Hex it, Is Love... Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Hachiko Cerberus

She always told me about that thirteenth attempt. Thirteenth being the number everyone thinks of as bad luck. I was that thirteenth attempt.

“I told Gabriel to go to Raquel,” she will tell me every time I make her proud. “He did so many time. The first attempts came out wrong. You were the lucky number. The thirteenth.” I feel important every time she says that, even when is repeatedly. It never gets old. She would get a bit shaky when she say those things. It used to get me worried, but I’ve gotten used to it.

Born the day people do sacrifices, being number thirteen, and with a succubus appearance made Mary proud. She always remembers me how I can get around people’s thoughts. “A body like yours can make a man forget his name just by looking at you,” Mary will tell me. I like the attention men give me, but I don’t pay mind. I don’t like the stares, just the control I have over them.

Today is the first of October, so we have to start getting ready for the celebration that will take place in a few weeks. A new member of the pack will be born that day. Hopefully it will be as good as me or better. Mary always tells me that improving is good, but it doesn’t eliminate the fact that I might be replaced.

My room is pitch dark, but I manage to make my way around the whole room. The curtains are black and dark purple. The poisonous purple color. Mary says is to keep people from peeking. Apparently certain colors are not likable, and poisonous purple, like poison, keeps people away. “Hachiko,” I hear someone call for me from the other side of the metal door. I walk towards it and open the lock. Mary makes her way into my room with her head high. The hallway lights - when she opened the door - blinded me for a moment, and then her gray hairs are the ones that get my attention.

Master is getting old.

She walks in closing the door behind her. I know she hates my room for its darkness and lack of dirtiness. “Hachiko, I need you to do me a favor for tonight,” she says and I nod as if she can see me. I can feel her heartbeat speeding up like when she is nervous or exited.

She still doesn’t trust me. What else do I have to do for you to trust me Master?

“Angel and I need some blood samples and DNA from someone alive. Do you think you can manage to get someone alive here?” she asks. I can’t believe she is actually asking this. Is not my first time. Although my first time I almost killed the woman, but the second time the man I brought was just injured. “I want a male this time. You can eat him later, after he have drain most of his blood and gotten what we need from him,” she says.

“Yes Master, I will,” I say. I walk to the window to peek outside and make sure of the time. Almost night, good. I’m not looking forward on eating anybody.

I call it the Building. Is big, composed of more than four floors. They run experiments, studies, and research. I am one of the test subjects still. I’ve been here since I was a baby. Experiment after experiment. Getting me stronger, injecting things that I don’t even know about, surviving tortures, more needles, and craving for fresh meat from the day I was born.

I remember as a kid, Angel, one of the servants, trying to get me under control, but I end up biting him. That’s when they all understood that I wasn’t hungry, but starving for meat. There was a point when I was fine with it, but now that I know a little more about me, I despise it. I also have meat as part of my body. When I tried complaining about my cravings to Mary she went mad. “I don’t want to eat human meat anymore,” I told her and she slapped me. She yelled at me, but then when I was about to sleep she came to my room and told me that there was nothing wrong with craving for it, and that it wouldn’t be considered cannibalism because I am not human. I am a monster, a beast, a demon, a human’s worst nightmare; that’s what she told me, and my master is right.

She leaves my room and I stand there with nothing else to do. I can turn on the light, but the light bothers me. Is not like I will vanish, but I hate the feeling of the stinging in my eyes when I turn it on.

I don’t want to kill people anymore, but I have to. I don’t want to eat them, but I would be killed if I don’t get rid the body, or make it unrecognizable. I hate my fate.

Master Mary tells me that I don’t have feelings, but I can feel. How does that work? I don’t know. How does the moon take over when the sun hides? I don’t know; the moon is always there when the sun is shining, but when he runs to his hiding place the moon takes over and brightens the night with a more soothing touch than the beating sun. Why is it that I can see the stars only when the moon rules? I don’t know. Why doesn’t Mary let me know all this things? I would like to know.

..............

The night came and I made my way to Mary’s laboratory. She is always here, making new things and remaking old liquids for the one that is going to be born. “Master,” I say. I will usually knock on the door, but it was open this time.

“Yes Hachiko?” She says, but doesn’t turn around to see me. She just keeps her eye on the cylinder and taking another cylinder with a green liquid.

I hate that green color. It looks brown. Or is it black. I don’t know.

“If there are any witnesses, do I have to vanish them?” I ask. She knows what I mean by vanishing them. It means bringing them and waiting for permission to eat them. She nods.

Damn it!

“If there are witnesses, you bring them here. If I don’t want it, is all yours. Although, if it’s a man, bring him alive and it will not be for you to eat it,” she says, and I hope that if there are any witnesses is a man. I don’t want to kill anybody even if I do it by instinct.

“I have another question. Did you come to me because you didn’t have another choice?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer me.

“Got to your duty Hachiko and don’t come back without a body,” she orders. I bow down as if she can see me.

“Yes master,” I say and leave the room.

I pass a few Slaves and made my way out the place. Slaves are people Mary created to serve her. Like me, they were born from a human body, but were injected before born with something different making them have other types of genes. It makes them stronger, but with disfigured features making it hard to look at them straight in the face. “They only take orders from me, they don’t have a mind of their own,” Mary once told me when I was a kid. I used to be scared of them. Those ugly faces can scare anything on its way. If you don’t die from a heart failure, you will die of burning eyes from just looking at them.

Outside feels a little cold because of the autumn nights and winter arriving a bit early. I look up at the moon and say hi with a smile. I don’t usually smile, just when I leave the Building. Or when Raquel use to pet my head until I fell asleep as a kid. I haven’t seen my bio mother in ages, I miss her or is it just the petting? I don’t know.

