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The greatest concern of a six-year-old should not be concealing a murder.
Winter’s upheld purity is stained in the filth of crimson now; Fyodor can almost make out the shape of the pool of blood around his boot—splotchy, but it struck a slight resemblance to a dog’s head—and he retracts his foot with a grimace. Where he drags the sole of it across snow and gravel, it leaves a trail that looks severe; a bloody footprint does no favors for him. He looks back down at the evidence in his hands. Death had come down like a vulture, swept low to pick at the dead crow, ignorant to Fyodor’s pathetic attempts at finding a solution for the slaughter in his hands.
If he pled guilty to anyone—silent as the skies are, and with twilight drawing near—would there be a guarantee that he’d have an ear to speak into? Could he confess to a slaughter that he held doubt in holding fault for? His chest feels oddly tight thinking about it, constricted coils pressing their metal against each other uncomfortably. What he could admit:
First, Fyodor had indeed reached out for the crow. Curiosity burns within him day to day, and so does the need to extinguish it. This constant routine is not questioned. Upon settling his gaze on a trembling bird, cawing indignantly as it strode and hopped on ice, he had tilted his head, the sight being odd; crows do not stay for winter. Their food becomes scarce, and they soar south. He had approached, noticed the broken wing, and attempted to help.
Second, Fyodor could have stopped it.
The bird’s singular functioning wing brushed against chilled fingers and shuddered, reluctance shown as Fyodor cupped his hands under the bird’s belly. He managed to have a few seconds as he shifted the crow in his hands, inspecting the damage in sight and ignoring the dangerous flutter of its heart beating against its chest, seemingly frantic and with an urge to fly off. In that span of seconds, he felt the ugly heat in his joints, pushing into the tips of his fingers, pulsing and waiting for something, anything, to happen. Eyebrows furrowing, he tugged the heat back down to the center of his palm and let it lie there.
Fyodor had heard of death, questioned the physics of it and hence, the afterlife. It opened doors to his views on heaven, knowing that he, too, wanted to hold the hands of angels he’s been told of since he was cradled for the first time. He wants to feel soft wings and warm winds on his face, he wants a worthy welcome to the kingdom of mankind’s creator, benevolent Lord and father of all. He is not afraid of death, has been raised to not fear it, believing it to be something that all of humanity must eventually go through. The weight of everyone’s heart shall be weighed before their Lord, eventually.
Now, his own heart feels ridiculously heavy. It writhes against his chest, recoiling as his gaze falls on entrails and gouged eyes that belonged to the bird he once held. Clots of almost-black blood fell over his fingers, and he thinks he can see brain matter on his nail, sliding along the pad of his finger and falling off him. In contrast, one of the eyes which had managed to escape the socket of the crow’s face had rolled against his palm, and remained. Shifting the hold only made an odd sound come from the bird, like its intestines were complaining and moving against each other in a god-awful squelch. The stench had not hit, but even so, Fyodor bit back a gag, jaw slacking in his fright. He tells himself, somewhere, faintly—the blood is roaring in his ears, he can’t hear much over it—that he must let go. Drop the crow. Drop it, Fyodor thinks to himself.
Pale fingers tighten around the bird. He thinks his index finger digs into the open belly, feeling sudden warmth, and wetness; Fyodor closes his eyes, inhaling. Death, for as much as he heard of it being a passage to heaven, was very ugly when confronted with it. He searches for peace—a guarantee that the poor crow’s death had not been in vain—and finds instead a ball of his fears. Sin is known by all. Fyodor was holding his very own sin.
Things get very quiet, then. There is no blood rushing against his eardrums, no sound of shaky breath or barely held back gags. If he strained his ears, maybe he’d hear snow land against snow. Ice against ice. Featherlight and delicate. A perfect image of white, a canvas for red, for sin.
Fyodor thinks himself a coward. There was no use to closing his eyes when the image had burned itself into his soul, the picture’s edges tainted in blood. He forces himself to look, to stare down at his doom and think. Really, truly, think.
His hands are warmed by the red seeping into his skin. Fyodor wonders—though distantly, as though he were outside his body and attempting to crawl back—if his fingers will remain red after washing his hands. Will his palm’s lines carry the blood for the rest of his lifetime? Perhaps he will spend some time under the sink, in the showers, near bodies of water, and dip his hands there. He will watch pink water for as long as he lives and be bitter.
