The bell rang loudly in my ears as I went down the hall to grab my bag. I swung it from the hook in front of me to hanging off my shoulders. I reached the door and quietly tried to step out, I didn't want to be caught here. The colors blurred as I entered the sea of children that filled the hall. I wished I would blend in more easily. When your hair is close to the color of snow it's a little harder to look like all the other children here. Hastily I walked and tried to make it out of the door without a teacher getting to me but that plan started to sink beneath the waves of the ocean as I traced a tall shadow covering my small figure.
Sheepishly I turned to face the adult looking at me with curiosity flashing in her eyes. She was a shorter woman with a plump frame, dark eyes covered in clumps of mascara with an intense amount of blush drenching her already rosy cheeks. A teal and gold ribbon hung around her neck with a tag attached indicating her name; Laura Ellison. "Leon, didn't you say that your dad was picking you up?" I looked back at Ms. Ellison inquisitively as though I didn't know what she meant. Of course, I did, I just knew that my father wasn't coming.
"He was supposed to," I paused, shrugging my shoulders. "I don't think that he's coming though."
"Then why don't we bring you up to the office to wait for your dad?" She offered, I honestly wasn't interested. "We need to make sure you get home safe." I bit my tongue to prevent myself from laughing out loud and making Ms. Ellison suspicious of the reason why I was so wry about the word 'safe'. Ignoring what she said I walked out the doors leading out of the school quickly, trying to escape the teacher. Only for a brief second did I look back, and there in front of the doors was a wall of ice, that should keep her distracted for a while.
I ran to prevent anyone from following but I ran out of breath quickly. Home wasn't far from here, a couple turns to the left would do it. I looked both ways before crossing a small street leading into a cul-de-sac where my one-story house resided. My mother waited on the porch quietly, staring off into empty space; concern written all over her face. Her blue eyes traced the clouds, trying desperately to find a silver lining to all these things that had been taking place these last couple of years. I walked up to her and tapped on her lower forearm and with a sudden motion, she pulled me into her arms and quietly breathed in my ear.
"Hide tonight," She whispered. "Do you understand?" I nodded into the crook of her shoulder, not saying a word for a decent amount of time, not even moving while the wind blew a gentle breeze. If only tonight was going to be as peaceful as it was now. Tears started to boil over in my eyes but I wiped them away quickly, my mother didn't need any more torture tonight. I tried to smile but the one I put on felt painted, dyed, my chapped lips a representation of the paint flaking off of my lying skin. Even if a smile took fewer muscles to move it into place than a frown, that didn't make it any less tempting to do so.
My mother ushered me into the house, taking me to my bedroom, the walls would have been sparse if my father had been in control of my room but my mother had pushed against it. All over the walls were beautiful representations of winter and snow, little flakes blowing in the wind my mother had laced into the murals. You would think that the pale surroundings would feel bleak but it felt the exact opposite, there were so many shades of blue incorporated into it that it almost matched the sky in hues. Then on the wall with a large window, a huge tree expanded across the entire room, multicolored leaves clinging to the bleached aspen branches.
My mother looked at me with a mixture of sympathy, pity, and pain as she shut the door and locked it with a pin from the outside. I knew I didn't want to be aware of what happened on these days, however, I wasn't oblivious to it. My mother's days where she limped and winced in pain, days where she brought ice packs from the fridge and placed them on large bruises, days where broken glass was left on the floor and tweezers and tongs were set out among the pieces. Finally, days like this, where she told me to hide. I don't know how to help her, I don't know what to do, there's nothing I can do. Unless I wanted those same wounds to be inflicted upon me as well. Even if they already had been.
