#fantasyviolence

[starwhisperstories]

"Strange Little Creature" -Marr0w

Read time: 5 minutes

(782 words)

Nox gets a flesh-wound, and Aaron gets a reminder.

Read It On StarWhispers.co

[codyjayp]

Real or Fiction: A Short Story

This is something that I just threw together in a few hours and I know it's not wonderful or amazing, but I enjoyed writing it. I know it's not perfect. It needs work. But I'm trying to develop my skills and thought this was an okay starting point. He always wanted to know what it was like on the other side of the fence. The kids seem to have fun playing their silly games of hide and seek, freeze tag, and dodgeball. He always wanted to join them, but his parents forbade him from ever leaving his tower. He would watch the girls from his bedroom, their laughter echoed off the stone walls. One day. He thought to himself. I will join them. He always wanted to know what it was like on the other side of the door. He never went to school, as his parents homeschooled him. His only friends were the stuffed animals his parents kept giving him to keep him preoccupied. Oh, he had adventures with them alright. They always involved busting through the gated fence and go out into the real world. He would imagine what life on the other side would be like with his friends. One day. He thought to himself. I will break out of here. He always wanted to know what it was like on the other side of the tv screen. The world seemed so beautiful and peaceful inside the forty-inch television set that was in the living room. Full of reds, blues, oranges, and greens. Different than the blacks, greys, and whites that he had become so accustomed too. The world inside the tv looked so fun to be a part of with all the water lilies, the dandelions, and plants he never heard of. Rides and games that he could have never came up with in his wildest dreams. It was like the world was a big playground, and his parents were only keeping him from playing in it. One day. He thought to himself. I will play in the big playground. He always wanted to know what the world around him was like. He hated his parents for keeping him in his prison cell, sheltered from the rest of the world. He didn’t understand what the big deal was, what were his parents afraid of. They would tell him stories about how monsters and demons would drag him away from his fortress if he played in the garden. That he would be whisked away by evil villains who would only return him to his loving parents for money. That the world was a dangerous place, and that he was better off inside the palace where everything was safe. He didn’t understand what his parents were so afraid of. The world didn’t seem to be as evil of a place as his parents were making it out to be. So, one day; while they weren’t paying attention, he walked out the front door and out into the world. The sun was so bright. So warm. Different than his cold, lifeless room. The smell was so pleasant. So appetizing. Different than his odorless, unappealing castle. The garden looked so better out here than it did in his room. The dirt crunching against his feet was the most pleasing sound he ever heard in his life. He never seen a brilliant red rose as he did out in the garden. You see mom and dad.[/i] He thought to himself. The world isn’t as scary as a place as you thought to be. He heard kids playing on the street, outside of the fence. He walked up to the golden bars and watched as the kids were playing some sort of new game. There were kids sitting in the circle, giggling, as one kid was patting them on the head yelling ‘duck, duck…GOOSE!’. He laughed when the goose failed to capture the tagger. The kids stopped their game to look over at him, the boy behind the fence. Instead of turning away in disgust, shunning him; as his parents led him to believe. The kids beckoned him to join them. He glanced at the stone castle once last time before exiting through the golden gate and out onto the pavement. A rush of adrenaline washed over his body as he took his first steps outside of the castle. One of the red-headed kids grabbed his arm and pulled him into the group with the others. They all looked like him. Red hair, green eyes, and short noses. He never questioned why they looked so similar at first. It didn’t matter. He was outside the fence playing with the kids that he had been watching from his room the past six months. It was all fun at first. He didn’t get upside when he wasn’t chosen to be the goose, and he never protested when he didn’t capture his tagger. He was enjoying a real game in the real world with real people. He laughed with the other kids as their game went on. Then the game was over. The kids disbanded, and he was left alone. He snuck back into the castle unnoticed, promising that he would escape his prison again tomorrow and play whatever new game his new friends came up with. Except when he woke up the next morning, the kids weren’t there. He was disappointed when he didn’t see him outside his bedroom window. He dreamt of them helping him escape his tower by the way of a rope made from blankets. He imagined himself shimmying down different colors and patterns of cloth, cloth that