Disclaimer: this is a very dark piece, it has some violence and an extremely messed up society, and I just don't want anyone who can't deal with darker subjects reading this because I mean no harm to anyone or anything AT ALL. THIS IS JUST FICTION. Let's hope society will never be like this, because that would be scary! I hope no one hates me after this; it's just your average, messed up, dark and creepy Halloween story. I'm sure there is far worse stuff out there anyways, I'm barely good at horror, and it's my first time really writing it. I actually kind of cop out actual detailed violent scenes, more of it is just implication, It's not gore-scary, just a lot of creep factor. Enjoy!

It was the first Sunday of the month. And because it was the first Sunday of the month, the little children skipped down the cobblestone streets with their smiling hearts, rosy cheeks and butcher knives while humming songs of dandelion fluff to the gathering crowds.

"So, who do you think it's going to be today?" a woman in an ebony dress and veil whispered, for speaking too loud was an unforgivable crime.

"Not me, not me." Her husband chanted the familiar words.

He lit his cigarette, incense choking the black air. It was a man's duty to burn away the filth of the town, to kill and ward off the evil sins that polluted the earth. Smoking, especially on the first Sunday of the month, was the Holy Grail to achieving this goal.

As more and more people shuffled out onto the sidewalks, souls grew more twisted and blind. They, the starving animals, only knew hunger and proper eating manners, and with their growling stomachs, they knew the only way they would be fed today was if they followed the rules and kept going towards the light of the leader, to the hands that feed them, to the one true god.

The profusion of nameless monsters filed down the street in waves, they hardly speak and it is good that they don't speak. Keeping heads low, they stare at the floor. On the first Sunday of the first year, God told them that reaching for heaven was a disgrace to his benevolence. The dirtied ground was much more suiting for beasts in human clothing anyways.

Under the bleeding grey atmosphere, ravens cawed, and the first bell sounded.

Inside a building in the town known as The Holding Center, a little girl snapped her head up to the ringing noise. Her violet eyes swam in chaotic fear. She wanted to vomit. Her fingers twitched and frail, beaten body trembled in the chains. The taunting darkness of the prison swallowed her in an ocean of red. Red like the dried blood in between the cracks on the concrete walls, like the scars on her wrist and the whip marks on her back.

Something from the outside jiggled keys into a lock.

The white-headed girl yanked herself back, the cuffs connecting her to the wall jangled. Shaking her head, tears streamed. She didn't know what to do, she didn't want to go out there, she didn't, she didn't.

The metal door swung open. Light flooded the shadows. Two men dressed in traditional black hoods and white and red painted eye masks swarmed over to her.

"N-no, n-no, get away, I don't want to go out there, stop!"

Her screams were sharp enough to slice the sky. The men ignored her and bent forward. Tears poured like waterfalls, her chest knotted, and she writhed at their holy touch. With quivering lips, she whimpered and sobbed. Thrashing and trying to pull away, the girl hollered and through her cries, head spinning. She couldn't feel her toes. She was afraid, she didn't want to go, and she missed her family. Where was her family? Did she even have a family?

The men unlocked the chains. She tried to make a dash for it, but one of the men slammed his foot into her, kicking her to the ground. Quickly, they grabbed her wrists and hauled her up.

"Mommy!" she called out, her only answer was silence and a hit to the head.

"Shut up, let's go, we can't be late."

The men thrust her, she struggled in their grip.

It was hopeless. There was no point. This was it. She was the main event of the evening, her eyes sagged and she sucked the running snot back into her nostrils. They dragged her out into the sickly light, she flinched at the pain.

In the streets, distorted faces blurred together in watery colors, their crooked smiles engraved into her mind. Children were singing. A girl twirled on her heels and it looked as if there were several of her doing the same thing but in a slower motion. Life smeared before her eyes. Time froze and melted, then melted and froze.

The girl's breathing was erratic. She whipped her head left and right, taking in the mass of wingless blackbirds parting so that the men could take her to the center stage.

Forcing her up the stairs of the stage, the men take her to the rising wooden cross. At this point, the girl wasn't even herself, she felt as if she was in someone else's skin. A tear dripped into the corner of her lips. Her insides felt frayed and churned.

After chaining her to the splintered cross, the men dipped their hooded heads and walked off the stage in quiet steps. The kids stopped singing, the crowds fell static and all were fixated to the cross. It was the slight grins of the people that looked like as if they were trying not to laugh at something funny that sent the temperature spiraling.

For minutes, there was nothing but the ringing bells. The girl's eyes were closed. She quaked and tears spilled along her cheeks.

In unison, everyone dropped to the floor, arms out before them.

Walking out onto the stage with a golden sword in hand was their god. Instead of a black robe and hood, his was a white and gold; the divine colors. Her eyes fluttered open to a slant, she had thought her heart had sunken far enough, but it crashed even deeper upon seeing him.

She knew who it was, with or without the hood.

