Revised.
Poetry by Edgar Allen Poe. Bow to his greatness.
Our mouths dropped in unison.
"Hurry, hurry! Come in!" someone called excitedly from within the hanger. The hanger- what an understatement! It was like some secret military…thing. Even now, I can't think of the words to describe it. I'd never been really close to anything regarding the military, but this is exactly how I would have imagined it. The inside of the dilapidated building was stark white, and shared no state of being with it's outside. Standing at ground level, we were above the lower level of the 'complex'. We all hurried inside, jumping simultaneously as the door slid shut
Now inside, we had the chance to look around. The bottom level was only five feet below the platform we stood on, a simple metal bar wrapped around and leading down a small set of stairs.
"Come come now!" The voice called again. It seemed too late to turn back. And in all truth, it was. We slowly filed down the stairs, myself in front, then Sho and Pari. There were all sorts of technical equipment scattered about, some beeping, and others just sitting there for whatever purpose. But that wasn't what we all stared at….
Giant suits, a lot like the ones from the news, only... different. Like I mentioned earlier, I don't know a lot about military stuff. But whatever they were, they didn't look too friendly. There were three of them, standing maybe 18-19 meters tall, lined up beneath the glass dome of the hanger. I came to the conclusion that the equipment was for maintaining or building those… 'mobile suits' I believe my uncle called them.
"Hurry over!" The voice gained a face as it's owner came running over. I nearly fell over myself. "Uncle?" I shouted, staring at the man who had earlier that day been a mad wreck. "Your crazy uncle?" Sho added eloquently. "Nice to meet 'cha." Pari chimed, not wanting to be left out of the conversation. My uncle shook his head, the mad gleam rekindling in his eyes. "We have no time."
"Time for what? To look around?" Sho asked, following Pari over to poke and touch the foot of the closest mobile suit. "No you fools! We must hurry! You must change…they are coming." Now we all looked at him, thoroughly confused. If he noticed, he hid it well. He sighed in agitation, grabbing both Sho and Pari by and arm and dragging them off towards a door on the far right side of the hanger. "Come one!" He yelled at me. For the sake of my friends, I followed. "I knew you would bring them." My uncle praised once he had shooed them into a white room with three lockers. He gripped my arm and steered me in as well, closing the door behind us with a mirthless laugh. We were trapped. "You'd better change before they get here." We could hear him sing as he pranced away from the door.
"You're uncle is crazy Caio." Sho commented blandly. I rolled my eyes and walked over to the lockers. "I guess we should change?" I suggested gently, if we didn't, he would get angry and slip into another bout of madness. Nothing bad could come from playing along wtih one of his little games. Each locked bore a name written neatly near the top. "Martyr…Seraph…Apocalypse." I read as I passed by. "Well, I suppose we should each pick one? Let's just humor the guy!" Sho declared, walking over to the locker entitled, 'Apocalypse'. "This one sounds cool."
Pari looked over at me, and all I could do was shrug. She walked over to the locker with 'Martyr' written on it. Why did we have to play along!
As for me, I took the only one remaining. The 'Seraph'.
Because we needed to change into whatever was in the lockers, we had Sho gather his stuff and go to the bathroom at the far end of the room. "Don't even think about coming out before we say!" Pari warned, throwing her shoe at the door that was still cracked open. Sho gave a cry and pulled the door close before it made contact. "Better luck next time." He taunted from the safety of his room. Pari and I snickered and opened our lockers.She pulled out a bundle of crimson, while I pulled out one of white. We shrugged and unfolded them. To our surprise, they were suits- flight suits to be exact. I pulled my clothes off as fast as I could. Though we were both girls, it was still a little awkward.
It was some sort of pliable white material with gold lines running from the neck, along the shoulders, and down the arms. I hardly noticed the tiny little golden wings on the ankles, gloves and neck. This explained why we had suddenly gone from rich, to really in debt. After giving the gloves a final tug, I hurriedly ran a hand through my long copper hair, irritated by the fact that the shorter layers continued to fall in front of my eyes.
Pari walked over, grinning as she posed in her suit.. Hers was a deep crimson and had gold lines and tiny little flames. "I wonder if he'll let me keep it." She looked me up and down before turning to the bathroom. "You can come out now!"
Sho also happened to have a smug look on his face. "This is so awesome." His black and crimson with little white crosses. "Now what-"
As if by magic, my uncle swung the door open and motioned for us to come out. But not before pointing to matching helmets hanging in each locker. We grabbed the helmets and followed him out. Though we were dubious, the fact that anything could actually happen had yet to dawn on us. After living with someone who was certifiably insane, I had gotten rather used to my uncle's inane little games.
"Hurry, they are coming!" he told us impatiently, hands on his hips.
"Who is coming?" We all asked in unison, a bit exasperated at his vague warnings.
"The ZAFT. I told them that we had mobile suits right under their noses." He giggled, "Now they are coming to see my masterpieces! But they cannot have my best works… that is why you have to take them away and kill them all. Kill them all." We stared at him in disbelief. Then... it wasn't all a game? "Why did you tell them if you don't want them to know?" I exploded, realizing that his madness had gone too far.
