Written By: The Wolf of the North
Illustrated By: Seiorai (Found on DeviantArt as Seiorai (KawaiiPotato))
Phantom
Phantom pain.
Occasionally, I feel as if my left eye has a needle of pure agony sticking into it, but every time I investigate it, there's nothing more than an scratchy, hand-woven eyepatch made of Lord knows what. For some odd reason, I found it comforting even though it's a constant reminder of the... I can't seem to remember what really caused my eye to become nothing more than a wet, gory, hollow cave within my skull warning intruders of something disgusting inside. Was it the Grim Reaper's long, steel, midnight shotgun or was it when I snapped awake and tore what remained of it on a single bloody nerve out?
I truly don't know, but I can theorize how events played out.
I know I probably would've been scared out of my mind if I felt the dripping strands as the gunky ball rub against my cheek, fearing the pain I'd inevitably endure. It probably took me long, daunting hours to rip it out, but that's only if I did. It's quite possible the bullets merely mashed back the glassy innocence into my orifice leaving my dome pregnant with the slimy, chunky embryo of my vision.
If anyone ever told me that I'd be hunted down because of my religion, I'd accepted it wholeheartedly as if it were an expectation. If they told me to run because a shadow hunted me in the name of slavery, I'd probably wouldn't believe them, but I would heed their warning.
But if I was ever informed that I'd hunted down without reason and then instantly discarded for someone I didn't know? That seems so foolish that I'd cry myself to a permanent sleep from laughing. The autopsy might show my lungs imploded or exploded from the lack of air I'd get.
But here I was.
Not laughing, not smiling, and not crying. I was too dehydrated to drop a single tear, much less sob, but I possessed a hell of a lot of shock. A mandatory suppressive on my mind unless I was to fall on my ass and never rise from the ground and starve to death. Insanity continued to drive me through the world while the desperation for food and water to quench the burning sensation in my belly tore me in half. Every step didn't shoot pain through me, rather, coursed venom through my heart and made my eye sag.
I can't remember much of what happened, but I do know that something or someone important was snatched from my life. Every now and then, I would freeze up when I see something that resembled the Grim Reaper such as my own shadow or the incoming darkness as the sun set. A brutally cold dark mask, black cloak, and two metallic shotguns just begging for a soul to come near for their consumption would appear in my mind. Whoever reaped in such a fashion was heartless and devoid of empathy. I wish I could say I saw a man with a crazed face, but all I saw a husk of a lifeless body refusing to keep a form. Something that struck the fear of God into me.
The Devil is real.
Horrified, I shook myself out of another hallucination.
You're in the desert, I reminded myself as I moved one foot up slowly and stumbled forward. It's been awhile, but you'll be fine. Just keep moving. Get to the top of this hill. C'mon, it's gotta be less than a couple more steps. I can't stop now. Don't stop now.
I was all alone, forevermore lost as I wandered in an endless direction whilst the dreadfully scorching sun pummeled me down before the moon drove me insane with it's icy, unforgiving stare. I stumbled onwards as I finally reached the top of a dune and espied a thin girl on top of something humongous. It appeared to look as if it were a giant robotic structure that resembled a rabbit. I tore my lower mask down as I knew I needed some way to communicate. I fell on my knees. Yes! I finally found someone. Help! Help! C'mon now! Why can't I get up? Let's go! Move your stupid fucking legs! Fuck!
The young woman glanced up at me. She tossed away something that looked like a wrench and hopped off the structure. She landed in a squat before hurdling forward into a blistering sprint to my demoralized and broken soma. I started to notice her outfit as she drew closer to me. A skin-tight blue outfit with white shoulder armour. The word MEKA printed green along her leg and subtitled beneath it were the words Mobile Exo-Force of the Korean Army. On her chest was a bunny on a pink circle. All around her suit were laces of pink and four pink strips ran along her cheeks, two on each side. Crowning the brown long-haired woman was a pair of pink headphones
Her physique was slim and fit. She wasn't the typical soldier build, but she looked very athletic. She might pass as a bikini model if she lost the pistol holstered to her muscular hip.
