Epic Games and Atari own it all
Chapter 6: Hard Times
Everyone was quiet in the dorms for several days after the season opener, Liandri sent an apology dusted with insincere regret to the families of the deceased… God damned cowards. I remember after three days, Arielle came to my room and knocked on my door. She had a bowl of soup and asked me to follow her, I did, hell if that woman asked me to follow her to my grave I would have. She led me to Ophelia's room and she cautiously opened the door. We walked in quietly to see her fastened down to a wheel chair facing out a window. Her waist, arms and legs were all blanketed in restraining devices and straps, leaving her only the ability to move her head… not that she moved much anyways. An I.V. fed tranquilizers into her arm at a steady pace, leaving her motionless and with a vacant stare. As we walked around in front of her I was honestly shocked at what I saw. I used to think under that mask was a monster who should just be put out of our misery, all I could envision was an inhuman creature under that respirator mask… then I knew how wrong I was. She was lovely, her hair was untidy, and she obviously wore no makeup, and her eyes were devoid of life… but she was still a beautiful young woman. It's funny how just a matter of seconds can change your entire perspective of someone. After seeing her, the real her… I pitied her. It just didn't seem right that someone so frail and soft could grow up to be so… savage. Arielle knelt and gently touched Ophelia's restrained hand.
"Ophelia? Can you hear me?" Ophelia was motionless for several seconds, then weakly nodded, not looking at Arielle. Arielle took the bowl in her hand. "Are you hungry?" Ophelia again nodded weakly, still staring ahead out the window. Arielle took the bowl and filled a spoon with the soup, she slowly and cautiously moved it towards Ophelia's mouth. Ophelia didn't move, and some soup dribbled down her chin. After two or three tries Arielle was able to get the food into her mouth and Ophelia weakly swallowed. Within a few moments the soup was gone, I still stood back in disbelief that Arielle took such a chance. She stood and touched the side of Ophelia's head, like she was trying to comfort her. "We're here Ophelia, we're going to take care of you, that's what friends do." Ophelia's eyes watered slightly and her mouth trembled for several seconds until she managed to faintly squeak.
"Friend?..." Arielle paused and stared down at Ophelia, then leaned forward and kissed the top of her head.
"Yes Ophelia, friend." We slowly left Ophelia alone in her room and locked the door behind us. I was in shock, if I didn't love Arielle already, I did after seeing that. She solidified in my mind that she was special, that she was different. Where the rest of us would have put a bullet in Ophelia's head when a doctor wasn't looking, Arielle showed her compassion. I went to my room that night and I cried. Usually I fancied myself too tough to cry, but I wept that night. I cried for Ophelia, and the sorrow I felt… wondering what the hell happened to her to make her the woman she was now. I also cried that night out of disgust in myself. Arielle showed me another way of life that day, and after seeing that, I wanted to be that way… too bad I failed miserably.
A couple days later we were ready for our next match. It was an assault event against some pack of weirdoes called the Necris. In a nutshell, we had to overtake a base that the Necris held, and if there were any survivors after the first round, we would keep taking turns attacking and defending until either one team finally gave up, or was so crippled they were forced to forfeit. We didn't even bother mingling with the Necris before this match; casualties in this type of match were inevitable, so we decided it would be best not to get to know our opponents even if we wanted to. We watched the Necris take up positions in their little makeshift base. We were stationed in a cave on a manmade beach, while the Necris would be defending a submarine. All we really knew was that we had to push our way in, blow a lot of crap up, and take the control room. The alarm sounded and we all ran along the rock wall of the beach in a single file. A machinegun suddenly peppered our area with bullets and we had no choice but to double back to the cave and make up a new plan; meanwhile the clock still ticked down, which is why I think Bjorn didn't put much thought into his next plan. He handed Arielle a sniper rifle and ordered her to take out the Necris that manned that turret on the submarine. She squatted and leaned slightly around the corner, one shot later she gave us the report that a messy headshot had taken care of our machinegun problem. We had to move fast before they got a new gunner up there. Bjorn motioned for us to run as fast as we could into the submarine, and like soldiers, we followed our orders. Bjorn led the sprint up the dock and into the doorway. I was directly behind Bjorn and followed my leader closely, any closer and I could have died. The second Bjorn entered the doorway a bursting cloud of blood sprayed my face. I momentarily stopped from the shock as I watched Bjorn fall to the ground, his face mangled by the flak cannon that shot him at pointblank range. Not even a second later my senses returned and I turned my flak cannon on the son of a bitch that shot him. I wish I could recall what he looked like, but I didn't wait long enough to take in any of his features except for his terrified eyes as the burning shrapnel ripped his head apart. I hated to do it but we left Bjorn behind, we had to finish the assault, he would have wanted it that way. We were without a leader and disorganized, so we came up with a quick strategy… kill everything, forcing a forfeit. We blasted our way through the Necris with no mercy, Ophelia was not with us that day, but damned that would have been the one time we needed her the most. By the time we reached the control room we had eliminated all the Necris except their leader, and we had only lost Bjorn. He quickly surrendered to us when he realized how outnumbered he was. To hell with surrender, I was about to kill him right then and there, but again, Arielle was the cooler head. She accepted his surrender, and we won the match. If I had known that vampire wannabe would have formed another team years later I wouldn't have listened to Arielle and I would have killed him… yeah, you're right… I would always listen to her. Our victory was bittersweet, we all felt sorrow from the loss of our leader, until a medic ran to us and brought us down to Bjorn. I refused to accept the words at first, I thought maybe he was playing with us, but it was true, Bjorn WAS still alive, if only barely. We came just in time to see the medics airlift him and the life-support equipment into a cruiser to take him to a nearby medical facility. Chances of him actually surviving were slim, but the fact that he was still alive was a sign enough of his strength. I sat in the sand in shock after watching the cruiser take off with him, the man had taken the equivalent to a burning shotgun blast in the face at pointblank and was alive to recall it. Regrettably his eyes and throat were destroyed by the blast, but I'll be damned if he wouldn't be the toughest blind mute I would ever know.
Two days later we were
called. The emergency surgery somehow was a success, and Bjorn would
live, he would never make a full recovery obviously, but he would
live. I walked in front of the others down the hallway of the
hospital, dreading his room that was coming closer and closer. The
doctor greeted us and said one of us could go in, somehow I wound up
being nominated for the task. I walked in slowly and quite nervous. I
was amazed to see him sitting up in his bed, holding a hand mirror in
front of him. He lowered the mirror, and what I saw broke my heart.
His eyes were now mechanical orbs with a pinhole red light that acted
as an iris, they whirred as they looked up and focused on me.
"Bjorn? You can
see?"
"Yeah." His throat and vocal chords had been rebuilt,
his voice was raspy and weak, but he spoke. "Barely… I… I'm
not used to this." How could he be? How could he spend a lifetime
with one set of eyes and then have to immediately adapt to something
else? I sat with Bjorn for several hours, the poor guy. He seemed
like he was not fully believing it all, like it was all a horrible
nightmare… but he couldn't wake up.
Well, I guess that covers how poor Bjorn got so banged up in the first Unreal Tourny. Keep on reading.
