ISSUE SEVEN - FANFIC

THE DCFuture Underground Fan Fiction group acknowledges that DC Comics owns the concepts behind ENIGMA and other DC characters that may be used here, and ALL related characters and retains complete rights to said characters. These concepts are used WITHOUT permission for NO PROFIT, but rather a strong desire to peer into the future of the DC Universe. This also acknowledges that original concepts presented here are the intellectual property of the author

(taken from The Enigma comic book published by Titus Bird, from ENIGMA #4)

caption: The Enigma followed the Rich Cat onto the roof of his factory.

illustration: The Enigma stands on a higher level, his form a silhouette against the beautiful full moon that silently watches their confrontation. The Rich Cat on the other hand stares defiantly at the Enigma, and in his striped yellow polo shirt and bobulous spectacles, he raises both arms to explain his grand scheme. The huge city expands beyond the horizon. The two stand in a place where the city can be seen in a single glance.

"This'll impress you," the Rich Cat spoke, "In a year or two I'll be the owner of all this. All this, mine. All mine..."

"And then what," the Enigma asked.

illustration: The Rich Cat stands in the foreground, his arms still outstreched. His hippie era get-up is more prominent now, compared to the Enigma's purple cape which is all that can be seen of the hero of the book.

The Enigma does not face the Rich Cat while talking to him, obviously uninterested in what the Rich Cat has to say.

"Well, then I'll be top of the tree, pulling in some heavy dough. Maybe I'll own a few nightclubs, screw around with a lot of groovy chicks, have a ball..."

"And then what?"

illustration: The Rich Cat faces Enigma again, and continues his attempts to explain his grand dream. The Enigma remains uninterested, facing the cityscape instead.

"Ah, well I guess then I'll buy a ranch, a big one, and breed race horses. Settle down, send the kids to college..."

The Engima relpies without a thought, "And then what?"

illustration: The Enigma's hand fills half the panel, obviously giving symbolism that his grasp over the Rich Cat is nearing its end. The Rich Cat now has one hand on his temple, suggesting he is being affected and is starting to think about what the Enigma is leading the discussion towards.

"Ah, well, Jeez, I guess I'll retire you know. Some where warm, maybe the carribean..."

"And then what?"

"Well, hell, I'll just take it easy, you know..."

illustration: The Enigma now stands towering above the Rich Cat. The Rich Cat is barely visible.

"And then what?"

"And then? And then, I guess," The Rich Cat begins to feel is mind spin as he searches for something to say. Finding nothing, he mutters the most logical step after getting everything you wanted and giving it to your children, "I guess I'll die.."

"And then what?"

illustration: The tip of the Enigma's purple cape is visible, as if taunting the Rich Cat who now stands in the panel, looking up at Enigma. His face is filled with the mark of fear and confusion

"Ah, Shit, I... don't know..."

illustration: The Enigma, looking at the Rich Cat.

"You know about what impresses me about you? Your ability to be as pathetic as you are and not want to kill yourself. If I were you, I'd have to kill myself."

Issue Seven of Eight

Episode 7:
================================
All Things Come Around
================================

The desert had turned into an alien landscape. Gone was the harsh heat from the unforgiving sun. The sand dunes slowly ebbed and rose, like the tide, with each rush of cold air. The clouds were parted, revealing the star-lit sky.

And on the ground, the stars were reflected by the multitude of shards of glass. It was as if the sky existed both above and below. Kirsten gave a weak smile to that thought: The sky being both above and below. It made one imagine life and everything in it to be a huge circle. A huge road that never truly begins or ends. That all things eventually repeat themselves.

Not too far from her prostate form was that of another woman's. Hers was wrapped in a cape that had torn from breaking through the window. The slivers of glass that were embedded on Her body were now weeping blood. She was not moving.

