Countdown - A Isaac/(Sylar) Fic -Heroes- Heroes15 Challenge
Yep, i wrote another one. But i dont like it that much!
Any comments, or suggestions will be appreciated. :D
Title:Countdown
Author: force-oblique
Rating: G
Disclaimer:Nobody is mine..but i would settle for Peter or Isaac or even Sylar...See? I am reasonable! :P! =D
Characters/Pairings: Isaac/ A Bit of Sylar (he is like a passpartout!)
Table/Prompt:Table #7, "Countdown"
Word Count: 2,530
Summary: Isaac’s thoughts and resolutions as he slowly came to terms with his imminent death on his last day.
Author's Notes/Warning/Spoilers: Well, you do know he is dead, right? :P
This is actually the worst fic I have written, but give it a try and let me know if it sucks majorly. Extra kindness would really help me! lol
Crossposted at heroes15 & at heroes-fic,heroes-isaac
To read the other stories responding to the challenge click on the links:
Uncover-A Noah Bennet/Claire Fiction+ "Revolve- A Eden/Sylar Fiction" + "Elusive-A Sylar/Claire Fiction"
Countdown
The paint brush felt heavy in his hand. So heavy that he couldn’t believe it.
It had been his special instrument ever since he could remember himself. His only redemption, his escape.
He’d never thought he ‘d see the day on which the paint brush would feel “heavy” in his hand. Then again, maybe it was just it.
He would live to see that day. And that day only…
Though tired, his hand seemed to have assumed a life of its own.
A life it would not share with the rest of him.
Isaac could only watch as part of him applied colours on the canvas, slowly turning lines and colours into recognizable shapes. A recognizable shape.
A shape he had seen before and whose sight made his blood run cold. His death. His massacre. His humiliation.
Every time he thought of it, his heart stopped pumping life into his veins.
It was all too familiar. Too painfully inescapable. Isaac knew he had made mistakes and each and every one was haunting him right now. Guilt and doubt just screaming inside his head so loud that he couldn’t think straight.
He used to think that his art was of beauty, of innocence, of intensity.
But what was on the canvas in front of him, though seen before, made him sick to his stomach and drained him of his strength. With shaking hands he removed his headband and stared at the painting trying to take it in.
This wasn’t beauty. This wasn’t innocence. This was tragedy and cruelty and horror. And he was its model.
Tears would escape his eyes if it wasn’t that useless. He knew it was useless and hopeless and for one more time in his life he felt so unbelievably helpless.
100, 99, 98, 97…
Inside, he could sense his hopes collapse; he could feel his dreams colliding with each other causing the illusions of his life fall apart. There was no hiding now. Death was coming.
Death was coming to cover him with dark wings of oblivion and he felt so betrayed.
So betrayed and lost. Yes, he had felt lost before. When he used to need heroin through his veins to feel that life was worth living. When he needed heroin to have himself feel worthy and significant and anything other than emptiness and disappointment.
He was lost. All his life he had been hiding and running from something. He had always thought that that something was the fear of mediocrity or failure. Not having the talent he believed he had…
He felt so insecure that he needed to think that it wasn’t just him. That it was the drug inside him giving him strength and confidence he never quite achieved.
Then after some time it wasn’t just for the bad days. He believed he needed the drug even when inspiration came just pouring out of him and onto the canvas, sober.
It was easier that way. Fail or succeed it wasn’t just him it was also the drug.
Someone or something else to blame or to turn to.
87,86,85, 84…
Feelings of inferiority plagued him. And how could he feel safe? Even now at this age he had nothing he could call his own other than the figments of his imagination and the cartoons he drew. Simone had drifted away from him.
Day by day he had felt her growing more and more distant. More hurt.
And it was all his fault. Because he just wasn’t worthy. He just wasn’t strong enough to support a woman like Simone. Instead, he was the weak link in their relationship.
Simone welcomed danger. She didn’t go after it, but when she encountered it she’d become the most passionate and fearless creature he had ever seen.
She would have the bravery and the resilience to stand up to anything. To withstand, to overcome just about anything. To look danger in the eye and not look away.
