About the Author: Emily is 13 years old. She likes to read, write, drink coffee, and volunteer at animal shelters.
I’ve always heard that when you die, or are about to, your life flashes before your eyes. I disagree. It doesn’t flash. It unwinds.
It goes like this. My earliest memory, I was 5 or 6, driving to a grocery store. They still had those when I was that young. But I’ll never remember one because before we got there, the car rolled to a stop. All the cars did. Some of them were faster than others. All I remember was the squealing of the tires, the screaming of my parents. I don’t remember anything following that until I'm 8. I'm standing in what will soon be the home of my community.
My community is a handful of people that survived. I'm one of them. I think that my parents were too. But they left me. Nobody really cared where I went. They didn’t want to deal with me. I went to the school. It was strange, different, yet it was familiar to me. School had always been my second home.
In the five years that I lived there, I read through every book they had. It took a while, and I grew to hate those books. But I learned everything I could. I had to. There was nothing else to do. All the phones, computers, cars, everything that used electricity or a motor, were dead. They didn’t work and nobody knows why. Because after all, anyone who could understand why was killed. So many people were killed. But more were killed from the diseases that rampaged freely. No more medicine to stop it.
I have a decent memory. I can remember most days since then. I write down everything in an actual paper notebook; it's practically an artifact. Sometimes when I'm bored I read through that notebook. To jog my memory I guess. The first time I wrote in it was the day I chose my name. Yes. I chose it. Nobody else felt like it, apparently. I chose Acacia because it means thorny. I found it in a thesaurus. I wasn’t kidding when I said I read every. Single. Book.
Most days are boring. After I got the whole ‘surviving on my own’ thing down. Since then, I’ve gotten the school’s greenhouse to work, even without grow-lights or watering systems. I never got why greenhouses were mandatory. I still don’t, but hey, I'm alive, so I'm not going to complain. The community always wanted to share it with me, but after the first few years of their complaining, they finally gave up.
That was the last time I talked to any of them for years, and in some ways I regret it. Maybe I could have made friends and not hated all of them. It really wasn’t their fault. It was only a few of them. But at the same time, it was all of them. All they did is take and they never gave me anything. So I returned the favor.
Everything was fairly peaceful. There were arguments within the community, of course. And we purposely avoided any other communities, simultaneously avoiding outside conflict.
But one day, outsiders decided that they didn’t want to avoid us. They were a traveling community, one that never seems to stay still. They only met with the men of our community. I didn’t really care, but I never understood why they couldn’t meet with the women. I guess they found women inferior. I snuck into the first of their meetings, just to see why they were here. This one guy who was like 6 and a half feet tall, and probably weighed almost 300 pounds, did all of the talking. On their part, at least. He wanted our land. He could’ve had all of what was left of New York, but no, he just had to have what we had claimed years earlier.
They argued for what must have been hours. Half of our community wanted to try to divide up our land and avoid a fight, while the other half wanted to keep all of our land and send them on their way. Honestly, I was on the latter’s side. I didn’t want to risk losing the school, the only home that I could remember. The newcomers finally left, although not quietly. They literally all flipped over their chairs in unison as the left. It was actually really kind of funny seeing a ton of Manly Men™ throw a temper tantrum. Once I got home, I nearly died laughing. Literally. I almost tripped down the stairs. That was the last time I truly laughed.
The next day was a normal one, at first. Now that I look back on it, I realize that I should’ve packed everything I had and ran. I should have left. I could have started over somewhere else. Tried to live a normal life, as normal as I could at this point, at least. Sometimes I miss the life that I never had. The life with my parents, in a world that had never died. But no. Sucks for me, I guess.
What I didn’t know then, was that the newcomers had surrounded us that night. They did nothing at first. But my community did. Apparently, someone saw a newcomer and freaked out. Whoever it was told everyone, and within minutes even I knew. They pleaded that I help them. I didn’t want to. I really didn’t. And so for a few days, with the rumors still flying, and everyone panicking, I managed to stay somewhat out of it.
Then a few days later this guy named Thomas, I think, knocked on the door to my school. I had no idea how he had found me, but here he was.
“What do you want?” I asked. But I already knew the answer. I guess he didn’t like my tone because his mouth scrunched up a bit before he spoke, a look of distaste barely hidden.
“We want you to help us, Acacia. We need you to.” His words were far from sincere, and were instead rather clipped, as though he didn’t want my help. I didn’t blame him, I still don’t. And how did he know my name?
“With what?”. This was a legitimate question. Conversations with me never got this far. It’s been said, by rather annoyed people, that I'm difficult to talk to.
