Mirror Sky. Part 1 - Blissful Nemesis

19 - Test of Faith

Cold steel box - ten feet long, wide, and tall. A window four inches wide showing the dark and uninviting silhouette of Nebo District. Simple steel furniture welded dead to the floor, walls, and ceiling: a sink, a toilet bowl, a showerhead, a chair, a desk, and a bed. Emerging from the desk was an unyielding lamp, shining greenish holographic light and casting deep shadows from every soulless object in the room. A heavy steel door was almost impossible to distinguish from the wall. It was easy to forget that there was a way out.

The room offered tasteless food on trays, coming out near the bottom of the door on schedule. The room also provided endless educational materials that would show on an airy holographic screen over the desk. Yet, the food remained untouched, and the desk was never used. Artur Huber, the sole inhabitant, spent his days lying on a small steel bed, perfectly sized only to fit his huge body. He was not restrained, yet he was transfixed with scenes of Anna's death rushing before his eyes. Every excruciating detail was burned into his mind, playing a grotesque spectacle on repeat.

He saw how Sonya lifted him up and screamed something in his face. His helmet was deformed, pressing against his skull and piercing his head with pain. Disoriented and claustrophobic, he pushed Sonya away. He straightened up and tried to stop the pain by warping the helmet in any way: hitting it, pushing it, shoving it, even having a mad thought of removing it altogether. Everywhere he looked with his crazed eyes – he saw bodies, blood, fire, and enemies advancing from all sides. The Lepers' movements seemed slow yet inevitable. Standing taller than anyone around him, Artur could see them all: clusters of two to three dozen nearby and the unspeakable numbers further away.

Then, in a gap between the enemy, he saw Anna.

He smiled! He remembered smiling. Or did his tortured mind make it up? Regardless, at the moment, he felt elated watching her, still alive, fighting somebody huge in motorized armor. Her hands were locked with the opponent as she pushed him back.

A sense of urgency ignited in Artur. He had to help her! He had to run to her and—

Anna shook as the tip of a sword came out of her back. Her legs went limp, and she fell to her knees. The enemy extracted his sword from her body, knocked her hands away, and raised the blade high. The next moment lasted an eternity: the split second of the blade hitting her helmet, going clean through her head, neck, and chest. The moment would continue to live in his memory until the end of time.

He could not remember what happened right after. The way he avenged her death disappeared into the nether and left no impact on his mind. The next thing he remembered was sitting over Anna's body. The two parts of her head were a foot apart, her eyes were milky, her mouth opened in horror. He picked her up with his shaking hands and saw her brain move slightly out of her skull.

Now, he would give anything to have a picture of Anna alive. He wanted to see her freckled face and her laughing green eyes. He wanted to look at that picture and reminisce, think of the future they had always imagined together, and pretend that this future was still ahead. He dreamed that Anna was waiting for him outside his cell, that she would burst in and greet him with a crude, hilarious remark and make him red in the face and happy. He would sweep her off her feet and spin her around madly. Then, he would kiss her.

This tiny imaginary world would soon implode, leaving only the unimaginable terror of the real events. Anna's death and her body. Anna's death and her body. Anna's death and her body. On endless cruel repeat.

***

In a steel box, Sonya was in a hell of her creation. She spent her days pacing. Her head, like a crazed computer, was running countless scenarios.