In some ways, she was his complete opposite.
He was weak, he was hesitant. He’d never been decisive for reasons other than to take his next dosage.
The prospect of conflict filled him with terror.
And he never trusted himself at the sight of peril or urgency.
Yes, maybe he could do it, but what if he couldn’t?
What if he really wasn’t strong enough, good enough?
Would Simone forgive him of his mistakes? Or rather would she have forgiven him?
74,73, 72…
Would she have forgiven him for his being a coward?
And which one was better? Being a coward for not trying or trying something and being a failure?
And how was he supposed to choose between the two?
What would she have chosen if she had no other options than those two? If she had to choose between his two alternatives? A Coward and a loser?
Would she even have felt obliged to choose or would she have left him, not making an effort to put him out of his misery?
But none of that mattered now. He would never find out what Simone would have done, because she was dead by his own hand. And the fact that he never meant for anything like this to happen was neither an excuse nor an explanation.
68, 67, 66…
Isaac couldn’t live with that. So instead, he postponed the inevitable. Heroin in his blood was like liquid oblivion trying to wash off his mistakes and guilt.
Numbing his pain, masking his true nature. Keeping him in a state of continuous numbness.
It was really a miracle he ever got out of that nightmare. And he had Simone and Eden to thank for it. But both were dead now.
One because of him, the other due to Sylar.
52, 51, 50…
It wouldn’t be long now. He could feel it. Fate was closing in on him. It was with calm anticipation that he heard his voice from somewhere from behind him.
“You really can paint the future. Just like the professor said. Fantastic!”
“You are late!” he muttered and he felt like whatever strength and courage he strived to gather, fade away.
“I guess you know why I am here!” he heard Sylar say and coldness run through him.
But he had to be strong even for once in his life.
He walked toward Sylar.
“You are the one who’s gonna kill me!” he said and his matter-of-factly tone surprised even him.
“This is usually the part when people start screaming!” Sylar stated and he seemed to expect something of Isaac. A sign of panic perhaps.
But Isaac was unable to do even that. Panic.
Funny how his giving up resembled courage to Sylar’s eyes, even his own.
46, 45,44…
But it couldn’t be true. Could it? Was he brave? Had he done anything important, anything great?
Even his ability mocked him.
Others could bend time or break things with their mind. He could only “see”.
Yes more clearly and accurately that anyone else, what was and what was to be. But could he do anything? Could he do anything about it? Was he the one to make a difference?
No! He was the one who could stand by and watch.
Watch and observe as others made history.
As they turned their actions into history.
He would only be an “extra” in the movie of his life.
Words came effortlessly as he said: “I tried fighting the future. It’s too big for me! Maybe you can do better!”
It almost sounded as if he was trying to appeal to Sylar’s vanity or his ego. But he knew better than that.
“Why me? Do you see some special future for me?”!
He could almost laugh as he spoke of nothing but the truth he ‘d seen.
“They stop you … and you die!”
Sylar chuckled but he looked around as if searching for a painting, a sign of the future to prove him wrong.
“You painted all that too? Show me!”
The predator’s voice trembled with tension and greed. He wanted more, needed more. He wanted to devour everything. Isaac’s power, his existence, his entire being. He could hardly contain it as he shouted :”Show Me!!!”
Only then did Isaac snap out of his lethargy. A sudden idea forming in his mind as he saw the handgun on the table.
But he was too late, too slow. Story of his life…
Sylar chided “Now, now!”. Like reprimanding a child or a pet.
And maybe that is what he was. That is what he was in his eyes.
He felt no threat, no apprehension. Inside his studio, there with Sylar, he was just like an animal inside a cage.
Ripped of his strength, of his spirit, of his dignity. He was there only for Sylar’s entertainment.
With a flick of Sylar’s wrists, he felt thrown backward onto the floor, gasping for breath.
Before even realizing what was happening two paint brushes rose up off the table and stabbed his arms pinning him to the floor.
There was no turning back now. No words he could say that could change what would happen. No words he could use to appeal to to Sylar’s heart, assuming he had one.
