𝕞𝕒𝕪 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕣𝕥 - 𝕒 𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕪

Tom pulled down the mask, the thick black cotton making his eyes water and he almost cried. The small handgun seemed to burn a knowing hole in the holster that he had tried to hide. He’d never shot anyone before, not yet, anyway. It was too soon, all this stuff catching up to him. He flicked a glance at his watch.

The time read 11:30, and the night sky told a similar story as the moon seemed to glare at him with a disgusted expression.
“I’m sorry,” he wanted to mutter, but he didn’t say anything. Instead he continued into the empty gas station and faced the cashier.
He couldn’t have been more than fifty, with his almost-lightly wrinkled skin and dark, thick hair. Skin that was pale and clung to his bones made Tom a little uneasy. His glasses made him seem nerdy but he appeared to never have had braces as he smiled at Tom with crooked, yellowed teeth.


“Well, well, well, what do we have here? Hm? A wanna-be robber?” The man cackled. Tom’s body shook instead, and he forced a bag out of his left pocket.


“The money,” he said firmly, and was surprised at the tone that betrayed the feeling welling inside him. “Give me the money you have in that register.” A nod towards the metal money container sent another round of laughter Tom’s way.
“I don’t want to hurt you, so give me the money.”

At this the man fell silent, but his lips quivered upwards.
“Whattar you gonna do, huh? You can’t be more than sisteen, I’ll tell you that. Only children are shert and small like you.” The last word was spat out and Tom took a step back. The man was no longer smiling; he was obviously angered at the threat and the gun suddenly seemed like an old friend. It’s either this, or getting beat up and jailed, he thought bluntly.
Tom inhaled and continued to keep his gaze.

“I said to give me the money. This is your last chance.”
The man eyed him warily but crossed his arms.

“Nah. I wunder what yer parents would say, hm? Lemme call the cops and get yer parents to look at their lil boy.” His arm reached to a phone next to some cigarettes and Tom freaked out. He didn’t even realize the gun had been fired until the man slumped over and he looked at his hand, the gun firmly clutched in his right hand.


“O-oh my God. I really did. Oh my God, I killed someone, oh my God what-“


“Hey! What’s goin on in there?” A disembodied voice floated from outside and Tom felt cold. He shoved the gun back into the holster and jumped over the counter, ripping it open as fast as he could and dumped money into the back, ones and fives and tens and twenties floating to the floor and in the bag haphazardly as Tom tried desperately to at least grab as much as possible before whoever had called to him came into the store. When it was empty he dropped it and ran, jumping over the counter and almost falling over as he stumbled away from the building. He didn’t even know he was capable of murder and staring at the bag he knew that however the money was was more than he had stolen before.

When he had been running to his bike in a panicked rush, he heard police sirens and wanted to cry out that he didn’t mean to kill the guy, he didn’t even know if he actually did, but all he really did was bike for a long time to run away from the scene.


Boss hadn’t been exactly pleased with Tom's late arrival, but he wasn’t mad either.


“So, you got some money.” The face wasn’t the greatest; Boss had olive skin with dark eyes and a constant sneer. He had scars littering his body, some self inflicted and some not. He was tall, too. Tom had never seen anyone else be a solid six foot six inches, and he was broad and well muscled which just made him look terrifying on good days.


“Yeah,” Tom said quietly, and got the bag that he had been gripping in his hand the whole time. “It was hard to bike, you know, because I didn’t want to lose anything.” He handed it over, and the Boss crumpled it up only to look surprised.


“Holy shit, kid. How much’s in here?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t have any time to count at all, especially since…” He trailed off, and he put his mask and gun on a small table near by silently. He could still smell the gun smoke, still hear the echo, still taste the smell of blood in the air.
Boss scratched his head and opened the bag to dump it on the larger table in the middle of the sunken living room. The room had always made Tom uneasy with the low ceilings and single crude light bulb in the middle. It was where all the items the group collected were counted and distributed.


