Tales from Swordbearer
Based on the AU created by Vega
"Children"
by Lydia
wolflucky at yahoo.ca
Oneshot
The thing about humanity is that we can be unspeakably cruel when it comes to something we don't understand or something that is different from us.
However, as we grow, we can be taught to suppress the hate we may feel to things we don't understand, or we can grow to accept that we do not understand. Growing. It takes time. Children are not given time. They want to grow up as fast as they can because children, in their eyes and in some of ours, cannot
do anything. They can, however, act on instinct and imitate that which they see. Surprisingly, yet not, children can be unremarkably cruel.
When the UN stated to the world that There are Immortals among us", the world reacted. People acted out, whether it was in hate or jealousy, they acted out against themselves and others. There were groups of people who declared Immortals to be inhuman, so called witch-hunts went on in search for the abominations. There were others who acted out in the sense of killing themselves, in hopes of activating the Immortality gene. Laws were passed however in order to stop the actions that did not fade away. But even laws can't stop everything all the time. And children are always watching.
In a southern state of the U.S.A, there was a small, quiet town where almost nothing exciting ever happened. In this town, everyone knew everything about each other and everyone went to church every Sunday. They were all good Catholics. They were not open to any newcomers to their town, which was exactly what Sharon Montgomery and her daughter Sandy were.
Sandy was a rather odd little girl. She enjoyed books more than playing with the other children, which at put her at odds with them. She was a reserved child who took after her mother when she tried to see the good in everyone. She never went to church with all the other children as her mother didn't believe in the religion but instead decided she would let Sandy choose whatever religious path Sandy wanted to when she was older.
Another thing about Sandy, which made her different from the other kids, is that Sandy would not often get hurt by things that would hurt the other children. A child in her school once witnessed Sandy fall down a narrow flight of stairs and merely walk away from it without any outward damage. The children of the school never let Sandy forget about how much more different she was. Sandy tried to not care, listening to her mother when she said that the others were merely jealous.
Sandy tried to ignore the whispers that she heard from the parents of the other children about her mother. There were mentions of the fact that Sharon was a single mother and was not religious. The other parents did not like the idea of Sandy being at school with their children as she could give them ideas. Due to their parent's warnings, the other children never went near Sandy.
When word spread across the world that Immortals were real, actions against them were televised and shown on the news. Children watched along side their parents and listened as their parents ranted and raved about the "freaks of nature" and about how they were the Devil's work and not right in the eyes of God. As if they knew all about their God. They did not seem to know though that their children were listening and watching and linking, as children's minds do, the events to the strange girl at their school.
On October the 14, 2005 Sharon reported Sandy missing.
The parents of the other children blamed Sharon for not being a proper mother and looking after her child. On October 16, 2005, the body of Sandy Montgomery was found in an alleyway behind the only
hardware store in the town. Her body was found, curled into a corner surrounded by rocks. She was reported to having been beaten to death by the rocks on the scene. When Sharon asked around about the death of her daughter, no one had any answers until a little boy spoke up.
"She was so weird! We didn't mean to hurt her, we swear! We thought she'd get back up! She always got back up before so we figured she was like on TV."
Sharon demanded to know what they had done to her daughter, but the parents protected their children and blamed Sharon for being unfit to be a mother in the first place. Sharon left the town and buried Sandy's body elsewhere, away from the children who had tormented her.
The incident never reached national news and very few ever heard of the small girl named Sandy who had been killed by the children who merely followed and then went further in their parent's footsteps.
THE END