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It was only a few minutes into the murder and John Alestor was already interrupted. It was a knocking that came from his front door, a familiar tempo. He rose and stood in his sweat, felt it collect on his collar. He set down the knife on a table and left the room in darkness as he skated across the wood floor, into the stairs that he hustled down through. All of him was white, the boxers, the socks, the shirt. All of it except for a particular red stain on him. Realizing it, he started taking off his shirt. The knocking was getting angrier. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn63w2wJtsk
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“Hold on.” He moved button to button. Grunted. Ripped it, threw it inside of a closet to his rear to forget about it and walked towards the door. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCXlAX2Yf4H
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"Hold on." He screamed. It sounded like a battering ram was oppressing his walls.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt1XRikUMgY
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Alestor looked through the keyhole and sighed. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpRmI5PvVPd
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“You’re home early.” He opened a sliver of the door. His eyes spilled through the slit. The capillaries on his eyes throbbed, his iris's looked like black holes as if little red worms jumped into an abyss.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7AYGqcCdsh
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“I was studying.” The man behind the door said. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhCscPgq11N
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"Right, hold on." Alestor said.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaYzycUIbSB
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There were five locks in total, two chains, three dials that thumped and clanked as they hit the the wall and the floor. When they opened he couldn’t help but sweat, especially with his son in front of him.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAzRAMoQJy7
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The look they gave each other was standoffish with their raised and stretched chins to give the appearance of an under bite. Their noses bloomed. It was a long look between the two. He was a slim boy, tall too but you would not have noticed with how low his head was. His clothes were too big for him and it made him seem like a mummy underneath a ceremonial wrapping.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0DozIA54cu
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“Why are you naked?” The son asked. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFaRzy24fCr
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“Oh?” Alestor looked down. “Oh. Oh, some girl spilled her lunch on me. I wasn’t even mad, you should have seen her sad face. I took the clothes out, they’re in the laundry now.” The boy responded with a dull and pale look.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN8c5XXY1Eh
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“Is that the truth?” He asked.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA74GgELQSa
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“Of course. What’s the point in lying about something so small.” Alestor said. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡChyoVnP8pl
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“I don’t know, you tell me. What is the point?” The boy said.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB5Kxp8W0nt
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By now he was getting nervous again like he had gotten earlier before. He looked around to see who else was outside, neighbors who watered their grass lazily with beers in their hands, another who backed his giant orange truck into a pole. That one was in a hurry. Moving houses, probably, and Alestor was not surprised. His panorama gaze grew more intense and with it that narcissistic paranoia that drew his eyelids shut and made his eyes beady. He wanted back inside his cove and yanked on his son’s arm.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdx48RZyO5Y
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“Come on, get in.” He said. He dragged his son who plopped down on the sofa.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcPe6BmbWs6
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“Are you hungry?” Alestor asked. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjURrbv3hRm
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“No.”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡseBiYwTUI4
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“How was your day at school?”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxhUECFDkRK
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“Fine. How was your day at the clinic?”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMG9SKHsyAM
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“Fine.” Alestor bit his lips and looked up the stairs. He brought his eyes back to his son. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPV5JTsx03f
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"Just fine?" He asked.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0VbbsiMjCK
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“I dealt with a young mother, she left her husband and child. Didn’t know why she left them, only knew they made her feel terrible.” Alestor said.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfZQOkeCQLa
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“Sounds like it was rough.” His son turned on the television. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOP95Nz0poH
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“A little, for me. A lot, for her. I’m just the man she talks to.”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8uya55whnY
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“Rough, huh. Would you still do it if it wasn’t your job?”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnKPdlBOFk2
