Fanatics

The whole situation was just fucking ridiculous. This asshole looked like a woman. A crazy-ass scary bitch, but still a woman. I could never understand that cross-dressing shit. Especially if you were a guy, those girly clothes made it hard to move freely. And you need to move fast in a firefight even when you have the most dangerous weapon in your hands. There is no such thing as invincible.

Still, that disgusting motherfucker was clever. He positioned himself so we couldn’t get to his back, and with that fucked up magic sword he was lethal, one person would never be able to reach him alone. And even if we had attacked in a large group most of us wouldn’t have lived to see the sun rise again. Not that I was interested in that girly shit, and even if I survived, I would rather sleep than watch a ball of fire move around in the sky that early in the morning.

We had to do something. This flashy bastard was going to cost us lives. I was counting on the guys outside. They were the real brain of this operation. I was just doing what I was told and moving my people to get the best results.

Finally, I got word from the strategos. I relayed our next move. It was risky, but I had to make do. My people all started firing at the same time and I started to run towards him. He moved the sword in a tight circle in front of him, making a shield. Fucking magical items. No wonder the government wanted all of them destroyed. In the hand of a properly trained user it could take out countless people. And he was more than properly trained.

Somehow I was able to get to a point where I could get a shot in. The bullet hit him in his side. He dropped the sword and the firing stopped at once. We needed him alive. He looked at me with a manic glint in his eyes. “I will never tell you anything that will help you hurt her.”

Even his voice was girly. It hurt my ears and left a bad taste in my mouth. “We will see,” I said with a savage smile that he mirrored back at me as he pulled a little knife from somewhere between those colorful folds of clothes. Fucking girly clothes. I knew nothing good ever came from those. I couldn’t stop him, the distance was too much.

“I love you, my queen!” he shouted and sliced through his own throat. Rotten fanatics. Not enough that I had no more leads, now we had to clean up his blood, too. I should have hired a cleaning lady for my crew.

Food for all of us

She was sitting next to the small table playing with one of the small plastic models we had lying around. She had an empty box, that used to contain food, and while examining the model, looking for cracks or parts that needed fixing, she involuntarily searched the box for something to eat. I watched her for a few minutes before I had the courage to talk to her.

“Walk with me.”

She looked at me with her blue, weary eyes waiting for an explanation - I didn’t give her one. We silently put on our bio suits while getting curious looks from the others. Going outside to the surface of the red planet was our only way of having some private moments.

We walked a few hundred meters before I turned on the suit’s short-range radios. “You alright?”

“Guess the same like everyone, too hungry.” She gave me her answer in a similar, very rudimentary style. We lost the luxury of being happy and careless the same day the hydroponics burned down. “Do we still have a chance?”

I wanted to reassure her that everything is going to be okay, but I couldn’t. I received a message from NASA a few hours ago, explaining what happened to their Orion rocket, and how much more time would it take to get here. We all would be either dead that time, or unable to move anymore because of starvation.

“Turn around.” I told her, and stepped behind her. “I just want to check your oxygen reserve.” I looked at her suit’s life support system, but as I’ve expected everything was perfectly fine. I opened a small stash on my suit and took out a knife.

As I grabbed her shoulder, I felt her muscles stiffening and heard her heavy breathing. “Why?” She asked.

“We need food to survive. The Orion rocket lost half of its fuel due to a micrometeorite. They had to start the deceleration maneuver earlier than expected. That means one more month waiting time for us.” This time I had to answer her properly. She deserved that.

“A true leader would have sacrificed himself for his crew.” She answered, but now with anger rather than fear.

I stabbed the knife into her backpack, from where most of her precious air ran out in a few seconds. I silently watched her as she suffered and suffocated to death. It was neither easy, nor as fast as I’ve expected to take on.

“I’m not a hero.” I said to nobody, and dragged her body back to our dome. We feasted that night.

