I couldn’t handle it. My best friend was gone. They did this to him. I can remember back to the third grade when we met, the light in his eyes, the innocence, and the excitement. All of that slowly faded away. As the years went by the light dimmed, slowly, I tried everything to get that light back, but it was like striking a wet match. They tore him down. Brick by brick, he collapsed. They wouldn’t stop. Seeing him in pieces, rubble, scraps, didn’t make them happy. I tried to protect him from their harsh words, but it never helped. I told everyone that I could. The principal, my parents, the teachers, no one would listen. “Sticks and stones,” they would tell me. But can’t they see? Sticks and stones are not barbaric enough. Their words are the worst torture anyone could endure. Those people’s words are what killed my friend. Those words held the gun up to his head, and pulled the trigger. They tore him down, and made him nothing but dust. It was their fault, they murdered him. Those people still sit in school, with no remorse. A whole building of murderers, bystanders, they did nothing and now he is dead.

They still talk about him, daily. Still calling him names, still laughing about how he died. “He was a coward, took the easy way out,” they would say. I had to listen. I had to look at all the people who murdered my friend, none of them punished. Now that he was gone, they had no one to break. I could see them searching for a new victim. No one stopped them. I couldn’t stop them. The murders found someone. Me. They began throwing their words again, with no thought or emotion. Now those words, the same words that killed my friend, stole the flickering light from my eyes. The words they spoke tore me down, brick by brick, eating me from the inside out. Those words held the gun to my head. I was the next victim to the serial killers. “We are not cowards, we are victims,” I said and the killer words pulled the trigger. They are killers without a trace, murderers with no consequences. They are you and me, bystanders, and killers.