(This is strictly meant to be a short meditation on my last moments spent in 'The Matrix Online' and has no real consequence in terms of story, arc, or character. I merely wanted to explain how the characters I knew would have spent their last moments, had they happened the way SOE argues they happened.)
Roger’s Way bled, ancient bricks dripping from buildings as the mortar between them turned to dust. The air was cold, getting colder by the second - it caught in her throat and scratched at her lungs, like trying to swallow battery acid. All of the batteries were gone, though, either crumpled into ruddy piles in the streets or simply peeled from their realities. Nothing moved but them.
Westview was a mausoleum.
“Not much time, now,” came in breathy grunts from the suit skipping in polished loafers just ahead. His hair was shortish, red with broad streaks of grayish white. He did not look back as he spoke, eyes snaking down an alley toward their goal, toward Ascension. Wind, fake as it was, picked up as the two collapsed through the concrete chasm, its cliffs painted oily black against the alabaster sky.
Behind the girl, black suits on green shirts trampled the sidewalk deep cracks and ravines fissuring beneath each step. Newspapers and garbage wept from sewer drains, and birds slept mid-flight, suspended in the air. They were living in a dream world, consciously.
It was too late to do anything about that.
She had a pad in her pocket, a pen in her hand - proof of life. The group climbed the great staircase in the center of the city, searching for any semblance of meaning, semblance of conclusion, some reward for fighting the good fight for the bad team. Each had a past far removed from the others, yet all had overlapped, or tried, in the consequent years.
The end of the world, as secondary sources and scholars would undoubtedly dictate it, came as a checkmate coin-toss card-flip to those unlucky enough to have ridden their gambling hot-streak until the house finally took notice. The ogre had been buried long ago. Years between saw plans pitched and schemes hatched, changes in the world coming at machinegun haste, but hardly chipping at weather-beaten and war-torn histories.
The story had come to a close long ago.
A fiery breeze caught red hair as she stepped from the passenger side of a long raven sedan. She ducked and grabbed at a dark woolen collar, rumpling as it unfolded, pressing against her neck. Arguably in her late twenties, the girl stitched a practiced frown too-widely across her face, disagreeing with the wind. Her legs, coated in black, slid from the car, meeting bubbling cement with sharp heels. Dark, mirrored glasses veiled her eyes.
With a contented grin, the driver opened his door. Every bit that escaped the vehicle exhaled power. His hair was combed crisply backward, but large, and nodding to another time. Smaller glasses than hers, with reddish lenses inside oily frames, coated his eyes, sitting still on pedestals of tanned leather skin. A grey suit cut crisply in three pieces, striped with black covered a burgundy shirt with its first few buttons opened. He wore the type of authority that came from never having planned to retire.
They would spend their last moments on opposite sides of the city – somewhere else meaning much more to him. The two were just too similar to ever want to share something meaningful like Armageddon.
Reaching the top, all went quiet, hoping that they were on the edge of some irrefutable truth. The silverback extended a big, sweaty hand toward the door’s weather-beaten handle. Everyone expected something to be on the other side, even though all had at one time opened it to see nothing but the expected – the other side of a wall standing alone at the summit of the slums. It opened without fanfare.
It opened without surprises.
Buildings around the group started to crumble, their pieces disappearing before they crashed to the ground. The sun grew, swallowing the sky around it, only measurable by how much she had to squint so keep her eyes from watering. She pulled out the pad and began to scribble something as her hands folded into themselves like paper. Words filled the air, and were drowned in solemnity. She dropped the pen, her hands no longer working as they should.
Ancient arguments no longer seemed relevant – the figureheads all standing quietly at the top of the world and feeling small. The sky was falling, and the air was melting, and they knew they were going to die soon. So they watched the world end.
Together.
Roger’s Way bled, ancient bricks dripping from buildings as the mortar between them turned to dust. The air was cold, getting colder by the second - it caught in her throat and scratched at her lungs, like trying to swallow battery acid. All of the batteries were gone, though, either crumpled into ruddy piles in the streets or simply peeled from their realities. Nothing moved but them.
Westview was a mausoleum.
“Not much time, now,” came in breathy grunts from the suit skipping in polished loafers just ahead. His hair was shortish, red with broad streaks of grayish white. He did not look back as he spoke, eyes snaking down an alley toward their goal, toward Ascension. Wind, fake as it was, picked up as the two collapsed through the concrete chasm, its cliffs painted oily black against the alabaster sky.
Behind the girl, black suits on green shirts trampled the sidewalk deep cracks and ravines fissuring beneath each step. Newspapers and garbage wept from sewer drains, and birds slept mid-flight, suspended in the air. They were living in a dream world, consciously.
It was too late to do anything about that.
She had a pad in her pocket, a pen in her hand - proof of life. The group climbed the great staircase in the center of the city, searching for any semblance of meaning, semblance of conclusion, some reward for fighting the good fight for the bad team. Each had a past far removed from the others, yet all had overlapped, or tried, in the consequent years.
The end of the world, as secondary sources and scholars would undoubtedly dictate it, came as a checkmate coin-toss card-flip to those unlucky enough to have ridden their gambling hot-streak until the house finally took notice. The ogre had been buried long ago. Years between saw plans pitched and schemes hatched, changes in the world coming at machinegun haste, but hardly chipping at weather-beaten and war-torn histories.
The story had come to a close long ago.
A fiery breeze caught red hair as she stepped from the passenger side of a long raven sedan. She ducked and grabbed at a dark woolen collar, rumpling as it unfolded, pressing against her neck. Arguably in her late twenties, the girl stitched a practiced frown too-widely across her face, disagreeing with the wind. Her legs, coated in black, slid from the car, meeting bubbling cement with sharp heels. Dark, mirrored glasses veiled her eyes.
With a contented grin, the driver opened his door. Every bit that escaped the vehicle exhaled power. His hair was combed crisply backward, but large, and nodding to another time. Smaller glasses than hers, with reddish lenses inside oily frames, coated his eyes, sitting still on pedestals of tanned leather skin. A grey suit cut crisply in three pieces, striped with black covered a burgundy shirt with its first few buttons opened. He wore the type of authority that came from never having planned to retire.
They would spend their last moments on opposite sides of the city – somewhere else meaning much more to him. The two were just too similar to ever want to share something meaningful like Armageddon.
Reaching the top, all went quiet, hoping that they were on the edge of some irrefutable truth. The silverback extended a big, sweaty hand toward the door’s weather-beaten handle. Everyone expected something to be on the other side, even though all had at one time opened it to see nothing but the expected – the other side of a wall standing alone at the summit of the slums. It opened without fanfare.
It opened without surprises.
Buildings around the group started to crumble, their pieces disappearing before they crashed to the ground. The sun grew, swallowing the sky around it, only measurable by how much she had to squint so keep her eyes from watering. She pulled out the pad and began to scribble something as her hands folded into themselves like paper. Words filled the air, and were drowned in solemnity. She dropped the pen, her hands no longer working as they should.
Ancient arguments no longer seemed relevant – the figureheads all standing quietly at the top of the world and feeling small. The sky was falling, and the air was melting, and they knew they were going to die soon. So they watched the world end.
Together.
