The first time Ryan killed something, he was four years old.
he thought it was a game.
His father, Dellen, had led him into the woods behind their home at dusk, the sky bruised with purples and deepening reds.
The birds were quiet. The air held its breath.
Ryan remembered holding his father's hand—cold, firm, and steady—as they came upon a wolf with its leg caught in a rusted trap.
"Do you see it?" Dellen asked softly, kneeling beside his son.
Ryan nodded, his face pinched with pity.
"It's hurt."
"good" his father said. "Now, finish it."
Ryan hesitated.
But Dellen leaned in close, whispering:
"Be brave, son. Be strong. Just like father . This is love. This is mercy."
And so Ryan had picked up the stone Dellen placed in his tiny hand.
And smashed the wolf's head until it stopped moving.
Ryan is seventeen now.
His father was dead.
At least, that's what the coroner had said after they pulled his bloated body out of the lake.
Suicide, they claimed.
Open and shut.
But Ryan knew his father . Dellen didn't kill himself. Dellen wouldn't die without a plan.
And lately, things begun to… unravel.
It started with the dreams. In them, Ryan stood barefoot in the woods again, holding that same stone.
But now it was his father in the trap.
Bleeding. Smiling. Whispering:
"You're ready now."
Then came the real-world signs.
First: the letters.
Folded into his t-shirt drawer was a note in his father's handwriting.
"They'll try to make you weak.
Don't let them.
You're not like them."
Another appeared inside his school locker, tucked into his science book.
"Pain is a chain, son. Break it before it breaks you."
Ryan told no one.
Not even his therapist.
Not his aunt, who had taken him in.
Not the detective who occasionally checked in to "see how he was holding up."
They wouldn't understand.
They didn't know what his father was.
But Ryan was starting to.
Two weeks later, he found the box.
It was buried in the crawlspace beneath the house.
Wrapped in an old blood-stained quilt.
Inside were dozens of newspaper clippings.
All unsolved murders.
Young women.
Missing children.
Parents butchered in their beds. Some were headless.
In red ink, his father had scrawled across each photo:
"Justice."
"Purified."
"Rot removed."
Beneath the clippings, there were photos.
Personal ones.
Ryan saw himself. Playing in the backyard.
Holding a puppy . Smiling.
Then a second photo—same backyard,
same puppy —its neck snapped and dangling in his father's hand.
Another. Ryan holding hands with a girl from school.
Her name was Tia.
She went missing when he was ten.
Next photo: Tia's pink shoe.
Next photo: Tia's bloodied shirt.
Ryan's vision swam.
At the bottom of the box… a knife.
Black-handled. Bone-carved.
His name etched along the spine.
Ryan vomited.
he tried to burn the box the next night.
But the fire wouldn't take.
The flames flickered violently, then died every time they touched the quilt.
The photos wouldn't blacken.
The knife refused to heat.
It was as if the past was too stubborn to burn.
That night, his aunt found him sleepwalking.
Standing in the living room . Whispering his father's name.
Clutching the black knife.
The murders began again soon after.
The news screamed of it—"copycat killer mimicking the 'Lake butcher' ," they called it.
Ryan never told anyone about the bruises on his arms each morning.
Or the muddy footprints leading from the woods to his bedroom window.
Or how the knife never stayed where he left it.
He wanted to believe it was a haunting.
But deep down, he knew the truth.
This wasn't a ghost.
This was training.
On the morning he turned eighteen, Ryan woke to find a new letter on her mirror:
"Happy Birthday, my son. You're ready now."
"All I ever did was love you. All I ever taught you was survival."
"This world will lie. Hurt. Betray. But you… you are justice born in blood."
"Finish what I started."
Ryan didn't go to school that day.
He went to the lake.
And waited.
The water was still. His reflection stared back with cold, empty eyes.
His father emerged from the trees—not as flesh, but as a shadow.
Wearing the same long coat black died in.
His face pale and smiling. Eyes hollow. Yet familiar.
"Why?" Ryan asked, tears slipping down his cheeks.
Dellen tilted his head.
"Because they never protected you.
Because no one ever will. But I did. I made you strong."
"I didn't want this." Ryan said, trying to hold back his raging emotions.
Dellen stepped closer.
The shadow whispering behind him, growing eyes.
"But you were this. From your first breath, son."
He held out his hand.
And Ryan took it.
That night, another woman went missing.
And another the week after.
All of them had secrets.
Abusers. Skeletons hidden neatly in suburban closets.
Some were drug dealers. Human traffickers.
some with hhorrible past deeds and some...innocent.
The media raged. Police formed task forces.
Cameras flashed. Sirens wailed.
And Ryan was never the same again.
Because he wasn't killing.
He was cleansing.
Because now it's his turn.
He doesn't kill like his father did.
He learned from his mistakes.
He kills better.
And one day, maybe he will have a son, too.
And raise him right.
Just like father did.
And in his dreams, his father laughed, playing ball with him , and said:
"Like father..… like son."
As Ryan slept peacefully, a black cat stood still on the window, watching him.
Stream Commentary.; Tape #23. Like Father Like Son.
[Kai returns ]
"There's something worse than a monster in the closet… it's the one who raised you, who whispered bedtime stories laced with blades, and said 'I love you' while teaching you how to spill blood "
And it seems like our little buddy is back.
[@Jaija: is that Brook?!!]
[@Oviesix: not the cat again. noooo!!]
[@Enchomay: i see, no wonder i felt deja vu. This story and ' a mother and a monster' happened in the same universe. Interesting... ]
[@642: Ryan and Andy should shake hands, i have never seen such traumatized duo in my life]
[@Enchomay: hmm, i have seen worse ]
[@642: heh, Dellen is like the male version of Elina,and i like it. Are they related by any chance, Kai ?]
[@Oviesix:what is Brook doing here, Kai? I need an explanation!!]
[@Enchomay:I can't stop thinking about how manipulated the boy was. His father conditioned him since birth. That's the real horror here. How many kids are taught to normalize pain without even knowing?]
[@642: now am interested in Brook's origin too]
[@Jaija:me three!!]
(Kai chuckled)
There are some monsters you can chain. Some you can bury.
But the worst kind are the ones who raise us.
This story is a reminder: Children are not born evil. But they become what they're shaped into.
And sometimes, the villain isn't the one holding the knife—but the one who taught you how to use it.
( he sats straight)
Now about Brook...
"Every story you've heard is part of something larger, something older. The father, Dellen … the mother, Elina … the cat, Brook… they were born from something deeper than memory. You want the truth?"
( he held a photo of a dark pit behind an old house)
Perhaps, we could find them here.
Stay tune for the next story.
"Laiya"
Bye now~
STREAM ENDED