Note: During the process of reading this chapter, you might notice there are some parts you've already read before. I assure you, though, it is a whole new chapter, just keep on reading and hopefully all your questions will be settled ;)
CHAPTER TWENTY: THE LION AND THE SHEEP
11
Flickering light, then nothing. Nothing but nothingness. End of the tape.
I'm not paying attention anyway. I already know what will happen.
Kelly's voice in the distance has disappeared again, but I'm sure she's in trouble right now.
I keep hammering against the door, kicking it with all my might, trying to get it open.
No luck, though.
Still locked.
I'm still trapped.
No chance.
I turn around just in time to see the nothingness drain away from the room as the flickering light reappears.
My memories rewind, and even though I must have seen the images a thousand times in the past hour, I have to watch it all again.
Screeching, Scratching, a small mute countdown announces the beginning of the next session, then there's an image.
Winter one year ago.
Dad. Me. Building a snowman in our backyard.
Fast forward. Skip the following a half a year.
Me. Alone. Sitting on the bed.
Crying.
Seizure.
Fast forward. Skip the few following weeks.
Briefing room. Kelly. Me.
Enter.
I don't take my eyes off Kelly's back as I hesitatingly follow her into the briefing room. The icy feeling in my guts grows colder, as if I swallowed an entire fridge.
Fear.
F-e-a-r. Four letters.
'Have no fear, Anivia, you'll be fine.' The first words Dad ever said to me.
I was three years, eight months, two days and eleven hours old back when I met him for the first time.
Dad had told me the story many times, but even without that, I would remember every single bit of it. I don't simply forget such things. Not me. No. Not things like this.
It was a comfortably warm night and everyone was out, celebrating. The booming sounds of fireworks flew in through the open windows of my bedroom. I sat on my bed, watching the beautiful colours in the sky, feeling nothing but pure joy.
And then, within minutes, everything changed.
I watched as massive spaceships slowly replaced the sparkling fireworks in the sky, watched all those pretty colours turn into an inferno of red and white destruction, watched the peaceful celebrations suddenly get interrupted by a bitter but hopeless struggle for survival.
And then, out of nowhere, my bedroom door suddenly flew open and Dad stormed in, a thick iron helmet on his head and one Mog gun in each hand. He had some pretty nastily bleeding wounds at the left side of his face, but except for that he looked just like he did when I last saw him a few weeks ago.
He frantically tossed his head from side to side, looking for potential threats, then he spotted me.
Exactly that second the door flew open a second time and a woman entered. My mother, Dad had explained to me.
I had seen her around once or twice before already, but she had never stayed for long. She had short, platinum hair and bright grey eyes just like me, but that's where the similarities ended.
Dad grunted grimly when he saw her. In a flowing motion he aimed both his rifles at her, his fingers already pulling the triggers. But before the bright white beams could hit her, the woman leapt sideways and dodged the shots.
Instead of falling back to the ground, though, she just kept on floating in the air, as if gravity had suddenly seized to exist for her.
Dad let out a snort and aimed again, when all of a sudden he was yanked backwards and went flying headfirst against the wall, making a loud cracking noise on impact.
My mother watched as he sank to the ground, a spark of infuriated rage glowing in her eyes. With a quick pulling motion of her hands, she tossed the two guns out of Dad's hands, even though she was standing halfway across the room.
"Come on, Commander!" she spit out, waiting for Dad to compose himself. "Show me what you Mogadorians are made of!"
Dad groaned, struggled to his feet and actually managed to stand upright. Quite impressive, considering the blow on the head he just received. But Dad was a fighter, had always been one. He wouldn't go down so easily.
With his guns way out of reach and the heavy injuries slowing him down, my mother seemed to have already won, though. There was not much he could do against a fully trained Garde's legacies.
My mother seemed to realize this, too. With a triumphant look on her face, she started charging at him, still floating through the air. Dad got into a defensive fighting stance, preparing for her to hit him.
"We don't have to do this," he yelled out, but my mother didn't even seem to listen.
A furious scream escaped her mouth as she got closer and closer, shooting through the air like a bullet. She was ready to rip him to pieces for what he had done to her people. To our people.
But just a split-second before they collided, Dad played his ace in the hole.
In a quick movement, he got one of those ghostly glowing Mogadorian daggers out of a hidden side pocket of his uniform.
My mother realized what he was about to do just a moment too late. Too late. It was too late to react. Too late to slow down. Too late to do anything but rush towards her imminent death.
As she crashed into him, he slammed the blade into her body, right between two ribs. The impact ripped Dad from his feet and sent him flying backwards once again. This time he seemed to recover way quicker, though.
