PTSD
PTSD
Zerrex R. Narrius
Time: 4:01 AM.
"Captain Ravenlight! Everyone is in position, but recon patrol tango-foxhound reports massive enemy mobilization at quadrant thirty-four, due to arrive in thirty minutes!" a soldier nearly screamed, his breathing rapid and his eyes bulging in terror beneath his plain military helmet, the dangling, loose straps of his uniform making a dull clatter that irritated the reptile he was speaking to more than the sounds of mortars exploding nearby.
"Why do I care?" The Drakkaren asked coldly, and the soldier froze up a bit, paling as Captain Ravenlight - his codename - slowly turned his head to look at him with a patronizing, cruel smile. "Are you scared of dying?"
The soldier stared, trembling violently, his standard-issue assault rifle hanging loosely against his untucked, filthy uniform, the Irenic Military's crest half-hanging from a few strings on one shoulder. He had likely been at the front lines... but those front lines had long been demolished from enemy rocket strikes and tanks. The tanks, at least, had been halted: they had tried to put up bridges to cross the ten-mile long trenches, but a new type of remote-controlled explosive called a jumper mine had literally sprung from where they had been hidden in the earth of the trenches in a mile long, beautiful dance of synchronization that had blown the long bridges to pieces the moment the first wave of tanks had tried to cross, ripping them to shreds and leaving many of the tanks stranded in the trenches, useless except perhaps as machinegun turrets. But the enemy - a Northern Ire separatist militia - had triple the number of general military and was much better trained than the rookies that Captain Ravenlight had under his command.
"Yes, sir. I am, sir." The soldier admittedly finally, trembling violently as he stood and saluted, swallowing thickly as a few other soldiers glanced up uneasily, then turned their eyes to Captain - in this case, Regional Commander, but he refused to be called by that title - Ravenlight.
The Drakkaren was dressed in black armor: underneath, a special superior weave product called duraflex, and overtop, solid metal plates overlayed with fiberglass, shaped to fit the reptile's body like a glove to maximize comfort and usability in any circumstance. He had a pair of monstrous, purple-steel .52 magnum handguns at his sides, but currently had a general-purpose machinegun with a plastic green feed box attached to it, usually meant to be used on a tripod. The reptile, however, was an imposing eight feet tall and the way the black cloth covering his limbs bulged with his movements, it was easy to tell he was also well-built. His emerald eyes were cold, but that was just a word; it couldn't cover the emotionlessness in those eyes, just a shade lighter than his scales.
Then a slow, cruel grin twisted down his muzzle, and he looked over the soldier slowly, saying in a cruel voice that was almost playful: "A soldier's born to die... and hell, if no one dies in war, there's no one to be called a 'hero' for their country." A pause, and he turned his attention back down the road, his ivory-white hair - a rarity for reptiles - wafted around his features, before he shook his head irritably, shrugging the shoulder length locks from his eyes as he settled the bottom of the rifle on the pile of sandbags set up as a waist-high barricade across the dirt road, in front of the open steel gates behind them that were attached to a solid wall of brick and cement that formed the last checkpoint between this place and the city several miles beyond. "Besides. My orders are to ensure that my unit gets their job done. You and the rest of the 'soldiers' here-" And one word in that sentence was spoken with utmost disgust and disdain... "Are nothing more than expendables and resources to be used and discarded as I see fit. You failed to maintain the trenches-"
"They had mortars! My friends were dying, we were all dying, we couldn't do anything!" the soldier immediately cried, his voice reaching a high, panicked pitch, looking pleadingly at the cold reptile as he shrugged off the hand of a friend that grasped his shoulder, trying to pull him away.
"-and you failed to hold down the supply sheds, meaning they had to be destroyed, meaning we lost most of our ammunition and rations, meaning you and your crew are in for a lot of long, hard, hungry nights. You'd just better hope that the supply trucks get here before you're left with nothing but rocks to throw at the enemy." The lizard finished calmly, then he drew out one of his .52s, not bothering to look in the direction of the soldier as he added in a soft voice: "And interrupt me again, and I'll leave you wishing I had killed you before I send you to the front lines to die like the rest of your 'hero' friends. And you know I have the power to." He slowly turned a cruel smile on the soldier, who was trembling harder now, his breaths rushing in and out as his eyes bulged in horror, watching as the Drakkaren smiled callously up at him. "Myself and the others are the only worthwhile investments in this area. My unit is what matters, not this pathetic piece of crap unit you masquerade as an army." A pause and a subtle tilt of his head, his eyes flicking over his shoulder as he added quietly: "Lower your weapons or I'll kill you. Or leave you to be pecked to death by the birds."
