yay i actually did something with my life lmao

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Without making a move, my band answered the call itself, as did everyone else's. My screen turned to complete static for a while until a man's face finally came through. "There, better." His voice was rich, carrying forth a sort of oratory power. "I want to extend a greeting to all residents of Emet. My name, or rather my title, is Le Corbeau."

Le Corbeau flashed a smile at the screen. Something about him just didn't seem right, physically. Ticked at that part of me that had trouble perceiving him as anything normal; the Uncanny Valley. By and by large though, what took me most were his eyes. Both were completely black, except for a pure white iris. That spoke more of his perceived inhumanity than anything else.

"Now, many of you are more than likely being held at gunpoint. A rather unfortunate formality, I must admit." One of the men in the cafe gave a self satisfied smile upon hearing that. "But I come to all of you with an offer." Corbeau leaned back a bit, folding his hands together. "Observe the men in front of most of you. They work for me out of their own free will, or at least a good portion do. I'm not afraid to admit that at least a few were pressed into my service forcibly."

A bit of a pause passed. There was a sense of deliberateness behind it though. Corbeau knew how to control every bit of his speech, from the tone of his voice right down to every word he picked. For better or for worse, Le Corbeau quite simply had real charisma.

"Emet, I'm offering you a choice. You may either join my forces, or be executed." He said it matter-of-factly, as though it meant nothing to him. Odds were, it really didn't. "All of you will have ten minutes to make a decision. If you sign on, follow the men holding you captive or find some. Should you make the other choice, then don't." With a small, dark smile he added, "Consider it a head start. The clock is ticking."


Then came another bout of static before the screen finally flickered out. I heard screams coming from a few of the other people, shortly followed by gunshots. "Everybody shut up!" The panther who was presumably their leader roared. "Now you heard the man. You all have ten minutes to make your decision! Those of you that choose to join will follow us. The rest of you," he paused, glancing down at his gun for a moment. No words were followed, and it didn't take much to get his point.


"Oh shit," Maya whispered to herself. "This isn't happening. This can't be happening."

Part of me wanted to reach a hand out to her, try and comfort her in some way, shape, or form. But I was just as scared as she was. Everything was going by too fast, none of it making any sense to me. Sure, now and then bandits or pirates would attack a ship or maybe even raid a town on frontier planets, but what Corbeau was doing was global, which was beyond anything I could try to comprehend.

A scream got my attention. Some men drug a woman out of the kitchen, a straggler, and brought her before their leader. "Hey boss, we caught this one trying to sneak out a back door! Think she hid in a cupboard while we were searching the kitchen."

They set her before the panther, who easily towered over everyone in the restaurant. He had on heavier armor than the rest of them, his face showing scars even at a distance. But as I squinted, trying to get a better look of him from where I sat, something I noticed began to disturb me. Something that was more than just a little off putting. His eyes were similar to Corbeau's, the same white pinpricks surrounded by black.

"A runner, huh?" His voice was low and gravelly, as if he was a chainsmoker. Slowly the ringleader shook his head, pacing back and forth a bit. "We offer you a choice, and you choose to run. Looking a gift in the mouth if I've ever seen it."

The woman looked up at him, arms on the ground as she shook violently. "Please, don't kill me! Please!"

"Well, I wouldn't have if you had shown us some respect. But now? Now, I have to instill some fear into the others, so that they don't try the same. Make an example." His head nodded to his men. "Hold her up."

They did so, as she began to sob uncontrollably. There was a bit of a struggle, the woman still begging and pleading as she tried to get the men off her. It didn't stop the panther from shaking his head, telling her to stand still. But, oddly, he never reached for a gun. Instead, I remember him taking a gloved hand, and placing it on her forehead.


Within a moment she began to scream, legs flailing wildly as smoke began to come up from where his hand was. The cries of pain only grew louder and louder, as flames soon began to spread across her entire head. Those men holding her let go, and she ended up falling to the floor, trying to stop, drop, and roll. And it might have worked, had the ringleader not simply held his hand over her, and kept a flame pouring onto her.

My jaw would've dropped, should've dropped, but instead I just looked on in petrified horror. The flames never spread, seemingly kept completely in check by the man controlling them. Then after an eternity, she stopped moving, and the leader's hand clenched as the fire pouring out of it was quelled.

