A Hunter's Blood: The Crimson Contracts

“Let’s go over this one more time,” Drakx looked as if he was talking to himself. He was making his way to Tristyn Towers, Zannon’s apprehension area. The first stop in his journey. Hopefully, not his last. He was speaking to Kimi, via a transmitter placed invisibly in his ear. People were used to seeing others speak out loud to no one on their phone. It was not unusual.

“You will reach the top of the tower quickly, and quietly,” Kimi responded to him from the car. “Give me six minutes, forty eight seconds for my satellite to align, and I will have Zannon’s heat signature, and global positioning location. Follow my instructions, and you will defeat him tactically.”

“Yes, that sounds great for my strategic prowess,” he began. “But will he be a dead fucker?”

Kimi realized she was speaking as if she was teaching a class. He didn’t need that level of vernacular to understand her. He could understand her fine, but in his present situation of imminent danger, eloquence was improper.

“Yes, he will be a ‘dead fucker’. You must listen to me. I will tell you his location at all times. When you have the advantage, you can go, and execute... that Hunter... shit,” she said surprisingly.

Drakx stopped breathing, and swallowed for a second. She paused him in his tracks with her statement.

“Where did all this vulgar language come from?!” he asked with shock in his voice.

“I inserted color to calm you,” she replied. “Heads up, Drakx. You are almost there.”

Drakx made his way to the opposite corner of the tower. He looked up at the top. One hundred, eighty four stories up. Where he had captured Zannon the first time. It was tough then, and Zannon didn’t know he was coming for him. This time would be slightly different.

“By the time you get out of the turbo-vator, and walk eight more flights to the roof, I will be in position,” Kimi told him as he walked across the street.

It was time to end transactions in The Commerce Zone, so everyone was leaving the area for home. In ten minutes, the area would be deserted. Due to work laws for stringent working hours, Zannon’s heat signature would be the only one besides Drakx. He should be easy to find. Drakx hoped that was a good thing.

He walked to the main entrance. It had been locked down for the evening. The last employee was gone, meaning no one would be in the way. Drakx placed his palm on the entrance plate. When the scanner read his print, it unlocked. A Hunter had full access, at any time, to anywhere. He was glad Jordan didn’t terminate him. He sub-consciously thanked her. She knew how dangerous the job was, so she gave him lots of freedom. When he came back, she had a whole new respect for him. To go back after his murderers without fear made him the bravest man she had ever known.

This shit is crazy... he thought. Zannon is gonna pound me into liquid. I can’t believe this is the easiest way, but if he knew I didn’t confront him first...

Drakx knew Zannon was the family’s protector. If he felt he had shirked his duties a second time, his rage would’ve made him an unstoppable force. At this point, he knew Zannon wouldn’t kill himself to see him dead. His level of dedication wasn’t that dire yet. That was what he was hoping.

Drakx also knew the police was alerted to his presence there. The security system sent an alert to the nearest station. They would arrive in record time to just watch, and wait. The policemen were forbidden to interfere in Hunter business. They were there for legal purposes. Watch it go down, and witness it for any potential trial purposes.

Drakx hated an audience. They were just potential hostages to him. This time, they were there to just witness Zannon’s death. He hoped, again.

This is gonna hurt, but it has to be done, he thought to himself as he entered the turbo-vator. He said, “Top floor.” to the vator. The doors closed. As they did, he felt as if they closed the chapter of his life.

“Two minutes, twelve seconds. I will be in position,” Kimi rang in his ear, halting his prophetic thoughts of doom. “I still think you are irrational for confronting the most dangerous one first. It is not smart,” she told him in a warning tone, hoping he would come to some sort of sense, and abort his intentions.

“Smart enough to know he would be unstoppable if he knew I killed one of his brothers without starting with him first,” he tried to explain his logic to her. “I never said this would be easy.”

“I guess suicide must not be hard for you,” she replied. “Stop this now, please. I will find a way to defeat him easier than this.”

Drakx kept hearing his motto in his head. It hadn’t deceived him yet. It had a little more weight than Kimi’s logic. She had, admittedly, not developed a ‘gut’. He had honed that skill for years. Feeling he was right usurped logic, no matter how stupid his intuition was.

“Kimi, I’m here for this party. It would be rude not to show up. Besides, I’m at the top. Just let me know where he is, and watch me kick his ass,” he assured her.

