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ToastyPigeon

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skein-text-adventures

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"I got your call. Wakey wakey sis." You hear a voice say. You slowly open your eyes and at first see what looks to be a man standing in front of you holding a shotgun. Then after the blur of your eyes clears a bit, you see that it's your sister Kelly. Unfortunately it looks like not all your family is dead after all and of course it had to be Kelly that survived. Judging by the fact she's pointing a shotgun at you she's still hostile as well. You don't know why, but then has she ever needed a reason? You look at the pistol on the table and Kelly just shakes her head. "I guarantee you wouldn't make it sis. I suggest you don't even try...heh I doubt you'd have the balls to go through with it anyway. I have to admit when I came up here to get something from my room, I didn't expect to see you here." At this point Julie wakes up. "Suzy what's going...oh my god..." she says upon seeing Kelly. "Shhh, it'll be okay." You say trying to reassure Julie. "So when did you turn dyke Suzy? Always sort of figured you might be down for the rug munching. Guess that's why things didn't work out with Bobby eh? Still though, Julie? I have to say even I think you could do better than some used up party whore. Now the pair of you lesbos sit up." At this point you and Julie move and shift on the couch until you're both sitting upright. In the meantime Kelly grabs your pistol from the table and places it in the front of her pants. She continues to focus the shotgun on you. Given that you barricaded all the doors and searched the entire house last night you wonder how the hell Kelly got in. If she had been lurking inside, she definitely would've made her presence known and ambushed you yesterday and if she broke in, you definitely would've heard something before now. You're also a little concerned not just because Kelly's pointing a shotgun at you, but you think back to what you saw in the garage. Peter and the other man's body. Their bodies were beaten and their necks were broken. Kelly certainly has the strength and the skill to do such a thing. Kelly's always been hostile to you and barely civil to your other sibling, but to actually kill one... "Kelly, our siblings Peter and Donna are dead." You say. "Peter's dead?" Julie says. "Oh? Didn't know that about Donna. Can't say I'll shed any tears. The spoiled little whore wasn't much better than your girlfriend here." "She was fucking chopped up by a goddamn serial killer, you bitch!" Julie exclaims. "Hm, interesting. So how did you two survive?" "I shot him." Kelly's a little taken back. "Wow, I'm impressed. Guess you would have the balls to use this pistol then. Tell me, was that the only person you killed this week little sister?" "No... I shot one of those rabid people too. Ran over a couple as well." "Well, well, well aren't you the bad ass now? Heh. Funny what an extreme situation like this can do to folks isn't it?" "Yes." "Yeah...so I'm guessing if you know about Peter, you've probably figured out by now what happened or at least have a strong suspicion. You're a lot of things Suzy, but I'd never call you an idiot." "I appreciate that. So why'd you do it?" Kelly chuckles a bit before answering. "That little faggot found out where Ben's old shelter was and thought he was going to hide out from the current shitstorm in it with his boyfriend or whoever that other faggot he was with. Had to convince him that he had to go, he didn't listen and tried to resist and well you saw how that turned out." "So you know where Ben's old shelter is then." You say. "Oh yeah. I've always known where it was. Crazy old Ben thought he was being so sneaky moving the goddamn entrance around all the time, but I knew where the fuck it was nearly every time. He had just moved the entrance again a few days before he blew away his family and himself. I'm just surprised YOU never accidently found it given that you lived practically right near the fucking thing for years. If the entrance was any closer you would've been sleeping in the damn thing." Well that explains how Kelly got in without alerting you. Still, if she's actually admitting the entrance to the shelter is somewhere in the basement and what she did to Peter, then that pretty much confirms she has no intention of sharing. "So what's next Kelly? You gonna kill us too?" "Don't know sis...don't know...severely thinking about it. I've never like you. You've been a thorn in my side since you crawled out of mom's vagina. Always having to be compared to how good and pretty you were and how bad and rotten I was despite the fact I was the one who was shouldering most of the responsibility in this fucked up family. What did you ever do except hide in the goddamn basement? Even now you left the house only to come crawling back here. Yep, I've thought about killing you on many, many, MANY occasions." "Actually that wasn't my initial intention. My initial plan was to drive out of this forsaken town. I only stopped here because our own car was badly damaged and I had hoped to maybe get Peter's car and some extra supplies before heading out again." You say. "Oh? Hmm, you're just full of surprises today aren't you? Well if that is true, you may have just bought yourself a bit of a reprieve sis...okay. What the hell, I'm in a good mood. I'm gonna let you and your whore walk outta here alive and you're going to be thankful." "I don't suppose you'll allow us to gather our bags or give me the gun back will you?" You say. "Heh, no I don't think so. Wouldn't want you getting any ideas of attempting to come back here. Leave with what you got on you or die, those are your choices sis. I'm being very generous here. Take my offer." You stare at Kelly, but it's not with fear. It's with anger. Anger at all the past abuse you've had to endure from her. While she may have a minor point that you were the favorite and she did a lot for the family, she still had no right to bully and torment you for the majority of your life and she certainly had no right to murder Peter. "Come on Suzy, let's go..." Julie says wanting for the both of you to be out of danger. > You stand up to Kelly "No." you say. "Suzy? What?" Julie says. "No, I'm not leaving. She's been a bully to me all my life. It ends today." You say. "Wow! I can hardly believe you're the same Suzy that spent hiding from the rest of the world. Guess you've finally learned to stand up and be a woman." Kelly says with a smirk. "But so what? You think because you've survived some of the horrors out there, you think standing up to me is going to suddenly change the situation? Got news for ya, it ain't. I can blow your fucking head off with one twitch of my finger. Last chance to get the fuck out of my house!" Kelly adds. "Fuck you Kelly. I know you. You already made up your mind to kill me as soon as I woke up. I turn my back and you'll probably shoot me for the hell of it as I walk out the door." Kelly starts laughing. "Well like I said, you always were a smart one. Too bad you did something incredibly stupid by walking in here in the first place." "Kelly, please! Just let us go! We won't come back! We'll just..." Julie starts to plead "SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU DUMB BITCH OR YOU'LL BE FIRST!" Kelly shouts before turning her attention back to you. Julie at this point starts sobbing uncontrollably. You continue to stare down the barrel of the shotgun like you're fearless, but that isn't true at all and Kelly knows it. "You can give me the hard looks all you want, but deep down I know you're ready to shit your panties. Which I imagine you'll do after you're dead anyway. You ready to die little sister?" "Sure, just a little surprised you'd choose this method. Guess you're more intimidated by me than I thought." "What?" Kelly snorts. "You're intimidated by me. You always have been. I really should've seen it before." "You're fucking crazy. I've never been intimidated by you." "Sure you have, that's why you've bullied me all these years. You've said yourself on many occasions on how pretty I am so I know you're jealous of my looks. You've just admitted that I'm smart. The only thing that I always lacked in was self-confidence and now that I have that, well I'm pretty much better than you..." "Fuck you Suzy!" Kelly says. "No, I get it, you want to play it safe and shoot me, because hey if I gained self-confidence, who knows I might just be able to kick your ass in a fair fight." "Hah, not fuckin' likely..." "Well I guess we'll never know, because you'll shoot me and Julie and then go down and hide in the fucking basement...well what do you know...we're more alike than you thought. Imagine that." And with that taunt it's the last straw. Kelly flies into a rage. It's the kind of rage she flies into when she's participating in her underground fight club. She abandons all rational thought, drops the shotgun to the side and lunges at you with both of her hands going straight for your neck. Julie is knocked to one side and you fall backward on the couch. You attempt to roll and scramble to escape, but Kelly grabs you by the hair. "You're right, beating your scrawny ass to death WILL be more enjoyable." Kelly exclaims. "Julie, grab the shotgun!" you manage to shout before Kelly throws you face first into the bookcase. Kelly then stops Julie from scrambling on the floor for the shotgun by kicking her in the side and then stomping on her back. Still struggling to recover you grab some of the heavier books that have fallen near you and start throwing them at Kelly. A couple hit her in the head and she ceases abusing Julie and returns to attack you. You manage to throw one more book at her face, but it doesn't even slow her down. She punches you in the stomach causing you to collapse as you feel the air leave all your body and feel like you can't breathe. As you wheeze, Kelly leans down and grabs the back of your neck with one of her hands. It feels like a fucking vice. "A hit to the gut, fucks you all up doesn't it? Feels like you're suffocating, can't breathe, can't do much of anything really. It's how Houdini died you know. I'm gonna hurt you so badly Suzy, you don't even know...but you soon will." Kelly with her other hand smashes a fist into the side of your face. You feel your eye almost close immediately as the rest of you hits the floor. If you could catch your breath, you probably would've cried out from the pain though you're a little dizzy more than anything right now. "Thought you could kick my ass. Bitch please, what the fuck were you thinking? This isn't a goddamn comic book or movie...shit!" Kelly's body lands on top of yours with crushing weight. You then hear a shotgun blast and some debris of the bookcase consisting of paper and cheap wood fall on you and Kelly. "LEAVE HER ALONE YOU FUCKING CUNT!" you hear Julie scream. You still aren't in any condition to do anything, but Kelly certainly is. She scrambles for the pistol still in the front of her pants and gets up while yanking you up with one hand to use you as a human shield. Julie takes cover around a corner when Kelly starts shooting. Four shots are fired before clicking follows. "Fuck!" Kelly exclaims and drops the pistol. You're practically deaf from the proximity of a pistol going off near your head along with being disorientated. Kelly positions herself behind the couch to give herself some extra cover. She also tightens her grip around your neck with her forearm and puts her other hand on your head ready to break your neck in a second if need be. Julie comes back out from around the corner weeping, but unsteadily pointing the shotgun at Kelly. "No...Suzy...(Sob) Let her go!" "Julie, you're not in any position to give orders. Now granted with a shotgun and you don't need perfect aim at this range, but your precious girlfriend here is BOUND to get hit in the process. Never mind the fact I could break her neck before you get the courage to pull the trigger anyway." "LET HER GO!" Julie screams again. "Not gonna happen whore. You got two choices. You try to do the impossible by trying to hit me or you walk out the door and go on with your life. Either way one thing is certain, Suzy here isn't going anywhere. Her fate is sealed and there isn't anything you can do about it. Think about it Julie. Do you really want to be the one that kills her? Just walk away now taking solace in the fact that you never had a choice." Kelly says. Even with one blurring eye open right now, you can see Julie just standing there sobbing and looking so helpless, despite wielding a shotgun. "Suzy...I don't know what to do... (sob)" Julie cries. You feel like you're going to pass out with Kelly's big meaty arm wrapped around your neck right now. > You tell Julie to take the shot At this point you've come close to death so many times that you're not scared of dying anymore. If anything it's amazing you managed to survive as long as you did. But you know Julie is scared. She's scared of a lot of things and if this week is any indication of how shitty the world is going to become, well she's not going to last very long in it. If she walks out that door without even the supplies you came in with, it'll be like killing her and you can't let that happen. It is a sad thing that in this late stage you realize you do have feelings for Julie, and it'll be even sadder for her when she loses you, but hopefully it'll make her a bit tougher in the long run. "Julie, take the shot." You say. "Wha...what?!" Julie says. "Nice, bluff sis, but it's not gonna save your ass." Kelly snorts. "It's not a fucking bluff, you roid rage bitch. I'm telling Julie to shoot your ass and shoot through me if necessary." Kelly is a bit speechless at this proposal. Julie of course is very upset. "I...I can't! I'll kill you!" Julie cries. "I'm already dead Julie. Just take the shot. At least then you'll have this place all to yourself and can last on the supplies from the shelter in the basement. I'm sure Ben kept a goodly amount." "Suzy...I can't...I can't do this without you." "You will...just know that I loved you." At this point Kelly starts looking around in an attempt to find a way to escape while at the same time tightening her grip around your neck. Julie continues to struggle with the morality of all this. "JULIE TAKE THE FUCKING SHOT!" you manage to shout despite Kelly crushing your throat. And those are the last words you utter as the sound of a shotgun blast follows.

"No." you say. "Suzy? What?" Julie says. "No, I'm not leaving. She's been a bully to me all my life. It ends today." You say. "Wow! I can hardly believe you're the same Suzy that spent hiding from the rest of the world. Guess you've finally learned to stand up and be a woman." Kelly says with a smirk. "But so what? You think because you've survived some of the horrors out there, you think standing up to me is going to suddenly change the situation? Got news for ya, it ain't. I can blow your fucking head off with one twitch of my finger. Last chance to get the fuck out of my house!" Kelly adds. "Fuck you Kelly. I know you. You already made up your mind to kill me as soon as I woke up. I turn my back and you'll probably shoot me for the hell of it as I walk out the door." Kelly starts laughing. "Well like I said, you always were a smart one. Too bad you did something incredibly stupid by walking in here in the first place." "Kelly, please! Just let us go! We won't come back! We'll just..." Julie starts to plead "SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU DUMB BITCH OR YOU'LL BE FIRST!" Kelly shouts before turning her attention back to you. Julie at this point starts sobbing uncontrollably. You continue to stare down the barrel of the shotgun like you're fearless, but that isn't true at all and Kelly knows it. "You can give me the hard looks all you want, but deep down I know you're ready to shit your panties. Which I imagine you'll do after you're dead anyway. You ready to die little sister?" "Sure, just a little surprised you'd choose this method. Guess you're more intimidated by me than I thought." "What?" Kelly snorts. "You're intimidated by me. You always have been. I really should've seen it before." "You're fucking crazy. I've never been intimidated by you." "Sure you have, that's why you've bullied me all these years. You've said yourself on many occasions on how pretty I am so I know you're jealous of my looks. You've just admitted that I'm smart. The only thing that I always lacked in was self-confidence and now that I have that, well I'm pretty much better than you..." "Fuck you Suzy!" Kelly says. "No, I get it, you want to play it safe and shoot me, because hey if I gained self-confidence, who knows I might just be able to kick your ass in a fair fight." "Hah, not fuckin' likely..." "Well I guess we'll never know, because you'll shoot me and Julie and then go down and hide in the fucking basement...well what do you know...we're more alike than you thought. Imagine that." And with that taunt it's the last straw. Kelly flies into a rage. It's the kind of rage she flies into when she's participating in her underground fight club. She abandons all rational thought, drops the shotgun to the side and lunges at you with both of her hands going straight for your neck. Julie is knocked to one side and you fall backward on the couch. You attempt to roll and scramble to escape, but Kelly grabs you by the hair. "You're right, beating your scrawny ass to death WILL be more enjoyable." Kelly exclaims. "Julie, grab the shotgun!" you manage to shout before Kelly throws you face first into the bookcase. Kelly then stops Julie from scrambling on the floor for the shotgun by kicking her in the side and then stomping on her back. Still struggling to recover you grab some of the heavier books that have fallen near you and start throwing them at Kelly. A couple hit her in the head and she ceases abusing Julie and returns to attack you. You manage to throw one more book at her face, but it doesn't even slow her down. She punches you in the stomach causing you to collapse as you feel the air leave all your body and feel like you can't breathe. As you wheeze, Kelly leans down and grabs the back of your neck with one of her hands. It feels like a fucking vice. "A hit to the gut, fucks you all up doesn't it? Feels like you're suffocating, can't breathe, can't do much of anything really. It's how Houdini died you know. I'm gonna hurt you so badly Suzy, you don't even know...but you soon will." Kelly with her other hand smashes a fist into the side of your face. You feel your eye almost close immediately as the rest of you hits the floor. If you could catch your breath, you probably would've cried out from the pain though you're a little dizzy more than anything right now. "Thought you could kick my ass. Bitch please, what the fuck were you thinking? This isn't a goddamn comic book or movie...shit!" Kelly's body lands on top of yours with crushing weight. You then hear a shotgun blast and some debris of the bookcase consisting of paper and cheap wood fall on you and Kelly. "LEAVE HER ALONE YOU FUCKING CUNT!" you hear Julie scream. You still aren't in any condition to do anything, but Kelly certainly is. She scrambles for the pistol still in the front of her pants and gets up while yanking you up with one hand to use you as a human shield. Julie takes cover around a corner when Kelly starts shooting. Four shots are fired before clicking follows. "Fuck!" Kelly exclaims and drops the pistol. You're practically deaf from the proximity of a pistol going off near your head along with being disorientated. Kelly positions herself behind the couch to give herself some extra cover. She also tightens her grip around your neck with her forearm and puts her other hand on your head ready to break your neck in a second if need be. Julie comes back out from around the corner weeping, but unsteadily pointing the shotgun at Kelly. "No...Suzy...(Sob) Let her go!" "Julie, you're not in any position to give orders. Now granted with a shotgun and you don't need perfect aim at this range, but your precious girlfriend here is BOUND to get hit in the process. Never mind the fact I could break her neck before you get the courage to pull the trigger anyway." "LET HER GO!" Julie screams again. "Not gonna happen whore. You got two choices. You try to do the impossible by trying to hit me or you walk out the door and go on with your life. Either way one thing is certain, Suzy here isn't going anywhere. Her fate is sealed and there isn't anything you can do about it. Think about it Julie. Do you really want to be the one that kills her? Just walk away now taking solace in the fact that you never had a choice." Kelly says. Even with one blurring eye open right now, you can see Julie just standing there sobbing and looking so helpless, despite wielding a shotgun. "Suzy...I don't know what to do... (sob)" Julie cries. You feel like you're going to pass out with Kelly's big meaty arm wrapped around your neck right now. > You tell Julie to leave "Julie, go..." you say. "Suzy! I can't leave you here to die!" Julie says. "I'm dead anyway. You aren't going to kill Kelly. At best you'll probably kill me and blow off one of her arms in the process. After which she'll probably beat you to death with it, because its obvious she's got what it takes to survive in this shithole world which is getting shittier everyday." You say. "Heh, damn straight." Kelly snorts. "Suzy, I can't just leave you! I just can't! I love you!" "Yeah... well I don't fucking love you Julie! I never have and I never will!" "But..." "Julie just fucking stop! I'm not into girls despite whatever you might be hoping in your heart, so even if you did somehow manage to aim that thing straight and miraculously kill Kelly without hitting me, that still leaves you with NOTHING!" At this point Julie starts crying again and barely able to hold up the shotgun. Kelly on the other hand starts chuckling. "Julie, go on with your fucking life and forget about me." You say. "I...I...can't. I won't be able to. I won't know how! I need you!" Julie stutters. She still doesn't want to hear the words you've said to her. "Julie, you're far more capable than you realize. You've faced shit this week that you never expected to and survived. You'll survive this too." "No..." "Julie, look at me. If you REALLY love me as much as you say, you'll listen to me one last time and get the fuck out of here. Please." Julie at this point continues to cry and nods. She slowly starts to walk towards the front door. "Aww, ain't this some fuckin' heart breakin' shit? Hell, I think I'm about shed a goddamn tear myself...over how fucking pathetically hilarious this is!" Kelly laughs. "Kelly will you at least let me give her the keys to the car so she's got a vehicle to drive away in? They're in my pocket." You ask. "Sure, sure, anything to get this bitch out of here quicker." You put one hand in your pocket and start fishing around for the keys. "Just keep moving towards the front door bitch. Your little unrequited crush will throw the keys to you. Heh. And then me and you are going to have quality sister time." Kelly says. You grab the key and slowly pull them out of your pocket. "Come on, come on, give her the goddamn keys, al..." Kelly says when you blindly swing your arm backwards to try to jam the key into Kelly's eye. You're successful and the piece of metal sinks deep into the orb. Kelly releases her grip just enough for you to slip from her clutches and drop to the floor. "SHOOT HER NOW!" you yell. You see Julie pull the shotgun back up to her shoulder and point it at Kelly. A loud booming noise fills the room when she fires followed by a sickening squishy sound. Blood splatters on you from over head and the slumping of a body falls partially on you. Julie drops the shotgun and rushes over to help you up. "Suzy! Oh my god, I was so..." Julie starts to say in between the sobbing. "Julie, don't fuss right now, I'm fine. But right now the pair of us need to get our asses into the basement and look for that shelter entrance. With all the gunfire that went off in here, I'd hate to think what kind of crowd we may have attracted." Julie helps you up, but in reality, she's hurting just as much as you, so you basically prop each other up. You stumble down into the basement and fortunately you don't even need to search. You see a hatch in the floor that you've never seen before wide open and a fluorescent glow of lighting coming from within it. Apparently Kelly didn't even bother to close up the hidden door. You take a look inside and see a long ladder down leading to another floor, which you imagine that's the main shelter. You can't believe how close it was to your room and how you never knew about it! "How the hell did you brother do this with you hearing or knowing about it?" Julie asks. "I dunno. I mean he managed to routinely change the entrance all the damn time too. Ben had a gift I guess." you say and you and Julie start climbing down the ladder and you close up the hatch. Eventually you get to the bottom and you and Julie open up a metal door, which is fortunately not locked. And there it is, you're in the shelter proper. Before you is a dimly lit living area with various furniture and even a TV. Other rooms include a bathroom, kitchen area, a couple of bedrooms and A LOT of storage rooms. One such room is huge, as rows and rows of canned food and bottled water are found. "Well looks like we'll be fine for sustenance for awhile. Doesn't even look like Kelly put a dent in the supplies." You say. Another storage room contains a goodly amount of ammo and weapons of all kinds. Mostly rifles. Medical supplies are in another. One thing that stands out is that Ben's shelter has solid steel walls. You have no idea how the hell he did this and you guess you never will. You do notice on several of the walls something has been repeatedly scratched out though not entirely successfully everywhere. At one point you make out most of it. Pr-p---- o- th- Gr--n- -er- Cor---at-o- "Well Julie, guess we didn't have to spend a bunch of money like those fucking commercials always said. Ah, damn it!" You say and hold on to your head, which is still throbbing. "Suzy are you okay?" "Yeah, I just need to lie down." Julie escorts you back to the bedroom where upon you collapse on the king sized bed. "Oh Suzy, your eye, your face...its so bruised and swollen." "Yeah, I probably look like hell. Guess I'm not very pretty right now." You laugh. Julie holds your hand and looks into your one good eye. "You'll always be pretty to me." She says and strokes your hair with her other hand. There's a moment of silence between the pair of you. "Suzy... when Kelly was holding you hostage, I know you said what you said to trick her into letting down her guard, but... was it really true? I mean it's fine but I just..." You don't answer her, you instead just grab the back of her head with your other hand and bring her lips directly to your own and kiss her passionately. And this time this isn't one of those fake kisses to trick the National Guard; you genuinely mean it, because you do have deep feelings for Julie. When you and Julie stop kissing, her eyes are closed and she exhales like a wave of euphoria has just washed over her. "Well...I guess that answers my question." She says. "Ow. Ow. Get up, get up." You say feeling another wave of pain exacerbated by the fact that Julie is partially on top of you right now. "Oh. Sorry! Sorry! You okay?" Julie says getting off of you. "Yeah, just still really hurt." You groan. "Yeah so am I actually. Why don't I try to go find a compress or something for your eye?" Julie says. "That's a good idea. Maybe bring back some painkillers while you're at it. I'll just lay here and hurt." Julie leaves and you're left in the room alone. You mainly just lie there, but you do occasionally have the brief thoughts of just how fucked up this week has been. At least you've sorted out your feelings for Julie though. Despite the pain, you're also tired. Really you haven't even been up that long today in the scheme of things, but being held hostage and getting the shit kicked out of you is enough for you to want to go back to sleep. Besides, it isn't like you've got anything else to do immediately. You're safe down here and you'll have plenty of time to figure out what to do next after some rest. You drift off... > Next day… You wake up to total silence for once. No sounds of annoying commercials and no sounds of psychotic family members pointing a gun in your face. Even Julie is still asleep. She's right next to you on the bed as you sort of figured she would be when you woke up. You instinctively reach for your cell phone to check the time, but you don't currently have it on you. Fortunately there is a large clock on the wall in the room that you're guessing is accurate. "Holy shit, why the hell am I up this early?" you say to yourself, but then you remember you fell asleep pretty early yesterday. Really you're sort of surprised you didn't wake up in the middle of the night. You get up and you're still hurting, but you're compelled to go wash yourself since your clothes are caked with dried blood at this point and you've been wearing them for a couple days. Just as you're about to go test the shower, Julie stirs from her sleep. "Suzy, what're doing? You shouldn't be up and around." "I'm stinking like a dog here, I need to wash up." "You smell fine, I like the way you stink." Julie says. You start laughing. "Well I'm sure you do, but I really feel like I should... (Sigh) shit." "What?" Julie asks. "Don't have a change of clothes. We got just about everything in this thing except clothing." "So? You don't need clothing, just go all natural, it's just us after all. I'll even join you." "Heh, while I'm sure that kiss from yesterday has got you all revved up, we still need to talk about us in more detail before we start taking it to that level. In the meantime I guess I'm going to have go upstairs to get some clean clothes." "Wait, are you serious?! Those things could be up there!" Julie exclaims. "Well that's why I'm going to be taking some weapons with me." "But you're wounded! You really shouldn't be going out there!" "While it's true I ache, I can at least see out both eyes clearly again. Surprisingly I'm feeling slightly energetic. I'll be careful." "Oh Suzy, (Sigh) I can't let you go by yourself! I'll come with you!" You and Julie grab a couple of the lighter assault rifles and some ammo and head up the ladder. Really the most nerve-racking part is going to be the initial opening of the hatch since anything could be lurking around ready to attack as soon as you pop your head up. You open up the hatch and scramble to the basement floor, looking around in all directions. "Suzy? Is it safe?" Julie whispers from the ladder. "Well if it wasn't I'm sure they would've attacked by now. I don't even hear any noise from upstairs." "Good, Now your room is right there, just get your clothes and let's go!" "Okay, okay, come on up, I need someone to watch out." You head into your room and Julie climbs up and keeps a nervous eye out. You start going through and grabbing clothing. "Hey Julie, what about you?" you ask. "What about me what?" Julie says. "All your clothes are still in your bags upstairs, what are you going to wear?" "I don't know! I'll wear your clothes or go naked! I'm not heading up there!" "Like I said, I don't even hear any noise and I had quite a few favorite belongings in one of the bags. Fuck it, I'm going up there, I wouldn't mind seeing Kelly's body anyway." You say and pass Julie to head upstairs. Once again Julie follows reluctantly. You go up the stairs cautiously, once again expecting something to pop out at you. When you finally get up stairs, you expect the same thing, but after checking a bit, nothing is out of place from when you left it yesterday. No broken windows, no kicked in doors, and your bags are still in the same place where you dropped them when you got here. Then you lay your eyes on Kelly's body which hasn't been disturbed in anyway. You didn't see it when Julie did it since your back was turned, but part of Kelly's head is splattered on the wall and the rest of it is all over the floor. "Heh, you blew her fucking head off." You say. "Yeah, it's really gross. Let's get our bags and head back, I'm still worried that something might try to break in and I also don't want to dwell on what almost happened to you in this room. It's upsetting." "Alright, I just think I needed the closure of seeing her corpse. I know that probably sounds fucked up of me, but then again this whole week has been." You say grabbing one of your bags. Before you or Julie can say anything else a bright flash shines through one of the uncovered windows along with the sound of a large explosion in the distance. You can't help but take a quick glance out the window. And there you see it in the far distance, the dissipating remnants of a mushroom cloud rising up in the sky. "...they finally went and did it." You say. "Oh shit! We need to get down into the shelter NOW!" Julie exclaims. "Let's get our asses moving then." You and Julie grab your remaining bags and head back into the basement. You don't stop the haste until you're safely inside the shelter, though Julie's still a really stressed. "Oh shit! Oh shit! We were out there when that bomb went off! What if we've experienced a lethal dose of radiation!? I don't want my hair and teeth to start falling out and coughing up blood! Oh fuck!" Julie starts to say while pacing back and forth. "Julie will you relax? First of all if it had been that close the impact should've at least shattered the windows of the house. From the direction I saw the cloud, I'd say it probably hit Security City and you know how far away that is. It probably wasn't even a large one." "So we're safe?" "Well we're safe from what you're worrying about yes. But I mean if nukes are going off, that means the end of civilization, as we know it at best. The world is going to become a lot more dangerous." "But we're in this shelter! We've got supplies for years!" "Yeah, if we're smart about conservation we probably can stretch out our supplies for I dare say a decade, but the thing is we're going to HAVE to explore the surface eventually, if only to gather more food and water. And if we're going to do that, we're going to need to prepare ourselves. I foresee a lot of use of that small exercise room in the future unfortunately." Julie sits down as if this hard reality is finally hitting her. "Suzy...I don't know if I'm gonna be able to survive this new world. I mean if what you're saying is true, and this week was just an indication of how bad its going to really be, then how useful am I going to be? I mean other than killing your psycho sister; I've been completely useless in this crisis. Even with your sister, you came up with the plan to distract her; my dumb ass thought you were being serious at first when you told me to leave. You've come up with all the plans and taken all the action. It's actually very impressive of how you've managed to cope with all this...I'm just not as strong as you." You sit down next to Julie and hold her hands. "Julie, I didn't say this was going to be easy, but WE can do this. You have to have more faith in yourself Julie. And whether I come up with the plans or not doesn't mean you've been useless. I mean you still needed the courage to pull the trigger to kill Kelly right?" you say. "I wasn't brave, I didn't want her to kill you." Julie says. "Well I'm sure there's going to be tons of people wanting to do that to me in the future. So you've already proven you've got motivation to kill when necessary. And just think you also helped in tricking the National Guard without killing anyone." "Oh sure, just shaking my tits and ass at them. That's about all I AM actually good at." "Hey whatever works for your survival, but look we're together now. I need you just as much as you need me. We're not just friends anymore we have a stronger bond now, one that I want to last for a very very long time. I want to survive to enjoy your company and love for as long as I can. Would you really give up on that so easily?" Julie smiles. "No I suppose I can't. You're right Suzy. You're always right." Julie says and hugs you. She then kisses you on the lips. "I love you Suzy." She says. "I love you too Julie." You answer. A brief pause of you both looking into each other's eyes and savoring the moment. While the next few moments are going to be filled with possibly the most fun you've had this week, you are still thinking about how difficult things are going to be in the near future. Already now, you're thinking that the first order of business is going to be to get Julie to dry out from her drug abuse. (You can't afford for her to go through your supply of medical supplies after all) She's going to probably hate you while she's detoxing, but it's going to be for her own good. And that's just going to be one hurdle you'll have to jump, but you're not that "good girl" that hid out in the basement from the rest of the world anymore. You're ready to face it head on when necessary regardless of the dangers it may hold. > Best Friends With Benefits Forever The Future... "I hate dealing with those trailer park assholes." Julie says as you both enter the shelter. "Yeah, but unless we want to go driving all the way to the next township or waiting around for a wandering merchant, it isn't like we got much choice in barter partners." You say. "I just feel like we're getting eye raped by all of them whenever we walk into their little enclave." "Probably are, but Mel's pretty good about keeping his boys in line. He's surprisingly reasonable as well. Besides, they got enough problems ever since the Cult of Tiamat launched a full raid on them." "Yeah, that's another reason I don't like going out nowadays, the entire fucking town is a war zone between those two." "Mmm, I'm just glad we don't live where the fighting has gotten the heaviest. It's almost like how it was when all those people were running around like rabid animals. Still never learned what caused that, weird that some people just suddenly went back to normal though." "Speaking of the cult, do you really believe they won't attack us anymore?" Julie says. "Well like with anything in this shitty world, nothing is certain, but Bobby has always been a true believer so when he came to us that night saying that Tiamat spoke to him in a dream saying that we were off limits due to recent losses, I'm inclined to believe we don't need to worry about them for now. Personally I think it was that bitch Diana that kept targeting us specifically for sacrifice. She never did like me. Anyway Diana's dead and Bobby isn't under her influence anymore." "What about his new first wife though?" "His sister Helen? I only met her a few times back when I was dating Bobby, but she was always okay to me. Seemed to almost want me in the fold as it were. Probably wanted an ally because her older sister Diana was a bully to her...hmm might've had something common I suppose." As you get ready to relax for the night, Julie ceases talking for a moment and then speaks up again. "Hey, do you ever wonder what your life would've been like if you'd stayed with Bobby?" Julie asks. "You're joking right?" you say. "Well I'm just asking do you think it would've been easier?" "I really don't see how being the member of an insane cult would've been easier and that's not even factoring in Diana who probably would've been trying to kill me at every turn." "Ah, I think you would've been okay. You would've found a way to get over on her. Just think you would've been a high priestess with followers or something!" "And I still would've had to have shared Bobby with Helen and whatever other sisters he choose as a damn wife. Nope, I'm not into polygamy." "But you weren't into girls either at one time and we wound up together." "That's a little different Julie, we had a long history. I mean I don't even see you as a female. I mean I do, but (Sigh) ...you know what I mean! I'm just saying I'm not the sharing type when it comes to these things. What brought all this weird line of questioning all of a sudden?" "I dunno, I guess sometimes I play what if and I come up with all sorts of weird scenarios." "What do you mean?" "Well okay for example, I can picture you still doing okay even if you made different choices in your life. Like I can picture you surviving and even thriving in this harsh world regardless of what you did. Me? I would've been dead without you around. I just wonder sometimes if your life would've been better without me. Silly I suppose for me to dwell on stuff like that." You know Julie can still get a little self-conscious at times and would seem tonight is one of those nights. It was annoying at first, but as time has gone on, you've actually grown to find it a little endearing. "You're damn right it's silly, because how could my life be better without you? I mean I have everything I want with you, what more could I want? To be a leader of one of the many dysfunctional groups out there? No thanks, I was already part of one dysfunctional group, I don't need to be part of another, let alone trying to lead them. I'm perfectly happy down here in our shelter with ample supplies and spending the rest of my years with you. Now come over here." Julie walks over to you a bit demurely and you passionately kiss her and grab her ass in the process. "Mmm. Tell you what, since the town has become rather dangerous lately, why don't we stay in for a month or two? Maybe by that time, those idiots will have stopped or killed each off by then. You know we still have lots of supplies left, we can afford a nice romantic vacation of sorts from the world." You say. "See, you always have the good ideas." Julie says with a smile. As the two of you embrace in the way lovers do, you realize Julie is right, you do have all the good ideas. And your best one was choosing to be with your best friend.

[Themes: modern, humor, horror, romance] You wake up and find that Julie is still fast asleep with her head nestled against your body and one arm draped over you. The funny thing is this sort of thing doesn't even bother you anymore. But your increasingly odd relationship with Julie isn't excessively important at this time. Right now you're dwelling more on the grim situation you're still in and the event less pleasant task you still have ahead of you. Not quite disturbing Julie yet, you reach over and grab your cell phone to check the time. Slept most of the day as usual. Just as well, since you won't have long to wait for nightfall again when you have to dig another hole out back. "Julie, get up I have to go." You say tapping Julie on the head. "Hgm,.. no..." she utters. "Have to, I've got to take care of something and I think you know what it is." Julie slowly and reluctantly moves off of you and repositions herself on a pillow. "I wish you could just stay in bed with me all day." She says. "At this point, I wish that too." You say and get up to leave to go get your sister out of the washer and dryer. You grab your seemingly never-ending supply of garbage bags, cleaning products, some towels, a bucket of water, some rubber gloves and go down into the basement. Once again approaching the washer and dryer you open up them up and are bombarded by a horrible smell. You end up coughing and hacking up again. "Ugh...(pant) ugh...goddamn it, I can get through this..." you say. You empty the washing machine first, putting Donna's dismembered legs and arms in trash bags. You then dump some cleaning products into the washing machine and turn it on figuring that it will least wash most of the blood out. The dryer on the other hand is not going to be as easy to clean. Johnny threw Donna's torso and head in there. While he didn't exactly eviscerate her, there are definitely some or her insides coming out. It's a horrible task (You try not to stare at her head for too long), but between the gagging you manage to get through it. Her body, her left over innards and her head all up into bags and tied up. You then spend time trying to clean the dryer. Even with using bleach, you can't get rid of that horrible smell. You wonder if it'll ever go away. "Ugh, that's a really horrible smell." Julie says causing you to turn your head and see that she's come down to check on you. "What are you doing down here? I told you I'd take care of this." You say. "You were down here awhile and I decided to check on you. Besides, your brother Peter called." "Is that right?" "Yep, he was returning your call from yesterday. Didn't realize you called him." "I was in the middle of calling him when that psycho attacked. Anyway, you talked to him?" "Yeah, but I didn't tell him about what happened here, save for the National Guard coming in and telling us to stay indoors. I didn't want to tell him about Donna, I figured you'd want to do that." "Thanks. Peter and Donna weren't exactly the closest either, but I think he'd be pretty upset to hear about her death. So he didn't want to talk to me?" "Well I told him you were really busy cleaning up an awful mess elsewhere in the house. He actually said he didn't want to talk long though because he was worried that the government was monitoring the phone call what with the marshal law and all." "Huh, sounds almost like something my brother Ben would've said." "Yeah, that's the other thing. He mentioned he was busily trying to locate Ben's old hidden bunker in your backyard. He said he wants to wait this out in there because he's scared shitless and feels vulnerable just being stuck in your house by himself." "Well I can see him being scared since this isn't the most relaxed of situations." "Yeah, but he said its more than just the National Guard. He said he saw a few of your neighbors acting nuttier than a shithouse rat in the streets for no apparent reason. Like they were rabid animals. He mentioned some of them was trying to bite someone." You stop cleaning for a moment. "What? Crazy people trying to bite others? That almost sounds like something out of a horror movie. You sure he wasn't exaggerating?" "He sure didn't sound like it, I mean it sort of makes sense. People have become more aggressive and hostile. The crime rate in this town has gone up so bad that the National Guard had to come in. I mean maybe everyone in town is going crazy from some sort of secret military experiment!" "If that's true, then how come we aren't running around biting people?" you ask. "Well maybe it hasn't affected us yet, maybe we're immune, I don't know! Maybe it spreads by bite like in a zombie movie! I'm just saying maybe we should start blocking the windows and doors." "Julie its entirely possible Peter saw some people just high on bath salts! I mean the people who live in my neighborhood aren't exactly the most morally upstanding. Let's wait and see for a moment. I mean I'm still cleaning up here, so it'll be awhile and..." Suddenly several machine gun shots are heard. "Oh my God!" Julie says and instinctively ducks. You on the other hand get up off your knees from cleaning and start to head upstairs. "Are you insane, where are you going?!" Julie asks. "Julie, while at one time it would've been unthinkable for me to head TOWARDS the sound of gunfire, I've left a pistol and an axe upstairs. If nothing else I'd like to retrieve to viable weapons if an impending zombie apocalypse is indeed coming." "Well hold on I'm coming with you, I don't want to be by myself!" Julie says. And like that you're cautiously going upstairs towards potential danger with Julie touching one of your arms and hiding behind you. Now you really do feel like you're in a horror movie. When you get upstairs, you and Julie keep your heads down. The gunfire doesn't sound like it's immediately out in front of the house, but it's definitely nearby. You go and get the pistol first. "Why is the gun in the cereal box?" Julie asks. "Because I was desperately trying to find a place to hide it yesterday. Julie, I think you better go put something a little more protective on. If we need to suddenly leave in a hurry you're not going to want to be running around in your underwear." "I suppose you're right. Where are you going to be?" "I'm going back to my room to retrieve the axe from the bathroom, wash this blood off and change my clothes as well since I obviously ruined these by cutting and ripping them yesterday in the first place." You and Julie part ways briefly to go take care of your short-term goals. After washing up and changing your clothes again you start to ponder what your next move might be. You don't quite get to do that since once again you're interrupted by the breaking of glass coming from the kitchen followed by snarling and grunting. "Shit!" you exclaim and run to the kitchen to see a bloody arm through the window of the backdoor attempting to unlock it. The thing on the other side gets more excited when it sees you and starts pounding the glass with its other hand cracking more of it. It seems completely oblivious to the fact that it's severely cutting itself in the process. It looks like a regular (if a bit wild) human. It doesn't look rotten (Could be fresh though) and maybe it isn't a zombie, but you know damn well you can't let it get in! You shoot at it through the glass completely shattering the rest of the window. The bullet hits it in the face and the thing falls backwards making one last death growl. You cautiously move to look through the broken window and see that you've killed it. Meanwhile Julie has come running to see if you're okay. "Suzy! Oh thank god! Are you okay?!" Julie asks. "Yeah, but I apologize for doubting you and Peter. One of those... things, guess I'll call them the rabid just attacked. Look what one did to this door, I'd hate to think what more of them might do in a group." You say. "Oh shit! We need to start blocking the doors and windows!" "I'm wondering if we shouldn't just get the hell out of here while we can." "I really think we we'd be safer if we stayed put! I mean we have more than enough furniture and items to barricade ourselves in here. If we leave, we run the risk of bumping into hordes of them and that's not counting the military who are still shooting people on sight, maybe even more so now. Where would we go anyway?" "I admit, I haven't figured that part out yet, but I think you're hoping to ride this thing out until shit gets back to normal and I'm wondering if that's even going to happen. We aren't exactly well supplied here for a long-term stay even if we do barricade this place. Now I'll give you that it's probably going to be dangerous out there, but at least we'll have more freedom to move around." Julie of course will follow you no matter what you decide, but she really wants to stay in. As much as you think it might be better to leave now, you probably would be safe if you barricaded yourselves in the house properly. Things do sound hectic out there right now with all the gunfire, it might even be best if you waited until things died down a bit and sneak out later. > You barricade the house Things are too hot out there right now. The National Guard is parked firmly in the neighborhood; you wouldn't have a chance to get past them. No, the best thing to do is barricade yourself in. You have enough supplies to last the remainder of the week you think. "Okay, let's block the doors and windows the best we can. Those shots might have the National Guard over here again, but at least we can point to a viable target this time." You say. "What about your... um sister?" Julie asks. "(Sigh) Shit. I dunno. She's all wrapped up in bags right now, I guess I'll just throw her in the garbage can out in your backyard. It's near the door, so I won't have to linger too long." "You really want to throw her away like that?" "No, I don't fucking want to throw away my sister like she was just day old meatloaf, but I don't have many other options right now and if we are going to be stuck in this house for who knows how many days on end, I don't want my sister's chopped up corpse sharing it with us! Now start pushing shit against the front door and block the windows!" While Julie goes to follow your orders, you head back down in the basement to grab your sister's remains. It takes two trips and a lot of paranoia, but you manage to get her all in the trash can without anything else attacking you or the military coming to check up on you again. You do hear a lot more shooting though, so you're guessing that maybe they're too occupied with something else. You finish up by shoving the refrigerator in front of the back door. Julie meanwhile is trying her best. She's got the front door barricaded well enough, but the windows leave something to be desired. "Julie, anyone could crash through those windows right now. Don't you have like hammer and nails or something laying around?" you ask. "No, and I don't have a bunch of wooden planks either. Why the hell would I have that shit? I don't sit around thinking about how to best protect my home against a possible zombie attack!" Julie answers. Her state of agitation is vastly increasing under the pressure. "I don't think they're dead...nevermind doesn't matter. (Sigh) Okay, you're obviously stressed. Why don't you take a break and I'll handle this. I'll try to figure out a way to better barricade this place." Julie doesn't need you to say anymore and she immediately runs upstairs. You imagine she's probably going to pop some pills or something to mellow her out. At this point as long as she stays out of your way, you'll be able to get what you need to do accomplished. You spend a good amount of time shoving as much furniture as you can in front of most of the ground floor windows. Something could definitely still break them and with enough force they'd probably eventually knock through the furniture, but you're confident that you'd at least have enough time to do something about it before they got in completely. Still, the gunfire and yelling from outside hasn't stopped the whole time you're doing this, there are a couple points where you hear some explosions too, so you're not exactly feeling completely relaxed about this situation. You then start packing "get a away" bags with as many useful items as you can, just in case you need to leave in a hurry. One of your bags that you brought hasn't even been opened and is still full of clothing. You fill your other bags with more useful items like some of the non-perishable snack food Julie has, the duct tape you were using, a few of the bigger kitchen knives, loose batteries, some of the medicine in the bathroom, etc. You then finish up with packing a few more of your personal items and then think if you do need to leave in a hurry, it probably would be best if you could drive out of here. You head upstairs and start calling for Julie, but when you find her, she's laying on her bed in a semi-conscious state. She took something to calm herself just as you figured. "Julie! Julie! Does Donna have a spare set of car keys?" you ask. "Mgh...huh...come to bed..." she says. "Julie! I need to know if Donna had spare keys to her car!" you shout. "I dunno...yeah...prob...dresser..." Julie utters and starts to become even less coherent. Seeing that she's going to be of no more use for the rest of the day, you search Donna's room for her car keys and fortunately Julie was correct in that they were on the dresser. By this point, night has fallen and while the gunfire has lessened, you still hear the occasional shot. You're a little tired from all the running around and other activity you've been doing to today, not to mention you're still wearing the clothing that you cleaned your sister up in. As much as you're hesitant to let your guard down, you absolutely feel the need to clean up. After a quick shower, you return to being on guard for something to happen. Anything. Julie of course is peacefully asleep and oblivious to anything that's going on at this time. You peek out one of the second floor windows and see Guardsmen still patrolling, but it doesn't look like there's as many any more and you see a pile of what are probably bodies a little up the block. It does look like things have quieted down a bit, around here anyway. Who knows about the rest of the town. You wonder if you shouldn't sneak out and leave while things are quieter, but Julie's not in any condition to leave now. And as inept as she's been today, you can't just abandon her. You've just lost your sister, you're not going to lose your best friend as well. You stay up late past midnight staying alert, but nothing happens. You wander back and forth through the house until eventually even you can't fight off the sleep and you return to your room and close your eyes for just a moment... > Next day... You are awakened by a loud explosion, a close one. One so close in fact that the force of it causes you to roll off your bed. "Shit!" you exclaim as you hit the floor, still tired, but very much awake. You don't know what time it is, but you know you haven't been asleep very long. You grab your pistol, which is nearby, and the smell of gunpowder, smoke and fire are immediately starting to become very strong. You exit your room and see that your barricade of the front facing windows has been destroyed along with that portion of the house. Furniture is in pieces and some of it is burning. That isn't all that is in pieces however. You see the remains of several bodies. One bloody legs looks like it was wearing a military outfit, a couple of the other parts are of the more civilian persuasion. You can only guess this might've been a soldier desperately trying to escape and blew himself up either on purpose or accidently in an attempt to kill the rabid things after him. You can't make out everything from where you're standing, but the streets are swarming with hordes of those things. It would appear a "second wave" has popped up and is strong enough to overwhelm the military here. Even Julie has woken up. "Holy shit Suzy! What the fuck..." Julie says from above. "Julie get whatever..." "SUZY LOOK OUT!" Julie screams. You react just in time to shoot one of those rabid fuckers twice in the chest. He goes down and doesn't get back up, but that's of little help since you've now just attracted even more of them and they're running in your direction. "Julie climb out one the upstairs windows!" you shout, firing at two more rabid before running away yourself. Julie immediately runs back into her bedroom. You'd follow her, but the burning debris makes it difficult and your own distance to the stairs isn't close enough for you to get there before more rabid come gibbering in. You instead head for the backdoor and fire off the remainder of your bullets as you run. You might've actually managed to make out had the back door not been barricaded with the refrigerator. You don't even get to open the back door before you're roughly pulled backwards and you feel a set of teeth sinking shoulder. This is soon followed by more teeth and your screams.

[Themes: modern, horror, serious, female protagonist, humor] "Remember, if you act today..." "Ugh! Shut up! I don't care about your stupid shelters!" you hear Julie remark. You open your eyes and see Julie to the left of you messing around on your laptop. (And clicking off on one of those annoying pop up audio ads) "Hey...when did you get up?" you ask. "I dunno, about an hour ago I think. Didn't really feel like leaving the bed though, so I just figured I'd stay here and entertain myself on your laptop. Hope you don't mind." "Eh, it's fine. Don't mess with my bookmarks and setting though." "Don't worry, I'm not going to accidentally delete anything. I must say though with the extensive number of porn links in your history, I think you might have a real problem." Julie mocks. "Mm, bold words coming from a woman who has popped up in several amateur videos on those sites." You answer. "Hah. I don't doubt it, but that brings up the question of why would YOU be watching those?" Julie asks. "Who said I did? I can't help it if I'm browsing through the videos and suddenly your ass pops up in a still." "If it's just my ass, how do you know it's me? Either you don't or you've watched them enough that you know what my ass looks like without even seeing my face!" "Argh! I don't mean literally! I mean YOU pop up, and I've seen your face in the stills though once I almost couldn't tell because it was covered in cum!" you exclaim starting to get agitated. "Hmm, nice save." Julie says a little unconvinced. Already having expended more energy than you wanted to, you start to sit up and realize you've been wearing the same clothes for the past couple days. "Christ, I really need to take a shower and change these clothes." You say and get out of the bed. "Yeah, I think I need to go do that too." Julie says. "Well you can go use your own shower. I know we've been sleeping in the same bed for the past two days, but that doesn't mean we're going to be re-enacting a women's prison shower scene from a movie." You say laying down boundaries again. "Hey I think you had that one bookmarked!" Julie says jokingly. You shake your head and grab some clean clothes before heading into the bathroom to take a shower. After washing up and changing your clothes, you feel refreshed. When you exit the bathroom, you see that Julie has left, presumably to go wash up as well. You check your phone and once again see nobody has called. You dial up your sister's number and still no answer. You certainly hope Julie is right about her just sleeping somewhere else. But surely she couldn't be so pissed at you that she's moved out could she? All her stuff is still here after all. You then hear a loud noise or more like a voice, but you aren't sure if its coming from inside the house or outside the house. Still paranoid from yesterday, you grab the pistol and cautiously exit your room. When you get to the living room, you deduce the noise is indeed coming from outside. A quick peek through the window and you see several military men and a couple of military trucks and even an A.P.C. "Hey Suzy?! You hear that noise!? You got the TV up loud?" Julie shouts from somewhere up on the second floor. "No! The fucking National Guard is out there in force and it looks like we're under marshal law." "National Guard? Hold on, I'm coming down..." Julie says. You turn the TV on to see if there's anything about this, but you're not exactly having any luck. You're getting a lot of Ground Zero infomercials or news about shit going on elsewhere in the world. Local stations seem to be off the air with an "emergency test" beep but nothing more substantial than that. "What the fuck is going on?" you say to yourself. "Yeah what the fuck IS going on?" Julie asks coming down from taking her shower. "I dunno, I might need to check the Internet, not having much luck with the TV. Do we have enough food and water?" you ask. "Well we certainly got some food. Dunno about water though. I mean you can get some from the taps I suppose, but as you might expect I got tons of alcohol. Why?" Julie says. "Why? Because the National Guard just said if we try to leave we'll probably get shot on sight that's why! (Sigh) We're basically prisoners here." "Suzy, you need to calm down. You've been on edge since yesterday. You just said there isn't a whole lot we can do, so we might as well just relax in the house. I mean really how much different is the day going to be for either of us?" Julie remarks. "I'm just...its Donna. I mean she's still out there. I mean I HOPE she's still out there. I mean the last thing I did was argue with her. Shit, I'm even a little worried about Peter and Kelly now and I never got along with them either. Still family though." You say. "You tried calling either of them?" Julie asks. Oddly you haven't. You didn't really have a reason before, but given what's going on right now, maybe you should. "I think I'll do that Julie. I can't believe I didn't think of it." You say. "Sure, you go check on what family you can and maybe find out more about what's going on. In the meantime, I'm going to go get a drink." "Thought you were turning over a new leaf?" "You just said we were prisoners here. Not much else for me to do is there? Besides, I'm not going to get bombed out of my skull." While Julie goes and deals with this situation in her own way, you head back to your room to get your cell phone to start calling up your other family members. You try Peter first since you figure he might at least answer. You start to call Peter and then you hear a loud clatter from the kitchen. What's odd to you is that you don't hear a series of cursing following it; you do think you hear a stifled yelp though. Panic wells up inside you and you once again head towards where the disturbing sound came from with your pistol pointed in front of you. "Stop fighting me, bitch!" you hear a voice say. This isn't a video game this time. You enter the kitchen and see Julie being held captive by someone you KNEW was no good right from the start. Johnny. He's got one arm around her waist and another hand with a knife to Julie's throat. He isn't calm anymore. His face is displaying a rage and hatred you remember seeing a glimpse of in Uncle Ed when he looked at you during that horrible night with him. Julie's face is one of absolute terror and tears run from her eyes. "Let her go you fucking psycho!" you exclaim pointing the gun in his direction. "Oh look, it's your dyke lover come to rescue you! Fucking whores the pair of you! You think I'm scared just because you got a gun pointed at me? Pfft! Look at you, you're so scared right now, you can barely aim that thing properly." He's right. Despite having the gun in your hand, you're incredibly scared. "Mmm, think I'll have some fun with you two after I'm done cleansing you whores. Just like I did with your sister." Johnny exclaims. Your worst fears are now a reality and it shows in your face. You feel ill and start to shake a bit. "Guess you two have been so busy rug munching that you haven't been in the basement lately. Told you it was a mess down there." Johnny laughs cruelly. Between this revelation, Julie's desperate expression of wanting you to do something, and your own fear, you're having a very difficult time concentrating. You feel like if you shoot, you're either going to miss Johnny completely and then he'll kill Julie, or worse you'll kill Julie for him by accidentally shooting her instead of him. You can't fuck this up. > You try to buy some time "Johnny, look. We didn't do anything to you, but if you felt that we offended you in anyway, then I apologize profusely. You can walk out that backdoor right now and nobody has to know about this." You say trying to aim the gun so you know you'll hit him with it, unfortunately he's moving around with Julie even more now. "Yeah right. The National fucking Guard is patrolling out there right now, I'm not gonna get my ass shot off and stop trying to play psychologist, it won't work. I'm not interested in anything you two dyke whores got to say, so let's just skip to the good part!" Suddenly Johnny slashes Julie's throat open. A gout of blood comes pouring out as Julie hisses and gurgles while clutching at her throat. The sight of this scares the shit out of you and it doesn't help that Johnny also gave her a little shove directly at you after he did it, which causes a nervous reaction of firing your pistol. You don't hit Johnny though, you instead hit Julie and cut what little remained of her life even shorter. Her body falls on you and you scream when all the blood squirts all over you. You attempt to push her off of you, but when you see Johnny looming over you, you try to bring your arm back up to shoot at him again, but this time he's got the advantage and he grabs your wrist, breaks it and takes the gun out of your hand before pistol whipping you in the face with it twice. Your head hits the floor as you lie there now with a broken nose. "Stupid bitch. You all are stupid bitches. I don't know why I ever think I'm going to run into anything different. (Sigh) Still, I thought after your sister told me about you...I thought you might be...bah better get this over with, the fucking Guard probably heard those shots." Johnny says. Your last moments are seeing Johnny's knife coming down several times on your face.

[Themes: modern, humor, serious, science fiction] "...Suzy..." you hear a voice whisper. "Mgh." You answer. "Suzy...get up...I have to go pee!" the voice says again. Your eyes are still closed, but you recognize it as Julie's. "Guh. Well go! Why do I have to get up?!" you say angrily with your eyes still closed. "Well because you arm is wrapped around my waist and your leg is intertwined with one of mine that's why!" Now you open your eyes and realize what Julie has just described is true. Julie looks at you over her shoulder. "Hey don't blame me, I stayed on my side of the bed. I'd enjoy this longer, but I really gotta pee!" "Shit." You say and remove yourself from your entanglement from Julie's body. Julie smiles at you and then heads to the bathroom. Great, now she's going to read something into it. Though you do wonder how the hell you got into a spooning position with her. Maybe you were dreaming about Bobby. Speaking of Bobby, while you're checking the time on your cell phone, you see that he's left messages again. After you recent "night cuddling" with Julie, you think it might be best if you do call Bobby if only to deter Julie from getting any ideas. "Hello? Bobby?" you say. "Yeah." Bobby answers. He sounds pretty flat. "Well you called me, so I assume you wanted to talk to me." "Yeah I did, I wanted to talk to you yesterday about something else, but I've changed my mind about some things since then. So I've got something new to tell you, and given that you didn't bother to talk to me yesterday I think you'll be fine with it." "What are you talking about?" "I'm talking about us. Breaking up for good. It's obvious that this isn't working. I tried to bring you into my world, but you just refuse to meet me half way." You can't believe you're hearing this! "Meet you half way? You want me to be one of your wives in your fucked up religious cult compound that's what you want! Face it, you're not going to give up your sister Diana and that bitch would kill me as soon as I stepped foot in that place!" "Well...you obviously have valid points, so why are you arguing with me on this?" "Because you're trying to make out like I'M the bad guy here! I'm not the human sacrificing cultist Bobby and yet I looked past that because I loved you! You say I didn't try to meet you half way? I proposed long ago that we BOTH leave our fucked up families behind and start a new life together! I was willing to change, YOU weren't!" At this point there is a long pause. "Well? Don't you have anything to say?" you ask. "No, except...it was just too much. Guess I take after my dad after all. I'm sorry, but my God and family come first. Even before you. I'll always remember...the good times we had. May Tiamat's Chaos take mercy on you." "Oh fuck you and Tiamat!" you exclaim and hang up. Its weird, but you start to sob a little bit. You sort of knew your relationship with Bobby was on borrowed time anyway, but it still hurts now that it's officially over. He was your first love after all and now that's gone. Meanwhile Julie is standing in the bathroom door watching you. "Suzy, I heard some of that...and I'm truly sorry about you and Bobby. Really, I mean that. You're a kind and decent girl with many wonderful qualities. He had a treasure in you and he doesn't know what he's lost." Hard to tell if Julie's just trying to flatter you or she really does mean it, but either way it's still nice to hear right now. "Did you want to talk about it?" Julie asks. "No, not really. It's over and that's that. Best to not dwell on the past and move on right?" you say. "Probably. Well I should probably see how much damage my home is in from last night and see who's still lingering around. I'll leave you alone." "Wait, I'll come with you. I mean I live here too now, I might as well help you clean up. Besides, for the first time I think being alone might be a bad idea. I'm just going to end up dwelling on Bobby. I need to keep my mind on other things right now. I probably should try to make up with Donna as well. We kind of argued yesterday." "Yeah, I wondered what happened about that. When she stormed in yesterday I asked about you and she mumbled something about you being a bitch. Then later at the party I asked again about what happened and she still never answered." "Nothing really happened, she just jumped down my throat for a perceived insult, but I guess I should make the peace being the older sister and all." "See? This is why you're so wonderful!" Julie smiles and the pair of you exit your room. The house actually isn't in bad shape. Julie remarks that usually the parties only get really out of hand on Saturday and Friday nights. She also remarks that she thinks this the first time in quite awhile that she woke up without a hang over since she didn't really drink as much since she was mainly with you the whole night. "It's a bizarre feeling, but I have to say it isn't an unpleasant one." Julie says. From the living room you hear the sounds of a vacuum as well as a TV. "Who the hell would be vacuuming?" Julie asks. "Donna?" the moment you say that, you and Julie both look at each other and say "Nah." When you arrive in the living room, you see a man probably about your age calmly vacuuming as he periodically looks at the TV screen, which is one of those Ground Zero infomercials. There are actually a couple of other people in the room flopped out on the furniture or on the floor still asleep, but the man merely vacuums around their sprawled out legs or bodies. You and Julie find the sight to be quite the peculiar one. He notices you both and turns off the vacuum. "Oh hey. You...you're the owner of this house correct?" he asks. "Yes I am, who are you?" Julie answers. "Oh I'm Johnny. Sorry if I woke you and your girlfriend up, but I couldn't in good conscience leave your house in such a mess. So I found your vacuum and tried to clean up a bit. Sort of a wild party last night huh?" Johnny says. "Eh, had wilder. Never had a guest actually clean up though. Kinda weird, but hey I won't turn it down. I don't remember you from last night; though I have so many people at my parties I never know half of them anyway." "Oh, I'm not very memorable anyway. I've always kind of just blended in with the crowd. I heard about this party from a friend and figured I'd come since I don't get out much. Did you want me to leave?" "Doesn't make difference to me. Like I said, I'm not going to turn down a guest that helps clean up." Johnny nods and returns to cleaning up, while Julie turns back to you. "Hrm, he's an odd one, but at least he's helpful. Anyway, let's go check and see if Donna's upstairs." Julie says. You and Julie leave Johnny to his cleaning to go find your sister. After checking the bedrooms, you don't find her (Though there are a couple of people still sleeping in said bedrooms) you wonder if she passed out on the lawn or something. You and Julie start descending down the stairs. "I dunno, while I've certainly passed out on the lawn, Donna has never gotten that bad. She's more likely to be in the basement." "Well I guess you could look outside and I could look down there for my sister..." Suddenly Johnny interrupts. "Excuse me. Sorry for overhearing, but did you say you were looking for Donna?" "Yes, she's my sister." You say. "Oh...so you must be Suzy. Heard her talk about you last night." "Nothing good I'm sure. You know where she is?" you say. "Unfortunately I don't. I mean I remember seeing her leave with a couple of guys and another girl last night, but I didn't know them either. I was under the impression they were going out to get more beer or drugs or something, but they never came back." You shake your head and sigh. "Great, she probably got herself fucking arrested by the cops last night." You say. "Well we don't know that." Julie remarks. "Maybe. I guess I'll know if I get a call from the police station. Whatever, I know she's like a cat and always lands on her feet, so I can talk to her later." "You sure you don't want to still look around the house for her?" "Well if she's here, she'll probably turn up while I'm cleaning this place a bit." "Okay, well I'm heading back upstairs to get those assholes out of my bed and clean up whatever mess is up there." Julie heads back upstairs nodding to Johnny who is now picking up garbage by hand and putting it in a bag. He nods to you briefly and continues his work. Well mind numbing clean up work should certainly help keep your mind off Bobby (and the possibility of Donna being in jail) you're just wondering if you should help Julie or Johnny. > You help Johnny You decide that keeping a bit of distance from Julie might be for the best for now. After last night you don't want her to think you're lingering around her because there is something there between you two. Johnny seems a bit odd, but then you're certainly used to odd people. You grab a trash bag and start cleaning up left over beer cans. "Thanks, but you don't need to help me. Your girlfriend probably could use the help more than I do." Johnny says. "Well I do live here now, so it's gotta get clean or I'm living in a pig pen! And Julie isn't my girlfriend." You say. "Oh. Sorry, I just assumed that you two coming out of the same room together..." "Eh, long story. But she's just my friend and I consoled her on a troubling topic. It got emotional and she slept in my room, though I'm fairly certain Julie wishes it had gone farther." "Hm, I see. Well your sister didn't mention you had a girlfriend when she spoke about you last night, so I was sort of wondering." "Wow, I must've really pissed my sister off yesterday if she was talking about me to a stranger. Would've thought she would've been focusing on other things during a party. What exactly did she say?" "Are you sure you want to know?" Johnny asks. "It probably isn't going to be anything I haven't already heard before from her, so go ahead." "Well...she was sort of drunk when she started talking to me. I was actually surprised, since a girl like her doesn't normally just go up and talk to a guy like me, well at least not when there are other guys around. Anyway, she at first propositioned me to go into the basement with her. When I declined, she got more hostile and started calling me a faggot and said I didn't know how to have fun just like her sister Suzy." "And that's when she went on a tirade?" "Yeah, I was about to leave her since it isn't my idea of a good time to be ranted at and insulted, but she grabbed my arm and practically forced me to listen. She went on about you being good and perfect and never doing anything wrong. Basically she said all this stuff about you as if they were supposed to be bad things, but I didn't see it. I guess that just made her even madder so she eventually told me to fuck off and later on I saw her leave with that group I mentioned earlier." "Yeah sounds like her. (Sigh) I jut hope she hasn't gone and done anything more stupid than usual. Family. What can ya do?" you say. "Heh, don't need to tell me. I had an older sister just like your younger one. Partied all the time, lot of sex, lot of drugs, pissed my mom off something fierce when we were still living with her." Johnny says continuing to pick up cans and placing them in a bag. "Oh I got an older sister too, but she's even worse than Donna." "Party girl too huh?" "No, she's just a fucking sadistic bully. Had to put up with her abuse for years." "Your older sister sounds like my mother." While the tone of his voice reflects no anger though, you notice when Johnny mentions that, his hand crushes one of the beer cans he has. He looks at it briefly and then tosses it in the bag. You wonder if you should stop talking altogether, but Johnny has already noticed that you've been staring at what he's done. "Sorry, bad memories. I didn't meant to scare you there." Johnny says. "I wasn't scared, just more surprised. We can get off the topic of families." "Heh, actually I was thinking we were kind of bonding a bit. Sounds like both of us come from fucked up families. Probably made us stronger right?" "I dunno. I mean I suppose I've survived, not sure if that's the same thing. I mean this is like the second day I've spent away from home. I only moved out yesterday and only then due to being under duress from my sister Kelly. I've always been a bit introverted and spent most of my life avoiding the outside world." "Eh, you're not missing much. To be honest, I'm almost jealous you managed to do it for so long. I'm a bit of an introvert too, but occasionally I to mix with the crowd as it were. Just to see if I feel any different. Hence one of the reasons why I came to your friend's party last night." "And?" "And, I don't feel any different. Just like I figured. It's like I spoke with several other people last night even before your sister and everyone was just...dull...boring...like they were just empty shells. Like they weren't even real people to me. To be quite honest before your sister started complaining about you to me, I was getting bored and nearly left the party." Johnny says as he motions over to a few of the sleeping lumps still in the living room. "What about your friend that you came with?" "Oh him? I came here independently of him. Hell, he didn't even show up. Really, he's more of an acquaintance than a friend anyway..." Johnny's eyes sort of glaze over when he says this and he breaks in the middle of his sentence. Almost like he's in a different "place." ' "Johnny?" you say. "Hrm? Sorry, I just kind of spaced out there. Anyway as I was saying, you haven't missed much by not being a social butterfly, I think this group here is proof of that. And as far as not being strong, you're stronger than you think. Despite coming from a dysfunctional family, you haven't succumbed to drug and sex filled escapism like your younger sister and you obviously haven't grown to become a mean bully like your older sister. The fact that you told me you spent the night consoling your best friend rather than indulging in some sort of meaningless hedonistic pleasure tells me that you're a kind and gentle soul. That's a rarity in this shitty world." You have to admit, as strange as this Johnny is, you do get the sense he's being genuine when he says this to you. "Well thank you Johnny." You say. Just as you're about to converse more with him, you hear some loud noise coming from the second floor. You hear a man's voice and a female voice, and then a very familiar voice. Sounds like Julie and it sounds like she's gone back to distracting herself from last night's concerns. "Oh yes! Ohhhh yeah! Give it to me daddy!" you hear Julie scream. A little disturbing choice of words considering what you both talked about last night. Some of the people sleeping in the living room are even awakened by this. One of them looks at his watch and immediately runs out the front door like he's late for something. A couple of others return to sleep. "Sounds like your friend is feeling better." Johnny says a little disdainfully. "Mm, well she always was one to get over things quickly. Well looks like we're all done in this room anyway." "Yeah, hey why don't you take a break? I mean obviously we don't need to clean this place spotlessly. Your friend Julie is just going to have another party tonight right?" Johnny says. "True. Yeah, I guess you're right. No point in me cleaning especially if Julie isn't even going to be helping anymore, but what about you?" you ask. "Me? Well I'm just going to dump out the trash and maybe pick up a few more of the bottles in the kitchen on the way. I'll probably also take another pursue down in the basement. It was a mess down there, but I think I cleaned most of it. Nearly tripped on a bad step down there though. Anyway then I guess I'll head home, I need the sleep anyway seeing as I haven't been yet." "You didn't sleep here?" "Nope. I've been awake the whole time, but I find I'm more of a night owl and don't sleep much anyway." "Well I understand that, but I'm just surprised you stayed. You told me you were getting bored with the party and were about to go home at one point." "Ah, but I also mentioned that after your sister complained about you to me, my interest was increased." Johnny says. You pause because you almost can't believe what he's implying. "Wait a minute. Are you saying you just stayed at the party through the night AND this morning just to meet me at some point? Just solely based on what my sister bitched about to you?" "What can I say? You sounded interesting and after speaking with you I can see I wasn't wrong." Johnny smiles and you smile with a nervous laugh. On one hand it's a little stalkerish and combined with Johnny's oddness, he's starting to come off a lot creepier. On the other hand, in a strange way you're sort of flattered. You always did attract the weird ones Suzy. "Wow...I'm not exactly sure what to say to that." You say. "No need to say anything. The pleasure of speaking with you is all mine. Oh but one more thing, did you want me to get rid of these useless sloths still sleeping in the living room before I leave?" "Well, they're probably just going to be here for tonight's party, so might as well just leave 'em I suppose. No need to trouble yourself." "Okay then, as I said, it was nice talking with you Suzy." "It was...interesting talking with you too Johnny." You reply back and head towards your room as Johnny starts taking a couple of garbage bags to the kitchen. What a strange person. Even stranger is that your self-esteem has been a little boosted by Johnny's stalkerish behavior. Before Johnny's praising of you, in the back of your mind you were still a little upset about Bobby and starting to realize you were alone again. Not that you had any major problems with being alone and you're certainly used to it, but it still was nice to have a boyfriend every now and then. After Johnny going on about how most people suck and putting you on a minor pedestal you don't feel as bad anymore about Bobby. Screw him right? He's the one missing out. You enter your room and lock your door fully content on tuning out the rest of the world like you always do. You go back to fucking around on the Internet, playing games and when the mood strikes you, getting out your mechanical "boyfriend" who never disappoints you. Hours pass... Eventually the silence from outside your door becomes less silent. Looks like Julie's party is getting started or at least getting louder. You don't really pay it too much mind as you pretty much managed to block it somewhat yesterday, but then you get a knock on the door. "Julie?" you ask instinctively. "Um, no it's me." A familiar voice answers. "Johnny?" you say and then slowly get up to answer the door. You open it up a little and see Johnny standing before you (Along with some party people passing by in the hallway). "Hi again." He says with a brief smile. "What are you doing here? Did you even go home?" you ask. "Oh yeah, I did, but just as I was finishing up in the kitchen, your friend Julie had come in to get some more booze. She mentioned that she appreciated my cleaning up and invited me back for tonight's party. So I came back." "Really?" "Well technically she also invited me to come join her and the couple up in her room, but I declined as you might aspect. Not an orgy guy." "Yeah, which is why I'm really wondering why you came back at all. I mean I have to live here, but this really isn't your thing. You said as much earlier today." "I know what I said...but I also said..." Johnny's expression becomes... not quite flustered, not quite angry, but more like he's having a hard time and you've just put him on the spot. "(Sigh) Look. This is really difficult for me. I'm probably coming off like a creepy stalker and god knows you probably get a lot of guys hitting on you...but I like you. I know that sounds like third grade shit, but there it is. I really like you and I'd like to get to know you better. That's why I came back tonight." Oddly that was honest enough to actually be kind of charming. Lot better than the "Show us your tits" pick up line that you've heard before. Then again, Johnny is still pretty damn weird and much like how you didn't want to lead on Julie; you don't necessarily want to lead Johnny on either. > You invite Johnny in What the hell, you weren't doing anything important with your time and you were thinking about making the first move yourself earlier today. "Johnny, could you hold on one moment?" you ask. "Um, okay." He replies. You close the door again and hastily clean up your room a bit just so you don't have your underwear just lying around, let alone your vibrator. Feeling that your room and yourself are presentable, you open the door. "Come on in Johnny." You say. "Wait, you're inviting me into your room? Are you sure?" Johnny asks a bit surprised. "Well if we're going to get to know each other better to see if we've got potential, then I'd rather do it in here one on one rather than out there with drunks possibly butting into our conversation. Besides, if I leave this room, its very well possible people will wander in and have sex in it." Johnny chuckles a bit at your remark as he walks in. "Well I suppose all that's true, but..." You make your first move by putting your arms around Johnny's shoulders and kissing Johnny squarely on the lips. He's really surprised. To be quite honest, you're a little surprised at yourself as well since you aren't usually the forward type, but maybe Julie's party spirit has gotten a hold of you a little bit along with wanting to put more distance between yourself and any more lingering feelings you might have for Bobby. Besides, you get the impression for all his praising and stalkerish behavior; Johnny would still be too shy to make the first move. Johnny's reaction says that your instinct about that was entirely correct. He pulls away fairly quickly after you're finished, he blushes a bit and then gives you a weird stare. "What? I thought we were going to get to know each other." You say. "I...I don't think I'm ready for this." Johnny remarks and starts backing away. "Wait, hold on. We weren't going to have sex! We don't even have to kiss anymore, I was just..." Before you can even finish, Johnny's already run out the door. "Great, Suzy. Some seductress you are. (Sigh)" you say to yourself and close your door. In any case, you go back to your laptop to help shut yourself out from the real world again. which wouldn't be that bad, but Johnny just flat out running away from you doesn't exactly put you in that great of a mood. You got dumped by a murderer and now you've run off a stalker. What does that say about you? Oh well at least things with batteries don't judge. A couple hours later you get another knock on the door. "Yes?" you ask. "Suzy, it's me Johnny. I need to talk." You're not exactly sure if this is going to be a good idea, but you decide to at least hear him out. "(Sigh) Hold on." You say and get up to open the door. Johnny stands before you wearing a jacket and looking slightly more disheveled from the last time. "Well? Are you coming in, I don't feel like keeping the door open for all the partying assholes to peer into." You ask. Johnny enters the room and you shut the door and walk back to your sofa. "Suzy, I just want to apologize. I've been thinking about this long and hard and I realize that I did the wrong thing." Johnny says pacing back and forth, rubbing his hands through hair. "Well, maybe I did come on a little strong. I suppose if the roles had been reversed I would've run away as well." "No, stop talking I need to get all this out. What I'm trying to say is that I obviously have wasted my time and that I shouldn't have pursued you. I guess I just built you up in my head so much that I...dunno...I always do this...fuck! Shit! WHY!?!" Johnny says and hits himself in the head a couple times. He's starting to worry you. "Hey Johnny, you don't need to..." "SHUT THE FUCK UP WHORE!" Johnny screams and before you even can react he's already run up and physically assaulted you. You try to scream out, but punches you your face and another tight grip around your throat prevent that from happening. The loud music from the party and indifference of the shallow partiers from any potential noise you could've made probably would've been lost to those two factors anyway. When you're nearly unconscious and so dazed that you can no longer fight back, Johnny ceases his punches and reaches for something inside his jacket. "This is going to be quick, because even though you're a whore like the rest...I still like you." Johnny whispers. "I...really wish this could've worked out...you were so beautiful..." Your last feeling is the blade of a sharp knife slitting your throat.

[Themes: modern, drama, science fiction, horror, serious, romance] You decide that keeping a bit of distance from Julie might be for the best for now. After last night you don't want her to think you're lingering around her because there is something there between you two. Johnny seems a bit odd, but then you're certainly used to odd people. You grab a trash bag and start cleaning up left over beer cans. "Thanks, but you don't need to help me. Your girlfriend probably could use the help more than I do." Johnny says. "Well I do live here now, so it's gotta get clean or I'm living in a pig pen! And Julie isn't my girlfriend." You say. "Oh. Sorry, I just assumed that you two coming out of the same room together..." "Eh, long story. But she's just my friend and I consoled her on a troubling topic. It got emotional and she slept in my room, though I'm fairly certain Julie wishes it had gone farther." "Hm, I see. Well your sister didn't mention you had a girlfriend when she spoke about you last night, so I was sort of wondering." "Wow, I must've really pissed my sister off yesterday if she was talking about me to a stranger. Would've thought she would've been focusing on other things during a party. What exactly did she say?" "Are you sure you want to know?" Johnny asks. "It probably isn't going to be anything I haven't already heard before from her, so go ahead." "Well...she was sort of drunk when she started talking to me. I was actually surprised, since a girl like her doesn't normally just go up and talk to a guy like me, well at least not when there are other guys around. Anyway, she at first propositioned me to go into the basement with her. When I declined, she got more hostile and started calling me a faggot and said I didn't know how to have fun just like her sister Suzy." "And that's when she went on a tirade?" "Yeah, I was about to leave her since it isn't my idea of a good time to be ranted at and insulted, but she grabbed my arm and practically forced me to listen. She went on about you being good and perfect and never doing anything wrong. Basically she said all this stuff about you as if they were supposed to be bad things, but I didn't see it. I guess that just made her even madder so she eventually told me to fuck off and later on I saw her leave with that group I mentioned earlier." "Yeah sounds like her. (Sigh) I jut hope she hasn't gone and done anything more stupid than usual. Family. What can ya do?" you say. "Heh, don't need to tell me. I had an older sister just like your younger one. Partied all the time, lot of sex, lot of drugs, pissed my mom off something fierce when we were still living with her." Johnny says continuing to pick up cans and placing them in a bag. "Oh I got an older sister too, but she's even worse than Donna." "Party girl too huh?" "No, she's just a fucking sadistic bully. Had to put up with her abuse for years." "Your older sister sounds like my mother." While the tone of his voice reflects no anger though, you notice when Johnny mentions that, his hand crushes one of the beer cans he has. He looks at it briefly and then tosses it in the bag. You wonder if you should stop talking altogether, but Johnny has already noticed that you've been staring at what he's done. "Sorry, bad memories. I didn't meant to scare you there." Johnny says. "I wasn't scared, just more surprised. We can get off the topic of families." "Heh, actually I was thinking we were kind of bonding a bit. Sounds like both of us come from fucked up families. Probably made us stronger right?" "I dunno. I mean I suppose I've survived, not sure if that's the same thing. I mean this is like the second day I've spent away from home. I only moved out yesterday and only then due to being under duress from my sister Kelly. I've always been a bit introverted and spent most of my life avoiding the outside world." "Eh, you're not missing much. To be honest, I'm almost jealous you managed to do it for so long. I'm a bit of an introvert too, but occasionally I to mix with the crowd as it were. Just to see if I feel any different. Hence one of the reasons why I came to your friend's party last night." "And?" "And, I don't feel any different. Just like I figured. It's like I spoke with several other people last night even before your sister and everyone was just...dull...boring...like they were just empty shells. Like they weren't even real people to me. To be quite honest before your sister started complaining about you to me, I was getting bored and nearly left the party." Johnny says as he motions over to a few of the sleeping lumps still in the living room. "What about your friend that you came with?" "Oh him? I came here independently of him. Hell, he didn't even show up. Really, he's more of an acquaintance than a friend anyway..." Johnny's eyes sort of glaze over when he says this and he breaks in the middle of his sentence. Almost like he's in a different "place." ' "Johnny?" you say. "Hrm? Sorry, I just kind of spaced out there. Anyway as I was saying, you haven't missed much by not being a social butterfly, I think this group here is proof of that. And as far as not being strong, you're stronger than you think. Despite coming from a dysfunctional family, you haven't succumbed to drug and sex filled escapism like your younger sister and you obviously haven't grown to become a mean bully like your older sister. The fact that you told me you spent the night consoling your best friend rather than indulging in some sort of meaningless hedonistic pleasure tells me that you're a kind and gentle soul. That's a rarity in this shitty world." You have to admit, as strange as this Johnny is, you do get the sense he's being genuine when he says this to you. "Well thank you Johnny." You say. Just as you're about to converse more with him, you hear some loud noise coming from the second floor. You hear a man's voice and a female voice, and then a very familiar voice. Sounds like Julie and it sounds like she's gone back to distracting herself from last night's concerns. "Oh yes! Ohhhh yeah! Give it to me daddy!" you hear Julie scream. A little disturbing choice of words considering what you both talked about last night. Some of the people sleeping in the living room are even awakened by this. One of them looks at his watch and immediately runs out the front door like he's late for something. A couple of others return to sleep. "Sounds like your friend is feeling better." Johnny says a little disdainfully. "Mm, well she always was one to get over things quickly. Well looks like we're all done in this room anyway." "Yeah, hey why don't you take a break? I mean obviously we don't need to clean this place spotlessly. Your friend Julie is just going to have another party tonight right?" Johnny says. "True. Yeah, I guess you're right. No point in me cleaning especially if Julie isn't even going to be helping anymore, but what about you?" you ask. "Me? Well I'm just going to dump out the trash and maybe pick up a few more of the bottles in the kitchen on the way. I'll probably also take another pursue down in the basement. It was a mess down there, but I think I cleaned most of it. Nearly tripped on a bad step down there though. Anyway then I guess I'll head home, I need the sleep anyway seeing as I haven't been yet." "You didn't sleep here?" "Nope. I've been awake the whole time, but I find I'm more of a night owl and don't sleep much anyway." "Well I understand that, but I'm just surprised you stayed. You told me you were getting bored with the party and were about to go home at one point." "Ah, but I also mentioned that after your sister complained about you to me, my interest was increased." Johnny says. You pause because you almost can't believe what he's implying. "Wait a minute. Are you saying you just stayed at the party through the night AND this morning just to meet me at some point? Just solely based on what my sister bitched about to you?" "What can I say? You sounded interesting and after speaking with you I can see I wasn't wrong." Johnny smiles and you smile with a nervous laugh. On one hand it's a little stalkerish and combined with Johnny's oddness, he's starting to come off a lot creepier. On the other hand, in a strange way you're sort of flattered. You always did attract the weird ones Suzy. "Wow...I'm not exactly sure what to say to that." You say. "No need to say anything. The pleasure of speaking with you is all mine. Oh but one more thing, did you want me to get rid of these useless sloths still sleeping in the living room before I leave?" "Well, they're probably just going to be here for tonight's party, so might as well just leave 'em I suppose. No need to trouble yourself." "Okay then, as I said, it was nice talking with you Suzy." "It was...interesting talking with you too Johnny." You reply back and head towards your room as Johnny starts taking a couple of garbage bags to the kitchen. What a strange person. Even stranger is that your self-esteem has been a little boosted by Johnny's stalkerish behavior. Before Johnny's praising of you, in the back of your mind you were still a little upset about Bobby and starting to realize you were alone again. Not that you had any major problems with being alone and you're certainly used to it, but it still was nice to have a boyfriend every now and then. After Johnny going on about how most people suck and putting you on a minor pedestal you don't feel as bad anymore about Bobby. Screw him right? He's the one missing out. You enter your room and lock your door fully content on tuning out the rest of the world like you always do. You go back to fucking around on the Internet, playing games and when the mood strikes you, getting out your mechanical "boyfriend" who never disappoints you. Hours pass... Eventually the silence from outside your door becomes less silent. Looks like Julie's party is getting started or at least getting louder. You don't really pay it too much mind as you pretty much managed to block it somewhat yesterday, but then you get a knock on the door. "Julie?" you ask instinctively. "Um, no it's me." A familiar voice answers. "Johnny?" you say and then slowly get up to answer the door. You open it up a little and see Johnny standing before you (Along with some party people passing by in the hallway). "Hi again." He says with a brief smile. "What are you doing here? Did you even go home?" you ask. "Oh yeah, I did, but just as I was finishing up in the kitchen, your friend Julie had come in to get some more booze. She mentioned that she appreciated my cleaning up and invited me back for tonight's party. So I came back." "Really?" "Well technically she also invited me to come join her and the couple up in her room, but I declined as you might aspect. Not an orgy guy." "Yeah, which is why I'm really wondering why you came back at all. I mean I have to live here, but this really isn't your thing. You said as much earlier today." "I know what I said...but I also said..." Johnny's expression becomes... not quite flustered, not quite angry, but more like he's having a hard time and you've just put him on the spot. "(Sigh) Look. This is really difficult for me. I'm probably coming off like a creepy stalker and god knows you probably get a lot of guys hitting on you...but I like you. I know that sounds like third grade shit, but there it is. I really like you and I'd like to get to know you better. That's why I came back tonight." Oddly that was honest enough to actually be kind of charming. Lot better than the "Show us your tits" pick up line that you've heard before. Then again, Johnny is still pretty damn weird and much like how you didn't want to lead on Julie; you don't necessarily want to lead Johnny on either. > Decline As charmingly strange as Johnny's awkwardness is you're still not quite ready to go jumping into a relationship with another guy. "That's sweet Johnny. Really it is. It's just... I'm not looking for another relationship right now. I just broke up with my boyfriend and I think I need to be by myself for a while." You say. "Boyfriend? I see. I suppose a pretty girl like you would have a lot of them." Johnny says. You notice his tone sort of becomes "flat" when he says this. "Pfft hardly. He was my first and only one." You say. And as quickly as his demeanor changed before, it changes AGAIN just as quickly. Before you got the impression he was almost pissed upon hearing you even HAD a boyfriend despite the fact he was your ex. After your additional information, it's almost like he's perked up again. "Ah, okay...I understand. First love and lost. Been there before. Say no more, I'll leave you be. It was a long shot anyway." Just as Johnny is about to leave, you sort of feel like you should say something helpful. "Johnny?" "Yes, Suzy?" "You're a good guy Johnny, and I'm sure there's some girl out there for you." "I know, but she probably killed herself when she found out I was the guy for her." Johnny says with a small chuckle. "Anyway, thank you for being upfront and trying to be encouraging. I must say though, whoever your ex was, he must've been an idiot to let you get away." You watch as Johnny disappears into the crowd and you shut your door. Having dealt with your momentary break up of your usual routine, you briefly check your phone for the time and to see if maybe your sister tried to call (You still think she probably got hauled in by the cops) but nobody has called. Having little else to do, you go back to what you were doing before. Hours pass and you start to get hungry which unfortunately means you're going to have to brave going out there and raiding the kitchen assuming there's even anything in there. You exit your room and find that the party is still as lively as ever. Nobody pays too much attention to you as you creep through the crowd. The kitchen is a complete wreck. You don't exactly know what went on in here, but there is some guy lying face down on a broken kitchen table. His head is bleeding and there are several broken beer bottles all over the floor. You almost hesitate to step inside the room, though there are a couple of other people just standing around in the kitchen drinking as if nothing was wrong. "Jesus Christ." You say. "Does that guy need an ambulance?" you ask. Eventually one of the people in the kitchen realizes you were asking them. "Hrm? Oh him? Yeah he's fine. Just got drunk, got into a fight and then well as you can see he wasn't the winner. He does this all the time." A girl says in a bored tone. "Yeah well I'd appreciate it, if he and whoever else was involved hadn't wrecked the goddamn kitchen in the process!" "What's the big deal and what concern is it of yours? It's Julie's kitchen and she won't care." "I happen to live here so it actually is somewhat of my concern, and where is Julie anyway?" "I dunno. Probably getting fucked as usual. Still don't know why you're worried about it. Besides some weird guy said he was getting something to clean up the mess anyway." The girl says and goes back to talking with the guy she was previously talking to. "Weird guy?" you say to yourself. "Hey, Suzy." You turn around and see Johnny behind you with a broom, a dustpan and some sort of cleaning product. "Johnny, what are you still doing...wait, have you been lingering all night around hoping that I might come out of my room?" Johnny looks away a bit as if you hit the nail on the head. "Well...actually at first I was kind of hoping that maybe you'd change your mind and come running out of your room to find me. A silly storybook fantasy really...but then after about an hour of indulging in that delusion I realized I needed to accept reality. I was going to leave, but then I suddenly got offered a video game controller from a guy that stopped playing, so I started playing. I ended up getting sort of wrapped up in the game, shooting people in the face, murdering hookers and such. Sort of fun, and made me feel better." Johnny passes you by and starts sweeping up broken glass and continues talking. "After my escapism with virtual violence then I decided to go home, but then I heard about a fight going on in the kitchen so I decided to be a spectator, but by the time I got here, it was already over and the winner went out the back door. I didn't think it was right to just leave your kitchen like this even if nobody else cared, so I tried to find your friend Julie because I didn't want to bother you again since you made your feelings quite clear to me and I didn't want to look like a stalker." "A little late for that, Johnny." You say. "Heh, well anyway I couldn't find her. I asked around and someone said she left wit ha couple guys. So not knowing what else to do, I just decided to clean up the mess myself before I left." "Wait a minute, are you telling me Julie isn't here for her own fucking party?" "Uh, no it appears she isn't." It's one thing to have to put up with the parties when she's actually here, but if she's not even going to be here then why the hell do you have to still put up with it? So much for Julie's sob story about going to turn over a new leaf after your talk. You're annoyed and to top it off you're still really hungry. "Goddamnit all I wanted to do is get some food from the fucking kitchen..." you say. "Did you want me to order a pizza for you?" "I don't have any money." "So? I got some money, I'll be happy to buy you a pizza, I'll get you a drink too." Actually you don't have anything against Johnny's offer, but you're hesitant to accept. "Johnny, I'll accept your offer, BUT I don't want YOU to get it in your head that I owe you something because of it." "Thought never crossed my mind." Johnny says. He doesn't even seem hurt by your implication. "Okay. Sorry, I got a little authoritative there." "No, no, I get it. It's smart for you to lay that out there immediately. Anyway I'll call up the place and I'll get it to you when it's here. In the meantime you can go back and relax in your room if you wish." Johnny says continuing to sweep. "Oh. Um okay. Thanks. Hey, do you think we should call an ambulance for that guy on the floor?" you ask Johnny. "Him? Nah, he's fine. I actually checked him soon after I came in here. Really I would've rolled him over on his back, but with all the broken glass on the floor I probably would've done more harm. Anyway I got this, don't worry." Johnny says. Well he might be a weird guy who seems creepy at times and is definitely stalking you a bit, but at least he's helpful which is more that can be said for Julie who has seemingly just abandoned her own party. You try to call her up, but you get no answer, but you weren't really expecting one anyway. Still it is weird that she left. Julie's always been irresponsible, but she's like you in that she barely ever leaves the house. After all, why would she go get fucked, drunk and high elsewhere when she can do it right here? In any case, she'll probably be back, and you go back to wasting your time on the Internet. After a half hour passes and there's a knock on the door. "Pizza delivery." Johnny says. "Okay." You answer and get up to open the door. "Here you go. I ordered a standard pepperoni and cheese pizza and got you Coke. Hope that's okay, since I forgot to ask what you like." "It's fine. Thank you." "Alright then, I'll leave you be." Johnny says starting to leave. You don't know what it is about this guy but... "Hey Johnny, did you want some pizza?" "Huh? Oh, nah. I'm good. I ate a little earlier. I don't tend to eat much anyway." "Hm, don't eat much, don't sleep much. You sure you're human?" you half joke. This causes an unusual guffaw of laughter that you didn't expect from him. "I sometimes wonder that myself." He says still chuckling. "Enjoy the rest of your evening Suzy." Johnny once again disappears into the crowd in the living room and you lock your door. The rest of your night is pretty much eating your pizza, drinking your coke, taking a quick shower and then eventually settling in for the night. You have no idea if the part is still going on outside, but the noise has decreased a little, so maybe it's starting to wind down. Well at least you don't need to share your bed this time. > Next day… You wake up to the hum of a vacuum passing the outside your door. You shake your head, because you know who that probably is. You check your phone for the time and see that you've slept through the morning as usual and nobody has called. As you go through your bathroom routine of brushing your teeth and such, you ponder on whether or not you should check how trashed the house is or just stay in your room and not deal with it. Ultimately you decide to check despite not really wanting to. Besides Johnny is obviously out there and you're going to have to do something about him. You exit your room and find that the hallway is fairly clean and the hum of the vacuum is now coming from the living room. "At it again are you Johnny?" you say walking into the living room. The living room is spotless and you notice that unlike the last time you don't see anyone flopped out on the floor or sofa. "Hi Suzy, did you sleep well last night?" Johnny asks while turning off the vacuum. "Yeah. So did Julie ever come back?" "Nope, I never saw her again. Guess she might've stayed the night somewhere else." "(Sigh) I see. Is there anyone else here?" "Nope, you'll be pleased to know that I eventually managed to kick everyone out of the house, of course some just left anyway, but I figured you'd be glad to not have your home resemble a flophouse when you woke up." "Wait, so are you telling me there's nobody else here?" "Nope, except me of course." That makes you feel a little uneasy. "Uh...okay..." you say and start backing away a bit. You briefly wonder how fast you could run to the back door and escape and then you wonder if you could run into your room and grab that pistol that's still in Julie's dad's desk. Johnny already senses your distress. "Shit. I've done it again. I've made you uncomfortable. I'm sorry Suzy, I just...I dunno. I don't mean to be creepy, I just wanted to make things nice for you." Johnny says and actually starts walking backwards from you in an effort to put you more at ease. "Johnny, I know you mean well and I know that you like me, but like I said, I'm just not ready for anyone right now." "I know, I know, I know you said so before...but how can I win your heart if I don't continue to try? Couldn't we at least just talk more? I mean we really haven't gotten to talk a lot one on one with just us around." Johnny says. "Johnny..." you start to say, but then you're interrupted from something loud outside. "What the hell..." Johnny says and walks over to one of the windows to peek. "Holy shit, there's a bunch of military guys, a couple of military trucks and even an A.P.C. coming down the street!" Johnny remarks. At first you can't believe him, but that soon disappears when a loudspeaker is heard. Well that is certainly something you didn't expect. You also don't know what you're going to do. Why is this town under marshal law? What the hell is going on? While you're not sure of why this is happening, Johnny has some thoughts on the matter though. "Wow, I really hope this isn't something serious, like some biological weapon or something...but then I've been watching the news while vacuuming and there's been no emergency broadcast about such a thing or anything. Just those Ground Zero infomercials, which have been increasing as of late." Johnny turns back to you. "Well anyway, I suppose one upside to all this. With us being stuck inside, we can talk and get to know each other better like I was suggesting before." Johnny remarks. While Johnny has been just slightly on the side of creepy there actually is no proof that he isn't just someone that lacks proper social skills and is a bit head over heels for you. And considering your last boyfriend was going around sacrificing people and could be very outwardly charming and charismatic, the way someone acts isn't necessarily who they really are deep down inside. Maybe if you did get to know Johnny a bit better, you might feel different. Not ready to spread your legs different, but if you like what you hear he might actually make that step towards "winning your heart" as he put it. (Something about that phrase sounded so quaint that it actually was endearing) "Oh...all right. It's not like I've got anything better to do at this point, but I'm warning you, don't get the wrong impression. This isn't a date or anything." You say. "No, no, I got it. I just want a chance that's all." After you sit on the living room couch and motion that he sit in the chair you begin. "Okay then...well what should we talk about first? It isn't like I'm usually that much of a conversationalist myself." You say. "Well what do you like?" Johhny asks. A general question, but a perfectly reasonable one for getting straight to the point on wanting to know more about someone. The funny thing is there isn't much about you to know. Since you don't get out much, you don't DO much. The only time you did get out a little more was when you were with Bobby, and you can't very well talk about shit you did with your ex. So you mention hobbies such as watching movies, playing games, and reading shit on the Internet. (You leave out masturbation) Sounds like a pretty dull life to the average person, but Johnny doesn't seem to care. "You don't find what I said boring?" you ask. "Simple perhaps, but I wouldn't say boring. Are you happy?" "Well I was happier when I could live in my basement and not have to deal with the rest of the world, and it would've been nicer to not have to put up with Kelly, but yeah I suppose I was happy just living like that." "Then that's all that matters. Me? I've been sort of drifting from place to place ever since I left home. To be honest it would be nice to have some place to call a permanent home, but something always happens and I end up having to move on again. As you might aspect I've had several lines of employment, I'm not rich but I suppose I at least know a little bit of everything to make a living." "Sounds like you've had way more luck in that department at least. I'm flat broke and can't even get a job. So why did you leave home in the first place?" "It was time. Really don't want to go back either. Not fond of the memories... so hey did you hear from your sister? I mean did she call or leave a message or something?" Johnny asks, changing the topic. "Nope, and now with this marshal law thing going on, I'm a little concerned about her. Julie too. Who knows where the hell either of them are. I'm even wondering if I should call my brother Peter to see if things are all right with him, though I imagine he's probably fine." "You have a brother too? Wow, two sisters and a brother. You have a big family." "I actually had an older brother Ben as well, but he died." "Oh? Sorry to hear that. Should I ask how?" "He killed his family and then blew his brains out in our house." You say. "Wait...what? Why?" Johnny says a bit off guard. "Well I wasn't there for the final show, but he apparently thought the government was coming to get him and that it would be better if he killed his wife and son rather than they get captured and brainwashed. Something like that. He always was paranoid and just got worse as he got older." "I see. And you say there was no truth to his stories about the government?" "Of course not." "Are you sure? I mean just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean that they aren't still trying to get you." "Pretty sure if he was that much of a threat to the government they would've assassinated him long before he killed himself. And even if they were out to get him, there wasn't any need for him to kill his wife and kid." "Well I guess I can just see it from his point of view. He genuinely believed in his mind that the government was going to get him and seeing it as a losing battle and not wanting to lose those he loved to the enemy, his act of killing them was out of love. Kind of romantic really." Johnny is so deadpan, you think he's attempting some sort of dark humor, but you realize he's being completely serious. Somehow you're not really surprised. "...yeah well I'm just glad he didn't love me then..." you remark. "I'm glad that's the case too." Johnny says with a smile. "So what about you? You said you had a mother and an older sister." You ask. "Oh them. Eh, not much to tell I suppose. Like I said yesterday, your younger sister sounds very much like my older one, and your older sister sounds very much like my mother." "You mother participated in illegal underground fight clubs and roller derby races?" "No. Wait, your sister really does all that?" Johnny asks. "Yeah, so what makes your mom so bad?" "Very domineering. Verbally abusive, sometimes physically. Emotionally too I guess." "What about your father?" "Dunno, never knew him. Took off before I was born. My sister is only one year older than me, so she doesn't remember him either. Just know that my mom hated his guts. Didn't keep any pictures of him. What about yours?" "Eh, he was a travelling lightning rod salesman, so it was like he was never home. When mom died of the flesh-eating virus though he was practically home all the time and just gradually drank himself to death over the years. Still wasn't really there for any of us." Johnny nods and continues the conversation. "After hearing about your family...I'm starting to wonder if I really had it all that bad and perhaps I just think I did." "What do you mean?" "Well like I said, my mother was very domineering, but I pretty much did what my mom said. I mean I hate to say I was a mama's boy, but I didn't really step out of line compared to my sister." "Heh, sounds a little like me. Did pretty much what my mom told me too though she was the nicest one in my family. She probably was a little too sheltering of me though." You go on a bit more about your mother since you're actually enjoying remembering the good times you did have with her. Johnny listens intently. Most of the time he looks like he's displaying happiness because you're mentioning positive memories, but sometimes you catch a glimpse of him looking away from you as if he's in another place. "She sounds like a very nice person and I can see where you get your kind qualities from. Sorry to hear that she died in such an awful way...just yet another example of how you've overcome so much hardship in your life." Now Johnny looks as if he's completely gone to another place. He stares downward vacantly, if he was staring in your direction, you'd feel like he would be staring through you. "Johnny? Johnny? You with me?" you say. Takes him a few moments, but eventually he answers. "I'm not feeling...myself... I should go." "What? Go? Where are you going to go? Are you sick?" Once again Johnny doesn't answer right away. "Yes." He answers. The monotone voice he answers with, isn't exactly relaxing and you get the strong impression when he acknowledged that he's sick, he didn't mean physically. He starts to get up, and he wobbles a bit. At first you think maybe he is physically sick, but then he also said he was tired. Considering he was cleaning up earlier, he probably never went home and stayed up all night again. "Johnny you can't go out there, especially in your condition. The National Guard is out there, remember?" "I'm not worried about some weekend warriors, I can be stealthy when I want to be. I'm just glad you gave me a chance Suzy, but I fear I've wasted your time. I'm sorry." Johnny says and then attempts to walk out the front door, but his balance isn't the best. You aren't sure what's going on with Johnny right now, but it's even weirder than usual. > You let him leave As much you don't necessarily relish the idea of possibly sending a man to his death, he's not your responsibility and it's already weird he's been sticking around when there isn't anyone else here maybe it would be best if you let him leave especially if he's implying that he's mentally ill. Besides if he claims he can sneak past the National Guard, then who are you to disbelieve him. "Okay, but you probably should go out the backdoor at least." You say. "Yeah, good idea. You're so thoughtful to look out for my well being. I just wish...things could've been different..." Johhny says and starts stumbling back towards the kitchen. You follow Johnny just to make sure he doesn't fall or something similar. When you reach the kitchen you're impressed with how clean it is. You'd never know there was a drunk fool lying on a broken table yesterday. "How the hell did you get this so clean?" you ask. "Oh, I'm very (yawn) good at cleaning. Always have been. There's also some pizza and another drink for you in the fridge. I got an (yawn) extra one yesterday in case you got hungry today. Don't worry, I made sure nobody touched it." "Wow Johnny, that was pretty thoughtful. Thank you." "No problem. I just hope someone will be as good to you as you deserve. Goodbye Suzy." Johnny says and walks out the backdoor. You walk to the door and peer out the window to see if he's going to jump the fence, but you see him walk around the house. You hope he isn't going to try to go through the front gate again and is just going to cut through a neighbor's yard. You run back to a couple of other rooms peering out windows, but you don't see him anymore. You look out one of the front windows and he's not out there either. He must've already made his escape you guess or at least you hope so. Lacking any other ideas of what to do at this particular time, you grab the pizza and drink from the fridge and head back to your room. You also attempt to call up Donna, Julie and even Peter to see if you can find out more information on their situations, but you get no answer from any of them. After passing some time on your laptop, you suddenly hear a loud banging on a door. Not the door to your room, but somewhere in the house. Upon exiting your room, it sounds like its coming from the front door. You remember that the loudspeaker from earlier did say there was going to be a government representative coming to visit the houses in the neighborhood. You head to the living room and look through the door window and see a well-dressed man and one soldier at the door. Since you get the impression the government will most likely just break the door down if you don't answer the best thing you can do is be polite and accommodating. You grab the handle... "Greetings miss. I'm Mr. Zoll and I've been assigned to be the government representative for this area. May we come in?" Mr. Zoll asks, though it's pretty obvious that this is more of a polite formality rather than asking permission. "Of course." You answer and let Mr. Zoll and his soldier companion in. Mr. Zoll sits on the chair while his soldier buddy stands nearby and you sit on the other side of the couch and ask what all this is about. "My name's Suzy, so how can we help exactly?" you ask. "Well, before we start I know this isn't an ideal situation. You're probably already concerned about what's going on and why this town is under marshal law in the first place." Mr. Zoll answers. "It is all a bit worrying." You reply. "I'm sure. Unfortunately I can't talk about it too much, however I'm sure you're aware that this town has experienced a vast increase in criminal activity and rioting. More than your police force can handle. So until we get the situation under control again, we're here to stay." "Well I certainly can understand that. I haven't experienced any criminal activity in this neighborhood though, well at least not to my knowledge." "Hmm, yes this is one of the quieter ones. Some places I'm hearing about are pretty bad. Anyway I'd like to ask a few questions before deciding if we need to search this house further." "Oh. Um, okay then. I have nothing to hide." "Good glad to... hear it." Mr. Zoll says. "So do you own this place?" "My friend Julie does." "Oh? You're not the owner? Where is this Julie?" "Uh, don't know. She skipped out on her own party yesterday and never came back home. She's a bit of a free spirit." "Hmmm..." Mr. Zoll says and begins to write something down. "Why are you writing? Did I say something wrong? I mean not that I meant to say anything is wrong, that is. Everything is just fine! Ha ha." Mr. Zoll's staring and questioning makes you nervous and now Mr. Zoll is looking at you a bit mistrustfully. He thinks something is wrong and now that you're shifting a bit uncomfortably, he starts to think you're covering up something even though you aren't! "Okay, you know what. I think it'll be easier to just give a brief search of the house." Mr. Zoll says standing up to say. "Um, all right then. I have nothing to hide as I said." You say. Mr. Zoll tells his man to go take a quick look through all the rooms while the two of you stay in the living room. The soldier nods and follows his orders. He first goes upstairs and looks through. You half expect him to find a stash of drugs in Julie or Donna's room, but he either doesn't or that isn't their primary concern. Next the soldier comes back downstairs and searches the ground floor, but once again finds nothing that is going to get you into trouble. "Searched everywhere sir, well except the basement." The soldier says when he comes back. "Well you might as well search that too." Mr. Zoll remarks. The soldier nods and heads back towards the hallway. You hear the door open to the basement and then a few footsteps going down and then nothing. You and Mr. Zoll sit in silence for a while. You don't say anything, in fact you don't even look in his direction for fear of giving Mr. Zoll an excuse to do something else which might not be as pleasant as a simple search. "Where the hell is he...shouldn't be taking this long... Jacobs! Jacobs! Did you find anything?! Because if not, we've got other houses to go to!" Mr. Zoll shouts. There is no answer. Mr. Zoll calls again and still nothing. Mr. Zoll looks at you as if it's your fault. "Is there someone down there?" Mr. Zoll asks. "What? No! I mean isn't your man Jacobs the only one down there?" you say nervously. "That's what I'm asking you...let's go find out shall we?" Mr. Zoll says and then turns your nervousness into flat out fear by suddenly pulling out a pistol from his suit pocket. You put up your hands and attempt to say you have no idea what's going on, but Mr. Zoll won't hear it, he's convinced you're hiding someone in the basement and you're going first down there. He also tells you to be completely quiet and not make any fuss or else he's just going to shoot you on the spot and have a squad come in and burn this place to the ground. Meekly you comply and you head towards the basement with Mr. Zoll pointing his gun at you from behind. You reach the bottom of the stairs and you notice blood on the floor nearby and then suddenly a knife is plunged into your throat from an arm around the corner. You fall to the floor in what almost feels like slow motion as you gurgle your last words and breathe your last breaths. With your last vision from the cold basement floor, you think you see Johnny standing over you. You can't hear him, but he's obvious upset when he sees you. Then you see a burst of blood come out of his head and then you feel the heavy weight of his body collapse on top of you before the darkness envelopes your world.