When they extinguished her body, all that was left was a charred mess, the smell of cooked, burnt flesh filling the entire cafe. It was unbelievable how fast she had burnt away. A few seconds ago she had been writhing, pleading, and now she smelt and looked as though someone simply messed up their dinner. That was the weird part. She smelt like food. Burnt food, but food. The fact that she'd been reduced to such a fate made me want to vomit, terror the only thing keeping my breakfast down.

"Let that be a warning to anyone who considers running," the leader said, as he took off a glove. He held up a hand to us all, or rather, a tiny bit of skin hanging on to exposed bone. "I won't hesitate to do the same to any of you! Corbeau offered you all a choice of working with us, or peaceful execution. I strongly advise you to at least take a bullet over fire if you have a death wish." The man snapped his fingers a bit, flames jumping from them.


It seemed as though it was a threatening gesture, but there was more to it. He was showing off. Telling us that it wasn't technology that had given him such power, at least as far as we could tell. It told me that, if there were no guns between us, he could still take me out in the most brutal of ways. He was saying that what he had was the power of Le Corbeau.


A part of me had been thinking about running too. But seeing the poor woman burned away, turned into a crisp, it took out any fight instinct I had left in me. I didn't want to go with these people and work for them, but death wasn't a better alternative. I wanted to live, damn it. There wasn't any heroism in me, I wasn't about to stand up and single handedly save the day. But I wasn't a coward. No, I was looking out for myself but it didn't matter. Everyone there was, even Maya. It wasn't cowardice, it was survival.

Everyone was silent after the brutality that the leader had inflicted, only the occasional sniffle or stifled yelp breaking the spell. Nobody wanted to be the next smoldering corpse. It seemed to suit the armed men just fine though, all of them patrolling in similar quietness. It was eerie, really. A sick, sick tranquility had beset us, only brought by death.


Then at last, beeping went off. "Time's up," the ringleader growled. "Alright, everybody who's leaving with us, move to the right side! Those who aren't, the left!"


Shuffling began. Maya looked up at me from where she was sitting on the floor, her eyes mournful and wet, but not tearful. I nodded to her, offering my hand which she took. Then, we walked over to the right.

Only a few, I think it was three, rejected Corbeau's offer. They were what looked like a middle aged couple and the waitress who served us. While the couple had their eyes shut tight, their hands interlinked, the waitress kept hers open. She stared on, even as the gunmen began to line up with their rifles at the ready.


"We're ready sir," one of them said, presumably to their leader.

The man in question walked down the line, arms behind his back. "This, is what I asked for." He said after a moment. "Obedience. You followed as we asked, and you will feel little pain as I promised." Then he offered his gloved hand to the waitress who still stared straight on, into his eyes. Surprisingly though, she actually took it, still unblinking as she shook it.

"Who are you?" She asked in a quiet voice just barely above a whisper.

The leader smiled. "A last request? Very well then, that's fair enough. I'm Corporal Lance, of Corbeau's forces."

The waitress nodded, as if she had been given the last piece of a puzzle. "Thank you."

Lance then stepped away, raising two fingers up, before bringing them down. On his cue, the men opened fire on those who refused. I didn't want to watch it, having already seen the woman burned alive. I just shut it out, eyes tight as they could've gone. Didn't help with the noises though. Still the gunfire rang in my ears and still I heard them all fall to the floor with a certain thud. But at least that was it. No crying for help, no shouting in pain. Just a fall, a thud.

"Alright! Time to move out into the streets!" Lance called out. Someone grabbed my shoulder, throwing me by the door as others received similarly rough treatment. The Corporal himself went up to the door, opening it and stepping outside. "You'll all be following me. Any of you step out of line, we fire. Simple as that."

One of our fellow patrons summoned up the courage to squeak a bit. "Where are we going?"


Lance's head turned up to the sky. "Away." He said dismissively and cryptically. Then without any other words, Lance walked forwards, out into the street.


A gun was pressed into my back, shoving me forwards a bit. Outside, things weren't right. There was a stillness in the air, a quietness. No screams, no sporadic gunfire, nothing that I expected. Despite how chaotic things felt, there was nothing. Huge ships flew far overhead us, the occasional smaller craft zooming closer by.