For as much as he wills it so, the bird does not move. The eye—which had been resting on his palm, and he had thought it’d not move from its place—rolled off his hand and into the snow. It’s so absurd, Fyodor wants to laugh. He wants to laugh, to drop to his knees and look for the eye now getting buried beneath the snow, he wants to cry, and he wants to laugh, and he thinks it’s very ridiculous that he’s still holding this stupid, dead bird. It’s dead, and he killed it, and he will not see heaven.
Can he hide from God? Will Christ turn so he can hide these bones, hide the rot that’s begun in his palms? This makes Fyodor feel queasy. I do not hide from God, he thinks. Though, there is that temptation. There is his guilt. Fyodor’s tongue feels stuck to the roof of his mouth, but even so, he forces his mouth to speak.
His words are small. He’s heard his mother pray, has heard the flowery vocabulary that he thinks is unnecessary when God knows she has never been one for the dramatic, and he thinks he cannot mimic it. Fyodor tries it anyway, and it's the first time he’s praying—one cruel wind crushes against his ear, and he thinks it whispers a correction; begging —away from his mother. He holds onto the bird—grimaces as he bows his head and touches his forehead to a wing, staining his face—closes his eyes, and begs.
“Our father who art in heaven,” his voice, he tells himself, shakes not from nerve, nor fear, but the cold which bit into his bones, “Hallowed be thy name, O Lord, my God. I plead with you strength, and I plead myself guilty,” admittance feels bitter, and he swallows the taste of it down, “Father of mercies, I ask of you salvation. To know right from wrong. Guide me where I am lost. Amen.”
He swallows down his prayer, and he allows himself to lose against the needle-like pricks in his eyes, releasing frustration and guilt as he sinks into an anguish foreign enough to have his head reeling, heavy on his shoulders. It's enough weight to get him to sink to one knee, feeling the crushing of something beneath it—later, he might realize it must have been the eye of the crow—and the cold seeping into him further. That doesn’t stop his left leg from bending and then kneeling, as well, and joining the right as he fell into repentance. Tears rushed down his cheeks and rested along the sides of his jaw, which struggled between this battle of clenching and unclenching. His tongue rested between molars.
It’s an ugly thing, to cry, he thinks. Fyodor justifies himself with the excuse of never knowing mourning before, and having it dug into him so fiercely, so suddenly, on an averagely bleak Wednesday. Young as he is, he could say he had lived years of grief in this small moment where he cradles the bird to his chest, and stifles a scream when one of his tears falls onto the eye that remained. It slides over the eye that remained, over the crimson resting in its fur, and tints it pink. The stench does hit then, and his stomach twists, in a way where he chokes on a breath in attempts to quell nausea.
Fyodor had no idea how he would hide this from his mother, or if that was a good choice, at all. If he buried the crow beneath the snow, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t miscalculate, and when the snow melts, it could reveal the bird. Fyodor couldn’t dig too deeply without risking his fingers freezing off, either, and he’d rather not give his mother more to worry about. Venture further out from his home, and it would just be someone else that’d encounter the burial of the bird, and he didn't want that encounter at all. He gnaws at the inside of his cheek, lifting his head from the wing he had been resting on.
Could he burn the bird? No, not without having to look for where his father kept the lighters, and he most certainly wasn’t about to ask him, lest he reveal he wasn’t burning something ordinary like papers, or old clothing. He wouldn’t lie, either. Ironic that he’d lie about murder but not this, though. So what could he realistically do, and manage to get away with?
The answer comes just as the gray clouds overhead part and let the sun’s light fall over him, as though coinciding and contrasting its brightness with the dark solution he thinks he’s come up with. It’s ill, and it is fitting, though he can’t help but feel insulted by the rays that burn into his retinas as he glances up. All the more to illuminate the sight of the bird which remained in his hold, and all the more to put on display the conclusion he has made.
