NOVEL NEXT Chapter 799: A Joke Written By The Gods
Kafka didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
His entire body trembled, but no sound came out of him, not laughter, not sobbing, not even a scream.
His mother had sealed his voice, shackled his throat, and left him to suffocate in silence because of her request. And maybe that was fitting.
Because this, this was worse than death.
Worse than never meeting them.
If fate had been cruel in the ordinary way—if he had never crossed into this world, never stumbled into their lives, never been taken into their arms, he wouldn't even know what he was missing.
He wouldn't have tasted their warmth, wouldn't have felt their hands smoothing his hair, wouldn't have heard their voices saying I love you.
He would have lived his life empty, yes, but ignorant.
That would have been a mercy.
But this?...To be given it all, their love, their smiles, their devotion, and then to have it ripped away piece by piece, in front of his eyes, by the very woman who birthed him...this was a cruelty so sharp it almost felt like a joke.
A cosmic joke that only the gods could find funny.
And yet, he couldn't laugh. He couldn't even cry.
He only felt. The despair pressed on his chest so tightly that he finally understood what the word meant.
Not sadness. Not anger. Not even grief. Despair was the hollowing out of everything, leaving only a suffocating emptiness.
But even then, even at the bottom of that pit, his mind clawed for hope.
Abigaille...Olivia.
He remembered. Abigaille's countless reassurances, whispered and shouted alike:
No matter what, Kafi, I'll cherish you. Always.
He remembered Olivia's quiet strength, the way she had held him even when she was going through her own turmoil of emotions, saying:
You'll always be my son.
They had loved him before knowing who he really was. They had chosen him.
And maybe, just maybe, they would love him still.
Mothers forgive. Mothers endure. Mothers love.
And perhaps, he thought, even after the truth carved its way into their minds, they would still be mothers.
He clung to that fragile, desperate thread of optimism.
And then it happened.
Olivia and Abigaille stirred, their heads twitching faintly as if surfacing from a drowning sea. Their bodies tensed, their eyes rolled, and then, slowly, they blinked awake. Their pupils slid back into place, breaths stuttered in their throats.
The flood of revelations was settling.
Kafka's heart slammed inside his chest as he watched.
'This is it...please...please still see me…'
Their gazes lifted to him.
And in that instant, his heart broke.
It wasn't love that met him. Not warmth. Not the soft familiarity of mothers greeting their child.
It was confusion. Bewilderment. Dread. And most of all fear
Their eyes, those eyes that had always shone with love, no matter what he did, looked at him as though he were a stranger.
Not a son. Not family. A stranger.
Kafka felt something inside him drop like a stone into a bottomless abyss. His knees trembled. His hands shook. The very air seemed to vanish from the room.
But he refused to give in. Not yet. He had to explain. He had to try.
His hands lifted, trembling but earnest, reaching toward them. He took a single step forward, tears brimming in his eyes, his lips parting in a soundless plea.
'Please. Just give me a chance to explain. Let me tell you everything. Maybe then, maybe then you'll still see me the same—'
But the moment his foot touched the floor, both Olivia and Abigaille instinctively stepped back.
The look on their faces, hesitant, wary, confused, was the final nail.
That was it. That was the confirmation.
Kafka froze mid-step. His hands hovered in the air for a long, aching second before he let them curl back against his chest. His throat burned with the words he couldn't speak.
And then, slowly, impossibly, he smiled.
Not the smile of joy. Not relief.
A crooked, despairful smile that was closer to madness than mirth.
Because it was funny, wasn't it?
Just earlier today he had gone on a date with Olivia, her hand slipping into his as they strolled through town.
Just yesterday he had helped Abigaille bake a pie, flour dusting their cheeks as they laughed together.
Just last week, he and Abigaille had driven for hours with the windows down, the air alive with music and laughter.
And now?...Now all of it was gone.
