“Shut up!” Aizel snapped.
The president raised his own gun and pointed it right at me, and even though I knew that he wouldn’t pull the trigger, I felt the weight of it bearing down on me all the same.
“I don’t suppose the weapon is active?” he asked maliciously.
“Nope.” I looked at him firmly, strong and unwavering, and yet nervous and scared.
He raised the gun just a little higher. “Activate it.”
“Your threats won’t work on me!” I responded.
He just smiled. “No, I guess they won’t.” And then he turned and shot Aizel in the leg.
The bullet swept right through followed by an explosive burst of Aizel’s blood, and he screamed and fell to his knees.
Lace’s eyes drifted up to me again. “Now, Mrs Abigail, the code.”
“Don’t do it Abigail!” Aizel screamed, before the gun went off again and I thought he had been killed. The bullet pierced his other leg, followed by even more blood and louder screams.
Stop, I thought. Stop it! Please! Don’t kill him!
Lace pressed the gun against Aizel skull and looked at me with death in his eyes. “The next bullet will kill him. Enter the code into the terminal!”
I felt a tear drip heavily down my cheek. I didn’t move and inch, and all I could do was shake my head.
Lace pressed the weapon harder against Aizel skull and cocked back the hammer. That was when I finally broke.
“Alright!” I shouted. “I’ll do it… I’ll… I’ll enter the code.”
So I turned around and put my hands over the terminal. The screen was asking me for the access code, and so I took a very deep breath. 6… I punched the number in. 5… 7… 3…
I heard Aizel’s voice behind me, shattered by pain and regret. “Abigail, you don’t have to do this…”
4… 5… 3… 2…
I found myself in that instance thinking of my father, and how I never got to say goodbye to him. I was just so happy and so eternally grateful that on the very last day I had seen him, on that day he had gone to work just like every other day, he smiled me at, and the very last thing I saw of him was his smile.
7… 7… 1… 0…
I wondered if I would ever get to see my mother again, to tell her that everything would be alright, and to comfort her once again. I guess not. After I put the code in, Lace would try to arrest me and lock me up in a cell for the rest of my days as a prisoner of the state.
2… 1… 6… 9…
This was it… only four numbers to go, and then it would all be over. Everything. I went to punch in the next numbers and seal everyone’s fate, but then I heard Aizel’s gentle voice again. I suppose he was going to tell me not to do it, but that wasn’t going to change anything.
“Abigail. Jeannette, look at me,” he said.
I turned around, hardly able to bear the thought of seeing him like this, but when I looked upon his face, he was smiling. Aizel’s incredibly green eyes were full of tears and he was smiling.
“I’m so sorry, Abigail.”
Within my next breath I watched helplessly as he reached for Lace’s hand and pulled the trigger on the gun, and just like that, Aizel was dead. The gun flashed, the bullet tore through his skull, and his body collapsed to the ground – one final sacrifice for his country.
When I saw it I felt my heart stop. “No!” I screamed with an inhuman voice full of pain and tears.
Lace’s men raised their weapons but they were ordered to stop. “Do not shoot her!” he commanded. “Abigail, you have nowhere to go.”
The window! I pulled the gun from the back of my pants, swung it around and fired it twice into the glass, which cracked and then shattered like diamond snowflakes.
“She’s going to jump!” I heard Lace cry out. “Stop her!”
But it was too late for them, and I was already running as fast as I could, until I pressed by foot against the edge of the window, and threw myself out of the building.
Falling was an incredible thing. It was so exhilarating and comforting to feel so free, and yet you’re terrified to know that sooner or later you would have to come to terms with the ground. I guess nothing good ever lasts forever.
As I was falling, for the few seconds that I plummeted down through the air, I felt so incredibly free, and for those few seconds it had not yet grasped me that Aizel was dead, that Brakewater was dead, that the professor was dead, and that my father was dead. For those few seconds I was completely empty of all my burdens.
And then my body plunged into the cold waters of the river below, and as I glared up at the rays of sun that streaked through the surface of the water, I could feel myself sinking. The truth of what had happened had finally struck me. Aizel was dead, and I had fallen.
ns 172.70.126.150da2