Newgrounds

I shrugged, or at least I tried to under the heavy restraints. I didn’t care what he thought. Nobody thought anymore, at least not about the big picture. Hatchkins had stopped all of that. I hung there in silence for a while after that, the guards busy talking amongst themselves in raspy whispers. Death didn’t scare me as much as the fact that people would take pleasure in it. Not everybody, mind you, but enough. Maybe some would express concern that I had died young. Probably not.

My limbs were beginning to tingle. I had been suspended like this for over two hours. What I wanted more than anything was a cold drink of water, followed by a long sleep. My left leg was beginning to go numb, and my thoughts were beginning to drift to the other members of the party.

They were probably dead, but perhaps not. There was a slim chance they would be kept alive as an act of clemency. The beautiful, merciful Newgrounds.

I turned my head slightly at the sound of footsteps from the hall. The soldiers quickly moved aside and in entered the charismatic leader of Newgrounds, John Hatchkins.

Hatchkins walked over to me and slapped me in the face.

"You goddamned Antichrist," he spat. "Glorious son of the abortionist. Your father was an evil, evil man, looks like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree."

"It all must have gone to your head," I yelled at him. "You actually believe what you preach now."

"What were you doing here?" Hatchkins asked. "You walked right into my hands. This is the greatest publicity we could have ever hoped for. Ever. This is miraculous, do you understand that?"

"Who’s the rat, Hatchkins?"

"There’s no rat. Tell me what I want to know."

I spit in his face. Hatchkins wiped it off nonchalantly. He slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a small camera. He snapped a picture of my face.

"So now everyone in this complex will know what you look like. Tell me."

"Why should I tell you anything? I’m a breathing corpse. What are you charging me with, anyway?"

"You killed five unarmed Newgrounds members on federal property. And you’re going to tell me, because we have the rest of your team, and we’re going to kill them if you don’t tell us exactly what we want. Which isn’t much. We know lots and lots already."

He smiled. In a way, he was like a child. Just a by-product of this country’s value system.

"They’re innocent, and you know they are!" But this wasn’t entirely true. They had helped me sabotage on many a mission before. Hatchkins ignored this. I closed my eyes.

"Tip...we got an anonymous tip you were in this area. It was just a recon mission...then we realized where we were, and you grabbed us. We didn’t even have time to radio an SOS."

This was true.

"How many?"

"Seven,"

Hatchkins smiled again, a warm and cheery one.
"That’s how many we picked up. Good man, Jim. Everyone likes an honest fellow. We had to kill them all, of course. You’re the only important person here."
"Let them go!"

"They’re already dead."

"Somewhere deep in that convoluted brain of yours you know that you’re a murderer."

Another smile, like he hadn’t heard.