"I wanted them to see." He answered calmly, as if it had been a simple question. Outside, we heard sirens.
"They are coming." He whispered, suddenly frighteningly serious.
"Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!" He cried in panic, staring at us expectantly. It was Edgar Allen Poe.
Oh no….
He walked over to what looked like a control board. He flipped some switches, to what, I couldn't see.
"In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,"
Cables and wires attached to the suits popped off, falling to the floor in a string of metallic thunder. The cockpit doors of each machine drew back, revealing with a slow foreboding a small room in the chest cavity of all three mobile suits. I remember the dawning horror I felt watching the light spill into the control center of each thing, watching how it caressed some sort of raised platform at the center of it all. Pari let out a sharp cry as someone pounded on the hanger door.
A mad grin split my uncle's face. He shrieked above the yelling outside in his hoarse baratone voice.
"Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,"
Sho, Pari and I stared at him. He didn't honestly expect us to get in those things?
"Now- now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!" As he spat his empty words, he approached us, slowly drawing a gun from the inside of his jacket.
"How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!" He shrieked, pointing at us with his gun, then the machines. The bitter tang of this reality made my mind reel and my knees threaten to buckle.
"Fine!" Sho shouted as the gun jerked it's way to him. I watched as his form retreated to the far side of the hanger, silently followed by Pari. At that moment, I hated him more than anything. I hated him for dragging my friends into his insanity. And I hated him for not loving me like family should.
His voice dropped to a whisper,
"Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows:" His gaze swept over to me, the gun following automatically.
I couldn't leave my friends alone. It was my fault they were in this damnable situation. I wouldn't let them face the consequences alone. I turned slowly, watching my uncle. I saw no mercy in his eyes. Only the soul-consuming madness that had destroyed his life. And now it was trying to destroy mine and those of my friends.
I followed Sho and Pari up the stairs that led to the scaffolding type construction that went across the chest of each machine.
My last glimpse of my uncle was of him, screaming at the ZAFT forces that burst through the door and flooded into the hanger;
"Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-"
The three of us stood before the mobile suit whose emblem we wore was branded above the cockpit. A cross. A flame. A wing. There was no time for good-byes. The moment we heard gunshots, we threw ourselves into cockpits. The doors slid shut…. hollow silence.
Suddenly, I could hear my uncle's final screech. The last words of a man made mad by war and bitter by love.
"Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
In the clamor and the clangor of the-" The last word was replaced by a symphony of gunshots.
Silence.
I turned around, imaging the soldiers swarming around the mobile suit. If we just explained, they would understand. They had to.
Before I could finish my thought, I heard a small 'beeping' noise from behind me. I turned to look at the 'cockpit'. It was more of a control center. There was a small platform raised in the center, with a guide rail wrapping around it. Screens circled the room, and it looked like the platform was glowing from within. This was what the military used?
One of the screens blinked on. Random figures flashed across, followed by a series of foreboding noises throughout the room. "Auto pilot activated." I heard it say. Before I could shout a protest, the mobile suit shuddered and I was pushed to the floor. There was a great shattering, akin to the breaking of a thousand mirrors...
Silence again.
I was too terrified to pay attention to what happened. We were in the colony... in weapons. We would surely be shot down as enemies. I tried to push myself up, managing to rise to my knees. The acceleration upwards continued to pull at me as I grappled with the guardrail. Where was the auto pilot taking me? "Sho, Pari!" I cried, realizing that I had no way to communicate with them. There might be a com system somewhere in the monster, but I hadn't a clue how to work it.
The only way out of the colony I knew was through the shuttle bay… and the chances of making it out were slim.
I pulled myself onto the platform and looked at what seemed like the central screen. The word 'Com' was glowing green. Did that mean I could use it? Not knowing what to do, I poked the screen. Nothing happened. Okay… "Activate Communications system?" I asked. On a neighboring screen, two faces popped up. I looked at them and they looked at me. "How did we do that?" Sho asked, looking over at Pari. "I dunno. Where are we going? It just said 'auto pilot' and then started to move. We'll be shot down. I don't want-"Pari's scream swelled inside the cockpit even after her picture blinked to darkness."What happened to-" Sho's picture disappeared as well. Now I was alone.
I hadn't noticed my hair rising as my suit burst into space during the conversation, but once I did, I screamed and groped for my helmet. Once it was locked into place, a sighed and looked at the screen. No one was there.
I grabbed onto the bar, waiting for them to contact me as the mobile suit took me where ever it was that my uncle had told it to go…
'That was how I got into this mess' I thought sourly to myself. It had been days at least, and now the power was fading. Which meant that I was going to die. I was pretty okay with the idea by now. The headache was getting unbearable and it felt like my lungs were collapsing on themselves. "Must be the lack of air." I muttered to myself. I was just about to fall asleep when the main screen started flashing red. 'Entering earth's atmosphere...' it proclaimed. "Oh, Shit!' I yelled, clinging to the bars as the mobile suit began to shudder violently...
Chapter Seven Teaser
"...with an apocalyptic crash where both the choirs of heaven and hell soared into a deafening crescendo of chaos and mercy."
Deafening Crescendo