Hello, this is a short story I did, it is 2,729 words in length. I really appreciate you for reading:
Under Another Sky
Cracking and popping followed the two men’s feet through the pale ice; they scrambled and slipped their way towards the mud bank. Reaching the mound, they both clambered up onto the mud track where their red getaway vehicle waited.
The two men on that day were seen as criminals by on-lookers, except they saw it differently; one of them a self proclaimed holy man, with a bronze cross hanging from his neck, a man of God. The other man, well he wasn’t holy, he lived a poor life - fuelled by loneliness and depravity, but he was a firm believer in family. They were both contrasts of each other - sharing no interests apart from one emotion in life: They had been cheated and betrayed by the same woman.
Adrian, the holy one with long dark hair panted and bent over pointing at the car “Morgan, you drive, I’m out”
Morgan - medium build, shaved head and brown eyes ignored Adrian whose breath slowly came back to him; the bags on his back did not help, nor did the baby.
Morgan looked at Adrian with panic across his face, closing his red jacket for protection of the biting cold, he said “the baby, where’s the baby?” his voice came across shakily and worried, Adrian thought: Is this man crazy? I’ve been with him just two days and the cold’s already gotten to his head. Making the attempt not to start a confrontation Adrian looked up and replied,
“I’m pretty sure if he wasn’t on my back, I would have felt something drop off”
Morgan flew over to Adrian and tried to yank his bags from behind him, “For god’s sake, let me show you...” but Adrian pulled away and did it himself, removing each bag from his back which was filled with various tools they used to break into their ‘wife’s house’ however against Adrian’s will, Morgan was right: they had everything they needed apart from the baby and the cradle. Morgan shook his head and kicked the tree - forcing snow to fall from the branches.
“Now what? The police are going to be on us any moment, we’re going to look like idiots and you’re just starring at the ground”
The sharp words from Morgan, lit up Adrian inside “Listen, we both agreed to doing this, and I strictly said before leaving that after, and I mean after we got back, then that’s the time to lay out our problems with one another”
“No, that’s not how it went, you said we would talk about who the baby would belong to, and I for one did not expect you to do something idiotic like losing him”
He could see Morgan’s eyes flicker and fill up. Adrian decided to look away so to try and defuse the situation and eyeballed the large frozen lake, which was surrounded by tall trees and mud banks eclipsed with thick snow. As his eyes wondered the lake, something caught his eye - a small blob in the distance, making out a blue box like figure, Morgan who gazed in the same direction as Adrian said,
“You see it?”
“Just about”
“We might just count ourselves the luckiest guys alive, if he’s still alive – he’d better be still alive”
In the distance, past the lake where the fields were, ear- popping sounds of police sirens braking through the silence of the lake made them both flinch; the sirens drew closer as if the police knew exactly where the two men were. Adrian quickly stood up, and headed to the boot of the getaway car and pulled out a long piece of wound-up rope. Morgan followed him with outstretched arms and a look of bemusement “What you going to do with that? Yank him in?”
“This is no time for silly comments... one of us is going to go out there, retrieve him”
Morgan left the tree and whipped his hand across his shaved head “Who’s it going to be?”
That was the question doing the rounds in Adrian’s mind, because at first he thought that himself going out would be the best bet, but everything his brains told him - created the conclusion that Morgan could not be trusted. After all, he wasn’t a friend, just an acquaintance with the same motivation as himself.
Adrian extended his arms towards Morgan with the rope and said “you, you go out”
“Hang on, how does that work? You dropped him...”
“... I didn’t want to carry him, you weren’t even carrying anything; but as per usual I’m left with the responsibility for everything”
Pulling away to think - realising neither of them could brave heading out there, Adrian had one last idea. He knew deep down that only one of them was going to end up with the baby anyway - so why hold off the inevitable? It was a tough decision Adrian did not feel entirely comfortable with, but something had to happen. He turned to Morgan with hands over mouth and said,
“We could. We should lay down what we have to lose”
“That’s a stupid idea; tell me Adrian, what’s more important to you: Debating who cooks the better dinner? Or saving a child who needs our help?”
