Chapter 2: Knowledge is Power
Sitting on a balcony, a figure watches the vast plains that surround the building he confines in. The previously untouched grass being eaten by a few deer and the distant sky rolling clouds over his head into a massive orbit.
He watches as all of that slowly disappears as a construction company cuts down an apple tree. The squirrel which had been storing its food near that tree returns to find its home gone.
The figure sighs and goes to take a seat in a prepared car parked right besides the house entrance. The figure watches out the window as the vast plains becomes a mere distance to cross.
The driver shows some sentiment after seeing the sad expression on the figure's face.
"Sorry Mang. The times catch up to us old folk."
Mang nods, to then close his eyes, reminiscing of the past.
—
A plane shoots past the horizon.
Inside the plane, a young girl tugs at the shirt of her mother.
"Ma. Ma. When is daddy coming?" The young girl looks up at her with unrefusable eyes.
"When the plane lands, sweetie." The mother looks at the kid with mixed feelings and mutters, "When the plane lands."
...
As they land at their location, they enter through the gates to the terminal. They stand around for a short while, searching for someone.
Mang waves his hand, capturing the attention of the mother and daughter pair. He expressively opens his mouth, curling the corner of his lips upwards . "Hello."
The little girl sharply inhales and starts shouting while running. "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"
The mother briskly walks over emotionally and hugs Mang tightly.
"Guys, it's just been a month. Relax a little, will ya?"
The girl reveals a large smile, exposing her white teeth. "We missed you!"
The mother nods and Mang whispers, "I missed you guys, too. Devorah. Jaime." He hugs them back tightly.
They then go to walk through to the parking space, where the driver waves, smiling. They enter the car and chat with each other, catching up on their respective lives.
Driving back, Mang brings up a topic he's been wishing to bring up. "They're reconstructing the house and the land into some sort of government place."
The driver suddenly accidentally swerves the car in an unusual manner before steadying it.
"Then where are we going, papa?" The kid looks up with her innocent eyes as everyone ignores the swerve.
The mother widens her eyes and slowly answers the girl, "We might go to a new house." She looks at the passing views with a thoughtful expression.
Every passing structure, blade of grass, and man made waterway fills the eyes of the mother. Time seems to slow down as the world seems to be immeasurably colorful and beautiful. She shortly wishes to turn to her husband and describe the view of the world. Before she can turn her head, the car is struck from the side by a heavy hunk of moving steel, a truck.
The car's tail swings to the side while the front stays in place before the entire car starts spinning, traveling away from the location of impact.
…
Mang slams a door next to him open while having trouble opening his eyes. He grabs onto his dislocated shoulder and fixes it into place as he has learned. He grunts in pain.
He looks up at the corpses of his family and the driver he recognizes as an old friend. He recognizes their bloody faces and bodies.
With his mind in turmoil he quickly grabs each of them and pulls them outside of the car, making sure any possible further harm isn't done to them. He checks each of their vital signatures while calling 911.
Fortunately they were driving through an urban area at that time and so he was able to quickly get a response.
He quickly darts his eyes around. "I need an ambulance! Now! 437 Seachal Avenue!" He shuts the phone, while other people also call 911, filling in the details he missed.
His eyes completely dim out as he detects nothing from his wife. No breathing, nor any heartbeat. His hands shake as he goes to check on his daughter. His breathing gets uncontrollably heavy.
He detects some light breathing and a faint heartbeat! He almost screams out in joy before he quickly inspects the injuries to see if there's anything he can do. He sees that it seemed like she only suffered a concussion, yet he then almost vomits when he looks at her limbs. Her arms and legs were unnaturally placed.
He passes out shortly after.
…
…
…
"Huff huff huff." A man, vaguely similar to Mang, sits up on his bed. The man has a double chin, a medium sized fattened belly, and a huge unkempt beard.
The man stands up to finish his business in the bathroom and then he sighs. He picks up a cigarette, lights it up, and picks up his phone.
"Yesh." He taps the cigarette and takes a deep breath. "I'll be visiting today. Yes. Yes, alright."
He looks over to his coat rack and goes to grab his jacket. While reaching out to the door, he glances at the kitchen and disheartedly chuckles, shaking his head.
He takes a public bus to his destination, and without having any second thoughts, sits at one of the front seats.
