With piercing blue eyes, blinking to stay moist. Black nails clawing at the air with each swing of his muscular arms. Black skull blowing in the wind, swallowed in red. Jeans barely clinging to his waist. Black boots crushing the stone of the ground beneath. He walks, a run away, trying to escape his fate.
He walks in shadow, sun obscured by the mountain ahead. Haunting trees watch, silent in their unbreakable curse, to always give and never receive. The devastation of white-water speaks in their place, taunting the cursed with its freedom. It was here he walked, here he wondered, here he fought.
God…F*** him, What’s his f***ing problem, How can he do this to her? Does he not understand how much mom loves him? Every f***ing day…everyday he has some s*** to complain about, every f***ing day. Like no one cares about him, like we don’t do s*** for him. Now I find him sleeping around with another woman. I can’t do this, I can’t let him do this. Why won’t she just leave him? He has never done anything for her. I hate him, I f***ing hate him. I…
He legs grew weak, so he sat. What can I do?

The earth felt cold beneath him, but that cold comforted him, relieved is legs of their stress. There he sat, appauled and angry. The sky above grew dark, grey-black clouds flourishing amidst a flash of lightning across the sky, and that sky began to cry. It’s extraterrestrial tears broke on his pale cold skin, and rolled down his face. His faced looked up from the slouch of his back, and he saw a cave cut into the mountain, mouth wreathed with stone. Out of fear and self-ambition he fled the tears, and emersed himself in it’s darkness. He couldn’t see a thing , but he marched further in to get away from the rain, away from the pain.

In darkness he was comforted, his thoughts left his mouth without a word spoken, his energy was focused on standing strong and not falling victim to scattered stones. Slowly he dragged his boots along the cave floor, it felt smooth. He continued in until his foot hit an obstructed object, with a jingle of glass or metal. He stood for a while kicking at the object, intrigued by the sound and the strange placement of such a material. Not many came up here, he ran here because no one ever does, to be alone and to escape society.

What a surprise, trash in the forest…jerks.
At the completion of his thought, the object grew slightly visible. It’s lumosity continued to grow, and staring back at him was a skeleton of glass, somehow highlighting its own bones, the light focusing at its crystal skull. He backed away, but continued to stare. The skull responded with beads of pink light focusing in its sockets, and its lifeless sockets stared right back.
In a panic he turned, adrenaline filling his blood. From his arms veins swelled, his legs grew strong, and his heart beat faster than the leaves could whisper. He ran, sprinting for the open jaw of the cave, too fast. His mind couldn’t keep up, and his boot sloppily landed in a rut, he caught his toe. His back was the first to hit the cold stone of the floor, and his legs shifted over his body in a violent roll. His right knee pounded the rock, and the rock punched back, leaving his patella shattered, and his ankle broken, thrown from his knees to the ground beneath, like a humble servant abused as a criminal. And a scream tore through the dense grey, of the weeping sky. His eyes grew heavy, and the pain sedated him.
When he awoke, the crying had stopped and the thunder was silenced. Grey clouds replaced by a grand yellow flame. Around him, a familiar forest stood, brightened by the star above. Looking back to the cave, he noticed the pain was numbed, the swelling healed, so he got back up, and started home. Unsure of what he’d say, he remember the night before, what he had seen, how he had felt.
I’ve got to do something. Mom doesn’t deserve this, and he canot get away with this. Simple as that.
And so he set his course back to his home, boots crushing the stone, as he retraced his steps, to find his mistake. As he walked, and as he thought, he once more grew afraid. What he could do, he knew not. What he could say, he spoke not. But what he would think, that was no question.
That skeleton…What was it? Where did it come from? How did it get there? How did it do that? I swear it saw me, it looked at me like a child would a father. It seemed so helpless…..It’s not even alive how could it see me? Much less, look helpless. It’s a pile of bones…but it was made of glass?
Questions filled his head, confused his character. Fear had it’s grasp on his heart, fear of what lay ahead. Fear of his dying block, his cream colored house, his secluded room, his forgotten life. As he walked, and as he thought he came across a stone, one with the shaft of an arrow sticking out of it. It was made of wood, but when he attempted to break it, the shaft wouldn’t bend, nor did it break. On its dorsal end it bore three feathers: one of a bald eagle, one of a great horned owl, and one unrecognized. The feathers left side gleamed black, its right a deep cherry red, and follwing the veins, white stripes. He continued to finger the weapon, analyzing it thoroughly.
What do these mean? Where did this come from?
His thought was interrupted by the sound of a footstep, a soft crunch upon the soil, and he quickly spun.
His chest was met by the tip of an arrowhead, it lightly pierced his skin above the heart, and he started to bleed. The crimson flow stained his shirt, blood slowly spreading from its genesis. The arrow bore those three same feathers, held by a scaled hand. The hand’s figure wa very humanesque, but it’s features were alien. It’s reptilian body stood bare, scaly feathered skin, grey in the day. His face bore a disfigure beak, seemingly torn completely from his head, and on his chin had a dark crimson stain from the blood of another. There the boy stood, and there the creature threatened, what could he do?

He raised his hand in surrender, and the creature screeched in a foreign tongue, raspy and pitch. Here in this moment with hands held high, the boy realized who he really was. Just a kid, lost in the forest, threatened by a creature, and wet with fear. His pride had passed away, his insecurity inhibted, fear defining his faith, he was nothing more than a coward human, hoping to see the light of a next day.

He fell to his knees, fingers white, absent of blood called to feed his second heartbeat. The creature grew silent, the vine of his bow cackled in disgust, and the arrow withdrew. With each cackle the arrow grew stronger.

Consumed by the creak, a taste of bile touched its tongue, stomach too weak to hold it back. Mirrored by fate the boy thought back to his childhood. To a time when everything was a friend. To a time that his heart was whole, and not torn between means. Back to a time when no tears fell, at least no tears of the soul. And one tear escaped his blue eyes, rolled down his blush scarred cheek, clung to a hair held in his perfect jaw, and fell breaking upon the cool soil beneath.

He inhaled the noxious toxicity of pine. Now his pondered death was inevitable. Before this day, death seemed a beautiful lie, now it seemed a pathetic end to a pathetic life. Now he knew it was over. Now he was humbled. Now, he cried his first tears, their soothing moisture forgotten beneath layers of pride.
With a snap and a smirk the arrow came alive, tearing through the air like a falcon to a field mouse.
Goodbye.
The arrow pierced it’s victim. His knees buckled, and to the Earth he fell, clawing at his chest for the arrow, but it wasn’t there, and his heart still beat, unbroken. There stood the cxreature, in his hand the bow, on his back a quiver of three-feathered arrows. When he looked down that same skull stared back, accompanied by that same band name, both unscathed save a few scabs of dirt and hummus. His arms pushed away from their deathbed of stone, and to his knees he rose, and a sharp cramp shot up his body, from his calve, grew the arrow.