Never Come Back
Blood and bone were scattered across Ryan’s face. SOme shards had embedded themselves in his cheek, making tiny incisions to lodge themselves into. His eyes were glazed, his expression devoid of all emotion except a terrible, cold sadness; his eyes were like the south pole.
He had tried to position the gun so that the bullet would hit the both of them. Unfortunately, Narendra leapt in at the last second and corrected the angle. Looking down, Ryan saw what he had done with his own two hands and a small, metal instrument. He began to shake violently. Before him was a child, six years of age, missing half his head. It was mostly the back half; blood and brain oozed out of the gaping hole. Bone was strewn across the floor with the blood and brain matter. His eyes were still intact, though. They stared back at him.
“Why?” they asked. There was no answer anymore. Ryan broke down, and slumped to the floor, sobbing silently. In the back of his mind, he heard his voice play over his reasoning. “He’s dead anyway.” “The needs of the many...” “Harris...” Nothing made sense anymore. He was just weak; weak of mind, weak of body. He heard steps approach him.
“This is why you shouldn’t resist. People die.”
A moment later, someone else picked him up and threw him over their shoulder. This person carried him to his cell. Once there, he dumped Ryan onto the floor. Harris scrambled across the floor over to him.
“Ryan?” he asked. No response. “Ryan!” He only shook on the floor.
Harris pulled him up and leaned him against the wall. Ryan slumped forward, not able to hold himself up. “Ryan, what happened?” Ryan stared at the floor. “Answer me, dammit!” Ryan did not answer. Harris grabbed his chin and looked into his eyes. What he saw shook the very foundation of his being; behind the glazed eyes, underneath the sunken appearance of his face, was... nothing.
“Ryan...” he started. The door opened slowly, for once, behind them. Two armed men and a guy in a casual outfit came in.
“They tell me that I have to treat your friend.” he said. Harris looked at them, then moved aside. The man, who must have been a doctor, moved forward and picked up Ryan’s arms. “Hmm.” he said. He motioned for the guards to give him something. One of them pulled out a large roll of bandage wrap, the other pulled out gauss. The doctor took them and dressed Ryan’s burned arms. He looked to Harris. “Could you help me turn him over?” he asked. Harris moved forward and helped flip Ryan over. He noticed that Ryan’s shirt was torn and bloody.
“What the...” The doctor pulled up his shirt, and Harris gasped at what he saw. In big letters, “USA” was carved into his back. Under it was numerous slash marks. The doctor took out the gauss and spread it over the whole of Ryan’s back. Once finished, he had Harris hold Ryna up in a sitting position. “Could you hold him up?” he asked. Not wanting to further harm his friend, Harris did as he was asked. The doctor began wrapping the bandage around the whole of Ryan’s torso. This took roughly ten minutes.
Once finished, the doctor was abruptly escorted out of the room. The door slammed shut. Harris looked down at his friend. “What the hell did they do to you, Ryan?” he asked. He never expected a response. He had expected Ryan to never come back.
And he didn’t.
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Luna got up from bed quickly that morning. She hurriedly helped her sister with the celestial bodies, having some basic small talk with her. They were both tired this morning, and so kept it to a minimum.
Luna sluggishly made her way to her chambers and down her stairs. Not entirely sure how many days Ryan wanted, she kept her pace slower, just in case.
Nonetheless, she soon found herself face to face with the pool. The pool that gave her a view into the workings of other worlds, with their fascinating life forms. And their horrible atrocities. “I never expected this to happen.” she thought solemnly. She took a look into the pool before casting herself in. In the room, Ryan was sitting with his head in his knees. He didn’t move or talk. He simply sat. The boy was missing. “Oh dear.” she said. That said, she launched her apparition into the pool.
She stood before Ryan once again. He didn’t seem to notice or register that she appeared before him. Of course, she didn’t exactly make noise when she arrived. She leaned forward. “Ryan,” she said. He was as a statue, still and incapable of change, it would seem. He was like the statues in the royal garden. One particular one she thought of was the statue of Discord, the spirit of chaos. “Ryan, what happened?” she asked. “Where is the boy?” He didn’t respond at all. Rather than become frustrated as she did before, though, Luna kept a calm tone. It was almost motherly. “What happened to the boy?” she asked. This time, he looked up.
His face had sunken in, as if he was stuck in a permanent state of frowning. There were large bags under his eyes, dark and heavy looking. His necklace hung over his chest, only now moving from the movement of his head. He didn’t tremble or shake; a statue. His eyes disturbed Luna. She stared hard into them. As much as she searched through them, she could find nothing.
Ryan finally broke his silence. “I killed him.” Luna’s eyes shot wide open and her mouth fell slightly ajar.
“What?” she asked. Harris got up behind Luna. Running right through her, he went and leaned over Ryan. Luna had to move over to see Ryan’s face.
“What? What do you mean, you killed him?” Harris asked. He placed his hands on Ryan’s shoulders, gripping them firmly.
