Family not by Blood. Chapter 2 Lee
My alarm clock rang in it's awful pitch, waking me from my peaceful sleep. I hit the snooze button and groaned, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Light was streaming in through the burgundy curtains. It was cloudy today, again. It had been cloudy for weeks. I stood up and walked over to the kitchen. It was about seven in the morning. I made myself coffee and began working on breakfast. I took a spare minute to go wake-up Jake.
"Hey Jakey, come on, get up! It's morning." The young boy rolled over and simply grunted in aknowledgement, but didn't show any signs of actually getting up. I grabed on to his shoulder, about to shake him awake, but then I flinched from him, holding onto my head, my ears ringing. As I backed away a bit, it stopped. "I'll...I'll give you time to wake up." I walked back out of the room, heading back to the kitchen before anything got burnt.
As I stired the eggs, I thought back to what happened, and not just this one time. Things like this happened all the time. It hadn't escaped the possibilities of my mind that Jake could, in fact, be the source of all these strange phenomena. They did seem to only take place when he felt strong emotions. But what did this mean? If he had some kind of strange condition, there was no way of knowing. His parents had both died years ago and from the start, he appeared to have entirely forgotten everything about his father. But there was Lee...
Lee was a good friend of mine. I had met him in a local café about a year ago. He had recently quit his job, which was supposedly with the government. He never told me what that job was, those secretive morons. Now, he worked as a librarian, at the same library I worked. Lee had always seemed facinated by everything about my adopted son and these strange events. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he knew something about my kid that I didn't.
I transfered the eggs into two plates, turning around and placing them on the table. Slow, dragging footsteps sounded from the hallway as a very tired looking Jake walked in. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, still holding his Teddy in one arm. "Good morning." "Urhg." I chuckled lightly at his response, putting the plate on the table in front of him. Suddently, awareness seemed to return to his eyes and he began to devour his meal with an almost animalistic ravenousness. I didn't, not even once, think of telling him about what happened when I tried to wake him up.
After dropping him off to school, I headed off to work. "Morning Lee." "Hey Cat." Lee was a somewhat short Chinese man with rectangular glasses. He wasn't dressed neatly at all, but rather had a worn out monochrome brown t-shirt and grey jeans. "So, how's Jake doing?" "Oh, he's doing fine." "Any more of those "weird moments"?" Again with that... Why was he so curious? "Yes, actually...quite a few. It's getting more frequent." The man only nodded, as if I had confirmed what he already suspected. I only eyed him suspiciously.
This facination of his only started one day, when I took Jake to the park. Lee also happened to be there. It was the middle of summer, so Jake ran off to go play in the water games. As he turned and ran, I saw Lee's eyes widen. His eyes wouldn't leave him... At first I thought he may have had certain...improper intentions, but I knew very well this wasn't it. To me, Lee was as much of a mystery as Jake was.
The hours ticked by, and soon, my work was done and I had to go pick up Jake at school. "See you later Lee." "You too, Cat."
Upon arriving at the school, I noticed Jake, once again, apart from the other kids. There were a few kids who aproached him regularly, trying to make friends. Jake smiled at them, but I could tell he wasn't too sure. I parked the car. "Come on, time to go home!" He turned to me and ran, now smiling. As we drove, I once again felt something wasn't right. "Anything wrong, sweety?" He looked to me, his bright brown eyes looking a bit dull, but still shining with a certain satisfaction. "There was no weird moments today. But I do have a headache." I smiled too, but nodded somewhat sadly at the end of his sentence. I hoped this wouldn't turn into some kind of awful fever.
It did get worst...in ways I could never imagine. By nightfall, he was running a pretty bad fever. His temperature had always been about a degree lower than average, so for him to have a bad fever by average standards, it was really bad. I thought of bringing him to the hospital, but something in me told me that that was the last thing to do. "M-mom?" "Yes Jake?" I spoke softly. He answered in a strained voice. "My back...it's...b-burning. It hurts." He was on the edge of tears, his blonde hair messy and sticky with sweat. I sat by his side in worry, carefully slipping his shirt off to inspect for anything. I was surprised by what I found.
Ever since I had adopted him, I had noticed his unusual and perfectly simetrical birthmarks he had on his back. I assumed they were normal, although a bit strange. This, was clearly not normal. They had turned dark brown and were swollen slightly. I gently brushed my finger against one of them and I heard him hiss in pain. I didn't know what to do. "Uhm...lay down here. I'll go get you a glass of water and some pain medicine."
I shut the door and walked over to the bathroom, taking a few pills from the cabinet. As I poured his glass of water, I thought back to this. Instantly, I was reminded of my thinking pattern I had earlier. Lee. That day at the park...was it the birthmarks? Did my son have some kind of...infectious disease? Was this what killed his parents? My heart sank. This child was not my own, but he was my real family. I couldn't lose him. I was about to walk back, but a cry made me drop the glass on the ground, shattering it and sending shards and water flying everywhere. "MOOOMMYYYY!"
I ran back to the room and stopped dead in my tracks at what I saw. I shakily reached into my pocket for my phone, dialing what I now thought was the only number that could help, or do anything about this. "Catherine? Why on Earth are you calling at this hour?" "Lee, get over here. NOW." "Cat?.." I hung up. I carelessly let the phone slip from my grasp and clatter on the ground. I didn't care if I may have broken it. I walked over to my son, still under shock but filled with infinite concern, my eyes never leaving his back...more specifically, the black tentacle like things that were sticking out of it.
AN: Yeah people who read Sakura's Journey might have seen this coming a mile away...The two fics do happen in the same univers, which means they have the same kind of Slenderfolk. You'll find out more later. Or like..in several days... Hope you enjoy!