The light in the bus came from dimmed out fluorescent lamps. The windows had some graffiti sprayed on it and the seats clearly weren't regularly cleaned.
A scrawny man with grey hair and missing teeth looks towards the man who vaguely resembles Mang and says, "Everything goes downhill from here, bud. The buses have little care put into them and everything is about those damned phones. I told them! I told my kids the phones would kill them! I told them!"
The scrawny man receives only a wry smile in return. The scrawny man purses his dry lips and continues, "Still… Everything damn sucks. Ever since they built that big ass phone building, everything was ruined. And you know what? I can't live like this. I'm basically a hobo now! There aren't any jobs and we're slaves to this shitty ass technology. I fucking hate it!"
"Yeah. They change our entire system and still can't fix a damned coma." The man resembling Mang slowly blinks and looks away, taking in every detail of the bus's interior. The littered floor, the disgusting smell in the air, and the smoking and drinking bus driver, who hasn't even looked at either of them once.
The scrawny man nods and gets off at his stop, which is followed by the other man's stop.
At his destination, he nods and says hi to the non-binary receptionist and scans his retina on a machine. The screen connected to it lights up and says, "Mang Phoenix, accepted."
Mang nods once more and makes his way through the hallways and decides to take the stairs. He takes two steps up before laughing in a self deprecating manner while sweating. He takes the elevator.
He looks carefully at each room. "357. Three fifty… seven!" Mang smiles and opens the door and steps to meet face to face with a familiar face.
"Oh hey Jack." Mang is briefly surprised before he smiles with no emotion and greets Jack, an old friend and a good driver.
"Hey Mang, you're here to visit Devorah?"
Mang doesn't even answer and walks over to Devorah, his daughter's side. He reads the very familiar numbers on the screen and sighs. "Still a coma."
Mang chats with Jack and shortly talks about the accident before switching topics to work. He's been very interested in Jack's job every time he meets him. He asks about what procedures are like, if it's fun, then about private information like what the security is like. Jack doesn't mind the somewhat suspicious questions, as even if Mang was deciding to do something, the company would know since long before as Jack routinely sends information to the company's database.
Mang doesn't know this, though. Never really was a "tech guy". Always was terrible with his phone, having to ask help from strangers to change certain settings as he was.
"What a coincidence that you work in the same land my farm was on in the past."
Jack shakes his head. "You always say stuff like that, but yeah it's really a huge coincidence. And going from the military, fighting against this tech biz, to working for it is even more so a coincidence." Jack replies like clockwork to Mang's frequent question.
…
Mang goes to his home and takes steady breaths.
He grabs an M17 he's hid for some time and makes a very rare purchase of a car. He gets comfortable in the car and drives to the location of the accident. He stops shortly before driving past it to a very familiar location.
He arrives at what used to be the farm and comes in front of a huge castle of steel with windows of thick glass. It looks like one of those structures that would pop up on an advertisement about art.
He breathes in, breaths out, and takes light steps to what seemed to be a front door. He makes sure his car is parked pretty far away and knocks on the door. He receives no response. He presses a doorbell button and instantly after, an unidentifiable voice is heard from a speaker next to the doorbell. "Yes?"
Mang looks at a camera he guesses is the one the voice is looking through and acts troubled. "My car ran out of gas and it's a little messed up. I'm wondering if anyone here can help?"
The voice stops for a moment and the camera moves left and right while it looks into the distance and stops right where Mang left the car. The voice answers, "No."
Mang doesn't give up as he continues. "I need to see someone face to face."
The voice answers, "No. Leave the premise, immediately."
Mang continues. "My name is-" Mang gets shot through the head by a sudden flash of blue light.
The voice rings out with all cameras looking at Mang's corpse. "Foolish Phoenix. Death is inevitable for trash like you. Thank you for personally coming out here."
…
The voice answers, "No. Leave the premise, immediately."
Mang stands there in a daze before quickly jumping back without saying a word. 'What the hell?'
He stands, staring at the structure with a confused expression. "How did that-" Mang gets shot through the head by a sudden flash of blue light.
He collapses to the ground.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Wondering_Reader
Wondering_Reader I know things don’t make sense sometimes, but I try my hardest to make sure the flow of things are reasonable. I try to to translate the raw emotions in the dream into words. Tell me if you feel something is wrong either way.
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