Editor’s Note: Content Warning for Violence and Suicide.
My name is Rex. It is currently 1948, or I am led to believe that by Stalin. I am the best looking person in the Soviet Union. This landed me in a stinky jail cell with my sister and both my parents dead. You see, with my black hair and midnight blue eyes, I got another boy at my school in a rich family jealous of me, so he got his parents to throw me into this cell with my twin sister, Hazel, who has icy blue eyes and blond hair. We plan to make it out of jail. Every day we collect the grease from our bacon, take all the olive oil from our salad, and I sell my poetry to all the other prisoners for their olive oil. My most recent poem is,
I Am Sad,
Now I Am Glad,
Life Is Bad,
Now I Am Sad.
Everyone takes my poems super emotionally. Today, I am going to the lunch room again. One of the other prisoners, Mr. Forkle, an old wrinkly guy, gives me a piece of chocolate.
“Thank you,” I say.
I walk a few feet.
“Hey, Rex,” says Jimm, a huge obese guy at another table.
Hazel is sitting next to him. I nod at her, and she passes a note to big Jimm.
He looks at me after reading it and says, “Sorry… I, I can’t.”
I make my way to the largest man in the room, who just so happens to be guarded by five guards, so I talk to the guards and convince them to go and eat their food.
“Hey, Hektor.”
He looks down and says go away. I hand him the note big Jimm denied.
He reads it, and then he gets very quiet and says, “Yes, I will help you get out. Just give me the go.”
I respond, “Thank you.”
The next day, I put all the oil in a jar and shout. I hear the sound of metal ripping, then the tower in the room falls over. I know Hektor did it. He created a distraction. I burn the jar with oil, and I blow a hole in the wall. Hazel and I jump out and run towards the woods, and then the sound of bombs going off and bullets come from behind us. Hazel cries and shouts. I cover her mouth and run. Then we hear shouts from cops.
“Where are Tam and Sophie?” I ask.
“Running for the woods.”
Then there is gun fire, and next to me, a bullet hits the ground. I sprint to the woods, and once I get to the woods, I see a car with a key in it. I jump in. On the wheel it says Bugatti, and Sophie jumps in on the other side. I am shivering, and Hazel is sweating. I hit the speed pedal, and in a moment, the car goes from parked to 200 miles per hour. I am tearing through the woods, and dust is flying. Then bombs blow on either side of the car, and a buzzing sound comes from above us.
“Shit,” Hazel whispers.
Then she looks back and sees a machine gun.
Hazel
I look back and see a machine gun.
I shout, “Rex, open the sunroof!”
The small Bugatti window scrolls open. I stick the heavy machine gun out the roof and aim and pull the trigger. Ka-boom is the only way I could describe the fate of one of those five helicopters. Then Rex seeds up the car, and the machine gun misses its aim. I only meant to take down one helicopter. Well, let’s say there were none after that. I feel cold. This is my first time with a gun. Then Rex closes the sunroof, and I sit down, and five minutes later, we show up in a new town, where Tam slows down and parks. On the street in front of us there is bad traffic, so we get out and we ask someone passing by, who looks just like Mr. Forkle.
“Where are we?”
They respond saying Stalingrad. Then I ask why there is so much traffic, and they say Stalin is visiting the city, and Rex asks where he is, and they say in the Capitol Building, and then I say thank you. Then Rex says to me let’s murder him, and I say no stop being so violent then I think if we murder him we will have temporary border laws that make life easier, so we can get out so I say okay yes, lets roll.
Once we get the car to the Capitol Building, we get out the gun, and Tam blows the crap out of the building. We jump back in the car, and Rex hits the speed pedal, and like a drag racer, drives to the highway. He drives as fast as he can towards the border of the Soviet Union.
Rex
When we reach the border, I let Hazel drive while I shoot all the guards. Then I get out and pick up their smaller guns. The lighting strikes a nearby tree, so I run to the car, and on the way, boom, all I can feel is heat. Then the world goes black.
Hazel
I run out, pick up Rex’s limp body, and drag it into the car. I am crying and shivering and sweating at the same time. I feel his pulse, and it is there but fading, so I drive to the nearest hospital where the doctors start to work right away. One of the doctors looks oddly like Mr. Forkle. Rex’s normally beautiful face is pale and messed up. The nurse brings me to the waiting room where I take a nap. Five hours later, the nurse calls me up. They are going to wake up Rex, and the nurse wants me to be there. They wake him up, and immediately I know something is wrong.
Rex
My eyes fly open, and immediately I hear talking, all the doctors saying what they have to do next and Hazel saying something is wrong.
“Stop shouting,” I whisper.
Then Hazel shouts is he okay, but her lips are not moving.
All the doctors start talking but more quietly, and for the first time I see them talking with their lips.
Then I say, “Hazel, help.”
She gives me a sad glare, and I hear her say I wish I could, but her lips are not moving. Then I rage. I have had enough shouting.
“Stop!”
Then they stop moving their lips, but the other voice gets louder to the point where they are all saying, “Is he sane?”
Then I play cool and say I am fine and can I go now, so Hazel takes me to the car, and she sits behind the wheel, and all I can hear is her thoughts. Then it hits me. I can read minds. I tell Hazel.
Then she says, “Tell me what I am thinking.”
And I say, “Are you sane?”
And she says I got it. I then think of poetry and now I look around and can almost see the world in a whole new way now. I can feel what I see as a poet, right then I hear gunfire and I shout “drive” but it is too late. Her body jerks up, then she goes limp, and there is blood pouring out of her on to the floor. I immediately grab the machine gun and shoot at the other man with a gun. Then I aim the gun at my head and pull the trigger, and the gun clicks, and I realize, damn it is out of ammo, and I grab one of the smaller guns and pull the trigger, and then I feel blood pouring down my forehead but no pain. Then I see the gun is a water gun, and then I grab one of the larger AK-15s and pull that trigger and hold it down. Then I feel many sharp pains just pouring into my brain, and then a red liquid pours into my eyes and then the world goes black and I stop breathing.