CW: military hardware, guns, misogynistic language, sexualized gaze, sexualized spirituality, kidnapping, nudity, teenage sexual experimentation, involuntary bondage


Reality seems to be a dream I'm slowly waking up from, Lanka. Natalia rubbed her eyes, watching the golden sunshine growing darker and darker as it gets swallowed up by the cold, remorseless valley. A few jets whizzed by her ear, sounding like massive hornets drilling into her ears. Ow ow ow! The entire history of her disappears dust cloud by billowing dust cloud. She did not think that witnessing the destruction of a people would be as casual and plain as it was reading it. But these are useless thoughts now; Natalia murmured to herself, holding the hands of the child soldiers as they skipped down the alleyways, and everyone knows this is now nowhere.

"Nico nico!" the children chant, raising their arms. Nico nico! We are the sons of nothing. We are the daughters of nobody. We suck on the dusty air of a vacant planet. Natalia ties to chant along, but no sound could burst forth from her mouth, no matter how much she strained her throat. All hands on deck. Boots up over barbed wire and anonymous fields of experiments. Come and get it. The airs of forever smell like petroleum. "Mama!" one of them shouts to Natalia, pulling on her shirt, causing the whole carnival to screech a terrible halt. "Look!" The horizon is full of towering mushroom clouds, standing tall like infinity trees. "Look!" A wave of dust covers the valley. Behold all you're heirs to. He pulls out a piece of chocolate-covered quark and hands it to Natalia. "I want you to have it because you're so pretty," he says. Natalia tried to cover the molten side of her face with her hair, before opening up her hand and mouthing with her lips a 'thank you.' They embrace. This is nice, isn't it? Now, do you remember your name? And he thinks for a bit, and he shakes his head, and he takes Natalia's hand, and they all take Natalia's hand and they sing together "nico nico," and the little tune goes:

And they sing:

Hear her speak, the motherland!

(clap clap clap!)

Hear her sing, sweet motherland!

(clap clap clap!)

(a rigorous display of accordion skills)

We leave the sun's loving embrace, hand in hand,

to step into night's cold, barren no-man's-land.

And who wrote those candied lines, set it to old tunes? She grabs their little cheeks, and she squeezes them so tight that she could disappear into their teeny-tiny red folds. It does turn out we are one of flesh. But who will take care of you? Watch; the sky is turning a billowing black, a hot shroud is all you're heir to. One of the children embraces Natalia's slender leg and lets himself be dragged down the street, and he wouldn't let go even though she mouthed to him 'let me go let me go let me go!' So now tell me mister, what exactly am I an heir to? I'm cold. This land is barren and obsessed with its own memory.

And where were you born? She wondered. She couldn't remember it anymore-- shacks and empty fields, full of chickens and barbed wire. The children looked up at Natalia. Were you born here? Do you call this city home? Are these streets yours? The children could not remember. What use does land have for a name under the dazzling, terrifying stars of Nay-toe? The stones turn liquid 'near your toes. "Where are you from, mama?" Natalia could not remember, it all now seemed a dream from infancy. Perhaps I was born somewhere in the last century. Natalia answered with a empty voice; nothing came forth from her mouth. "What is the past?" one of the children asked. A nightmare we wake up from, she thinks. She stuck out her hands and motioned them to follow her towards the square. We are merely called by the name this place gives us. We are of Nay-toe, we are united in fear. And what is the future? A remembrance of the past. I remember how you used to make me smile.

In the middle of the square sat a large piece of unexploded ordinance marked "AGM-114;" a long, shapely rocket had stuck itself into the concrete on a bed of rubble. Around the square stood many monoliths of glass, pointing up towards the sky, bearing jagged teeth. Everything that was not encased in glass had been burned down to black dust. The trees smoldered like large candles. I stood there in the street, holding hands with children, and I thought it all so strange dear Lanka that I couldn't help but laugh. "Nico Nico should be here," a child said. "Nico Nico will come and save us," another child said. "Nico Nico fills up the skies with light," another child said. The group chats are alit. These were once child soldiers guided by the warmth of a maternal hand, guided by the dream of an embrace now denied to them. Who will take the hands of these orphans of nowhere; who will sew them to the sky? Kto, kto kto?