Room

I would have never been able to tell that this was a room of a girl. There were paintings on the walls. Not the framed kind, but the actually painted on the wall kind. They were done with strokes so strong that they were full of edges and angles. Nothing feminine in them. Even the colors were cold, blacks and blues and grays and a little bit of red here and there. I wouldn’t wanna sleep here, that’s for sure. I would have nightmares. Or maybe these were exactly that; nightmares come to life. It certainly seemed like that.

The rotting leftover food on the table and the dust and dirt everywhere else didn’t really improve the impression. The only reason mice weren’t feasting on the shit left on the floor was that they wouldn’t be able to stand the smell. It’s a miracle there was no vomit anywhere. At least anywhere visible. I couldn’t say anything about the invisible places, and the smell of it wouldn’t make that much of a difference.

The piles of clothes on the floor must have been parts of some kind of systematic selection system. A pile for the “eww, no!” another for the “ehh, maybe, if there is nothing else left” and there should have been one for the “well… okay” ones too. The clothes didn’t help with the monochrome feeling of the room. The same colors dominated the piles as the walls. Nope, nothing girly like some frilly pink underwear there either.

As the setting sun shined through the window, the light fell exactly on her like a bright spotlight in the princess stories. But there was not a single princess here. There she was on a naked bed. No sheets or blankets for her, just a small pillow that absorbed the spit dripping from the corner of her mouth. She was lying on her stomach, her legs in a strange position, as if she was trying to climb a rock, and she tried to hug the bed with her arms. The shine of her wasn’t because of hair products but because of the lack of hygiene. The fingers of one of her hands were curled around a big paintbrush and her skin spotted with paint everywhere it wasn’t covered by clothes – even her sole.

After a sigh full of despair, I left and came back with a blanket that I laid on her sleeping form. Then I started cleaning. Maybe I would have to buy a new bucket of white paint soon.

Comeback

I feel bad from holding back Ezi. It's my fault. Work hijacked me from this place.

Listen, we don’t have much time. You have to trust me. I know that’s a little early to ask, but we don’t have years to build a friendship. You saw everything with your own eyes, you understand how dangerous this stuff is.

I mean. Listen. If this gets into the hands of a megacorporation, we are all screwed. I mean humanity is screwed. It screws all the little balance we had in the past, and I’m not even talking about in how many ways this can be used to wipe us all out. You have to help me.

I know that you are not the average space jock, who is only concerned about the money. You could have killed me several times, yet you didn’t. I see it in your eyes, how you look at me, how you try your best to convince me that this is stupid.

Please, don’t say anything. Wait, wait. You cannot say that seriously. You are just the good guy, who wants absolution for a pretty girl. I get that often, don’t worry, you are not the first one. Please trust me. I beg you.

You have to play a role. You have to look like the average space jock, who doesn’t even understand what he is getting into. That’s the only way you will survive. Just tell them what I told you, and forget that this has ever happened. And delete your armor’s recordings. All of it. Don’t even let them find a trace of it.

Ah, stop this, please. I know, you don’t think this will work. Trust me. This is our best option. I already modified the data, and all the calculations are off, but just a small fraction. It will take them some time to realize that all of our research is useless. If I had made everything seem much worse, they would be suspicious. This is the perfect cover, trust me.

They will think that I tried to sell the data of a doomed research to a different company, and hide the money before they realized that everything is useless. And the fact that I died defending this crap will make everything more believable. Please, do it.

Step back a few meters, I’m going to attack you. Don’t make my death fast, I deserve it.

Cave

The cave was fairly dark. The only light came from the faraway entrance. It was high and wide enough that the sunshine reached even this deeper place. The warm rays made colorful lights dance on the wet surface of the stalactites. The dance of the light gave an eerie but playful feeling to the whole place.

One could hear echoes everywhere as the small drops of water reached the floor of the cave. The small brook to the side never stopped singing throughout the whole thing making the impression that someone was 

always close by.

If one lived here long enough, maybe they would be able to make a difference between the noises, but it surely hadn’t been the case with the person who was lying face down in the middle of the pathway. The clothes on the body were so wet they stuck to the skin. The dirt was so embedded in them, they could never be washed clean. The fabric was torn at places, and it showed bruised skin.

