Headcell: Part VI

"A story of a man struggling to retain his sanity in a world dominated by an evil, inhuman society that demands absolute perfection from its citizens..."

Drifting in the wide open void.

Emptiness, beautiful pure emptiness stretched back and forth, side by side. Something new vibrated in the non-existent air. The Prisoner wandered here and wandered alone, She was nowhere in sight. The dreamlands had changed a lot since the last visit; black had turned to pale grey to what was now bright white. The silence was lighter, less immersive. The "air" felt exactly as it should.  He walked forwards, seeing all yet seeing nothing. Only gut instinct would lead towards the ultimate end of His journey. This reality shared that common denominator with the other one.

He was due to return there soon. 

Now all that's left is my final piece of routine. One final expectation to follow through on, then shatter forever. Their world has been shaped, but they fail to realize that it can be shaped once more. Their shapes are hard-edged and forever rigid. Mine are open to the new ways, ways of doing and seeing and existing none of their kind could have ever imagined. This time was theirs and what time shall come is mine.

The long sleep She had put him into, back in the Block, was soon to wear off and He knew it. His mind drifted over the countless possibilites that being free of reformation would offer come His escape; to go anywhere, do anything, feel, think and breathe exactly as He wanted to. Somewhere the State nor She would ever be able to track him. He would have to start entirely over. For the time being, the void comforted Him. The neverending whiteness seemed to speak to Him; less is truly more. That sentence seemed so familiar but, like all memories, had come from somewhere distant and forgotten, a special place never to be reached again. Not too many of those came anymore to Him, for the past while had been but a constant blur. Sometimes He used to find himself wondering if it had all been one long endless day. However, since the new truth had dawned upon him, the special place was arising now, as His memory reconnected the pieces of the puzzle, the Prisoner stopped and remembered.

The dark voids of the headcell were finally opening up again, promising to draw Him in like they always had before.

Perhaps not such a special place after all.

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Those words bore into him as he tumbled to and fro in the bumping van. They had been driving for about an hour now, but the pain of having lost the Girl was worse than the pain of banging against cold, hard metal. Once thrown in they had proceeded to beat him half-senseless, their iron fists pummeling him relentlessly. The Commander had only ordered them to stop when the blood poured so thickly from the Prisoner's mouth that speaking became a struggle. Since then, they cuffed Him to allow wallowing in agony. Two guards sat across from Him, and the Commander up front silently, only peeking through the small wire-meshed window every now and again. As his plump red face came into view, he spoke the words once more.

"Less is truly more. You shall understand soon enough."

"Understand what?"

The Commander turned away a moment to look at the road. He may have been deep in thought. But when he turned back to the Prisoner, he spoke nothing but momentary truth.

"Understand what you haven't before. We're not here for brutality, we're here for change. Yet make no mistake, brutality is our great necessity."

"And so change hurts?"

"It always has. Nothing ever changed about change."

Studying the Prisoner's many cuts and bruises up and down with a steely eye, the Commander looked to his men and they all slowly nodded. The Prisoner's heart pounded like a throbbing drum. The van went over a bump just as the silence broke. The gaurds rattled in their seats as their keys and guns shook with the rolling wheels on the road to the somewhere that was also nowhere.

"Indeed, indeed...change hurts."

So it does and so it will, thought the Prisoner as he shifted uncomfortably against the wall. The handcuffs slicing into his wrists were the ultimate proof of that. She was probably going through the exact same thing by now; change would hurt the both of them. As He listened to the muffled rumbling of the wheels tearing up the ground beneath, approaching the ultimate destination, His stomach slowly sank with a harsh pang.

She was gone. Once they took somebody they took them forever, that is how the new society functioned. He had friends who had vanished, family too. Not to say he never saw them again, but wherever they had been taken had transformed them into something different. Physically they remained the same, yet emotionally had been rewired. The State's grey fingers and grey tools had erased all their base instincts beyond their basic needs; sleep, food and water. Anything that slowed things was eradicated.

This is what would happen to both of them. To Her. Yet only if they allowed it. That was their strongest card, and it had to be played against the machine as well as it possibly could be. Without it, both of them would be lost forever. He turned on his side and lay facedown to hide his emerging tears. The floor's iciness was oddly soothing, like laying on your stomach when one felt nauseous, discomfort turning to glories.

She knew it, She had to. She would fight and resist like He would. Nothing would ever change Her, change Him either. Everything would be okay in the end. The State and its minions would be unable to take that from them, despite their violent efforts. Nothing ever changes about change, yes, but that was exactly the problem. Maybe He could become the exception to the rule. Her too. They could be the outliers in this system that changed everything forever.

At least that's what he wanted to believe.

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The harsh halogens, the cold air sprinkled with musk and dust, the threats real and imaginary, the shouts. Then the crackling began. The Prisoner jolted awake without caring. The journeys in the dreamlands were over till the next time. Or the next torture. He always remained unsure in here, for the two were practically the same thing. His eyes scanned the circular cage and its perimeters; only other unreformed waking up and their gaurds hovering menacingly. She sat upright in the chair, feet up on the desk, eyes closed in a silent slumber. Even in that awful uniform, Her outer still retained some form of beauty. The inner, however, was where the essence of Her true self remained. Both of them knew that.

He got up from the slab and walked about for a little while, fully aware of today's significance. Today was the one that He always felt was the beginning of the end and just another beginning of the beginning. They always promised that here, especially for Him. There was the usual morning activity going on outside; guards brutalizing their prisoners, prisoners accepting the violence, the violence forming all. The Warden's announcement was sure to come soon, but hopefully not too soon. Time would only tell, He mused, so then the scars would tell too.

How terrible that such beauty had become so corrupted. The artist in the clouds had allowed his darkest muses to work on Her during various ordeals.

