The War In His Mind

Chapter 20

The colorful lights of the city were replaced by the hue of the fire. Red flames bursted out of the central command center and spread to the buildings and foliage nearby. The heat of the fire could be felt brushing up against the skin of nearby citizens. Abraham, the first of the three to make it to the command center, felt the pain of hot air singeing the hair on his arms. The crisp golden glow reflected off his skin. He pressed his hand against the back doorway. It was cold.

The fire hadn't caught on that part of the building. He opened it to see the three men standing in front of him. They were stoic. A cold shiver went down Abraham's spine. Their skin was pale white, almost ghastly if it weren't for the glow of the nearby fire.

Abraham pulled his pistol out of his holster. He aimed it at the man in the middle.

"Why?" He shouted. He wondered if they could hear him over the cackling of the fire.

He was met with only the sound of the command center crumbling above him. The men stood firm as the fire came closer to them.

***

Natasha led the fire brigade outside the command center. Thirty men equipped with hoses shot cold water at the top of the tower where the fire originated. She herself held onto a hose, but pointed it lower towards the back entrance where Abraham went into.

One of the firefighters called out to her. "Hey- the fire's above...aim higher!"

It was instinctive. A raw emotion she didn't fully understand. A fear that Abraham somehow was trapped by the flame and the only way he would survive was with her help. It was unlikely, she told herself, yet the thought couldn't escape her mind. She gripped the house tighter, hoping that somehow it would make a difference. Maybe she was keeping the fire from spreading and trapping him. Maybe she was saving him. It was wishful thinking, sure, but it comforted her and that was all that mattered.

It was a waiting game. There was nothing she could actively do but stare at the backdoor and feel the sickening churn of her stomach tie her lower intestines into a knot. In her mind she saw visions of Abraham covered in fire, throwing open the door and collapsing to the ground as he burned alive. Though it was all a story in her head, she wept as if it were real. If she could keep the hose closer to the door she could put out the fire before it did too much damage.

***

Abraham kept his finger wrapped firmly around the trigger. There was no morality in the eyes of the men standing before him. He used to know who they were- bright young men eager to see a thriving society, much like Abraham himself. They were his brothers, and more then that, his sons. Just as O'Neil sculpted Abraham by creating the conditions in the city where he would rebel, Abraham created a world that gave birth to these men. Though they were bastards at birth, they were more a product of him than of the old city.

"Look," Abraham paused to catch his breath. With every passing second his lungs had to work harder to fight past the smoke, "He did something to you...right? O'Neil? He did this?"

Abraham saw a small indent on the right side of each of their heads. "Did he..." he couldn't catch his breath. Every word felt impossible to speak. "...what did he?"

"...No..." Abraham whispered under his breath. The thought of these men undergoing some primitive torture played in his head. He envisioned O'Neil breaking them to the point of no returns using surgical tools and chemicals.

"...No..." He could imagine O'Neil laughing at his plight. The son of a bitch standing on a building and watching Abraham's reality slowly shattering before him.

"NO!" A brick in the floor shook violently in front of him. Abraham saw it out of the corner of his eye. He knew what it was and felt a temptation to press it with his foot. There was anger in his heart, a fire twice as hot as the inferno that covered the building. A red hue covered his eyes and his arms shook with rage. He wondered what would happen if he stepped on the brick. Would it erase all of the madness? All of the pain? All the hurt? He saw in his mind a version of the past where they never were captured. O'Neil never turned them into monsters. They were loyal members of Abraham's Union who would do anything for anyone.

He moved his foot forward enough to the point it touched the brick. The three men suddenly jumped forward as if they were robots brought to life. They grabbed Abraham by the arms and pinned him against the wall.

***

Natasha kept her grip firm on the hose. She noticed the door swing wide open and instinctively shot the water at the four men fighting to get out. Abraham was being held by the first man as the other three slammed his chest and lower abdomen, taking turns delivering blows. Natasha sprayed them in the face but couldn't get them off Abraham, their resolve was hardened as steel. Abraham seemingly had no choice but to take the hits. They were stronger than him and he had no upper hand.

She focused her aim on keeping them off of him but they relentlessly pushed forward, attacking Abraham with their fists, make shift weapons of tree branches and debris, and whatever they could find.

Abraham stood firm in the wake of having a fist strike his nose. Blood poured onto his chest and soaked into his shirt.

Armored soldiers created a perimeter. Twenty men covered in bullet proof suits pointed rifles at the fight scene. Behind them was Israel, who ordered them to take a shot when Abraham was clear of their range.

***

Blood and salty tears mixed in the corners of his eyes. The water from the fire hose baptized him in fear as the strikes to his body broke him down like a trash compactor crushing the corpse of a car. A fleeting thought of death came to the front of his mind. What would that be like? The afterlife, he thought, was something only real humans experienced. A triumph of the spirit- not a victory of artificial intelligence. A coldness came over his mind. It wasn't the beating that hurt the most, it was the knowledge that no matter how hard he tried, he would never truly be human. He wouldn't experience the ultimate finale. He would be dangling on a string above a dark abyss, and one day, that string would break and he would fall into nothingness. Erased from the world he called home.

In his mind he saw himself on that string. He felt a wind come from the emptiness beneath him. A ghostly, invisible Grim Reaper tugging at his legs. Every jab to the chest in the present broke another strand of the string and brought him closer to eternity. The wind flew up his pantlegs, past his shirt, and stoked his spine. Invisible, icy cold fingers massaged the back of his skull, moving his hair back and forth. The strings above him gingerly snapped. A short eternity covered the time between him realizing what happened and gravity pulling him to everlasting damnation.

He was weightless yet tied to a lead ball. He could soar if he so wanted to, but helplessly sunk into the void below. The weight of everything collapsing on him was too much to bear.

***

Time froze and the entire world stood still. The armored soldiers froze. Israel's pale white face gasped in horror. Natasha's fire hose was suspended in mid-air as she pushed herself to get to Abraham. His body hit the ground with enough force to shatter any remnants of his spirit. The three traitors let him be. They knelled on the ground and placed their hands over their heads.

Natasha grabbed Abraham's hands. They were callused and cold, the skin was rugged as all nailbitter's fingers tend to be. His face was reflective of a man who was not there. Though it had color, it lost the definite hue it had in life.

She placed her hands on his heart and pressed down. "Hey...hey..." she thrusted her palms on his chest. She was emotionless. Cold. Callused. Not because she didn't care. She couldn't believe it. Couldn't accept the harsh reality that dawned on her mind. It wasn't physically possible for this to happen. It was a cruel game that the computer imposed upon her.

"...just...come back...okay?"

***

In the end there was darkness. Nothing to tell death from life. Illusion from reality. Lies from truth. The darkness was the great realm of certainty. In the darkness, there was no fear nor hope. No right or wrong. Just the eternal lure of nothingness. Everything that was, and everything that would be, was being stripped away with every passing second. Every memory he had, and every waking second in the city, was being washed away as a if it were a smudge on a window seal.

How insignificant were the toils! How vain the attempts at changing reality. Indeed there was nothing new under the sun. Just as it rises in the morning and sets in the evening, Wonder City would always be a place of duality and deprivation.