38, 37, 36…
He wished he could remain calm. Withstand the pain he felt as the two brushes pierced his flesh deeper and deeper.
Excruciating, unbearable. He knew Sylar wanted to know what would happen to him. To stop it. To postpone it maybe.
But if Isaac had learned something during his brief and pointless existence was that you could not fight fate.
You could try, but then there would be nothing but disappointment in store for you.
The painting was gone now; he had shown everything he wanted in the comic book.
He could see Sylar trying to find anything ominous about his future. A painting, a sign of what would happen. But there was nothing.
At least Isaac was not a complete idiot. He smiled inside despite his suffering.
“It’s already gone!” he shouted.
“Why don’t you tell me all about it then?”
It was a question to be expected. He could discern anticipation in his black eyes, and nothing but darkness with no beginning and no end.
Infinite darkness and in spite of the circumstances Isaac wondered if Sylar had always been that way.
Cruel, uncaring, obsessive, abusive…
He had difficulty breathing. He didn’t know what kind of power he was using on him but it was working. He knew it wouldn’t be long till he perished as he said:
“I have seen enough of the future. I don’t need to watch it happen. I’ve wasted my life, destroyed everything good that ever came to me. At least I did one goof thing before I died!”
He half closed his eyes and images of Simone and Eden haunted him.
“So change it!” Eden had told him. Change the future. But even after her “nudge” he had done nothing he could be proud of.
His actions seemed over simplistic, ineffective and futile even to him.
“So, change it!”. Maybe Eden wanted to change it too and it had gotten her nowhere. He only wished he could have been as courageous as her.
She took her own life so that this monster would not use her in his plan to bring the world to its knees or to its end.
29, 28, 27…
His words seemed to have an effect on Sylar. As if losing his patience, with a flick of his fingers two more pain brushes stabbed his ankles, pinning him harder to the floor.
But Isaac knew it then, he welcomed pain.
It was his part in this anyways. In a few minutes he’d join Eden and Simone.
“You cant fight the future!” he uttered with whatever strength and nerve he had left.
If only the gun was in his hands now. To end it himself, end himself.
He almost felt guilty for not having thought to take his own life.
He wouldn’t be in pain. He wouldn’t be in such agony now. He wouldn’t feel guilty, useless, a coward or an abomination of what a man should become.
“Neither can you!” he heard Sylar say kneeling at his side.
He realized what was next. He had seen it and played it in his mind hundreds of times.
Thinking it over, trying to find a way out, an escape or a “dramatic” exit.
But nothing came to him.
Nothing but an insurmountable fear or an irrational hope for no specific reason.
And then pain and void with no beginning and no end.
An existence devoid of purpose, devoid of meaning, devoid of memories of happiness and joy that lasted more than a short time or that their short duration was not of his own doing or of his own fault.
He was there, alone in this misery, in the darkness of what was Sylar.
13, 12, 11 , 10 …
And then…He wasn’t alone.
He felt connected to everything.
To this world that seemed chaotic and scary.
To a world he thought he would not be able to suffer without a poison in his veins.
To a world that contained heroism and compassion and beauty that was Simone and Eden.
And maybe just maybe, he had gotten something along the way.
Something from them.
And that was hope and faith.
If not for him, not in himself then for the world around him and in the people around him.
All people. Special and ordinary, wise and ignorant, sane or deluded.
Loving or apathetic.
Faith in the fact that someone would pick up part of his pieces, the pieces he would leave behind for anyone or everyone to make a difference, make a start, make a miracle.
His words, the essence of his existence.
“It’s all right! I finally know my part in all of this! To die here, with you. But not before I show them how to kill you and stop the bomb. I finally get to be a hero!”
5, 4. 3, 2…
He observed calmly as Sylar brought his hand to his face. He knew he would kill him and send him into non-existence.
His time was up.
His time was over.
His countdown. He could sense his clock ticking.
…1…
And he knew that another one was just commencing to tick now.
A clock that held the fate of the world he was about to part with.
