Chapter Text
TILL POV : CHAPTER 0, THE VOICE I LEFT ON THE STAGE.
Recovering from an attack directly aimed at my carotid pulse was the worst and best thing I ever did. I grew up in a secluded place when the aliens took over. It was loud, stuffy, and really... entrapping. People lurked around every corner, so did aliens, and no one knew who each other truly were. We were all trying to survive the stage, for once you were on it, there was no going back. And if there was? someone out there is either dying to or for you. Then the usual story goes, if you continue you'll eventually die to the guy everyone knows. Luka. A picture perfect doll the kids thought the aliens made out of one of their own, one to conquer the stage at a moments notice. Captured in the stage lights to shine, and anything above that. I was one of the troublemakers, for a time. I hated doing those stupid tests, ever since they separated me and my mom, I could never even come to like or appreciate those monsters, and I don't think I ever will. Being a troublemaker though, it got me exposure, it got me fame, it got me a lot of things not just any ordinary goody-two-shoe in the garden would ever dream of. Despite the screams of agony while I was being held down, told off, and constantly belittled... there were 3 other people in my life that would help tend to my injuries when they'd try to beat me into innocence. It never worked, partially because I'm my mothers son, but partially because I had friends who at the end of the day were fighting the same battle, the same people, just in a different way. For a time, it stayed like this. Still. Had my typical crush on every guys crush, the girl with pink hair--Mizi. Also still had my best friends, Ivan and Sua. Something about being able to grow up with those three... it truly made life worth living.
Until it didn't. One by one they were killed... or so I thought. I mean I had nothing else to think, an abusive alien owner and a naive kid who didn't know better besides throwing fists and drawing my friends memorials. Sua was the first to go, I think. Her and Mizi, they were two of a kind. One aloof but deep down felt more than what she let on, the other the same but opposite, the other emotional but numb deep down. I didn't get it back then, back then I thought emotions were.. irritable? The one thing I expressed far more than I wish I had, I hated how emotional I was compared to my friends, so often I thought them of an obstacle.
Sua went first, similar to me, shot right in the carotid pulse. Except they didn't miss, she went down un-naturally and her blood pooled the stage. I watched Mizi's face drop as fast as Sua's body hit the floor, a sight I'll never forget. She had to be torn from her partner's body, wishing--hoping she was somehow alive. The next one... was the very same girl I had a crush on. The same girl that witnessed Sua's death, that was the cause of Sua's death, or so I thought.
Going against the king as well, when behind the beautifully expensive silks were fear and cunning traits--and chaos erupted. One of Luka's tactics to win every war was illusion. Illusion of friend and foe, one that blurred the line between enemy and lover. Cruel. The golden eyed girl couldn't handle it, exploding like a glass that's been hit right on its pressure point. Tackling The Star before her with a relentless violence one only grief could fuel. Knuckles slamming against Luka's face, a beating I thought he didn't deserve at the time and wished Mizi would stop so she would have a chance to live. Smoke filled the stage and I heard gunshots, assuming the worst, I thought that was the end of my childhood infatuation, and a dear friend of mine.
The one that's haunted me the entirety of it, if the others hadn't already, was Ivan's. We never even dreamt of the moment. Sharing the stage together, looking out into the crowd that craved bloodshed, that wanted to see humans perform for sport... It was all so much. So much in little time... What made this one different from my previous debut was that not only was it someone I knew personally, but it was someone who sacrificed themself for me. I never understood why he did it back then. He pretended to choke me on stage after the performance we'd just finished and... he got himself killed. Smiling as he went down, I'd never come to terms with his death, not until I was older. I'd never understand why he did that to me, to himself, not until a few days ago.
The final sacrifice was my own. Watching all of my friends drown themselves in their own blood, it was sickening. A different kind of cruel that would make the Devil look the other way. I gave up. It was my final round, my final day. I was so... numb. I didn't want to feel. I didn't want to remember the sensation of Ivan's hands around my throat, I didn't want to remember what I was doing on that stage, I didn't want to remember any of it. I just wanted it to stop. To end this horrible life, to watch it come to an end as many others before me had already. I'd never yearned for death as long as I had when I was on stage with Luka. His purple fingertips and blonde lashes were the things I'd never forget. Impersonation is what he did, it's how I found out how he lived so long. Yet even with all of the odds stacked against me, no matter how much I wanted to die, no matter how much suffering it took... I was willing to fight for freedom. Trying hard to keep up with his stupid song, the catchy rhythm, keeping up with my strumming strings, it was all so nauseating and stomach churning. I never gave up though, because she'd never want me to give up. Because they would never want me to give up.
