The Story of Our Descent Into Hell
By TaquetoCagy
Ft. Flygonnick
CHAPTER 1: IT JUST GOES OUT
It had started here, in a vast virtual world of ones and zeros. Lines of code that collected data and transmitted it place to place.
It began with the loud clicks of long nails striking an old keyboard. Began with an awkward idea to try to make friends with a stranger. So she reached out, nervous at first. A message fluttered in data through the internet. It flew across space in those lines and codes. It arrived on a computer screen miles and miles away. The data reformed in words and a slightly blurry cell phone picture of a sketch. It was a simple idea, a concept for a character. "Your story," the message read "Gave me inspiration to draw for the first time in awhile. Here - I drew Iris for you. Let me know what you think." She'd been so nervous. She'd been afraid to send it.
To her surprise, he replied.
"Hey, its perfect! Send more."
Their friendship was brief. She'd vanished as quietly and as suddenly as she'd arrived she retreated back across the connection of codes and data. A little over a year later she returned, the same way she had the first time. This time she had an apology in her message. Remorse flowed across the land of ones and zeros, and friendship flared between them once more.
"Nice to meet you... again." He sent.
"My name is Nik, I'm not sure I told you that during the first bout of us speaking."
He greeted this information with some amusement. "You didn't, but Mine is Nick. Nice to meet you."
Two years passed.
"Fucking shit - you asshole!" Nik yelled into her mic, knuckles white around the black of the Xbox controller. She was met with laughter gurgling through her headset, and she scowled.
"You better keep your voice down," Nick laughed. "You'll wake up the baby." He wasn't wrong. In the two years they had been friends, Nik's life had changed drastically from when they had first begun speaking. She had moved across the country twice. Gotten married, had a child. Nick himself was gearing up to go into the military. His chair creaked as he shifted, reaching forward into the dark of his room to grope around for the water bottle h had put on his desk earlier.
Nik huffed back into the mic, leaning back into her worn, brown couch with an unseen pout. She tucked the pink blanket on her lap back around her legs as she shifted. "I know."
"How is Aurora doing, anyway? Still struggling with the teeth?" Nick asked. He paused long enough between sentences to drink a mouthful of water from the bottle on his desk.
"Yeah. She fell asleep tonight with the husband, since the teething has been so bad lately. But that tooth should be cutting soon so, here before too long she should be feeling better."
"Good to hear. Thanks for the Diamonds, by the way. Gonna help make me some armor so I WILL BE UNSTOPPABLE!" Nik could hear the devilish grin around the edges of Nick's voice.
"Dick." She retorted. "You didn't have to kill me, I just mined those!"
"Well, hide your base better next time. Its called a War World for a reason." His smile grew wider as he saved the Minecraft world, to ensure he kept his prize. The now empty plastic bottle made a dull sound as he smacked it on the edge of the desk trying to put it back down.
"You're. Such. An. Asshole." Nik hissed back into the mic. "I will get my revenge!"
The pair spent many nights this way, playing video games after they both got off work and NIk's young daughter was in bed. They lived three time zones away from one another but they found ways to make it work. Life was good, and quiet. It had been like that for some time now.
There was silence as the game came off the loading screen and Nik found herself back at her spawn point, and made quick work back to her base to salvage what little she could. Hours of work, quickly undone by Nick. She grit her teeth in annoyance.
"Don't worry, I left the area already." Nick smirked.
"I don't believe you for half a second."
A cry sounded through the house, piercing the air and catching Nik's attention immediately.
"Ooh." Nick hummed. "Sounds like Aurora woke up. Now you've done it."
"She probably lost her Binky. I'll be right back, she'll probably pass right back out." Nik slid the headset off and tossed the pink plush throw aside before Nick could reply and hastily made her way back into her bedroom.
