Turn 20: Checkmate
December 23, 2009
11:11 P. M.
My Room, Portland, Oregon
This is where it ends. This is where my story ends.
The last few matches had gone as well to be expected, simple opponents too scared or distracted to even put up a real effort. One by one I knocked them down, six seven eight and nine all proving to be nothing more than numbers for me to scratch off the list. Who they were, why they came, what was done to them… all information that flees from my mind.
All that lingers is the visit from the final specter.
It was a cold and windy night, an appropriate setting for a visit from the beyond. I was laying in my bed, wide awake and contemplating my own inevitable departure. If my friends were right, if Jack was right, I’d be gone by tomorrow, free at last from this world of pain. Sylvester, Gary, my real parents… everyone I have ever loved would be waiting for me, probably even making the preparations for my arrival as I jot this down.
Yet there still remains one final encounter that I need to record. The moment of revelation and epiphany, where the lightning bulb turns on and all the dots seem to connect together.
Except it wasn’t artificial, but natural light that filled my bedroom this last night.
A soft orange glow, one that matched my blood hungry eyes, filled the bed room and slowly began to illuminate the details that surrounded me. Since there was no autonomous way to do it, someone must have come to light my fireplace. Since it was my last night alive, I expected it to be Sherry or Pierre, still lounging about and getting me to my appointments on time.
It was neither, though the figure wasn’t entirely foreign to me either. As my eyes adjusted to the new source of light I found a man in a white armored trench coat of what appeared to be dragon scales standing by the yule logs, hands holding a photograph of my wife and I on our wedding day. He was a tall man, with short cropped brown hair well suited for a business man, but the way his pointed shoulders arched hinted at an inability to relax. His presence was intense and heavy, the room around him seeming all the melancholier for his arrival.
That should be expected, for when the man turned around I saw a face that matched mine, save that his eyes shone an unnatural Blue. The voice, free of the weakness that plagued me for years though lacking in at least some of the love I acquired, was otherwise my own.
“Hmph. I can see why you married her, Seth. Though, my wife still happens to be more beautiful than yours.”
Given the penchant for nightly visitors, I never really let go of the habit of wearing pajamas to bed. With no embarrassment I threw my legs out from under the sheets, the fabric fluttering a bit as it hung loosely on my thin body, as I commented
“Seto Sears or Seto Kaiba? Which one are you?”
“Seto Sears. Kaiba couldn’t amount any pity for you.”
“You could?”
“No. I was simply ordered to do it in his place.”
Turning about even more, thankfully setting my photo back first, Seto Sears certainly seemed like the man I was destined to become, or the man I could have been in this life if fate and circumstance had changed a few check boxes. The man was not only a few inches taller, but he was no stick like I was; while not buff enough to be a football player or anything, it was certain that he was stronger than your average man. A regular George Washington, or the closest I could imagine him resembling.
“So.” I asked. “What does Mr. Marley have to tell an old scrooge like me? You already know I’m going to die tomorrow.”
“I do. Which is why I’m here; to fulfill Jack’s word. I’m to tell you anything you wish to know before you depart.”
“Isn’t that kind of useless? No way I can change my life in a day.”
“Prophets and leaders say the same before they die, yet their words are recorded in scriptures and text books. The lesson isn’t always for the benefit of the protagonist, but those who come after him.”
Only reason why I’m recording this all in a journal. Pulling myself out of bed, stretching my limbs as I realized that there would be no sleep for me, I walked over to a chair near the fire place and took my seat as I invited “You can sit down you know. What’s mine is clearly yours.”
“Yeah, no. Even if you looked up to me, I’m not your friend Seth. Just because we’re personas doesn’t mean we’re family.”
A bit rude, or at least more than I was expecting him to be. Is this what I used to be like to others?
“I don’t recall doing anything to pist you off. Never used your name in vain or did anything to dishonor you. Shouldn’t you feel pride in what I’ve accomplished in the name of Kaiba?”
My doppelganger, or perhaps progenitor, spat into the fire place and caused the flames to temporarily rise with might. “Some people love having acolytes who live out their entire lives in worship of them. Some are indifferent, neither for or against the system. I fall into the third category; even if you aren’t mocking me, it feels like a joke that you find me so attractive as to copy my identity instead of developing your own from scratch.
