I live. Next chapter is already complete and proofread, and will be posted Wednesday, barring unforeseen circumstances. I tried a few new things in the next couple chapters, so, as always, constructive criticism and positive reviews are welcome.
Fuck. This. Hill.
I refer of course, to the only hill worth remembering. Same tree, same flowers, right where I buried the girl. Same beautiful view.
Three days this week, I had awoken to a lucid dream here. The first time I came here I was afraid, expecting one of the grotesque nightmares that frequently haunted my sleep. The second time I felt a degree instead of accepting sorrow- revisiting this hill was a reminder of whatever life I had previously being put to rest, for better or worse.
After several minutes I was annoyed.
After an hour, I was angry.
By the time the dead girl showed up, I was downright pissed.
"Huh, funny. Didn't expect to see you anytime soon. I mean, what is this, three dreams this week? I'm almost flattered!"
Of course, even in my head, I didn't have heart to show it.
"Odd." I responded, keeping my voice flat "I expected my mind to use something a little more grotesque and original. Maybe a hospital nursery being incinerated. Or the family I never had introducing themselves to me, and then spontaneously combusting. Or anime, I suppose that's rather grotesque."
So maybe I allowed myself to act just a little pissed.
The girl started laughing wildly, her hands on her stomach "Oh you are PISSED."
Or maybe dream me was just an ass.
"Maybe. A lot of people are asses in their dreams."
I looked at the girl curiously.
The girl rolled her eyes "Psychic powers. Obviously."
I stopped thinking of setting fire to the hill.
"Anything you want to talk about? Not like I have anywhere to go."
The girl shrugged "Well, if this is supposed to be a nightmare, and I'm supposed to give you a big scare… boo. Done. Burn this place to the ground for all I care."
I resisted the urge to rub my temples in exasperation. I was receiving SASS from an imaginary friend/nightmare/ghost/memory/monster in the confines of a dream "Okay, well, what do you think you're here for?"
"How am I supposed to know? I'm dead!"
"How very astute of you."
Her eyes narrowed at me "And your annoyed by my sass."
"Get out of my head."
"You're head, my head, our head… same thing. Either I'm a delusion, illusion, or whatever kind of crazy you scooped out of that can of crap you call a head, in which case I'm only here and reading your mind because you want me here and reading your mind… or I'm a ghost, in which case I'll do whatever the heck I please. Boo."
"You know, I liked you better when you couldn't talk, you know, when dead people stayed dead."
"And I liked you better as an edgy crybaby- 'boohoo, I have no memories, everyone here is dead, and I'm being hunted by packs of cannibalistic semi-sentient super-monsters, and my only friends are a dead body that I can't get rid of, and this random guy I met in the sewers'. You probably peaked when you got shot…shoulda died then, you'll never top that internal monologue."
"There's the angle, bringing up traumatic memories in and my actions, presenting them in a light that reflects very poorly on me, and trying to convince me to die. Just like a nightmare."
The girl rolled her eyes "Yes, a nightmare spread over the course of three nights… I, your subconscious, have been planning all along to goad you into making fun of this meat-sacks death so I could unleash my rehearsed monologue making demeaning statements concerning your maturity and mental…in order to further my great plot. Hahahahahahaha. By the way, that thing that you've been refusing to ask; 'What is it you were going to tell me in my first dream?'. The answer is your gay."
I'll admit, I reeled back at this "I think I would have figured that out by now. Lawrence is pretty handsome, come to think of it. Jenny was about an eight… but I can tell you which one I found more attractive, and it's not Lawrence."
"Maybe, but now you're questioning it. Either you'll wake up one day and decide you're homosexual… or you'll live every day of your life afraid you will become one."
"What the fuck… just…what?"
"Yeah, think, you just said Lawrence was handsome, and that Rui girl's pretty pretty, but are you attracted to her at all?"
"What… what are you?"
"Boo."
