Back in May, my parents started selling most of my belongings. I thought I’d done something wrong, until I realized that the few things I was able to keep were necessities. Hygiene products, blankets, pillows, school supplies, and Division stuff.
I figured they needed to sell some things to get by again, so I wasn’t that upset. They technically weren’t personal belongings anyway, since I’m still a minor.
That turned out not to be the case. On May 7th, I was startled awake by my parents yelling. I jumped to my feet and ran downstairs. Almost all the furniture was gone, and my parents were furious. I frantically tried explaining to them that I hadn’t done anything, but they just told me to get in the van.
My brother and sister were already outside with all their stuff packed. Long story short, we were moving that day and I had no idea. I asked my parents why they didn’t tell me, but apparently they did and I just forgot.
God, I’m so stupid. I should’ve said my last goodbyes to all my friends in person, but I ended up having to do it unceremoniously through text.
This new place was in Redthorn Valley, which was a lot different from the suburbs I grew up in. What’s neat about this place is that it’s a walkable community. Everything from the school I started going to, to the shops, to the theaters are all within walking distance.
Another unique quality of this place is that it’s connected to the outer internet. It’s technically not supposed to be, but there was an issue with the towers that they decided not to fix. They had their excuses, but we all know they really want unrestricted communication.
Being able to use the real version of reddit, for example, with people from all over the world on it just feels so lively and unique. The new ideas and perspectives I’ve seen so far still blow my mind on a daily basis. I thought people who experienced it were exaggerating, but holy moly was I wrong.
When my dad pulled into the driveway of our new home, my brother Peter (who’s twelve years old) started screeching in excitement in a way that made me wonder if his voice was genetically engineered to be perfectly annoying.
My parents laughed it off, but it scared my sister Eve (four years old) who started to cry. My dad looked at me through the mirror, since her carseat was right next to me.
“God dammit Lilith, what did you do this time?!”
I ignored his question.
“We’ve been at our new home for five seconds and you’re already causing us problems again!”
He slammed his hands on the steering wheel. My mother insisted he calm down, but he whisper-yelled something to her about how I “ruined the moment” and made Eve cry. My mother said “maybe Lilith is just grumpy from being woken up so early. I’m sure she didn’t mean it”.
I was being tested again. They both knew that the sudden noise is what scared Eve, but if I said anything in protest, there would be hell to pay.
I stepped out of the car and took a deep breath. My anger issues had been getting worse lately, but I figured out a technique to help me calm down.
I plant my feet a certain way, focus on the ground, and breathe into my lower back. There’s also something else that happens internally with my spine, but I’m not exactly sure how to describe it.
If you’re wondering why I’m telling you about my weird coping mechanisms, I promise there’s a reason for it that’ll make sense later.
While Peter and Eve ran inside, my mother told me to hang back.
My father stood by and watched as she put these weird bracelet-like things on her hands with pink stones attached to them.
She clapped her hands together, making the stones collide. It made a pretty interesting sound that I’m not sure how to describe.
“Lilith, go to the sanctuary.”
She said.
“Where’s the sanctuary?”
I asked. She stared at me blankly for a second. My father shook his head, exasperated.
“You don’t remember where the sanctuary is from here?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. We literally just moved here, but pointing that out would be considered “talking back”.
“The mountain is right there!”
He yelled, flailing his arms in the direction of peaks that lined the horizon. There were mountains there, yes, but I had no idea where this “sanctuary” was in relation to it. I had no idea what they wanted from me, so I just stood there, bracing for my next punishment.
My mother tapped him on the shoulder and whispered something to him. I tried reading her lips. I’m pretty sure she said “I don’t think it worked”.
I’m not sure how that would make sense in this context, so I could be wrong. Still, this moment marked a shift in my parents behavior.
The next few days in the new house were a living hell. They didn’t have much patience with me to begin with, but now it was a lot worse than usual. Not only that, but every time one of them told me to do something, they would clap those weird rock things in my face.
Probably some new method they learned to get me to “behave” better, but for some reason they also expected me to read their minds as well. I guess they thought this special animal training technique would make me know what they wanted without having to tell me?
