'I Can Hear You Thinking.'

The board beneath me groaned in complaint as I came to a halt outside one of the deterioratig doors of the disheveled cabin. Connrads' current inhabitance, the eerie remains of a highly inhospitable cabin, chilled me far beyond the core of my soul. I at first wondered why Dad had moved us here in the first place, but boy, did I figure it out fast... It was to test us. Challenge the density of our nerves. I, like the majority of the rest of the mob, held the high belief the cabin was not only haunted by the apprehension of some of its current residents, but by ancient Rellian spirits perhaps as well. But, I must confess, I lack the iron-hard confidence and cocky abstinence to fear the other Connrads had; me? Everything dribbled ice over my spine, quite frankly. The others? I swear half of them would've been liable to stare into a devil's eyes and laugh. Nefarious, arrogant, sly, and overall down-right twisted, I loathed my "home" with utmost abhor. I wasn't like them. At all. I lived in a mob of creatures waltzing in the deepest and darkest trenches of macabre evil, but I, I cowered at the name of darkness. I was the real standout, 'ey? I know, I know... how ironic to be able to genuinely admit to both that and to being the son of the King of Darkness. Yeah, yeah, a total scaredy 'kat being the "maggot-of-vomit, incompetant child"- as Dad calls me...- of that... thing. Hu. Isn't life a bitch. But I found it out the moment I sucked in my first breath of this hideous world- a "life" or horror, heartbreak, and indecipherable torment was my kismet.
The gaze of my perennially somber blue eyes was attached to the rotting floor. I cogitated deeply on turning around; did I really want to do this? I wasn't too confident in my decision...
Crimson was quickly enveloping my right arm, which I had nursed tenderly in my left. Scars and incalculable gashes held me in an arduous embrace, the four worst located on my right arm, all being from my "loving father". Yeah right... It was a daily thing for me. I just had to suck it up. He beat me every day with such inconceivable intensity, just because he was bored. And then you must of course take into consideration he finds my tear-jerking agony hilarious. He cherished my clear pain. Have I ever spoken up against him about? Sure, I released sobs and wails and screams and desperate, choked shrieks for him to stop, but ever a demand? Uh, no. I prefer to keep my head intact to my body, thanks. Yet I honestly believe I lost it long before now...
My hot tears ran red as they combined with the scarlet hue of my blood-marred face. I could feel myself quiver like a child as my eyes, blurred by tears that thus made my vision distorted, rested on the sleeping bodies of my aunt and uncle. Uncle Jaw... he would help. He... had to help. Somebody did.
I shifted nervously, almost collapsing "courtesy" of my shaking. Whooo to wake up... Okay, I know, it's a sort of amusing dilemma: Wake up your grouch-ass of an uncle, or your pregnant aunt with potentially fatal moodiness? Either way, I was worried about getting my head bitten off. I sighed heavily, my breath shaking sharply. I took a few hesitant steps into the room, my walk a limp, and then brought myself onto my hind legs to rest my front paws- I was clearly favoring my left paw; I was avoiding the appliance of pressure on my right arm greatly- on the side of the unkempt bed that held the slumbering bodies of my aunt and uncle. I stalled a moment before, ever so quietly, whispering out the name of my aunt. "... A-Aunt Bloodclaw...?"
Hey, wha'd'ya know, she didn't decapitate me.
... I made the assumption the moodiness hadn't hit her yet then. I swear that woman scares me.
Anyway, Aunt Bloodclaw quickly woke, glancing over to me; I saw her blood-red eyes immediately shroud over with worry, and she jumped off the bed to sit next to me. "Are you okay?" she questioned.
My stomach churned like an ocean turned turbulent by a tempest. I felt like vomiting, though I was conscious to the fact that part of the reason was from the pain that had my body wrenched. But alongside that, I was nervous. Very. I managed to choke out, "N-No... can you... w-wake up Uncle Jaw, p-please?"
My aunt nodded and she turned, launching herself back up onto the bed to nuzzle the curled-up body of her mate and my father's brother. Quietly, her honey-sweet voice chimed out his name. "Jaw...?"
