Veil of Twilight: Threads of Fate

Fate's Cruel Game

Chapter 1:  Fate's Cruel Game

In a Saturday evening, in a car, with a family of three members on board, there are two concealed identities, one from the husband and the other from his wife, and with their adopted 7-year-old son, Claude

Claude had just visited his mother's friend today... and her daughter, Sarah. The joy in his heart was palpable. His thoughts turned happily towards Sarah in the backseat. "Dad! Mom! let's visit aunt soon again!". Claude, his eyes sparkling with genuine joy and his lips upturned in a contagious smile, uttered words that resonated with an effervescent happiness, painting the air around him with the hues of positivity and creating a moment where the world seemed to dance to the melody of his cheerful spirit. Claude's father replied. "You were only there for your mom's friend's daughter." His father smiles at the rearview mirror, knowing full well that Claude will be slightly flustered.

"H-huh?!" Claude is caught off guard by the mention of his aunt's daughter, and blushes slightly. "Dear, you know how flustered our son gets!" Claude's mom chuckled softly."Just make your studies your number 1 priority and get a stable job, then you can go marry her." his mom suggested."What!.. I-I never intended to marry her..." Claude was on the verge of exploding with emotions, blushing so much that it threatened to consume him.

"Anyways I-" Claude's dad's words were cut off by a screeching sound as their car came close to bumping into a truck, a collision that they were not able to avoid."Claude!" Claude's mother let out a desperate call for her son, and stretched out her hand towards Claude, eager to grasp him in her hold.In a fateful convergence of fate, the two vehicles embraced in an inescapable dance, their metallic bodies colliding with an unsettling resonance that echoed the discord of the moment.

Several minutes elapsed, yet assistance failed to materialize. "Mommy?...Daddy? it.. hurts.." Claude's tears trickled down his face in a steady stream as he gently touched the wound on his forehead, a painful reminder of the collision that occurred only moments ago that left both his parents motionless and bleeding.

After a few minutes of silence, he calls out for them again. "Mama! Dad! help me-" Claude was interrupted by the sound of his father slowly speaking, a sign that the boy's world had been shaken to its core. "Don't.. move... stay right ther-" A sudden and violent expulsion of scarlet droplets escaped his lips, an ominous manifestation that bespoke the internal turmoil besieging him, as the specter of crimson heralded an unsettling chapter in his affliction. "Dad!" he's relieved to see his dad alive. "I'm gonna check mom, okay?" Claude's dad said. "Alright." Claude's father deftly joined his middle and index fingers, gently placing them to gauge her pulse with a discerning touch. "Dad? How's Mama doi-" In the midst of Claude's discourse, an unwelcome interlude unfolded as his father's voice interjected, disrupting the seamless flow of his words. "She's dead."

"....What? There must be no way..""Claude? You know.. I'm gonna go soon... So..," Claude's dad's face was lit with the faint light, and the elusive shroud veiling his countenance dissipated, revealing a clarity that erased every indistinct element.. "..Be a good boy.. kay?" The father addressed the young boy with measured deliberation, his words unfolding gradually, like the pages of a carefully unraveling narrative.."I'm sure we'll meet again.. I promise.. In my next life!". "But-!" Claude felt completely lost in a world that had been turned upside down by the shocking events that had just unfolded before him. "Don't move.. and listen to me.. Help's arriving soon.. so just hang in there son. I love you". In the haunting stillness of the room, his father surrendered to the inexorable embrace of unconsciousness, his life slipping away with a silent grace, and he descended into the abyss, a mere whisper in the symphony of mortality, together with his wife. 

In the grip of terror, Claude witnessed the heart-wrenching tableau before him—his cherished parents, now prone and unmoving. The haunting echo of his father's final words reverberated incessantly within the recesses of his mind., "I'm sure we'll meet again.. I promise.. In my next life!". "I'm all alone... again." Claude's visage carried the burden of grief, tears shimmering on his cheeks, while his eyes dwelled upon the lifeless bodies of his parents—an evocative scene fated to be permanently etched onto the tapestry of his recollections.