dead behind the eye |
| In his moments of retreat, the shadows of his former life lingered behind. The air trailed him so closely like the burning embers that were unfaded in his memory. Screams resounded in his far right. The sirens of units still trying to make it on the scene shredded at his sense of hearing he forgot how to calibrate. Narrow down to one echo. A blinding beating of his heart to know that he was still alive. Still able to function at his highest ability and not waver from power he never would experience ever again. He breathed as if he took his first breath in that encounter. He felt no aches, set backs, or the maniacal twitch that flowed out of him in the lasting minutes. She latched onto him like a leech, yet done so without the persecution in waiting for those who deserved it. No more looking back. No more looking under his feet to see if they pounded the pavement in his footwear. He removed himself from the cries of many, the battle that revealed faces wanting to smother out he and the source of an upgrade. Slade wasn’t a novice to the getaway or needed a succession of resources to aid in finding solace but he found so in the fire of a spirit that cosmically should have burned him relentlessly. Singed him to the point of being nothing. No figment. Nothing to exist in a world that needed a reboot. The restart after a glorious end. This world had its run and so did he but he ran. Slide between crowds of people. Escaped between debris as big as two men standing on top of another. Caution of a wide load shielding his presence. Pressed to release himself from the mask, he risked himself of being exposed. Seen long enough that he would be made out. There was wonder in how he thought and how it gave him an addition few steps before finding out. Two vehicles stuck together from a bender, one driver blinded by the smoke rising and Slade moved past it. Veiling before being seen but there were always eyes everywhere. Eyes looking down on the bits, the specks of life pushing to get ahead. To survive at critical times which thrown them off a routine. Breaking the spokes of a wheel that slowed down. He didn’t have the luxury to give heavy wear life. He fought, but with a puppeteering his entire being. His thoughts. Words, or lack there of. All for naught it seemed. Recalling the hours that led up to fleeing when he could barely lift his head up after a dynamite went off within the confines of receptive synapses, blowing each part to smithereens to bring him back to a reality. One that was worthless to some and worth an entire world to others to continue allegiance to. Momentarily corrupted by a force he couldn’t speak of in his moment of anarchy, the phase was an affair. Clutched at the talons that branded him at the shoulders. Carrying him through the hours of the early morning into an afternoon no one was going to remember if lucky enough. He wanted to forget. To be dead behind the eye. Mesmerized by another memory but this wasn’t the worst he’s done. What he could be capable without a cosmic battery in his back. And it felt glorious. He felt the pace in his run pick up, floating towards hitting his maximum at the urge and running into the open doors of a truck on the move after sweeping the technical guessing of force and timing to hop the bumper. Hitching a free ride as it stop and go traffic gave him time to think. Coming down, or off that high on a grand scale rumbled with whisperings of an addiction bloomed. The loosened door pulled back shut with heavy mitts and he fell back on his ass. Limbs stretched and he went for the mask, but its night vision recollection spotted around the box trailer. Seeking anything worth exchanging clothes for. The road was bumpy. Traffic shortening and the next extending it. His wait would linger. Visions going back to Dinah burning through his psyche that collapsed with everything with it. He left her, where she stood and fell. Left to escape what was unimaginable. Exited stage left after failing to hop back into his right mind after over saturation of a property worth lighting an entire city for. There was only supposed to be one person to grant feeling that way for. Taking the time to let his mind align itself properly was running out. The travel seemed to go on for hours and it had only been minutes. In those minutes he tried to see where things went wrong. How askew his fucked up morality had been massaged upon. Inflamed to dole out the rights of wrongs that he could’ve been more clean about. How in the end, suffered through nearly going far enough to wipe out the one person who probably devoted herself to him than he deserved. Thoughts worsened. Rekindling the heart of where his guilt was always dormant. Always resting in the bottom of his rotting heart. He heard her polluted words in a playback while his hand nearly crushed her throat. Mumbling to go through it and he would have done so. To stop the endless free-for-all that left the city in ruins a couple of years ago. He held his hand in his head after removing the mask. It dropped and rolled with the moving truck, sliding back until it cut its end. Slade tightened his eyes to release himself of it. Of the troubles he caused with help of the phoenix but remorse was in fragments. Broken up all around him as he hunkered over in a state of impairment. He would believe it. Run full on sprint towards the excuse and level the misunderstandings if he have to but first had to find a home from home on the next stop. Burn through the next vehicle. Borrow a ride to make it far away that his ears didn’t ring. His head would rattle less with messages firing off of the past, and now of the shattered present. |