This position that I'm in. I have been expecting it to come a lot sooner, but I am very surprised at how I got here. These last few events have been so blasting in my face. Ten years just rained down on me in the last half hour. Is it less than that? I don't know. It feels like it's been five minutes, but I don't know whether to trust my own logic or not. As hard as it is to do so, I try to calm down, and re-think the recent events.
I watched in excitement at the tv screen. I had been waiting far too long for this moment to arrive, and now it finally has. I'm sitting in my apartment styled home. Or not so much home as much as where I had been living for the past several years. The t.v. is split into multiple screens, the smaller ones showing news stations showing different bias to be fair to both my adversary and I.
"Hey Deric." I laughed and patted a hand down on the seat next to me. "Come watch your country fall."
The main screen had the most important part. A colour coded map showing who owned what on earth. I had almost everything. My massive amounts of land surrounded Deric's final country in China. And not old China either. He had nearly halved the size of China, for political reasons I still don't understand. But it worked in my favour, so I don't complain. He had a dense amount of troops and weaponry in one area, but the sheer numbers that I owned meant that his last country would not be standing for much longer.
"Come on. You're going to miss all the good stuff."
He came and sat down. His expression was entirely melancholy. There were days he was overly moody and days it felt like he had no emotion at all. And then there were days like this. Where he didn't talk, didn't listen, and had the same serious expression on. I could tell that he was trying to hide fear behind that expression. He was very good at hiding his emotions. Which was really annoying, because it meant he could bluff. He tried to play psychological games with me, but I always won. He could never get to me.
"You want to surrender now? Save all those lives?"
"You miss every shot you don't take." He said in monotone. He always gave all these analogies, and some of them didn't apply to the situation.
"But why bother swinging at a two-hundred miles per hour ball? You know you're going to miss."
"If I don't swing it is a guarantee I miss."
"Ok. If you say so." We sat there waiting for a while. "You know it's funny." I got no response. "We have been doing this for what, ten years? And when it finally ends it feels like it means nothing. I couldn't be more excited, but I feel rather sorry for you." I wait a little more. I could give the order now, but I let the glorified moment sink in. I wish this moment could last forever but I knew Daric wouldn't allow that to happen, so I had to finish it. "I'm going to give the order. You ready?"
"My troops are ready. Although there is no relevance to your asking."
"Why not?"
"A farmer does not ask a caged chicken if it is ready to be eaten." I laughed.
"Yes but a hunter makes sure the fox is ready for the hunt. Otherwise it would be over too quickly."
"You want to prolong this last battle as much as possible?"
"You must not know me very well." I pulled out my communicator. I took a deep breath and gave the command. "Attack at will." directly after that, Deric lifted his communicator to his mouth at well,
"They are beginning the attack. You know what to do." Almost instantly, the news programs shut off. The one with the sound on let out a final "This is it. When the program re-airs, I'll be either dead or victorious." I had learned Chinese over the years here. It made things so much easier because I could understand the politics on Deric's side. Our wars weren't just physical. Especially early on, they were very political. What's the point in taking over a country if no one who's living in it wants you there.
It only took about five minutes for the blue to slowly begin encompassing the red on the map. The silence caused by the news program that was turned off was a change. Normally we kept the news on twenty-four seven, and there was always something on. But all the stations in the world were off, waiting for this battle to end so they could begin the report. Until then we sat in silence. Until I couldn't take it anymore and broke it, about ten minutes in.
"So when are you surrendering?"
"My people will fight to the last man."
"You know they can't win." There was no response. So again to the waiting in silence. I knew I would win but now I became more and more sure. It became painfully obvious now. It became incredibly exciting. It became, rather boring. It became obvious fast that I would win, so the lack of anticipation made the time go by so slowly. I always had something I could be doing. Normally research, or orders, or political decisions. Now it was nothing just staring at a screen. The news wasn't even on. I have not been this bored in that last ten years.
About forty-five minutes into the battle, my soldiers had consumed half of what was China before hand. I had eaten breakfast, though Deric refused to eat. I wandered around the flat a lot, thinking of what I would do afterwards. But Deric was just sitting and staring. I was always better than him, so he was probably used to this. He probably wasn't constantly at work, even though he liked to think he was. But he just stared there with the same expression on his face.
"Have you ever wondered what would happen to you after the war?" He didn't answer. Of course. "I mean obviously I will have to kill you. It would be the ultimate sign to my people. Me killing the leader of their enemy. But I don't have to kill you right away. After all no one hardly knows what we look like. I could send you on a vacation."
"Why on earth would you want to do that?" He finally spoke. "What would be the point?"
"Well a favour. I've spent the last ten years living with you. What am I just going to kill you and move on? You have become so much more than flatmates, and we have become so much more than friends."
"I see you as my enemy. Nothing more."
"Ah but that is what I mean. They say keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Well that's exactly what we've done! You are probably as close as I could ever get to anyone."
"Touching." Deric said with a hint of sarcasm.