The three soldiers on the other side of the Drakkaren trembled violently, then lowered their assault rifles, exchanging weak looks. But the lizard was the commanding officer of a group none of them had ever heard of before called the Goth Legion... and even if they did guarantee success - with the rest of the group out on some secret mission in enemy territory, and their Captain remaining behind to guide the rest of the army and hold down the checkpoint - everyone here knew that if they never heard of the unit again after this, they wouldn't mind in the slightest.
The Drakkaren - they only knew his codename - treated them like resources, like pawns, like toys... and did it without the scrap of a conscience. And even though it meant they had held off the enemy now for three days at the trenches, before they had finally broken through using the tanks and a huge wave of reinforcements that literally doubled their numbers, they had also suffered massive casualties due to friendly fire and suicidal charges. But the reptile didn't seem to care that he had probably racked up the highest kill count of any soldier in the entire division - and all without ever firing on an enemy.
The soldier who had given his report finally retreated... and the lizard turned his attention forwards again, resting in a kneel behind the wall of sandbags, unflinching, unmoving, cold and still as a statue as he gazed down the road. The only thing that moved was hair in the weak breeze that blew over the dirty tundra, as the sounds of explosions and gunfire made a background music of pops and percussion. The area they were guarding was nestled between two mountain ranges, and it was imperative that they hold it down until reinforcements arrived to help drive back and destroy the separatist army from Northern Ire that had converged on it: failure would mean that their armies could advance towards the city beyond and take it, likely without a fight... and beyond that, forge deeper into Ire and perhaps all the way to Tears City.
All that mattered, as had been trained into the Drakkaren, however, was the mission. And it didn't stress him out, or phase him. He didn't care about other people's lives, and he didn't even care if the succeeded or not: what mattered is that he fulfilled his instructions, as given to him by the military council, and as only he and the other members of the Goth Legion knew. Hold down the checkpoint until the enemy arms production facility was destroyed, eradicated, gutted and generally blown to shit. Kill anyone who knew or found out too much. Use the soldiers to buy time until the rest of the team could get to the facility, deep in enemy territory, destroy it, and got back into radio contact range to give the okay. At last, kill anyone who had been too inquisitive or who had shown any weakness or negligence on the battlefield: the Irenic Military had a mole in their midst, likely at this checkpoint, and it had been decided that they had to take no chances. Zerrex - a name he had almost forgotten over all the wars fought as Captain Ravenlight - had been empowered with "on-the-spot execution," and he had already demonstrated this in the cafeteria, killing the soldier he had long ago picked out as the informant for Northern Ire. It had been easy... he had been wearing a deep blue dress shirt instead of the standard issue white. Something that just looked like an absent-minded breach of protocol, but to Zerrex it had jumped out as an old technique to tell the enemy you were a friendly while not giving yourself away to everyone else around you... and it also accounted for how he hadn't been shot despite being on the front line at the trenches, even though ninety percent of the other soldiers reported at least being fired at by long-range sniper teams that had taken over a barracks and the surrounding fortified guard towers just a few hundred meters down the road.
The Drakkaren had ordered rocket teams to destroy all the towers, as well as the huge line of jumper-mines be planted, disregarded the potential for disastrous collateral damage. He didn't care they were using civilians as watchdogs to cover their snipers in the towers, or that they were using hostage Ire soldiers for the same purpose: to him, it was all black and white. And he snorted quietly, then he finally reached up and placed a headset on, speaking into it disinterestedly: "Cry."
No response. They still weren't back in radio range yet... which meant his team had encountered a problem. He just hoped that Tinman hadn't gotten them into trouble... the pathetic little coward was useless on the battlefield, but he was unfortunately one of the two necessary members on the bombing squad, the other being Vampire, who had been trained in explosive ordinance... but there was no way they could bring enough plastic explosive with them to bring down a facility the size that they were targeting. Tinman, on the other hand, could build an improvised bomb big enough to level several city blocks, and he would be able to manipulate the plastic explosive to improve its destructive power.
