{"id":1546,"date":"2026-05-26T23:20:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T07:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/izzyking.com\/?p=1546"},"modified":"2026-05-26T23:20:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T07:20:40","slug":"ten-paces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/izzyking.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/26\/ten-paces\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Paces"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Content Warnings:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>filicide<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>guns<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>loss of a child<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>grief<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Gun held down at his side, Phillip West lowered his eyes to his feet. He drummed his other leg with his fingers. &#8220;Are you sure about this, son?&#8221; he asked.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kolten West was Phillip&#8217;s oldest child and his only son. They had never really seen eye to eye. That had only worsened as Kolten grew up. In his twenties now, he was old enough to start his own family and argue with his own son. Instead, he insisted on dueling his father. This slight had been the final one as far as Kolten was concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kolten&#8217;s eyes blazed with ferocity when he nodded.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Phillip&#8217;s stomach twisted. This was really happening. &#8220;Okay,&#8221; Phillip said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A quick shot would be all it would take, and neither of their lives would ever be the same. Phillip knew this, but he also knew if he pulled his shot Kolten would never trust him again. They had to do this, and they had to do it right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finn\u2014Kolten&#8217;s best friend\u2014stood off the center of the grassy knoll. Stairs led downward right behind him. He stepped forward and raised his hand. &#8220;You know the rules, both of you?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Phillip eyed Kolten who only nodded. He had no words left in him and Phillip would not try to wrench more from him, no matter how much he wanted to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; Phillip said to Finn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Phillip and Kolten turned away from each other. Finn counted their ten paces. He hollered and Phillip&#8217;s ears rung as he spun around, lifted his arm, and shot.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kolten made no sound as he gripped his chest. His knees buckled and his eyes watered as he glanced up at his father. Phillip dropped his gun and ran at top speed to catch his falling son.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so sorry, Kolt. I&#8217;m so sorry,&#8221; Phillip wailed, but it was too late. Kolten slumped in Phillip&#8217;s arms.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Prompt: The Goodbye<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Content Warnings: Gun held down at his side, Phillip West lowered his eyes to his feet. He drummed his other leg with his fingers. &#8220;Are you sure about this, son?&#8221; he asked.&nbsp; Kolten West was Phillip&#8217;s oldest child and his only son. They had never really seen eye to eye. That had only worsened as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_regular_price":[],"currency_symbol":[],"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,27],"tags":[139,142,140,141,34,31,76],"class_list":["post-1546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-projects","category-shorts","tag-cw-filicide","tag-cw-grief","tag-cw-guns","tag-cw-loss-of-a-child","tag-prompt-reply","tag-shorts","tag-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_slider_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","post_slider_layout_landscape_large":"","post_slider_layout_portrait_large":"","post_slider_layout_square_large":"","post_slider_layout_landscape":"","post_slider_layout_portrait":"","post_slider_layout_square":"","full":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/izzyking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/izzyking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/izzyking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/izzyking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/izzyking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/izzyking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1547,"href":"http:\/\/izzyking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1546\/revisions\/1547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/izzyking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/izzyking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/izzyking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}