Blasphemy Prologue 

By: Dante Abbey

        *So...this is what it's like to die...* 

        *Shouldn't this be more painful?* 

        Around him, the universe diminishes to the splash of
hot, burning red that now adorns the tips of his index
and middle fingers.Ê Slowly, he twists them around so
that it can catch what little light sifts through the
dark corridor.Ê A thin, gleaming trickle slithers down
his fingers to his palm, running along the natural
lines engraved there. 
        He harbors an almost morbid fascination as he watches
his own lifeblood dancing on the surface of his hand.
He turns his hand over, forcing the blood to trickle
in a different direction, but always towards the
ground.Ê When it stops flowing, he frowns, then dips
his fingers in the pool again, probing for more. 
        The wound, large and weeping, was pushed apart.  The
pulverized, raw flesh screams pain in protest. He
winces, his eyes squeezing shut hard enough to draw
tears.Ê Reflexively, his fingers pull away, but they
are coated anew with blood.Ê The trickle now runs
around from his palm to his wrist, curving around to
the other side of his arm, and continuing slowly
towards his elbow. 
        His breathing hardly registers any more, filtered out
by whatever triage his tired brain had enacted. It
wasn't going to be too much longer, now...although he
cannot be certain. Even his hold on the passage of
time is becoming increasingly tenuous as the blood
slowly trickles from the almost miniscule hole in his
lower chest. He isn't sure what would have been
worse; being struck where he had been, or a few
centimeters higher, where his lungs sit.Ê Right now,
he is almost sure that most of the bleeding is coming
from his intestines. 
        There is another wound, half-way down his calf, but
it's too far away for him to care. For the moment, he
is more than content with staring at the purple-red of
his own blood  playing happily on his fingertips and
crusting spitefully under his fingernails. 
        Groaning, he brings his left hand into the light,
holding it up. In opposition to its partner, its
entire palm is marked with the same dark liquid.Ê He
lets it fall back to where it came, resting across his
stomach. 
        He settles deeper into the comfortable shadows around
him with a contented sigh. He feels as though he
could simply merge with it and disappear; become one
with the darkness and leave only an irregular smear of
what once coursed through his veins on the floor. 
        Closing his eyes, he drops his right hand to the
floor, painting two parallel streaks across the metal
next to him. His strength is definitely leaving him
now...he doesn't feel as though heÕll be able to open
his eyes again. 
        Funny, how something so horribly fatal just feels
like a hard punch to the stomach. 
He can't really feel anything. It isn't really
painful. It doesn't sting, doesn't burn. Bleeding
doesn't hurt. 

        *Maybe I'm already dead...* 

        He opens his eyes again. No...he isn't dead. 
        Not yet. 
        The corridor stretches out in front of him again,
travelling on without him into the darkness,
disappearing finally in shadow. 

        *This really should hurt more...a lot more...* 

        His heart still pulses weakly in his chest, pumping
tirelessly, almost futilely against the certainty of
his demise. He nearly hopes it would just give up,
resign itself as he has...even if that was raising the
white flag, throwing in the towel. 
        He doesn't really feel like dying, just yet. After
all, he's still only twenty-nine years of age. Barely
ten years over the age of majority. And, should he
survive this, he might even have up to sixty or more
years left in him. 
        But they were ten long, long years. 

        *Oh, well. It's not like anyone's going to find me
here, anyway. Definitely not a doctor, or a surgeon.* 

        The metal walls behind him are cold, unyielding, but
he feels as though he's melting into them.  Becoming
one with the shadow...
        There's still the possibility that he'll be
recuperated, of course...taken in and healed. Then,
most likely, would come the interrogation. Of course,
they'll probably euphemize it as an 'interview' or
some other such politically correct garbage. He
smirks to himself, glad his face has been spared
injury. 
        Not out of vanity...just because it would have stung
very badly if he'd been grazed there...that last smirk
would have torn it all wide open. That much he knew
from experience. 
        Lolling his head lazily, he glances down at his
sidearm. It's lying on its side, next to him. He can
still use it, terminate his life here, and avoid that
kind of indignity. Besides which, if he did use it,
and if there was a just god, he'd only get to see her
again all the sooner. 
        Knowing his luck, there wasn't one. 
        His right hand curls around the grip...it's still
warm. Warm from his hand, warm from the fire that had
erupted from within it thirty-odd times within the
last hour. The breech isn't locked into the back
position...indicating that there is still one round
chambered. 
        An audible click resounds in the silence, followed by
the rasp of metal against metal, and the magazine
falls into his lap. His eye passes over it
indolently, and he has to count twice to find that
there are still five bullets left in it. 
        Without using his left hand -- still nursing his
injury -- he guides the magazine back into its place,
making sure it's properly nested within the gun's
handgrip. 
        He thinks a little longer about pushing the business
end against his skull, letting his blood-stained index
twitch once, and departing. The idea doesn't hold
much sway over him...for some reason, following the
rulebook isn't appealing to him in the slightest any
longer. 
        Instead he smiles through heavily lidded eyes, and
lifts the muzzle of the weapon so that it points at
the deck plating a few feet beyond him. He feels like
laughing as he pulls on the trigger four, five times,
each time listening for the explosive report and the
high-pitched ricochet. It's funny how good it feels
to be shooting at something inanimate again. 
        The last round he fires into the ceiling. Instead of
the usual ricochet, there is the distinct tinkle of
breaking glass, and the dim fluorescent light overhead
shatters and rains down to the floor, scattering.
Sparks arc spasmodically from the broken fixture,
breaking the new darkness in bursts, but otherwise, he
now sits in a pitch black tomb of his own creation. 
        Every once in a while, when the sparks light off, he
can see the breech, open...the last cartridges sitting
on the floor next to him. When he breathes, he can
smell the acrid stench of cordite biting into his
nostrils...and for some reason, it just feels so damn
good to be alive.