It Begins

Jason was in the room allocated to him and his siblings, wondering what to do while his uncle continued ranting just outside the room. Jason knew how it often ended. Daltom had a strong, superstitious community, and since both of his parents died, the locals wanted nothing to do with his. His eyes, one blue, and the other a light brown, was part of the reason he was seen as a wierdo.

“I’m calling the cops on you, boy!” he screamed. “I’m calling the cops on you for assault. You dare hit me.”

People gathered in sympathy. They screamed at the fresh wounds on his face where Jason had left the mark of his rage.

“Damn, Mr. Michael, you’ve got bruises all over your face. Who did this to you?” It was the fat man Jason rarely greeted, the man whose eyes would always follow him whenever he returned from work. He recognized the voice and hated it.

“That boy they call Jason. I reckon he killed his father,” Michael said.

Maybe the hate and bitterness building up in Jason’s heart would not have reached the height it got to if his brothers were not in the room listening to how their elder brother killed their father.

“His father let him,” another man chipped in. It was the rough voice of Marcus, the big, red blacksmith who lived across the road and could attest to Jason’s stubbornness.

“He was a weakling,” another screamed. It was an opportunity to level insults at the man whom, once upon a time, they could not stand up to.

Jason came out from his room to watch the man. Listening to them call his father a weakling was the last straw; he very well could not stay indoors to exchange glances with his siblings as if he was the weakling his father had just been accused of being.

“Where is the boy?” Marcus growled. Everybody knew that he liked trouble and was not one to give up an opportunity of bullying a young boy.

“Yes, where is he?” the fat man, Dean asked.

More locals were gathering now, thoughts of righting an old man’s wrong slowly building momentum. The locals never passed up the opportunity of taking laws into their own hands, and Jason had provided the perfect excuse. He had actually beaten up his uncle. Young men, old men and middle aged men, who felt slighted by Jason or what Jason was gathered round, raring for a fight.

“Look at him! See the stubborn boy who felt he can fight me,” his uncle screamed immediately he saw Jason standing resolutely by the door.

“Come here, boy,” Marcus said. He started walking towards Jason.

When he met him at the door, Jason was still standing there, unafraid, his eyes shooting daggers at the man.

“Get inside,” Jason told his siblings as they were trying to peep through the curtain barely covering the entrance to their room.

“I heard you’re a grown ass man now, huh? You now fight your uncle, eh?” Marcus said menacingly, looming over the boy. The other men close behind him.

Jason knew what they were deliberately seeking now was a sign of aggression from him, anything at all to show that he was not sorry for attacking his uncle, but he maintained his stoic silence.

“I’m talking to you, boy!” Marcus pulled at Jason’s clothes. Roughly, Jason beat off his hand. That was enough excuse. The boy did not see the slap coming until it had descended on his face. He stumbled, trying to get his bearing. Marcus’ leg swept him clean off his feet and deposited him in one untidy heap on the ground. His right elbow was bruised.

“Don’t you know you should not fight your elders, eh?” Marcus asked, feigning to be responsible. Jason knew he was nothing like that. Most times he had seen the man creeping back to the house after his wife had gone for groceries, making curious noises with the new lady who just got an apartment in the tenement.

“Does your wife know what you do with Miss Jill?” Jason asked. His question got the response he wanted, for it paused Marcus in his tracks. When the man came for him again, he could not recognize him. He pummeled him with hands that frequently handled heavy sledge hammers till the others were now dragging the blacksmith off him. From the corner of his swollen eyes, Jason saw his siblings watching like people defeated; it gnawed at his heart. If he could not fight for himself, how was he supposed to protect these ones? Maybe he should have just called the cops. But they hardly came around these parts of the town, and even when they did, they wanted no trouble. There was little strength left in him when he raised himself from the ground to watch the departing backs of men who thought they had delivered judgment. His hand found a big stone nearby and he threw it into the mob.

“Awww! Fuck!” Dean screamed, indicating that the missile had hit home. “Damn boy has broken my head.”

The whole mob turned on Jason, their faces had the look of a soon-to-be-satiated hunger and murderous intent as they made their way towards Jason; he wished they would choke on their hate and die.

That was when it happened. Marcus, who was in front of the onslaught suddenly stopped and his hand went to his neck. Huge veins appeared on his face while Jason’s eyes bored into him. The veins were bulging, getting bigger and bigger. Marcus kept trying to cough out something, but he could not; he was choking.

“Help,” he managed to say, grabbing on to the nearest person. But the person started choking himself, in no position to help another. Jason watched as the mob went down on their knees; they no longer looked menacing and threatening the way they had looked earlier, breathing down his neck. They looked pitiable, lying there in different positions, grabbing their necks as something choked their lives away, just the way Jason had envisioned it.

Jason’s uncle watched from behind them, terrified. In all his years on earth, he had never seen anything like this. It was too sweeping to be a coincidence; everybody could not just start choking to death. He saw the angry look on Jason’s face before Jason’s eyes rested on him and quickly retreated into the safety of his house.

That was the last day the man went near Jason or his siblings. It was also the day Jason started seeing the ascian. No matter when he came out, no light could cast his shadow.