"Do you work for the bearers?" it blurted, pouncing closer to Selune.
She stayed silent. They were in a long hall with arrays of sleeping soldiers.
"I don't," she asserted.
"So why . . . why oh why, do you not do the one thing I ask you?" He laughed.
She stood firm, robotic almost, like reciting a play that she had known her whole life. Her lips trembled; then, feeling the need to scream what couldn't, but knew the price. The mask stuck like glue, resetting herself to a blank canvas with no edges to shear.
Uttering, "It's not in our jurisdiction."
It sniffed. Mercury argued, "So you're telling me . . . Mala claims such nature, and Zi Jin Cheng upholds their innovations. They worship it like slaves—one calls it order, and another calls it polishing. Both are the same dead rose, worshipping roots of an old tree that never existed."
"Like I said, its not in our jurisdiction . . ."
"And you call that order? Oh please. Jurisdiction is merely a word tyrants use when they want their guilt to feel righteous. If you wanted to save her, you would've. But it seems you all have your heads up your ass, no?"
Selune tensed, her large eyes focused on him.
"No words? So, what's the difference when being enslaved by soil or steel? It all finds a way to trap you."
Selune stayed silent, in the same way one would not provoke an ignorant.
"You're hopeless," it uttered. "Live, so you can suffer another day."
He turned. The door collided violently; a bright light blinked at him, but before he noticed, it passed.
Selune sighed, went to her desk, pulled open a cabinet, and dialed a number on an emergency phone-like device exclusive to the military—more like a brick than a handheld device. She smiled as she typed words across the digital keyboard.
Across the brick-like machine, an emblem of a black rose stuck out on both sides. She slowly creaked it shut as she looked around. Everyone was asleep. She went to bed herself in another corridor.
. . .
A penthouse, high above the clouds, golden gleams of sunlight shining through the windowed wall. A man sat comfortably in black robes as he sipped coffee.
Lime-green plants hung on rails, vines stapled to the walls, flowers placed in every corner. A pot with black roses lay in the middle of a table beside him.
On the table, a phone with buttons shrouded on its border. The screen operated with the intentional thoughts given from the user's necessities—a tedious device for the conflicted.
He received a call on the phone with a thought-screen. Without moving a finger, he answered.
"Head-Bearer, Yulou," a static voice seeped.
"Hello, Selune," Yulou smiled. "You need a better microphone, by the way."
"Apologies. The man of replicants has confronted me. I'm wire-transferring the footage to you as we speak."
"Very, very well, dear. Now, may you remind me why you sabotaged your country and decided to work for me and my nation covertly?"
A static of ambience flowed from the speaker. "Because . . . because of the money, sir. I needed to stay alive, to be stable."
"Ahh, I see. Do you believe it was worth it? I mean . . . you could've sent a real watcher to the woman, and who knows? Maybe she could be okay with her daughter right now!"
"But know this. Money never saves you. Only buys you time, and wine. Both stain, permanent as blood. It all clings like sin."
". . ."
"Ah, relax! In your position, anybody can understand you, especially me. Those who thrive have done things others didn't want. Sad truth, but hey, it's you in the end. You live nobody else's life, right?"
"Yes, boss."
"Boss? That's a new one. Well, take care, darling, and thank you for the feed. Your payment will arrive," Yulou scoffed.
"You're welcome . . ." she said monotonal.
Crackling, the call concluded.
Yulou sat up on his black couch facing the windowed wall, the wall that can't conceal the light over the fog—the utmost luxury amongst seas of fools. Grabbing the phone, he smiled with his blue incisor peeking out.
"Huh, a withered rose can grow a mind of its own. How tragic."
On the device, footage of a replicant. The replicant was withering on the screen, a withering that was proof of a disheveled lower garden with a welcome sign gilded in floral elegance. Those that are flowers of beauty live in the high-life, covering the below from the light, taking in all the moisture, all that lets them grow further.
"Careful with your petals. After all, you're an artisanal miracle."
Yulou cackled, sinking back into his couch, bathrobes melting into it. He grinned slyly with the tooth of a fox.
"A fox that claws for the prettiest of flowers, I am."
