Nothing and no one here is sacred, safe or sane.

In our large family of 134 and counting seeing as Hustance has brought another mother into the village. Its not illegal to have many wives. Idk if what Hustace has done has crossed the point of illegal. He made a whole village of his wives and followers amount to a hundred plus in 5 years. We are taught to worship him and that he is the son of god who will save us all.

From what? He’s the one we need to be saved from. How such a despicable man got any followers to do his bidding makes me think he has a special talent in knowing which people are dumb enough to believe his crap.

When I was a kid I used to believe in all the crazy things the villagers would speak of Hustace. Like he can walk on fire, he turns water to beer and so on and so forth. Upon checking from a really thick random book, he’s literally copying Jesus.

He’s using a man who’s the ultimate symbol of goodness to do the most heinous shit.

This is a secret between me and you. I hate it here.

There are levels to the people here. The most obvious is that most of them are crazy. As in they fully believe him and would report others who would doubt or show any sign of rebellion.

Whenever somebody was accused there was a big show of beating them up as a group until they were left bleeding on the floor nearly lifeless. Then Hustance would whisper something to them before a small gun would be shot.

Everytime I see it, I imagine what it would be like if he were the one in that position. How cathartic it would be to rid of him. Maybe I’d be able to escape.

The ones who try to escape always come back to be killed. The education here is so limited that we’d screw ourselves 10 times over by reporting him. Hustance was best friends with the police. Or bribed them.

Did I mention we were a factory?

Apart from living our lives at his utter disposal, Hustance would have us farm and make products to sell to others. He’d call them 100% natural and mark up the prices to be in the hundreds. I’ve never seen money let alone ones to be that high.

To get married in this commune, you’d have to have Hustance officiate the wedding. Even though I was happy for Stacy and Ryon, it was a bad idea to fall in love. One of the prerequisites was to have Hustance’s ‘blessing’. That blessing ended with Stacy pregnant with stillborn baby. She was never the same after. Ryon tried to escape with her.

The story never ends well from my observation.

So here I farm and try to be with others. I pray to actual higher powers above that Hustance doesn’t recognize me or even remember me. While he requires girls to groom themselves to make him look good, its for him to satisfy his desires. So I do the bare minimum brush my hair but keep it at a short unpretty length, frying the ends to make sure I have split ends.

Never will I be in his presence alone.

Doing all the things expected of me in the commune, still didn’t do me any favors as one night while farming a random man ran to me for help. I stuffed his mouth with leaves and tied him to a secluded barn no one ever comes to.

“You must leave at dawn. No one must see you.” I whisper to him, handing over my bread and water from my food ration. Initially he was freaked out upon me spontaneously kidnapping him but outsiders are forced to convert into one of us. Its a masterclass in manipulation that no one can escape. I don’t want that to happen to anyone while I have a chance to stop it.

He graciously ate the food and drank the water to his last drop. “I’m sorry, I know this is a cult community but there are zombies out there. There wasn’t much else to run to.”

I frowned at him. Is zombie an animal?

“Okay, you probably grew up in this cult and have no culture whatsoever.”

He was right but that didn’t mean I didn’t get the insult. I glared at him.

“My bad. Basically zombies are like animals that eat you. Except they are people.”

Being around crazy people in my community should have readied me for this. Yet I give him a deeper frown.

“Its fine if you don’t believe me but please don’t let me out. I don’t have a car and pretty soon the zombies will get here. Let me help you survive, I’m pretty good with tools. I’m Wyatt.” It was strangely exciting to hide a man all while expecting these ‘zombies’ to come around. He taught me how to swing a weapon correctly to chop a head off and even moves to use when I don’t have any weapons on me.

It was a waste of time but I humored him until dinner time came around and Melissa came into the dining hall screaming. “Hustance! Harold is eating Travis!”

The doors were then locked and the situation turned to worse as we observed over 15 of our family members eat each other on the outside. One of them being my actual sister, Isabel.

It was one thing to watch her be Hustance new wife and give birth at 17. It was painful as she was genuinely too good to be given off to the likes of him. Another thing to see her get munched on by Delaney, her eyes glassy and her body unmoving.

I grabbed a knife from the table.

“What are you planning to do, child?” Hustance asked, not knowing my name. Good to see my efforts paying.

“My sister is getting eaten. Even if she’s already dead, she deserves to be buried whole.” Most people would refer to her as his wife. I refuse.

“You don’t have my permission to go out. You’re endangering everybody. Sit down.” His long beard, moved as he ordered me something he was too used to doing around here.

I twirled the knife in my hands, then threw it right at his chest. It hit him smoothly, the lessons with Wyatt paying off. I grabbed another knife from a table as the people were too busy trying to save him and got out of the dining hall.

It wasn’t easy to stab people I’ve known all my life but for my sister, I would do it a hundred times over. Delaney bared her teeth at me as I slashed her in the chest. She fell writhing, making noises akin to a wild animal.

I refused the tears to drop as I saw Isabel on the ground with a piece of her shoulder eaten. She didn’t even look like she put up a fight or any effort to defend herself. She must have thought Delaney was being strange and accepted her regardless.

Putting her arms around my shoulders I dragged her to the only place I knew was semi safe.

Ryon shot up immediately upon seeing me drag my sister in. “So the zombies finally got here.”

“I helped hide you, now help me bury her.” The tears were now spilling. “She’s my sister.”

Wyatt immediately took her from me, carrying her in his arms as I took 2 shovels and a lamp. Guiding him to the flowers fields, once the first shovel was pushed into the ground, there was a sobbing sound coming from me.

Wyatt silently helped me as we dug a hold big enough to bury Isabel. The flowers were mixed into the dirt a spec of white against the harsh brown.

Once Isabel was fully buried, it started raining and it only furthered my mourning. Wyatt hugged me and let me cry into his chest. It never happened to me before, contact with a man so it was uncomfortable. Yet I recklessly cried until the rain slowed.

“Alessia, I saw a car while scoping out. Let’s get out of here.” Wyatt said, holding me by the shoulders.

“But we don’t have the keys.” I sniffed, the crying still not fully over.

“I can hot wire it.” Dunno what this meant but once we changed into dry clothes and sneaked into the garage, magically he was able to turn it on by grabbing some wires.

We loaded gardening tools as weapons and a whole supply of food into the back of the truck.

It felt surreal to finally leave the commune after wishing so long. Yet I never wanted it to end like this.

“I think I killed Hustance.” I say as the silence in the truck was uncomfortable.

“Isn’t he your cult leader?”

“Yes.”

“Is he a terrible guy?”

“The worst.”

“Then you did good, Less. Proud of you.”

No one has ever called me by a nickname before. No one has ever been proud of me either. Life was always about the mundane and absurd. Now maybe life can be different in a good way as I wouldn’t have to do it alone.