Death Of The Innocents
A GMD Fanfic By The Mouse Avenger
"Pete, wait for me!" 8-year-old Chris Tarn scampered quickly on the trail of his older brother, trying his best to keep up with him. Every few seconds, the little mouseling tripped & stumbled over the untied shoelaces of his loose-fitting sneakers, but after every fall, he rose to his feet & continued running, desparate to catch up with Pete before he was left behind.
17-year-old Pete turned around to look at his brother, & then he ran over to Chris to pick him up & lift him into the air, before planting him on his shoulders for a piggyback ride. "You didn't think your big brother would forget all about you?" he asked Chris with a loving smile.
"Of course not, Pete!" Chris answered, wrapping his tiny arms around Pete's head to give him a hug. "You never forget anything!"
In a gesture of brotherly affection, Pete took off his favorite black beret & plopped it on Chris' head, laughing in playful amusement as he saw the hat--much too big for Chris' size--flop over in his little brother's face. "Well, that's how big brothers usually are, Chris," Pete answered, glancing up at the mouseling with tender violet eyes.
Chris smiled & hugged Pete again, nuzzling his cheek in his older brother's brown hair. Pete gently squeezed Chris' small paw, & then continued on his way through the streets of Mouse London. At one point, the two brothers rounded a corner & began traveling down a lonely sidewalk.
"It's awfully quiet tonight," Chris remarked to Pete, taking notice of the absence of life around him. The only sounds that could be heard within the area were the warbles of twilight birdsong.
Pete, however, just smiled. He wasn't the least bit worried. "Don't fret, Chris," he told him with a gentle expression & another paw-squeeze of assurance. "There's nothing to be afraid of."
Chris began to trust in Pete's words. Even though the adjoining street was empty of any humans or rodents, the beautiful pink-&-purple sunset & the golden glow of tall lampposts made the scenery seem beautiful & serene, giving it an aura of picturesque peacefulness that eased away what worries or anxiety the boys might have had.
"You always make me feel safe, Pete," Chris told his brother, smiling & cuddling him. "I'm glad you're my big brother."
"And I'm glad you're my little brother," Pete whispered lovingly, gently cupping his palm on Chris' face.
Chris & Pete walked slowly & leisurely down the sidewalk, taking in the pleasantness of the tranquil summer evening & each other's company. They were safe with each other & they were sure that no one would come to harm them on this beautiful night...but little did they know how wrong they would turn out to be.
Just when Pete & Chris least suspected it, they were suddenly startled out of their wits as they were grabbed by multiple paws & dragged roughly into a nearby alley. Pete & Chris struggled to break away from their captors, but their efforts were futile; the two young mice were bound with tight leather ropes & shoved against the brick wall. It took a while for Chris & Pete to gain their bearings before they finally saw their attackers.
"Oh, God, no..." Pete whispered fearfully, shaking his head in self-denial as he saw the figures of three teenage mice in jumpsuits, combat boots, & codpieces standing before him.
One of these mice, a fair-haired boy with piercing blue eyes (the right one of which was decorated with a pair of garish false eyelashes), sneered wickedly when he recognized his prisoners. "Welly, welly, welly, well," he spoke in a smooth, suave purr that could have charmed any woman. "It appears that we have some visitors here with us on this fine, horrorshow nochy."
Though Pete was stricken with fear & was terribly panicking on the inside, he smiled nervously & tried not to show the Mouse Droogs that he was afraid. "Hi, hi, hi, there, Alex," he greeted his gang-leader with a timid titter & a forced, toothy grin. "What brings you here tonight?"
"Nothing of like importance," Alex DeMaus smirked, calmly circling his prey like a hungry vulture over carrion that he'd spotted. "The malchicks & I just wanted to pop on by & viddy how our dearest droog was doing."
"I'm doing quite horrorshow," Pete answered, his smile never wavering even as he began to sweat & shake with anxiety.
Alex smiled "amicably", nodding his head in agreement with Pete's response. "And as for your malenky bratty?" he asked, gesturing to Chris with the tip of his cane. Though Alex had never actually seen Chris in person, he'd learned enough about the mouseling from Pete to know who he was, & he could tell Chris was a Tarn just by looking at his eyes--a soft, twinkling shade of bright-violet that he shared with his brother & mother.
Chris, who was also quite terrified, just stared at Alex with wide, frightened eyes & did not reply. "Chris is doing fine," Pete answered on his brother's behalf, trying to act as normally as possible in front of Alex & his gang-mates. If he gave his so-called "droogs" the slightest impression that he & his brother wanted to leave their presence, the chances of them actually escaping to safety were null & void.
