Gun Metal

[Ph03nixxxx]

She saw everything. Everything. The people around her, the noise deafening in her ears and thrumming through her body was nothing compared to what she could see from eyes that were not her own and thoughts that she could have never guessed or imagined until this moment. It was an intoxicating montage of people's lives and dreams, their past and their present, the hopes for the future and the fears of what was to come - but it meant nothing, not now. Her life was suddenly inextricably linked to theirs and, faced with the possibility of the fragile string being cut and leaving her falling into nothingness, she knew with blinding clarity what she had to do and - most importantly - she knew how to do it.

Kaitlyn's hands slipped across the cool, smooth metal of her lifeline and clasped around them, pulling them from where they rested against her slender hips; the contrast of the heat from her skin and the way it impressed itself against the guns was poetic even in the clamour around her - it was laughable that even when she had the responsibility of choosing who would live and who would die she could still raise lyrical whim within her mind and appreciate it in its simplicity. She could feel the pulse of bodies begin to turn towards her, acknowledging the quiet girl who had seemed so harmless and the weapons she now held so firmly in her unshaking grasp, marking her name in their heads as a target that should be eliminated and silenced rather than someone to leave in the wreckage they would create in mere seconds. As her eyes locked with the horrified gaze of her newest companion, his head shaking slowly in disbelief as he foolishly paused in his own battle for existence, she knew without hesitation she could no longer turn back or deny knowledge of who she was and what she was likely to become. The twist of DNA that set them apart from those surrounding them - the one that gave them insight into abilities that most people dreamed and fantasized about whilst contemplating their own mediocre lives - was going to define her and make her name in history whether she liked it or not.

She would fight by his side, maybe even die. It wasn't an option. It just was.

"Good luck," she whispered, though whether it was to Nix or to herself she was unsure; it was unimportant. Her fingers curved around the triggers of the two pistols her father had given to her in a bizarre farewell gesture and, as she shut her eyes and allowed her telepathy to embrace and consume her, she took aim.

In the end it was easy, too easy. Seeing everything from their points of view, the vantage point of the animals hired to take them down and eradicate them in the name of their fair country's normalcy, Kaitlyn knew where to point, shoot, move on to. She saw in her mind's eye the last moments of the man wielding the military-issued rifle, the tight lock of his jaw as the bullet pierced his chest and sent him tumbling to the ground in a blaze of heat and crimson; she heard the hiss of the hidden assassin within the warehouse behind them, his inward bellow of hate directed towards her and her precision - she easily tracked him down after a brief foray into his mind, not even turning to aim and fire all the while already moving on to the next target as the sniper fell back with a hole in his head and a dying curse on his lips.

She twirled and twisted, pictures that did not belong to her flickering across her vision like a projection in an old theatre - it was intoxicating, absorbing, the adrenaline-rush of victory and retribution like bitter chocolate on her tongue as the righteous stood tall and the dead lay unseeing on the ground around her. She could see from the corner of her eye the waves of fire projected from her companion's palms, sweat rolling down Nix's young face as he held them off and melted their bullets mid-air with his scorching flames. She heard his panic, felt his alarm as she shot yet another hitman square in the chest without a second glance and willed him silently to concentrate, to not fail in their determination and desperation to just keep living... he was so young, so sheltered, so easily swayed, and she would protect him with everything she had if only she could keep fighting this convoluted and treacherous battle to survive.

They were at once victims and heroes, targets and attackers; they were right to fight only for as long as they were the minority - she knew that. You could only fight back for so long before you became the threat and those against you became the defenders. These people, the ones sent to them in order to kill them and eradicate the dirtied anomalies amidst the pure and traditional cared nothing for the people they had been or the lives they had led before now - they were hired bodies to do the dirty work whilst the creators of all this insanity sat and watched behind their glass houses and bodyguards.

It sickened her.

The final shot brought about silence so freeing that Kaitlyn found herself wondering when she had stopped breathing; she gulped in the air, dropping the guns to the dust and blood-covered ground and pressed her palms to the tops of her thighs, bent over as she sought to get the oxygen back to her brain. Her mind flickered slightly, an odd sense of confusion ghosting over her as she attempted to adjust to having only the view of herself and Nix in front of her, two different angles that seemed too simple to deal with after the tens she had faced before.

