IND Prologue (rmk II)

Prologue
The night was dark if it wasn’t for the bright moon that took the sun’s place when it retired for the day. The night was unusually cold but the moon’s presence had somehow made the night warmer than it was cold. At least, it was what Mathew had thought with his six year old mind.

At the age of six, Mathew knew no more than fairy tales, make-believes, miracles and to do what he is told so that he’ll get wonderful gifts at Christmas from Santa Claus. Mathew didn’t know much about the world but who could blame him; he’s just a child, young, too young actually, all he did everyday was wake up and read the books his parents gave him.

Among his readings, there was “Snow White And The Seven Dwarves”. Snow White was known as the most beautiful woman in the story and there was a jealous witch that wanted to put an end to Snow White’s beauty by bringing her to “the end”. Finally the witch had snow white masticate a poison apple and Snow White collapse right after that. Towards the end, a handsome prince stood in the sun with his glorious horse; he rode down the hill and planted his lips unto Snow White’s. Snow White then regains consciousness as if nothing had ever happened and they live happily ever after.

There was also “The Red Riding Hood”. There was a girl that look nice in red hood and everyone in the village started to call her the red riding hood. One day, little red riding hood was visiting her sick grandma which lives in a small cottage in the other side of the forest; on the way there, she came across a wolf and they both raced to grandma’s cottage, both taking a different route. The wolf manage to reach the cottage first and he swallowed grandma; red riding hood was also swallowed by the wolf when she arrived at the cottage and the wolf fell into a deep slumber after having his meal. By chance, a woodcutter came across the small window of the cottage and peeked in; he found a wolf sleeping soundly on the bed and its stomach was big as if it was pregnant. The woodcutter then took a scissors and tore open the wolf’s belly; surprisingly, grandma and red riding hood were in there wholly and unharmed. Red riding hood went out and search for stones; after doing so, she placed the stones she found in the wolf’s belly and grandma stitch the belly back with her sewing kit. Moments later, the wolf felt terrible when he woke up and swore never to eat humans again.

And from those stories, Mathew concluded that whatever happens, even if someone gets eaten or faints and collapse or whatever disaster one can name; everything will turn out right in the end. That had been Mathew’s way of living.

Mathew had been sleeping safely inside his room that night, warm and protected from whatever danger that was out there. The winds outside were strong and persistent, the trees nearby shook in chaos as the winds brush over their branches and leaves. The moon stood tall in the naked skies, blanketing the lands with its translucent light.

In the midst of peace and innocence, Mathew’s room door suddenly swung open and hit the wall with a loud thud which woke Mathew from his dreams. Mathew sat up straight in his bed with his hands rubbing his eyes and realized that his mom was peeking out the window from its side, as if spying someone somewhere out there.

“Mommy, what are you doing there?” Mathew muttered as he walk across the room and to the window but his mom didn’t seem to noticed him. She looked out the windows from its corners, as if to make sure she wasn’t seen at the thing she is looking at. Mathew walked passed his racks of books and reach the window; he found himself looking at a black horse.

“mommy, look, there‘s a horse downstairs!” Mathew yelled with joy as he unlocked the window but his mom didn’t seem to notice him and Mathew saw some disturbance in the trees in the dark. Uncle Ken ran out of nowhere from the bushes and started to head for the house; a few men came out from the same place shortly and they had sticks (it was what Mathew recognized it as in the dark) on their hands. They pointed the stick at uncle Ken and then there was a loud bang; uncle Ken literally flew forward from where he was and fell on the ground with his back squirting out some reddish liquid but he was still crawling towards the house, so Mathew thought uncle Ken was just playing a game. The window was now open and Mathew’s mom had finally took noticed of him.

“Uncle Ken, wha…” Mathew’s mom grab him away from the window and two of them fell to the ground before he could finish what he wanted to say; there was another loud bang and the window near them shattered into pieces. Mathew heard lots of footsteps in his house after the second loud bang.

“Where did that came from and where‘s Mathew and Marry!” Mathew’s father, Tom’s voice exploded, so that everyone would be able to hear it.

“Damnation, they shot at Mathew’s room!” Willis, Mathew’s brother barked. Mathew was on the floor with his hands on his ears and his mother was on top of him, hugging him and sobbing at the same time. Her eyes were wide open with fear.

“They‘re fine” Willis assured Tom so he’ll have one thing lesser to worry about. Somehow, Willis’s presence had calm down Mathew’s mom. She got up from the ground with Mathew in her arms.

“Willis, you know what to do” Marry whispered into his ear with a voice mixed with sadness and bravery and hurried of.

“Mom, what’s happening, why is everybody awake and what happened in my room, were u playing hide and seek with uncle Ken and what was that loud noise?” Mathew blurted out all his questions in an instant.