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“Maybe.” Alestor began to climb up the stairs and hung by the rail. This is how it always was, his son sinking into a sort of vegetative state. Ignoring everything, distancing himself as much as he could. It always made Alestor a little relieved, then sad at feeling relieved. His son looked to his direction as he put another foot on a step. It felt like he was under a search light with the intense heat on top of his half naked body.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrS38AxMe0C
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“I need to go find a shirt.” Alestor laughed. "Then some forms and stuff afterwords. Long day."626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp7ziCQ8eU7
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“Dad.” Isaac lifted himself.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR2sO8zf9Sy
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“Yeah?”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡar5iE9i57i
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“Let’s move.”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAGfE9cCryI
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“What?”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpxkhFBGaMK
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“I’ve been looking into transferring credits. We can go anywhere.”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtKtgCy5Kc6
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“Where’d this come from?”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdtMBX8ARyP
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“A couple months of mulling it over. And the city.” His eyes narrowed. “The city, mostly. It’s draining having to listen and watch the nasty shit going on. They closed off half the school the other day. There was graffiti all over the chemistry labs. Crazy shit written. Junkies did it, the police think.”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZTX0vmv6zm
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“I understand. If you want to go I can pay for it.” Alestor was leaning off the guard rail.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqhhbABdaM2
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“I don’t want to go without you.” Isaac stood.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrgR1Qo3mYn
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“Don’t worry about me.”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ1yce3AYyw
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“If mom was here I wouldn’t have to, but I can already imagine the loneliness you’d feel without me. That stuffs unbearable, you know that...” Isaac grabbed his elbow nervously. It felt like an anchor.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsrKINekxHT
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“I know it better than you.” Alestor gripped the wooden rail. He could feel his fingers digging deep and beginning to crack it into splinters. “I study it, I live it.”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAMyUktToY1
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“I want us out of this city. It’s not good. It’s like a fucking dungeon in here, with the people, with the streets.” Isaac said. His father seemed unmoved and only grew worse. “I went out the other day to grab a burger. I saw some woman dragging around some flowers in the corner of the street, weeping, just fucking crying and walking around. She looked like a ghost. I turned and next thing you know, she almost became one. Jumped in front of a semi.” He gave a desperate chuckle. “Good thing there was a fucking red light.” 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhbrJCMJb8q
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“Don’t curse.” 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdWFhu2T0rD
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“Who cares about that? What about the sto- I’m fucking nineteen.”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEwnvlgxORy
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“I don’t care. You’re in my house.” Alestor punched the wood. It bent.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyGaeUpDdVh
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“Alright, that’s fine. That’s fine…That’s fine.” Isaac held his breath. His animated hands orchestrated some woeful plea. “We need to move. For the good of both of us. We have the money, I know we do.”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRkTxZ9yEKN
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“I know we have the money because I made the money. I started the business. Me and your mother. Both. We made an empire through all the shit in our lives.”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqGxz5MOt1H
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“Empire? It’s an office. An office you can leave any time you want, like mom would have wanted. Don’t confuse your crutch for a dying wish.”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSqYo264crA
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“To hell with that.” The wood broke. It collapsed and sent Alestor forward had he not readjusted his weight. Isaac fell back on the sofa, he could not speak. “I will not fucking leave, I can’t. You’re young and brash and lacking in foresight, you don’t know suffering. You don’t know starvation, you live in the luxury of my spoils. With fucking food in the fridge! With fucking air conditioning!” He began to kick the pillars along the stairs. “My work feeds you. It feeds me. It fed your mother and it would have fed our daughter. It was what made us. It was what we were good at, what we were meant to do until - ” His hoarse voice stung Isaac. Alestor was looking for the words. “You don’t think I want to leave this shit hole? I do, but I can’t. I don’t have that stern stuff in me to weather a future without it.”626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2kJfnYMoQc
