.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"…king made it…"

"…ie, are you o…"

"…ne, 's just my ank…"

"…at this fucking… …otta get that dehaul shits…"

"…ry about all this, we were in this aband…"

"…at sonovabitch's head?… …hang it on your…"

"…n this up…"

"…me collateral dama…"

"…ther body? Mi…"

"…ot budging, he's pretty mu…"

"…in the trash outs…"

You start to regain awareness to the feeling of being dragged across a floor face-first. Someone has you by your boots. "…ave to be so heavy…" A budding pain starts to assault your temple, at the same area where the yellowjacket hit you. Joining in to beat your head sharply and repeatedly, the stairs cause your eyelids to jostle open. Flashing in and out is a dark concrete wall, constantly bouncing around as your headache becomes worse with each passing stair. A landing provides a small window to gain control of your eyes. You try to look in the direction you're being hauled, trying to figure out who is-
Stairs again, and your migraine is not getting any better. Thankfully, you don't have to endure this ordeal for too long – consciously, at least. Flight after hard flight, stair after hard stair, you feel yourself getting grinded into a pile of amorphous meat. The hauler stops for a moment. He pulls you again. He stops again. "…chest made of, pig ir…" After more rounds of dragging, pausing, and drumming your skull, you get propped against something metallic. The man is now struggling to lift you up. Eventually, you tip over and fall onto a soft surface for once. Whoever dragged your body is now stuffing your legs into the box. With that done, the lid falls with one hefty thud, sealing you inside.

Air. Disgusting air. A concoction of trash bags and sulphur fries your nostrils and forces your gag reflex. The tips of your scuffed fingers begin to move. Soon, you regain feeling in your arms, and your chest contracts as you spurt out your first willing breath in a while. You force your eyelids open, not that it would help much except to see a faint pinstripe of light. Now with full motor control, you expel the putrid fumes and sit upright inside the dumpster. Desperate for anything less vomit-inducing, you shove one edge of the lid, but it doesn't move. You twist around and push the other end, and you are greeted with a flash of light. You spring your aching body towards the opening, and you finally expose your head to the outside atmosphere, before the lid smacks it onto the rim. The stench outside is only less intolerable, but it will have to do. You fill your lungs to the brim to get oxygen into your system. Time to get a grip.
"Okay, whoever those guys were, whoever dragged my ass outta the block and dumped me in here, they sure as shit ain't my team – probably those terrorists. At least they thought I was dead. Fuck, it's like a fifty went through my head. Team shouldn't be far from here, they're probably regrouping now. I just gotta buzz Dubya and- oh, can't hear them. Guess I gotta find them first. Good God, I need some aspri-"
It is at this moment that you notice the shadow looming over the dumpster.
Wait.
The building went down. Then how is it- I know it went down, is this another one? Then who- Where is it? Where's-
You shift your head to look behind you. The office block that was supposed to be nothing but rubble and dust is now upright. That it still stood took you by surprise, until you notice that the walls are now a darker shade than you remembered. Looking up, the sky no longer appears blue, but ash-red. You suspect, and then you fear – brain damage. Was it so mangled that even the simplest of things are no longer how you always perceived them? Can you even remember names? Ryan Allen, a.k.a Red Bastard. Matthew Kelly, Dubya. Scott… Stefansson, Cleef. Daniel Lawson, Blackhead. "I need to move ASAP."
Your muscles may be battered and inflamed, but at least they still function. You clamber out of the bin and find yourself in a parking lot. Each car, strangely, has what you see as black tires, and a majority have strange-looking roof racks. Wait, what car has black- no, white tires? Are my eyes getting any better? Is that- Is that a tank!? You wipe the dust off your hands, that were the same colour as always. You didn't think that your brain could heal this rapidly, so you look at the sky again.
Still red.
You dismiss that detail as it's distracting you from finding your team. You would have to find a computer, get on the PRB emergency portal, and contact Arnie so a nearby team can pick you up. The dark office block should be the closest place with a computer, even with the potential threat inside. You produce from your hip the gun you took from the yellowjacket. It is still loaded, albeit with only four rounds, so it should provide for now. Holstering the arm, you set in motion.
The world is out to get you; your first move is checked by the rear door being locked. It appears that an honest entry is your only choice, so you decide to head to the main entrance. The fence surrounding the parking lot has seen better days – several makeshift patches dot the rusted chainlinks to seal holes born from weathering and/or wirecutters, and larger holes, like the car-sized one near the lot entrance, are not bothered with. You push the fence door without a hitch, that meaning there is nothing that actually keeps it shut. As you round the corner, you check your watch. "How long was I out? Twenty past… one?" The date reading doesn't help either. "June fif- the same day? Then how am I here?" Your confusion is met with a grunt from someone ahead of you who, from the look of it, just finished emptying his bladder on the wall.
"'How are you here?' You don't fucking know where 'here' is!?" He steps closer – a tall, top-heavy man with veined arms and extreme sunburn. He only becomes more irate when he sees you. "What the- you're still fresh!?" It is no use talking as he rushes you. You pull out your gun – no bothering using your fists against someone that big – and fire two shots at his chest before diving to evade him. The wall bears the brunt of the man's onslaught. Enraged, he heaves and lunges at you again, but ultimately collapses from his chest wounds. The man falls onto the sidewalk, bleeding profusely but still invigorated. With one massive arm, he sweeps your legs to ground you. You could feel the rage in his face as blood drips from his mouth. As he readies a strike, you take the opportunity to bury a forty-five into his skull, finishing him off for good.
You clamber against the wall with your inner workings still on a high. The lifeless body, your first kill in five days, is now slowly draining blood onto the sidewalk. You thought it fortunate that it only took three shots to kill him instead of four. Three shots that, undoubtedly, would draw more hostiles to where you stood. With only one round left, you would have to find another gun.
"I gotta get moving before someone…"
You couldn't will yourself to move. There was something off about that man. "Why's he so red?" Indeed, his skin was as red as the blood staining his shirt. "No one looks like that." During your study, you are taken aback by what was on his head. "Horns? No one has horns." You recall the parking lot. "No roof rack looks like that. No sky, no sky…"

