A few hours before, at the crash site, there were corpses all around the area. Some sprawled on the ground, some stuck in the trees that were still standing, some had landed in the river not far from there, tainting the water with whatever blood they still have in them.
The plane had been reduced to a steaming pile of metallic rubble, shattered in multiple pieces, some of its parts were still on fire, threatening to spread all across the forest if someone didn’t put it down quickly.
Some of the corpses, however, were a bit fresher than the others, because they had arrived there after the plane crashed, looking for Alicia’s corpse, and if it was necessary, to put her out of her misery.
They underestimated Alicia’s current state, and thus they ended that way. The leader of the group had found Alicia lying next to a rock, there was a lot of blood, so they could only conclude that she had bled out and finally died.
The group of six gathered around her body, intending to take pictures to confirm the kill. According to their client she had a badge on her with her name, so they should retrieve that too.
When the leader reached out to her pockets, when he was close enough, Alicia came back to life and slashed his throat with her right hand while she stole his backup pistol with the other and with inhumane speed, she gunned down the soldiers around her before they could react.
The moment everybody had hit the ground and she was certain everyone was dead, she allowed herself to recoil and turn in pain. For the first time in a very long while, Alicia allowed herself to scream because of the immense amount of pain she was feeling, some tears even managed to escape her eye sockets.
Her left arm broke because of the crash, but she was capable of moving it through sheer willpower, but only for that one time. Due to the amount of focus and energy it took, she wouldn’t be able to do something similar again. Her left eye was completely blinded by the blood that had been spilled over it, she also had a few broken ribs dangerously close to puncturing one of her lungs. Overall, if someone else tried to attack her right there and then, she wouldn’t be able to fight back.
Fortunately, it seemed like Lionel couldn’t spare more men at the moment.
Alicia stood up, slowly and carefully, trying to not move more than necessary in order to not feel any more piercing pain.
“(Ten…Ten, are you there?)”
“Jesus Christ, that fall shook up my brains…where the hell are we?”
“(I don’t know…some kind of forest…we are not safe here; we have to leave…we have to…)”
Just when she decided to walk away, she heard the voice of Lionel calling for his men through the radio, and the rest is history.
After crushing the radio she walked away. When she had managed to put some distance between herself and the wreckage she heard helicopters and vehicles approaching the site. She knew that it was in her best interest to not be seen, so she kept to the shadows, stumbling through the forest, being cautious of not tripping over rocks or fallen logs.
“Where do we go now? We won’t last long in this condition.”
“(We’ll find something…we always do…this won’t kill me…something like this won’t ever kill me.)” -Alicia stopped for a moment and leaned on a tree, coughing up some blood stuck in her throat, then she kept advancing. – “(There’s a lot of stuff to do still…we have to get even with that motherfucker…I have to get even…right, Ten?)” – But she didn’t respond, it was as if she had evaporated. – “(…Ten? …Fine, take a break, I’ll keep going.)”
Her legs shook and bent against her will, she kneeled on the ground, noticing how little strength she had left on her legs, she didn’t doubt it was because of the immense amounts of energy she had spent in these constant firefights; she was completely fatigued. The It that lied within her had forced her limits to the point of burnout.
“(I can barely feel them.)” -Alicia grasped at her legs, fortunately it didn’t seem like she had broken something.
She kept walking, farther and farther from the sound of the helicopters and sirens, until she didn’t hear them anymore. Alicia was safe now, but the matter of her wounds was a more critical problem than getting caught by the authorities.
“(I must not get caught. I have to escape this place. We’ve got a lot of things to do and places to go.)”
Alicia tried her hardest to regulate her breath, but conscience was slowly slipping away from her. It hurt to breathe; her lungs were burning after being put under such an extenuating test; she was one mistake away from losing control of the lower half of her body completely.
Still, she pressed forward, just like she was taught to by the commander. As long as her mind didn’t give up, her body would be forced to pick itself up and drag forward, no matter how wounded or tired she was. Many soldiers around the world had felt an even heavier tiredness, in her mind, her pain was nothing compared to that.
A few minutes passed, but they felt like hours, hours of endlessly dragging her feet through the dirt and dead leaves, the It that lied within her had returned to its relatively peaceful slumber, leaving her with little to no options.
