Like a thought, an idea, painted and constructed in just a moment before becoming set and unchanging Valentine found himself on the floor, hurtled there by forces unkown, in a way more mysterious still. With fleeting pain and tortured strain he struggled to his knees, feeling the weight from his heavy, wet clothes and old death in his chest or was it his soul? He coughed and convulsed as thick clear liquid flew from his mouth from deep within his lungs. The intial shock settled as Valentine accustomed himself " where is the safe house and the weapons cache?!" boomed the garbled voice from the speakers on either side of the plexiglass tinted window in front of him. Valentine, the man he was now could only lurch forward gasping for breath in words he never even thought and in a language he never knew, the man who is Valentine spoke. "free me, i have done nothing" He didnt know the words but he knew the meaning, like a feeling. There was no sound or response from behind the plexiglass only the dripping that echoed in that empty room lingered in the long silence. "You'll leave when we get what we need, this can all be over whenever you decide." Screeched the masked voice from the speakers "Then this is where i die, for I have nothing to tell you, another body of my people is nothing to you." Valentines host said, everything seeming to play out like a movie to Valentine just more dialogue from a preset scene. It then struck him, this is their past so of course it would be the same, Valentine was there , saw everything that happened as if it was his own body his own life. He could feel every bit of the pain and anguish but this wasnt his life, this is a life that had already been lived and lost. Valentine could even recall the mans memories, of his wife and the child they lost when they were young, he could feel their hurt, faded and dull as it was. He saw in the blurry flash of progressions that make a life time in memory, like a picture flip book, each memory piecing together that whole of his life, 34 years in an instant, all the things that made him who he was. The click of a machine accompanied by the hiss of hydraulics cut short the memories and the room began to fill again, rising from below Valentine. Pouring in from vents in either side and another 2 from above water filled the room slowly but still too fast. "Perflurocarbon, this shit wont kill you, you can breathe in just like air but it hurts just like drowning whenever you switch over." The garbled voice explained and made Valentine notice this wasnt water, it was far too thick and slimy, The man Valentine was didnt understand the man's English, but He did. The room filled quickly reaching his chest, he thrashed and frantically moved about the cell trying to get out, get away from what he knew was coming but there was nothing but smooth wall, a drainage grate and the damned window. He pressed against it, hit it and yelled trying passionately to break it and get out but nothing would happen Valentine knew. This had already happened once before, this man died and ended up as one of those things that took him, a Reclaimer. After the liquid reached his mouth he spat and gasped, choked and clawed at the shrinking open air. He could feel the liquid filling his lungs as his gasps forced down more and more of the liquid, the room was too small and the liquid too thick for him to float so he swung his body around in pain as he was forced to breathe in this, his new air that felt of death and drowning. After the panic and the pain settled, once he could sit there in the calm disembodiment of his life, after drowning, all he could do was stare at the window, still pitch black still uncaring. He pressed his ear against the glass hoping to hear something on the other side of it, muffled voices could be heard and the screeching of furniture moving against stone floor. Unintelligible speech continued on as he listened, a memory played in his mind, thoughts of his home and playing with his daughter, his miracle after years of misfortune. He remembered listening outside the door of her room soon after her mother had died, a casualty of a bombing Valentine knew, he remembered crying with her from behind that door wishing he knew how to be there for her. The irony never escaping him, how him and his wife lost their first child and they suffered through the miscarriages. How happy he was to hold their daughter in his arms and how at peace she was to know that love to hold it and cherish it. None of this was lost to Naseem, only his wife now, only she was lost cut short from their life by the hazards of living, of being born here. More screeching could be heard now and loud thuds like there was a fight going on behind that glass, the cell he was in began to drain while he continued to listen. The scuffling and thuds continued on until 3 sharp bangs of gunfire brought it all to an end, by then the fluid was too low for him to continue breathing easily and his torment began again. He collapsed to the floor and clutched his chest as he coughed up the thick slime, but this time was different, this time he felt some remain,felt too much. He lay choking there in the fresh air while his captors released the pneumatic seals that were closing him off from the rest of the world. The floor lowered and brought out from the sealed chamber he was in and brought him to the ground floor of the facility. "God damn it, get rid of him and get me a new lead while i deal with this traitor shit." The mans voice now clear, his face out from behind the glass, he knew it was the man behind the masked voice with that cold tone and succinct speech. Finally a face to the devil of his life and the architect of his death. The uniformed men grabbed him and dragged him through the facility as his life faded from him. Violently torn from solid ground Valentine felt himself slip from reality, ripped from sanity and any measure of sight he whirled and tumbled through whatever untold forces held this realm together, forced from one tragedy to the next. Each a fragment, pieces of torment stitched together through memory and pain. The life of a migrant worker, condemned and hated for finding the better life he wanted for his family, killed by an angry group of nationals. A