Alas, His eyes couldn't leave Her sleeping form no matter how hard He tried. Even with the new knowledge inside of Him, it still ate away after all this time, like a piranha fish toothing his stomach slowly. It always came in pangs and stabs, His sudden gut-punches of realization. Maybe if He had known the truth beforehand it wouldn't have affected Him so, but the pain remained the same nonetheless. He would forgive but never forget. She was starting to wake up now, soon the evil outer would take over the memories He held dear. Just as she stood up and stretched, that crackling broke out for the first time of the day, and the last time of His life.

"Good morning, residents of my Block. Hopefully the night that has just passed was a reflectful one, for today marks the worth of not just yourself but of all you have reflected upon. The process is almost complete, the...endurances...are over. Brutalizing you was merely inception. Inception will lead to your desire for change. But you have been changed, make no doubt about that."

His mind flashed back to the pain again. Like walking in a land of red clouds and orange skies, with a ground drier than sandpaper and the air heavy as lead. Nothing seemed alright. But that was all part of it, He realized. The lingering pain wouldn't go away, but acceptance of said pain would certainly ease it, eventually molding it into a bearable pain. It never went away forever though and probably never would. The more He looked at Her the more it hurt. She was standing straight as an arrow, arms folded, listening to the Warden's customary tinny ramblings.

"Three days and three nights seem a short time for such drastic measures. But time is irrelevant. Your condition changes but time does not. The State demands that the two walk hand in hand. Such is life, the very thing we have been trying to give you back. When each of you come to me today, we'll see then if you really deserve it."

She looked at him then, another one of the new piercing stares. There it was all summed up for him; the eyes of the reformer, Him crumbling as the unreformed, the Warden's lording voice dictating what was what in his State-built damnation. The past provided pain, but now pain had led to awareness. Awareness was his new trump card, the ultimate shell. Goosebumps formed and his hair stood on end as he leaned against the bars, trying his best to look at Her while looking away. For an instant Her outer poked through, begging for His help. But He had to turn away. For this Her, it was all too late.

"Whether or not you deserve a new life, a new existence, is the key to your salvation and always shall be my decision. My decisions are rarely wrong, yet rarely right either. Decisions are simply decisions. So when you come see me today, remember one thing..."

Cutting off a moment, the silence hung heavy. It felt as though the entirety of Block 13 had suddenly stopped and turned to rocks in anticipation.  One could hear the distant scurrying of white, black and grey mice, as well as the nervous breaths of all those around them. The tannoy crackled back to life after a few seconds, the terrible tirade continuing.

"Will you have made yours?"

Probably not. Most unreformed chose either to crack and be sent back to wait for hell, others chose to end things right then and there and achieve themselves a direct route. The Prisoner had been tempted before, but He'd already been there and back many times. Why fix something that wasn't broken? She would have agreed with Him in the old times. Another look was needed; He glanced over to Her. She still stood like a pencil, but this time the eyes were all on Him. Soon enough, as more imaginary time passed, the doors would open once more and it would be the absolute last day of routine. The Warden had his final say just then.

"I hope you will have. Otherwise...routine will have led to more routine. Soon your reformers will come and take you through the process again, but the difference is I'll be watching even harder than ever before. Each and every last one of you. So choose your new life, but choose wisely. That will be all for now, and good day to all."

The imaginary time had passed. Opening the doors would come in a moment or two. Then He and Her would be together for the last time, but reunited too. She was coming over now, moving efficiently and robotically, fixed only on the job. Exactly like all the other reformed and their reformers. The State's army of dehumanization. The door slid open and She stepped into His cage, in Her element.

"We are ready to go?"

He nodded.

"Sleep well?"

"About as well as one can on a bed of stone."

Nodding, She pointed towards the cell doors. He complied dutifully, slowly placing one foot before another. A few steps closer to the last day of his old life. She prodded him in the back as he moved forward, the fingers jabbing him like skin microspears.

"Speed, speed!"

The steps were now closer together as they walked out of the cell and down the Block. As they walked, He admired Her. Together again but torn apart still. The day ahead would be the longest and most trying test of any of the reformations yet. As they passed the other cages, some unreformed stared at Her. Their faces were like crumbling walls. Hiding behind their glazed-over eyes, sheet-white skin and oily hair was a world of pain and torment that was entirely the norm. They had a name for this conditon in the days before the State, but it had slipped even His mind. They passed by one cell where the unreformed sat facing away from them, muttering to himself.

"Can't do it...must...MUST...but can't...they're coming soon. Coming forever and coming for me. Coming all the time. Never...STOPS!"

He jumped up then and began hurling himself at the bars, the Prisoner stopping to watch. Another breakdown. The first of the day. It always happened like this, always had. She poked him in the back again.

"Why are we losing speed?"

"Look."

He was starting to attract more attention now; the guards from all ends of the Block were staring intently at this display of unreformability. Some of them began to move in slowly, but not directly intervening. She then moved to stand beside Him as the human battering ram continued his self-torture. Speaking slowly, her voice narrated the scene like a gruesome comedy show.

"The first one of the day. Nothing new perhaps. This one has made the wrong choice. Or right one even."

He nodded slowly, the morning questions always the toughest to answer.

"Ah yes...there is no clear line. So I've been told over and over."

"It's the truth. The terrible truth."

One could almost taste the sheer irony in the air with this one. If only She knew, or Her outer at least. Taking a moment to turn away, He looked at Her outer's expression; cold, detached but horribly interested. All the reformers took pride in watching their poisons work on their subjects. But if She knew that such poisons never worked on Him, what then? He broke away from his thoughts as a loud crack snapped him back to what had went on right before his eyes. The battering ram now lay on the floor, motionless, crimson blood coating his head, a thick pool spreading fast around him. Then (and only then) did the guards outside decide to move in, and the rest of the Block returned to normal. The music was over for now, but soon it would come back on.

