Our assignment was war. It was announced weeks earlier, and we\u2019d thought of little else in the time between. The older ones did it all the time, but they shooed us away when we asked about it. Mr. Eriks told us to refer to him for the day only as Captain Eriks. Greg asked if we could call him Cappy, and Mr. Eriks said goddammit! He told us that he really was a captain in the wars that reset the world. He talked about the time before the wars often and with disdain, spitting and wincing like his mouth was filled with shards of bitter charcoal. Some of us would emulate the spitting, and he\u2019d smile, bob his head in approval. Now the day had come, and we were split into two groups, thirteen on each side. Team 1 and Team A. I was A. He\u2019d be our leader, and Mr. Harris (Captain Harris) would lead Team 1. Our respective captains corralled us onto opposite ends of the field, a hundred yards separating the factions. Our captain spoke.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn war,\u201d he said. \u201cIn war.\u201d He nodded and spit, pacing in front of us, tracing the etches that paved his treebark face like lines of sap. We knelt before him. \u201cIn war, it\u2019s fuck them. You understand?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFuck them,\u201d we chanted.<\/p>\n
\u201cFuck them.\u201d Pacing and tracing and spitting. His voice pulsed thick and tarry like with cigar smoke, but he had no cigar. Pockets of saliva popped with his words. \u201cThe enemy? Those shitbirds on the other side of the field? They\u2019re animals. They\u2019re subhuman. They\u2019re dickless pieces of shit, understand?\u201d<\/p>\n
Greg snickered. We were nine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re dogs,\u201d Captain Eriks said.<\/p>\n
I liked dogs, but I knew what he meant. Still, those were my friends on the other side of the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey hate you. They hate you.\u201d Spitting and pacing, spit black and smoky. \u201cThey hate you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFuck them,\u201d we chanted. It was fun. Captain Eriks made it fun, made it real. It was a game, but it felt real. Fuck them. We\u2019d kill them. We\u2019d kill them with our cap guns. And then we\u2019d have lunch with them in the cafeteria. But first, we\u2019d kill them.<\/p>\n
\u201cKill them,\u201d our captain said. \u201cThis is war. Do you understand? Do you understand?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFuck them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLouder.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFuck them!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLouder!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFUCK THEM!\u201d<\/p>\n
They were my friends, and I wanted to kill them. I wondered if they wanted to kill me. From across the field, from Team 1 and Captain Harris, the wind gusted the hollow remnants of thirteen nine-year-old boys\u2019 unison fuck them. I guessed they did. But it was a game, and we\u2019d have lunch after. They were my friends, but I felt a stirring, a burning, a satisfying collective ache radiating from Captain Eriks onto me. It swarmed and tickled, and I felt my faction feel it, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cKill them.\u201d<\/p>\n
A gunshot. I didn\u2019t know from where, but we heard it, and we knew what it meant. We charged. Cap rifles at the ready, we charged, prepared to fall fairly when our enemies\u2019 harmless orange nibs of gunpowder announced our death, prepared to force our enemies to fall fairly when our gunpowder announced theirs.<\/p>\n
The first cap popped, a fraction of a real gun\u2019s crack. The second and third, ninth and tenth, pop pop pop. Fractions of real, fragments of real, whispers of the real wars that reset the world, that would reset it once more.<\/p>\n
Benson, a friend I planned to eat lunch with, shot me. It was clear, plain as pudding, and despite the rules, despite what I thought I was prepared to do, I did not fall fairly. I could not.<\/p>\n
I looked around. Nobody fell fairly.<\/p>\n
\u201cFall, you fucker!\u201d Benson said.<\/p>\n
I heard my captain in my head. I would not fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n
Benson shot again, and again I said, \u201cNo!\u201d He shot until his caps were expelled, and I did the same. Ten feet between us, we shot until shooting was no longer an option. There was a moment, a flash, when decisions were made. It was war. We raised our wooden rifles from the barrels like maces, heavy stocks extended. I saw Benson\u2019s look. I felt my own. I felt that collective from my captain. Fuck them. We charged and swung. Benson missed; I didn\u2019t. The clack against the side of his skull satisfied, tremored up my arm, and I swung again, as satisfying as the first.<\/p>\n
Benson went down, and I yowled a warrior\u2019s cry.<\/p>\n
Captain Eriks wouldn\u2019t wince and spit charcoal when he spoke of me.<\/p>\n
I heard the same clack of wood against bone chirping around me, somehow louder than the shouts and curses that went with it. I saw my friends fall, but not fairly. There was blood and there were tears and screams. I watched and as I watched the collective emptied from my gut and left behind a sickness, a nausea, a worm that wriggled with the wrongness. What had we done?<\/p>\n
Captain Eriks saw it, too. He ran toward us and saw what he\u2019d caused, how immediately out of control it had gotten, and I could only imagine his fear and regret. He\u2019d tried to make it real for his students, and he\u2019d succeeded too much. I hated him for it. My friends. I swore I saw the regret in his eyes as he ran toward us, metal whistle dangling from his cracked lips, screeching.<\/p>\n
\u201cStop!\u201d<\/p>\n
Like a recording, we stopped.<\/p>\n
He stood before us and assessed. Three unconscious. Five rolling and moaning in reddening blades of grass. The rest brandishing wooden toys unfit for the snarls and rage that propelled them. The sound of breathing and moaning, of too much success. What have I done, I imagined our captain thinking. But then I saw his eyes and saw I was wrong and I didn\u2019t want to be part of his collective and he said:<\/p>\n
\u201cFuck them. Well done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“They were my friends, and I wanted to kill them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[247,1413,76,1177,671],"class_list":["post-14154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-children","tag-dystopian","tag-games","tag-mob","tag-war","writer-cade-hagen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14154"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14235,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14154\/revisions\/14235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}