Fate

     If things happen by fate, then how do you know if the results of something are because of your own hard work or by fate? Or is fate created by your own work?

He ran, each step echoing much too loudly on the wet concrete surface on the inside of the tunnel. His sharp pants of breath seemed to bounce off the round walls and slap him in the face. He could hear the slapping sounds of the issued boots marching and racing faster and faster, closer and closer towards him. It would only be a short second before those issued weapons would reach him as well. He had to run, or they would catch him, and then, and then!

Forean felt a biting combination of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and dust particles unseen to the naked eye zing straight through his lungs as he jolted up and out from underneath the faux Egyptian cotton, dove grey sheets.

What was that?

He shook his head vigorously. A glance as the blaring blood red digital clock read that it was much too early to the noon, yet all the same much too late to be morning as well. Shaking his head once more, he slowly slid out from under the sticky-from-sweat, warm-like-a-living-body sheets and stumbled out of the dark, musty room into the world of the breathing.

A light sizzling sound brushed his ears, while the background of the busy urban city and the noise of all the rushing, hustling, running humans ever-so-gently gripped at his forearms with its graffiti painted, pointy, long plastic arms. He was still desperately trying to shake off the hair-raising grasp of fear that had arrived and latched onto his back from the strange dream. He pretended the steaming, magma-hot water from the shower head had burned that hideous creature off, but he still refused to look in the mirror as he was brushing his teeth, for to see it would be too acknowledge it.

He walked into the kitchen, seized by the smells, and wrapped his arms around the other warm body in this room.

“Is it a good morning?” he asked, nuzzling into the soft smelling hair below him. He could hear the agony of the fear as it slowly began to lose its grip on him.

Rillian raised an eyebrow and replied, “A bit late for good mornings, isn’t it, Forean. Decided today was a lazy day?”

They seated themselves around the tiny pale wooden square table and began to eat wordlessly. A gentle wave of homeliness lapped over him.

“Rillian,” he asked while staring out their window to the balcony.

“Yes?”

“Do you believe in fate?”

She froze in time, before sitting back slowly in the wooden seat, and quietly setting down her fork with a small clink.

Opening her mouth, she finally stated, “I believe, that fate is merely the idea when something happened and you had no control over it. Nothing more, and nothing less. Why?”

He continued to gaze out towards the skyline of the city.

Silence fell again, and Rillian reached out to gently touch the top of his left hand. He flinched, giving a short jolt backwards in his chair, and snapped his gaze from the top of the skyscrapers to her dark eyes. They just stared at each other, each unrelenting, until finally, he murmured, “I saw a dystopia. I think I saw a dystopia. Rillian, are we fated to a dystopian future?”

She sighed.

“Forean….”

He jerked his hand off the table, and abruptly stood up to his full height, without his usual casual slouch, glaring down at her blank face. The chair clattered to the ground behind him, almost as if in slow motion, like time had stilled for those few seconds.

“I’m serious, Rill! If the theory of a dystopia ever does occur, wouldn’t we be fated to suffer the most? We aren’t normal, Rillian Forrestair! By human predictions today, tomorrow we would be the chosen ones to suffer!”

Dusting off her already crisp blouse, she slowly stood up as well, gazing levelly into his frantic eyes, and said, “Fate cannot be predicted. And predictions today won’t be the same tomorrow. My spliced genes don’t make me a prisoner, and neither will your mad visionary mind, if we do not choose to. We have made it this far, we’ve made it this far away, and what happens will happen. If we cannot control it, then it is fate, just like how we met. If we can, then we will continue to work for it.”

Pausing, she walked over to gently reach up and touch his right cheek, softly running a thumb over a scar right underneath his eyes, and murmured, “Alright, Number 64?”

He stopped for a second. Everything stopped for a second. The musky air was back, and so was the darkness, and so were the sounds, and he couldn’t breathe, and what if tomorrow the world changed how would he ever find who he really is then, and, and, and!

He stopped. He closed his eyes. And he breathed.

In. Then out. Open your eyes. Look forward.

Intent, dark eyes, one a metal grey, the other a deep murky type of concentrated copper, dyed with a wash of black watercolour.

He breathed out, and whispered, “Alright.”