As Dad got back to his feet, my mother dropped to her knees, pulling the dagger out of the wound and staring at like she can't believe it was actually there. Like she couldn't believe how quickly this entire fight was turned around.
Then, with an aghast look on her face, she fell sideways, pressing one hand on her wound.
Dad walked over to her, picked up the dagger she had dropped to the floor and gave her a long stare. My mother had closed her eyes, just laying there, breathing heavily and waiting for the end.
Vulnerable. Defeated. Lost.
Dad squatted down, raising the blade over his head, ready to finish off what he had started, when suddenly something in his expression changed. There was something in his eyes, a look of pain mixed with regret and doubt. As if he was questioning what he was doing here. Why he was killing a woman he didn't even know. Whether he actually hated those people enough to continue this senseless slaughter of millions of innocents.
The seconds passed, and from my observation post on my bed I could see Dad's expression softening more and more. When he would later talk about this moment, he would always say it was a turning point in his life. Seeing the love of a mother trying to protect her clueless daughter from their overpowering enemies, doing everything she can just so that her kid might have a chance to survive a little longer.
Even if that meant my mother would die herself.
The silence was crushing. I hardly dared to breathe, not really understanding what was going on but still feeling the severity of the situation.
Time seemed to have stopped, none of us moving a single inch, until finally Dad lowered the dagger and stood back up.
My mother opened her eyes, realizing Dad was not going to stab her a second time. She looked up at him, confusion and anger in her expression.
"I'm sorry. You didn't deserve this," Dad silently mumbled, and I'm not sure if he meant the wound in my mother's chest or the deadly chaos outside. He threw me a quick glance, then he turned to leave.
"Yeah, sorry my ass!" my mother shouted after him, just as he reached the door. He stopped and turned back while my mother continued.
"Don't give me this hypocritical bullshit, Commander, if you really wouldn't have wanted all this to happen, you would have ordered your battalion to fall back in the first place!"
Dad didn't answer, he just stared at her, his face a mask of exhaustion and regret.
"You know, she is something special," my mother coughed and motioned towards me. "She was going to grow up to be one of the strongest Garde in Loric history. A beautiful, brave, proud and kind young lady. She has her whole life in front of her. Who the hell are you that you think you can just walk in here and take that away from her?"
"I spared her life," Dad replied, but my mother just snorted.
"And you think your friends out there will do the same? It won't take long until your reinforcements arrive, and they sure as hell won't hesitate to kill her. When you decided to lead your troops into battle, you signed her death sentence. You didn't spare my daughters life right there, you just delayed the execution."
Dad had silently stared at her for another few seconds, as if fighting with himself over what to do next, then, without another word, he had turned to leave once again.
"Wait!" my mother had called after him one more time, but Dad had just kept on walking.
"Commander, you are not a bad person, I believe in that! You want to help, not destroy. There still is a way to redeem yourself. Take my daughter with you! Take Anivia and keep her safe! You hear me, Commander? Commander!" she cried out, but there was no response from Dad.
A moment of silence passed, and it almost looked like he was going to just leave us behind like that. My mother lying on the floor, blood streaming out of the wound in her chest and creating a pool of blood around her. She knew she wouldn't survive this day, and with tears rushing at her face, she slowly seemed to realize that neither would I.
Then there were footsteps out in the hallway, and Dad rushed back into my bedroom again, a huge military backpack in his hand.
"They're coming," was the only thing he said to my mother while storming past her and to my bed. Turning the backpack upside down, he let its entire content drop to the floor until it was completely empty.
"Have no fear, Anivia, you'll be fine," he said, addressing me for the first time since he got here.
"We'll both be fine as long as we work together," he added, throwing a hectic glance over his shoulder, as if to make sure no one else had appeared in the doorframe. "Now, I need you to hop in here and stay absolutely silent until I tell you to come out, can you do that for me?"
He motioned towards the backpack and then looked at me with a friendly smile. I looked back at him with big eyes, not knowing what to do. I had always been told not to trust strangers, especially not ones that would wander around with one gun in each hand.
"It's fine, honey. He won't hurt you. Right?" My mother said with a side glance at Dad, who shook his head reassuringly.
"No, I will never hurt you," he repeated. "I'll keep you safe and raise you as my own, provided that we get out of here alive."
"I trust you will," my mother said as I got up and hesitatingly crawled into the empty backpack. The second I was inside, a big explosion nearby shook the entire building and sudden, loud calls came from outside. Dad quickly closed the top of the bag over my head.
"Leave!" I heard my mother yell hoarsely at Dad. "Leave, it's your only chance."
