Amy Cross - Persona

I have to make it count.

As I make my way along the edge of the beach, I stay low so that Harold won’t see me approaching. I could probably take him out from here, but I want to be absolutely certain that I don’t miss. I can hear the helicopter getting closer as the flare continues to burn in the sand, and I know I don’t have long left before he’ll be rescued. Finally I scramble down onto the beach and aim at his back, but at the last moment I realize I want him to see me before I pull the trigger. Somehow, deep down, I feel a strong sense that I can’t shoot a man in the back. He still has a gun in his hand, but I know I can fire before he has a chance to threaten me. I take a few steps closer, and slowly he turns around as if he’s sensed my presence.

“You took your time,” he says with a faint smile, his voice sounding much more frail now, as if he’s in immense pain from the wound on his shoulder. “I was actually starting to think that you weren’t coming after me.”

“We were supposed to be left alone,” I say firmly, with the gun aimed directly at his face. The wind is picking up all around us now, and I can hear the helicopter getting closer over the tops of the trees. “That was the deal! We came to the island to get away from the rest of the world!”

“The rest of the world wanted to keep an eye on you,” he says with a smile.

“The rest of the world promised—”

“The rest of the world lied!”

I pause, resisting the urge to pull the trigger and end his miserable life right now.

“Do you want me to explain it to you?” he asks. “Is that why you haven’t finished me off yet? Or is there some other, deeper reason you can’t quite explain? Do you want me to tell you exactly why they sent me, and why I worked with such slow, painful precision?”

I adjust my finger on the trigger, ready to fire if he tries anything.

“This was all for you, Asher,” he continues. “I persuaded a reformist branch of the government to send me here, I told them we needed to crush any attempts to build a new society on the island, but that was really just a cover story. I enjoyed the work, of course, but I was always keeping an eye out, waiting for the inevitable day when I found you. Every time I walked into another town, I wondered if I was finally going to see your face again. I knew, I just knew , that you’d still be alive somewhere in this miserable place.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, convinced that he’s trying to distract me. “We never met before you came to Steadfall!”

“Didn’t we?” His smile grows. “Come on, Asher, you were right all those years ago. It really is possible to recover the memories they wiped after the war. I managed it, and you were always smarter and stronger than me.”

I open my mouth to tell him he’s lying, but deep down I can feel something clawing at my gut.

“We fought so long and so hard, Asher,” he continues. “You, me, Collins… Mads. Do you remember Mads? We fought in one of the most successful units the army has ever seen, and what was our reward? Beached alone due to a tactical error, and left to be slaughtered. The others all died, Asher, but you and I survived. We should have been treated like heroes, but instead they just wiped our minds and shoved us back out into society.” Slowly, cautiously, he takes a limping step toward me. “It took a while, Asher, but finally it all came back to me. And I can see from the look in your eyes that it’s coming back to you, too. Everything we went through… No-one can take that away!”

He’s wrong, he has to be.

At the same time, I can hear a voice calling to me from far away. Mads is crying out, terrified and in pain, on some distant battlefield. This time, however, there’s another voice, telling me to give him cover.

“You remember,” Harold says finally.

I shake my head.

“Yes,” he continues, “you do.”

“No,” I stammer, taking a step back with the gun still aimed at his face. “You’re trying to make me remember things that didn’t happen…”

“You don’t really believe that,” he says with a smile. “I came to the island so I could find you and take you back to the world. I couldn’t admit that, of course. I had to lie and trick my way into a deal that’d let me travel here. Your town was the eighth we destroyed over the past four years. Eight towns, can you imagine that? Humans really seem to want to clump together, even when they’re supposedly out here to be free. Must be something in our nature, huh?” He pauses, still watching me intently. “The others had no idea. They thought I wanted nothing more than to kill and destroy. Maybe that’s my fault, maybe I enjoyed my work too much, but the war left me with certain… bad habits. Ben, Leanne and Walter believed in the cause. The world never seems to run out of useful idiots, does it? Still, at least they were useful, for a while. So few people even manage that in their miserable lives. But Asher, you and I—”

He steps closer.

“Stop!” I shout, still holding the gun in my trembling hand. “You’re just—”

Before I can finish, the helicopter swoops low and fast over us, racing back out to sea and then starting to turn around.

“I wonder what my friends make of this,” Harold continues, as his smile grows. Behind him, the helicopter is already heading back this way. “When they see me on the beach, with a gun pointed at me, I’m sure they understand the situation. And they’ll help me test that you haven’t lost that old fighting edge that I remember so well. You have no idea how much I’ve missed seeing you in combat. It’s almost an art-form, Asher.”

I open my mouth to reply, but suddenly I see something moving beneath the helicopter. In a flash, I realize it’s a gun assembly.

Suddenly Harold ducks out of the way. I turn and run, just as the helicopter opens fire. Energy blasts crash into the sand all around me, but I manage to throw myself past the tree-line and into the forest as the helicopter flashes overhead. With my heart pounding, I stumble to my feet and look up, watching as the helicopter turns around and heads back this way. I start to run, desperately trying to get further into the forest so I won’t be seen, but the helicopter opens fire and I dive for cover as blasts crash into the trees all around me. Fortunately I don’t take any direct hits, although one shot hits a dirt bank just a few feet away. As the helicopter turns and starts coming around for another attack, I get to my feet and race between the trees, but seconds later the air is once again filled with blasts, and this time one of them glances against my waist. I pull away and slam into a tree, which sends me dropping to the ground. Breathless and desperately trying not to panic, I look up and—

Something crashes into the back of my head, knocking me to the ground. Dazed, I turn just in time to see Harold standing over me, and he quickly slams the heel of his boot against my face.

“You have to learn to take your chances when you get them,” he grunts, grabbing my arms and starting to haul me back through the forest.

I try to twist free, but I’m in too much pain and I can barely even stay conscious.

“If you came to find me,” I gasp, “why do you keep trying to kill me?”

“To test you,” he replies, dragging me to the edge of the tree-line and then down onto the beach. “I had to make sure that you were still you , but you passed every test with flying colors. You’ve survived everything I’ve thrown at you, and that’s proof that the real, old Asher is still alive. We just have to get you home and help you recover the rest of your memories. And then we’ll make our move against the monsters who sent us off to war in the first place. One by one, we’ll make them pay for everything they did to us!”