Final Exit
*A short story that came to me as I was listening to Final Exit by Fear Factory on their new album Mechanize*
My life no longer has any value. For too long I've been determining the value of others lives and now my own value has come up for judgment. I should be judged by the countless I have murdered but the dead cannot judge the living they can only wait for them to join them in eternity. If I believer that I would want to live as long as possible, running from their eternal malice. The problem with that lies in the world I have created; one in which even the creator wants to wash his hands of and play no part any longer.
The reflection of myself in the glass is a husk of my former self, deep lines of stress and grief scarring my once handsome face. There is no compassion or determination in my eyes as there once had been. I was a great man, a powerful ruler and like hundreds of such rulers before me I am my own downfall. Dozens of stories below, at the foot of the building I occupied they still fought, still died, my people. Some part of them did not want to believe that what they stood for had abandoned them, what they had put all their trust and future into. They did not want to believe that their way of life was collapsing all around them. They did not want to accept that their great leader had abandoned them to their fates, that their beliefs were the fabrication of a creative, disillusioned man. The great city they lived in was being destroyed all around them and none wanted to believe that their loved ones had probably died long ago.
Once a great city I had ruled over that now lay in rubble, great fires gutting skyscrapers, funeral pyres; previously unseen miracles of architecture and engineering collapsing and snapping like twigs, metal screaming in pain as it was reshaped and twisted. The sound of an inanimate city crying as it slowly died, shaking the earth beneath it. The foundation rumbled from nearby and distant explosions, the most powerful forms of hate being unleashed on my former military. War raging in nobody's name but my own. I had learned of some many wars fought for the name of another but never had I imagined that one of those names in a long list through history would be my own, recently added. I had been the harbinger of death to multiple worlds and I deserved every bit of ire and seething rage they brought upon me but did my people. Why did I bring such terrible suffering upon them for my own gain? If I had seen that it would all have been for naught I never would have committed such genocide.
It was a powerful experience the first time I held the hand of someone as they passed from the living to dead. I had wanted prosperity and joy for my people and those that would convert to believe. I had thought conversion was the only way to maintain peace in my kingdom. Now all I held was the hand of my people, clasped between both of my own in an unrelenting grip. The hand streaked with their blood and tears as they slowly passed from living to dead. The body being cremated by their bombs and great tools of destruction as I clutched my people's collective hand. Only I would be left to bury them, their once great hopes and dreams of a bright future. Even the sky bled for them as the sun set, clouds glowing red from the city's wounds.
Night had long passed and the first light of a new dawn crept over the shattered horizon. The distant flashes and sounds of war being waged in twilight had faded hours ago. The enemy had pulled back, much to my surprise. Why did they not bring me the death I so rightly deserved? They were so close yet could they not even bring themselves to end the cause for all the years of bloodshed? My body is weak from hunger and dehydration, I could not recall how long I had been standing in this same position; a coffee mug shattered at my feet, coffee stains on the carpet and my once mirror shined shoes. I refused to move, I would not go anywhere until they fulfilled my final wish, until the eventual end of my dominion.
I am too much of a coward to deliver myself to Death, he had to be brought to me before I would succumb. Thankfully they did not leave me waiting for much longer in the rays of the slowly rising sun.
A new sun suddenly appeared and an intense flash of light blinded me, retina destroyed beyond all hope of repair. The blind say they see nothing but darkness, I had the destroyed skyline of my beautiful city before it was obliterated scarred into my mind's eye, a fitting final image. Seconds later I heard a wave of noise descending upon me, loud and violent. For an instant I saw the glass of nearby skyscrapers that still stood exploding inwards before the glass in front of me followed suit. A great wind threw me across my office into the far wall with such force that I felt multiple bones shattering in my body, landing on the floor was pure agony. I coughed violently, blood staining my lips and barley able to breath, relishing the pain as if it were a gift from the gods themselves.
And maybe it was.
The air roared angrily around me, dragging me across the floor into a pile of debris and furniture that had not been pulled through the shattered windows. I barley noticed the glass and debris sticking grotesquely from my body. I tried to lift myself from the strangely wet carpet but one arm would not respond and the pain unbearable.
My ears rang with the powerful symphony of magnificent buildings collapsing and the earth rumbling it's applause. The floor beneath my resting place headed the call of its brethren to join them in the halls of legend. I felt weightless for a brief moment, fun in the midst of all the chaos.
I contemplated what was certainly my last, labored breath as I stared at the face of Death and wondered the fate of my soul.
My soul. Did I even still have one?
Even in blindness I could see the billions of faces, billions of lives I had ended too soon. Anger burning within every pair of eyes, their rage held back only by the seconds of life that I had to live. Oh how I would live them.
I prayed for my soul.
Millions of tons of brilliant engineering collapsed and crushed me into my feared after life.
Goodbye.