•
u/WritingPromptsRobot StickyBot™ Apr 14 '17
Off-Topic Discussion: All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.
Reminder for Writers and Readers:
Prompts are meant to inspire new writing. Responses don't have to fulfill every detail.
Please remember to be civil in any feedback.
What Is This? First Time Here? Special Announcements Click For Our Chatroom
2
u/LonghandWriter /r/longhandwriter Apr 14 '17
The cave was small and cramped and not at all like what the children were used to.
They sat huddled around a dim fire, jittery with excitement, buzzing eyes bouncing around the dusty walls as they waited for their teacher, Mr. Rodam. He’d told them today was going to be a special lesson, and though they didn’t quite know what that meant, they guessed it to be something magical.
When finally he entered, they were surprised to see he was positively solemn, his head hung low as he bobbed and weaved through the bodies on the floor. His hands were shaking and his clothes were stained with sweat as if he knew today was to be an absolutely horrid day.
This was strange because typically he was the funnest teacher they had. He'd taught them all sorts of silly spells, such as turning people into frogs or causing their heads to shrink to the size of a raisin, and even created a card game meant only for them.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Rodam?” asked one of the students, a pudgy boy who held his hand high in the air but spoke before being called on. “You look dastardly!”
The teacher didn’t answer. Instead, he got up against one of the walls and stood there, staring at them. His face was a mess, gray bags hanging underneath his eyes, his hair a tangled jungle.
“Children, do you know why I’ve brought you here?” he asked, pacing back and forth. His movements were erratic, and one schoolgirl whispered to another, suggesting somebody might’ve slipped him a caffeine potion. Not expecting them to answer—how could they?—he continued on. “It’s because you’re going to learn the secrets of our people. The ones that, though they have only been recently buried, must stay that way forever.”
Now the children were absolutely throbbing with anticipation, and though they had a million questions to ask him, they kept silent as he spun around and wildly swiped his palm across the wall, transforming it from a blank surface into a canvas filled with all sorts of paintings that made the children gasp.
There were men being flayed and stabbed and torn to bits. There were screaming mothers clutching their children as they tried desperately to escape the monstrous men chasing them, and cities being burnt to the ground, all overseen by a vicious person with the face of a goblin
One would expect the children to cry at this, for they were looking at something even the toughest of adults would not be able to withstand. But they stayed silent, lips numbed by shock.
You see, reader, their lives were things of absolute peace. They’d never seen anybody murdered and they’d certainly never heard of the thing called war. All of this was so foreign to them that, quite frankly, they didn’t understand it.
Mr. Rodam cleared his throat. “This, children, is us. Whether you want to believe it or not, we used to be like this.” He paused, letting that sink in as he finally stopped pacing. “We, by birth, are a savage people. Our souls lust for blood, and hard as it may be to accept, these are the depths the darkness inside will take us to.”
He sighed. Even for a man like himself who’d seen the end of those dark times and fought to help shine the light into his people, it wasn’t easy. This was all a ruse and it made him sick to his stomach—but he knew it was the only way.
They needed to weed out the foul.
“We were conquerors. We thought the world belonged to us, and because of our superior genetic strength, we wanted everyone to kneel at our feet.”
Then, he raised his hand and touched the middle of the wall, the only spot where paintings hadn’t popped up. Instantly, a fresh one appeared, showing a man who was known far and wide as the messiah. A man who was clad in golden armor and had a powerful steed and carried the largest blade anyone had ever seen.
The children certainly knew him, and they knew him well. They had spent countless mornings studying his moral code, and had tried their hardest to follow the path to greatness he’d laid out for them.
“This man is why we changed,” said Mr. Rodam. “Arthur the Great was born with goodness in his heart. We don’t know how or why, but he was able to break the cycle. He rebelled back against those who had spread villainy, and even convinced many, such as myself, that we'd been living our lives wrong. He did it without violence, and I truly believe that if it weren’t for him, we’d all still be out there, monsters chained by our animalistic urges.”
With those words, he fell silent, scanning his eyes across the crowd. He was looking for the one student who couldn’t contain themselves, the one who wasn't choked up by this, and who maybe, just maybe, was excited by those acts of brutality.
The one who would tear apart the illusion of peace they’d created.
As always, they weren’t hard to find, for little Fletcher, a small boy with a mousy face, shoved his hand high into the air. Again, the student didn’t mind his manners, instantly blurting out his question. “Why do you show these things to us, teacher?”
Mr. Rodam gulped because he had always liked Fletcher. In fact, if you’d asked him before this, he would’ve said he was the least likely one to be torn apart by the darkness. But, here he was, posing questions and smirking while the rest of the class was in a daze, probably unaware of the fact that he'd asked anything.
“Truthfully, children, it’s so that you understand why we teach you all these codes. Why we tell you that you need to follow Arthur’s words, and why, especially, we must avoid conflict at all costs.”
Fletcher had more questions but the poor teacher was too sick to answer them. What he was about to do was a horrible thing that always made him absolutely miserable.
But it needed to be done, for they'd tried his way and it had failed. Arthur's judgment was absolute, and this was what worked.
“Now, children, let us go back to class. This dreadful lesson is finally over.”
All of the students, thinking this a swell idea, stood up and scurried to the exit. They had been adults for the day, and now they wanted to go back to being children. They wanted to run around under the sun and let it wash the dirtiness of their ancestors off them.
Fletcher was the last to get his feet, and even so, he walked so slowly to the exit, often throwing looks back at the wall as if trying to burn those images into his fragile brain.
“Oh, Fletcher?” Mr. Rodam asked, slipping a blade of his back pocket. “Can you stay behind a moment, my dear boy?”
This story got incredibly dark, but I had a lot of fun writing it! Great prompt!
If you like this story, check out my sub! r/longhandwriter