Prologue | 5. Engine

Gabriel spent the next couple of seconds dazed and confused. Of course, nobody expects a fighter jet going at multiple times the speed of sound to crash into a tower about 80 meters to your left. Gabriel didn't know that happened, so what shocked him the most was just how LOUD it was. Screeching metal and explosions and pieces of debris flying off at mach speed caused Gabriel's eardrums to rupture. His sense of balance got wonky and he felt like gravity had turned upside down, which made him stumble to the ground and unable to get up. 

'What the fuck.' Logical Gabriel jumped into Gabriel's mind and muttered 'The movies didn't tell us that explosions would be this loud.'

'What's going on?' Gabriel thought to himself. 

Right on cue, a giant piece of metal-about twice as big as Gabriel- fell through the roof and crashed into the ground so hard that it pierced the floor so hard it completely tore through the floor and crashed into the ground floor, completely allowing itself to be swallowed by the ground. Miraculously, the firsh floor 'ground' Gabriel was lying on didn't collapse even though a massive slice of debris cut through it.

Gabriel couldn't hear anything. Something warm started flowing down Gabriel's ears. Blood. 

His ear-miraculously- started rebooting the balance system. Gabriel stood up slowly, cautiously. 

He looked behind and saw pieces of captain Kortez lying on the floor. He seemed to have been crushed by the debris. He quickly looked away and felt extremely disgusted. He stumbled away from the human pieces and looked behind him, at the window overlooking tall, long room holding a train with the . The Bloom Engines were loaded onto the train and the workers were scattering away. Some were running up the stairs to the room Gabriel was in. There was a fire exit that led to outdoor stairs that went to the ground floor.

Gabriel stumbled to the fire exit before the workers could stampede out and barged through the door. It could have been a beautiful day, with clear skies and a golden winter sun. Something was wrong though. It was meant to be a cold day, and yet it was very warm. The air smelled oily and smoky, like the fumes that come out from a car.

The answer was right in front of him. The main tower, the tower meant to control the defenve systems was missing a good chunk of its body. Almost all of the debris-thankfully-fell in front of Gabriel - towards the other buildings east of the tower. 

He assumed the tower alarms would be ringing, but he had no way of telling. 

It was an eerie experience. Gabriel never thought he'd experience something like this. Staring at a hauntingly beautiful scene of a destroyed tower, with smoke rising from it and red flowers-squished humans- that had blossomed everywere. New sources of fire and smoke were cropping up in multiple places, concentrated to the East. All baked in the beautiful, golden light of a cold, afternoon sun, in complete silence.

'Weird pattern of debris to fall on, don'tcha think?' Gabriel looked at the disaster thoughtfully. 'Why am I not scared?' He asked L. Gabriel.

'Hmm..second question first: Shock. Probably. It's a good thing though. We don't want Evil Gabriel to run around screaming and making you-'

He felt something tugging on his right shoulder lightly, like someone gently pushing him forward and looked at his shoulder. 

His shoulder was gone. Along with his arm. 

"What the fuck?"

He felt something, or rather some things, whizz past him. Bullets?

Evil Gabriel put his arm on Gabriel's head and whispered one thing. 'Run.'

"AAAAHHH!" Gabriel yelled in terror and stumbled back into the building, narrowly missing the hail of bullets coming from behind him right before the workers could run out and stampede him.

He watched in horror as about 15 people all tried to squeeze out of the doorframe and were turned into mincemeat. Limbs and innards flew everywhere.

Gabriel yelled in terror again and stumbled backwards, until his back was towards the wall on the right side of the door. The few remaining workers ran back into the safety of the building, back towards the bloom engines as the bullets were now aimed at the building itself. The bullets tore through the roof and threw more chunks of debris everywhere.

Gabriel instinctively closed his eye but a chunk of concrete lodged itself in his left eye as part of the roof started collapsing. 

"AARGH FUCK?!" Gabriel clasped his left hand on his eye, right when part of the roof fell on his right shin, crushing it. 

The bullets suddenly stopped.

'WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR LEG?!' Evil Gabriel yelled in terror. 

'WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?' Gabriel yelled in his mind, but all that came out were screams of terror. 'MY FUCKING LEG....FUCK!'

His brain quickly dissociated to protect him. This was all too much to process emotionally, 

'The debris pattern outside.' Logical Gabriel appeared again. 'It couldn't have been an explosion from the inside.'

'Okay....okay. Yeah. Yeah, um, no. If it was that case, then the debris would have crashed everywhere equally.' Gabriel said. He put his hand on the place where his right shoulder was supposed to be, trying his best to stop the bleeding. It helped, but he was still leaking a little blood. 'Something hit into the tower from the west.'

'Can't be bullets though, no sir.' Logical Gabriel nodded. 

'No...it's almost as if someone threw a tank at the tower.' Gabriel started thinking again. Thinking felt better than despairing.

'Hahaha...No way, Gabriel. You are NOT thinking that THAT might have hit the tower. A plane???! Really?! HAHAHAHA!' Logical Gabriel started laughing. 'Impossible! We even turned on the radars for scanning the air! Plus, how could someone crash a plane into a tiny 50-meter tall tower with such precision? I'm guessing they'll at least be going over 500 kilometers per hour.'

'...you're right. There's no way that it was a plane.' Gabriel 'Doesn't matter anyways. The tower's down. Which means that my defence is down-'

'-And shots from the west, meaning someone's scaled the west wall, meaning they've got control of the turrets.' Logical Gabriel muttered. 'Who else could it be? It's our almost-dead guerilla friends.'

'Yeah. If they take control of this place....then....' since Gabriel was now lying against the wall facing the window showing the Bloom Engine, the severity of the situation was understood to him. 

