Falling to Conclusions

Fear can make you do crazy things; cry, laugh, scream, even kill. At this precise moment it is causing a man named Joe to run for his life. It is also causing seven members of an unknown faction to chase him. Joe doesn’t know where he is going; only that he has to get away. His chest pulses in and out as his body tries to drag in air to compensate for all the running. His legs ache as he pushes them to go faster. A voice in his head urges him on.

(We need to go faster.)

“Shut up, you think I don’t know that? It’s your fault we’re running in the first place.”

(Gosh, a guy can’t have a little fun.)

“You killed those guys.”

(Correction, you killed those guys. As far as anyone else knows I am just a figment of your imagination. Besides, now you can be certain that the men who killed your family have been punished for their actions.)

“I didn’t need your help; the police would have handled it. Now these guys are chasing us.”

(Less complaining, more running.)

Joe continues sprinting through the autumn colored trees looking for an escape. As he taps into his second wind, he sees sunlight beaming down ahead.

He gets to a bright clearing a good distance ahead of his pursuers. The beginnings of a sigh of relief melt into a sigh of despair. On the other side of the very narrow leaf-filled clearing is a very wide rock-filled gorge. He skids to the edge kicking a few dozen leaves over the edge. Gasping for air with his hands on his knees, he watches as the leaves slowly pinwheel out of sight.

“Hmm, a good 1,000 foot drop followed by slopes of jagged rock. I’ll definitely feel that in the morning.”

(We could make it.)

“Shut up, no we can’t.”

(I could make it.)

“Well, I can’t.”

He takes a step back and puts his hands behind his back as he tries to catch his breath. As he turns around a single man wearing green, brown and black fatigues skids into the clearing. He sees Joe and raises his assault rifle. The gun trembles slightly as the soldier trains it on him. Joe watches as the nervous soldier’s finger tightens slightly on the trigger. A single bead of sweat slides down the soldier’s forehead as he begins to talk.

“W-We-We’re gonna need you to come with us.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

(That’s right, tell him. We aren’t going anywhere with him.)

“Puh-Please, we’re not gonna hurt you.”

“I find that hard to believe. If I remember correctly, you guys were shooting at me not too long ago.”

(Come on, there’s only one of him. We can take him.)

“We just want to talk to you. Do some tests, ask some questions.”

“What if you don’t like what you hear? What if your tests and your questions don’t get you the answers that you want? What then, huh?”

(Why haven’t we killed him yet?)

“Would you shut up already?”

“Wh-who are you talking to?”

“Nobody, okay. I think I’ll decline.”

(Wow, I didn’t think you had it in ya.)

“THAT IS NOT AN OPTION!” a different voice booms from within the trees.

The rest of the group bursts into the clearing, all wearing matching fatigues. Their assault rifles are all trained on him.

“Just answer me one question . . . why do you have to be able to explain everything? Why do you have to know how everything works?” Joe yells with tears of anger welling up in his eyes.

(Are you crying . . . what a baby. How bout less crying and more killing?)

“If it isn’t normal, let’s chase it down and shoot at it with automatic weapons and force it to cooperate. Find out how it works by any means necessary. You people disgust me.”

(If you don’t kill them soon, I will)

“WOULD YOU SHUT UP ALREADY?”

“Sir, I don’t know who you are talking to but we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way”

“Well, as my mother always said, ‘if it’s not hard than it is not worth doing’”

(Whoa, what are you doing . . . they are looking for a reason to kill us)

“If they kill me, you die too.”

As Joe says this he slowly takes his hands from behind his back. A 40 inch sleek, razor sharp, black katana is held firmly in each hand. As they see the blades their fingers squeeze the triggers. Volleys of bullets fly towards Joe, each trying to reach the target first. His swords move lightning fast as he takes into account where on his body they are aiming and tries to deflect as many bullets as possible. Despite his efforts, he’s breathing through a couple new holes by the time they need to reload. They watch anxiously as Joe stumbles forward. The sword in his left hand sticks into the ground and keeps him from falling all the way to the ground. He leans heavily on the sword as ragged shallow breaths tear out of him. Dark red blood stains his shirt and pants in various places. He sways, but manages to stand leaving the sword embedded in the ground. He tries to look at them but the seven soldiers double into fourteen. He shakes his head and tries again but the fourteen soldiers are now swimming in front of his vision. He settles on focusing on the group as a whole, seeing the forest not the trees.

“Did I pass the test . . . Oh well, my answer is still no. If you want my body, you’ll have to fetch it.” Joe slurs.

(You are seriously losing it. You are going to get us killed . . ., no don’t . . .)

