Prompt this week is: "These dead shall not have died in vain"
-Abraham Lincoln

Sacrifice

The fates had chosen particularly short strings for them, Don thought as he dug their graves. He would have wiped his brow, but there was no need. The sewer tunnels were cool and the graves required little space.

He wondered if this meant anything. Maybe their deaths and the circumstances leading up to that point would bring some positive result. Some light from the darkness.

But he had taken these lives. Snuffed them out as if they were nothing. What right did they have to declare themselves Death? None. They were ninjas, but they weren't killers. And these lives were Don's responsibility. Someday, when he was gone, he would hold up his hands that were soiled in the blood of the innocents and present them to Whoever and they would cast him away from Their presence. But he knew better than that. All they had was their shot span on earth and he'd robbed them of it.

Don opened the shoe box and counted out the six rats, hoping he hadn't missed that stupid one that kept getting trapped behind the water dispenser and hoped that he wouldn't forget to leave a sunlamp over the next batch of little volunteers testing out more effective antacid for his father.