Elliot learned to listen before he learned to speak.
It wasn't a skill he chose—it was survival. His body was small, weak, and useless to him, but his mind was sharp and restless. So he listened. He memorized voices. Learned footfalls. Learned moods.
Michael's steps were steady, measured. A man who never wasted motion.
Victoria's were lighter, quicker, always moving, always doing.
Paige's were chaotic. She ran everywhere.
Through half-open doors and whispered conversations, Elliot began to piece together the shape of the world he'd been born into.
They lived in a town that sat at the edge of something dangerous. Monsters—real ones, not the metaphorical kind he'd known on Earth—had grown bolder in recent years. Trade caravans hired armed escorts. Walls were reinforced. Every family with means contributed to defense.
And Michael Myers had once been part of that defense.
Elliot first saw the sword when he was barely old enough to crawl.
It rested on a rack in Michael's study, its blade wrapped in cloth, its hilt worn smooth by years of use. Even wrapped, it felt alive. When Elliot was carried past it, his chest tightened—not with fear, but with recognition.
That thing has taken lives, he thought.
And it chose to stop.
He didn't yet know the word warrior disciple, but he understood abandonment when he saw it.
Michael noticed Elliot's fixation.
"He's always looking at it," Victoria said one evening, smiling faintly as she rocked Elliot in her arms.
Michael's expression darkened. "Then I'll put it away."
He didn't.
Elliot grew.
Slowly. Painfully. Each milestone felt like dragging a grown man through mud. Learning to sit. To crawl. To walk. To speak words that could never carry the weight of what he wanted to say.
But there was one thing that came easily.
Taking.
It started small.
At two years old, Elliot learned how to slip objects into his sleeve. A spoon. A ribbon. A small wooden block from Paige's toys. No one noticed at first. When they did, they laughed.
"He's clever," Paige said proudly.
Victoria smiled. "He likes to hold onto things."
Elliot said nothing.
At three, he took coins from unattended tables. Buttons from drawers. A silver ring he found on a windowsill—later returned after the panic had spread through the house.
Each time, his heart raced.
Not with excitement.
With relief.
If I can take something, he thought, then I exist.
The feeling disgusted him.
But it also grounded him.
At night, when the house was quiet, Elliot would clutch whatever he'd taken that day and wait for the guilt to come.
It always did.
He remembered the envelope. The pavement. The way his hand hadn't reached far enough.
He began to understand his true trauma—not the act of stealing, but the moment he failed to return what he had taken.
That failure lived inside him now, breathing, growing teeth.
By four, Michael noticed the pattern.
"Elliot," he said one afternoon, kneeling to be level with him. "Did you take this?"
He held up a small medallion from Victoria's jewelry box.
Elliot stared at it.
He could lie.
He could nod.
Instead, he reached into his pocket and placed it back in Michael's hand.
The room felt heavy.
Michael studied him for a long moment. Then he sighed—not angry, not disappointed. Tired.
"You don't need to take things to be seen," Michael said quietly.
Elliot looked away.
You're wrong, he thought.
That's the only way I know how.
Later that night, Elliot stood outside Michael's study, staring at the sword on the rack.
He didn't touch it.
He didn't dare.
But for the first time since his rebirth, he made a silent vow.
If I am going to take again, he thought, it will be something I earn.
The sword did not answer.
But something deep in his chest stirred anyway.
End of Chapter 7