H.A.S.T.E.

She was beautiful. Not in the crass, veiled manner, he was used to; but soft, glowing. The innocence pierced him. He wasn’t used to feeling this light and hollowed out. The warmth she brought was undeniable, and by far the purest thing he had ever felt in his otherwise voided life. Who was he, that she would come here with him? Talk to him? Understand him? The guilt, like molasses, flowed slowly throughout his body, pressurizing his veins and bloating his neck. He shouldn’t be here, but he was; because she was. There was nothing else that mattered to him anymore. He wasn’t sure there was anything else, to begin with. Just her. Just that look of….Wait? That look of….

He strained. Disappointment? Longing? Resentment? He couldn’t derive any details, only feelings. He could sense the curve, the sweet fragility of her smile; but his eyes wouldn’t account for it. The way that her hair tumbled unevenly down her shoulders. Even the bright glint of the sun reflecting off her auburn curls, but not a single strand was visible. No. No, no, no. That’s not right. Go back….

She was beautiful. Not in the crass, veiled manner, he was used to; but soft, glowing. The innocence pierced him, he wasn’t used to feeling this light and hollowed out. The warmth she brought was undeniable, and by far the purest thing he had….Got it! Her voice. That’s where the true essence was. It had the slight flutter of a lark, floating over an undertone of humid summer air; as if his ears were increasingly tickled and intent with every syllable. “They can’t keep doing this you know?” Her words tinged with understanding and bitterness. He could only conjure a pathetic nod. He ached with helpless consent to the evil he was inching towards, and still burned a consuming hatred for himself and what festered beneath.

“When do you leave?” she followed. “In 5” he heaved, short breathed and with the same shallow optimism one recites propaganda; duty bound and torn asunder. It was his default. He wasn’t equipped to face the daily struggle of normalcy or authenticity. “I...I just…” she tried to prime the message in his mind, shaking her head and gently letting it fall. She couldn’t say it fully, she didn’t have the strength to complete it, but she needed to be sure he caught the air that hung above them. He did. It didn’t matter. He was too deep into this travesty, too washed over by the flood of “freedom” that it was impossible to see how murky the water was. Why can’t she believe in this? Believe in me? She’s going to get herself hurt! I hate this, I hate her!

This startled him. How could he hate her, she did nothing wrong? In fact, this same obstinance and assurance is what drew him to her in the first place. Why can’t she see this is bigger than her‽ This is bigger than all of us! Was it? If he stayed with her, would it truly make a difference? Surely the plans were stable enough, they could just carry on without him. Maybe. Maybe he resign to stay like she asked and live sequestered in a tomb of guilt under a sea of amoration. Maybe he remain with her and feast on the joy of her company, and yet live in the derision of his own shadow. Maybe, just maybe, if he tried he could forget this whole ordeal and leave his own mind to be in the present moment. That’s where he always wound up anyways, pinching himself awake from his cranial ramblings. He thought too much. Let’s see….

She was beautiful….”When do you leave?”....shaking her head and gentl….flood of “free….Ah, yes! Wait. No. Not this. Not this part.

“There’s nothing I can do is there?” He knew the answer but the courtesy seemed fitting. “Nothing that wouldn’t close to kill you.”, she replied wryly, “Stubbornness was never your best quality.” They both let out soft, fading laughs that diminished over the sounds of the water. The water! What a spot for a send-off. He had made plenty of contemptuous jabs at the upper management of The Commune, but they certainly did know how to make parting even sweeter sorrow. Their worst quality. They liken empathy to niceties, connection to advantage, people to pawns. And yet he was inducted nonetheless.

“June, I am truly sorry.” his words clambering for some sense of balance. “Don’t you dare!”, she insisted, “That is the very last thing you should be. I could never forgive you, if you were sorry. Either you go through with it proudly or you stay and forget everything. You are many things Cameron, but a coward is not one of them. Fickle, complacent, even stupid sometimes, but not a coward.” He stared at her awestruck. He wanted to believe her. He felt encouraged by the idea that she saw him this way, but was then overtaken with the sting of deceit. Then, having assented with a slight nod, he panned his vision over the shoreline, fixating on the vacuous tube just a hundred yards ahead of him. It warped the sun’s rays that began peaking above the earth’s rim, casting a distorted opaque shadow on the sand thirty yards to his right. It crept all the way back to the towering mountains they had just come down from. His heart groaned, yearned, begging to just be back 10 minutes earlier on the base of those mountains, when they first glimpsed the rising sun.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP! His body jerked and his eyes woefully fell to his chronometer, harbinger of the devil, hailing that his journey to the gallows had begun. He watched her countenance fall a million miles, darkening the red around her eyes, and slicing open his heart. The blood pooled in his gut, weighing him down and urging him to stay, to run back into the mountains with her. The best he could do was remain paralyzed. His mouth, stuttering and agape, seized the opportunity by its own mind, for he was too focused on anchoring his body there. It uttered, “I...I have to go”.

