Post by danteslover on Jul 28, 2007 22:54:00 GMT -5
I'll be safe and rate this T, for various things. Nothing bad, I don't think as far as bad goes. I had to write an emergency alternate ending for it though; the story would have been too long for me to finish otherwise. I hope you will enjoy the story. Oh, and good luck to everyone enterning the contest.
Description: The story basically falls in line with a time when the world has been all but destroyed by pollution. When one character wants to choose any lengths to right the wrongs of society and bring the Earth back to a steady living condition, it may be more than what it was worth, or just what he'd intended it to be...
Future Night
I miss the sun. I saw it once as a child, but just once. Father said he used to see it every day. I’d have given anything to be with him back then; when the sun shone every day. I can remember each of its sensations, as if they were separate entities. The warmth it brought; the wonder and marvel of its size; the strength of its shine. It was like being entwined with a warm snake, the scales of which seemed to glow with their own light rather than a reflection. Snake fits the part, yes. I didn’t see it for long before being dragged away. ‘Deathly’, that’s what they called it. Nothing more than a harmless light in the sky…
How childish of me. What does the sun truly mean now? It is gone… and it may as well be my own fault. I am of what would cause such chaos. It would seem that I am misplaced in my existence; I can no longer fight the proper way, if ever a way was proper. Misguided and infantile, I shall surrender my soul to be damned; for what once was pure has never been pure, and thus fighting the truth is meaningless.
*
“We are alone…”
“No, no! Stop with your philosophical nonsense, Jetty. You know very well that we have the upper hand now.”
“And for what? And for what cost, Bere? We are no better than the men that drove us to this conflict!” Jetty spat, swooshing his hand outward in effect of his words.
“More than one thousand of your men would pay limbs to be in your position.” Bere persisted. “You have the right to own the best building land on the continent. Only you would not steal the opportunity from the belly of a demon for any cost.”
Jetty looked up at the sky, the sallow light gleaming off of his mask like a shining, milky, liquid gold spray. He shook his head, looking back down to the ground. “Bere…” he began, though he never did finish.
“What Jetty?” Bere said, exasperated to where Jetty was unsure he had heard his own question spoken. Jetty waited a few moments, flexing his fingers as he looked at them.
‘Impossible...’ is all he could think as he stared on. Thoughts drifted through his mind of happier times, those which he had never lived. The legends of times passed, the ingenuity that had brought him to sit upon that stone. Nothing sunk in, almost as if he was not thinking at all. Suddenly, he seemed to be awake. “Thirteen years, Bere. Thirteen years…” Jetty paused, looking to Bere, who seemed to be hiding frustration. “All those years and nothing. What does it matter? What do we fight for? I cannot see--”
“Stop!” Bere shouted. He was shaking with anger. Swallowing, he chose his words with only slight caution. “Does our commander avoid keeping tabs on the News? It is for something…” Bere stopped and looked at Jetty, who seemed now to have a fresh thousand things to say. However, he continued. “And as far as your concerns go, sir, it could be for something… if we could get to Japan.” Bere closed his mouth upon seeing the tension in Jetty’s eyes. His jaw was clenched, his nose flared slightly.
“How would you expect us to get to Japan, Bere?” Jetty asked sarcastically.
“You would find us a way, sir.” Bere stated, being sure to sit up straight and watch Jetty closely.
“Boats and planes… they are out of the question. Unless you know a man who can walk on water…?” Jetty stopped. Bere did not move. “Lieutenant?” Jetty growled the word with distaste towards the man.
Bere flinched. “I suggested that you may only once allow the use of a vessel, so as to see to your own desires.” Bere’s breathing was uneven in fright. Jetty both smiled and frowned at this.
“Quite like shooting myself in the foot, is it not Bere?”
“I never said that a personal sacrifice was any less than required, sir.” Bere asserted in a loud, strong voice.
“Go back to your post, soldier.” the Commander ordered.
“Sir, yes sir!”
Bere stood up immediately and walked back towards the entrance of the base. His mask caught the soiled light of the deadened clouds as he headed towards the dirt-laden entrance. Bere. A man of indignant malignance that had more than once been his downfall, but even more often saved his milky hide. Such a fool he could be! And yet, the General was so fond of his soldier.
