Summary: Alex's mind was never truly quiet.
Written for dogmatix for yuletide.
Echo
By Dark Ice Dragon
'No, wait, stop!'
'Fucking monster-'
'What is that?'
Alex sighed, pushing himself off his bed. His mind was never truly quiet. Never had been, in fact – not after the first Blackwatch soldier he'd consumed, and after that, the morass of memories and voices in his head just kept growing.
He left the hideout, scanning the dark skyline for a brief second to make sure there weren't any helicopters-
'Did you see how it just ripped it apart?'
'Poor fuckers didn't even know it was there.'
-and leapt off the roof, angling his arms to start gliding to the next building.
'You know what I really want to try, if I had the guts? Skydiving.'
The voices were usually just flickers at the back of Alex's mind, easily ignorable – he'd had enough practice. Then there were times it seemed like they weren't just shadows, remnants of a person stuck on playback, where everything he did seemed to trigger yet another memory as if they were actually there, commenting on his life.
'You know that's dangerous – please, don't.'
Alex snorted as he touched down on the building with a 'crack', dashed towards the other side of the building and leapt again. The words weren't meant for him, and it didn't matter that it was true – he was going to find out what had been done to him and why, and then he was going to make sure it wouldn't happen again to anyone else.
It didn't take Alex long to eventually reach his intended target: an Infected Hive. The street was riddled with dead bodies everywhere, the burning chassis of tanks standing a lopsided guard at the corner-
'Jesus Christ, just how many are there in here?'
-and it was obvious the Infected were winning this round. Had won more territory all over Manhattan recently, thanks to Green.
A humourless smirk spread across Alex's face as he felt the tendrils shift, becoming his blade.
Sometimes, the easiest way to shut the voices up was to drown them out. You couldn't hear them if you were surrounded by stuttering gunfire and guttural roaring.
Alex jumped.