150 Years

I have now completed my 123rd out of my 150 years sentence for killing someone. My victim was evil, and I took it upon myself to execute them. Taking a human life is never easy. I used to be a soldier, and I have killed a lot of people because I followed orders coming from the seat of power, high above my rank. Even then, it was not an easy act. The expression "kill or be killed," is a load of bullshit. No one really wants to kill, no one really wants to die.

The dear leader was a monster. He very often had his citizens raped, tortured, shot, and or killed, sometimes only for his amusement. He did not care about them, nor did he care about them starving or freezing to death in the winter.

He was a cheap Nicolae Ceaușescu knock-off... you know, the former dictator of Romania. On December 21st, 1989, Ceaușescu ordered the police and army to arrest and use lethal force on demonstrators who had shown up to protest one of his speeches, taking place at main Palace Square in Bucharest. Many of them were students.

The next day, police and army switched camp and decided to overthrow the government. The populace and the armed forces turned on Ceaușescu and executed him and his wife on Christmas Day, 1989.

I did the same with my dear leader. I did not have an angry mob backing me, nor did I have the country's armed forces' support. I executed both him and his wife as they were standing on the stage, giving a live address, for the country's independence day celebrations. Millions of people saw this happening live in our country. Many more saw it worldwide.

And now, I was paying the price.

Despite our now-dead dear leader being a monster, no one saw me as a savior; countryfolks saw me as a quisling, a traitor willing to destabilize and betray my own country.

Instead of executing me publicly for my insolence, they arrested me on the spot, then tried and convicted me less than an hour after. I did not even have a lawyer present. The court officials said the state-appointed lawyers were late. They never showed up.

I was sent to the hole for 150 years.

No chance of appeal.

It was final.

They wanted to make an example out of me.

They sure did.

The dear leader's son became the new dear leader or dear leader junior, as I called him. It was a move I had not anticipated. I was a meathead, and should not be surprised. He seized power the same day mommy and daddy had their brains splattered. They were dictators. They could all do whatever they wanted. And so did he.

While I was in jail, he had me tortured on a regular basis, to remind me I was no more than horseshit stuck under his foot. He forced me into praising him, as he did with every other citizen. That was one cult of personality.

Days that should have been his family gathering days were usually the worst. On days such as his parents' birthday, the country's independence day, Christmas, and Easter, he personally came down to my cell to crack his whip on my back. He reminded me how much he loved his parents, and how much he wanted to kill me, yet had to restrain himself because he wanted me to suffer even more. As he normally said, "More, MORE, MOREEEEE." Such Kylo Ren energy.

---

After serving more than four decades, which seemed like several eternities in this miserable place, depression crawled over me like the shadows crawl out of a tree in the moonlight. The constant torture and abuse I was subjected to had taken a toll on me. Even my cellmates all despised me and used me as their bitch. They would steal my food and violently rape me. The prison guards were no better at this, and would often participate in my agony.

One night, I decided I had had enough of my living conditions, and chose to commit suicide. I slit my wrists with a dirty piece of broken glass I had found earlier in the yard. Blood pissed all over from my veins. I was sitting on my bed, and I fell on my knees, on the ground. I could not stand it anymore. I did not want to. I wanted to die and go away. Forever.

---

My cellmates altered the guards. The prison guards arrived shortly and found me resting in a puddle of a mix of my very own blood and my cellmates' piss. After a quick call, they managed to stabilize me long enough to have me transferred to the nearby military hospital complex. They really hated me and all wanted to make sure I'd survive to still serve as their bitch.

Technology has moved on pretty fast in the last decades, and I was to become the unwilling lab rat for a mad science experiment. Seeing I was bound to die soon, they decided to select me for the ungrateful task. If they succeeded, my suffering would go on. If they failed, I would die in horrible pain.

I was not given the choice to provide consent. No. My body, my life was the government's property. It had been for the last 43 years, and also 10 years before that. I had joined the army when I was 18. If you do the math, I was already 71. Such an attempt was previously made in Russia, and the scientists failed after 27 hours of surgery.

I had 107 years left on my sentence and no intention of completing it. Dear Leader junior, who was now 58, wanted to make sure I would serve it entirely.

The lights went off, and I dozed off, believing it was finally over.

---

I eventually woke up and had no idea how long it took to come back to my senses. I heard doctors talking about me being in a coma for over two years. What? How was I still alive? I looked around, puzzled. A nurse saw me and ran towards my bed, urging me to remain calm.

Why would I turn violent, I asked.

She gave me some sedatives, and soon after the whole medical team was surrounding my bed. I was getting extremely nauseous as they asked me how so many questions, questions such as how I was feeling, did I feel my limbs, which languages I spoke, and obviously, they asked for my name and if I knew where I was at.

