When Pigs Fly

I do not own Destiny or Overwatch, or any of the song lyrics. This is just an homage to two of my favorite franchises and a few awesome bands.

Prologue

November 30th, 2020

"Another day, another dollar, while the boss makes a dollar I make a dime, and that's why I poop on company time."

I hummed under my breath as I worked, the lump of steel in front of me slowly turning into something new and useful underneath my hands. Well, and a few hundred tons of heavy machinery. A machine shop isn't of any use without any machines after all. It's a great place for someone like me to work, I'm left to my own devices, the people are generally very knowledgeable, and the pay is good. Helps if the coworkers are pleasant and one enjoys the work. Which I do, and it's a good thing, as that's about the only enjoyment I get out of life besides my hobby of tinkering on my pickup truck in the shop at home while drinking myself into a stupor. Barely into my thirties and I feel like I've hit a metaphorical wall.

That good pay I mentioned only applies to the old hands in the shop, me being a glorified peon, I make peanuts in comparison. Makes expenses like rent and food pretty tight. It's been a few years since the last death in the family, so that's looking up at least, though I'm betting Aunt Ruth will be the next to go. That miserable old hag has looked like she has had one foot in the grave for the last two decades. The old bag is most of the reason I'm living in a tiny apartment in the wrong end of town, driving the extended family apart. She's probably responsible for hoovering up most of the Snow family fortune.

That's my name by the way. Leon Snow. An underpaid, and overworked, shop hand going through the motions of life, coasting along too depressed to have any thoughts about some higher ambitions. I'm a decent hand on the tools, and even that has landed me in hot water before. Turns out the government doesn't like folks exploiting loop holes in their laws and making their own hunting shotgun, so I probably landed on all of the watchlists, and got myself a criminal record to boot. But at least I can take pride in a job well done at the end of the day. The mill has almost finished this part and afterwards it's time to clock out and head for the hills, another day at the grind in the bag.

The old piece of industrial machinery has other ideas it seems, as the control panel lights up with alarms and smoke rolls from the tool. I slap the emergency stop and swipe the plexiglass doors open to inspect the debacle inside the mill's enclosure.

"Fuck, there's another piece of stock wasted." I grumbled. "And the cutting tool too." If it wasn't for my new meds, I'd be throwing a fit. So I suppose the slew of antidepressants and antipsychotics I've been prescribed are doing their jobs. I lean back and breathe an exasperated sigh, running my hand through the short hair on my head.

No more to be done here today. I look over at the lathe next to my machine. "Hey Marco, I'm punching out. Had enough of this crap for one day."

"No worries, Leo, see ya tomorrow. We'll get that contract sorted out when we're fresh. And hopefully it's not a million degrees here too."

"Aight bud, see ya." I head towards my truck, scoop up my cooler, loaded with the leftovers of a gas station lunch, my meds, a few small tools and the usual things you need for a life in modern society, keys, wallet, and the like. The old truck had seen better days, but it was a loyal old thing. Of course, it needed some work, but I found getting it back in working order a good way to pass the time. And it was cheap.

I checked my reflection in the driver's side mirror. Last time I drove off without checking my hair for metal chips off the milling machine, one fell in my eye on the highway. That was less than ideal. The face that looked back at me was the same depressed, disappointed idealist that I've seen in the mirror for the last long while of my thirty three years on this sad rock called Earth.

Black hair in a serviceable cut, glasses, and a short cropped beard on a face of Eastern European descent that was starting to show some lines. Some old timers used to say it was all downhill after thirty, and I'm inclined to agree.

I opened the creaky door and slid into the well-worn cab of the old Ford and scooped up my pack of cigarettes, pulled a smoke out and lit it with the lighter in the well-used ashtray.

I know it's a dirty habit, but I smoke for the same reason everyone else does. It relieves anxiety and depression, you don't need a prescription and the side effects are all right there on the carton. Of course, it's expensive, repulsive and will probably kill a body, but after a long week working to pay my bills, a cigarette is a welcome treat. Besides, they only take ten years off your life, if they don't give you cancer of the butt, and they're the ones at the end! The adult diapers and kidney dialysis years, God or whoever can keep them.

A heavy sigh escapes me as I look over to my cell phone on the passenger side of the threadbare bench seat. The light blinks, telling me there's a message waiting. Probably the landlord. I am late on rent again. Just another garden trowel of crap on the shit mountain that is life. I'm not even going to look at it. Just start the truck and get home so I can crack a cold one and play some Overwatch. Maybe some Destiny 2. I still have quests to grind from the Beyond Light expansion that came out a couple of weeks ago, but the matchmaker in Overwatch has been good to me lately, so I'll probably play some of that until I have a losing streak. I've played all the story relevant missions anyways.

'I know they killed off Cayde because his voice actor left, but man, that one stung when Uldren popped him with his own piece.'