Fyodor’s bottom lip trembles in the wake of his own answer, and his neck is forced to incline itself, bowing his head and pressing his mouth against the chest of the crow, where he would have been able to feel a heartbeat had he not slaughtered the poor thing. It’s almost foul, but he doesn’t allow himself to think about it, nor the scent which had only strengthened. His lips part, and in them the weapon of his teeth come forth to dance. He feels as though he has wrapped his bite around the whole world, concentrated into one small point; the existence of a crow.
He hesitates for only a second, and after that, his teeth are easily sinking into the bird’s breast.
As the world is silent, Fyodor hears the tear of flesh between his teeth, the grotesque way in which blood spills further into his mouth and stains the outer edges of his lips. He feels the bit of meat that he didn’t quite manage to get into his mouth falling to the left, and it only took a swift movement of his tongue to get it back to resting against his teeth. He begs himself to not taste, to only eat, consume the entirety of this bird’s existence. Fyodor still feels it, though, and only just manages to chew through the meat without gagging at the raw texture. He knew it was wet, and tough in a way it should not be, and rather slimy. He couldn’t tell if that was the heart making way along his molars, and didn’t bother to find out.
His tongue slid hazardously around the soaked—and much presumed—muscle, felt the ridges of something, how it squelched in his mouth as he bit down. He coughed once, and only once, as he struggled against the feathers of the crow. Though his hands were sticky with blood, he made use of them after he swallowed down that first, excruciating bite. His throat fought against him, but his will—faith, burning like a flame—held true, and it went down easier than expected. As promised to himself, Fyodor used his hands to help himself; he dug his fingers within that gouged out space he made with his mouth, pressed against the entrails. Some of them had slid out from the belly, so there were now two oddly shaped entrances to the bird, connected where the entrails rested. His mouth connected once more with the bird.
Fyodor told himself that he didn’t hear the sounds of his actions, didn’t hear how his throat accepted feathers and entrails and the one eye that had managed to stay within the bird’s eye socket—it was rubbery, and the only thing he had allowed himself to taste; bitter, bland with a tinge of something sour—and he definitely didn’t hear how the beak of the crow gave him struggle as he crushed it, a gag threatening to manifest into something further. He managed, though, and eventually, all that remained was the blood on his palms.
Only then, really, once he was done eating—and his stomach complained; even though he had not let himself taste the crow, it didn’t go down his stomach quite well—did he grasp at the truth of what he had done. He rolled his tongue over his teeth, folding in on itself as it felt a few, small chunks of the meat stuck there, and the tang of blood that lingered not just on his tongue but around his lips.
With a gasp that didn’t sound like his own, Fyodor supported himself with one hand dug into snow—red on white, and he clenched his hand around the ice—and the other slapped firmly over his mouth as he felt himself on the verge of vomiting. Bile rose, bubbling in the area of his throat and clogging the space behind his tongue. His eyes squeezed shut, suppressing the force of his shudders racking through him as he prevented retching all over his hand and arm, or worse, himself. No, the bird had to stay down, and he couldn’t afford to vomit back up a piece of the crow’s heart, or its entrails which he knew he ate without much pause. Fyodor swallowed back the nausea, harshly enough to make him tear up.
It took a few minutes worth of battle, for when he believed he had quelled the need to throw up, it only came back an inch stronger than the last wave. When he managed to fend off the worst, his bangs had started to stick to his forehead—all due to the effort—regardless of how chilled every other part of his body was. He inhaled, breathing in harsh winds and ice, ignoring the tinge of death that the breeze now carried, ignored how that was due to him, and then he exhaled.
Fyodor waited for it to come back, and when it didn’t, he allowed himself one, grim little smile before bracing himself and standing up. His hand, having gone slightly numb from clenching snow, didn’t look to be showing signs of frostbite, or the like, so he sighed a little out of relief. Fyodor frowned as he looked down and observed, though. The snow was not white as most people know it to be, but instead a tinge of pink that caused a flush in Fyodor’s cheeks. With his boot, he crushed and shoved the snow around, mixing it with enough untainted snow to get it looking normal again.
When he meets satisfaction, it lasts a frail second, as he glances down at his red palms and hesitates walking back home. He knew there’d be some difficulty in explaining the blood, so he had already planned to walk in through the back door, but what was he to do with this experience? When would he begin to question just how odd it had been? Was he meant to only accept things as they were? He couldn’t, not anymore. His face shifted, and he knew it because he felt it, molding into something he knew was an expression of uneasiness.
