Civil War #7 – Chapter Eight – The Director’s Stage

Ash lay on the arena floor, blood pooling beneath him, when the lights above flickered and dimmed again. A fresh roar rolled through the stands—an altogether different sound. Higher-pitched. Frenzied. Performative.

The screens crackled, the floor lighting up beneath Ash’s broken frame. A bold, stylized logo spun into view:

“LIVE FROM THE STAGE OF ORDER — THE DIRECTOR SPEAKS”

The music blared. Glitzy, theatrical, absurd.

A new feed took over. The camera panned over a vast, glittering studio stage decked out in obsidian and gold. The pleebs in the lower arena were silent. The upwardly mobile stood and applauded wildly.

Fog machines hissed. A spotlight cut the smoke.

And then—

The Director appeared.

Clad in his trademark black-glass armor and tailored overcoat, he strolled through columns of neon and fire, waving like a rockstar, like a prophet. He wore a mic on his collar, and every gesture was captured from a dozen angles.

The crowd chanted his name like a messiah. “Direc-TOR! Direc-TOR!”

“Let’s talk about truth,” the Director said, spreading his arms. “Let’s talk about Ash.”

A screen behind him filled with his own origin story:

“Born into affluence. A prodigy of strategy. A wolf among lions.”

Footage played of him debating other young elites, humiliating them with wit and speed. Headlines followed: ‘The Boy Who Outtalked the Board.’ ‘Chosen by the Seven.’

“He was too dangerous to keep in the City. So they gave him a kingdom—this commune. And a mandate: to make it perfect.”

Footage of the commune played—its order, its security, its enforced smiles.

“But not all obey. Some dream of fire. And for them, we have a lesson.”

The screen changed again. It zoomed out.

Now we saw the world—a fractured map dotted with secure communes. Between them, a wasteland.

“These are the Killing Fields. No man’s lands. The old world in its ruins. We do not cross them. We do not pity those who are sent into them. We protect ourselves—with drones, with towers, with missiles and turrets that speak with steel.”

Ash, still barely conscious, watched the spectacle through one swollen eye.

“So what should we do,” the Director asked, turning back to the camera, “with a man like Ash?”

He paused. Let the crowd roar.

“We send him where all traitors go.”

“To the Killing Fields.”

Gasps from the pleeb section. Wild applause from the elites.

“And next week,” the Director added, now grinning widely, “we’ll settle it once and for all—with a special broadcast… straight from New York.”

“Where Ash… and I… will appear together.”

The crowd lost it.

The feed cut to black.

The lights in the arena returned.

Ash lay in silence, staring up at the vast ceiling.

The trap had only just closed.

All around the arena, robotic porters began to file in—tall, thin, and dressed in uniforms that echoed the elegance of old movie theater ushers. They wore crisp caps and tailcoats, their surfaces buffed to a gleaming polish. But beneath the charm was threat: their torsos were armored, and their hands ended in baton-like claws—mechanical appendages capable of guiding, prodding, or clamping with blunt efficiency.

They moved gracefully and in silence, directing the upwardly mobile toward the exits with practiced nods and chilling smiles. Polite, yet dangerous. The crowd, still buzzing with the Director’s performance, flowed out under their direction—unaware or uncaring of the menace in their escorts.

As the last spectator disappeared, a pair of medical drones descended upon Ash. Their movements were methodical and sterile. One unfolded a sleek black apparatus—a gas mask, its mouthpiece hissing softly.

Ash’s body tensed. He knew that sound. He had always avoided the gas—Serenite, they called it. A ritual among the affluent. A habit among the bored. A numbing comfort the pleebs were rarely granted.

He turned his face away.

A second drone held him down.

The mask pressed to his face.

He resisted, teeth clenched, muscles trembling. But the seal was tight. The hiss grew louder.

And then, slowly—

His grip loosened.

His breath deepened.

The tension drained from his shoulders.

He felt something he hadn’t felt in years.

Peace.

Then darkness.