A gun wasn’t complicated in principle. Pressure. A confined expansion of gas, leaving it with only one pathway for that pressure to escape through. Put mass in its way and let the gas do the rest. Well, that was the simple part, but could I make such a thing with medieval tools and the hands of an old man?
Old man Jay came close to me, he was fairly short but he darted his eyes around the page. I did another sketch, something fairly simple that even he would understand. It all felt so normal for a moment but a sudden shock jolted my brain as I paused writing for a moment. “What the fuck am I even writing?” I muttered as I felt the stare of the old man shift onto me. I felt another hole ravage my insides, as I covered my mouth. I felt my eyes open as I stared into the page and thought deeply to myself.
Why the fuck do I know the language?
I don’t know why, but I had just realised something. I could communicate, write and understand their language but because I was overtaken by shock of the events, I had totally overlooked that. I still remembered English, but it seemed like to me, however I was teleported here, I was somehow granted the ability to know their language.
The thought infuriated me. It was like someone, or something was messing with me, dictating my life and holding me on strings for entertainment. Sure, if I suddenly came to this land with no understanding of the language, I would be in far more trouble than I was now. But still.
It was genuinely like I was someone’s puppet and I despised that. Even though I somehow was bestowed the ability to speak, write and understand, I felt even more helpless. I had to get to the bottom of this.
I stopped the thought for a moment. Dwelling on the unexplainable, no matter how infuriating, for now was useless. I had to deal with the problem at hand and that was survival. I continued my sketch and wrote down the basics. I just drew down a relatively long metal tube, which was able to guide a projectile down it while creating a brief pressure event.
“Right, Old man Jay, give me a roof for the next few days, and I’ll show you the wonders of metal.” I said.
The days began to brush past quickly, due to our extensive focus and building of this project. Jay had a room sitting above this ground floor and that was where he stayed. This whole thing was quite literally his home. And me, I didn’t have any rights to argue or complain as I hadn’t been hired yet or showed results, so I stayed downstairs, literally sleeping on the chair or floor. As long as I had a place to stay, that was better than nothing for now.
The first thing me and Jay worked on was propulsion. I needed something capable of rapidly producing expanding gas to launch a projectile but I needed to test a few things first. I couldn’t just jump into this blindly without experimenting with the components, metals and chemistry of this world.
And since this was a whole other world, regular metals like the ones from earth didn’t exist-no, maybe they did but I couldn’t tell right now because they had different names. I began to test some mixtures, seeing the results and reactions of them and recording them. Jay watched me in fascination from a chair, eagerly waiting to be handed some work. Nonetheless, he stayed quiet and respectful, letting me do my work. And thankfully, after a series of tests, I had come to the conclusion that the chemistry of this world still obeyed its laws.
“Perfect old man. The chemistry of this world’s still predictable.” I said to him with a smile as I wrote some notes down.
“Hm,” the old man replied in confusion.
The desk progressively got messier as time went on, with pages of writing fluttering around the room and ink spilt over the wood turning it black. After figuring out the first step, I had to move onto the containment. Now that the pressure problem had been solved, I now needed to make a barrel and a chamber capable of surviving it and this is where the old man came into play.
I clicked my finger at him, “Old man, it’s your time to shine.”
He smirked as he jumped off his chair, “What do you need, boy?”
We needed to test a few things and one of them was the barrel, which was the strong metal tube that directs the bullet and tolerates the pressure. The second was the chamber area, which was the most important part in my books for now. This was where the pressure actually originated from because that was the highest-stress part. And lastly, we had to focus on the closure around the pressure containing region. We couldn’t have gas escaping backwards or through weak joints rather than actually doing useful work.
“Jay, before we start, we need to source the metals required. I need you to get me them.” I said.
“Sure, whatcha need?” He replied, raising an eyebrow as we hovered over the messy desk.
“I need something strong, consistent…something capable of surviving repeated stress.” I listed as I ran my fingers across the page.
“Alright, I’ll be right back.”
Time passed as I theorised in my head about what steps to do next, drawing it down. Jay came back with numerous different metals and so I questioned him about each one's different properties and so Jay told me which ones were brittle, which ones deformed easily, which ones were harder to shape and so on.
And so I decided to put the metals to the test.
The two of us stood at the far end of the room as Jay stood next to me in confusion and across the room was my little containment experiment to test the metals. I could practically feel the glee coming from the old man as he watched in excitement and before I could finish my thought, a loud rattle struck my ears as I watched a burst of flame. Smoke ensued as I waved my hand around to clear the air.
“Was it supposed to do that?” The old man questioned as I walked over to the test.
