A/N: Sorry for the late update, but I've been consumed with the desire to write other things right now, but have no fear, I've figured out a system to even things out. I'm focusing on one chapter for one idea and then moving on after I finish that chapter to the next idea. It's helping to ease my need to get these things written now. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this, and, as per usual, please let me know if there's anything I need to know and/or change here. Thanks in advance.
Part VI: Finish Strong
Chapter 21
Where am I? I asked, sensing that returning feeling of déjà vu.
My answer came to me almost immediately: The inner workings of Hellywood stared back at me.
No, this can't be happening to me right now, I thought, trying to stop myself from trembling. I can't be here right now! I got away with Sara! We both got away to never come back here again! How did this happen?
I tried to stand up, realizing that I was lying face up on one of the cold, metallic hospital beds of the battle station. Confused, I tried again to move, but once more my body didn't respond to what I wanted it to do. Even opening my mouth to ask for help seemed impossible for me to do.
That was when I realized I was completely paralyzed.
Fear seized control over me, and I wanted to scream, but I still couldn't open my mouth, so my cries for help remained mine to behold.
The weird thing through the whole thing, though, was my eyes seemed to be out of control, as if someone else were pulling them to work them into the direction that they needed to look at. I involuntarily witnessed what appeared to be Schmerz's torture room, and my panic skyrocketed to levels beyond my ability to stop.
Oh, no, what is he going to do to me? I asked, realizing that I wasn't even able to say anything out loud, and they were merely my thoughts.
This can't be happening to me! Where's Sara? Where's Shu? Sis? Anyone? Why am I here again? I was in Zari-Bars! We were safe for once! But then…what happened?
I tried to figure out what had landed me back in the one place no human being ever deserves to reside in, but my memory was hazy. I recalled the time I had been up against somebody named Kazam and that it had something to do with a baby. Whose baby was it? Why was I thinking about Sara at the same time? There was no way that she would ever get pregnant, at least not yet. We were saving our virginity for each other, and she was as adamant about protecting it as I was until that day. Why was I even thinking about that at all? What did it have to do with anything? Why was I there?
My eyes shifted to the left, revealing Schmerz, who was laughing manically as he sharpened a medical knife, which seemed as if it were meant for me. Schmerz grinned when he placed the knife right beside a stack of sterilized scalpels on a towel, each more intimidating than the next.
The door opened and my eyes turned to see who was entering the room, and I got quite the surprise when I saw Sara practically naked and in chains being pushed forward by Hamdo, who was wearing an elegant black crown, and holding a mighty scepter in his right hand. Hamdo was laughing as well, and he seemed to take much pleasure in the fact that Sara was being treated in such an abominable fashion.
Hatred for him filled my heart, and I focused all of my mind on finding some way to get up and save Sara, but it seemed that nothing I did could ever allow me to push me up and over to her direction, no matter how much I so desperately wanted to. Cursing the man who'd treated Sara that way, I cringed inwardly, trying not to look at her, because all it did was drive my mind blind with righteous fury. However, the entity that had in some way gained supreme control of my eyes deemed it necessary for me to witness my broken girlfriend, the only woman I could ever say I loved more than anything else in the world just lying there on the floor, weeping her eyes out over what I could only assume was the result of what had happened to her since I'd blacked out.
"My, my," Hamdo said, snickering. "It seems he really was easy to take down after all. Such a pitiful human being."
"He was not!" Sara protested, continuing to wail on the floor. "He was the only one who helped me through everything I went through here! Why did he have to die? He only wanted to get us back home!"
"Quiet, girl!" Hamdo yelled as he slapped Sara to the ground hard. "When I ask you to speak, you shall, but not now!"
Sara whimpered on the ground.
I watched as my eyes drifted to the ceiling, where a humongous light blinded me, allowing me to dwell on only one thing: What Sara had just revealed about my current state of existence.
I had died.
How was this possible? What was I missing out on? Had something happened that I just couldn't remember that had caused me to die? Was I having a dream? Were dreams usually this lucid? What was going on?
Had the heart attack really killed me this time?
I froze—well, as much as a dead body can freeze…yeah, I know, that's a terrible joke to make and I apologize—wondering if it were possible. What had happened right before I blacked out? Who was Kazam and why was I mad at him? What did it have to do with a child and why was Sara on my mind when it came to that child?