“(I must find a way out of here…I must push forward…)” -Her eyelids felt heavy and her legs were about to give up. – “(…They’ll die if I don’t-)”
Suddenly, Alicia stumbled on a branch and the left side of her face got acquainted with the dirt below her boots, allowing her to pass out almost instantly.
She found herself surrounded by endless fields of white roses. The starry sky beckoned her with sparkling stars and a moon whose bright shone over the land with optimism.
It was THAT place, the place she was denied to thrive in, yet she’s allowed to visit from time to time.
Normally, this mystic and pure landscape would reach into the depths of a person’s heart and inspire a flurry of overwhelming emotions that would lead them to cry like children, but Alicia didn’t allow herself to feel that kind of things, at least not yet.
“(Again…)” -She thought. – “(I thought that my day pass had expired at this point…)”
“Alicia!!!” -Someone called her name in the distance. She recognized that voice instantly. After all, how could she ever forget about them? – “Hey, Alicia!”
She looked over in the direction of the voice, there she saw a single girl with a white dress and a white ribbon over her head rushing to meet her. that bright, optimistic smile that didn’t fade even when everything ended, those eyes full of life, even if then it seemed ironic, she never forgot about them.
“…Hello, Malak…” -Said Alicia, greeting her.
“Alicia!” – The girl jumped to embrace Alicia in a tight, warm hug, rejoicing in her presence. – “I knew you’d be back; I knew it! you always return!” -She looked up to her eyes, theirs were teal green, something strange among those that lived in the wasteland.
“Hi, Malak…I-I can’t say I was planning to come here but…here I am.” -It may just be a fever dream caused by the exhaustion and her wounds, it may be all just an elaborate hallucination created by her brain, but Alicia was truly beyond the point of caring about that. Malak was there, and that’s all she cared about. – “How have you been?”
“Everything’s been great. Everyone is ok too; we found an excellent place to stay and live together.” -She said, referring to the others that crossed the bridge with her. – “It’s a very humble shack near a lake, so we have lots of fun swimming around and playing in the fields.”
“…I see…”
“Come, I’ll take you there!” -She grabbed Alicia’s hand and walked. – “I think we can make some room for you, don’t worry about food, we’ve got plenty of that…”
“Malak, wait-”
“Salem will be very happy to see you, don’t mind him if he cries, you already know how much of a crybaby he is.”
“Malak, I-.”
“Dalil misses his toys but he’s been learning some carpentry to…”
“Malak!” -She stopped her on her tracks.
“…What? What’s wrong?”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I can’t do it, Malak.” -She reached out for Malak’s hand and placed it on her chest, allowing Malak to feel her heartbeat. – “I can’t go there with you.”
“…I see…” -A sad smile crept up her face. – “I thought you had come to stay for good. That you had finally decided to catch up to us.”
“…No. I would like to rush things, you know?” -She said while imitating the form of a pistol with her hand and aiming it at her head. – “But it doesn’t work like that, if I did that…I wouldn’t be able to be with all of you…it must happen naturally…or someone else has to do it for me.”
“So, this is just another visit?”
“I’m afraid so. The day you don’t feel my beating heart, you’ll know I’ve come here to stay.”
“Right, I forget about it sometimes.” -Malak put her arms behind her back, interlacing her fingers. – “So…you are still wandering out there, being a hero?”
“There’s nothing heroic about what I do, Malak…” -She said, scratching the back of her head and averting her gaze.
“You know that’s not true. All the things you did for us, no one else would’ve been able to help us the way you did, and to top it all off, you never asked for anything in exchange. We wouldn’t have survived for so long if it wasn’t for you.”
“None of that matters because you didn’t make it in the end.”
“Of course it matters!” -Malak grabbed Alicia’s hands. – “We got here because of you. We stayed together because you found a way for us. Everything you’ve done was for our sake, even this, that’s what heroes do.”
“…if people on the other side could hear what you say, they’d laugh at you.” -She said, looking the other way again. – “Adults around the world coined a nickname for me: The Butcher. I did a lot of bad things after you guys left, left the entire world in shock.”
“So I’ve heard, but the way I see it, the only thing you did was to give the adults reasons to end the war.”
“…I guess I did, in a way…” -She could feel Malak’s glare analyzing her face and prying into her eyes, to see if anything had changed within her.