He glanced around the room, searching for something. I resisted the urge to look too.
“Not here. I won’t tell you here. Come with me.” He commanded.
The rebellious teen in me came out as I said, “Why should I?”.
He grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the room.
I let out a startled, “Hey!” and struggled to release myself, but his grip was strong.
Thomas marched out of the school, with me having to jog to keep up with him and not have my arm pulled out from it’s socket. We arrived at the town hall, that was surrounded with the collection of small shacks that normally occupy those in our community. They seemed empty now. A question starts to form, but is answered when I find that everyone, even young children, have been packed into the larger the normal, but still small building. I felt everyone’s eyes on me. Some of them had never seen me, probably only heard about the odd girl who lived in the school, all alone. Thomas cleared his throat.
“Take a seat, everyone...” He took another look around the room. “Or don’t. We are here today to discuss a problem that has arisen. We seem to find ourselves surrounded. Those surrounding us are members of another community. They have demanded- rather aggressively, that we give up our land to them. Our council is torn over if we should force them away or give them part of our land. So we have decided that everyone over the age of 16 will vote. Everyone else is dismissed.”
I start to file out with the rest of the underaged members, but Thomas grabs my arm.
“No. You must vote.” He looked- no, examined- me coldly. As if I were a hunting dog, on its first day, and he was the one determining if I was worth anything. I followed him back in.
“Alright. Now everyone may take a seat.” Everyone complied, and I struggled to fix my posture to appear taller. Everyone here looked down at me, which made me feel even smaller.
“First, we need to vote. Those in favor of giving them some of our land, raise your hand.” About a third of those there raised their hand, I did not.
“Those in favor of fighting back, raise your hand.” I raised my hand, and most voters followed suit. Thomas smiled grimly. “It is settled then.” He turned to me. I found myself shaking a bit as I stared him down. Or tried to stare him down. It probably wasn’t as intimidating as I hoped it was. “Everyone who isn’t a council member may leave now. Except for you, Acacia.” I shifted in my seat but said nothing.
After everyone was gone, all eyes were on me.
“Well?” I asked, after a rather awkward moment of silence. Thomas looked around, and settled his gaze on a woman sitting two seats from his right.
She frowned but understood and rose to her feet. She looked almost familiar, and I couldn’t figure out why. Maybe she was the person who had spotted the newcomers. It probably didn’t matter.
She smiled at me. “We have a proposition for you, Acacia.” My silence must have been taken as a sign for her to continue. It wasn’t. “We want you to help us-”
“I told you already. I. Don’t. Feel. Like. It.” I cut in.
“Let me finish. We have a deal for you.” This caught my attention. I raised my eyebrows.
“You help us, and we’ll find your family. It won’t be hard.”
“You already know where they are,” I guessed. She smiled but didn’t answer. My pulse was quickening. My eyes darted around the room.
“What do you need my help with?” I asked. Again, they faltered.
Whatever it was, they didn’t really want to talk about it. Most of them didn’t want to, at the very least. Some guy in the corner across from me seemed to appear from the shadows. He laughed in a way that only a broken person could. His eyes had a fractured, strange light that put me on edge.
He laughed again before saying, “Lighten up guys.”
The council seemed to be as uneasy as me; they leaned away from him. His teeth glinted in the minimal sunlight as his lips pulled back in what looked more like a grimace than a smile. “They want you to…,” He paused, “to kill all. Of. Them.” His words were clipped and clear, and almost casual. but they buzzed in my ears and I couldn’t understand what he was saying.
“You want me to what?” I asked, but it suddenly made sense in my head. And they told me their plan for me as if I had already agreed. I was a deer in the headlights, and they were all in the car that was about to kill me.
They explained that we were surrounded. We had a ‘choice’. In four days, on the first day of what is technically winter- although we never actually get snow- we had to give them our land, or they would attack us. They were fighters and we were not, there was no way we could win in hand to hand combat. But we had an advantage. And it was me. Apparently, after I had eavesdropped on their debate and decided to go home, they had come back. This time with handmade weapons and the rest of their group. They rounded up my entire community. Counted them. Thought they knew everyone. But in the panic, in the rush, everyone forgot about me.
So in the next four days, I had to kill as many of our attackers as possible, so that when it came to the final, deciding fight, we could win.
“But… won’t they notice how many of their people are dying- or, being murdered?” I whispered.
They looked confused, so I said it again, clearer and putting an accentuation on the word ‘people’.
