Truth or Dare

"Truth or dare," she asked, rosy lips curling over newly straightened teeth in the pale moonlight.

"Truth", the boy says, snickering while moonlight catches honeysuckle hair and eyes that glinted like sapphire.

"Hmph," The girl says, thinking of a worthy enough question to send the boy into a frenzied state. "What is your biggest fear."

He smiled shyly before speaking "Oblivion."

"Oblivion?" The girl questioned, a playful smile tugging at her lips "Why fear oblivion?"

He shrugged simply before rubbing his hands over a stained carpet. He clasped them in his lap before speaking. "It just doesn't seem right, you know? Everything being lost inside our own minds creating a fragmented reality."

She shook her head, not having the courage to tell him that the possibility of death being oblivion for her wasn't slim. But he was religious, she an atheist, both believing in different realms of death. It was probably the one thing that kept them apart.

"Truth or dare," he asked, though he already knew the answer before it came out of her mouth.

"Dare," the girl said, her voice lacking doubt and full of confidence.

"I dare you...", he paused to think of a good dare "To run around the neighborhood while screaming I have lice"

The girl opened her mouth in protest but thought better of it and headed outside. She unlatched the door and started running up and down the street while screaming "I have lice!" off the top of her lungs.

The boy sat there on the front steps recording it, laughing. They were the only two people awake in the neighborhood, but they wouldn't be for long.

A light flickered on in the house across the street. The girl immediately stopped running to stare at the house. The window opened and an elderly lady appeared.

She started wagging their finger at them and shouted something, but her voice was lost to the wind.

The two kids ran around the back of an unknown house, giggling. They stopped to catch there breath when the girl spoke.

"Truth or dare."

"Dare", the boy replied, a snarky look written across his face.

"You see that dog over there?"

The boy nodded enthusiastically.

"Lick it."

He smiled and trotted over to what appeared to be a sleeping dog lay. He crouched down and pressed his tongue up against its ear. The dog didn't respond.

The boy nudged the dog with his food and saw a gleaming pair of eyes. Eyes that had been rolled up into the back of its head.

The boy shouted and scampered away from it as fast as he could, the girl laughing behind him.

"What was it too much to handle?" The girl questioned, on the verge of hysteria.

"It's dead!" The boy said, still shouting "It's dead, it's dead it's dead! I just licked a dead dog!"

The girl continued to laugh while choking out an "I know".

"You knew!" The boy shouted, no longer surprised but now angry.

The girl nodded and continued to laugh hysterically.

"I don't want to be here anymore," the boy said, he turned around and started walking in the other direction."

"Wait!" The girl shouted, her laughing fit now over "It was just a joke ok? I'm sorry."

The boy shook his head but stopped walking. "Truth or dare."

"Truth", the girl said, her head bowed towards the ground and her hands clasped together in front of her stomach.

"What do you know about that dead dog"

The girl looked over her shoulder and then started speaking in a low whisper "Look, man, I don't know. His owner was kinda a creep. He never went outside and when he did he'd always say the weirdest stuff to you like "this ones gonna grow up to be a fine one" and then he'd laugh and walk away. Some of the neighborhood kids think he killed the dog and ate its insides. The dog stopped showing up at his house a few weeks before I found em here."

She looked up at the boy and waited for a response. But he simply shook his head and gestured for her to speak instead.

"Truth or dare," the girl sighed.

"Dare."

"Help me bury the dog."

"Huh?"

"You heard me," the girl said, trotting over to the dog "he's an eyesore, help me bury the dog."

The boy knew it was a bad idea, but a dare was a dare and he didn't want to seem chicken.

The girl took its front paws and the boy took its back and they lifted it. The scent of rotting flesh along with sour dirt filled his nostrils and he gagged, but the girl didn't seem to care. He looked down at the dog and saw that the dog had a huge gash in his stomach, which was leaking dirt and cotton, along with a trail of crimson and other unrecognizable features.

"What is that!" the boy yelled, letting go of the dog.

The girl didn't respond.

"That's it, I'm leaving."

The girl seemed to disappear and then reappear in front of him.

"No, you ain't," she said, thrusting the dog into his arms "a dare's a dare son, now help me bring this dog into the woods."

He was about to protest, but then she was gone again, heading towards the woods behind the line of houses they'd taken cover in earlier. He could feel something seep down into his clothes, but he decided to pay no mind into it.

They traveled deeper into the woods and stopped in a clearing,

"Here," the girl said. She then proceeded to crouch down onto the ground and hand shovel dirt out of what would become of the grave.

The boy put down he dog and started to help her, easily falling into the rhythmic feeling of dirt running in between his fingers.

It was near dawn by the time it was deep enough, the girl dragged the dog closer to her and reached inside of it. The boy sat there, mouth agape as she withdrew a beating heart.

The boy threw up on the ground next to him.

The girl picked off bits of cotton and such and threw them onto the ground, she then threw the heart onto the ground and licked her fingers and forearm clean.

The boy was about to speak, but the girl picked up the heart and thrust it into his mouth. The boy started to gag on dirt and the metallic scent of blood as he watched the girl smiling at him.

"Why" he managed to choke out.

The girl just simply smiled at him as she watched him slowly fade into oblivion. She then proceeded to cut open the dog and take out anything left inside of him.

She would feast later.

Once the hole was wide enough, she started the vigorous task of shoving the boy inside of the dead carcass. The sight of blood seeping into eye sockets and filling his nostrils was so pleasing to her. Whatever didn't fit she just ended up ripping off.

She shoved the dog and the boy back into the deep grave and began the precarious task of re-filling it. There was never enough dirt.

Once that was done, she smiled and grabbed the dog's bloodied organs in her hand, and prepared to take them to the old man. She remembered what the man had asked of her earlier.

"I want that dog buried, and it's murderer in there with it. Oh, and I want some proof too!"

She smiled, knowing that the boy wasn't the real murderer, she just needed to trick the man into thinking that she didn't know who the real murderer was.

She walked along the sidewalk, slowly now, her stomach aching for a taste of the treats she had in her arms.

She'd have more once the man was dead.