After that week, my father brought me into his study, sat me down, and gave me a long lecture about how important it was that I don’t tell anybody about how the clapping stones (apparently the name for the weird device) didn’t work on me.
“What are they supposed to do?”
I asked.
“You’ll find out one day, when you have your own kids. Although, the way things are headed for you now, I doubt that’ll ever be possible if you keep this up.”
He said with a smirk. He has this weird tendency to assume I know what he’s talking about without giving any context. It’s a lot more annoying than whatever this vague insult was supposed to be. The way things were going? As in me not magically knowing how to act when they used those rocks? At the time, I thought maybe they were taught about Pavlovian conditioning, but forgot to do the whole training part before expecting results.
He gave me my phone back suddenly. I didn’t know he still had it.
“Apparently, you’re gonna need this for school tomorrow.”
“I’m starting tomorrow?! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did. Maybe try paying the fuck attention now and then. You see, this is exactly what I’m talking about! Every little thing me and your mother tells you just goes in one ear and out the other.”
I don’t remember the rest of his lecture, but it was another twenty minutes of him bringing up random stuff from the past, some of which Peter already admitted to doing after it got blamed on me. But hey, why bother remembering such unimportant details, right?
When I went back to my room, I checked my phone for the first time in a while. I noticed I had an email that wasn’t from any relatives I knew of.
It was from “FutureMe.com”, and it read as follows:
“The following is an email from the past, composed on January 4th, 2012. It is being delivered from the past through FutureMe.org.
Dear FutureMe,
Test.”
I didn’t think much of it at the time, so I just browsed through YouTube for a while then went to bed.
I woke up screaming at around 4am. I was drenched in sweat, and I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. I turned the light on cause I needed to be able to see my surroundings to feel at ease.
After standing motionless in the middle of my room, jumping at every sound I heard, I eventually sat back down on my mattress and tried to calm down.
In the dream I had, I was eight years old again, standing in this field picking berries and putting them into a basket. I remember being extremely anxious about doing it wrong, and I kept hearing another kid somewhere cry for help.
Eventually, I got to the source of the noise. It came from this strange metal box that was nailed shut from all sides. There was a kid in there begging to be let out, saying he couldn’t breathe.
He kept saying “I’m sorry!” and “I won’t do it again, I promise!”, but nobody would help him.
Eventually, a man came over and ripped the box open with his bare hands. A skeleton poured out, breaking into a billion pieces. I think that’s the part where I woke up.
My first day of school was pretty uneventful. They forgot to make my roster card though, so it got me in trouble a few times. Walking around without it gave me some weird looks and put me in a perpetual state of discomfort the entire day. I prayed they would get it fixed soon.
Even though I spent the whole summer memorizing all the verses and commands I needed to, I was automatically placed in the lowest division for “negligence”. The reason was that I failed to bring my roster card. I tried explaining to the examiner that there were some issues and that they weren’t able to get mine.
“Who’s they?”
She responded.
“The uh…. The administrator handing them out told me.”
“Who was the administrator assigned to your group?”
“I don’t know his name…”
The examiner rolled her eyes.
“We’ll see what we can do. For now, you’ll be in your assigned division. NEXT.”
During lunch, I noticed another email similar to the one from yesterday.
“The following is an email from the past, composed on January 5th, 2012. It is being delivered from the past through FutureMe.org.
Dear FutureMe,
Do not tell anyb”
It cut off there. I joked to myself that the sender was murdered halfway through typing the email. I imagined an attempt to deliver information that could lead to the arrest of some congress members or something. Another email appeared in my inbox a few minutes later.
“The following is an email from the past, composed on January 5th, 2012. It is being delivered from the past through FutureMe.org.
Dear FutureMe,
Mom and dad made me go to the camp cause I was being bad. I didn’t do anything wrong I had to be there for to years and now I can’t remember anything. Mom gets mad when I write it down to remember so I have to send this in secret. Don’t tell anybody and try as hard as you can to remember camp redthorn. I will send a new message every time I remember something and you have to write it down. It’s the perfect plan!”
