Husk

Chapter 10 - Levels

Chapter 10

I wake up screaming. I have only been asleep a few minutes. I catch Azra by surprise and she loses control of the car running us into a ditch. I get out and fall to my knees. I never got to eat lunch. Stomach acid pours from my throat. I feel it burning my esophagus. I look at Azra. I remember everything. I remember the order, the training, the underground husks, 1327, the massacre, the box, the VTOL, the interceptor. I remember Cross, I remember the bullet piercing the back of my skull. I remember Rex, I remember the drunk driver, I remember my father choking me. I remember my mother screaming. I remember hating my parents, hating my father. I remember being a teenager and shooting a taxi driver in the back of the head. I remember waking up laughing seeing that same taxi driver outside my hospital window with court papers, I remember going to court, I remember having the choice of serving in the military or life in prison. I remember it all. I remember the entire black ops mission made to look like R2R bombings. The black room. I remember crying to forget. I remember my father crying. I remember the bridge. I remember the elderly woman staring me straight into the eyes, the way metal felt as it pierced straight through the driver’s head and into my shoulder bone. I let out a scream. I remember feeling like I was god; I remember I had the power to change history, to change the world. I remember being able to stop this seven years ago. The order was after me now. My burn didn't work. Something went wrong. I remembered the truth. I remember Azra.

"I know.." I can't get the words out because my mouth is full of fluid.

"I know who is after me..."

Azra has her arms around me. I tell her everything.

She catatonic. She doesn't say a word. I realize that everything I've just told her sounds so unbelievable. She looks at me like I'm a stranger. I want to fall to my knees, beg her for forgiveness. I want to tell her I was joking, tell her this whole thing was just a ruse. I think how I could spin this whole thing in my head. Spin it around, drop to my knee, take out a ring, and propose. I could tell her I love her in this life and every life hereafter. That she has always been the one for me. She doesn't say a word. I felt like I was insane. I could see myself now I'm sitting in a white room, padded walls spilling my guts to a rat that's eating crumbs off my floor. The rat looks up at me. It's eyes burn into my soul. I start crying then screaming. I cry out for Azra. A girl that they will tell me doesn't exist. They will tell me that this whole thing is a fantasy I made up... some kind of posttraumatic stress.

"The first ones. The first clones are the ones trying to kill me. When I died on that bridge I should have been dead. I should have been dead for good. Then they would have killed Cross, then you and anyone else that was there that day. They want what I know to disappear. A number imprinted in all our heads. 1327. I know what it means now. It's how many years; it's how long we've been living like this. Stuck in this loop. One thousand three hundred and twenty seven years."

"Then how do we stop them," She finally says something to me. The way she stares at me and says it. I see all the anger, that blank stare she had just a few seconds ago has transformed into acceptance.

"I don't know..." I respond. All this new knowledge and it means nothing.

"We need to get to Cross's contact, we need to go contact Archer," She tells me as if Archer will have all the answers. I guess maybe he will. This was after all Cross's inside man and Cross seemed to know everything.

We get back into the car and we drive. Soon we are coming up on some tall buildings, from one city to another in a matter of half an hour. In the next few minutes the sun disappears into the shadow of a building we're pulling into. The building is a twenty four story storage facility. MY STORAGE FACILITY. "This is where my father had my husks stored," I feel like I'm talking in a daze. This is so unreal. Cross's contact is at MY storage facility. My home. This is where I was born. This is where I was made. There is no gate guarding the entrance. You see my family was middle/lower class. We could afford husks but my father had to work eighty hours a week just to maintain them. We couldn't afford to store our husks anywhere other than just a standard warehouse. We pull into the underground parking. We have to park four levels down because the entire building is full of people. I feel like I can't even look at anyone for fear they will gun me down. I feel like if I see someone I know I will question everything about them. I will wonder if I knew them in a past life before... before I was reset again and again. I wonder how many times I've met Azra, how many times was she taken away from me. I wonder how many times I've been hunted down and shot.