[Themes: modern, horror, serious] You wake up to the hum of a vacuum passing the outside your door. You shake your head, because you know who that probably is. You check your phone for the time and see that you've slept through the morning as usual and nobody has called. As you go through your bathroom routine of brushing your teeth and such, you ponder on whether or not you should check how trashed the house is or just stay in your room and not deal with it. Ultimately you decide to check despite not really wanting to. Besides Johnny is obviously out there and you're going to have to do something about him. You exit your room and find that the hallway is fairly clean and the hum of the vacuum is now coming from the living room. "At it again are you Johnny?" you say walking into the living room. The living room is spotless and you notice that unlike the last time you don't see anyone flopped out on the floor or sofa. "Hi Suzy, did you sleep well last night?" Johnny asks while turning off the vacuum. "Yeah. So did Julie ever come back?" "Nope, I never saw her again. Guess she might've stayed the night somewhere else." "(Sigh) I see. Is there anyone else here?" "Nope, you'll be pleased to know that I eventually managed to kick everyone out of the house, of course some just left anyway, but I figured you'd be glad to not have your home resemble a flophouse when you woke up." "Wait, so are you telling me there's nobody else here?" "Nope, except me of course." That makes you feel a little uneasy. "Uh...okay..." you say and start backing away a bit. You briefly wonder how fast you could run to the back door and escape and then you wonder if you could run into your room and grab that pistol that's still in Julie's dad's desk. Johnny already senses your distress. "Shit. I've done it again. I've made you uncomfortable. I'm sorry Suzy, I just...I dunno. I don't mean to be creepy, I just wanted to make things nice for you." Johnny says and actually starts walking backwards from you in an effort to put you more at ease. "Johnny, I know you mean well and I know that you like me, but like I said, I'm just not ready for anyone right now." "I know, I know, I know you said so before...but how can I win your heart if I don't continue to try? Couldn't we at least just talk more? I mean we really haven't gotten to talk a lot one on one with just us around." Johnny says. "Johnny..." you start to say, but then you're interrupted from something loud outside. "What the hell..." Johnny says and walks over to one of the windows to peek. "Holy shit, there's a bunch of military guys, a couple of military trucks and even an A.P.C. coming down the street!" Johnny remarks. At first you can't believe him, but that soon disappears when a loudspeaker is heard. Well that is certainly something you didn't expect. You also don't know what you're going to do. Why is this town under marshal law? What the hell is going on? While you're not sure of why this is happening, Johnny has some thoughts on the matter though. "Wow, I really hope this isn't something serious, like some biological weapon or something...but then I've been watching the news while vacuuming and there's been no emergency broadcast about such a thing or anything. Just those Ground Zero infomercials, which have been increasing as of late." Johnny turns back to you. "Well anyway, I suppose one upside to all this. With us being stuck inside, we can talk and get to know each other better like I was suggesting before." Johnny remarks. While Johnny has been just slightly on the side of creepy there actually is no proof that he isn't just someone that lacks proper social skills and is a bit head over heels for you. And considering your last boyfriend was going around sacrificing people and could be very outwardly charming and charismatic, the way someone acts isn't necessarily who they really are deep down inside. Maybe if you did get to know Johnny a bit better, you might feel different. Not ready to spread your legs different, but if you like what you hear he might actually make that step towards "winning your heart" as he put it. (Something about that phrase sounded so quaint that it actually was endearing) "Oh...all right. It's not like I've got anything better to do at this point, but I'm warning you, don't get the wrong impression. This isn't a date or anything." You say. "No, no, I got it. I just want a chance that's all." After you sit on the living room couch and motion that he sit in the chair you begin. "Okay then...well what should we talk about first? It isn't like I'm usually that much of a conversationalist myself." You say. "Well what do you like?" Johhny asks. A general question, but a perfectly reasonable one for getting straight to the point on wanting to know more about someone. The funny thing is there isn't much about you to know. Since you don't get out much, you don't DO much. The only time you did get out a little more was when you were with Bobby, and you can't very well talk about shit you did with your ex. So you mention hobbies such as watching movies, playing games, and reading shit on the Internet. (You leave out masturbation) Sounds like a pretty dull life to the average person, but Johnny doesn't seem to care. "You don't find what I said boring?" you ask. "Simple perhaps, but I wouldn't say boring. Are you happy?" "Well I was happier when I could live in my basement and not have to deal with the rest of the world, and it would've been nicer to not have to put up with Kelly, but yeah I suppose I was happy just living like that." "Then that's all that matters. Me? I've been sort of drifting from place to place ever since I left home. To be honest it would be nice to have some place to call a permanent home, but something always happens and I end up having to move on again. As you might aspect I've had several lines of employment, I'm not rich but I suppose I at least know a little bit of everything to make a living." "Sounds like you've had way more luck in that department at least. I'm flat broke and can't even get a job. So why did you leave home in the first place?" "It was time. Really don't want to go back either. Not fond of the memories... so hey did you hear from your sister? I mean did she call or leave a message or something?" Johnny asks, changing the topic. "Nope, and now with this marshal law thing going on, I'm a little concerned about her. Julie too. Who knows where the hell either of them are. I'm even wondering if I should call my brother Peter to see if things are all right with him, though I imagine he's probably fine." "You have a brother too? Wow, two sisters and a brother. You have a big family." "I actually had an older brother Ben as well, but he died." "Oh? Sorry to hear that. Should I ask how?" "He killed his family and then blew his brains out in our house." You say. "Wait...what? Why?" Johnny says a bit off guard. "Well I wasn't there for the final show, but he apparently thought the government was coming to get him and that it would be better if he killed his wife and son rather than they get captured and brainwashed. Something like that. He always was paranoid and just got worse as he got older." "I see. And you say there was no truth to his stories about the government?" "Of course not." "Are you sure? I mean just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean that they aren't still trying to get you." "Pretty sure if he was that much of a threat to the government they would've assassinated him long before he killed himself. And even if they were out to get him, there wasn't any need for him to kill his wife and kid." "Well I guess I can just see it from his point of view. He genuinely believed in his mind that the government was going to get him and seeing it as a losing battle and not wanting to lose those he loved to the enemy, his act of killing them was out of love. Kind of romantic really." Johnny is so deadpan, you think he's attempting some sort of dark humor, but you realize he's being completely serious. Somehow you're not really surprised. "...yeah well I'm just glad he didn't love me then..." you remark. "I'm glad that's the case too." Johnny says with a smile. "So what about you? You said you had a mother and an older sister." You ask. "Oh them. Eh, not much to tell I suppose. Like I said yesterday, your younger sister sounds very much like my older one, and your older sister sounds very much like my mother." "You mother participated in illegal underground fight clubs and roller derby races?" "No. Wait, your sister really does all that?" Johnny asks. "Yeah, so what makes your mom so bad?" "Very domineering. Verbally abusive, sometimes physically. Emotionally too I guess." "What about your father?" "Dunno, never knew him. Took off before I was born. My sister is only one year older than me, so she doesn't remember him either. Just know that my mom hated his guts. Didn't keep any pictures of him. What about yours?" "Eh, he was a travelling lightning rod salesman, so it was like he was never home. When mom died of the flesh-eating virus though he was practically home all the time and just gradually drank himself to death over the years. Still wasn't really there for any of us." Johnny nods and continues the conversation. "After hearing about your family...I'm starting to wonder if I really had it all that bad and perhaps I just think I did." "What do you mean?" "Well like I said, my mother was very domineering, but I pretty much did what my mom said. I mean I hate to say I was a mama's boy, but I didn't really step out of line compared to my sister." "Heh, sounds a little like me. Did pretty much what my mom told me too though she was the nicest one in my family. She probably was a little too sheltering of me though." You go on a bit more about your mother since you're actually enjoying remembering the good times you did have with her. Johnny listens intently. Most of the time he looks like he's displaying happiness because you're mentioning positive memories, but sometimes you catch a glimpse of him looking away from you as if he's in another place. "She sounds like a very nice person and I can see where you get your kind qualities from. Sorry to hear that she died in such an awful way...just yet another example of how you've overcome so much hardship in your life." Now Johnny looks as if he's completely gone to another place. He stares downward vacantly, if he was staring in your direction, you'd feel like he would be staring through you. "Johnny? Johnny? You with me?" you say. Takes him a few moments, but eventually he answers. "I'm not feeling...myself... I should go." "What? Go? Where are you going to go? Are you sick?" Once again Johnny doesn't answer right away. "Yes." He answers. The monotone voice he answers with, isn't exactly relaxing and you get the strong impression when he acknowledged that he's sick, he didn't mean physically. He starts to get up, and he wobbles a bit. At first you think maybe he is physically sick, but then he also said he was tired. Considering he was cleaning up earlier, he probably never went home and stayed up all night again. "Johnny you can't go out there, especially in your condition. The National Guard is out there, remember?" "I'm not worried about some weekend warriors, I can be stealthy when I want to be. I'm just glad you gave me a chance Suzy, but I fear I've wasted your time. I'm sorry." Johnny says and then attempts to walk out the front door, but his balance isn't the best. You aren't sure what's going on with Johnny right now, but it's even weirder than usual. > You insist that he stay Weird or not, you're not going to just let him potentially get shot. "Johnny! You can't go out the front door! Look, just lie down on the couch okay? You can sleep here. It'll be all right." You say getting up and grabbing his arm. Johnny stares at your hand and then at your face. "Do you mean it?" Johnny asks. "Of course, I can't let you go out there and get shot. I mean if you still want to leave then at least wait until its night and you've had some sleep." You answer. "You're so...so perfect..." Johnny remarks and starts to head back towards the couch. You help Johnny back to the couch, and when he lies down he falls asleep almost immediately. "I...love you Suzy..." he says as he drifts off. Well there was nothing ambiguous about that. You start wondering if you should have your head examined for possibly enabling a possibly mentally unstable guy who's more than a little obsessed with you. "(Sigh) What the hell is wrong with you Suzy? First it was a cultist, now it's this stalker. Are you deliberately picking crazy people as potential boyfriend material?" you say to yourself. You stand over Johnny watching him sleep for more than a few minutes trying to figure out where you actually stand with this guy. As you do so you never noticed how cute he really is before. It's true that he's somewhat average looking, but maybe it's due to him being in a more vulnerable position that he's coming off as more attractive and not creepy. Not knowing what else to do, you turn down the TV (Which is blaring a Ground Zero infomercial as usual) and leave Johnny to sleep. You stop in the kitchen first in the hopes of maybe finding food before returning to your own room. "Wow, this place was a mess last night. How the hell did he get it so clean?" you say as the kitchen is indeed much tidier without drunken fools and broken tables lying on the floor. When you open up the refrigerator, you surprisingly find another pizza box, which has been marked with a note saying "Property of Suzy, don't touch!" Johnny must've ordered another one for you last night in case you got hungry later. That was pretty thoughtful, but what surprises you even more is its completely intact. "He probably was acting like a guard dog all night near the refrigerator in case someone tried to eat it." You laugh to yourself. Grabbing cold pizza and an unopened drink you head back to your room and lock the door. Still wondering about them, you call up Julie, Donna and even Peter, but you get no answer from any of them. Just as you briefly pondering about calling Kelly too, you hear a loud banging on a door. Not the door to your room, but somewhere in the house. Upon exiting your room, it sounds like its coming from the front door. You remember that the loudspeaker from earlier did say there was going to be a government representative coming to visit the houses in the neighborhood. You enter the living room and find Johnny awake again. He still looks pretty tired. "Wha...what's going on?" he asks, rubbing his eyes. "I think it's the government rep." you say, then you run over to the door and check through a window and see a well dressed man and one soldier at the door. You grab the handle... "Wait, you're just going to let them in?" Johnny asks. "Well I doubt if they're going to just go away. What can we do? Barricade ourselves in until they bash the door down? I don't like it either, but it isn't like we have too many options. Besides I don't have anything to hide, do you?" "No." Johnny replies. "Well there you go then, we might even be able to find out some answers too." You open up the door. "Greetings miss. I'm Mr. Zoll and I've been assigned to be the government representative for this area. May we come in?" Mr. Zoll asks, though it's pretty obvious that this is more of a polite formality rather than asking permission. "Of course." You answer and let Mr. Zoll and his soldier companion in. When you turn around you see that Johnny is sitting up on the couch, but is propping his head up on the armrest. He's still really sleepy so you're not surprised to see a bit of a scowl from him. You just hope the others don't take it the wrong way, but you figure as long as you're polite and upfront, you shouldn't have too many problems. Mr. Zoll sits on the chair while his soldier buddy stands nearby (eyeing Johnny mostly) you sit on the other side of the couch with a space between you and Johnny and ask what all this is about. "My name's Suzy, and that's Johnny over there. So how can we help exactly?" you ask. "Well, before we start I know this isn't an ideal situation. You're probably already concerned about what's going on and why this town is under marshal law in the first place." Mr. Zoll answers. "It is all a bit worrying." You reply. "I'm sure. Unfortunately I can't talk about it too much, however I'm sure you're aware that this town has experienced a vast increase in criminal activity and rioting. More than your police force can handle. So until we get the situation under control again, we're here to stay." "Well we certainly can understand that. We haven't experienced any criminal activity in this neighborhood though, well at least not to my knowledge." "Hmm, yes this is one of the quieter ones. Some places I'm hearing about are pretty bad. Anyway I'd like to ask a few questions before deciding if we need to search this house further." "Oh. Um, okay then. We have nothing to hide." "Good glad to... hear it." Mr. Zoll says glancing over at Johnny who is still alternating between being sleepy and unhappy about being awake. "So which one of you owns this place?" "My friend Julie." "Oh? Neither of you are the owner? Where is this Julie?" "Uh, don't know. She skipped out on her own party yesterday and never came back home. Isn't that what you said Johnny?" "Hrm. Yeah." Johnny mumbles. "I see..." Mr. Zoll says studying Johnny though you don't know why. It's making you nervous though. "Is this man your boyfriend?" Mr. Zoll suddenly asks. "Um...yes! Yes he is. He hasn't had much sleep. You see we had a party last night and he stayed up late cleaning up. He really shouldn't have, but that's just how he is!" you nervously laugh being completely caught off guard by the question. In your mind you already are regretting saying that since you've sent out more than enough mixed messages to Johnny. Though when you look over at Johnny he doesn't make any facial signs of a positive or negative nature, he's too busy on struggling to stay awake. Mr. Zoll is now looking at you a bit mistrustfully. He thinks something is wrong and now that you're shifting a bit uncomfortably, he starts to think you're covering up something even though you aren't! "Okay, you know what. I think it'll be easier to just give a brief search of the house." Mr. Zoll says standing up to say. "Um, all right then. We have nothing to hide as I said." You say. Johnny slightly awakens a bit at this remark, but otherwise he continues to say nothing. Mr. Zoll tells his man to go take a quick look through all the rooms while the three of you stay in the living room. The soldier nods and follows his orders. He first goes upstairs and looks through. You half expect him to find a stash of drugs in Julie or Donna's room, but he either doesn't or that isn't their primary concern. Next the soldier comes back downstairs and searches the ground floor, but once again finds nothing that is going to get you into trouble. Johnny briefly turns his head to watch the soldier as he moves back and forth up and down the hallway. "Searched everywhere sir, well except the basement." The soldier says when he comes back. "Well you might as well search that too." Mr. Zoll remarks. The soldier nods and heads back towards the hallway. Johnny doesn't look at the soldier this time, he just closes his eyes. You hear the door open to the basement and then a few footsteps going down, then all of a sudden... "Oh shit! That basement has a bad step!" Johnny exclaims and goes running down the hallway and shouts at the soldier. Mr. Zoll gets up and starts to yell at Johnny to come back and you call out to him as well. This is soon followed by both the soldier and Johnny yelling and then the sound of someone falling down the stairs. At this point you and Mr. Zoll both run towards the basement and there you see Johnny in the stairwell and the soldier crumpled in a heap at the bottom. His neck doesn't look like it's supposed to be twisted that way. "I...I tried to stop him from falling..." Johnny exclaims looking distressed. "His fucking neck is broken! I can see it from here! You killed him!" "I didn't! I tried to save him! I shouted about the step!" "Bullshit! And YOU'RE lying too!" Mr. Zoll says pointing to you as well. "Something fishy is going on here and I dunno what it is, but BOTH of you are going to pay for it!" Mr. Zoll reaches for something in his suit pocket... Panic washes over you and it's in situations like this that sometimes people either freeze up or make a rash decision. > You do nothing The panic is overwhelming and you completely freeze up. Even when Mr. Zoll pulls a pistol out of his pocket you still do nothing. It's like the next few moments are in slow motion to you. You watch Johnny attempt to run up the stairs, but Mr. Zoll turns quickly and fires two shots, one in Johnny's chest and another in his head. Johnny falls backwards down the stairs and his body falls in heap on top of the dead soldier. You don't even scream when seeing this, but your crippling frozen panic ends and you instantly make a run for it. Mr. Zoll attempt to grab you, but you're too fast. You actually get to the front door before you hear Mr. Zoll tell you to halt or he'll fire. You can't stop though, you're too afraid for your life. Upon opening the door, you feel a piece of hot lead going into your back and then another. You slump face first onto the front porch. Tears in your eyes and screaming from the pain you attempt to drag yourself forward, but it's all for naught. Mr. Zoll casually walks up to you and ends your suffering with a final bullet to the head.

[Themes: modern, post-apocalyptic, science fiction, serious] Weird or not, you're not going to just let him potentially get shot. "Johnny! You can't go out the front door! Look, just lie down on the couch okay? You can sleep here. It'll be all right." You say getting up and grabbing his arm. Johnny stares at your hand and then at your face. "Do you mean it?" Johnny asks. "Of course, I can't let you go out there and get shot. I mean if you still want to leave then at least wait until its night and you've had some sleep." You answer. "You're so...so perfect..." Johnny remarks and starts to head back towards the couch. You help Johnny back to the couch, and when he lies down he falls asleep almost immediately. "I...love you Suzy..." he says as he drifts off. Well there was nothing ambiguous about that. You start wondering if you should have your head examined for possibly enabling a possibly mentally unstable guy who's more than a little obsessed with you. "(Sigh) What the hell is wrong with you Suzy? First it was a cultist, now it's this stalker. Are you deliberately picking crazy people as potential boyfriend material?" you say to yourself. You stand over Johnny watching him sleep for more than a few minutes trying to figure out where you actually stand with this guy. As you do so you never noticed how cute he really is before. It's true that he's somewhat average looking, but maybe it's due to him being in a more vulnerable position that he's coming off as more attractive and not creepy. Not knowing what else to do, you turn down the TV (Which is blaring a Ground Zero infomercial as usual) and leave Johnny to sleep. You stop in the kitchen first in the hopes of maybe finding food before returning to your own room. "Wow, this place was a mess last night. How the hell did he get it so clean?" you say as the kitchen is indeed much tidier without drunken fools and broken tables lying on the floor. When you open up the refrigerator, you surprisingly find another pizza box, which has been marked with a note saying "Property of Suzy, don't touch!" Johnny must've ordered another one for you last night in case you got hungry later. That was pretty thoughtful, but what surprises you even more is its completely intact. "He probably was acting like a guard dog all night near the refrigerator in case someone tried to eat it." You laugh to yourself. Grabbing cold pizza and an unopened drink you head back to your room and lock the door. Still wondering about them, you call up Julie, Donna and even Peter, but you get no answer from any of them. Just as you briefly pondering about calling Kelly too, you hear a loud banging on a door. Not the door to your room, but somewhere in the house. Upon exiting your room, it sounds like its coming from the front door. You remember that the loudspeaker from earlier did say there was going to be a government representative coming to visit the houses in the neighborhood. You enter the living room and find Johnny awake again. He still looks pretty tired. "Wha...what's going on?" he asks, rubbing his eyes. "I think it's the government rep." you say, then you run over to the door and check through a window and see a well dressed man and one soldier at the door. You grab the handle... "Wait, you're just going to let them in?" Johnny asks. "Well I doubt if they're going to just go away. What can we do? Barricade ourselves in until they bash the door down? I don't like it either, but it isn't like we have too many options. Besides I don't have anything to hide, do you?" "No." Johnny replies. "Well there you go then, we might even be able to find out some answers too." You open up the door. "Greetings miss. I'm Mr. Zoll and I've been assigned to be the government representative for this area. May we come in?" Mr. Zoll asks, though it's pretty obvious that this is more of a polite formality rather than asking permission. "Of course." You answer and let Mr. Zoll and his soldier companion in. When you turn around you see that Johnny is sitting up on the couch, but is propping his head up on the armrest. He's still really sleepy so you're not surprised to see a bit of a scowl from him. You just hope the others don't take it the wrong way, but you figure as long as you're polite and upfront, you shouldn't have too many problems. Mr. Zoll sits on the chair while his soldier buddy stands nearby (eyeing Johnny mostly) you sit on the other side of the couch with a space between you and Johnny and ask what all this is about. "My name's Suzy, and that's Johnny over there. So how can we help exactly?" you ask. "Well, before we start I know this isn't an ideal situation. You're probably already concerned about what's going on and why this town is under marshal law in the first place." Mr. Zoll answers. "It is all a bit worrying." You reply. "I'm sure. Unfortunately I can't talk about it too much, however I'm sure you're aware that this town has experienced a vast increase in criminal activity and rioting. More than your police force can handle. So until we get the situation under control again, we're here to stay." "Well we certainly can understand that. We haven't experienced any criminal activity in this neighborhood though, well at least not to my knowledge." "Hmm, yes this is one of the quieter ones. Some places I'm hearing about are pretty bad. Anyway I'd like to ask a few questions before deciding if we need to search this house further." "Oh. Um, okay then. We have nothing to hide." "Good glad to... hear it." Mr. Zoll says glancing over at Johnny who is still alternating between being sleepy and unhappy about being awake. "So which one of you owns this place?" "My friend Julie." "Oh? Neither of you are the owner? Where is this Julie?" "Uh, don't know. She skipped out on her own party yesterday and never came back home. Isn't that what you said Johnny?" "Hrm. Yeah." Johnny mumbles. "I see..." Mr. Zoll says studying Johnny though you don't know why. It's making you nervous though. "Is this man your boyfriend?" Mr. Zoll suddenly asks. "Um...yes! Yes he is. He hasn't had much sleep. You see we had a party last night and he stayed up late cleaning up. He really shouldn't have, but that's just how he is!" you nervously laugh being completely caught off guard by the question. In your mind you already are regretting saying that since you've sent out more than enough mixed messages to Johnny. Though when you look over at Johnny he doesn't make any facial signs of a positive or negative nature, he's too busy on struggling to stay awake. Mr. Zoll is now looking at you a bit mistrustfully. He thinks something is wrong and now that you're shifting a bit uncomfortably, he starts to think you're covering up something even though you aren't! "Okay, you know what. I think it'll be easier to just give a brief search of the house." Mr. Zoll says standing up to say. "Um, all right then. We have nothing to hide as I said." You say. Johnny slightly awakens a bit at this remark, but otherwise he continues to say nothing. Mr. Zoll tells his man to go take a quick look through all the rooms while the three of you stay in the living room. The soldier nods and follows his orders. He first goes upstairs and looks through. You half expect him to find a stash of drugs in Julie or Donna's room, but he either doesn't or that isn't their primary concern. Next the soldier comes back downstairs and searches the ground floor, but once again finds nothing that is going to get you into trouble. Johnny briefly turns his head to watch the soldier as he moves back and forth up and down the hallway. "Searched everywhere sir, well except the basement." The soldier says when he comes back. "Well you might as well search that too." Mr. Zoll remarks. The soldier nods and heads back towards the hallway. Johnny doesn't look at the soldier this time, he just closes his eyes. You hear the door open to the basement and then a few footsteps going down, then all of a sudden... "Oh shit! That basement has a bad step!" Johnny exclaims and goes running down the hallway and shouts at the soldier. Mr. Zoll gets up and starts to yell at Johnny to come back and you call out to him as well. This is soon followed by both the soldier and Johnny yelling and then the sound of someone falling down the stairs. At this point you and Mr. Zoll both run towards the basement and there you see Johnny in the stairwell and the soldier crumpled in a heap at the bottom. His neck doesn't look like it's supposed to be twisted that way. "I...I tried to stop him from falling..." Johnny exclaims looking distressed. "His fucking neck is broken! I can see it from here! You killed him!" "I didn't! I tried to save him! I shouted about the step!" "Bullshit! And YOU'RE lying too!" Mr. Zoll says pointing to you as well. "Something fishy is going on here and I dunno what it is, but BOTH of you are going to pay for it!" Mr. Zoll reaches for something in his suit pocket... Panic washes over you and it's in situations like this that sometimes people either freeze up or make a rash decision. > You do something Seeing that Mr. Zoll is threatening you and going for something in his pocket you do the only thing that you can think of that comes to mind. You shove him as hard as you can towards the stairs. With one hand in his suit pocket he can't quite catch his balance and he goes tumbling backwards down the steps. Johnny just manages to get out of the way of Mr. Zoll's tumbling body and soon it hits the bottom just like his buddy did. Mr. Zoll however starts groaning in pain indicating that he's only hurt. He isn't dead...well at least not yet. Still in shock from what you have done, you stand motionless as you see Johnny take advantage of Zoll's prone condition and begins stomping on his head. Several times. Then he grabs the soldier's rifle and begins smashing the butt of it into Zoll's face. You're not right up front for this gruesome display; you can still see the blood flying from where you're standing. "Die! Die motherfucker! Fucking piece of shit!" Johnny starts muttering as he continues to destroy Zoll's skull structure. After a few seconds of watching this, you snap out of it. "Johnny! Stop! He's dead! He's dead...(sob) he's...dead..." you say and break down. You feel sick and run into your bathroom. You cough and vomit into the toilet, but it isn't so much your contributing to Mr. Zoll's death or watching it unfold, it's mainly because you're sick with worry right now about the repercussions of such actions. "Oh my god...oh god...what did I do..." you say in between heaving and crying. At this point Johnny has come up from upstairs to check on you. As you look over from hovering over the toilet, you see him standing before you in your bathroom doorway and blood on his clothes. "Suzy...Suzy...calm yourself. You did what you had to do. The guy didn't give you much of a choice. I checked his pocket and he was definitely packing a pistol in it. If you hadn't pushed him, he might've very well shot you and me both." Johnny says in an attempt to console you, but it's not working very well. "They...they're going to send more people to look for him...they're going to find out...we can't even run. There's military everywhere!" you say before heaving some more, but you've nothing left. You're just shaking. Johnny steps towards you. "Suzy. Suzy. We're going to be fine. Remember WE didn't do anything wrong here. These assholes came invading our space and then acted in a threatening manner even after we both tried to be accommodating to them." You stand before Johnny who now has grabbed a small washcloth and is approaching you with it. You just continue to tremble. "Suzy. Listen to me. I can clean up the mess in the basement. I'll make it so nobody will ever know. Okay? If more weekend warriors show up at our door asking about their boss or whoever that dickhead was to them, we'll just say he left and that they can search the damn house if they want. They won't find his body. They won't find ANY body. Trust me on that." Johnny dabs the sides of your mouth with the washcloth. You at him with a mixture of fear and hopefulness. All you can think about right now is how you wish all of this would go away. "Can...can you really make all this go away?" you ask. "Yes, I can. And in the event that we have to run, we DO have that option. We aren't prisoners here despite what the government wants us to think. We're free to go anywhere we wish." "I...I want to go home..." you say. "Well, maybe that's where we'll go then." Johnny now holds both of your hand in his and looks into your eyes. "Suzy. I love you and I'll never let any harm come to you. If the worst comes to worst, I'll take all the blame for what happened today. I don't want you to worry about this any more. You've been brave enough for one day." His eyes they're so piercing right now. They give off an almost commanding stare. His voice is so soothing though and it's actually making you feel slightly at ease. The combination of you having a minor breakdown and the stress of all that's going on...well it's all enough for you to just accept Johnny's willingness to step up and solve all your troubles like some sort of white knight. At least right now at any rate. "Come on, let's get you to your bed. You need to rest." Johnny says and starts to guide you back to your room. You don't resist. You just go with it. Johnny is a perfect gentleman though; he doesn't attempt to touch you in any manner that might be inappropriate. As you lay down the bed, you allow yourself to start giving into the wave of sleep that's hitting you from all the mental exhaustion you're going through. "Okay, Suzy, I'm going to get to work. Now I'll close your door and leave you be, but if you need anything at all, just call me of course. Just don't get up, you don't need to put yourself through anymore trouble." You nod at Johnny's remark as you start to close your eyes. It's hard to believe that not too long ago he was the one exhausted and you were still relatively lively. You have no idea where he gets his energy from. Just as Johnny is about to leave. You call out. "Johnny?" "Yes, Suzy?" "Thank you." Your eyes are still closed so you don't see Johnny smile at you before exiting your room. > Next day… You are suddenly awakened by the sound of your phone. You don't think, you don't look, you just instinctively grab it and answer. "Hello?" you answer still slightly groggy. "Suzy? It's Peter." "Peter?" you say a little surprised he returned your call as well still shaking the cobwebs out from coming out of your sleep. "Yeah, it's me. You called me yesterday, but I was busy with, well a bunch of shit really. It's sort of crazy around here, the National Guard is shooting people in the street...well at least I think they're still people." "What do you mean?" "I'm saying that I've been seeing some weird shit. Like several people running around trying to bite other people." "Wait...what? You mean literally trying to bite people?" "Yes, I mean bite, as in I saw one guy that lived down the street from us chase another neighbor and start chewing on him like he was out of a goddamn zombie movie!" "...are you saying this guy was a zombie?" "Look I don't know. I mean maybe he was just rabid or something, but this wasn't an isolated incident. Maybe it's a disease outbreak, or bio-weapon accident or something. I mean that would explain why the National Guard is here. I'm just glad they or any of those freaks haven't beat down the door to this house yet, but I'm not taking any chances that's why I've been trying to find Ben's shelter." "Ben's shelter?" "Yeah, you know the one he was always working on and changing the fucking entrance all the time on? I figure it's probably still well stocked and I intend on riding this whole fucked up situation in the safety of that thing until everything is back to normal. We haven't had much luck in finding it though..." "We? Is Kelly there helping you?" "Kelly? Nah, I haven't seen that Amazon cunt since she left for work on Monday night. Don't know where she is. I'm here with one of my...clients. Anyway how are you and Donna?" "I don't know where Donna is. She left Julie's on Monday night and never came back, then Julie left on fucking Tuesday night and SHE never came back. Then on Wednesday...(sniff)..." You begin to feel a wave of emotion hit you as the thought of what happened yesterday catch up to you again. "Suzy?" Peter asks. "(Sob) I think...I think I'm gonna be in a lot of trouble Peter...(Sob) Something terrible happened..." You can't continue and you begin to cry. "Hey... look I..." Peter is unsure of what to say for a moment and then he continues. "Look, I don't know what's going on over there, but I really need to let you go. I was actually hesitant to call you since I don't think it's a good idea to talk on the phone long right now anyway. I mean who knows if the government is listening...so..." You stop crying immediately and just stare at your phone in disbelief. "Wait, wait, wait. Just fucking wait a minute. Granted we've never been close Peter, but I have been genuinely concerned about you as soon as the National Guard rolled up in this town. Why the hell do you think I called? I'm obviously distressed about my current situation and you don't even offer a sympathetic ear? After all the fucking times you've stolen my clothes? After all the goddamn times I had to put up with your old loser junkie friend Kevin perving on me when you thought you were some sort of film maker? You can't even make the fucking effort to even PRETEND to care a little? You can't even do THAT for me?" you shout. "Suzy, what the fuck do you want me to do? You're over there and I'm over here. I mean I got my own shit to worry about. And you how this family operates, when the shit goes down, you fucking look out for yourself first." Peter says. "I'm not asking you to jump in your car and save me, I just wanted a little...fuck it...you know what just fuck you Peter!" you shout and hang up "FUCK YOU!" you shout and throw your phone against the wall just as Johnny comes walking in. "I heard you shouting, what's going on?" he asks. "My fucking brother is a goddamn selfish bastard that's what's going on! I'm fucking nervous, I don't know what to do and I'm afraid. And what does he do? Does he even make an effort to console me in any way? No of course not he worries about himself. It's what my family does, out for number one as usual. Fuck all of them, I don't even care what happens to ANY of them any more!" say sobbing. Johhny approaches you, but still keeps a respectable distance. "Suzy, you don't need to worry about them any more. They aren't even worth getting mad about okay? Look I'm here and I'll take care of everything. Speaking of which, that thing yesterday...." You wipe your eyes and try to compose yourself. "I...I don't want to hear anymore about it... I just don't..." "I understand. I understand. I just wanted you to know that it's all been taken care of." "Yeah, until they send someone to find out what happened to him." You say. Johnny now steps in a bit closer. "Well, they haven't yet and I doubt if they're going to right now. You've been asleep for most of the day and you're probably not aware, but there's been some problems going on around the neighborhood I guess. In fact I actually went upstairs to check from one of the windows to get a better view and I saw them shoot a couple people a few houses down. Well I assume they were still people on some level, but they certainly weren't acting right. Like they were rabid or something. One got killed by multiple chest shots though so I think we can at least assume they aren't the living dead." "Hrm. Peter mentioned something like that happening in my neighborhood. He thinks it's a disease or biological weapon." "Well he might be right on that somewhat. Seems like the Guardsmen would be equipped with gasmasks or something if it was something like though. I dunno. Anyway, as I was saying for all they know they might think that Zoll guy and his soldier buddy got bushwacked by one of those things yesterday. Besides, he went to several houses, it's not like they're automatically going to know it was us." Johnny's attempts at making you feel better don't really work, since it just replaces one concern of getting executed by the military for murder for another concern of getting possibly infected by whatever disease is turning people into "zombies." Still, he's the only one trying and actually here for you, and that's the sad part. "Johnny, is that a uniform you're wearing?" you say noticing he's changed his clothes. "Yeah. They're from that poor soldier that broke his neck on the stairs. I know it's a bit ghoulish, but my own clothes were shall I say, very... soiled after taking care of that business. Fortunately, the uniform seems to be a perfect fit. I was also thinking maybe it could also be a disguise in case we need to get the hell out of here." Johnny remarks. "Hm, could work, but I don't have a uniform." You say. "I could always say you're a prisoner or survivor I found. In any case it might be..." Before Johnny can finish, he's interrupted by the breaking of glass coming from the kitchen followed by snarling and grunting. "Shit!" Johnny exclaims and runs out of your room. You're not quite as eager to run towards the sound of danger, at least not until you grab the pistol out of the desk first. You haven't gotten a few steps out of your room and you hear the sounds of a multiple shots being fired, followed by more glass breaking and an awful sound of anguish. You enter the kitchen and see Johnny standing there with an assault rifle pointed at the bullet hole ridden back door. Must be the same rifle the soldier had. He turns around. "It was one of those things. More of them must be wandering this way... where did that pistol come from?" Johnny asks. "It was in a desk. So you think more of those things are coming?" "I don't really know, just a hunch, but the gunfire outside doesn't sound like it's letting up. We could easily barricade ourselves in here, but who knows how long this thing is going to last." "Do you think we could make it out of here ?" "I believe we could, but it does sound like a warzone out there right now." "Well I hope my sister has another set of car keys because that's the only vehicle out there right now." You say. "Hmm, well even if we did, I'm fairly certain as soon as we drove out in it, we'd be getting fired upon on. Even if we made it, there's going to be more military areas to drive through. Nevermind the fact that your sister's car isn't exactly sturdy looking enough to survive such an attack, there is also always the possibility of a bunch of those things gathering together to overturn the vehicle." "So are you saying we should go by foot?" you ask. "Heh, if it were just me, I might do that, but since your safety is a priority to me, I feel like we'd have a better chance however if I stole one of those military jeeps I've seen patrolling around." Johnny replies. "Are you nuts? How the hell are we supposed to get one of those?" "Not we, me. I believe I could steal one. I have to admit I'm a little tired though. Still haven't had a lot of sleeps, especially with... well you know. If I could just catch a little rest, I'd probably be able to do it better under the cover of the night." The fact that Johnny seems so sure that he can just steal a military vehicle is a little scary. Did he also serve in the military or something? He's never said. Come to think of it, he's still never revealed too much about himself. In any case that isn't quite your primary concern right now. "Well if you really believe you can steal a jeep, I guess that's our best shot." You say. "Well we still should pack some bags with useful supplies first. I'll get some things from the basement since I'm pretty sure I saw quite few things down there. You can check this floor and check the upstairs." Johnny heads back into the basement and you check upstairs first. You search Donna's room and you do find some keys. You're fairly sure that they are probably a spare set to Donna's car. After grabbing the practical pharmacy from the bathroom (Julie and Donna sure didn't reserve their drugs to just the illegal kind) you return to your own room and start repacking some of your clothes and some other personal items. A quick trip to the kitchen finds you a few bags of snacks and batteries. (And you looking over your shoulder constantly thinking that something is going to try to break in through the backdoor again) Johnny eventually comes up from the basement with an old looking bag of stuff. He's looking really tired now. "Johnny are you going to be okay to do this? I mean I just found Donna's car keys. We could leave in that and I'd drive." you ask. "No, our best chance is the jeep. We'll be riddled with bullets in that car. I'll be fine. Just need a few hours of shuteye. After that, I'll be ready to go. I guess I'll sleep on the sofa in the living room." Johnny says while walking off towards the living room with the bag and rifle. "Well I suppose we should wait before leaving anyway, I'd rather have you alert while we're on the road. Hold on a moment you look a little wobbly." You say and help him the rest of the way, which isn't far of course, but you feel like it's a nice gesture. Johnny certainly thinks so...but then he tends to think everything you do is wonderful. "Shit, I'm so tired. Even that gunfire going on isn't going to keep me awake." Johnny says, flopping down on the couch. "Well, I'll be awake, so even if something unexpected happens and you're still snoozing, I can wake you up." "Thank you." Johnny says looking up at you. He almost reaches his hand out to touch your face, but quickly stops himself. "I'm sorry that you had to call me your boyfriend yesterday." "What?" You ask. "Yesterday, when you tried to lie to Mr. Zoll. You said I was your boyfriend. I know you were just saying that." Johnny says as he starts to close his eyes. "You don't worry about that right now. Just rest like you should have been able to yesterday." "Okay...God...you're so perfect. You're so much better than me. I've done a lot of bad things Suzy." "I think after yesterday we've both done a lot of bad things." You reply. "No...I've..." Johnny starts to say, but then he trails off. Leaving Johnny to sleep, you stay in the living room if only because you're a bit nervous to be by yourself right now. You turn the TV on and keep it on low, but as usual nothing of importance is on save for Ground Zero infomercials. Lacking anything better to do (Other than being on edge a bit) you start to contemplate that if Johnny is successful WHERE you should go. You don't really have any good ideas either. You've never been anywhere in your life, so why would you have any ideas on where to go now? And given how fucked up everything is right now, where would it even be safe to go? No, the only place you've ever felt safe and at home is your basement. How you wish you could return. Then as you watch the GZ salesman obnoxiously go on about their product, it hits you... why shouldn't you return? It's a pleasant thought, but who knows if Peter already found the hidden entrance to the shelter yet. He might very well be already be enjoying the shelter with his boyfriend or whoever he's got over there. You're fairly certain if that's the case, he isn't going to let you in to share it. That was clear when you spoke to him on the phone. So where does that leave you? Leaving town to parts unknown? If that's the case, you imagine you'll have to leave that in Johnny's hands since he's mentioned he's drifted from place to place and probably knows more about possible locations to go to in an emergency than you do. On top of all this, you still aren't quite sure what to do with Johnny. He's definitely gone a long way in trying to prove himself to you. He has possibly saved your life and is obviously willing to risk his for you. The only other person who has done that was Bobby. In some ways Johnny sort of reminds you of Bobby...and that's also another reason why you continue to be leery of him. Other than his stalker behavior since you've met him, you've already come to the conclusion that Johnny probably has some sort of shady history. When you saw him finishing off Mr. Zoll...well it wasn't exactly a normal reaction. He didn't just react out of a panic like you did when you pushed Zoll down the stairs, Johnny got frothing mad. An anger you've never seen him display so outwardly before. Between that and his mumblings of "doing bad things" and you're inclined to believe that whatever his past might be, that Johnny HAS killed before. And probably the more fucked up thing is that it doesn't exactly bother you, or rather it doesn't bother you like it should a normal person. Bobby used to kill people on a regular basis and while it took a little time for you to build complete trust in him, you did it and you had a relationship out of it. (And the funniest thing is that it didn't even end in bloodshed) The question is, do you want to possibly put yourself through it all again? The unstable nature? The paranoia of wondering is he ever going to hurt you? Even the "normal" part of wondering if you're just going to just eventually break up is a concern for you. Part of you still is upset about Bobby after all. You must have a thing for murderers at this point, because it's the only explanation to why you're contemplating all this. Maybe that whole incident with your Uncle Ed fucked you up even more than you realized. You do have Donna's car keys. You could just leave now while Johnny sleeps. > You leave Johnny You can't stay with Johnny, he's obviously unstable no matter how nice he is to you. You're not going through it again. Plus you're also worried about staying here any longer than you have to since you're still paranoid that the National Guard will be sending someone here to search for their missing in action comrades. You go back to your room and grab your bags. You start to make your way towards the living room, but then you think that perhaps maybe going out the back door would be better since you don't have to sneak past Johnny to do so. The back door is still a wreck from today's earlier attack. When you open it up you finally see the thing that was trying to get in. Looks human enough minus the bullet holes and the slightly feral facial features. You just hope there aren't anymore currently lurking about though the nearby gunfire isn't encouraging. You make your way through the backyard and then go around the house and finally reach Donna's car. You quickly load your bags in, worrying the whole time you're going to get attacked by one of those things or Johnny suddenly waking up and running out the front door. You get the impression he's not going to be happy to find you gone when he wakes up. You get in the car and you actually manage to swing the car out into the street before you hear shouting and then fired upon. Despite the sounds of glass shattering behind you. You keep it together and just drive hoping that there aren't too many of the guard in front of you. It's a false hope as you do indeed bump into more than a couple patrols with itchy trigger fingers. Some you try to avoid by going down other streets. Others are actually busy fighting off others. How you aren't hit by any that do shoot at you is something of a minor miracle, but the car certainly doesn't come through unscathed since by the time you manage to make out of Julie's neighborhood, it's making rattling sounds. You continue to drive and try to keep off the main streets though with your car now making several clattering sounds you're not exactly keeping a low profile. "Just gotta make it home. I'll be safe there." You mumble to yourself. Your drive there isn't quite as eventful as your escape from Julie's house, but it isn't without peril. The National Guard isn't quite as in control in your part of the town and there are far more of the rabid roaming around either chasing down normal people or attempting to break into houses. Most of them don't attempt to attack you, or if they do, you just continue driving fast enough that they don't get the chance. By the time you get to your own house, your neighborhood is eerily quiet. There are definitely signs of past conflict all over the place, but there is nobody on the streets and most homes are not lit either. (Though you do see broken doors and windows on a lot of them) Fortunately your own house doesn't look damaged (At least not from the front) You half expect to get swarmed by crazies as soon as you park in front of your house, but you manage to get in the house with your bags. "PETER?! Are you here?!" you call out when you get in the door and dump your bags on the floor. There is no answer, but then again maybe he's already found the shelter. The first thing you do is search the ground floor. Amazingly it doesn't look like your house has been attacked at all. Even looking out into the backyard things look fairly untouched. Then you search the connected garage and that's when you make an unexpected discovery. You find Peter and another unknown man both not quite entirely dressed, but that isn't the disturbing part. The fact that they're both dead is the disturbing part. The garage itself is a bit of a mess, like there was definitely a struggle, and your brother's body and the body of who you presume is his lover or client both show signs of blunt trauma. Looks like their necks were both broken to ultimately kill them though. You aren't sure what to think. You feel like you should be more upset than you are, but given what an asshole he was towards you earlier and what you've already had to experience, you're not having feelings of sorrow. You're actually more concerned with how this happened. There isn't anyone else here to your knowledge and if it had been one of those things, the bodies would probably have bite marks. You suppose it could've been regular bandits or robbers, but you'd expect gunshot or even knife wounds and neither have that. Also if it was bandits that killed them, you wonder why they wouldn't take Peter's car since his keys are still sitting on a dresser nearby. Whether Peter was planning on leaving himself or still looking for Ben's hidden shelter (And if he found it or not) you'll never know you suppose. Feeling the fear of potential intruders in the house, you pull your pistol out and begin to search the rest of the house. You head upstairs and cautiously search with your pistol drawn. Much like the downstairs though, you find that there isn't anyone lurking up here. You even manage to find the courage to peek your head into Kelly's room, but given how messy her usually room is, you don't know if she's ever returned here. You get the idea to call her up, but predictably there isn't any answer. Who knows what's happened to her. Finally you end your search of the house by heading to the place where you started from, the basement. Again, not much looks different and fortunately there isn't anyone down here either. Your own room is about the same as you left it. You shake your head that the though of all the bullshit you went through this week, only to end up back here. Makes you wonder why you bothered. After a bit more perusal of your room, you head back upstairs to secure the ground floor as much as possible. You put chairs in front of the front and back doors. (As well as the one leading to the garage) You also move a bookcase in front of some of the windows. It's not the most fun thing to do and you bump and bang knees and elbows in the process, but it's secure enough that you're confident that if someone does try to get it, they'll make such a loud noise in the process that you'll at least wake up first. As it starts to get darker, you decide to take your belongings to your old room in the basement where you figure you can turn on the lights without fear of someone potentially seeing them from the outside. As you get resettled into your old room, you start to feel safer already. It's odd that you should feel that way, but then this has always been your sanctuary. You do briefly worry about Johnny and if he's going to try to track you down. Well if he does show up, you'll be ready for him. You aren't completely defenseless after all. Besides, he'll have to get through the military and those things never mind the fact that he doesn't know where you live in the first place. (At least you don't think he does) Despite that, you're going to try to remain positive. You make a plan to search for the shelter entrance in the backyard tomorrow and you figure if all else fails you can always take Peter's car and try to make it out of town. For now though, you're going to enjoy a good night's sleep in the safety of your own room. > Next day... "Wakey wakey sis." You hear a voice say. You slowly open your eyes and at first see what looks to be a man standing in front of you holding a shotgun. Your first instinct is that it's Johnny, but then after the blur of your eyes clears a bit, you see that it's your sister Kelly. Looks like she's still hostile to you as well considering she's pointing a shotgun at you. You don't know why, but then has she ever needed a reason? You look at your pistol on the floor near the couch you're sleeping on and Kelly just shakes her head. "I guarantee you wouldn't make it sis. I suggest you don't even try...heh I doubt you'd have the balls to go through with it anyway. I have to admit when I came up here to get something from my room, I didn't expect to glance over this way and see you sleeping here." Up? Where the hell would she come "up" from? You're in the basement now. Kelly's blocking your doorway, but you think you can make out a glowing light source coming from the basement floor beyond. And then it hits you. "...he moved the fucking shelter entrance in the house? And it's been right near my goddamn room all this time?" you ask. "Hey hey! It's about time you used that blonde head of yours other than taking up space!" Kelly mocks. Well you know where the entrance is, but unfortunately you've got bigger issues now. Kelly pointing a shotgun at you is concerning to be sure and makes you think back to what you saw in the garage. Peter and the other man's body. Their bodies were beaten and their necks were broken. Kelly certainly has the strength and the skill to do such a thing. Kelly's always been hostile to you and barely civil to your other sibling, but to actually kill one... "When did you find out? When you killed Peter?" "Pfft. I've always known. Crazy old Ben thought he was being so sneaky moving the goddamn entrance around all the time, but I knew where the fuck it was nearly every time. He had just moved the entrance again a few days before he blew away his family and himself. I'm just surprised YOU never accidently found it given that you lived practically right near the fucking thing for years. If the entrance was any closer you would've been sleeping in the damn thing." Kelly continues to address you while briefly looking over her shoulder. "As for Peter, that little faggot managed to find out where it was and thought he was going to hide out from the current shitstorm in it with his boyfriend or whoever that other faggot he was with. Had to convince him that he had to go, he didn't listen and tried to resist and well you saw how that turned out." Kelly briefly shifts a bit in your doorway, but still holding the shotgun firmly on you of course. "So where's that little whore Donna? Heard you moved in with her. She come with you? Julie maybe? Both? How the fuck did any of you survive the week?" Kelly asks. "I'm here by myself Kelly. I have no idea what happened to Donna, or Julie for that matter. I...I think they're probably dead." You say. "Mmm, well you'll soon be joining them." Kelly remarks and raises the shotgun as if she's trying to get a more precise aim. Terror wells up inside you. "Wait! Can't you let me go? I mean I'll take Peter's car and leave! You'll never have to see me again! I mean you can't have mercy on me just this once?" you exclaim and tears forming in your eyes. Kelly smiles sadistically and laughs. "God, you really are as stupid as you are pathetic. You know that? If I let you leave, do you really think you could survive out there with no supplies? How long would you be able to last without resorting to trading your own ass for safety? Not long I'd wager and that's assuming you don't just get raped and killed first or ripped apart by those freaks. I'm doing you a favor sis." Kelly remarks. You start to cry as you realize that this is it. You're going to die. "Oh for fuck's sake, will you stop crying and be fucking brave for once in your life? (Sigh) Fine, you want me to show you mercy? Here." Kelly leans her shotgun against the wall nearby. At first you think she's going to spare your life, but you soon learn it's just another sick game. "Okay sis, despite my undying hatred for you, I'm going to give you ONE chance just because out of all our siblings, I still think you were the one with the most potential. It's just too bad you wasted it. So, here's your second chance. Try to grab your pistol before I can grab my shotgun." "But...(sniff) you're right next to your shotgun, you can grab it a lot easier than I can grab the pistol. You'll kill me before I even can reach it." You say. "So what have you got to lose? You're going to die anyway, so try to stop me." You don't say anything. You just quietly weep a bit at your situation. You thought you were safe, but how wrong you were. You really wish Johnny was here, but there's not going to be a rescue this time. "Goddamn it Suzy, if you don't make a move, I'm gonna just...shit!" You react while Kelly is in the middle of her sentence. You scramble for the weapon and you actually manage to touch it and then a loud blast is the last thing you hear.

You are suddenly awakened by the sound of your phone. You don't think, you don't look, you just instinctively grab it and answer. "Hello?" you answer still slightly groggy. "Suzy? It's Peter." "Peter?" you say a little surprised he returned your call as well still shaking the cobwebs out from coming out of your sleep. "Yeah, it's me. You called me yesterday, but I was busy with, well a bunch of shit really. It's sort of crazy around here, the National Guard is shooting people in the street...well at least I think they're still people." "What do you mean?" "I'm saying that I've been seeing some weird shit. Like several people running around trying to bite other people." "Wait...what? You mean literally trying to bite people?" "Yes, I mean bite, as in I saw one guy that lived down the street from us chase another neighbor and start chewing on him like he was out of a goddamn zombie movie!" "...are you saying this guy was a zombie?" "Look I don't know. I mean maybe he was just rabid or something, but this wasn't an isolated incident. Maybe it's a disease outbreak, or bio-weapon accident or something. I mean that would explain why the National Guard is here. I'm just glad they or any of those freaks haven't beat down the door to this house yet, but I'm not taking any chances that's why I've been trying to find Ben's shelter." "Ben's shelter?" "Yeah, you know the one he was always working on and changing the fucking entrance all the time on? I figure it's probably still well stocked and I intend on riding this whole fucked up situation in the safety of that thing until everything is back to normal. We haven't had much luck in finding it though..." "We? Is Kelly there helping you?" "Kelly? Nah, I haven't seen that Amazon cunt since she left for work on Monday night. Don't know where she is. I'm here with one of my...clients. Anyway how are you and Donna?" "I don't know where Donna is. She left Julie's on Monday night and never came back, then Julie left on fucking Tuesday night and SHE never came back. Then on Wednesday...(sniff)..." You begin to feel a wave of emotion hit you as the thought of what happened yesterday catch up to you again. "Suzy?" Peter asks. "(Sob) I think...I think I'm gonna be in a lot of trouble Peter...(Sob) Something terrible happened..." You can't continue and you begin to cry. "Hey... look I..." Peter is unsure of what to say for a moment and then he continues. "Look, I don't know what's going on over there, but I really need to let you go. I was actually hesitant to call you since I don't think it's a good idea to talk on the phone long right now anyway. I mean who knows if the government is listening...so..." You stop crying immediately and just stare at your phone in disbelief. "Wait, wait, wait. Just fucking wait a minute. Granted we've never been close Peter, but I have been genuinely concerned about you as soon as the National Guard rolled up in this town. Why the hell do you think I called? I'm obviously distressed about my current situation and you don't even offer a sympathetic ear? After all the fucking times you've stolen my clothes? After all the goddamn times I had to put up with your old loser junkie friend Kevin perving on me when you thought you were some sort of film maker? You can't even make the fucking effort to even PRETEND to care a little? You can't even do THAT for me?" you shout. "Suzy, what the fuck do you want me to do? You're over there and I'm over here. I mean I got my own shit to worry about. And you how this family operates, when the shit goes down, you fucking look out for yourself first." Peter says. "I'm not asking you to jump in your car and save me, I just wanted a little...fuck it...you know what just fuck you Peter!" you shout and hang up "FUCK YOU!" you shout and throw your phone against the wall just as Johnny comes walking in. "I heard you shouting, what's going on?" he asks. "My fucking brother is a goddamn selfish bastard that's what's going on! I'm fucking nervous, I don't know what to do and I'm afraid. And what does he do? Does he even make an effort to console me in any way? No of course not he worries about himself. It's what my family does, out for number one as usual. Fuck all of them, I don't even care what happens to ANY of them any more!" say sobbing. Johhny approaches you, but still keeps a respectable distance. "Suzy, you don't need to worry about them any more. They aren't even worth getting mad about okay? Look I'm here and I'll take care of everything. Speaking of which, that thing yesterday...." You wipe your eyes and try to compose yourself. "I...I don't want to hear anymore about it... I just don't..." "I understand. I understand. I just wanted you to know that it's all been taken care of." "Yeah, until they send someone to find out what happened to him." You say. Johnny now steps in a bit closer. "Well, they haven't yet and I doubt if they're going to right now. You've been asleep for most of the day and you're probably not aware, but there's been some problems going on around the neighborhood I guess. In fact I actually went upstairs to check from one of the windows to get a better view and I saw them shoot a couple people a few houses down. Well I assume they were still people on some level, but they certainly weren't acting right. Like they were rabid or something. One got killed by multiple chest shots though so I think we can at least assume they aren't the living dead." "Hrm. Peter mentioned something like that happening in my neighborhood. He thinks it's a disease or biological weapon." "Well he might be right on that somewhat. Seems like the Guardsmen would be equipped with gasmasks or something if it was something like though. I dunno. Anyway, as I was saying for all they know they might think that Zoll guy and his soldier buddy got bushwacked by one of those things yesterday. Besides, he went to several houses, it's not like they're automatically going to know it was us." Johnny's attempts at making you feel better don't really work, since it just replaces one concern of getting executed by the military for murder for another concern of getting possibly infected by whatever disease is turning people into "zombies." Still, he's the only one trying and actually here for you, and that's the sad part. "Johnny, is that a uniform you're wearing?" you say noticing he's changed his clothes. "Yeah. They're from that poor soldier that broke his neck on the stairs. I know it's a bit ghoulish, but my own clothes were shall I say, very... soiled after taking care of that business. Fortunately, the uniform seems to be a perfect fit. I was also thinking maybe it could also be a disguise in case we need to get the hell out of here." Johnny remarks. "Hm, could work, but I don't have a uniform." You say. "I could always say you're a prisoner or survivor I found. In any case it might be..." Before Johnny can finish, he's interrupted by the breaking of glass coming from the kitchen followed by snarling and grunting. "Shit!" Johnny exclaims and runs out of your room. You're not quite as eager to run towards the sound of danger, at least not until you grab the pistol out of the desk first. You haven't gotten a few steps out of your room and you hear the sounds of a multiple shots being fired, followed by more glass breaking and an awful sound of anguish. You enter the kitchen and see Johnny standing there with an assault rifle pointed at the bullet hole ridden back door. Must be the same rifle the soldier had. He turns around. "It was one of those things. More of them must be wandering this way... where did that pistol come from?" Johnny asks. "It was in a desk. So you think more of those things are coming?" "I don't really know, just a hunch, but the gunfire outside doesn't sound like it's letting up. We could easily barricade ourselves in here, but who knows how long this thing is going to last." "Do you think we could make it out of here ?" "I believe we could, but it does sound like a warzone out there right now." "Well I hope my sister has another set of car keys because that's the only vehicle out there right now." You say. "Hmm, well even if we did, I'm fairly certain as soon as we drove out in it, we'd be getting fired upon on. Even if we made it, there's going to be more military areas to drive through. Nevermind the fact that your sister's car isn't exactly sturdy looking enough to survive such an attack, there is also always the possibility of a bunch of those things gathering together to overturn the vehicle." "So are you saying we should go by foot?" you ask. "Heh, if it were just me, I might do that, but since your safety is a priority to me, I feel like we'd have a better chance however if I stole one of those military jeeps I've seen patrolling around." Johnny replies. "Are you nuts? How the hell are we supposed to get one of those?" "Not we, me. I believe I could steal one. I have to admit I'm a little tired though. Still haven't had a lot of sleeps, especially with... well you know. If I could just catch a little rest, I'd probably be able to do it better under the cover of the night." The fact that Johnny seems so sure that he can just steal a military vehicle is a little scary. Did he also serve in the military or something? He's never said. Come to think of it, he's still never revealed too much about himself. In any case that isn't quite your primary concern right now. "Well if you really believe you can steal a jeep, I guess that's our best shot." You say. "Well we still should pack some bags with useful supplies first. I'll get some things from the basement since I'm pretty sure I saw quite few things down there. You can check this floor and check the upstairs." Johnny heads back into the basement and you check upstairs first. You search Donna's room and you do find some keys. You're fairly sure that they are probably a spare set to Donna's car. After grabbing the practical pharmacy from the bathroom (Julie and Donna sure didn't reserve their drugs to just the illegal kind) you return to your own room and start repacking some of your clothes and some other personal items. A quick trip to the kitchen finds you a few bags of snacks and batteries. (And you looking over your shoulder constantly thinking that something is going to try to break in through the backdoor again) Johnny eventually comes up from the basement with an old looking bag of stuff. He's looking really tired now. "Johnny are you going to be okay to do this? I mean I just found Donna's car keys. We could leave in that and I'd drive." you ask. "No, our best chance is the jeep. We'll be riddled with bullets in that car. I'll be fine. Just need a few hours of shuteye. After that, I'll be ready to go. I guess I'll sleep on the sofa in the living room." Johnny says while walking off towards the living room with the bag and rifle. "Well I suppose we should wait before leaving anyway, I'd rather have you alert while we're on the road. Hold on a moment you look a little wobbly." You say and help him the rest of the way, which isn't far of course, but you feel like it's a nice gesture. Johnny certainly thinks so...but then he tends to think everything you do is wonderful. "Shit, I'm so tired. Even that gunfire going on isn't going to keep me awake." Johnny says, flopping down on the couch. "Well, I'll be awake, so even if something unexpected happens and you're still snoozing, I can wake you up." "Thank you." Johnny says looking up at you. He almost reaches his hand out to touch your face, but quickly stops himself. "I'm sorry that you had to call me your boyfriend yesterday." "What?" You ask. "Yesterday, when you tried to lie to Mr. Zoll. You said I was your boyfriend. I know you were just saying that." Johnny says as he starts to close his eyes. "You don't worry about that right now. Just rest like you should have been able to yesterday." "Okay...God...you're so perfect. You're so much better than me. I've done a lot of bad things Suzy." "I think after yesterday we've both done a lot of bad things." You reply. "No...I've..." Johnny starts to say, but then he trails off. Leaving Johnny to sleep, you stay in the living room if only because you're a bit nervous to be by yourself right now. You turn the TV on and keep it on low, but as usual nothing of importance is on save for Ground Zero infomercials. Lacking anything better to do (Other than being on edge a bit) you start to contemplate that if Johnny is successful WHERE you should go. You don't really have any good ideas either. You've never been anywhere in your life, so why would you have any ideas on where to go now? And given how fucked up everything is right now, where would it even be safe to go? No, the only place you've ever felt safe and at home is your basement. How you wish you could return. Then as you watch the GZ salesman obnoxiously go on about their product, it hits you... why shouldn't you return? It's a pleasant thought, but who knows if Peter already found the hidden entrance to the shelter yet. He might very well be already be enjoying the shelter with his boyfriend or whoever he's got over there. You're fairly certain if that's the case, he isn't going to let you in to share it. That was clear when you spoke to him on the phone. So where does that leave you? Leaving town to parts unknown? If that's the case, you imagine you'll have to leave that in Johnny's hands since he's mentioned he's drifted from place to place and probably knows more about possible locations to go to in an emergency than you do. On top of all this, you still aren't quite sure what to do with Johnny. He's definitely gone a long way in trying to prove himself to you. He has possibly saved your life and is obviously willing to risk his for you. The only other person who has done that was Bobby. In some ways Johnny sort of reminds you of Bobby...and that's also another reason why you continue to be leery of him. Other than his stalker behavior since you've met him, you've already come to the conclusion that Johnny probably has some sort of shady history. When you saw him finishing off Mr. Zoll...well it wasn't exactly a normal reaction. He didn't just react out of a panic like you did when you pushed Zoll down the stairs, Johnny got frothing mad. An anger you've never seen him display so outwardly before. Between that and his mumblings of "doing bad things" and you're inclined to believe that whatever his past might be, that Johnny HAS killed before. And probably the more fucked up thing is that it doesn't exactly bother you, or rather it doesn't bother you like it should a normal person. Bobby used to kill people on a regular basis and while it took a little time for you to build complete trust in him, you did it and you had a relationship out of it. (And the funniest thing is that it didn't even end in bloodshed) The question is, do you want to possibly put yourself through it all again? The unstable nature? The paranoia of wondering is he ever going to hurt you? Even the "normal" part of wondering if you're just going to just eventually break up is a concern for you. Part of you still is upset about Bobby after all. You must have a thing for murderers at this point, because it's the only explanation to why you're contemplating all this. Maybe that whole incident with your Uncle Ed fucked you up even more than you realized. You do have Donna's car keys. You could just leave now while Johnny sleeps. > You stay with him You're still not quite sure if any of this is going to lead anywhere, but fucked up or not, Johnny's still been there for you. To abandon him without even an explanation is just something you're not willing to do. Besides, if you're right about Johnny's past, having someone like that around might be necessary given how crazy things are right now. Other than pushing someone down the stairs out of panic, it isn't like you're a fighter. Looking a nearby clock on the wall, you figure it'll be getting dark in a few hours. Johnny didn't tell you when to wake him, but you figure you should give him a few extra hours after it goes dark if only so he'll be more rested. Then you'll try to convince him to just leave in Donna's car again since you still think it would be safer than trying to steal a military jeep. Still feeling a little uncomfortable about the back door windows now being broken and thus your safety more compromised, you head back into the kitchen to fix the problem. As you get close to the backdoor, you briefly see the thing still lying dead with several holes in its body and head on the back porch. Looks human, but even dead it does look a bit feral. With great effort you manage to push the refrigerator in front of the back door. Nothing is getting in now, well at least not easily anyway. You return to your room and check to see if your phone isn't quite as damaged, as it appeared when you threw it against the wall, but of course it is. Hardly matters, you don't have anyone to keep in contact with any more anyway. With the gunfire still going on outside, you flop down on your couch-bed and realize that barring something trying to break in again, there's nothing to do. You re-open your laptop and lose yourself in a game because it's way better than reality right now. Hours pass... You look at the time on your laptop and realize you've been playing much longer than you intended to. You immediately get up to go wake up Johnny. It actually sounds like the gunfire has died down outside as well. "Hey Johnny wake up! It's time to go. I know you said you had plans to steal a jeep, but I really think we should..." When you get to the living room though, Johnny is gone. You call out to him a couple times figuring that maybe he's upstairs or even in the basement, but you get no answer. You do see a note placed on the nearby end table in such a way that you'd notice it. You almost hesitate to pick it up, but of course you do anyway. To my dearest Suzy, I've left to go get that jeep. I know you probably still want to use your sister's car, but I still think our best shot is with a military vehicle. I figure we can blend in a whole lot better in one of those and not look suspicious while driving around at a casual glance by soldiers. Probably better at running over those rabid people too. We might even be able to get out of this forsaken town. Anyway, I left this note since I didn't want to disturb you or cause any unpleasant arguments on this matter. I also know you didn't leave while I slept, even though you could have. This means so much to me, I don't think you know how much. I know I haven't exactly given you much reason to not be distrustful of me, but the very fact that you didn't leave tells me that you believe in me on some level. You know I'll try to come through for you and that you're willing to wait. I knew when I first heard your drunken whore of a sister talk about you; I thought you sounded like you were the one. Then when I saw and spoke with you, I was sure of it. I will come back tonight as planned, however if the situation becomes dangerous over there, then by all means escape in your sister's car. It would never be my wish for you to stay in danger. Forever my love, Johnny When the hell did he leave and write this? And how did you not hear him? He wasn't joking about being stealthy you guess. Of course you probably would have known all this a lot sooner had you not got wrapped up in your game and actually left your room. As for the note itself, well...it's standard Johnny in the short term you've known him. The "whore" description of your sister is a bit of a standout from the rest of letter which is fairly white knightish. Of course you know damn well Johnny is far from being a "white knight". Suddenly you hear the basement door opening. You tense up in fear since you've left not only the car keys but also your pistol in your room. You think at first you're going to have to risk just running out the front door, but... "Hey Suzy! Suzy? I got the jeep, come on let's get ready to go!" you hear Johnny's voice call out. You cautiously walk towards the hallway and see Johnny standing there looking into your room, then he turns his head and sees you. He's got some clothing in his hand. "Oh there you are. I was worried for a moment that you had to run out in a hurry!" "Johnny, what the hell...didn't you hear me calling you?" you ask. "No, I just got here." "What? How? I've been in the living room for the past few minutes! You couldn't have gotten by me." "No I came in through the basement window. I couldn't just leave the front door unlocked when I left." "Basement win...wait I didn't hear any glass breaking." "That's because it's not broken. I had it so I could easily open it. Don't worry, I thought about your safety. That window is pretty well hidden and not exactly easy to crawl through so I didn't think any of those things would see it. They would've been more likely to just try to bash the ground floor doors or windows in." "When did you mess around with the basement window and why didn't you just tell me you were leaving?" "Didn't you get my note? I explained why I left with bothering you in it." "I only just finished reading it this minute." "Oh, well I assumed you would've left your room before now. Anyway, here I got you these to wear. I think they might be a bit baggy, but they should work to help us blend in more." Johnny shoves the clothing at you as if to distract you from asking more questions. It's a uniform like what Johnny is wearing. You almost ask Johnny how he got the uniform, but as with most things concerning Johnny you're starting to think it might better if you don't know. As far as the basement window weirdness, you're not going to dwell on it too much because it's really not important right now. "Alright, that sounds like a good idea, I'll go put these on." You say and go to your room. "Um, don't worry, I didn't get those from a dead person or anything. It was a spare one I found." Johnny blurts out. "Okay. I trust you Johnny." You say which seems to make him smile. You lock the door and change into the military fatigues. Granted you don't see any blood or tears in the fatigues, but then he could've just choked the person wearing it to death. "(Sigh) Suzy, why the hell are you attracted to this guy? Oh right, because you've got some serious psychological issues yourself, that's why." You mumble to yourself as if being painfully aware of the situation makes everything okay. You grab your bags and exit your room. "Glad to see the fatigues aren't excessively big on you, I know you're small framed and all. You ready to go?" Johnny asks. "Yeah, let's get out of this place. How is it out there?" "In our immediate area? It's fairly quiet now. Haven't seen any of the rabid and the remainder of the Guard is busy burning bodies right now. I mean there are still patrols, but nobody even batted an eye when I drove this thing up to the house. Probably assumed whoever was inside was investigating or something. We shouldn't linger here though." With both of you ready and as prepared as you're going to be, you and Johnny exit out the front door and quickly enter the jeep which is sitting right next to your sister's car. You have to admit, you do feel a little safer sitting in this thing than if you did in your sister's car. Johnny starts up the vehicle and turns to you. "Suzy, you know I'll take you anywhere you want to go. So is there any place you had in mind?" Johnny asks. 'Never been anywhere, so not really." You answer. "I remember you saying you wanted to go home before." "Well that would be nice, but things aren't exactly normal any more. I mean the only reason for going back there would be to look for my brother's bomb shelter, which definitely would be a safe zone knowing how Ben spent so much time building and constantly modifying it. Of course my other brother Peter is currently looking for it as well and who knows if he already claimed and locked himself inside it." "Hmm, well it might be worth a look if you still want to try it. I mean the only other logical option I can think of is to as I suggested, leave town altogether. Should be much easier while driving around in this thing. Of course it might still be risky, if they've set up some sort of checkpoints outside of town...but maybe we can get the edge by fooling them briefly before smashing through such things." Pretty risky stuff, but then these are risky times. > You go home It might be wishful thinking on your part, but you desire to be able to go home and stay there is a lot stronger than trying to find some place new. In fact it seems like every time you try something new, it turns into a clusterfuck. "I want to go home and give it one more chance. If it turns out staying there isn't a viable option, then I suppose we can leave town." You say. "Okay, but you'll have to give me directions." Johnny says and starts pulling out of the driveway. You pass by a few soldiers dragging a few more bodies and placing them in a large pile outside one of the homes in this area. Another large pile of bodies is burning outside yet another home. Nobody tries to flag you down or anything though, you're guessing that between the dark, the uniforms and the jeep, if anyone is actually paying attention to you driving through, they probably think you're just more soldiers patrolling around. It isn't like this is most stable of situations right now. You continue to tell Johnny where to turn and drive and you go through another area where the National Guard has a presence. Again, you have no problems for the most part. However you then start hitting areas that are still suffering from conflict and in those cases, pretty severely. This is where some soldiers notice you a lot more and try to call out to you, presumably for help. In one case, you see two soldiers ragged and bloody running desperately from several of those rabid people. They cry out for you to stop, but naturally you and Johnny just keep driving. You hear some faint curses and screams as you put distance between you and the unfortunate soldiers. You eventually drive through areas that have been completely overrun by rabid. In fact you find that the military doesn't actually have that much control at all over your town and that there are far more of the rabid roaming around either chasing down normal people or attempting to break into houses. Most of them don't attempt to attack you, or if they do, you just continue driving fast enough that they don't get the chance. By the time you get to your own house, your neighborhood is eerily quiet. There are definitely signs of past conflict all over the place, but there is nobody on the streets and most homes are not lit either. (Though you do see broken doors and windows on a lot of them) Fortunately your own house doesn't look damaged (At least not from the front) You half expect to get swarmed by crazies as soon as you park in front of your house, but fortunately that isn't the case and you manage get in the house as quickly as possible. "Can't see shit, but I'm sort of afraid to turn on a light." You remark. "I know what you mean. Wouldn't want to attract those things. I got a small flashlight on this rifle. It shouldn't be too noticeable from the outside. So what's the deal with this shelter your brother built?" Johhny says turning on the flashlight and briefly shining it around the room and the nearby room. "I don't know yet. I mean all I know is the entrance is hidden and that Peter was looking for it. In fact, I'm wondering if he already found it and locked himself up in it. Seems like he would've heard us." "We haven't been that noisy. Besides, maybe he thinks we're intruders and is laying in wait to ambush us." "Possibly. I'd call out his name, but again, I don't want to make more noise...ah to hell with it. PETER?! Are you here?!" you said in a raised voice, trying not to shout too loudly. There is no answer. "He could be down in the basement or upstairs." Johnny says. "Maybe, I still think he would've heard me though...let's go check his room. If he did find out something about the shelter, maybe there will at least be a clue there." You say. "Where's his room?" "The connected garage. It's near the kitchen up ahead." You cautiously move about in the dark with Johnny taking the lead. You're holding on to your pistol the whole time being paranoid about something attacking you in the darkness. Johnny slowly opens the door to the garage and shines his light inside... You find Peter and another unknown man both not quite entirely dressed, but that isn't the disturbing part. The fact that they're both dead is the disturbing part. "Holy shit, that's Peter." You say. "Who's the other guy?" Johnny asks. "Dunno. Probably a client or boyfriend or something. He said he was with someone when I spoke earlier today with him." "Hmm, looks like there was a struggle. This place is obviously a mess." Johnny says shining the light all over the room. He shines the light on Peter and the other man and then gets a closer look. "Hmm, looks like they both suffered quite a bit of blunt trauma before their necks got snapped. It certainly wasn't those rabid people that did this. I'd wager if it was, they'd have chunks bitten out of them. Bandits perhaps, but this house doesn't look ransacked." You stand there in silence as Johnny goes on about who could've possibly done this. "Suzy? You okay?" Johnny asks. "Huh? Yeah. It's just...well sort of weird. I was pissed at Peter for the bullshit he said on the phone. Seeing him dead like this...is well...I dunno. I feel like I should feel something, but I don't. Maybe I'm becoming desensitized or something." "Well, like you said, he was an asshole to you earlier." "Yeah, he was. In fact I think part of the reason why I came here was the hope that he hadn't locked himself inside the shelter yet, so I could yell at him in person and maybe even kick his ass. (Sigh) Guess that isn't necessary anymore. Also don't know if he actually found the shelter or not and now I'm paranoid that whoever killed him is still in this fucking house." "We can find out the latter pretty quickly I should think, we can just make a quick search. As for the former, well that's up to you really." It's the middle of the night, you're in a town full of trigger happy military and cannibalistic crazies, you've just found your brother and his lover dead in the garage, you're hanging around a guy who is unhealthily obsessed with you and to top it all of, you're getting tired. At this point you don't want to risk anymore travelling. "Well, let's do what you said and check the house out. If everything is safe, let's just camp here for the rest of the night and start looking for the shelter tomorrow with fresh eyes." You say. "As you wish." Johnny answers. First thing you do is finish checking out the ground floor. Everything turns out okay and fairly untouched. Even the backyard doesn't have any nasty unwanted lurkers in it either. (As added protection you and Johnny shove a few chairs in front of the back and front doors just in case any DO show up) You head upstairs and cautiously search with Johnny. Much like the downstairs though, you find that there isn't anyone lurking up here. You even manage to find the courage to peek your head into Kelly's room, but given how messy her usually room is, you don't know if she's ever returned here. Who knows what's happened to her. Finally you end your search of the house by heading to the place where you started from, the basement. Again, not much looks different and fortunately there isn't anyone down here either. Not worrying about someone seeing a light source down here you turn the lights on and find your own room is about the same as you left it. You shake your head that the though of all the bullshit you went through this week, only to end up back here. Makes you wonder why you bothered. "So...this is where you lived huh?" Johnny asks. "Yep. This was my lot in life. It wasn't much, but it was mine. I was happy here you know? (Sigh) If only things never changed...Hm. Just realized you're the first person other than myself that's been in here in a long time." You say. "What about your boyfriend?" Johnny asks. "Bobby? Not as much as you might think. We actually hung out upstairs when nobody else was really around or over his house as unpleasant as that could be at times. Honestly I sort of preferred that nobody come in here except me. This was my haven from the outside world and wanted to maintain that illusion as much as possible. Funny, but even with all the chaos going on out there, I still feel very safe here. Anyway, I guess nobody is lurking in the house." "Guess not. Either that or they're very sneaky. So are you going to be sleeping down here then?" "I believe I will. I figure even if we can't find the shelter tomorrow, I will have at least gotten to sleep one last time in my own room before we leave." "Don't worry, we'll find it. In fact maybe I'll do a little searching while you're resting." "Heh, well good luck with that. I know it seems like an easy task since the backyard is only so big, but somehow Ben managed to hide it pretty well. Only his son Tommy used to consistently know where it was located and moved. Besides, I wouldn't want you to suddenly drawing a pack of those rabid things due to you shining a flashlight around outside. Even if there is a privacy fence around the back." "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine." "Yes. Yes, I imagine you would be...Johnny...you weren't in the military yourself at one time were you?" "Nah. Following orders, regimented life, not really my thing. Had enough of that growing up with my mom. Why?" "Just wondering. Due to all the shit that's been going on, we also haven't had much time to talk. I still don't know that much about you." "Heh, well you know. Like I mentioned a few times, I've been a bit of a drifter. Nothing really exciting though, it's just the way things have turned out for me." Johnny starts shifting his body a bit. He's trying not to look nervous about you asking deeper questions about his past, but you can tell by now when he's being evasive. "Okay, so I'm gonna leave you to your haven as you called it. If anything urgent comes up I'll be sure to let you know." Johnny says. Johnny turns and starts to leave then he stops to turn back to you. "You know I love you right?" he says. "I... know Johnny...and we'll talk about that tomorrow as well." Johnny doesn't reply, he just turns around and heads upstairs. Well barring any unforeseen problems you've got two big issues to tackle tomorrow. The shelter location and Johnny. But those are issues to deal with tomorrow. Right now you're going to pretend that none of the shit that's currently happening is actually happening and enjoy your haven, if only tonight. > The next day… "Wakey wakey sis." You hear a voice say. You slowly open your eyes and at first see what looks to be a man standing in front of you holding a shotgun. Then after the blur of your eyes clears a bit, you see that it's your sister Kelly. Looks like she's still hostile to you as well considering she's pointing a shotgun at you. You don't know why, but then has she ever needed a reason? You look at your pistol on the floor near the couch you're sleeping on and Kelly just shakes her head. "I guarantee you wouldn't make it sis. I suggest you don't even try...heh I doubt you'd have the balls to go through with it anyway. I have to admit when I came up here to get something from my room, I didn't expect to glance over this way and see you sleeping here." Up? Where the hell would she come "up" from? You're in the basement now. Kelly's blocking your doorway, but you think you can make out a glowing light source coming from the basement floor beyond. And then it hits you. "...he moved the fucking shelter entrance in the house? And it's been right near my goddamn room all this time?" you ask. "Hey hey! It's about time you used that blonde head of yours other than taking up space!" Kelly mocks. Well you know where the entrance is, but unfortunately you've got bigger issues now. Kelly pointing a shotgun at you is concerning to be sure and makes you think back to what you saw in the garage. Peter and the other man's body. Their bodies were beaten and their necks were broken. Kelly certainly has the strength and the skill to do such a thing. Kelly's always been hostile to you and barely civil to your other sibling, but to actually kill one... "When did you find out? When you killed Peter?" "Pfft. I've always known. Crazy old Ben thought he was being so sneaky moving the goddamn entrance around all the time, but I knew where the fuck it was nearly every time. He had just moved the entrance again a few days before he blew away his family and himself. I'm just surprised YOU never accidently found it given that you lived practically right near the fucking thing for years. If the entrance was any closer you would've been sleeping in the damn thing." Kelly continues to address you while briefly looking over her shoulder. You don't know if she's just being cautious or if she knows someone else is with you...and where is Johnny anyway? "As for Peter, that little faggot managed to find out where it was and thought he was going to hide out from the current shitstorm in it with his boyfriend or whoever that other faggot he was with. Had to convince him that he had to go, he didn't listen and tried to resist and well you saw how that turned out." Kelly briefly moves a bit to her left in your doorway allowing you to briefly look to see if you see Johnny coming, but you see nobody. Kelly notices you looking though. "So where's that little whore Donna? Heard you moved in with her. She come with you? Julie maybe? Both? How the fuck did any of you survive the week?" "I'm here by myself Kelly." "Bullshit. SOMEONE is here with you. I can't see a shrinking violet like you hauling your ass through a bunch of military patrols as well as those freaks. The fact that you're wearing military fatigues tells me that SOMEONE helped you. I know damn well you didn't kill someone yourself for them." "It's been a weird week Kelly. You never know what you're capable of until you're put into the situation." You say in such a way that gives Kelly a bit of an eyebrow raise. "Oh? So...are you a killer now, little sister? Tell me, how did it feel when you did it?" "I threw up. I'm not a fucking psychopath okay?! It didn't give me some thrill! I just did what I had to, to survive!" you exclaim. "Okay, okay, calm down there killer." Kelly chuckles before getting serious again. "While this is enlightening and all, we really should be getting back to the matter at hand." Still no sign of Johnny. Where the fuck is he? "So what's next Kelly? You gonna kill me too?" you ask. "Don't know sis...don't know...severely thinking about it. I've never liked you. You've been a thorn in my side since you crawled out of mom's vagina. Always having to be compared to how good and pretty you were and how bad and rotten I was despite the fact I was the one who was shouldering most of the responsibility in this fucked up family. What did you ever do except hide in the goddamn basement? Even now you left the house only to come crawling back here. Yep, I've thought about killing you on many, many, MANY occasions." "Actually that wasn't my initial intention. My initial plan was to drive out of this forsaken town. I only stopped here because my own vehicle was badly damaged and I had hoped to maybe get Peter's car and some extra supplies before heading out again." You say trying to stall for time. "Oh? Hmm, you're just full of surprises today aren't you? Well if that is true, you may have just bought yourself a bit of a reprieve sis...okay. What the hell, I'm in a good mood. I'm gonna let you walk outta here alive and you're going to be thankful." "I don't suppose you'll allow me to gather some supplies or let me have my gun will you?" "Hah, no. Wouldn't want you getting any ideas of trying to shoot me, you being a killer now and all. In fact let me just take that pistol right now. Stay on that couch and keep lying in that prone position. Don't you fucking move, or boom there goes your pretty little blonde head all over the place." Johnny is still nowhere to be seen. Did he take off? Did you actually get abandoned by a fucking stalker? Is your luck really that bad? Kelly now moves into your room, still pointing the shotgun at you, As she's crouching down to pick up the pistol, there is a brief moment that she takes her eyes off of you. It's apparent that there will be no rescue; the only thing you can hope is that Kelly is going to keep her word and let you go unharmed. Of course you don't really think that's likely and part of you wants to grab for the pistol before she can. > You grab the pistol In an act of desperation you lunge for the pistol, but Kelly easily anticipates your actions. She quickly grabs the weapon and manages to step on your hand in the process followed by her smashing the pistol into your head. "You dumb blonde bitch, I was gonna let you go too! What the..." What occurs next is a blur mainly because you're still dizzy from getting hit in the head, but also because it happens so fast. Johnny bursts out of the closet with his rifle in hand, but Kelly already has a grip on you and managed to pull you up in an attempt to use you as a human shield. Johnny and Kelly scream at each other. Something about letting you go and something else about blowing your head off. Eventually it doesn't matter because Johnny eventually feels he has no choice and if you're going to get killed, then it should be him that does it. Johnny opens fire on you both, before Kelly can make good on her threats of killing you. Due to you soaking up several of the initial bullets, she actually manages to get off a couple of shots at Johnny, but whether she got him or not is irrelevant because you're still lying dead on top of Kelly's equally bullet ridden body.

