Abrams Children [Working Title]

1

Dust hung, shimmering in the night fall. There was no disturbance to string up the dirt, but the feeling of a current whispered through the ground, hummed as the sun dwindled and scooped away the day. The light dragged, staining the ground with long, stretched shadows from small stones and bumps. The land was barren, it hurt with light; bleached by it.

A man slumped slightly and squinted at the waning light with harsh objection. It caused him to stop suddenly, and the load he carried on his back patted his shoulder with gentle fists.

"Daddy, do we put our coats on now?" he turned his head slightly, making out the young girls smile just in the corner of his eye. She glanced up quickly at the glowing sky, its burning fire sinking rapidly, before tapping him again for an answer.

"Alright," he muttered and plucked her from his back. His shoulders screamed relief as he set her down on the dust. The girl wobbled slightly, hugging his leg for support, and giggled. He checked the sun again while she pushed about the sand with her stumped legs.

"Nathaniel?" the man muttered, turning his attention to a much older boy. Nathaniel, rooted apart from the pair, gave a small frown.

"We can't stay in the dust," he challenged, averting his eyes to catch the sun's final minutes.

"It'll be too cold to travel within minutes, we have to put up." The father spoke low and sharply, making quick glances at the orange sky between breaths. He sighed as Nathaniel pulled the packages from his shoulders and began to pitch a tent. The father sat the young child down and began to wrap her bare arms and legs in a variety of cloths, until she was bundled up in a small ball. He was careful about her stumps, stretching multiple thick socks until they almost resembled feet. She giggled to him as he carried her to the tent.

"I'm all snuggly Daddy" she affirmed with a nod. He gave her a weak smile and tucked her under the blankets in the far corner. With a quick kiss to the forehead he left her to the night.

"Nathaniel, you'll freeze to death in this, what are you doing?" His son had pulled a thick coat over his shoulders, now standing out as a darker blotch amongst the sudden ice. The cold pinched at every protruding part of his face, and still he squinted through the quickly storming dust at the last slithers of light fell away from the blue.

Nathaniel joined the man and the child in the tent, breathing heavily into his fingers to rub in some warmth. His father had already settled down for the night, curling in solace. The older boy waited, laying motionlessly, until his father's breathing had settled into a deep pattern. He cast a glance at the zipper, watched it shiver in the cold, and pulled on his hat.

He crawled over to the girl and lay beside her, wrapping an arm over her small frame. She was, compared to every other hostility, correctly snuggly warm. He pressed his face into the blankets and cracked a private smile as she giggled. He took her hand, breathed some warmth into it, and rubbed the blue away.

"Tell me a story Nate?" she whispered. He propped up on his elbow slightly.

"Which one?"

"The one about the start of the world," she hugged the arm that had been wrapped around her.

"Well, there was a big bang." She almost laughed out in agreement, as if she could remember it herself. It triggered a familiar notion in him, a memory. His grandfather, when telling him the tale himself, had claimed to remember it. Drained white, and rebreathing his breaths, his father's father had remembered the start of the world.

"There was a man outside our city, he is our witness, for he saw the crime. He stood outside the city, watching the fire and clouds it brought with it, and met with a warrior. The warrior is an honourable woman lost from battle, and is the second.