Just beside the wreckage (after being struck by shards of glass and being landed upon by the one called the Enigma) that remained of the car Kirsten and Gabe owned was the body of one called "Michael Smith." His wounds were plenty as well. And the amount he bled rivalled that of the Woman whose wounded body remained unmoving on the ground. In Kirsten's heart, she knew with much pain that Michael Smith was actually her husband, Gabe. But she no longer had the strength to voice it out.

And finally, by the shadows, the delapitated form of the Truth emerged. Her translucent costume too reflected the stars and the glass, but at the same time revealed her body. Just like the truth to show more than necessary, isn't it?

"Fact: You want him to die," the Truth mumbled, its voice like the rumble of thunder in the distance signalling a coming storm. The barefooted Truth approached Kirsten, its feet leaving bloodly footprints as the glass bit into her soles and ankles. But the Truth had already braved pain beyond normal in traversing the desert. What was a few more pinpricks of agony? When the Truth finally reached Kirsten, the blood had sunk into the sand and turned the darker. Only then did Kirsten realise it was already nightfall. Many say that the desert is very dangerous at night. Kirsten knew this as a fact by now.

"What... do you want... from.. me this... time?" Kirsten muttered to the Truth with defiance. She hated the Enigma for its actions. For existing. For persisting to be a part of her life with Gabe. And now, this new costumed psycho has come to join the party. Though Kirsten had finally accepted that perhaps her life with Gabe was never meant to be a private affair, having another costumed freak mess up their lives made their lives much like a proverbial buffet. Come on up and add a new ingredient to fuck up the perfect life Gabe and I have made for ourselves, why don't you? After all, its so fucked up already you might as well share in the fun, right?

The Truth glanced to the car and saw the Enigma shifting back to His original form. Not that far away was the vaguely familiar stranger again. The Truth found itself hesitating, and wondering. For the Truth knows all and sees past any deception. But looking at the stranger made the Truth wonder. He WAS familiar to her memories in some way undescernable, but at the same time he was nobody the Truth had ever met before.

"Kirsten..." The Engima called out in a voice that was barely louder than a whisper. The Truth immediately faced the source of the voice and smiled its bitter smile. Both hands rose, nails claw-like in fashion, and began to make its way towards Him. Kirsten slowly propped herself upwards, small glass pieces biting into her hands as they heaved her weight upwards. A moan of pain, ignored, and she was on all fours, tossing her gaze towards the Enigma. He was lying still on the ground, blood oozing out of numerous wounds. The cape He proudly wore was silent and inanimate. The mask was not worn. "Michael..." the Enigma called out, "The two of you... are you-"

Tight hands roughly clamped around the Enigma's neck, forcing his words to cut short and be expelled merely as air. Kirsten watched as the Truth hauled the limp body of the Enigma up from the ground, and with the least sign of effort, hold him so high that only the tips of His toes touched the sand. Emotions surged through her, mixing and twisting, unsure of what they were. Fear, that her life and Gabriel's were forfeit. Anger, that the same very lives were affected so much that to return to normality seemed nigh impossible. Hatred, towards the being called Enigma for toying with them in both mind and body. Joy, that the Truth was dealing to the Enigma all the pain and anguish she wished she could deliver. And lastly, Guilt, that a secret she long kept hidden was revealed and denied a chance to be accepted at will.

"Kris?" a young boy called out from behind the birch tree. Kirsten hugged her legs tight, hoping that the boy (his name, she recalled was Carl) would not find him. Footsteps. Approach. Pause. Her name called again. She could feel the tiny ants that tickled her toes as they crawled past her foot. She could taste the salt-tinge of her sweat. And with all the willpower she could muster (for when one is but 7, one can only do so much) she kept her body as still as possible.

Hide and seek was always fun.

"There you are!" Carl beamed upon seeing Kirsten's shadow. Imagining herself a cheetah, Kirsten launched from her hiding place in the bushes and with a screech of delight rushed for the lamp post. If she gets there before he does, she's safe. Carl was two or three steps ahead of her and was nearing the post - his arm streched to its childhood limits in hopes of touching it and finally not being the one who's the "It" in the game.

