SIXTY-SIX
Dead dead dead is everywhere.
So many bodies mixed and meshed into the earth that I have no idea whether they’re ours or theirs and I’m beginning to wonder what it means, I’m beginning to doubt myself and this weapon in my hand and I can’t help but wonder about these soldiers, I wonder how they could be just like Adam, just like a million other tortured, orphaned souls who simply needed to survive and took the only job they could get.
My conscience has declared war against itself.
I’m blinking back tears and rain and horror and I know I need to move my legs, I know I need to push forward and be brave, I have to fight whether I like it or not because we can’t let this happen.
I’m tackled from behind.
Someone pins me down and my face is buried in the ground and I’m kicking, I’m trying to scream but I feel the gun wrenched out of my grip, I feel an elbow in my spine and I know Adam and Kenji are gone, they’re deep in battle and I know I’m about to die. I know it’s over and it doesn’t feel real, somehow, it feels like this is a story someone else is telling, like death is a strange, distant thing you’ve only ever seen happen to people you’ve never known and surely it doesn’t happen to me, to you, to any of the rest of us.
But here it is.
It’s a gun in the back of my head and a boot pressed down on my back and it’s my mouth full of mud and it’s a million worthless moments I never really lived and it’s all right in front of me. I see it so clearly.
Someone flips me over.
The same someone who held a gun to my head is now pointing it at my face, inspecting me as if trying to read me and I’m confused, I don’t understand his angry gray eyes or the stiff set of his mouth because he’s not pulling the trigger. He’s not killing me and this, this more than anything else is what petrifies me.
I need to take off my gloves.
My captor shouts something I don’t catch because he’s not talking to me, he’s not looking in my direction because he’s calling to someone else and I use his moment of distraction to yank off the steel knuckle brace on my left hand only to toss it to the ground. I have to get my glove off. I have to get my glove off because it’s my only chance for survival but the rain has made the leather too wet and it’s sticking to my skin, refusing to come off easily and the soldier spins back too soon. He sees what I’m trying to do and he yanks me to my feet, pulls me into a headlock and presses the gun to my skull. “I know what you’re trying to do, you little freak,” he says. “I’ve heard about you. You move even an inch and I will kill you.”
Somehow, I don’t believe him.
I don’t think he’s supposed to shoot me, because if he wanted to, he would’ve done it already. But he’s waiting for something. He’s waiting for something I don’t understand and I need to act fast. I need a plan but I have no idea what to do and I’m only clawing at his covered arm, at the muscle he’s bound around my neck and he shakes me, shouts at me to stop squirming and he pulls me tighter to cut off my air supply and my fingers are clenched around his forearm, trying to fight the viselike grip he has around me and I can’t breathe and I’m panicked, I’m suddenly not so sure he’s not going to kill me and I don’t even realize what I’ve done until I hear him scream.
I’ve crushed all the bones in his arm.
He falls to the floor, he drops his gun to grab at his arm, and he’s screaming with a pain so excruciating I’m almost tempted to feel remorse for what I’ve done.
Instead, I run.
I’ve only gotten a few feet before 3 more soldiers slam into me, alerted by what I’ve done to their comrade, and they see my face and they’re alight with recognition. One of them appears vaguely familiar, almost as if I’ve seen his shaggy brown hair before, and I realize: they know me. These soldiers knew me when Warner held me captive. Warner had made a complete spectacle out of me. Of course they’d recognize my face.
And they’re not letting me go.
The 3 of them are pushing me face-first into the ground, pinning down my arms and legs until I’m fairly certain they’ve decided to rip my limbs off. I’m trying to fight back, I’m trying to get my mind in the right place to focus my Energy, and I’m just about to knock them back but then
a sharp blow to my head and I’m rendered almost entirely unconscious.
Sounds are mixing together, voices are becoming one big mess of noise and I can’t see colors, I don’t know what’s happening to me because I can’t feel my legs anymore. I don’t even know if I’m walking or if I’m being carried but I feel the rain. I feel it fall fast down the planes of my face until I hear the sound of metal on metal, I hear a familiar electric thrum and then the rain stops, it disappears from the sky and I only know 2 things and I only know 1 of those things for certain.
I am in a tank.
I am going to die.