"What are you doing out here?" She asked with a perk, jocular smile whittled into her beautiful, childish cheeks. She was clearly Asian and younger than me. No older than eighteen or nineteen. "Well?" She looked at me with the gaze of a child.
"Water?" I inhaled through my dry and weather-cracked throat. Upoun the brink of meeting Lady Death, I was ignorant of how long I'd been in this ocean of sand. I only kept a mental count of how many days it'd been since my last drink. While I thought it had only been about four days, but I was well aware that with my constant blackouts and nightmares, it's possible it's only been one or perhaps a multitude of days since my last drink.
I don't know and I don't care.
"I don't know if I can carry you to it, but I have some back at my MEKA."
I can't stand, I nearly cried. I need to get moving. Now! Alright! One. Two. Three! My leg moved awkwardly out from underneath my butt and I felt my quadriceps tear like dusty paper as it extended to it's fullest. Granted, I'm sure it wasn't actually pulled, it felt absolutely horribly. My hips were hard to move and resistant to my efforts to lift themselves up, but with a fit of determination, I pushed through the pain.
The woman squatted down and grazed her shoulder up my ribs before jamming it in my armpit. With her leg strength, she helped me rise shakily. Once I stood tall and had a little more support on my own, the woman released me and strutted away slowly. I followed her back to her MEKA as she began to talk. "You must be starving. Wait until Ana sees you. She's treat you with so much fucking food, you'll wish you were starving again."
"Ana? Are we close to civilization?" I asked with a ragged voice. That woman's name sounds familiar to my pointed ears, but without water and only determination to survive long enough to remember something about myself.
"Not really, but not longer than an hour car ride if these dunes weren't so big."
"How come you're out here?"
"Oh you know, on the run from the South Korean government. Usually, you'd think I'd be running from the North, but whoopsies! Someone has to fucking kill my SQUAD AND BLAME ME!"
I shrank at her sudden outburst. I stumbled forward and grabbed ahold of her waist to stay connected to her. My hands moved up her sides and under her arms. I hooked my fingers on her shoulders and pulled myself up. My hands glided to her face and I felt her glossy, smooth lips. I penetrated the crack and wiggled my thumbs in her mouth crazily. "Your mouth is so wet," I giggled hysterically. "I bet you have water."
The girl pulled my hands out of her mouth and started to help me walk. Though she was considerably tinier than me, I couldn't be too much heavier. She started trudge along as I spoke in heat exhausted hallucinations. "Yeah, yeah, my mouth is pretty wet. Haven't seen a good-looking man, so you best believe that's the only place I'm wet."
"My eye is my vision. The vision of my eye is limited. I cannot see out of my nose. My nose can smell. If I can smell with my nose and see with my eye, then my vision cannot smell. I would like a cup of water to drink. A cup to drink from would be nice. But I do not want to drink a cup."
"You are a crazy, you know," the girl laughed. "Damn, you are pretty light too."
"I am very light. I can see the light. The Light is in me. I walk in the light and dark."
"No wonder you're so dead on me. You've been traveling in the day and the night. That isn't safe. You need to take some hiking lessons or a survival course."
"Survival," I moaned as she reached the MEKA. "I have been surviving. Ingrained in me. Surviving since I can walk in my boots away from the plane crash. What a crazy day that was when Overwatch fell. Beautiful flames in the sky. A beautiful night. A beautiful knight. A beautiful Nyght. Flames all around. The world is just burning. Burning the world is. Flames in the night."
"I need to get you to shelter," the girl expelled concern from her lips. "You seem a little hot. Fever wise of course."