"Contact!" one of the children shouted. They scattered, running for cover; some of them hid behind the rocket and peered out over its bent stabilizers. Natalia put her hand on her TT-33, and pushed herself up against the tree-- she grinned, would she really stand a chance against a squadron of liquidators? She pulled on the slide with great effort, grunting and trying to force a bullet into the chamber. Natalia looked through a few burnt crevices in the trees towards the stairs that run up the freeway beyond the square; she saw a few men dressed in flecktarn like her dad's hunting clothes, with weapons that looked angular and complex like metal wasps. Natalia's eyes widened with anger, with fear and anticipation. Stay down, and don't shoot; she stuck her tongue between her teeth and hissed at the children. Three men ran down the stairs and hid behind a few benches encased in glass. While she watched them take positions, sudden bursts of glare irritated her eyes-- she was being watched through a scope by another group of men hidden in the smouldering ruins of a building. She waits for a few moments; she was not dead, so she reckons these must not be liquidators but men with orders. Natalia hissed again so the children would stay down. She took a few breaths, then walked away from the tree-- she stepped with great caution towards the square with her hands up. The children grit their teeth; one of them yelped at Natalia but would not budge from behind his meagre cover. As Natalia walked further towards the men, she pulled her hair back to show her face; to show them who she was and that she was worth something.

One of the men raised his head up from the bench, and raised his fist: "Paco, it's her! Look at her face! Look at her face!" The other two men got up from their position; they were dressed in body armor, with plates of Kevlar stuck to their torsos and their heads covered with helmets. They approached Natalia with their rifles drawn, and their hands shook with palpable nerves. "There are children here!" one of them shouted. "They have weapons. We're surrounded." Behind her, she heard the cocking of rifles-- the men jumped up and raised their rifles, their heads scanning the square for potential heat. "How many!?" one of them shouted. Natalia remained silent. "Can you speak?" One of them asked Natalia. The men hid behind the benches, unsure of how exposed they were. Natalia looked at the windows and saw that many of them suddenly were filled with more child soldiers armed with rifles; they'd too had been waiting for Nico Nico's return.

One of them walked slowly towards Natalia. "Come with us, peacefully. No-one gets hurt." Natalia looked at the face of the man who had shouted at her: his pinkish folds, the drops of sweat falling from his glasses. "Paco! Cover me." The man took Natalia and pressed her up against him, his head sticking up over her own, his STANAG magazines and flashbangs pressing into her sinewy back. The other two men ran up behind them, using her as cover. The man took Natalia's TT-33 from the holster and threw it onto the ground, and she now felt a powerlessness she'd never felt before. Lanka, we walked backwards-- I saw the children watch me with anticipation and regret as I was pulled up the stairs. Out from the rocket, one of the children stuck up his head; a shot rang out. I was pushed down on the ground as the men pressed themselves up against the glass walls. I watched as the children ran in every direction, screaming. "Let's go!" he shouted. "Paco, let's go!" Nay-toe is breathing down my neck and he won't let me go.

"We won't hurt you," Groypee said as he pushed Natalia into the armored little sedan. Lanka, be honest with me. How did they know where I was? Be honest with me, Lanka; you told them everything, didn't you? Are my movements so predictable? Have I been tagged somewhere, visible to everyone, an open wound? Or maybe everyone's lines carry the same course in the Autonomous Zone. I remember this from mathematika class; so much of a trajectory can be understood by its origin. Because of what I am, I am here. "We won't hurt you, cutie pie. No-way, detka," Groypee said as he sat next to me and held me in his arms as if I was a wild animal to be constrained. The other one, who I assumed was Paco, took the driver's seat. The rest of the men loaded up into a white van parked behind us, hanging beside each other like fleshy carcasses. I had no more illusions about my own fate, Lanka. I am to be used and then thrown away-- no illusions, they lead you astray. Groypee took out his phone and told me to smile. I wanted to feel the comfort of my TT-33 once more. "We caught ourselves a real life loli here," Groypee said in English. I didn't understand what he meant but I covered the molten side of my face as if I didn't wish to disappoint. I remained silent. "A loli," Paco answered no-one as he turned on the radio and turned into the highway. The speakers started to rattle with deep bass and a constant, repetitive clanging. "A lolicon, a cute little girl that you just want to hug," Groypee added. My realization that my body might be of some value startled me. "You really can't talk, cutie pie?" Groypee grabbed my face and pressed the sides of my mouth to peek into my insides. I wondered what my throat might look like to him. "Stop touching her," Paco grunted. The music on the speakers started to heave with rumbles and mumbling. "Still got your tongue?" Groypee asked. I remained silent, my face crystalline like the glass that covered the highway. "What a shame about all of this," Groypee whispered as he touched the molten side of my face with his gloved fingers. "What a shame about such a beautiful little girl." And I didn't know if he felt pity or envy as he rubbed my skin; I thought about that as I watched the fire of the mountains pass by the windows of our car.

