By Chustang Sundust
Chapter 5 – Part B
"The Last Day"
June 15, on the planet of Angel, five years in the future.
(Gene's story continued)
Harry never would have actually done it, as long as I wasn't
there. He hated me more than Hell could have ever imagine. And I could
see it. A dark, bitterly wrathful grimace added onto his list of angry
features, and a rage caused him to bring the knife dangerously close to
Melfina's throat. Her eyes were large with fear, pleading weakly to me
like I was her only friend. She was losing blood, and she slowly began
to fade into unconsciousness. Melfina was crying to me. And I couldn't
answer.
A horrible smile came across his face and Harry said icily, in
a greedy tone, "I told you she was mine Gene, but you didn't believe me.
Just look, Gene. She's here in my arms, and there's nothing you can do
about it." Those purple eyes spat triumphant fire at me.
I didn't know what to do. A cold sweep came over me at Harry.
"What if I - " I lifted a leg like I was ready to take that step forward.
"- took a step? Would you really kill Mel?"
I thought he loved her enough not to do it.
Tears suddenly blurred in the depths of her liquid brown eyes,
and her anguished expression bundled up in hurt. She must have thought
I hated her. Melfina fearfully bit her lip until a thin red line traced
down her chin like she was an unfinished puppet. And in a way, she was
an unfinished puppet. Unfinished because of no past and an unsure future;
a puppet because of the twisted mess that was her past. She lipped something
to me, and then struggled tiredly against Harry's hold, unknowingly kicking
the forgotten gun away.
He frowned angrily, and then it pressed against her skin. "Do
you want to see?" And in a jerk, he did it. Without hesitation. Harry McDougall
actually had slit Melfina's throat.
Instantly, she gave a scream, which was muddled by the blood.
Melfina fell away heavily from her captor with trembling hands clutched
around her throat. As she limply collapsed, the android gave one last,
anguished sob before her hands fell away in unconsciousness, letting her
life flow away with every heartbeat. Her brown eyes struggled to smile
at me one last time before she gave up.
At that point, I would have killed anybody who dared to even
breath too loudly. I just took the gun, which had 10 bullets loaded, and
emptied each one into him. Harry blinked, with pain mounting in the five
I'd gotten in his shoulders and chest, and the others that had gone towards
his ankles and legs. He gave me a look, like I should have felt pity for
him as he died. I gave none.
And the android died beside Melfina, just like he probably wanted.
Melfina's blood still, despite the crude bandage, flowed down
my back, as she hung over my shoulder. With her as a burden, it was getting
harder to dodge all the shots coming from Harry's backup ambush. After
jumping out the window of the bar, as an unnoticed assassin in the corner
had pressed attack after I killed Harry, it was answered with angry blasts
from the park trees. Now, exhaustedly hiding behind the nearest boulder,
I could feel the bitter whir grazing against the stone, closer and closer
to hitting flesh. I'd already gotten nailed once in the leg, and a grazing
bullet had sliced up my left ear and burned some of my hair, destroying
the earring transmitter. So I had no way to contact Jim.
And to make things doubly worse, I had an empty gun, and no caster
shells. And a dying girl to take care of.
"Dammit!" I cursed under my breath, as a strong barrage of shots
began to crack the rock. I could feet the heat from them emanating through
the stone. I was ready to run for it, into the trees a few meters off across
a cobblestone path, when that horrible click echoed in my ear.
"I finally found you, Gene Starwind." The sweet voice, seeming
belonging to a kid, seemed to ice my blood. It wasn't happy or sincere;
it was malicious and cold. And, as you probably know, I turned to see whom
else? Hamyou. The cute little Pirate girl.
With almost manical eyes, she locked the gun in my ear and tightened
the trigger. She gave a cold smile, before saying, "This was easier than
expected."
And like the fool I was, I actually thought I was through. Can
you blame me? And now, looking back, its really kind of ironic. A little
girl not even Jim's age killing the great Starwind bounty hunter with a
single shot. A little girl that had snuck up on me like I was a drunk who
hadn't sobered up for weeks; damn easily. I should have known better. Life
wasn't done toying with me.
