The darkness swept over me. A quick unforgiving blanket of nothingness. I could hear the laughter and music from the dance fade slowly. It was like they didn’t know I was gone. Like I was never there. I thought of one of the old Dracula movies where people see the dead but they never know who it is. ‘Silly people’, I thought to myself. ‘You don’t even know the danger within the laughs. You don’t remember the ones they’ve taken. Fools.’
Finally, the last bit of orchestral beating died out. As the darkness finally won our game of tag, I ultimately heard the beginnings of the screams. The realization had hit them. Yet, I had no need for fear. No need for unforgiving terror or rigidness going through my body, caressing my veins and nerves like a soft touch of the wind. They had already got me. I was of no use to the System now. They had probed and probed and finally found the information they needed.
And just as the orchestral music had subsided into its last melodious note, I finally subsided to death.
(1)The balance
The System did this. It took the lives of all of them. The innocent and guilty. Then there was me. I was now floating in a place I knew not of. I was in dark and light all at once. The music had faded but there was a new melody. Like a girl humming a horridly beautiful lullaby. Happiness and grief together, fear and courage coinciding as if they belonged side by side. Each creating the other as they destroyed each other.
It was like worries could drift away as one lay there unconscious but awake. As I lay still the
lullaby got progressively louder. At some points it was a wondrous thing to listen to, at another it was as if the very pit of your soul was quaking.
A sweet smell began to fill my senses and I became more aware of my surroundings. A simple thorn vine twirled its way across the emptiness above me. Another, I could feel, was inching its way across my back now. It tugged at my dress slightly but never penetrated the cloth. More vines now slowly crawled down my arms towards my hands. Each a different shade of green. ‘Odd’ I thought. Shivers fled down my spine as a vine gently twisted its way around my head now, leaving no scratch and barely touching my skin. A pulsation began, through the vines and around my body. I realized my hands now held one small pod each. I could barely tell the colors in my confusion. In my right hand I held the bud of a white rose, in my left, a black bud. A chill swept across me now. Sickening and cold. Looking up I found myself before a mirror. The vine that had wrapped itself around my head held another bud. This one looking red.
I didn’t understand. How could I? I had just been murdered on a mission by the organization that had prescribed it. I was supposed to be dead. He had just killed me. No. The System had killed me, he was simply a pawn as I had been. Confusion swept through my body. Perhaps the System had taken my body back to the Onmendiums? There was no telling. With my luck that would be the case. My body would be probed and cut like a simple experiment. The Onmendiums gave no care as to whom they sliced. ‘Skitch’ a prick in my back stopped my thoughts. The vines had stabbed me. A stronger pulsation flowed through the vines now. As if it had matched itself to my heartbeat. In the mirror a blue glow surrounded my body. The buds twitched with each beat. In the end each rose began to open one at a time. Not staying open long enough for the next to catch up with it. I watched the mirror closely.
The black rose opened in my left hand. A small cut forced its way across my palm. I saw my missions. The people I had killed for the System. The innocent that had seen too much and had known the information not needed for minor beings to know. I began to cry. I felt the fear and sorrow of my victims. The rose closed. The vine untwisted itself from my arm. As it did so, the white rose began to open.
I saw my childhood in the system. The nursery with fake dummies to destroy. The training we began at 5 years. My brother. It had been so long since I had seen him. In this….this memory, he was still with me. The tears from earlier began to burn my eyes again. The mirror kept its rotation around my past. It showed Zephyr next. My secret love, my best friend, my killer. It pained me to see him. It now showed our 13 year graduation from the systems Lo-bred level. The three of us had excelled past the other students. The Lo-bred level of training was meant to take 15 years instead of 13. Aphyrtix was proud of us. She was my mentor and friend. The system had taken her life 2 years ago. She had been injected with a mental drug. It had drove her insane and killed her. The memory was wiped away and a new one appeared. It was the Night of Forever celebration. The system had a celebration every year. The Night of Forever was a ball celebrating all of the achievements the system had attained.
Zephyr had asked me to the ball. It was our first dance. He had teased me about my dress. Although never seeing me in one shocked him in the first place. The memories kept running. My missions where Zephyr and me had jumped off cliffs and dived into shark infested waters. It made my heart swell until the rose finally closed and the mirror went back to reflecting a crying 17 year old brunette. The vine untangled itself from me like the first had. One left. I looked at the rose in the reflection. The one red rose.
I waited and waited. Just staring at it and finally gave up. ‘What’s the use in looking at a flower that wont bloom? What’s the use in these flowers anyways? One shows me the bad I’ve done and one shows me a childhood I miss and the people I care about.’
That’s when it hit me. I wasn’t fully dead yet. Nor was I alive. My life was being weighed.
The pulsation from the vines began again, going through the single one wrapped around my head. I snapped back to the mirror. I began to shake for fear of not knowing what would come. I didn’t want to die. The rose began to open. The red seemed to drain from its petals, turning it white. As the last of the red drained from its petals, black began to take over. The rose looked as if it were fighting itself, choosing to turn either black or white. I closed my eyes. I waited.
I didn’t know what to do. What was I supposed to do? My life was being weighed and I had no choice but to accept whatever I got….whatever life did or didn’t throw at me. If I would even have a life after that. The pulsation around my head began to slow. I opened my eyes. The rose’s petals were uneven now. Some had grown white and others dyed black.
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