mother separated from her child because she was too young, a deep scar remaining through her short life made to feel too long by the wound which lingered. A dozen more tragedies, a dozen more lives compressed and thrown into Valentines mind. These tortured scenes playing out for him over and again like a car crash on loop until they were ingrained in him just as they were in them. This whirling hurricane of repeated suffering was ground to a halt as Valentine found himself in a uniformed guards body, standing outside the door in a cold facility. He nodded to an officer and his personal guard then turned to follow them into the room, they closed the door behind them and turned out the lights. a middle aged pakistani man was brought into the room on the other side of the two way glass by a raising platform. He looked confused and scared as the officer barked his questions at the man through the microphone on the table. The memories came again in floods and flashes, memories of his meetings with another man, not an officer but a superior from another branch, he remembered the plans he told, the details he shared of his officers operations, the things he did and those who suffered from it. "In the name of peace and justice in this sandy ball of shit" he would always say in a way to justify the tortured bodies left in his wake. "No worse than what they already do to each other" echoed after each burned village or massacred family. "God damned monster" was the only thing on the soldiers mind with every new atrocity, contempt for his officer but never having the proof or the power to do anything until that other man came to him. The plan was set, in 2 days they would meet and finally bury that man, Colonel Patterson, 2 days when the colonel was set to meet with a known terrorist, two more days. The officer watched on disgusted as the colonel filled that room with liquid, he had never been in this room before he never knew what section of hell this was for the captured men to each of whom guilt was a matter of perspective, the colonels perspective alone. The man in the cell thrashed and fought against the water as it filled the room, clawing the ceiling and the walls hoping to get out when the soldier thought things were finally done he noticed, to his horror, that the man was still alive and breathing underwater. "Its a fairly new toy, got enough oxygen content in it that people can breathe just fine, hurts like hell though getting used to it. Sometimes these third world bastards even think they died and ascended to heaven that they are being judged by God himself and well, here I am." the colonel finished his explanation with a smile and a chuckle as he hit a switch to drain the tank cell. Once the man was settled and breathing air again the colonel leaned into the microphone to ask the questions again only getting confused responses and panicked pleas. Once again, twice, a third and fourth time the colonel drowned him, suspending him each time in this horrid state of drowning until finally he heard the mans acceptance to his fate. The colonel clicked his tongue in frustration before he set to flood the tank one final time, the soldier couldnt look away from the man whom he was powerless to help, the soldier met his eyes as the drowning man hopelessly stared, only seeing darkness on his side for sure. in those eyes he saw something, a sort of life, a knowing spark that brought the soldier to his resolve. Two men burst into the room causing the colonel to rise from his chair, the two had apparently felt the same as the soldier and had finally hit their breaking point when asked to "clean up" a family in the low end district of the nearby town. They fought with the colonel as he yelled back attempting to quell this rebellion before it started, getting rid of some locals was one thing, a couple of servicemen was an entire different league. The argument reached its climax when one man lunged at the colonel knocking him against the table, the other took up the cue and fought the bodyguard, while the soldier stood there unsure of whos side to take, just two more days, thats all it would have taken. But before he could decide the choice was made for him in the sound of a gunshot, then two more as the bullets found their home in the two soldiers skulls and one in the ceiling from the struggle. He stood there as the pool of his comrades blood inched toward his feet. " Clean this shit up" The colonel said to his bodyguard while he holstered his weapon, the only one allowed on base. The colonel adjusted himself, fixing his uniform while looking at the window, in the struggle he had hit the switch and was now emptying the cell "well i guess he gets to go a different way, still ends the same though. Kind of funny how things work out aint it, see if they hadnt have bumped me into that he would have had a gentle passing once the oxygen in there was replaced, real peaceful. It was a problem for a long time that some of the fluid would stay in their lungs and drown em after the oxygen was all used up, took them a few dunks but eventually it happened. That was a problem for me too because it didnt look natural enough, this way was the better solution to a nagging problem" The colonel sauntered closer to the soldier as he moved out of the way of the bodyguard who was busy with the dead men. "Sometimes though, not every nagging problem can be handled so easily, so smoothly, sometimes you have to get your hands dirty and you can't be afraid of that, not if your gonna last in this game as long as I have, but i guess youll never have to worry about that will you." Realization dawned on the soldier too late, the colonel had already slid his knife into the soldiers chest between his ribs and digging into his heart. He clutched at the colonels lapel as his body sank, his legs unable to support him anymore, blood streaming down his side. The colonel kicked him off to the side and stepped over him heading down the stairs outside the room to the ground level. The soldier left there with his life pouring from his chest, staring at the empty doorway thinking of how he ever got here from his small town in Kentucky, from his high school prom, from his family to here. Just two more days to avoid wasting 22 years. Just