0 March Secret Agent #7

TITLE: Rewrite
GENRE: Adult Literary Fantasy

Keegan looked across the half-finished tree house at his son, Ian, and smiled. Even though rain fell through the leaves and soaked their clothes, neither wanted to quit working. It’d been too long since they completed a project together, and the tree house was something they’d looked forward to building for some time.

“Do you have the hammer?” Keegan asked.

“Uhh…” Ian twisted, looking in the pile of tools and wood around him. He reached into the toolbox and brought out a shining hammer. “Here.”

Keegan reached for the tool and his feet slipped from the slick wood plank of the tree house floor. The pain of his body slamming into the ground below was so intense, he felt it for only an instant before icy numbness crept over him. He stared back up at the half-finished tree house and realized his wife was right. Ian will fall to his death from that thing, she’d said. Well, she was partially right.

“Dad!” Ian’s scream grew faint as reality fell away.

Keegan smelled the damp, crisp fall leaves and he knew the raindrops falling on his face meant his tools were getting wet. He felt cold, but couldn’t decide if the sensation came from the ground, the air, or his mind.

I hope Ian remembers to take those tools inside. That handsaw is brand new. It’ll be ruined if it rusts.

A dense grey cloud covered the remainder of the afternoon sun, and it was the last thing he saw before the world faded from him.