The clock strikes 11:18 in the humble and grim world of August Folso. This is the time everyday that August enters the dreary and soul crushing house located on district 257, subsection 12. Like most days August will arrive and relieve himself, fumble into his living quarter, take off his simple and bland class identification jacket, slumber down upon his beige chair and click into the impressed shape of his ass and stare blankly at his walls until he's decided he’d rather not be conscious than know this is his existence. However today is a different day, today is Subrotation 9 day 15, today is the last day of August’s life and for the simple reason that he did not follow this deeply rooted routine. Earlier in the day August was in his local nutrient assignment shop, he picked up 17 vitamin tablets, 5 pounds of purified grain, and 1 pound of substitute protein loaf. August paid his due and was off but something clicked inside his socially crafted brain. August didn't want to return home as he did every single miserable day of his life. No, today August wanted to look about for maybe a moment, maybe even 2 if he was feeling brave enough. So he did. August sat down upon the street curb, making himself looking like a degenerate or even worse a Scourge. But he did it, he wanted to know that he still could. Now in approximately 5 moments from this first moment August took to sit, a very rare special is going to occur. In this future moment a man will see August and want to have a chat, maybe even a conversation. This conversation is the moment, the moment that will tear down the world, the moment that is the proverbiale shot the shatters existence and will lead to the ultimate fate of humanity. There is approximately three sentences this man who has no name will say to August. Enter again the moment August has decided he wants to sit down and look at his tragic world. As August sits and simply breathes, a man approaches. The man is dressed in what some may consider rather fortunate clothes to own, but in truth they are that off a dead man, a bad omen but to August he seems as if he could be rather pleasant. “Hello sir.” says August rather surprised that another person knows he's alive. “Good evening.” Replied the man in his blue black suit with grey stains tattering his cuffs. “Can I help you?” August replied as if he could help anybody. “No but I think you should know something.” “What?” “You're a dead man, you're dead before the clock strikes 12 tonight. Sit and think how you want to live these next few hours, think how you should have been living everyday leading up to this day. Good day.” The nameless man walked off, as if he had just found a bit of currency on the ground, a smudge bit proud of himself and confident but not exactly caring, as if the event had not have happened and he'd still feel all the same. In contrast to this brisk existence August currently was in the most traumatic and shocking moment he'd experience in life, his death wouldn't be as shocking since he at least knew it was coming. He quite literally was covered in sweat, maybe from the heat of the electric rails or maybe from the furiously rushing stream of thoughts that were burning away at the small piece of grey matter that was wasted by being given to him. He thought of his childhood on the streets, robbing and stealing from homeless, spitting, and calling names at the Scourge that would pray near their holes leading to the under belly of the city, to the thought of when he had killed his best friend over a fight for a single dropped forgotten divent they found on the street, more money than either had found in a single rotation, let alone their own lives; to the time he ran from city to city thinking Agents would be looking for him over the murder of a worthless street rat child. He regretted and weeped at these moments, he pitied himself for having to live such a life after his parents had been executed. But then his thoughts ripped into a more peaceful time, when he had been saved, at least from his perspective, when a kind women no more than 2 years above his senior had saw him as a young man and invited him to share a ration. This would blossom into the period in August’s life where he felt as if he had been viciously kicked awake from a coma. He learned her name was Anna, she was of the same class but was fortunate in here heritage and had a kind family. Soon they lived together, she had garnered favor with the courts and he was able to be relocated into a position in the nutrient fields as a harvester, what most would consider the lowliest job on the