Fate Of Ego

• Paige Dunstone, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2022

'What our eyes blind us from is the hidden faults in the human self. Ego prevents us from seeing the pain surrounding the emptiness in ourselves.'

Kia reads from the pamphlet she was handed at her front door, two ordinary-looking people dressed in full black had handed it to her, warning her of a new world, warning of an apocalypse upon all that is impure.
Kia was always a sceptical person and was in no place to believe these people either. She sits down on her batted old living room couch and clicked on the TV.

“We were wrong! You were all wrong! We angered the wrath of divine power and now we must pay!”

A booming voice shocks Kia into listening, he looked like a pope of sorts and he looked angry. His bright red face blabbered about and sweat droplets ran down his bald forehead.

“The end is upon us! All heathens must pay!”

He thrusts his arms upwards, exposing a knife hidden in his cloak sleeve. He thrusts it into his body and the camera shakes with fear. Through blood-filled gurgles, he sheiks to the rafters.”

“You have angered the power, you will all pay!”

The channel quickly cuts from the broadcast and to a re-run of an old cartoon. Kia pulls herself from the dust-covered couch and peers through the window. The sky has turned a crimson red similar to the blood from the preacher on the TV, chaos runs free on the streets and the two men who handed out the pamphlet stand next to the window facing out onto the streets. A small gasp of air leaves Kia’s mouth as she tries to stay silent. The two men laugh as their necks turn towards the house, leaving their bodies in place. Soon their heads were back to front and laughing at Kia’s traumatised face as she was frozen in fear. The whites of the men's eyes pooled with blood until their pupils were no longer visible.

“You cannot run,”

The cartoon flashes away from the screen and back to the broadcast. The preacher's corpse raises from the floor, his eyes identical to the people standing outside Kia’s window. His feet levitate from the ground and papers fly around him, creating a whirlpool that slowly grew. Everything that sat around the re-birthed preacher was sucked into a hole above his head, inevitably the corpse was as well.
The wormhole grew in size and power. Kia looks down at the pamphlet.

'Only the un-egotistic will be safe from the wrath.'

Soon all that surrounded Kia was taken by the wormhole, nothing was left, nothing except Kia and the stupid pamphlet.

“Hello?”

She sees two shadowy silhouettes, their heads rotating against nature. The men from before start laughing as they trudge toward Kia with their arms outstretched, there was nowhere to run in the empty abyss.

“The meaningless fight is worthless, accept your fate,”

The men fall to their knees, melting to the non-existent ground.