"Mommieee. Can we get these?"

"No Stanley. You can't have those. Now come on. Mommy has to hurry up and get home to fix Daddies dinner."

Stanley Sonly put the box of Oreos down on the ground and ran to catch up with Tessa Sonly. Stanley is Tessa's only child. Even though Tessa and Maxwell tried over the years for another child, preferably a girl, they've had trouble. The docters say that when Stanley was born her eggs were damaged, and that she would probably never get pregnate again. Although, there is a chance that one of those eggs will produce another child. Preferably a girl.

Tessa was 21 when Stanley was born. She was ready for the baby and her and Maxwell had just gotten married. Tessa had to quit her job at the newspaper, but she was quiet all right with that. Maxwell had just got a job in Arkansa and would make enough as a researcher slash engineer at a government plant that she could stay home.

Stanley grew up with Mommy reading stories to him, taking him to the park to play with mommy's friend's kids. He loved going to McDonalds and playing on the playground as Tessa talked on her cellular phone to her friends. And everyday at six O'clock Daddy would come home from work, come in, pick up Stanley, walk over to Tessa and kiss her and Stanley. They ate dinner around seven O'clock, and Tessa always cooked meals that filled the whole house with an aroma that made your mouth water. They would always sit in the same order at the four seat table: Daddy on the left side, Mommy on the right side, and in the middle was Stanley. Stanley never liked eating vegtables, but if he didn't "no airplane ride".

Now Stanley is six years old. He is in pre-school and loves it. Everyday he gets to go and play with his friends. He also gets to fingerpaint, play parachute, listen to stories done through hand puppets, and in the middle of all the fun he gets to have milk and cookies. And at noon he always takes a nap on his red and blue mat.

The little boy has somewhat long blonde hair, the blonde he gets from his mother, and he has blue eyes that are the exacate same color as his fathers. On the very tip of his little nose is a little crater that Stanley gave himself when he had the chicken pocks the year before. "Now Stanley don't itch, you'll be sorry." On his arms and legs he has several bruises and cuts that are bandaged up with three or four bandaids, because as Stanley says, "It makes the hurt go away when lots of banaids are on." But the best thing about Stanley are his cheeks. His cheeks shine rosy pink all the time, instead of peachy tan like the rest of his skin. People always came up to Tessa saying, "Oh what an adorible little boy.", and, "Your as cute as a doll sweet-cheeks." Tessa didn't mind, infact she liked the attention Stanley drew, but Stanley wasn't to keen on the matter. He thought that it was stupid, but he always played along because he's a good sport. That's what his dad says, "Be a good sport Stanley."

Stanley and Tessa came walking out the store. Tessa pushed the cart away from the Publix in Kilar, Arkansa. Stanley had his hand on the cart like his mother had told him to do everytime they were by cars. Tessa could see the old gas station that was under way of becoming a new Texeco gas station. Every thing was surrounded with large pine trees here. Tessa looked left for cars, she could see the Eckards next to Publix, a job opening sign was out and Tessa thought that maybe she could work there as Stanley was at pre-school. A man was at a pay phone. He was tall and fat. His dirty shirt could barely keep his pot belly from bursting out. Tessa liked it here in Kilar, but some of the people in the town made her a little nautius.

When Tessa looked to the right she could see the McDonalds diagnol from the Publix. This is where she usually brought Stanley and spoke with Julia or Libby on the phone. When seeing the McDonalds Stanley took in a deep breath and said, "Owww, look mommy, it's McDonalds, can we go there?"

"No, no honey we gotta get home. Daddies going to be home soon and I've gotta fix dinner."

They got in to a red Dodge Neon. Stanley sat in the back seat and sang to his sing-along tape on the way back home. Tessa was planning what to start cooking first in order to have dinner ready for Maxwell at the usual seven. The Hamburger Helper, the mashpotatoes, and then the rolls.

When the two got home Tessa saw that Maxwell's car was in the driveway. Stanley ran inside and got into his daddy's lap. Maxwell was sitting on the couch watching the six O'clock news 'So much pointless fighting. I hope I solved it.' "Hey Stan, where've you been?"

