They Always Rust [P/MT; Semi-Open]

[Jenrak]

Sixteen minutes. Sixteen minutes. Sixteen minutes. The same ticking time bomb for preparation of a full-scale assault. Sixteen minutes. The same ticking time bomb for a full scale assault. Sixteen minutes. The pulsating red light continues to fill through your eyes, piercing your retina and splashing your mind with the throbbing, beating trill through your mind. Sixteen minutes. The images of the doors begin to open and the gas begins to sate out through the long grills as they siphon out the last little bits of air into nothing more than pungent steam.

Sixteen minutes. The skies begin to dot with a rainfall of steel and dirt and lead filth as the oceans sway and swoon over the rush of the carriers as they begin to cut through the waters. Deep leviathans begin to surface as their vicious forms show themselves on hostile grounds. Or was it neutral? It was unheard of, and unknown of.

Sixteen minutes. The coastline of Ouridna dazzled with sapphire gleam and shimmer as people walked and commuted to and fro from work, doing and going about their business as they paid attention to nothing more than their work. Yet beneath the cobblestone roads of millennia, the sentiments stirred and the shadows of revolution birthed a new beast, more festering and filthy-headed than before. All in the while in the name of Enkur.

Sixteen minutes. The timeframe that it took for the clock to tick unto the first opening of the door in the middle of nowhere beyond the Eritera line, just beyond the vast of Asherach. Here, where nothing lived but memory, there came animation and life to the doors that stood as a safeguard.

Sixteen minutes. The whirl of the heat from the jets as they began their ascension, and through the thickening clouds and amidst the swirls of vicious doldrums, they dropped their payloads.

Sixteen minutes. The press had no time to realised it all, for when the news reached out the doors of the Castle of Rephalim was open, and the noise of gunfire fell upon them all.

Sixteen minutes. That was all it took for the gunshot to be heard as it reverberated and echoed into the cycle that was never was, as the barrel warmed up against once more to light the town ablaze, and leave the soft mirror of the sky nothing more than shattered view.

And so it began, for the flames everlasting the Church had let the Erisians burn.

---

That was then, and this was now. This is now. The future of the bleak that fell as a veil upon them all.

Fallen through the midst and into the deep white roads that were filthy with the muddied footsteps of grunt soldiers, the bunkers that laid derelict as nothing more than makeshift tents for the rallying Temsplaces there stood as haunting memories to their past. The old insignias were still beautiful and wonderful, with a gleam and glorious shine that was never subdued nor taken away by the harsh vicissitudes of time. The clock ticked always, but here, it seemed to slow to a drawl, most merciful, to the whims of these men as they walked through the forests and felt the cold stare back.

She stared back at them, and from their sights, her eyes were but the gleam of emeralds – a most dazzling that was befitting the cold, jewel-glazed gleam that reflected their solemn stares back at her. Here, she laid down, lifeless, looking back up at her as the stars stare back and wept. The sky was turning a deep dusk as the smell began to strengthen, following into the deepest recesses of their noses as their nostrils were filled with that pungent sense.

A constant, putrid ensnaring stench of near defecation, so shameful and pointless to them all, unwilling and incapable of dealing with the issue properly that they must keep their eyes away from the body. She stared back, and frankly, I could not look at her myself. That was the very worst of it all, to see that lifelessness before you. It never gets to you.

You think about it; you dream about it; it haunts you and writhes into your soul, and it twists you into the moulded, raging malevolence that you once believed you were immune to: there is nothing noble about the task, but you continue, and the stink persists.

There are no showers there, and no toilets either: not in those areas of the woods. If you wanted to go, you went there and then. Nobody cared and nobody really had a designated spot. The smell was all the same anyways. They look back at you, open and pleading sometimes, but at the end, they become a vessel of the nihilism that you once had believed to be only permeating you. You. You. You. You. You.

You become used to that dialogue as the loudspeakers chant it from the trucks. You. You. You. You. You. You. You can do it! You can be it! You are the one who is needed! You are the one who is important! You are everything and more than everything! You! You! You!

And of all that as it pummels its disease into your ear, you get sick of it. The music becomes a rhythm and a hymn for failure as it reverberates through your fingers and it numbs your mind. You don’t think about it, and it all becomes a dream, and at that stage, you become more easily used to it. It becomes easier there, and even as the flames burn around you, you begin to feel it wrestle through your veins, becoming stronger and more pronounced. That feeling.

It is a numbness that is almost impossible to describe, and even in the coldness, despite the fire, it becomes more pronounced than a mere frostbite. It is not the wetness that scrunches up your skin like some filthy prune sheet over your fingers, nor is it the very sweat or tears that flow down your face as you look back at the eyes. It is a numbness of simply being there.

You are simply there, and stuck in this dream world, and with each fell swoop, it becomes easier. It’s hard, at first, yes, when you swing that shovel down into the head, feeling the metal dig deep into the skull. It’s hard, because you hear it all: you hear the cracking, the smashing, and the dull thud. You think you can see brain, but your officer tells you that you are hallucinating. You don’t believe him, and tell him that you do see it, and that you are sick and cannot do it.

And he says it is for the best of the country. You need to do it.

So you do it again, and while they raise your arm to beg and plead, you raise your arm to judge. Again it goes down, smashing into the face – the dull edge of the shovel hitting with a deep thud. Sometimes it’s a hollow thud, and you feel like you’ve hit something else. You try to inspect it, but you can’t. You just think you’ve done it. You see the cuts – they’ve hit, right?

Why didn’t they give you a gun? You think that, as you swing for the third time. They’re crying, screaming out. But you don’t think it’s them – you think it’s someone else. You think that you’ve already killed them, mercifully, and then swing it down again, the edges of the shovel into their face as it breaks into the nose, shattering the cartilage and tearing the sinew. You watch all that pus and snot come out gushing with the blood like some fat nematode that’s spurting out viciously all over the place.

Some of it gets on you, and you step back, unsure and unwilling to do it again, but your officer tells you to continue. And that is where it gets easier. If you swing again, it becomes easier. The thud becomes quieter. You don’t see the snot anymore. All the wounds – the deep and dull lacerations from the tearing edges of the shovel and the ripping of the lips and the face, with the deep fissures in the skull – all of it becomes blanketed in blood.

They don’t usually have the strength or cognitive capacity to raise their arms to beg again after the fourth hit. It’s never after the fourth hit if you do it right. And every time you do it, it becomes easier.

Shovels are rotated out all the time, and they always rust, and when you take off your gloves, only the calluses remain as you go back to sleep among the putrid stench. The fires continue to burn, as nobody cares. There is fire everywhere, and a new truck comes tomorrow.

---

I cannot say for certain precisely how it happened, or why it happened, or under what reasons, but I knew exactly the events that led it to occur. If, so some odd semblance, I must be forced to legitimise my act, then I will do so.

The Ouridnans are out of control. The Anniraks have taken the castle and forced the Lady Denise to the imprisonment within her own castle, awaiting execution. I cannot understand why the Zakakorn has allowed this, but the statement of ‘martial law’ is something that I never thought could truly apply to the Amalgamate. You hear about the dictator who oppresses his people and then executes those who disobeys him – you hear about them all the time.

You think simply ‘if I just don’t do anything, I’ll be fine’. I thought that. I really did. I thought that perhaps if I had just kept my mouth shut, I would be fine. They wouldn’t look for me, because I wasn’t a dissenter.

But it wasn’t so easy, and nobody wanted to make it so easy. I was either a Temsplace-loving traitor to the Amalgamate, or I was a heretic. It didn’t matter. I was either to be pummelled to death in the Therax’s death camps somewhere or I was to be hung and quartered as traitor and conspirator.

Is there no middle ground? Even as I watch the city around me burn, there is nothing to suggest that it was a viable option. Just a hellfire.

I can hear them. They’re coming. Thank you, Sephilia. I have served you faithfully for years, but it feels that being neutral cannot change anything. It makes you a coward and a failure to the two of them.

I wish I had never heard that shot.

---

From sixteen minutes, at the end of the delegation, a million things set in motion the grandest of wonders.

Denise Territurari was pregnant. Ariane Merkangzka was sending his primary daughter to school. Avox Sauzarum was finished her draft. Sephilia Tezekilth was practicing her fencing. Ashili was taking a nap. Miriana was reading to his nephew. Gelectriax was finishing the first draft of his book. Edoqlius was surveying the damage done to the southwestern islands by the Erisian terrorist attack.

But of all of them, Saerus Annirak of Ouridna made the most. Nobody knew how long this had been planned beforehand, but it seemed that the sleeping Amalgamate was turned to life, and not for the better. Thousands of warheads aimed themselves with military precision at Erisian lands, and lit the place aflame, scattering the firestorms across all winds.

But the streets of Ouridna, Rephalim, Armenda, Lescartes, and Haasdra were far from complacent. The citadels turned to life, as the chants became more and more pronounced, drowning out the everyday people, as the Temsplaces marched out, blocking traffic as the very single steps they raised in complete, utter and perfect unison walked to the Nakroses hearts, and lit their barrels a flame.

And from afar, the Vizith guns roared high, and the streets began to trickle with the long lines of blood and sulphur.

---

Dear Sasz Kerenuk,

It is in understanding, made most unquestionable, by the determinance by the whim of Enkur, that state henceforth understood as the Amalgamate of Sephilia Tezekilth, understood as the Ascheran Remnant, is now under reconstruction by the Tsellian Imperiate. It is in the interest of the Tsellian Imperiate, thereby, that through deliberation and proper thought that the strife and seed of barbarism must be vanquished, without consideration to cost, at the expense of the Ascherans.

