Walking With My Enemy

By Michael Miller

     The woman ducked through the doorway and popped her neck with a yawn, then scanned the destruction before her.  The streets were cracked and pitted, and covered in debris.  The houses around her had all manner of damage, some of them partially demolished, others singed and blackened, still others seemed to have become ruined under flood.  The skyscrapers in the distance were just the same, and many of them had crumbled and lost much of their height.

     Someone chuckled, “It’s about time you woke up.”

     The woman scowled, “I had hoped you’d be gone by now.”

     “You know I’ll always be around you, for as long as you deny your nature.”

     The woman walked off and shifted her pack over her shoulder, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.  It’s the same thing with you, every time we talk.  I keep telling you, I’ve left my past behind.”

     The other laughed, “You don’t honestly think you’ll ever pass off as normal in any society, do you?”  The woman shuddered, so the other continued, “That’s right, you can’t possibly forget about your wounds.  And who would ever stop to help you fix them?”

     The woman brought her hand up and touched the tear on her face.  She could feel the cold steel of her skull beneath it and shivered.  She then pulled her other hand up and stared at it, the charred, synthetic flesh mocked her as it hung in tatters from her cold metal bones.

     The woman clenched her hand a couple time, then shook her head, “Someone will accept me.  The world is a vast place, and I’m sure there will be a society that will welcome an android.”

     The other chuckled, “Oh yes, I’m sure that you’ll find a society that accepts androids, but what about the rest of you?”

     The woman clenched her jaw, “I told you, the past is behind me, I’ve changed my ways.”

     “Those stumps on your back tell another story.  How would you explain them to anyone?  Who would accept you after they saw those?”

     The woman twitched what little remained of her wings and felt sick at the thought.  She could still feel them, even after having torn them off.  It was just like any other amputee; sometimes they feel the missing limb.  The leathery stumps were proof enough of what she once was.

     “You never know; some hellsworn have found peace in the world amongst communities that will accept them.”

     “Bullshit!” the other shouted.  “You know as well as I do that anyone who worked for the demons is an enemy, both of mankind and of androids.  Face it; you’re an outcast, a freak… a heretic!  You took the wrong side during the war, and everyone you meet will make you pay the price.”

     “Shut up!” the woman cried out as he slammed her fist against a building.  “Lies!  All you ever do is lie!  Why can’t you leave me alone?  I’ve atoned for my sins; I tore off my wings and made peace with the angels!  Anyone worth knowing would be able to see that!”

     The other laughed, “Yes, someone in a community might accept you, but what about the rest of them?  I can see it now: pitchforks and torches, like something out of a monster story; the citizens crying out for blood, the blood of a hellsworn!  You’ll die!  You’ll be put on a pole and burned alive.  Shit, they might hang you, if you’re lucky; but what about the people who want torture?”

     “Nobody will torture me…”

     “I can hear them now, their cries for justice: ‘My father died because of your kind.’  ‘It was creatures like you that took my family.’  ‘I want to watch you suffer, just like the others like you made me suffer.’  It’ll be a glorious day, a day of blood soaked streets and weeping angels.  Is that what you want?  To make the angels cry because you just proved that mankind’s prejudice didn’t die with the demons?”

     “Shut up!” the woman screamed.  “Leave me alone!”

     The other laughed with all the darkness of the night sky, “I’ll always be here, just to remind you of what you once were: Malevolence, Hellsworn of Carnage, Master of the Third Regiment of the Crimson Order, Slayer of Thousands, Reaper of Life!  You can never get rid of me, because you can never get rid of that title!”

     The woman covered her eyes and stumbled through the streets as she fought back tears, “Angels, give me strength.  I know it is nothing, and I know I can ignore her…”

     “What is this now?” the other said with sick satisfaction.  “Are you crying to your new masters?  What could they possibly offer you that the demons couldn’t?”

     “Redemption…” the woman muttered.  “I pray to them…”

     “What do you pray for?  For them to get rid of me?”

     A solitary laugh escaped the woman, “No, no, you are my burden, not theirs.  I pray that they may give me strength to ignore you.  Some day you’ll be gone, and I’ll never have to talk to myself again.”

     “Fat chance,” the other said.

     “Shut you up, didn’t it?” the woman said.

     There was no response, and the woman was alone amidst the ruins.  The voice was gone… for now.