Red Sky: Chapter 1
I woke up in a cell. I was lying on the floor.
A man was sitting on the bed in front of me. He was dressed in an expensive suit. There were no chairs in the cell so I slid backwards, resting my back against the base of the wall.
“This is going to be a difficult case,” was the first thing the man said to me.
“Case? Case for what?”
“They haven’t told you?”
“No one’s told me anything.”
The man winced. Perhaps he took this as a sign I might be innocent or maybe he just disliked giving bad news.
“You are charged with the murder of Aya Gordon.”
“Gordon,” I repeated. He used the last name of Aya’s fiancé.
“She’s married?” I asked.
“No, she’s dead. You killed her.”
“I haven’t seen her in two weeks.”
“Then how do you explain this?” The man projected a holo. It showed Aya lying face down on her kitchen floor in a pool of blood.
“Aya,” I gasped and reached out to the projected image.
I was in shock. I didn’t care about the man’s charges against me. I only cared that Aya no longer existed, that she had been taken from this world. The fact he accused me of doing this would have made it worse if that was possible, but it wasn’t possible. There could be nothing worse than a world without her.
“At 9:35 p.m. on Thursday night you forced your way into Mrs. Gordon’s apartment. The two of you had an argument. Mrs. Gordon received a blow to the head that fractured her skull and knocked her to the floor.”
The man in the expensive suit hunched over and scanned my face looking for clues. I was too devastated to put up a defense or hide my emotions. I have no idea what my face showed as he examined me. After a few seconds he was satisfied with what he found and straightened up. He turned off the projection.
“I think our best chance is to claim it was done in a moment of passion, that it was an accident. Then we may be able to avoid an execution.”
I was still unable to form a sentence. The vision of Aya lifeless on the floor had taken all of my words, except one.
“Aya,” I repeated.
The man was growing impatient. He was here to conduct business and I wasn’t cooperating. He crossed his arms.
“What do you have to say in your defense?”
I said nothing. I silently started crying. My insides were in sharp physical pain. My internal organs torn away, vultures picking over my carcass.
“They know about the affair. They know she left you and returned to her fiancé.” He bent down again. His pupils were little black spots that receded into the blank white canvas of his eyeballs.
“This is motive. If you couldn’t have her then nobody could.”
Was he here to prosecute me or defend me?
“There are witnesses placing you at the scene of the crime. Your best chance is to claim it wasn’t planned. You went there to talk to her and it happened in the heat of the moment. Any other defense would be an insult. Judges don’t like to be lied to.”
The man was accusing me of lying when I hadn’t said anything. I looked at him through clouded eyes. What did he want from me? Did he want me to confess? Perhaps a confession would save everybody’s time, maybe even my life like he said. But I was too disoriented. My memory of this time is one of disorientation and fear.
He buttoned his jacket, got up from the bed and asked the guard to open the cell door. He had determined that no business was going to be accomplished on this day. Before he left my cell he looked at me one last time. “My name is Stone,” he said, “I’m your lawyer.” He shook his head and left.
“Aya,” I repeated and curled up in the fetal position on the floor as the door slammed shut.