Dad didn't answer, but the fact that the backpack suddenly started shaking up and down vehemently told me that we were on the move. I never got a final look at my mother, but as I got tossed up and down in the bag, I heard her voice calling after us.
"Thank you, Commander. No matter what you may have done today, deep down you are a good man after all."
The shaking of the backpack stopped for a second as Dad stood still, and I know how much this must have meant to him. Dad always told me that he had wanted to go back and take my mother with us, too. But then we would have never made it.
Dad sighed, then the tossing continued as he and I left home for ever.
The last thing I remember about that day is Dad pulling me out of the bag after hours of getting flinged from side to side. He had sat me down on a bed in his room on one of the Mogadorian spaceships, then he had collapsed on the floor next to me and immediately fallen asleep. And after a while of listening to his consistent deep breaths, I finally fell asleep, too.
When I was younger, I didn't quite understand all those weird memories. Dad never kept secrets from me, but there were certain things he only explained when I grew older. For example why he had kept my very existence a secret until I was six years old, orwhy I just didn't seem to fit in with the other Mogs at school no matter what, or why I was never allowed to leave the Ashwood Estates.
All of it was part of not risking to compromise my real identity, he would later tell me.
Take no risks. Make no mistakes. Keep your secrets safe.
It's hard to keep such things in mind when fear is constantly trying to push them out again. The vary same fear that follows me everywhere I go, the same fear that makes me tremble in every move I make, the same fear that causes all those frustrating seizures.
Constant fear of making mistakes.
This very same fear won't simply disappear just like that, not unless my secrets are lifted. Not unless someone realizes there's more to my story than what Dad had always made everyone believe.
In case someone does find out who I really am, I will have nothing left to fear, because my secret being revealed will most likely get me killed.
My fear will live on, then, until the day my secret is unravelled. And so will I; I will live on, until the very same day.
One part of my mind seems to hope that this fateful day will never come, that things won't change anymore. Change forced me into this situation. Change killed Dad. And if I don't watch out, change will get me killed, too.
Another part of me just wishes everything was over already. Wants to get rid of that eternal fear. Wants to be free of the constant sorrow. Wants everyone to finally find out.
Because sooner or later, somebody is going to find out. Somebody is going to find out who I really am.
What I really am.
Why not make it sooner?
In between two steps, one of my hands reaches down to my right ankle as if on its own accord, playing with dangerous thoughts of revealing what lies well hidden under my trousers and socks.
Before that hand can do anything, though, my other hand grabs the first one and holds it in place. The first one tries to escape the grasp and starts fidgeting vehemently, managing to shake off the other one. They keep struggling for a while in a constant forth and back, none of them really being able to gain the upper hand.
Meanwhile I feel like a silent spectator inside my own mind, watching the two sides of the myself fight an endless war against each other.
It's obvious neither one is going to win, not if it goes on this way. And if it goes on this way, neither one is going to win.
I shake my head and force my arms back under my control. There will be time to deal with that later. Enough time. Endless time.
It's not like my problems will ever run away from me. It's the other way around. They're chasing me.
And this is what happens when they catch up to me.
Seizures.
My brain snaps. Stops working properly.
The small sane rest of me retreats. Escapes from the surface of my mind. Hides deep inside my head.
Hides in a safe spot.
It can wait here. Wait until the rest of me has calmed down.
I have many of those safe spots in my mind. This one here is by far not my favourite..
Human doctors call it a 'memory chamber'. I call it Frank, because I like the name.
Frank always lets me see the most recent memories before a seizure. Which usually are not the happiest moments. I don't like Frank much. No.
What makes like him even less is the fact that he doesn't let me get out of the safe spot when I want, but rather when he wants. Which can sometimes take hours.
I have to play it nice with Frank, until he finally opens that door and lets me out.
So I sit down on my spot in the middle of the room and continue to watch the last memories before my most recent seizure.
I am lost. I am doomed. I am never going to see the sunlight again in the eternal desolation of the briefing room.
When we left the safety of the corridor outside behind us, we entered a different world. We've passed over into a place beyond all happiness. A place beyond all hope.
Walking past this doorframe was like stepping through a portal into another dimension. Different than anywhere I ever was before. Different than anything I've ever seen before.
And I don't mean the interesting, inviting kind of different. Nope. Not that kind of different. No.
More of a scary, evil kind of different. Yep, that's it, scary, evil and cruel.
Dark and deadly.
Sullen and sinister.
Scary, evil and cruel.
A kind of different that makes your heart pump faster from the horrors that await me in this place.
