Our First Mistake

We stood behind Raymundo and Alejandro as they faced a crowd of about 25 individuals. Some were recognizable to us, others were new faces that I’d never seen before. Most of them looked at us with anger, while others were curious about how we’d talk. Raymundo nervously shifted around while standing, yet Alejandro calmed the crowd’s impatience with his mere presence. The room we were in seemed a bit nicer than the usual cave system we had grown somewhat used to in our 10 days of incarceration. There were at least 5 old laptops working on top of old desks, and the doors seemed to be made of steel this time, rather than the usual wood. Alejandro raised his hand, causing everyone to stop talking.

“By now you must have all heard the rumors, and you’re probably wondering if they’re true.” Alejandro turned to see us, like he was hoping we would step forward. Of course, that didn’t happen; we were scared shitless.

“We know they’re true, asshat!” a man in the crowd yelled. “They are standing right there!” A group of men began laughing in the back; Alejandro looked upwards as if asking for patience to whatever God ruled over this forsaken land, and cleared his throat.

“Thank you, Marco. Your insight is always appreciated. As I was saying, these are Aduna, Bruno, and Gabriel; our ‘doubles’ for the operation known as ‘Daybreak’”. In exchange for us not having a gruesome death, we were to aid in the Resistance’s efforts to take the world back by impersonating our counterparts. A real bargain, if you ask me. Bruno considered it suicide, but we were dead if we didn’t accept anyway, so might as well. During the course of the week, we had been let in on the schematics, if you can call it that, of the plan: we were to aid in an assassination attempt against our other us and, if the murder was successful, impersonate them in public and private until we had a chance to meet with Rahk (who had gone into hiding in the dark) and assassinate him. How we’d carry out the assassination or how we’d take the government down was not explained to us. “You are the finest men and women we have, I expect you to train them to fulfill their role to perfection.”

“Wait, wait, wait! You’re gonna’ leave us in charge of a bunch of people that want us dead, and trust that they don’t kill us?!” Bruno’s screaming broke the barely calm stasis of the room. Some began laughing devilishly while others downright yelled obscenities at my brother. Gabriel giggled a bit, too. Raymundo whispered something into Alejandro’s ear, but he seemed dismissive of whatever idea he had given him.

“I assure you, you are in very capable hands, Bruno.” Alejandro cleared his throat again, and then proceeded to look at me. This was his signal, I guess: we had agreed that I would talk in front of these people. I mean, thanks to Gabriel, everyone here knew me as “douchebag from the facedick dimension”. For the sake of this mission, my image needed to be cleaned up a bit. I took a step forward, to the amusement of these “soldiers”, for lack of a better term. I looked at all of them, only to feel a heavy weight in my heart when I saw their eyes irradiate pain, sometimes fear; like Alejandro had explained days before, some of these people were old friends of mine who had seen their families slaughtered by me in person: I had no way of relating to them. I held grandpa’s Marine Christ close to me and got ready to speak.

“I… I had always thought of myself as a nice kind of guy.” Everyone chuckled at this statement with bitterness, but I proceeded nonetheless. What did I have to lose? “I never considered myself capable of doing what I am credited with in this…dimension. I am sorry.” The crowd silenced themselves for a second. They looked at me, really making an effort to believe my words. “Neither Bruno nor Gabriel are fighters, but I am. In atonement for the lives we took here…for the families we destroyed… let us atone by helping you get your world back. You will win nothing from killing us, so let us help you. We are at your service.” Bruno frowned at my disposal to release our lives to them. Gabriel, unusually silent, nodded in agreement with my words. He and I shared views to a degree, so we had decided to play along until we could find an escape route. We had diligently moved around the complex structure trying to find possible exits to escape as soon as we could. I felt bad about everything though; Gabriel and Bruno wanted out of the place as quickly as possible, and I had agreed to mislead the Resistance so we could go, but a part of me still wanted to stay and actually help them. My brothers’ wishes, however, were priority.

The small crowd seemed pleased with our words; Raymundo and Alejandro seemed slightly more relaxed, as well. We were told we were free to wander the facility, since everyone was given instructions not to hurt us. We agreed silently; we already knew we were supposed to wander around and familiarize with our new “home”. Bruno went back to our cell (feeling hazy), while Gabriel went with the crowd of soldiers, especially Marco, the man who had interrupted Alejandro a while ago. He was a friend of ours during high school, a foe to us in this dimension like everyone else. I exited through the door to the right to a series of rooms connected by a hallway. It was honestly amazing; there were huge halls dedicated to weaponry assembling and self-defense classes. Other rooms were designed to look like classic classrooms for younger people to learn (I heard a rather tough looking fellow talking about literature to the young ones). I don’t get the logic of having a classroom right beside a weapon testing field, especially on a place where echo is plentiful, but that’s just me. I must’ve walked around the place for good 45 minutes without once passing through the same hallway twice. The place was seriously huge.