I was hit with such an overwhelming sense of deja vu that I read the email at least ten times. I couldn’t understand what was going on though, so I looked up the FutureMe.org website to see if I could find any answers there.
Apparently, it was a website for you to send emails to your future self. You could pick a date in the future, write out whatever you wanted to say, and it would be delivered to you on that date.
If this was sent in 2012, this meant my eight year old self was sending these, probably from my dad’s computer. I was definitely more ballsy back then.
I read the email again, keeping this in mind. What was this camp I got sent to? What was I trying to say about memory loss? I tried to remember a time when I was eight years old that my parents sent me somewhere for “being bad”, but I was coming up empty.
After getting home and getting berated by my parents for being placed in Poinsettia Division, I thought about it some more.
8 year old me mentioned being at this camp for two years, so that would mean I was brought there at age six, right? Now that I thought about it, there was a huge gap in my memory between ages five and eight.
To recall events in this gap, I would have to start towards the end of age five, and slowly trace my steps forward until I could make something resurface from the far corners of my mind.
For the next week, I kept a notepad close to me at all times, writing down what I could remember leading up to it. Instances of me crying, refusing to go to sleep, or other annoying things I used to do (don’t judge). I started to remember it causing a gradual, mounting anger in my parents.
I remembered them starting to write things down. Every time I misbehaved, it was documented in a leather binder. I’ve seen this very binder in my father’s study before, so I decided to take a look at it the first chance I got.
One night, my parents went out with some neighbors and told me to watch Eve for them. I took the opportunity to go into the study after I saw his car leave. I found the binder and began to skim through it. Each entry contained a date, time, and an action.
“02/07/2009 8:37pm. Threw tantrum, refused to go to bed”
Most entries looked like this. Because of the lack of detail, it didn’t jog any memories. Peter kept yelling at me to make him some food, so I put the binder away. I might read the rest of it some other time, but I’m not sure if it would help at all.
I felt like I was at a dead end, so I made the mistake of showing my parents the emails from FutureMe.org when they returned. I asked if they remembered me making them or knew what they were about.
My dad made a weird face, took my phone, and went into his study for a while. When he came back, he said he made me a new email address, and I was only allowed to use that one.
He said if I received any more scams or spam messages, he would know I was “giving my email out to random people again” and take my phone away. After a long-winded lecture about cybersecurity, he sent me to my room.
My old email was removed. I still checked it on my browser and deleted the history each time, but after a week of not getting any new emails from eight year old me, I wanted to just drop it.
However, I kept having these dreams about kids being lined up like they were in the military and yelled at if they moved. The dreams were long and boring. No matter how much I wanted to step out of line or relax, even if I knew it was a dream, I just couldn’t. Sometimes there would be one of those metal boxes nearby, some containing a distressed child. I’d always wake up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding.
There was already a period of my life where I only ever had nightmares, and could never get a proper amount of sleep. I didn’t want things to be that way again, I had too much on my plate already. I decided I would do whatever it took to learn more about Camp Redthorn if I ever got the opportunity. Maybe it would help somehow.
The rest of in-processing at school was rough. I’m glad when I finally receive my regular schedule. Division for first block, math for second block, Literature for third, and biology for fourth.
On my first normal school day, I wanted to keep the hood of my jacket up while I approached the campus stairs, but an administrator told me to take it off. Two other girls glanced at me and began murmering to each other. I heard the words “third floor” and then laughter as they walked by. I caught a glimpse of their roster numbers. 13 and 14. High ranking even among the highest division.
I felt like my entire nervous system was on fire. I didn’t deserve to be looked down on like this. I did everything right and put in all the work I needed to, just for someone to forget making my roster card for the year.
I numbly climbed the stairs to the third floor, and looked for my class. This part of the campus looked the same as the rest, but was strangely quiet. There weren’t a lot of people there. When I entered the classroom, I was relieved to find that I wasn’t the only person put in this Division. There were half as many people as there would be in a normal class, actually.
The ones in this class were spread around the room as if assigned seating didn’t exist. I saw no indication of shame on their faces for being there, which I found strangely comforting.
I could feel several eyes on me as I awkwardly approached the teacher.
