A Revelation

Jaden looked at himself in the mirror as he stared wide eyed at his new, or rather, old appearance. "How is this even possible? What happened to me?!" He said loudly as he touched his face and spun around in the mirror, taking in all of his features. He had regressed in age and was now a child again. Elena knew she should feel bad about what happened, but she couldn't help but be overjoyed by the results. Her Jaden turning back into a child took her on trip down memory lane. Him becoming younger was a much better outcome than him turning into a beast, so she was grateful as the outcome could have been much worse.

Elena walked over to him and hugged him from behind with a wide grin on her face. "Thank you, god! Now it's like I can raise you all over again!" She said as she squeezed him tighter, which made Jaden's face turn blue as she started to suffocate him. He managed to pull himself away from her embrace and crossed his arms as he puffed his cheeks. "This is not a good thing! I don't intend to go through puberty all over again. I'm going to find a way to turn back into my old body if it's the last thing I do!" He said as he huffed.

"But first… I need to change clothes." He said with a blush spread across his cheeks as the only thing he was wearing was his t-shirt and blazer that draped on his small body like a dress. He didn't know how long it would take for him to revert back to normal, but if it was going to take a while, he was going to need a new wardrobe for the time being. " Just wear some of Syrus's clothes. You two are about the same size now." Suggested Anastasia. Jaden walked over to Syrus's closet and searched through it until he found an outfit that fit his style. He then went to the bathroom to get changed, and when he emerged, he was wearing an outfit that wasn't that far off from his old one. He wore blue jeans with a black V-neck shirt with a dark red jacket on top and a pair of Syrus's Slifer Red sneakers from his uniform.

"Much better. Now that that's out of the way… We need to try and figure out what's wrong with me. Why is this happening to me?" Jaden said with a deep sigh. "Maybe it has something to do with that bullet wound. The transform didn't start until after you got shot, right? It would only make sense." Anastasia suggested as she frowned. "But if that's true then it's my fault that you're going through this. I was the real target and you got hurt trying to protect me. I'm so sorry, my lord. I should have been stronger!" The young vampire girl said as she bowed to Jaden with her head hung low. Jaden stiffened as he raised his hands up while smiling awkwardly, trying to get her to stand back up. "There's no need to apologize! I protected you because I wanted too. So don't be so glum. I'm not upset, really." Jaden said with a warm smile on his face which caused Anastasia's eyes to water. He really was such a kindhearted soul.

Syrus walked into the room not knowing about what had just happened. "Oh hey, Elena! I didn't expect you to be…here?" He said, stalling in his words as he looked at Jaden. "Jaden? Buddy, is that you?" He said as he walked over to his best friend, using his hand to measure their heights, confirming that they were in fact now the same height. "Yeah. It's me. It's a long story. I don't even know where to start with this one." And with that, he tried his best to explain the situation but leaving blanks in the story as he didn't want to reveal that he and Anastasia were alone together when the attack happened. He didn't want to risk upsetting Alexis if she somehow found out what happened between the two of them.

"So, you're a kid now? Well, this is going to take some getting used too. But I'm happy cause for once I know someone that isn't taller than me!" Syrus said as he laughed, swinging an arm around Jaden who stood there grumpily beside him. It wasn't just his appearance that changed, but his personality as well. He was feeling more abrasive and quicker tempered than usual, like how he used too back when he was still living at the orphanage. He didn't know why, but Syrus touching him made him feel disgusted inside. Almost like he had repressed emotions that were coming to light because of his sudden transformation into his adolescent state. "Lay your hands off of me…" Jaden said as he swatted Syrus's arm off of him, glaring at him with hatred in his eyes.