fields but to August it was liberating it was salvation. He would work tirelessly everyday, cutting his fingers from tip to tip prying the droplets of sodium, salt, iron, zinc etc from their static vines that would never wither or fade. He would do this for 16 hours a day, examining and harvesting 400 vines a day, picking 450 pods per vine on average. He would get sunstroke often but it was worth it just so he could come home and feel the smooth and crisp skin of Anna against him. She would hold him as he collapsed in her arms everyday, he would stare down upon her paleness and shed a single tear, a tear originating from pain but growing into joy and thankfulness, this is what he considered his divine reward. August was calm now, he had four tears dripping down his face but had a faint crack of a smile highlighted from his aged laugh lines. He slowly rose and with hands in his pockets and face to the sky he walked home. At 11:35 August entered his house, he felt as if it was crying over his short absence. He dropped his parcel of food and slowly drifted into his living room. He took off his jacket and threw it into the automatic heating pit. He flicked a switched on the larger coffin shaped table next to the pit. The pit coughed and shuffled with a spit of fire and erupted in an explosion of yellow flame, it singed the coat and then it was engulfed in glorious flames, it illuminated August’s face. He had a gaze of pure joy, with eyes enveloped in fire and a firm assured smile of acceptance. He walked over to a large table he had in the center of the room, coated in bronze Vibrosium metal it glared and flashed from the flicker of the pit. He extracted a hand from his pocket and grazed it against a side panel. The top slowly slid open an end of the top to reveal a machine shaped like a square with a hollowed out center with an entanglement of wires and circuits leading to the missing hole. August then proceed to waltz over to his mantle place and looked up to the sole item upon it. A grained and glitched black and white picture of Anna, dressed in a well enough dress and covered in a ornate scarf resting across the shoulders, she looked tired and broken in the photo, there appeared to be some kind of burned mark on her calf, partly covered by the dress. August picked up the photo and looked down upon it now, a lone tear hit the glass of it, running down and seeping into the enormously expensive wood frame of it. He slipped his fingers into the back of the frame and revealed a 2 inch by 2 inch metal sheet enveloped in wires. He threw the photo into the fire pit and proceed over to the table top machine. He brought the metal sheet towards the machine and it was ripped from his hands by an invisible force emitting from the metal contarption. August walked over to his usual seat and proceeded to click into place. The room was illuminated by the fire pit, August cast his contempted gazed into it. The machine mad a hiss and wale and in that moment sound was born from it. Aversto as they would call it, a form of opera but with a unique set of instruments known only to them such as the dialo, the verbana, and the cotro. As the music waled August continued to stare at the disintegrating photo. “Oh Anna, your voice, that of Ovarius, meant for all of creation. I love you. If I am to die today then I want myself to be the last one to gaze upon your face, I want it to be an image reserved for my last moment of happiness-” KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK There was a sound at the door, a cold one, one that had a hallow call. Cool and collected as if it was the most deliberate planned moment of the callers life. August didn't even acknowledge it. He knew who it was. He what it meant. He knew he wasn't going to give it the satisfaction of fear. The door then made its age old hiss as it was opened. There was a moment of silence. August didn't flinch and the caller did not make a move. Ching The sound of conjoined footsteps had begun. Ching Ching August continued to stare at the fire as the sound echoed from the dark hall. Ching Ching Ching The nameless man was right he thought. Ching Ching Ching Ching “At least I took his advice.” Ching Ching Ching Ching Ching “Soon we'll be together Anna.” Ching Ching Ching Ching Ching Ching “At Least I can stare death in the eyes, and deny him his pleasurable smirk of surprise.” Ching Ching Ching Ching Ching Ching Ching The picture of Anna had now made its change into ash and the sound of steps had stopped. August now flushed in shadows turned his head against his chair to meet his executioners.
