Someone once told me a story about life.
I don't remember who they were. Their name, their face, it's all gone now. But their voice stuck with me. Rough, tired. Like someone who had lived too long and seen too much.
We were sitting on top of an old parking garage. The city had gone to sleep around us. Just flickering windows and quiet hums. And they said;
"Life is like a house on fire."
That, I vividly remember.
At the time, I thought it was a joke. I gave them that dry stare I always gave when someone tried to wax poetic. But they just kept going, eyes on the clouds.
"You start with all this structure. All of this wood and framework and steel. And for a while, it's whole. But slowly, life sets it alight. Regret, grief, time… it all lights the match. And you try to put it out, try to save what you can. But you can't save the whole thing. It'll burn. Because that's what it does."
I remember asking them why we bother building anything if it's all just going to fall apart in the end.
They shrugged and said, "Because for a while… you get to live in it."
That stuck with me.
***
Now here I am, standing out in the open, watching a Centurion in the distance. The machine doesn't move, not yet, but I know it's watching. Waiting. I know what it can do.
I wonder, not for the first time, what it'd feel like. Not pain. . . No. I've felt pain. Pain is manageable. Pain is old news.
I mean the quiet that would come after.
No more System. No more orders. No more waking up cold, sore, unsure if you're going to make it through the hour.
I think about stepping forward. Just one step. That's all it would take. No struggle. No chase.
One step.
Let them take me.
Let the metal arms clamp down
Let them erase me. Lock me away. Or just finish it.
It wouldn't hurt for long.
Let them 'burn' the last of the house down.
'Wouldn't that be mercy?'
There's a voice in my head that keeps whispering.
Do it. Just walk. You're tired. This won't end any other way.
You've hurt people. You've killed people. They'll never forgive you. And you don't deserve it.
They'll all see what you are eventually. Let them stop you before that happens.
I don't argue with the voice. Not really. Because deep down… it makes sense.
The System in my head is buzzing again. A countdown I can't turn off. Numbers ticking down toward something I don't even understand.
Another objective. Another target. Another disaster.
I'm just a machine with a soul jammed inside. . .
No home. No control. No peace.
So maybe I should stop running.
Just step into the light and let them do what they came here to do.
Maybe that's the closest thing to freedom I'll ever get.
But then I hear something.
Laughter.
Somewhere off to the side. Not cruel laughter. Not a mocking kind of laughter. Just… bright.
Alive.
I turn my head slightly and see Orenji. His voice cuts through the fog in my brain. He's talking to someone. Probably joking. Probably waving his hands in the usual way he does, like he can bend the air around his words to make people listen.
He's real. A little too real. Too warm for a world like this.
I barely know him. But that's the problem. Even that small flicker of light feels too much to carry.
He doesn't know what I am. Not really. He doesn't know the full truth about me. Not yet. He still looks at me like I'm… normal. Like I'm a person. Like I matter.
And I don't know why that hits me so hard.
I mean, it shouldn't though.
It shouldn't matter.
But it does.
Maybe because I want it to be true.
And when he finds out, when he sees what happens when The System activates, when the world starts treating me like what it thinks I am. . . he'll run. He'll run eventually. Or worse, he won't. And he'll get hurt.
They always do.
Another second ticks.
[TIMER — 00:53:08]
I close my eyes.
The person on the rooftop…
I think they knew what was coming for them. Maybe not in a detailed way. But I think they knew the fire was catching up. And they wanted me to understand something before it got to me too.
"One day," they said, "we're all going to die. Humans, I mean. Maybe we'll nuke ourselves, or the sun'll blow, or the air'll rot so bad nothing lives. But we're all gonna go. That's the nature of things."
"Then why fight?" I asked them.
They looked over. Their eyes weren't sad. Just steady.
"Because it matters what kind of story we leave in the ashes."
I exhale.
***
I exhale not because it helps. But because it's something to do.
I step forward.
Just one foot. Onto the main street. The Centurion shifts slightly, it's scanners sweeping toward me. One more step and it'll probably activate. Probably lock on. Probably end this.
But something holds me.
Not fear.
Not hope, either.
Something in-between.
A tiny voice that says: You still have a choice.
Her voice.
"God d*mn it."
I spat out the cuss as I look back at Orenji.
He's still talking to someone, spinning the red ball in one hand. No idea what's happening. No idea that I'm even deciding whether to vanish or not.
But something in me snaps like a rusted chain.
Not yet.
Not today.
***
"Let's go," I blurt out, quick and sharp, no time to think. Just focused solely on moving.
"Kael?" he calls. "You okay?"
I don't answer.
I walk toward him. Fast.
He frowns. "Wait—what are you doing?"
I grab his arm before he can step back, yanking him with more urgency than I mean to. I have no idea what in hell my face looks like right now. Probably like I've seen a ghost.
Or maybe I was the ghost.
"Wait, what? We're going to play?" he asks, confused.
I don't look back. I just keep moving. Toward the field. Toward the laughter. Toward the kids.
Toward the messy, painful, imperfect burning house of living.
In otherwords...
Towards Hell.
I don't know why.
But I go anyway.
Whatever you say, I think.
Whatever keeps the fire away for one more day.
And before my eyes, The System keeps ticking.
[TIMER — 00:52:49]
But I'm not listening.
Not right now.
Even hell has an exit wound where the light leaks in.