“Not if we come up with a reason that they go… missing,” Thomas answered. For a split second, he smiled in the same deranged way the broken guy had. It was in that moment I knew that I was trapped. By not only the attackers but also the same people who stood in front of me. When had they all stood up? It didn’t really matter. What mattered was that I had about as much choice as they did.
I was shaking. And I wanted to cry.
But I heard myself force out the words, “Okay. Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll be your goddamn assassin if that what you need.” I was allowed to go home, but only for a few minutes to collect some of my belongings.
From now on, at least until after the final fight, I was to stay in an extra room in the town hall. I didn’t know we had an extra room, so I assumed that it must have. Once I got home, to my school, I found myself crying silently as I shoved some extra clothes and blankets in my bag. I slipped on a faded red sweatshirt. Hopefully, it’ll help me blend into the leaves.
The room in the town hall is actually an attic. See, from the main room, the ceiling mimics the shape of the roof, so it appears as though there is no space between the two. From the storage room that holds extra tables and chairs, there is a broken ladder leaning against the wall. If you put it in just the right place and reach up, you’ll be able to push up a ceiling tile. You then have to pull yourself up into the tiny space. The floor is flat for about a foot, where the roof overhang outside is. The walls are slanted with the roof, making it harder to move around. But in the corner, there is just enough space to put down a mat, sleeping bag, and pillow. I set up my ‘bed’ and toss my bag next to me. I flop down face first on the pillow, with the hopes that it will hide the sounds of my screams, and later, my sobbing.
I wake up early the next morning. Thomas said that he would get me at some point. He doesn’t want me to risk being seen. I sit in silence for a few minutes. I tense up a bit as the trapdoor opens. I don’t think that I’ll ever be able to get used to people just walking into my space.
“Come with me,” he ordered. I opened my mouth to interject. To ask ‘why?’. Why do you want me, a fourteen-year-old, to kill? Why are you doing this to me? Why are you here? Why. Why. Why. But he didn’t give me the chance.
“Just do it. Okay? I’ve had enough of you and your questions.” I’ve heard him say some stupid things, but this? This was probably the worst. It was like he legitimately thought that was going to stop me.
I did go with him, although I silently vowed to ask as many questions as possible. He simply brought me to the meeting room, where he introduced me to the other council members. The woman who spoke to me was named Carolyn and the broken guy was Slater. Nobody gave last names. Thomas and Carolyn led the council, and therefore did most of the talking.
Carolyn began with, “As most of you already know, Acacia has agreed to help eliminate our enemies. All of you-”
“Enemies? They aren’t just our enemies. They are people. Humans. It’s a crazy concept, I know. But seriously,” I interrupted. There were murmurs of agreement among the council. Carolyn maintained a calm expression, but Thomas’s face grew dark.
“People. Yes, they are people. But they are people that want to take our home, by any means, including killing us,” he growled. “As Carolyn was saying, everyone here is aware of our agreement with Acacia, and have hence been sworn to secrecy. That means that they can’t tell anyone else in the community.”
“I know what it means,” I said, getting irritated by his idiocy.
The sarcasm in his voice was practically tangible as he said, “I’m sure you do.” There was a moment of quiet as everyone shut up. “So before anyone else can interrupt,” he said, shooting a pointed look at me, “We will be trying to tell you the plan. First of all, Slater will be… mentoring Acacia.” He didn’t elaborate on what that meant. “The mentoring will have to be quick, as in this afternoon, as we plan to send Acacia out tonight.”
He paused, possibly for dramatic effect. I didn’t really care- I felt as though I couldn't breathe. I had known what was going to happen. But part of me thought that it was far into the future.
Carolyn seemed to sense my discomfort, and gestured to Slater and me to follow her. Thomas ignored us as we walked outside. I followed Carolyn and Slater behind the town hall, to a small but worn path. We walked for at least 15 minutes in complete silence. I took deep breaths of the clean, crisp air. The dead leaves crunched softly underfoot. The wind whispered through the trees, which seemed to grow in size the farther we got into the woods. It was beautiful but terrifying. I never went into the woods. Who knew what was out there?
We eventually reached a clearing, with a couple of benches circling a fire pit. Carolyn and Slater sat in one, while I sat across from them. There we sat for a few more minutes without talking. Finally, Slater cleared his throat. He grabbed a stick, brushed away the leaves from the ground, and started to draw something in the dirt. My curiosity got the best of me after a moment, and I went to see what it was. I peered over his shoulder. It looked like it was a rough sketch of the community, and by rough I mean literal squares in the familiar semicircle that the houses formed. All around us we tiny x’s that must have represented our attackers- the people that I was supposed to… eliminate.
