Lugubrious Vol. 1

Popped - 02 - Aggressive Approach

         Aku’s shout signals four hours have elapsed and twenty yet remain. I sit up and pull strands of my hair behind my ears, squinting above with a million ideas of how to proceed. I almost laugh when I picture Circe blasting Orca into a bloody mass on the floor, and the same excitement abounds with the reverse. What a fool I’ve been to believe I held the burden of making amends. What of them? Those two miserable women, who walk haughtily during the day, yet display the same zest for killing at night. I recall three occasions during the siege on the army headquarters where I (without thought) placed my body before Orca to save her useless life. She thanked me halfheartedly on only one of these occasions and forgets my sacrifice outright when the possibility of my death crosses her feeble mind. I’m sick and tired of it. The accusation that I have an irreparable ledger of ill deeds and that I should pretend like I wasn’t brainwashed and take on an eternal responsibility.
         I let forth a boiling scream that travels to the four horizons before hunkering down to my knees. An abounding electrical energy surges through me. I shoot my entire body up and penetrate the layer of clouds, puffs of white following along with my rising trajectory. I reach the highest point some distance above the fateful location where I had been shot dead, and curve down to meet a rolling landing. I barely manage to keep myself from falling again, forcing my body down upon my chest. After a moment in deafening silence I rise to a stand.
         Back in the position where I had been so rudely halted my sights align in the direction not yet explored. A winking dagger on the asphalt sets my hands searching for Miranda’s revolver. Cursing at the gun’s absence I scoop up the shining steel blade and sheath it under a coarse belt. I figure the dagger had been left on accident, though some part of me wants to believe Miranda had discarded it there purposefully, foreseeing my reemergence into this twisted spectacle. It is now that I notice how ragged and torn my brown jacket has become. It is held together in some places by mere threads exposing my pale chest. Breaking into a full sprint I suck and blow air with the force of a locomotive. My hands curl to fists as they swing back and forth. The two bridges again connect to one. This single path could have gone on forever, and by the time I see some new sight the game master announces the fifth hour.
         A set of stone steps are lodged into the face of a towering mountain. Who could but marvel at the odd sight: a giant point of land bursting from clouds and rising up into a bright heaven. There, at the apex, beacons a bright aura like a star. I estimate the rise to last no more than a mile and set off. During this trek I note the railing to be made of pure gold and every fifty or so steps see a pair of bronze statues resembling different animals. I spot a boar, a bear, a dolphin and some distorted species of which I have no knowledge. The ascent ends. I swear to have stepped into a wall of light before even reaching the top.
         A cacophony of senses seizes me in a sudden change of environment. Birds and insects sing their songs through an aroma of honeysuckle. Vivid green paints the surrounding meadow interrupted only from a trickling stream, a wall of great oaks and a single-story stone building with a tinted blue window. A sun is now placed in the bright sky, a densely wooded hill visible in the distance acting as a boundary. I look down at my boots stepping over a patch of lucid dandelions swaying in a warm and pleasant wind. Needless to say I’m caught by surprise and
stop a moment to take in the pleasant change. I look behind me to find a granite wall with roots sticking out through cracks. There is also the bright portal of light that would transport me back into the lurid surroundings of the mountain steps and sky bridges. A cursory glance yields none of my targets and I feel possessed to sit before the stream and pluck out a small and dripping pebble.
         How simple is this insignificant little gray thing with no immediate application to the human life? But then, to what purpose does humankind apply things? Take the women that I cannot for a moment expunge from my thoughts. They appear beautiful to the eye, resolute in their day to day dealings, professing purpose in their occupations and relationships. But is there an end to their “purpose”? Peel away the fabricated layer of social interactions and we have mere biological organisms that have an equal fate of death. Peel away the skin and there is muscle, bone, cartilage and squishy organs working together in an endless cycle of burning energy and expelling wastes. How can these energy consumers assume a moral superiority? How can these transitory sacks of shit pretend that staying alive is the greatest good? Stay alive so they might continue to pursue a purpose that only exists because society made it up; a made up purpose of distraction that coos infant humanity into forgetting the depressing and uncaring nature of the universe.
         We all die, I remind myself, and a trillion years from now it really won’t matter to us whether we lived an extra fifteen years or dropped dead from cardiac arrest in a crowded subway station. Why shouldn’t I kill Orca and Circe? They’ve both shown their ultimate desire of survival. I want to survive, too. I gave them their chance and told them my theory. In response I got shot through with holes from a woman who will never see me as a fellow human but as some monster synthesized in a laboratory. I stand up and grip the hilt of the dagger baring my teeth in such a way that could be described as monstrous.
