Helios Beginnings (The Helios Chronicles #0.5) Read Free

horror as his mother stabbed herself again, except this time he noticed that she flinched slightly.
    “STOP! Mama, please, STOP!”
    She once again shook her head as the blade came down on him again. This time he was prepared and moved slightly so it didn't hit the same spot. It was just as painful though. His mother bore a straight face. No tears fell from her hazel eyes with the long lashes, the ones that matched his perfectly. She displayed no anger, no anything. She looked like she wasn’t really there. It was the same way she looked when she used drugs.
    She began a relentless pattern of stabbing him then herself, over and over. At some point his body stopped moving. There was no more fight in him. Death would be coming. He just never expected it would come at the hands of his mother. He was feeling lightheaded and the room began to spin His mind drifted, remembering happier times. He saw his mom and dad on one of those merry-go-rounds they have in parks. His dad was racing around it, spinning them as fast as possible and then he jumped on, lying next to him. The smile on his face was brilliant. His mother was screaming in laughter as she held on to him so he wouldn’t slide off. In his vision, his hand went to his chest, a red stain spread across his shirt and he gasped as he was brought to the present. The pain was unbearable. His eyes were drooping; he was barely able to keep them open. The weight of his mother collapsed on his chest. Andrew couldn’t breathe and the stench of blood, his and hers was making him gag. A moment later his mother rolled off of him and onto the mattress by his side.
    “Moon, gone, no more, moon, sun set, needs to set, can’t...” she muttered incoherently.
    Andrew willed his eyes to open and turned his head. His mother was lying on her back, her chest drenched in blood. His head whipped around until he spotted his ratted and torn blanket. Grabbing it, he pressed it against her wound and as soon as he did, the stench of fresh blood overwhelmed him. Little white specks spotted his vision and he felt that sense of lightheadedness again. Kimberly continued mumbling and crying for her husband, her love. Andrew swallowed hard, falling off the mattress and onto the floor. He didn’t have the strength to walk, so he forced himself to crawl. He crawled along the cracked floorboards, leaving a trail of smeared blood in his wake. When he reached the door, he pushed his shoulder against it. It opened and to his surprise, he saw a couple of guys walking across the street towards the basketball courts.
    “Help!”
    Andrew tried his best to scream, to yell at the top of his lungs, but he was sure his voice was coming out as some sort of whimper. Exhausted, his head drooped and he fell completely to the ground as he heard footsteps approaching.
    “Oh shit!” the first young man stuttered before turning to his friend, “Call an ambulance, man!”
    Andrew faded out of consciousness. The young man quickly shed his shirt and bunched it into a ball, pressing it against the young boy’s chest. He heard a moan came from inside the room, but he was afraid to leave the frail child he was cradling in his arms.
    “They’re on their way,” his friend said, kneeling down next to him. His eyes dropped to the young boy. “Holy shit, what the hell happened to him?”
    “I don’t know, man, but that’s a lot of blood. I can hear someone else crying or something inside. I think someone else might be hurt.”
    “I’ll go check and see.”
    His friend rose from his crouch to dart inside, out of view. The young man looked down at the boy in his arms. He could see the slow rise and fall of his chest. His cheeks were hallowed out. He was incredibly thin, his bones poked out in various spots. It felt like he could crumble and break at any moment.
    “It’s okay, little man. Hang in there, help’s on the way.”
    The ambulance sirens blared into the street and soon, there were people pouring inside the