Chapter 6 - Miyu

Nearly assaulted on the night of her country's civil war memorial observance, Miyu is rescued by rescued by a violent foreigner with questionable motives.

Chapter 6 - Miyu

            Their smiles betrayed them. Behind all their glowing almond eyes, Miyu knew how deeply she was despised. Of all the people, races, and creeds of Prism none held such long memories as the Vonnegut. Even now at the centennial memorial of the Verne Uprising[1], it was as if no time had passed at all. Those wounds ritualistically opened again like children peeling away a scab letting loose the fresh tainted blood of prejudice. As long as that wound was kept fresh, Miyu would not be safe.

            Rain steadily swept in sideways across the Grand Promenade and washed over nearly four hundred thousand Vonneguts. They stood silent with heads bowed and hands folded. Miyu watched from the ally. Physically, she could have blended in with the others. Conformity among the populace was what bread efficiency as well as rebellion. Stay in your shell. Don’t leave the egg crate. It was an Empire that presided over Faberge citizens, beautiful and hollow.

Miyu pulled the hood of her violet trench coat over her head. From the safe shadow of the alley she leered out at all the identical men and women in matching coats. They were a sea of withering violets. So many of her countrymen complacent with how the world turned, she could hardly stand to call them her kin. Truly, that sentiment alone was enough to delineate between Verne and Vonnegut. Her revoked citizenship stemmed from what developed within the shell of an individual, not without.

            Above the obsidian-tiled promenade, the Grand Clock struck ten. A bitter sigh seeped out from the collective exhale of the damp crowd. Another moment’s pause, and the masses silently filed out of the square back to their offices, apartments, and stations. There wasn’t much talk of the memorial between countrymen. As a people, when in public, there was hardly ever any talk at all. The collective simmering hatred of a common enemy offered enough warmth that authentic intimacy appeared to be too great a fire.

After all, facts and fiction had been meticulously constructed to warrant a dependency to such toxic a fire as prejudice. Many accepted wholesale the narrative behind the bronze and jade statue. How could the old cinemascope[2] at the monument’s base deceive them?

“In memorial of those whose lives were taken, may we never forget the actions and integrity of those who stood fearless against insurrection. Their deeds shall forever serve to strengthen our unity as one people in service of the Vonnegut Empire. Blessed be the Vox.”

 

            Years ago, before her mother was taken to the camps, Miyu had stood with the others before the memorial. She watched the grainy copper toned images loop over and over on the monitor attached to the statue. Over and over again, three young soldiers drew their guns and fired. Those boys screamed silently as they disappeared within plumes of smoke discharged from their muskets. Then, suddenly they would reappear. Over and over, the same look of shock and surprise. Fire. Smoke. Repeat. Their legacy began and ended in four seconds of bravery. That same four seconds repeated over and over for almost a hundred and seventy years.

            That must be what Hel is like, Miyu thought to herself as she loitered in the Alley.

            All those eggs so afraid to show any cracks within their conscious, they never questioned those four seconds of film. Miyu however considered the larger equation at stake. Those four seconds of film equated to 12 frames per second: 48 pictures in total. An old adage coined by The Dalí claimed, “A picture was worth a thousand words.” Of the forty-eight thousand words expressed in that moment of history, Miyu was asked to accept a mere forty-five? No. She was unconvinced. Day and night, an insatiable hunger for answers ate Miyu from the inside out; there was more to those three cadets who warded off terrorists than forty-five scripted words.

            Before she could sulk off into the night, Miyu was captured in bright halogen light. A gruff voice spoke up from behind, “You there! Hands in the air.”

            Miyu complied. Four separate beams of light ensnared her. Four grown men against one lone girl: excessive, but not unusual. She’d known women caught after curfew. Sometimes they were taken before curfew too. Intimate interrogation methods used by constables were never publically acknowledged. No cracks in society here. Everything was always in its place.

            A white-gloved hand gripped Miyu’s shoulder and forcefully persuaded her backwards into the dark alley. She remained silent. She froze. Memories of her mother crying into their telephone flooded Miyu’s senses. Her parents thought their daughter was sleeping, but Miyu heard every word, every detail of constables and their intimate interrogation methods. She heard the pain, the shame, and the confusion. Miyu remembered her mother sobbing, “Why?”