The gloomy yellow light is hardly bright enough to see where I am going. I completely rely on Kelly to lead me, and even with her by my side, I feel hopelessly lost in this endless twilight.
The air around me is sticky and absolutely windless. It doesn't take long and I crave for fresh air to fill my lungs. I wish I could be outside right now, back up at the surface, not deep down here, not in the underground section of the Ashwood Estates. No. Not down here. I don't like being this far below the surface.
I'm always above the ground. In school or at home, always above ground. Never down here. No. Don't have permission to be here, anyway. Not allowed in the underground parts. Only on special occasions. No one is allowed here, except if he works in these parts or has some special business to do.
My thoughts return to the human that stormed out of the briefing room just before we entered. Agent Purdy, the General had called after him. The General had sounded really upset back then. I wonder what the little human could have said that made the General so angry.
Or is the General just always angry?
I tug my hands into my sleeves in a protective gesture, but that doesn't stop the sudden cold shivers flowing down my back either.
We move further through the room, and I get the feeling I'm walking towards the end. How long can I keep resisting all this pressure before my mind snaps and I have a seizure? And what happens if I do get one in front of the General?
My stomach makes a growling sound at these thoughts. Better not take the chance.
As we dig deeper into the bottomless abyss of the briefing room, I begin to feel the pulsating presence of the room, hovering above me like some sort of menacing predator. It makes me feel like the room has a mind of its own, trying to misguide me, to get me away from the right path. Like it's snatching at me with sharp teeth made of piles of weapons and strange devices. Like it's breathing along to the shadows dancing on the walls. Like it's an actual living being, luring me into my demise.
I'm a fly, caught in a spider's web, unable to move a single muscle without only getting deeper into the mess.
And as we walk around the last pile of dangerous objects, I come to face the hungry spider.
In the middle of his web, General Andrakkus Sutekh is standing behind a wooden desk, leaning onto his fists. The letters 'MP' are imprinted on his big, black uniform, right next to a little golden badge, showing his high military rank.
I'm so nervous that when I salute, I do it so quickly, there's a loud smacking sound when my hand touches my forehead. The General doesn't even look up, he just keeps staring at a pile of papers on his desk.
His sharp, angled face is being illuminated from below, which only adds to his intimidating, superior appearance. But even in the dim yellow light, I can tell there's way more red in it than I remember from the pictures I've seen of him.
Red, what does that mean again? Dad once explained to me that the colour of people's faces sometimes change with their current mood.
White means they're scared, green means they're sick and blue means they're running out of air and are about to die.
And red, red means they're really angry. Whatever this agent Purdy said to the General, I was right about it really upsetting him, because he is still breathing heavily, not having calmed down a bit.
Kelly motions me to wait and not to make a sound as the General keeps ignoring us. Taking long deep breaths, he seems to try to compose himself. In a strange way, he reminds me of myself, trying to calm down after a seizure.
Take deep breaths. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. An eternal cycle of perfect equilibrium.
The difference between us, though, is that instead of making progress and actually calm down he seems to only get angrier the more time passes, until he only snorts furiously until in the end. With a bloodcurdling howling he throws the entire stack of paper off the desk in anger and frustration.
His massive rib cage rises and sinks rapidly for another few moments. From all the Mogadorians I have ever seen, General Andrakkus Sutekh definitely is the biggest, scariest and most dangerous one. Every single inch of his body seems to be covered in huge muscles., making him appear like an indefinable pile of raw power and force.
Not someone I want to mess with. After all, there's a reason they call him the pride of the army. The lion of Mogador. Our great leader Setrákus Ra's right hand.
When he finally looks up from his desk, his eyes are so full of rage, I want to sneak right back out of here and hide under my bed.
Had I not made that promise to Kelly, I'd be out of here already. Far away. Back at the surface. Not here, though, no. Anywhere but here.
Unfortunately, I have sworn to try my best at helping her out in this audition with the General, so there's nothing left to do but stand next to Kelly and wait for her father to greet us.
The older greets first, an old Mogadorian tradition. As old as the great book itself. Which actually isn't very old.
"What is it you want to waste my time today, Kelly?" the General says after half an eternity of shooting us deadly looks. "Did one of your Pikens get sick again? You know I don't have time for this."
Kelly ignores the comment about the Pikens – it's a long story, one that still embarrasses her. Instead, she motions towards me.
"General, Sir, this is Anivia Magritek," she introduces me and I try not to faint as the General turns his attention towards me. His rigorous eyes size me up and I focus all my attention on resisting the urge to run out of the room.
