The rat was lying on its side, scratching itself until crimson blood was matted all over its fur as if begging for mercy. Picking up a stick, Elijah bent down and poked its stomach. It was dirty, so he didn’t want to touch it. He could feel his perspiration, dripping off his chin, into the muddy water below. The strong stench of the sewer was overwhelming, making his eyes water as he watched the rat. 

 “Be careful,” Adrien whispered, voice hushed. “What if it bites you?” Turning his head to look up at his friend, Elijah gave a strained smile and nodded. Adrien was a tall boy, with tan skin and hair bleached brown from swimming. Elijah suspected that all the pool chlorine must have seeped into Adrien’s mind and made him soft because he had a heart big enough to house millions. Looking at the rat again, he raised the stick and stabbed its tail. He heard Adrien inhale sharply from behind him.

“You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to,” Elijah said, still watching the rat. It squeaked desperately, a high-pitched noise he’d come to despise. “I know you don’t like watching them die, but this rat would have killed the other rats. It’s a dirty rat.” Raising the stick, he slammed it back down onto the rodent before it could run away. “I’m helping the other rats. I’m saving them… right?” He whispered. Twisting the stick, the rodent screeched once more before stopping, it was dead. “It’s community service, cleaning the world” he hummed as he tugged the stick around some more, feeling the soft flesh ripped apart as he mixed its innards. Glistening red blood was oozing out of the dead rat, tainting the muddy water red. More dirty blood. Tossing the stick to the side, Elijah stood up and inspected his hands, noticing a small splinter, pulling it out quickly and dropping it to the ground. “Don’t pick the stick up Adrien, you might get yourself dirty,” Elijah said softly. 

“I didn’t plan to,” Adrien replied with a sigh. “Elijah, don’t come back over here after school…’kay?” Adrien said hesitantly, “Come over to my place. We’ll play some games together or something, so don’t come back.” With a smile and a nod, Elijah trotted up to his friend, moving him away from the blood-soaked ground.

Adrien studied Elijah as they walked, and sighed. He’s been doing that a lot recently. Elijah, with his curly locks of ebony hair, face riddled with freckles, and a voice so euphonious and light, that it felt as though it would carry the listener to the heavens, was changing. At first, Adrien thought that it was a good thing Elijah was coming up with ideas to help the planet. He thought ‘Cleaning the world’ meant picking up trash at the beach or something. Not… whatever this had become. Elijah, with his gentle hands meant for sculpting beauty from nothing, was cleansing the world of “dirty” souls. And although every fiber of Adrien’s being fought against what he saw, he couldn’t help but be carried away by the whirling feeling that he felt when Elijah turned to him. Helplessly, he was swept up again the next week, as he watched Elijah form his latest masterpiece out of a lump of clay.

“Whatcha making?” he asked, spinning in an office chair. Elijah doesn’t reply, just shrugs. The art room was decorated with student work, colorful paintings hung on the walls, paint splattered on the floor purposefully, to give it aesthetic value, and dozens of canvases and clay figures put to the side. The lights were all turned off, only the setting sun spilling through the windows offered the comfort of a warm glow. The a/c was on at full blast, making him shiver involuntarily, and rub his hand on his arm. A cold room, filled with warm items. 

“Did you hear the news?” The silence was cut short by Elijah’s question.

“What news?”

“On channel five, some weirdo lives in our neighborhood. Apparently, people caught him shoplifting a bunch of times.” There was a moment of quiet as Elijah continued to smoothen out the ridges of his work with practiced expertise. 

“Oh. So?” He could feel it again. It was a bad feeling that curled in his gut, threatening to bubble to the surface and spill out of his orifices.

“So, we should get rid of them. What if they break into your home? Your friends' homes? What if they decide to steal a life rather than an object? It’s better to be safe than sorry.” Elijah reasoned, and he stopped working and turned to face Adrien, hands covered in bits of wet clay that he wiped off on his apron. 

