THE LAST BORN

T W E L V E

Malcolm knows, that he isn't a good person. He doesn't fit into the category of 'good', he has done a lot of things that are deemed evil, and he doesn't regret doing any of them. That's how he knows that he is too deep in the darkness for anyone to pull him out.

He was a good man before. Before. Before earth shattered into trillion pieces before he lost his wife and daughter before everything turned into nothing. He was another man who tried to make a difference, believed that there was still goodness in the world, he believed in the justice system.

He was a cop, not that he still remembers anything about it, but he knows what he was before. His wife, Naomi, runs her Baby Bonnet business from home. He had a daughter, Brooklyn, she was only five when he found both of them dead holding onto each other, buried under the ruins of their home.

Desperation, guilt, anger, fear, and every other ugly emotion filled him all at once. He doesn't remember those emotions anymore, it has been more than two hundred years since he has a beating heart, but he knew at that time, he was ready to kill everything within sight, then kill himself. He was ready to raise hell upon the earth and use his own blood as fuel.

The United Galaxies dropped bombs all over the earth's surface and it wasn't long until one hit him. He lost an arm, a leg, almost all of his blood, paralyzed from his chest down, and with no reason to live, he tried to take his own life many, many, times in the past.

Malcolm squeeze his eye shut tried to erase the faint memory. With his heart, most of his organs, and his spines replaced with artificial ones, he has lost the ability to feel emotions. He is now a very effective and efficient killing machine, with a big part of humanity is forever lost to him.

That's the reason why he needs Jackie and Jamal. Because although he had been, is doing, and will always do his best for the greater good for his people, the humans need a leader whom they can feel connected to. It's difficult for anyone to do so as he is unable to feel.

When was the last time he was excited? Angry? Happy? Sad? It was more than a lifetime ago. His chest is empty, there isn't any beat inside his rib cage, there is no warmth he can feel there. Everything inside of him is void. The absence has been a part of him, now he associates himself with that, hollow.

Nothing can touch him, or move him. His brain doesn't work the way other humans do. He doesn't process things around him the way others do. The rest still consider him as a human, but deep down inside, he isn't so sure anymore. The difference between him, and the people he cared for are just too striking to be ignored.

Then why? Why after two hundred and eighty four years, after all these long, empty years floating in the space, scraping what's little left for his race to exist, after deaths and the births of his people, after all the crimes he committed, after all the bad things he has done, he feels whenever Noir around?

Granted the feelings are more of negative emotion, he dislikes her, he is suspicious of her, he distrusts her. But for somebody who has forgotten what feeling feels like, even the slightest emotion deep in his chest has become... an astonishing phenomenon, which he cannot just ignore.

Nevertheless, he finds himself addicted to it.

***

ANA

I can't move.

My whole body is aching after the session I had with him. I have never used my muscles to that extend, that long, and now they are protesting against me. It's nine thirty in the morning and in thirty minutes they will start cleaning the dining hall. Even if I manage to get myself there, there will be nothing left for me to eat.

I sigh and decided to just sleep in. I make a mental note to apologize to Helen later because there is no way I can go to work today. I hope she will still let me work in the greenhouse. I don't know what will I do if she banned me from there.

But I really cannot move.

I gulp as I shift my hips to one side to feel more comfortable, but my abs are protesting and I hiss from the pain. It's pathetic to think how weak I'm now. The sports section is never my choice of hang-out place, I prefer the dimmed light, silent, and humid place like the greenhouse.

I sigh.

The light flickers twice and I hear a buzz, a sign that somebody is by my door. I would let that person in, but I really cannot move. Again the light flickers twice followed by a buzz, and I clear my throat although I know I cannot utter a word. The third time the light flickers and the buzz is heard, the door slides open. I don't need my eyes to know why the air getting chiller.

His heavy steps fill the silence as he stands next to my bed looking down at me. He says nothing as he looks at my state, then he looks around my room. He then reaches for a glass of water on my nightstand and sits right next to my arm.

"Sore?" He finally speaks.

I can only nod slowly.

"Hm, you didn't warm up." He reaches for me and I flinch slightly as the coldness of his metal hand makes contact with the back of my neck, he presses the glass of water on my lips with another. "You haven't eaten anything," I don't reply because it didn't sound like a question, but I finished water, I didn't know I was parched.

"Jackie says you were not in the greenhouse," He adds, surprisingly gentle when he put my head back to the pillow.

I take a peek at him and notice he still looks as cold and as emotionless as before, and if it's even possible, there is this... this... displeased color in his face today. I look down to escape his cold look and pray that he will walk out now that he sees that I'm still alive.

But he sits next to me on the edge of the bed, as still as a statue, and stares at me with such an icy glare I feel it burns. When I cannot take this anymore, I decided to look at him too, his eye looks more blue than green today, I wonder if it's the lighting? Or his emotion? Then I sneer to myself in my own head, of course, it must be the lighting! He? Emotion? Ha!

But still, he sits next to me unmoving as silent as the four walls around us. On top of the sore, I feel all over my body, I also feel uncomfortable with the awkwardness and that seems to engulf us in this small room. I mean, who wouldn't? Alone in the room with somebody who despises you the most is the last thing I need right now.

And this going for a while, I try to scoot further away from him despite the protest of my muscles, this time my instinct is stronger than my pain. I have the feeling that he realizes, but if he does, he doesn't do anything about it.

"Do you know what had happened to earth?" He then suddenly says.

I shake my head no.

"It was more than two hundred years ago when they announce the end of our race. United Galaxies had decided that the human race brought more bad than good to the universe, the next day, they came with their ships, flying high in our atmosphere committing genocide upon what they felt like intellectual beings who are less than them. Some people woke up losing their loved ones, and others didn't get the chance to wake up that day. You'd think doomsday should be filled with cries and screams, but it was eerily quiet, too quiet that even the cockroaches knows not to come out of where they were hiding.

"Days after days they came to wipe us from this universe, less and less people survived, every hour we lost hundred thousands. We were forced to dig holes so deep in the ground that the UG decided that losing one galaxy wouldn't hurt. We knew what was to come, so we had no choice to sacrifice ourselves. What was left of humans split into two; one to escape to the space and the rest to create a distraction."

My breath stops listening to his story, I have never heard about the United Galaxies when my father speaks about the danger he only mentioned Universe United. He leans down until our noses almost touch each other, with eyes burning with coldness from emptiness, he holds me with his gaze and implant the coldness right inside me I feel it in my bones.

"You have no idea how many lives we lost on that day, how much they sacrificed for what is left now of the human race."

I press my head deeper into the pillow trying to get away from him.

"If, if, I get the slightest hint, that you're aiding the enemy, in any way, intentionally or not, I will reunite you with your mother."