Then he paused and looked forwards at the rising dust cloud in the distance, and he grinned cruelly as one of the soldiers kneeling nearby let out a weak moan, staring through the sight of his sniper rifle at what the Drakkaren guessed were several approaching vehicles in the distance. He smiled coldly, but then his eyes narrowed, the slightest of frowns coming out over his features as he heard what sounded like static on the headset, and time seemed to freeze, everything becoming sepia-toned greys, blacks and whites as he caught a brief vision of a little girl with a teddy bear holding her father's hand, the young, beautiful little squirrel with her long blond hair tied in a ponytail behind her, looking so much like a porcelain doll that he wanted to
(smash it, shoot it, kill it)
put it away on some shelf somewhere...
"Hello, Zerrex..." said a soft, gentle voice, and the Drakkaren flinched a bit, the barrel of the machinegun wavering slightly before he steadied himself, keeping his eyes focused forwards, and his body tensed, even though everything seemed so grey, and now he saw a tall male in a suit, but he was faceless, unimportant, and that little porcelain girl was surrounded by
(blood)
an aura, a pretty, beautiful
(pool of blood)
golden aura...
"Who is this?" the Drakkaren asked calmly,
(but he already knew)
as he reached down towards his belt, where the headset's wire fed into a small frequency controller, to flick the device to 'interrupt' to cancel out the signal temporarily...
"You already know." said the soft girl's voice, causing a terrible chill to run up and down his spine, as he tried to keep his attention focused forwards... but more and more, his hands wanted to tremble, and he wanted to look not forwards but into his own self, his own soul, because something was
(in the zero, in the darkness, in the nothingness, something is there, and it's not just dark but Dark, deeper black than a raven's feathers, it is Ravenlight)
trying to draw him to old memories hidden there... "But you can call me Little Arcy, and I'm sorta a... very special Army Psychologist and Counsellor."
"Little Arcy... cute." Zerrex muttered, trying to refocus himself, keep himself cold and cool
(sociopathic, psychotic, murderous, hateful)
and calm. "Are you here to talk about my feelings? I'm fine on that front. I don't panic on the battlefield, and I don't lay awake at night tortured by what I had to do. This is survival. This is war. This is my-"
"Life?" Little Arcy asked quietly, and the sympathy in that voice, for some reason, ripped deep into the Drakkaren, made him enraged... while at the same time, deeper down, he wasn't angry but surprised, hurt, and most of all scared. "That's not a good life, Zerrex. And no, you don't lay awake tortured by it. Instead, every moment of waking and dreaming, you're a shell on the outside, and cold, and hateful... but on the inside, part of you is
(Dying. Hating. Miserable. Lonely. Scared.)
crying."
Zerrex grunted, and his entire body tensed up, his teeth gritting as he inhaled sharply, head ringing with the barrage of not-words from a voice deep in his head, a voice that had spoken quietly before... but now someone had somehow dialled up the volume control, and it left his skull throbbing as he almost dropped the machinegun, looking around wildly at this black and white monotone world, his eyes wide but unseeing anything around him, not the frozen soldiers or the way the air itself seemed to have stopped moving, motes and dust caught in some invisible force...
Then he snarled and brought the rifle up again, shoving the door closed on the thing deep inside him that wanted to rise up, screaming for releasing, and snapping all the locks in his mind he could dredge up closed on it as he focused his will and leaned forwards behind the barricade, glaring down the road with teeth grit and falling back on his oldest defense: using the hate, the rage, the fury building up in him to aid his will, form a wall as he clenched the machinegun's body and stock almost hard enough to snap it, rising it back to shoulder as he grasped the handle and then slid a finger down just outside the trigger guard, his eyes focused forwards as he snarled: "Like hell. I am a soldier, and I am not weak."
"No one said you were weak." The voice responded gently, but with a bit of firmness now, and Zerrex caught another image
(memory)
In his head, of a little girl, a beautiful little doll-like girl, wearing the pretty blue dress with the white frills
(Civillian. Collateral damage. "Necessary losses." Blue splattered with red and black.)
that had not the slightest trace of dirt upon them, pristine and perfect and wrinkleless. "I just said... part of you hurts, and is in pain. Not just because of this, but everything that happened before this." A tremble went through the Drakkaren, and this time he was unable to stop himself from slumping as a look like terror passed over his features. "Your family. Your friends. Your death. Tell me, when did you die, Zerrex?"
