Flash Fiction: You Never Know Everything

All that could be seen around me were faces. Faces frozen with blank expressions of waiting, their eyes were cold and offered no expression of the thoughts running through their twisted minds. I cowered, weakly, beneath their gaze in hopes that I could disappear into myself, contracting and contorting into my gut. Despite the pain and discomfort, I remained there, nailed in place by their very presence which emitted a blanket of control over my being.

I wanted to scream, to cry out and release the fear that boiled beneath my writhing exterior, but they did not allow it. They insisted that I remain silent the whole while I sat in wait for their hopes to be realized.

There was a change in the crowd. Their faces lit up with happiness and relief, and they turned their heads to face the black ambient lighting around them. I wished with all my heart that I could rise up and run while their heads remained turned, but their forceful control remained.

All at once, they turned back towards me and reached their hands around every inch of my body they could hold. With a firm grip, they carried me away. I laid face up in their hands, and stared bleakly up at the blackness above me. The dark sky grew brighter with the dazzling display of light in the distance; this was where they were taking me. With each step the light grew brighter, and their hands slipped with sweat against my cold flesh. I could feel their nervous excitement in the slick warmth of their hands, which sent me into a frenzy of horror and anguish.

Our trip was over when we came center over the bright light that illuminated the darkness. Heat radiated off the light and it burned with uncomfortable intensity upon my back. The discomfort only grew when they lowered me onto the surface of the light emitting structure. Their faces were illuminated in an eerie fashion with the glow of the light, with light reflecting off their white teeth, beaming eyes, and lips wetted with saliva.

They finally released me, and I was left under the mercy of unseen forces which kept me on the burning light. The pain was beginning to feel unbearable. Their smiles widened with each moment my pain increased, until they quickly parted and allowed this woman passage into the crowd. She stared at my stiffened body with contempt and circled me with slow and concise steps, her cold eyes on me all the while. She finally stopped when she completed her fourth revolution, stopping at my feet then asked, “If you had one word to speak, only one, what would it be?”

I looked intently into her stony eyes and with her permission answered, “Why?”

She smiled, and they all laughed.