          A click of a rifle draws my attention to the building’s roof. Here we find Circe and her slightly crooked nose and long reddish hair. She has on a dark skin-tight suit of sorts and is giving off a rather crooked frown. The lens of the rifle is encompassed by a giant glare that might otherwise show my own reflection. I whip out my dagger and hold an arm over my heart instinctively. Cautiously I approach directly towards the girl. I need not bother myself with finding cover. She’ll be dead before the first shot fires.
         “Stay away,” she says. “Why did you have to survive?”
         “An interesting question. Why did I have to die?”
         “Don’t take another step or I’ll have to shoot you.”
         I take another step.
         “Did you already take care of the other women?”
         “They’re coming to kill me, damn it. I know they are.”
         “Why would that be?”
         “Because I was terrified, and I don’t want to die, so—”
         “You only need to kill one person, after all. I’m a target,” I move my protective arm and tap my heart three times. “They tell me if my heart or brain takes enough damage I cannot come back from the brink. Surely you aim well enough as a Gate soldier.”
         “Why are you doing this?”
         I don’t respond and so Circe continues.
         “The moment I shoot at you, you’re going to come slit my throat, right?”
         “I fancy I’m going to do that anyway.”
         “Please!”
         “Come now, Gate woman. I have no doubt your superiors have given you every excruciating detail about my character. I rape, I murder, I burn, I torture. Why should I give these things up? They were the only actions that gave me acceptance by even a sliver of sentient life. Suppose I did give them up and went out to right these wrongs. What should I find but even more enemies than before? What should I see but the same people who were saved by my hand shoot me unto death! If I cannot ever hope to make amends then I won’t. Gate can continue to hate me. The people of Muk and Earth can continue to have their monster they so articulately depicted.
         “If you had spotted me in a desert, accompanied by your comrades, wouldn’t you say to them ‘there’s that monster, let’s take him by surprise’? If you had found me here, wounded and still regenerating, wouldn’t you unleash an entire magazine into my frame, feeling utterly justified that no murder was being committed? No, your fear cannot mask your true nature. The fact that I had been reformed, broken free from a terrible slavery under an evil master, and now experience the same excruciating emotions as you, makes me no less below you, no less worthy of death. I hate you. I hate all of you.”
         “Stop,” Circe said at once. “Please, listen to me, don’t come—“
         I leap from my position with the same electric force as before. Circe pops off a quick shot from the rifle but misses by a foot. My fist connects with her skull as I came down upon the hut’s roof; a rapid kick disarms the rifle from her grip. Jabbing her abdomen five times in hasty succession I see her fall to the sanded stone with my final slug to her jaw. Wasting no time I jump atop her, pressing my knees onto her arms and fixing the edge of my blade to her vulnerable neck. Her pleading eyes meet mine.
         I picture the moment when I would slit the throat open, peering into a vortex of dark red, imagining the pungent stench and hearing the gurgling cries of an animal rapidly heading towards death. I envision her last spark of life in those watery orbits, the dawning of a realization that this was life’s ultimate purpose. Those years serving under Gate were only detours meaningless the moment the brain ceased to have memories. Those whom she affected, those who laughed or wept in her presence, would also die in time. They would be replaced by a new and forgetful generation insisting on learning lessons all over again. I cannot fathom how many generations have come and gone in this manner each wielding their own version of purpose so long as it elevated above death. They succeeded wonderfully in obscuring the objective truth: organisms will die in a universe that does not care.
         I make to slice in earnest when some inner feeling surfaces like a thunderbolt. My fist twitches and sweat forms across my brow. I find that at some point during my musings I began crying. Streams of tears now crawl down my cheeks to the bottom of my chin, dripping onto Circe’s face.
         “We have purpose,” I say
         This simple statement unleashes the full weight of my tears. I cry out and seal my eyes shut while my heartbeat performs rhythmic music in my ears. Circe’s own labored breath joins in my miserable screams.
         I get off Circe and saunter to the edge of the roof. Here I stand grasping the roots of my hair and stay in this position with the discipline of a statue.
         From the noise it becomes clear Circe has gotten up from the ground.
         “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
         “Coner.”
         My name is said so tenderly I am forced to view the speaker, my eyes wide and red.
         Circe rubs at her neck before adjusting the buttons on her suit’s wrists. She forces a smile in my direction that looks warped from the fresh bruise over her jaw.
         “If you were that monster Gate talked about, you wouldn’t have spared me just now.”
         Unable to carry my own weight I crash down onto my knees and bury my face to hands, the dagger slipping and knocking across the hard roof.
         “I just want to start it all over again.”
         “Start what?”
         “Life, my life!”
