Escaping The Green Beacon

His large hazel eyes look up at me and they appear to be sparkling in the dim candle light. He looks like an anime character peering up at me.

This is the last time I will ever see his sweet face. “ I know you’re sad L. I know that mommy is never coming back and that Daddy is gone fighting the bad men, but you still have me.”

His little voice sounds so strong and brave. K, tries to reassure me that everything will be okay.

How am I supposed to tell him that it wont be? How can I tell him that our Dad is dead? “L you can talk too me. I know that I’m only ten and three quarters, but I am a big ten and three quarters”

My heart feels like it’s going to explode from the weight of the pain. I feel like someone is clutching it in their hands and squeezing so tightly that it is going to burst in my chest and take my lungs with it. My lungs keep searching and pulling in large gulps of the stale propane filled air, making it hard to breathe. I am having another “episode”, as my mother used to refer to them as. The same mother who I now refer to as “Satan”.

Satan didn't’t even begin to describe her or how truly malevolent she truly is. The description is as close as I can get, without using a word that isn’t suitable for a ten and three quarter year old ear’s.

I know that he is scared. I know this because I am too. It doesn't matter that I am a big seventeen years old. In this moment I feel small. I know that if my Dad was here with us he would tell us that we were big and strong and could do this. He was the one who always told us that it didn't’t matter our age that we were Big’s always. He would say that the universe gave us the last name Big because even it knew that we were capable of big things. I could hear his warm southern accent as he once told me, “ No matter your age or you’re size L, it’s about how brave and big hearted you’re even when the entire world is giving you every reason to be small and cruel.”

I found no humor only irony in the fact that my Dad, the biggest hearted Big there ever was, is married to such a cruel and small woman. I hope with everything in me that I never know what it’s like to be like her.

I hope that I can be half of the Big, my father was. I could have drifted off into a never ending spiral of memories and pain, but thankfully my attention is adverted away from the heart wrenching past.

“ L, please tell me what’s going on. Are you having another episode? Should I get the purple pills?” I was going to answer him back the moment he asked me what was going on. He distracts me from answering as he rambles on from one question to another question. He leaves no space in between to allow me to answer him or to collect my thoughts properly. One question sticks out more than the others. The question pertaining to the purple pills makes my stomach churn. I feel like I might be sick. Those pills are the bane to my existence. Satan herself prescribed those too me. I was about K’s age when I had my first episode.

The purple pills are gigantic oval shaped pills. Pills that are almost impossible to swallow. I would cry every single time she would force me to take them. They would sit lodged in my throat until they melted. The purple pills tasted like the rotting black spots on a banana, bitter and oddly sweet at the same time. Ironically the same as the rotten black spots on a banana there is something also abysmal about the purple pills themselves. They brought sinister side effects with them. I wasn't’t brave enough to talk about some of the side effects.

The horrible night terrors was one that I couldn't’t hide. I would wake up screaming and covered in sweat and tears. It haunts me how the person who gave birth too me and gave me and K life is so cruel. However, the purple pills are nothing compared to the ones she slipped into our Dad's tea. The tea that knocked him unconscious and allowed the green beacon soldiers to take him away. I could still feel K’s wet face buried into my side as his little body shook uncontrollably. Thinking back to that night is something I just don’t want to do. What was supposed to be a normal family meal turned into the worst night of our lives. We had no way of knowing what Satan was planning. Everything was in it’s place. She was insisting hat K eat all of his vegetables as she normally did. She made my Dad his nightly chamomile tea and sat down with us as if it were any other Tuesday night. She would always make sure that we had dinner and my Dad had his tea, before she left for her night shift. No one thought anything was awry when she left shortly after serving my Dad the last tea he would ever drink.

One second I was eating a piece of broccoli and the next I was watching my Dad hit the floor. K and I rushed towards him and stood on either side of him. He had white foam on the corners of his mouth and his chest was rising slower and slower with each breath . I thought he was having a stroke or a heart attack.

He could barely speak but he managed to say “She did this.. You have to hide K. L, I love you be strong.” His voice was weak and almost too quiet for me to hear him. Although, I could hear foot steps. I did as he asked of me and hid under the table, as they carried him away.

I feel like such a coward. I should have helped him, but he made me promise that I would hide with K and those were his last words too us. I won’t let him down like that ever again.

I found our father’s lifeless body seven days after that horrible night. He was laying in our front yard. At first I thought he was still a live, or maybe I did know that he was gone but couldn't accept it. I’ll never be able to erase the image of his dark green eyes staring straight up into the sky. He looked like my father but didn't. His dark curly hair lay matted to his face and his tan skin looked almost blue. He was clutching his green beacon necklace and that is when I lost every piece of unrealistic hope I had. The bright pulsating green light was now black. It was seeing his life force gone. He was like a bright burning candle and someone came and blew out his flame.

I know that no matter how many times I torture myself like this, that I will have to suck it up eventually and tell K everything.

I was about to tell him everything when Satan walks into the house shouting.

“I don’t have much time. I know that you think that I am evil, but you don’t understand what I did was out of love. They were going to kill your father. I made sure that he was set free before they could. Now we have to set ourselves free before it is too late.”

She is insane. She is back to kill us off too! I pull K close too me and tell her that she will not touch us. She looks tired and her usually well kept appearance looks worn and hectic.

“We don’t have time for this. We are in a simulation and these necklaces are the only things keeping us here!” She screams as she pulls out three short lime green keys and holds them up. “Your father was so close to getting us out of here. They were on too him so we had to come up with a plan.”

K turns too me and shouts, “She’s telling the truth, Daddy left me this under my pillow the night before he was taken by the bad guys.” K puts his hand in his race car pajama pants pocket and pulls out a key. It’s the same key as the one she’s holding. A note is wrapped around it that reads “We are not free. Use this key and find me.” My heart is beating so fast that I feel like K and our mother can hear it too. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening!

I was going to grab K and run when the door is swiftly kicked in. We are surrounded by the Beacon Soldier's. They were screaming at my mother to hand them the keys and to get on the ground. She runs past us and hands me one of the keys. She does this behind her back so that they can't see it. They drag her out of the room and lock us in my bedroom.

The beacon soldier’s came like a thief in the night just like they did when they first arrived.

They came promising to help us build more sustainable food sources and that no one would ever go hungry again. It all came with a price. I know now that I would have rather starved to death then to have ever have been trapped by these god awful green necklaces. My mother is right.

K lays his head on my chest and grabs my necklace. He shocks me when he says “ I want you to turn my light off like Daddy’s. I know that it’s the right thing to do.”

How did he become so brave? My hands are trembling as I kiss his forehead. I know that he is right. They’re going to see that my mother doesn't’t have all the keys. They are going to come back and do whatever it takes to get them. I can’t let them win. They have already taken everything I love away. I hug K as hard as I can. I am scared. I don’t know if this is going to be the end of us.

I reassure K that I will find him no matter where he goes. I put the key into the back of the necklace and watch as the blinding green light fades to black. His eyes look just like our fathers did. I feel like I’m dead inside already. I can hear boots walking down the hallway.

I put the key into my necklace and turn it. I smile as the solider opens the door and cusses as he looks from me to K as he realizes he’s too late. I know that I will see my father and K again and that is all that matters. That is what keeps my heart and mind at peace as I slip into a welcoming darkness.