"Wakey wakey sis." You hear a voice say. You slowly open your eyes and at first see what looks to be a man standing in front of you holding a shotgun. Then after the blur of your eyes clears a bit, you see that it's your sister Kelly. Looks like she's still hostile to you as well considering she's pointing a shotgun at you. You don't know why, but then has she ever needed a reason? You look at your pistol on the floor near the couch you're sleeping on and Kelly just shakes her head. "I guarantee you wouldn't make it sis. I suggest you don't even try...heh I doubt you'd have the balls to go through with it anyway. I have to admit when I came up here to get something from my room, I didn't expect to glance over this way and see you sleeping here." Up? Where the hell would she come "up" from? You're in the basement now. Kelly's blocking your doorway, but you think you can make out a glowing light source coming from the basement floor beyond. And then it hits you. "...he moved the fucking shelter entrance in the house? And it's been right near my goddamn room all this time?" you ask. "Hey hey! It's about time you used that blonde head of yours other than taking up space!" Kelly mocks. Well you know where the entrance is, but unfortunately you've got bigger issues now. Kelly pointing a shotgun at you is concerning to be sure and makes you think back to what you saw in the garage. Peter and the other man's body. Their bodies were beaten and their necks were broken. Kelly certainly has the strength and the skill to do such a thing. Kelly's always been hostile to you and barely civil to your other sibling, but to actually kill one... "When did you find out? When you killed Peter?" "Pfft. I've always known. Crazy old Ben thought he was being so sneaky moving the goddamn entrance around all the time, but I knew where the fuck it was nearly every time. He had just moved the entrance again a few days before he blew away his family and himself. I'm just surprised YOU never accidently found it given that you lived practically right near the fucking thing for years. If the entrance was any closer you would've been sleeping in the damn thing." Kelly continues to address you while briefly looking over her shoulder. You don't know if she's just being cautious or if she knows someone else is with you...and where is Johnny anyway? "As for Peter, that little faggot managed to find out where it was and thought he was going to hide out from the current shitstorm in it with his boyfriend or whoever that other faggot he was with. Had to convince him that he had to go, he didn't listen and tried to resist and well you saw how that turned out." Kelly briefly moves a bit to her left in your doorway allowing you to briefly look to see if you see Johnny coming, but you see nobody. Kelly notices you looking though. "So where's that little whore Donna? Heard you moved in with her. She come with you? Julie maybe? Both? How the fuck did any of you survive the week?" "I'm here by myself Kelly." "Bullshit. SOMEONE is here with you. I can't see a shrinking violet like you hauling your ass through a bunch of military patrols as well as those freaks. The fact that you're wearing military fatigues tells me that SOMEONE helped you. I know damn well you didn't kill someone yourself for them." "It's been a weird week Kelly. You never know what you're capable of until you're put into the situation." You say in such a way that gives Kelly a bit of an eyebrow raise. "Oh? So...are you a killer now, little sister? Tell me, how did it feel when you did it?" "I threw up. I'm not a fucking psychopath okay?! It didn't give me some thrill! I just did what I had to, to survive!" you exclaim. "Okay, okay, calm down there killer." Kelly chuckles before getting serious again. "While this is enlightening and all, we really should be getting back to the matter at hand." Still no sign of Johnny. Where the fuck is he? "So what's next Kelly? You gonna kill me too?" you ask. "Don't know sis...don't know...severely thinking about it. I've never liked you. You've been a thorn in my side since you crawled out of mom's vagina. Always having to be compared to how good and pretty you were and how bad and rotten I was despite the fact I was the one who was shouldering most of the responsibility in this fucked up family. What did you ever do except hide in the goddamn basement? Even now you left the house only to come crawling back here. Yep, I've thought about killing you on many, many, MANY occasions." "Actually that wasn't my initial intention. My initial plan was to drive out of this forsaken town. I only stopped here because my own vehicle was badly damaged and I had hoped to maybe get Peter's car and some extra supplies before heading out again." You say trying to stall for time. "Oh? Hmm, you're just full of surprises today aren't you? Well if that is true, you may have just bought yourself a bit of a reprieve sis...okay. What the hell, I'm in a good mood. I'm gonna let you walk outta here alive and you're going to be thankful." "I don't suppose you'll allow me to gather some supplies or let me have my gun will you?" "Hah, no. Wouldn't want you getting any ideas of trying to shoot me, you being a killer now and all. In fact let me just take that pistol right now. Stay on that couch and keep lying in that prone position. Don't you fucking move, or boom there goes your pretty little blonde head all over the place." Johnny is still nowhere to be seen. Did he take off? Did you actually get abandoned by a fucking stalker? Is your luck really that bad? Kelly now moves into your room, still pointing the shotgun at you, As she's crouching down to pick up the pistol, there is a brief moment that she takes her eyes off of you. It's apparent that there will be no rescue; the only thing you can hope is that Kelly is going to keep her word and let you go unharmed. Of course you don't really think that's likely and part of you wants to grab for the pistol before she can. > Don't move It's no good. You'd never manage to grab the pistol before Kelly. Even if you did, she'd probably manage to shoot you before you could shoot her. Fear and panic begins to well up inside you as you believe this is the beginning of the end. Kelly picks up the pistol and smiles as she puts it in front of her pants. You look helplessly as she does this...and then that's when your eyes wander to your closet. You don't remember shutting the closet door. In fact you never shut your closet door... And it's opening right now. Instinctively you try to flatten your body and disappear into the crevasse of your couch as much as possible. You then place your arms up to your face. "What the hell are you doing? That's not gonna..." Kelly starts to say and then she hears a creak. Johnny unloads several rounds into Kelly's body and head. She doesn't even have time to fully turn around. Pieces of her fly out from the exit wounds and she falls to the floor in a bloody mess still twitching a bit. "Shit. Shit. Oh Shit. Oh fuck. Fuck. Please oh God. Please." You're muttering to yourself the whole time, barely aware of everything else. Johnny walks over from the closet and kneels over to you. "It's over Suzy. Calm down. It's over. She's dead. That bitch will never bully you again." Johnny says grabbing one of your hands. You calm down and look at Johnny. In that moment you don't care about what he has done in the past or what he might do in the future. All you care about is that he was ultimately there for you when it counted. You sit up and hug him, getting teary eyed in the process. "Oh god, I thought...I thought maybe..." "No, I was always there to protect you. I told you. I'll always be here. You're my perfect angel. You give my life...purpose." Johnny replies hugging you in return and patting you on the back. Johnny also sniffs your hair as he's hugging you at which point causes you to pull back a bit. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I just..." Johnny says. "It's okay. I know. It was the moment." You say trying not to make it too uncomfortable. With you and Johnny done embracing, you stand up and look over at your sister's body, which has stopped any sort of death twitch it might've briefly had. You just stare at it silently. Johnny doesn't even speak, he instead watches you looking at your sister. After about a couple of minutes of this, he finally speaks. "How do you feel?" "Honestly? I feel nothing. I don't feel anger for what she did. I don't feel guilt or even happiness that she's dead. I just don't feel anything for her anymore. She's dead and that's it. Just like Peter upstairs. Just like my Mom, my Dad, my whole family at this point. They're all dead and I'm alive." "Well, we don't know about your sister Donna." Johnny remarks. "She's dead too. I know she is." You say and look at Johnny who looks away and focuses back on Kelly's body. "Well anyway, it looks like we know where the shelter entrance is now. Why don't we check it out?" "Well that was the whole goal of this ordeal I suppose." You say. Johnny exits the room and you grab your pistol back from Kelly's body before leaving. Stepping out of your room you see the hatch in the floor wide open where the fluorescent glow of lighting coming from. You take a look inside and see a long ladder down leading to another floor, which you imagine that's the main shelter. You can't believe how close it was to your room and how you never knew about it! "How the hell did you brother do this with you hearing or knowing about it?" Johnny asks. "I dunno. I mean he managed to routinely change the entrance all the damn time too. Ben had a gift I guess. Everyone does I suppose." you say and you and Johnny start climbing down the ladder and you close up the hatch. Eventually you get to the bottom and you and Johnny open up a metal door, which is fortunately not locked. And there it is, you're in the shelter proper. Before you is a dimly lit living area with various furniture and even a TV. Other rooms include a bathroom, kitchen area, a couple of bedrooms and A LOT of storage rooms. One such room is huge, as rows and rows of canned food and bottled water are found. "Well looks like sustenance is plentiful. Doesn't even look like Kelly put a dent in the supplies." You say. Another storage room contains a goodly amount of ammo and weapons of all kinds. Mostly rifles. Medical supplies are in another. One thing that stands out is that Ben's shelter has solid steel walls. You have no idea how the hell he did this and you guess you never will. You do notice on several of the walls something has been repeatedly scratched out though not entirely successfully everywhere. At one point you make out most of it. Pr-p---- o- th- Gr--n- -er- Cor---at-o- "Well, I guess spending thousands on one of those Ground Zero shelters would've been a waste of money for you Seems like you got a nice one for free." Johnny says looking around. "Indeed. Now we need to talk about us Johnny." Johnny turns to you and sees you're holding your pistol directly at him. He doesn't react with surprise or anger or anything. It's nothing. And that's the "real" Johnny right there. The one you've always known even when you weren't quite sure. "So...what is this Suzy?" Johnny asks. "I don't know yet. I really don't. I wish I did. I wish I could make a decision. I wish I could be the killer my sister thought I was. This would be so much easier. On the other hand I also wish I could trust and just let go." Johnny makes no move towards you. He just continues to stand there. You briefly wipe your eyes while still holding the pistol on him. "Johnny, you've been here for me this whole crazy week. I don't think I would've survived if you hadn't been around...but I know you. I know what you are." "I never thought that you wouldn't figure it out, you're an intelligent woman after all which is matched only by your beauty of course." Johnny replies. "Stop. Just stop." You exclaim. You tear up and sniffle for a moment and then address Johnny again. "My uncle Ed was a serial killer. We all sort of wondered, but it wasn't until that fateful day when I decided to go snooping around where I shouldn't have that I learned the awful truth. He caught me finding where he was storing body parts, but in his own twisted honorable way due to being related, he said he'd spare my life if I helped him kill someone. Kept saying I was pure and good, and not like the rest of those whores he killed." Johnny's eyebrows raise when you say this. Now he seems genuinely surprised. "In a more fucked up twist, he was feuding with a group of cultists into human sacrifice. Wanted me to help kill them. I initially did out of fear, but then I met Bobby during this mission. I ended up betraying my uncle because I felt that connection to Bobby because we both came from fucked up families. I thought it was love, and maybe it was, but it didn't last obviously." Johnny seems a bit overwhelmed by your new information. "That's... some story Suzy. I have to admit, I never would have guessed..." "That what? That I'm not perfect? I'm not good? I'm not so pure? That I'm a backstabbing whore like all the rest?" you snap. "That...that wasn't what I was going to say at all. Suzy, do you really think I could ever see you in that light?" "I...I don't know Johnny. You've never told me much about your past. I mean I can piece things together by what you have told me and how you've acted. And that's the problem I DON'T KNOW." "Okay, Suzy, let's just get it completely out in the open. What exactly is it that you think I've done or what I am?" "You're a serial killer. I mean I don't exactly know just how bad you are for certain and I can't know for certain, but I do know you're a killer. I've been studying you probably just as much as you've been studying me. I mean...Christ...I don't KNOW if you killed Donna. I don't KNOW if you killed Julie, but the more I think about it and how they just disappeared and the conclusion I come to isn't pleasant. There's also your own suspicious behavior, the incident with the soldier "falling" down the stairs, your rage when beating that guy's head in, claiming that you've done bad things, stealing a jeep and most likely killing the owners in process, and finally your obsession with me. I'm quite familiar with your kind enough that even if I can't prove some of this shit, I feel it in my heart that's what you are." "Well...if I am so terrible, then I suppose you should kill me." "Goddamn it Johnny, if it was THAT FUCKING EASY I WOULD! But YOU KNOW it isn't and I KNOW it isn't! Because I also know underneath the fucked up social chameleon predator, I KNOW there actually IS a human being capable of love. I believe you really love me Johnny. I do. I don't doubt it. The problem is, how can I fucking trust that it's going to last?" Johnny has no answer. He just looks down. "Well see there's my problem. How do I know that I'm not going to do something that's going to set you off? Make you see me as fallen angel or a flawed person that is fit only for destruction? And this goes both ways Johnny, how do YOU know that I might not strike first? Granted I'm not a killer, but I still manipulated events to cause the death of my uncle. Can YOU really trust me, if I'm scared of you?" you say. Johnny at this point rubs his eyes and sniffles a bit. He's not exactly crying, but he's definitely having an emotional moment. "Suzy. I cannot think of anything more that I can do, that would convince you that I'll love you forever and that I will always protect you. It's true I have done bad things...it's also true that I probably would be classified as a serial killer. I'm very sick Suzy. I have a lot of bad thoughts going on in my head most of the time and even though I can emulate emotions, they don't feel genuine. It's like I'm just a mask. But with you, it's different. I haven't felt this way towards anyone since...well my first love. I don't really want to get into that right now, but I want to say it was a much different situation." Johnny falls to his knees. "Almost everything I felt during my time with you this week was actually real to me. You made me feel like a normal person. Like I had at last found a purpose to my life. I love you Suzy. You can never fall off that pedestal. I know that this is difficult for you. I understand the alienation and mistrust you feel, perhaps in a different way, but I understand it. But I also know that you want to give us a chance, if you didn't, you wouldn't be struggling with this right now." You continue to point the pistol at Johnny as more tears roll down your cheeks. "Johnny...I know you've lied to me or been evasive about things this week. I've been nothing but truthful. If this has any chance of working. I need to know right now. (Exhale) Did you kill Donna and Julie?" "I thought you said you didn't care what happened to them and that they abandoned you." Johnny says. "And that may be the case because you FUCKING killed them! Now stop evading the fucking question and answer it!" you demand. Johnny looks at you. In fact it's the most cold-blooded stare you've ever seen from him. It's like when Uncle Ed looked at you in his van. "Would you believe me, if I said no?" he asks. "ANSWER!" you demand. "Very well. No, I didn't." Johnny says looking straight at you. > You accept the answer And with those words that you hear from Johnny, everything in your mind just sort of shuts off. It doesn't matter. None of it does. You see that now. "Okay." You say and put your pistol away. Johnny looks a bit uncertain, almost as if he was expecting you to shoot him. "Okay?" he asks. "Yeah, okay. If you're telling me you didn't kill them, then you didn't kill them. In fact I don't want to know about your past either. It's just not important. You were there for me this week when nobody else was, that's the important thing and that's what I should place my faith in." Johnny slowly gets up off his knees. He doesn't approach you right away; instead he just continues to stand at a distance. "I apologize for my earlier outburst Johnny. I just, well it's been a stressful week. You understand." You say. "Yeah....yeah I get it. Don't worry about it. I'm fine." Johnny says. "Good. Good. Well, let's move on to other matters shall we?" "Yeah." Johnny says. Suddenly Johnny rushes at you and grabs you tightly. While one arm is firmly around your waist, one hand moves up to your neck and you feel a gentle squeeze as he looks into your eyes. It's the look of a predator that has finally caught his prey. "Well? What are you waiting for lover? I trust you." you say not resisting. Johnny's hand moves from your neck and to your face, where upon he strokes your cheek gently. "You have the face of a perfect angel." he whispers and then he moves in to kiss you. As your lips touch, he begins to take your clothes off in a hasty fashion. He's definitely getting aggressive, but oddly you're not quite feeling his "enthusiasm" yet... By the time you get pushed over towards the bed and are basically in your bra and panties, he still isn't quite "ready." "Do you need some help?" you ask. "No, I'll be fine..." He says as he tries to get it up. While you take off the remainder of your clothes Johnny's still having difficulties. "Look I can help you out, I don't mind going down on..." "Shhh! No! I don't want you debasing yourself like a whore! I just need to focus!" Johnny snaps. "Okay. Okay." You say and back off. You lie down on the bed and try not to stare in an effort to not look judgmental. This is really awkward though. Johnny starts swearing, as his buddy is not doing what he wants it to do. Swearing turns to shouting and then finally a complete breakdown. "Shit! I wanted this to be so perfect. I wanted to be everything for you, not some fucking impotent eunuch!" he says sniffling a bit. "Hey, calm down. It's okay. You're trying too hard, you just need to relax." You say moving over to caress him a bit. "I know. (sniffle) This just has never happened before." Johnny replies. "Well, you probably aren't used to...uh situations like this. I mean would it help if I pretended I was dead or something?" "What? No. That doesn't work. Your body is too warm and submerging you in cold water would be really uncomfortable for you." Johnny says. As you continue to try to make Johnny feel more at ease, he slowly speaks. "Suzy...there is something I can think of...but...you're not going to want to do it..." "Does it involve pain?" you ask. "No." "Then go ahead and say it." "Could...could you pretend that we're related?" Johnny asks. Why are you not surprised? "Ah. I see. So you want me to role play as your mother?" you ask going for the obvious serial killer obsession. "Hah, no. You're a bit too young for that, I don't think I could maintain the illusion, but... um maybe you could be my sister?" Wow, a murderous boyfriend who fucked his sister in the past, it's like being with Bobby all over again...and there's something vaguely comforting about that. You always did prefer something familiar to something new. You smile and caress Johnny's face. "Of course brother dear." You say and passionately kiss Johnny. From there things get a lot better. Johnny actually is a pretty sensual lover when he gets going. You guess he must've loved his sister just like you once loved Bobby a lot. Johnny falls asleep shortly afterwards professing his usual love for you. After being awake a little longer yourself thinking about what the future might hold, you go to sleep. > Next day... You wake up to the faint sounds of rustling. You look up from your bed and see Johnny getting dressed. "Where are you going?" you ask groggily. "I was going to get the stuff I brought in from the jeep and left up stairs on Thursday night. I know we've got more than enough stuff down here now, but I still thought you'd want your clothes which we don't have any of down here." "Oh. Okay, I'll come with you." You say. "No, stay here and relax, I got it." "It's okay really, I don't mind. Besides, I still left things in my room that I'd like to get." "You sure you want to do that with your sister's body still in there?" "Oh yeah that's right. Well I'll just help you with the bags from upstairs then." "Okay. Always enjoy your company anyway and don't worry, I fully intend on cleaning up all the bodies upstairs, not just your sister's. I mean know we're going to be down here for a while, but you never want bodies just lying around to rot in your area. Never mind the smell, but there are also vermin and health hazards to consider." Johnny says. Well he'd probably know better than most... You and Johnny finish getting dressed and exit the shelter. From the basement you then head to the ground floor where you see your bags lying on the floor near the front door. "You said you brought these in on Thursday night?" you ask. "Yeah, after you fell asleep." "I suppose it's a silly question since you never seem to be scared of anything, but you weren't concerned about those rabid things possibly wandering around at night?" "Oh I definitely was prepared in case of an attack, but the strange thing is, its dead silent in your neighborhood. Or at least it seems like it is. I didn't see anything wandering around out there. Rabid or otherwise. If I had to guess, the National Guard exterminated everything in this area and moved on." "Hm, well from what I've seen they're getting their ass kicked elsewhere. I just hope that..." Before you or Johnny can say anything else a bright flash shines through one of the uncovered windows along with the sound of a large explosion in the distance. You can't help but take a quick glance out the window. And there you see it in the far distance, the dissipating remnants of a mushroom cloud rising up in the sky. "...they finally went and did it." You say. "...I have to say, I'm not entirely surprised. Johnny replies looking with you. "From the direction I saw the cloud, I'd say it probably hit Security City and that's fairly far away. I know impact should've at least shattered the windows of the house had it been closer or bigger so it probably wasn't even a large one. Still, we probably should still get down in that shelter." You say. Johnny agrees and the pair of you grab all the bags and quickly head back down to the shelter. "Well, I guess it's a good thing we decided to come back here instead of trying to leave town." You say. "Yeah, I imagine things are going to be quite chaotic for a long time to come. It's better that you're safe down here." Johnny says. "We're both safe down here." you say, but Johnny's pacing suggests that he's a bit preoccupied. "Okay, what's wrong?" you ask. "Well, with this new event come to light, its already established that the situation just got a lot worse and isn't going to be ending anytime soon. Now we've probably got a decades worth of supplies, possibly a little more since I don't eat much anyway, but the fact remains, we're going to need more supplies eventually and that means going up to the surface and dealing with it." Johnny replies. "Yeah, I know. I didn't really want to think about it, but you're right of course. I think I saw some survival manuals in one of the rooms down here, guess I better read up on them." "While I certainly wouldn't stop you from getting yourself acquainted with such things, my thoughts are, why do you need to leave here and risk your life at all? I'll be the one going up there." "Well we are sort of a team now right? I mean don't you want me to help you?" Johnny's hands touch your shoulders as he stares into your eyes. His hands gently run down from your shoulders to your arms until he's holding both of your hands. "Suzy, you were too good for this world when it wasn't completely fucked up, you're definitely too good for it now. As dangerous as it was in this past week, it's going to be ten times worse now. It's going to be chaos, anarchy and people killing each other for survival as well as pleasure. In short, it's going to be a world that someone like me would thrive in. I actually belong out there." Johnny then lets go your hands and raises his arms upward and looks up and around making motions with his hands pointing to the shelter in general. "And this, all this, is your world. This is all you have ever needed Suzy. Some place to feel safe. Some place locked away from the outside world. I mean you're the honest one here, can you tell me sincerely that you really want to go out there scrounging around for supplies and having to deal with people wanting to rape you or kill you, or hell even eat you? Wouldn't you rather someone else deal with it?" Johnny focuses his attention back to you. You look at him and you don't even answer because your face is probably giving him his answer already. He's absolutely right. You don't want to deal with reality. You never have. In fact you got along pretty well without having to for a very long time and whenever you have had to deal with it, it's always been a stressful mess. He's also right in that he's far more suited to dealing with the shitstorm that the surface is going to be. And maybe that's just one more reason why you didn't kill Johnny. You knew he'd be willing to take care of you no matter what. It's all you've ever wanted, for someone to just love and take care of you while you didn't have to worry about a thing. You move forward and put your arms back around Johnny and look into his eyes. "Just don't killed okay?" you say. "Never. I'll always be around to protect and take care of you Suzy. My love for you will always keep me going forever and ever and ever and ever." The way Johnny is looking at you while he strokes your hair each time for emphasis when he says "and ever" would probably be creepy to most, but you know its just his way of confirming his love you. You're so lucky. > Sheltered Princess The Future... It's been about a month; Johnny should be home again soon. Just have to keep an ear open for that certain knock and his voice. You wonder what things he will have brought home this time. You're still pretty much good with the necessities. Maybe he will have found some new movies or books to bring you this time. At first when he started going out, you worried about him even though he assured you he would be fine. Of course as time went on, you ceased worrying altogether. Still, after the first few years, Johnny was getting restless. Sure he was going out, but never for long periods of time. Then one day he went out and didn't return for a full week. For the first time in a long while you worried so much when he did that. This caused an argument when he finally returned. You were so angry. You even accused him of cheating on you, but deep down you knew that wasn't and would never be the case. To Johnny's credit he was honest about what the problem was. He apologized realizing he should've at least told you before disappearing like that. He tried, he really tried and he thought that "you" would be enough, but he wasn't like you. He couldn't stay cooped up down in a shelter for long stretches of time. Even though he was in the presence of an "angel" he always felt like a trapped animal. Sometimes being around you made him feel and realize just how inferior he was to you. He explained how the surface was better than he could've ever imagined. No law, no order, and freedom to do whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted. The pull was too great and was getting greater. You were upset and rightfully so. After all he had professed that he would always be there for you, and now who would take care of you if he left? Johnny however insisted that he wasn't going to break your heart. He assured you once again that he would still be there to take care of you; he just needed time to himself. He explained that he just needed to "wander" because deep down that's who he'd always be. He also explained it would be safer for you if he did wander as he didn't want to one day unleash his...urges out on you by accident. What could you do? How could you compete? He was a slave to his nature. It was like Bobby all over again. That first time, you practically kicked him out and he left without struggle or even raising his voice, he just told you that he would keep his promise and that you would see that he would not fail you. Naturally you didn't believe him at the time you were too upset. That entire month was a pretty bad one for you. You spent most of your time crying and wondering if you'd been a delusional fool for sticking your head in the sand and ignoring reality as usual. You even started reading those survival books that you hadn't actually gotten to reading yet and rationing your food and water a little more since you were potentially facing an uncertain future. But then when that month had passed and Johnny did indeed return like he always had in the past. At first you were reluctant to even let him back in, but then you realized that he had kept his promise just like he always has to you. The reunion was a happy one and over the years you've gotten accustomed to this arrangement. In fact it's nice to be by yourself too. You'd actually forgotten what that was like during the years Johnny was around all the time. You hear a familiar pattern knock on the shelter door followed by Johnny's faint voice coming from the other side. After taking the usual safety precautions, you excitedly rush to open it with your pistol drawn. "I'm home, my perfect angel." Johnny says smiling and holding a couple of bags no doubt stuffed with goodies. "Well don't just stand there, come in! I missed you." You say and welcome Johnny back home like you always do. Johnny tells you a few things about the outside world like he always does, but in general you never care that much. As far as you're concerned, what he does out there you don't want to hear too much about and it doesn't matter anyway. All that matters is his time with you. You happily accept all the gifts and supplies he has brought for you and later on you and he embrace as lovers do. The pair of you enjoy your time together, until its time for Johnny to wander again. But you never despair about it, because you know he'll always come back. And one day, you know he'll come back forever. It's not perfect, but then nothing in this new world is.

[Themes: modern, serious, humor, horror] It's no good. You'd never manage to grab the pistol before Kelly. Even if you did, she'd probably manage to shoot you before you could shoot her. Fear and panic begins to well up inside you as you believe this is the beginning of the end. Kelly picks up the pistol and smiles as she puts it in front of her pants. You look helplessly as she does this...and then that's when your eyes wander to your closet. You don't remember shutting the closet door. In fact you never shut your closet door... And it's opening right now. Instinctively you try to flatten your body and disappear into the crevasse of your couch as much as possible. You then place your arms up to your face. "What the hell are you doing? That's not gonna..." Kelly starts to say and then she hears a creak. Johnny unloads several rounds into Kelly's body and head. She doesn't even have time to fully turn around. Pieces of her fly out from the exit wounds and she falls to the floor in a bloody mess still twitching a bit. "Shit. Shit. Oh Shit. Oh fuck. Fuck. Please oh God. Please." You're muttering to yourself the whole time, barely aware of everything else. Johnny walks over from the closet and kneels over to you. "It's over Suzy. Calm down. It's over. She's dead. That bitch will never bully you again." Johnny says grabbing one of your hands. You calm down and look at Johnny. In that moment you don't care about what he has done in the past or what he might do in the future. All you care about is that he was ultimately there for you when it counted. You sit up and hug him, getting teary eyed in the process. "Oh god, I thought...I thought maybe..." "No, I was always there to protect you. I told you. I'll always be here. You're my perfect angel. You give my life...purpose." Johnny replies hugging you in return and patting you on the back. Johnny also sniffs your hair as he's hugging you at which point causes you to pull back a bit. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I just..." Johnny says. "It's okay. I know. It was the moment." You say trying not to make it too uncomfortable. With you and Johnny done embracing, you stand up and look over at your sister's body, which has stopped any sort of death twitch it might've briefly had. You just stare at it silently. Johnny doesn't even speak, he instead watches you looking at your sister. After about a couple of minutes of this, he finally speaks. "How do you feel?" "Honestly? I feel nothing. I don't feel anger for what she did. I don't feel guilt or even happiness that she's dead. I just don't feel anything for her anymore. She's dead and that's it. Just like Peter upstairs. Just like my Mom, my Dad, my whole family at this point. They're all dead and I'm alive." "Well, we don't know about your sister Donna." Johnny remarks. "She's dead too. I know she is." You say and look at Johnny who looks away and focuses back on Kelly's body. "Well anyway, it looks like we know where the shelter entrance is now. Why don't we check it out?" "Well that was the whole goal of this ordeal I suppose." You say. Johnny exits the room and you grab your pistol back from Kelly's body before leaving. Stepping out of your room you see the hatch in the floor wide open where the fluorescent glow of lighting coming from. You take a look inside and see a long ladder down leading to another floor, which you imagine that's the main shelter. You can't believe how close it was to your room and how you never knew about it! "How the hell did you brother do this with you hearing or knowing about it?" Johnny asks. "I dunno. I mean he managed to routinely change the entrance all the damn time too. Ben had a gift I guess. Everyone does I suppose." you say and you and Johnny start climbing down the ladder and you close up the hatch. Eventually you get to the bottom and you and Johnny open up a metal door, which is fortunately not locked. And there it is, you're in the shelter proper. Before you is a dimly lit living area with various furniture and even a TV. Other rooms include a bathroom, kitchen area, a couple of bedrooms and A LOT of storage rooms. One such room is huge, as rows and rows of canned food and bottled water are found. "Well looks like sustenance is plentiful. Doesn't even look like Kelly put a dent in the supplies." You say. Another storage room contains a goodly amount of ammo and weapons of all kinds. Mostly rifles. Medical supplies are in another. One thing that stands out is that Ben's shelter has solid steel walls. You have no idea how the hell he did this and you guess you never will. You do notice on several of the walls something has been repeatedly scratched out though not entirely successfully everywhere. At one point you make out most of it. Pr-p---- o- th- Gr--n- -er- Cor---at-o- "Well, I guess spending thousands on one of those Ground Zero shelters would've been a waste of money for you Seems like you got a nice one for free." Johnny says looking around. "Indeed. Now we need to talk about us Johnny." Johnny turns to you and sees you're holding your pistol directly at him. He doesn't react with surprise or anger or anything. It's nothing. And that's the "real" Johnny right there. The one you've always known even when you weren't quite sure. "So...what is this Suzy?" Johnny asks. "I don't know yet. I really don't. I wish I did. I wish I could make a decision. I wish I could be the killer my sister thought I was. This would be so much easier. On the other hand I also wish I could trust and just let go." Johnny makes no move towards you. He just continues to stand there. You briefly wipe your eyes while still holding the pistol on him. "Johnny, you've been here for me this whole crazy week. I don't think I would've survived if you hadn't been around...but I know you. I know what you are." "I never thought that you wouldn't figure it out, you're an intelligent woman after all which is matched only by your beauty of course." Johnny replies. "Stop. Just stop." You exclaim. You tear up and sniffle for a moment and then address Johnny again. "My uncle Ed was a serial killer. We all sort of wondered, but it wasn't until that fateful day when I decided to go snooping around where I shouldn't have that I learned the awful truth. He caught me finding where he was storing body parts, but in his own twisted honorable way due to being related, he said he'd spare my life if I helped him kill someone. Kept saying I was pure and good, and not like the rest of those whores he killed." Johnny's eyebrows raise when you say this. Now he seems genuinely surprised. "In a more fucked up twist, he was feuding with a group of cultists into human sacrifice. Wanted me to help kill them. I initially did out of fear, but then I met Bobby during this mission. I ended up betraying my uncle because I felt that connection to Bobby because we both came from fucked up families. I thought it was love, and maybe it was, but it didn't last obviously." Johnny seems a bit overwhelmed by your new information. "That's... some story Suzy. I have to admit, I never would have guessed..." "That what? That I'm not perfect? I'm not good? I'm not so pure? That I'm a backstabbing whore like all the rest?" you snap. "That...that wasn't what I was going to say at all. Suzy, do you really think I could ever see you in that light?" "I...I don't know Johnny. You've never told me much about your past. I mean I can piece things together by what you have told me and how you've acted. And that's the problem I DON'T KNOW." "Okay, Suzy, let's just get it completely out in the open. What exactly is it that you think I've done or what I am?" "You're a serial killer. I mean I don't exactly know just how bad you are for certain and I can't know for certain, but I do know you're a killer. I've been studying you probably just as much as you've been studying me. I mean...Christ...I don't KNOW if you killed Donna. I don't KNOW if you killed Julie, but the more I think about it and how they just disappeared and the conclusion I come to isn't pleasant. There's also your own suspicious behavior, the incident with the soldier "falling" down the stairs, your rage when beating that guy's head in, claiming that you've done bad things, stealing a jeep and most likely killing the owners in process, and finally your obsession with me. I'm quite familiar with your kind enough that even if I can't prove some of this shit, I feel it in my heart that's what you are." "Well...if I am so terrible, then I suppose you should kill me." "Goddamn it Johnny, if it was THAT FUCKING EASY I WOULD! But YOU KNOW it isn't and I KNOW it isn't! Because I also know underneath the fucked up social chameleon predator, I KNOW there actually IS a human being capable of love. I believe you really love me Johnny. I do. I don't doubt it. The problem is, how can I fucking trust that it's going to last?" Johnny has no answer. He just looks down. "Well see there's my problem. How do I know that I'm not going to do something that's going to set you off? Make you see me as fallen angel or a flawed person that is fit only for destruction? And this goes both ways Johnny, how do YOU know that I might not strike first? Granted I'm not a killer, but I still manipulated events to cause the death of my uncle. Can YOU really trust me, if I'm scared of you?" you say. Johnny at this point rubs his eyes and sniffles a bit. He's not exactly crying, but he's definitely having an emotional moment. "Suzy. I cannot think of anything more that I can do, that would convince you that I'll love you forever and that I will always protect you. It's true I have done bad things...it's also true that I probably would be classified as a serial killer. I'm very sick Suzy. I have a lot of bad thoughts going on in my head most of the time and even though I can emulate emotions, they don't feel genuine. It's like I'm just a mask. But with you, it's different. I haven't felt this way towards anyone since...well my first love. I don't really want to get into that right now, but I want to say it was a much different situation." Johnny falls to his knees. "Almost everything I felt during my time with you this week was actually real to me. You made me feel like a normal person. Like I had at last found a purpose to my life. I love you Suzy. You can never fall off that pedestal. I know that this is difficult for you. I understand the alienation and mistrust you feel, perhaps in a different way, but I understand it. But I also know that you want to give us a chance, if you didn't, you wouldn't be struggling with this right now." You continue to point the pistol at Johnny as more tears roll down your cheeks. "Johnny...I know you've lied to me or been evasive about things this week. I've been nothing but truthful. If this has any chance of working. I need to know right now. (Exhale) Did you kill Donna and Julie?" "I thought you said you didn't care what happened to them and that they abandoned you." Johnny says. "And that may be the case because you FUCKING killed them! Now stop evading the fucking question and answer it!" you demand. Johnny looks at you. In fact it's the most cold-blooded stare you've ever seen from him. It's like when Uncle Ed looked at you in his van. "Would you believe me, if I said no?" he asks. "ANSWER!" you demand. "Very well. No, I didn't." Johnny says looking straight at you. > Don't accept the answer And with that lie you hear from Johnny, your head drops briefly in despair. With tears in your eyes you look back at Johnny. "I...don't believe you...and if I don't believe you, I can't trust you. (sob) And if I can't trust you...(sob) I...I..." "You have to kill me." Johnny says for you. "I'm sorry..." you say. Johnny just stares at you and a tear actually comes down his left eye. "Nobody is ever going to love you like I will Suzy." "That... I do believe." You then shoot Johnny. The first shot hits him in the body, causing him to fall backwards, but not enough to kill him, but you soon get over your shock and sorrow not just by remembering that he's killed Julie and Donna, but that eventually he'll kill you as well. You don't stop pumping rounds into the son of a bitch until the pistol is completely empty. Johnny's body lies motionless in a bloody mess. His eyes still open, staring at you even in death. You slump down on the floor crying that it had to be this way, but it was survival. After a few minutes of releasing your sadness, you realize that you can't just leave Johnny's body down here. The problem is you can't very well carry it up the ladder from the shelter either, at least not in one piece. You slowly get up and head back to the armory. There you find a good-sized machete that looks very sharp. You also get some garbage bags you saw in one of the supply rooms. You're not sure why Ben had them down here, but it's handy that he did. You go back to Johnny's body. You think about dragging the body to the shelter's bathtub and doing your grisly work there, but you decide the best thing you can do is just to get it over with. You lay out some of the bags on the floor and roll Johnny's body on to them and get to work. It's not an easy task for you and you get physically sick more than once, but eventually you get through it. Johnny's limbs, torso and head all get put into bags. You then make several trips up and down the ladder to haul the pieces up to the basement. It's still an exhausting task, even more so after having to go through hacking him up and the emotional drain you feel from it. You don't go any further than the basement after you've hauled all of Johnny's parts up. You're just not in the mood to deal with more. You look at the blood-drenched fatigues you're wearing and strip them off to throw them into one of the bags. Leaving the "body bags" by the entrance, you go back to your room to get a spare set of clothes. You also see Kelly's body still lying in a heap there. Just reminds you that you'll have more cleaning up to do tomorrow. For now though you grab something comfortable from the closet and head back down to the shelter where you take a long hot shower. Afterwards you go to the bedroom and collapse on the bed, completely spent. Doesn't take long for you to fall asleep, it's a welcome escape from reality. > Next day… You wake up to silence and it's an odd feeling. You half expect Johnny to be vacuuming or cleaning or just being around, but you know that's not going to happen ever again. You sit up just thinking about what you're going to do today for a few moments. Everyone you know or close to is gone and you're truly alone now. Granted you've spent most of your life alone, but there was still always someone around to intrude. Most of the time this was unwanted like when Kelly bullied you or when Peter stole your clothes. Other times this was your choice like spending time with Bobby. Now? There is nobody. You finally get up and shuffle into the living room which still has a lot of blood on the floor. "(Sigh) I guess I should clean that up too." You mutter to your self and remind yourself to get some of the cleaning products from upstairs. After ascending up the ladder you see the same garbage bags you left in a group nearby. "I'll be back to take care you later Johnny." You say, then you glance your head towards your old room. "You too bitch." You say and head upstairs. When you get upstairs to get something to clean with, you notice several bags on the floor in the living room. They're yours or mostly yours anyway. It's all the stuff you brought with you from Julie's house. Johnny must've brought them in from the jeep last night. He always was thoughtful. As you go to get your bags, a bright flash shines through one of the uncovered windows along with the sound of a large explosion in the distance. You can't help but take a quick glance out the window. And there you see it in the far distance, the dissipating remnants of a mushroom cloud rising up in the sky. "...they finally went and did it." You say. From the direction it looks like it probably hit the city, but it still had to be a "small" one since you imagine your home still would've suffered a backlash of your windows breaking from the long range impact. Still who knows which way the wind is blowing and there is no reason to not be extra cautious. So you gather up your bags and a few extra items and head back down to the shelter as quick as possible. And once again you're locked away from the outside world. This time possibly for a lot longer than average. Sadly, you know it can't be forever. As you look through your supplies, you think you could probably stay down here for about a decade before you completely ran out of what you needed, which means eventually you'll have to go up to the surface at some point to scavenge or trade or whatever it is that you'll need to do for more supplies. And if you go up to the surface, you're going to need to be prepared and that unfortunately means a lot of regular use for that exercise room you saw, along with reading all those survivalist books you saw in the library. Still, this week has already prepared you in some ways. You have a much better mindset to deal with the outside world that you can't hide away from anymore. You even know that you can do unpleasant things if you need to. It's not going to be easy and it's not going to be fun, but for now you can continue to afford to hide out from reality, if only for a little while longer. > Repression of Reality The Future... "I'm home!" you shout as you enter the shelter loaded with goodies. As you unburden yourself of your haul, you hear the end credits of a movie playing on the TV. "See? I told you I wouldn't be that long. I got here just in time to put on another movie! In fact I got some new ones from that redneck encampment. I know most of them are a bunch of assholes, but they're always up for trading and that Mel guy keeps 'em mostly in line. Plus they got bigger things to worry about now that they're at war with the Cult of Tiamat." You open up your bag and go through some of the DVDs you picked up in trade. You pick one and exchange it out for the one that was playing. "I haven't seen this one in a long time. I'm glad we'll be able to watch it together." You say. As the movie starts playing you return to unloading your bags occasionally looking up to watch the movie playing. "So speaking of the Cult of Tiamat. I meant to tell you I...uh...ran into Bobby a few days ago." You unpack some of the canned food you found. Sure you still have tons of food to last for years, but it never hurts to have more. "See? This is why I didn't tell you! I knew you were going to get mad! I wasn't trying to hide it, I just...well you know how your temper is and I didn't want you getting all jealous and screaming at me. You finish unpacking the rest of your bags and place most of the items on the table where you plan on going through a complete inventory later, right now though you just want to relax. You strip down to your underwear and sit on the couch to watch the movie playing. "One of my favorite parts is coming up...(sigh) are you still mad? Look I told you, nothing is going on with Bobby and me! Just because that bitch Diana is dead doesn't mean I'm going to get back with him! Bobby's got other sisters you know? Besides, he's pretty much firmly entrenched in his beliefs now. I only think he's cordial with me, because we once had something. I mean being friendly isn't a crime. I mean it's a good thing. One less person for me to worry about blowing my head off." You briefly glance over at the TV before returning to your argument. "Oh that's fucking low. Don't you think I wish it didn't have to happen? I wish every day that things could've been different, but you know what? They weren't, so you need to just fucking deal with it!" you shout and get so angry that you punch the mannequin positioned on the sofa and its head falls off and tumbled to the floor. "Shit. Oh shit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let me help you." You say and scramble to pick up the head. You reattach the head and inspect it for damage; fortunately you didn't do any save for a minor loss of paint near the ear. "Hold on...there. Not so bad. Look I'm sorry I got angry, but you shouldn't have said that to me. You know I still feel bad about that. I don't want you throwing that back in my face okay?" You kiss the mannequin on the cheek and cuddle up next to it while holding one of its hands. "I accept your apology too. Like I said, you really shouldn't get so jealous. You know you're the only one for me. Let's just finish watching the movie together, then maybe later, who knows?" you say and giggle a bit. You finish watching the movie as planned, and then afterwards you take your companion to the bedroom where you have an interesting time with certain attachments that you've made to him. After relieving your tension you roll over next to your companion and turn your head to look at it. You still can't believe how you stumbled upon one that looked a little similar to him. Sometimes you wonder about your sanity and if one day you'll just completely lose yourself in your made up world, but then you think you never did before no matter how hard you tried. And you certainly won't now, besides what's a little retreat from reality every now and then? "Goodnight Johnny." You say and kiss him before going to sleep.

[Themes: modern, humor, science fiction] You're still not quite sure if any of this is going to lead anywhere, but fucked up or not, Johnny's still been there for you. To abandon him without even an explanation is just something you're not willing to do. Besides, if you're right about Johnny's past, having someone like that around might be necessary given how crazy things are right now. Other than pushing someone down the stairs out of panic, it isn't like you're a fighter. Looking a nearby clock on the wall, you figure it'll be getting dark in a few hours. Johnny didn't tell you when to wake him, but you figure you should give him a few extra hours after it goes dark if only so he'll be more rested. Then you'll try to convince him to just leave in Donna's car again since you still think it would be safer than trying to steal a military jeep. Still feeling a little uncomfortable about the back door windows now being broken and thus your safety more compromised, you head back into the kitchen to fix the problem. As you get close to the backdoor, you briefly see the thing still lying dead with several holes in its body and head on the back porch. Looks human, but even dead it does look a bit feral. With great effort you manage to push the refrigerator in front of the back door. Nothing is getting in now, well at least not easily anyway. You return to your room and check to see if your phone isn't quite as damaged, as it appeared when you threw it against the wall, but of course it is. Hardly matters, you don't have anyone to keep in contact with any more anyway. With the gunfire still going on outside, you flop down on your couch-bed and realize that barring something trying to break in again, there's nothing to do. You re-open your laptop and lose yourself in a game because it's way better than reality right now. Hours pass... You look at the time on your laptop and realize you've been playing much longer than you intended to. You immediately get up to go wake up Johnny. It actually sounds like the gunfire has died down outside as well. "Hey Johnny wake up! It's time to go. I know you said you had plans to steal a jeep, but I really think we should..." When you get to the living room though, Johnny is gone. You call out to him a couple times figuring that maybe he's upstairs or even in the basement, but you get no answer. You do see a note placed on the nearby end table in such a way that you'd notice it. You almost hesitate to pick it up, but of course you do anyway. To my dearest Suzy, I've left to go get that jeep. I know you probably still want to use your sister's car, but I still think our best shot is with a military vehicle. I figure we can blend in a whole lot better in one of those and not look suspicious while driving around at a casual glance by soldiers. Probably better at running over those rabid people too. We might even be able to get out of this forsaken town. Anyway, I left this note since I didn't want to disturb you or cause any unpleasant arguments on this matter. I also know you didn't leave while I slept, even though you could have. This means so much to me, I don't think you know how much. I know I haven't exactly given you much reason to not be distrustful of me, but the very fact that you didn't leave tells me that you believe in me on some level. You know I'll try to come through for you and that you're willing to wait. I knew when I first heard your drunken whore of a sister talk about you; I thought you sounded like you were the one. Then when I saw and spoke with you, I was sure of it. I will come back tonight as planned, however if the situation becomes dangerous over there, then by all means escape in your sister's car. It would never be my wish for you to stay in danger. Forever my love, Johnny When the hell did he leave and write this? And how did you not hear him? He wasn't joking about being stealthy you guess. Of course you probably would have known all this a lot sooner had you not got wrapped up in your game and actually left your room. As for the note itself, well...it's standard Johnny in the short term you've known him. The "whore" description of your sister is a bit of a standout from the rest of letter which is fairly white knightish. Of course you know damn well Johnny is far from being a "white knight". Suddenly you hear the basement door opening. You tense up in fear since you've left not only the car keys but also your pistol in your room. You think at first you're going to have to risk just running out the front door, but... "Hey Suzy! Suzy? I got the jeep, come on let's get ready to go!" you hear Johnny's voice call out. You cautiously walk towards the hallway and see Johnny standing there looking into your room, then he turns his head and sees you. He's got some clothing in his hand. "Oh there you are. I was worried for a moment that you had to run out in a hurry!" "Johnny, what the hell...didn't you hear me calling you?" you ask. "No, I just got here." "What? How? I've been in the living room for the past few minutes! You couldn't have gotten by me." "No I came in through the basement window. I couldn't just leave the front door unlocked when I left." "Basement win...wait I didn't hear any glass breaking." "That's because it's not broken. I had it so I could easily open it. Don't worry, I thought about your safety. That window is pretty well hidden and not exactly easy to crawl through so I didn't think any of those things would see it. They would've been more likely to just try to bash the ground floor doors or windows in." "When did you mess around with the basement window and why didn't you just tell me you were leaving?" "Didn't you get my note? I explained why I left with bothering you in it." "I only just finished reading it this minute." "Oh, well I assumed you would've left your room before now. Anyway, here I got you these to wear. I think they might be a bit baggy, but they should work to help us blend in more." Johnny shoves the clothing at you as if to distract you from asking more questions. It's a uniform like what Johnny is wearing. You almost ask Johnny how he got the uniform, but as with most things concerning Johnny you're starting to think it might better if you don't know. As far as the basement window weirdness, you're not going to dwell on it too much because it's really not important right now. "Alright, that sounds like a good idea, I'll go put these on." You say and go to your room. "Um, don't worry, I didn't get those from a dead person or anything. It was a spare one I found." Johnny blurts out. "Okay. I trust you Johnny." You say which seems to make him smile. You lock the door and change into the military fatigues. Granted you don't see any blood or tears in the fatigues, but then he could've just choked the person wearing it to death. "(Sigh) Suzy, why the hell are you attracted to this guy? Oh right, because you've got some serious psychological issues yourself, that's why." You mumble to yourself as if being painfully aware of the situation makes everything okay. You grab your bags and exit your room. "Glad to see the fatigues aren't excessively big on you, I know you're small framed and all. You ready to go?" Johnny asks. "Yeah, let's get out of this place. How is it out there?" "In our immediate area? It's fairly quiet now. Haven't seen any of the rabid and the remainder of the Guard is busy burning bodies right now. I mean there are still patrols, but nobody even batted an eye when I drove this thing up to the house. Probably assumed whoever was inside was investigating or something. We shouldn't linger here though." With both of you ready and as prepared as you're going to be, you and Johnny exit out the front door and quickly enter the jeep which is sitting right next to your sister's car. You have to admit, you do feel a little safer sitting in this thing than if you did in your sister's car. Johnny starts up the vehicle and turns to you. "Suzy, you know I'll take you anywhere you want to go. So is there any place you had in mind?" Johnny asks. 'Never been anywhere, so not really." You answer. "I remember you saying you wanted to go home before." "Well that would be nice, but things aren't exactly normal any more. I mean the only reason for going back there would be to look for my brother's bomb shelter, which definitely would be a safe zone knowing how Ben spent so much time building and constantly modifying it. Of course my other brother Peter is currently looking for it as well and who knows if he already claimed and locked himself inside it." "Hmm, well it might be worth a look if you still want to try it. I mean the only other logical option I can think of is to as I suggested, leave town altogether. Should be much easier while driving around in this thing. Of course it might still be risky, if they've set up some sort of checkpoints outside of town...but maybe we can get the edge by fooling them briefly before smashing through such things." Pretty risky stuff, but then these are risky times. > You try to get out of town The whole town has gone to shit and it's either going to get completely obliterated by the government or its going to get overrun by those things or both. In any case, your best bet would be to put as much distance between you and this god-forsaken town. "As much as I'd like to, I can't go home again. So if you know someplace we can go that's safe, I'm game if you are." You say. "Well I can think of a few isolated places I've been through in my travels before I came to this town. Dunno, if they're safe right now, but it's worth a shot. Gonna be a long drive though and I need to go east so hopefully that way is going to be clear." Johnny says and pulls out of the driveway. You pass by a few soldiers dragging a few more bodies and placing them in a large pile outside one of the homes in this area. Another large pile of bodies is burning outside yet another home. Nobody tries to flag you down or anything though, you're guessing that between the dark, the uniforms and the jeep, if anyone is actually paying attention to you driving through, they probably think you're just more soldiers patrolling around. It isn't like this is most stable of situations right now. You continue drive and you go through another area where the National Guard has a presence. Again, you have no problems for the most part. However you then start hitting areas that are still suffering from conflict and in those cases, pretty severely. This is where some soldiers notice you a lot more and try to call out to you, presumably for help. In one case, you see two soldiers ragged and bloody running desperately from several of those rabid people. They cry out for you to stop, but naturally you and Johnny just keep driving. You hear some faint curses and screams as you put distance between you and the unfortunate soldiers. You eventually drive through areas that have been completely overrun by rabid. In fact you find that the military doesn't actually have that much control at all over your town and that there are far more of the rabid roaming around either chasing down normal people or attempting to break into houses. However, you're in an area now that's thick enough with them that some of them are actually attacking the jeep or at least managing to bang on it a couple times before you out distance them. Johnny runs over a few of them that get directly in the way. They're starting to get too close for you at this point. "Holy shit, this is just getting worse. Maybe we should go in another direction." You say. "We can make it, we're almost out of town." Johnny says. You aren't quite as confident as Johnny who now seems to be going out of his way to mow down rabid in the jeep. In fact he's got a big grin on his face as he smashes into another and turning the windshield wipers on. "Johnny, would you fucking stop that!? We can't run over everyone one of these things! It's going to damage the jeep!" "Relax! It's a military jeep, these things are built to last! Besides this is kinda fun. When else do you get the chance to just run over people?" Johnny giggles. Johnny's obvious display of psychopathy might be more worrying, if you weren't more concerned with the bigger threat of a very large group of rabid up ahead. "Johnny! You can't go through that group it's too fucking big! Turn around!" you shout. "Fuck that, we gotta go that way and I don't give a shit how many of those freaks I have to splatter! Let's do this!" Johnny shouts and slams on the gas. You close your eyes as the jeep speeds ahead while Johnny is laughing the entire time. He's really getting off on this. Johnny manages to run over several of them, but there are just too many, it doesn't help there is also debris in the road left from the fighting that was going on here before. A tire gets popped, a body gets stuck under another wheel. The jeep begins to skid and spin. Johnny tries to maintain control, but fails to do so and the jeep flips over landing upside down. You're hurt, but since you had your seatbelt on, you're still able to move. You look over to Johnny and he's not moving. In fact he's half way through the windshield. He's obviously dead, but that isn't what concerns you at the moment. What concerns you is the rest of the rabid running over to the jeep. You struggle with your belt and manage to crawl out of the jeep only to be quickly nabbed by the rabid. They sink their teeth into you and gnaw straight through your bones. You die screaming as they eat you alive.

Regardless of what your sister does, you're not going to get yourself into more trouble by running. "Look Donna, I can't stop you from running, but I'm staying here." "What? You can't do that. You're supposed to be supportive!" "I'm not going to be supportive in your resisting arrest attempt! Now like I said, I won't stop you, but if you're going to do it, you'll be doing it alone." "(Sigh) I should've known you're still the same old goody two shoes that follows all the rules. You're a goddamn idiot Suzy, one of these assholes just felt me up when he frisked me. You really think if they're just going to arrest us when they find something? Chances are they're going to drive us to some secluded area and make us suck their cocks and god knows what else! I'm getting the hell..." Just as Donna is starting to get up, both cops have taken notice of you two again. "HEY! I told you to stay put! Don't give me an excuse!" one of them shouts nearly going for his gun and it's enough to cause Donna to rethink her actions. "Despite the pair of you acting mighty suspicious, you appear to be clean and so does the vehicle. Don't think you're getting out of a ticket though!" the cop says and shoves a ticket at your sister who takes it. Looks like Donna had a drug free car after all. At this point the cop's partner says to him that they're needed at the mall since apparently a small riot has broken out there. You are left with another verbal warning and they drive off. As for you and your sister, the pair of you get back in the car without another word and continue your drive to Julie's house in silence. When you arrive, the place is much more subdued than your used to. You don't even hear loud music coming from inside. "No party going on?" you ask. "Probably will be some folks coming over later. I dunno, even I don't keep up on it all the time. Anyway, I'm sure you'll be wanting to hide away before that happens, so like I said your room will be Julie's dad's old office. Julie also wants to talk with you as well, so if you're actually feeling social you could go speak with her before heading off to planet Suzy." Donna says coldly. "...what the hell? Donna, I know you're pissed, but I really don't know why. If it hadn't been for me stalling you from running, you'd be in for a lot more trouble than just a ticket. I'd say it worked out much better." You say. "Right. Your plan worked. Following the rules always works for you. Your life is so great and that's why you had to beg to move in here." "Uh, you're living here in JULIE'S house too with no means of support either. I wouldn't start pointing fingers." "Fuck you Suzy. I thought things were going to be different, but I can see that you're still the stuck up bitch that thinks she's better than everyone else." Donna exclaims and storms off leaving you in the car. So much for "sisterly bonding." This is really an unfortunate turn of events, but not completely unexpected. Donna's always been a bit bi-polar with you. One moment she's saying how much you should hang out and bond and the next minute she's calling you a stuck up bitch that doesn't know how to have fun. The girl has some serious self-esteem issues. Really you have no idea why she still acts the way she does. Mom is dead and so is dad. Who is there to rebel against anymore? From some of what she said earlier it almost seems like she parties out of habit more than great desire anymore. You pull your bags out of the car and head on inside. The front room is messy, but not overly so. Your sister is nowhere to be seen, but there are a couple of people you don't know sitting on one of the couches playing video games. Another one is asleep on the floor. The place smells of spilled beer and none of the people even acknowledge your presence. "Suzy! You're here!" a voice suddenly calls out. You look up and see Julie waving from the second floor. She immediately runs down the stairs to greet you close up, nearly tripping in the process. When she gets to you, the years of partying are really starting to take their toll. She's your age, but she's starting to look like one of those trashy strippers that wears too much make up. "Suzy, it's been too long! Give me a hug!" she exclaims and before you can even react, she gloms on to you and gives you a tight squeeze. "Mmmm, you smell so nice. Like strawberries." She says while rubbing her hands across your back. "Uh, yeah. Probably the shampoo I used." You say. "You've been keeping in shape too, guess Bobby was keeping you busy physically. Ha ha ha ha." Julie laughs and now she starts getting a little too touchy feelie for you. You've already had unwanted touching once today, you don't feel like more. "Yeah, okay good to see you too. Back up there now. I need some space." You say and start pulling away. "Hah same old prudish Suzy. What you think I'm gonna just start sexually assaulting you right here in the living room? Please, I know a girl like you needs to be romanced first!" Julie jokes, but she's probably somewhat serious with her playful advances. Shortly after you got with Bobby, Donna told you that Julie spent a couple days crying because she wanted to tell you how she's always loved you. (You of course weren't sure why she ever thought you'd be into such a relationship, but apparently before Bobby, everyone just assumed you were a big lesbian.) Of course she quickly went on with her hedonistic life, but you've always wondered if she really ever "got over" you. "Okay Suzy, I hear you're planning on sleeping in my dad's old office. You remember the way right?" "Yeah I think so." "Oh, I'll just walk with you, we need to catch up on so much. I've missed you, you know!" Resigning yourself to the fact that you're going to have to at least be friendly to Julie, you walk with her to your new room. Julie of course is very talkative. "So Suzy, speaking of Bobby, did you make up with him yet?" "No and I doubt if it's going to work out anyway." "Ohhhh, that's so sad. You two did make a cute couple in a creepy shut in way." Julie says and begins rubbing your shoulder. "Hm, thanks." You answer. "Well, not to worry, you could meet a new boyfriend right here! Contrary to what you might think, I don't just have mindless party animals coming over here. There's actually a wide variety of people that come here to hang out. You could meet that special guy tonight in fact! Or girl...you know whatever..." Julie says trailing off and nervously smiles at you. "Well I'm not really thinking about that right now, I think I'd rather be by myself for awhile." You answer. "Oh yeah sure. I understand. But I just want you to know that my house is your house okay? And all the fun that goes on here, well you can have some of that fun too you know?" "I know Julie. Thanks for letting me stay here." "No problem, you were always welcome. Okay well here it is. I'll leave you to get settled and remember you can always come out and join us later." At this point Julie hugs you again though it's a quick one this time and briskly walks off. You enter the office and see that it is indeed much neater and cleaner than most of the house. Even better that it has a small bathroom attached to it as well, but you knew that since this actually isn't the first time you've been in here. You remember playing tag with Julie when you were in elementary school and you both ran in here. Julie's dad wasn't angry though. He even gave you a lollipop from a jar on his desk. Come to think of it anytime he saw you, he was always giving you lollipops. He was pretty nice that way. Shame he died in a car accident just as Julie was starting to get wilder, since even if he did work most of the time, you get the impression Julie might at least had some boundaries during her late teens and onward. It doesn't take long for you to rearrange some things and make yourself at home on the fairly comfortable couch in there. It also doesn't take long for you to get back to finishing what Donna interrupted earlier today. (Making sure to lock the door of course) After finishing up and washing up a bit, you hear some music. Sounds like the party is getting started. Continuing to be the introverted personality you usually are, you don't leave your "safe zone" and go back to playing games on your computer and looking up random shit on the Internet. The more things change the more they stay the same, time passes and it's almost like you've never left the basement! Eventually you get bored doing that and you start looking around the office a bit more. It's sort of snooping, but then Julie's dad is dead and you're sure Julie doesn't care. You start going through the filing cabinets and find that all the paperwork is mainly business files dated back to before Julie's dad died. Looks like nobody ever bothered to clean any of this stuff out or even go through the stuff. The bookshelves aren't filled with the most interesting of topics. Mostly about economics, business practices, legal things, though some of the books are historical in nature. You don't see much fiction though. The desk just contains regular office supplies. You actually aren't surprised to find a pistol in there (along with bullets) but after rummaging around a bit you notice a secret compartment in one of the drawers. You find a black box and you waste no time in opening it. Inside you find pictures. Pictures of little girls...in fact there are some of YOU! By the looks of them, these were all taken in secret. Nobody is naked in the photos, but given that nearly every single picture of you involves you either sucking or licking a lollipop it's pretty apparent what the purpose of these were. Some of these girls are other kids you knew from school and hung out with Julie as well. In fact one of them went missing. Nobody knew who did it, but it was a big deal in town and it probably lead to your mother being even more overprotective of you. And you're really glad she did since you're starting to get a sinking feeling about what you've uncovered here. "Christ..." you say going through the photos. You start to wonder now if Julie's behavior is caused by years of sexual molestation. It would certainly explain a lot. Then you get a knock on the door. "Hey Suzy, it's me Julie, I've got something for you." "Uh, hold on. Just a minute!" you exclaim as you quickly put the photographs back. You have no idea if you should tell her not, but you open the door. Julie appears with a bottle of soda and a pizza and walks in. "I figured you'd stay in here all night, but I thought you might get hungry or thirsty so here you go!" Julie says and places her gifts to you on the desk. "Oh. Thanks Julie." You say. "You're welcome...so why'd you take so long in answering the door? You splittin' the kitten in here or what?" Julie asks. "Hah, yeah well busted I guess." You say with a fake chuckle. "Suzy, if you came out and had some fun with the rest of us, that wouldn't really be necessary you know. I know you probably still miss Bobby on some level and you've got needs, but he's not here and you'd be better off moving on with your life and getting some free dick out there...or pussy...you know whatever..." Julie says obviously still hoping. Given how unstable Julie is at times, you almost wonder if you should address what you found at all. Maybe dredging up bad childhood memories isn't the best thing right now. > You keep quiet You decide this isn't the time to bring it up. It is a party after all and you don't want to ruin Julie's fun just because you're not feeling so great about several things like Bobby and your fight with your sister. Well maybe you can get to dealing with Bobby later, but you can still make up with your sister right now, besides you'd rather not linger in here alone with Julie, she might think you're leading her on. "Hey Julie, I think I will come and join the festivities." You say. "You will?!" Julie says surprised. "Yeah, I'm not saying I'm gonna get wild, but who knows. But what I really want to do is speak with my sister, I had a fight with her earlier." "Hm, yeah I heard. Well I'm sure she's still out there. Saw her talking to some guy earlier. Don't know if they hooked up yet though. Probably best if you didn't disturb her if you catch her in the act as it were." Julie says. "I'm well aware. She'd be even more pissed at me. Okay, see you later." "Yeah, see you later and um, if you want to talk to me I'll be available anytime." Julie says looking a bit dejected as you walk out the room. Yeah, probably best you left. You swear, you're wondering if you're going to be able to put up with Julie's crush on you while living in the same house with her, but that will be yet ANOTHER thing to deal with at different time. You enter the living room first, which is the most crowded part of the house. The music is up loud a couple people are playing video games on the TV and several people making out on the floor. A few guys come up to you and try to speak, but you brush them off and continue to look for your sister who obviously isn't in this area. You head upstair which isn't quite as crowded, but the bedrooms are definitely being used for their obvious purpose, and worse nobody even bothers to close the damn doors! (Which certainly draws a few onlookers) Fortunately, the quick glances you do make into the rooms prove to not find your sister, so you head out to the backyard. The backyard is a little more relaxed at least in terms of sex and drugs, though a few of the guys are doing some sort of stupid stunts and hurting themselves in the process and then laughing about it. Another guy is filming the whole thing. Several girls look on and shake their heads at the ordeal and telling them that they're going to really suffer serious injury if they don't stop. You don't see your sister and you ask one of the girls watching the spectacle. "Excuse me, do you know Donna?" you ask a woman with short brown hair. "Huh? Donna? Skinny little thing that thinks she's hot shit? Yeah I know her... hey you look a little like her...actually I shouldn't insult you. You're actually prettier." The woman replies. "Uh, thanks. Yeah she's my sister and I was looking for her." "Sister huh? My condolences. Anyway, yeah I think I saw her inside talking with some guy. He didn't really stand out, in fact he didn't really look like what she normally goes for, but she was already pretty drunk and when that happens she typically doesn't give a fuck. Or rather she always gives a fuck. Hah." "Hm, I just looked inside, but I couldn't find her." "Did you try the basement? She might be down there getting fucked, well assuming Julie isn't down there getting fucked. Not that it's ever stopped them from fucking in the same room before." "Uh, no I haven't checked down there." "Well that's probably where she is then. Now if you excuse me, I have get back to making sure my idiot boyfriend doesn't break his goddamn neck." You leave the backyard and head back into the house. You decide you've had enough of crowds and if your sister is fucking someone in the basement, you don't want to interrupt, so you head back to your room. Just before you reach your room however, a guy about your age opens up the door leading to the basement. Maybe this is the guy your sister was with. "Hey, is Donna down there?" you ask. "Huh? Um, who are you?" the man asks as if you're interrogating him. "Donna. She's my sister. Someone said she might be in the basement with some guy. Are you him?" The man's demeanor becomes a little more relaxed. "Oh...wait are you Suzy?" he asks. "Yeah." "Yeah, your sister Donna mentioned you when I was talking with her. She wasn't lying, you are pretty." "Wait, she said that?" "Sure, she was very praising of you." The man says. "...Donna? She was praising of me? I find that hard to believe, I just had a fight with her." "Oh. Well maybe she was feeling bad about that, she seemed upset about it when we spoke." The man seems to shift a bit and look sideways a couple times after he says that, and you become suspicious. "Okay...well I need to go talk with her, but the man suddenly tries to stop you from going any further. "Yeah, I don't think you should. Like I said she's upset right now." You take a quick glance at the man and see that his clothes are disheveled like he just put them back on in a hurry. "Funny, I've never know my sister to be upset after sex." "What?" "Come on, your clothes were obviously put back on in a rush, I know what happened, so if she's finished with satisfying her urges, she should be in a much better mood to speak with me..." At this point the man stops you again. "Suzy, I don't like what you're implying. I never touched your sister. She's a fucking whore. I was just trying to console her about you. SHE aggressively made the moves on me, but I resisted and then she started crying about what a whore she was and how she could never live up to being like you and screamed that she wanted to be left alone. Now I suggest you do just that, at least until she calms down. She's a little drunk too, so you probably should just let her sleep it off." While the man continues to maintain a smile, his tone is somewhat threatening. His whole story stinks of lies and you're getting a really bad vibe from him. Almost like you did with your uncle Ed. "Get the hell out of my way. " You say and push past him to descend down the steps quickly. Unfortunately you're not quick enough as the man to manage to shove you in back causing you to lose balance and go crashing down the stairs. While you're taking a tumble, the man locks the basement door and makes his way down the stairs in a normal fashion. The loud noise from the party ensures that nobody is going to investigate even if they bothered to. You break your leg and smash the side of your head against the floor when you finally hit the bottom. You surprisingly don't scream out from the pain, but you are about to fall unconscious from your head injury. Your vision is blurry and you feel dizzy, but despite that, you see Donna sprawled out on the floor not that far from you. She's naked and isn't moving. "Don..." you utter and stretch your hand out towards her. "I'm sorry it had to be like this Suzy. I really did want us to get off on the right foot. When your whore of a sister Donna was bitching about you to me, you sounded so... perfect. Such a shame..." the man says and then kicks you in the head. The blackness takes you and then the man takes your life.

