Mother Meki II: The Dark Side Of My Mind (Prompt)

And then I looked at the door. I heard footsteps- everyone heard footsteps. Clank! Latches and convolution clanged. More steps. The light hurt my eyes but I stared into it and made out the faces. We heard no heart in the steps, no soul, and it was Inspector Comstache who came in first. All our faces turned and all our hearts stopped.

"On your feet, you swine. Get out!" Utacamé and Sophirear rang in my ears and forced me to my feet, and I blended in with the crowd until I squirmed out of the hold. 'That was the cell?!' Looking at it from the outside in, how they managed to fit fifty-eight of us in that dog kennel- not what it was but appropriate- was the question on my mind for three more steps. We trekked on and on and on to the atrium and then out to the openäir. More burning rubber stench for air. More prisoners walking in the opposite direction with torn hands and lashed backs. Stop.

"All attention! Separate. Walk in two lines! Facing this way." Like rusty clockwork, we again separated, males from females. "Now move!" We marched. "Hurry up!!" We marched faster.

In the pit of my tummy, there were the proverbial butterflies. They hadn't left and I hoped they wouldn't. 'Charmed! Charming you'll be when destiny is complete. Embrace the unusual. What a wonderful world it will be.' These words were on loop. I didn't mind the 1984 glooms.

He stopped with a military step. His arms pointed their ways. "Prisoners separate and wait for instructions!" There went the men. We couldn't look. We went into an empty court trapped inside four white walls. Lined against a wall, behind a white line. I was smiling. "All attention!" We turned and faced the center.

The camp commander walked in with Inspector Comstache. Today, it was the blue suit.

"How many today."

"Fifty-eight, sir." The commander examined us and I knew he was examining us because his hands were together behind his back. And they both took note of our inspection of them.

"And the number of female bourgeois."

"Thirty-four, sir." The commander walked with more authority than the colonel. New butterflies overthrew the old ones and I felt embarrassed because I knew what was happening. All eyes sought out the weak one. He saw it, and the colonel gave off a grimace to reassure his own stature. It didn't help, that I could see. Every single one of those girls were trained in the art of hatred.

The commander was a snark killer. He ate our hatred.

His lips and tongue fumbled around before he spoke. "Put murderers with bloodsuckers and you only breed murderous bloodsuckers."

"I agree, sir. What we need are more gulags and ennigates." The commander chuckled at him.

"Oh no no no. The government can't be concerned to deal with the losers. Much too much of the soviets' time will soon be spent with political prisoners and luddites. Class bastards such as these are best dealt with a dose of reality." They passed me. I watched without turning my head. "Newlove means nothing to them, you can see that! All they care about is themselves and whatever supports their well-oiled machine of lies and elitism. They're so drunk on bourgeois pseudalities, they've never had a chance to know anything else and they don't want to. There's no point in rehabilitating a machine. A machine is a machine as will be a machine."

"You're absolutely right, sir!"

The colonel then exploded, "SHUT YOUR FILTHY HOLE!" and it echoed for seconds after. The commander stopped in his tracks and turned around, brow raised.

"Who said that," he asked, his tone blunt without demanding an answer.

"I did, sir." He walked to me. We locked gazes.

"State your name- first, last- and your reason for incarceration."

"Mackenzie Seville, sir, and I'm the royal empress of Emura. Was. I was the royal empress of Emura." Silence. He stared further down at me, into me. He broke me. "Crime: bloody and prolonged oppression of the Emuran proletariat; gouging my being with decadent luxury while the poor starved; supporting an antipathetic mechanocratic syst-" And he put his finger on my lips.

"You answered my question the first time." He turned.

I smiled. "Yes, sir, sorry, sir. I am just a wee nervous, sir, since I am going to die, sir. I figured, sir, that you might need a few more reasons to put some bullets inside me before-"

"Shut up and go to the other side." I gulped and fumbled forward. I felt my face sag and my heart hit my chest. Perhaps the princess in me wanted to scream in his face but even I wasn't that insane.

Like a terrier's yap, the colonel screeched, "GO!!!" I flinched and then trotted over. Even at a jog, it wasn't enough and the colonel crushed my upper arm with his grip and dragged me to the opposing wall. "Turn. TURN!!" I faced the center. Only twice did I take spastic breaths before I regained my composure and returned to being beaten by those butterflies. Here I was. The empress Mackenzie Seville. Twenty-four years old. Died young, a virgi... Died young. Died for the people, but the people will never know. Another case for history of the mighty rich, fallen, killed by the revolutionary masses. I smiled.