‘Thirteen years…’
Jetty sighed as he removed the mask he wore. How could he ever do such a thing in front of his soldiers? Each one of them had given up so much to join him. Him! What a joke! No man should give him a thing if it meant to save his life… and yet they’d given up lives just to join him. Men that shared not his view; men that would follow him blindly. Those who had killed to be here; others who had not killed to make it without being killed.
‘A fool’s errand!’ he thought. ‘What sane man would give his life to me? And for all sake of love, why? Why… Why do they even wish to live?’
Jetty inhaled greedily the near-toxic air. It had once been so fresh and clean and clear… yet another reason he should want to die. He gagged on the scent and taste of the air… no, not air; a constant smog that smothers everything, leaving nothing to breathe free. He felt himself shiver. He was not cold – it was all but impossible to be cold here, and now of all times – but instead he was sickened. As he tilted on the rock with disgust thick in his mind, he shoved the mask against his face so quickly and with such force that it smacked into his nose and forehead. He grunted, and then absorbed the scent of filtered air from the mask.
‘Perhaps it is time to change thought processes…?’
Afraid he may have been bleeding from the force of the impact with his thick glass mask, Jetty looked at the base entrance and stumbled for it, tripping twice before he made it there. He coughed into his mask, trying to breathe the clean air in futility. His hands trembled and he bolted down the first few steps, tripping when he slowed at the fourth. At this his breath caught in his throat as he gripped at the rough walls. An ancient piece of rusted aluminum stuck out from the rocky dirt walls, slicing his hand as he fell. He gave a strangled whimper of pain, his mask slipping from his hand as he collided with the carved, uneven stone steps. Instantly his head throbbed in pain.
“Lieutenant, sir.”
“What is it, Private Fread?” asked Bere with a look of distaste on his face. Fread looked with the same distasteful malice at his Lieutenant, and spoke slowly and normally, sitting slumped against the wall.
“I heard something at the entrance. It should be investigated, I think, sir.” He half smiled as he leaned, relaxed, against the sodden wall. Bere, irritated by Fread’s manner, nodded and turned around to face the soldiers behind him.
“Alright then.” he said with a gruff voice. “Private White, go with Private Fread to investigate the front entrance. I want you back here,” he pointed to the ground as he said this, “in no less than eight minutes. Am I understood?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” yelled Bloom White. He stood and waited for Fread to join him, though he did not move. Lieutenant Kelsler turned to him; he was becoming angry quickly.
“Am I clear, Private?” He gave Fread an icy stare. White looked like he was getting angry too; but he looked more threatening than the Lieutenant did. Fread wore no smile as he got clumsily to his feet. He brushed off his dirt-covered pants and flipped his hair out of his eyes. Hands shoved into his pockets, he smiled and nodded.
“Crystal, sir…” Fread breathed the words as if he sighed when he said them. Bere did not look satisfied, but dismissed him. White moved to the door as Fread moved to follow him.
“Wait!” yelled the Lieutenant. Both soldiers stopped with quite the surprised looks on their faces. Tossing his head sideways and back over his shoulder Fread waited in curiosity to hear what he’d wanted to say. A minute went by and still he said nothing, as if weighing his options.
“Sir?” asked Fread.
“Yes…” Bere fidgeted. “I want both of you to take sabers and at least one pair of binoculars. Do you understand? Nothing more and nothing less.”
“Sir, yes--”
“What?” said Fread, cutting off the never-arguing White.
“Do you have a problem, soldier?” asked Lieutenant Kelsler, clearly angry.
The other soldiers in the room looked on with interest. These particular altercations were not uncommon, but they were always interesting. Either the two had some kind of history together, or they had just decided they hated each other. Fread had been outraged when General Jetty had promoted Kelsler instead of him. Few other soldiers dared to agree with his point of view, as it was a dangerous side to take. The prompt behind his decision was unknown, but understandable. Fread, however, had never seemed to have gotten over it.
“What if we go out there and it’s those bloody Kingsmen again? We’ll need guns or bows or… or something.” Fread looked angry, but also a bit panicked. Bere waved him off.
“If you’re talking about that army of Frenchmen, don’t worry about it. They wouldn’t attack us here again without prep. It’s much too dangerous for them…” Bere looked over Fread with a pleased eye, his grin growing as Fread’s frown deepened. “Now then,” said a pleased Lieutenant, “do what you’re ordered to do, soldier.”
