I’m a 24/7 employee at Alto’s residence, mainly at night, the easiest job I have ever had. I get to drink while on the job and sleep when I want, and sometimes he teaches me tools of the trade, which I am sure are different ways to threaten people but he makes it sound like it isn’t.
Rosaline, pretty Rosie, she is worried about me, she thinks he is going to kill me in my sleep, chop me into bits, cook me and serve me for dinner, and she is probably right, but I don’t care because so many other past customers could have, but they didn’t, so this is no different.
I’m cold even though I’m sweating so I get my cigarettes from the drawer, the top one in the dresser near the door. Alto says it's mine whenever I come to visit, but my visits are longer, and I know he wants me to live there without asking.
He does this thing where he pretends he doesn’t want something, and when I open the second drawer it is empty, then the third, and he is trying to ask for something but he is too stupid to ask for it using words like a normal person.
I get my favorite brand, the one with the blue box and gold stripes, and I find my lighter of choice, with some strange animal on it that says SISKCI, at least, that’s what it looks like to me. Alto tells me it says something obscene and I should not keep it but that makes me want it even more.
I’m wearing a large green knitted sweater and jeans, smoking indoors, and it's eerily quiet as I walk down the beige halls decorated with silly paintings of fruit and trees.
Hello?
I feel silly, standing around asking for nobody in a house that is always busy, but now quiet. I get out my phone, find the face to call the person I want to speak to, and my friend answers.
He is very quiet and tells me to come to the family room. I can hear other people in the background but it is not in the way someone is at a party. I ask him what’s wrong and he tells me that this is not something a person can explain and make sense of without seeing for themselves.
I finish my cigarette by the time I get to the ‘family room’, and I hate that word because no family lives there. A pair of twins that murder people and their pet me lives here, along with Adonis, the winged man that visits to make sure I am still alive.
Everyone is in the family room, except for some of the patrolmen, and I have never seen such a large group of people so quiet. Even Alto is there, home early from dragging people toward an early grave.
They’re surrounding the television that takes up almost half of the back wall, sitting on the wooden floors, the extravagant red rug, and the manilla couches, squatting up near the walls. Some side tables have small lamps with soft yellow glows put on the ground, and the employees sit on those as well, everyone here to watch the show.
Rosaline sits on one of the tables, and she is pale all over, sweating, just like me, even though it is always hot here.
I see something that is not right on television. Rosie’s fear is a normal reaction, and I want another cigarette, but I want to stay, so I decide to stay. I squish myself next to Alto on one of the couches and for the first time, I genuinely want him to be there for me in whatever fake-relationship-that-isn't-but-is.
Is this a prank, I ask.
If this is a joke, it's sick, he replies.
There is a wall but we cannot see it. People keep crashing into it and dying on one side, but on the other, the police have stopped the accidents. They are trying to escape on the inside, but there is no escape from the invisible wall. I feel that this is some kind of lesson or metaphor but I do not understand how.
A nice man tries to get past the wall. We all smile, someone claps in the family room and then we look away when he is split in two, the footage does not stop rolling, we can hear the screams from the onlookers, the cameraman’s hand is shaky, and my mouth waters.
Why are they showing this?
Why am I watching?
For the next few days, it was all anyone could watch. I never cared about the news, but this was more than news, it was unavoidable. I don’t want to go out anymore, because the people outside talking about it are worse than the news.
The dead are rising, and the children are dying.
At least it's not here, some people would say.
I don’t care, as long as they don’t come here.
Disgusting.
On the third night of the massacre, I drag myself back to the family room, this time in an orange sweater, and I sit next to Alto again, gripping his second right arm. He holds me close, and now I am the stupid one who cannot ask for things without opening their mouth as a normal person should.
Hopefully, no cameraman will cry like last night.
Last night he cried and dropped the camera when dead children came up to the wall, pleading for their parents, pushing up against the barrier between the living and the dead.
Another cameraman took over afterward, and this one was a woman.
Camerawoman.
She cried, and then we all screamed in the family room when fire shot up into the air, and she turned her gaze upwards but then dropped the camera once again, a dizzying effect to us all watching, until the next person brave enough to torture themselves carried on to pick up the mantle.
No more cameramen crying tonight as drone footage is used for the inside of the dome. Lightning crackles above, the sound of rain that never falls inside makes everything louder, and we have to turn down the volume.