"Are you worried about these uncertain times? Do you..." Click. You're so damn sick of these Ground Zero commercials you think as you turn the TV off. If you older brother Ben hadn't shot his family and himself in a tragic paranoid breakdown you can only imagine he'd be going on about how right he was in building that underground bunker out in your backyard. You look at the time and realize you've spent most of the day procrastinating watching TV even though there's not much on that interests you on TV anymore. All the channels you used to watch that had interesting shit on them now all have shallow reality shows and quite frankly you've got enough dysfunctional family drama going on in real life without needing to watch it on TV. You remember a time when you could avoid most of the mess by hiding out in your basement. Unfortunately you can't even do that anymore. Ever since dad drank himself to death, the gravy train of living at home for free came to an end. Without the help of your dad's pension checks anymore, your older Amazonian sister Kelly said there was no way in hell that she was going to keep supporting the house on her own unless she was the only one living in it. Seeing as she's a roller derby bitch as well as an illegal fight club brawler, it isn't like you or any of your siblings were in any position to argue with her. Your younger brother Peter, having given up his lofty dreams of being a famous movie director now spends a lot of his time in the garage making amateur porn with various guys he picks up at the clubs. He makes enough money through his website that it keeps Kelly off his back. He seems to enjoy what he's doing and at least he's not stealing your clothes anymore. Your younger sister Donna simply moved out and moved in with your best friend Julie who is still the eternal party girl. Really you're surprised Julie hasn't caught every STD known to man at this point. To be honest Donna's had more in common with Julie than you have for many years now. You're sure Donna's a lot happier at a "party house." As for you, you didn't have much in the way of options. Trying to get a job has failed spectacularly in this economy. Though your..."unique" and reclusive personality doesn't exactly help in that department. Given some of the junk that's laying around the house you sometimes wonder if you shouldn't try to sell some of it over the Internet to support yourself. Seems like a lot of work though and you're no wheeler and dealer. Donna suggested that you move in with her and Julie, but that whole scene isn't for you. As much as you hate dealing with Kelly, you'd also hate having to put up with drunk horny guys (and girls) trying to get into your pants every five minutes, not to mention the loud music, crowds and the ever growing possibility of the cops busting the place for illegal drugs. Which brings you to your boyfriend Bobby Morningstar who naturally has suggested that you move in with him on several occasions. This would be the ideal solution if it weren't for the fact that his own family consists of like a million siblings that all live in his cult compound. There's also the fact that his ex-girlfriend/sister Diana is wicked pissed at you for stealing him away from her. It's been an ongoing source of tension between you and Bobby and you wish he'd just leave them all behind and you two could make a life together elsewhere, but his duty to family is strong, as is his faith to the Babylonian Goddess of Chaos, Tiamat which still involves human sacrifices. Right now you're having a period of separation with him. Sometimes you think about breaking up with him completely, but then you can't just dismiss the good times you do have with him. You have that special bond that only a couple could have when one warns the other about their serial killer relative lying in wait for them in the woods. Thank god Bobby took care of your uncle Ed. That had to be the scariest moment of your life dealing with that situation. Of course none of this delightful recap of past events really helps you. Kelly is starting to get very impatient with you and you fear that your months of stalling are coming to an end. Kelly's currently not home, but she'll be back in a few hours to get a bit of sleep before heading off to her fight club stuff. Continuing to enjoy the time you have to not have to deal with her you go back to procrastinating, which mainly involves goofing off on the Internet, "stumbling" upon a porn site and then using battery powered means to relieve yourself of stress. Eventually you hear the familiar slamming of the door and stomping around upstairs, which signifies that Kelly is indeed home. "SUZY! Stop splittin' the kitten and get yer bony ass up here!" you hear Kelly shout. You were afraid of this. You clean yourself up a bit, mentally prepare yourself and then head upstairs. "Hey Kelly..." you start to say, but are interrupted. "Shut up. I've got exactly a couple hours to get some rest before I have to drag my ass to my other job to support this fucking house and it's a fucking mess! You can't even clean up around here? Did you even look for a job today? Let me guess you spent the whole day fucking around on the Internet and masturbating didn't you?" "Well uh..." "Jesus fuckin' Christ Suzy, you're goddamn useless you know that? The only reason I'm not kicking your ass right now is because I need to save my energy and it would be too fucking easy." Before you can even speak, Kelly continues her rant. "GET A FUCKING JOB! I don't care what kind! Just be a contributing member of this household like Peter or get the fuck out like Donna!" "Kelly I'm trying, but I'm just not having any luck in finding anything, can't you help me out?" you say. "Help you out? I'm helping you out right now by supporting your ass! I've been helping you out for quite some time! In fact I originally suggested that you could probably become a ring girl at the fights, but you said no because you didn't want to dress up in skimpy clothing and parade around in front of a bunch of drunks." "Kelly, you know I don't want to dress like that in public, especially not after what uncle Ed made me wear that night..." "Oh here we go, crazy old uncle Ed! How long you going to keep using that as an excuse? Sheesh, the way you go on about it, you act like he raped you. What happened instead? He got killed, you weren't even touched and you got a fucking boyfriend out of that deal! Some of us should be so lucky to be in a fucked up situation and STILL come out ahead! You know what I deal with on a regular basis? Steroid freaks trying to break my fucking neck that's what! You think I'd be making a living trading punches with fucktards if I LOOKED like you Suzy? You got the biggest advantage and you're just wasting it! What the hell is your goddamn problem?" You can see that Kelly is in full-blown jealousy mode and shows no signs of stopping. Attempting to walk away will only result in her getting physical with you so the only thing you can do is endure the verbal assault. "This is sink or swim time sis. You either get your shit together by the end of this week or you're out on your ass! This sheltered girl act is really fucking OLD! You're a grown ass WOMAN. Start acting like one! Now get out of my fucking sight." You meekly slink back to the basement and leave Kelly alone. You silently mope for a while pondering what the hell you're going to do next. You then notice that your phone has been under your couch cushions and on silent all day. Bobby apparently has been repeatedly trying to contact you. Even left multiple texts saying that he really wants to talk, but the mood you're in right now, you don't want to deal with it. You don't want to deal with anything. You just want to be safe in your own little world in the basement. How you miss those days... Well today isn't completely over yet. You've still got time to salvage some of it. Hell, maybe you can even make a major change in your life. > You contact Bobby If Kelly wasn't putting the screws to you about moving out, you might be less inclined to return Bobby's phone call, however this is a desperate situation and despite your recent relationship problems, you still have strong feelings for Bobby and he will certainly help you out. You grab your phone and call Bobby. The phone rings twice and then is answered. "Hey Suzy, I've been trying to get a hold of you." Bobby blurts out as soon as he answers. "Yeah I know." You say. "Look, I know we've been having some difficulties lately, and our last argument was bad, but I really want to work things out, I love you." You definitely have some major things to work out, but it's nice to know how Bobby feels about you. "Well, we're going to be doing that, but that isn't the only reason why I called. I...uh need a new place to live. Kelly's kicking me out." You say. "Oh, I see, you want to move in with me and my family...are you sure? I mean you know I really would like you there, but part of the reason why we were arguing was..." "Your sister Diana hates my guts." You interrupt. "Well...I admit she's not fond of you, but I mean I think we can work past that. She's just going to have to accept that I'm with you now." "But is she REALLY going to do that? Or am I going to find her hovering over me in the middle of the night with a knife in hand?" "She'd have a hell of a time sneaking in our room without waking me up first of all. Second, if I lay down the law to her, she's got no fucking choice BUT to accept it. I'M the head of the family after all and as head of it, my word is divinely inspired by Tiamat herself and to go against Tiamat is a blasphemy that even Diana would not do. So to sum up, you might have to hear some shit from her, but your physical well being is perfectly safe." "Safe" is a funny term to use for a guy who practices human sacrifice. Which is the other concern you have, since while you've long since accepted certain aspects of Bobby's belief system, you'd rather not see the gruesome details. Though you suppose that's just one more thing you're going to have to discuss. You sort of wonder about the rest of Bobby's family though and how well you'll get along with them. He's got a family that's at least as big as yours was at one time, but you've never really interacted with any of them (Bobby never had you over his house much due to Diana's hostility) except for Bobby's second oldest sister Helen who was polite, if quiet. Just as you're thinking about this, Bobby springs something unexpected on you. "Since you're wanting to move in, I should tell you that we won't be living in the house in the neighborhood. We're going to be living in a compound north outside of town." "Wait, what?" You say. "It's the Morningstar family compound. We're moving there, or rather we've been in the process of moving all our stuff over there for the past few weeks. Never mentioned it since we were sort of arguing about other stuff." "Wait, wasn't your house the Morningstar family compound?" "Heh, well that was certainly big enough for my immediate family, but I do have some extended family as well and given the current world climate, I had a video conference meeting with some of the extended family and most agreed that it might be best if we moved to the better fortified compound that my Dad had built over time decades ago." "Holy shit, how many people are we going to be living with? I mean are we going to be restricted with what technology we can use, working a farm and the women have to put their hair up in a bouffant and wear simple clothing? If so then I can't deal with..." "What? No! Geez Suzy, we're worshippers of Tiamat, not the Amish or fucking Mormon fundies! No, we got all the conveniences of the modern world there and women can wear what they want, though there MIGHT come a day very soon when we will have to rely on farming of some sort, but I guarantee you won't be the one doing it." Bobby continues. "As for how many people are going to be living there, well that I'm not sure. There aren't as many of us anymore and some live quite far away. Not everyone was jumping at the idea either, so some may decide to not bother to make the trip. In any case, at most it might be twenty more people and even then we'll have more than enough room there. Don't worry about it." Easy for him to say, he's not the one that's just had this new information sprung on him. Bobby correctly senses your silence as concern. "I sense some concern." Bobby says. "Fucking right you sense some concern! Not only am I still worried about your sister, I'm now worried about even MORE of your... highly religious family. I mean how are the rest of them going to feel about you bringing in a non-believer?" "Oh I'm not worried about that. I'm confident you'll eventually see the colorful swirling chaos...or the light if you prefer." Bobby laughs. "That's...... not exactly alleviating my concerns Bobby." "Sorry, I'm just joking to lighten the mood...." You hear Bobby exhaling deeply before continuing. "Suzy, I know this is more shit for you to take in and I know you've been very understanding about everything. It's one of the many reasons why you're so wonderful. I just want to stress that you won't be walking into some Jim Jones kool aid suicide cult compound. You'll be perfectly safe because you'll be with me, I'm the chosen of Tiamat and like I said, my word is going to be law at the compound. Look, I'll be by to pick you up tomorrow to take you there. If you're not feeling it after a few days, well I'm sure we can figure something else out. I want us to work out Suzy. I love you." There is certainly no denying that Bobby feels very strongly about you. Again, while you still have reservations, you've never known Bobby to lie to you. As for the rest, you do know Bobby's family take their religion pretty seriously so you know Bobby isn't exaggerating about you being safe with him. In fact if the threat of physical violence is gone, that actually already puts you ahead of your situation here considering Kelly has pushed you around and threatened to do more on many occasions. "I feel the same way Bobby. Okay, I'll pack and I'll see you tomorrow." Bobby's voice sounds a bit more upbeat when you agree to go with him, though again if you had the option of staying home, you certainly would. Still, you're trying to maintain a positive open minded attitude about all this. After saying goodbye to Bobby you waste no time in packing your most important belongings. As the night approaches, you finish up with your packing and get to sleep a little earlier. You get the feeling you're going to need all your energy for what lies ahead tomorrow. > Next day "And Suzy is the winner of the world hot dog eating championship! Let's all hear it for our little blonde small town girl!" The announcer shouts which is followed by a roaring crowd. Not even feeling full, you wipe the mayonnaise off your lips, graciously stand up and bow for your adoring fans. The grossly fat dude on your right looks at you in disbelief and then turns away to puke in a bucket. Meanwhile the little Asian dude on your left just shakes his head wondering how the hell you could've beaten him. "I don't understand it...all my training. I glanced over at you during the contest...you...you were barely even chewing! How?" He asks. "Oh just natural talent at swallowing hot dogs I suppose." You reply humbly and wink at the audience, which continues to praise you. While you're blowing kisses at your fans, the announcer of the contest speaks again. "And as an extra special reward, our glorious host of this event, Misty will be coming soon to congratulate our winner in person. This hasn't happened in decades! Perhaps even centuries! It's all just so exciting! Oh wait...I think that's Misty now!" At this point the wind begins to pick up significantly, which is amazing since this contest was taking place in an indoor stadium. The audience seems to be going even wilder, but at this point you're getting a little concerned. Your concern becomes fear when the fat bastard to your right melts into a gory pile of goo, the Asian guy's head gets really large like in one of those anime cartoons and he screams before running away shouting about Tokyo getting destroyed by a giant lizard. You look back at the audience and see that they've begun stripping off their clothes and embracing each other in the biggest orgy you've ever seen. (Even larger than that porno you watched one time) The roof suddenly comes off the stadium revealing a dark sky with a jet black swirling hole above. "And here comes Misty folks! It's absolutely...GLORIOUS." The disembodied voice says as its pitch changes to demonic tone. You can't run, you can't even move, you just stare at this unearthly sight like a deer in the headlights completely frozen. You see the flash of a couple red glowing orbs in the black hole above you and then the wind picks you up and you're being pulled towards it. "COME TO ME SUZY. COME TO US. COME. COME. COME..." A deep voice echoes all around you which is backed up by the audience who are chanting along with having their orgy. You vainly try to struggle, but there isn't much you can do accept uselessly flail about in midair as you are slowly enveloped by darkness. Even when you try to scream, you make no sound, in fact all your senses go numb and everything goes black. You are then awakened by the ringing of your phone. At first you look around briefly still wondering if you're still levitating towards a black hole, but you breathe a sigh of relief that it was all just a dream. However, even though you're wide-awake, you still feel shaken up. Something about that dream seemed really unnerving and you usually aren't one to put much stock into your dreams. The ringing of the phone takes priority before dream analysis though, so after fumbling with it a bit you answer it. "Hey I've been trying to get a hold of you. We're you still asleep?" Bobby asks. "Yeah, are you outside the house already?" You answer. "Nah, I'm on my way over. I hope you're packed and ready to go though, because it's nuts out here. I know you don't tend to leave the house much, but if you've been out lately, you'd know it's been getting fucking crazy in town. Seriously, you'll see how fucked up it is out there when we drive through town. The cops are everywhere, groups of people are rioting, like I said, it's a mess. Okay, I need to focus on the road, there's a meat wagon picking up some bodies off the road. I'll see you soon. Love you." Bobby says and hangs up. As you take a quick shower before getting ready to leave, you think more about your strange dream. You wonder if it was some sort of subconscious thing that your mind was telling you that this move is a bad idea. You have to admit, you still are feeling very unsure about it, especially now that Bobby has told you that you're moving into an isolated compound with not just his immediate family, but a bunch of other family that could be even crazier. Still, this could just be mostly anxiety of leaving a place where you've traditionally always felt safe and lived most of your life combined with a freaky dream. Bobby did say you could leave if you weren't comfortable there, so you're trying to not to focus on the possible negatives. You try to calm your nerves the old fashioned way and think about Bobby the entire time. Exiting the shower, getting dressed and grabbing your packed bags, you finally leave your basement. You packed as much as you could, hopefully you can return to get the rest later. You head upstairs and you're not waiting long before you hear a knock on the door. Upon answering it, you see Bobby who embraces you with a hug and a kiss. "By Tiamat, I've missed your body against mine." Bobby says caressing you all over. "I never would have guessed. I have missed your touch as well though Bobby. Let me just get my bags." You turn around and bend over to grab your bags and that's when Bobby grabs you around the waist and if it wasn't for the fabric separating the two of you, he'd also be inside you. It's startling enough that you probably would've lost you balance had Bobby not been holding on to you so tightly. "What the hell? Sheesh Bobby, I nearly fell forward on my face!" "You wouldn't have, I got you. Mmm, I just can't help myself, I just..." At this point Bobby starts kissing on your neck and groping you. "Bobby, Bobby, stop. My brother Peter is still here in the connected garage. Last thing I need is for him to hear us and then suddenly walk in on me getting plowed from behind. Besides, didn't you say it's getting crazy out there? Shouldn't we be getting the hell out of town?" "Yeah, it's wonderfully chaotic out there. Like Tiamat herself has blessed this town. It really started putting me in the mood and then seeing you...well how can I not want to make love to you in the midst of all this chaos?" Bobby at this point is trying pull your shirt off over your head and you hear the sound of a zipper being unzipped, though with as excited as he is, you dare say it could just impale you through his pants. He's grunting, slobbering all over your neck and sniffing your hair and...well he REALLY wants you right now. This isn't really what you had in mind and something about the way Bobby is behaving is a bit...animalistic. He's never been that way in your other intimate encounters with him. Well not excessively so at any rate. Also, you HAVE been fighting for awhile, and it's sort of presumptuous of him to just think you're going to spread your legs immediately because you're on good terms again. Then again, this is sort of turning you on right now, and it has been awhile for you. (By something not battery operated or your own hands at least) > You get busy with Bobby It's not like this is a complete stranger, this is someone you do have feelings for and what the hell, it's not like you aren't going to be doing this again with him eventually. Still, there is the matter of decorum. You manage to twist your body around so that you're face to face to him; he barely stops when you tell him. "Bobby, look we can do this, but like I said, we're NOT doing this in the middle of the living room. Let's at least go down to the basement and we can fuck on my couch." "Okay, okay, whatever, let's just get down their quickly." Bobby agrees continuing to kiss on you. The pair of you head down into the basement and one of Bobby's hands is practically glued to your ass the entire time. When you get to your room, you see that Bobby has somehow managed to strip off most of his clothing by this point (amazing considering he had one hand on your ass the entire time). He helpfully starts stripping your clothing off. "Well seeing as you're obviously taking the alpha male approach to this, after you're done tearing off my clothes, you can carry me over to the sofa and start doing me like a conquering warrior. I want to see your face stare into mine as you thrust into me, let me know who exactly is in charge and teach me a lesson." You say licking your index finger and then running your finger down Bobby's chest. (Never let it be said that you can't tap into your dirty side when necessary) The next half hour is fun, if a little rougher than you're used to with Bobby. It starts off with him just really ramming it into you and telling you in various ways to "Take it." while staring directly into your eyes which are more piercing than usual. His hands are also mostly holding down your wrists at this point. Despite all this, you aren't scared. You just wrap your legs around him tightly like a boa constrictor and enjoy the ride. A little later he put his hands around your neck and even squeezes a little while continuing to stare into your eyes. You can certainly still breathe, but he is definitely establishing his dominance and that he is firmly in control of things. Despite all this, you still aren't really scared, you even add to the "experience" by squeaking out a "No." "Please don't." "Stop hurting me." every now and then. Eventually Bobby chants something in a language you've never heard before and then orgasms. Again, not really scary since he's always doing that. It was weird the first few times you had sex with him but now it acts as a nice little alarm letting you know that things will be over soon. Completely spent after orgasm, Bobby collapses on top of you and begins hugging you tightly, and then whispers... "I love you so much Suzy, I want us to be joined forever. I want our bodies as well as our souls to be married." NOW you get scared and suddenly push him off of you in alarm at this declaration. "What?! Married?" You exclaim recoiling to one corner of the couch. Bobby's a little surprised by your reaction. "I want us to be married. I mean we're obviously soul mates and its the next logical step for us." "Step? What step? We were just having fun a moment ago and now you spring life long commitment?" "Are you saying you never saw us eventually getting married? I mean in all that time since we've been together?" "No, and especially not when all the trouble with your sister came about." "But on several occasions you asked me to run away with you! You didn't think we'd get married if we ever did that even?" "Not really." "I'm guessing you didn't ever think about having children either then." "Children?! What the hell, you think I'm some sort of brood mother? Now Bobby is downright confused. "Suzy... I really don't understand your... well view of things..." Bobby says. "That pretty rich coming from the cultist." You say. "Okay, I'm going to ignore that because I love you. But if it makes any difference, at least I still behave in a consistent way which you do not." "What's that supposed to mean?" "(Sigh) I really don't want us to fight again..." "Bobby I just let you simulate what could be considered a rape fantasy on me, the least you can do is explain yourself." "Okay then THAT right there is what I'm talking about. You have no problem with having kinky sex with me, you have no major problems with my religion and what it entails, you're even willing to move in with me and my family even though you're concerned about my sister and probably the rest of them, but somehow marriage is what is freaking you out? I mean I'm trying to do the right thing here and it's because I genuinely love you. Why are you so resistant?" It's actually a good question. You're pretty tolerant of a lot of stuff most would've recoiled in horror from and something like marriage and (shudder) kids is scaring you off. There's probably a good psychological reason for your reluctance, involving your observations of other married couples such as your own mother (overly compliant) and father (distant) or your brother Ben (paranoid psychotic) and his wife (utterly clueless) but there are a few other concerns. "Bobby...you've never brought up marriage before either, why all of a sudden?" You ask. "Well, I just think it's time. I mean we've been together awhile. We've stuck together through ups and downs. We're going to be living together. I obviously love you and I assume you love me right?" "Well...yeah...but... I dunno...I mean kids? Come on do you really think I'm mother material? I can barely take care of myself...in fact I can't at all, otherwise I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place." At this point Bobby takes your hand into his and gets closer to you. "Suzy, don't you see, you don't need to worry about any of that anymore. When you marry me you won't have to worry about taking care of yourself ever again. And as far as being mother material, I can't imagine a better mother to my children. Even if you do have trouble, I'm sure my sisters will help out...well okay Helen will help out, but you know what I'm saying. The main thing is you won't have any more worries when you're in the family...MY family. We'll look after you. I'll look after you." And there it is. Your future. A "housewife" popping out a whole mess of little cultists like a Pez dispenser. While it might not be quite that extreme, the writing is on the wall. While Bobby is probably sincere in his love and desire to care for you, he's still the head of a human sacrificing cult and as such he's going to be somewhat controlling and manipulative. How long before you become brainwashed into believing in the same shit he believes in? How long before you passively accept other sudden changes over time? Hell, how long before some organization like the FBI or the ATF comes charging in to lay siege to the place? Though on the other hand what are you really doing with your life right now and what prospects do you really have? You could do worse than have a man who obviously loves you a lot and is willing to take care of the stuff you don't want to bother worrying about. You've got a major life changing decision to make, because you get the impression that if you get into that compound of his, changing you mind isn't going to be an option. > You accept his proposal "Okay, Bobby. I suppose you're right. We both love each other and that's the most important thing...so yes. I'll marry you." You say. Bobby is overjoyed and hugs and kisses you. "Oh Suzy, this is fantastic! I'll make the announcement to everyone as soon as we get to the compound! I got the ring there and we'll make it official as soon as we're all settled in. In fact, this Friday should be perfect! I hope that's good with you." "Um...yeah this Friday is fine." You answer. "Tiamat truly blesses her most worthy servants! Come on let's get going!" Bobby exclaims. Bobby immediately starts grabbing his clothing that he left in various places in the basement on the way to your room and getting dressed. Your own clothing is a bit torn now, so you grab some new clothes that were still in your closet. Heading back upstairs, Bobby picks up your bags and carries them to this van. He opens the door for you and everything. You did miss his attention to the little things like that. As soon as you leave your neighborhood you notice what Bobby was talking about the town. He wasn't kidding when he said it's a mess. You see police trying maintain order, fights, car wrecks, fire fighters trying put out fires and ambulances blaring their sirens. As Bobby focuses on the road, he goes on about how everything that's currently going on in town is just a small sample of what's to come. He talks about how there are several wars are going on in the world and how tensions are at an all time high. (He actually sounds like one of those Ground Zero infomercials on that bit) He mentions how everything is always trending towards chaos and entropy and how the signs that Tiamat is finally coming back to return the world to its natural state. Between your recent acceptance of his proposal and this, you don't think you've ever seen him so happy and excited. "Well whatever's going on, I'm glad we are leaving town, it's like everyone here has lost their mind." You say. "Yeah, some of my family don't agree that we should go to the compound. Some say we should be out here personally embracing the increasing chaos in the world like Tiamat would want, but... as I said there aren't a lot of us and I'd still like to make sure we're relatively safe. I believe Tiamat would want her chosen to be smart about things. Build up our numbers over time and THEN we will rise to become a force that none can oppose." You don't say much, you just nod and smile. You imagine you're going to be directly contributing to those "numbers." You cross your legs at the thought. Eventually you manage to get out of town and things are slightly better and the traffic is even thinning out. You've never been north of town before...actually you've never been out of town before. You also never realized how rural of an area you lived in. The quiet calm of the great outdoors is actually a little scarier than the chaos of the town you just left behind, doesn't help that it's getting dark by this point. Bobby ends up turning off the main road to an unsaved dirt one leading further into wilderness. Just as you're wonder how much further, you see the compound (surrounded by a high fence with razor wire of course) and it's certainly big enough and imposing enough to make any cult leader jealous. "Shit, it looks like a small prison." You say. "Yeah my dad and some of his brothers were constantly adding on to this thing for decades. To be honest, it isn't even completely finished. I mean it's more than sufficient for several people to comfortably live in, but there are many rooms that are just the bare minimum of four walls. Towards the back where you can't see from here, there are some portions of it that are exposed to the outside. However, seeing as there will be a bunch of us living here now, I think we'll at least be able to finish the place up, and in time make even more additions." "Didn't know your dad had brothers." "Yeah three older, and one younger. A younger sister too, but none of them will be coming here." "Oh. Wait, all of them are dead?" "No, the two younger siblings, Uncle Leslie and Aunt Lilith are still alive. In fact Leslie and Lilith live in a house together south of town. But let's just say they aren't exactly believers in the faith and chose a different path instead...I'm sure you've heard of the Ground Zero corporation especially with all their annoying infomercials and ads everywhere nowadays." "Wait, seriously? You've got family that works for GZ? You never told me that before either." You ask. "My dad wasn't really on speaking terms with either of them. Long story. Anyway, technically just Aunt Lilith works for GZ. Dunno doing what, but I think it's important. Uncle Leslie just lives with her and spends most of his time indulging in his pointless experiments, though I know he does some black market organ shit on the side." Bobby explains. "I guess you couldn't get your aunt to pull a few strings and get set up in one of those shelters they're always trying to sell huh?" You say. "Actually I did contact her during the recent family video conference. She told me that we'd all be much better off in dad's slightly unfinished compound than in one of those shelters. Apparently half of those things are death traps or something. She said even though she wasn't a believer, she still didn't want to subject her nieces and nephews to the fate of being in one of those live-in mass coffins." "Well that was nice of her to look out for you." "Yeah, she always was one of the nicest people in our family. Dunno why she's with Uncle Leslie, the guy is a psychotic asshole to practically everyone. Good doctor though. Anyway, let's see who's on duty tonight." Bobby says pulling up to the large gate. Bobby rolls down his window and speaks into an intercom. "Hey, it's Bobby. Anyone there?" "Bobby? Where the hell have you been? Thought you were going back into town and coming straight back to help with arranging all this furniture." A voice replies a few moments later. "Yeah well I had something really important to do and town is crazy right now. Did anyone else show up since yesterday?" "Nah, but a few people called saying they were going to get in by tomorrow at least." "Okay, what's everyone else doing right now?" "Um, well mostly everyone's asleep or otherwise retired to their rooms. Except me who drew the short straw to keep a look out for you." "What?! Asleep already? It's not that late!" Bobby exclaims. "Well everyone was a bit tired from all the moving around. Also your sister Helen felt the young ones should get a good night's sleep earlier since there's more shit to do tomorrow." "Hmm, well I had a big announcement to make, but I suppose if everyone is mostly in dreamland right now, it can wait until tomorrow. Might as well anyway seeing as you said more people are supposed to show up. Okay let us in William." "Us, huh? I guess that means you have a certain lady with you? Oh Tiamat, can't wait to see Diana's reaction to that one." William remarks. "Diana's gonna just have to fucking deal with it, I'm the fucking head of this family and I love this woman!" "Sheesh, calm down Bobby. I got no problem with that. I will just ask one thing, is she one of us?" Bobby looks over at you which puts you a bit on the spot. "I love you Bobby, and I go where you go now." You say which is enough of a positive answer for Bobby who has a big grin due to your answer. "Yes, of course she is." Bobby remarks. "Well then she's alright with me. Come on in around the right side, you'll be less likely to wake up the others and nobody is using that side of the building right now, so you'll have that big bedroom over there all to yourself." And with that the large gate slides open and Bobby drives you both in. He passes a few parked cars on his way over to the right wing of the compound and parks a few feet in front of a large door. You and he both get out. You attempt to get your bags, but again he insists on carrying them for you. He hands you the keys to the door to open it though, which you do and you both enter. After turning on a light switch, Bobby takes the lead. "Come on, down this corridor and through a couple of rooms." "This place isn't quite as spartan as I imagined. You've got some rather nice carpeting and even the wall coloring is fairly cheerful." You say walking and looking around. "I told you, this is our home, and we have to live here comfortably. We're not trying to create a psychologically oppressive effect to break down the willpower of potential followers, so what's the point of having a depressing drab gray everywhere?" "Makes sense. The artwork you got up is pretty...interesting as well." You say glancing at the various strange pictures hanging up ranging from multi headed dragons to gory scenes of sacrifices. "Oh, yeah. My grandmother painted most of these." Bobby replies. "Really? Well, she certainly made some vivid scenes. That one with young raven haired naked lady holding the bloody dagger surrounded by the corpses is pretty detailed. Probably the best one of the bunch." You say being supportive. "It should be the best one considering that's a self portrait of her. Took her a few months to finish it apparently because she wanted to get the color of decay just right for the bodies. Yep, she sure was talented." Bobby stares a bit at his long dead grandmother's naked image for a moment until you wave your hand in front of him. "Sorry, it's a bit hypnotic at times. Like the eyes follow you." Bobby says. "Hrmmm. Sure it's not two other things?" You ask. "Ha ha, well gotta admit, Grandma was pretty hot back in the day." "That...would be disturbing even if I wasn't your soon to be wife." You remark. (Though you're not really THAT disturbed given what you know of Bobby's family) "Oh I'm joking, you know you're the only one for me." Bobby says and kisses you on the cheek before saying you'll be heading up some nearby stairs. A flight of stairs, another corridor, a few rooms later and you're finally at your destination. A fully furnished master bedroom with all the comforts. "Well gotta admit, this is a very nice room. A little heavy on the red coloring, but I'll definitely be comfortable here especially since I'm starting to get tired." "Hey go ahead and relax. You're home now. I'd join you, but I think I better go see my cousin William to get a proper update on what's been going on, so I'll be back later." "Okay then." you say stretching out on the bed. Bobby kisses you goodbye and you're alone at last. You think about grabbing your laptop, but the bag it's in is too far and you're far too comfortable so you just spend your time scanning the room with your eyes thinking about your situation. When you look over to your left you notice another self portrait of Grandma Morningstar. Fortunately, she's got all her clothes on in this one and is in a more traditional pose. Same stern and confident look though. "Well I guess I'll be joining the family officially soon. Hope you approve from...well wherever you guys go when you shuffle off this mortal coil." You say towards the direction of the painting, though you don't look at it too long. Bobby's right, there is something a little hypnotic about the pictures of her. Instead you close your eyes as the comfort of the bed and silence causes you to soon fall asleep. > Next day... "And Suzy is the winner of the world banana eating championship! Let's all hear it for our little blonde small town girl!" The announcer shouts which is followed by a roaring crowd. Not even feeling full, you wipe away the whipped cream on your lips, graciously stand up and bow for your adoring fans. The big dude on your right wearing nothing but chaps and a biker jacket looks at you in disbelief and then turns away to puke in a bucket. Meanwhile the little Asian She-Male on your left just shakes his head wondering how the hell you could've beaten him. "I don't understand it...all my training. I glanced over at you during the contest...you...you were barely even chewing! How?" He asks. "Oh just natural talent at swallowing bananas I suppose." You reply humbly and wink at the audience, which continues to praise you. While you're blowing kisses at your fans, you suddenly get a feeling you've done something like this before.... Suddenly a hand touches your shoulder and you spin around to see a woman about your age with long raven colored hair and a low cut black gown. She's pretty, but has a sneering look on her face. It's not quite a cruel look, but she's definitely not impressed with you. "So, you think you got what it takes to meet Misty huh? Pfft. I don't see you lasting another day. Maybe two at best." "Who is Misty?" you ask. "(Sigh) Deary, if you don't know, then you'll never know. And if you never know, then how can you ever hope to survive?" the woman says in a condescending tone and then starts laughing at you. She then begins to age rapidly until she becomes a wizened crone and then eventually a rotting corpse. When you begin to step back, the woman then disappears, but her laughter remains, getting louder and louder to the point being deafening and causing pain. You futilely attempt to cover your ears, but the laughter persists even when you try to cram left over bananas in your ears. Meanwhile, the biker turns in a unicorn and the she-male turns into rainbow colored fox which jumps on the back of the unicorn and they run off together. The audience surprisingly has completely disappeared. In fact it's just you and that awful laughter that won't quit. Just when you think you can't take the pain anymore everything goes black... You wake up to the sound of a female voice. "What's going on?!" you exclaim sitting up fast. "Oh! Sorry! I...I didn't mean to wake you...but I just was told to bring you this." the source of the female voice says. You rub your eyes and see a young woman with light brown hair before you holding a tray of food. She's probably a few years younger than you. "...wait...you're Helen right?" you say recognizing her. "Yes. I didn't think you remembered me. We only saw each other a couple times before." Helen says. "Yeah I remember you. Where's Bobby?" "Oh, Bobby's busy doing something with cousin William. I think its something to do with working on the compound here. I'm not really sure. I just tend to look after the little ones, but Bobby told me I should bring you something to eat, so um here." Helen thrusts the tray of food at you. It consists of typical breakfast type food like scrambled eggs, bacon, cereal and juice. You see no reason not to take the offering seeing as you aren't served like this very often. "Wow, breakfast in bed. That's something I've never had before." You say and start to eat. Helen stares at you nervously, which causes you to stop eating. "What?" you ask. "Oh! Nothing, I just wanted to make sure you liked it. Is the food good? I really didn't know what to make you and I just wanted it to be right." Helen says. "It's fine Helen." You say. "Oh good. I just...I just didn't want to disappoint you." "It's just breakfast Helen. Relax. Probably way better than anything I could make, I dunno how to cook." "You don't? Didn't your mother teach you?" Helen asks as if cooking is something every woman knows how to do. "Nope. She taught me how to sew when I was younger, but I sort of stopped doing it when she died of a flesh-eating virus. Didn't really see the point anymore." "Oh no, how sad!" Helen says empathetically. "Yeah." You say continuing to eat. "Well don't worry, I'm a very good cook and I can even teach you!" "Hm, well between that offer and this meal, you've probably done more for me than my own family has in years." "I'm so glad you said that. I want us to get along because I know you're going to be married to Bobby and all." "Wait, Bobby told you already?" you ask. "He told everyone last night. He was so happy. I'm so glad he was, I like seeing him happy." "Hm, I can guess who wasn't happy to hear about it." You remark. "Oh. Yes. Um...you probably mean Diana. Yes, she was quite upset. Um...in fact I probably should leave. She's looking after the little ones and I'm sure I'll get an earful about being away from my duties for so long. She's in a bad enough mood as it is." Helen says. "Okay, well sorry to keep you then. I don't want to get you into trouble." "Oh, it's okay. I'm not really worried about me anyway. It's just if I stay away for too long she might... well she's not as patient as I am with our younger siblings. So are you okay with the food and everything?" "Yeah Helen." "Okay good. Good. Um...okay I'm going now. Um, I suppose I'll see you around some time." "Okay then." At this point Helen nervously waves and opens the door to leave, but then she calls out to you. "Um, Suzy?" "Yes?" "I'm really glad you're going to be part of this family soon." She says with a faint smile and then leaves. You shake your head and finish your food. Helen obviously has some issues. Though maybe its because you know what its like to have a bullying older sister, you can sympathize. After putting aside your food tray you take a shower in the private bathroom connected to the bedroom which is very convenient. While washing up you take time to ponder your odd dream which while having its surreal moments seemed "real" to you in some ways. The raven haired woman in the dream was most certainly Bobby's grandmother which is sort of creepy, but then maybe she just popped up due you seeing pictures of her (and even one in your room) earlier that night. Ultimately you decide not to worry too much about it unless this becomes an ongoing problem. After your shower, you then change your clothing and decide to explore what is now your new home. You walk around the right wing of the compound, upstairs and down, not running into anyone. It's all pretty empty on this side which is sort of good you suppose and you're half tempted to just go back to your new room and play on your computer. However, you figure you're going to have to make the effort to be social with everyone so you head over to the central part of the compound where you assume more of Bobby's family is located. Eventually you get to a large dining area and see a few dirty plates still on the table. The voices of children can be heard a few rooms away and then... That red headed witch Diana steps out from the kitchen. She holds a knife in one hand and you notice her hand tighten around its handle when she sees you. "Look, I don't want any trouble Diana. I know you're mad but..." you start to say before Diana interrupts. "Spare me your pathetic words blonde whore. You will not sway me with superficial attempts at diplomacy. YOU are in my way, but I promise you that before the week's end, you will be out of it." When you cautiously step back a bit, Diana smirks. "You better keep stepping backwards and out the front door if you want to stay out of my way AND keep your pitiful life." While Diana is doing a fairly adequate job of intimidating you, she's actually starting to make you angry. Like a rage is building up within you and you feel like just picking up one of the forks on one of the dirty plates on the table and stabbing her in the neck with it. In fact violent visions start to enter your head, visions of bloody bodies and other murderous images. They hit you so suddenly; you actually stumble and keep yourself from falling by propping yourself up against the table. You then rub your head from this spell, as you don't feel completely well. "Now what? Am I scaring you too much? Are you about to cry? By Tiamat you really are worthless. And that is why you'll never make a good wife to my brother. You're far too weak. My brother will realize that soon." Diana remarks. As unwell as you suddenly feel, the rage within you is still rising. > You attack Diana You already put up with one bullying asshole of an older sister who basically threw you out your house, you'll be damned if you'll let someone else do it again. You turn your head to address Diana. "Hey, you know what your brother also realized? That I'm more fun in the bed than you are. Told me you were about as fun as fucking a log and about as lively too. Yeah, I'm crying alright, I'm crying tears of laughter at your fucking stupidity if you actually think you have a chance at getting Bobby back." If Diana were a cartoon character you'd imagine this would be the part where steam shoots out of her head and her face goes completely red. "You're fucking dead blondie!" Diana shouts and runs at you with the knife in hand. You grab one of the plates on the table and throw it at her. She dodges, but it's enough to get her a bit off balance while you grab a fork and plunge it into the side of her arm. "Agh SHIT!" she shouts , but manages to swipe at you with her knife which barely misses your face. You don't have time to retrieve your fork from her arm. You throw another plate at her, which causes her to drop her knife when she blocks her face with her hands. She recovers quickly however and pulls the fork from her arm and lunges at you with it. As the pair of you struggle, you and Diana have made enough noise for others to take notice of it. Helen comes walking into the room with a couple of kids behind her and freaks out. "Wha...Stop! Stop it! Don't fight!" she exclaims and then screams for help and runs over to attempt to disarm her sister. "Please Diana, don't..." Helen utters before Diana shoves her aside. At least this allows you to grab Diana's wrist and slam it hard on the edge of the table, causing her to drop the fork. Doesn't stop her from punching you with her free hand though. Helen once again tries to pull the two of you apart, but fails to do so. She ends up shouting at the cheering children who are enjoying the violent display to go fetch help. Meanwhile Diana is slightly getting the better of you in this fight as she lands a kick to your stomach, flooring you. You wheeze and have a hard time catching your breath. "You actually thought you could challenge me? What was that about me being the stupid one?" Diana taunts as she picks up a nearby chair. You barely manage to roll out of the way when she tries to bring it down on your head. Desperate to gain the advantage again, you struggle to get back up and start throwing plates at her again. She manages to deflect them with the chair, but then with all your energy you charge at her and holding on to the other end of the chair you slam her into the wall. You manage to pull the chair away and then it's just you and her again. At first you're scratching, punching and slapping each other upright and then soon the pair of you are rolling on the floor. "By Tiamat's Chaotic Cunt, quick grab 'em both!" you hear a male voice shout. A mass of various arms and hands grab you and Diana and after a bit of prying, the would be peacemakers succeed in keeping you and Diana from doing anymore damage. "I'M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU AND I'M NOT FUCKING LEAVING!" you scream at Diana who is being pulled away by Helen and another well dressed man you don't recognize. "Whoa, easy! Easy! I gotcha." The male voice says that spoke earlier. You look and see the one who has pulled you away from Diana and see a scruffy looking man. "Let go of me!" you exclaim and pull away from the man who lets you go. "Okay, okay, you're free, now I heard you two don't like each other, but already? What the hell happened?" At this point you and Diana both start accusing each other of starting the fight. After some shouting you demand to know where Bobby is. "Bobby isn't here. He actually left an hour ago to go gather some stuff from the old house. (Sigh) I wish he was here though, because this is definitely his problem not mine." The scruffy man says. "Yeah, well who the fuck are you anyway?" you exclaim. "Wow, you're actually a little different than I expected considering what Bobby has said about you. Though if you need to the introductions, I'm William. Mr. fancy over there is Brandon." William remarks. "Hey." Brandon says. Diana interrupts this temporary break in the hostilities by attempting to attack you again, but Brandon and Helen manage to hold her back, meanwhile William grabs you since you attempt to defend yourself. "Let me go! Why the fuck are you all holding me back?! You should be letting me kill this fucking outsider and serving her heart up to Tiamat!" Diana exclaims. "Yeah, while that would normally be the plan, you know damn well this is Bobby's bride to be and he's the head of the family. Now I know your pissed about that but them's the rules." William remarks. "Shut the fuck up William you don't know shit about how I feel! And since when do you give a shit about the rules for anything?" Diana says. "Okay, I'll give you both of those. However I DO respect your brother and he loves this woman so you and nobody else will be sacrificing or harming her in any way...besides given how she was fighting, I'd say she shows promise of fitting right in in this family." William laughs. Diana shakes her head, fumes and huffs about her situation. She looks like she's about to attack you again, but instead she pushes Helen out of the way and storms off. Despite being pushed Helen follows her sister in an effort to console her. "Well. That was exciting. If we're all done here, I'll be checking on Veronica and making sure the young ones aren't getting into the armory or something. Um, nice meeting you Suzy." Brandon remarks straightening out his suit and walks away. You sit down on a nearby chair rubbing the upper left side of your face, which is probably sporting a bruise or soon will be. You still feel angry, but you're too tired to go chasing after Diana at this moment. You notice William still lingering around and staring at you. "What?!" you ask. "Okay, just settle down now. I'm not the enemy here." William remarks. "Maybe not, but I don't really care for your staring right now." "Fair enough. Like I said, you're just much different than what I expected. Bobby mentioned to me you were this gentle quite girl. More like Helen actually. Never expected you to be giving Diana a good fight. On your second day here no less." "Yeah, well everyone has their limits." "Guess that's true too, though I'm sure you know why Diana doesn't like you." "Yeah I know, and you know what? That's tough shit and she needs to just get the fuck over it. Bobby wants to marry ME. Not her. It isn't my fault that she's not woman enough for him. To my understanding she had YEARS with him. If she couldn't hang on to him with that much of a head start, I'd say the problem was with her, not me." William smiles at your remark. "Man, I wasn't sure if I'd like you, but shit if you weren't Bobby's bride to be, I'D marry you. Well if I was the marrying type. Anyway, I'd say you handled the situation with Diana the only way you could have. She at least knows she can't just bully you like she does with poor Helen. Still, I'd watch out. It isn't over with her. She's not going to just let this go." "I'm going to tell Bobby about this and he's going to just have to straighten her out once and for all." "Well, that MIGHT work in the short term, but Diana doesn't let go of grudges and given that you'll officially become family soon, she's likely to ignore him. Look, it's like this. Diana is definitely going to try to do something to you before you can marry Bobby because if she succeeds in getting you out of the picture before that happens, she won't suffer any repercussions. Granted Bobby will probably be pissed at her and she'll get passed over for Helen I suppose, but as a follower of Tiamat she technically has got the right to kill an outsider. It's just out of respect for Bobby that we accept you." "Okay, so as soon as Bobby gets back, I'm going to demand he marry me now." "Heh, well due to some sort of alignment of the stars on Friday I don't think it's going to be moved forward. Though, given how pissed Diana is about all this, I really wouldn't put it past her to just wait years to get revenge on you and make it look like an accident or make up some sort of bullshit about it being Tiamat's will or something." "So...what...am I going to have to kill her to get any fucking peace?" you blurt out. William waves his hand down a bit as if to tell you to be quiet and looks around. "Shhh, don't talk that way out loud. You're not officially family yet. You talk like that around some of the others here and they'll throw you on the sacrificial altar. Hell, even Helen would probably go tell on you for talking like that." William says. "What the hell? What about Bobby? Doesn't his leadership mean anything?!" "Well yeah, but in case you hadn't noticed, he's very observant of certain rules and rituals. As much as he loves you, I don't even he would be able to help if you actually killed Diana." "Well I gotta do something! I can't just sit around with a thumb up my ass constantly looking over my shoulder thinking Diana's going to do something to me." "I know and I get it. (Sigh) Quite frankly if I was running things, I'd go back to the old ways of Tiamat where we had less rules and ritual and more adherence to primal urges. What I'd do is have you and Diana enter a steel cage and nobody left until one of you was dead, but that's me." "Great. Glad to know I'd be better off under a more anarchic regime." You say with a tone of defeat. William exhales deeply and then speaks. "Well blondie, this is how I see it. You can either hold out until Friday after which point you can probably get rid of Diana a little easier or at least with less repercussions. Or you can, shall we say...find an opportunity before then. I'm not saying anymore, but if you really feel like you're in immediate danger then you know what to do." With those words, William leaves you alone to ponder his advice. > You take care of Diana You get up and decide you need to take things into your own hands. You are not going to spend one more night under this roof with someone who openly wants to kill you. You catch up to William who hasn't gone far and ask him where Diana's room is. "Left wing second floor...uh...you planning to do that thing?" he asks. "Guess you'll find out soon." You say and walk past him. You make your way through the house and climb a flight of stairs. As you're looking around for where Diana's room is, you hear some voices and start heading towards them since they sound familiar. The closer you get and you recognize one of the voices as Helen. The louder voice with the abusive tone can only be Diana. "Diana, please try to calm yourself..." Helen says. "Calm myself? Are you a fucking idiot?! That fucking bitch is an outsider and you're seriously okay with that?! You're okay with her taking Bobby away?" Diana replies. "But she isn't taking him away, he'll still be here..." "Helen, you're a f...WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM? GET THE FUCK OUT!" Diana says when she sees you enter. Helen turns her head and sees you and she looks scared about what's going to happen next. "Uh...um hey Suzy...I really don't think this is a good time..." Helen remarks and tries to get in between you and Diana who is already making steps towards you. You didn't necessarily plan on Helen being here, but given how she's been living in fear of Diana for years, you're fairly certain you can angle that in your favor. You plan is fairly simple. You're going to "apologize" but you know Diana is going to just start a fight again and in the process you're going to do damage she's going to be less likely to walk away from. You've already clashed with her once, she wasn't nearly as tough as she makes out and you're tougher than you actually thought you were. Survival of the fittest is going to play out very soon. "Diana, like I said before I didn't come here to fight. I've just come to apologize if I offended you downstairs. I should've realized this is your home and I had no right to insult you." "And like I said before I'm not interested in anything you've got to say you fucking man stealing cunt! Now get the fuck out of here before Bobby comes home to a corpse bride!" Helen at this point is practically pushing you out the door, but you're not moving. "Diana, are you seriously going to threaten my life again after I'm trying to make peace?" you ask. "Suzy, please get out of here..." Helen says. "BITCH I DON'T WANT PEACE WITH YOU! YOU STOLE MY BOBBY AWAY RAAAAAAGH!" Diana screams and charges at you. Somehow Helen manages to duck and squeeze out of the way before she's tackled along with you. Diana is now fighting with a fury you didn't see downstairs. While she was certainly filled with rage before, now it seems like she's possessed. You catch two blows to the face before you manage to push her back and land a kick to her stomach. Helen helplessly stands nearby calling for you both to stop, but neither of you are listening. Nearby vases are smashed, knick-knacks are knock over and even small pieces of furniture are damaged. Eventually Diana pushes you backwards and then runs back into her room. You waste no time in chasing after her only to find that she's attempting to grab a large dagger from under her bed. She slashes at you with it, but misses and you land a kick to her face. You then grab her and slam her into a desk causing her to drop her knife. You go to pick it up, but Diana prevents you from doing so by crashing her bruised body into yours. The pair of you roll on the floor some more until you finally get the upper hand again and knock Diana into her window and partially through it. Diana groans in pain, but doesn't move. The top part of her body dangles outside, and her lower back is no doubt impaled on some of the broken glass. It'll be a simple matter of you just picking up her legs and pushing her out. Or at least it would if Helen wasn't around. "Stop it! Stop it please! Don't kill her! She's my sister!" Helen shouts. "Helen, this bitch has been abusing you for YEARS. Don't you think it's time for her bullying to end? Come on Helen, you know your life would be better without her. Come on, just let everyone know this was purely in self defense. You know this is the right thing." You say. Helen looks around a moment and bites her lip. She's very unsure, but eventually she complies. "...okay...just do it." she says and turns her head away. You smile and go to pick up Diana's legs. You knew Helen would side against her sister. As you push Diana out the window, that's when you realize Helen's sided against you as well. You feel a sharp pain go straight into your back. The shock causes you to temporarily unable to catch your breath as you try to reach for whatever it is that just got plunged into you. You turn around just in time to see Helen give you a hefty shove. "Sorry Suzy." She says and you fall out the window. The thing is, you may have possibly still survived the fall, but unfortunately landing on your back with a big knife in it, drives it completely through the front of your chest. As you lay next to Diana's corpse, gurgling blood and struggling to breathe you soon follow her in death.

[Themes: modern, horror, female protagonist, serious, humor] You already put up with one bullying asshole of an older sister who basically threw you out your house, you'll be damned if you'll let someone else do it again. You turn your head to address Diana. "Hey, you know what your brother also realized? That I'm more fun in the bed than you are. Told me you were about as fun as fucking a log and about as lively too. Yeah, I'm crying alright, I'm crying tears of laughter at your fucking stupidity if you actually think you have a chance at getting Bobby back." If Diana were a cartoon character you'd imagine this would be the part where steam shoots out of her head and her face goes completely red. "You're fucking dead blondie!" Diana shouts and runs at you with the knife in hand. You grab one of the plates on the table and throw it at her. She dodges, but it's enough to get her a bit off balance while you grab a fork and plunge it into the side of her arm. "Agh SHIT!" she shouts , but manages to swipe at you with her knife which barely misses your face. You don't have time to retrieve your fork from her arm. You throw another plate at her, which causes her to drop her knife when she blocks her face with her hands. She recovers quickly however and pulls the fork from her arm and lunges at you with it. As the pair of you struggle, you and Diana have made enough noise for others to take notice of it. Helen comes walking into the room with a couple of kids behind her and freaks out. "Wha...Stop! Stop it! Don't fight!" she exclaims and then screams for help and runs over to attempt to disarm her sister. "Please Diana, don't..." Helen utters before Diana shoves her aside. At least this allows you to grab Diana's wrist and slam it hard on the edge of the table, causing her to drop the fork. Doesn't stop her from punching you with her free hand though. Helen once again tries to pull the two of you apart, but fails to do so. She ends up shouting at the cheering children who are enjoying the violent display to go fetch help. Meanwhile Diana is slightly getting the better of you in this fight as she lands a kick to your stomach, flooring you. You wheeze and have a hard time catching your breath. "You actually thought you could challenge me? What was that about me being the stupid one?" Diana taunts as she picks up a nearby chair. You barely manage to roll out of the way when she tries to bring it down on your head. Desperate to gain the advantage again, you struggle to get back up and start throwing plates at her again. She manages to deflect them with the chair, but then with all your energy you charge at her and holding on to the other end of the chair you slam her into the wall. You manage to pull the chair away and then it's just you and her again. At first you're scratching, punching and slapping each other upright and then soon the pair of you are rolling on the floor. "By Tiamat's Chaotic Cunt, quick grab 'em both!" you hear a male voice shout. A mass of various arms and hands grab you and Diana and after a bit of prying, the would be peacemakers succeed in keeping you and Diana from doing anymore damage. "I'M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU AND I'M NOT FUCKING LEAVING!" you scream at Diana who is being pulled away by Helen and another well dressed man you don't recognize. "Whoa, easy! Easy! I gotcha." The male voice says that spoke earlier. You look and see the one who has pulled you away from Diana and see a scruffy looking man. "Let go of me!" you exclaim and pull away from the man who lets you go. "Okay, okay, you're free, now I heard you two don't like each other, but already? What the hell happened?" At this point you and Diana both start accusing each other of starting the fight. After some shouting you demand to know where Bobby is. "Bobby isn't here. He actually left an hour ago to go gather some stuff from the old house. (Sigh) I wish he was here though, because this is definitely his problem not mine." The scruffy man says. "Yeah, well who the fuck are you anyway?" you exclaim. "Wow, you're actually a little different than I expected considering what Bobby has said about you. Though if you need to the introductions, I'm William. Mr. fancy over there is Brandon." William remarks. "Hey." Brandon says. Diana interrupts this temporary break in the hostilities by attempting to attack you again, but Brandon and Helen manage to hold her back, meanwhile William grabs you since you attempt to defend yourself. "Let me go! Why the fuck are you all holding me back?! You should be letting me kill this fucking outsider and serving her heart up to Tiamat!" Diana exclaims. "Yeah, while that would normally be the plan, you know damn well this is Bobby's bride to be and he's the head of the family. Now I know your pissed about that but them's the rules." William remarks. "Shut the fuck up William you don't know shit about how I feel! And since when do you give a shit about the rules for anything?" Diana says. "Okay, I'll give you both of those. However I DO respect your brother and he loves this woman so you and nobody else will be sacrificing or harming her in any way...besides given how she was fighting, I'd say she shows promise of fitting right in in this family." William laughs. Diana shakes her head, fumes and huffs about her situation. She looks like she's about to attack you again, but instead she pushes Helen out of the way and storms off. Despite being pushed Helen follows her sister in an effort to console her. "Well. That was exciting. If we're all done here, I'll be checking on Veronica and making sure the young ones aren't getting into the armory or something. Um, nice meeting you Suzy." Brandon remarks straightening out his suit and walks away. You sit down on a nearby chair rubbing the upper left side of your face, which is probably sporting a bruise or soon will be. You still feel angry, but you're too tired to go chasing after Diana at this moment. You notice William still lingering around and staring at you. "What?!" you ask. "Okay, just settle down now. I'm not the enemy here." William remarks. "Maybe not, but I don't really care for your staring right now." "Fair enough. Like I said, you're just much different than what I expected. Bobby mentioned to me you were this gentle quite girl. More like Helen actually. Never expected you to be giving Diana a good fight. On your second day here no less." "Yeah, well everyone has their limits." "Guess that's true too, though I'm sure you know why Diana doesn't like you." "Yeah I know, and you know what? That's tough shit and she needs to just get the fuck over it. Bobby wants to marry ME. Not her. It isn't my fault that she's not woman enough for him. To my understanding she had YEARS with him. If she couldn't hang on to him with that much of a head start, I'd say the problem was with her, not me." William smiles at your remark. "Man, I wasn't sure if I'd like you, but shit if you weren't Bobby's bride to be, I'D marry you. Well if I was the marrying type. Anyway, I'd say you handled the situation with Diana the only way you could have. She at least knows she can't just bully you like she does with poor Helen. Still, I'd watch out. It isn't over with her. She's not going to just let this go." "I'm going to tell Bobby about this and he's going to just have to straighten her out once and for all." "Well, that MIGHT work in the short term, but Diana doesn't let go of grudges and given that you'll officially become family soon, she's likely to ignore him. Look, it's like this. Diana is definitely going to try to do something to you before you can marry Bobby because if she succeeds in getting you out of the picture before that happens, she won't suffer any repercussions. Granted Bobby will probably be pissed at her and she'll get passed over for Helen I suppose, but as a follower of Tiamat she technically has got the right to kill an outsider. It's just out of respect for Bobby that we accept you." "Okay, so as soon as Bobby gets back, I'm going to demand he marry me now." "Heh, well due to some sort of alignment of the stars on Friday I don't think it's going to be moved forward. Though, given how pissed Diana is about all this, I really wouldn't put it past her to just wait years to get revenge on you and make it look like an accident or make up some sort of bullshit about it being Tiamat's will or something." "So...what...am I going to have to kill her to get any fucking peace?" you blurt out. William waves his hand down a bit as if to tell you to be quiet and looks around. "Shhh, don't talk that way out loud. You're not officially family yet. You talk like that around some of the others here and they'll throw you on the sacrificial altar. Hell, even Helen would probably go tell on you for talking like that." William says. "What the hell? What about Bobby? Doesn't his leadership mean anything?!" "Well yeah, but in case you hadn't noticed, he's very observant of certain rules and rituals. As much as he loves you, I don't even he would be able to help if you actually killed Diana." "Well I gotta do something! I can't just sit around with a thumb up my ass constantly looking over my shoulder thinking Diana's going to do something to me." "I know and I get it. (Sigh) Quite frankly if I was running things, I'd go back to the old ways of Tiamat where we had less rules and ritual and more adherence to primal urges. What I'd do is have you and Diana enter a steel cage and nobody left until one of you was dead, but that's me." "Great. Glad to know I'd be better off under a more anarchic regime." You say with a tone of defeat. William exhales deeply and then speaks. "Well blondie, this is how I see it. You can either hold out until Friday after which point you can probably get rid of Diana a little easier or at least with less repercussions. Or you can, shall we say...find an opportunity before then. I'm not saying anymore, but if you really feel like you're in immediate danger then you know what to do." With those words, William leaves you alone to ponder his advice. > You keep a low profile As much you'd actually like to get Diana out of the picture, it probably would be best to just keep to yourself for the rest of the day. At least until Bobby gets back. In fact you think about calling him about this, but you decide it would be better to discuss something like this in person. You head back to your room and lock the door. So much for being "social" today. You spend most of your time doing what you used to do in your basement, which actually suits you just fine. Though in between your computer game downtime (Sadly no Internet here), you also do more thinking about your future here. It isn't just Diana, you're going to have to do something about; it's also this whole Tiamat religion. You wonder if you're going to have to sacrifice people. You aren't even sure if you have it in you to kill Diana in cold blood (Maybe in self defense though) how are you going to kill an innocent person? You also are wondering about Bobby's desire to have children and how that's going to go. While you've never thought about being a mother, that's actually one of your lesser concerns. Bobby's family has a "tradition" of interbreeding. As fucked up as your family was, there was never any of THAT going on and you're not exactly comfortable with the idea of your offspring having sex with each other...and just HOW young is that encouraged anyway? "Goddamnit Suzy, you really got yourself into a mess." You say to yourself. But its done now and you're just going to have to muddle through. You briefly ponder escape, but you're fairly certain that wouldn't be a good idea even if you did manage to get out of the compound. No, your best plan for now is to speak to Bobby about all this. Surely you've got some influence over him. Hours pass and eventually when night starts to fall there's a knock on the door. "Hey, Suzy. It's Bobby, why is the door locked?" you hear Bobby ask. "Because I already had a fight with your bitch of a sister once today and I was avoiding any more potential conflict. Hold on..." you say and go to open the door. You open the door and Bobby goes to hug you, though you barely return the favor. "Suzy, shit, you should put something on that." He remarks about your face bruising. "I'm fine, stop! Don't touch it. (Sigh) Look we've got A LOT to discuss. First of which is why the hell did you leave without telling me?" "I actually didn't plan on leaving at all, but I remembered a few things that I left back at the house that I thought we should have here so I figured I'd make a quick trip there which turned out to be a cluster fuck. Shit is getting worse in town. Anyway, I saw no reason to bother you since I figured you wouldn't even bother leaving the room. I had it planned for Helen to come up to serve you food at appointed hours, of course she mentioned the fight when I finally got in and she wasn't sure if she should bother you. Now I already heard some of it from the rest of the family and especially Diana, now why don't you tell me what happened exactly?" You recount the event to Bobby and then add your own displeasure about his sister in general. "I know, I know, I'll straighten it out." Bobby remarks. "You said that before and that bitch is still trying to kill me! You better do something about her permanently." You say. "Whoa, hold on now. I know you're upset, but let's rein it in a bit. I mean it probably wasn't the best idea on your part to provoke her." Your jaw nearly drops. "Bobby, I KNOW you just didn't take her fucking side. Because if you are..." "I'm NOT taking her fucking side! I'm just saying my sister is a lot of bark most of the time and she only reacts when someone really provokes her." "Oh, so what? Am I just supposed to put up with Diana's abuse in silence? Be a doormat like Helen? NO! I had enough of that shit from Kelly, I didn't come here just to repeat that cycle again! You told me you were the fucking leader of your family, shouldn't you just be able to snap your fingers and they have to fall in fucking line?" Bobby just hangs his head and slumps down on a chair. "(Sigh) Alright, alright, you made your point and you're right. You shouldn't have to put up with that sort of treatment. I'll handle Diana, but from now on don't get into a fight with her if she's being a bitch. Just ignore her." Bobby says. "Yeah well I'm not sure if that's going to be an option if she pushes me too much, which brings me to some other issues." "Other issues? What the else fucking happened while I was gone?" "Nothing, but I've been doing some thinking. If I'm going to be popping out children, I refuse to have them involved in some kiddie porn ring. I'm not having it! I can look past a lot, but that's where I'm drawing the fucking line." You say with authority. Now Bobby's jaw drops. "Kiddie porn? By Tiamat's Twenty Tits, what the hell do you think goes on here Suzy?" Bobby says being genuinely offended. "Well I don't fucking know! I mean I know you guys participate in human sacrifice and commit incest like its no big deal! I mean you and your sister had to start experimenting with each other at an early age and taught that it was perfectly fine to do so. What the hell am I supposed to think?" you say. "You could've just asked you know. You could've asked about Tiamat and all this other shit before jumping to your own conclusions. I've tried on many occasions to actually enlighten you on my religion but (Sigh) nevermind. We'll get to THAT later, first let me allay your fears of any rampant pedophilia going on here of which there ISN'T. Or at least under my watch there won't be." "So you're saying that it has happened in your family." "Look, I'm not going to lie and say that maybe sometimes that shit HAS happened in the past with other family members, but I'm sure my family isn't the only one that has had such elements in it. I mean what about your family? Like your old Uncle Ed?" "Hey my Uncle Ed wasn't a kiddie fiddler, he was just a plain old serial killer." You say. "Oh well, I guess he was a saint then, look my point is, I think you've got the wrong impression about all of us. All right, it's true my family did tend to interbreed a bit more in the past and yeah by and large we don't see it as some great taboo. However it wasn't like it was a standard procedure to get the kids to start playing doctor at an early age. To be honest, I probably only grew close to Diana because my dad was a fucking tyrant who barely let any of us socialize with others our own age. Then after mom died...who WASN'T related to my dad by the way, Diana and me just grew even closer and...well I won't go into anymore because I'm sure you don't want to hear it. I'm just saying it wasn't like my dad was telling us to fuck one another or else. If anything, my dad probably was a bigger prude than some Christian fundies. If he had known what was going on, he probably would've horse whipped the pair of us for distracting ourselves from Tiamat's glory or some shit." Bobby holds up his hand before you can interrupt. "So, what I'm saying is that any children we have aren't going to be forced to have sex with each other or anyone else. That's not part of the plan nor will it ever be." "Hmm, glad to hear it." You say. "Okay, are there any other concerns we need to discuss?" "Well, I don't see why we can't get married sooner, like tomorrow for instance." "Because this Friday is perfect. I've already got things planned out." "Wait, I'm the bride, shouldn't I be planning all this out? In fact why do I have practically no say in this?" "Because...look...argh, fine besides wanting the wedding moved up what else do you want?" "Well...I dunno. Okay, I guess I don't have any ideas. That's not the point though, it's the principle that I want my voice to be heard." "Well trust me, after today it's been more than heard. Look, if you DO have any requests, let me know because we can accommodate you...except pushing up the date. It really needs to be on Friday. Why do you want it pushed up anyway?" "William told me I'm in danger with Diana until I'm actually married to you." "And I'm telling you not to worry about Diana anymore. I'm going to take care of that. And I wouldn't listen to my cousin anyway. He's a bit of a shit stirrer. Now is there anything else?" "No, I guess that's all the major things for now. So um, how was your day in town?" At this point Bobby tells you about his trip back and forth to his house and while to an extent it was exciting, he was glad to get back home to you. Bobby also goes on to tell you that a few more family members apparently arrived while he was gone and you were in self-isolation. "Great, more people to hate me." "Don't worry about it. Tomorrow, I'm definitely not going anywhere so I'll be around to introduce you to everyone proper. You're not going to get the Diana treatment by all of them. To be honest, what little the rest have seen of you, you're ahead in the polls. Helen likes you of course. You managed to impress William and some of the kids thought you were, in their words a pretty blonde lady that was beating up their mean sister Diana or aunt Diana in some cases. Even my cousin Brandon said you seemed okay and he barely ever gives an opinion without his wife telling him what to think." "Well I guess that's something I suppose." At this point Bobby goes back to reassuring you that everything will be fine and the pair of you spend the remainder of the night together. Eventually as the hours grow late the pair of you go to sleep. Still, you can't help but have your doubts and concerns even though Bobby alleviated a few of them. You still think you're going to have to take matters into your own hands rather than rely solely on Bobby. > Next day… "And Suzy is the winner of the world cucumber eating championship! Let's all hear it for our little blonde small town girl!" The announcer shouts which is followed by a roaring crowd. Not even feeling full, you wipe away the ranch dressing on your lips, graciously stand up and bow for your adoring fans. The Minotaur on your right looks at you in disbelief and then turns away to puke in a trough. Meanwhile the little Asian satyr on your left just shakes his head wondering how the hell you could've beaten him. "I don't understand it...all my training. I glanced over at you during the contest...you...you were barely even chewing! How?" He asks. "Oh just natural talent at swallowing cucumbers I suppose." You reply humbly and wink at the audience, which continues to praise you. While you're blowing kisses at your fans, you suddenly get a feeling you've done something like this before. In fact you remember you HAVE participated in similar contests and you can't help but think there's some sort of connection with what you've been eating at these things. Suddenly a hand touches your shoulder and you spin around to see a woman with long raven colored hair and a low cut black gown. It's Bobby's grandmother. This time she's a little older and she still doesn't look too impressed with you. "Yeah that's great you got a skill and its real obvious that's one of the things Bobby loves about you because men in general tend to make their most important decisions with their dicks." She says to you. "Excuse me?" you reply. "To be honest I'm not even too sure about him, but nobody appears to have the ambition to stand up to him or are otherwise too much in love with him. That's Diana's problem right there. Anyway, MAYBE there is more to you than meets the eye. You might just meet Misty yet." "Okay who the hell is Misty?" you ask. "Sheesh, you really are slow on the uptake there blondie. Well maybe you'll get it, maybe you won't. I don't give a shit either way. Off you go then." Bobby's grandmother at this point snaps her fingers and at this point the Minotaur grabs your upper body and the satyr grabs your legs while the audience cheers them on. You attempt to struggle without success, then a giant hole in the ground between the stage and the audience opens up. A swirling black void appears at the bottom. Without another word, you are tossed in which is followed by your screaming, the audience's cheering and Bobby's grandmother laughing. You fall and eventually the light from above grows dimmer until you are enveloped in complete darkness. Then you wake up suddenly with one of your hands tightly clutching to the side of the bed. "No! Huh? Shit! Oh. Good. Not falling. Fucking bitch." You incoherently mumble, which is heard by Bobby who is in the room getting dressed. "You okay over there?" he asks. "Hrm? Oh. Nothing. Just another fucked up dream. What's going on?" you ask rubbing your eyes. "Nothing much, just some more of my family showed up here in the middle of the night. I was just about to wake you up to finally have you come meet everyone properly. Now I know you probably don't really want to but..." "Yeah, whatever let's do it." You interrupt and get out of bed. "Wow, I didn't expect you to be so accommodating so quickly." "Don't have much of choice now do I? I mean I'm going to have to get along with all these people. Better I make my good impressions as soon as possible before Diana starts spreading lies about me." "Suzy, I wouldn't worry about..." "Have you spoken to her yet?" you interrupt again. "Well no." "Well until you do and lay down the fucking law, I'm going to assume she's already caused a shitload of damage." Bobby stops dressing for a moment. "Suzy, what's wrong? I thought we were good with our talk yesterday." "WE are good. Diana and me though? Never will be and something is going to have to be done about it." "Suzy, I TOLD you I'd fucking talk to her alright?" "Yeah, we'll see." You say and close the bathroom door. As you wash up, you wonder if you were unnecessarily bitchy with Bobby, but then you think no you weren't. You have a legitimate gripe against a woman who is trying to kill you and he's SUPPOSED to be doing something about it. Honestly at this point you wish he'd do more than talk, but you suppose that's wishful thinking. That dream really put you in a bad mood. Especially since you've had it three times now and it always ends with you getting fucked up in some way. Not to mention Bobby's grandmother has started appearing in them. You've never been one to believe in the supernatural, but the dream shit is really starting to get too weird for you to ignore as just your subconscious in play. You're starting to wonder if Bobby's grandmother is mocking you from beyond the grave and one thing you don't need right now is yet another Morningstar woman on your case. On top of all that, you still ache from yesterday's fight, but the hot shower at least feels good. After leaving the bathroom you get dressed. Bobby is still in the bedroom waiting for you. He doesn't say much, but that's probably because he's trying to avoid an argument just before the pair of you are supposed to be "formally" meeting his people. "Okay, I'm ready." You say when you finish getting dressed, Bobby nods and the pair of you leave the room. Bobby finally speaks to you again as you walk and talk, though you're mostly just listening to him going on about the other family members you haven't met yet and how to best handle them. To be honest, you've already made up your mind that you're going to treat them how they treat you. Eventually you get to the large living area where you see familiar faces along with unknown ones. William sits in a large comfy looking chair and nods at you, taking a drink. You see that Brandon guy with a slightly chubby woman, you're guessing that's his wife Veronica. They both greet you, but nothing more than that. You also see three new people who are more of Bobby's cousins. They all introduce themselves, but much like Brandon and Veronica, they don't do much more than that. You don't get the impression any of this is personal either. Aaron doesn't seem like he wants to be here at all. Ronald and Denise look more interested in each other than anyone else at the moment. You then see Helen again who looks like she has her hands full with several boys and girls. She still manages to wave hi to you though. The kids themselves look at you, but seem to be pre-occupied with bickering with each other. "How many of those are your siblings again?" you whisper to Bobby. "Oh just the three. The oldest boy there Jordan and the twins Aiden and Nadia. The other half are Brandon and his wife's kids." He answers. "Um, shouldn't they be looking after them then?" "I'm sure they do all the time and are just taking advantage of the extra support system they have now. I mean they trust Helen to look after them and Helen said she was happy to do it. Besides, everyone is family here so it hardly matters who is looking after them directly." While you haven't known these people long, you know Helen's personality well enough that she'd agree to anything since she seems to be the family doormat. You don't see Diana, but someone mentions she's in the kitchen making food for everyone. "Okay, I'm going to go do this now, because I don't want to do it later. I'm going to go speak with Diana and straighten everything out and make it clear there is to be no more dissension in the family today." "Hm, while you're at it make sure she's not putting rat poison in my food." You remark. Bobby heads into the kitchen leaving you alone with the rest of his family. Having little else to do, you make the attempt to be social. Brandon and Veronica are more talkative than the rest. They ask you a few questions and you answer. They don't seem to really care too much about you though. As far as they're concerned it isn't their place to disapprove of you even if you caused such a negative reaction in them, which apparently you don't. You almost get the impression they find you more boring than anything else, which unfortunately due to your basement dwelling past might very well be a fair assessment. But you'll take apathy because it's better than hatred. Bobby's other cousins are more of a mixed bag. Aaron barely speaks to you at all and he's pretty snappish when he does. He seems like he's a pent up ball of nerves since he's tapping his foot and moving one of his hands the entire time. In fact the more of an effort that you try to speak to him, the more hostile he starts to look. The moment you get the feeling of his eyes burning a hole in you the more you decide to move on. By the time you get to Ronald and Denise, they're making out, so you don't even bother. Which leaves you with William and Helen, the latter of which has already left the room with all the little kids of this family presumably to be out of the way as usual. William on the other hand is still relaxing in a chair at the far end of the room and watching something on TV. Well at least you know those two are friendly with you. > You go speak to William While Helen would probably appreciate your company, you don't really feel like dealing with all the little kids that are going to be hanging around her so William it is. You head over and sit in a chair near him. "What are you watching?" you ask. "Nothing really, mostly Ground Zero ads. These fuckers are really raking in the money preying upon people's fears like this. Gotta say though, if I was the corporate type, I'd sure want a piece of that action." William remarks. "You believe its all a scam?" "Heh, well as always the best lies have truth mixed in with them. A day of mass destruction is definitely coming. I believe that. The writing is on the wall, but I know damn well GZ isn't the savior from that. Nothing is except yourself and how strong your will to live is. Yep, dark days are coming and it's going to weed out the weak so only the strong survive." "Like the Morningstars." "Heh, well some of us I suppose. To be honest, I'm not sure about some of the people here. I mean I love 'em because they're family, but...(sigh) well take Brandon over there. The guy would be killed and eaten in a completely savage world with no laws. His wife too. I dare say even you might thrive better." "Thanks...I think." You answer. "You see, this place. This compound that Bobby has tried to bring all the family to...it's just another form of restriction. The day is coming soon where unbridled chaos is going to become a reality and Bobby...Tiamat bless him is misguidedly still clinging to ways that should be abandoned. Now is not really the time to hide in a fortress like some 80s cult. Now is the time we should be out there embracing the chaos like Tiamat intended." Looks like there is a bit of dissension in the family that doesn't involve you. At least not directly. "I thought you supported Bobby." You ask. "(sigh) Yeah...I thought I did. I mean I still do. I respect WHAT he's trying to accomplish and his plan. And I'm obviously not going to overthrow his power or anything...but I just don't think this is going to be for me. Y'know? I've always been a bit more of a drifter and after being here a few days, I'm starting to get really bored. That fight you had with Diana was about the most interesting thing that's happened here and while I'd certainly like to see the outcome of that drama, I don't think I'm going to stick around long enough to find out. I'm going to be heading out, along with Aaron." William says. "Aaron? That guy sitting in the corner who looks like a ball of pent up energy?" "Yep. He's even more anxious to leave more than I am. I think he only showed up to meet up with me since he doesn't have a vehicle and it's always good to have at least one person to watch your back." "So...when are you leaving?" "As soon as possible, in fact I'll probably talk to Bobby, before I do. He's going to be disappointed, but I know he'll understand...so how about you?" "How about me what?" you ask. "Well, are YOU comfortable here? I mean you haven't been here long and you already got into a major fight with Diana and nobody here seems all that close to you. Polite perhaps, but you're not exactly bonding here." William says. "Well that might take time, besides, still better than my own family so far." You answer. "Hm, well what about this wedding? From what I know, Bobby sort of sprung that proposal on you. You okay with that?" "I love Bobby." "Yes, I know you love Bobby. I don't doubt that, but that's not necessarily a good reason to get married. Hell, love can sometimes be the WORST reason to get married. Also if I know Bobby, he's probably already got it in head that you'll be popping out a whole mess o' babies." "...yeah, I actually already addressed some of that yesterday." "What about the wedding sacrifice?? "Wedding sacrifice?" William pauses for a moment. "You mean to tell me, he hasn't told you about the wedding sacrifice?" William whispers to you. "No! He...he's not going to mutilate me is he?" you ask in a hushed tone. "No! No, no, no nothing like that. I just can't believe he hasn't told you considering it's pretty important and he's pretty big on all this ritual crap to Tiamat." "Well what is it?!" "Nothing, you just have to sacrifice someone on an altar in the name of Tiamat to prove your allegiance and dedication to the family." "What?!" "That's the rules. I mean personally I think just a simple prayer while bludgeoning something to death in an alley works just as well, but like I said, Bobby's all into the rituals. Guess he takes after his dad that way, but then again so do I. It is said that most sons become like their fathers after all." Those last words by William aren't very endearing ones given what a fanatic Bobby's father was. Still your main concern is this human sacrifice thing. You didn't think that you'd have to do it, in fact you aren't sure if you're going to be able. While you've had murderous thoughts about Diana, that's a little different. For one, you haven't acted on them, and two that's self-defense. You don't know if you have it in you to murder some innocent person in cold blood, let alone to some cult goddess you don't even believe in. "I take it, you aren't really enthused about the possibility of killing someone. Well someone who isn't immediately attacking you at any rate." William says. "Um, well...I wasn't expecting to." "See, this is something Bobby REALLY should've told you before dragging you up here. (Sigh) You're supposed to be the love of his life and he should KNOW if you're completely in sync with him. I mean not everyone is cut out to be a member of one of Tiamat's chosen and that's fine, but again he really should've asked you first." "So...wait, where are they getting this...um sacrifice?" "The sacrifice? Oh got a whole mess of them in the basement in the left wing of this place. We captured a bunch of folks and locked them in cages before starting to move the family in...and I'm guessing that's another thing you didn't know about." William says noticing your surprise at this revelation too. You're just silent. Combined with the mess with Diana, the wedding and all this new info, you're starting to seriously wonder if you're strong enough to go through with all this now. At this point William leans over to you and keeps a low tone. "Look, I can see that you're probably not cut out for this life and as I said, that's perfectly fine. But Bobby... well I don't think he'd take it well if you backed out now or worse, backed out on the wedding day." "I know." You say with your voice starting to get a little quivery. "Shhh, okay. Look, it's not too late to leave this place. I'd be willing to take you with me, and I'll drop you off wherever you want. Of course we'd have to do it secretly." "How?" "Well, my van is the dark blue one out front. Here's the keys." William says and hands you some keys, which surprises you. "Don't worry, I trust you. Besides, that big gate has to be opened up first anyway. All you have to do is hide in the can, until me and Aaron leave which shouldn't be long. Just make sure you keep the doors unlocked so we can get in." William says. "Aren't they going to notice I'm gone?" "Well, this is a big place, so if you went missing for a little while people would probably think you're either just wandering the house or maybe back in your room before suspicion arose. I'd also be willing to make up a story if it came to that. In any case, if you're going to do it, we need to do it now." > You go with William The more you think about it, the more you realize that William's probably right. You're just going from one fucked up family to another and you certainly aren't cut out to kill someone in the name of a religion you don't even believe in. This is your one chance to back out of this mistake and you're going to take it. You aren't sure where you're going to go after you leave, but at least you won't be trapped like you are here. "How long do you think you'll take?" you ask. "Shouldn't take long actually. Just nonchalantly leave now and like I said make your way to the dark blue van. There are a lot of tarps and blankets you can hide under if you really want to play it safe, but as soon as me and Aaron are in that van, we're leaving even if we have to drive through the gate, but again that shouldn't be necessary." Nodding at William you get up and make your way out of the room, which from you can tell, nobody is even paying attention to you. You spend half of your time constantly looking around, to make sure nobody is following you or anything like that, but again you're in the clear. You manage to make it out the house and into the van in secret. The van itself is pretty old, definitely a relic from several decades past. William has a variety of tools scattered all over the back of the van and you see the tarps and blankets in the back like William mentioned. They don't look the cleanest, but you figure you might as well hide under them in the meantime. No point in risking someone wandering outside and catching a glimpse of you through the van window. Seconds, minutes and you think an hour passes before you start to hear voices outside. One of them sounds like William. The driver's door opens and you hear William more distinctly. "Okay Aaron, you go open it, I'll pick you up as we're going out." He says and then shuts the door. Then you hear some squeaking around on the front seat. "Hey Suzy, you there under all that stuff? I sort of need my keys back to start the van up." He says. You peak your head out and out stretch your arm with the keys and William takes them. "Don't worry, we're almost the clear blondie." He says starting up the van and begins driving. A few moment later and you hear another door opening and slamming shut. "Let's get the hell out of this prison." You hear Aaron say in a gruff tone. And with that, William hits the gas and begins driving at a faster pace and you slowly start getting out from under your "hiding spot." "All clear blondie." William says. "Yeah I thought we were well on our way now. So did you have any trouble?" you ask. "Trouble? Nah, by the time Bobby was done speaking with Diana he seemed so emotionally drained that he barely tried to convince me to stay. He basically just told me to leave and wished me and Aaron well. He didn't see us out though, he sent Ronald to shut the gate when we left." "So Bobby didn't ask where I was?" "Actually he did, but I said I wasn't sure where you went and that you wandered off a long time ago, probably back to your room. He didn't seem to rush off to go looking for you though. I'm not exactly sure how that conversation went with Diana, but I know she went running out of the kitchen in tears and like I said he was pretty down." You aren't exactly sure how to feel about that. You can't imagine Bobby's going to be in a better mood when he realizes you're gone. "Shit, maybe I should've stayed." You say. "Well it's a little late for that now. Look, he'll be fine...well okay maybe he won't be fine when he realizes you're gone, but he'll get over it. He'll most likely just get back with Diana out of duty and their history together and she'll take him back, because he's everything in the world to her. And in time they'll live happily ever after, more or less. Nothing's perfect, nor should it be." "Chaos always finds a way." Aaron adds in creepy tone. You realize he hasn't taken his eyes off of you which is a little concerning. "Um...yeah...so what's next?" you ask wearily. "What's next? Well, that's an interesting question. Before you were coming along, I'm pretty sure Aaron here wanted to go indulge in some of the looting going on in town. Can't say I was opposed to that idea either. I guess we could still go do that since I imagine you probably want to go back home right?" "That's NOT what you said William! You said we were using this blonde bitch and tossing her violated corpse out the fucking van!" Aaron suddenly blurts out. Now you back up and freeze. Terror fills every inch of your body. "(Sigh) By Tiamat's Twenty Tits, do you have any fucking impulse control Aaron? Now this is going to be harder than it needs to be." William says without even stopping his driving. You start looking around the van and eyeing one of the many tools laying the floor, but before you can even reach any of them, Aaron pulls a pistol. "DO NOT even think about it bitch!" he exclaims and is about to get up out his seat and head toward you, but William grabs his shoulder. "Aaron will you calm the fuck down for just one fucking second. Now you're going to get yer dick in that soon, we both are, but I'd like to at least drive far enough away from the damn compound and find a nice place to park where we can do this with minor possible distractions. I'd think you'd like to take your time with this one right?" Aaron glares at William, but doesn't argue any more. He still continues to hold the gun on you though. At this moment you feel like a fucking idiot. Not do you wish you never left the compound, but you also wish you never left home. You start to cry and sniffle. "(sob) Please you don't have to do this..." you whimper. "Awwww...I thought you were stronger than that Suzy and weren't gonna get too weepy about this. (Sigh) Besides that's not gonna do ya any good anyway blondie. This is going to happen. However, Aaron here has been a little dramatic about the whole situation as usual. I never said we were going to throw your corpse out this van. I mean maybe we will if you put up a fight...but since I've grown to like you a little, I'm thinking if you just submit and let us do what we're gonna do without any problems, well I'll be happy to take you back home or drop you off anywhere else in town. Your choice of course." William explains matter of factly. Either get raped and survive, or die. Those are your choices and those are no kind of choices at all, but it's what's been given to you. You start to think about the pair of them violating you and it's starts to make you sick. In fact you even start hyperventilating and coughing up, though you don't actually vomit. Aaron makes some threat about how if you don't stop it, he's going to shove his dick in your mouth and give you something real to choke on. Are they going to do it one after another or are they going to "kebob" you like pig on a spit? Are they going to sodomize you or slap you around while fucking you? Are they going to just kill you anyway after they've had their jollies? As the van keeps driving through the woods, your mind keeps racing about how maybe you might be able to survive this if you just give in... And you can't do it. You can't just let these fuckers shove their dicks in you like some meat with holes in it. You have to at least try to resist. You might die, but the alternative is even worse. You don't think you'd be able to live with yourself. Mustering up all your inner strength and recomposing yourself, you start taking off your clothing, which immediately gets Aaron's attention. "What're you doing?" he asks. "I'm taking my clothes, I mean that's what you guys want right?" you say still sniffling a bit. At this point William's head turns sideways so he can see. "Well glad to see you've gotten with the program so fast. Shit, you got some nice tits on you. I mean I figured you did, but seeing them uncovered is even better. Can't wait to see 'em up close. I bet you made Bobby REALLY happy." William remarks. "She better make ME really happy by letting me fuck her in the ass!" Aaron exclaims. "Pretty sure she's gonna let us do whatever, right Suzy?" "Whatever you both want William." You say in defeat. Eventually you strip off the last bit of your clothing. "I'm ready." you say meekly and spread your legs wide giving Aaron an eyeful of your lady bits. William looks again and almost does a double take. "Shit, well hold on girl, we'll get to..." "Fuck that, I'm not waiting any longer." Aaron says and is already got his hard cock out in one hand and still holding his pistol in the other. Aaron's already on top of you before William can stop him this time and he gets the head of his dick partially in you before you grab a nearby awl on the floor of the van and stab him in the side of the neck with it repeatedly. Aaron yells in pain, and tries to shoot you in the head, but he only succeeds in blowing off your ear and hitting you in the shoulder before he drops the pistol entirely and collapses completely on top of you. "Oh fuck it." William remarks and the van comes to a screeching halt. Screaming in pain yourself, you try to grab for Aaron's pistol, but William manages to get it from you first. Bleeding, scared, tears in your eyes and partially deaf, and trying to catch your breath from this whole ordeal. You stare at William who is looking down at you with gun in hand. You try your best to give him a look of defiance even though all you want to do is cry. "I probably would've done the same thing blondie. Protecting yer virtue to the end. While I'm disappointed I won't be experiencing some of what Bobby got, I'm glad to see you were a fighter after all. Don't worry, unlike some in my family, I'm not into necrophilia." William remarks. And then he shoots you in the face.

While Helen would probably appreciate your company, you don't really feel like dealing with all the little kids that are going to be hanging around her so William it is. You head over and sit in a chair near him. "What are you watching?" you ask. "Nothing really, mostly Ground Zero ads. These fuckers are really raking in the money preying upon people's fears like this. Gotta say though, if I was the corporate type, I'd sure want a piece of that action." William remarks. "You believe its all a scam?" "Heh, well as always the best lies have truth mixed in with them. A day of mass destruction is definitely coming. I believe that. The writing is on the wall, but I know damn well GZ isn't the savior from that. Nothing is except yourself and how strong your will to live is. Yep, dark days are coming and it's going to weed out the weak so only the strong survive." "Like the Morningstars." "Heh, well some of us I suppose. To be honest, I'm not sure about some of the people here. I mean I love 'em because they're family, but...(sigh) well take Brandon over there. The guy would be killed and eaten in a completely savage world with no laws. His wife too. I dare say even you might thrive better." "Thanks...I think." You answer. "You see, this place. This compound that Bobby has tried to bring all the family to...it's just another form of restriction. The day is coming soon where unbridled chaos is going to become a reality and Bobby...Tiamat bless him is misguidedly still clinging to ways that should be abandoned. Now is not really the time to hide in a fortress like some 80s cult. Now is the time we should be out there embracing the chaos like Tiamat intended." Looks like there is a bit of dissension in the family that doesn't involve you. At least not directly. "I thought you supported Bobby." You ask. "(sigh) Yeah...I thought I did. I mean I still do. I respect WHAT he's trying to accomplish and his plan. And I'm obviously not going to overthrow his power or anything...but I just don't think this is going to be for me. Y'know? I've always been a bit more of a drifter and after being here a few days, I'm starting to get really bored. That fight you had with Diana was about the most interesting thing that's happened here and while I'd certainly like to see the outcome of that drama, I don't think I'm going to stick around long enough to find out. I'm going to be heading out, along with Aaron." William says. "Aaron? That guy sitting in the corner who looks like a ball of pent up energy?" "Yep. He's even more anxious to leave more than I am. I think he only showed up to meet up with me since he doesn't have a vehicle and it's always good to have at least one person to watch your back." "So...when are you leaving?" "As soon as possible, in fact I'll probably talk to Bobby, before I do. He's going to be disappointed, but I know he'll understand...so how about you?" "How about me what?" you ask. "Well, are YOU comfortable here? I mean you haven't been here long and you already got into a major fight with Diana and nobody here seems all that close to you. Polite perhaps, but you're not exactly bonding here." William says. "Well that might take time, besides, still better than my own family so far." You answer. "Hm, well what about this wedding? From what I know, Bobby sort of sprung that proposal on you. You okay with that?" "I love Bobby." "Yes, I know you love Bobby. I don't doubt that, but that's not necessarily a good reason to get married. Hell, love can sometimes be the WORST reason to get married. Also if I know Bobby, he's probably already got it in head that you'll be popping out a whole mess o' babies." "...yeah, I actually already addressed some of that yesterday." "What about the wedding sacrifice?? "Wedding sacrifice?" William pauses for a moment. "You mean to tell me, he hasn't told you about the wedding sacrifice?" William whispers to you. "No! He...he's not going to mutilate me is he?" you ask in a hushed tone. "No! No, no, no nothing like that. I just can't believe he hasn't told you considering it's pretty important and he's pretty big on all this ritual crap to Tiamat." "Well what is it?!" "Nothing, you just have to sacrifice someone on an altar in the name of Tiamat to prove your allegiance and dedication to the family." "What?!" "That's the rules. I mean personally I think just a simple prayer while bludgeoning something to death in an alley works just as well, but like I said, Bobby's all into the rituals. Guess he takes after his dad that way, but then again so do I. It is said that most sons become like their fathers after all." Those last words by William aren't very endearing ones given what a fanatic Bobby's father was. Still your main concern is this human sacrifice thing. You didn't think that you'd have to do it, in fact you aren't sure if you're going to be able. While you've had murderous thoughts about Diana, that's a little different. For one, you haven't acted on them, and two that's self-defense. You don't know if you have it in you to murder some innocent person in cold blood, let alone to some cult goddess you don't even believe in. "I take it, you aren't really enthused about the possibility of killing someone. Well someone who isn't immediately attacking you at any rate." William says. "Um, well...I wasn't expecting to." "See, this is something Bobby REALLY should've told you before dragging you up here. (Sigh) You're supposed to be the love of his life and he should KNOW if you're completely in sync with him. I mean not everyone is cut out to be a member of one of Tiamat's chosen and that's fine, but again he really should've asked you first." "So...wait, where are they getting this...um sacrifice?" "The sacrifice? Oh got a whole mess of them in the basement in the left wing of this place. We captured a bunch of folks and locked them in cages before starting to move the family in...and I'm guessing that's another thing you didn't know about." William says noticing your surprise at this revelation too. You're just silent. Combined with the mess with Diana, the wedding and all this new info, you're starting to seriously wonder if you're strong enough to go through with all this now. At this point William leans over to you and keeps a low tone. "Look, I can see that you're probably not cut out for this life and as I said, that's perfectly fine. But Bobby... well I don't think he'd take it well if you backed out now or worse, backed out on the wedding day." "I know." You say with your voice starting to get a little quivery. "Shhh, okay. Look, it's not too late to leave this place. I'd be willing to take you with me, and I'll drop you off wherever you want. Of course we'd have to do it secretly." "How?" "Well, my van is the dark blue one out front. Here's the keys." William says and hands you some keys, which surprises you. "Don't worry, I trust you. Besides, that big gate has to be opened up first anyway. All you have to do is hide in the can, until me and Aaron leave which shouldn't be long. Just make sure you keep the doors unlocked so we can get in." William says. "Aren't they going to notice I'm gone?" "Well, this is a big place, so if you went missing for a little while people would probably think you're either just wandering the house or maybe back in your room before suspicion arose. I'd also be willing to make up a story if it came to that. In any case, if you're going to do it, we need to do it now." > You stay at the compound And suddenly all your instincts cry out "DANGER." You also remember Bobby telling you that you shouldn't listen to William since he's a shit stirrer and he's certainly doing a good job here. William seems too eager to help you given everything you've heard him spout about survival of the fittest and wanting to embrace pure chaos. Technically you still aren't "family" and if you aren't with Bobby, what's stopping him from just gutting you and tossing your corpse along side the road or worse when you leave the compound? And that's not even counting that creepy Aaron guy who is going to be travelling with him. Even if he is on the up and up, you have no idea where to go. Going back home isn't really an option, in fact going back to town sounds like a bad idea all around given what Bobby told you yesterday. And you certainly don't want to be travelling around with William while he raises hell, since again he's libel to "raise hell" on you. You still don't know about the whole wedding sacrifice, but you do know that running away with William isn't the answer. You're going to just have to deal with your situation another way. You take a deep breath and hand William his keys back. "I thank you for the offer William, but I'm staying." You say. William looks a little surprised at first, but then his face turns to a smile. "Well... Tiamat certainly sent a blessing to Bobby when he met you. I hope he realizes it." William remarks. "If he doesn't, I'll be reminding him." You answer. "Of that I have no doubt. Okay. Well it was nice meeting you Suzy, and may Tiamat's blessed chaos always swing in your favor." William says and then gets up. He makes a head gesture to Aaron who apparently has been watching the pair of you the entire time. The pair of them leave the room and you get the impression they're not going to bother telling Bobby they're leaving the compound either. Perhaps William figures you'll mention to Bobby that he attempted to whisk you away, along with confronting him about the wedding stuff, which you will most certainly be doing. As soon as you can at any rate since Bobby is still talking with Diana, or at least he was until you see her running out of the kitchen and trying to cover her face. It's obvious she's crying or at least about to. Bobby soon comes out of the kitchen as well. He doesn't look in the best of moods. "Food's in the kitchen, serve yourselves." He says. Nobody says anything, except Helen who asks what's going on when she enters the room. Bobby just waves her away and tells her to see to the children as usual then he slumps down by the chair next to you. Bobby's family at this point heads into the kitchen, not wishing to "It's done." He says. "Well don't look so down about it. And what's done exactly? Did she get the message? Am I still going to have to worry about her?" "No. For the last time no. It's done. It's over. I made it quite clear that it's over between her and I. So clear in fact that she probably hates me more than you now." "I seriously doubt that, but do you think it's wise to let her run around this house if she hates you?" "(Sigh) Suzy, I'm not throwing her out and I'm not killing her okay?" "Okay fine. If you want to live dangerously..." "Suzy, how about this. If you REALLY hate her that much, then why don't YOU kill her? Seriously, you have my permission if it will get you to stop bitching about it." You didn't really expect Bobby to say that, but then... "Well I suppose that would make the wedding sacrifice a lot easier." You say which causes an eyebrow raise by Bobby. "Great, so you know. Who told you? Wait, I know. William did right?" Bobby says. "Yeah, I think he hoped to scare me into leaving with him...speaking of which I think he and Aaron left." You answer. "Figures. (Sigh) I don't even know why I'm bothering trying to hold this family together. Most of them aren't even here. One of them hates me, and the rest aren't exactly sterling examples of Tiamat's Chosen. In fact the ones that are here are probably here because it's safe and filled with enough supplies to live comfortably." "Well, what's wrong with that?" "Nothing I suppose, but supporting about bunch of freeloaders wasn't really part of my plan to honor Tiamat." "Well maybe you need to change your damn plan. I mean its still early, but if you really feel like someone isn't pulling their weight around here, then you need to just kick their asses out, family or not. I mean you're the boss around here and your word is supposed to be law." Bobby sits up a bit as you continue to speak. "Look, you know you're a leader and you know the head of this family. So you can't give into all this self-doubt. You NEEDED to lay down the law to your sister Diana., but you know that's just going to be a temporary fix. Now I think you KNOW what you're going to have to do with her, but your past with her is preventing you from doing it, which is why you made your outburst about me doing it a few moments ago." Bobby continues to listen intently. "Now, I'm not going to do it for you unless she gives me cause to, but she's going to have to be dealt with by our wedding day. Whether that means you exiling her ass or killing her, that's up to you. Love isn't one-sided Bobby, and if I'm going to have to ultimately submit to your beliefs and everything that goes with it including murdering innocent people, well you're going to make a sacrifice to me as well. If not, well you can throw me on that slab and thrust that dagger in me and get it over with." Bobby looks a little overwhelmed by your ultimatum. He's never heard you speak like this before and really; you're a little surprised you're saying what you're saying yourself. You're rolling the dice and betting everything here. You think you've got the inner strength to go through with all this, you just hope that Bobby proves to be just as strong. "Suzy, you are the love of my life and what you've just told me just confirms that Tiamat's chaos did favor me when I met you. You're right. I know I have to do something more permanent with my sister Diana. I'll come to a decision tomorrow though. I think I need the rest of the day to recover from all the shit I've already had to go through. It's not even night yet!" "Well, okay. I understand. Well, should we go eat with the rest of the family?" "Might as well." You and Bobby briefly kiss each other and go join the rest of the family who have congregated in the dining area. None of them say anything to you or rather none of them ask any questions if everything is okay or anything. Diana isn't here and Bobby makes the announcement that Aaron and William have left and then tells Brandon when he's done eating, he can go check the front gate to make sure they closed it properly. The remainder of the day is a bit out of the norm for you since you spend it mainly with Bobby's family. They're surprisingly really into board games. Unsurprisingly most of the board games seem to involve conquest or killing everyone else. While you never really played many board games before, you catch on quick thanks to your years of playing strategy games on your computer and its fun enough that it keeps your mind off other things. You even manage to win a game of Scorched Earth. Diana never joins in, and at one point Helen (who was playing separate games with the kids) goes to check on her out of concern, but she remains in her room. Eventually you start to get tired of socializing and you feel you've bonded enough with Bobby's family for one day so you return to your own room. Bobby tells Ronald to take watch for the night and goes with you. Before you settle down for bed, you check your phone out of curiosity to see if anyone has tried to call you. "Somebody call you?" Bobby asks. "Nah, though I didn't really expect anyone to. Pretty much says it all about my ties to my own family." You say. "Well I think we both know you're already with your new family now." "Yeah. Still, I can't help but wonder how they're all dealing with the situation in town. Though who knows, maybe its calmed down now. Anyway, doesn't matter." You say and get into bed. Bobby follows and it doesn't take long before he's grabbing and grinding up against you. You return his affection and have pleasant round of passion before going to sleep. > Next day… "And Suzy is the winner of the world twelve inch salami eating championship! Let's all hear it for our little blonde small town girl!" The announcer shouts which is followed by a roaring crowd. Not even feeling full, you wipe the sour cream off your lips... and you stand up and yell: "Alright this is getting fucking insulting! For the past four nights now I've been winning contests involving eating phallic shaped food. What the fuck is the symbolism here? That I'm some whore that sucks cock all the time? For fuck's sake, I've only had the one goddamn boyfriend and soon to be husband. If anything I'm the exact opposite of a whore! So whoever or WHATEVER is trying to send a message to me needs to just come out and fucking say it." And with those words of indignation, your surroundings immediately change to that of a blasted wasteland. There is nothing around you save for burned out buildings in the distance and dead landscape. Reminds you a bit of a video game you once played. "You know, the entire world is soon going to look like this...how I wish I could be young and alive to experience the uncertainty and chaos that is going to shape the years to follow." You hear a voice say. You turn around and see Bobby's grandmother again. She's an old lady walking with a cane this time. "But enough about the future, let's talk about the present. You survived a lot longer than I thought you would, maybe you are worthy of my grandson after all. You even are starting to manipulate him a bit, that's good. The true leaders in Tiamat's service have always been women anyway. I swear if it wasn't for us prodding them in the right direction every now and then, most men would be content just jacking off to pass the time. Still, you aren't quite there yet. I think today should prove to quite interesting. Survive today and you might just meet Misty yet." "Okay, I want some answers, who the hell is Misty, and what's going to happen today?" you demand. "You'll find out soon enough what's going to happen and as for Misty, well why don't you put some thought into it. I mean it's pretty simple even for you blondie." Bobby's grandmother replies with slight distain. "Well what's deal with all these contests in my dreams?" "Sorry, I really don't know anything about that. If you're lucky and actually meet Misty, maybe you can ask her, but I just assumed you really liked dreaming about sucking dick...in a symbolic way I guess. Hmm, come to think of it this would explain why Bobby's so enamored with you. Maybe you aren't a whore blondie, but you sure got the mouth of one. It's almost as if it was a highway for oral sex." "Hey!" "Don't take offense blondie. It's a good thing. Suck a man's dick right, and you can practically get him to do ANYTHING for you. I mean you got natural talent. Hell, maybe even Tiamat blessed you with it so you stood an equal chance against Diana. Now that girl, as much as she loves Bobby, she just can't suck a dick properly. Bad gag reflex, slightly oversized teeth, I dunno. Tiamat works in whimsical ways I suppose." "How do you even know all...nevermind I don't want to hear anymore." You say. Bobby's grandmother ignores you though and continues to speak. "Still, Bobby always did have a slight obsession for blowjobs. He likes them a lot more than he's probably told you. He's a bit too much of a gentleman that way." "Gah! I'm done listening!" you shout feeling increasingly uncomfortable about hearing Bobby's grandmother talk about his sexual interests. "Oh, alright Miss Prude. I'm rambling and it's time for you to go anyway. See ya Deep Throat!" Bobby's grandmother cackles again and then raises her cane and all your surroundings go black... And then you wake up. "Something bad is going to happen today." You say to yourself. (Then again why should today be any different from the rest of this week?) You look around and see nobody in the room (Save for Bobby's grandmother's portrait staring like a gargoyle). Looks like Bobby woke up before you as usual. You look at the time on your phone and see you've actually slept until the afternoon. While the normal thing for you to do would be to just stay in your room and avoid everyone, but given your recent dream, you think your best bet might be to be a little proactive today. After going through your usual routine of washing up and getting dressed you head down to the main living area where you know everyone usually gathers. Before you get there you bump into Helen, who looks a bit harried and is carrying a pistol in one hand. "There you are, good. Saves me time. Bobby told me to go get you." Helen says. "Wha...what's going on?" you ask. "Aaron came back and he's threatening to drive an army truck through the front gate if we all don't leave the compound. He claims that we're defying Tiamat by not embracing the chaos outside. Bobby's been trying to negotiate with him through the intercom, but he thinks we're going to have no option but to open fire on Aaron." "Where the hell did he get an army truck? Is William with him?" "Apparently the town has been in a state of martial law since yesterday and the National Guard have taken over according to Aaron's ranting. I guess he stole one. I don't think William is with him. Anyway Bobby wants you to be safe so follow me to where all the children..." Loud shouting by Bobby in the distance suddenly interrupts Helen. You immediately rush towards where he might be located despite the protests by the Helen that you need to come with her though she just runs along with you. You soon manage to catch up with the most of the family (Save for the younger children and Diana) who are standing in the foyer with their weapons ready and Bobby who has opened the front door. "Aaron, I tried being reasonable. YOU left here without permission, but that was fine because it's obvious you didn't feel happy here. There are several paths to Tiamat's glory and you obviously had your own ideas about which one you should pick. Anyone here is free to leave, but NOBODY is going to be forced to leave due to your threats! Again, if you try coming in here, you're going to be shot down like a fucking dog and I'll personally perform Tiamat's ritual of desecration over your stinking body so your soul NEVER enters Timat's glory!" Bobby shouts and walks out with his rifle drawn. Bobby's brother Jordan is the first one who cautiously follows afterwards and then everyone else slowly walks towards the door as well. You don't think anyone has even paid any attention to you or Helen (who keeps pulling on you to leave). "My soul is already with Tiamat! You can't do shit about it ritual boy! If you unworthy fucks won't embrace chaos as Tiamat intended, then I'm gonna bring it to you!" Aaron shouts through a bullhorn, which is followed by a laugh. The truck revs up and Bobby orders everyone to open fire. You and Helen are still inside at this point so you don't actually do so and just hang back as you watch Aaron mow through the gate followed by a hail of bullets peppering the oncoming truck. The truck swerves hard to the left smashes into Brandon's parked vehicle. You can hear him swearing about it. Meanwhile you also see Jordan jumping up and down in victory and running over to the wrecked truck. "Yeah! We got that bastard! Whoo!" he shouts. "Hey Jordan, get the fuck back here, don't go off ahead like that by yourself!" Bobby shouts. "Aw, it's fine, he didn't survive that!" And that's when Aaron proves Jordan wrong, starting by recovering from his crash and shooting several holes into Jordan. Then he follows up by throwing several grenades out the truck window. "SHIT!" Bobby shouts and everyone runs back, but not before several explosions occur. Nobody is killed, but everyone scrambles and on the ground crawling for cover. Bobby himself crawls behind cover of another parked vehicle and continues to fire in the direction of the truck. Helen now really tugs at you saying you need to come with her where its safe, but you wonder if you should try to help Bobby considering he's the only one currently trying to kill Aaron. Everyone else has completely retreated and is even running past you. > You help Bobby This is the man you've chosen to marry for better or worse. If you aren't going to help him in a matter of life or death then that wouldn't say much for your commitment. Besides, if he gets killed this whole compound is going to turn to shit and you'd no doubt be at the bottom of it, assuming Aaron doesn't kill you all first. Pulling away from Helen, you grab one of the dropped rifles by one of Bobby's family and rush outside towards Bobby who is still taking cover behind a car and firing upon the Aaron. He sees you out the corner of his eye while still keeping an eye on the direction of the truck. "Keep your head down, I think Aaron escaped out the passenger door of the truck and is hiding behind Brandon's car now. Where the hell did you come from anyway? I told Helen to go get you and the younger children to a safer location when Aaron showed up." Bobby exclaims. "Yeah well I'm showing you that I'm not just going to let you do this shit alone. I'm with you all the way. No hiding with Helen and the kids, no matter what you say." You're interrupted by gunfire on your position and Aaron ranting. "You think you can stop what's coming by hiding? Hah! People are already fucking EATING each other out there! Shit, I'll be doing you a favor by killing you now. Actually now that I think about... your blonde bitch looks like a fine piece of ass in more way than one!" Aaron shouts and starts laughing maniacally and then throws another grenade your way. You and Bobby have no choice but to leave your position and make a dash back to the house entrance. It's somewhat of a minor miracle that you and Bobby aren't hit by any of the bullets he fires at you. You manage to get inside just as the grenade goes off and adds to the total of destroyed vehicles outside. You and Bobby are on the floor though Bobby has partially managed to cover you with his own body. "What the hell did he do, rip off the entire National Guard armory?" you say as Bobby back kicks the front door shut from his prone position. "I don't know but..." Two more explosions are heard on the left side of compound. Aaron is apparently throwing explosives through the windows now. "Shit, I hope nobody ran and hid over there." You remark as the pair of you start to get up off the floor. "Where the fuck IS everyone anyway? Nice to know I can REALLY count on these fuckers when the going gets tough. Why the fuck am I even bothering again? Fuck!" Bobby yells in frustration. You understand his anger, but it's probably not the best time for a rant. "Bobby, calm yourself. You can yell at those idiots later, but right now all that matters is that I'm here helping you okay?" you say. "Hey...I'll help too..." a voice suddenly says. You both look and see that it's Helen with a pistol in hand. "Helen, you're supposed to be with the children!" Bobby exclaims. "Veronica and Brandon are with them. When they ran, the children's room upstairs was the first place they went. Guess they were concerned about their daughters." "...well I guess I can understand the pair of them running to their children. So they're looking after all the kids then?" Bobby remarks. "Yeah, I figured since they were doing that, I'd come help you, though I hope I just don't get in the way." "No, it's good. Glad you're here Helen. What about Ronald and Denise?" Bobby says. "Haven't seen them. Um, I haven't seen Diana either...in case you were wondering." Helen remarks briefly glancing at you after saying it. "Hopefully Aaron kills her." You remark. "Yeah, well I actually was going to exile her today, but that might have to wait assuming Aaron doesn't kill her." Bobby says. "Okay, enough of all this. What's the game plan?" you ask slightly disappointed that Bobby's decision was to exile Diana rather than death, but you aren't entirely surprised. Still, there's always the hope that Aaron does kill her. Bobby quickly snaps back to the situation at hand. "Well it sounds like he's stopped with the explosives, or maybe he's just fishing out more. I'd say the safest bet is to get to the second floor and shoot him through one of the windows. No point in going back out the front door when we can get the vantage point." "How do we know he's still outside, he might've already entered house through one of the holes he's undoubtedly made with his grenades." You say. "Yeah true. No telling where he might be heading first. The armory maybe?" Helen remarks. "He's still gotta come through this way if he wants to go there. Given his state of mind though he might also try to do something like run upstairs and kill all the children for fun. Hell, I wouldn't put it past him to try to access the prisoner's dungeon and set them all free. It is on the left wing after all." Maybe we should split up and take different floors?" Helen asks. "Maybe though I'm not keen on the idea of splitting up. (Sigh) Okay. Since you said Brandon and Veronica are with the children, I'm going to hope they're up to dealing with Aaron if he shows up. I'm going to the left wing of the house and try to stop him there. I want you two to stay here and guard the foyer in case he somehow manages to sneak past me and is heading towards the armory. He's going to have come through here." Bobby says. Helen immediately complies with the plan, but you're not so sure. "I really think I should come with you. Splitting up is always a bad idea in these situations." "I don't like it either, but it's a big house and we need to cast a wide net to deal with this asshole." Bobby says and then puts his arm over you and takes you aside. "Besides, as glad as I am that Helen stepped up, we both know she's not exactly a fighter. I don't want her coming with me and possibly getting in my way when I'm hunting Aaron, but by the same token I'd feel more comfortable if you were here with her since I know you can handle yourself and aren't going to freeze up in a fight. I'll be fine by myself. Don't worry about me. I mean I did kill your uncle Ed by myself right?" Bobby whispers. You glance over at Helen and as brave as she's trying to appear, she still looks like a deer in the headlights. Bobby's right in that her survival would probably increase if you were here and she had the misfortune of Aaron popping up. Then again by the same token, YOU'D actually feel safer being with Bobby. You'd also worry less about Bobby's own safety if you were watching his back. After all, this situation is also little different than the one with your uncle. Aaron's not just carrying a knife; he's carrying around grenades and machine guns for one thing. Also, while Helen might be a nice girl, she's ultimately not your responsibility. > You go with Bobby "Bobby, I'm coming with you and I'm not budging on this. We're going to take out this crazy bastard together. I'll worry less if I'm with you watching your back." You say. You half expect Bobby to argue, but that doesn't happen. Instead he smiles and then kisses you on the lips quickly. "Okay then, you're with me. Helen! You're going to be guarding this area alone. Do you think you're up to it?" Bobby asks. "I am." Helen says with a nod still attempting to not look nervous. "Okay. Remember, if you see Aaron shoot him on sight and don't even think about it. Oh and if Ronald and Denise ever come out of hiding and pass through here, tell them to fucking help you." With that last bit of advice, you and Bobby proceed to head towards the left wing of the house. You and Bobby cautiously walk through the corridor keeping your eyes and ears open for any sign of Aaron, but so far you haven't seen or heard him. The smell of gunpowder and smoke is in the air of part of the house and peering in one of the rooms you see the results of Aaron's grenades. The room is charred, blackened and wrecked. Whatever items were in this room have been completely destroyed and there is now a large hole allowing direct entry from the outside to the inside. "So much for the second den. Glad none of my personal stuff was in here. (Sigh) One more thing to fix." Bobby remarks. "He either wounded himself during or you must've hit him from before, look." You say and point at small splotches of blood in the room and creating a trail going to one of the other doors. (Or rather the entryway since the door itself is in pieces and not even on the hinges anymore.) "Yep, he's going towards the dungeon. Knew he'd be somewhat predictable." Bobby says and the pair of you follows the blood trail. You pass through a series of room to get to your destination. Some furnished, some empty. The left wing of this house seems to be designed a little oddly though, almost mazelike. Eventually you get to a small room that has a door leading to what you assume is the dungeon Bobby mentioned. "Well he's probably down there. The blood trail is heading down and we would've seen him if he'd doubled back. You ready?" Bobby asks. "Yeah." You remark. "No seriously. Are you ready? Because while I know you've got your mindset on killing Aaron, you MIGHT very well have to kill whatever prisoners he's managed to convince to help him. You might be less inclined to kill them due to them...well having a legitimate reason for wanting to escape." "Bobby, I already told you, I'm with you on this one hundred percent. If that means shooting a few prisoners well Tiamat's going to be getting a few extra souls to eat early or something." You say causing Bobby to chuckle a bit. "Well that's not exactly how it works, but as always I'm touched by your enthusiasm." "You're going to be touched all over by my enthusiasm after this is over." You say and then give him a deep tongue kiss along with a firm caress to his crotch. "Whoa, easy there girl. We'll get to that. Let's take care of this first." Bobby says reluctantly pulling back from you. To be honest, you're not even sure what came over you. Maybe you're starting to not only accept this type of life, but enjoying it as well which might concern you more if you weren't in the middle of hunting someone down and shooting them. Bobby descends first and then you. While descending you start to catch the sent of what a dungeon full of unwashed prisoners locked in it smells like. It isn't the most pleasant, but actually better than you expected from a dungeon. When you get downstairs the dungeon is relatively well lit. You see rows of empty cages to the left and right side and on the very far end you see Aaron who has a group of what you presume to be the prisoners. He's apparently bullied them into acting as a human barrier. They're a mixture of old, young, male and female and they're a dirty, miserable and practically naked lot. Most of them are barely standing up. Looks like taking care of them wasn't high on Bobby's list though then again why would it? At this point if you have to shoot them (which seems likely) you think you'd be doing them a favor. Aaron himself doesn't look all that great from what you can see of him. He's obviously been wounded and this is his last ditch effort to...well whatever his grand plan was. He's holding something in his hand though above his head, probably another grenade. "You think you've won? Hah! I've already beaten you! You kill me and this grenade drops, then what will you do for sacrifices? You'll have to go out and get more and I guarantee NONE of you are prepared for the beautiful chaos that lies outside. None of you are truly worthy of Tia..." Aaron rambles insanely. Aaron is completely delusional at this point. Bobby doesn't even argue with him, the whole time Aaron is talking, Bobby is taking careful aim at his head. A single shot drops Aaron and then Bobby tells you to run which you both do up the stairs. You get to the top just in time for the grenade to explode. No harm done to you, but you can imagine the mess that's down in the dungeon now. "You okay?" Bobby asks. "I'm fine. Guess you'll have to repair your dungeon too." You say. "Yeah...fuck!" Bobby yells and slams his fist into the floor. "What's wrong? Didn't we win?" "That sonofabitch killed all the prisoners! Now who the hell are we supposed to sacrifice for the wedding tomorrow?!" "Well...do I have to sacrifice someone? I mean I'm not asking because I don't want to do it. I'm just asking is it absolutely necessary for the wedding? I mean couldn't I make a sacrifice later when we get someone else? I mean I'll even come with you to make the capture." "(Sigh) No...I suppose in the scheme of things it isn't necessary. I just wanted everything to be perfect. I dunno...Aaron might've been right about one thing. Maybe I am a little caught up in ritual...but still I THINK it's important to revere Tiamat in a formal way! Just because I'm not completely running amok stealing army trucks and throwing explosives at shit doesn't make me any less dedicated to glorious chaos! I mean...does it?" And that's your cue to support the fragile male ego again. "Well of course it doesn't my love. Your way is obviously a more intelligent approach to chaos. Just because something is chaotic, doesn't mean it's mindless. You're playing the long game and attempting to build a dynasty. Instead of burning out quick, you're plotting and planning labyrinthian schemes to eventually burn them all." You say while looking into Bobby's eyes and stroking the side of his face. "I'm so glad you understand me." Bobby remarks and hugs you tightly. Bobby really does always feel completely better with just a few supportive words from you. Its sort of amazing really since you didn't realize you had this sort of power over him, then again you two were never really in a situation like this before except the first time you met and that was when you counted on him to "rescue you." That dynamic has clearly changed. You guess this is what his grandmother meant when she spoke to you in the dream. In any case Bobby tells you he's going to check the dungeon to see if maybe there were any survivors just in case. You offer to help, but he says there's no point in both of you trudging through blood and gore, which is probably covering the place. You tell him you'll just wait for him and kiss him before he heads back downstairs. No sooner has Bobby left, when you hear footsteps coming from the room nearby. Still paranoid, you hold up your pistol not knowing who is coming through "Who's there?" you ask. "Hold on! It's just me! Don't shoot!" you hear a female voice say. "Helen?" "Yeah, it's me! Is everything okay here? Heard another loud explosion in this direction." Helen says and enters the room cautiously. "Yeah everything's fine. Aaron's dead. How come you're not guarding the foyer?" "Well I was, but then Diana showed up and..." "Wait, you've seen Diana?" you interrupt and Helen's head drops a little looking sad. "Yeah...she was um...I dunno. She showed up in the foyer and wasn't acting...I mean she'd always had a mean streak in her, but I just couldn't take it..." You aren't sure what happened, but obviously something occurred between Helen and her sister. "Helen, out with it. Where is she and what happened?" "She's tied up in the large living room and unconscious. I had to knock her out." "Wait you knocked out Diana?" "I had to. She was talking crazy like Aaron. She wanted to kill you." "Well that's hardly surprising." You say. "Well she also wanted to kill Bobby and she wanted me to help in all this! I...I just couldn't do that! I mean I don't have any hatred for you (sniffle) and I love Bobby! You know? He's the leader of this family and should be respected! I protested and tried to reason with her...but she just kept pushing and pushing like when we were kids and all my life! I couldn't let her go through with it. (sniffle) Then she started threatening that she'd do something to the children...and I just lost it." "It's okay, Helen. You did what you had to." You say trying to keep Helen from getting too weepy. It's still hard to believe that Helen stood up to... well anyone, let alone her sister. Maybe your recent actions provided a bit of a model for her to follow of standing up for one's self, maybe there was just only so much bullying she could take and that last threat was the final straw. Maybe it was a combination. Either way, this event has given you an idea. "So, she's still alive?" you ask. "Yeah, I mean even after all the horrible things she was saying, I still couldn't kill her...she's still my sister." "Understandable, but she still has to pay for this treachery as all who betray Tiamat do." You call downstairs for Bobby. "What?" Bobby answers. "Anyone alive down there?" you ask. "No, just charred bloody body parts everywhere. Looks like we'll have to do the wedding without the sacrifice." "No, I think we'll be okay. Come on up." You state with a big smile. When Bobby comes back up you explain what recently occurred with Helen and suggest that Diana be the person you sacrifice. Bobby is silent for half a second and then agrees. "I'm not going to say I'm ecstatic about this, but it is what it is. You are my soon to be wife and Diana has proven to be a traitor. Death by your hand is certainly a fitting punishment. Do you have an opinion on this Helen?" Bobby remarks. "I...my opinion on the matter is unimportant.... It's just...very sad that Diana couldn't have been... nicer. I support you Bobby and you too Suzy." Helen says obviously upset. With that settled, Bobby, you and Helen all make your way back to where Helen said she tied up Diana. When you arrive, you see Diana unconscious on the floor with her arms and legs hogtied tightly with a bunch of duct tape and also her mouth covered with it. You also see Denise and Ronald nearly setting her free! Bobby scolds them of course and brings them up to date on the situation. Helen excuses herself and says she wants to check on the children and tell them everything has calmed down now. "Yeah and tell Veronica and Brandon they can come down too. Them and YOU two, I need to have a long talk with. " Bobby says pointing at Denise and Ronald who are somewhat a little worried about Bobby's comment. "What about her? Where are you going to keep her?" you ask pointing to Diana. "Well there are still a couple of intact cages down in the dungeon. I'll probably throw her unconscious ass in one of them and she won't be coming up until the big day tomorrow. Shit, there's so much to do, cleaning up, getting prepared, (Sigh) well we better get started." Bobby tells you not to worry about doing anything as you did enough today just standing by him and he wants you to just rest up for tomorrow. You offer to help, but he really won't hear of it. You don't press the issue since hey if he doesn't want you doing any work, you're not going to argue about that. Before you leave he tells you that he's got a spare gun in his clothing drawer just in case of an emergency. You grab a quick meal from the kitchen before heading back to the bedroom where you stay for the rest of the day and night. You hear noise occasionally from downstairs. At one point you hear the sound of vehicles outside and looking out the window you see someone driving the damaged army truck in front of where Aaron crashed through the gate as a temporary barrier you guess. You stay up for Bobby as long as you can, but eventually you realize he's really focused on trying to fix and clean up the house as much as he can and probably won't be back anytime soon. Too bad, since you weren't kidding about displaying your enthusiasm to him after the Wild West shootout was over. Taking matters into your own hands with your battery powered substitute, you satisfy yourself before going to sleep, hoping that tonight's dream doesn't have you deep throating the Washington Monument or something. > Next day… "And now Suzy, having beaten the chicken soup out of all her other opponents this week, will take this final challenge by herself! Will she be able to do it ladies and gentlemen? Will she be able to impress Misty at last? We'll find out today! Let's give our small town girl some encouragement for her task at hand!" As the crowd claps, whistles and stomps their feet in support, you sit at a large table by yourself looking at... A big bag of dicks. It's even labeled as such. BIG BAG OF DICKS in big black lettering so you can't miss it. You don't even look inside the bag; you take their word for it and double face palm before exhaling and looking back up. "Really?" you ask in disbelief. "This is the last task Suzy..." the disembodied announcer's voice whispers. "I don't give a shit, I'm not eating a goddamn bag of dicks! That's just fucking disgusting for one thing and for another... Suddenly Bobby's grandmother appears as she has been doing in your dreams. "See? Told you she wasn't going to do it. Still, it was funny to see the reaction." Bobby's grandmother cackles and with a wave of her cane, you're back in that blasted wasteland you were in last time. "So what now? Am I going to meet this Misty, whoever the fuck that is?" "Not quite yet. You're still not married to my grandson. Misty has decided that she'll meet you after that event...and sheesh you still haven't figured out who Misty is yet? You suffer a head injury when Aaron was tossing grenades around?" Bobby's grandmother asks and then taps you in the forehead with her hand. "Ow! Stop!" you say and back away. "I hope you aren't this slow on the uptake today. Oh well, guess you can't help being blonde. Anyway, congrats on your wedding and you've got my blessing. Good luck!" Good luck? Somehow that doesn't sound reassuring. You're about to ask Bobby's grandmother what she exactly means by that, but then she waves that damn cane again and you're enveloped the blackness and then you wake up. "Gah, fucking bitch." You say groggily. "Um, I'm sorry for waking you...but we really need to see if this fits." a familiar female voice remarks. You look around the room and see Helen coming in carrying some red clothing. "Huh? No, not you...wait what are you doing in here anyway? Did Bobby spend all night working on the house?" you ask "I'm bringing in your wedding dress and yes, Bobby has been working on the house for the most part. Trying to patch up the big hole in the house, cleaning up the dungeon, blocking the front gate. He had to bury our brother Jordan as well. I don't believe he's actually slept yet." "Oh yeah, forgot that that asshole killed one of your siblings. I didn't know him that well, but sorry for your loss." You remark. "Thank you. Yes, it was very sad, but to be honest Jordan wasn't the brightest. I remember numerous times when looking after him I had to stop him from eating something poisonous or doing something else life threatening so it's actually amazing he lived as long as he did. Still, he had some very endearing qualities. He looked up to Bobby a lot, wanted to be just like him. He even had a small crush on me I think to partially emulate Bobby and Diana's old relationship." Helen says with a smile before her face goes back to normal. "But we are all just puppets in Tiamat's glorious chaos, so we all need to just move on right? Could you see if this fits?" Helen cheerfully asks holding up the red clothing which now looks a lot like lingerie. "Wait, that's the wedding dress? It looks like slutty underwear from Hot Secret." You answer and get out of bed. Helen's face looks a bit offended by that statement. "My grandmother wore this on her wedding day! She had this dress made of the finest silk, not whatever cheap material they use in North Tiwanaland or some place! THIS is a one of a kind article of clothing! It's not something you'd find in some edgy teenager hang out!" Helen remarks. "Okay! Geez. I'm not trying to insult the dress or your grandmother. It's just...well I thought I'd be wearing something a little more... substantial. But seeing as your family isn't exactly conventional and when in Rome...I guess I better try it on. Um, you washed it right?" "Of course. Hand washed it myself. Can't risk putting it in a machine." Helen says and hands it to you. You have to admit; it does feel rather nice in your hands. "Oh, here's the stockings and the shoes too." Helen says and hands you what is apparently the rest of the outfit. "Red fishnets...red high heels..." you say. "Yes. Those shoes were also special made with the finest..." "Leather. Yes, I can imagine. Let me guess the fishnets were made with the finest silk as well." "Well of course, what else would it be?" "What else indeed. Okay, well I guess I'm going in the bathroom to change." "You don't need to you know. I mean I won't be offended if you change in front of me. We're practically family now." Helen says. "Um...no that's okay. Besides, I should wash up before changing anyway. I probably still smell of sweat from yesterday's events." "Okay, well I guess I'll just wait out here then and remember you can call if you need something. You enter the bathroom and go through your usual routine of showering and such. Afterwards you finally get around putting on the "wedding dress" The first thing you do is look at the dress before putting it on and wondering if it's going to be bigger in the chest area. While you're not lacking in that region, you've met Bobby's grandmother (in dream form anyway) and she's got at least another couple cup sizes on you. In fact her body type back in her prime was more of an old school 1950s pinup girl hourglass figure than your own "petite" size. The funny thing is, as soon as you put it on, it seems to fit perfectly to your own body. The material isn't any sort of spandex or stretchy material, it's silk like Helen said, but given Bobby's family's strangeness, you have to wonder if it's...magical? "Magical underwear." You scoff; shaking your head in half disbelief you're even considering it. Not surprisingly the stockings AND the shoes fit you perfectly as well. Yeah, Grandma Morningstar probably had all this stuff weaved by a giant magical spider voodoo priest or some shit because it doesn't make sense that any of this stuff would fit you so well. Regardless of its origins, you do feel pretty comfortable despite looking like a Hollywood streetwalker. The heels don't even hurt your feet, though you're still a little unsteady on them due to not being used to wearing such things. Let alone these being stilettos. The last time you wore heels was when Uncle Ed made you wear stripperiffic clothing with the intent to lure Bobby and his dad into the woods where he could kill them. While everything turned out for the best because you met Bobby that fateful night, the part with Uncle Ed still gives you the shivers just thinking about it. You look at yourself in the mirror one more time, before leaving the bathroom. "Well Suzy, you might look like a whore in this thing, but at least you look like a high priced one." You say to yourself. When you exit the bathroom Helen stands up and looks at you. "Oh my. You're...you're...so beautiful looking. I knew it would fit you perfectly." Helen gushes. "Yeah I am pretty hot looking in this get up. Shit, still can't balance on these heels though." You say. "Oh we have to go show everyone now what you look like. Maybe take some pictures!" Helen says approaching you. "What? I thought I was just putting it on as a test drive as it were. While I won't deny this stuff feels pretty comfortable on my skin that I don't mind wearing it, I sort of don't want to be walking around the house with it on until show time. Besides everyone can see how awesomely sexy I am then." "I think they should see you now. It'll raise the spirits around here seeing you dressed like this." Helen remarks as she begins touching your arm. "Well it'll raise something with the males around here when they see me of course. Not sure about the ladies of this house, though you're getting a little too close there Helen." "Oh please? At least go show Bobby. I know he'd like to see you." Helen says ignoring your previous remark about invading your personal space. "I'm sure he's really busy right now, besides isn't it bad luck for me to see him right before the wedding?" "Oh you're thinking of those silly traditions for other weddings. That's not the case here. Come on I'll take you to him." Helen says and at this point is pulling on your hands almost causing you fall. "Hey! I nearly fell! I told you already that you're too damn close!" Helen immediately backs away and looks down submissively. "I'm sorry Suzy. I didn't mean to violate your personal space. It's just I thought...well it's Bobby." "What about him? "Well, as I said he hasn't slept and he's been working everyone like a task master trying to get the house as much in order as he can. And that's his right of course. He is the head of this family. Still, during all the hustle and bustle when I was going to see him when he was cleaning up the dungeon. I caught him weeping and praying to Tiamat. Normally I wouldn't have intruded, but he looked so...vulnerable and sad. He kept going on about he wasn't even sure if this wedding was the right thing because he wasn't confident that he'd be a strong enough husband for you and be a good provider. He was having doubts about even leading this family after all the mess that's happened this week." "Oh geez. I've already told him several times that I loved him and that I was behind him no matter what." You say. "Well maybe that's all he needs again. Sometimes a little boost is all that someone needs to feel better. Like I remember yesterday when I was with the children during Aaron's rampage, I told them that they would be safe because Tiamat's chaos was in their favor that day. They were so brave after that, they were perfectly fine when I left them alone to help you and Bobby." Helen says. > You go with Helen now If Bobby's feeling a little down about everything and Helen feels like you could cheer him up, it couldn't hurt to go see him right now. Not like you've got anything better to do. "Alright, I'll go see him. I suppose I might as well get used to walking around in this thing." You say. "Oh I know he'll be so glad to see you, here let me get the door." Helen says and opens it for you. You walk down the corridor with Helen nearby going on about how she's so glad you're officially going to be part of the family. "And don't worry, when you start having all those babies, I can certainly help you out on that front." "Great. I'll be looking forward to it..." you say unenthusiastically while at the same time still trying to maintain your balance on the heels. When you get to the stairs you stop. "Shit, I think I should take these heels off before heading downstairs. I don't want to fall." You say. "Oh don't worry about that, just hang on to the railing and I'll be right here to make sure you don't fall. In fact I can even put my arm around you just to make sure you don't." Helen says and goes to balance you a bit. "Well thanks, but I really don't need your arm around m..." you start to say and then Helen punches you in the face. The punch itself isn't even that hard as far as punches go, in fact Helen even winces when she does it as if she wasn't confident in her abilities and was reluctant to even do so. However combined with being on top of the stairs and your high heels you lose your balance completely and go tumbling down them. Falling down a flight of stairs is always a bit of a crapshoot, sometimes people survive it with just a few bumps and bruises and other times they break their necks and die before they reach the bottom. You fall somewhere in between, you break your neck, but you don't die. You won't be moving anytime soon though. You'd probably be in more horror about the situation of not being able to move if your head wasn't so scrambled from the fall. As you struggle to remain conscious, you see Helen coming down the stair before you. Her face has a sad expression. "Oh no. I was afraid this might happen." She says with the tone of being genuinely upset. As Helen approaches and kneels near your head you both hear the sounds of gunfire outside and shouting inside the house. Neither of you know what that's about, but you're in no condition to worry about it. Helen picks your head up and speaks. "Sorry Suzy, but I just love Bobby too much to let you have him. I wish there could've been another way, but I'll make this quick." You don't respond, you just close your eyes and let go. And then a final snap.