He got up quickly after; he had work to do.
. . .
Red carpets, black beds. The hotel room remained silent as Mercury hunched over and sat on his bed.
Lisan crossed his legs, sitting on the other, Sara sat in the corner as they looked down at their hands and legs.
Contemplating, they all pondered. Thoughts concurred and bloomed endlessly.
What a bother.
Mercury's luscious white hair hung over his face, the braid concealed halfway.
"You shouldn't have been so hostile, there were dozens of soldiers asleep there!" Sara asserted.
"Is that so?" Mercury scoffed. "Coming from you? Don't make me laugh, as if you didn't try to kill Lisan not even two days ago."
Sara's eyes enlarged; she glanced at the priest. He was silent.
She swallowed a heavy throat. "Well, I've changed. I knew that living in this place would lead to nothing, so I decided to be a real girl. Plus, I was just just looking out for you, no need to be rude."
"And I left my entire platoon to rot in that desert. But does that make me innocent of murder?" Mercury asserted. "They all melted, turning into weird flowers—"
"Enough."
The priest uttered with the command of an echo from a true evangelist whose hymn is cried from the epitome of eminence.
His golden eyes gleam even in fog, forming a light source of repentance if you stare too long. Absorbed, the others came to their senses.
Mercury kept a frown; he could only ponder on the flowers.
Flowers. Black rose. Hah. Ha! Haha! HAHAHAHAH! Not now, I must remain calm.
"They did everything," Mercury whispered.
Sara leaned in like an interviewer with microphones huddled about. "What was that?"
"They bear our messages," Mercury gazed into Lisan's eyes without shame.
Instantly, the priest's eyes gleamed. Sara caught on, smiled, and tried concealing a faint laugh on top of it. She translated what his words meant in a split-second.
Oh boy.
"Replicants for parents," Mercury uttered, disgusted.
His teeth digging into his lips, uttering those words felt like a bayonet to his tongue.
"They mine data, steal it, process it, sell it. They also serve as companions or parents," Sara added.
"How long have they been doing this for?" Mercury asked.
She stayed silent, hesitating to answer.
Mercury laughed. "So you're saying . . . they've done this for long."
She nodded her head with a frown, an answer she didn't accept but had to face.
"The parents I've seen walk by when I was younger . . . they walked with children. Smiles on their faces and everything. How many of them had artificial caretakers?"
A drip of sweat fell off her face; she excused herself from the bed and went to the restroom connected to the bedroom.
He glanced at Lisan. "That woman was too calm. I went to her, threatened her, yet she had something up her sleeve."
"They all hate us, Mercury. They would never tell us anything until they are sure we will never come back. To them, we are cockroaches. To us, they are treasure. That is where we differ," the priest preached.
A ticking clock in the cabinet beside their beds clacked. A tap on the desk emphasized every second. Every second the garden has yet to bloom.
"Selune hears, Sara listens and obeys, and Amira truly trusts you. To what extent do they stem from people to your puppets?" Lisan remarked.
Mercury stiffened. "And they're still alive when they abide by me, no? Yet when it's you involved, is that the case? I mean, you've seen what happens . . ."
Golden eyes dim; the priest's face stared blank. He looked up with a curious expression, readjusting his scarf harshly.
He said, "She left because of your badgering."
Mercury smirked. "Or it's more like she left because she knew you'd prefer to listen to your voice than hers?"
The two locked eyes, with intensity spiraling into the blend of colors within layers of their irises. Whispers arose as they stared at each other. The restroom door opened.
Sara walked laid-back, a smile carved into her face. She laid back down onto the dark bed, as if it were hers for life.
"What's gotten you in a good mood?" Mercury asked, snickering.
She laughed, eerily, eyeing Mercury top to bottom.
Then—
Abruptly, the window that plays fantasies shows another reality broadcast.
. . .
No.
Crackling, it adjusts. The fox plays with the shears that tear down the garden.
Thin lines of film drag across the window. It wants to overshadow the message with another realm, but one cannot fake what's right in front of them.
Entirely, the whole wall is shrouded in a cyan background, glowing in the golden-brown, yellow-green irises of culprits.