THE TWELFTH THOUGHT OF KALI HICHI:

« "The world as we think of it does not exist. Rather, the world is merely a tool by which we see the world itself. It’s a tool by which we project our actions, our behaviors, our tastes, our entire life onto the world. There’s nothing natural about it. When I see a human being and think of her as slave, or wife, or worker, there is nothing about the world which has made her that way. When I see a stone and think of mineral; when I see a tree and think of paper; when I see the beautiful explosions of bombs and think of atoms—- none of these things have anything to do with the world, and everything to do with me." »

Yelena laid on the sand, still warm from the heat of the day, and watched the explosions in the sky as jet planes roared in the distance. Are these the drifter clouds of atmosphere's grand tragedy, or the afterglow of rocket's red glare? She raised her right hand and formed a face with her fingers: "does it matter?" After a few moments, an overwhelming sluggishness forces her eyes to shut. How long did they have left? She'd made her peace with Christine but something still bothered her. Would the Zone be liquidated, cease to exist, remembered only in online compilations? Did they already shut down all the channels on the messaging apps? Did they still fap to Christine's customs, or did they already move on to newer, fresher images of women? She thought of her mother, and she thought of school, and she thought of how she misses driving around in her pizza-reeking delivery car. She was stuck here in this tiny corner of the world of hers, feeling as if she was sinking into something dark and deep. She felt like a triple text unseen, a loose end in abstraction. She raised her right hand: "fuck you."

A shadow creeps across the sand. The heat of flames had left Yelena's cheeks, and she opened her eyes to see Little King standing before her in raging glory. He looked as if a sportswear store had been exhumed by an excavation. His neon-green windbreaker was covered in ash, and his sneakers were sooty and caked with grime. Sweat dripped from his glasses. A key hung from a chain 'round his neck. Yelena started to laugh. "I'm tired of getting abducted," Yelena said. "I'm not moving anymore," she added. Little King didn't say anything; he took out his phone and showed Yelena a picture of Natalia. Above Natalia's face, a little cartoon dog sat sleeping on the peak of her head. It had already thirty-three-thousand likes. She might go viral; a symbol of the funny relationship between youthful beauty and violence and death. A few strands of hair hung over Natalia's wound like a suggestive shade. Yelena sat up in alarm; "Natalia... how did you find her?" Little King smiled, and spoke softly: "we have Nico Nico's phone, and her close friend's circle is very excited about your girl." Yelena's face softened up, her eyes falling; "I really owe you for this, I guess we're even. You can abduct me again, or whatever." Yelena suddenly felt cold, and she rubbed her hands together: "she can't even speak, you know. No tongue, she's got no tongue. I just call her Natalia. I don't even know her real name." Yelena looked up at Samuel; "where is she?" Little King got down on his knees, closer towards Yelena.

