The Final Chapter of Contractual Obligations

Z.

A smidge of oxygen leaked into your lungs, and you came back to life. The cash register, which you expected, was not present. The soundtrack, which you expected to hear, was not present. Instead you were lying down inside of a cracked glass tube. Your extremities felt numb, but other than that you were unharmed.

Around you, caked in equal parts dust and darkness, were crates of limes. You peeled your bare back from the glass and slithered your way onto the the cold cement. You didn’t remember this reality or this universe. It wasn’t one of the original 25 that you remembered.

In the far distance, you could vaguely hear an ominous organ. Your soundtrack must have been unfreezing somewhere separate. As soon as it caught back up to you, you’d have a better idea how much trouble you were in.

“Hello?” You screeched into the darkness, trying to stand on your rubbery legs.

“Hello,” someone said back. The legs you had once trusted, now felt boneless, folding in on themselves.

“Who’s out there?” You said. Luckily, it didn’t sound like the Devil had already found you. That would have been terrible. Instead, a lumberjack made it’s way to you. He had a nice burly beard, and a glimmering ax slung over his shoulder.

“The last lumberjack! Ever since the war, there can only be two. You were created to be the other one. We grew you in this tube, unsure of who you would become.” It was then that you realized the room was triangular, almost like someone had broken the fourth wall, leaving only three.

“I’m a… a… lumberjack?”

“Not exactly. You are a cumulative effort between the lumberjacks and the angels to create the perfect hybrid with myth and human.”

“A science experiment?”

“For the betterment of everyone. Haven't you heard of Mill’s General Happiness Principle? We screwed you over to save everyone else.” The Lumberjack reached into a random crate limes and tossed you one. “Take a bite. The effects of the lime will counteract all of the time you’ve been in cryo-stasis.”

You took a bite from the citrus and the bones in your legs hardened. In a solid ten seconds, you could finally stand up completely straight. It was possible that fruit was more magical than you had initially thought, but you weren't really sure. Nor did it really matter.

“While the Devil was running her little mind experiment, we were busy creating you. There isn’t a you in this you-niverse, so we needed to create one.” You looked down, and it was then that you realized you had no belly button.

“So, my life is trivial?” You felt the interior of your mind constrict. Consciousness was sweeping through you, and the sting of breath pushed into your lungs. This is existence. Your mind popped and crackled to life. A pain radiated through your chest. Seconds, if not minutes, ago, you hadn’t existed, and you may very well never have existed if the pod had never opened.

“Not unless you’re fond of trivia about saving the universe from a transdimensional demon,” the lumberjack said. You felt like you had already learned that lumberjacks were mythical creatures, and that Devil was after you. A warm tingling sensation overtook your brain, and it felt like warm water was dripping down your ear. The lumberjack took a step closer to you, and clicked your neck back. A disk popped out of your neck. The word Bland was written across the front.

“This isn’t your disk. We know this disk doesn’t work.” The lumberjack ripped the disc from your neck and tossed it across the room. You heard it clamber against a far wall and shatter into several pieces.

The lumberjack opened a new CD, and you felt the cool disc press into your neck. It was empty and hollow in comparison. In fact, the music you had been hearing, all but faded away from existence. It was replaced with the slight hum of white noise. The hum drowned out everything you attempted to think.

“Soon, you will be ready to take on the Devil. She won’t know what hit her.” From there, the lumberjack was the only person you saw. He forced you to train in the hot sun to simulate the heat of the Devil’s wrath. The blazing sun was enough to fry your skin to a deep red. From then, every night that you tried to sleep, the heat was trapped under your skin until you were angry. Until you were ready to kill the lumberjack.

“What are you trying to do to me? I’m a person!” You screamed.

“You aren’t a person. You’re a mindless killing machine,” the lumberjack said without hesitation. Without thinking, your anger manifested as fire from your mouth, and you went to bite the lumberjack. He was keen to pull the ax from his belt and swing, luckily he stopped just short of cutting your face off. The resulting strike split your tongue down the center, causing the fire to fall back into your gullet.

“You’re lucky,” he said, but you really didn’t feel like it. From that day forward, you were locked into the glass dome that you been born from. Without a blanket and without music. You wanted your album back, you wanted everything back. You wanted your bland life back, but it was out of reach. You probably would never get a real life back.
A day later or a year later, whichever, time was strange to you, the lumberjack woke you up. As you awoke, an alarm filled the cement room you slept in. It was deep red with an acid trumpet sound. You had been briefed over the alarm by him before. It was the alarm that sounded once the Devil made her way to your Z-niverse. Your job was to kill her, because that was destined in lumberjack lore. Bright arrows illuminated your path down a cement hallway.

“She should be here soon,” the lumberjack screamed from the main room. You slid in there, ready to fight the Devil.

“Where is she?’ You screamed.

“Right behind you! Look out!” But when you turned around, nobody was there. You could see your shadow playing against the wall with its edges burned orange.

“She isn’t behind me,” you said to the lumberjack.

You fazed into your shadow, feeling the demonic powers shift through your body. They created you. They thought they needed you, but you were the thing they were supposed to avoid. Your mind was an uncontrollable mess of evil and darkness. The darkness opened up to the sunset. As you walked across the rocky bluff you appeared on, you saw the sun and moon close to each other. Again, you could hear a song from bland. It was the one that played after the register closed. You contemplated the evil inside of you, wishing that it would fade away, but it was yours. You could choose how to use it or when to use it, but you could never be rid of it.

You walked towards the edge feeling the music shift back into your ears as you contemplated good and evil. You hummed for a moment and then sang.

“Sold my soul to the Devil for 50 cents.” It dawned on you though that the Devil was never going to appear here. She was never destined to make it here. The entire time, you were destined to be her. There were too many firewalls for her to get passed, but that didn’t stop something from growing within the walls.

You came to a sudden stop at the edge of the cliff and so did your album. If you were always destined to kill the Devil that implied you were destined to…. Your mind couldn’t actually complete the idea. You stood there, looking towards the sunset and listening the slow violin music seep into your album.

You wondered if the album could be changed. Clearly it could be molded in different ways, but it always snapped back. If it could never be changed, then that meant neither could you. If it was able to be stretched, maybe you could change. The darkness inside couldn’t be all that you were. The sunset continued to set and the album gained a slight crescendo, building towards something new. Once the sun completely set, you knew you would have to make a choice by moonlight, but no matter what happened you would have your own personal music. It would play in your heart and in your head, because it was yours, and it was the beat that you walked too.

The final glimpse of sunlight flickered away and you heard the quarters again. 50 cent seemed so small sometimes, but it could also bring so much joy to a child. Maybe you sold your soul for joy. Even if you were destined to hell, you could make the best of what you had. You would have to decided either way, because this was your last choice, but it wasn’t the final one.