If you refuse, you die; she dies; everybody dies! – Arn
ooo
Everybody dies? They tell us it is no longer true. I don't believe them. I won't believe them. They prattle on, speaking much and saying nothing.
Everybody dies. Time dies. Gods die. Someday, I will die.
Everybody dies! Don't lie to me! Even the world will die someday; burned in the conflagration of our exploding sun. It can't come soon enough.
ooo
They sat around the conference table. The Major was droning on about glorious destruction and endless war and battle and Krieg. Doc's mind was wandering. He found that since his transformation, there was a constant background hum in his head that would sometimes resolve into words.
The words this time were, "Everybody dies."
He looked around the table, trying to discern on whose mind he had just eavesdropped.
Joleen? Could be. Look at her. Mystic tattoos, lazy grin, cigarette clenched in her teeth. She loved death. She loved torture. She loved to have her opponents groveling at her feet, reduced to weeping wrecks before she tore them apart. She met his questioning gaze and raised a mocking eyebrow.
Shroedinger? Doubtful. That boy was permanently arrested in his early teens. If he had a thought beyond having his ears, and occasionally a few things more, scratched by the Major, Doc would eat his eyeglasses.
Rip? Sweet Rip. She was too dangerous to be as innocent as she was. It was a cosmic joke that the side-effect of her undeath was such a deadly skill. Her bullets were amazing. Doc's mind wandered still more as he mulled over replicating her unique ability.
The Major? Too obvious. The Major had been engaged in mental masturbation at the thought of global destruction for so long that Doc doubted that something as simple as "Everybody dies," would catch his attention enough to broadcast it the way Doc had heard it.
Captain Günsche? Can he even think? Doc found the Captain to be an enigma. He never spoke. He never changed. His face was as expressive as that of a statue. Doc tried to remember the last time he had seen the Captain's face move at all and couldn't. What goes on behind that mask? Is there anything? He flinched as the Captain's face turned to his and red eyes bored into his mind.
Everybody dies, Doc. Even - no, especially - you.