“And what are you doing nowadays? I hope you haven’t returned to the wasteland after everything that happened that day.”
“I’ve been in deserts, but never returned there.” -She said while rubbing the bridge of her nose. – “I’ve been on many missions ever since, ran away from my commander.”
“You did!? Oh, Alicia, that’s great. You are free now, right?”
“Well, I got hired by a different organization, but that fell apart as well, so…I guess I’m truly free now.”
“Oh, that’s amazing!” -Malak hugged her once again. – “So, what are you going to do now? Where are you heading?”
“…There’s people to take care of…many things to do.” -She said, looking at her own feet. – “I think that, after I’m done with all of it, I’ll find a place I can call my home, and spend the rest of my days there, however many they may be, and then I’ll be able to meet all you again.”
“So, you are out to save the world now?” -Asked Malak, not really understanding the meaning behind Alicia’s words.
But Alicia didn’t want to break her illusions. She didn’t want to cause more wounds to heal in her heart, not to her, and certainly not to the other kids.
“…I guess so, yeah.”
“I see. Well, I never thought that the world deserved any salvation, but if it’s you, I think you can take down all the bad guys. I think that you can make the world a better place for everyone.”
Alicia could only bite her tongue whenever Malak exposed the ever-erroneous concept she held of her line of work.
It didn’t mean that what she was saying wasn’t true, but things wouldn’t happen the way she envisioned them.
“I’ll do my best, Malak.” -She said. – “I swear I will.”
“I know you will. You are invincible.” -She said while caressing the scar on her left cheek. – “There’s so many of these, and they represent how many people have failed to destroy you, I think that’s what makes you invincible.”
Malak turned around and walked away, leaving Alicia behind amidst all the white roses.
Before disappearing in the horizon, Malak turned to see her once again. – “It’ll be the greatest day ever when you come with us!”
After saying that she disappeared, she probably returned to the shack with the other children that Alicia once called her family.
She looked up to the moon once again, wondering how long would it be before she could cross the border with them, and if she would have settled every score before that.
It was simply irrational, Alicia wanted to go with them as soon as possible, but she didn’t want to depart from the world without making sure that the ones that pull the reigns of the world and their lackeys pay for every single one of their sins.
She knew that whoever created that paradise was certainly laughing at her from a place she couldn’t reach.
Like always, Alicia was casted out of that realm, like the end of a dream. However, this time would mark the beginning of a new one. She was still in the forest, she realized she tripped over and passed out. Her arm felt healthy weirdly enough, and the fatigue that had settled over her shoulders had disappeared. She got up from the ground and looked around, there was only darkness as far as her eyes could see.
“Oh, I thought you wouldn’t get up, I guess that means you aren’t going to die yet.”
Alicia’s ears perked up. She looked up and saw something we can only call unusual at a lack of a better word.
There was a young girl with short jet-black hair hanging from a tree next to her. A noose was tightly tied around her neck, so tight that her neck had acquired a purple tone. Her eyes were a pair of gray, lifeless marbles staring down to the ground, and her mouth dangled open, letting out clouds of ice cold air, even if the temperature wasn’t that cold around them.
Her clothes looked ragged and dirty, also kind of old-fashioned, but the thing that caught Alicia’s attention the most was the M1911 she was clutching at in her right hand, covered in dust and rust.
Alicia didn’t need to be a genius to know she was in the presence of a tormented spirit. She had read about them on some books she had found, she wasn’t sure if to believe they existed or not, but now she knew for certain.
“Who are you? What do you want?” – She asked.
“Impressive, you are the first person to not cower when they see an apparition like me. I have to say, you have given me a boost in self-esteem. I’d cry if I could, but wraiths don’t cry, do they? We make people cry…well, I don’t, and I have no interest in making you cry either.”
“I said who are you?”
“Relax, it’s not like I can steal your soul. My name is Nyx Adler, and your essence lured me towards you. I was bored, contemplating as eternity passed by me and then I felt you nearby, it’s been so long since I met a kindred spirit.”
“…A kindred spirit?”
“I know, I can see it, your aura is covered by the essence of death, the essence all murderers carry. I was a murderer too, I went berserk. I was strong, I was awesome, I was even sexy, but it didn’t quite work out, as you can see.”
Alicia relaxed; she didn’t feel any hostility coming from the ghost. – “You got caught I guess…?”