I took a moment to recollect my thoughts "Okay, let me tell you why that's bullshit. Rui is blind, and that's just fucked up. Contrary to what you think, men are allowed to admit when other men are good-looking, it helps us gauge whether it would be helpful or detrimental to hang with them while trying to score chicks. Third of all, context matters. Why on Earth would THAT be the first thing that you say to me."
"Oh no, it's totally bullshit. But it doesn't matter now, does it?"
"Bitch."
"Jerk."
"F-" I forced myself to stop right there. If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. Besides, it was a figment of my imagination. Though I now had to reassess exactly how fucked up my subconscious was, and how fucked up I was in my past life.
"Whatever. Let's just cut this out, we're just making asses of ourselves."
"Whatever. I'll just be here fuming. You have more important things to do. Try and not to make fun of dead people being dead while you're gone."
Bitch.
August 29th
Crashes and screams were the first things that greeted my ears when I woke from my nightmare- so visceral I pinched myself to be sure I had woken up in the first place. The good doctor started awake at the same time as I did- and with only a scalpel in his hand- walked over to the door and opened it to a narrow crack so he could peak through. He stood at the door, staring for a moment before turning back to me "Stay here. Be quiet. Lock the door behind me, don't open it until I return."
The screams continued, now complemented by gunfire. I opened my mouth to ask what the matter was, but he cut me off, bringing a finger to his lips, and then bolted out the door. I made my way to the door, and curiously peaked out into the chaos.
Though it was nearing morning, zubat and golbat had fallen upon the camp. While zubat fell upon the whole of the camp with numbers that blocked out the stars, golbat swooped in on isolated targets, picking them up and carrying them off.
I quickly slammed the door and locked it. Their numbers were overwhelming; hundreds, possibly over a thousand zubat, with several hundred golbat. There was a steady crack-crack-crack of returning gunfire, so something was being done about it, but I doubted it would amount to much, or that there was much of anything I could do in turn. The clinic at least was made of solid concrete with no windows, and the door was made of steel. If I was quiet, I could wait until midday, when the sun may be enough to drive off the golbat. Hopefully others would have the same good sense.
A dreadfully long four minutes passed, with the sounds of battle unabated. Tired of my helplessness, I began moving about the room, looking for anything that could be useful. There was no point in going out there- I would die as quickly as I opened the door. No one had come to the clinic for shelter, and I convinced myself that for that my conscious was clean.
For that matter, there was little chance that I would survive if the clinic was breached, so there was little point in fighting back. I found my jacket, but as I had expected, the pokeballs had been taken from them, and against so many on my own I would inevitably die. I was all too aware I was doing this more to pass the time than to secure my own safety.
I had found only a few small scalpels, a fire extinguisher, syringes, and a number of IV's I couldn't quite place. Three minutes into my search I finally found something more useful- a box of epinephrine. If I was compromised, I doubt it would so me much good, but it would give me a much greater chance of survival if I was able to run around like a crazed fiend.
That said, zero multiplied by three was still zero.
The epinephrine cabinet was filled with all sorts of useful drugs; morphine, tranquilizers, more epinephrine, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and drugs I couldn't even begin to recognize. The cabinet itself would make a useful hiding place; while the outside looked wooden, it was actually steel. I crawled inside and toyed with the lock, making sure that I could lock it and unlock it from the inside. As I exited the cabinet, I bumped my head on something I hadn't noticed before, firmly attached to the 'ceiling' of the cabinet. I gingerly removed it, a small box with a number of wires sticking out haphazardly. A small two-way radio was taped to the side of the box, I hadn't a clue what it was.
Before I could exit the cabinet, the door to the clinic shook violently. I quickly withdrew back into the cabinet and locked it from the inside, slowing my breath as much as possible.