he never seen before in his life. They would hide the blanket in the throne bush, so his parents wouldn’t find it before he climbed back up into his room. No, there was a different sight to see for this little prince. There was an adult wearing a suit staring at the castle. Fear struck into his heart once he and the adult stranger met eyes. He quickly moved from the window and crawled under his bed. He felt his entire body shaking. What was that strange man doing here? Why did he look so familiar? Had he seen him on tv at one point? Maybe. He didn’t know. He didn’t move from his hiding place until his parents, distressed, called out for him. Obediently, he crawled out from under his bed and walked down the stairs into the living room where his parents were talking with this strange man. “You can’t do this!” His mother cried out. “Please! He’s our baby!” “Maybe we can talk about this later,” his father tried pleading with the stranger. “This is the only home he’s known.” “I’m sorry, but you knew this would happen when you stole him from his family.” The stranger mentioned. “They allowed you to keep him this long because they are kind and considerate people. But you obviously don’t know how to raise a child.” “What’s going on?” He finally asked. The adults looked over at the poor prince. His mother was now enraged. “You little monster!” His mother screamed. “You left the house yesterday, didn’t you?!” He was confused and scared. Why was his mother acting like this? He was only out in the street. He didn’t go anywhere else. He started seeing scales appear on his mother’s arms and her eyes started changing color and shape. Her ears became more pointed, prominent and a green tail started forming. “I-I-I’m sorry…” He was shaking. He felt a flick of fire braze against his skin. Why was his mother attacking him? Why was his father letting his mother do this to him? “Ma’am! If you touch the boy again, you will be arrested.” The stranger, who was now transforming into a knight in armor, stated. “You can’t arrest me! He’s my baby! You can’t do anything!” “Let them go honey,” his father pleaded. He was transforming into an elderly man wearing well-worn rags. “Please. It’s for the best.” His mother, now fully transformed into a green dragon, spat fire at his father. “Don’t tell me what to do! He’s my baby!” His mother started burning the entire castle down brick by brick. “If I can’t have that boy, no one will!” The knight stood in front of the boy and blocked the fire ball with their shield. Other knights appeared and started attacking the dragon with their sword. All the boy could do was watch as the knights and the dragon kept fighting with each other until the dragon was finally slain. “Mom!” The young prince cried out, running to the dragon. However, the knight picked the boy up in his arms and started running. “Let me go! I want my mommy! Please! NO!” Everything started transforming back to normal. His mother was on the ground with four policemen hovering over her body. His father was talking to the men whom just harmed his mother. The stone bricks of the castle started fading into grey wallpaper. The thrones in the living room started turning into two couches. The garden that he was so fond of was nothing but piles of plastic bags and garbage. The golden gates and fence were just a mere wooden fence with a white gate. The whole world around the boy was changing, and all he wanted was to hug the woman that was planted face down on the grey-stained carpet. Then the world suddenly faded to black. The young prince woke up in a fright. He was back in his blue-painted room. He shook his head and headed to the bathroom that was only two steps away from his bedroom. It might have been a silly nightmare, but it was real. He had repressed the memory of his kidnappers for so long that he couldn’t tell what was real and what was in his head. He knew that the castle was fake. He knew that his mother never turned into a dragon, and that she punched him in the face; hard. He knew that the garden was fake and that the gates were fake. The detective and policemen weren’t knights. But, he thought this to himself often, the kids. Were the kids real? Or did he make them up to? He would never receive an answer, as the detective refused to talk further on the subject. His therapist suggested that the kids were just his imagination, a way to envision a life on the other side of the fence. In truth, the kids were a figment of his imagination. But, like his mother transforming into a dragon, the kids were a transformation too. The detective never had the heart to tell the young prince. But the kids he was playing with… Were his teenage siblings. His sisters and parents knew that he was captured all along, but the police never listened. So they decided to take manners into their own hands. His parents decided to do the detective work and; once they found where the young boy was hiding, devise a plan to rescue him. His sisters, all along, were the kids that played outside of his bedroom window. They never returned because, sadly, they were murdered. By the same people that kidnapped him. And that was something that nobody wanted the poor boy to know.