[Written for "Secrets and Sacrifices" prompt contest by BadassReads  . Word count – 2895 words.

Prompt 3 – A person discovers that their family has been keeping a devastating secret from them for years. As they delve deeper into the truth, they realise that their entire life has been a lie. Will they be able to come to terms with this newfound knowledge and find a way to forge their own path, or will the weight of the past prove too heavy to bear?"]

Punctuality is the politeness of princes, some say. Students on their way to a class they absolutely despise will disagree, citing neither punctuality not politeness as priorities to maintain as they trudge to attend the much hated subject.

However, being late to the one class where your skills surpass that of your classmates, with a passion to match...

Magnus couldn't help but feel awful as he strode down the crowded hallway, his psychology textbooks spilling out of his hands as he maneuvered between the idle students who crowded the corridor, their saunter to the next class less than enthusiastic.

Magnus glanced at his watch.

2.15

He heaved a sigh of relief and allowed himself the liberty of brushing back his raven hair. The jet black shade of his hair was one of the few characteristics that set him apart from his father, underlying his status as an adopted child. That aside, even the neighbours couldn't help but notice how the teenager had assimilated his new father's mannerisms.

"Late to class, Jansson?" A voice taunted from behind. Magnus sighed in exasperation as he turned to face the Larsen twins, who wore their perpetual smirk of derision that they reserved for him.

"Professor Carina's favourite student at that," Lea Larsen droned on in faux amusement as she leaned against the wall opposite the classroom. "That status may just slip away if you're not careful."

"In case you can't tell time, I'm not late," Magnus replied flatly, gripping his books as tightly as he envisioned himself strangling the twins, who had got on his nerves more than once.

Lloyd sauntered upto the classroom door, joining his sister in their traditional mockery of their quiet classmate. Magnus had been the target of sneers and sarcasm for more reasons than his silent nature and goth hairstyle, which was the only way he preferred fashioning his long raven hair.

Sometimes, the vivid details in which he dreamed he could hurt the irksome people around him worried Magnus.

Alright, calm down, Enough with the murderous intentions.

Lloyd chuckled, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. "I'd assume that the son of a policeman would learn punctuality." He paused with a look of mock sympathy.

"Of course, adopted children don't learn much from their parents, do they?"

A streak of red flashed across his mind as Magnus dropped his textbooks in an instant. Before he knew it, something in him had snapped and he had lashed out at the Larsen boy, stopping just inches before breaking his nose. Magnus paused, the sound of his own wavering breaths following Lea's contorted shriek and her brother's crash against the wall.

Without another word, Magnus picked up his books with trembling hands and made his way into the psychology classroom. A dozen pairs of eyes followed him, before the Larsen twins scowled at the onlookers and shuffled into the room.

*****

"Psychopathy is considered by many institutions to be a psychological disorder," Professor Carina stated, turning a page in the book on her desk.

"Violent aggression, lack of remorse or empathy, manipulative tendencies - these are classic symptoms of psychopathy," she continued as the students scrawled down notes. The professor was aware of how eagerly the teenagers had been anticipating the introductory lesson on clinical psychology. What made them so enthusiastic about psychological disorders she wondered.

"Psychopathy naturally leads to antisocial behaviour, which takes various forms. Serial killing is an example of such antisocial activities."

The students glanced up from their pages as Professor Carina proceeded to extract some photographs from her file. She turned back to the class.

"Serial killing is perhaps the most gruesome activity that can be undertaken by a psychopath. Over the centuries, we've had some notorious criminals, some attempting to justify their killings, and some offering no explanation. Our own city unfortunately witnessed some atrocious crimes almost two decades ago, at the hands of a man and woman who seemed just as normal as anyone else."

The professor held up a man's mugshot to the students.

"Around 2006, an otherwise brilliant psychologist, Viktor Nyström, was convicted of killing some 20 people in cold blood in this very town over a period of two years. His wife was his main accomplice – a woman who was also an excellent forensic psychology professor. It is truly shocking how..."

The rest of Professor Carina's words were drowned out of his mind as Magnus started wide-eyed at the photograph of the criminal. As he studied Viktor Nyström's brunette hair and light eyes, Magnus spied Lea Larsen sneak a perplexed look at him.

The concept of doppelgangers has been a disputed idea. Some studies have claimed that every person in the world has about six others who are perfect look-alikes, with no biological connection between them.
Magnus frowned in mild perplexity before Professor Carina withdrew the photograph.

So, I've got five others.

"Normally, serial killers who have been killed by police officers do not stir sympathy in me," the professor continued.

"But rumours state that the Nyström couple left behind a child, whom there is no information about currently."

"Maybe the kid became a criminal too," a student spoke up, earning a sprinkling of laughter from his classmates. Professor Carina rolled her eyes in mild amusement.

"Criminal tendencies are seldom inherited that way, Karl."