Syrus looked at him painfully that his best friend would treat him in such a manor. "Sorry, Jay. I didn't mean to make you mad. Geez…" Jaden continued to glare at him when he snapped back to his senses, shaking his head in an attempt to deter the hatred he felt in his heart. "Sorry Syrus. I don't know what came over me." He said with a deep frown gracing his lips. He then grabbed his head in pain as his brain started to pound in his skull. With squinted eyes, he looked at Syrus and hallucinated blood drenching the other boy. He gasped as he looked at his shaky hands which too were coated in a thick layer of blood. He didn't know what he saw, but as his eyes glanced around the room, he saw fire burning the walls and he could hear the screams of people that deafened his ears. "Jaden? Are you okay?" Asked Syrus worriedly, who took a step towards him.

"N-No! Stay back! Don't come any closer! " He yelled as he stumbled backwards while clutching his head. The pain was so strong that he felt like he was about to lose consciousness. "Jaden! What's wrong?!" Yelled Elena who ran to his aid, catching him before he hit the ground. Jaden laid in her arms breathing rapidly with his eyes shut as he finally succumbed to slumber. She placed a hand on his forehead and gasped when she felt how hot he had become. "He has a really high fever! We should take him to the infirmary. I can't treat him properly with the supplies we have here." She lifted his small frame into her arms as she headed out the door, heading straight for the school's medical ward.

They rushed him to the infirmary with Jaden's condition gradually getting worse. Jaden felt like he was getting burnt to a crisp from the inside out. When they made it to the infirmary, they laid him down in a bed that Nurse Fontain had prepared for him. They frantically rushed around the room preparing treatments to help reduce his fever. While Jaden slept, he tossed and turned with his closed eyes shut tightly as he dreamed.

He was still a child, but slightly younger than he was now, probably around the ages four to five years old. He was standing in a small apartment that reeked of cigarettes and alcohol as he peaked his small head around the hallway corner to listen to his parents as they screamed at each other, talking about him. "There is something wrong with that child! Can't you see that he's not normal?!" Shrieked his mother who took a swig of scotch she had in a chilled glass. "The mothers at his school tell me how he keeps doing weird things. Today, his teacher called me and told me he killed another animal in the playground and started scaring everybody with it. What normal person does something like that?! It's absolutely mortifying!" She said as she hiccupped, the alcohol finally affecting her system.

His father grumbled as he stood in front of his wife across the kitchen counter with a scowl on his face. "Maybe he gets it from you. He's as crazy as his batshit mother." He smirked as he saw his wife choke on her drink which made him laugh, but his mood quickly changed when she proceeded to throw her drink on him, coating him in the smell of alcohol. In response, he leaned over the counter and struck her across the face, his strike causing her to fall on the ground very hard. "You damn brute! Maybe he gets his violent tendencies from you, how he watches his father beat on his mom every day! You're the real reason he's such a trouble child! I wish I never met you and I wish I never gave birth to that THING I have to call my son!" His mother shrieked.

His father tilted his head back and laughed as he fed on her anger. "I was going to say the same thing! I've had of enough of this. You can deal with this on your own because I'm out of here. You're finally getting what you wanted because I am done with this family." He said as he went to their bedroom and started packing his belongings. When he got most of his stuff fitted into a suitcase, he walked to their front door ready to leave when he was surprised to see a strange man standing on the other side of it. The man wore a white robe with a rosary around his neck. It was a priest. "Ah, I'm sorry to intrude. But I've come here in search of a very special someone. May I come in?" Before his dad could respond, the priest had already walked in and headed straight for Jaden who was still cowering down the hallway.

The figure crouched down to stare at the young boy straight in his face as he hovered a hand over Jaden's head while saying some kind of prayer underneath his breath. "You can't just walk into someone else's home! Just who the hell do you think you are?!" Said his mother who walked over to the priest and spun him around, but the hooded figure smiled evilly as he handed out a large sum of cash towards her that he had pulled out from his pocket. "I need this boy. So how much will it be?"

