Chapter Eleven - Ending
Sebastian Vassinari
The surroundings around us began to fade, the colour that once painted the environment in unique shades of indigo and turquoise was now devoid of all semblance of their once vivid colour. The grass underneath wilted away in a ripple that radiated out from us, the trees shriveling up as if all moisture had been rung out from it. The once all encompassing stench of fire, blood and cooked meat had been pushed away with the emanating pulse that now turned everything that remained into white wisps of dust that swirled around us. Soon the swirling torrent of dust pushed away from us and we found ourselves in the room from earlier.
"Can't believe I survived that one." A familiar voice coughed out weakly from behind me and I turned to see the bloodied form of Isaac. His legs had been crushed and his blood pooled out from the wounds. He was lucky to still be alive, but the splinters of bone that were swimming in the pool led me to believe that he wouldn't be able to stand again. He sighed aloud, blood seeping out of his mouth as he then turned his pained expression into that of a smirk. "What, surprised?" he coughed again, spraying out droplets of blood in a mist.
"Now what happens?" I asked bluntly as I looked at Isaac, the man was getting no sympathy from me.
"What? No, thank you for leading the dinosaur away, or are you ok?"
"You know full well why I'm being vindictive." I spat back, but was met with another sigh.
"I thought we've been through this before, you can't act." he intentionally split up the final three words, making sure to emphasize each of them. "He will be fine."
"How can you say that! He's barely breathing for fucks sake.".
"Ok then, let me ask you something then. You've seen how easily it is for me to let him take the attack, and how I stopped you from doing anything about it. Then why did I lead the dinosaur away then?" I was silent as I pondered his question. "It's because I know better than anybody what this whole thing is like, I've said it to you before, do you still not believe me, if so, then just say the words receive paycheck." As Isaac said those words, he seemed to concentrate on something in front of him, then after a few flicks with his finger, he grinned as the pool of blood that he was sitting in started to recede. Blood being vacuumed back into the stumps of his legs. Once the blood was all gone, new bones spurted from the wound and muscles and flesh soon wrapped them. He jumped to his feet once they were repaired. "Now give me a moment. Receive paycheck, Jacob Malnew." Isaac once again seemed to be flicking through something and pushed a thumb against it. Jacob's mangled body went through the same repairs that Isaac had just gone through. Blood and sinew got sealed back in his body, sealed off by a new coat of skin. I watched on with amazement as Jacob's body seemingly rewound time, before it was as good as new.
"What?" I muttered aloud as I looked from Isaac to Jacob and then back to Isaac. I looked over at Isaac who shrugged, indifferently. "Receive paycheck." I said aloud and a semi transparent rectangle appeared in front of me, staying in the exact center of my vision. It reminded me of the status menus that regularly appeared in video games. I looked past the screen to Henry and Harold who were seemingly following suit.
"Just a tip, choose option three and option four as your rewards."
"Why-"
"Why's that?" a new voice stated causing us all to turn to face the newcomer. She was the woman who had helped Isaac when he had collapsed. I was surprised that she had managed to survive, but judging by the blood on her hands and clothes, it seemed that she had a hard time in that jungle also. I looked to Isaac who was struggling to find the right words. "If you don't want to tell me that's fine, but judging from the fact that you seem to know a lot about this current situation, then I think it's fine to take your word for it." I looked at the screen in front of me, reading its contents.
~~~~~
Contract
Congratulations for satisfying the terms of the afore-agreed upon contract. As per the terms of the contract, please choose your desired payment for your role. Furthermore, as the actor has reached the desired conclusion of the play known as - the first trial. The actor - Sebastian Vassinari is liable to choose a second source of payment.
Please choose from the following:
Restore - Will restore your damaged body back to its prior health
Monetary reward - You will be paid in accordance with your role.
Amount offered : £13,938
Access to the VIP area - in accordance with being an actor, you will be given full access to the VIP seating area for future screenings
Mystery Item - A reward of which you may not quite understand the significance until a later time
~~~~~
I read through the contract a second time.
"It says here that I can leave," she said aloud to Isaac, "is, is it safe ?" Isaac simply nodded and she smiled with an obvious sense of delight. "Thank you," she muttered to Isaac and me before her form disappeared in a cloud of dust, I never did ask for her name, I pondered after watching her disappear.
"Has everyone picked the two options?" Isaac asked and I nodded.
"I think it's safe to presume that you are now telling the truth about this whole-" Henry gestured to the blank room, "situation, but I still have many questions you need to answer before I can fully trust you, you said to Sebastian earlier that the reason why you led the dinosaur away was because you knew Jacob would survive, but how were you certain?" Henry raised a good point, from the forest edge where we stood, it was impossible to determine whether he survived.
"You are right, that was a lie." Isaac said matter of factly. "I led the dinosaur away because I wanted to believe he was alive. The three of you seem to misunderstand my intentions. I know how this all ends, in an inferno as the world burns. I've seen friends die to both other actors and to the vile games played by the theatre directors. He-" he pointed at Harold who was now just patiently waiting around, unsure of what was going on. "Used to be one of my closest friends and allies. Now, he's a child again, those moments I've spent with him, a mere memory. Same with the three of you, we were comrades in this struggle. We thought of him as a saint," he pointed at me now, "using his power to empower all of us. Only to find out, right at the end, that the other various disasters that killed millions, could have been easily solved by him and him alone. Even though it makes sense to me now, the reasons why you stayed quiet, seeing you worry about the fate of a single friend, when to me, just a few weeks ago, you were a ruthless killing machine, who abandoned decency in order to save humanity, turning a blind eye to the horror that you could have stopped yourself." Isaac was fuming as he spoke, he was pacing now. "Is a simple spit in the face of what I've already witnessed." He stopped pacing as he looked down at us, a sense of disgust in his eyes. "You need to figure out what your priority is, because if you are not willing to walk the same path as you did before, then I will simply find my own way, and I will do it as many times as I can." With that, he pushed down on the screen that was invisible to us and vanished, his words lingering in the air, suffocating and hurtful.