"Hey Hamyou! Can't you wait up? What's wron-"
Caught red-handed, I saw Jim stare limply at his date, give a
blink, and let the bouquet of pink roses crash to the ground. "H-Hamyou?
G-Gene?" He stuttered uncontrollably and I could see him beginning to panic,
as he saw Mel. "Oh my God! Melfina!" Jim apparently had forgotten all about
his date holding a gun and when he rushed over to help Mel and me, the
barrel came down, trained on him. The gun jabbed at him between the eyes
in a warning gesture.
"Hamyou? What the hell are you doing?!" he shrieked, as she grabbed
him by the shirt collar and dragged him closer to the barrel. Jim gave
a frantic roll of his eyes once Hamyou had lifted him clear off the ground,
gulping nervously. But, as usual, Jim wasn't the one to lose his level
head for more than an minute. He wrapped his hands around hers, slowly
trying to ease the gun away from him with out provoking her to shoot. "Come
on, b-be reasonable…"
It was all down hill from there.
She smiled thoughtfully, tilting her head as she stared at him.
Her lips pursed over a grin and she set him down. The pirate girl purred,
"I guess you're right. Reasonable." But it still didn't seem right to me.
There wasn't any genuine sincerity to her answer. It was like she was insane,
even. "Why shoot you? I came here for him." And she turned to me.
They rest off that day was a complete blur to me. Everything
after that went too fast to remember. That's kind of a lie, though. I've
been in faster gunfights than that I still can tell you what gun I used,
how long it took to kill the guy, and if I got hit, how much it damn hurt.
All that I remember is the taste of blood, Jim yelling something, and the
bouquet of roses getting trampled on. I just don't want to remember any
of it, I guess, but I can never forget Mel. So that's why I can tell this
story.
After the blur, I found Jim crashed to his knees with the gun
in his hand, a bullet wound in his left hand, and his hand computer smashed
to bits on the street. I was fine, except for my leg and my ear, which
was no more than shredded cartilage, (which hurts, trust me) and having
a dying android on my back, and a bleeding eleven year old laughing, while
in tears, on the sidewalk. And, as I looked, there were no more pirates
shooting from the trees. I staggered up, shifting Melfina off my back and
into my arms. "Jim? Are you okay?"
He didn't even have to stop his laughing/crying to answer. With
his bloody hand collecting up the shattered computer and pistol up into
a pile of metal, he just kept looking down. "Yeah. Perfectly fine."
"But your hand, Jim! Look at it! If you don't fix it up, you
could lose it!" I warned him, taking a step instinctively forward.
"Take Melfina to the ship." His voice was cold, and he didn't
stop staring at the ground.
I didn't believe the act he was giving me. Something was suspiciously
wrong here, too suspicious. He was never silent like this; he was always
looking, thinking for a way to keep out of trouble while I was constantly
dragging him into it like an animal stuck on the windshield. It was pure
crap, acting depressed. I'd known him to get quiet about his parents whenever
a conversation came too close to the topic. I could understand; I'd lost
my father to pirates. But this… this wasn't Jim, and I was afraid. "Damn
Jim, quit it," I fiercely said, trying to snap him out of his crazy down-haze.
"What happened to all the pirates? Where's Hamyou?"
"The pirates got called off. Hamyou got shot." His reply came
blunt and harsh, like he was fed up with my pressing questions against
him. Maybe I'd pushed him too hard. And before I get on with this jagged
tale, I'd like to confess… I did push Jim. Too much. And I'm sorry to Jim
for dragging him into my twisted hellhole of a life and I hate myself for
it. Sorry buddy.
God, I must have been a bloody mess, both on the inside and out.
That's why he wanted me to leave. Damn, he always thought, and still does,
think of me first. Jim wanted me to go before I got killed, along with
Melfina.