Fuck. The metal’s gone and split on me. It’s broken for God’s sake.
“No. No it wasn’t,” I responded in slight frustration.
“That was wonderful,” the man said, hastily catching up to me to inspect the remains.
“Let’s go again,” I commanded.
We kept going and going till the night consumed the skies, but neither of us had left the building once. I was too consumed in the numerous tests, while he was taken over by fascination. We had finally come to the conclusion of a metal, where the name was ‘Anure’ which was the equivalent of steel on earth. And now, we had to move onto the next step and it seemed, me and Jay were both eager to stay awake the whole night.
This was where we had to make sure we actually turned the pressure into a useful shot. The night went on and Jay began to manufacture the barrel according to my design but I couldn’t help but notice an issue.
It was uneven.
“Jay, it’s uneven,” I said to him.
“Hm? Where do you see it’s uneven, boy?” He said inspecting it himself. He had just finished the shape of it and cooled it down and so I asked him to pass it to me. Rolling down a test bullet, the echo of metal clanking together ran out of the barrel before the bullet and it stopped halfway.
“The insides uneven Jay, this won’t work.” I said to him as I looked through the barrel, closing one eye. And so he got to work once again as I thought of my next problem.
“Combustion isn’t the weapon neither is the pressure… It’s the energy transfer.” I thought to myself. The issue was that the results may be pathetic if too much energy was lost.
The next day ran to the two of us and the next stage of tests had begun. I had taken a shot.
“Oh…Oh my God! Axure, boy it worked!” The old man watched as he raised his firsts in excitement.
“Yes. Once.” I said as I creased my brows.
“Didn’t you want this?” He asked, putting a lid on his elation.
“No… I don’t want it to just work now. I want it when I need it to work,” I said and so we moved on once again, rapidly springing into action. Experimenting over and over again, testing different things, fixing errors, metal deformities, bullets behaving unpredictably. And the two of us kept going on, day in day out, until we finally got consistent results.
“Okay Jay,” I slammed my hands on the middle large table as the lamp that hung low, beamed onto my face, “I need one movement from my finger to release the stored mechanical energy somewhere else.”
His response threw me off for a moment as I shifted my head backwards.
“...That’s it?” He asked and so I quickly grabbed a messy sheet of paper and positioned it in the middle of the table. The dark wooden room had significantly gotten messier with pieces of metals laying everywhere, ink splattered, burnt wood and many more hanging around but the pair of us paid no attention to cleaning up. No. We didn’t even have the time to do so. I quickly sketched another simple diagram and slid it to Jay next to me.
Picking it up, I watched the man stroke his white beard, furrowing his brows as he read it but his next movements surprised me further when he grabbed the pen next to me, and started scribbling writing of his own.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Making it less stupid,” He replied as I ate the next words coming out of my mouth, shocked by his attitude. But the man said it with happiness and a pinch of pride as he continued to scribble away onto the page.
But then I noticed something as I zoomed in on his writings and diagram, and he had significantly, truly simplified what I had just drawn by using the kinds of mechanical linkages he already had been making for clocks and other devices.
“You see,” he began to explain with his tongue licking his tash, “You have got way too many moving pieces for the precision of my tools. So I oughta simplify it.”
And a light bulb lit up in my head as I watched the man show the full fruits of his craft. Jay wasn’t just a pair of hands, he was an engineer in his own right. Just one educated through the craftsmanship of this world and not modern science.
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Click.
Click.
Click.
I tested it over and over again, up to ten times. But I came to a halt.
“What?” Jay asked.
“It failed.” I replied.
“Once,” he shot back.
“Exactly.”
And so we pushed through once again.
And the final day came. I didn’t even know how long I had been sleeping in this one room, barely having left this very floor or even seeing daylight. Day in and day out, endlessly slaving away to keep this roof over my head and provide myself with some cashflow soon but nonetheless, I had reached the end goal. The rays of sunlight were shining through the window in the early morning and the two of us stood at one side of the room. Jay had set up a circular target and hung it above his main work desk as I held the warm wooden handle in my hand. I caressed the cold metal up and down as I spun the barrel holding the bullets inside as it rattled on every spin.
Jay stood next to me, eagerly looking at the gun in my hand, just like me as I stared down at it with a smile. Breaking the silence, I lifted my arm up and took aim. I didn’t know how good my aim would be or if I would even hit the target, but I looked down at the iron sight and rested my finger on the trigger. I could feel the beaming glare of Jay etch onto me, waiting in excitement. And then, I pulled it.
A burst of flame erupted as a deafening noise shook the room and in a split second, the wooden target was torn apart, leaving a hole going right through to the insides of the wall.
