The Lover's Parable Through A Seven World Journey

by Millerson, Brady

  It took a few minutes for him to catch on, but John noticed that he could now look upon his love with adoration, without the burning wall of hate revealing its terrible visage so readily. It was still there, though. He could feel it lying in wait for him, holding out for a drop in his guard. But, it was the fact that it was allowing him to get much further emotionally without restraining, without binding his soul, which caught him by surprise. John now believed that his freedom from the grasp of his murderous training would return. Time would eventually change him back. He knew it had to. But as he looked upon Sofia, her forehead beaded with sweat, her skin pale and moist, he only hoped that there was enough time left in their lives together for the two of them to be happy once again.

  Nearing the Top Man’s base according to the map, John killed the lights of the transporter and slowed their progress to a near standstill, taking his time with the last few hundred meters that remained before they would need to move on foot. The faint glow of the outer lights of the compound was just ahead of them. Beyond the snowy drapes impeding his vision it was hidden. He was quite aware of the potential dangers that were lying ahead.

  Through the murkiness of the unforgiving storm, the perception of a rather formidable mansion, lit up with the brightest of lights, was now coming vaguely into view. A single structure placed in the middle of nowhere, sitting on a desolate planet at the outskirts of their little universe. After a lengthy period of crawling through the snow, it began to reveal itself more clearly.

  Gorgeously arrayed with golden statues and white marbled pillars, the lamps of the compound illuminated the local vicinity with a marvelous glow. After moving closer, there appeared several guard towers, but it was quite clear that there were no guards at their posts, no Security personnel on watch. The occupier was either thoroughly comfortable with his safety in such a lonely, and seemingly inaccessible, world, or else Banks had made enough of a distraction to bring to his position every agent on the planet.

  “We’ve reached the Top Man’s domain,” John whispered into his throat mic.

  There was no return answer. Cutting the engine, the eerie rocking of the vehicle’s cabin against the wind that whistled along its frame made John aware of just how isolated they were from the rest of humanity. It was a dead planet, and they needed to cross its open waste in order to gain access to their final target.

  “We’ve reached the Top Man’s domain. How copy?” John whispered, making one more attempt at communicating.

  Radio silence was all that returned. Reaching into the compartment behind them, he retrieved the weapons and goggles that Central had supplied, along with a backpack of explosive ordinance of unknown yields. Short-barreled and simple, he handed a rifle to Sofia, saying, “I’m not expecting you to use it. Just hold on to it, just in case.”

  With a pistol already holstered in its shoulder rig, John helped Sofia secure it around her arms while continuing to keep her warm-weather jacket in place.

  “Stay close behind me,” he said, dropping the goggles over his eyes and pulling the hood of his jacket over his head.

  Following suit, Sofia covered herself in the same manner. She was mentally ready to vacate the transporter, but she was not physically prepared to embark through the hoary weather with John.

  Opening the doors was like falling into icy waters. The skin of Sofia’s face felt like it immediately froze. Had it not been for the protective covering over her eyes, she was certain that they would have iced shut. Pulling the backpack’s straps over his shoulders, John approached her from around the front of the transporter.

  The mansion was situated on a moderate upgrade that began several meters away. Throwing the rifles over their shoulders, the climb would necessitate that they use both hands and feet to ascend its slippery slope, and they proceeded to move out with caution.

  As they neared the final slope leading to the compound, it began to rapidly steepen. The struggle up the snowy face was turning into a strain on the muscles, and Sofia, dizzy and worn, pushed her body to its limit in order to reach its top. As she pulled herself over the upper ledge, she could see John kneeling down beside a stone-fenced path. A flight of stairs on the other side of the walkway terminated at the front door of the compound approximately fifty meters away. Rising to her feet, she was feeling the aches in her joints that accompanied her rising temperature. Hobbling up beside John, Sofia was winded and feeling ill to her stomach. Her condition went unnoticed. And John pressed forward with the mission in spite of her limping attempts to keep up with him.

  Leading them down the edge of the walkway, keeping them on the outside of the stony wall, John made certain that they were always hidden in the shadows, out of sight from the lights that decoratively flooded the open grounds.

  With the entry to the compound only a few meters away, the two trespassers straddled over the low-lying wall, and stood at the base of the mansion’s pillared face. The white-gray, marbled steps leading to their man were coated with a heavy layer of powdery snow that crunched under the weight of their boots.

  The stairwell was intricately crafted with statues of animal foundlings and playful children, artificially exuding a meek appearance with regards to the occupier of the house. It was a stark contrast to the personification of evil that they were expecting to find.

  A broad doorway made of fine wood, smooth and lacquered, and adorned with brass fixtures, blocked their entry into the compound.

  “Breaching the target’s HQ. How copy?” John whispered into the mic.

  There was no answer from the Captain. Aiming from the hip while turning the handle, to John’s surprise the door slid open without any resistance. He and Sofia were immediately greeted by the warmth of the interior air and the brightly illuminating lights that escaped through the slight opening he had created in the threshold. As the expanding entryway revealed the mystery of simplicity behind it, John fully shouldered his rifle, taking aim throughout the room.