"With Mommy. We got dinner and food." He was sitting next to his daddy on the black and grey stripped couch in the front room.

"Hi honey." Tessa walked in through the front door with three grocery bags, two on her left, one on her right and her purse in her hand. "Today was horrible. At the bank the line was unbelievably long. And the traffic was backed up when we left the pre-school because of some damn crash. And you know how it gets on these skiny, little two lane streets."

Maxwell turned the channel over to Nickelodeon and told Stanley to stay there. Maxwell and Tessa walked together into the kitchen. Tessa set the groceries down on the counter and got started on cooking the dinner. "So how was your day?"

"Today down at the plant something amazing happened. Guess what it was."

"You got a raise." Tessa turned to Maxwell excitedly. Maxwell nodded his head no. "Well then I don't know Max. What happened?"

"I've been researching on missiles and how to impove them, you know, because the war. I got this idea two nights ago about the Atom-bomb, I had a dream about it, I saw the blueprints and everything. So if we could shrink it we could destroy a lot of the European country's all at once and also end the war."

Tesse turned back to the grocerys and began to take them out. As she did this, she mumbled to herself about how the war was so stupid.

"Well today we were working on the subject and as if I were destined to figure it out, the blueprints just popped into my head. I drew everything up in less than two hours. Named it the M-bomb. And in a way I did get a raise, the plant's going to give me ten-thousand dollars to buy the blueprints."

Tessa jumped onto Maxwell wrapping her arms around his neck and his around her waist. "Oh that's great Max darling." She kissed him on his nose and looked into his eyes. "And I hope this does end the war. I really hope it works."

The three ate dinner happier than ever that night and they even went out for ice cream. Stanley was put to bed at eight and Tessa And Maxwell went into their bedroom at nine. They made love that night and thought that luck was their best friend...

But... friends can be deceiveing, very deceiving.

That night Stanley had a dream that wasn't very much like a dream. Infact the dream had taken Stanley out of his bed and put him some place else. The dream had really happened. In the dream Stanley had been walking through a place that he had never seen and did not like at all. It was a desert land where the world was an everlasting sandbox. Nothing had any color except for red and black. Stanley was very hot and he was starting to sweat. He was walking in this vacant land with no one in sight. A hot breeze picked up and blew Stanley's hair back. Some sand got blown into Stanley's eyes and he started to cry and yell for his mommy.

Stanley hunched down to the ground in his Spider-man pajamas and whimpered to the sand. Stanley was dreadfully scared, 'where's Mommy and Daddy?' Stanley was sweeting all over now and his eyes were teared up. His eyes were red from crying and rubbing.

Then there was a man. He was just there. Like a magic bunny pulled out of a hat, he appeared out of nothing. The man was very tall, six feet at the least. He was black and crusty with burnt up jean shorts that were black like the man. He looked like he had walked through a fire, or maybe an explosion. He could have been a marshmello that was kept in too long in the open camp fire. He was bare foot and had no shirt. The man had an ear ring pierced through his nipple. The man stepped over to Stanley without making any imprints in the sand.

He towered over Stanley and his shadow incapsulated the boy that wasn't even half the size of him. Stanley had stopped crying and was just taking stuttered breaths. Stanley began to look up and open his eyes. As he was opening his sore little eyes he noticed the shadow that had swallowed his. He immediatly began crawling away and crying, kicking up dirt as he franticly tried to escape. In a voice that was combined with both of Stanley's parent's voices, the man said to the little boy that was pissing in his pants, "And where do you think you're going to go? This just goes on and on, forever and ever, can't you see?"

Stanley was crying again, his tears were pouring down his face with a steady, rapid flow. He was tring to think of a way to get out of this bad, bad place that he didn't like at all. He was aware that he had wee-weed on himself, but he figured that getting in trouble with his parents was better then staying in this big, hot sandbox. He shouted back at the scary monster, "Leave me alone Bad Man. My daddy will hurt you."

"Hey Buddy, I'm not a bad man, I'm your friend. Come on buddy, I'm not gonna hurt ya." The man was smiling, revealing his black teeth that were half gone already. He was only about two feet behind Stanley because of his giant strides.

