"You sure you're going to do it?" His father asked, voice trembling as if he was walking on thin ice and miles of cold water lay beneath his boots. Mark nodded-though he was convinced, his nod didn't convince his father too well, however. His father lapsed into a long minute of silence. Marks sighed inside his mind. Well, dad, look-who'd want to die? Who'd want to sacrifice oneself directly in front of his own father's eyes? He groaned at his dad, hand trembling just as his father's hand had shaken before. But it's inevitable-I have the duty to make this land prosper. And I have done nothing before, dad. Today, let me.
his father turned away to the window, his fingers touching the stone sill of it softly, and he wheezed his old wheeze, then let out the longest sigh Mark had ever heard in his life. But then, the next action of his father was much more surprising.
"Alright. Just do it, Mark. Bless you in the name of Jesus, my son," The father spoke, never turning away from the window he had been looking at before. Mark let out a shaky laugh, then bit his lip. Hell, that was unexpected, he thought. Still, he nodded to himself. "I'll try to make it," That was all he could say to his father-to-be extremely specific, the last words Mark Woods might be able to say to his biological father, who somehow was the leader of the rebel group he himself had established decades ago.
Mark turned and stepped to the heavy metal door and gave it a grim smile. He had always thought that the door was somehow magical when he had been little, for its heaviness and appearance that it was part of the wall. Even today, it still looked as if it was cut into the wall. At least his leave would put a stop to the childish mistakings of the door.
He pushed it open with his foot and stepped out into the open air, taking in a deep breath, which was a mixture of the old building's atmosphere and the greenery his feet were only a few seconds from touching. He shut the door and proceeded, trying not to think about how his life would end. He turned to some logic for that. The Patriots had promised in their ultimate challenge to send an equal enemy to fight a single person from the Rebels-who appeared to be himself, unfortunately-so he didn't have to imagine himself being squashed or impaled with Colonel Cannes from the Patriots. But Mark also knew that there were a thousand different methods of dying from burning to throwing off the cliff, so couldn't quite relieve himself even after his decision that the Colonel would be confronting him.
Meanwhile, his feet carried him to the edges of the Boundary and he watched with grim eyes as the Rebel soldier at the gates salute him. Yes, my soldier, do your best and save the Rebels while I will do my own best and let myself be killed or win the battel, Mark pushed down a lump rising in his throat.
The soldier then threw the glass panel covering the button aside and pressed the 'big red button', and Mark watched with trained horror as the door opened to lead him into the endless desert-and his Spartan Gladiator execution field.
But he didn;t move back. He knew it was too late himself.
He didn't turn back to the soldier and marched into the sand, gritting his teeth as the sand swallowed his feet each time he raised a foot and stepped in unpleasantly. Also, the heat was annoying, slightly crawling at the edges of his boots. After walking in the sand fro 5 minutes, Mark felt the heat accumulating in his boots now steadily, making his feet sweat, then his entire body sweat, since there was another heat source above his head which appeared to be the sun. Still, he went on.
On and on.
-until he reached the point where the Patriots had promised to meet him, the place absurdly called the Center of the Eastern Part of the desert according to his trite old map his father had forced him to memorize completely when he was a child. Strangely, I did memorize quite well, dad, Mark murmured out loud, another lump coming up. He pushed it down by clearing his throat, then stared at the Center of the Eastern Part.
"Alright. Here the Rebel sacrifice is. And I know why my name is 'sacrifice' for now. I came here to die, not to kill and attack-" he was saying out loud, voice tense, to the absurdly empty and hot desert when someone appeared on the horizon. Mar's breathe quickened. Ah, the last human being he would ever get to see in his life who was his anomaly. What a sad and ironic situation, humans killing humans.
The figure approached quickly, as if anticipating the moment to strike out and take Mark's life. Mark's heartbeat two times faster than the other's pace, though.
But when the figure was only 10 feet away, Mark's lungs froze, and his breathe and pulse and brain completely stopped for a full 2 seconds. His eyes, still alive, manages to bulge at he figure, alarmed.
The first thing his brain processed after those 2 seconds of freezing, was this: Fuck, he's me.
Though his words might sound silly, he, the other figure, was really him, Mark.
Impersonator? Mimic? Just pure luck in the same appearance? or a maniac fan of mine who wants to look and act like me? No, no, shit. He can't be... my DNA replication or twin, right?
Well, no. Mark was incorrect.
After the two seconds, his lungs and breathe and pulse recovered along with his brain and he stared at the other one. Then, the other guy spoke.
"Mark Woods?"
Jesus. Save me, god-I hope you heard dad's words to bless me and help me.
Mark nodded stiffly at the figure.
The guy smiled a smile just then, which was exactly the same smile Mark would have smiled in other circumstances-the same twitch in the cheek and jaw. This is insane! Mark screeched inside his head.
"I'm Marks Woods. Let me briefly tell you something, my friend. I obey people who would obey me and pay me back later. That's how I agreed to be a Patriot. They obeyed me first. And their first wish that I needed to obey and do for them was to kill a person named Mark Woods. And I accepted, Mark," Marks smirked and beamed proudly at Mark. Not the beam parents give their graduating sons and daughters, but the kind predators confident in successfully killing the other give to their prey.
Mark's eyes turned to the sand below him and he winced. My Holy God up in the sky, you did help a lot, he groaned sarcastically in his mind. With how things had turned out so far, he was already very content with burrowing into the sand and letting Marks leave, confused and disinterested-after that, he would resurface again, burned, and lungs full of sand. Still, that would be better than getting insulted and stabbed by Marks.
But before Mark could even bend down to dig his fingers into the hot sand, Marks came running in, grinning the exact grin Mark was used to giving his dad from the time when he had been a toddler whenever he had achieved something great. Shocked by the yet another exact and perfect imitation, he let himself be kicked across the sand and be dragged around, burning himself.
But he had come prepared for exactly this, hadn't he?
To be specific, he had thought that he was ready-the thing was, he hadn't been, in truth.
As he was slowly pushed closer to death, he just prayed for himself to be out of such a nightmare.
I am not so sure myself on the matter if it was a nightmare after all, even.