Warnings: Minor character death, gore, dark themes.

Take Good Aim

Bang bang...

Oh God, oh God no... not this again. She was screaming aloud, cheeks wet with unstoppable tears, lip doused with mucous dripping from her nose. Logic told her to stop, but logic was something that was becoming more and more intangible as the long days burned by.

Oh God. He'd vomited blood all over her. She had tasted it even, hotly splattered against her body and across her face. And as he apologized and started shaking, she could taste something off in the blood. All of the refugees in the truck started pressing away from him, and she even found herself pressing her back painfully into the metal slats of the truck. Sanity started to drift from her then. He was supposed to have made it... that fucking bastard! He could have made it all the way... why'd he have to go and do that? Now it had replayed in her mind once again, those moments that dragged by with excruciating detail.

Bright morning light pouring mercilessly into the back of the 5-ton truck.

The thin lines of hate, pity, and resolve that formed on the mouths of the military men. The sound of an infected vomiting was something none of them could ever forget, let alone ignore.

Their rough hands yanking him out of the truck while the rest of them screamed in protest.

She had leapt in a dead sprint after them, and fuck her legs, if only she hadn't have tripped. Her chin hit the ground, cracking her teeth together, blood invading her mouth, but still she scrambled up. Fingers tearing at the gravel, palms splitting open, legs screaming to move forward. Then nothing again. Someone had her by the shoulders, pinned back, another set of arms wrapping around her hips and holding her tight.

"Stop!" A voice in her ear felt like it came from miles away.

"We can't-" Another chanted.

"Fuck you!" Her voice, cracked, torn, overused, was aged now. They pressed into her, comfort leaking into their grasp, trying to keep her calm. She felt wetness hit the skin on her neck, and the panic sparked again, for tears always meant loss anymore. Sound left the world then. All turned to color instead; black and white, blurry at the edges.

They had him in the ditch on the side of the road. He was on his knees, sallow skin perspiring, hair matted against his head with a mixture of his own filth and that of the road they had taken. His fingers held onto the uneaven wood of the fence in front of him, scratching in slightly. His face though, that same face she knew since childhood, was turned toward her, his sickness apparent. Those eyes of his, once a familiar shade of brown, had sunken in, points of yellow appearing behind the irises. He really was turning, yet... he was smiling? But he was breathing so fast, just like she was, chest heaving massivly with the effort to stay lucid.

"It'll be all righ', no worries 'ere, no regrets. This ain't a bad way ta go." He said aloud, the muzzle of a combat shotgun bumping into the back of his skull. The wince he gave made her fight again, kicking, throwing fists, but all in vain. They held her arms to her sides, and she heard them crying.

"Ya'll are gonna make it, don' let me down."

Bang. Bang.

Her eyes went wide in her skull as her muscles went limp, realizing only vaguely that her throat was so raw from screaming that little noise was escaping her mouth. A body slumped to the ground, grafitti of bone and blood dripping in a cone line along the derelict fence, and she felt her body slump too. The scene disappeared, tumbling, and instead she saw the bright southern sky, early morning, stained by the wings of a crow murder. Sounds started crashing back down, and the colors, bright and beautiful, obscene in that particular moment. She covered her face with her palms and sobbed as if she'd never cried her whole life.

The other men lifted her gently by shoulders and back, forcing her up. They had to leave.

Leave. While Dave's body lay to rot in the Louisiana sun, his kind smile never to see another morning like this. After all they'd been through, they would have to push on while Dave made the final journey alone. She couldn't have fucking saved him, she knew that, but he didn't even fight it. That last look in his eyes with his sad smile had simply said, "Make sure I'm dead."

As her breathing calmed, she wiped her face clean on her discarded sweatshirt, her breath coming and going in shudders. It was too quiet, all that screaming should have brought something nearby. This stupid fucking Victorian. She had been here for... no, it wasn't quite morning, so only fourteen days and nights. For the past four, she'd been utterly alone. They heavy steel doors were done up right by CEDA, and barred good and tight. Nothing was going to get in while she was around. But... when was she going to get out? The quiet bothered her, considering it shouldn't be quiet at all. Swallowing every bit of courage she still possessed, she turned her head slowly toward the second door. Her legs drew up against her chest involuntarily, and she hugged herself as she met the glowing stare of her only 'companion' in the past few days.

The witch had her forehead plastered against the bars, her taloned fingers creeping inside, clicking and scraping against the metal softly. Her eyes glowed as citrines in the mid-day sun, lit from within. Her shock of pink and blonde hair feathery and smooth in the moonlight. Her grey skin was still alarming, her grimace melting into contemplation whenever she looked into the safe room. Every night, when the nightmares subsided, the witch would be at the door, staring, perhaps feeling a strange animal kinship with another soul in pain. Terror, however, still gripped the young woman, and she simply stared back in stark silence. The witch slowly began to start swaying again, and the horrible wails resumed, claws removed from the door with a squeal to hide her face as she wandered across the street again to cry alone.

How long was it going to take before she snapped? The smell of decaying bodies elevated every day, and because of it, she had stopped shooting the soulless bodies that wandered by. Instead of slowly turning into one of those things, she was going to remain human. The scratches, bites, and bile that had covered her on the journey down here certainly hadn't affected her so far. Being alone in this building was not going to save her. The food had run out yesterday, and she had water for maybe two more days. Two options now lie at her feet. She could go through that second door, alone, past that sobbing witch and through the hordes alone, trying to follow the ones who had left her behind to keep her "safe". Too many of those things had an uncanny sense for untainted blood, and the superbly mutated fucks could take her down in less than a moment, ticking her life away all by their lonesome if she made the smallest miscalculation in timing or awareness. Or, she could set a magnum against her temple and hope God forgave her for such an exit. Death either way.

There had once been a time where dying while fighting was the only option, but after being alone in this crumbling storefront, deciding between a quick death and an honorable one made her knees week. Now, rescue was not a realistic hope. She could, however, choose at least to die on her own terms. She wondered if Charlie and Keith had made it, if they somehow found their way through New Orleans alone. If so, were they infected anyway? Shot by the military? Being held and prodded by doctors who refused to send rescue back for the ones they left behind? As much as she wanted to hate them for being gone, she felt a surge of relief at the fantasy of them making it out alive and untainted.

She stared at the handgun sitting across from her on a low shelf. Sitting next to Dave's huge bowie knife and the shotgun she'd picked from the corpse of an unlucky survivor, it glinted dark silver in the low moonlight. Cunning, comforting. Her eyes closed heavily, head slumping down against her knees. Tomorrow, just need to get through 'till tomorrow. She'd keep the company of the dead and the sobbing witch for one more day.

AN: Hope you're having a better day than this girl is. :D Edited for some bad grammar and to expand on a few things. Review if you're inclined, I may continue if there is interest. (L4D2 crew, with some NickxRochelle for giggles, mostly gore and human nature though. :D )