Chapter 2: Enter “Mr. Folso” His eyes trembling, what once acted like that of a triumphant crusader ready for his timely execution, now that of a cornered animal knowing it's inevitable doom. More heroic actions would probably emerge from a beast he would think, at least it would claw and spit and screech and groan at its advisory, or have enough slip in its heel to run. August would remain, August was not a feral beast nor an upright intelligent one. August knew just one truth here, here and now is where a man must welcome death into his home. “Well shall we begin?” Augusts eyes finally straightened and fully grasped the face of his own personal and very expected reapers. One slouched against the door frame, arms crossed and the other mounted upright and steady with his arms behind his back, faces lite by that of the pit, emerging from the hallow dark of the cold metal halls. The slouching one had the face of that of a true minister of vile, a deacon of filth, it seemed to be sliding off his skull. Near pitch white with strong undercurrents of rotten green neither highlightning nor defining, just coursing like that of some natural river of slime. His eyes appeared almost burnt and soldered into his skin, ripples not lids is what draped his eyes. All over his face flakes of metal seem to be plunged and stabbed into his skin. It was as if it were nails holding a rotten cloth. The other one, was that of myths. Statues seem more human than he did, His face was nothing but strength, hard rigid lines encapsulated every detail. Rigid and firm, solid and over defined, muscular and overbearing. Like that of his partner, his face was decorated, pierced by the same shamblings of metal. Even then most of his face was covered by the brim of his hat, flat topped but short, an ornate reserved only for selected members of the Arrays established elites. The harsh faces were severally contrasted by the uniforms they donned. Long and sweeping coats, buckled by an amalgamation of golden shapes clutching them together, military almost definite. Their rank on the collar obscured by the flattened collars. The one with the draping face had his ornate cuffs drenched in stains. Men were not meant to be like this, these, these are demons of the abyss, these are what the degenerates and part pickers whisper about wandering the surface. These are things. “Get over with it you bastards, my business is settled.” August turned back to gaze into the pit, letting his pupils soak in their last taste of light. The words hadn't even needed to be uttered. As August simply started into the dwindling pit and allowed a greasy smirk to wash over his face the sound of the charging boots rang into his ear. The slimmed faced man put his hand on him first “Slow down old boy, the fun hasn’t even gotten close to started yet.” The stoned faced added his hand to the mix, to August it felt as a boulder of a metal daditum core had been dropped on his shoulder, sinking. In unison their arms moved and his head was slammed onto the edge of the pit, he could feel the distinct press of the exposed crassium metal wires seep into his forehead, he could feel the ridges begin to be shaded by his ironesc blood. This to him was simply the appetizer of this pain, the moment their hands clasped with real strength, his shoulders almost shattering from what they would consider a minor grip. As they pulled him back they made sure to drag, the ridges of the wires scrapping and shattering August’s forehead skin as they tried to pull back. Slapped back to the chair August had to orientate his eyes, a sharp grimace it pain, a wooze of refictrute of his eyes. A slight accent of the spill of blood running on the ridge of his nose. The real press came, the stone faced man dislocated his shoulder with his and the other dug and twisted into his skin with his vibrosium tipped fingers. “Now that the pleasantries are over, why don’t we change the tune. I like something with a little vibrato for my work.” The slimy bastard strutted over to the sound crux, carefully leading with one leg in front of the other. Bobbing his head back and forth trying to gain a momentum of rhythm, “the garosian era of sound was so dreadful, can you believe that the previous Emperors father actually enjoyed this, old bastard preferred the hums of church choir and a melody of religion. How faux, as if that actually adds any depth.” He would think, swiftly following up with a hard slap of the the square from the hollowed cube, sending it flying and shattering against the metal walls.. He slipped his metal clad hand into the the inner pocket of his coat, the draped wires of his jacket ringing against the jiggling sound of exploration. August could only see his back, and then in the swiftest motion, his arm sprung to life from his jacket, bent at a 90 degree angle, delicately presenting his own square encrusted in ornate wiring and ports. “Visontro, dated 2937, one of the first recordings of Mariah Finaccio, months before the public distribution. The delicacy of her voice is divine, just the way she presents and throws the weight of her strong voice, truly a work of art.” After a he allowed the box to vibrate, the hum built and filled the room. Sparks and searing sounds of burning air emitted from the engine of percussion and then it rolled. His head slopped back in a casual sense, a velvet smile rolled across his face his eyes gave a gentle clutch shut. The sound echoed through the room, a gentle echo of scratch sounded, then the voice played. It was a true serenade of excellence. Her voice sparked and heightened as that of clouds rolling across the sky and