In the film, the cyan room holds two foxes, one a talker, the other a listener. One shorter, one taller—they are revered, with the pre-eminence of the shears as they cackle in a sly manner, silently.
The talker uttered, "Great process! Citizens of Zi Jin Cheng, I remain, Yulou Xiao." The fox smiled with a blue incisor spiking jaggedly through his lips.
"The nation must become aware of such important matters, so forgive me or not for interrupting your dreams—it doesn't matter to me. There has been a stain, a wither in the garden yet to fix."
His pitch-black pupils stared hard into the camera. The man beside him held an older device. He opened it—a screen with a video ready.
Shaking in enthusiasm, the fox nodded, and the other pressed a long bar on squares placed below the screen.
Immediately, the video played as the camera enhanced closer to immerse itself.
. . .
A corner contained an overlay with a title: "Conviction Of Withers."
It rolled.
A camera, in the same place, angled to the liking of a withered rose.
No.
A tall man came with a fedora, luscious hair beneath. He pulled off the fedora; a glistening black rose in his breast pocket.
Pure-white.
Please, no.
Suddenly, the door opened. The man entered. Two flashes came—eyes of yellow-green, and a pale face caught in broad daylight.
Oh, no.
Cackling in the background's audio, the fox could be heard from miles away, as withers could be heard further and further.
Cries of love?
The decrepit cries of the defiling from a falling crimson rose echoed through the room. What withers it, stays silent.
. . .
A moment passes, asphyxiating.
"The rose collapses. The room goes silent. And then—cries."
Still movements of the camera say all that they need.
Blood of a rose drips on dirt of bloody gates leading to the garden.
Dragging, dragging, the wither drags the rose—innocence no longer. The tall man holding the screen shakes, faintly quivering, but forces a smile.
Why?
Its shears beam, without remorse. Picked for a collection undesired, but only for a bouquet to undermine itself—to illuminate the beauty of the prettier roses.
. . .
End.
Condescending, his voice overheard: "Did you see that footage? No stutters, no static. Almost too good, aye? That's how you know it's true." He winks.
It turns dark. However, the reflection of the black screen shows a bright flashing camera, with a smiling crowd of masks behind. Faintly visible—to many this is torture; to others, this is entertainment.
The blue-toothed talker steps into frame. "Well, bearers, shears, roses, and withers—you have all immersed yourself into the truth."
Azure, the tooth shines with a bright grin. "Acts against humanity itself! Can you even say this individual was even human itself?"
"I mean . . . you saw it here. It's the red rose. How shocking . . . not . . ."
He chuckles. "It has come to our attention that the monster responsible for this is evident."
In their cyan room, a projector pops. It renders a photo slowly. A face—known, recognized, loved, hated, regretted.
. . .
"Mashia Var K'drailes!"
My name . . .
A white-haired man with colored eyes, pale skin blending with the white, angel-like features on such a monster. Why do those of such beauty become the worst of the worst? He looked no older than twenty.
"A young man with so much potential, all thrown away in the desire for satisfaction."
Clearing his throat, the blue-toothed fox uttered another lie amongst white teeth. "A young general for the Messengers of Mala. Now tell me, Mala, is this the kind of people that lead your own? What a joke!"
Cackles of a crowd behind the screen deafened; the speaker's face indented his grin, engraved forever on his expression.
"Now, what's more interesting is that this wasn't random . . . it was pre-meditated."
Mercury jumped up and started banging on the wall. Nothing budged—not even a crack in the window.
BANG!
BANG!
"F**k!" he shouted.
It continued to play. Nobody cared.
. . .
"A tragic story of betrayal!" Yulou spread his arms wide outward.
"It started with a simple mission: Inspect the desert connected to Mala. Mashia led his platoon, but he had a little secret . . ."
. . .
Yulou smirked. From his lined pocket of tailored dress pants, a vial of lime-green toxin. "This right here—he used it to wither his entire platoon. They melted, they cried, but he laughed."
No.
"He made them fight like dogs for the last vials! They all disintegrated. Only a field of beautiful flowers remained, caused by a withering one. The wither decided to wither the other—who could've known?"
