Chapter 9

~~ Backlash ~~

“Yeshhh… Yhou aare thhee oneee. Yhou arre Ghordon’s Aeon.””

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““I ccaamme tto thiis realm seekking reddemption. Obttaining thhe Aeon’s head andd retturning itt aas a ggift tto Loord Dhamon wouuld be tthhe perrfect wayyy””

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‘This realm? Aeon? Me? He’s gonna kill me?’

~~

Those voices resounded in Ian’s mind, over and over again. He could see himself getting stabbed with the Werewolf’s claws, blood dripping down his torso. The beast lifted him up and opened it mouth to chew his head off.

But all of a sudden, Ian finds himself standing far away, completely fine. No blood, no injuries… Then gets stabbed again!

And the process repeated itself again and again. It was an endless cycle of death and resurrection.

Gasp!

Ian jolted awake with a sharp gasp. His eyes were still closed, but all his senses were functioning.

He could feel himself lying on a thick foam and a pillow below his head. This familiar feeling made him sigh in relief. He was at home, on his bed. And most important of all, he was alive and well.

‘Phew… I knew it was a dream. That was just too crazy and scary to be reality…’

He heaved a relief sigh again, thinking that everything that happened in the woods was just another absurd dream of his.

“Ian… Ian… Are you okay?”

His ears picked up a very familiar voice. It belonged to his mum and she sounded worried.

‘… Why is she so worked up?... Maybe I’m late for school?’ he thought.

Then, slowly, he opened his eyes to see a bright white light, shining above him. This cajoled him to lock his eyes back and remain like that for a second or two, before opening them again, slower this time. Doing so, he adjusted to the dazing light and found out it was just a light bulb attached to the white ceiling.

‘But… But… When did that get here?’ he couldn’t help but ask himself. He didn’t have such a thing in his room and the design on the ceiling was totally different.

Thump!

His heart skipped a beat as he began to doubt what he had insinuated earlier.

“Ian?... Sigh… Thank God you’re awake.”

He saw his mum’s head tower over him as she sighed happily. Then Avery and Peter’s heads also. They all held expressions of relief and joy.

‘What the…?’

This prompted him to check himself out. He raised his hands and held them over his face. Drips were attached to veins in both palms, a peg-like object clipped on his left index finger. He also had bandages wrapped around his arms, legs and abdomen.

With a grunt and in stinging pain, he raised half his body up and checked were he was. He was seated on a bed with white bedsheet and pillow. A metal cabinet – not taller than the bed – was standing by his left hand side. A pole was by his right, a bag filled with transparent liquid hung on it. The rope from the bag was what was connected to his drips.

The walls of the foreign room were painted white, matching the color of the tiled floor.

It then dawned on him that he wasn’t at his house nor his room. He was in a hospital ward!

Jocelyn, Avery and Peter were just staring at him in his white gown, dotted with blue dots.

Jocelyn immediately reached in and hugged him, placing his head on her chest as she sniffed.

“Thank God… Thank God you’re okay.”

While in his mother’s warm embrace, Ian was lost in his thoughts. He was still confused about somethings. One thing was clear though; what happened between him, Chase and that daylight werewolf wasn’t dream. It was damn real!

He had this hazy memory of him snatching Chase from being maimed by the Werewolf, then to him running with Chase at a really incredible speed. After that, he blacked out.

‘Hold on… Where’s Chase?’ his eyes furrowed. ‘I hope he’s okay’

Jocelyn disengaged from the hug and sat by his side. She spread her arm over his shoulders and wrapped her palm around his arm, rubbing it gently.

“What were you thinking, Ian? Going out into the woods like that?” Jocelyn asked, tears welling up in her eyes.

Before Ian could talk, not that he had a reply anyway, Jocelyn continued.

“Haven’t you heard of the killings? No one survives out there… Even D.O.D.T’s agents weren’t spared…” she sniffed, removing her hand from him to clean her eyes. “But still, you decided to go there head on and get yourself killed…”

She couldn’t hold herself again, her emotion surged like tides in the sea, and she sobbed quietly, constantly wiping the tears from her eyes.