Arian didn’t see it as ‘stupid’ he saw it as the only logical option, because if one of them did slip through the ice which there was always a chance - then Adrian wanted to know who’s got the least to lose: I only want the best for the baby, thought Adrian as he squared up to Morgan “I’ll start” Morgan sighed “First off, back home I got a big charity going- I save lives- giving money helping on a daily basis. Second, compared to where you live, it’s safe and the baby will grow up in a fair environment”
Shaking his head, Morgan cut in “Listening to you now, I realise what a deluded human being you really are- if everything’s so perfect about you- then why’d she leave you? Debts? That’s not going to benefit the child is it?”
Sinking his head and looking up at Morgan with prepuce anger; there was nothing Adrian wanted more but to wind back time and correct all the gambling addictions he carried around with him every day of his lonely life “Let me hear your statement then”
Morgan huffed and said “Well I can’t say much for what I have done right yet... but I’ve never had a family, well a caring one; everything in my life that started off on the right track, always seemed to fall off the rails- but not this time. The child out there is what’s going to stay right in my life and I’m sure for once that he won’t be allowed to make the mistakes I made.”
“Precisely; being a drug addicts not a great blend with a baby”
Morgan clenched his fists and through himself at Adrian who backed off sharply almost tripping over a stray log. Breathing heavily Morgan said “Fine, you want to be spending our little time poking remarks, you do that. I’m going out.”
“Good... It’s about time you saved a life, I do it every day”
“Yeah... you keep thinking that”
Adrian reluctantly tied the rope to each other’s waists, re-assuring himself he was only using the rope because he wasn’t cold hearted enough like Morgan to be the sinner and risk someone dying.
Attached and ready to go, Morgan stepped back out onto the already cracking ice; every footstep contained a wince or a grimace.
Deciding to take the few quiet moments he had, Adrian held his bronze cross in his fingers and looked up at the winter’s light “Please God, I am faithful, he is not, help me, for he is a criminal, a sinner”
Morgan became smaller in the distance, Adrian could see he was almost within arm’s length of the baby, a couple of feet perhaps, when the rope hastily rose from the ground and yanked Adrian forward, feeling the sharp nought he’d tied become tighter and make him feel as though his insides were slowly being crushed. He managed to keep his balance by holding onto a nearby tree, stopping him from meeting the ice face on. Looking back over to the baby, Morgan was edging even closer, taking tiny baby steps in the last few feet as to not break the ice. The baby however; had a strange sight to behold, a rare beam of old sunlight shone down on the baby like he was under another sky, but the air was still cold and biting, Adrian got that warm feeling just from looking at the beam of sunlight, remembering the only time he’d spent with his son- a quick trip to the beach in the summer and having to head straight back the same day because of his wife’s mistrust in him.
Adrian’s memories were blocked as once again the rope grew higher from the ground and pulled him further forwards, forcing him to slip on the slushy mud; his last resort to keep his footing was a damp tree root which he throw himself at- arms hugging it like he would the baby. Feeling his heart pound, more sirens echoed in the distance, however one sounded closer than all the rest. It died after a few moments however. Adrian made a conscious effort to take deep breaths, but that was made harder when a noise which made the sirens seem welcoming occurred; a car door slamming, carrying through the lake. The only problem- he had no clue where the sound came from and he was not exactly in the position to look and find out as the slippery tree root was hard enough to contend with. Using everything he had to pull himself up he did so- tearing what felt like a rib muscle.
Rubbing his throbbing rib, fearing that he hadn’t heard a peep from Morgan in a while, Adrian squinted through the heavy falling snow and made Morgan out to be idle - standing dead still by the baby: What are you doing you fool, hurry up. He thought, but soon enough Adrian’s questions were answered. Morgan wasn’t ‘fooling’ around, it really was life or death for both of them - as a chunky looking officer exited the gathering of trees from where the two men once came, Adrian could hear the officer shouting something at Morgan, but it wasn’t clear as to what he said.
He could not help but think the worst of outcomes: That’s it, it’s over. He looked back at the getaway car - and Adrian would be lying if he said it wasn’t tempting to get in the vehicle and drive off right there and then, conversely he, a man of God, knew that Morgan was a sinner, but he saw it as his obligation not let him down, no matter who he was, neither the baby he spent so many nights thinking, dreaming about.