Slater pointed to the middle of the semicircle, where the slightly-larger-than-the-others square that represented the town hall.
“That is where you stay.” He drew a dot halfway between the town hall and the line of x’s. “Every night, the council walks to here. We talk for a while, about plans that don’t exist. Tonight, you will come with us. You’ll stay in the group at first. We’ll come up with a distraction. When I tell you to, you will go here-” he drew a line from the dot to the x directly across from the town hall. “This is where their commander of sorts is staying, from what we know. They have temporary platforms in the trees. I’ll show you how to deal with that later. Once you feel that you’ve done enough, or are about to be caught, book it. In the confusion of the distraction, there will be a small group of people not that far away. You start crying because you went the wrong way and got lost in the woods and got scared. Okay?” I nod, lost for words.
“This is where I leave you,” Carolyn told me. I don’t want her to leave. But something tells me that it would do me no good to act weak, scared. So I nod. She walks away. I wish that I knew that I would never see her again.
Slater got up and walked farther into the woods without bothering to follow the trail, without bothering to see if I was following. I hurriedly got up and jogged after him. We walked quickly. After a while, I was completely lost. If I had to get out alone, I would probably get more lost. We eventually reached a platform like the ones that Slater had described. There was no way up. Or down. Slater seems to read my mind. He says nothing, but walks to the tree. In a split second, he leaps onto the trunk of the tree, he climbs up the tree like a squirrel or something. He reaches up to the platform, which must be at least 20 feet up, and pulls himself up. Completely silently.
He peers down and grins. “Your turn.”
I gaped up at him for a moment, stunned. And when I finally tried to get up, I failed. Again and again, for what seemed like hours. But his resolve to make me climb the tree never wavered.
“Keep going. You almost got up a whole 6 feet that time,” he said, and for once, he didn’t seem to be taunting me silently. My palms were scraped and bleeding. Every muscle in my body was sore, as though they had been stretched a little too far. But I didn’t complain. I inhaled deeply a few times to settle my breathing. I got back up.
“How?” I wondered aloud.
Slater grinned and swung down from the platform to the tree, and to the ground. For the next half an hour he showed me how to distribute my weight evenly as I climbed, how to find tiny cracks as hand and foot holds, and finally, how to pull myself up onto the platform without falling, which happened. And when it did, he then showed me how to hit the ground and roll, to absorb the impact. It still hurt. A lot. But he had piled the leaves up for a reason, and so it hurt a little less than it should’ve. When I finally got to the platform, my arms and legs shaking, he announced that we could take a quick break. I thought that a quick break meant 15 to 20 minutes. He thought it was 2. But I didn’t object as he showed me how to lower myself off the platform quickly, and without killing myself in the process. Once I was able to get up and down the tree without falling, and in under two minutes, we told me that we could move on. He took me back to the clearing. There, he picked up a bag, filled with throwing knives. I assumed the Carolyn had come back to leave them for us. Or maybe I just missed it the first time I was here.
“See that tree?” he asked, pointing to a birch tree about 25 steps away from us.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Let me guess. I get to throw knives at it.”
Slater rolled his eyes, but it turns out that I was right. He picked up one of the knives. His eyes focused on the tree like a cat focuses on a bird. His hand was a blur as he threw the knife. It hit the tree about 5 feet up, and right in the middle. The blade was buried in the tree’s trunk, at least 3 inches deep. If that was a person, they would be dead. And now I had to learn how to do that. For a second, I almost missed climbing the trees. Almost.
I picked up a knife. It was perfectly balanced in my hand. But I knew that I would still be hopeless when it came to throwing it. Slater gestured for me to try. I raised my hand up next to my shoulder, took a deep breath, and threw it as hard as I could. It bounced off of the tree. But it hit the tree. That must have been pretty good for my first time. Slater didn’t congratulate me. But he had the ghost of a smile- a genuine smile, flit across his face. An odd time to be happy. But whatever works for him.
For the next hour or two, Slater showed me how to throw the knife so that the blade hit the tree. It never went into the tree as far as Slater’s. But it came pretty close. I was a quick learner. The fact that I was quick to learn how to kill was minorly worrying. But it would come in handy tonight.
Once Slater was sure that I had mastered throwing knives he took off. He started sprinting through the woods. Worried, I started running after him. He was a lot faster than me, and soon I was so far behind him that I lost him. I stopped abruptly, hands on my knees, gasping for air. I looked around me at the unfamiliar woods. I had no idea where Slater was, nor where I was. My throat was so dry that it hurt. Everything was sore and tired. But I started running again, in the same direction.
