Silence.
The kitchen had sunk into an atmosphere of cold and strange stillness. The birdsong from outside was gone, not even the constant wind blowing the tops of the Sea of Trees to the south could be heard… The dripping of the sink faucet, held back as if frozen. Tristessa could only listen to the calm beating of her own heart, free from the weight of the secret about her Death and Resurrection, and wait for Lucahn to react.
He was looking at her with eyes lost in nothingness, his mouth half open. Tristessa wondered what things were going through his head. Perhaps some background he had read in some other book? Or perhaps he was so impressed that he was literally loss for words?
"Lucahn?" she asked, almost on the verge of laughing at finding her new friend's strange face a little funny. "Hellooooo, Lucahn? Cat got your tong…?"
"Liar."
Finally, he spoke. A cold voice, completely different from the soft and tender one she had already grown accustomed to.
"What?" she lowly asked. She had not expected that reply.
Nor had she expected to see the way Lucahn's face twisted into a demented grimace, gritting his teeth and opening his eyes so wide that they seemed about to pop out of their sockets. And much less, when he opened his mouth and began to scream.
"LIAR! YOU LIE, YOU LIE, YOU LIE!"
Chaos broke out. Unbridled screams, capable of deafening anyone who enters the kitchen. Tristessa felt the shock rise from her bladder to her chest, but she remained frozen in place, unable to understand what was happening as Lucahn spat, screamed and shouted beyond what he could without the support of fresh air in his small lungs.
"WHY ARE YOU TELLING LIES!? ARE YOU CRAZY?! CRAZY, YOU'RE CRAZY, LYING LIKE THAT! WHAT DID I DO TO MAKE YOU LIE TO ME?! ARE WE NOT FRIENDS!? I SEE THAT WE ARE NOT, SINCE A FRIEND WOULD NOT LIE TO ME! DAMN LIAR! YOU THINK YOU CAN LIE TO ME LIKE THAT JUST BECAUSE I'M YOUNGER THAN YOU!? BESIDES A LIAR, YOU'RE A HORRIBLE PERSON! AND A MADWOMAN, IF YOU THINK I'M GOING TO BELIEVE THAT LIE BIGGER THAN A HOUSE! COMING BACK FROM DEATH?! NOTHING BUT LIES!
Tristessa couldn't even react when out of nowhere Lucahn took his book and hit her face with it with all his strength. The book spine hit her right in the nose, breaking bone and cartilage, and spreading a cloud of blood in the air. Coming from a ten-year-old child, the blow shouldn't have been so powerful, but there was no doubt that something was more than wrong as the girl was thrown backwards violently, hitting the back of her head against the bottom of one of the cupboards.
"Ah…! Luca…!" Tristessa wanted to scream, to complain about the terrible pain that spread both in front and behind her head. She didn't know where to grab onto, with one hand squeezing her bloody nose and the other desperately trying to grab something in the air, faced with the dizziness caused by the blow when she fell and her eyes covered in tears that clouded her already poor vision. "T-Tiara…!"
The name of the boy's mother, who continued to shout curses and insults without having let go of the blood-stained book, was barely a whisper between Tristessa's lips. Soon the blood that escaped between her nostrils and from the deep cut that fractured the bone of the nose came down to cover the lower part of her face. The metallic taste soon came to filter through her fingers, into her mouth…
"DIE!"
Tristessa's eyes quickly focused on the shadow falling over her, and she barely managed to cover herself with her arms from a new attack by Lucahn: the boy had thrown himself at her, trying to hit her face with the book again.
"DIE ALREADY! DIE, LIAR! THE WORLD WILL BE BETTER WITHOUT PEOPLE WHO LIE! WITHOUT PEOPLE LIKE YOU! WHAT WAS DADDY THINKING WHEN HE LET A LIAR LIKE YOU INTO THIS HOUSE?! YOU MUST DIE! DIE NOW, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE…!"
As Lucahn tore his throat apart screaming, he raised his book and brought it down on Tristessa, wanting to do as much damage as possible. Each blow was a wave of pain pulsing against her forearms and hands, and they didn't seem to be about to stop. It was as if a strength and physical resistance unbecoming of a child of his age had possessed him.
As if he had been seized by a sudden wave of madness that converged into a single instinct possible for the boy: the overwhelming need to kill Tristessa.
"Lucahn! What in the Gods is going on?!"
Tristessa heard Tiara's voice joining the deafening chorus of her son. The chaotic sound mixed with the sound of chairs falling to the floor, the clink of glasses and glass breaking into a thousand pieces.
"What are you doing?! Lucahn! LUCAHN!?" She heard Tiara scream, her shadow extending behind the unbridled silhouette of her son who continued to attack with the book, and pages flying in all directions. "BY THE GODS, JIN! JIN!!
"SHE'S A LIAR! A HORRIBLE LIAR! SHE NEEDS TO DIE, NOW!" the boy kept screaming and attacking, nonstop. "TAKE YOUR LIES AWAY, TAKE THEM AWAY FROM MY HEAD! TAKE THEM AND DIE WITH THEM! YOU AND YOUR LIES NEED TO DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE…!"
"H-help me…!" It was all Tristessa managed to say before her arms, with deep cuts beneath the bloody sleeves of her shirt, lost what little resistance they had left, and her head was at the mercy of Lucahn and what was left of his book.
The blow hit her again in the center of the face, and suddenly, darkness.
"H-help me…!" It was all Tristessa managed to say before her arms, with deep cuts beneath the bloody sleeves of her shirt, lost what little resistance they had left, and her head was at the mercy of Lucahn and what was left of his book.
The blow hit her again in the center of the face, and suddenly, darkness.