Bulletproof Heart

What was this, a star scrapping the tumultuous realities that had been driving me in resplendence of my anger? A halt in the dreadful proceedings of caring for someone and watching the life fall out of their eyes with an audible weight? It seemed impossible; perhaps I had slipped into the foolish disability of a dream? No… this was more real than anything I had seen in my state of imprisonment, like a light had been shone in the dark recessed of nightmare. She was in some sort of reality, the beautiful woman that faced me now, while my setting and I lay in some sort of blurry-edged fog.

“I love you.” The girl had said. I didn’t even know if I wanted it, hell, maybe some deep cavern in my heart strings, but I knew she did not want that. When around each other, we fought incessantly, like bitter enemies, and I knew for a fact she still hated some part of me. It wasn’t even a question in my mind that this was falsity, once I heard this ominous utterance before her loss of consciousness. Confused beyond belief, I ran my hand through my hair, not knowing how to escape from the dreamland. My hand caught on… something… and so the lengths of fantasy flared, and faded into the bleeding heart of reality.

The wire I had found in my head, I yanked from my temple, finding it connected through a long piercing protrusion: a disgusting needle. My perceptual awareness faded with this, and I began to see a brighter light and feel the harsh glare of realism pressing down on me. I felt further the circumference of my sweating forehead, finding more metal clips and plastic and lengthy wires. I yanked all that I could find, a dizzy sensation penetrating my psyche as I plunged willingly into a harsh cold room, but the relief wasn’t yet set in. My state was neither the best of health, nor was it the sanest. Medical equipment was strewn about in the worst way possible. The IV that had been sticking out of the back of my hand, feeding me liquid sustenance, was soon unceremoniously ripped out. My eyes juddered in their sockets at what they observed around me: a medicinal jail built for the body, whilst the mind was at some far-off utopia. I was just thankful not to be strapped down, or wearing the atrocity of an open-backed hospital gown.

Adrenaline pumped through my veins like the riotous sounds of an angry mob. The door wasn’t open, but neither was it strong, it was a hospital-type room, after all. Kicking it down with a quick run up and a (now sore) foot; was the easy part. Even killing the guards was easily achieved, their own pocket knives were easy to attain, as my hands were quick with ferocity. Then it became time to pull a Star Wars; I stole one of the man’s uniforms and dragged them back into the room that had detained me so.

This was one of the few times that I was thankful for the fact that our enemies were masked. Despite my hesitations, I knew for a fact that Anita rescued me and I had to return the favor. It was certainly true that the Sad Man’s lackeys were silent at all times, as their esteemed leader was. I asked one for directions, using a bit of sign language I had picked up in Battery City. I wondered briefly if we were in Battery, but I sincerely doubted it. I would have been under far more overwhelming stress and captivity, were that the case. It was doubtful that the Sad Man knew my citizen identity or my Killjoy one.

The directions my ‘fellow’ had given me were precise even literal. I came to find myself at the husk of a cell, but the window leading into this one was covered. I could be walking into a trap, but the risk was quite worth it. The identity card strapped to this man’s belt was useful in accessing the terrible room that held Anita Valentine caged. The walls resounded with the omnipresent vocal fibrillation of the Sad Man. I observed him, noting the tiny bead of sweat that stemmed from that flatness of his lack of face.

“If she doesn’t awake in 24 hours, kill her. Comatose people are no fun. Make sure to wake up the boy first so he can watch. Make sure to wake up the boy first so he can watch. Make it last for him.” My hands balled into tenuous fists, but I masked it by grabbing the door handle aggressively.

“Yes, sir,” Said the man with Anita’s fragrant blood on his hands; my jaw tightened in natural response.

“Actually, Greeves, you don’t have to wait any longer. Our captive audience has arrived.” An overlong skeletal finger pointed in my direction, but I had been ready since ‘wait’ to protect the unconscious wonder. My bland uniform laser blaster was out as soon as possible and the two men now lay on the ground, only stunned. These blasters did not have full power because this horrible Greeves man was the only one allowed to kill. As I struggled to free her from the manacles binding her to the table, the Sad Man shifted. I worked faster, wincing in sympathetic pain at the cuts and bruises that littered any of her skin.

Lifting her onto my back, I lumbered towards the open door with a distinct perceptibility to my heavy-weight footsteps. I glanced back at the Sad Man’s featureless darkness, somehow wishing his death would come at the behest of his own, not his adversaries.

A shot came at me as I made my exit from the room. I felt the singe as a laser grazed my stolen uniform. Luckily, there was a fire door nearby; all Better Living built buildings had them, safety and all that. The rays continued firing after my fleeing legs, seeking the caress of flesh even after the door was closed. A closed-mouth groan escaped from Anita, “I-can-walk.”

