Post by nirvash on Feb 14, 2010 22:11:53 GMT -5
____Blackness.
____And then--
____White light. Fluorescent bulbs, probably. Light flooding his vision; white light and the recognizably stale smell of cigarette smoke tickling his nose.
____Finally, his eyes began to adjust to the light, blurry colors taking shape, and the room-- a cell?-- materialized. White walls, floor, ceiling. More white. There was a brushed steel table in the middle of the room, a cigarette softly smoking on the edge of a metal ashtray atop it. The room was small, but large enough for the rectangular table and both of its occupants.
____The other.
____There was a man sitting in one of the two chairs at the table, brushed steel things; a matching set. He was staring at him, arms hanging in front of his chest, hands somewhere under the table. He was staring with a smile spread across his handsome face, black hair pouring down over his ears and touching the edge of his blue eyes. He looked like had been waiting.
____"Grab a seat?" He nodded to the empty chair on the opposite side of the table.
____Kreuz leaned against the wall, the presence of a long mirror set into it filed away in some corner of his mind. He crossed his arms and looked away from the other, and as he let his eyes wander, he noticed a steel door set into another one of the plain walls.
____"Don't feel like talking? Fine, have it your way."
____The other looked around the room, a rather amused expression belying his acceptance of the terms. He waited for a few moments, tapping his fingers on the underside of the table, on his chair, on his legs, and then he seemed to remember something. Or maybe he had just been waiting to say it, savoring the tense atmosphere. He began to speak.
____"I was wondering, what's up with that message you sent Richter? A little melodramatic, but you love that stuff, don't
you? Anyway, it didn't make much sense; I don't think it's going to do any good, for one, and two, your rage is just a touch... overbearing? I don't know. You're trying to be the responsible brother, huh? Guess you're out of practice."
____He waited for Kreuz to respond, still wearing the smug grin that seemed to come along with an intimate understanding of the pilot's mind.
____"Still not talking? Gee, you really know how to liven the place u-"
____"He watched them slaughter Mom and Dad and now he's doing the same thing."
____Kreuz looked at the other, not restraining something that looked like scorn or distaste from coloring his face; not restraining that nor a kind of tired, apathetic melancholy.
____"They tried to give him a new life, and he's done everything in his power to invalidate their sacrifice." Kreuz's eyes flickered with cold fire.
____"So, you think he's an idiot, then? I'd have to agree with you. But isn't what you're doing, in the end, no different? Sure, your colors are a little different, but it's the same idea. You got involved in the war. You're fighting in it. You're killing people in it. You're pretty good at killing, to be honest."
____"Think what you want, but I had to do something."
____"Yes, you did. But you could've stayed in the refugee camp. It would've been no worse there than it is here."
____"I couldn't have stayed there. It's not really living. It's being stuck between existences. I am not the kind of person who is okay with wasting away, being a statistic for someone to pity after the war is over."
____They locked eyes, Kreuz's cold and spiteful, the other's clandestine and superior, almost screaming, "are you so different?"
____"I might be a number now, but I control what that number will become." Kreuz flicked his eyes away.
____The other chuckled, looking pleased with the response. He leaned back in the chair and seemed to think again, either picking and choosing his words carefully, designing something to break Kreuz again, or stalling, letting the pilot think about his own words.
____"Do you think you're better than them? The refugees? Is that why you can so easily think of them like numbers? Is that why you refused to stay in the camp? You think you're better than them, you think you're above them. They're just pathetic beings to be pitied, to waste away, stuck in limbo. They deserve to suffer. Is that it?"
____The standing man pushed back against the wall, releasing all the tension the other had built and built in him, until it had burst out, and he again refused to look at the being sitting in the chair.
____"Is this an interrogation?"
____The other laughed.
____"Not yours, at least. You're not the one in chains." He lifted his hands, no longer obscured by the metal table, and presented them to Kreuz. They were shackled, wrists bound together with thick steel rings and weighty cuffs. He lowered his head and wrists and let out another burst of laughter. "This is my place, after all."
____Kreuz looked at the other, and he seemed to truly see the room for the first time. It was a cell, and it still was, but now he saw beyond that-- he saw the white walls, concrete slathered with alabaster paint, he saw the table, cold steel bolted to the white tiled floor, he saw the owner-less cigarette on the table, still slowly burning down, he saw the door, metal and thick without windows, and he saw the mirror. Not the mirror, he reminded himself, the window. A prison cell for a dangerous prisoner.
