A Moment In The Mind Of Hal Mason
Pain.
Pain like I had never felt before and prayed with everything I had to never encounter again. It's not even close to how it truly felt to watch my own brother dragging away the girl I love, dragging her away from me, only a few feet away from me and still I couldn't reach her in time.
The physical pain from being hit with whatever the hell those Mech's shot us with, the burning sensation still coursing through every nerve ending in my body, the high pitched ringing in my ears as I feared my ear drums would burst.
The mental pain of desperately willing my uncooperative body to reach out, to grab her arm, wrist, leg, it didn't matter what just as long as I grabbed something, grabbed her just long enough, just hard enough, to make them let her go, to make them give her back to me, to not take her.
The emotional pain of hearing her calling out to me, her voice terrified. Of me calling out in response, begging and pleading, no longer caring if they killed me as long as she was spared. Hearing the tears in her voice, even though I was spared from actually seeing them, was like a spear through me, a red hot poker jabbing around in my guts for nothing more than the pleasure of my pain.
The raw agony of seeing my own brother being the one to take her from me. My own flesh and blood stealing the one to hold my heart and drag her away to give to them, like some kind of sick trophy. Looking into the eyes of the brother I had longed to find, to free from their clutches, to see nothing looking back at me but an empty meat machine.
But my torment was far from over. I forced my shell shocked body to turn, to keep an eye on what the Mech was going to do to me. I was sure I was mere moments away from living the harnessed life myself but they weren't going to get me without a fight. I wouldn't let them put one of those things on me, or Karen! I would break free, somehow, I would, had no other choice.
A harness started to seem like a kinder fate compared to what the truly had in mind for me. A small group of snatched children marched out in front of me. My head was splitting from trying to stay conscious, keep track of where Karen was being taken and watching what was going on now.
No, screamed my mind, it seemed to be catching up to things faster than the rest of me. My eyes took in the single straight line of harnessed children, I heard the Skitter give a screechy noise that made my ears vibrate, the Mech raised its weapon…
Time seemed to slow down. I tried to cry out, to move, to do something but it was already too late.
…there was a flash as the weapon unleashed and the bodies of the children were falling to the ground.
I stood there before the Mech and Skitter, eyes wide and body numb, waiting for my own death to come but they turned and walked away. The numbness began to spread throughout my body as my mind finally let me in on what had just happened. I was now a messenger and what a terrible message it was to carry. 'If you take one, we will kill the rest.'
My legs seemed to be fighting the numbness. I could see that I was now in motion, fleeing from the horrors I had just been made to endure, but I could feel neither my clumsy steps or the ground thumping by beneath my feet. My eyes blurred with tears as my last images of Karen replayed before them, a shattering cascade taking over inside my chest.
Arms appeared around me, my father's voice in my ear but everything felt so far away. I felt my throat vibrate as words barrelled from my mouth, desperately trying to tell what had happened, what they had done but I had no idea what I was saying. After what I had witnessed, nothing made sense any more. I barely heard my father mention something about common tactic through history so I guess I had actually managed words in what I thought was mindless babble.
Karen's face appeared before my eyes again. I felt the despair start to build but then her expression changed from the terror I had last seen to the fierce face I was most familiar with.
"You gonna let those S.O.B's win, are you?" The mental image of her demanded. "You gonna let them keep me? Keep Ben?"
A new feeling began to form within me. It warmed my insides and chased away the numb, filling me with fire. No, not fire, rage.
"That's it, Hallie." Her voice sounded just like how she would whisper to me on those rare moments we were alone. "Use it!"
The world around me seemed to snap back into Technicolor focus, the ground regained its solid feel beneath my feet and my father's attempts to console me became crystal clear.
I'm coming for you! I roared in my mind. You hear me, you fuckers! I'm coming for you! I want my family back!
The End