The emperor of The Blazing Empire, the governor of the Order of the Quppis; General Owen Sawer in all his actions thrived to make something crystal clear to all the citizens of Dexter: that there was no soft side to the present situation and that no one was spared and that the fact that they were Dexterrans was a huge grievance that they were going to pay for brutally and painfully. He reminded himself every day of what he should be: a pernicious, ferocious beast who was completely devoid of emotions and whose place in the ecosystem was to tear people apart. Every day, he got closer to becoming that person and farther from the person he used to be: a soldier, still fierce and deadly but willing to sacrifice himself for his nation. And he was on the brink of doing that in the Pelican war.
He had two bullets in his chest but he kept shooting because he knew that if he stopped, Dexter would officially be defeated and handed over to their neighbours, the Norton Islands (The Pelicans). Only him had refused to surrender or back off because he knew that the future of the nation was at stake.
It was until the smoke had come down and the war had ended that he realised that his vest was soaked with his own blood. What mattered to him the most was the victory and he had single-handedly done it.
And then, the day had come when he believed he should have his well-deserved award and celebrate it happily. All through his childhood and youth days, he had never felt entitled to anything, he saw himself as a pushover because he was and it crunched his self-value to nothing. For the first time in his life, he felt he deserved something to hold in his hands, to be really happy about and it was at that point that he had lost it all. The nation had cheated him and with the rest of his time in solitude, his heart bled in sorrow.
Then one day his heart stopped to bleed and he started to see the picture in a very different light, a dimmer light. The nation might not have actually neglected him, maybe he was not meant to be there, maybe he was supposed to be someone else, someone less benevolent. Someone a lot less benevolent and noble and heroic.
He knew what would have happened if the Pelicans successfully invaded Dexter. They would take over it as suzerain and exploit its resources and people. Now, Sawer took that job in his hands and planned to do it in a less interesting way. The plan was going well, with the wastelands and large cemeteries across the island to show for it.
General Sawer picked up the vibrating telephone and fixed it against his ear. ‘We’ve found him. His name is Dale Eagan. Twenty-one years old. Five foot one. He is newly extradited, having spent nine months and fifteen days in prison’, the sniper man, who was usually sent to track down those people who were moved out of the prison to New Mexico, said. It wasn’t just a statement, it was a question, an inquiry to know the actual fate of that prisoner who thought he was finally free. Keep or Kill.
One thing that Sawer found very juicy about his position, about the kind of power he now held was the ability to determine the future of someone else’s life; if there would even be any future at all or not. It was the Ritual of Caprice and it was juicy because of the extra layer of fear and dreaded anticipation it brought to the victims. It was the notion behind The Death Toast, to make everyone frightened of death and then pick one. It was the notion behind every exercise of his terrorist group. To kill people based on caprice and then spare the others temporarily. And Dale who had thought he was completely out of the mess was going to face it yet again. This time, not by the unrolling of papers or by randomly picking a named plank but from the very horse’s mouth. Beast, in this case.
‘Hmm’, Sawer inhaled. What am I going to do with this one? He thought with dopamine released in his brain and saliva bursting in his mouth. He filled his empty cup with Chardonnay and raised it to his lips.
Sawer was insecure and he was quick to detect and take out potential threats to him before they grew insuperable. He never trusted bitter men not even when they were extradited. Rage wasn’t something that could be tamed or had a limit. The Order of the Quppis was a product of his rage and inexplicable hatred for Dexterrans. Now, here was a twenty-one-year-old kid who had gotten into the prison when he was just twenty. Never trust a young man with rage, he cautioned himself.
‘Kill him’, he said to the sniper and hung up. And that was final.
It had always been like that. Only few of those exiled prisoners were kept and actually left to go free, to start a new life. The other ones whose names or perhaps, age or height made Sawer feel a little uncomfortable were going to be tracked down along the streets of New Mexico, followed and shot death. Evading The Death Toast and getting picked during The Redemption was not the last deathly hurdle that Boorbunk and at large, The Blazing Empire posed in any case.
The sniper returned to his position, ready to do his task. Only that when he put on the flashlight and looked through the lens of his M24 SWS, there was nothing to see, no sign of any human.
Goddamit! The man cursed and got to his feet. With each step, he raised his gun in every direction using the flashlight to look for his prey.
