Houses of the Holy by Zeronova
Writtenon October 14th, 2007.
Summary: I haven't written Guilty Gear in forever! This is by no means a come-back. Just me bored and got a story idea. I know it doesn't have a lot to do with primary characters, but instead it has to do with the world of Guilty Gear. If you were a fan of my old work (which is now ancient!), then you'll get the feeling of the piece. There are even some wink-wink hints as a prelude to Desolate Gail, if you were born when I wrote that (I feel old!) Otherwise, this might be an unfamiliar view of the Guilty Gear world to most. It's unforgiving, mean, and bloody, so bring the children, right? It takes place pre-Guilty Gear 1, during the Crusades (and pre-DG, which is my old GG story). It's going to be a three-part series. Otherwise, enjoy! If you read it, please leave a review! Also, since GG is so into the rock-and-roll references, I put a good few into my story as well. Can you identify most of 'em? Oh, and peach pie is yummy.
June 1st, 2174
I knew they were going to be here soon. They were always fast. Few ever survived. They could smell things. They could pick out the live from the dead with only the way they stank. Sometimes, you got away by covering yourself in all of the guts of your friends, not moving, not breathing, but somehow, they still knew. Maybe they could still hear your heartbeat. God knows you could hear your own heartbeat, so thick and heavy in your ears. Your breaths sounded like hurricanes when hiding, even if they were just barely air at all. When you hid from the Gears, they found you. That's all I know. These are words I've heard the old men say, sitting around the campfire while they thought I was asleep with the rest of the kids.
As soon as the Gears ever siege a city, they find their way through the defenses. After that, it's running. It's screaming, it's death, it's blood. Bodies pile up in the streets along the debris and you start to dissociate faces with bodies. They become obstacles now, not your pal or your aunt. They're things…dead things. The only thing you can think of is to hold on to that hand you're grasping and just run.
That's how I got here. That's why I'm in some basement, some underground garage of some building. I don't know when it was built. I don't know who owned it. I can tell you that within a few hours, the Gears will own it. Until then, it's mine. It's hers. It's ours.
I dragged her here, holding her hand so tight in mine, running from the Gears. I ran as fast as I could, as hard as my scrawny legs could hit the pavement. I feel it in my ankle now. I think I sprained it when trying to gain footing over some dead fat man I had to kick out of the way. It doesn't matter. Now, it's just us. I look at her. She's shaking. The Parisian summer isn't cold. It's temperate and nice, a consistent sixty-degrees say the old thermometers still screwed into the walls of these dilapidated homes. You can sleep under the stars and not shiver.
But, lately, there's always something to shiver about. She's shivering.
"Layla, come here," I whisper to her. I try not to say it too loud; I don't want anything to hear us. She doesn't move. She's huddled in a small ball, her knees in her throat, slowly rocking back and forth. She lost a shoe in the run, and there's dirt and blood caking the tips of her beautiful little toes. They're delicate and frail. It's disgusting to see blood on those innocent nubs. It's hard to know there's blood on her face and tattered clothes. It's heart-breaking to see fear in those emerald opulent eyes. They only deserve to twinkle in happiness. Now, they see nothing. They're looking through me, through the walls, through life. I think she is seeing God. Or Satan. Or both. Whatever she sees that scares her, it scares me.
I move, slowly, over to her. This small basement we're in is a place I used to come to hide out from my parents. They were always busy with the Seikishidan or yelling at me. Always telling me how to escape, or flee, or fight. Yet, tonight, they weren't there to escape, or flee, or fight with me. Maybe they knew they wouldn't be when the time came. They would yell at me, telling me I didn't understand the Gears, their threat, and how important it was to know how to escape. I would always come here to this small basement, and just hide. I spent many nights here alone. It was my special place. I didn't know that I would ever use it. I don't know if it will work in the long run.
When the Gears attacked, it was the only place I knew to go. I live in a small settlement on the outskirts of what was Paris, some hundred years ago. There's the Seikishidan Headquarters hidden somewhere nearby. They say it's built into the side of a hill, a complete underground facility that is self-sufficient and operated entirely on its own. Few have ever seen it. But, they use it to hide from the Gears. If the Gears knew where it was, they'd storm it. So if the headquarters is hidden, the Seikishidan can mobilize, go out and help little cities like us quickly, and then be back before tea.
Only one who even drinks tea is the new commander of the Seikishidan. He's not much older than I am. Ky Kiske is his name. I don't think he can fill Kliff Undersn's shoes. No one could. He was the man I thought would make my parents stop telling me about Gears and how to evacuate. When he left and that kid became the commander, I think a little part of me grew more mature. I knew that I'd hear my parents yelling at me every day about how important it was I knew how to escape for years more when Kiske was promoted. I heard it on the nightly radio broadcast.
This small basement was one of many in these ruins of Paris. Living in the outskirts of old cities is how we all lived. We can't make cities; the attacks are too often. We are like nomads. We live in a place for a few years before we move Either we're attacked, or the U.N. deems it an "unsafe area due to recent Gear activity." The M.T.s come, those big two-hundred foot carrier buses, and they take us somewhere new. They always take us to ruins. These old, dilapidated cities where people once lived and we start living in them again.
There's always some sort of debris to sift through. Scavenging my new home was always the most fun. Any time we got to a new city, I would run off, leaving my parents to do their "civic duty." I would run around the broken buildings, looking for anything neat or cool to keep. Every so often, there'd be some bones, human and Gear. I'd find Seikishidan swords sometimes, but I was never allowed to keep them, said mom. So, I'd hide them. I had three in the basement with me. One was broken half-way through, another was rusted, and the third was in decent condition, after I sharpened it and cleaned it off. It was slow and took a while, but I like it. Every so often, I pretend I'm like Kliff, fighting against Justice and fighting for God.