"Let this be an example to you," the commander said, "of what happens when you make your voice heard against your masters." The two Anztatia droids raised their guns. "Are there any objections? Speak now." I counted the seconds. What a damn fool I am to pretend that I wasn't frightened. All my human fears arose at once and I felt hell kill the butterflies. I was to be no more. I was to be no more. Instincts revolted against reason and won like the proletariat- my legs weakened, my heart thrashed my chest, and my breaths became punctuated.

"Why would you kill that girl?" The commander signalled for the colonel to take this one to hell as well. "She didn- we didn't do anything! We didn't do anything!" First rage, and then tears. "What did we ever do to you?!" She was still crying when she stood next to me. I glanced at her but didn't dare turn my head. All eyes were on us. My stomach felt heavy enough to bring me down. I didn't smile.

"And you died like a feather," the commander said at last. He raised his hand and brought it down. Behind his back.

The Anztatia droids rotated their guns and fired at the line of women. I stumbled, and my companion fell. But it was over. I saw the aftermath- blood still mist, and scant moans being met with bullets. My legs gave out, and I fell to the ground, but I was still getting up.

The commander walked to us. I looked up and saw his outstretched hand. I grabbed and was lifted to me feet, and had to hold onto the wall. And then I threw up.

Did I just witness people dying? Did I just see human beings lose their lives? It was a few moments after that my psychotic fantasies whacked me on the head and reality and I became one for the first time in as long as I could remember. Did I do this? Am I responsible for their deaths? Am I responsible for their hatred? I vomited again. They may have been because of the suspense or the sights or both but I didn't have time to care. The butterflies hit my stomach like the butt of a rifle and I vomited again.

All of a sudden, Dultzy-Ka's promise didn't seem as appealing. Human mortality in front of your eyes, having your own threatened whilst seeing others' experienced, is a far far different beast than imagination can ever prepare you for. And I vomited again. I was weak all over, without any feeling. All I could think was the lives of those women- they were children, they were once happy, they were not expecting to die when they woke up this morning! When they were young, who knew they would die so horrible deaths, and who knew they were doomed! If these extraterrestrial saviours were coming, they weren't coming to a humane planet. But I had to convince myself again- this is revolution. Revolution is watered in blood, they said. True revolution is not meant to be an event of peace and love but a conflict of hatred.

"You were not off the mark. Last I checked, none of you class bastards did anything to help the proletariat, and it's what you didn't do that matters, madam," he said. Then he turned to me. He stuck his ropy index finger in my face, and I was still wiping my mouth. "Soak in that vomit, Your Highness." He patted my back and I belched, and I was growing sicker. Blood was draining from their bodies, the women, the damn women. God I was sick. How long had I been sick? How long had my grip on reality been so loose that I'd end history? Should I have opened my eyes when I paid someone to shoot me in the face, or should it have been when I gave trillions to the most violent of communists? Was it when I let a machine rape me or when I first believed the Ultraterrestrial Mythos as fact?

And then my hands grabbed a hankie before I knew where it came from. "I want to know, Your Highness, were you one of the Drougnauts?" My mouth wasn't my concern anymore. I dropped the thing. 'I'm staring at dead bodies! They were just alive! Oh my god, they were alive, now they're dead...' My back hit the wall. I fell. I cried. The other dooshka wailed and had been wailing.

"Willful disobedience!!" He came at us, the Inspector! He came with malice and the whip. And the other girl screamed and we cowered together. Instant instinct- I shielded my eyes and yelped.

"Calm down, Alexei. She's witnessed the Terror firsthand for what I presume is the first time- is it the first time, or am I wrong, Your Highness?" He stooped down to me and I tried to shake my head. "First time?"

"First time," I spat out in broken whimpers. He stood. What messes we were, sniffling and miserable, while the superiors sneered.

"It will be excused this once. Death is... not easy to see for someone unused to its relentless hatred." Again, he helped us up. "As I was saying, Your Highness, I'm going to refer you to someone. It's your choice, of course, if you wish to take part or if you'd like to join them. If that's what you want- I will be frank..." He paused and I assumed he checked neuroarticles. "If you say yes, things will be very hard for you. Understand my words. This is a proletarian revolution and you had the unfortunate luck of being born on the wrong side of this war as well as being one of its losers. Life can be unfair like that. I'm only telling you this because I know you would understand."

With my voice whittled by tears, "But did you have to kill them?"