         The Gate woman clicks her lips together and haughtily swings her head away.
         “Don’t we all.”
         A silence settles over us. In this instant it becomes clear that the anger has subsided in its entirety. I have returned full circle to the scathing caress of depression. In these times I have long since moved on from self-pity. I have not the capacity for so vain a thing. It can only be described as the most hopeless prison far from the realms of a man who broods in temporary sadness waiting for the emotional high one gets on being cheered.
         “Look, she’s coming.”
         My body jerks at Circe’s words. I cross the roof and take a position next to her to take a careful survey of the elongated granite. Orca has stepped through the portal of light and now crosses for the flowing waters. She seems less winded than before and has since discarded her leather coat. Her acute sense brings her attention to us where she yields to a look of shock. I arrest Circe’s shoulder and whisper “get out of here.” She breaks from my hold, giving an eerie expression of anger, and takes it upon herself to leap off the building on the opposite side.
         I drop down causing a cloud of dirt to spray skyward. A gust of strong wind sweeps through at the same moment I pounce for the dropped rifle resting by a stone. The gun is plated with smooth white steel and its scope bulky. I decide to aim manually training the sights on the witch during her rapid approach. As predicted she comes close, the machine gun not yet taken in her dexterous hands, where she contents herself on looking upon me with disgust and curiosity. A pop with the aesthetics of dynamite takes me by surprise. A piece of Orca’s arm blows out. She is forced down and rubs the bloody wound.
          Circe is seen peeking behind the closest oak sticking forth a magnum revolver. I see her rubbing a sore wrist and find myself at first surprised she could maintain hold of such a powerhouse without losing it to recoil. The second shot does send the revolver flying off, and I imagine I could trace the bullet all the way to the witch’s left shoulder. Orca is blown back. She remains there for the moment resting in a rapidly expanding a puddle of red. When next I see that Circe has recovered the gun and intends a third shot my legs are commanded to action. I take her by the side and knock her moments before the fatal bullet is released. She shrieks and rolls through a patch of tall weeds.
         “I’m all for protecting you,” I say breathlessly, “but no one dies.”
         She shouts back, redfaced.
         “Don’t give me that bullshit. You want her dead as much as me.”
         “Why would you want her dead? She shot me, not you.”
         Orca has already regained a standing. She looks like a savage with drool slipping from the corner of her mouth, shirt torn and stained all over. She hunches as she walks for us, giving rasping breaths. I find a momentary admiration in the determination and fearlessness in this aggressive march.
         “I killed her mom and dad,” I say offhandedly.
         “What?”
         I find now Circe’s revolver aimed at my heart. Her eyes are wide and teary, glazed over with a sort of madness. She bares her broad yellowing teeth and begins to speak in growls.
         “Goddammit,” she says. “You bastard. You say you want to start over, well I have things to live for.”
         I step in front of Circe in time to meet the familiar sound of brilliant gunfire. The machine gun unloads into my back tearing from it the coat so feebly attached. The shots stop prematurely and I’m left leaning on the Gate woman in a state of indescribable pain. It takes all my effort not to fall immediately to unconsciousness and I resolutely turn my head to find Orca not ten paces away. Her scowl deepens.
         “You stupid idiot,” Orca says in slurred speech.
         She takes from her belt a miniature, green pistol loaded with a silver protrusion much like a small harpoon. I betray terror at the sight of it.
         “Where did you get that?” I ask, unable to decide what to do.
         I push Circe aside and evade the soaring silver rod as it sails past a hair from my ear. My attention half notices Circe’s retreat to the back woods but I pay closer attention to the witch reaching for a second green pistol. My back meets the bark of the tree, sloppy blood sticking to my skin.
         “We don’t have to kill,” I protest. “You’ve thought of it too.”
         Orca wobbles and tries heartily to maintain a steady balance. Her shot arm remains limp and the shoulder pumps out blood at a rapid pace. The green gun rises and aligns to my chest.
         “I got this,” she stammers. “I got it from the game master. He wants us to kill… you.”
         I feel a wave of intense lethargy. Then my left hand spews off in a spray of crimson mist. I let a great cry release from my lungs. There is Circe, sprinting for us, firing in random spreads without heed of which target she nails. Rising above the pain with grit teeth I feel the electrical energy pour from my very core in abounding quantities. Tiredness is converted to force, my body achieving its highest level possible.
         I dig my fist into Orca’s stomach and floor her, speeding from the tree and stomping over the stream. I face the drab walls of the building and jump up towards the sun, elevating the length of five stories. I levitate in the bright blue of the sky with sparks crackling from my arms and legs. My hand then begins to reform: first as a skeletal mass, then with tendons, muscle and ending with a smooth layer of skin. I move my new hand to my side and point at Circe, now as a bug below me, casting a wry smile in her direction.