[Themes: modern, drama, humor, science fiction, romance] "And now Suzy, having beaten the chicken soup out of all her other opponents this week, will take this final challenge by herself! Will she be able to do it ladies and gentlemen? Will she be able to impress Misty at last? We'll find out today! Let's give our small town girl some encouragement for her task at hand!" As the crowd claps, whistles and stomps their feet in support, you sit at a large table by yourself looking at... A big bag of dicks. It's even labeled as such. BIG BAG OF DICKS in big black lettering so you can't miss it. You don't even look inside the bag; you take their word for it and double face palm before exhaling and looking back up. "Really?" you ask in disbelief. "This is the last task Suzy..." the disembodied announcer's voice whispers. "I don't give a shit, I'm not eating a goddamn bag of dicks! That's just fucking disgusting for one thing and for another... Suddenly Bobby's grandmother appears as she has been doing in your dreams. "See? Told you she wasn't going to do it. Still, it was funny to see the reaction." Bobby's grandmother cackles and with a wave of her cane, you're back in that blasted wasteland you were in last time. "So what now? Am I going to meet this Misty, whoever the fuck that is?" "Not quite yet. You're still not married to my grandson. Misty has decided that she'll meet you after that event...and sheesh you still haven't figured out who Misty is yet? You suffer a head injury when Aaron was tossing grenades around?" Bobby's grandmother asks and then taps you in the forehead with her hand. "Ow! Stop!" you say and back away. "I hope you aren't this slow on the uptake today. Oh well, guess you can't help being blonde. Anyway, congrats on your wedding and you've got my blessing. Good luck!" Good luck? Somehow that doesn't sound reassuring. You're about to ask Bobby's grandmother what she exactly means by that, but then she waves that damn cane again and you're enveloped the blackness and then you wake up. "Gah, fucking bitch." You say groggily. "Um, I'm sorry for waking you...but we really need to see if this fits." a familiar female voice remarks. You look around the room and see Helen coming in carrying some red clothing. "Huh? No, not you...wait what are you doing in here anyway? Did Bobby spend all night working on the house?" you ask "I'm bringing in your wedding dress and yes, Bobby has been working on the house for the most part. Trying to patch up the big hole in the house, cleaning up the dungeon, blocking the front gate. He had to bury our brother Jordan as well. I don't believe he's actually slept yet." "Oh yeah, forgot that that asshole killed one of your siblings. I didn't know him that well, but sorry for your loss." You remark. "Thank you. Yes, it was very sad, but to be honest Jordan wasn't the brightest. I remember numerous times when looking after him I had to stop him from eating something poisonous or doing something else life threatening so it's actually amazing he lived as long as he did. Still, he had some very endearing qualities. He looked up to Bobby a lot, wanted to be just like him. He even had a small crush on me I think to partially emulate Bobby and Diana's old relationship." Helen says with a smile before her face goes back to normal. "But we are all just puppets in Tiamat's glorious chaos, so we all need to just move on right? Could you see if this fits?" Helen cheerfully asks holding up the red clothing which now looks a lot like lingerie. "Wait, that's the wedding dress? It looks like slutty underwear from Hot Secret." You answer and get out of bed. Helen's face looks a bit offended by that statement. "My grandmother wore this on her wedding day! She had this dress made of the finest silk, not whatever cheap material they use in North Tiwanaland or some place! THIS is a one of a kind article of clothing! It's not something you'd find in some edgy teenager hang out!" Helen remarks. "Okay! Geez. I'm not trying to insult the dress or your grandmother. It's just...well I thought I'd be wearing something a little more... substantial. But seeing as your family isn't exactly conventional and when in Rome...I guess I better try it on. Um, you washed it right?" "Of course. Hand washed it myself. Can't risk putting it in a machine." Helen says and hands it to you. You have to admit; it does feel rather nice in your hands. "Oh, here's the stockings and the shoes too." Helen says and hands you what is apparently the rest of the outfit. "Red fishnets...red high heels..." you say. "Yes. Those shoes were also special made with the finest..." "Leather. Yes, I can imagine. Let me guess the fishnets were made with the finest silk as well." "Well of course, what else would it be?" "What else indeed. Okay, well I guess I'm going in the bathroom to change." "You don't need to you know. I mean I won't be offended if you change in front of me. We're practically family now." Helen says. "Um...no that's okay. Besides, I should wash up before changing anyway. I probably still smell of sweat from yesterday's events." "Okay, well I guess I'll just wait out here then and remember you can call if you need something. You enter the bathroom and go through your usual routine of showering and such. Afterwards you finally get around putting on the "wedding dress" The first thing you do is look at the dress before putting it on and wondering if it's going to be bigger in the chest area. While you're not lacking in that region, you've met Bobby's grandmother (in dream form anyway) and she's got at least another couple cup sizes on you. In fact her body type back in her prime was more of an old school 1950s pinup girl hourglass figure than your own "petite" size. The funny thing is, as soon as you put it on, it seems to fit perfectly to your own body. The material isn't any sort of spandex or stretchy material, it's silk like Helen said, but given Bobby's family's strangeness, you have to wonder if it's...magical? "Magical underwear." You scoff; shaking your head in half disbelief you're even considering it. Not surprisingly the stockings AND the shoes fit you perfectly as well. Yeah, Grandma Morningstar probably had all this stuff weaved by a giant magical spider voodoo priest or some shit because it doesn't make sense that any of this stuff would fit you so well. Regardless of its origins, you do feel pretty comfortable despite looking like a Hollywood streetwalker. The heels don't even hurt your feet, though you're still a little unsteady on them due to not being used to wearing such things. Let alone these being stilettos. The last time you wore heels was when Uncle Ed made you wear stripperiffic clothing with the intent to lure Bobby and his dad into the woods where he could kill them. While everything turned out for the best because you met Bobby that fateful night, the part with Uncle Ed still gives you the shivers just thinking about it. You look at yourself in the mirror one more time, before leaving the bathroom. "Well Suzy, you might look like a whore in this thing, but at least you look like a high priced one." You say to yourself. When you exit the bathroom Helen stands up and looks at you. "Oh my. You're...you're...so beautiful looking. I knew it would fit you perfectly." Helen gushes. "Yeah I am pretty hot looking in this get up. Shit, still can't balance on these heels though." You say. "Oh we have to go show everyone now what you look like. Maybe take some pictures!" Helen says approaching you. "What? I thought I was just putting it on as a test drive as it were. While I won't deny this stuff feels pretty comfortable on my skin that I don't mind wearing it, I sort of don't want to be walking around the house with it on until show time. Besides everyone can see how awesomely sexy I am then." "I think they should see you now. It'll raise the spirits around here seeing you dressed like this." Helen remarks as she begins touching your arm. "Well it'll raise something with the males around here when they see me of course. Not sure about the ladies of this house, though you're getting a little too close there Helen." "Oh please? At least go show Bobby. I know he'd like to see you." Helen says ignoring your previous remark about invading your personal space. "I'm sure he's really busy right now, besides isn't it bad luck for me to see him right before the wedding?" "Oh you're thinking of those silly traditions for other weddings. That's not the case here. Come on I'll take you to him." Helen says and at this point is pulling on your hands almost causing you fall. "Hey! I nearly fell! I told you already that you're too damn close!" Helen immediately backs away and looks down submissively. "I'm sorry Suzy. I didn't mean to violate your personal space. It's just I thought...well it's Bobby." "What about him? "Well, as I said he hasn't slept and he's been working everyone like a task master trying to get the house as much in order as he can. And that's his right of course. He is the head of this family. Still, during all the hustle and bustle when I was going to see him when he was cleaning up the dungeon. I caught him weeping and praying to Tiamat. Normally I wouldn't have intruded, but he looked so...vulnerable and sad. He kept going on about he wasn't even sure if this wedding was the right thing because he wasn't confident that he'd be a strong enough husband for you and be a good provider. He was having doubts about even leading this family after all the mess that's happened this week." "Oh geez. I've already told him several times that I loved him and that I was behind him no matter what." You say. "Well maybe that's all he needs again. Sometimes a little boost is all that someone needs to feel better. Like I remember yesterday when I was with the children during Aaron's rampage, I told them that they would be safe because Tiamat's chaos was in their favor that day. They were so brave after that, they were perfectly fine when I left them alone to help you and Bobby." Helen says. > You talk with Helen a little more That last statement doesn't sound right to you... "Wait a minute Helen. I thought you said yesterday that Veronica and Brandon ran to you and stayed with the kids when you parted company with them." Helen pauses for a moment. "Uh yeah, I did. Yes! I meant I left the kids alone, but just as I was leaving, it was fortunate that Veronica and Brandon showed up at that time so they weren't completely alone." Bobby's grandmother claimed you were slow on the uptake and maybe in dreamland you are, but you know damn well when someone is obviously lying to you. "That didn't happen Helen." You say. "Wha...yes it did!" Helen exclaims. "Okay then..." you say and sit down to take off your heels. "What are you doing?" "I'm taking off these fucking heels because I don't feel like nearly breaking my neck when we go ask Veronica and Brandon to confirm your story." "Um, I don't think that will be necessary. In fact, I think Bobby will be fine. Probably just wedding jitters. Apologies for bothering you and glad to see that the dress fits you." Helen says and starts backing towards the door. "You know now that I'm thinking about it, it seems pretty strange that Bobby would be crying and praying in front of Diana who I presume is sitting in a dungeon cage right now." "She was unconscious?" Helen says as if saying it in the tone of a question is going to cause it to be more believable. "Unconscious or not, I doubt Bobby would show any sort of weakness around Diana now. In fact I'm starting to doubt a lot of things..." At this point Helen's eyes widen in fear and she turns to run for the door. Just as she gets to the handle, you manage to bean her in the head with one of the heels. It's just enough to stop her from getting away before you rush over and grab her by the hair and throw her to the floor. "Out with it bitch." You say and lock the door. When she doesn't answer right away, you raise your hand and Helen starts to cry before you've even done anything. She cowers by curling up and putting her hands and arms in front of her completely submissively. "Please! Mercy! It wasn't my idea! It was all Diana! You just don't know what it's like having such a bullying older sister who dominates virtually every aspect of your life!" "Save the pity party speech about being a victim of sibling abuse. Heard it before and I already lived something similar so it doesn't impress me. Besides, I'm not buying this babe in the woods routine anymore Helen. At best you're lying to cover up the fact that Diana AND yourself were planning on killing me all along yesterday and you just covered your own ass when it looked like things weren't going to work out. At worst, this entire thing was your idea and Diana was just your dumb ass pawn. Either way, I'm not enthused and it doesn't change the fact that YOU were trying to kill me...were you going to make another attempt today? Huh? Is that why you came up here? Maybe push me down the stairs or something? Claim it was an accident? ANSWER ME AND DON'T FUCKING LIE!" "Okay! Okay! I'll tell you everything! Just please try to understand it wasn't personal! I actually like you!" "Not personal?! You like me? So I guess your plan to kill me was just your way of showing affection?" "No (sob) I did it because I just love (sob) Bobby so much! I always have and I stood on the sidelines too long. (sob) I was just so desperate..." You just shake your head and sigh at this point. Helen sits up from the floor and scoots back to prop herself up against your bed coughing, sniffling, and trying to regain her composure. You stand nearby ready to jump on her if she tries anything, but for now you allow this moment for her to "explain" as it were. "If there had been some way to remove you Suzy without killing you I would have done it. You have to believe me I really would have. I even thought about approaching you in a plan to kill Diana instead." "Yeah and then you would've probably killed me afterwards to make it look like Diana and I killed each other." "No! I was going to...well I was going to try to seduce you." "Excuse me?" you say completely surprised by that part of the explanation. "Well I wasn't sure, but I just sort of got a feeling from you that you might be a bit... flexible on your orientation." Helen says. "Wha... (sputter) What the hell would give you that impression?" you exclaim. "I dunno...sometimes I thought your eyes were wandering all over my body a little more than average whenever we spoke, plus you were so nice to me and you just sort of give off a lesbian vibe at times. I probably would've been too shy to go through with it anyway so it obviously wouldn't have worked." "You're damn right that wouldn't have worked! And what was your plan after that if your main goal was Bobby? Were you going to seduce me and while you were fucking me from behind with a big strap on you were going to plunge a knife in my back?" you ask Helen. "No, I told you, if I didn't have to kill you, I wouldn't have. I would have just suggested that we both marry Bobby. It's not common, but our religion does allow for multiple wives. I think... I think I could have shared him with you." "...I...I can't believe how fucked up this situation even is..." you say sitting down on a nearby chair. Meanwhile Helen continues her tale of woe. "But I approached Diana because she was my sister and I knew her better. She was predictable. After I saw you beat her and after Bobby laid down the law to her about how it was over, she was a broken woman. Seriously, I'd never seen her confidence so shaken. After being on the receiving end of her abuse for so long, it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. So I convinced her of the plan...actually took me longer than I thought it would. I thought she'd be hungry for revenge, but no. I had to reignite that fire, but I knew she'd agree in the end." "So she WAS trying to kill me too." You say. "Oh yes. That was the plan as far as she knew. She'd kill you, but then I'd kill her and make up an excuse that I tried to save you or something similar. Of course when you stayed with Bobby during that whole time we were dealing with Aaron, I knew it wasn't going to work which then resulted in an argument between me and Diana since she was now back to bullying mode. I knocked her out and I nearly killed her then, but I thought suggesting that she be your sacrifice on your wedding day would be fitting. When I found out Aaron had killed all the other prisoners...well that worked out even better since you suggested it." "But you still wanted to kill me." "Yes...after the chaos of yesterday and after I saw how you stuck by Bobby. I knew you really did love Bobby as much as Diana did...maybe even as much as me. So I temporary rethought my actions. I thought maybe I could live with Bobby being with someone like you. I mean you were nice to me at least. And I knew at least Bobby would be happy with you. When I woke up this morning though, I realized I just couldn't let you have him without at least making one last ditch effort...and so here we are." At this point Helen starts to lose what little composure she mustered up to tell her side of the story. She starts to break down in tears again and apologizes to you and going on about how much she loves Bobby. It's really pitiful and sad. You can't believe you're almost considering NOT killing her now. Before you can come to any sort of conclusion, you hear shooting and screaming from outside. Still keeping an eye on Helen, you edge over to the window and take a peek. You see several figures crawling under the truck blocking the broken front gate or trying to climb the fence. The ones that have gotten in are loping in a wild jerky like motion. They're also screaming, howling and making inhuman sounds. From your vantage point they LOOK human, but they're certainly not acting like it. A loud banging on the door occurs next and you glare at Helen who doesn't make a sound. "Hey! Suzy! You in there?! Why's this door locked?" you hear a voice shout. You think its Veronica. "Yeah, I'm in here. What's going on? I just heard all the commotion." You answer. "We're being attacked by zombies!" Veronica answers. You and Helen look over at each other briefly. "Did you say zombies?" you ask. "Yeah, I mean...I dunno if they are. Maybe they're just rabid humans or something, but they're gnashing their teeth, moaning and coming at us like something out of a horror movie. We need all the help we can get to repel these things!" "Okay, Veronica. I'll be out in a moment!" you yell. "Well hurry up...and you haven't seen Helen have you?" Helen and you look at each other again. "Yeah, she's in here with me. I was trying on my wedding dress that she brought." You say. "If the pair of you don't stop playing dress up, there won't be a damn wedding! Bobby's having a hard enough time trying to keep them from getting close to the house!" A loud crashing noise followed by gunfire is heard from downstairs. "Shit! That sounded close! I gotta go!" Veronica shouts and you hear her run off. Well it looks like Bobby's "pep talk" yesterday lit a fire under his relative's asses to pull their weight around here at least. "(Sigh) Fucking zombies. Of course this day HAD to get worse..." you say shaking your head. "Suzy, we need to go to Bobby, he needs our help." "We?" you ask. "...I...look...I know what's just occurred between us and you have no reason to trust me, but from what Veronica said, it sound like this is a bad attack and we'll need everyone we can to stop it!" She might have a point or she might just be stalling for a chance to escape or clobber you in the head. Possibly both. > You deal with Helen now You can't trust her. Even if you wanted to, you can't do it. She's actually proven to be more dangerous than Diana could hope to be, if she's weaved multiple murder plots against you this week. You don't have a choice. You have to kill her. In fact the more you look at how weak and helpless she is right now... You WANT to kill her. "Alright, get up Helen, let's go help Bobby." You say offering a hand to help her up. Helen looks up at you and takes your hand trustingly. When she stands up, she starts to look relieved. And that's when you back hand her and shove her to the floor. Helen holds the side of her face and tries to back away. "No! No! No! You can't! Please! No! Don't kill me!" she utters. "Don't kill you? I'll kill you twice you fucking cunt! And trust me, it's not going to look like an accident!" you say and pounce on top of Helen. You begin beating Helen like she stole something. Helen pathetically attempts to defend herself, but it predictably doesn't work. Her pleading for you to stop doesn't help either. Instead, your hands stop beating her face and then start to wrap around her neck. You want to stop that infernal wailing, the pleading, the crying, everything. She tries to stop you from choking her, but your grip is firm. Her eyes begin to bulge a bit and she attempts to catch what is little left of her breath. Then you do something you don't even expect doing. You start to giggle. You've gone beyond anger and are starting to enjoy this. Meanwhile Helen begins to gurgle and gasp what sounds to be words. "What? What's that? You trying to speak? You having a little trouble? Here, whisper it to me." You mock and get slightly closer while still maintaining your grip. "Bo...Bob..by...he...help...plea..." you hear Helen gasp. "What? Bobby help you? He can't help you. He's not even here." You sneer. As Helen's face turn an unnatural color, you just smile. "Shhh...shhh...just let go Helen...just let go...you fucking bitch..." The light in her eyes starts to fade, the life begins to leave her body and her struggle is soon over. She ceases moving. Ignoring the gunfire and yelling you hear downstairs, you just continue to sit on top of her for a moment staring at her. You stroke her hair. You've finally crossed that line. You know you can kill someone if you have to. Actually you also know you can kill someone if you don't have to and while you went through a variety of emotions leading to it and during it, now that it's over, you don't feel much of anything. You wonder if your Uncle Ed felt this when he killed someone. Maybe you take after him in some way? Could it be genetic and maybe you have some sort of latent serial killer tendency? Given your family, it isn't that hard to imagine insanity runs in it. It sure would explain why you were so comfortable with Bobby in the first place. After all, what rational woman would stay with a man that runs a murderous cult? But these are all things you can dwell on later; right now you need to help Bobby. "You know...you did have pretty eyes." You say with a smirk and stand up. You open the clothing drawer where Bobby keeps the spare gun he mentioned yesterday, take it and leave the room without even changing your clothes. And why should you? It's your wedding day after all. The events that follow aren't nearly as interesting as the experience of your first kill. By the time you get to where Bobby and the rest of his family are holding back the invaders, they've already killed most of them. You remember shooting a couple of the things, but it wasn't nearly as exciting as choking the life out of Helen. Turns out they weren't zombies anyway. Just seemingly mad humans trying to eat you. You can only guess your town is overrun by them and this is what Aaron was referring to when he said people were eating each other out there. Some sort of sickness perhaps? Maybe the government was fucking around with a secret weapon like they tend to do and it got out of hand. It would explain why there was a drastic rise in violence even before you left and why the National Guard showed up later. It isn't until after all the mad attackers are killed that Bobby manages to address you directly. He's incredibly tired looking, the rest of his family looks pretty tired too, but he looks like he's about to collapse. Bobby asks you if you're okay and of course you say you're fine. He then tells the rest of his family to check the rest of the house just to make sure the situation is completely safe. After everyone leaves, he sits down in a nearby chair wiped out from this whole ordeal. "I think you need to sleep." You say. "Can't. Too much to do. Especially now. Bodies to clean up, walls to patch up, gates and doors to fix. Now we got these...things attacking and who knows if any more will wander this way... there's just so much to do..." Bobby says trying to fight the exhaustion. "Let me take care of some of this. You don't have to do this all by yourself you know." You say. "...shit...the wedding. That's another thing we need to do...I just...had no fucking time to make the preparations...I'm sorry this couldn't be how it should..." Bobby adds. "Will you not worry about that? Look, does this wedding really need to be so complicated? Can't we just get one of your family members to witness it and another to marry us right now so I can at last be your wife properly?" you ask. "We don't even need to do that really...I mean I'm the high priest here. All I have to do is say the passage and you accept and we're married. No need for witnesses, I mean Tiamat's watching. Who else is needed?" "What? That's it? We could've done that a long time ago!" "Well, like I've told you before, I just wanted it to be perfect..." You sit in Bobby's lap and wrap your arms around him. "Bobby, just being with you, is enough perfection for me. Besides, isn't the carnage surrounding us true perfection in the eyes of Tiamat's chaotic glory or something?" you ask. Bobby looks around at the nearby mess of broken furniture and the couple bodies laying on the floor and smiles. "Yes, I suppose you're right." He says. Bobby recites what you guess is a passage from whatever holy book of Tiamat he got it from and when the time comes, you accept your place as his wife. Then the both of you kiss like you've done so many times before, though this time it's different. You now feel like you belong here. "Oh. Here. I've been carrying this in my pocket the whole day, nearly forgot it was there." Bobby remarks and hands you a ring with a sizable red diamond in the center and smaller black inlayed around it. It's definitely beautiful and when you try it on, you find that it fits perfectly. "Let me guess, this used to be your grandmother's ring?" you ask. "Yeah...how did you know?" "Oh let's just say the fact that it fits me so well like her wedding dress did was a clue." "Yeah, I was meaning to ask about that." Bobby says rubbing your legs. "Oh Helen gave me the dress to try on before all the trouble went down. Didn't really have time to change." "(Yawn) Where is Helen anyway? I didn't see her with you when you arrived, but then I was in the middle of blasting some freak's head off at the time." "Oh she stayed upstairs." You say. "Hm, probably looking after the children as usual. She's really reliable that way, (Yawn) nice girl. That's why didn't believe the bullshit Diana was spouting about her when I was cleaning up the dungeon." "Oh? What was that?" Bobby begins to close his eyes, but keeps talking. "Oh, she was trying to claim Helen set her up and the attempt on your life was all her plan and how she never wanted to kill me at all...(yawn) typical desperation to save her own ass. Pretty laughable that she thought I'd believe it, I mean Helen likes you." "Hm...where is Diana now?" "Oh she's still in her cage...(yawn)." "Good. I'm going to go kill her." You say. "You, don't need to you know. You (yawn) don't need to prove anything. I can do it." "No, it's fine. I'm willing to do it. I mean maybe this isn't going to be official or how you planned, but I'm part of this family now and I'm going to make the effort to be fully part of it because I love you." At this point Bobby smiles at your words and his consciousness fades completely and he's asleep. You give him another kiss and get up to head to the dungeon. When you get there you see Diana sitting in her cage with a bored expression. When she sees you, she ceases looking as bored. "It's you." She says and her eyes begin to examine your clothing and then wander over to your finger sporting your new status in the family. She also spies the pistol in your hand. "I...heard a lot of noise upstairs. Is Bobby okay?" "Don't you worry about Bobby. He's not your concern anymore." "So...you're the new top mama now?" You don't answer you just raise your arms presenting yourself to signify that is the case. Her head hangs briefly knowing she's truly defeated. "Shit... can you at least tell me if Helen's dead?" "Yes, she's dead." You answer. This revelation while not making any impact on Diana's ultimate fate still brings a brief bit of happiness to her. "Good...that's good... okay, no point in dragging this out." Diana says and stands as close as she can to the bars and you get slightly closer with the pistol drawn. "Fuck Tiamat and fuck you blondie." Diana says and then you fire a round into her chest. Diana falls back wheezing, gasping and clutching at the bloody wound. You move in closer to watch her for the last few minutes she clings to life, but then eventually she follows her sister in death. And now your "competition" has completely been eliminated. Leaving Diana in much the same way you left Helen, you go back upstairs and attempt to take charge of some of what needs to be done around the house. It's actually easier than you think. Bobby's family is a little surprised by the fact that you and he got married so spur of the moment, but that's not a problem and given the recent events, they were less focused on attending a formal wedding anyway. You tell Veronica to go check on the children and to make sure they're okay, when she seems less than enthused to do it and asks where Helen is, you get in her face and tell her. "She's dead." "What?! Well shouldn't we tell Bobby?" Veronica exclaims with the rest of the family looking a little surprised at this revalation. "Bobby needs his rest and I'm calling the shots while he does so, now just do what the hell I say Veronica. The rest of you help me move these corpses out of here and Bobby's sleeping in the living room near the kitchen. Let's try not to wake him." Clean up goes relatively fast. Around the house at least since that's your primary concern. You go for the quick dirty approach of just getting all the dead bodies in one pile outside. You briefly think about burning them, but then you worry that maybe that might attract more attention. You figure Bobby can make that decision tomorrow. Since you're not any sort of carpenter or anything similar your solution to patch up any broken windows and the front door is to barricade it with furniture for the night. Somewhere just after midnight everyone is ready to crash. You take mercy on everyone and tell them to just sleep with a weapon tonight and you'll take tonight's watch. You aren't sure how you're going to do it with as tired as you are, but fortunately when you check on Bobby you find that he's just waking up and after a bit of a report, he is pleasantly surprised by what you've done. "Well that's at least a few things I don't need to worry about. Probably a good idea on not burning the bodies yet. We can do that tomorrow when everyone is alert in case it does draw attention. Nice job in taking charge." "Thanks." You say with a yawn. "Why don't you go upstairs and get some sleep. I'm good now. I can take watch." "You sure? You were up longer than I was." "Nah, I'm really fine. I don't usually need much sleep anyway. I just needed the brief recharge. Hey, we're in this together remember? I'll take over now." He says. You don't argue you just kiss him goodnight and tell him you love him and to call you if he needs your help. You head upstairs back to your bedroom feeling sleep creep up on you ever faster. When you get to your bedroom, you find Helen still lying on the floor where you left her. Besides forgetting to clean up her body, you also forgot to tell Bobby about what happened to her. (You didn't really tell the rest of his family either, you just said she was dead and they never really asked how she died.) You look at Helen's corpse again and then look over at the portrait of Grandma Morningstar with its eyes watching everything as usual. "Fuck it, he can find out tomorrow. I'm tired and I undoubtedly still have your ghostly mindfuck bullshit to look forward to in dreamland tonight." You say. Stepping over Helen's body, you get into bed and fall asleep. > Next day… "Suzy! You've won! You've truly overcome all odds! You have not only survived the various uncertain events of this week, but you've also thrived! Ladies and gentlemen, let's give our small town girl some applause and respect for she truly is worthy of it!" As the crowd claps, whistles and stomps their feet in support, you sit at a large table by yourself looking at... A bigger bag of dicks. It's even labeled as such. BIGGER BAG OF DICKS in big black lettering so you can't miss it though that would be impossible since the bag itself is wide enough to take up half of the table and tall enough that you can't even see the audience from where you're sitting unless you stand up or look around the bag. You just shake your head. "This joke never gets old with you does it?" you ask. No sooner have you said that, when everything disappears and you're facing Grandma Morningstar in the blasted wasteland again. "I told you, I don't have anything to do with your oral fixation scenario dreams, but I will admit it's a pretty funny joke." "Hardly, but anyway am I finally done with all this nonsense? Am I finally meeting this Misty?" you say. "You figure out who it is yet?" "Yeah and I can't believe I didn't catch it before. Misty...MISS T...Tiamat." You answer. "Yay! Your pretty little blonde head finally got it! Give this woman the BIGGEST BIG OF DICKS as a reward!" Grandma Morningstar cackles to the point where she actually starts wheezing a bit. "You done yet, you mean old crone?" you ask. "Crone is it? Better watch the tone there blondie, you might be officially family now, but don't think I'm going to put up with your sass. Even in this form I could severely fuck you up, you best remember that." Grandma Morningstar warns. "What...what are you exactly anyway? A ghost? A demon?" "Does it matter? Tiamat blessed me with this existence for my dedication to chaos and if you continue to prove yourself worthy like you have been doing then when that inevitable day comes that you shuffle off your mortal coil you might be just as blessed as I am. I doubt it though. You'll probably just rot in the ground." "Probably right since I'm not exactly the most religious person." "Bah, Tiamat doesn't really care about mindless ritualistic worship. She is the goddess of chaos so who knows what she really likes at any given time?" "Interesting, so am I meeting her now?" "Uh, no. Tiamat is sort of busy now or maybe she just doesn't care, hard to tell sometimes..." "What?! I thought you said I was meeting her now." "I actually never did, but cheer up. Given that you just admitted to not being a religious sort you can't be too disappointed in not meeting her directly." "Well...no, but that's not the point. I sort of feel like there was a build up and by not meeting her now is an anti-climax." "Ah, but if you really think about it, your journey has only just begun! Perhaps there is more build up for the ultimate climax later! There is nothing to say you won't meet her in the future, but will it be on good terms or bad? Eh? Eh? One never knows!" "Great, more shit to worry about." Grandma Morningstar steps forward and touches you on the shoulder. "Don't despair blondie, you'll do fine. Besides, I like you." She says and then pinches your cheek before giving you a couple gentle taps to the face like some sort of mafia godfather figure from the movies. As you rub your face, Grandma Morningstar waves goodbye to you, disappears and everything around you gets dark. And you wake up. You're a little surprised since you have a body right next to you, but you quickly calm down when you realize its Bobby. He's partially under the blankets with you and puts down a book he was reading. "You okay? You seem a little jumpy. Bad dream?" he asks. "Eh...better than others I've had this week. We actually need to have a talk about them...when we..." you then realize if Bobby is here then he's obviously seen Helen. You look over to your left and see that Helen's body is no longer there and then you look over at Bobby. "...I meant to tell you about that..." you say. "No need. I can sort of guess what happened. So I take it Diana wasn't lying to me after all?" "Not completely, Helen was the initial mastermind, but Diana was definitely still going to kill me when the opportunity presented itself. Things didn't quite work out as planned as you can tell." "Hm. Still can't believe it. Helen was always so quiet and docile." "Well, you know what they say about the quiet ones. They're the most dangerous." You remark. "Guess you know something about that." Bobby says. "Yeah...I guess I do." You say cuddling up next to him. It's true. You used to be a shut in wallflower at one time. That meek girl that used to hide out in the basement is long gone after this week's events. "I see you're still wearing your dress as well as your ring." "Oh. Yeah, too tired to change and the ring...well I really like it." You say caressing it a bit. "That's good. I'm glad." "So...what are you doing up here anyway? Thought you were on watch duty." You ask. "I was, and as usual you've slept most of the day again. It's the middle of the afternoon. I'm up here because I was going to get a bit of rest before catching some more sleep due to being up all night. Plus I figure the rest of the family can do the majority of grunt work for a change without me having to hoover over them. Besides, I wanted to spend time with my wife and be the first thing she sees when she wakes up. I know that hasn't been a real common thing since you got here." "I'll say. I'm glad you're here too since we haven't had a chance to consummate the marriage and we really need to do that...like right now." You say and your hand starts groping at Bobby's crotch. "You aren't THAT tired." You remark after feeling his dick status. "Well not now I'm not." Bobby says and then embraces you. You feel Bobby plunge into like you have so many times before, but this time it almost feels slightly different because you're now married to this man. Something about that makes it almost feel more..."special". You didn't really think you'd ever really feel that way over some silly ritual that joins people supposedly for life, but its probably more of the fact that you know for certain that Bobby is your soul mate. During the love making session, you begin to take on a more aggressive role and eventually get Bobby so he's under you and continue riding him. It's a bit different than the norm since he's usually the dominant one ramming it into you, but he isn't enjoying it any less. And then near the point of climax that's when it happens. A flash of bright light briefly covers the windows and a loud noise is heard in the distance. "Shit what the hell was that?" Bobby asks sitting up a bit. "I dunno. I had my eyes closed and I just caught the tail end of the flash. Glad I didn't have them all the way open." You remark rubbing your eyes a bit. "Wait a minute...I think I know..." Bobby says and then motions for you to get off of him. He walks over to the window and you follow close behind. In the distance to the west, you see the remnants of a mushroom cloud. Probably landed on Security City or near it. You can only guess it probably wasn't a big one, but you're still a little concerned if you're in some sort of fallout radius. "So...they finally went and did it." You say. "Looks like. (Sigh) Shit." Bobby says. "What's wrong? I thought we were prepared for this sort of thing." "Oh we are. I'm not even worried about that, it's just I wanted to spend the day relaxing with you. Now? Well I think you know I'm going to have to go and direct everyone. You know at least one of my family, if not all of them are going to come running up here asking what to do." "Yeah, well such is the burden of being a leader." "Indeed. Guess I better get down there. Are you coming?" "Of course my love. We're in this together." You and Bobby get dressed and prepare yourselves for the new world that's undoubtedly coming soon confident in the fact that whatever its going to throw at you, you'll do it together. > … Matriarch of Madness The Future... "We're here mom." Your son says as your personal armored truck pulls up to the site. You look out the window and see the beautiful carnage outside. You can even hear some of the screams and crying from here. "Ahh, yes. Lovely." You say. "Yeah, dad really did a number on this place after the siege was finally successful." Your son remarks. "Well those rednecks really were asking for it by encroaching on a town that was rightfully ours. Glad to see this white trash haven finally being put to the torch and annihilated. It was a blight on the map even before the nukes hit. Well anyway let's go, I want to surprise your father." You remark getting ready to unlock the door. "You sure you want to get out? I mean we only just took the place and while the place is in the process of being purged completely, there were still a few of these trailer park bastards hiding in the area. In fact we believe some even ran into the nearby woods and are planning a counter attack. Not that they have any meaningful way of doing so, but still." "Your concern for my safety is sweet Enki, but I didn't get where I am today by remaining fearful of the possibility of the unknown. Besides, I so rarely get to see your father work anymore and I'd like to give him a nice surprise on his victory. I mean what do you think? Do you think when he sees me, he'll want to bend me over on the nearest pile of corpses?" you ask and open up the trench coat you're wearing over your naked body and run your hands briefly down your body Enki feeling slightly uncomfortable is unsure of what to say. "Well? I mean three children and not a fucking stretchmark. Years older and not even an inch of cellulite. I'm not just a MILF, I'm the fucking Alpha MILF." You laugh. "Um, yeah you look pretty mom. I dunno, I don't think about you in that way." Enki remarks. "You're a poor liar son. I've seen the way you look at me sometimes. You think I don't notice you staring at my chest or those brief glances at my ass on occasion?" "No, I..." Enki starts to say before you interrupt him by waving your hand at him. "It's okay as long as you know never to touch. Your older brother Anu had to learn that lesson the hard way from your father. Glad cutting off his pinkies didn't impede his combat abilities though." "Um, yeah. I'd never do that. I..." Enki starts to say then you interrupt him again. This time by putting a finger to his lips. "Of course you wouldn't. You're the smartest of my children. True, you're a little on the quiet and introspective side, but then so was I at your age, probably even more so...and as they say it's the quiet ones you have to look out for." You say stroking his face. Enki is speechless while you continue this exercise in severely fucked up mixed messages. "I love all family and I especially love all my children, however I'll only admit this to you. You're my favorite and because you're my favorite, I'm going to give you something a little more...just a taste if you will...but not a word. It's a secret and secrets aren't special when everyone knows." You take the same finger that was on his lips and while closing your eyes and making "mmm" sounds, you slowly insert it into your mouth and then back out again just as slowly. When you open your eyes, Enki is obviously in a mixed state of panic and being incredibly turned on. He probably doesn't know whether to run or whip his dick out and start shoving your head into his lap. Since doesn't know what your intentions are he just freezes. You're totally enjoying the way he has to be having a lot of mental conflict with this. "Now, I'm going to go find your father. I'm sure you've got other things you'll need to take care of so you needn't escort me. I've got a pistol in my coat pocket anyway, so I'll be safe. Love you son." You say with a smile and get out of the car. You walk into what remains of the trailer park. You can't imagine this place looked much different before your family rightfully conquered it. Several of the trailers are overturned, a couple of them are on fire. In fact a couple of its inhabitants are also on fire. Bobby's younger siblings Aiden and Nadia are casually lighting up a third redneck tied to a stake when you walk over to them. They both respectfully bow when they see you. "Hello..." Aiden says. "Aunt Suzy." Nadia says. "Didn't expect to..." Aiden adds. "...see you here." Nadia finishes. "I'm surprising Bobby, have you seen him?" you ask, trying to speak over the screaming trailer trash burning alive. "Our brother..." Aiden says. "...we believe..." Nadia says. "is on..." Aiden adds. "the farside of the trailer park." They say in unison. "Okay then, I'll let you get back to it." You say and then they nod and go back to watching their victims burn. Passing more scenes of violence and waving to a couple of Bobby's cousins, nephews and nieces you eventually run into your youngest son Nergal who approaches with a young girl over his shoulder. He must have knocked her unconscious because she's not even struggling. Nergal may be the youngest of your children, but he's huge and towers over everyone else in your family. He'd be a scary figure to most, but to you, he's your baby. "Mom! When did you get here?" Nergal says excitedly. "Just now. Have you seen your father?" "Yeah, he's with Anu in that trailer near the edge of that large field over there. I think they're arguing about a possible plan to make raids on New Security next, but that was boring so I left to go have fun with what's left of the population here." "Looks like you got a good one son." You remark and point at the girl over his shoulder. "Yeah, this will be fun for awhile, but battle we had before...man it was great! You should've seen me mom! I almost racked up as many kills as Anu!" "That's good! Glad to hear it. Tiamat will be most pleased. Well, I'm here to see your father so I'll talk to you later. Love you son." You say and leave him to his aggressive dating strategy. You see the trailer that you guess Nergal was talking about and approach. Just before you do however, you hear several gunshots come from it. You stop for a moment and then proceed inside. You have nothing to fear. You are a chosen of Tiamat after all. When you enter the trailer, you see Anu standing over Bobby with a pistol in hand. Bobby lies on the floor with dead eyes and a several holes in his body. His own pistol lies near his hand. The funny thing is when you first saw Anu, you briefly thought it was Bobby. Anu looks a lot like his father back in his youthful days, minus his pinkies of course. "Awww, that's a shame. I did so want to surprise your father. Looks like the pair of you surprised me instead." You remark with a frown causing Anu to turn around. "He gave me no choice mother. He was no longer a fit leader. He told me that raiding New Security would be a bad idea." You walk up to Anu calmly and slap his face. He gives you a look of anger, but does nothing. "He was right. Raiding New Security is a horrible idea. It's too large and its defenses are strong. Better to consolidate our current holdings. We've got a whole town to play with now." You say before Anu rudely interrupts. "Bullshit! He was just being a coward! He was getting old and weak! He was no longer fit to serve Tiamat!" Anu remarks gruffly. You slap your son again causing his anger to rise. "Your father may have been many things, but never a coward. And true he was getting old, and obviously your reflexes were faster, but he wasn't weak either and he still was five times smarter than you, but then that isn't hard to do. We're not attacking New Security. End of story." You say dismissively before he grabs your arms forceful and slams you against the wall. You're hardly intimidated, Anu has always been predictable. "YOU are NOT in charge here mother! I AM! I have taken what is rightfully mine! I AM the head of this family now!" "So, you've taken what's rightfully yours eh? You gonna take me too? Or am I also too old?" you ask with a raise of your eyebrow. Anu releases you and opens your trench coat revealing your naked body. He stares and marvels at it as if it's a magical treasure...and for him, it just might be. He wastes no time in taking it off you and then starts to take off his belt. "Get on your knees mother." He orders which causes you to chuckle. "Oh I'll be getting on my knees, but we're not doing this the way YOU think. I came here primarily for your father." "The old bastard's dead in case you haven't noticed!" "And? That's supposed to stop me? (Sigh) you lack imagination, let me show you..." At this point you kneel down near Bobby's body and start pulling his bloody shirt up. Blood is everywhere, on his clothes, on the floor and still coming from his wounds. You start putting your hands in it and rubbing yourself all over until his blood is covering most of your own body. "Hmmmm, it's almost like I'm even closer to him now..." you say starting to finger yourself as Anu stands by watching. You then unzip Bobby's pants and pull out his dead dick. It's actually hard, which you didn't expect. "Ooooh baby...even in death...I can still turn you on. Here, let me prove how much I still love you..." you say and then lower your head down. While you're on your hands and knees in blood and enjoying the taste your dead husband's cock, your son Anu shakes off the initial shock and spurs into action. "Oh fuck this. He will NOT have you in death as well! I'll show him! I'll show you both!" Anu exclaims and gets behind you. You temporary stop what you're doing to turn your head to address your son. "It's about time you manned up and joined us. Just try not to bore me." You remark and go back to what you were doing while Anu hastily rubs the blood of his dead father on his dick to use as makeshift lube. Anu starts ramming his dick into your supple ass as if he's trying to hurt you, but thanks to your many interesting love making sessions with Bobby, this isn't your first rodeo. Plus he's not even as big as his father so that isn't an issue either. "That all you got son? Your father's a dead man and he's still turning me on more. Thought you were going to show me who was really in charge? " you mock. "I AM in fucking charge!" he says pulling your hair, which brings a smile to your face. "Come on then, make mommy happy!" you demand and Anu attempts to do just that. So much for being "in charge" you've got him right where you want him. He may be fucking you in the ass, but you're in charge. Just like you've always been and will continue to be. It will be pathetically easy to manipulate Anu into doing what you want. Still, maybe Anu does have what it takes to be an effective puppet king...at least in the short term, then in time you'll have Enki replace him...Enki looks more like you anyway. As you enjoy your twisted pleasures, you think about how you got to this point as you have in the past a few times before. You think about how easy it was for you to cross line after line after line and how it didn't even bother you that much to do so. Did you really get caught up in the murderous rhetoric of being in a sick cult or were you always prone to insanity and all of this was always "you"? Does it even matter at all? No. It doesn't. What matters is what you can enjoy now in this shitty world and you've got that right this minute. "All hail fucking Tiamat and her glorious chaos!" You laugh maniacally as you climax. You may not be Grandma Morningstar, but you're getting there.

[Themes: modern, female protagonist, serious, science fiction] That last statement doesn't sound right to you... "Wait a minute Helen. I thought you said yesterday that Veronica and Brandon ran to you and stayed with the kids when you parted company with them." Helen pauses for a moment. "Uh yeah, I did. Yes! I meant I left the kids alone, but just as I was leaving, it was fortunate that Veronica and Brandon showed up at that time so they weren't completely alone." Bobby's grandmother claimed you were slow on the uptake and maybe in dreamland you are, but you know damn well when someone is obviously lying to you. "That didn't happen Helen." You say. "Wha...yes it did!" Helen exclaims. "Okay then..." you say and sit down to take off your heels. "What are you doing?" "I'm taking off these fucking heels because I don't feel like nearly breaking my neck when we go ask Veronica and Brandon to confirm your story." "Um, I don't think that will be necessary. In fact, I think Bobby will be fine. Probably just wedding jitters. Apologies for bothering you and glad to see that the dress fits you." Helen says and starts backing towards the door. "You know now that I'm thinking about it, it seems pretty strange that Bobby would be crying and praying in front of Diana who I presume is sitting in a dungeon cage right now." "She was unconscious?" Helen says as if saying it in the tone of a question is going to cause it to be more believable. "Unconscious or not, I doubt Bobby would show any sort of weakness around Diana now. In fact I'm starting to doubt a lot of things..." At this point Helen's eyes widen in fear and she turns to run for the door. Just as she gets to the handle, you manage to bean her in the head with one of the heels. It's just enough to stop her from getting away before you rush over and grab her by the hair and throw her to the floor. "Out with it bitch." You say and lock the door. When she doesn't answer right away, you raise your hand and Helen starts to cry before you've even done anything. She cowers by curling up and putting her hands and arms in front of her completely submissively. "Please! Mercy! It wasn't my idea! It was all Diana! You just don't know what it's like having such a bullying older sister who dominates virtually every aspect of your life!" "Save the pity party speech about being a victim of sibling abuse. Heard it before and I already lived something similar so it doesn't impress me. Besides, I'm not buying this babe in the woods routine anymore Helen. At best you're lying to cover up the fact that Diana AND yourself were planning on killing me all along yesterday and you just covered your own ass when it looked like things weren't going to work out. At worst, this entire thing was your idea and Diana was just your dumb ass pawn. Either way, I'm not enthused and it doesn't change the fact that YOU were trying to kill me...were you going to make another attempt today? Huh? Is that why you came up here? Maybe push me down the stairs or something? Claim it was an accident? ANSWER ME AND DON'T FUCKING LIE!" "Okay! Okay! I'll tell you everything! Just please try to understand it wasn't personal! I actually like you!" "Not personal?! You like me? So I guess your plan to kill me was just your way of showing affection?" "No (sob) I did it because I just love (sob) Bobby so much! I always have and I stood on the sidelines too long. (sob) I was just so desperate..." You just shake your head and sigh at this point. Helen sits up from the floor and scoots back to prop herself up against your bed coughing, sniffling, and trying to regain her composure. You stand nearby ready to jump on her if she tries anything, but for now you allow this moment for her to "explain" as it were. "If there had been some way to remove you Suzy without killing you I would have done it. You have to believe me I really would have. I even thought about approaching you in a plan to kill Diana instead." "Yeah and then you would've probably killed me afterwards to make it look like Diana and I killed each other." "No! I was going to...well I was going to try to seduce you." "Excuse me?" you say completely surprised by that part of the explanation. "Well I wasn't sure, but I just sort of got a feeling from you that you might be a bit... flexible on your orientation." Helen says. "Wha... (sputter) What the hell would give you that impression?" you exclaim. "I dunno...sometimes I thought your eyes were wandering all over my body a little more than average whenever we spoke, plus you were so nice to me and you just sort of give off a lesbian vibe at times. I probably would've been too shy to go through with it anyway so it obviously wouldn't have worked." "You're damn right that wouldn't have worked! And what was your plan after that if your main goal was Bobby? Were you going to seduce me and while you were fucking me from behind with a big strap on you were going to plunge a knife in my back?" you ask Helen. "No, I told you, if I didn't have to kill you, I wouldn't have. I would have just suggested that we both marry Bobby. It's not common, but our religion does allow for multiple wives. I think... I think I could have shared him with you." "...I...I can't believe how fucked up this situation even is..." you say sitting down on a nearby chair. Meanwhile Helen continues her tale of woe. "But I approached Diana because she was my sister and I knew her better. She was predictable. After I saw you beat her and after Bobby laid down the law to her about how it was over, she was a broken woman. Seriously, I'd never seen her confidence so shaken. After being on the receiving end of her abuse for so long, it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. So I convinced her of the plan...actually took me longer than I thought it would. I thought she'd be hungry for revenge, but no. I had to reignite that fire, but I knew she'd agree in the end." "So she WAS trying to kill me too." You say. "Oh yes. That was the plan as far as she knew. She'd kill you, but then I'd kill her and make up an excuse that I tried to save you or something similar. Of course when you stayed with Bobby during that whole time we were dealing with Aaron, I knew it wasn't going to work which then resulted in an argument between me and Diana since she was now back to bullying mode. I knocked her out and I nearly killed her then, but I thought suggesting that she be your sacrifice on your wedding day would be fitting. When I found out Aaron had killed all the other prisoners...well that worked out even better since you suggested it." "But you still wanted to kill me." "Yes...after the chaos of yesterday and after I saw how you stuck by Bobby. I knew you really did love Bobby as much as Diana did...maybe even as much as me. So I temporary rethought my actions. I thought maybe I could live with Bobby being with someone like you. I mean you were nice to me at least. And I knew at least Bobby would be happy with you. When I woke up this morning though, I realized I just couldn't let you have him without at least making one last ditch effort...and so here we are." At this point Helen starts to lose what little composure she mustered up to tell her side of the story. She starts to break down in tears again and apologizes to you and going on about how much she loves Bobby. It's really pitiful and sad. You can't believe you're almost considering NOT killing her now. Before you can come to any sort of conclusion, you hear shooting and screaming from outside. Still keeping an eye on Helen, you edge over to the window and take a peek. You see several figures crawling under the truck blocking the broken front gate or trying to climb the fence. The ones that have gotten in are loping in a wild jerky like motion. They're also screaming, howling and making inhuman sounds. From your vantage point they LOOK human, but they're certainly not acting like it. A loud banging on the door occurs next and you glare at Helen who doesn't make a sound. "Hey! Suzy! You in there?! Why's this door locked?" you hear a voice shout. You think its Veronica. "Yeah, I'm in here. What's going on? I just heard all the commotion." You answer. "We're being attacked by zombies!" Veronica answers. You and Helen look over at each other briefly. "Did you say zombies?" you ask. "Yeah, I mean...I dunno if they are. Maybe they're just rabid humans or something, but they're gnashing their teeth, moaning and coming at us like something out of a horror movie. We need all the help we can get to repel these things!" "Okay, Veronica. I'll be out in a moment!" you yell. "Well hurry up...and you haven't seen Helen have you?" Helen and you look at each other again. "Yeah, she's in here with me. I was trying on my wedding dress that she brought." You say. "If the pair of you don't stop playing dress up, there won't be a damn wedding! Bobby's having a hard enough time trying to keep them from getting close to the house!" A loud crashing noise followed by gunfire is heard from downstairs. "Shit! That sounded close! I gotta go!" Veronica shouts and you hear her run off. Well it looks like Bobby's "pep talk" yesterday lit a fire under his relative's asses to pull their weight around here at least. "(Sigh) Fucking zombies. Of course this day HAD to get worse..." you say shaking your head. "Suzy, we need to go to Bobby, he needs our help." "We?" you ask. "...I...look...I know what's just occurred between us and you have no reason to trust me, but from what Veronica said, it sound like this is a bad attack and we'll need everyone we can to stop it!" She might have a point or she might just be stalling for a chance to escape or clobber you in the head. Possibly both. > You take Helen with you While you're very tempted to kill her, the immediate threat at hand does present the need for every possible person to help even if that means throwing Helen to the zombies to buy yourself time if you need to. "Alright, get up Helen, let's go help Bobby." You say offering a hand to help her up. Helen looks up at you and takes your hand trustingly. When she stands up, she starts to look relieved, then she tenses up again when you go to Bobby's clothing drawer to get the spare gun he mentioned yesterday. "Relax, this is for the zombies, or whatever those things are." You say. "Oh." "Yeah, well don't look too relieved Helen. After this is over, me and you are going to settle up." You say. "I...understand." Helen says while nodding. "Okay then, you first." You say gesturing towards the door. "Wait, aren't you going to change?" Helen asks. "Huh? Oh. No, it's my fucking wedding day, why shouldn't I wear my dress?" "Um, okay then." Helen cautiously unlocks and opens the door. You both hear the sounds of gunfire and more glass breaking downstairs, this followed by shouting and inhuman growling. "Suzy, I don't have a weapon." Helen remarks. "Well I guess you're just going to have to trust me to protect you, because I'm certainly not giving you one." You say. Defeated, Helen stops stalling and you both leave and proceed downstairs. (Making sure she's in front of you of course) The growling, shouting and the gunfire get louder. As you head towards the center of the house, Helen freezes up in fear. "Helen, move your ass! We don't have..." you start to say and then suddenly one of the things bursts through the door in front of you and Helen. Helen screams and practically crumples to the floor in front of you in terror. Unfortunately for you the thing in question lunges over Helen and right at you! You fall backwards and drop your gun in the process. You manage to keep it from biting your face off by at least pushing your forearms up across its neck. At this close range, it doesn't look rotten, just very dirty looking and crazed. Still, undead or not, you don't want to risk getting bit, let alone killed and eaten. As you struggle with the creature on the floor, you briefly look desperately over the gun that you dropped and try to reach for it, but it's just out your grasp. The thing nearly bites you again and tightens its grip on your arms in an attempt to immobilize you. Even your knees to its groin don't help. Then out the corner of your eye you see another hand reach for the gun. "Shit." You say knowing that this isn't good. Then a shot is fired into the side of the thing's head and blood splatters on you, the floor and partially on the nearby wall. You try to pull yourself out from under the corpse, but at this range Helen isn't going to miss even if you could free yourself quickly. You just give her a glaring look of hatred as she points the gun at you even if she does look like she doesn't want to do it. "I knew I should've killed your treacherous ass." You say. "I'm sorry Suzy, but I just can't trust you, anymore than you can trust me. I wish this could've been different." Helen responds Before you have any more last words, Helen ends your life with several shots to your head.

This is the man you've chosen to marry for better or worse. If you aren't going to help him in a matter of life or death then that wouldn't say much for your commitment. Besides, if he gets killed this whole compound is going to turn to shit and you'd no doubt be at the bottom of it, assuming Aaron doesn't kill you all first. Pulling away from Helen, you grab one of the dropped rifles by one of Bobby's family and rush outside towards Bobby who is still taking cover behind a car and firing upon the Aaron. He sees you out the corner of his eye while still keeping an eye on the direction of the truck. "Keep your head down, I think Aaron escaped out the passenger door of the truck and is hiding behind Brandon's car now. Where the hell did you come from anyway? I told Helen to go get you and the younger children to a safer location when Aaron showed up." Bobby exclaims. "Yeah well I'm showing you that I'm not just going to let you do this shit alone. I'm with you all the way. No hiding with Helen and the kids, no matter what you say." You're interrupted by gunfire on your position and Aaron ranting. "You think you can stop what's coming by hiding? Hah! People are already fucking EATING each other out there! Shit, I'll be doing you a favor by killing you now. Actually now that I think about... your blonde bitch looks like a fine piece of ass in more way than one!" Aaron shouts and starts laughing maniacally and then throws another grenade your way. You and Bobby have no choice but to leave your position and make a dash back to the house entrance. It's somewhat of a minor miracle that you and Bobby aren't hit by any of the bullets he fires at you. You manage to get inside just as the grenade goes off and adds to the total of destroyed vehicles outside. You and Bobby are on the floor though Bobby has partially managed to cover you with his own body. "What the hell did he do, rip off the entire National Guard armory?" you say as Bobby back kicks the front door shut from his prone position. "I don't know but..." Two more explosions are heard on the left side of compound. Aaron is apparently throwing explosives through the windows now. "Shit, I hope nobody ran and hid over there." You remark as the pair of you start to get up off the floor. "Where the fuck IS everyone anyway? Nice to know I can REALLY count on these fuckers when the going gets tough. Why the fuck am I even bothering again? Fuck!" Bobby yells in frustration. You understand his anger, but it's probably not the best time for a rant. "Bobby, calm yourself. You can yell at those idiots later, but right now all that matters is that I'm here helping you okay?" you say. "Hey...I'll help too..." a voice suddenly says. You both look and see that it's Helen with a pistol in hand. "Helen, you're supposed to be with the children!" Bobby exclaims. "Veronica and Brandon are with them. When they ran, the children's room upstairs was the first place they went. Guess they were concerned about their daughters." "...well I guess I can understand the pair of them running to their children. So they're looking after all the kids then?" Bobby remarks. "Yeah, I figured since they were doing that, I'd come help you, though I hope I just don't get in the way." "No, it's good. Glad you're here Helen. What about Ronald and Denise?" Bobby says. "Haven't seen them. Um, I haven't seen Diana either...in case you were wondering." Helen remarks briefly glancing at you after saying it. "Hopefully Aaron kills her." You remark. "Yeah, well I actually was going to exile her today, but that might have to wait assuming Aaron doesn't kill her." Bobby says. "Okay, enough of all this. What's the game plan?" you ask slightly disappointed that Bobby's decision was to exile Diana rather than death, but you aren't entirely surprised. Still, there's always the hope that Aaron does kill her. Bobby quickly snaps back to the situation at hand. "Well it sounds like he's stopped with the explosives, or maybe he's just fishing out more. I'd say the safest bet is to get to the second floor and shoot him through one of the windows. No point in going back out the front door when we can get the vantage point." "How do we know he's still outside, he might've already entered house through one of the holes he's undoubtedly made with his grenades." You say. "Yeah true. No telling where he might be heading first. The armory maybe?" Helen remarks. "He's still gotta come through this way if he wants to go there. Given his state of mind though he might also try to do something like run upstairs and kill all the children for fun. Hell, I wouldn't put it past him to try to access the prisoner's dungeon and set them all free. It is on the left wing after all." Maybe we should split up and take different floors?" Helen asks. "Maybe though I'm not keen on the idea of splitting up. (Sigh) Okay. Since you said Brandon and Veronica are with the children, I'm going to hope they're up to dealing with Aaron if he shows up. I'm going to the left wing of the house and try to stop him there. I want you two to stay here and guard the foyer in case he somehow manages to sneak past me and is heading towards the armory. He's going to have come through here." Bobby says. Helen immediately complies with the plan, but you're not so sure. "I really think I should come with you. Splitting up is always a bad idea in these situations." "I don't like it either, but it's a big house and we need to cast a wide net to deal with this asshole." Bobby says and then puts his arm over you and takes you aside. "Besides, as glad as I am that Helen stepped up, we both know she's not exactly a fighter. I don't want her coming with me and possibly getting in my way when I'm hunting Aaron, but by the same token I'd feel more comfortable if you were here with her since I know you can handle yourself and aren't going to freeze up in a fight. I'll be fine by myself. Don't worry about me. I mean I did kill your uncle Ed by myself right?" Bobby whispers. You glance over at Helen and as brave as she's trying to appear, she still looks like a deer in the headlights. Bobby's right in that her survival would probably increase if you were here and she had the misfortune of Aaron popping up. Then again by the same token, YOU'D actually feel safer being with Bobby. You'd also worry less about Bobby's own safety if you were watching his back. After all, this situation is also little different than the one with your uncle. Aaron's not just carrying a knife; he's carrying around grenades and machine guns for one thing. Also, while Helen might be a nice girl, she's ultimately not your responsibility. > You stay with Helen Bobby is going to be able to take care of himself and if he feels more comfortable with you staying with Helen, well it'll probably put one less distraction in his mind while he's looking for Aaron. Also now that the gunfire has died down a bit, you've gotten a breather to realize that maybe you rushed into things a little quickly due to wanting to help Bobby so bad. Aaron is really dangerous and you nearly got yourself killed. Maybe you're becoming more assertive, but you probably should realize you're not some amazon princess to go in guns blazing. "Okay Bobby, I'll stay with Helen, but please be careful." You remark. "I'll be fine, you two just keep a look out and remember, if you see him, don't talk, just shoot. Oh and if Ronald and Denise ever come out of hiding and pass through here, tell them to fucking help you." Bobby says and then kisses you before heading to the left wing of the house. Soon after Bobby leaves, you put your back against one of the walls and start keeping an eye on the doorways. Helen tries to do the same, but she paces a lot more. It's obvious she's nervous, but the fact that she's nervous, starts making you nervous. "Helen will you stop pacing like that? You're putting me more on edge than necessary." You say. "Sorry. This is just so nerve racking. I'm really worried about Bobby you know? I wonder if we should've gone with him." "You heard what he said, he wants us to stay here to make sure Aaron doesn't manage to run around him to other parts of the house. Besides he said he can handle Aaron and I trust him." You say. "Yeah I guess you're ri...AH! WHAT WAS THAT?!" Helen suddenly exclaims causing you to jump. "Don't fucking do that!" you say. "But didn't you hear that noise? It sounds like its coming from the left wing where Bobby went." "I didn't hear anything, you're paranoid." "I swear! I heard something! Ohhh, I think we should go help Bobby, but I dunno...oh I wish none of this was going on!" Helen says and begins pacing in the middle of the room even more to the point of starting to shake a bit. At this moment you starting to get concerned she's going to accidently fire off her gun at you, not to mention she's starting to get on your nerves. You walk over to not so gently calm her down. "HELEN! Stop it and clam the fuck down!" you say and grab Helen's arm tightly. Then you briefly hear the sounds of rushing footsteps behind you and you don't even get to completely turn around before you feel a crushing blow to the side of your head. You crumple to the floor on your knees and then another blow to your head causes you to collapse flat on the floor and lose grip of your rifle. A pair of blurry hands quickly grabs it from you. "What took you so long?" Helen asks. "Had to wait for a fucking opportunity. Took YOU long enough to distract her." "Well hurry up, I'm worried about Bobby! I think we should help him." "He'll be fine, I'm going to enjoy this...turn your ass over bitch, I wanna look you in the eye when I kill you." Diana says and kicks you over. You vision is blurry due to the blows to the head you've taken, but you can make out the image of Diana pointing a rifle straight at you. You try to get up, but Diana kicks you in the face. "Diana, hurry up!" "Will you shut the fuck up Helen? I'm trying to savor the moment and you're ruining it!" "I don't want one of our cousins suddenly walking in on us!" "Oh like they're going to do anything...(Sigh) fine. I swear Helen, you're no fun whatsoever. Well blondie, I wish I could take more time with you, but time isn't on my side any more than its on yours right now, so guess this is it. You never should've laid eyes on Bobby bitch." Diana says. Despite Diana aiming for your head and being at this close range she manages to completely fuck up her shot and hit you in the throat instead which doesn't kill you instantly. Of course maybe that was her intension to let you suffer a bit more. As you gurgle, choke and start to die, you hear two more shots and through blurry (and now dimming) vision you see Diana's image get hit and fall backwards. Helen kneels down next to you and starts stroking the top of your head and hair as you bleed out and die. "Shhhh, it'll be over soon. I'm so sorry for this Suzy. I always liked you. You were just in the way..." are the last words you hear.

"And Suzy is the winner of the world twelve inch salami eating championship! Let's all hear it for our little blonde small town girl!" The announcer shouts which is followed by a roaring crowd. Not even feeling full, you wipe the sour cream off your lips... and you stand up and yell: "Alright this is getting fucking insulting! For the past four nights now I've been winning contests involving eating phallic shaped food. What the fuck is the symbolism here? That I'm some whore that sucks cock all the time? For fuck's sake, I've only had the one goddamn boyfriend and soon to be husband. If anything I'm the exact opposite of a whore! So whoever or WHATEVER is trying to send a message to me needs to just come out and fucking say it." And with those words of indignation, your surroundings immediately change to that of a blasted wasteland. There is nothing around you save for burned out buildings in the distance and dead landscape. Reminds you a bit of a video game you once played. "You know, the entire world is soon going to look like this...how I wish I could be young and alive to experience the uncertainty and chaos that is going to shape the years to follow." You hear a voice say. You turn around and see Bobby's grandmother again. She's an old lady walking with a cane this time. "But enough about the future, let's talk about the present. You survived a lot longer than I thought you would, maybe you are worthy of my grandson after all. You even are starting to manipulate him a bit, that's good. The true leaders in Tiamat's service have always been women anyway. I swear if it wasn't for us prodding them in the right direction every now and then, most men would be content just jacking off to pass the time. Still, you aren't quite there yet. I think today should prove to quite interesting. Survive today and you might just meet Misty yet." "Okay, I want some answers, who the hell is Misty, and what's going to happen today?" you demand. "You'll find out soon enough what's going to happen and as for Misty, well why don't you put some thought into it. I mean it's pretty simple even for you blondie." Bobby's grandmother replies with slight distain. "Well what's deal with all these contests in my dreams?" "Sorry, I really don't know anything about that. If you're lucky and actually meet Misty, maybe you can ask her, but I just assumed you really liked dreaming about sucking dick...in a symbolic way I guess. Hmm, come to think of it this would explain why Bobby's so enamored with you. Maybe you aren't a whore blondie, but you sure got the mouth of one. It's almost as if it was a highway for oral sex." "Hey!" "Don't take offense blondie. It's a good thing. Suck a man's dick right, and you can practically get him to do ANYTHING for you. I mean you got natural talent. Hell, maybe even Tiamat blessed you with it so you stood an equal chance against Diana. Now that girl, as much as she loves Bobby, she just can't suck a dick properly. Bad gag reflex, slightly oversized teeth, I dunno. Tiamat works in whimsical ways I suppose." "How do you even know all...nevermind I don't want to hear anymore." You say. Bobby's grandmother ignores you though and continues to speak. "Still, Bobby always did have a slight obsession for blowjobs. He likes them a lot more than he's probably told you. He's a bit too much of a gentleman that way." "Gah! I'm done listening!" you shout feeling increasingly uncomfortable about hearing Bobby's grandmother talk about his sexual interests. "Oh, alright Miss Prude. I'm rambling and it's time for you to go anyway. See ya Deep Throat!" Bobby's grandmother cackles again and then raises her cane and all your surroundings go black... And then you wake up. "Something bad is going to happen today." You say to yourself. (Then again why should today be any different from the rest of this week?) You look around and see nobody in the room (Save for Bobby's grandmother's portrait staring like a gargoyle). Looks like Bobby woke up before you as usual. You look at the time on your phone and see you've actually slept until the afternoon. While the normal thing for you to do would be to just stay in your room and avoid everyone, but given your recent dream, you think your best bet might be to be a little proactive today. After going through your usual routine of washing up and getting dressed you head down to the main living area where you know everyone usually gathers. Before you get there you bump into Helen, who looks a bit harried and is carrying a pistol in one hand. "There you are, good. Saves me time. Bobby told me to go get you." Helen says. "Wha...what's going on?" you ask. "Aaron came back and he's threatening to drive an army truck through the front gate if we all don't leave the compound. He claims that we're defying Tiamat by not embracing the chaos outside. Bobby's been trying to negotiate with him through the intercom, but he thinks we're going to have no option but to open fire on Aaron." "Where the hell did he get an army truck? Is William with him?" "Apparently the town has been in a state of martial law since yesterday and the National Guard have taken over according to Aaron's ranting. I guess he stole one. I don't think William is with him. Anyway Bobby wants you to be safe so follow me to where all the children..." Loud shouting by Bobby in the distance suddenly interrupts Helen. You immediately rush towards where he might be located despite the protests by the Helen that you need to come with her though she just runs along with you. You soon manage to catch up with the most of the family (Save for the younger children and Diana) who are standing in the foyer with their weapons ready and Bobby who has opened the front door. "Aaron, I tried being reasonable. YOU left here without permission, but that was fine because it's obvious you didn't feel happy here. There are several paths to Tiamat's glory and you obviously had your own ideas about which one you should pick. Anyone here is free to leave, but NOBODY is going to be forced to leave due to your threats! Again, if you try coming in here, you're going to be shot down like a fucking dog and I'll personally perform Tiamat's ritual of desecration over your stinking body so your soul NEVER enters Timat's glory!" Bobby shouts and walks out with his rifle drawn. Bobby's brother Jordan is the first one who cautiously follows afterwards and then everyone else slowly walks towards the door as well. You don't think anyone has even paid any attention to you or Helen (who keeps pulling on you to leave). "My soul is already with Tiamat! You can't do shit about it ritual boy! If you unworthy fucks won't embrace chaos as Tiamat intended, then I'm gonna bring it to you!" Aaron shouts through a bullhorn, which is followed by a laugh. The truck revs up and Bobby orders everyone to open fire. You and Helen are still inside at this point so you don't actually do so and just hang back as you watch Aaron mow through the gate followed by a hail of bullets peppering the oncoming truck. The truck swerves hard to the left smashes into Brandon's parked vehicle. You can hear him swearing about it. Meanwhile you also see Jordan jumping up and down in victory and running over to the wrecked truck. "Yeah! We got that bastard! Whoo!" he shouts. "Hey Jordan, get the fuck back here, don't go off ahead like that by yourself!" Bobby shouts. "Aw, it's fine, he didn't survive that!" And that's when Aaron proves Jordan wrong, starting by recovering from his crash and shooting several holes into Jordan. Then he follows up by throwing several grenades out the truck window. "SHIT!" Bobby shouts and everyone runs back, but not before several explosions occur. Nobody is killed, but everyone scrambles and on the ground crawling for cover. Bobby himself crawls behind cover of another parked vehicle and continues to fire in the direction of the truck. Helen now really tugs at you saying you need to come with her where its safe, but you wonder if you should try to help Bobby considering he's the only one currently trying to kill Aaron. Everyone else has completely retreated and is even running past you. > You go with Helen Getting into a fistfight with Diana is one thing, but you're definitely not up to dealing with this crazy asshole. You just hope Bobby is up for dealing with him though apparently Helen thinks so as you start to allow yourself to be pulled away by her. "Come on! Bobby can handle this, but we need to get to the children where its safe!" Helen exclaims and you start to follow her. The pair of you run upstairs away from the sounds of shouting and gunfire. You soon reach the top and follow Helen through a corridor doorway. Then you promptly get smashed in the face hard by a blunt object. You fall backwards and through blurry eyes you see the image of Diana walking towards you holding a small bat. You attempt to get up, but the next blow is to your legs causing you to cry out. "Diana! Hurry up! Someone might hear that and see all this! Besides I want to go help Bobby!" Helen exclaims. "Will you shut the fuck up Helen? I want to enjoy this. Besides, sounds like Aaron is keeping everyone occupied, and ain't nobody coming for this bitch." Diana says. "Don't be so sure, just hurry up and kill her. We should go help Bobby anyway." "(Sigh) Fine. I swear Helen, you're no fun whatsoever. Well blondie, I wish I could take more time with you, but time isn't on my side any more than it's on yours right now, so guess this is it. You never should've laid eyes on Bobby bitch." Diana says. Diana ceases your screaming with another blow to the head and then another and another. While your face is mashed into mush, your vision becoming dark and your breathing becoming more erratic, your hearing isn't completely gone and you hear several gunshots and Diana's body falling partly on your own. You then hear a very faint voice say, "I'm sorry" before everything goes black.