Her voice echoed somewhere far away, and Magnus could just about hear it as he entered a vague stupor.

"Children of serial killers don't necessarily end up like their parents, although, if faced with certain external stressors, violent tendencies may be triggered in the child, which otherwise exist as a mere predisposition."

*****

Magnus wasn't a conventional introvert, although he interacted with few people after school was dismissed. The evening conversations with his dad over the latter's signature cup of tea were what he looked forward to every day after school.

Today, however, he knew that the empty house he returned to would serve him better in his task for the evening.

Magnus bolted upstairs two steps at a time, barely having entered his room before throwing down his backpack. Very few people can successfully use the excuse that their life depends on how fast they can get a job done. In this case, the boy had come to the conclusion that his life did depend on it.

Or atleast the foundation of the life that he had lived for the past eighteen years did.

He took a deep breath, vaguely aware of his quickened pulse. Sneaking into his father's study had never been on his list of criminal activities (not that he had one), much less probing around his desk for official documents.

Hans Jansson's study was on the first floor of their bungalow, adjacent to his son's room and right next to their small library, which was filled with more legal and law enforcement books than any other genre.

Magnus cautiously took a step towards the door and placed a hand on the doorknob. Twisting it slowly, he stepped into the study with bated breath, fearing that the slightest alteration to the room's contents would alert his father of an intruder's entry.

Taking slow steps towards the polished mahogany desk, Magnus wondered what he expected to find. Some part of him hoped to find nothing as his fingers fumbled around the top drawer and sifted through a set of official documents he knew his father stored there.

The birth certificate that his hand pulled up from the very bottom of the cabinet was something Magnus later wished he had never discovered. He gaped at the bold letters on the page.

Name: Magnus Nyström
Date of birth: 17/07/2005
Father: Viktor Lars Nyström
Mother: Alexandra Nyström

*****

"Magnus! I'm home!" A masculine voice called from downstairs, the click of an unlocking door cutting into the silence that had engulfed the house earlier. Hans Jansson walked in and shut the door behind him before making his way up the tiled staircase to greet his son.

The police officer stopped over at his study for a brief moment to leave his standard issue Beretta handgun on his desk, exiting the study a minute later. Magnus had left his bedroom door open, and Hans walked upto his son's door before leaning against the door frame with a smile of greeting.

"How was your day?" the man enquired. His opening pleasantries stopped short when Magnus stood up from his bed and turned to his father, fixing the latter with a cold stare. The outrage in the boy's grey eyes met the puzzlement in the man's light brown ones.

Magnus held up a laminated sheet of paper.

"When were you going to tell me?" He demanded quietly, waving the document at Hans. The officer took the birth certificate and gazed at it intently before looking up at his son with an unreadable expression.

"Where did you get this?"

"Does it matter?" Magnus cut in harshly. "What matters is that I found out about my true parentage at school, of all places!"

He sat down heavily on the bed next to his desk, sardonically smirking at the document in his father's hand.

"It was in psychology class, ironically. The trade of my biological parents, as it so happens."

Hans walked upto the desk and slowly placed the certificate back on it as Magnus wore a confused frown.

"When were you going to tell me?"

"Never," the man replied calmly. The daggers in his son's eyes were apparent as he demanded an explanation.

Hans sighed, moving over to the bed and taking a seat beside his son, whose fury he could understand.

"I never did plan to tell you," Hans replied quietly.

"I simply saw no reason to. What would you have done with this information?"

Magnus scoffed in disbelief at the less than apologetic response.

"I would have learnt where I came from. My roots, considering how deviant they are," he remarked forcefully. Hans didn't look up to meet his gaze.

"Sometimes, knowing one's roots does more harm than good, Magnus," he stated. Magnus shook his head, considering the remark to be a deplorable excuse.

"You told me I was adopted," his voice trembled. "You didn't think it important to mention that I'm the biological son of a serial killing couple?"

Hans remained silent, prompting his son to continue his rant.

"How long could you have hidden this? In the end, one's roots always catch up with them, and there's no hiding from genetics. One way or the other, the sins of my parents will find me," Magnus added.

"Decayed roots eventually lead to the plant's death."

"Not if the sapling is transplanted," Hans spoke up, breaking the silence he had diligently been maintaining.  The man took a deep breath before attempting to explain the origin of it all, sincerely hoping that his son would give him the chance.

"I... was in charge of overseeing the murder charges of Viktor and Alexa Nyström. It came upto 22 victims over two years," Hans began slowly.

"I heard of the couple's death in a police encounter a week later, but naturally felt no sympathy for couple so psychopathic. That's when we realised that they had left behind a two-year-old child, who for no fault of his own, had been brought into a world of violence and heinous crime."

Hans met his son's gaze with a rueful smile.

"A seed that had been dropped into an inhospitable desert. I wanted to transplant the sapling, Magnus. Give it the most fertile soil it needed to grow into a magnificent oak tree."

