Melinsk in Flames

Oof. This one's painful. And not just painful in the sense that I've been missing for a month. 

See, one of the problems here is that if you seek to find ways to make things non-sacred, you can find them. Cynicism, apathy can devour all, even your dreams.

Flames can devour dreams too, though. It's a balancing act between the two; the line to walk is far too fine.

Melinsk is in flames. Or was. Or will be. The timeline doesn't and never will make sense. 

Transcript

My feet hurt.

Out of all the things in the universe I felt I could complain about, I was complaining about that. My feet hurt.

Of course, problem was, they hurt bad. Like so bad I was willing to give over the entirety of my mind to voicelessly complain about the fact to myself for hours on end. 

I wanted to stop. Or my feet wanted to stop, rather. We’d had a long, hard year, and this hike wasn’t making it any better. Yes, of course, I could just stop. But I was running out of time. I had… what was it? Thirty-three minutes? Thirty three minutes, and I couldn’t see the top of the hill even if I craned my head. And I was tall, very tall. That should’ve been easy, after an hour and a half of slogging my legs up the trail.

Of course, I could stop. Of course, I could have bought better shoes in the past. In fact, I definitely should have. It wasn’t like I was going to have easy access to money in the future, and there it was, all jumbled up in piles the size of my fist. Just there, sitting on the table, the only distance between myself and them being temporal, and not spatial.

Oh well. What was done was done, and that was the precise reason I needed to get to the top of the hill. It wasn’t like I’d have another opportunity.

Oh, yes. I’d have plenty more opportunities to reach the top of the hill. Probably. If things went well. But this opportunity, it… 

I felt a droplet of saliva coalesce on the edge of my mouth. Yes, I craved the sight. But drooling was barbaric, even for someone like me. Especially for someone like me. 

Because I was better than that, right? After all, where everyone else allowed rot and atrophy to coalesce, to destroy, inevitably, I…

I climbed up a hilltop. It wasn’t just that I wanted to see it. I wanted to… I wanted to climb a hill. It was a nice pastime, even if my shoes were wearing ragged and my feet were covered in blisters. 

I’d used to climb a lot of hills, back in the day. In fact, I’d climbed hundreds of them. Almost every single one around town. It cleared the head. It was a nice escape.

A nice escape. 

I turned around.

There it was. Home. A grand slew of gray and gold buildings twinkling in the evening sun. Hundreds, thousands of offices and apartment blocks pierced the sky, marvels of engineering and persistence. There were millions of folks down there, just buzzing about. And yet, even as I was aware of all the activity, the smell of soot, formaldehyde, and engine smoke never hit my lungs. It was everything that was beautiful about home, and nothing more. From afar, it almost seemed like a place I was meant to be. 

A loud sound echoed from somewhere, a thing between a bat’s shriek and a banshee’s howl. But it wasn’t actually a sound. My feet were just particularly angry. So angry I could see them bend at odd angles in my shoes. Surely they weren’t broken again?

I sat down on a large, smooth rock, making sure I was able to keep my gaze locked onto the cityscape beyond. My feet were still grumbling in pain, but much less so. A gesture that tiny was enough to quiet them. But it would all be worth it, I told. It would be. 

I rummaged about in my pocket to find that the timer had wedged itself down in the bottom, below my keys and wallet. It was newly scratched, the hideous knife that was my garage key probably having ravaged it while I climbed up the slope. It was a good thing that the one in my pocket was just a mimic, and not the real one. That was…

It didn’t matter. Nobody would find it. And the numbers were ticking slowly, inevitably down on my copy. One minute. Fifty-nine seconds. Each tiny blip was music to my ears. Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven. 

Fifty-six.

My timer was bound to be off by a few seconds. After all, it had taken me a full fifteen or so to set it. Maybe more. Maybe less. 

It was coming.

Fifty. 

There was just as much activity in the streets. That was the problem. That hadn’t worked. Oh well. It had to be done anyway.

Forty.

But did it have to?

Um, yes, of course. No matter how badly our feet got messed up, it very definitely had to happen. It would have been crazy for it not to. The situation was too ridiculous and messed up anyways. 

Thirty.

After all, hadn’t they done the same thing, a thousand times over? Just not here. Just not where I was born. That was the only difference.

Twenty.

If any place deserved what they did, it was here. And we’d been over this a hundred times anyways. You couldn’t talk the beast out of gobbling up its meal. YOu had to sew its mouth shut, or, better yet, bring out the guillotine. 

Five. 

Four. 

Three. 

Two.

One.

Beep. Beep beep. Beep.

Nothing. A light breeze rustled through the shrubs and scrub grass. I felt a dozen muscles in my body that I’d never recognized clench and declench themselves in unison.

Had it not worked? After everything we’d done? Everything we’d been through?

Was it… was it perfect? 

That was what I had always dreaded. That this would happen, the perfect outcome. Never again could I say I was weak, never again would I say that I hadn’t done waht was right. I’d just done a bad job of it, and that was a million times more forgivable. 

And yet…

Still nothing. Had we screwed up? Had Sofiya betrayed us? I didn’t hear any footsteps trudging up the hill. All I heard was the wind, and the hustle and bustle of ordinary life. 