"Chris, eh?" Alex's second-in-command Georgie--a tall, nimble mouse with reddish-orange hair & cruel golden eyes like those of a sewer rat--commented with an insidious, sly smile. "I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure of meeting him before..." Chris whimpered inaudibly, shaking like a leaf on a tree, as Georgie crept closer to him with ninja-like stealth & gazed intently at him, his long pink tail swishing back & forth through the warm air.
Almost as if he had never seen a little boy before (much less one related to his "dearest droog"), Georgie closely inspected the frightened Chris with curiosity & fascination. "Oh, Pete, I'm ashamed of you!" Georgie reprimanded Pete with a hurt look that betrayed his sarcastic smile & the evil glimmer in his eyes. "You never even told us about your charming little brother..." He reached out a paw to gently pet the top of Chris' head, but his "tender caress" only seemed to terrify the lad even more.
"Surely, Georgie Boy, you must be jesting with us all!" Alex exclaimed in mock-surprise. His eyes "widened" at first at this declaration, but then squinted in a glare that became more malicious, more sinister, with each word he spoke as he said, "I'm verily certain you've heard from Pete about malenky Chris, his nearest & dearest of kin."
"Well, now we actually get to viddy the mouseling in the fur!" Georgie said, "playfully" cuffing Chris on the shoulders in a swift, rough movement.
The third Droog--a very huge, overweight thug named Dim--went over to Chris & stared stupidly at the lad with dull brown eyes & a blank expression of puzzlement...before moving a paw to poke Chris repeatedly in the face with his forefinger. The action amused Dim, & he guffawed idiotically while he prodded at poor Chris.
"Leave my brother alone..." Pete snarled under his breath, his eyes blazing with rage as he saw the Droogs picking on Chris. The three rogues, however, just laughed like naughty schoolchildren & continued with their mean antics.
Soon, the Mouse Droogs' "antics" turned vicious & violent when Georgie gave Chris a sudden, quick slap across the face, causing his nose to bleed. Chris whimpered in pain & tried to apply pressure to his injury, but then he gave a yelp when Dim picked him up & slam-dunked him into the ground like a rodent basketball.
"Stop it!" Pete barked angrily, struggling to break free of the ropes that restrained him. He screamed out in agony as Alex responded to his command with a hard slap to his "yarbles" from his cane.
"You'd be wise not to speak any further, Pete," Alex said calmly, masking his fury with a chilling placidness.
Through the uncontrollable pain that filled his body & the tears that poured from his eyes, Pete tried his hardest to plead to Alex for Chris' safety. "Don't hurt him," he whispered desperately.
"We'll do with your brother however we please!" Alex replied callously, slapping Pete in the "yarbles" again & going off to join his gang-mates in torturing Chris.
Chris tried with all his might to escape from the Mouse Droogs' clutches, but it was no use. While Pete watched on helplessly, his little brother screamed & cried in terror & anguish as he was brutally beaten & injured in all sorts of horrible ways.
"Don't let that brat get away!" Alex ordered his droogs. Georgie & Dim were only too happy to tighten Chris' restraints & pin him down to the dusty alley floor.
"CHRIS!" Pete called out as he stared at his brother with wide, terrified eyes.
Dim chortled & laughed as he took off the chain he wore around his waist & used it to flog Chris like a leather whip. Whenever Chris screamed or flinched in response to the brutal lashes he received, Dim just guffawed & kept on with his cruel tirade, smiling in devilish glee like a slave mouseter "disciplining" his disobedient servants.
"Dimmy whack Chris, & he don't care," Dim half-sang while he lashed his chain-whip against Chris, "Dimmy whack Chris, & he don't care..."
By the time Dim finished flogging Chris, the poor mouseling was covered in cuts & scrapes. He curled up fearfully in a fetal position on the ground, fighting back tears as a burning pain wracked every cell of his body. He could hardly move, even to protect himself from the powerful punches & boot-kicks that Georgie brought upon him.
"No more," Chris whimpered. "Please..."
Georgie did not listen to Chris. He continued to kick & pummel Chris until his body was full of bruises & several of his bones were broken. When Chris tried to get up on his feet & collapsed to the ground, wheezing & moaning in agony, Georgie reared back his head & laughed cruelly, giving Chris one last kick in the stomach...before turning him over to Alex.
"He's yours now, brother," Georgie said with an evil sneer & a twinkle in his eyes. "Take care of him however you wish."
"And that I shall do," Alex replied, returning the wicked smile as he took Chris in his arms & cradled him like a baby. When Chris began to cry & struggled vainly to get away from his captor, Alex shushed his prisoner & patted his hair with gentle strokes of his paw. "Shhh...shhh, now," he whispered, hoping to calm the boy before the police heard his cries. "It's all right, malenky Chris...It'll all be over soon..."