“Um… Where do I sit?”
The teacher was a tall but scrawny man who seemed to be in his late twenties at the oldest. He had thick shaggy hair, his tie was undone, and his breath stank of alcohol.
He looked me up and down.
“How’d someone like you end up in this division? I’m Randy by the way.”
This sounded less like an interrogation and more like a genuine question, which I gotta admit was a breath of fresh air.
I explained my situation with the roster card.
“It looks like they updated your card with this division…”
He said as he studied my roster card.
“Stop giving her shit old man! Blame the staff.”
Yelled another girl from across the room. Mr. Randy rolled his eyes.
“First off I’m not that old. Samantha, come look at this.”
The girl stood next to him and leaned in to look at my card.
“They updated her division to be this one, which meant they didn’t even have her card made before orientation, right?”
He asked her.
“Yeah… Unless she was already in this one?”
She looked up at me, and I shook my head.
“No, right? So why the fuck did they…”
Mr. Randy chuckled.
“Did you say anything when they gave you your card?”
He asked me.
“Yeah, I told them about my situation, and they said they would review my exam and give me an updated roster card by next semester.”
A large portion of the class, apparently eavesdropping on our conversation, erupted in laughter. Randy sighed.
“Yeah, so in other words, they either lost or threw out your exam. They don’t have it anymore.”
I wish I could say I was surprised.
“The second semester is when EVERYONE’S cards get updated. That’s the last chance of the year to update your division with another exam, so they’re basically just saying ‘fuck you’.”
Said a tall dude who was sitting on top of his desk with his feet in the chair. In any other class they would’ve neutered him for that.
“Man, they really screwed you over.”
Said Samantha, still recovering from her fit of laughter.
“I’m gonna see what I can do. Hopefully by tomorrow we can get you in the right class.”
Said Mr. Randy.
“For now, looks like you’re with us.”
I sat in the back next to Samantha when class started. Because of the nightmares, staying awake was a real challenge. Samantha was already passed out at her desk as soon as Randy began reading from the Canon. I leaned back in my chair and listened to him read in the most monotone voice I’ve ever heard.
“…..And thus, Azaliuth through thine own sheer will carrieth thineth most fine of all roots to thine centereth of sanctuary, and whomst amongeth thine roots thiesteth thoune bringeth andth’ve theen God aboveth thou yjsndnn thsktnmsthsvthsvsebnth….”
I fell asleep. I was suddenly five years old again, running around at the park with some kids I met that very day. Nobody was trying to control anyone. Nobody had to be the leader. Nobody was competing for status or leveraging each other’s weaknesses.
Just a bunch of kids enjoying each other’s company.
I was shook awake by Samantha. The bell was ringing, and people were leaving the room.
“Wakey wake- oh. Were you crying?”
Apparently my eyes were wet.
“Nah, that just happens when I sleep.”
I wiped the tears away and got up. The tall guy from earlier looked at me, pulled Mr. Randy aside and whispered something to him.
“Oh, did she?”
He replied. Samantha threw her math textbook at the tall dude.
“She never said that, stop lying.”
Randy smirked.
“Go be stupid somewhere else, Neal.”
“I’m telling you, she said she wants to stay in this division! Right Liam?”
Neal said, staring at me while nodding.
“It’s Lilith. And yeah, sure.”
Mr. Randy raised his eyebrows.
“I didn’t like my old one much anyway.”
“Are you sure? I can get it sorted out.”
“Positive. Thanks though, Mr. Randy.”
He laughed and said to just call him Randy.
The rest of the classes were a blur. The powernap from first block made them tolerable though. Unfortunately, the nightmares weren’t fully gone. The only place I was able to get a decent sleep was inside Mr. Dudin’s class (I found out that was Randy’s last name).
First block became the highlight of my day. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was becoming closer acquainted with Samantha and Neal.
Samantha was the black sheep of her family, not unlike myself. She had an older sister who was apparently in the highest division since grade 0, and was the only kid in the house who’s birthday was celebrated.
Samantha had abnormally good hearing, and loved to randomly join conversations happening around the room. Anyone who needed to say something in private would look at Samantha, then pull their friends out of the room. It made us laugh every time.
