A Virgin Sacrifice

During the my career as a schoolchild, I was for reasons unknown, selected to be a “leader,” in both the New Braunfels School District, and the family of Holy Cross schools. I’m not sure why I was labeled with this mantel, I wasn’t particularly sociable, nor did I work outstandingly well with others. I suppose it may have been because I’m passably intelligent, but my grades in public school were far from superb, but I was usually picked out. Also, I was likely the most emotionally stable of my friends, and that’s a stretch, as I had many an outburst, though I was never expelled. Perhaps NBISD chose a child per each generation to pick on, as the district as a whole got bored, and felt the need to take it out on others.

Anyways, during the summer of 2006, I for some reason wanted to join the A.C.T.S. program, and I was signed up to go on a retreat during the latter half of that summer. I can’t remember why I joined, maybe it was so I could meet some girls who wouldn’t talk to me. So, I spent three long days at a retreat, immediately regretting it as soon as I stepped onto the bus at St. Peter’s and Paul. The bus left the church, and proceeded to drive out somewhere in the country, to their compound, where we were forced to make counterfeit Swatches. In reality, it was a church, with a community center close to it, but that was just the waypoint, after collecting more of the “chosen,” we were herded to Saint Anthony’s high school in San Antonio.



We were stored inside a retreat house which was within a weak man’s stone throw of the school itself. When we arrived at the institute, we were given a shirt marking the occasion, it held a scripture passage on the back, which was misspelled. During my time inside, we were forced into groups, and assigned different retreat leaders and were meant to suffer their peppiness. The name of our group leader escapes me, so I will dub them “Skippy,” it seems like a appropriate name. So, we would waste the day away by talking about God, making trinkets for export, and eating powdered eggs.

Though occasionally (5 times a day), we would all gather around for a “personal narrative” by one of the retreat leaders. These stories would quickly turn from nice little soliloquies to sob fests by everyone in the room. While reading their story, the retreat leader would immediately burst into tears while relaying some horrifying life experience, then everyone else would join in, it was worse than when I saw My Dog Skip in the theater. Of course, I was the only one not crying in the entire room, so I would have to find something to put my attention to, seeing as I didn’t want to make eye contact with someone, and have them find I wasn’t emotionally gut wrenched by the tale of woes.

Nearer the end of the retreat, we were all told to line up and go to the school’s auditorium, probably for some play about moral hygiene. As we were put in front of the door, they placed me in the front of the line, I guess so I could absorb the first wave of bullets that rained down upon us. Then as I was ushered (pushed) into the main auditorium, I found that it was dark, with only the lights on the stage laminating the large hall. Then, I noticed the shadows that lay in the chairs of the space, and they turned around and revealed themselves to be people. Each of them was chanting the same hymn, but it appeared rather demonic, as their faces were lit by the candle the cradled in their hands. Apparently I was about to be a virgin sacrifice to the unholy cult of the “Kingdon” of heaven.

They looked upon me while their mouths moved in synchronized movements, I panicked and acted as though I also knew the words of the hymn, though in actuality I was just sing the parts of Night Fever that I could remember. The last memory I have is that I was standing onstage next to the other retreaters (who seemed to be enjoying it) awaiting for the end to come, as it surely looked as though my time was up.