Cage

by Gally

~part three~

Toshiya was still wide-awake, the digital clock beside him read 2:30AM, but he
was too disturbed to sleep. So many things were going through his head,
gnawing at his sanity, invading his consciousness, filling his mind. What he
had tried so hard to forget was coming back to him now, clearly as ever. All
of the sufferings from before, all of the traumas, they had all been so clearly
reminded by that cursed name.
…Totchi…
…Totchi…

Kaoru’s light but even breathing reminded him of the way his own was, fifteen
years ago, on that seemingly normal night. He had awakened from a calm dream,
feeling the need to go to the washroom. Suddenly, he thought that he heard his
mother crying; the light sobs coming from the kitchen. He carefully walked
down the hallway, noiselessly in a childish curiosity, wanting to investigate
what the matter was. Half-hidden behind a wall, he poked his little head out
to see his mother sitting at the dining table, a hand covering her face and
weeping softly while his father was walking in circles around the table,
silently but with watchful eyes. Toshiya was shocked, even a little scared to
see his parents act this way. Ever since his earliest memories, his family had
been a happy one. He loved his parents very much, especially his mother, whom
he found to be the world’s kindest, most beautiful, and most wonderful human
being. For him, his mother was angelic…he even had one of those typical little
boy crushes on his mother. She was the center of his universe, always the very
image of joyfulness, warmth, and kindness. So, he was very surprised to see
her crying; he wanted to go hug and comfort her to make her feel better, the
way she unfailingly does, but he was not sure whether he should do so. After
all, the clouded look on his father’s face was quite imposing, and he thought
that maybe his mother was just a little scared. He knew well that when his
father spoke loudly sometimes and that it was always unpleasant to see or hear.
But his mother would always come and hug him whenever his father yelled,
giving him a little kiss on the cheek and reassuring him, telling him not to be
scared, that daddy was just tired and having a bad day.

Finally interrupting the awkward silence, his mother announced:
“I’m sorry, but I’ve already made my decision…I have to leave you…”
“Why? For that guy that you barely know? For a guy that you met two months
ago?” The hoarse voice belonged to his father.
“I’m sorry,” she said between sniffles, nodding slightly, “but I love him…”
“So! You’re going to leave everything that you have…your home…your career…”
his voice began to get louder, “your family…your husband…” he was grinding his
teeth now, his voice grew angry, filled with jealousy and wounded pride, “even
your son…for a stranger that you think you love?”
“Quiet down…you’ll wake up Totchi…I don’t think that I love him…I know it!
Besides, I’m taking Totchi with me!” She replied loudly, shaking her head
angrily as crystalline tears flowed down her saintly face. Toshiya’s father’s
pupils grew wider with shock, showing clearly the appearance of a new emotion:
a type of crazed insanity caused by extreme jealousy and possessiveness.
“First, you tell me that you don’t love me anymore…that you love only him;
then, you say that you want to leave me, your husband of eight years, to be
with him; and now, you dare think that you’ll go on and live a happy life and
take Totchi with you???” He screamed, enraged and hurt, in a voice not far
away from the cries of a wild and deeply wounded beast. Taking his wife by the
shoulders, he pinned her to the wall with such brutality that all the pictures
and decorations hanging on that wall clattered loudly onto the marble floor,
shattering into a million pieces.
“Stop it…you’re…” a sickening choking sound was heard, followed by a serie of
coughs, “hurting me!!!” She screamed when he brought his muscular hand to her
delicate throat.
“I loved you, you slut…” he whispered venomously in her ear. Pressing her even
harder onto the wall, he tore off her flowered dress, revealing the smooth and
tender skin underneath. She struggled out of fear and hopes of
self-preservation, trying to free herself from his madness. But he pulled her
back by her long hair and threw her violently against the wall, picking up a
long sharp steak knife from the wooden knife holder beside him on the kitchen
counter, dangling it threateningly before her eyes, raging in a booming voice,
over and over again:
“You…are…mine!!!”
“You…you’re crazy…” she cried, out of pain and horror this time.

With flaming eyes, he quickly removed his belt and ripped off the remainder of
her dress. He then forced himself into her brutally as she shook her head
violently and wailed out of agony. She tried to break free from his grasp once
again, but this time, he was prepared. Without a word, he plunged the ten-inch
long blade through her shoulder, penetrating her body and entering the wall
behind. Laughing maniacally, he continued to rape her, slowing down only to
lick up some of the blood that flowed freely from her wound.

“Mommy!!! What are you doing to mommy!?! Stop hurting her!!! Stop it!!!”
Toshiya ran out from his hiding place, crying out of fright and confusion. For
the whole time, he had been watching, not understanding nor knowing what to do.
However, when he saw his father stabbing his beloved mother, the panicked and
did the only thing that he could think of: running out to save her. Tagging at
his father’s shirt, he wailed and begged for his father to stop, even though he
did not have a clue what was going on.

