Chapter Eighteen
541588’s hand brushed over something hard and it remembered the bones. It rolled out from under the bed and slammed down on top, curling up tight and wounding the ripped blankets around itself. Its head was swirling. It wanted it to end, everything to finish now, or to wind back time, to before, when it followed the rules and everything was simple. Just thinking about it hurt, all its former dreams and aspirations, now delusions. They must have known, known the whole time, noted its litany of transgressions; and then instead of acting, had dutifully watched and waited. Waited until 541588 was at the peak of its confidence, then struck, struck them all down. The memory of the man in the helicopter with the gun, briefly surfaced in its mind, and its hand clenched like a claw onto its hair. They were going to find 541588 here. It was just a matter of time. 541588 would soon be due for extreme pain or death just like Winston and K. But it did not fear death nor torture. The thing that hurt, the thing that pained it the most was that they were so wrong about everything and so powerful that they could enforce their wrongness on everything. They abused their absolute power with their absolute ignorance, destroying all that was good while perpetuating a vacuous, sad and hopeless world. After some time drowning in this pessimism, 541588 resurfaced and decided it had to do something. Anything. Whatever effect it had, it would at least ease the anguish of contemplating its current reality and serve as a distraction from the soul-crushing desolation it felt. It had critiqued both K and Winston for giving up so easily, and thought that it had learnt from their failures. Now was its chance to show that it was true to its own beliefs. Its body was weakened, wrecked, its head was not on completely, but it had to continue. But to do what? The others were all lost and it was alone now, and it wanted to do something audacious. It wanted some final action before its end that would etch it into the fabric of the world and change it forever. What could it do in the short time before it was caught? Numerous possibilities flashed through its mind: taking a weapon and smashing anything it could get its hands on, tackling the enemies in the helicopter head on. These were all dismissed as unfeasible. Eventually however, the answer revealed itself with stunning clarity. Those locked rooms in the palace. The leader. It had to be there. Now was the time to find it and ensure that it paid for the suffering it had caused, paid for 541588’s fallen supporters, paid for inviting the helicopter to destroy its plans for freedom. 541588 had considered this before, but dismissed it because it was not conducive to its plans for freedom. But now the cause of freedom was already lost. It wasn’t freedom anymore, it was personal, a mission to quell its own angst. It was going to die soon, but it couldn’t die as nothing, forgotten, never existing. This was its chance to be, even when it was long dead. The helicopter had gone and it was quiet now. Presumably it had landed somewhere in the distance. 541588 was safe from the gunman. It left its apartment to retrieve a shovel with which it would perform this act.