Chapter Text
Run.
You must run, child. Boomed the thundering voice in Peregrine’s head. They knew they had to. And yet they did not.
”Pa?” Muttered the child with a shaking, pathetic voice, staring up into the seething eyes that mirrored one half of their own.
They seemed to almost glow, in a way, amidst the darkness of the ruined meadow, those two pairs of eyes. Two halves of their own. The only difference being how one gaze seemed to border some look of pity, whilst the other boiled with unrelenting anger.
Peregrine was never fond of their parents, no less respectful. They weren’t even sure they could say that they were scared of them.
And yet, here and now, they found themselves overwhelmed with a burning sense of pure dread.
The silence seemed almost impenetrable. The warble of the word that came from Peregrine would forever be left without a response.
And then, it was when Peregrine’s father reached for the pistol at his side that they finally listened to that little voice screaming in the back of their mind.
It took a moment or two of stumbling to catch sight of an exit, anywhere they could run to escape freely. They could faintly hear the sounds of their mother yelling in the distance, the incoherent sounds of their father yelling following soon after. It didn’t matter. None of it did anymore.
To this day, Peregrine had no idea how their frail, trembling legs had bolted away so fast, disregarding the jagged rocks and sticks that had blended in with the foliage below.
Lungs burning and eyes wide open with fear, they ran through the towering, corpse-like trees that made up the forest, almost tripping over their own feet as the loud sound of a gunshot echoed across the hills.
It was utterly exhilarating to be able to run this openly, if only it could’ve been a different day, a different opportunity. If only they hadn’t also felt so utterly terrified. Terrified for their life.
Peregrine could’ve sworn that they heard another set of footsteps approaching them, closely mirroring the rhythm of their own panicked footsteps, although heavier.
A second gunshot rang out from behind them, this time sounding much, much closer. A small sound akin to a whine left their throat, burning like fire despite the cold air of the night rushing down their esophagus.
And then they heard him again. Yelling and screaming, when has Peregrine ever heard him speak without doing so?
He was getting closer. They needed to run faster. Faster. Faster. Go faster.
A third gunshot rang out. Although this time, after the loud noise, akin to that of thunder booming, Peregrine felt a sharp jolt of pain run through their arm, followed by a shrill scream of their own. The pain was almost enough to get them to stop running.
Briefly glancing down, they saw that the bullet had just barely missed their forearm, leaving behind a jagged gash that the bullet’s edge had most likely ripped through their sleeve and into the skin of their arm, as blood pooled around the wound.
Filled with another boost of adrenaline, Peregrine kept running, willing their exhausted legs to move faster, disregarding the bleeding injury on their arm and swinging both their arms in wider arcs.
Peregrine felt as though they could laugh, even in their slightly drained state. To laugh out of spite. I am finally going to be free from you, if the cradles shall allow me my life, they wished to scream. Especially at him. More than anything at him.
However, that feeling was swiftly whisked away not long after, replaced by the familiar sense of fear as a fourth gunshot rang out, luckily missing them this time.
Where would they run to, if once they get out of this place? Would they find a new home? Would nature accept them, if not society? Or would they be snarled at by the woods’ people? Torn apart and eaten by the wolves? Have their flesh seen as nothing more than a daily meal?
Perhaps they’d run forever. Maybe they’d live long enough to see the peaks of mountains bold enough to reach past the clouds, to see the lush green meadows that stretch on for miles, the fields of yarrows always spoken of in children’s tales.
Interrupting their sidetracked mind, the fifth gunshot rang out much earlier than Peregrine had anticipated.
They wailed out, as a burning pain struck them in the crook of their knee, sending the child tumbling down the steep hill, the thick foliage making the fall as hard and as unforgiving as possible.
Once nature had decided they had enough, Peregrine’s fall came to a stop after a good minute of hitting random sticks and rocks on the way down, halting at the end of the steep hill.
They groaned, mistakenly hoisting themselves up on their previously wounded arm, the pain suddenly becoming much more evident after the high of adrenaline was gone.
The steps were growing closer. It got to the point where they could hear that disgustingly familiar, gruff voice in the distance, growing louder as the seconds passed.
A wounded arm and what felt like a hole in their calf. Despite the distance that they’d worked so hard on within the past half an hour, their chances of getting away from this hellhole of a village were very, very slim.
They resisted the urge to cry out again. The pool of blood that the wound left behind stained the dead bits of grass around them, tiny bits of debris having gathered around both the injury on their calf and the gash on their arm.
Peregrine’s lip trembled as they reluctantly looked down, feeling a strong sense of nausea rise in their stomach as they watched the blood pump out from their leg. Not even a minute after, they unwillingly let that sense win as they puked their internal contents out onto the patch of yellow grass beside them.
Heaving, trembling, wounded, and exhausted, Peregrine slowly heaved themselves up on their remaining leg, with the help of a tree trunk. As they hobbled further through the forest, that feeling of adrenaline began to flare up again, small bits of energy slowly returning to their body at the thought of dying at the hands of their father.
After what felt like a measly 10 seconds, a loud, ever-familiar yell greeted their throbbing ears once more, forcing Peregrine to go faster once more. Unfortunately, with their only good leg having been exhausted by the previous running, their attempts to speed up was to very little avail.
The sound of yelling reached their ears again, followed by a sixth gunshot that sounded way too close for comfort, jolting the weary child out of their pained daze.
Near snapping their head to look behind them, they were met with the sight of a large, familiar silhouette inching towards them, climbing down the same hill that had just tortured them.
Why is everything going so fast? Peregrine grimly thought, panic rising as their breath quickened, turning back to the path in front of them, terrified and utterly determined to get away.
And then, a seventh gunshot. This time, followed by a searing burst of white-hot pain struck through their chest.
Peregrine’s knee buckled as they fell to the ground, feeling the urge to vomit once more as they caught sight of the bullet that ran through them, laying not too far away, covered in their own blood, almost as if to mock them.
Their vision was blurring. Their chest hurt beyond all else.
They were going to die. Peregrine was going to die, here and now, at the hands of the person who was supposed to protect them, the reason they even lived in the first place.
Their breath felt labored, their body ached unlike ever before.
They’re dying.
They heard a string of heavy footsteps, dry leaves crunching under the boots of the man who approached them, face obscured by the shadow of the night.
Hot tears began to well up at the edges of their mismatched eyes, a small noise akin to a whine involuntarily leaving their throat.
“Papa?” Peregrine muttered, the single word somehow taking up a huge chunk of the bit of energy that they had left.
A deafening silence hung in the air, before the faint shine of the moon’s reflection on steel came into view.
Their thoughts were cut short, as an eighth gunshot was delivered to their temple.
And then, drenched in sweat and panicked; Peregrine awoke in their bed, a trembling hand clutched around their blanket.