The Horsemen
A dystopian short by @parishsp.

The rancid smell of smoke and bodies singed the inside of Famine’s nostrils. Sniffing once, she double tapped her aid, manually tuning its sensitive chords to pick out the sharp zing of the bullets sipping by her head. She had lost all sense of them when the bombs began going off behind her. The thunder like blasts behind her was scary, but a well-placed shot would do the same amount of damage. She needed to stay on top of the things could control. She needed to stay alive. Bullets were the antithesis of life. This whole bloody world was.

She laughed humorlessly to herself. The world is the opposite of life. Oh, irony.

Blonde hair flying behind her, Conquest slid into position alongside her sister. Shouldering her shotgun, she let off a series of spray in the direction of the enemy fire. “You alright there?” She asked, slinging the gun around and in one fluid motion, reached around her belt, unhooked a black cylinder, and threw it in the same direction.

Famine pursed her lips, “I wish you wouldn’t have done that.”

Conquest gave her a wild-eyed smile, as her dark eyebrows disappeared under her bangs. “Duck,” she said, pulling her protector off her shoulder and fanning it out over the two Women. They crouched as the wind from the explosion blew debris across the wide, open street.

Everything went quiet. Deathly quiet.

The two Women stood, seemingly unaffected physically or mentally by the toppling piles around them. Building dust, electronics, tanks, weapons, skin—a dull, lifeless dust covered everything until it blended together in a monochromatic grey scheme of death that stretched to the horizon. Conquest snapped her shield back in place, blew air out her lips and pushed her hair back from her face. She stood to survey the battlefield around them. “Got them all, sis.” Famine turned on her heel and wordlessly walked in the opposite direction in response.

Conquest scrambled after her. “My way was quicker,” she started the old argument somewhere in the middle. When Famine didn’t answer, she reached out her hand. Her sister stopped, turning to look her face to face. “You know it’s true. I just saved us an hour. Or six,” she shrugged. “You should be thanking me really.”

Something flashed in Famine’s cold eyes; she took a step closer, but Conquest held her ground. “Perhaps when you bring back the man you just killed, I will thank you sister. But last I checked your name was Conquest, not Resurrection.” Her voice was soft. Famine was the scariest when she was speaking softly. The Woman who patiently depleted long- hoarded stores of hope was the safest when she was raving mad. Conquest searched her face for any indication of feeling and got nothing. She was not surprised. “You can tell War that you threw his strategy out on its ass to save some time.” She finished and stalked off again.

Conquest swallowed. “I heard that,” Famine called over her shoulder before double tapping her aids back to normal levels. “You need to stop thinking of winning the battle, and start thinking of winning the war.”

Conquest rolled her eyes, catching up to her sister. “Now you sound like him.” She protested. But, her heart wasn’t in it. She knew the truth of Famine’s words. Their brother, War, was meticulous in his planning. For years, Conquest had watched with little interest and agitated frustration as he had wasted precious time sitting over his diagrams of the world—playing out the possibilities, calculating costs, benefits, chances of successes only—for War did not lose.

He did, however, have a temper. Famine seemingly got all the patience in the family. Conquest, all the impulsitivity and energy. And War, well, War got the temper.

Conquest would prefer if she weren’t the target of it, either. With that thought, she turned and started walking the way they came from. Famine stopped, "Where are you going?"

Conquest picked up her speed, "To fix things. Are you coming or not?"

Famine pursed her lips in disappointment but joined her anyways—faster and faster until the building-sized piles of rubble blurred in their peripheral.

"And how do you plan to fix things?" Famine asked, skirting around a column wedged into a gaping hole in the pavement. The last remains of electricity sparked pitifully out the top of its broken edge.

"Survivors."

Famine scoffed, "There aren't any. You took care of that," she reached over and tapped the back of Conquest's belt where her lethal stash of shake grenades was.

Conquest tried to push her hand away, but Famine was faster. It wasn’t the first time in her haste to see the battle done that she had compromised the mission. Still, after a few more steps she cursed herself, why hadn't War and Famine filled her in on the plan?

