"I'm sorry Mr. Steven but I must go."

"Oh, so soon?"

I really didn't think at that point that the crack head realised that I'd been sitting in front of that cardboard box around that fire for about two hours. But he just said "Oh, so soon," which, as far as I'm concerned, is a cheesy phrase and he just chewed me out for saying a cheesy phrase, so I wondered who was really the dumb, faggot, bitch? By the way those are his words not mine.

"Yes. I'm very sorry."

I left him and walked briskly. I knew that it would take me some time to get back to Hermia considering was it Old Man Steven's house which was on the outskirts of the town and mine was in the interior, almost to the centre, of the village.

I entered the main part of the village. Small, dusty, worn down houses lined the road and I was reminded of that dusty, worn down cardboard box that Old Man Steven lived in. And after that conversation I had with him, whenever I thought of starved, retarded, dumb, faggot, bitches I'd be thinking of him.

We didn't have any roads in Tresa, we just had ugly, unfertile, stony soil and what made matters worse is that we didn't have shoes. Call me pessimistic, but you've never seen Tresa or its ground. My feet burned and some recently healed cuts that I had gotten on my feet from walking had reopened. But I couldn't stop. At that point I started asking myself the question 'Why the heck did I come out here? To get jumped by a vampire?' I shouldn't have gone outside as much as I did because that just made me angry and there was a process where I decided never to go outside again, then a few days later I decided to go outside and the process repeats itself.

The sun broke further and further through the clouds. I was almost to my house. Then, something happened. I heard something that I will remember for the rest of my life. On a loudspeaker he spoke:

"Knock knock!"

The people of Tresa always loved a good knock-knock joke. We lived in a village near the beach and everybody looked. They looked at the gigantic cruise ships docked in our ports. The forces were docked in our beach. They seemed to be having a fun time on that ship. I mean, they had shuffleboard, croquet, brunch buffets and, best of all, slime, which they probably took from the Nickelodeon cruise before Nickelodeon ended. I had heard so much about that cruise. It was apparently very fun. We had one jar of slime and the people liked to hold it and feel it but now it was very dirty. Anyways, back to business. What we all chorused was:

"Who's there?"

"Ash!"

"Ash-hoo?"

"Bless you!"

We all fell to the ground in pain, squirming. What we definitely couldn't take was a bad knock-knock joke. The man with the loudspeaker spoke again:

"Why did the chicken cross the road?"

He continued without getting a 'why' in a horrible enthusiastic voice that sounded like something mixed with a circus accent, a commercial accent and a blender.

"To get to the other side!"

And the whole row of cruise ships broke out in horrible, fake laughter like one of those people in the 40s movies that claimed to be 'normal' but we all know that no one talks or laughs that way.

We all squirmed on the ground more. It was terrible. Then I was thinking of her. Hermia had to be terrified, especially without me. Apparently they felt that we had had enough so they departed from their ships and went from the beach into the village. They came with guns, swords, axes, maces and bad ring tones; all dangerous weapons.

Not only did they murder us, some of these murders slow and painful, especially the ring tones, but they also tortured us. As soon as I had recovered I ran to get Hermia but I looked to the side and saw the torture of a man.

"Yo' mama so ugly, she looked out the window and got arrested for mooning!"

"Please! Stop. Stop! I beg of you!"

He clutched the forces soldier's leg.

"Yo' mama so stupid she cheat of o' yo' test paper!"

The man clutched the soldier's leg in pain and yelled, but his voice was drowned in the screams of everyone else. It was then that the soldier decided to put him out of his misery and shoot him. I ran faster at the thought of that happening to Hermia.

I saw her. I looked and saw her and I stared in disbelief. I shouted and screamed but it made no difference. A forces soldier stood five feet from her with a gun pointed at her. He pulled the trigger and, despite all the screams, that noise was the only thing I could hear.

But he missed. Now when that happened I considered two possibilities. One possibility is that this guy just had really bad aim. Another possibility was that the guy just wanted to be really contrary to action sequences. Either way I was happy.

I pulled out my knife and drove it through his long neck. Blood spewed out like a volcano and I violently kicked him to the ground. That was the first time I killed a man.

"Come with me, Hermia," I said to her.

"Sure, bother," she said to me. She couldn't pronounce her 'r's very well so it sounded like 'bother' instead of 'brother.'

I dragged her by the arm. I knew there was only one thing I could do. Something that we installed in case the forces came. We needed to use the "NEVER use this machine" machine. It was really a giant catapult that was strong enough and large enough to throw us to Tsaw, hence the term "NEVER use this machine" machine.

We ran through the village. Everyone was dying. Eventually we reached the catapult. Hermia and I stood on it. It was then that I saw that everyone was dead. No one survived and the forces soldiers were coming for me. I raised my knife and brought it down to cut the rope which would allow the machine to throw us but at that same time they opened fire. The machine was activated but even in the fast-paced heat of the moment I still saw that one bullet connect with Hermia's back.