A/N: Again M for violence/war themes. (*) indicates a quote from the movie.
1.
When he was a man-for he was once a man, the kind who laughed at revolutions instead of leading them- he was a decent man. On the weekdays he watched the telly in the morning and at night when he came home, was amused at what he saw there and quoted the news to his colleagues when it applied to seem worldly. He laughed at the fashions, spent his odd hours in the library with his feet on the table and some article of fruit in hand while reading. He did not have a lover, but rather an object of love, a woman with light hair and near-green eyes that he could never confirm because the mere glance of them in his direction made him fumble uncharacteristically, dropping something and cursing himself as he picked it up.
When they came for him he was positive it was the day he'd finally ask her name. He'd planned it out perfectly; the tape he would bring to the counter, the look she'd give him when she read the label, the response he'd give and how he'd use his awkwardness to his advantage for once.
He laid in bed thinking about it, hands behind his head with a faint smile on his face looking forward to the dreams that would await him after spending the day securing her loveliness into his unconsciousness. It was nearly three in the morning when he was awoke from those dreams and shoved against a wall.
They called him David, his roommates name, and he tried to correct them; shouted that they had the wrong man. One of them stopped, looked at a black notebook and nodded
"Thas right, you're the other aren't you?"
"To hell with it," another growled, "He'll do for now."
Then the black bag came over his head.
2.
What makes a man? Himself and others?
He didn't have a self, not anymore. He was "Batch 5 rm 5" according to the sheet taped to the end of the gurney while a woman with soft eyes injected him with poison. Until that moment he'd thought it all one colossal mistake. That man there with the tattoo of a lightning bolt on his arm, why did he get it? What propelled him to sit down and let a stranger (if it were a stranger) stick a needle repeatedly into his skin? What did it mean for him? Maybe there was an artist out there wondering where their favorite client was, maybe there was a man out there with the nickname "Bolt" hugging a pillow and praying they didn't come for him next.
Every person he saw had a story, had something to live for and he couldn't comprehend how such a thing could be taken so casually by these men, these men and women with smiles on their faces. Couldn't they see they weren't killing people, they were killing bits of the world and pieces of themselves? At least that's how he saw it.
When he found the note his musings made it all the more clearer. Trust could only be found in the individual, people got together and they conspired and they coerced and they corrupted, but a person was selfless even when they were at their most selfish. The violence was worth the vindication the veneration of a world where a woman could fall in love and not be reduced to ashes because of it.
It no longer mattered who he was, or why he was but simply that he was. Someone somewhere had written David's name on a list, because he was too liberal because he wasn't from the right country or didn't have the standing in someone's book that they thought he ought to. They had written Valerie's name on that same list and the man with the lightening bolt tattoo and the gorgeously cut form of someone who transcended sex and sexuality and preset ideas of what made a human human.
They dragged him back to his cell, knees scraping against the granite, tearing open already gaping wounds and he scrambled for the last bit of paper shoved through the crack as the guards mumbled about "unit three" being marked for decimation.
With all my heart…
and it no longer mattered that his name wasn't on this particular list, it would have appeared on some list, somewhere eventually and that was the problem.
3.
"I will not abide a world where you must live in fear of a government that doesn't exist, but will one day because each second you live in thoughtless servitude makes it that much easier for it to be realized. I give my heart to the heartless and voice to the silenced-"
"HEY YOU!" Prothero's voice rises above the rest of his men directing the inmates past the pit, "Keep it moving."
"Sir, two last."
"Throw 'em in then."
Valerie landed like a whisper atop the other bodies, quickly covered by another slab of pale flesh. He stopped in his tracks and soon found a nightstick in the middle of his back
"Keep it moving I said or it's the pit for you too." Prothero's lips twisted when there was no response, "Go on, give me a reason." He finally fell into step behind the others, but the man's voice followed him, "Cell V is it? I'll remember you."
He died that day and exited the flames of his purgatory a different breed of person entirely than the one who had entered, the "other" apart of a society that had faith in a world that was creating reasons not to have faith in them.
"The only verdict is Vengeance," he will one day tell a woman too familiar to be ignored, "a vendetta held as a votive not in vain for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous."*
4.
She tells him that she's always fallen for symbols instead of people, that that sort of thing doesn't appear spontaneously after all, but rather is interwoven into one's character.
"Symbols are forever they are timeless unsoiled by wear and tear and vicissitudes of varying vagaries if I may be redundant for verily we must depart soon; for what I mean to say is the fragility of falling in love can hardly be compared to the devotion and passion one commits to an idea and therefore would you proclaim to love me more than what I stand for, frankly Evey I would be insulted."