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Hallelujah Chorus
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A distress signal had already been put out, but they had purposely fled into a rarely frequented quadrant in order to avoid getting caught. It didn't even feel like irony. It only felt like the whole world wanted them dead.
The fuel had run out hours ago, but momentum kept them drifting. Looking out the window, he could see nothing but blackness. There were no stars, no colony or space station lights, no trails left by other ships. There was nothing but emptiness and his dimming reflection; the lights were going in and out now, gradually fading, as all remaining power was routed towards life support. The air was thinning out though, and no amount of power would replenish the oxygen tanks. From the hallway, he could hear the others in the control room trying to figure out just how long they had until they all died of asphyxiation.
He could hear their raised voices and feel their panic. No one wanted to die. They would have died back at the facility anyway; why did they even bother trying so hard if the end result was going to be the same? It was so much worse out there in the emptiness of space.
It probably didn't matter though. Death was death, right? It didn't matter how it happened. He didn't know if he believed in fate, but it seemed like there was nothing else in any of their futures. What were they going to do after their grand escape anyway? There was no one to take them in. That they had been developed at all was testament enough to how messed up the world was; there was war, and there was chaos. If they couldn't fight, then they had no purpose. Maybe it was best that they just die out there.
"Do you really want to die?" his reflection asked.
"Why should I want to live?" he asked in return.
The door to the control room slid open then, and two other children stepped into the hallway. The first was one of the older girls, Freiya, but despite her age, she often acted subordinate to her younger peers, and was generally of a timid and shy disposition. The other was a boy about his age, Daniel — smart, but prone to second-guessing himself.
"Allelujah," Freiya said, looking at him briefly before averting her eyes to the ground. There was a quiet terror in her voice. "We only have seven or eight hours left."
"We're drifting further and further away from the colonies. No one's going to find us in time," Daniel added, sounding more angry than anything else.
Freiya was wringing her hands and fidgeting in place; she looked like she was about to cry. "What are we going to do?" She glanced up at him again, and her eyes were wide and pleading, like all she wanted was for him to lie to her and tell her that they would all be fine. (No one's going to make this better.)
"There's nothing we can do," he told her quietly, but she stared like she didn't believe him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his reflection smirking from the glass.
"We could all try to go to sleep," Daniel muttered bitterly, "That way it won't be as painful."
There was a loud whirling sound suddenly, but it was gone as soon as it started, and then the main lights in the hallway shut off completely with a dull click. The panicked chatter from the control room paused momentarily — for that moment, it seemed like the entire world was silent. The ship was silent. There was no bum of the engine and no buzzing of the lights. Gradually, the emergency lights turned on in the control room and glowed an eerie red; this was followed by tiny blue pinpricks of light along the edges of the hall, just barely enough to see by.
"The oxygen will last longer if there are less people on the ship," his reflection said, except that there wasn't enough light for a reflection to exist. Allelujah looked out towards space and felt like the interior of the ship simply extended out into the vacuum; everyone stood in darkness. "We're stronger than they are," came the laugh, "You know we are."
"Be quiet," he said, furrowing his brow.
"Allelujah?" Freiya's voice, though he could hardly make out her outline.
"Kill her."
He could feel someone standing behind him then. He was sure that if he turned around, he would run into himself.
"Allelujah, did you say something?"
"Kill her."
Freiya took a step forward, and he could feel Daniel's eyes on him too.
"Kill them both. It'll be easy. You're still armed, aren't you?"
He didn't want to live that much. He wasn't sure that he had ever wanted to live at all. He was a contradictory to the name he'd been given.
"And what, having everyone die together is better? What kind of stupid logic is that?"
"I'm not going to kill them!" he yelled suddenly, causing both other children to jump. He bolted then, turning and pushing past his shadow to run down the hall. He plunged himself into the blackness, eventually colliding with a wall because it was impossible to judge just how far the turn in the hall was. He groped blindly along it, desperate to get away from where the others were gathered, but he could hear them coming after him already.
"Allelujah!?" Freiya was calling, and there were other footsteps as well. The whole lot of them seemed to have come out from the control room and were coming after him. That was stupid. Why would they follow him? Didn't they know? Didn't they know why he was a failed experiment in the first place?
His hands found a door panel, so he slid into one of the storage rooms. There were no emergency lights there, and it was even darker than before. Maybe if he remained perfectly still, they wouldn't find him. He wedged himself between two large boxes and leaned against the wall, trying to slow the beating of his heart and his rapid breathing. If he could just become invisible, they could all live another seven or eight hours.
