you step out onto the roof, where the bodies are laid to rest. the sun beats mercilessly down upon you. the butterflies cycle idly overhead. you readjust the flowers in your grip, and make your way through the rows of bodies, all in various stages of decay. a butterfly flits down towards you. it is almost as big as your head. you focus on your breathing, and your heartbeat. you are not dead yet. the sacred thing knows this, it lands on someone who's bones have almost been picked clean and nibbles on the last remaining bits of skin and meat. you know that in other places, they don't have these butterflies. in cooler places, there are four-legged beasts, or great birds that circle around the fields of the dead. there is a place down by the coast where the deceased are laid out on big flat rocks. amphibious things crawl out of the ocean and clean the bodies, and the ocean carries the bones away. that one kind of scares you, honestly. you couldn't imagine just having no evidence the dead person was ever there. you arrive at the resting place of your brother. he died of a sickness, from an injury, from a fight. it was eleven days ago. you unwrap your flowers and lie them around his body, carefully. red and purple. he liked those colours. his face isn't recognisable as him anymore, but he hasn't lost the gangly height and big hands. you stand up and look out over the other bodies, and the flowers brought for them by their loved ones. there is no one on this roof without flowers, except for you, because you are not dead. the sweet, heady smell of decay leaves you lightheaded. this always happens when you're up here. two butterflies flit down and land on the flowers you brought. the sun makes their wings shimmer in the haze. it's beautiful. your ears ring, slightly. you make your way to the exit. the stairs down are mercifully protected from the sun, and you take the moment to breathe the cooler air. your arms are empty. the walk back is quiet, except for the sounds of the bugs.

yours is a holy gun, and you serve a holy duty. you know this, you are told this. you don't believe this. you need the job, you need the money, you know this. and you're good at the job. you keep your head down, and you do what you're told. normally. for the longest time, you've done this. but this, now, is different. it's worse.

you stand behind the company spokesman, on stage, live, and he announces the next phase of the organization's plans. a holy crusade, a blessed war. only our best guns to keep all of us safe. so many will die. so many will die by your hand. the crowd of journalists applauds, discordant, and the stage lights sing too loud, and you stand in your place, two steps behind his right shoulder. and you know you can't do this. you will not be able to live with yourself past this. you will not live past this. you will die here, then. you take your holy gun, and your hand is quick and your aim is true, and you shoot the spokesman straight through the skull. quick and efficient, because you're good at your job. and he falls. and then you fall. you're gunned down by the security complement, quick and efficiently, because they're good at their jobs.

you don't die there. that would be too simple.

you're not alive, either.

there is a way for a person to live past death. it takes a very skilled individual, and a lot of money, but it's possible. if the self is returned to the body, the person is no longer dead. if the self is lost, the person is lost. if the self is stored somewhere, very carefully, the person is not dead, but they are empty. more receptive to orders. a gunman who asks no questions is a perfect gunman, except for the cost of construction. it's only worth it sometimes. when the empty gunman is sent to the mess hall for meals, the other agents see them, and they know. it's hard not to know, it's very noticeable, when a person is empty. they're like a black hole, like if you stand too close, you'll go tumbling down into nothing, forever. that's an old wives tale, everyone knows this. it's a perfectly safe and well understood process, the emptying. everyone avoids looking them in the eye. they are not there to notice.

a weapon is only as good as it's wielder. this empty gun is only as good as their commander. normally, the commander is not incompetent. but sometimes there is an error made in paperwork, somewhere in all the layers of bureaucracy, and someone underskilled is assigned a job too big for them. this is one of those times. it wouldn't have been an issue, except the commander needed to access storage, and he was a coward, and a fool, so he brought the empty gun with him. this wouldn't have been an issue either, truly, except for the fact he got lost, down in the maze of sensitive archives and artifacts. and he kept the empty gun with him, because he was scared. and he brought the empty body right past the shelves, tucked away into a corner, where the souls are kept. they walk right past it, and they feel their hands again. what? you feel your hands again. what? these are your hands. you come to a stop. these are your hands. where were they? where were you? what happened? what? you died, you think. probably. this is your body. it's been so long. you want to cry. you want to scream, and sing, and dance. you start to dance. spin around yourself, step light, step heavy, dip deep, arc high, this is your body. it's been so long. arms out at a nice steep angle, spin in place like the old spinning top at your grandparents house. throw yourself, arms first, wildly, side to side. get tackled to the ground. the floor rings out with a single pure note. no it doesn't. where did your hands go. he hisses something into your ear, and you aren't there to hear it. the empty gun comes back to a stand, and continues to follow the commander. the rest of the mission is uneventful. everyone goes back to work.

