@
by ratticus
fiction
The End
eople take death in different ways. Some accept and wish for it, love and cherish it for its ending. Death makes things simple, it makes one prioritise, realise what is and isn’t important. Some run from it forever, never accepting that their end is inevitable. Innumerable operations, meditation, guru’s, fake religion… all these things people seek to help them delay – if not stop the most powerful force known: death.
Sometimes it is forgiving, a lesson is to be learnt by brushing close to it, a change is inevitable after closeness to it, some retract in fear, others go forth stronger, thinking themselves invulnerable to its ways. All succumb with time, time that brings death ever closer. Different cultures accept it differently too, some enjoy it… relish in it, the Japanese want to face it, look into its eyes, and even some wish to control it. The ending of ones own life is a very powerful thing, but it acceptance, not dominance. Acceptance of the inevitable.
Some do not like to see death, they reign down from the skies precision guided missiles leave nothing but a scar on the earth. Death has occurred, but it is not seen. Death can bring sadness, it can bring joy.
I am the bringer of death.
voice came from below, the mouth was bound and gagged, only guttural noises emerged from the depths of the broken and bruised body now. The eyes were covered, but she could feel the heat, the light came down upon her. She could smell the closeness of her captor, his sweat and odour was always apparent to her. She had learned to tell when he was near, her senses, aided by adrenalin were far more alert now. She had to know.
She could tell he was coming towards her, the slow, emotionless metallic clunk filled the room, slowly echoing eerily inside the room. She had no idea how big it was, or where it was. All she knew is she was there. So was he. The impact slammed and shook her body, where it not shackled down it would have been flung around like a ragdoll. Her body winced from the impact. Something broken cannot be broken again. She cared little now. She wanted death.
She slid down into the chair and chains which bound her, and grabbed desperately with her weakened hands to its sides. She hung for an instant, waiting for the next impact. It never came.
Her gag was removed. It would come now, the pain would be over. Nothingness, awaited her, its huge dark void was ready to envelope her. Instead she was met with lips, they came slowly. She remained paralysed, partly because of the various chemicals and drugs which now burned through her veins, and partly in shock. But not the shock of fear, or hatred or anger which had filled her soul the days previous, true shock met her. Uncertainty.
Not reciprocating could lead to more beatings… more pain, more torture. She moved her lips, mechanically, devoid of the emotion and rhythm that she had once known. These things were long forgotten here. But basic animalistic instinct took over, she found herself in time with her captors movements. Not feeling love, not lust, nothing. Animalistic instincts, what made this species so prolific earth over was now in control, she was powerless within her own body.
She felt the cover over her eyes being slowly removed. White hot pain seared her vision, she writhed in her shackles, breaking free from her captors connection for a second. Her body was contorting as if an earthworm were caught in the midday sun. Slowly they adjusted, shapes began to form. As did the face of her captor, if it could be called that. It was if it were just a body, bound to duty. Soulless. Why had he kissed her?
He uttered a low growl. The chains fell to the floor with a mere flick of a switch. Instruments of torture and death clung the walls everywhere here. As did their memories, the blood of countless people, now gone forever. She attempted to move, her broken joints, bones and bruised muscles were unwilling. Awake as she’d ever been in life, half alive a distant descendant of the woman who had once owned this body.
Suddenly, she was unconscious, a needle was thrust into her. She drifted here, her subconscious mind attempting to explain all these events, blocking the pain, the uncertainty.
he awoke again, she had relished the unconsciousness, the simplicity of her own blackness, of the void. Here things were complicated. She was sitting on something soft… it gave to her weight, the pain of sitting on the cold steel was now gone. A car, drifting slowly above the earth’s surface, riding on a cushion of electro-magnetism and years of physicists work. The man who had once held her was now moving her somewhere. She could speak now, barely. Her broken jaw and swollen throat were reluctant in complying with her wishes.
She got no response. It was as if speaking to a wall, the sound reflected but no response was heard. The car continued, she sought sleep again. A dreamless void, peace and tranquility were found in nothingness. Her body was jolted awake by the slow decent of the car back to earth. Its landing gear engaged. Her restraint retracted to its rightful place. She realised she could smell this man, almost… taste him through scent. He was different to the torturer, possibly not.
