The scene opens to fire. We observe a single solitary flame frolicking about on the base of its wick at the whims of the four winds. In retaliation to being bullied to and fro the fire consumes precious oxygen carried forth to its combusting body by the chill fall breeze battering it about. The camera pans backward from the single flame revealing several, no, not several, hundreds of candles. Panning evermore backward the camera continues its travels and allows us even more sight revealing unto us a large group of people assembled and kneeling before the candles. A young woman dressed in the grey cloak of the Placebo Youth stands before this crowd assembled, she gazes upon them as a conductor would an orchestra. She strikes at the air with her fist inciting those about her to chant with each fist that strikes the heavens.
PRAISE THE PROPHET COSMOS!
PRAISE THE PROPHET COSMOS!
PRAISE THE PROPHET COSMOS!
They speak in perfect unison as if they were the same person calling forth the breath of a hundred lungs to let loose an equal quantity of voices upon the earth. Their voices, although reverent, ring loud with conviction and honesty. The girl ceases her assault on the sky forcing those gathered here today to still their chants. She calls upon the utility of her own vocal cords.
Rebecca
Lift him up to the Omega!
A fist crashes against oxygen.
LIFT HIM UP TO THE OMEGA!
Fist.
LIFT HIM UP TO THE OMEGA!
Our point of view becomes mobile. By the power of the chants emanating from the crowd assembled here today under the conduct of this young woman we are granted flight! Our view skyrockets into the very heavens to which Ms. Rebecca, a senior member of the Placebo Youth, is still assailing.
LIFT HIM UP TO THE OMEGA!
Although Rebecca’s fist still clashes against her intangible foe our capacity to hear the cries of those she commands dims as we distance ourselves from the event. Our focus is now on our continued travels upward. Our eyes are advancing upwards along the outside of a vast stone structure. Several flights have past but we are not moving so quickly as to not notice the renaissance era architecture to which this construct had been styled.
Rebecca
Praise the Prophet Cosmos!
PRAISE THE PROPHET COSMOS!
With the sounds of those gathered below barely audible the camera ceases its upwards trek settling on a large half opened window. Framed by the window’s architecture and partially veiled by a simple curtain we catch a glimpse of Erica eavesdropping on the goings on outside her portal to the world. Turning her back on the collective devout the former Minioness, dressed in her satin red nightgown travels through an elongated hallway decorated with flowing drapes in the primary colors of the Doctor’s homeland; Andorra. Encountering a Minion of Placebo’s Erica speaks in a commanding voice.
Erica
”Tell me where he is, NOW.”
Minion 45
My Mistress, the Omega is in the Catacombs.
She does not thank him nor does she even regard him for an instant. Like most Minions this creature is as she was once. It is devoid of all ambition, completely subservient to the Doctor’s and her commands. You can see it in their eyes, empty, without life, like looking into the dull eyes of a Great White Shark. Whatever once thrived behind those eyes has long since died and been replaced with this servant quality. Through torture, drugs, or subliminal suggestion, it mattered not. The results were the same. Occasionally a Minion came around that was able to restructure a personality and a will of their own as she did, but this was not such a case and as such she strode past this creature and entered a large elevator with due haste.
*Ping!*
5
*Ping!*
4
*Ping!*
3
Erica
”Whatever that fucker’s doing it better be important...”
*Ping!*
2
*Ping!*
1
The elevator continues its decent despite failing to announce Erica’s arrival at any floors below the first floor. After a few seconds of silence and gritting feminine teeth the silence is broken by a trivial chime.
*Ping!*
Wasting no time Erica steps out of the elevator the moment the sliding metal doors allow her to continue onward. Unlike the hallway constructed to elegant standards she had just been waltzing through moments prior this walkway is of a far more ominous variety. The “hallway” which Erica now travels is actually more akin to a coal mine than part of the Cathedral. Its stone walls and floors are the refuge of dark shadows as there is little light to cast them out through this underground passage. The only sources of luminance appear to be the occasional hanging bare light bulb, some flicker, in these rare instances this brings about forth a near complete intermittent darkness.
Erica
”PLACEBO! ANSWER ME!”
“Are you there god, it’s me, Cosmos?”
Erica
”Doc?”
Erica breaks into a run, her bare feet scrape against an earthy mixture of cold stone and dirt.
…pat pat pat pat pat pat pat…
“Well, god, how can I be expected to raise my hand against you?”
”How can I even appear to possibly oppose you?”
The voice grows in volume. Erica begins to run harder…
…Pat Pat Pat Pat Pat Pat Pat…
”…if I can’t trust that what I am seeing is real?”
PAT!PAT!PAT!PAT!PAT!PAT!PAT!PAT!PAT!PAT!PAT!
“Why have you forsaken me God?”
