073 Father & Son - Part 2 - Ark’s POV

  “You have grown,” I said to my son, my voice low, the words almost lost in the wind rustling through the trees. “Truly have grown even beyond my expectations.”

  My right arm spasmed again, a sharp twitch that radiated pain into my shoulder. I tried to activate my ESP… reach into that ever-familiar void of frozen time and stillness… and got nothing. Not even a spark. The silence inside my mind was deafening.

  “Kill me,” I said.

  Mark flinched. That meant he wasn’t completely hardened yet.

  “Disappointing,” I added, as evenly as I could. “Kill me,” I repeated.

  “I refuse,” he said.

  Of course he did.

  I could feel the shape of Evelyn in him, clear as day. His stance, his stubbornness, the softness tucked away in all that defiance… she’d raised him well. Too well, perhaps. And yet, here he was, pressing a blade to my throat. His hand did not shake.

  I had thought of waiting. Of giving him a few more years to develop, to deepen, to become unbreakable. But it seemed the time had already come. He had survived the worst I could throw at him… and somehow, impossibly, he had taken my ESP from me.

  Stripped it.

  The theory had always been simple—nullifier-type ESPs existed, of course—but in practice? They were limited. Bound by energy, by compatibility, by mental strain. Telepaths and empaths had similar constraints; a strong enough mind could resist them, twist their influence, shut them out entirely.

  But Mark… he wasn’t just nullifying.

  He removed me. Cleanly. Without trace. As if I’d never had an ability to begin with.

  And that? That was terrifying.

  He probably paid a price for it. Everything had a price. Just like me and my curse.

  The curse. That was what I always called it. My gift… Outside Time… wasn’t a blessing. It had hollowed me out over the years, replaced instinct with calculation, moments with stasis, and memory with detached recollection. No one could live like that for long and still be human. I knew I wasn’t, not really.

  That’s why I sought a successor. Not just to pass it on… but to end it. Someone had to break the cycle. Someone had to be strong enough to carry it and then destroy it. And that someone… had to survive it first.

  Ideally, the peak of ESPer potential. That was the bar.

  And Mark… my son… had just cleared it.

  But he wouldn’t kill me. That much was clear.

  He wasn’t a killer.

  “Why do you hesitate?” I asked, staring up at him from where I’d dropped to one knee. “You have the blade. The advantage. The motive.”

  “Because I don’t want to be like you,” he said.

  I almost smiled. Not quite. The muscles weren’t cooperating. “You already are.”

  “No,” he said, eyes narrowing. “I’m not. I’ll never be.”

  The saber pressed closer to my throat, its sharp edge biting into flesh. Warm blood slid down my neck in a thin line. My son… my creation… stared me in the eyes, hand steady, gaze full of fury that hadn't yet turned to hate.

  “I won’t kill you,” he said, but this time, his voice carried steel. “But I won’t hesitate to hurt you.”

  Good, I thought. That’s closer to what I need.

  The pain was nothing. I’d lived in worse for years… aches in the joints of frozen time, the stretching of seconds into centuries. But what I needed now wasn’t endurance. It was freedom. And there was only one way to achieve that.

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “In order for me to rid myself of this curse… I must die. But not by any hand. Only by the one capable of inheriting it.”

  Mark’s eyes didn’t waver. He was listening.

  “That’s the cost. The only way Outside Time can be transferred. It doesn’t go willingly. It roots itself in a soul… and it starves that soul, decade after decade. I’ve tried to cut it out, contain it, isolate myself from others so it wouldn’t infect them by accident. But it’s clever, you see. It adapts. It learns to resist displacement unless the next host is truly… compatible.”

  I looked up at him, forcing my mouth into something that might have once been a smirk.

  “And you are. Perfectly so.”

  He didn’t respond, but the angle of the saber shifted slightly. That was enough invitation.

  “Do you know,” I said, voice even, “that your mother was a lab experiment?”

  The blade pressed deeper for a second. Then eased.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “She was grown in a tube. Selected genes, handpicked memories, embedded data. All of it designed for one purpose: compatibility. She was built to bear a child who could survive me. Someone whose mind and blood could merge with mine without collapsing.”

  Still nothing from Mark. That silence spoke volumes. So I pressed harder.

  “I would have grown you in a tube too, if it were possible. Controlled every variable, timed every stage of development. But I had to make compromises. Real womb, real time, real pain. A messier process than I preferred. But in the end…”

  I lifted my chin, let the blood flow freely now.

  “You were born. The heir I needed. Just another experiment. Just like your mother.”

  His grip tightened. His fingers trembled.

  He was going to do it. I could see it. I could feel it… the fracture point in his restraint, the crack forming in that moral armor Evelyn had instilled in him. My son. My perfect child. My executioner.

  But he stopped.

  The saber withdrew a fraction, enough to keep me alive. For now.

  His eyes were full of questions, but he asked only one.

  “Why are you so desperate for me to kill you?”

  I laughed.

  A small, broken sound. Something hollow in the chest.

  “You’re sharp,” I said. “Too sharp, maybe.”

  I tilted my head back and let the sky fill my vision.

  “Because I want to be free. Because I want to be done. Because the curse has no off switch, no escape, no redemption. It’s a weight that drags you through eternity, and I’ve already drowned in it a thousand times. I’m just still moving because time won’t let me stop.”

  My voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible.

  “But also… because I want to see what you'll become when I'm gone.”

  That made him pause.

  I sat there bleeding, throat open just enough to sting, and watched my son struggle with the truth I’d built into him.

  He was the weapon.