I was amazed by everyone’s diligence. Though there was only a mediocre lighting system installed around the place, every soldier worked hard in whatever task they were fulfilling, even in absolute darkness. True to their promise, no one had harmed me throughout my walk, not yet at least. Either that, or no one really saw me, I really can’t stress enough how bad the light was. But I am getting side tracked. I was about to turn around to the hallway where we had previously met Alejandro when I felt a numbing shock in the back of my neck, as if electricity had been pumped directly into my nervous system. My arms gave in and my legs went completely soft; my head hit the ground with violent force. I am not afraid to say that I shat a brick.

Suddenly, a female with her head covered by a hoodie stood on top of me, holding what seemed to be a dagger against my stomach. She tightened it against me again and again without fully letting it pierce my body, hesitating. I felt it draw blood several times, but it never once went much further. She bit her lip in anger, trying to force herself to complete the task at hand and gut me open. I felt emotionally better than in the past weeks, yet I still did not mind my life ending there. 

My body loosened up as she threw the knife away with a scream. She put her forehead against mine, and sighed in desperation. The powerful jolt of energy that had paralyzed me began losing effect; I felt my strength coming back to me. I stared upwards and caught a glimpse of a pair of beautiful eyes: Big, with a purple iris, and long eyelashes coming from them. They were humid, ready to cry; a sight that made a dent in my heart. A single tear rolled down her cheek and into mine. I would’ve moved away, but I found myself intoxicated by a delicious scent. Her hair smelled herby, like a mixture of roses had been blent together and placed in a closed garden. I heard her laugh a bit before uttering something inaudible. As if she wanted me to listen, she said it again in that beautiful voice that I had only heard on the day that I arrived to this place.

“I’ve done it so many times to stop him, but why can’t I kill you?! You’re planning on betraying our deal, even.” The girl that I had seen leading the Resistance on my first day here was shaking. From her words, I assumed she was well aware that we were planning on leaving the base as quickly as possible and not following the Resistance’s plan. For any leader, this would be considered treason, and punishable by death for sure. Seeing death in the face, I was overcome with more of that strange calm I continued experiencing often. Comfortable, I let a little bit of my stupid out.

“I don’t know, maybe I’m just that attractive” I said in a deep voice. She immediately jumped back and away from me. In her jump, I managed to catch a glimpse of her hair: a nice shade of bubblegum pink. This struck me as weird, given that there’s no real way to have natural pink hair, and I don’t think a Resistance leader would be spending her time dyeing her hair pink. “Pink hair? That’s very nice! I had a cousin once who…” Her fist went straight into my mouth with overwhelming force. I don’t know why, aside from me being a douche. I’m not usually this straight forward with women, but there was something about this one that drove me insane. More on the subject later, but after annihilating my face with a speeding train kind of jab, she bolted away, leaving me completely alone with a bleeding mouth.

Infatuation can hit at any time, especially if she hits you in the face, I presume. I got up and tried to look for her with my sight, to no avail. I remember thinking it was a bit of a shame; we’d likely escape over the coming days (or so I thought), so that might’ve been the last chance I had to either thank her for not killing us, or get to know at least her name.

I returned to our cell shortly, only to find Gabriel holding Bruno in a bear hug on the ground. The commotion could be heard in all the hallways surrounding our prison, but no one had dared come to see what was happening. I assumed the fight was over something stupid, then proceeded to take it lightly.

“Gave in to your carnal needs after only a couple weeks, I see” I said while Bruno bit Gabriel in the arm.

“Aduna! This fucker wants to leave already! Help me!” Gabriel began bleeding and let go of Bruno. I promptly swept my boney friend’s leg, making him sit on the ground with use of those long honed martial arts skills. Bruno saw me as he hit the floor. He stared at me, asking for mercy.

“We can’t stay here! They want to use us as expendables for a suicide mission! Let’s go!” Bruno looked at me begging for me to agree, though I knew he would leave even if I said no. “We look just like this world’s pimps, don’t we? Maybe they will welcome us and treat us well? We are them, basically!” Gabriel stared Bruno down, likely disappointed in his lack of guts. Bruno was never a fighter, nor someone known for his overwhelming bravery; I understood him, I guess. I let Bruno stand up, and faced Gabriel. I mulled the idea of rushing out escape over, for I knew it was pointless to try and stop my skinny friend. At the time, I believed that we should not split up, since we needed each other to survive in that cruel habitat. I spent little over five minutes standing in front of Gabriel before I opened my mouth to speak again.

“Gabriel, Bruno’s going to leave anyway. We should follow him.” Gabriel opened his eyes wide.

“What are you? Crazy?! Make up your mind, man! We don’t even have weapons, or a map of the outside; rushing out right now would be insane.” Gabriel grabbed me by the shirt and raised his fist, but calmed down the moment he saw a very stern look on my face. It was rare of me to look serious, so he knew he should stand down to avoid a physical struggle. True, I had suggested we stay with this group of ‘freedom fighters’ until we had a better grasp of the outside at my friends’ request, but only if we did so together. The sight of Bruno trying to run away like a wounded dog made me realize it’d be impossible to stop him. Thus, I changed my mind, hoping for the best.