Roadhog is still my main character in Overwatch to this day. A tank that the team can rely on to control an area, and he can dish out a ton of damage for when your team is a bunch of brain-dead potatoes. After all, if you want something done right, do it yourself.

The radio, one piece I did update on the truck, lit up and began playing a random track off my phone, Hey Mister by Poor Man's Poison as I drove off. An epic song from an amazing band, this song in particular just speaks to me, so I began to sing, just able to hear my own voice over the leaking exhaust. It's a habit that's gotten me into a bit of hot water of the years, singing my feelings out. But sometimes a song someone else wrote puts what I'm feeling into perspective better than I ever could, and this song, it feels like it may as well have been written for me.

"My heads hanging low and my shoes are worn,

I've had the blues in my soul since the day I was born,

The Devil's been on my back now for quite some time,

Yeah, it's just been me and him, and the whispering wind

And now it's time to find a little piece of mind,

"I said hey mister hey,

Are you going my way?

I sure could use a ride outta this place,

I said hey mister hey

He's coming around

I could sure use a ride outta this town

It's a long way to the bottom,

It's a long way to get back on top

I said hey mister hey,

Are you going my way?

I sure could use a ride outta this place….

I pulled my truck into the parking lot of my dingy apartment block, and seeing my mailbox full, I filtered through it, irrationally hoping for a check of some kind, but my luck doesn't change. Just the usual end of the month bills and coupons for the greasy pizza joint up the block. The apartment itself is nothing special, 1 bedroom, a combined living and dining room and bathroom with a shower. Still costs thousands a month to rent of course. After catching a shower and inhaling some instant noodles, I sat down at my computer desk, donned my headset and prepared to get into the game.

Hog doesn't seem like a leader but that's kind of the way it plays out. All I have to do is walk forward, and maybe it's because he's so large, the rest of the team tends to follow. Unless you're a Flank Hog, wandering around the, well, flanks, hunting squishies. Hog can be a more terrifying assassin than Reaper in the right situation. But put a healer like Mercy behind him, and he turns into an immovable boulder that is fully capable of grabbing you from 20 yards away, hauling your ass to him to receive a face full of metal scrap out of his self-made scrap gun.

Personally, I prefer to play him this way. The keystone of the team, controlling an area with his hook, getting picks and moving the team forward while protecting the healers. And if i could pick which one to have in my back pocket it would be Mercy with her nanomachines son, damage boost and especially the resurrect, even though Hog doesn't strictly need a pocket healer as his self heal is pretty dang good. That gives whatever healer I have at my back the flexibility to keep an eye on the other four team mates.

A few hours later I powered down my PC after a good session playing with a few randoms. Used to have internet friends who played, but this game has been out a while, and people who can afford it, well, they move on. But at least there will always be a decent Hog player around to get things done. As i cleaned up and got into bed, I thought,

At least tomorrow is Friday, another day of trying to dig myself out of this hole, then a weekend to relax. Maybe I'll work on the truck a bit. The steering is starting to pull to the right, better have a look before it becomes a problem.

After yet another day of trying to fix that infernal machine, I start the old work truck up to go home, and pull out onto the gloomy surface streets. The highway loomed in the distance, the old incandescent headlights dimly lighting the dark road ahead. I drove along toward the highway onramp, thinking about the matches I'll be playing when I get home, not knowing of the trouble just down the road.

'Wonder if I'll run into any good healers tonight? A good Mercy makes me damn near invincible between my heals. Hog may have blown up Australia, but he plays like an angry mama bear baby sitter if you screw with his healers.'

I put my foot to the floor of the old Ford, and the tired engine's hum turns into a roar, even though my speed doesn't increase much. It's kind of like a chihuahua in that respect, lots of noise and drama, but not much action. There's a semi truck in the lane I need to merge into, so I gear down and accelerate past it, noting to myself, 'that's a Western Star 4800, haven't seen one of those since I watched Maximum Overdrive. God what a bad movie, I mean, when Stephen King was asked why he hasn't directed a movie since Maximum Overdrive, he just told the reporter to watch the movie. That truck sure created some great car crashes and destruction though.'

No sooner than that thought crossed my mind, the truck swerved and caught the left rear corner of my truck with its front bumper, and I began to spin. Thankfully, I'm a pretty good driver, you have to be in this town if you expect to keep a ride for any length of time, so I managed to regain control after one full spin, however, the truck was still right behind me. I tried to move left to the median and hit the brakes to get behind the truck and come to a stop, but the semi had other ideas.