He’s heard of these kinds of things happening, really, read about this with his mother who would shiver at the curiosity he held regarding the topic of abilities. Tall tales, mythical-sounding, recounting times people with strange forms of powers had manifested and saved towns, cities, and further. In Moscow, the phenomenon was shunned, and the children who gained these powers were scorned. His father, at least, was more expressive in these matters, and made his opinion known; those with abilities only tried to rival God, a deformity that made them sinners. His mother seemed inclined to agree, though not quite as fiercely as Fyodor’s father. She only spoke of them in hushed tones, worry-lines springing forth. Fyodor believed her to be more fearful of them rather than disgusted.
Fyodor believed that he wouldn’t get an ability—why should he?—so he was least prepared for the morality crisis that struck; his ability allowed him, in some part, to kill.
He thought really would throw up, then. Somehow, he shrugged it off once more, and advanced forward on the path that took him home. Fyodor would have to learn the details of this—ability, for as much as he wanted to call it a curse. For now, he could not trust that his father wouldn’t throw him out on the streets, regardless of how kind he could be when he wanted to. That only left his mom, then, he thought. His head tilted subconsciously, muscle memory carrying him back home, and pondered over the correct way to reveal to his mother what had transpired while he was out.
Fyodor had only meant to take a small walk, as he had promised his parents before he left. His father, prideful in the way only he could be, praised him for bravery, as it was cold out, and no kid should be out in these temperatures. Really, Fyodor shook his head in a way that would be indecipherable to anyone, had they been around to see it, he didn’t consider himself a child the way his relatives considered him. He was approaching his seventh birthday, which was good enough, and he knew he had more sense than the aunts that would gossip with his mother when they thought he was asleep. He was more adult than they were.
Of course, with his height as it is, and his face younger, he guesses he can’t really complain. They just wouldn’t understand, and he wouldn’t waste his time by shoving that effort into getting them to.
His lip twitches. That didn’t solve his issue, though, and he scorns himself for getting off track even in his internal space. Distantly, he hears himself sigh, and knows he’s been sucked in by his own thoughts once more. There’s the matter of his mother possibly beginning to fear him if he told the truth, and that didn’t sound too pleasing. Fyodor wants to tell her, but should he really tell her the whole of it? What if he left out the details of—well, he definitely couldn’t tell her that her son was going around eating birds out of guilt, so he would leave that part out, as well—murder in itself? Yes, that’s a lot more tempting, he muses to himself.
Fyodor makes his way to the back door humming, content with his rather well thought-out plan; allowing himself to tell his mother he had manifested an ability that could wound things—he could see himself already soothing his mother as he told her he didn’t know if it extended to humans (though discreetly, he thinks he knows the answer, and it's not pleasant)—and bring up the incident with the bird; only, he wouldn’t say it was a crow. His mother was quite fond of them. He would say it was a rat, and thinks he will always lie about it. It’s only to keep his mother—if not happy, then satisfied.
He slips through the door easily, knowing how to walk in without sound despite the heaviness in his boots that he knows is present. Fyodor keeps silent now, as he makes way into his bedroom and grabs clothes—after all, his own were currently stained with blood, and he’d have to burn them; ordinary in his household, by some miracle—to bring into the bathroom with him. The door shuts behind him with only a soft click, and he starts by turning towards the sink.
Inevitably, he catches sight of himself in the mirror propped up above the sink. It’s Fyodor, obviously, he knows that it must be himself. Dark hair, only slightly past his ear, but definitely longer than average for a young boy, violet bordering on magenta irises, pale skin and flushed cheeks from the cold, though the latter was fading. Still, he thinks there’s something new about this part of him, more resolute. His mouth was definitely different, but that was just the stain of blood that lingered.
Fyodor glances at the stool beside the sink, and then shrugs as though discarding it. He pushed himself up on his toes, without much strain since he was getting taller, and soon he wouldn’t have to use the stool at all to reach the sink. His hands, still red—though sticky with the now dried blood—wrap around the bar of soap positioned next to the faucet. Fyodor ignores how it almost slips from his hold, and turns the lever so water would pour out and wet the soap he could wash his hands.
