Camp Damascus(18)
“Okay,” Morgan finally begins, “how many times have you done it?”
The circle immediately reacts, quietly chattering with excited guesses over the answer to come. I pick up tiny fragments of these whispered conversations, nuggets of brutal honesty that bubble faintly across my ears.
There’s a clear consensus to the guesses: zero.
“She’s two years older, though,” someone murmurs. “All Kingdom Kids are.”
“Doesn’t matter. Virgin,” comes a confident reply.
I feel a flush of anxiety wash over me, and I’m well aware my face is turning red despite my efforts to remain calm. I laugh awkwardly, shaking my head and immediately pushing the question out of my mind.
“I—I don’t know,” I stammer, my fingers dancing a mile a minute.
I force them to stop moving.
Morgan raises an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”
This reply was instinctual, a sympathetic response straight from the medulla with no rhyme or reason other than a quick-release social eject button, but in this moment of panic a flash of vivid imagery slips through my mind. I see the same arresting dark-haired girl I pictured last night, imagine her kissing me deeply and feel the weight of her body against mine. I sense flashes of a mischievous smile, of her voice, and of the comfort I feel when she’s close.
Meanwhile, the attention of the circle remains fully transfixed, waiting for a coherent response.
“I … uh. Let me think about it,” I falter, struggling to right the ship.
“That many?” someone loudly jokes, causing a wave of laugher to erupt across the group.
More flashes of the beautiful black-haired girl rip through me; memories of an aching, burning sensation at the pit of my stomach. Impressions of warm, bare skin. Her face is right there at the forefront of my mind: olive complexion and startlingly dark, wide-set eyes that make it seem like her pupils are filling the whole iris.
From where I’m sitting there’s a direct view of the muted television set. The screen is dancing with light and movement, showing off familiar clips of a bleach-blond, spiky-haired punk band with crucifix tattoos. Slowly, however, the images begin to roll and mutate, hues shifting as these visual representations become more and more difficult to understand. Random bursts of intermittent analog snow pierce the transmission.
I’m the only one who notices, my eyes glued to the screen with fascination and confusion.
“Rose?” Morgan continues, a hint of genuine concern now coloring his tone.
By now, the music videos have disappeared completely as another set of images struggles to push through the static. I can faintly make out the blurry shape of a bald, humanoid figure in a chair, their body held tight by a series of straps. The body is slumped over, and as this scene grows clearer I notice additional captive figures in the dim light, the shapes restrained in a variety of awkward, painful poses. Some of the forms are bent backward over outlandish metal contraptions while others are fastened upside down against a stone wall. The transmission hue has been skewed a deep red, giving these characters a bizarre, otherworldly look.
A nauseated sickness floods my stomach as I watch, but nothing could make me tear my eyes away. Curiosity has gotten the best of me.
Back in the realm of reality, a circle of friends is vying for my attention, waving and shouting my name as they struggle to break the trance. I know they’re here, but my attention is fixated elsewhere.
Onscreen, the point-of-view camera creeps onward, making its way through this chamber of crimson figures. It passes the chair-bound form and arrives at another body, this one twisted haphazardly over a metal bar and locked into place by multiple straps. Closer and closer this visual perspective draws, details sharpening until a horrific realization surges through me and my breath catches in my throat.
The television hue is just fine. These figures are deep red because they’re missing their skin.
The camera is so close now I can make out every detail of these mutilated corpses, the ripples of muscle and sinew glistening under dim light. The face of this particular body is hauntingly still, eyes glazed over in a reminder of just how delicate our mortal shells really are.
It’s utterly repulsive, yet I can’t bring myself to look away.
Suddenly, a breath of freezing cold air visibly pulses from the lips of the luminous face onscreen, still gasping despite their fully peeled state. They’re alive.
I let out a startled scream, the imagery finally too much to handle as I scramble away from the television.
The room of friends immediately flies into a state of chaos, classmates glancing between the screen and me.
One of the partiers jumps to their feet and hurries over to the television set, turning it off in frustration. “This is why we don’t watch secular media!” he announces. “Who thought it was funny to put on a terror film?”
Someone else rolls their eyes. “Holy cow! We’re not all Kingdom Kids here. God has better things to worry about than scary movies.”
“Hey!” Isaiah snaps, pointing to them then motioning toward the door. “Not cool! Go!”
The pandemonium is a lot to keep up with as my body reels from the shock of this grotesque imagery. Isaiah puts his hand on my shoulder in an effort to calm me down, and this human connection actually helps pull me back to reality.
“Hey, it was just a movie,” Isaiah offers. “It’s just makeup and effects.”