They probably had, she scolded herself. You just hadn't listened.

Conquest shrugged away the thought. She tended to be most focused on the here, the now. She typically couldn't be bothered by War's details and maps and little projections as Famine could. No big deal, she thought, I will fix it now. Surely there was a survivor somewhere in the wreckage. Death's mechanisms weren't so grandiose as to work all of the time.

Right?

As they passed the worst of the wreckage, the two Women slowed their steps. "The shaker has never let us down," Famine said, answering her sister’s unsaid questions.

"Death can't be so certain all of the time, Famine." Conquest replied, arming a room-sized piece of debris out of their way.

"You underestimate our brother, Conquest."

"You give him too much credit,” she shot back. “Besides, he's been positively morose lately. Moping around headquarters. You would think he was depressed or something. The chances he would mess up are higher."

"Not depressed, sister. Contemplative." Famine ducked beneath a wall turned on its side, "Look," she pointed in the direction of a pocket of dark light, "there is someone there."

As soon as the words crossed her lips, someone burst from the debris. He ran/limped his way past them in a last ditch effort to escape.

Conquest yanked him back by his collar, and pain washed across his features. Famine stood behind her; arms crossed, she lifted one shoulder and dropped it unceremoniously. "Did you work in the laboratory with Doctor Joshua?" she asked him.

The man answered her feebly, "Did the lab coat give it away?"

“Show some respect,” Conquest said, giving him a good shake. "Answer her."

He coughed and grimaced at the pain it caused, "Make me."

In one smooth motion, Conquest pulled a gun from her behind her, “I said answer her. Before I do something we both regret.”

He sputtered excess moisture down his chin—the bright red drops landed on his lapel. “The only thing I’d regret happens to be answering you.” he spit at Conquest’s foot.

Her face flamed. "Alright, look,” she said, straining for patience, for reason. That was it, reason. Convince him. “I’ve tried to be reasonable.” What would Famine do in this circumstance? Patience—she had it! “You give me your word in ten seconds or I shoot you in the head."

"Reasonable?” He sputtered a choked laugh. “Go ahead, Woman. I know who you are. I have nothing to say to you.” He paused, wheezing in a shaky breath, “He wouldn't have wanted me to."

Conquest shrugged, and placed the gun at his temple, "In that case..."

Famine lifted her hand, "Wait." Conquest paused, gun still in place. She had waited, the man wasn’t going to speak. What more could Famine want?

At the sight of Famine, the man looked as though he had dropped his bravado somewhere in the concrete mess below him. He knew the rumors: the blonde one would kill him quickly. But the small dark one liked to take her time. "Who is he?" Famine asked.

The man hesitated, weighing his choices as a trickle of blood pushed over his lip, "He wasn't here when you blew the place down around our ears." He supplied, knowing that would not be enough, he smiled, blood smeared across his teeth. He sucked in a sharp breath of pain. Something inside of him was killing him, he realized.

"He finished his work, by the way. You were too late." He looked to Conquest, meeting her eyes, "You. Will. Lose."

Her brows furrowed in confusion, "We are the Horsemen, prisoner. No one can defeat us."

He laughed—laughed!—in the face of one of the executioners of his world. Conquest tightened her grip on her gun. "You..." He gasped, blood bubbling in his mouth, "you have... no idea." He attempted to laugh at his joke, instead only managing to choke on his very source of life.

"Shoot him," Famine said.

Conquest was too happy to oblige.

***

War crawled out of the tank after parking it in front of headquarters, tossing his driving gloves into the hold. The dress of Braveheart, the skin of Achilles, the hair and eyes of Atilla the Hun, for years, he had insisted on personifying the greatest warriors this world had ever seen.

No one laughed at his kilt that was swaying in the breeze—at least not for long. War had no qualms about killing people.

He brushed his hand down his bare chest, eyes gleaming in the direction of his approaching sisters. That gleam however, disappeared the closer they came. “I do not like that look on your face, Famine.”

Famine walked past him, into the metal doors of the warehouse. “The mission failed.”

