Choosing Sides

I could feel my hands shaking slightly causing the gun in my hands to tremble. Stop shaking. My hands had never shaken before on the job but then it was my first Maydevil encounter that ever needed a gun. I just hoped that my commander next to me didn’t notice; it was my first day since the promotion. I had been moved from my old squad, which only dealt with small domestic cases involving Maydevils, to the Jade squad which dealt with the ones that were a threat to the human civilisation. ‘A big leap’ as my father had described it. But the promotion had been expected apparently I’d shown great potential and was obviously better suited to one-on-one combat than open and shut domestics. My old commander had told me that I worked well under pressure but my shaking hands seemed to disagree. I felt numb; I couldn’t feel my fingers properly. I could just feel the familiar sensation of finger poised over trigger tingling up my arm. I looked down cautiously over the edge of the high rise building we were perched on. At least two-hundred feet, which was about average for apartment block in Four-Gate city; so creatively named after the four main gates that led in and out of the city. It was a steel and tarmac jungle not a tree in sight or any grass; just building after building of towering apartment blocks and business empires. Everything was controlled by money and power or in other words ‘The Court’; a group of rich people who ran the city for them. The same group of people who ordered all Maydevils to be killed or driven out of the city, according to The Court they were spawns of the ‘devil’; ‘demons’ in their technical term. I didn’t share the same hatred for them until they killed my brother, my twin brother to be precise. He was called Jake.

He’d gone out to the pub with some friends; it was his twenty-first birthday. A Maydevil had been at the pub, drunk out of his mind. No one had noticed he was Maydevil, after all the bartender was hardly trained in this area. He overheard my brother boasting to his friends about how he’d got a promotion at work and about all the Maydevils he’d be killing. The Maydevil man went crazy and attacked him, apparently they’d found him squirming on the floor spouting gibberish covered in his own blood. He died in the next hour. And that’s also why my hands are shaking and I’m nervous, because my brother’s promotion had been into squad Jade. I know it’s stupid but it almost feels like I’m taking his place somehow, like it should be him not me but my brother died five years ago and I really need to move on. I haven’t been close to anyone since; I don’t exactly have a good relationship with my parents. I see them once a month tops. My friends are good friends, they’re a laugh but we’ve drifted apart ever since my brother died. Now-a-days I like to spend most of time in solitude. I find it too much effort to socialize with people, who honestly, I don’t particularly like.

BANG.

The gun shot brought me back out of my own thoughts to the chaos around me. My commander was sprawled out on the floor in front of me blood spurting from a wound in his neck and gushing out onto the cement around us. I looked around cautiously from the little block on the roof; I saw a man holding a gun pointing it straight at me. I whipped back around the cement bulge on the roof in just enough time to feel it whizz past my ear. I looked back to my commander and thought about applying pressure to the wound I began to lower my gun and edge towards him trying to keep behind the safety of the block. But then, BANG. My commander made a tiny whimper as a bullet tore into his chest and within seconds I knew he was dead. It had just been me and him out on this mission, we brought guns with us but he’d assured me that we probably wouldn’t need them. It was just a safety factor; it had just been a Maydevil causing some trouble in an apartment block. We’d chased him up the roof and that’s when he’d produced the gun. At that moment my commander had then sent me a faint smile as if to say ‘welcome to your first day at the Jade squad’, some first day this was turning out to be.

My hands were shaking violently now. I was shocked how seeing my commander dead wasn’t affecting me, I felt nothing. Does that mean something’s wrong with me? His death looked so peaceful compared to that of my brothers.

BANG.

A bullet flew past from behind me, I breathed out steadily. Do this for Jake. I told myself.

BANG.

The second bullet flew past and I jumped out, aimed and pulled the trigger. It was all too easy for my liking, I just watched the body fall the ground clutching its side and I felt nothing. It was like I was like all my emotions were paralyzed. I walked over to the Maydevil the monster and peered down at his face. He was probably a few years older than me, his blue eyes jutting out from his face. Gun clenched in hand, blood dribbling from his lips and down his cheek. It was blue, I didn’t know Maydevil blood was blue but then I had never seen one bleed before. He deserved it, well did he? I decided not to ponder on this thought; he killed my commander who seemed like a nice man, he didn’t deserve any sympathy. What had he even been doing again? Ah yes I remember, he’d been trying rob someone in the apartment block not uncommon. Maydevils can’t exactly work and earn money so hundreds turn to stealing. But it was strange for him to have a gun on him, oh well, I decided not ponder on this either. All guilt could be washed away entirely by just repeating that same sentence in my head. They killed my brother, and he did nothing.