“I cannot believe knowing every military scenario, from the three hundred Spartans, to General Gailohrn will not aid me in changing your mind,” she said in his ear. “I give up. I realize understanding illogical actions is impossible.”

As he walked out of the turbo-vator, he replied, “Once you understand them, you’ll master experience, as well as logic. That will be your welcome to humanity.”

“You are determined to force our meeting,” she whispered under her breath.

He heard her, but decided not to pursue the conversation. He had a more pressing matter about to explode across the roof top.

He stopped climbing the stairs, and whispered to Kimi with impatience. “I’m one flight from the roof. You got a location yet?”

“Twenty two more seconds I will,” she said, trying to calm him once more before carnage was unleashed. “We will get through this.”

“Lying isn’t your strong suit either I see,” he told her.

“I do not know how to thwart veracity,” she said, and thought of the school teacher persona she had slipped into again. “Look, Drakx, I have never been wrong. Why would I begin now?”

She, as always, was right. She was never incorrect. She never lied from malice either. He wanted to believe she didn’t know how. He blocked out the other possibility of her never needing to until now.

“Drakx, he is here!” She elevated her voice. “Grid T seventeen! I have given you an advantage. Go make him a...dead fucker.”

“That calming, color adding shit aint working,” he sounded alone, and scared for the first time. “Okay Kimi. Got a grip now. Lost it for a second. I’m back. This one isn’t any different from the previous two thousand five hundred sixty one Erads. Just another contract.”

“Go get him, Hunter. That’s an order,” she said trying to mimic a slight reminiscence of authority to him.

He saw her attempt as one who had faith in him. He wasn’t going to disappoint her. “Yes Sir. Completing the contract,” he said with a respect for her authoritative attempt.

***

Drakx was at the security door that led to the roof. He waited for Kimi to tell him Zannon’s location. The stairway to the roof was dark, and smelled of charred motherboards. As he breathed in the sulfuric smell, his memory thrust him back to the last time the smell assaulted his lungs. It wasn’t a charred motherboard, it was him. He quickly escaped the doomed mental trap. He couldn’t be rattled by anything. A slight falter, or hesitation would get him killed. He wondered if perfection could help him survive this. Kimi needed to say something.

“Grid eighteen, moving north at one meter per second,” she rang in his ear once more with a location status. “Transferring to your GPS/PDA.”

If these pieces of shit could have a continuous sat transmission, I wouldn’t need her, he thought to himself. As much as he wanted to stay a victorious loner, he was happy Kimi was in his ear. She was out of danger, and good company in this certain crisis.

As he looked at his PDA, he saw Zannon, just walking on the roof. He was waiting for him. He knew, and was ready. Drakx could tell from the look on his face.

“He’s walking away from the door. I’ll connect so you can break the security,” he said, as he placed the PDA flush on the electronic lock.

“Alright, this will be effortless,” she said, as she began to bypass the lock.

“I’m glad you are having such a breeze with this,” he whispered with harshness. “Just do it quietly. If I alert him, I’m the dead fucker.”

He heard the whir of the lock.

“Done,” she said, ignoring his nervous, quiet rant. “Commence your Erad.”

This was it. His greatest conquest to date, or certain, heinous death was about seven meters from him. He entered into Hunter position, held his breath, and opened the door.

Entry was silent. Zannon’s back was turned from the door. Drakx slid like liquid into a cranny on the roof. Still hidden, he turned his trench coat on, and stuck his hand in. He thought, Mega Photon Cannon. He chose it for two reasons. One, he knew Zannon would be upset for a split second when he saw the same gun that helped him escape the first time. Two, it was the largest firearm he had, besides his A.T.S. hopefully, he could get a shot off.

He pulled it out, and forgot the weight. He almost dropped it. If he would have lost his grip, surprise would’ve been gone. Since he believed they had worked too hard for that advantage, he immediately tightened his grip. He never wanted to die stupidly.

He checked his monitor on his PDA. It could see around corners. He was amazed, and nervous when he didn’t see Zannon in the monitor. He hit the button for the sat feed to pinpoint him once more.

“I’ll take that!” Zannon’s booming voice rained acid words over him. A gigantic hand grabbed the cannon, and ripped it away, like a bodybuilder snatching a rattle away from an infant. He threw it nine buildings away out of reach, and sight. Making it a non- factor.

Zannon had maneuvered behind the air-regulator unit Drakx had hid behind. He wondered how a behemoth of that size could move so silently around him. Seeing his present situation, he decided, time to ponder that query would be more conductive at a later date. He chose a more immediate choice.

