La-Bastille

Verse Deux - The pulse of love anew, Part 2

Verse Deux – The pulse of love anew, Part 2

I don’t feel dead, nor do I feel completely alive. Is there an in-between to being human? Because that…that is what I’m feeling right now.

—Cid, La Purgian, La Bastille 2089 AP

The man’s heartbeat, steadying…slowing down.

He can feel the life withering away in his touch.

The clench of his own heart as he lets go of the man kneeling before him.

Cid gasps as the feeling of having control over one’s body starts to return.

He pulls his hand away as if scalded by an unknown force; the man he just touched falling flat, face-first into the concrete with a bloody splat.

A puddle of red flows out from the man’s body, drenching his corpse in a pool of blood, making Cid recoil in horror of whatever it is he just did to the helpless, hapless soldier.

The sound of someone approaching.

Distant footsteps getting closer.

A man rounding the corner.

Dominic Reinhardt.

“Hey, are you…” Dom’s voice falters as he realizes the story behind the scene painted before him. He looks between the dead man soaked in his own blood and the child standing before him. Dominic puts two and two together, and it makes him draw his gun out of impulse, “Who’re you with, little girl?” he poises his gun, “Who’re you with!?” there’s a rough edge in Dominic’s voice.

Little girl? Cid thinks to himself.

Dominic draws closer, nearing the boy who is now shaking and holding a red apple. Their eyes don’t meet because all Dom wants to look at are exposed legs the color of honeyed milk; glowing, unblemished, untouched…virginal.

Something of a wicked nature pulls tight in Dominic’s groin as he pulls forward with the desire to examine the child up close…and personal.

Cid takes a step back and Dominic takes notice.

The patrolling officer holsters his gun, and then raises his palms in a gesture of goodwill as if he has no malicious intent or desire to detain the child who, as he walks closer to Cid, is becoming more and more attractive in his lustful eyes. The prettiest I’ve seen.

Cid gasps as Dominic rests both hands on his shoulders. The heat of the man’s much bigger palms unwelcomed, and yet there’s a quiet sense of relief in his touch.

The weight of Dom’s hands on Cid’s shoulders makes the boy feel weak almost, as if his entire body is flooded with a strange form of sensation, his willpower crumbling beneath the man’s fingers, the man’s entire weight resting on him, travelling down his body to weaken the rest of him.

Dominic swallows and draws breath, his hands moving from the boy’s shoulders up to caress the neck.

A frisson of alarm crawls down Cid’s spine, and as if triggered by the feeling of danger, he whips, pulls his elbow back, then smashes the apple into Dominic’s face, sending the man to stumble with his head thrown back, fingers cupping his nose in shocked surprise of the strength the boy has in his look of fragility.

“I’m not a girl!” Cid proclaims then makes a run for it, but a spark on the ground before him stops him in his tracks.

“Take one more step and the next bullet goes to your head,” Dom forewarns, his right hand poised holding the gun, and his left nursing the blood flowing from between his fingers.

This…this boy, Dominic thinks to himself, he just killed a man, and yet he’s afraid of me, but, but why?

Dom adds caution to his voice, not wanting to scare the boy away, “Turn around with your palms raised open where I can see them, please…and…fuck, my nose, f**k!” he snorts and swallows blood.

Cid turns with a look of fear in those blue and green eyes and Dominic finds himself lowering his gun yet again, sheathing it back into its holster, as if he and the boy have an understanding that nobody needs to get hurt.

“You La Purgians,” Dom shakes his head and tips it back slightly, snorting the blood to recede, “Always creative in your ways,” he pauses, hands on hips, glancing briefly at the dead body on the sidewalk, “Now, even young boys like you go into prostitution,” he appears to be more concerned for the boy’s well-being than the festering remains of his comrade rotting by the sidewalk, “Did you do that to him? Poisoned him?” Dom snorts blood, “I think he deserves it,” and as he says those words, he cannot help but feel a twinge of guilt, for he himself is an occasional child molester…like all the time.

Cid’s expression changes into a look of vengeful wrath, his eyes taking on a much harder edge.

Feeling the threatening smolder in the boy’s eyes, Dom takes a step back and carefully slides his right hand down to draw his gun, his instincts telling him to stay cautious and remain vigilant.

The touch of cold wind seeps through Dominic’s bones as he swallows a clump of blood. He has never seen a boy look harmless one second and wild the next. This one’s a different breed, he thinks as he keeps a watchful eye while rooted in his place.

Dom exhales through his mouth, “You know, kid, when you do something bad you get punished. Do something good you get rewarded and—”

“Repeat often enough and the unwanted behavior is extinguished and a new behavior, a desired behavior replaces it. Pavlovian conditioning. I know. I’ve been—”

In a moment’s breadth, as Dominic listens to Cid, hanging on the boy’s every worded expression, he slowly feels like he’s becoming the thing he most fears…a slave…a slave to the pull of energy this young lad seems to have. And it’s scary.

In that same moment, Dom wears the expression of a teenager in love. And just as fast as it came, he blinks it all away. The boy before him returning to focus.