Hearing Toshiya’s voice, his mother opened wide her eyes in absolute horror.
“No…Totchi!!! Get away from here!!! Go away! Hide! Don’t watch…oh God,
no!!!”
But Toshiya was too bewildered to move, he could not grasp any of this.
Terrified, he just cried. His mother managed to pull herself free from her
husband out of a surge of adrenaline and maternal instinct. Fresh blood still
flowing from where the knife rested in her shoulder, she stumbled over to
protect her son. But Toshiya’s father had completely lost it, thrashing out of
blind fury, he jerked his wife away from his son, shoving her against the
blood-stained wall and lunged another knife into his wife’s nude body, this
time in the right breast, piercing her lung. Filled with terror, Toshiya ran
to his mother and clung himself tightly to her legs.
“Stop it daddy…stop hurting mommy…!!!”
The father that Toshiya used to know was gone for good. All that was left was
the sick and demented mind of a tortured and jealous man. He flung his child
into the air with a powerful movement of his arm. Toshiya landed next to the
counter, hitting his head so hard that everything before him became black. He
heard his mother scream, the first one was the scream of a mother, fearing for
her hurt child; but the ones that followed were clearly shrieks of agony and
extreme physical pain. There was a gurgling sound between each scream, the
sickening sound of blood being coughed. When he opened his eyes again, the
first thing he saw was his father thrusting a horrifying blade into his
mother’s left eye. The screams that had been so bloodcurdling just a few
moments ago subsided, to be replaced by laughter so deranged that one could
swear it had come straight from the depths of hell.

The sight was revoltingly disturbing. A beautiful woman with uncountable
wounds on her body, covered with dark drying blood; a psychotic man, licking
the blood from the corpse, still driving himself into the dead body; an
innocent child, needlessly traumatized and scarred for the remainder of his
life.

“Hahahahahaha…even until your last breath,” he cackled, “you…were…mine…!!! You
could never have escaped me…you belong to me!!!” The sadistic words sounded
across the house as Toshiya, frozen with horror, forgot even to cry. His
father noticed his presence, turned around and faced Toshiya, examining his
face and his alarmed eyes carefully, with an expression of absolute
disgust.“You were going to leave with that her, huh? And you look so much like
that dirty slut…you mother… You won’t escape me either…” the strange curl on
his father’s lips made Toshiya step back with horror and panic, but his father
wasn’t going to let him go so easily…
“You deserve the same punishment as her…” he spoke to himself, forcing Toshiya
down against the icy marble floor. With one hand, he pinned Toshiya down by
pressing down at his shoulder while with the other, he tore off his son’s
pajamas. Toshiya was completely baffled, he wriggled and panicked, trying to
break free from his father’s harsh grasp. With a blow to his son’s neck,
Toshiya’s father nearly knocked his lungs out. Coughing repeatedly, trying to
get his breath back, he felt a tearing pain in his lower body. As if someone
was tearing him into tiny shreds from inside out.
“Hahahaha…you’re mine too! And you will never escape!!! You’ll be here
forever, inside your own little cage!!!”Toshiya was barely conscious, the pain
was unbearable…he now felt as if he were burning, burnt to the bone, until he
had been transformed completely into ashes. All he could hear were bits and
pieces of his father’s words of madness…
“Be with me always…!”
“Never escape…”
“This is your cage…”

When he woke up again, he was in an orphan’s hospital, although he did not know
it right away. But he couldn’t see, hear, or feel anymore, or rather, he
could, but it refused to register into his mind. All he could see was the
demented face of his torturer; all he could feel was that intense and
never-ending suffering; all he could hear were the murderous words that had
truly encaged him, locking him away from the rest of the world.

…This is your cage, and you will never escape…

Luckily, time heals all wounds; later, much much later, he learned that it was
thanks to his neighbors that he had been saved. The screams in their house had
been heard and the old couple living next to them had called the police. They
had arrived just in time to save Toshiya from what would have been certain
death. His father had refused to let Toshiya go, mumbling something about
Toshiya being his bird in a cage, holding his naked inanimate boy in his arms.
The psychiatric hospital’s records had shown that Toshiya’s family had a
history of a certain malformed gene, leading to sudden insanity in some of the
males. It was a recessive gene, not occurring very often, but that did not
comfort Toshiya at all. What had been done had been done, the traumas of the
past could not be erased, so he tried his very best to escape that cage of
memories, to forget what was the past and move on into the future.

For the next few years, he wandered the world, searching for someone who could
love and care for him the way it used to be, someone who could help him heal
the wounds from before. He could not stand the company of women, the one time
when he had been with one, the images that had flooded his mind were those of
the last moments of his mother. He never touched a girl again. Instead, he
sought for a man who would love him in a way that his father never had, with
warmth and understanding; and when he found Kaoru, he had thought that
everything would be all right from then on. The images from before had already
started to fade into oblivion and he had begun to smile once again. He could
even tolerate, even enjoy when Kaoru touched him, because he knew that he was
being loved. But that name…the one that his parents had so fondly given his in
his childhood…

…Totchi, you will forever be in my cage…
…No! Totchi! Get away! Don’t watch! Oh God…No…

The voices, the forms were floating before his eyes, he could see them so
plainly in front of him, in that large bedroom mirror…the mutilated figure of
his mother…

Profoundly tortured, he turned to look at Kaoru, who was sleeping soundly with
a beautiful smile on his lips, his arm was still draped over Toshiya’s waist.
The same smile that his mother had…his lovely sweet mother…

“He’s right, I am just a bird in his cage…his cage of agony, of memories…” he
thought. The mental pain raced through his skull, each one of them like one of
those sharp thunderbolts roaring outside, cutting through his heart, slicing
through his soul.
“I have to do something about it…I have to help myself…get out of the cage…”
Determined, he carefully pushed away Kaoru’s arm, got up from the bed and
dressed. Then, taking one last look at his cherished love, he walked out of
the apartment, into the thunderstorm.

***

So...what do you guys think about this part??? What do you think will happen
afterwards??? Do you start to see the connection? Hopefully not yet because
in part IV, something dramatic will happen!!!

~Gally~

to be continued...


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