Untitled

Untitled by Stacey Enriquez, age 10

It is a sunny day, the sun beaming upon my face and I squint as sweat drips from my forehead to the gray cement below. I walk to the entrance of Petco and envelope my hand around the shiny silver doorknob and see my reflection in the blue-tinted glass door. For a split second my reflection has glowing red eyes and sharp animal-like teeth. The air suddenly feels heavy like a thick blanket being draped over my body. It then returns to normal and I wave at my brother and my mom, slightly uneasy, and finally open the door. I feel hesitant as I take my first steps into the room and suddenly, the lights turn from pale yellow to blood red. I wrinkle my eyebrows as fear takes over me and I turn around. Everybody else behind me seems frozen in time, their bodies still. I scream and look around the room. I ball my fists and squeeze my eyes. A shadow creeps and reaches my feed and I see patchworked skin and glowing eyes. I collapse to the floor and huddle into a ball. Tears gush from my eyes and fall on my pleading hands. The figure slowly takes out a yellow crumpled piece of paper. I watch through tear-stained eyes as the figure slowly uncrumples the paper. “You see,” the figure says in a deep voice, “I was one of these helpless animals once. I watched as humans ignored me, only looking for the cutest animals.” The figure winces as they remember this, their hand quivering in anger. “One day,” they said, “a human seemed interested in me.I was so excited when I heard a faint trace of a voice saying they wanted me. I figured out soon enough that they only wanted me for experiments. They were sick in their mind, they wanted to see how much I could tolerate. One day, their experiment went

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haywire. A device that was meant to only torture me, killed me. The last thing I saw was a grin on my owner’s face. To this day, I have not known what their real intent was. After I became a ghost, I saw an opportunity to become powerful, to become human.” I blink once and try to wipe my tears away. I close my eyes and suddenly the room smells of decay and smoke. I open my eyes and the figure is now carrying large black bags with outlines of human faces. “All I need to last me many lives is,” they look at their paper, “a child’s soul.” I try to run away but my body feels frozen. I shriek as the figure’s hands pull my body closer and closer. My blood stains the floor as my scream echoes throughout my town. The time freeze is lifted and everything goes back to normal. I open my eyes, and see my dead, still body. I look around slowly realizing that I am floating. To be continued . . .

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