“The police will deal with them, there’s no need for us to-”

“No need for us? The police won’t do anything. They don’t understand what it means- they don’t see how these filthy people are contaminating the world. They don’t understand Adrien!” He sounded almost desperate, and Adrien could feel himself begin to fold. “They don’t see it like I do.” Once again, he was swept up by it all, following the endless craving –the endless want– to go where Elijah goes.

It wasn’t long before the last bit of sun had dipped under the horizon, and Adrien found himself crouching in a bush. He wore a mask, Elijah said it would keep him safe, but it just made it hard to breathe. The bush was prickly, catching and tugging at his shirt, scratching his skin till beads of blood seeped out of tiny cuts. Elijah told him to wait, to hide in the bushes until it was over, then to sneak in and help clean up. He didn’t question how Elijah slipped into the dark silhouette of a house with proficiency, how he knew which broken window would creak the least, or how he even figured out which house held the shoplifter. All he could do was sit and wait, and try not to flinch when he heard the rustle of the leaves, or the last cry of a bird. Adrien could feel his palms moisten as he waited, a nervous sweat trickling down his face. Anything could happen, Elijah could get caught and maybe killed or arrested. And he almost let out a sigh of relief when he saw two consecutive flashes of light from the window, their signal, before a cold pit of dread consumed him. 

With light feet, he quickly snuck into the house, following the exact steps Elijah had taken. Pushing the window open once again, he tumbled into a bedroom. At first glance, it seemed pretty average, with a popcorn ceiling, and flowery wallpaper, but eventually, his eyes landed on Elijah. Elijah, who was dressed up in a blood-speckled beekeeping suit, with a veiled hood tinted black, was kneeling on the ground, soaking the red with paper towels, a large crimson-covered rock next to him. Adrien could feel the blood drain from his face, and he gagged when his eyes landed on the person, or what was left of a person. With a mutilated head, and a mangled throat, there was no doubt left to what had occurred in the home. The strong smell of iron settled in the room, and Adrien wanted to hurl and scream and cry, and wanted to slap Elijah and tell him to snap out of it. That a person with memories and a family, someone he didn’t even know, had just died at their hands. 

“Here, you can deal with that side, and I’ll do this side. Put on gloves and a hairnet.” Elijah’s shaky voice managed to snap him out of it. Quickly, without hesitation, Adrien slipped on the gloves and hairnet with a dazed expression, before getting on the floor to wipe off the blood, looking anywhere but the corpse. 

It was all over the news the next morning. Elijah sat at the counter, listening to Channel Five as he ate his breakfast cereal, fingers covered in bandaids. When he got home that night, he had rinsed the beekeeping suit off, splitting it into small pieces and burning it in increments. He had washed the rock off, putting it under his bed. A reminder to himself, that there was no going back now. His fingers drummed on the marble counter as images of the crime scene were shown on Channel five. His cereal was soggy, some bits sinking, and a few still floating. He mixed it around with his spoon, and it all vanished underneath the milk. The Channel Five news anchor, Matilda Reelis, was covering a different story. Just a few neighborhoods away, a brutal robbery occurred.

 Grabbing the remote, he shut the TV off, and tossed it onto the fake leather couch, sighing. People were disgusting. Why would anyone harm another person like that? Dirtying the world with their filth, staining the lives of the people around them… And yet he couldn’t help but feel a heaviness on his shoulders. He had just helped clean the world a bit, why did he feel this… heavy feeling within him? He didn’t understand it. The police would catch up soon, he’d give it a week or two, or hopefully, a month. So, he had to do all his work fast, and with the help of Adrien… maybe he could get through more people at a faster rate. Poor Adrien seemed scared stiff yesterday, wordlessly scrubbing the ground, slipping off the hair net and pink rubber gloves, and handing them over, before leaving without a word. Elijah wanted to call out to him then, to stop him, to apologize, but what would he apologize for? For getting rid of a dirty person in this world, or for potentially tainting Adrien with the filth? So he didn’t apologize. Just stared as Adrien slipped back out the window, before leaving soon after. Still, he could feel guilt, the guilt eating away at him as the day progressed. 

