VERY IMPORTANT NOTE. PLEASE READ.

The first (And only the FIRST. The 2nd one is safe.) chapter of this story, contains sensitive, gruesome depictions and possibly triggering material regarding suicide. Reader discretion is advised. If you think it is too much for you, you can skip the 1st chapter and only read the 2nd, which as I said before is totally safe.

Thank you and sorry. Do go on.

~o~

"Mama?" The child called softly, opening the barn door and peeking inside, the dim light entering the wooden building from some gaps on the roof. "Mama? Are you here?"

No answer. It had been a bad winter and the last of their animals were gone, so now there was not one living soul in the structure. She had no reason to be there, but he'd been looking for her for hours and there was nowhere else she could be. A gust of wind blew and he shuddered, but just as he was about to close the door and step away, he heard something. It came from the wooden beams, supporting the barn roof. A soft creaking.

He looked up, but saw nothing from where he was standing, so he dropped his eyes again and pushed the door open, his tiny hands trembling a little as a sense of dread he couldn't place descended over him. He stepped inside slowly, his footsteps on the frozen ground echoing in the, once more, unearthly silence. It felt as if the whole world was holding its breath; waiting for something.

His eyes fell on a toppled chair, and he stopped; the same feeling of dread returning to him, suddenly feeling scared, without knowing why. "Mama?" He asked again, hesitantly, wanting to go back home, but needing to find her first. Where was she? Another frozen gust of wind entered the building and he heard it again. The wood creaking, right above him.

~o~

The boy raised his eyes and smiled, all fears forgotten as he finally saw her. "Mama!" He still didn't know where the sound had come from, but he didn't care, cause there she was at last. She had her back on him, and was floating a few feet from the ground.

"Mama, what are you doing?" He asked again, taking a step closer, when she ignored him. "Ma-" Another gust of wind and the creaking echoed again, cutting his words off.

Slowly, still floating, she turned around and the little boy smiled again, only to freeze when she faced him completely. Her head was tilted a little to the side and her skin was too pale, coming in stark contrast with the raven black hair framing her face. Her otherwise full of life brown eyes were dull and misty, staring into nothingness.

"Mummy? Why are you making that face? Mama…? You're scaring me."

She didn't answer him, neither changed her expression. She didn't even look at him. Instead, he heard the creaking again and she turned away slowly once more.

Just then he noticed the rope around her neck and following it with his eyes, he realised that was what caused the creaking as it passed over a wooden beam near the ceiling, and ended up on another one, on the wall.

Seeing that she wouldn't listen to him and get down by herself, he decided he should cut the rope that helped her fly, so he did and she dropped to the floor with a thud, her raven hair covering her face. He ran beside her at once, falling down on his knees beside her. "Mama! I'm sorry! Are you hurt?" He called, turning her gently and brushing the hair off her face, only to be met with that scary void expression again, noticing now that he saw her up close, that there were also dark blue veins branching out on her unnaturally white skin.

"Mummy…" He whined close to tears now. "What's wrong?"

He had seen someone make that expression before. A man lying on the side of the street on a pool of red liquid, staring up to the sky. His mum had told him he was just sleeping and pulled him away as more people approached.

"Are you sleeping?" He asked in a small voice and touched her face, closing her eyes softly. "You're freezing… You'll get a cold, mama, you can't sleep here. Mummy, wake up. Get up, mama!" He shook her trying to wake her up, tears falling from his eyes, scared and confused as she just kept ignoring him.

~o~

He heard footsteps and then his father's voice calling her name.

The boy let her go and ran to him, pleading, grabbing his arm with both of his small hands. "Ayah! Mama won't wake, tell her she'll catch a cold if she sleeps here! We have to go back home!"

His father wasn't acknowledging him either, but was instead looking at her with a horrified expression on his face. "Ayah?" The child called again scared when he saw tears falling from his father's eyes. He'd never seen him cry before.

The man turned to him at last, his devastated expression turning into one of rage. "You! It's all your fault!" He screamed grabbing the terrified boy's arm violently, and dragging him out of the barn, leaving his wife behind.

"Papa? Where are we going? Papa? Daddy, it hurts!" He cried from the pain when his father put more pressure on his arm and pulled him abruptly.

"I'm going to end this! I won't let you hurt anyone else!"

"Ayah I swear I didn't do anything! Daddy, let go, it hurts! I didn't do anything bad, I was just looking for mama! Papa, we have to go get her, she's cold!"

The man stopped abruptly, releasing his hand, and the boy fell on the ground, the soft mud beside the river breaking his fall a little.

"She's dead!" He shouted at the child who looked up at him terrified, still on his hands and knees deep in mud. "She's dead because of you! You killed her!"

"No…" He muttered, tears falling from his golden cat-eyes. "She can't be. Papa I swear I didn't do anything! It's not my fault!"

"Your existence is a fault! A mistake!" He screamed and the boy gasped, and began crying even harder. "I should have killed you when you were born! She would be alive now!"

'My fault…?' He was sobbing now, covering his face with his muddy hands. "I'm sorry, I didn't want this, I'm sorry papa, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry…" He cried, struggling to breathe through tearful sobs.

"Get up." The man told him coldly, unmoved by the heart-wrecking sobs.

The child lowered his hands to look at him, and even though he was covered in mud, his amber eyes shone brilliantly and the man took a step back, scared. "Demon!"

"I'm not a demon…" The boy sobbed, raising his arms, still reaching out to him even after everything. He was the only one he had left.

He was just a small, hurt, terrified child, covered in mud and tears, crying out for its father, but all the blind, heartless man could see was a monster trying to touch him. Ignoring the fact that the monster was him and not the boy, he grabbed his arm again violently, not caring if it broke, and dragged him up while the child screamed in pain.

"Ayah! It hurts!" The man headed towards the river beside them ignoring his son's cries and sobbing. "It hurts…"

He shoved him into the swallow cold water stepping in after him and gripped his neck choking him, and pushing him underwater.

He fought, but his father was stronger and he couldn't overpower him as he wrapped his little arms over the bruising hands trying to shake him off. 'I'm scared, it hurts!' He tried to scream but only got a mouthful of water and almost blacked out. 'I'm scared, I'm scared, it hurts, I can't breathe, it hurts, I'm scared, let go!'

He saw a blue light behind his closed eyelids and all the pressure on him disappeared. He gasped, falling on his hands and knees on the river shore, coughing up water and trembling from the cold. Struggling to breathe he looked up to see what happened, why did his father let him go, hoping it was because he didn't want to hurt him after all.

And there, in the dying light he saw for the second time in the past hour, a pair of wide, dead eyes looking back at him, no longer seeing him.

He gasped and crawled back, away from the body. "No… I didn't mean to… I'm sorry…"

He had bruises on his arms and neck, and was shivering violently from the cold and fear, his own eyes wide and terrified, unable to look away from the charred corpse still burning with magic blue fire.

~o~

According to google translation, "Ayah" means "dad" in Indonesian.