War thundered past and cut them off. “Say that again,” he said quietly. Conquest flinched. Like Famine, War was quiet when he was angry. Unlike Famine, he didn’t stay that way.

“Joshua had already left the target area,” Famine answered. She looked over her shoulder, “There were no survivors.”

War seemed to grow in size, towering over the Women. “What?!”

“There’s more—“ Famine started.

Conquest dropped her head into her hands, “Here we go.”

“We have reason to believe the machine is finished.”

“WHAT?” War’s skin flashed crimson in the fading light of the day. His roaring demands shook the thin mental of the walls around them. Conquest pinched the bridge of her nose, shaking her head back and forth as Famine patiently waited for him to be done. “…FINISHED! THE ONE THING WE HAD TO STOP IN THE WORLD AND HE WASN’T THERE?”

A bottle crashed against the wall above their heads, shattering, and dousing everyone in the hall with the vague remnants of what seemed to be whisky.

War spun, “DEATH!”

The Man in question did not answer.

War bellowed into the open space of the warehouse they had claimed as their headquarters. “Where are YOU?” he bellowed.

Another half empty bottle fell from the rafters, splattering alcohol and glass across the industrial floor. War, Famine and Conquest looked up. The brother in question was seated on a rafter, literally amongst the birds. He took a swig straight from a bottle. “It’s over,” he said quietly.

“What’s over?” War demanded, “And is that my bottle of Dalmore you have up there?” War slung his helmet over his head, and slapped down the visor. “That is my bottle.” He slung is back off, attaching it to his belt. “Get down here, Death. I’m not going to let you drink it all just because your daddy didn’t hug you much when you were little.”

Death took another swig before closing the bottle and dropping it unceremoniously. As War darted to save it from certain doom, Death dropped to the ground. He walked ahead of his siblings, “We have the same father,” he remarked as he walked over to the kitchen and pulled another bottle from the cabinet.

“I know,” War said, wiping off the Dalmore and placing it with uncharacteristic gentleness in the cooler and shutting the door. “He didn’t hug me either.”

Death rolled his eyes and took a swig, “Then you know—“

Conquest jumped on the counter beside War, slinging her legs around to face the room. “So, what do we do?”

Famine opened the headquarters’ central control panel, and a circular silver sweeper darted out to clean up the mess. Death popped open another bottle as the others ignored their irritably depressed moody brother of gloom.

“We find him,” War said. “It is our only option.”

Famine shook her head, “It will take too long,” she said as she clicked a few keys before snapping the door shut. A spherical projection of the world appeared between the three. Famine pinched a location, zooming in on it as she spread her hands. “We know he was here, as few as three hours ago.” The world spun in until the depicted image was a satellite view of the city. Famine double tapped the image and spun it horizontal, transforming it into a bird’s eye view of a ten-square-mile zone including the destruction zone from that morning.

War took a step closer, lost in thought with one hand on his chin. “If you had a machine capable of rendering the world useless, where would you go?”

“Somewhere remote. It has to be a big machine, right?” Conquest processed aloud. “I mean, it’s going to take down the world.”

“And rebuild it again,” War added, nodding along with her train of thought.

Famine rotated the map so that it showed the debris from ground level, “It is all remote. Besides, the portals have been off-line for months. We confirmed his location since then.”

War gave a Conquest a pointed look, “We had confirmed it.”

Famine paid neither of them any mind. “He still has to be here. Close.” She squinted at the map, as if urging it to lay its secrets bare. Her voice came out quietly, “But where?”

“Once we have him,” Conquest mused, “How will we take away his machine? Do we know how to kill it?”

“Why don’t you ask your brother that?” War snapped.

Conquest crossed her arms, “Well, I thought I was.”

War rolled his eyes in response to her tone. Conquest was nothing if not sassy. It was a complex she acquired after winning almost every competition she came in contact with. “I meant your other brother,” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, causing the helmet on his back to bobble. “Where did he go?”

