The imp's mind was racing. Desperately trying to hold onto any stimulus it gets. Creating its own to occupy itself. Hallucinations, both visual and auditory, clouding his head. Left to rot. Imaginary conversations in his head, some he responds to outwardly. It's not like it would matter.
Memories. Memories of his friends, his family, the sun beaming down on his face, the smell of fresh air.
The strange men opened the door again. The imp barely resisted. He knew it would get him nowhere. A jab with a needle. He usually didn't remember the jab. The plunger sunk down and the imp lost consciousness.
"…remember to cut in a pattern that allows for suturing later on…" The senior surgeon looked down at the imp, surgical mask and glasses covering up his humanity. "…hey, what are you doing?"
The resident peels off a portion of white skin, then looks at his superior. "…I'm doing what you said."
"Ah, no, no, the white skin's useless to us. We don't need it. Just… chuck that one in the sample bin and don't do it again." The senior surgeon's scalpel marked the imp's flesh, blood leaking out, as a nurse followed up with a bovie pen and soaked the fluid up with gauze. They were well into this operation, chunks having been cut out everywhere on the imp's body.
The imp opens his eyes. The sensations of the surgery hit him like a freight train. Pain, raw, unyielding, burning. He jolted up, the restraints keeping him in place, as the surgical team stepped back. He began screaming, primal, like a wounded animal, straining and thrashing against the tightened belts on his wrists, ankles, and neck. Tears welled in his eyes.
The senior surgeon looked to the anesthesiologist. "What the fuck is going on!? You're supposed to be giving him shit for this!"
The anesthesiologist looked at the scene in shock, eyes widened. "I… I… I gave him the same thing we gave him before, it's-"
"How long is it going to take to knock him out again?"
"…Dr. Albright?"
"We need material, knock him out." The senior surgeon pins the imp down, uncaring about the current situation, and continues his cutting. The resident and nurse watch in shock as the screaming intensified, the movement of muscle chucking red fluid against the bed, the floor, the surgeon's gown. The anesthesiologist scrambled to switch the drugs, anything to knock the imp out.
Five minutes. It took five minutes for the imp to lose consciousness once again as Dr. Albright collected samples of red skin and muscle. The otherworldly creature went limp, the pain fading from him. Now he knew a taste of the pain that he's been numbed to.
Now he felt alive.
The tractor puttered down the road, moving sluggishly against the roads of Wrath, the driver looking intently at the road. A shotgun was next to him, between his wife, pointing upward. There was a look of sheer determination in his face despite the hopelessness of their catching Loona's murderer.
Millie looked over to him. "…look, Moxx… we aughta' turn around."
The husband grunted out through his teeth. "No, we're almost there, we just have to keep going. I'm not giving up now! Not like this!"
His wife moved a hand onto his shoulder and he swatted it off, focusing on the road. A few seconds of silence. "…it ain't givin' up, Moxx. We've been out here for almost a day. During the harvest moon, no less." She noticed a white spot on Moxxie's neck that wasn't there before. "Like, gosh darn, you're already bleachin' hun."
Moxxie pursed his lips, looking forward. An intersection. Left, right, forward. The first in hours. He then glanced over to Millie. "…" He sighed out, moving his head back into the headrest of the tractor's seat, closing his eyes. A despaired expression torrentially flowed onto his face, followed by its suppression. "We have to get out. There might be clues." Before Millie could respond, Moxxie took his shotgun and hopped off the tractor.
Millie's eyes widened. "Oh, hun, don't do this-"
Moxxie hurriedly turned towards Millie. "And what!? You just want to sit on your ass while this guy gets away? This piece of shit murdered Stolas, murdered Loona, Blitz might be fuckin' dead because of him, and you just want to do what we've been doing for a month and let him go!?" Enraged, Moxxie marches forward to the intersection. A small, shimmering portal was in the distance, barely visible, and four men were marching through the desert. They stopped. They were holding something in their hands.
Beta shouts out. "Gun!" All four of the human expedition turned towards Beta's direction, readying their rifles and pointing it at the threat. "200 metres." The imp was in their optics. "Civilian right behind."
Alpha signals to the squad to stay put. "Can they see us?"