“OH GOD! RUN!” Kimi screamed in his ear. “He must have found a way to project a ghost image for a second. I could not tell! RUN!”

Drakx had already chose the option to become scarce. He couldn’t make it to the door. Zannon had vaulted over the unit, and landed between him, and the door. He instinctively ran in the other direction, away from his only escape.

“Where the hell are running to, gnat?!” Zannon yelled to him. “If you make me chase you, your death will just hurt more!”

He tried to listen for Kimi. He needed help. He hopped she was a clutch player, because it was crunch time in more ways than one.

“Stay away from him, Drakx. This surveillance is not reliable for me. I cannot map any escape routes! I am useless! Use your instincts to escape because I cannot help anymore!” she scrambled in desperation.

“I knew you would be stupid enough to come after me! I TOLD Sensus your modus operandi!” he gave a cocky chuckle, “Sadly for you, your suicide!”

Zannon struck the fear into Drakx’ soul. “I’m supposed to alert the rest when I capture you, but I want you to myself. Fuck’em, what are they gonna do, challenge ME?! I think not. Now, GET OVER HERE AND DIE!”

Drakx stopped. He thought, where the HELL do I think I’m going? I can’t jump to the next roof. I’m tired of running. I came to Erad Zannon. I got guns. I’ll reach in, and pull out the best...

As Drakx began to reach into the inside of his coat, he was hit by what felt like a renegade missile.

He couldn’t hear Zannon running at him. Zannon scooped Drakx in a binding hold. He was bound in Zannon’s monstrous left arm, with his own arms pinned at his side. The force of the grab blew the oxygen from his lungs, and disrupted his thought pattern. He began to desperately suck for air into his oxygen starved lungs, but it seemed as if he would never achieve adequacy. He damned the ‘think’ tactic, and cursed himself for not just ‘doing’.

“I do not believe I’ll give you any chance to perform your prestidigitation,” Zannon said with a strange calmness. Where was the rage? Drakx knew if Zannon was too enraged he wouldn’t think. For a split second, he would have the upper hand. Obviously, experience had been granted upon the behemoth. Drakx’ sliver of hope was plucked out with tweezers, and discarded like the minor annoyance it was for Zannon.

I could slowly crush you into a screaming pulp right now,” Zannon pierced him mentally. “...but that would be unsatisfying for us. I believe terror would be more adequate.”

Zannon walked to the massive line of air regulating units on the roof. With Drakx still securely bound in his arm, he reached under the four thousand kilogram unit, and tossed it about three blocks away.

“We have become absolute,” Zannon began to explain to Drakx. “We are the Divine now. I would love for you to encounter my kind at this point, but alas, your finality is nigh.”

Who is this freaky thespian talking scholar trapped inside Zannon’s body?! Drakx thought, as he tried to release his arms from Zannon’s grip. He felt hopeless mentally, as well as physically.

“Notice, I did not call them my brothers. Our creator did not have that in mind,” he said ominously. “Ah, yes. You still believe we were created by those scientists. A lowly ...human did not have capacity to create the deity pinnacles we have become. The most intelligent entity, in which I would deem us troglodytes, compared to his intellect, created us in his image.”

“Drakx froze for a horrid instance.

“Yes, Let the reality soak in. Let it violate your mind. Let it ravage rationality, and know it to be true,” Zannon taunted him. “Sensus killed you the first few times with her attributes that father bestowed upon her before he died. Her arrogance of perfection was her flaw. I still thank her arrogance. If she would have been flawless, this scenario would have never come to fruition,” he said, as he picked up, and threw another unit.

“I will have my revenge. When I am done with you, I believe I will, how do you say, get a piece of that stunning ass. She actually had the others believing our link was paternal. She just did not want to be ‘sidetracked with sexual inhibitions’. My creator’s final request was to survive. He would not want me to procreate with a human. That would be barbarically sick. Procreating with my sister is almost as sickening. She will understand the logic.”

Zannon lifted and tossed another unit off of the roof. Drakx wondered why, as Zannon’s revelations sank deeper. If they had the capacity to make offspring...

“My attribute has come to fruition as well,” Zannon continued. I know you are wondering why I am propelling these heavy objects. I can transfer weight into kinetic energy. The heavier it is, the stronger I get. You are going to witness this might momentarily.”