            No one bothered to offer an answer.

            Miyu stood silent as the constables all turned off their lights. She was drowning in a sea of humiliation. She’d never touched a man out of her own desires. When she attended secondary classes, Miyu daydreamed of the boy in the seat beside her. Tan, third period, Chemistry. She’d imagined what it would be like to push her hands through his dark hair, weave her fingers behind his neck, locking their bodies together. Those dreams would be permanently dashed by four grown men in positions of power, entrusted with her safety and security.

            One man-shaped-shadow spoke in a frothy growl, “Curfew is active after the memorial service. We could have you arrested.”

            Miyu said nothing. Words were eaten away by the bile building up in the back of her throat. Her teeth gnashed together. Her veins filled up with hardened cement.

            Another constable spoke up, “Maybe we should let you off with a warning?”

            Beside her, Miyu could taste the sake from another officer’s breath, “If you’re willing to get us off, maybe we’ll let you off? What do you say, pretty girl?”

            Suppressed laughter from the officers sounded like diesel engines trying to turn over. They were machines just doing their jobs. There was no romantic impulse, or desire. They needed others to feel small in order to convince themselves they were big. That’s how the machines allowed society to work; keep the eggs in their crates and have the foxes guard the hen house.

Zippers unzipped, and hands invaded Miyu’s unfeeling pale golden skin. Somewhere deep within what was left of her soul, Miyu screamed at muscles to move, to flee. No amount of screams could coax her legs to run, or her fists to fight. She was as immovable as the bronze statue of lies in the promenade. Just like the memorial, the next four seconds would be forever burned into Miyu’s memory like a searing cattle brand thrust inside her.

 

Suddenly, the grotesque horror show halted. At the head of the alleyway, trashcans toppled over one another. Panting officers struggled to holster themselves and aim their flashlights at the intrusion.

One guard cleared his throat, “You there, you’re out past curfew. Return to your residency immediately.”

With her head still aimed squarely at the ground, Miyu dared to glance up at the intruder. A Caucasian man stood at an odd angle. His fist clenched around the neck of an empty bottle of sake. His head cocked to one side like a blind man listening to his surroundings.

There was a commotion among the officers until the youngest was sent to confront the intruder. Miyu listened as the over confident footfalls of the officer landed upon the wet pavement. In a practiced authoritative voice, the youngest officer commanded, “You’re interrupting official constable business. Hand over your identification papers. Now.”

Miyu watched as the silence of the intruder’s defiance pressed upon the rookie cop. In lieu of papers, the intruder swiftly connected the base of the glass bottle with the officer’s face. With a heavy splash, the officer’s unconscious body fell upon the ground. What came next was over in moments, but seemed to take an eternity.

Shoved aside, Miyu watched from a puddle on the freezing asphalt. Officers withdrew their pistols. With every shot, a burst of light illuminated the alleyway. With every flash, the intruder failed to fall. He continued to advance frighteningly fast. The officers were forced to retreat backwards. Back, and back, and back until they’d ran out of bullets and alleyway. Four of them, and one stranger clutching the neck of a broken sake bottle; a steady drip, drip, drip of blood running from the intruder’s palm.

Miyu couldn’t turn away from the horror. This was no act of chivalry. What unfolded was an act of unfiltered wrath. This stranger’s punches weren’t thrown with precision, but blind passion. The cracks of the officer’s clubs against the intruder’s sides, and bones, and head could not dispel the fury that quickly engulfed them all. Mere seconds passed before all four constables lie limp upon the pavement. Even then, the intruder persisted. From where Miyu sat, over the harsh sound of sleeting rain, she could still hear the transition when the stranger was no longer punching flesh and bone, but pounding into asphalt.

Exhausted, the intruder slowly rose to his full height. His fist’s glowed crimson, caked in torn flesh and fresh innards. Miyu was too terrified to move. She could only open her trembling mouth. She prayed, for the first time since she was a girl, to the Vox that the man would pass by and spare her. The Deity wasn’t listening tonight. Breathing heavy, taking beastly gasps of air, the man paused beside Miyu. He didn’t turn or so much as motion in her direction. In a Brighton accent[3], the intruder simply stated, “I still thirst.”

