Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Smoke hung, a veil across the carcass of a city.
Tokyo was flat. No structures pierced the empty sky, now ill, plagued with clouds like noxious blemishes upon a face.
No hills rose, no valley's dropped. It had been reduced to a common denominator, a infertile field extirpated violently of life.
Wind tentatively stroked the dusted remains, probed the smoke like the nervous fingers of a lover, like a child astounded at a broken toy.
However, it was not long before this changed.
It was not long before, like a figure waking, someone pulled the remains of dust aside, and slowly stood, a solitary rise on a featureless plain, visible for miles as he struggled to his feet, and swept the crusted remains from his body. It had been a car that saved him; its imploded ceiling applying just enough reflection and tension to protect him against the wave which swept away his world.
Visible as he was, the antithesis of his surroundings, defying convention and raising towards the Heavens, there was no one to see him.
Never again in Tokyo would there be someone to see him.
But stand he did, staring slowly around him, a strange calm mingling with the tears within his eyes. Stand he did upon that desolate field, a solitary hand reaching upwards from the grave, a single evolution upwards standing stark against the nothingness and the dust which riled against his body.
Stand he did facing a new and empty world, as high above him dust and smoke began to slowly meet and form a cloud.
The End.
60.
Tyeko runs.
Bodies scattered across the floor, he avoids them, sidesteping, never ceasing, propelling forwards, every ounce of concentration focused, forming a singularity of thought propelling him onwards. Through the labrynth of the underground, the stairway, he strikes it without hesitation, compensating incline with an increase in speed, one floor, two floors, three floors, four floors.
45.
A guard, stumbling down them, raising his gun, Tyeko rolls as bullets fill the now absent space, he hurls himself upwards, one bullet after another tossed carlessly in his direction, he climbs upwards, another floor, at the soldier himself, one motion upwards, he snaps his neck as carlessly as distinguishing a candle, catches the pistol which attempts to liberate itself from possession, upwards further, another floor, the last floor, a doorway, a sound---
Tyeko hurls himself blindly to the left as the scream of the machine gun fills his mind. Rotating, eyes slits, knives, he levels his pistol with it, one shot, two shots, fire, burning, light, he topples backwards through the doorway, rolls, a soldier, face surprised, astounded, suddenly empty, blood lashes artistically across the ceiling, determination drags him to his feet, he dissappears down the hallway, one turn after another,
30.
mind devoid of thought, instinct his only virtue, a single mistake in turn fatal, emptiness, white, a soldier, a soldier, his hands raise blindly and relinquish a soul's duty to the flesh, faster, faster, lights echoing above, inverting, reverting, a stream of light as white and engulfing as the blindness of his mind, doorways pulse like the lights of a tunnel, another, another, onwards
10.
The lobby, blood, shattered remains of flesh and stone, the doorway, run, has to run, no time, through the doorway
9.
light, light and darkness, scattered ruins, a building, destroyed, the ocean, he can't run into the ocean
8.
but where else can he run, no where, there's no where, Irieshu, there's no where, where do you want me to go
7.
there's nothing here for me
6.
Run. Run as if you could outrace the past. Tyeko's eyes roll, everything so slow, so slow, towards the expanse of Tokyo
5.
without a second consideration, his legs propel him forwards
4.
Past the palace, into Tokyo, into the heart, away from the ocean, away from the ocean, straight streets
3.
He finds one, runs, has to run
2.
as if he can outrace
1.
the
0.
past.
It began like this, it's oddly suiting that it should end like this.
Akira gazes at Irieshu with the mingled respect and hatred that has always infected his countenance like a cyclical disease, "You took my son from me."
Through the stone and Earth, Irieshu feels the boy flee, each step another step towards an independence which would shape the psychotically celerious approach of a new world, "He's not your Son, anymore."
"You'd claim him as your own?" Akira struggles to resurrect his hatred, his rage, yet the box throbs red once more as if in warning and rebuke.
"No. Tyeko is no one's Son. He's never known a father, only people trying to use him and kill him, which is what makes him so valuable. Because he doesn't know he's never known a father, he merely believes that's what father's do. So, when he attempts to play father to the world, he'll have no trouble trying to use and kill those in it...and he'll have to, in order to save it. It's all on his shoulders now. You destroyed the world, Akira, and now he's going to fix it."
Akira's lips curl, "You bastards, always believing you could play God, shape it as you like, and never doubting for a moment that your "ideal" could be flawed."
Irieshu's eyes lower to Akira's own, as the box quakes, uttering a horrific rumble which steadily crescendos to a malevolent roar, "You and I were always the same, Akira. But now someone is going to get to play God, will get to reshape the world. I just hope I made him hate us enough."
"Ha. If you couldn't Irieshu," Akira whispers, as tendrils of light begin to erupt like shots of steam from the box, "No one could."
And with that, they disappear into light.
Tyeko feels the Earth quake.
RUN BOY. RUN.
Around him, in a peripheral sea, people lift their heads, stare nervously like animals of the herd, clutch their children close as laughter in the streets cease, and a single boy rushes past them.
“Father,” he said, “will these men ever come back?”
“They are expendable, my son.” Said He.
“But… so many men, father!”
Akira’s lips curled. “I doubt they’ll see the end of the War.”
“Father… this is… twenty thousand men!”
“It is war, my son. People die in wars. They fight…
He hears it, hears the sound as the world goes white, the horrific scream of tendons of steel twisted, evaporating. He can't outrace it, he can't outrace sound and light, within seconds it will catch him, sweep him blindly into the infinite of servitude to natural whim...
His only chance is to hide.
His eyes leap from street side to side, nothing, nothing...
There.
An alleyway.
Outlined in police tape, it draws his attention, a shimmering beacon of hope, he hurls himself over the tape, hurtles down an alleyway, rocky, suicidal to walk down let alone run, faster, faster, the roar increasing, he could hear it...
A car. Sitting there, like a rejected soul in purgatory, hull rusted, a solitary car, collapsed inwards, crushed, but his only hope, the roar, a wave, approaching, foaming, gravity driving it downards...
Nearly rending the door from it's corroded hinges, Tyeko collapses into it, slamming the door violently shut, burrowing downwards beneath the imploded ceiling, the sound now replacing all other conscious thought with its white roar...
He has only enough time to recongize the nearby remains of a ruined building and read the name of the street that would be his grave, Nagaki Lee, before the wave finally crashes down upon him, and the past is swept away.
Friday, February 04, 2005
Irieshu feels his legs break beneath him as he strikes the ground and repels forwards into a roll, a trail of blood left where his body grazes the floor. He raises his weapons level with the shadowed hallway before him, eyes piercing the curtain of darkness, pulling it aside like hands, slashing it apart like knives.
He hurtles down the hallway, twisted contusion of flesh and and bone which now consitute his legs issuing an agony that goes ignored. The slightest presence of motion, Irieshu raises his weapon and fires, a shriek, ignored, running, downwards, the hallway slants downwards, no time, no time, turn the corner...
The man waiting around it forces the shot-gun against Irieshu's chest.
For a moment, both figures freeze in a scene which appears to define a paradox.
And then the man compresses the trigger.
"Ty...Tyeko..." Akira's voice bleeds, betraying the wound he feels within as realization dawns upon him like a knife between the ribs, "What is this?"
Tyeko places a solitary finger upon the solitary button, staring into his father's eyes.
"Just an expression of my gratitude, Father."
Irieshu senses the left side of his body dissolve, as the discharge wipes it away as simply as blowing dust from glass.
The man feels Irieshu's pistol touch his temple, and then feels no more.
Irieshu collapses against the wall, the darkness opressive, crushing him downwards as pain and delusion struggles to force itself against the cracking dam of sanity within his skull.
Fragments of blood and flesh hang like melted wax against his exposed innards, as slowly, Tyeko, so slowly...he forces himself to stand.
He gazes down the silent hallway, darkness growing ever darker.
He gazes quietly down at his body, dilapidated and destroyed, derelict of any motivation but the impetus of his single passion...
Yes...he and it were dying.
Within minutes, the war would finally be over.
He threw what remained of himself down the hallway, towards the darkness and the light.
"You killed people...you tortured, mutilated, and destroyed for a conviction of nothing more than lust for power..."
"Ty...Tyeko...my son..."
"...I'm not your son, you mother-fucker. You don't have a son. You don't have a wife. You don't have a soul. And now, Father...now, I'm going to prove it to you."
The hallway ends...a doorway...unconsciously, his remaining arm raises, he dispatches the guards in their moment of astonishment...collapses against it...
"SON!!" Akira shrieks.
Insanity fills Tyeko's eyes.
A code...a password...of course the bastard would leave it to something as simple and impossible as this... a keypad...a code...the code...Irieshu stares at it...until, like a gush of water on fire, a sense of triumph fills his empty eyes...
"We're done, Father. We're done."
TYEKO.
"You really did love something, didn't you, you bastard?"
Irieshu strikes enter.
"KILL HIM!!' Akira shrieks.
The guards raise their weapons.
And, almost simultaneously, both of their heads snap back as their bodies collapse against the backdrop.
Irieshu stands in the doorway, body hanging limply forwards with the weight of his outstretched arm. The pistol topples limply, exhausted, from his fingers. It clatters to the floor.
Tyeko's finger rests poised above the button, as his eyes and his father conjoin upon the figure in the doorway.
"Irieshu...?" Tyeko whispers, lifting his hand away from the red.
"You." Akira's voice hisses.
Irieshu struggles to straighten his body, staggers forwards, eyes quivering in blind insanity...
Until, suddenly, the clouds within them fade, and for a moment, both figures, father and son, recongize the man they hated and loved.
"Tyeko..." Irieshu whispers, voice faded, dying like a winter breeze.
He strides quietly, body shattered like glass but still noble, to Tyeko's side, ignoring his father, apopoleptic with raging hatred, and bends quietly to one knee.
"Irieshu...I thought...you were dead." Tyeko whispered.
Irieshu's cold eyes meet his own for one last time, "I am."
"Tyeko, you need to listen very carefully to me. Do you know the way out of here?"
Tyeko nods, mind still recovering from the shock of percieving Irieshu, dead...he was dead...
