Subordinance

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Half an hour.

It’s only been half an hour since we got out here and I’m already dragging.

It may be my imagination or the haze of early morning smog, but the world seems blurry and dream-like. My gun weighs down on my shoulder, the weapon a ball and chain rather than a means of defense. The pack on my back of supplies seems to have an extra-strong gravitational pull as it appears bent on bringing me to the ground. I raise my eyes to the mist of the landscape and see nothing but vapors. I trudge forward, my feet dragging in a sluggish manner not unlike trying to swim through concrete. The world is silent in the gloom and the air acrid in stench. I wrinkle my nose, and even this infinitesimal reaction is delayed and forms slowly. The world is lazy, my reality dormant and subconsciously drifting through time. I want to run, to race, to act, but these intentions dissolve in this world of molasses.

I can’t grasp at the memory of breakfast, but the voracious rumbling in my stomach tells me it’s been a while. Whatever coffee I’d drunk has worn off, the caffeine having already been dissipated through my pores and absorbed into the lethargic world. Even going to open my pack is a struggle—the usually fluid motion requires momentous effort and forcefully deliberate intentions to make the action happen. I go for the zipper, my fingers groping for the blocky closure and slipping on the plastic. I feel silly, a ranking Subordinate not even being able to open a zipper. I just want one measly ration packet to make the rumbling in my stomach stop. Suddenly, my neck starts to heat up with the eyes that watch my fevered fumbles—

What eyes?

I raise my head as fast as I can and see the fog shifting and swirling to border figures that advance in the fog. Figures that hold guns that gleam in the gloom and cut through molasses like knives.

They move so fast, so much faster than my blundering motions in a world of lethargy can compensate for. I scramble for the gun on my shoulder, twisting it out of the holster and into my shuddering hands that suddenly shake with the weight of the gun. Shoot! I think forcefully. Shoot the gun! A shot rings out in the haze and echoes dissonantly, narrowly missing my head. The first is followed by many more, the pathetic clicking of my empty barrel calling back sadly in retaliation. At once, I want to scream but my mouth won’t cooperate. I move my hand to attempt for the pack’s pocket, where all of the fully-charged cartridges sit, ready and usable and yet utterly intangible at the same time.

And suddenly all I’m aware of is a hot, burning sensation in my thigh, rippling through my leg and charring my blood. I look down to see a smoking hole in my pants that drips with blackened blood.

I don’t feel pain, just frustration. At the moment, though, it seems even worse.

I know it’s me and me alone between these figures and the Base, and I know I have to protect it. So why are they not affected by the same aggravating laws of reality that I am fighting against?

One, then two, then three more searing sensations rip their way into me, twisting my shoulder and crippling my leg. I throw my useless gun blindly, desperate for something, anything, that would slow them down. It’s useless.

They keep coming.

One of them holds a flag high above their head that snaps in the nonexistent wind in mockery of my failed attempts.

“Signa!”

I jolt at my name, so familiar and yet so alien in a surge of emotions. A figure stands behind me, masked in shadows save for two pinpricks of his eyes.

Sometimes they’re a hungry, snarling green that demands loyalty and utter subordinance.  

Other times, they’re an emerald that is restrained, eyes that glitter with knowledge they must hold secret to themselves.