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CHAPTER FOUR
REJECT
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“Not all demons appear like monsters. In fact, most demons are indistinguishable from you or me. Many can suppress their urges, or more likely have found a way to hide the violent results of their crimes against reality, yet no matter what, they will always reveal themselves if their life is put in danger. For that reason, to serve the Martial Corps, you all will be required to undergo a series of tests. They will hurt, but don’t be afraid. So long as no one has anything to hide, I promise you’ll all survive. As do I suspect, by the end of Basic Training, you’ll all be thanking me.”
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Fifty feet. A new record. Considering I’m still alive, you’d think I’d be celebrating.
Instead, I pace around my Rose Zone, waiting for the first volley of ammunition to end, but it’s endless. I’ve only spoken with my Company Commander once—which, overcompensatory posturing aside, had been fairly pleasant—but something tells me he really wants me dead. And I mean really, really, realllly wants me dead.
Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I just… reallllly hate this part.
“ALLMARS! CEASE FIRE!”
I recognize her voice immediately. Colonel Aubrey ‘Burn Scar’ Estrada. Mom.
She came to save me. To make all of this chaos make sense. I can’t help but cry.
“Mom!” I yell, weaving between the countless bullets that had pierced my bubble and slowed, outright shoving clusters of them aside on my way to see her. I’ve gotten used to my extra senses enough to ignore the shifting of trajectories and velocities. Besides, I’m too excited. At this point, I haven’t seen Mom in a week and three days.
The Colonel looks haggard. I can only imagine how much stress she endures on a normal workday as both the Commanding Officer of Camp Mullen and Philadelphia's Marshal of Law. Learning her daughter is a suspected demon and one of her units is relentlessly trying to kill me… it seems like that must have been a doozy.
If she had any hair left, I like to think it would resemble mine, minus the blood: short, dark, curly, and wildly unkempt. Instead, her entire head is covered in burns—her skin taut and flesh inflamed, pulling and stretching against each other, etching hundreds of wrinkles and cracks across her face that still, after a year and a half of the best medical treatment in America, occasionally split open to weep crimson tears. Despite that, she never keeps her disfigured expression a secret. It's always been her nature to wear her heart on her sleeve, and that wouldn’t change just because the world is ending. Or has, depending on how you look at it. Point being that she’s clearly grieving. I’ve not seen her this shaken in a decade. Not since we lost Dad.
“Bethany,” she says, opening up her arms. “My sweet, baby girl. What happened?”
I want so badly to run out of my Rose Zone and embrace her. So bad that I run up to the edge and throw a hand out, gesturing her closer. Fortunately, I have some survival instincts. Our audience may have grown quiet, but who knows who might shoot me the second they have a clear shot. Disobeying a Commanding Officer to kill her daughter would certainly result in their incarceration, but if I had learned anything tonight, it’s that my fellow Martians are perhaps too eager to indiscriminately murder a suspected demon.
Mom sees my wave and approaches. She’s not wearing her suit of double-tempered armor, so another pair of officers step out from the shadows to escort her. They flank her on both sides with their R50s fixed on my head. The message? Harm the Colonel and face their wrath. Understandable, given her importance, but she’s my mother for HaShem’s sake! How could I?
When all three of them are near enough to grab me, I withdraw my hand. So long as I don’t leave my Rose Zone completely, I know it won’t collapse, but I’m starting to get worried. How long has it been since I made it? How much longer can it last?
“Mom,” I whisper, smothering the questions. “I was hoping you could tell me. I can’t really remember. Everything before I— I— I—” I cut myself off. “It’s all a blur and it hurts to think about it! I just remember standing naked in front of my squad and—”
For the first time, I feel enough shame to cover up my body.
“It’s okay, honey. Here, let me give you my coat. Do I just… throw it to you, or…?”
I nearly stick my hand back out to grab the proffered garment, but then I’ll be exposed again. “Yeah,” I say, taking a step back from the edge. “That works. I’ll catch it.”
Mom frowns, then balls her black-and-gray military coat up and tosses it. Halfway in my bubble, it unravels and falls so I have to leap forward and bend over to drag it the rest of the way in. Only when it’s fully submerged does its blue sheen change to a red one, but as soon as I wrap it around my body, the blue light around my skin absorbs it. Convenient.
“Fascinating,” Mom says. “A time distortion field? That would explain the shifting of light wavelengths, but it seems to be a physics-based indicator than a genuine indication of working physics. Should be obvious, considering we can even speak through it.”
In spite of the situation, I laugh. “I barely understood a word you just said.”
Mom straightens and smooths out the wrinkles on her shimmering blue blouse. “Sorry about that. I’ve recently perused some studies on this subject, but that’s not why we’re here. You really don’t remember anything before…” She trails off, gesturing at the air. “…This started happening?”
I nod, perhaps too eagerly, and nearly run out of the Rose Zone again. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I remember getting ready to go out on patrol. I remember hitting the gym with… with Darling… after we stopped to visit Benjy in the Clinic.” How could I ever forget Benjy? “I even remember what I ate for breakfast—a Chilli Mac MRE, the best of them all—and everything before that. It’s just that little sliver of memory that’s been lost to me.”
