Title: Damned Boys
Disclaimer: narrator's mine. that's it.
Warnings: spoilers for "Scarecrow"
Pairings: none
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 510
Point of view: first
It wasn't that hard, really, to ignore the screams, and they weren't from our town. Not like they're ours, our kind.
Honestly, our town needed to live, right? A sacrifice every now and then, just once a year—it's worth it, right? Well, was. Until them. Damned boys.
People came poking around, before, every decade or so, looking for their friend, sister, brother, cousin—whoever our Lord took. We were always able to steer them away, to placate them, convince them to look elsewhere.
We were just a normal town, truly. We were lucky, is all. Spring lasted all year, our water never ran dry, not in a century. We never brought in outsiders; they wouldn't understand.
The legend passed through family: the Lord and the Tree, the Blessing. Protect the Tree, feed the Lord—easy. One man, one woman.
Old Sarah even cast a spell to have people pass through every year, all those decades ago. It's a big world; is it so hard to fathom a couple would want to take a road trip? And it was purely luck, every time, that their trip coincided with the cycle.
Really, we aren't bad people. We just wanted our way of life. That's the way it's always been. And screams are easy to tune out.
But that damned boy—what right did he have? Poking his nose in, sniffing around—he ruined the ritual, took the couple from the Orchard. And then he dared show his face at the college, researching the Lord! What nerve!
Perhaps Emily is one we could have felt guilt for, but she isn't really one of ours, either. One man, one woman. That's what the Lord calls for.
And that is what He took, in an ironically bittersweet way. Really, it's humorous, if you look at the right way.
They were His Priest and Priestess, the keepers of His lore, the ones who insured the couples went to His Orchard. But somehow another appeared, another boy who couldn't keep his nose out of other people's business.
And the Lord was most displeased, as He showed when He took His most devoted disciples.
The screams had never been as hard to ignore as that night.
Now it's a ghost town. Everyone's gone. Oh, we went back a few days later to that cursed Orchard, just to see—the Tree is scorched, but still It stands.
Except, who could stay in this town and pay the price of blood anymore? The Lord has tasted some of ours—who can be sure He doesn't now crave it?
And so they all fled, all but me, for I am old. I've lived here my whole life, and here I shall die. I have nearly a year to decide, after all. I can be His last sacrifice, try to placate Him—if He'll take just one.
But those damned boys. What right did they have? It's not like we killed them ourselves, and they would have died anyway. Everyone does.
Oh, well. It'll be those meddling kids' time soon enough, I'm sure.