The Child Executioner

Oh no, he's dead. Oh no. What about the Aviva, Forrest and Ivory? I look down at them. They followed me down the stairs. Aviva is looking on with blank eyes, a tear trickling down the side of her face and a creepy, knowing smile on her lips. Forrest is on his knees, holding Ivory's head into his shoulder and looking on with a horrified expression.

"Forrest" I say in a voice that isn't mine " Take Ivory upstairs." He nods without taking his eyes off of the gruesome sight that is left of father and leads Ivory upstairs. As soon as they are gone I look to Aviva. "What do I do?" I tremble

With the expression of someone who knows the secrets of the universe, and I wouldn't be surprised if she did, she turns her head robotically and she states "Secrets must be kept and shoes must be filled."

She is right. I have to keep this a secret. If someone knew he was dead, who knows what would happen to us? Someone has to hide the body. Somebody.... Oh god.... Somebody has to step up as Executioner. I can feel the horror seep through me just as I can see the blood seeping from our father's head seeping into the floor. I am the next Executioner. A Child Executioner. I fall down heavily. feeling the horror take me over, paralyzing me. Aviva glides in front of me, blocking my view of father.

"Shhh." Aviva put a finger to her lips, my imagination making it look like it was beginning to glow. I didn't care. All I felt was the horror tightening around my heart. Aviva touched my forehead with her glowing finger and I was quickly knocked from my consciousness by a presence other than my own in my body. It seized my horror and pulled it away from my heart and my lungs. leaving it a small whisper in the back of my head. As it withdrew I felt a strange sense of peace wash over me.

Aviva was still crouched in front of me and I was still on the floor, but this me wasn't afraid or gripped by terror. This me was accepting her fate. The fate of being the Child Executioner. Aviva looked on, a knowing look of acceptance spread across her face. She rose, I followed her lead. We went over to the body of our father. It was horrid. The stench of death was beginning to fill the room. But it didn't matter. I was empty. None of this mattered in this moment.

We dragged him out through the door. Nobody was outside, if someone had been walking down the street, or looking out a window they would have caught us in a heartbeat and we would be in deep trouble, but no one was looking. no one cared that two children were dragging the body of a dead man, the Executioner, their father, out the door of their home. We took him down the street and to the nearest grate.

It seemed like the best idea. To dump the body of our father into the drains. The man who was a heartless murderer, but also the man who was our father. That thought didn't even make me hesitate to pull the grate up and help Aviva shove the body into the rushing water. My last sight of our father being his dead eyes staring forebodingly through me and into my soul and then being pulled along by the water to his future as a rotting corpse and ours as whatever it was to be.

One thing was for sure. It wasn't going to be good. Not for either of us. Not for any of us.