"Good. You need to run, Tyeko," Irieshu's voice, so steady, Akira's eyes, all clarity of mind dissolved, shift between the two as his fingers curl and uncurl from fists, "You need to run as fast as you can. You need to get out of here, get out of Tokyo. Tyeko...there's something coming. Something that I have no choice but to leave in your hands. The world is about to be submitted into purgatory; it will be your duty to ensure that it emmerges clensed."
Tyeko's eyes shift unnaturally slow towards the metallic-blackness of the box.
"Yes, Tyeko. Tyeko...kid, it's up to you now. I'm about to put a bullet in the brain of this war; you will have your chance to raise to the forefront of leadership in the enusing chaos, and you must. Beyond that, I'm afraid there's not much more I can tell you, except you did far more than I ever expected, and fulfilled your promise beautifully. I remember looking at you at the start and believing my hopes in you were futile, that this moment we've reached now was an impossibility; I'm almost never wrong, but I couldn't hope for a better time for my judgement to be off. I'm going to take the past and me away now, Tyeko. I leave the future to you."
Without the slightest hesitation, Irieshu confidently impresses the red button with his thumb.
"Now run, Tyeko. Run as if you could outrace the past."
And the boy fled through the open doorway without another word, into the shadowed darkness, leaving just the two men and the faded lights.
"There's no point in being angry," Irieshu's passionless eyes raise to meet Akira's own, which instantly recoil as if spurned, as rage is replaced in acquiesnce by fear.
"What is it?" Akira whispers gazing at the box.
Irieshu's eyes fall once more upon the box, which has now begun to glow a sinister red.
"This? This is either our saviour or the apocolypse. But, to be more specific, let me put in this way: In about a minute, you won't care one way or the other."
Friday, January 14, 2005
Down.
This was the only conscious thought that settled upon Irieshu's mind.
He gazed at a nearby door; with the onset of the alarms, metal had encased it.
He reached into his pocket and removed from within it what could have been described as a metallic spider; he placed it against the doorway. Stepping back, he leveled his pistol with it.
The explosion was designed to be directed inwards, and it obliged. The gaping hole revealed a room hidden by the resulting veil of smoke.
Without a second consideration, Irieshu cast his body through the curtain.
I'm going to kill you, old man; I'm going to kill you, you bastard.
Irieshu crossed his arms against his chest and unleashed the once involuntarily bridled fury of his guns. The smoke was blinding; his only register of a hit was the resultant shriek which he had learned was the defining link between grown men and young boys. He passed through the edge of the curtain, through the room, bullets blindly thrown in his direction by confused guards; into a hallway, a guard, falls, another, his body spasms as it's forced against a wall by the punch of the bullets. He turns another corner; another doorway, this no longer in steel, they never suspected him to get this far, the fools, he kicks the doorway open.
A Mounted, mechanical gun instantly turns in his direction, its rotary guns and soul-less eyes each equally black and depthless, each equally merciless, meets his own of equal quality.
For a moment, the two machines of death, one of metal one of death, gaze at eachother.
As if in choreography, Irieshu leaps the hand-rail of the stairs as the machine obliterates the piece of tiling upon which he once stood.
The stairs are designed to spiral downwards for several floors; Irieshu begins a quiet plummet.
Tyeko shreds the last remains of the packaging away. His father stares down in dumbfounded astoundment at the object that has been revealed. A large box, black but for a single instintence of subversive red in the form of a solitary button. Akira's eyes move slowly from it to the face of his son, whose lips can no longer contain his expanding grin of victory.
Irieshu's boat crashed against the wall.
In preperation, Irieshu had opened the bubble-like shield which encapsulated him within; as it struck the unforgiving earth, his body propelled from the ship. He struck the earth at a roll, the harsh concrete of the establishment he had come to shredding the remaining uninjured flesh upon his back. Like a brillant candle his ship burst alight, having been driven into the sentry post of the facility; as he hurtled forwards, capturing his balance in mid-run, it exploded, destroying the defense completely.
Slowly, he rose his eyes upwards, mind inhaled his target. It was the only place it could be; it was his destiny.
Akira's Tower.
And within it, inaccessbile to any man but Akira himself, rested Tyeko, and with him, Akira , buried beneath the very Earth which he had tortured and destroyed. There was only one entrance, one single door, and it rested in the center of this pillar of oppression, bathed bloody in the fading light of the setting sun.
He hurtled towards the entrance, as the guards surrounding it, slowly registering the explosion of light and heat of the now toppling sentry tower, began to recongize the reality of the situation. Their machine guns began to lower.
Too late.
Irieshu cast his hand into his pocket and with equal fluidity his hand exhaled three solitary beads.
As they struck the Earth, the split, releasing a nova of white light as Irieshu rose his pistol and, eyes closed, his only guide his memory of their position, released their souls.
Before the light had even ceased, as the crumbling pinnacle of the Sentry Tower snapped from it's foundation and began it's magnamious and slow tumble towards the Earth, Irieshu traversed through the resulting spray of blood, baptized in his final hour, and, with another manipulation of his weapon, fractured the glass windows of the Tower's, the modern palace, entrance.
With one final lunge, his body would shatter it.
Tyeko's fingers uncurl the wrapping with the passion of an exhausted body seeping into relaxation, a release of tension and expectance of beauty, an acceptance of the inevitable with, short of regrets, euphoria. He slowly rose his gaze and met his father's eyes.
Irieshu's body struck the Earth like a discarded rag, sliding along the waxed floor as glass filled his body, infected his gaping wounds. Even as he slid however, he leveled his pistols for the astounded faces of the sentries filling the acceptance hall. Each bullet dissolved a skull like an expression in paint against the walls.
Explosion of ringing sound after sound as he discharged each messenger of death, body still sliding, each sound, each motion, drawn out fully, each shot a millenium, each face it destroyed a universe. A pistol emptied; almost unconsciously, it washed like dirt from his hands, and he drew another from the collection lining the inside of his vest.
His body struck the wall defining the end of the room, but he gave no concern; his eyes remained focused simply on the naive, empty, terrified eyes of the soldiers, as they struggled to react in these few seconds which represented an eternity.
And as instantly as it began, the scream of his pistols ceased.
The last body, tail of severed vertebrae flapping madly like the twitching leg torn from an insect, collapsed limply to it's knees and finnally graced the Earth from whence it came.
Slowly, Irieshu stood, and discarded the now empty pistols from his hands onto the running carpet of blood which described his passage across the floor. With the talent of a magician, he drew two more into his hands.
And it was with that the alarms began to ring.
Tyeko holds his father's eyes in his, mesmerized by the love he sees in them and its contradiction with the hatred Tyeko feels within. Without a pause or hesitation, he shreds another layer from the gift. Through the hole formed, a path of cold, black steel becomes visible.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Tyeko held the metallic box, wrapped lavishly in his profession of remorse and idolation, out before him as he approached his father.
The soldier's on either side of him gazed at him with mistrust only as his father's gaze fell fully upon him. His father's gaze, tendrils of insanity clearly reflected in his eyes in the dull light of his throne room, buried safely beneath the surface away from the war he cultured, immune to everything but that which disguised itself as it.
"My...my son," Akira whispered, "You have returned to me."
Tyeko felt the disillusion drain from his eyes, "Yes, father. I have returned to you."
A grin, mutlated by the inherent hatred carved in his face by his cruelty as scars in wood by a knife, attempted to fill the old-man's face. A smile, truly. Tyeko gripped the metallic box more tightly.
"You left us long ago, son. And now you return...with strange, strange tales. Stange tales of a kidnapping...a man..."
"A man named Irieshu who stole me, father, who took me from you."
Uncertainty radiated from Akira's face, but with these words cracked like melting ice.
"Tell me that again, son. Tell me you...you hate this man."
Like coals long ago exhausted and now rekindled, Akira's eyes burned as his lips shifted.
"...he took me from my home, viciously hurt me, tried to...to...I don't know what his intentions were, but tortured me, father. I hate that man."
One of the soldier's leaned close to Akira, "Sir...I'm not sure he is to be trusted."
Akira, without taking his eyes from Tyeko, grasped the man's skull with both hands and twisted until the organic snap commanded him to cease. The figure crumpled limply, body lolling loosely upon the gold-plated steps ascending to Akira's throne.
"THIS IS MY SON!" His voice echoed within the chamber, with each soldier it touched, like an infectious disease, passing a spasm of terror across their face, "MY SON. He is to be trusted as I would be trusted; respected as I would be respected! Do you understand!!!??" He shrieked at the body, whose blank eyes gazed up in unhesitating acquiesce, "DO YOU UNDESTAAAAND!?"
All eyes but a young boy's who was not so young attempted to gaze away as the monarch's body hunched in swelled apoplectia, lungs exhaling as a volcano would exhale smoke.
Slowly, Akira calmed. Once more, the bewildered, confused euphoria surfaced in his eyes, a dewey conception revealing for just a moment the twisted remains of the mind beneath it.
"My son...my son, to have you returned to me is to be reborn. You...you have been shadowed from the world for a long while, perhaps. Do you...do you understand that you are now heir to the throne of God?"
"God, my father?" Tyeko barely whispered, fingers claws biting his beautiful betrayal.
"God, my son. I am now the ruler of mankind; to change the world, God must go through me. I am above him; I have done as I promised you and your mother I would. I have claimed supremacy."
"Mother would be proud, father," I'll kill you, you bastard, you monster, you, "I know she would be."
"YOUR MOTHER WAS A WHORE!" Akira roared, then just as suddenly broke into tears, body like an imploding star, collapsing inwards upon itself as he wept, quaking with the internal chaos of fusion.
For a moment, his hatred forsook as mercy, all kindness, all caution, as he spat, "So, you think you've won the war?"
Like a psychotic dramatist, his father's weeping ceased and a maniacal smile hinged on the corners of his mouth, swinging inanely, rivaled only by his eyes, "Oh, not quite yet, son. We're close...oh, we're very, very close though. There is no doubt we have victory; all that need be done now is the menial labor of war. Like sweeping, or cleaning a window; you could ignore it, but it'd simply be uncomfortable. No, this war, within perhaps even a day or two, will be over."
Close father, so close, but still have a knack for over-estimation...this war will be over within another minute, "Father...I have a gift for you, for your...kindness, of allowing me to return home."
