Hate.
by R. Bail

We go there in the dawn, in the twilight, we gather around and heft our bottles full of alcohol and oil and rags and grip our lighters and gather our courage and then we run out into the street, silent and deadly.

But they are more silent. Now everyone is screaming, terrified screams like the ones we'd heard from the building before, the screams of our gang members that we never saw again. Adults, men, women, bigger than us, stronger than us, they're coming out of nowhere and they're ripping...

Blood, I see blood everywhere and we all try to run but the street is suddenly a cage and there is nowhere to run to that isn't into the waiting arms of a creature that grins with long sharp teeth and I feel them in the back of my head, they like our screaming our fear our pain our dying.

Oh God! We shouldn't have gone there we should have just moved where they couldn't have found us!

I'm running but two pairs of strong hands grab my wrists my shoulders my hair and drag me away. Two men with dark hair and cruel sharp smiles and I can feel them in my bones I feel them eating my fear. I struggle and twist and shriek threats at them but they laugh, they laugh at me! I won't stop screaming, my throat is starting to hurt but I won't stop and they start to get pissed and try to shake me to make me stop, but I won't, not for anything.

They drag me into a building, that building where the screams come from and I feel something someone in my head and it feels it feels it feels it's digging into me touching me stop stop stop! I scream I struggle as hard as I can even though I'm tired so tired more tired every moment. One hand goes across my mouth as they pull me through the building, I try to pull my head away but I can't, the hand is grimy and strong and smells like death.

The men talk to each other but blood pounding through my head is all I can hear, I can't hear what they say or see where they go, it's too dark, I can't smell anything but them they smell like things that are dying and dead and rotting like a dog my gang found once in a gutter. There's something else, something under it, something that smells like metal and heat.

They drag me down the stairs faster than I can walk and I only don't fall because their hands are holding me so tightly like they're going to pull me apart. We reach bottom and as heat washes over me I can see again, a bright bright light from a bare lightbulb soaking into concrete and reflecting off of metal, the metal that I smelled because it's so strong here I gag.

My head still pounds but I'm so scared now that everything has gone fine and clear and sharp razorlike around me to cut me into little bloody pieces if I move. I can hear the men speak.

"Are you sure we oughtta be down here?" asks the one with his hand over my mouth.

The other one lets go of me and walks over to the big metal thing. "Yeah, they'll meet us down here in a little while." He turns around and looks me up and down and my fear sharpens and cuts my mind. "How about we have some fun with her first?"

"Fuckin' A, Davis, they'll be pissed if we damage..."

He laughs, his lip curling. "They won't care as long as she's still alive. They like it when I break them a little. You've never done this before, Johnny? Heh, you'll like it, too."

Terror. I thrash around and almost break free since only one of them is holding me but I forgot how tired I am and how strong he is and even though I kick him in the nuts he only grunts and that let him get ahold of me so he pins me against him with one arm and forces the other over my mouth again. "Let's do it, then, show this bitch why she shoulda been a quiet little girl."

He drags me over closer to the metal thing, it's taller than I am or than they are and it's so hot I'm sweating more from it than from fright now. The other one looks me up and down again and runs his hands down my front and I shudder as my insides twist. He grabs my left arm and the other one lets it go, he holds my wrist and looks at my hand with a smile that makes in insides twist again then he pulls my arm out and forces my palm against the metal and it HURTS it's burning me stop stop stop gods make it stop please make it stooooop!

My hand is pulled away but the pain still shrieks through my arm and I'm crying my eyes squeezed shut it hurts worse than anything...

"Let her scream. They won't care if she screams down here. I want to hear her scream."

The filthy hand drops away from my face and grips my right arm and my left arm is yanked forward again and my palm is on the metal and I scream my voice ripping through my throat which probably hurts but nothing hurts worse than my hand I smell something other than metal oh gods that's my hand why why why me why are they doing this to me!

They laugh, I can hear them laugh through my screaming. I hurt I'm confused I'm burning

I hate them

It hurts so bad I' m sobbing and screaming and the man presses my hand harder against the metal and the whole world is burning. I open my eyes and through the tears I see his face

I hate him

The world is turning red and there is nothing but burning I am the burning, I am the fire and the flames. I can't scream anymore, I can't cry anymore, the world is red, everything is fire.

Hands drop away from my body. "H-hey, Davis, she stopped... she stopped screaming."

The world is red, and I am the burning.

I am hate.

"D-davis? What's that noise?"

"Holy shi- I think the furnace is overheating! They aren't supposed to do that- OH FUCK! It's turning red!"

"We gotta get out of here, come on, let go of her, we gotta-"

"I am hate, and I hate you," I whisper over the roar. The men stare at me with wide round eyes before I look away and the metal bursts outward in a rush of flames.

And then their world is red, too.