Subject of the following is distressing but not directly stated.
They say the love between a parent and their child is a bond that cannot separate the two. Glass that cannot be broken, string that cannot be cut. There was once a time when love was a neutral thing both father and son felt for one another. Way back when Rei's dad would play with him in the yard with his mother watching on from the porch. It wasn't the sun that brighten Rei's day, it was her smile.
As night enveloped the sun with a black sheet, the boy's vision would flutter into the darkness as well. The only light emitted from the hallway, two shadowy figures stood by the door. A kiss on the forehead and a gentle caress on the cheek was the last thing he'd remembered before sleep had lulled him into an enchanted land.
Those nights were in the past now. It pierces into fresh wounds just to remember sweet fragments from a mirror of memories that were shattered all over the floor. No more would he feel such gentle touches from the one he once hid behind and asked to protect him from the imaginary beings that lurked under the bed and in the closet. Rei learnt the harsh way that the real monster was the one that slept in the room down the hall.
Rei would pull the blanket over his head, telling himself if no one could see him than he wasn't there. A disappearing act he claimed he could do, a magic trick he said wasn't a hoax. Those words imprinted itself in his brain and he believed in the only person he could trust.
Step into his room and he'll always be there, invisible chains shackle him from running. If adrenaline were to course through his veins, Rei could've channel the energy to run out the front door. The only thing that held him back was his shaking legs and fear scratching and clawing at his back. He knew the consequences that would come if he failed, he didn't resist and the chains didn't tighten its hold. There was no place like home and yet the root of his problems was just a floor beneath him.
Rei burrowed himself within the mountain loads of sheets, cocooning himself with the warm fabric, an extra layer over him he chose to be his shield. Allowing only a gap for air and to peek through. Knuckles whiten as he clenched the blanket as a shadow on the wall grew larger and the floor boards creaked under the amount of weight. The well-acquainted feeling of dread greeted him once again as the figure approached near. The boy knew he would be splashing his face at the sink after this was over, watching the distinctive red wash down the drain, spiralling down into the darkness like the one that plagued him. More bruises to add to his patterned and busted skin, cracks in the armour of a already beaten boy with a broken heart.
After re-reading this over a year later, I went back and re-worded a few things because it sounded awkward [I'm finally happy with this]. I'll probably do this again in a year or so.