As I continued to ramble, the girl set me down at the base of one of the MEKA's feet. She retrieved a canteen and screwed the cap off before goading a stream into my desolately cracked lips. I closed my eye as the glare from the star in the sky blinded me harshly. The girl adjusted her head to block out the painful brightness in my eye.
As the cold liquids set my insides on fire, I knew that they were bringing me back to life steadily. The gears in my mind began to turn as my heart let out emotions other than desperation and fear. I rubbed my eye and tried to stand up, but failed due to the weakness embedded like a spike in my stomach, but my heart had a nail of determination. My mind was still fractured, but now it held the ability to comprehend direction and more intelligible sentences.
"Who the fuck are you?" I growled, selecting caution in my voice.
"Hana Song," the woman smirked at my sudden change of tone. "You more alive?"
"Alive? I am alive. Yes, I suppose I am. Who do you suppose I am?"
"I think you're a fish in the desert. How did you get here?"
"I... I can't remember. I feel like I know the pieces, but I can't put them together."
"It's okay," Hana crouched next to me. "Just relax though. I'm not a medic, but maybe Ana can take a look at you. She's not much of a doctor, but she probably knows more than me."
"That name sounds familiar."
"Former Overwatch sniper. She's supposed to be dead, but she faked her death."
"I feel like I should know something about this Overwatch."
"How could you not? They were a legendary organization. You had to be living under a rock to not know them. And you just mentioned them earlier. Like five minutes ago."
I shrugged. "I just can't remember. Overwatch. Watching over me. Overwatching my position. I watch over your husband if you watch over my back. A ballerina swan watches over me as I run. Sniping men as I crawl over the barb wires. Her wings break as roses hit the ground and stain the white floor red. The ballerina-"
"Hey!" Hana clapped in my face. "What the fuck are you on about?"
"Sorry," I shook my head and took another sip of water. "Just so lost in things I don't know."
"Let's just get you back to the hideout."
"Thank you," I spoke in a softer voice. She helped me up and then got in the MEKA. The rabbit MEKA came to life and I stumbled back. Landing in the hot sand, I nearly flipped out as the MEKA towered over me. The guns whirred around with a dangerous light to it. The pink did not deter my fear of a sudden burst of gunfire that would kill me in an instant.
Holy fucking shit! What the fuck is this?
"Can you hold onto the guns?" Hana yelled out of the MEKA. "Don't worry, they're cool from the air-conditioning built into the metal. It helps with escaping thermal detection."
Edging around the guns, I rose up with extreme discomfort in my knee joints and let my fingertips skim the metal. Growing closer to it, I let my forearm scrap across the metal and didn't sense anything but a sense of a cold source, something pleasant in the environment I suffered in. I used my feeble leg strength to swing one leg over the gun arm with the canteen in hand. I pressed my body close to the machine. One of my arms nearly reached around half of the metal arm.
I hugged the metal even tighter as Hana brought the arm closer to the glass separating her in the seat in front of the controls and the rest of the world. She waved and the other arm waved with her. She smiled and used the other arm to support me, cradling my body like I was a baby. She started to make the MEKA bounce forward.
"This is safe?" I questioned sleepily.
"Yes. Hey! Don't go to sleep. I need to make sure you're alive."
"Oh..." I yawned and strained to keep my eye open. "I guess I can stay awake for a few more hours."
"Don't worry, we'll get back in about thirty minutes or so. It'll be about dinner time or so."
"Food does sound good."
"Ana does know how to hook up a fucking good steak. But she's made sure I came off the chip and soda addiction. She even called me a goddamn Gremlin!"
"What's a Gremlin?"
"Nothing!" She dismissed my question in a high-pitched voice.
I closed my eye for a few seconds before I opened them with a much more difficult effort to keep myself awake. "Can you go faster?" Stay awake. Keep your eyes open. I mean, keep your eye open. C'mon! Awake!
"Not unless you want me to drop you."
"Oh." I looked around and saw the twilight was closing in on the afternoon. Focus on something. Talk. Anything. Talk about anything. "Don't you think it's a beautiful day?"