Her feet are bleeding and torn. Bits of earth and shards of rock sting at her lacerations and garnish her toes in crimson. Standing still, Erica is now within a great hall of hewn stone. Dark and menacing this hall is nothing akin to the theater turned Cathedral to which we bore witness one week prior. Here, before her, stands Doc Placebo, staring into a large screen. His eyes fixated as if he were a lifeless minion himself. In one hand Placebo grips his signature Spanish Rapier, those with keen long term memories would remember the blade. His vision organs are locked on the screen and the Image of the late Kevin Cosmos; it is locked in a loop.
“I am forsaken…”
“I am forsaken…”
“I am forsaken…”
Erica
”STOP!”
Her voice roars! It climbs to compete with the thundering voice no longer claiming residence on this side of the river Sytx. Whether it is the Omega Sin or the Ferryman Charon who silences Kevin Cosmos’ repetition the equation remains the same. X=Silence. The cavern falls still. Placebo turns to face Erica, his eyes bloodshot from hours of television; he speaks with the voice that commands.
Doc Placebo
”Get OUT.”
Erica
”No.”
Furious. Placebo drops his elegant sword, his hand hurts from clutching it. In several quick strides the Andorran native is upon her. His open hand slap to her face echoes in the quiet, a blood smear is left on her cheek as Placebo realizes he has failed to notice he had been fiercely gripping the swords unsheathed blade. Unfazed Erica repeats herself.
Erica
”No.”
Erica
”I will not go, you are destroying yourself.”
Doc Placebo
”I am destroying myself? ME? No, not I, Cosmos beat me to it...”
Erica
”Not your fault.”
Doc Placebo
”Didn’t you hear him? He was calling out to ME!”
Doc Placebo
”Erica... he was talking to me, holding a FUCKING CONVERSATION!”
Erica
”Yes… how… how are we seeing this?”
Doc Placebo
”Hm? Oh, we had his house bugged. The Kovenant had many enemies. We anticipated our new group, the Illuminati, would wield the same caliber.”
Doc Placebo
”Don’t you see? Kevin Cosmos… Eric Masterson… NATAS… they brought me INTO the Kovenant.”
Doc Placebo
”I was nothing then, knew nothing of my potential, of my destiny… just the lowly UWA TV Champion.”
Doc Placebo
”It was a debt I never repaid, can never...”
He pauses. Brushing his hand against her face, not rough, not with malice as when he had struck her, no. Now he caresses her, tending to the wound he wrought against her in his grief. It was but a carless slip, he was lost in the moment, but it IS a mistake that can no longer be tolerated within him. He removes some of the blood marking her face from his wounded hand, it’s finally starting to sting as his thoughts remove themselves from the business of the past and settle in the here and now.
Erica
”I know… I know…”
Doc Placebo
”How many more have a failed? Where is Mikey Hell, Judas, Rilo Even.
Erica
”Those outside… they need you now.”
Doc Placebo
”No…that’s the Placebo Youth’s job. I teach the Youth, the Youth teaches the world. It’s the way things should be, the world must listen to its offspring, I am just… a passing voice.”
Erica
”You can’t keep watching this...”
Doc Placebo
”I’m tired, so tired of this rotting carcass. We call it America, land of the FREE, where those fled so many years ago fleeing religious persecution only to find it in the land of the golden brick road.”
Doc Placebo
”We should have all just stayed home… after all, according to Dorothy…”
Erica
”… there is no place like it.”
Erica
”… you need to rest. NEW can wait.”
Placebo shoots her a demanding look.
Doc Placebo
”WAIT? Oh that’s rich. Wait. That’s all they do. WAIT!”
The Doctor becomes aware that blood has been dripping from the cuts in his palm during the course of this conversation and clinches a fist. A small amount of precious red hemoglobin gushes through his fingers flood waters cresting over a small dam.
Doc Placebo
”Silence, once more from my opponents. Probably waiting till I’ve said my piece. Hiding. Making sure it’s safe to come out.”
Doc Placebo
”Can each of them be tongue tied? Can’t find the words? They should try Websters, I hear he has a few.”
Doc Placebo
”But that’s fine, Cosmos is gone, but I’ll be at Bloodzone, it’s only fitting as so much Blood has been spilt, I must follow it.”
Erica
”Doc... get out now, they don’t matter, we have all this.”
Glancing downward, crestfallen, the Doctor’s gaze shifts to Erica’s bare, torn, wounded feet. His mind wanders, not dwelling on the feet, but the blood. Events spin throughout his mind, contingencies are plotted, advances made, defenses set. His eyes revert back to her gaze and with his mind clear he states a fact.
Doc Placebo
”You’re right, they don’t matter, I don’t matter, the message. It’s all that matters..”
Doc Placebo
”And I’m going to beat that message into them this week.
Leaving the cavern together the Doctor and Erica make their way back towards the upper levels of Placebo’s domain. We remain here, with in the cave, surrounded by the darkness which is only penetrated by the light given by the command of the image of one Kevin Cosmos. The scene dissolves to the antithesis of darkness and is absorbed by an unnatural white light. Piece by piece of the Cosmos is consumed until none remains but the memories we hold and the truths we keep locked in our hearts away from our conscious minds. As the scene is completely engulfed in light we bid the galaxy adieu.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
-Hamlet
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