"But Jim… come on…" I weakly tried to shake this off, before
it set in like a virus. I couldn't let him go through another depression
streak. I'd been five years since that; the night his parents died. "You're
a mess too, Jim. Just come home and I'll make hot chocolate – your favorite,
remember? – And we'll take of Mel together, sit on the couch and relax,
play checkers, and I'll just be like old times -"
As I had placed my hand on his head to give him a traditional
hair-ruffle, it was shot straight back with a snap and pair of blue eyes
I'd never seen before. Jim glared up at me with truly angry eyes, punching
my arm back and leaning away. "Knock it off Aniki!"
I just blinked.
This wasn't Jim. Seriously. No matter what, neither Jim nor I
had ever hit each other ever, even if I got drunk or if he got fed up with
me. And as I slowly took the caster out, the fake Jim's eyes widened in
fear, quickly darted to the barrel, then he narrowed them in a grin. "You
have no caster shells." His voice was thick with a strange quality, and
he smiled fiercely.
I took a step back.
Melfina began to shudder and groan in pain, clutching at her
throat with one hand; the other was wrapped weakly around my arm. Blood
still lay around her neck like sick jewelry, as I darted my eyes to her,
and as I pushed her hair from getting stained with one hand, it came away
dark crimson. I didn't know. I couldn't have known. It was impossible to
know she could be shut off, becoming unable to die.
If only.
Jim suddenly flickered in the dying light, casting a strange
tangle of shadows across an alien face, darkening the already threatening
blue eyes. It wasn't the same kid lying there I knew. The very image of
him seemed to sway and flicker with other colors, disorienting the human
being I saw. The smile on his face flickered along with it, slowly becoming
less and less human.
"A hologram!"
"So you figured it out, huh?" he hissed, in a gravelly voice
that was being slurred by a malfunction. It uncontrollably whirred with
a mechanical tone, before he waved insolently and was shut off.
I found dawn glowing on the horizon as I sprinted as quickly
as possibly to our temporary apartment. I found the sun glaring a red in
the windows as I fumbled with the door, staring like a searchlight in my
face as I discovered it jammed. With Melfina convulsing in pain and damage
in my arms, it seemed like forever, as I stood panting at the stuck-fast
door and wondered the track I was careening down. Mel was dying, pirates
had gotten Jim, I was choking on blood and being hunted down, and, off
all times, my door had to jam.
"Dammit Aisha!" I screamed at the door, knowing she could hear
me. "Open the door! Melfina's hurt badly! I mean it Aisha!"
When silence shattered my hope, I began to feel anger swelling
up. I'd gotten ticked off at her tactless and badly timed antics before,
but locking me out of my own apartment pushed the limit off the edge and
was like shoving me over to pass it. That Ctarl-Ctarl was going to explain
her ass off. Collecting her into one arm, I slammed on the door, trying
to get Suzuka to open it for me.
"Open it now!"
Pound. Pound.
Silence.
"AISHA!"
Pound. Pound.
More silence.
"Suzuka!"
Silence.
Pure and untamed.
Unbroken.
Empty.
Empty?
"Suzu? Aisha? Are you-"
I stopped in mid-breath at that point and my heart just about
froze with it. With everything going wrong, the tears I couldn't resist
cut a trail through the blood. I knew it was totally over, seeing the truth
so abruptly. As the sun began to lift higher, moving the glare from the
windowpanes, I saw it.
The jagged edges of the window were smeared with blood and burdened
with the spicy smell of gun smoke. Inside was a dusty mess of vaporized
steel and wood. Glass was scattered at the door, and there were barely
noticeable but visible claw marks across the steel, being pulled more lightly
and lightly as they went down. Like someone had tried to hold onto the
door… while being dragged away.
"Oh…god no…"
I need to know if you were real
I'd hate to think that I'd been fooled again
And as the vision fades
I'll say I was blinded by your eyes
I felt them burn
Exert from Give You Back by Vertical Horizon
And so, this story goes like previous; Jim, Aisha, and Suzuka
were captured or lying at a gun's guilt on the floor, and my turn came
soon. But not before Melfina. As I realized I could heal her in the navigation
system, just as she had healed me, and still chase after the pirate scum
that had my life and friends at their removal. Blood came so quickly from
her, it was panicking me every time another inch of clothing was turned
red.
