Diabolus Ex Machina (The Chosen, Act 3, Part 4)
Act 1:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
Act 2:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
June 17, 2180
Joel didn’t come up with a plan, no matter how much he thought about it. There was no way out, at least none of which he could think. They were trapped on this continent, together with Lily’s psychopathic mother and the humans she had somehow brought under her control. It was still a mystery to Joel, how she had managed that, even with her mind control abilities. How could one person be that powerful?
”Joel?” Lily entered the small house, that had been their refuge for the past 5 days. ”I could hear your pessimism from 200 m away.”
”That might be the weirdest thing you’ve said so far”, Joel said, attempting a joke. Then he sighed. ”It’s not pessimism, it’s realism. There is nothing we can do, our story ends here. No deus ex machina, no miraculous rescue. It’s just not going to happen.”
”How do you know that?”, Lily asked. ”Maybe the society of the enlightened will come save us. We’re family! I’m the chosen!”
”They would have saved us a lot earlier, if they were able to. But they didn’t. And I honestly can’t imagine a way they could, your mom’s army is a lot more technologically advanced. It wouldn’t even be a war, it’d be an execution.”
Even from two meters away, Joel could hear Lily grind her teeth. Her lips were only a fine line, because she was pressing them together that much. Her frustration crashed against Joel like wave against a cliff. He shuddered. @suesa
”Lily”, he said. The girl looked at him and relaxed slightly, which allowed Joel to breathe easier. A teenager was already hard enough to deal with, but a teenager with psychic abilities? He didn’t want to be close to Lily when she had an emotional breakdown. Joel was convinced that it might kill him.
”I’m sorry.” Lily let herself sink to the floor and crossed her legs. ”I can’t believe all this has been for nothing. I don’t want to believe that! We can’t let my mother win! She killed my dad in cold blood!”
Joel bit his tongue, as his first reflex was to remind her that, technically, he had shot her father. It might have been under Mia’s mind control, but …
No. It was not something he should bring up.
”It was not your fault”, Lily said.
”I don’t like when you read my mind”, Joel reminded her.
”You know I can’t help it, right?”
”I know. I know. I just …”
The wall to Joel’s left exploded into a million pieces, and he was thrown to the floor. A high pitched sound rang in his ears, as he looked around, coughing, stunned by the explosion. Lily was lying where she had sat down, her eyes closed, blood coming from her head. She was breathing.
With the smoke burning in his lungs, Joel dragged himself over to Lily, painfully slow.
A heavy boot crushed down on his left hand and caused him to scream and inhale smoke and dust. More coughing. He looked up. The armored soldier looked down on him. With the closed helmet, there was no way to recognize any emotion.
The soldier took off their helmet.
”Tif …”, Joel croaked. Coughed.
”I woke up”, Tif said. ”And now I’ll bring back the brat that caused me to lose months of my life.”
Breathing became slightly easier as the dust settled.
”Don’t you think the explosion was a bit overkill?” He asked. ”The wall is not that sturdy.”
”But the abomination is”, Tif said. ”We needed the moment of surprise on our side.” She watched while two other soldiers tied up and gagged Lily, gave her an injection what Joel assumed to be tranquilizer, and carried her away.
”Now you got her”, Joel said, trying to free his hand from under Tif’s boot. Unsuccessfully. He only managed to scrape off even more skin. ”What do you plan on doing with me?” He asked Tif. ”Back into the hole?”
”You really believe that’d we’d risk another escape attempt by you?” Tif snorted. ”As long as you’re alive, the abomination won’t bend to its mother’s will. You give it hope, the hope that things might get better one day. That it might be able to flee.”
”She. Her name is Lily.”
”I don’t care. Look at it! It’s not even a real hybrid, and those are already disgusting enough. If it wasn’t for the president and his trust that the mother of that thing is important for our future, I would kill it without hesitation.”
”Don’t ever even just think that in her presence”, Joel warned her. ”It wouldn’t end well.”
Tif moved her foot on Joel’s hand, which made him scream out loud in pain.
”I don’t need your warnings. You were there when the abomination tried to kill me. And I am pretty sure that you would have covered it up, if it had succeeded. I can see concern for it in your eyes, it’s disgusting. You really consider this thing something worthy to protect.”
”She is. And I will protect her as far as I am able to, until my last breath.”
”Breathe in, then”, Tif said.
”What do you …” Joel was interrupted by a gunshot to his face.
Finally, Tif removed her foot from Joel’s hand. There was no point in ensuring a faceless corpse couldn’t run away.
Her eyes wandered over what had been Joel. Such an unremarkable man. The years of mind control through the alien abomination had warped his perception so far, that he had actually believed that thing was a normal little girl, and later a teenager.
She wouldn’t make the same mistake. Tif would keep “Lily” as far away from her as possible.
She wouldn’t end up dead, like this sad man.
Signature by @atopy
Just caught up. Just in time for this. I guess I should know by now; this is the #suesa-stories way.
I like how you tend to colour your narration with your characters' perspectives, especially when it forces us to see through the lenses of unrelatable people. People like Tif.
god ihopeshe dies
It's always good to see a story from a different perspective, the last narrator could have been wrong after all. :P
I am sad because it was today that they were able to repair my home computer and, although in December I went to many cybercafes to work with my accounts, I missed this series that I liked so much. I will read your chapters that you left in your links.
So you have no respect for main characters anymore!
Usually you've killed the main character at the end of the story, but this is far too early for it.
I like it.
HI SUESA I MISS YOU EVERYDAY DAMN 0 comments :( from hero to zero