Black Dove (Watty Awards 2012)

Chapter Eight

            I wake.

            Murky shapes swim before my eyes. Brown, flitting nothings that disappear before I can get a good look at them. I blink, and slowly, leisurely, the ceiling comes into focus.

            And it all comes rushing back. The bunker. The suited figures. I try to struggle, but with a huge wave of terror and dread, I realize I cannot move anything below my neck. It’s as if nothing is there. I can only move my eyes, nose mouth. Everything else is nothingness.

            Two tears squeeze themselves from my eyes, and roll down my face. It is too like when I was in the hospital after Jace died. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming.

            A man comes into focus as he walks in, next to my bed, looking down at me. His face is spider-like, admiring its prey.

            “Good morning, Avalynne.”

            I jolt. It’s not just the fact that he used my first name—like a friend—it was the way in which he said it. Slow. Oily. With the slightest hint of a sneer at the end. The man himself is short, fit, bald, the dim green light in the room reflecting off his shiny pate, making him seem even more spider like.

            I try my best to sneer back, and am ashamed to find my voice weak. “Get away, you spider.”

            The grin on his face becomes even more prominent. He makes a tsk-ing sound, and presses a button close to my face, where I lie.

            Pain erupts throughout my body, it’s as if my whole world had exploded, and all of its crushing weight landed on me. Fire curls its way through my veins, my head pounds, my breathing is short and ragged. I scream, and unearthly screech that I would have never expected could come out of a human being, let alone myself. And as suddenly as it starts, the pain ends, and I’m shivering, immobile once more.

            The spider leans closer to its prey, “That was just a taste, Avalynne.” He whispers, his voice as smooth as glass, “There is so much more I could do.” His little finger traces a line on my forehead. I am powerless to toss it away, so I sit there, staring at the ceiling.

            “W—who are you?” I finally manage to say.

            “A name is just a formality,” he says, walking around to the other side of where I’m lying. “But since you asked so nicely, I’ll indulge you. I’m Boros, Boros Green. You can call me Trident.”

            Boros Green? “You…you lead the Green Trident. You started the war.”

            He doesn’t deny it, but instead just looks at me blankly. Then he steps away from the bed, which suddenly raises up until my immobile body is in a sitting position.  Trident is standing in front of a hologram—a cylindrical, cone shaped device. I stare at it uncomprehendingly.

            “You do not understand the beauty yet.” Trident says, his lip curling. This is more than a simple device. This is what started the war.

            “I—I don’t understand…what is it?”

            He makes the tsk-ing noise again, and I involuntarily cringe, expecting more pain, but it does not come. When I open my eyes, he is inches away from me, staring me in the face. I begin to wonder if he is even sane.

            “This,” he breaths, “is what caused those earthquakes. Sudden, no? One day, the pathetic civilians are fine, going about their pathetic lives, and the next? Struggling in mortal combat over a piece of swampy, unsuitable land. Why, you ask? Because of me.”