“You remind me an Elvis Presley impersonator in Vegas, or an actor in a biographical film. Even if you are your own person, you are so intertwined with mine that whatever you do now will eventually come back to me... and trust me. We have some issues to work out before you go.”
I could only assume we would. “Such as?”
Seto Sears removed a glove and revealed a perfectly clean hand, one free of scar and blemish to take a phrase from the Old testament. “I’ve had some odd ducks try to be me. I don’t even want to mention the moron who thought dyeing his hair green and becoming a poker champion was a good idea; I thought he was the worst weirdo I would have to confront before I met you.
“So. What the hell. What’s up with the whole self-torture, Seth?”
“I was just a kid when my parents died. What do you expect? You can’t take away everything a child knows and expect him to come out sane for it.”
“I did. Seto Kaiba did. A hundred others who lost their parents like you did and were fine. They might not have been the greatest people, but they didn’t think that reenacting the passion of the Christ was a viable coping strategy.”
“Well, I guess I wasn’t a perfect persona now, was I? I thought you wanted individuality.”
The man actually snickered. No wonder people found me offensive. “Yeah, as long as it doesn’t involve being a douchebag. Freedom and liberty doesn’t mean doing whatever you want because you can; it’s having the right to do what is right without fear of punishment or prohibition. That you’d think otherwise is just another fallacy preached by your disgusting government.”
Ugh. This was already getting off on the wrong foot. At least this would be the last lecture I’d ever have to hear. “Okay. So be like Christ in all things, except in suffering. Anything else you want to tell me, Dad?”
“Yeah. Molly. How’d you screw that one up?”
That was to be expected. “I was trying to honor Gary’s wishes, which is one of the ten commandments.”
“Ten commandments? By Christ’s time it was understood at two; love God with all you had to offer, and love your neighbor with that same care. While Molly’s homosexuality may have caused her to violate the first commandment, you had no right to break the second.”
Hard not to get angry with the man. Especially when I knew he was right but tried to argue with him regardless. “Last time I’m checked, cutting off someone from their inheritance because they’re gay doesn’t mean I deserve to go to Hell?”
“That’s arguable, but there’s no argument in everything else you did. Calling her a fag, rejecting her calls, refusing her invitations and treating her like absolute dirt makes you guilty of the same sin of racism, sexism, and every other kind of hateful bigotry that is complete opposite of the gospel that is Christ’s. Tell me what makes
you different from the Klu Klux Klan, the MRA and the Westboro Baptist church and maybe I’ll give you at least a grain of respect.”
“… I can’t.”
Perhaps I won some after all with honesty, even if it does make me the hateful jerk here. The man moved away, looking through more photographs that adorned my otherwise small room as if thinking about what to say next, instead of beating me over the head with sins that I already tried hard enough to wipe out from my mind and soul.
It got to the point that five minutes actually passed in silence. Frowning, I leaned further into my chair as I tried to fight off sleep, complaining
“If you’re the prosecution, the judge is waiting. Normally you’re the one that needs to make the accusation.”
“Psh. I’m no judge. God and Christ alone have the rights to judge your soul… no, I’m just the man taking your confession. The second witness, the other priest to finish what Alucard began.”
“Alucard… James Moriarty. How is he doing.”
Stopping at a photo of me and Sherry taken a year before, the two of us hard at work on a Centurion suit, the man couldn’t help but flash a snicker. “Fine. Do you still hate him?”
“I don’t hate him.”
“Oh?” Seto replied, so self-assured in his ability to read me. He might have made a mistake. “The man killed your parents, your sister, your godfather, your wife, and everyone else you have ever loved. Even now I see your face contort, your eyes glinting with anger and rage at the man who stole everything from you.”
“Then I know you’ve made an error. This isn’t hate; this is indifference.”
Seto actually scoffed. That might be the only time in my life I felt it was appropriate to use that word. “Indifference? No one mixes indifference with passion. Indifference is the result of a man who mildly annoys you; not one who has been so involved and manipulative in your life.”
