We all thought the police would be the first to go. I remember my dad's phone, the soft glow as he listened to the report. Someone had leaked documents claiming that due to the high deficit spending in the U.S., there would be a restriction of emergency services. Everyone assumed the "restriction" applied to the police. President Demi Carter was attempting to do damage control, but it was too late. Protests were erupting. But in my house, I remember my dad crying in the dark. They had already cut the electricity. Lights were a luxury that only the rich could afford these days. Plumbing? Forget it. We were lucky. We had heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. Most people didn't even get that.

He was crying, and I was afraid, but when he looked at me, he was smiling. Not sad tears after all, or even angry tears. Tears of relief. He clutched my shoulders.

"You're gonna live in a better world, Erial" he said. "No more fear. No more brutality."

I only barely knew what the word "brutality" meant. I was eight.

We were informed a week later that the emergency service they were cutting was not the police after all. It was the firefighters. Since electricity was quickly becoming a thing of the past, there were fewer fires. Sending both ambulances and fire trucks to the same place was a "waste of energy" and we really only needed the ambulances to save people.

That was what the spokesperson said, anyway.

That day, my dad's tears were not tears of relief.

And when Ronald Grand led the insurrection, my dad's tears dried altogether. Terror had left his eyes dry, his mouth dry, his lips pressed together in a thin cracked line.

I was twelve. Old enough to begin that journey towards comprehension. Old enough to understand that "insurrections" weren't supposed to happen. Old enough to understand that Ronald Grand was not the patriot that the rest of the world seemed to think he was.

His first order of business was a crackdown on crime, a two strikes rule: life sentences for any two convictions in five years. Drug addicts and murderers were suddenly in the same boat.

My dad and I didn't leave the house for those first few weeks. Any news we had was drip fed to us through the glow of our phones.

Too much spending. President Grand— as he insisted on being called— would finally put an end to the rampant deficit spending that had plagued our country. Welfare, the little pockets of it that remained, anyway: gone. Any shred of monetary assistance that we could have received was gone. With it went our heating and air conditioning. They were unnecessary services that only created more risk of fires— and we no longer had a fire department.

Then, of course, the cost of maintaining medical facilities was such a huge drain. They just couldn't remain open. There were too many people injured or sick and not enough money to treat them. People

The police were all that was left. And President Grand worshipped the ground they walked on.

By the time I was sixteen we never left the house at all. Even after my dad went crazy, even after he tore up the house, even after he was frothing at the mouth, even as his body began to rot... I did not leave the house. I was alone. And the only thing worse than being black outside was being black and alone outside. At least my dad was sane enough to tell me that before the cat bite that drove him to his frothy death.

I knew that eventually the news of the smell would spread through the floors of the apartment building. The whispers of our white neighbors would reach the police. And the police wouldn't bother to ask for a cause of death. That is a job for medical professionals, and those no longer exist. their job is simple: eliminate a potential threat.

It was everything my father had feared and more. What little news I got from the outside world, whispers leaking through the cracks in the sagging walls, only solidified my dread, like curdling milk.

I had to leave. There were only two fates awaiting me: death by disease, like my father, or death by police. I could not continue to sit here waiting for one or the other to take me.

I knew I had to leave. Every bone in my body begged for me to run, every synapse in my brain screamed for me to flee. By every law of nature I should have ran.

But I didn't. Not even when the police broke down the door to my neighbor's apartment. Not when I heard the subsequent gunshots, the laughter that quickly turned to swearing, and then to screaming.

My neighbor, whoever they were, got the last laugh. They knew the police wee coming and they soaked their building with gasoline. Probably killed at least one of the cops.

It was the perfect moment to leave. And yet when I watched the flames I remembered that first decree, disbanding the firefighters.

I decided that fire was a fitting way to go. Better than disease. Better than police. A few moments of agony and then nothing. After all, there would be no doctors to save me. No firefighters to carry me from the building as they desperately tried to drown the flames. The only thing awaiting me outside this building was persecution.

It began with fire. And now I will end with fire.

My last wish was only that the entire country would burn. That fire would run rampant until the government saw its errors spelled out in ash. The fire that claimed me would claim everything.

But I'd never be around to see that vengeance. I'd have to be content with pretending, in my last, agonizing moment, that my death would have meaning.

And yet, I knew it wouldn't. In a world where death is so prevalent, it loses its potency.

Life has meaning. And we're being deprived of it. One by one.

I am just another casualty of the war on crime.

"Please, brother. Take me with you."

"I can't, Sarah. You won't survive out there on your own. I can find a holy man and bring him back...besides, who will tend to Mother? That child will eat her soul alive..."

"Father? He is a man of faith. Surely he can-"

"You know as well as I that Father is weaker than he seems...you've smelled the stench of sin on his breath...the way he wobbles as he stumbles in from the wood..."

"You don't surely think Carissa is-"

"Taken? Yes. Have you not seen the happenings when she is around? The way her eyes darken? The shift in Mother's mood.."

"What's all this?" The mother of the babbling adolescents crossed the threshold of wooden doorframe, a dark inquisitiveness in her eye. The youngest of the Boden children, Carissa, peeked curiously around the corner.