Her terrible condition made me hesitant to place her down, but her words and my aching leg induced me to do so. She limped after freedom, gasping and clutching at terrible cuts and burns that turned her skin into a cartographical map made of blood stained lace. “Did you tell them anything?” I breathed heartily in release of anxiety at her negative gesticulation, though her being thrown out of Killjoyhood was trivial in comparison to the sweltering sensation that racked me as a laser blew through my leg. I continued running as if nothing had happened, Anita Valentine was too clogged with pain to note it. I didn’t know if I could survive without her at the camp if we both made it. She was a safety blanket in what we had both experienced.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it if they keep firing!” I grabbed one of the many knives in hidden compartments in the dead man’s jacket and I threw it, effectively taking out one of the two ‘people’ chasing us. My hand ambled in my pocket for a second knife, but before I could retrieve it, Anita ripped the knife out of her arm, and the second man was down without a second thought. I smiled at her skill, despite her obvious agony, and we continued running, though at a far less aggravated pace.

Soon enough we began to recognize our surroundings and we knew just how far away the hollowed out tree was. Anita had to stop for breath, though we were now walking. Blood leaked deep blotches on the back of her bleach prisoner’s suit, looking like outstretched branches of a tree, or haphazard lines of congealing hemoglobin. Feathers of intense pain all converged on the façade she bore so well. In an ill-willed attempt to conceal what so clearly increased every minute, she smiled. It came out as a grimace of depravity. Anita made an effort to utter a slight response, attesting to the supposed well-being of her body. I silenced it by picking her up again, despite her current sentience.

She struggled briefly, protesting that the grievous wound in my leg was too worrisome, due to my pronounced limp, and that I would falter while carrying her. I retorted by gently poking one of the lesser wounds marking her collar bone, and she convulsed in pain, falling silent, argument lost. My need to rest came soon on our ‘merry’ way to the campsite, to retrieve anything that might still remain. We continued soon thereafter, her still unable to walk, and was now complaining bitterly about said disability.

“Wait.” I halted at Anita’s speech. I soon heard what she herself had heard, voices at our very destination. I could barely make out the words, but it wasn’t something necessary because the voices were approaching us, having heard an audible twig snap from our end. We could, of course, only sit there and wait as the finality of our own fates either tied to a close or opened up a possible avenue to civility.

“At my signal,” Stagnantly, I realized that I had a slight recognition of the voice. I looked to my partner’s pursed lips and soon they broke the arctic ice into a smile, eyes lighting up like candles floating on the echoes of deep emerald waters. Realization dawned upon me in a primal essence akin to the selfless rants of pure unadulterated intelligence. My face was afire with a glowing smile that sprouted from the words forming on both of our wagging tongues.

“Commander Fierce!” We bellowed, seething a light jump from the humans on the opposite side of the foliage nearby. A few whispers flew between the search party and the bushes parted to find us tête-à-tête with Commander Fierce and the weapon the officer bore.

“Killjoys… what are you wearing? … Anita, oh my God!” I myself was shocked at the sight of her, even at how much of her precious blood poured down the length of my arms. Fierce moved to take the girl, but both of us flinched in tandem , her shrinking into my chest, finding herself a hollow to lodge her shaking jaw in. Fierce took a second take, clearly remembering our previous hatred for each other. He/she took a look at my leg and began to question the ability of my feet to hold so much extra weight, with only a quirked eyebrow. I mouthed the eternally sound words, ’I’m okay.’ and Fierce backed off. I took a minute to soothe Anita, who would not discontinue her paranoid shaking for anything. My efforts were moot. My fears had nearly been confirmed.

They broke her.

“We sent out a search party when neither of you made the rendezvous. That was three days ago. You can fill us in on the way. Come on, we need to get back to our vehicle, it’s only a half mile away, think you can make it?” My leg was quite questionable, but Anita contacted me with her eyes, pleading not to be left alone in a world ignorant of her sufferings. It was only a flesh wound that hindered me, I could get over that. This was her sanity on the line. I nodded, sealing a determined destiny of present pain.

It took far too long for us to reach the odd-shaped van. I saw Kitty sitting inside with surgical tools and needles ready to go, Fierce had radioed ahead. Anita murmured into my shoulder, near to dozing off. I shook her lightly, cooing her awake, to my own chagrin.

“Kitty, I’m a universal donor. After you stitch her up you can give her some of my blood.” I was willing to do anything to keep this piece of work alive, even if only to find out why she acted cold one day and warm the next, just because of a trauma, also because I had become fond of her and was sick of seeing her death. Just as Anita was drooling on my chest, she awoke with a huge start, thrashing as I placed her on the gurney.

“No, he can’t donate to me, he’s been shot!” Kitty began to examine the female, after giving my shot a brief glance and directing me to the gauze, and blatantly pulled down Anita’s jumpsuit, exposing hellish lesions on her back. I averted my eyes when Anita turned to face me, “You’re worse-off, I’m fine, just a little torture! I’m stronger than you.” That she was, I chuckled as I got the gauze and removed myself from the doctor’s hell-bent path.

“Yes, I can and I will. I don’t need your consent, you’re not even a citizen of anything, and you’re about to pass out anyways.” Kaleidoscope Kitty had an anesthetic hypodermic in her hand.

“Why? I’m perfectly A-Okay…” with the plunge of a syringe she was out cold and all I could do was wait around needlessly.

Wait and hope she wasn’t all broken.