The thought that I could literally just run away from my problems flitted through my mind. I reminded myself that there were still attackers somewhere in the forest. Hidden. After a few more minutes of running, I felt ready to pass out. I slowed down and finally decided to turn around. There was no point in trying to find Slater. He could have taken a turn at any point, and I had no way of knowing. I turned around and started jogging back, hopefully, towards the community.
I got really lucky. I had apparently passed one of the platforms that was actually occupied. I noticed it since I was going so much slower. I froze for a second, before spinning around and nearly diving to the ground behind a fallen tree. It soon became apparent that nobody had noticed me. In fact, it seemed like there was nobody moving around, even though I could clearly see at least two people sitting on the platform and leaning on the tree trunk. They should have been able to see me from where they were. I got up slowly, silently. I walked to the tree, and still. There was nothing. No movement, no calls, no attempts to kill me, or even just stop me. I crept to the tree, and started scaling it like Slater had taught me.
I reached the platform and pulled myself up. At the top was a horrific sight. The two guys I had seen were indeed leaning against the tree. I guess leaning is the wrong word. Propped up would work better. They were dead. Slater’s knives buried in their heads. A third guy lay face first on the platform. I didn’t bother to check if he was alive. There was no way that he was. Something told me that I was meant to see this.
I climbed down from the tree. I knew that I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t kill people. But I had no choice. If I wanted to meet my parents, I had to kill them all.
I got back to the community without being spotted. It was mid-afternoon, at that point and I was actually kind of surprised that I hadn’t gotten lost or seen. I knocked on the door of the town hall softly. Thomas opened the door a crack, saw me, and yanked me inside. I rubbed my wrist where he had grabbed me, and walked to the closet, ignoring him. He was asking where on Earth Slater was. I had no idea, so I muttered something along those lines. I got to the storage room, propped the ladder against the wall, and climbed up into my temporary room. I practically collapsed on my ‘bed’, and fell asleep almost immediately.
My dreams were eerie, filled with knives, trees, and dead people, the sound of Slater’s broken laugh echoing through my mind.
I awoke with a start. Thomas was leaning over me, a grim look settled on his face.
“Night has come,” he said.
And with that, he turned around and left. I watched him, my panic rising. It felt like I was struggling to breathe, and before long I was hyperventilating. I looked at my hands and saw that they were shaking. I took a deep breath in, held it for a few seconds, and let it out slowly. I did this a few times, trying desperately to calm myself. Thomas poked up through the trap door and angrily whispered for me to hurry up.
I followed him down the ladder and out into the crowd of council members. We walked out into the center of the circle that made up both our community and the attacking one. There, the council started talking about nonsense.
“Remember chocolate? God, I loved chocolate,” I heard someone say in a rather nostalgic way.
Another member said, “You know what’s cool? Dogs. Dogs are real cool.” Honestly, I was really confused. But they were all whispering, so it actually sounded official, important. This went on for a few more minutes. Suddenly, someone screamed. A huge fire had started in one of the houses. If I was correct, nobody lived there, as the roof had partially caved in.
But someone was still screaming, “My house! Oh my god, my house! Somebody help!”
People were streaming in, but there was little they could do. The only source of water was the river in the woods. The water had to be carried from the water into the community. We had some, but there was no point in wasting it on a fire that had already destroyed the house. The other houses were far enough away that they were probably safe, and there was only dirt around the house, nothing that could catch fire.
I was thinking that that was a pretty lame distraction until the house’s roof blew off. Everyone scattered, screaming. I had no idea how they pulled that off, but I knew that was my cue. I screamed along with everyone else and took off with a couple other council members into the woods. We sprinted as fast as we could, rambling about a bomb going off.
“What if the other community attacked us?” cried one council member. Another gasped and said, “You’re right! That must’ve been what happened.”
It sounded cheesy to me, but it didn’t really matter. Another explosion went off in the background. I screamed again. In the brief second of light that reached us, I saw a platform barely hidden in a tree ahead of me, a little to my left. As the light faded, I shifted slightly to the left. I ran, keeping my gaze on the tree. I reached the tree, and scrambled up the trunk.