We began to walk, in that silent, non-chaotic chaos. After a few minutes, I noticed others off in the distance. They seemed to be led by armed men as well, probably being taken off to the same fate as us. I began to think, not having much else to do besides stew in my panic, about the insanity and impossibility of the entire situation. G-Net was controlled by satellites mostly, sometimes a few terrestrial broadcast centers helping. Yet, in one fell swoop Corbeau had taken out service for the entire planet. And while Emet wasn't large by any stretch of the imagination, it wasn't small either. We had the usual military forces provided by the Council, law enforcement, yet neither of them seemed to be doing anything to fight back. Corbeau had rolled in and cast his shadow over the planet, winning while seeming to barely put forth any effort. That lack of effort was what scared me the most. This was Corbeau without trying. There was no telling what he could really do.

Maya was still next to me as we moved. Her eyes stayed downwards, only looking at her feet and the wet pavement. Didn't know what was going through her mind, but I doubted it was anything different than what I was thinking of. Part of me wanted to do something though to at least give her some measure of comfort. But the chivalrous knight in me was stymied by the fact I had no idea what to do. Patting her shoulder and telling her things would get better wouldn't exactly do anything, and trying to hold her hand wasn't going to reverse the fact we were walking off to serve under a man we didn't know. The connection between people could only do so much, and we'd passed that threshold a while back.


"We're almost there," Lance mused. "Just a few more blocks. You'll all be loaded up onto various ships, your assignments pending after that."

It hit me. "Oh shit," I muttered to myself. They were going to split us up, all of us probably. Maya was already looking at me, green eyes wide in fear. My mind began to race, thinking of any way possible I could somehow forcibly stick with her.

Then an answer came in the form of a yell. "They're rounding the corner. Attack them, now!" Someone shouted from ahead of us. A group of people appeared from the side of a building, screaming as they charged, the sound of gunfire again reaching my ears.


"Charge them, route them!" A woman cried. "We will never bow down to Le Corbeau! We die free, just as my family did!"


The men escorting us were quick to return fire, but I didn't watch. I ducked down, covering my head and just wishing it would all end. I heard crying, and it took me a moment to realize it was coming from me. My mind and body were becoming disconnected with every passing second, feeling more and more disembodied.

"Get up! Come on now!" I heard someone call out, a hand grabbing my shoulder and pulling me up. I didn't have any time to look at who it was, if they were one of Corbeau's men or not, before being shoved forwards and stumbling a bit. "Run! Run as far as you can!"

And to my surprise, I did as I was told. My feet seemed to be possessed, rushing forward on their own accord. The gunfire kept up as I sped away, a few shots being fired off in my direction. But I never looked back. Fear kept me fueled on pure adrenaline and I kept up the pace for what seemed like forever.

My body wasn't an unstoppable force though. A burning began in my chest, ditto for my legs, and sooner than later, I tripped up. Crashing down to the ground, I let out a pained gasp, vision going red as the effects of my escape caught up with me. I didn't even consider getting up, instead choosing to just lay on the wet ground and let my chest rise and fall.

Adrenaline faded, but my mind seemed not to unfog. The sky was still grey, still having ships fly overhead. As I laid there, I began to realize more and more that in the grand scheme of things, running may have just prolonged the inevitable. But a small part of me didn't care because, for a moment at least, I had felt a glimmer of hope.

"Kestrel!" Maya's voice shocked me, and I rolled my head over to look at her. I hadn't even realized she was running with me, her body slumped against a brick wall. She looked as bad as I did, exhausted and ever so slightly shaken up. "Come on, snap out of it!"

"Huh?" I gave her a dumb expression. What did she mean snap out of it? I'd only been lying there a minute, two or three at the most.

"Come on," she knelt down by me, picking me up a bit. "I don't think I'm supposed to move you, but we don't have many options here."

Move me? "Maya, what do you mean?" My eyes glanced downwards, and then widened. Where I'd been laying was a small puddle, formed from the rain. But mixed with it was blood, more than a fair amount. "What the hell?"

Maya slung one of my arms over her shoulder, letting me lean on her. "I think you were shot," She so thoughtfully informed me. "Your left shoulder is bleeding, bad. I-I don't know. But we need to get you help." She swallowed a bit. "Oh god, what do we do, what do we do?"