Cackling. "And he gave each car black boxes in such heat! A precise heat that would make the vial useless in the first place! Especially, he let his friend die."
No.
"Kadir Bakir . . ."
That's not true.
"He had so desired the spouse of his friend that he deliberately planned out the brutality unfolding there! He didn't have to murder his entire crew. So what gives? That's simply something . . . only a monster would do."
Stop.
"Swiping two roses with one slice. Instead, nineteen perished. All because of him, and he escaped with his tail between his legs."
"And the first instinct was to lie. A lie beneath that wig of white strands. Blaming it on his own military, and others. Even the Sklaves, who haven't been in conflict with us in decades. So, who really is it?"
With wide eyes: "He got off free, with a slap on the wrist. What kind of nation is that? His first movement? Go to the wife of his own friend's house—a friend that he cherished—murdered brutally."
Scoffing: "And what he did . . . oh, what didn't he do? Stripping the innocence from a beautiful rose, making her do actions below the lowest, and then slit the voice that yelled out loud as she fell."
"NO!" Mercury roared.
"And better yet! There was a little girl in that home. So who can tell if he had the offspring involved? Defiling, murders, lies, evil in its nature." Yulou faintly smirked, holding back a laugh.
"STOP, STOP IT! STOP! PLEASE, STOP!" Mercury roared louder. It vibrated the entire hotel.
"Some may say it's fabricated—a facade, a fool. But lies wouldn't bloom so gracefully, now would they?"
Snickering: "A general determined for the greater good, now a sadistic monster who calls himself a miracle."
. . .
Selune . . .
"Labeled a kill on sight. Contact the Bearers if you spot this monster. If you make the effort of purposefully not reporting this, you will be accountable for holding a fugitive. And you will face his condemning as well."
. . .
"Other than that, greater processes, my fellow bearers, shears, roses . . . and monsters," he cackled viciously.
. . .
Warping, the window de-realizes to its former fantasy.
A surreal beachside. A home on a beachside was surreal. This was surreal. So, so surreal.
BANG!
Crackle . . .
It finally cracked the window, an earth-shattering javelin of piercing knuckles, colliding with a world that only shows depression, despair, and dread.
Pressing his forehead to the window, he murmurs to his own psyche:
"That's not me. That's not me. That's not me."
Every harrowing memory of Yulou's laugh clouds his thought. Mercury laughs louder. Jagged, broke, untuned—until it was barely even laughter anymore. More like a bawl of lunacy.
"A monster they say . . . they don't know the meaning of monster. I do . . ."
Near-tearful: "The dead daunt me no longer." He smiled. "Now, I make sure they never do it again."
Did I kill? Was there truth among all they spat?
"It's all lies! Lies, I tell you!"
Watching from afar: "So, it's true then," Sara remarked, with a different tone in her voice. Like she forgot the conversation just a moment ago.
"What did you say?" Mercury leaned in, his eyes large, sharp, yellow, and the green drowns out in conflict.
He balled up his fist. He trembles. With hesitation, he attempts to grab her, his arm inching closer as she stares at him, a smile creeping upward.
Nails plunge into his skin; drops of blood leak from his hands.
"Why do you leave whenever things get heavy, Sara? Is there a weight you cannot support? Something on your ticking heart that you know? Are you afraid of being crushed, or afraid if someone notices the way you act, huh?"
"You know, they didn't even have to lie very much. That's the sad part," Sara adds, shamelessly.
Steam emerges from Mercury's mouth. Sara's entire foundation topples like twigs.
An arm gently holds his, an evangelist of empathy.
"Relax," Lisan said.
Mercury shrugged off his arm. "Don't tell me to relax! The whole realm now thinks I'm the worst human alive . . . they hate me, for what?"
"They hated a perfect man once. Why are you surprised? After all, do you believe yourself to be human anymore?"
Blood trickles faster, drops seeping into the carpet of rose color.
Mercury gulps. "My blood—"
"It's not yours. It's pumped by the device I made."
Is it now?