"When I was sixteen..." The Drakkaren answered weakly, and he felt one of the locks give away and the chains fall from that door he had locked so long ago, tried to hold closed and almost succeeded in sealing completely, as he remembered
(killing the bastard, slitting his throat, he was hot and aroused beneath my body, my father was in delirium, sick and dying, and thought I was my mother, and we kissed, father and son, and there was no love in that but sick pleasure and then I murdered him)
the death of his father... and walking out into with a crazed grin on his features and his emerald eyes alight with all the fires of Hell, the way the armed guards in his former mansion home cowered as he walked out the door covered in blood... "Get out of my head..."
"No... that was just when you decided to leave purgatory for Hell." Little Arcy said gently, and that gentleness broke the heart Zerrex thought he'd lost long ago. "You died when you were just eight years old, didn't you?
(Mommy...)
A year older than when I died..."
("You killed my daughter... you son of a bitch, you killed her... why... why did you kill her? Oh God...")
"My father killed my mother...
(Daddy killed Mommy...)
and that... was really when I died... because she was my whole world..." Zerrex whispered in a raw voice, sitting slumped behind the gray barricades in a gray world, the machinegun clutched in his hands, shaking violently as his eyes looked down towards the dirt road and images of his
(father tearing out his mother's throat with his teeth, like the monster he was)
mother's death playing out in front of his eyes, as he trembled violently, before he shook his head and tried to wrestle away the memories, trying to reach up with one hand to tear away his headset, but his arms felt too weak to move properly... "And I died because I didn't try to live..."
"You gave up... but it's not your fault..." Little Arcy said gently, and Zerrex shivered a bit at how compassionate
(loving, innocent, humiliating, hateful)
that voice was; at how she was
(forgiving him)
consoling him... at how easily she brought to surface all the things he wished he'd long forgotten, that he wished he'd never seen or experienced... and it was just tearing him apart inside... "It's not your fault that the world has only
(breathed death)
smothered you with darkness... that your family turned against you... that your only daughter was born only a few years ago and you don't even know her, born from you raping her mother..."
"What are you talking about?" Zerrex whispered raggedly, looking up, and suddenly the world of blacks and whites, barricades and dirt road and soldiers, became a monotone grey world with the shape of a little girl standing in the distance, holding a golden teddy bear with one button eye, and all around her was color and brightness while the rest of the world was so
(real)
grey and dark...
"I'm sorry... you wouldn't know... but her name is Cindy and one day she'll be your beautiful little girl, and she'll make you serene inside and happy more than you can say, because
(she is light, you are darkness, even when she becomes your wife)
she'll be able to give you peace... at least for a little while... but at the same time you'll have your war with you
(blood, death, destruction, pleasurable hell)
and she will give you hell... but at the deepest core, she will never betray you... never want to hurt you... and when the time comes, she will die to protect you and your family, even if it means her failure... but what goes on in the
(red beast's hall, the apocalypse, the vanguard's kingdom, the demon's garden)
darkest of darkness is beyond even my sight..."
Zerrex fell forwards on the floor, the machinegun falling from his grip and simply seeming to vanish, his armor suddenly feeling too loose, too light, and suddenly he knew everything, as Little Arcy began to walk towards him, bathed in her unearthly light as she was: there he was, a trembling
(Weakling! Pathetic! Coward! Fool! Monster! Bastard! Child!)
mess, covering his head in that black-and-white-and-grey world, clenching his eyes shut, no longer in his officer's armor but a plain soldier's uniform that was filthy, with a few missing buttons and a few loose strings, covered in the standard grey and tan splatter-camo of an infantry soldier and with a too-small cap shoved tightly down over his head, his hair hanging raggedly just past his shoulders and streaked with dirt.
He was a soldier, fresh from the trenches, fresh from posing with Cherry, Vampire and Homicide as fellow members of the rebel militia fighting against Ire... and so what if it meant he'd had to kill a few Irenic soldiers to play the part? What meant is the militia believed in them, so they could reach the leaders and kill them off: in the end, it was the greater good for the country of Ire that mattered, not the good of the soldiers and that one military section alone
(I will kill all who need to be killed, be they friend, foe or civilian)
or the good of the villagers in this country
(Only Ire matters, and above Ire, only the mission matters)
or the good of anyone else in the entire world.