His mother stepped back, completely shocked by his random offer. "Are you saying you want to buy my son?" She said skeptically, thinking it was some kind of trap. The hooded figure nodded as he placed the cash in her hands. "This is 5000$. And if that's not enough, there's more where that came from. I can even give you enough so that you and your husband can live comfortably for the rest of your lives. So, do we have a deal?" His father walked back into the apartment to stand next to his wife as they both stared with happy eyes at the giant amount of cash they now found themselves in possession of.

"Add three more zeros to the end of that number and you got yourself a deal!" Said Jaden's father who shook the priest's hand, ceiling their deal. Jaden couldn't believe what he was hearing! He knew he could be a bad boy sometimes and he had some strange habits, but he didn't think he deserved to be sold to some stranger like a pet dog they were pawning onto someone else to take care of. Jaden felt as his eyes got hot, and he was blinded as his eyes filled with tears. He ran over to his mother and clung to her leg, desperately trying to get her to change her mind. "Mommy! Please don't get rid of me! I'll be a good boy from now on! I'll be normal!" But his mother just glared at him and kicked him which made his tiny body crash into the floor. "You will never be normal. You're not my son, you're some kind of demon child. Now get lost." Jaden's eyes widened and he felt his soul leave his body. The priest helped to pick the boy up and guided him to his bedroom so that he could pack his belongings. While they packed, Jaden stayed silent the entire time. It was decided. His family didn't want him anymore.

Alexis sat next to Jaden's sleeping body as she held his hand. She didn't know how to feel. Never in her life did she expect her boyfriend to randomly turn back into a child. This was a situation she was not prepared for, but even so, she wanted to be there for him. She sat up in her stool as she noticed Jaden start to stir in his sleep and noticed as tears started to streak down his face. "Jaden? Are finally you awake?" She asked hopefully.

It had been a couple of hours since they brought him to the infirmary, and she was beginning to worry that he wasn't ever going to wake up. Jaden's eyes fluttered open as he glanced around the room. "I think… I think I had a dream about my parents." He said as his bangs covered his eyes. He had always wondered where he came from, but now that he knew, he wish he had never discovered the truth. He wished he still lived in blissful ignorance of his origins. "Well, that's a good thing, right? Everyone should be able to know their parents. I bet they loved you very much!" Alexis said, being far from the truth. Jaden's eyes widened when he heard the word love. It was definitely not an accurate description to how his parents actually felt about him.

He stood up out of the bed despite the protests of both Alexis and Elena to sit back down. "I need some time alone. I just… I can't be here right now!" He yelled as he darted for the door with Alexis chasing him to the corridor, but deciding to just let him go as she frowned watching him get further away. "I hope he'll be okay." She said painfully. Elena walked up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe he learned something that surprised him. After all, he had a terrible childhood before he came into my care. He physically might have turned into a kid but I'm starting to think that whatever trauma he suffered is coming back to haunt him. We just need to give him his space." Said Elena with a calm tone. But deep down, she was incredibly worried. Jaden was in a very delicate state and could more easily succumb to the darkness that was in his heart.

Jaden wandered the island as his thoughts ate at him. How does someone do something so horrible to their own child? Now that he was starting to remember, things that weren't clear before were starting to come back in better focus. He remembered being a little boy and how he had a deep fascination with death. He admitted it, he liked making things suffer and watching the life fade away from them. He was a monster of a child, but despite his urges for blood shed, he always tried his best to be a good kid. He knew that was he was doing was wrong, and he just wanted to be loved like any other child. But he never got it.

He found himself back at the cliff where he sat on the edge for a good long time of silent contemplation. Haou materialized in spirit form and sat next to him again, both of them staring off into the horizon. "Didn't I tell you that humans were the real demons, Jaden? Your own parents sold you like a slave. Just to make a quick buck. How does that make you feel?" Said Haou in an attempt to sink Jaden deeper into the darkness inside of him. Jaden sat with his bangs still covering his eyes. "It makes me angry. It makes me hate them. And I didn't think I was capable of hating someone so bad that I would want them… I would want…" He couldn't even get the words to come out as he gritted his teeth. "You would want them what? Tell me." Said Haou as he looked at the child version of his better half.