Drakx thought of how his death would be insurmountable when Zannon continued.

“I will not harm you in any way. That would take away from your terror. You would go into shock, and avoid the pain I would administer. I believe you are stronger, mentally, than most humans. You have participated in death enough times. Yes, strong enough to witness your own death in vivid verisimilitude. Hurting you in any way would take away from it. The reason I am speaking so much was to give you a hideous glimpse into my future, for you have none. I also needed to let it terrorize you more as I built strength. It is about time.”

Zannon flung the last unit out of sight. He hoped it was enough to accent his point. He walked Drakx to the ledge.

“I was just going to throw you over the side, but that was too cliché. I decided not to throw you off, but up.”

Zannon grabbed Drakx from under his left arm with his powerful right. He kept Drakx’s arms pinned to his side.

“By the time you see my smiling face again, you will be at terminal velocity. Then it will be one hundred eighty seven more stories of my smile engraved in your mind before your death,” Zannon said as he bent his knees, preparing for the slingshot.

“Yes, let it soak in,” Zannon said with a sound of satisfaction in his voice. “Now gaze upon your murder.”

Drakx’s stomach stayed on the roof as his body was propelled skyward. The wind forced tears from his eyes in protest of his abrupt gravity defiance. He felt it whip violently across his face as he rose.

Bring them back. Restore balance.

“I’m about to die, and you pop into my mind like I have no immediacy? Fuck you!” he screamed at himself.

“I told you, my surveillance equipment is unreliable! It says you are two meters off the side of the building, and accelerating upward. I am worthless! Do your ‘Hunter’ thing. I know you can get away from him. We will just regroup, and get him later,” Kimi chimed in his ear once more.

She’s right. Things happen for a reason. THINK! Drakx rationalized in that terrifying moment.

“Meet me in the front of the building in three minutes. Wear that trench of that Master Hunter Gear Erin gave you. I’m gonna need you for extraction!” Drakx told Kimi in an authoritative way, not letting on he was nearing the edge of the atmosphere.

Drakx slowed his assent as he reached his apogee. He stopped for a second, and became weightless. He felt like one would feel as they feared the final click of a roller coaster before the big drop. This was about to be the biggest drop ever, fore gravity reclaimed him.

He began to fall. He picked up speed quickly. He clicked his button on his trench coat once more to open it. His coat was ferociously blowing above him. His speed was picking up. He finally was able to grip his lapel, and reach his hand into the lining. He pulled out a marksman rifle, closed the coat, and tried to pin point Zannon.

His gaining of speed made the sight useless. He had to try and shoot him with his naked eye.

Drakx finally saw Zannon’s image on the top of the building. Hitting him with any accuracy at this speed would be impossible. Zannon saw what he was attempting. Knowing the variables of him connecting with a fatal shot, made him smile wider. He didn’t care about having no idea where he got the rifle from. That was a trivial question at that point to him. He gained a small inkling of respect for Drakx, for still trying to do his job in a hopeless situation.

I can’t hit the planet at this speed! Drakx thought.

Bring them back. Restore balance.

“FUCKING HELP ME THEN!” Drakx yelled as the wind ripped his words away.

“I cannot! How many times do I have to relay that to you?!” Kimi scolded him.

Drakx was getting frighteningly close to missing his only chance to execute the Erad. He was fighting the wind for accuracy. The wind wasn’t having it.

Just as he was about to deem this shot hapless, his arm became steady. He felt no wind. He slowed to a crawling fall, and Zannon became three times as big.

Take the shot, Bro’. Drakx heard in his mind. He didn’t care how surreal it was. He just listened.

“Completing the contract, Sir,” he said to the whipping wind, as he pulled the trigger.

“He fired twice. He saw the first bullet hit Zannon’s throat. The second bullet exploded through his left, surprised, eye. The bullet was an assassins round. it ricocheted in Zannon’s skull, turning his pinnacle like mind into soup. Being at the edge of the building, his lifeless body fell forward, into Drakx’ path!

Being three hundred meters higher gave him a few seconds before he hit Zannon’s slower corpse. It slowed him slightly, but he felt like he dived into an empty pool.

“Kimi, I’m coming down hot! Don’t question, just pick up my coat!” he ordered her.

“Zannon is falling from the roof! You got that bastard!” Kimi screamed in elation. “Where are you? Are you hurt? The gauge said you were in the stratosphere, for a second.”