"…oh, God." You hear a car approaching.

"This isn't Rapid City.

This is Hell."

On cue, the vehicle swerves into your direction and mounts the kerb. The part of you that isn't caught in your revelation wills your body opposite the car's direction and away from impending doom. Shortly afterward, the car wrecks into the wall and, as is appropriate, bursts into flames. No screams were heard from inside. That is two people – no, two demons – you've seen so far, and they both made attempts on your life. For your survival, you would need to trade one disguise for another. You rip the stained tank top from the body on the sidewalk. After you tear off some strips of fabric, you dip them into the pool of blood stemming from the buff corpse and wring them off before covering your head with one piece of dyed cloth. You remove your SWATCOM and safety vest, and replace it with the mangled shirt. To ensure that at least something could be fooled, you rub the blood from the sidewalk onto your exposed arms, making sure to cover every last square inch of exposed skin. Not ten minutes inside this literal hell and you have already killed a demon and covered yourself in its blood. With more pieces of dyed cloth now wrapped over your hands, you can finally enact your plan.
"…what plan?"
The plan to get back to your team? Pointless. They made it out of the tower block, and you did not.
You will never see them again.
Scott, Matt, Dan, Arnold – they will mourn you. Their next tears will be shed for you. Your tears, for them, are absorbed into the bloodstained cloth. They would think that you were in a better place now. It may be too late, but for once in your life, you closed your eyes and started to pray.
You prayed that your family and friends would find the strength to support them through this turmoil. You prayed for repentance from your past sins. You prayed for the strength to aid in your survival in the realm of death. Would the angels hear you? Hell is not their domain; any word spoken in their honour could not possibly fall on their ears. Even if they could, they have already condemned you; why else would you be here? Regardless, your dearest would not want to see you as defeated as you were now. Out of dedication to those who lost you, you hold your fist to your heart.
"For you… I will walk on."

