_o-O-o_
"Kurt, you're beautiful." Kurt rolled his eyes exasperatedly at his mother. He was turning eight in less than a week and his mother still wouldn't stop with the mushy stuff.
"Mom!" He whined, tossing his backpack over his shoulder. They were going to be late for school.
His mother laughed, her eyes lighting up. Kurt always loved it when his mom laughed. She was always so full of joy and life, but when she laughed you could really tell. "I know, I know. But just do me a favor and always remember it, okay?"
"Yes mom..." Kurt had sighed. His mother smiled at him, brushing his bangs away from his face. Though he would never admit it, he also loved his mother's smile- especially when she was smiling at him or his Daddy.
A sudden, distant scream had stolen that last smile away from him.
Kurt furrowed his eyebrows, confused at the commotion coming from a few houses down. He almost took a step forward when his mother began pushing him back into their house.
"Mom-?" He began.
The drastic change in his mother's demeanor scared him more than the scream had. "Kurt, go back inside. Go down in the basement and lock the door." She shoved him through the door. She bent down on one knee to look him straight in the eye. Kurt did not like that look. "Do not open it for anyone, do you understand me?"
"What about school-?" He asked innocently, wincing at the loud bang he just heard down the street.
"Kurt, please honey, do not open that door for anyone until either I or your father say it's safe to come out."
"But Daddy's at the gara-"
She grabbed his face in her hands, stroking his cheek worriedly. Down the street, Kurt could hear the cries of Mrs. Hudson as she called for her son. A hot trail of fear dripped down his throat. "Kurt, please, promise me you won't come out." She was crying now. Kurt could feel tears down his own cheeks as well.
Slowly, he nodded, the sound of a van starting up and gunshots drowning out the last words his mother ever said to him. He could read her lips clearly-
'I love you.'
She pulled him in to kiss him on his cheek right over the stream of tears. Kurt hiccupped.
Way too soon, his mother had slammed the door shut, locking him inside. Kurt was scared, confused, and now alone.
He ran as fast as his feet could carry him to the basement door, dropping his bag on the way so that its contents scattered across the linoleum floor. The heavy door shut itself loudly behind him. Kurt barely remembered to do the locks before he stumbled down the steps in a blind hurry.
He practically fell face first into the farthest corner of the room, right behind the water heater.
Kurt was so confused. He was scared. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew it had to take something really serious to make his mom act like that. He hugged his knees, desperately trying to ignore the very muffled chaos that was happening outside. There were no windows down here, and Kurt hadn't turned on the lights on his way down; he was surrounded by darkness.
To Kurt, it felt like hours went by where he sat there curled into himself, weeping silently and praying for everything to go back to the way it had been. He wanted his mother to come strolling down those steps with that big smile and let him know that it was all okay. He needed that. He needed his mother.
And his father. Was he alright? Was he in danger? Was Kurt in danger? Kurt didn't know. He didn't know anything. He didn't know what to do, if he should go try to help his mother, if he should warn his father, if he should just stay here like his mother told him to. He just didn't know.
And that scared him more than anything else. Almost more than the look his mother gave him before forcing him in the house.
It got quiet. The kind of sickly quiet that made the hairs on the back of Kurt's neck stand straight up. The kind of quiet that would give him, as his dad called them, 'goose-pimples'.
Then, the muffled sound of a door breaking told Kurt he no longer had a front door.
New, giant globs of tears poured down his face. He could hear several pairs of booming footsteps over his head; men screaming words that Kurt wouldn't allow himself to understand.
He couldn't allow himself to understand. Because then all of this would be real. No, right now this was all a dream; a nightmare that he would wake up from any minute now. He would wake up to his mother's sweet reassuring words and his father's playful jabs that Kurt would know were only meant to help him become stronger.
But then an axe took out the locks on the door keeping him grounded in his hope down in this dark, dank basement.
_o-O-o_