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Fascinating,” Mom says again, but that’s not the word I’d use to describe any of this.
“Frightening,” I mumble, barely loud enough to hear myself, yet Mom’s frown returns twofold.
The soldier on her left taps her shoulder and the Colonel grows rigid.
“I’m so sorry, honey. I know you’ve had a long night. But it’s almost over now. I just need to ask you a few more questions and then we can all move on with our lives.”
“Questions?” I ask. It comes out harsh like a scoff. “I don’t want to answer your questions anymore. I want my questions answered. What the hell happened to me, Mom? Why is everyone trying to kill me?”
Colonel Estrada sighs. “Maybe we should take this conversation somewhere with less spectators. What do you say you come out here and we walk back to base in private? I could use the excuse to stretch my legs.”
I wish we could have, but even then I could tell the offer was too good to be true.
“No. I want to know right here—right now—what’s going on with me! I’m not a demon, so why is everybody still pointing their guns at me? Please, for the love of Dad, tell me!”
BANG!
The officer on the Colonel’s right flinches at the climax of my shout, pulling his R50’s trigger reflexively. My Rose Zone is still active, so it only reaches an inch away from my face before it slows. In a blur of blue light, I swat the 50 caliber bullet aside with a fist and lash my other hand through the bubble, grabbing the offending officer’s rifle and ripping it out of his twice-tempered grip.
“No more guns!” I scream, then snap it against my knee. “Mom! I don’t care if you’re a Colonel, you were my mother first! Order every soldier to leave this instant, or! Or I will! I will! I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” The now unarmed officer spits into my Rose Zone, straight at my face. “You’ll kill us?”
Before I can reply, Mom snaps. “You’re not helping, Captain. How about you go find a new gun and think about what you’ve done? Now!”
No. Not Mom. Colonel Aubrey ‘Burn Scar’ Estrada.
Momentarily stunned by her sudden burst of anger, the Captain in question stumbles as he runs off.
“Lieutenant,” she growls, looking to her remaining bodyguard. “Congratulations. You are officially promoted. Assuming you don’t make the same idiot mistake.”
“Mom…” I choke out, drawing her rageful gaze. A few more cracks had split open on her face, leaking bloody trails along the crevices. Not a hint of love is left.
“Don’t waste your ammo or let it break another gun,” she finishes coldly. “Nothing is expendable. Not when it seems like every day, a new demon pops up where I least expect it. To think, even within my own ranks…”
“Mom!” I scream, my entire body frozen. As if every muscle in my body is conflicted on how to react. “I’m not a demon! I’m your daughter! What the hell are you saying?”
Colonel Estrada spits in my Rose Zone too. Even before it starts glowing red, it has a bloody sheen. “Stop calling me that. You are not my daughter. You only look like her.”
Beside her, the newly promoted Captain nods. “You’re just another monster we need to slay. An affront against humanity.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Can’t fathom my own mother refusing to defend me.
I still can’t, honestly…
Even now, it makes me want to scream.
So I do, and they all hear it. So loud it makes another dozen Martians start firing their weapons in fear of what might happen if they don’t.
Eventually, the Colonel’s voice booms out, overpowering even my furious shrieking. “ALLMARS! CEASE FIRE! CONSERVE YOUR AMMO!”
When the gunfire quiets, so eventually do I. Screaming about my predicament won’t fix anything, I realize. Even my mother doesn’t see me as human. Not anymore.
So why keep acting like I am?
The power inside my chest burns like a raging inferno. Every beat of my heart sends it rushing through my veins. It drives me to seek pain, wreak havoc, and teach them all a lesson.
So why do I still act like I am?
More than any other question I can ask, I wish I had that answer. This would be so much easier if I was what they think I am. Then maybe I wouldn’t feel any of this agony or grief.
CRASH!
BANG-BANG-BANG!
BANG!—BANG!—BANG!—BANG!—BANG!
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
BANG!—BANG—BANG!
BANG!—BANG-BANG!—BANG!
BANG!—BANG-BANG-BANG!—BANG!
I don’t know how, but I can sense them arrive. Bloodhounds. Just under fifty demon shaped velocities and trajectories bounding or leaping through my mind in real time, surrounding my former comrades and ambushing them from behind. Even outnumbered, they manage to simultaneously immobilize nearly a third of the Martians before anyone notices the attack and retaliates. They’d all been too focused on me, preparing for my retaliation.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. I haven’t killed anyone and that’s not going to change. That’s not who I am, before or after the world labeled me a demon.
The Martial Corps of America… they aren’t the heroes I’d always believed they were. Not even my own God-damned mother.
I haven’t killed anyone, no, but I had enough time to warn them. I could also tell I had the power to save most of them, if only I choose to burn it all.
Instead, I use the chaos to escape unscathed. I run toward a gap in their ranks like the world’s life depends on it. To put as much distance between us as I possibly can and find a safe place to hide.
A place to think. To start figuring out how to bring this madness to an end.
And in case you ask, no.
Not once do I look back.