"Yes. But if you choose, we can help you. Or you can avoid it and die here. It's all your choice and I will do nothing to influence your decision."

Vigon. Yugon.

"I'll do whatever... Do whatever you... you want." He smirked in a fashion and grabbed my face with a gentleness I did not expect.

"But it's not what I want, Your Highness." He pointed at me. "It's what you want." More spastic breaths followed, but I was calm enough to consider his words. So he let go and stepped back. The colonel, I couldn't even joke of him as Inspector Comstache anymore, stomped his way and screamed at him.

"It doesn't care about life, sir. It said it itself. And it said it just now- it only wants to do what it thinks will keep it alive." The commander stroked his beard and sent a scowling motion my way. "It's not good for anything and it'll just pretend to do what we want it to do."

"People say the damnedest things when their life is in the hands of haters." The commander scoffed and shook his head. I looked down. What he did next, I heard- the fleshy sound of a slap to a man's cheek. "She is scared! Of course she would say the first thing her brain tells her would keep her alive." The colonel rubbed his face and straightened his nose but stood strong. The commander bent down and levelled with me. "Seville, Your Highness. Look at me. Look at me." With a quick search, he sought and grabbed the hanky and wiped my face. "You don't have to die here. This could be the beginning of a fruitful life of peace and success. But the path to it will be terribly difficult for you, and you know why." He half turns to the colonel. "Do you want to know something? I don't want you to die. You know what that would be? A waste of a perfectly good life. Can you think of anything more wasteful! But it's your choice if you want to be useful. And if you say no, I will not prolong your suffering. It will end quickly." He stands. "And I must ask you to choose now."

My tears stopped around the first sentence. I was emotionless and my answer was just as flat.

"I will do it it."

"But do you want to do it?"

Pause. "I do."

"Good." He chuckled and smiled at the colonel. The colonel's face was brutal. His eyes grew wide and his mouth was distended and his brow was so low, it could have fallen off of his face. I always thought he'd have whacked the commander in the jaw if he could have. The commander smiled at me again and turned to the other one.

"And you, ma'am?" All she could spit to him was the cry 'Let me live! I want to live!' And the same was said to her. "Seville... condolences about your family. Again, understand- it is the nature of revolution. These things must be done." I looked at the bodies again- the bodies... We don't call them people, we call them bodies. That was a woman. Now that's a woman's body. Empty of who they were. I cried again. It was all my fault. Damn it, it was my fault, and I couldn't get it out of my head that it was fate- it was fate, it was fate, it was destined to happen, the convolution of fate.

We were picked up and forced back into the cellblocks for an impromptu day off. It was empty and the silence made me sicker than before. The men didn't return. Crammed as we were before, we felt suffocated then and we couldn't breathe let alone speak. When it did, I don't remember, but it was the daily round of clanging latches and locks hiding off the other damned that we wondered if we were alone. The day was spent staring near each other, close enough to see the fuzz of a person but off enough to not make out each others faces. The night was spent huddled into foetal positions on opposite ends of the cell. We awoke next to each other, having forgotten our moves the entire night before. The killer Death slept with us and grew sadistic from our mutual panic. And the grandest woe of solitude arrested me- in time I will be a shadow dancing on the walls of URDK#6. In my saturnine blankness, I remained apathetic. 'They died because they deserved it.' Yes, yes, I convinced myself of this. 'They were tyrants and fools without social conscious. They were warned. The People warned them this would happen. The Revolution will not be civilized! When the Delarosas and the Viyetas marched on Sophirear, all those deemed guilty would soon face the gallows. Terios was not on our side. Even Bæphomet would disavow us. We are history's great losers. All our times have come. Now we're here. Soon, we'll all be gone. But I saw her tears puddle around her blackened face and asked myself again, was it worth it? Did I do this because I believed in their cause or because I wanted to read about myself in a history book?

Am I evil, or am I human? Was I thinking these things because I was of their cloth? Did it take the murder of brethren to open my eyes? Or did I walk too far into the unknown? My dreams were black. She never slept. I did.

I'd soon return to my masochistic desires of social immolation and eagerly awaited what new horrors they'd wrought against me. It was half hearted. I was not alone. I was never alone.

Terios and Michael were my incentive for living. The girl was my incentive for death.



MOTHER MEKI

From Mother Meki II: The Dark Side Of My Mind

PS- When the commander said 'I don't want you to die', how utterly sadistic, brutal, ungodly of foreshadowing that sounds considering what happens to my protagonist!