"Ah, yes, Marcio's daughter. You can be proud of your father, he served our cause exceptionally well. There's no greater honour than to dying in combat," he finally says in his deep, intimidating voice. I almost tremble at its sound, even though bringing up Dad seems to have calmed him down a little bit. He and Dad used to be really close when they were young.
"I wish there were more Mogadorians like him left," he adds with a bitter undertone, and I'm not sure if I just imagine the quick glance at his daughter.
"He was a good man," he then continues, making a pause to give me the opportunity to say something, but my throat suddenly feels too dry to even think about making any sound at all. My mind is way too occupied with trying not to panic to come up with an answer, anyway.
Kelly comes to my aid, though.
"Yes, a great man, indeed, Sir. Just think about all the times he saved us from hopeless situations, all the victories our military owes him…"
"Cut the crap, Kelly," the General harshly interrupts her. I know it makes no sense, but I get the impression that every time Kelly says something, he seems to only get angrier.
"What do you want?" he barks at Kelly.
I flinch at his short tempered tone. Whatever that conversation he had with the fleeing human was about, it left him with an even worse mood than usual.
But I somehow can't ignore the feeling that this is not the only thing causing his anger. The way he glares at Kelly… I may not be good with emotions, but even I can see that the General obviously can't stand his own daughter. It's as clear as it can get. Crystal clear.
Clearer than that. Air clear.
When I had decided to come along with Kelly to talk to her father, she had warned me that he might not exactly be friendly. That's okay, I didn't really mind, that's the way everyone treats me around here.
What she didn't mention is that he would treat us like his personal worst enemies. I didn't expect this reluctant aversion, this hatred towards his own daughter. Obviously, he and Kelly don't have such a great father-daughter relationship as they publicly pretend.
Kelly sighs.
"Alright, Father, Sir, I'll get to the point. Nivi and I have something to ask you. A request. We want to join the task force to track down the remaining Loric."
A look of surprise crosses General Andrakkus Sutekh's firm face, but he wipes it away immediately. Instead, he puts on an amused, malicious smirk and comes forward from behind his working desk.
"Why, what's wrong with the Piken-training, Kelly? Why the sudden change of heart? You told me you were happy with the Pikens. I thought you found your future down there. Oh, and what a future!
You're not like the other girls around here, I get that. You want more than to just sit around all day, waiting for your husband to come home from duty. You want action. You want adventure. That's why you're down there, with the Pikens," he says and gives Kelly a cold, triumphant smile. Treating the Pikens is considered one of the most dishonorable jobs in the entire Mogadorian system. But Kelly admitted to me she actually likes her job, and she also is the head of the whole Piken-breeding department, which technically puts her amongst the highest military ranks arpund here.
Nonetheless, she's still looking for something else. Something more interesting, she had told me. Something outside the Ashwood Estates.
And the General seems to know that, too. Kelly and him talked about it over dinner a couple of times. But instead of granting his daughter her wish, he seems to enjoy denying it to her. She had hoped that he would maybe reconsider the whole thing if I would come along. Because he and Dad used to friends, Kelly had said.
Guess she should have known better.
"After all the effort I put into getting you to where you are now, you want to just give the Pikens up like that? What will they do without you?" He says with in mocking tone.
Kelly purses her lips, knowing better than to take his bait, though.
"I'm sure you'll find a fitting replacement" she replies. "And I'm really grateful for all you've done to get me this position. It's just that… umm…" She shoots me a quick glance. "Nivi here found something in a… news report that could lead us to one of the Loric."
I gasp. What is she doing?
"And now we want to help tracking them down," Kelly finishes.
I press my knees together to stop them from shaking. Lying was never part of our agreement. Not part of the plan. Because lying to a Mogadorian of such high importance General is a really serious crime. And the punishment for such crimes is… deadly.
The General turns his attention to me, suddenly interested.
"Is that true?" he says and I feel like I'm shrinking to half my size at his gaze.
My pulse rises to double its speed and I take a couple of quick breaths before I realize I'm going to have a seizure if this continues. Which mustn't happen. Not in front of the General. No. Not now.
Have to calm down… Calm down…
Another exercise Dad taught me: Colours.
Blue, green, yellow, orange, grey, purple.
Blue like the ocean.
Green like the meadows.
Yellow like the sun.
Orange like… an orange.
No, that doesn't count.
Orange like that football Dad and I used to play with on his free days when I was younger. Orange like that stupid hat I once made Dad wear for carnival.
And grey… grey like the ash Dad evaporated into a few weeks back.
Purple like the cold, indifferent Mogadorian eyes of so many soldiers that watched him die, without even trying to help. He might have been an excellent warrior, but all in all he was just another brick in the wall, just another face in the gigantic army of Mogadore, dispensable like any other soldier.