An impossible silhouette laughed and squeezed in next to him.
"You can't run from me," Hallelujah told him with a smile, "They'll find you too. And then I'm going to kill them because you're too pathetic to do it yourself."
Allelujah stiffened and did his best to scoot away from the other in the tiny space. "You don't have to do that," he whispered, drawing his knees to his chest.
"Yes, I do," came the cheerfully dark reply, "We can live, but they'll have to die. We could survive for a week or more if we're alone. Someone will find us. "
He knew it was impossible to reason through the conversation because he knew that he was at the wrong end of logic. It was merciless logic, but it was there all the same. They could live, and in the back of his mind, he was already sure that they would.
"What are we going to do after that?"
"That doesn't really matter to me."
There were footsteps outside. Uncertain whispers.
"Allelujah?"
Freiya.
He shut his eyes and tried to disappear but found himself laughing instead. Laughing too loudly.
"Allelujah, is that you?"
One trembling hand reached for the scalpel that had been tucked in his back pocket. He had stolen it from one of the researchers back at the laboratory, and there was still blood on it from when he slit her throat. He was terrified because he couldn't stop laughing. The silhouette was gone, but the whole room was in shadow.
"Allelujah?"
The door slid open.
"Allelujah? Are you in here? Don't scare everyone like—"
He stood from his spot between the boxes and slowly walked out into the open. When he faced her, her expression softened and she came closer.
"It's okay to be scared," she said, "We all are, but that's why we have to stick toget—"
In one fluid motion, he grabbed her firmly by the shoulder, twisted her around, and slit her throat. There was a soft gurgling sound as she choked on her own blood, and somehow, he could feel her eyes widen in shock and fear. Her body fell limp quickly though, and he let her fall to the ground. The other whisperers outside seemed to raise their voices.
"Freiya? Allelujah?"
"Did you find him?"
"What's going on?"
As each of the next four children passed by the open door, he grabbed them roughly and pulled them into the room. Their white laboratory gowns made them easier to spot in the dim light, and many of them didn't even see him before the small blade came across their throat. These must have been the ones that were expelled from the laboratory for their sheep-like tendencies and outrageous idiocy. It was too easy, and he kept laughing.
Five bodies slumped in an unceremonious heap by the storage entrance. The rush of footsteps had slowed, but he could still hear at least one other lurking just beyond where he could see.
There were twelve of them on the ship, including himself; that left six more to kill. It might not be necessary, of course. The number of people sharing the remaining oxygen had almost been halved already; it was possible that there was enough time now for all of them to be rescued. He stopped laughing, but the grin remained. But there was no point in stopping now. The others probably wouldn't let him live now if they could help it, so he would just have to kill them first.
He heard someone load a gun outside.
Stepping carefully over Freiya's body (he didn't look at her face; he couldn't look at her face), he stood with his back against the wall next to the open door and called outside. "Don't come any closer!" It was a panicked kind of voice.
"You just don't give up, do you?" the dark room laughed.
"What the fuck are you doing, Allelujah!?" shouted one of the remaining boys, Charlie. Vaguely, he wondered if he had already killed Daniel; everything was happening too quickly. He couldn't look at any of their faces. (There was so much blood on his hands.)
"I..."
The footsteps came closer, still slow, still cautious.
"He's coming to kill you, you know."
"You're killing them, aren't you? You killed Freiya, didn't you? Didn't you!?"
He was right outside; he was on the other side of the very same wall he was leaning against. (He was going to die.)
"Charlie," he whispered, "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
"Is that all you have to say to me!? Allelujah!?"
He crouched low, and just as the other boy rounded the corner, he tackled him around the legs, knocking them both to the ground. Charlie dropped his gun, and immediately scrambled to reach for it. Unfortunately, his opponent was closer, faster, and already armed. Before he could touch his fingers to the handle, he was shoved hard from the side and knocked over; then all of a sudden, he was pinned to the ground with a sharp and bloody scalpel blade pressed against his throat.
"Why are you doing this, Allelujah?" he snarled. There was nothing but hatred in his voice.
"I'm going to live," was the reply, accompanied by a wide grin.
Charlie gasped loudly when his skin was cut. The blade seemed to take forever to sink in; the blood seemed to bubble up ever so slowly. The scalpel dragged across the front of his neck slowly, allowing him to feel the sticky fluid pulse out of his body with every beat of his heart. There was wild flailing and desperate kicking, but the motions were already too weak. There was a gurgling scream, but it was drowned out by a loud, almost hysterical, laughter.