Her door opened itself, he was gone now, he had manually opened his. A strange thing to do in an age of computer and robotic automation. Physical effort was now rarely seen, bar highly televised sporting events. She stepped slowly from the hovmobile. Her feet were unscathed, but the sensation of dirt on her feet ran all the way up her body.
“You are free to go now” an un-emotive voice uttered, a slight Russian accent graced its tonality. ”But… who are you? Where am I?” Her jaw was aflame with pain, it shot from there to half of her upper body, she writhed. “Unimportant, you must go”
With those words he poured some vodka, a bottle adorned with old Soviet symbols over his tongue. It washed away his sins, his actions. He should have known better then to touch her, that was what he did. Never Kirov. But he had never enjoyed getting drunk by himself, seeking solitude with alcohol leads to more pain. The walls always seemed to get closer, the innocent screams louder. His death became ever more a thought when he was drunk by himself. She ran to the car, “Can I join you?” her screams, tears, and flailing limbs were heard through the bullet and laser proof outer casing of the hovmobile. He kicked it into gear, initiating the manual control, the one thing he was truly in control of.
It sped away, she was left there, alone. Truly alone. She had come close to death, met it face on. It had changed her. But not as it did him that night, he had betrayed his master, his life was now worthless. In a world where there were so many, only loyalty was valued by those with power. He embraced his death, rushing towards it, blissful in his own way.
he screen flashed, now static, the recording was over.
“Is that it then?” A coarse, guttural voice said, a touch of a South African accent was evident, but long subdued in the land of the brave and the free.
“Yes, that’s it, that’s all the neural recordings we could recall of his mind, it went a bit haywire, as you can see” He was Indian originally, unaware of the silent judgment inflicted by his employer here. He was an advanced trainee, he had spent 6 months in the incubus, learning at hyper speed medicine and English in Delhi.
“She was a whore anyway, I care little for what that fucking Slavic half breed piece of shit did with her, but why the fuck did he let her go?” “I don’t know, he’s dead now, we can operate”
A sly grin emerged from the South African’s face. His pot marked and scarred face contracted, with difficulty, to an emotion it had not expressed in a long time. The teeth, products of cigars rolled on the legs of young Latino women thousands of miles away, glowed like a yellow moon against the harsh light of the operating table.
“What of his colour?” He said, emphasizing heavily the last word.
“That can all be changed of course, as can phallic sizes, eye colour and most physical attributes”
He was puzzled, the dead “Russian” was originally Cuban, the links between these countries now long forgotten. His coloured skin was of a medium brown hue, it suited his heavily defined muscles and near perfect physique. Why his employer would want to change it seemed strange in a world so muddied by cultural and ethnic intertwining.
“Hmmm, very good”
He had just killed two birds with one stone, one literally and one figuratively. The woman was taken care of, as were his sexual interests in the days of her torture. He cared little of what happened to her now, she knew nothing of him, nor his dead employee’s link. This dead body now served a purpose, a new body was to be had for him, a fresh body. Another 20 or 30 years maybe out of this one, a fresh new body to fill with his vices, alcohol and cigars. This one would take it better then the one previous.
He felt somewhat aroused thinking about it.
he operation was finished, his mind came into awareness. Something was wrong, it hadn’t been like this before. He should know, he’d had his brain transplanted 3 times now. His birth was after the fall of apartheid – racial segregation in his country, his first thoughts were of the incompetence of his surgeon. Afrikaans insults filled his mind, his body was collapsing, failing.
The surgeon stood over him, aware of what was happening, his education equivalent of 15 years of “formal” university education, and his advanced machines showed him clearly what was occurring within the body.
The patient’s face contorted, anger, fear, hatred all attempted to express themselves simultaneously through this dying body. The body was then silent. The heart stopped, the muscles stopped contracting. The mind was alone now, he was about to meet the end. Death, he had tried to run from it for decades now. It had caught up, it was inevitable.
The Russian had won, the ultimate betrayal. A gunshot to the heart disguised the lethal nanobots he had implanted in the bullets outer casing. They reacted immediately to the South African’s D.N.A, they had began attacking and shutting down the body as soon as it began again.
Money, greed and lust were the dying man’s thoughts, his life was now over.
Death had won