Short Stories

I Promise

Roscoe

"P-promise me. Promise me that y-you'll come back." Tears streaming down my eyes, I stared up at his bloody figure, into his watery pale green eyes, letting my hand carefully caress his wounded cheek. He smiled down at me. It was a sad smile that broke my heart, not his usual smile that I loved.

"I will always come back for you."

"Conseguir que el niño!" Suddenly I felt myself being ripped out of his arms.

"Noooooo! Stop! Please! Save me Loly! Don't let me be taken away!" I curled my hands and uncurled them tightly, reaching out towards him.

He fell to his knees, bloody and wounded, just how he was but a minutes ago, unable to move. The only exception is that his beautiful sad smile was wiped away from his face, leaving me devastated. If only he could smile forever, if only he could keep me forever, away from all the dangers of this vile world.

"I will come for you! One day I will find you!" I kicked and screamed, trying to return to him. I felt a cloth go over my mouth, nearly breaking my teeth with how hard it slammed to my mouth,my vision blurring. "I promise."

My vision darkened, leaving me with the image of Loly bloodied and paler than death, on his knees with tears leaking out of his eyes.

I promise.

________________________________________________________________________________

"Come on, Ross, it's time for work." I rose from my bed in cold sweat, silent and bitter from the nightmare I had just had, blinking at the man who woke me.

"What if I don't want to go to work?"

"You have to! It's your first day. You're an adult now, it's time to work some." I shrugged Josh off and began dressing for the day ahead. He sighed and left the room.

When I was finished, I pulled my boots on over my feet and started walking to work.

"Oy, amigo, can I walk with you?" I turned around to see some idiot with a fake spanish accent smiling at me. I shrugged.

"Whatever."

"You okay?" I shrugged again. We started walking in complete silence. "So where are you going?"
"I have work at the new college down the street. I'm the teacher aid for Mr. De Silva the new Writing teacher."

"Oh cool. What's your name?"

"Ross Amberson." I mumbled about as we neared the school. "What about yours?"

"My given name is Anatoly De Silva." The stranger smiled goofily at me. I blinked. "So is Ross short for anything?"

"What? So you're the teacher I'm working under?"

"Yes. Now you didn't answer my question. Is Ross short for anything?" I nodded.

"It's short for Roscoe. Why didn't you tell me that you were a teacher?" He smiled a bit and shrugged.

"I didn't think it was important." I groaned loudly. "We should probably hurry up a bit, we don't want to be late for the first day."

"Right." We walked the rest of the way in silence, making it to the class right before the bell rang.

"Good morning, class and welcome. I am Mr. De Silva, you can call me Mr. D or whatever you really want. To start, I'm going to go over the course syllabus really quickly, because honestly, you're adults and I know you can read it yourself." Anatoly pulled out a piece of paper and began reading it, cracking jokes and making the students smile as well as myself, which was rare because I hated everybody.