I ran to the Outlaw Star, stealthily hiding in the shadow it
cast and glancing around its steely hull to see the pirates. If the drink
hadn't gotten to my head yet, I was sure they were lying in trapping wait
or were on the way at least. I didn't want to get trapped in a corner.
I didn't want this to happen, that to happen, and I'd just go die if it
did. Wait. I'd be dead anyway.
The dim light brought no traces of them to me, so I couldn't
wait. Running up the empty corridors lined by large cargo holds, I could
hear my footsteps echoing in their steely wake. The entire spaceport was
silent and wavering with the faint noise. I was beginning to dizzy up,
and it took a few blinks to clear the blurring world. I could feel the
space phobia coming back on strong as I passed the windows.
I was too worried to notice.
They were waiting for me in my own ship, the bastards. As I breathlessly
climbed into the bridge, which was dark in its cold inactivity, I felt
Mel restlessly toss in my arms and gasp for air, leaning against me. Her
face was a pale, twisted, and just plain sick copy of her face, but with
no light, no emotion, just a wrenching anguish that made her strain her
closed eyes. Looking up to the overhanging computer, Gilliam didn't utter
a sound.
"Strange…" I said to myself. As I lifted the heavy metal lid,
I felt a cold chill. Shivering, I tried to shake it off and ease Mel into
the pod. She moaned in her sleep, her face limp and wet. "Melfina… I'm
sorry…"
"Freeze."
The morning air had followed her, a stalking wind that chilled
to the bone, and now howled into the open door. In the darkness, her eyes
were a dark crimson-brown, bloodshot and angry, giving a maniacal stare
beneath untamed purple hair that fell, loose, at her shoulders. Tightly
clutched in her hand was a cat, a sleek, black and white one, which purred
seductively under her stroke. The deranged Hamyou glared at me, letting
the cat turn its glowing eyes toward me.
"Tell me, Starwind. Are you associated with anyone by the name
of Jim?"
I gulped, collecting Mel up in my arms again and bringing her
head to rest on my shoulder. Stuttering in fear of Jim, I causally slipped
my hand into my pocket where my blaster lay at the ready. "Jim Hawking,
yes."
"You sniveling bastard. It's because of you, Gene, that my Jim
is a prisoner of my own people. I saw him chained and put to work as a
brainwashed prodigy slave for Hazanko. I came to kill you, not doom my
boyfriend." Her lips curled back in a pure snarl.
"Boyfriend?"
Her eyes narrowed in fury, with black circles ringing them in
stress. "Yes. I love Jim, and you… you who he calls Aniki in his sleep,
who dares to stand as a brother and father, are the sole reason he is a
slave!"
"What? What in the hell? I don't see how it's my fault. If you
love him so much, why did you let that happen?"
"I was shot, unconscious. Jim was the one holding the gun, to
let you know." Bitter hate was streaked in her voice like poison. "He cared
more for you, dirty outlaw, than me. That's why I was shot and couldn't
stop the pirates from imprisoning him. By the time I woke up, they had
already interrogated him and were brainwashing him."
"And you came to get, let me guess, revenge?"
"Bingo."
I bit my lip, feeling more blood than ever leak into my clothes.
As I licked them, I realized I'd bitten it too hard and it was bleeding
profusely now. I didn't care though. "How did you get in here?" I hissed
back at her. "The doors lock after the crew goes in."
Her lips lifted in a drained and tired smirk. The cat in her
arms seemed to snicker in a purring voice, rubbing relentlessly against
her arms in a relaxed gesture. With brilliant amber eyes halfway closed
and framed by long whiskers, it looked just as mean as its master. "It
was simple. I only had to keep my ears open, and the key insisted on helping
us capture and kill you," she said silkily, stepping off to the side to
allow a figure behind her come up.