"Of course, my son! OF COURSE! PLease, give it to me!"
"No, father, I'd like to do this formally, in honor and christening and proof of your Emperorship, I'd like..." Tyeko struggled to fight the grin forcing its way onto his face, the insane laugther bubbling up from his chest, as he spoke these final words, "...to lay it here before your feet."
"My son..." Akira whispered, as all sanity seeped from his eyes.
Tyeko approached the throne, knelt upon one knee before it and placed the package upon the steps as he whispered in return, "My father..."
With a strange resolution in his eyes that only one other man could have understood, Tyeko began slowly unwrapping the gift.
The ocean seemed oddly placid, refusing to recongize the impending conclusion of the most destructive and shattering era it and it's mother world had ever witnessed. It seemed oddly placid like a man who knows he must be still or else they will see him hiding; it seemed to be ushering Irieshu to rush across it.
And rush across it Irieshu did.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Irieshu gazed at the dereliction of thought and sanity, the ruins, devoid of child or mentor, completely destroyed excepting the last embers of melted steal and stone the progeny of its sacrifice.
Irieshu's lips contorted slowly into a grin, so awkward upon his ruined face.
"Tyeko..."
With the definitiveness of an echo, the voice issued from behind him:
"...is dead."
Irieshu spun instantly, both hands, within an instant, flourishing two pistols, metallic black flashing like mad eyes in the reflection from the flame. His pistols leveled upon the figures face...and almost as instantly loosened, as if in exhaustion. Irieshu's eyes, shadowed sockets in the dark shadows cast like nets by the fire, expanded in surprise.
"...Jimmy?"
"Heh, old ghosts are the hardest to get rid of, Irieshu. And you and I, we are two very, very old ghosts."
Not having displayed such a myriad of emotions in a single session ever, Irieshu's face remained seemingly distorted with the skeleton of confusion and horror.
"What...what did you mean about the boy?" Irieshu's voice hissed, as quiet and as biting as the wind.
"I mean that he's dead. Or will be within a few hours. You see, Irieshu, he's taken it upon himself to nobly fulfill your mission for you..."
The pistols spilled like water from Irieshu's open hands.
"...oh, we begged him of course, not to do it," sarcasm stained each syllable, a drink with knives, poisoning, blinding Irieshu's reason, "but he simply insisted, after, of course, he heard the rumour of your unfortunate death at the battle-lines. He seemed to think he had no other choice; spoke of it as if you were...his father, in a way. Oh, we tried to talk reason into him...but he was so resolved. He took the box, Irieshu. He took Operation Atmosphere. And, wouldn't you know, I have no idea where he could have gotten this idea, he knows how to use it, and he knows what its for."
Irieshu's knees weakened, a sense agony adulterating his veins, a miserable veil of red haze across his vision...
"You...you bastards."
The man, like ice sharply splintering, issued a staccato cackle, "Oh, it was far easier than I suspect even you expected. You put such faith in the boy, Irieshu; you put such faith in his judgement. But, in doing so, in "teaching him everything he knows" shall we say, you provided him with his most inhibiting, vital weakness. Did you really think you could create another you? Did you really think you could imitate The Masters? Forge a man more steel than flesh? No, Irieshu, all you knew how to be was a cruel father. And all you could create was a ruined son."
"You...you god-damn whoreson..."
"Oh, not just me," like a deranged ornament, his smile hinged upon his face, "We're all here, Irieshu. We all decided to pay your little boy a visit; the whole, god-damn crew."
They emmerged from the shadows like figures from the water, each wearing that same, enraging grin, that same, sadistic bead of passion reverberating in their eyes...
"WE GOT YOU, IRIESHU! WE GOT YOU, you arrogant son of a bitch! You think you're so fucking good, but ultimately, you're no better than any of us. You...you were supposed to be our hero, Irieshu. You were supposed to raise the boy as our last chance...instead, we watched, we knew, you ruined him. You had such fanciful intentions, you bastard. Such wonderous ideas of self-sacrifice, of save the boy; YOU betrayed the Masters, their little "perfection", YOU betrayed Operation Atmosphere...you betrayed it to the piont that you were in direct opposition to it. Well...well, Irieshu, we couldn't let the master's plan just fail; you were going to ruin the most important part. You wanted to breed a man who could stop the CLOUD Irieshu? Are you a fool? Don't you understand how important it is!? Don't you get it? But no, no, you got so ahead of yourself; you forgot you were nothing more than a knife they used, they wielded. Well, don't worry, Irieshu, we've set things right now. Within hours, the boy will be at his father's side, begging forgiveness, pledging loyalty, being accepted back after you made him so much more appealing to the power-hungry mind of his father. And then, standing at his father's side, he'll offer him a gift, a gift for acceptance back into the family fold. And then, Tyeko, whose name shall forever echo in the annals of history synonymous with traitor and hero, will detonate that bomb at his father's feet, obliterating the entire family line and empire in an instance, and ushering in the future the Master's devised and wanted."
Tyeko...Irieshu's stare, eyes flickering with the rage, the rage, the inherent anger boiling up within him, his stare, those eyes, his stare, those eyes...Tyeko...Tyeko...they...Tyeko...
"Jimmy...I'm going to kill you."
Irieshu felt more than saw the others level their own weapons on his crouching form, the metallic bite of the wind issuing new scars into the flesh of their faces.
"Now, Now, Irieshu, let's not be your arrogant self; even you are incapable of doing anything, my friend. Even you. Things have been set in motion. Things have finnally been set in proper motion."
"Jimmy...I was born for this war, I will die with this war. I am the motion, I am the instrument, I am the soul. The Master's died for their part of the plan. And now, Jimmy, you and I, we will die for mine."
And with that, Irieshu kicked his pistol up into his hand, and, before the others were even capable of registering the blur of motion, a bullet tore away the left side of Jimmy's face.
The other pistol rose almost as quickly.
Irieshu leveled both pistols simultanesouly for the surrounding figures; he heard his pistol shots ring out the with the inception of the ring of the machine gun. He felt the bullets pierce him, so cold, yet warm to the infectious wind; felt them attempt to twist him, shift him, throw him to the Earth...
He leveled his pistols for the remaining two, they still firing, the bullets tearing into Irieshu's chest and legs, a hundred hands attempting to drive him to a kneel; he would not kneel now.
They're skulls dissolved in a spray of his pistol bulelts, each with precision accuracy, each unseen phantom distributing death, blood coating the snow like an artistic design. The machine gun's pounding roar ceased, as the echos of his and their bullets reflected across the open landscape. Irieshu felt the torment of the bullets within him, the blood bubbling into his throat, flowing from his lacerated guts.
He could not die yet however.
Tyeko was in danger.
The war was not over.
He turned slowly, and began to walk slowly back to his ship.
Thursday, December 25, 2003
No one would ever see the sky, its sabel fabric already rent by the inclement weather, rend violently against itself, as the pillar of light pierced its hallowed virtue, not merely disposing of the clouds but the very weavings of time itself, a solitary blade cutting its once ordered form into a chaotic shard. No one would ever see the figure emmerge from it, this laceration in logic a luminous scar across the sky, above the deteroited ruins which once represented the Institute, light defined by shadows pooled in crevices requisite of our dimensions, a solitary form whose face, wisened by the dull blade of time replied in theme of sorrow most prominent in his fallow grin; the grin, pervasive to all hearts, of a man who knows he was terribly correct.
"We're too late," familiar motions intrinsic to his character defined his speech, as he gazed sadly into the pulsing wound of time from which he immerged like an infection, "They've already left. We can't stop it now...we have no choice in the matter anymore."
Tempermental sorrow seemed to pale slightly, a man who knows he gains his strength by other's weakness, as he concentrated on something impercievable beyond the sky's vibrant gash.
"Yes, I know...but we have no choice but to fight it now. It's not your fault; as you said, it was impossible to knwo if you could manage it accurately. Don't worry," The man's voice faltered like a candle in the murderous wind, "This is not the only way to kill it. I did not live this long by seeking pierces in time...I have fought it far longer, far, far longer, by method of my own hands. I think that is how it will have to be...I allowed to be born, and I will assure that it ceases to be. I...I...I suppose for a moment though, I believed that life coudl follow an...easy course. He would never have forgiven me for such a blatant misacknwoledgement of the truth. Come now..." The man's eyes reverted from their stance upon the wound, and once more surveyed the broken realm of the Institute, the dyeing flames in a future quietly extinguishing its fuel, "I can't stand to linger in this past anylonger...too many mistakes. But..."
He halted, eyes suddenly purified of pain revived by the quiet thrill of suspense, as his face recomposed to reveal a figure so familiar to our eyes yet so vastly different, "My god...there's...there's someone coming...I...I know, silence for a moment, I am aware of the reprecussions if we are seen...but...I think...I think its..."
A man quietly strode forwards to the shoreline of the abomination which represented the once noble Institute, corrupted for his purposes, which represented only a single side supplemented by the requirements of this war. The man within the sky's wound, light still piercing the very elements of turpitude which the storm persisted to attain, gazed in quiet awe, an elder returned to his childhood for just a moment. The man upon the ground gazed, eyes embellishing the flames which digested the building's flesh, as if in search of something valuable amongst the rubble. He was questing for this grail, and yet, after a few moment, a darker shadow than the flames coudl cast developed his face. What he sought was no longer here, as the man above him in the sky already knew would be. It was the mark of the man within the wound to be the only one who woudl notice this other's fingers slowly curl into a fist.
And then, as if he had been merley ignoring it before thsi point, the man finnally slowly gazed upwards into the luminscent gash across the sky. THe man who occupie dhtis latter space gazed back, and for a moment the two eyes were bound as intimate as thread to it's bretheren of the cloth, each registering the other, an unheld truth both known and un. And then it was broken, as the grounded figure's eyes slowly shut, and his lips, subversive to his common countenance, sspread easedly into a pained grin. And the man upon that ground threw back his head and he began to laugh. And he laughed, and he laughed as the storm struggled to rival his gail with its own, and he laughed his painful laugh of the damned even as the figure above him in the sky, with one, last reluctant view of this world retreated quietly into the laceration form which he had emmerged, and the sky reclaimed itself, clotting the wound with an even more violent surge of hail. And the man would continue to laugh until that laughtered dissolved to pain, and then there woudl be but one final thing to do. One final act of conflict that, if he had merely considered, could have been avoided. One final sacrifice that must still, ultimately, be made. Yes, when he was finished, these final acts he would be forced to attend to.
