The Draw

Chapter 1

The small wooden boat capsized and the two other people alongside Dean plunged into the cold November water, their heads bobbing below the black frothy waves. Thunder crashed so loudly above, he felt the ocean shake and sheets of rain assaulted the currents. The water violently tugged at his clothes, all warmth being torn from his body within seconds. What heat remained was frozen by the pit of fear in his stomach. In the distance he could see dark equine shapes moving just beneath the surface, cutting towards the group of people. His sight was taken from him as a sharp pain seized his foot, pulling his head into the brine. Muffled by the liquid, Dean was surrounded by screams, which only seemed to grow in pitch until he felt warmth seeping from his ears. The water around him slowly bled into the colour red, the dark figures in front of him now being dismembered. Fighting the pressure on his leg, a shout erupted from the boy now struggling to reach the other people, though the thick wine coloured fluid swallowed his words and ran down his throat, suffocating him. Thrashing, Dean felt his muscles begin to weaken as he sunk farther from the steely light above him.

Dean woke, his threadbare sheets soaked with sweat and knotted by his feet, his thin pillow lying lamely in a pile against his chipped door. The morning island sun filtered in through his window, casting a fragile light over his room, raindrops still fixed to the glass from last night's storm. The unfilled dresser in the corner cast a much too large shadow over the small space, dwarfing his bedframe. The stale air was still with silence, only broken by the occasional rustle of grass. Chilled morning air from the seeped into his space from cracks in the glass, urging him to wake.

Dean took deep breaths. Placing his feet on the uneven floorboards, he stood up only once certain his legs would take his weight and waddled, careful not to stab himself with a splinter, to throw on a paint splattered t-shirt and a torn up pair of jeans. Not wanting to wake the other occupant of the house at the asscrack of dawn on a Saturday, he forced his shaky hands to steady when pushing into the kitchen.

Dean glanced at the empty cabinets save a handful of apples from the tree outside and sighed. Dad hadn't been home for days again, and that meant that there would be no substantial money on the counter for at least another few weeks. The odd jobs Dean picked up covered the meagre amounts of food they had for them and the animals, but the power bill had been left for a month now and threats of it being shut off hung over their heads. John managed to keep up with the payments when he wasn't drinking, as the nearby hotel paid pity to the local drunk with one leg and a dead wife, but there was rarely a time when the man didn't come home with a bad hangover.

Dean didn't start his unofficial job until midday and the crooked clock in the hall told him it was seventy thirty. Another shuffling sound came from the other side of a thin entrance. This noise came from the lot outside which was more of a sand pit surrounded by a broken picket fence, scattered machinery peppering the hard packed ground. A rusted dirt bike stood propped up against a weak looking shed, hay strewn around which a handful of chickens picked at.

Pushing out of the meagre house, Dean whistled softly into the damp October air. With a low rumbling nicker, a black head poked out from the shed and looked unimpressed at the boys call. Dean popped his hip out and murmered disapprovingly to the horse, "So that's all the thanks I get for paying your rent, eh? I see how it is," Turning his back to the creature he stood huffing dramatically in anger. Slowly, the large spindly horse grumpily padded out to its owner, this act noticeably practiced by the pair, only given away by a slight amusement that sparkled in her amber ringed eyes. Shuffling her mouth along his shirt's collar and soon nibbling on Dean's short sandy hair, the boy finally let out a breathy snort of forgiveness and turned to the nearly black mare, threading his hands into her mane and scratching hard, earning him shove as the large animal leaned into his touch.