What was going on? I didn't understand any of this.
And then the strangest thing happened…I kept seeing these Bible verses appear over my head, which, to tell you the truth, freaks me out in a way I don't think I will ever be able to fully understand. Okay, there's really no way I can't describe this whole ordeal without getting all trippy on you, because really, I have wondered about my sanity, or why someone would even let something like this blatant happen at all, so here goes: There were four of them in all, saying such things as:
So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me.
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
I had no idea what was going on then, mostly because, well, who in their right mind could possibly understand something like that? I barely get it now, and I've had more than enough time to think about it.
Someone was trying to send me a message and they were doing it in a less than subtle way. Turns out subtlety never was one of my strong points.
My eyes suddenly flashed to my left and all thoughts of what the heck was going on with the verses left my mind completely, as I witnessed a horrific sight: The vivisected body of Shuzo Matsutani. I wanted to shake, to scream in terror, or to do something that showed I cared about what had happened to a dear friend, but nothing, as usual for the dream, happened.
I was completely helpless and mortified.
Sara continued to sob to my right, and I tried to force my eyes to look over in her direction, but they moved over to Hamdo, who now had Abelia behind him, looking as if her greatest hope had been torn away from her forever. She always looked somewhat somber, but this time she looked absolutely depressed. Her usual purple and well-kept hair had fallen to disrepair, almost as if a certain dictator had taken it from her in one of his many attacks.
"Don't you see, my little pawns, it was he who allowed this victory for me to come to pass?" Hamdo said, accentuating each word with glee. "Because of his inability to act the way he should have, I was granted complete control of the world. Nothing he could do or planned managed to stop me the moment he died. Did you know that he had a plan to take me down if he were to ever enter Hellywood again? It was quite ingenious, but he never got the chance to use it, proving that I was much better fit to rule this world than the God he so proclaimed the praises of. Well, at least he used to that is."
Hamdo laughed, holding his ides as if he had just said the funniest joke in human history. Abelia cringed, as she tried not to look at my body, which I found had been just as desecrated as Shu's, except it seemed that whoever had been in charge of my personal mutilation had done so in a way that showed more hatred. While Shu's corpse had been vivisected cleanly, my body looked as if a wild boar had gained a hold of me and ripped me from the inside out.
Quite unsettling to see to say the least.
Then my eyes returned to where Sara was, and whatever sanity I had left seemed to die the moment I noted the severity of her wounds. Her right eye had been slashed off by what appeared to be a razor, which my eyes clarified by moving over to the blade that sat in Hamdo's belt, allowing me to know who'd take it from her and quite recently it had seemed. All over Sara's body were slashes from what looked like a macabre combination of Hamdo's fingernails, knives, and whatever sharp objects he had nearby when he had assaulted her body at that moment. My eyes turned to Hamdo's hands, which proved the fingernail theory when I found out that they had all been reduced to stumps from the attacks. A quick glance in Abelia's direction proved that she had been a victim as well. My eyes shifted back to Sara just as suddenly as they had moved away, revealing the lower portion of her body had been assaulted in ways even more horrible than getting one's eye taken or having one's body get slashes by all sorts of deadly devices. Ways that Sara had only gone through twice before. My eyes turned over to the giggling Hamdo, who revealed in the gleam of his eyes who had dealt the damage to Sara once again.
"I wonder where his God is now," Hamdo pondered. "Perhaps He never existed at all and this vermin was merely making Him up the entire time. It matters not, does it, my Lala-Ru?"
Hamdo turned around to reveal a wounded and battered Lala-Ru, whose hair had turned into a muddy brown, and her skin into what seemed like a fountain of red veins.
Even though I knew I wouldn't be able to, I tried shutting my eyes, unwilling to see anything else, but they remained open and I watched as Hamdo bent down to Lala-Ru and clutched the pendant.
"With this I have gained complete mastery of the world and all who live in it," he said with that signature maniacal grin. "With this I have the power to do whatever I want to in this misbegotten realm. I have become God Himself!"
Cackling, Hamdo pulled at his chains as he turned his back to me, dragging with him Lala-Ru, Abelia, and Sara, who tried to escape, but the bonds were much too tight for any such thing to happen.
