Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 402; Livid Dog

Nonononononononono.

The regret inside me grew; the memory of losing my child and the mother of my kid resurfaced.

A tent in the night, a necklace in my pocket.

A woman so beautiful in the darkest tone of skin I have ever seen.

An accident.

A buried village.

Nononono.

The terror, the guilt, and the sorrow of losing a child are the most unbearable.

"Kenny, calm down!"

My mask fell on the ground while I fought myself free, trying to reach her and make it alright again.

I bit into my wrist and flung my hand in her direction for my blood to reach her and make everything good.

"No, stop it, Kenny!"

I was turned around and wrestled to the ground, dragged away a few steps before I managed to get the upper hand, and threw him deeper into the forest.

I looked back and froze, staring at the mother of my child—at the blood that splattered on her.

But instead of getting better, the worm bundle in her arms, where some blood had met her, grew.

Small worms grew into big worms and then grew together.

A smooth surface formed from all these thick worms merging together, and what looked much more like a little toddler with fleshly pink skin was retrieved.

The toddler’s eyes opened, with no eyeballs in them, but just dark holes.

Small worms broke from the woman’s skin, latching onto drops of blood on her body as they fed on it to grow.

I watched in a daze, not sure if it worked, if the kid was alright now, and if the woman would be ’retrieved’ like the kid that MOVED, stripping away the blankets it was covered in, when I was tackled to the ground.

He sat on top of me, but I didn’t care and raised my head to stare ahead at something smaller that appeared and lunged at the mother and child, biting into the woman’s chest.

It was a rat.

Soon more appeared, biting the two figures, either because they targeted the worms or some of my blood.

Some rats went after the earth, or in our direction, and for all the blood I had lost.

A shadowy energy eradicated everything that came close to us.

The child also resisted and grabbed rats attacking it to crush them, throwing one into a group of people outside the forest.

Someone away from us screamed.

"WHAT IS THAT???"

"RATS! RATS ARE HERE! DON’T GET BITTEN!"

The person above me dragged me deeper into the forest so that we wouldn’t be spotted. He wrapped my wrist in some fabric so that the bleeding would stop before he let all the blood on the earth disappear.

Gunshots struck the dark rats that attacked the two figures, while a few pink rats also appeared but attacked the hysterical groups inside the garden.

Bullets soon also struck the two bodies where most of the dark rats gathered to eat, TO FEED.

More screams, people running away, but none of them running into the black forest we were in.

The two hugging worm bodies, one retrieved from the dead, one still full of thick worms growing and in the making, moved slightly with the surge of bullets and rats nibbling at them.

Eventually, most of the rats were shot, but the toddler stood up; every time a bullet struck him, he instantly healed as he walked toward the people shooting him.

"SHIT! Kenny, give me the tear gas. You remember? The tear gas. Give it to me!" Someone hissed into my ear while still restricting me.

"Kenny. Be good, be good. Conjure it up; do it now!"

With my thoughts redirected, away from the sorrow and the village, back to a scene inside a car, to an old man who gave me something dark green, a small canister, I felt something in my hand.

The canister, the tear gas.

And then it was ripped out of my hand, the safety pin was pulled, and it was thrown to the people ahead.

Gas left the canister, and more screams sounded.

"WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!"

"THE ASSAILANTS ARE STILL HERE!"

"SOUTHWEST! THEY ARE INSIDE THE FOREST!"

"CONTINUE TO SHOOT THE CHILD!"

"EVERYONE BACK INSIDE, AWAY FROM THE RATS!"

"DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES! THE TEAR GAS WILL SOON BE GONE!"

Amidst the chaos and the people who tried to listen and see, the toddler stopped and turned around to us.

I felt the two holes looking at me when I saw shadowy energy leaving one of the hands that had just restricted me.

The woman, the toddler, THE WORMS, and the rats eating them were all wrapped up and disappeared.

The table in my mind glazed over, repairing itself, but the two sets of different feelings that were so different but so identical still reverberated inside me.

I tried to break free and return to the now-empty spot where the mother had just been, but Henry threw me over his shoulder and started to run.

His grip was ironclad, and I could not break free.

"Stop it, Kenny!" He ran through the burned-down forest and suddenly jumped, stepping on what I soon identified as a big and thick, very high wall, before he jumped down again.

"It’s my fault!" He now ran over what seemed to be just a black field, just burned-down soil.

"I’m so sorry for sneaking out! But Kenny..." He continued to run at inhuman speed until he had green grass under his feet.

"YOU HAVE TO CALM DOWN NOW!"

"Shhh, shhh. Stop fighting; I won’t let go, even if you KILL ME!" He was moving so fast that I wouldn’t be able to hear him without my enhanced hearing because of the wind whipping against our bodies, carrying his voice away.