“Everything will be fine, in the end” that was what Mathew’s mom told him on and on and Mathew recalled of all the stories he had read and Mathew was convinced that everything will turn out right. They were now in the hallway, the lights weren’t lighted; it was dark but Mathew’s mom weren’t bothered by the darkness, she relied on her memory and made way to the stairs. Mathew thought it was strange that there was no one in their way, there was only Willis at their back and he wondered what was the footsteps he heard about.
“Where’s everyone?” Mathew asked.
“Somewhere safe”
“Safe?” Mathew asked curiously and hugged his mother tighter on the back “What do you mean, mom?”
“Everything will be fine, dear, I won‘t let them do anything to you”
“Them, what them, who‘s them”
“Mathew, just stop asking questions, this is not the time” Mathew’s mom answered him hastily and he nodded as an agreement. They took the stairs before them which leader to the lower part of the house. Even the lower part of the house were dark except for the moonlight that found its way through the windows and curtains. After coming down the stairs, Mathew’s mom took a right turn and when into the dinning room where Mathew saw everyone else; the maids, gardeners, cleaners, his uncles and aunts, everyone were inside the room except for Willis.

The dining room was enormous, it’s one of the biggest room in the house. It was the rectangular dining table that could fit about fifteen occupants that occupy most of the space of the room. There were paintings of sceneries on one side of the room, on the other side were racks full of books and magazines and a few windows for enjoying the view, at the end of the room was a cupboard that carried seasonings, flavorings and spices; at the side of the cupboard was a small cache, big enough to fit a puppy.

Mathew couldn’t help noticing that there were a small group of maids gathering near the first window, they were sobbing endlessly and babbling words he couldn’t understand. The rest of them were nervous and Mathew could see that some of his uncles were losing their heads and minds but they kept themselves calm to calm those around them. By being in that room, more questions surfaced themselves in Mathew’s mind but he didn’t speak of anything or make a sound after his mom told him to be quiet.

Mathew was taken to the end of the room by his mom and she opened the cupboard; she slit her hand in and there was a faint tick sound and a part of the wood from the cupboard ejected itself from the surface. Mathew’s mom removed the ejected piece and place Mathew in there.

“No matter what happens, Mathew, stay in here until everything‘s fine” Mathew’s mom whispered to him in the air and planted a kiss on his forehead. Behind his mom, Willis and Tom entered the room with an arm-full of shotgun (Mathew’s father once explain how a shotgun works to Mathew and that Mathew should never ever touch it but Mathew didn’t really get what his father meant) and distributed it among the men. After that, they barricaded the patio doors with chairs around the dining table and they did a little rearrangement with the furniture around the room. The dining table was toppled over and two of its legs were removed, the book rack by the wall was pushed out and place near the wall until it achieved a perpendicular angle with the wall.

“Remember what I said?” Mathew’s mom asked and he realizes his mom was talking to him the whole time while he was distracted by the activities in the room.
“Stay here no matter what, right?” Mathew tried to smile and his mom gave him a tight hug with a kiss on his cheek and place him back into the cramped space; Mathew lifted his legs until it touched his chest so that his mom could place back the piece of wood that ejected itself earlier, so that the cupboard wouldn’t look like an unsolved puzzle from the outside. Mathew found light coming through a small crack in the cupboard’s inner wall and he peeked through it and saw the people in the room; Mathew had doubts that whatever happened that night wasn’t a game but his mom had said everything will be fine in the end. With his mother’s words and his knowledge of fairy tales and happily ever after tales, Mathew was convinced that nothing is wrong and everything is fine; with that, he decided that everything was just a game and he giggled away at the joke he thought he fell for.

He spy through the crack and found Willis and two other men were leaning against the back of the book rack; Tom and Mathew’s uncles were squatting behind the toppled table, all of them were armed with shotguns. Six other men which were the family’s gardeners stood beside the patio doors, three at each side with the legs of the table and chairs gripped firmly in their fists. Mathew ceased his giggles as a sudden thud came from the barricaded door but it barely moved an inch.
“It wouldn’t budge” a coarse voice came from outside.
“Out of the way” another voice fill the air. There was a series of banging and knocks but the door didn’t budge a bit. Then there was a bang and part of the door cracked but it was still close. The men in the room were at arms and hiding behind the toppled table and book rack; and those without shotguns were armed with chairs and bats. The ladies were hiding in the wine cellar below the room, not far away from where Mathew was placed. As the series of knocks and bangs begin again, Mathew begin to doubt that it was all just a game.

Another loud bang came and a chip of the door (Mathew’s dad said the wood use to build this house is one of the toughest wood in the world) detached itself from it; then something came through the crack, it was a tip of a shotgun and from it, came out shells, sparks and fears but fortunately it was the table that took the damage, no one was harmed. Whispers came from outside the room and a series of shots from shotguns were heard and the patio doors vibrated constantly.