Neal was raised by his grandparents. He would hit on quite literally every woman in our age group he came across, and constantly told these ridiculous stories about how much of a “Chad” he was. I’m still not sure what that means, but I’m pretty sure it’s one of those outer internet memes.
My favorite one was when he claimed to drive his motorcycle directly into a random girl’s cervix, impregnating her instantly. Apparently she won’t leave him alone now (fun fact, Neal is gay).
After a couple weeks, June came. School was delayed due to weather one morning, which meant that first Block was canceled. The rest of the classes, however, would go on as scheduled. Needless to say, this day was particularly rough.
After coming home from school, and quietly heading straight to my room so I could have a moment of peace, I heard my parents arguing loudly from downstairs. Eve came into my room and quietly sat on my lap. She didn’t cry much anymore by that point.
Eventually, my mother came into my room and sat on my mattress next to me. She ranted about her life, how much she hated my dad, telling me about all these crazy violent things he did in the past, etc. This happened pretty often. Sometimes after an argument, it was my father coming in to rant about her.
While drowning out her voice, I suddenly had an idea. An opportunity to finally learn something about the weird camp, so I could finally get all this dark stuff out of my head. I wanted to start getting decent sleep again.
When my mother finally took Eve and left, I waited a few minutes before sneaking down the hallway. I heard my father listening to The Offspring from inside his study, and the light was on.
I planted my feet, focused on the ground, and took a deep, slow breath while concentrating on my lower back. A cold liquid rushed out the center of my spine, spreading into my veins. Or at least that’s what it felt like.
After doing that for a few minutes to keep calm, I knocked on the study door.
“What?”
He said. I entered the room and took a seat across from him. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the desk he sat behind.
“Let me guess, Mary’s bitching about me again, huh?”
I cleared my throat and fought off the nerves as best as I could.
“Mom told me about Camp Redthorn.”
I lied. I studied his face for any hint of shock or surprise. After taking a second to process, his eyes widened into a look of genuine fear that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen on his face.
“She said not to tell you, but I felt bad.”
I said. He stood up so aggressively that the chair fell over. I thought he was about to hit me, but he just walked past me to the door.
“Mary!”
He yelled, multiple times. At some point, Peter came running over.
“She left! She got mad and left again! Dad, can I have another cupcake?”
He sighed.
“Whatever.”
After Peter ran off, he closed the door and looked out the window. After confirming she was gone, he sat back down and stared daggers at me.
“What happened to the kids who were locked in those metal boxes?”
I asked. He gave me a weird look. For a second, I thought his confusion confirmed the fact that it was just a weird dream, that nobody was actually being kept in boxes to suffocate to death.
“What, you think they let ‘em out if they promise to behave ‘for real this time’? They get plenty of chances.”
I knew to prepare beforehand for the amount of shock and disgust I felt in that moment, so keeping a straight face wasn’t hard.
He pulled out his phone. I could see in the reflection of his glasses that he was texting someone, but I couldn’t see who.
His choice of words seemed to imply this was still going on somewhere with other kids. If I could just get proof somehow, I could report this whole thing to the authorities and have it shut down for good. My parents would be arrested if they were complicit, sure, but I can’t just pretend I don’t know about all this.
“So is this email thing the reason you can’t be activated properly?”
He asked absent-mindedly while typing away on his phone. He was referring to the emails from FutureMe.
I saw that he had a response from whoever he was texting. It was at least three paragraphs long and seemed to be instructions.
“Yes.”
I said, maintaining the image that I already knew everything. I didn’t know what he meant by “activated”, but the only way I could ever extract the truth from my parents was by pretending to already know it.
“Alright!”
He said after a pause, suddenly slamming his phone onto the desk.
“We’ll getcha fixed up, don’t worry. This isn’t your fault, I think your mother’s weird new-age style of parenting is what caused this. How’s school going by the way? They get you your roster card fixed yet?”
“Uh… good. Yeah, they got it fixed a long time ago.”
“Ah, that’s right… You told me already. Which class would you say is your favorite?”
