Work Text:
“Blessed be our New Founding
Fathers for letting us Purge and
cleanse our souls. Blessed be
America, a nation reborn.”
One night every year it would happened, the Annual Purge. Where all crime was legal for twelve hours, twelve horrifying hours. There were no emergency services, no police to call for help. No firemen to put out fires, no ambulances to help the hurt. It was a debated event, sure it’d brought the level of crime down, but at what cost? Then again cost never mattered to the rich, did it?
Harold and Edith Barton hadn’t been rich, hadn’t been well off, but they had been in the middle of nowhere, and there had been an old fallout shelter. It wasn’t much, but when the alarms rang off they’d settled in the old fallout shelter, and waited it out. There wasn’t too much danger out in the middle of nowhere, between two towns that were full of people just as poor and badly off as their neighbors. Clint remembered watching news reports with his brother the morning after, the kill count, watching the numbers rise, and the elitists of the nation talk about how good the purge was. How many had been killed and how thankful everyone was for the sacrifices that were made (Clint had never, and would never understand it. Same went for Barney).
Their parents had died not even a year ago, and here they were. In an orphanage, and suddenly the night of the purge was terrifying. Killing young children? No. That wasn’t done, generally speaking, but he and his brother were the oldest in the orphanage – Would they be a target? Would they finally be old enough to be called the filth of the country? Homeless, parent-less, future-less. What good were they?
“This is the Emergency Broadcast System announcing the commencement of the annual purge.
At the siren, all emergency services will be suspended for 12 hours.
Your government thanks you for your participation.”