Endless War (Complete)

Chapter 18 "Outta Body"

My thoughts are keeping me awake, I can see this battle take place in my mind before it is even done. I see casualties, hear the cries of pain and anguish within my mind. I can feel the wet sensation of blood upon my flesh. Every action is vivid and horrifying, I can feel bile rising up to my throat, and swallow it back down. They say there is no rest for the wicked, so is that what I am, wicked? I can close my eyes and open them but there is no sleep, no rest. My mind will not shut off, there is this constant buzz, useless information bubbling within my skull.

I shake my head and take a deep breath, I look across the small darkened cavern, Grim is sound asleep, I watch as his shadowy form inhales and exhales. My mind goes to a dark place, my imagination wields a blade walks over to him and towers there, slowly looking darkly back at me with a callous grin. The blade is at his throat and a rivulet of crimson escapes the skin. She licks her lips slowly, grins then looks back to the man across from me, the blade biting further into the skin.

"No!" I scream aloud, and reach out into the shadows to stop the image of myself from harming him. Her form dissipates into a fog and suddenly Grim is upright.

"What the hell?" Grim reaches up and grabs his neck. "What the hell? Who cut me?"

"I... I don't know. I don't understand. I saw it in my head, it was, she was me. Grim, I am so sorry. I don't know how." Tears begin to stream from my eyes as I try to process what just happened. "You tell me that I am no more than a computer! You did this! I was raised behind a pane of glass, then I am forced into battle. I overcome the chip in my head to be rescued by none other than you." I scream at him.

"You pretend like you actually give a damn about me so that you can try and stab me in the back as soon as I lead you to something that you want. Only, I get the drop on you because of the chip in my head. Now you treat me like I am not even human! Do you know how that makes me feel? I force myself not to show you that I have any weakness, so you could one day at least respect me! It is no wonder my subconscious wants you dead, cause my conscious mind would love to beat the shit out of you right now." I don't know how much of what I just said he even understood because I am sobbing so hard, and find that I am gasping for breath.

Next thing I know he is walking across the cavern floor and sitting on the cot beside me. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me into his chest to comfort me. "Emotion, Phoenix, that is what you were missing. The one thing that you were holding back is the one thing I was looking for, to prove you were really human. You feel, you can become angry, and you can actually cry. Now I know. I am also just realizing that you are more powerful than my mother even thought possible."

"Your ability to cut me without touching me, using nothing other than the power of your mind. Has your mind been fully unlocked because of the multitude of chips that you have in your head? I can only imagine the abilities you can unlock, with the proper training. The only problem is that I have no idea who could even train you." His face appears elated as he makes his observations.

I pull back my sobbing and take deep breaths to calm myself. I pull away from Grim and look at him with wide eyes. "So you were being a dick, just so that you could make me cry?"

He chuckles, "Is that all you got from what I said? You have the ability to do unthinkable things with just a thought and you ask that." He sighs, "No, I was being a dick because, I am a dick. I only left your side just that once when you got here, because I wanted observe you. I wanted to see if you could show any form of emotion. The sorrow you showed my mother, could have been faked, I needed something stronger, and that was the one time I was not observing you directly. Crying was not my only goal, any strong show emotion would have worked. Love, hate, anger, they are all strong emotions and are measurable you were just not showing me any of them."

"I wanted to show you that I was strong, to show emotion is to show weakness. That is what matters to me not telekinesis." I look down as I fumble around with a string on my pants.

He lifts my chin with his hand and looks me in the eyes. "To show weakness is to be human. I suppose we can talk about the rest later."

I sigh and just cuddle up to his side. "Yeah, we can work with that later." I have to admit that after his confession, I am feeling a little bit better about him. He wraps his arm around my back, I take a deep breath and as I exhale close my eyes. I am finally able to turn off my brain and sleep for the first time, since I left my prison.