Prologue

Rejection and abandon are heavy, and they hurt.

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Wake up, wake up
There’s an angel in the snow

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Family; Noun
Any group of persons closely related by blood

Then shouldn’t those who looked different, had unusual or unsettling attributes still be welcomed into a family? A mother’s love for her own child, her own flesh and blood... Shouldn’t that surpass everything, even town prejudice? Even though he had a seemingly unnerving difference, he was still apparently loved.  He hadn’t been told otherwise, so surely that meant his family were inside, waiting. He could feel the warm air coming from under the door, just enough to tease him as the bitter cold nipped at his skin.
He wished he could hear above the howling wind that deafened him. It drowned out the calls, and the pummelling on the door.
Perhaps this was what kept him going for so long. The desperate hope that the only reason the door hadn’t unlocked and beckoned him inside, into the arms of his family, was because they didn’t know he was out there.
Firm hands eventually clasped around him, dragging him abruptly backwards whilst his body struggled and wings flapped. Of course he was scared, and of course he cried out with the last of his spent voice. He saw the door to his small house open, and his mother rush out. She was still poorly, and in her crippling tears looked more fragile than ever.
“Mama! Tell them ‘no’! Tell them you’re sick, and you need me!” he called. The hands kept dragging, each refusing to be shaken as they acted like lead weights. “My mother is sick. Please don’t take me now... Please. Mama is sick, and I need to care for her. I’m not ready to go. Mama needs me...” and still, they refused to release their stone grip.
Frantic tears were wiped away, and the boy with hair like the ice through which he was dragged eventually was locked into a nearby waiting wagon.  He called out again and again, flung against the wood that held him at bay.
She just stood there, weeping into her husband’s clothes.
“Ma’am, this is your last chance. He still has some time, and we are happy to come by in the later season, when it is warmer and you are better,” One cloaked, male voice said. He looked up through swollen eyes to his mother, who was shaking her head.
“No...My son isn’t going to get better. Please, take him away...”
Time stopped.
The wind seemed to take a deep breath, and his clothes paused with their billowing. His tears solidified on his cheeks, eyelashes frozen from the iced moisture. She didn’t want him anymore. His mother, so sick she could barely walk, didn’t need him anymore. She wanted him to be taken away, where he couldn’t come back.
It hurt so much.
He was numb with hurt. The two limbs which had caused everything hung limp behind him, and slowly he slumped to the freezing floor.

  

****

Hours ticked, confusing themselves with minutes, days or years. However long it was before the wagon finally stopped, he was shivering so much his teeth hurt from slamming together. He could hear the cloaked men speaking again, yet his brain had no energy to decipher what they were saying until they came closer.
“I honestly don’t think they’re that dangerous...” One whispered. He sounded upset and hesitant.
“Are you a fool? Not even Heaven itself can hold them, and that only means one thing!”  Another hissed.
“But how can you be sure?”
“They all have wings! They all look like the statues of angels,” He sounded exasperated, and opened the wagon door too rough. The sound reverberated around the area, which sounded very big and very empty. “That’s why we have to give them back. All of them, you hear?”
Everything seemed thick and sluggish as the cloaked man picked him up, as if his mind was debating whether or not to process the information. He was tossed unceremoniously to the granite hard floor, skidding momentarily until he landed in a tangled heap.
The slender, white blonde boy curled into a tight ball to the sound of horse hooves and the wagon they pulled.

 

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Look up, look up
It’s a frightened dead boy
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-tbc-

By J.M Selleck

Author's Note

Please review.
I'm rather attached to this story. I'm sorry it's so sad, and i'll try to make it a little less morbid soon enough.

Reviews

[Ibex]

Good opening JM! I love how you're really descriptive, it makes me feel like I'm actually there. I felt so sad for the boy when he was taken away and, though it's not the best of feelings =D, I'm really glad that you made me, the reader, feel sympathy toward your character! A great prologue JM, it was very good!