• "Alex!" A mother calls from her home, hung over from the previous one-night stand that she had with another random man.
    "Yeah?" A son calls from the forest next to their home.
    "Lunch is ready!"
    "Okay!"

    The mother set up the table, carelessly tossing a paper plate in front of the boy. She placed a peice of pizza, dripping wet from the grease onto it. He glared at it for a moment.
    She mother, seeing this, reached across the table and slapped him.
    "What, isnt it good enough for you?" She shouted at him.
    He held his face, beginning to cry.
    "Stop crying and eat your damn food."
    He picked it up and ate it. He scowled at the foul taste of it. The mother slapped him again.
    "You ungrateful little p***k! Nothing is good enough for you is it?" She snarled.
    "Mom-"
    "Did I say you could speak?" She grouched.
    He didn’t respond.
    "ANSWER ME!" She screamed.
    "N-no," He stammered.
    "That's right, maybe your not as stupid like your good-for-nothing father."
    The boy stood up in response. He adored his father, and it was because of the mother that he left. Everyone knew she was a whore; The town bike that everyone has had a ride on.
    "It's your fault that dad left! It's your fault and you know it!" He yelled at her.
    Her eyes widened and her mouth formed a perfect O.
    She hated it when people thought differently then she did. He was her son and he was supposed to do whatever she said and was not allowed to think differently then her.
    Instead of slapping him, she punched the 9 year old in the nose. And even as he laid on the ground, she went over and kicked him.

    But what she didn’t know is that she had broken one of his ribs that stabbed his lung.

    "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE NOW!" She screamed into his ear, pulling him up by his hair.
    The boy pulled away from her, (ripping out some of his hair in the process though,) and he ran out the door.

    He bolted into the forest, leaping over fallen trees. As his lungs were filling with blood, it became more difficult to breathe. Blood began to trail down the corners of his mouth.
    He cut his legs running through a thorn bush. He then tripped over a rock, leaving a big gash up the side of his leg, severing a vein in his leg.
    To weak to run, he crawled further and further, making horrible gurgling sounds.
    He finally rested on a mound of dirt, crying, bleeding, hurting, and dying.
    He began to feel the insects rising from the ground, starting to feed on his flesh. He twitched, trying to get the bugs off of him, but it was useless; The insects had already claimed the body for themselves.

    The boy felt something touch his shoulder; He lifted his head.
    And there he saw his father, kneeling down, staring back at him.
    "D-dad?" The son asked, pausing to spit out blood.
    "Hey, Alex," His father said. He then looked that the cuts and bruises on his son. "Oh dear... Did mom hurt you again?"
    The son began to cry even harder. He could only nod.
    "It's a good thing you got away when you did. You ran faster then the speed of light, just like the time we played football outside of the house."
    Alex gave a weak smile.
    "I knew you'd like that." His father said. "Would you want to do that again? Play some football?"
    The son nodded.
    The father stood up.
    "Well, lets go talk to mom and then we can play some football."
    He held out his hand to his son.

    "Alex!" The mother called from the house. "I'm sorry! Please come home so we can watch a movie together!"
    No answer.
    She huffed and headed back inside. She knew he would be back soon. He always did even after she beat him.

    She headed into the living room and sat on the couch. She was about to put up her feet, when she heard someone come in; She turned around.
    "There you are, Alex," She said, staring at her son who stood at the center of the room.
    "I'm back, mom," He said. His pupils were large and dark, as if he was staring off into space. "Dads here too, by the way."
    She froze, her empathy for her bleeding son gone.
    "Do you think your being funny?" She snapped.
    "He always was a jokester, right Amanda?" A voice said, then the father stepped around the corner.
    The mother, staring at the bullet hole at the center of his head, let out a horrified blood curdling scream.
    "You don’t remember this?" He asked. "You should. After all you did it to me."
    She shook her head.
    "No?" The son said.
    "Alex-"
    The boy opened his mouth to speak, only it was the mothers voice that came from it.
    "Did I say you could speak?"
    "I don’t believe you did, Alex," The father said. "She never was good at listening. He then began to walk over to her and took out a gun from his pocket.
    "You remember this right? You used it on me, after all."
    "Take the gun, mom," The son began. "Put it in your mouth, and pull the trigger."
    The mother shook her head, hot tears running down her face.
    "Do it for me mom."
    "Alex..."
    "Please do it for me. Do one thing in your life that isn’t a mistake."
    She took it, with her hands shaking, and placed it in her mouth. She looked over to her son's pure black eyes.
    "I love you, mom," He said.
    She pulled the trigger.

    Laughter from a father and son could be heard that afternoon playing football. The father tosses the ball into the air, and the son lifts his arms to catch it.

    And the mother is nowhere to be seen...