It was as quiet ride to they makeshift FOB along the tree line Eli got a few of the men building temporary structure from the tents they had in the ACP’s. Overseeing the construction, Eli kept a watchful eye on the young man that had become his family over the last few months. A man who had been through battle and bled, but when he finally went into hell, and found what was waiting for him. Through the forest and to head off his wandering too far, Eli walked over to Alex if nothing else to be his guide through hell to the world above.
“Al, are you still with us? What did your father mean?” Eli spoke but it only resonated in the trees around them. “Alexander! Hold your head high and find yourself.”
Like a possession from the daemons of hell Alex snapped back to the world and looked into the voice that summoned him. The journey through his own mind was one that can only be traveled by the person itself. The speculation of darkens and solitude for that is one that is dangerous even to those of sane of mind, in short, his sanity had came into question, and the look into his eyes was enough to broadcast it. Eli knew he had to say something, anything to bring back his friend from the abyss. He knew nothing but the truth would encourage him to fight for the same.
Eli came close to the man standing alone in the woods and lowered his voice. “In everything I have seen, every drop of blood I spilled next to yours, every round fired, and every scorched body we’ve ran up to desperately hoping it wasn’t one of our family member, there is only one universal truth I have come to know. Rage will take you as far as you wish to go, Alexander. If you go down this path with nothing but rage to guide you, you find exactly what you are looking for at its end. But if you go, never turn around to look at who follows you, it wont be me or anyone else you know. For the only thing you will see is a wake of carnage. This ripple was meant to disrupt the normal ebb and balance that you have always been able to keep. Rage will take you as far as you wish to go. If you go down that path with nothing but rage to guide you, you'll find exactly what you are looking for at its end. And if you go, never turn around to look at who follows you, for you will be alone and the only thing you will see is a wake of despair. This ripple was meant to disrupt the normal ebb of your emotions and eventually the waters will calm once again. But it will be up to you, as if you decide to take up your anchor and watch the waters take you away, and ride out with the wrinkle far away from port, or root yourself firmly, waiting out the doldrums and eventually make your way onto the shore.”
“I have never kept a balance Eli. I have always been driven by this rage from the day this started. From the morning I woke to hear bullets fly into my dorm, opening fire on children. I masked my anger because I knew my brother and Ryan needed me to get them to safety. They needed me to be their leader. So I placed the pot on a cooler surface, but it was moved back over the flames when I looked down that scope to see my teacher directing troops to open fire on innocent lives. And that night as I lay in the mud and waited for hours for my shot, I wanted nothing more than to take Tillery’s life, but knew that with my brother still alive, I would be setting myself up to be captured if I were to kill him. So I once again made sure the water didn’t boil, but it didn’t cool because my thirst was yet to be clenched. And from that point on after every engagement we had together till now, I was guided by one thing, eradicating the very man who caused so many people pain.”
“And now what Al? Now what that you know the man who is actually in charge of this entire campaign, wasn’t your teacher? Wasn’t the one, who clenched your thirst. Are you going to keep fanning that flame until it melts the pot itself? That man killed your parents, he wanted you to do it, to watch that rage tare you apart and make you venerable. To make you make a mistake where he could take advantage of your devotion to the ideal, to make you no better than he is. If you lead these men into that gorge, you will never climb back out. You’ll lead them into the abyss of hell, and I will not order any man or child to march into that void with you. Don’t case that man into the world of suffering he came from.”
Alex’s tone became indignant. “How do you think you know so much about where he came from Eli? You never had to sit and watch him tare your life apart for his own game while your best friend asks you to kill the man who has a standing order against your parents, that man never took anything from you.”
“You little shit,” Elijah’s entire demeanor changed in an instant as it never had before, and Alex learned why. “He took my family too. Did you ever ask yourself as to why I was there to pull you from the river that night? There’s no such thing as dumb luck, or chance, or coincidence. A month before Aurorae fell a friend of mine asked me to go with him to a bar in the city. We waited till close, as they did early on those Tuesdays. And as I got up to leave he told me to sit and wait. I sat and watch every last person except the bartender leave that place, and then he waved for us to follow him into the back, following my friend we made our way into the storage area, which seemed like a dead end, until he somehow opened a wall and we moved into a passage way that lead below ground. When we got to the bottom there was a large room full of men waiting patiently for something. We sat near the back, he waved and shook a few hands as I sat and looked towards the front wondering what was going to take the stage and put on a show for us.”
“The man who took the stage that night was the same man I saw in the desert tonight. Spouting the same message of hate. I sat there the entire hour quietly and watched as others clapped and were excited about the coming day of judgment for all those who would oppose ‘us’. After the meeting I walked home in quiet with my friend, neither or us discussing the events that took place. For the next three weeks I found excuses to avoid the weekly meeting until he surprised me one day and told me that if I wasn’t interested in joining the movement it’d be safer if I got my family out of Aurorea before dawn because tomorrow would be the day they all came out of hiding. He wouldn’t tell me what was going to happen but he said he was leaving that night and heading southwest towards the deserts.”