It’s an odd experience, to see his own hands in front of him coated in filth, washed away and tinting the water a pink that got increasingly lighter the more he ran his hands under. He hummed in mild satisfaction, making sure the soap dug into the creases of his palm where Fyodor knew he’d likely have more blood coated in. That cleared out eventually, too, and Fyodor noticed the slight weight on his shoulders diminishing from existence. The only thing that lingered was his need to brush his teeth, wash his mouth, and the area around it. That was easier than his hands, in his opinion.
He closes the faucet with little strain as he finishes, and rocks back on his heels before shaking off the wetness of his hands slightly. He didn’t have the time to take a shower, so that would have to come later. Fyodor turns towards the clothes he had left on the counter, picking through them to replace his current clothes. This, at least, wasn’t as hard. The only difficulty Fyodor encountered was the way the knees of his pants stuck to him for a moment longer than he would have liked, but even that was fine. He eventually collected his old clothes in an arm and sighed. That part was over, then. He’d have to look for his father later so he could burn the clothes, and by extension, the evidence. He’d do that after talking with his mother.
Deciding on that, Fyodor went to his room only briefly, dropping the clothes onto the floor next to his bed—hidden from sight if anyone walked in, and it’d give him time to kick the bundle under it if need be—unceremoniously. A small grimace found its way onto his face, for as much as he wanted to deny knowing the reason for it.
His mother would not be pleased even if he lied about the details. He would have to at least mention that his ability wounds creatures, but he reasoned with himself that most abilities could cause harm, if used in the proper way. Fyodor mindlessly bites on the inside of his cheek. It was risky, to say the least, to say more than needed and accidentally let things slip. Perhaps his ignorance was bliss—he didn't know the full extent of his abilities nor the conditions he needed to use it.
Fyodor refocuses his gaze on his door, clearing his throat as he reluctantly walks out, head turning left and right as he calls out, “Mom? Mom, where are you?”
A beat of silence. Fyodor frowns, closing the door behind him as his feet drag him forward, moving him towards the kitchen. When he sees no one, his frown deepens, turning back around and heading to his parents’ room. The silence was uncomfortable—he spares a glance at the tiny clock posed on top of a table he passes by; half past noon—and even more so at this hour, when he was prepared to hear the sound of pots and the stove clicking on.
He knocks once at the door when he's there, and when there's no answer, he presses his ear against it. When he hears nothing, not a breath, nor a sigh, or the sound of his mother tapping at her desk, he calls out again.
“Momma? Mom, are you there?”
Fyodor raps at the door again with a knuckle, rather patient for a boy whose panic was slowly swelling—disgusting, uncontrollable; like the feeling of suffocating beneath the tight grip of a plastic bag. He inhales. “Mom?”
The word comes out choked, and it takes a moment for him to distinguish fear from discomfort . He has known discomfort since he was able to walk on both feet without his mother's guidance, knew it in the tone of his father's voice, saw it in the size of his hands and how he used them as threats. Discomfort was not this. Fear is foreign, but he feels like he should have known it long ago. Like a friend that was always there, only behind him. Behind the discomfort.
“Momma?” He twists the knob, attempting to push his thoughts away. Maybe she was asleep, (he knows what she sounds like when resting) (mourning sighs) (light snores through her nose) (restless, always moving, sheets rustling) (he does not hear a breath from that room) and couldn't answer. The door wasn't locked, and it opened easily enough. Fyodor breathes out.
It… takes a moment for him to process the sight, really. He doesn't understand the mess of pink against the wall, or why his mother was posed the way she was, limp and with her jaw slack as though in fear. Her eyes—he doesn't look there. Fyodor's gaze shifts towards her head, where he thinks was the most damaged.
… Just what kind of force is needed to blow someone's brains out?
Fyodor stares, tilting his head as he approaches. The door shuts quietly behind him. He doesn't look at her again until he's done observing the—oh, that's disgusting, he knows exactly what that is—brain matter on the walls. He presses a hand to the mess, two fingers collecting a chunk and bringing it under his nose. It certainly smelled different from the crow's.
He drops it, and looks at her.