"Yow!" Kirsten yelped as she tumbled to the ground, her foot stepping on a loose shoelace. Carl stopped, turned, and saw Kirsten hit the ground hands first, then begin to fight back tears. He approached her without hesitation and reached for her knee. "Are you okay?" he asked as he tenderly placed a hand on her left knee, while his right hand touched her cheek. Her hair covered most of her face. He combed it back with his fingers and found instead of a face tearful and in pain a smile sly as a fox would wear. Before he could react, she was up and running and touched the post with a triumphant scream. "Ha ha! You're still the it! Ha ha ha!"

Carl shook his head and smiled (as kids often forgive faster than adults can) and with a giggle, stood and walked to her side. "You tricky girl!" he muttered to her with a playful poke to her side. "You're not good in hiding, but you sure know how to lie."

April 4th week, 2112
The memory was still fresh in Kirsten's head. She gasped in disbelief and found herself discovering the source of the recollection: the smell of oranges. "You're making this happen!" she cried out to the Enigma who was getting weaker and weaker by the second. The Truth had not relented, its clawed hands tightly strangling the life out of Him. "Tell me the truth! You're doing all this aren't you?"

(from ENIGMA #2)
Michael Smith trembles as he turns the pages as fast as he can. Sandra watches with excitement, though confusion is what reigns in her thoughts. The doctor and the nurse watch the television intently, as if fearful that they might miss a single image that could serve as some remote clue to the events that were unfolding.

"Well, come on," Sandra asks the fumbling Michael, who struggles to find the page in his mind, "What happens?" The nurse turns towards her with a look of sarcasm, "Don't be absurd. That's just a comic, what's happening on the television is REAL."

But Michael ingnores them, and comes to a realisation that he wished he never came to. "Now I remember. There were only three ENIGMA comics published and this was the last one.." he mumbles as he points at the comic he holds. "He kills him. Look, he kills him... the Truth kills the Enigma."

April 4th week, 2112
But the Enigma struggles to fight back. His hands rise to clamp down on the still entrapping clutches of the Truth. For a moment, Kirsten thought she saw a tear fall from one of His eyes. The memory. One that was not hers but hers to recall like her own.

"He's going to die!"

(from ENIGMA #7)
Yes.

Yes, they've done it, on the roof and back here, at home. Michael Smith and the Enigma. Michael Smith and his secret childhood comic book pal. It wasn't a smooth operation. A lot of fumbling, dead ends, false starts, but what they lacked in technique they made up for in feeling.

Yes, really. Feeling. These aren't trees or fish, after all. These are warm creatures, with warm skin. These are creatures who have taken the biology out of sex. These are two men redrawing the maps of themselves.

Actually you should have seen it. You really missed something.

April 4th week, 2112
Again, the smell of oranges. Kirsten finds herself wondering why the Enigma is doing this. Why give her memories which have no connection to her at all while He's being killed by His very antithesis?

A crinkle of glass as her she crushed a shard when she stepped backwards. Her eyes glance down to notice something else more deadly than the shards. As if ashamed of its existence as a weapon of deadly means, the gun was lying half buried in the sand.

"Fact: You are NOT a superhero named ENIGMA. That is merely what you decided to call yourself because you were never given a name." The Truth exaulted in its victory, and even began to lift the Enigma higher into the air. The Truth smiled and then began to move, inching its way towards the other wounded man.

Kirsten's eyes focused on Gabe. She finally felt the emotional dams break and the tears fall like rain. Her balance faltered for a moment and she nearly fell unto the glass shards. This time, though, her attempt at speaking succeeded. "Gabe? Oh Gabe please tell me you can hear me! Gabe? Please tell me anything!"

(from ENIGMA #1)
caption: The really hilarious thing about death is its sense of timing...

