My father always told me to be careful what I said, because the Dorf Zerstörer was always listening. I always thought this was one of those stories the adults told to keep the children in line. He said the Dorf Zerstörer was always looking for a new little boy to “adopt”. By the way he said it, I knew the word adopt was closer to being take than it was adopt. In the legends my father told, the Dorf Zerstörer was always listening to the children, listening for the ones who were being treated unfairly. Then he would “adopt” the children who cried out about the injustices against them, and no one really knew what he did with them.
One day my father told me to feed the animals, then tell him when I was done.
It had been a Sunday, and I wanted to go play with my friends, but I had no such luck today. I did as I was told and reported back to him when I was finished. My father then told me to wash the stone floors. I knew this would take me at least an hour, and I thought about begging my father to let me play with the other children. After all, I had worked all of yesterday. I knew he wouldn’t let me off that easy, and I feared the Dorf Zerstörer; so, I did as I was told. I was right, washing our stone floors took me a little more than an hour. I returned to my father and he told me to “clean up” after the animals.
“Father, may I play with the other children? I have worked all of yesterday and at least half of today.” I petitioned him.
“No, go do as you are told.”
“This is bull crap!”
“Yes, your job is to pick up the bull crap, and don’t forget about the other animal crap either.”
I didn’t fight him on the subject any further. I could feel a tingle up my spine as if something was behind me, and whatever it was, it was listening. I loved my father, and I knew what he said came from a place of love in his heart. I didn’t want the Dorf Zerstörer to take me. I did again as I was told, and then returned to my father.
“Father, may I go play now?”
“Is your room clean?”
“Not entirely. I haven’t had the time to finish.”
“You have the time now.”
“I’ll do it later, please, let me go play!”
“Clean your room! When I was your age, I never got to play with the other children. There was always too much work.”
“Father, I can clean my room by candle-light! I cannot play in the dark, because everyone will have gone home!”
My Father backhand slapped me across my right cheek. My cheek stung horribly, and I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I could not cry in front of him; I could not let him know he had gotten to me.
“Wretched child! I will not stand for this insolence! Now go clean your room!”
I ran off to my room before he did anything more. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and the ones on my right seemed to help the pain from the slap. I cleaned quickly hoping to get at least an hour of daylight.
“I hate it! I want time to play! I barely have enough time at school, and now I can’t even enjoy my weekend.”
The tingle ran down my spine this time, and it felt like something was actually there. It wasn’t just a feeling or a shiver this time. I ran a hand along my lower back trying to find the source of this feeling. I felt the normal bumps on my spine and thought the feeling had been nothing. I was sure I’d felt something earlier, so I checked again, higher up this time. Within a couple seconds, I felt an unusually large lump. The lump moved downward when I touched it. I felt the paranoia sink in, and as I was about to feel my spine again, I felt another tingle. This time, the tingle ran up my spine. I ran to my parents’ bedroom to grab my mother’s mirror. As I grabbed the mirror, the tingle moved to the right side of my face just under the chin. Then it moved onto my chin, and I could see the lump in the mirror. The lump was about the size of a small coin. I was too freaked out to scream. Suddenly, the lump moved onto my teeth, and I was able to see it clearly before it jumped out of my mouth. It was a black widow.
I took a quick step back and gasped sharply. It was on the floor, but it wasn’t running away. The spider looked at me in an almost innocent way (if that at all makes sense). I didn’t care, and I stomped upon it with all my strength. When I lifted my boot, there was no stain on the floor, and no spider corpse on the underside of my boot.
1
The next morning, I awoke and got ready for school. I got dressed, packed my bag, and sat down at the table to eat breakfast. I ate an apple, stood up, and began heading for the door. Then, I felt the ground tremble. It felt like a giant was taking steps. I opened the door, and in the distance, there was a figure with a staff. The figure began running toward our town, and when it was close enough to the town square it stopped. I felt a sharp pain in the back of my neck, and when I felt for it, there was a lump.