Fread breathed deep and slow. “Yes, sir…” he said, brow furrowed and nose flared in anger. He pushed past White and into the corridor beyond the room. White looked harmlessly at the Lieutenant and nodded, then turned and left the room.
Bere took a seat next to the soldiers on the bench and sighed. He looked down at the line of soldiers watching him and smiled. “Did you enjoy the show?”
Only one soldier responded, moving from his seat to Bere’s feet quickly, and sitting there.
“Sir, you shouldn’t let Fread just act like that. General Jetty wouldn’t.” The soldier looked innocent enough, and Bere smiled again.
“No, Jetty wouldn’t…” Bere’s expression became grave. “Jetty would kill him.”
*
“You don’t have to be like that with him over everything, Vivendro.” White said firmly. Fread shrugged the comment aside.
“You wouldn’t understand, Bloom.” Fread sighed, a distant look twisting his narrow features. Bloom was unlike the other soldiers; he wanted to understand instead of judge. The other soldiers loved to criticize at the first opportunity. Of course, Fread understood that as he himself had been the same until he’d felt the affects of such an attitude. He liked Bloom, because Bloom was the only one who truly wanted to understand. In many ways, Fread owed him his sanity. No doubt the other soldiers hated Bloom for keeping Fread sane… Or rather, would hate him if they knew the two talked often. It wasn’t safe to agree with Fread, let alone be friends with him as far as the other recruits were concerned.
“What do I still not understand? I’m trying to understand. I don’t want to be like everyone else.” Bloom’s voice echoed dismayed frustration. Fread knew why he was like this, and he did feel bad about not explaining it to him but it was… complex.
“Maybe it’s better to be like your father this time. Not all of it should be understood.” Fread’s head slumped to the side, trying to glimpse Bloom White’s reaction.
White visibly stiffened, but he didn’t look mad. Fread shifted his eyes to look ahead, standing straighter. He could feel the intense waves of disappointment and shame flowing between them, but said nothing. The two moved through the busy and crowded underground halls, reaching the back of the facility with swift movements and stiff shoulders. Fread rubbed his hands along the leather of his inner pockets, glancing with nervous tension at his comrade now and again. Vivendro Fread was soon scratching his jacket with dirty, ridged nails, working holes into the soft and rare material. White had shown few signs of returning from his mental retreat.
Maybe it’s better this way after all… Fread thought sadly. Maybe it was better not to have someone who wanted to understand; it was better to force them to understand. But no… he’d rather no one understood. It was probably best.
Even still, he wanted White to want to understand. It was good to feel like somebody wanted to see through your eyes, especially when you were unhappy. Perhaps he was only fooling himself into thinking a friend was a mere ploy. He did need someone. If only one person could understand…
Could that really—
Fread could think no longer, as he nearly crashed into the wall of the huge, round armory at the back of their facility. White was the only thing that saved him, as he had stopped and grabbed Fread’s shoulder in the knick of time. Fread feigned relief.
“Thanks, Bloom. That could have been messy.” Fread sounded convincing enough for someone pretending to be thankful. White, however, did not respond. He pulled his massive hand from Vivendro’s shoulder and grabbed two sabers from the wall, shoving one into Fread’s hand. He then looked hurriedly for a pair of binoculars.
“Bloom, I’m sorry, I--”
“No, don’t be.” Bloom stopped him. “We’re taking much too long. It’s okay, Vivendro, I understand. You don’t want to tell me right now.” White turned to the side door and drug Fread behind him.
“I can walk, Bloom.” Fread struggled to say. Bloom drug him to his side and released his shirt.
“Yes, I know.” Bloom mumbled.
*
They reached the entrance quickly, six of their eight minutes gone. The entrance was beyond a heavy door, past which all soldiers were required to wear dark-glass masks. White and Fread each took one and secured them to their faces. They looked to each other, and Bloom nodded.
Fread’s eyes shifted to the door and back to Bloom. In an instant, his hand was gripping the door handle and Bloom was shoving the trick hinge outward. The heavy steel door swung outward. With an apprehensive stare, the two soldiers bounded outward and rolled to the sides of the uneven rock-and-sod stairs. Bloom looked around to the upper stairs, watchful as a merekat; Fread looked down the long corridor to the other entrances, hidden throughout their valley. He was called away from his task when he heard Bloom pant in shock.
He turned his head warily up the steps and witnessed his General laying in painful silence on the stairs.