"Oh god.. oh god oh god oh god" the woman simply muttered again and again as she stared at the body of her late husband, Bob, whose body was lain on the ground like a human pin-cushion, the pins the gigantic shards of glass that fell when the sun roof was broken open. But it wasn't the glass that killed the policeman, who picked up the picked red lizard he found near a murder site in Arizona. It was the fact that he was missing a large chunk of his frontal lobe, ever since that vicious creature pegged the Head stabbed its straw-devised glass tube into his nose to suck his brains out. It was a belief that when a person eat's another person's brains, he acquires his kowledge.

caption: Its sense of the ridiculous...

Michael Smith glances out the open window and a green lizard, glowing with the luminiscience that the red one had earlier, is seen looking at him. He reaches for it, quickly, hoping to catch a clue to all the craziness going on.

caption: Don't you think? But what about life, I hear you say. Life is not exactly unridiculous...

He misses the lizard as if begins to levitate away. For a brief moment, Michael thinks it is taunting him as it faces him with its reptilian head.

caption: Come on, you're an expert. You're alive. you're going to die one day... what do you think?

April 4th week, 2112
"Stop that!" Kirsten screeched as the Enigma upon sensing her thoughts again intruded by the scent of oranges. It didn't take a Master's degree to deduce that the scent was the hint that the Enigma was using His powers. "You had no right to do this to us!"

"Fact: You never had any right," the Truth suddenly added, its hands getting tighter around the Enigma's throat, "You pushed them to do things. You used your powers to arrange things to happen. You think your self God and believe that everything here is Your creation." A raspy voice began to become audible. Kirsten's eyes darted away from the Enigma and saw Gabe's body, once molded in the image Michael Smith's, revert back. A low moan had emitted as the skin and bone began to unweave from the Enigma's mold, and simmer back into its original cast. The image was hideous, sickening even. To see the skin flutter as if loosened from the skin and billowing like a flag and a strong wind. She averted her eyes and found instead her stomach betraying her strength. On the ground her vomit rolled, splashing with as much sound as excreted digestive juices could muster.

"Eeeugh," the nerdy woman replied to Kirsten's second regurgitation, "That one was nastier than the first." Kirsten held on to the toilet bowl's rim like it was a mirror and forced her eyes away from the sight before her. Had anyone sought to discover what she had for the day, it was visible in the toilet: hot dog slices, half-digested noodles, mushy meat and other things. "Well, keep going hon, its just your first night here in Kelpen. Lots of more drinking soon to come."

The vertigo was ebbing away but the uneasiness was still there. Kirsten rose from the floor (with Hailey, the nerdy woman's help of course) and began to hobble towards the sink. Seeing her reflection, she realised the mess she looked like: Stained sweater, faded lipstick, damd, messy, soiled hair. She wanted to start crying but chose instead to give out an annoyed release of frustration.

"Hey, hey, easy there," Hailey reminded Kirsten and patted her back, "Its okay. Lots of other freshmen go through this. I did not too long ago."

Kirsten looked at Hailey with wonder, how old was Hailey anyway? She didn't seem to have the appearance of a frosh but she definitely looked to young to be a sophomore, much less a senior. The trouble with college life nowadays is that people of all ages can end up in it.

"Come on, get your sweater off and to the sink with you. We have to clean you up a bit," Hailey muttered as she headed for the bathroom door and locked it. A thought paused her, wondering how other people would take the bathroom being locked, but upon thinking that nobody would really mind (with them all being drunk and all by now) Hailey headed back to the still unmoving and staring Kirsten. "Hey, you got a lot of gunk on your neck and hair. I think you better wash that."

"Uh, you're in here..."

"Kris, we're both women okay? Its not like its anything new," Hailey muttered with a smile. Kirsten turned away from the mirror and looked at Hailey. Her brown ruffled hair curled behind her ears. And although she was too thin to show curves, her body was well proportioned, giving hints of her cleavage and tush. Hailey had full lips, and although the eyeglasses she never removed made her head long kinda long, it also added a frame to highlight her almond-shaped eyes and hazel pupils. "Kirsten?"