It appears that Hell has developed into a modern society akin to the real world, though there are some differences. Aside from the sky being red, there is the faintest smell of sulphur in the air, just noticeable enough through your stained mask that your mind couldn't ignore it. The streets are just as unkempt as the fence behind the building, and there are constant lettered reminders of where "here" is. Almost all the cars that pass by have horns or spikes on them – handy for when a driver decides that some unlucky miscreant needs a healthy dosage of bumper. Short, horned beings and a more heterogeneous mix comprise the local populace, each one with some distinction, but none less imposing than the other. You feel an occasional tail flicking over your legs, all caused by a few demons that do so indiscriminately. You ignore them all and press on; you did not want to waste your time and remaining round with anyone. You did need to find something… not deadly to eat, though. You could afford to skip a meal, two if you had a large breakfast – which you did have today, – but you have no tender on you. Another plan is in order: find someone, anyone, who does not have the predisposition to kill anyone that looks at them weirdly, convince that someone to let you crash in their house for some indeterminate time, and hope that that someone doesn't catch you without your disguise. There are countless factors that could easily discombobulate your bareboned plan, but if there is oxygen in this wretched place, then you still have a chance. Good luck, Red Bastard.
"'Sup." A Midwestern accent flanks your left. She has dark yellow skin and moplike hair, stands at roughly your eye level, is short one eye, carries a prominent hunchback, and has long, skinny arms with equally lanky fingers that nearly touch the ground. "Haven't seen you before."
A demon that doesn't want to kill you? Your hide your surprise. "I just got here."
"How?"
Every detail of what happened in the office block has been ingrained into your memory, but you keep your reply as short as you could. "I... a building imploded," you were distraught, "and I was inside." She whistles at your explanation. You continue, "Yeah, I know – real shitty way to go out." You cock your head to her side. "You?"
"Tax fraud." She said that as though it would make perfect sense to anyone. You just keep walking. The fact that you are in Hell has not settled yet.
She notices the way you carry yourself. "Guess we both got the short end. All the places in this shitshow and we get chucked into Imp fucking City, am I right?"
With all the explicit signage, you wouldn't be surprised if that was the actual name of this town. "Imp Fucking-"
"No, just Imp City," she clarified. "You know, those red midget dudes with the horns and the skinny tails? This town's theirs…" An explosion goes off amongst the background noise, garnering a wince from you. "…and they gotta live with it."
It is strange, you thought, that this demon was willing to walk up to a random stranger and start talking. It could be because you were more approachable than the hellhordes, or that she noticed how sullen you look, and she took it upon herself to cheer you up. She asks you another question, "So what was your old job?"
You thought it would be fine to disclose – no one alive is here, anyways. "I was a merc, a meatbag with a gun and a plan. Was mostly domestic, but I did get a few international jobs – Siberia, Uganda, Congo." You have a moment of quiet lament. "Was pretty fun. I was the team tactician… God, I'm gonna miss them."
"Sounds like you loved your meatbag buddies."
You smile underneath the mask. It may be from someone wholly unfamiliar with your line of work, but it couldn't ring more true. "We sure did."
She's now more curious. "Did you at least go down fighting?"
You recall your fight with the yellowjacket. "I won that one, but then the roof came down."
She lets out a hearty chuckle that bounces her hair and fingers. "Fuckin' sweet."
I may actually have a chance here. This little conversation has lifted your spirits a bit. You were about to ask if you could stay with her, but her words beat yours to the air. "Hey, you know what you can do?"
"Yeah?"
"There's this-"
"Hey, Sekros!" It was someone only twenty feet in front of you, rapidly approaching and not in a good mood.
"Ah, blessit – it's that guy again." His presence dulls the mood. "Alright, it was fun meeting you."
You part ways with the ropey woman and dodge the incoming scorn – a short, four-armed creature with a hammer-like face wearing a wine barrel. Behind you, there is talk from that man of how the "dealer" didn't buy into "it". As you move away, Sekros' retort about him not providing her with full credentials gets lost among the sounds of the city. An angered rant from the barrelman juts out from the noise, followed by him now stuttering, and then screaming in terror. All you could see behind you was the backs of several damned gathering to bear witness to, from your inference, the perforation of a perfectly good wine barrel. You become so enthralled by the wild sounds of the curbstomp that you decide to turn back so you can cheer Sekros on. That decision, along with you, is shoved to the wayside by what could only be a rhinoceros-man making his best icebreaker impression to get a front-row seat. That tumble has kicked your headache back into the foreground. Can I please – you get up onto your knees – please just catch a break for once? You rub one cloth-covered hand over your hair…

A foot steps on your mask, squeezing out a small part of the blood that hadn't dried yet.
...shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit-