Then, drawing in a deep breath, the man staggered out of the alley and out of sight. Miyu clutched the side of the brick wall and pulled herself up. Beyond reasons she could comprehend, striding upon legs that could barely carry her, Miyu followed after the man.

---

            They had stopped in a café in the tunnels of the underground. Sitting across from the man, Miyu couldn’t look up from his hands; knuckles like raw hamburger meat peeled back almost to the bone. They bled through wades of paper towel bandages. It wasn’t until the man peeled off the blood soaked towels in exchange for fresh napkins that Miyu looked away. She looked nervously out the window as oblivious masses rushed through the waxed and polished tunnels to catch their trains.

            In as much of a grunt as it was Basic, the man asked, “You still fear them?”

            Miyu kept her eyes focused on the stranger’s freshly bandaged hands, “Yes.”

            Wincing in pain, the man wrapped his raw fingers around his glass of water and lifted it to his lips. The glass came down harder on the table than either he or Miyu expected. She nearly jumped out of the booth. He chuckled under his breath, “How are you still afraid of them, and not terrified of me?”

            Miyu took a shuddering breath and tried to slow her racing heart. After a moment’s pause, she considered aloud, “I don’t know what those men were going to do to me.”

            In a low growl, the man objected, “You know exactly what those men were going to do to you.”

            Respectfully Miyu clarified, “I’ve never experienced what they were going to do to me. I know what they intended, but that particular experience is unknown to me.” She dared to look up at the man for a response. His eyes were focused on the entrance to the café, watching the doors, unblinking. Whether or not he was actually listening, she continued, “It was that unknown that… terrified me.” She took a nervous gulp of water. The stranger said nothing. “I’ve already experienced the type of violence you’re capable of. In that way, you scare me far less.” After another sip of water, Miyu added nervously, “Besides, you saved my life.”

            A single cynical laugh escaped his mouth, “Those men were... they were not men. They were not honorable. Their actions warranted Justice.”

            Miyu’s voice shook as she probed further, “Who are you to serve justice, as you call it?”

            There was a pause. The Man fished out an ice cube from his glass with some difficulty. With bruised fingers, he’d drag the cube across the napkin bandages wrapped around his raw knuckles, “I was a soldier. I was a man of honor.”

            In a small voice, Miyu dared to ask, “What are you now?”

            No answer. The man let the ice melt over the inadequate bandages.

            More silence passed between the two strangers. Between the two employees working the late shift of the café, the young woman behind the counter couldn’t keep her eyes off the stranger. The middle-aged shift manager never looked in their direction, but dropped the check on top of the table; a not so subtle hint that the foreigner and his friend should leave. Miyu paid for the meal. The kept his eyes on the café doors.

The man cleared his throat and stood to leave, “Thank you for the meal.”

            Raising her hand in objection, Miyu asked, “Where will you go?”

            The man shrugged.

            Sheepishly, Miyu inquired, “Your name"I never thanked you for-?”

            The Stranger’s massive paw gently moved Miyu’s hand back down onto the table. Still looking at the door, he answered, “Azaroth. My name is Orion Azaroth.”

---

[1]  In 1776, three Vonnegut cadets confronted a Vern couple within Northern Interment Camp 19. Scholars disagree on the exact exchange between the two parties, but the confrontation lead to the armed cadets firing upon the unarmed Vern. Sources say both sides point to this event as the spark of the Vern Revolutionary War.

[2] Created in 1774 by Dalí inventor Salvatore Tessla, the early cinemascope was used heavily during the Revolutionary War. Sources claim that Salvatore developed the cinemascope as a means to settle a bet with a horse.

[3] Brightons, depending on their region of origin, speak with distinguished accents despite speaking common Prism Basic. These accents range from the Earth equivalent of Russian in the north most regions, to the more common British annunciation (Or Vonnegut annunciation). This difference in regional accents is based on the ancient colonization of Brighton by the early Reinbränt tribes in 1,490 B.V. (Before Vox).