  He was the cure.

  Mark didn’t flinch, but I could see the pressure behind his eyes, the restrained force barely held in check. His grip on the saber tightened, his jaw set in a rigid line, and his breathing slowed… calculated, mechanical, like someone forcing composure to keep from exploding. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t confused. He was furious. And he was holding it in for someone else’s sake.

  “Still hesitating,” I said, letting my voice fall just above a whisper, letting the silence around us carry its weight. “They’ll suffer for your restraint.”

  He narrowed his eyes, and I saw it… the moment he considered it. Not the offer, not the exchange of life for power, but the real consequences of inaction. Mark had the strength to kill me, that much was obvious. The blade was already at my throat. He could end it with one decisive motion, claim what I had offered, and become untouchable. A king of frozen moments. A ghost in the machine of time.

  But he didn’t. He pulled back just slightly, not out of mercy, but clarity.

  “You’re lying,” he said, quiet but firm. “Everything you say is bait.”

  “Is it?” I stepped closer again, testing the distance. “Do you think I came here to talk? To negotiate? I came here to take you away… or maybe die at your hands, now I am seeing you have grown just enough… How about you stop dawdling and kill me?”

  He didn’t react to the words. Instead, he focused on my movement, my posture, the tremor in my right arm that I couldn’t suppress. He saw what others might miss… weakness disguised as choice.

  “Then die on your own,” he said. “You want to be free so badly? Cut your own throat.”

  “I can’t,” I replied flatly. “The curse doesn’t allow it. It binds me to continuity, to the loop of time itself. The only way out is transfer. And the only person it will accept is you.”

  “That’s awfully honest of you.”

  The silence between us thickened. Wind moved through the trees, and I could feel the forest itself holding its breath. My son said nothing for a long while. I thought, for a brief moment, that he might be softening again, reaching for understanding instead of the saber. But when he finally spoke, his voice cut sharper than the weapon in his hands.

  “If you try anything,” he said, low and deliberate, “I will unlimb you. Slowly. Permanently.”

  I studied him. No tremble. No bluff. Just the steady voice of someone who had passed the point of being manipulated. Not a killer. Not yet. But someone who had learned to live with the threat of it.

  It was almost tragic. He had the power to end me, to take everything I had and reshape the world with it. Instead, he chose restraint. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from wondering… if not now, then when? And if never… then who would be left to break this curse?

  I needed more. More fury. More hate. He was close, but not enough. Not yet. So I reached up, wrapped my bloodstained hand around the blade itself, and pulled. The steel bit into my flesh without resistance, hot blood pouring down my wrist, seeping between my fingers.

  “Do it,” I growled, ignoring the pain as it lit my nerves on fire. “Or I will hurt Evelyn. I will skin her alive, strip her bone from her meat, drink her marrow if I have to. You have to hate me, Mark. I am evil. And I am going to hate your mother with every breath I have left.”

  His eyes darkened instantly, stained with a rage that was no longer righteous but primal. That was it. The break I needed. His knuckles whitened, the saber quivered. His intent sharpened into something pure, something final. He was going to kill me.

  But the sword never reached me.

  A sharp clang rang out as the saber tore itself from both our hands, spinning violently through the air before stopping mid-flight. Floating in the space between us was the unmistakable silhouette of Merrick, his eyes burning with psychic force as the saber snapped into his grip.

  “Professor!” Mark shouted, staggering back, breath caught somewhere between fury and relief.

  I clicked my tongue in irritation. Of course. Selena had lost. I had assumed she’d keep him busy longer. My ESP still wouldn’t respond, but I wasn’t done yet. There was one move left, even in this broken shell of a body.

  In the instant Mark turned toward Merrick, I surged forward and seized him. My one working arm locked around his throat, dragging him close like a shield of flesh. His breath hitched, body struggling out of reflex. He’d burned out his ESP stripping mine, hadn’t he? I felt no pushback. No resistance beyond muscle.

  Merrick’s eyes narrowed as he raised the saber toward us, holding it steady.

  “Not so fatherly now, are you?” he said, voice low and bitter. “Using your son as a hostage. What’s next? A bomb collar? Poison pill?”

  I didn’t answer. Just smiled. This was better. This was perfect. Let Mark hate me for this, let him carry the image of my arm at his throat, let it fester until he couldn’t breathe without thinking of killing me. That was the kind of hate the curse could root itself in. Not passive resentment. Not disappointment. Real hatred. Bone-deep. Generational. It would take hold. It had to.

  Merrick didn’t move. He just watched. Studied me like a puzzle, head tilted slightly, eyes flicking from my stance to my breathing, from the angle of my grip to the strain in my shoulder. Then, softly, almost amused, he said, “You’re cornered. But you don’t look panicked. Not exactly. There’s no visible damage. No open wound beyond your hand… except…”

  His gaze lingered. Settled.

  “…is your arm limp?”

  I said nothing. The silence was answer enough.

  He smiled faintly, like he’d just read a twist in a novel half a page before it was revealed. “Interesting,” he murmured.

  I tightened my grip on Mark’s throat… not enough to crush it, just enough to make a point. I still had leverage. I still had time.

  But I could feel it now. The weight pressing down. The slow creep of inevitability. The stolen power. The numbness creeping up my spine like rot in old wood. And behind me, in my son’s ragged breathing, the possibility that he would forgive me if I didn’t push harder.

  That was what scared me most.

  Not death.

  Not defeat.

  But mercy.

  Because mercy wouldn’t kill me.

  Mercy wouldn’t take this curse.

  And mercy wouldn’t set him free.