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Isaac was tearing up. “And I’m telling you that’s a good thing. It’s good to be afraid.” Isaac managed to say between sniffling and slapping his thighs. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1UDyp1koPI
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Alestor ran down and put both hands against his sons face and he would have maneuvered them to his neck had he lacked the little sanity left. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz6kpfYqjnk
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“Some people like the idea of moving on, they can’t bear tragedy and think it’ll change. That it’s possible to change. But I know the truth. Eight years of psychiatric training, two decades of anecdotal evidence and insanity have taught me this: people don’t fucking move on. They can’t.” Alestor shook his son. “There’s a hole in my heart and it's scary to look at. It’s the type of terror that makes people want to jump. But the smart ones? They learn to walk around it Live with it even.” He let go of his sons face. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmPpV8CQNph
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“Or live in it.” Isaac said. He rubbed the red markings off his cheeks. What a smite those words were that drew Alestor back. He raised his finger to his son but was too shaken inside, he could feel it in his chest.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG9AkAUM71S
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“I’m not jumping in! I’m not letting go. I’m learning how to deal with her fucking death the only way I can. I’ll fix it too! Do you understand?” 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzjSg7YPeR9
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Isaac did not understand. He only felt his face swell and in response looked for a proper meditative pose to sit in. When he locked in place, he looked like those gargoyle's atop the sky scrapers all brooding like. He sat in silence and turned on the television, raising the volume until the green bars would not go further. Now it was time to be patient. A perfect catatonic state. He hoped his quiet existence would help him disappear from his fathers eyes but it only stung Alestor deeper. He felt his heart fall into his throat, down to his gut. He cleaned his face of spit and a nose bleed that was coming out. His hands were hot.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIjIuuPcTYV
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“I need to get back to work.” Alestor said to no one. "We're not having this conversation again. You hear me?" 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCSS1DHMXr0
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The air was cool against his naked body. He walked up, past a hallway to a corner of the house that seemed highest of all. There was a latch on the ceiling and he began working the lock. He looked back to the loud cartoons and silent son. His chest depressed. It looked clear so he entered, closing it behind himself. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVawzG3gFsr
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He was in that dark room again where he heard a shingle of metal and shimmy of a man strapped in leather. Alestor moved his hand into the darkness of the room until he grazed the rope and pulled. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmr8svCypiO
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In front of him was a gagged man. Masked, devoid of identity. He looked like cattle to Alestor, disgusted him like cattle too. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡprnLNaMIIi
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On his back were the runes that spelled out Bael, written around the circumference of a circle. Further within was another circle and more long lines that made it seem like a strange constellation or the lettering of some primeval language. Alestor spoke the alien tongue and began to feel the sharp designs on the sacrifices back. The tattoo looked gray underneath the buzzing fluorescent light, his body looked gray. A stool sat to the rear of the gagged man. Above it a cup that smelled foul like something gamey. It was a boiled mixture, it steamed. Alestor drank the muddy water and ran his fingers to the right of the cup to a line of cocaine now ruined by his greedy fingers. He sniffed, his nose bled even more. But it gave him courage and he tightened his face as he closed his mouth to muffle a scream. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZAEcxAnzJe
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“He doesn’t understand but he will. Won’t he, master?” He said with a strained face. It was all hitting him like a diamond bullet through his brain and out his balls, shining out through his perforated body. Alestor pushed down on the gagged mans back with his palm and inspected the canvas. “You will too. Monster that you are. Rapist. Murderer. You will be redeemed and in your sacrifice we will all see the goodness of my cause.” He traced the seal with his fingers. “I’ve saved you from a terrible fate.” Alestor was trying to convince himself for his hands waned. He took another sniff of cocaine.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOn1WXsqMdx
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His heart would not stop slamming itself inside the cage of his chest. He could feel tingles up to his finger tips and at the touch of the blade felt his energy discharged, collapsing onto metal handle. 626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoYVYunjRyT
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“Don't weep. You will not be the last.” He said. They both cried. The blade rose high up. There was nothing for the gagged man but the comfort of their heavy breaths like bodies in heat. He could see his death coming, from the corner of his tired eyes where the light reflected from. It looked like a lone star in the night sky and fell like a comet.626Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbQFhwQjHS2
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