One's Gain

The hand grasping mine turns cold. So, it's finally over. The elevation of the building I'm on dizzies me. Or maybe it's the body. My best friend swims in his own blood, motionless. The silver bullet casing glistens mockingly in the corner of my peripheral vision. Out of anger, I kick it off the rooftop, watching it plummet endlessly from the monstrously tall skyscraper. What has been done has been done. As a human being, my soul screams out to me, telling me to surrender to tears, but the soldier in me rises from the corpse with steel glance, a task I find difficult.

My observing company stands only a few inches over my head, but he feels like an insurable fortress. His green pupils examine me like a beast hunting prey, but there is not hostility-his stare is an unnerving shock wave of lust. He nonchalantly passes my companion's body as he nears me, my life and vitality being sucked from me the longer I am forced to glance upon him respectfully. I realize he is very handsome, though the thought only sends hatred to possess me. His face is angular and young, his skin reminding me of moist earth, a delicate brown. My sight darts to his build. He is lean, but defined. I measure the probabilities of his strength in battle, but my ability to form tactics is gone. My mind is so ablaze, random irrelevant details seem all I can process; however, they produce a desired effect. I feel my cheeks heat. He manages a smile.

"Miss Li, your examination results have been determined." Tension builds in me at the casual demeanor he puts on.

"Commander Alphus, I will accept an address from you as Praetor Jana, nothing less."

He slightly bows. "Of course, Praetor Li Jana. Your peace requests were processed, and under monitored conditions, you are eligible for citizenship. Congratulations, my dear. You have passed your exam."

Those words were meaningless. It now takes all my strength to hold back my emotion. I began to shut out reality. I am on the front lines of anarchists' war beside my friend, somehow justifying all this death for one's gain. It seems that my past has brought on its vengeance in an ironic tragedy.

I now understand no such justification exists.

Alphus jerks me out of my thinking, pulling my eyes to his with a calloused hand on my chin. He decreases his distance, his breath hot and uncomfortable on my neck. Still, I resist reacting.

"You are a fierce woman, a Praetor of an anarchist-legion, and yet, so lovely..."

His head lowers experimentally, but I break from his touch, daring to glance at the weapon in my hand. I wonder if it's too late to use it.

"I don't match your acknowledgements, nor do I deserve them. I am an enemy of your state, now. You were a great freedom fighter, and I respected you greatly, but don't take that as a weakness."

"You deserve the world. The Government has provided you amnesty of your crimes. Now is the time to start your life over again. You've foraged, stolen, and endlessly fought for years. Your body needs rests."

He gently strokes my face. "Your heart needs rest."

I strain to move, but he's quick to react. Alphus reaches my lips, and I slip into a loveless embrace. All the acts of violence, all the taboo sins, the brutalities I complied with, all for what? My people were going to die. Memories drown out everything. Instead of in the Commander's grip, I lie beside my dearest companion in the desert sand. My brother-in-arms gingerly attends my shoulder wound. He scoffs at the fact I sleep on a cot out in the cold, despite my towering authority. I then laugh at his poor medical job, even though I denied the elite treatment the surgeon offered me.

"If you treat me," I had said, "Then you must treat all of us. As their Praetor, as their leader, I will suffer the same as my soldiers. I will die beside them, not above them."

The image of my friend's corpse pounds in my mind. Even dead, I can still hear the heartbreak in his voice when I took his life. I don't think execution bothered him; death didn't bother him. He would have faced the greatest sea of firing squad agents with no fear. But an example-his fear- was exactly what the Capitol wanted. I had to save my people. I had to gain the Capitol's approval. Free my anarchists from their custody. Show them my affiliation with anarchism is gone. Pass their petty test if that would win them over faster.

I would have to kill him. I was his firing squad, and that gave him fear.

As I held his hand in those final moments, I could tell from his kind face he did not hate me. I didn't deserve that.

"Hey, fool them good. You could do it with your looks, alone." He winces in pain.

"Shut up. Say something worth saying in your time of dying, idiot." My voice is far from calm, tears pouring. He passes, and stupidly, I worry my bitter tone is the cause.

Surprisingly, it is Alphus that pulls away from me. "I had hoped to see you again, Li."

"Praetor Jana." I correct. "You were my best freedom fighter. Why did you leave our cause?"

"I don't have to struggle anymore, Li." I can tell he calls me this intentionally.

"Now you don't either."

"You're a traitor."

Alphus seems taken aback by this.

"I was the one that saved you from execution."

"You sought me out didn't you? You purposely brought me here, and sold the rest of my legion out to the Capitol."

He brushed this fact off like it's nothing. "I wanted you. I've always wanted you."

"Selfish." I push him away. "And I want freedom for my people."

"They would have freedom if they obeyed the laws of the Capitol."

There's a certain attitude that emits from him...artificial?

"What has become of you, Alphus?" I stare dumbfounded.

He has always sought freedom from the abusive system. The fire in his eyes ignites. It is the same aggression I have seen in him of the battlefield.

"What has become of me?" He angrily repeats. "I have become strong. I have power and wealth now. I have peace." He takes me by the shoulders. "Everything I have worked for-it was in honor of you."