And he only hoped that Peter, Hiro and everyone important would be there to stop that countdown.
…0…
Fin
Any comments, or suggestions will be appreciated. :D
Title:Countdown
Author: force-oblique
Rating: G
Disclaimer:Nobody is mine..but i would settle for Peter or Isaac or even Sylar...See? I am reasonable! :P! =D
Characters/Pairings: Isaac/ A Bit of Sylar (he is like a passpartout!)
Table/Prompt:Table #7, "Countdown"
Word Count: 2,530
Summary: Isaac’s thoughts and resolutions as he slowly came to terms with his imminent death on his last day.
Author's Notes/Warning/Spoilers: Well, you do know he is dead, right? :P
This is actually the worst fic I have written, but give it a try and let me know if it sucks majorly. Extra kindness would really help me! lol
Crossposted at heroes15 & at heroes-fic,heroes-isaac
To read the other stories responding to the challenge click on the links:
Uncover-A Noah Bennet/Claire Fiction+ "Revolve- A Eden/Sylar Fiction" + "Elusive-A Sylar/Claire Fiction"
Countdown
The paint brush felt heavy in his hand. So heavy that he couldn’t believe it.
It had been his special instrument ever since he could remember himself. His only redemption, his escape.
He’d never thought he ‘d see the day on which the paint brush would feel “heavy” in his hand. Then again, maybe it was just it.
He would live to see that day. And that day only…
Though tired, his hand seemed to have assumed a life of its own.
A life it would not share with the rest of him.
Isaac could only watch as part of him applied colours on the canvas, slowly turning lines and colours into recognizable shapes. A recognizable shape.
A shape he had seen before and whose sight made his blood run cold. His death. His massacre. His humiliation.
Every time he thought of it, his heart stopped pumping life into his veins.
It was all too familiar. Too painfully inescapable. Isaac knew he had made mistakes and each and every one was haunting him right now. Guilt and doubt just screaming inside his head so loud that he couldn’t think straight.
He used to think that his art was of beauty, of innocence, of intensity.
But what was on the canvas in front of him, though seen before, made him sick to his stomach and drained him of his strength. With shaking hands he removed his headband and stared at the painting trying to take it in.
This wasn’t beauty. This wasn’t innocence. This was tragedy and cruelty and horror. And he was its model.
Tears would escape his eyes if it wasn’t that useless. He knew it was useless and hopeless and for one more time in his life he felt so unbelievably helpless.
100, 99, 98, 97…
Inside, he could sense his hopes collapse; he could feel his dreams colliding with each other causing the illusions of his life fall apart. There was no hiding now. Death was coming.
Death was coming to cover him with dark wings of oblivion and he felt so betrayed.
So betrayed and lost. Yes, he had felt lost before. When he used to need heroin through his veins to feel that life was worth living. When he needed heroin to have himself feel worthy and significant and anything other than emptiness and disappointment.
He was lost. All his life he had been hiding and running from something. He had always thought that that something was the fear of mediocrity or failure. Not having the talent he believed he had…
He felt so insecure that he needed to think that it wasn’t just him. That it was the drug inside him giving him strength and confidence he never quite achieved.
Then after some time it wasn’t just for the bad days. He believed he needed the drug even when inspiration came just pouring out of him and onto the canvas, sober.
It was easier that way. Fail or succeed it wasn’t just him it was also the drug.
Someone or something else to blame or to turn to.
87,86,85, 84…
Feelings of inferiority plagued him. And how could he feel safe? Even now at this age he had nothing he could call his own other than the figments of his imagination and the cartoons he drew. Simone had drifted away from him.
Day by day he had felt her growing more and more distant. More hurt.
And it was all his fault. Because he just wasn’t worthy. He just wasn’t strong enough to support a woman like Simone. Instead, he was the weak link in their relationship.
Simone welcomed danger. She didn’t go after it, but when she encountered it she’d become the most passionate and fearless creature he had ever seen.
She would have the bravery and the resilience to stand up to anything. To withstand, to overcome just about anything. To look danger in the eye and not look away.
In some ways, she was his complete opposite.