trampling themselves and dragging their rounded features inward, an implosion of the slowest momentum. August in his feverish and panicked mood had to give a moment of relaxed relief to whipper and divulge into the pure melody of grandeur. The slimmed man rolled his eyelids open to give a sidewards glance to August. “Now you can understand, now you can really feel the magnetic energy of this event!” He pulled his arm inward to remove his cap, an accent of electricity jumped off the moment of contact. On a nearby slate of a table he dropped it. He turned around and gripped the collar of his coat to loosen, he pulled and yanked and in an instant gave a sense of breath and coolness to himself. The stoned face one maintained his same constant level of push jammered in “Grigori, on with it already.” The slimmed one, the assumed Grigori snapped his collectedness toward him “Dammit give me a moment of fun! I’m sorry I can’t help you with your dysfunctional injector but leave me the fuck alone while I get my dosage!” August now viciously gritting his teeth for his fate and began to wander, now he was vastly curious in what the hell was going to happen to now. The manic confusion and just sense of oddity of what was being presented to him warped his perception of terror His mind found focus just to ponder “Is this it? Is this what the hounds of Hell are truly like? The Priests? The men who snatch you in the night.” What began to wash over August was not exactly fear nor panic, it was a concoction of something messy and even more distasteful. To August this came over as something like that of confusion, pure and utter disbelief. Grigori in a moment of seriousness could see it in his eyes “They say death has a smell of sweetness, but seems to me you’re feeling a bit sour about it.” He began his crawl again, this time towards August. Grigori was being careful and collected but still allowing the flow of Finnacios voice to puppeteer his limbs. With an added snap for dramatic effect, he slipped his way back around to the other side of August. A reinforced added grip to August’s shoulder and a ear level whisper. “Well maybe we should end the pleasantries and begin.” Grigori then reached into his pocket and flicked open the sliding latch of a flat rectangular like device. “Elba you seem rather bored, make yourself at least act human and take the neural notes for me.” Snickering all while delivering his cliched insult to Elba. August rattled his shivering eyes toward the statue and saw a raw press of frustration grow on his face. A lumbering swing yet one with terrentual speed snatched the device from Grigoris hand. He loosened his grip to plunge a wire leading from behind his ear into the device. His eyes flickered with a pale white glow, his pupils vanished and left with nothing but angled cracked lines sprouting from the edges of his eyelids. “Now!” Boomed with a thunderous crackle from the tyrants mouth. Grigori leveled with the sweating eyes of August, a faux look of concern “You heard him fella, down to business.” In a lighting movement Grigori had an explosion of drapery sprout from his coat flicking in the air and had presented a blade in his hand. A wire of vertebrate leading off the blade rattled the side of the seat. Resting inches above August’s right knee. A hissing machine, shared like, stacked and overlapping thin panels of vibrosium metal forming a complex yet narrow and clean blade. The vertebrate began to hum and then a cough of electricity shot from Grogori’s belt through them; a shriek that of children’s cries rang and the edge of the blade was illuminated by volatile energy. August’s head rashed back into the chair begging to escape the inevitability. His eyes screamed downward and his face washed over by the bright heat of the sword. Grigori now joyously raising his voice over the hum of the blade. “Now, follow along or this is gonna be even worse than you’ve already pictured.” August began to shake but the men pressed further, enough to push out a broken whimper from August. “Listen dammit, there’s five questions. Answer any wrong and I win a prize, the more you get wrong the bigger the reward.” August visibly confused and distracted finally unclenched his mouth. “What the hell is that even supposed to mean?” Brave words for a coward. Grigori answered plainly, with a downward swing cutting a thirds way into August’s foot. August screamed and then screamed again from Grigoris crushing grip. Smuggly Grigori played “Something along those lines.” August pushed his head forward and back into the chair, sobbed and flickered his eyelids. “Now question one: what is your name?” With a whimper and a cry, August poured out “August, August Folso.” Soon followed was a scream of horror, Foloso’s head draped over in pain. The light from the blade could barely process. He heard a tap and rolling through his vision was his right hands pinky. He glanced over, weary and dripping in pain. Grigoris face mocking his misery and his blade resting on August’s ring finger. “I think you meant to say citizen: 178547. You paid the toll so let's move on to the next, Where do you live?” August had to wait for the question to press through the pain, what is this? They know where I live, they're just going to cut another one off no matter what I say. “Here. In this subsection, Track 7, residence 1456.” He anticipated the blade but not the numbing, the pain was 5 fold but there felt something more hollow. August shifted down to see the cauterized stump where his hand once lived. Now the real shrieks bang, first in pain, then horror, and finally in fear. “Not where on this city, What