That night, the snow fell relentlessly, filling the empty streets, a mother laid lifelessly on red snow, her warmth gone, the light in her eyes had faded away leaving behind only a hollow shell.
A child stood beneath a street light his fingers twitching, his mouth trembling, his teary eyes stuck staring at the corpse before him and through his shaky voice he uttered
"Mom are you okay"
There was no response, only silence and the truth spoke back to him but still yet the child stood motionless in the freezing cold and asked again
"Mom are you okay"
Once again there was no response, the child moved closer to his mother and put his hand on her cheek, she was was cold, cold enough to freeze his heart, cold enough to freeze his soul.
"Mom are you okay"
Once again there was only silence and truth but now the child listened to the silence, filling it with quiet sobs, the child accepted the truth making it a part of him and the child etched her last word unto his very being.
A voice echoed from the sky, asking the child "don't you despise it"
The child said with a shaky voice "of course I do"
"Then look up, look up to the moon"
"No"
The surface of the moon split apart revealing an evil eye, the eye bled unto the earth, tainting the white snow crimson and the blood shaped itself to a being resembling a human and stretched out his arm toward the child.
"Take my hand"
The child kept his head down not daring to look at the being before him and said once again "no"
"What are you clinging to, there is nothing left"
The child gritted his teeth in grim resolve, swallowing his fears and he raised his head "you reek of death and blood, my... my mother, she told me to live and... that's what am going to do, I'll live for her"
The being tilted it's head in confusion, not being able to understand what it meant to live for another so it asked "is that life" The child remained silent, the being retracted it's arm and said "Remember this, the moon is always watching, I am always watching"
The being retreated back to the moon and the child returned to the street light.
...
The sun shone above an alley shedding light on a boy curled up like a ball in the shadows at the end of the alley.
The boy was in a daze staring at the floor of the alley but the hunger pangs of his stomach snapped him back to his hellish reality.
The boy lifted his gaze, staring at the other end of the narrow passage, watching as people passed by, going about their daily lives, once or twice he would lock eyes with these people but the strangers would simply dismiss him with a glance as if he was invisible, unworthy of notice or simply unsightly but all this no longer mattered to him.
Why you ask?
Because this piece of shit he called a life was coming to a shitty end, the world's tendency of ostracising others or it's unfairness no longer mattered to him.
The boy's vision slowly grew darker his consciousness slowly fading to nothing, he could hear footsteps coming towards him, a reaper had come to collect his soul, strangely he wasn't scared, all he wished now was that the afterlife was a better place than this hell.
The sound of the footsteps drew closer and closer until the mysterious figure was right in front of him.
"Hey kid, you still alive"
The boy slowly widened his weary eye lids to the shoe's of a man, his gaze quickly trailed up to the mysterious man's face.
The man had gentle brown eyes but a crude face and a scar across his forehead which was almost covered up by his brown hair, overall he was quite handsome.
"Kid, are you dead"
"No, but I'm almost there" the boy said with a soft, broken voice.
The man smiled and let out a sigh of relief "that's good, what's your name kid"
The boy coughed "Moon, it's moon."
"Moon huh, what a strange name"
"Look, if you wanna harvest my organs, could you at least do the humane thing and wait till am dead"
"What, why would I do that" the man said surprised
"Oh I get it, you're some kind of sicko who gets his kink from murder and torture, just my luck"
"No, that's not what I mean" the man sighed "look I'm not here to kill you or harvest your organs, I want to help you"
The boy thought carefully, even though the man hadn't said anything strange nor did the boy get any strange feeling from the man, he just couldn't trust someone, suddenly showing up and offering a helping hand.
"Why and what do you want in return" the boy said his shaky voice hiding his suspicion
The man raked his fingers through his hair and frowned "What the hell are you acting stock up for, if I leave you here you will die but if you follow me there's a chance you'll live, the choice should be clear"
The boy smiled "the choice should be clear but rather than choose an uncertain future wouldn't it be better to just let it end here why should I struggle and suffer even more"
The mysterious man remained silent then turned around and walked away, the boy could hear his footsteps getting further and further away, the words he had etched unto his being but pushed down suddenly resurfaced.
He didn't know where he got the strength from but he stood up to his feet and ran towards to the mysterious man, yelling with all his might "I want to live" because he made a promise and he still had a tiny ember of hope that maybe if he lived a little longer something good would happen.
The mysterious turned around only to see a boy unconscious on the ground and smiled "if you were going to do this, then you should have just said yes, from the start, stupid brat".