He was weak, he was hesitant. He’d never been decisive for reasons other than to take his next dosage.
The prospect of conflict filled him with terror.
And he never trusted himself at the sight of peril or urgency.
Yes, maybe he could do it, but what if he couldn’t?
What if he really wasn’t strong enough, good enough?
Would Simone forgive him of his mistakes? Or rather would she have forgiven him?
74,73, 72…
Would she have forgiven him for his being a coward?
And which one was better? Being a coward for not trying or trying something and being a failure?
And how was he supposed to choose between the two?
What would she have chosen if she had no other options than those two? If she had to choose between his two alternatives? A Coward and a loser?
Would she even have felt obliged to choose or would she have left him, not making an effort to put him out of his misery?
But none of that mattered now. He would never find out what Simone would have done, because she was dead by his own hand. And the fact that he never meant for anything like this to happen was neither an excuse nor an explanation.
68, 67, 66…
Isaac couldn’t live with that. So instead, he postponed the inevitable. Heroin in his blood was like liquid oblivion trying to wash off his mistakes and guilt.
Numbing his pain, masking his true nature. Keeping him in a state of continuous numbness.
It was really a miracle he ever got out of that nightmare. And he had Simone and Eden to thank for it. But both were dead now.
One because of him, the other due to Sylar.
52, 51, 50…
It wouldn’t be long now. He could feel it. Fate was closing in on him. It was with calm anticipation that he heard his voice from somewhere from behind him.
“You really can paint the future. Just like the professor said. Fantastic!”
“You are late!” he muttered and he felt like whatever strength and courage he strived to gather, fade away.
“I guess you know why I am here!” he heard Sylar say and coldness run through him.
But he had to be strong even for once in his life.
He walked toward Sylar.
“You are the one who’s gonna kill me!” he said and his matter-of-factly tone surprised even him.
“This is usually the part when people start screaming!” Sylar stated and he seemed to expect something of Isaac. A sign of panic perhaps.
But Isaac was unable to do even that. Panic.
Funny how his giving up resembled courage to Sylar’s eyes, even his own.
46, 45,44…
But it couldn’t be true. Could it? Was he brave? Had he done anything important, anything great?
Even his ability mocked him.
Others could bend time or break things with their mind. He could only “see”.
Yes more clearly and accurately that anyone else, what was and what was to be. But could he do anything? Could he do anything about it? Was he the one to make a difference?
No! He was the one who could stand by and watch.
Watch and observe as others made history.
As they turned their actions into history.
He would only be an “extra” in the movie of his life.
Words came effortlessly as he said: “I tried fighting the future. It’s too big for me! Maybe you can do better!”
It almost sounded as if he was trying to appeal to Sylar’s vanity or his ego. But he knew better than that.
“Why me? Do you see some special future for me?”!
He could almost laugh as he spoke of nothing but the truth he ‘d seen.
“They stop you … and you die!”
Sylar chuckled but he looked around as if searching for a painting, a sign of the future to prove him wrong.
“You painted all that too? Show me!”
The predator’s voice trembled with tension and greed. He wanted more, needed more. He wanted to devour everything. Isaac’s power, his existence, his entire being. He could hardly contain it as he shouted :”Show Me!!!”
Only then did Isaac snap out of his lethargy. A sudden idea forming in his mind as he saw the handgun on the table.
But he was too late, too slow. Story of his life…
Sylar chided “Now, now!”. Like reprimanding a child or a pet.
And maybe that is what he was. That is what he was in his eyes.
He felt no threat, no apprehension. Inside his studio, there with Sylar, he was just like an animal inside a cage.
Ripped of his strength, of his spirit, of his dignity. He was there only for Sylar’s entertainment.
With a flick of Sylar’s wrists, he felt thrown backward onto the floor, gasping for breath.
Before even realizing what was happening two paint brushes rose up off the table and stabbed his arms pinning him to the floor.
There was no turning back now. No words he could say that could change what would happen. No words he could use to appeal to to Sylar’s heart, assuming he had one.
