A Single Crow

*WHACK* *THUMP* THUMP*

*cough* *cough* *cough*

*THUMP*

"That'll teach ya wretches to keep yer paws to yourself."

*CCCRRREEAAAK* *SLAM* *KERCHUNK*

*COUGH* *COUGH*

"Fuck, that hurts like hell."

Within a poorly lit, mold-infested room sat a 13 year old boy. The boy was sitting on the floor and using the wall as a support for his back, while clutching his stomach with both hands as he continuously spit out the leftover blood in his mouth.

*Ptoo*

*Sigh*

'Guess I'll lay here for awhile.'

Due to his earlier beating, he was in no shape to move so he was forced to wait as his body recovered.

And after sitting down to recover for about half an hour, the boy finally stood up and made his way to the door ever so slowly.

'Fuck, I'm gonna kill those bastard one day.'

Of course he didn't dare to say those thoughts aloud for fear of retribution from his torturers.

Once he made his way to the other side of the room, he stopped to stare at the oppressively large door that was the only thing keeping him trapped in this poor excuse of a room.

The 'room' he was locked in was mostly barren, and the walls were made of stone, while the flooring consisted of old rotting wood. The door itself sat at about 6 foot 8 inches and was a reddish brown color, that resembled mahogany.

Along the edges of the door, mold had already set in, which attested to just how old the door had been. At a glance, it seemed that the door would give way with a well placed round-kick, but the boy, Marcus, was in no shape to exert himself to even that extent and could only settle for pushing the door open with what little strength he could muster up.

And that was indeed what he did, as he placed his shoulder and hand against the door frame and began to push.

"Urgh... move you stupid door...Please."

If one were to take a good observation of the struggling youth they'd almost mistaken him for a walking corpse. Marcus's skin clung so tightly to himself that if one took a precursory glance, they'd be able to see the slightest outline of his ribcage under his shirt, which helped allude to the fact the boy hadn't eaten properly for a long time.

Furthermore, the pants he wore, if they could even still be called that, barely reached his lower leg and instead stopped at his calf.

They seemed to be getting too small for Marcus, whose height was about 5 foot 5 inches. He had midnight black hair that stuck up at odd angles, making prominent shadows on the edges of his face. Luckily, that helped to cover the accumulated dirt and grime that called his face home. His pupils were black and his irises took on a silver hue, leaning slightly more towards a dark dull grey that reflected just how empty he felt inside, both literally and metaphorically.

"Gods be damned, why is this door so heavy and what's takin Gavin so fucking long? And for fuck's sake, why were we the only ones that got caught by that muscled headed buffoon and that hotheaded midget!"

As Marcus continued to lob insults and throw a tantrum over his hopeless situation, he seemed to have forgotten the fact his captors weren't far enough away for him to be screaming as loudly as he had been.

*Stomp* *Stomp* *Stomp*

'Crap! They were listening?! Can't they just buzz of for a few minutes and let me vent?!'

Marcus started to curse himself and the messed up situation he found himself in. Though, realizing that panicking would get him nowhere, he began to look around the room for anything to stall his soon-to-be-unwanted-company.

As he looked around the poorly lit room he found a rock ,the size of a chair, in the corner of the room.

The rock was much to heavy for Marcus to even try lifting it and as such would prove to be a monumental task to move it across the room.

However, Marcus knew he had to figure something out, so he opted to slide the rock as closely to the door as he could to buy himself just a few minutes of reprieve. He quickly pushed the rock to the other side of the room using what little strength he had left and formed a temporary stopgap between himself and his guest.

*KERCHUNK*

'For Gods sake, why'd they have to come back?! Are they really so petty that they'd let a few insults get under their skin so much?! They already have me trapped in this godsforsaken place, so the least they could do is just leave me alone!"

*THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP*

"Oi! Open the door ya little shit stain or you're not gonna like what happens next!"

Sweating profusely, Marcus began to look even harder for a way to either escape or find a weapon.

Though he doubted that even if he found a half-decent weapon, he couldn't hope to lift it, let alone use it to defend himself.

After about a half a minute it started to quiet down outside the room and Marcus began to assume they gave up and figured he wasn't worth the trouble... at least for the moment. Sadly, his hopes were crushed when he was thrown back by the miniature explosion outside the door.

*BOOM!*

Small specks of flames danced around the entrance of the room where the door had been. Broken pieces of wood littered the interior and a few splinters grazed the side of Marcus's cheek. To add insult to injury, the smoke seemed to chase right after Marcus as it entered the room, causing him to go into another round of violet coughs.

*cough* *cough* *COUGH*

Each cough felt like he was beginning to cough up a chunk of his lung due to the earlier injury of being kicked and punched in the stomach.

As the smoke began to recede, two men walked into the room.

One was a tall, robust man with a full brown beard and shining bald head. He also had a giant beer-gut to match his middle-aged grizzled appearance.

Beside him stood a much smaller man with a skinnier build, who had a head of spiky orange hair. Although the orange hair stood out the most, one would immediately look down to notice the mans scrunched up face that looked like he had just eaten a pile of shit.

"Say that again you half-breed mutt! My friends and I didn't quite catch what you said earlier."