The Thirty-Seventh Tale

The first time his mother held him in her harms—o-so kindly and gently; filled with so much love and warmth—when she first gazed at him, dark coal brown eyes meeting her own—the woman had the uncanny feeling that there was something peculiar about her newborn son.

She knew as a mother that she should've never felt disquieted or perturbed around her child, her very own flesh and flood. She knew she should've never made those fabricated smiles that she very reluctantly gave him, and she knew she should've never avoided looking at him in the eye.

All she felt right now was dread, shock and apprehension.

Because where, through all those years of taking care of him, did she went wrong?

Taeil, wasn't, never normal.

He was a fatherless child with only a single mother who tirelessly and endlessly did work in order to at least have food served on the table three times a day.

He was a child with high aptitude and intelligence, a child whose brain could easily rival a university professor's. 

"Mum, look! I got another award from school!"

She could only do so much as to congratulate her son whilst giving him another one of her fake smiles; her uneasiness around him never once dwindling. 

Taeil knew. 

It wasn't difficult to see the growing tension around his mother whenever he was around. 

Not once had she kissed him affectionately on the forehead like other mothers would usually do. 

Not once had she patted him on the head or tell him that everything was alright whenever he wasn't feeling quite well.

Not once had she given him a genuine smile.

Not once had she held his hand without feeling anxious.

Not once had she made him feel like he was the luckiest boy on Earth.

He chuckled, a lopsided sneer plastered on his face.

His mother was special. She knew from the very beginning that her child was far beyond normal.

Behind those innocent smiles, those cheerful facades; behind that perfect prodigious intelligent little boy...

Taeil was morbidly twisted, his morals bent. He was cunning, deceptive, and had no trouble showing his ruthless and cruel nature whenever he felt like it. His mind was nothing but filled with a goal to wrap humanity around his fingers, to play with them and dispose of them when he was no longer entertained.

His mother would always be placed in a special place in his rotting heart. He would not kill her, only those who tried to lay their fingers on her.

Mine... mine, mine, mine, mine only!

Hmm... Now that he thought about it, he'd have to do something about that annoying co-worker's of hers. He'd seen them interact with each other quite often these days. He was visiting three days from now, wasn't he?

Perfect. 

"Guh, there's blood on my clothes now."

He looked smugly at the completed handiwork he did.

Cats...

All with pricks and needles embedded on their bodies; with missing limbs and with various abrasions and injuries—all tied up with wires and hanging silently on a tree branch—swaying eerily to the breeze that wafted by.

He shifted the spectacles on the bridge of his nose.

"Oh well, I'll come up with something. Mum was never one to pry anyway." 

A/N: I'll leave this up to your own interpretation. You guys can probably guessed why the mother seemed traumatised somewhere in the beginning—a little show presented by Taeil starring a certain co-worker, maybe?

Events are happening at different intervals, I apologise if there is any confusion regarding the story.