Chapter 8:

The corridor of memory (1)

Cybernetic Dreaming or The Allure of Overcoming Humanity


The cascade that followed the white emptiness was of memories, floating like broken glass, and he was spat out from one scene to the next. It all started with their recent misfortunes, the circumstances that had led to their escape from the city and ending up in a place like this, shit up to their necks.

But it didn't stop there.

The memories kept flowing back.

The best years of his life, without exaggerating one bit, that he had shared with his team. With his family.

Robberies, murder. Atrocities that still lingered in his memory like scars. But also the warmth of a home, something he had almost forgotten.

Almost? Almost when?

Before he met them. Before he had brought them together.

When there was just another homeless boy wandering the streets, day and night.

He had painted over those horrible times with the happiness he had shared with them, with the warmth of the campfire that would always burn in his heart.

But that didn't mean he didn't remember.

He remembered those days very well, better than he would like to.

And, of course...

Because Jonathan hadn't always been just another homeless kid. A street rat. Everyone was born with a home, it's just that some people lose it. Sooner or later.

He had lost it...

NO!

I don't want to remember that. I don't want to go back there.

But the flow of the cascade didn't stop. It was not something that could be stopped. He went through things he could tolerate, to remember without losing his breath, without his legs shaking.

Jonathan went through a father who beat him to death.

He went through a mother who just watched, in a stupor thanks to the poison of love. Each one wrapped in a fantasy.

The first, in a world where he was the victim.

The second, in a world where she was not a victim.

He could bear it. Because Jonathan was strong. Because he had learned over the years that he could do anything, even though no one had ever believed he could do anything besides break everything he touched.

No, that wasn't true.

There was one person who did believe in him, and....

His composure broke when he heard her screaming in the dark.

His older sister's screams.

And something inside him snapped again, somehow it did, when he found himself where he always knew he would return.

In front of the threshold. And silence.

"Sis?"

Slowly small hands, the hands of a child, pushed at the door that growled like the mouth of a beast. And what he discovered on the other side was nothing.

He had heard his sister's voice from the other side of the door, but now there was nothing.

Just a lifeless piece of flesh.

Lying in the bathtub.

Naked from the waist down. Her flabby arms were visibly marked by bruises and holes, the result of the needles with which she pricked herself.

Jonathan stared at the 'thing' that had been his sister from the doorway for a long time.

Then he thought:

She's free now.

Free for real, not the relief and temporary escape that drugs gave her.

That same day he had run away from home. He left without looking back once. Without giving his sister a decent burial.

Because his sister...

His beloved older sister was already gone. Perhaps she had disappeared long before she 'escaped' through that 'door', even.

He had escaped into the night, into the darkness of the city, and there he had died and been reborn. And in time he had found a real home, a real family. In time.

But it had all started here.

As much as he tried to forget it, it had all started here, and it had ended this way.

He remembered perfectly well how it had all happened. He would know his way around the map of scars with his eyes closed. Right now, his child version should turn around to disappear into the night.

Like his sister had done. In search of a better place.

But, something changed.

It had all been merely a trip down memory lane, but something changed, here and now.

Jonathan couldn't turn around because cold hands closed around his neck.

Squeezing. He felt the breath of death on his neck, along with a shiver he couldn't suppress. Not because of the breath, but because a part of him knew what was going to happen, just as he had known with his memories.

Even though this had never happened before.

Even though it was happening right now, a part of him knew.

"Real family? What was I then?"

Oh. Oh...

Was that his older sister's real voice? He remembered a lot, more than enough, but the voice had been lost with the passage of time.

He couldn't see who was strangling in this position. He couldn't even turn his head.

He thought about how she would appear to him, if it was her.

Because Jonathan only remembered her as the lump of flesh lying in the bathtub, pale, full of bruises and needle pricks. Foaming at the mouth.

It was like an insult to her memory, but it was the only image he had been able to preserve of her over the years and the inclemency’s of living on the street.

Since it had been burned into his soul, it would never go away.

She was lying on the bathroom floor in front of his eyes, but if he turned around, would he see her corpse with wide eyes staring back at him?

And what he would see in her eyes would be hatred?

For leaving her there. For not looking back. Looking for a better place without her.

Would it? Would it be like that?

His eyes were filled to overflowing with tears. His chest was shaking. He took a deep breath, feeling the tears stream down his cheeks.

"I... "Jonathan was able to speak despite the hands on her neck, albeit barely.

That was all he said, though.

Me. Me. Me.

Like a broken record. He couldn't get any further. It was natural, what did he have to say? What could he say?

"What was I?"

And then his older sister uttered the name he had abandoned the very day he fled that hell.

It sounded like static. Like the buzzing of a wasp's nest in his ears.

"I'm sorry," he said at last.

What else could he say, and there was nothing he could do. The past was dead and buried. And so was she.

He stopped feeling his older sister's breath on his neck, for some reason.

But not her hands.

The hands were still there, squeezing. Stealing the life from him bit by bit, just as he had stolen it from her, hadn't he? Because she had always been forced to protect him.

Because she had always tried to be strong for him. To be there for him.

And he hadn't returned the favor. Not really. He'd been nothing more than a child, but what excused that?

Deep down, he knew he deserved to die.

That this was only fair.

He'd been on the run all his life, you could say, but the time had finally come to pay his debts.

I'm sorry, he thought.

Goodbye.

He had been being strangled for quite a while, but he hadn't noticed any ill effects, other than slurred speech, he suddenly realized. He could still see clearly, for example.

No blurred vision or black spots.

Or at least... until that precise moment.

As soon as he became aware that this was wrong, his surroundings melted around him.

All that was left was the bathtub, the curtains and, of course, the piece of flesh they didn't cover. All floating in the dark. Like him. Like the hands that strangled him.

Paying his debts. Yes, he owed his older sister a lot. A lifetime. But...

But she wasn't the only one.

Jonathan opened her eyes wide. He couldn't give up, he couldn't accept this, no matter how much he deserved it. What would they think? How would they feel? He knew already. Shattered.

He couldn't do that to them.

"I'm sorry," Jonathan said, raising his arms. Weak, thin arms, the arms of the starving child of his memories. He put them over the hands that gripped his neck.

And struggled against them. Against... his big sister.

"You ungrateful piece of shit!" she shouted, completely beside herself. But it was surprisingly easy to get rid of her, once he really tried.

Surprising? Only because he was stupid.

Jonathan turned around, holding his attacker's wrists. Facing her. She didn't appear to him as the weathered piece of flesh in the bathtub, but he knew it wasn't his sister's real appearance either.

Just an approximation, tinged with rage and hatred.

Of course it was easy.

She had died so young, after all. She was only fourteen. Whereas he had gone beyond that.

He was so much bigger and stronger now.

"I'm sorry, but I can't. There are people I have to get back to. My family."

"Come back to me!" she shouted, lunging forward, as if trying to bite him.

Jonathan smiled at her. He tried to calm his sister's anger with a warm smile that spoke of those times. Terrible times, but times they had spent together, all the same. And therefore precious.

"I will. You... wait for me on the other side, sister."

Then she disappeared before his eyes, just like the morning mist. No. She had disappeared many, many years ago now. This had been nothing but a mirage.

The ground beneath his feet proved to be more of the same.

A hole opened up in the blackness, and Jonathan fell through it.

Lucianael
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