“I shot him.” Ryan replied. Harris stood up and moved back. He fell down to the ground and sat back on his hands. “He’s gone.” Ryan said. He then shook his head and looked back down. Immediately, he looked back up, right at Luna.
“What can you do to help me now?” he asked. Harris looked at him, confused.
“Who are you talking to?” he asked. Ryan ignored him.
“What can I do at this point?” he asked. Luna looked at him hard.
“I believe that you have two options.” She stood before him again. His eyes followed her movements, concerning Harris deeply. “You can give up. Be sold as a slave or die.” She had great difficulty saying that. “Or, you can do what is right. Bring these men to justice for their crimes.”
Harris stepped forward and grabbed Ryan’s shoulders, shaking him. “Snap out of it! No one is there!” he yelled. Ryan looked at Harris, then back to Luna.
“I can’t fight them.” he said. Harris ceased his shaking and went to the other side of the room. “I can only survive.”
Luna looked down at him, pity and tears welling up in her eyes. This was the first time she had ever encountered someone who truly had no hope left. Someone who had truly given up, lost faith in their chances. “Well, then.” she said. Ryan looked at her. “I suppose that all I can do is help you get through this.” Ryan looked back down, returning to his statue-like state.
Deciding that this was not the end of her visit, Luna exited the room through the door. She looked around; it seemed that all the guards were present in the room but two. Narendra was talking to the men. Luna approached with caution. “I have made it clear many times that senseless killing is not permitted. The woman you killed represented money, and lots of it.” he said. It was perfectly clear to Luna that the mother was dead. “So who did it?” he asked. The men before him tossed one of their own forward onto his knees. The one man looked up at Narendra, terror swirling in his eyes like a whirlpool. “So it was you.” Narendra stated. The man got to begging.
“Yes, but-” he was cut off by a hidden knife in Narendra’s sleeve plunging into his throat. He fell back, gurgling the whole way as blood sprayed from the wound in his neck. Narendra turned his attention back to the group.
“Don’t ruin the merchandise.”
One of his men was foolish enough to come forward. “You killed the child, sir. What about that?” he met an unexpected response; a matter-of-fact statement from his boss.
“The child would not have been worth much. I killed his father, and you killed his mother, so very few others would be willing to put forward enough cash to make him worth keeping. He was more expensive to keep.” Luna shakily stepped forward to see Narendra. “And I am allowed to decide who lives,” he said. He pointed at the man still dying below him. “and who doesn’t.” His men all took a step backwards, trepidation evident in their postures. “We leave in four more days. Our boat will take us and the prisoners to Sumatra, where we will then begin transporting them to our compound there.” Luna scowled. Nothing was new or useful here.
Deciding not to waste time, she went back into the cell with Ryan. She sat beside him. “I do not think that I can get anything to help you at the moment.” she told him. His breathing was slow and deliberate. “But I promise you that I will help you however and whenever I can.” Ryan turned to look at her. “Don’t come back for four days.” he told her. She looked at him, sadness evident in both their expressions. “It’ll be more of the same.”
She took his word on this and made her mystical exit. “So beautiful.” he commented. Harris just looked at him, despair painted across his face like a work from Picasso.
Luna got up easily from her position on the floor. She couldn’t help but be exorbitantly disappointed with the events of her visit. Not so much that little happened, but that she couldn’t help Ryan. She sighed and started up the stairs. “He really is just like us.” she thought. This made her despair; it was as if one of her close subjects was in this position, now. “It is my job to protect.” she thought. Her jaw quivered and her eyes grew watery. “Why can’t I do more?” she wondered. Was it reluctance? A lack of care? Or was she too afraid too?
She made her way over to her bed and laid down. The soft, fluffy mattress nearly swallowed her whole, as it always did. She liked her mattress that way, though. It was like being lightly hugged by a big, caring monster.Her door creaked open. “It is usually considered polite to knock first.” Luna said to her intruder. It was Starstep, her guard.
“Your highness!” he yelped. He had clearly not expected her to be here. “I-I was just, umm...” he had no answer to her lack of questioning.
“Why were you coming in?” she asked him nonchalantly. He rubbed one of his forelegs with the other.
“Well, whenever you’re busy, I like to read books from your library. Please don’t be mad!” he finished his plea rapidly and with a sheepish look on his face. Luna looked at him.
“I do not mind. All you needed to do was ask.” she said. Starstep’s face brightened and he trotted by, going to her library. “Oh, Starstep,” Luna called. He stopped and looked at her expectantly. “Could you get a specific book?” she asked. Still happy, Starstep asked,
“What book, your highness?” Luna thought for a moment, putting her hoof to her chin.
“Could you go get Fictional Tales for Little Fillies?” she asked. This generated a confused look from Starstep, but he went and got the book anyway. When he returned, He brought the book over to Luna.
“Would you read me one of the stories?” she asked. At first, Starstep thought she was joking; then, when he looked at her face, he saw that something was upsetting her. Not wanting to pry into potentially royal affairs, he flipped to a random story and began to read.
“Moon-bear loved the moon...”
A small smile crept onto her lips.