“People of the village, come to the town square.” I heard this perfectly as if it were being said by someone right next to me. I had a feeling the lump was causing this. Whatever it was, it was irrefutably compelling. The entire village came to town square, all with lumps in the backs of their necks. The person I had seen in the distance wore a spider mask, and eight realistic spider legs curled around their torso, like it was holding on. When the person would turn, you could see a backpack shaped object with a black widow hour glass on it. The person held a staff with a large white fishhook at the tip of it.
“One of your own has brought up a grievance toward their father. You surviving elders passed on my story but didn’t change your ways, so that what happened less than thirty years ago would be prevented. Now, I will have to enforce another decimation and adoption. Some Roman generals would use the method of decimation to discipline their soldiers. One out of every ten men would be picked to die, and the other nine would be the ones to kill their fellow soldier. I always liked to change this method up a little bit.
“The father of the child who has spoken their anger will be forced to do the killing. Afterward, the remaining men will build a hanging platform. Once the father has been hung, the men must burn the platform, so that the wood can never be used again for such awful purposes.
“Now, all men of the age of fourteen and older line up.”
The men were hesitant to move, but all of a sudden, they flinched and moved with large, rigid steps to form a line. This movement was not natural; it was like they were being controlled. Instead of one big line there was an array of lines formed. With columns of seven, and rows of 100 each. One of the men walked rigidly to the front and stood next to the Dorf Zerstörer, it was my father.
“I have randomly selected one out of ten people. If you are one of the seventy that has been chosen, sit down.”
Suddenly random gaps formed in the array of 700 men.
“The rest of you may go back to the crowd.”
630 men returned to the crowd. The ones that were sitting down, stood up, and formed a new line, then they all sat down in unison. The Dorf Zerstörer handed his staff to my father and nodded to him. A look of fear washed over my father’s face, but he did not try to stop what was happening. He took the staff and aimed the hook for the first man’s throat. My father looked away, which was a complete mistake. The man screamed and bled profusely, for the cut had not been the perfect slice that was intended. When the blood hit the ground, it would turn into black widows, which would then turn and devour the dead man. All that could be seen was a black and red silhouette of a person on the ground. You could tell by the horrible squishing of wet flesh, exactly when they ripped parts of the man’s skin. When they were finished they scattered off in every direction, leaving a skeleton where a man had once been. They would avoid anybody they came into contact with. Whenever some of the spiders would come near me, they would tilt their heads up in recognition. The scampering of spider legs made me shiver.
My father looked dumbfoundedly at the skeleton for a good ten seconds before returning to his work. The look on his face said: I’m definitely not doing that method again. He turned the scepter so that the curved part of the fish-hook was facing down. Father brought the staff over his shoulder similar to the way in which a person might hold an axe. Then, he brought the hook down hard on the second man’s skull, making a loud cracking sound. From the top of the man’s skull more black widows were released, and they too consumed the man’s flesh and organs. This man screamed louder than the first, for he was not dead when the spiders ate him. Afterward the mass of spiders once again scattered.
Father gulped visibly, and his Adam’s apple rose and fell sharply. He then seemed decided on what method of murder was better for him to do. Father then moved quickly down the line cracking skulls, releasing spiders, and creating awful, blood-curdling screams. It looked like one of those domino lines falling down, because as soon as spiders were released from one man’s skull, the next man was soon to follow. When the sound of cracking stopped, I saw my father look back on the line, and see the large mass of spiders. The smell was now unbearable, and everyone in the crowd plugged their noses.
“Will the child of this man step forward?”
I was suddenly compelled to walk up to the Dorf Zerstörer, and I could feel the entire crowd’s eyes staring at me. I stood in front of the Dorf Zerstörer and looked into his eyes. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t smell as bad as I expected, and believe me my expectations were horrible.
“We’re leaving, I’m sure you’ve seen enough. Every child should know what the decimation is like, but they should never bear witness to the hanging of their own father.”
And just like that, the Dorf Zerstörer and I walked off in the direction he had come from. We entered the forest and I could swear I heard the burning of wood. I tried to ignore the thought, knowing what that meant, but it would pop back into my head every once in a while.
“Excuse me,” I said, “Dorf Zerstörer, where are we going?”
“We are going to my home, and you are to call me papa. I never really liked the sound of Dorf Zerstörer. I simply use it as a title that drives fear into the heart of evil men.”