“Just pick up my fucking coat!” Drakx yelled at her. “Don’t think! Just DO!”

Drakx wrapped his belt of his coat around his wrist. He took it off. Being on top of Zannon nixed the effects of the wind. He opened it, and clicked his lining on. The inside turned into a black, shapeless void. He was at the tenth story when he did this. He had about two seconds. As Zannon’s body devastated the concrete, he jumped into his lining.

***

One characteristic of Other Dimensional Clothing was the instant transition of being weightless, and lack of any inertia. In the real world, Drakx was careening, recklessly to death, while the police called by the buildings useless security, watched a monster falling from grace. They never saw Drakx riding him to destruction. All they saw was the common sense to get out of the way. Drakx took that opportunity to not only escape death, but also the mountain of reports he would have been burdened with, from these cursed events. He preferred to keep out of sight.

The dimensions switch stopped him from death. It literally stopped the outside of his body all together. The inside of his body still had the characteristics of the other dimension it was used to, so velocity was still its primary environmental state. He felt this sensation fully. Drakx threw up. He wasn’t ready for that severe of a transition, and his body was very vocal in the situation.

While ineffectively fighting nausea, he looked at the belt he cleverly wrapped around his hand to escape this void. It had been severed. It didn’t look as if it were sliced, or cut. The rest of it was just...absent. His spirit sank quickly.

He had successfully conquered death once again to complete his quest. Looking at the belt in his hand, he realized he was just as cut off as it was. No doorway back to his own dimension. The door wasn’t closed; it didn’t lock. The doorway didn’t exist. He was stuck in nothingness. Weightless, with vomit surrounding him. Not dead, but not feeling alive either.

Purgatory sucks, he thought as he floated. He had no plan. There weren’t enough variables to decipher a solution. He was enveloped in zero. The only thing that showed any hint of realism was the putrid smell of his own bile that transmuted in aberrant forms with him. He was in silent fetor for the duration.

Just as he settled into his new, personal doom, a demure hand came from nothing to grab his arm. He was being pulled. He didn’t know where. At this point, he didn’t care. He didn’t fight. He just went along for the ride.

He was assaulted. Violently molested by sound, and color. It saturated him as he heard a familiar voice. It had urgency in it. It sounded terrified, and elated.

“Grab something! Help me! You are heavy!”

He had to focus quickly. The transition from depravity to overabundance intoxicated his senses. The voice centered him. He knew it was his beautiful savior. She wouldn’t deceive his well-being. He trusted her without question.

That trust helped him center as gravity introduced itself again, like a bully that thought you beat up his sister.

He felt as if he was rising from a deep pool. It was small, but he had help. Her support helped more than her physical assistance, but it was help.

“I believed you were dead. Thank goodness you survived!” Kimi said as she assisted him from his trench coat lining. It was lying open, and flatly on a table. It strangely looked like a Vegas magic trick. “Are you hurt?”

“Where are we?” Drakx asked curiously. “Where are all those cops? Zannon’s dead right?”

“Zannon is as dead as your fashion sense,” she started. “We are at our location, and why do you ask about the police?”

“When I hit the ground with Zannon, I saw them scatter like a school of fish. Can you teleport? You got us out of there fast!”

Kimi looked puzzled. She put her hand on his shoulder to balance him as he sat on the table beside his coat.

“There was no reason to calculate a teleportation. The Hunter Gear worked. I retrieved your coat without incident. I have been working on getting you out of there,” she then revealed the bit of information she expected, from his convolution, would probably shock him. “That was three hundred, ninety six hours, well seventeen days ago.”

“I jumped in my coat five minutes ago!” Drakx exclaimed in disbelief.

Kimi tried to calm him with a soothing voice. “No Drakx. You have been in your lining for seventeen days. Your coat had a security system you probably did not know of. The lining cuts off if the coat cannot read the theta waves of your brain. When you jumped in, the alternate dimension sealed your brain pattern. It cut off immediately. You were trapped...”

“...In nothingness,” Drakx finished her explanation to let her know he understood. “Then why did I feel like it was only five minutes?”

“I believe cognizant perception is muted in that dimension. It felt like five minutes to your consciousness, however, physicality and sub-conscious were not affected by it,” she explained her theory. She had to catch herself once more. Drakx had been through an impossible ordeal, and did not need psychobabble. He needed food, water, and rest. She also knew his confusion would pick at him. She tried to make him understand better.

“Did you feel unbearable loneliness, and despair?” she asked.