The door crashed open, accompanied by flailing, swearing, and grunting, then nothing but heavy breathing. Footsteps echoed in the room, drawing closer, distinct all the chaos and disorder outside of my little hiding hole. The door to the cabinet shook violently, with more angry grunting. Some sort of blade immediately drove through the doors, crushing the lock and coming within several inches of my shoulder, and before I could react the doors were flung open, I was relieved of the box in my hand, and the cabinet was again closed on me.
Deciding there was little point in hiding- no longer feeling quite so safe in the now half-dismantled cabinet- I emerged slowly back into the room, checking for potential threats. Too my surprise, the room was empty except for a single large person dressed in jungle fatigues, hunched over the box I had found with his back turned towards me. The person took the radio in his hand and spoke loudly into it "Wes, I have your toy. Answer."
Several seconds passed in silence before the man spoke into the radio again, impatiently "Wes, respond. I don't know how to detonate. Respond." Several more seconds passed in silence, before the man gave up on the radio, throwing it into the mess of wires. The man turned towards me, his face obscured by a black balaclava "No point hiding here any longer, get ready to flee."
I knew that voice "Scar?"
"Yes, Crescent. Quiet now." Scar muttered unhappily under his breath and leapt to his feet, grabbing the nearest weapon available; a fire extinguisher. Scar shook it a few times, then moved towards the door, flattening himself against the wall next to it. Without any other place to hide, I rolled on the floor under my bed, trying again to control my breathing, and gripping the small scalpel I had as my only means of protection.
I barely had time to exhale before another more visitors- a garrison soldier followed by four golbat. He dashed to the other side of the room, rolling over the bed and firing two shots from his submachine gun as he fell onto the floor- clipping and grounding one of the golbat. He proceeded to push himself backwards quickly on his back, firing as he went moved across the floor, bringing down another.
Scar reacted far faster than I did. The first golbat to enter the room he swung the extinguisher at wildly, swatting it to the floor where he proceeded to grind its skull into pulp with a heavy boot. As soon as he had homogenized the bat sufficiently, he pivoted and hosed down the next, sending it to the floor shivering where it met a similar fate-but not before letting out a shrill shriek.
The shrieking was awful. The soldier dropped his weapon and rolled on the floor, I dropped my scalpel and covered my ears, and Scar didn't so much step on the golbat as he did trip on it to end the noise.
I shook my head rapidly to free my ears from the ringing, subsiding into a low buzz after several seconds. I continued shaking, but rather than fading, the buzzing grew louder, and louder, and then-
Another wave of bats came- zubat, and too many to count in their frenzied swarm. Scar had dropped the extinguished when he tripped on the Golbat, and could only roll away from them until he crashed into the cabinet he destroyed earlier. As the first zubat reached him, he swatted it out of the air with a backhand while his free hand searched for a weapon. When the second arrived, his hand found a scalpel, which he brought down on the things wings brutally, cutting through them and sending it veering off to the side.
The zubat swarm stopped for a moment, surrounding Scar, and he had all of two seconds to rip the steel door off the cabinet and shield himself from a hail of poison needles. As Scar weathered the storm, the soldier finally recovered enough to draw his side arm and send shoot seven times into the swam, bringing down six zubat. His handgun empty, he dove for the extinguisher on the floor and hosed them down, ending the barrage on Scar.
Scar gave a sigh of relief before picking up the soldier's submachine gun and offering it back to him. The soldier appeared confused as to who and what the big man was, but nonetheless accepted the weapon, and offered the extinguisher back in return.
Scar turned his attention back to his radio, but before he could speak another word another wave of zubat arrived, firing poison sting as they entered. Scar turned on the extinguisher again, while the stream of cold foam could not stop the needles, it spun them midair such that the points did not strike him. The soldier immediately fired wildly into the swarm, dropping a dozen, before hastily grabbing a metal tray from a bedside as the zubat redirected their attacks.
'Fuck, what do I do? Do I just keep hiding?'
"Do something!"
'All I have is this scalpel?'
"Wrong, use the bed you dunce!"