I look up and realize the General is still expecting an answer.
Not knowing what else to say, I fall back to the only thing that never failed me.
"The Mogadorian is a natural born predator. Once he has picked up his prey's scent, he won't rest until it is hunted down. The great book, page fourteen, paragraph two, first and second sentence," I shyly stutter, staring down at my feet. The General gives me a long look, and I get the feeling he's looking right into my soul, reading my darkest secrets, as if I'm transparent as glass.
Glass. As transparent and fragile as glass.
"Well, I'd love to hear whatever it is you found in that news report," the General finally says. "But I'm afraid we already tracked the remaining Loric down."
"What?" Kelly cries out before she remembers who she's talking to.
"I mean, you did, Sir?" she adds, in a more polite tone.
"Yes, Kelly, we did. Our soldiers trapped them in a train near the Canadian border. We sent an entire battalion, just to make sure. There's no way they'll get away this time," he says with a triumphant, self-pleased smile.
"That's…great. Fantastic!" Kelly says in an unconvincing way. The General raises an eyebrow at her lack of enthusiasm, but before he can ask her about it, there's a loud noise from outside.
"You can't enter now, the General is busy at the moment," I hear one of the four vat-born guards say. "Do you even have an appointment?"
"No, but I have an important message for the General. Now let me in, the General needs to hear this," another deep voice replies while panting loudly.
"We have strict rules…" The guard begins, but the other voice cuts him off.
"Screw the rules! I need to get this to the General. Right now!"
There's a moment of silence, in which the guards seem to decide to let whoever is waiting outside in, because a couple of seconds later, the door opens and a big Mog scout rushes through the maze of all those strange objects, coming straight towards us. His face is red from anxiety and he's breathing heavily. The sweat on his forehead means he must have ran for quite some time to get here.
I wonder where he may have come from.
"Sir, General," the scout says as he reaches us and makes a quick bow. "I bring you news from Canada."
"Ah yes, the trapped Loric. We were just talking about them," the General says, a cruel smirk on his lips. He looks at the scout, motioning him to continue.
"Sir, General, the Loric that we trapped…" he begins, but then hesitates.
"What about them?" the General impatiently demands.
"…They seem to have escaped," the scout finishes.
I watch as the General's triumphant grin slowly turns into an infuriated grimace.
"WHAT?" he franticly roars and takes a menacing step towards the scout who nervously moves backwards.
"Th-they must have somehow slipped through our trap. I…I don't know the d-details, Sir, I'm j-just the messenger. I wasn't even there," the scout hoarsely mumbles.
"Father," Kelly says, taking an uncertain step towards them, but the General doesn't even seem to notice her.
"HOW COULD THEY HAVE ESCAPED?" the General yells and moves even closer. The scout keeps stumbling backwards until he gets to the wall, silently whimpering as the General reaches him.
"Father, Sir, I…" Kelly begins again, but just a small gesture from her father is enough to reduce her to silence. With a furious expression, he turns his attention back to the scout.
"Please, Sir, there was nothing I could have done…" the Mog says, all colour draining from his face.
White. If a persons face turns white, that means they're scared.
I guess I could have figured that out myself, without Dad's lessons, though.
The General stops a few feet away from the scout, watching him with nothing but disgust.
With one of his massive, bulky hands, the General grabs the Mog by the throat and effortlessly lifts him up three feet in the air.
"YOU HAD THEM! HOW COULD YOU LET THEM ESCAPE?" he roars and starts shaking the poor guy. The scout frantically gasps for air, being tossed from side to side, but the General's grasp is too tight.
"Sir, please…" he manages, his face turning into a dark shade of blue from the lack of oxygen.
Then, with a loud snap, the General breaks the scout's neck and the poor Mog turns into ash, that slowly trickles down from the General's hands.
At the sight of this, I suddenly feel my breakfast working its way up my throat, attempting to get back out the way it got in. I need to bring up all my willpower to not puke on the floor right there.
Kelly clears her throat and takes a step sideways. Even though she tries to act as if she didn't care about the scout's death at all, I got to know her well enough in the past weeks to know it actually did shock her.
Making sure her father's back is still turned to us, she slowly reaches down to a pile of weapons to her feet. My eyes widen as she picks up a long, golden dagger and weighs it in her hand.
The General turns back to us, his face a grimace of uncontrollable rage and devouring contempt. Kelly quickly hides the dagger behind her back and looks at her father with sheepish eyes. My heart almost stops when I imagine what she's planning to do with the blade.
"You're still here?" the General roars at us, and I almost crumble at the sound of his voice.
