"Of all the things you get to choose in life, you don't get to choose what your nightmares are. You don't pick them; they pick you."— John Irving.
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Everywhere around Santiago Morales burned. The legs of the eleven year old boy worked quickly, darting from one path to another where the scorching, raging flames did not touch.
He had to keep running but the flames started blocking each turn until it surrounded him fully, creating no room for escape. It became a wall of intense heat that threatened to burn his very lungs, cooking him from the inside.
Blazing colors of yellow and red danced in the gray eyes of the young boy as he stared deeply into the inferno at a figure forming from within it.
"Santi." The figure called softly and the boy recognized that voice.
"Sebastian?"
Eyes of deep blue shone through the raging orange. "Come." Palm outstretched, Sebastian, his brother called out to him.
Insides filling with a soothing warmth of hope, Santiago took a step towards the flames to his brother.
With every step he took, the heat intensified, hot and searing almost through skin but Santiago couldn't give a care to that. Get to Sebastian. Get to brother. Save my brother- that was all on his mind at that moment as burning gray Iris glued to icy blue one's.
"Ven mi querido hermano." Come my dear brother.
Santiago stretched a hand to take a hold of his brother's, the tips of his fingers grazing an inch to the surface of the inferno.
"Mi hijo!" My son! The voice of a wailing mother yanked him back with a strong force to the middle of the ground in the midst.
Santiago managed to pull himself up to all fours, supported by his hands and knees. His gaze trailed up the person knelt on the ground a few inches away.
Elena Morales's face was ashen, soiled clothes torn all over her body. She wailed and cried out to her son, begging for forgiveness. Inferno still burning around them.
"Mama?" Santiago called out to his mother. He needed her to save him and Sebastian but she didn't come to their aid and he couldn't understand why.
Then mama gave out an earth shattering cry of pain with fiery red hair thrown back.
"Eliminador." Eliminator.
The cold hard voice of Antonio Morales rang through the midst, using that same name Santiago never liked but nonetheless hoped his father had come to save them.
Elimimator was what papa called his most priced possession- him. But Santiago didn't care as long as papa loved him, he'd do anything Papa asked even if he was a torture machine created to destroy Papa's enemies. Santiago looked his father in his deep blue eyes and found hate instead of love. But Papa used to love him. He had learned never to disobey him and lived that way, so why did papa hate him now?
Papa kept yanking Mama's hair and whispering to her as she continued to scream. Tears stung Santiago's eyes as he tried to say something, ask Papa why he was treating mama like that. Or didn't he love her anymore?
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THE PUZZLED PIECES: Broken Pieces
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