Mathew peeked through the crack once more and saw some of the men around the room, their limbs were shaking out of fear. The once peaceful ambience in the room became so intense that Mathew felt that the box he sat in was shrinking and he was sweating everywhere. He kept convincing himself that everything was a drama, a play, an act but every time he succeeded in convincing himself, his eyes would betray him by peeking through the hole; and by looking at those men, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

The sound of woods colliding and falling came from outside; Mathew peeked through the hole again and he found that the doors were brought down by those outside, what’s left was an empty square in the wall that revealed nothing but another wall outside.

In the blink of an eye, two men with shotguns came into sight and aimed their guns at the room but they weren’t inside the room yet. The right one started to approach the room, taking small steps as precaution, the gardener at the right by the door raised his bat (leg of the table) up and gave it a big swing that collided with the cheek of the approaching gunman; the gunman in the left raised his gun immediately in an attempt to take out the gardener that was smacking the life out of his partner but before he could fire, two men standing behind the wall sprang out into the corridor. One of them pushed the gun to the wall while the other man whacked the gunman’s head. Tom called the three of the men that were bashing the gunmen’s head in berserk back but they ignored him.

Seconds later, gunshots came from the outside of the room and one of the gardener’s head burst into billions of tiny pieces as blood came flooding up from where his head once was. The two other men went running towards the sound of the shot with barbaric yells while three men from behind the table came up and went to the wall beside the door; they took aim at something Mathew couldn’t see and three of them fired mercilessly at it. The two other men that went berserk earlier never came back to the room.

From where Mathew was, he could only see men running around firing guns and hearing gunshots. To his right were windows and where the book rack once was but they had placed it to the left side of the room. After the three men when out of the room, three men from behind the toppled table when to the door with shotguns at hand, that leaves three men behind the book rack and two more behind the table.

“Four dead” one of the gunmen by the door said, it was uncle John “and your workers didn‘t survive”. Uncle John’s voice was firm and confident, he didn’t seem to be afraid at all and that assured Mathew.

A bang came from the outside and the windows shattered; four men with shotguns came from the broken window and fired wildly towards those around the door that were naked without any protection but they didn’t notice those hiding behind the table and the book rack. Tom, Willis and the others took aim and fired immediately; by the impact of the shotguns, the four new gunmen literally flew out from where they came from but two of Mathew’s uncles were already bleeding seriously from the chest and abdomen; the other three that were armed with bats and sticks were shot at extremely close range, so it was absolutely clear that they were dead. Those by the door showed no sign of life except for uncle John took it in his legs and he collapsed on the floor moaning and gasping for air.

The sight of broken abdomens and exposed intestines, livers, kidney and hearts were too much for Mathew; he wanted to get out and yell but his body seemed to be numbed by the sudden turn of the situation, he opened his mouth and found no voice in it. He peeked through the crack again, he spotted Reed, the house chef in his once white pajamas; Reed sat in the corner with his eyes wide opened staring into thin air, his mouth ajar and his hands by his side. Reed’s chest lied open with blood flowing out from something in his chest, it’s shape was strange like a sphere but Mathew could see it was spongy and soft.

Before Mathew could continue his observations around the room through a pathetic crack, numerous gunmen came into the room; loud bangs, barbaric yells, desperate cries and voices of whom he never heard before filled the air. All Mathew could do was closed his eyes and hope everything turns out right. It was hope now, after seeing what happen to Reed’s body, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Even though his eyes were closed, he couldn’t shut his years with his hands; the space was so cramped that he could only raised his head and look through the hole, any excessive movement from his limbs and the cover of the secret cache in the cupboard would fall of. Mathew couldn’t risk being discovered, he was sure that he didn’t want his chest to be opened.

Minutes later, the sounds and bangs faded. Mathew opened his eyes and spied the surroundings again. The book rack had came down to the floor with Willis under its weight. The toppled table didn’t look like a table anymore, there were pieces of it every where. On the ground were broken woods, fallen books, pieces of bodies, limbs and organs and the ground was full of warm blood. It was like puzzle pieces, awaiting for someone to patch them back.

At the far corner from where Mathew sat, there were about four strangers with guns and in the corner was Tom with blood all over him but Mathew knew his father was still fine because he was arguing with the gunmen. Mathew couldn’t hear them well, he was temporarily deaf after being exposed to so much but his ears were returning to him sooner than he had thought, he could hear voices of his father now.

“I have a family, I had no choice at the time” Tom yelled desperately. A loud sob came from the wine cellar and two gunmen left the room and numerous shots and yells were heard again.
“Now that, that‘s over, no one would interfere us again” the man closest to Tom had a sharp voice. He started taking of his hat revealing an angular face and he tore his shirt apart revealing a body that was too thin and too small for his head; Mathew started to notice that all the strangers in the room were bone thin and all of them were even more desperate than Tom. Mathew could only see their figures and shape, his eyes were so full of tears, he couldn’t see clearly.