"Uh?"

"You're staring. What is it?"

Kirsten looked away and felt her cheeks grow warmer. She covered her face with her hands and began to curse herself for letting it happen. "You should get used to undressing with someone else in the area," Hailey mused, thinking she understood why Kirsten was hesitant, "I mean, you haven't seen the showers in the University, have you? Here, just so you feel better," Hailey replied and began to pull of her blouse. Kirsten felt a hand grasp her shoulder and turn her around. Hailey stood before her, her belly flat and smooth and her breasts nestled in a bra. "You feel better?" Hailey asked and although Kirsten knew what she felt, she had no reason to share the truth.

April 4th week, 2112
"But the Truth is always revealed eventually. There is no escaping the Truth. Perhaps one can hide from it for a few minutes. At times a few years. But the Truth always catches up with you," Kirsten began to mumble to herself, as if transfixed in a state of non-responsiveness. The Truth faced her, its face giving a puzzled look. The Enigma had slowly began to cease His struggles against the Truth's vice-like grip on His neck. He was getting weaker and weaker by the second.

Kirsten took a deep breath in and a step forward. Her foot struck the half-buried gun out of the sand and tossed it a few feet in front of her. But even as this was visible in her peripheral vision, she paid it no heed. "What is it are you here for? What do you want from us?"

The Enigma expelled the little remaining air left in His lungs to speak out a word: "Th..e... T..rru...th.."

"Is that was this is all about? Simply accepting the Truth?" she asked, but deep inside, Kirsten hoped not to hear an answer.

(from ENIGMA #3)
"See this? We're like GODS right now. We have the power of life and death," Titus Bird tells Michael as he holds a fly he had caught between his thumb and forefinger. Michael watches with interest, but his face is marked with the impression of confusion. "There's no court that can try us for doing what we like to this fly. There is no moral come-uppance. There IS NO GOD, except us, here, now. We can do whatever we like."

Disgust overwhelms the confusion in Michael's features as he watches Titus push his thumb down towards the table, and in a smooth motion, smear the fly against the cold, smooth surface of the wood. Its body breaks into a buffet of predigested food, bodily fluids and pieces of wing and antennae.

"Why did you do that?" Michael spat out at Titus as the gay writer continued to make small curves and circles with the remaining juices of the squashed insect. "Why not?" came the response, Titus never looking at Michael as he spoke, "I was bored." And after a pause, "I was going to have ENIGMA say and do that in Episode Four. Never got the chance."

April 4th week, 2112
That can't be right, Kirsten's thoughts screamed. That can't really be all this is about! But the time for talk was fast reaching an end. It was too clear to Kirsten now that the Truth was not here to answer any questions, but simply to destroy ambiguities. And the Enigma, though confusing its actions may be, was leading to answers to unresolved queries... even if many of them were queries the Enigma itself raised.

She reached down and scooped the gun from the sand. When she rose, the Truth had not taken any heed of her actions. Her insignificance to this new costumed freak annoyed her. Insulted her. And most of all, filled her with an anger and temper unlike any she had felt before. "Let Him go!" she cried out to the Truth as the gun was raised and levelled towards the Truth, "Let him go or by God I swear I'll blow your brains out!"

(from ENIGMA #6)
"My turn?" Michael Smith asked.

April 4th week, 2112
"Stop that! I'm trying to help you!" Kirsten yelled, shaking her head for the briefest moment, but the smell of oranges lingered. Her eyes began to go murky with tears. She bit her lower lip and took aim once more. She could recall all those detective novels and police - crime books she had reviewed before. BRASS it was called.

Breathe...

(from ENIGMA #6)
caption: He knows that the Enigma knows what he is hiding. What are you hiding Michael Smith?

April 4th week, 2112
Relax... or was that Ready?

