A father and a son

I can't say that the relationship between me and my son is normal. I, Cliff Belmont, have a rather strange relationship with my own son. I don't know how to put it to word. Both me and my wife were plain terrified of our own son. The son that we gave birth to came to haunt us.

I was really happy when I got the news that my wife had become pregnant. It was a day when I danced with joy after going home. I was young.

I was hoping for a daughter however my wife wanted a son. In the end, the doctor told us that it's a son. I was happy either way.

We decided on a name. Clive, it's a name that was kinda stuck to my mind. And my son was born.

It wasn't a good situation. Due to some complications, my son was delivered 12 weeks before the delivery date. It was a very critical time.

My son was on the brink of death. I didn't want my first child to die. I prayed. Although I had never prayed to any god before, I prayed desperately. And my son survived. Although he needed special care.

Due to being delivered at an early stage, he wasn't developed completely. So we had to take special measures. The doctor said that it should be fine once he grows up.

We both took great care of him. He was a cheerful child. Although he couldn't walk very well, he didn't cry. He would always smile and look at things curiously.

And he kept growing up. He couldn't walk very well so we had no choice but to support him. A wheelchair was made specifically for him.

We kept helping him walk on his two feet. And he started successfully walking on his two feet when he was 5 and a half. He had made friends in kindergarten. It was all going well.

He wasn't exactly gifted in anything. But that doesn't matter. I am happy that he survived.

My wife and I were satisfied with just Clive. He never said anything like another sibling as well. So we never considered it.

Clive was a normal child. Though he was physically immature, he was strong. Because he would always smile. However when he turned 9, something changed.

He stopped smiling like before and became serious. Like he was always thinking of something. He didn't let it show that much and kept acting normal around us. Initially we had pegged it as a sign of growth.

That was our fatal mistake. When he was 10, he did something. I was working in my office when I got a call from the police.

They said that my son had stabbed a man. At first I thought it was a joke. But that wasn't the case. I rushed to the police station to check.

I found his teachers from school and my wife as well.

There was a big commotion at the police station and I pushed through the crowd.

I found a calmly seated Clive in front of a desk. The officer was questioning him and he was calmly answering them.

Later I was informed of the incident.

A pedophile had broken into his school and took his class hostage. While he was tying every boy, Clive stabbed him twice at fatal points. They said he was immediately taken to the hospital and Clive was taken in police custody.

I could see the crying figure of my wife. The scared faces of the teachers, the terrified faces of other parents and the staggered faces of the police. Every last one of them was screaming at me.

I don't know what kind of face I had made. But I remember the face Clive had made. A calm face. That's all I could see. He was calm. Like he was on a picnic.

Or rather, he was showing signs of annoyance. Like he wanted to go home as soon as possible.

We went home after an hour. The police let Clive leave. The law could do nothing. A case was filed but Clive was just 10 and he had stabbed the pedophile for self-defense. It was totally legitimate.

Our city wasn't a big one. As a mining city, it was lively but it wasn't big. However, this incident made stirs. It was a peaceful country after all.

Clive did something that no one would even expect him to do. We were interviewed a lot. All sorts of journalists came to us. I became tired of answering questions.

Clive just agreed to do one interview. So they made a questionnaire which Clive answered.

I myself was shocked to hear him answer those. It was totally not like a child. He sounded just like a grownup man.

It shocked everyone again. Clive became a headline. We were treated as social outcasts for a while. Clive was suspended from school.

It meant that his formal education is done for. We could not console Clive. Because both of us were not in our right minds. My wife had started showing signs of paranoia.

She became so afraid of Clive that we started locking our door from the inside.

Our normal relationship broke down. However Clive didn't seem to mind. He would leave a note if he was going out. When he was out, I sometimes checked his room.

All I found were books. He had books scattered everywhere. Books about almost everything. From history to science to even medicine and anatomy. When did he buy this many?

Another day, he came back all bloody. It seemed to be his own blood. I asked him what happened.

"Well, it was just Trevor playing the good guy. He tried to ambush me but it's fine. I sent him away."

He said and headed to his room. Trevor is from the McCarthy family. His father is a long time friend of mine.

Clive didn't change after that.

Even when we actually tried to kill him, he didn't change. He just smiled at us saying things like, "It's only natural to fear the unknown."

I was seriously at a loss. My wife stopped acting all paranoid. There is no denying that he did something wrong. But it was forced by the situation. If he hadn't done it, something bad could have happened.

His method of doing it was unusual. But his actions did save some people. As a father, I am conflicted. His actions saved many while taking the life of a single person.

Even so, he never faltered and kept at it on his own pace. He soon became independent when he was 16. I wasn't against it. Neither was his mother.

I guess, we were still afraid of him. He rented a room and got a job at the mines. Somehow, my son became independent before even actually becoming an adult. If that incident had not occurred, we would have stayed a normal family.

The incident died down. The people stopped talking about it after a while. No one blamed us as Clive himself said that he did it on his own. On the contrary, they sympathized with us.

After our death, we learned many things. And the fact that we had given birth to a harbinger who is said to rule over a concept shocked us. Even so, Clive is my son.

I can't just say that he isn't and run away. We were given another chance. This time, whole that we can become a family we should have been.