Warnings: Minor character deaths, Security guards/a lot of police officers, This story is NOT for the faint of heart deals with heavy subjects such as execution and running from the law.
Tags: @wannabedisneyprincess
From the moment you are born, you are tied to your fate. By age three, the mark starts to make itself known, darkening enough of your wrist to spell out a name in thick and messy lines. During puberty, it was almost black and neat enough to have been written by a master calligrapher. Some call it the “red strings of fate”, some call it a tattoo, but Virgil called it bullshit. Unfortunately, bullshit or otherwise was not for Virgil to decide.
Everyone had a mark. Almost everyone. There were few who didn’t. They were monsters. Cruel, heartless, and absolutely incapable of any kind of love- romantic or otherwise. Monsters devoid of human emotion. They had to be stopped. They had to be crushed. They had to be killed.
253 days until graduation. Virgil could survive this. He always had and he always will. His survival could be thanked mostly to his large hoodie which was typically down to his hands. He took a deep breath. He’d be okay. He was always okay.
214 days until graduation. There was a pit in Virgil’s stomach as a freshman girl got carried off by security guards. The entire school watched apathetically. About a hundred of them recording the entire event on their phones. The girl was kicking and screaming, tears streaming down her face. She knew what her fate was. The entire school knew what her fate was. Only Virgil seemed to care.
He was quiet the rest of the day. Her face was seared into his brain. “Virge, I’ve never seen you this silent before,” commented the only company he had at lunch. The boy had a large birthmark that took up half his face. Combined with Virgil’s absolute lack of a social life due to fear and hiding, the two were an unstoppable duo of social outcasts. Yet, at the end of the day, he still had a name on his wrist. He wasn’t Barren.
“She’s only fourteen,” Virgil said. “She’s just a kid and they’re going to kill her.”
“If they haven’t already.”
Virgil wanted to scream and yell. His heart was burning with anger at the apathetic student body who had forgotten about her, mere hours later. “You aren’t helping.”
“Maybe I’m not, but they are.”
“You don’t believe that,” he said, a hint of disgust on his voice. He was bad at hiding his emotions.
“I believe that monsters should be hunted, Virgil.”
Virgil felt himself about to break down. He needed to be alone. He needed to calm down. He took his bag over his shoulder and stormed off.
“None of your business, asshole!”
210 days until graduation. Sunday morning. Virgil’s eyes were glued to the television. “Honey, are you sure you don’t want to watch something else?” his mother asked, gently resting a hand on his shoulder. Sunday morning. The public execution.
“I saw her, Mom,” Virgil said quietly. She was on the tv screen, eyes as red as her face was, and wrecked with emotion. She was a complete contrast to the live crowd around her. “I saw them take her away. She’s a freshman. Did you know that? I don’t think the people out there know that,” he said, his voice was monotone but emotion rest heavily in his chest. “She’s in the chorus. She was supposed to be a soloist in the winter concert.”
“Not personally, no,” Virgil admitted. “I asked a few teachers about her. Lied and said I was writing for speech and debate. That is until the chorus teacher threatened to send me to the dean for insubordination and asking too many questions.”
The screen went black as his mother took the remote. “Sweetie, I don’t think that watching that is good for you.” Virgil didn’t respond. “Listen, I know you can take care of yourself, but I can always tattoo you,” she said. “Pick a name you like and we’ll put it in your wrist. You’ll be safer that way.”
“High school will be over soon, Mom,” Virgil said. “I can figure out what to do afterward.”
“Okay, honey, but if you change your mind...,” she trailed off, planting a kiss on her son’s head and leaving him alone. She knew very well that the treatment of the Barren was undeserved and unfair. Her own sister had been Barren and ripped from her at a young age. Realizing that Virgil was Barren was heartbreaking, not because her son would be cruel or heartless, but because she couldn’t handle the heartbreak of losing her only child.
“I know, Mom,” Virgil said, pulling his sleeve over his arm, “I know.”
209 days until graduation. Everything was normal. It was a typical day in a typical fucked up world. No one cared. The slight talk of the execution was over before lunch. Virgil couldn’t bring himself to eat.
173 days until graduation. The hallways were somewhat tense. People had gotten bored nationwide. No Barrens had been found. No Barrens were killed. The people wanted- needed- something to hunt.
172. 171. 170. Virgil was growing more anxious by the day. Maybe he should get tattooed after all.
150. 149. 148. He needed an escape. 137.134.129. Only a couple more days until winter break. He could survive until the break.
127 days left and he was out the door as fast as possible. Virgil loved holiday breaks. Not for seeing family or because he was particularly fond of winter festivities (quite the opposite in fact) but because winter break was three weeks without security guards at every corner. Three weeks without teachers who could have him arrested. Three weeks without someone trying to find and kill him.
So, yeah, Virgil loved holiday breaks.
Virgil was sitting on the living room sofa with his mother, mindlessly watching holiday movies. “And up next,” his mother said in a faux impression of a radio announcer, “three more movies that follow the same story of a businesswoman meeting her soulmate.”
“Brought to you by Hallmark,” Virgil said. The two of them shared a quick moment of laughter before Virgil’s eyes darted to his mother’s wrist and then the floor. “What was it like meeting Dad?”
“It was... simple,” she said. “It wasn’t quite the fireworks and explosion of orchestral sound that everyone describes but... it was nice.” The slightest smile graced her as she recalled her late husband. “Having a soulmate named ‘John’ didn’t exactly simplify things by much, so we didn’t exactly know in the beginning. We got to know each other and the romance started from there. It was simple. Calm. Nice.”
Virgil forced a smile at the story, but the bittersweet feeling was there. His father had died just over fifteen years ago. Virgil hadn’t known him well enough to miss him.
100 days left until graduation. Everything was going smoothly. Almost too smoothly if you were to ask Virgil. The weather would be starting to warm up soon.
67 days left of school. Only a few more months until graduation. Virgil would be fine. He could survive this. Right?
“Why do you always wear that jacket?” a girl had asked him, promptly sitting down next to Virgil’s (previously) only company.
“I get cold arms,” Virgil lied.
“Pretty sure he’s a vampire.”
“Pretty sure you’re a snake,” Virgil hissed.
“Jokes on you! I love snakes!”
Virgil rolled his eyes. “Whatever, I’m leaving.”
“Wait don’t go,” the girl said, grabbing the sleeve of Virgil’s jacket.
“Let go!” Virgil yelled, pulling away. His struggle against her grip managed to free his arm completely from the jacket. When she finally let go, Virgil knew exactly why. The word was on the tip of her tongue but the only word he could hear was “run” pounding against his brain. So he listened.
He dropped his bags, shoving his arm back into the sleeve and began to run. People were shouting “Barren!” at him and at the campus police. He had to ride the wave of adrenaline against them as far as he could.
His legs pounded against the pavement and fresh morning dew burned in Virgil’s lungs. Yet, he couldn’t run forever. A hurricane grabbed his arm and pulled him in. Two strong men were holding him above the ground as he kicked and tried to pull all his strength to get away from them. He had to get away from them. His life depended on it.
He could hear the taunts and insults being thrown at him from every direction.
He needed someone, anyone, to help him. “Dee!” he called out. “Help me! Please!” He was gambling and he knew it, but he needed any shred of friendship to save him. The boy stepped forward as the crowd parted to watch him. Virgil was saying a silent prayer.
“Monsters should be hunted.”