[Themes: modern, female protagonist, horror, humor] "And Suzy is the winner of the world cucumber eating championship! Let's all hear it for our little blonde small town girl!" The announcer shouts which is followed by a roaring crowd. Not even feeling full, you wipe away the ranch dressing on your lips, graciously stand up and bow for your adoring fans. The Minotaur on your right looks at you in disbelief and then turns away to puke in a trough. Meanwhile the little Asian satyr on your left just shakes his head wondering how the hell you could've beaten him. "I don't understand it...all my training. I glanced over at you during the contest...you...you were barely even chewing! How?" He asks. "Oh just natural talent at swallowing cucumbers I suppose." You reply humbly and wink at the audience, which continues to praise you. While you're blowing kisses at your fans, you suddenly get a feeling you've done something like this before. In fact you remember you HAVE participated in similar contests and you can't help but think there's some sort of connection with what you've been eating at these things. Suddenly a hand touches your shoulder and you spin around to see a woman with long raven colored hair and a low cut black gown. It's Bobby's grandmother. This time she's a little older and she still doesn't look too impressed with you. "Yeah that's great you got a skill and its real obvious that's one of the things Bobby loves about you because men in general tend to make their most important decisions with their dicks." She says to you. "Excuse me?" you reply. "To be honest I'm not even too sure about him, but nobody appears to have the ambition to stand up to him or are otherwise too much in love with him. That's Diana's problem right there. Anyway, MAYBE there is more to you than meets the eye. You might just meet Misty yet." "Okay who the hell is Misty?" you ask. "Sheesh, you really are slow on the uptake there blondie. Well maybe you'll get it, maybe you won't. I don't give a shit either way. Off you go then." Bobby's grandmother at this point snaps her fingers and at this point the Minotaur grabs your upper body and the satyr grabs your legs while the audience cheers them on. You attempt to struggle without success, then a giant hole in the ground between the stage and the audience opens up. A swirling black void appears at the bottom. Without another word, you are tossed in which is followed by your screaming, the audience's cheering and Bobby's grandmother laughing. You fall and eventually the light from above grows dimmer until you are enveloped in complete darkness. Then you wake up suddenly with one of your hands tightly clutching to the side of the bed. "No! Huh? Shit! Oh. Good. Not falling. Fucking bitch." You incoherently mumble, which is heard by Bobby who is in the room getting dressed. "You okay over there?" he asks. "Hrm? Oh. Nothing. Just another fucked up dream. What's going on?" you ask rubbing your eyes. "Nothing much, just some more of my family showed up here in the middle of the night. I was just about to wake you up to finally have you come meet everyone properly. Now I know you probably don't really want to but..." "Yeah, whatever let's do it." You interrupt and get out of bed. "Wow, I didn't expect you to be so accommodating so quickly." "Don't have much of choice now do I? I mean I'm going to have to get along with all these people. Better I make my good impressions as soon as possible before Diana starts spreading lies about me." "Suzy, I wouldn't worry about..." "Have you spoken to her yet?" you interrupt again. "Well no." "Well until you do and lay down the fucking law, I'm going to assume she's already caused a shitload of damage." Bobby stops dressing for a moment. "Suzy, what's wrong? I thought we were good with our talk yesterday." "WE are good. Diana and me though? Never will be and something is going to have to be done about it." "Suzy, I TOLD you I'd fucking talk to her alright?" "Yeah, we'll see." You say and close the bathroom door. As you wash up, you wonder if you were unnecessarily bitchy with Bobby, but then you think no you weren't. You have a legitimate gripe against a woman who is trying to kill you and he's SUPPOSED to be doing something about it. Honestly at this point you wish he'd do more than talk, but you suppose that's wishful thinking. That dream really put you in a bad mood. Especially since you've had it three times now and it always ends with you getting fucked up in some way. Not to mention Bobby's grandmother has started appearing in them. You've never been one to believe in the supernatural, but the dream shit is really starting to get too weird for you to ignore as just your subconscious in play. You're starting to wonder if Bobby's grandmother is mocking you from beyond the grave and one thing you don't need right now is yet another Morningstar woman on your case. On top of all that, you still ache from yesterday's fight, but the hot shower at least feels good. After leaving the bathroom you get dressed. Bobby is still in the bedroom waiting for you. He doesn't say much, but that's probably because he's trying to avoid an argument just before the pair of you are supposed to be "formally" meeting his people. "Okay, I'm ready." You say when you finish getting dressed, Bobby nods and the pair of you leave the room. Bobby finally speaks to you again as you walk and talk, though you're mostly just listening to him going on about the other family members you haven't met yet and how to best handle them. To be honest, you've already made up your mind that you're going to treat them how they treat you. Eventually you get to the large living area where you see familiar faces along with unknown ones. William sits in a large comfy looking chair and nods at you, taking a drink. You see that Brandon guy with a slightly chubby woman, you're guessing that's his wife Veronica. They both greet you, but nothing more than that. You also see three new people who are more of Bobby's cousins. They all introduce themselves, but much like Brandon and Veronica, they don't do much more than that. You don't get the impression any of this is personal either. Aaron doesn't seem like he wants to be here at all. Ronald and Denise look more interested in each other than anyone else at the moment. You then see Helen again who looks like she has her hands full with several boys and girls. She still manages to wave hi to you though. The kids themselves look at you, but seem to be pre-occupied with bickering with each other. "How many of those are your siblings again?" you whisper to Bobby. "Oh just the three. The oldest boy there Jordan and the twins Aiden and Nadia. The other half are Brandon and his wife's kids." He answers. "Um, shouldn't they be looking after them then?" "I'm sure they do all the time and are just taking advantage of the extra support system they have now. I mean they trust Helen to look after them and Helen said she was happy to do it. Besides, everyone is family here so it hardly matters who is looking after them directly." While you haven't known these people long, you know Helen's personality well enough that she'd agree to anything since she seems to be the family doormat. You don't see Diana, but someone mentions she's in the kitchen making food for everyone. "Okay, I'm going to go do this now, because I don't want to do it later. I'm going to go speak with Diana and straighten everything out and make it clear there is to be no more dissension in the family today." "Hm, while you're at it make sure she's not putting rat poison in my food." You remark. Bobby heads into the kitchen leaving you alone with the rest of his family. Having little else to do, you make the attempt to be social. Brandon and Veronica are more talkative than the rest. They ask you a few questions and you answer. They don't seem to really care too much about you though. As far as they're concerned it isn't their place to disapprove of you even if you caused such a negative reaction in them, which apparently you don't. You almost get the impression they find you more boring than anything else, which unfortunately due to your basement dwelling past might very well be a fair assessment. But you'll take apathy because it's better than hatred. Bobby's other cousins are more of a mixed bag. Aaron barely speaks to you at all and he's pretty snappish when he does. He seems like he's a pent up ball of nerves since he's tapping his foot and moving one of his hands the entire time. In fact the more of an effort that you try to speak to him, the more hostile he starts to look. The moment you get the feeling of his eyes burning a hole in you the more you decide to move on. By the time you get to Ronald and Denise, they're making out, so you don't even bother. Which leaves you with William and Helen, the latter of which has already left the room with all the little kids of this family presumably to be out of the way as usual. William on the other hand is still relaxing in a chair at the far end of the room and watching something on TV. Well at least you know those two are friendly with you. > You go speak to Helen Well at least you know Helen is going to be friendly with you. She's pleasant with everyone. You head into the next room and see Helen sitting in a chair preoccupied with watching the six children also in the room. While they're being loud, they're at least playing games and not being too disruptive. Helen sees you and smiles. "Hey Helen." You say sitting next to her on the couch. "Hey Suzy. As you can see I'm just doing my role in this family." She says pointing to the children. "Do you really need to look after them? Seems like they're old enough to play by themselves." You ask. "It's not them we'd worry about, it's the rest of this compound! While it may not look like it now, these little ones are balls of chaotic energy. Morningstar children have always needed a little extra supervision if only so they don't end up burning the entire places to the ground. However it is true they all seem to be a little more subdued today. Even Jordan is playing with his siblings rather than fighting with them." Helen says. "Um, which one's Jordan?" you ask already forgetting Bobby already told you. "Jordan's the oldest boy. He's over there playing with his siblings Aiden and Nadia. They're twins as you can tell. Actually those three are also my younger brothers and sister, so I do have a bit of a duty to watch out for them. Jordan's getting to the point where I think Bobby is going to have to start training him though. He's just becoming a teenager and he really wants to be like his older brother, but sadly he isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. He's a still a fine boy though, he even has a bit of a crush on me which is sort of cute." Helen says with a minor giggle. "Erm...yeah...so what about the twins?" you ask changing that last mildly disturbing remark. "Oh those two are very intelligent. They even got a mental link to each other." "What really?" you ask. "Really. They often just sit across from each other nodding and occasionally changing expressions at each other. It's like they're having a conversation with their minds or something. I dunno, but sometimes it feels like they're making private jokes about all of us. Jordan in particular and while he's not the brightest, he's smart enough to know when he thinks he's being made fun of. And that's when I often have to step in and tell them not to mock their brother." At this point both twins look in your direction and Helen's. They give a peculiar smile and then return to the game they're playing with Jordan. It's enough to make you feel a little uneasy. "Um, Helen, they can't read our minds can they?" you ask. "Oh no...at least I don't think so. I mean I never even thought of that before. Oh dear, now I'm going to wonder about that." Helen says. "Sorry didn't mean to add to your worries Helen...or my own for that matter." You say. "Oh, I'm not really that worried. Even if they can, we're all family anyway and they know I have no ill thoughts about them or anyone connected to it...and that's going to include you too soon." Helen says and smiles. Helen next mentions that ever since Veronica and Brandon arrived, their children have pretty much been put under her care. She then points out Ione and Hannah (Who are playing another game with each other) and Leon (Who is building something and seemingly content to play by himself). "Geez Helen, you look like you always got your hands full, are you really okay looking after all the children all the time?" you ask. "Oh...it's not so bad. I mean like I said, we're all family. What's family for if not to help one another? Besides, I know nobody else really wants to do or otherwise has other major responsibilities." "What responsibilities do Veronica and Brandon have? I haven't seen them do anything since I got here. I mean they got three kids, and they've obviously been taking care of them before coming here. They shouldn't just be passing them on to you just because it's convenient. You deserve to have your own time to yourself." "Really it's okay Suzy. I like looking after all of them. Besides, I don't think the children would want someone other than myself doing it anyway. When you and Bobby have children I fully expect you'll want help on the supervision front won't you?" "Well...probably. I was talking about this subject a little to Bobby last night and to be honest I'm still not exactly enamored with the notion of popping out a bunch of them. The idea of the pain involved isn't exactly something I'm looking forward to." "Well I don't think any woman looks forward to that part. It's the joy of bringing a new life into this world, raising them and loving them." "I...guess...I dunno. Hell I'm still having trouble with the concept of marriage, let alone kids." "Oh? Is it the ritual sacrifice to Tiamat that's got you a little baffled? Don't worry, you don't need to memorize any prayers, Bobby will probably tell you what to say or he'll make the appropriate chants himself." Helen asks. "What? Wait. I know you guys sacrifice people, but is that going to go on at the wedding?" "Well of course. It's tradition for the one to marry into this family to prove themselves to be worth of Tiamat by making a sacrifice." "Wait, you mean I'M going to be the one doing it?" "Well yeah...you mean Bobby didn't tell you? Oh dear. I didn't mean to ruin the surprise." Helen says. "Oh it's a surprise alright." "Well if you're worried about messing up, we've got more than enough prisoners in the dungeon you could practice on tomorrow." "Prisoners? Dungeon? Oh geez..." you say and rub your hand over your head. Helen pats you on the back a bit and tries to look understanding. "I take it, you've never killed anyone before?" Helen asks. "Of course I haven't! Why would I?" you exclaim. "I just figured you having a serial killer uncle and all...plus Bobby said you helped him kill your uncle." "I didn't really have a hand in that directly. Are you saying YOU'VE killed someone before?" "Oh yes, but I'm not exactly fond of it, but we all have to do our part to serve Tiamat." The fact that Helen just told you so cheerfully and without any hesitation that she's committed murder, makes her seem a lot less harmless in your eyes. "Wait, so how many? When?" you ask. "Oh not many. First time was about when I was Jordan's age. However, since Bobby is the head of the house, he mostly does it. Just like our father did before him. Diana sometimes does it, but I try to avoid doing it unless I really have to...I know I shouldn't feel anything for infidels, but sometimes I can't help it. Then I try to remember that their souls are going to feed Tiamat so it's all for a good cause." This is nuts... Right now you're just wondering how deep of shit you've gotten yourself into. "I...dunno if I'm going to be able to do this Helen..." you say. "Oh don't say that! You'll be fine!" Helen says trying to be supportive. "I don't think I will. The most fucked up thing is, I'm still more worried about having kids!" "You still concerned about that? That will come naturally, I don't think you should worry." "I dunno Helen. I'm obviously not like you. I thought we were more similar in many ways, mainly because we both had to put up with an asshole older sister, but it's turning out we're pretty different. I mean unlike me you'd obviously make a very good mother. You're nice, attentive and everything." You say. Helen's eyes light up a bit when you say that and she grabs your hand. "Thank you. You have no idea how touched I am right now to hear those words." She says and then leans in quick to give you a quick peck on the cheek. It surprises the hell out of you and you recoil a bit. Helen's expression turns from one of happiness to one of worry. "Oh no. I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I shouldn't have done that! By Tiamat, what was I thinking. I'm so sorry Suzy!" she starts saying which causes a lot of the children to start watching the pair of you. Helen stands up and begins to panic still repeating to you about how sorry she is, you think she's going to have an anxiety attack. "Helen. Helen. Calm yourself. It's...well...it's okay. I mean I know you were just trying to be friendly and didn't mean anything else by it. You just caught me by surprise, no harm done..." you say. "No...I can't...you'll have to excuse me!" Helen suddenly says and runs off. You try to call her back, but she's gone. You wonder if you should tell someone or go after her. Then one of the kids speaks to you. "Hey what's wrong with Aunt Helen?" Hannah asks. "She's having a lover's quarrel with her girlfriend." Ione says smirking. "She is not! My sister isn't a dyke! Besides this woman is Bobby's girlfriend!" Jordan remarks indignantly. "You're just saying that because YOU like Aunt Helen!" Leon says and then makes kissy noises, which causes Jordan to punch him in the arm. At this point they look like they're going to get even more unruly, but then one of the twins speaks up. "She loves Bobby you know." Aiden says. "Yes, Aunt Helen loves Bobby very much." Nadia adds. "You and Diana must..." Aiden continues. "...die." Nadia ends. The creepy tone they say it in causes utter silence, not to mention sends a bit of a shiver down your spine. "Um...are you telling me... Helen plans on killing me and Diana?" you utter. The twins just look at each other and smile. They don't say anything else and just calmly go back to their game. They've also managed to successfully creep out their brother and cousins who start to leave the room. Meanwhile, if Helen IS planning to kill you, you need to find out now. As much as you're hesitant to speak to them again, you have little choice but to ask the twins where their sister's room is. "Uh...hey, where is Helen's room?" you ask. "Left wing..." Aiden says. "Second floor..." Nadia adds. "Go right then..." Aiden continues. "Through the last door." Nadia ends. Great now they're being creepy in rhyme. They didn't even look at you the entire time. You don't even bother to thank them, you just follow their directions. Eventually when you think you're getting close, you hear some faint crying. You slowly look in a room to your right and find Helen weeping softly to herself on her bed. She notices you and she tries to wipe away her tears. "(sniffle) Oh. You didn't need to come see to me. Really I'm fine. I just acted foolishly, I apologize again for kissing you Suzy." Helen remarks. "Um, yeah I'm not really bothered by that...or rather I mean that was unexpected, but...look nevermind about that. I'm here about something else of a more serious nature and I'm hoping we can hammer this out because whether you realize it or not, a lot of shit just got sprung on me within the last few minutes." You say. "Is this about the sacrifice?" "No, this is about something your creepy twin mind reading sibling just said to me. They said you love Bobby." "Huh? Oh...well of course I love Bobby. I mean he's my older brother of course I love him." Helen says a bit nervously. "Yeah and in any other family that wouldn't mean anything more than friendship at best, but love goes to a whole other level in this family. There's also the fact they said you were going to kill me." Now Helen goes from nervous to shocked. "WHAT?! They said that?!" "Well technically they said you were going to kill Diana too and they didn't say it so much as they heavily implied it, but given that they're creepy as fuck and you said they can read minds, as well as your own guilty behavior on the whole loving Bobby situation and well what the hell am I supposed to think? So is it all true?" Helen just give you a sad look and then begins to tear up again and put her hands to her face. "Oh fuck Helen! You were lying and just plotting to kill me the entire time?! Goddamn it, had I known I was going to have to deal with not one but TWO of Bobby's murderous sisters, I would've just stayed at home. At least I would've only had one to deal with there!" you shout. Helen tries to compose herself to address you. "No, that's not true. (sniffle) I wasn't lying to you. I genuinely like you and after our most recent conversation I like you even more. I mean...I really like you...but it is true I love Bobby. I've always loved him...(sniffle) I mean I always thought Diana was wrong for him and they were only together because she happened to be the oldest sister. Did you know I had two other older sisters and Diana killed them both for fear of competition? Everyone thinks they were accidents, but I knew the truth. Never said anything of course, I was too afraid and I didn't want to cause any problems." "Bobby never mentioned he had two dead sisters before." "It's not really something we discuss. It was a pretty traumatic experience for everyone at the time. My dad was very upset especially since Mom had died of natural causes no long before. It was a lot of family to lose within such a short period of time." "So how come she didn't kill you or Nadia?" " Nadia's a twin and will most likely bond with Aiden. Plus she's much younger so no threat either way. As for me, well I was still young enough at the time when she killed my other two sisters. I guess I was just so weak in her eyes that she thought I wasn't any threat. Maybe she even knew that I loved Bobby and enjoyed flaunting it in my face. In any case things really changed when you came into the picture. I wasn't sure what to think really. Then when I finally met you, I could see why Bobby liked you. You were so nice and I want you to know I always felt like we were very similar too. You know, under appreciated in our own families. I wish you'd been my sister instead of Diana." "Yeah? Well if I'm so nice, why were you still plotting to kill me?" you ask. "I wasn't! I...mean not really...I mean...(sniffle) I just had this... this... idea and I dunno... it was just my mind! I wouldn't have acted upon it! Especially not after getting to know you more! I can see you're very good for Bobby. I'm genuinely hap...hap...(sob)." And Helen starts crying again. At this point you're starting to wonder if she did have any intention on killing you, if she'd end up apologizing for it the whole time. The fact is though, you're still not entirely sure if she was going to do it or not. Maybe the twins were partially fucking with you. (Helen did say they liked doing that with people) Maybe Helen just had wishful thinking on her mind. It isn't like you haven't had thoughts about killing your own sister Kelly on more than one occasion. Of course the difference is, Helen's actually got some bodies under her belt to go through with such a deed. Any other right thinking person would probably be trying to leave this mad house right now, but quite frankly the more you think about it, you don't have many options and despite this fucked up situation with his sisters, you still love Bobby. All of which means you're probably just as fucked up as the rest of them (more than you realized actually) which also means you fit in here much better than you think, you just have to figure out how to deal with everything. First of which is Helen who against all odds, you actually still feel sorry for. Of course the other option is to start getting your hands dirty now and do away with her. It's not like anyone's around and she probably wouldn't put up much of a fight. > You kill Helen You already got one sister to worry about; you aren't about to worry about another one. If you're going to have to kill someone on your wedding day anyway, you might as well get in the practice. You aren't exactly looking forward to doing it, but you don't see much choice. The question is how to go about it without making it look suspicious. You take a glance around the room and see a window. You're only on the second floor though, if you pushed her out of it, it might not kill her immediately. You then think maybe you could choke her first then throw her out... Yes, that's what you'll do. Choke her and throw her out the window. It'll look like a suicide and if anyone asks, you'll just tell them the truth, she was in love with Bobby and was having a hard time coming to terms with him marrying you so out the window she went. You walk over to Helen and sit next to her on the bed. "Helen will you stop crying for one moment?" you ask which causes her to comply. You take a deep breath and exhale. "Okay, You seem genuinely distraught about all this...so this is going to make this harder." You say and then you punch Helen in the face as hard as you can. Helen yelps and falls back on the bed and you pounce on her immediately with your hands wrapped around her throat. "Suzy...no! No! You...(cough)..." Helen squeaks out and attempts to hit you, but you ignore the pain and focus all your strength on her throat. "Shhhhh....Helen, stop struggling, just let go." you say wishing she wasn't making this so hard. "Bobby...he...help..." she utters with tears in her eyes. This pitiful plea that she utters almost causes you to stop choking her, but you've come too far now. You can't stop. The only thing you can do is get it done and try not to feel too sick about it, because you almost feel like you're going to throw up. Helen's face turns a different shade and you continue to focus on your grim work at hand. Eventually her squeals and punches disappear altogether when you successfully crush her windpipe and deprive her of any more oxygen. And the deed is done. You've killed a person and you feel pretty terrible even though you know it had to be done. You're exhausted and emotionally drained as you sit there straddling Helen's dead body. You choke back tears, though you no longer can contain the rising illness and you immediately sprint off of her and the bed and vomit into a small wastepaper can in her room. You don't even think about the fact that you're going to have to clean it or all the loud noise your retching is making. Not that it mattered since Diana was apparently listening in and spying on you both the whole time. When you lift your head up out of the trash can still recovering from your bout of sickness, you look up just in time to see Diana's swing a bat upside your head. You collapse on the floor, tipping over the trash can causing it to spill your sick back on to you. "Guess you didn't want any more competition huh? You had the right idea though and I do thank you for saving me the trouble. Now I can legitimately blame Helen's death on you and I was merely coming to the aid of my poor late sister. I can see I was just being tested...Tiamat's glorious chaos sure works in mysterious ways." Diana says and then hits you in the head with another bat swing. And then another...and then another...and then another...

Well at least you know Helen is going to be friendly with you. She's pleasant with everyone. You head into the next room and see Helen sitting in a chair preoccupied with watching the six children also in the room. While they're being loud, they're at least playing games and not being too disruptive. Helen sees you and smiles. "Hey Helen." You say sitting next to her on the couch. "Hey Suzy. As you can see I'm just doing my role in this family." She says pointing to the children. "Do you really need to look after them? Seems like they're old enough to play by themselves." You ask. "It's not them we'd worry about, it's the rest of this compound! While it may not look like it now, these little ones are balls of chaotic energy. Morningstar children have always needed a little extra supervision if only so they don't end up burning the entire places to the ground. However it is true they all seem to be a little more subdued today. Even Jordan is playing with his siblings rather than fighting with them." Helen says. "Um, which one's Jordan?" you ask already forgetting Bobby already told you. "Jordan's the oldest boy. He's over there playing with his siblings Aiden and Nadia. They're twins as you can tell. Actually those three are also my younger brothers and sister, so I do have a bit of a duty to watch out for them. Jordan's getting to the point where I think Bobby is going to have to start training him though. He's just becoming a teenager and he really wants to be like his older brother, but sadly he isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. He's a still a fine boy though, he even has a bit of a crush on me which is sort of cute." Helen says with a minor giggle. "Erm...yeah...so what about the twins?" you ask changing that last mildly disturbing remark. "Oh those two are very intelligent. They even got a mental link to each other." "What really?" you ask. "Really. They often just sit across from each other nodding and occasionally changing expressions at each other. It's like they're having a conversation with their minds or something. I dunno, but sometimes it feels like they're making private jokes about all of us. Jordan in particular and while he's not the brightest, he's smart enough to know when he thinks he's being made fun of. And that's when I often have to step in and tell them not to mock their brother." At this point both twins look in your direction and Helen's. They give a peculiar smile and then return to the game they're playing with Jordan. It's enough to make you feel a little uneasy. "Um, Helen, they can't read our minds can they?" you ask. "Oh no...at least I don't think so. I mean I never even thought of that before. Oh dear, now I'm going to wonder about that." Helen says. "Sorry didn't mean to add to your worries Helen...or my own for that matter." You say. "Oh, I'm not really that worried. Even if they can, we're all family anyway and they know I have no ill thoughts about them or anyone connected to it...and that's going to include you too soon." Helen says and smiles. Helen next mentions that ever since Veronica and Brandon arrived, their children have pretty much been put under her care. She then points out Ione and Hannah (Who are playing another game with each other) and Leon (Who is building something and seemingly content to play by himself). "Geez Helen, you look like you always got your hands full, are you really okay looking after all the children all the time?" you ask. "Oh...it's not so bad. I mean like I said, we're all family. What's family for if not to help one another? Besides, I know nobody else really wants to do or otherwise has other major responsibilities." "What responsibilities do Veronica and Brandon have? I haven't seen them do anything since I got here. I mean they got three kids, and they've obviously been taking care of them before coming here. They shouldn't just be passing them on to you just because it's convenient. You deserve to have your own time to yourself." "Really it's okay Suzy. I like looking after all of them. Besides, I don't think the children would want someone other than myself doing it anyway. When you and Bobby have children I fully expect you'll want help on the supervision front won't you?" "Well...probably. I was talking about this subject a little to Bobby last night and to be honest I'm still not exactly enamored with the notion of popping out a bunch of them. The idea of the pain involved isn't exactly something I'm looking forward to." "Well I don't think any woman looks forward to that part. It's the joy of bringing a new life into this world, raising them and loving them." "I...guess...I dunno. Hell I'm still having trouble with the concept of marriage, let alone kids." "Oh? Is it the ritual sacrifice to Tiamat that's got you a little baffled? Don't worry, you don't need to memorize any prayers, Bobby will probably tell you what to say or he'll make the appropriate chants himself." Helen asks. "What? Wait. I know you guys sacrifice people, but is that going to go on at the wedding?" "Well of course. It's tradition for the one to marry into this family to prove themselves to be worth of Tiamat by making a sacrifice." "Wait, you mean I'M going to be the one doing it?" "Well yeah...you mean Bobby didn't tell you? Oh dear. I didn't mean to ruin the surprise." Helen says. "Oh it's a surprise alright." "Well if you're worried about messing up, we've got more than enough prisoners in the dungeon you could practice on tomorrow." "Prisoners? Dungeon? Oh geez..." you say and rub your hand over your head. Helen pats you on the back a bit and tries to look understanding. "I take it, you've never killed anyone before?" Helen asks. "Of course I haven't! Why would I?" you exclaim. "I just figured you having a serial killer uncle and all...plus Bobby said you helped him kill your uncle." "I didn't really have a hand in that directly. Are you saying YOU'VE killed someone before?" "Oh yes, but I'm not exactly fond of it, but we all have to do our part to serve Tiamat." The fact that Helen just told you so cheerfully and without any hesitation that she's committed murder, makes her seem a lot less harmless in your eyes. "Wait, so how many? When?" you ask. "Oh not many. First time was about when I was Jordan's age. However, since Bobby is the head of the house, he mostly does it. Just like our father did before him. Diana sometimes does it, but I try to avoid doing it unless I really have to...I know I shouldn't feel anything for infidels, but sometimes I can't help it. Then I try to remember that their souls are going to feed Tiamat so it's all for a good cause." This is nuts... Right now you're just wondering how deep of shit you've gotten yourself into. "I...dunno if I'm going to be able to do this Helen..." you say. "Oh don't say that! You'll be fine!" Helen says trying to be supportive. "I don't think I will. The most fucked up thing is, I'm still more worried about having kids!" "You still concerned about that? That will come naturally, I don't think you should worry." "I dunno Helen. I'm obviously not like you. I thought we were more similar in many ways, mainly because we both had to put up with an asshole older sister, but it's turning out we're pretty different. I mean unlike me you'd obviously make a very good mother. You're nice, attentive and everything." You say. Helen's eyes light up a bit when you say that and she grabs your hand. "Thank you. You have no idea how touched I am right now to hear those words." She says and then leans in quick to give you a quick peck on the cheek. It surprises the hell out of you and you recoil a bit. Helen's expression turns from one of happiness to one of worry. "Oh no. I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I shouldn't have done that! By Tiamat, what was I thinking. I'm so sorry Suzy!" she starts saying which causes a lot of the children to start watching the pair of you. Helen stands up and begins to panic still repeating to you about how sorry she is, you think she's going to have an anxiety attack. "Helen. Helen. Calm yourself. It's...well...it's okay. I mean I know you were just trying to be friendly and didn't mean anything else by it. You just caught me by surprise, no harm done..." you say. "No...I can't...you'll have to excuse me!" Helen suddenly says and runs off. You try to call her back, but she's gone. You wonder if you should tell someone or go after her. Then one of the kids speaks to you. "Hey what's wrong with Aunt Helen?" Hannah asks. "She's having a lover's quarrel with her girlfriend." Ione says smirking. "She is not! My sister isn't a dyke! Besides this woman is Bobby's girlfriend!" Jordan remarks indignantly. "You're just saying that because YOU like Aunt Helen!" Leon says and then makes kissy noises, which causes Jordan to punch him in the arm. At this point they look like they're going to get even more unruly, but then one of the twins speaks up. "She loves Bobby you know." Aiden says. "Yes, Aunt Helen loves Bobby very much." Nadia adds. "You and Diana must..." Aiden continues. "...die." Nadia ends. The creepy tone they say it in causes utter silence, not to mention sends a bit of a shiver down your spine. "Um...are you telling me... Helen plans on killing me and Diana?" you utter. The twins just look at each other and smile. They don't say anything else and just calmly go back to their game. They've also managed to successfully creep out their brother and cousins who start to leave the room. Meanwhile, if Helen IS planning to kill you, you need to find out now. As much as you're hesitant to speak to them again, you have little choice but to ask the twins where their sister's room is. "Uh...hey, where is Helen's room?" you ask. "Left wing..." Aiden says. "Second floor..." Nadia adds. "Go right then..." Aiden continues. "Through the last door." Nadia ends. Great now they're being creepy in rhyme. They didn't even look at you the entire time. You don't even bother to thank them, you just follow their directions. Eventually when you think you're getting close, you hear some faint crying. You slowly look in a room to your right and find Helen weeping softly to herself on her bed. She notices you and she tries to wipe away her tears. "(sniffle) Oh. You didn't need to come see to me. Really I'm fine. I just acted foolishly, I apologize again for kissing you Suzy." Helen remarks. "Um, yeah I'm not really bothered by that...or rather I mean that was unexpected, but...look nevermind about that. I'm here about something else of a more serious nature and I'm hoping we can hammer this out because whether you realize it or not, a lot of shit just got sprung on me within the last few minutes." You say. "Is this about the sacrifice?" "No, this is about something your creepy twin mind reading sibling just said to me. They said you love Bobby." "Huh? Oh...well of course I love Bobby. I mean he's my older brother of course I love him." Helen says a bit nervously. "Yeah and in any other family that wouldn't mean anything more than friendship at best, but love goes to a whole other level in this family. There's also the fact they said you were going to kill me." Now Helen goes from nervous to shocked. "WHAT?! They said that?!" "Well technically they said you were going to kill Diana too and they didn't say it so much as they heavily implied it, but given that they're creepy as fuck and you said they can read minds, as well as your own guilty behavior on the whole loving Bobby situation and well what the hell am I supposed to think? So is it all true?" Helen just give you a sad look and then begins to tear up again and put her hands to her face. "Oh fuck Helen! You were lying and just plotting to kill me the entire time?! Goddamn it, had I known I was going to have to deal with not one but TWO of Bobby's murderous sisters, I would've just stayed at home. At least I would've only had one to deal with there!" you shout. Helen tries to compose herself to address you. "No, that's not true. (sniffle) I wasn't lying to you. I genuinely like you and after our most recent conversation I like you even more. I mean...I really like you...but it is true I love Bobby. I've always loved him...(sniffle) I mean I always thought Diana was wrong for him and they were only together because she happened to be the oldest sister. Did you know I had two other older sisters and Diana killed them both for fear of competition? Everyone thinks they were accidents, but I knew the truth. Never said anything of course, I was too afraid and I didn't want to cause any problems." "Bobby never mentioned he had two dead sisters before." "It's not really something we discuss. It was a pretty traumatic experience for everyone at the time. My dad was very upset especially since Mom had died of natural causes no long before. It was a lot of family to lose within such a short period of time." "So how come she didn't kill you or Nadia?" " Nadia's a twin and will most likely bond with Aiden. Plus she's much younger so no threat either way. As for me, well I was still young enough at the time when she killed my other two sisters. I guess I was just so weak in her eyes that she thought I wasn't any threat. Maybe she even knew that I loved Bobby and enjoyed flaunting it in my face. In any case things really changed when you came into the picture. I wasn't sure what to think really. Then when I finally met you, I could see why Bobby liked you. You were so nice and I want you to know I always felt like we were very similar too. You know, under appreciated in our own families. I wish you'd been my sister instead of Diana." "Yeah? Well if I'm so nice, why were you still plotting to kill me?" you ask. "I wasn't! I...mean not really...I mean...(sniffle) I just had this... this... idea and I dunno... it was just my mind! I wouldn't have acted upon it! Especially not after getting to know you more! I can see you're very good for Bobby. I'm genuinely hap...hap...(sob)." And Helen starts crying again. At this point you're starting to wonder if she did have any intention on killing you, if she'd end up apologizing for it the whole time. The fact is though, you're still not entirely sure if she was going to do it or not. Maybe the twins were partially fucking with you. (Helen did say they liked doing that with people) Maybe Helen just had wishful thinking on her mind. It isn't like you haven't had thoughts about killing your own sister Kelly on more than one occasion. Of course the difference is, Helen's actually got some bodies under her belt to go through with such a deed. Any other right thinking person would probably be trying to leave this mad house right now, but quite frankly the more you think about it, you don't have many options and despite this fucked up situation with his sisters, you still love Bobby. All of which means you're probably just as fucked up as the rest of them (more than you realized actually) which also means you fit in here much better than you think, you just have to figure out how to deal with everything. First of which is Helen who against all odds, you actually still feel sorry for. Of course the other option is to start getting your hands dirty now and do away with her. It's not like anyone's around and she probably wouldn't put up much of a fight. > You let her live Maybe it's stupid or weakness, but you can't bring yourself to kill Helen based on heavy suspicion. You decide to talk this out with her instead. "Helen...Helen...will you stop crying for one minute?" you say which causes her to comply. You take a deep breath and exhale. "Okay. You seem genuinely distraught about all this...so I'm going to go out on a limb and take you at your word that you had no solid intention on killing me and it was just a fleeting thought that we all have once in awhile. I mean I've had them too." Helen looks a little happier when you say that. "Oh...I'm so glad you feel that way Suzy...(sniff)" Helen says. "I'm not finished! I AM going to be keeping an eye on you though and I think it's going to take me awhile to fully trust you." You say which causes her to nod rapidly. "I...I understand. Wha...what about Bobby?" "Well that is the question isn't it? I guess I could threaten you. However, that's really not going to help matters and the heart wants what the heart wants. Can't really stop that...well other than killing that person, but I think neither one of us wants to go that route. Let me ask you this though, does he possibly know already how you feel?" "Oh no. I don't believe so. He's either been too into Diana or too into you, to pay any serious attention to me in that way. So no, I do not believe he knows." "Do you want to tell him?" you ask. "Oh! No! No, I can't! Especially not now! That will just mess things up for you! I don't want to be in the way! Please Suzy, don't tell Bobby about my real feelings either. I...I've come to deal with the reality that Bobby will never be mine. Just wasn't meant to be. I can be... happy without him as long as I know you'll be making him happy." Helen says and then tries to smile, but it doesn't last long. That was incredibly hard for her to say. You know her heart is probably breaking in a million pieces on the inside. You almost want to console her, but then you have to remember she might have been plotting to kill you. "Okay then...so are we good?" you ask unsure of what else to address. "Yes, Suzy. We're good...um can I just have a hug?" Helen asks. This family just gets weirder and weirder... "A hug?" you ask. "Well, I know you don't trust me, but you're still willing to give me a chance. That alone is more kindness than my own sister Diana has ever shown me. I feel closer to you than I ever have with her. I mean I guess I understand if you don't want to..." Helen says a little sadly. You look at her sideways wondering if this is some sort of trick, but if you're going to go with this building trust route AND if it'll make Helen feel better, you can do a hug. You go to Helen and sit beside her on her bed who gloms on to you immediately. As you reluctantly hug back, Helen exhales as if a big weight has been lifted. "You don't know how much this means to me Suzy..." she says. "Um, yeah." You reply. "You smell pretty and feel so soft and warm." She then says squeezing you a little tighter. "Uh...okay...I think I should be getting back to Bobby now." You remark and start to let go though it feels like Helen doesn't really want to let go. "Okay. You go back to Bobby, I'm sure he's wondering where you are. I'll be fine. Thank you for being so understanding. I'll never forget this." Helen waves good-bye with a smile as you leave her room. What a strange girl. As you make your way back towards the stairs, you realize that you didn't address the possibility that Helen might have planned to kill Diana as well, not that you care since you'd rather she be completely out of way. Even if Helen did have that plan, it's clear that if she's telling the truth about having too much feelings about killing you, she's unlikely to kill her sister due to whatever fucked up battered sibling syndrome she has. Besides, as far as you're concerned Bobby's supposed to take care of the Diana situation or he will if he expects you to sacrifice someone on a slab on the wedding day. When you get downstairs the some of the family members are all eating. You don't see Bobby though. "Hey Veronica have you seen Bobby?" you ask. "Oh, I think he went to your room to look for you. Figured you'd be there. I think he's pretty upset about what just happened with William and Aaron." "What happened? "They just left the compound. Not exactly sure what William told Bobby, but he and Aaron are both gone. Brandon's outside closing up the front gate." Veronica says and shovels more food into her mouth. Great, more drama. You make the long trek back to the bedroom... Sure enough, you find Bobby looking slightly mopey on the bed. These Morningstars sure are a miserable lot today. "Hey Bobby." You say. "Hey. Where have you been?" Bobby asks 'Bonding with your sister Helen. You know, the nice one." "Oh. That's good. Glad to hear something going well..." Bobby says with his voice sounding like he isn't as happy about that as he should be. "Okay, I already heard about William and Aaron, but what are you really upset about?" you ask. "I don't even know why I'm bothering trying to hold this family together! Most of them aren't even here. Two of them just left. One of them hates me now, and the rest aren't exactly sterling examples of Tiamat's Chosen. In fact the ones that are here are probably here because it's safe and filled with enough supplies to live comfortably." Bobby exclaims. "Well, what's wrong with that?" "Nothing I suppose, but supporting about bunch of freeloaders wasn't really part of my plan to honor Tiamat." "Well maybe you need to change your damn plan. I mean its still early, but if you really feel like someone isn't pulling their weight around here, then you need to just kick their asses out, family or not. I mean you're the boss around here and your word is supposed to be law." Bobby sits up a bit as you continue to speak. "Look, you know you're a leader and you know the head of this family. So you can't give into all this self-doubt. You NEEDED to lay down the law to your sister Diana and you did it. In fact, speaking of which, what exactly IS going to be done about her? Because whatever you said you know that's just going to be a temporary fix. Now I think you KNOW what you're going to have to do with her, but your past with her is preventing you from doing it." Bobby continues to listen intently. "Love isn't one-sided Bobby, and if I'm going to have to ultimately submit to your beliefs and everything that goes with it including murdering innocent people..." "Wait...you know about the sacrifice on the wedding day?" Bobby asks. "Yeah and thanks a lot for keeping me in the dark about it. But it's fine, I've gotten over it. I've had a lot of time to think about things and how this marriage is going to go if it's going to work. I'm willing to go all in, but you're going to have to do likewise and fix this problem with Diana permanently. How is up to you, but she is NOT going to be here." Bobby looks a little overwhelmed by your ultimatum. He's never heard you speak like this before and really; you're a little surprised you're saying what you're saying yourself. You're rolling the dice and betting everything here. You think you've got the inner strength to go through with all this, you just hope that Bobby proves to be just as strong. "Suzy, you are the love of my life and what you've just told me just confirms that Tiamat's chaos did favor me when I met you. You're right. I know I have to do something more permanent with my sister Diana. I'll come to a decision tomorrow though. I think I need the rest of the day to recover from all the shit I've already had to go through. It's not even night yet!" "Well, okay. I understand. Well, should we go eat with the rest of the family?" "No. I'm not really feeling it right now. I'd rather just spend time with you." "Sounds good to me." You remark. You and Bobby kiss each other, which then soon leads to something a lot more intense. A little later after your pleasant round of passion, Bobby says he should go tell one of his family members to take the night watch and have a long conversation with all of them. "Well good luck on that front." You say as you briefly check your phone out of curiosity. "Did someone call?" Bobby asks. "No, just curious. I was wondering if any of my family tried to contact me given how with the craziness going on in town recently. Guess I'm not surprised nobody cared to call. Not mad about it though, just one more confirmation that this is my new family and home now." You say. "Well other than you know who, it seems like you've gotten along with the rest of my family. Sounds like you've really gotten along with Helen. So what did you two talk about anyway?" Bobby asks. "Oh... you know...girl stuff." You say with a slight smile, which cause Bobby to snicker a bit. "Alright, you two have your little secrets. Just as long as you're getting along. Love you." Bobby says opening the door. "Love you too." You say as he leaves. You enjoy the rest of your evening in solitude until you eventually fall asleep. > Next day… "Due to new developments, today's contest has been canceled. We sincerely apologize to you good folks, but don't despair with any luck our reigning champion Suzy will return to us soon to take on more challengers! Let's still hear it for our little blonde small town girl!" the announcer shouts which is followed by a roaring crowd. Well this is certainly different, but it's also a nice change of pace. You were starting to feel insulted by the implications of yourself participating in all these phallic food-eating contests. However, you're still a little fond of being cheered for, so you stand up and take a bow for your fans. No sooner have you done that, when your surroundings immediately change to that of a blasted wasteland. There is nothing around you save for burned out buildings in the distance and dead landscape. Reminds you a bit of a video game you once played. "You know, the entire world is soon going to look like this...how I wish I could be young and alive to experience the uncertainty and chaos that is going to shape the years to follow." You hear a voice say. You turn around and see Bobby's grandmother again. She's an old lady walking with a cane this time. "But enough about the future, let's talk about the present. You survived a lot longer than I thought you would, maybe you are worthy of my grandson after all. You even are starting to manipulate him a bit, that's good. The true leaders in Tiamat's service have always been women anyway. I swear if it wasn't for us prodding them in the right direction every now and then, most men would be content just jacking off to pass the time. Still, you aren't quite there yet. I think today should prove to quite interesting. Survive today and you might just meet Misty yet." "Okay, I want some answers, who the hell is Misty, and what's going to happen today? Is Helen going to kill me?" you demand. "Helen? Oh yes my submissive co-dependent grand daughter. Yes, that was sort of an interesting way you dealt with her..." Grandma Morningstar replies. "So is she going to try to kill me or not?" "Who said she ever was? You just came to that conclusion yourself. She told you she was never going to try to kill you. I suppose it's up to you to believe her or not. I think the better question is, do you like her?" "What?" "Do you like her? Not a hard question blondie." Grandma Morningstar says tapping on her cane. "I don't dislike her despite everything...I mean growing up in this family is prone to make her a little fucked up." You say. "Hm, well do you think she's pretty?" "Pretty?" "Yes, sheesh you go fucking deaf blondie? Pretty, you know better than average looks." Grandma Morningstar replies getting annoyed. "Um...well I suppose she is." You say. "Is one of the reasons why you spared her is because she reminds you of yourself in some ways?" "No...I mean...well maybe somewhat. I mean I just couldn't bring myself to kill her on suspicion. But yes, I suppose the fact that I see some of myself in her did cause me to be a little sympathetic to her." "So if you fucked her...it would almost be like fucking yourself right?" "Wait...what? What are you trying to get at?" you ask. "Oh I think you know EXACTLY what I'm trying to get at. It's okay Suzy, I'm making no judgments. The female form is a beautiful thing. Well anyway you'll find out what's in store for you today soon. As for Misty, well why don't you put some thought into it. I mean it's pretty simple even for you blondie." Bobby's grandmother replies with slight distain. "Well can you at least tell me what's deal with all these contests in my dreams?" "Sorry, I really don't know anything about that. If you're lucky and actually meet Misty, maybe you can ask her, but I just assumed you really liked dreaming about sucking dick...in a symbolic way I guess. Hmm, come to think of it this would explain why Bobby's so enamored with you. Maybe you aren't a whore blondie, but you sure got the mouth of one. It's almost as if it was a highway for oral sex." "Hey!" "Don't take offense blondie. It's a good thing. Suck a man's dick right, and you can practically get him to do ANYTHING for you. I mean you got natural talent. Hell, maybe even Tiamat blessed you with it so you stood an equal chance against Diana. Now that girl, as much as she loves Bobby, she just can't suck a dick properly. Bad gag reflex, slightly oversized teeth, I dunno. Tiamat works in whimsical ways I suppose." "How do you even know all...nevermind I don't want to hear anymore." You say. Bobby's grandmother ignores you though and continues to speak. "Still, Bobby always did have a slight obsession for blowjobs. He likes them a lot more than he's probably told you." "Gah! I'm done listening!" you shout feeling increasingly uncomfortable about hearing Bobby's grandmother talk about his sexual interests. "Oh, alright Miss Prude. I'm rambling and it's time for you to go anyway. See ya Deep Throat!" Bobby's grandmother cackles again and then raises her cane and all your surroundings go black... And then you wake up. "Something bad is going to happen today." You say to yourself. (Then again why should today be any different from the rest of this week?) You look around and see nobody in the room (Save for Bobby's grandmother's portrait staring like a gargoyle). Looks like Bobby woke up before you as usual. You look at the time on your phone and see you've actually slept until the afternoon. While the normal thing for you to do would be to just stay in your room and avoid everyone, but given your recent dream, you think your best bet might be to be a little proactive today. After going through your usual routine of washing up and getting dressed you head down to the main living area where you know everyone usually gathers. Before you get there you bump into Helen, who looks a bit harried and is carrying a pistol in one hand. You tense up immediately. "There you are, good. Saves me time..." she says. "Uh...Helen ..." you start to say and back away slowly. "Huh?" Helen looks down at her pistol. "OH! Shit! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you! I didn't come to do anything to you! Here, you can take it, if it makes you feel better, but we need to go!" she exclaims and hands you the pistol. You snatch the weapon from her and eye her suspiciously. She gets worried at first that you're going be the one to shoot her, but then just continues to explain in greater detail about what's going on. "Aaron came back and he's threatening to drive an army truck through the front gate if we all don't leave the compound. He claims that we're defying Tiamat by not embracing the chaos outside. Bobby's been trying to negotiate with him through the intercom, but he thinks we're going to have no option but to open fire on Aaron." "Where the hell did he get an army truck? Is William with him?" "Apparently the town has been in a state of martial law since yesterday and the National Guard have taken over according to Aaron's ranting. I guess he stole one. I don't think William is with him. Anyway Bobby wants you to be safe so follow me to where all the children..." Loud shouting by Bobby in the distance suddenly interrupts Helen. You immediately rush towards where he might be located despite the protests by the Helen that you need to come with her though she just runs along with you. You soon manage to catch up with the most of the family (Save for the younger children and Diana) who are standing in the foyer with their weapons ready and Bobby who has opened the front door. "Aaron, I tried being reasonable. YOU left here without permission, but that was fine because it's obvious you didn't feel happy here. There are several paths to Tiamat's glory and you obviously had your own ideas about which one you should pick. Anyone here is free to leave, but NOBODY is going to be forced to leave due to your threats! Again, if you try coming in here, you're going to be shot down like a fucking dog and I'll personally perform Tiamat's ritual of desecration over your stinking body so your soul NEVER enters Timat's glory!" Bobby shouts and walks out with his rifle drawn. Bobby's brother Jordan is the first one who cautiously follows afterwards and then everyone else slowly walks towards the door as well. You don't think anyone has even paid any attention to you or Helen (who keeps pulling on you to leave). "My soul is already with Tiamat! You can't do shit about it ritual boy! If you unworthy fucks won't embrace chaos as Tiamat intended, then I'm gonna bring it to you!" Aaron shouts through a bullhorn, which is followed by a laugh. The truck revs up and Bobby orders everyone to open fire. You and Helen are still inside at this point so you don't actually do so and just hang back as you watch Aaron mow through the gate followed by a hail of bullets peppering the oncoming truck. The truck swerves hard to the left smashes into Brandon's parked vehicle. You can hear him swearing about it. Meanwhile you also see Jordan jumping up and down in victory and running over to the wrecked truck. "Yeah! We got that bastard! Whoo!" he shouts. "Hey Jordan, get the fuck back here, don't go off ahead like that by yourself!" Bobby shouts. "Aw, it's fine, he didn't survive that!" And that's when Aaron proves Jordan wrong, starting by recovering from his crash and shooting several holes into Jordan. Then he follows up by throwing several grenades out the truck window. "SHIT!" Bobby shouts and everyone runs back, but not before several explosions occur. Nobody is killed, but everyone scrambles and on the ground crawling for cover. Bobby himself crawls behind cover of another parked vehicle and continues to fire in the direction of the truck. Helen now really tugs at you saying you need to come with her where its safe, but you wonder if you should try to help Bobby considering he's the only one currently trying to kill Aaron. Everyone else has completely retreated and is even running past you. > You help Bobby This is the man you've chosen to marry for better or worse. If you aren't going to help him in a matter of life or death then that wouldn't say much for your commitment. Besides, if he gets killed this whole compound is going to turn to shit and you'd no doubt be at the bottom of it, assuming Aaron doesn't kill you all first. "Helen, you go see to the young ones, I'm going to stand by Bobby." "But..." "It's my choice, I'll be fine! Now go!" Helen is a little unsure, but complies with your wishes. "Be careful, Suzy." Helen says and leaves. You rush outside towards Bobby who is still taking cover behind a car and firing upon the Aaron. He sees you out the corner of his eye while still keeping an eye on the direction of the truck. "Keep your head down, I think Aaron escaped out the passenger door of the truck and is hiding behind Brandon's car now. Where the hell did you come from anyway? I told Helen to go get you and the younger children to a safer location when Aaron showed up." Bobby exclaims. "Yeah well I'm showing you that I'm not just going to let you do this shit alone. I'm with you all the way. No hiding with Helen and the kids, no matter what you say." You're interrupted by gunfire on your position and Aaron ranting. "You think you can stop what's coming by hiding? Hah! People are already fucking EATING each other out there! Shit, I'll be doing you a favor by killing you now. Actually now that I think about... your blonde bitch looks like a fine piece of ass in more way than one!" Aaron shouts and starts laughing maniacally and then throws another grenade your way. You and Bobby have no choice but to leave your position and make a dash back to the house entrance. It's somewhat of a minor miracle that you and Bobby aren't hit by any of the bullets he fires at you. You manage to get inside just as the grenade goes off and adds to the total of destroyed vehicles outside. You and Bobby are on the floor though Bobby has partially managed to cover you with his own body. "What the hell did he do, rip off the entire National Guard armory?" you say as Bobby back kicks the front door shut from his prone position. "I don't know but..." Two more explosions are heard on the left side of compound. Aaron is apparently throwing explosives through the windows now. "Shit, I hope nobody ran and hid over there." You remark as the pair of you start to get up off the floor. "Where the fuck IS everyone anyway? Nice to know I can REALLY count on these fuckers when the going gets tough. Why the fuck am I even bothering again? Fuck!" Bobby yells in frustration. You understand his anger, but it's probably not the best time for a rant. "Bobby, calm yourself. You can yell at those idiots later, but right now all that matters is that I'm here helping you okay?" you say. "Yeah...okay. Just wish we had more reliable help. (Sigh) To think, the only thing I was concerned about was exiling Diana today." "Okay, so what's the game plan?" you ask slightly disappointed that Bobby's decision was to exile Diana rather than death, but you aren't entirely surprised. Still, there's always the hope that Aaron does kill her. Bobby quickly snaps back to the situation at hand. "Well it sounds like he's stopped with the explosives, or maybe he's just fishing out more. I'd say the safest bet is to get to the second floor and shoot him through one of the windows. No point in going back out the front door when we can get the vantage point." "How do we know he's still outside, he might've already entered house through one of the holes he's undoubtedly made with his grenades." You say. "He could try for the armory, though he's still gotta come through this way if he wants to go there. Given his state of mind though he might also try to do something like run upstairs and kill all the children for fun. Hell, I wouldn't put it past him to try to access the prisoner's dungeon and set them all free. It is on the left wing after all. (Sigh) As much as I hate splitting up, I'm going to need you to stay here and guard the foyer just in case he tries to sneak through here." Bobby says. "I really think I should come with you. Splitting up is always a bad idea in these situations." "I don't like it either, but it's a big house and we need to cast a wide net to deal with this asshole." Bobby says. "Okay Bobby, I'll stay here, but please be careful." You remark. "I'll be fine, you just keep a look out and remember, if you see him, don't talk, just shoot. Oh and if any of my cousins ever come out of hiding and pass through here, tell them to fucking help you." Bobby says and then kisses you before heading to the left wing of the house. Soon after Bobby leaves, you put your back against one of the walls and start keeping an eye on the doorways. Minutes pass and you start to get a little nervous. Not a lot, but enough that you move from your spot and check the left doorway. Then you briefly hear the sounds of rushing footsteps behind you and you don't even get to completely turn around before you feel a crushing blow to the side of your head. You crumple to the floor on your knees and then another blow to your head causes you to collapse flat on the floor and lose grip of your pistol. A pair of blurry hands quickly grabs it from you. "You and that traitorous bitch of a sister of mine think you can take Bobby after he exiles me? I heard the pair of you conspiring together yesterday in her room after Bobby ripped my heart out. Fucking cunt." Diana says and points it at you. You weakly attempt to grab at Diana who kicks you in the face, your already bleeding head hits the floor. "Normally, I'd savor this moment. Maybe even keep you alive longer to enjoy torturing you a bit more, but I think under the circumstances, putting you down now is the more efficient plan. Haven't decided if I should help Bobby yet...or perhaps even Aaron...guess I'll surprise them both." Despite Diana aiming for your head and being at this close range she manages to completely fuck up her shot and hit you in the throat instead which doesn't kill you instantly. "Shit, well I guess it's good my aim isn't that great, I got to see you suffer a little more after all. Say hello to my sister in fucking traitor's hell. I will be laughing at you both within Tiamat's glorious chaos!" Diana shouts as you gurgle, choke and finally die.

[Themes: modern, drama, romance, female protagonist, science fiction, post-apocalyptic] "Due to new developments, today's contest has been canceled. We sincerely apologize to you good folks, but don't despair with any luck our reigning champion Suzy will return to us soon to take on more challengers! Let's still hear it for our little blonde small town girl!" the announcer shouts which is followed by a roaring crowd. Well this is certainly different, but it's also a nice change of pace. You were starting to feel insulted by the implications of yourself participating in all these phallic food-eating contests. However, you're still a little fond of being cheered for, so you stand up and take a bow for your fans. No sooner have you done that, when your surroundings immediately change to that of a blasted wasteland. There is nothing around you save for burned out buildings in the distance and dead landscape. Reminds you a bit of a video game you once played. "You know, the entire world is soon going to look like this...how I wish I could be young and alive to experience the uncertainty and chaos that is going to shape the years to follow." You hear a voice say. You turn around and see Bobby's grandmother again. She's an old lady walking with a cane this time. "But enough about the future, let's talk about the present. You survived a lot longer than I thought you would, maybe you are worthy of my grandson after all. You even are starting to manipulate him a bit, that's good. The true leaders in Tiamat's service have always been women anyway. I swear if it wasn't for us prodding them in the right direction every now and then, most men would be content just jacking off to pass the time. Still, you aren't quite there yet. I think today should prove to quite interesting. Survive today and you might just meet Misty yet." "Okay, I want some answers, who the hell is Misty, and what's going to happen today? Is Helen going to kill me?" you demand. "Helen? Oh yes my submissive co-dependent grand daughter. Yes, that was sort of an interesting way you dealt with her..." Grandma Morningstar replies. "So is she going to try to kill me or not?" "Who said she ever was? You just came to that conclusion yourself. She told you she was never going to try to kill you. I suppose it's up to you to believe her or not. I think the better question is, do you like her?" "What?" "Do you like her? Not a hard question blondie." Grandma Morningstar says tapping on her cane. "I don't dislike her despite everything...I mean growing up in this family is prone to make her a little fucked up." You say. "Hm, well do you think she's pretty?" "Pretty?" "Yes, sheesh you go fucking deaf blondie? Pretty, you know better than average looks." Grandma Morningstar replies getting annoyed. "Um...well I suppose she is." You say. "Is one of the reasons why you spared her is because she reminds you of yourself in some ways?" "No...I mean...well maybe somewhat. I mean I just couldn't bring myself to kill her on suspicion. But yes, I suppose the fact that I see some of myself in her did cause me to be a little sympathetic to her." "So if you fucked her...it would almost be like fucking yourself right?" "Wait...what? What are you trying to get at?" you ask. "Oh I think you know EXACTLY what I'm trying to get at. It's okay Suzy, I'm making no judgments. The female form is a beautiful thing. Well anyway you'll find out what's in store for you today soon. As for Misty, well why don't you put some thought into it. I mean it's pretty simple even for you blondie." Bobby's grandmother replies with slight distain. "Well can you at least tell me what's deal with all these contests in my dreams?" "Sorry, I really don't know anything about that. If you're lucky and actually meet Misty, maybe you can ask her, but I just assumed you really liked dreaming about sucking dick...in a symbolic way I guess. Hmm, come to think of it this would explain why Bobby's so enamored with you. Maybe you aren't a whore blondie, but you sure got the mouth of one. It's almost as if it was a highway for oral sex." "Hey!" "Don't take offense blondie. It's a good thing. Suck a man's dick right, and you can practically get him to do ANYTHING for you. I mean you got natural talent. Hell, maybe even Tiamat blessed you with it so you stood an equal chance against Diana. Now that girl, as much as she loves Bobby, she just can't suck a dick properly. Bad gag reflex, slightly oversized teeth, I dunno. Tiamat works in whimsical ways I suppose." "How do you even know all...nevermind I don't want to hear anymore." You say. Bobby's grandmother ignores you though and continues to speak. "Still, Bobby always did have a slight obsession for blowjobs. He likes them a lot more than he's probably told you." "Gah! I'm done listening!" you shout feeling increasingly uncomfortable about hearing Bobby's grandmother talk about his sexual interests. "Oh, alright Miss Prude. I'm rambling and it's time for you to go anyway. See ya Deep Throat!" Bobby's grandmother cackles again and then raises her cane and all your surroundings go black... And then you wake up. "Something bad is going to happen today." You say to yourself. (Then again why should today be any different from the rest of this week?) You look around and see nobody in the room (Save for Bobby's grandmother's portrait staring like a gargoyle). Looks like Bobby woke up before you as usual. You look at the time on your phone and see you've actually slept until the afternoon. While the normal thing for you to do would be to just stay in your room and avoid everyone, but given your recent dream, you think your best bet might be to be a little proactive today. After going through your usual routine of washing up and getting dressed you head down to the main living area where you know everyone usually gathers. Before you get there you bump into Helen, who looks a bit harried and is carrying a pistol in one hand. You tense up immediately. "There you are, good. Saves me time..." she says. "Uh...Helen ..." you start to say and back away slowly. "Huh?" Helen looks down at her pistol. "OH! Shit! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you! I didn't come to do anything to you! Here, you can take it, if it makes you feel better, but we need to go!" she exclaims and hands you the pistol. You snatch the weapon from her and eye her suspiciously. She gets worried at first that you're going be the one to shoot her, but then just continues to explain in greater detail about what's going on. "Aaron came back and he's threatening to drive an army truck through the front gate if we all don't leave the compound. He claims that we're defying Tiamat by not embracing the chaos outside. Bobby's been trying to negotiate with him through the intercom, but he thinks we're going to have no option but to open fire on Aaron." "Where the hell did he get an army truck? Is William with him?" "Apparently the town has been in a state of martial law since yesterday and the National Guard have taken over according to Aaron's ranting. I guess he stole one. I don't think William is with him. Anyway Bobby wants you to be safe so follow me to where all the children..." Loud shouting by Bobby in the distance suddenly interrupts Helen. You immediately rush towards where he might be located despite the protests by the Helen that you need to come with her though she just runs along with you. You soon manage to catch up with the most of the family (Save for the younger children and Diana) who are standing in the foyer with their weapons ready and Bobby who has opened the front door. "Aaron, I tried being reasonable. YOU left here without permission, but that was fine because it's obvious you didn't feel happy here. There are several paths to Tiamat's glory and you obviously had your own ideas about which one you should pick. Anyone here is free to leave, but NOBODY is going to be forced to leave due to your threats! Again, if you try coming in here, you're going to be shot down like a fucking dog and I'll personally perform Tiamat's ritual of desecration over your stinking body so your soul NEVER enters Timat's glory!" Bobby shouts and walks out with his rifle drawn. Bobby's brother Jordan is the first one who cautiously follows afterwards and then everyone else slowly walks towards the door as well. You don't think anyone has even paid any attention to you or Helen (who keeps pulling on you to leave). "My soul is already with Tiamat! You can't do shit about it ritual boy! If you unworthy fucks won't embrace chaos as Tiamat intended, then I'm gonna bring it to you!" Aaron shouts through a bullhorn, which is followed by a laugh. The truck revs up and Bobby orders everyone to open fire. You and Helen are still inside at this point so you don't actually do so and just hang back as you watch Aaron mow through the gate followed by a hail of bullets peppering the oncoming truck. The truck swerves hard to the left smashes into Brandon's parked vehicle. You can hear him swearing about it. Meanwhile you also see Jordan jumping up and down in victory and running over to the wrecked truck. "Yeah! We got that bastard! Whoo!" he shouts. "Hey Jordan, get the fuck back here, don't go off ahead like that by yourself!" Bobby shouts. "Aw, it's fine, he didn't survive that!" And that's when Aaron proves Jordan wrong, starting by recovering from his crash and shooting several holes into Jordan. Then he follows up by throwing several grenades out the truck window. "SHIT!" Bobby shouts and everyone runs back, but not before several explosions occur. Nobody is killed, but everyone scrambles and on the ground crawling for cover. Bobby himself crawls behind cover of another parked vehicle and continues to fire in the direction of the truck. Helen now really tugs at you saying you need to come with her where its safe, but you wonder if you should try to help Bobby considering he's the only one currently trying to kill Aaron. Everyone else has completely retreated and is even running past you. > You go with Helen Getting into a fistfight with Diana is one thing, but you're definitely not up to dealing with this crazy asshole. You just hope Bobby is up for dealing with him though apparently Helen thinks so. "Come on! Bobby can handle this, but we need to get to the children where it's safe!" Helen exclaims and you start to follow her. The pair of you run upstairs away from the sounds of shouting and gunfire. You soon reach the top and follow Helen through a corridor doorway. And then Helen nearly gets bashed in the head with a bat when she passes through an entryway. She does take a hit to the shoulder though which causes her to fall to the floor in pain. Diana steps out from the corner she was hiding behind and then rushes at you. You're caught off guard and point your pistol at Diana, and actually manage to fire a shot, but unfortunately Diana's smashes your arm with the bat away from her direction so your shot goes wild. Hardly matters since between the kickback of the pistol and the pain you end up dropping the gun entirely. With you unarmed and Helen still clutching her arm in pain, Diana's head swivels back and forth rapidly, to make sure neither one of you are going to suddenly lunge at her, though she's also eyeing the dropped pistol too. "After Bobby ripped my heart out I went upstairs to my room and overheard you two bitches conspiring against me. Didn't know you had it in you Helen. I always knew you loved Bobby, but always figured you'd be too weak to do shit about it. Guess that's my fault for showing you mercy." Diana remarks. While Diana's ranting to her sister, you attempt to make a play for the gun, but Diana swings her bat at you, nearly hitting you in the face. You step back just in time. "And you. You certainly have proved yourself the stereotype of dumb blonde, because if you actually bought that bullshit that my sister fed you, you're stupider than I thought you were. You actually think she's gonna just let you have Bobby? She's gonna backstab you the same way she backstabbed me." "Maybe she backstabbed you because you were a fucking bully to her, you ever think of that?" you say. "Bully? She oughta be grateful I didn't kill her ass and instead made her strong enough for her to grow a spine to betray me in the first place! Hey! Where the fuck you goin'?" Diana remarks when she turns her head to see Helen getting up to run away. Diana throws her bat at Helen's legs, which successfully hit and trip her up. Diana then goes for the pistol and that's when you pounce and manage to tackle her. The pair of you are soon rolling on the floor again, punching, scratching and kneeing each other. You both try to go for the pistol on several occasions, but neither of you gets the advantage, in fact when Diana finally does, you knock it out of her hand and it goes sprawling and down the stairs to the first floor. "Bah! I don't need a gun to do my work anyhow! I'll enjoy it even more killing you with my bare hands!" Diana remarks and lands a good punch on you and then she slams the back of your head into the floor causing you to become a little dazed. She'd do more, but then Helen comes up from behind her with the bat in hand. Unfortunately for Helen, Diana hears Helen and catches Helen's feeble swing and stops the bat from actually hitting her. "I'm gonna so enjoy hurting you little sister..." Diana exclaims and attempts to rip the bat from Helen's hand. Helen's grip is strong enough that Diana doesn't succeed so instead Diana uses Helen's weight against her and pushes the bat towards Helen as hard as she can. Helen, not expecting this, loses her footing on her already bruised legs and falls back on the nearby wall, dropping the bat entirely, which rolls away. Diana gets off of you, to take care of her sister who at this point is begging to not be hurt. "Diana, please...this isn't my fault...Bobby chose Su..." Diana squeaks. "BOBBY CHOSE ME FIRST! BOBBY IS MINE! HE'S ALWAYS BEEN MINE BY BIRTH! You fucking little weakling traitorous bitch! Had you just stayed in line, I might've even been kind enough to let Bobby face fuck you on your birthday, but the only fucking you're going to get now is in your ass because I'm going knee deep in it!" At this point Helen squeals in fear and curls up in a tight ball while Diana starts kicking the hell out of her. Meanwhile you're starting to come around a bit more. Things are still a bit dizzy for you and you're a bit wobbly standing up, but you manage it. You attempt to make a run (or fast paced wobble at any rate) for the bat, but Diana stops you before you can even reach it. "Don't think so bottled blonde bitch!" Diana says and knocks you to the floor and then follows up with a kick. Diana gets on top of you and while you struggle to fight her off, she slaps away your attempts and wraps her hands around your throat. "You are going to very dark place and I'm going to enjoy putting you there." She remarks and then she starts doing some weird chanting, similar to the shit Bobby says at times when you're having sex with him, but this isn't nearly as fun. You try to pry her hands off your throat, but her grip is like iron. You start to lose consciousness. You try one more time to get her off of you by punching her in the face, but your swing isn't strong enough and Diana is just too determined to end your life. Diana's face gets blurry, you choke and then everything goes black. Everything is black for what probably seems to be forever. There is nothing. No fluffy cloud heaven, no lake of fire, and definitely not any Tiamat. Then you feel a sensation around your mouth and the sensation of air going in. It's pleasant enough that you instinctively throw your arms out to embrace Bobby. When you open your eyes you find Helen's face lip locked to yours. After a few seconds you actually freak out about it being her instead of Bobby. "H...hey! What the hell?!" you say and push Helen off of you. "I'm sorry Suzy, but you were unconscious and I was resuscitating you." Helen remarks. "I wasn't breathing?" you ask. "Um, well it didn't look like you were. I mean Diana choked you out before I got to her." "Wait, I was just unconscious. (cough) You didn't check to see if I was still breathing first? You just wrapped your (cough) lips around mine and started blowing into my mouth?" "I panicked and didn't want to waste time checking! I didn't want you to die!" Helen exclaims. Well you can't really fault her for trying to save your life. "(Cough) Well thanks Helen. So where is Diana?" you ask rubbing your throat which still hurts like hell. "Over to your right." Helen points out and sure enough you turn your head and see Diana laying face down on the floor. "I smacked her in the head with the bat when she was choking you. I dunno if I killed her. I didn't check to see if she was still breathing either, I was too busy worrying about you. Are you sure you're feeling okay?" "Yeah, I'm fine." You slowly starting to stand. It takes some effort, but Helen helps you up. Your whole body hurts. You stare at Diana's body and see her chest briefly rise and fall, so it looks like she's still alive, just unconscious. Though you're severely tempted to put an end to that, but you've got a better idea. "You think Bobby would let me sacrifice Diana?" you ask which takes her a little by surprise. "Um...I don't know. I mean after we explain what she did, I can't see he'd have any objections. There are no rules against it." Helen replies. "Good, it's my fucking wedding day, I should at least get to pick...well shit looks like she's waking up already." You remark when you see Diana begin to stir. "Hey, guess what Diana, you're going to be at my wedding after all. You're going to be one of the most important people there in fact. Helen, do you have anything to tie this bitch up with?" you ask. "Uh, yeah I think I know where there are some handcuffs and there's always duct tape laying around somewhere." Helen replies. "Well go get them. I'll keep an eye on Diana." You say and pick up the nearby bat. While Helen goes running off, you standby staring at Diana who is giving you the stare of death, but is obviously still in lady pain. "You think I'm gonna just let you throw me on the altar and shove a knife in me like some fucking sheep? You gotta another thing coming blondie." She remarks. "I don't see as you have really a choice at this point." You remark. "Bullshit, I still got a few choices. Like for instance, I could rush you right now, take that bat from you and bash your brains in with it." "You think you still got the strength for that, let alone the speed?" "Maybe I'll make it, maybe I won't, but we're gonna see..." Diana says and spits blood from her mouth. Just as you're about to put out Diana's lights again, you suddenly hear a very loud explosion which sounds like it's coming from the left side of the house. You've been so busy with Diana, you've completely forgotten that Bobby's been battling it out with Aaron elsewhere in the house. Your concerns are briefly for him instead. However, with this very brief distraction, Diana takes advantage and lunges at you and the pair of you are struggling with the damn bat again. Diana seems to be fueled by some sort of unnatural rage at this point, because she's certainly more formidable than the first time you fought with her in the dining room, or maybe she's not underestimating you like she did last time. In any case, you need an advantage, which is either going to be the bat you're currently still struggling with, or the gun which you know is still somewhere on the stairwell. > You continue to struggle with Diana You don't have time to go hunting for a gun when Diana's already at your throat. Besides, if you shoot her, you risk killing her and you've still got that plan to sacrifice her ass. Diana's grip and pull on the bat begins loosening your on grip on it. She's going to have it soon, but since she's so focused on the upper body, she's not really paying attention to her lower defenses. You let go of the bat, which causes her to fall backwards slightly. Not enough to fall, but enough to put her a bit off balance and back up from you. Within this brief window of relief you follow up with your next attack and as hard as you can you kick her RIGHT IN THE PUSSY. Diana's grip on the bat fails and you're quick to retrieve it while she's grabbing her girl parts in agony. "And I don't dye my hair, I'm a fucking natural blonde, you fucking bitch!" you say and smash Diana's nose in with the pommel of the bat. She falls to the floor bellowing in pain. Meanwhile Diana's finally returned with the duct tape as well as a pair of handcuffs. "Shit, what happened?" Helen asks. "She attacked me again, what the fuck do you think happened? Come on let's tie this bitch up, I just heard an explosion in the house and I want to go help Bobby." You and Helen waste no time in handcuffing Diana's hands behind her back and then duct taping her ankles together to the point where the bottom part of her legs look like a mummy. Of course when she won't stop swearing and cursing at you both, you duct tape her mouth shut as well. "Okay, she should be secure. I'm going to grab that gun that's probably somewhere still on the stairs and check on Bobby. Here, you take this and keep an eye on that bitch." You say to Helen and hand her the bat. "Okay, please be careful Suzy." Helen remarks and you're off. On your way down the stairs you find the pistol that was dropped and take it. Then when you get to the ground floor you start cautiously making your way to the left wing of the house. You still haven't seen anyone yet. The smell of gunpowder and smoke is in the air of this part of the house and peering in one of the rooms you see the results of what you assume is from grenades. The room is charred, blackened and wrecked. Whatever items were in this room have been completely destroyed and there is now a large hole allowing direct entry from the outside to the inside. You also notice small splotches of blood on the floor causing an easier to follow trail. Though who's blood it is you have no idea. You can only hope it's Aaron's. "Shit, I really hope you're alright Bobby." You say to yourself and begin to follow the trail. You pass through a series of rooms to get to your destination. Some furnished, some empty. Eventually you get to a small room that has a door leading to stairs going down. You wonder if this is the dungeon that was mentioned to you in passing before. While you're a little reluctant to go down there, this is where the blood trail leads. The smell emanating from that direction isn't pleasant though it sounds silent down there. You slowly walk down the steps. The closer you get to the bottom, the smell becomes worse and when you finally get to the bottom there is no mistaking that this is indeed the dungeon, but it's a complete wreck. There are body parts, gore and blood all over the place. A few of the cages you see are destroyed and at the farthest wall there is a large chunk taken out of it. Apparently there was more explosive fun down here. And sitting close to one of the more intact cages on a sturdy looking chair is Bobby looking down at the floor. Most of his clothing is covered blood and looks a bit dejected, but doesn't look hurt so that's good at least. "Bobby? Bobby are you okay?" you ask causing him to look up. "Oh yes, I'm fine...what happened to you?" Bobby says and starts getting up. You didn't think about how you might look after coming back from your tussle with Diana. You're probably sporting a few cuts and bruises of your own. "Oh, I had a knock down drag out with your sister Diana. Tried to kill me and Helen this time. We took care of it though." "She dead?" "No, but I decided if I have to sacrifice someone on my wedding day, I'm requesting...no I'm demanding that it be her. So we've got her tied up for that purpose." Bobby doesn't respond in too much surprise at your request. "Well, I think after everything you've gone through, I think you deserve that right. It's just as well anyway considering Aaron's crazy ass just blew up all the prisoners." Bobby says with a sigh. "What's wrong? Didn't we win and everything has worked out?" you ask. "Yeah, it did...it's just...I dunno. I guess some of Aaron's ranting just got to me that's all." "Well what did he say?" "Oh he just kept accusing me of not really being dedicated to Tiamat. I dunno, I know I shouldn't pay any attention to it, but I can't help but think he might have had a point. Maybe I am a little caught up in ritual...but still I THINK it's important to revere Tiamat in a formal way! Just because I'm not completely running amok stealing army trucks and throwing explosives at shit doesn't make me any less dedicated to glorious chaos! I mean...does it?" And that's your cue to support the fragile male ego again. "Well of course it doesn't my love. Your way is obviously a more intelligent approach to chaos. Just because something is chaotic, doesn't mean it's mindless. You're playing the long game and attempting to build a dynasty. Instead of burning out quick, you're plotting and planning labyrinthian schemes to eventually burn them all." You say while looking into Bobby's eyes and stroking the side of his face. "I'm so glad you understand me." Bobby remarks and hugs you tightly. Bobby really does always feel completely better with just a few supportive words from you. Its sort of amazing really since you didn't realize you had this sort of power over him, then again you two were never really in a situation like this before except the first time you met and that was when you counted on him to "rescue you." That dynamic has clearly changed. You

guess this is what his grandmother meant when she spoke to you in the dream. With that settled, Bobby and you make your way back to where Helen and Diana are. When you arrive, you see several other family members who finally came out of hiding. "Bobby you're alive! I'm so glad to see you're safe!" Helen remarks. Bobby just nods acknowledging Helen, but then turns his attention to everyone as a group. "Helen, you go check on the kids, if you haven't already and YOU four, I'm gonna have another long talk with, but we're going to do that later. Right now, Brandon, Ronald you grab Diana and throw her in one of those cells in the dungeon. There's a couple of good ones still left. Afterwards, all of you are going to help me clean up this place...shit there is so much to do." Bobby tells you not to worry about doing anything as you did enough just having to deal with Diana and he wants you to just rest up for tomorrow. You offer to help, but he really won't hear of it. You don't press the issue since hey if he doesn't want you doing any work, you're not going to argue about that. Before you leave he tells you that he's got a spare gun in his clothing drawer just in case of an emergency. Before you head to your room, you grab a quick meal since you realize you didn't really eat yesterday. By the time you get to your room, you're really glad you didn't have to help Bobby, because you're really starting to feel the aches and pain all over your body. You take another shower, which helps a little. You spend the remainder of the day and night in the bedroom just resting. You hear noise occasionally from downstairs. At one point you hear the sound of vehicles outside and looking out the window you see someone driving the damaged army truck in front of where Aaron crashed through the gate as a temporary barrier you guess. Eventually you hear a knock on the door. You ask who it is and it's Helen. You tell her to come in. "Hey Suzy, I just came in to check on you. Are you feeling okay?" Helen asks. "Well my body hurts all over, but other than that, I'm fine. You?" You ask. "Oh, I'm a little sore too, but nothing to worry about." "Hm, so how's the clean up going?" "Oh, I suspect that will be going on through the night." "Well I guess Bobby won't be coming to bed tonight then." You remark. Then Helen walks towards the bed closer and asks: "Did...did you want me to get into bed with you? I mean I know it's not the same but..." You're almost at a loss for words. "Excuse me? I just meant he won't be coming to bed, I wasn't even implying anything sexual, and why are you offering to get into bed with me?! Y'know Helen, you've been putting out some strange signals towards me a couple times these past few days and at this point I'm starting to think you're attracted to me..." Helen's face turns a little pale and she attempts to turn to run away. "Helen, stop! I wanna know what's going on in that head of yours, so come back." You demand and sit up as Helen slowly walks back over. "I'm...sorry Suzy...I just thought...I dunno...you liked me..." Helen says looking down. "I do like you, but...wait, so you don't love Bobby anymore?" you ask. "I do...but I feel like we've been so close these past two days, I think I'm starting to fall for you too. I mean when our lips were touching I felt a closer connection to you than I ever had before." "You were giving me mouth to mouth resuscitation!" you shout. "But you embraced me in your arms! You even slipped your tongue in my mouth and when you opened your eyes you didn't even let go immediately..." Helen points out. "I...I... was out of it! I thought you were Bobby!" you exclaim. "Bobby kisses like me?" Helen asks. "No, you tasted sweeter...I mean...fuck...Gah! Look I thought you were Bobby okay?" "Okay...I'm sorry Suzy. I didn't mean to offend you." "I'm not offended, this is just...weird though. I'm not a lesbian, not to mention I'm going to marry your brother. (Sigh) Look Helen, I'm a little tired to deal with this right now. I think we might have to address this in more detail tomorrow." "But the wedding is tomorrow." "Well, I guess that will be one more thing to deal with then, so until then good night. And before you even ask, no I won't tell Bobby about this. I'm sure he's got enough on his mind." You say. "Thank you Suzy." Helen says and then slowly walks out of your room. After she leaves you rub your face in disbelief of how this day has ended. This whole week has felt so random that you feel like you're in one of those choose your own adventure books, you can't even imagine how tomorrow is going to go. The only upside is unless this is some really elaborate seduction plot, Helen's not planning to kill you like you thought she might be. Then again, who the hell ever knows in this house? As you start to fall asleep, you can imagine Grandma Morningstar is going to have a field day with this one. > Next day… "And now Suzy, having beaten the chicken soup out of all her other opponents this week, will take this final challenge by herself! Will she be able to do it ladies and gentlemen? Will she be able to impress Misty at last? We'll find out today! Let's give our small town girl some encouragement for her task at hand!" As the crowd claps, whistles and stomps their feet in support, you sit at a large table by yourself looking at... A huge plate of tacos, fish tacos to be precise. The lack of subtlety is hardly surprising at this point. You double face palm before exhaling and looking up. "Really?" you ask in disbelief. "This is the last task Suzy..." the disembodied announcer's voice whispers. "I don't give a shit, the concept of fish tacos is fucking disgusting for one thing and for another..." Suddenly Bobby's grandmother appears as she has been doing in your dreams. "See? Told you we should've just went with traditional beef. Anyway I think the point was made." Bobby's grandmother cackles and with a wave of her cane, you're back in that blasted wasteland you were in last time. "And what point would that be? And am I meeting this Misty yet or what?" "No, you're not meeting Misty yet, and as for the point I think we both know what point that was." "Yeah and I'm not a lesbian." You say. "Who said you were? It's pretty clear you love the cock, but you're in some serious denial if you're standing here claiming that you're not into girls as well. It's okay, really. There are no lines, we're all here to enjoy each other's bodies." "I'm not!" you protest. "Oh come on Suzy, you know deep down you're curious. Some of that three way porn on your computer involves the two girls and a guy configuration. I'd say beyond curious at this point. We both know you find Helen cute because you're a narcissist at heart and she reminds you of yourself in some ways. Nothing like self love." "Well she does have pretty eyes... but I'm still not interested. She's a girl and I just don't swing that way." you say. "Bullshit, are you seriously saying you wouldn't like to put a strap on and do my grand daughter from behind? Pull her hair and make her say your name and then after you were done fucking her, you'd shove her face in your pussy until she licked it clean and you climaxed in her mouth?" You're not sure what's more disturbing. A dead old lady giving graphic descriptions of how you'd fuck her grand daughter, or the fact that it's sort of turning you on a bit. You're a little at loss for words. "Hey...hey two girls and one guy isn't lesbian porn." You say fumbling with a partial defense. "Oh? I see. So it's not gay if it's a three-way? Well whatever you have to tell yourself I suppose. Still, if you truly feel that way I'm wondering if you'd be open to...nah..." "What?" you ask wondering where she's going with this. "Hah! You ARE curious!" Grandma Morningstar cackles. "I'm not! I'm just wondering what you were going to drone on about!" "Okay then here it is, besides being really into getting blowjobs, Bobby's also really into girl on girl stuff. Bobby probably wouldn't turn down the idea of having a second wife which would be Helen in this instance. This wouldn't have worked before with Diana, because of how much you two hated each other. However, with Helen, I think this would be more workable..." Grandma Morningstar says. "What? He's never told me this! He's never even gave any indication!" you say. "Well of course he hasn't, as I told you before he's a bit too much a gentleman to suggest it and I'm fairly certain he's never even felt any romantic feelings towards Helen either. However I know for certain if you approached him with the idea, that he damn sure wouldn't be against it." "Well I'D be fucking against it!" you say. "Wait, so you're fine with murdering someone on your wedding day, but you're against marrying two people. You're fine with being associated with a bunch of murderers that practice incest, but you're against having sex with another girl even one you find attractive even if you don't want to admit it. Interesting set of moral values you've got there blondie." "But I'm marrying into YOUR family! Isn't that a little hypocritical to criticize me when you've probably engaged in all manner of illegal and unnatural acts yourself?" "Not at all. My point is I didn't really have the same arbitrary limits you place on yourself. I'm just pointing out your odd inconsistencies. I suppose it's not really your fault. You can't help the puritanical way you were raised." You're getting a little agitated and getting tired of insane troll logic at this point. "Look, if all you're going to do is insult me, I think I'd like to wake up now." You say. "You will soon, in any case I'm just trying to help YOU out!" "How is sharing Bobby helping me out?" "Sheesh, first you still can't figure out who Misty is, now this? You really are slow on the uptake ain't ya blondie? You're lucky you're pretty." Bobby's grandmother asks and then taps you in the forehead with her hand. "Ow! Stop!" you say and back away. "Look, I'm just going to end with this sagely wisdom. If you really want to live in a harmonious household, I suggest you open your mind a little. You've already made a few steps in the right direction; you might as well go all the way. I mean who the hell is going to be judging you? Nobody important that's for sure. Besides, I'm sure with a little forethought you can think of the benefits of such an arrangement and turn it into an advantage. Well, that's what I think. Anyway, congrats on your wedding and you've got my blessing. Good luck!" Good luck? Somehow that doesn't sound reassuring. You're about to ask Bobby's grandmother what she exactly means by that, but then she waves that damn cane again and you're enveloped the blackness and then you wake up. "Gah, fucking bitch." You say groggily. "Oh...I'm sorry for waking you...I just wanted to apologize for yesterday and give you this to see if it fits, but I understand if you don't want me here..." a familiar female voice remarks. You look around the room and see Helen coming in carrying some red clothing. "Huh? No, not you...wait what are you doing in here anyway? Did Bobby spend all night working on the house?" you ask "I'm bringing in your wedding dress and yes, Bobby has been working on the house for the most part. Trying to patch up the big hole in the house, cleaning up the dungeon, blocking the front gate. He had to bury our brother Jordan as well. I don't believe he's actually slept yet." "Oh yeah, forgot that that asshole killed one of your siblings. I didn't know him that well, but sorry for your loss." You remark. "Thank you, but I suppose we're all just puppets in Tiamat's glourious chaos, so we all need to just move on right? We have to accept that some things just will never be...anyway could you see if this fits?" Helen asks holding up the red clothing which now looks a lot like lingerie. "Wait, that's the wedding dress? It looks like slutty underwear from Hot Secret." You answer and get out of bed. Helen's face looks a bit offended by that statement. "My grandmother wore this on her wedding day! She had this dress made of the finest silk, not whatever cheap material they use in North Tiwanaland or some place! THIS is a one of a kind article of clothing! It's not something you'd find in some edgy teenager hang out!" Helen remarks. "Okay! Geez. I'm not trying to insult the dress or your grandmother. It's just...well I thought I'd be wearing something a little more... substantial. But seeing as your family isn't exactly conventional and when in Rome...I guess I better try it on. Um, you washed it right?" "Of course. Hand washed it myself. Can't risk putting it in a machine." Helen says and hands it to you. "Red fishnets...red high heels..." you say. "Yes. Those shoes were also special made with the finest..." "Leather. Yes, I can imagine. Let me guess the fishnets were made with the finest silk as well." "Well of course, what else would it be?" "What else indeed. Okay, well I guess I'm going in the bathroom to change." "I understand. I'm still sorry about making you uncomfortable about my unwanted advances." Helen says. Before you enter the bathroom, you start to wonder... "Helen, why did you approach me? Or rather I know why, but you were attracted to Bobby long before you met me. You obviously have the inner strength to make the first move as it were." "Well, that was a little different for several reasons. I mean Diana would've killed me had I actually made a move on Bobby! With you, I just...I dunno. The moment felt right? And it still wasn't easy. Of course I misread signals. Sorry." Helen remarks meekly. And there it is, Helen's subservience in action. Even with Diana gone, Helen's mindset hasn't changed much. You're just a "nicer" replacement to Diana. You're fairly certain now that Helen means no harm to you, if indeed she ever really did. So this is it, you'll marry Bobby, have children by him and live happily ever as queen in this twisted family. Helen as usual will play the second fiddle content with her lot in life. As strange as that seems all relatively good for you, you still can't help but think Helen doesn't deserve better in some way. She did directly save your life after all. It makes you start to ponder Grandma Morningstar's words of opening one's mind to make way for new possibilities... > You continue on your path And you silently dismiss that idea immediately! Grandma Morningstar may or may not have been right about your "flexible" sexuality, but even if she was, you are still not fucking Helen just because you feel sorry for her or on some whim! Besides, you're about to marry Bobby and you made a damn commitment. You can't just be fucking his sister, hours before the wedding. Maybe nobody else in this family has any much sense of "social mores" but that's just wrong as far as your concerned. And even if Bobby WAS okay with it, you're already making enough sacrifices for him and giving in to his possible secret desires for a harem aren't part of that plan. You're the only one and that's that. You don't fucking share. You enter the bathroom and go through your usual routine of showering and such. Afterwards you finally get around putting on the "wedding dress." The first thing you do is look at the dress before putting it on and wondering if it's going to be bigger in the chest area. While you're not lacking in that region, you've met Bobby's grandmother (in dream form anyway) and she's got at least another couple cup sizes on you. In fact her body type back in her prime was more of an old school 1950s pinup girl hourglass figure than your own "petite" size. The funny thing is, as soon as you put it on, it seems to fit perfectly to your own body. The material isn't any sort of spandex or stretchy material, it's silk like Helen said, but given Bobby's family's strangeness, you have to wonder if it's...magical? "Magical underwear." You scoff; shaking your head in half disbelief you're even considering it. Not surprisingly the stockings AND the shoes fit you perfectly as well. Yeah, Grandma Morningstar probably had all this stuff weaved by a giant magical spider voodoo priest or some shit because it doesn't make sense that any of this stuff would fit you so well. Regardless of its origins, you do feel pretty comfortable despite looking like a Hollywood streetwalker. The heels don't even hurt your feet, though you're still a little unsteady on them due to not being used to wearing such things. Let alone these being stilettos. The last time you wore heels was when Uncle Ed made you wear stripperiffic clothing with the intent to lure Bobby and his dad into the woods where he could kill them. While everything turned out for the best because you met Bobby that fateful night, the part with Uncle Ed still gives you the shivers just thinking about it. You look at yourself in the mirror one more time, before leaving the bathroom. "Well Suzy, you might look like a whore in this thing, but at least you look like a high priced one." You say to yourself. When you exit the bathroom Helen stands up and looks at you. "Oh my. You're...you're...so beautiful looking. I knew it would fit you perfectly." Helen gushes. "Yeah I am pretty hot looking in this get up. Shit, still can't balance on these heels though." You say. "Hmm, well maybe you can dispense with those. I mean I'd hate for you to fall down the stairs when we go show everyone how you look. Maybe we should take some pictures!" Helen says approaching you. "What? I thought I was just putting it on as a test drive as it were. While I won't deny this stuff feels pretty comfortable on my skin that I don't mind wearing it, I sort of don't want to be walking around the house with it on until show time. Besides everyone can see how awesomely sexy I am then." "I think they should see you now. It'll raise the spirits around here seeing you dressed like this." Helen remarks as she begins touching your arm. "Well it'll raise something with the males around here when they see me of course. Not sure about the ladies of this house, though you're getting a little too close there Helen." "Oh please? At least go show Bobby. I know he'd like to see you." Helen says ignoring your previous remark about invading your personal space. "I'm sure he's really busy right now, besides isn't it bad luck for me to see him right before the wedding?" "Oh you're thinking of those silly traditions for other weddings. That's not the case here. Come on I'll take you to him." Helen says and at this point is pulling on your hands almost causing you fall. "Hey! I nearly fell! I told you already that you're too damn close!" you snap. Helen immediately backs away and looks down submissively. "I'm sorry Suzy. I didn't mean to violate your personal space." "(Sigh) It's fine Helen...just calm down a bit and let me at least take these shoes off first before I go heading downstairs." As you sit down and start taking your shoes off, you and Helen start to hear noise from outside. The both of you go over to the window to take a peek. You and Helen see several figures crawling under the truck blocking the broken front gate or trying to climb the fence. The ones that have gotten in are loping in a wild jerky like motion. They're also screaming, howling and making inhuman sounds. From your vantage point they LOOK human, but they're certainly not acting like it. Then the door swings open causing both you and Helen to jump a bit. It's Veronica with a gun in hand. "What the hell are you two doing in here, dyking it out? Don't you know we're being attacked by zombies?" Veronica exclaims. "I was trying on my wedding dress, thank you very much and we only just saw the freaks outside, so they are zombies?" you say. "Yeah, I mean...I dunno if they are. Maybe they're just rabid humans or something, but they're gnashing their teeth, moaning and coming at us like something out of a horror movie. We need all the help we can get to repel these things!" "We'll be ready in a moment." You say. "Well hurry up or else there isn't going to be a wedding. We're having a hard time trying to..." A loud crashing noise followed by gunfire is heard from downstairs. "Shit! That sounded close! I gotta go!" Veronica shouts and you hear her run off. Well at least it looks like Bobby's finally lit a fire under his relative's asses to pull their weight around here. "(Sigh) Fucking zombies. Of course this day HAD to get worse..." you say shaking your head. "Suzy, we need to hurry to go help Bobby." Helen says pointing out the obvious. "Yeah, hold on let me just get something." You go to Bobby's clothing drawer to get the spare gun he mentioned yesterday. "Hey, what about me?" Helen asks. "Well, just grab a blunt object! Unplug that desk lamp and use that to bash those freaks' heads in I guess." "Suzy, I don't really want to argue, but do you even know how to use a gun properly? Maybe you should give me the gun and you just stay behind me." "What? I'm not giving you the gun! And for your information my older brother Ben DID show me how to shoot a gun...a few times." "A few times...Suzy, I was taught to fire a gun, aim and everything else before I was ten. I'm just saying in a situation like this, it might be best if I have the gun, I'm sure when we get to the others, Bobby will give you another one of his." Helen remarks. "Yeah and in the mean time I'm fucking defenseless." "You won't be! I'll protect you and I think you can count on that." Helen says. Helen's insistence on wanting the gun is making you even more paranoid in this already fucked up situation. In the back of your mind you can't help but think she's going to shoot you even though the pair of you are supposed to be cool with each other. Of course it's possible she'd just feel safer with the gun in her hand. You don't actually know if she's a better shot than you, though you aren't exactly a highly skilled sharp shooter. Especially after failing to hit Diana during your scuffle yesterday. > You hand the gun to Helen You're making a big leap in faith here... You look at Helen and the gun, then with a deep exhale you slowly hand it to her. Helen takes the pistol and checks it before addressing you. "You still don't trust me do you?" Helen says looking a little hurt. "I gave you the gun didn't I? Come on let's go deal with these zombies, or whatever they are before they eat us or something." "Um, aren't you going to change your clothing?" Helen asks. "Huh? Oh." You say not even realizing you were still dressed the way you were. "No, it's my fucking wedding day, but I will be taking this." You say and then unplug the small desk lamp you mentioned earlier to Helen and take it as a makeshift weapon. "Um, okay then." Helen remarks and the pair of you are out the door with her taking the lead. The pair of you head through the corridor and down the stairs both not making many comments at this point. Might be due to the situation being more than a little tense and its only getting more so as the gunfire, yelling and guttural noises are getting louder as you approach the center of the fighting. As you approach yet another door, suddenly two of the creatures burst through it. The sight and surprise cause the both of you to scream, but Helen manages to keep her cool long enough to shoot the first creature directly in the head, dropping it immediately. The second one however tackles Helen to the floor. She drops her pistol and struggles with the creature while calling for you to help. You don't even bother scrambling for the gun yourself; you just smash the side of the thing's head with the lamp you already have in hand, which is enough to cause it roll off of Helen, but not enough to kill it. With a massive head wound the thing starts to move again, continuing to make all sorts of horrible guttural noises. Helen however has retaken possession of the gun again and fires two more shots into the thing's face. It ceases moving and slumps lifelessly to the floor. "Shit, that was intense." You say. "Yeah, thanks for getting that thing off me." Helen remarks. "No problem. Guess it was a good idea handing you the gun afterall. You are a much better shot. I probably would've missed and dropped the damn gun as soon as those zombies came running through the door." "Y'know these things aren't really rotten looking or anything. Maybe they aren't undead." Helen says. "Well I still don't want to get killed and eaten by some virus infected asshole. Come on, this isn't over yet." You say and help Helen up. By the time you get to Bobby and the rest of the family's location, they've managed to wipe out most of the things and you and Helen don't have much to do. Still, you wonder about their origin. Some sort of sickness perhaps? Maybe the government was fucking around with a secret weapon like they tend to do and it got out of hand. It would explain why there was a drastic rise in violence even before you left town and why the National Guard showed up later. It isn't until after all the mad attackers are killed that Bobby manages to address you directly. He's incredibly tired looking, the rest of his family looks pretty tired too, but he looks like he's about to collapse. "Are you okay?! They didn't bite you did they?" Bobby asks, stumbling a bit from exhaustion. "No, I'm fine. We both are." You reply. "Suzy saved my life." Helen remarks. "Well, I think we both saved each other more than enough times this week." You say which causes a bit of a happiness of Helen's face. "I'm just glad the both of you are okay. I have to ask though, what's with your clothing?" Bobby asks. "Oh yeah, I guess Veronica didn't tell you, I was trying on the wedding dress when all this shit went down. Speaking of which let's get this wedding started! I'm anxious to get married!