one day, a good few months ago, your brother went to work, and never came back. there's a hole in your life, in your every day, and no one believes you. or, they think they deserved it or something. they never said what their job truly was, it was some government thing, it paid well. supported the family. they left and never came back. the police gave up on searching, after a while. you knew not to trust police. you also know your brother. they wouldn't just leave you, you know this. you refuse to believe that they're dead. you cannot. if they were gone, the world would have stopped spinning already. you know this. in your bones, in your soul, you know this.

during the day, you work your retail job, and in your free time, which you don't have a lot of, you've started meeting up with this small group of radicals. not, like, proper real radicals. you guys aren't blowing anything up. it's mostly art you guys make. mostly graffiti. you're a good writer, you do what you can do, and you write. anti-establishment stuff, mostly. anti-war. there's a girl in the group who has connections with news publishers, and sometimes she can get your stuff in the papers. all anonymously, but it gets the word out there. a good few people have joined because of your writing. it makes you feel like you're doing something good. you're doing what you can. lately, your group has been organising speeches, at universities mostly, and small protests. nothing big enough to get big eyes on you. you think. you thought. turns out you were wrong about that.

the protest is scheduled for six, and you are here with a few members of your group, getting your signs in order in front of the library, at five thirty. you are anxious, and you aren't sure why. no, you know why. this is a very public protest, more so then you're used to, because you're marching from the library to the big statue of Reverend Colonizer in the city center. it's a peaceful protest, you are doing nothing wrong. you don't know why you keep looking over your shoulder. you feel like you're being watched, or something. someone tells you that you have nothing to be worried about, and you believe them, and you keep looking over your shoulder. and- that was your brother. you saw them. you fucking saw them, you swear, but only for a second. they're gone now, into the sparse crowd. you scan desperately over the faces, all strangers. you think you've never felt so lost. you would swear on your life that you saw them- THERE THEY ARE you run to them. you don't waste a moment. distantly, you hear a sound and identify it as a silenced gunshot, and you only notice that it hit you after you've thrown your arms around your brother. you're sobbing into their shoulder like a child. you say a lot of choked, muffled words in that moment, you meant all of them, you remember none of them. but one of them has to have been something along the lines of "come home with me. let's go home" because their gun hand drops quietly to their side, and when you eventually compose yourself enough to walk back to the library, their hand in yours, they follow, silent and unquestioning. something is wrong. you knew that already. something is truly wrong. someone's called out medical aid for you, because you got shot in the shoulder. right, yeah. something is wrong. they aren't saying anything. they aren't looking you in the eye. that's not weird. they don't seem like they're looking anywhere at all. they don't seem like they're there, really. there's a hole, in your life and in theirs, you find, literally. their hand is warm and unmoving in yours. you refuse to let go, even as the EMTs arrive and draw the bullet out of your shoulder. they ask you about them. you tell them they are your brother. you are told that they are dead. you understand, in a quiet, empty way. at some point you find the emergency services are gone, and you are sitting somewhere, the library? you don't know. you are sat against the wall, and your brother's hand is around your shoulder. they smell like harsh chemical cleaner, and being too close to them pulls at the edge of your senses. but their hand around your shoulders feels the same as it used to. so you close your eyes and pretend things are normal, and you're watching some scary movie, late at night. and they're teasing you for crying at the jumpscares but they still put their arm around you. keeping you safe. they smell like chemical cleaner. their breathing is shallow, and regular, and they don't move. you scrub your hands across your face. it doesn't do much. they don't tease you for crying, this time, because they aren't there.