Isaiah

Ah, dang it.

I wanted to be Ronald.

Kids in hospital gowns like mine, attached to white wooden crosses affixed to the ceiling.

Good Lord.

Do you see what I mean by the like, I set bugs on fire, like kind of idea.

He's a bad kid.

I'm a bad kid.

I read about other kids getting crucified on the ceilings of the Ronald McDonald house.

Which I was like, when we started the story, I was going to make a comment about like, do you think it's kind of bad to like take an actual charity and tie them to this?

But this is so like, it's whatever you want, dude.

Oh, call it the Wounded Warriors Project for all I care.

Kids in hospital gowns like mine, attached to white wooden crosses affixed to the ceiling, literally crucified.

They were silent, their heads drooping forward, their eyes either closed or staring at nothing.

Some seemed to twitch a bit, but most were still.

Their crosses swung back and forth very slightly, and the hanging wires, they weren't wires.

They were intravenous tubes attached to the kid's wrist, tubes sucking out their blood.

I almost vomited again right then and there.

There we go, vomit.

In the very center of the room, amidst the rows of hanging crosses, I could see where the rhythmic pulsing sound came from.

A huge steel cylinder, which seemed to be collecting the blood from all the tangled tubes that dangled from the kid's wrist.