DWSAO

Chapter 6: Fin

What Now?

Days without sleep and he finally managed to compile to right plans for an upgrade. However, to his disappointment, he still couldn’t figure out how to update Zorro. Now that he thought about it, he was unfamiliar with his structure after this many years. In time, Accel felt tired, but he couldn’t lay to sleep. Through his research, he also had to juggle station management as well. Stress began to take him. Different thoughts spawned in him from this stress.
H

e felt that he was failing as a commanding officer, a reason why he didn’t want to take up the position in the first place. He felt lonely, barely any contact with who he considered as a friend, if they were still at all. He felt regret and envy, everyone he saw was able to pursue their interests, but he was stripped of those opportunities as a child and didn’t have time to pursue them now.
He paces around with these surges of emotions, occasionally slamming his head against a wall, hoping to forget what he could. Perhaps it had been better that he stayed an amnesiac, but he realized that thought was too selfish.
   The doors hissed open as the elevator rose up hundreds of levels to reach the command deck. A small crew was fitted along the sides of the rooms, tapping away at their designated consoles. It seemed to fill the room with a constant activity. Zorro emerged from the elevator and dragged himself out, his visor scanned the room for his friend. At the moment, he was out of sight... Odd...
   Accel was faintly visible near the window. He had been banging his head against the wall for quite some time already. The targeted wall was now stained in his dry blood.
His mask lay on the floor this whole time. The grotesque pink flesh texture patches on his face that the mask once concealed pulsed ever so lightly like a slow heartbeat. His eyes, wide open, never blinking as his forehead continued to knock on the surface. His left purple iris, drooped its position, going down the black cornea down to his cheek. Under his breath he muttered words that were incoherent, but occasionally, the words that were said and clearly understandable, though in a soft tone, was, “Im sorry”
   Zorro was walking up behind his friend for the few seconds it took him to get there. He grabbed the back of said friends collar and jerked his head away from the wall, and pulled him to the side facing out the window. The horizon of earth past the stations network arrays was breathtaking. And in his familiar, but weak voice; he began to speak behind Accel.
"We've all done things that we deem as wrong. We've all been responsible for the downfall of one thing or another... Every day we stray further from humanity.."
His metal fingers scraped together as he tightened his grip around Accels purple cloak. The static sound of his visor flickering could be heard.
"But... There's a feeling deep inside that wants to bring us back. We just need to learn follow that.... My friend, you never truly told me what you believe, but I'll be damned if I see you stray farther from it.."
He released Accel's collar and leaned down to pick up his mask, and his hand came forward into his friends view, holding the white purple eyed face of the mask.
    Zorro's words hadn’t ring into his head. His mind was blank as he just stared into nothingness. His left iris twitching up and down wickedly from his eye-socket and his cheek as if another entity had him in control. His forehead continued to bleed down the pink, pulsing, flesh-like patches of his face. All the pent up stress over the years had gotten to him. And he was nothing more than a breathing doll, standing in place of what was once a stoic and respected figure.
His body fell to the floor by the knees. His voice only uttered a phrase, a phrase that haunted him in his mind with each task he would do, “...I failed you all...”
His pupils shrunk, and his body fell limp on the floor. Docile and static, he moved no more. Yet his breath still remains with his iris still moving up and down his cheek unnervingly.
   Zorro dropped the mask and it landed on the floor in front of Accel, where he crouched down past it and looked down at his friend.
"You're failing us.. by thinking you have. Now pick your ass up... You're a great man, and you deserve better than what you've gotten. Take my hand... We're going on a trip down memory lane"
   The man just laid there. Drool pouring from his mouth and onto the floor. His mind completely blank, his body still, and the single moving iris had calmed and lay static. His body had shut down, at least temporarily. The flesh patches on his face continued to pulse slowly. His breathing became small to where it seemed like he wasn’t at all. For a good few moments, the room was at peace.
   Zorro sighed and lifted up his comrade.
"Don't make me drag you around the damned station. Just look at me... Does my face not matter to you?"
He cleared his throat and his visor flickered. He stared into Accels deformed eyes.
   The officer just laid silent in his grasp. Nothing was to be said. He couldn’t hear or see anything. His body just hanged as if he was lifeless.
   He's seen Accel so this before. He should be back to normal by the end of the day... He sighed and dragged him back to his chair, where he plopped him down in his commander chair, where zorro took a seat beside him in his own.
"Commense Sequence Four, album two. Lone Digger"