Even when the falsely condemned are kids. Just kids.
I can hear a distant roar now. The sound of hunger — for “justice,” for blood.
I forge ahead into the pathetic herd of lemmings. I’m not going to let them take my sister from me. Not without a fight to the death anyway.
I round a corner, and then, across the top of the crowd, I see… Is that my sister, Wisty, up on the stage? She’s hooded, dressed all in blac
k, but standing now. Proudly. Brave as ever.
A man — if you would call him that — is on the stage with her. He’s leaning on a crooked stick, his wickedly sharp black suit hanging strangely motionless in the wind that’s begun to howl through the civic square. His angular face is glowing with smug self-satisfaction, as if he’s just devoured a potful of whipping cream.
I know him; I despise him. The One Who Is The One. Quite possibly the most evil individual in the history of humanity.
Are there minutes or seconds left before this hideous execution? I have no way of knowing.
I knock people aside as I barrel through the thickening, or should I say sickening, throng. I can see a line of wellarmed soldiers holding everyone back from the platform. If I can knock one of them down and snatch away a gun…
I look up at the stage just in time to see The One raise his knobby black stick and shake it menacingly at my sister. He has a look of absolute triumph.
“No!” I yell, but I’m unheard in the roaring crowd. They all know what’s about to happen. I know, too. I just don’t see how I can possibly stop it. There has to be a way.
“Nooo!” I scream. “You can’t do this! This is cold-blooded murder!”
There’s a flash — not of light but somehow of blackness — and she’s gone. Wisty. My sister. My best friend in the world.
My little sister is dead.
Whit
IF I’M STILL DRAWING air, it’s not because I care about living.
The last person in the Allgood family that I knew for certain to be alive, the person who knew me better than anyone else in the world, the person who looked up to me in everything, is gone. What an incredible waste of an incredible life.
Wisty died while I watched, and I could do nothing to help her.
The One just vaporized my sister… and that monster, without any hint of conscience, doesn’t even seem to have broken a sweat. He throws his arms in the air like he’s just scored a goal, like he’s mocking the pointlessness of human existence. I go weak in the knees. I feel as if I might throw up as I hear a deafening roar of approval sweep down the concrete canyon of this city — a place that now seems despicable and evil and beyond repair.
The One has just achieved his biggest public relations triumph ever. He basks in the adoration — but his usual impatience and anger soon erupt.
“Silence!”
His command sweeps across the city, obliterating every other noise.
But I’m unmoved. Still shell-shocked. Numb everywhere, including in places that I didn’t know existed.
“My good citizens,” he thunders, without aid of a microphone, “this is a truly magnificent occasion. What you have just witnessed is the obliteration of the last significant threat to our stewardship of the Overworld! Wisteria Allgood, a leader of the Resistance, has just been removed from this dimension. Forever.”
He raises his arms again, and a new gust of wind brings a thin layer of ash and the horrible smell of burnt hair across the crowd. These “good citizens” begin cheering again.
I’d collapse to my knees, but I’m surrounded on all sides. Then, suddenly, there is space for me to move. The cheering turns to screaming and the crowd is surging — moving backward — and I see a fiery explosion erupting not fifty yards from where I stand.
I know that fire.
“Oh yeah!” I shout as the mere sight of it makes my heart almost burst with joy. “Oh yeah, oh YEAH!”
That’s my sister! Wisty’s alive! She’s just set herself on fire, and that, believe it or not, is a good thing.
Wisty