Five more to go.
The hallway outside the storage room was empty now, silent when the laughing stopped. Pocketing the gun of the recently deceased, the boy left the storage room and made his way calmly back towards the control room. As his eyes had now had ample time to adjust to the faint emergency lighting, he could make out the faint outline of his reflection in the glass.
"Please, Hallelujah... Please, stop," the reflection pleaded. "They don't know what's happened yet. If we just kept hiding... If we just kept hiding until someone comes to rescue us..."
"Then they don't have to die, right?" he laughed. "You're too naive. How many hours do we have now? Fourteen? Fifteen? Is that how the math works? It doesn't matter. That's plenty of time for them to come and find us. I'm no good at hiding."
"Why are you so convinced that they'll come looking??" the shadow boy demanded, "They're all scared! Maybe they'll just stay in the control room and wait!"
"Too naive~. Too naive~."
The control room was still glowing a faint red, and he could hear murmuring inside. He held his hands behind his back and walked inside.
"Allelujah? Is that you?"
"What happened to the others? They went to look for you, didn't they?"
"W-what are those stains on your clothes?"
"Allelujah?"
"What's going on? What's wrong?"
He didn't answer, but he glanced at each of them long enough to assess that none of them were carrying weapons. It would seem as if everyone was too naive. They were only children. Too stupid, too trusting. He smiled. No one wonder they'd been sentenced to die. He was different from them. He was there because he was too good. They had been afraid of him was all.
"Nothing's wrong," he said and brought his right arm forward in a natural motion, shooting the closest child in the chest (BAM).
"Daisuke!" one of the other's cried. "Allelujah, why—"
BAM.
The remaining girl screamed and raised her arms up instinctively, but instinct never did evolve to realize that arms wouldn't protect anyone from bullets.
BAM.
One of the remaining boys, Simon, cried out and bolted, pushing past him to escape out the door. He could hear his footsteps stumbling in the darkness and echoing towards the storage room.
The other remaining boy, Anthony, also cried out, but ran forward to punch him hard across the face instead. "You son of a bitch, Allelujah!"
They fell together, and his smile disappeared, but he didn't loosen his grip on the gun. Anthony was raising his fist to punch him again, so he rolled over and shoved up with his free arm, knocking him away. The other boy was persistent though and almost immediately scrambled to his feet — he ran forward again, now apparently aiming to kick. But there was enough time and distance now, so he raised his gun to fire.
BAM.
It hit Anthony in the chest, but it didn't immediately kill him. The boy cried out and collapsed on the floor, but he kept staring forward with hatred in his eyes. "You won't get away with this... You won't...AHHHHHHHHHH!!"
"You've made me waste a bullet," he said, stepping on the fresh, bleeding wound and grinding his heel into it. "So you can just bleed to death slowly."
"Go to hell, Allelujah! Go to hell!"
Turning, the boy ignored him and left the room. "Now where did that other kid go?"
"Hallelujah... Hallelujah, please stop...God, please stop…"
The shadow cried and followed him all the way to the storage room, but he was tired of arguing with him. It would all be over in a few more minutes anyway, and then there would be nothing to argue about.
"He isn't going to fight you, Hallelujah... It's Simon. He doesn't like to fight... We could all survive. Please... please don't kill him. He doesn't need to die..."
There was no one in the storage room, but they could hear someone sobbing quietly further down the hall. It was too easy, but sometimes, things were easy.
"You don't need to do this... Please..."
"Shut up already," he said, grinning again. "It's almost over."
Simon heard him and let out a small cry; there was the sound of a small body scrambling to pick itself up. "Allelujah?? D-don't come any closer! Please!" A door slid open with a muted woosh, frantic footsteps followed, and then it slid closed. Silly. That was just another storage room, and storage rooms were all dead ends.
He walked to the door and opened it. The locks had all been switched off with most of the power. Simon was cowering against the far wall, trembling and crying piteously. "P-please, Allelujah... I don't want to die!!"
He laughed and started towards him, "That's too bad," he told the other boy, "I don't want to die either." He lifted the gun and aimed.
"Allelujah! No! Please!"
"That's not my name."
"I'm sorry— Please! Please, I don't want to die! ...Allelu—"
"It's Hallelujah!"
"Hallelujah, stop!"
BAM.