Raquel; she is the mother of almost every creation Mary has done. I hate to admit it, but Mary can be very cold with people. Like a cold breeze on the face in winter, cutting through your body. Mary tells Angel to go to Raquel. She doesn’t like him so everything is by force. I remember as a child, listening to Raquel sob. Her heart rate increasing of what had happened a while ago. Her few tears falling to the cold metal floor. She still not use to it. “Poor Raquel,” I use to say and walk to her as a child. I would pet her head the same way she did to me, because that was what made me feel better so I thought it would’ve made her feel better too. Then Mary will come and slap her in the face and take me away.

“Don’t treat people nice, don’t say nice things, because it is not nice. People want you to believe is nice because it makes it easy for them to manipulate you. They are being mean, not nice.” Those are a few rules that Master Mary tells me all the time when I think being ‘nice’ is the right thing to do. “Don’t get confused. Don’t be a pretending to be nice like Raquel.” I would put my head down and walk away repeating those rules over and over in my head.

I walk around a little and skip the lines from the sidewalks. I have always done that for years, even inside the building where I was born. I go to one of my favorite places, the butcher shop. I don’t enter, but walk near it. I am not allowed to go inside any shops or places, no matter what. Not even if I’m having an emergency.

I keep walking in search of a remote place with at least two people in it. People stare at me. Although, I have a hoodie on covering my head; the shadow favoring me by covering my face. Long pants, dark as night, and my black boots. I prefer my leather jacket, but this time I had to change my clothing. Mary doesn’t like the idea of me wearing the same thing outside, so I try to wear something different all the time.

Men stare. Children hang on to their mother’s hand and look at me, but then lose sight of me again. Women envy with their stares. I turn left on the next block expecting less people, because the less people around you the less you will be recognized. Taking the turn I hit someone by accident. We both make space for each other after bumping our heads. “Sorry, I wasn’t looking,” the person says. I know by the voice that it is a female. I look up at her and her heart starts to race.

Damn it, she is scared.

I keep walking, glad that my hoodie is still on. Mad, because I intimidated her. I didn’t meant to. I shook the thought away and focus again on the task. Get a male for my Master.

On the next block I turn right, then on the following one I turn left. A male figure is by himself walking around the block. I walk in the shadows to not be seen, paying attention to any houses or stores that may have cameras. When I am yards away from the man I take out the piece of glass out of my pocket and search the location I am in. It immediately sends my location to Slaves who are going to pick the man up and bring him to the Building. I wait a few seconds to make a move. I keep walking near him without being seen. Then after a moment when I hear the Slaves van near I tackle the man down. I take out a needle and inject the fluid in the neck. He slowly stops struggling and the van arrives. Slaves pick him up and shove him inside the van.

“Hachiko,” one of the Slaves calls me. I look at him and he gets nearer. “Master Mary say walk yo way back. Don’t take time,” he says. I nod and he leaves.

The van leaves, leaving me by myself. I start to walk making my way back. I hear a sound and look around. I hear a heart beat on my right.

Awesome, now I have to eat someone. I’m hope is a man.

I run towards it to find the same female I bumped in to earlier, but this time she has bags on her hands. I jump at her making her and the bags fall. She doesn’t move, just lay there on the ground.

That’s unusual. People usually struggle for you to let go of them.

I turn her around. She looks at me, but doesn’t see me because of the darkness. How come she is not trying to run away? “Who are you? Where did they took that man?” she asked but I didn’t answer.

She saw me do that, now I have to eat her. Great.

She pushes me and takes my hoodie off, revealing my face. She looks at me, and I put my hood on again. Her heart is racing again. I don’t want to kill her, even when she doesn’t want to live anymore. “I promise I won’t say anything,” she says, but Mary told me to never believe in those words. What the fuck should I do? I pin her down to the ground again, this time she hits me on the face and takes my hoodie off again. I get my face near her neck to bite the artery like Mary told me. She says is a very easy and fast way to kill someone. The smell of presume hunts me and makes me stop. She smells sweet.

Concentrate Hachiko, you can’t kill her, bring her to the Building.

Even when I remind myself what I shouldn’t do, my instinct kicks in. I take out my fangs, sharp as needles, to bite down her soft flesh. I feel her heartbeat that is still racing, but this time it’s not fear, but desperation. Why? I stop myself and back away from her a few feet. She looks at me and I look away.

“You are the one that has been killing people this past years, aren’t you?” she asks, but I don’t answer. She must’ve seen my fangs. I pace around, thinking of what should I do next. “Why didn’t you kill me?” she asks, but I am not allowed to answer no matter what, even if I want to ask her why she isn’t scared anymore. It’s a good thing that she isn’t scared, but I still want to know. “Hey, I’m talking to you,” she says. I look at her again this time actually looking.

I usually just look but don’t observe people. I have a good memory, I don’t need to observe anything, but her soft pale face caught my attention.

I hate that color. White. But it looks good on her. It looks good on Raquel too.

Her face is soft, her eyes are grey like the moon. Raquel’s eyes are blue, almost grey and green

I like the moon, and stars.

She looks at me confused. She noticed my scar because now I can feel her looking at my cheek. “What happened to you?” she asks. I shook my head and hide my fangs. I can’t attack her. She makes me feel like Raquel does. Powerless. I need to find out why and how. I think of my code and how Mary talks to people that she has given her code to. I grab a leaf from a tree, and take out a marker from my pocket.

I get close to her and give her my code. Six, six, six, seven, and two. She looks at it and then at me. I know she is confused now, but she will realize later what it means and what she needs to do with it. I’m sure that if I kill her I will feel like I have killed my mom, and I don’t want that feeling. I begin to walk away, but before I do I look at her again and then leave to the Building. I wish she hadn’t seen that.