The Twilight War: Niccolo - a child's tears.

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It's been quite a while since I've slept. There's too much noise in this house for me now. People moving, children crying.
The slow drip of blood on the floor.

They don't know it but it seeps through the floorboards. There's a thick pool of it in the depression near the water heater. That's under the living room, which is the Triage center. It's cleaning blood, that which flows foulness from the wounds.

Sadly, it's carried the rank infection down here.

I'm too busy to deal with that now. I have to clean this map.

2 days ago, I started cleaning the filth from a map of Boston. And with it, I cleansed the city of random events. I've stopped violence, ended a food riot, and prevented rubble from falling on workers.

I caused rubble to fall freeing trapped survivors. Luck is with this city for so long as I am here.

Day 3:

The map is cleaner today. I keep having to blow dust off it though. The pool of blood is thicker and darker, but if I take my eyes off the map, it gets dirty again..
I had to leave for several hours to do some work for Mr. Antonnuchi. It was very dirty when I returned, but it cleaned up nicely.
I hear the children crying upstairs. I hear them all the time now^Å. The rest of the cabal can't be doing anything but trying to help them. I have to believe that.

Day 6:

I can't make the map any cleaner.. Every time I look away it's twice as bad as the last time. Yesterday I got some food. I had to go through the HOUSE to do it. The stairs up are higher and darker than I remember

The floors and walls drip with blood. It smells like a rotting wound up there. People moan constantly, and some of them seem to be left for dead.
I can't look scared. No one will EVER be afraid of me if I'm scared.

I walked slowly to the kitchen, and got some bread and some ham for sandwiches. On my way back to the basement Leigh grabbed my wrist. I almost screamed. Her hands are covered in filthy blood, dripping with infected pus.

"Nic, are you all right?" she asked me. "Are you eating?" There was blood on her face. What had she been doing? Helping people. What was SHE eating? I shook my head.

"Fine. Yes." She let go of my arm. The blood was dripping down my hand^Å. She returned to work on someone. She was doing something to their insides. Putting them in? Taking them out?

I waited till I had closed the door to scrub my hand with a cloth. It didn't come off.

The map was dusty. The black blood had crawled its way to the edge of the map.

I moved it and the mattress to the far corner.

Day 7:

I can hear the other children calling to me through their tears. The adults hate us. They have to or we wouldn't be here.

They don't want us. They leave us here to be taken care of by Bad People and People Who Don't Care.

My map is very dirty. I can't clean it anymore. They won't let me have any tools. They know I would use them on the Bad People. They don't want me to Do What's Right. I can hear footsteps. Coming down the stairs. Very loud.

It's Time For My Pills.

They're For My OWN GOOD.
Maybe it's a Shot this time.

A boot to my jaw knocks me almost unconscious. Thick hands grab me by the throat, choking me until I gasp for air.

Thick, huge fingers jam my mouth open while the other hand stuffs a horse-sized pill in my mouth. The fingers retract, and clamp over my mouth instead. The hand covers half my head. I'm smothering. until I finally gulp reflexively.

Then it happens again.

THEN THEY HIT ME UNTIL I'm too sore to stand. The door locks. I'm not going to cry.

The tranquilizers make me go to sleep.

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Last update 28-October-99