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Description
They're always smiling.
They come in the dead of night, and you're partly wondering what's going on, and partly too shocked to utter any sort of scream, and you're praying desperately to whatever deities you hold dear, and they're smiling. It's like they enjoy what they're doing. They come and take you, in what is literally the darkest hour. The grins are locked onto their faces like shackles. Except voluntary.
I don't know why they do it, either. I don't know where they take everyone, or what they do with them. If I did, I'd have taken action a long time ago. But I don't.
Some people might consider me lucky. I haven't been taken yet. They were in my house; they took my whole family. Except for me. I sat, seven years old, watching their ghost-white faces disappear, screaming: first my father, then my mother and my younger brother. One of them walked into my room, and stared at me, in my little corner, trembling with fear and confusion.
He shook his head and moved on. I'll never forget that. I'll also never understand why he did it.
They walked out of the house after that, and I stayed where I was, huddled in a moonlit corner, until I fell asleep.
People consider me lucky. I'm not one of those people.
Because, what do you have to live for when your entire family has been taken from you?
I see nothing. I don't see how this will end. I want so badly to ensure no one would be taken.
But I see no end to this tunnel.

My neighborhood is a wreck; has been since that day, and I assume it always will be. I also assume that the rest of the neighborhoods are in a similar state: filthy, crumbling houses; streets filled with trash but never people; grass that grows long and yellow and curly like fingernails if it even grows at all. Many of the houses have been abandoned by people looking for a better place they'll never find, and have long since been broken into, nothing left valuable to loot from them. Those who stayed rarely leave their houses, and when they do they pay fleeting glances, not trusting anyone, hunched over whatever food they have left. We all manage to survive, if not suffer while we're at it.
And no one smiles. Not anymore. If you smile you can guarantee that you are an outcast; in a world of outcast people, you are not one of them and never will be. So many lost loved ones that day, so many will think automatically that you are mocking everything they once had and how it was taken from them.
And, with a mixture of hunting, scavenging, and a bit of trading, we manage to find food.
I tried to keep the house clean for a little while after. I tried to make it seem like everything was the same, like the doors would open and they would all be there, and they would hug me and congratulate me on how well I had taken care of things while they were gone. I tried to make it seem like maybe they were still here, watching me but invisible, intangible, unable to communicate with me. I imagined I knew where they were. I believed they would come back.
But seven years is a long time for a daydream to go on, and soon my enthusiasm faded – along with the condition of the house. It's still livable, of course, and in much better condition than the rest of the neighborhood. But I don't even want to know what happened to the upper level. I don't go there. From the beginning, I kept each door locked, afraid that if I opened one the memories would flood out and drift away, and nothing would be the same. I was afraid it would set in stone that everyone I loved was gone and was not coming back.
The doors are still locked.

Description
They're always smiling.
They come in the dead of night, and you're partly wondering what's going on, and partly too shocked to utter any sort of scream, and you're praying desperately to whatever deities you hold dear, and they're smiling. It's like they enjoy what they're doing. They come and take you, in what is literally the darkest hour. The grins are locked onto their faces like shackles. Except voluntary.
I don't know why they do it, either. I don't know where they take everyone, or what they do with them. If I did, I'd have taken action a long time ago. But I don't.
Some people might consider me lucky. I haven't been taken yet. They were in my house; they took my whole family. Except for me. I sat, seven years old, watching their ghost-white faces disappear, screaming: first my father, then my mother and my younger brother. One of them walked into my room, and stared at me, in my little corner, trembling with fear and confusion.
He shook his head and moved on. I'll never forget that. I'll also never understand why he did it.
They walked out of the house after that, and I stayed where I was, huddled in a moonlit corner, until I fell asleep.
People consider me lucky. I'm not one of those people.
Because, what do you have to live for when your entire family has been taken from you?
I see nothing. I don't see how this will end. I want so badly to ensure no one would be taken.
But I see no end to this tunnel.

My neighborhood is a wreck; has been since that day, and I assume it always will be. I also assume that the rest of the neighborhoods are in a similar state: filthy, crumbling houses; streets filled with trash but never people; grass that grows long and yellow and curly like fingernails if it even grows at all. Many of the houses have been abandoned by people looking for a better place they'll never find, and have long since been broken into, nothing left valuable to loot from them. Those who stayed rarely leave their houses, and when they do they pay fleeting glances, not trusting anyone, hunched over whatever food they have left. We all manage to survive, if not suffer while we're at it.
And no one smiles. Not anymore. If you smile you can guarantee that you are an outcast; in a world of outcast people, you are not one of them and never will be. So many lost loved ones that day, so many will think automatically that you are mocking everything they once had and how it was taken from them.
And, with a mixture of hunting, scavenging, and a bit of trading, we manage to find food.
I tried to keep the house clean for a little while after. I tried to make it seem like everything was the same, like the doors would open and they would all be there, and they would hug me and congratulate me on how well I had taken care of things while they were gone. I tried to make it seem like maybe they were still here, watching me but invisible, intangible, unable to communicate with me. I imagined I knew where they were. I believed they would come back.
But seven years is a long time for a daydream to go on, and soon my enthusiasm faded – along with the condition of the house. It's still livable, of course, and in much better condition than the rest of the neighborhood. But I don't even want to know what happened to the upper level. I don't go there. From the beginning, I kept each door locked, afraid that if I opened one the memories would flood out and drift away, and nothing would be the same. I was afraid it would set in stone that everyone I loved was gone and was not coming back.
The doors are still locked.