Beta nods. "They're looking right at us. Guy's squinting."
Alpha crouches down. "Tell them to drop it."
Delta, the silent one of the group, yelled out at the top of his lungs. "Bota! Bota! Bakean gatoz!" He carefully eyed the imps through the optics. They were looking at each other. "Bakean gatoz!" The male imp was looking at his vehicle, then back to the group… before he slowly put the shotgun down onto the road, kicked it to the back of the tractor, and put his hands up.
The leader of the group gestured to move forward. "Keep your sights on them." The group slowly, but surely, made their way to the imps, rifles pointed, ready to fire at a moment's notice. They stopped about fifty metres away.
Moxxie swallowed. He figured he'd need to talk his way out of this situation. "We were just about to turn around!" The imp stepped back, hands still up in the air.
Alpha looked around for any cover in the arid wastes. There was none. One hand went carefully to press on his earpiece. "Two contacts, both are unarmed now, one of them has a gun near the back of the tractor. What do we do?"
Static echoed through the earpiece, then a familiar voice from the living world gave the command. "Open fire."
Alpha barely registered those words. "…you want us to do what?"
"You heard me. Open fire."
Alpha's eyes widened. Everyone had heard the order. None were willing to carry it out… except the man who did. Delta, without hesitation, began closing the distance, firing his rifle at the unarmed couple. The imps scattered as the bullets cracked through the air, hitting the ground near them, denting the rugged vehicle.
Moxxie went straight to the ground, crawling and skittering to the back of the tractor, picking the shotgun up and returning fire. Everyone in the human expedition was now committed, all four firing at the vehicle. The imp's ears began ringing as shotgun blasts echoed out into the desert, more and more ammo being expended, the shells gathered from the gas station constantly replenishing the firearm.
The fighting was a blur. Return fire, the constant patter of bullets hitting the tractor, buckshot scattering out of the muzzle of Moxxie's weapon. Pure chaos. The tractor started up and began moving forward, Moxxie falling back a bit before realising what was going on. He stood himself up, walking with the tractor, moving closer and closer to the fireteam.
A human came around, trying to catch Moxxie by surprise, although the human was woefully exposed. Several pellets of buckshot hit the human's Kevlar vest and punctured his carotid. He fell to the ground, clutching his neck, as the moving tractor steamed forward. A bullet made its way through the tractor and grazed Moxxie's shoulder. "Ah, fuck…!" He stumbled back, blood rocketing out in a spurt, clutching his shoulder for a moment. His hooves, at that very moment, nudged against a metal object that had been chucked in his direction. It looked like a green pineapple. The pin was off and the lever was gone.
Time slowed down. Moxxie's pulse quickened, beating in his chest, the pain slowly fading as adrenaline kicked in. He hurriedly grabbed the grenade into his hand, only a couple of seconds left before it detonates. He runs out, attempts to chuck it at the fireteam. Two… one… it detonated in the air, the grenade fragmenting into many little pieces. Two of the three humans were stumbled back from it, one catching fragments in the thigh, severing his femoral. The other, closer to the explosion, suffered invisible injuries, blood spurting from their mouth as they attempted to clear the fatal ruptures.
The last human. He dropped his gun and began running for the portal. Moxxie's wife hopped out from the seat of the tractor and sprinted towards the straggler, a primal yell echoing out. She jumped onto the assailant and violently plunged her knife into his neck, over and over. The human stopped struggling and Millie got back up, waving the blade in the air to clear whatever vital fluid had collected onto it.
It was over. Silence had once again graced the landscape, only the blowing of wind punctuating the watered fields of Wrath. There was no ultimate catharsis, the feeling of relief clouded by adrenaline. Millie slowly walked back, looking over to her husband. "…nice throw."
Moxxie collapsed to the ground, head leaned against the back of the tractor, letting off a strong exhale. "Hhhaah… thanks… I took a hit."
Millie kneeled down, looking the gash in her husband's shoulder over. "…oh, you widdle baby… it's a scratch, you'll be fiiine."
The male imp smiled, giving his wife a small peck on the cheek. "…we make a great team."
Millie let out a small laugh, returning the kiss. "Love ya, Moxx."
"Love ya too, hun."