  Devoid of life, it was curiously quiet once they were inside, and John pulled Sofia closer to his body, but slightly shielding her at his rear. The walls were decorated with a blood red, fabric covering with wooden trim, giving a nightmarish atmosphere of doom. There were several hallways, long, narrow and dimly lit, a virtual crimson colored maze within the madman’s house. A staircase built into the side of the opposing wall led to a walkway that extended into another hallway that continued beyond their line of sight.

  Unable to assume the time of day, as there were no points of reference to glean that piece of data from, John could not even deduce whether the possibilities for the target to be upstairs sleeping, or downstairs eating, were reasonable.

  Relying on chance, he randomly chose the hallway at his right hand, hoping that he was not leading them into a trap.

  Proceeding down its path, Sofia held onto the tail end of John’s coat, occasionally stumbling over her own feet. The sweat was beginning to drip down John’s forehead, saturating his eyebrows before falling across the lashes of his eyes. He wanted desperately to remove the insulated, outer layers of clothing, to release the pent up heat from his body, but he knew that losing the precious articles would make his escape virtually impossible, as he could not survive so tenuously clothed for any extended period of time in such an icy environment.

  Despite the multiple layers of covering wrapped around her body, Sofia continued to shiver uncontrollably. Although she was attired in the same material as John, her cold weather outfit felt much too thin to keep her warm.

  As they reached the middle of the door-less hallway, John recognized by the varying shades of red reflecting off the walls that their path continued around a corner approximately twenty meters ahead. The stillness of the atmosphere was eerily calm.

  As Sofia followed John to the edge of the wall, he peered around the corner, making sure that they were safe to move on. Their movement was slow and cautious. And with each new turn, and each new threshold to pass through, there were simply more hallways and staircases
in abundance for them to follow.

  Being led to unknown locales within the monstrous structure, John had become quite disoriented by the lack of variety found within each newly discovered area. It was as if they were going in circles, only to return to the same place from which they had started… and yet, John was not sure if they had returned to any of the same places or not. It all looked the same.

  Thirty minutes or more had passed, and they were unsure if they were nearer now to their destination than when they had first begun. Whatever the answer, they were lost within the labyrinth. Was the entire compound designed for the unlikely event that foreigners would find him, John thought. It seemed as if only blind luck would get them to the target now, if they were to get there at all.

  The longer they wandered, the more pale and dusky Sofia was becoming. The ruby color of the walls was playing tricks on her mind, and she began to fear that death was stalking her, but she refused to let John in on her fears.

  Not ready to give up, John stopped in the middle of the hallway.

  “Did you hear something?” he whispered suspiciously.

  “No,” Sofia replied, listening to the ringing silence.

  Knocking the butt end of his rifle upon the floor, John could feel the vibration of the wood planks beneath his feet. Pulling out a bladed weapon he cut into the plush carpet, tearing a hole out and exposing the wooden sub-flooring beneath. As he continued to expand his work area, Sofia moved out his way, sitting back against a wall, blurrily watching him from a short distance away.

  With the tang of his knife, John hammered at the ground, creating a crack into which he placed his blade. Prying the floor apart, he tore through several wooden sections until there was nothing visible but a concrete slab.

  Dropping the backpack from his shoulders, John rummaged through the varying sizes of explosive bundles that Central had packaged for them. Unsure of their individual, destructive yields, he removed the smallest clay-like block he could find, along with a single, timed detonator. Connecting the two components together, he set its timer to countdown from twenty seconds and placed it upon the exposed surface of the floor.

  Grabbing Sofia by the hand, he threw the pack over his shoulder and lifted her up, forcing her to run with him down the hall and back around the last corner from which they had come. Ducking down and covering her under his body, John huddled over Sofia just at the moment that the deafening explosion tore through the house. Plaster and wood fell from the ceiling, cracking off the walls around them. The quaking of the structure had loosened more than just its superficial covering as the echoes of splintering wood and breaking glass resounded everywhere around them.

  As John allowed the time for the smoke to clear and the domino effect to cease, Sofia, her skin tactilely ultra-sensitive, bathed in the comfort of John’s embrace. It was something she had not felt for so many years.

  As the dust began to settle, John stood up brushing off his clothes. He offered his hand to Sofia, but she was too weak to take it. Sickly and frail, she held onto her leg and began cry, sobbing and pitiful.

  Up until this very moment John had not taken notice of how dreadfully ill her appearance had become. He had not been observant to Sofia’s rapidly deteriorating condition. Neither her pale, moist skin, nor the distress in her laborious breathing had caught his attention to such an emergent degree as now. He had been woefully indifferent to her suffering. Kneeling beside her and placing his hand upon the back of her neck, he could feel her skin burning, as if she were on fire.

  “Let’s abort this mission and head back to the transporter,” he said. “Maybe we can find some medicine at the airship.”

