Scribbles and Drabbles

Notebook Drabble 50 - The Angry Chess Piece 1

"He spent the last minutes of his death thinking about how his family hated him," the first continued, ignoring the complaint, studying her nails and flicking some dirt out from under one. 

 "Poor man."

"He was very rich, actually," she laughed, leaning back to watch the stars as the other Shadows gathered to find their baby dead. "And it's not like they didn't love him dearly. He was an idiot for thinking that they didn't."

"It doesn't work like that, and you know it."

"I want to do it," She settled on, her tone shifting from playful and amused to serious.

The man glanced up at the stars and back at where the Shadows clutched at the body of their brother. The recuse services stood back. The man was dead; there was nothing more to be done. They let the heroes, the villains, mourn the loss of their number. Nightknife was loved as much as the man was blind to it. 

"They'll try to save him. They have options. They have routes to take that average humans do not. If you do this, they will never get him back." It was a risk. 

"He won't feel loved even if they do. He'll think they did it out of obligation. This way, he'll know they love him," She said, standing up and dusting the dirt off her clothes. "I think this is the better option for his soul than waiting for them to find the right course to bring him back."

"The witching hour is upon us."

"Let the universe bend to our will."

-x- 

Rajesh's eyes opened, and he wailed. 

-x-

It took 3 months for Rajesh to accept this new reality. He died at 22, crushed under the rubble of a building he'd tried to evacuate and woken up in the body of his 5-year-old self, under the thumb of his grandfather and before his mother stopped loving him. That first wail birthed him back into the hard reality of the desert and the cult that lived there. The tears got wiped away with the coarse sand and replaced with the salty bittiness that was punishment for making a sound. 

His mother didn't want him to wake up making a sound. It put him in danger. Trauma was for weak people, not for people like them. Nightmares were an unforgivable sin that needed training out of any prospect. 

So far, he was doing better than the first time he'd lived this life. He remembered the training. He excelled at it. He knew the footwork, the muscle movements, the answers to the questions as well as any trained would know. The problem was his body did not yet know what his mind did and held him back. 

Mistakes hurt as much the second time as they did the first time. This was before they got serious, too. They hadn't expected much from him yet. Punishments for failing were harsh, and they knew the value of a young body growing strong. They hadn't asked him to kill. Not while he was learning not to cry, flinch, or emote.  Soon, they would. He was progressing too fast for them not to. He should have been more careful about that. 

His knuckles ached from sandbags. His calves hurt from canes. His tongue ached from the sand. He never expressed how happy he was to live far from it when he moved to his father's city. 

Silas's parents died the same as before. Lightbeam existed, followed by Twilight. The second Lightbeam took the spotlight a few nights ago. Juan's mother was dead, too. His father wasn't worth the headspace. He knew his sibling's stories well. He studied them as he prepared to join his father and eliminate them all. 

Sammi's father wasn't evil yet; he hadn't had the worst day of his life that made him fall. Connie was in the wind. Theo's parents were alive too, though they were already leaving him alone to go on long vacations far from their son. Finn's life didn't start going downhill for a few more years. If Rajesh moved carefully, he could properly avoid Finn getting mixed up in it all. He might still develop magic, but a madman wouldn't drag it out of him at the edge of an electric blade. 

His biggest issue was he was too young to get to his father. He was in a different country, and at five, he might be able to slip away, but getting on a plane would be difficult. 

He studied all the pieces on the board and the chess set carefully. 

Every action had a consequence. His first move, the first change on the board, would have lasting effects that would change all events moving forward. He didn't want his brothers to die and come back to life broken. He didn't want his sisters to suffer from abusive fathers. He didn't want his father to lose his children. 

"You are studying that board very carefully, Rajesh," his Grandfather said.

Rajesh stood, as required for him and bowed to his grandfather. "Yes, Grandfather."

"Have your tutors taught you how to play?" 

"No, Grandfather. I found references to the game in some books. I read a book of moves to understand more," Rajesh gestured at the stack of books beside him. He was allowed time each day to study anything that took his interest. It was less to develop his personality and more to improve his general knowledge. 

"And do you?"

Hesitating would get him punished rather than being impudent. "How do you pick the first move if there are so many factors to consider?"

"A good question," his Grandfather praised, sitting on the opposite side of him. His eyes didn't glow with magic, he hadn't dead recently and was more sane than normal. "There are many first moves one can make. Waiting too long to make one might result in your opposing side moving first." He moved a black pawn into place. "Hesitating can be more damaging than moving brashly. Making the first move gives you control."

Rajesh was sure that wasn't the case in chess, but he understood the meaning. He moved a white piece. "Controlling the game is important to winning."

"Correct. When you lose control of the board, you have lost. Regaining what you had is possible, but any skilled player will disarm you as fast as you can think," his Grandfather said, offering a gem of wisdom to his 5-year-old grandchild. He moved a second piece. "The important thing is to watch the board and figure out what moved your opponent is placing."

"Each play has clues."

"And each play has a way to be circumvented," his Grandfather had a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. Rajesh kept his face neutral, but he moved his next piece. He'd lost the game. Theo never lost. He'd forgotten that his Grandfather wasn't as bad before the waters got poisoned. Still an evil murderer in control of a deadly death cult but not an abusive parent. 

Rajesh didn't know if he could stop the waters from getting poisoned. He wasn't sure, after everything he'd survived in his last life, that his blood family deserved him stepping in to save their minds. 

His found family did. 

He was going to save Theo from his parents and get him into the family before Juan died before Connie had to kill her father to survive. He was going to save his brother. He was going to save them all. 

He'd conquer the board.