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It was nothing but snow scrolling along the screen. Obviously nothing special, just like he was doomed to be for the past, present, and future of eternity.
//I'm not alone cuz the TV's on, yeah//
On the other side of the world, the same problem persisted. But the second man paid no attention to the picture, or lack thereof. He busied himself instead at the sink, where bottles upon bottles of pills lined the small, water-stained counter. The schedule and order in which to take these pills was very complicated – the little pink ones every Monday and Friday, the blue ones on the weekends, and the green ones on full moons, for starters. They calmed him, right after his hands were done shaking, jolting all of those little crunchy shapes out of their safe cocoons.
//I'm not crazy cuz I take the right pills every day and rest//
The snow kept falling on that first TV. Finally he just got fed up and slammed his fist down on top of it, cutting the already crappy connection. He took a deep breath and tried to clear his head. He didn't want to think about how he earned this crappy lifestyle. He didn't want to think about what a terrible murderer and sinner he was. He didn't want to think about how he lost the love of his life. He just wanted to stare into the blank black of his mind and stay there, warm and safe instead of cold and vulnerable in his hell-hole of an apartment. So what did he do then? He left the building and went for a walk on the cold streets of the city.
//Clean
your conscience
Clear
your thoughts with speyside
With
your grain//
The other was doing the exact same thing at the exact same moment. He was pushing all evil thoughts out of his mind, but they inevitable pushed right back. He couldn't take it anymore, he was gonna go crazy, regardless of how many pills he took. So he took off instead, pulling a long black cloak over his identity and slipping out into the evening.
//Clean
your conscience
Clear
your thoughts with speyside//
He actually utilized his intelligent mind and started thinking back to that one time they had actually met, he and the other man. This man had not been the love of his life, do not mistake me. But this other man had actually been special in a way – noble, strong, a model of everything men are taught to be. To emulate him…well, no one had successfully done that yet. The blood, sweat, and tears never flowed as freely as they did from this beacon of manhood.
Ah, perhaps if he had been that pillar, his love would not have left. Why did she leave anyway? That's something that was never actually determined, and is left up to your interpretation. Damned if he even knew himself why it was as it was, of course. But only the city streets could feel the heat of passion radiating from his body.
//Salt
sweat sugar on the asphalt
Our
hearts littering the topsoil//
The cloaked man walked on solemnly. He had so little to live for, so why was he still there? Was it the revenge he sought? He thought he had already hit enough nerves when he killed that girl…what was her name? He could remember not. And it mattered not, because she was dead and out of his way. And the time was nearing when he could take over and show all those fools not to mess with the Great One. Yes, he would show them what real pain was, because he had felt it. And he deserved Hell for what he had done to his angel…but, like everything else, it didn't matter.
//Tune
in
And
we can get the last call//
There was a crosswalk with a blind curve that the first had always dreaded nearing. It was dangerous because you could bump into people – not to say that you'd bump into dangerous people – but people who you perhaps did not particularly want to see. It had happened so many times before – he pissed a lot of people off, and this was a popular crosswalk, the hub of the city.
//Our
lives
Our
coal//
The cloaked one was also approaching this dangerous crosswalk. He stepped gingerly, careful not to catch his cloak on anything or anyone, lest he be revealed and destroy(ed). His heart pulsed, his mind screamed, and he crept even closer. His mind then railed against him, arguing, What is to become of me if I am caught? I will have to kill, and my hands are already too bloodstained to ever hope that I receive my precious Gift back…
//Salt
sweat sugar on the asphalt
Our
hearts littering the top soil//
He saw, across the way, a very strange figure approaching, seeming to glide over the street as if to avoid everything around him. He should be in a friggin' bubble.
The people ahead sped up as they hurried to cross before being smashed by a careless driver. He had no choice but to speed with them.