All of my answers proved to be the right ones for them, and they put a mirror in front of me.

I stared in awe. I panicked. Who was in the mirror, this reflection? It sure wasn't me! The man I was staring back at was at most in his early 20s. His skin color was different, he had lots of curly hair, he was in good physical shape. He was the size of a fridge, too.

I, on the other hand, was no more than a bald, old man.

I looked at the nurse I initially met, and I stared in disbelief once more into the mirror. I moved one hand, then an arm, then I leaned back and forth, moved sideways, and jumped on one foot and then the other. The reflection perfectly mimicked me and every move I did.

I got overwhelmed by sudden nausea and passed out.

When I came back to my senses, the medical team was still around, taking notes and checking up my vitals. They had so many screens all around me, with science and data I did not understand. I was a soldier, and soldiers eat crayons. We're not the sharpest tool in the shed.

The doctors and I had a lengthy talk. It turns out they were able to transplant my brain to a whole new body, and I would need time and help to adapt to it. I was their first successful transplant. Congratulations, I guess?

The good news, they said, I was to stay in the facility for as long as needed to adapt to my new body. I would continue to serve science. The bad news, my 150 years sentence was far from complete, and I still had 105 years to go. They would make sure to keep me alive as long as required to complete it.

I unwillingly continued to be a guinea pig for their top-secret project. By top-secret, I really meant it: this place kept its old USSR mentality and the staff was not allowed out of the facility. We all ate, slept, worked, smoked, and even showered together.

While I lived in the complex, I had relative liberty I did not get to enjoy while I was in jail. I had access to a library, television, decent food, video games, and a gym. I guess it was one of the perks of staying here.

For years, I tried to adapt to a new body that was never, and would never be, mine. Each and every feeling was now different. The sense of touch did not bring me the same sensation as I touched known materials. The sense of smell had me abandon some of my favorite fragrances, such as coffee. The sense of taste went way off, although I was happy to report I was no longer having allergies to MSG. My sense of sight had improved, as these eyes were much younger than the ones I previously had. My sense of hearing was now deficient at best.

Concerning the skills I previously had, I realized I was no longer good at things I was previously good at, such as boxing, and rope jumping. They were all gone and I had to relearn how to do things. This whole experience felt like starting a new dungeons & dragons character based on a previous one that died, one that had a whole skillset. You kept on rolling natural 1s.

Then, one day, about 7 years into my stay in the complex, this second body of mine started failing. It is unclear how it happened. All the internal organs shut down, one after the other. In a matter of 24 hours, I was back in bed, and on life support. Again, the medical team stabilized me and sent me back into a coma.

---

I woke up, again. I looked around, panicked once more. Everything had changed around me. The surgery room was different. The staff around was different, too. The light bathing the room was of a warm yellow. I felt warm, I felt safe.

I waved at the staff, no one came. I tried again, this time saying a very distorted "hello" … they all came rushing. They stood in front of me, and they were really close. Too close, it seemed. They explained I spent 25 years in a medically-induced coma, as they could not preserve my spare body. They attempted to replace organs with grafts, yet the body kept rejecting them. They kept my brains alive and yeeted the body. Meanwhile, they kept on working on how to transplant my brain to a new body.

They still had not figured that part, and I woke up earlier than expected.

If I had had eyelids, they would have been wide open. I had none. My brain and my eyes were holding up in one of those giant fluid-filled beakers. You know, the type of lab tanks we see in movies, where organs and specimen samples are kept for further study. This whole setup had a very Aliens feeling. Great, I was now living in a bottle.

Turned out I was communicating with them through a computer system, hooked up to my brain. Me waving my arm earlier was nothing but something digital. I had no arms. I had no human body; all I had was this tank and the machinery attached to it. My brain tricked me into believing I still had these members.

Technically, I was now onto my second spare, third body total. They had nicknamed me the NME. Fitting, considering I was a machine and I had killed the Dear Leader. Speaking of which, I had no idea if his son was still around, and if he would come to unplug me. Last I heard of him, and that was during my previous life, he was seeing red since his science team had kept me around.

One of the scientists put up a mirror in front of me, so I could see what was my actual setup. I screamed endlessly when I saw the result. I could not even weep. The feelings were there, yet I could no longer feel anything.

They tried to teach me things, see how I could interact with them. They put a TV with shows for me to watch. There were some books and magazines for me to read, yet nothing brought me out of my melancholy.

Eventually, as the weeks passed, my mood never improved. The scientists ended up turning off the system's audio because they could no longer endure my constant wailing. No matter what they would ask, I would no longer answer. I was depressed and could not do anything to get out of my funk.

