let you regain your mind and body back then. I told you I'd come back and take it when the time was right. Don't you remember?"

"No… No, no, no… Just stop talking to me…"

"You've made a mistake by re-encountering what you've found today."

Abel looked around. Empty. He was paranoid. "What do you mean?"

"In the year-long search of familiar faces, you found them. But you've also dug up things you shouldn't have. There's a reason you saw those flashbacks of a scrawny boy with red eyes, both in this house, and back at Jenzaya Education."

Abel began to shake. The perpetuating feeling of unease grew up his spine. Anxious dilemma leaked into his skin. Abel felt familiar feelings he didn't want to feel.

"Did you ever stop and consider why you weren't in those memories involving your parents? They showed another boy. They showed me."

"Me…?"

"No Abel. Me."

"Who are you…? Who am I talking to if it's not myself…? Who is this boy who keeps appearing in these memories that aren't even mine?!"

"I am that boy. I am this voice. I am the one Raphael inserted into your body as a mere soul. Do you remember now, Abel?"

He shook his head, attempting to reject the past.

"I am Reed Regardius, and your body is my vessel Abel. You serve no purpose other than to carry the weight of my soul and its burdens, my twisted principles and my never-ending wrath. You're nothing but a tool, and looking into your past myself, you've always been nothing but a tool."

"THAT'S NOT TRUE!"

"Two years spent a slave stuck in one house for seeming eternity. Abducted by delusional scientists to serve as a vessel to a rage-induced irregularity. Now here you are, having roamed the country for a year alone, lost, rejecting your traumatic past, forgetting that there still lives a sinister soul within you that can take over your body at any moment. You're a tool, Abel. You are a tool."

Shaking, trembling. Was it fear? Or was it anger? Abel was stunned in place, unaccepting of the environment that surrounded him. There was the voice that tormented him, now creeping into his nerves.

"Reed Regardius…" He shuddered.

"That's my name. You recognize my voice now don't you?"

"You tried to take me away from myself back then…"

"You fought back valiantly. But I've waited long enough. There won't be a fight this time. I can take you by storm in an instant."

"BUT WHY?!"

"Why? Because you're my vessel. Know your place and serve your purpose. Don't test my patience. I am… or rather, we are… the Sin of Wrath."

"GO AWAY! GET OUT OF MY MIND! LEAVE ME ALONE! I JUST WANT TO BE BACK HOME, AND SAFE, WITH MY FAMILY—"

"OUR family, Abel."

"What?!"

"Our family… I said OUR FAMILY!!!"

The voice now shouted, and it surprised Abel. He was scared.

"I WAS THE FIRST SON! YOU WERE JUST A REPLACEMENT AFTER A.X.A. TOOK ME AWAY!"

The living room began to replay a scene in front of Abel. It showed the previous one—bloody parents, and a blood soaked boy—Reed. The front door to the house was then abruptly smashed down, and in walked a group of white-suited individuals. They ran over and tackled Reed. One jabbed a needle into his arm, and the boy fell unconscious. He was then being carried back outside to an anonymous-looking white van. In the front seat of the vehicle, a familiar face sat facing forward.

Overseer Raphael.

Reed began to speak. "You know… I thought I had killed my parents then. It's because of your return back here that I've now found out that my childhood abusers—people I'll always hesitate to call my parents—are still alive."

"But they're my parents…"

"You can't even understand this situation can you? Let me clear it up for you then. My parents abhorred me, completely abandoning their duties to care for me after I'd done something horrid to my classmates. When I couldn't take their abuse anymore, I took things into my own hands, that being the blood of my own mother and father. I thought I'd killed them… I remember stabbing their crucial vital points… But I guess not. I guess they'd somehow lived on and accepted the disappearance of their own biological son, wishing to reject the past and my existence as a whole. To move on and further push back this dark past and my doings, they adopted a new son. That son was you."

"NO IT'S NOT! I'M THEIR REAL SON!"

The words brought rage to Reed. "THEN EXPLAIN THE MEMORIES YOU SAW! THOSE MEMORIES WERE MINE! THE ONLY REASON YOU'D SEEN THEM ARE BECAUSE I SHARE YOUR MIND!"

"YOU'RE JUST PULLING ME INTO YOUR DELUSIONS! IT'S ALL A LIE! NONE OF IT IS TRUE! NONE OF IT IS TRUE!!!"

