A Christmas Wish

A Christmas Wish

"Please! You have to. If you don't I'll die!"                                                                                    
"You're not going to die...at least you won't if you leave me alone."                     Ethan's brother gave him a crooked smile and then returned his eyes back to the book in his hands. Ethan scowled at his older brother and huffed.                                                                                                                                                      
"Play with me now," Ethan begged of his brother Gray. He had been playing on his own today, December 24th and he had gotten bored, eventually decided that he would have more fun if he got his older brother to play with him.                        
"I told you no," Gray replied "I have to read this book for English before the holidays are over and I want to get it over and done with."                            
"I don't care," Ethan said matter-of-factly "I want you to play with me. Play with me. Play with me." Ethan repeated insistently until Gray slammed his book shut and glared upon his brother with a look of pure animosity.                            
"Get out now!" Gray roared at his brother, scaring him enough that he left the room which was closed roughly behind him. Ethan, knowing that pestering his brother into playing him wouldn't work decided on a different approach. He clutched his arm and suddenly cried out and burst into crocodile tears. Ethan made his way into the living room where his parents were. They had heard his scream and were waiting for him.                                                    
"Gray hit me in the arm," Ethan whined. His parents barely even looked at their youngest son. They had heard this story a million times and over the years they had slowly become wise to his mastery of deception at just the age of eight.
"Please don't lie Ethan. It's a bad habit and you shouldn't be naughty when you've got Santa Claus coming tonight. You never know, you just might end up on his naughty list," His mother's words made Ethan's eyes roll. He had lied to get what he wanted since he was small and every year good old St. Nick brought him presents. At first he had wondered if the man was just very forgiving but as he got worse over the years, little by little, he soon began to realise that he must have been one of Santa's favourites and was able to get away with anything without being left coal. He remembered one time when he had pushed a kid in his class who was too scared to move up on the climbing frame so he wasn't able to climb up either. The kid fell and landed badly, ending up with a broken leg. Ethan had insisted that the child had merely fallen and the kid was much too afraid of Ethan to put up any resistance to the story he had concocted. Ethan had been worried though that he may not get as many presents that year when Christmas came around but his fears held no truth and he got the same amount of presents he always did, if not a little more. The threat that Santa would put him on the naughty list didn't concern him as he knew it was an empty threat. Only Santa knew if people were naughty or nice and Ethan was convinced that he was nice.
"Whatever!" Ethan screamed "You guys don't believe me. You never believe me! You're the worst parents ever!" Ethan waited for some sort of reaction and when he didn't get one he burst into tears and stomped upstairs slamming his bedroom door shut behind them. He collapsed onto his bed and grabbed his mobile from his pocket. It was a birthday gift from last year. At first he had been a little disappointed that so many people in his year had phones as well but then he became popular by trading numbers. He sat there looking through his contact list at people he only half knew and didn't feel like starting conversations with any of them. "Useless," he muttered tossing his phone on the floor and burying his face in his pillow. He lay for some amount of time and must have dozed off at some point.
When Ethan woke up, all he saw was white. It took him several moments to realise that the white was in fact a piece of paper that hadn't been there when he had fallen asleep. He looked out the window. It had turned dark but at this time of the year that was no real indication of how late it was. The boy looked back at the paper in his hand which read in a blood scarlet font (that strangely reminded the boy of Santa Claus) 'Dear Ethan Hale. This is to show that you have earned one wish of yours to be granted before night's end. –S.C.'
'S.C.?' Ethan thought to himself and found the answer almost immediately to be Santa Claus!

