I stay awake until the stars
     have melted from the sky.
The moon attacked lies dead above.
     A sight to horrify.
Yolanda lays in state of rest,
     fatigued from conversation.
The weight at last now lifted,
     leaves the girl in calm sedation.

Yet myself I feel belligerent;
     taut and ill at ease.
Her explanations anger me,
     which spreads like rife disease.
That man, her father, riles me so.
     he drowned his kin in shame.
And set his daughter up to fail.
     With him lies bulk of blame.

So now a plan we need to hatch;
     a way to change our course.
Shutdown his laboratory!
     Destroying evil's source.
No more commands to raise the dead;
     we'll leave them there to rest.
Frozen in forever,
     amid a peace that's surely best.

A hint of sun peeks over sill.
     Good morning oldest friend.
At least they didn't damage you
     I dare not comprehend.
Our source of light and warmth betrayed?
     It doesn't bear to think.
Without it cold and desolate.
     How far our world could sink.

A tiny bird lands close to me
     and sings straight from his heart.
His plumage iridescent
     as the day begins to start.
A second joins the solo
     and the pair a chorus make.
Their song the sweetest symphony,
     that makes my embers ache.

Yolanda stirs. She looks at me
     with tired weary eyes.
The cobalt colour dances
     as the star pursues its rise.
"Good Morning!" Words that seem so trite.
     Mayhap she feels it too.
Her smile serves to rescue me
     and fires my heart anew.

"Today we find your memories"
     the smile doesn't fade.
Assaulting fears and darkness
     in tumultuous tirade.
The birds take flight and over head
     the fluttering of wings
personifies my beating heart,
     that in my ear rings.

Once again that simper,
     so infectious yet demure,
never once deceived her true intent:
     that heart I know so pure.
Is it love that rattles me?
     Or is it something more?
This transcendental feeling
     that now courts my very core.

She jumps to feet, those mismatched legs,
     a charm I'd ne'er have guessed,
stride the gap between us
     and she holds me chest to chest.
That warmth I feel I didn't sense before,
     not one she bears.
The embers flare inside of me;
     a fire I know she shares.

"I wondered if you'd leave me?"
     she speaks with lips against my neck.
And looking down I lift her chin,
     as if her face I need to check.
"Pray tell me, just where would I go,
     without my body guard?"
She smiles as eyes grow wider
     casting cares without regard.

And then her lips are touching mine.
     A real warmth is there.
A tender sign of complex love;
     the tapestry we share.
My hand extends towards her nape
     and there she rests her head.
I kiss her beauty once again:
     alive in land of dead.

This feeling so familiar,
     this love that blooms inside.
A giant oak in meadow flat,
     that nature ne'er could hide.
And when we part I feel cut-off,
     disjointed, incomplete.
Her flavour still upon my lips,
     so heavenly and sweet.

But now her words return to me,
     I make contrite confession.
"Bertholdt took my key from me,"
     I say with blank expression.
In second short she answers me,
     far quicker than expected.
"I know" she says and kisses me;
     a truth I ne'er suspected.

"It's time we paid a visit
     to the Red Cell CEO."
I frown in odd confusion.
     Where does she intend to go?
"Red Cell?" Just who does she mean?
     I've heard that name before.
And then it all comes back to me,
     the opposition in war.

Veraksys fought with Red Cell
     in a war for many years.
To control our very future
     and to quell our mortal fears.
One fixed on biology,
     the other on machines.
Mutilating hopes
     and destroying peoples dreams.

They failed to see their battle
     indirectly caused the fall.
Their drive to win the curing
     never mattered after all.
My thoughts conclude in moment short
     but who is left alive?
Another soul survived;
     in land of dead they learned to thrive.

Y is boiling water now,
     from pot escapes the steam.
The silver paints a picture
     of surroundings; bright, agleam.
She looks up as she tends to fire.
     "You've met him once before."
And then a darkness finds me
     and invades my very core.

"Bertholdt?" now I question.
     "No it cannot be, he's dead!"
I saw his curt demise.
     I saw the blade besiege his head.
"You killed him!" Did I see it right?
     My mind in state of dream.
Remembering the blackout
     and the absent ruby stream.

