Demons in the Mirror - Chapter 108

A middle child in a family was always forgotten. He was not important nor a burden, he was just there. It did not matter whether he disappeared or not, no one would notice anyway.

Kiaran had always been the one who waited. He waited for someone to look his way. He waited for someone to notice and be there for him.

He had been waiting for a long time for that. He was born in a supposedly happy family where his father may or may not be a criminal. His sister was trained to be a criminal. And Kiaran was there, yet no one noticed.

He was such a loveable and caring person, hanging onto every word that the people he loved uttered toward him. He would always wait for them to come his way, he would always be there for them until the end.

He craved attention. He craved affection. He craved for everything.

Until he didn’t.

He was only two years old that day. Too young to remember anything, too young to experience anything. God knows he was too young for any of the things that happened to him.

He was born smart. Perhaps you could call him a genius. He was so lovable that his mother would pester him about how smart he was. And he remembered it vaguely even though he was only two.

And that was the reason why he remembered this memory that kept replaying in his head until this day.

His mother’s smile and the beautiful violet eyes. The eyes were full of elegance and warmth, they made Kiaran feel secure, like he was in some kind of field of dark lavenders under the warm moonlight that should have been cold.

She was lying on the hospital bed with a baby in her stomach. She read him the story of Tithonus, Kiaran’s favourite. The story did not have a happy ending or a sad ending, it was just an unending ending.

He giggled as he played with his mother’s hair, tangling the roots inside his hand while he held his mother’s hand with his other hand.

“There, in his dark corner, he went on withering and shrivelling till at last, he turned into a grasshopper, chirping for all eternity.” She ended the story with a smile. The pale woman caressed her son’s head gently.

“That’s it for today. Your brother might come to the world tonight.” She whispered playfully and pinched Kiaran’s nose.

“Mom!” He whined and pouted while holding his red nose. “You read story now ‘cuz tonight is no?” He spoke with a slight lisp while still covering his nose protectively.

“Yes, my smart boy.” A tired smile pestered on her face with a haggard breath. Kiaran noticed how his mother tried to stay strong in front of him and frowned.

“Mom is tired. Sleep.” He forcibly closed his mother’s eyes while tiptoeing. “Kiaran stay, mom sleep.” He commanded with a grumble, earning a chuckle from Cecilia.

“Alright, smart boy. But you can’t stay here, okay? What if you wait outside, hm?” She asked carefully, trying not to hurt the boy’s feelings.

Kiaran stayed quiet for a moment. He opened his mouth and closed it repeatedly. He seemed to think about something before finally nodding along with his mother’s words.

“M’kay.” He pulled his hands back and got a little farther away from Cecilia’s bed.

“Wait for me, okay?” She uttered one last time when Kiaran opened the hospital door. He nimbly walked and nodded one last time at her.

He did not know that the violet eyes from the door’s sidelines would be the last gaze that he received from his mother.

And Kiaran waited. He waited, swinging both of his tiny feet while sitting in the waiting room.

He waited when they said that the baby had come out. He waited when Adreanna came out of the room with an empty gaze. He waited when Cain came out of the room crying.

Mother told him to wait until she told him to get in again. So he waited for hours.

He still waited when his father told him to dress in black—he kind of like the colour.

He kept waiting when he stared dully at his mother’s body inside the coffin, getting ready to be buried. Kiaran waited because she told him to.

He waited every night, waiting for her to read him stories again.

He decided to learn to read by himself while waiting. She would probably be proud of him.

Kiaran waited even though he knew she had left him and would never come back.

But she said to wait, so he did what she told him to do.

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Time passed, and he was already five. He was too smart for kindergarten, so he got into elementary school at a young age. He did not care about it, though. Mother said he was born genius after all.

He became the main character in a play. The teachers praised him a lot for him being a genius that they let him be the star of the play. Kiaran was confused at first, but he went along anyway. Apparently, he was good at acting too!

Because they said that parents would come to the play, Kiaran happily took the role. The thought that father would finally see him made him really happy. He was busy training Adreanna because she was good at it. Maybe he would see that Kiaran was a genius and a great actor too!

He told Cain the night before the play because the man had just got home with those smelly blood all over his clothes.

“Will you come?” He could not help but feel nervous while asking his father.

“Just wait for me.” His father’s tone was cold as he slammed the door on Kiaran’s face. The boy was too happy to care as he hummed some songs that he heard on the radio while coming up to his room.

The next morning, he did not find Cain anywhere. He probably had come to the school earlier?

