It was hard to make out, but it looked like the tattoo said "Fight for love". One of those cheesy motivational lines. I chuckled inside. How pathetic, to be dying on the streets with none of my friends or family with me. I'd read so many books and articles in my lifetime, but the last words I'd ever see would be on the back of some dead, random chick, with burning buildings collapsing all around me. Oh, and cold rain. It had taken me a long while, but then I noticed it was raining. Great. Just great. "Fight for love", huh?
Yeah, maybe I'll fight for love later... But first, I needed some rest.
My eyelids began to close. The end, I thought. Maybe I'd see Vrin in beautiful, shining bright Heaven or something. Wait, could Atheists go to Heaven? Whatever... I'd think about it after I took a short nap...
FIGHT.
What?
My eyes snapped open. What was that?
FIGHT.
There it was again. Was I so near death that voices would start ringing in my head? Great. Just great. All I wanted was to go off peacefully, and-
FIGHT.
I thought about all the events that had led up to this. My parents, screaming as the hated "Reaper incarnate" tortured them inside with images of death and horror. The discovery of Mergerith, an inexhaustible energy source. The strange, overwhelming fire that killed everyone back in Base 6. Vril, driving the Mergerith weapon into himself so that the rest of us could escape from the Reaper. And there was something else.... The Reaper had whispered something into my ear before he'd stabbed me again and again with his twisted blade. What was it, again? I struggled to remember...
FIGHT.
Ah, yes. He'd said.... That he'd torture every last one of my "weak, foolish comrades". Who... were my comrades? I dug deeper. Wait... Christy? She was still alive. For now. Ranth... Zeth... Keira... He was going to torture them. Torture them all... to oblivion. And I would be alive to watch as he did so.
Just like he had tortured my parents, right in front of me.
FIGHT!
Somehow, with my broken body, I stood up. My legs were shaking, and pain ruled my entire being. Pain was all I felt. That, and a small, explosive feeling... I could sense it emerging from the corners of my mind, growing in strength, growing in activity...
FIGHT!
I brought my gaze up, and laid it upon the back of the hated Reaper. He was walking away, his skinny depthless frame eclipsing what was visibly left of the sun setting over the horizon. He was at least a good twenty kilometres away, but I could still make out his twisted horns, one on either side of his head. Reaper incarnate he claimed to be, I thought, but underneath it all, human he was. And humans... died. Eventually.
FIGHT!
I stopped shaking. My breathing went back to normal. Suddenly, I could feel everything around me - I could hear the ashes touching the ground, hundreds of them at a time. The heat from the burning buildings hit my skin from all directions, in so many waves I couldn't even keep track. And the blood... The blood trickling down my right temple. It was so... warm. A bit of it was in my mouth, and the taste.... An unpleasant taste of copper. It was metallic... but that wasn't all. I could taste and smell something else, something animalistic. Willpower filled my lungs. I breathed it in, inhaled it in all its greatness, felt raw power surging within me. Predatory instincts activated. And with that one breath, I threw my soul forward, roaring with all my might. Even as I lost myself in the pandemonium of it all, I could still tell: What came out of my mouth was greater than a beast's bellow, but wasn't quite the same; It was a perfect mix... of human, beast and - strangely - machine...
Standing where I was, I could see him turn, his cocky face matching his green reptilian eyes, the only light that shone from his unholy, darkened skin. His eyes met mine, and almost immediately, I watched as his expression changed to one of complete horror. A new scent hit me like a brick wall. Sour. So strong, so stinging, so... sweet. I almost laughed. The Reaper feared me. I glared right back, staring into his eyes. His fear was delicious, filling me with ecstasy... and the beast wanted more.
My body tensed. I leaned forward, letting myself fall. My legs bent, preparing energy like compressed springs... And I leaped forward with another predatory roar, flinging myself right in front of him in a second.
A whole lot of thoughts ran through my mind in the second I soared towards the Reaper. I'll pluck those horns out first, I thought. Torture my comrades? I'd torture YOU, dig out one of your eyes... I'll crush your limbs one by one, then skin every part of your body, little by little and as slowly as possible... Indulge in your screaming, your death throes, your pain... And I'll make sure the last thing you ever saw through your other eye... is my expression as I rip your beating heart out and crush it with my bare hands...
When I stopped one foot in front of him, our eyes met once again, and his thoughts were out for me to read like an open book: Why is he still moving? I crushed him... There's no way he's still able to move... There's no way he's still able to fight!
And he must have been able to read my thoughts as well, because his expression of horror became even more twisted than before. He seemed to see me as fear incarnate - and as much as he believed himself to be the Reaper, he knew that nothing could stop me from destroying his helpless self.
Painfully.
And before I reached for his face to rip out his eye, a bit of humanity came to the surface of my self and said but one word:
"Die."
Well, that was (and took) longer than expected. Trust on fatigue and depression to take imagination to new heights...
*No spellcheck.
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Done by Yap Xiao Wei on 3 June 2013. Reposted on Yap Xiao Wei's blog on 25 June 2013.
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Getting consumed @ 11:07 PM