"Then honor me." I challenge. "Set the captives free, and let me go home."

He smiles, shaking his head. "Still the same as ever, Li. Why can't you just accept a life of luxury with me?"

Alphus's question is tempting. I could forget everything about my violent past and begin again. Maybe even settle down and bear children. I've always longed for motherhood. I hate myself for glancing curiously at Alphus at this thought. The corpse works its way into my vision; though I try my hardest to keep it away. I feel idiotic for my emotions. It feels like betrayal.

"Because I made a promise." I explain. "I will suffer as my people. I will die beside them, fighting for freedom, not above them where they abandoned."

A moment of silence captivates the both of us. In his emerald eyes, I see a strange sadness. Though I am furiously resentful, I can't help but remember this as a friend in war rather than an enemy. He now has become the biggest obstacle I face, and I am conflicted with what I know I need to accomplish. I wonder if my dear companion felt the same mixture of emotion when I killed him.

"Alphus..." He silences me with a finger to my lips.

"Your heart lies elsewhere. Your loyalty lies on the enemy's lines." He turns, but I see the glint of tears on his face. "You do not love me like you do him."

I want to reassure him, comfort him, tell him it's not the way it has to be. But there's nothing more I can say.

"I see then. All my efforts, for naught. Ergo, I will carry out my orders from my superiors. Resisted you have. I'm afraid you cannot leave this city alive."

The sadness fades from him. The fire combusts in his demeanor once again. Seconds disguise themselves as hours.

Then, the inevitable strikes from the silence.

With such great force, I cannot escape his steel grip. He sends me slamming into the concrete, obstructing my airway with his boot. A horrible pressure churns inside my cranium. The world around me blurs.

"Why Li?"

I'm still conflicted to act. His eyes pierce me, expecting a reply. Surely he knows it's impossible?

"I poured so much sweat and blood into everything I was. I left the legion, hoping to make something of myself here in the Capitol. Not because I agreed with them. Not because I didn't like the legion's cause. I left because they gave me the opportunity your cohort couldn't offer- to live in peace. Violence was always the answer to all of you. But I didn't want to live in wartime. I wanted to take you away from it all, I wanted for you to love me without the fighting in me. Now I have to kill you. Why did you do this to me!?"

His speech, little of which I comprehended, makes no sense. Still, I don't dwell on any other fact than oxygen. Alphus releases his hold, leaving me gasping for air.

"No. You did this to yourself the moment you sided with them."

"Know that I tried to save you. But you could never comply to any form of authority, could you?" He bitterly replies.

I play the weakling role for a few seconds, lowering his guard.

"They only bothered because we know the legion in and out. They'll kill us, Al. They're using us."

I steal a glance at the gun beside me. I painstakingly inch my arm out to it. Unfortunately, his sense are keener than expected. He stomps hit foot harshly onto my forearm. I yelp in pain, resisting the desire to cradle my injury and weep. He grabs the weapon, but I will the energy to side sweep him down. There, we struggle like animals, writhing in desperation for the gun. The familiar sound of a firearm explodes my eardrum. I take notice his face is smeared with a crimson liquid, and at first thought, I believe he had been shot in our wrestling. However, I become increasingly aware that the source originated from my head.

Adrenaline pushes me onward. I hardly take the wound into account. With the passionate mission of avenging my friend's death, I overcome my hesitance in killing this man. With all recollection of training and strength remaining in me, a pound at him, my consecutive blows doing no significant damage. I even attempt to choke him, but he counters with a skull-cracking force to my right temple. I'm emphatic in my angry attempts to strike him, although so disoriented I collapse. Agglutinated in pain, he pins me, holding that same hungry stare, through this time, anxious for redemption. The gun he holds drips blood. I understand now he had struck me with the butt of the firearm.

His crazed expression matches his viciousness in war. I have never seen an opponent of his come out alive. For a brief moment, I lose to him. My breathing slows. Just like all his other opponents, I hardly had a chance. Too much more of this blood loss, and I die. I feel him rise off of me. Alphus is hopelessly demented, confused with all emotion, his mind poisoned by the Capitol, but conflicted with his burning obsession for me. He mumbles incomprehensible words, pacing. He throws the gun down with such power, the magazine clip falls out.

"Alphus..." My voice weakly carries.

He remains faced away from me, but I know he's listening. "I promised I would die beside my soldiers."

Every word I manage takes a second from my life. He kneels to my level, puffy bloodshot eyes begging for an end, a mental relief.

"What was that you said about me being the Capitol's pawn?"

I'd rather not answer, but I do.

"They'll kill you when they've had their full."

Alphus laughs solemnly. "It was worth feeling happy for a while. You're going to die, now, Praetor Jana. Lie there and think of happier times." He turns to walk away.

"You knew I could never love you, Alphus..." I mutter.

This awakens some dormant rage inside of him, an anger not even the grotesqueness of war could awaken.

There, he releases all his consuming anger, kicking my beaten body until it's over the edge, watching it plummet endlessly.

I am an insignificant resistance.

I am the spark of a flame that never feeds.

I am the mocking reminder of death his greed has brought upon us all.