Still Myself, Still Surviving: Part II: The Realization

by Marlin Grail

  It is my last statement that has this man visibly tense in his posture. He begins buttoning and unbuttoning his suit, likely as a means to fiddle away that anxiety. He then slightly makes himself higher with a calf-raise.

  “Every radio tower from Utah all the way to Southeast North Dakota has been broadcasting it. He could be anywhere in between.” He includes another remark, less married to the topic. “By the way, the ‘C.’ name is a double whammy mockery of both his name, and the unit’s lead director’s, Casey.”

  I wonder what that indicates about the other three? Do they mock themselves, along with others?

  “I know about Casey. Anyway, the rest of the groups traveling with them remain by C. and O.’s side. I’m sure, with my group knowing the façade, he’s bound to convince those people that Casey’s unit are the aggressors.”

  A whisper goes to the man’s ear by one of the personnel. Then, a finger spin in the air is done to signify a procedure. “They’ll prepare the helicopter. How many of these people will there be?”

  I stutter my answers, already getting ahead of myself with what the phantom shared with me. “They’re heading-I mean, counting all of them, there’s going to be at most 13.”

  “That’s quite small compared to what I envisioned it would be!” he says, shocked. “If we weren’t dealing with a supernatural-elemental self-proclaimed queen, Casey’s unit wouldn’t need help on this mission. To tell you the truth, she’s a handful on her own. Add these other immune people, mastering their own unique powers, and it’s harried us to work hard every moment during these last several months.”

  I stand here, once again feeling him fling another curveball my way, as he seems to wait for something from me to encourage the exchange’s continuation.

  I wonder if he’s expecting me to have a conceited reply. Sure, this could be an opportunity to recognize I’ve made their operation easier, but I’m just like them. I’m not showing myself as a special person to this task, nor do I intend to even suggest I feel that I am.

  “This way,” he finally orders. “The helipad you landed on is where you return next.”

  Once again, I ram with the fluidity of events. “I need to see my people,” I state abruptly.

  He licks his lips with irritation. “Every second that passes now, knowing we can strike, you want to delay just to see them?”

  Rather than raise my voice, or even have the slightest threat in my tone, I show my vulnerability—the one aspect of my waking life I devote to. “Please. If trouble happens…I need them to know certain things.”

  Lissie… How am I to explain what I’m off to do? How can I explain this potential last task of mine, this last assignment? Rightfully reasonable, how is she to rationally accept any of it?

  Regardless of the chills running through my body indicating how I’m certain the confrontation will be, I insist this request for moments on end.

  “Okay.” He finally carries empathy in his voice. Cocking his head at an officer, he commands, “Take him to their quarters.”

  As I pass, he quickly tells me, somber expression in place, “If you don’t come back…we’ll still respect your wishes for them to stay. This is our thank you for taking on one of the nation’s recently most daring missions.”

  Because of my own grim attitude, I let out a defensive chuckle. “Are you all that remains of the United States?”

  “We are the only agency that’s giving an actual damn about the people. Any other branches out there have been dark since day one.”

  I hear how proud his reply sounds—his ability to confidently speak this way, reassuring the sacrifices he’s aware of making—it begins to work for me too.

  I’m not looking to be a hero for the people. My people, on the other hand, those four people are my major motivator. Even if they are my greatest stressor.

  I’m guided out of the warehouse, and see the mobilization of officers. Some are intrigued enough to stop their tasks and watch me. The others shove those who halted to keep them moving. After a brief speed-walk exercise, I notice a little structure tucked away on the 90° turn of this base’s strip of various buildings.

  “Here,” The officer guiding me curtly announces. His arm aims towards the doors, very similar to the ones in our shelter’s.

  Hopefully, these little details will make them settle down here quicker.

  I let out a major exhale as he opens them up.

  Chapter LIV

  I’m unwavering to accepting the big picture, but I’m worried if my mission will clog up a healthy departure between us all.

  The nerves to how they’ll take it melt. I’m certain I’ll freeze up again in due time. Right now, I’m just enthralled to see all of them again.

  Thankfully, they’re quick to rejoice in the sight of me as well.

  Part of me is tempted to forget why I came here, other than falsify to myself that Lissie was the primary reason. It sure is tempting when she practically bumps me off balance as her arms wrap around me.

  “Sweetie!” she rejoices, kissing me on my lips without reserve.

  “Lissie!” I’m eventually able to vocalize when she gasps for air. “My love, I’m just so happy to see you’re all right!”

  Without my demands, she and the rest might not be alive right now to worry about me.

  Her brave character carries no splinter from how I saw her before. She boldly stretches an arm out to push the officer away from urging me to hurry, implicitly reminding me what I’m here to do.

  For now, I have to say…I can’t say it.

  I solemnly look towards the ground between mine and Lissie’s feet. I have to muster up courage for the hardest decision I’ve yet to make as leader.

  “Lissie… Everyone… I want you to know that I’ve made sure you’ll be cared for here. This will be our new home.”

  Lissie smooths her fingers all around my forearms, forcing out a chuckle to pretend she’s not worried. “Gary, why do you sound like you’re…leaving?”

