It was nighttime when they took her. The entire world had fallen asleep just moments ago, united under a single sheet of darkness. Silence pressed down upon all four corners of the Earth, the only pinprick of sound coming from the wailing sirens of a black car. The car hurtled past street after street, the colors whizzing by so quickly that the man inside had to close his eyes briefly in order to quell the oncoming headache. The automated car system took over, allowing the man a few seconds of comfort inside of his own mind. Breathe in, breathe out. In. Out. In. Out. The car slowed to a gradual stop. The man glanced at the address in his notebook, then back at the house again. The doors of the car opened automatically, a cheery voice reciting the standard message: HAVE A GREAT DAY! THANK YOU FOR MAKING OUR SOCIETY A WONDERFUL PLACE. He always hated this part of his job, for it always made him uncomfortable to be in the presence of the children. The stench of fear was everywhere; even his clothing reeked of it. He wasn’t scared, of course. The children were. He never pitied them, though they did evoke strange emotions that were hard to understand. He supposed that he once was a child himself, although he couldn’t really recall whether he enjoyed those years or not. Children had long since been deemed a flawed species, and reproduction was punishable by death. It was wondrous to him that people would risk their life for such a trivial thing as a faulty version of themselves. There was no doubt in his mind that his work was beneficial to the continuing existence of the world as he knew it.
The man read the address one more time as he stepped out of his car, whistling tunelessly under his breath. He walked up a brick path and rapped sharply on the door. “Exterminator here, open up!” A middle aged woman appeared at the door, her hair pulled back in a severe bun. “Can I help you, sir?” Her look betrayed one of faint annoyance, though the woman was obviously up before he came to the door. The man fumbled around in his pocket before pulling out a folded piece of parchment. He smiled brightly as he unfolded the paper and read the messy scrawl. “Are you Alicia Darling?” he asked. The woman frowned before responding. “Yes sir, I am. Would you mind making this conversation quick? I have a large pile of papers that I have to get back to.” “I will try my best, ma’am. I have been informed by an anonymous caller that there is sufficient evidence of a child occupying this home. As you already know, children have long since been outlawed, and disregard of this maxim is punishable by death. May I please take a look around?” The woman thrust her body in front of the door, as though she was protecting the outside world from what lay upon the threshold. “Don’t you get it?” she pleaded, “your entire life is a lie. The very foundation that you built your hopes and dreams upon can crumble in an instant; it is only being held up because of your assumption that the world actually needs you. ” The woman’s composure slowly began to slip, her voice cracking as her tone turned to one of desperation. “This world has been given the gift of creation. Why don’t you get it? We are not destroyers. Your entire life is a lie, and you will never understand me. No one will ever understand me.” A single tear streaked a path down the woman’s face. “I hate you for tearing apart my world to appease yours. I hate you so much that it makes me sick. Tomorrow, you will go home and wake up and forget about the maniacal woman with the spitting words, and your life will go on. I will never forget. Even if I am the only person left in the wretched remains of what once was a beautiful world, I will never forget. Beware, you poor, ignorant man, because I will never, ever forget.” The woman broke into racking sobs, and gestured resignedly to a grand staircase. “She’s up there,” she whispered. “Please, take her away already before I completely lose my sanity.”
The man strode past the frowning, bitter woman and her filthy insults. He’s heard it all before. Words had long lost their meaning, and yet, he had never seen such a look of pure loathing. It was briefly unsettling, but there was work to do, and exterminators couldn’t afford to be distressed while on the job. His polished shoes made a clicking sound on the hardwood floor as he mounted the steps. This was the part where his pulse began racing, like the chase before the kill. It was all a merry little game. The children would run around and around while the parents stood in paralyzed fear. He enjoyed making the criminals sweat, they deserved it for jeopardizing the fates of millions of innocent people. Couldn’t they see that they were only hurting themselves in the long run? And yet, the woman called him the ignorant one. He laughed humorlessly, his pace quickening as he neared the bedroom door.
The door was plain white, just like all of the others. It was unremarkable, and yet housed one of the most remarkable beings in the entire world. The man wrapped smartly on the door. “Girl, open up!” Light footsteps padded over to the door, which creaked open softly. A young girl with chestnut brown hair peered up at him curiously. “You’re the man that’s going to kill me, is that right sir?” The bewildered man stared at the wide eyed girl. “I suppose so. Come with me.” The man strode purposefully towards the stairs, beckoning for the child to follow. The child hovered uncertainly at the entrance to her room, before finally following the stranger down the stairs. The woman was waiting at the foot of her stairs, a fake smile plastered onto her face. When the girl saw her mother, she burst into silent tears, her breath coming in piercing gasps. Her mother’s smile wavered slightly as she bent over her daughter. “Samantha, dear, it is unbecoming of a young woman to show signs of vulnerability in the presence of others.” Samantha nodded, a trained mask of cool confidence wiping away all traces of sadness. Her mother laid a single finger onto her shoulder, and whispered something into her ear. At that moment, the child, no more than 8 years old, had all of the wealth and knowledge of millions of years, and the man, when looking into her eyes, felt as insignificant as a speck of dust. As he led the girl away, he felt the child sag, as though centuries were slowly leaving her body. “I love you too, mom,” she whispered into the darkness.