The front door slammed open, a harsh cracking sound erupting from the walls; shortly after there was another slam to indicate the closing of the front door. I held in my breath as heavy footsteps drifted from the middle of the living room closer to my room. A shiver ran down my spine. Breathy heaves breathed past my door, I wanted to scream but didn't dare. Bile rose up my throat in protest at my silence. All I felt like doing was running, I wanted to pry at the window sill, get out of the room. The walls closed in on me and I felt as though the space was too small, fear crawled like a ferocious beast in my mind, tearing at any common sense I had. Yet, I remained still while the heavy rasping continued outside my door.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The door burst in a cascade of wood shards, the room slowly covered in dark ice as the temperature dropped. He breathed out with malice, lips curled upward to show the saliva on his gums freezing from the sudden drop in temperature. The iris and pupil in his shimmering blue eyes looked like clouds, the shaded parts darker than any void, and the tinted areas lighter than the sun that hung over the sky. My lips quivered as I tried to speak but the ice around me seemed to freeze me in place, my eyes widened in fear, horror tracing my creased brow. He moved closer, inching slowly, I felt the sky fall at that very moment the ice encasing his hand hit my stomach. The area went deathly numb, I had no feeling there, leaning over I coughed up blood into my scared hands, clammy and white.
His grin could have sent him to a mental asylum, his eyes were crazed with chaos and almost dripping with the same red blood splayed onto my hands. It glistened in the afternoon sun, looking almost copper, then the blunt force hit me again. My shoulder ached and the pure force could have dislocated the joint completely. I growled but kept still. Mother would come, she would come and save me. This time a shard struck through my forearm, I tried to scream but with the blood and the bile mixing in my throat, it became more of a pitiful gurgle. More blood stained the carpet floor, the reddish color flowering on contact with the surface. A vile laugh escaped his lips, my ears already drowning in the ringing, and now even more so in his laughter.
Flashes appeared in my eyes, stark coppery blood fell to the floor, and blackness preyed at the corners of my sight. I could see the snow, it fell in torrents to the ground and made the already cold room even more chilled. Ice was shot all over the room, my side throbbed with pain and internal bleeding. Breathing felt like hollow footsteps on wooden floors, rasping, heaving, it was never enough to fully fill my lungs. Wearily I stood up, my vision shaking and swirling trying to keep up with the sudden movement. Shivering I looked around, my father leering over my mother, malice in every feature. He held a shaft of ice to her head as she tried in vain to summon a larger snowstorm, but nothing came while she looked into my father's eyes. A small crack sounded as the ice rod struck her forearm and a sickening crack filled the room, shattering the bone. She cried out in alarm as the pain flooded through her.
She looked at me cautiously, her hair pasted to her saddened brow, her eyes screamed at me to do something, to save myself. The man whipped around, his glistening blue eyes muted in tone, shifting into black. I scrambled away, my arms hitting the wall and my forearm tensing up with every movement, making me flinch. My eyes were wide and my lips trembled as he came nearer a new spike of ice glimmering in his calloused fingers. At the sight, I shivered, trying to not give him the pleasure of my fear, yet it still crept from my slumped figure.
As I looked over to my mother her eyes were closed shut with ice upon her eyelashes, dark red blood staining her hairline. Multiple wounds all over her body, and I felt my body rise to its feet without my command, to face my father in the eyes. Snow started to swirl around me, looking darker than it would if it had been created naturally by mother nature. It started to blind my father as he looked into my eyes with a pleading finding its way from behind his dark eyes. I had no pity for him.
My anger grew, tears forming in my eyes trickling down my face and freezing there. Ice rose up from my body and struck my father where he stood, a look of surprise frozen onto his face. For a moment I examined him, spite encapsulating my glare. His eyes looked full of pain, dark brown hair hanging slightly over his eyes. Breathing violently he couldn't meet my gaze, his broad chest trying desperately to inhale and exhale with the shaft of ice through his lungs. He appeared limp as he hung there, not even trying to escape.
I shuddered out another breath, glad I wasn't like him, suffocating. Peering past him I looked to my mother still sprawled out onto the ground, eyes still closed, her dark hair covering her face in small strands. For a moment she looked almost breathtaking, but I wanted to see her smile, we were both free. Racing I grasped her long-sleeved shirt and shook her, letting her dark hair tumble aimlessly as I nudged her. I tremored with the realization that she wasn't waking up, I lifted up her eyelids, there was no resistance to let them stay open. Her glassy stare shattered me, I broke down onto the floor weeping, letting the sound of death play in my ears as my father let out his final breath.