____The other saw Kreuz look at the cigarette and the window, and noticed the curious expression on his face. It amused the other greatly.
____"Afraid you're being watched? No, wait, I think it's: Who are you afraid is watching you?"
____The other laughed again. It was a cruel laugh, cold and angry.
____Kreuz looked at the cigarette, an orange pinprick of light peering through a gray cloud. Who did it belong to? The orange glow brightened. Who lit that cigarette? It burned away more paper, gray ash falling it its wake.
____Who was in here before me?
____The light enveloped him.
____Richter blew smoke out around the cigarette. The grey cloud obscured his reflection in the porthole momentarily, leaving only an orange pupil staring ublinkingly back at him. He watched the soldiers, and the eyes watched him. They always watched him.
____He was alone for what seemed like the first time in ages; truly alone, not by the solitudinous power of the military elite Schutzstaffel, but a soft, quiet absence of reality as he stared out the small window and into the ocean of colonial debris-- a ghost Side.
____A distant light flickered, radiance submersing into inky nothingness, as if entropy crawled out from the depths and dragged it down, and the moment of serenity was over. As if to add insult to injury, his dungeon's hatch slid open, and a man in a Space Assault Force uniform carefully entered while artificial, lifeless light poured in around him.
____"Sir, your presence is requested on the bridge. Also..."
____"Also? Were you going to ask me to stop smoking?"
____"Sir, I..."
____"You're right, it's just a bad habit I got from my father. It won't happen again."
____Richter dropped the cigarette from his mouth and extinguished it on a metal ashtray on the desk in the middle of the room.
____Kreuz's body jumped up from the wall, peeling itself free from the velcro fasteners holding him to the bed. His shirt was soaked with sweat, but he shivered.
____A shape on the wall across from him squirmed and groaned.
____"Kreuz, either go back to sleep or take hall duty." The shape stopped moving.
____Kreuz left the room, pushing his arms through the sleeves of his uniform as he made his way to the hangar. The door closed behind him before the complaining shape fell back asleep.
____And then--
____White light. Fluorescent bulbs, probably. Light flooding his vision; white light and the recognizably stale smell of cigarette smoke tickling his nose.
____Finally, his eyes began to adjust to the light, blurry colors taking shape, and the room-- a cell?-- materialized. White walls, floor, ceiling. More white. There was a brushed steel table in the middle of the room, a cigarette softly smoking on the edge of a metal ashtray atop it. The room was small, but large enough for the rectangular table and both of its occupants.
____The other.
____There was a man sitting in one of the two chairs at the table, brushed steel things; a matching set. He was staring at him, arms hanging in front of his chest, hands somewhere under the table. He was staring with a smile spread across his handsome face, black hair pouring down over his ears and touching the edge of his blue eyes. He looked like had been waiting.
____"Grab a seat?" He nodded to the empty chair on the opposite side of the table.
____Kreuz leaned against the wall, the presence of a long mirror set into it filed away in some corner of his mind. He crossed his arms and looked away from the other, and as he let his eyes wander, he noticed a steel door set into another one of the plain walls.
____"Don't feel like talking? Fine, have it your way."
____The other looked around the room, a rather amused expression belying his acceptance of the terms. He waited for a few moments, tapping his fingers on the underside of the table, on his chair, on his legs, and then he seemed to remember something. Or maybe he had just been waiting to say it, savoring the tense atmosphere. He began to speak.
____"I was wondering, what's up with that message you sent Richter? A little melodramatic, but you love that stuff, don't
you? Anyway, it didn't make much sense; I don't think it's going to do any good, for one, and two, your rage is just a touch... overbearing? I don't know. You're trying to be the responsible brother, huh? Guess you're out of practice."
____He waited for Kreuz to respond, still wearing the smug grin that seemed to come along with an intimate understanding of the pilot's mind.
____"Still not talking? Gee, you really know how to liven the place u-"
____"He watched them slaughter Mom and Dad and now he's doing the same thing."
____Kreuz looked at the other, not restraining something that looked like scorn or distaste from coloring his face; not restraining that nor a kind of tired, apathetic melancholy.