city, who do you belong to? Did you crawl out of Damascus? A scavenger trying to pawn off whatever you can to The Union?” Grigori simply stared, first in joy but then of actual interest. His face twirlied into something with a semblance of sterness. “No, no. You have the signs, the look of a scared little man. But I can smell my own, you've been trained for this.” Grigori grabbed August by the chin and pulled his head toward him and stared into the broken mans face. Longer and longer into August's eyes until he saw the shimmer, a shift in the light of the fire, the shape appeared in his pupil. “Question 3: Did Cain send you here personally?” Elbas hollowed pupils shifted downward at the scene. To Grigori he was no longer looking at August, August was now looking at him. A crack of a smile and the words came out “Yes.” The face of a broken man was now overtaken by that of a man in control. Grigori pulled away and shift in front of the sitting August and dropped his foot into the man's chest. August crashed into the ground and before he could crawl from the chair Grigori was on top of him, blade resting on Augusts throat. Elba had lumbered over head of August, blade now in his free hand. “Lucky you, we’re going straight to the final question, are you the contact? Are you the one she's looking for?” August face was still loosened, the fear had gone into that of pride, and soon came the cackling “Ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha.” He began to press his neck closer to the sparks. “You boys aren’t too sharp, just a bunch of wild hounds without a leash.” Grigori kept his sharp look, his eyes pressed with dark focus, August raised a brow and gave a full toothed grin. “You really think I’m going to just going to give away Cain’s prize? You think my life matters in the grand scheme?.” He continued his hysterical laughing, burning the edge of his throat with the spitting sparks of Grigoris blade. “You can’t even imagine what it feels like. To watch you bastards lose any semblance of control, grind my bones, pull my skin, slice my throat; I’ll die with a smile on my face knowing you’ll still lose.” The flickers and spits of the fire pit still loomed, the hiss of the crackling air filled the room. The looming shadows of the figures remained and it began to feel as if hell itself had entered the house.
Chapter 3. August had his head pressed back but no longer in pain but in an immense feeling of victory. Take me he thought, the torture will only be a game now, my victory lap. Grigori cracked a smile. Before he could notice there was a long vibrosium shard pointed in Nathaniel’s eye. Grigori took his turn to laugh “Do you honestly think you’re the first?” Grigori began to push the shard into August’s eye, digging toward the gleam. August’s screams began to dig into the ears of Grigori and Elba. Elba shifted his foot and placed it on August temple, holding it in place. “We’ve has you rats in and out of here for months, it only took us 3 of you to reverse engineer the eye implant. All the same every time, let me guess they scraped you off the streets? Pull off deep cover and you’ll become a party member?” Grigori stopped digging. He lowered his head to August’s ear, whispering over the screams. “Too bad none of you have returned from our cities yet.” There came an even more foul pain in August’s eye, Grigori began to pull and August could feel the deep pulling in his eye socket. This time he wouldn’t give Grigori his scream, he’s earned no more. With a twist he could feel every vein and tendon snap and came with it his eye. Grigori took his enormous weight off of August, he held proud his prize and popped it off the end of his probe. He crushed it in his grotesque palm and opened to reveal a tiny disc with numerous bronze and gold cover pins sprouting from it. “Elba, end session.” Grigori waited for Elba to unplug the recorder before continuing. “ Run a 72 hour trace, see if she's in the log. He tossed the disc toward Elba who snatched it in an instant. He plugged the disc into a small port behind his opposite ear. His eyes began to glow and flicker with a gleam of light flashing through numerous shades of pale white and blue. He unplugged the chip and gave Grigori a nod. At this moment, Grigori pulled his weight off of August, he flicked his wrist and with it his blade cooled with a hiss and the sparks ceased. With one hand he applied his hat and flung his sword behind his back into its sheath. Both Elba and Grigori turned and marched out from the room, August hissed and convoluted in agony, gleaming the soft glow from the hallway and the two receding shadows of the men. Alone. Alive. Drips of relief poured through August, he pondered “the man was wrong, I’m still alive, I-I-.” Too weak to even think properly, his only working eye hazily shuddered through the room, pining for someway to help him in his mained state. His eye flicked about until it landed above his mantle, 12:00 the clock on the wall read. Ching Ching Ching Ching Ching The footsteps stopped. August traced to the corner of his eye the looming figure of Grigori. Bang. A flash of dreadful heat and vapor exploded from the tip of a vibrosium plated gun. A piece of paper was flung carelessly from the inside of Grigoris coat, drifting onto the lifeless body that once belonged to August Folso, reading “I have betrayed my state and my people. In my horrible grief over my crimes I am ending my own life. Bless the Holy Array and may Ovarius forgive me for my crimes.”
Submitted June 02, 2019 at 08:25AM by NoCancerHere http://bit.ly/2JRSPJO
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