You lunge forward, bury your face in the cloth, and hold onto it for dear life as you run for the nearest alleyway. You hide behind another dumpster, one covered with language that would also describe your reaction to its odour. This was a good moment to catch your breath and tighten the strips over your head and hands. "Good thing I bumped into Miss Fingers back there," you said to yourself. "Maybe I can stay with her. Oh fuck, the disguise." If Sekros was benign enough to walk with you for a few minutes, then she, even with one eye, would have noticed that you were human. The lanky-fingered woman will be finishing soon, so you look through a small gap between the bin and the wall in the hope that you see her walk past. Should she not, then your hopes will lie with someone else. Statistically speaking, she cannot be the only one.
The cacophony on the street dies down as the damned crowd disperses. Aside from the hulk that bulldozed his way through the crowd, you recognize the barrelman, dejected and with liquor pouring out of every hole in his garb. Amongst the dozens of other demons that walk by the alleyway, there was an imp wearing a lime-green jumpsuit. You find it odd that someone would stand so brazenly in the face of the general colour scheme.
"Eeehe-heheh- Eh."
Behind you, someone is struggling to produce a laugh out of his leaden, noisy breathing. You turn to the source of the sound, one hand close to your pistol. One round. He better not-.
"Heh!"
You recoil against the dumpster with a thud. With as decrepit as the alley is, this demon sitting next to you makes it look like a laboratory in comparison. Clad in tattered overalls, his face – surrounded by a mess of braids – is caked in back-alley filth, contrasting with his cream-coloured eyeballs. "Hhhow you feel?"
His laboured breath passes through drug-stained teeth, brimming with cavities and mostly broken or absent. You couldn't bear to look at him for any longer, now that seeing his state reminds you of your skull's current state. "Fuckin' head hurts."
"Fffigure… Ss." After a few seconds, a bony, tremoring hand enters your field of view. In his palm is a circular, faded-yellow pill. "Hhere. It'll hhhelp with, the p- the pain." Every syllable he forces out of his putrid mouth makes the garbage look more like a promising alternative.
"I think that'll kill me."
"You're al-" The rest of his sentence bursts into your ear, "-ready dead!" He shoves the pill closer to your face. "Ta-ke it!"
As much as you don't want to swallow that pill, you have to shut him up. You raise your left hand and, out of trying to avoid another violent confrontation and to satiate him, pick the drug out of his palm using your fingertips. "Fine. But don't expect me to down it."
"Sstill new, eh?" He leans uncomfortably close. "Don't be so, weak. 'Sss all downh…"
In some twisted way, you are spared the uneasing speech by him passing out on your lap. You push the sleeping demon off and head out to the street to look for Sekros.
No luck.
She is nowhere among the demons. Like mist in the wind, she – along with your initial hope – is gone. You decide against searching the city if she could disappear so quickly. Half past three. It will be a few good hours before nightfall, and until then, or your first meal in Hell, every last calorie in your reserve is worth more than that watch. The alleyway will provide a buffer to your energy stores until six o'clock, which is when you plan to move out. The time should provide a middle ground between the streets being filled with demons that will see through your disguise and try to kill you, and the streets being filled with fewer demons that will try to kill you regardless – you don't plan on seeing a potential Ultrahell. You still had to bump into someone willing to let you crash in their home, though. She cannot be the only one.

With your renewed strategy, you head back to the alley to rest. You have two and a half hours to kill, and a good way to do so is to stare at the walls and read graffiti. The largest, most stylized one simply reads "ND." You haven't a clue what that meant. Your gaze drops to a smaller tag just alongside it. "DAMN THIS MA'AM," a very crude picture of a naked imp, and "THELLMA" underneath the picture. You've seen tributes like those before, but none as explicit. "GOETIA SACK O' BALLS." What's that?
"IMP CITY BITCHES." Yes, this is Imp City… bitches."
"WROTE THIS WITH MY DICK." …neat. Even has a stamp.
"we're the rats." Gangs. Some things never change.
You look over to the dumpster and funnily enough, someone left a review of its stench.
4/6. Needs more rotten horse and eggs. This store sells eggs, how the fuck is there so little in here? –Trashman 5-20-19.
A pentagram, about five inches wide, is also drawn on the bin. To your reckoning, that would be Hell's equivalent of spraying a crucifix on a garbage can. No one in life does that, but the culture here does seem to be more open about its crudeness. This is Hell after all, so one might as well. You sit down at the cleanest spot you could find, next to a rusty AC unit and a pile of cardboard boxes. With nothing else to do, you crack your knuckles and pull your mask down so you could breathe more easily. You gaze over to the druggie, still out cold from whatever substances you smelled in his breath. His state may be some form of ironic punishment for his past life; the constant high, his decaying health, toiling in the worst slums of the worst districts in the worst city. Whatever your torment would be, you make a promise to escape whatever Hell throws at you.
Thankfully, it's not easy for you to fall asleep in the alleyway. Between the AC working double duty in the heat, the smell of drying blood on your person, and the general hustle on the streets, you had no excuse to shut your eyes. Every few minutes, a demon walks by, and you use that as a cue to check the slowly-progressing time. None of them take notice of you, probably from the fact that the blood on your arms is now dry enough to pass for non-human skin. The patch of sky above you is becoming more and more faded as the afternoon passes. You make a mental note to procure some aspirin if your plan succeeded. If it succeeds… Brushing your thoughts aside does nothing to either soothe or worsen your headache, but it does keep you frosty. Another demon, a large, tan-furred one, passes by.
5:58:47.
The noise on the streets died down enough as predicted. You take another round of cracking your bones and stretch your unworked muscles. You perform a pat-check – heart, gut, gun and watch. The old PRB spirit never truly left. Shaking your head, you steel your nerves for any unfortunate event that may come your way. "Let's do this." Any demon that dares cross you will pay dearly. They are not prepared for Red Bastard. On exactly six o'clock, you take your first step in vigour.

"Let's roll."