She smiled, the edges of which cupped the stream of tears. They both stumbled into a sloppy embrace, quickly collapsing to their knees. Anxiety swelled in him, not because he was about to depart, but because he knew he never would. His body would go through the elevator, travel the arduous miles upward, and enter his life’s contrivance; the prison of his own making. But his heart would remain here. His mind would finally rest in the purity of this palace, this microcosm of life well invested; sorely won. This moment that was all at once the most bitter, and yet, most nirvanic he had ever known. Yes, his body would be thousands of miles above the planet, but his essence would survive below, freezing time itself to subsist in agonizing bliss.

Slowly, but ever persistent, the chronometer slipped back into his thoughts, and the sounds that had momentarily drained from his perception came flooding back with a vengeance. His breath quickened, senses heightened, and he drudgingly rose. He helped June to her feet, savoring every last instance of proximity he could. She leaned in to kiss his cheek in a way that felt like condemnation; a bittersweet mix of nectar and hellfire. Then began his descent into the abyss.

The next few minutes felt rushed, almost as if he were not truly present in his own body. Just a spectator. It’s like he had predicted: He was still on the beach. Whoever this person entering the elevator was, it wasn’t him. Not really. He watched as she summoned the last bit of strength she had to wave him goodbye. He felt the body raise its arm to wave back in a polite manner, unbefitting the situation. Then his vision tunneled, looking at nothing else but the form beckoning to him from the sand. The frame began to shrink until the doors finally closed and, at that very instant, he felt as if they had severed his body and soul. The carcass climbed higher into the sky, racing upwards several hundreds of miles per hour. Shooting towards oblivion, heavenly abyss of night. But he felt nothing. He was still on the beach.

She was beautiful. Not in the crass, veiled manner, he was used to; but soft, glowing….Wait…. The innocence pierced him. He wasn’t….What!?….used to feeling this light and hollowed out. The warmth she brought….NO STOP!!!…. was undeniable, and by far the purest thing he had ever felt in his otherwise….AGGGGGHHHHHH…. voided life.

Hello?....

What’s going on?....

Why am I so……

No.

No, no, no, no, no, no….

They didn’t….

WHAT IS GOING….

She was beautiful….NOOOOO….Not in the crass, veiled manner, he was used to;....SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!....but soft, glowing. The innocence pierced him….AAAAHHHH….. He wasn’t used to feeling this light….p l e a s e…. and hollowed out. The warmth she brought was undeniable….

She was beauti-

“AGGGHHHH!!!” Cameron woke up screaming, nerves shot. The surface of his skin felt like a thousand needles were pressed against him at once. Suddenly, before he could catch his bearings, he felt a sharp tug at the back of his neck. His ears began to ring and the warm trickle of blood ran down his shoulders. He winced and yet stayed still, due to something cold and hard clasped round his wrists and ankles. He couldn’t move. It was holding him in place. Not holding him down, but in place; as if freezing him perpetually. He couldn’t conjure up the strength to try and break free, only react, only writhe internally.

He began to regain his senses, but with great pain, as if each neuron was firing at maximum intensity. He could only see black and heard very little sound, save for his own whimpering and the mechanical whirring all around him. But it all felt very close, almost sealed. The claustrophobia that gripped him in the elevator began to rear its head. A sudden burst, a large pressure being released, lifted a weight off of him he noticed only now in its absence. All at once he felt the cold pressure around his limbs unbuckle, taking its fair share of flesh with it, and sending him to the floor. The instant he touched ground his entire body started to seize, as if his every fiber simultaneously decided to cramp up. He wanted to scream, but he could not. His vocal cords were just as tight and sinewy as the rest of him. Then, after only a few seconds that felt like millennia, it subdued, leaving him crumpled on the frigid floor.

What is happening?? None of this made sense. Had he been dreaming? Was he still dreaming? The last thing he remembered was the beach and the elevator. He didn’t even remember what happened aft….Wait, yes he did. It all made its way steadily back to him. He could see the satellite. The metal husk floating above an ignorant planet, knowing nothing of what awaited it. He remembered Raish, the Tribunal, humankind’s great hope, seeking to bring justice and balance to his country and ultimately any others who had felt the sting of oppression. He remembered the Forge, the birthplace of his monster, the P.E.M. (Pulsating Entrainment Missile). He remembered how his brainchild was to be wielded for the hope of a better future, the spark that catches flame. Then all at once, everything rushed back to him and he could see every instance of….AAAAAGH!! His body seized again, this time filling him with rage, but not only that, great fear as well. His tempestuous insides chased each other round, stinging chill after scorching flame. He felt as if the entire world had been injected into his veins and meticulously highjacked every cell of his body. The seizing then stopped but the energy inside him kept growing, only getting stronger. He was no longer paralyzed physically; pure terror did the trick just fine. A blazing burst of light shocked his system even further as a warbled voice began to divulge him menacingly, “Hello Mr. Andrews, we’ve been waiting for quite a while now. Sixty years in fact. How was your ‘big sleep’?” No, not him. Not that voice. As soon as the voice paused, Cameron’s body flooded with a heightened sense of his surroundings. He felt the brutal throbbing of whatever gaped at the base of his skull. He became immediately aware of a door hardly ten feet ahead of him. He saw the gnarly, hulking chamber that had just spat him out. Finally, having regained enough sight, he could see the face that mocked him, emanating from a screen by the door. Not...Him….

