Saddest Story I had ever heard in my entire life

Two 13-year-old boy cousins went out trick or treating the year was 1985. One cousin Ethan, had the best masks ever. You could tell his family paid a lot of money for it. He was Freddy Krueger, and the other cousin Bill, had a bit of aluminum foil on his face with a little ketchup trying to look like the terminator. As you may see Ethan’s family had money and Bill’s family, well had none.

But they did not care. They were excited to go out trick or treating. This could be their last year seeing as they were getting too old to go trick or treating. After going to a lot of houses, Ethan picked through the candy and threw out what he did not like, and Bill lit up a cigarette he had stolen from his mother earlier.

Ethan kept picking on my mother for being a bigger lady. He kept calling her names and saying bad things. He made me angrier each time he said things about her. I lit another cigarette and flicked my lighter as the anger swelled up inside of me. Ethan sat next to me on the swing and I took the lighter and flicked it at the base of the mask where his hair came out at the bottom. I just wanted to scare him but his hair lit up from the hairspray in his hair. The mask burst into flames and he screamed in pain. He couldn’t get the mask off his face. His screams were muffled from the mask on him. His face bubbled. One of his eyes burst. The mask was melted to his face, well what was left of his face.

Bill knew what he did was wrong he took full responsibility for his actions. He got into so much trouble but they all knew it was just an accident. Ethan had skin grafts and reconstructive surgery to fix his face. He never recovered. Not physically and not emotionally. Ethan killed himself in 1990. His parents forgave Bill for his actions years before.

Ethan’s family sued the mask company so this is why they now made the masks flame-resistant materials. Bill’s mom died a few years before Ethan just before complications from diabetes took her left leg. We were in the hospital with their mom and Ethan’s parents were also with Ethan when he was going through another round of skin grafts on his face. They came over to visit my mom while Ethan was still under.

Ethan’s mom was bragging about a new doctor that took on his case and is one of the best plastic surgeons in the country. They put the article in a magazine and when his mom opened it and saw the pictures of his burned face she just broke down. My mom held her. My mother always said that Ethan was so handsome he would end up in a magazine. She was right just not for the same reasons he had his face in the magazine.

I think this would be the hardest thing to deal with for anyone in these two families. I know any of my son's friends, I became close with and one was 15 and got murdered. That was the hardest thing for all the friends of the child. Not nearly as much as the family but hard for all to see such a young life taken. Think all those children and these two boys realized after that... life is short and things can happen in a snap of a finger.

If you care to hear the original story, it’s a narrated story on YouTube here is the link: https://youtu.be/ENeR4zi-BL0