REBEL'S CRRY: House O' Slaughter

*Bang. Bang. Bang*

Gunshots echoed through the school's atmosphere. Twenty students and staff members, including the principal, knelt with hands cuffed behind their backs and eyes blinded by cloth.

*Bang. Bang. *

The school yard and classrooms were a bloodbath.

The students and teachers were instructed to board ten school buses driven by soldiers. As the buses exited the school gates, they left behind a trail of red paint.

Inside the bus, a soldier wearing a gas mask pulled the pin on three gas grenades. The bus filled with yellow smoke. "Don't breathe, it's sleeping gas!" students shouted. Whisky willingly inhaled the gas, knowing its effects. You hold your breathe for sixty seconds and later you will always breathe the gas. He realized the soldiers' plan was to make the students drowsy, so they wouldn't be able to see the roads or their final destination.

Whisky sat comfortably on the sit preparing for his shutdown. Then his eyes began to slowly close, shatterd.

"EPISODE 2: CAPTIVITY"

Flames of burning fire mirrored in his black eyes. Then,..the smell of smoke transported Whisky to that fateful night.

As sun dipped below the horizon, thirteen-year old Whisky was engrossed video games. Abruptly, the power outage plunged the room into darkness.

Whisky fumbled for his flashlight but find nothing. He lit a candle and went downstairs.

"Dad! Mom! What's going on!" He called out his adrenaline rushing through his veins.

After stepping on the final floor he heard.

His mother called out, "Whisky dear." The she reassured him, "There's has been a power outage in the neighborhood. Stay in your room."

A knock on the door broke the silence. Whisky opened the door and it was his loyal friend, Kacey.

Kacey greeted Whisky's parents before heading up stairs with Whisky. They entered Whisky's room. Whisky through himself to his bed and looked to the dim walls Kacey sat down besides his friend. They chatterd stories and laughed.

The door cracked open. Whisky's father reminded him, " Whisky do not live the candle near flammable stuff, especially the curtain."

"I know dad," Whisky replied.

His father glanced at him and said, "Just reminding each other then he exited."

Kacey excused himself to use the toilet. Whisky realized he'd left his phone in the living room and went downstairs to retrieve it.

He picked up his cellphone from the table.

Sniffing the air his mother asked, "Hon, do you smell that strange odor?"

Whisky recognized the smell but couldn't place it. Suddenly smoke erupted from the ceiling.

"Shit!" Whisky exclaimed, dashing up stairs.

"Sweety whats wrong" she asked, worry etched on her face.

His room was ablaze,walls crumbling and smoke filling the air. The inferno raged consuming everything in its path, flames dancing across the walls like fiery serpents. The fire was made by the earlier candle. Walls, the roof started to fall apart. Smoke being the strange smell rosed out o tryf the room. Whisky- terror gripped his heart, accelerating its rhythm .

"Whisky whats up with the smoke," she asked, her voice carrying up the stairs.

Whisky's mind replayed his father's warning. Fire mirroring in his eyes. Then he was interrupted by his dad grabbing his shoulder saying, "Come on Whisky! Lets get out of here!"

Headed down, his hand being dragged by his father. The ceiling was falling into pieces and they fled out of the house. Whisky and his parents stood on the lawn on the front yard. At dusk, the once-welcoming home was now a raging holocaust.

Whisky's parents exchanged a relief glance, but Whisky's heart remained heavy with regret.

"Whisky! Where is Kacey?!" his father asked urgently.

Tears started streaming down Whisky's cheeks as he sluttered, "I-l'm sorry, Dad... l didn't mea—"

His father's expression turned frantic."Just tell me where he is."

Whisky's voice trembled. "The last time l checked he was in the toilet."

Without hesitation, his father rushed towards the burning house. "Im going in the there."

Whisky's mother grasped her husband's hand and they shared a desparate kiss.

"Becareful dear," she said pleaded, her voice shaking.

Whisky's father turned to his son, his eyes burning with urgency. "Promise me you'll take care of your mother."

Whisky sobbed, his breathes catching in sniffles ,"Please,...Dad."

"Promise me!," his father shouted.

He nodded composing himself, " l will."

With a resolute nod, his father charged into the inferno.

The house blazed on, flames engulfing everything, as smoked billowed the sky.

The past receded...

The bus emptied, and Whisky found himself alone. A masked soldier with an AK47 slapped him awake. "Hey, you, wake the fuck up!" Whisky's eyes widened.

He exited the bus and entered a packed warehouse filled with thousands of students. Behind him, nearly three dozen school buses stood.

Students flowed through open doors, counted as they entered separate passages. Different passages they turned, the soldiers holding guns to them. Whisky followed, his photo taken and name recorded into the kidnappers' computers before being assigned empty white rooms.

"Name?" the photograher asked.

Then Whisky remained silent.

"Whats your name, you kid!!?"

"Hallow,...Whisky,."

The computer operator confirmed his identity using the school's database.

The process consumed the day. As night fell, students slept on the floor without blankets or pillows, haunted by the day's events.

....

General Case office....

A soldier entered. "What is it?" Major Payne asked, smoking with his feet on the desk.

"Approximately five hundred and sixty-three thousand kids, sir."

Major Payne stood, gazing out the window. "Over five hundred.. Ha.... Only hundred students should live. Slaughter the rest."

*_______

"NEXT TIME: DECEPTION"