"Eia, eia, eia..." Little King said. She'd never seen a look like this on that face. Yelena sat up, her arms behind her. The dirt felt comforting in its base feeling, grime soaking 'tween her fingers. "I wanted this all to be something for us, Yelena." Samuel seemed so small to her, like his water was all squeezed out 'n fucked, his body in a dessicated form. "To be an island of virtue and remake ourselves in the image we chose; we wanted to give ourselves a new name, a new body." The rocket that sat poking into the stars had now begun to rise, growing ever more and more erect. "How does it go? Hard times make strong men? I think you understand; you most of all. Every woman wants to create paradise with herself, and gets frustrated at the world when she can't. Every woman wants to win." Yelena shut her eyes, then opened them up again with a fierce twitch on the side of her left eye that could not rest; "you're just an angry child playing in a big big sandbox. Don't confuse it with the real world, Samuel."

Little King stood up, removing his sunglasses with a temperate motion of his wrists which seemed so alien to Yelena. His eyes were black like a tar pit. The blurriness between his empathy and his cruelty was in equal parts frightening and intoxicating. A few chirps came from his pocket; he took out his phone and his fingers danced on the screen. "You're coming with me. You're coming with me, or you will die. I cannot let that happen so you're coming with me." Yelena felt a strange but pleasant relief; no more words, only the mere reality of a body at someone's command. Her physical form is clay. There's honesty in violence and it never hides behind a beautiful face that whispers sweet. She felt weak; hungry and weak. Yelena stood up and simply nodded, her head felt heavy like a balloon. She followed Little King to her fate.

The interior of the tower was full of bright dust, and the light shining from the space above them illuminated it and made it all seem like she was being abducted by some kinda of big beautiful UFO. "Shit," the walls had a spiral staircase but an old fashioned cargo elevator sat in the middle, and it had big ugly hydraulics and hazard yellow control panels. Little King stepped onto the embossed metal platform and pointed at the panel; "you'll have to read it for me," he bellowed. Yelena joined him; she wiped away the dust from the control panel mounted onto the platform, and pressed a button that read "vverkh." The platform first shook, roused uneasily from sleep, then jumped into motion towards the top of the tower. Little King nodded and covered his eyes with his sunglasses; his silence and his smile terrified her.

And the top of the tower was so bright, so unbearably bright; Yelena had to cover her eyes with her hands as the platform came to a stop at the top. She let small fragments of appearance come steadily through her fingers-- the walls were covered in computer monitors, switches and consoles, grand maps made of buzzers and bulbs, "napravlyeniya" and "sryedstva," and there were a multitude of seats and carpets lined the floor and there were plants and ... "what the fuck is this place?" Yelena yelped. It looked like something between a hotel and an alien cockpit. Everything was round and heavy, hard enough to seem like it might last forever. Little King grabbed her wrist and took her through the door out to the metal walkway at the top of the tower. From here, they could see the entire Zone lit up with fires and flames, boiling with smoke and dust. The horizon was a fiery grill. Nay-toe's kingdom alit like an ember; 'Nay-toe takes, Nay-toe gives.' The sky was colored like a rotting strawberry.

"You see that," he pointed out towards the mountains which glowed with fire. "Everything is to be liquidated. NATO orders. Everything is to be as if it never existed. Do you understand? The past is forfeit as much as the future." Little Samuel sez; his bluster and warmth had given way to something remote, foreboding like a distant and unknown planet. "Old names, old identities, whatever body or form these things denote; they can no longer exist and now they can float in freedom. Terrible, terrible freedom." Little Samuel took off his sunglasses and looked at Yelena. She saw his leaden face, his blackened eyes; she felt she might drown. "No!" she shouted as she stepped away from him. She ran back into the control room and put a chair between herself and Little Samuel. "No! No! No!" but what could it mean now? "No," and it doesn't mean anything here. There is nothing to refuse. Little Samuel kicked away the chair and wrestled Yelena down onto the carpet with a feverish leap, thousands of fibers pressing into her back like daggers. "No," she wept. He felt heavy. She looked away from him; she refused to meet his gaze and it was the only refusal she could muster as his breath burned her neck. No. No, no no.