I tried to think, struggling. The haze that had been over my mind since I began to run was getting steadily worse. I could still think but it was becoming a bit fuzzier, and if I really had been on the ground longer than I thought, it was definitely getting worse. "Where are we?"

"I don't know," She led me out of the alley, looking down the street both ways, probably to make sure nobody was by us. "Maybe close to my place?"

A dim light went off in my head. "My father," I sputtered out. "He called us. Maybe he's still there."


"Your father's not a doctor, Kestrel! And he's not going to be there, they're taking everyone!"

I shook my head, shutting my eyes. It was getting harder and harder to see with each second, struggling to make my legs keep going forwards. It didn't make any sense to me; it had just been through my shoulder. Why was I bleeding out so badly? Why was I already struggling to think, to keep myself conscious?

My legs trembled a bit and I sunk down. "We have a kit!" I coughed out, clutching at my chest. It was throbbing, somehow hurting more than the dull feeling I had in my shoulder. "Nanites," I wheezed.

Maya helped me back up, this time offering me even more support. I opened my eyes to look at her, and saw the obvious signs of worry she had. "You do?" She bit her lip, but ultimately nodded in agreement with my idea. "Fine, fine. We shouldn't be too far, at least I hope we're not. Come on Kestrel, you have to pull through."

I did my best to keep on moving. One step, then another, and another. Over and over. I made myself count them, anything to just keep my mind on something and from slipping away. As we made our way through, I felt rain begin again, turning into a heavy downpour. Dimly I thought, "Well, at least it will wash away the blood."

I don't really know how long we walked. I tried to keep track of my steps, but every now and then I'd catch myself losing track and starting over. It didn't help that paces aren't exactly the best metric for measuring distance. But eventually we reached my complex, getting out of the quickly worsening rainstorm. I opened my eyes, for the first time in a while, doing my best to keep my vision from growing worse.


"Just a few flights of stairs Kestrel, alright? You can do this." Maya's words were trying to encourage me, but they were shaky. She knew how bad I was, probably more than I did. Even I was growing more and more doubtful if this would even be worth it; nanites could work wonders, but not miracles.

We stepped up, a loud creak echoing throughout the apparently empty building. Then again, and again, and again. Each step seemed to take longer than the last, each one taking more out of me. I was about to tell Maya that I couldn't do it, that this was too much, when she took her arm away from me.

In an incredulously voice she said, "We made it. Oh thank god." Then she brought me over to the door, and I weakly held out my arm to a scanner near it and pressed a button. A thin beam of light was supposed to come over my band, before scanning it for a moment and giving an affirmative beep followed by a click from the door. Instead nothing happened, and I hazily realized that G-Net was still down. So instead, Maya shoved her way through the door, leaving me to weakly stumble in by myself.

"Where's your kit?" She yelled out. "I'll find it for-" Maya stopped speaking before yelling even louder, "Oh my god, Mr. Lopez! Kestrel's been shot!"

Even in my haze that got my attention. I tried to move through our home as quickly as I could, but after a few weak steps I found my father and Maya standing in front of me. I gave up trying to move any more then, and just let myself fall to my knees.

"Kestrel!" He cried out, rushing towards me. "Where did they shoot you?" My hand reached for my shoulder, grabbing at it. "Oh no," he muttered. "Maya! Our first-aid kit is under the bathroom sink!" She nodded and ran towards the bathroom, while my dad got me up again. He led me into the kitchen, clearing off the table by throwing everything to the ground and having me lay across it on my stomach before ripping my shirt off of me.

"I got it!" Maya cried, running into the kitchen. She thrust the first-aid kit into my dad's hands, who promptly opened it up on the table next to my head.

Father took out a small blue package and a syringe before giving me a white tablet. I took it unquestioningly, knowing from previous injuries it was an clotting agent. They were made for accidental cuts and other household injuries, not bullets, but it would have to do. As I chewed on it, my dad was busy ripping open the blue package.

"You know it's going to sting," he cautioned. "Just try to bear it." When he made the first dab with the alcohol wipe I nearly bolted off the damn table. I could barely feel my bullet wound but I could feel that. "Hold him down!" Dad instructed Maya.

She did so, grabbing at my arms. I still instinctively struggled against the pain, groaning loudly as he kept on wiping. After what felt like an eternity the worst of it was finally over, a few tears of pain having been coaxed out of me.