When we first came to this place, these outskirts of Paris, I ran off quickly. My parents knew I would so they didn't stop me. I'd be back before dark. Mom would always yell and say to listen for Gears. They could attack at any time, it was true, but the sites were always scouted out beforehand by U.N. inspection and Seikishidan forces. They never put us in a place where we could be put at danger. They usually put people in the protection of cities, like in Bordeaux and Lyon. But, in the Parisian area, we have the headquarters somewhere close, so we actually don't have any posted Seikishidan units. They think that they're close enough so they don't need an actual base of officers to watch over us. Tonight proved them wrong.
When I got to this new home, my fourth, I ran off as fast as I could. My parents had to deal with assignments from the Seikishidan relocation teams. They were to set up their small councils, their agriculture, and everything else to be a self-sustaining colony. There was an order to it all. All of the new people for the colony were given jobs and would all work together. It reminded me of ants. I didn't want to be an ant, being thrown around to rebuild your entire life every so often. I was a buzzard. I looked at the remains of the people who once lived in these cities. Sometimes, I wanted to be a Seikishidan, fighting the holy fight. Now, sitting here in the basement, cold and quiet, I don't want that either. I want my parents. I don't want them fighting the Gears. I want them here. My yelling mother and weak father.
I ran through the streets with a smile that first day. I liked exploring. I liked thinking what it was like before the war, those hundred years ago, what this place looked like. That sounds like so long ago to say "a hundred years." I think of things, like the stars, and I realize a hundred years isn't long. But, looking at this all, it could have been five hundred. Decay was decay. All of the slabs of concrete and piles of rubble only made me think of how tall the buildings actually were once. I watch my step to not cut my foot on the glass. Sometimes, I find a window still intact. I make sure no one is around, then throw a rock through it. I don't know why. Maybe I think that the grimy, dirty, and withered window needs to join all of its brothers in death. The dead city can't have a pulse of life in a window left. It must be killed too.
That's how the Gears think. That's what Justice thinks, making them come and making them kill. Justice chases us all around, always. We'll never be safe. Not until Justice dies. Until the Seikishidan kills Justice, frees us from this evil and this sin, purifies us. They say we deserve it for our sins, but I never sinned. The sins of my ancient relatives who made the Gears, who made Justice, they say. I'm paying for their sins. That's not fair. And, if Justice wanted my ancient relatives dead, then Justice has done that. Why am I hunted?
The furniture inside the buildings was always splayed on the street, either from evacuation, scavengers, or weather. The furniture had been eroded and the buildings looted. Others had been through these ruins. Many times.
There was a whole band of people who lived without the Seikishidan and the U.N., who fended for themselves. Most of them came from Neo-Troy, and they did pretty well. They've lasted as long as we have. Except instead of colonizing, they had these parties who would run out, get stuff, and hurry back before Gears came. At least they know what home is, a place to go back to that's familiar and they know will be there the next day. Mom says they're foolish because they can't last forever without God. The God that the Seikishidan gives her. Gives us. I don't remember that gift.
Everything always looks like skeletons. Wire-frame buildings stand tall into the sky, bony where all of their cement and sides have been blown apart and strewn across the street. You can see where people used to live. Sometimes, you can see how they lived. You sometimes found little homes that looked perfectly like they did the day people left, though. Neat and proper, just covered in dust. Some old picture frame hidden under dirt and dust in a corner, or a trash-can kicked over. Most of it has been overgrown, though. Ivy runs up those big red iron poles, rusted with the weather. Sprouts of grass and weeds have made homes in every single brick and lamp post. There's a feeling of reclamation, like we are being taken off the Earth so Eden can again take its form. Maybe that's our sin, going back to Adam. Gears are God's way of punishing us. So, why are we fighting God? My mom tells me to shut up and pray when I asked her that.
I like seeing trees that grow inside of buildings. The center of some old place has a tree inside with branches that stick out of the windows and crumbled walls, the roots having cracked open the cement blocks on the floor, and the old leaves all piled into corners. I always wonder what the man who lived in that building would have thought if he would have known a tree, a big tree, would be there a hundred years later.
The weather, also, had taken its effect. The rain and the wind and the cold have warped the cities. The open buildings' walls show signs of water damage with peeling wallpaper and faded paint. Pieces of the rubble are strewn about from where a heavy wind had pinned it against some wall or obstacle. Amongst all of the wreckage, the little gems sometimes found their ways out. An old skull, or a talon of a Gear that has been half-decomposed, or other interesting finds. Sometimes, you found old books that somehow survived the weather and the destruction. I once found an entire photo album of some family. I kept looking at it, wondering what they all thought when they died, or how they all died when the Gears attacked.
A lot of these things, I brought to this basement. I found this basement the first day I got here to this little part of the destroyed Paris. The building above was once big, but it had been cut down to only a storey-and-a-half. All of its broken ribs were gutted around it. If I didn't know about how buildings were built from my dad, I wouldn't even know those pieces once were reaching towards the stars, higher than I'd ever been off the ground. The basement itself was something like a little room that had been cut off by debris and sunken below street level. The back wall was a mess of concrete and metal poles that had collapsed inward when the building fell. The entrance was equally cut off and blinded, except for a small hole.
To get in, you had to climb through a window of what used to be some service booth. The chair was still there, except rats had eaten out the cushion and the metal spine had rusted away. The faded yellow lines on the concrete inside of my basement had the faint smell of fire on them. My dad once told me these places were called parking garages, when people could drive cars. Cars. They were like personal M.T.s, your own little transport, meant for one or two people. Now, we have the M.T.s, the giant buses that hold two-hundred people. And, there are only a few of those left, I hear. Less than a dozen. That means I've probably shared a seat with over a ten-thousand people over the Crusades. I wonder if they minded.
I sometimes saw cars in the streets. Usually embedded in some wall or left to rot in the sun. Their paint faded, their internal black technology was ripped apart, the pieces of it scrapped and left only a skeleton frame. I liked looking at the old technology. The colored wires and pipes everywhere reminded me of the corpses. Arteries, ground wires, blood, gasoline, eyes, street lamps, computers, brains. It's no wonder we made the Gears. We kept trying to make life with all of these materials which would never feel and think, so we finally realized "my sword cannot live, but my flesh can." We made the Gears. Mom always said stuff like that, damning my ancestors. Every time she did, I felt guilty like I had done something to make the Gears personally.