"YOU PRIVILIGED FUCKING BRAT! YOU CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO COMPREHEND THE SUFFERING I'VE FACED UNDER THE SAME PARENTS THAT CARE FOR YOU, LOVE YOU, AND COMFORT YOU! YOU'VE BEEN GIVEN NOTHING BUT SUPPORT FOR YOUR ACTIONS BY OUR PARENTS, WHILE I WAS SCORNED BY THE VERY SAME PEOPLE, VERBALLY ABUSED BY THE VERY SAME PEOPLE, AND BEATEN BY THE VERY SAME PEOPLE!"

Abel found himself speechless.

"If you don't believe me just refer to the memories I've shown you. It's such a fucking coincidence that the body of the person I've been placed in is the very person that's replaced me as a son to my own parents. You know how that makes me feel Abel? Do you understand the utter dichotomy between our lives as children?"

Abel didn't know what to reply.

"That's why this is my unintentional revenge. I hated Raphael's guts, but he's done one thing for me here; he's provided me an opportunity to take vengeance on my childhood tormenters, and on the child who'd replaced my position as a son."

Abel suddenly felt his mind get grasped in the palm of a rugged hand.

"You've provided me more than enough sustenance to resurrect myself. This is my body now, Abel."

"No…"

His head began to condense. Pain convulsed throughout his nerves.

"No… No!"

The links in his mind began to break apart, just like they had a long time ago.

"Not again! NOT AGAIN!!!"

His eye twitched as his mind dissolved under the sheer pressure of a soul that crushed its entirety. Filling in the gaps being made, heated memories rushed in to replace the peaceful ones that Abel harbored.

Laughter, and mockery.

Words that hit harder than the punches he'd endured.

Glares and stares; eyes of judgement.

Crying, sobbing.

"Devil child…"

Wrath that had sprouted. Rage left uncooled.

No one to look. No one to help.

Hands provided were only meant to push him down, rather than pull him up.

Alone. Solitude.

The shortest stick of them all.

"I can't… TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!"

Blood.

Deep red encircled his thought.

The memorable, viscous liquid that seeped out of his enemies. It was so warm, yet cold as soon as it touched open air.

He bathed in it—all of it.

Blood. But the substance that pumped in and out of his heart was heavier. It was darker. It was warmer. Its color; a dark, dark red. Almost, nearly, black.

He'd always thought to himself. "What did I even do to deserve this?"

But he never received that answer, ever.

He was all alone in a world against him. But instead of collapsing under its immense oppression, he decided he'd be the one to induce that pressure on the world itself.

Wrath of a boy gone unnoticed. The largest mistake, soon to-be-known by mankind and the society that lived under the Cardinal Nexus.

"Agh… AHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Abel's excessive laughter turned into excessive screaming.

The weight that'd been lifted for so long had now dropped once again. From one side of his brain to the other, the weight crushed Abel's mentality into smithereens. These crushed entities would leak blood from his eyes. His eyes would lose all its blue hue. The bloodstains that coated Reed's life would now stain the eyes of Abel.

Red irises emerged. Flaming fury dwelled deep beneath.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Abel clutched his head. He tried to prevent it from splitting over to the next person. But the weight of the soul he attempted to resist had only gotten heavier, and heavier, as more and more memories reopened and flooded in to apply extra pressure.

"Abel! What's wrong honey? What's wrong?!"

His father ran over to him, wrapping his arms around the boy. "It's okay Abel! Your parents are with you now! You don't have to worry about those men anymore!" He began to sob. "Your father is right here with you!!"

Snap.

The line between two realities had just broken. Their existences now merged, with one flooding over the other in dominance. By now, the screaming had stopped. The boy's face fell downwards, losing all expression as his long entangled hair covered his face.

"Abel?"

"Where was my father when I was going through the same pain?"

His father stumbled in confusion. "H-Huh? What do you mean Abel—?"

"This isn't Abel. It's me, dad." The boy looked up. His red eyes stared into his father's soul.

"W-Wait…" His father continued to stumble backwards.

"Why are you backing away…? Didn't you just say, 'your father is right here with you'?"

His father shook his head. "N-No…" He couldn't help but find the terrifying red eyes to be too familiar.

"It's me dad. It's me mom. Don't you guys remember me?"

His mom at the table began to back up into the corner of the room with his father.

"What's the matter? It's me… Why are you guys backing away?"

"Y-You're not Abel…"

The boy smirked. "I'm glad you wouldn't mistake me for a stupid blonde orphan."