The person held a little plush toy in one fisted hand. The knuckles were raw, and under the nails there was someone else’s blood and skin. If one had looked closer, maybe they would have been able to see the redness of the inside of the throat as it got sore from screaming. Would have been able to see it without looking into the mouth. At least after the blood was washed away by the falling drops of water.

Flatness

I heard her humming for the third time that day. The melody was calming. I was... I was somewhere else than usual.

The colors, noises and flavors were … kinda weird. I missed the continuous noise made by the torch drive that was pushing us through the empty vastness of space. The last thing I remember was going to sleep in my bunk bed after a long day of checking the astronomical readings from the ship’s computer and now… And now I was in some kind of a hospital.

I waited until she left my room, so I could enjoy a moment of alone time and clear my mind before I would started looking for everyday clothes. The traces of her perfume still lingered around me while I quickly checked the contents of the small stand next to my bed.

I’ve found nothing extraordinary only a few old paper books like the ones from two centuries ago, three leather-covered sketchbooks filled with story fragments and vague ideas of something bigger. They weren’t particularly bad, like the reports I have been reading from my crew lately, but nothing fancy either. The works of an aspiring writer who still have a long way to go.

Whose things could these be? Mine? No, that doesn’t make any sense. I’m aboard of a ship flying close to 0.8 c in outer space, heading to the nearest habitable planet to Earth.

Since I had nothing to do, I continued reading the short stories from the sketchbooks. They got better and better while I was digging through them. Some of them felt … really familiar. Like if they were blurry memories of my life, from different perspectives. This doesn’t make any sense. I said to myself again and again.

After a few minutes or hours, a big, clunky guy squeezed himself through the narrow door. He didn’t have to say anything; I knew everything from just looking at him. I might have had a slight chance against him, especially with all my training, but I felt… numb at best. The world seemed out of its place every touch, every move belonged to another man.

The big one led me through seemingly unending hallways of the same yellowish, greyish and extremely ugly walls. I heard distant screams and hopeless screeches as sharpened nails fought with the tightly locked doors. I was in an asylum. This doesn’t make any sense.

Finally we stopped at a door that stood apart from the others. Made out of wood, a huge doorknob with golden finish and no trace of any locks. Just simply the nameplate on the front made it impenetrable to ordinary humans. Dr. John Doe, lead psychiatrist.

My “bodyguard” opened the door and implacably pushed me through it. As I looked back, I’ve seen traces of fear and uncertainty on his face; quite unusual and alarming from a big guy like him.

“Please sit down. Pete, how are you today?” I’ve followed his welcome, and sat down in front of his huge oak table.

“Thanks, I’m perfectly fine.” I have to look normal for this nightmare to end.

“Anne said, that you looked unusual today. Is there anything we have to worry about?”

Anne? Who is Anne? Ah, maybe the red haired nurse. “No, as I said, I’m perfectly normal.”

“Normal? Pete, nobody is normal who spent at least one night here. What is your name?”

This doesn’t make any sense. “Sorry, I don’t understand your question.”

“Just say your name. If you are right, you can go home at any time.” He put his glasses on the table and smiled at me. Yellow teeth, ack.

“Peter.”

He burst into laughter. “Pete, Pete, oh my dear Pete. You are back, aren’t you?”

“I don’t understand … “

“Stop. Instead of playing a fool, please, start answering my questions.”

“I did, didn’t I?” This doesn’t make any sense.

“Yes, you did. And now I’m sure that Anne was right. You are back Peter.” He opened a drawer and put two small glasses on the table, and filled both with brandy. “How is the life aboard the Vanguard? Is everything fine? How did the meeting turn out with the navigator just awoken from hibernation?”

“I didn’t meet him yet.” Holy shit. I shouldn’t have said that. “I mean this doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t make any sense for us either, trust me.” He pushed a small button on the desk, and talked into a hidden microphone after a short beeping noise. “Klaus, please take back Pete into his room.”

We just stared at each other without a word. I was like a boy who has been caught stealing chocolate from the school’s kitchen, and he was like the victorious dean.