When everyone prepared for the play, Kiaran nervously glanced at the audience, at his father’s seat. It was still empty. Maybe he was a little late. So he waited.

When the play started, Kiaran aced everything, taking all the spotlights while still staring at his father’s seat. He still waited then.

The play ended, and everyone started to leave. Kiaran sat on his father’s seat as he waited. Maybe work got in the way, he would just tell his father what happened in the play and show him all the flowers and trophies he got.

He kept waiting when the lights started to turn off. He kept waiting when the teacher told him to go home.

The next day, he joined all the plays he could join, becoming a theatre genius. He still waited for his father to come to one of his plays.

He started to stop becoming the main character and made the play itself. He made the play where his father could enjoy, hoping that he would come to one of his plays and be amazed about it.

So he kept creating a play while waiting.

Because he said to wait, so he did what he told him to.

✵✵✵✵✵✵

He was seven, and tomorrow was his eighth birthday. Usually, no one celebrated his birthday, and he would always bring Adreanna along with him to celebrate it around the city, eating and drinking all they wanted. It was his treat, of course.

She would obediently follow and eat everything he offered. At the end of the day, she would always give him a knife as a gift. He had collected five of them, and tomorrow would be the six, probably.

He burst into Adreanna’s room with a smirk on his face. Though, he quickly frowned when he didn’t see the sight of his flat face sister. He surely checked that it was already eleven in the evening. It was almost midnight already.

He opened her wardrobe and peeked under the bed, searching for his sister. His frown deepened when he could not find a single hair of her.

His blue eyes caught the sight of a red paper on the table beside her bed. He took the paper and read it loudly.

“Wait for me.” He muttered before sighing. He kept the paper inside his pocket and jumped onto her bed, messing around her blanket and decided to fall asleep there.

He waited all day inside Adreanna’s room, moving around the bed and looking into every single stuff inside her room boringly.

It was almost midnight again, and Adreanna probably missed his birthday already. She could at least give him the knife beforehand or something.

Though she never came to his next birthday or the next one or the next one. He never saw her face that much anymore, and they grew apart. She would come back from a month or two trip and would disappear again in a day.

Though Kiaran still waited anyway.

His sister told him to wait, so he did what she told him to.

✵✵✵✵✵✵

Kiaran was popular with his genius and his pretty good looking face. Those who came to him would always ask him to help with their works or just to help them boost their popularity.

It was getting boring at some point. Everyone had the exact same character. If he was in a play, they would all just become side characters.

He was nine that day when he finally noticed there was a character that behaved on his own without wanting to lick his feet to gain everything from him. Kiaran did not remember his name because if he was an important character in his life, that meant he would say the word-

“Wait for me.”

The blond boy uttered. The pale yellow of his friend’s hair was the only thing that Kiaran remembered.

They had become friends for like six months when the boy uttered the word Kiaran hated the most. The blond had become someone important to his life—of course he would tell him to wait for him.

Everyone did. And they would never come back, they would always leave. He started to get tired of this obvious pattern. This world he was living in was too boring. It was obvious what would happen at the end of the day.

If he could create his own story, his own play, it would not end up this way.

His friend that he already marked as a best friend left. He stopped coming to school because he had moved to a better one. If Kiaran remembered correctly, the blond was a genius too and needed to follow his parents’ path. Whatever that path was.

Though the blond said that he would visit him at the weekend and hang out with him, that was the reason why he told him to wait for him.

He told him to wait, so he did what he told him to.

Only once, though. He waited only once. He stood on their usual spot on the weekend, waiting for the blond to appear.

When the sun went down and the moon started to rise up in the sky, painting everything black, Kiaran still waited. When it was finally midnight, he eventually left.

And for the first time, Kiaran did not wait anymore. He found it easy to forget his friend and started to shove down all the sweet words that told him to wait. He moved on and left the school too, moving into Axel’s school instead.

He forgot what Adreanna had told him to wait for. He forgot what Cain had told him to wait for. He forgot his friend completely. However, he still remembered his mother’s. But don’t worry, he easily buried it down.

He never waited anymore.

Then one day, he somehow became someone who made everyone wait.

And Kiaran found it quite fun to give empty words to people, to his family. It became his habit, and he had no regret doing it.

It was fun to manipulate words and make what he wanted come true. He made everything a play, controlling whether a person should live or not, controlling what character a person should play.

He became the one who never waited.

He told Axel to wait, so Axel would always obey what he told him to.