A boy walked down the street on his way home from school. He walked in the only a child could, skipping to the beat of an unheard song, unbridled hopes and ambitions making his feet a little faster, his head a little higher. He glowed innocently in an indistinct way that lightened the dark, cloud covered sky.
He was whistling a tune that he heard his father crooning the previous night. The boy doesn't remember any of the drunken, slurred words, but he remembers the way his father's face was twisted and torn with grief, the amber evening light somehow making it so real that the boy felt an echo of that sadness deep inside his chest; he remembers how his father sung the melody with a voice marred and shredded by sadness, the way that it started and stopped in small, pain-filled intervals. So he made his face like his father's, he twisted his cherub-like features until it became a caricature of the deep, amber sorrow. He tried to make his chest swell with thick, bitter emotion like his father's, but he just felt empty and small. The song fell so dull and lifeless from his lips, it sounded nothing like the soft amber of his father's lament, so he let the note flutter dead and bloody to the ground and he accepted the silence.
Silence that was soon interrupted by an echo whistled back to him. At first, he thought he had imagined it, the echo had was the same yet sounded so different, until he heard it again and again, the same refrain whistled over and over. It sounded lighter than before, as if someone had physically took the song in their hands and wrenched it violently apart, tearing it smaller and smaller until they deemed it fit to be made into something new, better. It sounded so hauntingly beautiful with its crammed together edges and happily distraught melody; its tempo was a messily fast upbeat, all jumbled with its glued together pieces.
Hesitantly, the boy responded, whistling the next verse solemnly slow, the melody sounding like the feel of his father's beard scratching his face as he holds him close. Then, he waited. Ears straining, eyes flickering around - searching for any sign of the mysterious mimicker. He hears the beginnings of the cheerful refrain and -
There! The song flowed out of an alleyway as if it were a river full of cheerful thoughts and song and dance. The boy creeps towards it slowly. He peeks around the corner of the alley; eyes straining in the dark, he makes out a silhouette turned slightly away from him. He leans forward, trying to peer deeper into the shadowed alley and maybe catch a glimpse of the -
Crack. The boy winced and scrambled backward, knowing that the sound of the twig snapping alerted the mimicker of his presence. Panting, the boy pressed his back against the cool brick of the building. He waited a minute, an hour, until his heart stopped pounding in his chest and he could breathe again.
Curiosity quickly took hold again, and soon the boy was creeping into the alleyway, seeing the mimicker a bit better as the thick, dark clouds thinned and parted, letting thin rays of sunlight break through and illuminate the alley. The sun, however shined directly behind the mimicker, making it near impossible for the boy to discern any features except for a seemingly masculine-cut figure and the impression of buzz cut hair. The boy reached up and touched his own hair, it was getting long, curling just past his ears, but he liked it like that.
A flash of movement caught his attention. The mimicker had turned toward the boy, their head tilted to the side as if they were regarding him questioningly. A pause stretched in the space between them, engulfing them completely until the mimicker slowly, slowly raised a hand, palm up, beckoning the boy to come closer. The boy felt a pull deep in his chest, as if there was a fine, golden string connecting his heart to the mimicker's fingertips.
"It's okay." The mimicker whispered, shattering the silence surrounding them. "Come closer, don't be afraid."
His voice was soft and deep, surrounding the boy like gentle ocean waves and softly nudging him forward; the boy had no control over his hand rising up to reach for the man's hand. The sunlight in the alley was gently waning, making his features more distinguishable. The boy noticed that he had something gripped tightly in his other hand.
"Come a little closer, boy. That's it. My name is Michael - what's your name?"
Fingertips kissing fingertips. The man had such soft brown eyes, the pupil surrounded by a ring of amber. The boy found something intangibly like his father in those eyes. He had a scar on his left cheek.
A glint of reflected sunlight has the boy notice a little too late the small knife in the man's hand. He reared back, fear in his eyes and heart, but the man - Michael - gripped his small, fragile hand with his own and pulled the boy sharply toward him. The boy let out a shocked gasp; Michael gently shushed him.
"It's okay, it's okay."
The boy knew that it was not okay, however, before he could draw the breath to scream, Michael raised the knife up and viciously stabbed the boy's eye. Blood glinted and glowed in the light of the setting sun as it splashed on the boy's face. Michael covered his mouth with his hand before he could try to scream again, he held the boy tightly against him in some mockery of safety and security.
"Hold still, hold still," He breathed, stroking the boy's hair with a mixture of distant reverence and apathy. "It'll be over soon."
It was not, however, over soon; it dragged on and on with bloody, gruesome perseverance. He started slowly, with caresses of the blade on the boy's skin that left small, weeping cuts in its wake. He drew the blade deeply on the boy's left cheek. Tears and blood trailed steadily down his face and neck, glowing an iridescent amber in the dying sun. It was beautiful.
The boy reminded Michael so much of himself as a child that he couldn't resist the chance to tear and shred the boy's skin with his knife as if he were twisting and tearing himself apart to then put so beautifully back together. He continued stabbing at the boy with a renewed vigor.
It was dark now, the bloody sun on the cusp of setting, dripping sunlight onto the street. Michael, realizing the boy's irregularly rising and falling chest would set with the sun, ceased his slashing. He inhaled the sweet scent of the bloody dripping sun and tightened his grip on the boy's limp body before gently setting him down on the ground. He felt lighter, somehow, as if he had taken back something that was rightfully his. With one last glance at the boy, he turned and walked opposite of the dying sun, whistling cheerfully as he left.
