I'm forced into a chair and tied down with duct tape, sobbing, only able to ask "Why?" over and over again. The man doesn't hear me so I start shouting for help.
He punches me right across the jaw. "Shush, little Kiddy," he commends in his slithery tone. "We wouldn't want to wake your family, now, would we?" He laughs, tipping his head back to the ceiling. "It's a joke!" He cackles. "A joke between a couple of good friends! Laugh, Kiddy, laugh!" I choke out a pathetic sound that resembles a cross between a sob and a gasp and he keeps on laughing as he lines up the dining room chairs, single-file, in front of me. He laughs as he hoists up my father's probably-dead body and ties him down. He laughs as he does the same to my mother, brother, and sister.
The destroyed house echoes with his demonic laughter, morphing its once happy atmosphere into something eerie and unfamiliar as he drenches my family in gasoline - a half-gallon for each of them.
"Please... Stop!" I plead, crying like a little girl. He ignores me and sets them ablaze anyway. And I scream "No!" and other nonsense that doesn't change a thing, doesn't save my family.
He punches me again and I taste blood in my mouth. "Burning; Burning; Burning!" he chants, dancing around the burning bodies of my family while I sob. Then he turns to me with his wicked smile and demands, "Sing with me, Kiddy! Sing with me!"
And that's how I got here, in an asylum, bound by a straight-jacket. I can't tell people what really happened that day - They all think I killed them! - because all I can do is laugh and sing: "Burning; Burning; Burning!"