The light from the hallway was enough to allow some sight, enough to see her wiggly twelve-month-old curled up next to her husband, still half asleep. Nik quickly located the pacifier and returned it to her daughter's mouth, and the child quickly fell back into sleep. Nik brushed the gold hair from the little girl's face with a gentle smile and kissed her forehead before returning to the living room. Looking at the screen, she could tell she was back at the spawn point and her inventory was gone. "Nick." The name fell from her mouth flatly as she shoved the headset back onto her head and flopped back down into the squishy cusions of the couch. Her only response was a cackle which quickly tapered off.
"So, you think if you were able to go to Mars, right now, would you go?" Nick asked suddenly.
"What brought this up?" Nik responded with curiosity, and she could hear him shift in the pause before he answered her.
"Nothing, really. Just a thought. Maybe a new story idea." Nick had a talent for writing, and had met with warm reviews and compliments on the internet. Nik wrote too but on much smaller scales, and with much less renown. It is what they had become friends over, despite the distance between them. One on a Northwest peninsula, one on the Southeast peninsula.
"I dunno. Probably. Can you imagine being part of that history? That'd be pretty fuckin' rad so, yeah, sign me and the family up. It'd be cool."
"I'd only go if they had earth internet." Nick laughed loudly into the mic, getting up from his chair to grab another disk case of the desk. "You think Aurora's first word is gonna be "Fuck?" you do cuss a lot."
"You know, people are taking bets." Nik grinned. "Right now its a tie between "tits" and "fuck." I mean her first word was already Mama, but I'm not one to crush people's dreams. "
Nick chuckled and popped the case open. "Speaking of Mars, you wanna play Destiny? I gotta finish up my stuff for the Black Garden."
"Yeah, I can always try to up my light level. Lets do it."
There was a pause in conversation as the overly-loud intro screen came up, booming into their ears through the headsets. No point in trying to yell over it, so they waited for speech until they were back in a fire-team together. Nick already had Mars qued up under destination, and the warp screen followed a few seconds later.
"I love this mission." Nik hummed. "I love the Black Garden."
"You just love this game."
"And I am not sorry."
The screen loaded up and the two loaded up on mars and ran for the Black Garden, mowing down Cabal and Vex in their path. Nick, a calculated Warlock and Nik, a hunter who was a little too stabby.
"Alright! You ready?" Nick said, approaching the gate. "Lets do thiiiiiiiis!" He made a war cry a sprinted through the gate, Nik chasing after and smiling from her couch.
Video games had always been important to both of them. It was another life, an escape, a living story you helped control. Playing them together had really been a big part of their friendship and today was no different.
Until Nik's power went out.
The house went dark, the Xbox powered down. "Oh, you have gotta be fucking kidding me." Nik said flatly, dropping the controller into her lap to reach for her cell phone. It was perched on the arm of the couch, and she quickly discovered it was dead. Which meant she couldn't use it to text Nick to let him know what happened. "Guess I'm going to have to get the power bank out of the room... gonna need to try not to wake the baby." she muttered to herself.
She stood, knocking the controller to the floor, and walked slowly through her duplex. A flashlight would be in the nightstand, she knew, so she decided to grab both it and the power bank, which they kept for situations like this. Power outages were fairly common, due to the large amount of trees in the area they lived in.
She made it to the hallway before the duplex began to shake.
"Shit, an earthquake?!" Nik screeched in surprise despite herself and threw her hands out to the walls, trying to stabilize herself as the floor rolled beneath her.
It was intense and terrifying. The world roared around her, she heard dishes falling out of the cabinets. Heard pans banging under the stove, watched picture frames shatter as they hit the floor, ad her foot was cut open by the shards. She hissed and swore when that happened, but she didn't have time to think about it. Her daughter - she could hear her daughter crying. "Babe!" She yelled out over the noise to her husband. "Is the baby okay?"
"She's fine!" He yelled back. "I've got her!"
More noise as the lamp fell in the living room.
She inched forward, stumbling. Her heart was pumping, eyes full of fear. "I'm coming!" The injured foot trailed blood behind her. "I'm almost to the door!" She reached for the knob.
It happened as soon as her fingers brushed the metal knob.
