The RED Demoman groaned when he opened his eyes to the harsh white light, the cold floor at his back. He stood up and stretched, wincing as his joints popped back in place. Like always, the lack of adrenaline in his system was an even sharper jolt than the lack of alcohol. Just a moment ago, he had been rushing into battle with his trusty sword, and here he was now, in the disturbingly quiet respawn room. His eyelander was on the ground next to him, but he ignored it in favor of the small shelves in the corner of the room, where he kept a large supply of bottles of scrumpy.
Demoman chugged an entire bottle in one go and then smashed it on his head. The glass stung, and a few slivers buried themselves in his head. Demoman smiled at the pain, but like always, the smile did not reach his eye.
The announcer's voice carried into the respawn room, not quite loud enough to make out any distinct words. Demoman's cold smile morphed into a frown. He knew he had to go back to the battle. He picked up his grenade launcher on his way out of the room, but it was just for show. He would be fighting with his broken scrumpy bottle today. It was easier to die when you weren't properly armed and had to get into extremely close quarters to do anything.
Because maybe today would be the day the respawn failed.
The respawn never failed, though, and why should today be any different? Any better?
The RED Soldier seemed the most distraught by Demoman's dwindling interest in winning. Every time Soldier stopped to reload, he could be heard yelling insults at the maggot. Everyone, RED or BLU, knew by now that Maggot was always Demoman. Only ever Demoman. So, when a sniper rifle bullet buried itself in Demoman's head next to the shards of glass, one could assume Soldier would be the most displeased.
But he wasn't.
BLU Sniper frowned as the announcer gleefully alerted everyone of his streak against Demoman. Demoman's depression made him an easy target. Too easy. The less Demoman tried, the more of Sniper's talents fell to disuse. He could feel himself growing rusty from taking potshots at the RED. Once his contract was up with BLU—when was that, anyway? Sniper could not remember a termination date on his contract—he would likely find himself unable to kill a target that was actually trying to dodge. Oh, yes, Sniper was angrier at Demoman than Soldier. He was just far less vocal about it.
The glaring white light again. Respawn prevented him from feeling hung over, but it did nothing to stop the headache Demoman got from the overly bright lights in the respawn room. He crawled over to his scrumpy shelf, too tired to even stand up while sober. He left the scrumpy bottle when he was done with it this time. Maybe it would be fun to sticky jump right in front of the BLU Heavy.
It was.
Until he found himself back in the damnable respawn room.
Why couldn't the bloody thing fail and leave him dead?
Demoman woke up in the respawn room three more times before the announcer finally told everyone work was over for the day, and five more times before he finally let himself go to bed. Who knows, maybe today would be the day someone accidentally turned off the respawn between rounds?
Demoman woke up again, but this time it was to the queasy feeling in his stomach in his dark room. He didn't make it more than two feet before he threw up all over the floor. Demoman frowned at the puke. There was no respawn for puke. It would just stay there, sullying his floor, until he cleaned it up. He almost decided to kill himself instead, but then he remembered that he would lose this wonderful hung over feeling. So, Demoman took a large swig of scrumpy and set to work cleaning his room.
Demoman liked being drunk, but he liked being hung over better. Being drunk just meant that you drank recently, but being hung over meant you didn't just respawn. He was afraid it was the closest he would ever be to being dead. It was only during his first life of each day, when he was still hung over, that Demoman actually tried to win. After he died and respawned, he would be sober again. Sober and empty and dead. Sober-dead was much worse than hung over-dead, and he figured neither could compare to actually being dead.
After cleaning all the puke, Demoman dusted and then found some water to clean his smudged, cracked mirror. He never felt more alive than when he was hung over. He was always hung over when he did productive stuff like cleaning. All the while, he kept nursing from his scrumpy. He almost poured some of it on his bed, so he would have an excuse to do laundry, when a much smarter idea hit him in the head.
The respawn was just a machine, no matter how complex. And the Gravel Wars were, honestly, a relatively small affair. There was no way the respawn was ubiquitous. Surely, if he got far enough from Gravel Pit, he would eventually reach a point where the respawn couldn't steal him away anymore.
Maybe Europe.
No, he was from Europe before they shipped him off to this godforsaken hunk of land. Respawn might still have a hold over him there.
And Australia was definitely out of the question.
Demoman snuck out of his room and down the hall. It was still too dark for even Soldier to consider waking up yet. He made his way to the rec room, hoping to find… Ah, here it is: an atlas! Somewhere far from the Americas and Europe and Australia, and far from the respawn. He frowned, taking another swig of scrumpy. It didn't sound like such a place existed. If only he could go to outer space, like that poor monkey.
Demoman stared angrily at the map until his eyes dropped down to the expanse of white at the bottom. Antarctica! There was surely no gravel there, so there was no need for the war or for the respawn!
There was a bean bag chair in the rec room. Demoman tore it open and emptied it out. It would make a good enough bag for supplies. He didn't have time for anything better. He had to leave now!
He crept back to his room for his stash of scrumpy. He wasn't crossing the globe without it. Almost as an afterthought, he stopped by the kitchen to throw some nonperishables into his makeshift sack and then to the Engineer's work room. For some ungodly reason, Engineer was trying to make robots that were powered by paper money. What, did he think bills were cheaper than batteries? Booze, check. Grub, check. Cash, check. With his sack of supplies in one hand and a bottle of scrumpy in the other, Demoman left the RED base.
It was hard for a grizzled, black man to hitchhike across the southern United States, but once he made it in to Mexico, except for the language barrier, things improved a little. It took a couple weeks, but Demoman eventually found himself on a cruise ship heading around South America. Sure, he wasn't on the ship legally, and, sure, he had to hold everyone at gunpoint—a gun he stole earlier in his journey—but the ship was headed for Antarctica, and that was all that mattered.
He released his cruise ship hostages after he touched down on Antarctica. It wasn't his fault that their radio was destroyed—okay, that was, technically, his fault—and that they didn't have enough fuel to make it to a more populated area, but that really wasn't his concern. He was finally in wonderful, gravel-free Antarctica.
Demoman walked inland for a few minutes before he got too cold. He withdrew his last bottle of scrumpy, which he had been saving for this moment, and, instead of chugging like usual, he savored it.
"Thanks, old friend," he carefully sat the bottle down.
He took his stolen gun and turned off the safety. He looked up at the too-bright sun as he pressed the gun under his chin. Demoman usually hated bright lights, but since this one wasn't in the respawn room, he would make an exception. It would make an adequate last sight. He pulled the trigger
and woke up to the damnably familiar, damnably bright light.