Center of Attention

Dittas

      I sauntered through the city, eyes down as I continued to fiddle with the Vigva I never used before in my life. It didn't take long to clear the warning. It just took more time to come up with an excuse to clear our names. It didn't really matter. The story had been released, and we had been convicted as terrorists to the state or whatever. Stupid. It was all damn stupid.
     The occasional look came my way, but most of the humanoids didn't have implants installed into them. They were all too poor to have them, hence why someone like Smallik didn't have any technological implants in him. However, I had to run away from the Enforcers that were after me. My back was eventually against the wall of a grimy alley, and I stared at my pale hands for the fiftieth time today. They were starting to blacken from the magic.
     I'd be okay, I told myself. It will heal.
     "There he is!"
     I sighed. "Sollaim kortate."
     As the magic escaped my mouth, my hands started to hurt. They were cracking.
     I couldn't keep up.

     The building stood in front of us, large and ominous as it once had done to me the first time I was here. There was a part of me that wanted to go right next door and fly into my apartment just to sit and stare at the sun for another day so I would forget everything and be done with it all. That wouldn't happen. Even I knew that someone would come crashing through my window to find me and stop me from being the Center. I'd die. And it would be just as terrible as it was the first time it happened to me.
     Smallik went in first with his head held up high. The desk, just like it was the time when I came here by myself, was empty and full of dust. The cleaning machine was broken in a corner, and everything was made of wood. However, it was alive more than it was dead. I could hear creaking footsteps going up and down staircases above us, and there was some whispering that was going on that was too far away to hear. Smallik held back a bit, making sure to stay right next to me as we walked up the rotted staircase with cautious footing.
     A mouse skittered across the floor. Its one, harmonious squeak was enough to send Smallik back reeling into my arms, clinging to me like he was my child that was afraid of everything set out before him. I wasn't. My son had done this to me already, and Smallik was much younger than me. He was a child himself.
      "Fucking hate mice," he grunted, pulling away from me.
      I only smiled as we hit the third floor. "Nothing's wrong with that."
     "I'm a grown man. Everything is wrong with that."
     He stomped up the staircase, and I yelled out a warning about how rotted out they were. I knew that I didn't fall the first time, but I imagined that heavy stomping like that was making their condition worsen. If I fell in, I might as well be considered dead. An old man falling down the stairs was bad enough. I'd probably break all sorts of bones or something like that.
When we reached the fifth floor, all the memories of what happened to me started flooding back. Room 1082. There was a wire in there ready for someone to trip on, and I was sure that Smallik was gullible enough to fall for it the way I had. However, there was no Brokilna Sobe. He was will Sobollum, on the verge of death as the poison foamed his every breath. That had to be a terrible way to go, and I was shot by a gun in the chest. Instantly. I held a strange feeling in my gut, and I started to realized that dying instantaneously was much better than dying slowly.
     "Firstien Istinti."
     I whipped my head around, but I was knocked in the head by the butt of a gun. I dropped to the ground, helpless to see or to even talk back like I knew what I was doing. Gripping the floor below me, the world around me started to move in a daze. Nothing focused. Nothing made any sense.
     "Get over here, brat!"
     Smallik jumped in front of the attacker, but he just looked like one pink blob to me.
     "You a Dittas? Trying to commit genocide?" I heard Smallik growl.
     "Yeah? What's it to you? Think you can stop a whole underground group of us that hides underneath the entire fucking city? You missed your deadline to stop us back in 4025. That was your time to."
     "I know what happened. You don't have to tell me, but I will tell you this. It ends here."
"Does it? Or do I just send you back in time like I had done to Sobollum and Ogillitiy and Firstien himself?"
     I could barely understand what they were saying, but it didn't matter. The next few movements were that of a pink blob and a black one, swiftly moving back and forth until eventually they were mingling into one another. I gripped the ground, steadily rising as I tried to figure out my footing and everything else. That hurt. That really fucking hurt.
     "Let go!" Smallik screamed like a banshee. "This is fucking over with this time travel shit, and it's over with your stupid plan. Genocide won't work!"
     "How else are we going to get rid of the humans? There the reason why we're treated like fucking dirt, and they're the reason I'm standing here right now confronting my brother about something that should have been resolved together!"
     Slowly they were getting clearer but at the same time, they were starting to look similar to each other. Big, black eyes. Large dragonfly wings. The only difference was... the other one had dark grey skin. Wait.
     He was a Fae.
     "You got what you wanted," the grey one spat at Smallik. "You got your immortality by pretending to be hurt by Brokilna, you pretended to care about the faeries. I get it. It was all a parlor trick to help your selfish needs." He pulled out his gun and pointed it at Smallik's forehead. "What about mine? Am I not allowed to have selfishness in my life? Not a moment to fucking spare?"
     Smallik gripped him by the collar. Despite how small he was to me, he was much larger than the grey one. "You thought I was playing? Brokilna Sobe did fucking smash my lungs into a tree with a metallic pegasus. I did care about the faeries. This wasn't some... trick. Not like it used to be. Don't you get it, Sivill? Humanity is so... much stronger than our will to be here, to live. For crying out loud, the man you knocked down lost his wife and his kid in another timeline. He had been completely clueless about everything until he met me, and yet look at him."
Smallik pointed to me, and I stared at the other Fae in disbelief. Sivill was a name... Unless... Smallik was using this man's name as an alias in the Faean village... And from what I'm hearing, they're related by blood. This whole time we went on the journey, I wasn't manipulated by my son or my boss or anyone. Everyone was manipulated by... this Fae. Sivill.
     "Why kill us?" I asked. I thought it was kill the humanoids, not the humans. Strange to be the minority.
     He scoffed at my comment. "Power, dumb ass. Why else would I want a Fae to be the one behind all of this? Faes are the lowest of the low, and they have no say in what they can or cannot do. That's just the way you humans decided it."
     I don't remember having a meeting for that one. We used to have meetings on the job about keeping Vior safe at all costs, but I never once heard about the suppression of another race of people. Of course, I never heard of another race of people until a while ago, and that just felt so odd to hear. There was something other that human beings that I could hold a conversation with. I could even have interests that align with them. Apparently, I had a lot considering my wife was once a Fae herself.
     "That's still not fair," I stated.
     "Not fair?" he laughed maniacally for a minute before wiping away a non-existent tear falling from his eye. "What wasn't fair was when humans decided that we all needed to be kept in a city. What isn't fair is being labelled an outsider even by your own race because of the things you had wanted to do despite the rules. Anything creative? Shunned. Anything remotely beautiful just thrown to the side like it never mattered in the first place, and then we're supposed to know and love everything despite all of that? Hell no."
     "It's not fair even worse that all of your examples. What example are you setting for your peers and children alike when you want to eliminate an entire race for a dumb cause such as revenge? What's the-"
     He shot a bullet, and it seeped through the rotted wood with ease. Smoke bellowed from the long barrel, floating through the air as he held it next to him. It got us to shut up, which is what he wanted. I knew that's exactly what he wanted.
     He pushed Smallik away. Slowly, he turned on the tip of his heel and walked towards me until he leaned in close enough for me to smell the heat on his breath. It had smelled of fire, burning at the back of his throat as the words he spoke came out like venom.
     "You want to tell me what to do old man?" he spat. Old man... "Get over it."
     I pushed him back. "How about I fight you for it instead?"