The Imperial Warrior

Chapter 1- Kill Me Better

"Come on, Anya." a boy with an aggravated expression was sitting on the couch next to a fireplace in his living room. He was squabbling with a girl who was typing ferociously on her laptop.

"You can do the assignment later. It's a Saturday, come with me for a drive. You know I have the driver's test the coming week."

The girl, 'Anya' did not even look up while talking. She was particularly used to his pleas about driving. She had to be; the boy had been asking her to come on drives with him every day since the past month. In the beginning, she was excited at the prospect but after the very first ride, she realized that sitting next to him while he drove was nothing short of sitting on a broken chair with no seat belt on the world's fastest roller-coaster, that is, in a nutshell- a suicide mission.

"And that gives you three days to practice. And if you are so nervous for a meek license test then maybe you shouldn't drive a car after all."- Anya said in her vain, desperate hopes of somehow trying to convince him not to drive and save those poor pedestrian souls from their untimely and aghast deaths from a reckless teenage driver.

The boy smiled- he knew this was coming and he had just the perfect comeback, "You are just saying that because you are not going to get your license for another, what is it...4 months, 5 months?"

The boy had a mischievous smile dancing on his lips because he knew exactly what was going to happen next; for that was a sore spot for Anya. Being the youngest of all their friends wasn't something she liked to be reminded of.

"It's 2 months Kyle, and you know that." Her vexation was now reflecting through her words. She took a deep breath and finally looked up at the boy, 'Kyle', making hair fall all over her face and said, "So, stop being a chicken and go yourself or take Alex with you, do anything but for the love of god stop bugging me." Her temperament was definitely on the rise.

"Woah! Relax girl. No need to get all worked up." Though he said all that he was still smiling, waiting patiently for Anya's next retort.

"You are perfectly aware that I need to finish this paper on 'The Great Gatsby' today itself, it accounts for like half my grade, man." She said the last word with a sigh, tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, and added "Plus, Alex received his license months ago and he is a pretty... well, let's just say- opportune driver."

Kyle knew that Alex was free but he needed to talk to Anya about something important and he knew that he couldn't do it in the house. He had to show it to her and for that, he needed to take her to that place, to the place where it had all started.

Trying desperately to persuade his best-friend he stated, "Anya, you ace English without even having to try and as a matter of fact I know you completed that paper the day it was assigned and got it checked too. So, don't even think of cooking up another excuse."

"Okay! You caught me."

"Then, come with me. It's important."

Kyle had this look on his face to which Anya could never say no. It had been almost seventeen years since they had first met and she was still a sucker to his puppy-dog eyes. His grey eyes, like the color of the ash remnants of a roaring fire, had this intent piercing gaze in them that she felt as if she was the most important person one had ever looked at.

Those eyes were different that day. They had a swivel of colors behind them, ranging from the depths of the sea-w**d turquoise to the abstract of the clear blue morning sky- all forming the murky concoction of grey.

They had an agenda behind them too; he seemed determined to take Anya for that drive but then there was something else there too.

Kyle was anxious, he seemed almost obscure; as if he was battling with himself about something.

Finally, breaking the eerie silence he asked, "What were you doing anyway?" Anya looked at the direction of his eyes and noticed her laptop and answered, "Oh that... I was writing an article for the next week's issue of the 'Arcane Weekly'."

"What's it on?"

"'Robot Apocalypse'"

She had this strange sparkle in her eyes which to be completely frank disturbed Kyle. He wondered how someone could get a kick out of writing or even reading about how the wrath of robots would obliterate humans. But he also knew that when Anya wrote about something, you irrefutably wanted to read it.

She just had this way with words, one could start believing in phantasms if she wanted them to but he tried to reason with her anyway, "Again? You seriously need to start writing on themes other than robots or aliens or cyborgs or any other world annihilation, science fiction philosophy. Don't you ever want to write something on, I don't know, social issues like 'Poverty' or 'World Peace' or how about something aesthetic like- 'If we don't end war, war will end us' or you could-"

"Let me stop you before you go on and make a fool out of your already low perception-self, my dear friend. And remember, moreover treasure the glory of the words you are about to hear; for they just might be the key to your survival when these 'science-fiction philosophies' actually happen."

The way Anya always air-quoted her words made the corner of his lips turn up, making him smirk with a smug familiarity which he knew pissed off his best friend. And he was definitely amused and even partially intrigued by then and thus decided to humor the girl sitting in front of him, the girl he had known all his life- ever since their parents had put them in matching cradles.

"Sure, Anya. Educate me."

"Oh! Wipe that smirk off your face Kyle and don't even think of mocking my ideas, we both know they are brilliant.

"You know Anya, self-flattery is fattening."

"Anyway," Anya smiled. She always did so whenever she was talking about something that would only interest her or could only be understood by her and her alien-abducted brain, so Kyle would say.