"Personally, no. For you, it's your fucking lucky day. There's a sandstorm approaching according to my MEKA weather notification. It's supposed to last about eight hours."
"What does that mean?"
"Had you missed me, you would be dead."
"What are you doing out here anyway? Besides being framed."
Hana didn't answer as she was nervously checking something on the window. Green holograms floated on the screen monitoring weather and a GPS's distance. The bar graphs were moving up and down as the young woman examined them with precision. "No, no," she mumbled to herself quietly. "It should be further South. How did it creep up so quickly?"
"Is everything okay?" I sniffed the grey air.
"This is going to hurt," Hana spoke with a determined voice. She rotated the gun arm and hugged me close to the window. I gripped the canteen tightly and felt my fingernails pressed harshly into the metal. I felt a sudden lurch forward as the MEKA seemed to leave the air and speed up rapidly. When the sudden boost wore off, I felt a steady pace of pure sprinting coming from the MEKA. Hana grimaced as I looked over the mech's exterior and noticed a huge tan wall descending about a few hundred meters behind us.
Oh shit.
The wall kept morphing as it wiped around like a tsunami of tornadoes. The dunes eroded in seconds as the wall engulfed them. From the jaws of the impenetrable smoke came a brown inferno, murderous in it's bounding steps. A sleepy veils begging to make love to death and produce ghosts in the night. The air was grey and fragments of sand were picking up and whipping my back. Hana kept turning on boosts and running over the dunes. I closed my eye as a grain of sand hit it. The wind rushing around my head pressed my eyepatch to my face. I pulled my lower mask over my mouth.
"Close your eyes."
"I only have one," I complied to her advice. I clamped my mouth shut as my lower face mask already protected my nose and mouth. A thunderous noise cascaded upon us like a waterfall and I squeamed at the auditory displeasure. After about three or four minutes of feeling my hair being tossed around and my skin nearly torn open, I felt a sudden stop as the MEKA dropped me. I screamed for Hana not to leave me as I dared not to open my eye.
"Hana!" I cried out in pain as the sand tore at my flesh. In pure darkness, I felt absolutely defenseless. "Hana! Hana! Hana, don't leave me to die!" No. No! Hana!
I heard a deep rumbling of something like thunder in the sandstorm and felt a hand snatch my arm. It began to drag me. I didn't resist it as I clenched to the canteen like a horrified child to a teddy bear. In seconds, I felt another, rougher hand grab my arm before I was pulled into a calm place. The ground turned hard and no longer shifty like the sands that covered me. The air became breathable and I dared to peek through my eyelid.
The floor was tile and the roof worn, but manageable. There were counters, chairs with torn cushions, and beds with blankets and pillows. My sore throat wanted to release a breath of relief, but all I could muster was a guttural moan. I flicked my eye to the left and to the right. I couldn't see who had drag me from my left, but on my right, I could see Hana with her short hair covered in sand and her skin battered.
"Who is this?" I heard a familiar voice.
"I never asked for her name. She was just rambling on about Overwatch. She seems to speak a lot of gibberish and she's out of her mind."
"Who's that?" I whipped my head to the unknown voice. My eye rested on an old Egyptian woman. She had a heavy coat over what looked like blue and black body armour. Underneath her blue kneepads, she had strapping wrapping around black pant legs that led to what appeared to be sandals. Across her breast was an ammunition strap that held two orange vials that looked like bullets. Her braided grey hair spilled out of her hood lined with even more blue. On her left eye was an outline of an eye. Her right, an eyepatch lining with blue.
"Who are you?" The older woman asked. "Where did you come from?"
"I... I... I can't-"
"She says she can't remember anything," Hana interrupted me. "Took a liking to your name. Think you know her?
The older woman crouched next to me, placing a hand under my head and supporting my neck. "Do you recognize me?"