Phaenak the High Regent, the bane of all his countrymen and doom to the Commune’s cause. Why did he look so old? To see his withered face, glaring at him, appraising how he might break him next, only confirmed Cameron’s greatest fear: They had lost. A new but entirely familiar feeling encroached upon him: Complete and utter despair. How? Why? WHY IS HE STILL ALIVE!? What went wrong? As soon as he….

“You, Cameron Andrews, have been sentenced the ultimate punishment for your egregious crimes against the Second Coming. Sixty years inside the H.A.S.T.E., forty days in Decedus, and finally, death.”, the voice loomed over Cameron who continue to writhe, not only in pain, but with myriad of questions, “Your crimes are as follows: Consent and aid to the insurgent leader Raish Amnedeer, designing mass weapons of destruction, instigation of the Entrainment wars, and various activities under the terrorist group known as The Commune. Having completed your time on the H.A.S.T.E., you will be picked up by a warden and cargoed back down to what remains of our planet, where your time in the citadel may begin.” H.A.S.T.E.? What was that? Why was….wait….60 YEARS!? Then he recalled a new memory, one that he had been attempting to unearth from his subconscious, toiling to make sense of all of this. He saw Raish, with bloodthirsty eyes, call the order to FIRE. He remembered the shock and bitter cold that filled him as he watched his creation touch down and reek havoc upon the blue dot. Those weren’t the right targets. THAT WAS EVERYONE!!! He remembered Raish’s nihilistic vendetta to cleanse the world that had only been revealed to his closest associates. Until the time for action had come. Everyone else was a pawn. They had all been fed the same hopeful diatribes that trojan horsed malice through revelry. They had all been duped, but he most of all. For all his intelligence, all of his cleverness, he had been outfoxed. Finally he saw June’s face once more, not knowing what had happened to her; what he had brought upon her. If she was alive, she would know nothing but survival and savagery. If she was dead, then she had been torn apart. What….did….I….do???

The next seizure could hold nothing to what he was experiencing internally. Every emotion he had ever felt in his blithe foul life ripped up his atoms and amplified themselves upon the rubble. He was overtaken with himself to the point that he had become his own tomb, his own prison. He railed, trying to get back to the beach, but his mind placed him in the closed elevator. The doors creaked open, just enough for him to peer through, and what he saw….it was a war zone. The trees, the once lusciously green ornaments that arrayed the mountainside, had become ravaging blood-orange torches. The heat wrought the sand glassy and sharp while certain sections were entirely missing, overtaken by the black, abyss of what were once crystal blue shores. The figure on the beach no longer waved, but stared intently. He could feel the despondent glare encapsulate him, as if she were meeting his eyes even from the great distance that lie between them. To her left was a deep darkness, that sent excruciating shrieks to his ears the moment he lay eyes upon it. It buried itself into his mind as it grew closer and closer to her, only intensifying along the way; consuming everything. This wasn’t a dream however, this was how he remembered it. He knew something was wrong but couldn’t reach it. This was all he knew, all that they had left him, and yet the longing for what was once there enwrapt him. The throbbing in his neck grew unbearable, as if acid had been siphoned into his brain stem. He watched as he helplessly ached to warn her, her eyes still peering through him, and yet he remain still. His body had taken over, hell-bent on keeping his eyes upon her. The darkness was inches away now as he summoned everything in him to call out her na….w h a t ‘s…. h e r…. n a m e ?….

He had lost focus just long enough for the darkness to have already taken her. He had lost her. He had promised her so much! She meant everything to him, and yet he couldn’t remember her name. He couldn’t even be there in the final moments of….wait, this is a memory?….GO BACK!!!

Cameron bared on forward into the chasm he had frequented so often, the machine whirring internally that had brought this doom upon him and his people. But it was empty, there were no cogs moving, no plans developing. The work benches had all been packed away and blueprints burned. His mind had been devastated. It burned within him, his internal world had been removed and replaced with night. He ran throughout it, into the seemingly endless void that he himself had once filled. He finally curled up in a ball, weakly shaking inside his cavernous skull. Craning, scrambling to remember what he knew had been his entire being.

She was beautiful….

No no no! C’mon, this is everything, you have to remember. Go back….

She was beau….n o

She was bea….

She was….

She wa….

She….

The seizing had stopped.