Chapter Text
“Michael, come with me. And take your mask with you.”
His father waved him over from the back door. Michael picked his mask up in his hand, the harsh fiber rough against his palm, and walked resignedly out the door.
In the afternoon light the short fur of the mask shone in its velvety way. It never ceased to remind him of theater curtains, which might have been something like what Henry made it out of. His finger wound through the right eye-socket, leaving the muzzle pointed down at the ground. The puff of an ear touched his wrist.
They kept walking. The ground was strewn with fallen leaves even in the summer. That’s just what happened when you lived surrounded by trees. They crunched under his feet, but his father seemed to be stepping around them, however that was possible.
Michael wasn’t sure where they were going, but they kept walking past where the trees began. He didn’t dare ask.
The bite marks on his palms and wrist stung with the sweat running down his arms.
But suddenly, his father stopped.
“Put it on.”
Michael hesitated at the words, before cautiously holding up his mask and putting it on. The roughed up interior scratched his nose as the dark red inside snuffed out his peripheral vision.
Michael looked back up to see his father had stopped mere feet ahead. He stepped forward approaching beside his father to see him looking off into the distance, stiff with his right hand in his pocket.
Michael backed meekly from his left side, casting glances through the grass. His father’s voice prickled his ears.
“Michael, walk over and place your forehead against that tree,” his voice commanded cooly.
Michael’s palms sweat. His face felt tingly with worry for the imminent consequences. Is he going to hit me?
“Are you…” his mouth felt dry and his throat and chest were tight, “gonna hit me?” He kept his voice quiet and unchallenging.
“Do as I say,” his father snapped.
Michael’s feet moved before he could think any further about his father’s motives, stepping over the bulging roots and planting themselves into the fallen leaves between the largest of the thick wooden tendrils.
The wind bit through his shirt as he tipped his face down to press the forehead of his mask against the bark, tip of the snout brushing lower down. His muscles twitched as uncertainty crept up his spine. His upper and lower back phantom-throbbed with expected blows as he heard his father’s right hand slide out of its pocket.
Instead he felt something cold and metal against the back of his head.
The hair on his nape rose against the unknown feeling, and that’s when a telling click told his ears what was happening to him.
The thoughts in his brain stopped racing and pinned straight onto the feeling of his father behind him, the death pressed against his neck.
The urine in his bladder left of its own accord as his breath sputtered over rising terror.
Michael whimpered as he heard his father shift, eyes tearing up and throat trembling.
His father stood still behind until Michael was trembling down to his dripping legs.
“Do you know why I have to do this?” His father spoke as Michael gasped for breath and cried loud in response.
Michael’s senses were engulfed in a bang that plunged him into darkness.