The big guy, obviously Klaus, returned soon and took me back to my room. I wasn’t looking around this time, I was hoping for a sudden click that would wake me up from this nightmare.

After returning to my bed, Klaus made sure that I clearly heard the rustling of the mechanism locking down the door.

She returned in half an hour. Quickly came through the narrow door, and closed it behind her with a healthy smile.

She stepped next to my bed, and stood over me as I was sitting on its side, reading the last sketchbook. I could finally identify the main component of her perfume, orchid. Her curly, long red hair was resting on her shoulders, hanging loose, unlike before when she wore it tied up behind her head. The hair also hid her nameplate, but I was fairly sure that she was Anne.

“It’s good to have you back Pete.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.” I repeated myself for the umpteenth time that day.

“Don’t worry, it will in time, but until that we should enjoy the time we have here. You will depart for the last time today.”

I was about to say the same thing again, but she quickly threw down her clothes on the ground. Like if she had practiced this move for hours. She was simply stunning and perfect.

It was already midnight when she tried sneaking out of the bed. I was hoping to catch her and hold her back, but she had to leave. One really-really-really long goodbye kiss, and she left. As unexpectedly as she came.

When I woke up, I was already on the Vanguard, and my communicator was almost silently chirping. Oh well, back to my normal life. Everything snapped back to its place, and I wasn’t feeling strange anymore. But… But my dream was alarmingly real. Too real for a dream, and too long and comforting for a hallucination.

I had an important meeting that day at my office. We woke up one of the navigators from hibernation, who would help us out with the final maneuver getting close to our goal. I hope it won’t be an annoying guy, like the last time we had to wake up somebody.

When I arrived at my small office, she was already there. Her long, and curly blond hair tightened up in a ponytail.

“Good morning,” I told her, as I grabbed a coffee for both of us from the machine on the wall. “Sorry, this was a strange morning.” I tried to smile, but I couldn’t erase the memories of Anne.

“I know.” She said, and giggled while taking small sips of the strong coffee. I made it extremely strong on purpose.

“Pardon me?”

“You seem a bit lost. Like somebody who had gotten here from a different dimension or something.”

“Maybe, you are right. I might have been abducted by aliens, and returned with a chip in my brain.” We both laughed at my bad joke.

After we talked through her assignments, I let her loose. I should ask her out on a date.

When she left, all I could feel were the smell of orchid in the air. Now it makes sense.

Call

“It’s okay that he still haven’t called me. Even though three days have passed, but I’m not the kind of woman that just sits around waiting for the phone to ring. Well, yes, the last three days I didn’t turn it off at night like I usually do, but it’s nothing like waiting and looking at it like my sister does every time she hooks up with a douche. Of course, they don’t call her, and she ends up crying for a whole day feeling like no one will ever look at her again. I will never be like that. No man can ever have that kind of hold on me. It’s just pathetic.

“Still, I kind of envy her too. She always bounces back, no matter what. After crying for a whole day, the next morning she goes at everything like nothing happened, humming and all that shit. Yet again, I just don’t wanna be that gullible.

“I don’t need anyone to validate my existence. I’m living for myself and not for freaking men. I don’t need them to tell me I’m pretty or get flowers and surprises every day. I don’t need them to turn back and watch me as I walk by. And I certainly don’t need the catcalls of the workers on the street. When I go into a bar maybe I just wanna drink by myself and I’m not there to be picked up by strangers. Especially if those strangers reek of alcohol. Maybe I don’t wanna be witty, funny, happy and interesting all the time. Maybe I wanna be alone, miserable, pitiful and sarcastic all by myself. Who are men to tell me I can’t do that?

“When I go on a date and he doesn’t call me back for days, I am right to assume he is not interested, so I am right to move on. I don’t need to reason with myself, and I really don’t need to feel bad about an asshole who doesn’t even have the decency to send a text that he is not interested anymore. I can do whatever I want, be whoever I want and every fucking man can go and fuck himself!” she shouted at her phone and it lit up.

As she saw the caller was the date from three days ago, her face lit up and her mouth curved into a smile.

“I was just thinking about you,” were her first words, sweet as honey.