Well, he didn't seem to happy about it, but after mumbling something incomprehensible, Uncle Jaw lifted his head, giving it a disoriented shake before spotting me. His drowsy countenance underwent an instantaneous metamorphose at the sight of my visage. The blood that had me cloaked. The chains of agony that had me shackled down, leaving me almost ineligable of proficient movement. But above all, the tears in my eyes. The stream of my materialized sorrows that seemed everlasting. It stung my uncle to see me like this, and I knew it. Uncle Jaw's black eyes, usually so oppressive and haunting, were flooded with pity. Empathy for me, something I never saw...
I quickly got to the point. "Uncle Jaw, can I... can I talk to you...?"
He nodded with an acknowledging grunt; I didn't take it personally, it was obvious the poor guy wasn't entirely awake yet anyway. That, truly, was rather odd for my uncle... he was barely ever tired, yet now, he seemed mildly exhausted. He stood up and nuzzled Bloodclaw with superior affection, muttering something into her ear, before turning to carefully pull himself off the bed; his left arm was horrifically wounded after recent events, so he, like me, bore a heavy limp. We exited the cabin, walking out into a sea of white. It had been snowing in the forest recently, but this snow was just... ugh, horrible! It was tainted by fatality, making the ingestion of just a few mouthfuls of flakes potential killers. I had no idea what had the snow poisoned, but I assumed I didn't want to have knowledge of it. Basically, I was just careful with how I breathed.
My shaking only maximized in the snow. As I trudged along, I began to wonder when I would collapse- these potent sprinkles were freezing! Uncle Jaw, though, didn't seem to mind the chill. I guessed it was due to his vampiric instinct to be drawn to the cold- he seemed right at home, unphased. The toxicated snowflakes, though, made him cough occasionally, as did I.
It wasn't only the snow that almost completely hindered my walking- it was my cumbersome wounds. Jaw's limping, too, continued to worsen but, stubborn as he was, he never brought it up through words.
The woods abruptly stopped after a long, gruesome trek, and I stopped at the cliff's edge that began where the woods of dead trees ended. It was a deep, deep cliff, an open, snow-covered, completely flat plain stretched out below it, where my eyes lied upon a familiar, chilling sight. The Bloody River... It stretched this far? Beforehand I had been unawares. It was like an inkspill of red down there in the white paper of snow, and it turned my spine into a writhing snake. The sickening sound of the thick flow of blood against bank was audible even from our huge distance. It was just... disgusting. Even in the bitter cold, the Bloody River remained unfrozen; steam actually rose from it, releasing a rank odor that made me wish to gag. Further off, etched crookedly on the horizon, were mountains, black as the starless, midnight universe above. The only life in that black hole I called the sky was a blood-red disk, looming ominously over the land- it was the moon of Connrad territory.
I sat on a flat rock overlooking the unwelcoming world before me, my uncle at my side; he too sat. We stared off, both lost in our worlds of thought. I could feel I was fighting back tears- I was attempting to map out what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. I was vexed. Attempting to make it inconspicuous, I cast a secret glance to my uncle.
I will never understand how others ignore his vivid knowledge. That wise, sage, knowing look that I always found lying in the depths of Uncle Jaw's mysterious face... He was staring off into the dark vally below, black eyes narrowed a tad, molding his expression into a slight glare. Those eyes of his... they were like black doors, locked to all but the one who had discovered the true hues of his heart, Bloodclaw. I believed only she had the key to open those doors that were the clear division between the surreal galaxy of Jaw's most intimate thoughts, horrors, and heartbreaks and the real world. My true meaning? Unlike most, my uncle Jaw's eyes portrayed nothing. Nothing but an intriguing mystery. But when you really watch him... there's a knowledge. A wise, wise knowledge you will find in those black orbs. I watched him; was he looking at something? The intensity in that gaze... you wouldn't think he was just staring off into space. It was more like as if whatever thoughts were making their way through his private mind were palpable. Hoping it wasn't too noticeable, I slowly turned my head to match the direction of where he was facing; I wanted to see if he was looking at more than just hollow air. Nothing. My sapphire eyes flicked back to Uncle Jaw. Just one of those ways he always gave me this weird feeling... Anytime I was around my uncle, I acknowledged the existence of a rather unexplainable aura. And aura of... something, I just couldn't lie my paw down on what. But it made me feel perhaps threatened, enchanted, out of place... all in one. What was t-
"You know I can hear you thinking, Jonas."
