I remembered, at that moment, my mother and Jenny. They had the same designs on their face too. I finally realized then why they didn’t respond at all to my greeting. They didn’t nod, they didn’t wave, they didn’t speak. They didn't blink, they didn’t twitch, or leave any kind of response to me. It was because they were dead.
When they finished the carving, they cut even more holes into me, into my face, right into the carvings they had already made. At this point, I had begun to accept my fate, and the pain from their acts was nothing compared to the pain I felt internally. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go home to my friends and my community. I felt even more destroyed knowing that my mother and my sister, these two people that I loved so very much, had to go through this same pain. I wanted to tell them that I loved them, just one last time. But I couldn’t. The weight of my sorrow must have meant nothing to my torturer because they picked me up again and moved me into another room.
They got a small, cylindrical object and, with another tool, created a small sun in it. It was very bright for something so small. Maybe this was ”the light” I was supposed to see before death. It must have been a message from the sun god. They took the small fragment of sun and put it in me, in my core. They put it in the place where my insides used to be. I was hollow within, and this candle was the only thing that filled me.
And in my last few moments, I felt some relief. I felt relief that a part of the sun god resided in me. It always had. I always had a small piece of it, ever since I was born. It was in my name.
My last name was Lantern. My full name, Jacqueline Olivia Lantern, or Jack-O-Lantern for short. The other pumpkins always thought my name was special, but they never told me why. When I asked, they laughed awkwardly and changed the subject. But that day, I found out. I finally knew why. Ever since I was born, my life was meant to play out like this. There was nothing I could do about it either. At this point, all I could do was accept my fate. So I did. And as the small sun continued to burn within, the flame that everyone knew to be Jacqueline was blown out.