The Truth rears its head, and sees her standing there. Her legs were parted for balance. Her arms, one holding the weapon before her face, the other forming an uneasy triangle with the outstreched arm, with her body as the last side. The Truth sees the truth of what Kirsten plans to do.

(from ENIGMA #5)
"You're enjoying this aren't you? I'm the suffering goddamn artist and you're getting off on it, aren't you?" Titus exclaimed to Michael, his voice slurred by the alcohol in his blood.

"Don't be stupid," Michael replied, "I mean... enjoying it?"

April 4th week, 2112
Aim...

The Truth was caught in a moment of indecision. There was a paradox in its thoughts. To destroy the Enigma was in its nature, as the Truth brings revelations to all darkness. But there was another factor in the equation now. And before the trigger could be pulled, the intese numerous possiblilities flooded the Truth's mind. All the probable events were clear to her. There were no surprises. That was the Truth.

Some time ago...

Ruth was talking to her father in the study. His cigarettes have given her a sneezing fit, but she ignored it, determined to hear more about her favorite family member. He told her of his great plays. His travels. His trips. And of this of cathedral in the edge of Pacific City.

And his dream. His dream of a magnificent masked man, who hovered just beyond his reach on the rooftop of his home. He wanted to touch him. To know if the man was real. But something happened.

April 4th week, 2112
Squeeze...

The masked man fell to the rooftop. Like a fallen angel from up high. He tumbled on the tiles, rolling down the slanted brick. Ruth's father reached for him, and succeeded in grabbing a hold of the man's arm. Orgasmic, the experiece seemed when their flesh touched. No. Not orgasmic... better than sex.

(from ENIGMA #8)
"I was wrong, " Michael explained, "Wrong about not being queer. Even more wrong to punch you, even if I wasn't. I guess I was scared of the Truth."

He pulled him upwards. But the masked man was too heavy. He knew he couldn't hold on much longer. When passion to help becomes selfish, people do the craziest things. He reached for the mask, for a face to fill the fantasies to come. He reached for the mask.

April 4th week, 2112
What was after Squeeze? Uh... B-R-A-S-S.. Breathe... Relax... Aim.. Squeeze...

What was it.. Shit?

And promised to find him.. to search for him.. again.. and punish him for taunting him this way. A promise said under the influence of chemicals. An oath declared under an illogical cloud. But a promise the Engima heard nonetheless. And a promise to be fulfilled whent he time is right.

(from ENIGMA #8)
"No. No running. Now is the time. Now is the time to see if it has worked.""If what has worked?" Michael Smith asked the Enigma, not knowing this new twist in the tale.

April 4th week, 2112
WHAT WAS IT AGAIN???

(from ENIGMA #8)
"It's too late. I've failed."

He did not want to live anymore. Michael was gone. Titus passed on years ago. Nothing here but silence. And the ringing bell. He glanced at the tower. The church was empty of people. He glanced at the house not too far off. A man was sleeping in his bed.

His thoughts reached out. He touched the man's mind and found dreams similar to Michael's. He wanted to share it. To touch it. And so he went.

But when the two were face to face, the Enigma realised that this was false. That the man was no Michael Smith. That the man was gay for quite some time. Michael Smith was not like that. Not Michael Smith.

So he fell. From grace. From embarassment. From pain.And he reached for him. Touched his mask. Took it. Promised to kill him.

And the Enigma wanted to die.

(from ENIGMA #8)
"She'll destroy me."

April 4th week, 2112
"Shoot!"

The shot rang out, a crackle of thunder it was in the silence of the desert. Kirsten was breathing so heavily that she wanted to pass out, or lie down or do both in one movement. The gunshot echoed across the mountains and valleys, like a minature lightning bolt was bouncing to and fro, carrying the sound. She blinked her eyes once. Then twice. Then brought the gun down and screamed in anger.

