Re: log: hannah and ren
Hannah stared, cornflower fixed and white wide. It was a forced thing, the staring. Look, look, and don't look away, and she knew that sometimes bad things had to be seen. It was cowardly not to look this once, and she would never ever be seated in these bleachers again and watching this. She would never again line the pockets of anyone for this kind of horror, and she edged closer to Ren in an unthinking nudge of fear and revulsion. "They can be terrible, and it's okay. If they're horrible to real people then they go to jail and people look down on them, but this is okay. They all lump together and cheer, and it's okay to let the really, really terrible things they like show. Do you think they could do this to someone who looks human, and that they wouldn't do it to a real boy? They just know they can't, so they do this instead."
And she didn't need to answer his question about what the boy knew, what the boy understood. It was in the boy's big brown eyes, and it was in the tears that pooled against lashes that fell fat and wet against his reddened cheeks. He was made to appear as human as possible, to be as human as possible, and his expression was one of terror and understanding.
The ringmasters laughed, and they shoved a poker into one of five trashcan fires that dotted the center of this new version of a gladiator's arena. The now-red poker was brandished by the host walking in a circle, and the crowd's cheering became louder and louder. Hannah looked down, which was cowardly, and let me out, and I can't look, and no, please. But the people around them were not looking down.
The host returned with his hot poker, his evil intention obvious and the boy screaming and fighting now. They'd shorted out his legs, but he could still shift his torso in an attempt to move, to flee. He pleaded, begged, and he even peed himself as he writhed like a fish out of water and upon that table.
The men circled behind the boy, and they left no doubt as to where that poker was going to be inserted, and the spectators seated behind Hannah and Ren stood and cheered and screamed.
And then, without warning, a shot rang out from above Hannah and Ren, and the man holding the poker didn't even have time to look shocked before a bullet entered his forehead. The poker fell with a clang and clatter.