"'Robot Apocalypse' is not about how robots are going to lead to the extinction of the human race, that is unquestionably going to happen but not until the next century anyway; making it a problem for the coming generation, not us. What we are going to face is the annihilation of our jobs, the ones for which we are studying so hard today. These robots are better than us, stronger than us, and more efficient than all of us combined so why shouldn't they get all the jobs? And once all the jobs are gone what will the poor do, where will the millions of workers go. So, by writing about this I'm not only tackling quandaries like poverty but also subsistence threatening predicaments. People need to be made aware of these 'philosophies' before it is too late. So, yes- I'm going to continue writing about all of this because that is what is really necessary."

"Anya, if humans are ever going to be exterminated, believe me, it will be because of our own mistakes or the incessant desire to be the dominating species. We are foolish creatures, and we will start a war among ourselves and this will end only by the nuking of the entire planet. So, the way I see it, only two things can happen- either Earth will become too desolate for survival due to the radioactivity or we will simply just kill each other."

A voice suddenly interrupted their 'discussion', "Boy, are you both nerds."

"You say that as if it's an insult. It's the 21st-century dad, nerds are the new jocks."

"Hello, Mr. Jones."

"Where did you come from?" Kyle looked behind at the staircase and saw his father waving towards him.

"Kyle," His father said with an exasperated sigh. "I have been upstairs the entire time; sometimes your lack of observation astonishes me."

"Sure, dad."

Kyle groaned, they really needed to get going if they wanted to see it, it would be dark soon. He tried to dig up his mind for an excuse; one which would easily let them leave the house.

"Kyle, you forgot to turn off the lights of your room. Again. I'm really getting sick and tired of your careless attitude, young man. You need to start taking things in life, even those as small as electricity, seriously." Ryan Jones exhaled. He suddenly thought of a memory, one buried deep and faded to the back of his subconscious.

He saw himself but there was something different about him- he seemed younger, all those frown lines had a long journey to travel to reach their current state. He saw his own father lecturing him about these trivial matters and he smiled. It had been a long time since he last had such 'visions' about his father; there was something so familiar and comfortable in those memories that Ryan wished he that weave a cocoon out of them and sleep in their safety forever. "God, I sound just like my father!" he murmured to himself and continued to ramble on about something else but by that time Kyle had tuned him out.

He had been doing a lot of that lately and wondered if it was just because that was his father speaking or because it had become a habit.

"Earth to Kyle! Kyle." Her voice snapped him out of his reverie; like it always did. He thought of her voice as an anchor, always tethering him to reality.

"What?"

"Didn't we have to get going?"

"Oh yes, let's go." Kyle looked around the room to find his father who was meticulously making himself a sandwich. "Dad, we are going for a drive. Be back in an hour." The boy's father looked up and said, "Don't kill anyone please, stick to parking lots and if there is even one scratch on the car it is your pocket money on the line. And on your way back bring some milk and pick up the clothes from the laundry."

"Anything else, my lord?"

"No. That'll be all. Walk away now." Anya always enjoyed their father-son banter. It seemed so natural to them as if not pretending to be a slave to a king with a fake British accent would upset the natural order of things.

Kyle removed the car keys from the shelf, waved to his father, and started walking towards his car when his phone buzzed. It was Alex and he wanted Biology homework. He told him that he would give it to him later and then switched off the mobile. He couldn't have any interruptions if he had to show Anya that thing.

"Could you get on with it?" Anya snapped. Kyle had almost forgotten about Anya's low tolerance for delay.

"Patience, young one, is the key to success." He put the keys in the ignition and tried to start the car but it didn't budge. He turned the keys over and over again until Anya had to stop him.

"Kyle, the car is a decade old give it some time." Anya knew that the car had been Kyle's mother's and that is why they couldn't bring themselves to sell it. She remembered a woman with beautiful auburn hair and misty brown eyes waving over from that car. She also remembered Kyle's tear-stricken face when he had come to tell her the news. She had never seen him so broken and yet so emotionless before that day. And she had known the moment she had looked into his grey eyes that he would never be the same again. In the days that had followed, his crooked grin never quite seemed to touch the corner of his eyes. His face had become a mask of emotions and Anya had never felt more helpless, or more useless. That had happened six years ago and yet she seemed to remember that day as clear as yesterday. How could she not; it was the day his panic attacks had started...

"She is dead Anya, my mother" Words were failing Kyle and he felt dizzy as if someone had taken a bat and beaten him with it until he was just on the verge of unconsciousness and then stopped so that he could feel the pain of each and every wound- separately and then all at once. The feelings were overwhelming him; too strong, too devastating for his innocent mind.

"The people- from her office they said that she was-" Kyle was panting, hard. Close to someone who was drowning and he was drowning too, in his own mind over and over again, the memory repeating in his mind like a never-ending loop.

