Fratricide

1: Birth

Feeling the rush of blood cascade down his numb leg, Daniel relaxed from his cross-legged position on the floor and began to stretch his limbs. His mind had been wandering for the past half hour, observing a sort of opulent meditation consisting of a blank gaze and little concern for breathing exercises. He used his short respite to stare out the large bay window overlooking the forest of somewhere and switched from idea to idea as furtively as his eyes focused on new points across the tree line.

This "meditation" had provided him with the usual result of solitary reflection: a turbulent influx of conflict laced with undertones of compromise. Daniel had always been a pessimistic idealist, determined to inflict a palatable degree of self-contempt while simultaneously reveling in the possibility of eventual transcendence over his weaknesses. He saw himself at once as nothing and everything. The dust of the earth and the light of heaven, the budding Cain and the triumphant Michael.

Tears streamed down Daniel's face, the cause being a de facto loneliness or a misguided perception thereof he himself had not quite decided. Some days he believed he knew or tricked himself into a stronger sense of knowing. Other days rendered that previous assertion a fleeting instinct of hubris, one to be repented of and forgotten promptly. Today he was caught between the two positions, and instead let the conflict wage inconsolable war within his heart. He hoped it could be contained there and not spread to his mind, burning and pillaging the mental fortifications he had spent his entire life constructing.

"Where am I? Where am I?" Daniel muttered. He blinked, the first time in a while as he felt his lids close and recover his arid eyes. "How long...?" a thought now. He groaned, stretched straight forward until the pain made him light-headed, then stood. His leg roared with protest from oxygen-starved nerve endings and stopped oscillating, content with his new stance. He pitched forward, head still light and extremities slightly numb from the torrent of blood into his exhausted brain, and caught himself on the window.

He breathed deeply for a few moments and looked out again at the forest, image distorted by his hand on the glass where the thin outline of the scintillating digital overlay could be barely seen. With his hand still planted on the pane, Daniel rotated his palm slightly, causing the sun to move gradually over the horizon from its morning position to that of a passionate evening. He observed the deep purples and vivacious reds, resplendent in their many hues. He rotated further dipping Apollo below the mountains and allowing Selene her time in the sky. The stars shined.

With Daniel's other hand he deftly spun and tapped with his fingers to bring another moon into the night sky. It shone as brightly, though considerably smaller. Daniel frowned slightly, tapping his fingers, he rendered the moon with first a soft green tint then with a wide ring of asteroids girding its middle. He added another ring almost perpendicular to the first and nodded, satisfied. He slowly drew both of his hands off the glass and leaned forward until his head rested firmly on the window, arms limp at his sides.

Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel could see the timer counting down at the bottom right of the window. He was approaching the final half hour, too soon before his work resumed. He took his head off the glass and walked into the bathroom. After relieving himself he wandered into the shower, getting dumped first with the soap infusion then the chilled sanitary rinse. Daniel sighed. He missed showers he could sit in and enjoy, it was a simple pleasure he hadn't realized he'd miss so much now that the process had been reduced to little more than a minute.

Wrapped in a towel he exited the shower and looked in the mirror, he rubbed his stubble and ran his fingers through his shoulder-length hair. He was glad he'd been allowed to keep it so long. He wasn't really sure why he wouldn't be, it was hard to know if his employment status called for an appearance more bent to the formal or informal. Selecting a razor, he cleaned up the scraggly fringes of the underside of his neck and rinsed in the sink. He removed his towel and tossed it in the laundry bin, hearing the familiar electronic whir of the floor panel opening and closing to send the towel down the chute. He opened his closet and removed his only article of clothing, a snug suit with his identification number, D-C9330, embossed over the right breast.