7 - Effigy
Your planet? Yours?
Is that what you screamed at me?
Thoughts in her head spoke for Zeouna. Not her own thoughts, but Zeouna wasn't quite in a mental state where she could question the origin. They demanded her obedience, summoning her attendance. It felt like a gentle, reverberating tapping on her skull; Like a struck tuning fork pulsating midair. No, not thoughts, but narration.
She received instructions like an antennae; a captive in a guided dream.
The brined scent of salt-water and the sound of light coastal rain pattering on the corrugated aluminum awnings snapped her to a rapt attention. A warm, familiar night where the rain was bearable; comfortable, even. This was autopilot now, she just had to endure the rest; the nightly routine she'd forgotten she'd forgotten about.
Zeouna had been here before in dreams she'd stopped having a couple of years ago. But, the time and place were too familiar to her; unpleasant but unexceptional, really.
You. The irony. Of course it had to be you.
Dutily, Zeouna observed, as she had been compelled to do so many times before.
The hybrid vulpes stood at the end of an alley between tenth and F-street; nestled near Pioneer's Square. Settler City, her home. There weren't many street lights here, as it was mostly bathed in a neon pink haze from the massage parlors and drug-front nightclubs. This was a place where Vikrmen, terraformers and miners put aside their differences for an evening of drugged-up debauchery. This unscrupulous sort would stop fucking each other over for an evening to spend their hard-earned money fucking over everyone else. The leftovers in this wasteland.
Zeouna didn't move. She stood, letting the rain wash over her, the raindrops water matting her slate-gray fur. She didn't have control; only guidance. Like every time she returned here.
It was long past midnight. Disorienting thirty hour cycles; and Udeav's star would be up in a couple of hours. Leaving everyone unhappy; some waking early up to hours of darkness, others trying to sleep through the haze they'd brought upon themselves.
As such, this uneasy coalition of club patrons usually spilled out into the streets and alleyways searching for comfort or violence. But, not on this night. Zeouna remembered it well.
Why do you consider yourself different?
Tonight was special. Founder's week. A local ode to old man Vikr; four days off for his Vikrmen, who mostly spent the holiday lying to their families back in the central systems. Those that remained were as shameless and ill-tempered as one would expect. , and the remaining locals were left with no offworlders to serve, service or swindle. Society turned inward to fill the vacuum. It was almost worse, a yearly scheduled week of personal vendettas. It really made you feel those thirty hour rotations.
It wasn't the safest part of town; which is why she had always been there. She wasn't a victim a day in her life; so the former shade of herself might have said. Young Zeouna had been primed for it; the depravity and schrewness. She still knew it, too. The reflective evenings she felt like being honest with herself, but never with other people. But this moment was all her silent burden of shame to carry.
You know what you are.
Her legs moved, forcing her where she wished she'd never gone. Zeouna couldn't turn her head, the nightmare wouldn't let her.
One foot in front of the other, Zeouna! We have a schedule to keep.
You need to see this again. If I can find this memory, I know I can get others. So I need you to remember.
The unwelcome narrator was mocking her. It's words weren't a voice as much as it was a crushing feeling of trepidation emplaced upon her; weighing her down with an aggressive wall of rage barely contained. Zeouna, trembled.
No one else knew of this distant past of course. This was before she had a family or a purpose. Ketumati. Before she met the flicker of warmth in her life.
How much warmth did you deny others? Don't let the present absolve you.
They were here. On location. On schedule. She knew where to look as if it had happened five minutes ago. This was practically a trauma that Zeouna had practically grown bored of.
There was one streetlight in this alleyway between the two kiln-fired brick buildings, the dumpsters and the service alleys. It was more of a sconce, really. A motion activated spotlight set up by the property owner's volition of course, there wasn't any sort of safety code out here other than Vikr's own.
The light's highly sensitive sensor triggered the light; illuminating a familiar tragedy. One Zeouna thought she'd seen the last of. She sealed her eyes shut.
Look upon your legacy. Go on! You've seen it so many times before.
She was compelled to open her eyes by forces unseen. Zeouna obeyed mindlessly. She couldn't even whimper.
A young canine teenager. Golden fur, big brown eyes staring back at her. A little part down the middle of his well-kempt hair. Zeouna never knew how old he'd been; but he'd looked younger and younger in her mind as her years went on.
The boy would die on his knees, the first time Zeouna had ever seen that. It fascinated her. His torso hunched over, hands trying to stop the bleeding in his abdomen. The idiot. She remembered. He didn't beg. He didn't cry. He was gut-stabbed; and didn't stand a chance being so stationary.
The blood poured out, soaking his blue cotton sweater and down to his jeans. He was rigid at this point; that strange acceptance phase during a bleed out. Not the first time she had seen it. The rain prevented his blood from caking on his clothes or the alleyway's pavement. It flowed into the cracks, never pooling up like it did in the movies. There was always less than she expected.
It wasn't the viscera that bothered her; though Zeouan knew that it should have. It was always the callousness of the bystanders. The women who lived in the apartment above closing the window; more interested in whatever was on her screen. The pair of rodent males, walking by the far end of the alley. Peeking over for a mere moment like one would be a spectacle of minor inconvenience. Gods knew, in this part of Set City, that all it was. No one stopped to help. No one even called it in.
But it wasn't their doing, was it?
She hunched down. She'd never been this close in her dreams before; dreading it all. The cold, dying eyes of the boy in the alleyway. His shivering was the only thing that kept the motion light going.
Hearing whimpers between his shallow breathing. A sound she'd hear the rest of her life. Perplexing. It wasn't the last time she'd hear that sound, nor was it even the worst case of it. It wasn't even the first time she'd murdered someone around her age.
