That Thing....

   

     


          I could smell the blood and hear their young fragile screams. No adult should hear children scream like that. No child should need to scream with such ear-piercing terror.  It's our job to help protect them from the evil and chaotic realities of this world until their young minds are mature enough to handle it, but that option had been brutally ripped away from these children.
     I could hear running in the halls. Doors being slammed and locked in haste as I myself shut myself up in the janitor's closet. Surely they would have no interest in some nobody who cleans the floors. I kept whispering to myself, "I'm nobody. I'm nobody." In hopes, it would bring an ounce of comfort at this horrible moment in time.
     I could hear their heavy footsteps just slowly making their way down the hallway. My heart pounding in my chest. I tried so hard to slow my breath. I couldn't let my breathing give me away. They couldn't know I was here. I was so careful. I took every precaution.
     Then the heavy booted footsteps came to stop just outside the closest I was hiding in. I was shaking so badly. The door was ripped open and there before me stood a soldier dressed in black, with our ruler's symbol on his cap. He held a really big gun. I wasn't someone who could tell what kind of gun it was. I just knew it was big and terrified me.
     He suddenly pulled a piece of paper out of his front jacket pocket. It was a crumbled and beat up photograph. He looked at it. My heart sank. It was a photo of me from 10 years ago. 10 years ago is when I had to run. It was when my mere existence became this thing that had to be extinguished. I did everything I could to disappear without a trace without implicating anyone I loved. I kept them in the dark too. I hoped they were all still okay.
     "I Found IT! Grab the principal, and the members of the school board now! Bring those snot-nosed shit smelling things they call children outside now! "
     My face went white as I realized the danger I put everyone in. I shouldn't have thought it safe to have a job. I should have found some remote abandoned place and stayed there. I was so stupid.
     The soldier knocked me over the head and my world went black...

SOMETIME LATER...

     I had no idea how much time had passed. I found myself in some remote field. I was standing on a makeshift wooden stage thing and I was tied to a wooden beam deeply implanted in the gound.  There was no way I could make the pole budge. As I inhaled I realized I smelled gasoline. I looked down at my feet and saw I was standing on firewood doused in gasoline. I realized what they were going to do and I began to cry in fear. 

      "EXCUSE ME!" A man wearing a fancy suit, wire-rim glasses, slicked back greasy hair, and a pudgy belly yelled. I recognized him as the man who was second in command to our fearless leader. Apparently, my capture was a big deal. I suppose it was. There was very few people like me anymore.  Most of us had already been killed. We weren't like everyone else. We weren't considered human anymore.  

     " EXCUSE ME! Everyone knows a person like this is slime. Their very existence is a disease that must be wiped from this planet. To harbor one in your school is a crime. You know this. It was your job to turn this piece of shit in!"

     Suddenly the school principal fell to the ground. " Please, sir! We didn't realize! We didn't know! Please show us mercy!" 

     "Ha! I didn't know? What a joke! As if it wasn't obvious! The penalty for harboring this ...this ...this thing is death!  Shoot the Principal, Vice Principal, and the entire school board." 

     Instantly I heard loud gunshots go off like cannon fire. It was so loud it hurt my ears. The thuds of their bodies hit the ground. I screamed. They couldn't do this because of me.  They couldn't. They didn't know. They really didn't know!

      "As for the children. They have been tainted being near this thing! Take them to be reformed. Anywho don't cooperate will be hung for display!"  The children began crying and screaming for their parents. Oh God, their parents. How worried would they be when their children didn't come home? I watched as they were shuffled off. 

     "NOOOOOO! They are innocent!" I screamed but it fell on deaf ears. 

      Now the man turned to me. "You piece of shit gave us a hard time. Bring the kindling for the fire!"

      Two large soldiers carried over a big and what looked to be a very heavy box. They put it down with a thud onto the grass in front of the makeshift platform I was on. They then opened the box and I saw the battered and tortured heads, limbs, and torsos of my family being thrown onto the fire pile like they were nothing. They were wet and from the smell were soaked in gasoline as well. 

      "Noooooooooo! MOM! DAD! Nooooooooooo!" I screamed through my sobs. It had been my only hope left that I somehow had protected them. I was wrong. 

      " The assholes wouldn't cooperate. They claimed they had no idea where a piece of shit like you went. They kept lying saying you were dead. So we killed them." 

      "NOOOOOOO. They were telling the truth! They didn't know anything! " I cried. " They were loyal!"

      " I'm supposed to believe a thing like you! I think not! Burn it!" 

       The torches were tossed at my feet and I began to feel my flesh bubble and burn. Why? Why was I hated so? The smoke was thick and heavy. Trying to inhale hurt so much. It felt as if my lungs were on fire. The pain beyond comprehension. I heard this terrible screaming and realized it was me that was screaming. Those horrifying screams were me.
        I could hear that awful man cackling. He was thoroughly enjoying watching me burn.  As I gasped for air, as my flesh bubbled, boiled, and burned he laughed...

       " Finally silence. I think that thing is finally dead." The man takes a deep inhale through his nose.
       "Nothing like the smell of that shit burned to put me in the mood for a nice BLT. Men! Let's go eat! I don't know about you but I am starving!"
        Off the man and his men walked, laughing, talking and leaving to find themselves a BLT as if nothing had happened at all.