17 Fenrir
[Inside a small basement of an apartment 510 years ago]
<<Emergency news! emergency news… Everyone listening to this podcast pay attention to what I am going to say next! The universe has finally gone crazy! Thousands of youths vanished last night, and more than a dozen pictures denote the existence of white Gates that have been found at the crime scene. Nobody knows what exactly these Gates are, or who created them, but I have spoken to a few witnesses during the last few days.
According to the witnesses, the white Gates sucked a member of their family, or one of their friends inside after a sphere-shaped mole formed on the back of their right hand. We don’t know what exactly happens, and most might not believe me…but be careful when something manifests on the back of your right hand; it might change your life…>> The shrill voice of a famous podcaster rang out from the small speaker placed on a wooden table in a small room.
The table shook and the walls in the small room trembled as well as something heavy smashed on the wooden table, breaking it into two.
Several men began screaming in shock, drowning the podcast’s voice by far and large. The shouting men were loud enough to silence the pleading youth.
<<The government is trying to hide this news, saying that they want to prevent mass panic, but I don’t believe that. Ah…and the government started the colonization project outside the solar system. But who cares about something like that when magic doors open all over the sun system, kidnapping people by sucking them inside?!? >>
The sound of a blunt bat smashing down on something soft could be heard clearly, followed by a pained scream.
“Stop… Plea–…stop…dad!!” A weak scream and a plea for mercy escaped the lips of a young man.
The young man who was on the cusp of reaching adulthood lay on top of the table that had been smashed into pieces with his body. His breathing was ragged and even moving seemed like an enormous task. Every inch of his body hurt because he had been lifted and swung down mercilessly.
Even if the young man knew that his father turned into a monster when he drank too much, today was different. The young man was accustomed to routinely getting hit, but his father had never lifted his body to smash him on the table, forget about using a bat before. Something had changed.
The abyss-like eyes of the young man stared at the towering figure of his father, and insanity was the only thing he could see in those eyes. His father finally snapped.
‘Why? Why is that happening to me? Why me? WHYY?!’
“You should hate your father a little more. He was stupid enough to get drunk and ask money from our men just to lose it all in gambling. This idiot is an utter failure, which is your misfortune…after all, you will have to sort out the mess he created,” An unfamiliar voice reached the young man’s ear.
A middle-aged man with long red hair and heterochromatic eyes appeared in the doorframe of the smelly, and moldy room. He was wearing a neat suit and smoking a cigarette while calmly watching the father beat up his one and only son with a glint of excitement in his eyes.
‘Why are you coming after me? My father can pay for his own shit because I am not going to do it!’ The young man screamed in his head while feeling that the last strings of hope were viciously cut.
In his mind, he got up from the ground and started fighting both the middle-aged man and his father. Unfortunately, it was all in his mind, nothing more. He didn’t get up because he was too weak.
Even if he had some strength left in his legs, the young man knew that he would never be able to beat his father.
“You don’t know me, but that doesn’t really matter kiddo. Your father just sold you – your body, to be precise – to pay up for his debt. I told your lovely father to beat you up a little bit and kill you to make sure that there is no sense of attachment between you and your father….not that I cannot already tell that right now,” The middle-aged man added with a vile smirk that stretched in a devilish grin.
“…but I like to watch the desperation in the eyes of the victim when their own family stabs them in the back… In your last moments, you will be filled with pain, anger, regret, and the overwhelming feeling of injustice, but you won’t be able to do anything. Isn’t that exciting?!”
The young man stared blankly at the middle-aged man standing in the doorframe, his eyes nearly popping out of his eye sockets.
‘W-w-what?!?’
It was then that a lethal attack came his way.
Swoosh.
The bat smashed down on the young man’s head. He could barely twist his neck to move his head a little, evading the impact by a hair’s breadth.
His father was utterly wasted but he was a beast of a man with a weight of more than 150 kilograms and a height of more than two meters. The impact of the blunt bat crushed the remains of the wooden table beneath the young man, throwing wood splinters everywhere.
It was at that moment when the young man knew, his father was out for his life!
“D-dad, stop it…you can still stop, it’s not too late yet!!” The young man screamed out as loud as he could, pleading his father to show some mercy.
“Kid, just give up. Your death has already been sealed. You are nothing more than a host for our precious exclusive items now!” The middle-aged man said calmly, but the young man wasn’t having it.
“Fuck off, you piece of shit!” He screamed, only to realize that he had been distracted for too long.
The wooden bat crashed down on his stomach, taking his breath away. Stars swam in front of the young man’s eyes for a second or two, only to regain his senses when he was lifted high in the air.
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‘Will I really die here?’ The young man wondered chaos and terror rioting in his head.
“Hurry up and kill him, I don’t have all day to spare,” The middle-aged man said impatiently. He saw what he came for, and lost interest in the father-son duo quickly.
When the monster of a father heard the middle-aged man’s words, he threw his son against the closest wall.
The sound of cracking bones rang in the young man’s ears but there was little to nothing he could do right now. He could only see his father approaching him slowly, holding the wooden bat in a vice-like grip.
‘No…’
That was the life of Cleave Fenrir moments before he was sucked inside the Origin Expanse.
It was a catalyst in the creation of a true monster that everybody would loathe and fear.
‘I don’t want to die…’
Today was his 18th birthday. It was a day of celebration, something he ought to be happy about. However, today was certainly not a day that could be celebrated.
The only present he was about to receive was his own death, freedom from the shackles of life.
‘If I was only a little stronger…’ He thought in his last moments, ‘Had a little bit more strength, I would have fought against them. I would have never allowed Father to hit Mom, to hit me, or my Sister…’
While bitter thoughts clouded his mind, the back of his right hand began to itch.
A small, sphere-shaped rune formed on the back of his right hand. It was smaller than a marble and could easily be mistaken for a uniquely shaped mole.
‘I wonder how they would fare after mercilessly abandoning me…’
Soon after, space cracked open, and a radiant light illuminated the room.
The crack expanded in size until it was large enough to let a person through.
Everyone stared blankly at the Gate, their bodies frozen in place.
‘I hope these whores soon die as well.’ He thought while looking at his father and the evil-looking man.
A moment later, the Cleave Fenrir was pulled into the white Gate.
Cleave Fenrir disappeared, escaping his father’s grasp and the hands of the unknown man.
It was the same day these men would learn to regret to have hit him, to have forced him to become what he was.
They should have killed Cleave Fenrir before it was too late.