“No!” Fread’s voice ripped away as he screamed. Bloom looked on, unable to choke out his thought of ‘what should we do?’.
An acidic wind blew through the entry way, and a piece of crumpled paper fell unwillingly from General Jetty’s hand. It was bloodstained; a strange testament to his life as the words unfolded. Afraid to run for help, to leave Jetty alone – to do anything, in pure fact – Fread dropped his saber and opened the paper with violently shaking hands, and tears clouding his eyes. He read in a broken voice, which did not believe in even itself:
Bere,
I am sorry it has to end this way. If I have given you this letter, then you know it is over. There was never a place called for us to say was our resistance. Humans have destroyed this once great planet. As it stands, all dates are lost. I know I told you I wanted to end all use of the machines that polluted the planet, and that made the air like acid. So, I’m shooting myself in the foot.
I am allied with several different alliances. By the time you read to here, I am gone. By the time you understand it is too late. I have set them upon themselves. My father was good enough, but I am better. The only way to end the world is to have the humans destroy themselves as well. Itallion will come for you all, and have promised I won’t feel a thing.
I said, ‘neither will you’.
I’m sorry. It’s over, because it never was. Have a pleasant afterlife.
Jetty
“He wants the planet dead.” Bloom struggled out, staring in horror at the corpse of the once-beloved General Jetty.
“He wants more than that.” Fread struggled to say. A sadistic smile lit his face through the light on his mask. “He wanted me to suffer…”
“Your father…” Bloom chocked. His eyes darted between Jetty and Fread.
“No… But my father is part of the Itallion resistance of Dead Italy…”
*
It took only hours. Everyone knew, and by the time they could move out, the Italian resistance – Itallion – was upon them. Pleased that Bere was the last left, having lost only one member of their squadron, the Italians mocked him. He was locked for hours, screaming, into a room with the corpse of Jetty, who seemed to half-smile. Nowhere to look but ahead, Bere looked on until he was hoarse, crying constantly.
As the Italian General came in, bored with Bere’s sniveling to kill him, the French Kingsmen attacked. Bere was kept a prisoner for years, before the smiling corpse of a man crazed into saving the Earth animated him into suicide. The last note he left to his most recent captors said only one thing:
America
Bere scratched the message into the dirt and into his skin, but only in his head did he dare to add ‘is guilty’. After all, that’s what Jetty would have wanted.
Description: The story basically falls in line with a time when the world has been all but destroyed by pollution. When one character wants to choose any lengths to right the wrongs of society and bring the Earth back to a steady living condition, it may be more than what it was worth, or just what he'd intended it to be...
Future Night
I miss the sun. I saw it once as a child, but just once. Father said he used to see it every day. I’d have given anything to be with him back then; when the sun shone every day. I can remember each of its sensations, as if they were separate entities. The warmth it brought; the wonder and marvel of its size; the strength of its shine. It was like being entwined with a warm snake, the scales of which seemed to glow with their own light rather than a reflection. Snake fits the part, yes. I didn’t see it for long before being dragged away. ‘Deathly’, that’s what they called it. Nothing more than a harmless light in the sky…
How childish of me. What does the sun truly mean now? It is gone… and it may as well be my own fault. I am of what would cause such chaos. It would seem that I am misplaced in my existence; I can no longer fight the proper way, if ever a way was proper. Misguided and infantile, I shall surrender my soul to be damned; for what once was pure has never been pure, and thus fighting the truth is meaningless.
*
“We are alone…”
“No, no! Stop with your philosophical nonsense, Jetty. You know very well that we have the upper hand now.”
“And for what? And for what cost, Bere? We are no better than the men that drove us to this conflict!” Jetty spat, swooshing his hand outward in effect of his words.
“More than one thousand of your men would pay limbs to be in your position.” Bere persisted. “You have the right to own the best building land on the continent. Only you would not steal the opportunity from the belly of a demon for any cost.”
Jetty looked up at the sky, the sallow light gleaming off of his mask like a shining, milky, liquid gold spray. He shook his head, looking back down to the ground. “Bere…” he began, though he never did finish.
“What Jetty?” Bere said, exasperated to where Jetty was unsure he had heard his own question spoken. Jetty waited a few moments, flexing his fingers as he looked at them.
