Jason's mother reached behind her, she brushed he hand through his hair as she said, "Once we head through the side door, we're going to sneak around to the barn. We'll attach the horses and get your dad as we leave. Do you understand me?"
She held her hand in place on his head, waiting for a response. Jason just meekly nodded his head, but that was enough for her.
She pushed the door open and headed straight back into the woods from the house the shouts erupted again with no walls to block them. He covered his ears to spot them from them leaking in, still holding his elbows on his mother's shoulders to keep from falling off.
"It's gonna be okay honey, hold on, hold tight I'm here with you. Your dad and I have been preparing, not exactly something like this, but we have everything together to leave in an emergency in the carriage. We just need to get in and saddle the horses."
Hearing his mother's was helping him calm him down a bit, he was afraid, for the first time in his life he was truly afraid. He could feel his stomach turn like it was a knotting river of fear, his heart racing, his face flushed white like he was dunked head first into ice.
He didn't know what would happen if they ran into any of the towns people right now, but he knew for sure he didn't want to. He could only hold tight as he bobbed up and down with each stride his mom took. Each step would knock the tears off his face and send them raining down on the hood of his mother's cloak.
As they reached around the back of the barn, his mother put him down next to the rear door on the wooded side of their farm. She was panting heavily trying to catch her breath after getting there, Jason could easily tell it must have been exhausting running with him on her back like that through the outline of the woods.
Sitting on the ground, he could feel the damp dew of the would-be morning given a couple hours coat his pants and hands. He should have felt it uncomfortably cold, but at the moment it was enough of a shock to help him regain a bit of his senses.
Looking up at his mother he could barely see her outline in the dark shadow of the barn, behind her though he saw the light of the torches of the towns people flicker off the trees, his ears tuned back in and he could hear the mummers of the shouting again.
It had gotten quite aggressive but since they were a good distance away, and there were too many voices he couldn't pick out his dad's voice anymore. He could pick out one word amongst all the shouts though 'burn'.
His mother caught her breath as she opened up the barn backdoor she motioned for Jason to follow too.
She moved to uncover the carriage his dad had built, and then led Odin and Oli from their stalls, bringing them to the front of the carriage to be saddled on.
"Come around on this side and help me mount Oli up quick, he's the harder one to get in, he likes to step side to side, so just be careful but we need to do this fast and get your dad. None of them are on horses from what I can see so for now we could probably out run them."
Jason nodded his head quickly, then ran around to the horses side beginning to help with the straps, buckles, and buttons to his mom's calm but faint direction under each heavy breath she was taking.
It was even darker in the barn without the front doors wide open, he could barely see each strap and he'd have to feel around for the connection but they still moved rather quickly. Despite it being his first time helping directly strap in a horse, he thankfully made little error.
Finished with Oli, they then moved to strap Odin in, his mother's breaths were getting more labored but she didn't slow down for a second so neither did here. Just as they were securing the main buckle on either side, Irina pulled hard to securely latch it into the punctured hole and tongue of the buckled gave way.
With a loud snap of the tongue going flying and hitting a random wall of the barn.
"Fuck me!"
"Sorry, sorry honey, it's okay, it's okay, grab me another wide strap like this from the back wall by the backdoor on the right, you'll feel them dangling down around if you can't see them. I'll take this one off so we can swap it out."
Jason ran till he had to feel for the stud to see how close to the walls he was, he started feeling up and down the wall once he got to hit hunting anxiously for a leather strap. He couldn't find it, he found a couple small ones but he just couldn't find the type his mother needed to replace the broken one.
Taking both hands and moving up down all around along the wall he searched brushing off the bumps and cuts the tools and other random barn equipment left when he unknowingly set his arm or hand into them.
As he was searching for the buckle, the barn door burst open and his mother screamed, Jason twisted his head.
followed by the last thing he wanted to hear.
"HEY WE FOUND THE SILVER BITCH, SHE WAS GETTING READY TO HIGH TAIL IT OUTTA HERE!"
Jason felt his chest tighten so hard he thought his heart was getting squished down to the floor under a boot of fear. He froze looking at the doorway.
He saw two men walk through the barn door torches in hand.
The man on the right spoke with anger in his eyes yet a smile across his face. "Come here you cunt, did you think none of us would know it was you? Huh?"
He slowly walked closer to his mother with each step, "A lot of people won't make it through the winter this year 'cause of you now. Sadly I don't think you'll be around to suffer with us."
Jason stood there unmoving, frozen in his own skin, he didn't know what he could do if he could move, but he still kept screaming it in his head, "MOVE, MOVE, MOVE MOVEMOVEMOVEMOVE!"
Suddenly his mother screamed for the second time but this time it was followed by "RUN JASON, RUN! RIGHT NOW RUN, DO AS YOUR MOTHER SAYS THIS ONCE AND RUN!"
"Fuck right, the kid, shit, Forlin quick he's in here grab him QUICK!"
The other man, who hadn't spoken since they walked in, quickly ran around behind the carriage, but couldn't see him. He walked up to the back door and saw it wide open looking out to check if he could see him. Seeing nothing at first glance out in the dark he stepped out.
