the alive

David

Coal black sarcophaguses are of two rows which shape outline a corridor in a dismal tenebrous basement boiler room of humidity sweat and dirt stain white filthy curling vinyl composite tile floor. One after the other, each black box is like a piece of rectangular furniture reveals a gap between entombment as a walking path. The ceiling drips sable. Long gray pipes tunnel from above and into the side of each sarcophagus. Rusting barrels and foggy water tanks hold odd positions in nooks behind each resting place.

At the end of the walkway is a water damaged rusty crimson stairwell. Leads up twenty steps to a landing. Turns right and proceeds up another twenty steps to a landing that connects to a balcony where a man stands leaning on a railing of the same water abuse. He watches the sarcophagus below and listens to the boiling and humming like bubbling whispers of screams. Smells of mold and shit and death. Tastes the inside of his coffee breath mouth. Feels the peeling rust layer railing with his fingers. Underneath each disintegrating paint veneer is a darker crimson thickness waiting to react and disintegrate in the humidity. His hands are stained almost vermillion because of it.

He's balding and thin. Has a nice blue tie wrapping his neck and the end point hanging loosely over the railing. Has imagined a lot about nooses lately. Wears a white dress shirt with rolled up sleeves as if he's a politician casting a lying image of hard work. Shirt's tucked in. Dress pants are pleated and black and too big for him. Black belt and baggy. Sable stability running shoes could be mistaken for dress shoes from a distance. He would like new stability shoes but hasn't given himself the time to really care about getting them. Doesn't care about such things. Not anymore. It's not like he could get new shoes in this world if he wanted.

He's David Leonard. Ruler of his own first reality. Or so he's been telling himself in order to keep up a facade. And the people in the boxes? He knows who they are and yet he has no idea. He's never met them. He'll probably never meet them. Experiments. The dead. The alive. Soon to come to an end as well. Well. He knows one of them. Knew one of them. He can't think about her at the moment. Though it seems he often does now like he's an old man sitting on a bench filled with the hatred of his own regret.

The world through David's eyes has changed. He's been invaded by his own inventions. In reality, Michael Leonard's inventions.

When David's mind was cast out of Terra in the wooden cocoon of Judith's dark forest war on him, something happened to his way of things. When he slammed back into himself upon losing control of Muerte, A piece of her shadow translated through the simulation. Escaped from the body of Terra to weld it's hallucinatory fang-ing claws onto and into David's soul. Or so he thinks. Doesn't really believe in a soul but it's not like he's certain. Doesn't know how to account for the last few months otherwise. Doesn't know how something as horrific as Muerte could turn him around like it has. But maybe that's the nature of torture. He now feels something where there was nothing before. He sickens himself. He's a monster who thought that he was normal. No. Not quite. Not exactly that. Not normal. Maybe normal for him. His way of things. His ugly way of things. He's like a shadow on the side of a road watching pieces of himself stare at him as they drive by.

Atonement. Something he's never cared about in relation to his victims. It's on his mind, now. Day and night. Is he sorry? He is but he also doesn't know. Everything is so very far beyond such a petty sentiment. What he's done cannot be forgiven or forgotten. But there are things that he can do to continue existing with himself. He has no choice.

He's tried suicide. The Muerte existing within him won't let him go through with such an obvious escape. He's thought of nooses. Over and over. And he's reassured himself that there's no point in killing himself since everyone kill's themself too late. He's been reading and rereading Emil Cioran for the past week.

He would welcome the king's justice upon his body. The spectacle that should be his ending. He would gladly go through with such a painful burning at the stake or breaking on the wheel. Gladly. But no. What's in him won't let him turn himself over to the enemy either. My how the gun that he's been pointing at everyone else has turned to aim at him between the eyes.

And he can't control his body in certain situations. It controls him. He's the puppet sometimes, now. Oh the irony.

His body did allow him to have plastic surgery upon his face, though. His smell has also been drained from his pores. He now has a slight stench that requires deodorant. Masks what's left of him. Maybe he stunk before but never noticed or never cared to notice. He notices now.

And so, this is possibly the last time he will be in this room and in this simulation. He has always had a way back into the real first reality. "The real first reality?" What a funny stupid joke. It was Michael and Judith's world that came first. That world is gone though. So the second became the first. The simulation of Muerte. The simulation that has closed it's portals. Well, they've locked the doorways they know about. Dr Riese thinks he's so smart. She? He? Whatever. There're so many portals that the good doctor missed.

David has a few homes in the first reality which he's been visiting since his excommunication. But now, they won't be visits. He's going to live in one of those homes for the remainder of his life. He even has a new name. Millar. He wants to settle down and find someone and maybe have a family. He could do that. Couldn't he? Perhaps not.

The war's over whether anyone knows it or not. He can't. He won't. He's done.