The Veil Of Silence

Chapter I - Thieving from Death.

The rags that covered his arms were stained with red. An improvised tourniquet wrapped around his chest to stop the bleeding. And the light bulb that dangled so lightly from the ceiling, emanating a gentle glow that reflected from the drops of sweat which fell from his head as he tried to keep himself stable. Laying on that table, waiting for his life to fade away. Emotionless, as it was coming. Death always takes from those who take from him. And those who take, must give. Yet alas, born thieves can cheat that of death, with the slight of hand.  

  The light began to fade away from sight. The darkness began to shroud his vision, but he was not yet succumbing to it. He struggled, raising himself from that table, up righting himself, his shirt laying next to him. His eyes slowly started to close, but he kept moving. His grey shirt lay next to him, and his rug sack sit just below. He reached down for it, outstretching his arms to the best of his ability. His right arm still held onto his chest in which the tourniquet rest upon his bleeding wound. Before he finally faded out, he fell from the wooden platform to the floor, a pounding thud as he hit the cracked floorboards, his fingers gently caressing the zipper of the bag, and his world began to spin. But he stayed intact. He was at the abysmal low of near death condition. But in the same way he was raised, he was made to hurt. And in the world he grew up in, hurt was a luxury, it reminded you that you were alive.

  He unzipped the bag and reached his hand inside, the velvet of the pouch stroking his hand as his fingertips squeezed on the edge of a bottle cap. Realizing he'd found it, he slowly pulled out a grimy plastic bottle of murky water. He slowly unclenched his wound, grunting as the pressure was forsaken, and twisted the bottle cap. Lifting it to his lips, and the contents came spilling into his mouth, as if the bottle was spewing it out. Yet only a quarter or so of the liquid actually managed to stay inside, the rest, running down his cheek, and dropping to the floor, disappearing into the crevices in the floorboards. He swallowed, exasperating in slight disgust at it's taste. His face more or less resembling that of a child sucking on a lemon. 

  Within minuites of consuming the bottle's coloured water, and feeling the cold sting of it's taste. His eyes immediately dropped shut, and without struggle. He fell unto his slumber, laying on the floorboards of a broken home in Noth Carolina. The walls decaying, soon to crumble upon him. Should he not awake beforehand. 

In the distance from the house, a girl ran through the field of dying grass, her breath visible as she panted, running. Up the steps that sit below the house's wooden porch that creaked with the howling wind that blew, hissing in her ear, whipping her hair around. She climbed the steps, and started to pound on the wooden door. A worried expression haunted her face as she continued to try and open the door with impact. Or at least get his attention. But she couldn't, she was too late, he was sleeping on the floor. Flat out, bare chested. His face gaunt, but his face was still flushing with colour. She began to cry, and slide down the door, on her knees. When a hand came from behind, and covered her mouth. She began to scream, desperately flaying her arms around, trying to get a hand on the man. He struggled to keep hold of her, as he tried to reach for his knife in his belt pouch. His face shrouded by a cowl. Eventually he felt the leather strips acting as the grip on the blade, and he thrusted it forward once it was unsheathed. But before the blade was deep into her skin, the door thrust open. 

  A man, standing 5'9, holding a very rusty rifle, wearing a Khaki T-Shirt, stood in the doorway, the firearm raised, his eye down the sight. The attacker's eyes were now fixated onto the weapon, stopping his knife, tilting his head. His smirk could be seen through his long hood that hung over his head. The girl was quivering with cold. And a small standoff was in place. The man in the doorway closed his eyes as he quietly and discretely pulled the trigger. He knew his hand was right with direction. A muzzle flash blinded the man, sending him back a little, and a scream was let out from the girl, kneeling down, the hand now released from her mouth. And blood splattered upon the porch. The sound of the fire echoed through the woods, bouncing through the trees. And the wind grew stronger and colder. Once the silent rogue was sent away into the void, and the echoing settled. The girl stood, in shock, and stared at the man. Muttering words of gratitude to him. He lowered his weapon and stared her right into her eyes, and after a brief moment of silence, he shuffled out of the way of the door, and she stepped inside. Through an archway, into the room where his body lay. She mumbled his name in the relief of his apparent condition. He had been placed upon the table again, and his shirt was dressing his torso. The rifleman stepped aside her and nodded to her, then looking back to him.