‘Impossible...’ is all he could think as he stared on. Thoughts drifted through his mind of happier times, those which he had never lived. The legends of times passed, the ingenuity that had brought him to sit upon that stone. Nothing sunk in, almost as if he was not thinking at all. Suddenly, he seemed to be awake. “Thirteen years, Bere. Thirteen years…” Jetty paused, looking to Bere, who seemed to be hiding frustration. “All those years and nothing. What does it matter? What do we fight for? I cannot see--”
“Stop!” Bere shouted. He was shaking with anger. Swallowing, he chose his words with only slight caution. “Does our commander avoid keeping tabs on the News? It is for something…” Bere stopped and looked at Jetty, who seemed now to have a fresh thousand things to say. However, he continued. “And as far as your concerns go, sir, it could be for something… if we could get to Japan.” Bere closed his mouth upon seeing the tension in Jetty’s eyes. His jaw was clenched, his nose flared slightly.
“How would you expect us to get to Japan, Bere?” Jetty asked sarcastically.
“You would find us a way, sir.” Bere stated, being sure to sit up straight and watch Jetty closely.
“Boats and planes… they are out of the question. Unless you know a man who can walk on water…?” Jetty stopped. Bere did not move. “Lieutenant?” Jetty growled the word with distaste towards the man.
Bere flinched. “I suggested that you may only once allow the use of a vessel, so as to see to your own desires.” Bere’s breathing was uneven in fright. Jetty both smiled and frowned at this.
“Quite like shooting myself in the foot, is it not Bere?”
“I never said that a personal sacrifice was any less than required, sir.” Bere asserted in a loud, strong voice.
“Go back to your post, soldier.” the Commander ordered.
“Sir, yes sir!”
Bere stood up immediately and walked back towards the entrance of the base. His mask caught the soiled light of the deadened clouds as he headed towards the dirt-laden entrance. Bere. A man of indignant malignance that had more than once been his downfall, but even more often saved his milky hide. Such a fool he could be! And yet, the General was so fond of his soldier.
‘Thirteen years…’
Jetty sighed as he removed the mask he wore. How could he ever do such a thing in front of his soldiers? Each one of them had given up so much to join him. Him! What a joke! No man should give him a thing if it meant to save his life… and yet they’d given up lives just to join him. Men that shared not his view; men that would follow him blindly. Those who had killed to be here; others who had not killed to make it without being killed.
‘A fool’s errand!’ he thought. ‘What sane man would give his life to me? And for all sake of love, why? Why… Why do they even wish to live?’
Jetty inhaled greedily the near-toxic air. It had once been so fresh and clean and clear… yet another reason he should want to die. He gagged on the scent and taste of the air… no, not air; a constant smog that smothers everything, leaving nothing to breathe free. He felt himself shiver. He was not cold – it was all but impossible to be cold here, and now of all times – but instead he was sickened. As he tilted on the rock with disgust thick in his mind, he shoved the mask against his face so quickly and with such force that it smacked into his nose and forehead. He grunted, and then absorbed the scent of filtered air from the mask.
‘Perhaps it is time to change thought processes…?’
Afraid he may have been bleeding from the force of the impact with his thick glass mask, Jetty looked at the base entrance and stumbled for it, tripping twice before he made it there. He coughed into his mask, trying to breathe the clean air in futility. His hands trembled and he bolted down the first few steps, tripping when he slowed at the fourth. At this his breath caught in his throat as he gripped at the rough walls. An ancient piece of rusted aluminum stuck out from the rocky dirt walls, slicing his hand as he fell. He gave a strangled whimper of pain, his mask slipping from his hand as he collided with the carved, uneven stone steps. Instantly his head throbbed in pain.
“Lieutenant, sir.”
“What is it, Private Fread?” asked Bere with a look of distaste on his face. Fread looked with the same distasteful malice at his Lieutenant, and spoke slowly and normally, sitting slumped against the wall.
“I heard something at the entrance. It should be investigated, I think, sir.” He half smiled as he leaned, relaxed, against the sodden wall. Bere, irritated by Fread’s manner, nodded and turned around to face the soldiers behind him.
“Alright then.” he said with a gruff voice. “Private White, go with Private Fread to investigate the front entrance. I want you back here,” he pointed to the ground as he said this, “in no less than eight minutes. Am I understood?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” yelled Bloom White. He stood and waited for Fread to join him, though he did not move. Lieutenant Kelsler turned to him; he was becoming angry quickly.