Conquest searched the raters until she found him, back in the same place as before, but this time without the birds or whisky. “Death? What are you doing up there?” The Man in question only stared at the ceiling, where sunbeams were shining through the translucent fiberglass. Brightly. Death thought it was deceptively cheery for so dark a time. “Death! Hell-o!” she yelled, waving her hands to get his attention. “In case you haven’t noticed, we have a bit of a problem down here.”

Famine’s gaze never left the map, “She’s right Death. We need you if we are going to finish this.” Death said something to the air above none of them caught. Famine squinted in his direction, “What? Death, get down from there right now.”

The three on the ground watched as Death blatantly disobeyed his sister. Famine was not accustomed to being thwarted in her demands. Conquest held her breath, eyes darting back and forth between the two. The silence stretched before finally Death let out a sigh, “Do you ever get tired of it all?” He asked, looking down at his siblings on the floor, icy blue eyes peering uncomfortable into each pair of their own. They were so startlingly different, and from his vantage point, Death could see that more clearly than ever. Conquest and War, with their athletic builds dominated the slight small frames of Famine and Death. War’s bulk was accompanied be a deceptively fierce strategic mind—so different from the wild haired ideas of his fair sister whose desire for victory surpassed all else.

But Famine and Death could almost pass for twins. How laughable that was. Both had the patience of saints—a joke the Horsemen had thrown around for millennia. It was the patience of a pair who were the personification of long, slow demises, deterioration, and destruction to cities, ideas, and people. But Famine had never tasted the end. What is starvation without Death? Humans were a resilient race. Famine had never tasted the bitter victory of the final blow; had never felt its weight, over and over again. After all, Death could not be defeated. You may fear them both, but Death was the one people went to unimaginable extremes to avoid. Famine sucked, but Death was permanent.

Mostly. There was that one time…

Death shook the idea away. He placed his hands on the pipe, looking for a moment as if he was going to come down, but stayed. “Do you ever get tired of it?” he asked louder, his voice more stable.

In true fashion, Conquest was the first to answer. “Get tired of what, brother?”

Death jerked at the use of the familiar title. No, he refused himself. She is your sister. You can’t run from that. No matter what it comes down to in the end. He steeled his gaze on her, “This,” he hissed. “Destruction, killing hope. That our sole focus,” his voice rose as he spoke, “is destroying this world. We are consumed by it! War, famine, conquest—sucking away all the light until people are wallowing in darkness ready to welcome me as a friend. Death! A friend? How twisted must life become? I asked, do you ever tire of it?”

War’s thick brows furrowed above his chiseled face, “It is what we were made for, brother. It is all we have ever known.” He shrugged, “Why would we care to do anything else?”

“WHY?” Death yelled downward. He surprised them all when he jerked his head back, filling the rafters with mad laughter. The tiles reverberated with the sound. “I don’t know War, why would we hate being the bringers of the dark? Why on earth would we ever tire of being the freaking Four Horsemen?”

On the floor, Conquest stared across the map at Famine, silently begging her to do something to stop the madness above them. Famine pursed her lips in a thin line and took a long breath before looking up at their brother who had apparently gone mad. “Death,” she pleaded.

Death cut her off with the wave of her hand, “Don’t try your tricks on me, Famine. I know and play them better than you.”

Famine continued on, undeterred. “Death, you’ve obviously had too much to drink—“

“I haven’t had too much. When have you ever known me to be inebriated?”

“You just need to join us—“

“I’m not coming down there.”

“—and help figure this out.”

“I have no desire.”

“We have to finish our mission, Death. We are almost done.” Death stopped fighting every word that came from her mouth. She sighed an inner sigh of relief. Sometimes Death was too much to handle. “Come on,” she flipped her hand towards the map, returning her attention to the problem in front of them: finding Dr. Joshua and dismantling his machine. They were not even entirely sure what he had designed it to do—only that since the beginning of this, he had been at the top of their kill list. Conquest learned quickly as she cut through their most notorious adversaries that the Doctor would not be so simple. He slipped through her fingers at every turn, almost as if he was one step ahead of them. Conquest was quick to call foul until Famine reminded her the only ones who knew their secrets were in this very room. There had to be something else going on.