One day, when I was walking around the city, I just kept looking for new stuff. I couldn't find anything. Most of the things other people had claimed. But, in the dusk of that day, I saw something else. A girl, a little younger than me. The light was falling through the distorted frames of the destroyed buildings, giving disjointed shapes of light and dark over the rubble. I walked up to her and said hi. She said hi back. She was probably twelve, making me two years older.
She asked what I was doing, and I told her "I'm looking for Gears, so I can kill them." She smiled, told me her daddy did that. Her daddy was in the Seikishidan. He did that every day, and God loved him for it. "I'll be in the Seikishidan one day," I told her. I knew I wouldn't. They didn't want me. I had already tried when the troops had come through before. They said I was too scrawny and weak, and that I couldn't be trained. Any man who lived as a civilian was rejected from the Seikishidan, and instead was given tasks of agriculture and making goods for distribution and the war effort, as well as to make children.
"His name is Leslie Gibson. They call him Slowhand, though," she told me. "He's big, broad as a house, but he's warm. I haven't seen him in two years, but I know he'll be back for me again sometime. He always does come back." She went on to tell me about her father. The way he fought under Kliff Undersn, and the way that he drove Justice out of Brussels, and how he was there when the Tannhauser Gate fell. Her father was decorated, a good soldier. I could only think how I wished my father was that way. My father told other men how to dig ditches to plant corn. He wielded a pointed finger, not a God-blessed sword. He spilled dirt, not blood.
She told me her name was Layla. We spent that day together, looking for little items. I never kissed a girl, I never did anything. Mom always said we had to keep our race going, always had to keep procreating, but no one ever seemed like they wanted people to see each other. I never got it, I don't think I ever could or I ever would. It was like "we have to keep humanity going!" but at night, everyone just wanted to know they were all huddled together at night and no Gear had snatched any of their family. All I knew is that when it was time, I'd have to be a dad, too. When and how, though, never made sense.
It made sense to Layla, though. She told me that her mom had always wanted her to find a boy that she could marry, and then have babies to continue the race. Her mom was very strongly adamant about children, about making sure "we continued to live as God wanted, against the devil's demons."
I decided to show Layla my basement. She liked it. She liked the things I had hidden there. The first thing she keyed in on was that old photograph book. We looked at each of the pictures, and started giving the people in it names, lives, families. Some of the pictures weren't related, but we made up stories, saying this kid here grew up and that was his son, and he fell in love with the girl over on this page. We smiled and kept going, thinking of a time before Gears, before war, before people had to make sure they were going to live tomorrow.
We each went different ways that night. But, we met again and again. We kept on meeting in that basement for a while. She'd bring new things, I'd bring new things, and we would just sit there, wasting time away. Months passed, and we lived pretty happily in our settlement on the outskirts of Paris. No one bothered us. The Seikishidan never sent their protection patrols, never set up their base there, they just checked up every now and then, bringing the supplies rationed by the U.N. If we died one day, they wouldn't ever really know. But, the Gears didn't know we were here either, so it was okay. Instead, we just lived, and it was good for a while.
I remember one day, something important happened. It was a good day. The type of summer day in France where the wind carries a cold edge that cuts into your skin, gives you a good shiver, but doesn't quite make you cold. It's the type of air you hide from on the sides of buildings, letting it whistle by you. It also cuts out most sound.
It was one of the days Layla and I were playing. We introduced our parents, and they all decided to talk while we ran about. Well, my mom and dad to her mother. Her father was in the Seikishidan, Leslie "Slowhands" Gibson. Our parents obviously saw both of us as possible procreators and they seemed to like each other, but they never liked how she and I would just disappear for long stretches of time. We got braver and braver as the weeks passed. We would go out further into the city, looking at wreckage and finding new things. The further we went, the more we usually found. Sometimes, it was worth it. It was like the more we risked, the better prizes we got. She found some nice cloths tucked into a drawer that had been untouched in years. Her mother thought they were lovely, and it was a surprise they fit Layla's small frame.
This special day, though, we had gone out far. The street was wide, five lengths on each side, ten total, with a median. The trees in the center had overgrown their cement confines with roots breaking the street pavement. They called it the Champs-Elysees. The buildings on both sides were broken, looking like teeth into the sky. All along the road, we kept finding more bones. Piles of bones and people. We collected little pieces of the skeletons, looking to each other, and pointing where it was on each other with a smile.
"This is your rib," I told Layla, putting it on her side.
"This is your arm," she said, holding a piece to me. We kept going, kept playing along. Sometimes, we wondered how a person's body got lying like it did, the way he was killed. Where we lived, they had cleared most of the bodies so we didn't have to see them. It meant no person had walked this street in a long time because the skeletons weren't moved. We made stories for each of them.
"These three were a family, the father died protecting his wife and daughter. This corpse was running away from a Gear. This one here died defending his lover, which was that sack of bones on the other side of the street. This car belonged to that person. This is where that skull worked." We made lives. We envisioned how they lived, how they were, a hundred years ago.
We played with the bones, with the people. I took a skull, pretended I was some important man, and talked to her, holding a skull, as if she was my partner. "We've got to make sure we get all of these supplies out to Bordeaux!" I would say in a deep voice, and she'd agree, grabbing a piece of concrete, as if it were gold. Then, she dropped the skull, looked at the concrete, then at me. "Do you think that they ever knew we would be playing with their bones?"
"I think I'd rather die where people can enjoy my company than in a box in the ground," I told her. "Promise me if I die, you'll play with my bones." She smiled and nodded. Neither of us really connected our flesh with our bones. I guess we saw it as when we die, we become skeletons. We forgot about the rotting, the decay, the pain.
"The skulls, they have no lips," she said, picking it up again. "Where do they go?" I told her they rot away. We knew this, obviously, but I didn't get what it really meant. "I want those to live on, not my bones," she told me. I had to ask why. "I want to be able to sing, to kiss, to laugh forever. If my bones live forever, I can only lie down forever. I don't need to sleep forever. I want to sing forever."
