The man stood with blank eyes, scars painted over in dark cotton and split knuckles shining under fluorescent lights, as he watched. He watched as the boy, -- no, not a boy, a monster, a demon, a prisoner, not a boy, not a bo-- curled up in the corner of a hard, metal room, damp bones frozen and blood silent. He watched the way long, chipped nails traced stained tiles, the purple that blossomed on pale skin barely covered by overgrown, oily, ink hair. The hem of his jumpsuit -- so, so white, too white, just like everything in this place -- slipped from narrow shoulders, exposing the stark outline of his collarbone, barely covered by thin flesh. The man watched and he saw everything he shouldn’t have, everything he couldn’t have seen, and everything that made the heavy weight of a gun droop in his belt, and cool metal of keys burn against tan skin.

He wanted to scream.

He shouldn’t have volunteered for this, volunteered to be stuck in a world of grainy marble, head pounding from the bitter whispers of the bottles and bottles of stolen beers he’d knocked back last night in the crowded basement, broad shoulders bruised from the slaps of calloused hands and ears still ringing from the deafening cheers of victory because “they finally caught the f**king devil!” This, right now, tired eyes fixed on the tiny, slumped figure sitting innocently behind rusted bars, did not feel like a victory.

 The man felt a pressure build up in his chest, drowning his lungs in something, and mind whirling with thoughts he couldn’t – wouldn’t – let himself think.

He couldn’t think about how well he could picture his son -- oh god, Sammy, Sammy who still paints on the walls with jam and laughs at Disney cartoons -- in this boy’s place. The boy, whose same chubby fingers had helped set loose a monster --greater than life, more feared than God -- that had burned the world to ash. The boy, whose soft hands were stained red with the blood of thousands and thousands of people, people who had just wanted to live. The boy, who this whole resistance was built to fight against, down to the metal in its frame. The same boy, who now sat no more than ten feet from him, playing with the loose threads at the end of his sleeve exactly like Sammy. The guard’s breath caught in his throat when, for the first time in the past few hours, the child -- murderer -- looked up, met his gaze with empty amber eyes, and did something that made his blood run cold and mind crack.

 He smiled.