Chaos and the Aftermath

By J. Rolande, aka Moonlight Sonata 2004

Mess is too great an understatement. Disorder and disarray do not seem to describe it in enough detail. Perhaps only the word "chaos" can truly do it justice.

A glance around the room reveals that the metal plates on the wall have buckled under some great force. Blood drips from their edges. Shards of broken bottles glitter in the artificial glare of the overhead lighting. Papers are scattered underfoot: contracts, spattered in blood, outline the terms of payment. Most of these have been fulfilled; now it is only a matter of collecting the bounty which is due. This is her life. This is what she knows, what she does; she always has, and figures she always will. There have never been any doubts in her mind about it, and she has never wasted time being dishonest and trying to kid herself that there is any other way of life for her, other than this.

Until now.

Her discovery weighs upon her heart.

Suddenly, in that one awful moment contracts and payments and bounties are no longer a priority. In one agonizing second of emotional upheaval, cashing in on the one hundred thousand credits from her last mission is just not important. Standing in the aftermath, she is dazed; this is chaos she created, a maelstrom that reflects the tumult raging inside of her. Again, mechanically, she pulls back and smashes her fist into the metal wall; the plates crunch, then buckle with a groan and another finishing rivet pops out, clattering to the metal floor.

Breathing hard, she finally sinks to the floor, clutching her hand. She takes a moment away from her inner pain to survey the outward, self-inflicted wounds. There's no doubt her hand is broken from repeatedly smashing it against the wall. Her fingers curl, clawlike, and the flesh across her knuckles has been torn to meat. She imagines for an instant she can see the raw white bones beneath; it would not be out of the realm of possibility. Violet and green bruising dyes her hand and wrist. Swelling distorts the appendage. The final, oddly satisfied appraisal is that she has done a very thorough job. For a moment the pain is all she can feel. She closes her eyes, focusing on it: I caused this pain. This is pain of my making, she tells herself. She allows it to stab through her, and her whole arm screams. The shattered fingers are splinters, stuck in the delicate muscles that have nothing to support anymore. Breathing in, flexing the muscles around the splintered fingers, she savors this pain, even as lightening shoots up her arm and stars prick her vision. Slowly opening her eyes, she stares at the chaos around her again, taking it in fully.

Blood. The red, gleaming in the artificial light, catches her eyes first. Drops of it roll down the crunched and buckled wall plates. Smears of it remind her of graffiti. Her footprints are etched in blood on the floor. This isn't quite what shocks her; blood is nothing new in her world. She has seen blood before on many occasions, and for many reasons. She has spilled it in defense, and she has spilled it for pay, watching as it pooled beneath corpses. She has seen her own blood, tasting it when internal injuries made her cough up thick red clots of it, watching it spill from gashes. No, she and blood are well acquainted.

Bloodshed and pain are the basis of her existence, but never before have they collided within her so violently, and that is what shocks her now. She gazes around at the chaos and the blood and for the first time questions her existence. She questions who she is, and what she does. Morality has never been her strong suit, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and this time is nothing if not desperate.

She lies back on the floor, staring up at the harsh light above her. It glares down upon her, reminding her eerily of the harsh lights in an interrogation room, forcing her to look hard at her life and be honest with herself about what she sees. She grits her teeth and holds her damaged hand close against her body, trying to block out that pain. Unconsciously her other hand drifts down to rest on her stomach. As of now her stomach is rock-hard, flattened and toned from years spent training and honing her physique into a deadly weapon. Anyone who thinks Samus Aran's body is a work of beauty has obviously not seen it in action, and those who have are either dead, or light years away from her, never to see her again. Her body is first her weapon, but it is also distinctly human, and even more, distinctly female. There are only certain things she can force it to ignore, to go without. She is not above denying her body's sexual needs and urges.

To some, it is making love; to others, sexual intercourse, and to those who crave it like a drug, screwing. To Samus, always just a bit different from your average human, it's little more than taking care of her urges on a systematic basis. Sometimes she's able to satisfy herself, but other times she just needs more. These are the times when there are other partners involved, but they're rarely important, usually just tools to assist her. She doesn't think about them much, either before... during... or even after the encounters. She's had some decent lovers, some downright awful ones, too. Just because she is the top bounty hunter in the galaxy doesn't mean she can be choosy when the need overcomes her. As a result she has bedded rich men, powerful men, handsome men, not so handsome men, co-workers, rivals, employers, targets. Things never last beyond their one night together, and she rarely remembers names. Some she has felt affection for, others she disliked, and only one has she ever loved.

She tries now to remember her most recent encounter. What planet was she on? Why was she there? And the man... Though he is faceless and anonymous now, she suddenly wonders about him. She has never been one for small talk, in or out of the bed, but now she is desperately curious to recall any snatches of conversation that will tell her about who he was and what he did for a living, what brought him there at the same time as herself. The curiosity overwhelms the brutal throbbing in her hand, and she tries to envision his face: was he handsome? Were his eyes dark, or light? And his hair, what was it like?

The answers elude her.

What she does recall is his physicality, and remembers that it wasn't altogether unpleasant to have him in bed with her. She tries to remember if he held her close afterward, or screwed her and called it a night. She knows he probably had a name, but for the life of her, she can't remember it. His face is shadowed, hidden from her mind. He will always be a mystery to her, a faceless romp in the sack who needed to let off some steam as much as she did.

She sighs and unconsciously her healthy hand gently caresses her stomach, feeling beyond the hard, rippling muscles, feeling a slight sensation below that surface that only she can sense. She knows something is there within her, growing and changing by the day. Right now her toned abdomen can conceal it, but the more it grows, not even her musculature will not be able to hide it.

And maybe her last partner will not be faceless to her forever.