But he knew in reality that just the opposite was true... that the mission was supposed to matter least of all, that it was supposed to be about saving people and stopping the bad guys, not killing everyone he came across. And in all her burning, beautiful radiance, it was like the brilliant bright spectre of the girl was awakening all those secret memories, that hidden knowledge, and was just causing more and more of those emotions he didn't
(want)
think existed anymore inside of him up towards the surface...
"It's okay, Zerrex... the future, for you, holds so much, and yet... so little, you know..." and the Drakkaren looked up weakly as Little Arcy stopped in front of him, the tiny little girl squatting and reaching a hand forwards to gently touch his broad muzzle as the reptile looked up, tears rolling down his dirty cheeks.
They looked at each other
(she looked into his soul, she was beautiful, he was a beast)
and now he took in every detail... the small scar on her chin, the few smears on her dress of what could be pastel or crayon or even dribbled food, the pretty little blue beret she wore that went with her dress, down to the white frilly edging on it. She was petite, pretty, and
(dead)
so vivacious, so full of life... so... perfect, with her little book-bag cradled in one arm and the strap hanging down, and her eyes so green they were almost amber, her fur a blonde that only added to the aura of vitality she seemed infused with... and her teddy bear, held in the same hand as her little book-bag was, that seemed to look at him with something like sad compassion...
"You... have so much ahead of you. You will have another daughter, that I can see, because she burns so brightly, even through the darkness..." And Little Arcy spoke without speaking, her mouth never moved but Zerrex heard all the words, heard her voice flowing around him... "And you will love her, but...
(she is the zephyr of Light and nadir of Dark)
she will not be whole... but she will not be hollow... she will be dedicated to you, beyond dedication, and she will read your very soul... but..."
And the Drakkaren felt a chill rip through him as flashes of the future blasted through his mind, as he saw what he would become, and all the things that may come to pass... as he faced his own mortality, the impending possibility of his own death, as the weight of a force akin to destiny began to weigh deeper and deeper on him. What am I meant for... "But I just want someone to love me... if she was my daughter I'd just want her to love me... and Cherry... I always just wanted her to be mine, I loved her so much..."
"But darkness and darkness don't mix... they can simply share..." Little Arcy said gently, and then she kneeled down on her pretty dress, dropping the book bag to her side. She held up the golden-brown teddy bear, held it out towards him and gave him a sympathetic smile as Zerrex looked up at her silently, dirty and ragged, tears rolling down his face. "But darkness can make light shine all the brighter, just as light stretches shadows and makes the darkness ever deeper."
Zerrex shivered violently, then he slowly sat up, his hair falling around him, reaching up with trembling hands to take the teddy bear, and Little Arcy gently dropped it in his hands, leaving him holding it by the sides. He stared at it for a moment, with its one button eye and plain brown-gold fur that was dappled here and there with specks of
(blood)
dirt, and then he instinctively hugged it to his chest as he looked up at Little Arcy and whispered: "Why are you helping me when
(I killed you)
I... hurt you?"
Little Arcy smiled quietly as she stood up, clasping her hands in front of herself, and that aura seemed to shine all the brighter as
(Zerrex remembered; he remembered being back at the militia's hideout, waiting for one of the leaders, and he'd slipped out of the room and was strolling through a hallway, a rich, expensive hallway, and that pissed him off)
she looked at him softly, and then said quietly: "Because for you, there is a far-crueller destiny awaiting you than even what happened to
(my father)
me, Zerrex... you will live. You will live through countless battles, countless wars, always tortured by the things you have done, the things you have seen; you will live, and watch all your friends and family die around you. You will live, and you will kill those closest to you out of necessity to end their suffering, not out of malice, and that will hurt you deeper, scar you deeper than anything else. You will live only to kill, and one day die... but then you will awaken from Death just to repeat the cycle, because of who you are... and what you are."
