The screams from the above kitchen blurred together with no discernable character. The heated words somehow boiled over individual form, covering them so completely; the people spouting them eventually disappeared. Muraki didn't see his brother, his mother, or his father anymore. He saw the jagged twists of eyebrows and the angry creases of smiles gone wrong. He didn't understand their quarrels, so he hid, hid so deep within the house that he went undiscovered for days.
The only presence in the unnaturally white haired boy's life was his grandfather. He was a kind, old man with a raging passion for science and medicine. It was the kind of science that wasn't based on right or wrong. Ethics and morals never touched the ideals that went into the makings of each project. They were evaluated on something greater than what any mortal could define. Perfection, systematic, organized, programmed, referenced… everything that controlled nature, controlled the will of this old man.
The dark echoes of the small house turned in the boy's stomach. Something was wrong. Something was always wrong. His mother's thin voice slipped through the cracks of the walls, so frightened and small.
The boy concentrated on the silence, predicting the stronger and heavier words of his father to thump like a muffled wave against the wall, smothering whatever argument his mother was making.
She choked against his tone, exhaling rapidly as the rising timbre and cadence wrapped around her throat. She gargled in defeat, begging for something to stop.
The boy didn't know what to do. He closed his eyes and tightly clutched the plump round doll to his small chest in hopes that its eyeless form would block back the devils from upstairs.
He promised the daurma sight if it were to turn his fortune and grant him silence for the night, but in his heart he wished it for the rest of his life. The sweeping beat beneath his chest roared and the will of the boy fluttered out in an earthly form. The brightness of the room brought the boys eyes tighter together as the creature tore through him. He sent it away with his mind, only wanting peace. True inner peace couldn't be achieved by vanquishing the being. He knew this, yet choose to ignore it, taking whatever outcome that was to be to gain his wish.
The swift change in atmosphere shoved the dark spirit from the room and unleashed a rolling pebble. The screams from upstairs collect in the rocks core, forming a solid boulder that returned quickly to the boy's heart along with the sucking shadows and spirits circling the basement.
Muraki gasped and was thrown forward by the spiritual force. His doll hit first, taking most of the impact and shattered against the basement floor. As the boy continued forward, a shard of clay found a home imbedded deeply into his right eye. Muraki clutched his face between his hands and screamed at the warm flow of blood seeping out onto the cold floor. Dark spirits, and the slipping of consciousness, aid in his inevitable fall from grace.
His feet were the first to feel the weightlessness of his mind. His thighs next, until even the tips of his fingers felt as if they were supported by a thin sheen support, levitating every bit of him into the nothingness of shadow. These spirits comforted him, whispering calms that he never received in his adolescent life. Even the ache that took his right eye was melding into an analgesic haven that suited the young life.
The dark, blood stained images that projected from the dark spirits, showcased their latest work, the murder of his parents. Muraki saw his brother from the spirits eye, showing the terrified boys face as his feral hand strayed from control. The blade rose, and with no hesitation, stabbed deeply into his father's chest. Muraki's body held an elated; sickening pleasure, as the tribulations of his relation was severed, setting him free.
The running trail of blood paralleled a separate river that poured from his mother, racing ahead, as it competed against the tile. The image disappeared as did the despair and pain the child held close to his darkening heart for the past 9 years.