We never encountered anyone, and the sun was slowly rising.

I couldn’t stop trying to pry myself away from his grip; it was as if I had a mission—A MISSION TO GET BACK TO THE CHILD!

"Stop it. STOP IT! We are home soon; SOON WE ARE HOME!" 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

I wriggled on his shoulder, slamming his back so that he would let go while I was unable to speak or cry, still in a seizure-like state without a clear thought.

"Kenny! It’s alright!" From grass to asphalt to grass again, until we left the city behind us.

The landscape turned more rural until we came to a dirt road, and soon Henry didn’t run anymore but walked ahead.

I could hear an old voice screaming from where we already were.

"WHAT DID HE DO TO MY FIELD! BRING THEM HERE! BRING THEM HERE!!"

Henry continued to jog towards the voice, his breath labored.

"ETHAN! DID YOU HEAR ME?"

"DID YOU SEE WHAT THEY HAVE DONE? ETHAN!!!"

We passed a gate and crossed the front yard to enter a house.

"Mrs. Howard..." An apologetic voice spoke, but now it was Henry who screamed.

"EVERYONE IMPORTANT, GET THE FUCK DOWN HERE!" He hollered before going back out to the front yard.

He took off his mask and jacket and put me down without letting go. He held onto me tightly while I still couldn’t control my movements and tried to get away by bending my body away from him.

After he screamed, there was silence, but soon people came out, many people who stared at me.

"Kennith?" My grandma asked, staring at me.

Henry chuckled, sounding LIVID.

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR SORRY EXCUSE OF A SON HAS DONE?"

I groaned, wanting to go back, back, back, back to the child.

"BOY! How dare you talk to her like this?!" The staff sergeant stepped in front of my grandma, but she pushed him out of the way.

"What did he do?" She asked Henry, her eyes wandering to me before she again put all her attention on him.

"Henry..." Ethan started but was silenced by one glance from the addressed person.

"About a decade ago, YOUR SON befriended someone from the Lawrence family AND TALKED SHIT ABOUT HIS OWN SON. THAT ACQUAINTANCE THEN came into the house where Kenny had been neglected not only by his family but also apparently by a caretaker and took Kenny’s blood. Kenny had been at that time still wearing a cast from a long-ago healed injury—A MEANWHILE MOLDY CAST—AND THIS MAN DREW KENNY’S BLOOD. He then injected Kenny’s blood into his pregnant wife, after doing god knows what with it!" He switched between screaming and talking so deeply that it sounded like the growl of a monster.

"WHERE IS OMAR? HE SHOULD HEAR THAT!" After a brief pause, he yelled again.

"He was called home an hour ago. It was urgent." Jordan stepped forward.

"What is wrong with Kenny?"

"I’LL HANDLE HIM. YOU DON’T NEED TO CARE." Henry laughed and lifted me again when I wanted to kick him.

I bit into one of his arms he held me with, and he let me, not moving even when I drew blood.

"What do you have to say, Mrs. Howard? What do you have to say to THIS kind of neglect Kenny had to experience after his mother died?" He didn’t give anyone a chance to answer.

"If I ever meet your son, that piece of shit will DIE by my hands." He promised.

"So now that we have found out how THE PROPHET came to exist, I have more news!" He took a few moments to catch his breath before he continued.

"The rats aren’t our biggest problem; THE WORMS are. They feed on humans and can grow into moving humans or animals. The pink rats are probably just one of the finished products the worms grew into."

"And the last point: We need a new mattress, now!"

When he finished speaking, he turned away from the group and carried me inside.

"Bring him a mattress. In the attic." An exhausted old voice spoke.

Henry brought me inside our room, leaving the door open, and sat down with me under the window where our ’bed’ had been.

"What do you need? What should I do to make you feel better, Kenny?" Henry whispered into my ear, sounding like a different person than just a few seconds ago.

I let go of his arm and tried to wriggle away from him, but he didn’t let go.

"What should I do? What should I do?" He mumbled before suddenly covering my ears.

"SOMEONE BRING THE KID!" He ordered.

Soon Kitty came through the open door together with a frightened kid that timidly held onto the tiger’s ear.

It was the kid from my visions.

And seeing her, the little girl, safe and sound, as if the memories of the woman—the mother—that had haunted me until now vanished, my muscles relaxed.

As if a possession had been lifted, the seizure ceased.

The horrifying fear disappeared.

The soul-eating regret disappeared.

"You are alright." Henry whispered.

"The kid is alright. You are alright. Everything is good." He leaned back and loosened his grip a bit but still hugged me tightly before he let out a long sigh.

"Everything is alright."