Falling Soot

Dying.

I am dying. Dying the ground red. Dying in my mind and body.

But I still have some time left, perhaps a minute to spare.

So let me take you on a journey, like he did before I had to face my fate.

Good luck.

---

'You promised you would get us what we wanted!' The cruel Engineer growled with his two henchmen by his side. 'We made a deal!'

'I'm not giving in to you anymore,' I defied him boldly. 'What you're doing is madness. You can't expect me to believe this is for the greater good or whatever you made up to get me to betray everyone I know! I'm not that kind of person.'

'You'll wish you never betrayed me very soon,' he narrowed his eyes at me in hatred. 'Send 'em in!'

My mother and father were tied together and bound to a taut rope, a third man leading them onto the path, demanding that they crawled on the freezing snow before his 'majesty' the Engineer. They looked so cold, as though they could've frozen to death anytime now.

The pain of seeing them both like this made me realise I had no choice. I had to make the hardest choice I thought I would ever have to in my life.

'So who's it gonna to be?' He grinned with grim intent. 'Your precious parents, or them?'

'I'll do it,' I said regretfully, bowing my head in shame.

'Good,' he grinned menacingly, shoving the device in my gloved hands. 'You know the spot. Go. If you fail to complete the task in one hour, you'll never see your parents again.'

---

My feet fumbling as I hurried to the clearing, I finally found it, deep in the frozen forest surrounding me. The red X was still visible under the snow. I succumbed to backing out of the task, telling myself that it was for the best, even though the consequences were obscene.

'They won't die today,' I promised again and again in my head, trying to make me think that this was the best way I could save them. 'They can't die. Not like this.'

Standing on the faint X, I took the device up to my eye line and closely inspected it. It didn't seem fake or some sort of scam; my experience on the Campus taught me how to build and take apart machines such as these; I knew its wiring and design inside out.

'Okay then,' I sighed, placing my finger over the small, red button on the top of the metal casing. 'Here goes.'

Pressing the button indefinitely, I watched as the beams flew from the device to the Campus, how they hit the site with vigour and smoke. I watched as mechanics and fighters alike were scattered about like billiards and how they screamed and shouted their last words to their loved ones. I watched how my home fell in flames.

'I was too late,' a strangely familiar voice spoke up from the shadows.

Apollo?

How was he... Here? I felt rather confused seeing a ghost of my past at such a time like this, but after all, it was quite fitting; he had lived on Campus too.