Note: 'sup! Seems like you found the first Fanfiction i ever wrote. Boredom and such. I can't promise it to be good, but i really hope it is not too boring.
I have no real plans for it. I just write what i have in mind, but i hope to focus on the hunter later on. Opinions/Crits always welcome.
Left4Dead2 and it's characters © Valve.
Here i was, lying calm and silent under my bed, barely able to lift my body on both elbows, due to how little space there had been. Normally, it was quite freezing in my small, but comfortable, room during the wet winter in Chile. But my body felt like i was about to burn. Not the piercing, hurting kind of burning, more the one when you are completely covered by your blanket to read a book with only the small circle of light on the letters coming from a flashlight. The warmth produced by your body would not be able to get out, forcing you to now and then lower the blanket. You would think it was because of the little space i mentioned earlier, but i kind of lied.
I was anything but calm. You know that feeling when you are alone at home, in your room at night, and suddenly need to use the bathroom, which is to far away from your safe cave? Not the feeling that causes you to leave your room, no. The one that follows all the time, having you turn on every light in your range, including empty rooms you pass by. At first, your steps may be at a normal pace, but as soon as you finished what you planned to do in the bathroom, you suddenly turn into some crazy person running to your room like chased by some wild dogs, not even taking a second to hit the switchs for the lights and practically slamming the door to your room shut. A feeling of relief would fill you, finally being save of whatever would have been out there to get you. But we all know that there was no such thing as monsters, it was only our minds playing tricks. Very nasty tricks if you ask me...
To my luck, our house was not very big, and the bathroom was right next to my own room. I practically just needed to jump around the corned and had arrived there, but right now there was no chance i would crawl out of my save hiding spot. Yes, i was hiding, which you could have guessed as soon as i started to tell you about this kind of … chasing … fear. Yeah, chasing seemed to be a good word to describe it. Now there was the question why exactly i had been hiding here, in our own house.
It must have been quite some time, but i lost count of it, more asking myself why i was still alive, which was weird, as there had not been any threat to my life, yet. But these things that happened right after i woke up without finding my father or his current … girlfriend … at home. Do not get me wrong, i do not hate the woman that lived with us since a few month after moving away from germany and my mother, to my father here in southamerica. I actually enjoy her presence, having someone take care of these typical things that your mother would do. Cooking, cleaning and all that. It was not because of my huge laziness, but more because it... how to say it.. gave me a feeling of a family. My father worked all the time on the PC, moderating the two sides he owned, fixing mistakes and possibly even more. There rarely was time to do something together, and even if there was, he was not a man you could play cards or go to an amusement park with.
Both of my parents had always been more of the computer persons, just like me now. It started back when i was seven and both of them played a game that may ring a bell in your head. It was called World of Warcraft. You could call it a online runner up of the Warcraft series. It was your typical roleplaying game with elves, dwarves, humans and several other creatures. But what time they lived in? No idea. Sure, there were kings and castles. Also dragons, but it did not have a medieval feel to it. Not at all. At first, i had been watching them play a bit before i would go to bed. But later, they allowed me to make my own character, and i happily choose a nightelf hunter, having my mother tell me they were able to get animals as companions. Now, i propably would have gone for the druid for their shapeshifting abilities, but you know what? I am happy with the paladin. God, reallife and the life inside this game were no that different, besides the obvious magic going on in World of warcraft. The change is what i mean. Sadly, in the game it was easier than in the real world i life in. The messed up, painful reality. I sound rather pessimistic, don't i?
It is not like there were moments of huge pain in my life, it was more stretched over the fourteen years. The only sharp pain, leaving a scar in my heart, was in the morning, as i read a message on one of the sides i had been registered for years. It was a classmate, a friend, telling me something that left me sitting in the chair in front of the screen where a site with news on it was opened.
My head was hidden in both arms, lying on the plate that served as table, right under my bed. That day, one of my friends passed away, leaving me with even more doubt if there was a god or not. She had been a lovely girl, two years younger than myself, but already dealing with more trouble than myself. Having an older sister that she fought with all the time. A family that did not like me, a friend of hers, only because of my bad grades in school. But they knew nothing about what was going on to let my good grades dissapear the older i got. As long as i was able to meet my friend, especially on halloween, i was happy, but now this was gone. It had been around one year, and the depression caused by this pain gone away. This does not mean i forgot her, i simply accepted that what happened could not be changed.
