Purity of Essence - Chapter 7 - Roller Coaster
Purity of Essence
by Wrin Chikaya

Chapter 7 - Roller Coaster


"The confusion that was hers now belongs to the baby down the hall."

Matrix rubbed his hands together, feeling the dirt and grit catch between his fingers. His conscience had ceased to scream at him, finally, and all that its absence left was an emptiness akin to the stillness left after the final echo of a concert has faded.

AndrAIa. He had hurt AndrAIa. Not just hurt, even, really. Attacked. She had been bleeding, moreover. If the guilt brought on by botching Megabyte's defeat was monumental, then the guilt caused by his actions towards AndrAIa in the past few seconds was enough to kill a sprite.

Grit covered him from head to toe. The apartment itself was pristine except for the living room where he had attacked AndrAIa. There, blood spattered the furniture and walls, and stained the carpet. He had been completely afraid to enter the room after he had woken up from AndrAIa's poison and dashed into their-- no, his bedroom in an attempt to shut the whole event out.

However, the problem was that it just never went away.

AndrAIa had undoubtedly fled to his sister's place. How to face his sister now was a question scratching at his mind. It made him hurt straight to the code to think of what Dot likely thought of him.

Preoccupied in a list of thoughts as long as his arm, reeling from start to finish as quickly as time could allow, Matrix failed to notice the stealthy metal steps making their way towards him.

In fact, he didn't even notice anyone else in the apartment when the door to the bedroom was opened.

He hadn't even noticed it by the time the intruder was standing right behind him.

Megabyte curled his hands around Matrix's skull, immobilizing it, forcing Matrix to stiffen in immediate panic.

But this author is guilty of jumping ahead.

To the beginning.

---

AndrAIa woke up for a second time in Bob and Dot's apartment. Or was it a third? She squeezed her eyes shut at the unwelcome infiltration of light. Her arms, her shoulders, her legs, her face, and oh, User, her back. Everything ached.

"Enzo?" she managed to croak out. She was wrapped tightly in a spotless green blanket, stretched out on the couch, or as stretched out as she could be under the circumstances. Upon further inspection, she discovered that one of her cheeks was so swollen it was difficult to open that eye, and that her nose had a lump in it, almost as if it had been broken. She groaned inwardly, not out of pain, but out of compounded embarrassment. Her knee was bandaged uncomfortably in some sort of fleece fabric, stretched out straight with a piece of dowel on each side to keep it steady. Is everything broken? she thought inwardly.

She heard the creaking of leather on leather as Bob tiptoed towards her. "Bob, where's Enzo?"

Bob's eyebrows twitched slightly as he eyed her in puzzlement. "He's out. With Frisket."

"Oh..." she seemed so far away.

He reached his hand out and placed it on her forehead. She was feverish too. "Enzo," she repeated.

"He's gone, I said."

"I know," she snapped. "What does he know?"

"Well," Bob swallowed hard. "He saw you return bleeding. He knew you'd gone to see Matrix."

"What did Dot ... tell ... him?" she panted. She felt her chest go heavy. She dreaded Bob's response.

"Now, that I don't know," Bob conceded.

She pressed her eyes shut tightly. What to think of Matrix? He'd tried to kill her. And the worst part was, she didn't even understand any possible reason why. There was no provocation. Nothing. It was almost as if he hadn't even seen her.

Bob sat cross-legged next to AndrAIa, his hand on her forearm, in silence, until Dot came home. She was flushed, and frantic. It made AndrAIa sink into the couch to guess what could have possibly happened this time.

"Has anyone seen Enzo?" she panted.

AndrAIa wriggled herself upright. "You mean he wasn't with you?"

"Oh, User," Dot faltered.

"Megabyte?" Bob volunteered.

"You think he was kidnapped?" Dot asked.

AndrAIa struggled to stand. Bob reached over to quiet her. "No, you don't understand!" she snapped as she fought him. "You don't understand!"

Dot grabbed AndrAIa's hand and asked in puzzlement: "What don't we understand?" AndrAIa was feverish, Dot reasoned.

"You have to get over to the apartment."

Bob rumpled his eyebrows. "I don't understand why."

"Exactly," AndrAIa stated. "I'm not exactly sure what's going on but I have this sneaking suspicion that it involves Megabyte and Matrix. He's not after you, Dot, he never was!"

Dot's eyes widened at the thought. Bob remained clueless. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that we're bound to find Megabyte wherever Enzo is. And I bet both Matrix and Enzo, are to be found at my -- his -- our apartment, rather."

