Parallel: A Story Of Two Universes

8-SPEECH

We arrived at the gates, and they shoved a bag right over my head, blocking my vision and leaving me off with a few final words of comfort. “We have to make this believable, but if anything goes wrong, we have a plan. Distract them for as long as you can, and make sure that that’s believable as well.” I could feel many motions around me, but I was blind to what all of them entailed. Eventually, I could hear the sounds of cultists rumbling around, until a much louder noise took over. “LOOK UPON OUR WRATH!” It was time, the police were beginning to speak. “We have captured one of your very own! He will face our divine punishment in front of you all, and this is simply the first of many attacks. We are the Trau, and we know all about you HEATHENS! The true overseer knows all about you, he knows you are a stain on this world, and we plan to purge you. This is the first step!” The bag was finally removed and I put on my best performance of being held captive. I certainly had enough past material to work with. “We want him to give his last words to you, we are no animals, unlike you. If anyone tries to get rowdy, we will open fire!” They held their guns believably, as I knew the two officers around me wished that they could be included in the fight that the others were doing. They pushed me to the ground quite hard, and I slowly stood up, facing the insurmountable crowd ahead of me. Just two days before I had been rushing away from them with my life nearly gone, and now they gathered around, hanging on to what I was to say. I took a deep breath and prepared, looking into the sea of violent, disturbed, confused, hurt, and sometimes, just sometimes, innocent people of which I had seen the true darkness. “It must destroy you all to see me here. It must be absolutely hurtful! No… it is not, you all want this to happen deep down, admit it. The men behind me may be moments away from blowing my brains out in front of all of you, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’d all do the exact same if you had the chance. I didn’t give it to you though, because I will not be taken down by you FREAKS! My whole life you have all treated me like the enemy, though I was simply instructed to help the world… to HEAL the world. Is that not what my mother wanted?! Is that not what you all supposedly wanted?! Or did you all secretly just want to see me hurt, to see me die? To see misfortune befall anyone who stepped out of the path… You act all high and mighty, sitting within your carefully chosen route of life, but you NEVER think of what’s outside of that. As soon as something that you didn’t expect enters your realm, you lose your minds and show your true colours. But think about this from my perspective for once in your damned lives! I was born with nothing but unfamiliarity! A man spoke to me in my dreams and told me that everything surrounding me was evil! My mother sent me off to be some lab rat without a sign of hesitancy, and when my father tried to show the smallest sign of care for me, you all declared him some kind of monster. When I escaped here, I was more beaten down than I ever had been, I was near the point of death, but I kept going. The reason why is because I would have rather died from brutal injuries and exhaustion than been trapped within these walls for another moment! Cursed to live every day as the subject of your ridicule, your lecturing, your hatred, your mistreatment, your demonisation, and your torture, is that not a life you would all give anything to escape?! Practically none of you gave a second thought to the hunt against me, you all just gave in and tried to take me, but let me ask you this. Would you be able to hold the bone of another tortured soul and beat me with it? Because THAT is what I have had to endure. Some of you have gone far, far away from the path to punish me, but because I have been the enemy that you all focus on, it has never truly crossed your minds. Sometimes I’ve wondered if it’s worth even continuing when this is my life, and that’s why I never would have stopped trying to escape. Every day if you captured me I would try again the next until it worked or until it killed me. But it worked! I got away from all of you! And the outside world was a breath of fresh air, true life was shown to me for the very first time! So now I don’t need to contemplate anyone’s demise but yours, no longer is my death at your hands on the table. You will all be taken down, your path will be destroyed, and the Parallel will live on! You all act as if the Parallel is to blame for all the misery in this world, and that we can solve that simply with its demise, but if that’s true, then answer me this. Why have you all created more misery for me, for so many others, than I have ever seen done by the Parallel?! When I travel there in my visions it is warm, welcoming, inviting, and more comfortable at any time than this hellhole is in the best of moments. So maybe take a look into a mirror for once, maybe take a look into the biggest one in the universe and see that the evil is not contained within that barrier, but within YOU!” At this point I was breathing more heavily than I ever had, my heart racing, tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t believe that I had said all of that finally, I couldn’t believe that I had gotten the chance to say a word of it to all of them. I began to smile a bit, knowing that even if everything fell apart right in this moment, I had finally gotten it all out, I had finally confronted the people who tormented me, directly and indirectly, for my entire life. The elation was unlike anything I had ever felt. The crowd stood completely still once I finished speaking, my sobbing and laughing was the only noise that filled the air. I saw faces that were shaken, some crying, others looking down at the ground, clearly unable to process what I had said, and only a small number continued to give their smug, judgemental faces. Among them were the guards who had beaten me, clearly disturbed individuals, a few religious men, and… my mother. This was not supposed to happen, my face went from elated to mortified immediately as her gaze pierced through my relief. I looked over at the officers with horror, but their eyes were hidden. I looked back to the crowd and she remained there. I looked all over the place, trying to find where the other officers were. It looked like the church’s lights were turned off, they had taken down the religious leaders. However, one of the people in the crowd noticed and was terrified. He shouted out about it, and soon the crowd was in total disarray. They began rushing toward the church as the man who had gotten me into this entire situation, Archai Bredil, raised his bloodied hand at the top of the building. This was not going as planned, not at all, and I could see some members of the crowd rush off into the distance, knowing the fate that was to come. I turned back to the officers and tried to figure out what was next. “This isn’t good at all, they know something’s up, what do we do now?!” One of them took off his disguise and I could see his face clearly now. He was the man who talked to me before at the station, and he looked extremely prepared for this, though I was not whatsoever. “Well, we fight. This is the war now, and it’s time to put an end to your mother’s rule.”