A ten-year-old Amanda wandering around the sights and sounds of a carnival. Trying to take it all in as such an event was much larger than the backroads of isolated territory from whence she grew up. She could not imagine this many people assembled in one place. It was made more disturbing by the fact none of them seemed familiar. Short for her age, she wandered unnoticed among the crowds and began to feel the first stirrings of fear. The loud talk, the screaming children, the long lines of procession, along with the myriads of odors created a miasma that she wanted to flee. The laughter and the faux expressions of joy on the faces of people, took on the maroon tones of a nightmare. She could imagine underneath the laughter, were horrid screams about to erupt.
He had not joined in on the laughter or even on the beating. Violence of any sort horrified him. Nevertheless, he stood by while Mike, their leader, drove a boot down on Joe__ hand. The hideous cracking sound of breaking bones came into his mind and a helpless shudder ran through him. Joe, whose high piercing scream against the autumn skies of indifference, replayed in his memory with shrill agony. Several times, he had shouted: __e__ had enough! Let up on him!_ Which earned him looks of contempt from the others. They had left the kid there, screaming in that back alley. He remembered trying to drown those screams out of his mind.
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He had not joined in on the laughter or even on the beating. Violence of any sort horrified him. Nevertheless, he stood by while Mike, their leader, drove a boot down on Joe__ hand. The hideous cracking sound of breaking bones came into his mind and a helpless shudder ran through him. Joe, whose high piercing scream against the autumn skies of indifference, replayed in his memory with shrill agony. Several times, he had shouted: __e__ had enough! Let up on him!_ Which earned him looks of contempt from the others. They had left the kid there, screaming in that back alley. He remembered trying to drown those screams out of his mind.
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