Chapter 3: The Experience of Death
A shaking blonde looked up from where he was hiding between two trashcans in a narrow alleyway between houses when he heard the distinct scream of Butters Stotch. "Oh Jesus," he muttered in terror, "s-someone's already k-killed him!" He clutched the black Mp5 Submachine Gun closer to his chest as he shook more violently. "We're all g-going to die! I'm next! I know I am!" He screamed at the thought.
He didn't want to die, he wasn't ready! What if he was sent to Hell instead of Heaven? What if he was sent to Heaven but he was tortured, or even bullied there for being, well, a tweeker? No! He couldn't handle that! He wasn't going to die, that was all! Oh, but what if he killed someone and they had to experience everything he was going to? Or what if he killed someone and then went to Hell for killing someone?
He screamed again; he couldn't kill someone if it meant they had to take his place in Heaven or Hell! But if he didn't kill anyone, he'd be killed! He screamed once again, completely torn about what to do.
"Tweek?" Someone asked from the mouth of the alley.
Tweek's shaking became less violent as he looked over to see a thin silhouette standing there. He smiled slightly. It had to be Craig, it just had to be! He stood and took a few steps to the figure, stopping with eyes wide as saucers when he realized that it wasn't Craig standing there, hell, it wasn't anyone he even hung out with on a basis of any kind. He knew the guy standing there from when they were in high school, but they weren't friends or anything. He was surprised that this guy even remembered his name.
"Are you okay dude?" The guy asked concernedly. "I could hear you screaming down the street."
"I…I…I'm o-okay…just w-waiting for Craig," Tweek managed to get out. He didn't trust this guy and it wasn't just because of the situation or the fact that he couldn't even remember his name; it was the black Walther P38 in his right hand. Automatically, his arms moved so that his finger could be on the trigger of the machine gun.
The man staring at Tweek noticed this but figured it was just so the blonde could have a better grip on his weapon. He knew he'd have to be careful of the tiniest movement around him just to be sure he isn't shot. Actually the only reason he was even talking with Tweek was because he figured he could use a human shield so he could get away if he's attacked. Now that he saw the machine gun, he knew he picked a good person as a shield.
He opened his mouth to start a proposition to look for Craig together, but both of them looked over to the roof of the nearby ice cream shop when they heard a shotgun go off. On impulse, he moved so that he could clutch the Walther in both hands still looking over at the ice cream shop. He wondered who fell to that gunshot but didn't have much time to think on it. He looked back over at Tweek as the caffeine addict screamed again.
When the guy whose name he forgot clutched his gun in both hands, Tweek immediately thought the worst: that the guy was getting ready to kill him. He screamed in fear and pointed his machine gun at the guy. Without giving the guy even a second to explain his actions, Tweek squeezed the trigger, turning the guy into Swiss cheese while the recoil caused him to stumble and fall back into the trash cans he'd been hiding between only a bit ago.
He panted and just stared at the sky with wide eyes from his position of lying on the knocked over trashcan. He knew that he'd killed the guy before he even heard the thud as his body fell to the ground. He was shaking again and clutching his machine gun to his chest for dear life. "I-I killed someone! Oh Jesus, I'm g-going to Hell!" He yelled to the sky.
After a half-minute more, he sat up and slipped off of the trashcan to sit on his knees in the alley. His light brown eyes found the corpse of the man he just killed immediately. He screamed and quickly scrambled to his feet, jumped over the blood-covered, hole-riddled corpse, and ran.
…
While Tweek was still crouched in the alley, a brunette girl was lounging around on the roof of the ice cream shop with her shotgun resting in her lap. She glanced vacantly over at the three bodies she threw in the corner of the flat roof. All three of them had had useless weapons - nunchaku, a switchblade, and a telescope - so she killed them, took their supplies, and decided to relax for a bit. There were only two things she hated about killing them: 1) The stink. 2) She had to waste three shots on three idiots with nothing good on them. And things that were inconvenient for Rebecca Cotswalds were always the things that needed to be gotten rid of.
As she was considering the most effective way to get rid of the corpses without straining herself too much, she had to quickly rise to her feet with her shotgun up, pointed at the ladder off the back of the shop. Someone was climbing up it. She sighed and lowered her gun when she saw it was the raven-haired girl in the purple jacket she'd talked with at the community center. She sat back down and gestured for the noirette to join her.
Wendy climbed onto the roof and slowly walked over to sit in front of Rebecca. She instantly noticed the stench of the three bodies beginning to cook in the sun and wrinkled her nose. Rebecca couldn't have thrown those over the edge of the roof? She looked back to the brunette before she could say anything about it though.
Wendy's eyes fell to the shotgun laying across Rebecca's crossed legs, and she quickly looked back up to the brown-haired girl's face so as not to draw attention to the fact that she was considering grabbing the sniper rifle that was in her rucksack. "Why'd you want me to meet you here?"
"It's simple," Rebecca started, "I figured that with you being the only two not about to crap ourselves, we should…team up."
Surprised at the proposition, Wendy tapped her bottom lip thoughtfully. It would definitely be useful to have an ally up until the end of the battle when they had to kill each other. Between the two of them, they could probably kill quite a few people. Hell, with her sniper rifle alone, she could probably get quite a few people from the roofs. Plus they could gather the weapons of their victims. She smiled then and nodded. "Okay. Seems like a good idea to me."