"That's stupid," I told her. She threw the skull at me, I ducked, and we both laughed. We kept walking around the Champs-Elysees, looking at all the things. Finally, we came to a big structure. It was a big arch, supported by two columns. Arc de Triomphe, it said. "Why is it a win to make a building?" I asked.
"Because if you win, no Gear can cut it down."
"But, it's still here. They didn't destroy it," I responded.
"Because they haven't won. We're still alive." She was right. "Hey," she smiled, running underneath it, motioning me over. "Come here," she whispered. We were standing underneath it. "This thing means that humans won something, right? A long time ago, they won. We're not dead either, so the Gears haven't won. Isn't that worth celebration?"
"How do you celebrate that?" I asked Layla.
"People cheer, they hug," she said, then looked down. She kicked her feet on the dusty cement. "They kiss." I was shocked for a second. She looked up at me. She had freckles all over her face. Her hair was a golden-auburn, like a strawberry blonde mix. It had a slight curl to it that sat on those rosy cheeks. Her skin was pale by nature, but tan because we always ran around, making this daffodil-yellow pigment. In the sunset, she looked like honey.
"I've never kissed a girl!" I stammered. She asked me why not. "There's no reason," I said, turning around. She gave out an angry sigh.
"My mom says I need to be able to continue the human race, and find a boy so we can make babies. Are you telling me you can't even kiss me?"
"You're a girl, I'm a man!" I was fourteen, she was twelve. Ky Kiske was sixteen, but he was so much older than I am. He led the Seikishidan. I was running around a city playing with bones. I would find out that sometimes, acting your age means never being able to say you have an age. "You need to find some boy your own age."
"You're only two years older. You're just scared," she said with a glint in her eye. "Scared of girls, scared of Gears, scared of walking too far into the unprotected land. No wonder you're not training in the Seikishidan like my dad!" I turned, looked at her. She had gotten me angry.
"Oh yeah?!" I asked competitively. I grabbed her hand, and started running. I ran away from the Arc de Triomphe, and kept going. I let go of her hand, but she kept up. We just ran and ran. We didn't stop. Leaping over boulders and bones, over broken cars, warped street lights, collapsed bridges, trees that hung their branches low in front of us, and through buildings. Every time I looked to my side, I would see her looking back. It was like we were fighting to see who would give up first.
"Turn back, you're scared! I bet there are Gears ahead!"
"If there are, Slowhands will save me! Not you! I can kill a Gear myself!" Layla yelled back. So, we kept running. We ran for probably an hour. It turned to dusk, and there was hardly a light around. I stopped running, leaning over my knees. I was tired.
"Layla, stop!" I yelled. She turned, breathing hard. She asked me if I was scared. I wouldn't admit it. "We're lost, we have to turn back!"
"We can just sleep here and find our way back tomorrow. I want to see what we can find, if you're not too scared." I couldn't let her be right. So, we started looking around for stuff. We finally made our way into this one building. It was tall, and I could see the half of the Eiffel Tower still standing. Its metal frame had been obliterated half-way up, and curled out in every direction, but all of its edges were embossed in the fading light.
The building we found had all sorts of things in it. It was a store. I could tell from the way things were on shelves and racks. It seemed to have everything. We had found a real treasure trove of things to play with. I would yell at her and put on some old hat. She would find a pole, and swing it around. I got some cans of things, I couldn't read what they were because the label had peeled off, and started throwing them at the walls. They exploded into colors, painted colors, whirring and spraying. We liked that. We threw them all over the walls, watching them explode into a foul smell and different pretty colors. Then, it got too dark. Our laughter echoed on the empty walls and made the place not too unfamiliar. But, it got quiet soon, and we ran out of things to do.
"What do we do?" she finally asked.
"Well, because of you, we can't get back," I said, blaming it on her. She looked down, noticing that I was right.
"Well, I don't like it here now. It's quiet."
"I'm going back," I said, being strong and male. She grabbed my arm, and shook her head. "You don't know where you are, you'll get killed by a Gear."
"What do you care? I can kill it like your father." I grabbed some object, a fishing pole I think, and swung it into the wall, then the other. "See? Just like Kliff Undersn! I'll kill Justice!" I kept twirling, hitting anything I could, hearing the crack and slam of the objects against the walls and floor. Every time I swung, she shuddered. The noises compounded, becoming louder, and with every swing, I think I was getting more violent, more brutal. I liked that sound. Destruction and pain. Every time I hit something new, it cried. It felt good.
I think, in that moment, I found out what violence was. Every thing I hit asked me why I hurt it, but I hit it again. Running from aisle to aisle, smashing anything I could. I liked the glass things. They made a twinkling sound like rain when they shattered across the floor. She stayed behind me, peeking her head out behind walls, every moment growing more and more frightened.
"Like this, huh?!" I yelled. I swung the pole into a wall. "Killing one Gear!" I kicked a rack over, clothes all toppling. "Another!" I ran to another side, and used my arm to brush a bunch of boxed goods over onto the floor, stepping on all of them, kicking and jumping. "Every single Gear! I can kill like your father! I can kill like anybody! I can fight for God!" I dropped the pole, and started punching anything I could. Just swiping, slapping, pounding. Eventually, I punched something glass. It broke, but then the pieces splattered into my hand. I screamed in pain.
She ran up to me, looking at it, then looking up at me. Her eyes were filled with tears. Mine were too. I blinked mine away, wiping them with the back of my hand that wasn't bleeding. "Get off of me," I told her. She hugged me tighter. For some reason, I couldn't get her off of me. I tried, but not that hard. Then, I just stopped trying, and sat there, sliding down the wall with her hugging me. Now, she was crying.
She was crying hard. I could feel her tears soaking into my shirt.