“That next morning, I made my way into town to get a few things and make our way across the bridge into Anderhill. I was on foot while my wife sat in traffic like everyone else who tries to make the morning commute. Making my way across the bridge I waved at them and blew my daughter a kiss as she sat with her dolls in the back seat and my son was asleep next to her. I waved to my wife and continued to get try and get us a spot to sit at a diner that was perched just off of the wharf. We loved eating there. After a while as I was waiting I saw the smoke, through the window, start to rise across the bridge. I tore out of the diner and tried running to the bridge. I could hear the gunfire and explosions in Aurorea and was frantic to get my family safe across. The bottleneck of people were like thousands of sheep running from wolves through a small doorway. I looked and looked desperate to find my family. I saw our car and three people inside of it moving frantically. And then the fire fell from the blackened skies. It was a rain I had never seen before. Those monsters from the MLM were firing into the crowd and I couldn’t fight myself through to get to my car. And then I watched in horror, while the mod pushed me back, as I saw a ball of fire fall and explode turning the car over and swallow it with its embers. I blacked out and woke up a few hours later to an older woman taking care of me. Apparently she watched as dropped to my knees in the middle of the fleeing throng and screamed uncontrollably in agony and was knocked unconscious and trampled. She got the attention of another man and they were able to get me to safety.”
“I woke about two hours after they finally stopped firing on the bridge she told me.” A more detached tone came as his eyes still filled with anger continued. “I unsteadily got to my feet and slogged slowly onto the bridge heading towards where the flames of my upturned car were slowly being sequestered by the storm. When I arrived I looked into the car to see three charred remains and my daughters doll only a few feet from the car. Reaching for her doll all I could do was fall to my knees crying. The red stains on it drove me i
nto a rage where I swore I would kill every last man that harmed my family. I took my knife out and I cut across my hand and swore justice would be done by my, and for my blood, letting it drip onto the already stained fabric of the doll, and then dropped the doll into the channel, and watched it float away. After spending some time watching the storm roll over Aurorea, and wishing it would wipe the city from the face of the earth, I noticed there was a rifle that had been left behind by someone in one of the over turned cars not too far from me. I grabbed it and as I about to make my way back into Vanahei to see where I could volunteer for the fight, my attention was drawn back to the small wharf near the diner. There I saw a young man exhausted and clinging for his life, bobbing up and down in the current. I ran down there and fished you out of the river and from that point on have never left your side.”
Alex continued to stare into the face of his friend. He wasn’t sure what to think about the information he was receiving. Eli hadn’t lied to him directly, but never telling him about the incident on the bridge. It wasn’t a lie, but he couldn’t help but wonder if the omission would have changed anything, if it brought to light right away. It wouldn’t have saved his mom and dad, and Eli’s reason to take up arms next to him would have been just as noble.
Eli continued, interrupting Alex’s thoughts. “Before he killed your parents, you fought for the purity of an idea. The complete right and wrong of the situation. Now you’re on the verge of continuing your fight for a different cause, Revenge. You aren’t the only one who’s family suffered and torn apart. You aren’t the only one who deserves some sort of feeling of justice. Your oath that you hold so close to your heart means that if you go after this man out of nothing but hatred and disregard for who will die alongside you, its more tragic than this entire war. Every institution that tried to bring these worlds together has been destroyed by this monster, and you can be the one to rebuild it all, to restore faith into a united world. But when the moment comes and you get to choose if he lives or dies, remember one thing. If he dies by your hand Alex, there will never be unity again. Because history will eventually strip away all the facts but one, A Watcher from Vanahei killed the leader of the MLM due to vengeance; instead of bringing him to face justice from a unified world.”
“But I’m not from Vanahei!”
A softness came to Elijah’s eyes as he tried to explain the world to the young man. “That wont matter generations down the road Alex. You’re the leader of their army. No matter what you told those men before they marched into this land with you, the propaganda will always hide the meaningful parts of their truths.”
Those words hung heavy in Alex’s ears. Would the truth ever make it to light? Or would it be washed away like sandstone by the tide of history. As he stood looking over the wasteland of burning concrete and molten steel that use to be his home, he realized that at the end of it all, if he wanted the oath to be renewed, he would have to do it in front of the world pure, or else he would no longer be the steward of the truth, but the very manipulated version of it that bore the conflict in the first place. The emotions he felt along the way would be remembered as human, but the decision made at the time of reckoning had to be saintly. If he faltered, the foundation of everything the world could be would made from sand, and castles made from sand fall back into the sea, eventually.