My heart thudded in my chest as I pulled myself up onto the platform. The men were all on the other side. They were distracted by the flickering light cast on the trees by the fire. They didn’t seem to realize I was there. Time seemed to slow down. I had about 20 knives strapped to the inside of my coat. I pulled the first one out of its sheath. I felt its almost familiar weight in my hand. I focused on the man closest to me. He must have noticed me at that point. He was starting to turn. I imagined that he was a tree. A dummy. He wasn’t real. And I threw the knife. It hit him square in the chest. He let out of gasp of shock and fell to the ground. His friends spun to face me. I called on my brief training, Slater’s voice in my head reminding me to keep myself steady. I threw my next knife. As it flew through the air, I threw the third. Neither man had a chance. The second took the knife to the forehead. He was dead before he hit the ground. The third was hit in the neck. He looked me in the eye, a look of disbelief spreading across his face. He fell backward, almost in slow motion.
Time sped up again and before I knew it I was running, first to grab my knives, and then to the next platform. The next three were on edge. They must have heard the cries of their comrades. I hesitated for a split second. One of them threw their own weapon at me. It was a crude dagger of sorts. It embedded itself in my knee. I felt no pain. I threw three knives in a row. They all hit their mark. I took my knives and sheathed them. I ripped off part of one man’s shirt, and wrapped it above the wound in my leg. My adrenaline was still rushing, and so I felt nothing.
I made it to a third platform. I did not hesitate to throw the knives this time. One missed the target, and instead hit the man in the stomach. He fell to the floor, but did not die. He squinted up at me, sucking in deep breathes. He was shaking. Tears that I didn’t know had started to flow dripped down my face.
I climbed down from the platform and ran as fast as I could, although my knee hurt badly. Nobody else saw me, and I joined a group of council members as the panic died down. Together we all went back to the town hall.
Thomas came up to me, but said nothing. He nodded at someone. A second later, Carolyn joined us. I wasn’t really paying attention as she cleaned and bandaged my knee. She helped me up from the chair I was sitting in. Together we walked to the storage closet. I climbed up the ladder and to my bed. She closed the trap door behind me. I wanted to scream. To cry. Most of all I wanted to sleep, to escape everything that was happening. Instead, I stared at the roof. My mind swirled with the faces of the people that I had killed. The people that I had murdered. And the thought that I had to do it again tomorrow and the day after that made me laugh in the same broken way that Slater did. Hours passed before I finally fell into a restless sleep. I didn’t dream.
The next morning I was woken up by Thomas slamming the trap door open. He had what appeared to be a smirk. It was hard to tell with him. I followed him down into the main room of the town hall. There, the council was sitting around a roundtable. They must have just put it in there. I sat down between Thomas and Slater. Carolyn wasn’t there. Everyone looked at me expectantly.
I cleared my throat. “I have a few questions.” No one said anything, so I continued. “How many people did I kill? How did you get the house to explode? And do I get to meet my parents yet?”
Thomas was the one to respond, obviously. He seemed to be addressing the council and not me as he said, “First, you killed eight people. A ninth was injured but has not died- Yet. There are about 30 attackers in total. Second, we used gunpowder-”
“How did you get gunpowder? I thought that didn’t exist anymore,” I interrupted. Thomas glared, but another woman I didn’t know put a hand on his shoulder and answered my question.
“It isn’t made anymore. We took some from what used to be a museum.”
I nodded, but I didn’t get when they had done that. How long had they had it? I said nothing because my guess was that it would be a bit over the line to ask that. Yet at the same time, nothing was over the line anymore. I simply decided to wait until the end of this conversation to ask.
“Slater will be taking you to meet your parents today,” Thomas said.
He seemed to be suppressing a laugh. Suddenly, I got a strange feeling. And a small part of me wondered if they were close enough to reach them today, then why had I never met them? Did they even care? The feeling only grew as the council meeting adjourned, and Slater and Thomas took me to meet my parents. We walked on the same path as yesterday. It was then that I asked,
“So.. how long did you guys actually have that gunpowder. And don’t even try lying. I don’t have time for that-”. Slater cut me off this time.
“We’ve had it for about eight or nine years. Since the last attack.”
So there had been another attack. Something similar to this. And they had taken the gunpowder to protect themselves if it ever happened again. Something still bothered me.
“How did you guys make them leave last time?” But even as I asked it, I knew the answer.
“The same thing as we are doing now. But I was the oh so lucky f- kid- that got to play the role of Thomas’s assassin,” Slater spat out. He glared at Thomas and Thomas glared right back. But neither did anything beyond that. We walked in silence until we reached the clearing. Carolyn was there. She sat on a log, staring into the distance. When she noticed us, she seemed to shrink a bit. She stood and walked into the woods. I followed her, leaving Slater and Thomas behind. I knew why Slater was broken. I was probably going to be like that someday soon. Carolyn must have known that too, as she wouldn’t meet my eyes. We reached a small clearing in the trees. Two oddly shaped rocks stood there. My heart thudded in my chest.