Yes, it was perfect. The precise thing that I’d dreamed of, that I had castigated myself for wanting. The diplomat’s answer. The compromise that everyone hated, and the only one that we could all live with. 

And yet…

And yet I saw it before I heard it. One tiny blip of orange and red in a sea of gray and silver. 

One second. Two seconds. Three. 

The red and orange blossomed into a great flower of smoke and steel, great plumes of dust arcing across the street like petals.

And then the sound hit me. Slapped me straight across the face. I dropped my timer into the dirt. I couldn’t hear it beep. I couldn’t…

And then the red and orange returned. Flickers burned not just in the center, but in great swarms around the edge of the petals. 

When I’d rubbed my ears enough to knock the buzzing out of my head, I heard something other than the wind. 

Yes, beeping. The timer was still going off. I stamped my foot down on it twice, and it broke in twain. I would have no use for it ever again, anyways. I would…

Screams. There was screaming going on down there. The people swarmed about in the stilted patterns of insects. They had no idea what to do. They were scared. They were…

They were dying. Even if not now, then soon. Very soon. 

I knew some of them. Some of them I even liked. And yet…

And yet, as I stared out onto the horizon, in the landscape of burning gold and silver, I felt… 

Not nothing. Not shame.

But…

Disappointment?

It was as beautiful as any portrait that hung in an art gallery. It was magnificent as the great conquerors of history. It was the wind of change, it was liberation, it was…

It was thousands of people dying. Choking. Screaming. Gone. 

It was not what I’d wanted. That was what I’d been ashamed before to admit. I did not want the action. I just wanted the principle of it. 

And yet, I’d tried the principle before. For years. Long, hard years, where I barely felt like myself, and, quite honestly, usually wasn’t. And where had that gotten me, eh? Where had that gotten anyone? 

It had gotten me to the point where I was staring at the consequences of my actions in a way that most people never did. I had not wanted to change the world. I just wanted to see myself as a person who could. I was comfortable, happy in my complacency, and with the hurricane of fire that was engulfing the city, I would never have that. Ever again.

But what was done was done. I didn’t want to watch it any longer, I wanted to…

My feet screamed out in pain as I applied the tiniest bit of pressure to them. Where do you think you’re going, they asked. I didn’t have an answer. East, presumably. Plans had been made to regroup at the Kurtzway hideout, but…

But that was for different people. That was for folks who were willing to let themselves get caught and strung up for what we’d done. Me? I had a phone in my other pocket. Brand new one, with just a few numbers in it. I didn’t… 

I slammed the phone against the rock. The others would get caught. That was inevitable. They wanted it too much. They were too young. One bit, one bite that inked our names into the pages of history, that would never be enough for them. They would fight and fight, light fire after fire until the whole rotten structure tumbled down around their heads, or until they were brought shackled before the thaumaturges. That second option was more likely. Especially after today. They would find us, they would… 

I could see their faces, half dead, shackled in ice cold chains. Perhaps they would have the honor of serving in the sewage brigades for a century or three. 

Me? If I was to die, it wasn’t going ot be for the cause. Screw that. I’d done my part. I’d inked my handwriting into the pages of history. I was going… 

I was going east. The Easterlings would never extradite me. Not even a terrorist. But then…

But then I was going to live. I was going to live, I was going to be me. And that was it. Nothing more. Nothing less. I’d killed them. I’d killed so many of them. And nothing, probably, nothing would change. But I would be no slave. I would…

I would take my phone out of my pocket and bash it against the side of the rock. There was barely any information on it, but if the ghouls caught one of the others, they’d be able to trace the whole web, make me wriggle like an insect until they killed me. 

The others could just figure that I was compromised, for all I cared. They could buy new phones, drop the old ones in a lake if they were smart. I was…

I was going to get up on my screaming feet, and turn my eyes to the portion of the sky that the sun was abandoning. That was somewhere else. Somewhere safe. Somewhere where the consequences of my actions would have their ripple effect, but where I wouldn’t be able to smell the smoke. That was where, when everything was combined, I would be…

Would it work? I mean, of course it wouldn’t. It was one event. One sanctum destroyed. There were hundreds in this country alone. And the ritualists, the apprentices… they could always make more. Of course they would. For anything to really change, all of them needed to go. All of them. Not just one, and one…

Even if everyone in the cell brought down another (which, given that the thaumaturges would no doubt be ramping up security was extremely, extremely unlikely), they would be short by a few dozen. It was a dream of a dream. A dream of… 

And yet, something may have actually changed. Someone I couldn’t foresee with a clear mind. Just…

Just I was a dead man walking if I didn’t stand up and walk away. That was the only decision I could make. The one that wasn’t a decision. Another act of cowardice. Much more cowardly now that I’d actually drawn blood. No doubt there were some innocents in there. Some. Did I know their names? Did I know their souls? No. I had no inkling. And here I was, about to give up the fight because I didn’t want to see my bones shackled to the chain gang.

Give up the fight. What were we fighting for, again? I couldn’t remember. Even as the flames crested over the horizon, I couldn’t dredge up a single idea.
 
Tyranny? The virtue of the living over the dead? Hollow ideas. There was screaming, down below.  The screams were much less hollow. 

I turned around so that I couldn’t lay my eyes on the blistering fires. I turned around and walked away. A coward? A hero? Both. I was me.