Compassion

A story of tragedy, child abuse, and compassion

Photo by Casey Allen on Unsplash

A single-lane road stretches far into the depths of the mountain pass. The headlights swivel in the suffocating darkness, piercing the road ahead as the engine roars and a loud hum vibrates through the barren highlands.

In the picturesque scene emerges a deadly scenario.

The car speeds up, and its movements turn erratic and out of control.

In a blur of motion, the car flips and smashes into the iron barracks that separate the abyss from the narrow road winding uphill in a circular motion. As the barrack buckles, the overturned car plummets down the cliff and into the void.

What’s intact of the wrecked car is the ominous headlights still switched on, like a token of what has transpired in the witching hour. But it too soon dims and plunges everything into darkness.

The driver’s seat unlocks and swings open seconds later. A severed hand tumbles out from the gap and lands on the ground – neatly cut, perfectly flat to be the craftsmanship of the crash. Following it is the swollen head of a person with grimy hair shrouding the unrecognisable face full of shredded, cooked flesh.

A ring with the initials ‘F.H.’ is stuck on the ring finger, teetering between the tip of the finger and the damp ground threatening to swallow it.

Somewhere in the distance, at the mountain peaks, a griffon vulture croaks and unfurls its majestic wings towards the carcass. It descends near the crash site and observes the low moans of another passenger pleading for help.

It approaches the severed hand and prods it with its beak, testing its edibility before ripping it apart piece by piece in a haunting tune, consuming each shred after months of enduring starvation in the mountain ridges.

The moans weaken before ceasing altogether.

The vulture grabs the ulna, now stripped of flesh, and hurls it further down the cliff, before approaching the cooked head, ready to devour it, when it retreats as the grimy hair mixed with blood obstructs its effort.

It seizes the radius with the hand still attached and soars to the heavens.

The flesh on the radius and hand sustains its chicks, which stretch their beaks wide upon seeing the vulture return to the nest perched at the top of the mountain. The happy occasion soon draws other vultures in the area, and they descend towards the crash site to satiate their hunger.

One of the chicks, happily gnawing at the ring finger now stripped of flesh too, then snatches the ring. The vulture growls a warning as the chick’s about to swallow it, and the ring settles to the bottom of the crowded nest.

In the distance, a sudden din pierces the air and swells with each passing second.

The vulture hops to the edge of the nest and peers down at the crash site as the other vultures squawk and scatter to the cadence of an approaching engine.

It hushes its chicks and dives into the night sky, hovering above the mountain road and the broken iron barracks as a vehicle skids to a stop just inches from it.

As the headlights dim, a neatly dressed figure in a suit steps out of the car. He adjusts his tie and crouches in front of the broken barracks, peering down into the crash site.

The vulture tracks the stranger as he descends the cliff until he reaches the overturned car and yanks open the driver’s seat door. Another head rolls out on top of the cooked head, but this one is attached to the rest of its body, still restrained by a seatbelt.

The man hoists the head, studying the woman still alive despite the force of the crash. He then shoves her back onto the driver’s seat and flicks the engine on and off until a loud bang erupts.

Both the man and the woman ignite.

Watching this unfold, the vulture is blasted several feet into the air by the force of the explosion and barely recovers control.

The dancing flames consume everything in their path and reduce it to ash before they vanish as abruptly as they appear. The vulture returns to the crash site as the last flames smoulder out and creep closer.

The overturned car is burned down to nothing, but the strange man remains, unscathed by the crackling flames or the explosion of the engine. He unfastens the lifeless, badly scorched woman and cradles her in his arms. As he does so, he locks eyes with the shaken but curious vulture.

He kneels with the woman in his arms and motions for it to come closer. The vulture doesn’t budge, too afraid and on high alert to heed a creature it has no recollection of ever seeing before. Seeing this, the man rises again and passes by it.

The lifeless woman’s white dress billows in the whistling wind, like it has a life of its own. It’s at this point the vulture notices the man’s hand, adorned with the familiar ring on his ring finger. But before it can react, the bride and her groom dissolve into dust.

A newspaper clipping plummets between its legs then, carried by the troubling wind surging and howling with unprecedented speed. On the headline, these words emerge, but the vulture deciphers nothing except the happy smiles of the newlywed couple:

News of the abduction and subsequent murder of the young couple has shaken an entire nation. The bride’s stepfather, Henry Woods, is accused of child abuse, rape of a minor, and the abduction of the newlywed couple in his absence.

The police are searching for the motive behind this horrific case that has tragically claimed the life of… Any tip on the suspect’s whereabouts and the location of Hanna Woods' remains are important for the ongoing investigation.

Chief officer, Jensen McCarthy, implores the public to help them lay the young couple to rest and provide solace to the remaining family members. Authorities are now searching a seven-mile radius around the stepfather's last known phone signal…

Remains of human flesh and body parts are also confirmed as one of the findings in the stepfather’s apartment, along with the missing Ford 2014 Mustang… For more information, turn to page 4.

The vulture snatches the newspaper clipping and carries it back to its nest. It wraps the ring with the newspaper and lifts off from the jagged mountains, heading towards the nearest town. It doesn’t grasp what emotions drive it, but it can’t shake the feeling that it must deliver the ring.

As it glides over the city square, it spots a milling crowd of people protesting. It perches on a nearby truck and studies the people marching, holding up placards with something written on them. It doesn’t comprehend what the humans are saying, but it senses the urgency and the need for closure.

Amidst the crowd of people, it then locks eyes with a young girl. She points at it, desperately tugging at her mother’s clothes to get her attention. The vulture releases the wrapped ring and ascends back to the welkin, but it doesn’t depart.

The girl retrieves the ring and newspaper clipping and then shows it to her mother. The woman pauses her shrieking and asks the girl something. The girl gestures to the vulture again – this time, the woman spots it too, and her eyes widen.

The vulture croaks eagerly, striving to make its voice heard through the crowd of people. The woman entrusts her daughter to another woman nearby and then climbs into her car down the road on the other side of the city square.

She follows the vulture to the site of the crash.

As the vulture ascends back to the mountain peak and joins its chicks, it collects the bones stripped of flesh scattered around the nest and brings them down to the woman, who has collapsed near what remains of the car and the scorched body of the missing bride in her white dress – crying.

The two mothers then share a knowing smile, and the vulture rises to never return. 

The End.