His parents gasped. "He—"

"Shut the FUCK UP!" The boy dashed forwards. In a single instant, his hands were wrapped around each of his parents' necks. "I don't want to hear any excuses. You both know who I am."

The boy stared deeply into each of their eyes. He could read fear, anger, and a variety of emotions within their irises. But in not one part could he find a single tear of regret.

"I see how it is… The boy known as Reed just vanished, didn't he? Like something that never existed. You guys even threw away your real last names, just because I was tied to it? Replacing Regardius with Vaso… What a downgrade, honestly," he scoffed.

"R-Reed—?"

He clenched his palm harder around his mother's neck. "Don't act like you've only just realized it was me."

"But how… You disappeared and… W-Why are you in Abel's body?!"

Reed now gripped tighter around his father's neck who asked. "I'm not here to answer questions. I'm not here to find answers to my questions either. Whatever questions may have existed back then are now long gone. I've found my one and only answer; wrath."

"S-Stop Reed! It doesn't have to be this way! J-Just let go of our necks and we can talk this o-out!" His father coughed and choked. On the other side, Reed saw his mother's mouth already beginning to foam.

"L-Let go of your mother and I this instant Reed!"

Reed scoffed. "I've never heard you sound so puny before, dad."

"Let go of us right now!!! Tsk! You… You're still a child of the devil, just as I remembered—!"

"YOU FUCKER!" Holding their necks, Reed smashed them into the walls behind. "I come back to your reality and you guys still can't stop thinking about yourselves. Not even… NOT EVEN A SINGLE 'SORRY' OUT OF ANY OF YOUR MOUTHS! NONE OF YOU DESERVE REDEMPTION FOR THE THINGS YOU DID TO ME!"

Reed smashed them and smashed them continuously into the wall until their bodies finally broke through.

Dusty coughs. Bleeding sobs. Their necks were still wrapped.

"For so long, while you guys thought I was just gone… You two probably lived your lives without a single ounce of regret or worry. Your own son had gone missing, and while you two moved on and adopted a new boy to forget about my existence, I endured… I endured something you can't even begin to comprehend. A complicated purgatory of hell that exists here on earth… An immense shower of pain that never stopped raining… Torture with no sight to its ends… It never stopped… My pain never stopped. The suffering from the moments with you two had only transitioned into a downward spiral of traumatic agony. The pain never stopped. IT NEVER STOPPED! THE UTTER ANGUISH HAS STAINED INTO MY HEART AND BODY FOR YEARS AND YEARS, AND YOU TWO CAN'T HOLD EVEN A LITTLE SYMPATHY FOR THE BOY YOU'D BIRTHED AND ABUSED! YOU'RE BOTH SO—!"

Reed choked up. He now began to cry. The pain and suffering he'd endured for too long finally came out of his eyes in bloody red tears. But he did not let sorrow emotion take over for more than a mere instant. His fire could never be put out.

"For too long… your actions have gone unnoticed… unjustified... For too long, I've taken the responsibility for your sins. But now… Now you can all receive what you've been hiding from. You guys can finally feel the pure, unimaginable sentiment of wrath. You guys… YOU GUYS ARE GOING TO HELL FOR EVERYTHING YOU'VE DONE!!!"

Reed squeezed at his parents' necks who were pinned against the walls. It'd been so long since he'd used his abilities to kill, he nearly forgot about his serum-given capabilities.

Crrrrrack!

The bones in Reed's hands crumbled into pieces. But he couldn't let go of his rage-induced strength. It was completely uncontrollable. The emotion that'd been sealed off for years straight had now been unleashed, merging with the raging flame of anger that agonized inside Reed's soul. The reaction between its interactions could only be described as disastrous. His power began to grow, and grow, and grow into something bigger than existence itself. What was held together as a singularity of wrath now dispersed, exploded, growing and expanding into a chain reaction of more and more eruptions like a fireworks of emotions.

"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Reed continued to squeeze at his parents' necks, which by now, were nothing but sacks of skin that contained pulverised bone powder.

The chain reaction didn't stop. It couldn't be stopped. Reed thought for a single moment that his deed was done, and that he could stop now. But the thought was quickly overshadowed by the massive flames that now reached both heaven's boundaries and hell's gates.

It was astonishingly catastrophic.

The house that contained the living beast now imploded. With the emotions that exploded sky high, so too did a wave of energy that now blew outwards from the detonation that occurred in a house near the Heart of Jenzaya.