But I didn’t stop there.
I fired and fired and fired, till all five bullets were used. Silence filled the room after as I lowered the weapon and smiled. I left the gun in my left hand and reached out my right hand to Jay beside me, as I kept my focus on the target board in front. And with no hesitation, he slapped my hand and shouted, “We did it son!”
Part Two
I had figured out later on in the day, that it had been only a week since I had arrived here even though it felt much longer. However, with the justified sacrifice of time, I had ticked off three of my goals in this world: creating a firearm, getting a job and having a roof to sleep under. Now my next step was to learn more about this world, indulge in its books, understand its infrastructure and general politics so I could maybe get a grasp on what my next action could be. I had some sort of idea that there was someone or something that had brought me here but I couldn’t determine whether they had a grasp on what I was doing or where I was. I had to be extremely cautious still and lay low. I still didn’t understand anything yet. I couldn’t get ahead of myself just because I made a gun.
“What’s got you looking so stressed out, Axure boy?” Jay asked me as he came and sat next to me on the balcony of my room. He had given me a small little room next to his with the balcony being shared and connected. I looked out to the night sky and saw the millions of stars shimmering in the darkness, realising the beauty of what the cosmos were like without light pollution.
This world was breathtaking.
“Old man Jay,” I muttered as he pulled in a seat across from me, slamming a bottle of what seemed to be alcohol onto the wooden table between us.
“What are you thinking about?” He asked.
“You know, I’m new to this city, I don’t really know much and I need to learn more about it.” I replied. Through the little silences in our conversation, I couldn’t help but look to the sky in wonder. “I’m in a whole different solar system, and possibly a whole different galaxy. No… maybe another universe.” I thought to myself, looking up at the colossal spheres sitting in the night sky. One of them, a planet named Hexulus as Jay had told me, seemed so close to this planet, yet so far with its glowing purple faded behind the clouds above. Golden rings of stone surrounded it like Saturn with its intricate designs smothered all over it, showing all the crevices and moulds which seemingly were probably huge mountains or storms.
Just imagine being on earth and our moon was swapped with Jupiter. That’s what I could see above my head. The thought was enough to strike a faint feeling of fear in my heart but I brushed the thought as I admired the purple view.
The old man took an aggressive sip as he followed with a wipe of his sleeve.
“Where are you from, Axure?” He asked.
“I’m from a land where there are hundreds of people like you and me. Always creating new things to help humanity move forward,” I replied softly, still staring out into the starry sky.
“I would love to go there one day,” he responded softly, putting his drink down and admiring the view with me. That small comment pulled my attention toward him as I looked at him with a soft gaze. I felt a small sense of warmth around him. Maybe it was because he was the first person I truly bonded with here, in this unfamiliar universe. Or maybe it was just the thought that no matter the world, as long as someone curious enough existed, science would thrive. Nonetheless, it did warm my heart and I grew fond of the old man. Maybe, I could call him my first friend of the new world.
He looked back at me and his eyes suddenly lit up as I saw a ring of light circle his pupils. “Oh, right. I got you a gift, boy,” he said as he dug his hand into a bag beside him. Pulling out a series of books, he placed them all onto the table and slid the pile to me. I looked down on it in confusion and looked back up at him.
“They weren’t much, don't worry,” he said, scratching his cheek, “I realised this past week, how lost you were in terms of the city, Mylan and everything else. So I had a quick trip to the book shop and bought some really good books explaining everything you need to know hehe.”
I looked down and softly pulled one of the books closer to me.
The Beauty Of Mylan - Written By Kora Vermillion
Understanding Money - Written By Rotherham Ellure
Mylan Arts And Its Wonders - Written By Inayah Kaneem
The Holy Grail
Law And Order - Edward Alheimer
“You seem to be a genius in engineering and all that amazing stuff but you seem to not know much about anything else,” Jay said, “I’m not going to pry into your background or anything because I know you’re a good man.” He looked at me and smiled and I couldn’t help but return the energy back too. A smile crept onto my face and for the first time in what seemed to feel like forever, I was relaxed.
“Thanks old man. Appreciate it.”
The next day flew by and before I had gotten onto reading all the books in one go, I decided to ask the old man where he got the books from and so he gave me general directions, leading to a bookshop. I wanted to scope out potential books and prices, so I could plan ahead and choose the priority of my knowledge pursuit. I needed to learn more about this world and its functionings so reading books was now a priority since I had made my gun already. And luckily, Jay had given me a headstart for the journey by providing me with those four essential books. I looked briefly into “The Art Of Mylan” and it seemed that Mylan was their essence to create magic. Although I felt that there was a genuine scientific explanation to it, I had to run with it and understand that all humans possessed this “Mylan” within them and could do things beyond my imagination.
