Short Stories

Blood Red Like A Rose (Angst)

⚠️Warnings: Blood And Gore, Character Death, Child Death⚠️

Blood Red Like A Rose:

Cairan woke slowly, refusing to yet open his eyes as he stretched his stiff muscles. He was sore from sleeping on the leaf strewn ground of the Time Warp Woods but it had been worth it if only to keep Rayan safe from the cold and hard ground himself. He hoped his coat had helped the young boy keep warm during the night. He promised himself that today he'd find a better, more safe location for them to reside where the others wouldn't find them.

Finally peeling his eyes open, Cairan half heartedly glared up at the sunlight flickering between the leaves of the trees above, shining his eyes in a poor attempt to blind him. He half longed for his bed in the castle he'd left behind but he opted not to think about what he had. He couldn't stay there when they kept him away from Rayan. Nothing was worth being separated from the boy.

With a groan, Cairan pushed himself into a sitting position, glancing around the small clearing of the forest that he now noticed had an array of roses and berry bushes, no doubt poisonous ones but nonetheless a pretty sight of mother nature.

Continuing to scan the little area, it took Cairan's sleepy brain to catch up on what was missing.

Where was Rayan?

The three words were enough to make Cairan breath hitch in fear, his heart picking up speed as his mind panicked. The spot Rayan had fallen asleep in the other night was empty, the young boy nowhere to be seen.

"Ray-Ray!" Cairan shouted, scrambling up to his feet as he whipped around, gray eyes wildly searching the small area for the boy in case he had somehow managed to miss him. He hoped desperately that Rayan was somewhere close by, close enough to hear Cairan calling his name and would come running any second with a happy shout of Cairan's own name back. "Rayan!"

But there were no racing footsteps, no call of Cairan's own name in return, no sight of the little boy.

There was, however, a scream.

One that tore at Cairan's very soul because he had heard that scream before but never this petrified and fearful, never so ear-splittingly loud. Cairan's heart beat hard enough to hurt as he took off without a second thought in the direction the scream had come from.

"Rayan!" Cairan yelled, pushing through the shrubbery, ignoring the branches or thorns that caught at his clothes, tearing them as he forcefully ripped himself away. All his thoughts were to get to Rayan. Get to Rayan, now.

The scream came again, quieter, weaker, almost like a last attempt for anyone to hear him. Cairan pushed his legs to go faster, chest straining to keep bringing oxygen into his thorn filled lungs. But he didn't focus on the pain. He couldn't. Not now. Not when Rayan needed him most.

Heart pounding in his chest, Cairan stumbled to a new clearing that led to a lake, murky green with lily pads floating on the surface and thin trees growing out the very water reaching high into the morning sky. Multiple kinds of flower bushes surrounded the lake's edge making it seem almost surreal. Any other time, Cairan would have been able to appreciate the beauty of the place as his kind was akin to do.

But Cairan saw none of that, his vision instead tunneling to the sight at the edge of the water where a gruesome scene was taking place in such beauty.

There was a creature that Cairan knew not the name of, nor cared to know, a slimy thing, half covered with wet moss as if it had just crawled from the lake itself. It resembled the likes of a crocodile though Cairan knew it was likely anything but. It was small, whatever it was but those teeth were still sharp.

Teeth that were stained with blood, flesh hanging from them, the ground stained red.

And lying still on his stomach, pale and unmoving, not even a single sign of life from the boy was Rayan.

The blood drained from Cairan's already too pale face, the little breath stolen from his lungs and as he watched, frozen to the spot as the beast growled deeply, a sickeningly satisfied noise as blood continued to soak the ground. Rayan's blood from the mangled wound in the boy's side,  the beast opening its bloody maw for another bite.

And something in Cairan broke, shattered like glass, the shards cutting up his heart as an enraged and heartbroken scream tore from his throat which caused the creature to turn, slitted eyes focusing on Cairan. There was nothing besides hunger behind those eyes and it caused Cairan's anger to spike, hands clenching into fists.

There was no warning for the beast as thorns, deadly as knives themselves shot up from the ground under the beast in all directions, impaling the soft underside of its stomach, neck and head, twisting and turning inside the creature, ripping apart its insides and sprouting out its mouth covered in red blood, dripping from the thorny vines.

Cairan took a shaky breath, staring without really seeing the mangled corpse of the monster, clenched hands shaking ever so slightly at his side until he released a breath, eyes turning to the still figure beside the beast.

Breaking out of his daze, Cairan rushed forward, nearly tripping on the roots growing from the ground in his haste and fell to his knees beside the boy, ignoring the dead beast near him and the rancid smell it gave off.

The wound Rayan sustained was still oozing blood, sluggishly now which wasn't a good sign. That meant he had lost a lot of blood already. Cairan was terrified of touching the boy as he knelt petrified beside him, his whole body shaking as he looked for any sign of life.

But something told him it was already too late.

Tears brimmed Cairan's eyes as he raised a shaky hand, reaching out and lightly brushed away curly brown hair from Rayan's face. He was frozen in place once again when blank, unseeing, dead blue eyes stared back at his own.

For a few, silent seconds, Cairan felt nothing but numbness, his brain trying and failing to comprehend what it was exactly that he was seeing. Surely this wasn't right. His mind had to be playing tricks on him. This couldn't be the reality. It couldn't. Please, don't let it be true.

And then all at once it hit him like a gunshot to his heart. Cairan felt tears fall down his face as he opened his mouth and let out an agonizing scream of misery.

And as pain bloomed red in Cairan's heart, a bloody red rose sprouted from the wound of the dead boy.

•°•°•°•

✒I needed this ❤ No, I will not evaluate✒

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