STAG
I woke up to the unpleasant sound of my vermilion colored alarm clock. I sloppily rose to turn it off, I made my hands into a fist position and rubbed my eyes. As I got up, I shook the white sheets to wake up my partner who was sleeping next to me. “Wake up,” I said in a tired voice as she slowly rose with her black hair sticking up as if electricity had gone through it. I walked towards the kitchen and turned on the modern white-colored stove. I set the heat to medium and took a pan from a wooden cupboard above. I opened the gravely textured fridge and opened a carton of eggs, carefully selecting 4 then closing the carton for use on another sunny morning. I cracked them one by one on the side of the pan, occasionally getting pieces of shell on my fingers or on the stove. My son entered the room running playfully. “Be careful, don’t run into anything.” I said as he ran out of the kitchen and into the dining room. I got three square plates with convoluted flower designs on the rims of them. I plate the scrambled egg, the steam was still ascending. I negligently opened a drawer to the right of me grabbing three silver forks, one of which was dented, then walked into the dining room to plate the meal. My partner walked up to the table and sat down, she seemed quite nervous but I decided to give it no notice and think it would pass. “Sit down and eat your breakfast.” she said kindly to our son, he sat down after a couple of seconds, and quickly moved the plate towards him whilst I poured him apple juice from a slightly crushed carton. When they finished I grabbed their plates and put them in the sink to dry later. I ran to the door as my son and partner were getting their shoes on, we then left and I locked the sky blue door with a small key I took out of my pocket which had a rounded bottom. When I finished locking the door my partner kissed me with her soft lips and said goodbye. She was walking away with my son holding her hand, she would take him to school then she would walk to work. I turned around and walked away, my feet softly touching the grey pavement. As I was walking to my job I looked down a split second and put my hand in front of my chest to see the time. Thirty minutes in I was looking at the silver watch with discolored leather wrapping around my wrist. I tripped on a part of the pavement that arose and fell. I had fallen on the cold concrete skidding my cheek and therefore making a deep gash there. My whole body had strikingly jumped forward causing more of my face harm but just bruises. I felt a wobbly and insecure feeling that every second walking could higher my chances of tripping again. My brain felt weird and lightheaded as if I were swimming in the clouds. A man with a navy blue turtleneck and a calm voice went up to me and asked if I was okay. “I’m fine, just a little lightheaded thank you.” “maybe you should go home and rest, you need to heal those bruises.” he exclaimed. “I will, thank you.” I walked back to my house. I was only half an hour into the hour and a half walk it took to get to my work so I was thankful that I didn’t trip any later. When I arrived home I immediately dropped my black satchel to the ground, and I rushed to the washroom to examine my injuries. The big gash had already turned into a scab, but it was weak and just formed. The other injuries were just bruises. I sighed in relief and walked back to the entrance, hung up my bag and shook off my shoes. I walked to my bedroom where I rested. I woke up to what seemed at first to be my alarm but it was my phone ringing. As I picked up my pastel blue phone I checked the time, it was 3 in the evening, 7 hours after I left to go to work. Someone had phoned me, it was a number that I had not known, it wasn’t written in my contacts so I thought it was from my workplace, I thought they were checking on me to see if I was okay, I was wrong. “I have your family,” said a deep voice from the phone. My head jerked back and my eyes widened, my heartbeat began to go as fast as a hummingbird’s wings as I answered: “Listen, I will call the police right now if you’re joking then you’ll get into a lot of trouble.” “But I’m not joking. I have your family, and if you want to see them again then you will come to a destination I tell you to and you will not tell the police. If you do then I will not hesitate to slowly slit the throat of every one of their small necks.” he cackled with a maniacal laugh at the end. I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt as I said “wh wh wheres-” I gulped and could feel the saliva running down my throat “where’s the destination?” he texted me coordinates to the destination with green text underneath in all capitals saying 1 hour. I ran towards the door and as I was leaving I didn’t bother locking it, too much was on my mind. As I was running and simultaneously looking on my phone tears were rolling down my eyes as I thought what he would do to them, what has he already done to them, what will he do to me? When I arrived at the destination it was cold and the sky was grey as if the sun was not happy and the moon was late showing up. The house was quite big and was made of rosewood and stone. It also had a stone path surrounded by neatly cut grass and the door was a light oak color with a silver or brass door handle that was painted gold. I walked up to the house almost out of breath and rang the cold feeling plastic electronic doorbell to the right side of the door. No one answered until about twenty seconds later when I heard footsteps approaching the door. A man opened the door and breakneck fast, his big hands latched on to and curled around my shirt, and he flung me to the ground. I screamed in agony as the carpet burned my face and tore off the scab that had formed. The man slammed the door shut and walked straight passed me then sat in a chair.
