Choice

Drenched by the moist vapours of the sewage, Victor was surrounded by the silhouettes of clattering rats and snorkeling alligators lurking in the murky, stench-filled waters of Crime Alley's loo.  To them, he's no different than a sultry, melting cup of fleshy Gelato. But he doesn't have time to think about his new neighbours. As he attempts to catch and hold his breath, he contemplates the events that preceded by. His entire crew was ambushed by Alberto's gang. Tributaries of blood gushed down their chests, converging like the fertile Nile delta. Shortly after, their lifeless bodies were incinerated and dumped by the same gutters he resides in now, munched on by the "little nibbly darlings" Alberto often calls them. Their cousins were squealing and chirping along the crepuscular corridors adjacent to him, sniffing at a possible late-night dessert. He limped carefully through the narrow, dark passage, hoping to find an unlikely exit.

Why did he have to escape? Why was he the only man lucky enough to escape? After all, he only had a despondent brother to call as family. He could still remember the day Lieutenant James was completely knocked out in a friendly 'Bourbosket' game; invented by his curly-haired, baby-faced subordinate himself. You take a shot of Bourbon, followed by a shot at the hoop at the local basketball court. It was another terrible night, not very dissimilar to today. His brother was admitted to a Juvenile detention centre for distributing adult toys to octogenarians outside the old folks home.  He convinced them it was a massaging device, apparently, soothing their skin from getting wrinkles. When good old Jack first heard about it, he burst into tears. It was hard to distinguish whether it was hysteria or a tearful outburst because his face turned cherry red, while his face was sucked into his nose like a compressed vacuum bag. Victor could see an indeterminate figure surveying through the vicinity. He'd like to think it was James. A small, mischievous crack broke through his lips.

"I'm sorry, did he ask them to rub it in their mouth?" He continued with his manic episode. Victor was annoyed, with his eyebrows raising ominously and his forehead creasing downwards. Usually, this means the guillotine, but James wasn't one of them. Once he composed himself, James gave an assertive pat on Victor's back.

" Look, we all know Novak's a dipshit. Sooner or later, no matter what we did, he was going to end up there." Victor was offended, with a deeper shade of red forming on his forehead. "Oh, so you're now you're saying that my brother is just a leech?" James gave an intense stare, signalling that he was serious. 

"Hey, you forgot about Cal? We both came from the same mother, but he ended up on the other end of the precinct."  His voice lowered and calmed, whispering with a comforting voice, like his late mother. "I know what you feel. I also know what will make you feel." He reached out for a bottle of Bourbon and placed it just below the bench where they both sat. "What do you say, eh?"

"You know, a hint of Bourbon keeps the blues away." Victor reached out for the opalescent, smooth rims of the bottle, only to realise it was a tiny hanging pipe erected from a dilapidated wall. This time, Victor could not hold back his tears. The very same source of happiness through the 3 years of chaos navigating this city extinguished right in front of his eyes. His dead, twinkling eyes revealed the empty husk of the multifaceted man he was. Those 26 years he spent on this blue rock ended as a doll, a toy to be puppeted by the strings of methamphetamine-snorting dons and the smiling Buddhas at the temple of Justice. As the flames rushed to his brushy, adorable mop of hair, the only visible remains of his mutilated colleague, while the laughing maniacs made a run for it. He was just standing right above them, on the upper balcony of Alberto's palazzo. The happiness we derive is a mere memory, but pain is an imprint. A tattoo. As he leaned close to the mini conduit, fidgeting over its rim, Victor wondered, was life worth living?

"No, Victor." A deep, menacing voice diffused and echoed throughout the corridors. Victor jerked upwards, shifting his attention from the pipe to a dark trace of a man in a narrow crevice just ahead of him. He had sharply contrasting white eyes, although it wasn't clear to Victor whether he was hallucinating or not. "Life is meaningless. The busts you cherished, the losses you buried, they don't mean anything in the grand scale of Earth, let alone the universe."

Victor rolled his eyes. "Let me guess, you're some batshit edge lord in a spandex costume lecturing Schopenhauer."

The voice boomed further. "You know very well who I am. Regardless, I have an offer for you."