“Is this some kind of joke?” I asked. Anger bubbled up and I wanted to punch someone or something.
But I didn’t. I walked over to the rocks. As I knelt in front of them, I realized that they were headstones. The names were almost impossible to read. The dates were clearer. The date of their death was about 6 years ago. The same time that I was left. Abandoned. My parents didn’t care. They couldn’t have.
I didn’t realize that I was screaming until Carolyn wrapped her arms around me. She was crying and saying that she was sorry over and over. I wasn’t crying. I didn’t care that she was sorry. The only one who should be sorry was Thomas. I would make him pay. He made me kill for him. And I only did it because I wanted my parents. He lied. Tricked me.
I heard footsteps behind me and I reached for my knives. But they weren’t there. I was shaking. I jumped up, pulling myself away from Carolyn. I saw Thomas and I walked towards him. There was a look in his eyes that made me laugh. It was fear. He took a step back. And then another. I ran at him and he tripped over a branch. I tackled him and found myself punching him in the face over and over. People were screaming. I might have been laughing. I don’t really remember. Slater finally pulled me off of Thomas, with me flailing around and shouting obscenities.
Slater and Carolyn dragged me away from Thomas. He was holding his nose, which was useless because it was still gushing blood. One eye was completely swollen shut, the other was pretty close. He went to say something but instead spit out blood. I laughed at the sight of him trying to sit up without letting go of his face.
Slater was shaking his head and Carolyn looked like she wanted to cry. Thomas’s nose had stopped bleeding, but there was still dried blood on his face. We were sitting in the town hall. They were talking, saying that I needed to learn control myself, but I wasn’t listening. I was trying to get the blood off of my hands. Finally, they sent me to my attic room. They did.
“What are you guys? My parents?” I hissed. Even Thomas looked taken aback.
I walked into the storage room and climbed up the ladder and into the attic. I lay on my bed. I closed my eyes and tried to slow the storm that whirled in my head, flinging broken glass at everyone and everything.
“I’m losing it,” I giggled. I traced patterns in the dust on the false ceiling of the main room.
They swirled and changed directions at random. It looked like how I felt. At some point, I fell asleep. I woke up to the sound of the council arguing. I pressed my ear against the trapdoor. The storage room door must’ve been open.
“She is just a kid. You can’t just-” That was Carolyn.
She was interrupted by someone I didn’t know. He said, “She is getting out of hand. She knows how to kill. Look at what she did to Thomas without a weapon.”
“I agree. We need her again for tonight. Maybe one night after that. But she is becoming a liability.” That was Thomas. Maybe I would kill him tonight after I killed the attackers. That thought made me happy.
I smiled as I opened the trapdoor and walked into the council. They stopped talking immediately. The fear that Thomas had barely hidden was now on the faces of the council.
“Shouldn’t we get going soon?” I asked. Somebody muttered something that sounded like ‘not yet’. I rolled my eyes and sat down in an empty chair in the corner.
They all looked at each other and a few nodded. A couple hesitated, but they too nodded. Carolyn, Slater, and a few others did not. I was thankful for that. Whatever they were nodding about like a bunch of bobbleheads had to do with me, and knowing the council, it couldn’t have been good.
“Form your groups,” Thomas commanded. Everyone got up and shuffled around to find a couple others.
Carolyn and Thomas came to stand with me. Slater did not. He stood by the door with his arms crossed. As everyone walked outside he looked like he wanted to say something, but stopped himself. He instead glared at Thomas. For once, Thomas turned his gaze to the floor and did not meet Slater’s glare.
We walked outside, once again talking in the same meaningless way as the night before. I wondered what the distraction was tonight. And I wondered how many people I would kill. Suddenly, a thought formed in my mind.
“So...” I looked at Thomas. “How did you guys know how many people I killed last night?” I tried to sound casual. His eyes narrowed as he mentally ran through a list of reasons why I wanted to know. Apparently, he did not find anything incriminating.
“We had someone follow you to estimate how many you killed. And the leader confronted me about it. I managed to convince him that one of his people must set the fire and killed his comrades before killing himself. I may not be able to find another excuse after tonight. So I need you to kill their leader, if possible.” He talked quickly and quietly. Evidently, he didn’t want anyone else to hear.
“I will be the one to watch you tonight. I’ll be a backup of sorts if absolutely necessary,” Thomas added. I knew it was because he didn’t want me getting out of hand. But a plan formed in my mind, and so I kept quiet.