The syringe was uncapped, and this time my dad didn't give me any advance warning of pain. He instead thrust the needle down, near the wound, and pushed in the plunger. An untold number of nanites began to flow into my body, working their magic. They accelerated the body’s natural healing process, to the point of even cauterizing wounds in very large doses. What I was given though would probably just enough to keep me on my feet, helping new blood to be made and closing the wound quickly.

Dad let a feathered hand pat my back while wrapping gauze around the wound. "You're going to be alright, I promise you. You'll still be woozy for a few hours, maybe even a day or two. But you'll be able to keep moving."

I weakly nodded, sitting up. "Why did you call us earlier?" I asked him. "Did you know that all this was going to happen?"


He sighed, shaking his head and taking off his glasses. "No, I didn't. At least, I didn't know in advance. I was getting ready to leave when I saw a ship out the window. One of the larger ones. I've never seen one of that size at Emet before."

Maya had a confused look on her face. "But then you knew about that man, Corbeau?"


"Only a little bit. A coworker's uncle disappeared recently, the last thing he was able to get out was a message to his family." My dad started to seeming as though he was looking at something far away. "They played it for us over lunch, me and a few others. It sounded like rambling, a few hurried goodbyes, but he also mentioned that they were being attacked, by a man named Raven."

"Le Corbeau," Maya said.

Dad nodded. "The man was Francopean, so I would assume so. Anyways, after I saw the ships, I got worried. The uncle had mentioned them, calling them behemoths. I told myself I was just being paranoid, but, well," he stopped and again sighed. "Now you're hurt, your mother is elsewhere, and we're all running scared."

"But we'll make it, right?" I was looking for anything, some reassurance from him that we had a fighting chance.


What I got was a bit lip. "Kestrel, listen to me. You can't stay here. They'll most likely be raiding homes, trying to find stragglers. I don't want to do this, I don't know if I can." For the first time in my life, I realized my dad was trembling. His glasses fell to the floor and he grabbed my shoulders, sending a wave of pain through me. "But I need you to run."

I shook my head defiantly. What he was asking me was impossible, stupid. "No, Dad, I won't! We need to stick together!"

"Kestrel!" He stared at me, and I noticed then that his eyes were actually getting wet. "You need to leave! I want you to have a fighting chance, and getting out of the city is all I can think of. You can go to the forest, hide there."

"But what about you? Why won't you come with us?"

"I need to wait, to see if your mother is alright. I couldn't reach her, had to leave a message telling her to leave work and come here. If she is, then we'll head to the forest too. Hopefully we'll somehow find you."

In a shaky voice I asked, "What if she's not?"

This time he didn't respond. Instead he embraced me tightly, not letting go for almost a minute. When he finally pulled away, he nodded to Maya. "Maya, you've always been a resourceful girl. I know you can take care of Kestrel and yourself. I'm trusting you."

She swallowed a bit before responding. "I'll do my best Mr. Lopez, I promise."

My father turned his head back to me. "I know this is all happening so fast, Son. I know that none of this makes any sense. Even I don't know what's going on. But I need you to do this for me, alright? I don't want you leaving, especially in your condition. But you have to. I don't know why Corbeau is doing this, but no man acts this way with good intentions. You need to do whatever it takes to stay away from him, by any means necessary." Then he again brought me into his arms a final time while whispering, "I love you, always remember that."


There was stomping from outside the apartment, all of our heads snapping towards the noise. "I want every apartment checked! Grab any money or valuables you find, but people are top priority! Come on, move!" Someone shouted.

My father pulled away and nodded at me. "Go! Take the fire escape!"

I hopped off the table and gave a last look to my dad. I wanted to say goodbye, that I loved him too, but there wasn't any time. Not only that, but I knew that if I had stopped to say anything, I wouldn't have been able to pull myself away. Instead I went for the back of the apartment with Maya, rushing to a window between my parent's room and mine. Still a little woozy, Maya had to be the one to pull it open and help me outside.

Again outside in the now freezing rain, this time with my torso completely exposed, I looked back. Back at my home, a part of my mind realizing that this was the last time I'd probably ever see it. Then I went down the stairs with Maya, my eyes on the forest near the city. I can't remember what I expected to find there, if it would be safe or not. But even now I still think it was a better choice than staying behind.