Meanwhile, They continued Their journey down the Block. No more tortured tenants this time around and soon They found Themselves in the same canteen as the day before. Their reunion was shattered by the usual routine, right on time too. She went Her way and He went His to the opposing sides of the room. He looked all around him at the other unreformed on their last day; the battering ram had unnerved them. This was their first success. It was exactly what the Warden wanted, expected. It was rather the ones like Him who instead unnerved their system. That was one of his qualities they still had yet to become used to; an unshakeable core. What the State could not own or destroy it feared more than humanity itself. The unreformed here, they lived under that fear and so did the rest of the world the State occupied.

He sat down quietly, Her watching His every move. The chute dropped down the morning's cuisine before him with a loud whoosh; congealed bacon on limp brown bread, served with lukewarm milk. Or whatever passed for it these days. She was there over the room eating Her afforded luxuries, the fruits of evil. They watched each other intently as They ate, Her eyes as lifeless as a doll's and blacker still. His eyes staring into the blackness. Walker was sitting next to him, still wearing the bandage across his chest. He was on the wrong path entirely; hoping for freedom to fall back into routine. The Prisoner watched him eat slowly, briefly breaking from Her gaze. He wanted to say something, but felt that all had been said. Walker understood that too. He would likely become the next unreformable one, because like the Prisoner his first reformation had been the most horrific. The worst first and until the end was what the huge man beside him had in store for him, as the Warden would inform him later.

The rest of the meal passed in a blur. Their staring, the inedible food and the Prisoner's pondering of Walker's inevitable fate were enough to keep His mind occupied until His meeting with the Warden. In another imaginary minute the claxon would sound and it would be time for the next daily routine; the final demonstrations. This one was always designed to give the unreformed a taster of what State life expected of them, rather than what it was promised to be. He looked at his untouched food lying on the dirty plastic plate; stale, dull and nauseating. The State's products were the same as the State itself. One would only have to eat the Block canteen's food to experience the same effect as the promised life in the new world. Soon all of the unreformed around him, in this cramped white room, would find out the terrible truth. Now and forevermore.

It rang out. Breakfast was over. He felt a heavy arm dig into his side, glancing beside him to find it belonged to Walker. The human boulder had begun to move at last. Stone could indeed speak too, and spoke gruffly it did.

"What're you waiting for?"

He got up and moved along. She watched Him as he marched with the crowd, which surged silently towards the exit. He walked unthinkingly, only waiting for the final stop of the day to arrive. For in the midst of all the madness, the answer to Walker's question was one of the certainties he was surest of.

The Warden.

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A loud clock tick-tocked relentlessly in the room that would eventually decide the rest of his life. The room that signalled the end. He sat here handcuffed to this cold metal chair, with the only things for company being his raging-red thoughts and the two guards on either side of him.

The office itself was much like everyone he had ever seen before in their world, yet it was different. Now He was in the world of the dangerous powers, the ones who stopped at nothing to get their way. His mind flashed back to all those who had been taken that he'd known; even the B*****d who'd left him, the one he used to call a friend, perhaps his only one. Now He was likely rotting it out in another one of these places; the prisons. The Blocks. But this was the worst of all. The one that He had only heard portions of rumour about, the one that claimed to eradicate absolutely everyone who went in. They went in and did come back out, but never as the same person.

The door opening made Him turn around. In walked three more guards and with them a small man wearing a suit. The man in the suit nodded to them and they stayed by the door, their eyes fixed only on Him. Meanwhile, the man in the suit had gone and sat behind the polished mahogany desk. Taking off his gleaming spectacles and producing a small black cloth, he gave them a quick polish, speaking without addressing Him directly. Like he had been through this enough times before. And he very likely had.

"So...who am I brought today?"

This next answer was to play with fire, but wasn't that what they had been doing this entire time? The world had been playing with fire and got burnt. The State relished the burning and thrived on it for its own ends. He cleared his throat and addressed the suited man. He still didn't even glance.

"An innocent man who has done no wrong."

He looked up then. The face was set in stone and spoke only of pure unbridled reformation. The face of the State and their far-reaching influence. The influence looked at him.

"Innocent? That doesn't exist anymore. That's somebody from the old world talking. Welcome to the new one already."

He shifted in his chair, settling down with a deep sigh. The Prisoner tried to move around, but the metal cuffs only cut deeper into his wrists. He felt the beginnings of warm blood begin to trickle down his hands and onto the pristine white-tiled floor. The suited man snapped his fingers and one of the guards left the room. A heavy quiet descended until he came back, holding a cloth and cleaning spray. Bending down he began cleaning the several blood spots off the floor. The suited man stood up and walked slowly over to the Prisoner.

"The new world starts here. It has for many others too. So your case is no exception. You are aware of where you are?"

He nodded.

"Hell itself?"

"So you've heard the talk outside..."

"Who hasn't? Who couldn't?"

"Nobody. That's the simple answer. My Block is my life. My life must be orderly. Must be controlled. The State demands the same of all its citizens."

The guard cleaning the floor stood up and walked out of the room. The suited man's true identity was all clear now. This was the master of the house, the king of his domain. This man was The Warden. He leaned forward, as far as the cuffs would allow him to anyway, almost falling off the chair.

"The State demands the undemandable. Why have you people decided to build up on a world of impossibilities?"

"Because a world of impossibities is the only world that can breed perfection. We're not trying to kill everyone's humanity, instead we're just upgrading it. To take away part of what makes us all human in the first place."

"I know your process. I've seen and heard, now I'll see and hear for myself I suppose."

The Warden beamed, but maliciously. He motioned to the guards and they crowded around the Prisoner. Taking the cuffs off but grabbing his arms, they held him in place like human (yet not) vice-grips. The Warden stood in front of his Prisoner, looking him up and down.

"Today the old world ends and the new one begins. It already has begun outside but you're part of that minority who choose to live in the past. Let the past be the past and accept, submit, to your new future. This is the beginning of the process."