“Definitely division.”
I said instantly. I knew this was the correct answer, since I was already on thin ice for not taking my Arbitraian practices seriously enough. I haven’t been reading my Canon lately, and admittedly it’s because of my short attention span.
“Ah, Division. You have any good friends there? Who would you say are your closest friends in that class?”
Against my better judgement, I told him about my two friends Samantha and Neal. The fact that he was actually listening to me talk uninterrupted made me excited. Part of me always wanted to be able to have someone I could talk about my day with, without them turning it into an interrogation or a lecture. Someone who would actually process what I said, ask questions and be engaged.
Looking back, I realize this was intentional. Just another way to control me when they needed it most.
After having a “nice” conversation, I went back to my room feeling stupidly content. For some reason, Eve came into my room and sat next to me, silently staring at the ground while I scrolled through TikTok on my phone. The algorithm was starting to figure out just how much I liked frogs.
I heard the garage door open when my mother came back. It occurred to me suddenly that I only ever seem to have heart to hearts with one of my parents when they’re mad at the other. Usually after a huge argument.
The next day, it would go back to me being the “troubled kid” who was always such a heavy burden just for existing.
“You’re mad?”
Said Eve, staring at me. I flinched at the sound.
“Christ, you scared me! I forgot you were there. How did you know I was mad?”
“I don’t know.”
She laughed and ran out of the room. Before I even had a chance to be creeped out by her sudden perceptivenes, I was called downstairs.
The front door was open, and an old man was there talking to my dad. I recognized him. It was the same man from my dream who pulled apart that metal box.
The old man had a friendly smile, but his eyes seemed alien, as if he was looking right through his surroundings, into another separate world.
“Lilith, pleased to meet ya.”
He said, shaking my hand. The old man didn’t seem to recognize me, but I must’ve seen him before if he was in my nightmares.
“Your dad here says you had all sorts of questions about Camp Redthorn, correct?”
I nodded, keeping my composure. It wasn’t uncommon for me to get in trouble by asking too many questions, but something told me I’ve taken it too far this time. I could only wait helplessly to see what would happen next.
“Great! Come with us, we’ll help clear everything up.”
My father was already disappearing upstairs. Usually he’d have parting words about how I “better not embarrass him”, but this time he didn’t feel the need. For some reason, it reminded me of when we first moved here, and they tried out the clapping stones for the first time.
The old man led me outside, closing the door behind us. In the driveway was a large gray van, the kind that could fit at least eleven people. Usually those were used for school or church trips.
I considered running, until I saw Samantha slide open the back door.
“Hey, It’s Lilith!”
She said cheerfully with a look of surprise. Neal poked his head out from the back.
“What? No way. They actually selected all three of us!”
The old man climbed into the front seat.
“Come on in, we’re on a bit of a time crunch here.”
I took a seat next to Samantha. The old man floored it as soon as the door was shut, making us grab the seat for balance.
“What’s going on?”
“We got randomly selected to do some volunteer work for the church. Kinda crazy all three of us just happened to be picked, huh?”
Said Neal. The old man laughed.
“They must’ve been selecting from your division!”
He said.
Even if that was the case though, it seemed pretty weird. I wondered if this was the guy my father was texting, and they planned to bring my friends along to lower my guard.
“Where we headed?”
Said Neal.
“Oh, not far. Not far at all.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. He went less than a mile, to the closed off area behind the local supermarket. He stopped at a gate with a pin pad. Instead of typing in a pin, he simply scanned his ID and the gate began to open.
“Hold on a second, aren’t you part of the church’s council?”
Said Samantha. The old man just smiled. It made sense. In our country, there’s no separation of church and state like where a lot of you reading this are from. The highest seven ranking members of the church, also known as the council, are considered directly below God on the hierarchy.
It never occurred to me in my life that I would someday come face to face with one in person, and yet…
“Wait, I remember now! This is Number 3!”
Said Neal.
“Bet you never expected someone in my position to be chaperoning you around like this, aye?”
3 cackled loudly. I swear I heard a hint of resentment in his laugh.
