Distorted

Chapter twenty five, The Gathering.

Looking at that woman, it felt as if she had taken a bullet into her heart. Suddenly, her eyes grew flooded with her tears, but she held them back in great power I've never seen. I admired her courage, her stability and her great memory. I valued those eyes that had seen death, fear and the great apocalypse, I'm in awe of the pleasure of talking to her.

"So, there's a plan after all? Or was it all just absolute chaos?" I said, my hands grew tired of holding the recorder but my mind knew no rest, I pushed myself through.

"Who would've known there was nay plans?" She said, "Those pulling the strings kept the act in motion without anyone's knowledge. They read the script, played the puppets and set up the play for the public eye." She said, drowning in her chair. "There was only one person who could've stopped everything, but that person chose the easy way out." She continued.

Ilusia.

There she lied, on the cold ground embracing her failure in disgrace. She had passed out for almost an hour, having hit her head strongly on the table behind her led her head to be injured.

"What was it that kept you going, Merit? Is it hope?

You knew no hope.

You could only rely on possibilities and the false hope they create. And as long as someone punched you, you kept walking because you feared the pain. Courage? You're good at pretending you have any. You're just as hopeless as those little tin soldiers awaiting the sky to unfold for a joy. Wake up, Merit. You never knew yourself, how would you end up knowing the world?"

Merit hushed that voice keeping her paralyzed on the ground. She felt her bones shattered and her head dizzy, but what hurt her the most was her heavy heart that almost broke her stone chest apart.

"Redemption! Redemption! Redemption!" They chanted as a choir in the streets as Merit took a look to find the sky clouded with airships. Merit couldn't dare to look underneath the window where Ross and his gruesome corpse lied. The blood on her had dried but her tears were fresh and warm, her teeth were chattering as the word redemption kept growing louder and louder in her head. Merit's little mind couldn't comprehend what had just happened, how the man she once took shelter in his arms had seen her as a monster, how he died despising her and how he could even pull the trigger so easily with no hesitation. A man with great ambition and vision died like a lunatic bound to a wheelchair and a future of praise he could never enjoy.

Merit stepped back slowly, grabbing a water bottle and pouring it on her bloody face and chest where small pieces of Ross's brain were stuck. Merit was terrified to look at herself, and was even more terrified to go downstairs.

"FUCK! Get off me, g-get of-f me." She cried heavily as she cleaned herself, trembling in fear and cursing life, wishing to be eaten by the ground and somehow disappear.

"I n-never had a c-choice." she trembled as she grabbed a cloth and dried herself. "H-how d-do you expect me to k-keep going?" She cried as she tried to pick her bag away from Ross and leave before someone come to check on Ross.

As Merit hastily ran out of the room, she heard a strange twitching sound on the ground, she decided not to investigate but she heard her name, she knew who it was.

"It still lives." Merit sighed, looking over Mechi who somehow still managed to function.

Ilusia's suburbs.

He has been away for not so long. He's the embodiment of misused power, but he was finally reaching the end of the trail Merit had left behind, Viktor won't have mercy on the little girl when the time comes.

Underneath a dim lamp light in a street in Ilusia's now empty suburbs, Viktor stood clicking his shoes in bright tone and whistling along its rhythm. He was alone, anticipating someone. He hadn't aged even a bit, its the same pale face that never shows any sign of humanity, just odd expressions that keep everyone out of his way.