“Yea. I felt like dying and giving up,” Drakx began to understand her.

“It felt like more than five minutes of your situation. I would hypothesize about seventeen days’ worth? I know you are hungry. I must feed you.”

“I didn’t realize it until now, but I could eat the first compu-screen of a menu as an appetizer,” he admitted.

“I believe you earned that menu,” she said as she gave him water. “We will visit your favorite restaurant. I will drive.”

Drakx had one more question that nagged him. Kimi had to relieve him by answering it. “If my coat cuts off when it can’t read me, how did you get me out? You can get technical. I’m catching up.”

“That is what took seventeen days,” she said as they began to walk to the car. “I had to mimic your correct combination of theta waves. Pick the lock. Mimicking your waves was hard for even me. Again, it took about, seventeen days.”

***

Dinner was nice. Not only because Drakx was, borderline, starved to death, but the conversation took an unexpected, but inevitable turn.

“I have to thank your supervisor for the Hunter gear”, Kimi began after their food was served. “Those police snapped in line like a laser whip.”

“Hunters tend to command a certain level of respect from the Trogs,” Drakx replied as he began to devour his meal.

Inquisitively, Kimi asked, “Trogs?”

“Yeah, Twogs...” Drakx started to explain with a mouthful of food. He quickly swallowed, and continued. “It’s a nickname for police we have. It’s short for ‘troglodytes’. Way less evolved than a Hunter. Most of them are wannabe Hunter candidates, but they are needed to sift through the crap, so it won’t float up to us.”

Then he remembered, Zannon described the DNAccidents the same way, and realized their father had to be omnipotent on the penultimate scale.

“I would have normally called you narcissistic, and arrogant,” Kimi started, “but after putting on that gear, I understand the feeling of authority you wield. The way those...‘Trogs’ acted, I believe they are fluidly agreeable with their place.”

“Felt like ‘Queen of the Hill’ with that gear on huh?” Drakx looked her in the eye.

Kimi looked down, and felt her blood rushing to her cheeks. She had never experienced a “blush” before. It felt strange, but good. “Yes, you are correct. Queen of the Hill.”

Drakx had a smile on his face. He looked at Kimi in feigned amazement, and asked her, “Wha..? Are you BLUSHING?! My God, woman, you’re not allowed to do that yet! Unless that stick has fallen, completely, from your ass.”

“You are truly terrible,” she said with a hint of admiration in her voice.

A moment was manifesting itself between them. A moment rarely existing in this day and age. A moment that would have normally fought for survival, only to be feebly stillborn, came effortlessly. They both shared a moment of beautiful silence.

Drakx looked at her. Her beauty. He thought about what they had been through. How she was still with him. Even after repeated, mortal dangers, and certain guarantees of pain, she was still there. He was stupidly fighting with his prejudice about her being “made”. The prejudice had been victorious until now.

He realized, at that point, rationality was inevitable. He, truly, loved Kimi.

“I had a dream when I was recovering from Teryn’s beating...” he began, as Kimi interrupted to express a pearl of knowledge.

“Dreams are just your sub-conscious embellishing your primal feelings with the only advanced, free imagination you humans have. Too bad you cannot use it consciously. It is the beginning of your true feelings, and potential,” she said to keep the conversation flowing, to segue smoothly from their silence.

“It was about you,” he said to her. Kimi was stunned. She was trying very hard to dodge the awkwardness of non-comfort, but kept crashing, recklessly, into it.

“M-me?” she asked him timidly. She wanted to know the scenario. What part was she playing in his sub-conscious? As potentially embarrassing as it might have been to her, she had to know, so she asked, and waited for the worst.

“What was it...about?”

“You kept me at peace,” he told her. He felt as if he had to expose the intangible between both of them. “It was you who kept me alive. I felt... comfortable being with you.”

Kimi felt blindsided by this admission. She was not expecting this revelation. “That was just a dream. Your mind kicked in that fallacy for survival purposes.”

“Then why do I still feel this way?” he asked her.

Kimi was speechless. She had no explanation. She began to feel nervous about this conversation.

“You don’t have to answer,” he said to let her off the hook. He understood this burden of obvious eventuality was his own. He bared this responsibility head on by saying, “I understand how awkward this is for you. You are still learning emotions; how to feel. Something we take for granted. I still have an aspect of infancy in my emotional skills. That was because I’ve never really needed them my whole life. This is new for me as well. I’ve been stubborn with this feeling for a while because I didn’t understand it, and I’ve realized, you aren’t supposed to. There is no need to analyze, or deduct this feeling. It’s too powerful to try and harness it with rationality. I’m not strong enough to incarcerate it any longer.” he hoped he made sense to her until this point.