3 slammed the breaks abruptly, making Neal fly face first into the seat in front of him.
“Alright, everybody out! Chip chop!”
He yelled. We ended up waiting outside while 3 fished around in his glove box. I wondered if he was looking for a gun or some sorta weapon. In a way, I wasn’t entirely wrong.
The three of us were in a weird huddle now.
“Dude… What the hell is 3 doing here? Not even Azalea rank one gets to meet him unless they get perfect grades in all classes!”
Neal whispered.
“I thought you weren’t religious?”
“I’m not, but it’s still kinda neat, right?”
I suppose it was rather “neat”, but this was basically the equivalent of your parents being so mad at you that they called the president. How did my dad have his number in the first place?
No, it couldn’t have been his number. He probably contacted the councils headquarters, and they decided this was a big enough issue to send 3 himself.
Was it really that big of a deal though? Why would the council feel the need to intervene with this? Maybe it wasn’t really about me.
“How much do you think a picture of him is worth?”
Samantha began to say,
“Cause I think I c….”
She cut herself off mid sentence, her mouth hanging open.
“Samantha? You good?”
She looked at the van.
“W-What did he just say?”
She whispered, followed by nervous laughter. We didn’t hear anything. 3 came out of the van with clapping stones strapped to his palms.
“What are those?”
Asked Neal. 3 stood in front of us, Neal was to my left, and Samantha was to my right.
“Ok, stay still for a second.”
He said. Samantha took a step back.
“H-Hold still? Wait, what are you ab-“
3 clapped his hands loudly. An otherworldly ringing sound exploded from the stones, resonating violently against the concrete. I flinched at the sound, but nothing happened. Samantha and Neal just stood there motionless.
“Face the sanctuary.”
Said 3. Samantha and Neal did a perfect about-face like they’ve been in the military for years. They were now facing the highest peak of the mountains on the horizon, and they did not move a muscle. After that, I’m pretty sure I had a good idea of what the stones were for.
3 frowned at me, tilting his head.
“That’s not good at all. You didn’t have the slightest reaction to Azaliuth’s vibration. You are truly beyond redemption.”
Beyond redemption. Of course, it all made sense now. I was something so evil and disobedient, that it only made sense for basically the Pope himself to come give me my comeuppance.
How dare I not be brainwashed correctly?
“Pin her to the ground.”
Said 3. Neal and Samantha followed his orders with vacant eyes. I was shoved face first into the pavement and held still. There it was, the point of the camp. I wish I could say I was surprised, but turning five year olds who “misbehaved” too much into sleeper agents was just too on-brand for the church.
All I could do in defiance was make sound. I decided to say something you’ve probably heard before. You see, there’s one thing my religion has in common with a few others, and it’s that they share a common enemy.
“Fuck you, Hail Satan.”
I yelled. 3 scoffed.
“Break her arms and put her in the van.”
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I’ll skip the gruesome details, but it’s worth noting that my two best friends had no reservations about torturing me while under 3’s control. Although blindfolded, I could just see the soulless vacancy in their eyes as they silently followed 3’s every command to the letter.
3 would periodically demand that I tell him what I did to resist the effects of the clapping stones, and he was not taking “I don’t know” as an answer.
In my desperation to make the pain stop, I called my friends names countless times, begging for mercy, reminding them of random conversations we’ve had. Nothing seemed to get through, but I was blindfolded and couldn’t see if there was any nuance to their state of mind.
If there was any slight change in their body language, or spark in their eyes indicating some sort of inner turmoil or desire to set themselves free from this psychological prison, I wasn’t allowed to see it.
If me being asymptomatic was such a big deal, then I could only assume this prison was delicately crafted through a tedius process of strict conditioning, refined over decades of trial and error and polished to perfection.
If I were to figure out some new method of breaking through this conditioning, it would undo all the work they’ve put into developing this method of control. The more reliance they had on this method, the more important it’d be for me to reveal how I got around it so they could nip this issue in the bud right away.
“Did someone else coach you on resisting God’s grace? Did you have contact with the devil himself? You did shout his praise earlier… Kid, if you don’t start giving me answers….”