Controlling his aggressive shakes, Adrian took one final look back at the car - knowing he was going to do the right thing- not to be tempted by evil and he carefully poked his feet out onto the ice and made sure he held his balance first, before moving forwards. He made an effort to not look back at the cracks he was sure were following him as the popping sounds reappeared.
Through the ever strong blizzard, the officer’s figure became clearer one arm raised to his ear to which looked to be a phone- not wanting to know who he was calling Adrian put all his attention on Morgan who strangely was still stuck in the same place he had been in for for the past minutes Adrian had been struggling. Getting closer the situation seemed to be apparent; many cracks in the ice were surrounding Morgan, bearing freezing water in-between them. Adrian couldn’t help but imagine the splits in the ice as the mistakes Morgan had made in his life finally catching up with him.
Morgan saw him, he held the baby tightly to his chest like a mother in danger of some criminals trying to rob her. Morgan said “one move and I’m sunk, you got to take the baby” His face looked drained and lost, he extended his arms to Adrian who replied,
“Wait, think about this, if I take him, and you go in. I won’t be able to do anything; you’ll kill both of us and the baby”
“No, take him, cut the rope, then I can run”
“But, you’ll die, you not seen the cracks you made? They’ll swallow you within feet”
Morgan began to look angry, he stretched out further “Take him, and cut the damn rope, all I want is to make sure the child is safe, try and actually save a life for once instead of talking about it... ‘Charity Man”
Adrian snatched the baby away from him “I’m only going to cut the rope when I get back over to the bank and then I’ll pull you in, got that?”
Morgan drew on a fierce screwed face, “What, just so you can cut it and run off- don’t be so obvious Adrian, why don’t you just finish me right here? Oh yeah, so in case you go in I’ll be forced to bring you back up because you got the...”
“Enough, my plan or nothing”
Adrian ignored any further disagreement as he knew time was scarce and made for the bank. Halfway across and it was plane sailing for Adrian and the baby, however the journey quickly became whole lot worse: First, the police in their vehicles were driving around the lake on the bumpy mud track, the ice illuminated with strobes of red police sirens swirling across the lake and, secondly the ice around Adrian began to crack and split, he knew straight away the rope had began to tighten and pull both their weights which was becoming intolerable for the temperamental ice; refusing to give in, Adrian gave everything he had to keep going, but it rapidly became too much for his aching muscles- he haltered, waiting, deciding to give up but as soon as that thought crossed his mind, the rope unexpectedly became lighter- it eased away from his throbbing hip and dropped a little. Wondering if the same had happened to Morgan - he looked around, but what he saw, gave him a shortness of breath, the sight made his heart pound through his ears. The end of the rope, cut, it laid still by a wide whole in the ice. Morgan’s life cut short- Adrian’s life sure to change; he quickly felt the guilt riddle his body. The ice had seized to crumble away behind them, Adrian thought: He made the ultimate sacrifice for me? No you killed him. I killed him? Yes, if you weren’t so selfish Morgan would still be here.
Booting the nagging inner voice away, he noticed up on the bank police had parked and exited their cars, automatically screaming for the baby to be given over, nevertheless their words did nothing more than rebound off Adrian’s ears, as he stared into the cradle at the baby- how he saw it; was not just a baby lying comfortably in a crib but a life worth living. In all of this hell he created on his own - the baby was a symbol of hope for him. “Son, I’m so sorry, I’m not good enough to be your dad, I’m a fake, a fraud; I’ve never even saved a life” a tear fell into the baby’s warm bundles of blankets.
Sensations of cracking started up again by Adrian’s feet, with that as a signal, he carefully placed the cradle on the ice and slid him over where the police waited - the baby stopped calmly by the edge of the lake- no splits in the ice followed him; but of course not, Adrian thought; he hasn’t made any mistakes to carry with him.
If only the same could have been said for Adrian, whose mistakes in life gave away around him and before he was swallowed by the sub-zero water - the last thing Adrian liked to pretend, was that he finally did save a life: His son’s from himself.
Thanks for reading :)