"Enzo!" I stepped out of the elevator, and onto the top floor of the Upper Four HQ. I paced through the lobby, across the velvet rug, and made my way straight into Enzo's main lounge. As I expected, he was there, seated in his chair with his legs up and crossed on his desk, as he watched the nighttime view of downtown Melysia while sipping on a glass of whiskey. He quickly noticed my presence.
"Look who's back." He turned his chair around to face me and smiled. "What are you doing here now?"
I was panting, catching my breath. I'd made a sprint for this place after the discovery I made in the morgue. At first, I tried searching for Kyra, but I couldn't find her. She must have been catching up on reports concerning the events at Russo's apartment with the receptionist.
"I'm here to question you."
"About what?" Enzo scoffed. "I thought you'd made it pretty clear you weren't planning to come back after the last time. I mean, you broke one of my glasses, and you have the audacity to return?"
I could tell his arrogance hadn't gone down a single bit. But that was currently the least of my concerns. "That doesn't matter right now, Enzo. I need to know what you know, because I know you have the answers I'm looking for."
"Slow down. What's this about?"
I gave him a stern look. "Tell me how Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth died."
Enzo looked at me with confusion. "The exact ways the General told you they did—"
"Cut the bullshit!" I interrupted him. "I know the General lied to me about how they died. He didn't even tell me that Tenth died, but there I was, in the morgue, reading his name on the label of a corpse locker."
"What were you doing in the morgue…?"
"It doesn't matter right now." I cleared my throat. "Does 'death by fractured neck' remind you of anything?"
Enzo looked at me with suspicion. I tried to read his face, but I couldn't tell what he was thinking. Throughout all of this, he remained silent. I spoke up.
"You watched the war with Invidan by General Michael's side, so I know you know how Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth truly died. It wasn't by any cardiac arrests or brain-fries like I'd been told by the General, it was all by a fractured neck. Tell me, what does that mean!?"
My shout clearly took Enzo off-guard. I could tell he could see how serious I was. But beneath the shocked expression, a horrible, latent smile began to grow.
"Remember how I'd told you you'd eventually understand? I see that realization has come sooner than I expected."
"What are you talking about…?" I felt my face heat up at the sight of Enzo smiling, once again, while I spoke on behalf of my dead comrades.
"I'm talking about understanding how the divides between the strong and the weak work."
My blood coarsed with rage. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "I'm not here to talk about your flawed ideals again!"
"But you are, Klyson. That's exactly what you're here for." He placed his glass on his desk. "Those 'flawed ideals' you refer to are actually just reality, and you've just finally recognized that reality."
"Strong versus weak isn't how reality works, Enzo." I was seething.
"Yes it is. You're asking me for the truth about your friends who died, right? When I reveal the truth to you, that very reality you try so hard to reject will become established. You will finally understand."
"Then make me."
Enzo's grin grew wide.
"The General killed them. They didn't die to whatever causes he came up with and told you. He went into each of their control rooms and snapped their necks, personally."
My heart felt like it had just been struck. My body felt like it had just fallen off my bones. I stared at the floor in utter disbelief at what I'd been told.
My friends didn't die in honor. They had been murdered.
"Why?!?" I cried aloud. "Why would he do that!?"
"Because each of them made mistakes that gave Invidan an advantage in the war. Ninth sacrificed his entire infantry for a single wave. Sixth sacrificed half his infantry for a single wave. And Tenth, when he would have been needed the most, chose to turn away from the battle and leave. As each of their mistakes were observed live, the General took it into his own hands and disposed of them accordingly."
"But why…?" I continued to ask.
"Because all of you were being tested, remember? The war with Invidan wasn't just for the sake of Melsyia, it was for the sake of keeping you six in the Tenfold. It was an opportunity for you six to prove yourselves. An opportunity to prove whether you were strong enough, or too weak. Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth, all faltered one way or another, proving what the General deemed weak. And like I've been telling you, the weak always die. The General saw no use left in keeping those three around after proving their weakness, so he left them to rot."
My hand had clenched into a fist by now. There was an unfathomable amount of rage swelling up inside of me. I continued to watch the floor as my vision blurred from the tears that began to spill from my eyes. All this time, I had been beating myself over the fact that I could have done more in the war to keep Sixth and Ninth from dying. But in reality, it was out of my control. With what the General was willing to do, their deaths were basically set-in-stone the moment their flaws arose in the war.
