As Hollow As A Mannequins Grin (Keveridge)

1 - If I Keep Running With My Eyes Closed

The floor was covered in blood that was glistening, reflecting anything above that it possibly could.

A figure, a young boy with black hair was sweeping over the blood, scanning the room. More and more bodies began to just appear wherever he previously stood, all dead and unmoving. They were lifeless, broken, worthless, empty. Nothing more other than that. The boy's clothes were beginning to seep through with the blood that was on the floor, turning his white shirt and trousers red until barely any of the white could actually be seen. 

"Laurence! Laurence please! Help us!" a woman far off in the distance screamed, her voice piercing through any thoughts that might have been going through his head.

The boy slowly turned to his left, seeing a woman sitting in the middle of the floor, hugging her arms across her chest as blood poured out the wound. "Mum?" the word was unfamiliar to the boy now, he'd gone too long with not saying it. It sounded wrong to him, something that he shouldn't be saying.

The woman nodded and held her arms open for the boy, causing the blood to start flowing faster out the wound now it was uncovered. The boy ran over to her and jumped into her lap, throwing his arms round her neck and burying his face into the crook of her neck.

"There, there, my beautiful Prince...Mummy's got you here now..." 

"Who am I?" the boy whimpered, but no tears were coming out his eyes. He had forgotten what emotions were, what they felt like, what it meant to have them. All of this forgotten long ago.

She pulled him back, a smile growing across her face. She was showing her teeth now which were covered - no, stained - in blood, "Why, you're the boy that allowed this all to happen. You weren't there when we needed you. No, you were off somewhere else. Leaving us all to die."

The boy's eyes widened and he frantically shook his head, "No, no that wasn't me! Mummy, that wasn't me!"

"Everything's your fault! If you hadn't ran off I'd still be alive! Your father would still be here! All your fault, Laurence! All. Your. Fault!" her voice had gotten increasingly louder as the time went on, so much so that the boy scrambled away from his so called mother, drawing his knees up to his chest and covering his ears. He scrunched his eyes closed, rocking himself back and forward and muttering to himself about how it wasn't his fault, to no one in particular other than trying to get himself to believe it the most.

"Laurence."

He froze where he was and looked up. A man was standing there, but no one in particular that he recognised, in fact he couldn't see his face...or his clothes. He was just an outline, a shadow, nothing more.

He knelt down and tilted the boy's - Laurence - chin up to face him properly, "You're such a weak child, how your idiot of a father could ever think you would be able to rule is beyond me. You're pathetic, worthless, no one could ever love or want you," he retracted his hand, as though scared Laurence might retaliate like some kind of wild animal. "And you know what? I want to see your face as I kill your mother, and your father and anyone else you've ever cared about. Again. And again. And again," he grinned at Laurence, pulling a gun out of his pocket and standing up, "I want to see your face as they scream, begging for mercy which they'll never get."

He strode over to where his mother was still sitting and shot her through the knee, causing her to scream and Laurence to flinch. It carried on as he shot up her body, stopping after the sixth bullet so the man could reload then start again. Her screams were ear piercing and Laurence could feel himself physically shaking as he watched, unable to tear his eyes away. On the twelfth bullet, it went through her head and the whole room was cascaded into silence. It was eerie and sent chills up his spine.