Chapter 265: Process of Anomalification

Shaun's mother had already passed away by the time he was seven.

His father had always treated him quite badly, and following his mother's death, his father had become an alcoholic, regularly abusing him both verbally and physically. Even the slightest mistake that he made would often result in a severe beating, and sometimes, he was abused for no reason at all.

This traumatic upbringing resulted in an extremely timid personality, and as a child, he would tense up at any sign of danger.

At this point, he was already near his breaking point, but following the conclusion of his father's career, the abuse became even more severe, and Shaun was finally pushed over the edge.

Not long after his father was laid off, a pivotal event took place in Shaun's life, an event that showed him that he was capable of attaining the control and power that he desired.

That day, he was strolling through the forest all on his own. It was already quite late, but he didn't want to go home and face his abusive father. Right as he was wandering aimlessly through the forest, he heard some feeble cries for help.

Spurred on by his curiosity, Shaun followed the sound to discover a little girl who was roughly the same age as him leaning against the foot of a tree, calling for help in a frantic voice.

Adam made sure to record the entirety of this event as it displayed the process of Shaun's anomalification.

"What are you doing here, Mona?"

In the memory, Shaun had clearly already noticed that the girl was injured, but he pretended to be oblivious as he approached her in the darkness.

"My bike was tripped up by a tree root, and I twisted my ankle, so I can't stand up now."

Shaun had grown up in a very small village where most of the kids knew one another, and Shaun and Mona were no exceptions.

"Where's your communicator?" Shaun asked in a cautious manner as he glanced at Mona's swollen ankle.

"My parents never bought me one. Can you help me contact them?"

Shaun took a glance at the bike, then up at the darkening sky, and he knew that no one was going to pass through here at this time.

Seeing the vulnerable look in Mona's eyes, a certain urge suddenly rose up in Shaun's heart.

"I'll find someone to help you if you beg me."

Mona was rather taken aback by this request, but she still obliged.

"Fine, I'm begging you, please find someone to help me."

Mona was only saying this to placate him, but Shaun felt an unprecedented sensation surge through his entire body.

Never had anyone begged him for anything in his entire life. He had either been ignored or abused, and he had never enjoyed the feeling of having control over anyone.

Shaun was quickly becoming addicted to this feeling, and he wasn't going to let Mona off the hook anytime soon. Hence, he immediately made another demand.

"That's not going to be enough. Call me a hero, and I'll find help."

"What..."

"It's a hero's job to save people, so surely I should be called a hero for helping you," Shaun insisted, and his mind was quickly becoming more and more twisted.

"Alright, please help me, hero."

Shaun couldn't help but burst into laughter upon hearing this, and he looked down at the vulnerable girl with a gloating expression.

"If I'm going to help you, then you should submit to me, right?"

Mona gritted her teeth in indignation, and she wanted to resist, but as soon as she tried to stand up, a burst of sharp pain immediately shot through her swollen ankle, leaving her with no choice but to oblige.

However, Shaun still displayed no intention of sparing her.

He slowly ramped up his demands, making them more and more excessive. He seemed to have rediscovered some form of twisted confidence in the face of this vulnerable girl.

He ordered her to bark, to crawl, and he even beat her until late into the night.

He was immersed in this twisted sense of joy and confidence and lost all track of time.

In the end, it was the calls of Mona's parents that snapped him back to his senses.

Mona's parents had come out to search for their daughter, and upon hearing their voices, the gleeful look on Shaun's face instantly turned into one of horror. The arrogant and cruel look in his eyes immediately reverted back to the look of fearful timidity that he constantly wore, and he was terrified that Mona's parents would get back at him for what he had done to their daughter.

He was even more terrified of what his father would do to him once he found out.

In a state of sheer panic, Shaun smothered Mona's mouth with his hand, and after a brief hesitation, he picked up a nearby rock.

After three blows, the girl fell completely limp, and Shaun hurriedly fled the scene.

In the coming days, he lived a perpetual state of fear, constantly keeping an eye on Mona's parents. However, things seemed to be developing in his favor.

The doctor in the village was an idiot, and his final diagnosis was that Mona had passed away due to an accident. His final report stated that she had been riding too fast on her bike, then fell headfirst onto a rock and died from the head trauma.

Thus, the incompetence of the village doctor let Shaun off the hook.

Only around half a year later did the cloud of fear that Shaun was living in finally completely fade, and he began to look back on that memory with fondness.

He was completely intoxicated by the feeling of holding someone else's fate in his hands and having them do whatever he wanted.

Shaun even went on to make several drawings of the scene from that day before destroying the drawings, using that memory to get him through particularly hard times.

One day, he was finally unable to resist the urge to kill again.

He stole some tools from the shed to make some booby traps in the forest and in some places where kids regularly played. He then installed some cameras nearby, and it didn't take long before he got his first victim.

After some torture, he sank the child into the bottom of the lake, and that was his second murder.

Around a year later was when he captured his third victim, which was Alan.

After that, Shaun committed a murder once every one, two, or three years in the village with Alan's help. The village had an extremely small population, so committing murders any more frequently than that would've aroused a great deal of suspicion.

In order to avoid this type of pressure and escape from their less-than-ideal home lives, Shaun and Alan left the village. They went to many places, committing more murders in the process, before finally settling down in Sandrise City.

The city had an enormous population, and Mechguard units were quite easy to bypass due to their rigid style of law enforcement, so Shaun thought that he would be able to continue on his merry way without any repercussions.

Unfortunately for him, karma worked in rather strange ways. Never would he have been able to anticipate that his downfall would be a result of someone trying to improve their reputation, nor would he have ever imagined that his capture would have something to do with the conflict between the northern and southern congresses.

Finally! That took way too long!

By the time Adam emerged from the psychic world, the sky outside was already beginning to brighten. He had captured a bombshell of a story with his recorder, and all he had to do was edit out some sensitive parts of the recording before sending it to Shivani, and the entire internet would be stirred up into a complete frenzy!

Before that, Adam slapped Shaun awake, then contacted Mechguard while Shaun desperately begged for mercy.