But for now, as the rain plastered against his body, as if the very earth rose up in an attempt to quell his rebellious flaunt of its magnificence, of fates ingenious torment, of God's pact with Satan...
For now, he was content to laugh.
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Tyeko's melancholy eyes reflected the destruction.
The ruins burned, flames fed by human flesh and brightened by tortured souls, smoke coiling it's delinquint grin upwards to concede to teh heaven's omnipotent constructions. He had killed them all...
All human beings were equal in a world of white. They had died...some had died openly begging him to halt, some had perished with a pistol beneath their chin and the eyes which offered metaphor for death twining with their own. Adults, children, boys, girls...it was disgusting how in their final moments their constitutoin permitted their retrogression to their initial natures...girls offering sexual favors in exchange for their lives, as he placed a pistol against their left breast and assured that none would ever desire ther soft flesh again. Boys, drawn by the metaphysical consistency for honor, strove to eliminate him with pride their noble shield; the apathy of the pistol is as blind as it's souless eye. They all died, but for the Captain whom placed his own pistol against his skull and purifed himself by steel.
"I...I didn't want to kill them..." He whispered, the razed anarchy, decimation of strcture in the eternal coil towards chaos which order defines, his throne for this empire of blackened souls, the turmoil an ironic personification of his own, " They weren't supposed to die...why...why did I kill them...I don't understand...why...."
The voice pierced the lights flame like an arrow of shadow, "Of course you didn't, boy."
"Yeah, of course you didn't," another voice instantly spawned, arising from teh previous's termination, "Nobody ever wants to kill any body else, kid...but sometimes you got to."
Tyeko's eyes rose up, facing the shroud of smoke in which the voices origins were guised, his own laconic tendencies revived as if the forest had, in search of irony, hunted him itself to find him here. Yet, the voice persisted, a knife sliding deeper into it's desire pocket, a vein of thrill prominent in it's tenor, as another arose from the dark, "Yes, but when the time comes when you must, you have to find a way to atone for your sins. You've got to, or else you'll live with them forever, like poor Irieshu did..."
Tyeko rose slowly to his feet, the ruined shards of his past shattering violently beneath his weight, sanctifying the flesh of his fallen victims with his own demonic blood, "Who are you?"
The figures strode through the smoke.
Each unique in character, yet none defined by peculiarity, only the presence of a solitary box of metal character within one's arms truly seperated them from those whom had perished a few minutes ago in the blinding white of his insanity. Each uniquely scarred, body's both evidently powerful and yet seemingly fragile, like bones previously broken now repaired.
"We, child, are the catalysts of your fate. We are here to commit you to the final step of this mission which has been your life...we are here on behalf of Irieshu, and have been told to take you to your father."
The smoke of the burning, sacrificial offerings to his future, composed the plain upon which this discussoin occured, yet it's violence quietly dissolved in teh face of this new insinuation, "What do you mean? Where is Irieshu? He was supposed to accompany me..."
"Irieshu...is dead," The center man, whom held the metallic cube, quietly intoned, eyes staring darkly at the Earth implicating a pain Tyeko could not begin to concieve of, "He perished at the onslaught in Versailles...he...I...he seemed to believe he could defeat the entire army of Akira single handedly...to him, there was something simply horrible about those people waiting to die, to be raped and murdered, at those bastards hands...yet, ultimately, the same fate befell them, and our most vital leader was lost. But his message to us was clear...take the boy, and get him to his father. Your time has come child...you must follow the plan that Irieshu had devised for you long ago."
Tyeko stared blandly forwards, smoke filling his empty eyes, the final constrictoins of his heart deferring to the pain as apathy infested his blood like liquor.
"He's...he's dead? he died there...but...how..."
"Tyeko...I'm sorry," the same man spoke, the other's like pillars of support to this central figure, reflections of his tendencies, reiterating his emotions as he stared into the voids which now cmposed Tyeko's eyes, "But this is the end of the war...his time was now. The final attack must belong to you...we are required to make you understand your sacrifice. We have here," The man held speculatively the metallic object, flames light absorbed into's ebony structure even with their violent fortifications present here, "the device of this war's conclusion, Tyeko. This...is a bomb. A bomb powerful enough to annhilate the whole of Akira's capital city...we need you to return to your home, Tyeko, with this weapon...we need you to return to your father, to stand by his side once more, and to detonate this bomb at his feet. He must not be allowed to survive the blast, Tyeko...the only way to assure of this...the bomb must be detonated in his buidling, in the very room which he stands, or else the fortifications composed to repel this very plot will render the explosion meaningless, and merley the numerous, innocent citizens of Akira's city will suffer the cost. His building...heh, Bombproof. His ROOM, bomb-proof...you must stand by his side, andshow him that no matter the power of his steel, he still burns like all human flesh."
"A...a bomb? That is my final destiny, is to take my own life in parrallel with my father...a bomb..."
"A bomb...of much power. It will create, initially, an explosion to rival all detonations man kind has ever created, more their their hydrogen and nitrogen bombs...and then, the result of this explosion, oh...oh yes, this is a very special proto-type, you see...it shoudl create a very potent after effect which shoudl prevent Akira and his armies, especially those undre him that would so rabidly claw for command at the moment of his death...it shoudl make sure none of them can claim power either. No one will ever rise to power again after this bomb is detonated."
Eyes like lunatic eclipse gazed into Tyeko's own, as the boy whispered, "How? What does it do?"
"That doesn't concern you, Tyeko. You're purpose is merely to detonate it. Now...we ask you, we BEG of you...accept your responsibilty...it's what Irieshu would want..."
Tyeko's eyes, derelict of the tears which would make them human, rose to meet the man's own.
"Of course...of course. Anything for Irieshu."
The world veered violently, the defining seperation of man and machine from natures bounty, across the voidless emptiness which defined the ocean. It had been a long while since the radio had fallen blandly silent, its pupetted form no longer the blatant martinet which at one time defined it's purpose; now it was soulless, a servitude of solitude, untouched by the hands which divined its fate with the lack-luster quality of a devil.
Irieshu's eyes stared forwards into the blindness of the sky, the waves rippling mindlessly beneath the darkened clouds, a constant war of sky and Earth which no walking creature would ever truly comprehend. Lightning streaked, a malevolent stab at the ocean's heart, repelled by it's implausible girth. Both Earth and Water dueled the sky, yet it maintained it's constat vigilance, a malignant dynasty which the planet would never view uncoiled.
The boy's sucess was the balance upon which every element of life remained. He did not concieve of a plausible failure; Tyeko was, by all accounts, composed of a fortitude reticent of all shame...all elements of strength were within his grasp. Yes...the small symbol of his passage, defining his departure and destination, delineated his course quietly across the spectral sea, designating only a few remaining minutes before his arrival. Just a few minutes, and the final act would be in motion. The audience, the bumbling fools who concieved that the play they viewed held no relevance pretaining to their lives beyond the theatre, would be returning to their seats to imbibe the remaining segments, translucent eyes absorbing, a vacuum of reality, and destroying. And yet these were for whom he sought to annhilate that which he considered worthwhile to maintain alive; he himself was not strong enough to sacrifice for them...no, his weakness was his inability to sympathise. He was not strong enough to sacrifice...instead, he would martyr a child for their cause. But his fate, uniquely bound by the strings of choice into a solid composition, would withstand the convictions of his future, and his death was not yet ratified.
Yes, there would be no child who would die in this final segment of their epic drama. For, while he could never sacrifice himself for the audience which in his life he had never learned to love, there remained one persona within this world for which his life was equitable.
While he could never bring himself to offer the audience the slightest sense of compunction, he would give his life for Tyeko.
Monday, December 22, 2003
Light and darkness bred the offspring of pain to follow.
In all reality, the captain now considered, the black turmoil a blind companion to which he spoke, eyeing him quietly in a content amusement as the pistol leveled with the defining crease of his forehead.
The doors had opened so simplistically, a pontius pilot of their own defering to his tyranny, reviving the damnation that had stalked their pathetic forms since the intial moment they had constructed it.
The light had blinded the soldiers, eyes inhaling it, men long lost in a desert of black, their inane selfishness leading them to instanteous ignorance. They were blind. All blind, as the boy thrust the doorway aside, dispatching it quietly from its sacred duty, only the barest shard of his character visible in the light which never truly flatters the sillhouettes which it composes.
The boy was good. The boy was just as they had anticipated.
The bullet ruptured the soldires head, opaque blood searing the eyes of the nearby man, whose pains were soothed instantly by a similar medication, a volley of explosive reactions blended by dexterity into a solitary sound, each precise, unconsisting of the fortuitious failures of fate's common acts upon the needy, the boy's eyes their own blade of steel guiding the creatures abhorrent claws. A cold, laconic smile blessed the countenance, like a christening of reality, a baptism of men's blood.
The nuances of sight, fleeing in the face of their accursed companion light, quickly reforged with the soldiers as they rotated their weapons mindlessly, the soothing voice of death inspiring the lax neccessity to merely lower, merely lower their weapons and surrender...
A civil war of bullets resulted in nothing; the boy's own eyes claimed mastery of the inhuman, flares of life whose solitary purpose was to reduce their own, a creation only creatures of such caliber as human beings could possibly compose. The boy stood quielty, his pistol the virtue of command, inspidid stare sliding form solitary form to remaining shadow, calmly disposing of his barriers, the manacles of human flesh which bound him the damnation.
"You were beautiful, kid. Just like we wanted; this is the fault of humanity, I suppose...or perhaps it's our most glorious aspects. We die for our creations, we die for them and we suffer and we are content when they take our lives like psychotic sons...we see them as perfect."
"I no longer am concerned with you, Captain. I expected better; I expected much better from the bastard who decided my life was worthy of his contamination, of his own manipulation...you believe you can improve...but you only destroy," The pistols dark eyes, catalyst the boy's own thought, a personification of the man's fate.
"Do not condemn me child...I sacrfice myself for the future. You are quite neccessary, if I come to understand it. You may not believe it, but I konw that you are. Please, please, do not grow discontent...but you are behaving exactly as we expected you too. As we hoped, my child."