  Sweating profusely and finding it difficult to swallow due to the cottony, dryness of her mouth, Sofia slid her hand out from under his and placed it upon his cheek. His skin felt so cold and dry.

  “You’ve got to find him,” she said. “There are so many people counting on you, John.”

  “No,” he dissented. “We’re leaving right now. You need help. You’re very sick, girl.”

  The nickname was so sweet and familiar. She had adored hearing him use the term girl since they were children. Perhaps, he was correct. There could be medicine at the airship and she could be saved. But, Maryanne’s selflessness was such an inspiration to her. Sofia could not let her own safety stand between the freedom of millions and the destruction of the purveyors of their misery. She struggled against her own selfishness, even upon hearing the soft wind blowing through the grassy fields of Labor, calling out for her return. Taking hold of it, she drowned her self-preservation in the waters of liberty, wiping it out for all eternity.

  “I’m going to stay right here,” she whispered through a hoarse, fragile voice. “You need to finish this. Maybe this is the answer you were always seeking, John. Don’t give up now. I’ll still be here waiting for you when you return.”

  Seeing her in such a pathetic state caused the wall of burning to rise within John’s heart and mind. One part of him wanted to hold her, the other part to destroy the ultimate cause of her misery. Standing upon his feet as she closed her eyes, the baser side of John’s soul had won again. Without saying a word he walked away from Sofia, disappearing around the corner.

  Folding her arms across her chest, Sofia’s teeth chattered behind the sunken skin of her cheeks. John would return for her, she thought. He always did.

  Approaching the gaping wound of the mansion floor, John aimed his weapon down into the hollowed out room that existed below the hallway that they had been standing in just moments earlier. He flipped the light of the rifle’s foregrip on, moving its beam across the shattered remnants of the once hidden compartment. Certain it was clear, he hopped down, landing hard upon the uneven floor. Computer terminals were blown to pieces, and furniture was split and splintered, piled against the walls from the blast of his explosive. As far as he could tell, there were no casualties within the immediate area.

  A door on the far end of the wall from which he stood was torn in half, leaving the lower portion intact upon its hinge. Cautiously moving towards the pitch dark unknown awaiting him on the other side, John crept along the wall. His steady aim was only useful within a single meter or less, as the smoke of the smoldering ash wafted through the beam of his light, obscuring his vision.

  Pushing the half-door aside, a sudden motion to his left caused his reflexive action to subconsciously take over. He instinctively swiped his rifle towards the moving object with a burst of gunfire.

  Sofia awoke with a startle. She was certain John had called out to her, taking her out of her feverish dreamland. Crawling to the corner of the hall, she peered around it. The opening in the floor silently awaited her entrance.

  As his body returned back its control to his rational awareness, John could hear a sound as if something heavy was being dragged along the floor. Spotting a splatter of blood upon the wall at the far end of the hall, in an area that had been out of harm’s way from the blast, he followed his light to the crimson stain.

  Approaching it, he could see that it was shaped like a hand with its fingers spread out. Through the unhindered flood of his light, smeared streams of blood led him up the hall and into a room that was shimmering like the reflections of light off of a pool of bluish-white waters. Rotating his rifle along the sling to his back, John withdrew his pistol and began moving with haste towards the illuminated room.

  As he neared the doorway, he could hear the heavy, gurgling breaths of someone suffering under the might of his former weapon. Entering in, John found himself surrounded by a network of computer screens brightly lit. Fallen upon the floor at his feet, lay a man, shot through the chest, bubbling in his throat as he drowned in his own blood.

  Dangling by her hands several feet above the blast room floor, Sofia began the arduous search for her love. Releasing her grip, she fell to the ground below with such a force that her knees crashed into her chest, knocking the breath out of her. Scooting back against the wall behind her, she fli
pped the switch of her flashlight on. The half-door before her was ajar. It had to be the path from which John had called to her.

  If this was the Top Man, then he was not as old as John expected him to be. And at this point in time there was nothing unique about him, either. He was rather thin and pasty. Perhaps if he were not wounded and bleeding out, John thought, he could possibly be someone that people looked up to, someone with a fair complexion. But as it stood, he was nothing special at all.

  John stood over him, waiting to leave until after he had died. He was almost joyous at the thought of seeing the so-called Top Man so humiliated through his suffering.

  “Are you the Top Man?” he asked with disdain.

  “I… am he,” the man sputtered.

  John wanted to spit on him, to rub the dying man’s face in the fact that his entire, rotten existence was coming to a close.

  “You,” the man choked, “must take my place… now.”

  Crawling with anguish and pain to the button-faced console beside him, the agonizing creature reached his blood-soaked hand out, extending his lanky fingers towards a red knob that was encased under a hinged, glass covering. Grabbing the man’s finger, John snapped it to the side, deforming it in his rage as the man screamed out in pain.

  “You,” the man wailed through his raspy, wheeze, “must take my place.”

  John raised his pistol towards the man’s head. He had a burning hatred towards him. Pulling the trigger, the report of the shot echoed throughout the underground bunker, ringing his ears and momentarily blinding him with the blast… but it was just another life ending.