My mind tried to reel in a name, but all I could do was bring back a faint memory of the woman's face. She used to be much younger. "I know who you are," I spoke quietly. "But I can't remember where."
"What do you know about Overwatch?" She asked softly and motherly.
"Overwatch? I can't remember what that is." My mind honestly searched for answers as I carelessly rambled gibberish that my mind unconsciously spoke. "Remember. I remember bleeding on sands, a Reaper taking me by the hands. Shooting out my eye. The Reaper wanders with spiders. The people being slaughtered and the infant skulls crushed as daughters are hushed in despicable ways. Gore on the sands. Metal in my eye as I tear it from my head. No anesthesia, pain without morphine."
"Hey!" Hana snapped in my face, earning a slap to her hand. The woman glared at her as Hana paid her no mind. "You're going off again."
"I need a name," I spoke without answering the initial question. "Phantom. I like Phantom. Phantoms scare me and I think if I am one, I can fight the Reaper."
"Okay, Phantom," Hana smiled lightly. "Do you remember anything about a beautiful night?"
"I remember a beautiful knight. His name was Prince Charming. He used to laugh and smile to please an angel. The angel had a great big set of yellow wings. Just imagine how stupid that is. A human with wings. How does a Swiss doctor have wings, but not fly? I never really liked to fly though, so maybe that's why. I never liked flies either. Always-"
"Wait," the older woman halted me in my dialogue. "You know anything about Angela?"
"An-gee-la," I pronounced her name. "I remember her. She and I would always gossip about cute boys. She was a doctor and I was her assistant, I think. I always had my eyes on... huh, that's weird. I can't remember who I liked. No, that's not right. I loved him. We fell in love. I really loved him, but I can't remember his face or his name."
"Ring any bells?" Hana glanced at the older woman.
"She had to work for Overwatch then. Not too many people know about Angela by name and those who did and weren't apart of Overwatch had to be very close to her. I don't remember her though. She was just... another face. Dammit! I wish I'd taken the time to learn everyone's name. But you definitely worked for us... And you don't even remember your own boss, huh?"
"I, uh... wait a minute. Ana?" No way. Didn't she die?
The older woman nodded. I tried to get up, but Ana put a hand on my shoulder. "Why don't we make sure you get rested?"
"She needs to eat and drink," Hana piped in.
"Yeah, I do suppose we should do that," Ana tried to take the canteen clasped in my grasp. I resisted at first, but when Ana desisted from fighting with me and held her hand out like an owner asking for the dog to give up a toy, I surrendered it slowly. Ana smiled, handing the canteen to Hana. Ana moved her hand down my neck and to my upper back. Her other hand went under my hamstrings before standing up. Lifting me like a powerlifter, she lifted me above her head with a heavy breath and set me on her back.
"Ana, let me." Hana insisted she take the load off her back.
"No, no, young one. I may be old, but I need this to remind me of my glory days. Heh, glory like the old days. Less advanced tech and actually carrying people to safety. This is much better than a cabana on the beach."
"Cabana. Ana. Ana. Ana. Ana. Shooting her friends to heal the team. Shot as sharp as a bullet. Fast as a laser. Zipping around with happiness and joy. A blur of blue. I like blue. Blue is very pretty. Ana, did you know you're wearing blue?"
"Yes, young one."
Ana carried me behind the counter and into a smaller room. Hana followed in pursuit. I waved at her with a smile. She waved back at me as I giggled. Ana laid me down on a couch next to a bunk bed. The older woman began to adjust me so that a pillow was under my head. "Hana, can you go get some more water from the fridge and bring a one of those rats."
"A rat?" I mumbled with caution. My mind floated in a sea of swimmers. Not knowing whether to flow to the left or right, shrouded by the opportunities to either be fully conscious of my conscience and the memories that came with it or to forget everything and be a rambling Lennie needing to be saved from my own fractured mind classified as insanity.