They had all died, pierced into teh darkness by the creatures which held no rapport to the life they enveloped. Tyeko felt the insanity, the seperate entity which composed his actions, which construed his environment, the creation which sadistically invoked his desires...his finger constricted upon the trigger...
The man's skull had dissolved, his eyes widening in sudden realizatoin that despite his consistent belief of his immortality, that his life was truly nothing more than the meaningless walk-on within the constructs of this solitary child's life...his mind dissolving, imploding, devoiding, the universe focusing upon this final, momentous occasion which marked his death, a life of so many years, striving through all of it to reach this final, existential moment...his brain did not resist the bullet as it rended apart, spraying it against the wall composed of its metallic cousin. The blood, the soul of conflcit, drooled, relaxed in its quintessence, down the wall. There was nothing, merely the darkness, merely the quiet, unending ring which constricts the heart, of that redounding echo...
"Thank you, Tyeko. Finish me...do it now, please, I beg of you. You are truly beatiful, you are everything which they told me you would be. I send you, a beacon of...of...chance into the future, of something to oppose the coming darkness, to comfort the souls of the dead as only a killer can...you must take me now, you must bless with me the chance to accompany your collection on your quest into the future. Pull that trigger Tyeko...and christen a new age in my blood."
"You bastards. You killed them all...you killed her, you killed HER, you made her suffer right beside me...ALL SHE wanted was to die with dignity, all she wanted was her parents one last time...you drew her out here, YOU DREW THEM ALL OUT HERE, on teh belief that their lives were the epitomy of hope...you did not grow them into adults first...NO, here, they still had the faith of children in your adult-like judgement...and...you killed them all. You bastards...you BASTARDS..."
"You're dissappointing me, Tyeko. The man of hte future can not have such convictions; he can not suffer at the face of death of his companions. Death will claim many of them, friend...not even you are capable of silencing him with your supposed bullets...they can not rend the fabrics of which he is made, Tyeko."
"I...you son of a bitch..."
"What do you think HE woudl say to you right now, Tyeko? Do you believe he would condone this? DO YOU BELIEVE he would say that this weakness you are showing will assist in the carving of the future? The wood you will use with be hard, Tyeko, you're hands will splinter many times...YOU WILL NOT SOB IN THE FACE OF THAT REALITY, TYEKO!"
The translucent strands of time which bound this unvierse as one, the puppet strings of our creator, rended upon that singular trigger, the metallic key to life and death, bonding the two uniquely in a ribbon of steel.
"Kill me, Tyeko, and go out into the world which is yours to recreate."
Tyeko's eyes speared the man's own, every conviction within his omrtal soul a solitary blade, a whip, an impetus driving him onwards towards this unavoidable conclusion, the ease of the solutoin which the bullet allows, that wonderful yield of pressure as it quietly unbounds you from the obstacles before you, a majestic arm offering you a pathway of ease with merely the debt of a shard of a steel, the broken eyes of a man suited to a decimated body, derelict of human morality which shoudl define their conscious, urging him to strive, to test if a bullet coudl truly kill a creation which seemed to evidently already dead...his finger compressed...
"Thank you, captain...It is your parable which has taught me most valuable lesson."
He lowered the weapon from the captain's skull.
With a quiet grin at the awed figures face, he turned, a cloak against the wind, and quietly strode to the threshold bathed in those sacrificed, undeniably, for merely his maturity.
"TYEKO..TYEKO, you must KILL ME to sanctify your FUTURE! YOU MUST KILL ME!" Panic laced the rage of the man's voice, his eyes defying his minds attempt at subtlety.
The man saw only the apathetic back of the boy he had carved the final nuances of a man into, as the quiet voice whispered in that frequency rivaled only by death, "I don't owe you any favors."
And with that, the light swallowed the darkness whole once more.
The captain's only thought within that darkness was of the way it reminded him so of a mother accepting her child back into her embrace.
Saturday, November 15, 2003
"People have the oddest ways of never surrendering."
The commander gazed at the captain, eyes translucent windows to the obvious torment imbibed by his soul from those similar panes. The boy was coming. Just as they had suspected...just as they had supposed. But that had been the purpose intially, that had been the foundation upon which all tumultous activities had been composed, a massive building consturcted as if by the hands of the children for hte mere purpose of destroying. But the child destroys for pleasure; they intended to kill wi the debris.
"Sir, shall we open fire? When he comes through teh door? He won't live sir. But you insist upon it...I have to question the logic. Already, so many ahve died for this cause ,and yet you consider it a prerequisite tat this boy be riddled with the very bullets you despise. Captain, as the commander of these troops, I have to question the-"
"You will open fire. You will open fire, and you will attempt to kill him, and every one of us will die. Lest you forget, he was terrible enough already, he now has a gun."
"It's a depuities pistol, sir."
The captain gazed, same despotic control upon his features but for hsi benedict eyes, upon the equally malicious displays of light and color that the television represented. Each one flickering dark like a scream with each passing second, a rythmic beat it seemed, as the boy strode, eyes gleaming the same malevolent expression as the bullets he fired, towards their emintently closer position. He readied the troops. Somehow, however, as his eyes fused with the forlorn stare of the captains, all emphasis dissolved, seemingly replaced by a darker apathy unleashed from the cage of his optimism. The beast had conquered its confinement. Like a broken child the optimism clung inauspicious to a life that was suddenly irrelevant, and with that resolution faded into nothingness. Apathy seeped, poision of the most brutal form, into his blood. His hand lowered. The troops did not react, did not differ, merely remained trained upon the doorway. Another monitor darkened, its final flicker the open eyes of surprise of the executed. ANother. Closing eyes, fading from life like inverse cells closed to a soul released. Another. Only 3 left. Trepidation died in the compassionless face of apathy, compunctions reprised for their naivity, care subsitituted for strength. Another, another, only one single monitor standing amongst the corpses of its bretheren, its supplemental camera trained on the very door that so many similar eyes both human and mechanical now enveloped, but complimentary in image to this as well. And there it was. The figure they adored, they woudls acrifice their lives for, for whom they had constructed their lives for destruction, Tyeko rested a mere 5 feet from thier position. Merely an unlocked door seperated the two hands of fate from finnally striking flint to steel...
The boy's metallic eyes encompassed the camera's own for a moment, a smile spreading upon his metallic face, as his rose his hand catalyst of his metallic consitutuition. In the next few moments, the soldiers would strive to stare death in the face as nobly as that camera did.
The weapon fired.
With that single action a bullet pierced its soul, shattering its material surface and rending its very purpose into shreds irreplacable.
The final monitor fell dark.
Friday, November 14, 2003
Malevolence sung its vibrant chord that night.
Tyeko struck the man in teh back of the skull without the slightest consideration. He was always astounded at their stupidity; did they not conceive that they had aggregatted the supposed world's best to this very location? Did they truly believe that merely the tempting of fate would reconcile their right to survival, that by devising a method to encumber, they could destroy what proportioned the students to the remaining population?
He removed the pistol from the man's belt. The others were already stationing themselves. From the moment he had fired the weapon, they had understood. Adversary as they was a time of before. Two worlds were efficently divided by the exact moment the bullet was fired, a time before and time after, and as each passing second joined its brethern in the eternal gorge of human imagination the original faded from possessed thought. Tyeko would find the control station. It was here, and here alone, that he woudl reverse upon them the damnation that had personified itself in their presence. As gods they possessed their equivalent will, defacing their lives, destroying their souls. The heart however did exist, long dead in purpose but to observe the remaining body, ever professing some false authority over the creature which had long ago lost possession, wandering blindly, capriciously, in its own destructive actions. However, little did it grasp that despite its belief of forsaking its bonds by the heart for the insanity of its midless truculence, here rested still its eternal weakness. And Tyeko woud find it. Tyeko woudl reach into the creatures chest and destroy it, no matter the cost. His life was beyond purpose; he held a mission.
He walked silently down teh hallway, feet barely striking the melodic surface of the tiling, pistol deceptively limp in his poised fingers. The heart...the heart to the creature, the force which had guided it to destroy the creatures which fed its twisted desires. It was a relationship between predator and pray, a brilant form in which the pray was only aware at the very last moment of its conscious existent. They never had time to react. They barely had but a moment to concieve of its horrific end, struck by the creature it had come to trust.
Tyeko was the first to ever duck.
"I know you're here. I can sense it, you bastards. Your mechanical devices grow ever more prevalent. I know you can see me as well. You can see that I am coming, but you can also see that I am a river. The Earth is a force which can not be halted; its decisions are a thousand times more tyrannical than the Humanic governments our peoples despise. And I am a messenger of her. I am a river which shall not halt, and I know you sit there in your shallow misery and await your death. You can not stop me. You built me to well." The camera along the hallway's bridge between wall and ceiling Contorted slightly, retracting as if in fear, like an animal that has been struck, "I know that you wait in silence for the waters to strike. I come from the moutains you built, from the peaks you constructed, and I have surpassed them. Now I am hurtling down them towards you who await me in wonder at the base. I guaratee, you shall not be dissappointed.
Sunday, November 09, 2003
In the silence, Tyeko gazed at the camera's blind eye.
It's rotated optical lense quietly surveyed the entirety of the room, absorbing the condition of the wounded children and the equally healthy, its impassionate gaze obstructing any sense of dignity to those who quietly submitted to the diseases which had been imbibed with each breath over the passing weeks, as conditions were steadily degraded to a state of insanity amongst the troops.
