The Ballad of Loneliness

by The Eccentric Mister E

Evigilantem

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering........and it's all over much too soon. - Woody Allen

The room was dark and cold and all that remained of what it used to be was a bed and a table. A padlock was attached to the door and wooden boards were nailed across the window. However, light still found a way past the small gaps in the wood. Colored orange, it danced across the walls with its cracks and chipped paint and over the still form of a man in the bed. He lay with his right arm at his side and his left over his chest, grasping something around his neck. The entire room felt like a morgue, as if it was void of any scrap of life…….were it not for the fly. A single fly buzzing around the ceiling looking for something, anything, to focus on. If a fly were to ever feel anything, it was now. But what it felt was something unknown to it. It had no word for it but for those more advanced and sentient it is known as a feeling called loneliness, and it pulled at the fly without mercy. The fly could usually find a few of its own kind to hang around with or some other form of life but there was nothing here. The fly landed on the wall and began to rub its forelegs together as if nervous or even scared. Then it noticed the shape of the human in the bed.

His face was covered in bandages, his chest never moved and no air came out or in. Around him, the building creaked and groaned like an ancient creature mourning for a broken youngling. Next to him was a machine with wires embedded in his chest and neck. A mechanical timer slowly counted down, its square shapes rotating with soft, little clicks as minutes passed to seconds. A wind rushed past the window and then all was silent like the world was holding its breath. Finally, the timer reached zero……………….and the world awakened.

A sound like a hundred wasps filled the room as blue sparks passed along the wires and rushed into the still body. It convulsed and shook with a violence that almost broke the bed as blue light covered it. There was a final flash and a bang as the machine exploded and the man opened his eyes and took in a large breath as he was flung from death and into the waking world.

Like all who are born again he screamed with a ferocity that shattered the silence of the world. The fly began to streak about in a fearful frenzy of the sudden sound that destroyed the peace of the room. It flew to the window and squeezed through a crack to escape. All the while the man screamed.

His voice let out its fear and fury for a full minute before ceasing suddenly, causing him to cough. He grabbed his throat and tried to let out a noise but couldn’t as only a rasping, mechanical wheeze escape his dried and white lips. He shook his head and tried to focus as his senses began to come back to him. He looked around at his surroundings and was confused when he saw he was in a hospital room. He then began to notice something else, a distinct lack of feeling in his entire right side; in fact, he couldn’t move that side at all.

And why couldn’t he see out of his right eye?

He reached up with his left hand to feel the bandages over his face and as he ran a hand over his eye, he felt something hard and cold. Fear began to run down his spine as he then looked down to the sheets covering his right arm and leg. He slowly reached down and grasped the cloth as he steeled himself for what he might see. Sweat began to accumulate on the bandages and roll down his neck as he pulled the sheets off.

But he could never have been prepared for what he saw………

His right arm from the elbow down was a black metal and his hand was the same color with appendages that had several hinges in them and points at the end. His palm was covered in several metal plates and his wrist was connected to his arm by what looked like a ball. He stared at it with a look of shock and horror and then he looked at his leg. The entire right limb was the same black metal with a plate on his knee and the same ball joint where his ankle was. His foot looked like a metal boot with small claws in the front and back. He tried to move them but they would not respond. He began to hyperventilate as he reached up and ripped the bandages from his head. Once they were off, he reached up and felt his face again. Where his eye was he felt metal again that surrounded his eye and then went back to his ear and down his jawline to stop at his chin and continue down his neck. The metal also wrapped around to the back of his head. He felt smooth skin instead of hair on his head and then noticed the metal continued down the back of his neck.

He began fully panicking as he grabbed the hospital gown and ripped it off leaving nothing to cover him. He saw his entire right side of his body was black and metallic. He reached around to feel it cover his spine and saw a vein of metal placed in his right arm to connect it all to his hand and forearm. Then he looked down at his chest. The metal widened to cover his right pectoral and then move to a point over his heart. He breathed heavily and let out several small screams as he tried to move out of his bed but nothing would work as he fell onto the floor.
He scrambled on the hard cold floor as he tried to pick himself up and scream for help. But all he could do was flop on the floor and wheeze.

