Prologue

December 20th, 2012 – evening

The sun has set. I have been holding it for a good hour. The light is getting dimmer and dimmer. I’ve kept it close to me all day. It is dark now. My heart is still beating. It has never beaten so hard. I never thought it would come to this. I never thought it would end like this. Until the end, I thought we could prevent it from happening. I thought I could prevent it from happening. We all failed. Me more than anyone else. It’s dark, but the sky is not black. Even here, it’s not black. I left the city to avoid the panic, the riots, the violence. If the police get involved – and they will – it will be a bloodbath, just like last Spring. I can’t handle it. Not now.
Unless this time everyone understands that it’s pointless? Maybe this time they will come to their senses? Enjoy whatever time they have left? Instead of wasting it? Somehow, I doubt it.

Well, I’ll never know. I’m not there. I didn’t want to face all this. I don’t have the strength anymore. Don’t have the strength or don’t have the courage? I have the feeling that what I am about to do is the most courageous thing I have ever done. Yet, it is motivated by cowardice. Nothing new here. How many times have I acted out of fear? And how many times have these actions been considered models of courage by others? My whole life has been one big misunderstanding. The sky is still not black. The orange colors of the sunset persisted for about an hour and then they darkened. The sky is now red, carmine red. Blood red. My last hopes that it wouldn’t happen have just evaporated.

It’s happening.

As unreal as it seems, everything is going as predicted. I still find it hard to fully believe it. Those last doubts vanish as soon as the first drops of a blood-red rain start to fall.

I hold it tighter in my hands. Curiosity tries to take over. I want to know. I want to know what will happen. Or rather how it will happen.

What’s the point? Let’s get it over with. That’s what I had decided weeks ago if the last attempts to prevent it failed. And as usual, I want to change my mind at the last moment.

Not this time. No, not this time. No more faltering. I deserve it anyway. After all the things I’ve done. All the lives I’ve taken. And in the end, it was all for nothing.
I look at it in my hand one last time. I almost throw it from the cliff. Instead, I remove the safety and I put its barrel in my mouth.

The blood-red sky is the last thing I see.

Author(s)

DavidB

Frenchman, exiled on the other side of the planet, DavidB writes. It's not always very good, but who cares, the goal is to write. Sometimes, he also does other things.

MetaStructure is one of his longest-running projects. It was started in the early 2000s. Stopped many times. Started over a few times. Let's hope this time is the right one.