It had been a very long time since the last vestiges of agnostic, atheist and heretical filth rooted deep into the heart of the Amalgamate, and therefore, under consideration of the recent incidents that have occurred under the political determinance by the (late) Rashkta Nirandu, and now under the (soon to be late) Sephilia Tezekilth, the Zakakorn henceforth considers the state of greater Methronnia, hereby fashioned most inappropriately and most inelegantly as the Amalgamate, to be a state of ‘utmost heresy’, and therefore under the doctrine of Meherma Ezthat, places said state to be under the umbrella of proper corrective action.

It has been a good two millennia that the spawn of the once noble Methronnia have served the faithful of Enkur, and it has saddened us that our brethren has fallen to the vitriol of backwardsness. It is in the interest of this doctrine, thereby, that the Tsellian Church declares the Amalgamate in a state of requiring utmost reconstruction, and thereby enact the policy of Sentarum Hahrab.

May Enkur Bless you,
The Pious Arm of the Brother-God,
The Zakakorn.

---

And with that, the city of Haasdra became entranced in nuclear fire, spawned beneath starry skies.

[-Deus-]

---

Crying, weeping, shrieking; each one filling the night air of Leviathan as the dirt of the city soaked up the life giving crimson blood of its victims, the howls of distress echoing across the sea as men were flayed, children were boiled and women were crucified. This was the reality of Leviathan, the war city, the muscle of the Consortium.

Yet this reality lay dormant far below the crystal surface, the under dwellings of the skyscraping towers, hellmouth as they were called, the place of such grisly bloodletting, the lower city in a state of constant depression, in an eternal state of suicide that just never seemed to end no matter how hard the city slits its own throat or ingested a ghastly poison of freedom or democracy.

Humanity was a fleeting desire that no one could attain, a fleeting symphony of life past, when men could worked with constant fear, when children played while always risking their wellbeing and when women nurtured while having to look over their shoulder, the rapist of free will and choice on the loose as everyone was blind to what they really needed.

This city cried for free will yet it needed domination, it needed preprogramming. Humanity was an unnecessary burden to thrust on these poor people, their minds not equipped to release them to their full potential. The people are like children, children that deserve nothing more than to be guided and lead.

And yet as the smell of rotten flesh filled the air, its putrid stench lingering like parasite in the city’s bowels, the people scurried, the people of the upper levels, the rich, the privileged, these are the ones that enjoyed their life. The people of the lower levels, the poor, the “undesirables” of society, the ones that deserved nothing but enslavement to the Serpent Queen of Leviathan.

The Serpent Queen…Nihili Volpes…a women of ingenuity, a leader of strength and a monster of blood lust. She was monster….a horrible demon with a taste for human sorrow and pain, her victims screams always seemingly heard as her hundred handers capture anyone off the street, dragging them back to be killing in any manner the Serpent Queen thus wants.

Leviathan is a monstrosity, a disgrace to human life and yet the Consortium honours it, the city held in high regard. Leviathan is many things and a cowardly city is not one of them, for when you ingest poison what fear do you need of anything else? This was the mindset of Leviathans people; this was the pulse that drove their hate and destruction forward.

And yet as the deeds of a foreign nation touched the ears of the city, the monstrosity could only feel disgust and anger towards the nation. Nuclear warfare…is the cowards way …and this idea, this natural instinct of hating cowards, of hating unhonorable warfare, was something that disgusted the city to its core, a vomiting taking place as hundreds were killed and dumped into the sea, a sacrifice to the true leviathan.

But as the sun began to rise on the city of Leviathan the pledge was heard as the war drums silenced. The pledge to never fight with such cowards, the pledge to abstain from cowardly practices, the dream of retaining this small bit of humanity they had, to retain the dream of being looked on as people rather than monsters. But…that’s just a dream…an unattainable dream.

---

***

---

The oceans swayed on the night coast of Deus’ shores, the nocturnal city a sane beacon of false peace, mock freedom and damning pacifism. Yes Deus was the only sane city within the Consortium, the Silver Fox its constant guardian as he watched and led from his citadel, his daughter always by his side. The Caelum church made its home here, the blessings of the War Dogs always upon the city.

And yet as the Fox walked with his daughter, the night wind brushing against their masks, the daughter copying the father, something that brought even this cold hearted man joy at times. Everything his daughter did gave him joy, the girl his one love in the living world, his other love lost forever in the realm of the eternally dead, her soul gone forever.

But the Fox goes on, his last attachment to the world of the sane to his left as they both walked, her soft elegant steps contradicting his heavy, ridged movements as they walked, the small girls hair flying behind her, its auburn colour and smooth texture flicking into the air as she jumped and ran around the citadel garden, a place they frequented, a place that was its own Eden, its own paradise.

Soon however the fox sat down, the familiar bench beneath him cold and ridged, its old rustic charm growing better or in some cases worse every day. But the man didn’t care as he took out his viola, nodding his head as the girl began to sing to his tune, this rehearsal only one of many as the father and the daughter practiced their art, the father growing a smile on his face as her shrill voice echoed out across the citadel, maybe even the city.

The city…the silver city…sane in some regards and twisted to others. Yet the new moon was gone now, the star filled sky above being the only light as the moon lay hidden in the celestial garden above as it was often called by the deranged people below. But today something was different as the young girl sang, today something was just right…something just felt natural, it felt human.

Below the city was a different story as the cries, shouts and grunts echoed in the crevasse and caverns of the underground slave city. Down here it was always day, it was always time to work, the glazing infernos of the factories and metallic plants making the underground a hell in its own right, a hellish sort of land with only one goal, to work for the masters above.

Yet if hell was right below them, and heaven was above them, what was Deus then? Would Deus not be a paradise in its own right, a perfectly imperfect utopia? This was an unanswered question, something that despite pressure on the church would never be answered. But Deus was a utopia, in its own right of course. And the people knew it subtly, this mindset giving them arrogance and yet also a drive…a passion for the finer things…a desire to live up to their city’s greatness.

And this is why the Fox played his viola, this is why his daughter sung, this is why the music of the city blared, the constant rhyme of the musical city setting everything in motion, the city almost alive from the wonderful tune that was constantly played out, the soul of the city lay in its music and the music was everywhere.

But as the deeds of a foreign nation crept up to the ears of the fox his viola stopped dead in its tracks, the man smiling as he heard of this sly act of nuclear warfare, the deed something admirable to him and disgusting to others. And as he picked up the viola once more, quickening his musical pace, he smiled wider and laughed once, his chuckle echoing out as he vowed to help this foreign entity, the nation-to-be deserving his respect, deserving his and Deus’ help.

And the music played as the message was sent, his vow to aid the nation sent across the wind, his smile wide and his head cleared of all thoughts of wicked remorse, the man jumping up and dancing with his daughter as the musical city played its melody, the world around them blurring as they twirled and twirled, the city providing the tune, its people the instruments. Twirling, spinning, the world all going to a blur as they went on and on, into nirvana.

---

***

---

The turning tides of Mammon’s normality, the city awake during the day and sleeping at night, something odd amongst the Consortium, yet expected from such perfectionist as the Mammon’s. The city was perfect in some ways, it was an odd thumb sticking out of the black hand of the Consortium, it was rich, it was greedy, and it was perfectly imperfect.

Yet it’s never enough for the city, the constant need for perfection drowning them in their own desire, the unattainable goal of the highest perfection unreachable by the city, yet they are blind to the truth as they strive for it anyway. And as the strove the swallowed more poison, the city drunk with madness as they tried to reach an unreachable goal.

But the city never seemed to snap out of its daze, it never seemed to get a hangover, it just never wanted to give up its short sightedness and replace it with reasonability. No it wanted to continue with such goals as “international peace” or “an end to war”. These stupid goals got this city nothing but disgust and disappointment from its brothers and sister.

Mammon needed to let go and yet they didn’t, they had to claw their way out of the gorge that was the Consortium, they had to claw to remain normal, they just had to strive to be different to be peaceful and yet this perfectionist attitude would ultimately be their undoing. It would never end though, the spirit of Mammon could never be put to rest, and it could never be destroyed, but that was the spirit, not the physical city.

And yet the news of a nuclear assault only served to motivate the city to intervene, it only served to drive the city to aid the victim even though its brother was helping the aggressor. And yet through the confusion it had already been set in stone as the message was sent out, the message of aid towards those attacked. But soon enough nirvana would come to the perfect city and soon enough, their twilight would be rising.

---

***

---

[Jenrak]

Nakros Rephalim,
11:04 am.

The first few clips that appeared were off the southern plains turning to light. No children, men or women there: just an empty mesa with nothing more than the billow of clouds floating endlessly across the scenery. Here, there was no stock or the news playing: just an empty mesa, surrounded by the tops of trees that poked out from just beyond the frame of the camera. No words nor sign of the cameraman, and even the weather did not match the morning light as it dawned upon a wonderful, late sunrise.

The bushes were pushed away by the soft breeze of the wind, leaving a blankness – the very same, consistent image – was everywhere – everywhere on the screens, lingering for a few seconds before they all turned black, leading to the silence falling upon the city of Nakros Rephalim as the people stood in slight shock. And then, almost as fast as it disappeared, the image returned.

And everybody went back to their normal routine, the city resurrected and once again with a beating heart. From the corner of Finch and Aveberry, the street was particularly busy as the cross roads were littered with the click of high-heel shoes and the sway of long dazzling hair. A long, over-glorified catwalk, the roads were elevated with long buttresses emerging at the edges, connecting to the lower and more stubby buildings on the edges. The old city was here, decorated with marble and wondrous obsidian as it shined gloriously in spite of everything around it.

While there was the fortress of modernity, the ancient pathways were retained and remained as maintenance workers decorated its small slits along its sides were filled with hyssops, roses, tulips and chrysanthemums in an array of white, red, and soft blue. The long skeletal roads were nothing more than the spine of the ancient Rephalim fortress, which stood upon its plateaus as an overseer to rival that of the great skyscrapers that dotted the landscape.