"I don't want you to fight Gears," she sobbed. I didn't know why she said that. I asked her why, trying to stop my sniffling. "You're not like dad. He can kill them. You…you'll die. I don't want you to die. I think daddy might be dead, but I hope he isn't. I don't want them killing anyone. No one. No death. No skulls." I didn't know what to say. I realized, too, I didn't want to die. I kind of actually got what it was like then to actually fight a Gear and die. Be a skeleton. I mean, I thought I did, but I didn't want to die then, or to fight. Someone didn't want me to go out and risk my life. That meant my life meant something to her. So, I didn't want to fight now.
"I'm scared of Gears," I whispered to her. She looked up, her eyes indistinguishable in the darkness, but hot and wet.
"I am too," she whispered back.
"I won't fight them, unless I have to," I told Layla. "I won't die if you don't want me to. I'll do what you want, Layla." She smiled, I think. It was very dark in there. "If you want me to kiss you, I will." She looked up, leaned forward, and I kissed Layla. I never knew anything so soft. I know why she wanted her lips to live on now.
We moved from the wall over to the clothes I knocked over. She pulled the glass from my knuckles, and I tried not to cry. We wrapped it up, then laid down on the clothes. She lied close to me. She was warm on the cool Parisian night.
"How does your mom want you to continue the human race?" I asked.
"Having babies. I want to have a son who will be like daddy, like Kliff, who will fight for God, and kill Justice. I want to say my son ended the Crusades and freed people."
"I think I do too," I said, thinking about it. I knew I never would fight and free humanity. I wouldn't. Everyone knew Ky Kiske couldn't either. He was a kid, like me, how could he do anything? How was a kid only two years older than me a fighter? I cried at glass in my knuckles. He kills Gears every day. I felt like I was nothing in God's eyes if Ky Kiske was so much and I wasn't. I wanted my son to be someone who killed Gears.
"Will you--" she stammered, "I want to make that son." I didn't get her meaning. I didn't know what she meant. I never really understood how to make a child.
I found out.
On that pile of cloths, out in the quiet nowhere of Paris, I made love to Layla. The ceiling was broken, and you could see the sky through it. I looked up at the twinkling stars. I think I saw God looking down on me. He was smiling. This is how it was supposed to be, I thought. This is what being human is about.
We found our way back that morning. We didn't say a word, we didn't know what to do. We just walked, hand in hand, all the way back, looking at the ground. We made it home by afternoon, after waking at dawn. When we had made it back to the encampment, a man yelled that they had found us, and everyone came out of every house. Our parents snatched us away from each other, yelling at both of us then each other. Layla's mom was louder than mine, which I didn't think was possible. We had to explain to our parents what happened, my hand, but neither of us told what actually happened. All we said was we went exploring, got lost, and fell asleep out there. They yelled at us for their worry, for the Gears, and how young and stupid we were. We never spoke of our love. We could be dead, they yelled over and over. At the risk of death, I felt that I lived for the first time. I had tried to make life.
Layla and I didn't talk for a long time after that. We never saw each other. My mom made me always stay at her side. Whenever I caught a glimpse of Layla in the corner of my eye, she was looking at me. But, we never smiled, never talked. It hurt, a lot.
I wanted to yell to her, but I never knew what to say. Just a sound, just her attention, make sure she remembered me. I think two weeks passed before the Gears attacked, and I hadn't talked to Layla since that night. I remember, during those two weeks, I would lie in bed at night, and look out into the courtyard. Most homes were situated around a central courtyard. I wondered if she was out there. I once tried sneaking out, but my mother caught me, yelling and sending me back to bed. I wanted to hear her creep up and whisper my name. I wanted to go see her, to talk to her, to make love again. I missed Layla. I hated my mother for keeping me from her. I hated my father for not fighting like Layla's father.
When the Gears attacked, I was sleeping. I was in my house. When we all came to the settlement, we all grabbed a building, like lying claim. Every person or family could take what they wanted of the wreckage, and it was known that if you dragged it to your so-called home, it was now yours. My parents chose the first floor of what used to be something called an office building. I liked playing behind the marble counter, using old, dirty toys I collected. They said the rooms with buttons used to move up and down, when the building was built. Elevators. I only wondered what the other floors looked like. It must have been like a hundred homes, all linked by one room.
The Gears came in like they always do earlier tonight. There were three types you saw, unless it was a massive battle. There were the more animalistic type, the more humanoid, and then the abominations. The animalistic took more traits from their animal half, instead of their human half, and moved like dogs. Their long talons would rip into walls and street, launching them thirty feet in the air to come down, pouncing on any unsuspecting victim. Their bodies were their weapons. They would bite, claw, rip apart, throw, and ravage. They were quick and lethal. But, they were never silent. They screamed in a way that made you want to claw your own ears off. This dual-pitched whine, like your own mother screaming, and then some howl, overlapping.
The humanoid stood seven feet tall. They were lumbering brutes. They stomped over bodies, squishing them. They used weapons. Whatever they could find, actually. Some would hurl bits of broken debris, others had crusted and rusted pieces of metal. I've seen a few holding onto worn Seikishidan swords. They move slow, but when they attack, you feel it to your bones. The ground shakes. When they roar, always after a kill and never when they die, it's deep and guttural, the way you think God would talk. They die silent, like warriors. That's how a Seikishidan should die, I think. Not screaming in pain, but with a prayer. The dual-voice of a Gear is only barely audible in the humanoid type, with the small whine after their roar coming out showing their animal side.
The third were always unexpected. Some had wings, although it was known no Gear could actually fly. I guess Justice just never got it down how to make them fly, since all animals that that devil would use to make a Gear were small. No animal D.N.A. to mix with human D.N.A. could have the strength or ability to make such a large creature fly. Dad said it had to do with bone density and the imprecise science of Gears. If you think about it, there are no creatures that fly that are as big and heavy as a human, so you couldn't really make one fly by mixing them. But, the few with wings, they sometimes glided, or stuck to walls like flies. I had known them to be scouts, to sneak in, and with their whirling red eyes tell the rest of the Gears what was ahead.
I learned a lot of this from my dad. I had actually never seen a Gear, really. I was too young to remember, and I was being held in my mom's arms as she ran. I just remember hearing them.