"The door here's wide open, the kid made a break into the woods. I'll go chase him and see if I can't find him!" The until then silent man shouted back in through the door.
But deep in the right corner of the barn between the backwall equipment wall and the first horse stall, Jason sat crouched behind the barrels where his dad would store the various tools he used to clean the pens and barn with.
He watched between the barrels as the man ran past, out the back door, then calling through to the other man still inside.
"Alright! Make sure you grab him, we don't want the freak to come back with some extended family and friends then robbing us blind of all our food in the night again to get back at us! Once they find easy bread they'll come back with more, for more like rats!"
He heard the man outside sprint off into the woods from the other side of the wall.
He sat still there, absolutely motionless, he hardly let a breath in or out.
He flinched as the screams of his mother began to ring out, through the barn. He could hear her fighting against him, scuffling around on the clay floor, the man grunting, and the horses on either side of her being agitated.
He tucked his hands behind his head and covered his ears, assuming a fetal position sitting up. Every hair and muscle on his body stood on end. He could hear more people entering the barn and rushing to grab his mother.
Her resistance and the grunt quieted down and horses settled down as they left the barn, with them the dim light from their torches went too. He sat in silence, hearing cries of joy over the other grabbing his mother, the 'silver leech' again and again he'd hear a few voices scream squeezing through his finger tips to send shivers down his spin.
If he closed his eyes the sound of the shouting felt as if it echoed in his mind, so his eyes laid wide open seeing nothing but feeling everything, he had no choice but to live every moment by the second.
The shouting rang louder, and louder, getting angrier, they peaked when he heard his dad's voice scream out, "YOU ALL BE DAMNED, YOU.....". His voice cut short as he then heard his mother scream again.
After that he didn't hear either of them again, he hoped their voices just didn't reach them through the crowd, he hoped they were still arguing with them. Something in him told him that wasn't the case though, but he pushed it down, not letting any thought of it materialize.
The shouting and the screaming after some time had turned to cheers, joyful happy cheers. Confused, he raised his head to find the barn starting to light up from what seemed to be the red beams of the morning sun rising.
Then, creeping up his nose, the smell of their morning fire crept in. Standing up in a daze, he stumbled his way over so he could look out the barn door still from the back of the barn.
Blinded by the light for a moment, his eyes adjusted, only to look on as his home burned in a haunting blaze under the night sky. He dropped to his knees behind the carriage, watching on as the fire raged more and more against the darkness of night as if to light the sky.
He heard a hoarse scream suddenly rise against the cheers, he knew it was his mother, but it sounded nothing like her voice though he knew it was hers.
Another scream echoed out that shook his spine, and it felt as if goosebumps rose off his goosebumps. Then there was silence, the crowd made no noise, the sound of the fire raging filled the air.
Left to watch, Jason didn't move, he hardly took a breath from around the side of the carriage he watched as his home burned and the crowd slowly dissipated. The noise of the fire had long claimed the night but his head still rang with the last scream not leaving his head.
Within a few more moments the crowd of villagers had vanished, none had made a sound after that. He could see the full view as in the distance the house began to crumble, the roof had caved in, the partially above ground cellar was exposed out the side, refusing to burn down, holding up some now flame engulfed walls.
Everything inside was burning away but it remained, everything inside was probably ash too but it refused to go. Like him it was stuck there left to watch as everything burned and crumbled around it.
As the flames died down the and the morning sun claimed the sky, he felt it's more humbling warmth beat against his face. He finally stood up and walked past the horses, out of the barn, to the front of what used to be his home.
Jason's knees gave up again as he looked at two charred black bodies tied to either burned down post of the would-be front porch overhang.
"Mom, Dad?" He whispered as if not to wake someone incase they were sleeping.
He couldn't tell who was who, they were burned so badly muscle and bones were showing. He'd never seen it with his naked eyes before. He could see through most anything with a perfect picture; however, it was hardly the same as seeing it through the open air.
His thoughts raced, 'What can I do? What do I do?!'
Looking through all his memories, everything he saw before his life that could help him, 'Nothing, nothing, nothing!' Reaching near the end of his time before he was in his current body an idea struck him.
'When tried to help this body! I created what I knew it should look like with my light and the body responded!'
He rapidly projected his light, it was his hope, touching both of his parents with it he realized, his mom was on the right, his dad on the left, as their memories flooded his he realized that and also they were both still alive, their hearts were beating faintly!
He got to work weaving his light in the exact shape everything should be, he saw nothing happen, he started pouring his light into those structures as if more could help.
He waited watching on baited breaths as his light streamed out.
Eventually, as he was starting to lose hope, he saw their bodies react, the muscle and skin was ever slowly growing back!
He went to lay out their minds again as he did their bodies, slowly recreating their structure with his light as he did their bodies.
A voice thundered his mind, shattering his concentration, it was as if someone spoke to him from every direction inside his own head at once, "Young one STOP! I know what you are trying to do and the results will not be what you imagine you're doing. Spare them and you the fate of it, listen to me, stop right now before you regret it."