Bob didn't agree. "I think it's a trap for Dot."

"Well, Bob, trap or no trap," AndrAIa shifted, "If you want Dot to stay behind, then you're going alone."

Bob mulled this thought over for a moment, then conceded.

"Alright, then. Let's head out."

And AndrAIa was left in a quiet apartment, feeling useless and antsy. She narrowed her eyes at the set of keys on the table ...

-

Megabyte smiled toothily at Matrix as the man-sprite's eyes widened in fear. Complete powerlessness. Megabyte was so giddy with the thought it was dreadfully detrimental to his effort to appear aloof. Paralyzed with fear.

"Oh, dearest, dearest boy. How we shall see now, who is predator, and who is prey..."

-

In the quiet of night, a lone motorbike glistened. Idling like a kitten, its rider sat awkwardly on its seat, but rode with a sense of purpose.

The roar of the motor soon faded away into the eerie silence of the night.

-

The door to the apartment was locked shut. It took a few tries for even Bob to get it open; "Spammed high-security locks..." he cursed.

Dot's stomach did flip-flops when she saw the imprints of carnage on the walls and carpet of the living room, but the both of them could hear the sounds of a struggle inside the bedroom. The door was slightly ajar.

Bob ventured down the hall first.

-

Megabyte stopped short when he felt a pistol pushed against the side of his head. But surely this was impossible? A second? Megabyte narrowed his eyes; he was invincible! This couldn't be true!

Defeated by a--

BLAM!

-

Dot stared in disbelief. The sprite who now held Gun in his hand was almost sickeningly like his elder. She found it difficult to discern between the expressions on the faces of the two sprites, so alike in all the wrong ways.

AndrAIa limped up behind, and closed her eyes tightly in dismay at the scene which lay before her now. Enzo, holding a weapon which did not belong to him, and yet did, and Matrix, staring at AndrAIa with so much shame in his eyes...

It was enough to make a sprite's blood run cold.

"User save us all," Dot mumbled.

Matrix stood up and tiptoed warily towards AndrAIa. "Are you ... alright?"

AndrAIa turned her head away instinctively, pinchingly self-conscious about her face. She forced herself to look at him. "You ..."

"I'm ... I'm so sorry, Andi."

And every fibre in AndrAIa's body screamed at her to forgive him.

-

The couple sat in a bedroom in Dot and Bob's apartment. The very bedroom AndrAIa had slept in that fateful night, and woken up in that fateful morning. Matrix had spent the entire night cycle explaining, and AndrAIa was silent. At least Matrix recognized what he had done. And what he had caused.

One of her worst fears was beginning to materialize. Enzo had begun to become Matrix in the worst way, and at an earlier age even than Matrix first was when he had become stuck in the Games. It was enough to make a sprite crumble. And crumble she did.

It would seem to an ordinary observer, that Matrix had done something unforgivable. But to AndrAIa, he had had a decidedly noble reason behind his actions. He set them aside as Dot set them aside, and AndrAIa was left with no logical reason not to do the same herself. Bob had taken Megabyte's shell to the decomposition chamber early that morning, and their worst nightmares had ended.

She hoped that quietude would bless them for a time to come, for she had discovered something earlier that she had chosen not to disclose to Matrix during such a time of turmoil.

She knew she loved him. That had not changed. And with that love, she could only hope that becoming a father would help Matrix recover from the Games, and remember himself. The Self she fell in love with.

She knew he would.

---

Baby's black balloon makes her fly
I almost fell into that hole in your life
And you're not thinking about tomorrow
'cause you were the same as me
but on your knees

A thousand other boys could never reach you
how could I have been the one?
I saw the world spin beneath you
and scatter like ice from the spoon
that was your womb..

Comin' down, the world turned over
and angels fall without you there
and I go on as you get colder
or are you someone's prayer?

You know the lies that they always told you
and the love you never knew?
What's the things they never showed you
that swallowed the light from the sun
inside your room?

Comin' down, the world turned over
and angels fall without you there
and I go on as you get colder--

And there's no time left for losin'
when you stand they fall

Comin' down, the world turned over
and angels fall without you there
and I go on as you grow colder
all because I'm--

Comin' down, the years turn over
and angels fall without you there
and I'll go on to bring you home
all because I'm--
all because I'm--
and I'll become
what you became to me ...

Goo Goo Dolls - Black Balloon

---
Comments, suggestions, and Oh Do I Love Hate Mail
animalspeaker@home.com
http://wrin.net/