Waking Up

They sized him up and down, then they looked at his hands. He could smell something metallic, his skin tingled. There was a fancy air conditioner spewing out heavenly cold air. That was the only sound. That, and the prayer beads clinking onto one another, as the man who had just finished his prayers repeated the names and praises of his god silently, counting them out on the well worn beads.

He looked outside the window, the silence continued. It was hot and sunny. His heart was thumping loudly. He clenched his jaw, he heard his teeth grate against one another. He had to do this. He didn’t want to do this. He imagined his mother welcoming some man with some amount of money in his hands, and imagined that man’s hands all over her body. He had to do this. He winced. Could feel hot tears welling up in his eyes. He shook his head. Looked towards them.

The first man asked him a question.

“Yes, i am sure.” his voice did not falter.

When he woke up, there was a throbbing pain in his arms. When he woke up, he was in darkness in a cold wet room. When he woke up, he was lying in a puddle.

He could hear the steady drip of water hitting the ground near him somewhere. He could hear the measured breaths of someone, still snoring. He could hear his own panicky ones. Something was wrong. Something needed to be wrong. For this to work. They had explained to him that they needed to knock him out for this, it was better if he did not know what it was before- something was wrong. There was no feeling in his hands. They did not move. Before. Before. Before, what? He started to panick. What had they done. He knew deep inside what they had. He had known what they would do. Which one they would pick. He had known it then. But it had happened. And now, now it could not unhappen. He dared not think it, not even in his head. If it were true… if it were true. No, he did not want to think about it. But how could he even hold other thoughts in his head. He closed his eyes in the darkness and sobbed. His chest heaved. He closed them so tight that they hurt. His head hurt. He could smell piss and fear and desperation. It was coming from him. Fuck his mother, why had he done this. For her. He stopped crying, slowly. His heart was breaking. He was caught between two worlds. In trying to fix the mistakes of the past, he had made some for the future.

Footsteps echoed from outside. A door clanging open, letting in with it light. He saw the old man sleeping softly. Then he saw the others, some kids like him, passed out, their breathing almost non existent. Some would have been blinded. Some would have had had limbs torn off. Some would have had just one, some would have had none. On one boy, his ears were gone. On a girl, her hair was shaved off, a wound in her scalp. The mafioso won, the mafioso always won. A man stood in the doorway. It was then that the boy looked at his hands. They were gone.