DESTINY AWAITS

Pata-pata-pata, panting, sobbing, hushing. Creak. Crash! Gasp. Shuffle.

"Come on hunny, get into the vent."

"But mommy I'm scared." More sobbing.

"Hush hunny, I know, but you gotta get into the ve-"

Crash. Grunt. Gasp.

"Lu!"

"Go! Go now!"

Swish! Thump Gasp!

"KYAAH!!!"

"You certainly didn't think you could get away that easily, right?"

"Please let us go! We have done nothing against you!"

"And yet you are as disposable as can be. Richard, kill them."

A young boy at about 6 or 7 years of age stepped out from behind his father. He had jet black hair, blue eyes, and a tear stained face. He looked up at his father, tall, aging, one eye, and evil. Then he looked at the sobbing child and her mother, both had ruby red hair and green eyes full of tears, standing near a recently open air vent that led to the exit, he knew, for using it many times to run away from the wrath of his father. He looked at the head that had rolled to his father's feet, bloody, dead, and frightening; he could only assume it was the girl's father seeing that she had his almost orange skin.

He looked back at his father who handed him a blood-stained sword, and once again he observed everything before returning his gaze to his awaiting father. He let go of the sword and it fell with an earsplitting, clang. He shook his head again and again as he stared wide eyed at the unmoving terrifying head lying on the floor.

"No, no, no daddy. NOOO!"

He cried as he fell to his knees sobbing, knowing what was to come. His father glared menacingly towards his crying son then he directed his glare at the crying mother and child as he stooped and picked up the sword. He swung it as the mother protected her child and tore through the woman's torso.

She stared wide-eyed at her sobbing child and with her last energy, pushed her through the vent. The small child eyes widened as she was pushed.

"I-I love you, K-Kori."

Her child cried louder still as she fell rapidly, sliding through the vent.

"Mooooooommmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"

The aging man looked enraged as he clutched the dying woman by the hair and decapitated her with his sword. He looked at the head with relentless hatred.

"Let's give the child what she wants shall we?"

He said as he threw the head towards the vent where it rolled down bumping, and blooding it while it made its course downwards. He smiled a macabre smile as he heard it bumping the vent and listened intently…

His smile widened as he heard his prize: a bone chilling scream coming up the vent as the child saw her mother's head.

He laughed wickedly, his smile left, though, as he turned his attention to his shameful disgrace of a son. He shook as all the anger and disappointment came back to him and he slapped Richard across the face throwing him across the floor. Then as his son tried to stand up he grabbed him by the hair pulling him with him as the child cried and struggled to get away from his father.

"NO! NO! NO! NOOOO!" he cried as he was pulled.

His father finally stopped and threw him to a nearby wall, managing to make the child stop his ranting as he was flunged across the room and his head and back made contact with the hard steel wall. He clutched his head; the tears never stopped flowing as he tried to stand up, only to fall back to the floor.

His father walked away into the darkness; as he came back the small child saw how he carried a long black rope, thin, and certainly capable of causing damage... a whip. The young boy's eyes widened as he regained the struggle to stand up. The man walked slowly and menacingly to his son, and slashed, again and again and again.