Live Life on repeat

Live Life On Repeat

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. As her parents lay there lifeless next to her, she tried to make sense of what she could see. Ellie tried to see anything that had nothing to do with the countless Zjack’s on the floor that her parents slew or with her parents themselves. The window was a saving grace for her, as the sun peered through the cracks of the window. But there was something that made her feel safe. Despite the carnage that had just transpired in front of her. She picked herself up from her traumatized state, rid herself of the cloak that was shrouding her body, which many would have thought off as a mistake, as the cloaks were the only thing that would protected her from the Zjack’s outside, but she didn’t care. As the dust particles left her the same time the cloak did, she nearly coughed but she was too focused on the window. Ellie carried on walking towards the cracked window, walking over the fallen Zjack’s. Once her hands met the windowsill, Ellie could now see what was beyond the horror and cracked world that she had live in for most of her life. “Green?” she whispered to herself with ease, as she did not believe what she was seeing. Ellie had never seen so much green before, she had only seen them in small plants or the picture books that her older brother Tom use to read to her.

She almost made herself cry as she reminded herself Tom, her brother was a man who would have done anything for the safety of his family, but she didn’t want the memories of her fallen family and friends to come flooding back in. As girl of only fifteen, she had seen too much of that. The Green outside the window was bliss to her, she was amazed before, when she and her parents had made it this far. No one had ever made it past the Well of the Unknowing. The Zjack’s would always cease the people who would try. But Ellie, her mother and father had made it this far and Ellie knew that she would have to carry on. She carried on staring outside the window and saw that the green carried on for miles. However, it was in this moment when she thought of a dreadful thought. What if this was heaven she was witnessing. What if her parents hadn’t of saved her, what if she was dead along with her parents and this was the gateway to heaven. Tears failed her, she cried her eyes out as she didn’t believe what she was seeing. She believed that she was killed by the Zjack’s. “Halt!” cried one of the Zjack’s on the floor who was supposed to be have slain by Ellie’s father.

The word halt was a word that everyone of Ellie’s people would fear of as soon a Zjack would speak. “Halt! You!” The Zjack spoke as it tried to get back up to clean Ellie. She turned her head to the croaking voice of the Zjack and she finally realized that she was in danger and she knew that heaven, if it even existed, would have no danger in it. She knew that this was the real world, and she knew that the green outside the last window was the real world, she would stop at nothing to see it. “NO!” Ellie screamed as she launched herself over towards her father, who still had the Gladius in his hand. She grasped the Gladius with all the strength she had left and began to let loose with the Gladius down onto the Zjack. “Halt! Halt! Halt!” The Zjack kept saying, almost pleading with Ellie to stop. But stop she did not.

“NO! NO! NO! NO!” Ellie screamed over and over as body parts of the last Zjack started to fly all over the room. It was a small repeat of what had just transpired with her parents only minutes before. “Halt!” The Zjack said only finally time. With the blood smeared all over Ellie’s face, Ellie listened to the Zjack one final time before delivering the killing blow. Nothing more came from the Zjack, but a lot came from Ellie. As she began to cry again. With the blood pouring down her face and with the Gladius still in her hand, she delivered another strike to the Zjack, then another, and another. She carried on until the afternoon was leaving her and the sun was going down. The sun was almost a signal to her as it her face, like it did before. The window came calling to her. With the Gladius still in her hand, she walked over to the last window that she would see in her life. This time however she did not want to look at the cracked window. She didn’t want to see the cracked and old glass. Like with the Zjack, she used whatever she had left to smash the window with her Gladius. She did not care about the noise or the small shards of glass that pressed against her face. She only cared for the green that was on the outside. She bashed the remainders of glass that was still alive on the sill and when the last window was now abolished it was then in that moment she had seen this green before. The green was the filed that was outside her brothers window, when she was a baby, years before Liberation had took over the world. This was why her parents and brother risked so much to get back here. This was why her brother sacrificed himself for her. This was why they travelled for two years and left the camp.

This was her home. This was her brothers room, the one she had shared with as a baby. The Green outside was the green farm outside her house. This was why this was the only house left in the region, this was her family’s farm. It took her a moment for her to pictured her house before the Liberation. She remembered her brother dancing with her in his arms. Listening to his favorite band, the rock band King of Hearts. She was only a baby, but she remembered the music, she loved it but at the same time she hated it, it was too loud. She remembered her father and mother calling up to him, to trying and tell him to turn it down, but he did not. However, this was a long time ago. The coloured walls of his brothers bedroom was no longer here. Instead,. What took their place was grey and dead looks, ones that would give anyone the way of depression.

This is what brought Ellie back into the real world. This is what brought back Ellie to the room itself. No longer was her brother here dancing with her, he was lying dead somewhere with a hundred Zjack’s around him. Her mother and father were no longer calling up from below. They were also lying dead on the floor, with many fallen Zjack’s around him. But there was a consolation for her parents, at least they didn’t die alone, unlike Tom. She looked back at the green fields that were only a few steps away from her life, and she gave one final look at her parents. She fell to her knees and spoke the words that her brother use to say to her when she went to sleep. “For those in your dreams, bless them!” she said with her eyes closed. Meaning the world and people beyond the one they were in, were better ones. She put her parents hands together for them to be connected one last time. “Thank you!” she said as she said her goodbyes.

Ellie got up from her knees and sheathed the Gladius through her belt. She gathered the rations that her family had gathered through the days and began to walk back to the window. She ceased in her tracks however, as she had forgotten the most important item in the room. She looked back and saw the cloak that would hide her from the Zjack’s. she grasped the cloak with her hands and grasped it as if it was almost her chewy blanket when she was a child, which of cause was taken by the Zjack’s.