"You still haven't given us an answer. You could obviously need some help with those sneaky Loric," Kelly replies in a calm tone. The General lets out a rumbling laugh.
"And what makes you think we needs wimps like you in the task force?" he asks and I flinch.
"If you ask me, there's a ton of reasons. You still haven't caught the Loric in all the years we're on this planet, maybe it's time to freshen up the hunt with a couple of new members," Kelly says, tilting her chin forward in a challenging gesture.
The General gives her a long, cndescending stare, then he shakes his head.
"No. Not in a thousand years, Kelly. You're going too far this time. Know your damn place, girl!" he curses.
"Is this your final answer?" Kelly asks, looking her father deep in the eyes without turning a hair. Her whole body is tensed in anticipation, and even though she must be at least a bit upset by what her father did to that scout, she stands completely still, not moving a muscle, like a statue, completely indifferent to her surroundings.
The General grimaces.
"Can't you hear, Kelly? I said no, and I mean it. Now go back to the Piken-training, I'm sure they're already missing people like you down there," he hisses hatefully and shoots her a look that could kill.
Kelly shakes her head and does something unexpected: She smiles.
"I thought so," she says in a bittersweet, disturbingly calm voice.
I press my lips together and stay silent to what's about to happen next.
And what else can I do? Should I try stopping Kelly from using that dagger? Should I stop her from killing her own father? From killing the man that has the deaths of countless innocents resting on his conscious? The man that had command of the army during the genocide on Lorien?
It would be treason not to step in, not to save a Mog of such a high rank. But doing it somehow doesn't seem to make any sense at all in my brain. Without letting me know, my mind seems to have already decided that I won't do anything to help the General.
Still, not acting now goes against everything I've ever been taught in Mog-school, everything I've ever read in the great book of our people. It's like I'm divided into two pieces, the instinctive, emotional side pleading not to intervene while Kelly does what she's about to do; the other part of me, the reasoning, disciplined one, orders me to react and to stop her from killing one of Mogadore's biggest heroes. My sentimental side versus my logical side. The sympathetic part versus the cold-hearted part.
Nature versus progress.
I bite my lip. Whatever happens now, I'll regret it. That's for sure. Either way, the decision is mine. I have more than enough time to stop Kelly from throwing the dagger. I can choose the outcome of the situation. Fate is in my hands for the very first time in my life.
And as the inner conflict threatens to rip me in two, I suddenly see Dad's face in front of me.
It's like a vision, like a dream, I know he's not really here – he can't be, he's dead – but just the sight of him, staring at me with those generous, intelligent eyes, is enough. He doesn't say a word, he just watches me as I turn my attention back to Kelly and the General.
I know what Dad would want me to do. And I make my decision.
"You were a horrible father," Kelly says and brings the dagger forward from behind her back. The General raises an eyebrow. He seems confused, not really understanding what's going on. He's probably never been talked back to by his daughter.
Guess he'll never get the chance to get used to it, anyway, because Kelly reaches out and throws the dagger with all her strength.
When with a sudden spark in his eyes, the General finally seems to realize what she's done, it's already too late. The knife flies in a straight line towards him, and there's no way he can dodge or deflect it in time. I watch his edged expression, as within a matter of a second it turns from the usual arrogant, overconfident glare into a grimace of surprise, confusion and – who would have thought – fear.
The blade hits his chest, penetrates his suit and stabs him right in the heart. BLERG I just stand there, watching him fall to his knees. The instinctive side of me has won. This time.
The General gives his daughter a final glance, his lips moving in disbelief without making a sound. It reminds me of how I must have looked when I had the seizure just earlier today: weak.
Kelly holds his stare without blinking all this time. Her expression is stiff and motionless, but I know she's enjoying the show. Ever since the day she was born, he never gave her anything but the cold shoulder. No fatherly love, not even the slightest sign of any emotions other than uncontrollable anger and manipulative rancour. Deep down, he must have hated her almost as much as her traitor brother.
The General coughs in agony, spitting blood then he manages to get out one final word.
"Why?" He asks with a last ounce of strength.
"Killing is in our nature, and therefore, death is nature's way of showing our superiority," Kelly quotes the great book and I automatically add 'page one, paragraph three, second sentence' in my mind.
"You taught me well, Father. You forged my hatred, but you didn't notice I directed it at you. You made me a soldier, but you didn't care that the you had always been the one I fought. You gave me a weapon but didn't know that in the end, it would be the same one that strikes you down. And now, General," she spits out the last words. "Now you die."
As she finishes the final sentence, her father yanks his head upwards and lets out an unsettling, hysterical, almost mad laugh.
