Truth or Lies

2

Yaruna Nasaseru, who herself preferred to be called Yuna, didn't dare to close her eyes for longer than it took to inhale deeply, fill her lungs until they felt like they would burst. There was something in this air, that made it a pleasure to breath it in, not just a necessity like that in the box the Patrol had put her in on the third day of her arrest. They hadn't let her out ever since, unless of course to shit and pee and wash herself, because to their great displeasure Yuna still was a person who had rights and there were enough people in high places who were very strict about the rules. It was probably only thanks to them, that she was still alive enough to attend her own execution. Justice sometime was a cruel thing. She'd spent the majority of the last five years crammed up inside a cube with an edge length of maybe two metres maybe less, waiting for this exact day. Her cage was made out of smooth wood, a rare thing to find in a world that by now consisted mostly of plastic, steel, and glass. Yuna found it curious that the Patrol would go to such lengths to build an inescapable prison for her but they did a great job. She could never get out unless she was let out, yet simple plastic would have sufficed to hold her. After all she was neither a magician nor the strongest woman in the parsec. Some days she thought her own prestige had put her in this exquisit little birds cage. She was a precious treasure to keep save, a curiosity. Of course that was bullshit but in five years of solitude the mind begins to wander, especially in absolute darkness and silence. People have gone crazy over less...

It had been excruciating, madding even and she thought about loosing her mind on several occasions and nearly lost it on few others and maybe she already had, but all in all she managed to keep herself together for this one day, for these few minutes of almost freedom, when she was let out of the cube and handed over to the three people who would be her end. Those minutes might lead up to her death but seeing colours, smelling something else than herself and hearing voices and not only her own heartbeat and breathing was so fucking good, better than sex maybe... She nearly felt tears well up in her eyes when she saw the faces of her killers and could look two of the in the eyes. Two executioners, a slim, bleak faced man and an athletic woman with tattooed fingers, swarmed around her, their eyes facing the floor or her hands, but never her face. They were afraid to touch her, to even look at her, rightfully so of course, but it made them seem sloppy and anxious. Even though they were the ones who had sat her down on her final resting place. They had all the power and they would kill her in less then half an hour. Yet, they nearly began to shiver when they came close to her. The third guy though... in the beginning she only sensed his presence, like a rabbit knows there is a fox in the bushes, but to her own amusement she realised she was the fox who understood there was a rabbit close but still out of sight. She smiled. The mouthpiece was off so she could finally smile again. It felt strange. Her face felt frozen and stiff. She hadn't smiled in a long time, but it felt so good, she couldn't stop herself. Her tongue didn't even know anymore what it was like to move. She hadn't spoken in five years... a strange feeling, stranger even than smiling, like something one remembers of a long past life one lived before one was born. But she remembered. She smiled and she talked and then she looked the Rabbit in the eyes. He was nothing like she had imagined him to be. He was definitely no rabbit at all. He was a hunter, a predator with the only difference that - if one wants to stick to the animal analogies - he wasn't the biggest fish in the pond any more.

"I'm sorry."

His voice was rich and dark and a pleasure for her ears.

She looked up at him, while his gaze never lowered even one inch. It was a shame. Yuna loved to look at peoples eyes. They told so many stories in so many colours and his must have been a full blown heartbreak. She could see how much he had already lost in his life only by glancing at him for the shortest of moments. His were extraordinary, a mixture of brown and blue, like a piece of land piking out under a coat of ice and they sang a song of pain. She could feel it without even touching him. The sensation was already so strong that she could have easily lost herself in it. The small framed man on the other hand was still nearly a blank page. His greenish eyes didn't tell her much, either because there was nothing to tell, or because he was good at hiding it. He didn't scream his past of the roof tops like his colleague. The woman hadn't looked at her so far... what a shame. Yuna would have loved to see her eyes and feel her story.

"There is no need to apologise to me, Aesop Salidar."

She let his name circle around in her mouth, tasting every single letter. It was a strange but beautiful name, but a poet or a painter would have been a better fit than an executioner in a tight, maybe a little too tight, uniform. The fabric was stretchy and dark. The casual black of a professional murderer. She understood it. She herself used to be one... but she had not been payed by the Chancellor and his disciples or the Empire. Her employers had been of a different sort.

Minutes passed, stretched into eternity. She watched the room behind the barrier fill up until it nearly brust. So many wanted to see her die and only one of the people she'd expected to be there actually turned up, although he didn't show his face. There were all sorts of people in the showroom, a grand diverse audience. Three news people with cameras sat in the first row, equipment at the ready. They wore fancy outfits, probably the newest fashion on some far away runway. Absolutely ridiculous. Then there were celebrities, who needed to reassure the public that they still existed. Some of them she remembered from a wonderfully terrible morning drama or a commercial, but others Yuna'd never seen in her entire life.

Are they using my death to boost their entertainment careers? Dreist.

There were also politicians she'd never seen before, but in their rigid and colourful outfits they couldn't be anything else but political beings. No one wore colours in such a stupid way as them.

In between all those onlookers, there was only one familiar face. She looked her straight in the eyes and there, in the golden toned irides, she found pain and suffering but also recognition and maybe a little bit of hate... maybe also a bit more. Casadania. Cassy. The poor girl, who had been beautiful enough for the future Chancellors bed and the past five years had not been gentle with her.

A smile creeped up on Yunas face, when she saw tears glistening in the Wife's eyes. She might hate Yaruna Nasaseru and she might also want to see her die, but in the depths of her heart Cassy new better.

Then she looked over to a man. She'd observed him before... him and his two partners. On the outside he seemed innocent like an interested university student... some apprentice or what ever. A young boy, maybe twenty two, with light brown hair and a well trimmed beard that showed a taint of ginger. His eyes were a clear blue, like the water of an ocean Yuna hadn't seen in a long time. He seemed to be genuinely intrigued by what was happening and happily scribbled words on his holo-pad. When their eyes met for the shortest time, she knew that a lot of things would go wrong on this day.

She gripped the chair tight with both of her hands, pressing the metal, that would eventually conduct the electricity through her body and kill her, deep into her own skin. The metal was cold, the edges sharp, not rounded off at all, and on top of everything else: conductive. It had taken so long to master this skill, but the hardship had payed off thrice over. Then she felt her senses glide through the metal, just when the interested student exploded.