章節 4: Baby Glare

His mother gives thanks the medic as they leave before turning to a blonde woman with green eyes wearing similar robes to everyone else.

"He's so cute!" the woman chirps, giving his cheek a gentle squeeze which he reciprocates with a glare. Though, this only makes her coo at him more.

"I know, I can't wait to introduce him to your daughter. I think they'll be fast friends, though, I'd appreciate if you didn't start plotting schemes to get them together Susan..." his mother says, giving the other woman a knowing look.

Susan sighs, "Fiine... But you can't blame me later if they do eventually become something? Wouldn't it be cool to be sisters is law?"

"Your daughter is ten years older Susan... I doubt they'll be anything more than friends, or I hope atleast, who knows if you've warped little Christine's mind already."

"Hey, I resent that!" she jokes back.

Afton was struggling to place himself, they'd given no actual information that'd help him in any way... Apart from maybe the names of these people, but he'd end up learning them anyway so it was a moot point.

Also, it seemed like this blonde woman was trying to fix him with her daughter who's ten years older... Is this what housewives usually talk about, or is it just some weird customs of their cult?

His eyelids start fluttering against his will, it seems his body had reached its limit and was forcing him to sleep... Eventually, he relented and allowed sleep to overtake him, the women conversation was not going anywhere anyway, so why bother with it.

The next time Afton opened his eyes he found himself alone again... He stretched his limbs out and only now noticed that he didn't have a proper diaper, only ragged cloth wrapped around his groin. Damn it, couldn't I have been reincarnated as the son of a rich couple or something?

Ignoring the issue with his hygiene he encountered another problem... He was incredibly bored! His neck wasn't strong enough to support his head, so he just had to lay down constantly, this might actually be worse than living in the womb, at least there he could kick his mother to amuse himself...

After half an hour of contemplating he eventually decided to try and make the best of a bad situation by attempting to improve himself during this downtime... Exercising his frail muscles and trying to make different sounds with his fresh vocal cords, of course, this would take a long time before he saw any results, but it was better than sitting here like a potato for months.

Trying to exercise while on your back is difficult, especially when you were so weak you couldn't lift your head... But his attempts at lifting his legs, arms, and straining his abdominal muscles would hopefully lead to improvements, as to his vocal range? It was honestly distressing to be only able to produce "Goo's" and "Gaa's"...

He'd makesure to become completely still when his mother came feed, clean, and play with him. Her attempts at getting reactions out of him were annoying at first, but he found it strangely calming to have her nearby, even if he logically wished her to be elsewhere.

The next few days he was finally introduced to his father... A man named Zachary Parker, he towered over his mother and had a remarkably strong looking build, it wasn't an odd occurrence to have him visit while completely covered in dirt, dust, and a black substance Afton could only think of as oil, perhaps he was a mechanic?

As to his personality? When Afton was left alone with the man he was like an anxious boy about to take his crush on their first date, hesitant to touch or even do anything with him, even if Afton could see how much the man wanted to pick him up and hug him... Something to note, stubble is very painful against his smooth babyface, like thousands of needles jabbing him simultaneously. His subsequent cry had the man acting more demure than usual, though, it seemed like the satisfied grin he had at seeing his father get scolded had the opposite effect. Both his parents celebrating at his "First Smile".

A couple weeks pass and Afton had begun to get suspicious over his parents intentions for him... His mother and father would occasionally come in and start reading what he'd initially thought were "bedtime stories", but were quickly recognised as indoctrination tools...

I mean, what they were reading was literally called the "Codex", and preached things about preserving humanity and other unilateral rules. If this wasn't a cult he'd eat his foot. Most of the things they read were Axioms from a man named Roger Maxson.

"Shield yourself from those not bound to you by steel, for they are the blind. Aid them when you can, but lose not sight of yourself." his father recites, smiling down at him afterwards as if he'd just given him the meaning of life.

Whatever being "Bound by steel" meant he didn't want to know... He'd heard of some of the sick and sadistic things cults had done in the past, but hopefully, they'd not sacrifice him to the owl god or something before he could escape, or at least learn enough to survive around here.

It was a couple week later that Afton had finally met some of the younger members of the cult, they skipped in sneakily after his mother had fed and cleaned in, looking through the cot bars with awed looks.

One had dark brown hair with similarly coloured eyes and a cute face, the other having blonde hair and blue eyes who resembled the woman named Susan. The former slid an arm through the bar and placed a finger into his chubby hand, he gripped her finger with a determination, glaring at her as if to warn against any hostile actions. The excited giggle he got in response dampened his determination immediately afterwards though.