Oh well, here i had gone again, rambling away. It happened a lot, but only in my mind and on the internet, where i was a completly different person. Not just because i am a roleplayer, writing away what my character did. It was more because i could think of what i say first, before opening my mouth. Or in this case, type. But before you have to endure another part of my boring past, i should start to explain this weird situation i am in.
Now, you surely have heard of video games where you try to survive with a small group of humans or alone, shooting zombies, right? Maybe you even played them, and to be honest, they are great if you need to let out some anger. As calm and shy i was, when playing Left 4 Dead with my two friends Alex and Paddy, last actually called Patrick, but he hated that name, i just started raging sometimes after playing for a long time, pissed at how i can not move either from being hit from a zombie in my back or have them surrounding me, giving me the feeling as if they simply do not want to die from the bullets, but there just were a lot of them.
Besides dying from another player, not being able to move was what annoyed me the most, especially in a game where i had to keep running. Unless i wanted to be standing in some kind of Acid, being grabbed and slam into the ground, or maybe jumped on and having that hooded being rip out my guts. Well, okay, my character's guts. But believe it or not, it felt good to let out this anger. To just go wild in a game. I would never hurt anyone in reality, even if i was a rather agressive person. Weird, huh? Being a shy girl, not being brave anough to talk to you, unless i know you or you ask me something.
But when something annoys me, the first thought in my head is to hit that person. Instead, i just ignore them or sigh, showing that i am annoyed. Sometimes even an unamused 'dude'. It is unbelieveable how my friends say i am cute. Because i care for my friends, am never the first one to talk, and often ramble away? Instead of being flattered, i always ask why they thought of me as cute, and that everyone kept calling me that. Yup, unable to take a compliment too, kind of.
Back to the games. Haven't we all, at least once, ask ourselves what we would do if this undead .. zombie .. apocalypse.. whatever.. happened? Alex and Paddy told me that, if they coincidentally were at the same place, they would try to find something usable as weapon, maybe even looking for a weaponshop, and simply go out there shooting these things. Using houses as shelter. Seriously? I do not think they would even be able to think that clear when suddenly a dead person came back to life, or better said an infected person. At least if it was like the game Left 4 Dead. I have never played the first game or the campaign, only versus and multiplayer, always running through the same places. But i heard it was some flu that got out of control.
Pretty simple story, if you ask me. But who needed a damn story to shoot down zombies, running from one safe room to the other? What sane human would wonder how this happened, when they were chased by their own kind. Or whgat was left of it. Maybe for a brief second, when running for your life, you would ask yourself how this could happen, but was there really enough time to build up a story? Okay, one of our gaming sessions, i asked how a rather popular game like this could have survived with that easy story, but appearently it was a bit more complicated than just a flu.
Well, i did not care much. And in case i would get curious, i would just get the first part of the game or use that one site some people should really use more often before asking dumb questions. Google. What was it there for if not asking questions? It was impossible to not know that site when you have been using the internet for a bit. Hell, sometimes it was the reason people had connection to the web.
Argh, i better stop before i start to talk about how stupid some humans were. To be honest, my thoughts where either gone, or too tangled up for me too sort out. And i was good at sorting things. Maybe you already puzzled everything together while i had been rambling away. You still know how i told you that i could not find any of the two adults at home? Well, i had looked around the house, to check. Their shoes were gone, so they propably went to the grocery store, but as i walked outside to get a few pieces of wood from the messy pile, looking like they had been thrown piece for piece on the same place, for the only thing in the house that kept us warm, there was something... unexpected.
Nope, no heater. No house in this damn country had a heater, as far as i know. At least not one like in germany. Only these huge skycraper, and they shut down their heaters during any other season than winter. Oh, the unexpected thing? Yeah, about that. Normally, the road, covered in sand, in front of our house was quite empty. Having one road to the left lead up, and the other one, next to it, down. Like the shape of a Y, if you would stand facing the roads.
This time, the street was rather alive. A lot of people walking, or.. stumble around. On one spot, they had been gather up, appearently surrounding something, but i had already froze in my tracks, ignoring the cold on my skin, due to only a long, wide shirt and some black, tight shorts covering my body. The freezing wind easily journeyed around my arms and legs, myself still not caring, way too focused on what these people did there. They more looked like animals, leaned over something. A few sitting. Their movement was... greedy?
Slow and carefully, silently stepping over the cold ground made of concrete, i made a few steps closer to where not a fence, but some small bushed were lined up. A fence would have look pretty ugly here. The ground i was standing on, was a bit higher than the street, having a few steps to my left leading down to the gate, reaching my waist. But these steps were a bit further away, and my attention still drawn to the humans, trying to find out what they had been trying to get.