His wrists had stopped bleeding but the pain lingered. It was pain he'd never felt before. If the Warden or his State were right about one thing and one thing only, it was that the pain would only get much, much worse. The Warden turned back and began walking back to his mahogany perch. The plush leather chair cracked loudly as he sat down in it. The Prisoner wasn't sure whether the evil gleam in his eyes was thanks to his spectacles or himself.

"You know the process. But soon you'll come to know the Block too. Welcome to Block 13."

Taking out some papers from the drawers and producing a fountain pen from his blazer, he leaned over the desk and began working away.

"Take him to his cell."

The human vice grips began leading Him out of the room, to the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. As they reached the door, the Warden had one final thing to say before His old life was shut forever.

"Welcome to your reformation."

The door shut, thenceforth his life too.

As the guards led him down the foreboding corridors, only one thought came to mind. Whatever lay ahead was all that had been talked about, the imagination allways made things worse than they were. But this case was different. Here, things were as they were, and the imagination couldn't match their horror nor better it.

This truly was Hell after all. This was Block 13

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"The finest part of the day is still yet to come," she intoned as they walked to the yard along with the rest of the crowd, her boots clacking with loud snaps that complemented the air of menace about her. Despite what He knew about Her, or had known about Her, She remained one of them. Only on the outer however, that ever-so-thick shell of pure blackness. The Prisoner could allowed the rifted silence to hang between them, yet His reply was required to maintain the ruse.

"Finest to you, or worst to me?"

"The worst is past for you. Only bad lies ahead. Then no more bad, just good. Good in the State's own terms of course."

"I would ask those terms to be explained, but fear not. I already know what they mean. I've seen enough of the world."

She scoffed slightly, her eyes remaining locked dead ahead. Around them was nothing but an ocean of humanity, all of it silent yet raging. Contradiction at its finest. She was blissfully unaware and duly demonstrated so with her answer, fittingly vague.

"Only one of them."

Enough said for now, He thought. If only She knew the truth that lay not before her eyes, but the one that existed somewhere inside her head, firmly locked into the purple-grey of cerebral denial. They marched on ahead. Another few imaginary minutes until their destination. He spoke freely, only what was necessary to maintain His hiding in plain sight. His voice boomed in the cavernous Block, yet only She was listening.

"Two worlds is twice the amount of pain. Pain on a level none could possibly imagine, pain the State can never heal. The vice goes, perhaps, but the pain remains. Always."

"You seem to have forgotten this fact time and time again. Pain is the necessity. Pain helps the process."

If there was any element of their logic that made sense to Him in any way, in some distant measure. Pain was one of the very few things their world had changed; its reddish coat covered and polluted all of life. But it was used for different purposes in both worlds. In the world He and the Girl had known before, pain is what made you grow and kept you human. In the State world, pain was to perfection what gold was to a stock market. It was the ultimate.

"The process is never ending. Is that the true reveal? The final answer?"

Again only She listened. The unreformed heard him, He knew they did. But none of them questioned because this was likely the first time they had ever heard Him question. Anybody question. He looked behind him for a moment; Walker bumbled along side to side like a human balloon, his reformers not seeing but not having to. He grunted softly with each step; the scars still bearing pain. For every other pair He saw the situation was identical. But they did not question; only He. The outlier in the system, or so He had always believed. And again.

"Well?"

"Is your, our, process infinite, you ask?", the slightest hints of a smile forming as She spoke, the wet tongue savouring the words like sweet candies.

"Yes and no. Consider it an observation."

"You observe rightly, yet wrongly. The unreformed vary, but a large block of time is given to them all. The process feels neverending but is merely extremely long."

Contemplating this, he realized that the truth was merely just that; time was everything but did not exist. You were simply unreformed and had to be broken back into State shape, no matter how many imaginary hours passed. He thought of questioning further, but realized it was futile. Why flog a dead horse? Looking back to eye level, he stared ahead at the dozens of bobbing heads in front of him, on their way to the final part of the undefinable reformation process. They were almost at the gates now. As they parted, a growing shaft of light appeared on the floor, spreading out gradually across the smooth concrete.

The most final truths of the reformation process lay in the void. The big, comforting black. Maybe after the yard he'd reach it once more, for Her inner's thoughts. The outer was simply confirming the worst more and more. They were passing underneath the doors by now; His eyes were drawn above to the very ceiling. It was a black void there too, but the phantoms lurked there, always watching, always waiting. Imaginary time was on his side. The crowd split up into three groups now, all approaching the same destination. Standing in the vast yard was the wooden stand. The Commander was there this time, with the same row of guards behind him. He preened and strutted, watching the approaching prisoners the way one looks at their very worst enemy. She stopped Him in His tracks; somewhere up front all had stopped.

The open air did some good, none there, State drone nor unreformed, could deny the refreshment of clean air. Or as clean as it got in their new world. The sky was the same blue-grey, the air was the same cold bitingness and the process was going to be the same. The Commander took another final look at his prey for the day and stepped forward.

"Good day to you all. The next and final morning has arrived. This forms only the first part of your day. What happens next isn't only up to me, but you too. Remember that."

The wooden stand was like his pet. His rough hands stroked it lovingly, like he enjoyed caressing the polished oak altar of pain. If objects spoke, this one would scream. Pain, torture, insanity and death were all everyday occurrences for it. The Commander knew that, gazing down at it lovingly.

"Me too is the key though. I not only have the power...I am the power."

Reaching down under the stand, he brought out something and tucked into his back pocket, unseen. He then stood away from the stand and begin marching with great long strides up and down, as though on patrol. All eyes were locked on him, save for the reformers, who had of course seen this all before. The Commander's boots sounded like gunshots in the morning air. He turned and faced up into the clear sky, standing still as a statue for almost a full minute. The Prisoner looked at the Girl, also motionless.