A hand, trembling and damp, reached out to touch her. "Kait?"

She shook her head, lungs too full and burning to push out words. Nix moved until he was in her view.

"Kaitlyn, we've gotta go. They'll send others, they'll find out what I... what you..." He stopped, unable to take it in. "We can't be here when they do, okay? We need to leave."

"I'm sorry," she managed, voice raw, iron and death at the forefront of her tongue. "I should've told you -"

"We'll talk about it later," he reassured her, his tone strained as he tried to inject his usual resounding positivity into the words. "You pretty much just saved my butt, so I kind of owe you for that. Let's just get out of here, okay? Explain later. When we're safe."

She straightened up, taking in one last deep breath before finally allowing her eyes to meet his. She blew the air out between gritted teeth. "Right. Okay. Let's go."

Bending down, Nix carefully retrieved her pistols between hesitant fingers, holding them out to her. "Here."

She took them, pushing them into the waistband of her jeans and offering him a nod, the slightest smile. "Thanks."

They walked together through the mass of bodies back to the now bullet-ridden car, the hot metal searing Kait's skin and leaving an imprint she would always remember as the first souvenir from the fight for their lives.

Edited December 4, 2014 by IvI Ph03nix IvI

[Mokrie Dela]

Taken me a while to read this in full, but I'm glad i did. I really enjoyed this. I liked the use of language, and it seemed to flow really well. There's a nice hint of character to Kaitlyn, and the whole thing is actually really interesting.

 

As a one shot, it's left me unsatisfied, however. Simply put: I want more. I want to find out what she did, why, who these people are; i want that tension between her and Nix (that I noticed/inferred anyway) to be resolved or explained.

 

Do you plan on continuing this at all? I liked it.

[Ph03nixxxx]

Thank you for taking the time to comment on this, it's very much appreciated.

 

It's not a one-shot at all, which is probably why it feels so unfinished; it's an excerpt from a book of two that I've been trying to write for the last few years. Kind of why I posted it. Any response is a good response in my eyes, positive or negative, further pushes me to write the bloody thing. (I talk as if I hate it, but this book has lived in my head for so long now that I love the characters and their development; truthfully, I can't get enough of them.)

 

I'll say now that Nix and Kait have a purely platonic relationship; I hate the use the cliche of brother/sister but it's so accurate to these two that I can't help it... though she's a year younger than he is she feels intensely protective of him in all his naivete and loves him, naturally, but there's nothing romantic to it. There's actually supposed to be another character in this, but I was playing around with ideas and left him out of this for purely experimental purposes.

 

Thank you again; I'll be sure to let you know if I manage to write more.

[Ziggy455]

This is more like it. I like the character of Kait, but something which seems a little off may be the fact that we’re thrust straight into the action, but at the same time we’re supposed to be seeing into these characters. I’m assuming this is not the actual opening to the novel? I like the idea of throwing us in, because our curiosity peaks when we question what the f*ck is going on. I questioned by Kait and Nix were attacked, who attacked them, and what exactly did Nix and Kait do to warrant this sort of chaos in the opening scene?

 

As a one-off it leaves much to be desired, and it’d be cool to see where it goes from here. The control of having a character and plot makes the writing much more controllable and vivid. The platonic love of Nix and Kait isn’t shown much here, and there’s barely an example of their dynamic but on the strength of your writing, it’s clear that it can be explored and shown within the ensuing chapters.

 

I think the only thing, which is subjective, is that I like to imagine my characters wholly. When it comes to my writing, even if I don’t include it, I write a page of free-form sh*t, just about their looks, personality, etc, etc. Even a single trait, a physical form—eyes, hair, build. It helps the reader envision the spark of a character in their minds.

 

I’m not saying you haven’t done this, but when showing the beginning of a story, it helps. You don’t have to bog down the reader with a NYPD description.

 

 

There isn’t much else I can say. I can help more with characterization, writing, and plot if I could see more of the story and where exactly you’d want to go with it. From there, it’d work. Besides that, it’s clear you have an adept talent at writing, and it’d be nice to see some more original work from you.