" you say and go up to Bobby giving him a kiss. Now you've caught everyone off guard. One moment they're fighting for their lives, the next they're attending a wedding. "Now?" Bobby asks. "We just won a great victory and I'm in my wedding dress. What better time than now?" you ask. "Well I suppose you have a point." Bobby says with a smile. "Good! I'm ready to become part of this family." You say. Bobby looks around at the rest of his family. "Well, you heard my soon to be wife! Let's get this started! Helen go get the kids, Brandon, Ronald, go grab Diana and the rest of you do a quick sweep of the house just to make sure we got all those bastards. Let's go!" Bobby orders. Everyone complies and soon you and Bobby are left by yourselves. Bobby takes a seat to briefly rest. He yawns several times in a row and is struggling to stay awake, but you can tell your enthusiasm for the wedding has energized him a bit. You decide to keep the energy going by sitting on his lap and making a fuss. "Hey, it's not time for the honeymoon yet." Bobby remarks with a brief chuckle. "Oh it's always times for the honeymoon with you." You say. "Damn, I wish I wasn't so tired...hope I don't stumble over the joining passage when I'm marrying us." Bobby remarks as he rubs your legs. "Wait, isn't someone else doing that?" "Huh? No, I'm doing it. I mean I'm the high priest here. Technically it could just be me and you here." "What? That's it? We could've done that a long time ago!" "Well, like I've told you before, I just wanted it to be perfect." You wrap your arms around Bobby and lean your body against him. "Bobby, just being with you, is enough perfection for me. Besides, isn't the carnage surrounding us true perfection in the eyes of Tiamat's chaotic glory or something?" you ask. Bobby looks around at the nearby mess of broken furniture and the couple bodies laying on the floor and smiles. "Yes, I suppose you're right." He says and then pauses. "You know I've been thinking. I'll take care of Diana personally; you don't need to worry about her anymore. You don't need to go through some sacrifice ritual just to prove yourself...I know you love me and that you're one of us now. No need to dirty your hands on her." "That's sweet and I'm really glad you feel that way. But I'll take the knife anyway, I've got something special in mind." You say. "Oh? Like what?" "Oh, you'll see." You say with a smile. A few more moments pass as you wait for everyone to return. In the meantime you let Bobby rest a bit by closing his eyes. Veronica and Denise return first, then Helen with all the children. Finally Brandon and Ronald arrive gripping Diana by each arm. Predictably she's swearing up a storm and accusing everyone of being against her. It wakes Bobby up from his brief nap. "Oh? Everyone here? Good. Let's get this started. (Yawn) Sorry, I'm so damn tired..." "Bobby, you don't need to stand up for this, just keep resting in your chair and I'll just be right here on your lap. I'm sure that's acceptable to everyone right?" you ask. Nobody has any real objections to this, well except Diana of course. "Bobby! You're making a fucking mistake! I'M your soul mate! I'M the one supposed to marry you! You're betraying Tiamat and everything we hold dear!" she screams. Ignoring Diana, Bobby recites what you guess is a passage from whatever holy book of Tiamat he got it from and when the time comes, you accept your place as his wife. Then the both of you kiss like you've done so many times before, though this time it's different. Most of Bobby's family claps if they are able. You now feel like you belong here. "Here. I've been carrying this in my pocket the whole day, nearly forgot it was there." Bobby remarks and hands you a ring with a sizable red diamond in the center and smaller black inlayed around it. It's definitely beautiful and when you try it on, you find that it fits perfectly. Diana's eyes would burn through you if they could. "You...you gave her grandma's ring?! YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! You dishonor that woman! I hope grandma's spirit comes back and rapes the pair of you with a fucking broom handle!" Diana shouts. At this point Bobby calmly pulls out a knife and hands it to you. "Did you still want the honors?" Bobby asks. You take the knife and look over at Helen, who is trying her best to look supportive. Well, you know she IS supportive, but you also know that this isn't really what she wants. Still, maybe there is a way to make things just a little better for her. "Helen, you and I have been through a lot this week and in this week I've come to see you as the sister I never had. Now that I'm officially part of this family, we ARE sisters. I know this is my day, but I feel like I should at least share some of my fortune with you. So here you go. Time to finally put all those years of bullying to rest." You say and hand Helen the knife. Helen is shocked by your gesture. Several other family members are as well. Diana however is still livid. "Oh by Tiamat's Chaotic Cunt...I'm not believing this...fine. I've been a bullying bitch to you, I won't deny that, is that what you want to hear? But if you REALLY love Bobby as much as I KNOW you do, you'll take that knife and stab the shit out of that bitch over there before you stab me, because if you don't you're just going to play second fiddle to blondie for the rest of your life and NEVER get Bobby. And you'll just be loser like you alw...UGH!" Diana's words are interrupted when Helen rushes to her and stabs her in the chest. "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! YOU FUCKING BITCH! YOU WERE ALWAYS IN THE FUCKING WAY! JUST FUCKING DIE! DIE! JUST DIE ALREADY! I FUCKING HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! DIE!" Helen screams alternating between laughing and crying while stabbing Diana. Brandon and Ronald let go of Diana and everyone just watches Helen's meltdown. When it's all said and done, Helen is on top of her sister's bloody body and the floor covered in blood. "I...always...(pant)...why? Why couldn't you (sob) have...just been nice...(sob) just once? Nice...like...Suzy." Helen says in a quivering voice and looks at you. At this point you get up and walk over to Helen. You even kneel down in the blood next to her. She drops the knife and goes to hug you and completely falls apart in your arms. "Shhh, it's okay Helen...it's okay. It's over now..." you say. Helen looks at you and nods silently. While she sniffles and tries to compose herself, you address everyone who are probably starting to form their own ideas about what Diana might've been babbling about. Even Bobby is alert again. "Okay folks, I'm sure we need to clean up around here after this recent attack and I also imagine that Bobby could use some rest, so let's help him out and get to it!" you say. Clean up goes relatively fast. Around the house at least since that's your primary concern. You go for the quick dirty approach of just getting all the dead bodies in one pile outside. You briefly think about burning them, but Bobby says that might attract attention and doing it tomorrow when everyone is more awake enough to defend this place properly is a better idea. Broken windows and the front door are barricaded with furniture for the night. Somewhere just after midnight everyone is ready to crash. Bobby, who has been practically sleep walking by this point just tells everyone to sleep with a weapon tonight and you can all just roll the dice without a night watch tonight. Nobody argues. You help Bobby upstairs and the pair of you collapse on the bed. You won't be celebrating your honeymoon tonight, but at least you'll be sleeping together. You cuddle up to Bobby who is fast asleep at this point and head into dreamland yourself, fully expecting Grandma Morningstar to fuck with you in some way as usual. > Next day… "Suzy! You've won! You've truly overcome all odds! You have not only survived the various uncertain events of this week, but you've also thrived! Ladies and gentlemen, let's give our small town girl some applause and respect for she truly is worthy of it!" As the crowd claps, whistles and stomps their feet in support, you sit at a large table by yourself looking at... A broomstick. It's just a plain wooden broomstick, nothing more, nothing less. "Nice. I'm guessing you were listening to Diana's rant earlier." You say unemotionally. No sooner have you said that, when everything disappears and you're facing Grandma Morningstar in the blasted wasteland again. "Hey at least it wasn't a plate of tacos this time. Guess you really are deeply repressed." Grandma Morningstar says. "Whatever. Am I finally done with all this nonsense? Am I finally meeting this Misty?" you say. "You figure out who it is yet?" "Yeah and I can't believe I didn't catch it before. Misty...MISS T...Tiamat." You answer. "Yay! Your pretty little blonde head finally got it! And no you don't get to meet her." "What? After all this build up? Seems pretty anti-climatic." "Yeah, well besides her being busy, the jury's still out on you." "But...didn't I win? I'm part of the family now." "Yes, yes, technically you won, I suppose, but the lot you're with are practically just sheep to be lead around by the nose by Bobby so they'll accept anything he says and Bobby's in love so of course he's fine with whatever you do as long as you're petting his ego and sucking his dick. However, it wasn't like you killed Diana yourself." "So? I let Helen do it. I think it was pretty therapeutic for her." "Hmm, and do you think Helen is going to be on your side in the long run knowing how she feels about not just Bobby, but you as well? You're too soft hearted, but marrying her and Bobby might've better solved the potential problems you may have with Helen in the future. However you didn't do that and while you probably appeased her feelings in the short term, I still say problems are going to crop up in the future with her. You don't think she won't just snap one day or silently plot against you?" "Maybe, but I'd say that's unlikely." Grandma Morningstar snorts. "And how can you be so sure?" "I'm not, but isn't that what chaos is all about? The risk on a possible outcome no matter how small? I mean I'm sure the pragmatic thing to do would be to kill Helen, but I don't really see why I should or need to. In fact a little kindness is already going a long way with her and will most likely do so in the foreseeable future. Besides, this whole week has taught me a little something about myself." "Oh? And what's that?" Grandma Morningstar asks. "I'm fucked up." You say. "Well I could've told you that." Grandma Morningstar cackles. "No what I mean is, there is a dark place within me. I know that now. I even feel it sometimes. Why else would I willingly marry a man in a murderous cult? I mean obviously I've got some serious mental issues going on in my head that I've only managed to not act on and outright block out mainly because I've been doing next to nothing in life. Until recently that is. I've been realizing that the more fucked up things get around me, the easier it would be for me to just say fuck it too and go full retard on the dark side and the thing is, I'd probably be fairly decent at it. Probably even better than most of the current family here." Grandma Morningstar listens intently wondering where you're going with this. "But I'm not going to do that, because I also still have a sense of decency. I see no reason to just go engaging in murder, rape and all the rest of that shit just because I'm...evil? I mean am I evil? I don't know. Probably to most I would be. Probably to you, I'm not evil enough, but to me I'm just me. And THAT'S all I have to worry about. My own fucking code. So, if I want to show kindness to Helen because a small part of me feels genuine pity for her, then so be it. And by the same token, if I suddenly feel the need to blow her brains out because I feel she's a risk, well we'll just have to see what happens in the future." Grandma Morningstar leans on her cane and remains silent staring at you, then a creepy smiles spreads across her face. "Well, I guess we will blondie. I guess we will. I suppose Tiamat's chaos can be as kind as it can be cruel. Who is to say what is right? Well anyway, see you around blondie, I think you'll be alright." Grandma Morningstar waves goodbye to you, disappears and everything around you gets dark. And you wake up. You turn your head to the right and see Bobby still with you partially under the blankets. He puts down a book he was reading. "Hey, it's about time you got up. You look a little frazzled. Bad dream?" Bobby asks. "Eh...better than others I've had this week. Probably should talk about at some point later, but I'm surprised to see you here. I figured you were going to going to get up early to work on the compound's defenses." You say. "I didn't sleep for practically a day remember? Anyway, I did get up earlier and gave everyone their orders of what I want worked on then I told everyone not to disturb me unless cannibals or more asshole family members are trying to wreck the place. So far haven't had any trouble. Glad to see I don't have to hover around them constantly." Bobby remarks. As Bobby brings you closer to him by putting his arm around you, and he surprises you with his next words. "So...Helen was in love with me huh?" he says. "...yeah...she was. She probably still is." You say. "(Sigh) Shit. You don't think this will be a problem do you?" Bobby says. "Why would it be? You don't have the same feelings for her do you?" you ask. "No, never thought about her in that way. Didn't know she felt that way about me until Diana opened her mouth yesterday. Guess it's sort of obvious in retrospect. I was just more concerned about you though. I don't want you fearing for plots against your life. I mean I can go talk to her..." "Don't worry about it. I've discussed all this with Helen on more than one occasion this week. We've worked it out." You say. While this reassures Bobby you start to wonder about a few of the things you spoke to his grandmother about. "Bobby?" you ask. "Yes?" "Are you disappointed that I didn't kill Diana?" "What? What's brought this on? I told you that didn't need to kill Diana." Yeah, but it seemed so important to you before and it doesn't have to be just Diana, I mean are you disappointed that I haven't killed...anyone? I mean before this week went all to hell, I was supposed to sacrifice one of your captives that Aaron blew up." Bobby's arm squeezes around you a little tighter as if to reassure you. "Suzy, I've had a lot of things to think about this week. I had all these grand plans of how this week was going to go and due to unforeseen events some of those plans went to shit. Such is the way of chaos and such is the will of Tiamat. Maybe all of this was her way of showing me that. But getting back to you, I had time to think hard about our relationship and why I fell in love with you in the first place. Your innocence." Bobby remarks. "My virginity?" you say. "Ha ha! Well that might've been part of it, but I was referring more about the fact that well you hadn't grown up in the same sort of environment I did. That you hadn't killed anyone." "Are you saying the fact that I hadn't murdered anyone made you more drawn to me?" "Yes initially. You have to remember Suzy, as fucked up as YOU think your family were, you were the closest link to normal for me and I guess that was sort of a turn on. Of course in time when our relationship grew into love, I wanted even more to...corrupt you? I guess that might be the right word. I wanted you to be more like me, more like my family." "But...?" "But, like I said a lot of shit happened this week. I tried to make plans that didn't work out the way I expected which made me realize that maybe I shouldn't have been making so many plans, and then I came to the conclusion that maybe I shouldn't be trying so hard to change you either. I should just go more with the flow and whatever happens, happens. If you never sacrifice someone in Tiamat's honor, that's fine. Hell, if you never even accept her glorious chaos, that's fine too. I love you for who you are now, that's good enough for me and always will be." Bobby's words make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. You might not be that "good girl" that once hid from the world in basement anymore, but apparently in Bobby's eyes, you're still "his good girl." You begin to initiate closer intimacy and then that's when a flash of bright light briefly covers the windows and a loud noise is heard in the distance. "Shit what the hell was that?" Bobby asks sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "I dunno, I'm glad we weren't looking directly at that flash though." You remark rubbing your eyes too. "Wait a minute...I think I know..." Bobby says and gets up. He walks over to the window and you follow close behind. In the distance to the west, you see the remnants of a mushroom cloud. Probably landed on Security City or near it. You can only guess it probably wasn't a big one, but you're still a little concerned if you're in some sort of fallout radius. "So...they finally went and did it." You say. "Looks like. (Sigh) Shit." Bobby says. "What's wrong? I thought we were prepared for this sort of thing." "Oh we are. I'm not even worried about that, it's just I wanted to spend the day relaxing with you. Now? Well I think you know I'm going to have to go and direct everyone. Oh to hell with it, the apocalypse isn't going anywhere. Let's go back to what we were doing." "Works for me." You agree. Eventually you will have to deal with this new world and whatever its going to throw at you, but for now you and Bobby allow yourselves to enjoy yourselves after this chaotic week. > … Calm in the Storm of Chaos The Future... "Look Nergal, I know Emberville is miles away, but ever since those dumb ass rednecks have been aggressively trying to move in on our territory, we can't trade with them or even New Security anymore in the near future. So get these crates of berries and apples over there as quick as you can and get us some medical supplies." You say to Nergal having to strain your neck just to look up at him a bit. Nergal is an imposing figure to be sure. He's the largest member of the family, but he'll always be your "baby" as far as you're concerned. "But why do I have to do this? I want to go help Anu and Dad fight those trailer trash fuckers." Nergal replies. "Don't argue son. Besides, Aiden and Nadia are going with you. I thought you liked hanging out with them." "Well they're good in a fire fight sure, but...I dunno I always feel like they're telepathic talking about me inside each others' heads. They're always making odd laughter about some private joke that only they know." "Well that's probably because they are, but trust me, you know deep down they'll come through for you. Right?" you say asking Aiden and Nadia. The two twins look at each other. "Of..." Aiden says. "course..." Nadia says. "Aunt Suzy." They both say in unison with a smile. You've gotten used to a lot of odd things since marrying Bobby, but these two sibling never fail to creep you out to a minor degree. You go back to address Nergal. "Now get a move on, you know those mutants really like their fruit...oh and DON'T waste any of it on some three legged hooker like before. You remember what happened last time, you had to use up some of the medical supplies just curing yourself of whatever the hell that... thing was carrying...ugh. You're lucky your cock didn't turn green and fall off." "Aw mom..." Nergal says looking a bit embarrassed. "Don't aw mom me. You heard what I said. Now get going and be safe son." You remark and hug him goodbye before the three of them get in the truck. You watch the gate open, the truck leave and the gate close again before going to check on your other son who is inside the house. You find Enki in his workshop with a stack of books and reading one he took from the library (Unsurprisingly the town library was mostly untouched in the chaos, nobody in town has ever appreciated reading very much even before the bombs). As usual he's reading something science related, probably in the effort to figure out how to possibly improve something around here...or perhaps he's just doing it for his own enjoyment. "Anything interesting son?" you ask. "Oh. Didn't see you there mom. I fixed those guns Dad took from the last raid on those rednecks. I was just catching up on some reading. I was reading about solar power, but I dunno where we'd get the panels. I guess we're sticking with biofuel in the foreseeable future. In any case I think I need to go search the library again, I'm almost done with the books I took last time." You smile at how he's always trying to learn new things. He's always been the smartest of your children. He's also the quietest and most introspective. He probably takes after you the most, not surprising since he looks the most like you. You pat him on the shoulder. "Sometimes I think it's a shame you didn't grow up before the bombs. You would've really liked the Internet. All that knowledge at the tip of your fingers and you never had to ever leave the house." You say. "Yeah, you've told me before mom. Sounded really useful, wish it was still around." Enki replies. "Certainly occupied a lot of my time, anyway I'll let you get back to it. Remember to eat something son, I know how you get really involved with your reading and tinkering." Leaving Enki to his own devices you decide to go back to your own as well by heading to your room, and that's when the sounds of various laughter and similar noises coming up from the basement stairs. School must be out. Several little ones pass you by, a few wave or say "Hi Aunt Suzy" but most to run off to go play. You don't even know which ones belong to who anymore, you just know they aren't yours or Bobby's and you are definitely glad that it isn't your responsibility to look after them. "Children! Remember if you go outside, to stay within the fence! Don't try to climb over it! I mean it!" you hear Helen shout. You then see Helen slowly walking from the basement stairs. She looks pretty drained but then having to look after the Morningstar youth constantly for years tends to do that to a person. "You need some help there Helen? You look a little tired." You ask. "Oh, hey there Suzy. I'm fine. They were just a little overly rambunctious today. All excited about tonight's sacrifice to Tiamat I guess." Helen replies. "Oh is it time for one of those again? Didn't realize. Seems like you've been having a lot of them lately." You say. "Well, we are at war with those trailer parkers. Tends to bring in some more captives than usual." "Mmm, true." You say with a nod. You're about to leave when Helen makes more conversation. "You shouldn't worry about them you know. They're fine." She says. "Who shouldn't I worry about?" you ask. "Bobby and Anu." "I wasn't worried. Why would I be Helen?" "Oh...um...well I thought maybe with them leading these raids against the trailer park, your concern would be increased." Helen starting to stumble over her words. "Not particularly, I know they're both far more skilled than some trailer trash." "Yes...of course. I just know how much you love Bobby and wouldn't want anything to happen to him, and Anu being your first born and all." "Indeed, but I'm almost inclined to believe you're more worried than I am especially given your own feelings towards him." You say. "What? I don't love Bobby! I mean I do, but not in that way! I mean it's not like that anymore!" Helen exclaims. "I wasn't talking about Bobby. I was talking about Anu." You say. Helen begins to look panicked. "I...I um..." Helen begins to sputter. "Oh come on Helen, Anu, looks almost exactly like a younger version of Bobby. You probably saw it as a second chance even. I'm not blind Helen, I know you've been fucking my son." Helen's eyes begin to tear up and she begins to shake. You ALMOST have an urge to press this a little further, but you just can't bring yourself to torment poor Helen even if it would be funny to do so. "Helen, Helen, relax okay? I'm not angry. Stop worrying and calm yourself." You say and put a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to reassure her. "Y...you're not?" Helen responds. "Well...that might be the wrong choice of words. I'm not THRILLED by the idea, but I already confronted Anu about this, months ago when I first started to notice it. Wasn't really a conversation I wanted to have and Anu swore up and down that it was all his idea...though I suspect he wasn't entirely truthfully about that..." Helen's head looks down. "I'm sorry...I just...I was so lonely...you don't know what it's like..." Helen meekly says. "I know Helen. I know. (Sigh) Look, the only reason why I'm not excessively angry about this is because...well this family isn't exactly conventional and you're both consenting adults and Anu's old enough to make his own decisions." "So...you're okay with it?" "Eh...let's just say...that time you brought me back to life in the past? That debt's finally repaid. Just...just continue to keep it low profile okay?" "Of course! We will Suzy...and thank you for understanding." Helen says and hugs you tightly. "Mm, well I am the nice one in the family." You say patting her on the back and slowly withdrawing yourself away. Helen bids you goodbye with a slightly more upbeat tone and leaves to go see to the children. You just shake your head at how simple it is to make Helen happy. You guess after all these years; you still can't help but feel sorry for her. You may not be a born killer like most in this family, but you've definitely proven that even living among incestuous cult killers, a little kindness still goes a long way.

And you silently dismiss that idea immediately! Grandma Morningstar may or may not have been right about your "flexible" sexuality, but even if she was, you are still not fucking Helen just because you feel sorry for her or on some whim! Besides, you're about to marry Bobby and you made a damn commitment. You can't just be fucking his sister, hours before the wedding. Maybe nobody else in this family has any much sense of "social mores" but that's just wrong as far as your concerned. And even if Bobby WAS okay with it, you're already making enough sacrifices for him and giving in to his possible secret desires for a harem aren't part of that plan. You're the only one and that's that. You don't fucking share. You enter the bathroom and go through your usual routine of showering and such. Afterwards you finally get around putting on the "wedding dress." The first thing you do is look at the dress before putting it on and wondering if it's going to be bigger in the chest area. While you're not lacking in that region, you've met Bobby's grandmother (in dream form anyway) and she's got at least another couple cup sizes on you. In fact her body type back in her prime was more of an old school 1950s pinup girl hourglass figure than your own "petite" size. The funny thing is, as soon as you put it on, it seems to fit perfectly to your own body. The material isn't any sort of spandex or stretchy material, it's silk like Helen said, but given Bobby's family's strangeness, you have to wonder if it's...magical? "Magical underwear." You scoff; shaking your head in half disbelief you're even considering it. Not surprisingly the stockings AND the shoes fit you perfectly as well. Yeah, Grandma Morningstar probably had all this stuff weaved by a giant magical spider voodoo priest or some shit because it doesn't make sense that any of this stuff would fit you so well. Regardless of its origins, you do feel pretty comfortable despite looking like a Hollywood streetwalker. The heels don't even hurt your feet, though you're still a little unsteady on them due to not being used to wearing such things. Let alone these being stilettos. The last time you wore heels was when Uncle Ed made you wear stripperiffic clothing with the intent to lure Bobby and his dad into the woods where he could kill them. While everything turned out for the best because you met Bobby that fateful night, the part with Uncle Ed still gives you the shivers just thinking about it. You look at yourself in the mirror one more time, before leaving the bathroom. "Well Suzy, you might look like a whore in this thing, but at least you look like a high priced one." You say to yourself. When you exit the bathroom Helen stands up and looks at you. "Oh my. You're...you're...so beautiful looking. I knew it would fit you perfectly." Helen gushes. "Yeah I am pretty hot looking in this get up. Shit, still can't balance on these heels though." You say. "Hmm, well maybe you can dispense with those. I mean I'd hate for you to fall down the stairs when we go show everyone how you look. Maybe we should take some pictures!" Helen says approaching you. "What? I thought I was just putting it on as a test drive as it were. While I won't deny this stuff feels pretty comfortable on my skin that I don't mind wearing it, I sort of don't want to be walking around the house with it on until show time. Besides everyone can see how awesomely sexy I am then." "I think they should see you now. It'll raise the spirits around here seeing you dressed like this." Helen remarks as she begins touching your arm. "Well it'll raise something with the males around here when they see me of course. Not sure about the ladies of this house, though you're getting a little too close there Helen." "Oh please? At least go show Bobby. I know he'd like to see you." Helen says ignoring your previous remark about invading your personal space. "I'm sure he's really busy right now, besides isn't it bad luck for me to see him right before the wedding?" "Oh you're thinking of those silly traditions for other weddings. That's not the case here. Come on I'll take you to him." Helen says and at this point is pulling on your hands almost causing you fall. "Hey! I nearly fell! I told you already that you're too damn close!" you snap. Helen immediately backs away and looks down submissively. "I'm sorry Suzy. I didn't mean to violate your personal space." "(Sigh) It's fine Helen...just calm down a bit and let me at least take these shoes off first before I go heading downstairs." As you sit down and start taking your shoes off, you and Helen start to hear noise from outside. The both of you go over to the window to take a peek. You and Helen see several figures crawling under the truck blocking the broken front gate or trying to climb the fence. The ones that have gotten in are loping in a wild jerky like motion. They're also screaming, howling and making inhuman sounds. From your vantage point they LOOK human, but they're certainly not acting like it. Then the door swings open causing both you and Helen to jump a bit. It's Veronica with a gun in hand. "What the hell are you two doing in here, dyking it out? Don't you know we're being attacked by zombies?" Veronica exclaims. "I was trying on my wedding dress, thank you very much and we only just saw the freaks outside, so they are zombies?" you say. "Yeah, I mean...I dunno if they are. Maybe they're just rabid humans or something, but they're gnashing their teeth, moaning and coming at us like something out of a horror movie. We need all the help we can get to repel these things!" "We'll be ready in a moment." You say. "Well hurry up or else there isn't going to be a wedding. We're having a hard time trying to..." A loud crashing noise followed by gunfire is heard from downstairs. "Shit! That sounded close! I gotta go!" Veronica shouts and you hear her run off. Well at least it looks like Bobby's finally lit a fire under his relative's asses to pull their weight around here. "(Sigh) Fucking zombies. Of course this day HAD to get worse..." you say shaking your head. "Suzy, we need to hurry to go help Bobby." Helen says pointing out the obvious. "Yeah, hold on let me just get something." You go to Bobby's clothing drawer to get the spare gun he mentioned yesterday. "Hey, what about me?" Helen asks. "Well, just grab a blunt object! Unplug that desk lamp and use that to bash those freaks' heads in I guess." "Suzy, I don't really want to argue, but do you even know how to use a gun properly? Maybe you should give me the gun and you just stay behind me." "What? I'm not giving you the gun! And for your information my older brother Ben DID show me how to shoot a gun...a few times." "A few times...Suzy, I was taught to fire a gun, aim and everything else before I was ten. I'm just saying in a situation like this, it might be best if I have the gun, I'm sure when we get to the others, Bobby will give you another one of his." Helen remarks. "Yeah and in the mean time I'm fucking defenseless." "You won't be! I'll protect you and I think you can count on that." Helen says. Helen's insistence on wanting the gun is making you even more paranoid in this already fucked up situation. In the back of your mind you can't help but think she's going to shoot you even though the pair of you are supposed to be cool with each other. Of course it's possible she'd just feel safer with the gun in her hand. You don't actually know if she's a better shot than you, though you aren't exactly a highly skilled sharp shooter. Especially after failing to hit Diana during your scuffle yesterday. > You keep the gun When in doubt, always keep the gun. "Helen, I'm not giving you the gun, just stay behind me." You say. "You...you don't trust me do you?" Helen remarks. "What? No, of course do." "No you don't, you think I'm going to shoot you!" "Look, I just feel safer with the gun in my hand, now let's go!" you say and start heading out the door. Helen isn't letting this go though; she continues to bitch about your decision as you make your way through the corridor and down the stairs. "You're a poor liar Suzy and I'm not sure what hurts more, you not trusting me after all we've been through or you feeling like you need to lie to me about your true feelings." Helen remarks. "Oh for fuck's sake, we don't have time for this!" "I saved your life yesterday you know!" "And I'm grateful for that, but your current bitching about this situation isn't exactly putting my mind at ease. You seem a little too eager to want the damn gun." When you finally finish going down the stairs, the gunfire, yelling and guttural noises are louder, but you and Helen are still arguing even as you make your way towards where the fighting is coming from. "I can't believe you still don't trust me..." Helen remarks causing you to stop and spin around to address her. "ENOUGH! Just fucking STOP! At this point no I DON'T trust you! I obviously broke your hopes of having some fucked up three way with Bobby and you're harboring a grudge about it. Now we can settle our differences later, right now we have to..." "SUZY LOOK OUT!" Helen suddenly screams in your face. You spin back around just in time to see two of the creatures burst through the door in front of you. You get off one shot, which goes wild due to being taken by complete surprise and not being used to shooting under pressure. You are tackled to the ground by one of them dropping your gun in the process, while the other goes running for Helen, who you hear screaming and running away. As you struggle with the creature on the floor, you briefly look desperately over the gun that you dropped and try to reach for it, but it's just out your grasp. The thing nearly bites you again and tightens its grip on your arms in an attempt to immobilize you. Even your knees to its groin don't help. You don't know if this thing is undead or just rabid, but it hardly matters when it soon overpowers you and rips open your throat with its teeth.

[Themes: modern, science fiction, serious] "And now Suzy, having beaten the chicken soup out of all her other opponents this week, will take this final challenge by herself! Will she be able to do it ladies and gentlemen? Will she be able to impress Misty at last? We'll find out today! Let's give our small town girl some encouragement for her task at hand!" As the crowd claps, whistles and stomps their feet in support, you sit at a large table by yourself looking at... A huge plate of tacos, fish tacos to be precise. The lack of subtlety is hardly surprising at this point. You double face palm before exhaling and looking up. "Really?" you ask in disbelief. "This is the last task Suzy..." the disembodied announcer's voice whispers. "I don't give a shit, the concept of fish tacos is fucking disgusting for one thing and for another..." Suddenly Bobby's grandmother appears as she has been doing in your dreams. "See? Told you we should've just went with traditional beef. Anyway I think the point was made." Bobby's grandmother cackles and with a wave of her cane, you're back in that blasted wasteland you were in last time. "And what point would that be? And am I meeting this Misty yet or what?" "No, you're not meeting Misty yet, and as for the point I think we both know what point that was." "Yeah and I'm not a lesbian." You say. "Who said you were? It's pretty clear you love the cock, but you're in some serious denial if you're standing here claiming that you're not into girls as well. It's okay, really. There are no lines, we're all here to enjoy each other's bodies." "I'm not!" you protest. "Oh come on Suzy, you know deep down you're curious. Some of that three way porn on your computer involves the two girls and a guy configuration. I'd say beyond curious at this point. We both know you find Helen cute because you're a narcissist at heart and she reminds you of yourself in some ways. Nothing like self love." "Well she does have pretty eyes... but I'm still not interested. She's a girl and I just don't swing that way." you say. "Bullshit, are you seriously saying you wouldn't like to put a strap on and do my grand daughter from behind? Pull her hair and make her say your name and then after you were done fucking her, you'd shove her face in your pussy until she licked it clean and you climaxed in her mouth?" You're not sure what's more disturbing. A dead old lady giving graphic descriptions of how you'd fuck her grand daughter, or the fact that it's sort of turning you on a bit. You're a little at loss for words. "Hey...hey two girls and one guy isn't lesbian porn." You say fumbling with a partial defense. "Oh? I see. So it's not gay if it's a three-way? Well whatever you have to tell yourself I suppose. Still, if you truly feel that way I'm wondering if you'd be open to...nah..." "What?" you ask wondering where she's going with this. "Hah! You ARE curious!" Grandma Morningstar cackles. "I'm not! I'm just wondering what you were going to drone on about!" "Okay then here it is, besides being really into getting blowjobs, Bobby's also really into girl on girl stuff. Bobby probably wouldn't turn down the idea of having a second wife which would be Helen in this instance. This wouldn't have worked before with Diana, because of how much you two hated each other. However, with Helen, I think this would be more workable..." Grandma Morningstar says. "What? He's never told me this! He's never even gave any indication!" you say. "Well of course he hasn't, as I told you before he's a bit too much a gentleman to suggest it and I'm fairly certain he's never even felt any romantic feelings towards Helen either. However I know for certain if you approached him with the idea, that he damn sure wouldn't be against it." "Well I'D be fucking against it!" you say. "Wait, so you're fine with murdering someone on your wedding day, but you're against marrying two people. You're fine with being associated with a bunch of murderers that practice incest, but you're against having sex with another girl even one you find attractive even if you don't want to admit it. Interesting set of moral values you've got there blondie." "But I'm marrying into YOUR family! Isn't that a little hypocritical to criticize me when you've probably engaged in all manner of illegal and unnatural acts yourself?" "Not at all. My point is I didn't really have the same arbitrary limits you place on yourself. I'm just pointing out your odd inconsistencies. I suppose it's not really your fault. You can't help the puritanical way you were raised." You're getting a little agitated and getting tired of insane troll logic at this point. "Look, if all you're going to do is insult me, I think I'd like to wake up now." You say. "You will soon, in any case I'm just trying to help YOU out!" "How is sharing Bobby helping me out?" "Sheesh, first you still can't figure out who Misty is, now this? You really are slow on the uptake ain't ya blondie? You're lucky you're pretty." Bobby's grandmother asks and then taps you in the forehead with her hand. "Ow! Stop!" you say and back away. "Look, I'm just going to end with this sagely wisdom. If you really want to live in a harmonious household, I suggest you open your mind a little. You've already made a few steps in the right direction; you might as well go all the way. I mean who the hell is going to be judging you? Nobody important that's for sure. Besides, I'm sure with a little forethought you can think of the benefits of such an arrangement and turn it into an advantage. Well, that's what I think. Anyway, congrats on your wedding and you've got my blessing. Good luck!" Good luck? Somehow that doesn't sound reassuring. You're about to ask Bobby's grandmother what she exactly means by that, but then she waves that damn cane again and you're enveloped the blackness and then you wake up. "Gah, fucking bitch." You say groggily. "Oh...I'm sorry for waking you...I just wanted to apologize for yesterday and give you this to see if it fits, but I understand if you don't want me here..." a familiar female voice remarks. You look around the room and see Helen coming in carrying some red clothing. "Huh? No, not you...wait what are you doing in here anyway? Did Bobby spend all night working on the house?" you ask "I'm bringing in your wedding dress and yes, Bobby has been working on the house for the most part. Trying to patch up the big hole in the house, cleaning up the dungeon, blocking the front gate. He had to bury our brother Jordan as well. I don't believe he's actually slept yet." "Oh yeah, forgot that that asshole killed one of your siblings. I didn't know him that well, but sorry for your loss." You remark. "Thank you, but I suppose we're all just puppets in Tiamat's glourious chaos, so we all need to just move on right? We have to accept that some things just will never be...anyway could you see if this fits?" Helen asks holding up the red clothing which now looks a lot like lingerie. "Wait, that's the wedding dress? It looks like slutty underwear from Hot Secret." You answer and get out of bed. Helen's face looks a bit offended by that statement. "My grandmother wore this on her wedding day! She had this dress made of the finest silk, not whatever cheap material they use in North Tiwanaland or some place! THIS is a one of a kind article of clothing! It's not something you'd find in some edgy teenager hang out!" Helen remarks. "Okay! Geez. I'm not trying to insult the dress or your grandmother. It's just...well I thought I'd be wearing something a little more... substantial. But seeing as your family isn't exactly conventional and when in Rome...I guess I better try it on. Um, you washed it right?" "Of course. Hand washed it myself. Can't risk putting it in a machine." Helen says and hands it to you. "Red fishnets...red high heels..." you say. "Yes. Those shoes were also special made with the finest..." "Leather. Yes, I can imagine. Let me guess the fishnets were made with the finest silk as well." "Well of course, what else would it be?" "What else indeed. Okay, well I guess I'm going in the bathroom to change." "I understand. I'm still sorry about making you uncomfortable about my unwanted advances." Helen says. Before you enter the bathroom, you start to wonder... "Helen, why did you approach me? Or rather I know why, but you were attracted to Bobby long before you met me. You obviously have the inner strength to make the first move as it were." "Well, that was a little different for several reasons. I mean Diana would've killed me had I actually made a move on Bobby! With you, I just...I dunno. The moment felt right? And it still wasn't easy. Of course I misread signals. Sorry." Helen remarks meekly. And there it is, Helen's subservience in action. Even with Diana gone, Helen's mindset hasn't changed much. You're just a "nicer" replacement to Diana. You're fairly certain now that Helen means no harm to you, if indeed she ever really did. So this is it, you'll marry Bobby, have children by him and live happily ever as queen in this twisted family. Helen as usual will play the second fiddle content with her lot in life. As strange as that seems all relatively good for you, you still can't help but think Helen doesn't deserve better in some way. She did directly save your life after all. It makes you start to ponder Grandma Morningstar's words of opening one's mind to make way for new possibilities... > You take a new path You have to admit you HAVE always been a bit curious, and this probably would be the easiest way to satisfy that curiosity. "Fuck it." You say to yourself, throw your "wedding dress" aside and you turn around and approach Helen. "Take off all your clothes." You say. "Wha...what?" Helen remarks in surprise. "Take off all your clothes. Obviously we got some things to work out before we proceed any further, or more specifically I got some things to work out before I proceed any further. So get your clothes off." You say and head over to the bed where you start taking off your own. This is uncharted territory for you, but strangely as you lie in bed completely naked, you're not quite as nervous about it as you thought you might be. When Helen finally gets naked, you see she has nice little body on her. Her tits aren't as big as yours, but nobody's perfect. As mildly anxious as you are, Helen has to be doubly so. She might've made the "first move" but you've definitely taken the lead. Helen's also a virgin for all intents and purposes. You wonder if that might be making all this a little hotter for you. "You're very beautiful." Helen says walking over to you. "Yeah...oh you're not bad yourself. So...you ready to do this?" you ask. "Yes, I'm ready...um...I've never done this before with anyone...how should we start?" Helen asks. "Uh, I guess kissing. Even in the movies they usually start like that." You reply. "Okay." Helen remarks compliantly. Helen lies next to you and the pair of you begin kissing and caressing each other. It's definitely different than when you're with Bobby who tends to be a little rougher. This really isn't all that bad; in fact the only downside is Helen is doing a lot of talking instead of focusing on the task at hand. It's not even dirty talk; she keeps asking questions if she's doing something right. Doesn't take you long before you start pushing her head down so she can stop talking altogether. "Oh...okay..." Helen remarks as she gets the hint. "And Helen, I don't want any more talking. Just focus, understand? Yeah...mmm...just like that..." you say as you feel the magic starting to happen. Your back starts arching, your toes start curling, you begin to make moans of pleasure and grab the back of Helen's head. You're generally in a state of bliss as Helen does her thing. At this moment nothing else exists except your pleasure so you aren't paying any attention to the noise that is going on outside. And you aren't paying attention to the door when it opens up... "Urgh! What the fuck are you two doing?!" Veronica exclaims with a gun in her hand. "Oh! Um...uh..." Helen stutters as she wipes her mouth and raises her head up and probably looking like a deer in the headlights from Veronica's perspective. "SHIT! Doesn't anyone fucking knock!? What the hell are you doing in here waving a gun around?" you say and try to cover up as much as you can. "I was coming to warn you that we're being fucking attacked by zombies! I didn't realize I was going to walk in on you two dyking it out! Does Bobby know about this?" Veronica says. "Nevermind all that, did you just say zombies are attacking us?" you ask. "Yeah, I mean...I dunno if they are. Maybe they're just rabid humans or something, but they're gnashing their teeth, moaning and coming at us like something out of a horror movie. We need all the help we can get to repel these things!" "We'll be ready in a moment." You say as Veronica shakes her head. "Well you two better hurry up, (Sigh) honestly, we're getting attacked and you two are busy licking..." A loud crashing noise followed by gunfire is heard from downstairs. "Shit! That sounded close! I gotta go!" Veronica shouts and you hear her run off. Well at least it looks like Bobby's finally lit a fire under his relative's asses to pull their weight around here. "(Sigh) Fucking zombies. Of course this day couldn't just be a pleasant one." You say fumbling with your clothing. "I hope we get down there in time to help Bobby." Helen says getting dressed as well. "We will, hold on let me get something first." You go to Bobby's clothing drawer to get the spare gun he mentioned yesterday. "Hey, what about me?" Helen asks. "Well, just grab a blunt object! Unplug that desk lamp and use that to bash those freaks' heads in I guess." "Suzy, I don't really want to argue, but do you even know how to use a gun properly? Maybe you should give me the gun and you just stay behind me." "For your information my older brother Ben DID show me how to shoot a gun...a few times." "A few times...Suzy, I was taught to fire a gun, aim and everything else before I was ten. I'm just saying in a situation like this, it might be best if I have the gun, I'm sure when we get to the others, Bobby will give you another one of his." Helen remarks. "Yeah and in the mean time I'm fucking defenseless." "You won't be! I'll protect you and I think you can count on that." Helen says and then follows up by putting her arm around your waist and then sensually kissing you on the lips. You ALMOST want to head right back to the bed, but unfortunately you've got more important things to deal with. "Okay, okay, you can take the gun, but me and you are definitely going to finish what we started after all this is over." You say and go unplug the small desk lamp you mentioned earlier to Helen and take it as a makeshift weapon. The pair of you head through the corridor and down the stairs both not making many comments at this point. Might be due to the situation being more than a little tense and its only getting more so as the gunfire, yelling and guttural noises are getting louder as you approach the center of the fighting. Helen then suddenly stops and turns to you. "Suzy?" Helen says. "What!?" you ask. "I just want you to know that if something goes wrong..." "Helen, nothing is going to go wrong, but we need to just focus and get to Bobby." "Well just in case it does, I just want you to know I love..." "SHIT HELEN! SHOOT! SHOOT!" you exclaim when you see two creatures bursting through the door in front of you. Helen spins around and fires, hiting one of them square in the chest twice, but it doesn't even slow down, it just tackles Helen onto the floor. She drops her pistol and struggles with the creature while calling for you to help and while you'd love to do just that, the second creature is currently trying to make a meal out of you. You swing at the creature a couple times, but it moves in such a jerky motion that you don't land a good hit and cause only a glancing blow to its head. Still it's enough to give you a bit of a breather while the thing tries to get back up off the floor. You spy the gun nearby and wonder if you should go for it or help Helen directly first. > You help Helen With as much strength as you can muster, you swing the lamp upside the head of the creature that is pinning Helen to the floor which is enough to cause it roll off of Helen, but not enough to kill it. You soon have problems of your own when the second creature you hit before has completely recovered and tackles you to the floor. With the map still in hand, you attempt to swing it from your prone position, but the creature has already dug its fingers deep into that arm and forcibly holds it to prevent you from doing so. You manage to keep it from biting your face off by at least pushing your forearms up across its neck. At this close range, it doesn't look rotten, just very dirty looking and crazed. Still, undead or not, you don't want to risk getting bit, let alone killed and eaten. As you struggle with the creature on the floor, a shot is fired into the side of the thing's head and blood splatters on you, the floor and partially on the nearby wall. "Shit!" you shout and then try to pull yourself out from under the corpse. While you're doing that, another shot is fired killing the other creature that was previously on top of Helen and recovering from the blow it took to the head from you. She then places two more headshots to both bodies. "I think they're dead, we can't waste bullets, if there are more of them." You say. "Are you okay?" Helen asks touching your bruised arm, which aches. "Yeah, I'm fine." "These things aren't really rotten looking or anything. Maybe they aren't undead." Helen says. "Well I still don't want to get killed and eaten by some virus infected asshole. Come on, this isn't over yet." You say. By the time you get to Bobby and the rest of the family's location, they've managed to wipe out most of the things and you and Helen don't have much to do. Still, you wonder about their origin. Some sort of sickness perhaps? Maybe the government was fucking around with a secret weapon like they tend to do and it got out of hand. It would explain why there was a drastic rise in violence even before you left town and why the National Guard showed up later. It isn't until after all the mad attackers are killed that Bobby manages to address you directly. He's incredibly tired looking, the rest of his family looks pretty tired too, but he looks like he's about to collapse. "Are you okay?! They didn't bite you did they?" Bobby asks, stumbling a bit from exhaustion. "No, I'm fine. We both are." You reply. "Suzy saved my life." Helen remarks. "Well, I think we both saved each other more than enough times this week." You say which causes a bit of a happiness of Helen's face. "Could've used your help a lot sooner, if you hadn't been busy cheating on Bobby." Veronica snorts. This remark causes every family member to stop what they are doing and take notice. Helen, looks more terrified than she did when facing the rabid people. Bobby looks more surprised than anyone. He looks at Veronica and then looks at you. You keep a straight face despite Veronica ratting you out. "What's she talking about Suzy?" "Well it's like this Bobby..." you say and then grab Helen close to you and give her a kiss on the cheek. Helen blushes a bit and tries to remain composed, but she's a mixture of bashful and fearful. "Before all this shit went down, your sister and I were bonding in a way that I don't think you'll disapprove of. Helen loves you. I love you. Helen likes me and I've grown very fond of her and I want ALL of us to get married. Right now." Now you've caught everyone off guard. One moment they're fighting for their lives, the next they're attending a wedding. Not mention this new bombshell you've dropped. "Now?" Bobby asks. "We just won a great victory! What, you don't want to marry two beautiful women?" you say. "I didn't say that, I just...this is a bit surprising. Helen, I never knew you felt this way...why didn't you tell me? I guess it doesn't matter, we can discuss this in more detail afterwards, but by Tiamat's Chaotic Cunt and Twenty Tits YES! I'll marry the pair of you!" Bobby shouts and then you turn to Helen. "Helen why don't you go get your grandmother's wedding dress and wear it?" You say causing her eyes to light up. "You...you really want me to wear it? Are you sure?!" she asks. "I'm sure. I think you deserve the honors and I think she'd want you to wear it." "Oh thank you Suzy!" she says and kisses you on the lips and runs off. Bobby at this point tells Brandon and Ronald to drag Diana out from her cell. Veronica looks slightly disappointed by the lack of drama and is even more disappointed when Bobby tells her to gather the children for the wedding. He then warns everyone to still keep an eye out for anymore of those rabid bastards just in case you didn't get them all. Everyone complies and soon you and Bobby are left by yourselves. Bobby takes a seat to briefly rest. He yawns several times in a row and is struggling to stay awake, but you can tell your enthusiasm for the wedding has energized him a bit. You decide to keep the energy going by sitting on his lap and making a fuss. "Hey, it's not time for the honeymoon yet." Bobby remarks with a brief chuckle. "Oh it's always times for the honeymoon with you." You say. "Damn, I wish I wasn't so tired...hope I don't stumble over the joining passage when I'm marrying us." Bobby remarks as he rubs your legs. "Wait, isn't someone else doing that?" "Huh? No, I'm doing it. I mean I'm the high priest here. Technically it could just be me and you here." "What? That's it? We could've done that a long time ago!" "I'm glad I didn't because obviously Helen would've missed out...wow still can't believe she was in love with me all this time..." "Is it so hard to believe?" "I guess I just wasn't paying attention to her. I mean it makes sense in retrospect given how attentive she's always been...just don't know why she never said anything before." "Scared of Diana." "That makes sense...speaking of not saying anything. Why didn't YOU tell me you were also into girls, let alone my sister?" Bobby asks. You wrap your arms around Bobby and lean your body against him. "Eh...well I sort of went through some odd self discovery lately...I'm not into girls so much as I just like your sister. I can't quite explain it all properly right now, maybe later. Let's just say it's been a weird week. Besides isn't all this spontaneity along with the carnage causing Tiamat's chaotic glory smile upon us or something?" You say. Bobby looks around at the nearby mess of broken furniture and the couple bodies laying on the floor and smiles. "I suppose you're right." A few more moments pass as you wait for everyone to return. In the meantime you let Bobby rest a bit by closing his eyes. Veronica and Denise return first with all the children. Brandon and Ronald arrive gripping Diana by each arm. Predictably she's swearing up a storm and accusing everyone of being against her. It wakes Bobby up from his brief nap. "Oh? Everyone here? Good. Let's get this started. (Yawn) Sorry, I'm so damn tired..." "Helen's not here yet. You don't need to stand up for this, just keep resting in your chair and I'll just be right here on your lap. I'm sure that's acceptable to everyone right?" you ask. Before anyone can answer you, Helen returns in her grandmother's wedding dress. Everyone is in awe of how sexy she looks in it. If Bobby needed anymore rousing from his tired state, this has certainly done it. She's not having any problems walking on the heels either. In fact the only two who aren't in awe, are you mainly because you were just having sex with her not too long ago and this a pale substitute and Diana who just swears and looks disgusted. "How do I look?" she asks a bit nervously. "Well I'd do you right now, if it was just Bobby here." You say. "By Tiamat's Angry Asshole I'm not fucking believing this! You're seriously going to marry them both? The traitor and the whore? I guess it would take two to replace me! Your TRUE soul mate!" Diana yells. Ignoring Diana, Helen sits next to you and Bobby and the three of you hold hands as he recites what you guess is a passage from whatever holy book of Tiamat he got it from and when the time comes, you both accept your place as his wives. Then the three of you exchange kisses with each other. Most of Bobby's family claps if they are able. It's definitely unusual, but it feels so right. You now feel like you belong here. "Here. I've been carrying this in my pocket the whole day, nearly forgot it was there." Bobby remarks and hands you a ring with a sizable red diamond in the center and smaller black inlayed around it. It's definitely beautiful and when you try it on, you find that it fits perfectly. "You...you gave her grandma's ring?! YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! You dishonor that woman! I hope grandma's spirit comes back and rapes the three of you with a fucking broom handle!" Diana shouts. Bobby ignores Diana and turns to Helen. "I apologize...I didn't know I'd be blessed with a second bride today. I don't have another ring. I'll have to acquire another." He says to Helen. "Oh that's okay. I'm just so happy to be married to you at last!" Helen says and squeezes him tightly. Diana is completely livid. "Oh fuck this! Fuck ALL of this! FUCK Tiamat! FUCK this family! FUCK my treacherous bitch of a sister! FUCK your blonde whore! And most importantly FUCK YOU BOBBY! FUCK YOU, you fucking fickle cheating bastard. Just fucking kill me now so I can leave this fucking shameful spectacle. At this point Bobby calmly pulls out a knife. "Who wants to do the honors?" You take the knife and look over at Helen. "Did you want to be the one?" you ask Helen. "Can we do it together?" Helen asks. "Of course." You answer. The pair of you stand and walk over to Diana who has now become silent. You can't imagine the rage she's experiencing, but her gaze would burn through you both if it could. You raise the knife and then Helen stand behind you and puts one arm around your waist and then one hand on yours that holds the handle so they are like one. You turn your head slightly over your right shoulder to give her a kiss and then together with one single thrust you both jam the knife into Diana's chest. The blade strikes true, puncturing her heart. The hatred still burns in Diana's eyes as she coughs up blood, wheezing and finally dying. Brandon and Ronald let her body flop to the floor when her life force is gone. And there it is, your first kill. "Was it good for you?" Helen asks. "Oh it was the best." You say. At this point Bobby is completely alert. "As hot as all this is and despite this being my wedding day...sadly duty comes first and this house has to be put in order. Who knows if we're going to get attacked again. Let's start with the clean up." Bobby orders. Clean up goes relatively fast. Around the house at least since that's your primary concern. You go for the quick dirty approach of just getting all the dead bodies in one pile outside. You briefly think about burning them, but Bobby says that might attract attention and doing it tomorrow when everyone is more awake enough to defend this place properly is a better idea. Broken windows and the front door are barricaded with furniture for the night. Somewhere just after midnight everyone is ready to crash. Bobby, who has been practically sleep walking by this point just tells everyone to sleep with a weapon tonight and you can all just roll the dice without a night watch tonight. Nobody argues. You and Helen help Bobby upstairs and three of you collapse on the bed. You and Helen still have a bit of energy left and you briefly consider celebrating your honeymoon without him, but that doesn't seem quite right despite the fact that you really wanted to finish what was started in this bedroom. Instead you cuddle up to Bobby who is fast asleep at this point while Helen snuggles next to you. Feeling very loved, you head into dreamland, not even worrying about how Grandma Morningstar might fuck with you tonight. > Next day… "Suzy! You've won! You've truly overcome all odds! You have not only survived the various uncertain events of this week, but you've also thrived! Ladies and gentlemen, let's give our small town girl some applause and respect for she truly is worthy of it!" As the crowd claps, whistles and stomps their feet in support, you sit at a large table by yourself looking at... A huge plate of those little Vienna sausages. "Let me guess, they double as looking like oversized clits along with being phallic." You say. No sooner have you said that, when everything disappears and you're facing Grandma Morningstar in the blasted wasteland again. "Hey, that's quick catching on to the symbolism there, blondie." Grandma Morningstar says. "I have my moments. So am I finally done with all this nonsense? Am I finally meeting this Misty?" you say. "You figure out who it is yet?" "Yeah and I can't believe I didn't catch it before. Misty...MISS T...Tiamat." You answer. "Well shit, you're two for two! Glad to see you're on a roll and your pretty little blonde head finally got it, but no you don't get to meet her." "What? After all this build up? Seems pretty anti-climatic." "Yeah, well she's busy. Besides the jury's still out on you a bit." "What? Didn't I win? I'm part of the family now. I mean I killed a bitch for Tiamat, married a pair of siblings and everything!" you say. "So? You didn't like Diana to begin with, it wasn't like were killing some stranger you didn't have any grudge against. As far as marrying two of my grand children, well that's certainly unconventional, but hardly very interesting in the scheme of things. Though I suppose given how boring and repressed your basement dwelling years were you probably think you're a real wild woman." "So what was the point of all this?!" "None really...well I suppose for my own curiosity I did want to see if Bobby's blonde beauty was even worthy of being in this family and despite what I just said, the fact that you've been speaking with me means you're probably closer to Tiamat than most of them even are. The lot you're with are practically sheep to be lead around by the nose by Bobby. And Bobby's so in love with you he'll do anything for you. I mean sure you added Helen to the mix, but Bobby is always going to love you more. Helen's just so thrilled to be there that she's easily pliable as well. I dare say you probably could get either one of them to do what you want if you really pushed for it...but then you sort of already knew that didn't you?" Grandma Morningstar says with slight smile. You don't say anything for a moment. "Well it wasn't all because I felt sorry for Helen and that she gave good head. Helen being a second wife means she can have that whole mess o' babies Bobby wants. Let her worry about getting fat, stretch marks and the pain of child birth." You remark. "Heh, interesting approach. So I take it you're going to be the opinionated sexy fun wife while Helen gets to be the submissive, baby and sandwich making one." "Pretty much." "Well guess you aren't quite as mediocre as you appear. That's good. Well maybe Tiamat doesn't give a shit, but I like you. In fact if I was still alive and decades younger, I'd bend you over and fuck you in the ass raw with a strap on. Make you say my name while I pulled that pretty golden hair of yours. Wouldn't that be fun?" Grandma Morningstar says with a creepy leer. "Um...no." you just say backing away. Grandma Morningstar cackles. "Still prudish as ever. See ya around blondie, I think you'll be alright." Grandma Morningstar waves goodbye to you, disappears and everything around you gets dark. And you wake up. You turn your head to the right and see Bobby reading and partially under the blankets. To your left Helen's face and body is practically on top of your own as she's still cuddled up next to you and got her arm around you. When you try to move, Helen moves with you. "Helen, Helen, move your arm, I need to sit up." You say. "Huh? But I like holding you." Helen says still half asleep. "Of course you do, but you still need to move." You say and forcibly move Helen's arm. She begins to stir a bit now that you've disturbed her comfort. "It's about time you got up. You look a little frazzled. Bad dream?" Bobby asks putting his book away. "Eh...better than others I've had this week. Probably should talk about at some point later, but I'm surprised to see you here. I figured you were going to going to get up early to work on the compound's defenses." You say. "I didn't sleep for practically a day remember? Anyway, I did get up earlier and gave everyone their orders of what I want worked on then I told everyone not to disturb me unless cannibals or more asshole family members are trying to wreck the place. So far haven't had any trouble. Glad to see I don't have to hover around them constantly. I'm sort of surprised Helen has been asleep all day, she tends to wake up earlier than I do to see to the young ones." Bobby remarks. "I felt I deserved a day off." Helen remarks starting to become more energetic. At this point Bobby brings you closer to him by putting his arm around you. Helen also starts getting gropey again and you're now the meat in an incest sandwich. "So how exactly are we doing this?" Bobby asks. "Should we take turns?" Helen asks. "I don't see why with a little bit of maneuvering, we can't all just get our pleasure simultaneously. Helen, you're still technically a virgin AND you've been practically waiting your whole life to get fucked by Bobby, so why don't we get that out of the way and then at the same time when he's doing you from behind, you can finish up where we left off yesterday. We can sort of go from there." "Suzy...oh you're the best! I just love you so much! You're so thoughtful!" Helen exclaims squeezing you tightly. "Hey, okay, okay, you can show your appreciation when your tongue is deep inside me. So, Bobby are you okay with this arrangement?" you say. "Sure, but at some point during all of this, THIS is going inside you." Bobby says pointing at his dick for emphasis. "I sure hope so." You say and kiss Bobby. The three of you move around to get into your positions. Helen and Bobby briefly make out a bit and exchange a few sweet words to each other before getting to it. You imagine that this has got to be the best day her life. Actually it's probably Bobby's as well, but that's for different reasons. As the three of you enjoy each other's company, a feeling of satisfaction overcomes you. Not sexual satisfaction...well there is that too, but you genuinely feel good about your situation. You have not one, but two people who love you very much. Helen's a bit "clingy" but you think you can handle that. At one time having a three way with a pair of siblings after killing someone would've been unthinkable, but then again it didn't turn out quite so terrible either. While you're still not quite into all this Tiamat worshipping, you do have a slightly new outlook on life now. You briefly wonder if you're "evil" for not only going along with all this, but also enjoying it to a small degree, but what other options did you really have? You're making the best of the current situation and you won't apologize for it. You're no longer that basement dwelling "good girl" anymore. While you're in the middle of riding Bobby's dick and Helen sucking on one of your tits, that's when a flash of bright light briefly covers the windows and a loud noise is heard in the distance. "Shit what the hell was that?" Bobby asks sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "I dunno, I'm glad we weren't looking directly at that flash though. I had my back to the window and that was still fucking bright." You remark Helen doesn't say anything, she's still just rubbing her eyes, and then Bobby motions you to get off of him. "Wait a minute, I think I know what it was..." Bobby says and gets up off the bed. He walks over to the window and you and Helen follow close behind. In the distance to the west, you see the remnants of a mushroom cloud. Probably landed on Security City or near it. You can only guess it probably wasn't a big one, but you're still a little concerned if you're in some sort of fallout radius. "By Tiamat..." Helen says and squeezes Bobby tightly out of nervousness. "So...they finally went and did it." You say. "Looks like. (Sigh) Shit." Bobby says. "What's wrong? I thought we were prepared for this sort of thing." You say. "Oh we are. I'm not even worried about that, it's just I wanted to spend the day relaxing with the pair of you. Now? Well I think you know I'm going to have to go and direct everyone. Oh to hell with it, the apocalypse isn't going anywhere. Let's go back to what we were doing." "Works for me." You agree while Helen nods and smiles. Eventually you will have to deal with this new world and whatever its going to throw at you, but for now the three of you are going to get back to enjoying yourselves after this chaotic week. > … Parent of Sanity The Future... "Mom, are you really sure you want to go to Emberville with me? I mean it's not exactly a relaxing journey." Enki asks. "You don't think your mother can handle herself in a fight? I have been living in this post apocalyptic hell longer than you have, you know. Would you rather Aiden and Nadia go with you, because right now they're the only two not immediately busy." "Yeah I know...don't really feel like dealing with ongoing private jokes at my expense on the trip. Okay, I guess I'd rather have you along." "Well geez, I guess I should be honored you're allowing me to come with you." You remark. "I didn't mean it like that...I just...look, are you fully prepared for this trip?" "Of course, I got all my gear and everything. This isn't the first time I've been out of the compound you know. It isn't even my first trip to Emberville." "Okay, okay, Mom, I get it. You're a wasteland bad ass, let's go." You and your son get in the armored car and after a quick wave to one of the Morningstars at the gate you're soon on your way. You study Enki for a moment just sort of recognizing how much he looks more like you than his father. His personality is certainly more similar to yours as well. Enki notices you studying him. "What?" he questions. "Nothing son." You say and then pausing to think of what to say to try to lighten up the mood. "See? This is nice. How often do we get to spend any quality time together like this anymore? You're always locked in your workshop tinkering with gadgets and reading. It does us both some good to get out once in awhile." You say. Enki just gives you a brief look before turning his attention back to the road. He isn't convinced that leaving the compound is ever a good idea, and you can't really blame him, but you're going to reinforce some life lessons in him today. That is one reason why you came on this trip, another is just so you can get away from Helen gushing about being pregnant for the umpteenth time. You take a look behind your seat and see the several crates of berries and apples in the storage area. "Those Emberville mutants sure enjoy their fruit. They'll trade just about anything for it, even medicine. Then I suppose medicine is probably the last thing they need now so it makes sense." You remark. "Yeah, well I always feel like some of them are going to dispense with the civility one day and just take all our fruit, along with cooking me up as well." Enki remarks. "Nah...well maybe a few of them, but I think for the most part they know a good ongoing deal." "I guess. I just hate having to make this run. I'd rather be working on improving our compound." "Well in a perfect world, you'd be able to just shut yourself away from it and spend all your time reading those books you gather up from the libraries, but if you're going to really make it, you have to deal with people...and mutants, you know what I mean. A little diplomacy isn't a bad thing; it can even turn potential enemies into friends. Trust me I know." You say. "Diplomacy... is that what we're doing with those trailer park people? I heard Dad's last raid destroyed some of their trailers and killed a lot of them. Not to mention we got all those captives for sacrifice." "Well, sometimes diplomacy fails, which is why you also have to be prepared for war." "Surprised you didn't have me help dad instead of doing these runs." "Oh, I'd never allow that even though your father really wanted you to start going on raids with him." Enki predictably gets a bit insulted by this remark. It's silly of course because you know it's more of a male ego thing, the reality is Enki wouldn't want to go on raids with his dad either. "What?!" Enki exclaims. "Calm down, I don't mean it how it sounds. I just mean I'm not having you risking your life on regular shoot outs with a bunch of hostile rednecks." You say. "But...driving to miles to a town full of mutants is perfectly safe?" "No, but despite your paranoia, it's a hell of a lot safer than what your dad and some of your older siblings and cousins are doing. Think about it. Have you actually had any major trouble since you've been doing this? Other than a bunch of mutants trying their best to look scary and intimidate you, have you REALLY had any trouble?" "Well I had to shoot a few bikers trying to hijack the vehicle once and another time I had to prevent a mutant from stealing a crate of fruit and running off with it." Enki points out. "Hm, glad to hear that you've been able to handle yourself, but that's still a far cry from what your dad has been dealing with." "Yeah I get it, I'm not dad." "No, you're not. You're me and that's a hell of a lot better. Now shut up and listen because this isn't something you can learn in a book." Enki goes back to watching the road while you talk. "I never really had a great desire for children, I suppose that was one reason why I suggested the current arrangement I have with your father and your aunt Helen. It's worked out fairly well I think and I know it makes Helen very happy. She gets to be perpetually pregnant and raise children and for the most part I get to avoid it. Well for awhile anyway, see, your father may have a fondness for Helen, but he'll never love her like he loves me...I think even Helen might know that, but she's fine with it. Your father REALLY wanted to have a child with me and eventually after some thought to it, I agreed and here you are." "So I'm only here because you let dad impregnate you instead of aunt Helen?" Enki asks. "I told you not to interrupt!" you snap. You continue. "Now of course the general assumption was that I'd probably just let Helen take care of you, but I didn't do that. I gave birth to you, and I felt you were MY responsibility. You and I may be Morningstars by name, but we both know that we're not really like the rest of them. Think about all your brothers, sisters and cousins, can you honestly say you feel any connection to any of them? I'm not asking if you like, love or even care for them, but don't you feel disconnected just a little?" "Well...I suppose sometimes I do." Enki says. "And that is exactly how I used to feel with my own family a long time ago. I used to hide out from the world as much as possible and I did a good job of it too and then one week...a bunch of shit happened that changed my life forever. Quite frankly if it hadn't been for your father I'm not sure if I would have even survived it, because I was near totally unprepared when the shit hit the fan." Enki looks over at you a bit more interested in what you have to say now. Good. "I don't want YOU to ever be that unprepared. Hence why you have to occasionally deal with the outside world no matter how shitty it is. Had I actually been prepared, maybe I could've made some better choices. Don't get me wrong, I think I made the best of a potentially bad situation and I'm happy with your father, and my current life could be a hell of a lot worse, but still sometimes I think: What if?" "Doesn't Tiamat teach us all that life is chaos and that ultimately our choices don't really matter anyway?" Enki asks. "Do you really believe in all that stuff?" "Not really." "Which is another example of how you stand out from the rest. You're intelligent and you're a potential leader, Enki. You're not like your siblings...or rather your half siblings. Helen can have as many incest babies as she likes, She can have them in the double digits to match their IQ levels and your father can use them in whatever war he likes. Your life however is much more valuable. You're MY son and there is only one of you." Enki looks at you in not quite disbelief, but something close to it. He knows full well you've always had a major hand in directly raising him and teaching him about this harsh new world, but this is probably the first time you've come close to expressing a close bond with him. Not in a twisted way like so many of the other Morningstars engage in, but in a normal way. "I love you son and whether you eventually become head of the family or if you decide to just strike out on your own completely and find your own path doesn't matter. Don't get stuck in a rut or allow yourself to feel trapped so you have no options. Ultimately just do what is best for you because that's all you can do in this world." You say. Enki is visibly overcome a bit with emotion. Some eye watering occurs and in true male fashion he turns his head away so you can't see, which causes you to smile a bit. "Don't worry son, you can let your guard down in front of me. Just don't let those mutants see you like that." you say. "Yeah, definitely wouldn't want that to happen. Showing weakness in front of them is probably bad for diplomacy." Enki chuckles and briefly rubs his eyes. As you and your son continue on your way to Emberville, you talk much more and can see Enki is going to be just fine. Maybe you made some concessions to get where you are and you even had some fun doing it, but at least your son knows that he doesn't have to compromise and can be a master of his own destiny rather than being a slave to circumstance. Even Grandma Morningstar would approve of that lesson.

[Themes: modern, science fiction, horror, serious] You have to admit you HAVE always been a bit curious, and this probably would be the easiest way to satisfy that curiosity. "Fuck it." You say to yourself, throw your "wedding dress" aside and you turn around and approach Helen. "Take off all your clothes." You say. "Wha...what?" Helen remarks in surprise. "Take off all your clothes. Obviously we got some things to work out before we proceed any further, or more specifically I got some things to work out before I proceed any further. So get your clothes off." You say and head over to the bed where you start taking off your own. This is uncharted territory for you, but strangely as you lie in bed completely naked, you're not quite as nervous about it as you thought you might be. When Helen finally gets naked, you see she has nice little body on her. Her tits aren't as big as yours, but nobody's perfect. As mildly anxious as you are, Helen has to be doubly so. She might've made the "first move" but you've definitely taken the lead. Helen's also a virgin for all intents and purposes. You wonder if that might be making all this a little hotter for you. "You're very beautiful." Helen says walking over to you. "Yeah...oh you're not bad yourself. So...you ready to do this?" you ask. "Yes, I'm ready...um...I've never done this before with anyone...how should we start?" Helen asks. "Uh, I guess kissing. Even in the movies they usually start like that." You reply. "Okay." Helen remarks compliantly. Helen lies next to you and the pair of you begin kissing and caressing each other. It's definitely different than when you're with Bobby who tends to be a little rougher. This really isn't all that bad; in fact the only downside is Helen is doing a lot of talking instead of focusing on the task at hand. It's not even dirty talk; she keeps asking questions if she's doing something right. Doesn't take you long before you start pushing her head down so she can stop talking altogether. "Oh...okay..." Helen remarks as she gets the hint. "And Helen, I don't want any more talking. Just focus, understand? Yeah...mmm...just like that..." you say as you feel the magic starting to happen. Your back starts arching, your toes start curling, you begin to make moans of pleasure and grab the back of Helen's head. You're generally in a state of bliss as Helen does her thing. At this moment nothing else exists except your pleasure so you aren't paying any attention to the noise that is going on outside. And you aren't paying attention to the door when it opens up... "Urgh! What the fuck are you two doing?!" Veronica exclaims with a gun in her hand. "Oh! Um...uh..." Helen stutters as she wipes her mouth and raises her head up and probably looking like a deer in the headlights from Veronica's perspective. "SHIT! Doesn't anyone fucking knock!? What the hell are you doing in here waving a gun around?" you say and try to cover up as much as you can. "I was coming to warn you that we're being fucking attacked by zombies! I didn't realize I was going to walk in on you two dyking it out! Does Bobby know about this?" Veronica says. "Nevermind all that, did you just say zombies are attacking us?" you ask. "Yeah, I mean...I dunno if they are. Maybe they're just rabid humans or something, but they're gnashing their teeth, moaning and coming at us like something out of a horror movie. We need all the help we can get to repel these things!" "We'll be ready in a moment." You say as Veronica shakes her head. "Well you two better hurry up, (Sigh) honestly, we're getting attacked and you two are busy licking..." A loud crashing noise followed by gunfire is heard from downstairs. "Shit! That sounded close! I gotta go!" Veronica shouts and you hear her run off. Well at least it looks like Bobby's finally lit a fire under his relative's asses to pull their weight around here. "(Sigh) Fucking zombies. Of course this day couldn't just be a pleasant one." You say fumbling with your clothing. "I hope we get down there in time to help Bobby." Helen says getting dressed as well. "We will, hold on let me get something first." You go to Bobby's clothing drawer to get the spare gun he mentioned yesterday. "Hey, what about me?" Helen asks. "Well, just grab a blunt object! Unplug that desk lamp and use that to bash those freaks' heads in I guess." "Suzy, I don't really want to argue, but do you even know how to use a gun properly? Maybe you should give me the gun and you just stay behind me." "For your information my older brother Ben DID show me how to shoot a gun...a few times." "A few times...Suzy, I was taught to fire a gun, aim and everything else before I was ten. I'm just saying in a situation like this, it might be best if I have the gun, I'm sure when we get to the others, Bobby will give you another one of his." Helen remarks. "Yeah and in the mean time I'm fucking defenseless." "You won't be! I'll protect you and I think you can count on that." Helen says and then follows up by putting her arm around your waist and then sensually kissing you on the lips. You ALMOST want to head right back to the bed, but unfortunately you've got more important things to deal with. "Okay, okay, you can take the gun, but me and you are definitely going to finish what we started after all this is over." You say and go unplug the small desk lamp you mentioned earlier to Helen and take it as a makeshift weapon. The pair of you head through the corridor and down the stairs both not making many comments at this point. Might be due to the situation being more than a little tense and its only getting more so as the gunfire, yelling and guttural noises are getting louder as you approach the center of the fighting. Helen then suddenly stops and turns to you. "Suzy?" Helen says. "What!?" you ask. "I just want you to know that if something goes wrong..." "Helen, nothing is going to go wrong, but we need to just focus and get to Bobby." "Well just in case it does, I just want you to know I love..." "SHIT HELEN! SHOOT! SHOOT!" you exclaim when you see two creatures bursting through the door in front of you. Helen spins around and fires, hiting one of them square in the chest twice, but it doesn't even slow down, it just tackles Helen onto the floor. She drops her pistol and struggles with the creature while calling for you to help and while you'd love to do just that, the second creature is currently trying to make a meal out of you. You swing at the creature a couple times, but it moves in such a jerky motion that you don't land a good hit and cause only a glancing blow to its head. Still it's enough to give you a bit of a breather while the thing tries to get back up off the floor. You spy the gun nearby and wonder if you should go for it or help Helen directly first. > You grab the gun You go for the pistol and manage to pick it up. Unfortunately the creature you just beaned in the head has already recovered from its head wound. Much like Helen, you manage to pull the trigger and get a couple shots to its stomach, but it isn't slowed down and uses all its weight to cause the pair of you to crash to the floor. You drop the gun, but you still have the lamp in hand and you attempt to swing it from your prone position, but the creature has already dug its fingers deep into that arm and forcibly holds it to prevent you from doing so. You punch with your other free arm, but your hits to its face do nothing. It just repeats what it has done to your other arm and digs its nails in deeply. With horrible snarling, foam and blood coming from its mouth and more ruthless savagery than you have, the thing soon overpowers you completely and its face meets your own to bite your nose off. You scream in agony as a gout of blood gushes from the new hole in your face. Your screams soon stop completely when it bites out your throat.

[Themes: modern, horror, humor, post-apocalyptic, romance] Getting into a fistfight with Diana is one thing, but you're definitely not up to dealing with this crazy asshole. You just hope Bobby is up for dealing with him though apparently Helen thinks so. "Come on! Bobby can handle this, but we need to get to the children where it's safe!" Helen exclaims and you start to follow her. The pair of you run upstairs away from the sounds of shouting and gunfire. You soon reach the top and follow Helen through a corridor doorway. And then Helen nearly gets bashed in the head with a bat when she passes through an entryway. She does take a hit to the shoulder though which causes her to fall to the floor in pain. Diana steps out from the corner she was hiding behind and then rushes at you. You're caught off guard and point your pistol at Diana, and actually manage to fire a shot, but unfortunately Diana's smashes your arm with the bat away from her direction so your shot goes wild. Hardly matters since between the kickback of the pistol and the pain you end up dropping the gun entirely. With you unarmed and Helen still clutching her arm in pain, Diana's head swivels back and forth rapidly, to make sure neither one of you are going to suddenly lunge at her, though she's also eyeing the dropped pistol too. "After Bobby ripped my heart out I went upstairs to my room and overheard you two bitches conspiring against me. Didn't know you had it in you Helen. I always knew you loved Bobby, but always figured you'd be too weak to do shit about it. Guess that's my fault for showing you mercy." Diana remarks. While Diana's ranting to her sister, you attempt to make a play for the gun, but Diana swings her bat at you, nearly hitting you in the face. You step back just in time. "And you. You certainly have proved yourself the stereotype of dumb blonde, because if you actually bought that bullshit that my sister fed you, you're stupider than I thought you were. You actually think she's gonna just let you have Bobby? She's gonna backstab you the same way she backstabbed me." "Maybe she backstabbed you because you were a fucking bully to her, you ever think of that?" you say. "Bully? She oughta be grateful I didn't kill her ass and instead made her strong enough for her to grow a spine to betray me in the first place! Hey! Where the fuck you goin'?" Diana remarks when she turns her head to see Helen getting up to run away. Diana throws her bat at Helen's legs, which successfully hit and trip her up. Diana then goes for the pistol and that's when you pounce and manage to tackle her. The pair of you are soon rolling on the floor again, punching, scratching and kneeing each other. You both try to go for the pistol on several occasions, but neither of you gets the advantage, in fact when Diana finally does, you knock it out of her hand and it goes sprawling and down the stairs to the first floor. "Bah! I don't need a gun to do my work anyhow! I'll enjoy it even more killing you with my bare hands!" Diana remarks and lands a good punch on you and then she slams the back of your head into the floor causing you to become a little dazed. She'd do more, but then Helen comes up from behind her with the bat in hand. Unfortunately for Helen, Diana hears Helen and catches Helen's feeble swing and stops the bat from actually hitting her. "I'm gonna so enjoy hurting you little sister..." Diana exclaims and attempts to rip the bat from Helen's hand. Helen's grip is strong enough that Diana doesn't succeed so instead Diana uses Helen's weight against her and pushes the bat towards Helen as hard as she can. Helen, not expecting this, loses her footing on her already bruised legs and falls back on the nearby wall, dropping the bat entirely, which rolls away. Diana gets off of you, to take care of her sister who at this point is begging to not be hurt. "Diana, please...this isn't my fault...Bobby chose Su..." Diana squeaks. "BOBBY CHOSE ME FIRST! BOBBY IS MINE! HE'S ALWAYS BEEN MINE BY BIRTH! You fucking little weakling traitorous bitch! Had you just stayed in line, I might've even been kind enough to let Bobby face fuck you on your birthday, but the only fucking you're going to get now is in your ass because I'm going knee deep in it!" At this point Helen squeals in fear and curls up in a tight ball while Diana starts kicking the hell out of her. Meanwhile you're starting to come around a bit more. Things are still a bit dizzy for you and you're a bit wobbly standing up, but you manage it. You attempt to make a run (or fast paced wobble at any rate) for the bat, but Diana stops you before you can even reach it. "Don't think so bottled blonde bitch!" Diana says and knocks you to the floor and then follows up with a kick. Diana gets on top of you and while you struggle to fight her off, she slaps away your attempts and wraps her hands around your throat. "You are going to very dark place and I'm going to enjoy putting you there." She remarks and then she starts doing some weird chanting, similar to the shit Bobby says at times when you're having sex with him, but this isn't nearly as fun. You try to pry her hands off your throat, but her grip is like iron. You start to lose consciousness. You try one more time to get her off of you by punching her in the face, but your swing isn't strong enough and Diana is just too determined to end your life. Diana's face gets blurry, you choke and then everything goes black. Everything is black for what probably seems to be forever. There is nothing. No fluffy cloud heaven, no lake of fire, and definitely not any Tiamat. Then you feel a sensation around your mouth and the sensation of air going in. It's pleasant enough that you instinctively throw your arms out to embrace Bobby. When you open your eyes you find Helen's face lip locked to yours. After a few seconds you actually freak out about it being her instead of Bobby. "H...hey! What the hell?!" you say and push Helen off of you. "I'm sorry Suzy, but you were unconscious and I was resuscitating you." Helen remarks. "I wasn't breathing?" you ask. "Um, well it didn't look like you were. I mean Diana choked you out before I got to her." "Wait, I was just unconscious. (cough) You didn't check to see if I was still breathing first? You just wrapped your (cough) lips around mine and started blowing into my mouth?" "I panicked and didn't want to waste time checking! I didn't want you to die!" Helen exclaims. Well you can't really fault her for trying to save your life. "(Cough) Well thanks Helen. So where is Diana?" you ask rubbing your throat which still hurts like hell. "Over to your right." Helen points out and sure enough you turn your head and see Diana laying face down on the floor. "I smacked her in the head with the bat when she was choking you. I dunno if I killed her. I didn't check to see if she was still breathing either, I was too busy worrying about you. Are you sure you're feeling okay?" "Yeah, I'm fine." You slowly starting to stand. It takes some effort, but Helen helps you up. Your whole body hurts. You stare at Diana's body and see her chest briefly rise and fall, so it looks like she's still alive, just unconscious. Though you're severely tempted to put an end to that, but you've got a better idea. "You think Bobby would let me sacrifice Diana?" you ask which takes her a little by surprise. "Um...I don't know. I mean after we explain what she did, I can't see he'd have any objections. There are no rules against it." Helen replies. "Good, it's my fucking wedding day, I should at least get to pick...well shit looks like she's waking up already." You remark when you see Diana begin to stir. "Hey, guess what Diana, you're going to be at my wedding after all. You're going to be one of the most important people there in fact. Helen, do you have anything to tie this bitch up with?" you ask. "Uh, yeah I think I know where there are some handcuffs and there's always duct tape laying around somewhere." Helen replies. "Well go get them. I'll keep an eye on Diana." You say and pick up the nearby bat. While Helen goes running off, you standby staring at Diana who is giving you the stare of death, but is obviously still in lady pain. "You think I'm gonna just let you throw me on the altar and shove a knife in me like some fucking sheep? You gotta another thing coming blondie." She remarks. "I don't see as you have really a choice at this point." You remark. "Bullshit, I still got a few choices. Like for instance, I could rush you right now, take that bat from you and bash your brains in with it." "You think you still got the strength for that, let alone the speed?" "Maybe I'll make it, maybe I won't, but we're gonna see..." Diana says and spits blood from her mouth. Just as you're about to put out Diana's lights again, you suddenly hear a very loud explosion which sounds like it's coming from the left side of the house. You've been so busy with Diana, you've completely forgotten that Bobby's been battling it out with Aaron elsewhere in the house. Your concerns are briefly for him instead. However, with this very brief distraction, Diana takes advantage and lunges at you and the pair of you are struggling with the damn bat again. Diana seems to be fueled by some sort of unnatural rage at this point, because she's certainly more formidable than the first time you fought with her in the dining room, or maybe she's not underestimating you like she did last time. In any case, you need an advantage, which is either going to be the bat you're currently still struggling with, or the gun which you know is still somewhere on the stairwell. > You go for the gun Obviously all this rolling on the floor and hand to hand shit isn't getting you anywhere with her. She's tougher than you thought and you need to just shoot her and put an end to this. As hard as you can, you do the same trick Diana did to Helen and use her weight against her and shove her as hard as you can while letting go of the bat. Diana ends up falling on her ass and you turn to run towards the stairs. You get half way down the stairs when you feel a hard smack against your lower back when Diana throws the bat at you, causing you to lose your balance and you take a full tumble down the stairs. Not only do you break your arm in the process, you also end up hitting your head hard on the steps several times to the point where you've probably got a concussion, but that's the least of your concerns. Dizzy and moaning in pain from your arm. You're in no condition to fight Diana when she hovers over you with the gun you were trying to get in hand. "Y'know, under ideal circumstances, I'd take my time with you and enjoy dishing out the pain over the course of days, but I suppose I'll just have to do that with my sister instead. Tiamat truly blesses the strong, all hail her glorious chaos!" Diana says and blasts you several times.

[Themes: modern, romance, humor] "And Suzy is the winner of the world banana eating championship! Let's all hear it for our little blonde small town girl!" The announcer shouts which is followed by a roaring crowd. Not even feeling full, you wipe away the whipped cream on your lips, graciously stand up and bow for your adoring fans. The big dude on your right wearing nothing but chaps and a biker jacket looks at you in disbelief and then turns away to puke in a bucket. Meanwhile the little Asian She-Male on your left just shakes his head wondering how the hell you could've beaten him. "I don't understand it...all my training. I glanced over at you during the contest...you...you were barely even chewing! How?" He asks. "Oh just natural talent at swallowing bananas I suppose." You reply humbly and wink at the audience, which continues to praise you. While you're blowing kisses at your fans, you suddenly get a feeling you've done something like this before.... Suddenly a hand touches your shoulder and you spin around to see a woman about your age with long raven colored hair and a low cut black gown. She's pretty, but has a sneering look on her face. It's not quite a cruel look, but she's definitely not impressed with you. "So, you think you got what it takes to meet Misty huh? Pfft. I don't see you lasting another day. Maybe two at best." "Who is Misty?" you ask. "(Sigh) Deary, if you don't know, then you'll never know. And if you never know, then how can you ever hope to survive?" the woman says in a condescending tone and then starts laughing at you. She then begins to age rapidly until she becomes a wizened crone and then eventually a rotting corpse. When you begin to step back, the woman then disappears, but her laughter remains, getting louder and louder to the point being deafening and causing pain. You futilely attempt to cover your ears, but the laughter persists even when you try to cram left over bananas in your ears. Meanwhile, the biker turns in a unicorn and the she-male turns into rainbow colored fox which jumps on the back of the unicorn and they run off together. The audience surprisingly has completely disappeared. In fact it's just you and that awful laughter that won't quit. Just when you think you can't take the pain anymore everything goes black... You wake up to the sound of a female voice. "What's going on?!" you exclaim sitting up fast. "Oh! Sorry! I...I didn't mean to wake you...but I just was told to bring you this." the source of the female voice says. You rub your eyes and see a young woman with light brown hair before you holding a tray of food. She's probably a few years younger than you. "...wait...you're Helen right?" you say recognizing her. "Yes. I didn't think you remembered me. We only saw each other a couple times before." Helen says. "Yeah I remember you. Where's Bobby?" "Oh, Bobby's busy doing something with cousin William. I think its something to do with working on the compound here. I'm not really sure. I just tend to look after the little ones, but Bobby told me I should bring you something to eat, so um here." Helen thrusts the tray of food at you. It consists of typical breakfast type food like scrambled eggs, bacon, cereal and juice. You see no reason not to take the offering seeing as you aren't served like this very often. "Wow, breakfast in bed. That's something I've never had before." You say and start to eat. Helen stares at you nervously, which causes you to stop eating. "What?" you ask. "Oh! Nothing, I just wanted to make sure you liked it. Is the food good? I really didn't know what to make you and I just wanted it to be right." Helen says. "It's fine Helen." You say. "Oh good. I just...I just didn't want to disappoint you." "It's just breakfast Helen. Relax. Probably way better than anything I could make, I dunno how to cook." "You don't? Didn't your mother teach you?" Helen asks as if cooking is something every woman knows how to do. "Nope. She taught me how to sew when I was younger, but I sort of stopped doing it when she died of a flesh-eating virus. Didn't really see the point anymore." "Oh no, how sad!" Helen says empathetically. "Yeah." You say continuing to eat. "Well don't worry, I'm a very good cook and I can even teach you!" "Hm, well between that offer and this meal, you've probably done more for me than my own family has in years." "I'm so glad you said that. I want us to get along because I know you're going to be married to Bobby and all." "Wait, Bobby told you already?" you ask. "He told everyone last night. He was so happy. I'm so glad he was, I like seeing him happy." "Hm, I can guess who wasn't happy to hear about it." You remark. "Oh. Yes. Um...you probably mean Diana. Yes, she was quite upset. Um...in fact I probably should leave. She's looking after the little ones and I'm sure I'll get an earful about being away from my duties for so long. She's in a bad enough mood as it is." Helen says. "Okay, well sorry to keep you then. I don't want to get you into trouble." "Oh, it's okay. I'm not really worried about me anyway. It's just if I stay away for too long she might... well she's not as patient as I am with our younger siblings. So are you okay with the food and everything?" "Yeah Helen." "Okay good. Good. Um...okay I'm going now. Um, I suppose I'll see you around some time." "Okay then." At this point Helen nervously waves and opens the door to leave, but then she calls out to you. "Um, Suzy?" "Yes?" "I'm really glad you're going to be part of this family soon." She says with a faint smile and then leaves. You shake your head and finish your food. Helen obviously has some issues. Though maybe its because you know what its like to have a bullying older sister, you can sympathize. After putting aside your food tray you take a shower in the private bathroom connected to the bedroom which is very convenient. While washing up you take time to ponder your odd dream which while having its surreal moments seemed "real" to you in some ways. The raven haired woman in the dream was most certainly Bobby's grandmother which is sort of creepy, but then maybe she just popped up due you seeing pictures of her (and even one in your room) earlier that night. Ultimately you decide not to worry too much about it unless this becomes an ongoing problem. After your shower, you then change your clothing and decide to explore what is now your new home. You walk around the right wing of the compound, upstairs and down, not running into anyone. It's all pretty empty on this side which is sort of good you suppose and you're half tempted to just go back to your new room and play on your computer. However, you figure you're going to have to make the effort to be social with everyone so you head over to the central part of the compound where you assume more of Bobby's family is located. Eventually you get to a large dining area and see a few dirty plates still on the table. The voices of children can be heard a few rooms away and then... That red headed witch Diana steps out from the kitchen. She holds a knife in one hand and you notice her hand tighten around its handle when she sees you. "Look, I don't want any trouble Diana. I know you're mad but..." you start to say before Diana interrupts. "Spare me your pathetic words blonde whore. You will not sway me with superficial attempts at diplomacy. YOU are in my way, but I promise you that before the week's end, you will be out of it." When you cautiously step back a bit, Diana smirks. "You better keep stepping backwards and out the front door if you want to stay out of my way AND keep your pitiful life." While Diana is doing a fairly adequate job of intimidating you, she's actually starting to make you angry. Like a rage is building up within you and you feel like just picking up one of the forks on one of the dirty plates on the table and stabbing her in the neck with it. In fact violent visions start to enter your head, visions of bloody bodies and other murderous images. They hit you so suddenly; you actually stumble and keep yourself from falling by propping yourself up against the table. You then rub your head from this spell, as you don't feel completely well. "Now what? Am I scaring you too much? Are you about to cry? By Tiamat you really are worthless. And that is why you'll never make a good wife to my brother. You're far too weak. My brother will realize that soon." Diana remarks. As unwell as you suddenly feel, the rage within you is still rising. > You keep calm You're not going to play her game. Getting into a fight is just going to make things worse. She's all talk anyway, she's just going to bark and not actually do anything. You just stay silent and try to walk away. Diana however keeps barking. "Hey, where you going, this isn't over you fucking bitch!" Diana says, but you ignore her and keep walking away. When you don't respond, Diana moves from barking to biting which involves grabbing you on the shoulder and spinning you around. "Hey, get your hands off of me!" you say and attempt to push her away. Diana's spoiling for a fight however and grabs your arm with her free hand. And unfortunately she's also spoiling for your death. "You're fucking too weak for Bobby, better that I take care of this now. He'll thank me in the long run!" She exclaims and stabs you chest with her knife. You scream in pain and fall back in shock. Diana wastes no time in taking advantage and leaps on you while stabbing the entire time. While the noise brings the attention of other family members who attempt to pull Diana off of you, but it's already too late, she's hit several vital organs and opened up several of your veins. "All hail fucking Tiamat and her glorious chaos!" Diana yells in triumph and laughing as your blood is splattered all over her.