They're breaking from the final routine, but that doesn't worry me. The truth is all, the only truth that is really true lies in the void. With Her. Not with the one beside me. She tells me only the lie, but the lie won't be enough for me anymore.

Here we go.

The Commander snapped back to his reality, almost unaware of his sudden trance. But that was what happened to the reformed who took their reformation beyond the norm and became true State drones; self-consciousness ceased, for one now belonged entirely to them. The Commander might have known this once, but that was the idea. Reformation destroyed vice but also eradicated self-will, leaving the reformed ultimately as one of the walking dead. What was once the illusion of choice for oneself, by oneself was replaced with nothing but the purest of doctrine.

The real zombie now made his moves towards the crowd, gazing dead into the eyes of each prisoner with his own grey, lifeless sight. The face twitched every now and again with each inspection; the lips curling inwards with anger and the eyes blazing furiously. The Commander spent the ensuing twenty minutes wading through the crowd, making his presence known, all the while those boots shaking the ground. Eventually the inevitable came. But He was not frightened of the Commander. He feared the Commander the way He feared disease; if it came, it came. But best to avoid it. If you couldn't though, there was no getting away. The disease now looked in His eye. The zombie had stopped.

"Ah...you. I believe we know each other."

He spoke without emotion, no hint of anything on his face. The Prisoner kept calm, however. Allowing the mind-train to veer off the rails would end in only one way from here on in. He looked the zombie square in the dull eyes.

"Do we? I've never had the pleasure."

"Of course you haven't. But the fact remains; we all know each other in here."

"Perhaps you're right. Perhaps we're all the same."

Sarcasm tasted glorious. But the zombie was unfazed, still standing tautly, like a cobra ready to strike. But the danger was not palpable this time. The disease wasn't spreading, He could avoid this one with caution.

"Maybe. Maybe. The process may have worked on you yet."

He didn't leave though. Something about Him was attractive. Something that might have been able to break even their minds, minds the State had moulded and left to harden over time, so they could never be reshaped. But even for a fleeting second, a single moment, there was the briefest glimmer of hope in the zombie's eyes, a split second of realization. One last bright glimmer that would fade forever.

But then it was gone. The Commander returned from the undead and resumed the new reality.

"Final days...come and go. But when the final final day comes, be ready."

"For what?"

"Something worse than the old world.  I guarantee you."

The idea of the afterlife had been destroyed along with all the old ways; the State decreed the idea of any deity was a crime, for religion merely added more contradiction to a world of contradictions. People believed what they want and that was freedom, yet freedom was met with war. War led to more freedom, which then led to more war. So all churches, cathedrals and temples in the State lands were long burnt down or bulldozed. The Commander could have meant something other, but that remained to be seen. For now anyways.

"The old world...what a waste it was. Remember it badly. We all have, all do and all shall."

The interrogation ended there. He prounced off worldlessly, never once looking back. The Prisoner caught the bulge of the mysterious object in his back pocket; likely another weapon. No demonstration would demonstrate without violence. Just another unreformed, just another day, just another death. The crowd remained totally immobile for the next thirty minutes, until finally the Commander emerged from somewhere and reclaimed his platform. The very thought of soon forthcoming violence only served to widen his smile.

"The time is come. You are all ready for the final process. But the last reminders need to come forward, what was shown to you before must be destroyed. The new world cleans vice, yet it can always come back. And to come back for good, this we can't allow."

More silence passed, hanging in the air like lead in water. The Prisoner turned to the Girl, but she was lost in the new reality; her eyes transfixed solely on the Commander and nobody else. Another wave of anxiety swept over the crowd, as the devil at the podium scanned left and right with c***s of his head. Eventually, from right behind the Prisoner, came a sound he had heard before. He should have seen it coming, but the old ways were still the old ways in here. The Commander had that look that always came over all the drones, he was snapped to attention like a shark that sights it prey in open water.

Walker stepped forward, led by one of his guards. Every head in the crowd turned at the exact same time, including the Prisoner's. This was the moment that would decide all, the moment that the predators would receive their prey. The Prisoner turned to the Girl, wanting an explanation.

"Walker has been chosen because...?"

She answered almost immediately.

"You heard. Vice is gone but may always return. The best way is total eradication, if one still cannot control it any longer."

"So the process ends in death for some?"

How cryptic the next answer was, would always continue to intrigue Him. Her bluntness equalled, if not bettered the State's.

"Death to all eventually. It merely comes faster to others."

That said it all. Walker was almost at the stand by now, the Commander now trying to control himself from bouncing up and down with gruesome joy. When Walker finally stopped before him, the stand almost toppled over with his anticipation. The great bulk of a man was quivering uncontrollably, aware of what was in store for him. But that is what Block 13 taught all there; routine led to more routine. Only the Prisoner knew that the best and understood it the most, perhaps moreso than anybody else there. Walker didn't know the routine, so Walker was going to pay. That was their logic, that was the way things were going to be.

The Commander stepped down off the podium, reaching into his back pocket again. This time the hand stayed there, stroking whatever was lying within. Walker stood there continuing to shake. He was in open water now, with the uniformed shark gliding towards him, stopping to stand right beside him. The shark turned to the small fish, savouring its sheer fear.

"You're afraid, are you?"

Walker trembled, his words warbling in the mouth, realizing the growing direness of his predicament.

"Yes...sir. V-very much so."

The Commander grabbed his shirt and began pulling it up slowly, revealing the great scar across the chest; blue, black, purple and green breaking out in full flourish like a hellish watercolour work. The once-white bandage was now a seeping yellow, oozing with the raggedness of infection. But the shark wasn't afraid, instead it was amused as it inspected closely and laughed alone, one hand planted on the wound, the other still in the pocket. Walker winced with pain as the black shark touched his tender white skin.

"The pain remains? Time, well, something has passed since we last met."