“Damn! I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Kimi... I love you.”

Kimi felt the harsh explosion of revelation pepper her with hot shrapnel. The feeling she didn’t understand was so eloquently explained to her. The reason rationalization was so elusive was because this feeling’s rationality didn’t exist.

It was one of the purest feelings. She had to stop complicating it unnecessarily, and let it, simply, be.

“Don’t speak,” Drakx interrupted her thought. “I know this is a shock to say the least...”

“A shock?!” Kimi spoke in agitation from his monumental understatement. “You tell me you ‘love’ me, and I am supposed to acquire this information, shut up, and finish my potatoes?! It does not work that way Drakx! You rained your feelings all over me without giving me as much as a cocktail umbrella. Well, I have something to say also!”

Drakx froze. He was now the owner of the shock. Kimi had never been that angry with him. He began to regret his admission. Then she calmed herself.

“I was never created with any emotions--not one,” she started calmer. “I have had to experience them in an incredibly short chronology. Then I meet you, and everything I have acquired was obliterated. You are brash, harsh, and primitive. Yet, I was compelled to stay with you. I knew you sacrificed insurmountably to save my life. I appreciate that more than you will ever know. When you recovered from that beating, I knew you did not need me anymore. I also knew you believed that we were even, although we will never be. Even after all of that, I wanted to stay with you. With the probability of physical damage, or death as high as it is, logic tells me to stay as far away from you as I can, however, you have done something I could not. My survival will has been illogically overwritten to become inert so I can be with you in the midst of this eminent danger. Being who I am, I should be shut down from this paradox. So, I have been tormented more than you.”

Drakx was confused with this soliloquy. “Kimi, slow down. Stop being cryptic. What are you trying to say?”

“I do not know how love feels, but if you are willing to selflessly die to make sure the well-being of someone else is safe, then you have accomplished the task of thrusting me into the rawest, most complicated emotion of all,” she finished with an amazing weight releasing from her.

Drakx re-applied the weight, unwittingly, by asking, “Are you saying... you love me too?”

“No... Yes... I do not know!” Kimi blurted out, feeling lost, because she always knew.

“Kimi, slow down. You don’t have to answer. I apologize for putting you in that position,” he tried to calm her. “You have to abandon logic this time. I know that seems impossible for you, but you have to trust how you feel instead of what you believe you’re supposed to think. I agree with your predetermined conclusion of that being a ‘stupid’ action, but it is, well, human.”

This was a tough lesson for her. She began to realize emotions are their own entities. They have no rules of logic. No analytical conclusions. That was what made them emotions, and why Sonext alleviated them. She thought she had a long way to go. She, at that point, began to start her long journey of learning by augmenting that thought. She ‘felt’ she had a long way to go.

Drakx put his hand on hers. It was trembling. “Just know that I would selflessly die to insure your well-being, and I do love you.” he said as he slowed her tremble.

“You just...” Kimi began.

Drakx interrupted. “Hey, take your time to rationalize your feeling. When you come to the understanding it has no rationalization, you’ll be more comfortable.”

Kimi placed her other hand on his, feeling his warmth. “I will take some time. I will have to fight this intangible dragon on my own. Thank you for understanding.”

“Let’s go home.” Drakx acknowledge her statement with a nod, and a smile. He wanted to make her more comfortable after dropping this, pure voraciousness on her. “Let’s get some rest. We have more impossible work ahead of us.”

“Yes, let us rest,” Kimi agreed. “I must fight this personal battle, mentally, alone, but physically, I do not want to be alone. Would it be too intrusive for me to ask you to share your slumber with me?”

Drakx paused. Did she just ask to “sleep” with him? He had to pull himself from a lustful imagination, and deduct it as literal.

“Yes, you can sleep with me,” he told her

“I do mean sleep, as in shutting down for regeneration. You should already know I do not use my words to euphemize an unspoken meaning for my actions.”

“I know you want to sleep,” he assured her. “No ulterior motives. Just sleep.”

They walked out of the restaurant to his car. After the conversation, with the revelation of the obvious, they sub-consciously granted themselves the privilege to walk closer.