“And yet I think of Alucard with nothing more than that. My life could have gone in any direction without him… and for the most part I’m happy now with how my life ends. He killed my parents, but I got Gary. He killed Gary, but I got Products for Patriots and Sylvester. He killed Sylvester, but I got Sherry. He may have killed Molly, but he promised me death in return. The lord giveith, the lord taketh away… Alucard has simply done the same, without ever proving to be more of a blessing or a curse.”
So the cold man was slowly changing opinion, looking at me now without disdain but rather a raised eyebrow. “… very well. Perhaps you’ve done something that no one else has.
“But this is a confession, and a lesson. What do you want to know, Seth… perhaps in my disdain I forgot I’m supposed to actually teach you something.”
“… Am I damned? Have I lost my soul already?”
“Hmph. Always that question, isn’t it… no. You are not. While I may not have let you into heaven, your savior is far more gracious than I am. I imagine you’ll get in fine, even if you are a bit of a prick.”
“… and Sylvester? Is she there as well or… in…”
“Sylvester is in Heaven, or whatever that’s supposed to mean. She may have nearly destroyed the entire time space continuum at the end, but she did it with good intentions. We’re expected to live as best we can to the creeds that we adopt, and in the end Sylvester did that.”
“… and my p-”
“If you ask one more question about who’s been sent to Heaven or Hell, Seth, I’ll blow your brains out and let you figure it out yourself. I didn’t come here to be St. Peter; not like I have to do enough of his dam work anyway.” Seto grumbled, folding his arms as he leaned once more against the fireplace. Surprised he wasn’t cooking in that outfit.
“… So what are you? A ghost?”
“Don’t be silly. I’m just as real as you or anyone of those so called Fake Vampires out there. I’m a hundred percent flesh… even if I don’t rely on blood anymore.” The man mused, taking a photo and tossing it to me. While it wasn’t absolute proof in itself, it seemed rather convincing the moment the frame hit my hands, solid and real as could be.
“So you’re resurrected? Immortal?”
“… Kind of. Consider me like John; I can’t die or suffer pain, but because your boss Jack hasn’t closed the friggen time loop yet there’s no guarantee that I can’t be erased from existence. Unable to die, but all too aware that at any moment some moron can screw everything up and send me to the void of everlasting darkness.
“There’s a reason why I’m impatient, Seth. Volgin’s been dragging this conflict out for far too long.”
The clock range softly, already midnight as I realized I entered my final day of living. Seto, stepping over to it and checking the gears, grunted as he explained “Whoops. My mistake… we powerful dead are masters of Time instead of slaves to it. Seemed I forgot to adjust to how it flowed here… I don’t suppose you care if you lost forty-five minutes?”
“Not at all. I’m rather anxious to leave, really.”
“Well, then that makes it easy. I sense you have one final question, Seth. The one question that lingers in everyone’s mind, religious or not.”
“… what will I do, after I die?”
The man, scratching his clean shaven face that must have been touched by a razor far more useful than mine, gave the answer with such boredom that he must have said it a thousand times. A good place for me to start in terms of my other worldly education.
“You’ll start the cycle anew. You’ll find your loved one, and start a family, having more and more children on a planet of your own… you’ll raise your own society, your own people, and send them to your own Earth to test and teach them.
“Some of them will become saints, figures of inspiration to lead and save others. Some, lacking self-confidence or enamored with the stories you taught them in their youth, will become personas; Jacks and Johns, Big Bosses and Snakes, Washingtons and Caesars, Draculas and Holmes and Moriarties and Supermans and all other sorts of heroes and figures that you’ll recall from folk lore from your time here.
“Some will betray you. Some will revile you, spite you, commit the same sins and atrocities in your own life or worst ones in the name of pleasure, self-gratification, and obedience to that monster Volgin…and you will continue to fight for them, to plea for them to come back to the light, and yadda yadda yadda.
“There is no such thing as fiction, Seth. Fiction is just stories that are either so happy or so dark that we refuse to believe that they happen… but today’s fiction may be your reality when the sun dawns tomorrow, Seth. Heaven knows the Times thought of enough cruel ways to spite my every moment.
