My name . . .
The fox spoke over his thoughts.
"A white-haired man with colored eyes, pale skin, angel-like features. Why do those of such beauty become the worst of the worst?"
"A young man with so much potential, all thrown away in the desire for satisfaction."
Clearing his throat, the fox uttered, "A young general for the Messengers of Mala. Now tell me, Mala, is this the kind of people that represent you?"
Cackles of a crowd behind the screen deafened; the speaker's face indented his grin, engraved forever on his expression.
"Now, what's more interesting is that this wasn't random . . . it was pre-meditated."
Mercury jumped up and started banging on the wall. Nothing budged—not even a crack in the window.
BANG!
BANG!
"F**k!" he shouted.
It continued to play. Nobody cared.
. . .
"A tragic story of betrayal!" Yulou spread his arms wide outward.
"It started with a simple mission: Inspect the desert connected to Mala. Mashia led his platoon, but he had a little secret . . ."
. . .
Yulou smirked. From his lined pocket of tailored dress pants, a vial of lime-green toxin.
"This right here—he used it to wither his entire platoon. They melted, they cried, but he laughed."
"He made them fight like dogs for the last vials! They all disintegrated. Only a field of beautiful flowers remained, caused by a withering one. The wither decided to wither the other—who could've known?"
Cackling. "And he gave each car black boxes in such heat! A precise heat that would make the vial useless in the first place! Especially, he let his friend die."
"Kadir Bakir . . ."
"He had so desired the spouse of his friend that he deliberately planned out the brutality unfolding there! He didn't have to murder his entire crew. So what gives? That's simply something . . . only a monster would do."
"Swiping two roses with one slice. Instead, nineteen perished. All because of him, and he escaped with his tail between his legs."
"And the first instinct was to lie. Blaming it on his own military, and others. Even the Sklaves, who haven't been in conflict with us in decades. So, who really is it?"
With wide eyes, "He got off free, with a slap on the wrist. His first movement? Go to the wife of his own friend's house—a friend that he cherished—murdered brutally."
Scoffing: "And what he did . . . oh, what didn't he do? Stripping the innocence from a beautiful rose, making her do actions below the lowest, and then slit the voice that yelled out loud as she fell."
"And, there was a little girl in that home. So who can ever tell? This is truly evil in its nature." Yulou faintly smirked, holding back a laugh.
"Some may say it's fabricated—a facade, a fool. But lies wouldn't bloom so gracefully, now would they?"
Snickering: "A general determined for the greater good, now a sadistic monster who calls himself a miracle."
. . .
Selune . . .
"Labeled a kill on sight. If you make the effort of purposefully not reporting this, you will be accountable for holding a fugitive. And you will face his condemning as well."
. . .
"Other than that, greater processes, my fellow bearers, shears, roses . . . and monsters," he cackled viciously.
. . .
Warping, the window de-realizes to its former fantasy.
Bang!
Crackle . . .
It finally cracked the window, a javelin of piercing knuckles.
Pressing his forehead to the window, he murmurs.
"That's not me. That's not me. That cannot be me."
Did I kill? Was there truth among all they spat?
Every harrowing memory of Yulou's laugh clouds his thought. Mercury laughs louder. Jagged, broke, untuned—until it was barely even laughter anymore. More like a bawl of lunacy.
"A monster they say . . . they don't know the meaning of monster, human, nor machine. I do."
Near-tearful, "The dead daunt me no longer." He smiled. "Now, I make sure they never do it again."
"It's all lies! Lies, I tell you!"
Watching from afar: "So, it's true then," Sara remarked, with a different tone in her voice.
"What did you say?" Mercury leaned in, his eyes large.
He balled up his fist. He trembles. With hesitation, he attempts to grab her, his arm inching closer as she stares at him, a smile creeping upward. Nails plunge into his skin; drops of blood leak from his hands.
"Why do you act like this whenever things get heavy, Sara? Something on your ticking heart that you know? Are you afraid of being crushed, or afraid if someone notices the way you act, huh?"
"You make it very hard to be on your side. That's the sad part," Sara adds, shamelessly.
Steam emerges from Mercury's mouth. Sara's entire foundation topples like twigs.
An arm gently holds his, an evangelist of empathy.
"At ease."
Mercury shrugged off his arm. "Don't tell me to relax! The whole realm now thinks I'm the worst human alive . . . they hate me, for what?"
"They hated a perfect man once. After all, do you believe yourself to be human anymore?" Lisan said.
Blood trickles faster, drops seeping into the carpet.
Mercury gulps. "My blood—"
"It's not yours."
"That device you made, huh . . ." Mercury chuckles. "Say, Lisan . . . isn't it strange?"
Lisan's golden pupils locked intensely into Mercury's yellow-green spiral of misery.
"What are you here for? To watch me crumble?"
"Mercury—"
"No. I'm tired. Everyone hides something from me. Why? What's so scary?"
Lisan stayed silent, his eyes shut, as he mumbled what seemed to be prayer to himself.
Sara tenses, her hands palming her knees in impatience.
The replicant stresses: "Did you want this for me, Lisan?"
"You come to me at a moment of despair, save me, and I am brought to my damnation."
. . .
"You want to help out, but more people have died around you than saved!"
"You liked pain, Mercury. Now that it's inflicted on you, do you fold?"
"Are you saying I deserved this?"
". . ."
"What could I have possibly done to earn it?"
". . ."
He scoffed. "And I wonder, who else could've known about the desert?"
. . .
Silence suffocated all three of them.
Loud footsteps deafened the room.
Mercury marched near the door. "I need to clear my head."
He pounces out the door, his hands still trembling, a frown caving in his face.
Nobody's safe with me anymore. Are they all right?
Mercury dashes out the stairwell. He tries pulling off his braid. It doesn't budge.
In the room, Sara de-tenses and gets up, charging quickly out the door.
She yelled, "Wait! Mercury, wait!" The voice echoed as it shriveled.
Lisan stays.
Laying on the black bed, he feels an unpleasant feeling—not one that he was used to.
If only I felt half of what he felt.
. . .
Lisan rolls his sleeves. He peers at the five solythe restricting bracelets, resting on his skinny-vascular forearms, with a muscle definition less toned than before.
One by one, he snapped off the bracelets lathered in jewels worth fortunes in modern times.
His bare, naked arm. He stares at it for a solid minute—the longest minute he's felt since the desert.
His robe-concealed right arm lifts itself up, grasps the radius. His thumb presses on the base of the forearm.
With a deep breath, he closes his eyes, eyes unworthy of seeing the beauty unfold. A beauty in his image.
Instantly—
SNAP!
A bar of soap had snapped. Water leaks from its crevices and tears; the priest smiles.
Warm water leaks swiftly—water that turns into the color of wine. A wine that isn't desirable, but so beautiful, lathered in roses to enhance their strikingness.
Then—
It stops.
Readjusting itself, the priest hums as the bar replaces itself. A new product. Rejuvenating. The wine dries on the robes and the sheets, as the bar stays intact.
The bar had dismantled itself without shears, yet bloomed once again, like a rose.
Anew.
The priest grins again, but he opens his eyes.
Disappointed.
. . .