 Lending an ear, Victor faced the crevice. "I'm listening."

"You attach yourself to the primal

 desires of man when experiencing everything and anything in your insignificant life. What happens to you isn't special to you. It's a vicious, insane cycle that occurs to everyone but only at different times. You... mere mortals always exhibit the same, whiny tantrums.  Are you a coddling infant?"

He tapped his feet impatiently on the muddy stew of feces and rat piss. "Get to the point."

The voice became muffled and softer. "End all of this. End all this worthless suffering endured by mankind for the past 2 million years. That way, Earth can be left in peace, whatever that's left. That way, you will finally achieve your mission."

Victor placed his hands over his waist, looking down at the waste-laid path. "And what's that?"

"Coalesce with the same Earth you came from. Pay tribute to your mother who has suffered the insolence of her children."

This sent him scratching over his head. 

Whoever the nutjob was, he wasn't 

wrong. No matter how well we develop our notion of justice, injustice will always seep and limp through. One miss, 2,500 years of morals and ethics go down the drain. We outdid ourselves, creating mind-boggling structures of worship, rumbling automobiles and stimulating sexual enhancers just to satiate our one drop of curiosity that leaked thousands of years ago. Mankind is steadily crawling to its destruction. Maybe, we could just end it all earlier.

"Just for the corrupt thousands, we eliminate the billions who are innocent? For friends like James, for mothers like Janice?" Victor asked with his fingers placed on his chin, with his left eye hesitantly shifting towards the crevice while his right eye attempted to avoid any contact whatsoever."The children of whom you claim to be 'innocent' will not be like them. Their descendants will be corrupted eventually.  Augustus and Nero. Alexander and Ptolemy. How many more ripples can humanity and your home withstand? How many more lives are going to be lost in the future without cause? Since humanity is unable to achieve true immortality, the only factor that matters in the life of a universe, it must be wiped out. Then, the tears will evaporate into oblivion. The wounds heal and the glorious howls of the wolves will finally bring tranquillity to us, and Earth."

He could not believe what he was hearing.  The extinction of our own family, just to end the existential pain ourselves? The chaotic, bustling streets of Central Square, the spicy Hokkien Mee at Chinatown, the smiles and epochs of laughter James, Roddick and Janice brought to his otherwise miserable life. The simplicity and wisdom of Tibetan Monks high up the plateau smiling through the absurd lives of Homo Sapiens. All of those moments would be gone, lost in time.But it's for the better. He needs to do what's right for us, for Earth.

With a resigned look, he veered into the crevice one last time. "You're right. I assume you have some diabolical plan of some sort?"

The alley went completely silent. Nothing at all.

Aside from a weak echo from the narrow, mossy creek next to it, there was no sign of him. He waddled through the dirt,  attempting to squeeze himself through the crevice, exerting his entire body weight on it. It felt like going through an oversized rusty cheese grater, brushing and scraping his skin mercilessly over the jagged, sandpaper rocks clamping him. As he finally rolled out on the other side, he caught a glimpse of a spiralling staircase, with a golden hue of light caressing the dark void surrounding it. Victor ascended with all the remaining energy he had, only to find himself back in Crime Alley's streets. The rumbling of cruiser motorcycles and the snickering of hobos just behind him embraced his soul tightly.

"Hello, Mark?"

Over the phone was Victor's superior Captain Mark.

"Hello? Victor, are you safe? What happened to the bust? Don't tell me James lost his magnum again..."

"I'll...explain everything to you later. Things have gone south. I need backup." Victor leaned behind the lampposts, not sure where to hide his face in such a narrow pole.

"Can't do. The commissioner is with that...creature hunting for someone in Chinatown. He suspended reinforcements of any sort till the situation there eases. The bulk of the force is there."

A disdainful smile, and a chuckle followed. As usual, the commissioner, who bore a striking resemblance to Theodore Roosevelt manages to follow the exact opposite methods of his doppleganger. The sheer insanity of the police department.

"Just remember Mark, you were not there for me today." After cutting the call off, Victor hailed for a taxi.

"Where are you headin?", the taxi driver chided.

"The State Nuclear facility." He said sniffling  proudly, with his grin extended throughout his small, round face.