Stanley took a look behind him to see if he was losing the bad man, but of course he was right there. Stanley was sweating even worse now and sand was getting inside his pajamas. He barely noticied either of these things.

"Listen Buddy, I'm here because you're an important little boy." This caught hold of Stanley's attention but did not stop him. "Your daddy made something that is very special. It's going to change your life and your mommies life and your daddies life. It's going to change everyone's life, even mine Buddy." Now Stanley was slowing down. He was getting tired but still determined to get home and get in his daddies arms; he'd be safe there. And he'd be so happy he would eat vegtables without fussing about it. "Stanley, listen."

"Hey! How did you know my name." Now Stanley had stopped and he turned over onto his back. He could see the man's whole body. The thing on his nipple was the strangest thing he had ever seen; other then every thing else that was happening in this scary sandbox.

"Because, you're a special little boy. Listen Buddy, have you ever heard of Satan." Stanley shook his head. "And you probably think he's a really mean person, right?" Again Stanley shook his head. He was also looking side to side for anything at all besides sand; nothing. "Well he's not. He sent me here. He wants me to give you something. Now stand up ok."

Stanley stood up and brushed his back off. He tried to get the sand out of his pants by pulling the fabric away from his skin then letting it flap back several times untill he felt it was good enough. He could also see the wet streak down his legs and felt a little embarassed. He was now standing half a foot below the man's waist. In a bleek voice Stanley spoke to the man, "Who are you and why do you look like that?" He then sniffed a little.

"I don't know who I am or why I look like this", Actually he did know. His name is Justan Berch, at least when he was alive it was. He looked the way he looked because of when he died. He was a pyromaniac for hire. He had always been a pyro and when he was introduced to a man named Man So, a chinenese restraunt owner that was doing very bad one year, he learned about insurance and fires. He was hired for five-thousand dollars to burn down the restraunt. Justan loved the idea and took the job. He did the job quite well in his mind and was hired a month later by another failing businessman. This was how he made his money and how he payed for his home in the subburbs of Benunton, California. He was way in over his head one fateful night and was to drunk for the job. He wanted the fire to be spectacular this time. He had rigged the whole computer repair shop with nitrogliceren and thought to himself, 'Maybe I could just stay here and watch the fire start. I'll get out just after the fire gets really lovely. Yeah, I can do it.' He was confident of himself. So he flicked the switch. Just as the flames scorched his skin and his blood raced up to boiling point, he flew out of his body. He watched as his body exploded while he raced into the air, through the building and into the sky. When he was far enough where he wasn't able to see the exploding building anymore, he made a turn in direction and started to fall back to the ground. He couldn't feel the wind rushing through his hair or around his body. He was getting close to the end of the road, but when he should have hit the ground, he just kept going. He didn't go into the ground but through it and into another place, Hell. He was now falling towards the rugged, dirt ground. And when he hit the ground he hit hard, not like previously where he just went through. This was the new world that he would adapt to with it's horrible heat and misery.

The cripsy fried man began to hunch over to Stanley, it was sort of like a big dead timber tree falling over. The man looked into Stanley's little teary eyes and Stanley looked into the man's black eyes. Stanley became unaware of what was happening now. The man was instructing Stanley of what he would do in the next few days. Stanley was under hypnosis by Justan. Through justan's eyes, he told Stanley that he would have special powers now and the man then touched Stanley's forehead, Stanley closed his eyes and saw a place where there was nothing but pure white light. Out of the mist came a small, floating, black, ball. The ball made its way to Stanley and as though he weren't there it went though his head. As it passed through Stanley, he felt a rush of power, of knowledge, of hate, and of life. The lives of many who would suffer because of Stanley's power over so many.

Everything had gone blank and Stanley was unconsciense. He was back underneath his Power Rangers sheets and blankets. Everything that had ever been taught to him on how to be a good little boy was gone. Every happy memory of pre-school and McDonalds were gone. Evertime Stanley's father swung him around and made him feel like he was flying was taken and replaced with hatered and the plans that would be forced into the mortal world. Stanley would no longer be the little boy that loved watching t.v. or listening and singing with the sing-along tape. This was the new deproved Stanley Sonly that was chosen to end the world. To end human life forever.