38, 37, 36…
He wished he could remain calm. Withstand the pain he felt as the two brushes pierced his flesh deeper and deeper.
Excruciating, unbearable. He knew Sylar wanted to know what would happen to him. To stop it. To postpone it maybe.
But if Isaac had learned something during his brief and pointless existence was that you could not fight fate.
You could try, but then there would be nothing but disappointment in store for you.
The painting was gone now; he had shown everything he wanted in the comic book.
He could see Sylar trying to find anything ominous about his future. A painting, a sign of what would happen. But there was nothing.
At least Isaac was not a complete idiot. He smiled inside despite his suffering.
“It’s already gone!” he shouted.
“Why don’t you tell me all about it then?”
It was a question to be expected. He could discern anticipation in his black eyes, and nothing but darkness with no beginning and no end.
Infinite darkness and in spite of the circumstances Isaac wondered if Sylar had always been that way.
Cruel, uncaring, obsessive, abusive…
He had difficulty breathing. He didn’t know what kind of power he was using on him but it was working. He knew it wouldn’t be long till he perished as he said:
“I have seen enough of the future. I don’t need to watch it happen. I’ve wasted my life, destroyed everything good that ever came to me. At least I did one goof thing before I died!”
He half closed his eyes and images of Simone and Eden haunted him.
“So change it!” Eden had told him. Change the future. But even after her “nudge” he had done nothing he could be proud of.
His actions seemed over simplistic, ineffective and futile even to him.
“So, change it!”. Maybe Eden wanted to change it too and it had gotten her nowhere. He only wished he could have been as courageous as her.
She took her own life so that this monster would not use her in his plan to bring the world to its knees or to its end.
29, 28, 27…
His words seemed to have an effect on Sylar. As if losing his patience, with a flick of his fingers two more pain brushes stabbed his ankles, pinning him harder to the floor.
But Isaac knew it then, he welcomed pain.
It was his part in this anyways. In a few minutes he’d join Eden and Simone.
“You cant fight the future!” he uttered with whatever strength and nerve he had left.
If only the gun was in his hands now. To end it himself, end himself.
He almost felt guilty for not having thought to take his own life.
He wouldn’t be in pain. He wouldn’t be in such agony now. He wouldn’t feel guilty, useless, a coward or an abomination of what a man should become.
“Neither can you!” he heard Sylar say kneeling at his side.
He realized what was next. He had seen it and played it in his mind hundreds of times.
Thinking it over, trying to find a way out, an escape or a “dramatic” exit.
But nothing came to him.
Nothing but an insurmountable fear or an irrational hope for no specific reason.
And then pain and void with no beginning and no end.
An existence devoid of purpose, devoid of meaning, devoid of memories of happiness and joy that lasted more than a short time or that their short duration was not of his own doing or of his own fault.
He was there, alone in this misery, in the darkness of what was Sylar.
13, 12, 11 , 10 …
And then…He wasn’t alone.
He felt connected to everything.
To this world that seemed chaotic and scary.
To a world he thought he would not be able to suffer without a poison in his veins.
To a world that contained heroism and compassion and beauty that was Simone and Eden.
And maybe just maybe, he had gotten something along the way.
Something from them.
And that was hope and faith.
If not for him, not in himself then for the world around him and in the people around him.
All people. Special and ordinary, wise and ignorant, sane or deluded.
Loving or apathetic.
Faith in the fact that someone would pick up part of his pieces, the pieces he would leave behind for anyone or everyone to make a difference, make a start, make a miracle.
His words, the essence of his existence.
“It’s all right! I finally know my part in all of this! To die here, with you. But not before I show them how to kill you and stop the bomb. I finally get to be a hero!”
5, 4. 3, 2…
He observed calmly as Sylar brought his hand to his face. He knew he would kill him and send him into non-existence.
His time was up.
His time was over.
His countdown. He could sense his clock ticking.
…1…
And he knew that another one was just commencing to tick now.
A clock that held the fate of the world he was about to part with.
And he only hoped that Peter, Hiro and everyone important would be there to stop that countdown.
…0…
Fin