That was plain weird. And scary. I focused my gaze on their hands, how they slashed away at something on the ground, and .. oh god, was that blood? Their fingers were dyed red in something, and that was not a pit of color on the ground. It was something bigger, solid, judging on how slow their arms moved in their frenzy. Compared to actual hitting, that was some sick amount of speed, but i could see how they had to struggle to claw at whatever lied there.
Before i could even progress what i saw, the earth beneath my feet began to move. A shaking, still rather easy, so i shook it off to be some of the small earthquakes we now and then had over here. Some may freak out, but i found them rather interesting. The thing that made be wonder was, that the shaking did not get weaker. No, it got stronger, and it was not the usual moving. It was as if someone, or something, hit the ground again and again. Some kind of.. bouncing.
A very loud, strong and rather angry roar pulled me out of my thought of figuring out how an earthquake could move like that. I was not the smartest, especially not when it came to earthquakes, but a bouncing? No way. But i got my reply shortly, and something seemed to charge down the road that leaded away from my house to the left. The one that moved up. You can not believe in how much of a shock i was. This thing was no human. Yes, it had two legs, two arms and a head, but dude, look at these proportions. Muscles. Muscles everywhere. And i mean freakin' everywhere.
That was not even the scariest about it. It was the missing jaw. I'm not joking here, that thing that was still charging down the road, heading for the group of ...well humans, had no jaw. But it still roared in anger, and seemed nowhere bothered about an important part of his body missing. I should propably be screaming or running, but this simply knocked me off. My brain did not want to work in this shock.
Now i understood that it was not as ridiculous as i thought, how in the movies people never moved when something scary or bad came into their sight. My mind practically screamed at me to move. To go back, away from these.. things. But i couldn't. It was then, where the huge creature, covered in muscles, simply crushed the human with its monstrous hands, where my will of survival kicked in, having me turn around, running the few meters back into the house.
I was about to slam the door, but stopped myself and closed it as silently as i could. None of these... creatures.. seemed to have noticed me, so why asking for attention? I've never wanted much attention anyway, so why now where death was right in front of our house? The only thing i could hear while having my back against that door from the inside, were the roar from the thing covered in muscles, and some cracking noise. But not from bones. From the strength it hit the ground with, causing the ground beneath my feet to shake again, even though not as much as before.
To my right, there was the little fireplace. Not one of those that were open. More like an oven, with a pipe going up to the ceiling. Nothing special, really, but it kept the house warm. Sadly taking a long time to warm up my room, as it was further away, at the end of a long corridor, which started a few feet away to my left. The first door, on the right, was the kitchen. If you would walk straight in, you would face another door, leading outside a smaller rampage. A spot to park a car, after driving through the gate i had mentioned earlier. To the left in the kitchen was the typical stuff. A stove, cabinets, drawers.. all that. And of course, around the corner, my favourite thing. The fridge.
Heh, the guys, the ones i told you about ealier, knew that when i was going to be away for a bit longer than a minute, i would be in the kitchen getting something to eat, because everytime we talked over on skype, i was hungry. Unless i had food, of course. Which was... pretty often. But not because i ate much, like some years ago. I just ate slowly, mostly because i did not take a break from playing. Most times i had a role where i could not put away my hand from the keyboard to play.
It was either the healer, or so called tank. Both pretty important. One of them keeping people alive, the other one taking all the damage, to protect the group. Paddy always was the one dealing damage, but Alex and myself often switched roles, depending on our mood. Some times i was healing him, and at other times, he healed me. The most fun i always had when something went wrong, and we started, in amusement, point at the one of us that causedd us to die, jokily say he would be a bad player and had no idea what he was doing.
Now where i mentioned it... I haven't eaten since last night, and only drank a bit from the coke light standing on the table in my room, next to the wide screen and several other things. A gaming mouse with 15 buttons, which sadly, did not work for WoW, a pretty bad and noisy keyboard, a tablet for drawing, and three speakers. Left, center, right and two more on the wall, which would be behind me when sitting there.
As much as i wanted to get something to eat, i was still in shock about what i had seen outside. And to be honest. The scariest part was not the creature itself... It was what shot through my head the first second i had seen it. Including the feeling of the earth shake beneath my feet. I did never feel it before but i have seen it so many times, getting annoyed when i did.
I decided to cut it here as first chapter, as i did not thought it would get that long and forgot about how it would be better to read if it is not just a whole cluster without breaks. Thanks a lot to several people on OviPets for proof-reading, pointing out typos and such. It helped a lot!