The island is small, so by the time Elijah got to school, he could already feel the whispers of the murder circling. Without Adrien’s chatter, it felt almost awkward to be at school. He spent his after school time alone in the art room too. The room felt big, and Elijah felt so very small as he worked on his sculpture. He’d dedicate it to Adrien maybe. Add little fish at the bottom to make it special for him, add some other little animals on the side too. After all, it was Adrien who always nagged him to do some “community service” work to save the animals, to clean up the world. With ease learned through continuous practice, Elijah worked slowly while mulling over the most recent news he heard, and Adrien’s absence. 

It was another week before Elijah set his next plan into motion, having purchased two beekeeping suits to use. He’d done enough research to know that Evalyn Davis had committed multiple small-time crimes around the island. Adrien had come back to school, a bit quiet, but otherwise the same. They followed the same daily routine that had been set unconsciously throughout the years and didn’t say a word about what had happened that night. The day before Elijah planned on taking action, he decided to fill in Adrien as the two of them worked quietly in the art room.

“Evalyn Davis… you saw her on the news right? She did… bad things. Just like the last guy.” There was a moment of reticence after that. He could hear Adrien set his pen down and turn to look at him.

“Dude, no. Whatever it is you're thinking, no. Wasn’t last time enough for you?” Adrien said, his tone agitated. His voice rose with each word, “Elijah, listen to me, this isn’t- for god’s sake-”

“What if Evalyn Davis-” Adrien quickly cuts him off. 

“I think she lives far away enough, where her actions won’t affect us directly.” 

“Adrien, listen to me, the police keep on releasing her back into society, and clean people are missing things-”

“So that justifies you killing her?! What if she has a family, friends, and an actual life? Have you ever thought of that?” There was a stretched-out silence, with only the whir of the cold a/c filling the space. 

“You don’t have to do this Adrien, it’s okay,” Elijah said, breaking the silence, “I just needed to tell someone, and I can only trust you”. 

After school the next day, Adrien was waiting for him at the bus stop, and the two of them got onto the first bus they saw that was heading in the right direction. The coins in Elijah’s pockets jingled as he handed them over to the driver, and he moved to sit in the very back, Adrien following close behind. The sun was setting, and soon, they were the only passengers left. The two of them sat in silence, bumping into each other when the bus met a pothole.

“You kids heading home?” The driver asked, breaking Elijah’s quiet trance.

“Yeah.” He didn’t offer any more words, going back to staring out the window as the forest scenery passed by. They didn’t say anything when they got off the bus, and the driver didn’t say anything about the two getting off at the entrance of a hiking trail. 

“Thanks for coming,” Elijah said quietly, following the trail. Adrien didn’t say anything, mutely following behind. The hike was humid and muddy, and their progression slowed when the sun dipped and everything became a shadow. The two fell into a steady pace, breaking off from the rock-strewn path and trekking through the native ferns and plants until they met a road. Under the cover of the thick forestry, they slipped into beekeeping suits. “You don’t have to come. I know you don’t like seeing them die, so-”

“I’ll be waiting then. Two flashes, and I'll come help clean up.” It was the most Adrien said all day, and Elijah didn’t push. The dark silhouette of the house stood ominously, and swiftly, he crossed the road and onto the lawn. The grass was bristly and made a noise under his steps as he crept over to a window and tapped it. It didn’t creak. Using his palms to push the window open, he hoisted himself through the window and tumbled into the house. 

The floorboards groaned as Elijah stabilized himself, pushing himself into a crouching position, and looking around. The kitchen seemed old, and rarely used. With dust covering cupboards and curtains, and utensils sitting unused in a plastic bin, he couldn’t help but pity the state of the house just a bit. The moonlight was the only thing illuminating the ground as he slowly crept through the kitchen, and he winced every time a floorboard squeaked. Moving through the hallways, it became clear that it’s seen better days. Old photographs lined the walls, like forgotten ghosts waiting to be found. He didn’t bother looking at them, looking at it would create empathy. Slowly, he creeped in and out of rooms, all of them layered in dust and as though they hadn’t felt the touch of a person in years, begging to be cleaned.