Tyeko was the solitary figure. Tyeko was the single element still conscious of a course of action. The teachers were destroying them. Tyeko did not concieve of the purpose, nor did his current speculations concern one. They would die, one by one, if he did not act. The boy next to him moaned quietly as blood erupted from his lips, the result of having been wounded 75 seperate times by a rotorary weapons the supervisors had stated was of a low caliber impact, but in fact was programmed at its most potent blast. Each shot had folded the boys organs in upon themselves; by the end, they would have proven better men to aim for his skull. Even as these visions pulsed quietly through Tyeko's throbbing memory, the boy next to him's chest constricted one final time as blood erupted from his throat, blinding his eyes, which stared mindlessly upwards. The boy, with that final act of self-humiliation, died. A girl to Tyeko's left lay naked upon the floor, struggling vainly to conceal herself from the numerous boys around her, of which the combined futility and look of anguish upon her face caused Tyeko to mutter a quiet hack of laughter, at the idea that any boy was interested as of the moment. The obvious pain it caused her, the strain upon her reddening face, eyes burning in her skull as her entire mind focused, struggling to remain conscious, to remain alive, bulging, on this single purpose, as more blood spread from the corners of her mouth, so desperately struggling, to the point of muffled grunts, to conceal herself, it was all oddly hilarious. The girl curled into a tighter and more constricted ball with each passing second, as her deformed body, broken arms, horifically bruised legs, were silently coated in the constant throbbing pulse of blood from her deformed eye, completely imploded, a blood-balloon shot with a full 90 milimeter caliber pin. A special weapon the supervisors had concluded was reasonable to hand to the side yet again opposing Tyeko. Tyeko's side continued to win; they were incapable of loss. The battles had steadily shifted into complete bias; every fine soldier that existed in the school was assigned to the opposite team. Tyeko was always captain of his own. As Tyeko continued to win even these battles, they steadily began to remove his weapons. As he persisted in annoying them with his pathetic need to win, they eliminated any armanents he recieved except their individual suit pistols, alligning the other team with every concievable military device they could muster, and prescribing to teh other team an already established base, trench, and defense matrix, while Tyeko's team was left with nothing but an open field. And still Tyeko won. Tyeko did not understand how it was possible; at times, it was nothing more than himself, as he struggled to command his troops despite their warranted fear of actual death at the hands of the weapons supplied, at the very end, crawling through the base with shredded legs and merely his pistol, slaugthering hte remaining men, his own laying dead along side them. They would not submit to these victories however. They began the impossible; they began to physically murder his troops. His team's weapons were set to something describable as stun, which stopped the other teams soldiers for a mere hour or less, meaning that all had to be slaughtered in an hours time to achieve victory. However, the other teams weapons had been artificially enhanced; their weapons now ripped holes in his soldiers chests. The girl's voice rose faintly as she hacked, blood cataracting across her lips carelessly, her hands still cupped around her crotch in an almost mindless fashion, now depicting this formation merely as the last transaction of relevant thought the brain had offered. She would be his fifth soldier killed. When the first one died, he had been astonished, sure that they would concieve of what they're horrific bias had resulted in. They had done nothing. It had been a little girl, Tyeko had quietly sat by her side as her naked chest heaved. She had not died shamefully like the girl beside him. She had been one of his most respected; she lay naked before their hideous, apathetic lensic eye with a silent, sad grin. She had been sure they would supply medical attention...sure...any moment...only at the end had she begun to cry. Begun to cry as she struggled to explain to him the feeling of her lungs no longer expanding...of her organs surrendering, closing. She had cried even as the barracks door opened and the supervisors strolled silently in, bearing an entirely different form of medicine at last. They placed the frosty, mockery of a syringe against her forehead. In her final moment, she had kicked, struggled to escape the covers as a man grasped Tyeko, his own mind unconcieving of the reality unveiling itself, she had sobbed, clutched at them with her small hands, offered them anything, anything at all, if they just didn't kill her, she just wanted her mommy again, her dad, just to see them one more time please she didn't know this was what it was all about this was it, this was how things happened she never woudl have come, they could do anything they wanted to her, she didn't care, she cried, she sobbed, she offered them her body, her soul, as she implored, the tears spilling from her eyes...
The bullet silenced her plees.
A fading rinng echoed within the Barracks as the room came to a quiet understanding of the future.
Tyeko gazed at the camera, its heartless eyes surveying the children as the girl to his left died, hands sliding from her crotch revealing her naked in her death, a few, quiet tears sliding down her cheeks. The camera halted briefly upon her, then continued onwards, clearly unamused.
Yes...today, no doubt, he would lose more, more children dyeing under his supposed care, as they merely laughed at whatever sadistic irony they saw in torturing him purposelessly. Yes, all of this would happen. The Camera silently halted, pausing for its few seconds upon Tyeko's face, All of this would certainly have happened.
If Tyeko had not at that moment hesistationlessly reached under his pillow, removed the pistol from its case, and, offering it one, happy grin, leveled it with the camera's eyes.
"Not so apathetic now, are we, bastard?"
Tyeko had no qualms or worries about where to aim. He had no concerns about whether he would miss. Tyeko knew full well where he wished to fire. He knew full well where this bullet was destined to go.
Tyeko shot it directly in the eye.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
"I'm coming for you."
Irieshu gazed into the monitor, the small speaker crackling dully in its innappropriate laughter, corrupting the silence that defined the cold within his chest.
"It's only right that it should end this way, Irieshu. It's only right."
"I'm going to stop what I created."
"Of course you are. But I trust you don't believe you will merely stroll into my office and pull the trigger?"
Irieshu gazed at the dust-crusted monitor screen, a shadow of lifeless cells across its courteouslessly dark countenance.
"That's exactly what I intend to do."
"You do not seem to understand, Irieshu. I thought better of you. You are caught up in the moment; you feel things pulling to a close as acutely as I do. But, you are making a fatal error: This is not some story, Irieshu, not some story written by a naive little boy who still believes in heros. This is reality, my friend, and in reality, just because the story is coming to a close doesn't mean the hero becomes invincible."
The craft shrugged violently against the sea, which rose its shoulder blindly as if to swat the annoyance adulterating its darkened waters.
"I don't have to be."
"Ah...ah, ah, ah, but you do. Because I have no intention of dyeing, Irieshu. Not like you. I don't seem my life defined by this war; I see myself as its God. I began it and I will end it at my whim, and I intend to live far beyond it. A God is the father who is granted the blessing to outlive his children. You, however, are a son. And you will perish with him in unison."
Clouds obscured the lunar face, hideous upturned grin appraising the Earth, a mockery of the venal misery visible only its shadowed sockets. The ocean loomed blindly before him, eternally, as his craft choked on its final flecks of fuel.
"I'll kill whatever you put in front of me. It doesn't matter."
"Irieshu. I have total faith in whatever you say; you have never failed your word before. As a result, I am giving you the oppurtunity to die without obscuring that dignity. Retract your statement; it is impossible. Your time is over, my time is just begginning."
"It's his time now."
The voice hesitated, like a child in the silence of the craft, "...Whose time?"
"His. He will be the corrected version I had intended for you. He will rule with all the qualities neccessary to guide this world into a new age. He will face the darkness resultant of this war and triumph."
"You...you don't..."
"His time."
"You bastard. You motherfucker. You whore of men. How...how dare you..."
"He's mine now..."
"Scum, vile, not worthy of the drippings from a used bitch, I'll murder you, I will make you pay you god-damned whoreson..."
"...but he was never yours in the first place."
"Irieshu...Irieshu, you come, you come and you find me, and I will kill you myself. I will slice your throat. I will lay you naked before me and castrate you. I will make sure you die a heap of nothingness, without manhood, without any dignity, I will make you a waste of space when we do no more than bury in the shit of dogs, I willl...I will..."
"You will die, Akira. Now, I'm going to get him..."
"YOU GOD-FUCKING TRAITOR, I WILL KILL YOU, I WILL DESTROY YOU, I WILL MAKE YOU WISH THERE IS A GOD SO HE MAY SLICE YOUR THROAT---"
"...I'm going to get my son."
Monday, July 07, 2003
"What...what do I do?!"
The boy gazed out across the forsaken battlefield, bled of all reality by the mere presence of itself, the other children quickly organizing beyond the visible horizon, as both teams seemed to settle in for a stalemate.
The battles had been incessant.
In the past 3 days, every possible fragment of military data had been impounded into the children's skulls, Tyeko's own mind almost incapable of holding the information, this discounting the material he felt was obselete and useless to his cause. Indeed, he struggled to maintain a natural sense of every weapondry that had been supplied, ever minor stratedgic lesson, not so much those that the commanders claimed held success, but those which had maintained failure, as Tyeko desired above all else to not repeat previous commander's mistakes.
With the conclusion of the classroom's expierence...they had been enveloped in the swirling damnation known merely as war. It held not the mortality, though the pain and suffering remained almost replicated; However, it was the mere continousness that drove the children to their limitations. Every day, every hour, every second, the battle ensued, each tantalizing conclusion no more than a catalyst product of the next war. With each conclusion, another isntantly ensued, new ranking and positions being established, new weapons assigned, the terrain of the "Field" Melding in upon itself as new territory was forged as if by god's own wrath. Two weeks so far of endless warfare, endless thought, endless terror of losing, only aware that this was a situation no other childrne had faced, and yet this was the trial of their education...
And each battle rested on the shoulders of Tyeko.
From the very first, Tyeko realized that the other children, while many biased strongly to the combat and martial arts, some holding a keenness towards mechanical objects, some even possessing the abstract thought manipulations capable of strategic creation...none maintained a sense of leadership. None could cleary, it seemed, view the reasonable course to victory, and guide others to such a position. THose possessing of imagination, of skill in plot, seemed to have had their minds poisoned, diseased by the "Teachers" Before this natural one, teachers which had condemend their natural thoughts as ruthless and inhuman, and forced them into a state of mind where every "Natural" thought merely projected a liberal, unfounded "compasionate" drive to the enemy, attepmting to spare troops, to remain within the "rules" of battle, to not risk lives even for a imperitive juncture...
No. These children had not been taught by "Truth", they had not been melded by the hammer of expierence...each faced the true situation of this war, this graphic representation of life between men, and found themselves devoid of all rational thought, as the true failing of their teaching dawned on them. And yet...Tyeko would not fail. Tyeko woudl not lose do merely to teh ineptness of others...he coudls till make use of them. He was limited by the martial law of the school to usurp a position...and hence did not brutually massacre the failures as they deserved, raise a rebellion with the start of every new session... no. Tyeko merely proceeded with the simplest path beyond that. He offered himself as an advisor. As a rational mind in the cloud of terror, as the brillant light of oppurtunity at the end of the children's horrific tunnel...
"TYEKO! WHAT DO WE DO!?" The boy screamed, his clawed fingers engraving into the flesh of Tyeko's shoulder. Tyeko's own eyes narrowed, his eyebrows lowering into jagged lines above his own sockets, casting a darkened shadow in the twilight of the setting sun.
