"Is he gonna stay this way?" Ethan asked as he looked at Mr Hiomi who was frozen. Ethan's hands and feet were bandaged.

"I don't know. I don't even know how it happened" Vivian said. "Just what the hell are you?" Ethan asked and Vivian chuckled nervously.

He looked outside. The clouds weren't moving and neither was the traffic. Everything was quiet. It was like the whole world had stopped. Everything was a stone, except them.

He stood at the balcony and looked outside. "It's so quiet. Somehow, I love it" Ethan said. Vivian stood behind him "Everything has changed. From slums to cities and then to a golden civilisation, bringing golden azure. I don't want to see what's next"

Vivian quietly came beside him and stood beside him. The glass pieces crushed beneath their boots. He took a deep breath as he closed his eyes and shivered from the cold.

"Please don't find me" He said.

"What?" Vivian said as she looked at him. "Those were the last words of my mom, before she died." He said. Vivian looked ahead again.

"My mom and dad were siblings" He said. Vivian was surprised and turned towards him. "Dad, raped mom when she was 14 and then she gave birth to me when she was 15. He was 18 then" Ethan said.

"I wonder why didn't she drop me. Life would have been simpler for her. But, she decided to raise me up with him. They weren't married but they lived together. He would hit her and forced her into doing things she didn't wanted to. I was seven when I began understanding that... my dad wasn't what people would call normal"

Twenty two years ago
Manila, Philippines.

"Ethan! Ethan! Hey, look what I found in the garbage dumps today" A small boy said in Filipino as ran towards Ethan with a huge plastic bag in his hands. He ran barefoot towards the other pile of garbage.

Ethan rose up from another end of the garbage pile and looked overhead. He had blue-green eyes and thick, black bangs covering his forehead and his ears. He wore a peach colored, dirty and tattered sweatshirt and dirty, white knickers. He had purple bruises on his malnourished hands, mosquito bite marks on his feet and a pale, translucent skin.

"What is it, Tik?" He asked as the other boy, Tik, ran towards him "Look, a perfume bottle!" He said as he shoved a fancy, French perfume bottle in front of him which read 'Eau de Cologne'

"It's pretty" Ethan said as he took then bottle. He sniffed it "It smells good" He said "Yes! This is what rich people smell like! When I'm a millionaire, I'll also smell this way!" Tik said.

"Stop dreaming!" Ethan, as a realistic he was, said as he picked up the garbage bag beside him and walked out of the heaps of garbage.

"Oh come on, Ethan! Don't you have a dream?!" Tik said as he followed him.
"Who said I don't" Ethan said "But it isn't an impossible dream like yours"
"What is it?"

"I want a pair of shoes. I have never owned one" Ethan said as he looked at his chapped, dusty and bleeding feet.

"Let's hope, one day our wishes come true! Oh! We are already here! See you tomorrow" Tik said and they parted ways. Ethan ran down the stinking streets of the slums and pushed aside a huge tin wall. He got inside a hut made of mud, tin and twigs.

"Ina, I'm hungry!" He shouted, beaming with energy and happiness to see his young mother.

A woman of about twenty two came out of the hanging curtains. She wore a light pink maxi skirt and a green cover up. She smiled at Ethan and brushed his hair "How was today's day?"

"Nothing new. Same old, hunting for money in the garbage" He said as he rolled his eyes. She poured some pagpag into a tin plate.

(Note: Pagpag is a term given to left-over food, meat picked from garbage and dumps, which is then washed, cooked and sold to poor communities in Manila, Philippines)

Ethan quickly ate up his entire meal as he sat in his mother's lap. She picked out the lice from his head. "Eat up and sleep quickly, okay? And don't wake up in the middle of the night"

Ethan ate up and turned towards her "Seconds" He said with a smile "I'm sorry, Ethan. That's all I had today. I'll get more tomorrow" She said. He didn't say anything. Sleeping with a half filled stomach wasn't new for people in those areas of Philippines. He quietly kept the plate aside and sat back in her lap. She caressed his head gently as he fell asleep.

"Ina" He said.
"Yes?"
"What happens when we die, ina?"

"We are happier."
"I want you to be happy but... I don't want you to die." He mumbled and fell asleep. She picked him up and lay on the floor mats under her cot and covered him with a blanket. She kissed his forehead "I'll go to work now"

Later at night, Ethan heard a loud voice of something breaking and got up. The room was dark and a streak of light shone from the small hole inside the door.

He got up and walked towards the door. He peeped outside through the hole. He tall man, wearing a wrap-around skirt and a loose shirt sat outside, drinking and smoking and talking to himself in the dim light.

He suddenly turned towards the door and Ethan moved away. The man opened the door and Ethan ran under the cot. He stood before it. Ethan could see his legs.

"Come to tatay, Ethan" He called out. (Tn// Tatay-- Father)

"Go away. Don't touch me" Ethan said from his own corner which was a defence everytime his father remembered that he had a son.

"I won't hurt you, Ethan" He said in a sweet and happy voice. Ethan shriveled further into the wall behind. Finally, that man raised up the cot and stared down at him.

Looking at his face, anybody could tell, than Ethan had inherited his father's genes. The same eyes, same hair, same skin. He smirked and grabbed Ethan's hand.

He scratched and kicked-- He did everything to resist but a twenty five year old lunatic was obviously stronger than a seven year old rebel. He kicked Ethan on his face and Ethan fell on the ground.

"You are my property! So listen to me!" He shouted as he raised Ethan up, grabbing him by his neck. Ethan began choking and grazing for breath as he kicked his feet in the air.

"Tatay got a special gift for you, today" He said with a smile and left his neck. Ethan fell down and coughed vigorously. He grabbed his bangs and dragged him on the floor, out of that small room, into another dark room which was smaller and had a small bucket filled with water and a table kept at center.

He threw Ethan on the table and his head began bleeding as he hit the table. He looked furiously at his father.

"Yes, those eyes!" He said and started laughing "That's exactly it, my son! That's what I don't want you to have! Stop stealing my originality! Afterall, we are one! You are the offspring of my pure bloodline!" He said and pressed Ethan's forehead on the table.

Ethan struggled to get up "You've been quite handful lately. You aren't sick, are you?" He said as he took out three black needles from his pockets "These will keep your sickness under control. See how much tatay cares for you" He kept two of them between his lips, and took a pair of scissors from his shaving kit.

He trimmed Kirito's bangs from beside his ears and threw away the scissors "Now, stay as still as possible. This might hurt a bit, but it will make make you a perfect son for your perfect father!"

"I shouted for help. Shouted for mother. But nobody came. Nobody ever came to help me. I needed help back then because I was tiny. Now everyone wants to help me, when it's too late and I don't need them. I want mom. I don't want a pair of shoes, I want mom" Ethan said and Vivan held his hand.

"What were those implants?" Vivian asked "Those were implants for reducing the brain activity. They are given to mental patients. I wasn't a mental patient, he forcefully made me one" Ethan said.

"Why don't you get those removed?" Vivian said "They can't be removed. The doctors said they have been fixed in a very unprofessional surgical way. There are high changes that I might die if they remove them" Ethan said.

"What about your mom-- What job did she do?"
"Prostitution."

- To be continued

Ethan Evaganza
My Heart Hates Me