From Finch and Aveberry, the clicks continued, and served as a melodious tick before the force of the blast. Instantly, without warning, the place shattered apart into flame and burst into chaos, the people who were not caught in the blast were either screaming about in a panic or trying to get help. The pieces of glass from the establishments turned the area into a torrential fog of razor-sharp debris, spraying a sea of blood as the splash of water from the broken mains smashed unsuspecting people into the field.

The cries of a young woman, most stark, became the song that serenaded it all as her screams filled the air in the vicious madness. A legless thing, her remaining fingers reached out and crawled like an animal, on its last little breath, to any semblance of comfort as people rushed about. Her eyes were long and deep black with the lines of makeup on her face dripping down her face not through tears, but of blood. There was an incision in her head, showing the chipped innards of her skull as a small sliver of unidentified flesh was visible.

She cried, like everybody did, crouching on the ground in a fetal position as people ran about like chickens in the wake of the bombing. Her eyes were welling with tears and her sobs became choking shouts that were barely heard over the sirens. And when she raised her arm, like they all did at the end of it all, she did so with a weakness that only came when the chill of death blanketed one in such a pitiful state.

And along the spine of Nakros Rephalim, through the glitter of its beautiful centers, another explosion rocked the skyscrapers.

Nakros Icrun,
10:44 am.

“I cannot understand precisely why the Ouridnans have done this. It’s a baffling, senseless issue, and frankly, I do not know what has gotten into Saerus Annirak for him to consider, hell, even the Zakakorn, to consider this.” Ashili shook her head, her fingers running through her hair as the news of the 10:44 reached her desk. News travels fast, but there was always a way.

“It’s a pity, and frankly, there’s little that can be done about it, but we just have to persevere in these arduous times. If we cannot come together and do what is right, then we’ll have little to look forward to in the future.” Authaulus answered, hunched forward as he looked at the information in front of Ashili.

Ashili was a woman of pragmatism, keeping things in perspective as she watched the scenario unfold, listening to the intel that was being fed to her as she still kept running her finger through her hair. The brows began to touch her sweat as she clenched her teeth and gritted them loudly, her left hand tapping the table as the images began to show up on her desk through the monitor. People were dying left and right in mysterious bombings, with nothing more than the smell of sulphur and phosphorus to tinge the nostrils and intoxicate the mind. Her eyes were lit up in the flames that lingered in those images. She couldn’t bear it. “Have you gotten in contact with your brother?” She asked, slightly desperate as the billow of the morning breezes crept into her room. The place was a large, box-like structure with a simplicity that made it seem more out of a sci-fi than an actual work office. Only a desk was the decoration here as a sterile white filled the entire place, gleaming with a brightness from the reflections of the rising sun.

Long grids in the nets kept out insects but also formed small sheets of dewy water on the window’s surfaces, and the glass panels did not swing inwards, but rather slid up into blackness at the top. The curtains were flickering with noise from the shuffle of the silk, though it wasn’t loud enough to howl at Ashili’s plight. Authaulus, looking at this woman, seemed to have a semblance of pity. Here she was, sitting at her desk, only to receive news that the situation had exploded – literally. The city of Mardeias had reached her ears, and she could not fathom exactly why the long-standing allies of the state had decided to do this. There was no prior warning. Just an explosion and a couple thousand people missing, dead, or in intensive emergency care.

“I haven’t. I don’t know where Saerus has - ” a great noise rocked the area, almost as if it were the rumbling of a supreme Cerberus far beneath the confines of the deep earths. The pipes were rattled the very dew was shaken off the screen of the window as Ashili turned quickly to stare out her window, wondering where that deafening noise came from. It seemed as if someone had fired a gun and only its noise reached, hitting like a great snapping sound.

And there, there came screaming and smoke. Rising up from the confines of the chaos like some wretched demon, the screams grew louder. Authaulus quickly jumped into action, the chair falling back as the suddenness of his rise as Ashili followed suit. “Let’s go, now.” He said, as she nodded, getting out of her chair as well as she quickly strode to the front doors.

And another snapping noise was heard, and a sharp force had pierced Ashili’s head. All that registered was a similar snapping noise, followed by her vision falling into redness as she fell into a deep slumber.

And Authaulus, standing there, dropped his pistol, and watched Ashili’s lifeless body slump into a pitiful form. He bowed, and then only shook his head at the sight.

[LOVE DOG]

Commonwealth of Helvacas

Ice lightly hung to the metal wall, un-nature ice that had no place in the topical landscape that was the Commonwealth of Helvacas. But nothing was normal about anything within the super-state that was the United Dominion. A lone figure was twisted up in the silk sheet of a four post king sized bed. It looked like the figure, a male of what looked like the human species with short dirty blonde hair. Twisting and turning in the sheets. This man was King Edward Darkholme, the Prince of Ice…a son of the United Dominion and a leader of one part of the super-state. And a man whom would be mourning soon.

Without warning, the sheets thrown into the air and a blur of movement turned into kneeing Edward. His face a twisted mix of sadden and fury. His voice low, but the words coming from his mouth were something strong to him. Someone was lost to him. That person’s lifeblood flown through his veins.

“Ash…” he said, reaching for the floorboard of his bed. Pulling himself to his feet, outside his safe room, outside of mansion on his private estate the Sun has fallen and Night has risen. His phone buzzed, nearly falling from the nightstand it rested on. A blur of movement and the phone pressed to his ear.

“Mother…Temsplace…” was the words being said on the other side of the phone. His son’s voice, his heir was wreaked with grief. A mighty warrior in his own right, but Edward heard disbelief in his son’s tone. His son knew something…then the phone when dead.

Turning the television on, red tears running down his face, DNN detailing the latest stories. The fall of the Conglomerate, the news of the nuclear fiery death of Haasdra.

His phone buzzed again. His daughter…Edward quickly answer and pushed the phone to his ear. “I feel it, too. Somebody has killed her.” said Edward, trying very hard to keep the anger from his voice. “Find them and gut them all.” The other side of the phone clicked into dead air and Edward’s hand fell to his side. His eyes locked on the flashing images of the television.

[Jenrak]

Story I: For Whom the Nation Dies

“I’m so sorry I’m late. So sorry.” She rushed over the whirr of the sound of trains as the clanged in the distance, leading and weaving through a thicket of electricity and steel as the long winding pathways of the alleys were still slightly dark with the long shadows from a fading sunlight. She rushed up beside him, walking along with him in with her purse slung over her shoulders and her eyes staring at him attentively. “But I’m surprised that you’re willing to do this.” She conjured up a sneer with her strides taking long and deep steps in the cracking cement sidewalks.

“Well, what else can I do? You’re leaving tomorrow, and it’s going to be a really long way’s away, right? So, I might as well probably start doing actual boyfriend stuff and take you out on a real date.” He seemed nervous, with his hands by his side but their fingers nowhere near linked together. The thought, pervaded by his oddity, was continually pulsating through his mind: sweaty palm, sweaty palm, sweaty palm, sweaty palm... It had to be the hot weather; yeah, that was it – the weather. “Aorum University, huh? Middle-rate college place much?”

She scoffed indignantly, smacking him on the arm with her purse. “Shut up!” She shook her head, walking along with him as she wrapped her arm around his. “It’s a good university, okay?” Her left arm reached into her purse and pulled out a small case, and she grappled with it with a fumbling goofiness as she tried to walk arm in arm and still open the case right.

“Here, let me do it.” He pulled the end with a click, revealing a pair of large sunglasses. Grabbing their cold, steely frames, he put them on. “What d’you think?”

“You look like a dumbass.” She snapped, grabbing them and then putting them on herself. “Sunglasses do not fit you.”

“Sunglasses fit everyone.” He replied, as the two of them continued walking down the stretch of sun-baked pavement. The place was adorned in the myriad of mirages that began to take place, showing the beating heat of the interior of the central sections of the city. The noise of heavy clock towers and their deadening thuds were reverberating and echoing throughout the city, the both of them looking back along the trail they had taken. The place had crept by the edge of a relatively small forest, lined along a larger pair of roundabouts that was a nexus of roads to the more metropolitan areas of the city.

“Sunglasses do not fit for everyone, you dolt.”

“ ‘Dolt’? What are you, forty-six? Sorry Cathy, I didn’t know it was you. I thought I was talking to Melissa.” He said, smiling at her as her had an open mouth attached to a stare of incredulity.

“You dick. I am not like my mother. For fuck’s sakes, Don.” She grabbed his arm harder, keeping him close as the two of them passed through the small and stunted alleyways of homes as the sun beat down upon them, with Don’s hair sweating to the extent that he was really, really nervous about it all. He had hoped that there was going to be some semblance of an interior to their little shindig, but it seemed after all the walking and the weaving through the highway ramps and through the long empty alleyways, they were there before an open, lazy beach line.

The city was quiet at this time – people were usually at work at this time around Haasdra and most students were at school. The streets were rarely active with nobody other than those on the job, as the litter of mom and pop stores were already playing the melodies of soft music through their ears. Don was slightly apprehensive, his eyes darting to the long trail of roses that lay like a siren’s calls in the shade of a hot summer day. However, despite their long, scenic walk from the school, early in the morning was no place to be hanging around the beach line as the Viragius languished there. The thing was farther than the eye could see, for even though it was simply a river, it carried its own horizon, and thus conjured up a magic of its own. The soft breeze of the water was billowing and encompassing them in a cool, gentle breeze, both of them sitting down on a slightly rusty bench in front of the railings to the stairs to the beach.

Behind the two, the gateway to metropolis was there, as the roads still seemed barely active for the cars. Most people took buses here anyhow. Don sat there nervously, his palms still sweaty, his eyes still staring at an endless, shipless false horizon, figuring out how to wean in a conversation without sounding entirely and distinctly odd or sudden. He stared at Melissa, darting back to the horizon when it was visible and clear that she had her arms crossed with her purse placed on the bench, also looking at the horizon.

