Chapter 21

She barricaded herself.

Titan froze as Eclipsa rushed out of the house one moment, thrilled. Only to return a crying mess. "Sister?" he asked gently.

She took one look at Titan before running to her room and slamming the door. She has remained in her room for the past week. Refusing to come or speak to anyone. Father had tried countless times for her to join them for a meal, but there would be no answer. Luna was the only one who went in the room since she still shared it with Eclipsa. But when she came out the next morning, Luna explained she didn't get a word out of her that night.

Alley had since explained what had happened, but still trying to figure out the course of events. "Somehow, one of Eclipsa's creatures severed from her body… it obtained Zombieman's abilities and then…" she paused. "I really don't know how this happened!"

"I had enough of this shit, she can't be blaming herself for this!" Father protested. He snapped out of his chair and began to approach the room. Titan however could sense it. He moved quick enough to stop him.

"Father wait!" he pleaded. "Let me?" he asked.

He was taken aback by the notion. "Wait. You want to talk to her?"

Titan nodded. "Please, let me try dad."

He sighed aloud but nodded. Titan then slinked towards the room, he knocked gently at first and then opened the door. "Sister. We must talk,"

"Go away…" Eclipsa whispered.

"I can't do that. You need to come out and speak of this with us. It will do you no good to bottle it up."

"GET OUT!" she ordered.

Titan paused. "I am not in your room, if you want to close the door, do it yourself." He said in a challenging tone.

She turned over, her eyes glared at him from her bed. "Just leave me alone." She said in a warning tone.

But he didn't leave. Instead Titan coiled up in front of the doorway and continued to look to her. "What happened wasn't your fault. Alley already told us…"

"It was my fault!" she protested. "One of my creatures… it bit into Zombieman and he cut it off. I thought it died…"

"Then it's his fault." Titan said bluntly.

"What? No! How could he have known it was alive? I don't even know how it found its way to Jason…"

"So… it's okay to blame yourself when it wasn't your fault. Yet not okay to blame Zombieman who was the one who severed the creature that turned Jason?" he asked.

Eclipsa slowly sat herself up in bed. "I… shouldn't have confronted Zombieman. I was so upset that he could have possibly save Jason yet wouldn't do it… I got angry and lost control of myself. I didn't mean for it to tear a chunk off of his arm…" She was on the brink of tears once more. Titan managed to contort himself enough to slither into the room. He picked Eclipsa up and began to coil around her in comfort. "Titan… I didn't mean for this to happen!"

"I know sister, I know." He whispered gently. "But you also can't be blaming yourself for the action. How were you to know what would become of him? We still don't fully understand how he was turned! But you shouldn't be blaming yourself for it."

"He won't ever want to talk to me again…"

"Maybe… maybe not. I said the same thing to Amai Mask when I learned the truth to why he wanted my siblings and I dead. But even now… I still consider talking to him, wondering why he said such a thing to better understand his reasoning. But for a while, I won't speak to him, Jason perhaps feels the same way."

He felt her head nod to him as she cuddled into him. "Titan… I want to still be friends with him. After everything he said, it hurt… but I still want to be there for him."

He nodded to her. "I know sister. Give it time, and I am sure he will want you back as a friend…"

She fell silent to him, she sniffled here and there but her breath calmed. "Thank you…" she whispered.

He smiled. "Any time, now… would you care to join us for dinner? You are feeling mighty thin…"

#

Jason kept to his room.

He refused to be seen the way he is, he can't show the world that he's become something so vile. "Jason?"

He paused to the voice. Misty came home?

"Don't come in!" he warned. "I don't want to be seen!"

"That's okay, I left something for you to eat okay?" she said gently.

"Thanks…"

"Tempest was wondering how you were doing?"

"Fuck him and his family!"