“Am I clear, Private?” He gave Fread an icy stare. White looked like he was getting angry too; but he looked more threatening than the Lieutenant did. Fread wore no smile as he got clumsily to his feet. He brushed off his dirt-covered pants and flipped his hair out of his eyes. Hands shoved into his pockets, he smiled and nodded.
“Crystal, sir…” Fread breathed the words as if he sighed when he said them. Bere did not look satisfied, but dismissed him. White moved to the door as Fread moved to follow him.
“Wait!” yelled the Lieutenant. Both soldiers stopped with quite the surprised looks on their faces. Tossing his head sideways and back over his shoulder Fread waited in curiosity to hear what he’d wanted to say. A minute went by and still he said nothing, as if weighing his options.
“Sir?” asked Fread.
“Yes…” Bere fidgeted. “I want both of you to take sabers and at least one pair of binoculars. Do you understand? Nothing more and nothing less.”
“Sir, yes--”
“What?” said Fread, cutting off the never-arguing White.
“Do you have a problem, soldier?” asked Lieutenant Kelsler, clearly angry.
The other soldiers in the room looked on with interest. These particular altercations were not uncommon, but they were always interesting. Either the two had some kind of history together, or they had just decided they hated each other. Fread had been outraged when General Jetty had promoted Kelsler instead of him. Few other soldiers dared to agree with his point of view, as it was a dangerous side to take. The prompt behind his decision was unknown, but understandable. Fread, however, had never seemed to have gotten over it.
“What if we go out there and it’s those bloody Kingsmen again? We’ll need guns or bows or… or something.” Fread looked angry, but also a bit panicked. Bere waved him off.
“If you’re talking about that army of Frenchmen, don’t worry about it. They wouldn’t attack us here again without prep. It’s much too dangerous for them…” Bere looked over Fread with a pleased eye, his grin growing as Fread’s frown deepened. “Now then,” said a pleased Lieutenant, “do what you’re ordered to do, soldier.”
Fread breathed deep and slow. “Yes, sir…” he said, brow furrowed and nose flared in anger. He pushed past White and into the corridor beyond the room. White looked harmlessly at the Lieutenant and nodded, then turned and left the room.
Bere took a seat next to the soldiers on the bench and sighed. He looked down at the line of soldiers watching him and smiled. “Did you enjoy the show?”
Only one soldier responded, moving from his seat to Bere’s feet quickly, and sitting there.
“Sir, you shouldn’t let Fread just act like that. General Jetty wouldn’t.” The soldier looked innocent enough, and Bere smiled again.
“No, Jetty wouldn’t…” Bere’s expression became grave. “Jetty would kill him.”
*
“You don’t have to be like that with him over everything, Vivendro.” White said firmly. Fread shrugged the comment aside.
“You wouldn’t understand, Bloom.” Fread sighed, a distant look twisting his narrow features. Bloom was unlike the other soldiers; he wanted to understand instead of judge. The other soldiers loved to criticize at the first opportunity. Of course, Fread understood that as he himself had been the same until he’d felt the affects of such an attitude. He liked Bloom, because Bloom was the only one who truly wanted to understand. In many ways, Fread owed him his sanity. No doubt the other soldiers hated Bloom for keeping Fread sane… Or rather, would hate him if they knew the two talked often. It wasn’t safe to agree with Fread, let alone be friends with him as far as the other recruits were concerned.
“What do I still not understand? I’m trying to understand. I don’t want to be like everyone else.” Bloom’s voice echoed dismayed frustration. Fread knew why he was like this, and he did feel bad about not explaining it to him but it was… complex.
“Maybe it’s better to be like your father this time. Not all of it should be understood.” Fread’s head slumped to the side, trying to glimpse Bloom White’s reaction.
White visibly stiffened, but he didn’t look mad. Fread shifted his eyes to look ahead, standing straighter. He could feel the intense waves of disappointment and shame flowing between them, but said nothing. The two moved through the busy and crowded underground halls, reaching the back of the facility with swift movements and stiff shoulders. Fread rubbed his hands along the leather of his inner pockets, glancing with nervous tension at his comrade now and again. Vivendro Fread was soon scratching his jacket with dirty, ridged nails, working holes into the soft and rare material. White had shown few signs of returning from his mental retreat.
Maybe it’s better this way after all… Fread thought sadly. Maybe it was better not to have someone who wanted to understand; it was better to force them to understand. But no… he’d rather no one understood. It was probably best.