And this, this is why she was afraid.

"My people, I know you have been eagerly waiting for this day to come. And it is my pleasure to say that the wait is over. I've gathered you here today for the 1040th Flower Project, without this project what would you all be?" He pointed his sword, it seemed to shine. "Just like the other towns of this forsaken world, impure and living in filth. But, I have come before you because in this town, I saw hope, hope for cleanliness. I chose you; flowers who I knew could be beautiful but were sadly being trampled over by the weeds. "

"We are flowers, we are the one true god's flowers." The crowd murmured on instinct, still bowing.

This pleased the man.

"Then rise! Look at the weed that taints your beauty, look at it and scorn the name of the weed!" he yelled passionately.

The good citizens did as they were told and rose like blooming flowers spurting out of the ashes. They didn't stare at her with hate as much as they did with warped obligation.

"The bad weed must be cut, the bad weed holds all, chop the bad weed and be set free."

"Yes!" He turned to the bad weed on the cross.

She shivered, mouth parted in horror, the innocence in her gaze stained.

"Banba Mahiru, age 9, has been deemed a bad weed on account for her misbehaving conduct and failure to comply with the laws of the land. Charged for several acts of criminal activity, she has raised her voice several times at an unsuitable level; she disregarded her parent's order multiple times and tried escaping from her home in the night."

She cried, this time it wasn't for her, not for her.

"As your god, I shall take the first chop with this holy sword of mine! Then, we will let the children come up first and take their share, and then the adults will come next, for the flowers!"

"For the flowers." They echoed.

God raised his glinting sword to face level.

Mahiru suffocated on her tears as she fought to speak as he neared her.

"D-d-daddy p-please, I'm sorry, daddy, I'm sorry." She couldn't keep it in any longer, she wept out into the crumbling scenery.

People covered their ears at the ear-shattering crying.

"You are disgusting, you are a bad weed, do not call me that." He said through clenched teeth.

"Da—"

"Die."

Her father shoved the sword into her chest and her pupils contracted.

He yanked it out, the crimson pooling onto her shirt. He backed away without so much of a glint of sorrow and beckoned at the eagered kids.

Almost frantic, they climbed over each other and onto the stage, their hold on the butcher knives were already as strong as an adult's.

Mahiru, though barely there, could see some of her classroom friends coming to her, Haruki, Shiena, all of them. Why?

She couldn't feel what the children or adults did to her; all she saw were throbbing swirls. The blood was dripping off from her suspended feet…

…

"Oi, are you okay?"

Mahiru blinked her eyes open, she was no longer hanging, and she was on the ground in a puddle of blood. The person, a girl her age with similar hair and eyes but with a scar on her face, held her hand out, smiling in warmth. She was outlined in a purple aura, her clothes were soaked red.

She took it, confused, and when she did, the universe exploded in a painless light, Mahiru was awed in disbelief.

Mahiru took the hand; the almost-mirror girl squeezed protectively and tugged her into her embrace.

Mahiru swore she felt her face heat up, but then, at the same time, it was like she couldn't feel anything as well. The hug broke her and she cried into the stranger's sleeve. The girl stroked Mahiru's hair, closing her eyes and holding tighter.

"It's okay, I'm here for you. I will protect you from now on, okay?"

"W-who are you?"

"Name's Shin'ya."

"S-sh-shin'ya?"

Shin'ya nodded. They pulled away, but Shin'ya made sure to keep Mahiru's hand in hers.

"D-did you do this…"

Mahiru glanced around; all around her there were withered, crimson roses, small and big alike, as if the earth was sick with vermillion fever.

"I don't like flowers, but I liked you, so I uhh, came for you."

Mahiru averted her gaze, blushing. Turning, she walked through the painted red and went up onto the stage. She felt strangely light.

In front of her was the most beautiful flower of them all. It was scarlet with traces of gold and white on the ripped petals. She crouched, wanting to touch it. Mahiru found that she couldn't.

Turning from the first flower, she saw another one, this one was more shriveled and naked than all the others, and yet, it had a peculiar draw.

Tears fell from Mahiru.

Shin'ya glided in a half-run to Mahiru and grabbed her wrists, her eyes soft.

"Come on, we should leave this horrible place. I'm taking you somewhere." She said it urgently, worried.

"W-wh-where?"

"A place where you will always smile."

"W-what are you?"

Shin'ya stopped and turned around, her face oddly somber compared to earlier. "I am…" she closed her eyes and reopened them. "Your protector, Mahiru's protector, got it?"

Her last words were smoothened by the affectionate smile.

Mahiru's eyes watered, it was the first time on the first Sunday of the month that she had ever experienced happiness.

"O-okay." Mahiru showed a faint smile, her cheeks swollen in new emotions, and she let Shin'ya take her hand.

Together, hand in hand, Mahiru and Shin'ya walked through the vast field of red roses, and as they walked father away from the stage, two auras, one purple and one white, seemed to blend in together as one.