“…the world is a vampire…”
Darvok’s place, GITMO
From NOV 2019 — NOV 2026.
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..
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“Mornin’ Beautiful”
Cassandro vaguely hears a man’s voice behind him as he phases into his new reality.
He tries to look around.
Can make out he’s in some kind of large, open square, air-conditioned surveillance room.
His 8 fingers feel like lead weights as he rubs booger crusts out of his eyes.
The lights eventually stop blinding and the objects around him take a sharper form.
There are countless screens aligned against the walls on mute.
A small kitchen and a bunk bed appear to be afterthought additions.
A corner has an open air toilet.
Another corner has a small closet sized cage with some sophisticated medical looking machine mounted inside of it.
There’s a familiar chessboard on a small table in front of him.
An initial move has been already played.
The stereotypical white king’s pawn was aggressively thrown into the center of the game.
Cassandro looks down at his legs.
Feels a wave of dread and new found rage rush through him.
They’ve been removed.
He’s strapped to a back rest, and a fused waste management system is integrated into his lower torso with tubes.
He can feel it inside of him. Sharp stabbing pain to his internals if he shifts or breathes the wrong way.
He’s never felt gravity over himself be so wet and heavy, and doesn’t know how to immediately process this.
His existence is now tethered to a wheelchair.
His dry throat swallows a whimper that tried to escape his bare chest.
He controls his breathing before his breathing starts to control him.
Waking up to horror is a staple of his life that has gone from bad to worse.
Another sacrifice more to the list of whatever it takes.
The man paws a cat bell above Cassandro’s chair, creating a cute chime as he starts a monologue on how he had so many assholes as foster parents.
At one point he came across the kind of characters that loved pets more than people.
He saw them apply the whole concept of taking in, feeding, and caring for an alive thing to justify calling themselves proud owners.
They went through all this effort in removing it from its mom, controlling the environment around it to make it comfortable and dependent, and what does it do?
“It begs, licks your hands, protects you from strangers, and does tricks on command.
What we call loyalty is pathetic, you know?
No! Even worse, they called that sht love, brohan. Can you even believe that? They looked those animals square in the eyes and said I love you…
…Anyways, Can we be friends?
I’m Darvok, and this is my humble little home away from home.
Like a clubhouse, pretty cool eh?
Here! I’ll show you around.”
Darvok leans Cassandro’s chair on its larger rear wheels and wheelies him around the screens.
Cassandro feels pain from any movement.
He uses his hands to shift and hold his own body however he can to minimize the internal stabbing pains.
Darvok moves around, proudly showing off his area.
“Over here we’ve got our entertainment…”
Darvok gestures at a wall overwhelmed with flatscreen tvs.
It has channels of all types and from different countries.
News channels. Cartoons. Music videos. Documentaries. Pornography. Ads and commercials. Viral social media clips.
On the other side there’s two long tables with 6 sets of screens with more focused, particular channels being contrasted.
2 large screen TVs side by side, with two smaller ones stacked one on top of the other on the far left and right sides.
“…as a fellow intellectual and doom-scroller like you, I find it important to keep up with the times.”
Darvok wheelies him around the middle-ish of the room.
“Aaaaaand over here-a we have our eating space. Help yourself anytime,
my chow is your chow homie.”
There’s a bare minimum kitchen setup.
A sink island with space for chopping includes two cooler sized refrigerators underneath.
Most of the foods are canned goods on a pantry sized stainless steel cart.
Drinks are water bottles and fruit flavoring packets.
There’s a live crab tank. A cactus.
A bag of some left-over iguana jerky.
Cassandro reaches out a weak hand and secures an almost empty and lukewarm bottle of water.
“That’s the spirit. It pounds water and stays hydrated or else it gets the silver bullet again.”
Darvok wheelies him outside, using a makeshift ramp from some wooden planks placed over the steps.
It’s a sunny day. Some clouds. You can hear the ocean and some seagulls in the distance.
“This is the yard. Unfortunately I had a few parties recently, had some unpleasant guests, made a mess, you know how it is. How embarrassing that you’re seeing this like this”
The outside from the backyard door is an open deserted space enclosed with triple chain link fences and razor wire at the top.
One of the razor wires indicated a failed escape attempt.
There are empty cells lined to the left and right sides with scatters of leftover buckets, trays, towels, utensils, and bloodstain circles on the dirt.
One of the cages has his belongings from his old cell thrown in there. His plants, dried food, and towels.
At the end of the yard is an unfenced cliff edge.
It’s a long way to the crashing waves and jagged rocks below.
Darvok wheels him to the ledge.
“We got quite the view, whatcha think?”
Darvok leans the wheelchair forward while holding it menacingly over empty air.
Cassandro knows that if Darvok so much as sneezed, he’d fall. Headfirst.
It’s a picturesque scene for a violent death down there.
Darvok brings him back in.
Relaxes his grip.
“So we have a running bet on that fighter’s spirit of yours.
Malachite gives you a few days, but, fk that guy ammiright? He doesn’t know you.
Patina says you’ll off yourself within 2 yrs, something about the effects of political zoochosis.
Between you and me, she’s always trying to sound smarter than thou art, right?”
Digs into his pockets, looking for a small metal case.
“I just wanna let you know that I’m on your side in all of this.
Call me crazy, but I think you’re going to stick with me till the nitty gritty end.
And hell, I mean, if you can commit, then I can commit, ‘rah?”
Darvok lights himself a bidi.
“But of course, if you’re ever feeling froggy, just jump.
You’re the only thing tying me to this sht-hole base, you’d be doing me a favor.”
Cassandro stays quiet.
Angry. Thinking of ways he could kill him.
Puts his right hand out.
Darvok hands him his bidi and lights another one for himself.
Cassandro knows who it is. His right hand is mechanical.
The all seeing pyramid eye etched onto it.
They smoke in silence.
A couple of mega shipping containers can be seen far out floating the line where the troposphere and the epipelagic zone meet.
Darvok explains as he wheels Cassandro back to the shack.
“Patina’s on her way to Hong Kong… You kind of forced our hand with that domino bullsht you kicked off.
You’ll be seeing a globe pausing pandemic roll out in just a few months so we can all catch our breath.
I don’t know what to tell ya, we haven’t flexed our nuts on everyone’s chins like this before, I’m excited about it myself.”
Darvok brings Cassandro to the chess table.
“Looks like it’s gonna be just me and you from here on out. So go ahead, kick your socks off, get settled in…”
Darvok notes an incident on the big screen.
He puts the volume up.
–Children amongst dead in latest strike–
–Enemy forces are hostile to takeover, forcing another carpet raid–
–Humanitarian food and medical aid is denied as the enemy is now exporting its offenses from caves and suicide bombers —
–They are not human, they are fanatical animals, heathens and idolaters. A cancer! a biological threat. We must eradicate —
— It is the illegal aliens fault for not following the right procedures. The foreign fruits are okay, but the foreigners themselves are dirty and rotten —
— New wave of income taxes to combat new wave of terrorism —
— we’ll be allocating funding accordingly —
Cassandro recognizes the board.
It belonged to an old Lt. Colonel mentor he outgrew.
Taught him chess. And what little he knew of war.
Cassandro plays the black queens pawn two steps forward, offering to meet the white pawn for conflict in the middle of the game.