         “None of you have the talent to kill me,” I say. “You easily manipulated bitches.”
         I find one of the silver harpoons come screaming towards me. I snatch it in its flight, bending the rod between two fingers, and toss it aside.
         “While I’m here, I’m in control,” I say. “If anyone as much as thinks of killing someone else, I’ll rip their spine out. Did you get that? I said I’ll rip out your fucking spine.”
         I move my other arm and make a violent gesture for the building below. A blinding barrage of lightning bolts rips through the grey structure shattering it into chunks. The dust from the destruction spreads about giving a blinding effect to the insects still on the ground. I laugh and begin to contemplate where next to strike.
          “I’ll kill all of you,” I hear Circe bellow from below. “You can’t expect us to die without trying. I want to live.”
         “Be quiet,” Orca says to Circe, “I’ll kill you for being such a coward.”
         I demand their silence and send a blue bolt howling down at a spot between the two women. I hear their gasps in unison. These gasps swell my pride and I cast my sights to the heavens.
         “This feels great. I don’t have to take this shit anymore. I can do whatever I want. I’m in control.” I look down. “Where’s your righteousness now, Orca? Your moral pandering sound great when I’m at the end of your gun! Tell me now I must be killed for justice to be served. Say to me that everything I’ve done to make amends is futile. And you, wretched Gate whore, you beg for your life, and when mercy is shown, you are quick to turn your murderous mind on the next closest target. The lot of you deserves to rot! It’s only by my choosing, my mercy, my character that you still stand there breathing.”
         Ending this tirade I fully expect some crude rebuke. Instead I feel the slightest prick behind on my neck, then another above my heel. I gaze lazily down and, to my great horror, see the silver shaft lodged above my Achilles. It’s my turn to gasp as I feel the hold I have over gravity give way. I feel dizzy and the ground twirls in my sights. It does not register that I’m falling until my side cleaves upon the jagged ground. Here my limp body is sent bouncing up and crashing down where I come to a final halt at the side of the rivulet.
         Through the masking powder of rocky dust I catch a brief glimpse of Miranda before she escapes from sight.
         The pylon crystal that makes up the tiny harpoon acts much like a lightning rod when it comes to my formidable powers. Sprawled and helpless as I am it dawns on me that I could no longer regenerate new wounds inflicted upon me. I try, like countless times before, to dislodge the crystal only to find the effort fruitless. It requires the assistance of another to free me from this bind.
          With a cough and gasp I stand ever so slowly. I hear gunfire. I find none of it aimed for me and begin to scour the small field for any fresh cover on which to take. The sight of Miranda is recalled and I waste no time in my run to the granite wall where I saw her last. The thought did dawn on me that Miranda had been the one to fire those infernal projectiles. After all, how else did one hit behind my neck when I looked full upon Orca and Circe? I couldn’t conceive her actually committing the deed. It seemed far more likely Orca had used some time magic to perform the attack.
         Nevertheless, I see now Orca supported behind a thin iron column firing away at Circe who jumps from one boulder to another. The two seem dead-set on slaying the other. If Orca had used time magic then it follows in my experience that she should be far too fatigued to continue on like this. Added to this her wounds grow at each passing minute. This all but obliterates the theory in my mind and I again contemplate Miranda. How could she do something like this? What possible force possessed her to fire at me?
         I find the girl hugging her shins a few yards shy of the light portal. She eyes me with a sort of terror, taming back haphazard hair to show a sweaty brow. It doesn’t take long to notice the dozen green pistols lined up neatly over the grass. I step next to her and pound my fist on the mountainous wall with an exaggerated clearing of my throat. She bounces up apparently too shocked to give voice to her thoughts. I shake my head somberly.
         “Help me,” I say.
         “I can’t.”
         “So you were the one who shot me.”
         No response.
         “I could have died.”
         “I’m so sorry.”
         “Why? Why?”
         She bites a nail and keeps her gaze fixed at her feet.
         “I’m sorry.”
         “I know you are, so explain yourself already.”
         “Perhaps I can explain.”
         Here Aku steps up smug and sprightly. He has changed from the robes I saw him wear at the game’s start. He now has a dark navy suit with khaki pants holding both hands in his pockets. The suit is full of pouches with looping wires that connects to different silver compartments woven into the fabric. The suit continues up his neck and ends at the bottom of his chin where I note his well cut black hair. He appears astoundingly young.
          “It seems,” he says, “that before my intervention no one was going to continue playing.”
         “Oh?”