I continued to sing, continued to riff... but what really made it all better--what made that night so memorable--Mizi. Her pink hair, blue tips chopped off, uneven yet just as ravishing as the night I lost her. Nearing the end of the song was my end of fighting, was nearing the end of my suffering. I reached for her in my final moments, or so I thought they were, and I heard my guitar give out before I heard it. BAM! Oh how quick it was. One second my body was gravitating to hers, the next it was on that stage, staining it with the blood. My blood. I thought I was a goner, I thought I was in a dream, in a dream where Mizi put my head in her lap and caressed my hair. A dream where I could let go, where I didn't fight anymore, for she would fight for me. Putrid. The sight, the sound of my mic peaking when I hit the floor, the feeling of death, the thought of my final moments. Drifting in and out of consciousness, trying to fight since that's all I've ever done. In a last ditch attempt at claiming my life as mine and not the aliens, my hand reaches up to the girls face. My fingertips barely graze her cheek, and I can feel my saliva turn to the copper taste. Disgusting. Disgusting but true. I don't remember anything after that. Just... my arm fell back to my side, and everything went quiet again, just like it did when we still in the garden.
but then I woke up, never saw the woman again.
TILL POV : CHAPTER 1, THE VOICE I LEFT BEHIND.
Ever since that day I shared the stage with the performing equal of a emperor, I could never get over what happened to me that night. From the coma, from the lasting affects of a lack of voice, nothing escaped my lips but cries and sobs for months. Months spent waking up, re-learning to eat since now because my throat would force it up at times, re-learning things weren't always negative, re-learning the black and white thoughts and glaring between them. A mid-tone gray, the one that carried peace and carried my friends who I thought were dead--who I thought left me as a lone survivor. Dewey and Isaac were the two rebellion members who helped get me to safety, and also helped me re-learn a lot of the things I thought. Think of solutions to my lack of speech, to help bandage my neck when I scratched it relentlessly. For a time it was hallucinations. Ivan was on my mind more when he was dead rather than when he was alive. Constantly he blamed me, constantly he just smiled in the corner of a room full of people, yet somehow my eyes were to only his and not those who wanted to help me.
Continuously was the visual and auditory delusions. One moment he'd act tender with me, his arms would wrap around my neck at some points, and others he'd just talk. Talked a lot more in my mirages than he ever did when I knew him in spite being a chatterbox. Things like "A child who's nothing but a burden." "You're the one who called me, Till." His favorite taunt. "Keep going?" As to mention my throat which I constantly found myself scratching at until it bled. It was like that for... as long as I could remember. Not until a few nights ago I realized he'd made such a lasting impression on me, but not for the reasons I thought. For all this time, I thought I was daydreaming about him because he betrayed me in his final moments. His fingers wrapped around the thing that connected my heart and my head--I always thought that he did that because he didn't know the consequences. But as the days passed, I began to remember why he was such a fond memory to begin with.
Always, he'd spot me in a crowd of other kids like a metal detector beeping over a piece metal found in the sand. Always, he'd linger in my presence like the spine to my body I never realized I needed. Always he used to undo the shackles of mine that would bug and bother me for weeks all because Urak would force me to behave. Lastly, we'd talk to the flowers together, since not many could stand my brash and loud personality, I used to talk to them like they were the friends I wanted. Most times Ivan would join me to chant cheer up! to the little flowers that sprouted in the garden. After rethinking those memories, rethinking where it all went wrong, I came to realize his feelings for me. The genuine touch of affection that looked to be violent to the way he copied my mannerisms just to see me laugh. That's when the hallucinations stopped and my real life began.
Alas, I returned to the same garden that tied me down when I was too rowdy. Saving children who were just like me, and becoming an important and crucial part to The Rebellion. To my surprise though, there wasn't a lot of robotic guards in front of the premises. Well. Not as many as there usually are. Smooth, the day was. The vast, red and orange wasteland met the children's eyes when they arrive back to the surface on my bike. Seeing their faces like up all at the same time was laughable. So as I gently pat the pillion in which the small children sat neatly inside of, I'm suddenly met with a loud collision noise ringing in my ears. It was abrupt. Thankfully it hadn't hit me nor the children, but something was certainly off after it. Everything continued as normal, the five children were safely transported from Point A (the garden) to Point B (the place where the rebellion were stationed). However, for whatever reason, I felt uneasy. That same loud bang back there whenever the kids were being delivered... it didn't sit right with me. I stayed back, writing to Dewey that I was going to be out for a few more minutes to "patrol the area".
Leaving the place where I was so afraid to escape originally was easy for me now.
being modified thanks to beta-readers notes!! fair warning, 1st person will be turned in 3rd. Thank you for the kudos' & hits!!! MORE CONTENT SOON TRUST :DD