Joe spreads his arms and falls backwards off of the cliff. The soldiers dash to the edge and see him falling. He watches as the edge of the cliff and their faces shrink away from him. The wind whips his clothes wildly as it accelerates past him. He closes his eyes, slows his breathing, and concentrates. Suddenly, the sound of the wind slows and then stops. He opens his eyes and sees that he is now floating in mid-air. A faint glow and a quiet hum emanates from his left hand. He looks down and sees that about five feet under him is one particularly sharp shard of black rock that would’ve ended up right through his chest. He also notices that his vision has blacked out on the edged. Something was wrong.

(What did you do?)

“I took over. It’s obvious that you were on a suicide mission with that little stunt you pulled. I did too much work to get this body to just let you destroy us like this.”

He contemplates his grisly death for a second before reorienting himself. Using the power from his hands, he zooms back up towards the cliff edge.

His head pops up over the ridge as the seven soldiers are leaving the clearing. They walk slowly and lackadaisically back into the trees in a single file line. Apparently, his guaranteed death is good enough for them. His anger intensifies with this nonchalant disregard for him as a person. The fact that they don’t really care about retrieving the body pisses him off. They even left his sword exactly where it got stuck in the ground. The nails on his right hand dig into his palm as his grip tightens on the sword. The angry look on his face morphs into a grin. He is going to enjoy what is about to happen.

He floats back onto the cliff and lands silently on the ground. He quietly picks up his second sword and zips to the soldier bringing up the rear. In one swift moment, he puts one sword through his back and uses the second sword to separate his head from his body. The head spins wildly as it tumbles into a nearby pile of leaves. He pushes the soldier’s body out of the way and heads towards the second soldier. The second soldier gets cut down in one stroke starting from his right shoulder and ending at his left hip. As the top half of the body slides away diagonally from the bottom half, Joe sees that the other soldiers have become aware of his presence. Their eyes widen and their mouths hang open as they realize the man that they thought was dead is still very much alive. Joe uses the moment of hesitation to close in. The third soldier is split vertically in half as Joe brings the sword right up through the middle of him splitting him in half like a deli sandwich. He steps through the space the third soldier’s body once occupied and heads toward the fourth soldier. He rams both swords into the soldier’s abdomen and sees the soldier’s eyes widen with pain. He pulls both swords in opposite directions, shredding the soldier’s midsection. He lifts his foot and kicks the soldier sending his body to the ground with a thump. Four down, three to go.

The remaining three soldiers spread out and raise their assault rifles.

“Not this time.” Joe snarls at them.

(Not like this. . . It was never supposed to be like this.)

He spins the swords one time in his hands as he steps over the fourth soldier’s quickly cooling body. Raising the swords in his hands, he throws them at the two outside soldiers. Both soldiers are struck between the eyes before they even get off a shot. The force of the swords knock them both backwards. One of the swords plunges into the ground propping the fifth soldier’s body up at a 15 degree angle. Gravity slowly pulls the body down the blood soaked blade. The other blade pins the sixth soldier headfirst to the gnarled trunk of a nearby tree. This time gravity works quicker and splits his skull as his body slumps to the ground. Joe, now weaponless, bravely strides toward the last soldier.

As the final soldier goes to shoot, Joe grabs the end of his gun and quickly shoves it up. The single shot the soldier gets off intertwines with the painful crunch of bones as the gun sight collides with his nose. The shot flies harmlessly into the air above their heads. The final soldier stumbles backwards struggling to pull air through his bloodied nostrils. The strap attached to the rifle (still in Joe’s hand) keeps him from falling. Joe pulls the barrel of the gun down a couple of inches and jams it under the soldier’s chin. The soldier is still dazed from his new breathing impairment and doesn’t even realize what is happening. The automatic fire perforating his brain quickly takes care of his need to breathe. Joe’s grin widens into a smile as he looks at his work.

“They were right to fear me,” Joe thinks to himself.

(Not . . . . . . like . . . . . this. . .)

He prepares to go retrieve his swords when a mysterious pain stops him in his tracks. His head feels like it is about to split open. He slams his eyes shut trying to not pass out. When he reopens his eyes, all he can see is a bright orange light. He blinks a couple times and realizes that he is on his back staring up at the setting sun. He looks down and sees a sharp blood-stained rock protruding from his stomach, looking like a blood volcano just sprouted out of his chest. His mind struggles to come to terms with what has just happened but his eviscerated mid-section makes it hard.

He tries to speak but all that comes out of his mouth is a splatter of blood. It was all in his mind. No miraculous survival, no sweet revenge, no daring escape. Just a terrified man sprawled, broken and bloodied, at the bottom of a rocky gorge. He lived his life in fear and it was this fear that eventually drove him to his death. At least the voice in his head is finally quiet. His gasping breaths slow as the last thing he sees is the sun slipping beneath the horizon.

Fear can make you do crazy things; cry, laugh, scream, even kill. Right about now, it was the last thought that crossed Joe’s mind as his brain seeped out of his shattered skull.