Little King grabbed her wrists; squeezing them together, he pressed himself up against her body-- his face was wet with tears as she struggled beneath him. Yelena had always known, somehow. To see her worst thoughts come to life terrified her; she felt a hot knife struggle in her guts. Little King's face bulged with tension, heat burning in every vein. She wanted him to beat her. "I love you, Yelena." She shook her head violently, dull thuds as her skull hit the carpet. "I love you and you can complete me. You can fix what is deficient within me. We can have such beautiful, tall children, with want of nothing else. We can fix everything together, make the world anew. We--" his frantic talkin' was interrupted by the sudden movement of the platform, which made Little King jump onto his feet. Yelena turned onto her stomach, wiping away his tears from her face. She felt cold; she beat her chest with her fist to bring back color to her flesh. Little King sucked on his vape and fixed his hair.

The platform returned back to the top of the tower with Paco and Groypee both standing beside Natalia, and they were holding her arms as if she was a stray animal with clipped wings. They dragged Natalia to a couch and released her. They looked at her for a few minutes, their gaze passing over her scars, her moles and freckles. Natalia said nothing; her eyes looked back. "Why doesn't she talk?" Paco asked. Yelena got up from the carpet, rubbing the reddened parts of her wrists. "She doesn't have a tongue," Yelena answered. Groypee shook his head. "She has a tongue." He grabbed Natalia's face. "And I bet she understands English just fine." Natalia sat rigid, like a doll. "Let her go, Groypee," Paco intoned. Groypee looked back at Paco; he released his grip and rubbed the sweat away from his forehead as he turned to face Little King. "And what now?" Groypee asked. Little King was watching the control panel as he sucked on his vape, trying to make sense of the flickering bulbs and switches that seemed like fireworks to him. "Now? With our Mahimata here, we can begin the final stage of the plan. We can accomplish what we'd set out to do. We'll do it together." Yelena watched Paco's face grow stiff; she sat next to Natalia and she embraced her. She felt such relief that Natalia did not reject her, and she covered Natalia's face with herself. "Tell the men," Little King added. "Tell the men, Thermopylae."

"Are you sure about this, Samuel?" Paco asked. Little King didn't respond nor turn to face him. Groypee looked at Paco, looked at Little King, his worries hot and heavy... it must be the doubt a pawn feels as he is thrust towards the enemy, oblivious to the plan that dictates his movements. Yelena felt Natalia squeezing her; "uspekoysya," she whispered. "We don't even know if these missiles still work," Paco answering himself after a few minutes of silence. "And we don't--" but Little King interrupted Paco with anger; "leave us alone! Go bother someone else!" Little King's eyes would not meet Paco's gaze. Groypee's face turned sour like a child caught in the middle of his parents and he walked onto the platform. "Paco, let's go. Let's bounce, bro," Groypee sez. Paco looked at Yelena and Natalia; concern appeared on his face for a few heartbeats but it blew away quick, so quick... he joined Groypee on the platform and motioned Natalia towards him so she could press "vnjis." Little King turned to them, abruptly; he put his hands on the railing before the platform and took a hit off his vape. "Can I trust you, Paco?" Little King said in a soft, strained voice. Paco looked back at Little King, his eyes searching for something in the room. He nodded. "Thermopylae," Paco answered. He motioned to Natalia. She pressed the button and after a few seconds, Paco and Groypee disappeared into the darkness.

"Hard times create strong men, and strong men create good times. But good times create weak men and weak men create hard times;" Little King muttered to himself. "Cliché bullshit." He turned away from the consoles and walked up to the couch before Yelena and Natalia. He crouches down and grabs Natalia's hand, he moved away some stands of her hair and studied the wounds on her face. He removed his sunglasses, he squinted. He reached into his pockets and pulled out a piece of chocolate-covered quark. He gave it to Natalia and Natalia gobbled it up like a greedy sow and Yelena had never seen such joy and pleasure before-- her teeth press into the confection slowly, her eyes softened, her cheeks were returned their rightful color. "She's beautiful. She's someone's daughter," Little King muttered. He rubbed Natalia's hands and then turned to Yelena. "My Mahimata..." Little King sez. "Come with me, help me find the right switches. It's almost time." He looked at Natalia and kissed her on the forehead. "It's almost time; we will take the underground train and escape to the bunker site at Chelyabinsk." Yelena was moved by how genuine his kindness could seem.