"Kyle? What are you saying? Take a deep breath, sit down, and then tell me."

Anya was surprisingly calm, for a ten-year-old, as if she had been prepared for this or maybe she just didn't believe him. She quietly went and fetched a glass of water while Kyle seemed to be following her instructions.

He remembered his mother's words, whenever he had an asthma attack, "Count to ten. Then concentrate your mind on a single thing, even if it is the smallest detail in the world; like the sound of the clock ticking or look at the brilliant bright light, just concentrate and your breaths will even out." He could recall her voice perfectly, her gentle yet strong voice. He had decided to concentrate on his mother's voice that day and all the days after that, even when she was not around, he could recall it flawlessly and now that she was dead-

"NO." He said to himself; if there was one thing, he had learned from sitting with his father and watching hundreds of crime shows was to never believe that someone is dead until you see the body.

Anya had come back with the glass of water and he started to take in big gulps but then he slowed down and looked at the glass and wondered if was half full or half empty- his infantile mind did not yet see the philosophical aspect behind things.

He drank the water slowly and went to refill his glass. When he came back, he was ready, as ready as one could be, to face the music.

He then told her everything- the people from his mother's office, the strange circumstances of her death, his father words, "It has to be a misunderstanding, I spoke to her just a few hours ago-" But by then Kyle had understood what needed to be understood. He had pushed past the small gathering and had run with no destination, just to be anywhere but his house, and when he had finally come back, he couldn't make himself go inside, he couldn't look at his father's face- filled with pain and writhing agony. So, he went to the house beside his and did what he had done numerous other times but that time was different from all the others.

The car finally started and Anya lost track of her trail of thoughts. "About time," Kyle said to no one in particular.

The black Buick Lacrosse grunted in diffidence. Kyle stepped on the accelerator and trailed towards the nearest Walmart. It had hardly been ten minutes when Anya received a text from Kyle's dad: COME HOME RIGHT NOW. She showed it to the boy beside her and he immediately took a U-turn and drove back towards his house. All caps. Whatever the reason was, it was serious. He would have to show it to her tomorrow.

Anya asked what happened to his phone, "The battery died." He silently cursed himself for lying to his best friend but telling her that he had switched off his phone just to show her something would raise suspicion and he couldn't afford that until he figured out what was going on.

Kyle realized something was wrong the moment he turned on the curve of their neighborhood. There were several police cars lined up outside Anya's house. Despite the congestion, everything was silent. Anya immediately sat upright and speculated, a bit too conclusively, "What the hell," and almost jumped from the moving car.

"Could you step on it!" Anya exclaimed. It was quite unusual for multiple police cars to be parked outside their little residence; especially in a small town like Arcane, with a population of a little over fifteen thousand.

Kyle quickly parked the car, thrust the keys into his pocket, and walked towards Anya's house. "Maybe it's just a routine check-" Kyle was about to reassure her but he saw that she was already gone, running past the policemen, into her house.

The entire ordeal sent shivers up Kyle's spine. There was something in the air which Kyle could not put a word to but the feeling was that of Déjà vu. He swiftly walked up the entry stairs after Anya.

Kyle's father came outside before the duo had entered the house, almost expectantly. Kyle was about to ask his father what was happening but Anya had again beaten him to it. "Mr. Jones, what is happening? Where are my parents? Did something happen? Why are there three empty police cars outside my house and why are you here?"

Kyle looked into his father's sincere eyes for assurance but that day there was none and there had been only one other day when his father could not compose himself, rid his face from worry for his son, and that day was the day his mother had died.

"The police needed to check the house so I let them in with an emergency key that your father had given me." Anya waited for Ryan to continue but it seemed as if that was all there was to say.

Kyle realized that his father was blocking the entrance and noticed a few policemen bustling about the house, their expert fingers registering all the details- from the tiniest speck of dirt to the millions of papers lying about the house.

"Kyle," He hesitantly added, "Perhaps you should take Anya to our house. I'll be there in a minute." Kyle didn't even realize he was nodding until Ryan had left them and was talking to the Sheriff, whom Kyle recognized from the countless town meetings and parades.

"What? No." Anya said, and Kyle snapped out of his dazed version of consciousness. She pushed past Kyle's father and walked inside the house with a distinguished sense of purpose which only came from being Anya.

Ryan saw her and instantaneously pulled her back and had to drag her out of her own house. "Anya, listen to me and listen carefully. Go with Kyle and wait inside until I come." He then turned towards his son and said, "Do not open the door to anybody else and," He lowered his voice to a whisper and added, "keep her calm until I come back, please."

Ryan Jones had this sense of authority in his voice that even Anya let herself be dragged to Kyle's house. She had no idea what was going on, and neither did he but both knew that things were never going to be the same again.

Once inside, Kyle remembered what the Déjà vu was about. It was the definite and unforgettable feeling of coming death.