Pete's heart sank, & a horrible knot began to form in his stomach. Whenever Alex said that to one of his victims, it usually did not mean that they would be spared from any further harm. It meant something much worse than that...
"Let Chris go, Alex," Pete begged one last time, hoping that his little brother would not be subjected to the horrible fate that surely awaited him. "I swear to Bog, I'll do whatever you want me to do! Just leave my brother alone!"
Alex reached down to grab his cane & slowly withdrew the knife he always kept stored in its tip. Then he took the knife & put it to Chris' quivering neck, staring up at Pete with a cold, cruel smile that no decent rodent being would ever show on his face. "Your slovos mean nothing to me," Alex said without any feeling or remorse at what he was about to do. "I heed no pleas of anyone who swears to Bog for whatever reason he may have." Alex's evil smile widened, & his blue eyes blazed like devil's fire as he pressed the knife closer to Chris' neck & made a deep slash across the flesh...
Pete felt his soul die within him as he watched Alex slit Chris' throat. The eyelashed delinquent laughed callously when he saw the mouseling's red blood seep from the fatal wound. Slowly, Chris' once-tan fur began to pale, & with a single breath & a short series of convulsions, his body went limp & he lived no more.
"CHRIS!! Oh, Bog, please, no! NOOO!!" Pete cried out in a primeval scream of pure anguish, fury, & grief that rose from his throat like the wail of a suddenly-childless mother mouse. "No, no, you CAN'T be gone! Please don't leave me, Chris! Please don't leave me!" Unable to contain his emotions that ran wild, Pete burst into tears, banging his head against the alley floor (if only he could bang his fists) & writhing around in a most wretched state. He felt as though he were going to vomit...He felt a desperate need to join his brother. He wanted to be with Chris again, wherever he was now.
It must have been many minutes before Pete began to calm down, but when he did, he glared at Alex with such rage & fury in his eyes that if looks could kill, Alex would have been dead at his feet. "You...you did this to me," Pete snarled hoarsely, his voice weakened by the stress his body had gone through because of the tragedy that had befallen upon him. "You killed my brother..."
"Yes," Alex replied matter-of-factly, still showing no remorse at the crime he had committed against his "droog". "I killed him."
With all his might, Pete rose to his knees in front of Alex & stared at him with a grief-stricken expression. "Why?" he asked with tears in his eyes.
"To teach you a lesson, Pete, & merely that," Alex said. "And this lesson, my brother, is that no one is innocent for long." Alex smiled again, a smile of cruel triumph, as he took Pete's chin in his fingers & tilted his sorrow-worn face to meet his icy gaze. "The world is a cold, hard mesto in which one must learn to live without any hope or goodness to look forward to in life. There is no room for innocents in this world anymore, little Pete. You have to accept that fact. You have to grow up, Pete, & learn the ways of the universe as it truly is."
Pete did not respond for many minutes. Then, at last, with an empty stare, the once-innocent teenager asked Alex with a quiver of his lip, "There's nothing to live for?"
"No," Alex replied in a hypnotic tone, "there is nothing, Pete. You have nothing to live for..."
The rest of Alex's words, whatever they may have been, faded into meaningless murmurings as Pete felt himself being drawn to Alex's charismatic charm & the strange allure of dulling the emotional pain that seethed within him. Chris meant nothing to Pete now. His parents meant nothing to him now. Everything that once gave purpose to Pete's life no longer did. He could hear devilish voices chanting for Pete to join his droogs & become evil, like them. He felt his heart becoming cold & what was left of his soul disappearing into oblivion. He felt nothing but hatred & malice towards others. He was one in the chain now...
"Pete! Pete, wake up!" The teen mouse was immediately stirred from his sleep, bolting upright in bed as cold sweat poured down his body & his chest heaved for breath. Only when Pete opened his eyes & relaxed did he see Chris standing at the foot of his bed, dressed in his pajamas. "Are you OK, Pete?" Chris asked, looking at his brother with a concerned frown.
Pete nodded & put a paw to his heart, panting for a few more lungfuls of air. "I'm fine, Chris," he answered in between gasps. "I just had a bad dream."
"Want me to get Mom & Dad to help you feel better?" Chris asked with a tender smile & those soft violet eyes of his.
"It's OK," Pete said, returning the smile. "No need to wake them up."
Chris crawled into bed & sat in Pete's lap, giving him a great big "little brother" hug. "I'm glad you're OK, Pete," Chris said, wrapping his tiny arms around his big brother. "I thought something bad had happened to you, from the way I heard you screaming & all."
I'm quite all right, Chris, Pete thought to himself. But it's you I'm more worried about...O, sweet, innocent little Chris, let no evil come upon you. The world doesn't need to lose another one of its angels.