“So, your first kill, huh? Yeah, I remember what that’s like. Although I was younger. How old are you again?”


“Fifteen.”


“That’s what I thought,” Boss said, but his eyes flickered to the floor in a way that contradicted his words. “When I was, let’s see… fourteen, I think, I shot my dad point blank.” He laughed and it felt empty and threatening.
“Old man deserved it, whacking me and my mom every time he saw us. Spit on his body, too. My second was my mom, who thought she was gonna call the cops.” He sighed. “I regret that one, I really do. We coulda had a life together, you know? Like you and your old folks.”


“I don’t have any,” Tom said bluntly.


“Yeah, well, if you did. If you did, you wouldn’t have killed anybody or stolen anything or been outta school, but you don’t." Tom felt like he had been punched in the stomach. "And aren’t you glad? This gang is better than any family. We accept each other.”


Tom stayed silent. He was used to being lectured to; when he was younger Boss almost seemed like a father figure to an orphan. But as he wandered streets, living in busy Florida, he saw real families all the time. The way they laughed and how smiles touched their eyes made him depressed. He didn’t even know what his parents sounded like, let alone if they had ever smiled when they saw him.


“Wake up, kid. I’m talking to you!” He slapped Tom across the face, and his sharp, ragged nails left pinpricks of blood on his cheek. “I said, aren’t you glad?”


“Yeah.” He didn’t smile.


“That’s what I thought. Now, this is a lot of cash and I’m real proud of you, kid. You keep doing well and you might be able to have a few sniffs of the good stuff.” He winked. Tom instinctively gagged; he never used drugs despite their use among everyone else. He thought they looked nasty and he remember what happened to old Rudy. He had too much of something and jumped off the roof, proclaiming that he had figured out how to fly. Boss said it was because Rudy was a moron even when he was sober and continued to smoke, but Tom continued to abstain from everything. He refused to even drink soda, which helped his skin be a little better than the older folks. Boss didn't mind much because "soda is expensive as hell these days".

Boss frowned, but sat down and began to count the money. Tom turned and headed towards his room which was the hallway closet. While the house was large, there were a lot of people that called this home and since he was the youngest, he got the cruddiest room. Boss said he could have Rudy’s, but Tom thought that would be disrespectful and left the door closed. When some new dealer joined, they got Rudy’s room and Tom was upset for days. Boss smacked him and told him to stop crying because he should’ve taken the room when he had the chance.


Tom stopped showing emotions for the most part after that.


He turned the door handle, a bronze knob, and opened it. The closet was a walk-in, but all that would fit was a twin bed pushed against the opposite wall and curved upwards at the far right as it was just a tad too long and some stacks of clothes on the wired shelves that Tom assumed were where towels were supposed to go. He didn’t have sheets on the mattress and it showed, the yellowing becoming more and more apparent over the years. All he had were a couple blankets that didn’t match and a pillow, but he didn’t need any more blankets because the closet got stuffy at night and during the summer.


He fell into the bed, the springs croaking, and pulled his hoodie over his head and threw it across the floor. He slid his pants off as well and pulled a ratty pair of loose joggers to warm his legs and soul up. He started to shake, the gravity of what he did hitting him like a brick.


“I really killed someone,” he said dully in the silence. His voice was eaten up by the darkness, and he shuddered. “I can’t believe it. I literally shot someone. I didn’t think I ever would.”


He stayed silent after that, but his tears began to spill over and he started to shake. He rolled on his side and sobbed quietly, waiting for sleep to take him. He heard footsteps outside and didn’t care as he continued to cry, but when they stopped in front of his door, he stopped as well in fear. Was he going to be punished for crying? Was he going to jail now?


The person walked away and the little light leaking from outside the door vanished, and Tom felt more alone than he did before. Whoever stopped only stopped to turn off the hallway light.

The utter weight of his actions felt heavy, and he couldn’t think straight. He finally fell asleep after a long while, but it was empty and dreamless.