We're all in this virtual space together.
Yildun

You grit your teeth and bear the pain as you have done so manytimes before. You clench your fists, nails biting into your palms to doanything to take your mind off of literally being torn apart. As you suspectedit doesn’t help but you continue the action anyway.

After what feels like millennia to you, you are finally able tostep out of the twisting vortex like portal, and the shield disappears havingperformed its last action to either help or harm you. You want to feel its lossbut you can feel nothing but emptiness and betrayal. You have nothing left butyourself, and it is like the first time you woke up in this hellish place.

You blink your eyes blearily, and look around you. The pallidtwins stand before you, the somber one garbed in all black, a leather glove onthe hand not holding her twins, and the coquettish one clothed in all white,her unheld hand covered with silk. Their expressions seem similar, yet polaropposite.

What do you do?

Talitha cackledmaniacally, and turned to face Myos before the other man had even hit the ground.Without a second thought, he released the armor that protected him and dove tocatch Zeke. Myos leaned over him, wondering how such a small wound and solittle blood could take the best friend he ever had in his life. His rustyfringe brushed the others face, and Myos closed the now dead man’s emerald eyes- a color so similar to his own, now lifeless beneath him.

“Pathetic isn’t he?” TheEmpress giggled, covering her cupid pink lips with the tips of her fingers. “Hedid everything I asked...leading you all here, gaining your trust, informing meof your actions along the way, just so he could rule with me,” she laughedagain, this time harsh and cruel. “As if I would ever let that pig of a maneven touch my throne.” Myos was frozen in the shock of the moment, unable to doanything but listen to the crazed woman and cradle his former friend. “Did youknow I’ve ruled over this colony since it was on Earth? I don’t look it, do I?”She twirled around like a little girl showing off a new summer dress, twistingand turning a lock of her pigtail between her slender fingers. “Several hundredyears old...but it’s all worth it. Technology has come far, hasn’t it? Imagineif I looked my age! I’d just drop dead, wouldn’t I?” Talitha giggled again,turning to one of the many reflective walls to fix her appearance. LikeNarcissus drawn to the pond, she couldn’t help but look at herself. Myos wasdisgusted.

“Why? Why would you doall of this...you have everything, why try to take everything away fromhumanity? Free will is a basic right,” Myos spat, gritting his teeth andtensing his jaw as if he were going to lash out like a hungry wolf.

“I’ve been doing itslowly over the years...or hadn’t you noticed? I thought you were intelligentmy little hero,” the Empress purred, fluttering her long lashes, “complacencykills, dear boy. With nothing to do, nothing to improve, humans just sit aroundand stay stagnant. Necessity is the mother of invention, and if I provideeverything then you silly lambs don’t need to think on your own. I just finallygot around to really making all of you my pretty dolls.” She clasped her handsin front of her, looking like a kid in a candy house. “And once you’re gone Ican finally do that, can’t I?”

“You think this will endwith me?” Myos set the other man down gently, placing him as if he were onlysleeping, before the redhead stood up tall, shoulders back and staring thewoman down. “I started a revolution, people will hear about this, word willspread of what I tried...what YOU tried to do. I’ll be a martyr, a hero. I’llhave died for a just cause and you’ll be a villain. I’ve already incepted the idea;it just has to be carried out.”

“What idea? I’ll juststrike all of you down until you learn to keep your mouths shut,” Talithasnapped, her innocent persona gone and replaced with a more dangerous one, likethat of an Amazonian.

“You can’t restrain anidea with idol threats, your majesty,” Myos snapped. “Once something startscreeping in your mind, you won’t just bite your tongue to keep silent. Thepromise of death or torture won’t fucking stop this thing and it travels fromear to ear in these closed in walls you shut us in,” he began to take powerfulsteps closer to her, punctuating each new thought, “we WILL revolt because YOUcan’t tell us not to raise our fists in anger and the way you’ve treated us.You can’t censor it either, we won’t write it down, it’ll just EXIST and festerin the virtual space of the mind,” Myos got the crazed, feverish look in hiseyes as he filled himself with the power of his own words. “You can NOT tellanarchy to stop in its tracks, when its feet only exist in the minds of theoppressed. There is a force out there, greater than your stupid brainwashing,greater than just you or me or anybody, greater than your empty lies of solaceand comfort.”

Myos had the powerfulwoman backed into a corner; the Empress so entranced by the rhythmic force ofthe young man’s words, hadn’t realized that her slender frame was now pressedagainst the wall with a tight hand wrapped around her throat. “You could tryall night to kill me...but you could never stop the stars from shining.”

Then he squeezed untilthe small body he was holding turned limp under his hand.