“Just…just freeze!” he raises his gun, his psyche blurring back to the now as he picks up his scattered brain all over the place, “You are in direct violation of the tenets of La Bastille,” Dom finds himself cutting the rude edginess in his voice, hypnotized and disarmed by the soothing quality and ethereal presence of the boy who he finds hard to struggle against, “Wait,” he notices, “How did you know about Pavlovian conditioning and—”

“You people throw away treasures you think are trash!”

Dom wears a surprised scowl, “You people?” his eyebrow lifting in mock disgust, “Wait a bloody second. I don’t think I like the sound of you saying you people. And what treasures are you even talking about?”

“Textbooks of Psychology from the Academy you people throw away,” Cid gestures, throwing an open hand to the side, “If you haven’t guessed, I’m not from around here.”

“I’m not blind, I see that.” Dominic does, but he also can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. The boy looks much too clean to be a La Purgian. He looks like the prince of Atlantis.

“You La Bastillians have no regard for the things that are important!”

“What makes you say that?” Dom lowers his gun, and he finds it pathetically stupid that he keeps holding it up whenever the boy makes a gesture with his hands, as if he has a weapon hiding inside the flaps of his cape-like sack. What’s he even wearing?

A draft of air is felt as it travels from the direction where Cid is standing, carrying the boy’s scent—an enticing combination of youth, virginity, and freshness.

The boy smells of fresh cut grass and honeyed mildew. And it makes Dom question whether arresting this young man would do him any good. Will it get him a promotion, perhaps? Because as much as he wants to perform the arrest, he can’t…because…because how can a stray like this boy, look like a prince? Like the boy belongs in La Bastille and not the city down below.

The urge to let the boy go is fast taking priority over his duty as an Academy Patrolling Officer. And he’s beating himself up for it, internally, not knowing what to do.

No. Dominic has to make the arrest. Now more than ever as he starts to smell the boy’s fear. He can sense the slight tremor in the kid, the way the boy’s body is mildly shaking.

“Don’t come any closer,” Cid warns, wrapping his arms around himself.

“Or what? You going to kill me?”

“Please, I said don’t come any closer!”

“Good luck with that,” Dom starts to walk.

“No! I’m serious! I c-can’t…can’t control it!”

“Well f**k that. You need to come with me. You are in direct violation—”

Dominic stops. He can feel something strange…an alien sensation that seems to be invading key areas of his brain, a presence that appears to erode his mind and steal his senses.

Cid gasps and scrunches his eyes, “A girl screaming,” he says, and then falls to his knees, arms snaking around his waist tighter in an effort to stop the pain from growing, “No! Make it stop!!”

“Agh!” Dom can see the ground zooming in as he bends to his knees. He lets go of the gun as he takes both hands to grab his hair as if that will stop the pain that is slicing through his memories.

“I’m sorry.” Dom hears the apology, as well as retreating footsteps taking stride. He tilts and falls to his side, the world spinning in his vision clockwise, counterclockwise. He tries to reach for his gun but the boy already rounds the corner, disappearing from view. Dominic closes his eyes, feeling the ground shifting from underneath him. He surrenders to the feeling of falling, the sensation of having his spirit return to his body, making him retch, gasp, and heave.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Le Vestibule, 2089 AP

Upon the pedestal in a separate room that only the Cardinal knows, is an engraved headstone marking the resting place of a priest. Right below the holy man’s name are his many deaths, in many a lifetimes, across centuries.

Standing from his genuflect position and lifting both hands away from the engraved headstone, the Cardinal bows, pulling down the mantle to cover the grave of the priest receiving his exultation.

He then steps outside and moves to take his position behind the glassed podium. His benevolent presence meets the ghostly cheers of beloved patrons, his dear La Bastillians, with their arms raised, hands open, palms lifting up to the heavens to receive the Cardinal’s goodwill and bountiful blessing.

Cardinal Neumann inhales, his throat warming, vocal chords reverberating to articulate the blessed strictures onto the masses. The low register unique to his voice echoes through the dome of the Le Vestibule, his words a benediction in itself as he raises one hand to anoint his blessing to the crowd.

His lips move to speak the words of the Trinity, but his mind is elsewhere, wandering.

He, the Cardinal, a sanctimonious presence of an all-encompassing religion, spreads the word of faith and healing, with an underlying message of the one who the people should fear most and fight against.

“And from the depths of the darkness he shall rise with an effervescent glow, bringing forth immeasurable chaos to all that he sees. For in his eyes, one blue, one green, he can see your worst fears, deep within your soul, pulling them out, making them real.”

Cardinal Neumann preaches his words of salvation, and the imminent threat of a force more powerful than his that may ruin their idyllic La Bastille, “I say to this chaos bringer: Come! Test our faith! We do not fear your darkness! And you, too, should not fear your fate. Open your eyes, chaos bringer. For with every truth, there is another one to be seen.”

The crowd speaks in unison, “To rely on the unreliable nature of humanity is to die in death’s embrace.”

“Hear, hear,” Neumann whirrs his long staff of crystal, “Now that’s a law that should never be broken. In the words of Time itself it is stated, that the intersection of light and dark would bring calamity to this earth. You will not take us, chaos bringer, you will not. For we, we shall take you first.”