Resentment

Nathan sat crestfallen on the floor facing away from the window for at least ten minutes. He didn't know what to make of the boy, but he was definitely afraid.

Those pitch-black eyes, his blood-stained hands... it all gave him a very bad feeling. But there was not much he could do, at least not until he knew what kind of being the boy was.

Nathan looked up as he covered his lower face and looked around. He had not had a chance to observe the room, so he took advantage of that before night fell and everything became dark.

He expected the room to be the same as the previous ones, but he was again paralyzed when he saw that the walls were practically covered with strange scribbles and drawings, as if they were cave art.

Nathan assumed that the scribbles were in a language he didn't know, as each symbol seemed to be a letter forming a sentence. Still, it was not as if he could read it, so he concentrated on the drawings on the walls, which seemed to have been done by a child... which frightened Nathan.

It seemed as if whoever had drawn them had the urge to finish them quickly, as they didn't seem very coherent at first glance. It took Nathan a few minutes to understand what the drawings were referring to, but when he understood something of their meaning, he became even more confused.

'Are they all people?

The drawings were actually quite simple, there were several houses made of squares and triangles, quite simple. But more importantly, there were two groups of people, one group all facing the same direction, while on the other side there was only one figure facing the opposite direction.

Nathan knew there must be a deeper meaning, but he had neither the time nor the understanding to make sense of the drawings.

Sighing, Nathan continued to explore the room. There was a small child-sized bed, several wooden toys and a wardrobe that was mysteriously locked... with a padlock.

This naturally caught Nathan's attention and he went over to check the lock.

'Where would I find a key?'

Nathan fiddled with the padlock and without meaning to, it suddenly broke.

Seeing the broken padlock on the floor, Nathan fell silent.

'Apparently it won't be necessary...'

He looked back at the wardrobe and grabbed the two handles before pulling carefully. As he opened the wardrobe doors all the way, his legs lost their strength and he fell backwards a few steps.

'W-what?'

Inside the wardrobe was a skeleton. Nathan looked at it with narrowed eyes and fear. He had seen people die horribly, but he had never seen a skeleton.

Not only that, but the skeleton was too small to be an adult, so there was no doubt that the skeleton had once belonged to a child.

There were many questions in Nathan's mind, but now he was confused and not in the best state to think things through. But first Nathan closed the wardrobe doors and left quickly, not wanting to spend another second in the room.

After seeing that room, Nathan began to feel paranoid about every corner and shadow in the house. He had certainly never been afraid of ghosts before, but the vivid memories in his mind of the boy and the skeleton did nothing but frighten him.

Nathan thought he had seen it all... but he understood that the realms were beyond his comprehension.

Without thinking, Nathan went into one of the rooms farthest from the boy's room and closest to the stairs and closed the door before sitting down on the bed, breathing heavily.

'Why…?'

After a moment's rest, Nathan put his hands to his face and behind his fingers, soft tears began to trickle slowly down his face.

There was a faint sound of crying in the room for about ten minutes before it fell silent again.

The next morning, Nathan stood at the door of the room where he had spent the night and swallowed as he gripped the handle.

Dark circles began to appear under his eyes, but to say he had slept would be a lie. He could barely get a few hours' sleep between what he had seen earlier in the day and the recurring nightmares he was suffering from.

He felt tired, but there was definitely more of a desire to find a way out of the realm than to wait for the boy who had promised to play today.

Taking a deep breath, Nathan opened the door and stuck his head out before looking down each side of the corridor, especially at the door at the end of the corridor.

'Good thing...' Seeing that the door to the boy's room was still closed, Nathan sighed and left the room, heading for the stairs.

Not wanting to waste any time, Nathan hurried down the stairs and headed for the door of the abandoned house. He had seen a village through the windows, but he wasn't sure if there was anyone outside or if there was any other danger.

Nathan reached the door and turned the knob, a shiver running down his spine as he heard a voice behind him.

"Are you leaving already? But we haven't even played..."

Nathan felt his heart threaten to burst out of his chest. He slowly turned his head without letting go of the knob and looked up at the boy standing at the top of the stairs, staring at him with his completely black eyes.

Children were supposed to be a sign of purity, Nathan thought of Lira and the other children, who surely retained some innocence even after a lifetime of misery.

But the child before him was different. Nathan felt fear, but not the fear he felt when he saw people being cut in half in front of him, or the instinctive fear he felt when he saw the old man.

The fear Nathan felt from the boy was a fear of evil, pure evil.

He did not know where the boy had come from or what he had been doing all this time. But Nathan wanted nothing more than to run away from the house, so without thinking twice he turned the doorknob and opened the door before running out.

Nathan didn't dare look back as he ran out of the house, he didn't want to hear about the boy, so he just looked at what was in front of him.

The village he ran through was as deserted as the house. Most of the houses had either collapsed or burned to ashes.

Nathan did not know what had happened to the village to make it so devastated, but he had no intention of finding out.

Nor did he know what to do. He was lost in the many alleys of the village and had no idea how to get out. So, his only option was to keep running, hoping to find a way out of the village and, if possible, out of the realm.

Nathan saw some debris in his path, so he turned into an alley, where a small figure was waiting a few meters ahead.

Nathan braked as fast as he could, but lost his balance and stumbled, falling to the ground. It didn't take him more than a second to get up and take a few steps backwards, the fear taking control of his body.

The boy bowed his head tenderly... though in Nathan's eyes it was more terrifying than tender.

"You're bad at running... this game is so boring. Let's play something else!"

The boy began to approach Nathan, who could only bite his lip as he looked anxiously at the boy approaching in slow steps. Nathan couldn't stand it any longer and shouted.

"Go away!"

The boy stopped abruptly at Nathan's cry and looked at him with a neutral stare. His face lost all apparent emotion and his eyes seemed to grow darker than before.

Nathan felt that the person before him had changed. He no longer saw the person before him as a child... but as a monster.

The boy looked at his own hands, still stained with blood, and murmured softly.

"Is it because I didn't listen to Daddy?"

Nathan felt his legs go numb as the boy's voice slowly changed, becoming deeper and more guttural.

"Is it because I choked Mummy?"

The boy no longer sounded like a child, now all Nathan heard was the voice of a demon from hell itself.

The boy's voice reached its most diabolical point and he looked at Nathan again, black tears falling from his eyes.

"Why won't you play with me?!"