Terrible rats! Meanwhile, there was Dale who was now walking on the bridge. No matter how tough he could grow or how old he would get or how fearlessly he would speak to a governor even in the face of getting killed, Dale would always be scared of rats. And sure enough, yellow-eyed giant wood rats. Just before he closed his eyes to sleep under the bridge, Dale had felt something fall on his upper chest. His eyes opened at once and what had first appeared to be a swarthy cat, because of the yellow lights glowing from its eyes, was a large heavily-furred rodent, squeaking endlessly. He shrugged off the animal and leapt to his feet, fleeing the entire area.
He still wanted to sleep really bad and until he found another shed, he was going to manage to stagger around half asleep. He could not see anything and maintaining his balance was hard to do. He had his hand held firmly against the metal railing that bordered the road, like a benumbed zombie.
Then few metres behind him was the sniper trying to aim the gun at the back of Dale’s head which was difficult; owing to the haphazard swinging of his drowsy head and the moonlight was not very sufficient for perfect positioning of his gun; all the more frustrating was the inky black uniform that the exiled prisoners of Boorbunk put on, blending with the outside darkness. He knew he had to take his chances before the prisoner could figure out that someone was following him. He sighed and steadied himself. He raised the gun and captured the core of Dale’s body.
Three…two…one. The blast rumbled through the empty air, delivering Dale from his sleepwalking. He suddenly fell to the ground and turned his head to see a man chasing him.
No, not again, Dale panicked and stumbled away from the ground, running as fast as he can. I’ve made it out of Boorbunk, I am not dying here anytime soon. He looked behind his shoulder and he could see the man chasing him; he was dressed in that armour he had seen on some many other people so frequently in the past and he was carrying something on his left hand that Dale was going to take as a rifle, that must have made the sound earlier. Also, the man had that exact K sign – that the Boorbunk executioners had on their vests – on his vest
It was a long race that Dale knew would not end anytime soon. He could still hear the chasing man’s boots hitting the ground hard, running as if his life depended on it. And Dale could hear his own strenuous panting, he was moving with more speed than he had ever needed to run with because well, his life depended on it.
The man shot again, this time Dale had to scream because he felt the metal whiz past his elbow. He needed to run faster but now adrenaline wasn’t even enough to keep him going. His body ached desperately and he could feel his heart about to stop pulsating. Oh God! Dale sighed and just kept going although at a near-jogging pace, he knew how much he needed to pull past this. His life journey was going to be empty and without value if he gave up now; nothing would matter anymore.
Nevertheless, he stopped and faced the man who was still running to him. He had a grin on his face, nothing was more heart-warming to a predator to see a surrendering prey. Dale shut his eyes not wanting to see the man raise the gun to his head.
You want to end it like this, boy! He heard a voice in his head roar in his head.
NO, Dale replied and in that split second, he made up his mind. He had to do what he had to do in that moment before the man got in point-blank range. He opened his eyes and looked behind the railing. Seventy metres below the road was a lake. He looked again at the man who was already raising the gun to his prey and straightaway, he jumped off the road and dived headfirst into the water. He wanted to raise his head back up to catch air but the sound of bullets he could hear told him to stay put. He could see the ripples that the bullets were making in the water.
The sniper pulled out a torch and checked through the water, looking for a ripple that would suggest the presence of someone but it was calm, the only movement propelled by the night’s breeze. He shoved his hand into his back pocket and dialled a number on his phone.
‘Dale Eagan. Cleared!’, he announced with the bored inflection with which he had disclosed the deaths of hundreds of other redeemed men. He gave off a sigh, dumped his phone in his pocket and walked off with his gun suspended from his shoulder, disappearing into the night.
Dale couldn’t hold it anymore as he could feel water getting into his nose. He raised his head out of the water and gave out a loud gasp, coughing out the water and catching all the air he could breathe. Later on, he swam to the other side of the road. He lay on the ground, feeling weaker than before. The energy in his body was not enough to sustain him and it was that time that he shut his eyes.
The next time he opened his eyes, the three things that confronted him was: the brightness of the morning sun, a question posed at him and an old sporting rifle facing his nose.
‘Do you work here?’, the short, beefy man asked again.
Dale shot his hands in the air and struggled to keep his eyes open amidst the blinding sunlight. He stood up to his feet and looked behind him. The ground he had lay was a construction site, a railway construction site. He looked back to the man who still had a gun pointed at me. ‘I am sorry, I didn’t mean to trespass, I don’t work here…but I can’, he said.
The man kept his gaze at him for some while before he slowly dropped the gun. ‘Follow me’, he said.
Just like that, Dale thought to himself. Probably, they needed more hands on the railway.
‘Sir, can I get a place to eat?’, he asked.
The man remained silent and just walked on, Dale followed. He led him to a place that appeared to be a pub.