 Finally, he entered a room that seemed slightly less dirty, and more used. Looking around, Elijah spotted his target. Evalyn Davis, with thinning gray hair and skin that looked papery thin. Evalyn Davis, who committed many crimes lay there, asleep without an ounce of worry. The a/c whirred softly as Elijah moved closer to her, now looming over the bed as he slipped a rock the size of two fists out of his bag. This was it, this was it. The words thrummed through his mind, and he could feel his blood pump and his palms grow sweaty as he raised the rock. He could hear the ticking of a clock, was it in his mind? He couldn’t tell. His eyes glanced at a picture of a little girl on the bed stand, was that her daughter? No. Don’t think about it, he reminded himself. Don’t think about it, dirty people like her don't deserve empathy, I’m protecting the clean ones, he reminded himself, but he could feel it, something building in his stomach as he watched her face twist into a frown. A nightmare? No, don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about- he slammed the rock into her head. 

He could feel the crunch of her nose breaking, blood spraying over the flowery sheets and his white beekeeping suit. Before she could scream, he slammed the rock onto her forehead, dropping his weight into it, and he could feel her skull crack. She managed to let out a grisly scream, more of a war cry, that turned pained, and was cut short when he hit her throat with the rock, slamming it over and over again until she could no longer call. Her hands flew wildly, grabbing at his suit and tugging, as she twisted and kicked at him. Thick red blood glistened in her hair as she struggled. Elijah could hear his ragged breathing and her groans and grunts, as he pushed himself onto her, sitting on her stomach so she couldn’t escape. Bringing the rock down over and over again, until she stopped moving, and it was quiet once again. 

At some point, the smell of iron and the sight of blood didn’t matter anymore. Adrien realized that as long as he just focused on moving the cloth back and forth, while focusing on the yellowing antique cat clock on the wall, he could ignore the growing knot in his throat and the sticky disgust that came with it. He stood up when he finished wiping down his portion of the room, going over to Elijah, who was bent over trying to scrub specks of blood off of Evalyn Davis’s family photo, and he dropped the bloodied cloth next to him.

“I’m going now. Don’t bother-”

“Wait, wait.” Elijah stood up, his voice barely a whisper, “Change out of it in the forest, the suit, and hide it in your room or something- I’ll, I’ll come pick it up tomorrow… don’t worry about it.”

He wanted to retort that he wouldn't have had to worry about it had this entire incident not occurred in the first place, but he didn’t. Biting his cheek, he crawled out the window and stumbled back to the edge of the forest. 

The moment Adrien got off the night bus, he sprinted straight to his house, climbing into his bedroom window with practiced ease and tumbling onto his bed. His space-themed bed covers that he had picked out in second grade, and never bothered to change seemed to mock him as he sat up. The thick smell of copper and guilt filled the room. Adrien was quick to push his backpack that had the beekeeper's suit under his bed. He could feel the bitter taste of vomit at the back of his throat, as he moved from his room towards the bathroom.

“Adrien, is that you? Did you finish your homework?” Adrien froze. It was his mother. His poor mother who didn’t know her son had assisted in a murder. Fighting back tears, and clearing his throat, he managed a weak reply.

“Yeah, ma. I finished my homework. I’m gonna shower and head to bed first.” When no reply came, he ran into the bathroom and locked the door. 

The spray of the shower head brought a sort of comfort to him as he sobbed. The iron smell of blood seemed to rise along with the heating air, fogging up the glass barrier around him, and Adrien wondered what it would be like if he just suffocated and died right there. To have the thick humidity of the shower smother him, causing him to fall and hit his head on the metal soap dish, and bleed out. Would that make up for the death of Evalyn Davis? The memory of her mangled unrecognizable face and twisted body laying still on the bed– He could taste the remnants of his lunch from school, the stomach acid burning his throat and the overbearing heaviness from the humidity and hot water pounding onto his body, gripping and choking him, as he hurled onto the shower floor. He watched with teary eyes as his spit and vomit swirled down the shower drain slowly. This had to end.