Ythan went inside his room and tossed the envelope on the table. He took off his vest and loosened the first three buttons of his polo revealing a milky white chest.
In his room, only the shades of white and black existed. A king-sized bed with black satin covers, fitting two to three people, was placed at the center of the room. A glass table stood beside it which holds nothing but a white study lamp, a sleek grey laptop, a small black notebook, and a white pencil.
Another table laid on the other side of the bed. Above it was the terrarium that housed his pet, an Emperor scorpion named Markus.
Markus was a present given to him by his father when he was fifteen—the age when he finally stood still, unaffected, while being lashed a hundred times by Martyn. For his father, this commemoration had verified that his son had already matured; for Ythan, this had proved that hatred and resentment were more bearable than pain.
He moved towards the terrarium and saw the four-inch Markus was delightfully snapping its pincers; the molt had ended. Markus's stinger bobbed up and down, as its red eyes amusingly stared at the leaping insect. Without warning, its stinger tilted backward and rushed to impale the ill-fated cricket. Its weapon channeled enough poison to immobilize its food. The cricket stood motionless for a time and was eventually sucked dry by the scorpion. After the sumptuous meal, Markus hid behind a rock and dozed off.
Ythan cleaned the terrarium, but diligently kept Markus's exoskeleton. He started gathering them last year and kept adding more to his collection hidden in a secret place. He had discovered that the Emperor scorpion's exoskeleton mixed with ethanol and salt formed a very toxic substance without a known antidote. He changed Markus's drinking water, checked the terrarium's temperature, and disposed of the cricket's corpse.
He was about to sit down when the phone in his pocket rang. He took the phone and saw his mother's name blinking on the screen. He paused and stared at it for a while. Conflicted, he decided to answer the call.
"Hello?"
"Ythan? My son, how are you?"
"I'm fine."
"Have you already—"
"How did you get my number?" Ythan interrupted.
"I-I'm sorry..." His mother paused. "Ythan, mom misses you so much."
'I wish I could miss you too.' Ythan chose to be silent.
"Did you receive Hachi's little puppy? As soon as I saw it, I could see its resemblance to his mother, especially its blue—"
"I don't keep things that will eventually leave me. The dog should be in a good place right now." Ythan tightened his grip on the phone. The other line only transmitted a heavy breath. "Is there anything else?"
"My son, please don't hold my decision against me. I tried Ythan. I tried so ha—"
"I'm sorry. I have more pressing matters to attend to. Shī péi." Ythan hung up the phone. He turned it off and put it on the table.
He absent-mindedly stared at Markus. His vision was slowly drifting into the abyss when the face of his mother suddenly flashed in front of him.
'The floor rooted his feet; the roof imprisoned his mind.
He could do nothing but stand still as he watched his mother protect the ten-year-old Ythan from the father's bullwhips. The father grew horns—he had been the child's nightmare since that day—when he had witnessed his son crying because of the ice cream that fell onto the floor.
The whips burned his mother's pale face; the tears cooled his mother's blue eyes.
A louder sob escaped his throat as he hugged his mother. When the father was about to kick his son, Hachi barged inside the room. She barked and limply swayed, as she pounced on the leg of the father. The father felt her fangs sink deep into his skin. He slapped the dog due to the pain and flung her a meter away. She winced; her broken leg rendered her useless to protect the child who had always rubbed her belly until she fell asleep.'
Ythan once again remembered everything: all the pain, the hatred, and the feeling of helplessness which molded him to become his current self.
A tear rolled down his cheek. As the crystal threatened to drop onto the floor, he quickly wiped it with disgust.
'You're sickening, Ythan. You're sickening!'
He straightened his posture, as he strengthened his resolve to make everything better.
Ythan sat on a chair and opened his laptop. The computer's start-up tone vibrated inside the sound-proof room, as the desktop displayed a few icons. His candle-like fingers whirled around the keyboard as he switched to a different account. He planned to finish what he had started before his training earlier. With Renzo's help, he managed to hack Qing Hai International School's database and searched for someone's particular information.
'So, you're the infamous Zach,' Ythan thought as his eyes reflected the information on the screen.
Name: Zacharias Dela Cruz
Age: 17
Birthdate: February 20, 2001
Birthplace: N/A
Present Address: Chen Orphanage, 33rd St., Xining, Qing Hai, China
Contact Number: 971-4528907
Grade: 11
Ranking: 1st out of 89 students
Mother: N/A
Father: N/A
Guardian/s: Mr. Chen Zhuang & Mrs. Chen Ting
GWA: 1.10
Career Assessment Examination Result:
Scientific Ability: Very High
Mathematical Ability: Very High
Reading Comprehension: Excellent
Verbal Ability: Low Average
Non-Verbal Ability: Above Average
Clerical Ability: Excellent
Logical Reasoning Ability: Average
Planning & Decision Making: Below Average
Budgeting, Marketing & Forecasting: Above Average
Creativity: Excellent
Occupational Field of Interest: Clerical (1st), Enterprising (2nd)
Ythan smirked. 'No wonder, my father's hands are itching to control you.'
Ythan scrolled up the page to see the kid's photo. He pulled out the picture from the envelope, turned on the lamp, and started to compare the two snapshots. He zoomed in the image on the laptop and saw the year '2013' below it.
Ythan believed nothing had significantly changed for this kid in five years. His feminine features stayed the same: thick fanning eyelashes with big round eyes, small duchess nose, thin lips baring two sharp baby teeth when he smiled—he perfectly portrayed a purring kitten. The only difference he observed was the kid's cheeks that became rosy, compared to the pallor the kid had on his younger picture.
What had caught him off-guard the most was the despicable blue eyes and the glasses the kid had worn in the latest picture. These were the main culprits for the idiot that he had been in front of his father. Despite his knowledge of Zach's image beforehand, the kid had still managed to deceive his senses.
He focused the screen on Zach's black pupils and found something odd.
'A contact lens?'
Ythan zoomed closer until he found a hue of blue in Zach's eyes.
'He had used contact lens five years ago, but he had later changed to eyeglasses. An eye problem?' he hypothesized. The photo in his hands trapped him in a trance.
After five minutes, he finally figured out a plan and licked his lips.
He stepped towards the french window in his room and spread apart the black curtains. The breeze of the cold night caressed his face. His lungs expanded to accommodate the fresh air pervading his body. The hem of his shirt waved back and forth, as his disheveled hair danced along oblivion. In a daze, he gazed at the starry night sky, illuminating the vast horizon of the bustling city of Beijing.
His father's near rage due to his blunder lingered in his mind.
'You made a fool out of me. Now, someone has to pay the price.'
He shut the curtains close while keeping the windows ajar.