She didn't die in peace. Her eyes, haunting voids as the may be, (the crow) (the crow is alive and it is here again) (here again, it is dead and its eyes are in front of Fyodor) are not without emotion. He sees himself there, too. Fear. Fear stinks up the room, and it rots somewhere in his gut. There are two embodiments of fear in this room, and one of them is dead.
Dead.
Dead? No, but his mother—she was here this morning, wasn't she? Wasn't she coddling him, and warning him to be safe? Ranting on and on about trusting him to get home safely, he’s smart, and he's wise, and she will still fear for him anyway because she loves him. She says, tighten your coat, wear your hat—he didn't wear it, wasn't that cold, and she sighed before letting that go—be home before lunch. Hadn't he followed her words? Hadn't he been safe? Hadn't he deserved to come back and hear those words tomorrow?
Hadn't his mother deserved to live a little longer?
Logic. Logic over emotion. Facts over feelings—he had to play the part of an adult, once more, because he wasn't going to retrieve his father. Knowing him, he'd jostle the body. He wouldn't be kind like Fyodor would if he had the strength to carry her. His father knew brutal force and matches and the empty face of a whiskey bottle. Such a contrast to the hands that raised Fyodor, calloused and gentle on his hair, lullabies when he was sick and fussing. He would not care for the body of his dead mother. She had been dead to him for longer than today.
So he's playing the part his mother had always been proud of him for. His face fights back any display of fear, stress, any worry that he has must wait. Fyodor is a blank canvas, and his chin raises as he steps forward again, and carefully maneuvers his mother's face. He closes her eyes first, mumbling an apology, and turning her temple towards him.
Bloodied. Damp. Sticky, definitely, not dry. She didn't die too long ago. He thinks he saw that in a show his mother liked to watch once; blood dries after a while. The fresher the kill, as will be the blood. So that's one thing.
He presses a thumb to the wound, watching how the blood stuck to the pad of it. Thoughtlessly, he brings it to his mouth, cleaning it off with a swipe of his tongue—bitter, strange as it was; his mother had always been sweet—before moving onto the size of the shot that ran through her head.
It wasn't that big. The average bullet. His father owned a gun with simi
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...???
No.
Fyodor stares, dumbfounded. That's not right, he thinks. “That's not right,” he mumbles, but it sounds awful when his tone is questioning. It's not right. It can't be, obviously. His father was cruel, and he hit her, but she always said it wasn't that bad. His mother said she could handle it, and that she fights back.
Why didn't she fight back?
Why didn't she fight back?
Why didn't she fight back?
His hand drops to his side, eyebrows knitting together as the axis of his world shifts, imbalance becoming known to him—the land beneath him was not enough to hold him up, impossible to lay flat enough for him to not wobble. He takes a step back and ignores the tremble that begins in his calf, shooting up to his knee.
A step back becomes another, and he's pressed up against the door where he had come from, breath caught somewhere between his chest and his throat, coming out as a strangled sound that resembled grief. The image of his mother's lifeless form begun to burn itself behind his eyes, so he shut them as he frantically grabbed at the door's handle, letting himself out with only a slight stumble.
The hallway stretches further than he remembers in his attempt to escape—though where, he hadn't figured out yet—it warps unsettlingly and blurs behind the thin blanket of moisture over his eyes. In his years of familiarity within this house, it's never felt more foreign than the current time, and it's that sense that holds him by the neck and squeezes.
Fyodor is breathless by the time he reaches the door—odd, because he knows he isn't that worn out by the run, so he blames it on the ugly weight on his chest—and gets his hands on the knob, twisting it so he can gulp in the frigid chill that bears such a contrast to the suffocation of ache and raging heat he later calls fury within his home. It's a blanket of white and grey and occasional faded green beneath hats of snow that the pine trees wear. Soothing as it may usually be, he cannot be comforted by pretty sights.
He steps out quietly as he can with that rushing breath of his and unsteady heart. The chill immediately kisses his face, winter smooth falling over him in a touch that he doesn't feel opposed to. Inhale first, as his body knows—and exhale. Repeat. Inhale, exhale, repeat. Inhale, exhale—chokes as he hears the sound of snow crunching beneath heavy boots.