"Ah there you are lightening up. Think of the memories. Do you remember when we walked into this as friends? It was sort of a half help humanity, half destroy it. It was a bet as I remember."
"It was an attempt to stop humanity from being destroyed."
"Yes yes because of the nuclear missile crisis. But that's not important. The important thing is how much we grew. It was a bet I remember. I bet you I was smart enough to take over the world before you did. It turns out I was right but that's not the point. I guess that the point I am trying to make here is that our relationship grew. Others would say that it has been torn apart, but in my eyes it has evolved to the highest form. We learned to hate each other but understand each others thinking and morals, even if only for the sake of manipulation. We have become eachothers enemies, and that is as close as two people can get."
"I think I may be dead before you have the chance to send me on vacation."
"Why's that?"
"You are already boring me to tears. The next step up is death." I could hear the frustration in his voice. I can't blame him. Having been bested by me and watching ten years go to waste is not a pleasurable experience.
"But I have to admire your genius." I tried to make him feel a little better. "Your social manipulation allowing you to gain China's people, even though they never saw you, was genius. Of course me predicting that Antarctica would be able to have food grown on it due to global warming within two years of fully colonizing it was too but..." I was so happy. I had finally won, and it was the final battle and I had won. But then I saw something on the screen that caught my eye. In Korea there was a little dot of red. I looked around on the map, and they were all over the place. America, Brazil, Russia, West Africa, the Middle east, Europe. There were even a few in Antarctica.
"Daric. How long have those dots been there?"
"Well had you been paying attention you would know."
"No I checked. Every spare moment I had these last few weeks, I made sure there was no red in my land."
"They didn't form a week ago. They began to form about a minute ago." They were slowly getting larger. Ever so slowly. I began to panic.
"But, bbbbut how? I took every precaution."
"I am better." There was no smile on Deric's face. He didn't even move his head from where it had been. "People like me more. And when the shit hits the fan, it's spreading everywhere."
"I am pretty damn sure you used that expression wrong."
"It works."
"No I am pretty fucking sure that is wrong Deric."
"I have connections. When you were out fighting battles, I was out making friends. When you were out causing death, I was promising life."
"Rephrase that god dam expression."
"Sure your colonies produced more food, but they were solder colonies. People went there to fight and die." The area that he controlled was getting bigger and bigger. It didn't help that most my men were fighting in China, and there were few left to defend the rest of the world. "You promised an end to nuclear warfare but most people on earth were sure you would start it up again."
"Are you going to try again with the expression? Or am I going to have to fucking make you?!" His response was a gun to my head.
"Oh shut up." He looked back at the screen. The only blue left was surrounding China. I didn't dare speak. We waited. Almost twenty minutes later, the world was red. The colour of Deric. I had lost. "Funny how much can happen in a few hours. Especially when people know it's the last few. We had battles that went on and on, but how long did this one last? The biggest one? Hardly over an hour." His voice was still monotone, and his face never changed from that same melancholy expression. "Well now that it is all over, what happens to you now? Obviously you are going to have to die."
I had my hands up. I could tell I was stuttering, and my voice was shaking. "P-please no."
"All these years. I've been with you. You think that you know me pretty well don't you. You think you have me figured out. You think you could wage psychological games with me. And best of all you thought that you had won." He smiled just a bit. Something that would hardly be noticeable, but I think it was the biggest smile he has ever made. "Ten years and you don't know the first thing about me." I didn't argue. "And now we are here. I rule the world. I have my plans, and know who exactly will carry them out. Not me of course, I'm probably going to retire. My last act as emperor of the world will be to kill you. The only question is when."
Here I am now. Standing here, waiting for a decision to be made. I'm looking as innocent and desperate as possible but I don't know if that's helping or hurting. I can't believe it happened like this.
"I am basing this purely on your benefit." He's talking. That's the first time in far too long. I've been too afraid to look at the clock. "When you die doesn't matter to me, but what about you?"
"I don't want to die." I'm trying not to break down. I'm sure any sudden move could result in death.
"Well I know that. But I don't care about that. Let's see. If I kill you now, it will be over with. But if I let you go to bed tonight, you will be on edge. Constantly wondering if it will end."
"Let m-me have one more night. P-p-please!"
"I don't know. I have a point. Give a man a fire, he'll be warm for a night." Oh god. The last thing I want to hear is one of his analogies. "Light a man on fire. He'll be warm for the rest of his life." This shocked me. I started laughing nervously. I didn't want to, but my body made me.
"That's a bit of an extreme isn't it?"
"I just took over the world. Being overly extreme isn't exactly one of my concerns right now." We stood there. "Stop laughing." I tried to stop, but I couldn't. "It doesn't matter. You will be dead in moments anyway."
"NO!" he held the gun more firmly as if to remind me that it's there.
"I have to say, I was flattered when you considered me your enemy. But unfortunately I don't feel that close to you. It has been ten years, but to me you are just a friend." He takes a deep breath. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer they say. And for friends, we have gotten much too close."
For a tenth of a second I heard a loud bang and then