//Sign
up
The
picket line or the parade//
The plan had almost worked. No one had touched him, his cloak was secured more tightly than when he had left his safety behind, and he was almost to the other side…
And then he felt something brush against his right side. Flesh. Cotton material layered over it. A person, whose cuff had snagged the outer-most hem of his dark curtain and pulled it gently away from his face.
He looked over his shoulder, and caught only a glimmer of dark blue, the back of the man who had bumped into him.
//Our lives//
The oddest sensation crossed his left arm. It was warm and hard. At first he thought nothing of it. But something about that touch was so familiar, so unique…
He turned in time only to see one dazzling, glowing eye, turning away from him, and a shock of bright, pale hair.
His eyes widened with recognition. So close to him…who was that man? He just couldn't remember.
Resolutely, he turned and walked briskly in the direction he had just come from. But either the cloaked one had disappeared or was too far ahead, because he was nowhere in sight until the dizzy man had reached his apartment door.
He sat down once inside, in front of the TV that had magically reconnected itself and was still snowing. He felt a presence, like the aura of the cloaked one had rubbed off on him.
//I'm not alone cuz the TV's on//
The cloaked one was no more. He had removed the veil from his body and instead stood once again before the jury of pills. Each label mocked him and jeered.
What a psychotic loon, what a loser! they cried.
He flinched and swatted at the bottles, scattering them every which way, and they fell silent again.
He looked into the mirror. Eyes that literally glowed and dimmed rhythmically were staring back at him. They were a bit blood shot. He had obviously had it. It was time; he could wait no longer.
//I'm not crazy cuz I take the right pills every day and rest//
The snowy TV was a bit mesmerizing, and the man's eyes glossed over. His mind slipped into different thought patterns. What had he done? What was he to do now? His life was a wreck. He had no one. He drank and spent money and now he was still a drunk, but a broke one. (The cycle never goes both ways.)
//Clean
your conscience
Clear
your thoughts with speyside
With
your grain//
He, too, had lost everything. But what was loss compared to gain? What was one life he could control compared to the billions of lives on the planet he was about to overtake? What was one existence when he was about to become a complete other? This would be the last time he ever saw his own face. It seemed to glow. He gave his sick signature smile and laughed – to himself at first, trying to hold it in with his hands, but then it became so great that his shoulders shook and his abs rippled.
//Clean
your conscience
Clear
your thoughts with speyside//
Wasn't that bad enough? He had to be heartbroken, too? Damn life sucks, he bitched. Shouldn't have done what I've done in my lifetime. You're hated now, boy…
The clocked had ticked away another miserable hour.
He didn't let another second go by before his feet were pounding on the wintry concrete again.
//Salt sweat sugar on the asphalt//
The apartment was abandoned – he disappeared forever in the eyes of the public. Those who had feared him-the-individual were now facing a much larger threat: him-the-universe. He was determined to conquer all and exact his revenge on life; if he had to live in pain, so did everyone else. He would keep them alive only to destroy them.
//Our hearts littering the topsoil//
His cell phone rang somewhere deep in his pocket. He had almost forgotten about it! "Hello?" he called uncertainly into the receiver.
"It's done," his boss' voice answered mysteriously. "Come down here right away. We need to figure out what to do with it."
The man nodded. No one noticed his sudden change in stride – it became more confident, more dutiful.
A small child holding a flower stood to the side. It caught his eye momentarily.
A flower growing in the city was an especially rare sight indeed, but he knew they existed in a run-down church in one of the slums – he had seen the small garden with his own eyes. But those flowers were a bright purple. This one was different; it was a vibrant pink, with a single drop of dew slipping down a delicate petal, a tear, like the flower was crying – the small, soft blossom seemed bursting with a gentle life, like a reincarnation of something beautiful.
It fell onto the street, and was crushed under his heel.
//Tune
in
We
can get the last call//
The cloaked one glided down the street, pushing the infidels out of his way. He had somewhere to go, followers to give his promises to.