The Truth was lying on the floor. The translucent suit was turning red as the blood began to fill it from within. Outside, it was slick and stained as well for where the head of Ruth Isthet once was, there was but the sand and the shards of glass. And blood.

Not too far away was the Enigma, flat on the ground, with one of His legs pinned beneath the Truth. Ironic it seemed, that the Enigma one faces is never free from the Truth, even if the Truth has been denied its purpose. Kirsten dropped the gun and cried this time. Not for the Enigma, who may or may no longer be living, nor for Gabe for the wounds and bleeding and his possible death. Rather, she cried for herself. For the part of her she denied and struggled to suffocate beneath the lies of acceptability.

A minute passes before she notices that neither of the three have moved. Her eyes are swollen and tender. She feels as if they have a burning sensation in them. Gabriel, her thoughts plead.

She rushes to his side and finds herself too late. His life had long passed the moment of recovery. The blood. The wounds. The pain. At least, she prayed, it ended soon. Perhaps he was not too much in pain. Just perhaps.

(from ENIGMA #5)
"Christ, what did the poor guy do to deserve that? Squeeze the toothpaste from the wrong end of the tube?" Titus snarled beneath the bandages and casts. Michael was focused unlike him, "I don't know. Maybe it was just another senseless killing. It doesn't get us anywhere, does it?"

Again? Kirsten suddenly turned to face the Enigma. "It's not over is it?" she called out. You're still alive aren't you, you son of a bitch?"

There comes a time in every one of us when too many things have happened to piss us off. Or anger us. Or make us really annoyed. Well, Kirsten had just hit that spot. Actually, no. She had gone over that spot. Waaay over that spot.

"Stand up and talk to me you son of a bitch! Stand up!" she yells as she rushes towards Him and grabs a hold of His shoulders. Her hands begin to strike at him, slapping and punching at his face. Her hands turn raw. Her fingernails chip. Her knuckles pale. His skin bleeding.

Then the scent of oranges.

(from ENIGMA #6)
"It seems you're running through all my life. All my past and present. Tell me something... does anything mean anything? I mean, in the end, does it really matter what we do?" Michael asked the Enigma, his voice pleading. Weak. Frightened. And anxious? "Does anything matter?"

The gun.
Kirsten sees it.

The ENIGMA opens His eyes. Kirsten reaches for it.

(from ENIGMA #6)
caption: And this time, he will let himself fall.

"I've had enough of you! You ruined m... my.. life!" Kirsten screeched as she cocked the gun and took aim once more. This time, she took no chances and moved closer to the Enigma.

"I did no such thing.."

"You.. you took EVERYTHING away... Gabriel.. Ruth...ev.. EVERYTHING!"

The gun was now pressed against the Enigma's forehead.

(from ENIGMA #6)
caption: And he will learn. He will learn that contrary to popular opinion...

"Do it. Kirsten. Do it," the Enigma whispered.

Kirsten heard his plea and paused. Some sort of trick? her mind yelled and with that it was done. The finger squeezed, the hammer struck, the bullet flew and blood flowed again.

(from ENIGMA #6)
caption: He will learn that contrary to popular opinion...

Kirsten fell to the ground, tears in her eyes. The night fell into total silence. The sand began to shift again and the moon hid behind the clouds. In her hands was the gun, its barrel smoking and warm.

The sand felt so soft to her. So comforting.

And she did feel so tired.

(from ENIGMA #6)
caption: it needn't hurt at all.

She wanted to sleep. And so she did.

End Issue Seven
To be CONCLUDED

Enigma was originally published by Vertigo,a trademark of DC Comics. Others, if any, are not mentioned as a challenge to the said owners nor as an insult. The author of this fanfiction assumes NO ownership over the comic character ENIGMA. All other characters are created by Tobie Abad. This page is not intended to challenge or claim ownership of the character ENIGMA which is copyright of DC Comics.

Written by Tobie Abad [email protected]
Comment and reactions are welcome! In fact, appreciated!

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