“What about the women papa?”
“The women are kind. I’ve never had a problem with them.”
“What would you do if you were to hear of a troublesome woman?”
“I’d do the same thing I just did, but with the women.”
I stayed quiet for the rest of the trip, feeling awful about the death of my father. I tried to remember all the times father had forced me to work to ease my pain. Out of nowhere, I remembered the time I got a C on an exam. Father had taken his belt and whipped me ten times. After that, I never got anything less than a B on a test. I didn’t notice at first, but I was crying.
“I’ve been where you are now, and I know it is hard child, but don’t worry you will feel better in time. I have asked the spiders to make my home more familiar for you.”
We reached his home, which happened to be a log cabin that had been insulated by spider webs on the outside. On the inside, I found that the spiders had rearranged everything to be in the same position as it was in my own house. Papa took off his mask, and again to my surprise he wasn’t scarred or ugly.
In the course of a year, I began to forget I even had a biological father, and his name began to slip from my memory. It was kind of odd, but I didn’t think much of it. Papa let me do anything I wanted, and he was even kinder to me than my real father had been. Every night, he’d read me stories while he sat in a rocking chair, and I’d listen intently, amazed at this foreign activity.  The food he cooked was delicious, the fruits were even juicier than what I’d had at home.
About seven years later, I decided to ask papa why he did all of this. He paused for a little while, as if he’d never expected this question to come to him.
“When I was a little boy, I had an abusive father. Way worse than yours even. He would drink a lot and force me to work in his place. One day I fashioned a pole, and carved white rock into a sharp fishing hook. I used it to slit his throat from far away so that he couldn’t stop me or hit me. Afterward, I ran into the woods and made friends with a giant spider, who happened to be dying. He told me I’d inherit great powers if I would stay with him until he died, and I did. I didn’t do it for the powers, I did it because I’d never had a friend before. Later, spiders helped me build a cabin. Then, I decided I wanted a child, so that they could have a better childhood than I did.”
“You told my village you’d done the decimation before; what happened to the kid you adopted?”
“He grew up and decided he wanted to go back into his village, so he could have a normal life.”
“If you truly wanted the children to have better lives, why did you kill people at random? What about all those kids who will grow up fatherless?”
“I did it, so that when they grew up, they’d be nice to their own children, fearing that I’d come for them.”
“Papa, I’m not sure I understand your end goal.”
“When I killed my father, I learned something. People always say you can’t heal yourself by wounding another person, and they’re right. Scars don’t heal, but the pain they leave is easier to deal with when other people feel the pain too. That’s why I kill so many people.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Papa sighed heavily, his eyes seemed to tear up.
“I’m getting old, and I don’t think I can do this anymore. I want you to be the Dorf Zerstörer. Maybe then you’ll understand what I just told you.”
“I…” I was about to protest, but something in me changed. I felt like I wanted to know what the feeling of seeing someone else empathize with you was truly like.
“Come on, I killed your father by hanging, now you have the chance to make me feel worse pain than your father ever did.”
I considered the offer, but something inside me felt wrong about this. I then realized something. I could remember what had led to all of this, all with a clear memory, but I could not remember any happy moments I had shared with my father. I couldn’t even remember his face. I felt the back of my neck, remembering the day my father died. There was a lump! The spider never crawled out. I reached for papa’s scepter and then used the hook to crush the spider. My vision blurred for a second, and when it cleared, I found myself standing in front of a large spider web. In the web, skeletons were everywhere. I was still standing face to face with papa. He did not change his mood in the slightest. Papa had noticeable fangs now.
“Explain yourself! If you’re going to eat me or whatever, I at least want the truth.”
“Almost everything you know is wrong, and most of your memories are just what I implanted. When I invaded your village, I choose you to be the pardoned one, and then as you can see I massacred them all.”
“Why?”
“My backstory was true, but my spiders and I ate everyone in your village. No one you knew was real, that’s why in your memories, you want to play with ‘the other children’.”
“And the little boy?”
“He is up there with his village. Now you have a choice, join your village, or become the new Dorf Zerstörer.”
“Let me join my family, I couldn’t ever live with myself if I was some monster like you.”