Shadow Man; A Dark Story of Jude Rutherford

Father Comes Home

As I walked back home on the lonely road, the saddening memories of my mother's death replayed in my mind.

It was seven years ago, summer had just come and the sun shone beautifully through my little window. Mother was baking a cake for my tenth birthday when a dark cloud hovered above our house.

I thought it was going to rain, and it rained chaos.

A giant figure was standing by my door, peering at me. Terrified, I could barely move. I only shivered in horror, my heart doing its job like an overworker.

My mother appeared behind the figure, she was shocked like I was. But she got over it quickly.

"Don't you ever touch him!" She threatened, ironically.

As the intruder saw her, he focused his attention away from me.

"Where is it?" I heard him say.

"I have nothing to give to you."

From my bed, I watched as he towered over her, edging closer with each step.

I remember myself thinking in that moment, "If only father was here... if only father was here..."

But he was not. He was never there when we needed him the most. In the most important moments of my life, in the most daring situations, whenever I was in dire need of fatherly protection, he was always absent. And that day was the worst day ever.

The giant figure squashed my mother against the wall and held her by the neck, raising her slowly away from the ground.

I heard her choke, almost helpless. He was really hurting her. I could not just stand there, I had to do something.

"Leave my mom alone!!"

Maybe I was stupid, or maybe I was just being protective of my mother. But I was not going to let him hurt her anymore. I was not a coward. I was ready to do anything! Anything to stop him!

With my ten year old fists clenched firmly, I propelled in his direction with something that looked like superman's punch. It landed on his face from behind, just like I wanted. But unlike my expectations, he did not collapse from the impact. Infact, he was just standing in the same place, my mother still behind his grasp, peering at me in a deadly manner with his angry face. I knew I was dead.

"Stupid boy!"

He shoved me away with a forceful blow. As I flew backwards to hit my back on the wall, that was the last thing I remembered.

When I woke up again, he was gone. My mother was writhing in pain, her blood all over the place.

"Jude..." She called with a dying voice.

I tried to stand up but I was paralyzed. Whatever that monster did to me, it was still working on me.

"Mom..." I cried. A brave, young, smart, intelligent boy like me... Was made to cry.

And even as I was recalling the events of that day on my way back home from school, I could feel the fingers of tears knocking on my door.

But I was no longer that little boy. I was now seventeen. I was now Shadow Man. Shadow Man could not cry.

Anyway, this was the fault of that Imposter. Han Eduardo or whatever his name was. He reminded me of something I had tried to forget for all my teenage years. What was he talking about? That he knew what actually happened to my mom? What did that even mean?

I was now standing right in front of my house. I could hear my lousy paranoid neighbour screaming as usual for every child to get into their houses before evil mutants would come for them.

"Evil! Evil crawls in these streets! Pure evil! Only those that embrace the bracelet may be free, but evil! Evil shall always find her way on these streets!!" He repeated over and over again. He was an old man who could barely walk on his own, yet he could scream so loud. I didn't know his real name, but everybody else called him Bruno.

That was the way he screamed every night at nine o'clock, using exactly those same words to sell his weird looking bracelets. A smart business strategy. Is that not even boring? At least try something new.

He believed that the bracelets would protect humans from mutants. He claimed he could smell and detect the presence of mutants himself. Till now, he hadn't detected me yet.

Some people believed him and sought for his advise constantly. They also bought his bracelets for whatever price he called them. While some thought he had mutant-phobia; a new condition that was discovered after the emergence of mutants. So they tried to pretend they did not hear him, but the terror in his voice was just too hard to ignore.

Yet despite Bruno's horrific yells, I did not feel like going into the house yet. I did not want to see the faces behind that door just yet. Especially the face of my step mother who always loved to be on my case the moment she set her eyes on me.

Incase you don't know, my father moved on quite very fast after my mom passed away. How long did it take? Six months. Six months passed and he got himself a new wife and two new children who were not really his children.

My half siblings were twins. Dylan and Denise. We were around the same age, but even though we had lived together for about six years now, we had never gotten along. From the very first day, it had been fight after fight, kills after kills. Die or die, never doing the get along thing.

As for my father, well... As usual, he was never around. I had a good reason to believe that he remarried so early just so he could have a babysitter for me when he wanted to go on his job travels.

For many years, I bore the grudge of my mother's death all alone with no one to actually give me comfort. And whenever I spoke about the giant figure who had entered our house on that day, everyone thought I was crazy.

"No, you did not see no giant monster..."

"It was probably an armed robber covered with a mask..."

"The boy was just scared. He doesn't know what he saw..."

They were never gonna believe me.

At that time, there were no mutants yet so there was no explanation for what I saw. But these days, seeing how possible the impossible had now become, something told me that very soon, I would encounter this giant figure again. And I would not hesitate to take my revenge.

But first, I must confront this domestic enemies and I must conquer. So I heaved a breathe of life and opened the door.

I had barely stepped in when the words started pouring through in a rush of attack.

"Finally!"

"I thought you were never gonna come home!"

That's what she says everyday.

"Why do you like to stay so late outside? Dylan and Denise came home several hours ago!"

Yeah I'm sure they did... I decided to tiptoe away from her till I reached my room. That way, I could shut my door to block her screams.

"Don't you walk out on me! I know what you're trying to do! It won't work this time!"

Opps.. that did not work.

"Are you seeing a girl?? Is this what this is?"

What? Girl?

"You better speak up while I am talking to you!"

Well, I would do that if she did not keep saying one thing after another.

"You know what? I have had enough. Thank God your father is here this time around. He will take care of you."

I raised my head in suprise. Father was back?

Right in the dining room, still enjoying his dinner, my father peered at me in disappointment.

"Welcome home, son. We were hoping you could join us for dinner. As a family".