An electric shock ran through her, consuming her in a fire of pain the likes of which she had never known. She felt herself falling back into it, felt herself fading. She could hear a scream that sounded like her voice but she wasn't sure it came out of her mouth. After a few moments, there was only black.
The power went out.
The screen was black and the desk was dark. Nick glanced through the window and saw other houses as well also lacked power. "Great." He mumbled. This wasn't simply a matter of throwing a breaker and restoring power. Who knew when the internet was going to be fixed?
Oh well, time for Pokemon.
He leaned over to the bed and plucked a 3DS out of the crumpled mass that was his comforter and tried to turn it on, only to discover the battery drained.
I just charged this though? Nick thought, confused for a moment as he leaned back again to grab his phone. Dead too. He furrowed his brow. Something was up. He knew both of these were supposed to be charged.
He hurried out of the door to his bedroom and headed downstairs, into the living room. It was furnished nicely, and as dark as his own bedroom. As usual, his step-mother was passed out on the couch again and snoring away. He threw a blanket over her that had been draped across the back of the couch and then grabbed her phone. The screen stayed dark, no matter what button he pressed. "What...?" Nick breathed quietly. An acid taste rose into the back of his mouth. He may not know what was going on, but there was certainly a deep pit forming in his stomach. He headed to the kitchen, deciding to get some water into his system before he tried to think it over. What could possibly be happening that would cause this? Briefly, he thought it entirely possible that this could be a coincidence and he was just over-thinking things.
Before he made it to the kitchen, and before he could even really process that thought the earth began to rumble, and he grabbed the back of a chair to steady himself. His step mom kept snoring. The woman could sleep through anything and, with the way the house was shaking around them it was probably for the best.
"Dad." Nick muttered, and began to make his way to the master bedroom of the house, where he knew his father had been sleeping. He had been sick lately, and Nick was immediately worried about how the quake would affect him.
As he made it slowly down the hall, he tried to use the furnishings and walls to steady his walk over the trembling earth. He reached for the metal half-table in the hall.
The same pain that hit Nik over three thousand miles away hit Nick, and he gasped, all noise being snatched out of his throat before it could escape. It wasn't long before it too, consumed his mind and he fell into the darkness.
Nick wasn't sure how long he had been out before consciousness returned to him. And he knew something was horribly wrong. He was sore, for one. Everywhere. Everything. The second thing he realized as he struggled to find his own senses again was that when he finally managed to open his eyes that it was getting light out. It was dawning. How long...? He wondered, only dwelling on half the thought before something else caught his attention. He was outside, and there was snow on the ground.
He'd never seen snow before, and at first it excited him, his heart leaping. He had always wanted to see it. Then the realization set in, that something awful had happened. This was horriblly - awfully wrong, and he gazed at the rusted buildings that were crumbling into ruin in this snow with awe, and mild fear.
Nick pushed himself onto his feet and he stumbled upward, noting one slipper that had fallen off his foot and was lying several feet away in a snowbank. He picked it up with a groan, trying to brush the snow off him as the sun rose. It didn't do anything to warm the icy air that blew past him and he shivered
He was in some place ruined, some place of rust and snow and ice and cold. But where? As he looked around, and he saw the body of a woman lying in the snow. She was equally as under dressed for the weather as he was, except her feet were bare. She was face down and her mass of red curls was fanned out around her. With a pang of horror, Nick recognized her.
It was Nik.
She awoke to cold sunshine and cold ground. She awoke with her face in the snow. She awoke with a start, to somebody shaking her shoulder. "Nik! Nik! Please get up!" The voice sounded almost panicked.
She groaned. "I feel like I've been hit by a truck." She turned, to look to her right at the person who was calling her name. Surprise dominated her face. "Nick?!" Her voice was hoarse, he throat still sore from the scream she'd made before she'd passed out.
Nick immediately look relieved and leaned back onto his knees. "Are you okay?" He asked.
She nodded and asked him the same. "About the same as you, I think. Sore but okay."
"Good," She smiled, pushing herself up out of the snow and onto her knees. "Where... are we?" She asked, looking around, her head turning in each direction as she tried to look around.