Walker nodded with all the stoic slowness of a man who knows he is about to suffer beyond imagining. The Commander continued his quiet tirade, running those fingers along the roughened flesh with all the delicate care of a sculptor.

"Whatever has passed has not healed, I can see."

The Prisoner wondered if he planned on finishing off the job, as a sort of grim treat to himself. Walker had not returned to the temptations of vice but the reminder lingered on his flesh, the way the reminder lingered before the Commander's blackened beady eyes. The hand in the pocket now shifted, gripping the unseen. The Prisoner watched more closely than any of the other dozens of gazing eyes did. Walker had no idea what would happen, yet had all the knowledge in the world. He opened his mouth, searching desperately for the right words. The Commander was right behind him now.

"Healing isn't important....my vice is gone. I'm still broken, sir....but my vice isn't. My vice isn't."

He still watched closely for the hand's hidden treasure, but nothing as of yet. The Girl seemed to be appearing happier however. Another quick glance around him and he noticed the same thing happening to all other reformers. The intent was becoming all too clear now, all that remained was to see how this reminder was to be ridded of. With the arm reaching snakily behind the back, the Commander gripped the thing in the pocket and finally produced it, out of Walker's view. The thing glinted in the light, but the Prisoner only realized its identity when it once more entered the shade.

A gleaming metal razor. The same one that reminded Walker, the same one that would now remind him even more. This time, however, would be for good. The Commander took a few moments to allow it all to sink in, keeping the razor totally from Walker's view. He breathed deeply as he awaited the latest opportunity.

"Your vice is broken you say?"

"Yes, yes! Healing isn't the important part, I get that now."

The Commander nodded slowly, trying to absorb the answer.

"Healing isn't what matters to you, yet you call yourself healed?"

The face went white as a sheet. Walker didn't know exactly what he had done or said, but a change was going to interrupt the flow of the conversation sooner than later. Somewhere unseen, unfelt and yet palpable, these changes were slowly working. Walker replied with great care.

"Sir...I don't believe I understand..."

"Your vice is broken you say? Everything that made you of the old ways is truly lost? Yet you still feel imperfect?"

The shaking grew worse still, now the Commander had stepped back out in front of Walker. The razor was held behind the back, out of the pocket but still with Walker blissfully (or not so blissfully) unaware. The unawareness was the last remaining defence left, once it shattered the man was completely doomed. Doomed forever.

"I feel...better. But after all this, work needs to be done. I still need to go further...I think...s-sir."

The change was nearing now, and nearing ever-so fast. Everybody present knew it. The guards all looked ready to burst into laughter, including the Girl. He believed His eyes; part of their corruption was to embrace the violence by becoming the violence. His attention drifted back to the Commander, where Her eyes began widening like growing black spots. The dreaded steely voice boomed out across the yard.

"And go further you shall, Mr. Walker, go further you shall. The new world only begins here. From this point forward we are all self-suffering no more, least of all you."

The razor was now being held up in the open air for all to see, and two guards from the background rows had moved forwards. Walker was now blubbering up and down, shaking like a human earthquake. The Commander on the other hand was like a child in a candy store, or Walker in the old world. The two guards, as in the first demonstration, grabbed Walker by both arms, holding them tightly behind his back.

"You see, the first demonstration destroyed the vice. However, what has happened in your case is what happens to most. The vice has destroyed you. One must not prevail over the other."

The razor would say everything that was needed though, as the nylon-thin, deadly sharp blade proved invisible in the daylight, like flashing quicksilver. The only thing proving its very existence were the gleaming droplets of blood that danced in the air.

"B-but sir! I destroyed it! The pain destroyed it! Stop it! Stop it! No! NOOOO!!"

The great man wrestled and kicked as much as he could, yet the two guards held, strong enough to pin him infinitely if need be. The Commander drew nearer ever so gradually, savouring every single step, knowing the extent of the doomed's terror and loving it more than anything. The Prisoner should have looked away, his eyes begged him to, but all the others couldn't either as they spied the struggling whale.

"The vice must be destroyed. This demonstration shall last, for you, for me, for all present. Let the State's teachings be known!"

Now within a few steps, the Commander reached out with the blade, the edge barely scraping the sizeable mass of flesh before it, which quivered and shook in buckets of perspiration. Walker's screaming never stopped, the sound piercing the air relentlessly. The Girl and the guards were all clapping their hands now, enjoying their Commander's great display. Her eyes were wider than ever. He looked back just in time to see Walker's chest finally meeting with the razor once again. This time, slowly. The purpling wound opened up as the stitches broke free, releasing forth a stream of crimson blood that gushed out onto the waiting concrete, splashing the Commander's shining leather boots. He lashed out once more with the razor, the second slashing spilling out Walker's intestines. At this, he motioned for the two guards holding him to step back, which they did more than happily, leaving the hulk on his own two feet for the final fleeting moments of his life.

More absolute silence. Every single cornea and pupil in the yard was fixated on Walker. The Commander tucked the razor neatly back into his pocket, his uniform covered in bodily fluid and blood splotches. He watched his work with sickening satisfaction. Walker stumbled back and forth, his insides continuing to spill out, the intestines spooling out like fleshy, bloodied lengths of bubblegum. Eventually, after a sharp breath and silent scream, he keeled over in a great clump. Another brief lull followed, then the roaring of countless hands clapping. The Prisoner looked over at Her then; those dainty articles applauding a brutality she was led to believe was wholly justified. The Commander reveled in this fact and would likely repeat it to the Warden later, allowing them to congratulate themselves for "solving" the final reminder. The sole solver of that very reminder now stepped forward, heading back towards the podium.

"So...we have seen the final lesson. That even when vice has been destroyed, circumstances continue to dictate all. Freedom from vice is not the end, rather it is only the beginning."

