The Ritual

by Adam L.G. Nevill

There was simply no preparation in life for the determined madness of others.

If only we could all stand up. All of us who have died unjustly for the Gods of the insane. There would be so many of us.

Nothing mattered at all but being here. Himself. There was still some life in him. His heart beat. Air passed in and out of his lungs. One foot followed another. Knowing how quickly and suddenly and unexpectedly life could end, how irrelevant life was anyway to this universe of earth and sky and age, how indifferent it was to all of the people still in it, those who would come to it and those who had already left it, he felt freed. Alone, but free. Freed of it all. Free of them, free of everything. At least for a while. And that’s all anyone really had, he decided, a little while.