Like Mother, Like Son                        

The exposure of the grassy thicket was just enough to cover the 8 year old from his pursuer. Out of breath he dove, and prayed the grass wouldn’t sway as much as to reveal his hiding spot. He could hear the muffled footsteps, silently getting nearer and nearer until-.

  “BOO!” shouted the other 8 year old boy. “I found you!”

“No fair,” replied Jerry, “You clearly peaked while you were counting.”

“Did not!” responded David in an indignant style. “You’re just jealous that I found you so easily.”

Jerry pounced on David and a small tussle broke out between the boys. And then, as suddenly as it started, the tussle ended. The air had grown eerily icy, and both the boys could feel it. Each of the boys housed their own individual bruises from the tussle, and they got up grudgingly. They could sense it; someone was watching them.

David turned around and his eyes swept through the undergrowth.

He could find nothing, but yet both boys could sense it. Something was watching them.

Quietly Jerry started backing away from the undergrowth and towards their kolkhoz. Here in Russia, you couldn’t tell what kind of crazy, disorientated people you could find.

Jerry started off backing away slowly, but soon, he started walking at a normal, leisurely pace, and then took off running home, as fast as his little legs could take him. The ferns brushed his legs, and he imagined the wind telling him to run away from here, as swiftly, and hurriedly as he could.

David, however, was not so lucky. Fearing whatever was observing them from the undergrowth, David remained petrified. Silent slithering could be heard coming closer and closer towards him. Ever-so-slightly the giant snake lifted its head off the ground. The snake tilted its head at David, as if urging him to move. David, trembling, took a small step back. And that’s when it happened.

The snake struck out at David, and clamped its rough scaly skin again David’s leg. David fell down, and the snake instantly wrapped itself around its new prey. A short hoarse scream managed to top its way out of David’s lungs, but to no avail. Jerry had ran away, and their kolkhoz was nowhere in sight. It wasn’t common for snakes, to come out in the evenings around their farm, but apparently this one was lost. The boa constrictor, tightened around David’s torso and abdomen, and tightened at every slight fidget that David would make. Eventually, it tightened, and tightened till David could hear the cracking of each of his individual rib cage bones. And then, a slight pop, marking the death of his lungs, and David was still.