I could rationalize it. I could say, sure, I did some awful things, but I was just a kid. I didn't know any better, and anyone who told me I was wrong or tried to teach me got their ass buried so deep into the cornfield that they'd come out the other side of the earth.
If there is an earth left. When I was born, I immediately caused this to happen. I'm not sure what it was, whether I destroyed the world and left the town or took the town away. I'm not even sure why.
My name is Anthony Fremont, sixteen years of age. I have incredible supernatural powers, the ability to wish something to happen, and make it happen. Most people would kill for that kind of power, and those people most likely don't deserve it. I sure didn't.
There were about 100 people living in Peaksville, formerly Peaksville, Ohio, but now just Peaksville. By the time I was six, it dwindled down to merely forty six. Now there was one.
I was a child, a spoiled child. But spoiled children normally have some parental unit or other form of authority try and curb them. And even if they didn't, they didn't have the power I did. This was putting a spoiled child at the head of an army.
People didn't stand a chance in Peaksville. They were as good as dead just by living there when I was born. Not that their lives were much better. I couldn't stand sad thoughts; they made me feel sad in turn, and angry thoughts made me angry as well. So I made a command, sort of, that everyone had to think happy thoughts and say happy things. And if anyone did otherwise, I would do something to him or her. I'd put them in one of my cornfield graves, or change them into a monster or a jack in the box, or set them on fire, like I did to one man who tried to kill me.
That man should've killed me. I shouldn't have been born. I did nothing but cause so much grief and suffering.
I can remember specifically when I changed. It was right after I killed Aunt Amy. I was twelve. I remember that just before, I turned Aunt Amy back. I made her stupid, vacant, easy to understand, because she displeased me, but since I liked her. But, after nine years, I decided that perhaps I should change her back. So I did, but she started yelling at me, so I wished her into the cornfield.
Afterwards, my father started saying, "That was good, Anthony. That was a real swell thing to do."
And for some reason, it clicked with me, that that wasn't a nice thing to say. I realized I was sad because I killed Aunt Amy, and that it wasn't a good thing that I did. I didn't like that, and I was about to wish him into the cornfield before I realized that would cause another death, and it wouldn't do anything, so I just told him.
And I had another revelation that day. My father, in a moment of weakness, thought something too much. He was relieved that I didn't like Aunt Amy's death, and he was relieved that he didn't have to say "That was a good thing that happened" anymore.
I learned more that one day than I did my entire life. One, I learned killing was bad. Two, I learned that people shouldn't kill others as a punishment. And three, I learned people didn't really like the things I did.
After that, my mind blossomed. He didn't like it when I killed Aunt Amy? But he said he did and thought he did. Does that mean he wasn't being truthful? And is it just my father? Do more people not like it when I kill things or create monsters?
At this point, I had a desperate urge to talk to people. I wanted to see what I did. But I couldn't get anything from them. They just kept smiling and repeating the same things and jumbled their thoughts around so that it would be harder to read them.
I started to read all the books I could, but there were hardly any in the town, so I thought them here. I started to delve into books. I cleared the basement and made my own personal library. It was in books that I heard of the real world, the one outside the one I'd created at birth. I now knew of pain and suffering. Of lying and deceit. I now could see what the world valued. It wanted peace. It wanted health. It wanted happiness. So I decided to do that, try and forge a "perfect world" from what I read in the books.
Then I read another important book, one describing World War Two, and the Holocaust. How one man tried to make the world perfect, and made it a living hell.
Hell was another concept I learned in my studies. I read a copy of the Bible. It was then that I realized what I was, what I looked like to the people in Peaksville.
I was a monster.
I was a devil.
I caused pain and grief, when all I wanted was for people to like me.
I knew that every single person in Peaksville would go to heaven; I made them spend their time in Hell.
I was evil enough to put Hitler to shame. Because it wasn't conscious evil, it was the pure innocent evil of a child. I didn't know what I did; only what I wanted, and like all children, I cried when I didn't get it.
Only I could do more than cry.
A child should never have that power, the power to do more than pout when they didn't get their own way.
Then, I let my guard slip. I stopped scanning everyone's thoughts, and I held back on the killing and the violence and the misshapen creatures. It happened for weeks before anyone noticed.
It was when Widow Hollis began to sing. It was ten year after I'd turned her husband into a jack in the box and thought him into the cornfield. She sang aloud, while the piano was playing, because she hated to pretend for ten years, and wanted to join her husband. The other citizens got scared, but when I didn't do anything, they decided to take advantage of this. They got whatever meager weapons they could scrounge up and headed to the basement, where I was reading.
They were hysterical, like animals. The instincts became very basic, like the animals that used to be in the grove. No more animals remained. They all died long before, either by natural causes or by my actions.
They joined up, all 17 villagers left, including my own mother and father, and went down to kill me.
I knew this would come eventually. When the devil wasn't looking, try and escape the hell, which only could happen when I was dead.
I did it painlessly. I made them all fall asleep. They wouldn't feel anything. Then I killed them. Every last one of them.
Now, I was the only living being in the entire village. I walked for a long time.
I stood at the edge. The white blankness that separated my village from…what was out there. I now knew what it was. I did it last year. I found out what I did. Peaksville wasn't on the earth, but under it. The white was just to keep anyone from trying to dig out.
I stood there for hours, not knowing what to do, should I face judgment? Should I try and live as a normal human? Should I try and go back and establish myself as a god, and try and be benevolent?
No, I couldn't live normally. Sixteen years was too much, I couldn't be normal if I tried. I couldn't face justice, I'd be killed, and I want to live, because if I live, I won't go to hell. And I didn't want to be a god.
Because I was a human.
And I was a sinner.
That was it. I was a sinner. So I would atone for my sins. It was time to face the world I hid from at birth. The world of pain and suffering…that I didn't cause. I would go back and try to atone. I would cure the sick, feed the hungry, and shelter the homeless.
And I would learn. I would learn how to help, and then help.
I let up the blank white. It was time to face my penance.