There is no comfort in the familiarity that his father poses, the knowledge that Fyodor holds over him. Simply because he knows the man does not mean he cannot be foreign. It is odd, a festering disease taking root along the shape of Fyodor's heart, beating to the same rhythm and becoming one right with it. He looks at the man and knows him. He looks at his father and doesn't recognize him.
Should he have seen this coming? Would this explain the rusting of his iron heart? When Fyodor first saw Mikhail weaponize the palm of his hand against poor Maria's cheek should he have understood the risk of a future with this man in his home? Was murder something he could have prevented, had he only been smarter?
Had Fyodor failed his mother?
Guilt hones itself into something sharp. It wedges between Fyodor's ribs and digs, a sharp pain as he's split apart between the pain of it and the acceptance of a deserving punishment for his crimes. Split between bones. The cage of his lungs has a gaping hole in it named after his anger.
Was guilt useful as sorrow or anger?
“Not cold yet?” Mikhail's voice is gruff, taking his place next to h̶i̶s̶ ̶s̶o̶n̶ Fyodor and tilting his head back. “I figured you were asleep. Wrong, wasn't I?”
Fyodor inclines his head, fist balled next to his leg. His thumb digs into his palm, a steady flow of pain to keep him grounded as he speaks, “I was changing out of my clothes. Snow gets it wet.”
Mikhail exhales as he glances at the boy, “Hell, does it. I'll get these things worn out before summer comes around,” he gestures at his boots. “Told your mother I wanted the other kind, but you know her, don't you, Fedya? Right stubborn.”
“I think it's a good trait,” Fyodor chokes out. He clears his throat, attempting to smile up at his father. He doesn't think it reaches his eyes, but a smile from him at all is rare enough that Mikhail would overlook it. “Where is she, anyway?”
“Your mother?”
Fyodor nods, “Doesn't she make lunch by now?”
His father hums, and Fyodor distantly thinks about the shape of the vocal chords producing the noise. He thinks he wants to rip it out. “She came down with a fever after you left,” he says, and Fyodor can practically breathe in the lie—tastes bitter, like the metallic tang of blood—that comes from the man. “She must be sleeping. Let her be, I'll make lunch this time.” Mikhail gestures at the door, “Come.”
Sin. That is all that dents itself a shape into Fyodor's mind. Humanity so graced by God has the opportunity to do well and ask Him for mercy shall one be haunted by their opposing schemes to heaven; Mikhail displayed less than limited remorse, hadn't even shown a sign that his hands were filthy.
Innocence. Guilt. The two dance a waltz around each other more akin to flames attempting to reconnect. Without one, the other will burn out, and the dancer will fall like one in death. No white without black. Light is futile without darkness existing. Innocence. Guilt. Which of the two did Mikhail feel?
Exodus 20:13 sings to him like a taunt, and Genesis 9:6 dances to the tune with dramatic gestures, dress flowing outwards. Leviticus 24:17 fixes its gaze in front of him, and offers a hand while Revelation 21:8 grazed a claw over the skin resting above his heart.
The same conclusion is met.
There is no world where God would permit Mikhail to live with blood staining his hands—and the boy flinches, remembering just briefly the feeling of crow's crimson on his own hands, so sure of his own innocence was he because he had begged, forced his guilt into the throat of God—and so he would make himself a humble service to His Lordship.
Sacrifice is so rarely different from slaughter.
Fyodor raises a hand, offering it to his father with a tilt of his head—the picture perfect image of serene innocence; eyes wide and trusting as he purposefully rocks back on his heels in a mockery of eagerness, “Can I show you something, first?”
Mikhail arches a brow, a scrape of laughter passing by his teeth and tongue as he kneels in front of his son, “Did you catch a bug of some sort?”
The smile the boy wears isn't so false this time. God created mortals so foolishly.
“Take it,” Fyodor presses, “I think you'll know what it is.”
His father's smile gains a hint of confusion, “Will I, now? Very well,” he says, a little dramatic as he clasps his hand in Fyodor's waiting one.
“It's cold, right?” Fyodor presses a thumb over Mikhail's knuckle. His father hums his acknowledgment, and the boy waits for a second. Heat starts in his joints, the tips of his fingers. “And now?”