Yelena walked up to the consoles and sat down on the seat Little King brought up behind her. The colors of the switches, flickering seemingly at random, seemed like the shudders of a nightmare. She felt the ancient plastic under her fingertips; it felt as if an incredible, infernal demon was resting just beneath the surface. Is this Nay-toe's will? Why am I here? Little King came up beside her with a piece of paper filled with numbers. "Yelena... these are the coordinates of NATO bases in the Zone. I want you to enter them into the computer and then initiate the launch sequence." Yelena took the paper into her own hands and read the two-dozen lines of coordinates; Little King was lying-- he could not know such information and the numbers didn't make any sense. She pressed a button that read "entry" under a panel titled "directions." Dozens of rows of switches lit up, and the keyboard whirred with anticipation. Her fingers went for the very first number-- Little King grabbed her hand; "please, don't give me a reason to hurt you, Yelena" his voice sullen and apologetic. Yelena withdrew her fingers; she looked at the list again, then typed in the first row of numbers. She pressed the button that read "entry" once more, the console whirred and the printer spat out numbers and the screens flickered. She repeated the process; she repeated the process over and over again. Natalia watched over Yelena's shoulder, both fascinated and frightened by the machines that surrounded them. Little King looked at the lights change on the map and sucked on his vape. The screens flicker. The whole world was reborn in light.

Yelena had finished her entry and pressed the launch readiness button. Many of the lights on the consoles before her fell dead. Under her feet, she could feel the ground whir even all the way up here. Little King watched from the metal walkway as countless bottomless holes in the soil cracked open, as if the Earth herself was complicit and opened herself. He sucked on his vape. The explosions grew closer. Let them liquidate whatever they want, the Zone is not a place but an ideal. Yelena rose from her seat, took Natalia by the hand, and confronted Little King on the metal walkway. She was too exhausted to feel fear. She wanted him to care about her. "You owe me an explanation," she spat. "You owe me the truth because that's supposedly why you're doing all of this. You want me to be your bride but you hide from me. You're a liar. You're a bad husband. I would never fuck you." Little King removed his sunglasses and sucked on his vape, he did not meet Yelena's gaze. "I'm fulfilling NATO's will, Yelenochka. You can't understand. You're too washed, too normie. To live not by material or physical boundaries, but to live purely by desire. And that means we destroy everything that binds us, that controls us; destroy everything that prevents us from seeing each other for what we really are. Only then can life freely circulate again. We're bringing in a newborn world."

Yelena yanked on Natalia's arm with anger. "A newborn world? This is just primitive savagery. Savagery by angry fags and incels! Angry at mommy! Breaking all the rules. You can't fool me, Samuel." Little King laughed, sucked on his teeth. "Savagery? Modern life is savagery, just like the primitives, ruled by mommies. The endless sallow night of matriarchy. Everything savage and primitive is female; blood, sex, gobbling up food like a sow. That's how they force the young men into submission. Ancient, modern-- all of civilization is to break young men and turn them into livestock, toiling in shit to generate economic worth for the sake of the mother. That's civilization then and now; young men subjugated to provide for the pleasure and reproduction of the mothers. Sure they'll sacrifice a few girls to get what they want, especially if they're too beautiful, but everyone knows who's in charge. Women are the species, and the men are just drones. That's primitive life, and that's modern life. Tyranny by mommies; they terrorize their useless husbands, put them to work, then pout when the men don't enjoy their daily slop. Men are born into bondage, they're lifeless! Look at them when you walk down the street, dribbling, drool falling from their mouths as they pay for everything the women demand. They drug young men, put them in school, try to break their independence and vitality so they'll stay forever mommy's boy, begging her for protection."

Natalia hid behind Yelena, frightened by Little King's spittle and crimson face. "So your solution is to blow everything the fuck up? What is that going to change, Samuel? If that's what civilization has always been, then it'll be same after you drop bombs on everyone. You can't make mommies disappear-- they're a fucking reality of life, of biology. It's not anyone's fault that they're obsessed with what created them; it's natural. If you burn it all to the ground, it's just going to be brutal subjugation in a different way. It'll be men hitting each other over the head and stealing women again. That's just a different sort of control, a more brutal sort of control. That's still tyranny."

