Chapter 63

Sinclair managed to stop his son from murdering the dog that was shivering underneath him after restraining the innocent creature.

He was furious with the sight that he almost lost his control then and there. As soon as the dog was freed, the father slapped the boy so hard and fell on the ground.

He pulled out a baton stick and struck the boy multiple times until he cried and begged to stop. The wife came out, hearing the commotion, especially her son's cries and immediately stopped her husband.

She protected her son who was trembling in pain and angrily shouted at him.

She began asking why he's being so harsh as if her son had committed a grave sin, which Sinclair responded to immediately.

He told what his son was about to do and the whole thing became a little complicated and twisted. They all went inside their house to at least avoid the eyes of other villagers who had been whispering about them.

The woman cupped her son's face and gently asked to tell the truth.

"Father is treating me like an animal too," The boy whispered with restraints of anger. "What's the difference doing that to an actual animal, anyway?"

The woman was obviously shocked with the response that spilled so much darkness from her son's mouth that she couldn't suppress her gasp of disappointment.

She let out a tear and silently hoped that this wasn't her son.

Sinclair continued scolding the boy, ranting on and on about the sin he was going to commit.

He was telling all about the anger of their gods and a neighbor's curse, which were all very ironic and comical to their son who had changed over for the worse.

"It's a sin to murder a dog, but not to murder hundreds of humans?" The boy argued back. "Isn't the reason for all this madness was the war you fought all along? What does that have to do with me or with us? We're just farmers trying to live day by day with the unfair compensations and little crumbs that those above the hierarchy's throwing off to us! We're nothing but slaves who are bound to suffer anyway, so how do those gods even scare you when they're all just sitting on their throne comfortably?"

"Blasphemy!" Sinclair yelled, pulling out his leather. "Do not speak another word!"

"You go on wars to kill thousands of people for something stupid and we get to be the collateral damage and entertainment for those above? Then why do we have freedom and suffer with it?"

Sinclair wouldn't allow the boy to utter anything more sacrilegious and struck his son again and again. That day, the last thing that the boy had desperately squeezed in between the painful punishment was a blow that struck his father's ego more than any stick or leather could have – none other than the truth.

"In the end, you can only resort to physical dominance because you were mentally weak," The boy said in a hoarse voice followed by a sarcastic chuckle. Sinclair's mind was swirling with madness at the time that he never stopped to ponder the words or arguments that his son had said.

The boy received a punishment so severe and painful that he couldn't even stand or walk for a few days.

After that incident, the relationship between the father and the son grew more distant.

Even the child's relationship with his mother had been dissolved that day as the woman got stagnant.

She just spent her spare hours staring at the sky, hearing the screams of her child.

It might've been just an excuse to say that she was pleading with the gods from above to save them from such cruel circumstances that were brought upon them.

But in reality, she just didn't care anymore.

Whoever was right or wrong became too much for a woman's love to bear and so, she snapped just like that.

Sinclair had never noticed it then, but they've already completely fallen apart.

It was a point he unconsciously burned the bridge forever, leaving that gap empty and lonely.