Zerrex looked up at her silently, tears rolling down his cheeks as he hugged the teddy bear tight, tight against his chest, tight against his ragged, dirty uniform, as he looked at
(feared, hated, loved)
the little girl that shone so brightly, around which everything was in color compared to the black and white contrast of the rest of the terrible world, and he remembered
(killing her; he had opened the main doors of the estate house to get out to the street, and she was standing there, walking down the private road with her father, and he had raised his assault rifle, doing what he was trained to do, and the father had panicked, jerking the little girl almost off her feet as he leapt towards the bushes at the side of the estate, and a guard, a militia soldier, had fired at him, and Zerrex had immediately turned towards this threat, the gun on full-auto, rock-n-roll mode, and he had strafed upwards with the rifle and bullets had-)
hurting her... and he knew, horribly, he knew, that she wasn't doing this out of malice, that she wasn't telling him these things for revenge, retribution, or even justice... but out of
(love)
duty, honor and integrity... and he asked in a broken whisper: "Are you an angel?"
And Little Arcy smiled gently, as she stepped forwards, taking his large muzzle with her tiny hands and then leaning down to kiss his cheek, and Zerrex's entire body went rigid, as if he'd been shocked by electricity, as
(-the bullets ripped her apart as he strafed upwards towards the militia soldier, and the .767 rounds of the Fairsmount "Standard" leave horrible wounds, sending her down in a huge burst of blood, her teddy bear torn apart and the stuffing of the animal flying in all directions, furry guts and innards mixing with real blood and gore as someone screams, and then the militia soldier falls to the ground, dead, a haphazard, bloody line traced up his body as well, and before he even drops the gun he's holding, before Little Arcy fully hits the ground, the father is screaming in horror, terror, confusion and leaping towards his daughter-)
the little girl stayed close, almost holding him up as he slowly slumped, the teddy bear falling from his hands as she said quietly: "I'm just here to help you."
"I just wanted my own little girl... to be a little girl... not to suffer..." Zerrex murmured weakly, not even aware of what he was talking about, and Little Arcy smiled sadly at him before hugging him tightly around the neck, and another tremble of terror went through Zerrex as he pushed his hands into the ground on either side of the bear, barely able to force himself up to his knees as he whispered: "Is she paying for my sins? For what I did to you?"
But Little Arcy only shrugged, her face buried in his hair, her
(-body is torn apart, and she is dying, choking on blood but unable to breathe anyway: as the Drakkaren walks coldly forwards, like something made of steel more than flesh, he notes that he's hit at least four vital areas, maybe as many as six, on her little body. And her father isn't helping, the way he's rocking her, leaning over her, crying on her and moving her damaged body, and it makes Zerrex grin coldly, thinking that the daughter is dead in any case, so he's really just ending her misery faster. He raises the assault rifle, and then the father looks up, and what strikes Zerrex is the lack of fear in his eyes as he screams: "You killed my daughter... you son of a bitch, you killed her... why... why did you kill her? Oh God... why are you smiling? Why are you laughing? Oh god... no... no... no, no, no no no...")
body stepping a bit closer towards him as she holds tightly around his neck, and she murmurs quietly: "You've never been happy, have you? You've always suffered, your whole life... and the only way you could deal with that, is by pushing that suffering, that hurt, that hatred that's built up inside you, onto everyone else around you. I can't lie and say it's okay... because you have sinned in the worst way. And that wasn't in the killings, in the hurt, in the unnecessary 'necessary losses' or the
(hundreds, perhaps thousands of deaths you caused: the rapes, the violence, the hurt, the hatred, the mutilation and destruction)
'killings in the name of' that you performed... it was in the way you've disobeyed yourself, dishonoured yourself, and hurt yourself so badly... stored up all this
(stress and pain and hate and sorrow and loss)
inside your body and your soul... you're damaged, and you're scarred, and you've been hurt in ways that no one ever deserved to be... and that doesn't excuse you, but you know that doesn't excuse you... and that's why I can understand and why I am here for you, Zerrex... why I want to help you... even though..."
(Zerrex levels the .767 against the father's head, and he doesn't flinch, even at the heat of the barrel, as he goes back to crying over his daughter... and a moment later, the father is dead and his brain is scattered up the length of the private, dirty road, leaving Zerrex still coldly grinning as his body slumps, trembles, and then falls: forwards instead of sideways, half covering his daughter's own dying body, as if trying to protect her. He raises a booted foot and easily kicks the father's body to the side, however, then looks down with disdain, disgust, and amusement that hides a strange pity for the daughter, who is still alive, still fighting to stay alive despite her wounds-)
"Even though I... killed... you..." Zerrex forced the word out, and the little girl, Little Arcy, drew back, and their eyes met... and then she quietly took his face between her hands, and the Drakkaren stared into that strange amber-green as
(- he raises the assault rifle, grinning coldly, cruelly, as he looks down into those eyes... and something deep inside him twitches and moans, at the look in that little girl's eyes. And suddenly there is nothing but him and the girl, despite the pops of gunfire in the distance and the sound of mortars raining down; the sounds of constant war around them are all drowned out by that single look, and he stares at her, and she stares back, and that something he had thought long dead and buried in him simply shrieks out: "What the fuck are you doing?")
she stared back into his emerald...