LION
I was sitting on my orange chair looking down on the man who was laying on the warm grey carpet below me. His face had bruises everywhere and blood was oozing from a scab that had been picked off of his left cheek. He tilted his head slowly up towards me and glanced at me with ice-cold eyes, he then screamed: “where’s my family?” I sat up, then raised my foot in an omnipotent manner and kicked him in the face as hard as I could. “Don’t speak if you can’t keep your spit in your mouth.” I said in disgust as he rolled over lying on his stomach, making an ear tearing screech. I walked over to an area where my feet were pointing towards the temple of his head and bent my back down, grabbed him by his oaky brown hair and pulled. I stumbled across the kitchen, laying my hands on the marble counter for better support so that I could keep pulling. His hands were always around mine trying to claw his way out of the pain that was still being afflicted on his scalp. As he kept screaming I kept dragging. When I finally arrived at my room I pulled up the strands of hair that were on my sweaty palms and slammed his head in a downward momentum to the wall behind him, I then got up, straightened my cotton light blue button-up shirt and extended my hands forward and lifted the Malaysian carpet with intricate designs and red accents. As I lifted it there was a color off from the original dark brown wood that had been apparent throughout the rest of the house, it had become lighter and more transparent as if someone had spilled a jug of water on it. There was a small gap in the wood that looked like it could be somewhere where it had naturally split, as I put my hands forward, extended my fingers in the gap, and pulled, it became more apparent that this wasn’t a natural split, but an intended one left there for purposes unknown by anybody visiting unfortunate enough to kick off or lift the carpet. As I pulled the door up and propped it down against the floor, I stood up, and picked the man up by his hair again, I dragged him, and with a forceful action, I pushed him through the hole. He fell through the 5-foot hole, his arm got caught under his leg, and as he landed the bones in his arm broke like a Lego set being shattered. As he was screaming I hopped down and landed my charcoal brogue shoes on his delicate fingers. He screeched and asked once more, in a light tone and kind manner “please tell me if you have done anything to my family, I know you were involved some way if y-” I ferociously kicked him in the face, and his front teeth went from convex to concave in a matter of moments. He squealed as I picked him up by his hair again and dragged him through the narrow corridor. When I finally stopped dragging we had arrived at a room that was about fifteen by fifteen feet and the man looked up, with his bloody face and watery eyes, and in the far right corner of this off white colored room there were two rusty teal colored chairs that looked like they could be in an 80s diner, one of which was standing adjacent towards the other. Sitting on these chairs was a woman, with straight black hair, and a round face. She was wearing a white shirt with puffed sleeves, and a black skirt that had droplets of wine red blood stained on it. She was wearing semi high heeled shoes which were also black. She had a long oozing stream of blood coming down her nose reaching to her chin and dripping down her neck. She also had a couple of bruise marks on her legs, and a black eye. Usually, when people say black eye they are referring to the area above the cheek being purple, however, this was not the case with this woman. It may have been the mid black tone of shadow that was at the corner of the room reflecting on her fragile face, it also may have been the black of her skirt catching and also reflecting on her face. No. It wasn’t any of those, anyone could see, even the man lying on the floor could see, with his crushed face, that her eye was a deep black, not purple. On the other chair was a boy wearing light brown cargo pants and a pastel blue v-neck t-shirt. He was wearing hiking shoes with green sections and he had dark brown hair, which was a bit scruffy at the top. The boy didn’t seem to have any visible injuries however his head was slumped down so that no one would have been able to tell the difference. His position was that of a heron catching a fish. “here’s your family” I said maniacally with a grin on my face and as I looked he had tears rolling down his cheeks.
Fin