Some people have hit their limit and they leave, the corpses of dead children walking, dragging themselves along, emaciated, stumbling, too much to watch. I stay because I need to know who did this, why would anyone do this, who would hurt a child, who would hurt me?
Alto held me as I tried not to cry because I did it every day, but this time it was okay. A few others in the day room cried as well, and no more jokes about hoaxes were ever made after that.
I have seen so many dead men, this shouldn’t hurt, I say.
They’re children, they don’t deserve this, Azara replies.
No one deserves this.
I pray to the goddess of mercy that someone will be found alive, and they do, but they do not seem like there is much alive left. There is a collective release of tension, but not a cheer, there is nothing that was won. The children are dressed like children in cute costumes, but their faces are dirty, covered in blood, their bodies covered in dirt, something black, sometimes shit.
These children are happy to see the police and for the first time, I am happy too.
The police are helpful, giving water, giving hugs, and I am so jealous, and I am so ashamed and become angry that I am feeling these things, jealous of children that have almost died because I want what they had.
Someone that helped, someone that went looking when you went missing.
Someone who cared.
I am bitter, the taste foul in my mouth, and my boyfriend-who-is-not-my-boyfriend knows I am upset and asks me if I want to take a break.
They found all the kids. Why watch any longer?
I nod, it's almost day-day, we were up all day-night, and it made no sense to torture ourselves any longer.
They will be fine now that someone has arrived, I mumble.
The gods thought it was funny to play tricks because right as the words come out of my mouth I cursed more children to die.
Monsters appear on screen as the drone camera flies over the chaos. More dead bodies come, and this time, somehow, they are nastier than before. Dogs made of skin and no eyes, giant snakes made of bones.
I touch my face while a man, I think it is a man, maybe it was a woman, eyes are all over the body, put in, who would put those in, and it walks, jerking awkwardly, running, leading a pack of four-legged creatures.
I shudder, a gross feeling crawling down my neck to my tailbone when I notice all the creatures have human hands for feet.
A witch splits herself open, swallowing eight men, their bodies shriveling and shrinking as she twitches, black liquid falling out. There are not many people left in the family room.
Azara runs off to throw up in the bathroom when a man is eaten alive with hands that have mouths. He screamed for help, but no one could help him, as they were all torn apart next to him.
This cannot be real, Alto says. This cannot be.
It’s real. We should stop watching, I say.
We should finish it, Adonis says. I want to know if they live.
We all want to know, but knowing doesn’t change the wet dream of a serial killer broadcast in front of us.
A man flies around and around, blood spraying on everyone, bodies exploding around him, and we all shout in disgust. No one is alive, everyone is dead, I sit in paranoia, looking at Alto, afraid that he is dead as well, that we have all died and I have never known until now.
I know I am dead now because I see myself on the screen.
He is on fire, screaming and everyone turns to look at me as if I have done it.
Did I? Did I do it? Sometimes I do things and I don’t remember, I don’t remember the weeks or days or months, I don’t remember, but I know something happened and that is enough for me.
Everyone in the room looked at me like I had said something offensive. Did I? Adonis told me I say a lot of inappropriate things, but I’m sure I have said nothing, no one has said anything, I know, because everyone is looking at me.
He looks nothing like me, I lie.
There are a few awkward glances, and then everyone goes back to the television screen.
The man-that-looks-nothing-like-me transforms into another stranger, but this one is in head-to-toe armor, and then I see something magnificent. It’s the sword. It has to be. It’s on fire, the entire place was on fire, and I know that I have found it, that it was shown to me at that very moment.
This is a miracle, I whisper. Solara shines upon me.
No more people will die, Alto agrees.
That’s not what I meant.
This happened, it was meant to happen, I was born blessed, it’s in my blood. Sacrifices were made to the gods for their power, only in blood. It was given by these children over several days, their anguish wouldn’t be in vain, because I could have the sword.
The monsters explode, the pact complete, the flaming knight has defeated the witch, and it rains, washing away their blood sacrifice. Alto is looking at me, very strangely, because I am smiling, the proof of the sword in front of me, but no one believes me when I mention it.
No one believes me.
No one believes me for weeks afterward when I tell them that the sword can avenge the children, and my life, my parents' deaths, because they think I’m crazy, but I’m not.
I know what they think of me, that I am an opportunist, so what if I am, they are jealous they did not think of finding their own benefactor first.
Alto thinks I’m crazy but he gives me money for my search, and he is the crazy one for giving a crazy man money.
