“Drip drip drip”
The world went silent and the sounds of the animals in the stable disappeared; only the sound of the rain and the wind were present.
Step tap step tap step tap step ….. pause.
“So we meet again, little bastard.” A well-groomed man walks closer to the young baby buried in the straw, tapping his cane on each step. He reaches his hand out and turns it perpendicular to his chest, with his palm facing his heart, and makes a slight, mocking, bow.
He was neither tall nor short, somewhere in the middle. While his frame was not stocky or rotund as the upper class tended to appear, he was delicate but looked firm. He had a clean, sharp beard surrounding his mouth, which never approached the angles of his cheeks. His hair was as dark as the night sky; that can be found in the middle of the winter solstice, while the flecks of silver appearing in both, his beard and hair, seemed like falling meteors.
His eyes were dark with a cold, gold glimmer, as if stars had been imbedded in them, and where slowly waning. The oddest thing about this man was definitely his cane.
This cane, if ten out of ten people saw it, they would probably never forget its incongruity. The handle was round but if you looked closer, two faces were pressed together, back to back, one screaming, the other laughing and with each tap, of the pitch black shaft–which was indistinguishable from the darkness of the night surrounding it-the face changed! At one point one of the faces appeared as if it was screaming. While the other face had the most loving of expressions. Then after a tap the loving expression turned mournful, while the screaming face wept in joy.
As he approached step by step, fate seemed to be closing a circle. Like a noose waiting at the gallows for its next unlucky “guest.”
If anyone saw this scene they would be confused, not by the thing the man said but the atmosphere. It had a weird, corrupt but pure feeling. Like witnessing a predator killing a newly born foal, the feeling was both vicious but accurate. As if representing all the beauty and filth life represents.
“If I killed you, you would most likely thank me…… I know, I would,” The man walked forward and lightly brushed the straw of the child’s face, with the tip of his cane. The young baby Fifth’s eyes were open and staring, not comprehending but at the same time inquisitive as if waiting for something, maybe its mother, with food, or one of his elder siblings who took care of him while his mother was entertaining a “client.”
Either way, the child instincts made it realize this man wasn’t his mother or any of the usual faces and he began to cry.
“waa~~h!!!”
“Shhhhhhh~,” the man shushed the baby gently, and the baby quieted at the odd sound.
“This iteration has yet to begin young bastard, your tears should be saved for the true suffering, which fate has in store.” The man spoke cynically, as if the child understood, and if anyone had seen this exchange they would have sworn he was mad. “Though I must say, even then, it won’t help...,” he trails off, as he stares down at the young Fifth. A glimmer passes through his eyes, as if echoing some last vestige of sanity.
The man reached out with the tip of his cane and exposed the young babies chest and placed the end on it. Fifth reached out and touched the cane reacting to it as if it was some new game, like the ones he played with his siblings once in a while. Were they would shake colorful sticks that had baubles attached to them in front of him, and he found them fascinating, while cooing and making sounds babies generally make.
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All of a sudden the two heads on the hand of the staff abruptly changed. The eyes on both face closed and they began to scream/sing in unison.
“With this, the madness begins.
Let every event, come to fruition.
Let the screams and tears outline the world in silver and gold.
Rubies of blood and diamonds of bone, encrust the road.
Five steps North,
Five steps South,
Five steps East,
Five steps West.
Crawling forward, running backward.
It begins, it begins…”
After the last echo merged with the night and silence returned a small part of the cane’s shaft detached and melted onto the young baby’s chest.
It formed into a symbol, and then vanished as if it was not even there.
“It is finished.” The man said. A tired look passed across his face, and then ended up swallowed into the darkness of his eyes which had lost the golden spark.
In a flash he returned back to the same sardonic face and posture that he once assumed, giving no hint of the previous weariness.
“It seems that this macabre play has reached its end, and our audience appears bored,” said the man, as he gaze at the night sky.
He turned his head back to the baby who had fallen asleep amidst all the happenings.
“Young bastard, it is time to say goodbye. Considering the fact we will meet again I will refrain from 'wishing you well', as if this was some final adieu were we may never encounter each other. Instead I leave you this parting in hope of a better outcome…” he said while approaching the slumbering baby.
He placed his head next to the baby’s and whispered, softly and full of compassion, more than he appeared capable of, “I wish you a pleasant death.”
He stood up, turned and headed back in the direction he came from tapping his cane along the way.
Though, oddly the two faces situated on the handle of the cane did not change. They both had closed their eyes and were smiling.
After awhile the world returned to normal. The drip that had disappeared had returned and slowly the baby began to awaken as the moisture caused him discomfort on his soft skin.
He began to wail.
“GOD DAMMIT!!!!!! NOT ANOTHER WHORE-SPAWN!!!”, shouted a gravelly voice from the inn nearby.
A unkempt man stormed out of inn and angrily approached the barn preparing to deal with this usual problem once and for all from the beginning.
As he laid eyes on the whimpering baby something strange happened, the symbol, which had disappeared from the baby’s chest, flashed and dissolved back into the babies young tender skin and something changed in the angry eyes of the man.
The violence in his eyes disappeared but the anger remained.
“It seems there is some value to keeping ya. Ya little shit.” He grumbled as he grabbed the child roughly by the blanket and walked back into the inn.
“Someone put a slave seal on ya, and that must mean there could be a reward for ya return.” He began to chuckle, “finally those bitches have started paying up for all the damn trouble they bring.”
He entered and closed the door behind him shutting out the night and the rain.