She watches me, I feel it,
     deep inside she senses thought.
The turning of the cogs
     as the enigma's key is sought.
"A machine?" I ask quite tentative,
     perhaps my answer wrong.
Though fitting would solution be,
     to this world he could belong.

"Yes" she answers packing sack,
     "His mind was stored elsewhere"
It puzzles me: his presence,
     if he wasn't even there.
I thought that voice an echo,
     that I heard upon his death;
an audible illusion
     that require not his death.

"I was fooled," I say. "I thought him real".
     I thought he was alive.
"You were meant to", comes her answer:
     his intention to connive.
"They were built as our replacements.
     To serve our every need."
It seems once more with feeling,
     I perceive our nation's greed.

She tells me of his secrecy,
     that his origin and roots,
are shrouded in a mystery,
     that a mad dictator suits.
An artificial presence
     exploded in a rage.
With promises and power,
     put across on perfect stage.

Yet now he roams the scorchèd Earth,
     his cause became his thrall.
His meteoric rise
     was then reflected in the fall.
A celebrity who had it all,
     who was once so altruistic,
pursued his plan with vigour
     and arrived at narcissistic.

The sun begins to blaze anew,
     and shadows lengths reduce.
The threads of fate blow in the breeze,
     untethered, long and loose.
And mine still floats in bristled air
     avoiding edge of knife.
She Yolanda once again risked hers
     to save my life.

"Thank you." words so short and brief
     that often can't express,
the hidden depth of gratitude
     our very souls possess.
"For what," she says, "you'd do the same."
     Perhaps the queen is right.
For any life I'd strive to save;
     to death I'd take the right.

In eye's extent I catch a sight,
     a slow unconscious rise.
A movement unexpected. Nay!
     Unwanted: a surprise!
The figure's head and shoulders,
     slowly into view they creep.
Silent as a lamb
     behind the mounds of bodies steep.

An age doth pass until I see
     the weapon brandished there.
It petrifies my frame
     and leaves me locked in stupor's stare.
'Tis then I see another
     and another and yet more.
The hours of the clock encircle us
     equipped for war.

3 o'clock all clad in black
     an arm above his head.
His palm is flat and faces me
     en-clothed in glove of red.
Surrounded now, Yolanda sees,
     how grim our situation.
In moments we'll be dead for sure,
     my only contemplation.

"Surrender!" comes synthetic voice.
     "Surrender or we'll fire!"
My eyes are fixed upon the girl,
     then to the deadly choir.
The tension mounds, the cobra coiled,
     prepares on prey to pounce.
But Yolanda isn't moving.
     Unprepared to yield an ounce?

"The Reapers?" question stated
     during which I feel lips curl.
The bane of her existence.
     The foe against the girl.
Throughout our conversation,
     they were never once discussed.
Yet now their purpose quite exposed,
     for Yolanda's blood they lust.

"Soulless one!" the voice commands,
     "Kneel and yield to fate!"
With vigour said, such passion,
     that her death will somehow sate.
She looks at me with tears aflow.
     "I'm sorry Xav, they're right!"
What happened to bewitch her so.
     How dare she throw the fight.

Her act seems so incredulous.
     I see her sink to knees.
Despair has overtaken her:
     a virulent disease.
She weeps and weeps. I stand in awe.
     What is it here transpires?
What fuels her drive to self destruct?
     What burns if fears fires.

3 O'clock now closes in,
     his hands awash with blood.
One foot follows other
     in a highly practised scud.
A handgun drawn, it glints in sun,
     that beats the graveyard's back.
The warmth no consolation
     for the Reaper's shock attack.

"The charge we bring against you,
     though in part I think you know,
is impersonating man."
     the words synthetic, soft and slow.
The figure reaches for the mask
     that hides face concealed
and tugs it quickly upwards
     as uniqueness is revealed.

His hair falls to his shoulders.
     Not straight, but tussled curls.
And shining through his lips
     a set of brightly gleaming pearls.
The serpent flicks between the gates
     and licks his words of hate.
Savouring abhorrence,
     like a glutton overweight.

The agent sneers and raises gun.
     Against her head he aims.
The broken corpse already hanged,
     her character in flames.
"There is no place on Earth for you.
     I'll try to make it quick."
Then pulls the mighty trigger
     which complies with deafening click.