The Hamartia Project

Prologue

 The only person I would take a bullet for is pointing a gun at me.

I let the moment set in. The metal walls surrounding me on all four sides, the blinking red light from the camera wedged between two sides of the ceiling, and the large door positioned behind me. I shudder when I realize that they prepared my death chamber. They made sure I would be facing the camera and closest to the door so they could easily drag me out.

My eyes flicker to the gun half a dozen feet away from me.

When the trigger is pulled, I will forget everything that has happened over the past few months. I will forget the time when we were so young and so naive that we believed we could save society. We believed in hope, but it is truly so funny how it keeps you going until your very last moment. We cling to it, but it ultimately and always lets us down.

Even now, at this moment, when I know the inevitable, I still cling to the hope that this isn't real. This is a dream. A nightmare.

"Luca, you know that I love you," I whisper, squeezing my eyes shut. I don't want him to seem weak to the people watching from the camera. I am strong enough to take a bullet to the mind and know in my heart that I still love him.

"Please don't," his voice is soft, but his mind has been hardened by months of hate. He made it up a long time ago, deciding he would fight for everything but me. That is the only way. We are pawns, a distraction in the midst of a chaotic world.

Even though my eyes are shut, I know Luca well enough to guess what he is doing. His hands are probably clasped tightly around the gun with one finger poised over the trigger. Eyes closed, tears pushing at his eyelids, and nerves crawling through his body. I am sure that he is bouncing his right leg up and down because he always does that when he is nervous.

"Luca, maybe we don't have to do this. Maybe there is another way," I plead. One. Last. Time.

"You know what we have to do," he responds sharply, cutting the hope still lingering in my heart. His voice is the sound of reason, but it is completely insane that people should have to die for others to live. Society follows an incessant cycle of getting lost before being saved by people who have to sacrifice everything. What is the point? There is no perfect society, no utopia, and no place where anyone is ever safe.

"Please tell me what you told me yesterday," I request. Maybe I can do this if I hear the words we told each other just yesterday. Yesterday, when he made me feel loved but still shattered my heart into a thousand pieces, he made a promise. A promise that he is all too good at keeping.

He doesn't respond at first, giving my mind time to wander through its thoughts one last time before I lose them all.

Now, standing here, with the gun pointed toward my chest, I know that he will shoot me. The bullet will tear into my chest, making the tightly coiled fear that has settled within me shatter into a thousand fragments.

I can almost hear the argument in his mind. He wants to deny that yesterday ever happened because it makes today easier. In his mind, he knows that he shouldn't say anything, but the steady beat of our hearts is always louder than the cacophony inside our minds.

Finally, he repeats what he told me yesterday just before he made his promise to me.

"I love you," he says. One. Last. Time.

He pulls the trigger.