Tyeko's eyes flickered towards the opposite trench, quickly established, and quietly confided within his own. A trench war was ensuing, the most brutal of the stalemates...and he was steadily under the influence that the other team had maintained more soldiers. This latest battle seemed to follow the progression of all others: His "comrades", his fellow soldiers on his team, had become steadily worse. There was a balanced number amongst the entire "Class" of the Institute; Those capable of defining the insuperable, the very peak of the class...and those whom barely managed to entreat acess in the fist place. Steadily, and in a pattern that Tyeko was begginning to assume could not be the result of mere random selection, the latter had begun to steadily replace each member of his team. Initially, the teams had been balanced...he had been capable of fluctuating the inept with the capable, his advisory maintaining an impervious grip over the defense and offense...but now...steadily, oh so quietly, each member which he held respect for was switched. With each new battle, there were less capable...at this point, in this battle, the realization dawned upon him as the shadows rippled across his paling skin, he held none. And a trench war...how does one defeat a trench war...it was seemingly impossible, the perfect stalemate; the other team was bound by the gloriously uncorrupt "fate" of the chosen teams, as his own men were bound to make the smallest mistakes, the minorest errors, which would result in carnage beyond their minor imaginations.
"Plee---please, Tyeko, tell me!" The commander snivveled, tears welling in his eyes, his blackened hair hanging limply across his forehead, his reaining hand collapsed limply onto Tyeko's shoulder, as if attempting to leech his own confidence from him, "You haven't lost yet, TYeko, you avne't lost yet, and we can't lose now, please...please tell us...YOU HAVE TO TELL ME! TEEEEEEL ME!!! TELL ME N-"
Tyeko casually shot the boy in the leg.
He screamed, the pain instantly translating throught he censors, as his leg was hurled backwards, isntantly freezing, and he slumped to his remaining knee.
"You're...you're a monster..." The boy's voice cracked, his hands prying dully at his paralyzed leg.
"I am your last hope."
"That doesn't make you good!" The boy screamed, as the final bouts of light sunk beyond the horizon, the air echoing nearly consuming his scream with the sound of the enemy's bullets erupting into their bloodless, mindless murder.
Tyeko rested the pistol against the boy's skull, nestling it's omnipotent eye against the darkened creases of his trembling forehead. The child's eyes rose quietly to meet Tyeko's own, pleading, mouth quietly twitching prayer and begging, tears drooling down his cheeks.
"I have no intention of being "Good". I will agree that the greatest men of our hitsory are those capable of gaining respect, control, and power, while remaing decent and respected, and "pure". However, I am not one of them. I am concerned with one thing, and one thing alone: My own survival. And the most effective way to achieve this is through the gaining of power. Power is all that matters in this world."
The boy's mouth twitched as his lungs attempted to exhale their final follied response, but Tyeko quietly compressed the trigger. The boy's entire body collapsed backwards, head snapping back brutally against the body's own resistance. The body rolled silently through the trench's muddy interior, before quilety lolling to a stop, back facing the darkened sky, face gazing limply towards Tyeko, half consumed in the water mud constituting his grave, a single aspect defining his counteance: Realization.
"There is one difference," His voice exploded from his throat, his own presence silencing the very punctuating eruptions of the enemy rifles, all backround environment seeming to slowly dissolve in his presence, as the other children, terrified, grim, or haughty, all signs of the inept, rose their broken eyes to him, "Between our trench war and the wars involving such in the past. And that is the stupidity with which our enemy has positioned himself from our own. He is within 5 yards of our area. THough this does create a very differnet situation, perhaps planned upon, in which weapons of extreme accuracy may be used...however, we will compensate. We will never emmerge from the confines of this trench, nor will we ever stand to allow such an event...there is only one way in which to win a trench war, and if our enemy were not fools, it would be impossible. However," His split quietly into a grin as his mind dissolved beneath the silent, infective security of his insanity, his trusted insanity, which if he merely left to to his bidding woudl always suceed... "They are. My friends, this will work only once, and may very well be turned upon us at a later date. We will never stand, we will never emmerge...we will dig."
"TWELVE FEET!?" One boy screamed, his own eyes no longer focused on Tyeko but upon himself, "We're tired, we're weak, we can't dig a twelve feet tunnel!"
The pistol hummed lightly after the discharge, almost blanketing the quiet thud of the boy's body.
"It's good to see at least one of you understood," Tyeko smiled blandly, his eyes flickering, pupils dialated and yet blinded white, bleached by lunancy, "We will dig straight to the enemy trench, under our preverbial no-man's land. We will emmerge inside of their tunnel, taking them completley by surprise, and open fire on them like animals in a cage. Many casualties will result, many of you will die. But we will win. I assure you. Oh, and it will not be just one tunnel; each of you dig your own. Start as low to our Trench floor as possible...there is a mere 6 feet of earth between you and the surface. You're tunnel must be dug with percision and accuracy. We do not have much time..." Tyeko's mind blindly calcuated the likely hood of the other team becoming aware, accounting for the likely intelligence permeating their ranks, "Begin now."
What was the point...what was the point of the ignorant soldiers delivered to him? And was it to him? Did the Instituition realize that in each battle he became, by providence of fear, the reigining leader...? The stupidity, however...short as it may be, what did they expect for him to lead into war in his real carreer...civillians!?
Silently, Tyeko's gaze rolled towards the darkened sillhouette of the Instituition, standing like a lord enjoying their sport, or an impenetrable wall...
"They are the enemy..." He whispered, and felt the shame well within him in propotion with the tears in his eyes. They were steadily transforming him...he had had such noble plans, to maintain dignity, respect, his mocked purity which he had stated...and yet, did they give him the appropriate people? People whom's respect could be gained by merit? No...he recieved the foolish...he understood merely one thing...power. And fear. They were transforming him into a dictator, and, he quietly realized, he had not even comprehended it until this exact moment. But what choice did he have...what choice did he have...
They were the enemy.
Friday, June 13, 2003
Tyeko observed the commanders. They were foolish in their arrogance; their finest stupidity rested in mistreating the children they were steadily honing to kill; children whose fears of any presence in this existential world was quickly being dissolved, yet these commanders in persisting in their arrogance, their torturing...what was the point? Tyeko grasped the Commanders weaknesses; he himself recongized that they were nothing in comparison to...well, nothing in comparison to his own skills. If the need be, he imagined he could annhiliate their presence; but it was the other children. The war was concluding, Tyeko could sense it in the urgency of the News Casters, i nteh decrepit faces of hte Generals as they stated their generic scripture, "The war is generally running in our favor; we assume that we may very well have conquered the Akirian empire within a few hours."
Tyeko's glanced towards the boy next to him within the mess hall, stolidly stooped before the less than fine quality nourishment they were provided with, "If there's one thing I know, it's that unless I'm involved, nothing is going to stop my father."
"What?" The kid's eyes widened in the reverent fear all children had developed for Tyeko, despite his best efforts to evolve a friendship, "What do you want?"
"The newscasters, you hear them? Their telling blatant lies. The D.A is about to collapse, and this war is about to conclude in Akira's favor. I doubt it will last even another month."
The kid's eyes narrowed in darkened suspicion at any thought surpassing basic observation, "What do you mean, lieing? Newscasters don't lie; that's their job. To make sure the government stays in check."
"HA," Tyeko's own voice shattered the muffled mumbles that constituted noise within the room, thought the broken noise quickly reformed from the sparse, naked silence, "The government has it's own way of dealing with checks."
THe boy's eyebrows narrowed, the pale lighting of the hall reflecting off of his inteligent, yet lacking prudent, eyes, "So, what are you saying? The D.A's going to lose? But why the hell are we here for then? We're not gonna have any armies to fight with..."
Tyeko's fingers converged into a fist, "EXACTLY. Why are we here? What is the point? We're not even learning things anymore; over hte past weeks we've been trained in everything they've got, but suddenly, it just stops. All the talk of us as heroes, as the inspirations to war, all of it, just ends. Now, we're just "Fighting" outside every day; I don't know what they're working towards. I think something terrible happened...and now, they don't think there's a point anymore."
"The Ural Mountains were finnally taken," The boy stated, bluntly, without the slightest flicker of consideration or register of how very astout the statement was.
"Wh---my god, you're absolutely right..." Tyeko whispered, then, with the subconscious knowledge of the effect it would have, as the sudden urgency to aquire companionship as a plan formulated within his skull, stated, "I never would have thought of that."
The boy's cheeks blushed deeply, as Tyeko had anticipated; the respect he had earned as a military genius was finnally begginning to be useful...a monetary form, almost.
"Didn't I kill you once?" Tyeko struggled to inflect his voice to formulate the sarcasm.
The boy apparently grasped the subtle shift, his lips brightening in unison with eyes, "I don't think there's anyone in this room you haven't killed."
"Heh," Tyeko stated, struggling for modesty. Yes, he needed the otheres now; they could not be confined to this horrific place any longer, not now, not as the shaping of the future was about to be unveiled. He had to halt his father; the future could not be shaped without his hands. Yet, for some reason, Irieshu persisted in containing him here...he would have to escape. He could not do it merely alone...
In the peripheral horizon of his eye, Tyeko noticed a guard briefly whisper to another, who, face instantly grave, quietly exited through the Mess Hall doors and proceeded to fade from the meager visual repository that the double-door window provided.
He shook his head quietly, still gazing at the boy whom was smiling before him. A single step down a long path...but it was neccessary. This place had served it's purpose; now, it was no more than a cage.
Tyeko and the boy continued watching the news in silence, until finnally they had finished their meals.
They noted many things that quiet hour:
1. The newscasters clothing quality had significantly improved.
2. THe war footage shown was actually repitions of previous battles.
3. There was not a single General who wasn't grim.
Friday, May 23, 2003
"It's people, Tyeko."
The wooden-porch swing swung gently in the fading hues of the sunset, as the little girl gently propelled it forwards by mere body motion, her body clothed in a dilapidated, grayed night-robe, her flesh of an equal, faded nature, a shadow the sun's light. Small creaks emittted dully from the transport, back and forth, as the shadows quietly increased, the eternal conlict between dark and light steadily shifting tides once more.
