Something sharp pierced through my chest. “You have no right –”
The cane snapped down against the ground again. “She was as you were, foolish child. Blessed with beauty and fortunes to which she could not comprehend. Naïve and feeble-hearted. She never told you the true story of how she came to be mine, did she? Of how, the errant lovesick fool found her drink spiked, whisked away, and how I was the one to arrive. The one to save her chastity. How grateful she was for saving it, with her rose-tinted vision, that she gave it to me as a reward, along with her hand.”
“Shut up.”
“Fortunate for me, her family assets were bountiful and she was the only child. She signed it all, with lovesick smiles as she talked about the names we would give our children. You take after her, in that simplicity. In that total lack of ambition. All your mother ever wanted was to be a housewife and mother. She who, despite her naivete, had an intellect that could have done so much more, her ultimate dream was something so unremarkable. Yet, unremarkable as it was, she couldn’t even manage to see it to the end.”
“If you say one more word –”
“And like your mother,” he continued. “You allow others to decide your legacy for you. Like a leaf in a storm, blowing whatever direction the wind commands. You never had worthwhile desires. Become a game maker? Travel the world? Retire as a househusband? Foolishness! Utter foolishness! Even now, my hand itches to strike you once more and dislodge those nonsensical ideas from your head. Those ideas your mother cultivated. Those ideas you’ve pitifully transferred along with you, even to another life.”
My teeth slowly ground against each other. My hands balled up into a fist, the nails digging deep into my flesh.
“Do you wish to strike me, foolish child?”
“You’re not real.”
“You wish to. You have always wished to. As I rendered punishments upon you, I always saw the desire in your eyes. I pushed you, further and further, but you never pushed back. Unlike your brothers, you never had the guts. Even in accomplishing the barest minimum task of being man, you managed to disappoint me.”
“Shut up.”
The cane struck a third time. “If I am not real as you say, then strike me. Strike me, oh foolish child. I am not like your mother. I shall not weep and ingest a bottle of pills over a meager one or two strikes.”
The roar tore from my lips as I lunged him. Lunged it. My right fist slammed forward, slamming against his cheek. I roared again from the pain of the impact. Pain shot through my arm, overwhelming, unmentionable pain. His raven-like eyes locked in on me, his face, unmoving from the point at which I’d struck it. Amusement colored his eyes a thousand times over.
“There, my foolish child. That look in your eyes – that rage, that wrath – it is a shame you died before I could ever see that you were truly my child after all.”
I flinched. “You’re wrong – I’m – I’m nothing like you.”
“No, you are my son. You merely need to embrace the lessons I have instilled in you. Merely need unlock the side of you that you have suppressed for all these years. My blood still runs in your veins. The blood of a conqueror. Of a leader. Of a man whose ambitions will shake the world. A man who will take what he wants, however, he wants.”
“Of a man who doesn’t care about others. A man who doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself.”
He bellowed a large laugh. “And since when has the lion been concerned with the famine of the sheep?”
“I’ll never be like you.”
The cane struck a fourth time, louder than all the previous. “Fool. It is because of that stubbornness that you are in this situation. To have sacrificed your life for a woman of no importance to you, did you do it because you believed you had to save her? That somehow, saving different women would make up for the one time you failed to save your mother?”
Ignore him, Janus. He’s trying to bait you. Anger you.
“Why are you here? This isn’t a memory. I have no memories like this.”
“Disappointing as always. You’ve not yet figured it out, have you? Who would know me well enough to be able to recreate me? Who would be capable of knowing every secret you possess, every aspect of yourself, both the ones you accept and the ones you refuse?”
My anger receded. My brow, furrowed, furiously. I stared down at my hands, and noticed, for the first time, that despite the memory, the form I was in wasn’t my human form, it wasn’t my form from my past life.
“It seems you finally understand.”
I got up, rushing towards the bathroom in my office. Slamming the doors open, I faced the sink, and the faucet, and focused on the mirror in front of it. My reflection appeared before me, the reflection of the Vampire form I’d chosen. Blonde eyes, handsome visage, all of which did not matter as I realized that the eyes of my reflection were glowing. My reflection’s eyes were glowing, and it was… waving.
“Hello.”
Hands stretched out from the mirror, grasping my neck. Bit by bit, my reflection stepped out. He held me, in the air, choking me with long, slender hands.
“You… you’re… me?”
“Ding-ding-ding – we have a winner. Took you fucking long enough to get it.”
“I – I don’t understand, this can’t be happening. You can’t be me – I’m me.”
The sound of a familiar cane striking the floor hit my ears. Father stood at the doorway of the bathroom. “This is what happens, foolish child