"And I was so scared at first." she said softly, and her voice rolls over him, draws in every last string of attention he has and makes him focus like he has never focused before, even with all his will bent to a single task, as he gazes into her eyes and almost sees the past. "This giant male standing over me, and I know I'm hurt but I feel no pain... I'm numb, but it's hard to breathe, impossible, like something's on my chest... and I realize I have been shot, and I don't know yet that daddy is dead... and we're looking at each other, and when you approach, it's like I'm watching Death himself approach... but after our eyes meet, and we look at each other for forever in that few moments left of my life... you change... from a monster, into a hurt, silent thing... not child, but not adult... not alive, and not dead... and we look at each other, and I tried to tell you that-"
"You forgave me..." Zerrex finished quietly, and Little Arcy looked surprised, and then she smiled quietly and nodded, and when she smiled... all the pain in Zerrex's body and heart vanished, if but for a moment, and he gave the weakest of smiles back as he stood, reaching out and picking her up and spinning around with her, and she laughed, how she laughed so happily before suddenly she is gone, turning to strings and streamers that slip through his hands and blow away on a wind that isn't there, and he almost stumbled as he stared after those wisps...
And then he's back to the black-and-white world, standing once more, adorned in his full body armor that now feels more like a cage than protection, like a curse than a blessing... and his machinegun lays at his feet, and all the soldiers are around but no one's moving... and he trembled violently before he drops to his knees, his back to the barricade as he drops his face in his hands and moaned as his heart thudded with a thousand different emotions. It felt like the darkness was smothering him...
A loud bang went off nearby, and Zerrex immediately fell to his knees, grabbing his head and curling his fingers into his hair as he clenched his eyes shut, groaning in pain before he looked up, down the road... and standing there, he saw himself, splattered in blood and with a large, black burn scar around one eye, deep slashes and scars covering his body, and a massive sword easily shouldered as he looked towards himself. He looked taller, more muscular, and his expression was quiet and almost serene... and behind him he could see all manner of monstrosity, ranging from twisted, shadowy beasts to the far worse vision of his father in a suit.
He looked at himself, then the future him turned and walked towards the menagerie of monstrosities, and the vision simply disintegrated, leaving Zerrex staring and panting hard, his hands tightly gripping his scalp as he looked back and forth, his eyes bulging. A shiver rolled through his body, and then he wrapped his arms tight around his stomach, breathing hard as he looked down silently for a few moments and thinking
(I am a warrior, not a mercenary)
and at the same time hating himself for the cruel truth in the thought: Why have I degraded myself the way I have? Just because I'm a monster, doesn't mean...
"Sir?" asked a hesitant voice, and Zerrex looked up with a snarl, startling the soldier that had approached into staggering backwards as he saw the fury, raw hate and dark despair in those emerald eyes. A moment later, and the Drakkaren realized he was back in reality, fully immersed again in all the dank colors of the real world, and he slowly forced himself to sit up, one numb hand picking up the machinegun that he had dropped and the other going up to adjust his half-askew headset.
"Cry..." he said weakly into the microphone, and then he looked slowly around at the other soldiers: a few were giving him the looks he always got, a mix of fear, awe, and dislike, but that was all... and he wondered how long he'd been gone.
"You okay there, Boss?" asked an amused but, beneath the hundred layers of entertainment, was a quiet tone of concern. And Zerrex smiled a bit at the voice of Cherry, his second in command and his secret beloved.
"Codeword." He responded briskly, however, sticking to protocol... protocols that he saw got more people killed than saved. And he glanced up in surprise at that thought - it was never anything that would have concerned him before. Before, it was all about the rules, and now... now it was something different.
"Fuck, but you're a tightass." Cherry responded with mild amusement, and then she added: "Relief."