Famine had turned her gaze so she did not notice Death shake his head at her plea. The others did, however, and War beat Conquest to the punch. “Death, stop being an idiot. We are two steps away from ending this once and for all.”

“Then what?”

War did a double-take, and Death continued on. “When it’s all said and done, what then? We sit in darkness for all eternity?” Death shook his head, “No, I refuse to live with those demons as my company.”

War rolled his eyes, “You’re being dramatic, Death.”

Death cocked his head to the side. “Am I War? What do you have to live with? The glories of battles won? Your name sung as the hero of the ages? Images of people—doing what? Oh yeah, dying. Count yourself lucky, brother. Whereas you have the glories of war in your head and the blood of honest fights on your hands, I will have the black blood of a thief dripping, dripping from my fingers.

Have you bore witness to a mother begging for the life of her child? Felt her loss, her emptiness when you rip him away? Or when you take the wife of a man of fifty years—when you walk away, do you leave the sounds of shattered souls in your wake? You cannot FATHOM what it is like.” Death stood on his rafter, sure footed, all signs of alcohol gone. His coattails swung gently behind him.

Famine, War, and Conquest stood below, staring wide-mouthed at this passionate display of emotions. Conquest blinked, “But Death, we’re almost done. It can all be over.” She gestured to her siblings, “We are all ready to see it end, and now the finish line is in our reach! All we have to do is find Dr. Joshua—“

“I am Dr. Joshua.”

In that moment, the world had stopped spinning. The resonance of every vibration of every creature’s every atom in the universe stopped in that very moment. It was silence. It was absolute.

“What?” War stammered quietly.

“I said, I am—“

“I heard what you said.” War countered, “I think I speak for us all when I say what I really want to know is what in the hell do you mean that you’re Dr. Joshua?”

Death shrugged unapologetically. “I tired of this a long time ago. I sat around a number of years waiting for you to jump on board. But you never did. I knew then that I had to act.”

“But we’ve been looking for you for at least a decade,” Conquest protested.

“And I’ve been right here under your nose.”

“Eating our food, sleeping in the same room,” War started, chest puffing more with each word. “Listening to hours of strategy sessions where we planned the capture… of yourself?”

Death considered his words, and nodded, “Yep, that about sums it up.”

“But, why?” Conquest added.

“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?”

Steam rolled off of War, “You come down here right this instance and answer that million dollar question, or I will come up there and kill you myself!”

Death laughed again. This time though, there was no trace of madness in it. Instead, it was the laugh of a Man who was torn. Sadness had rooted itself in his soul long ago. But now, there was a trace of light in the darkness. Have you ever seen what a single match could do to a dark cavern? That exact phenomena was taking place inside of Death, and had been since the toll of tragedy had taken up residence inside of him. A single, solitary light, that he had written off long ago and stuffed away in the recesses of himself, was breaking through.

There was no stopping it.

It was engaged in battle with that sadness. But sadness had no weapons but its very hands; despite its best efforts to contain it, the light found the cracks and crevices. It made the darkness not quite so… dark. The light looked a lot like the very food he and Famine had feasted on so many times before. And even though he had never known it, nor could he name it, he recognized it for the dangerous glory that it was.

Hope.

It gave him the strength he needed to carry out his mission. There was one thing left he had to do. “Come with me,” Death said, standing to his feet.

“With you where, Death?” Conquest asked.

Death surprised them all when he leapt from his perch, grabbing the rafter above him with two hands and pulling down, hard. Conquest gasped when the rafter gave under his weight, but Death landed on his feet back in the place he began. A moment later, mechanical sounds filled the air. Sunlight bent through the roof as it opened to the sky. Death moved into action, spinning wheels and pulling levers hidden everywhere. It was too much to take in at once. “Famine,” Death called, as the beams above their head retracted into the walls, “Enter code, three-alpha-one-one—“

When Famine did not move, War flung open the control panel, “Three-alpha-one-one?”