Silence came from behind the door, he heard her stomp off. She was upset by something, but he didn't care for the moment, instead he crept towards the door and opened it wide enough. He dragged in the plate of food and ate in silence of it. Misty's cooking has come a long way since she went to her classes in City Z, but he sighed aloud. "She can still go after her dream… I don't have one anymore…"

It went on for a week, he stayed in his room and kept silent. He would spend hours staring at himself, wondering what has become of him. Yet all in all, he threw himself the world's biggest pity party.

By the end of the week, another knock came to the door. "Just leave the food outside…" he said.

"I'm not leaving you anything!"

Misty was back, but she sounded pissed. "Just go then!"

He was about to lean against the corner as he has done for the past three days, when the door kicked in! He jumped as his sister stood in the doorway, but her glare came down at him. "Get off your ass!" she ordered.

"Leave me alone!" he protested. However she stormed up to him fearlessly. Misty was a lot stronger than she looked as she grabbed hold of his arm, and yanked him off the ground.

He was about to yell at her when she slapped him hard across the face!

He froze to it all. "What did you do that for!?" he demanded of her.

SLAP

Another one.

"Quit it!"

SLAP!

She was hitting him harder now. "What the hell!" he protested.

"I'll stop the moment you snap out of it!" she said venomously. She was going to hit him again when he stopped her hand.

"What the hell is your problem!?"

"What the hell is yours!"

The two were at a standstill. Jason glared at her but turned away angrily. "Just go!"

"MAKE ME!" she snapped back. "If Gene were here, he would do the same thing as I am, but I am sure he could hit you harder than I could!" she protested. "You DARE insult the family that we have called friends for years? You tell me the family can go fuck themselves for what happened to you? THEY DIDN'T MAKE YOU LIKE THIS!"

"Then how did I become this!?" Jason snapped back. "Why did I turn into this horrible thing!"

"You never asked me how it happened…"

Jason froze as Zombieman peered into the room. He turned to Misty and nudged his head. She was reluctant to leave, yet as she did, she turned to Zombieman and said. "If he give you lip, smack some sense into him!" she demanded.

He merely nodded as she left and he walked in. Zombieman stared him down, Jason stared him down as well. "Why are you even here?" he asked.

Zombieman closed the door as he took a seat at the edge of his bed. "Came to tell you what happened. You can blame Garou's daughter for it, but you do that, you need to blame me as well."

"I… I don't understand. You… you knew I wanted to die right?"

"The pact we made. Yeah, I remember. You think I would want you to become something like me?"

Jason began to feel a little more at ease. He reached for his computer chair and took a seat across from his older brother. "What happened?" he asked as gently as he could.

Zombieman told him when he refused to do a blood transfusion, Eclipsa followed him out and verbally tore him a new one before she accidently took a portion of his arm off. "She was desperate to save you, she said even though you went on one date… she knew you were the one for her. She wanted me to break the promise I made you. She begged me. When her thing attacked me, it tore into my arm and took a good chunk out. I didn't realize it at the time, and instinctually, I severed it… forgetting who that thing was attached to."

Jason froze as he took it in.

"Then why…"

"We're trying to figure that out. From what Genus believes is that the creature swallowed the bit of flesh it took from me, when I severed it, that flesh remained in it system and took my abilities into itself. It must have thought to search you out, since after all, it was part of Eclipsa."

"I… still don't understand it though."

"We don't either kid, that's what I am trying to tell you." Zombieman stated. "If 106 did this to you, no doubt he would have put you in a far more secure room. If this thing had a mind of its own, and somehow turned you into this… it was doing everything it could to save you from death. Either way… we're a lot alike now."

He sneered and turned away at the news. "What you said is true. You become emotionally dead to everything around you…"

"That took me years. How did it take you a week?" he asked.

Jason sighed aloud. "I don't want to talk to her…"

"I ain't saying talk to her…" Zombieman stood up, he sighed aloud until he went into his jacket and took out some clothing. "Put these on."

Jason stared at the clothing. "Why?"

"We're going out"