Within the Mist- Maylor

The Figure

His father's yells screamed out of him as he rushed after the figure that dashed away from view. Going as fast as he could, desperate to catch the bastard who dared to steal all the money savings from the bookstore. The darkness of the night shadowed everything in its path, making the figure even more mysterious than they already were and his father struggling to make his way down the road. Cold air filled with mist blurred the scene, sticking to Roger's clammy face, making it almost impossible to see through it all.

"No! Stop!" his father shrieked after them.

Coins fell out of the back, ringing as they fell to the ground, spilling out of the bag of money. Hands thrashed around, grasping at thin air, trying to see past the light mist along with the snowflakes that showered over the place. Heavy pants for breath and the loud pounding of footsteps broke the stillness and at the same time the commotion of what was happening. Roger ached to go do something, but he couldn't bear to disobey his father's pleads for him to stay behind while he went after the robber in the attempt to stop them.

Heart beat faster and darker thoughts made their way to the front of his mind the more he went out of sight. Looking past the foggininess of the place, out of the corners of his eyes, there he was, running for what seemed like forever. Roger zoned out of the scene, mind taking him elsewhere, where this wasn't a horrible reality that was happening to him. Getting lost in his own world, a gunshot sent him right back into reality. Heart dropped and beat in his ears as his father wasn't yelling anymore, the place turning dead silent. No...Freezing up in his steps, he didn't dare to move an inch, anticipating and crying to hear his father's voice once more. He would come around, it couldn't have...Maybe he'd been standing there for hours on end and he didn't know it, time seemed to stop.

Second after second and it never came, opening his eyes out from his clenched shut eyelids, he scanned the area, shifting around from one place to another. Struggling to focus on anything, he laid eyes on the road that awaited him and went up to the point where the figure came into view. They rushed further out of the scene and before they left for good, he shot Roger a look from under their mask that he would never forget. One of no sympathy or guilt for what they had done. Locking eyes, they turned back around and ran off into the depths of the night. He was left there, traumatized at the young age he was, with a dead father on Christmas. A sense of numbness filled him and brought him out of the moment and away from it all. Standing off from the rest of the world, getting lost in his own head with the thoughts and the utter confusion of what had happened.

He wanted answers, but there was no getting any now. It was too late. The rest of the night went by without him ever snapping out of his dazed state and he didn't want to either. It was too much for him to take. Sirens of police cars and ambulances rang softly in the background of the chaos that churned up inside him and lights that flashed all around him, it didn't direct his attention away from the pit of nothingness that consumed his emotions. There wasn't anything else to do but to let himself drown in his state of pure shock, the events failing to process in his mind. As much as he didn't want to believe it, the real truth came through to him at one point. There was nothing he could do. Any sounds from the outside echoed around in his head and the deafening sound of gunshots came in, out from his memory and didn't leave, lingering in his thoughts for as long as they could. The police's words sounded like pure nonsense in his ears, not being able to understand any of it and it wasn't that he wanted to either. His dad's dead body being pulled up into the ambulance in and that was it, the last time he would ever see him and the first time he would come into the path of the figure that turned his life upside down in one night.