Ethan thought about what to wish for in an excited buzz, skipping across his room and having odd bursts of giggles every time he thought of a funny idea like having his teacher, Mr. Solomon, only be able to wear women's clothing for the rest of his life. However, his thoughts turned to much more serious matters. He was young, not an idiot and didn't want to waste the wish on something stupid. He thought of wishing for millions of pounds but then his money would no doubt be have to be shared amongst his family. He thought of wishing to be Prime Minister so he could be in charge but then he thought of how his parents would often yell at the TV and comment on how much they didn't like him or the man who had come before him, if he remembered correctly. People didn't seem to like the Prime Minister and he wanted to be popular. Urg! Whenever he thought of a good wish, it always seemed to be ruined by other people. And that's when he knew what to wish for.
He looked straight at the piece of paper and said clearly to it, "I wish that everybody would just disappear!" There was no big flash of light or cloud of purple smoke like Ethan was expecting. Leave it to TV to put false ideas in people's heads.
Ethan waited for some reaction though and he noticed that the words on the paper had mysteriously disappeared, leaving nothing on it. Eventually Ethan got tired of waiting to see some reaction and went downstairs to see if he could find any evidence to see if his wish was granted. He didn't find anything. Well actually 'anyone' would be a better word to use. There wasn't anybody in the house. Ethan ran to the windows, where a light shower of snow was starting to fall but probably wouldn't set. Even for Christmas Eve where people usually went to bed early, there was a distinct lack of human activity from what he could see in other people's windows.
Ethan took a step back from the window, taking in the fact that his wish had come true. Everybody had disappeared from the world. It was free for him to do what he wanted with. The eight year old smiled widely and headed outside after throwing on some warm clothes and began to enjoy his wish by running around with the snow twisting and wrapping itself around him, tickling his face and making the already giddy child laugh out loud.
But playing out in the snow is only so fun for so long. Ethan eventually got bored and retired inside his home where he began to play his Xbox up until the time when he got hungry "Mum! I'm hungry. What's for dinner?" He didn't receive a reply and just before he was about to call out again, he remembered that there was nobody there to answer him. His mother was gone. His father was gone. Gray was gone. Everybody was gone "There's no one to make me dinner," He thought aloud.
Ethan scavenged for food, deciding rather than try to cook his food knowing that he would most likely fail and just make himself sick, he went for precooked items and devoured them which satisfied him for the time being but he knew that it wouldn't be long that he would need more food. He panicked slightly when he realised that he would soon run out of food to eat.
'Wait, calm down,' he thought to himself. 'There's a million of houses I can go into and get food from. Everything will be fine.' He was completely oblivious to the flaws of his childish reasoning but he was slowly coming to the point where even if he did realise it he would have probably have put it in the back of his mind, not wanting to realise the truth. Ethan had sent his family away as well as everybody else and subconsciously he had come to the sudden realisation that he was like a baby bird that had been left by its mother, ready to start out and fly but without knowing how and there was only one thing he could do once he leapt out of the nest. Fall.