With this last line, he threw his arms out with great gusto, his army of reformers stretching  before him like a mass of black insects blanketing the yard. Walker's body lay crumpled like a great seal by the Commander's side as he resumed his tirade, him grasping the podium with bloodied hands. Walker's newfound lack of intestines had made his belly noticeably recede, leaving a sticky, flat hollow inside the chest. The smell of death in the air could be tasted on the tip of one's tongue, like sulphur and sour milk. Watching the Commander intently, the Prisoner found himself in the midst of a sea of delusion, raging all around him. The Girl's smiling, clapping hands and cheering were now turned to tears. But whether they were tears of joy, insanity or hopelessness remained to be seen. All that could be seen was Her Commander.

"Freedom from vice starts now, but so does this very beginning! The beginning leads to the next, and the next, and the next onwards!"

She threw her hat up in the air, His eyes knowing all, as the volume of surrounding cheers reached a deafening point. Turning to Him slowly, the smile disappeared completely as the life drained from Her face. Another fleeting moment of awareness came across Her, that which had afflicted the Commander. Behind the lifeless eyes there was still something lingering that was dying to be let out, a human instinct that begged for liberation. But as Her porcelain skin told and the thronging around them demonstrated, all that was gone forever. The hands clawed and grappled, grasped and clenched furiously, like packs of wild animals. Something more was in store for the unreformed, yet the reformers too. But the more He watched Her standing in the midst of the chaos, the more none of it mattered anymore. Because all that had been could be no more and once again, was lost forever.

Mindsparks flew.

Gone forever in this world only. Rediscovered in the one that awaits. Just remember that. Just remember that, the soothing voice said slowly. Oh how He wished others could hear it. But for now, only He was back in the beautiful void. She was right by His side, staring into the madness together. Up ahead there was the Commander again on the lonely old stage. No sounds, no sorrow, but only the bright vision. Like the spirit of somebody still alive. He looked at it with great empathy, for it was another soul trapped in their world. She nudged him gently, drawing His attention back to the important things.

"Don't. Their sympathy can't be yours, and their tragedies are not ours. They can't be."

It was the truth, but a terrible truth at that. They embraced, out of the corner of His eye the vision of the Commander dissipated. Somewhere in the distance, over an invisible horizon, a roaring was gradually emerging. But that was in the distance for a reason, as They shared a kiss to last a thousand years. He eventually broke away, His entire body buzzing like it hadn't since the old world had passed. Her porcelain face looked like living hell in their world, but in here it was as it always was; sculpted perfectly and manicured flawlessly. He moved His arms up and down Her back slowly, caressing the velvety-smooth skin, all the while keeping their eyes firmly locked on each other. The roaring was starting to grow nearer. But the blackness remained pleasantly thick. For the moment.

"It's coming." She finally spoke.

The pain flashed through the nothingness quickly.

"But it can't. Not this time. Not this fast..."

But He knew She was right. Denial was not for this world, both of them knew that all too well by now. They broke Their embrace painfully, neither one wishing to leave the other. But the roaring told them one thing (if anything); this parting would not be as final as their last. The roaring was dangerously close now and the blackness was beginning to go to grey. Weight and substance spilled back over His body along with the cold light of the new world. His last sight of Her inner was that of a glowing angel in the mind's eye; She floated back, smiling and waving all the way. Then before it registered, the dreamlands were vanquished once more.

Rough hands grabbed him awake, the chaos continuing unabated all around Him. She was staring into His eyes again with that animal determination, the frenzied need to reform all and reform forever. She spoke with conviction true to the vision.

"You did not see! You did not see!"

"See what?" He asked stupidly, watching Her point towards the Commander. His eyes did not deceive him; he too was pointing, this time directly at Him. The crowd was slowly parting in front of him, like a blade cutting through a great gash of humanity (not including the ones like Her). She then grabbed Him and pushed forwards, leading Him to the Commander's stand, where he beamed proudly.

"Sometimes vice cannot be ridded of fully, even when you totally destroy the source. Sometimes, it may lie deep within a person. Deep enough that indeed, it may never be reached."

She shoved him forth, further than He ever wanted or intended to go. The Commander greeted him with open arms, gesturing towards Him as he spoke, like a scientist showing off a prize specimen. He stepped over the mound that was Walker to show the Prisoner forward, speaking pleasantly.

"Here we have the pure truth of that statement."

Now they were on his bloodbathed stage, She stepped away from Him and behind Her Commander. All the cheering had stopped, the hands paused for now, paused forever even. He couldn't help but notice the sheer direness of the situation, despite the path He was promised. The air felt colder than ever before. The Commander placed a sticky hand on His shoulder, gazing at him again with zombified eyes.

"The truth is all that matters. In this world, in the State's paradises, the truth is that vice lies deep within us all. Each and every one of us. But it is only the truly strong who defeat it."

Slowly, he reached into his back pocket and produced the razor again. The Prisoner stood frozen to the spot; the glinting showed it all. Walker's blood coated it thickly, dark and coagulated. Like the murk of the mind at this very moment. However, what most surprised Him was not what the Commander did, but rather what he didn't do. Instead of slashing him to meaty ribbons, the Commander handed him the very tool used to accomplish such a task. The Prisoner took the blade with heavy thought and hesitant action, the gravity of evil too almost too much considering the razor's history. He was able to tolerate the State's ways, had grown used to them. But never to perpetrating it Himself.

"The strong are not all of us. Some of them show themselves not, until an occasion calls for it. Something is coming soon."

The Commander stepped aside, pointing to Walker's slightly shrunken body. The something had arrived. It made perfect sense on their terms, but He still found himself taken by surprise. She stood over the body, transfixed by Walker's wounds, old and new. A great flap of flesh hung downwards, darkened by the cavity. Bending over, she simply peeled it back for a closer look. The usual nausea hit Him as the Commander grabbed His hand, pointing at the razor, running a finger along the stained steel. The zombie eyes bore into Him.

"Show us strength."

The Commander turned to the crowd.