Erased.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
The absurdity of it all pressed down on him until he couldn't help but grin, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, his smile sharp and despairing.
It was comical. Cruel. Tragic.
A joke written by the gods.
And he was the punchline.
But, shockingly, though Kafka was drowning in his own despair, his chest torn apart by betrayal, by loss, by the gnawing certainty that the women he loved would never see him the same again—the one who was suffering most in that room was not him at all.
It was actually his mother...Vanitas herself.
On her face was a calmness so deliberate it seemed carved from marble—but if one could peel back the skin of her composure, if one could step into the depths of her mind, they would find themselves crushed beneath a tide of anguish so vast it was inhuman.
Her pain was not the sharp sting of her own wounds, nor the loneliness of abandonment, but something far crueler: the pain of watching her own child suffer.
Kafka thought himself broken, believing nothing could cut deeper than the sight of Abigaille and Olivia recoiling from him. Yet Vanitas bore a torment far heavier.
For a parent, any agony endured in one's own body, wounds, chains, even death, was something that could be borne.
But to see one's child suffer, to watch them collapse into despair while powerless to stop it, that was a wound that no flesh could contain. It was a pain that numbed thought, that split the soul, that devoured the will to exist.
And Vanitas was enduring it with every heartbeat.
Her hands trembled as she held them behind her back. Fingernails dug so deeply into her palms that blood welled between her fingers and dripped silently onto the floor, unseen by all.
She clenched them tighter anyway, as if the physical pain might distract her from the agony in her heart.
But it didn't...Nothing could.
The only truth that cut her deeper than her own suffering was this: she was the one who had caused all of this. She had crafted this nightmare, and she was the reason her son stood broken before her.
The thought nearly broke her.
But she steeled herself. She told herself this was necessary, that this was the only way to finish it, to end everything once and for all.
That if she could push him to the brink now, if she could make him act, he would finally be freed.
He would suffer now, yes, but in the end, he would be happy.
That was the lie she wrapped around her bleeding heart, the lie that allowed her to keep standing.
Even so, as she glanced at him, his eyes hollow, his body trembling, she whispered a silent apology in the pit of her soul.
'I'm sorry, my son. I'm so, so sorry...But just wait a little longer and it will all be over.'
And then she decided. It was time. Time to wrap this up, to drag him to the edge—to make him do what had to be done.
Kafka was still caught in his storm, not aware of her deliberation, when the message came.
[Request Completed: You have earned your mother's appreciation and satisfaction...She's glad to have a son who's obedient as a puppy and listens to every single word his beloved mother says]
Seeing this, his body stiffened.
Slowly, like a puppet dragged on frayed strings, his head turned toward the source.
His mother.
Vanitas.
She stood there looking at him, her lips curled into a smile. But it was no smile of victory, no smile of true malice.
It was forced, the corners twitching with effort, her teeth trembling beneath the weight of holding it.
To anyone else, it might have seemed cruel, mocking. But beneath it, hidden only to those who cared to see, was the quiver of a woman breaking apart as she betrayed herself.
But Kafka was in no state to perceive the subtlety.
To him, that smile was poison. It was taunting. It was the grin of a goddess who had not only abandoned him once but now sought to strip away every bond he had ever clung to.
His despair twisted in that moment, the sorrow burning away, leaving behind something darker.
A silence like the void itself filled him, and from it rose a rage so pure it was almost divine. His eyes lifted to hers, and they were no longer the eyes of a child, nor even of a man—they were abyssal, bottomless, filled with a hatred that devoured all light.
And Vanitas saw it. She saw the fire finally catch.
She saw the despair transmute into wrath, and though her heart screamed at her to recoil, she smiled instead.
A broken smile, trembling and pained, but a smile nonetheless since this was what she needed. This was what she wanted. This was what must be.
And so, she whispered the final taunt. The words she knew would tear the last thread of restraint inside him and make him do what she wished for him to end it all, once and for all...