Tyeko's eyes filled with the blood-shaded contours of the sun's death, his pupils reflecting the fires upon their tranquil seas. The porch they were upon seemed irrelevant; a mindless importance constituted only as a cradle for the swing, as a definition of this spot, a preserver of this moment. His clothing shimmered in the crimson gleam, as did the little girls, once an aged cloth now revived by the sun's sacrifice.
"It's people, Tyeko. People who build this place, and people who will destroy it." The bench swung forwards with a muffled creak against it's aging chains, the expanse of yard expanding to the very horizon, completely uninhibited by any other human statements, merely this respite...this frozen moment...
"Yes, I know." Tyeko's voice responded, laced with an unknown sound he could not understand.
"Do you understand that it is the great people who build, but these same people destroyed first? Everything great that is achieved, something was sacrificed for it's creation. Do you understand that?" The chains creaked against the weight.
"It is the law of the universe..." Tyeko whispered, as the sun's eye perpetuated it's blink.
"It is not our law."
Tyeko's eyes quietly shifted towards the Girl, yet hers did not concur, persisting in their stare into the day’s annhilation, her own countenance augmenting the flames reflecting against her pupils, staring earnestly forwards, as if scouring the sun for it’s own source of truth. Anger…or hope…
“What do you mean?”
“Cycles are not broken because sacrifices are not willing to be made. A cycle is due to a requirement; if a process does not repeat, something horrible will occur, or something wonderful will be lost. But every cycle can be stopped; it will simply require the will of one. One single soul must defy it, and suffer its retribution, but then…it is broken forever.”
Tyeko’s eyes narrowed in confusion, the sun’s rays rippling against his flesh as it contorted, consuming his body as it shifted, “But, that is not true. Many may suffer from the sacrifice of a cycle. Some cycles would require the sacrifice of every living creature in the universe. And…and it is the most important cycles that bond the universe as one, that unite everything as a single Universal entity. Our entire, fathomable existence, stretching beyond the limiations of infinite space…all rests on the assurance that the cycles will continue.”
Silence echoed in the scarlet portrait.
The girls voice shattered the tranquil glass, “Not this cycle.”
“What…what do you mean?”
“The cycle of man’s mistakes.”
“Man’s…man’s mistakes?”
“You are about to perpetuate this cycle, Tyeko. Only you can halt it; you must oppose what your foolish species defines as destiny. You must defy what is in reality nothing more than a perpetual cycle. You can not allow the cycle to continue; you sacrifice the future for the past.”
His lips parted, “Whu----“
PAIN! Flaring agony, unlike anything he had ever known, fires, consuming, a darkness, people…people everywhere, a dark, swirling pain…darkness, shadow spiraling around him, spiraling, darkness, the darkness spirals, rushing past, a vortex of agony, a constricting chamber of torture cosuming his body, the agony, incapable of definitive motion, swinging…
A man. A single man…in the center of this misery…standing. Standing within it, his body enveloped in the gas-like tissue of this horrific organism…only his eyes visible…his horrified, horrified eyes…the man’s eyes consciously rose to meet his own…
A child, dismembered, body shredded, flesh explicated from the now clearly defined bones, screaming for it’s mother, for anyone to help it as the darkness flows into it’s open, shrieking mouth…it’s face bulging as bloody sprays from it’s Ears, it’s body bloating, expanding…eyes explode like blood balloons…
The sun set.
The little girl’s eyes emptily staring into his own. Her face, emotionless but for the indiscernible infection of misery, slowly turned away. Turned into the sunset.
“You have seen the future of a course yet undefined.”
“What…what are you?”
The little’s girls lips shifted dully against her face, “I am the one who has made the mistake. I am the one who has shown one the way, and must show the other the forgotten route. I am the future which has written the past. I am here to correct my error.”
Tyeko’s body collapsed limply against the darkened wood of the bench, struggling to confine the tremors which racked his body, broken by his mind, “I don’t…I don’t understand,” His breath trembled in unison.
“A moment will come when a man will make a sacrifice. If he is permitted to, the future will face it’s greatest challenge.”
“Who!? What are you talking about!?”
“A man will make a sacrifice for the future, out of spite, out of no reason but foolishness. Only you can stop it.”
“Me…me!? I’m going to make a sacrifice? What are you talking about!? WHEN!? What’s going to happen to me?!” The sun’s rays warped, darkening, the crimson fading to a hideous, undefined gray, as the little girls body seemed to fade beyond it’s own conception.
“The great builders must always be the great destroyers.” The world rippled. Tyeko felt his body dissolving, his consciousness consumed…
“WHEN WILL IT HAPPEN TO ME!? YOU HAVE TO TELL ME! WHAT DO I HAVE TO STOP MYSELF FROM DOING!”
“A man will make a sacrifice…”
“My…my father!? Do I have to kill him!? I WILL! I PROMISE YOU!!! I WON’T LET HIM STOP THE FUTURE! I WON’T LET HIM DESTROY HOPE! I PROMISE YOU!! HE WILL DIE!!!!”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”
The explosion of sound rippled against even Tyeko, shredding the bench apart in it’s awesome explosion, the chains instantly dissolving, shredded like fabric as the wood dissolved to paste.
The little girl’s voice radiated across the distance as the sun contorted, a darkened sphere in the distance, consuming the light, a black hole against the canvas…
“I AM THE FUTURE WHICH WRITES THE PAST! I AM THE FUTURE WHICH WRITES ITSELF! TYEKO, YOU MUST LISTEN TO ME: YOU MUST STOP THAT MAN!!! YOU! YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN STOP IT!”
“I understand,” Tyeko whispered, as understanding soothed his brain. So…he would sacrifice his father for the future…yes…he would be strong. He was capable. The future would not be forsaken…
“But I don’t love my father…I would not see it as a sacrifice…more as a gift…so…Wait…a man…a sacrifice,” And with that, the true answer touched his mind, “……………..myself…” His voice barely approached as a whisper, as the universe finally consumed in upon itself, the darkness flooding his vision, a deluge from above, “ MY OWN DEATH!? I HAVE TO PAY FOR THE FUTURE WITH MY OWN LIFE!? BUT!! BUT I WILL SURVIVE! I WILL NOT DIE! I CAN STOP HIM AND LIVE TO FACE THE WORLD! I KNOW I CAN! THAT IS MY TRAINING! I WILL SURVIVE!!!!”
His voice could hardly equal the nothingness as it consumed him, and he quietly drifted into it’s domain…only the barest whisper of an answer met his ears…
“A man will make a sacrifice…”
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
"I'm sick of him."
Stephens gazed stolidly into his palm, the twisted lines of fate's script indescinerable, yet always apparent, blantantly matching his own eyes with their mystical grins. The darkness enveloped the small table, a single cande flickering dully against the onslaught of shadow, struggling with it's magnificent strength and defying all odds. But, as history defined, all warriors whom fought a battle impossible, no matter how noble, would eventually fall. Smoke quietly culminated in the darkened atmosphere defined by shadows only refined by the suffocating light.
"We all hate him; there's no one who doesn't. I doubt that guy has one ally on the whole damn planet." Jose, limply hung against the spine of the chair, his arms dangling limply down either side as his legs fluidly descended it's outer edge, rose his darkened eyes.
Stephens palm flickered like inverse water against the darkness, "Yes. But we can show him what it means to destroy our dreams. WE were the best on Earth. WE were meant to have the glory. But no, whose it go to? That son of bitch. Does he even deserve it?! NO! What's he done?! OH, everyone of their damn little biddings. He throws aside his own will to continue their sick little schemes."
Roberto's fingers drummed quietly against the table to the seperate rhythm of their hearts, each set at the same rhythm yet all started at different moments, none in congruency, all similar yet entirely different at that exact moment, a brillant chord composed of beats, "There's no way to stop him, you realize. IF you don't let him finish his job, this war will never end, and we will never achieve anything either. We have no choice...there's no way we can touch him..."
"Heh. Irieshu defied the code of a man's neccessary weakness for so many years, your right, Roberto. He cared for nothing, held no beliefs except one that none of could hope to quash...but, Oh, he's made his one and only fatal mistake. He created for himself a weakness."
Jose's eyes met Stephens', "The boy."
"YES, the boy. The one and only thing that matters to Irieshu that we can hurt. What is the purpose of the boy!? To "protect" this world from the reprecussions of Atmosphere after Irieshu's death. Idiocy. WE are QUITE capable of halting Atmosphere on our owns, without the use of any foolish child. What matters most to Irieshu!? His mission. His single purpose. His unique reason for existing in life to halt this war. He intends to die in order to do it; to cease to exist in unison. That is Irieshu's greatest weakness, that is his core, and if we could destroy it, stop him...it would be even superior to his annhilation. AH, but Irieshu had always been protected. He WAS the only one who could complete his mission, and indeed, his mission DID have to be complete. But...oh the poor fool. Just as he nearly crosses that beautiful line of success, he stumbles. There is one other who can now complete that mission."
Roberto's eyes narrowed, darkened spheres and horizons inversely curbed, "The boy."
"Yes. We can use the boy in PLACE of Irieshu! Make the BOY STEAL Irieshu's purpose right from beneath his pompous ASS! YOU SEE!? The boy will detonate Atmosphere. The boy will die, he will end the war, Irieshu's purpose will instantly be destroyed, he will dispatched a hollow, useless soul whose life was sacrificed for NOTHING! AND, in the wake of Atmosphere, with NO bastard little BOY to "save the world", who can step in and earn all the glory that they RIGHTFULY DESERVE!!!??"
"GENIUS!" Jose screamed, slamming his fist upon the table, the small flame flickering in the reverberations, the darkness flooding ever closer.
"Perhaps. But it will require intense planning...we have to both trick the boy...and Trick our dear friend Irieshu." Stephen's voice steadily ebbed, as yet again he gazed transfixed into the scriptures of fate. Yes...his palm was not one of mediocore status. His fate rested in glory!
"We must not convene here again...Irieshu is a surprisingly...resilient opponent, and if he believes we are suspicious, he will quickly monitor us. We must begin to decieve him...but all of that can come later. For now...let us all consider the glory that lays before US!"
And with that, in one, fluid motion, Stephens closed his palm around the flame.
And the darkness flooded inwards.
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