Little King grabbed Yelena, a strange joy breaking through his grimace. "Yes! Of course, that's still tyranny. But those who can resist that tyranny will be capable of resisting, capable of rejecting civilization, of rejecting that control! Civilization is someone beating you over the head and then killing you if you resist. To live life freely, you must be the one to beat them. To live like a pirate, on the edges of civilization. That's where life is, Yelena! To be a predator instead of prey, to reject the labor and commerce that exist merely to sustain the people who terrorize you. Freedom and power, Yelena. They are the same. Cities are prison camps, blowing them the fuck up is the only way to liberate everything and everyone. Blow up the suburbs and open the zoos, unleash the predators. Thousands of wolves prowling the streets, hungry for anything, elephants and bison stampeding, smashing everything to pieces... and the cries of everyone reverberating through the streets as the lord of beasts returns. Every city; New York, Moscow, Beijing, becoming ruins, overgrown with vines and forests, haunted by the coyote and lynx. Every slum wiped away by a mudslide, overgrown with jungle. That's justice, that's freedom. Thousands of beasts, beautiful and free, ushering in a new era of bestial freedom."

Yelena released Natalia's hand and cracked her knuckles; a funny smile befell her face. She punched Little King as hard as she could. Natalia leaped back in surprise; she didn't think the princess had it in her. Little King touched his cheek, he turned his head to meet her gaze. "Who do you think you are?" Yelena shouted. "You think you know Nay-toe's will? You think you're special? You think you're a big and powerful man? You're fucking nothing. You're fucking nothing and I can fucking kill you if I wanted to. You're a retard. You're a faggot. I'm gonna crush you under my foot, you little bug." Little King laughed, laughed for a while. He sucked on his vape, then he took Yelena by her arms and forced her onto the couch, his teeth sharp and wet. Natalia watched but did nothing; she did not understand them, she did not understand the fury between them. She watched, then looked away. "Go ahead!" Yelena spat as Little King pressed her face into the couch and pulled up her frock with remorseless force, to turn her into a dog. "You're not man enough to rape me, Samuel!" Yelena shouted. Little King undid his trackpants and tied her wrists to her back with its string. She looked back at him from the couch as he grabbed her waist, as he turned her body into something small and easy to destroy. She looked back at him; his face was tense, wet, full of terror. Little King grabbed his penis from his pants and stroked it. He could not get hard, no matter how much he stroked himself.

Yelena writhed on the couch trying to cover herself up with her frock; she rolled onto her back with her hair covering her face. She looked at Natalia on the metal walkway; Natalia looked at the missiles rising from the holes in the Earth, sucking on her thumb, enraptured by the sight of the soil growing appendages. Yelena laughed. "You really are a faggot," she spat at Little King. Little King put away his penis and held onto his trackpants as he walked to the console. "Which one says 'launch?'" Little King bellowed. Yelena laughed; "pyedyik, kazyol, mrazj yebanaya" she said between giggles. Little King ran to her and squeezed her neck with his hands which made his trackpants fall back down onto the ground. His face was engorged, a grotesque boiled beastly thing. She did not fear him. She laughed even though breathing became more difficult and more difficult and... she felt herself choke; she coughed, trying to suck in air. "You," she coughed, "are so..." she feels herself growing faint. Little King let go of her neck. Yelena gasped loudly, her throat rattling as she greedily sucked in air. Little King walked back to the console, his trackpants dragging behind him. He looked down at the console; the symbols cohere into nothing even as they anxiously burn. He took the key hanging from round his neck and inserted it into the unoccupied key slot then turned. All the lights of the console flashed then dimmed, with the exception of one small button right under a few switches which blinked with horny eagerness. Little King hesitated for a few seconds then pressed the button.