“Not at all. They got close, but I preferred to die than to allow them to parade me around in shackles to boost the election rates of some halfwit politician, so I didn’t give them the satisfaction, as you can see. Oh, how I was expecting to wake up in a steaming cauldron, being picked apart by devils alongside other damned souls…but…in the end, that didn’t happen, I’m stuck here, in this world, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
“So what? You came to me so I can help you find your way to the far beyond?” – Asked Alicia. – “I’m sorry, but I don’t have the time nor the knowledge to help you with that.”
“It’s ok, it’s not up to you after all. I guess there’s something I must do before I can get my ticket to hell, if there’s a hell to begin with.”
“And why are you here then? You came just because I’m a “kindred spirit”?”
“Not exactly.” – She puffed more cold air out of her mouth. – “I can see that you’ve got a gift, something no one else has as far as I know. It’s very dangerous, volatile, and it benefits you, but it comes at a great price…” – The ghost aimed her gun at her own head, Alicia could hear the cracking and tearing of her old ghastly bones and skin as she performed this simple motion. – “It demands death, a lot of death for it and you to grow, but it will wound your mind…” – She pointed at her heart. – “And your heart, making you unstable…making you end up like me.”
Nyx pulled the trigger, releasing a bullet that made every single bird fly out of their nests scared and every single leaf rustle because of its force.
“Like you?”
Nyx’s shooter arm came back to its original position. – “You don’t like arrogancy, do you? Well, me neither. I worked long and hard to get noticed and hired by a couple of mafiosos, did my very best, got paid handsomely, felt at the top of the world. The funny thing is, I didn’t kill a single human being. Some idiots in this world would call those I killed people, but they weren’t. If normies knew how to actually differentiate good from evil, I wouldn’t have needed to splatter the brains out of so many assholes on my free time. Went back to my parents’ house when I was fifteen, they were asleep, took a knife from the kitchen, got dad first before he could fight back, mom didn’t know how to react to someone fighting back against her abuse in a lifetime, so she cowered in a corner asking for mercy, and I did my thing. – She shrugged. – “Located my classmates, went to each of their houses, stab stab stab! found a gun, bang bang bang! All in the same night, baby. Yeah, I was full of energy, the police could never catch up. All of this happened before I became a hired gun for the mafia, by the way, so you could consider it practice.”
“Why did you do that?” -Asked Alicia, now sitting on a rock, knowing that moving around in the dark would be ultimately dangerous and pointless.
“They were all scum, they all tortured me in ways you certainly can imagine. I ran away, but then the need to prove I was strong overcame me, and so I returned, to make them all pay, and then I swore I’d make the entire world pay, and that’s how a killer was born. It didn’t take much time for me to get out of control, I could only think of my vengeance, and the consequences reached me faster than I thought, and the rest is history.”
“And you say we are kindred spirits?” – Alicia huffed. – “You are delusional. What the hell makes you say that?”
“I can see it, that wrath that drove me to do all of that, resides within you as well. You are strong enough to keep it in check, although barely, unlike me. You have to control it, make it yours, before that fire consumes your heart and you lose control.
Alicia rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, looking at Nyx from the side. - “…Assuming that what you are saying is true, where do I begin?”
“…For now I can only say…give the individual a chance to be better. Not people, people can go fuck themselves, kill as many as you can for me, but the individual…there’s many out there who deserve your attention, and also your help, that way they can be better and make this world a better place.”
An alarm blared through the entire forest.
“Seems our time is up. We’ll see each other again. For now, it’s time to wake up.”
Nyx raised up her gun and shot at the rope and fell back to the ground on her feet, she was completely reanimated. There was no sound when she landed. – “Talking with you helped a bit.” – She raised up her shooter arm once again, faster than Alicia could perceive and shot her in the head, lights out.
She was assaulted by visions and voices she couldn’t quite recognize.
Alicia saw visions of herself destroying Simon Glass’ head with one of his own grenades, messing with the Chechens and their slavery operations, killing them in their sleep. She saw herself hunting an African warlord through the barren lands, landing an impossible shot on his driver’s head, forcing the jeep out of the road and crashing it, and of course, visions of her eternal and grueling war with the jihadists, ending up in a gruesome crimson waltz.
“Fuck the people! But give the individual a chance! If they fail, kill them all!”