“Do you see this scar, Thomas Radon?” the man yelled so loud that Mathew’s ears hurt. “do you know what my son said when he stabbed me that morning, he said dad I’ve enough of this, we’ll meet in hell and he stabbed me by the guy and slit his throat, my wife had nails on her head when she died, for God sake, don‘t talk me about family ever” the man yelled into Tom’s ears. The man took a blade from his pants and drove it into Tom’s gut. Tom gasped for air as he pressed his hands on his wound.

Tom reduced from his stand and was on all fours now, another man came but he was slightly more muscular than the other three.
“You took my career, my job, then my money, my family and my life, let this be clear Radon, I’m just returning your kind favor” the man spoke loud enough so that everyone in the room heard him and he gave Tom a powerful kick on the gut that sent Tom colliding against the wall.

Then he pull Tom up and against the wall; Tom was coughing blood now, the men had his lips on Tom’s ears and was mumbling about something. The rest of the men poured some yellow-like liquid around the room and continued outside the room. The men with Tom pulled out the blade from Tom’s gut and slit his throat and walk out of the room. Tom had blood pouring out of his neck, it was deep red and he raised his hand towards the cupboard Mathew was in.

First Mathew thought his father was calling him, so he raised his legs a little to kick his way out but before he did so. The earlier gunman came in and pointed his gun at Tom and took the life out of his eyes; he threw a light unto the liquid he poured earlier and walk out of the room, ignoring the sin he just committed.

The room was now lighted by a weak fire, the fire went around the walls but Mathew was still safe from where he was. Seconds later, the fire started to ate the cupboard and Mathew knew the feelings of being burnt so he kick his way out and fall unto the ground.

He gave a loud cry when he found himself falling beside his mother’s body. He pushed his mother, rubbed her in the back, called her name endlessly but she couldn’t do more than lying there. Mathew didn’t intend to give up until the fires caught his Mother’s blouse; he pulled his mom to the center of the room, safe from the fire for the time being, he beat the fire out with his bare palms. He called her name again with tears in his eyes and desperation in his voice but she showed him no more than a paled face.

“Mathew” a weak voice cried out. Mathew look at his mom with his eyes wide both in shock and happy.
“Mom, mom, I’m here!” Mathew yelled in joy.
“Mathew, here” the voice came again but it was a yell this time. Mathew was looking at his mother the whole time but her lips weren’t moving at all; so he got up and found that there was movement in the book rack. It was his brother that called out for him. Willis’s back was under the rack, his head and right arm wasn’t crushed and he was reaching out for Mathew.

Mathew went to him but hesitated when he found burnt flesh and skin where Willis’s left arm was supposed to be. Mathew went before his brother and knelt down so that he was closed to him. Willis somehow found strength left in his body, he stretch out his right arm and caught Mathew in the shoulder and brought his ears to his lips.
“Mathew, you have to get out” Willis voice was weak and shaking.
“This….all this, it isn‘t really happening, right….” Mathew still couldn’t accept the fact, the truth. No one could blame him, he had lived in a fairy tale world for as long as he can remember and the first time reality came to him, it came to him in such a way.

“Yes…yes, it’s just a game, to win, you have to run as fast as possible” Willis somehow comforted Mathew’s conscious with his last words “We will all be waiting at the finish line, okay” Willis applied his last drop of energy and pressed deeply into Mathew’s shoulders until Mathew let out a small gasp “see, I’m still fine, I’m just stuck for a while, you go first.” Somehow, someway, Willis’s last words were able to convinced Mathew that everything was fine after all he had seen.

“Alright..” Mathew’s voice was shaking to and he didn’t know why. He felt energy flowing inside of him, courage and might, he could feel it deep within him. Maybe it’s the magic of love and words, Mathew ran through the weak fire that was burning at the door and he found that everything around him were ablaze, reducing from wood to char. By some luck or miracle, the route from the hallway to the door weren’t on fire and Mathew ran with all his might away from the door, then away from the house.

He didn’t want to turn back, he knew that if he did, he would break down and run back into the house again. He kept telling himself that everyone was behind him, running together with him, together to the finish line, together to the end but in fact, he knew that there weren’t anyone behind him. He knew but if he had simply turn back or even catch a glance that there was no one behind him. He was sure that he would perish and he would’ve went back.

With tears in his eyes and unknown strength in his legs and a promise in his heart. He mumble to himself as he ran “everything will be fine in the end, we’ll meet in the end”.

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this is the full version of the prologue, please critic it
thanks

I found afew mistakes
- not much enough on mathew
- lack of describing surroundings
- the character appearances
- a mass amount of spelling and typing errors but I cant change it here..sry..