Natalia stood on the metal walkway and watched as the missiles shake and whir only to then fall dead. Some of them rose up a few meters and then clattered back down into their hole, causing gigantic plumes of smoke and shrapnel to ejaculate forth. She thought it disappointing, and terribly amusing; she started to laugh, laugh more and more, laugh in a way she had not for a long time. She started to choke on her own giggles because it all seemed so stupid, so useless. But one missile managed to rise from its hole-- her laughter turned to astonishment, to awe; how beautiful they could be, like daggers cutting a slit into air, hellfire spewing forth from their tails as they seek their destiny. The missile rose up high and high into the sky, shook and clattered, then disintegrated into a curtain of glowing, beautiful dust as the metal burned up into one big fireball. A large flash-- a deafening boom that made the walkway beneath her shake. The sky was for an instant completely illuminated, white and hot. Natalia covered her eyes and felt her skin tingle. The air smelled strange and the light slowly died away. A powerful wind took the dust and covered the Zone in rain, in glass and shrapnel. No-other missile had managed to leave its burrow. Natalia returned inside, her mouth tasting of a swimming pool.

Little King stood before the console which emitted a faint buzzer, holding his pants up with his hands. The map was now completely devoid of light. The printer had jammed, stuck in a continuous whir, sounding as if it were in agony. He walked onto the metal walkway beside Natalia, watching the landscape in his underwear as his pants fell from his hands, and saw that radioactive dust had begun to cover the Zone. Alright. Instead of detonating, the missile had impotently disintegrated, polluting the Earth with nuclear material. "Well, shit." He reckons it's a real environmental disaster. The UN would probably have to step in. Trillions of dollars would have to go into the clean-up effort. Evacuate anyone left and clear out the villages. The entire region might have to go on radioactive alert. Little King stood there at the edge, holding the railing. "Huh," he muttered. "I expected more." Natalia came up to him, her face too demanding an answer. Little King didn't meet her gaze; "probably will make the Zone inhabitable for a few thousand years. Isn't that crazy?" Natalia thought about it for a few seconds, looked at the beautiful blue-'n-green hues of the dust cloud, then pushed Little King off with a full sprint and a shove. He made no sound as he fell down and hit the rocks below, no sound beside the splattering and the dull thud of his flesh. It was her first kill, she thought; she returned back inside.

Yelena looked at Natalia; the tower had fallen dead still as the machines retired. "Samuel? Where's Samuel?" Yelena's face was red, covered in sweat. "Natalia? Did you? How?" she asked, already knowing the answer from the look on Natalia's face, from her eyes shimmering with resolution. Natalia came up to the couch and undid the string holding Yelena's wrists. After she touched Yelena's wrists, she put down Yelena's frock over her legs and pulled her up onto the couch. Natalia looked down at her, as a mother would look at her child; looking back up, Yelena could feel Natalia's deep sorrow for her lost home, the damage that had been done to it, that could not be repaired, and most of all she felt Natalia's need to hold someone. How long had it been? Yelena rubbed her sore wrists, and then she embraced Natalia, kissed her head, patted her back; in Yelena's embrace, Natalia started to weep silently, covering Yelena's frock in hot tears. This intimacy was new, yet familiar-- she thought of the first time she'd held Christine in her arms. She smiled, and let her face rest on Natalia's sooty head. "I'm sorry," Yelena whispered. "I'm sorry," Natalia squeezed her tightly, rubbing her face onto her. "I'm sorry that I assumed you didn't speak English." Natalia looked back up at Yelena, rubbing the tears from her face, the scars on her skin becoming raw and red. "Now that we can understand each other, can you tell me what happened to you?" Natalia thought for a while-- she shook her head and buried her face in Yelena's body, begging with her touch to be held more, held more and more, and they held each other as the rain grew louder and louder, so loud they could heard nothing but its pattering as it hit the glass.

THE THIRTEENTH THOUGHT OF KALI HICHI:

« When he woke in the morning, he’d found that his ‘lyubovnitsa’ was not there. He felt empty. A cricket revealed itself from the crevices of the rock. Does the cricket feel empty? The cricket’s heaven is all around her; no need of hers is unsatisfied. My heaven is nowhere. I must build my own heaven because there’s no heaven for me in the world that could satisfy my needs. No heaven around me may satisfy my needs for I was born deficient. So I must build my own heaven. »