Pieces of Destiny

Piece One: Bloodshed

Pieces of Destiny

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Twelve year old Yori Kihara dared not move an inch as she stood completely still behind the dark closet doors that concealed her terrified form. Her watery green eyes locked on the broken image of her mother’s legs from between the thin slats in the closet door, unable to tear her eyes away as the tall, scar-faced intruder stalked toward her with his bloodied sword at hand. Yori’s mother held her ground as she stood between the man and her daughter, desperate to keep the distance between them permanent, even if she had to die to do so. The man took another step toward her and raised his sword, cold moonlight glinting across its bloodstained surface. Yori clamped her quivering hands over her mouth to conceal the scream that was buried deep inside her.

“Your bravery will only get you killed, Inori. Step aside,” ordered the man in a cruel hiss, his scars twisting about his face as he scowled angrily. His unfamiliar voice burned into Yori’s memory as soon as the words left his mouth, replaying over and over again inside her head in a sick, never-ending loop.

“You’ve taken everything from me,” Inori whispered, misery lacing every word that left her pale lips. “I won’t let you have my Yori!”

“Then you will die here.” The man calmly raised his sword above Inori’s head and brought it down across her front with a sickening slice that Yori wished she didn’t hear. Yori’s cold body lost all feeling as a strangled whimper escaped her lips, the closest thing to a scream she could manage. She hopelessly sank to her knees as she watched blood cascade down her mother’s legs and pour onto the wooden floor, creeping along the cold surface in every direction. Inori fell onto her hands and knees not a second later, coughing and rasping, her blood pooling beneath her in rapid succession.

“Run, Yori,” she whispered, so quietly that even Yori’s highly adept ears barely caught it. Yori’s heart pounded within her chest as she watched blood violently erupt from her mother’s mouth. Still, she could not move. She could not scream. She could not look away from the sight of her mother falling face-first onto the wooden floor and growing still. She could not cover her ears to prevent herself from listening to her mother’s failing heartbeats or her struggling to draw in her final breaths. Yori could not run to her.

A stream of silver moonlight filtered through one of the slats in the door of the closet and shined onto Yori’s ashen face. Her eyes drifted up to the cruel man who had just cut her mother down, unable to do anything but stare up into his cold, black eyes. He roughly shoved Inori’s now still body out of his way with the toe of his boot and yanked the closet door open, finally face to face with the one he had been after all along. Yori locked her eyes on his sword, watching as tiny droplets of blood dripped off of the pointed edge and pooled near her feet. As she slowly looked back up at the terrifying face of the man her memory would never allow her to forget, she knew that great pain was soon to follow.

Yori’s bloodcurdling scream cut through the dark silence of the night, forever shattering the calm serenity that once was.

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