The driver turns hard left, catching my truck between him and the steel guard rail. Thankfully the loyal old Ford of mine held together, and I held on until the guard rail ended and the median was an open and fairly flat ditch. Obviously I went towards the open field to get some space to try and put some distance on the homicidal eighteen wheeler, but the dewey grass was beyond slippery at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour. It was a struggle to keep the Ford pointed straight but I managed it somehow. 'What in the Hell is this dude's problem!? Yeah, ok I might have cut him off, but this level of escalation is insane!'

I gun the engine back towards the pavement, looking for the truck but I can't see it in my mirrors. Maybe pinching me between the guardrail took out a tire? I don't see them anymore, but I'm not slowing down until I get into town and find a cop to try and explain this crazy mess.

And that's when my right front tire finally blew, obviously damaged from going wheel to wheel, flinging me hard into the guard rail. As I tried to correct to the left, the truck dug in and turned hard, flipping up on the side and rolling multiple times. I ducked into the footwell, being pelted by my lunch box and tools, rightfully assuming the rusted structure of the roof was not up to supporting roughly two tons of truck landing on it at highway speeds

Skidding and throwing sparks, I finally came to rest on my roof across two lanes of traffic, looking out the crushed windshield. Too small to crawl out of, much like the rear window and what was left of the doors and even though I got the seat belt off, I'm trapped in a wrecked truck, blocking a highway, and it's more than likely the truck is on fire by now. Then I see something that fills me with dread. The glare of headlights, shining through the gaps in the wreckage.

I start hammering on the passenger door with my feet, trying to get out of the way of the approaching lights. But it's funny how a situation like this makes it feel like time slows, dilates even. By the time I saw the lights, it was already too late.

A blind corner, a dark night, 40 plus tons of heavy metal moving more than a mile a minute, and me stuck in its way. At least I can say I'm not going out screaming, just kicking. The last thing I remember seeing was the front of the truck, a grinning green goblin face, where the radiator grille should be, a dead ringer for the truck from Maximum Overdrive. But its eyes, and the eyes of the mysterious driver were glowing a baleful red.

I'm not sure what I expected to happen afterwards. I'm not a God fearing man, so no Pearly Gates for me certainly, though Hell seemed likely even still. Like Hog says, life is pain, so is death. But a dark featureless void filled with visions of the moments immediately after my death? Didn't see that one coming.

Wasn't my life supposed to play before my eyes or something? Or was that supposed to happen right before I died? It would be preferable to seeing the twisted wreckage of my truck flung back across the highway to rest in the ditch as the semi spun away out of control, coming to rest in the ditch a ways from what was left of, me, I suppose. The trucker got out of his truck and ran for mine, which was strange behavior for someone who just murdered a man. I would have loved to fall down the rabbit hole that is being able to ponder being dead after getting dead, but the visions swirled on.

Thankfully, whatever being or force was making this happen didn't make me look at my incidental left overs, but the next vision of a funeral wasn't much better. No casket for me, let alone an open one, just a small oak box, likely filled with my ashes to be lowered into a hole, as the priest recites rites for the dead to no one but me. At least he still goes through with it, considering there's no one around to give him grief for slacking off.

Fuck, this is the culmination of my life? A lonely funeral and shoe box to spend eternity in. I mean, I accomplished some things, sure, but damn, what a stick in my craw.

As that vision faded, I took a moment to look around. And a moment was all it took, as I was still in the black featureless void I'd seen when I arrived here. Wherever here was. Definitely not Heaven, this isn't a racetrack swarming with cool cars and hot babes, but not Hell either. No screams of the damned, and not enough brimstone. Limbo maybe? That would track. I guess I shouldn't expect much, I was never religious. I start humming the riff to Golden Earring's Twilight Zone. It seems appropriate.

"Help I'm steppin' into the twilight zone

The place is a madhouse,

Feels like being cloned

My beacon's been moved under moon and star

Where am I to go, now that I've gone too far?"

As I floated there for a time, I noticed a pin prick of light. And as it was the only detail in this weird place, and human nature is to keep moving forward, I reached out for it. As I grasped it, I felt a burning pain flash through me, which was shocking since I'd felt nothing when the truck collided with me, and I was most certainly dead. But this pain argued that fact convincingly as I finally let out a scream, a scream full of pain and frustration. This is what it all comes down to? I was no saint, but to be killed like this and forgotten in a low budget imitation of the Twilight Zone? Bullshit! I will not accept it! I grasped the light harder, and my scream deepend.

So this is my first time posting something up here after years of reading and lurking. I Gotta say to thanks To Sleepysaurus Rex, and the rest of the Riftiverse squad. Ill be riding their coattails a bit as this story revolves around Locostral and all the lore from there. I'll do my best to make my story here readable without reading his, but come on, read it. It was good enough to get a dirty tradie writing again. I bet you'll like it.

Anyways, maybe consider leaving a review? Let me know all the wonderful ways i messed up. Seriously, gimme dat constructive criticism xD.

Keep 'yer stick on the ice ya magnificent bastards.