'The Bloom Engine will then be passed to the hands of the starving motherfuckers. And if they have the Bloom Engine, call for backup and tell the backup that they have a FUCKING BLOOM ENGINE.....'

'Backup will surely arrive. Heavily. The enemies wouldn't care even if trillions of dollars of equipment and thousands of their men die getting here.....' Gabriel gasped. 

His vision was going blurry. 'I don't think I can survive this.' He was slowly-but surely- losing blood. He couldn't hear. He couldn't see out of one eye. He was missing an arm and his leg 

'No you will.' Good Gabriel appeared in front of Gabriel's mind's eye and tenderly cupped his hands on Good Gabriel's cheeks. 

'Thema.' Gabriel gasped.

'Yes. Thema.' Good Gabriel had tears welling in his eyes. 'How incredible would it be? If you can get through all of this, and see Thema again?'

Gabriel stared at good Gabriel for what looked like an eternity, then smiled sadly. 'I won't make it.'

Good Gabriel smiled back. 'Then you can at least make sure that she'll live a peaceful life.'

'Okay so,I cut the comms here.' Gabriel said. 'We aren't letting the guerilla get the news out, about them having the engine.'

'No use.' Logical Gabriel butted in. 'The south buildings have a backup communication channel.'

'Okay...then we....destroy the Bloom Engine?' Gabriel said, matter-of-factly.

'Yeah. Heh, you know you don't seem too surprised by that prospect. Destroying a priceless artefact, fifteen minutes ago you would have thrown me out of your mind and shut me up forcefully.' Logical Gabriel snickered. 

'The general had a rifle on him.' Gabriel said to himself. 'We take the rifle, then cut the comms line here just to slow them down. Then we go shoot at the engine.'

He got out of his head, it was time now to be present in the real world. He tried getting his stuck, useless leg out of the heavy slab of concrete crushing it, but it didn't budge.

He tried pushing himself backwards with one hand hard- taking his left hand off his right shoulder ignoring the blood now spurting out- and yelped in pain as the flesh on his shin and part of his calf were ripping themselves out. Gabriel gritted his teeth and pulled. He saw the skin and muscle snag on the debris on his leg and slowly peel away, like ripping the skin off an orange, but instead of exposing the edible part of the fruit within, he could slowly see his tibia and fibula-his bones-painted red, exposing itself.

He screamed in agony and turned his face away as he tried pulling his leg out while pushing himself backwards, his shoulder now spitting blood in rythm with his heartbeat.

The slab of concrete groaned and shifted positions, as it seemed to drop down a couple of centimeters. He saw a fracture mark snake across the length of his tibia, shooting an overwhelming amount of pain, which made Gabriel's eyes water. He yelled, but was still unable to listen to anything, so all he felt while yelling was the strain on his vocal cords.

He cursed, spat, and through teary eye, grabbed a rock and smashed it across his leg bone. Then brought his hand up again, smashed it. He started feeling lightheaded, as about half his blood was lying on the floor. His arms grew weak and his vision darkened. He dropped his arm pathetically on his leg, missing his bone and instead hitting his thigh. He tried to lift his arm again, but it didn't listen to him. He started feeling a sense of warmth growing from his chest and his one remaining eye stopped working. 

'I...I'm dying.' He thought to himself, in the dark. The pain subsided, now just a dull, pleasant throb. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, no taste. He could smell dust though, and he could barely feel anything-and even that was disappearing.

He was alone.

 'No, silly. No you're not alone.' A voice inside his head giggled. A woman's voice. Not Thema. She sounded like a mother. Not his mother, just some really motherly....mother. No, like a mentor. A teacher. No....she sounded.....like home.

'I'm home?' he groaned.

'Yes.' The voice said. He swore he could hear the mischief and joy behind it. 'You're finally here. Welcome home.'

Gabriel wanted to cry. He never remembered feeling anything like this all his life, except for that one time.

She reminded him of his 2nd birthday. The warm smiles of his entire family during a gorgeous, cloudy day. The only time he had a functioning family...

Only that one time in all 23 years of his life.

This was what he had always been chasing. He saw a flicker of this...thing in Thema. In Yasmina, Lillian, Marisol.

'Where were you all my life?' he asked.

'Parts of me were always with you.' the voice said. 'Now come here. You're with me.'

He could feel someone hugging him tightly. 'It's all okay now.' The voice said. He let himself ease up and his head rested on her chest. 'You tried your best for Thema. I'm so proud of you.'

'It hurt. It hurt so much.' Gabriel started tearing up.

'I know. I was always with you. You did your best.' Home said. 'You could have just given up and died, and yet you didn't. You fought to create the world you wanted to build, despite all the pain.

I'm so proud to be with you, Gabriel.'

Deputy Commander Pyotr and Artyom entered the wreckage of the first floor of the recon base, past the remains of the dead captain of the armory, and walked to the only functioning comms table. "Call for backup." Pyotr pointed at Artyom and kept walking forwards.

Artyom went towards the table and said, "Viktor....he...really did it!"

Pyotr nodded. "We'll make sure that he gets the honor he deserves. Unlike these pathetic pieces of shit." He looked at the corpse of a man who had his right leg stuck in a chunk of ceiling, was missing an arm and a piece of concrete had lodged itself in his left eye. He spat on the corpse in disdain. 

He turned around and said, "I don't think we'll get any sort of support even if we beg them to help us out...but we'll have to at least try."

"Uhhh.....sir." Artyom stared through the windows, overlooking the long side of the L shaped building. "Is that...a..."

Pyotr followed Artyom's gaze and saw it. His jaw dropped.

"Artyom, call for backup. Now."

And that was the exact moment that solidified the victors of the Great War, and ensured that Viktor's name would never be forgotten, even after the last living creature dies out, 17 trillion years later. While Gabriel's legacy only lasted one generation.

The End.