Below is the innermost thoughts and creations of novelist and poet B D BECHTLE. Short stories, philosophy, previews, poems, rants-- you'll find it all here. Use the list of keywords on the sidebar to find what you're looking for. Follow the author here and on Twitter @BBechtlez. Be sure to share anything you like on social media, and don't forget to read the preview for the upcoming thriller THE BARD.
"It's fine to be weird... as long as you harness it in a way normal people can enjoy."
“Truly,
Jean-Luc?” Fleurette snapped. “You opt to save my life, only to end it shortly
after!?”
I made no
reply. The girl knew full well that death via my hand was a much more merciful
demise than the one that awaited her.
“Reserve
your pity for someone else, Im. I am not like you, deaf to the value of life.
The terms of my death have meaning to me.”
“Engaging
the foe leaves you no chance for survival. Your odds at a successful retreat
are equally dismal.”
“So be it,”
the maid said sharply, holding up her pistols. “If I am to fall, I wish to do
so in battle. Let me die defending Lady Etienne, repaying my debt to the
Pasiphae’s… and the rest of the settlers I’ve damned. I want to give my life to
Lyonnais, the land I betrayed by opposing you.”
WARNING! This story is written in the style of Teen Fiction, and as such uses profanity, violence.. etc. If you don't like that sort of thing... give this a pass.
[CYBORGEOUS]
ONE OFF: #1: The Eris Named Ankaa
The loss of our lives would reverse the fate of so many others. That was the sole purpose of the project. That's what we were told, at least. Now, with the pretenses proven false, our parents' naivety seems all the clearer. Or was it greed? My mother and father, like those of the others, were given the ultimate choice. Asked to sacrifice their first born's for the betterment of the human race. N.U.-U.-Corp, placing themselves in the place of God himself-- echoing his harsh demands upon Issac. Yet the demands weren't all too harsh... Well, for them. Our parents donated their walking, bald corpses for the "cause." That cause being an undisclosed amount of cash. None of us knew what price our respective sets of parental units paid, but it didn't matter. To a true parent, the life of their child is off the table. Non-negotiable.
At first, I told myself they did it for genuine reasons... The amount of time I had left versus the cost of keeping me alive wasn't a fair figure. I even believed the delusion that they were genuinely interested in curing the world of my fatal ailment... But that died away. Along with the rest of my innocence... and my compassion. In the end, I fostered my hatred for them, just as I was expected to. Harvesting my spite as inspiration.
But I suppose I should be less vague... Who am I? What did they do to me? What am I now? What became of me, and how did I get fucking even? All good questions, and ones I intend to answer. Honestly, I'm not sure where to begin...
Hmm.
Ah, I guess I'll begin there... It's a decent starting point.
Hold on, let me transfer the memory.
INITIATING MEMORY BANK UPLOAD: DATA FILE 546456007213.
As
I watched a pack of sand wolves gnaw the flesh off the impaled unmans,
I felt a fell wind brewing. We needed to keep moving.
Curiosity compelled me to dig through the cartographers' stash of supplies. A
wireless telegraph machine turned on its side stood out to me. It had likely been toppled during an interrupted SOS. Rather than suffer idly through Fleurette’s incessant snoring,
I decided to scour the camp for any clues that might explain what exactly occurred and who ordered them to make a map of the area.
My search
turned up a relatively new carbon monoxide converter, which I stowed in my pocket. It looked to be a relatively strong CMC at that, able convert any camp
into a safe haven filled with breathable air. I’d already gathered the cartographers came
from affluence due to the presence of liquor. I needed something else.
A shimmering package resting in the corner drew my eye. Luminescent fabric covered the unopened crate. The box
looked to be some sort of a gift. I ginglerly tapped the colorful container with the tip of my claw. The moment my nail touched it, the container unfolded and began
expelling hot steam. A projector whirred and lit up,
rendering a three dimensional image of a tiny girl in an extravagantly frilly dress.
A recorded message played. the lagging rather annoyingly, the
audio played out of sync with the child’s lips.
I
looked down at the unconscious girl, contemplating my next course of action.
To my
irritation, the girl’s breathing had stopped. Reviving Fleurette was an inconvenience
I did not require, as once I became her savior, societal obligation then made
her continued existence my burden. The maid’s fate meant absolutely nothing to
me, but allowing her to die now would make my previous inconvenience a wasted
effort. I still don’t know why I made
that initial dive. Perhaps it was a leftover reflex.
Extending a
long steel spire from my left wrist, I carved a tiny yet deep hole in
Fleurette’s chest. I took an orb of compressed oxygen from one of the many
leather pockets on my pantaloons and plopped it down the area of incision. The girl
awoke immediately, wriggling and screaming like a newborn child. She was
covered in blood and severe burns, writhing in an agony that trumped all the
pain she’d ever known. I drove the palm of my hand against her temple, applying
just enough force to knock the maid unconscious.
The next
step was to solder a metal graft over the area to prevent the air from
escaping. I’d used human metallurgy frequently for my own repairs so the
process was quick.
I sat by
Fleurette for three hours until she awoke. During this time I did clean her up,
but lacking painkillers and bandaging I braced myself for the maidservant’s
painful reawakening. The girl returned to consciousness in complete silence,
taking me by surprise. Seeing that she was alive, I started off, listlessly
heading for the town’s outskirts.
After an
hour, I realized Fleurette had ventured off after me and had somehow managed to
catch up.
“If you
proceed, you will die,” I said.
The girl
said nothing. When I looked back I discovered that she’d donned a silver exosuit,
complete with goggles, a breather and a pair of ornamental sporting revolvers.
“Take off
the gas mask. You no longer require breath.”
Patchwork
aluminum airships chugged steadily across the dust clouds. Helio, the smallest
of Earth’s three purifying ‘moons’, reflected off the tinfoil balloons keeping
the ships afloat. Bursts of steam sporadically shot up from the boiling tides
below. Just as nature itself had
practically vanished, my time for romance seemed all but over. As I peered into
the uncertain dusk, I longed for my earliest memories. A time before the Vermillion Years.
“Jean-Luc,
what are you thinking about?”
“Hues in the air,” I answered. “The fumes of commuters
add welcomed variety.”
The eternal
evening was the one aspect of this era that I preferred over the past. Melancholically
painted by splotches of cinnabar, burgundy and aged orange peel, the sky stayed
a constant vermillion, tinting virtually everything in a moody orange glow. For
all its beauty, the citrusy atmosphere was, for the most part, toxic, forcing
mankind indoors.
“That’s a
strange thing to say.” The girl’s voice
was muffled under her fancy oversized collar. The frilly poof that topped her
equally bloated chartreuse dress was actually an expensive respirator that
allowed her to breathe outdoors.
Strange? For
one of her limited years, yes, maybe it was. To her, orange was orange and
nothing more. She didn’t have eons of lifetimes at her disposal to analyze
color. For me, it was but one of the countless mundane observances that
governed my sullen existence. My finger slowly drew the slider down on my
bronze mask, forming a frown.
“Nothing is
strange, as strangeness is defined only by the limit of one’s experiences,” I
replied after a spell of contemplative silence. “Struggling to understand the
world, we cling to sameness to feel safe— not realizing that shelter is a sin.
When wrinkles set, your pale skin will regret its lack of scars. Appreciate the
uncanny now. Age robs you of wonder.”
I could
feel the girl’s eyes fixed dreamily upon me. Despite the girl’s beauty, the loving
gaze had no chance of reciprocation.