This is the truth, Zeouna. I need you to see it for what it is.
It didn't feel so hard the first time she was here. But the memory had gotten heavier over the years. Her initial numbness a burden in its own right.
You are no hero.
Trust me. I know one when I see one.
She looked into a darkened window, the reflection of her younger self glared back Unrecognizable. She was a child, no older than sixteen; but could have passed for forty at the time. Skeletal, malnourished, sunken eyelids. Despite her eye's brilliance, she possessed a perpetually harsh stillness in the eyes. In time, this girl would save herself. But in this distant moment, the Zeouna before her was nothing more than a wretch. Vile. Cruel. Unjustly reflecting every shade of savagery inflicted upon her. Brutalized into committing brutality.
The excuses do not absolve you. You aren't the only one who suffered.
There had always been excuses for her actions, but it had never pardoned her of her sins. Least of all this one.
You're just a terror. Ensconced in some false sense of nobility.
You are not innocent.
Zeouna raised the knife and finished the job. Her left hand pulled him upward by his ear. A single cut across his neck. Her right hand on the blade, she felt the sinews slice and the blade hit the bone. Zeouna's efficient cruelty always astounded her. What had been the point of all this? What crime could he have committed to deserve such savagery? Zeouna'd murdered this boy. Butchered him in an alleyway; and for what? She didn't even remember! She didn't have a clue. It was all so pointless.
Pointless.
There is a violence in you, Zeouna. It's congenital. It's terminal. I cannot help you.
And, I don't really want to. Your debt is owed.
This was it for the boy on his knees. It transpired as she remembered it. She looked down on him. An ungodly wheezing and jitter as the youth's eyelids half closed. Zeouna released him and he fell back on his knees; back straight, head toward the sky. Lifeless.
I know this memory pains you. You carry many like this. I know. I've seen them. I thought about destroying you through each.
I almost did. But then I pushed deeper.
And, to tell you the truth? I never thought you'd be so interesting.
Unlimited potential. I will give you what you want. Before the end. Your end.
I will give you what you need.
Zeouna stepped away, as she always remembered doing. Her eyes locked on the boy's. It was shock then, but had since manifested into shame, doubt and fear rolling right over her. She backpedaled, finally tripping into a recycling bin, which fell onto its side. She trembled, the cold rush of the finality of what she'd done finally having connected.
The motion activated light took a few moments to deactivate, returning Zeouna to solitary blackness. The light had seemingly been the only indication the boy had been alive at all.
Do not be mistaken.
This is not charity. It is not forgiveness. You're just the shortest route to completing my vision.
And when you've served your role, you'll pay it all back. Blood for blood.
Your peace will come when I allow it and not a second sooner. The justice you deserve.
Relief. The dream was about to end. The light's sensor would detect stillness and she'd wake up. Zeouna waited for the falling sensation that was to come. Cold sweats. This was running to schedule, after all.
Wake up. Return to me. Finish what you started.
This wasn't a request, but Zeouna lingered. Unable to snap out of the moment. For a moment, she sat relieved. It was over; and she would be free of the nightmare. That's when she realized it was ending all wrong.
The light in the alleyway flickered rhythmically.
On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.
This wasn't part of the dream. This wasn't scheduled anymore.
On. Off. On. Off.
Zeouna rose, feeling lucid for the first time in this vision. The overwhelming cloud that had brought her down to emotional crush-depth had released her. She took the moment to explore.
Zeouna was close enough to see her monstrous handiwork again. It was like living in a memory now.
On. Off. On.
The light flickered. Zeouna looked closer, kneeling directly to the boy's level.
He was young. It wasn't her imagination. The queasiness returned; as she wasn't used to seeing children this still anymore. She studied him further, and noticed that the poor kid had tried taking his wallet out before she'd killed him; he thought he was being robbed. A new, smaller detail to obsess over for eternity.
Zeouna knew she would wake up soon. She hoped this would all be forgotten when she did. It wasn't right. The girl with the knife owed this boy every good deed she'd ever done. But, as she grew up, she'd wished most of all that she could have taken this moment back.
She put her hand on his shoulder. Nothing. Just meat.
The boy's half-open eyes rushed fully open.
Zeouna's heart ran to Usva and back.
Like a marionette on strings he stood, no more than a meter away. His loosened neck dangled as his head unnaturally swung left and right with each profane step. His janky, unsure movements were an imitation of how a Lylation would move; macabre puppetry. He scrambled over to her, nearly falling forward on several occasions.
She screamed; or rather thought she did as she fell on her bottom.
On. Off. The lights continued to flicker.
She was pushed. Her shoulder landed in the puddle. She felt the water rush up her back as he straddled her and held her down. She tried to resist but he brushed her arms aside like they were toys.
The bloody boy on top of her reached his fists into the sky, joining them as a preamble to action.
An effigy.
Zeouna gasped, suddenly unable to breathe outward.
She saw her.
There was a figure perched on the rooftop, witnessing the terror below. Hunched over. Looking down over them. A shadow black as ink. Vaguely cornerian in shape, with a bushy tail shifting like smog. Two phosphorescent blue eyes twinkling among the murkiness where her head was supposed to be.
I'll be seeing you soon.
On. Off.
"JUST LET HER IN!" The scrambling effigy shrieked. A begging, desperate scream.
He dropped his fists, bashing her head into the pavement. The first blows bellowed her into numbness; the second brought darkness.
Blackness and silence.
The instructional tapping on her skull stopped.
The walls closed in.