Author's note:

Again sorry for the VERY late update, it's tough to write your stories when you're juggling both work AND college all at the same time. But yeah, I'm not giving up on this story cuz of you reading this means alot to me and your reviews motivates me even more. So please my friends, enjoy. :)

A Symbol of Corruption

12:34 PM

22 May 2012

Three years. Three years I had been locked up. Crow contemplated, caged in the dark corner of a tight prison cell that reeked of urine and faeces. Once a police officer in Iraq, he was arrested for the murder of two U.S troops and was without delay incarcerated, but got released three years later by a private military corporation based in New Mexico. The Ukrainian was then recruited by the company and returned back to Iraq and forced to work as a mercenary with one main objective; to capture exiled Iraqi politicians and ex-high ranked soldiers- dead or alive. Since the discovery of the zone, Crow left the corporation despite being threatened to be thrown back in jail but he did so anyway and now found himself in a familiar position six years ago.

"Okay here are the rules," explained Arnie, "you two will go first but you will be armed only with a knife each. A Chaser will be placed in the middle of the arena, as soon as you enter you need to get to that weapon before your opponent does, or else…bye-bye. Now here comes the best part, when one of you manages to get hold of that shotgun the bloodsuckers will be let loose."

A moment of silence ensued amongst the three. They were at the Duty's headquarters, Shev and Crow were in separate prison cells while Arnie stood outside, very eager for this competition.

"Any questions?" Arnie coughed.

"How many bloodsuckers are we talking?" Crow asked.

"Can't tell you that," Arnie gave a slight sadistic grin.

"What if we don't do this fight?" asked Shev anxiously. He was a gaunt-looking man with a buzz-cut hairstyle, his cheeks were famished and had tired blue eyes associated with many wrinkles under them. Crow on the other hand, possessed a muscular and fit physique, dark brown eyes, a sharp nose, a five o'clock shadow beard, and a small black crew cut. The only similarity between the two is their pale skin and bloated ego.

"Then you'll be stuck here till god knows when." The organizer of the competition shrugged.

"I didn't do anything wrong! He's the one that attacked me!"

"Always the pussy eh Shevchenko?" Crow slurred.

"Fuck you Crow." the loner retorted.

"That's enough," Voronin snapped as he walked in the chamber.

"Thanks for the opportunity General," Arnie said cheerily, who had finally brought just one of his madcap ideas that he concocted into the arena, the other one was giving each opponent a bazooka but due to budget restraints... "It's tough to find his kind anywhere." He gestured towards Crow.

"He's not an animal Arnie, well, except for you Shev...we don't tolerate rats..." the general hissed with disgust and then turned to Crow, "...nor do we tolerate violence."

"It's the zone baby," Crow replied mockingly, "get use to it."

"Call me baby one more time and I'll shove your ass full of lead."

...

"This is gonna be interesting," said Hacky, who was watching from the top box alongside Roksana and Ivantsov. "And we got the best seat in the house!" he added.

"It looks like every other 'seat' of the house …" contradicted Roksana as she covered her nose and examined the interior through the bars. "...and it stinks here."

"Is she always like this?" Ivantsov said, easily irritated by the girl stalker.

"Just let her be," Hacky answered unwearyingly, "...and hey, looks like we got ourselves one hell of a crowd too." he commented, referring to the jam-packed viewers peering eagerly down on the indoor battlefield, the room was filled with excitement, as they placed their bets on Crow, Shev or the bloodsuckers.

The arena was slightly bigger than the size of a futsal field, with stacked crates serving its purpose both as a maze and gun-cover. The two prisoners were led out from opposite sides, Crow as on Hacky's right and Shev was on his left. Colonel Petrenko and Sergeant Plichko uncuffed the captives respectively and pushed them into the arena.

...

1:18 PM

I'm not going to win this. Shev confessed to himself. He can feel his heart thumping through his ribs, as if it was trying to escape from his own flesh and blood. He felt nauseous, and the crowd jeering and cheering was not helping him at all.

"The game hasn't start yet you cunts..." he muttered breathlessly and closed his eyes. He tried to block all five senses, the sight of uncertainty, the noise of corruption, the smell of blood, and the grasp of reality, only allowing the sound of his heartbeat and the hissing of the leaked steam pipe above him.

"Welcome everyone, today we got ourselves some new stalkers! Introducing newcomers Crow and Shevchenko in this one-on-one deathmatch...but will either live long enough to fight the bloodsuckers, let alone survive the second encounter? One way to find out!" the megaphones boomed.

The whistles blew and Shev sprinted his way to the centre of the arena, vaulting over the crates as he did so. He felt his sweat dripping under his eyelids and a minute seemed like an hour to him. Then at last he saw it, the pump-action Mossberg Maverick placed perfectly on the ground, untouched. For once Shevchenko never felt so happy and not a moment to waste he seized the shotgun in his shaking hands.

Crow on the other hand was tailing Shev all along, he stealthily manoeuvred himself around his opponent and crept behind him, crouching like a predator ready to pounce for his prey. With his knife at hand, he leaped to his target and stabbed him at the lower abdomen.

The crowd went insane as Shev let out a helpless cry, dropping his weapon to the ground because of the combat knife ripped through the Kevlar and deep into his back, fatally wounding him. "Die you traitor!" Crow whispered sadistically as he locked around the traitor's neck with his left arm.