"Okay." Rebecca tapped the tips of her fingers together expectantly, waiting to see her new ally's weapon. When she didn't see even the slightest sign of one, she asked, "What's your weapon?"
"Oh!" Wendy pulled the rucksack off of her back and pulled a silver Bolt Action Sniper Rifle complete with an attached scope out and laid it across her lap. "Sniper rifle."
Rebecca eyes widened ever so slightly to show the singular emotion of impression. "Wow." A sniper rifle? That could prove problematic if they both made it to the end. Something like that could be more easily controlled than her shotgun, giving Wendy the entire upper hand. But Rebecca sure as hell wasn't going to let that bit of fear show.
Instead, she pointed to two guys sitting on a bench in front of Stark's Pond. "Kill the one on the left. Let's see just how much control you have over that thing."
Wendy looked over at where the brunette was pointing and nodded. She turned herself to be lying on her stomach on the flat roof, her left arm supporting the rifle so she could have more control and her right forefinger on the trigger. She looked through the scope at the two teenage boys sitting on the bench. From behind all she could see was the black hair that both shared.
She aimed for the boy on the left and squeezed the trigger.
Half a second later, she saw the boy jerk forward and fall to the ground. The boy that had been sitting next to the one she killed stood up and looked horrifyingly between his fallen companion and over in the general direction of Wendy. She drew in a sharp breath when she saw the tear-streaked face of Ike Broflovski looking around for George's killer.
She lowered her head from the scope and wiped her face. Maybe Ike and George weren't people she knew all too well, but she still knew them. Why couldn't it have been someone I didn't know?
"Good shot," Rebecca said, genuinely impressed with the accuracy of the shot.
Wendy took a breath. "Thanks." She went to get back up, but stopped when she felt metal pressed against the back of her skull alongside the distinct ch-ch sound of a shotgun being cocked.
"Too good of a shot," Rebecca continued. "You could be a problem if we both made it to the end of the game. The strongest need to die first."
"Wait, R–" Was all Wendy managed to get out before Rebecca pulled the trigger, sending dark red blood and gray brain matter splattering over the edge of roof and even back onto her clothes. She barely even cared about that or the fact that the shot was echoing through the air.
When what was left of Wendy fell over, Rebecca wiped some of the brain matter off of her sweater and just looked at it. "So this is what the brain really looks like?" She was pulled out of her thoughts immediately when the continuous rat-tat-tat of a machine gun went off nearby.
She dropped down into a crouch and went over to the other side of the roof to investigate the noise. She saw the body of some random guy fall over only a minute before the man with wildly spiky blonde hair, Tweek Tweak, came running out of the alley screaming. A submachine gun was clutched against his chest.
Rebecca halfway considered following him and sniping him with Wendy's rifle, (It's not like she's going to need it anymore, she rationalized), but decided against it. It was obvious that Tweek was more than willing to kill, and the last thing she needed to do was go after some paranoid guy with a machine gun.
When Tweek was gone, Rebecca stood and grabbed the sniper rifle from where it was laying covered in blood and brain next to Wendy's body. "Sorry girl, but I need this." She brushed off what she could and then made her way for the ladder to get back down onto the street. It would be dangerous to hang out around here for too much longer. People would be sure to gather to a place where both a shotgun and a machine gun had just been fired off.
…
Tears rolling uncontrollably down his face, Ike Broflovski ran as fast as his legs would carry him through the wooded area around Stark's Park, looking for a place to hide after watching his boyfriend get sniped out of nowhere.
It was in the instant that that horror occurred that he realized people were willing to kill anyone in order to win…in order to survive.
He stopped and ducked into a bush as a sob escaped him. He opened his rucksack and pulled out the switchblade George had salvaged for him after one of the three kills the Goth had made to protect him, (his original weapon had been a pot lid). Ike clutched the blade to his chest and let out another sob.
He would survive, no matter what.
…
When Tweek finally stopped running and slid down the side of an old shack near the Denkins' farm, he didn't even have the energy to scream or obsess over whether or not he was going to die. The only thing he cared about at the moment was staying alive and the whereabouts of his boyfriend, Craig.
Craig, w-w-where are you? You said you'd protect m-me! Where are you? He felt a few tears rolling down his cheeks at the thought of dying alone and having not seen Craig once since he was released from the community center. That's all he wanted if he had to die, to see his beloved's face one last time before he was taken to Hell. Just one more time.
Quickly though sloppily, Tweek readjusted the machine gun to be in his hands when he heard someone walking around the shack towards him. He took a few breaths and bit down hard enough on his bottom lip that blood dripped onto his chin before he stepped around the corner of the shack and pointed the gun at a brunette in a dark red jacket. He lowered the gun when he realized who was standing there.
"C-Clyde?" He said in relief.
Clyde blinked a bit. "Tweek? Y-You're actually doing this?" He looked nervously between the blonde's face and the machine gun clutched in his hands.
"Uh," Tweek looked down at his gun, "just f-for self-defense. U-Until I find Craig."
"Craig?" Clyde smiled happily. "He's with me and Token! He's been so worried about you!"
Tweek smiled as well. "R-Really?" Craig was with their friends? Perfect! He knew they'd be safe with them.
"Yeah!" Clyde walked over to Tweek and grabbed his wrist to lead him along. "Come on, we're over in the farm house!"