Conform or Suffer: The Darkness of Beauty

Chapter 13 Kill Home

Same Day

*

Yoleta didn't remember entering the building or how she made it through the blocked roads.

Distorted memories weaved within Yoleta's brain, filling out into tangible knowledge. She peered at the time machine that kept vanishing and reappearing on her wrist.

Avery-Joy called her again from the cafeteria. "Thank you for listening to me."

"Yoleta, hang up the phone and tag the boxes," another executioner said.

Half of the twenty women reached the Kill Home because of the storm.

Gray plastic coffins and urns lined against the white-stone walls of the execution Kill Home.

Each container was filled with a person the executioner electrocuted, but no one knew which of the women's switches contained the current because the death surges alternated between killings.

Citizens marked for death were wrapped in red cloth to disguise the gruesomeness of the act. They resembled rag dolls, and the youngest executioner decorated the wrappings with white paint pens and glitter.

Yoleta explained the rules to the eleven-year-old executioner. "We inherit our position because we're royals bred only to extinguish ugliness. When I die, my oldest daughter takes over for me."

"I hate this job." The girl threw her art supplies, and they hit an urn, ashes falling to the ground. "Do we have to kill weekly?" she asked.

Yoleta swept the ashes. "Execution day is once every four months for efficiency."

They pulled their switches. Fifteen men and women died strapped to electric chairs.

"Vex is purging the kingdom," another executioner said to the girl.

Yoleta was the only executioner who checked over the files of the dead. A few were scary, rich, and evil. They reminded her of Vex, only they weren't noble elites of the workhouse board. She thought to herself, 'I want the choice of the job that I took, of whether I pull the switch. No, I don't want to kill.' She refused to vocalize this.

The last group remained alive.

A few cried, but most were motionless except for the movement of their lungs as they waited for death.

The last woman struggled with the heavy ropes. No one could hear her muffled voice. "You morons. I don't deserve to die," a woman said beneath her mask. "Why did I trust Vex and Trent? Please, give me ten more minutes to call my grandson and warn him to run."

Executioners lifted her body to the crematorium.

An image filled Yoleta's mind as she spoke out loud, "We killed the wrong woman."

"I try not to dwell on that," another executioner said.

"What is wrong with you two saying that out loud?" The oldest executioner slapped Yoleta's shoulders. She stared up at the security cameras, which resembled hanging lanterns. The red light was off and darkened. "We have ten minutes to talk."

They spoke in Hack Elvish to each other.

A woman sat on top of a coffin. "They're killing wealthier reject men and opposition leaders who could afford the tax, but whose death is more profitable than tossing them into a workhouse to manufacture cheap textiles."

"My cousin insulted a workhouse board member online," the girl said.

A humming started, and the red lights of the security cameras glowed. Their language became normal.

Yoleta printed names on hundreds of coffins and urns, scattered purple carnations with silk roses, and burned spicy-smelling funeral incense to lift their souls to the afterlife.

"Why are you spending your own money to give them a funeral? Only the ashes are going back to families. Vex says he is going to sell complete sets of organs," the oldest executioner said.

"I thought he always sold an organ or two before he sent them here." Yoleta placed more flowers on the caskets.

"Would you stop trying to make us feel bad for doing our jobs?" the oldest executioner asked. She turned to the girl. "Vex broke her ex-husband's arm when she refused her first execution session. Don't ask what a second offense is."

The girl stared up at a security camera. "My aunt once claimed the workhouse board members were elite roaches."

"Vex's guards might hear you." Yoleta shushed the girl.

"He already killed my aunt."