A familiar voice joined the discussion. “Alex, I’m sorry. When I saw that man in front of us all I did not know who he was, until his voice pierced my memory. He was the one that tore my soul apart.” Ryan came walking from the tree front. “He tortured me, he interrogated me, and I broke. He asked about my family, he asked about everyone that was close to me and I broke. I couldn’t find the strength to say no any further before they threw me in the weeds to die. Alex, I’m the reason why he was waiting for us, the reason why your parents died.”
The rage found its final spark and brooded inside of him. It was a struggle that tore him apart. The nonsensical world had become the norm, became the standard. People fighting against one another, not caring for the simplicity of a fellow human life because one lineage felt in charge of the other, it was pathetic. Pathetic that one people could feel that by nothing other than divinity placed them above their friends and loved ones, of all the deities in all the world, none of them placed one child over another, first born or last.
Knowing that his family had been killed by his own countrymen because he represented a resistance, the oppression gave him two outs. Either he came to the realization that the world he was in was about to be torn down around him, or he would fight to tare down those walls from the outside and expose the realities of the truth. It was a struggle that knew no boundaries and a fight that would either claim his life or provide the vindication for it.
“Ryan, to blame you for the actions of today is to blame a preacher there is sin. Your suffering was for people you did not know; yet you gave all of what you had, down to your soul.” Elijah continued his leadership, as frail as it was. “It was only a matter of time till they knew everything there was to know after they invaded command a head start gave them a focus, and a path for us to head them off at, we just need to find where they are heading.”
Alex looked into Ryan’s eyes searching for something to bring him back out of darkens he had found himself further immersed in. It was a longing that Ryan had once experienced before, except in that moment, he was asking for the help instead of providing it.
“Alex I, I’m sorry, there was nothing I could do.” The list of those asking him for forgiveness grew by the moment. The three men stood there in silence, not knowing how to comfort one another. It was as solemn course of minutes, those around them continued to do their work building a camp that could be quickly torn down so they could be on the move, hiding their presence, becoming as ever changing as the wind.
“It was public record who attended the school. A slip of the tongue by either Tillery or Ryan and accessing public records cross checking, it was only a matter of time that they went after your family.” Eli tried to bring him back to the present.
“But how did he know we would be there today? It’s like he was waiting, almost as though he could track our very movement.” Ryan said trying to help, but providing another mental barrier for Alex to cross before he could come back to them.
“We had the ACP’s searched. Other than someone making direct contact on the old radio systems, there is no other was to let them know where we are. But even with that we could track the location. We choose what to broadcast knowing the line could be traced, and we didn’t receive any heads up that any new transmissions were sent out.” Elijah spoke with an earnest conviction, and he was right, and spoke just the words to bring Alex out of the darkness into one moment of clarity.
“That’s it.” The shock and stark made his voice almost mad with laughter. “Any new signal, not one that we were already transmitting.” The laughter came through clearer. “I guess I should rephrase that. Not one that I was continuously sending.”
Reaching for his boot Alex took it off and threw it to Eli. “Every time we broadcasted on the open channels they had to have one tapped, one that could trace our signal back. And after we put that tracker in the boot to let the ships knew where we were on the ground, I was a walking sonar for them. They traced the signal back to command, which was probably mobilizing when they were struck in that suicide bomb. That’s the only way the could have been ahead of us the entire time. How many more of these do you have in your bag Eli?”
Looking at the boot in his hands he spoke. “I have one more. I was going to place it in mine if we had to spit up.”
“Meet me with it at the APC in ten. This is a gambit he’ll take.” Alex motioned for his boot back which was tossed to him. He placed it on and the three men went their separate ways back towards camp, they left the solemn spirit and brought back with them one of hope reborn, and as phoenix, it was time to stalk their prey.
At daybreak the men broke camp and headed west toward
s the canyons that separated the desert from the more bustling cities in the northern parts of Mispellem. It wasn’t one of the main roads due to the frequent rockslides that can clog up traffic, thus ten years before a bypass was built along the outside, a bypass Alex was hoping would slow the journey back north for the MLM.
As the APC’s were making their journey through the canyon they could see a roadblock ahead. There was no way they were going to get through the roadblock without firing a shot and Alex knew it. As they got closer the MLM flag was visible at the check point, he had also guessed, and guessed correctly, that they would be followed into gorge, a small convoy was closing quickly through the up kicked dust behind them. Alex ordered the drivers to stop at the checkpoint and wait to be boxed in by the convoy, before slowly getting out of the vehicles with their hands raised.
Stepping out of the convoy Alex could see the man who shot his parents walk up to the first APC and strike the driver in the face. He couldn’t hear what the man was asking as he moved to the rear hatch of the carrier with more than a dozen rifles pointed at the breach point. The man motioned and the tailgate dropped down to a welcoming of gunfire. After a moment they seized fire, and the man walked into the back. After a pause in the action Alex watched as the driver was pushed to the back of the APC where the man exited and was yelling at the driver. A quick scuffle ensued and the driver handed the man a walkie-talkie.
Pillars of Glass Page 25