He stumbles. But there is no time to stay. He has to run deep into the woods. If he stays, once again he would be beat up by that ape, that ape with human face.
This is the first time the kid has been this frightened, and is also the first time he has run this far. Normally his mom would hold the apeman back, but not this time. His mom couldn’t take it anymore. She hated getting beat up every time the apeman appeared, and was fed up with his roaring. She left the kid alone with the apeman. There is only the kid and the apeman, alone together now.
And that’s why the kid is rushing through the forest despite being all black and blue. He keeps on running and running and running without stops, ignoring the wild screaming of the apeman, ignoring the threatening echoing all over the place. He is not afraid of the beatings from that human face of the monster. Maybe he has even gotten used to those. But the screams and how the apeman’s face scowl with extreme emotions scare him.
Deep in the forest, there is a wooden cabin, an old cabin that no one goes near. They say long ago, they would often hear the sound of a woman screaming again and again in pain and anger. And so there has never been a visitor, not until the kid comes. Chased by a monster and have no time, the kid dashes in, locks the door then starts looking for a hiding place.
But something catches his eyes. It’s an old diary with a scratched cover and a small picture of a baby ape and the kid’s grandparents. The kid couldn’t understand. What is the baby ape doing with his grandparents?
Meanwhile, the apeman catch up. Looking through the window, the kid sees the apeman running near the house. The apeman sees the house, then flinches. He stands there for a few second, then his face starts to change. It gets twisted as his eyes becomes red and grows larger, filled with anger, hatred and… fear? For a while, the kid is confused, and so is the monster. It slowly approaches the house, indecisive about whether to enter or not.
But then the apeman once again starts growling and roaring. The kid couldn’t vaguely understand the apeman’s noises anymore. He isn’t afraid of the beatings, once again shall I remind you, but the apeman scares him. Even the monster’s face starts to stop making sense to the kid anymore, lacking any sign that reminds the kid of a human being. The kid cowers and starts hiding in a closet, digging his place through the bunch of clothes and clog of dusts for a place to snug in. He starts to open the diary again and read through it, hoping for it to distract him so he forgets about the anxiety and fear covering all over him and suffocating him in that tiny closet as the apeman is throwing himself at the locked door, screaming undistinctive noises madly.
The little ape’s life wasn’t so good either. The old man he called “Dad” would beat him up daily, and the woman he called “Mom” couldn’t do anything about it. In fact, she might had been more afraid of “Dad” than the pitiful little ape because at night, “Dad” would lose his mind and turn into a monster. The old man would drag his wife out of his bed often and start attacking her. The baby ape called his “Dad” a monster, he called the old man an “ape with human face”.
That reminds the kid of himself. For the first time after a long while, the kid feels something other and fear and anger. He feels sorry for the baby ape. He pulls out the picture once again, but this time there is something slightly different. The baby ape is slowly turning into a little kid too, a boy that looked weirdly like our kid.
The apeman breaks in. He starts running upstairs, gnarling uncontrollably from the pain it takes to break the door and losing his head from the anger. But this time, the kid stands there. Tears are in his eyes but his back is not turning into the monster anymore. He looks the apeman in its eyes, and that surprises him for a little. The apeman grabs the kid’s collar and starts raising its arm. But then it notices something bulging, rubbing against its legs. It was the diary.
He stood there, all the memories of the house start to drive him crazy. It tries to ignore those when rushing in here finding the kid but it can’t anymore. It starts to get dizzy. It starts gasping for air, and its view was slowly turning black.
In its darkened eyes, it sees the kid raising his arm towards its face. It holds its hand up and block its face, but the kid just gently touch its face. The kid softly asks: “You were hurt too weren’t you?... Then why are you doing this to me?”
It was shocked. How long has it been from the last time it hears the kid’s voice? How long has it been from the last time it feels its son’s hand? How long has it been doing this? Why is it doing this again?
It doesn’t know, it has been so long for the apeman to remember. It starts to cry, as loud as a newborn baby and as miserably as the most pitiful creature on Earth. “I’m sorry” it said, “I’m terribly sorry my boy” it said. It covers its face and scream, but this time to the boy the scream is no longer scary. Its face becomes that of a human once again, and so is the man’s body. His eyes are red, but not from madness but from tears, and his words are understandable to the kid. The kid stands there, silently cry, looking at the figure cowering on the ground just like him a minute ago.
The man holds his son’s hand for the first time of ages, and he walks his son out of the forest for the first time of ages. But as his past view is still haunting him, he asks his son for the first time for ages. “My boy, how to I look like to you right now?” says him. “You look like my dad now”, the son replies.