I kept on giving them looks that creeped them off. I found ways to activate a text application and write stuff for them to see. If they would not listen to what I had to say, they would be forced to read. Eventually, they turned off the monitors entirely and I was left to my thoughts alone.

Darkness eventually came to me.

---

I opened my eyes and, after a few moments spent blinking, noticed I was back with a real human body. I believe I was now using my third spare body, which accounts for my fourth body total. Yes, I believe these lab tanks and all the machinery accounted for a body.

I glanced around the room and did not see anyone. The room itself was a different one once more. It was all quiet and bathing in a dimmed blue, gentle light. The walls were painted white, the ceilings were quite high, too. The floor was covered in ceramic tiles. I saw the thermostat and it indicated the room was to be set at 67°F. It was quite comfortable.

I moved and realized I was not tied up to the bed, as I previously was in some of my past lives. I got up and started looking through a binder that was left for me on my night table. I could not be mistaken, as the binder's cover wore my name in large, capital letters. A digital clock was also left next to the binder. I picked it up, staring at how long I had been in a coma. The clock read I was now in the 123rd year of my sentence. I had been out for about 40 years.

They must have succeeded with the transplant this time, as I had no issues whatsoever moving around. My senses were all intact. I could touch, smell, listen, see, and taste with no problem. I was feeling strong and this new body of mine was solid.

I removed all the tubes that were hanging from me, turned off the machines, and went for a walk around the facility. The area was in fact a series of rooms, all of them painted white, with the same high ceilings, and all bathing in the same shade of light. I went through what was my bedroom, a lab area that held some too familiar tanks, a kitchen that had an impressive pantry, a living room area, a gym with all the usual commodities for cardio and muscle building, and I even went through a library holding a collection of books larger than I have ever seen.

Once in a while, I inquired a timid hello, yet no one returned the greeting. I had an eerie feeling about this place. Was I really awake or was I part of another simulation?

As I walked back towards my room, I found a map hanging on the wall. It was a map of the whole facility. It seems there was a garage and an armory accessible from where I was. The whole place was also powered by a nuclear reactor and had extensive recycling facilities for trash and water. I stared at the map and realized I had not seen any windows whatsoever. I could not see what was happening outside the complex, for now. I figured I should go for a shower and get dressed before even considering exploring the place even more.

I took a shower, and as I was leaving the room, froze as I saw my own reflection in the mirror. It was my wet body alright. The reflection showed me mine, the one I had when I was in my early 20s.

I ran back to my bedroom, nearly slipping on the wet tiles, and frantically looked through the binder. The same body as to when I was younger, how was that possible? I found a page that read:

"Dear soldier, when we put you to sleep, you were in the year 83. As we write this, we are in the year 119. We have no idea when you will wake up, and even if you do. We used our latest technology to regrow you an entire body, your body, based on stem cells. We have also found a way to slow down your body's aging. You will age twice as slow as you used to. By using this technique, we apprehend you will be able to finish the rest of your sentence, and more.

"Due to unforeseen consequences, we also had to blend in some elements from our Dear Leader into you. You will now serve as host to our Dear Leader and will remain alive for as long as they wish you to do so. This explains why you are finding yourself in this VIP suite. We also programmed you to prevent you from attempting suicide. We wish you luck.

"PS: Be aware war struck our country, and not much is left of it."

I put down the binder on the bed and had all sorts of thoughts racing through my mind. I was now a… host to the Dear Leader? Talk about a life sentence I'm serving… It's more like a sentence of lives.

After making myself some coffee, I reluctantly went to the walk-in closet, picked up some random 3 piece suit attire, and got dressed. I put on a tie, and also picked up an Omega watch from the whole collection. The collection also had watches of the Longines, Geneva, Bulova, Rolex, and Tag brands. I also grabbed a belt and a pair of matching shoes. I'll bitch as much as I want about the Dear Leaders being monsters, they do have taste.

I take a good final look at myself in the mirror and since I was satisfied with the result, decided to leave the suite. I knew where I was going, even though I had never walked these halls. I walked through the complex' maze without stopping a single moment, passing by military and civilian personnel along the way. They all saluted me. Was this the product of being a host?

I arrived at my destination, a meeting room filled with what seemed to be the country's top brass. They all looked at me through the glass walls, unsure about what would happen next. At the door was a digital print reader, showing a bright red light. The doors were locked and only the right people were allowed in. I put my hand on it, hoping the doors would remain closed and I could carry on with my life.

I was horrified as I saw the red light turn green, and the doors opened.

Everyone in the room rose, looked at me, and said, "Dear Leader, you have returned…"

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Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this story are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.