Work Text:
You knew you’d never survive the end, but you never expected to smile about it.
You watch from the balcony of the rich man’s penthouse, his blood smeared across the concrete and steel of the minimalist architecture, as hordes of screaming people fight and protest from below. Police and teams of legalized gestapo pour bullets into the crowd of rebelling flesh, but they never stop coming. Tonight, the nation which so proudly bragged of freedom would finally be given back to the people. We the people. We had the numbers, the fire, the righteous anger and passion. All the rich had were their dollar bills and hired hitmen.
You look back at the corpse running red on the endangered lion cub’s skin rug in the living room. Even the hired hitmen weren’t any good either. No defense was good enough when raging mothers and vengeful fathers were running amok, tearing down chain link fences and busting down golden gates. No defense was good enough when fearsome aunts and armed uncles prowled the streets for frightened predators. No defense was good enough when irate grandmothers and furious grandfathers protected their grandchildren at all cost from the men made of money and power.
You refocus your gaze as one of the officers protecting the palace of pedophiles pulls out a canister of tear gas. You grab the neatly polished rifle hung underneath the taxidermied lamb heads and turn off the safety. You aim and pull the trigger.
You watch as the officer collapses, blood unfurling from the wound in his neck like the petals of a beautiful flower. It’s just the opening the people needed in the wall of men guarding the palace; they burst through the officers at full force like a tidal wave, crashing and cheering together as a true unit. You could see their gazes turn to the white mansion in the distance, red and white flags hung ironically from its roof. In every window you could see the panic of men and women who knew their karma had finally come.
You suddenly remember the pain swelling in your stomach and look down. The bullet wound grew worse and worse, and you are reminded of the sacrifice you made to rid the world of one more disgusting creature that called itself a rich, respected man. You notice the gold-painted Bible on his bookshelf and frown. This man, this man who has assaulted the innocent in more ways than one, who participated in horrors cloaked by red tape and government cover-ups, who participated in rituals and sacrifices and feasts too disturbing to describe, had always preached so publicly to be like Jesus Christ. Pathetic.
You think back to the well-worn Bible you read when you were young as you slump onto the eye-bleeding white couch, ruining the fabric with splotches of blood. Jesus would never harass the vulnerable. Jesus would never ban books and silence people. Jesus would never sic his paid-off dogs onto everyone else. Jesus would never do what those monsters did to those children.
You smile as you feel the life drain out of you. You were fine with dying knowing you had made the world just a bit better. You didn’t like violence, but sometimes, violence really was the only answer. You hope God can forgive you for the innocence you traded away for justice. You hope you died with honor.
Like Jesus Christ.