"That I would want them dead!" Jaden yelled out, his voice echoing in the vast emptiness that surrounded him. "I want to kill them and make them suffer for what they did to me!" Jaden looked up with his eyes looking like a dull lifeless version of his red slitted ones. He was absolutely seething inside. Maybe this transformation was a gift in disguise as he was starting to finally see what humans were capable of. Haou was right, some of them just needed to die. Jaden grabbed his head in pain as more memories started to wrack at his brain. His blood lust growing in size and starting to consume him. When he looked up, he started hallucinating. He was no longer on the cliff sitting with his darker half, but somewhere dark and cold. He couldn't see anything but pitch black, but his ears could hear the sounds of medical machines beeping like he was inside some kind of hospital.

In his hallucination, Jaden was still his eight-year-old self and strapped to a metal chair with his mouth gagged and a blind fold covering his eyes. Thick metal chains were wrapped around his body that tightly cut off the circulation in his hands. He could hear voices around him as his heart pounded in his chest. "He's healed back up. Let's commence round two of the testing. Nurse, prepare the electric saw, we'll be severing his leg this time. Sync the timer after amputation to time how long it takes for the bleeding to stop." Said the voice of an older man, followed by the sound of the electric saw turning on and buzzing. Jaden couldn't speak with the gag still stuck in his mouth, but it didn't stop the sound of his shriek escaping his throat as they made the initial incision causing his small body to jerk and twist, trying to escape the inevitable pain. After five more minutes, his leg was cut off as he heard the sloshing sound of his severed appendage fall onto the ground. "Timer started, doctor." Even though Jaden couldn't see because of his blindfold, the color red consumed his eyesight as he heard a deep demonic sounding voice resonate within his mind. "Kill them, Jaden. Hurt them like how they've hurt you. What are you waiting for? Put the humans in their place!"

Jaden bit down tightly on the gag until it broke in half and the binds that restrained his body were easily broken due to his now enhanced strength. He could hear the scream of the nurse who stepped back as she sounded an alarm that blared through the building. "Kill you… I'll kill you all!" Jaden yelled as he crawled across the ground with his leg still regenerating, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he inched his way towards the nurse. "Oh no you don't!" Shouted the doctor who ran over to Jaden and jabbed a large spear in his back which conducted electricity that shocked his entire body. Jaden screeched as his body was jolted from the high voltage, but it didn't stop him from reaching a hand behind his back and grabbing the spear, breaking it with his bare hands as he stood up. His leg instantly regenerating as the limb shot out from what used to be a nub.

Jaden grabbed the blind fold that covered his eyes and pulled it off, revealing hollow and dead looking brown colored eyes that lacked any sign of emotion. Jaden was no longer in control as he let the hatred inside of him take over. He wasn't going to let these people hurt him anymore. "It's your turn, doctor." He said lifelessly as he used the broken half of the spear he carried in his hand to plunge straight into the doctor's neck, which gushed blood all over him. The nurse shrieked as she ran out of the room, terrified by the little boy who was on a rampage. The doctor's corpse fell on the floor with Jaden sitting on top of him as he stabbed his body repeatedly with the piece of metal. With every stab, Jaden felt satisfaction seeing the blood gush out from his victim. A sinister smile started to appear on his face as he chuckled. "Die… die… DIE!" He said as he continued to stab, laughing while he did so.

Without even realizing it, Jaden had already reverted back to his regular body. With his hands still tightly clutching his hair, he started to laugh as he dug his fingers into his sweaty and matted hair, pulling on it vigorously. His face contorted into that of a mad mans, with his lips pulled from ear to ear as he grinned widely with his fangs on full display. He let out a bellowing, deep and animalistic sounding laugh as he felt like he was slowly starting to lose his mind. He remembered everything. And it was time for him to stop holding back. He didn't have time for sweet dreams anymore.