We met in the same spot as yesterday. We talked for a while, when a bunch of my community members started screaming and charging at the woods. They were throwing rocks, sticks, anything they could lift. The council sprinted as one to where they were. Everyone but Thomas seemed legitimately concerned about their sanity. Even though I knew they were acting, it was still kind of worrying to see all these people lose their minds.
Suddenly, they all turned and started throwing this. Just like I did last night, I turned with a startled cry and ran into the woods. I ran, occasionally ducking to avoid rocks. It wasn’t long before I saw two platforms. One was fairly normal, but the other was much larger, and actually had a railing. It had to be the leader’s. It was much easier to spot, but much harder to climb. I climbed up the trunk, as quickly as I could. I the edge and pulled myself up a little. I saw a man leaning on the railing opposite me, probably staring at the people screaming and acting like they were possessed. As quietly as I could, I reached up and grabbed the top of the railing and pulled myself up. The railing wasn’t sturdy, and I worried that it would collapse, but it didn’t.
As I climbed over the railing and slid behind the trunk of the tree that protruded from the middle of the platform, the man turned and asked in a gruff voice,
“Who’s there?”
I grabbed a knife from my jacket. Its weight felt good in my hand. I hid it behind my back as I stepped into the open. I tried for the confused-little-girl look.
“Can you help me? I- I think I’m lost. There were screaming people and I got scared and saw this and climbed up to get away from them.”
I tried to sound younger than I was. He looked confused. I pointed over his shoulder and screamed. It was the oldest trick in the book. But he bought it and whirled around, while he wasn’t facing me, I threw the knife as hard as I could. His whole body tensed up. A dark stain spread down from where I hit him in the neck. He fell forward and was still.
Nobody else was on the platform, so getting down was easy. The next platform was like most. I got up easily. Unfortunately, they must have heard me, so they were standing in a small circle, facing all directions. They couldn’t see me, but they were on edge. I got a knife out. I climbed up the tree silently. I grabbed the platform and pulled myself up as fast I could. They shouted at me, asking who I was and where I’d come xs. My first knife flashed through the air. It embedded itself in his chest, and it was followed through the air by my two other knives. The first man was dead, and so was the second. But the third had gotten stabbed in the stomach and had taken the knife from the head of his comrade and was waving it around. I felt a tug in my stomach as I inched forward, taking a knife from my jacket.
My arm shook as I through the knife. The look in the man’s eyes as he saw what he knew would kill him was terrible- it was a mix of fear, and sadness, and anger. But at the same time, it seemed as though he relaxed a bit right as it was about to hit him. Maybe he didn’t want to die in fear.
For once, I looked away as he died. I climbed down from the platform and walked slowly back towards the community, guilt starting to swirl through my mind. Out of nowhere, a hand grabs my arm. It’s Thomas. He looks at me, and doesn’t move even though I tug my arm away from him.
“How many?” he asks quietly. Four, I answer. But it’s only in my head that I say it.
I cleared my throat. “Four. I killed him. The leader.” Thomas nodded in response.
That night was a blur. People kept congratulating me as if killing all those people was a deed I had done out of the goodness of my heart. As if. I slept, but barely. Faces blurred together. Screams echoed. I woke up early the next morning, sobbing. I tried to calm down and wiped my face. I climbed out the trap door, down the ladder, and outside. I found myself walking along the path to the graves of my parents. I sat down, leaning against a birch tree.
I looked at the graves, wondering. What were they like? How had they died? I guess it didn't matter though. They were there, buried under six feet of dirt; and I was here, under the thoughts of the dead people that I didn’t really know.
I heard the crunching of leaves as someone tried to walk as quietly as possible. I closed my eyes. I knew what was happening. Two other sets of footsteps were racing alone behind the first. Someone was in the clearing. I didn’t open my eyes, but I felt the tears slip down my face. I heard it as it sliced through the air, and I felt the same way all of those who I killed had felt. I didn’t want to die. But I was a liability and I knew it. The knife, one of my own, did not hit my head or my neck. It hid my chest, just below my heart. I felt nothing. I was numb, inside and out. The person ran away. I knew it was Thomas. The two others had reached the clearing too late. They knelt beside me. Carolyn and Slater were both crying. I tried to smile at them. Their faces blurred with the trees and the sky behind them.
It is at that point that my life unwound before me. People always said that when you die, you see a light. I didn’t, but I felt it. I took a deep breath of the fresh air and whispered,
“What a perfect day to die.”