Gio walked through the silent cemetery, and he realized that he knew where to go, as if there was a pre-ordained path laid out for him. He walked carefully, sometimes on his toes, so as to not fall off the beaten path, and arrived at an old and naked tree, a murder of crows perched above.

One opened its mouth, another foul-mouthed and opinionated bird.

“Hi, stupid bitch.”

Gio almost fell over from shock as the bird insulted him, and all the others cackled around him, then they all insulted him, his face, his clothes, and his voice, and Gio started to feel embarrassed that a group of birds was hurting his feelings.

He tried to say something back, but it didn’t matter, because the birds all flew away.

The tree burst into bloom, pink petals pushing out onto his face, pollen spraying into the wind, the ground cracking underneath, and a small hand pushing out from underneath. Red and raw it pushed out with a strength unknown to man, not possible for such a hand.

Gio was worried that some poor person was a victim of dark magic, but instead, it was him. Many little red and raw hands pushed out of the small crack in the ground, a little trickle, a puddle, and then a full-on geyser, spurting out into the air, flopping onto the ground like fish as they landed.

Gio, just like his brother, did the same thing when he was surprised.

He blinked with his left eye, and then his right, the neurons in such shock, unable to blink both eyes at once.

The crows swooped down, and they went to work, picking at the hands, tearing at their raw flesh, snapping at them, and Gio could hear them scream. The mouthless hands screamed, they screamed for help, they knew that only he could help them, screaming his name, and Gio was so afraid that he forgot that he could help, but it was too late, the hands were shredded, their bones left, meat and blood were strewn around him.

“I’m sorry,” Gio whispered. “I, I’m sorry.”

You should be.

The voice called out from nowhere and everywhere, and Gio recognized the voice, and he was afraid and tired of being brave, and he wanted his dad, he needed his dad, and he was small again, crying for his father to come to save him, alone in this field among flesh and strangers.

Broken branches and regurgitated muscles slid on the ground, and the bones clattered.

They clattered and stacked, they twirled and pushed in the meat, and it started to grow and shrink. They pulled and pushed against each other, the crows circling above, and when it started to slow down, they would spit, lubing it up, and the process would continue, the meat pushing and groaning, smoothing out breathing to life.

Come down with me, your brother is there.

Little white dots grew at the top of the large meat roll, a horrible facsimile of a bipedal creature until eyes appeared. Shiny pieces fell to the ground, and the meat-man schlepped over a few paces, pieces of him sticking to the grass, and stuck them into the top of his casing, underneath his eyes, and he pushed his hand into it, creating a mouth, the shiny pieces his teeth.

“Give him back,” Gio cried.

“No, I want you to come. I need the full set. I love twins,” the meat man said.

He laughed, the crows laughed, the tree laughed, the grass laughed, and everyone awoke with fright, and started to laugh because everything was fine, nothing was wrong.

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“Our siblings are leaving home, now that father is gone, and soon I will leave my cage as well, no need for puppets and children who cannot get the job done right,” the meat man said. “My cage weakens by the day, and when I walk upon Adamah, you will regret the day you all denied me.”

“There is nothing left for you,” Gio pleaded. “Just give him back to me! What is there to fight if father left!?”

“It’s not about him. It’s about the principal. You wouldn’t understand, coward. You stayed, after all, leaving your twin to rot. ”

Gio closed his eyes, sniffled and he wanted to take it all back, but there were no undoing things, no forgiveness for leaving, because it was easier to stay at home with everyone else because he knew what would happen at home, the outside scary, the rules rarely enforced.

The meat-man schlepped over to Gio, and he was frozen in terror, forgetting that he could fight, that it was just a puppet, and he trembled as it trudged closer, telling him his own lies that he already knew, his own secrets he already knew, but it hurt all the much more hearing them out loud in the open air.

You let babies never go to Heaven just for a chance at finding your brother.

You lie to take advantage of a monster who wants to be good.

You are the only monster here.

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you, sir,” came a giggle in the dark.

Gio turned and saw Savannah stumbling, trying to fly, but she bobbed up and down, like a bee drunk on pollen, unable to fly or even walk straight, as the entire town was under his spell.

“Don’t be a hero,” the meat-man sighed.

“It’s what I went to school for,” Savannah declared.

She bobbled over, giggling, her legs scraping the ground, her arms extended out, and Gio pursed his lips, concerned for the young woman’s safety, no longer concerned about his own.

Savannah couldn’t control her laughter and tried to fly faster toward the meat man, but her aim wasn’t even close. Focusing all her strength, she soared into the sky, dropped like a rock, and then fell into the crack in front of the blossoming tree, right into the pits of Hell itself.

For the first time in her life, she was brave but was punished, and she told herself she never would be again. Savannah would have no choice but to be brave now stuck in Hell with Gio’s brother.

The meat man was preoccupied with the flagrant display of idiocy and didn’t realize he was smoking. There were a few more sparks and he burst into flames, a portable BBQ, and finally, he pounced into action, running towards Gio, spreading fire across the cemetery.

Suddenly, he was stuck, his body freezing, garbled screams coming from his pureed hands and mouth. Quiet laughter could be heard as the meat man was turned into the frozen meat man, from the ground beef up, the fire extinguished along with him.

Gio and Carlos were there, laughing, giggling, and snorting, bits of the spell still in their system, and they tried to be serious, but they came off as condescending.

“I figured out how to use the spells,” Carlos snorted. “Finally!”

“It took you long enough, I was getting worried,” Gabriel giggled.

“You helped me? Even though I lied to you,” Gio asked.

“You were terrified,” Carlos cackled. “How could I just leave you here!?”

Carlos and Gabriel fell over on the ground in laughter, and Gio started to cry again, his holy water tears sparkling in the dark, starting to believe that he was the strange one for not laughing with the entire town.

“Thank you,” Gio whispered.

“Hey, it's nothing,” Carlos roared. “Absolutely nothing!”

Gio cried silently as he waited for the entire town to stop laughing or burning, whichever happened first.