I was lying in my bed, holding my toys when they attacked tonight. I don't know what I was playing about, but just making them move in the dim light from the central campfire outside. I think I was acting like one of them was me, one was Layla. I wanted to kiss her again. Her lips were soft. Forever soft.
Every night, we had a fire where we would eat and talk. Then, the embers would die and we would all sleep while the posted Seikishidan guards would do their duty. That's how it was in the old cities when we had Seikishidan soldiers guarding us. We didn't have any posted from the Holy Order here, so my father and some other men did that duty. I think the Holy Order forgot about us.
I thought I heard something kicking rubble that night. I assumed it was just them walking around the encampment. I had given up hope of it being Layla. I later learned it was the scurrying feet of the unexplainable third type of Gear. They had scouted out, came in and killed all of the watchmen. That meant my father. In the embers, when I looked out, I saw one. It was walking on all fours, webbed leather skin between its wrist and ankle looking moist and slimy. Its eyes shot back and forth as it slowly moved, taking in all the details it could. The eyes, they were red like blood, but they would rotate. Not look side-to-side, but roll in the head the way a wheel does. I thought I was just dreaming, I didn't say anything.
Then, the screaming came. The scream of the Gears. The dual voice of the animalistic type. The ones who leapt in from the rooftops, ran along the walls and would swipe and bite anything that moved. Everyone woke up immediately when they heard the scream. My mother grabbed me out of my bed. Now, I knew I saw a Gear, but I didn't know what to say. We had been attacked at one of my old homes, but all I remembered about that one was being held in my mother's chest. All I could smell was her shirt, and all I could see was her skin. This time, I was on my own feet and could see it all.
She ripped me out of bed, held my hand, and we ran. Faces came out of every other building, people scared and worried. Men jumped forth with their weapons, most of them discarded Seikishidan swords and other materials. They looked in every direction into the darkness. The embers were orange and crackling. No fire gave no light, meaning everyone was running in shadow. That meant no one noticed when a man was snatched into the darkness. My mom just started running. We kept going over rubble, through people. I didn't know where she was taking me, but I kept moving. I kept falling. My knees started bleeding, but all she could do was pull me along, dragging me along until I found my feet again.
I looked behind me. I could keep hearing those screams of the animal Gears. Then, I saw one. It jumped into the small light of the embers. It kicked them out, its foot sending the glowing pieces into the air with a shriek. At that moment, I looked it over. I've never seen them so close-up. Its face had a snout like a dog or a cat or something, but the eyes, they were human. They were that bloody red, though. No pupil, no iris, just red with bulging veins. The skin looked pale and purple, and in parts, it was falling off the body, showing the gray bone underneath. The body looked like it wanted to grow, but didn't have the ability. Red tissues and sinews pulsed and stretched with each heaving, lop-sided breath. Bones peaked through skin into sharp points. The talons were just long fingers that had been scraped against rocks long enough to be sharp and corrugated, with rotting tatters of skin and sinew embroidering them. The knees bent outward, not like a human's. The entire body looked like a corpse, with small tears showing the innards that pumped and moved. They weren't creatures, they truly were abominations of God. Just like mom and the Seikishidan and the U.N. said.
Men were yelling for the names of their families. People ran in every direction around me. I saw some men engage in battle with the Gears. One would jump off the side of a building, and a man would cut it down, the body falling flat with a wet splat. As he turned, another would jump on top of him, putting its sharp fingers through his chest, then roaring in delight as the man breathed his last.
The humanoid types were coming now. The scouts had passed through, the animalistic type were always faster than the humanoid types, but when the big ones got there, then it meant that they were ready to start killing. The thunder of their step and the deep grunt of every move meant that they were tearing everything apart. Swinging giant fists that looked more like boulders with vines of skin and pulsing veins into walls and people. They stepped over the dying, making sure they were dead. They even would slap their Gear brethren out of the way as they slowly surged forward. It was like a wall you had to run from.
It was always this order. Scouts. Animalistic. Humanoid. In the really big fights, I had heard Justice has specially made Commander Type Gears, like Testament. Or, these gigantic behemoths that are twenty-five feet tall and take twelve men to kill. I heard only Justice uses those when it's a Seikishidan base attack. The idea of a mass of flesh that big, after seeing that Gear in the embers, amazes me. That small animalistic one looked like it barely was being held together by its own bones, how could one twenty-five-feet tall even move? It looked like it would fall apart into carrion.
Then, this is when mom fell. One of the animals had fallen out of the sky on top of her. Its teeth sank into her shoulder, its sharp elbow dropping into her side. She screamed, and her grip threw me forward. The knife in her other hand stabbed into its face, and it fell over dead, twitching. The eyes turned in the head, heaving out with its last breaths. It continued to try moving, like it was being ordered to move. Not until its biological functions literally ceased could a Gear die. They didn't feel pain, they didn't think. Mom sat down, looking at her neck, then her hand felt her ribs. There were three puncture wounds on her side. She was bleeding a lot.
She grabbed me, and kissed me. "Always know I love you, Dylan," she told me. I was crying. I don't know why. I didn't like seeing her bleed, but I couldn't say anything. "I'll watch you, forever," she told me again, hugging me. Her blood was on my hands and my chest. Her hand grabbed my face to wipe my tear, replacing it with blood. "Go," she whispered leaning back. I didn't. She then slapped me, and yelled at me to go. I did.
I just kept running down that street that we were on. I didn't want to look back. I knew in a minute, some giant Gear would stomp her bones into a red goop. I didn't want to see that. I wanted to see my dad ahead, swinging a sword into some Gear, then look at me, and tell me to follow him, like a warrior. I'd never see that either. I guess I didn't actually register that my mother was going to be dead in a few moments, and my father probably already was. All I could think of was one thing: Layla.
Men were running in all directions, carrying a few items and their families in tow. Gears were falling from the sides of buildings. I knew behind me, the big Gears were all stomping forward. They would march on top of bodies, smashing the sides of buildings just by walking past them. Each grunt of the behemoth step echoed like dull thunder.
