Click…Clack…Click…Clack. Metal against concrete. Hard upon hard. The footsteps of one who could not die upon the surface that refused to be destroyed during the end of days. How long has it been now? Eighty, twenty years? That sudden brightness and thrust into the world of the living seemed only like yesterday, pardon the cliché. A soft smile graces the lips, or is it perhaps a sardonic smirk? All feelings, thoughts or comprehension, all seems to merge into a cacophony of voices deep inside. Some are angry, with the tone of one who has lived in the ghettos for all their lives, others are more calm and collected, refined even. Who am I really? No parents, no forebears to be aware of, just that sudden presence of sensation upon which I was thrust into this world. Experiences and horrors, joys and pain, all merge into one swirl of kaleidoscopic colour amidst that every constant murmuring of voice, for if one has an eternity to live out one’s life, do individual memories really matter?
Click…Clack…Click…Clack…I’m a Reaper. Reapers do not have such thoughts, such delving into the nature of things of the universe. They are the best of the best, the elite of the elite, the hand, the will and the enforcers of Big Daddy. We exist to kill and maim, to destroy in the name of preserving the peace of the City around the Core. We do not be so sissy as to question our existence and place in this world, for the only world that matters here is the City. I am a Reaper, and I have a mission to complete.
Click…Clack…Click…Clack…Still walking on that concrete floor underneath the blaze of lights that is the Warehouse. Bullets impact my side, only to be expelled with a pink glow as my skin and flesh stitch themselves together again. Pain? I feel no pain, only a dull throbbing, as if my body is reminding me of the pain I am supposed to feel. Pain. Somehow, deep inside, I know that pain is Nature’s way of letting our bodies tell us that we are sustaining injury, to encourage us to discontinue that course of activity that brings harm upon ourselves. But, I am an abomination of nature. The mare who can never die. How far can I be from a true equine to feel such detachment to such a fundamental driving force behind others? More bullets impact futilely into my side as I keep walking forward, eyes eternally fixated on that door. Battle times are my favourite times, for under this haze of rage and battle lust, I can finally distract myself from this constant wonder and pain of my true identity. And into the battle I did charge.
The first thing I notice upon the lifting of the red haze is that the comforting rhythm of metal upon concrete is gone. Blood is all around, pooling around the claws of wrought steel that have become signature to my name. Corpses lie strewn around in the grotesque positions upon which they fell. Yet, I care not, for I am a Reaper, the tears of the broken are supposed to have washed away my soul. So why is it now that I feel torn inside, like two halves of me are waging a great war over my emotions?
A soft sobbing breaks the stillness of the aftermath.
Time shifts, and I’m standing in another scene of bloody battle. The sobbing persists, though it is from another mouth, not mine. Another day, another mission. My mind flashes back to snippets of conversation back at Home Base. Slavers. New operation. Stealing our business. No one messes with the Reapers. Before me is a crying filly, freed from the looming future of being sold to worse trades. I am not an equine, equines live out their lives and die. I do not feel, only equines do. So why is it that I feel this tugging in my heart? This sudden urge to go forth and give her hug, to gently whisper that everything would be alright, to free her from this world of pain and misery. A voice within me suddenly cries out, and the world fades to black.
The world fades back into view. At my hooves is the filly, her neck broken and eyes lifeless. What have I done? I remember naught except reaching forward. The voices within are murmuring, some are horrified, some are glad that the filly is free from this world of pain. Conflict. What would I do in the face of this rising jury? Nothing. All I feel is this constant shift within me, like the ebb and flow of the tides. Yet, through it all, I remain stone-faced, for I am a Reaper, and Reapers do not feel.
Time shifts once more, events and dates becoming a swift blur of motion. Pictures flash by, me meeting…her. The new-fangled hero of the Hoof. Being impressed. Joining her. Her helping me to find the true identity of myself. She finds out. I am but the product of a dark pre-war experiment, the amalgamation of many into the identity of one. So, this cacophony of voices within, am I just but the voice of many, the consensus of the crowd, the prevalent opinion? Do I have any individuality? Who am I? What I do know is that I will or can never die, for the dark magics that created me bound the identities to this plane, ensuring I can never leave it. Friends, what I consider family, will all fade away to the ever blowing winds that is Time. But I? I will have to endure.
She still insists on helping me. Diving into the depths of my mind to pull out memories I never knew I had. What use is it? Knowing the parts that make up the whole will aid little in understanding the whole itself. The celebrated soldier. The psychotic serial killer. The refined doctor. The tough ganger. All are but ones in the many that make me up. So, do I have any individuality? And, why do I keep asking myself this question?
Time swirls, click…clack…click…clack. The sound of metal upon concrete again. She is dead again. Dead for a good cause. I care not how that hotshot stallion in the radio paints things, all heroes die. Me? I’m no hero, just another horror of the wastes eking out a daily living. She was the Hero, the one deserving of respect and honour. I do not care that she has come back once, no twice, before. To enter the Core is insanity, to return suicide. Click…Clack…Click…Clack…The rhythm that helps me wander aids in my return. Before me stands the enemy, no, her enemy. We Reapers are supposed to be aloof, above the affairs of the commoner, interested in only the will of Big Daddy. But what she offers is too tempting, the chance to live out a normal mortal life, to be like the rest I so desperately wish to fit in with. But what about her? What about Security? Her ambition is unmatched, her determination to find me an identity admirable, but most of all, her friendship is one I have never experienced before. They say that Friendship is Magic. I cry nay to that, Friendship doomed the world. The Six Ministry Mares are proof of that. A century I have walked this earth and a century more I will no longer walk.
And sitting on that cold, hard surface of the thing obscured from most, body continually regenerating from the vacuum of space, I can’t help but stare back at the world from whence we came. Reapers are not supposed to cry, but once in a while there may be exceptions.
