User blog:KingDaedalus/Atlas Park: The War - Issue Ten

Event
Dae is not granted the right of a lawyer. It is a right limited to the rich and the powerful. His fate is decided from the moment he walks through the courtroom doors. Had he looked to the floor rather than the judge's eyes, there would likely not have been a trial at all. That is how things go in Atlas Park.

"My name is Allen, I will be your judge. You, Dae, of no last name stand accused of countless acts of murder in the first degree, of the destruction of public property with the intent to kill, of vandalism of private property, of carrying a concealed weapon, of evading the law, of- I could go on. I won't." The judge sets down his stack of papers and devotes his gaze to Dae. "How do you plead?"

Dae looks around. The room is filled with people he doesn't recognize. Reporters, officers, crying citizens. It dawns upon him that he has no friends in this place. But then, he came here knowing that. He has never felt so much like a carcass being picked clean by vultures more than now. "Your honor, I plead innocent of all charges."

The gasps are quick and sharp. Some people are unsurprised. Most are.

"Very well. Do we have any witnesses?"

The room is quiet, in waiting.

Footsteps march up to the stand, growing ever so much louder as they near it.

It is Blebbeh.

When she takes a seat, she immediately throws her feet onto the podium.

The judge looks at her. "Well?"

"I have seen this man commit every act you have spoken of more than once. He is a wolf in sheep's skin."

Dae stands up. "Blebbeh, what-"

"Sit down!" The judge booms.

Blebbeh continues. "He is quick. He is unmerciful. He is murderous."

Now, Dae is more disappointed than angry. He doesn't stand. "Why?"

Blebbeh looks at him and smirks.

Is he hallucinating? Did she just wink at him?

"That is all." She steps down and leaves.

Another person comes up after her. A man Dae has never seen before.

He seems nervous. His fingers twitch and dance restlessy. He looks like he doesn't want to be here. He pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket and clears his throat. "I have seen him kill, for sure."

He leaves.

Wrait follows with more incriminating comments. As does a strange girl, and Wrait's old partner, Proc.

The decision is made without a jury. As always.

He is judged guilty and sentenced to death.

Three weeks earlier...

Blebbeh walks out of the hospital room. She thinks about waiting on Wrait to leave, but decides against it. Instead, she walks past a painfully long row of identical doors, past an old lady in an officer's uniform, struggling with a vending machine, past an oblivious receptionist, and out of the doors of the hospital.

She spreads her black wings in the form of a raven, perching herself on a billboard walk, a short distance from the hospital. Then, she goes back into her human form.

Looking down at the world, a hundred feet below her, she breathes a sigh of contemplation.

Only a few minutes after she settles in, a blaring siren slices through the air. An ambulance screams into the lot and stops in front of the emergeny room entry way.

As physicians and nurses scramble to unload the passenger, Blebbeh can't help but feel like the man on the gurney is familiar. Something about his unkempt hair, his ruined suit, his pale skin, and his twitching fingers, visible even from her viewpoint. Then she remembers.

That is her brother.

---

Vale has been walking on the streets for a long time. He watches the sun rise from the East and listens to the songbirds twitter to the breeze.

He decides to let Bleb find him, because eventually, she always does.

A car speeding down the road like a loose cannonball collides with him, sending him into the air and back onto the pavement with a force.

He remembers little. Red and blue lights. Blurred figures. A trauma center.

He swears he sees Blebbeh standing over him as he is rushed to the operating table.

Then blackness consumes him.

---

'This issue is only halfway done. It will be finished as soon as possible.'