         “Two women stayed motionless by the clock tower, and the red-head here in this meadow. Then I observed you coming here and knew you’d probably hide the red-head somewhere and stay stationary until time ran out.”
         “So, what happens to those who don’t get a point?”
         He pauses and takes a moment to chuckle to himself.
         “It’s really no secret that a fate far worse than death awaits those who fail.”
         “Then we don’t die?”
         “I think I already answered that.” Aku leans in close. “If you fail, I win.”
         “We’ll see."
         “But enough about that, my friend. I’ll let you in on a little secret. I do have one liberty here, I may choose to facilitate easier killing if I’m so inclined. I had the pylon weapons delivered.”
         “I guessed as much,” I say looking hard at Miranda. “But why did you do it?”
         “She did it because I promised that the glorious Vann would return someone she cared for back into the realms of the living.”
         I feel an icy grip seize my chest. I take Miranda by her collar and nearly lift her from the ground. She shrieks and pleads.
         “You would kill me over someone else? You would choose them over me?” My eyes start to blur. “Did I mean so little to you all this time?”
         “No,” she says, “No!”
         “Answer the question! Why did you do it? I want to hear it from your own lips.”
         “H—he said I only had to shoot you and that was it!”
         “Shoot me? Shoot me with a pylon, are you mad? That’s like handing me over personally to a firing squad.”
         I release one hand and point venomously at Aku.
         “And you, I was planning on failing. Why go through all this trouble to have me killed?”
         Aku shrugs.
         “Watching people sit for hours is boring.”
         “My ass,” I hurl Miranda away. She hits her head and topples to the ground, sobbing.
         “I’m having a lot more fun watching this scene than I would with the alternative.”
         “Do you even have the authority to raise the dead?”
         “If I were lying, I’d be dead.”
         I restrain every muscle from taking a strike at the arrogant kid before me. I close my eyes for but a moment, and when next I open them Aku has utterly
vanished. I rapidly search around for where he might have gone and find no indication. Just then, I hear a terrible howling scream that chills me to the bone. I figure either Orca or Circe has just then met their end in the throes of their fatal combat.
         “Help me,” I cry to Miranda who has just now recovered from her abuse. “Nevermind what you’ve done, take these out of my flesh and we can forget it ever happened.”
         “I want to see him again,” she forcefully replies. “I want to see Vorque.”
         “That man,” I cry. “That common soldier?”
         “But—”
         “You’re going to kill me.”
         A sound sets me looking for the return of Aku. Instead I see the pale Orca limping closer with the aid of a twisted stick. Her yellow pupils settle on me with little recognition in them. I see her body now completely dyed red, cuts and holes littering the woman’s limbs. I expect her to fall flat and expire, but she remains standing for minutes observing me in this delusional way. 
         “I killed her,” she says at last.
         Orca tosses the makeshift staff aside and lunges for me. In a frenzy I make to defend but fail to prevent her tight embrace. With her good arm she rips the pylon rod from my neck, at the same time removing the one at my knee with the front of her shoe. I remain in a state of confusion as her hug continues. My energy flows back and I awkwardly wrap an arm gently around her shoulders.          
         “Now, you kill me,” she says.
         It is the time-witch’s time to cry, quite literally onto my chest.
         “I won’t.”
         “You will, because the two of you will live.”
         Again, confusion grips me and I try to recall what brought upon this sudden change of heart. Could this simply be the result of being shot so close to death that she cannot foresee her own recovery? Perhaps, in light that she couldn’t defeat me even under the restrictions of the pylon, she sees this as the only way of saving Miranda. That I would be saved is but an unfortunate afterthought.
         “You,” she says. “You said you’d rip out my spine, or something like that.”
         “Well…”
         “Learn to keep your promises.”
         “I didn’t promise I’d do that.”
         I look over to Miranda who watches the scene partially obscured behind nearby hedges. One look at her boils my blood and makes me wish I could rip out her spine. It is odd, this sense of betrayal is so profound that even being shot dead by an enemy seemed light by comparison.
         Orca breaks off and stumbles clumsily back.
         “You really… have become a lot like your brothers.”
         I spit to my side.
         “Look, this is what’s going to happen. We’re going to find some way of patching you up. You’re a magician, meaning your chance of survival is pretty good. Then, we’re going to sit on our asses until the timer runs out.”
         “If you won’t kill me,” Orca eyes over at the hiding girl, “maybe you will.”
         “Don’t ask me to do that,” Miranda says. “I couldn’t.”
         I lose every ounce of my desire to continue standing in that spot. The others both speak up as I briskly walk away towards the densest part of the woods a quarter mile out. It becomes clear nether are willing to stop my sudden retreat.