Gods and Mountain Dew

The city burned, fire lighting up the sky. 

I watched as the ants on my screen ran in terror away from the flames while the cars on the street just continued to drive their predetermined path. Much like fate, they were stuck on a path that they couldn't avoid. And when I dropped the Space Alien down on top of there roads, they vanished from sight.

Digital death, I have come to serve it.

Oh, the people of JackOff Heights had been good to me. But truly, I had been good to them first. When I first started this game of Sim City, it was but a barren place of land. Too rocky. No water. No green. And yet, I had a vision. Schools were added, housing followed. Power plants and parks. 

It became a place of peace.

Oh, sure the people had their issues in the beginning. They didn't understand why I had so many roads or why I thought -I- was worthy of their taxation. They even dared to drop my mayor rating when I allowed for that prison to be built miles away in the hillside. Yet, when the subsidies and tax breaks came from such an endeavor, who was the one they cheered?

I had parades cast in my name as the city grew. I put in a stadium and we got a sports team. Oh, and the barren wasteland was transformed into a garden oasis. Once again, the people complained. My polling numbers diminished. They threatened with protest over my use of government funding to put in grass and lakes.

And yet... I became their god when we had an influx of people enter JackOff Heights. They worshiped me like the golden cow that I was. More parades followed. More additions gained. More people declaring me to be the mayor of the year -- no... the century. 

It got to the point where my crazy side projects were never criticized. They trusted me, believed in me. They put up with my eccentric ideas such as switching from American coal to solar power. They had seen me rise to the occasion so many times that they knew that I wouldn't let them down.

The fools.

You see, destruction of a home is a mere slap on the wrist. People can find new homes and new jobs. They can find new parks to take their kids too and new sports team to cheer for. Losing a town that one hates is not a loss, its an opportunity. 

I didn't want to give an opportunity.I wanted them to suffer a fate worse than that. 

I wanted them to lose a God. 

As I chugged from my Mountain Dew, I watched with splender as my urban renewal initiative caught ablaze. The flames followed the grass to the houses to the buildings to the solar panels that blew. I made sure to decimate the police station with meteors when they tried to respond to the alien rampaging through their streets. I laughed as my people begged for help only to find that their God was now silent to their pain.

I am Jehova. 

Fuck you, JackOff Heights. At least we don't have too many roads now, bitches. 

No Wire

It was when I was asking myself if I should cut the red wire or the blue wire when I realized that I didn't want to cut either.

I knelt in front of the doomsday device, wire clippers in hand, when the third option just donned on me. My hands froze as the time continued to count down --

2:43

2:42

2:41

- and I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe the third was for the best.

I was given the mantle of Patriot Prime when I was a teenager. Give, of course, being the word the government used. For me, it was never given. It was branded onto me like a cow. Unlike the other cattle, I had survived the injections and the tests.

I winced at the memory. Too many memories that were waved away by generals and higher ups in the name a patriotism. I kept my crouch, eyeing the device in front of me as I just tried to focus again. I tried to think back to my training, back to my forced life, on how to diffuse this situation.

2:20

2:19

... And yet, I couldn't help but think about the doomsday device's reaction to the Earth's atmosphere. It would darken the skies and fill everyone's lungs full of ash with each desperate breath. Everyone would die. Everyone would fall. The generals. The politicians --

The children. The innocent.

I closed my eyes, trying to push the thoughts from my head. People needed me. I was a hero. And yet, here I was. The wire cutters shook in my hands, that shiver travelling up my arm before I dropped the tool to the ground. 

Nerves of Steel my ass.

The clock doesn't falter. It doesn't delay. It just continues with its duty. It's obligation. It doesn't question whats it purpose or why it was chosen. It doesn't remember the friends it lost in the name of science. It doesn't hesitate between numbers over the thought of being a slave to a duty.

1:45

1:44

I clenched my fist and spun around, pacing around the area as I tried to calm my nerves. I hear my CO screaming orders into my ear piece but I quickly pluck the damn thing off and toss it over my shoulder. 

It would be so easy. To end it all. To end all the pain and misery that this world has brought me.I could snuff it out in one foul swoop and avoid the life-time duty that my powers bestow on me. I could finally close my eyes and fall asleep, never to be woken up by alarm bells telling me that someone is doing something with a giant robot or mantis or whatever the hell the villains think of this week.

So I knelt down in front of the device and stare down at the bundle of wires.

20

19

18

So I'm back to my original question. Red wire? Blue wire?

15

14

Or do I finally just it all go away with a flash.

10

9

8

I pick up the wire cutters, squeezing them in my hand as I stare down at the wires.

6

5

I need to decide.

3

2

I decide.

1

EDIT: This needs to be present tense instead of past tense.