"A device you made, huh . . ." Mercury chuckles. "Say, Lisan . . . isn't it strange? My base ratted me out, yet you get no mention. You get to sit there calmly as I get subjugated. You were the one who decided to save me . . ."
Lisan's golden-brown pupils locked intensely into Mercury's yellow-green spiral of misery.
"What are you here for? To watch me crumble? Because from the looks of it, you're not all innocent."
"Mercury—"
"No. I'm tired. Everyone hides something from me. Why? What's so scary?"
Lisan stayed silent, his eyes shut, as he mumbled what seemed to be prayer to himself.
"You come to me at a moment of despair, save me, and I am brought to my damnation. You expect me to stay calm? People out there want to kill me!"
Sara tenses, her hands palming her knees in impatience.
The replicant stresses: "Did you want this for me, Lisan?"
. . .
"You want to help out, but more people have died around you than saved! All in the name of purity? I can't believe I even somewhat agreed with it!"
"You liked pain, Mercury. Now that it's inflicted on you, do you fold?"
"Now wait, are you saying I deserved this?"
". . ."
He scoffed. "How rich, and what could I have possibly done to earn it?"
"Your cleansing is part of this," the priest asserted.
Lies again!
"Enough with that bullsh*t! So . . . you decide to save me, not even give me any slight information on who you are, guide me all the way here, and coincidentally . . . now I'm already labeled for execution. I wonder, and who could've known about every single detail in the desert?"
Mercury laughed again. "Oh! I know! It couldn't be my base because they only heard bits and pieces. Maybe they fabricated half of it, but the other half . . . was the priest."
". . . I saved you because I saw what you could become. Not because I thought you were innocent."
". . ."
"Mercury, listen."
". . ."
Silence suffocated all three of them.
Mercury finally broke it. "What can you possibly say that can help me out?"
He stayed silent.
Loud footsteps deafened the room.
. . .
Mercury marched near the door. "I'm leaving. I liked you, Lisan. But if it's for the better of us, I'm gone. I don't want to talk right now."
He pounces out the door, his hands still trembling, a frown caving in his face. As he leaves, he exhales all the energy from his lungs.
Nobody's safe with me anymore. Are they all right?
Mercury dashes out the stairwell. He tries pulling off his braid that gets in his face. It doesn't budge.
In the room, Sara de-tenses and gets up, charging quickly out the door.
She yelled, "Wait! Mercury, wait!" The voice echoed as it shriveled, a voice filled with regret.
Lisan stays.
Laying on the black bed, he feels a purification—not one that he was used to.
If only I felt half of what he felt. Maybe then, I could explain. Now, he turns back. Away.
Lies. Lies. Lies. It's all lies!
. . .
Lisan rolls the sleeve of his orange robe. He peers at the five solythebitors resting on his skinny-vascular forearms, with a muscle definition less toned than before.
"To cleanse means to rid," Lisan uttered.
One by one, he snapped off the bracelets lathered in jewels worth fortunes in modern times.
His bare, naked arm. He stares at it for a solid minute—the longest minute he's felt since the desert.
I felt that desert would clean me. It cleaned us both. However, the blood is etched on our hands, and I accidentally smeared more on him.
His robe-concealed right arm lifts itself up, grasps the radius. His thumb presses on the ulna—the base of the forearm.
With a deep breath, he closes his eyes, eyes unworthy of seeing the beauty unfold. A beauty in his image—a sympathy for others.
Instantly—
SNAP!
A bar of soap had snapped. Water leaks from its crevices and tears; the priest smiles.
"Am I forgiven?" he whispers lightly.
Warm water leaks swiftly—water that turns into the color of wine. A wine that isn't desirable, but so beautiful, lathered in roses to enhance their strikingness.
Then—
It stops.
Readjusting itself, the priest hums as the bar replaces itself. A new product. Rejuvenating. The wine dries on the robes and the sheets, as the bar stays intact.
The bar had dismantled itself without shears, yet bloomed once again, like a rose.
Anew.
It purified him.
The priest grins again, but he opens his eyes.
Disappointed.
If only I was forgotten.
Do not fret, Mercury. You are more than man. Than any man can be. You're okay . . .
I apologize.
. . .