The little Avery stood by her mother’s side, rubbing her body with both hands and told her to stop crying. She too was at the brink of tears, not because of Ian, but because of how sad her mum eyes

Peter was seated, his chin rested on his interlocked fingers, his feet tapping the floor now and again. It was clearly written on his face that he was angry.

Ian looked at his mum in silence, regret quickly filling up his heart. This was what he’d tried to avoid. All he ever and will always want, is for her to be happy and always smiling. That was the only reason he allowed her to get married to Peter.

But now, he had done the exact opposite, being the cause of his mother’s sympathetic tears. Only if he had listened to Chase. Only if he had stayed out of it. Everything would have turned out fine. But no, he thought he was some kind of peculiar being that had an affiliation with another world.

He had screwed up, no doubt.

Sighing, he gently placed his hands on his mother’s hand and softly said, “… I’m sorry for making you worry mum. I really am. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. And I know it was foolish for me to go there without permission--”

He frowned, reprimanding himself, “What am I saying? It was completely stupid for me to even think of going there at all. Please, stop crying.”

“Mum, he’s sorry. Please… Stop,” Avery added, patting Jocelyn with her little fingers.

Jocelyn sniffed and raised her head up, wiping her tears away, her eyes red and a little swollen, “I-It’s okay--”

“No, Jocelyn! It’s not okay!”, Peter finally decided to speak, yelling while at it.

“That was totally uncalled for! Do you know how trained and equipped D.O.D.T agents are? Yet, they couldn’t stand a chance with this… Incomprehensible force of nature!

“Even after knowing this, you went ahead. What were you thinking? Have you been drinking? Or should I call this an act of teenage incognizance?! Hell you could have gotten killed!”

Ian had a brow raised, ‘Eeesh… What’s his problem? Since when did he care about my well being? And what’s with the yell?’ Ian was getting infuriated.

A short moment of silence ensued after this. Peter broke the atmosphere of silence by standing up, his wooden chair squeaking. He helped Jocelyn to her seat and he stood beside Ian.

“I know what I did was wrong, okay? And I’m sorry,” Ian forced himself to say. Getting it rough with Peter would only make his mum more depressed than she already was.

“Doesn’t matter. If necessary precautions aren’t taken, you’d return to such acts. This is because of your ‘teenage exuberance’,” Peter replied, giving an air quote.

‘Teenage exuberance? Mind you, I’m almost 18. I’m an adult by default,’ Ian resisted the urge to frown.

Peter folded his arms and sighed, “You’re grounded.”

“What?!” Ian was stunned.

“Yeah, what?!” Avery seconded. She didn’t even know what prompted her to say such a thing, when it was clearly non of her business. She’s been too attached to her big brother, Ian, so it came out impulsively.

“For two weeks!” Peter held a straight face.

Ian frowned, “You can’t ground me? You’re not my dad!”

“Biologically, no. But by law, yes,” Peter replied sharply.

Still frowning, Ian raised a brow, “That doesn’t change a damn thing! You can never be my dad! And you can’t ground me!”

He felt his abdomen sting as he shouted.

Peter just sighed, brimming with anger. But his anger was a miniscule compared to the teenager’s rage. There was nothing he could do at this point, words were futile. He wasn’t his father, he was only acting like one.

“That’s enough! Both of you!” Jocelyn raised her voice, pulling her gaze from the floor.

“Good…” Ian turned his head towards her. “Mum, tell him he can’t ground me.”

“Actually he can. He’s your stepfather, Ian. It’s time you admitted that,” Jocelyn replied coldly. It was like all her anguish had been transformed to anger.

“I can’t believe you’re saying this mum…” Ian was no doubt disappointed.

Jocelyn looked into her son’s eyes, her gaze cold as ice. Ian was taken aback.

“You heard your stepfather. You’re grounded, for two weeks!”