After a few minutes he stopped, exhausted from his efforts to move and scream. Tears fell out of his left eye as he lay on the floor. His breathing felt suppressed, like his lungs were resisting.

Suddenly, he felt a spark from his chest as a tingling began to move over his right body. He managed to sit himself up on the bed and look down at his chest as a light appeared at the point over his heart. It shined a bright blue and then more lights appeared down his right side, travelling all the way down his leg. He suddenly began to feel it again as he moved his foot around on the ball joint like a regular leg. He bent the knee and saw the hinge move under the plate. It felt and moved just like his left leg. He then saw small lights appear in his arm and the back of his hand as feeling began to come back to it as well. He held it up and bent his elbow, staring at his hand and noticing a light on his palm. He moved each finger as small hinges moved each with enough detail to perfectly mimic a real hand. The plates in his palm moved over each other as he balled his metal hand in a fist and moved the wrist joint around. He then moved his hand to feel the floor and gasped when he felt the cold from it. Then he felt the bed he had been lying on and noticed how soft it was.

He was surprised and impressed with the control of his new limbs. How they perfectly mimicked his real ones so much that he would probably forget they were actually fake. Then he felt a sharp pinch in his right eye as it lit up like someone holding a flashlight right to it. He also began to hear a high pitch whine in his right ear. Then both vanished as sight and sound returned to his right side. He blinked his mechanical eye. His vision was clear as day and his hearing was remarkable. He could hear……..fire?

His thoughts were interrupted when text suddenly appeared in his right eye:

>>>[CARDIAC system=TRUE | RESPIRATORY system=TRUE | BRAIN=TRUE]<<<
>>>[AUGMENTATIONS…ONLINE | MOTOR FUNCTIONS=30% of FULL]<<<
>>>[MEMORY FILES…coRruPtEd5*#...retrieving 1 of 4697,462 FILES]<<<

He jerked in surprise and put a hand to his eye to move the text away but they were still there when he closed his eye. They slowly faded away and he looked again at the room, trying out his new senses. He could see every detail and was amazed at it all. He noticed how the room seemed to falling apart and was especially worried about the boards in the window. He then looked down at his chest and the glowing orb over his heart. He was surprised to see something over it; a necklace with a silver cross. He picked it up to see something written across it in black letters: Elijah. Suddenly, a memory clicked in his head and he remembered that that was his name.

Elijah.

But that was all he could remember and the effort to remember more just caused his head to hurt.

He decided to try and stand again, slowly placing his new hand on the ground and applying weight to it as he grabbed the bed with his other hand for support. He lifted himself up and straightened out on his legs. He was a bit wobbly at first, but that must be from recently coming back from the dead. His leg felt fine and strong as did his arm. He managed to smile in relief that they all were working fine, but still felt uneasy about the fact that he was now a cyborg. He began to wonder what could have happened to need to change him like this.

As he continued to look around, he noticed the table and the contents on top of it. There was a pile of neatly folded clothes and a single boot on the floor. There was also a gun and leaning on it was………..a letter. He walked over and picked it up, turning it over to see his name written in very neat handwriting. He used the points on his metal hand to open the envelope and pulled out the folded piece of paper and opened the letter up and begin to read it:

Dear Elijah,
I’m sure you have many questions and are probably very afraid right now. I’m sorry I’m not there now to explain everything to you but I had to leave to take care of other things. I will just have to do what I can with these messages. For the moment, you can call me T and I will say right off the bat that you are a very important person. You have been chosen for an important task that only you can fulfill. You are in a very strange place and there has been a terrible tragedy. This world has fallen and it needs your help Elijah. You must save this world. On the table are some clothes for you along with some equipment. I have also left you a weapon to defend yourself with and the key to open the door. Once you are prepared, leave the hospital and find the library in the town nearby. You will know when you have found it. I have to warn you, the world outside is very different and very dangerous and you must be careful. I will explain more once you find the library. Good luck.