“So, Aorum, huh? Cool place, it must be. Three hour drive. Three hours. Classy. You’re going to have to make friends with some tolerant roommates, because I’m not driving three hours and not seeing you for at least four.” Don quipped, as Melissa smiled at him.

“You’ll stay only so far I think it’s appropriate, mister.” She clicked her tongue, ignoring the silent vibrating noise in her phone. Rnrrrrrr. Rnrrrrrr. It died out after that. “But yeah, I’ll try.”

“Try what, precisely?” Don asked.

“Not saying anything more than, and you know it, you cheeky ass. I know what your game is.”

“Lady, puhlease.”

“Oh god, don’t talk like that.” She laughed, covering her mouth with her hand before sighing. “Really sorry that I had to make it so sudden.”

Don sighed, then lifted his shoulders and then dropped it again, sighing some more. “It’s not a problem. We’ve known ever since you got accepted two months ago that I’d have to drive to meet you. Besides, this was going to happen eventually, so I might as well have the talk sooner or later. But it’s okay, it’s the last day of term, so it’s not like it’s going to do much if I skip it, right?” His fingers were tapping really quickly as she looked at him with worrying eyes.

“Oh god, Don, please don’t cry - ”

“I’m not crying.” He stated firmly, refusing to look at her. “I’m not crying.”

“Okay, you’re not crying, I understand.” The atmosphere between the two seemed oppressive and controlling, almost without sign of stopping or letting up, forcing Melissa to grab his shoulder and push him slightly down, allowing her to rest her head on his shoulder. “Does that make you feel better?”

Don smiled. “Nah, that just makes you feel better. This’ll just give me a bad back.”

“Always a whiner.” Melissa said, before she looked, smiled, and kissed him. “I’ll see you on Saturday. Room 3322, Amelia Wing. Check it, alright?”

“3 PM?”

“Yeah.”

“You betcha, then.” And this time, he kissed her, as the cool breeze fell between them both.

[-Deus-]

The wind blew, the water flowed, the earth stood motionless; all was normal in Deus as blistering daytime sun cut through the city, enlightening everything, the people safely tucked away and drifting in their own imaginative consciousness, awaiting the night. But movement occurred as the day time went on, the sound of people, the silent grunts of work and toil, the silent scoffs of command. And as one thus dug deeper into the city, as one thus moved towards the sea, one would see the mobilization.

The army was silent; no one made a sound as the mechanized loading and packing of equipment made a natural symphony that lingered around the almost eerie docks. The war ships stood high, the small fleet a symbol of nothing but over cooked confidence that Deus was displaying. But the baking sun put an end to any outward display, the soldiers and few people who were out constantly wiping their heads of sweat, the heat and light of the star too much for the regularly nocturnal beings.

But soon the loading and packing were finished, the eerie silence cut loose as the drumming march of soldiers began, the entranced march beating out as they moved across the cold, cracking concrete swiftly and in rows of five, each one standing straight and looking forward, the opinion of this war severely low, the spirit of the nation leaving them as they slowly started to crowd the boats. The dusk would rise again on Deus soon however and the night sky would be city’s mistress, her icy embrace filling them with an empowering spirit. Something Leviathan’s Rage could never accomplish.

---

“Hurry up…”

The voice shrieked out as a whisper, the intended recipient clearly ignoring the cry as she slowly stumbled behind a crate, her short red hair slowly scratching the dark brown wooden crate, the scratching noise slowly rippling out as she moved again, her small camera flopping around as she knelt down and crept towards another carte, the small device clacking loudly as she kneed it once, the women gasping in horror as she held it, certain it would break if she didn’t.

“Laura! Hurry up!”

The man called out again, trying to quietly whisper to her as he held his camera, pushing up his clear glasses as he held unto the side of an open crate, his hand bleeding as a splinter of wood jammed into his palm, the man slowly slinking to the back of the crate as the women sprinted quickly towards the open crate, rolling across the ground once as her panted yelps echoed out. She laughed as she lept in the air, cleanly landing within the box next to the man, no one noticing as the mechanized symphony damned out their noise.

But the man slinked back, sucking his palm slowly as Laura slowly crawled next to him, taking his hand out of his mouth as she slowly took the large splinter out, the man yelping with pain as his hand throbbed, the wooden splinter dripping with blood as the women wiped it on her once clean red shirt. She looked at him and shook her head slowly as she took her short brown jacket off, laying it on the other side of the box as she punched air holes into each side, cracking her knuckles as she punched the last hole out with a small knife she kept in her jackets pocket.

“Oh shush up you big baby, it’s only a splinter.”

Laura hissed at the man as he continued to suck his palm in the back of the crate, his glasses to his side as he clutched his camera, Laura’s nearly broken camera next to it. The man ignored her though as the crate suddenly flew into the air, the wooden box hoisted up and swaying the air, the startled pair quickly hanging on for dear life as the fear of them being dropped took over. The camera’s clapped together once or twice as the box was moved before being slapping down on the cold metallic cargo hold of the war ship, the rusted echo flying in the air as the crate hit the ground.

“Let’s just get some sleep, I’m tired, I don’t want to be here and I have you as a partner for war coverage.”

The man slowly spoke up; his quivering voice almost sounded like a whine to Laura as she shook her head again and kicked the side of the crate, kicking it repeatedly before it cracked open the dim light of the cargo hold shining above them, the dreary air and horrible stench lingering around them like fog. Laura only sighed and took it in as she crawled out of the box and breathed heavily, placing her small, dirty hands on her hips and shaking her head in agreement. She patted her hands off on her skinny blue jeans and smiled at the man as she replied.

“Oh dry up man, were off to cover a war for our dear city! But I do agree Mr. Winston, we should get some sleep.”

She shouted it out with a prideful patriotic spirit, the small, chubby man known as Winston only scoffing and stretching as he crawled out of the box.

“Sure…our dear city…but what happens when we get caught and killed?! What then?!”

“Then we explain what we’re doing and our holy soldiers let us free.”

“I doubt that’s what would happen, but I’m going to sleep…good night.”

She nodded and smiled slowly at him as the man crawled back into the box, laying his head down slowly as the women took another deep breath and snatched her jacket out, taking out her phone slowly, looking over the small black device before popping in the head phones she kept in her pocket, a grey puff of lint attached. But she smiled as she put the headphones on, slowly searching through her phone for the perfect song as she drifted around the cargo hold, taking pictures of the equipment.

She smiled as she pressed “play”, the music blasted through her brain as she continued to take pictures, the soothing sounds calming the otherwise anxious women, her prideful outside demeanor nothing but a front to quell her overly worried friend. But the women had doubts herself as she shifted through the crowded cargo hold. Her smile slowly drifting as the music came to an end, the deafening sound of the boats engine roaring as it speed off from the pier, off to war, off to oblivion.

[Solarva]

Neo'Sol Tsellian Church Archives, Orbis

Private Logs...audio only...

"Never have I felt so free in my life, free from the influence of the of Nakros states. Despite being such a busy metropolis from early morning at seven to two hours past midnight as time itself became indispensable, never has it been as stagnating as was under the Amalgamate regime. Here, dawn was surprisingly calm and quiet. For miles, only the winds and sound of birds could be heard. Stepping up the stairwells of the cathedral as I often peer through the windows as they appear. Neo'Sol itself illuminates as the sun peeks through the coastal ranges in west. It was as if Ackthal himself came back to existance from beyond infinity.

Funny, it felt as if Enkur were giving me a sign...."(end of file)

---

"Lady Etruria, you're up early." A Temsplace walk towards the a figure that quietly walked out of the cathedral's archives. The sound of surprise was obvious. Every steps echoed throughout its massive halls. The figure who was about to walk away stopped in response to the sound coming towards her. "Were you busy with administrative work?" He stopped several feet in front of her. "Sa Saravorn."

"Sa Saravorn brother," Cecilia replied, "do you have need of me?"

"I was planning to make a stop by your studies later in the morning, but since you're here," the Temsplace paused as reached in his pocket for a letter and hands it to Cecilia. "As the newly appointed Therax, the establishment of Tsellian faith and the recent completion of the Tsellian cathedral in Solarva would need to be reported the Zakakorn as soon as possible. They too has sent a message, wanting you to report back as soon as possible."

"Is that so?" Cecilia began to walk away as soon as she asked. "How many Neo'Sol Temsplace did you say was back in Ourinda to collect more text for our establishment?"

The Temsplace took a few seconds to remember. "Around ten. They should be under Lord Claire's supervision. The Sol Knights stationed there are also assisting our Temsplace in the search for texts."

"I'll be give the report soon enoug-." She stopped. "Ah, I just remembered. Can you tell Lord Claire to stop sending these invitations." The letter was handed back to the Temsplace. "Relay the message back to, 'I apologize that I would no longer be available, however, I am grateful for your assistance these past few months.'"

The answer was almost automatic. "Will be done."

"Then I will have my leave. I'll ask Lord Kent to prepare a ship for departure."

---

Nakros Ourinda

A mysterious Neo'Sol Temsplace shrouded from head to toe by a brown robe stops by a local citadel.

[Jenrak]

The Citadel Imellanm,
Nakros Ouridna.

The tunnels were lined with the smell of heavy smoke, filling up through the air as the hallways were mired in the deep stench of heavy silt. The long and winding sections, intertwined and twisted together into the deep, cavernous reaches of the castle. Sections of it were still under heavy Vizith fire outside, as the noise of deep cannons roared like great leviathans smashing into the thick walls of ancient fortifications. The noise and whirr of machine gun fire became almost melodious at this section of time, becoming background noise to the marching, pacing the steps of the soldiers who rushed through the sections. “Screen.” One of them ordered, pointing to a corner as a tall, imposing and powerful warrior of a soldier fired off a small rotund object as it bounced off the ricochet past the blind spot and out of sight.

