Chapter three Ew pink, but like an ugly pink

She was dressed in a bright pink flowy dress with huge golden earrings and her hair up in a style that looked like something you would see in the live action Grinch movie. Nobody was really sure what her name was but she always showed up in the most obnoxious outfits every year, like this insanely bright hot pink dress. It's super ugly, and I for one like a lot of softer pinks so I don't even think that because I hate pink like some pick me. It was super annoying in my opinion. "Welcome! It is once again the time of choosing!" She smirked a little, Goddess above I want to punch her in the face. The lady gestured to the sixteen bowls in the shape of that classic cartoon fishbowl which were filled with little slips of paper. They were split into two groups of seven, seven bowls on the two tables on either side of her. "As usual, boys first!" She reached into the first bowl on her left. It had the number nine on it and was one of the fuller bowls. She pulled out a slip, looking at it closely "Chloros, Bear!" She called out. Bear, I know that name. I mean I know he goes to my school seeing as it's the only school nearby but I'm sure I know him from something else. I watched this kid get up on the stage, he was visibly starting to cry and shake. His hair was sandy blond and his eyes were green though the area around them was starting to get red and puffy. The lady smiled down at the kid excitedly before picking a name from the bowl with the number ten on it. She looked at the paper, reading it out aloud. "Asker, Alexzander!" She called out, for the first time in a while I didn't recognize the name. The boy who got up on stage had neat black hair and hazel eyes, Gods he must be one of the prep school kids. Sometimes they come into shop after school, they're always really annoying and I think Basil's caught quite a few of them stealing last week. They do that a lot, I think they just like to see if they can get away with this, which they can't. He didn't seem as upset, more calm which made no sense because he was about to just go die. At least he'll die semi happy looking or whatever. That annoying lady still looked ecstatic as ever, oh my Gods I still want to punch her so badly. She reached into the bowl for the eleven year old guys, the slip she pulled out was a little torn already this time. It took that birch a few more seconds to read it this time. "Barbas, Seb!" She yelled, oh I definitely knew him. Seb had tried to steal from our shop so many times he wasn't allowed to be within ten feet of the building. I looked for Basil in the crowd, he seemed pissed to be thinking about Seb but mildly happy we wouldn't have to deal with him. Seb got up on the stage and I noticed for once he had brushed his nearly shoulder length nasty brown hair though it was still quite greasy. He scanned over the crowd with stormy eyes, looking the most angry out of the three. The lady reached into the bowl with twelve written on it, she almost pulled out a little handful of papers before choosing one. "Constantitty-" She corrected herself, seeming to be struggling with the name "Constantinde" She sighed still not getting it. "You mean Constantinides?! Damn you really are a cretein" I heard some kid in the crowd yell. There was a gaggle of kids who laughed, I chuckled while that lady was fuming. "Constantinides, Michel" She was still fuming and would likely punch that kid if given the chance. I hadn't noticed Michel get up to stand next to the other boys. He looked nice enough, pale blue eyes and fluffy blond hair. I've definitely seen him around school, he's pretty hard to miss walking down the hall. Next up was the thirteen year old boy, he's the boy my age but he's probably in the other class since I didn't know him. The kids in the other class didn't really talk to us very often. That lady reached in, pulling out a slip that she almost tore in half unfolding it from the anger. "Golias, Luke!" Her voice was more firm now. I heard one of the girls near me gasp, I looked over, it was Luke's twin Selena. He was in my class, Selena was two years younger being eleven, I saw some other kid put her hand on Selena's shoulder trying to comfort her. I opened my mouth to say something before hearing a loud crash from up on the stage. I looked up, Luke had banged his side on the table knocking over one of the bowls. That lady looked like her head might explode, Seb helped Luke up. I was pretty happy that we were pissing her off so much this year, normally she was all happy and excited but today she just seems ticked off. Luke got up moving his ginger hair away from his eyes, when they caught the sun I remembered how much I loved Luke's eyes. They were mainly green with blue around the edges and little golden bits around the pupils. I should draw his eyes sometime, then again I suck at drawing realistic eyes…or realistic stuff in general. It's hard alright, and cartoons and stylistic stuff is way more fun. The lady reached her hand into the fourteen year old bowl, I was nervous, we were getting close to Basil's group. I kind of blanked on this one, I got laser focused on the shaking of my arms as my body tensed up, this wasn't uncommon if I'm being honest though it didn't happen in public a lot. Mostly when I got super tense thinking about the future or stuff. I only focused back on the lady again when one of my classmates poked me in the arm. I wanted to snap and hit her but then focused on the lady taking a paper out of the fifteen year olds bowl. "Drakos, Basil!" She called out happily. No, no, no, no no no NO NO NO, this isn't happening. This CAN'T be happening, Basil couldn't have been picked, there was no way. It it wasn't mathematically probable, that shouldn't be happening. I watched the lady put another slip into the bowl for twelve year old girls, my name. Basil got up onto the stage, Mom wouldn't be able to keep up the shop by herself and I was no help with stuff like that. How were we even supposed to do this? Is…Basil is going to die, that's a fact even if I don't want it to be. I didn't care enough to listen to that lady call out the rest of the names, there was only one more for guys. Now it was the girls, sacrifices, they were just making sacrifices out of all of us. Was centuries of children being sacrificed to that monster not enough for them?! We were paying for the sins of people we didn't even know about, we were sending kids off to die every year just because of some old dispute! Nothing was ever enough for these people, nothing

would ever be enough would it?!