The sun was shining bright on top of those silent streets of the market built for slums inside those walls but the silence was broken by a loud cry of a boy from the very centre of the market. The voice was very childish and cried only one word
"MOM!!!"
That day began like every other day in the slums but something was off in the house of Keats. Richard Keats, the child of Mr. and Mrs. Keats was sitting out of the house on the door steps with a sleepy long face.
"Richard… come in and have your breakfast!"
his mother shouts from inside but it does not affect him in any way.
Watching him ignore the call his mother walks out with an aggression visible in eyes and calls again with an aggressive tone
"I-SAID-EAT-YOUR-BREAKFAST!!!"
Richard does not look at her but still replies with very low tone "I'll eat it
later."
Mrs. Keats adds another question "why?"
Richard looks towards the ground to the ants moving around and replies in a very low and sad manner "papa said he'll bring me a bicycle today."
His mother takes a deep breath and sits beside him. Keeping a hand on his shoulder she says "if he said it; then he will bring it… now come in and have your breakfast before Krustine shows up."
She stood up and before leaving she adds "sitting here isn't doing any good anyways."
Richard was still looking at the ants when someone comes and stands right in front of him. He realises it and looks up to see who it is. Richard gets filled with joy and all positive emotions as soon as he saw his father standing right there with an old rusty red bicycle.
He jumps up in joy and hugs his father "I love you papa… I love you"
Richard expresses.
"I love you too my dear…" his dad adds with a soft voice and hugs him.
"RICHARD!!!"
A loud scream came calling Richard and as he turns towards the voice, he saw his friend Krustine on his bicycle. Richard waves at him from a far and gets onto his bicycle and starts riding towards Krustine.
His mother runs out of house and screams "what about your breakfast?"
Richard replies with a scream "I can have it later" and leaves. His mother nods with disappointment and his father smiles and whispers to himself
"definitely my kid!"
and then both went inside the house.
Richard and Krustine were riding their bikes with full joy towards the walls and then they stood far from the walls and starts admiring the white marble walls at least 50 feet tall.
With a bright shine in his eyes Richard asks "what do you think lies
behind these walls?"
Krustine gets a bit moved but before he could say anything Richard
adds up
"my papa says these walls are the reason we live this life… what do you
think?" and turns his face towards Krustine.
Krustine still looking at the wall takes a long breath and replies with a
smile
"angels…"
Richard asks out of curiosity "wh…what?"
Krustine turns towards Richard and explains "yes… that's what the merchant was calling them; I heard him say that they wear clean cloths and have shiny skin and silky hair"
Richard fills up with excitement on hearing it and with that shine in eyes and smile on face the expression he came up with was,
"wow!!!"
Krustine looks at those sparkling eyes and speaks
"let's go!"
and takes off on his bike towards the wall. Richard also takes off
following Krustine.
As soon as he catch up, Richard asks "it's almost your meds time."
Krustine replies in an instant "we'll be back before that" and speeds
up.
Both of them reaches the wall gate but were stopped by the gatekeeper.
Gatekeeper looks at them with an awful expression and asks
"what are you mites doing here now?"
Richard already terrified of the gatekeeper does not utter a word but
Krustine on the other hand looked straight into the keepers eyes and
replies
"We have lost our way, is it a problem now?"
keeper gets more irritated and speaks
"Oh boy! it definitely is a problem for you."
Striking his cane trying to scare the boys, He gets close to the boys
and raises his cane to hit them. Both looked down in fear when
suddenly they hear a manly voice say
"Leave them Johnson… don't hit them."
The voice felt very comforting to both the boys but it sent a chill up Johnsons spine and he stands straight and salutes the person talking. Krustine and Richard gathers the strength and looks up. there they saw a person wearing clean white cloths with a shining pale skin. They both look at each other and shouts
"it's an angel!!!"
Johnson looked a bit shocked on hearing the word angel.
The angel walks towards Richard and Krustine,
"you boy, you don't deserve any punishment." Angel says pointing towards Richard and then looks at Krustine and adds
"But… you boy, should learn a lesson but not the painful way, right?"
Krustine unable to take his eyes off the Angel nods to his saying.
"You should leave before it gets late boy." angle says pointing towards Richard.
Angel tells Richard to leave and Richard nods to him and gets on his bicycle without saying anything and leaves. Angel turns back towards Johnson and
whispers in his ear
"don't make the punishment painful; make it merciless."
Johnson stood there shocked while angel leaves the place.
Johnson looks up in the sky and grabs Krustine from his arm and
starts moving along the wall while Krustine was still admiring the angel. Suddenly, a tear falls from Johnsons eye and Krustine looks at him in a shock.
Richard riding back, still thinking about the angel suddenly comes
across Krustines mother and stops near her to ask her the reason
behind her standing there.
"what are you looking for aunty?" Richard asks with clueless
face.
Krustines mother looks at Richard and says "I am looking for
Krustine, he is late on his meds."
Krustines mother looked really worried so Richard decides to help
her and with full confidence in his voice he says,
"I know where he is… I'll give him the meds don't worry!"
Krustines mother saw that light of responsibility in Richards eyes so
she trusted him with meds and gave him the package. Richard rode
back as soon he gets hold of those meds.
Richard reaches to the wall, gets off his bike and starts looking
for keeper and Krustine. While looking here and there he came
across keeper and he waves at him from far but keeper ignores him.
Richard runs to the keeper and stood next to him breathing heavily.
After getting his breath back he asks
"where is Krustine?... I got his meds."
Keeper gets tensed by the question and instead of saying anything
he just looks over to the wall, high up. Richard follows the same and looks to his left towards the wall. Suddenly he goes numb and the meds fell of his hands. He stood shocked like he had seen a nightmare with open eyes.
What he saw was Krustine, hanging to the wall with nails passing through his hands, legs and two from his eyes. Richard looks at him
and screams in pain of the scene he just saw. Krustine tries to move upon hearing Richards scream but as soon as he moves his head, it falls forward and behind his lifeless head were his eyeballs still hanging on the wall. Richard upon seeing this starts crying and runs for his cycle and leaves the scene crying.
Richard still crying about the incident reaches his house and falls off his bike and hurts his knee but he stands up and enters his house
screaming,
"He… he killed Krustine… he killed Kru…"
He suddenly stops screaming upon entering the bedroom. It was full of blood, glowing with the deep red colour of blood and in corner was
his father lying there with his chest wide open and his intestines hanging out of it. Richard falls on his knees upon seeing this and was lying still and stationary, all so shocked when he realises his mother is missing and to find her, he stood up with help of the beds corner and starts running outwards. He looks through the whole house and then goes out to find her in the streets.
While looking through streets he saw a big crowd gathered at the centre of the market place. He runs towards that crowd as fast as he could and when he reaches to the centre by making his way through the crowd, he saw his mom tied to a pole without her eyes, nails and cloths but she was still breathing. It felt like she was asking for death at that very moment and before Richard could do something about it, a loud bang strikes. And when he looks at his mother; her head was gone, blown to bits lying on the ground. He collapse to the ground on his knees. Still occupied with what he just witnessed, Richard suddenly felt a hand to his shoulder and a man whisper in his ear
"I told you; you are going to be late boy."
Upon hearing these words Richard gets stunned. He suddenly looks towards the man and saw the same angel he saw at the keepers gate before any of these incidents took place. The angel was smiling and he pats Richards head and leaves. Richard filled up with the pain and anger screams out only one word,
"MOM!!!"