[XXI] - Devastation

I breathed in the fresh, cold air of the outdoors, into my dry lungs. However, this couldn't be called delightful at all, the amount of industrial pollution and thermal gases could be somehow suffocating. Yet, it was better than the facility fragranced air inside of that mysterious place, I just came out of.

I quickly localized myself in the maze of the skyscrapers, and set the goal at once. The sun on the horizon was raising, giving up a crimson dyed light. Everything was covered in a coral-pink aura, making it look like a metropolis out of a good fairy tale.

Huh…

… A good bluff, fairy tale…

I glanced at the cityscape for one last time, feeling nostalgic and lost, after learning so much.

Getting to know the truth, after living so many years in a fog of lies… This can't be good at all.

If there is really something that can resolve it all, then why not give it a try?

Unless…

It's all a cram…

A quiet sigh left my lungs. I put on my black mask, which smelled weirdly unfamiliar. Turning my back to the sun, I tried to find a way to leave the building's roof, and reach the place I'm so eager to visit. My previous home, or what it was supposed to be. I won't decide until I get to know the truth. And I'm sure I will hear it today. Even if I have to sacrifice… a precious relationship…

•••

The day was as busy as always, the sunlit, narrow streets were full of different people. Poor corporate workers, rushing to their eternal prisons, with their red eyes, itching from the amount of screen light, destroying their cells. Classy businessmen that weren't in a hurry at all, somehow enjoying the mass they are a part of. The rare factory workers, with dirty hands and bruises of the hard physical work, that even robots couldn't cope with. Street vendors and local shop owners, with sweat dripping out of their forehead, worrying about the order officer patrols, who really like to give fines for every little detail out of place. And the rest of the livestock, that I couldn't identify. They created monochromatic, blending lines — threads. They weaved a live net, which was pulsing in a specific pattern. On whatever streets the light shines the brightest.

But there is always an opposite to everything. Hiding in the dark shadows, were everyone else, not included in the acceptable by the higher up's society. Their black clothes were merging with the darkness, so at first, they weren't noticeable with a naked eye. But I already knew the pattern of void derogations. Their silhouettes came automatically to my eyes, and I swear I could see the reflections in their eyes. Some of them held regret, some anger, many sadness, but most of them were empty like the abyss. No emotion was seen in the majority, just actions. They didn't wonder anymore. They stepped on the dark side to be efficient and fast. And to avoid the stinging light of the law, that melts everything it comes in contact with.

Now I really wonder, with which one do I identify?

I thought that I am one of the bats, the ones that stay in the shadows and act. The ones afraid of the right way of living. The ones destroyed by the right way of living. The ones that just couldn't bear with it. But…

…Could I really be one of them?

I never really associated with this group. They never really bothered me. I just blended with them because of what I have been doing, so I had to stay in the shadows at most. Yet, I never integrated, showed support, or they never did it back.

And on the contrary, the other side of the coin. The people, who follow the law, attempt to live normally. I could neither associate with them. The polite way of obeying the messed up system, killing every bit of freedom there is to have. I hated going to school, doing citizen chores, monthly checkup… I tried to run away from it as far as I could… Laughing in the law's face.

I stepped too much aside that path too. Straying from both paths, I'm walking on an unstable ground, with many obstacles and traps.

I wonder if the roads will split, showing up a new path that I could walk on, and reach my goal. The affranchisement of the society.

Before I could think of the answer, I found myself in front of the very right building. The characteristic height, thickness, gray hue and dark backstreet. High, steel door were greeting me again. There was nothing extraordinary about it.

I input the code and swept the Building Affiliation Card. I found it in the same pocket I put it in before. It was weirdly unmoved, despite the clothes being washed up.

The seal hissed, and the metal moved aside, showing me the darkness void that always greeted me with kindness.

I hesitated with stepping inside…

My heart started beating faster, my legs couldn't move when I asked them too…

Is the truth I am about to know… Change something?

Should I… Really, learn it?

What if something inside me breaks, making me give up on everything… After all… I've lived this way for 18 years…

I gulped, and breathed in deeply.

It will be fine. This is a place I can come back to. My home from as long as I remember. I could always hide in here and wait for the time to pass, for everyone to gradually forget about me…

…

…Or that's what I thought.

It seems that while some have forgotten, the other ones were focusing on me, targeting the very ordinary human I thought I was. But now it all changed. And in the past few days I got to know nowhere here is safe anymore. And a new destination appeared out of nowhere. A new place to stay, new people to work with and goals to pursue…

But should I abandon everything until now?

I shall think about it, what's best for me.

Maybe it won't be necessary… Working for an organization I don't know of. Their methods…

…After a while, I realized I've actually already learned them.