The thick fog cleared out sections of the smoke, billowing the gas through the area as coughing was heard around the corners. “They’ve got a nest.” The Temsplace at the front of the group waited, listening more carefully to the coughing noise as his fist was raised to silence all others before him. “Likely, no more than ten feet from us. “ The coughs became silent, followed by the noise of zippers. “They’re suited. They know we’re here.”

“Prepare first flank. They’ll like move back. Bring up the wall.” The Temsplace behind the front ordered to the other Temsplaces, their sashes ripped open to grab their flash grenades. “Electromagnetic.” They all tapped their visors, waiting as the image before them turned on. From the tip of their guns, the flaring of the pulse that gave them knowledge where the triggers were helped immensely in figuring out precisely where the opponent was during heavy periods of blinding fire.

“Do not use fire weapons. Not in close quarters. Maintain phosphorus rounds to a minimum. Allow minimal heat-bases shrapnel. We cannot burn down the building insofar as the Core Captain is in the building. Maintain all positions as hostile, and move the hook.” With that, the front Temsplace – a man draped in crusted brown armour – threw out a hook along the ceiling, large enough. Hopefully.

There was that brief moment where it touched the light, and a single and yet extremely accurate volley of bullets whizzed and sleeted through the air, smashing into the piece as the Temsplaces moved with extreme precision and speed into gear. Shields dug in, shotguns and assault rifles perched, nests swung. Mobile sections were pushed forward, and from the back, the leading Temsplace fired off the first swarm of flash grenades. All of it happened so fast, in almost an unbelievable set of heavy planning and perfection, with each standing and improvising even through the confusing terrain.

There were two nests situated outside a set of large mahogany doors, one with a nested machine gun. They did not expect that – an outdoor terrain weapon in here? What was behind those doors?

“Move into second phase.” The brown Temsplace ordered after placing down his shields, not even yet implementing the first phase. The grenades volleyed out, blinding the area as Temsplaces quickly smashed down and locked their shields into place, their shotgun barrels perched through small arrow-slit-like sections that allow them to fire off a volley, spraying the tunnel with rounds and the smell of smoke. No screams.

“Third phase.” He ordered, as the second phase was now being carried out. Assault rifles fired off in long bursts behind two to three shields, hitting enemy locked mini-fortifications as the opponents kept themselves under guard, waiting for the moment for the barrage to end so they could return fire.

“Fourth phase.” The brown Temsplace ordered as the third phase was being implemented. A second volley of flash grenades hurled through the small expanse, this time with heavier heat emissions and a small sliver of chemical gas, the Temsplaces nearby quickly pulling their masks over to prevent suffocation.

“Cancel. Move in.” He ordered, as the Temsplaces rushed into the screaming, blinded defenders of the area, rushing through the turrets and the disabled machine gunners as they smashed their way through to provoke close combat. From here, the brown Temsplace bore his sword, and in efficient, effective fell strikes, splashed the area in blood as the guttural screeches of enemy knives were barely enough to contain his rampage.

By the end of it, there were only about six or seven bodies decorating the area, and slowing down before the final prize was definitely something they had to do. From the perched gleam of the deep black barrels on the mounted machine gun and its near infinite magazine the Temsplaces moved into a walling position, waiting for possible enemy missiles or even heavy return fire to burst through those walls. They had to be ready for anything.

Nothing. It was then that the brown Temsplace attempted to turn the mounted gun around, but its weight was certainly more than they had planned. Who moved it there?

But there was something wrong. The doors had not sections for which they could hide behind, as the very edges of the hinges touched the end of the hallway. If they opened it, they had nowhere to hide. “Makeshift nests.” The brown Temsplace ordered as the others placed their shields down in partly fragile, but workable segments of erected cover, lined along in lines as they waited for the mahogany doors to open. Nothing. “Javelin, Aurohk.”

From there, another Temsplace – draped in light blue – slung the rocket launcher off his shoulders as he perched it down on the floor, holding it aimed at the mahogany doors. “Secondary flash volley. On ‘Pierce’.” Other Temsplaces prepared a secondary grenade volley, reaching into their sashes and satchels as they brought out the same small rotund objects.

“Pierce.” The rocket burst in a brilliant ray of light, zooming and whizzing through the air as it burnt the rays apart and illuminated the doors into a brilliant spray of slivers and wooden splinters. The force of the explosion kept the Temsplaces supporting each other in the blast, holding onto the multiple shields erected as covers from the major heat and shards that sprayed outwards. What else that got through the shields fell harmlessly upon their armoured bodies. And there, then, almost immediately after the blast, they rushed forwards and lobbed the flash grenades into the large central room, lighting up the area in a ray of nothingness.

Only a white light encompassed the place, and with their vision on, the Temsplaces moved forwards, targeting at enemy electronic tags on their necks, firing cleanly, clearly, and with the utmost precision through a pitter patter of gunfire. “Keep the position - ” The brown Temsplace ordered before a blast of enemy shotgun fire rang throughout the air, audible from outside through the shattered glass.

Silent, unheard, and completely prepared, a Core soldier emerged, aided by an extremely well-hidden sniper crossfire trap. The whirs of bullets were tagged to the electronic chips embedded in the soldiers’ tags, but this time, it did not work for them. For when the Temsplaces instantly locked themselves in a shell of a defense around a vicious sniper-ground, they realised what they had gunned down so mercilessly – civilians tied and chained, running madly as the tags were hung around their necks.

Women, children, everyone.

Carrying their position, the light blue Temsplace gritted his teeth. “Keep the position, let no one be taken. We’ve been trapped by their callousness.”

Maintain the crossfire. I will eliminate this cluster immediately. Those words rung with silence through the network as a single Core soldier commanded to an extremely seasoned set of veterans within the large and sweeping room of the inner prayer room. The large stained glass sections were smashed in, broken, and many of the parts boarded in. What sections that were still open laid bare with the growling of planes up ahead, dotting the sky with faint lines of smoke and explosions.

Of the most interesting things to note on the floor were the tied up bodies of the civilians wrapped up by the Core, their hands and arms locked by harsh, bloodied rope as they laid there, their eyes glassy and milky before the blinding. At least they did not see who shot them, but the soft hands of child were not immune to the fire. The Temsplaces dared not to look, but continued their resolve.

The Core were more than willing to use civilians to murder Temsplaces. This had to be stopped.

The fire was moving from beyond the second floor, and creeping up now. Break their formation now. A small section exploded on two sections of the room. The pillars that decorated the four major sections of the room were lit at the front with a brilliant light – one at the top and one at the bottom at separate ends, only a part of a second away from each other in detonation with the smaller one at the top. The smoke burst down a great slab of marble, falling like a grand hammer upon the cloistered Temsplace, forcing them to break formation to move.

And there, the crossfire occurred again, like clockwork. Snipers had pierced through the tiniest slivers of flesh they could find through the significant armour, hitting wrists and armpits and pelvises the most in rapid succession, felling a few Temsplaces as they moved to another section. Again, the pillar there was smashed into pieces, falling down upon the Temsplaces, forcing them to break formation.

Again, it continued, leaving only a few left then, huddled together. Desist fire.

“Surrender now. The conflict is over.” The Core warned, its booming, monotone, mechanical voice from somewhere in the room. It was not a greatly large place, so it was impressive on how the thing was able to hide so well within the sanctum. “If you surrender, you will retain your pride. If not, then you will be meted out the proper disciplinary status for such conduct.”

There were only three of them left, stuck in a shield wall like a steel tumour in the corner, unwilling and unsure of what to do. “Desist, and it will be over.”

“Brother Eiaomn, what do we do?” One of the Temsplaces – a female of a slightly worried, but still steely voice – asked, registering a small gasp in her words. It had become apparent that the area was lined with speakers, and that where this Core Captain was, he was speaking through the speakers, and not from some single location. It made locating him difficult.

“We surrender. It can’t surely be that bad.” The Eiaomn noted, pausing for a bit, thinking within the self-imposed blackness. “Alright. We surrender!” He yelled, throwing the shield down as the other two followed suit, dropping their shields.

Two bullets whizzed by, piercing the two Temsplaces beside him as their skulls exploded into pieces within their own helmets. Eiaomn, in a fit of rage, paused at the sight, unwilling to look away. He didn’t look away.

He didn’t.

“Miara Enkur, Jaq’kaar! Sasszkelena ihm hikhras?!” He cursed, his hand reaching for the last gun perched on his small armoury of weapons, but before his fingers could even touch the handle, a sniper had blown off his hand, leaving nothing but the wretched and falling sinew as his hand fell like a slab of rotting flesh onto the dusty, dirty floor. As he began to cave under the blood loss and the heavy armour, Eiaomn shook his head. “May Enkur damn you for all eternity, heretic.” He whispered.

But there was no shot.

[Solarva]

Outside Citadel Imellanm,
Nakros Ouridna

"...Sweet Enkur, what on here happened?" He knew this place, it was his home. Fire, smoke, rubble, all could be seen from where he lurked. The large Vizith could be heard for miles. His home is in ruins. While he may have been out of the Amalgamate for only two months, for him, it felt like only a week has gone by. He didn't expect things to change so subtley. Ever since entering the city, he kept a low profile of his surroundings. The earphone on his left ear started to buzz.

"--lar---Lor--Cl----do--ou----me...Ge---t---there." He could hardly hear what was message is being sent to him. To make matters worse, there were live fire suddenly being fired in the streets around him. His reflexed act up and he quickly jumped into an alleyway. The Temsplace cursed. Rage begin to burst in him. His earphone began to act up again, but this time it was much clearer. "Lord Clai--do yo--hear me? Get out of --ere." A loud boom suddenly roared though the ear buds. "Wha-? You're not -supp-!" The earphones when out after he heard a few shots.

