An Unexpected Epoch - Short Story No.1

Short Story No.1- An Unexpected Epoch

This story was originally meant for a Christmas writing competition but I thought to upload it on Wattpad anyway. Then I thought that maybe I could do a series of short stories as I'm bad at sticking with the long ones. Read and enjoy!

JoinkyBots

"Come now, it's not too far,"

He looked past where his antlers were soon to grow and up into the night sky. Amidst the bright stars of the North, there was a red light flying gently towards the two of them.

"Mama, could that really be one of your kind?"

She stopped and turned to look at her son, her brown eyes stern but kind.

"One of ours," she said smiling, "one of our kind. Just because you haven't developed a red nose yet, does not mean you're not one of us."

Her nose was glowing a brilliant scarlet as she said this, and then she turned around, breaking into a trot.

"Stay there, I'll be down in a minute!" she called down to the small reindeer. This was always an extraordinary sight for Rudolph, however many times he had seen his mother do it. The trot grew into a run and from there it only got faster. Her legs were becoming a blur and her nose was glowing brightly in the night. Up towards the red light she flew, becoming faster by the second. Her ambitious eyes were set firm upon the red dot, growing bigger and bigger.

Then everything happened in almost an instant. Her loving brown eyes turned to those of fear and before she could slow down, the sound of spinning rotor blades chopping the air flooded her ears and a sharp slash was drawn across her chest. Falling. She felt the crunch of the snow beneath her. The sound of running hooves. For a few seconds she looked up at the moon as if trying to admire it for one last time. Then the wave of warm tears flooded over her.

"Lost your glove? Oh, alright I'll look for it. Bye dear. Bye!"

Mrs Claus put down the phone and sighed heavily. On went the socks, the coat and the hat. She strode over to the front door, which was covered top to bottom in tinsel, and opened it. A blast of chilly air and flying snow rushed into the house, but Mrs Claus didn't seem too bothered.

"All this just for a silly old glove," she muttered under her breath, "such a petty man!"

In the cold snow, she trudged on and on, her eyes peeled for the glove. She saw something to her left and walked towards it, in hope of ending this silly quest. As she drew closer, however, she could tell that it was most certainly not a glove. The body of a female reindeer with a bleeding wound on its chest and a young male, most likely still a child, lay still next to it. The mother was clearly dead but she checked the calf. A slow but steady drum of the heart was felt and the warm, kind fingers roused him.

"Now, what's your name then?"

"Rudolph," he said.

"Let's get you home then, Rudolph."

And so off they went, hope and a bright red nose leading the way.