"Staring into the Face of God.."

[Warning Mature Content]

Executing stray members of the NAC has been a past time of this country since I was a little girl, I think at one point it even surpassed baseball in the annual popularity votes. Yes, Baseball: An American sport that was being played nationwide before the bombs were dropped all those years ago. I guess people have been much more fascinated by seeing someone being decapitated than seeing a couple of guys chase and kick a red ball. I've seen the sport a couple of times. My dad was a fan of baseball.

What still shocks me about the broadcast is that while I watch it, within the bleachers filled with blood thirsty men and women, I can see children spectating as well. I can't tell whether the children actually enjoy it or not, but I've seen it more times than I can count with my fingers. I know it's a public event but still, why take your own children to see something like this? You have to be a special kind of monster to happily expose your children to something like this.

Thankfully, my parents have never brought it up to me that they wanted to take me or even have the morbid curiosity to go watch it themselves. The most we'll see is the end of the broadcast when it is over. At least I know that mom and dad aren't complete psychopaths like the rest of the people in my old neighborhood. They would have complete watching parties on Fridays and Sundays with a barbeque. The food would always smell good but seeing a person being killed while I'm eating a cooked sausage doesn't sound appealing to me.

Apparently, they were much, much more visceral when I was kid than they are now. Instead of marching the people to a guillotine to get their head lobbed off, the execution could last more than a couple of hours. That was because the killing was really drawn out for entertainment reasons.

I remember a kid in elementary school telling me exactly how it goes down.

First, they would strip the people naked, tie them to a wooden board and cut off their ears and nose. Next were the hands and feet. Then finally, the genitals. If you were a man, the Genitor would take a hot iron and burned it until it falls off. For a woman it wasn't any better, they would first start by cutting the breast off and then moved on to burning their genitals until it was completely melted and closed.

If you were lucky, you would die from the shock and blood loss but if you were still alive by the end of the process, they would still treat you like a dead body and throw you in the pile of mutilated corpses. There was no way to escape on the count of having the ends of your limbs removed, so most people would just lie there waiting for their suffering to end. Most of those people that survived were most likely buried alive.

However, there was an exception for actual criminals. The real hardcore ne'er-do-wells of the NAC received a much crueler punishment. One difference that the NAC does before they go through the "dehumanizing" ritual, the criminals are injected with a special kind of drug, which I assume must be some concoction of adrenaline and a sort hallucinogenic. I guess it was to keep them alive and awake throughout the whole process. Whether they actually felt everything, I can't say.

Now that I think about it... that's a lie. I have watched one of these broadcasts from beginning to end. But there was no way of escaping this particular execution, everyone talked about and still talks about it till this day. This particular execution was a big deal, it was broadcast throughout the entirety of the NAC. In every home, every bar, every restaurant; if there was a TV, it would be playing this broadcast.

At the time, there was a notorious smuggler named Shannon Dorsey, he went by the weird name Shay Buggs. They called him this because he would wear this strange headband around his face with pieces of glass over his eyes and it would make his eyes look big and funny. Apparently, he was wearing something that people pre-war used to wear called "glasses". I guess it was for certain kinds of people who were visually impaired. I don't know if he actually needed them or not, but his "glasses" were his Identity. Well anyways, when I was little, this guy was kind of a big deal. You would constantly hear his name being tossed around by the adults, tv, and radio.

"Human trafficker, Shay Buggs, gunned down 2 NAC officers in the early morning of city 9 today."

"Shannon, Shay Buggs, Dorsey is responsible for the bombing and subsequently killing of Edinburgh's local truancy center. About 1 officer and 20 children were injured."

"After a long, enduring shootout with officers, resulting in the 7 deaths of NACP officers, the Dorsey gang has been apprehended and their leader Shannon Dorsey is now in NACP custody."

There was no court trial for Shay Buggs, as soon as they got him, they were already preparing for his execution ceremony. There was no way that Shannon was going to court for his other crimes. He murdered, or at least was responsible for the murder of, 9 officers. At the time, it was something unheard of, the killing of NAC Peace Officers. The Elders didn't even care that he was responsible for smuggling people out to the Remnants. He had spilled holy men's blood and he had to pay.

This was going to be a big event. This was one of the first instances that they ever caught a real gangster; the last person that reached almost the same notoriety as Shay Buggs was killed in a rival gang shootout. I can't even remember what the person's name was or if they were even a man or woman. But considering this guy was my generation's most known criminal, they were going to make a real spectacle out of his execution. If the NAC wanted to flex their strength and intimidate any would-be criminals, this was going to be the time. Shay Buggs would be left unrecognizable by the end of it, not just as the individual brought into this world as Shannon Dorsey but not even recognizable as once human.

I think this was one of the first instances that my parents agreed with our crazy neighbors and attended one of their viewing parties. At first, I was a bit hesitant but there was no way I was going to miss this, everyone at school was going to be talking about it... To think at the time that I was excited to see a man get brutally mangled.

There is still guilt within my stomach.

"I just hope they don't consider Jeremy as one of those criminals", I whisper to myself, trying to calm myself as I feel the commercial break is about to end. But Jeremy wasn't a killer, let alone a gangster or a terrorist to the NAC. I mean we all weren't.

It's such a strange feeling, I know he is going to die and there is nothing I can do about it but... I just hope he goes easy. I really hope they don't give him the Shay Bugs treatment, considering how they treat executions now; I doubt it but still. I still remember the camera zooming in on Shannon's face, unable to scream but his eyes... God his eyes.

"Welcome back to today's offerings. Before the commercial break, we were introducing today's 7th and final offering. A lone stray identified as Jeremy Hall; a man caught committing heinous actions against the elders. When questioned, he said that he enjoyed it and was better than being with a woman."

"Hmmm... It seems like more and more strays are being found outside in the Remnants. Right, Genitor Matthew?"

"Right you are, Genitor Paul!"

Genitor Paul, I hate the guy. He's one of those holy elitist assholes! He's been around since I was a small kid and I've been stuck looking at him and hearing the shit he spews for the past months. The new thing that he's done that pisses me off, is his eyebrows. He's a lot older than when I was a kid, and his hair has turned grey. But... But he decides to dye his eyebrows black and now they just look like two black caterpillars on his fucking face.

"One day, Genitor Matthew. One day all of these sub-humans will be extinct. I promise you that! All the great that this wonderful civilization has brought and continues to strive for will eventually prevail, even if it means that this country has to uproot all of them-", passionately yells out Genitor Paul before he gets cut off by Genitor Matthew.

"I have word that Jeremy Hall is now entering the offering square! We are now going to take you to live feed."

I guess it really it is happening.... I wish I could do something...