***Content Warning(s): morally ambiguous (or evil) characters, indirect descriptions of violence, implied torture, murder/character deaths, and some shameless domesticity.
I intentionally left (most) of the physical descriptions of the characters up to the readers, so it might look a little awkward. Rest assured, however, that they are purposeful omissions.
Vindictus (c) Nexon. I am simply borrowing the characters for this story.
Enjoy.
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1984, Izhevsk, Russia
Huddled behind a pile of dirty clothes, a six years old boy sat, shivering, in the darkness of a tiny closet with his eyes squeezed tightly shut and his head tucked into his chest in a futile attempt to block out the sounds of flesh hitting flesh and barbaric grunts. The old wooden doors did little to keep out the creaks of broken bedsprings and muffled sobbing, and the boy curled up into an even tighter ball on the concrete floor as the sound of feeble wailing was drowned out by a hoarse shout.
A long moment passed, and then another. The boy almost dared not to breathe.
The sound of flesh smacking flesh and someone's, a man's, sickly saccharine voice yelling obscenities returned. Pained whimpers, a woman's, slowly increased in pitch until they bordered on hysterical begging for the man to stop, please stop, you monster, stop...
The boy choked back his own tears and bit his lip hard enough to begin tasting blood. His right hand clenched around a heavy object. A dirty sleeve wiped across his watery eyes and the boy quietly got to his feet on quivering legs. Shakily bringing the object up, he made sure that his hands were wrapped tightly around the handle and a finger was poised at the trigger.
His arm pressed against the closet door and with the small gun clutched in his numb fingers, the boy pushed the door open–
– aimed at the man's large, naked back –
– and pulled the trigger, sending a spray of blood flying in all directions from the bullet wound in the man's beefy shoulder. The man howled like a lunatic and turned around from where he was crouched over the prone body of the naked woman; the madness and anger in the man's wild eyes made the boy drop the gun in fear, and the weapon discharged and sent another bullet into the man's thigh.
The man roared, and before the boy knew it his thin shirt was in the man's grasp. The man lifted him clear off his feet, leaving him dangling a good two feet from the floor as he swung his arms and kicked at whatever part of the man he could reach.
The was a moment of blurred movement, the deafening shatter of glass against his cheekbone, and his mother's bloodchilling scream – "KAI!" – before gravity pulled him down, the cold wind whipping past his ears, towards the snow-covered streets below.