"You would have done the same…" the loner murmured with his dying breath. "You piece of shit."

"You think so now do you, old friend?" Crow retorted indifferently, he dropped Shev to the ground as he began shivering silently to his death.

The whistles blew again, the second round was about to start. The loner hastily grabbed the shotgun and went on top of one of the nearest and highest crates. He watched as the caged doors from both ends of the arena opened leisurely. He took aim within the iron sights of his newfound firearm. The bloodsuckers set foot on the battleground and they both spotted Crow immediately, smelling him like a prey. They roared ferociously with hunger and cloaked themselves with their near-perfect optic camouflage, revealing only their lambent eyes.

"Oh my god," Roksana's covered her mouth in disbelief. "What the hell are those things? Did they just turn invisible?" she watched in horror at the bloodsucker's terrifying appearance, it possessed a hunched humanoid form correlated with rotting dark-brown skin, slimy combination of tentacles and fangs protruding from its mouth and sharp deadly claws made to be their main offence, obviously to kill their victims.

"Watch closely, you might learn something." Hacky advised shrewdly.

I got six shots, so three shells each...make it count! Crow thought, as the bloodthirsty monsters came charging towards the centre where he was.

"Come on, hit me!" Crow taunted, raising his shotgun at the one nearest to him. He jumped behind the crates, facing one on the front one since the other was sluggish thanks to starvation. The fresher-looking bloodsucker appeared to his right, barely visible from the naked eye, but it's the heavy breathing and eyes failed its absent facade. Crow acquired his first shot but the bloodsucker parried to Crow's left, evading his shotgun blast completely and edged closer to him. He then smacked the bloodsucker in the head with the butt and stock of the Chaser 13. Causing it to stumble backwards, thus giving some time for the ex-mercenary to pump in another shell, take aim, and fire.

Boom! Chik-Chik! Boom! Chik-Chik! Boom! Chik-Chik! Boom! Chik-Chik!

After an intense amount of persistent endurance, the beast laid dead. That was five shots idiot! Crow thought, catching his breath as he glanced at the dead creature and looked behind him, waiting for the second one to appear. But it didn't. Then he heard slurping noises behind the crates he once was up on. He crouched and sneaked around the boxes, thankfully the audience were silent as they watched with nail-biting anticipation. The second ravenous bloodsucker, sucking the blood of Shev's remains enjoyably, and did not bother looking for its supposed victim.

The loner went in cover for one last time, readied his weapon and went swiftly to finish of his next opponent. Crow eyes widened, the bloodsucker was gone. In a blink of the eye, it appeared right behind him and ripped through his mercenary suit and into his back tissue.

"Argh!" Crow yelled in agony, as three long gashes appeared at his back and started bleeding, soaking his armour with blood. He elbowed the bloodsucker's face but it did hardly anything as the monster swiped Crow's weapon from his clutches.

The stalker whipped out his knife as the vampiric-monster lunged itself onto Crow, attempting to bite with its tentacle fangs. Crow struggled to gain the upper hand from the bloodsucker, which was twice his size. He could smell the putrid breath of the creature as it drew closer to him, its tentacles reaching out to his face.

"Fuck off cunt!" Crow swore as the vicious humanoid bit his forearm instead, wrapping his 'suckers' around them. Drawn into a fit of unfathomable rage, Crow jammed his army knife deep inside the bloodsucker's skull only to be reacted with an even a tighter bite by its razor-sharp fangs.

The ex-mercenary restrained himself from screaming in pain for there was no time for that kind of leisure. Instead, he executed a couple of quick and efficient knife work, thus subduing his opponent and decapitating its head off from its body so he could release his arm from the grip of its face. He levered the jaw of the dead vampire, trying to separate the fangs and tentacles away from his already-bleeding arm. Bloodsucker saliva dripped into his wound, but with one last hard lift from his bloody blade he finally managed to separate the remains of the once dangerous being.

He stood there for a while, with bits of incisors still buried deep in his forearm and the smell of the bloodsucker's breath lingers hauntingly in his mind. The silence was broken when there was a loud victorious roar from the audience. Crow looked up and saw the people cheering above him. However, the feeling of victory was not mutual at, all Crow just killed a long-time friend, the last remaining member of his squad and also the last person he thought to have betrayed him.

He collapsed on his knees for the pain was too much for his body to bear. Then the people around him stopped cheering, replaced with sounds of panic and anger.

"Don't die!" one stalker said amongst the swarm. "I paid good money for you to survive dickhead!

"Oh that's new, all of them are killed!" another one shouted in bitterness. "I want a fucking refund!"

Then amongst all the bickering came a voice that separated all others.

"Roksana take this man now! He's in a bad shape! We gotta help him..." Hacky ran inside the arena despite the duty officer's protests.

Roksana? Crow pondered, looking at Hacky's companion. Her long red hair flew graciously as she dashed towards him. Her eyes were filled with fear and worry over a man she doesn't even know.

It's a woman!

Crow smiled weakly to her as she helped Crow up on his feet. He could feel her soft hands caressing on his battered self.

No.

Hacky aided him on the other side.

An angel.