"No!" Sara cried out, trying to hold her arms out to my body.
"Enough!" Hamdo yelled, as he grabbed Sara by the neck. "I've wasted my time with you enough, little girl! Farewell!"
I didn't even have time to think before it happened right in front of me. Hamdo took both his hands around Sara's neck and twisted it, killing her instantly. Seeing that he had succeeded in his efforts, Hamdo threw Sara to the ground and left the room with both Abelia and Lala-Ru, who gave me one last look, as if hoping I could rise up and save them.
NO! I wanted to shout out. NO YOU CAN'T HAVE HER, HAMDO! I'LL KILL YOU! GIVE HER BACK TO ME! YOU CAN'T KILL SARA!
"Bold words from a child who doesn't know himself," a voice that sounded very similar to my own said.
I tracked the voice with my eyes, which now seemed to function perfectly to my every whim, eventually finding its source sitting on a desk some five feet away from the operating table I was on. I gasped aloud when I saw who it was, unable to comprehend his appearance.
I was looking at myself.
The other me stared at me as if slightly amused. He checked me over, noting each of my broken features.
Clicking his tongue, he said, "You truly are a pathetic man, Matthew Soterios Kind."
"I—I'm what?" I said, barely noting that I was in control of my mouth once more.
The other me hopped off the desk and examined the corpse that had once been Sara, clicking his tongue in that annoying way of his as he did so. "Such a shame this," he said, shaking his head. "Easily preventable too."
"Who the hell are you?" I asked, trying to deal with all my emotions at once.
"Isn't it obvious?" he asked. "I'm you."
I looked at him wondering if he thought I was mentally handicapped. Of course I knew that he looked like me.
"I mean besides that!" I roared, temper flaring.
He clicked his tongue anew, furthering my anger. "Oh, how do I explain this to such a simpleton?" he asked himself as he reclined on a chair, looking like a misbegotten psychiatrist. "Well, in layman's terms, I am you, but I'm the better part of you, while you represent the worst right now. It's quite simple really."
"What?"
He sighed. "You're bad you; I'm good you. Call me Matt-Prime for now, but that may change depending on how you react to all this."
"I still don't get it," I said, shaking my head as if expecting that could help me make things clearer.
"Well of course you don't right now, but you will when all's said and done," Matt-Prime said, smiling at me.
"What just happened out there? Why can't I remember what happened to me?"
"Because I haven't let you remember. You don't deserve to know yet. Not until you figure things out."
"How am I supposed to figure things out if I can't even remember everything that happened to me!" I shouted.
"You could start by not yelling so much, because all you're doing is causing your heart in the real world to get that much closer to death," Matt-Prime noted, clicking his tongue again.
"Would you stop that?"
"Stop what?"
"That stupid tongue thing."
"Why?"
"Because it's annoying me!"
Smirking, Matt-Prime continued clicking his tongue. "I won't until you learn. Only then will I stop."
"Fine," I said, trying and failing to throw my hands in the air, "what do I need to do to learn, O wise one?"
"It's simple really, you've just got to learn what you already know."
"Because that makes so much sense."
"Good, then I'm glad we can agree."
I groaned. Apparently my double didn't understand sarcasm.
"Oh, I do, I just choose to ignore it to get things rolling," he said, clicking his tongue.
"I'm not even going to bother this time. What is it that I should know and that I need to relearn?"
"Just a couple important things you've been raging at lately. You know, hating God, hating the world, and giving in to your extensive anger."
"And why shouldn't I do all those things? Since you're me, then you do know what He's put me through."
"Well I should certainly hope so, Matt. It's important that the both of us do, or we might lose everything. Well, I really should say you, but it's not nearly time yet to do so."
"Okay, since you have all the answers here, why don't you tell me why I should be a-okay with the Big Man and what He's done to me?"
"Do you really think I have all the answers, Matt?" he asked, clicking his tongue. "I'm still you, so how could I know everything? I'm just as fallible as you are."
"You mean you don't?" I asked. "Then what good are you?"
"You might want to retract that, Matt, seeing as I am you."
"I would never be this cryptic or annoying."
"Which is exactly why you don't understand yet. Here, let me help you out just a little bit. I am the metaphorical side of you, the one that represents everything you should be and know, because I get things, even when I don't. I understand certain facets of this life that others don't, even when I myself have no clue."
