Short stories

The Boy, The Man, The Future (thriller)

There is a boy.

A boy sitting in his room, on his bed, drawing on a piece of paper.

His room is plain, a single bed with white sheets sits in the corner, a bedside table to the right of it side with nothing but a small glass of water sitting atop it. There is a built in cupboard on the opposite wall, containing nothing but a few colourless outfits and a single pair of shoes. His white walls have nothing on them, no pictures or posters or anything that would show that anyone lives here. His floor is a plain beige carpet, littered with a few dust mites and little bugs.

The light on the ceiling flickers yet the boy takes no notice, he sits, continuing his drawing.

The deafening silence echoes in the boys ears, like he is drowning peacefully in an ocean of his own thoughts.

The silence is broken by a small, yet noticeable noise coming from the cupboard. The boy looks up from his paper for a second, but looks down to continue drawing, thinking his mind must be playing tricks.

Another noise comes from the cupboard, stealing the boys attention for the second time. He softly places his pencil on the bed and watches it as it rolls towards him, following the slight dent where the boy is sitting. The pencil touches his leg and he grabs it, placing it on the bedside table next to the glass of water, making a small mark in the dust.

He gets up from the bed, his bare feet touching the rough, worn carpet. He walks across his room towards the cupboard, each step making the boy shake as he nears the cupboard door. Every few steps the floorboards under the carpet will squeak, making the boy look around his room. He reaches the cupboard door and steadily reaches his arm out and touches the door. As he twists the handle he can hear his heart beat pumping in his ears, it is rapidly thumping, going off in his ears like a warning alarm telling him to stop, danger, danger, danger...

He pulls the cupboard door open, his whole body shaking. He bites his quivering lip and looks into the cupboard, his quivering hand never leaving the door handle. The cupboard has not changed since he looked in it this morning. The few outfits are all in place and the rest of the cupboard has been untouched. The boy walks back a step and starts to push on the door. He stops abruptly when he hears a noise coming from behind him. His whole body starts to shake and his eyes widen as the noise starts to surround him. It is as if someone is scratching all the walls of his room at once with their fingernails.

The noise grows louder and closer.

The boy closes his eyes, hoping it is a dream and he will wake up in his bed, staring at a plain room once more, as he did this morning. His eyes shoot open when he hears a large thump on the ground less than a metre away from him. He hears steps approaching him from just behind the bag. The steps are heavy, as if a large man is walking towards him, driven by anger or frustration.

The boy stiffens when he feels an arm around his neck, half strangling him. He tries to yell out but he can't, his voice won't work for him as he is gasping for air. He tries to kick out, maybe loosen the mans grip on his small body. But he is paralysed. His whole body from his head to toes won't work. His heart beat is going at 200 beats a minute and his whole body shakes.

The boy feels a pain in his right shoulder and he immediately feels drowsy. He hears a muffle, too quiet for him to hear, coming from the man. The boy is overcome by drowsiness and he falls into a deep sleep.

----

The boy wakes.

He is cold, sore and has no clue where he has ended up.

He is sitting on the floor of a cold, dark room, in a puddle of a metallic, red liquid. He shudders as he realises he has been placed on a pool of blood, not knowing if it is his or someone else's. The room is lit only by the light coming from the small window in the corner of the room, much too high to reach.

The boys sits, staring at the wall, seeing the variety of things imbedded into it. Sharp weapons and hooks are stuck into the wall in an almost organised pattern. Moss and a liquid almost exactly like the one he is sitting in right now coat the four walls that the boy has been confined to for an undetermined amount of time.

A noise comes from outside the room, making the boys eyes dart to the door he was yet to notice. The door was covered in scratches and blood, displaying the horrific remnants of the previous happenings that took place in this room. The boy could practically hear the screams of the past prisoners of this room as they tried to get out of whatever excruciating torment they had to undergo.

The steps from outside the room grow louder and louder as whoever is outside comes closer and closer to the room. The steps stop and the door is slowly opened.

A man walks in.

The man has a white mask on, with small chips and cracks in, showing it had been worn with time. The man walks with a limp and carries a large bag, bigger than the boy himself over his shoulder. The mans steps echo in the large room. Each time his foot connects with the ground it makes a slight splash in the pool of blood, causing drops of the metallic liquid to soak into the hems of his long pants.

The man reaches the boy, placing his large bag on the ground with a thump, splashing both of the people in the room with blood.. Though his eyes were not visible behind the thick mask, the boy could feel the man staring at him, eyeing him, as if thinking of what to do with him.

The eerie silence is broken by the man reaching into his bag. As he fishes around in his bag the noise of metal clinking together echoes in the chamber, shattering the boys heart. A silent tear runs down the boy's face as the man pulls out a knife the size of his arm. The edge of the sword is jagged and covered in dried blood and dirt and the worn  handle covered in the same. Yet man looks confident, almost comfortable holding it. The man's right hand grips the sword as his left holds onto the edge of his mask, taking it off. The mask is dropped at his side, making a loud clatter on the floor.

The boy looks at the mans face, feeling a strange sense of familiarity as he looks into the mans eyes. The mans face is shrivelled and wrinkled, with multiple scars and imperfections scattered over his skin. The man approaches the boy, who is too scared to move, and grips his sword, a hint of remorse showing in his eyes.

'I'm sorry,' The man says, with a low, grumbly voice, 'but I'm not letting this be our future.'

With that statement the boy is impaled in the heart with the jagged sword. Pain envelops his body as the last ounce of life is drained out of him. The boys body drops with a single tear having fallen down his young face.

The man stands over the boy's body, hoping he could've done more. A tear drips down his face as his body starts to disappear. He smiles a sad smile, knowing that he had done the right thing.

The sword clatters to the ground, leaving the boy's lifeless corpse alone in the cold room, covering the floor in more of his blood.

No one knows what happened to this boy, and no one ever will. But the sad thing is...

no one even noticed he was missing.