So it was successful. Good. I can leave... A pause, and another voice murmured inside his head: Why am I... glad... that I can leave without shedding more blood? "Good. Rendezvous at Site 61. Code: Blasphemy. Authorization level 6. I repeat-"
"Got it." Now Cherry sounded troubled, and serious instead of her usual sarcastic-asinine self. He'd given a rush order, and to use only necessary force instead of causing as much chaos and killing as possible. "I'll meet you at the withdrawal point in an hour tops."
"Good. Captain out." Zerrex murmured, then he stood up, the machinegun hanging from one hand as he glanced back and forth over the soldiers, and a chill went through him as he felt... responsible. And for a moment he remembered Little Arcy... and then something flickered in his mind, and suddenly...
What was I thinking of? What happened? The Drakkaren staggered, grabbing his head with one hand and clenching his eyes shut, and the soldiers stared at him before Zerrex looked up and around, snarling at them and causing a few of the soldiers to draw back in something like terror. Then he shook his head slowly, bringing his hand down and then looking around at them all and saying clearly: "Withdraw into the checkpoint... I've received a report that enemy troops have taken severe damages... fortify the barricades, close the gates, and post snipers and rocket troops."
"Sir?" began one of the soldiers uncertainly, but Zerrex silenced him with a look, before the Drakkaren turned and decided to simply leave and let them do the rest. He'd done his duty here... now it was best that he left and ceased killing for the sake of killing. The only thing that throbbed in his mind now was a singular idea: that he had to get out of what he was doing before it killed him... or worse, he killed
(Little Arcy, Cherry, Cindy... and my yet-to-be-born daughter...)
everyone he came across, cared about, or simply met... he had to stop his slaughter; and he had to atone for his sins.
Time: 4:05 AM.
Little Arcy looked down softly as Zerrex strode through the military checkpoint, between tents and massive, fortified buildings of brick and steel. She stood atop the ruined tower of a burnt-out church nearby, seeming to glow with her strange aura, her arms crossed as she looked down at the Drakkaren. Next to her stood a mouse who only stood a few feet taller than the child, but seemed to tower over everything, with the way he too, glowed with radiance. His fur was pure white, and his eyes were a bright blue that complimented his noble features.
Little Arcy wore her cute blue outfit, with her book bag over one shoulder and teddy bear held against her chest: the mouse, on the other hand, wore what looked like an armored vest made of heavy metal scales laced together by some sort of flak material. His black pants went down into some sort of prosthetic metal legs shaped like heavy motorcycle boots, but thinned at the ankle into large, taloned feet with large hooks extending from the heels. On his arms, he had what looked like some type of spring clips, with a large knife set in one and a handgun in the other; the devices, however, lacked belts to hold them on, instead seeming cemented somehow to the mouse's forearms.
From his back sprouted two large, feathered angel wings... and as they stood together, unseen by all, flickers of the same kind of wings came into existence on Little Arcy's back. The two angels stood together, and then the little girl murmured softly: "Is this right, Francis?"
"It's good. It's what the High Lord wishes..." Francis replied quietly, and he shrugged a bit, adding: "You're a Prophet. I'm a Vanguard. Healers and soldiers have no place making decisions concerning the fate of the world... and Zerrex is wanted by both Heaven and Hell. In him, is the potential to be more powerful than any of our knights, and perhaps even any of Hell's abominations. He is born of pure darkness, but was borne from a mortal female... all the prophecies about him-"
"But the prophecies are never correct... have never been completely accurate..." Little Arcy responded in a gentle but firm voice, and she shook her head slowly as Francis looked at her with something like surprise. "He's so young still... and all his future years will be suffering, killing, that is all I see in his future. I know that he will have three daughters, who are born of rape, incest, and death... and I know that he will fight against both good and evil, saints and sinners. But none of us knew that he would... develop a relationship with a demon, change her to be his own... that he would be able to resist his own hatred, his evil, even as a child..."
"I know. I know. But we both have seen his placard, the report on him from the Watchers." Francis said gently, and then he shook his head slowly and glanced down at him as he rubbed the outside of his arms slowly. "Do you have faith in him?"
Little Arcy watched Zerrex walk through the encampment, watched as he shoved over a soldier that stepped in his path, but she only smiled a bit when the Drakkaren hesitated, stopped, and then shook his head and quickly continued onwards. "Yes... absolutely.
"He'll turn out just fine. Disorders and stress and evil or not... he'll turn out fine."