"Don't worry, Phantom," Ana gave me a motherly grin. "It's clean and precooked. It'll be a little cold, but feeling you, you might need it." Ana looked at Ana. "Quickly now," she felt my head as she pulled out a medical kit. Hana hesitated before she fled the room to retrieve the food.
"Come on now, Phantom," Ana chided me with a soft voice. "Can't you remember anything?"
"Ana? Ana, it's you. I thought you were dead. We were investigating everything when you just disappeared. But then, everything just exploded. A huge explosion. We were so peaceful and then I and... and... I can't remember who else. But we were the first to be called down to the scene. So many dead bodies. We searched and searched and we never found who did it."
"Alright," Ana patted my hair. "You were there when the two fought. Okay. Do you remember anything else?"
"Remember. I remember pretty birds. Very pretty birds. The birds-"
Ana stroked my hair like a pristine comb. "Phantom," she pleaded my name. "Phantom. I need you to rememb-"
"Pretty birds!" I shouted as I lashed out and grasped her arm. "Pretty birds!"
"Okay, okay," Ana had seemed to be holding her composure. "Calm down."
"Ana! The pretty birds came to me. They were beautiful. Then they came and they shot me. They killed everyone. Little Oni was crushed under his boot. She screamed for help. I could've helped her. I should've ran. Running. I could be running. I was running! I wasn't fast enough!" My eye let loose a tear. "Don't let him get me. He'll kill me! Kill me. Kill me. I wasn't fast enough. You've got to kill me."
"What's going on?" Hana burst into the room with the food and the canteen full of water. "I heard a commotion."
"Everything is fine!" Ana snapped at her. "Get a cold rag!"
"Ana!"
"Not now child, get a rag goddamit!"
Hana shrank back, not courageous enough to defy the veteran and retreated from sight. Ana squeezed my hand as I continued to mumbled deliriously. My hard-pressed face begged for something cool against it. It seemed like my brain wanted to explode from the lack of cooling. "Ana?" I gulped on scalding spit.
"I'm here," she held my hand tight. "I'm right here."
"Where is everyone?"
"We don't know," she spoke softly. "They're alive, but, we don't know where they are."
"Ana?" My voice came back to a normal tone.
"I'm right here."
"What happened to Overwatch after it disbanded?"
"They shut it down. Everything we ever did blew up in our faces. Too much fighting on the inside."
"Ana?"
"Yes?"
"Am I insane?"
"No, no. You're just hurt. Your body doesn't know what to think."
"But if I'm not insane, then why are you alive? Weren't you shot?"
Ana smiled lightly and kissed my hand. "I don't know if you believe me, but I can only tell, you what happened. I was dueling a sniper and faked my own death when she shot my eye out. I don't know how she shot me, but she did. I faked my own death."
"But... why? Didn't you have a daughter?"
"It was a hard decision to make," Ana sighed. "But I made it. There isn't a day I don't regret what I did, but there isn't a day I don't look back at it. My duty needed to come first if Overwatch was to survive. I thought that perhaps, maybe, I'd be able to collapse Talon from the inside. I was too late unfortunately. By the time I recovered from my wound, Overwatch had shut down."
"Overwatch shut down," I stared at the ceiling. "Have you found anyone? I mean, back from the old days. Liao? Moira? Jesse? Whoever they are."
"No. I just haven't looked for them. I know where Fareeha is, but that the furthest extent of my knowledge. I'll hear a couple of stories float through the wind now and then. Angela though… she's been a tricky one. I could find anyone else, but that woman seemed to fall off the map to me. Not that I should be looking for her after everything she's been through. She really did a lot."
"She spared me," a voice spoke with power from the entrance of the room. My eye slinked to the door and I turned my head to get him in my sights. I found a man with proper posture, clean-shaven, growing old, soldier-build, and compassionate with his eyes. The white-haired Indiana born man stood in the frame, blue jacket in hand with the number 76 printed on it's back.
Jack Morrison.