“Seven-omega-seven.” Death finished, a bright smile on his face.

War entered the code, and jumped back as the floor stirred into motion. Hydraulics squeaked and puffed in little bouts of smoke as it peeled back, and a massive machine rose from the floor, topping off where the ceiling had been moments before. “Death, what in the—“ War started, but the moment the machine fell into place, a piercing alarm screamed through the air. The Horsemen grabbed their ears, pleading for it to stop.

It did.

And from the top of the machine, a blast of pure, bright white light shot into the sky.

Conquest stared after it, “Death—what have you done?”

She startled when he spoke from beside her on the floor, next to her ringing ear. “It’s finished.” He smiled at her, joy radiating from every pore. He looked different… “It will destroy the world—everything actually. Down to the last atom,” the others seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Their brother had not gone so far off the tracks, after all it seemed. “And then, we will rebuild it. All of it.”

Famine finally found her voice, “And how will you do that, brother, if you destroy even us?” Her calm, flat tone was a stark comparison to Death’s exuberance.

He looked to her with a spark in his translucent blue eyes, “From the inside, sister. We will speak it into existence and watch her do her work.” He looked back at the machine, “It will be perfect.”

“By the power of Greyskull…” War cursed under his breath.

Death shook his head, eyes never leaving the machine and it’s piercing light, “No, War. By a completely different Power. He will make things new.”

The headquarters were silent for a moment, save the soft hum of the machine. Finally, the smile fell from Death’s face. He turned to the rest, “Come with me.”

Each of their faces ran the gamut of emotions—fear, hesitancy, hope, reluctance, excitement, disbelief. Death continued, “We can change, all of us. We do not have to be the Horsemen anymore. We can watch the earth flourish and thrive without the curse of our mission.”

Famine shook her head, “It will never work. The humans will mess it up.”

“No! No they won’t! Because you see, there will be no Death! It will be perfect.” Death insisted. “Come with me! Hurry, we only have a moment!” He rushed to the base of the machine, and swung open a hatch. “Come! You can have new life! You don’t have to be the takers of hope anymore. Redemption is staring us in the face. Let’s take it!”

Conquest was the first to cross the threshold. Death’s relief was palpable. “War?” he asked.

The Horseman in question ran his hands across his face and back through his hair. “Not much of a choice you’re giving us.”

Death shook his head, “It’s the only choice that matters, brother. Will you come?”

“I will,” War said. Death clapped him on the back before he disappeared through the door.

“Famine?” Death asked, looking back to his sister—unmoved by the decisions of her siblings. She did not have to say what she had decided; she and Death had been too close for too long. It was the same decision he would have made not so long ago. Death’s face was somber. Still, he had to ask, “You won’t come, will you?”

Famine shook her head, “I won’t.” She motioned him across the room. “Come, you know what you have to do.”

Death approached his sister, and raised his hands to cup her face. “I love you, sister.”

Famine startled, “What does Death know of love?”

“Enough to know it changes things. That it changed me."

Famine nodded once, then closed her eyes. “Do what you have to, brother.” She leaned into his lips as he kissed her on the forehead. Then, when the warmth of his hands was suddenly gone, Famine opened her eyes.

“I will not kill you, Famine.” Death turned back to the machine, leaving his sister standing on the cold warehouse floor alone.

Shock lit through her body, “Why not? The machine will do it if you do not.”

Death shrugged, “Maybe,” he said. “We also know that I am the only one who can truly end your life. There is some small hope. If you will not come with us—“ Famine shook her head. Death sighed, “I will cling to that hope that I will see you again.” He stepped through the door, “Are you sure, sister?”

“I am. I will see out my mission to the end, brother.”

Death smiled a sad smile, “Ever true to your nature, Famine. Perhaps I will see you in the future.”

“Perhaps,” she responded. “Good bye, Death.”

He lifted his hand before closing the door behind him. “Aye-oh,” he shouted, taking a seat.  

“Yes sir?”

“Begin annihilation sequence.”

“Yes sir,” the machine responded. “Initiating annihilation in five… four… three… two… one…”