It's Forever

6 Pages 1588 Words

He said I would stay forever.
Forever wouldn’t be very long.
I promised it wouldn’t be very long.

The room was bleak but for a single light fixture on the farthest corner. It’s pale light illuminating only a small section, leaving everything else in murk. Fingers of shadow clawed silently around the room, a bare wooden tomb with only a small tattered sofa and two chairs to show any sign of occupancy. Cold. Dank. The strong stale stench of mold and urine claimed the air. The flickering of the light swept through the rotted, cracked floor, trailing away into the abyss. Dead, until the silence was broken by a sudden creak and a shrill loud enough to shatter glass.
A man paced across the floor, clenching and unclenching his fists, his gruff face veiled in hate, and his eyes fired with that infamous dark and intense gaze that conveyed his authority and power.
“You stupid child! I will show you to obey me!” he bit out.
“NO! Please. Dad, don’t hit me. I’m sorry. Please, don’t,” a small boy pleaded, in a strangled whisper, his lips trembling with every word, and his body stiff with dread.
The sound of slapping and punching echoed in the room—fist meeting flesh, until with every hit the murderous rage slowly subsided into nothing more than fatigue. His father callously turned on his heel and walked away, leaving the young child huddled in a corner along with nothing more than roaches to take pity upon him.
The boy sat up, wincing with every move; he spit out the salty taste that filled his mouth. Blood was nothing new. Beaten and bruised, he slowly rose, glaring at his attacker’s sweat-stained T-shirt, all the while thinking that one day, he silently promised, one day….

II

The falling of the leaves marked yet another passing year. The frigid wind whispered death across the treetops, loosening the multicolored leaflets; cascades of red and orange raining down like fire across the earth.
Once again, it...