The man's eyebrows furrow, “Warmer.”
Fyodor nods. Regardless of not understanding how this curse worked, he will repeat what he accidentally did to slaughter the bird earlier. Conditions for it to activate in particular would have to wait, so he drags that heat back down to his palm, achingly slow. He didn't want Mikhail to die just yet.
“Warmer?”
His father marvels at their hands, turning over their clasped hands with suspicion, “How are you doing that?”
Fyodor stares blankly, though his lip begins twitching, “It's a trick. Is it hot yet?”
Mikhail shifts, his leg possibly getting tired from this position, but it looks like discomfort overall, “Well, yes. Fedya, what is this about?”
“I know what you did,” he says simply.
It takes all of a millisecond for understanding to click behind those eyes, viewing the repeat of a loss of life in front of him; this time it was his own. Mikhail's hand attempts to leave his, dragging backwards with a threat that was more snarl than word, only to have his eyes widen when he realizes he can't.
“Atone for your crime,” Fyodor tightens his hold. The heat on his palm burns brighter against Mikhail's hand than it did on the crow's body, and consequently ruptured far more messy.
He had closed his eyes in preparation, but he knows the feeling of blood on his hand, and he knows it on his face. Fyodor exhales, dropping the hand and wiping his palm over his shirt. That was twice, now, having to change out of clothes. The corpse of Fyodor's father bled steady and had bits of it clinging to the pants and bottom of his shirt.
He opened his eyes as he breathed in, unsettled by his ease at raking his eyes over the deformity he had caused to his father. Mikhail's arms had been broken, the ability having taken hold from the inside and ripping him apart internally. He saw bits of his ribs and lingering fabric clinging to bone.
Mikhail's face was far more amusing. A single eye rolled out of place, but Fyodor recognized fear when he saw it.
Crime?
“Murder,” he answers quietly, to no one but his internal consciousness.
No—Crime. You are Crime.
Fyodor's eyebrow twitches, and he straightens up. Perhaps delayed trauma responses were in order. He couldn't focus on this voice, however similar it sounded to his—distorted, like it traveled through a fan first.
Accept, or defy me. I need not care. When you seek to exact Punishment elsewhere, I will not respond if you deny me.
“Who are you?” He whispers. Fyodor glances left, right, seeking—there was no one around, so he assumed he was hearing things; the voice thought not.
Justice. Your revenge. I am Punishment.
Fyodor feels ill. He takes a seat on the snow that wasn't dirtied by his father.
Hesitance curls around his words, “I am crime?”
Crime, agrees the voice.
“Where did you come from?” Fyodor presses. The sun was now higher in the sky. The world all at once was housed in silence amongst unknown violence.
I am yours, it says simply. A gift. A curse, you say. An ability by technical standards. I simply am.
Fyodor breathes with the world. The cold numbs his legs. He ignores the chunk of flesh on his pant's knee and how it looks like a piece of a heart.
“And now?”
And now?
The echo of Fyodor's question stings. He stares at the falling snow. He stares at the sun, how bright it was between the graying clouds. A son feels the ache of missing his mother. Fyodor wishes he didn't feel guilty.
“And now,” Fyodor whispers back, hands digging into the cold of snow beneath him to brace himself while he stands, huffing quietly. He would surely get a cold. “And now. Do I stop now?”
Punishment says nothing in return, but he feels a nudge against his thoughts, like they were being spun in front of him, memories plucked for Fyodor's viewing; as though he were guest to his own body. He sees the act of murder, how despite his apologies to a God that never listens, death is death, and slaughter is slaughter. Fyodor is a raised hand in grace, a mercy by God's side—had he not understood that God's best angels dipped their wings into blood for Him?
Innocent, Punishment whispers.
Crime swallows, mourns the death of a bird, mourns the death of his mother, and even his father. Mourns the death of a life ruined so simply. Like all creations, Crime felt the weight of it. The contradiction in feeling innocence for killing the bird, despite his guilt. The guilt for indirectly killing his mother, knowing he was responsible even if he had never held a gun. The innocence in his father's death.
F̶y̶o̶d̶o̶r̶ Crime raises his head, and replies, “Guilty.”