“After school got out, I picked him up and took him home. He looked miserable the whole way.
When we got home, I made him a feast for dinner. He didn't eat a single bite, but instead slammed his door and locked himself in his room.
I didn't know what was wrong with him. I tried to comfort him, but he ignored me.
I had to eat by myself, but while I was eating, he actually tried to sneak out and run away.
I got so angry. I gave him a good scolding, and he locked himself in his room again.
I knocked on the door, but he wouldn't say anything, only crying continuously.
It wasn't long before he started smashing and throwing things, which made the neighbors call the police.
I'd like to ask, does your Law Enforcement Bureau have nothing better to do? Why are you meddling in such trivial matters?
I did so much for him. What could possibly be wrong with just scolding him a few times?”
Inside the Law Enforcement Bureau, the atmosphere was oppressive.
A man with an irritated expression slammed the table, making a loud racket.
The law enforcer behind the long desk looked at the man in front of him, then at the child who was crying continuously. With a grim face, he asked:
“Is he your child?”
“No.”
The man frowned impatiently. “If he's not, does that mean I can't scold him?”
The law enforcer slammed his hand on the desk and stood up, the veins on his forehead bulging.
“Is this a question of scolding or not!?
If he's not your child, you shouldn't have picked him up!”
The man was defiant. “If I didn't pick him up, who would?”
“He has parents!”
“If he has parents, why was I able to pick him up?”
The man tsked, saying with disdain, “That only proves they are incompetent. I request that the court award custody of the child to me.”
The law enforcer laughed out of sheer anger.
“Who are you to the child? Why should the court award him to you?”
The man argued logically:
“Because I filed an application, and they didn't.”
“Nonsense!
Why would they file? They are already the child's parents!”
The man snorted coldly.
“They won't be once he's awarded to me.”
With that single sentence, the entire Law Enforcement Bureau fell silent.
The child froze in shock, then began to cry even louder.
The child's parents, standing to the side, were absolutely furious. They glared intensely at the man who was twisting black and white, wishing they could flay him alive.
The law enforcer's face turned completely dark. He waved his hand, unwilling to waste any more time with this unreasonable man.
“You are suspected of child abduction and false imprisonment. You must stay in the detention room of the Law Enforcement Bureau tonight.”
Without a second thought, the man flatly refused.
“No way. I didn't bring a change of clothes.”
“Bam!”
The law enforcer slammed the documents in his hand onto the table, pointing at the man and shouting:
“Do you think this is a game!? I am not asking for your opinion, this is your detention order!”
The man glanced at him and said indifferently:
“I don't like reading.”
“...”
The law enforcer choked on his breath, pointing at the man for a long time, unable to utter a single word.
The child's father could finally take no more. Stepping forward, he shoved the man hard, staring at him with bloodshot eyes and practically roaring:
“If you dare touch another hair on my son's head, I'll kill you!”
As he spoke, from an angle hidden from the law enforcer and the child, a crack split open at the father's wrist. Beneath the peeled-back skin and flesh, blood surged, and a bone resembling a spine slithered out like a snake. Its tip formed a sharp blade, pressed directly against the man's lower abdomen.
The man glanced down, completely ignoring it.
With a backhand, he shoved the child's father aside, walked up to the child, and raised his hand to deliver a slap right in front of everyone.
“Slap!”
The crying stopped abruptly.
A faint five-finger print formed on the child's face.
The child was dazed, his red little eyes widening further and further. They held not only shock, but also a well of grievance.
The man smiled disdainfully, turned his head, and said:
“You're going to kill me?”
The child's father's wrist had already returned to normal when he turned around. Fuming with rage, before he could make a move, he heard another crisp sound.
“Slap!”
The victim this time was no longer the child, but the child's mother.
The mother was caught off guard, stumbling and falling to the ground.
Her elaborately made-up face could not withstand such immense force; her entire face skin was actually slapped right off onto the ground.
