The revolution is successful.
The smell of the dead filling his nostrils is not one he will ever forget. Neither is the sight of hundreds of bodies littering the courtyard. It's all that he can do not to retch or pass out from the sigh, but he knows he has to get out of there first.
But survival depends on drastic measures.
He gets up on unsteady legs and forces himself to run. Under the cover of dark, surely no one will see him, no one will realize that he had survived the massacre.
Jim Kirk has always had the most outstandingly bad luck.
There's shouts behind him and the sound of gunfire. He has barely any time to register what's happening, when there's a sharp pain in his shoulder, as if someone speared him. He vaguely feels himself panicking as he hits the ground, before a distant fuzzy feeling comes over him.
Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society.
He's going into shock.
He tells himself that this is a bad idea.
His body has other ideas.
Your lives means slow death to the more valued members of the colony.
Jim knows that he has about thirty seconds before the patrol catches up to him, and he's somehow lost control of his body. He scrambles on the ground, trying to convince himself to get up and start running before he suffers the same fate of those in the courtyard.
This thought breaks him out of his shock.
His shoulder is killing him, literally.
He retches.
A hand grabs his and pulls him up.
Jim catches a glimpse of silver-green eyes, before the two of them are running towards the cover of the forest.
Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death.
The two of them run through the darkened swamps of Tarsus IV. Despite the unbearable heat bearing down upon them relentlessly, and the sharp grass and rough swamp floor cutting into their bare feet, neither boy slow down nor acknowledged their pain.
Screams echoed in Jim's ears. Screams from the night before.
It took hours to kill them all and when they ran out of bullets they chased them into the forest with knives and other weapons that he'd never seen before and for the rest of his life he would never forget the screaming screaming screaming screaming—
Would he ever forget the people being dragged to their deaths?—some into the courtyard to be shot, others into the gas chambers, and some of them into the forest where things, things that the boy would never speak of to anyone about never as long as he lived, things unspeakable happened to them, before they themselves were brutally murdered.
The two of them come to a silted halt to prevent from falling over a body on the ground. A young girl blinks up at them, eyes full of tears.
Both boys exchange a look.
Jim's companion hoists the girl onto his back and hands Jim a knife.
"You got a name?" he asks, hoarsely.
"JT," Jim says, using the nickname his cousin Tamera—oh god Tamera—had given him.
"John Harrison," the boy replies. "Welcome to Tarsus IV."
Your execution is so ordered. Signed, Kodos, governor of Tarsus IV.
For those of you who read the first three chapters of Even the Darkness Wept...well this is the rewrite. I had to rework things out and come up with a clearer outline, and I still have no idea what direction this story is heading so expect updates to be all over the place.
For those of you still following my other Kircus fic, don't worry I'm still working on that one too. I've hit a slight hitch, but not to worry. :3