"N-nothing, Mot-"

"I'm leaving."

"Leaving? Why on Earth would you leave the farm, Jeremiah?"

"There are evil things afoot. You know just as well as I."

"Don't be foolish, son. This is a family of spirit. No evil walks here."

"Evil walks every day, and in deceptive form." Jeremiah eyes flickered toward the toddler playing amongst their feet.

"Carissa? By god, son! What on earth has possessed you?! She is a child!"

"Was...a child."

"This is nonsense. Jeb, come here into the kitchen. The children are panicked. They believe Carissa has been claimed by evil. "

"Claimed by evil, you say?" The head of the home rolled over on his mat, rose to his feet and descended a ladder into the main room of the cabin.

"Well, Lucifer is known to play tricks. Surely a quick prayer wouldn't hurt."

"You can't be serious, Jebedi-"

"Now, now Abigail. Better safe than sorry. Let's all sit and join hands. Children? Sarah, grab Carissa. Right. In the name of the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit-"

"ENOUGH!" Abigail roared. Her husband and children ceased their prayers, bewildered.

"I'm sorry. This all makes me anxious. I'm going to make some tea. We can continue the prayer once we're all less hysterical. I have water heating on the fire, anyhow." The family sat in silence as Abigail made her way toward the fire burning in the center of the isolated cabin. A few moments later, the matriarch returned with four cups. An intoxicating aroma travelled along the steam rising from their tops. The family drank deeply as Abigail removed Carissa from Sarah's arms and placed her gently beside her onto the bench. Suddenly, a guttural gasp broke from Jeremiah's lips.

"Sarah! Your eyes!"

Jeremiah recoiled at the visage of his younger sister. The pupils of her eyes were large and black, her emerald irises near non-existent. He whipped around at his father to find his eyes equally darkened. Jeremiah peered into the reflection of his cup to find that his eyes looked the same. The three looked over to Carissa and Abigail. Carissa's eyes were unchanged. Abigail's eyes were going completely dark. Her irises and the whites that once housed them slowly relinquished to a sea of black.

"What's the meaning of this Abigail? What have you done to us?!" Jeb demanded.

"Just a simple herbal blend. From the olden days. You were right about one thing, Jeb. We fiends do like tricks." A serpentine smile slid across Abigail's mouth. A resounding look of horror washed across the family's face.

"M-mother? I don't-"

"Your mother is gone. In a sense. You may get her back. If you play your cards right."

Abigail wove a bony hand across the table. As her palm hovered across the jagged wood, a stack of cards appeared atop the splintered planks. The ominous deck was marked with strange symbols that glowed brighter as the lamp began to die. The roaring fire soon followed suit. The cabin took on a chill, but the family dare not move to seek warmth. The dimming light cast unnatural shadows across Abigail's angular face. Carissa ceased her wailing, wriggled free from Abigail's arms, and ducked under the table clinging desperately to the legs of her older siblings.

"We won't play any games with you, wicked crea-"

"Oh. Dear husband. Dear foolish imbecile of a husband. You don't have a choice." Abigail gestured underneath the table with a single skeletal finger.

"This little one is highly coveted. And I was told not to return without her. But I can't leave without a bit of fun. No, you Bodens have far too many secrets...I'd like to watch you flail. Even just for a moment...this is a game we like to play in The Seven Circles. It has fairly...deadly stakes for us demons. But for humans...well, it doesn't take much to break you down. So I may just take it easy on you. It's all in good fun, right?"

Abigail reached her arm across the table, sliding the ornate deck of cards toward the middle of the fraying wood. She slid a card off the top of the deck and placed it face down in front of her.

"The rules are simple. Each card represents a part of human nature. You then have the opportunity to confess a sin related to this matter, or you must carry out an action of my choosing. The child, of course, is exempt. I am required to keep her intact. She's the least interesting of the lot of you, anyhow. And keep in mind, I will know if you're lying. "

"And if we win?"

Abigail chuckled deviously. "There's no winning in this game. You die or I get bored. Whichever happens first. That said...you may get your mother back before I decide to leave."

"How do we know you won't cheat?"

"You don't."

"And Carissa?"

"Don't push your luck. Let's play, shall we?" Abigail flipped the card in front over her over to reveal a grotesque caricature of the Boden mother. The portrait's eyes were fully blacked out and her naked, emaciated body was twisted to meet the ground in unnatural ways. Small horns jutted from her forehead and her slender feet met to form cloven hooves. The golden lettering at the base of the card read THE DEVIL. The captured Abigail looked at the card with deviant glee and showed it off to the nerve wracked Boden family.

"These cards never cease to amaze. Well, I've already made my confession. Who should go next...?" Abigail's eyes scanned the family.

"Ah, Jeremiah. The dutiful eldest son. Go on, pick a card. You wouldn't dare disobey your dear mother, would you?"

Endless cries

from the crowd

Do you hear us?

They’re not

listening

Politicians grandstand

ignoring the pleas

Protests bathe

within a blood soaked

Christening

We are gathered

tentatively together

Trying not to be

misunderstood

In this hour

of need

But nothing

will change

Except the hand that

holds the money

In this world of

political & corporate

greed