  Her last word lifts the rest of them off the beds they’ve started to become acquainted with.

  “Bro?” Ashton worriedly says.

  It’s as though I’m leading them on that my time has come. I’m one to not think closely about death, but, considering I thought the hazes had me, now what I’m heading towards…I have to consider it a possibility.

  Before I can peep out my first hesitant syllable, Will intuitively helps the discussion get to the point.

  “Gary, you’re going somewhere without us, aren’t you? You don’t know if you’ll be returning?”

  I swallow. “Yes, Will. I need you to watch over—”

  Lissie spits angrily, “Bullshit, Gary! You can’t do this! We can’t let this go. I don’t want you going—”

  “I’m sorry, Lissie!” I argue. My tone is dejected, but unyielding. “I’m in a bargain. As long as I do this, you won’t be getting kicked out, or worse, killed!”

  I feel her grip on my wrists grow tight, unwilling to let me budge free. “No! I’m okay being kicked out! We stay together, remember?”

  My heart beats radically fast now that I’m having to verbally force out spurts of defense. “I don’t know how to say it, other than I’m not okay letting you not have protection! You will here! I promise!”

  Janice interjects her criticism to this, fully inflamed in emotion as Lissie. “How do you know that? We were going to be executed!”

  “I know, Janice! The abrupt cancellation was because I found out! I put my life on the line to ensure they’ll never do that to you again!”

  Ashton delivers a bitter snicker. “So, you’re not putting your life on the line now?”

  Ashton, my friend. My brother, I wish I could say I wasn’t, but it’s for a larger reason.

  I say my exact thoughts, but he’s already shaking his head. Ashton then violently smacks the railing of his bed frame. “Screw it, Gary! The world’s not getting any better than it already is! Together we make it bearable, but you have to be there
to help!”

  The officer wishes to be respectful to our private drama of yelling and tears of fury, but he states I should be departing now.

  I shake my head with uncertainty for what else I could say to make it better. All I can come up with is “I’m sorry, but I’m doing this for us!”

  Without waiting for further verbal attack, I scan until my eyes lock with Will. “As second-in-command, you take charge of the group until I return.”

  “Right, Gary, until you come back. You tell us you’re coming back, dammit!”

  I’ve never heard Will sound so invested to my well-being. I no longer doubt he cares about my existence, but he’s always either sarcastic or sounds unattached.

  Though I wish to confidently assure him it will happen, it’s as if my rationality is preventing any more words to come out.

  Lissie jolts me back to her when she screams, “You ass! Tell him, tell me, you’ll be returning!”

  “I…I will do my absolute best—”

  “That’s not good enough!” she cuts me off. Lissie then chooses a different method to gain a concrete answer versus yelling. She approaches me. Touching my forehead with hers, she has us breathe in unison. “Please, Gary. Please promise you’ll be coming back!”

  I understand, Lissie. I can’t underestimate my abilities. I can’t put a cap on myself to determine the likelihood of my survival. I’ve never done that throughout this time of actually surviving.

  The realization floors me.

  I’ve just gotten comfortable with undead, hazes, and aggressors being the swing of everyday activity.

  “I promise you, Lissie, I will return. I promise.”

  I finalize that promise with a long, passionate kiss on her lips. My body arches over to fully hug every part of her. Eventually, we detach. Not from choice, but under the officer’s efforts of pulling me away.

  As I’m being led outside, I look to see Lissie wiping her eyes with her shirt’s faded cuffs. She then loses whatever grip she has over herself when she observes me begin the path that will lead me to my next destination.

  Into the unknown, and away from them all.

  Chapter LV

  “Gary!” I hear Janice call out. “You hold onto that promise! It’s a promise you’ve never had to keep before in your life! No other promise before her matters as much as yours to her now!

  I believe that’s true too, Janice. Lissie’s the one and only person I’m willing to do anything for. If she wants me to live, then I will live like I’ve never done before in my whole life.

  There are no words to explain how challenging it is to walk away from them.

  They count on the trust they have in me to understand this choice I’ve made is for the better. I don’t have words to describe how grateful and lucky I am to have a family like them.

  It’s okay if you all hate me for it. True care for another human being is meant to bring emotional turmoil, and it’s okay to hate the other for making you feel that way.

  The fence has already been split open for me. I see the helicopter idle on the pad, making me realize I’ve held them back. The officer that was guiding me stops by the fence, claiming, “I’m not meant to do the heroic job. I stop here.”

  Maybe it’s important for me to be seen as doing something only a hero would do. Perhaps, if my group thinks so, then they might fathom why I have to do this. Their idea as me doing something extraordinary could let them find it, to an extent, excusable.

  I walk alone on this path, literally, but also emotionally.

  Even as I get closer to the helicopter, aware three officers are encouraging me on to hurry, I still find this a lone venture. True, I was the only one of my group tasked with bringing O. back. Still, I met and made a friend.

  Rest in peace, Josh. You and your people may have been lied to. After this though, they can live under their own rules. If at all possible, they will instinctively realize the dupe we fell for.

  “Hurry!” the officer right across from my empty spot exclaims. He hands me the extension of myself—my sword.

