2 The darkness embraces you

It was a gloomy day in the medieval-styled French village of Beynac-et-Cazenac. The heavy rain fell on the stone roads winding around the stone village. Fruit vendors were busy carting away their produce, cold water wetting their products. The sun had just started to rise. It was dark, depressing almost. Barely anyone was outside on such a rainy morning. A French candle maker's shop stood in front of a dodgy alleyway, a lamppost out front, illuminating the darkness. It was owned by the Candlemases, a poor family, barely managing to scrape by.

Shakily raising a pale hand to her face, a sickly Jeanne Candlemas tiredly opened her eyes. Each eye, taking a while to open, both of them bloodshot. The bony woman's lids were heavy, as heavy as the pit in her stomach. Her once voluminous blonde hair was very scraggly, reminiscent of a ragdoll. It was all but a dream, nothing more than fantasy. Blinking away the crust from her dilated eyes, she felt her cadaverous body heat up. 'It was probably just a fever,' she thought, obviously trying to convince herself that she was fine.

Planting both feet on the cold, hard ground, Jeanne was shivering. On her eyes were dark bags, obscuring her once beautiful hazel eyes. Her zombie-like figure shuffled out of her empty room to light a candle to brighten up the surroundings. Wobbling slightly, she narrowed her eyes to see her son, who was all skin and bone, leaning against the chairless table, hunched over a piece of paper in the empty pantry. A loud grumble rings throughout the desolate home. They were starving. They needed food. When was the last time they ever had a full meal? Ms. Candlemas rubbed her flat stomach, grazing her visible ribcage, she was saddened by the fact that her son has not probably eaten yet. Though her face was incredibly thin, her cheekbones incredibly obvious, and her eyes in deep pits, she managed a weak smile.

"My child-," Stepping over to her son, Jeanne asked, "What is that, Giles?"

The blonde, freckled boy looked up at the woman, his tired, sleep-deprived eyes gazing up at hers. His hands were dark, covered in what seemed to be charcoal. Dark smudges covered his dirty beige shirt. Giles smiled at his mother, proudly displaying a torn, crumpled piece of paper he found inside a dumpster behind a high-class restaurant he was rummaging through. On the dirty, stained paper was the image of himself holding the candle maker's hand near the riverbank drawn in black. Huge smiles were plastered on their faces. Oh, if only they could still be like that. Ever since the pair both fell seriously ill, in addition to their poverty, it was a mere miracle that they still had their lives intact. The added burden of working two jobs while dealing with an incurable sickness plunged Jeanne into a deep depression. The picture her son drawn for her brought a little happiness to her darkened heart.

Wrapping two arms around the six-year-old boy, the blonde woman drew a breath happily. She made sure to spend every single second of her life with her son, "You truly are mommy's boy," Jeanne said, breathing in the earthy scent of her son. He had clearly gone out to get the paper, going through all the effort just to make her smile.

The young Giles obviously overjoyed with how his mother reacted, he let out a cheerful yelp as he was weakly squeezed. His mother could barely move yet she was somehow able to hug him, this warmed the boy's heart. He loved his mother as much as she does with him. They were a closely-knit pair, inseparable.

A chill runs through his spine as Jeanne suddenly goes limp. Eyes widened, the blonde child raised his strained voice to a scream as the candlemaker faded in and out of consciousness. The room suddenly darkened as a blast of cool air put the fire from the melted candle out. Fear envelops the horrified child, slinking its cold, icy hands around his throat. Choking back tears, Giles tried to shake the woman awake, her skin had gone cold, where has the warmth gone? A loud yell rings throughout the silent neighborhood, a yell of a child who lost his mother to a one-sided war, drowned out by the heavy rain. What was he to do? He didn't know where to bring her.

Knees buckling below him, Giles lied his mother on the floor, salty tears streaking down his skinny cheeks. He sniffled, snot falling on his unclean shirt. Eyes red and cheeks puffy, he stumbled towards the wooden front door, occasionally hitting himself against the wall, sobbing uncontrollably, "Maman, I'm so sorry-" Turning his head towards his 'unconscious' mother, Giles' teeth chattered. A young child tormented, left to suffer, that was him. Purplish bruises on the boy's arms from bumping into the hard stone wall. Barely feeling any pain, he burst out into the door and fell outside, hitting his body hard against the concrete. Eyes blearily blinking, he fell asleep, rain pitter-pattering around him.