I managed to get my right arm up to rub my temples. This hurt my head in so many ways, I didn't know if I would ever be able to think again.
"Okay, let me get this straight, Matt-Prime," I said, pausing for a moment to gather my thoughts. "You are a part of me, but we've been separated for some reason beyond my understanding to tell me something that I need to figure out. Obviously this whole thing has to do with my doubts, so let's deal with that first."
"Indeed, such a wonderful thought," he said, smiling.
"How can I believe in a God that treats Sara, Shu, me, and everyone else beneath Him like dirt? I saw that last verse you showed—I'm guessing that was you—and it said in such a wonderful fashion that 'God is love,' so tell me, Matt-Prime, how can God be love if this is the way He treats us? Why is life so hard?"
"An excellent question. You are progressing in your mental processes. Now I have a question to ask first: Where did God ever say that life wouldn't be hard?"
I paused, knowing no such sentence had ever appeared in scripture. "Nowhere?"
"Don't say it like it's a question, kid. Mean it."
"Nowhere," I said, still unsure.
"And why is it nowhere?" he asked.
"I don't know, maybe because He didn't want us looking at the fine print."
Matt-Prime rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue. "Wrong answer. Because we had our chance and we blew it. One thing, Matt, we had one thing we weren't supposed to do, and what did we do?"
It took me a moment to realize the question wasn't rhetorical. "We did it."
"Exactly, and do you know what happened after that?"
"Sin came into the world."
"Precisely, but why?"
"Because Adam and Eve disobeyed."
"Somewhat right, but you only mention two people. There are others involved as well."
"The Serpent?"
"True, but we're not after him right now."
"Then who could it be?"
"Humanity itself, Matt," Matt-Prime said, clicking his tongue. "By disobeying God once, our forefathers allowed us all to suffer the consequences. Is this unfair?"
"Uh, yeah it kinda is," I said.
"Wrong again. Fair is getting what you deserve. Fair is God destroying Adam and Eve for defying Him and never bothering to start over again with humanity. Fair is living in a world filled with death and destruction we have almost no control over. But life isn't always fair, is it?"
"Yes, I know, He let Jesus come to take everyone's sins, and that makes it okay for everything bad to happen because God gave us all the chance for salvation."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"People getting hurt isn't a bad thing? People dying, getting murdered, suffering from starvation and the loss of the sun, and people getting…raped isn't bad? Man if that's the real worldview, I really don't want what you're smoking right now. You can keep the Kool-Aid, man."
"Flavor Aid."
"Huh?" I asked.
"The incident you were referring to involved Flavor Aid, not Kool-Aid," Matt-Prime announced.
"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"
He shrugged. "Probably nothing, but you do seem to be drinking your distinct brand of it whenever you go out and say things like, 'I believe in God' or 'I don't really believe in God at all.' You really don't get it, do you? What this is all about?"
"This is about my doubts! I don't know why these things are happening to me and I need answers, so I'm somehow having a conversation with myself about all these things because of something that made me black out!"
"True enough, but you're still wrong in some areas. This is to encourage your own doubt, Matt. Doubt is the greatest tool we have in this awful world."
"How does that make sense?" I asked, furling an eyebrow. "Wouldn't I want to be perfectly content in knowing what's true and what's not?"
"Ideally yes, but as long as we're on this earth there are no such things as being 'perfectly content' or any such variation thereof," Matt-Prime said. "You see, Matt, you can't even know if I'm telling the truth, because I'm just like you: I don't know. I'm just offering what you've always thought was truth, and hoping you find the correct way to that truth. We can't know on this earth; we're not God, if He exists that is."
I massaged my temples again, wondering if I wasn't developing thirty different aneurysms at once. "You're saying that you don't even know the answers and that even if I agree with you there's not guarantee I'm right?"
He nodded. "Well put."
"Then what is the point of all this?"
"I don't follow."
"If I don't wake up with the knowledge of what life is all about, then Hamdo's going to take over the world!" I shouted, my heart practically ready to jump out of my body.
"Wow, you are dumb."
"Huh?"