"I don't know." Nick replied.
"What the hell happened?" Nik probed further.
"Again, I don't know." Nick paused, sighing. "Nothing was working... and then the quake... and then I blacked out."
"Same." Nik pursed her lips. "That's what happened to me. So whatever this is, this event, it was pretty big. Hopefully everyone is okay... How to we get home?"
"I. Don't. Know. Nik." Nick rolled his eyes
Nik's face paled suddenly and she brought her hands up to her face. "William and Aurora were in the house..."
"The baby is fine, Nik." Nick smiled faintly, patting her shoulder. "Your husband has her. They're going to be okay. We just need to figure out how to get back."
Nik nodded, still pale but trying to compose herself. "We need shelter first. And a fire. Its fucking freezing." She held up a hand, noting her purple fingernails.
"Agreed." Nick stood and held out a hand to help the woman up, and she gladly took it. Pressure on her cut foot reopened the wound and caused it to bleed again, so she stumbled. She hissed at the pain. Nick wrapped an arm around her shoulders and together they hobbled to a downed and rusted aircraft, leaving a trail of blood in their wake. It was adequate shelter from the wind, and Nick ran out long enough to grab a bundle of dry twigs from a dead plant he had spotted on the way.
There were strange lights propped up on metal stakes by some old cargo crates in the airplane, and Nik grabbed one and smashed it to ignite the sticks. With a small fire made, the two huddled close to it, unsure of how to plan their next move.
"We're gonna die." Nik muttered. They didn't know where to find food, they were in a place that seemed long abandoned, and they were freezing. "We are gonna fuckin' die."
"Way to be a downer." Nick grumbled, eyes downcast. The gravity of the situation was not lost on him, and the two fell silent except for the fire crackling between them.
"This isn't how I wanted to meet you, you know." Nik said, tiring quickly of the lack of real sound. She flinched a little as she wiggled her toes next to the fire at the sharp pain that coursed through her foot, but she was trying to prevent frostbite and for that, by the fire they went.
"I can't imagine it would have been." Nick smiled back, though it was a little absent. He was still lost in thought.
Outside, they heard a strange sound. Something between a hiss and a trill and a roar. Nik pushed herself up to peek out of the hole in the aircraft, and saw what she thought, briefly, could be help.
They stood on two legs, seeming to inspect the small drips of blood in the snow that lead to the aircraft. "Nick!" She whispered excitedly. "Someone is out there!"
As soon as she said it, she realized her mistake and replaced her brief hope with horror.
She saw the stumps for the two extra arms. She saw them notice her, she heard the roar of a battle cry and the guns raise. She saw more appear, some with four full arms. One that was huge, and realization clicked across her face. "Fallen?!" Her voice cracked from the high pitched surprise in her voice. They took aim, and she held up a hand to Nick to make him stop moving as he raised to get up to look.
"Don't -" She said, to stop him. It was all she got out before the shots rang out.
And the bullets ripped through her, the mark true and precise.
She made a gagging noise fell backward.
"Nik!" Nick yelled, immediately rushing to his friend. He tucked an arm under her head trying to hold her up.
"I found out where we are." Nik chuckled humorlessly, quietly, a death rattle coming from her as her lungs filled with blood. "This is hell," She breathed, her head lolling back, the life leaving her body.
Nick was stunned. Utterly stunned, with his dead friend in his arms. He didn't have time to react, really. The enemies were closing in. Shots rang out again, with more trills. More hissed words he did not understand.
It was so that a few seconds later the friends lay together on the rusted floor of the aircraft as corpses.
The fire had just gone out.
AN/ This literally started as a joke between Nick and I, as we play Destiny a lot and also write fanfictions a lot. So, here we are! I imagine that might turn away some of you, and for that I'm sorry. As I wrote the outline, the more serious this became and the more I wanted to make it an actual story, and so this monstrosity was born. Thanks for taking a look and let me know what you think of my trash. I also want to apologize for the layout of this chapter - I promise that's going to get better as I have more details to write in next chapter.
Thanks again!