Fortunately, she had her back to the law enforcer and the child when she fell, so neither of them noticed her embarrassment and abnormality.
With a wail, the flesh beneath her face skin boiled instantly. In the blink of an eye, countless tiny tentacles shot out from her flesh, picking up the dust-covered face skin from the floor.
Seeing this, the man did not pay much attention. Instead, he hooked his finger at the child's father and continued to provoke him:
“I didn't just touch your son, I also touched your wife. You're going to kill me?”
“...”
Anger accumulated, anger exploded, anger roared!
By the time the law enforcer realized that today's matter could no longer be resolved peacefully and wanted to step in, it was already too late.
Having lost his mind to rage, the child's father let out a bone-chilling roar, swinging a fist toward the man's head.
As he watched the fist, as large as a bowl, close in on his vision, the man sneered. Without dodging or evading, he simply lifted the child with a light tug, holding him up as a shield in front of himself.
“Bang!”
A moderate-sized red-and-white firework exploded inside the Law Enforcement Bureau.
The child's world lit up.
His brain got to see the light of day, but the reservoir of his grievance would never have the chance to burst its banks.
“No! No!!!”
The father, realizing what had happened, broke down instantly. He no longer cared about the presence of the law enforcer, and his entire body literally split open.
Countless white bones squeezed out from the cracks in his split flesh, surging toward the child all at once.
The mother's wails grew even more intense. The countless tentacles on her face held up the dust-covered face skin, which morphed into the child's face and wrapped toward him.
They wanted to piece the child's shattered head back together.
Unfortunately, it was a bit too difficult.
The man tossed the corpse to the two of them. With a look of disgust, he wiped the blood on his arm onto the law enforcer's clothes, casually pinned down the other's hand as it reached for his gun, and glanced at the time on the wall.
“It's about time to end this.”
Before his voice could fade, the man's figure began to blur, dissolving into the air in the blink of an eye.
Following his disappearance, the entire space began to collapse.
As his parents' wails grew increasingly hysterical, the child woke up with a start in his bed.
“Ah!!!”
He sat up, clutching his head and screaming.
Not long after, his parents, wearing pajamas, pushed the door open and entered. His mother, whose makeup was only half-removed, anxiously hugged the child, comforting him incessantly and asking what had happened.
His father held a white baseball bat, warily looking around.
The child curled up in his mother's arms, glanced at his father, and shrank back a little more timidly. Sobbing, he said, “Daddy hit me.”
The mother froze, looking at the father, who stood awkwardly at the door and quickly dropped the bat in his hand.
The mother glared at him, then stroked the child's head, comforting him:
“He wouldn't dare!
Everything he said today was just to scare you. Even if you don't do well on your exams, it's okay. Don't be afraid. He's your daddy; he'd protect you before he'd ever hurt you. How could he hit you?”
The child's crying gradually subsided. He peeked out again at his dad standing by the door, and recalling everything that had just happened in the dream, he said with lingering fear:
“Really no hitting?”
“Absolutely no hitting.”
“Even if I get dead last?”
“...”
The father said nothing and silently picked the bat back up.
The mother held back a laugh, dismissing the father with a look to go back to sleep. She held the child and cooed him to sleep. As he was about to drift off, she heard the child mumble indistinctly:
“Mommy, I want red hair too.”
“Red hair? What red hair?”
The mother looked down in confusion, only to find that the child had already fallen asleep.
The lights in the room went out, the streetlights reclaimed their privilege of illuminating the neighborhood, and the night sank into serenity.
Only on a nearby rooftop, a few blurry figures stared at each other.
“How did the consciousness fluctuation disappear? Is the Nightmare Disaster detector broken?”
“Maybe it failed to materialize?”
“That's possible. Boss, what do we do?”
“What else is there to do? Report it truthfully and let the Post-Disaster Investigation Team handle it. We're off the clock!”
“Wow~ Danger averted, another day alive!”
...
Rate on N.U.