"What, did you think that you were that important that the fate of the entire world depended on your actions?" Matt-Prime asked, almost unable to contain his laughter. "That is hilarious, man. You really thought that, didn't you? Wow that is pathetic, I mean really pathetic, Matt. What I showed you was just a dramatization, you idiot. Sometimes I don't get you, man. You really are stupid."
"Don't call me stupid!"
"I shall until you truly grasp what you've already believed."
I sighed, allowing my weak mind to calm my body down, as I tried a start a new approach to this problem. "Okay, maybe I am putting too much importance in myself right now, but it's only because you led me to believe I was needed to save everyone from Hamdo in the earlier part of this dream-thing."
He clicked his tongue, mulling over my words. "Yeah, I could see how what I did could do that to you. I apologize."
"Um, apology accepted."
"Splendid. Now what?"
I absentmindedly pushed myself up to think about an answer. "What do you think I should do?"
Matt-Prime smiled, and seemed to be getting closer to me. "Here's what I have to say to you, Matt: Think about what you want the most in this world and find a way to make sure that what you want isn't tarnished. If you fail, then you did all you could to stop it, but just because it looks like you've failed completely, it doesn't mean that you really have. We have setbacks to our wants and needs, Matt, and they always seem like they can't be overcome, but find what empowers you and continued to seek the things you need to find your path in this world. It won't be fun all the time, but neither will everything be horrible.
"You lost access to your home, along with the woman you love more than every other one out there, and you tried to protect her, hoping to keep her away from harm, but that didn't work, and she was tortured in ways no woman should ever go through. But you both fought back and escaped, finding strength in each other to keep moving on in the hopes that at least you could be safe. Later you found Sis, who gave you all the love of a mother you can never go back home to, and managed to find a home, but then once again bad things happened, leading to our current situation. You learned that Sara was pregnant and that she wasn't able to speak with you yet, so you came up with an idea that seemed brilliant at the time, but only caused more pain as your heart almost gave out on you. Then you wake up to find the next attack will be your last, and that everything that had happened to you over the past few months wasn't fantasy, so you blacked out, which allowed me to come through to help us become whole again.
"You're right, I don't have all the answers, and we never will, but what we need to do, is move on, accept reality, and face it as one man who wishes to do what needs to be done to save the people we love.
"Matt, we need to become whole again. We need to save Sara from making a mistake. She's left us thinking we're as good as dead. Matt, she's not in the right mind, we have to save her from doing something she'll eternally regret."
He extended his hand out to me, smiling as a brilliant light appeared behind him.
I smirked, laughing inwardly at the cliché, but I accepted his hand, nonetheless, waking up in a world that would test my ability to remain whole the moment I did so.
I rose from the bed I was laying on in Sis's house, as I noticed the sweat covering my body in its putrid odor. Rubbing my eyes to get rid of the sand, I realized that the sun had set and that all of Sis's children were asleep beside me.
Sara, I reminded myself.
Frantically I searched the room for Sara, but I couldn't locate her. Soon moaned in the darkness, mentioning her father by name in her sleep, and sending chills down my spine. Sara's bed had obviously had someone in it just a few minutes beforehand, as it showed signs of someone laying down on it, so that told me she was somewhere nearby, or at the very least closer than it seemed.
Where would she go? I asked. Why?
I searched my mind for answers as I quietly got up and descended the stairs, hoping that Sara was waiting for me there, but finding no such hope spot. Sighing to myself, I surveyed the crevices of my memories for some better idea, inadvertently answering myself with the crevice description.
He said that Sara was going to do something she'll eternally regret, I told myself. Does that mean she's going to kill—She's going to kill herself and the baby! Where could she do that without being seen?
I scanned the room for ideas, finding the jug that the children normally took to the water caves to get our daily allotment of the precious resource.
The caves! I realized. There's never anyone there, so she has plenty of room to do it without anyone finding out until it's too late!
I glided out the doorway—but not before I grabbed my taser on a whim—and not once caring about the state of my heart, because I knew if I didn't get there soon enough, then Sara would kill herself and I'd always live with the guilt.
It turns out that I didn't need to run as fast as I'd thought.
A/N: Well, next chapter will focus on one of the best scenes of the entire show, with a couple tweaks added by yours truly. This should be here by Friday or late weekend, depending on how my other ideas are making me obsess over them. Until next time, my friends.