It was definitely a girl, that's what I first thought. In the
dark, the face was familiar, but once she stepped out of Hamyou's shadow,
it struck me like a bullet. The same curly, blonde haired waitress from
Sentinel stood before me, but she apparently was and wasn't glad to see
me. Instead of her usual uniform, she wore a black tank top, and black
cargo pants, which had bulging pockets with who knows what.
"Iris? What the hell are you doing here?" I shrieked, taking
another step back. Her soft blue eyes that once were friendly froze like
stone as they fell on Melfina.
"Shut up Starwind. I'd like to kill you quick before my conscious
catches up with me," she said quickly, like as if she'd been a trained
assassin. Swiftly and angrily, she took a gun from the bulging pocket and
loaded it without pausing, like it was just another job. "Alright." She
leveled the gun. "Time to die bastard. And die quick, would ya?"
Hamyou smiled coldly. The cat in her arms began to softly hiss
at me. "Iris came to us after we raided Clyde's bar, looking for you. When
she was interrogated, she was very quick to help track you down. She even
insisted on killing you your self. And if your wondering how we got in,
do you remember giving a certain waitress permission on the ship?"
Damn, that was the most shocking moment of my life. Iris, my
hometown, old girl was putting a gun to my head like I was a soda can to
be shot off a fence! Stuttering, I nearly choked on my words. "I-iris?
What's w-wrong with you?! I can't believe you! After all I did -"
"No. You're wrong," she snapped back, lifting fiery eyes up.
"After everything you took away from me, I couldn't ever love you again."
The gun trained on me and her eyes never stopped flickering back from Melfina
in my arms to me, with a sourly bitter frown. "Every night I'd wait at
the bar for hours, hoping to see you. I never, ever knew what had happened
to you. I woke up in cold sweats at night worrying. You could have been
dead on the streets or bleeding to death in an alley, and I'd never know.
You were always hooked up with a new girl, never me! Never! You're just
a roaming slut, Gene. I watched you flirt with every girl over 18 that
walked in. But not anymore.
"It ends here."
"Now Iris, wait a minute!" I said hastily, totally helpless.
I couldn't use the castor, because my supply of shells was dead. I couldn't
run away; that would be abandoning Melfina. I had driven myself into a
corner without knowing I had been my own enemy.
She lined her eye up with the sight, locking and aiming precisely
for my gut. Her lips, black and cold with a sleepless and stressful night,
were twisted hostilely in a frown. "Why should I?"
I whipped my blaster out with my right hand while still holding
Mel, and aimed it for her head. I gulped down my conscious before it could
haunt me about what I was doing. Damn, I was in such a cold sweat. I had
been closer to death than this, but my friends had been fine all the while.
Jim never been captured or fighting Kei Pirates without me, Melfina had
never been hurt before, and Suzuka and Aisha were been tortured or killed
by who knows how. I was afraid for my only family left.
"I don't care if you shot me… I'll die quietly if you'd like
me to," she said seductively, tilting her gun upward harmlessly to up her
arms in the air. "Go ahead." She smiled at my hesitation. "Fire away."
She stood there; glaring at me with those beautiful blue eyes
that I knew didn't hold any love for me anymore. Iris kept her grin even
as I aimed, locked, and paused. There wasn't a single thought I could pick
from my mind; it was an incessant blur of pain, memories, and fear that
made my head throb. How could I … kill Iris?
Alright… I thought. Just pull the trigger, Gene…
And I did.
Instantly, as if an issue had been given, the cat dispatched
itself from Haymou's arms, yowling as it leaped in front of Iris. The bristling,
jagged sharp hairs framed her body with sharp fur while its face was ungodly
snarling and twisted. Its eyes glowed, and it raised a thin aura around
itself, violently shaking as it lifted that aura to enclose the nonchalant
waitress as well.
