𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒 | original (o.h.)

The Deal

March 22, 1992

The young and desperate mother dug her fingers through the dark, thick dirt in the middle of a crossroad. As pebbles caught underneath her fingernails and cut open her skin , drawing blood to the surface, she did not stop aggressively digging a small hole into the Earth.

Once the pit was large enough, she placed the small wooden box inside that included her deceased black cat's bone that died a few years back, graveyard dirt, her old driver's license picture, and her great grandfather's silver dollar coin.

Quinn Snow heard of this myth before from her friend who became a successful business woman a few years back. Never believing in spooky, bedtime stories, she always believed her friend was trying to prank her, but at this current moment she was desperate enough to try anything. Nothing else has worked, and this was her last shot.

Quickly covering up the box with the dug up dirt that was stained with her blood, she stood up not bothering to wipe the dirt off of her knees and hands. Just waiting for someone or something to show up.

One minute passed, but it seemed like hours had  gone by for Quinn. Feeling her broken heart leaping to her stomach, she let out a sigh of despair while turning back towards where she parked her car. Before reaching her car, she stopped when she saw someone standing in the middle of the road blocking her pathway to her car.

It was a man, fairly young, maybe a few years younger than she was. The lone streetlamp casted an uninviting shadow onto his face, but his dark, silver eyes shined like it was forenoon. His features were laced with a professional arrogance, but there was something about the way the edge of his lips subtly peeled backwards to reveal his too perfect, white teeth. His smile was a bit too wide, a bit too cheerful, considering the circumstances.

He let his hands, which were clasped lowly in front of his body, slide to the inside of his pants pockets as he continued to stare. The void undertone in his glaze made her heart fall towards the lowest and deepest pit of her stomach.

"Why have you called for me?" The young man implores with artificial curiosity--he knows the reasoning behind his call and how far she is willing to go to achieve what she came to do. He already knows her circumstances.

"I want...I want to make a deal," Quinn stutters, the end of her sentence was supposed to sound strong and unaffected, but all she heard in her own voice was weakness and fear. She stood looking down towards the pebble covered road, not knowing how to react towards this wolf poorly disguised in sheep's clothing.

"Is that so?" The mystery man tilts his head as the phrase slid off his silver tongue, "I hope I will be able to unburden you from whatever it is you are so desperate to discard at my feet."

The woman swallowed harshly in attempt to relieve her dry throat of the stinging it felt whenever she looked at him. The vulnerability of her situation made Quinn feel hopeless to the decisions the person in front of her was going to make, knowing her future was being juggled between his slippery hands.

"My son--," she paused to catch some needed breath, "--he's sick. The doctors tell me he doesn't have very much longer. I've been praying for months but God hasn't given me anything I have prayed for."

She has done everything she was supposed to do. She went to church every Sunday with her parents, she believed in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and she has never asked anything of him once, until last year when her son was diagnosed with Stage 3 lymphoma. Her son became a warrior to fight off his fatal sickness, but in the end, he was still made with flesh that could be cut and bones that could be broken. She is scared that her son's downfall is coming all to soon. A parent never should outlive their child.