3 clenched his fist so hard that I could actually hear it. For a split second, there was a subtle crack in his voice. I decided to take whatever tiny amount of power back I could. I knew that one way or another, this was gonna end with me dead, so I saw no point in holding back.
“It was all me.”
I said.
“I gave everyone the secret to break free from your influence. There are dozens of us. Hundreds, in fact. The method is more simple than you think, and only takes a matter of minutes. Even as you waste your time here, we are curing people in secret all over the city. Soon, there will be no one left to control, and your churches will be burned to the ground!”
I yelled with a manic, toothy grin.
“Oh God…. it’s the untitled chapter!”
This untitled chapter that 3 referred to was basically the Canons version of the book of revelation, or maybe ragnorök. In it, Azaliuth (our version of Jesus) has a final battle with the devil after he’s set free by an evil woman with lilies growing out of her like fungus. Metaphorically, this woman could be me if I played my cards right.
From 3’s perspective, (assuming he’s a believer and not a grifter), he’s the hero being given the iconic and ominous “you’re too late, it’s already begun” speech.
My hope was that he’d angrily kill me before promptly setting off to “warn the others”, just like in the movies. While preparing for a final battle that wouldn’t come, I’d be resting peacefully, never again having orders barked in my face, or being punished for things out of my control.
…Would I though? What would God think of this situation? Is lying to a council member a serious enough offense to guarantee my spot in hell?
I masked my fear by laughing maniacally. God was supposed to be all-knowing. Surely he wouldn’t mistake my intentions. Surely he would see the effort I’ve put in all along, and understand my true nature….
I kept laughing, ignoring the rest of 3’s questions. I heard him use the clapping stones one last time.
“Kill her.”
I was dragged to the ground. Samantha held my body still with all her weight as Neal stomped on my head repeatedly. Blood flowed into my eyes the second my blindfold came undone. Sickening crunches reverberated within my temples as my skull began to fracture and… etcetera. I’ll spare you the other details.
At some point I couldn’t feel pain anymore. The last of my senses to go was my hearing, although eventually that too became nothing but the muffled sound of rhythmic stomping, increasingly distant as time passed.
The banner you’re waving
Is burning and red
It’s blocking the sunlight
That shines overhead
You against the world…
The sound of music faded in, followed by my usual stream of conscious thought, picking up right where it left off. What’s happening? Am I dead?
I found myself staring at the door to my father’s study. Residual traces of cold energy was flowing into my veins, and I felt calm.
Through the sounds of The Offspring being played on my father’s record, I could faintly hear the sound of my mother’s car pulling out of the driveway and speeding off somewhere. Peter pushed me out of the way as he barged into the study.
“Dad! Can I have another cupcake?”
“Sure buddy.”
Peter rushed off, leaving the door open. My father leaned forward, putting his elbows on the desk when he noticed me.
“Let me guess, Mary’s bitching about me again huh?”
He said it in the exact same tone and cadence he did hours prior, when I first walked into his study to kick off the change of events that led to me being stomped to death.
I looked at the clock hanging above his head, confirming that no time had passed since then.
“Is that clock working?”
“What do you think?”
“It’s Thursday, right?”
“Uh… Yeah. Why?”
I claimed someone at school pulled a prank on me by messing with my phones clock, and he berated me for letting the phone out of my sight, whining about how expensive it is, etc.
I went to my room, plopped down onto my mattress, and questioned whether or not what just happened was real.
No van came an hour later, no strange old men gave me orders, and no parents called for me to come downstairs for a lecture. I was allowed to fall asleep and wake up the next morning like everything was normal.
The recurring nightmare of being forced to stand in formation was even more vivid than before.
For reasons I’m not comfortable talking about yet, I ended up dying a few more times, and I was always ending up back at that moment where I was standing outside my father’s study, freshly self-soothed with my weird meditative technique.
I think the meditation is what marked the spot in time I would come back, like a checkpoint in a video game where you could save your progress.
After this first time though, I spent weeks in a daze. Even when I finally snapped out of it, I didn’t know what my next objective should be. There’s one thing I know for certain though.
My next step will not even slightly resemble obedience.