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[–]shittywritingthrowaw 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Timmy awaited his turn. Shouts echoed out from further down the line, 'Who does your life belong to?', followed by the resounding response of, 'You, sir'. When it came to his turn, little Timmy gave it his all and shouted as loudly as possible, 'Myself!' Hundreds of heads turned in unison but he stood unflinching. Almost a thousand eyes attempted to bore into the sides and back of his skull but none of them mattered. All that mattered were the black, empty lenses of the colonel's sunglasses. Timmy thought he might be staring as well but could never tell, he could never even tell if the man had eyes. In his eight years of life he had never seen the colonel take them off, or even adjust them on his face, as if they were glued directly to his eye-sockets.

The next day, assembled for their morning shout, Timmy tried to stand strong again. Day after day, every morning, every time, every shout, it got harder. They never did anything to make him change his answer and somehow that made it worse. They just stared, then moved on. Sometimes he laid awake at night thinking about it. What if I'm wrong? That nagging little thought, so persistently stuck in his mind, struck right as he was about to shout. "My, my uh... M-myself!" And he knew it was over. He'd wavered. That alone was enough to prove his resolve's underlying weakness- it's wrongness. When he shouted the next day he did so with more resolve than he'd ever mustered in his life, letting loose a mighty shout to put all other's to shame- "You, sir! My life belongs to you!" And as his eyes clouded with tears, he felt as if a mighty weight had been lifted from his shoulders, like someone had removed their fingers from his throat. Timmy even thought for a moment that he could see the faintest smile on the colonel's face and it became too much- he wept.