I Am Currently Being Murdered With Nerf Guns, By Mine Own Formerly Dutiful and Good Children

I write this from a small closet on the third floor of my home. My boys have gone feral, and are seeking me. My food supplies are running out and it is cold, terribly cold.

It started innocently, when they were given Nerf N-Strike weapons for Christmas by their doting Grandmother. Yes, even the 2-year-old, dear sweet angel that he is...was. At first, they made a merry game of chasing one another around the house, and pinging their brothers on the buttocks with darts. Jolly laughter accompanied these games. Such delights were rarely seen about the fireside, as boys gurgled down hot chocolate and donned their winter garb for snowy adventures.

But all was to turn.

After a few days trapped indoors, with little to no formal schooling, their innate savagery asserted itself in sudden and ugly ways. The stuffed animal herd was cruelly culled, with many animals eviscerated and dangling from lampshades, their intestines strewn about my formerly tidy living room like spaghetti. Lego structures, once revered, were destroyed with the whoomp! of a mighty fist. Beloved books were found with the spines gnawed out, and little Thomas the Tank Engine trains showed up floating in the potty—their formerly bulbous eyes now in that traditional x x state of the deceased. When questioned, the boys gave rude and sullen stares and refused to confess. We threatened them with Time Outs, but they laughed merrily.

"What matter to put us in a chair?" shouted the elder. "What can it harm us, for it is not beatings on the buttocks, or other direful things. It is merely being seated in a chair!"

"Ho, ho!" carolled the other two, evilly.

My late husband turned to me then and said "We are done for, indeed."

The elder boy began to carry his N-Strike weapon everywhere with him. Like dutiful little ducklings, the younger two followed his lead. Such is the way when children are indoctrinated into the military. Soon they were all marching in single file, their expressionless features cracking only when they asked for "Juice in cup with lid on please!" or "Animal scrackers! Now please!" or other horrible things.

Mealtimes became frightening, dire affairs. Screams and guttural grunts were heard, and booglets of strange shape and proportion flew out of the boys' noses as they attempted to eat their meals while singing their cruel, militaristic songs about poop and suchlike. It was like eating with animals, my friends, and I feared for our very lives. Sometimes I saw the sheen of yellow plastic glinting under the chairs, as they cradled their Nerf N-Strike weapons. Dear Grandmother, what hast thou wrought?

It is all too late to ponder that. They come now, with their little rubber bullets of doom. I can hear their maniacal sniggers as they start up the stairs. It is over for me now. Bar your doors, for they are loosed upon the world, until Monday when they must once again commence school!