“But you’ll figure it out. Even if I hate what you’ve done and who you decided to be… I can relate to the comfort in knowing that you’ve lived in such a way as to teach you how to beat any foe you face. Farewell, Seth… hopefully we can meet on better terms next time.”
There was no portal, no smoke or even pillar of light as might to be expected from such a heavenly messenger. I simply blinked and he was gone, the fire roaring and pictures unsettled as evidence to his visit but otherwise untouched from his brief time here. The clock, 12:01, continued to tick down my eventual death as I lived the last day of my life…
Yet there was still one final thing to take care of, a note upon the hour hand. Moving to my mechanical gizmo, a creation I had built myself during my apprenticeship to Gary, I lifted the sticky yellow tab from my creation as I saw, in writing that matched my own, the last and final command.
“By the way, now would be a good time to collect your thoughts and record your story. Sherry hired a guy by the name of Anthony J. to abridge and edit your tale into one that can be used to teach the rest of man. Make it something worth reading.
“Seto Sears.”
That is how my story ends, the reason why you have this now. The next twelve hours, all the way to noon, I simply sat down and wrote in an old mole skin journal all that I have seen, felt and heard s
ince the day my doctor told me I was doomed to die. My tragedy, my triumph, my lust for death and the loss of life… all that is worth mentioning of my time here on this Earth is now in the hands of this Mr. Johnson.
The second I ink this work is the second that clock stuck noon. How long I have left to live is unknown; what will happen to me now, when I close this journal, if not left to me.
So it’s only fitting that I close this story with a sort of testimony, right? With some kind of analogy, life lesson or account that can be used to change the way you see the world… and now, as I ponder everything I’ve seen and done, I don’t know what to say.
Maybe you know everything about vampires. Maybe you know how my wife really died, or who Alucard is, or any number of things about the world I’ve only flirted with. Maybe that skunk James Moriarty is dead now, along with Sherry, Pierre, Niya and everyone else I’ve come to know… or perhaps they’re all still living on, leaving me behind as ancient history. Maybe I’m just a relic, a dinosaur wiped out by the crossing into a new decade.
I don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t know if Jack or this Volgin will win, or if Jack was ever meant to become a god in the first place. Even if I’ve met angels and demons, seen wondrous things that guarantee some form of afterlife… I still wonder if I made the right choice. If I was good enough to enter into whatever Heaven exists for the righteous.
I think the only way I can end this; the only thing Seto Sears didn’t condemn me for because he still has this defect… is to swallow your pride. To enjoy the game, and stop worrying about winning it. All my life I’ve viewed my time here as me playing the whites against a player twice as smart as me in a game where, if black ties he wins. I hurt myself, exiled myself tarnished everything and everyone I’ve met all to make myself better, earn a few extra bucks or prove to my peers that I was somehow better than them. Was it worth it?
… In the end…
No. I miss Sylvester. I miss Gary. I miss Molly. I miss my parents, Pierre, Adrian, and all the other friends I had or could have had. Even now I miss Alucard, that conniving bastard, and all of the stunts and tricks he pulled. I wished I could have been wiser, nicer, and overall a better person than I have been… I wish I was more than what I was.
But there’s no time left for me to change all that. No time at all. So I guess what I’m trying to say is… forget the vampires, the cyborgs, the mysticism and even Jack. Forgot what this means about life and death, about the viruses and everything else I have to talk about. Forget all of this…
And live. Live a better life. Live by your creed while respecting others. Understand that not everyone is like you, but know that you may be right regardless. Treat others with respect and love, but have the dignity and self-worth to never compromise on what is truly valuable to you. Be a better person, a better friend, and a better hero.
I have nothing more to say than that. I’ve ran out of room. So I say farewell, reader… farewell, until the next life. Farewell until we can see each other again. I hope to have made some difference with this work, and am sad I have no time to receive your critique in order to improve it. With these final lines I sign off, hoping that it was enough.
Goodbye, and thank you. Seth Sears.
Times of Peace: Volume 1 of the side adventures to The Mercenary's Salvation Page 65