She wrapped herself around in the cloak and to Ellie it almost felt as if the cloak was hugging her, which she liked. She no longer had anyone to hug, the cloak was the only thing left. For the last time, Ellie made her way to the last window. She climbed the windowsill and was ready to leap to the green fields below, but before she did, she gave one last glimpse to the House that she was born in. She looked in her brother’s room and gave it a kiss. She didn’t want to see her mother and father again; she only saw the room. She took a deep breath and turned away from the room and leaped from the last window in the world and landed on the green grass. Once her feet hit the ground, she stumbled and fell face first into the grass. The grass was soft to the touch. She had never felt anything so soft in her life. Everything had been rough for her. Her blankets, her pillows, even her clothes. Not only had she never seen so much green before but this was something special. She smelt the grass, she touched the grass, and at last she laid in the grass.

She stared up to the sky and saw the late afternoon sky, with not a cloud in the sky. Ellie felt sad, but she didn’t cry, as she wanted nothing to ruin this moment. She only wanted this moment to be quiet, and with nothing else. The wind blew in her face with a few flakes of dead grass flying past her nose, which made her sneeze. Usually when she sneezed she would cover her nose with her hand or cloth, but with no Zjack’s or her people around her, she let loose her nose. After she wiped her nose, she realized that in this moment that she was almost free. Ellie got back up to her feet. Though the grass seemed it didn’t want her to leave as it was harder to get up than ever to before.

But she managed to do it, she saw that the green field went on for miles. Ellie launched the bags of rations over her shoulders and began to walk. The memories began to flood back to her. The memories of Tom teaching her how to read was something that took her back. The first book that she read by herself was the one about a dog with his child friend. There was pictures of the dog and his friend dancing in the green fields of their farm. She couldn’t remember the ending of the book but she knew that she was going to get the ending of her own. The green fields carried on for miles and it wasn’t long before the house was only a few steps away from disappearing over the hill which Ellie was now standing on. She looked at the world from atop the hill and remembered the camps that she had stayed in over the years. The crying woman and babies were sharp nails to her ears when she was a child. She remembered the first time that she had seen a Zjack, she had never seen anything like it. When she was a child, she always thought that the Zjack’s were giant shadow creatures as the cloaks that they wore made them seem giant to them. They seemed to have black smoke pealing of their bodies and it always gave Ellie horror and fear to the heart.

But this was no longer. As the Zjack would never dare go this far away from their city. Ellie was now free from her shackles; she was free from the world that the Zjack’s had controlled for so long. She was making her way to the new world, a world that she was eager to enter. When she stook one more step over the hill she took one last glance at the window. She smiled and saw that the window seemed to have returned to the house. As if the house had fix itself. Then she saw something else in the window. It was another human being. At first she thought that it might have been a Zjack, but she took a closer look she that it was Zjack, it was a girl. “No.” she whispered to herself knowing what was about to come next. She knew that she wasn’t in a dream. She knew that she wasn’t in her own imagination and she knew that she was it heaven or hell.

But she knew that was trapped. The girl in the window was in her, the Zjack’s had planted the chip and it had gotten into her blood. “Please, not the transmitter!” she yelled out as she dropped everything that she was holding. She knew that it was too good to be true. This much green in the world after the bombs hit. She knew that the air wouldn’t be as sweet as it was as after the Liberation. She also knew that it was too easy for her parents to end the Zjack’s life. When she fell to her knee’s it was then when her image of the green field disappeared right in front of her and she was no longer in the field covered with grass that she began to fall in love with again. She was now back in the house where she saw her mother and father fell.

She was leaning against the wall that her father pushed her across to protect her. Once again her body was covered in blood, but it was Zjack blood. It was her parents. But unlike before the Zjack hadn’t fallen., it was the transmitter in her head that had kept the image of bloodshed away from her. The transmitter had also given her false hope, it had given her something that every Human that wasn’t involved with the Zjack’s wanted, freedom. “The Girl will join us or die!” the Zjack’s said as they pressed their hands in the air, saluting their words. She knew that she wouldn’t stand a chance against seven Zjack’s. A part of her wanted to give up and just be lead back to the camp, but she knew that there was nothing there waiting for her. She had lost her brother and both her parents; she had lost so much that there was nothing left living for.

She looked over to her father and he was wielding the gladius like last time. “Don’t!” spoke one of the Zjack’s as he caught Ellie’s eyes looming over to the Gladius. Ellie knew that she was going to die as soon as she reached the Gladius but this wasn’t going to stop her. She wanted to see her brother Tom again. She wanted to hear her brother read to her again. She wanted to dance with him again. She wanted her parents to yell up to them again. She wanted to see her family again. She reached for the Gladius and almost immediately she was shot by every single one of the Zjack’s. She fell back to the wall where she was leaning on before. Her blood smeared on the wall and once she slid to the floor, she saw the Zjack’s salute each other as they had completed their mission. One by one, the Zjack’s left Ellie to die in her brother bedroom.

Once the last Zjack had left the room, Ellie took once last glimpse of the room around her. She noticed something that she hadn’t seen the last time. The ceiling of the room was painted. The painting of that attached to itself was the only bright thing in the room apart from the blood. Ellie knew the moment she saw it that it was real, there were no doubts this time. The painting was that of the farm that she was born at. With house in the center and the green fields that surrounded it. With the blood leaving her, it took all her strength for her to take her eyes and meet the last window to reached the outer world. But this time there was no sunshine, there was no green and there was no grass. Only more of the world that she grew up to dread.

Ellie’s last image of the world that she saw beyond the last window was the same as the rest, Damnation to the world…