The bloodshed the blue-eyes committed. I reminded myself of it. Its vision is still up clear in my head… It shook my body when I thought about it…

Slaughter of the enemies that society despises, the ones that impose the unfair law and perform judgement, in the backstreets, where human eye doesn't reach…

But still… killing is killing. I somehow pity them, who died there brutally.

But… At the same time…

They kill too. It isn't a thing everyone knows. Yet, every death I come upon with, makes me feel regretful equally.

If I am about to work with him, and with the silver-haired one… Am I about to turn into the same, coldblooded creature as them?

I felt it, back at the street where they were tormenting me. The flow of the sudden strength, a power emerging from inside me, making me feel superior. Not feeling restricted, I could feel that the world was crushing under me. Power of a ruler that could do everything with their abilities… I thought back then that killing was nothing more than making someone cold in seconds…

…Or should I just take the copy of the evidence I have on my computer, and try delivering it once again? With that putting me in a fatal spot before the bullets of this weird "Cube" organization… It's all against them after all… Maybe I should really infiltrate them under some cover?

The emotions and thoughts were mixing inside my head, while I was walking slowly down the corridor, to my flat.

I reached the destination in no time.

But…

…Something was odd.

The buzzing of the cords that usually filled the corridor. The pulsing red light in the corners, and going up the same steel staircase I was traversing to get to my home.

When I turned towards the light, it disappeared, which was very unusual. As if someone cut the power off, necessarily. The breakdowns and issues never appeared, as the technology of transmitting power was mastered well.

I was standing before the metal door, which were emitting a weird chill.

Utter silence was surrounding me. Nothing inside could be heard. Nothing outside too. Only my shallow breathing.

And now…

I'm hesitating to go inside. Once again, the doubts hit my mind, choking me passionately.

I am about to confront my aunt, that was caring and guiding from the earliest days of my life. A comforting smile and her dark green eyes, aging slowly. A gentle voice reading out the encyclopedias and warning me about the outside world's traps… Her delicious meals and kind treatment. It all disappeared in the past days, leaving only a cold stare and unexplained behavior. And I wanted to know why.

My shivering fingers were putting in the code automatically. After the last digit, I awaited for the mechanism to click inside, and a scanner light up, waiting for my finger as an offering.

But the code wasn't even light up, which I didn't notice from the amount of cloudy thought swirling in my mind. No sound, the system was cold and dead like a stone.

The silence and coldness pierced my brain.

What's… Wrong…?

The shivers surrounded my body, the bones started cracking inside of me…

My shaking hand hesitantly reached for the metal doorknob. Cold and Dead. I grabbed it and started slowly turning, begging for the door to be closed…

…

…But they weren't.

They went off by themselves, and flew through the air with their weight, hitting the wall of the corridor, softly illuminated from the ground lights.

The corridor was empty. Cold, dark and dead. Filled with still air, holding an upcoming apocalypse. Hostile silence was keeping me back from stepping inside.

The voice inside me was frozen. I didn't dare to call for her, afraid that some frightening demon will come out instead, hunting for my soul. But the fear of the unknown was worse.

I stepped inside, into the suffocating hush. To feel more safe, I closed the door behind me, but was unable to lock them. Somehow the mechanism was shut off, but the power was still in the flat, as the corridor was being lightened by little lamps from the bottom.

I anxiously left it behind, hoping that no one will think of coming in.

Trying to step as silently as I could, making no sound, I walked down the chilly corridor.

Or maybe I shouldn't be so quiet, maybe I'm just exaggerating, and my aunt is waiting for me behind the corner, knowing that I would never leave her alone. Maybe she wants to apologize to me for being so rude and mysterious. Maybe she has an explanation set up in her head, which will tell me why has it been like that.

I'm an adult. I can't keep being a child, living in the faked world anymore. Adolescence means to adapt to the reality the way it is. To the brutal reality, where nobody spoils you anymore and takes care of you. To get on your own, it's the real life. And I can't live in the world of lies created by her anymore. Even if I will still be living in an illusion created by the government, I hope the one that has been closest to me won't keep it up this way.

I was eager to call her name, after getting to the first room on my way, the living room. Before I turned to my right, I just observed the empty chasm that was before me, the entrance to this room.

"Auntie… Ce… "

The voice anxiously came from inside me. It felt so muffled, as if it could be heard only inside of my head.

"Celine."

This time I could hear it echo.

I could hear something slightly move in the living room. It almost made no sound, but thanks to my sharpened hearing sense, I still heard it. A soft shift.

I entered the living room.

But what I saw there, was beyond my expectations.