He told me to go to district 15, so not too far from me and as I walked toward it, the environment didn’t really change. The people were messy, the architecture was messy, the conversations were loud, the streets were busy, the markets were screaming. Nothing really changed and I was surprised a bookshop even functioned in this place. Because if I had to compare this to earth, this was either the slums or the ghetto.
Not long had passed and I had finished up with the bookshop, already having scoped out the next few books I’d like to purchase with the money I’d earn. I headed back to my newly found home with my gun attached to my waist, knowing no one would even know what it was, already giving me an upper hand in any surprise combat. For some reason, this little squeaking rat kept running past me, crawling into random holes and coming out. I felt like kicking it away but it just kept scurrying back and forth so I let it be.
As I got closer to home, I felt the noise behind me begin to subside and the quiet of the night begin to take over. Finally, my long awaited peace and quiet away from the busy streets of District 14. Luckily, Old Man Jay’s place was a short distance away from all the business and loud markets that stayed awake in the night.
So I could have a good night's rest.
Hurriedly, I twisted the door knob and flung open the door, entering the work room where me and the man had created the gun together.
But something was wrong.
No, nononono. Something was veeeery wrong.
Nonono.
I felt my chest open up as my legs instantly began to tremble upon the sight.
I froze. My brain had shut down.
I didn’t even know if I could breathe.
Blood was splattered across the walls of the room, across the desk, across the papers, across the floor, across the walls, across the floor, across the desks, across theacrossthe acrossthe acrossthe-
I saw a hand hiding behind the desk. No. He can’t be-
I forced my shaking legs to move as I slowly walked over to see the full view.
White beard, painted dark red.
And there he lay, lying on the floor with his stomach split open and his neck bleeding out.
His skin turned pale.
No, no, no, nonononono-
I fell on my back as I crawled backwards, feeling the acids in my stomach dance as it pushed vomit out my throat. I spat on the floor beside me until I heard a noise that made my hairs stand on end. I held my mouth shut when I heard the sound of hurried footsteps running down the stairs.
Fuck fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
Three men came one after the other and caught me in their sights instantly and my throat clenched as I gulped. They each looked malnourished with one of them wearing a mask. My mind was drenched in panic to the point where I couldn’t even distinguish their features or tell what they looked like.
“Oya? We need to get this one gone as well Almo,” one of the men said to the other.
“Of course we fucking do. Can’t have anyone as a witness.”
I instantly understood what that meant and I had no choice but to shut down my nervous system as I forced myself to speak. “Wait! Wait!” I exclaimed as one of them stopped their walk toward me.
“What do you want?! What!? I’ll give you anything! Anything! Please! Just spare me please!” I pathetically pleaded as a flash of my whole life shot through my brain.
Earth, my home, my fame, my grandmother, my friends and the day I stood on the stage before the world.
Nononononononononononono!
“Huuuuh? What the fuck can you give us this old man can’t? He owed us money! And you say you got that for us?” One of them said in a raspy, arrogant voice.
“Uh… money…money,” I muttered to myself, scourging through my pockets.
I had none.
What the fuck was I doing?
“Oy Almo, he ain’t got shit. Imma kill him yeah,” the man said, licking his dagger as he walked over to me slowly, stomping his feet across the floorboards. I flung my head upward towards him with eyes widened in despair.
No. No, wait-
I pulled out the gun from my side and pointed it toward the man, when he suddenly stopped and stared. He looked down at me in confusion. My hand shook as I used my legs to push me backwards, resting my back on the wall of the desk. I held my arm straight as it shook, pointing it toward him, keeping it there.
Should I shoot? Should I?
No, wait, they might stop. They might leave.
Please. Just leave.
How do you kill a human?
How do you even kill something?
Is this it?
Fuck. Please.
Just go away.
I didn’t even realise it, but my shaking grew worse and before I could even react, like a shadow, he lunged toward me and I felt a pang of pain writhe across my belly. My stomach split open. The gun dropped out my hand instantly as I reached for my belly, trying to desperately hold it together as I curled up, falling to my side. I coughed out a puddle of blood as I struggled to breath, looking up at my murderers in the corner of my eye.
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
I watched my own blood, trickle further and further away from me, seeping through the cracks of the wood as it went. The pain in my stomach was unbearable as I heard my own desperate shrieks attempting to leave my body.
But no sound came out, other than the bloody coughs that erupted.
I don’t want to die. No.
No. Please. No. God.
Somebody. Someone.
Please. I don’t want to-
I died.