791. Conatus and telos, 2
(Temee)
The fortress as Ioms called it, it quickly fell in the fallowing panic.
Everyone still able to leave has fled.
Soon after and dressed with most of our belongings I found back, except my mind, we left as well.
Like others did before I arrived, I jumped from a high window into deserted streets.
~
Something was broken. Inside my body and inside my head or heart.
I don’t really know where I am anymore.
What matters is that we’re still alive, and outside. On our way to our utopia.
Far behind the fortress has smokes rising above it. Someone started fires there around the time we were getting out.
The nausea is catching back with me. But I can tell I still have some quiet time before I really want to throw up over what happened.
I don’t look back at the landscape of death I’ve crossed and sowed.
I see another helicopter passing over the place that is shrouded by smokes now and growing.
I try to forget before my normal spirits return. I’m jogging, enjoying the quiet still spread around and within me, like I’ve never know. It won’t last, I can tell.
~
It’s during the night that I sober up.
I feel like I’m about to vomit through my eyes, as if they were going to burst. I vomit plainly as well. The pains in my body return. The remorse as well.
I’ve killed people again. Even more cruelly than before.
The night starts back, but I eventually fall asleep from exhaustion.
When I wake up later, I find my skin and my clothes stained with dry blood I carried all along. My fingers are covered with this crackling and flaking varnish, that doesn’t fully come out when you scrub it.
The natural pain of my body as woken up, and is added to the other ones from the last day.
What have I done?
I examine Glasgow, more emaciated than ever. Her lower abdomen is receding in stringy tissues, with aspects of rubber. I can’t tell the difference any longer between healthy human tissues and infected flesh.
The whole lump of meat is gradually retracting along the hip bones it’s freeing.
It’s like before... When she lost her arms and legs? Her hips are going to disappear. Soon there won’t be anything left of her.
I spit a lump in my throat that tasted like alcohol and was making me cough.
The drop of bile evaporates. But I continue to cough. There’s still more.
I did a number on myself and fell sick I think. I can tell my head also has some after-effects.
But at least... We can continue to move forward. And to believe...
~
After he spoke to me, answering me everything I asked; I killed Ioms. I can’t stop thinking back about that moment on the helipad.
I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t think for a second about the choices, nor the consequences.
In the liberty of the instant and with a cruelty that horrifies me now, I just killed him.
As if it didn’t signify anything anymore...
My morale. My remorse. Nothing at the moment.
But that’s not all there is...
I see again the second helicopter I saw passing above in the sky before, now heading toward the mountain path and frontier ahead of me.
I’ve executed the prince of a city-state...
I cannot imagine that his ruling father will forgive me that. That’s impossible.
What I’ve done in the moment, I risked for it to costs me a lot in the future.
And now it’s far too late, no matter how much I already regret it.
I’m further more worried about that, along with my existing general unease. But I can’t do anything else but continuing to walk forward.
~
Winter is coming. The wind is already chilling my bones.
In the distance, the frontier is approaching rapidly.
If I don’t take this road rapidly, I will get stuck on this side of the mountainous chain for months.
But... They’re expecting me. They must be.
I guess it fairly. The defences built and set toward the exterior and the valley beyond the roads and paths, they’ve surely have been turned around, to wait for me.
And not so far behind me, the second threat that tracks me down is probably not far either.
The shades are pulsating sensations in the twilight. I don’t hear their voices, but I sense very well that something monstrous is after us through that. I don’t understand it still, but it’s approaching. As if something coming heavily on the ground would propagate tremors you could feel putting your hands or head against the ground; there is something agitated in the lurking shadows that signifies something bad.
It probably looks for bodies to repurpose like a monster, even though I begin to think that even without, it won’t give up. Not yet.
Just like me... Just like us two...
Something else is not going to give up on its journey like that. No matter the cost.
~
I get my clothes purposefully dirty, to get them heavier and a little more isolating against the cold.
Even I begin to suffer the cold during the night now.
I reach a village that has been abandoned for a very long time. It’s been surrounded with barbwires and fences.
Some animals with fur have hurt themselves perforating these to get inside. Bears perhaps? The holes are massive.
The night is falling already and I need to camp. The frontier is not far. But...
I sense the trap? Or at least, a dangerous dead end...
As night settles, I try something.
I head inside the old village just to lit a small fire in a chimney. I build a normal looking camp, but I leave it as it is and run away immediately.
I return to the outer woods and their rocky heights, outside the curtain.
I camp there, without fire, in the cold.
~
I wake up tensed, a little lost, not feeling well as I slept in a bad posture. I couldn’t lie well between these rocks.
But the surprise of the landscape leaves quickly place for relief.
I see the village below is surrounded.
About twenty people with heavy weaponry have taken position all around it. They’re solidifying an entry point, and will go to look through it in teams.
I observe the show, a little petrified. I’m far and in safety, but I have to get away.
I begin to think about that, nervous, when my thoughts are interrupted by a moan.
G - Hm...
I turn toward her, frozen in shock, my eyes more open than ever.
Glasgow isn’t waking up. She’s sadly just in sharper pain right now. But something has just changed in her.
I get closer to better listen to her.
I deduct and hear that she’s afraid... of what’s approaching from the East.
~