  My first step begins now. Regardless if I live or not, matters will change tremendously after this.

  I rest my sword on my lap, having to politely excuse the officer beside me for when I slide it over to let the transport door fully close up.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he replies. It’s then he takes his SWAT-like helmet off his face, revealing his true identity. “Name’s Ernie. What’s yours?”

  “Gary. Again, apologies for my awkward weapon.”

  He playfully lets his hand smack the air. “Don’t worry about it, Gary. On a different topic, I once saw Sergeant Clouse, or, when he revealed his admired weapon, a claw-like weapon—ninja shit—he began referring to himself as Claw.”

  Sergeant Clouse? Claw? C.?

  He’s chosen a name to represent his brutality, animalistic, behavior. Perhaps, because this was the name he kept hidden from us at the setup, it can be utilized to psychologically attack him.

  “He always thought he was meant to do something life-changing,” Ernie continues. “He was able to convince the others of the same. It was first G., or as he identified her, Grim. They were growing a bond none of us could understand.”

  How I’d like to see it, he’s willing to do this plan for love. He’s gone to great lengths to get as close as he’s gotten to reuniting with his love.

  I watch as the haze smokescreen engulfs us, momentarily deafening us and making the communication inside inaudible.

  In order to concrete myself to this mission of dismantling Claw, even if Ernie and the others don’t understand, I feel like I must share a piece of myself.

  “I believe in spirits, and the other side. Sergeant Clouse, or Claw, you will be sent to another realm. I now know you won’t entirely be destroyed. It’s the least bit of sympathy I imagine I can show for you.”

  None of the others hear my words, but they do give me befuddled expressions while watching me talk, even as I stare straight into nothingness.

  Is this what soldiers always meant when they referred to their duties as a job? Is that how they made sense of what they were doing? In this case, I’m employed once again under an organization, just less casualty driven.

  Therefore, this is a job, but this will be my last job. Afterward, I just want to work for the ones that matter to me the most…

  Maybe life can or will get back to normal. Lissie’s safety and happiness will be my real responsibility if or when that time is upon us.

  Chapter LVI

  (Ashton)

  What a shit time it is to try and sleep tonight.

  Everyone else, twisting and turning on their beds, seem to all seethe with the same concern. My blinking is meant to ease my anger, but nothing’s changing.

  Except for the silence.

  “How the hell could Gary just leave us at a place we almost died?”

  Will spits sharply, “Ashton! For the last time, we’re trying to sleep! Keep yourself quiet!”

  “No, you’re not! You’re all thinking what I’m thinking, just with behavioral differences!”

  Janice moans with tiredness, but not from being awoken.

  Lissie, who’s beside her, snaps up. Then, despite the darkness, I see a shadow flying straight towards me. Fortunately, it’s only a pillow she flung at me.

  “See! You guys are just as troubled!”

  I lift up so I’m sitting instead of lying down. Fluffing the pillow Lissie angrily assaulted me with, I toss it back to her. Once again, being we’re practically in complete darkness, I’m startled to see it impacts her silhouette, before it’s practically planted beside my bed.

  “Oh, great,” I sarcastically remark to her. “I gave you the thing you’ll suffocate me with.”

  I wouldn’t put it past her to have me be her punching bag this time around. I am her stooge, after all.

  She rudely has me scoot over so she can sit beside me. I slump back as my response, rubbing my heads over my head. To my surp
rise, she follows along in similar movement, though she’s unusually relaxed in her tone, considering this subject.

  “We’re right to be anxious. However, I do think you’re not really that troubled from being here. It’s more where he is and where we aren’t.”

  As much as I’d like to fight her on that, she’s learned from Gary about how the truth of heavy circumstances comes out in different ways.

  “I know, if Gary believes it’s so important, it must be that damn important,” I freely tell her. “Especially you, Lissie, must be scorching mad with his choice.”

  There’s a pause in conversation, both of us likely focusing on certain aspects of the interior of our “newly appointed” place—never mind that we can barely see.

  An exhale precedes her pat on my back. “You know, stooge? I wish I understood how he can take so much onto his shoulders, and still come to us without ever being tired of it. I’m not sure he could even explain that himself. It’s just who he is.”

  I come back sharply, not reaching the same understanding that she’s trying to say, “Does that mean we should blindly assume he knows what’s best?”

  “No! But, what I’m saying is he doesn’t ever make a choice for us without thinking about it a million different ways.” It’s here our private conversation comes to a conclusion, even as Lissie is taking everything from the last day in while she talks. “I’m going to believe him. If he says we’ll be okay here, and that he’s doing this for us, we owe it to him to keep faith that he’s weighed every other option.”

  Her words are reasonably sound, and they’re beginning to bring me around as well.

  “Well, maybe,” I quietly say.

  Though I cease paying attention to her, I can feel she’s now standing right above me. My feeling is proven correct when she chuckles out loud. “You know something, Ashton?”

  “What?”

  “Gary told me about you ghosting during you guys’ adolescence, with no explanation given to him about it. What goes around may come around, huh? Also, quite trying to peel off your Band-Aids!”