I laid there dumbfounded for a moment before I made sense of my panicked reasoning. Rather than rolling out from under the bed, I arched my back, propping the light bed up and then flipped it upright, facing the zubat. Without thinking, I rammed my shoulder into the bottom of the bed, knocking it over into the swarm. Their attacks disrupted, Scar erupted in fury, tearing them apart with his bare hands as he cleared the room. The soldier meanwhile dashed to the door and slammed it shut- only for it to swing back open-whatever Scar did must have broken the lock, in the same way he did such for the cabinet.
The soldier pushed his back against the door to hold it shut, and looked frantically about the room before calling out to me "Twist the bed sheet into rope, and bring it here." I complied, my hands twisting the sheet quickly even as Scar continued his rampage, stomping angrily on wing-deprived zubat. With the sheet twisted, I quickly tied each end together in a knot and ran for the door, tying the door handle to another cabinet to hold it shut. The soldier nodded in approval, then slumped against the door. Scar finished his task and stomped around the room angrily several times, before calming himself and seeing the drugs I had laid out. He quickly scooped all but a syringe of epinephrine and tranquilizer into the bag and quickly shouldered it.
The soldier exhaled and removed his empty magazine from his submachine gun, fitting it into a holster and drawing one more, staring at it with something approaching morbid fascination. With any immediate danger out of sight and out of mind I realized how young he was- perhaps twenty years old, despite his silver hair. I only now realized that his outfit was nothing at all like that worn by the rest of the soldiers- a solid black checkered with gray squares. He either forgot or forwent to put on a helmet, and his tactical vest was far more complex than that worn by the others- with loops fitted for bandoliers of grenades and various holsters for magazines and who knows what else. I noticed something about his uniform- the holster he pulled the magazine from was empty, and the one where he stowed away his spent one held no less than others. His rust colored eyes quaked in their sockets as he stared at his final magazine, oblivious to the Scar's approach "What is it you intend to do?"
The soldier seemed to snap back to the present, slamming his magazine into his gun and reloading his pistol in the same fashion. "As I see it, with the exception of the broken lock, this is the most secure building. It's solid concrete, with no windows and only one entry point that we can jam shut. I'm going back out there, I'll attempt to bring back as many people as I can, and then we'll hold out until sunrise.
Scar offered the young man his hand, and hoisted him to his feet. Scar stood several inches over the soldier and spoke softly "May I take one of your weapons then, for defense."
The soldier threw back his head and laughed "After seeing your last rampage, I think you'll be fine, besides, I need all the bullets I can get."
Scar stared at the man through his goggles, and quickly snatched the handgun from his holster and pulled back the slide. Once twice and three times he pulled back the slide in as many seconds, but no bullets were ejected. Scar then ejected the magazine and let it fall to the floor- empty. "You are not leaving" Scar asserted, before slamming the pistol into the soldier's temple. The soldier shrunk away from the blow weakly, before being caught with a viscous uppercut, and then struck on the temple with the gun again. The soldier crumpled to the ground and was pinned by Scar in seconds. Only after Scar stepped away did I have the opportunity to admire his handiwork; the soldier was gagged with his sock, his sleeves were tied together, and his wrists bound by another sock, and his legs folded in a way that I could hardly fathom, in some kind of sadistic meditation pose.
"He would only die, he would endanger us, and nothing would be gained. I have made my own arrangements, we need only wait and hope." Scar answered my question before I asked it. The violence bothered me, but not nearly as much I thought it should have, and his explanation did well to clear my doubts, if only for an instant.
Then I realized I was caught up at the whim of a man who just beat the ever-loving shit of a soldier for going out to fight a horde of bloodthirsty monsters keen on killing us all.
Then I realized that the alternative was to run out there, mostly-but-not-entirely recovered from my injury, screaming like a protagonist in an action movie, unarmed into the maw of aforementioned bloodthirsty monsters.
The third option was to in some way overpower the aforementioned man and his ever-loving-shit-beating tendencies, and then…cower inside until sunrise.