Even still, he wanted White to want to understand. It was good to feel like somebody wanted to see through your eyes, especially when you were unhappy. Perhaps he was only fooling himself into thinking a friend was a mere ploy. He did need someone. If only one person could understand…
Could that really—
Fread could think no longer, as he nearly crashed into the wall of the huge, round armory at the back of their facility. White was the only thing that saved him, as he had stopped and grabbed Fread’s shoulder in the knick of time. Fread feigned relief.
“Thanks, Bloom. That could have been messy.” Fread sounded convincing enough for someone pretending to be thankful. White, however, did not respond. He pulled his massive hand from Vivendro’s shoulder and grabbed two sabers from the wall, shoving one into Fread’s hand. He then looked hurriedly for a pair of binoculars.
“Bloom, I’m sorry, I--”
“No, don’t be.” Bloom stopped him. “We’re taking much too long. It’s okay, Vivendro, I understand. You don’t want to tell me right now.” White turned to the side door and drug Fread behind him.
“I can walk, Bloom.” Fread struggled to say. Bloom drug him to his side and released his shirt.
“Yes, I know.” Bloom mumbled.
*
They reached the entrance quickly, six of their eight minutes gone. The entrance was beyond a heavy door, past which all soldiers were required to wear dark-glass masks. White and Fread each took one and secured them to their faces. They looked to each other, and Bloom nodded.
Fread’s eyes shifted to the door and back to Bloom. In an instant, his hand was gripping the door handle and Bloom was shoving the trick hinge outward. The heavy steel door swung outward. With an apprehensive stare, the two soldiers bounded outward and rolled to the sides of the uneven rock-and-sod stairs. Bloom looked around to the upper stairs, watchful as a merekat; Fread looked down the long corridor to the other entrances, hidden throughout their valley. He was called away from his task when he heard Bloom pant in shock.
He turned his head warily up the steps and witnessed his General laying in painful silence on the stairs.
“No!” Fread’s voice ripped away as he screamed. Bloom looked on, unable to choke out his thought of ‘what should we do?’.
An acidic wind blew through the entry way, and a piece of crumpled paper fell unwillingly from General Jetty’s hand. It was bloodstained; a strange testament to his life as the words unfolded. Afraid to run for help, to leave Jetty alone – to do anything, in pure fact – Fread dropped his saber and opened the paper with violently shaking hands, and tears clouding his eyes. He read in a broken voice, which did not believe in even itself:
Bere,
I am sorry it has to end this way. If I have given you this letter, then you know it is over. There was never a place called for us to say was our resistance. Humans have destroyed this once great planet. As it stands, all dates are lost. I know I told you I wanted to end all use of the machines that polluted the planet, and that made the air like acid. So, I’m shooting myself in the foot.
I am allied with several different alliances. By the time you read to here, I am gone. By the time you understand it is too late. I have set them upon themselves. My father was good enough, but I am better. The only way to end the world is to have the humans destroy themselves as well. Itallion will come for you all, and have promised I won’t feel a thing.
I said, ‘neither will you’.
I’m sorry. It’s over, because it never was. Have a pleasant afterlife.
Jetty
“He wants the planet dead.” Bloom struggled out, staring in horror at the corpse of the once-beloved General Jetty.
“He wants more than that.” Fread struggled to say. A sadistic smile lit his face through the light on his mask. “He wanted me to suffer…”
“Your father…” Bloom chocked. His eyes darted between Jetty and Fread.
“No… But my father is part of the Itallion resistance of Dead Italy…”
*
It took only hours. Everyone knew, and by the time they could move out, the Italian resistance – Itallion – was upon them. Pleased that Bere was the last left, having lost only one member of their squadron, the Italians mocked him. He was locked for hours, screaming, into a room with the corpse of Jetty, who seemed to half-smile. Nowhere to look but ahead, Bere looked on until he was hoarse, crying constantly.
As the Italian General came in, bored with Bere’s sniveling to kill him, the French Kingsmen attacked. Bere was kept a prisoner for years, before the smiling corpse of a man crazed into saving the Earth animated him into suicide. The last note he left to his most recent captors said only one thing:
America
Bere scratched the message into the dirt and into his skin, but only in his head did he dare to add ‘is guilty’. After all, that’s what Jetty would have wanted.