I knew I had lost the moment I heard that shot deflect off the
shield. My heart sank and shattered as I heard it hit the floor. That was
all I had to defend myself. I was dead. I looked up dreading the next second,
and she gave me a smile that said quite clearly, "Nice try, little boy."
But by that time, it had caught up with me.
And by it, I mean everything.
I hated my mother, for allowing me to leave, for not wrapping
me up in her arms and bringing me to bed and keeping me home. I hated my
dog Digger, for whining at the window that night, bringing me out there,
for making me change my mind, for stopping me from telling my dad "No."
I hated my dad, for making me feel safe when it was all a lie, a sick,
sad lie to bring me to a cruel fate, for being there 100%, for smiling,
for dying when I lived. I hated him for taking my death, my fall when I
was going to anyway. I hated Jim, for keeping my doomed life on the right
track, for being the little brother I need to lean on and hide my emotions
from, for being proud of me, and I him. I hated Suzuka, for simply tolerating
all my faults, for being beautiful and strong when I needed help, for her
pure and genuine forgiveness of my bounty. I hated Aisha, for throwing
pride to the wind and saving my ass as I was at a werewolf's jaws, for
being loyal, for being there at my call and still smiling. I hated Hilda,
for being dangerous and drawing me to my dream, for dying at for my success
and survival, for opening that damn path. And most of all, I hated Melfina.
I hated her for being beautiful, for not looking away and discarding
the thought of kindness I needed, for not letting go, for following me
into her most dangerous enemy's territory, for trying her best, for just
being Mel. I hated her for making me love her.
I hated myself for what I had been thinking? Keep fighting? No.
She'd die alone and cold, out of my arms if I fought them. It wasn't impossible,
but keeping Mel alive was. I'd be shot the second I took a step toward
the pod, and then she'd fade away, knowing I was dead too. So as Iris aimed,
I turned around, gave Mel a kiss on the cheek, then shot the first thing
I saw.
It was the wires connecting to the cockpit.
And everything blacked out after that, along with pain.
Hamyou fell silent, with her head hung, as she heard the story
fade into a weary, indescribably tired drone. Shame burned in her throat,
and she uncomfortable flinched at the closing of Gene's story.
"Afterward, the pirates kept me alive while Melfina died and
was incinerated. I not only had screwed up my already crashing life, but
had taken the last flower from the field and burned it. Oh god, I was an
empty shell afterward. I can't remember what happened for years. I was
too drained to think, so they hired me out as a bounty hunter, on a chain.
I got the toughest criminals, sometimes even my fellow outlaws from Blue
Heaven, and they chained Aisha and Suzuka outside my and Jim's cell until
they starved to death. Sick bastards."
By now, the outlaw's face was slick with tears mixed with blood
from his bleeding scars. His fists clenched until the blood pinched out.
"The only drawback for them was that I had destroyed their way
to the Leyline. They had never expected me to blow up the Outlaw Star,
Melfina, and myself. So they came up with another sick scheme. They developed
a time machine to travel back with, and a mind poison to use to totally
control my past self's mind. It was a funny joke, I guess to them, to make
me doom myself. The sick bastards thought I still was in shock and that
I wouldn't notice. But while I had the poison, I dulled it with water before
they turned around and saw.
"I can only hope it worked."
Silence fell like a heavy cloak over the dark planet of Angel,
with its dark inhabitants and their dark pasts and futures, and it stayed
still for minutes on end. Gene's strained steel blue eyes were cold and
untrusting, as he studied Hamyou, then laid down and fell asleep, silent.
Hamyou, still silent, turned in the darkness, and then adjusted
Jim into a comfortable position on the floor with his jacket on the pillow.
He had fallen asleep, still standing against the bars. The story had been
told to him a hundred times, and tears shed from him dried on the layers
of other on the floor. Her lips tilted in a sad smile, seeing him sleep
so cutely. But she eventually turned from him and left, the doors clanking
behind her.
Author's Notes:
********************
It's done! Whoo! That was a long one! Please, just review would
you all? It keeps me going and I really need it! Pluzease! Read. And. Review.
Chustang