Love,
T

He finished the letter and stared in thought at it. Questions were bouncing around in his head as to what it meant. About being in a different and dangerous world and about the tragedy. But mostly about the important task he had to accomplish. He decided that the only way he would get answers was to find this library. He folded the letter back up and put it in the envelope. He set it down and looked over the new clothes. There was a pair of boxers with grey cargo pants and a black T-shirt. There was also a big coat, colored black with a hood. Next to that was a single, fingerless glove and sock, a scarf, and a pair of red sunglasses.

He began to get dressed, putting the boxers and pants and shirt on first. Then the one boot on his human foot with the sock. Then the glove and the big jacket, which felt heavy and fell to his calves. He pulled the hood up and wrapped the scarf around his neck over it. Finally he donned the red glasses which to his surprise mirrored his mechanical eye's text over to his human eye allowing to see it in both eyes. Lastly, he picked up the gun. It was a simple hand-cannon with one clip holding eight shots. He stuck it in the jacket where he could easily reach it later. He then picked up the key and moved to the door but not before stopping and looking back at the letter. After a few moments of thought, he grabbed it and put it in his pocket for later. He wanted to save them for some reason.

He then walked to the door and carefully slid the key into the lock and turned it. There was a clicking noise and the lock disengaged. When he pushed the door though, it simply fell forward and hit the ground. He stared in surprise at it and then noticed that the sound of fire had gotten a little louder. He stepped out carefully into the hall and looked down to see the entrance to the hospital. There was an orange and red glow coming from outside. He approached it and stopped just inside the entrance, scared of what he might find. He closed his eyes and listened, hearing the roar of a great fire and preparing himself before stepping forward outside.

What he saw before him shocked his being to the very core, more than when he saw his mechanical limbs even. For he was staring at a burning town, littered with death and destruction. He turned to look at the hospital and his eyes widened as he saw it was almost completely destroyed. Its roof had caved in and the large cross had fallen off and into the yard before it. He had been in that?!

He then turned again to look at the town. He saw an apple orchard bigger than anything he had ever seen, alight with many fires. Every single tree was burning to the ground as well as a barn and a collapsed farmhouse. He saw a cottage reduced to ash and surrounding it were many dead animals all laying in pools of blood that reflected the glow of the fires. He started to head towards the town where the library was, praying it was still there and that the person who had brought him here was still alive. He ran past burning homes and stores; he saw a store that looked like it was made out of candy half melted by the fires and slowly being eaten by the flames. He saw a structure right in the middle of the town that had collapsed on itself and was now nothing more than a great bonfire.

He feared every building was like this when he saw a store that looked like a carousel that still stood. It didn’t seem to be on fire or damaged in any way and he approached it thinking that maybe someone was still alive inside. But then there was a whooshing noise and a great plume of fire erupted from the roof as the entire structure fell to the ground. The force launched him into the air and slammed him down hard on the ground. He coughed several times and looked back with a teary eye at the now destroyed building. He could still see some of the parts that made it look like a carousel. Now burning away…….

He picked himself up and tried not to collapse right there as he looked around and saw himself surrounded by fire. What happened here? Why is everything burning? Why is this happening?

Where is everyone?

He then ran through the town out of fear as the fire chased after him like a wild animal. He saw the fire spew out of windows and doors and roofs. He saw stalls, now nothing but charred piles of wood. He saw carriages and wagons all destroyed. Not one sign of life.

He stopped when he had reached the edge of the town and looked back at the burning wreckage. He then looked up at the sky to try and see the sun or moon, but nothing was there. There weren’t even any stars. The world seemed to be in an endless Twilight as the empty sky reigned above all. This place felt so empty and broken. He looked around desperately for anything that would show a sign of life. But then he saw an actual sign. He walked over and knelt down in front of it. It was covered in ash but he just brushed it away.

And as he stared at the words he knew this was not his world….......

It said..............

WELCOME TO PONYVILLE

Comments

[The Watcher 509]

As you could see, this is fantasy and not real.

I mean, how can a fly get out using a window?

It's irrationalabble

[Negativity enjoyer]

idk when this was Published But it's toooooo good