Fatal Freedom

• Jasmine Wong, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2011

The humming rose admist the darkening doom. The shadow shifted; the shadow disappeared. A bead of sweat dripped from my forehead, meadered down the side of my nose to dangle at the edge of my mouth - i caught it with my tougue. It tasted putrid as it strangled my throat with the insidiously sour smell from my breath. In an heinous nightmare of revenge and betrayal the bubbling started again.Malice lurked - in the dark - like The Lord of Evil - in a steamy mist of flickering illusions, broken promises and greed. Spurting, splashing, spurting, splashing, spurting, splashing...louder and louder still...From the mist, the figure approached with steely cold eyes and a mean slit of a mouth.

"Do you like them?"he had asked in a gushing, parental sort of manner. Proudly, the wax figures stood on their pedestals. He was an artistic, creative young man. His hair, which stood up in eccentric tufts dotted with clay, was amusingly appealing as he rushed from sculpter to sculpture. I was so intrigued that i willingly accepted the ivitation to see them being made in his downstairs workshop.

It was hot downstairs. Hot and humid. Humid and steamy. Steamy and suffocating. I decided to have a look around while i waited for him to come back with a brochure. The statues were different from any i'd seen before - so realistic perhaps? Gradually, i began to have a nagging thought about the figures. Step - why were they so familiar? Step - why were they all children? Step - were these the missing children i'd read about in the newspaper? It was all just too overwhelming, when...like a stalker, the truth crept right up on me - just as the vat of wax started bubbling.

With eyes of malice, the sculpter neared. I struggled with my thopughts: clammy hands - wax figures - nightmarish - kidnapped children - headaches - museum - blurry eyes - racing heart - young man - lump in throat - dizzy - shadow - broken promises - lifting legs - familiar faces - workshop - flickering illusions - running - trip - vat of wax - overwhelming heat - scorching - fading... fading... fading...

Skilfully,he arranged my cooled-down bod on a pedestal.
"Your going to look great at the new exhibition."
He cackled as he went back to his workshop.