Ephemeral [h.s.]

00

"Mum please just one more time." The small boy with chestnut curls and dimples pleads to his mother.

"Okay okay, but only one more, then it's time for bed my beautiful boy." She calmly tells him.

She picks up the worn guitar with gentle hands and begins to strum the chords to the song she knows all too well.

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night" She softly sings to the small boy who holds admiration in his eyes.

"Take these broken wings and learn to fly" She continues to recite the lyrics she sings every night to her eight-year-old son.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The woman abruptly stops her singing to turn towards the crayon-stained door.

With high alert, the cautious mother places her guitar on the floor and slowly sits up from her place on her son's bed.

The woman quickly crouches down beside his bed and gently grasps his chubby cheeks.

"Sweetheart, I need you to stay here in your room and lock the door while I check the downstairs okay?" His mother says to him in a stern voice.

"Okay, but what if you need help?" The boy questions fearfully.

"I don't care you must stay in your room no matter what you hear me?" She responds confidently, masking her fear.

"Okay, mum." He sighs in defeat.
"But I'm strong I can help you." He begs her.

She holds her son's face with great care as she brings him towards her to place a kiss on his forehead.

"I know you are my baby but I need you to stay here where it's safe."

She then stands up with urgency and makes her way towards the door and turns around to see her son's frightened eyes peering up at her from the foot of his bed.

"I need you to lock the door now okay." She tells him.

In a hurry, the boy leaps from his bed and scurries towards the door as his mother creeps out into the hallway.

As he goes to shut his door his mother turns around and mouths the words "I love you."

"I love you too." The boy whispers with a small smile.

He gently closes the door with his shaking hands and turns the lock while he places his ear against the door.

Silence.

Until all that that can be heard is the gut-wrenching sound of his mother's screams and a gunshot.

In a panic and against his mother's wishes, he unlocks his door and races down the stairs to see his mother swimming in a pool of crimson red at the end of the stairwell.

"Mum?" The boy whimpers pitifully to his mother in hopes of a response.

He carefully walks down the last two steps and kneels next to his mother's head.

He gently places his small hands on her dark brown hair now drenched in blood and brushes it back from her neck.

Now all that can be heard in the large lavish house are the boy's agonizing screams.

"Mum! Please Mum wake up please!" The boy cries out as salty tears run down his face onto his mother's pale cheeks, drained of life.

"Mum please don't do this you are supposed to teach me to play the guitar!" The boy sobs.

"And..." hiccup. "And teach me how to sing." The boy continues to cry in devastation whilst combing his fingers through her hair.

"What the hell happened?!" The boy flinches when he hears his father's gruff voice bellow through the foyer.

The boy looks up to see his father's unshaven face laced with fury while he races towards him.

"I- I don't know."
"I just heard a loud bang and then mum was—"

Slap

The boy's face snaps sharply to the right at his father's hand. He looks back with fright at a man now seemingly unrecognizable from the one who raised him.

His father has never hit him before.

"I asked for a straight answer you idiot not—!"
Suddenly the boy's father pauses his yelling, glancing behind his son.

The distraught boy cowers as his father reaches behind him to uncover a small knife.

The father rotates the knife in his hands a few times, examining it carefully. He scrubs the dried blood from the blade with his fingers to then reveal the initials A.R imbedded in the metal.

"Well son..." The father speaks towards the trembling boy.

"It looks like we have work to do."

***
omg im so excited to begin this story and share it with you all! i hope you have enjoyed the first chapter of ephemeral :)

stay safe and have a wonderful holiday <3