"Shit, what on Enkur's name is happening here?!" He whipsered in an angry tone. Footsteps started to emerge heard running from the street he jumped from. He leaned against the wall of a building and slowly peered out into the street. It was the Core. Several chained civilians were with them also. His hand clutched under his robes. They were just ordinary bystanders! His head screamed.

Veering a little more to his left, he could see a citadel. He instantly recognized it. Citadel Imellanm. It was there did he started out his path as a Temsplace, but sadly, it too laid in ruins as smoke came out from the inside. "Wait, what are they-?" He immediately stopped when he saw one of the Core began to mumble.

Through the large doors of the Citadel, you could see three figures standing. They were Tempslace, His brethren! However all around them, the Neo'Sol saw bodies of flesh and lifeless corpse. "Alright. We surrender!" The Temsplace in the middle shouted. He slammed his shield down on the floor. Two Temsplace behind him followed suit. Almost instantly, he remembered about the Core as he heard someone spoke.

"Go." The two Temsplace behind the in front Templace were instantly shot down.

“Miara Enkur, Jaq’kaar! Sasszkelena ihm hikhras?!” The poor Temsplace attempts to resist, but his hand was shot down before he even touched the handle as it burst to pieces and fell onto the floor. There's nothing he could do. He was all alone, no longer in the same home he was in half a day before ago. The Neo'Sol could only watch hopelessly as his fellow Temsplace was ruthlessly shot down from a distance.

The Solarvan Temsplace turned away. "I got to get out of here quickly." He thought to himself. He only has a pair of swords under his robes as self defense, he couldn't handle multiple opponents from this far of a distance. One step at a time, the Neo'Sol began to step back.

"Something doesn't feel right...."

[Jenrak]

The response wasn’t right. It wasn’t natural. Not a Core policy response, but a Temsplace was a Temsplace, and the orders under the Primeskaus were clear. “Intruder, state your business, otherwise you may be subject to disciplinary action under the order of Primeskaus.” It was as political shitstorm just waiting to happen.

Snipers perched in their nests, and turrets were already being prepared for the first wave. The words were careful, deliberate, and ponderously cautious as the stationed and hidden Core Captain kept watch and wariness over the section here. The whirl and noise of sirens were still serenading their battlefield, but here was a sanctuary of chaos that was certainly without question to be the worst. Ouridna had blown up into a place of unmitigated barbarism and destruction, and without any consideration of otherwise, the worst was coming.

Not the nuclear fire. Not the oncoming genocide. It wasn’t necessarily a simple act of callousness, but rather of the lack of control over the areas. As their world began to fall into flames, they slowly became their own things – thinking, living, breathing organisms of warfare that had for long honed and prepared their skills to prove their worth and mettle. The pile of corpses that began to decorate the city was certainly becoming a reality, as dark as it was. No amount of screaming changed things – it had become a wave of viciousness unseen before as neither was willing to call the other’s bluff.

And that was how the story began.


***


Nakros Maheron was the first to fall. The Core were surprisingly quick there, and even when we received the call for mobilization, before I could even pick up the signal ring they had already began breaking down my door, smashing the entire section apart. The process was simple: you entered, you destroyed all weaponry you could find, and you killed all the sons and took the father away. That was what happened with a retired Temsplace – nobody could give the children of Temsplaces a chance to become young men, harbouring vengeance against the Core in the future. No, that was simply it. I was awoken, however, alone, by the noise of pounding against the door when it swung open with a great big thud, allowing the space to fill with the poking muzzles of shotguns as I raced for the weapons.

When two trained professionals get their weapons, it always boils down to who had the gun first, and who was willing to shoot first. Unfortunately, the Core had both, and when I had simply awoken, they fired their first shot.

It seemed that I had retained some semblance of consciousness, though, and for a second there, I was certain that I was dead. I felt light, uneasy, and almost adrift out of reality, but the thought of myself being dead was something that could hardly be considered to be simply another consideration. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t ponder. I couldn’t sit down and wonder. I simply floated in an eternity, and time stopped.

And it was hell.

The first dose became a virulent strain of a wakeup call, summoning me to the fall and feel of the sensation that began to wreath through my blood. It was a jolting, burning sensation that twisted and melted everything I had felt beforehand, and touched the basic structures of my body to nothing more than the bare marrow that made up everything I could feel. Down to the last chondria was a pain, but it was a wakeup call and a kick in the face.

Frankly, it became a literal kick in the face, and that was how I met Maheron’s new overlord. You see, the entire city had been run by the Temsplaces ever since the Therax of Mar Hadash had taken it from the major Christian Rithos sectors, and turned the entire scenario into one big farce of an empire. An empire within an empire. That was the glory of the damned place, as the entire outlying micro-cities (or whatever the blistering hamlets wanted to call themselves) were bowing to the feet of this gargantuan monstrosity of a palace city. This place was a Temsplace sanctuary, and yet, within hours of the message from the Anniraks, it fell almost as quickly as anything to the wretched Core. The Core moved within seconds of the declaration. Within seconds.

Goddamn it. Just, goddamn it.

The second jolt was just as painful as the first one; it was a damn kick to the balls, and this time I’m not spouting metaphorical bullshit or being pretentious. It was a damn kick, and it hurt. No matter how many times you fight – as long as you have ‘em, a kick still hurts. And goddamn did it hurt. I locked my teeth together, the pain freezing and flaming all over my body at the same time. The pain. The pain. The goddamn pain. The drugs and the feeling and the wooziness all crept over me.

And I awoke within a pile of my fellow Temsplaces, some of them dead. It’s at this moment I’m supposed to say that I’m supposed to be grateful to be alive, but I can’t say. Goddamn it, I can’t say it. Not after what happened.

The Core General of Maheron walked in, his eyes and his sights completely smug and his face uncovered – they tended to cover their faces beneath armoured visors and spoke through speakers to others and through closed transmissions to their own kind. It kept the entire military in a controlled fold when they were leading, the powers that be would argue. I just thought it was absolutely mindless, to have people run around as faceless beings, and be willing to impose themselves upon others without the accountability of face. I can’t have been the first one, certainly, to suggest that the Core be held accountable for the bullshit that they’ve pulled in the past.

But hey, I wasn’t in any condition to complain at that moment. Just a dimming light as the coldness of the room began to trickle through my veins and cool my blood. But the sweat was still there, and I couldn’t get away from it. The whole thing was foolish. Filthy. Demeaning. Costly. Unbelievable.

And from the pile, there was a man he picked up – an older gentleman with a ring of slightly white hair as the rest of his blonde crown was perked amidst a still young face, barely in his forties. He was a large man, taller and grander than the others, and yet, he was chained. None such words seemed to escape his lips and those small, beady black eyes of his were already red from the sensation. The experience.

And this room. Oh, this room. It smelled of something rancid, that’s for sure. It was a damn filthy place, almost as if someone had cleaned out a massive septic tank and filled it with people. That godawful stench still lingered, poking and permeating and filtering through your nostrils as you’d just lie there, helpless, half-drugged, watching the events unfold before you. You try to speak, but only vomit comes out of your mouth, and the cheese-moulded filth of stomach vomit begins to sting your nostrils. The entire time you try not to cry at the pain. A real man doesn’t cry. A real man doesn’t cry. A real man doesn’t cry. You tell yourself that.

But by dear Enkur, what good is a real man when you’re drugged and chained?

Like a dog, the Core takes him from the pile of Temsplaces, and makes him stand. He’s not wobbling and swerving around like a drunken fool, no. He’s standing there proud and tall and willing and capable and completely certain of his fate, but he continued to maintain his posture. His eyes did not meet the Core General of Maheron, who was a man of messy hair, tied at the back into a small rat-tail. He had no facial hair and no discernible eyebrows, with his eyes in a brilliant shade of deep, deep azure blue. There was no smirk on his face – so semblance of an easy victory in what was simply hours of heavy fighting. Even still, wherever we were, we felt the shaking of the shells.

Where were we?

“It has been some time since I last was able to discipline the rowdy Temsplaces. Many times you and your people were certainly out of control, but I could not, for the sake of me and the law invested onto me, hunt you down for the crimes that you have most filthily committed.” When the Core General spoke, he spoke with a strong, imposing, and heavy Methronnian accent. Yet his eyes were shimmering blue. “I cannot, therefore, understand precisely why you would do such a thing, and conspire against the entirety of the Amalgamate.”

The Temsplace standing said nothing, and I was certain at that moment that I had seen him somewhere. But where? I was too groggy, and my sight was too poor.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself, before you submit to the judgment of the Iekhalim in Tarakarzaka?” The Core General was dripped draped in his armour, looking at the entire display before him. Here, standing broken and in his normal clothing, was my Temsplace captain.

And there, it hit me. My Temsplace Captain. Tzera Tempestra. Tzera. Lord Tzera. The one who had fought off the Hsac dominators so many years ago. Tzera. He was powerful in the other realms, moving here after he –

- no. After he raised a family.

A safe city. Ruled by the Temsplace, and yet, the first to fall. The great western Temsplace fortress. The first to fall. Not even enough time to get out. I opened my mouth to scream, but only vomit came out.

“Why are you doing this?” Tzera asked, his head lowered as he kept sight away from the General.

“That’s – heh – foolish question, dear Temsplace. Why? Why?” The General rose, and walked up to Tzera, looking at him with his eyes as his hands grabbed Tzera’s cheek, the fingers of the sharp gauntlets digging into Tzera’s face, drawing blood. “I am doing this because you wretched filth have gone on long enough.”

