Tales from the respawn room, Part One: "Heavy weapons guy".
Chapter one: "Coldfront"
Вы говорите по России? Нет?
English then? Good. But out of practice, I beg pardon.
I loved father. Father had many girls so I, the first boy, became the favorite. Sisters and mother loved me too, but bond with Father was the strongest. He taught me to read and to fight. He said that all men had to be fighters and us men fight with our wits as much as our hands. Father loved box, he was amateur boxer in youth, filled head with stories of mighty battles and fallen opponents. A thirst of blood and glory dripping from words.
Father was a writer. He would have been a journalist but he was not allowed. He wasn't a party member. Worse, he was against the party, against the revolution. He claimed our proud people was fooled and swapped one tyranny for another. So he wrote against it, trying to paint the truth with lies, using stories. Father was not a good fiction writer. Party censors were not amused.
They came at night. They banged three times on our door asking for him. He said he was coming, about to open the door. They opened fire, killing him. Cowards, who would not look a man in his eye before murdering him. They charged inside, took me and my sisters to a pretend trial where we were condemned in the stead of father, who was "killed resisting arrest" so we were to serve his sentence.
They took us to prison labor camp. The children, we had to work twelve hours in ammunition factory. The women made uniforms for the soldiers fighting in the war. One day Mother made a wool hat for me, to keep me warm. She was beaten half to death. It was the day before Christmas. The guard who beat Mother took the hat from me. I made my mind to escape that night.
When brought to gulag I trained instead of sleeping. The heavy clothes, too big, hid bulging muscles. Always stole food whenever possible. Sometimes, the food was still alive. Would beg guards for more scraps. They were not supposed to feed prisoners, so they told no one. Half the guards gave me sandwiches and chocolate thinking they alone helped me from starving. Stupid. They, instead, helped me be strong.
Strong enough to break lock and wring the jailer's neck, strong enough to bring down the armory door, strong enough to lift a weapon more than twice my size, strong enough to be tearing limbs apart with a gun made to be mounted on a tank.
I wasn't as creative back then as today. I shot legs and let them bleed to death, stomp on their wounds and laugh, or choke them with their own party credentials. When the last one drew his last breath I burnt them all, opened doors and let everyone out.
Mother could not look at me in the eye, my sisters were scared of me.
So I scouted ahead, leave them time to accept what happened. Why did they care about our captors, the men who killed Father and worked us to starvation and death? I bumped into something I could not see and fell backwards, outbalanced by the big gun. I took note to walk slow and steady in the future.
Out of thin air a smoking, suited, masked man with a gold watch appears in the spot where I bounced on him and hands me a card while muttering about how I did his job for him. Bemused, I took it. It read:
"TF Academy".