"Show us ALL strength! Show us what lies within! Show it to us for what it is!"

The body lay before him on the cold yard. Walker's eyes were pointed straight towards the sky, perhaps seeking the very God he had always been looking for. Somewhere in the great blue were the answers to all his life's questions. The Prisoner's questions had no answers, not in this world anyway. He crouched down slowly over Walker, His eyes never leaving the great void either. The Commander's hands prodded Him in the back sharply.

"Strength, please. Strength now."

"What is it you want me to show? What are we looking for?"

"The source of vice. The very nerve center, that which generates all that we're supposed to stamp out forever."

He had a vague idea of what was needed, but not the full picture. But in Block 13 that was never really needed anyhow. The hands prodded him into action again, urging him to find the courage before he found the nerve center. He swallowed, the bitter sickliness of a rising gag coating the inside of His mouth. The smell of death permeated His nostrils too, looking inside the puddling gore of Walker's chest cavity. He leaned in slowly with the razor, His hands shaking ever so slightly. He had learned to live with pain, with violence, but could He now become it? Only the first cuts would tell.  He looked up for a split second to catch Her standing over Him, examining every tiny little move.

"The nerve center is like that which it generates; hard to find and harder still to vanquish."

Regurgitation of the highest order. Get me back to the dreamlands please. She needs the usual answer, just one little thing to justify this final Hell.

"I always have...somehow."

"Always has come. Always is now."

The bile rose faster, any more looking at Her and the sickness would spill out. He turned to look back into the flesh and, forcing Himself beyond the limit, plunged the razored hand in. The lukewarm moistness coated His hands as He sliced and slashed His way through layers of tendon, muscle and viscera. His stomach twisted more and more the closer He got, until eventually, a formidable lump could be felt. Drawing a hand out, the razor was thrown onto the concrete with a splatter, narrowly missing Her shoes. Struggling with the squishy lump hidden inside Walker's body, the Prisoner pulled and pulled, the face red as the flames of Hell itself. Perhaps even redder.

"This...can't...be...happening..."

Yes it is. Yes it is. But your path is already set, they cannot change it. They never have been able to, never will and never could. You are strong already, just not on their terms. Grasp a tad harder now, there we go, something is giving way. Tearing we a-go. Something black and bloody, once full of life and activity, here this something comes. Let its juices run through one's fingers.

He finally pulled it out, studying it with a mix of nausea and fascination. So there it was, in all of its natural glory. Walker's heart, strangely average for a man so vast. He rose slowly with it in His hand, holding it high for all to see, unreformed and reformer alike gaped. The Commander walked over and stood by His side, patting Him on the shoulder like a proud parent. In their world, he was. But the heart.

Yes, the heart. The foretold nerve center that breeds all vice. It makes sense if one sees it in certain terms; the tortured with their vices inflicts more torture on another. Heart attacks and failures all come down to one thing; the body's revenge against itself. The heart gives us our life and what do we do? Ply it with vices; drinking, smoking, food. Walker had to learn that the hardest way of all; now he must go to the beyond as heartless, and therefore irredeemable. The others around you are all the same, but they don't have to go through the final torture like Walker did. Their hearts were torn out long, long ago already. Just hold onto yours.

The Girl came and grabbed Him away, the Commander snatching the flabby heart from His hands with great gusto, watching the bodily fluids dripping all down the Prisoner's hands and arms. Producing a small black cloth, he used it to cover his hands. Walking to the stand, he placed it carefully before him as he spoke his final words of the day, the sky above having been drained of all blue, as far as one's eye could see.

"So you have all learnt the last by now. The last teaching before you either accept our world or return to yours forevermore. If the heart cannot be trusted and the mind is a web of deceit, what can you trust? Nothing. The only trust is in the State. The State can fix all. Always remember that the same way you will always remember this!"

He was led back into the midst of that everlasting crowd, for the last time, during the last demonstration of what was going to end as the first day of normality, the first in a long time indeed. The Commander threw Walker's heart onto the ground beside him and, raising a mighty boot, stamped on it with all his might. The flesh tore and gushed forth, discharging more coarse, dark life juices across their grey world. The final demonstration was something He and others would always find difficult to forget, the moment amongst the madness that truly stood out. She found their place before it and They stood there for the final moments. He looked down at His hands, once so clean and pure, now stained a dark velvet with blood. Not His fault though, thankfully. The Commander took some time to allow the next long silence to pass. His last words were direct and to the point, his daily bloodlust fulfilled for the time being.

"This demonstration is over. But now the next happenings shall very soon begin. All of you, return to your cells to prepare. Prepare for your final fates."

With that, he turned and walked away, the entire row of guards behind him following suit. All that remained in their noiseless wake was the lone stand and Walker's mangled (beyond recognition from the head down) remains. She grabbed him by the arm and tugged hard.

"You heard him. Back to the Block we must go, for you have a lot to think about."

He looked down at his hands again, still slick and wet. The tough skin tightened where the blood was starting to dry, cracking in the edges like little dark pieces of broken glass. But She knew what question would inevitably come next, saying it before He asked it.

"Ignore them. The blood must stay. It always does."

The masses thinned around Them, leaving some more breathing room, the only place it existed, also the only part of their outside world that remained enjoyable. She nudged him again, much harder this time, and they began the long trek back to Block 13. As they followed the moving figures near and afar, He kept glancing back over His shoulder towards Walker's body, replaying Her words constantly.

"The blood must stay. It always does."

For the first time that day, He completely agreed with Her. That body, those few hundred pounds, represented all they hated most. He looked back to Her, back to the body, then back to Her again. One thing stayed just like the other. Both were different now forever. If something stayed, it stayed. But in order for something to stay, it had to change.

Such was their everlasting motto.

Author's Note

1) Is the Prisoner's evolution into insanity convincing?
2) Does the logic of reformation make sense?
3) Are the story's themes palpable?