“...heretics.” Tzera answered weakly, standing with all his might to keep alike, his chest rising and falling with every fell step into the painful murk. He coughed, and like I, only vomit emerged. Some of touched the General. The General paced, looking and thinking at the room, at its whiteness, at its shadowless convention as the bodies of Temsplaces only looked with pain and shame and uneasiness at their Lord-Captain unable to answer as he stood on that imaginary pedestal.

Tzera was a large man, and it looked from here as if he was put onto the pedestal from the very beginning. “I want to find the location of the last remaining rebel bases in Maheron, Vizith Tzera. If you tell me that, then I will most amicably let you go.”

“I will never. I will never sell my brethren out.” Tzera’s mouth was trickling with vomit, as even his stomach acid began to filter between his over-red gums.

The General sighed, his hand rising, almost to hit Tzera – and even Tzera winced at the sight of the heavily spiked gauntlets – but he banged on the wall instead, as long black lines revealed it to be a door. Wheeling in, driven by no one, it was a large white cart with a simple cover atop it. “Idealism is a nice thing, Tzera. It really is.” The General grabbed his helmet, putting it on as he locked the back and tightly armoured it up.

A Core General in full regalia was truly a frightening scene. And those eyes. The green, vicious, godless lights of those eyes. I could not get those eyes out of my mind. The triangle of sight, surrounded by small speaker grills as the dots stared back. That noise. That damnable noise.

It was a lifelessness. A monotonous, horrid, lifelessness. A sense of emotionless that chilled you to the bone. “Idealism is useless, Tzera. It does not work. Only pragmatism. Only the usefulness of it.”

“I’m promising you, Lord General, I do not know where it is.”

“I cannot take your word at face value, and I cannot kill you. It is a pity. The attack, however, was a useful thing to take into consideration. There was definitely something that we must consider and achieve before taking into the calculations your response.”

“I don’t understand.” Tzera weakly replied, trying not to get lost in the words.

“Of course you don’t. You do not understand me. But I understand you.” The Core General, draped in beautiful red scarves and robes, plated under human-void armour, walked over to the cart and opened it, revealing a long, old shotgun. The butt of the thing was stained with blood – a cornerstone of Core ‘diplomacy’. “Frankly, I chose you for two major reasons. Can you guess what they are?”

Tzera shook his head, as the Core General grabbed his cheeks again, their faces close as the eyes peered back. “No.” Tzera growled back, trying to lunge, but the shotgun’s barrel had been aimed at his stomach, stopping him.

“See? I understand you. It’s in my line of work. Our line of work. The Jaq’kaar, I mean. I am part of the graceful few, stuck here like maids to clean up your mess. That you started, knowingly. But you do not understand me. You do not,” by the time Tzera had realised it, he was cuffed and chained to the spot, tied by a small ring in the floor. “understand me. If you had known, I would never have fired on you anyhow. You are too valuable.”

“Then you’re just going to wave a gun in my face?”

“Incorrect. Not at all. Like I said, I am a pragmatist. Your power and your influence among the rebelling Temsplaces here is the first reason why you have been chosen.” The Core General walked about, looking up and down, and for a second, our eyes met, before he turned his attention back to Tzera.

“What’s the second reason?”

“Why, these four, of course.” He pointed to the area where the door was, as it opened again, this time conjuring up two Core, and three others. A woman, barely in her thirties, frightened and messy haired, but unharmed, but pregnant. And accompanying her, locked in the strong arms of a large Core, were two young men, one no more than twelve and the other eight. Both of them had bags over their heads, and seemed to be unable to speak, but they seemed not to struggle. The woman, seemed frightened out of her mind, and kept her mouth shut likely out of obedience to the situation.

Tzera shook his head, shocked and appalled. “Eastern Ridges, Zetterran Routes, and the Cafe on Milsara Avenue! Those are the only three that I know of! Those three! I swear, that’s all I know!” He yelled, ignoring everything, ignoring the vomit.

And then it hit me. So that’s what happened.

“She’s really pretty.” The Core General noted, walking over to Tzera’s wife, but not touching her. “But I don’t touch woman in such uncouth manners. Unlike you and your filth.” He walked over to the center to the wall at the end of the room, standing at the cart. “Now, I want you to do something for me.”

“What is it?”

“I want you vow your Aphage to me, and in the Aphage, I want you to - ”

“Please, I can’t do it - ” The first child went down in a massive BOOM, the body fall limp and helpless into a heap as the blood sprayed out everywhere, running a long line as the other boy, the younger one, flailed to no avail as the Core restraining him kept him there. The woman was crying, but it seemed she too was on enough sedatives to keep her too tired to put up a struggle.

“You should really pay attention to what I am saying and suggesting, Lord Temsplace. You don’t want to make a foolish mistake.”

“I will do it, I will do it.” Tzera was begged, his eyes welling up into tears as the scraped remains of his older son was slumped down onto the floor, the long line of blood still squirting for a little bit before it became nothing more than an empty heap. The bags were still over their heads, and the Core General’s shotgun was smoking as he swung it around, whistling through his speaker as the noise jarred the transmissions.

“Very good. In return, I will spare your son and your wife’s life. If you take the Aphage, of course.” The Core General commanded, as Tzera nodded. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, please. Just don’t. Just don’t. Promise you won’t do anything to them.”

“I promise. Wholeheartedly. Now,” The Core General outstretched his finger, as Tzera moved his forehead to it, allowing him to touch his forehead. “Alarum Simbihrum.”

Tzera was crying, his teeth gritted, but he had no choice. “Ildilhara Sunduum.”

“Do you accept?”

Tzera paused, looking at his wife and her distraught face. “I accept.”

“Good, now, I command you, my dear Tempestra, tell me where the others are. Any other locations?”

“The main headquarters on Ulduhk base, around the old watchtower ruins.”

“Oh-ho, so close, and yet so sneaky. Clever bastards. But well, it looks like you lied, but you kept your word. I’m surprised how faithful you are to the group, and that idiotic warmongering doctrine you call a religion. Quite surprised, and amused, actually.” He chuckled, placing his shotgun down on the cart, before pulling the sheets off something else. “But, I think I should reward you.”

“What do you mean?”

“How many months is your wife?”

“Seven. Seven months.” Tzera looked at her, as the Core General chuckled.

“Ah, well, let’s do something interesting.” Emerging from the cart, within the hands of the Core General, was a large yellow object with a rotating circular saw. A power-saw, large enough to cut through the most immense of objects. “I’m always interested in what happens when a fetus is that old, but not old enough to emerge - ”

“Oh god, please don’t hurt her! Please don’t hurt her! Please don’t - ” a punch landed across Tzera in the face, ripping off a piece of his cheek as the flesh hung on torn sinews, blood slowly fall down like a red war paint. “Please, don’t. You promised.”

“Relax, my good Tempestra. I’m not going to do anything to her, I promised you that. No, this little gem.” He held down the power button as it whirred to life, the blade spinning furiously, “is for you. Isn’t that wonderful? Aren’t I generous? It just...makes you tingly inside, doesn’t it?” He turned it off, before dropping it at Tzera’s feet. “The black button is the power one. I want you to do it.” The Core General returned to his cart.

“Do what?”

“Ah, yes, forgot to give you instructions. I want you to show me what your child looks like, coming out of your wife’s womb. Playing surgery, you know?” The Core General answered with a gleefulness in his voice, as the Core stood still and proper, as Tzera looked at him and shook his head. “Did you not take a vote?”

“I would rather burn in hell than do it. I am not - ” A shotgun was cocked, but not at Tzera. It was at the young man standing there, the bag over his head. Tzera stopped immediately.

“You best watch out. In a fit of rage at such a heretical disobedience I might slip my finger and happen to pull the trigger. But accident, of course.” The Core General answered.

“I-I...Please, sir General, please, I - ”

“Do you honestly think that I would not do it? I will do what is damn well needed to set this country straight, and if it involves getting rid of all your filthy spawn and those of your friends, then I’ll damn well do it, too. Oh, but I’m getting a bit dramatic, where are my manners? I have a first aid kit, in case things need a little bit of a band-aid, or what not.”

“I, I can’t.”

“Gun is cocked, finger’s slipping. Oh, but the rage I am feeling in my head right now! Oh, woe is me!” The barrel pressed up against the boy’s head, as the Core General mockingly shifted like a drunken fool. “I think it’s time for - ”

A Tzera lunged at his wife. A cry, desperate, the noise of the saw turned into something ghastly. Horrific. Blood-curdling. The blood was something new – not that I had never seen blood before, but there was an evil in all this, and that the wife, she screamed. Even drugged, the mere shock fractured her very being and the writhe of her body as her husband lunged with the power saw into her womb was something I could never imagine off.

The deep, spinning blade, falling inwards into the engorged flesh like butter, the blood and skin and turn inner lining of her body flying out like woodchips and sawdust as she at first gritted her teeth, but then she screamed. And that was when the drugs wore off. Her face became painted in the mask of her own blood, and the very intestines grew away as the womb began to take short, and then split under the whirring pressure of the vicious blade. And deeper, and deeper, and deeper, Tzera went, cutting her inwards as the small arm of an infant was visible, almost crying out to him, ‘don’t do this! Don’t do this!’ You know it couldn’t speak yet, but you could feel it’s pleas.

Don’t do this! Don’t do this! That was all that rang through your mind. The blood was everywhere, drenching Tzera as he looked at his wife’s face, contorted into something unimaginable as the umbilical cord flung out like some giant nematode.

And then, there was the mucus. Covering like some wretched inwards cobweb and blanketing with bloody pus, the entire sheet of mucus that covered Tzera as she screamed at him, her fingers clawing at him to stop, wretchedly made the entire thing a daunting, fearsome feel from the deepest pits.

Thus she slumped, fallen, her womb carved open by a power saw operated by her own husband. And as I laid there, watching it all, it happened. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it.