I press both hands against my ears to shut it out, but it just keeps on echoing in my head. An unexplainable feeling runs through me, happy and sad, chaotically raging and peacefully calm, sane and insane at the same time.
The beginning of a seizure.
The General manages to stay upright on his knees while throwing his daughter one last hateful glance, then he doubles over and turns into ash, just like any other Mogadorian would.
Just like my own Dad did.
And this is the story of how General Andrakkus Sutekh, one of Mogadore's mightiest warriors, was killed by a teenage girl.
As this thought crosses my mind, I feel the numbing fog of a seizure overcome my mind. I stumble forward, trip and drop to the floor. The last thing I see before the seizure completely takes over my mind is the pile of ash that used to be the lion of Mogadore right next to me.
Flickering light, then nothing. Nothing but nothingness. End of the tape.
End of the tape. End of my memories.
What follows now is the present. The here and now. What follows now depends on me. Depends on what I do. For the first time in my life, I have the chance to take control.
And as if to grant me this very chance, Frank opens the door and lets me out.
Hey there everyone!
I got a couple of announcements to make today, so I'm going to start off with answering last chapter's reviews to kick things off :)
ZazzyZ: Haha, paying attention well there. I changed it right away, next chapter with Ella and Five will hopefully settle your question. Good job, though, and thanks a lot for pointing it out, I really appreciate reviews like this :)
I-wish-I-could-be-Number-Five: Don't worry, I believe Marina will be just fine :)
Mysteryfanaticno1: I actually didn't plan to make a John POV very soon, but since a couple of you asked for it, I'll try to do what I can :)
Zack619: Haha, thanks for the heads up, buddy. Needed it ;P
Alright, now that this is out of our way, I'll get to the next point.
20 CHAPTERS!
Holy shit, I never believed we would ever get this far, but we made it after all. Huge shoutouts to you guys, who keep following and reviewing, even though it may get boring at times.
You are the engine that keeps this whole project running. Don't you ever stop working, never!
Seriously, though, thanks, I can't tell you how much this whole thing means to me. And you folks keeping supporting me is just amazing.
Alright, the second thing I wanted to say today is why this chapter took so long to come out. You may have noticed it is the longest one so far, with over 8000 words. The reason this took me even longer than expected, though, is that I am currently reading through all the lost files and I just realized halfway through the chapter that a person that was actually a big part of my planned plot in fact died a long time ago in the lost files (sorry for this strange sentence, I don't want to make any spoilers). So after noticing this, I had to kind of rewrite the whole thing, which took extra time.
Sorry about that, I'll try to keep posting more frequently.
The next thing I want to say is a bit longer. If you don't like to hear me randomly whine and bitch about unimportant matters, you might want to skip this part :P To the rest of you: There's something that has been bothering me for quite a while now. The last few chapters, especially this one, weren't exactly exciting or easy to read, I realize that. I've been trying out new things, experimenting with different styles and probably annoying the shit out of you guys. This may or may not sound like I'm overestimating my writing skills by far, but I've been trying to include more than just the raw plot, I tried creating different atmospheres and broaching several issues that came to mind as I was writing this.
Now, I do realize that I'm not actually half as good as I'd like to be. Like most of us amateur writers, I'm probably not good enough for people to enjoy just my writing without the plot.
Please understand that I am not saying this just to have people comforting me or so, that's not what I'm trying to achieve here.
I think most people come to this website looking for interesting plots and good ideas, not expecting works with great literary value. In no way do I believe that this story has high literary value, but I looked back at some other stories I wrote a few years back and noticed this one has something special to it, because I haven't been stubbornly pushing the plot forward but rather taken my time and started things quite slowly.
Now, I understand that this 'slow' factor might be the same thing that causes this story to be as hard to read as it is. We're already 20 chapters in and I haven't even started with the actual plot I had in mind in the first place. At this pace, I'm going to have to at least do about 120 chapters to finish all my ideas.
So, long story short, since I write this entire for you guys and you guys only, I wanted to let you make the decision: Does this 'slow' thing bother you? Would you rather see a rapidly developing plot than what I am doing right now?
I'd really like an answer from you guys on that, because if you are just reading this for the plot, then by all means I don't want to bore you with unnecessary bullshit and beating around the bush and so on. If you enjoy this slow pace on the other hand, please let me know.
So, yeah, it'd be great if I could get a couple of answers to that :)
That's all for today, I hope you guys actually had fun reading this after all, 'cause I sure as hell had fun writing it.
Have a great time until next chapter, and as always, thanks a lot for reading this story!