They Are Coming, They Are Here

Blissful, cold-hearted steel. A world full of darkness before where there had been lights, screaming noises, the gut-wrenching explosion of metal destroying metal like it was little more than buttered pieces of bread, morphed into some hateful creation and unforgettable creation worthy of Van Gogh. I can hear my breathing. In and out, panicked, heavy, strained and gasping like a dying fish as I struggle, blindly, to find where the leak is coming from.

I don't want to die out here, in space. Not this way, not that way. No way is good enough, no feeling is enough, no thought is enough. All of it is too little, too cold, too this, too that.

Excuses, excuses.

When will I just die, my ebbing blood pressure screams across the scream in bright, unhappy red letters - "WARNING WARNING". You are ending. But not yet. I can't die here. I won't die here. It's not...not worth it. These things, these creations, directed by a subconscious desire to survive, a subconscious, childish response to destroy that which threatens. The impulse so great, it taps on the instinctual. It is deadly, unfeeling, not real and out of control. You can do all sorts of things and feel nothing when your instincts respond - you feel nothing when the FIGHT response appears and you decide the best way to survive, inwardly and without you actually knowing what you've decided, is to destroy everything and block everything else away which, of course, leads to it's destruction. No. That's not the way to do things. You will feel nothing, just terror at seeing the results, not terror at seeing the action IN action. Nothing while it happens, nothing to remind you of what it's like to twist a brittle piece of paper between your hands to recognize it is then metal and a person is screaming on the inside to be let out before they are, inevitably, crushed because you must survive.

You or them. No clearer choice, but you must FEEL. You must HEAR. You must taste. Ignorance will destroy you.

So these things, these terrors controlled by a part of the human mind must be rid of. These dreams... they must go. These objects, this hands that feel nothing, that don't allow for the blood to be smelled... They must GO.

I must be rid of them, before they are rid of me, and think nothing of me. I must be rid of them before the pilot inside forgets in the next moment that I have cried out as I have died, as I have been twisted and broken like a twig, my oxygen ripped from my lungs, my body burning from too much cold icing and crystallizing my insides. I must STOP THEM.

I taste blood as the force of the impact is too much.

Reality, my old archenemy, my lover, my hate. My fingers curl and the gloves I wear creak and ache, stained red and are partially stuck to the lacquered surface of the controls.

I press forward, the lights flicker and the sparks fly.

I watch the movement of those sparks, like so many fireflies, they escape towards a single direction.

Hastily, I cram a blood-stained glove I have just decided to tear off with my blood covered teeth into the tiny hole. It holds, for now, the remainder of the system so jarred, the gel has not released, my system still exposed.

WHAM.
WHAM.
WHAM.

WHAmKRK

WHA -
WHA - CRRRRK....

I shrink and wince as an unearthly howl rips through the once unbreakable.

The maniac comes back - the sounds, the noise, the dull hiss flickers to life as the screen hiss and buzz; damn emergency system backup took long enough.

White snow hazes before it disappears; brief, precious milliseconds expose that I have being pounded, destroyed, inch by impossible inch by these things, these terrors, flickering and dancing like Christmas lights still, unfeeling, unseeing, their director terrified, at a distance.

He's just a child...

I can taste his palpable fear even more so than I can even taste my own blood that stains the remainder of my uniform; flecks, perfect droplets now glide effortless through the air in some haunted ballet, growing larger and smaller with each earth-pounding jolt from the aggressive firing going on outside. I'm almost transfixed.

Almost.

I can't die... can't die. Not yet.

It's either me or him. And I... I heave the machine to life, fingers dashing to make sense of the hell of sparks and fumes that explode and threaten to make me sick. I fight to override and make the connection last as I throw my weight into what will not make a difference.

I fight back.

The world explodes into diamonds and lights; my hearing is gone, all sounds where numb, weighted as much as I felt my own body truly was (incapable of flying as it is), thudding through every pound of heavy flesh that I own, resonating with the frame of the metal nightmare I am trapped in.

Again and again I feel my world collide with the impossible, the lie. The thing that should not be, the thing that threatens to make the world, this world called WAR into a playground, a world where everything is watched from a distance, soldiers are grown, bred, and weapons are the same - everything...IDs, tabs, microchips, trackers - all following, all these millions of eyes watching while the WAR passes on outside of them. Beyond them. A time where nothing will mean anything anymore. It will all become just...political.

The flashing lights are gone, the pilot is screaming.

I'm screaming, but I cannot hear. I can only see. I can only wish I remembered at this moment to hold my tears back, but I cannot.

I have murdered the child, the hand that is an imitation of my hand holding an imitation of my weapon I would hold if I was truly on land having pierced through as if it were nothing but glass. The flashing lights have stopped, hanging in the lack of air around us like silent testaments to their controller's demise. But this cannot be the time. The speakers don't work, all communications are down. I can only listen as I continue on into the world, crying my tears that I will and cannot allow to be heard, I continue to fight leaving the floating devices to float, eerily in some sort of odd tide, shoved this way and that as now more move past. More flashing lights.

More I must stop.

I lick my lips and taste salt from my tears, taste blood and the cold chill of the world outside creeping in.

WARNING
WARNING
WARNING

5 minutes to complete loss of life support systems.

Five minutes. Just five to change everything.
It must be all that I need, or I would not have it.