But then I remembered, I must have been the most flawed out of anyone else in that war. At the most crucial point in the battle, I faltered myself. This was something evident, and even acknowledged by the General, yet I stood in Enzo's room today, speaking to him, alive.
"Why didn't the General kill me?" I asked. "I made a mistake just as critical as the other three, if not, worse… If anyone deserved to die, it should have been me, alone!"
"The strong stay alive, while the weak die in their place, Klyson."
"No!" I couldn't accept the way Enzo forced his ideals into me. "It can't work like that! It won't work like that!"
"Sure it can. Like I've been telling you since your first visit here, since you were born Fractless, you were born strong. So the weak died in your place. Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth died in your place."
I grabbed at my hair and pulled. I was starting to lose my composure at the horrid barrage of words encircling my head. "That doesn't make any sense, Enzo… Just because I was born Fractless, it doesn't mean I was born strong! If I was strong, I wouldn't have made a mistake so costly during that war! I'm just lucky! I'm just…"
I remembered feeling this exact same way at the end of the battle. The feeling of nothing but luck. When I'd thought everything was lost, the Sin of Discrimination pulled us off our feet and finished the battle for us. When the General spoke to the remainder of us after the war, he'd even told me how lucky I was. But it was for a specific reason.
The General told me I was lucky because Enzo had taken interest in me.
"This… This was all your doing, wasn't it…?"
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"The only reason I'm not dead to the hands of the General is because of you… Because you took interest in me. He said you'd taken interest in me, and that's the entire reason I showed up here in the first place. But really, I was supposed to die."
"No—"
I cut off his words by bursting out into laughter, my mind twisted to the edge of insanity. Through all of this, thick and thin, I'd finally found something that humored me.
"You're such a sham, Enzo!" I laughed in his face. "My very existence contradicts your ideals! You say I was born strong, but I should have died during the Invidian war! The General was originally planning to kill me off too, wasn't he? And that's because I proved weakness! But you kept me alive by telling him I piqued your interest! Isn't that right? All you've done is manipulate those events to suit your beliefs! You're like a child trying to form reality out of make-believe!"
Enzo looked at me like I was spurting nonsense. But I knew, deep down, I'd belittled his arrogant soul.
"Can you believe it? I was supposed to die that day! I'm a walking dead man! A talking dead man!" My laughter was going out of control. I couldn't tell if it was because I found these things truly funny, or if my mind was trying hard to cover up the shock in knowing I'd been decided to die. If it weren't for Enzo's interference, I too would have been laying in a corpse locker, listed as a 'death by fractured neck.' I would have been lifeless up until this very moment.
"You saved me, Enzo. You really did. You're such a hero for that. But you deserve no thanks."
"Why is that?" He'd finally replied.
"Because you could care less about someone like me. You only care that I'm Fractless. And to really sell that image of the Fractless being strong, you pulled me past my death date. Not with intent to save me, but with intent to prove your point. Every single damn thing you do is to prove a point to your beliefs."
Enzo tried to pull out one last stop. "Luck plays into the hands of the strong exclusively, Klyson. You were lucky I spoke up that day and prevented you from having your neck snapped. If I considered you a weakling like the other three who did die, why would I go out of my way to keep you alive?! Because I personally deemed you strong!"
"No you didn't! You kept me alive because of our relation as Fractless! You just wanted another Fractless alive by your side to reassure your beliefs that Fractless belong with this society! That's all I am to you! I'm just your affirmation!"
We both went quiet. Our conflict had peaked. We'd shouted our contrasting assertions in a one-to-one ratio. Neither one of us would be able to convince the other.
We were at a stand-still.
With the direction we'd approached our relationship up to this very point, we'd only continue arguing moving forwards. At this stage, we were stuck convincing only ourselves with the things we chose to believe. Anything less, and anything more, would be useless in an interaction between the two of us.
Knowing this, I turned away from Enzo. And unlike the last time, he had no qualms with my leave this time. My walk out of his lounge was silent, with no remarks made as we parted ways. With the things revealed, and the words exchanged, there was nothing left for us to discuss.
I got into the elevator, with my back still turned towards him, and lowered down to the lobby on the building's first floor. I left Upper Four HQ with a mind disconnected from reality that night.