I got it up.

[Jenrak]

The darkness of the cell became the only friend for the first day. There were no rats nor insects to keep me company, and only the mocking chatter of the guards outside as they would speak loudly to our became the last little connection I was guaranteed to the rest of the world. And yet, still, their words were hardly comforting. Each, uttering from their mouths, were the same, four words:

Nakros Sentiauhk has fallen.

The Jaq’kaar were surprisingly fast. Nakros Sentiauhk was the great Temsplace fortress city, ready and willing to hold out against almost any invasion that they had planned. But the Core, for some reason, spoke with such a vigour and a proud clamour within their voices that I could not but scarce figure out to be the wild, uncouth taunting of the Jaq’kaar. And still, I could not get the fresh scent out of my nostrils and the taste – only peripheral – out of my mouth. The saltiness that was within the corners, just perched beneath my lips, were something else, but it was not my tears.

The uneasiness, disgusting taste was something else, and yet, I did not mind it. In fact, I enjoyed it. Perhaps there was a sort of revelation in my mind as the cogs began to slowly creak in one particular, nasty direction. Or maybe there was something intensely sick with me and that over and after all these things, I just didn’t want to deal with it. Maybe there was block in my brain, shouting and screaming ‘no!’, ‘no!’, and that I was simply too stubborn to think that there was anything else.

But I couldn’t let the ringing of the words or the saw escape my ears, continuously knocking upon the drums and ringing with unholy echoes. Nakros Sentiauhk. Nakros Sentiauhk. Nakros Sentiauhk. Nakros Sentiauhk. Nakros Sentiauhk. Nakros Sentiauhk. Nakros Sentiauhk. Nakros Senti – FUCK!

Oh, fuck, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hold the thoughts in. They wanted to come out, they so dearly, dearly wanted to. And I banged and banged my fist against the door, but the energy began to drain out.

You hear the stories – the ones where people make you do crazy things. Ridiculous things. Horrible, almost mythical acts of torture that are nothing more than the cheap fiction of people with the most bored of minds. But you never think that it was real.

Oh, dear Enkur, you don’t think it’s real. But it is.

---

I could not keep track of the time that began to melt within that cell, but the swell of thunderclouds were always a deep, silent rumble.

I did not dare keep track of the days. I refused, and I knew that even though I was a prisoner, they were there to break me, and light became a slow, shrinking endeavour. Illumination became a luxury, and slowly, surely, I began to ignore how the pains in my body began to call for signs of the rotting atrophies of my own muscles as the hunger set within me.

They would bring the same things – a greyish, bumpy slop, filled with everything to make sure I did not die of malnutrition – but a soldier eats a lot. And this mess was not enough.

And even I, who once believed that the conflict would possibly be over with the fall of the city of Nakros Sentiauhk, began to lose faith. I began to lose faith in the Enkur that became the pillar of my beliefs, and I slowly fell into a deep trance of a heathen’s wretched thoughts. From the darkness of the cell, I sought a filthy solace that gave me only a finite semblance of care and consideration.

From the darkness of the cell, I met God.

The slow warmth that enveloped the cold stone features of my featureless cell began occupied by another man. He was a man, how horrible, without eyes – there were no eyes. Just empty, black sockets, sewn together and closed by long metal staples and deep leathery string stared back, if you could even call it that. They were shut and intensely so, almost as if the lids were smashed together into a rushed hurry, and the features were messily distorted. His fingers were gnarled and parts were numb, and his right arm seemed to be disproportionately smaller and missing a chunk of flesh from the bicep.

His shirt was slightly clean, but most of the dirt that hung there was from old, dried blood, and judging from his nose, it seemed to be his own. He staggered, like any helpless being would, walking slowly down onto the small cot within the small cell, sitting down as he was simple a feet or so away from me. Barefoot, our toes touched, and I grimaced at the feeling.

He was a man of a particular unique charisma – not a commanding thing that you’d see with officers, but a uniqueness all in his own that I could not define. It swirled about him, hanging like a drifting doldrum of a far gone thunderstorm and that charisma emanated from his very flesh like a beating, heated power.

Or perhaps it was the stench. I couldn’t tell. He had no name, and was willing to tell me none, but he was certainly a talkative man regardless.

“Did they get you?” He asked, and I chuckled weakly.

“Yeah, me too.”

“No.” He stopped me. “Just you.”

“You’re not a prisoner? Not a pow?”

“Nobody’s a prisoner. Nobody.” He spoke. I scoffed.

“Okay, alright.” I answered, the silence overbearing again.

There was no drip of water, no scurry of rats, and no noise of muffled jackboots to serenade our presence. Heh. Serenade. A poor word in a poor situation.

The heaviness was an unbearable atmosphere, and time against melted into a cacophony of nothing. Just a mush, as filthy as that gruelling slop they serve all the time. And the thought pierced into my mind, constantly – what was going on out there? Did Nakros Sentiauhk really fall?

He broke the silence again. “Do think the war will be over soon?”

Over soon? It’s a civil war in the Amalgamate with a nuclear strike – it won’t be over soon. “Hardly.”

“Why not? Haven’t they been over many times?”

“This one’s different. It involved nuclear weapons.”

“What different does it make? Someone wanted to kill someone else, and they acted on it. There’s no difference in target and no different in power relations. Just one group wanting to kill another.”

“And because of that, you think that...for some reason, it’ll end quickly?”

“It will.”

“How clairvoyant.”

“No, that’s just a guess of a guess. Nothing to back it up. Clairvoyance is knowing that you found something you shouldn’t have arousing, that you’ve been keeping yourself busy in this cell all by yourself and your right hand, and that you’ve been picturing that same scene over and over and over again.”

What?

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Does it make you feel free? That the freedom to choose what you become aroused by, no longer determined by the baser instincts of what others in the media tell you to become is much, much more liberating?”

What is he talking about?

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Isn’t that what you want? Freedom?”

“Yes, but from this cell.”

“Then why haven’t you done it? Why haven’t you broken their necks and made a run for it?”

“Because they’ll find me and kill me. These aren’t ragtag militias, they’re fully trained - ”

“They’re men and women, like you and me.” He paused, sighing, his head tilting as he took a deep breath. “Can I ask you something?”

“Do you have to?”

“I do, yes.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“To give you the illusion of a control of power in the conversation. To give you a choice, I can work at a pace that you understand. And this pace, therefore, is handy for me to determine precisely why and what is happening around you, and within you.”

“Within me?”

“Of course.” He held out his hand, fumbling slightly in the darkness. “Now, let me ask that question.”

[Jenrak]

The conversation that transpired between myself and the man was not a conversation I had expected in this dilapidated, broken down hovel of a prisoner of war camp, and it wasn’t really a spot where I expected to make a friend, either. But he seemed to be both, and despite his eccentricities, he enjoyed in revelling with the slur of the odd and the interesting. The first little bits of information gave no leeway to actually what he was saying, save for the one fact of his name.

“So, is there a name I can call you by?” I asked him, his sightless head ignoring me.

“God.” He answered.

“...God. Is there an actual name?”

“God.”

“That’s quite sacrilegious, you know.”

“To whom?”

“To everyone. To everyone who has a god, or believes in God, and doesn’t agree with you.”

“Hurt feelings can hardly break a bone or snap a neck. Or, heaven forbid, put a bullet in your brain.”

“Hurt feelings tend to lead to those things as well, though.”

“But will you act on hurt feelings in this situation?”

“I’m not really affected or angered by your decision to call yourself a deity, but rather taken aback by the incredulity of your boldness in the claim of your name.”

“Big words, but it just means ‘I don’t care’.”

“Perhaps.” I shifted my legs a little.

“Perhaps? Is there a possibility that something may be wrong, or do you have a lingering lack of ability to think about it?”

“Now I’m insulted.”

“As am I.”

“Why so?”

“That you refuse to call me God.”

“Well, you want to call yourself - ”

“What if, for example, you had been born and your father named you God. Would you then be taken aback by someone such as me in that situation?”

“I could hardly consider such a father to dote in such a way.”

“And yet we have fathers who beat and rape their children, and fathers who do not. Can we certainly say that there is nothing that the human race is unwilling to do beyond what the social conventions of their own ideals are?”

“Now I’m not the only one have big words thrown out.”

“Of course not. I’m simply being you.”

“I would not call myself God.”

“Then why do you take someone’s life?”

“How does that have to do with God?”

He paused, and at first, I had presumed that he was stumped, and I emerged out of some sort of makeshift argument the victor. But it was not so – what I learned from God, this man who called himself God, that even in his eyeless position he continued to divert and distort a wretched, piercing gaze right through me.

He continued to dominate and control, manage and coil a string of questions around me that made me shudder. “Everything has to do with it. You yourself believe to be the purveyor of your reality. Reality to you is determined and filtered, ultimately, by nobody and nothing but you. You demand and command what happens through your ideals and thus impose them as real. What you value, what you want, and what you believe in, ultimately is your desire. And how others act is what you determine to be the reality. In other words, your universe is your reality, and each and everything is simply an interpretation of your reality.”

“And that legitimises you as God?”

“By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.”

I paused. “That sounds familiar.”

“It should. When you die, you have destroyed your reality. Your universe is gone. You may no longer register it.”

“What about an afterlife? Can’t you perceive that?”

“Can you? Can you really?”

“The Scripture of Enkur says so.”

“Ah, but do you believe in it? Do you truly believe in the Scripture of Enkur? For if so, then you may act upon it, and your reality is already shaped. To deprive someone of their life, you have taken away their reality, and subsequently, their universe.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Every man who has killed a man has proven himself to be God. To tear asunder the reality of another man proves that he has the ability to tear apart universes.”

“So that just means you’ve killed a man.”

“No, I simply have known of my ascension.”