'Option one: If Scar is less competent or sane than he claims, and I fail to avoid getting wrapped up in a doomed scheme, I'm fucked. Option two: If the soldiers are losing the battle, there are not enough people around to distract the zubat from me, or I am unable to evade detection, I am fucked. Option three: If I am unarmed, I am fucked. If I fail to get the drop on him, I am fucked. If I make too much noise and the zubat detect me, I am fucked. If-'
"Stop, breathe."
I listened to the little voice in my head, and stopped for a moment. My logic was breaking down. I was panicking. The price of panic was to high.
'Going out there without a plan is tantamount to suicide. It doesn't matter how many people there are to get lost in, there's I'm caged in. The fence is tipped in barbed wire, and probably runs at least partly underground. There's probably nobody near the gate right now. Scar- I'm assuming this is Scar- has been level headed in the past, and has no reason to harm me if I do not interfere with whatever he has planned, at least, not yet. He doesn't want anyone to leave this building. I don't want to leave this building. Our interests coincide.'
'If his plan is suicide as well, then I have to worry. I have all the weapons I need here if I surprise him. Scalpels, the guns could be used to bludgeon him, if the soldier's primary weapon has ammo, so much the better. Heck, if I comply, I can trick him into stepping outside, and then lock him out with the same trick with the bed sheet.'
Wait and hope indeed.
Scar bolted upright suddenly. I shifted slightly from my spot on the floor, watching him warily as he turned towards me "Do you hear that?" he asked me, his voice steady and utterly devoid of any indication of how I should feel about whatever I should hear. I strained my ears, looking for something, anything different in the sounds of the carnage outside.
"No."
Scar quickly gathered all his stuff "You're not listening hardly. It's there though, it is time to go."
Here it was, time to decide whether to live or die "Scar, there's no sound out there, just a bunch of monsters eating a bunch of poor people alive, and soldiers that don't realize they've already lost."
Scar stomped over to me, looming over me before I had any chance to get up to defend myself. He quickly grabbed me by the collar of my jacket and hoisted me to my feet "It is there, and it will get louder. If we leave by the time it gets louder, it will already be too late. I need you to help me." He turned towards the soldier he had restrained before "I gave him depressants to keep him from struggling. I need you to carry him with us. I will meanwhile protect us three." He emphasized this by waving the submachine gun he had… commandeered from the soldier "All you need to do is do whatever I tell you, and not ask any questions. Any questions?"
'Better to keep my doubts to myself. Stab him in the back later if the need arises. As long as he steps out first."
"No."
"Alright, pick up the soldier boy and we leave."
I reluctantly hoisted the soldier over my shoulder, struggling briefly to hold his weight. The soldier himself couldn't have weighed too much more than myself, but his clothing was noisy with the sound of half-filled pockets of who-knows-what. I readjusted his weight and turned towards Scar "Wouldn't it make more sense for you to carry him? He's not light, and he'll slow you down more so than me. Why don't you carry him while I cover us?"
Scar shrugged, leveling his weapon in my direction "You seem like someone with bad ideas. For example; stabbing your best chance of surviving this in the back. Besides, I trust my marksmanship more than your own. No questions."
"Okay, that escalated quickly. I'll carry him for crying out loud, sure. But please stop pointing that thing right at me. The last time I had one of those pointed in my direction didn't end well."
Scar partially complied, raising the weapon so that it was aiming far above my head "Okay, now, get over here. I'll cut the sheet, then you exit first."
'Looks like Death doesn't tolerate messy mistakes.'
Kind of coming full circle here, eh? Thanks everyone that's been sticking with this story through its ups, its downs, and its long periods without updates. Again, the next chapter will most likely be posted this Wednesday, so if you have any observations you would like to make note of I would appreciate hearing them so I can take them into consideration for next chapter. If you want to stroke my writer's ego, that is also welcome. See ya soon...kinda.