At the first sound of my uncle's deep voice, my eyes shot to the ground, ears hot with embarrassment. Then, I comprehended his words.
Did he just say... he'd heard me thinking?
I felt his eyes boring into me like blades.  I could never hold my uncle's gaze, but for some reason... he almost looked mad.  Although I never saw his eyes, considering mine were focused on the ground, I could feel them.  Feel their powerful oppression against my body.  I almost wanted to believe he was staring directly through my soul; psh, it felt like he was...  Those eyes, those mad eyes, were unlike any other, and when they were hot on your pelt... it was a chilling feeling.
The suffocating oppression of his eyes departed from me, and I just barely resrained myself from sighing in relief.  They were focusing back on the distance.  I forced myself to regain my posture, and I stared at him in wonder.  "What do you... huh?"
His response was simple.  "You know what I said."
A silence spanned between us, and I shifted in discomfort.  Uncle Jaw's words had unsettled me, and I knew he was aware of it.  I decided it was ready to move on and get to what I wanted to say, but I couldn't help it- I began to stall.  I didn't want to recite my worries, for I feared tears would be the price that came with them...  So, I just flung out a random subject, trying to buy myself all the time I could.  My voice came quietly at first, though it gradually grew with the slightest hint of more confidence.  "So I... heard about Bloodclaw," I spilled out.
Uncle Jaw sighed, muttering to himself.  I took it lightly- you really had to take the chance to know my uncle to understand when he was truly being strictly nonchalant and when he was just bemused.  And this time, his words were clearly more to himself and cynically amused rather than just all-out complaintive, even if he had a straight face.  He mumbled, "I wanna know how the hell these people find these things out so quickly..."
I couldn't help but give a bit of a giggle.  "Hey, it's Connrads..."  And believe me.  That says a lot.  News in this gang spreads like wildfire- there were no secrets.
Uncle Jaw, too, chuckled slightly; I was a tad shocked, considering making Jaw even give the slightest hint of a laugh?  That was a huge feat.  "Eh, true..." he agreed before continued on.  "Now what was it you wanted to talk about?"
A lump swelled in my throat.  Here goes...  "... I... feel like I'm changing... just changing randomly... I feel so violent at times, just today I... almost tried to kill Myra and Harmony, and I got really short last night with Bloodspirit, I just felt so angry... Overall, there're times were I feel like... killing somebody. Anybody. But it doesn't feel like... me. I-I trust you more than anybody with this, you're like... you're far more of a father to me than D-..."  I suddenly found my throat being wrangled by tears- I was choked on them, and I finally let it out.  I broke down.  Just thinking of my father... it tore out my heart and defiled it to ash.  All the abuse, all the neglect, all the sheer hell I received from him... I couldn't tolerate the thoughts of it.  Even at my birth, where agony had already begun, I never imagined the pain would surmount to this and come this far.  Still shaking from the cold, I buried my face in my paws and sobbed.  Sobbed like a pup.
My uncle then did the unthinkable.  He held me in attempt to offer me solace, like a father would his young child.  He cared.  I know he did; he hugged me closely and, as if out of my voluntary control, I hid my face in his fur and allowed the tears to torrent down.  Uncle Jaw didn't mind my tears were soaking his fur- I could tell.  He cooed me quietly, his voice hushed and laced in concern.  "It's... it's gonna be okay, Jonas..."
Through my tears, I was able to say one final thing, one summarizing statement of my whole existance thus far.  "N-No... I never was, and I never will be..."