I leaned down and grabbed a rock, and started running in every direction.
"Layla!" I yelled. All I got back were screams. Male, female, young, old, Gears. I got the dual-whine of the animals that made your belly churn. I got the roars of the humanoids. I got the gurgle and squawks of the unexplainable avian abominations. I heard many names being yelled. Everyone was looking for someone. I ran by a man who was killing a Gear, stabbing it into the ground, then going to attack another. I just ran by. When he was behind me, I heard him cry out as he died, and a Gear scream in ecstasy at ripping him apart.
"Layla!" I shouted again. It was like the Gears ran by me. Maybe they didn't care that I was only a kid holding a rock. The animalistic ones galloped by me, hissing. Their cheeks were rotted, and I could see their long tongues poking through the holes. Sometimes, they jumped off buildings, landing just near me, then springing off to another person or wall, continuing ahead. I just moved in and out of the rubble and death.
People were dead all around. Their faces were horrified, eyes open and mouths agape. It was like they wanted to scream, but their breath left with their soul. They were lying in pools of their own blood. Teeth and hole marks littered the bodies. Some had been eviscerated. Belies cut open and guts ripped out, some limbs cut off, others just bluntly smashed into some pulp. I wanted to throw up. But, I just kept moving, hoping Layla wasn't like them. I kept screaming her name.
I finally found her. She was in her home, in a far corner. I had to avoid the humanoid Gears to get back that way, ditching into a small house while they passed and going between waves, sticking to walls and moving slowly. I saw men, still alive, arms raised up screaming "no!" then getting crushed by a gigantic foot. One man was trying to crawl away, and made it into some house, and then I saw he had nothing below his knees. I kept moving, silently.
When I got to her home, she was huddled in the corner, her knees in her throat. I knelt down, hugged her, kissed her on the forehead. She didn't move, didn't blink.
"Daddy should be here any minute now," she whispered. "Just wait. Slowhand will save us."
"We have to go, Layla," I whispered. She didn't move. "I'm begging you, get up, darling please. They'll kill you, kill us. We have to move, get out of here. I don't want you to play with my skeleton anymore. I don't want you to ever see my skeleton, I want to be alive. Remember the son? Yeah, we make a son, he'll stop the war. Get up, please!" I stammered, said whatever I could, just rambled, trying to get her to move. I hugged her, kissed her, tried rocking her, pushing her, nothing would due. I was too weak and she was determined.
"Let's go to the basement, hide there. I have stuff there, we have our stuff there. We'll hide there until Slowhand gets here. Then, he'll take us with him to the Seikishidan, right?" She looked up at me. I smiled, I did all I could. I had blood on my face and on my shirt. She wiped it off, then stood up. She wasn't crying, not the slightest. She went into another room, then brought out a sword, and gave it to me. "I found it," she said, "while we were looking around. Use it," she whispered. Then, she held out her hand, and I took it in my left, and held that long, heavy sword in my right, and we ran.
We ran all the way back to my basement. The Gears were everywhere. They slithered across the walls of the destroyed buildings. They doubled over bodies, looking over them questioningly, their heads tilting. They would prod and poke them with their talons, making sure they were dead. I heard the squish of the bodies being stabbed again. They were being grabbed, piece by piece, and throw into big piles. The stink of it was awful. I still heard some sobbing coming from some allies, but I couldn't afford to look. I had Layla, we were going to safety, that was it. No one else mattered.
A woman was dying, and she clutched at my foot as I walked by. Her eyes asked me something, but when she opened to talk, only blood spilled out and a gurgle. I shook myself free and kept moving. She whimpered as I skittered away. It was all Layla.
It was about ten seconds later, I realized that was my mother. I stopped, looked back, and wanted to go back for her. At that moment, a Gear fell out of the darkness. It stood next to her, looking at her. She turned to her side, horribly afraid, watching it watch her. It circled her, raising its fingers, poising to strike, examining. It was relishing the moment, thinking and watching, taking in all the small details. It slowly bent over and stuck its tendrils into my mother's chest, just barely, and she tried screaming. Then, it slowly moved them in further and further, just a small bit each second. She convulsed and died on its talons. If I had stayed for ten more seconds, I could have killed that Gear that killed her. But, she was already dead. I felt bad, but not terribly. She had kept me from Layla, and I now had Layla again.
We got near the entrance to my basement. Where we have to climb through the window to get in. Once inside, it's cut off from the outside world. It's pretty safe, unless they rip the rubble apart to get to us, or crawl through. They could get to us, but not easily. If we were quiet, I thought we might have made it. Right before we got in, though, an animalistic Gear dropped from the darkness.
It was running along the side of a building. Those glowing red eyes saw me, then it leapt off, coming down in front of me, hissing and screaming in delight. The head tilted, the eyes rotated in the head, thinking. It erected its spine, lurching back, as if it was curious as to why I was holding the hand of a girl and then a sword obviously too big for me. I was shocked, as well.
It was so ugly. The face was contorted. Half of it jutted outward, like a snout, the other was flat, like a human's. The teeth warped with this also, looking like a jagged zipper. Its lips couldn't close, and instead, it just drooled. The skin was rotten with boils and little holes, like burn marks or rot. The shoulders were spiked, with bone growth like sharp spines, and it had two long fingers on one hand and four on the other. The nub fingers were bloody and obviously lost recently, from trying to stab through metal or concrete or something. The body pulsed with every breath it took, every muscle contracting and wildly expanding. It took a deep breath, about to howl. I couldn't let it. Layla was holding my hand tighter, being so close to it. It smelled like fish and dust.
I took the sword, and thrust it into the inhaling Gear's chest. It stood stunned for a moment, looking at the sword, as if it had not expected it. No reaction of pain. It just "noticed" it had a sword in its chest. I let go of Layla's hand, then turned on the hilt with both of my hands, as hard as I could. The beast fell, twitching. I looked behind us, and I could see Gears scouring in the darkness. It was so dark that you could tell them only by the wetness of their carapace reflecting in the moonlight. And their eyes. Those bloody eyes.