The next day was Christmas Day! Ethan excitedly ran down the stairs and rushed to the Christmas tree where he began to rip open the presents that he found there. Even those that belonged to Gray, as he figured that he wouldn't be needing them anymore. The games he found there were fun to play at least for a while but he soon felt boredom's hold coming back to haunt him as it usually did. He never had liked doing the same thing for a long amount of time and so had to do other things to keep himself entertained. It was a personal rule that he could never be bored and it was somebody's fault if he was because they weren't doing their best to keep him happy. Although now there was no one to blame. It didn't help that the TV wasn't working and later that Christmas day the electricity turned off entirely. The room went cold fast and so Ethan decided to make his way into a house that still had heat.
He found it easy to break into other people's homes without having to worry about them having any people inside. Thankfully for Ethan, he quickly found a house which had an old fireplace still blazing. It was getting dark and so he snuggled in front of the warm flames, eventually drifting off into sleep.
However Ethan awoke to a strange sensation. It was hot and it was painful and it made him shoot right out of bed. His shoulder and side were in terrible agony and he had no idea what he should do. All he did was scream and run around. He couldn't stop himself long enough to check the painful area and he hurt him so much that he couldn't help but burst into tears as he ran. He ran outside but tripped on the step and fell onto the ground.
Ethan instantly felt relief. Looking down, he realised that the snow had gotten heavier during the night and the ground was now covered in white. The cold made his shoulders and side feel much better and he realised that he had rolled into the fire while asleep, badly burning himself. When he finally felt at ease enough to look at the damage, he almost immediately regretted it and started to feel ill. Unlike in the cartoons when someone fell into a fire, parts of his body had turned a very nasty red colour with black and yellow patches outlining them.
He felt like crying but found that he couldn't and despite the pain he was in just moments ago he now found his body without pain. Without any feeling at all in fact. Was this it for him? He was sure he couldn't move and even if he did he was much too scared to go back near the fireplace that had done such an awful thing to him.
He was a child in pain, there was nothing more expected for him than to scream out for his mother. Of course nobody would answer him. Or so Ethan thought.
"Ho, ho, ho. Now, now Ethan. What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into?" A man with red rosy cheeks, a large smile with a larger belly stood towering over him. His eyes had an odd twinkle in them but he still gave off a very uncomfortable presence as if he was angry but just very good at hiding it.
"Santa? Santa! You're here! Please help me!" Ethan begged, raising his hand out to the magical man in the red suit.
Santa merely chuckled, shaking his head "I gave you a wish. Something that very few ever get and the next thing you do when you see me is ask for more. I really shouldn't be surprised but I am anyway. Have you learnt nothing?"
Ethan frowned, suddenly confused "Learnt what?"
Santa's smile suddenly disappeared into a very stern look. All appearances of a jolly fellow were gone. His expression now matched the intimidating aura he was giving off "Very well then," he muttered. Santa snapped his fingers and Ethan suddenly felt warmth. He was able to move again. He looked at his shoulder and side which were now backed to normal.
"You healed me!" Ethan squealed happily. He jumped up and down marveling the display of Santa's powers. Ethan stopped though when he felt a pair of eyes watching his every move with extreme concentration. Santa Claus was giving him the same sort of look that his brother gave him when Ethan annoyed him to breaking point. It was a warning. "Um…thank you," Ethan mumbled, unsure of what else Santa could want from him.
Santa suddenly gave a smile and turned his head, looking behind him, at something that Ethan couldn't see "You have visitors," he said merrily as if they had been expected.
Again Santa's words and actions left Ethan confused "More people?" he asked darting past Santa to get a better look.
What Ethan saw were dogs. Boxers, Rottweiler, Doberman and other types that he didn't know the name of. They all stared at him with a certain look that made every fiber of his being scream 'Run! Run away!' Ethan turned back to face Santa who was smiling with a look of pure malice. "People? No, of course not. There are no people anymore. You got rid of them remember? One of the many consequences of your little wish was that these dogs had no masters to feed them. They're hungry and let me tell you, you never want to get in a hungry animal's way when it's hunting. Even pets can turn quite vicious. I remember this one time when the elves didn't feed the reindeers, oh boy, now that was a real mess. But I digress; I really hoped you would have learnt your lesson Ethan. Maybe you didn't have enough time or maybe I'm right in thinking that naughty children just stay naughty."
Santa disappeared. Just like that. Again Ethan noted the lack of a bright flash but his mind quickly turned to the pack of now wild dogs that were stalking him, getting closer with a hungry gleam in their eye. Ethan turned to run and suddenly the dogs burst into a sprint, each one throwing themselves onto him, sinking their teeth into him, ripping out his-

"Dad!"
An old man looked up from his grandchildren's frightened faces to face that of his daughter. She was speechless and violently shaking her head, "I knew I shouldn't have left them with you. It's Christmas Eve and now they're going to have nightmares because of the stories you tell," she said picking up her children and going out of the room.
The old man stood up and called out, "You can't keep protecting them from the way the real world works. I never did that with you and you came out perfectly well. But their generation, well I hope they learn the difference between naughty and nice."