Made In China

*Made in china.*

Lila fingered the bottle, thinking. The wind swept her chocolaty brown fountain of hair over her shoulder and she shivered.

So it was made in china. A lot of things were, she had to admit.

She walked across the sidewalk, the heat beating down on her and making her sweat. Luckily, she'd brought refreshments. Relieved, she pulled a water bottle out of her pack and searched around the bottle. Eventually she spotted the same words: *Made in china.*

She spotted another boy hunched over in the shadows. He looked to be playing some sort of game that involved you roaming areas as an animal. She knew this game. It was Animal Jam. She took a deep breath, and then stepped over. Perhaps he could be her friend, if she got to know him.

When she arrived, he whipped around and shoved a gag into Lila's mouth. She tried to scream, but the whole purpose of the gag was to block it out. When he tossed her over his shoulder and began to run into the dark alley, she struggled in protest, but it was no use.

She was carried through a small trapdoor and down stairs, then dark, slick corridors. She studied her surroundings. She'd been kidnapped, she thought. But she just wasn't strong enough to fight back, like she'd been doing. She fell loose and stopped moving, but still attempted to scream even though it was either mute or slightly muffled. Either way, they couldn't hear it at all or very well, so it was working.

They arrived at a large metal door. The boy that was wearing ripped clothes removed them and replaced them with what looked like an apron.

He obtained a thoughtful look on his face, and then decided to remove Lila's clothes, too. He stuffed them in a corner, took one look at her sack, grabbed it, and peered inside.

He found three cookies, a granola bar, *Lila's phone,* a few other things that you play with, and a jacket. He considered this before eating the granola bar. It tasted good. He took her phone. It lit up and showed a small, fluffy cat on the screen.

He studied it's features, and it looked extremely cute. For a minute he got distracted, but then realized something. He hadn't cuffed the girl! He nervously whipped around, but sure enough, she was still traumatized, apparently locked to the bed.

But that didn't stop him. He put her wrists through little holes so she couldn't wriggle free, and put a large metal bar over her bare legs since he didn't have anything better. Now that Lila had no way of getting free, he muttered to himself, "Let's get this over with. First thing first."

He lunged on Lila with the knife. He cut up her wrists first, and then her legs, all the while her screaming. Then he got to the main part- her torso- and he ripped major organs out of her own body and shoved them in jars. He added preserving liquid and labeled them "GIRL".

He ripped out her heart next and squeezed it. Then he slit her throat and moved her head to a bigger jar. When he was done, he laughed maniacally at his bloody hands and body. He hung what was left of the girl's body and nailed it to the wall next to a boy's body.

Guess what the last thing Lila saw was on the knife?

Look at the first three words of this story.

## Epilogue

The boy, Dane, was excited for school. He'd prepared body parts from animals and afterwards, for a little fun, he got to decapitating a boy and a girl that dared approach him in any sort of likable manner. He decided he wouldn't spare anyone, not anyone!

When he got to school, he rested his bag full of jars on his desk. The jars contained all of the animal parts he'd gotten. This presentation would conclude their study- and possibly determine everyone's grade. But Dane knew it. If it all went wrong, he'd hunt down his teacher and demand good grades. If he didn't believe that, Dane would bring his kidnapping supplies for bigger, possibly stronger, people.

It was easy to capture teachers and kill them, really. Dane had been doing it for the past 7 years.

When he walked into the classroom, he noticed it wasn't as full as usual. Where had most of the students gone? Surely they weren't out sick or on vacation for such an important day! Maybe they were just running an errand for Mr. Johnson.

When most of them returned, came back, or got there in the first place, Dane was slouched low in his chair. The tardy bell had rung 23 minutes ago!!!!

What was Mr. J's plan? To make the 'later' kids wait for hours while the 'earlier' kids get to go around playing in the halls or whatever? But no, they took their seat without a glance at Mr. Johnson. He did the same, his eyes trained on the doorway.

Half an hour later, they were getting impatient. Some girl in the back that had gotten seated just after Dane worked up the nerve to ask and nervously still raised her hand.

"I don't mean to be impolite," She started, taking a deep breath, "But may I ask when we're going to get started?"

"Oh, yes- and don't blurt out. Wait for me to call on you." He looked up from signing some papers and grading some work. The girl shuffled her feet as he stacked his unfinished work and set it down.

Mr. Johnson cleared his throat like we weren't all leaned forward, intently listening. Who could blame us? We'd been here for more than an hour now.

"Everyone listening?" He checked, observing the room. He saw the exact same thing he wanted and predicted, so said, "Please now take your projects out of your bags. Or, you may wait until I call your name."

Dane didn't move.

Some of the work was pretty interesting and cool, others not so much. But still, Dane listened for his name. His last name was Peters, so he was like, right in the middle of the last name going chart. ;)

He walked up and pulled the jars out of the bag.

It had the result he knew it would- everyone screamed.

He admired this scene and then looked down at his bottles. The first thing he saw was Made In China.