I quickly got Layla into the basement, followed, then put as many loose rocks into the hole as I could. I filled it up as best I could. She just sat in the corner, huddled again, and said nothing. I was covered in sweat, hauling the rocks. It was dark inside of the room, but I could feel my way around because of how well I knew it. I grabbed one of the Seikishidan swords before I moved to her. I needed it for protection. That's when I noticed all of the sticky Gear blood on my hands. I wiped it off on the walls.
I tried to hug her. She just shivered. Shivering. There was so much to shiver about.
That's where I am now. I move slowly over to her, making sure the Gears don't hear me. I try to breathe shallow, but my heart is beating so heavy in my ears I can hardly hear. I think I'm making more noise than a thunderstorm. I can still hear the echo of the dying outside and the footsteps of the humanoid, heavy Gears. I go over close to her, hold her tight. She shivers.
"Where's daddy?" she asked. I didn't answer, just held her close, kissing the side of her head. She was sweaty, also, but I didn't care. I was shivering, despite having just ran so much.
"I'm here," I told her. She looked at me now, those eyes finally blinking and turning.
"You killed that Gear," she said. I nodded. "And, came for me." I nodded. "You're not brave enough for that…"
"I told you I could kill like Slowhand."
"They're all dead out there, and you killed too. You and the Gears, Slowhand and the Seikishidan…everyone just dies…"
"No, Layla, please…" I tried to reason with her. She pushed me away, insulted. She wiped herself from anything, everything. The sweat, the blood, all of it, trying to get herself clean when there was no innocence to be found.
"What have you done?" I didn't know what I had did, I didn't know how to answer the question. "We'll die now."
"We're going to die anyways, I think," I told her, after a moment's hesitation. "I really wanted to have a son with you to end the war…" I whispered. There was a blank silence. The footsteps outside sounded like waves on the coast.
"I don't want to see tomorrow. I don't want to see them all dead. I'll just see what could have been stopped, or what only will happen. I think I hate living," Layla said to me slowly. She moved back close to me. Her head fell into my lap, and I stroked the hair out of her face. It was sticky in clumps, but I put it behind her ear. My finger traced those soft lips as she talked. "There'll be nothing, no one left, just you and me. We can't do anything. We're kids. We can't have a son to end a war if we are the sons and daughters of no one. I don't want to see tomorrow where I'm no one's daughter. I don't want my son being the kid of a dead body, of no one."
"I won't let a Gear kill you," I reassured her. We both knew I couldn't stop another Gear.
"Won't they find us eventually?" I didn't say the obvious answer: yes. I heard more screaming outside. The noise was rising, like a tidal force. "I hear them coming. They'll rip this place open, then us apart. I don't want to die by them. They're evil. I'd rather die—" she stopped, breathing, then continued, "—by yours."
"No," I said instantly. "I won't, I can't."
"Please. If you love me." How could she be talking about love, and then of death?
"I found you because I love you, now I don't want to lose you!" I spoke too loudly, and the noises outside could be heard positioned towards us. We both shuddered in fear. They knew we were here now. "Please don't say we'll never find a way and tell me my love's in vain." I started to cry, tears came out of my eyes.
"Remember those pictures?" she said, grabbing the photo album. "I wish we had one. Then we could talk about how we had love, and which picture would be our son, and what our son did for the world. I think you might have liked my dad. He would have liked you. This is better, this way we don't have to give in to the Gears. You and I, Dylan."
"No, Layla…" I whimpered, I begged. I put my face into her shirt, grabbed it with both hands, and cried. "I don't want to be lonely, without you waiting by my side," I sobbed in between words. "I'll kill them all! Every Gear! Even Justice! I'll stop them all so we can live in the world, have a son! He doesn't need to be a fighter, I'll be the fighter so he can live happy, without the death! Layla, I don't want to die, I'm scared, I don't want you to die, I love you, no, not this, not now, just wait, they'll leave, trust me, we'll live, it'll be okay, we'll be okay, Layla…"
"Quick, before they come here. Please," Layla begged me back. She grabbed my hand with the sword, put it to her belly, then grabbed my elbow. I was crying, I couldn't stop. I was sobbing, and tears were falling off my face. I kept saying no. I leaned forward, kissed her lips. I tasted a mix of blood and sweat on their softness. I kept kissing them, whispering "no" as my tears broke our lips. Then, she pulled with both of her hands on my elbow. The sword went through her. It clinked on the stone behind. She shuddered, and clinched her teeth, trying not to make a sound. "I love you, Layla," I whispered into her ear. I kept kissing her until her lips stopped moving and she stopped breathing.
Then, I screamed. The noises outside were close now. The feet were definitely above me, trying to find a way to me. The Gears were trying to come and kill me. They were going to come get me, rip me apart, and I would let them. Not before I killed some of them for killing my Layla. We'd all die tonight, every one of us!
I went to the hole and kicked out the rubble, grabbing another Seikishidan sword. I stormed out into the street, blinded by tears, and swung at the first thing I saw. It grabbed my hand, lifting it into the air. The grip tightened, and my sword dropped, clinking on the ground. I screamed, tears in my eyes, flailing. I'd punch, kick, bite, anything. I want to kill. They killed Layla.
"It's just a boy," a gruff voice said. Then, it let go of my hand and I fell to the floor, crying, holding myself. "Just some little boy, and he's the only one I can find around here, Slowhand," the soldier said to another man who walked up. The man was big, and he looked down at me. In that moment, all I could do was cry.
It was the Seikishidan we heard all along outside, not the Gears, and here was Slowhand.
Author's Notes:
So, there's the first part of three in the Houses of the Holy series! No idea when the next part will come, hopefully before a month's time! Hope you liked it. And, if you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me! For those of you who didn't like it, tell me also. If you have anything to say, say it! Also, there are all sorts of obvious (and not so obvious) classic rock jokes/references in here (and in future installments). So, hope you enjoy those! Oh, and, yes, this piece is very dark, as is the rest of the series. Sorry if you thought it was warm and fuzzy. I don't do fuzzy.