Blood-streaked portions of the sky swept across the clouds as the forsaken sun slowly slipped into exile behind the mountain pass. The molten orb retreated in the face of defeat from the torrents ripping across the night. It was dark, wet, freezing the rain into scattered crystal as it hit the ground. Flashes of light slid down from the heavens to smash into the soil with theatrics, harmonizing the roar of thunder rippling in the air.

One flash of lightning came closer than the rest, lighting up the porch of an old brick house to expose the figure resting on the seats in front. The house seemed strong, the well-built kind able to shrug off the most violent of nature much less the storm overhead. Shifting to ease the ache of cold bones, the man on the lacquered wood shivered slightly from underneath the knitted sweater. He gave a discomforted groan, breath billowing into a thick steam. His eyes stayed open and staring out at the edge of the clearing, waiting.

Upstairs, a small boy rested silently on his warm bed, decorated in the silhouettes of a children’s television show. His mother sat beside him, closed book on her lap and her head tilted to lie on her softly rising chest. A snore slipped from the woman and let one hand shift off of the book, letting the storybook fall with a clatter onto the laminated wood flooring. She jumped violently from her sleep, surprised. Katrina glanced at her child still in a deep rest and pondered the glued-shut eyes of the comatose toddler. Slowly, not wanting to wake her son, the woman slipped out of the room and back downstairs, meeting her husband on the porch.

“Nathan,” she whispered softly, “Have they come yet?” He shook his head in response, looking down at the rifle in his hands and inspecting the round inside.

“Not yet,” he rasped, “But soon.” His wife sat beside him and began rubbing her hands together, willing the quickly-freezing limbs to warm themselves. One particularly strong burst of wind knocked an old, gnarled branch from a tree near the house into the side, causing the couple below to jump. They calmed and began staring back out into the void.

It was relaxing, really, sitting out on the porch and rocking in the old creaking wooden chairs. Sometimes they’d sit out and watch the heat lightning shatter the clouds overheard with a cold glass of some varied drink and just relax. Tonight wasn’t relaxing, tonight was terrifying. Tonight was cold, and tonight was tense. The air seemed to have a sharp, bitter taste to it, though neither of the couple wanted to speak it out loud. They knew that something was different, and they both knew what the other was thinking.

All debts have to be paid.

Out from the shadowed forest crept a single creature. With one massive paw after the other, ever forward and ever closer to the solitary homestead, the beast trailed its path with confidence. No, arrogance. Its expression was grim, teeth pulled back in a human smile and an animal's challenge. The grizzly licked its lips like it was anticipating something, a feast or a snack. Menacing nonetheless, subtle intent it wasn’t.

The man turned to his weapon once more, checking the slide and rubbing a nervous hand down the barrel. Standing up, barely satisfied but caving in to necessity, he walked a step forward before he was stopped by the hand on his arm.

"Please. Don't go out there...." She said. He turned around for the last time, bending over to kiss his wife for the last time. She could feel it crystallizing her skeleton, the chill of the weather overtaken with the mourning she was already beginning. He left his wife sobbing to herself, alone on the unsympathetic wood, covered in a blanket half-empty. Cocking the rifle, he walked out to the bear.

"We already told you, we ain't giving him to you! We changed our minds, goddammit. Leave us in peace!" He yelled into the unrelenting downpour. Moving closer, the beast shook his massive neck dismissively and kept a steady pace in its beeline to the brick-and-mortar architecture.

"Turn around! Get the hell out of here, you damn fake!" He put the rifle to his shoulder and took aim between the black holes gleaming amidst all the fur. "I'm warning you, leave him alone!"

The beast stopped then, cocking its head in confusion, and then reared on its hind legs. One roar burst from its mouth, then another and then more in staccato beats. A paw to its belly and face lifted upward, the man realized the beast was laughing at him! The noise stopped short, paws hitting the ground again and all four steady against the soggy soil. That great maw opened again, shaking the ground with an unnatural roar, paws suddenly stirring the ground in great scars against the mud. Caught by surprise, the man fired a round, furious lead whistling past animal fur and gouging a trench into the wet ground.

On the porch, the woman stood up and screamed, rushing upstairs to her son. He was scrunched deep in his sheets when she got there, wetting the blanket with salty terror rushing from his eyes. She grabbed him up in her arms, flinging the covers aside and smashing through the doorway. One foot after the other paced barely flitting above the hardwood flooring, past the wooden barriers and down the stone stairway into the basement. She slipped on the last step down, hitting her head on the railing and lying motionless on the concrete.

Silence was sudden, abrupt and uninviting. Hollow and black, the rain stopped and the man stared face to face in the unflinching gaze of his reaper. A low, grating voice echoed inside his head where there should be none.

Have You Forgotten Our Arrangement? The Boy For The Woman. A Lifetime For Another, This Is The Way Things Must Be. This Is The Way Things Were Promised.

“You never said it’d be this soon!”

We Gave You Time. There Was Always Enough Time.

“You damn cheat!” The man cocked his rifle, raising it to his shoulder and aiming down the sights. His view swept down the polished steel of the rifle, gases expanding rapidly out of the end of the barrel as the lead inside twirled through the air and straight between the eyes of the beast. The round embedded itself in the deep fur and became lost until it exploded out of the other side, gore spattering on the ground in wet chunks.

The voices echo through his head again, a chorus filling his brain where lead filled the skull of the bear.

A Life For A Life.

The toddler sat next to his mother from where he had fallen, tears on the edge of falling but still stopped short. One hand wrapped around hers, holding tightly. Water trickled down the stairway and pooled around the mother, mixing with her stain and spreading across the smooth flooring.

A shadow silhouetted itself in the doorway, frozen blue orbs gazing upon the face of the chubby boy. He looked up at the spectre and sniffled softly.

A Life For A Life. Such Is How It Will Be.

The shadow turned away with a jingle, bells clattering together as it lightly pranced out of the home.

Light shattered the gloom outside, the clouds scattering from the vengeful sphere emerging from behind the trees. The molten orb filled the sky with its fury, bruising the darkness with deep purples and lurid oranges. It was bright, wet, melting the thin layer of ice on the ground in a geyser of evaporating steam. Bits of branches rustled and fell to the ground in wet thuds, blown from their precarious homes with a rising gust of wind.

One leaf fell closer to the brick monument than all the rest, gracing the edge of the wooden porch with a fond kiss goodbye. Another beside it tangled stems with the first and lay there, watching. From inside came a child’s cry of hunger, discomfort. The leaves shifted, rustled without wind.

The sky sighed.