Last Shot

Leading them out of the urbanness, the street, carrying three legs now instead of one, gradually becomes clean and sinless. The stench of decay grows distant behind the two, trapping the cityscape in its shroud. Aspen was quiet with thought. The man walking tall next to him had said his name was Aleksandr. That he was a vagabond who had walked this road many times before in his travels, even seen the fabled city of walls. The road wasn’t long, it’d take a month or so on foot, and finding the place wasn’t a challenge either. Apparently it’s a rather well-known rumour by now. But with information not exactly traveling the way it used to, it was of no real surprise that a large portion of the population remained clueless of such a major truth. “It’s getting in that’s the issue,” Alexandr had explained, raising a finger to emphasise his point, then going on to explain that he had only ever seen people going out, never the opposite. And once those people did leave the city, they, like the rest of the riff-raff surrounding it like ants outside, begin clawing at the walls, shouting to be let in again. “That’s probably how they keep the town running,” Alexandr had speculated, “Disturb the peace - you get thrown out”. Then grinning with a half-moon smile; “Just like a real society!”. Aspen was taught two valuable lessons. One, the city the insects had whispered to him about was real. More than real, it was sought after by many more than him. Two, getting in was impossible. According to Alexandr. An order that was quick and smart in secluding themselves when the rest of the world crumbled, that had been preparing, perhaps, for Man’s loss. Whatever sort of people resided within the tall walls, Aspen could only speculate to be elites. The idea tickled in his head. Human lives held no value anymore, after all, they’re cheap and abundant, and are essentially considered equally worthless as one another. Hierarchies of physical strength are not as easily broken down, certainly, however the subjugators of today gain nothing by crushing others. Pride or enjoyment or perverse fufliflment hardly amount to value.

“It’s ugly,” Alexandr had said in response to Aspen’s silence, “The creatures screeching to be let in - they don’t look human to me anymore.” Just a collection of bodies, Aspen had thought to himself, remembering the fleshy bed in which he awoke. “As for me, even if the gates were wide open, I’d prefer to live out here in the filth,” the stranger had then said, turning Aspen’s head. “What makes you say that?” almost offended, Aspen replied. The man’s eyes had remained facing forward. “It holds no appeal to me anymore,” he’d answered vaguely, and Aspen thought that to be an idiotic answer.

“And what about you?” Alexandr had turned to look at him, Aspen noticing the faint wrinkles around his eyes for the first time since their meeting. “What drives you towards this place?” Aspen hadn’t replied. “Assuming you still intend to enter, why would you of all people be able to, when nobody else ever has?” And the wind brought dark locks before his staring eye, breaking eye-contact. Again, there was no reply. What drives you towards this place? The question had lingered in Aspen’s mind like an itch. Only eased momentarily, with a gunshot going off in the sky. The two men halted.

“Bad folk,” Alexandr sneers, and put his hand on the machete’s handle.

In the next instant, the human head Demitri is tossed Aspen’s way, and in his shock he can only think to catch it.

“Hold him for me,” Alexandr commands rather than asks, throwing a glance behind his shoulder at him as he begins walking again.

“You’re initiating?” Aspen asks dumfounded, blood dripping down his arms, and he hears Alexandr make something between a scoff and a chuckle.

“You’d rather them have the first strike?”

“But that was a gunshot…”

“If they’re firing at nothing, they can’t be very smart now, can they,” he decides with increasing speed in his steps.

Another shot.

“Stay behind,” the caped figure barks one last order, and quickly grows smaller as it makes for the Torre Pendente di Pisa-esque multi-storey car park where the shot originated from. Head in hands, Aspen’s gaze searches its way up to the top of the tall building. And hence after deduces, that standing out in the open like this was an inept thing to do, and so he scuffles after Alexandr slow and wooden.