____"They tried to give him a new life, and he's done everything in his power to invalidate their sacrifice." Kreuz's eyes flickered with cold fire.
____"So, you think he's an idiot, then? I'd have to agree with you. But isn't what you're doing, in the end, no different? Sure, your colors are a little different, but it's the same idea. You got involved in the war. You're fighting in it. You're killing people in it. You're pretty good at killing, to be honest."
____"Think what you want, but I had to do something."
____"Yes, you did. But you could've stayed in the refugee camp. It would've been no worse there than it is here."
____"I couldn't have stayed there. It's not really living. It's being stuck between existences. I am not the kind of person who is okay with wasting away, being a statistic for someone to pity after the war is over."
____They locked eyes, Kreuz's cold and spiteful, the other's clandestine and superior, almost screaming, "are you so different?"
____"I might be a number now, but I control what that number will become." Kreuz flicked his eyes away.
____The other chuckled, looking pleased with the response. He leaned back in the chair and seemed to think again, either picking and choosing his words carefully, designing something to break Kreuz again, or stalling, letting the pilot think about his own words.
____"Do you think you're better than them? The refugees? Is that why you can so easily think of them like numbers? Is that why you refused to stay in the camp? You think you're better than them, you think you're above them. They're just pathetic beings to be pitied, to waste away, stuck in limbo. They deserve to suffer. Is that it?"
____The standing man pushed back against the wall, releasing all the tension the other had built and built in him, until it had burst out, and he again refused to look at the being sitting in the chair.
____"Is this an interrogation?"
____The other laughed.
____"Not yours, at least. You're not the one in chains." He lifted his hands, no longer obscured by the metal table, and presented them to Kreuz. They were shackled, wrists bound together with thick steel rings and weighty cuffs. He lowered his head and wrists and let out another burst of laughter. "This is my place, after all."
____Kreuz looked at the other, and he seemed to truly see the room for the first time. It was a cell, and it still was, but now he saw beyond that-- he saw the white walls, concrete slathered with alabaster paint, he saw the table, cold steel bolted to the white tiled floor, he saw the owner-less cigarette on the table, still slowly burning down, he saw the door, metal and thick without windows, and he saw the mirror. Not the mirror, he reminded himself, the window. A prison cell for a dangerous prisoner.
____The other saw Kreuz look at the cigarette and the window, and noticed the curious expression on his face. It amused the other greatly.
____"Afraid you're being watched? No, wait, I think it's: Who are you afraid is watching you?"
____The other laughed again. It was a cruel laugh, cold and angry.
____Kreuz looked at the cigarette, an orange pinprick of light peering through a gray cloud. Who did it belong to? The orange glow brightened. Who lit that cigarette? It burned away more paper, gray ash falling it its wake.
____Who was in here before me?
____The light enveloped him.
~
____Richter blew smoke out around the cigarette. The grey cloud obscured his reflection in the porthole momentarily, leaving only an orange pupil staring ublinkingly back at him. He watched the soldiers, and the eyes watched him. They always watched him.
____He was alone for what seemed like the first time in ages; truly alone, not by the solitudinous power of the military elite Schutzstaffel, but a soft, quiet absence of reality as he stared out the small window and into the ocean of colonial debris-- a ghost Side.
____A distant light flickered, radiance submersing into inky nothingness, as if entropy crawled out from the depths and dragged it down, and the moment of serenity was over. As if to add insult to injury, his dungeon's hatch slid open, and a man in a Space Assault Force uniform carefully entered while artificial, lifeless light poured in around him.
____"Sir, your presence is requested on the bridge. Also..."
____"Also? Were you going to ask me to stop smoking?"
____"Sir, I..."
____"You're right, it's just a bad habit I got from my father. It won't happen again."
____Richter dropped the cigarette from his mouth and extinguished it on a metal ashtray on the desk in the middle of the room.
~
____Kreuz's body jumped up from the wall, peeling itself free from the velcro fasteners holding him to the bed. His shirt was soaked with sweat, but he shivered.
____A shape on the wall across from him squirmed and groaned.
____"Kreuz, either go back to sleep or take hall duty." The shape stopped moving.
____Kreuz left the room, pushing his arms through the sleeves of his uniform as he made his way to the hangar. The door closed behind him before the complaining shape fell back asleep.