The small smile formed on the boy's face, hearing Hans break into analogies as he so often did during their conversations.

Magnus sighed, averting his eyes from the mirror opposite the bed which he had intently been staring into.

"I don't... consider them to be my parents," he murmured. "I feel nothing for them, and don't honour the blood relation. But being their biological son... Some of their attributes must have passed onto me."

"And they have," Hans cut in.

"Apart from certain physical attributes, there's a great chance that your fantastic talent in psychology stems from your parents, both academic geniuses in their field."

The man placed a hand on his son's shoulder, fixing him with a steady gaze.

"But you're my son, Magnus. I promise you that nothing you fear so greatly has passed onto you. You are nothing like them."

Magnus turned away from his father and stared back at the mirror, shutting his eyes momentarily in an attempt to block out the thoughts that threatened to invade his mind.

"Nothing like them," he repeated softly.

"I fantasise the death of people who get on my nerves."

Hans raised his eyebrows in consideration.

"Most people don't care much for people who annoy them."

Magnus shook his head as he gripped his hair in mounting distress.

"Not like this," he whispered.

The satisfaction that had coursed through him when he almost broke Larsen's nose. The amusement he had felt when the despicable neighbour had broken her arm. The burning desire to take his knife collection to school and put a few of those annoying nerds in their place and leave their bodies in the library...

Violent aggression, lack of remorse or empathy - classic symptoms of psychopathy, Professor Carina's voice rang through his mind.

The son of serial killers. Perhaps that provided a comforting excuse for the violent tendencies he had harboured but carefully concealed.

Criminal tendencies are seldom inherited that way. However,
if faced with certain external stressors, violent tendencies may be triggered in the child, which otherwise exist as a mere predisposition.

So that's all they were. If Lloyd Larsen got his nose broken, it simply owed to the fact that he was being a deliberate jerk. If one of those self righteous nerds got injured on their way to class, it was entirely due to their own holier-than-thou attitude. The blood that would drip from his dagger was merely the result of environmental stressors, whom he wished to do away with in the most brutal manner possible.

"Magnus," a distant voice called, but failed to bring him out of his reverie.

"Magnus!" The boy gasped as he returned to his surroundings and met the anxious gaze of his father, who had grown distressed at the way Magnus was gripping his hair in agitation.

"Son, it's alright. Let it go, please," Hans whispered as he attempted to calm Magnus. But the boy seemed far from calm.

He stood up abruptly, fixing the reflection in the mirror with a dazed stare.

Your father would be proud of your achievements, the psychology professor had remarked when Magnus had earned a perfect score on his reports on forensic psychology.

He chuckled softly at the mirror. His father would be proud indeed.

But which father?

Hans got to his feet slowly, his face reflecting every ounce of anguish that his heart had stirred up. He let his eyes roam around the room which he rarely entered, wondering what he had failed to notice in his son that had resulted in the latter's unprecedented display of emotion.

His eyes fell on the knife collection sitting on his son's desk, which, incidentally, he had helped Magnus start. Hans turned to the boy's reflection in the mirror.

Had he saved the sapling from its decaying roots after all?

*****

"Professor Jansson, how does one use the structure of personality to describe such behaviour?"

The professor nodded at the inquisitive question, walking upto the front of his desk to answer his brightest student.

"Well, Freud's psychodynamic model has been used often to describe what prompts criminals to indulge in antisocial activities," Magnus Jansson responded. The age and wisdom he had acquired over the past ten years shone behind the young man's grey eyes, which had not lost their academic glint.

"To begin with, the Id, or branch of personality that deals with primitive impulses, prompts a person to feel the urge to commit a crime. The Ego, or reality branch, tells the person how to go about it and commit the crime. The interesting part lies in the Superego, the moral branch. The moral values of criminals, be it compulsive thieves or serial killers, are corrupted.

Their concept of right and wrong completely deviates from societal norms. This is used as an excuse to continue their crimes, although some crimes are of such heinous proportions that nothing on earth can justify them."

The sound of a dozen pens scratching into notebooks filled the high school classroom. Sofia tilted her head in consideration at the professor's lecture.

"Serial killers in movies definitely seem cooler than the ones in real life," she mused, earning a chuckle from Magnus.

"Society's glorification of the very criminals who uprooted its foundations... The irony is almost humorous." The professor smirked.  "Storylines are written to invoke sympathy for the killer, who is merely a 'product of childhood trauma', the poor human being." His words were laced with mock sympathy.

"No matter how twisted or sympathy-provoking the killers project themselves, or the talented writers of today's entertainment industry do so..."  Professor Jansson trailed off, returning behind his desk with a contemplative pause.

"Serial killing is an unpardonable sin, as is any crime that involves the deliberate attempt on an innocent person's life."

The sapling had indeed grown into a magnificent oak tree.