//Our
lives
Our
coal//
The other man, too, pushed his away ahead, bits of pink petal scraping off onto the street from the bottom of his shoe. He needed to catch that train onto the top plate. The world was being revolutionized right above their very heads!
//Salt sweat sugar on the asphalt//
And right beneath their very feet. The secluded train graveyard was closer with every stride; there he could hide and escape from those insolent fools who thought he was just a myth.
Metal pressed against his back, power hotly emitting from it.
//Our, our hearts, yeah, littering the topsoil//
It was a power that only a privileged few could actually ever be lucky enough to feel. The power of the world was in his hands! How foolish people were to not realize that, that was the human dream!
//Sign
up
The
picket line or the parade//
He laughed once more…
And then he felt that same sensation of cotton on flesh against his left arm.
But this time he paid no mind to it – he was still safe this time, and did it really matter if there was someone who emitted almost as much power and invincibility inside as he did? They could not become one with the planet.
//Our lives…//
Time flashed by. It seemed like seconds, but it was days, maybe even weeks. The cannon was so large, and ornate, that it almost overshadowed its power.
Power. It differentiates from adrenaline. Adrenaline was the thing he used to purge the hatred he had for himself running through his bad blood.
//Greed from my arm//
The screams and cries of his victims were the loudest at the center of the planet. He stood at the edge of eternity. It was almost time. As long as everything went to plan…
Not likely. Battle cries and frightened murmurs could be heard, descending the floating rocks, anticipation slowing their movements to blurred struggles.
//Won't they give it a rest now?//
And then they were facing danger in too many forms to fathom. It was right before their eyes. And beyond the horizon of their eyes, it settled in the deep corners of their minds.
//Give it a rest now?//
It loomed closer…
It crept closer to his hiding place. They were so troublesome, so foolish to try and stop the inevitable.
//Now?
Now?//
A blast sliced through the very atoms that made up their oxygen. The entire sky was lit with fiery orange. One evil defeated another evil.
//Now?//
It was impossible. He couldn't be defeated. The world had been at his hands! And yet the crimson flowed onto the black ground beneath his feet. It was done. He was going to die an unrepentant, self-righteous sinner.
//Salt sweat sugar on the asphalt//
A large explosion erupted right above them. Another evil had been through its own demise – now two were dead, and a third was taking place at the far reaches of the earth. It was just proof that evil never prevailed, and far be it from the Head Turk to change that – he was the most evil of all, with a heart so blackened it was burnt.
//Our hearts littering the top soil//
The last things he heard were vague, but the voice was so familiar.
"Exactly….why…it hurts…" that sweet voice murmured above him, fading away, being drowned by the rumbling sounds of an avalanche.
AVALANCHE.
The thing that killed him. Both avalanches had spilled his blood.
//Tune
in
We
can get the last call//
He would never love again. He would never be the poster boy for strength and invulnerability. A salty tear slipped down his cheek.
"Are you upset about the big 'splosion?" that little girl asked. "I felt that way when I lost my flower."
//Salt sweat sugar on the asphalt//
It stung – his love had betrayed him. Even more proof that he deserved nothing but the worst, and the world took every opportunity they received to pour salt into his only wound.
So he was ready to die. And so he did, his life force seeping out black into the dirt and rubble that made up the core of the planet.
//Our hearts littering the top soil//
The blood gushed from his wrists and throat. The pain flowed freely with every drop of redness that seeped into the ground of the alleyway. What an appropriate way for a murderer to die – on his own terms, just as it had always been with everything. It was either a protest against that fact that the blood ran so swiftly, or a relief.
//Sign
up
The
picket line or the parade//
Somewhere deep in the dirt, in a remote square inch of the ground, nowhere imparticular, and nowhere anyone could see, two different types of blood – black and red – mixed slowly, seeping into each other. They assimilated and became one glowing drop of evil, ready to soak the soil and nurture the seeds of depravity; all that they stood for, but not all that they were.
//Our
lives
Our
coal//