It's not like this is a complete stranger, this is someone you do have feelings for and what the hell, it's not like you aren't going to be doing this again with him eventually. Still, there is the matter of decorum. You manage to twist your body around so that you're face to face to him; he barely stops when you tell him. "Bobby, look we can do this, but like I said, we're NOT doing this in the middle of the living room. Let's at least go down to the basement and we can fuck on my couch." "Okay, okay, whatever, let's just get down their quickly." Bobby agrees continuing to kiss on you. The pair of you head down into the basement and one of Bobby's hands is practically glued to your ass the entire time. When you get to your room, you see that Bobby has somehow managed to strip off most of his clothing by this point (amazing considering he had one hand on your ass the entire time). He helpfully starts stripping your clothing off. "Well seeing as you're obviously taking the alpha male approach to this, after you're done tearing off my clothes, you can carry me over to the sofa and start doing me like a conquering warrior. I want to see your face stare into mine as you thrust into me, let me know who exactly is in charge and teach me a lesson." You say licking your index finger and then running your finger down Bobby's chest. (Never let it be said that you can't tap into your dirty side when necessary) The next half hour is fun, if a little rougher than you're used to with Bobby. It starts off with him just really ramming it into you and telling you in various ways to "Take it." while staring directly into your eyes which are more piercing than usual. His hands are also mostly holding down your wrists at this point. Despite all this, you aren't scared. You just wrap your legs around him tightly like a boa constrictor and enjoy the ride. A little later he put his hands around your neck and even squeezes a little while continuing to stare into your eyes. You can certainly still breathe, but he is definitely establishing his dominance and that he is firmly in control of things. Despite all this, you still aren't really scared, you even add to the "experience" by squeaking out a "No." "Please don't." "Stop hurting me." every now and then. Eventually Bobby chants something in a language you've never heard before and then orgasms. Again, not really scary since he's always doing that. It was weird the first few times you had sex with him but now it acts as a nice little alarm letting you know that things will be over soon. Completely spent after orgasm, Bobby collapses on top of you and begins hugging you tightly, and then whispers... "I love you so much Suzy, I want us to be joined forever. I want our bodies as well as our souls to be married." NOW you get scared and suddenly push him off of you in alarm at this declaration. "What?! Married?" You exclaim recoiling to one corner of the couch. Bobby's a little surprised by your reaction. "I want us to be married. I mean we're obviously soul mates and its the next logical step for us." "Step? What step? We were just having fun a moment ago and now you spring life long commitment?" "Are you saying you never saw us eventually getting married? I mean in all that time since we've been together?" "No, and especially not when all the trouble with your sister came about." "But on several occasions you asked me to run away with you! You didn't think we'd get married if we ever did that even?" "Not really." "I'm guessing you didn't ever think about having children either then." "Children?! What the hell, you think I'm some sort of brood mother? Now Bobby is downright confused. "Suzy... I really don't understand your... well view of things..." Bobby says. "That pretty rich coming from the cultist." You say. "Okay, I'm going to ignore that because I love you. But if it makes any difference, at least I still behave in a consistent way which you do not." "What's that supposed to mean?" "(Sigh) I really don't want us to fight again..." "Bobby I just let you simulate what could be considered a rape fantasy on me, the least you can do is explain yourself." "Okay then THAT right there is what I'm talking about. You have no problem with having kinky sex with me, you have no major problems with my religion and what it entails, you're even willing to move in with me and my family even though you're concerned about my sister and probably the rest of them, but somehow marriage is what is freaking you out? I mean I'm trying to do the right thing here and it's because I genuinely love you. Why are you so resistant?" It's actually a good question. You're pretty tolerant of a lot of stuff most would've recoiled in horror from and something like marriage and (shudder) kids is scaring you off. There's probably a good psychological reason for your reluctance, involving your observations of other married couples such as your own mother (overly compliant) and father (distant) or your brother Ben (paranoid psychotic) and his wife (utterly clueless) but there are a few other concerns. "Bobby...you've never brought up marriage before either, why all of a sudden?" You ask. "Well, I just think it's time. I mean we've been together awhile. We've stuck together through ups and downs. We're going to be living together. I obviously love you and I assume you love me right?" "Well...yeah...but... I dunno...I mean kids? Come on do you really think I'm mother material? I can barely take care of myself...in fact I can't at all, otherwise I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place." At this point Bobby takes your hand into his and gets closer to you. "Suzy, don't you see, you don't need to worry about any of that anymore. When you marry me you won't have to worry about taking care of yourself ever again. And as far as being mother material, I can't imagine a better mother to my children. Even if you do have trouble, I'm sure my sisters will help out...well okay Helen will help out, but you know what I'm saying. The main thing is you won't have any more worries when you're in the family...MY family. We'll look after you. I'll look after you." And there it is. Your future. A "housewife" popping out a whole mess of little cultists like a Pez dispenser. While it might not be quite that extreme, the writing is on the wall. While Bobby is probably sincere in his love and desire to care for you, he's still the head of a human sacrificing cult and as such he's going to be somewhat controlling and manipulative. How long before you become brainwashed into believing in the same shit he believes in? How long before you passively accept other sudden changes over time? Hell, how long before some organization like the FBI or the ATF comes charging in to lay siege to the place? Though on the other hand what are you really doing with your life right now and what prospects do you really have? You could do worse than have a man who obviously loves you a lot and is willing to take care of the stuff you don't want to bother worrying about. You've got a major life changing decision to make, because you get the impression that if you get into that compound of his, changing you mind isn't going to be an option. > You decline his proposal You love Bobby...well at least you think you do. He's been your only boyfriend so you don't have any other real comparison. But even if you do love him, you still don't think you're ready to marry him at least not on the terms he wants. "Can't we just...I dunno...runaway together?" you ask. "What? I don't understand, I thought you loved me." Bobby says. "I do, but marriage...that's a really big step...and all my other concerns aside I still don't feel comfortable living with your sister. I mean maybe it would be different if it were just us and no other ties. I might even feel comfortable starting a family with you with a clean slate as it were." "Suzy...that's just not possible. First of all I already have a perfectly good home that's fully stocked with necessities, why the hell would I just abandon it? That would be dumb just from a logical standpoint and just because you don't want anything to do with your worthless family, I still love mine and I'm not going to just abandon them." "Worthless? Yeah, I don't think highly of them either, but don't you dare come in and start claiming superiority! At least my family isn't a bunch of inbred brainwashed murderers. And fuck you Bobby, if you REALLY wanted to, we could fucking run away together. You're a resourceful guy." "Oh I'm a resourceful guy huh? Well maybe I am, but what are YOU going to be doing?" "What do you mean what am I going to be doing? I'm going to be with you! Isn't that enough?" "Suzy, you're sitting here asking me to give up EVERYTHING that's important to my life and I'm asking why should I? I mean yes, I get you don't like Diana, but I already told you that she isn't going to be a problem..." Bobby says before you interrupt. "And excuse me if I'm not completely fucking convinced. She's your fucking ex, she hates my guts AND you expect me to live under the same roof with her even when we're fucking married? No, not fucking happening and I'm also not being a goddamn brood sow just waiting around for you to fuck me." You interject. "Don't see how that's much different from your life now..." Bobby says dismissively. You're speechless for a second. "Excuse me?" you say. "I said I don't see how sitting around waiting for me to fuck you would be that big of a change in your life because you practically do that now. I mean what the hell do YOU do except hide out down here from the rest of the world and then every now and then we meet up to fuck. If we got married, the only difference would be you'd be living in a better home and actually have to do something with your time like maybe look after our kids...but of course you don't want any because at your core you're completely self centered and only care about what YOU want. You know, you got a lot more in common with Diana than you realize in that department." With as much power as you can, you slap Bobby across his face. He doesn't flinch, and it seems he was even expecting it. He just gives you the stone face stare. "Get the fuck out. Go back to your fucked up religion and sister fucking. We're through, for good this time." You say. Bobby doesn't say anything he just gathers his clothing and gets dressed as fast as possible. He doesn't look at you the entire time until he starts to walk away. "I love you Suzy, but I suppose this is easier for the both of us. I hope your life works out." He says and then turns away. You hear his footsteps going up the basement stairs and then eventually you hear the front door slam. And he's gone. That's it. Bobby's out of your life forever and you immediately feel a mixture of sadness and sickness. You're sad of course because despite all the problems you had towards the end of your relationship (And the incredibly shitty thing he said to you which caused the final split anyway), he was your first and you do believe he did love you and you loved him. You thought you both had so much in common at one time, but it turned out your differences were greater than you thought and some people just aren't meant to be together. You also feel sick due to the fact that he was potentially your "savior" in getting out of your current predicament with your older sister. Now that he's gone, you don't know what the hell you're going to do. You spend a little time wondering if you should've just went along with Bobby's proposal. Would it have really been all that bad? It's too late now though, you can't call him now even if you really wanted to...and you do really want to, but you just can't ignore his own faults in what caused the final straw to be broken in the relationship. Somewhere in between the crying and moping, you realize that what you're doing right now isn't any different from any other day; namely, you're hiding out from the world in your basement. The only major difference is you happen to be extremely upset right now. Bobby was right about that on some level. You do just sit around down here doing nothing waiting for...what exactly? Maybe you were waiting for Bobby to "save you" somehow, but obviously you didn't really want that or at least you didn't want it on the terms he was demanding. What DO you want in life Suzy? What can you do to change your status? Well, you aren't sure what you want in life, but you know the only potential way to change your status now is to either get a job or find some new place to live. Seeing as you're already depressed, you open up your laptop and proceed to engage in the soul-crushing task of looking for a job. As day turns to night, you spend hours looking for a job...well actually you spend AN hour looking and the rest of the time being distracted with your depression. The problem is there is just nothing out there for the likes of you unless you want to be stripper at one of the many strip clubs. You sometimes wish you were more like Donna because if you had less hangs up about being slutty, you'd jump at the chance. However, you were cursed with an odd concept of self-respect so no stripping for you. You look into waitressing since it seems like that's another job that's always available. You find a few places hiring...at the strip clubs...great. The further descent of desperation causes you to look for jobs involving house keeping or janitorial work. You are already dreading the idea of doing such labor, but you still have to look. You find one that's open...at an adult bookstore. You can only imagine what you'd be primarily cleaning up. "What the fuck is wrong with this town? Isn't there even a goddamn fast food place in need of a hapless burger flipper?" you cry out in frustration. You're about to give up and resign yourself to being depressed and doing nothing until you fall asleep when you find something that looks slightly more promising. There is not one but TWO jobs open at a comic shop, imaginatively called "Jake's Comic Shop" who you assume is the owner. One is moving a bunch of boxes around and the other is working a register. Not exactly the most desirable of jobs, but it beats the idea of dressing in skimpy clothing, getting ogled and possibly groped. (Let alone cleaning up jizz for a living) As far as you're concerned that's your task for tomorrow. You're heading over to Jake's Comic Shop and you're not leaving until you have employment. You feel slightly positive about this, well not really, but you do at least feel like you've accomplished something this dark day. With that out of the way, you allow yourself to go back to being depressed over today's unfortunate event until you set your alarm for tomorrow (Which you never usually do) and eventually fall asleep. > Next day... Your alarm goes off and you groggily wake up. Way earlier than you're used to actually. It's morning and you haven't been up this early in a long time. You're surprised you didn't just sleep through the alarm considering how emotionally drained you were yesterday. Even now, you still feel tired. You're also still pretty damn depressed. Depression combined with your type of ingrained apathy would normally make for a really bad combination of motivation, but against all odds, you actually get up out of bed to go wash up. You spend an extra long time in the shower trying to motivate yourself for the first phase of your goals today which is heading over to Jake's comic shop and getting a job. Eventually you finish up and head back to your room where you start to get dressed, thinking about one of your other possible goals which is finding a new place to live because if this comic shop thing doesn't work out, you doubt if you're going to find anything else you'd be willing to do before the week is over. Always one to seek the way of least resistance, you reluctantly call your sister Donna since she did say you could live with her and Julie. You didn't really want to go live with her and Julie though because you know it's going to be party central non-stop, but you don't have many other options. You ring up Donna several times and get no answer. You ring up Julie and also get no answer. They're probably both passed out from whatever they were doing the night before. You give up attempting to contact them today, deciding that you'll just show up on their doorstep with all your shit if you don't get this job. It's not much of a plan, but you do feel slightly better believing you have a safety net. Well you like to THINK you have a safety net anyway. With that fear partially quelled, you absent-mindedly check to see if Bobby called...then you stop... "Christ, that was stupid. Get your head straight Suzy..." you say to yourself, starting to feel bad again. You then remind yourself that you'll have to break that habit. You nearly delete his number entirely, but you can't quite bring yourself to do it just yet. Pushing through it all, you now move on to your next step of trying to convince your brother Peter to let you borrow his car so you drive over to the comic shop. You head upstairs and bang on the door to the garage. "Hey Peter, open up I need a favor!" you shout and after a few seconds the door opens up. "What the fuck Suzy? Why the hell are you banging on my door like you're the police?" Peter exclaims peeking his head out the door. He's probably naked. "Yeah, sorry to bother you with whatever currently doing at the moment, but I need to borrow your car. I'm trying to get a job." You say. "A job? I thought you were too much of a prude to be a stripper." "Ha ha, very funny. I'm not going to be a stripper, I'm going to try to get a job at a Jake's comic shop." You reply. "A comic shop? Doing what? Getting all the virgin nerds excited?" "I'm going to be moving boxes or working a register...look I don't fucking know exactly, I haven't gotten the job yet. I just know I NEED to get this fucking job or else Kelly's gonna throw me out on my ass!" you reply getting increasingly exasperated. "Alright, fine. Don't fucking bite my goddamn head off because you got problems. I've got problems of my own. (Sigh) Wait a minute." Peter closes the door and then a few seconds later opens it up and then tosses some keys at you. "Here. Don't fuck it up, and I fully expect you to put gas in it." He says and then slams the door shut. Well that was easier than you expected, but then he probably just wanted you out of the way for whatever client he has coming over. With that out of the way, you get in Peter's car and pull out of the driveway. A few minutes of driving to your destination and you now learn first hand what Bobby was talking about yesterday. The roads are a mess and the town is in fucking chaos. There are cops everywhere, as well as ambulances and fire trucks racing to their various destinations too. You're also seeing small groups of people rioting. It's like the whole town has lost its damn mind and you nearly get into an accident more than a few times. Fortunately Jake's comic shop isn't too far away, but given the town's situation you're hoping that everything there isn't going to be as bad as what you've been seeing so far. Eventually you do get to the shop and so far the place doesn't look too bad, though given that you see a police barricade a few blocks up the street, you wonder if that could all change. Pulling into the parking lot, you exit the car and enter the building. As soon as you walk in, you briefly scan the shop and find it completely empty save for a bearded middle-aged man with a ponytail at a counter staring at you. He couldn't be more of a stereotype of a "comic book guy." "Well...hello. You lost or something? The beauty salon is down the street...though I believe there was a shooting or something there earlier." He says. "Um, no. I'm here about the job. Are you Jake?" you ask. "That's me. Now what job are you talking about exactly?" Jake asks while looking at you up and down. The guy is already probably thinking several dirty thoughts about you and at this point you're really hoping this guy doesn't turn the whole job thing into some stupid line about giving him a blowjob. "The job openings I found on the internet for this place. It said you needed someone to move boxes or work the register." You say. "Oh yeah, I'm not even sure why I posted that. In this current economy I can barely afford to hire one employee and lately I'm wondering if I can even do that." Jake says. "Shit, does this mean you're not hiring?" "Well...considering you're easy on the eyes, I'm not going to say I'm NOT hiring. Besides you're the only one that's even applied so far. You'd think with all the fanboy nerds that practically live at this place one of them would've offered to fucking help me out. (Sigh) Whatever, you got your resume?" "Resume?" you ask. "Yeah, when people tend to apply for jobs they usually have one. I mean not that any of the tasks here are brain surgery, but it's nice to have some basic information." Jake says. "Oh. Well I don't have one." You reply. "Seriously? You came in here for a job without a resume?" "I didn't think I'd need one." "You didn't...alright can you give me any references then?" "Um, no." "You can't or you won't?" "I can't because I don't have any." "Jesus Christ...do you have ANY job experience whatsoever?" "No." "Do you even want a fucking job here?" Jake asks getting exasperated. "Not really, but I want to run around half naked swinging on a pole getting ogled, slobbered over and groped by horny guys for a living even less, so this place is currently my only option for my desperate situation." You say. Jake laughs at your comment. "Well at least your honest, but if you think you're not going to get ogled and slobbered over by guys here, you're sadly mistaken. You do realize this is a comic shop right?" "Oh come on, there has to be female customers that come in here." You say. "Sure, but they don't look like you and you'll probably get a couple of them awkwardly hittin

g on you as well. On the bright side, none of the nerds here are probably going to try to grope you. They'll be far too shy to try that. No pole swinging either, but feel free to run around half naked. I guarantee something like that would really help out business." Jake says with a smirk. "Yeah, not happening." You reply. "Didn't think I'd be that lucky. Well despite your total lack of skill, I suppose I'll hire you, I do have to ask one thing first though..." And here it comes; he's going to ask you to do something sexual and you'll be heading out the door... "Do you even read comics?" Well that was unexpected. "Well, I used to when I was little, but my older sister Kelly just kept taking them from me and either hitting me with them or tearing them up, so I didn't see the point anymore." You reply. "Jeez, that's not fucking right. You should've kicked her ass." Jake says. "Yeah well that wasn't possible, she's ten times bigger than me. In fact that's why I applied to this job, she's threatening to kick me out of the house." You say. "Hmm, sounds like a similar situation that I had with my last assistant. His mom was threatening to kick him out of the house and he begged me to hire him. He was a pathetic little worm addicted to all that anime shit. Really he was a lousy helper, but given that the one I had before him just died in my bathroom, I figured I'd give the fat little anime addict a shot." "Wait someone died in the bathroom here?" you ask. "Yeah my retarded assistant strangled himself in my bathroom while jacking off. Spent the damn day cleaning the bathroom because of it." "Uh, the other assistant didn't die in the bathroom too did he?" "Nah, he ended up marrying his crazy cousin and lives in the trailer park outside of town I think. Dunno what he does now since he never comes in anymore which is a shame since the pervert used to spend a fortune in this place." "That's...interesting. So about the job." You say steering the conversation back on track. "Yeah, about the job. I'm guessing you'll want to be working the register...what is your name anyway blondie?" "Suzy, and why are you assuming I want to be working the register?" "Because I doubt a little thing like you really wants to be lugging boxes around, I mean unless you're trying to tell me you can't do basic math." "Of course I know how to do basic fucking math!" you snap. "Okay, sheesh. Calm down I didn't mean to imply anything. So you're working the register..." Jake has still already made the decision for you about what job you're going to be doing and while lugging boxes around really doesn't appeal to you, you're still a little insulted that the option has just been taken away from you. Besides the sexist implications that you aren't strong enough to do the other job because you're female, you get the strong impression that Jake also just wants you at the register so you'll be more visible to all the horny virgin nerds that come in this place. And the more you're thinking about the fact that you'll have to interact with the public in general if you're working the register you're finding it about as appealing as lifting a bunch of heavy boxes around. Then again if you antagonize Jake over this, he might just throw you out of the shop and then you'll have no job. > You stick with the register Considering you'd rather just sit on your ass and work the register than lift boxes anyway, there doesn't seem to be much point in engaging in an argument that will lose you this job opportunity. Honestly you're just lucky that Jake is willing to hire you and isn't making advances on you (yet). Jake proceeds to show you how to work the register and the credit card machine. After a few trial runs and examples, you think you got it. The funny thing is, nobody has actually come into the comic shop yet. "See, not very difficult. So, you think you're ready to officially take the responsibility of the register?" Jake asks. "Yeah, I guess, but is it always this empty?" you ask. "No, not usually. It's about...what a little after noon now? Yesterday was slow as well, but I'm chalking it up to all the craziness going on in town, which I'm really hoping dies down soon. There is a group of regulars that should be arriving in few moments though. They usually just hang out here all fucking day, but they tend to buy a lot when they actually do decide to part with their money and not drive me up a fucking wall with their banter. However since you're working the register, you'll get to put up with them this time." "Great, can't wait." You say and sit at the register unenthusiastically. Jake proceeds to tell you that if you need anything he'll be in his office catching up on going over his financial books. He also warns you not to steal anything, which seems weird since if you were going to steal something, it's not like you'd listen to his warning. Without many more words Jake disappears into his office and you sit at the register waiting for customers to come in. While you wait you start looking at the various items near the counter and start reading through some of the comics. As time passes you continue to hear the sounds of sirens and such in the distance. Through the windows you see a couple of police officers running in the direction where you saw those barricades. A little more time passes and a short man who looks to be in his mid thirties enters. He's dressed in casual clothing and just nods at you when he sees you at the register. In an attempt to be a friendly, you smile and wave hi before he goes off to look at comics. Well either Jake was exaggerating about his customers being sex crazed assholes or this guy isn't one of the "regulars" he was talking about. You watch him for a moment as he browses and takes various comics off the shelves. He looks like he's really into comics with as many as he's taking. Eventually he comes up to the counter with a stack of comic books. "Can I just sit these here for now? I'm not really done looking yet, but I don't want to lug around a bunch of comics and possibly dropping them all over the place." The man asks. "Oh yeah sure. I guess you really like comics huh?" you say. "Heh, I suppose I look a little obsessed. I don't really come in here that much since normally I tend to buy stuff online, but this is one of those times where I don't have the luxury of waiting for stuff to arrive in the mail. So I'm loading up now that I'm here. Never seen you here before though." The man says. "I'm new. Just started today actually and you're sort of my first customer. Nobody else has come in." you reply. "Oh. Well, this is sort of an interesting day to start a new job given what's been going on in town lately. I'm betting that's why there hasn't been anyone else in here today." "Yeah, tell me about it. I wouldn't have left the house if I had the choice." "Yeah, I hear you, I don't like going out too much myself, but I've been getting better about it lately." "Same here and it still sucks, but bills aren't going to pay themselves." "I sort of got around that by being able to work at home. I used to sell and buy shit on the Internet a lot." "What, like Ebay or something?" "Yeah something like that. Buy low, sell high, that sort of thing." "I wish I could do something like that." "You can, it's not really difficult." "Eh, I'm not really a wheeler and dealer type. Besides, if I had a job involving a computer, especially one involving self employment, I'd probably just goof off and never get any work accomplished." "Well that's the beauty of working at home. You can sort of be as lazy as you want!" The man says with slight grin. "Oh I don't think you know exactly how lazy I can be." You say returning the smile. "You can't be that lazy, you're working here." "Well like I said, I wouldn't be here if I didn't have to be. (Sigh) Events however have conspired against me and here I am." "Yeah, always sucks when things out of your control put you in a bad situation. For what it's worth, sorry you're in such a bind." You didn't expect sympathy for your minor "pity party" but you'll definitely accept it. You usually aren't one to hold long conversations with random strangers, but then it's been a bit of an unusual week for you. "Thanks, so selling and buying shit on the Internet works for you huh? I suppose maybe I could do it. There's certainly already enough crap around the house that surely someone would be interested in. Obviously with as many comics as you intend on buying you're making a good living at it." You say. "Well I probably would be if I wasn't a bit of a hoarder and kept most of the shit I did buy. However, I made enough that I pulled my weight so my mom didn't kick me out of the basement of the house. Yeah, I know I'm a walking stereotype, basement dweller in a comic shop. Big surprise right?" the man remarks. You don't reply immediately, you just briefly think about how odd it is you've got so much in common with a complete stranger. "Oh, I dunno. I don't tend to judge people." You reply. "Well that's a rare trait these days. Though I suppose I'm more of a hermit than a basement dweller nowadays anyway. My mother died a few years ago and I'm not even going to be living here anymore soon. Hence another reason why I'm loading up on books now." "So wait you're moving out of town?" you say a bit surprised. "Yeah...I guess you could say that. I mean under normal circumstances I wouldn't bother, but it's getting really bad out there and it's only going to get worse." "Worse? How do you know? You don't think things will get back to normal in a few days?" The man starts like he's about to say more, but stops. Then he stumbles over some words a bit before continuing. "Um...it's just...well these things...you never can tell right? I guess I don't really know. I think I'm just rambling at this point and not making any sense. I didn't mean to talk your ear off. I guess I should get back to it and let you get back to doing your job." The man says and then briskly walks to the back of the comic shop. You nearly tell him to come back to talk to clarify what he meant and that he wasn't really bothering you, but then you think that would be a bit strange and also you don't really know this guy. He's probably a weirdo anyway; he just said he lived in his mom's basement until she died after all. You don't even know why you're even still thinking about it or him. "Christ Suzy, you're taking the break up harder than you thought. You're starting to latch on to minor conversations with complete fucking strangers. Get a grip already." You say to yourself. A sudden brick through one of the shop windows breaks up your introspective moment. You duck down behind the counter and then Jake comes out running out of his office. "What the fuck is going on out here?!" he exclaims. "I don't know! Someone just threw a brick through..." Before you can complete that sentence you hear a bunch of laughter and the shop door opening up. You continue to stay hidden behind the counter. "Did you see that shit? Told ya I could land the brick right in the middle of the O on the window!" a young male voice exclaims. "Yeah, yeah, let's just see what we got in here..." another remarks. "What the fuck do you little shits think you're doing? You just broke my fucking window! I hope you fuckers got some money to pay for that RIGHT NOW or else I'm going to be kicking all of your asses THEN I'm going to your parents' houses and kicking their asses for not aborting you." Jake exclaims. "Oh fuck off Jake, with as much as you've ripped us off by overcharging, I'd say that more than covers the cost of your goddamn window. We're going to be taking some free comics too." You hear a voice shout back. "Look, I dunno what the fuck has compelled you social rejects even THINK you can get away with this, but if you don't fucking get out of my shop right fucking now, there are going to be consequences you aren't going to walk away from." "Ohhh, so fucking scared Jake." You hear one say who from the sound of the voice sounds like he's getting closer. "HEY! Step back from the counter!" You hear someone hit the counter and then you look up to see a pimply teenager staring over at you. "Holy shit guys! Jake's got a fucking bitch hiding over here! She looks hot too, no wonder he's fucking pissed! She was probably blowing him before we came in!" he exclaims and then tries to grab your hair at which point you slap his hand away and stand up and away from the counter so you can't be molested. It's at this point you finally see the motley lot. Four teenage boys of all varying shapes and sizes. You don't know who these guys are, but if they're the "regulars" Jake mentioned, they're certainly not acting like what you expected. "Goddamn Jake how the hell you manage to pull this off? She looks way too fucking hot for you. She a whore or something?" The tallest boy asks. "Hey, you know who she looks like? She looks like that cute zombie chick." The fattest one says. "Nah, she looks more like that chick who controls all the dragons." The pimply one remarks. "For fuck's sake she's blonde not a goddamn albino, she doesn't look like either of them, the pair of you are idiots. She obviously looks like the blonde chick that fucks vampires." The tallest one remarks. "Which one, Trent?" the fat one asks. "The one that's mainly killing them too." Trent says. "I dunno guys, I thought she looked like that chick that was a private investigator..." another one begins to say before Jake interrupts their temporary distraction of comparing you to various female nerd culture figures. "SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY SHOP! I'M NOT WARNING YOU AGAIN!" Jake shouts. At which point Trent pulls a pistol out of his hoodie pocket. He doesn't actually point it at Jake, but he's definitely warning him by just showing it. Jake steps back a bit, but doesn't lose his cool. You on the other hand are really worried, especially considering you got four hormone addled teenage guys staring at you. "And I'm telling YOU we're not fucking leaving without getting our comics! Don't you know what today is? It's fucking free comic book day Jake!" "This is how you want to play this Trent?" Jake asks. Now Trent points the pistol at Jake and gives a look of less playfulness and more deadly seriousness. "I'm not fucking playing Jake, just like I wasn't fucking playing with my mom when she told me to clean my room two days ago, just like I wasn't playing with those assholes yesterday that used to give me wedgies back in sixth grade or that bitch who wouldn't go out with me even though I did a whole bunch of nice shit for her. Things are changing around this town and if you ain't changing with it, you're gonna get rolled over." Trent looks over at his fellows and waves as if he's telling them to take whatever they want. He continues to point the gun at Jake though he keeps an eye on you as well. While you're a little busy worrying about Trent and the rest, you realize you haven't seen that guy you were talking to before. You can't imagine he managed to slip out without anyone noticing. He might be hiding, but if he is, he's doing a really good job, because with the way Trent's pals are going through the store, it seems like they would have stumbled upon him by now. While they do that, Trent gets closer to Jake still holding the gun to him. "So what is the story with the blonde bitch anyway Jake? I know she can't be your girlfriend. A fat old loser like you wouldn't have one." Trent sneers, but Jake is still keeping composure. "I hired her to work the register today." Jake remarks. "Hm. I'd rather see her mouth work my dick." Trent says looking you up and down. Jake starts laughing. "What's so fucking funny?" "YOU! You're fucking funny Trent. You're calling me a loser and apparently you can't even GET a woman without holding her at gunpoint. Pfft. I don't give a shit what little emo angsty shooting spree trip you're on, but I'm not playing. I still remember when you were in here as a little kid and your ugly ass mama beat the hell out of you for shitting your pants. How you cried and cried." Jake chuckles. Trent of course is not amused and points the gun closer to Jake. "Shut the fuck up fat ass!" he exclaims. "Make me lanky bitch!" Jake says and suddenly grabs Trent's hand now that it's close enough. The pair of them struggle with the weapon and Trent begins calling for his fellows to help. While you're certainly close enough to help Jake before Trent's buddies get to him, you see the front door and wonder if you shouldn't just jump over the counter and get the hell out of here. > You run for the front door It's not exactly the bravest thing to do, but then your own life is at risk and if there is a chance at getting out of this mess now then you're going to take it. You jump over the counter and rush towards the door; two of Trent's friends try to intercept you until Trent demands that they help him and forget about you. His third friend however ignores him and continues after you. You manage to make it half way out the door before pimple boy grabs your arm. "You're not going anywhere blondie, except on my dick!" pimple boy shouts and follows that up with a really creepy annoying giggle. You pull away and get out of the store, but he's a persistent bastard and manages to grab you around the waist from behind. "Come on baby, I like an older woman like you!" he exclaims in his attempt to grope your breasts while dry humping you. "Older woman like me? Motherfucker..." you exclaim and elbow the scrawny fucker in the face. It gets him off of you and then you spin around to give him a swift kick to the balls. Twice. He falls to the ground crying and holding his crotch. He tries to mumble some curses at you, but it's hard to do in between the tears. As much as you want to get out of here, you're so pissed you kick him in his acne-ridden face for good measure, before running off. Just in time too, since you hear two gunshots coming from the store. You turn the corner to the parking lot and rush to your car to open the door, then suddenly hear footsteps closing in quickly behind you. "Gimme that car bitch! I gotta get the fuck outta here!" you hear a voice shout. You don't even turn your head since you already can tell it's the voice of one of the teenagers from the store. You get in the car and start it up. You pull out and are already in the process of driving off until the same teenager gets in front of the car and throws a brick at your driver window "SHIT!" you shout before the brick smashes through the window and hits you in the side of the head. You lose complete control of the car and promptly crash into a nearby telephone pole. Thanks to shitty air bags not working properly you hit your already injured head against the driver's wheel. Somehow you're still conscious, but you're incredibly dazed and woozy. You're also not exactly feeling like moving too far, however your feelings are not in consideration here. "Get outta the car bitch!" the teen who threw the brick exclaims and opens the door to get you out of it. He starts to drag you out and despite your less than stellar state you still make an effort to fight. Eventually with some effort he drags you out and then you fell a kick to your ribs while on the street pavement. Bleeding, bruised, and dizzy you attempt to get up, only to not quite make it. Just when it looks like the teen is going to land another kick to you, a shot rings out and the teen falls to the ground nearly on top of you. "ARGH! SHIT! FUCK! I CAN'T FEEL MY LEGS! NO!" the teen screams. You crawl away from the teen and through your blurry vision you see a figure coming towards you. It's the stranger from the comic shop. The fact that he has a pistol in hand isn't exactly encouraging despite the fact that he just shot your assailant. "You alright? You okay?" he asks running over to you. "Yeah, I just...I need some...help up..." you remark. Using him and the car as leverage you manage to get back on your feet. The teen is still screaming at you and the strange from his prone position. "Can you stand on your own?" the stranger asks. "Yeah, I think..." you reply. "Okay then." The stranger says and then kicks the teen in the face a couple times shutting him up. "Last thing we need is that dickhead bringing the attention of the cops that are a few blocks up." "I dunno, the gunshots might have already done that or maybe they don't give a shit just like everyone else in this town...fuck..." you say holding the side of your head. "You might be right, but we need to get out of the area I think, it doesn't look like your car is going too far, my car is still in the parking lot. I can take you to get that head injury looked at." Between everything that's happened, you're not exactly thinking straight or at all except about the pain you're in. "Yeah. Yeah. Whatever, let's go." You remark feeling wobbly. "Okay, I'll help you along the way. My name is Jack by the way." The stranger says. "Suzy." You say. Jack helps you back to the parking lot as quick as you're able to move. You don't see any signs of the cops coming, though you're hearing other gunshots in the distance so maybe bigger things are happening elsewhere. Eventually you get back to the lot and approach a small blue car. "Okay, let me open the door and you can just lay in the backseat." "Sure..." you say and lean against the car, while he opens up the driver's door and then unlocks the door to the backseat. "Hey...where were you? You...you kill those guys?" you ask. "Hiding within a small back niche where all the old comics were, in the hope of ambushing one of them. I might have done so, had your boss not riled them up enough to rush him. I came out and you were already gone. I smashed the fat one in the back of the head with a metal comic character statue. After he went down I tried to help the owner. He got shot before I could grab the gun from the tall one and then it was reflex response that I shot him." Jack replies. Jack opens th

e back door for you and you get in and lay down while Jack closes the door and then gets in the driver's seat. "That one I know is dead since I shot him right in the head. I was sort of in shock for a moment since I've never killed another person before. The other teen had already run by the time I snapped out of it. I came out and I saw what was going on with you and I just reacted again. I dunno if I killed the others. I mean maybe I just knocked the fat one out and the other one when I kicked him in the face. Although I guess I paralyzed him for sure." Jack says. Jack pulls out of the parking lot and your lids are starting to get heavy. "You kill pimple boy? I left that asshole in a heap outside the shop." You ask. "Um, no. I didn't see him when I came out. Guess he ran off?" Jack answers. "Wish I'd killed him. Little fucker...ah, shit..." "Hey, I'll help like I said so just hang in there okay?" "Yeah...okay..." you start to say. Within the next five minutes all you hear is Jack swearing and making exclamations of how everyone is driving like an asshole or acting crazy. You can feel the car swerving back and forth when you guess that Jack must be avoiding various things on the wrong. At some point as you're drifting in and out of consciousness. You hear Jack swear some more about how he can't get to the hospital because the entire area is barricaded and part of the hospital is even on fire. "Fuck! Suzy! You still with me?!" he asks. "Huh? Yeah..." you answer groggily. "I can't take you to the hospital, but I can still get you help. You trust me?" "Well I'm not really in any condition to not trust you I suppose." "I'm not a serial killer or anything I swear." Jack says. You start chuckling at that proclamation. For one thing his name is Jack, which is a bit on the nose for a serial killer. For another if this guy actually did turn out to be one; it pretty much would be in line of your run of luck lately. Hell, if you're REALLY lucky, he'll probably be your next boyfriend because you're certainly fucked up enough to fall for someone like that. "Bet you say that to all the girls." You say while still chuckling. "Is there any way I can convince you? I mean...if you don't trust me, I understand. I suppose I could try to take you home if you told me how to get there, but given how fucked up this town is getting, I'm not sure if..." Jack start to say until you interrupt him. "Jack... just take me to wherever it is you're going to take me. I truly don't care at this point because I don't even really have a home to go back to now. I've been having a shitty week, I just lost the only job I ever had, I got groped by some fucking asshole, my fucking head is bleeding, I think I got glass embedded in my face, my body aches, and I'm this close to just falling unconscious. So like I said, if you got anything sinister in mind for me, I'm not exactly in any position to stop you. Just drive." You say as the sleep is starting to take you. Jack doesn't say anything and just begins reversing the car and swinging it around. You hear something hit the back windshield, not enough to break it though. Sirens and the general sounds of chaos can be heard throughout the drive. You have no idea where Jack is going to take you or even if he's going to make it wherever he has in mind. All that encompasses your mind is the slumber that eventually wins you over. > Next day… You wake up and find yourself on a small bed in a gray concrete room. There isn't much else in the room except a dresser and a lamp which is currently turned on. It almost feels like a cell except there is no door, just an entryway, which looks like it leads into a corridor. You sit up and find that you're still fully clothed, so either Jack isn't a serial killing rapist or he was enough of a gentleman to put your clothes back on exactly right after he was done and is now playing mind games with you. Your girl parts and ass don't feel sore and you don't have a bad taste in your mouth so you're guessing that you weren't violated in any way. (You hope) However the rest of your body certainly still aches from the kicks and physical abuse you took yesterday, but when you go to touch your head, you don't feel any bandages like you were expecting. In fact, you aren't even feeling any open wound that you're sure that you probably had. The side of your face doesn't feel to be scratched up either. Is Jack some sort of doctor? You check your phone which was still in your pocket to see if anyone tried to call you, but nobody has. You thought maybe Peter would have at least tried calling considering you had his car last. If you ever get back home, you can only imagine how pissed he's going to be when he finds out what happened to it. You sit in the bed for a while just wondering what exactly is going on and what you should do next. Honestly, you're drawing a blank. You had a plan, you tried to follow it and you thought you were succeeding and then it all went to shit yesterday. You're starting wonder if you're jinxed. While you could spend your whole time being introspective like you have so many times before, the fact remains that you don't know where the hell you are and where your "white knight" is. Jack seems like an okay guy, but you really don't know anything about him except that he's helped you out quite a bit which would probably make the average person feel grateful, instead it makes you a bit suspicious and this prison like interior isn't exactly helping. Still, you don't seem like you're being held captive either, so you take the opportunity to get up and leave your room. When you enter the corridor you see several other open entryways leading to more small rooms. Since the left part of the corridor looks like it ends at a solid wall, you go right. You peer into a few of these rooms as you pass by to find that they aren't really furnished, but rather hold several boxes and containers. Some of them do contain furniture; none of it is arranged in a useable way. In general everything is stacked or positioned to resemble a warehouse more than anything else. Maybe you are in some sort of warehouse, because so far the color of every walls you've seen is gray and they're concrete along with the floor and ceiling. Lights embedded in the ceiling provide illumination, but this whole place doesn't seem like a normal house of any kind, which you assumed Jack lived in, you guess not though. You pass a set of stairs leading up, so you're guessing you're on the ground floor, the way you're currently heading it looks like a large open room ahead. As you approach the large room, you start to hear noise. Sounds like it's coming from one the rooms ahead and to your right causing you to cautiously approach. You peek around the corner and see Jack occupied and messing about with some sort of large radio system along with a few monitors set up. You hear garbled transmissions, but some of it you're making out sounds military related, something about marshal law. "Well you don't need to spy on me, you're welcome to come in." Jack says without immediately looking in your direction. Apparently you're not as stealthy as you thought and Jack is very aware of his surroundings. "Didn't mean to spy, just wasn't sure who or what I'd be possibly bumping into after finding myself in a strange place." You say standing in the entryway. "Understandable. So I trust you're doing okay?" Jack asks while still messing about with his radio. "Yeah, I mean I still ache a bit, but I'm more or less fine. Hey you're not medically trained are you? Because I thought I'd have some bandages or something what with getting smacked with a brick and glass shattering on the side on my head." "Not professionally, but I used some medical gel on your wounds. Glad to see it worked well." Jack says finally turning to look at you. "Worked well? I'm practically fully healed, is it magical or something?" you joke. "No, just highly advanced...um...well if you really need to know, I shouldn't even have the stuff, but you can acquire a lot of stuff you shouldn't over the deep web." Jack says. "I see. So I take it, this is where you live? "Yeah, more or less now." "Wait, so this is where your mom lived too?" "What? Oh no. When I lived with mom, it was a regular house in town. In fact after she died, I still lived there, but when shit started getting hectic in town, I decided I better move somewhere less vulnerable so here I am at this gray building I bought years ago online. As you might have already seen, I got tons of shit stacked in rooms, told you I was a big of a hoarder." "Well it certainly is very gray, must cost a lot to upkeep it." "Not really, place sort of takes care of itself. Just never made a permanent living arrangement out of this place because...well it's a long story." There's a bit of a pause in the conversation since Jack just abruptly stops talking and starts twisting knobs and then eventually waves his hands at the radio altogether and the garbled transmissions stop altogether when he turns it off. "What are you trying to do?" you ask. "I'm trying to listen in on a military frequency. Normally I can get clear messages from Fort Timons near Security City, but I'm not having much luck. All I know is marshal law has been declared in major cities across the country. Well that and apparently Ground Zero is still offering their shelters at low low prices. Those ads are fucking everywhere." Jack replies. "Marshall law...that sounds pretty serious." You remark. "Yeah, but I can't say I'm surprised with the way things have been going in the world lately. Anyway...so what are your plans?" Jack asks. "I dunno. I've been trying to figure that out myself. I'm not having much luck either." "Well, considering how fucked up things are in town, you're welcome to stay here. Got plenty of space, food and such." It's a tempting offer. Really tempting, mainly because you don't have any idea what you're going to go, but you exhale and try to gather your thoughts. "(Sigh) Look, I'm not ungrateful for probably saving my life yesterday. I didn't mind speaking with you before all that shit went down in the comic shop. Hell, you're even not bad looking and you're obviously got your shit together enough that you own your own damn building. I'm also fairly certain you were telling the truth about not being a serial killer." "But?" Jack says predicting your lead in. "But all of this...well my gut is telling me that something weird is going on with you. I don't know what exactly, but I imagine it's complicated. The funny thing is that it probably wouldn't even necessarily bother me, but you sort of caught me at an unusual point in my life. While I don't want to bore you with my life story, but I just recently went through an upsetting break up with my first and currently only boyfriend to date a couple days ago and I'm still trying to mentally deal with that along with all the other shit that's gone on in my life." Jack continues to listen as you go on. "You think YOU were a basement dweller? At least you seemed to be doing something productive, my whole life was just coasting by and living off of other people and the most recent one was my ex. I'm fairly certain he would have done anything to take care of me had I complied, but even basement dwellers have their limits I suppose and I just couldn't make that step. All of which left me up shit's creek without a boat, let along a paddle. I'm trying to make a real effort of being self-sufficient and I sort of feel like if I stayed here I'd just be falling back into my old routine of sponging off some guy." "You wouldn't exactly be sponging off me..." Jack starts to say before you interrupt. "Jack, I think you better stop right there, if you're about to imply what I think you're going to imply. I'm not a damn whore." "What? No! I wasn't going to suggest that! I just meant I have so much that it's not like I'd mind if you stuck around. It's obviously dangerous out there and I'd be quite the asshole if I just threw you out." You just hang your head down at this remark. "Well that makes you better than my older sister, but it also makes this harder for me, because it would have been easier if you had been looking for some sort of cynical sex exchange like that." "Wait...so you WANT me to treat you like a whore?" Jack asks confused. "No! Fuck. I just...shit...I dunno what the hell I want..." you say putting your head in your hands. At this point Jack tries to interpret your complete mess of explaining things. "Okay, I think I know what you're getting at. You just got out of a relationship and you aren't really in the mood for another guy to be sniffing around you right now. You also want to be by yourself and try to make it on your own without help since you've never been truly independent your whole life. Am I right so far?" Jack asks. "Yes." You reply. "And while you aren't exactly thinking the worst of me right now, you're still wisely suspicious enough to wonder why the hell I helped you out if I didn't want something. Obviously there must be something odd about me, for all you know I've been stalking you or something." "Well, basically." "Okay, good. Now just let me explain my side of things." You lean again the side of the entryway before Jack goes into his own speech. "First, yes, I do think you're attractive and from what I know of you, I WOULD like to get to know you a lot better. I thought maybe there was something there during our nice conversation at the comic shop, but I dunno...I sort of...well let's just say I'm not exactly great at the whole asking someone out thing, so I lost my nerve and had to gather it again by leaving, and of course that's when those guys showed up. Not to mention I wasn't really planning on doing that anyway since I didn't expect to see anyone other than Jake at the register. Which brings me to the second point, I helped you, for the same reason I helped Jake yesterday, it was the right thing to do. I just wasn't so lucky with him as I was with you. I'm not saying I'm some hero, but I've always liked to believe I'm not a bad guy. So when I saw the opportunity to get you help, I did it. I assure you there was no ulterior motive." At this point Jack fishes something out of his pocket. It's keys and a wad of money in a roll. He tosses them to you and you catch them. "Do I want you to stay here because I like you? Yes, of course I would, but I can't just keep you here, if you don't want to be. You sound like you have very strong feelings about trying to make it on your own and being by yourself and I understand that. So since your car was trashed, I'm giving you mine. I'm not going to need it much longer...and no that doesn't mean I'm going to commit suicide. I just won't be needing it. As for the cash, well you'll need it more than I will too. You take them both and go live your life and hopefully it will be a good one." You're pretty speechless. You've so rarely had anyone be this cool with you and this doesn't seem to be a "nice guy" act. If it were, he would've been calling you a complete cunt the moment you told him you weren't interested. "I dunno what to say except thanks." You say "Don't mention it. Come on I'll walk you out." Jack responds Jack and you leave the radio room and enter the large open room which has a lot of boxes stacked in it's four corners. On one of the walls is a door, which Jack says, leads to the outside. "Car is parked right outside, and is in good working condition. Um, just to let you know though we're several miles east outside of town. It will be quite the drive, but you should get back to town by nightfall. Remember, I want you to know you can come back here if it looks like the town is in just complete anarchy. I...I still worry about your safety. Anyway, just knock three times on the door and I'll know it is you." "I'll certainly keep that in mind Jack." "Okay, well...good luck Suzy." Jack says opening the door, which lets in a blinding brightness. You look at Jack and then you suddenly hug him and then kiss him on the cheek. You figure it's the least you can do. Jack wasn't expecting it though; he returns the hug until you pull away. You and he don't exchange any more words; you just turn around and leave as the door shuts behind you. You get in the car, and count up the money to find that Jack has given you a thousand dollars in hundreds. Not much in the long term, but it would at least sustain you awhile. You wonder if you should head back to town or just keep driving east and try to start over somewhere else. > You head back to town Maybe if he'd given you ten or even five thousand you'd feel more comfortable making the risk of "starting over" but with just a thousand, you're not that confident even with your new found self sufficient approach to life. Besides, you're not even sure where the hell eastward even takes you. For all you know it ends in wilderness, you've never been out of your own town before. Better to take your chances with the devil you know. As you drive down the empty road, you pass long stretches of trees and wilderness. You never realized until just now how rural in an area you lived in before. You briefly check your phone again to see if anyone has called, but as usual nobody has. Nobody cares. You continue driving thinking about probably having to deal with the near state of anarchy the town is in. Assuming you even get home in one piece you'll have to deal with Peter and his car. You figure you'll have to at least give him this one. All of which isn't going to help you with Kelly who is still intent on throwing you out by the end of the week. Chances are if you attempted to "pay rent" with some of your money she'd just punch you in the face and take ALL of your money and let you stay another month at best which means being on a time limit and scrambling for a job again. You got very lucky once with the job situation as fast as you did, and you don't think you'll manage it that quickly again even if the town wasn't all fucked up. That leaves your plan "B" choice of living with your sister Donna and your so called best friend Julie which isn't much of a plan at all so much as it's just a free living arrangement. What a joy that's going to be, dealing with their partying every night. You might as well be living out in the chaos filled streets given how they carry on. Hell, you might even be safer. You'll definitely have to make sure to keep your newly acquired loot well hidden. You try to take you mind off of all this by turning on the radio...Ground Zero ads. "Ground Zero...how fucking original." You say and turn the radio off, shaking your head. You continue driving and driving and driving; your thoughts continuing to go back and forth about why you're even going back to town. It really would be so much easier to just stay with Jack. > You keep driving to town As much as it might be tempting to go stay with Jack, you need to keep to your plan of self-sufficiency or at least an attempt at it. Staying with Jack is just a bad idea in the long term. While he might say he isn't expecting anything, the longer you stay the more likely he's going to get resentful and the more likely you're just going to revert to your old ways. It's a recipe for disaster. Jack and his Gray Building were pretty weird anyway, better you just put all of that out of your head right now. Living with your sister and friend won't be fun, but at least it will motivate you to get a means of employment to get the hell out of there quicker. It probably won't even be as bad as you think it will be either. So that's it. You've made up your mind, set a goal and you're going to stick to it. You actually feel a little good about that. "And fuck Peter, I'm keeping this damn car. Peter's stolen enough of my clothing over the years that I already paid for his damn vehicle." You mumble to yourself. Now you feel even better. So much so you're smiling. With your thoughts getting comfortable with risk and leaving behind thoughts of doing the "safe" thing you continue back to town. You must drive for hours and never see another car on the road. It's sort of eerie, especially as it starts to get dark. At least you don't have to worry about traffic though. As you get within the distance of the town, you wonder just how fucked up it's gotten since you left, or if order has been restored. You remember Jake mentioned marshal law being enforced in cities across the country. Makes you sort of wonder if the whole damn world is going mad or something. Just as you get within the town's limits, you think you notice a large vehicle up head and even people. Then suddenly several spotlights shine in the direction of your vehicle and one right ahead of you. You nearly lose control of your vehicle due to the blinding light and slam on your breaks. "HALT! BY THE ORDER OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT THIS TOWN IS UNDER MARSHAL LAW! ALL ENTRY AND IN AND OUT IS FORBIDDEN! STOP YOUR VEHICLE FOR INSPECTION!" a loud speaker echoes. The government has apparently decided to place your shithole town under marshal law as well, you can't imagine why, but you aren't even really thinking about that, all you're thinking about is getting the hell out of here before you get shot, rounded up into a camp or both. "Christ, Suzy, you ARE fucking jinxed." You say and then with a deft maneuver you reverse the car and spin it around. You then slam on the gas. Gunshots ring out and your back window is shot out. Soon the sounds of a jeep can be heard followed by more gunfire. Your attempt to outrun the National Guard prove to be a failure as your back tires are shot and blown out causing your car to spin out of control, flip a few times and then slam into a row of tree along the side of the road. Unlike the last accident you got into, you aren't quite as lucky and you are severely injured due to low hanging branches going right through the windshield and impaling you through the chest. By the time the guardsmen reach you, all they find is a bloody mangled corpse.

[Themes: modern, horror, female protagonist, post-apocalyptic, serious, romance, drama, humor, science fiction] Maybe if he'd given you ten or even five thousand you'd feel more comfortable making the risk of "starting over" but with just a thousand, you're not that confident even with your new found self sufficient approach to life. Besides, you're not even sure where the hell eastward even takes you. For all you know it ends in wilderness, you've never been out of your own town before. Better to take your chances with the devil you know. As you drive down the empty road, you pass long stretches of trees and wilderness. You never realized until just now how rural in an area you lived in before. You briefly check your phone again to see if anyone has called, but as usual nobody has. Nobody cares. You continue driving thinking about probably having to deal with the near state of anarchy the town is in. Assuming you even get home in one piece you'll have to deal with Peter and his car. You figure you'll have to at least give him this one. All of which isn't going to help you with Kelly who is still intent on throwing you out by the end of the week. Chances are if you attempted to "pay rent" with some of your money she'd just punch you in the face and take ALL of your money and let you stay another month at best which means being on a time limit and scrambling for a job again. You got very lucky once with the job situation as fast as you did, and you don't think you'll manage it that quickly again even if the town wasn't all fucked up. That leaves your plan "B" choice of living with your sister Donna and your so called best friend Julie which isn't much of a plan at all so much as it's just a free living arrangement. What a joy that's going to be, dealing with their partying every night. You might as well be living out in the chaos filled streets given how they carry on. Hell, you might even be safer. You'll definitely have to make sure to keep your newly acquired loot well hidden. You try to take you mind off of all this by turning on the radio...Ground Zero ads. "Ground Zero...how fucking original." You say and turn the radio off, shaking your head. You continue driving and driving and driving; your thoughts continuing to go back and forth about why you're even going back to town. It really would be so much easier to just stay with Jack. > You turn around You suddenly slam on the breaks. "What the fuck am I doing? I don't really want to go back to that shithole town! I don't want to deal with shit on my own! Fuck this!" you exclaim and then spin the car around. You drive back justifying everything in your mind that this isn't really abandoning your goal of being self sufficient, it's just a minor set back. "You're not going back to your old ways Suzy, you just need to some help. Jack wants to help so why shouldn't you let him help? There's no shame in it. Besides, you're not going to whore yourself out and he's not expecting you to. Everything is going to be fine." You say to yourself. After several times of thinking this, you have probably managed to convince yourself of it to a minor degree. Eventually as day turns to night you see the Gray Building looming in the distance. "Besides, it's very dangerous in town right now. It's probably safer to stay here anyway. Yeah, it will be safer..." you say ignoring the fact that you'll be completely alone with a perfect stranger in the middle of nowhere. Well actually you aren't really ignoring it, so much as you're trying to mentally block it out. You park near the building, get out of the car and head to the door. Remembering that Jack told you to knock three times, you do so and the door opens. Jack isn't at the door, but you assume he's probably got it on some sort of automatic system. You enter the large front room and shortly after the door closes, you see Jack exiting one of those rooms in the back and quickly walking towards you. "Suzy! Are you alright?! You're not hurt are you?" He asks. "Um, I'm fine Jack. I just decided that you might be right about how dangerous the town is right now and I should stay here awhile just to play it safe. No point in being proud for no reason." You say. "So you never actually got back to town?" Jack asks. "No, why?" "Because the town is currently under marshal law as well. After fucking around with the radio a bit more, I managed to get a little more info on that military frequency. My heart sank when I heard it knowing you were probably heading back that way. To be honest, I really worried." If Jack's playing up his concern, he's doing a really good job because you're fairly convinced he's being genuine. "Well...I guess its good I decided to come back then." You say realizing that this happy coincidence is only going to reinforce your more slothful tendencies. Still, you ARE glad you avoided potentially getting shot by the National Guard or something. Attempting to avoid awkward silence you move on to a topic of immediate need. "So, you got a shower I can use? I think I'm about due." "Sure, you know that room you woke up at? Well there's a bathroom on that same side of the corridor towards the end of it, can't miss it mainly because it actually has a door on it. Plenty of unused towels too...um, I don't really have any spare women's clothing lying around though. Not that I remember anyway. I suppose anything's possible with all the shit I have laying around." "Well I'll just wear these and figure that out later. I also just realized I haven't eaten anything since Monday." "Oh, there's a kitchen area across from the bathroom conveniently enough. Help yourself to whatever in the cupboards or refrigerators. Got plenty of stuff. I can even try to cook for you if you tell me what you like." "You can cook?" "Well, I'm not an expert, but I can get by. I'm mostly lazy though and just pop in a frozen dinner." "Same here and that's what I'll probably do. No need to trouble yourself." You answer. "Okay, well I guess I'll leave you to it. Oh, and you're welcome to use that room to sleep in again. I think that's it, if you need me I'll be messing about with my radio as usual." At this point Jack raises his arm in a gesture to invite you back to his home. "Thanks Jack." You say as you walk by. "I'm just glad you're safe." Jack says. You head to the bathroom, which is a fairly mundane one with all the usual amenities. Plenty of towels like Jack said. You lock the door and take a much-needed shower. You get a half paranoid thought that Jack is going to suddenly burst in on you, but that doesn't happen. So far Jack is still staying true to his gentleman form. You get dressed and then head to the kitchen where you find Jack wasn't kidding about having a well stocked one. You grab a drink and find the frozen dinner that takes the least amount of time to heat up in the microwave and then eat. Once again you think Jack is going to come in to check on you, but he doesn't. After eating you sort of just sit in the kitchen looking around for a moment. That of course becomes boring fairly fast and you go back to your assigned bedroom, which looks about the same as it did before. It isn't any more interesting in there either. Normally, you would've had your laptop to keep you occupied, but it's sadly back home and you're unlikely to see it anytime soon. Even your phone has recently gone dead. You almost want to go through the dresser in the room, but you sort of think that would be a bit intrusive since it's probably just filled with Jack's things. Lacking any other ideas, you try to go to sleep, but you're just not tired yet. Not to mention you're still too anxious about sleeping here. Your usual method of "easing" yourself to sleep, isn't an option since for one thing your battery powered boyfriend is also at home. However, even if you wanted to take matters into your own hands, you'd rather not be in the middle of spittin' the kitten if Jack does decide to walk in to check on you. So you do the very thing that's you've been expecting Jack to do to you, you go seek him out to see what he's doing. (The irony isn't lost on you) He mentioned he would be in that radio room so that's where you initially head to, but then you hear a few noises in another one of the side rooms. Sounds like a video game. You take a look and see a proper living room like area. Odd that you didn't notice it the first time you were here, but then you weren't really paying excessive attention to every room you were passing last time. There sitting on a sofa is Jack playing a video game on a sizable screen. "Well I guess you got sick of listening in on the military huh?" you ask causing Jack to look in your direction. "Oh hey, I thought you'd be asleep or something." Jack says pausing his game. "Can't sleep and I left any sort of stimulus to keep myself entertained at home unfortunately. This looks promising though." You say. "Got another controller, you can join right in if you want." Jack says and points to some controllers on his coffee table. "Nah, that's okay. I'll just watch for now." You say and just as you're about to sit on the sofa, Jack starts to get up. "How come you're getting up?" you ask when you sit down. "Well I can sit in that seat over there." Jack says. "Jack it's your home, no need to move on my account. I'm fully comfortable sitting next to you. I need to get over my paranoid scenarios about you anyway." "Scenarios?" Jack asks while sitting back down. "Yeah, I kept thinking you were going to come rape me in the shower." "Yikes. I thought you said you didn't think I was a serial killing rapist anymore." Jack says not taking offense and going back to his game. "Yeah, but...well I can't help thinking the worst of people." "Well I get that." "If it helps, I'm about ninety nine percent sure that you aren't a serial killing rapists anymore and I just think there is something weird about you." "Well looks like I'm doing better then." Jack says with a smile. You watch Jack kill something on screen before he speaks again. "Well Suzy, I'm not sure if this is going to disappoint you, but I'm going to admit something to you that I've never told anyone before." Jack says. "Uh oh." You say. "I'm completely boring. Seriously, there is nothing remarkable about me at all. Like I said, I mainly kept to myself and lived in my mom's basement until she tragically died, then I lived alone in her house...and now I live here. The end. Oh and collected a bunch of shit along the way." "Wow, way to sell yourself to me there Jack." You say. "Well I figure if saving your life a couple times and being honest isn't going to get you to like me, nothing will." Jack chuckles, causing you to snicker a bit too. "Hah, I knew that's why you saved me." You say. "Oh well, I guess the secret's out." Jack replies. You have to admit, you're starting to become more at ease with Jack, the guy is very laid back and you're certainly not used to dealing with that sort of personality. The closest was your older brother Ben's hippy wife Moonshadow and she was an annoying flake. (She did have pretty eyes though) "So am I actually going to learn anything more about you?" Jack asks. "You know what Jack? I think you will, what the hell..." you say. You open up to Jack, and begin telling him of your life. The funny thing is while you find it pretty dull Jack finds it pretty fascinating. You imagine that's probably due to your "colorful" family members who probably would be a lot more amusing to someone else not having the burden of dealing with them. Jack stops playing his game altogether when you start going into your Uncle Ed and Bobby. He hangs on every word, asking you for clarification at times which you provide. You don't know why you're telling him all this stuff, you suppose it's because you feel very comfortable with him, not to mention telling him all this stuff almost feel like a weight has been lifted off of you, since it isn't like you talk to anyone normally. "Holy shit Suzy. Your life wasn't all that boring what with all the psycho family members and your cultist ex. Wow. Maybe I should be scared of you given how you managed to survive it all." Jack says after hearing everything. "Eh, seems like someone's always saved me or I've been lucky. I mean Bobby saved me from my uncle. That's probably why I fell in love with him...(Sigh) Sort of fucked up right?" "Well I think I understand it. I dunno, never been in that position myself, so I'm not really one to judge. Obviously it was love while it lasted. I mean he didn't try to kill you when you broke up." "True. So how about you?" you ask though you're starting to get sleepy. "How about me what?" Jack says. "Any long lost loves in your life?" "Not really any love whatsoever really...it's a rather depressing tale. I'd rather keep the conversation upbeat." "Mm. Shit, wave of sleep is starting to hit me." You say and then yawn. "Are you going to bed?" Jack asks. "You mind if I just sleep on this sofa? I think I mentioned how I'm used to sleeping on one." You reply. "Sure. Sure. I'll move and you just stretch out and be comfortable." Jack says and gets up so you can lie down fully. Jack turns off his console and as you settle in to sleep you continue to speak a bit. "I like you Jack." You say. "I like you too Suzy...um...I feel I should tell you something though since you were so open with me." "What, you're a serial killer rapist after all? Well, if I'm still alive tomorrow, I think I'll be able to look past the raping if you at least still respect me." You darkly joke as sleep continues to creep up on you. "No, I just was going to say, while I wasn't lying about not being a remarkable person, I suppose I've acquired some remarkable things in my dealings." "Oh, well you can tell me all about your rare antiques tomorrow. I'm sure I'll find it interesting." "Well, I suppose I do have some of those, but I was referring to this building actually...um...I guess I'll tell you tomorrow since it's really important you know and I think you'll want to be attentive when you hear it." Jack says in a serious tone. "Sure...whatever (Yawn)..." you say. With those last words Jack leaves you to sleep and you drift off... > Next day… You wake up to the sound of...well you can't quite place it. White noise might be the closest thing you can think of, but that wouldn't be correct. It's like an annoying hum or buzz going straight to your head. You get up and see that the TV is off from yesterday, so it isn't that. "Jack? You hear that noise?" you call out in a groggy tone. There isn't any answer, just that increasingly annoying noise. You attempt to get up and it takes you a couple tries, not because you're naturally lazy, but more because you're starting to feel nauseous. The noise you're hearing isn't helping matters. You get up on your feet and stagger to the door way which when you get to, you lean up against and feel like you're going to puke. "Jack..." you just barely manage to shout, before you have to stop to keep from vomiting. You look up and down the corridor and find that the lights are flickering. Some are out completely. You have no idea what the hell is going on, but you'd probably be more scared if you didn't feel so sick. Mustering up all your willpower, you head to the bedroom thinking Jack might be asleep in there. Nobody there, but you can't fight the sickness any longer and you run as fast as you can to the bathroom nearly falling over in the process. You just barely manage to make it to throw up in the toilet. The lights are going nuts at this point and you notice the bathtub and sink are both on. After recovering a bit, you notice the stuff coming out of the sink isn't exactly water. It's black and tarry looking. You don't risk touching it, you just get the hell out of the bathroom. No sooner have you done this, when a sudden loud noise hits you so hard you actually stumble and fall to the floor. You wouldn't even be able to describe the sound, it's just really horrible and even though you've just puked, you still feel pretty damn nauseous. Picking yourself back up and leaning against the wall, you slowly try to make your way to the room where Jack was messing about with his radio stuff. You don't feel like you're getting anywhere though, in fact the more you walk, the more you feel like you're on a treadmill in an endless corridor. You continue on, but as you pass by rooms you can swear you're seeing weird things out the corner of your eye. You then start thinking you're seeing shit in front of you as well. Shadowy humanoid figures blink in and out existence along with the lighting. At this point the feeling of terror is becoming stronger than your feeling of sickness. The white noise is still drilling into your head, but now it's accompanied by an insane laugh, which varies in pitch and tone. When you pass the flight of stairs, you hear whispery voices beckoning you go in that direction. You're hardly enticed to do so. As you get closer to the radio room, the shadowy figures can be seen running about in the large room up ahead. As you get closer, these figures are becoming less shadowy and more "solid." These figures are starting to no longer look humanoid either. It is around this time that you notice your surroundings are becoming... warped. Walls are melting around you and you're seeing those shadowy figures in the next room starting to move in slow motion one moment and then other times you see them rapidly moving back and forth in a repetitious manner. You nearly jump out of your skin when several of these beings appear right in front of you and you get a good look at them now that they aren't so shadowy anymore. They're a mass of tentacles, teeth and misshaped features that would make any horror movie demon jealous, unfortunately this is no movie. The screeching, wailing, and gibbering are bad enough, the visual is bad enough, but the fetid smell is what puts it over the top in just vile nastiness. You see one particularly disgusting one with a mutilated face like raw meat and a the scent of a rotten corpse on a hot day, transform into something even worse looking before it opens three of its mouths to reveal its tongues which not only look infested with disease, but have ugly little faces on them. When it attempts to lick you, you turn and run only to find yourself in a wide open space where everything now looks like it's been put through a multicolored filter. You feel like you're in a rainbow void. When you look behind you however all you see is darkness save for the creatures now moving towards you. You don't run far when all of a sudden the rainbow filter disappears and is replaced by a flickering affect that you're actually back in a "real" location. It isn't the corridor though, it resembles more of a large college auditorium and in the center is a single figure sitting in a lotus position. He's bald and not dressed in modern clothing and in fact looks like he's from some sort of nerd cosplay convention. He appears human however. One thing that's about him that doesn't look human though is his eyes are completely white and not just normal "blind eyes" sort either. They're glowing pure white light. You become very disorientated as the flickering of this reality disappears and slowly just becomes a blank gray open space with more gray as far as you can see despite there not being any more walls. You see that the creatures behind you aren't following, but they definitely want to get closer. It would seem this man's presence is at least holding them back somehow. At this point you you're completely lost to as what is going on, but you approach the man if it means keeping the monsters at bay. The man suddenly speaks as you get close to him. He's not really looking at you though, more like looking through you. "You...I...don't belong here...everything changes...so many changes...been here...before...somewhere else...so much to do...bring balance...the future is beautiful...the past is beautiful...everything is ugly...corrupted...it's beautiful..." the man utters in a fragmented way and you have no idea what the hell he's talking about. "Where is Jack?! What's going on? Who are you?!" you ask trying to figure out this situation. To your horror you notice your hands and arms become weathered and wrinkled. From what you can tell, your hair has gone completely white as well. With some hesitation, you feel your face and it definitely doesn't feel smooth anymore. "Oh my god..." you utter. "...time is short...fleeting life...the others do not like this place...disrupts balance..." the man says still not moving from his spot. You then notice your hands and everything else have gone back to normal. This entire situation is very fucked up, and you don't have the faintest idea what's going on, but you hope that "Mr. Lotus" has some answers with all the cryptic shit he's spouting. "Look! I need answers! What is going on here and who are you?!" you ask again while still looking back to make sure those creatures are still staying away from you. "A footnote...forgotten... traveller...cursed...blessed...nobody... you must choose... Suzy..." the man utters. "How did you know my..." you start to ask before you're interrupted. "You must choose...the others...they come..." You turn your head and see that the monsters and the darkness are indeed starting to move towards you once again. "Choose? Choose what?! What are you talking about?!" you ask again. "You must choose..." the man says again with less of an air of indifference and more of one of authority. "What am I choosing?" The area surrounding you and the man begins to darken and now you're getting creatures starting surround you as well. "You must choose or die..." the man says again. "Alright! Alright! I choose! But what the fuck am I choosing!?!" you shout with a mixture of fear and frustration. "You'll know when the time comes..." the man says. For a brief moment your surroundings change from that of the large classroom auditorium again with the man still in front of you. The blackness has disappeared, but the monsters have not as you see several floating tentacle creatures in the room with you. They aren't quite as disgusting, but they're still dangerous and giving off that aura that's making you feel nauseous again. Just as you think you see a more humanoid figure enter the room there is suddenly a blinding flash all around you causing you to shield your eyes. Everything goes completely white, to completely black and then when you open your eyes again, you find yourself in the large front room of the building. Items are no longer neatly stack and are instead scattered about all over the place, some of them probably broken. Still completely baffled by what the fuck is going on, you look around for something to protect yourself with amongst the junk all over the floor. You eventually see a sturdy looking bat and pick it up. Upon inspection you notice the words "RUTH" on it, no doubt one of Jack's valuable purchases. Speaking of Jack you still haven't seen him, but you soon hear him. "Suzy?! Suzy? Are you here? Where are you?" you hear him call out. Sounds like it's coming from the corridor, but you don't see anyone. Maybe he's upstairs? You haven't been up there yet, but given what you just experienced, you're a little reluctant to go deeper into this place. You remember Jack said he was going to tell you something about this building before you fell asleep, well whatever that was, it's apparent that you were right that something about him was weird. Not just weird, but dangerous. You don't think you're ever going to quite get some of the images out of your head, you even feel a little different. Maybe the sensory overload has made you a bit numb rather than reducing you to a gibbering wreck. Numb or not, you still have a good mind to just walk out the front door and get the hell out of here. Maybe this was the "choice" that strange guy was talking about. > You leave the building You like Jack and all, but obviously you need to break this habit of going for guys that save you and have really complicated baggage. You head towards the door, open it revealing that it's almost night already and get out of the building. Your car is still parked in the same location and you waste no time in starting it up and driving away. You almost don't want to look back at the building, but you're compelled to do so anyway. However when you do, you see absolutely nothing in your rear view mirror. "What the fuck?" you say and then briefly turn your head to look directly and it's confirmed, the Gray Building is gone. You didn't see it disappear, but it obviously has. Where, you have no idea, but you feel a little bad for leaving Jack now. You can only imagine what might have happened to him. "He already knew what that building was, Suzy. He'll be fine and if he isn't...well YOU had to get out of there right? In fact HE'S an asshole for not telling you what the hell that damn building was about in the first place...yeah...goddamn it..." you say to yourself. In your haste to forget about some of the stuff you saw, you absent-mindedly turn the radio on. "Fuck, it's going to just be ads for Ground...what the hell?" you say as you hear something you didn't expect. "...and talks today were very successful between the President and several other world leaders. It would seem that despite previous disagreements, tensions in the world are lower than they have been in quite some time. In other news, financial experts say things are looking up for the economy ever since..." You change the station and find actual music on; in fact you do this several times and find no annoying Ground Zero ads at all! Just the normal annoying ones in between the music, but the fact that anything else is on is very surprising to you. No doom and gloom as far the news goes too or at least not as bad as it was when you remember. What the hell is going on? You also remember that Jack told you he heard on the radio that your town is under marshal law; maybe that's no longer the case too? You certainly hope so, because you have no idea where else to go. As you drive you wonder about the Gray Building and what it might have done. You start forming weird theories, but given what you just went through, maybe they aren't so weird. You first wonder if maybe you went through time somehow. Maybe the passage of time goes slower in there or something. You do remember that frightening bit when you aged and then reverted back briefly. (You look in your mirror again to make sure you are indeed still young and of course you are) Maybe all the troubles in the world subsided and things are back to normal? If so, you can't imagine that it's just been a couple days and everything would be okay again. You would have had to been gone a long time. It also occurs to you that maybe you went back in time and maybe this is before the whole world started going to shit (as well as your town). The immediate hole in either of these theories is the fact that the music playing on the radio stations is current. Of course you could just be listening to the "oldies" station and perhaps a shitload more time has passed than you thought. Wouldn't support the going back in time theory though if that's the case and unless every station is an "oldies" station you quickly start dismissing the idea that you might've travelled through time. You dismiss it altogether when you hear a newsperson on the radio announce today's date. So you haven't travelled through time...maybe you went to a different dimension? You certainly don't think those things or that bald guy were from your world. Then there was that flickering effect that you experience where you were in a halfway normal location that looked to be an auditorium. If this is a different dimension though, so far a lot of shit is the same. Same famous musicians on the radio at least. Same world leaders mentioned, same celebrities mentioned that you know of. Of course things seem to be a lot better as far as the world not nearly being on the verge of blowing itself up. You suppose you won't really know until you get back to town. The drive is a long one, and it's nightfall by the time you reach your town. You aren't seeing any military trucks or any blockades, so that's a good sign. As you drive into town, you notice that it isn't an anarchic mess that it was when you left. It doesn't even look like there was any riots or disasters at all. Just normal traffic and there isn't even much of that going on right now. It is at this time you know this can't be your reality and while you're certain glad you aren't in immediate danger anymore, you can't help but feel a bit lost. What are you going to do? Do you still go home? What is home going to be like now? Will you still have the same crappy life? How much is different? Once again, about the only thing you can do is find out, hell it isn't like you have much better to do now. You drive home which is a lot easier to do when there aren't assholes throwing bricks at your windshield or general chaos in the streets. When you arrive at what you presume is still home you park on the street and you notice it's slightly different. The house doesn't look like it's in a state of disrepair mainly. It doesn't look like the lights are on either, which isn't excessively unusual since Kelly is usually working at this time, Peter's in the garage and you're in the basement so there isn't exactly anyone in the front living room or even upstairs where you might see a light. Peter's car isn't in the driveway either, maybe he's out or maybe he doesn't live here, you can't know. You aren't even sure if this is your house. Who knows, maybe you don't even live in this town. Surprisingly even after all the mess you've gone through, you still have your house key so after taking it out of your pocket, you get out of the car an head towards the house. You walk up to the front door and you're about to try your key, but then you wonder if maybe you shouldn't just ring the bell or knock first. > You try your key You might as well try your key, if it doesn't fit then you can ring the bell. You try your key. It works! Maybe you live here after all. It's pitch dark inside and you fumble around for a light switch on the wall, but apparently it doesn't work which already seems like something that would happen in your own house. Unable to achieve illumination that way, you see the silhouette of a lamp in the darkness and you head to it. Unfortunately you end up tripping over a bunch of shit in the dark, because apparently the furniture is arranged differently in this house. You end up breaking the lamp in the process of trying to turn it on. You curse and just sit in the dark for a moment holding on to your bruised shin and knee. You then attempt to carefully get up since the last thing you want is broken shards of the lamp in your hand or anywhere else in your body. Just as you're about to carefully make your way to the kitchen and turn the light on there, you hear a creaking noise. Sounds like it's coming from upstairs. You go in that direction just in time to see a figure at the top of the stairs followed by the muzzle blast of a double-barreled shotgun. The impact throws you against the wall and you wheeze for breath and cough up blood. "Got that fucking burglar!" you hear a vaguely familiar voice shout as you bleed out. "George?! Is it safe?" another voice calls out. Sounds female and you can't believe you're hearing it after all these years...either of the voices actually. But especially hers... Suddenly the upstairs light comes on which provides just enough illumination to shine down on you and the voice of who you now know belongs to your father becomes very panicked. "OH SHIT! OH FUCK! BERTHA! BERTHA! CALL 911!" your father shouts and runs down the stairs nearly tripping the process. He drops the shotgun and goes over to you, but you're already well on your way to death. "Suzy! Oh my fucking god! I didn't mean to...what are you even doing here?! I thought you were visiting Saturday! I didn't even know you still had a key to the house! Oh shit! No! Hang on!" While your dad attempts to hold you, your mother who apparently is also very much alive in this reality still doesn't quite know what's going on until she sees the carnage. "SUZY! NO! GEORGE WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?" your mom screams and runs down the stairs. "I didn't know! I didn't know!" your father exclaims. You can't talk or do anything except gurgle and choke on blood right now, but as the light begins to fade from your eyes and the life starts leaving your body, you watch your mother approach and tearfully embrace your bloody body. And somehow seeing your mother one last time before you die doesn't make it quite so bad. You just wish it had been under better conditions.

[Themes: modern, post-apocalyptic, humor, science fiction, female protagonist] You like Jack and all, but obviously you need to break this habit of going for guys that save you and have really complicated baggage. You head towards the door, open it revealing that it's almost night already and get out of the building. Your car is still parked in the same location and you waste no time in starting it up and driving away. You almost don't want to look back at the building, but you're compelled to do so anyway. However when you do, you see absolutely nothing in your rear view mirror. "What the fuck?" you say and then briefly turn your head to look directly and it's confirmed, the Gray Building is gone. You didn't see it disappear, but it obviously has. Where, you have no idea, but you feel a little bad for leaving Jack now. You can only imagine what might have happened to him. "He already knew what that building was, Suzy. He'll be fine and if he isn't...well YOU had to get out of there right? In fact HE'S an asshole for not telling you what the hell that damn building was about in the first place...yeah...goddamn it..." you say to yourself. In your haste to forget about some of the stuff you saw, you absent-mindedly turn the radio on. "Fuck, it's going to just be ads for Ground...what the hell?" you say as you hear something you didn't expect. "...and talks today were very successful between the President and several other world leaders. It would seem that despite previous disagreements, tensions in the world are lower than they have been in quite some time. In other news, financial experts say things are looking up for the economy ever since..." You change the station and find actual music on; in fact you do this several times and find no annoying Ground Zero ads at all! Just the normal annoying ones in between the music, but the fact that anything else is on is very surprising to you. No doom and gloom as far the news goes too or at least not as bad as it was when you remember. What the hell is going on? You also remember that Jack told you he heard on the radio that your town is under marshal law; maybe that's no longer the case too? You certainly hope so, because you have no idea where else to go. As you drive you wonder about the Gray Building and what it might have done. You start forming weird theories, but given what you just went through, maybe they aren't so weird. You first wonder if maybe you went through time somehow. Maybe the passage of time goes slower in there or something. You do remember that frightening bit when you aged and then reverted back briefly. (You look in your mirror again to make sure you are indeed still young and of course you are) Maybe all the troubles in the world subsided and things are back to normal? If so, you can't imagine that it's just been a couple days and everything would be okay again. You would have had to been gone a long time. It also occurs to you that maybe you went back in time and maybe this is before the whole world started going to shit (as well as your town). The immediate hole in either of these theories is the fact that the music playing on the radio stations is current. Of course you could just be listening to the "oldies" station and perhaps a shitload more time has passed than you thought. Wouldn't support the going back in time theory though if that's the case and unless every station is an "oldies" station you quickly start dismissing the idea that you might've travelled through time. You dismiss it altogether when you hear a newsperson on the radio announce today's date. So you haven't travelled through time...maybe you went to a different dimension? You certainly don't think those things or that bald guy were from your world. Then there was that flickering effect that you experience where you were in a halfway normal location that looked to be an auditorium. If this is a different dimension though, so far a lot of shit is the same. Same famous musicians on the radio at least. Same world leaders mentioned, same celebrities mentioned that you know of. Of course things seem to be a lot better as far as the world not nearly being on the verge of blowing itself up. You suppose you won't really know until you get back to town. The drive is a long one, and it's nightfall by the time you reach your town. You aren't seeing any military trucks or any blockades, so that's a good sign. As you drive into town, you notice that it isn't an anarchic mess that it was when you left. It doesn't even look like there was any riots or disasters at all. Just normal traffic and there isn't even much of that going on right now. It is at this time you know this can't be your reality and while you're certain glad you aren't in immediate danger anymore, you can't help but feel a bit lost. What are you going to do? Do you still go home? What is home going to be like now? Will you still have the same crappy life? How much is different? Once again, about the only thing you can do is find out, hell it isn't like you have much better to do now. You drive home which is a lot easier to do when there aren't assholes throwing bricks at your windshield or general chaos in the streets. When you arrive at what you presume is still home you park on the street and you notice it's slightly different. The house doesn't look like it's in a state of disrepair mainly. It doesn't look like the lights are on either, which isn't excessively unusual since Kelly is usually working at this time, Peter's in the garage and you're in the basement so there isn't exactly anyone in the front living room or even upstairs where you might see a light. Peter's car isn't in the driveway either, maybe he's out or maybe he doesn't live here, you can't know. You aren't even sure if this is your house. Who knows, maybe you don't even live in this town. Surprisingly even after all the mess you've gone through, you still have your house key so after taking it out of your pocket, you get out of the car an head towards the house. You walk up to the front door and you're about to try your key, but then you wonder if maybe you shouldn't just ring the bell or knock first. > You ring the bell Even if your key fits, that's no guarantee you live here. You could very well be trespassing and if someone is actually in this house right now, you could find yourself in deep shit when the owner finds you and pulls a shotgun on you. Erring on the side of caution, you ring the bell a couple times and knock. You wait a few minutes thinking that nobody is home which might mean it's at least safer to try your key, but then you think you hear footsteps and a voice. Soon you see a light emanating from the front room. Someone has come to answer the door at least. An older man opens the door and you can hardly believe your eyes. "It's damn near midnight who the hell...Suzy?!" your father says mid rant. "Dad?" you answer back, not really expecting to see him. "What are you doing here? I thought you weren't visiting until Saturday." Your dad asks. You have no answer except a sudden raising of your arms and a smile. "Um, well surprise!" you utter and go to hug your father, who returns the hug. It's weird, you never really had a close relationship with your father, but somehow seeing him alive AND not being a pathetic drunk that just watches TV pining over your mother makes you a little happier to see him. You wonder what changed? "Well, okay Suzy. We're always glad to see you, you know that. Just wish you would've called in advance you know?" your father says and invites you in. You notice that the furniture lay out in the living room is different along with the furniture itself. A lot of little things are different really. The "we" sort of throws you at first since you wonder if your dad is referring to your siblings. However you soon see who he's referring to and if you couldn't believe your eyes when seeing your father still alive, you really don't believe them now. "George, who is...Suzy? I thought you were visiting Satur..." You immediately run to hug your mother before she can even complete her sentence. She's older looking of course, but you'd recognize her anywhere. You can't believe you'd ever see her alive again. You're having a hard time holding back tears of joy. Meanwhile your parents are both a little perplexed by your behavior. "I love you mom." You say squeezing her tightly. "Well of course you do. I know that. I love you too, but why are you here at this late hour? You could have called us first, you know how we like to turn in early." "I know, I know, I just...I just wanted to see you guys, you know?" you say finally letting go of your mother, yet still staying close to her. "I know it's a long drive from Security City, have you slept at all?" you dad asks. "A little. Don't worry, I'm fine. So how are you guys?" you ask. "We're good, though there has been a neighborhood burglar skulking about. If he tries coming in here, he's getting both barrels. It is really late though, and while your mother and I would love to talk, can we do this tomorrow morning? I have to get up to fix this overhead light in the living room which decided to go out today." "Oh...yeah sure. Don't let me keep you up." You say. "You can sleep in your old room. It's pretty much the same as when you left it, still haven't turned it into a storage room or anything in case you were wondering." Your mom says. "Oh good, I want to check on some old things I left here anyway." You say and start to head towards where the basement is only to have your mother call out. "Um, Suzy where are you going?" your mom asks. "I'm going to my room." "Don't you think you should be heading upstairs then and not towards the basement?" You nearly face palm for not realizing that maybe you had a different sleeping arrangement in this reality. You play it off with a laugh though. "Oh! Yeah! Hah! I'm sorry, I've had a very long drive and I'm a little loopy and tired I suppose." You say. "You okay Suzy?" your father asks. "Yeah, yeah, I really am. Like I said, I'm just really tired. I'll probably fall asleep soon after I get to my room." "Mmm, I told you about driving when that tired before. You could get into an accident." Your dad says. "Oh George, don't lecture the girl now. Let's just be glad we have a daughter who is still thoughtful enough to visit us." Your mother says with a smile and pats you on the shoulder. You return the smile. You are really glad to see her again. "(Yawn) Alright, well if we're done here, I'm heading back up, you coming Bertha?" your dad asks. "Yes, Suzy you heading up too? You said you were tired and wanted to go to your room." Your mom asks. "Yeah I will soon, but I also haven't eaten all day, you don't mind if I grab something out of the fridge right?" "You know better than to ask. Help yourself." Your mom says. "Don't make a mess though. Oh and remember, your room is the second door on your right." Your dad snorts in jest due to your previous confusion. It's actually a good thing he told you though since you probably would've been fumbling into random rooms when you actually went up there. You dad kisses you on the head before saying goodnight and heading up the stairs. Your mom does as well causing you to hug her once again. You almost don't want to let go, but you know you need to keep it together. "I'm really glad to be back home, I missed you." You say. "Suzy, we just spoke a few days ago." You mom says. "I know, but it's just not the same as seeing you in person, you know?" "I know sweetheart, we'll have all day to talk tomorrow. Goodnight." You watch as your mom heads upstairs and you're soon left alone where you continue to hold it together until you go downstairs into the basement where you finally release your tears. You honestly didn't realize just how much you missed your mother until you saw her again. You certainly were very sad when she died in your reality and for some time after, but overtime you didn't just move on, part of you just shut down completely. Maybe that explains some of you problems. After composing yourself, you actually take a look around the basement and find that it's much different than your own. For one, "your room" is just a storage space full of old clothes, tools and other junk. You almost get a little nervous looking at all the junk as you're reminded of the Gray Building. You quickly leave the basement, not wishing to dwell on that which led you here in the first place. You spend some more time just looking about the house, particularly the pictures which right there is already a major difference since there are barely any in your own house. You see several happy family photos, which you attempt to use as a quick way to possibly learn what you can about your "family." It looks like your dad wasn't a travelling lightning rod salesman and worked at the meat processing plant in town since you see a few pictures of him in a factory uniform. Him being around probably helped. Your mom seems like she was still a housewife from what you can tell. Your brother Ben apparently went into the actual military rather than just being a paranoid survivalist nut. You see a lot of his pictures are of him in uniform. Looks like he got a lot of ribbons and honors too. You also see a picture of him with your best friend Julie in a wedding dress... they got married! You can imagine Julie from your reality would have liked that considering she always had a crush on him. (Or maybe she just wanted to fuck him, you don't know exactly or care to think about it) Looks like they had two children, which you can't even wrap your head around. You don't see as many pictures of your sister Kelly, but they do exist. A lot of her pictures show her in uniform too, but one of a police officer. Seems like your family is really "orderly" in this reality. She looks about the same, just with less scars. She still looks mean and serious business in every photo though, so maybe some things never change. No pictures of a boyfriend (or girlfriend) or children. One thing you don't see pictures of are of Donna or Peter. Surely with as many pictures there are displayed, you'd see some. You can only guess your parents stopped having children after you. Which makes you the "baby" you guess. Might explain why your family is a bit more stable too considering there were less kids to give your parents grief. Finally, you see pictures of yourself. Quite a few of them in fact. (More than Kelly definitely) You look more or less the same as you did at the various ages you see yourself. You also look pretty happy in every photo and you see that you graduated from college in this reality too. You don't see yourself in any uniform, so you wonder what you do for a living. It's at this moment you realize that you can no longer ignore that this reality, this family and these memories are not your own. It's depressing and you also realize that it's been mentioned that the Suzy of this reality is supposed to be coming for a visit on Saturday. You can't stay here even though you'd like to, you're going to have to leave before things get weird. You're also going to have to figure out what you're going to do with yourself in the long term. In some ways, the fact that the world isn't going to complete shit, puts the pressure on even more. After all, if the world had ended it wouldn't have mattered if you figured it out or not. Still, you've got one more day. One more day at least to spend here and enjoy before you figure out what you're going to do with your life. You deserve that at least right? And so after grabbing a quick snack, you retire to your "old room." It's much brighter than your own old one in the basement, but then that because it's a proper bedroom and not a dank dark basement. You look around a bit, but you figure you can better investigate your room tomorrow. Right now you're too exhausted from today's events and drained from the emotions of seeing your mother alive and finding out you had a much better life in an alternate reality and how it's just another example of how life isn't fair to you even across the fucking multiverse. > Next day… You wake up with the sun shining in on your bedroom. You can safely say you haven't had that experience in a long time, if ever. You aren't sure what time it is, but knowing you, you probably slept through the morning as usual. Once again, you're stuck in the same clothes you've been wearing since the beginning of the week. While you can certainly shower, you'd really rather change clothes at this point so you go through your room and hope that your alternate self left some old clothes in it. After going through some drawers you find that your alternate self has about the same fashion sense as you do, meaning pretty simplistic. The clothing itself tends to be a bit brighter though as everything else seems to be in this reality and it's starting to get on your nerves. You grab a pair of old jeans and a shirt and head to the bathroom where you wash up and later attempt to brush your teeth using your index finger with toothpaste on it. The jeans and shirt are a slightly tight on you though. It's not enough that your alternate self has a happier life, but the fucking bitch is apparently a size smaller than you as well. "Oh well, I guess I'll just be that much more popular with horny guys (Sigh) ...unfucking believable..." you mutter as you squeeze yourself into the clothes. After getting dressed, you head downstairs. The first thing you see is dad on a small ladder working on the overhead light he mentioned wasn't working. You don't think you've ever seen your own dad ever fix anything. "Hey, look who's finally up. You sleep well? You must have considering it's the afternoon." Dad says. "Yeah, I guess I really needed the sleep. Where's mom?" you ask. "She's in the kitchen. Oh meant to ask you, where's that silver sports car your drive? I didn't see it in the driveway or even on the street." Silver sports car? Seriously? You own a fucking sports car? "Oh, um...yeah I decided not to drive that one here, it's been giving me trouble lately anyway. I got an older car for cheap to just drive around in; it's that small blue one outside." You say. "Oh. Okay. I just thought I'd ask. Like I said, there's been some burglaries and I was concerned that the criminals had expanded to car theft too. Probably a good idea you didn't bring it, nobody is likely to steal that thing outside." "Yeah, I suppose so." You say and head to the kitchen. "Fucking sports car..." you whisper shaking your head before you greet mom in a friendly manner. "Hey sleeping beauty is finally awake! You sleep well I trust in your old bed?" mom asks while she works on cooking something. "Yeah. Slept fine. What are you cooking." "Oh I'm preparing big batch of beef stew. I swear your father would probably not eat anything else. It will take awhile, but I can make you something before then of course." "Nah, I'm okay." You say sitting down. Your mother smiles at you and you smile back, but you don't say anything else. It's weird, you wanted to talk with her so much yesterday, but now as reality sets in that she's not really your mother, you're sort of at a loss for words and awkwardly silent. Still, you want to make the most of this time so you struggle to think of a topic without being suspicious. "So...uh...how are Ben and Kelly doing?" you ask. "Well Ben is still stationed over in Europe. Not exactly sure what he's doing over there, but it doesn't seem to be dangerous for once, which I for one am glad about. Julie and the children I imagine are glad about it too. You talk to her recently? "Not for awhile." You say which is sort of the truth. "Oh. Well I did hear you two weren't on speaking terms any longer. I hope you make up though since the pair of you were always good friends and the both of you probably said words neither of you really meant." "Wait, what?" you ask. You mother stops chopping potatoes for a moment to address you directly. "A few months ago, Ben told me that Julie told him that you got in argument with her about how she's too strict with your niece and nephew and she told you not to tell how to raise her kids. I can't remember the entire exchange of what else happened except I know she ended up calling you a dyke that won't ever know what it means to be a mother anyway and then you swore at her and hung up. While I can certainly see Julie's defensiveness about how to raise her children, I don't think it was right to say such hateful things, just because of your lifestyle choice." "Lifestyle choice?" you say a bit confused as you're attempting to process everything. "Oh right. I'm sorry Suzy. I know you were born that way. You explained it very well to your father and me when you came out years ago before graduating from college. We're just still a little old fashioned in our way of thinking and it lapses at times." You do not believe this... "But I'm not a..." you start to say, but then realize why bother correcting her? It would just confuse things for when their real Suzy arrives. "...I'll try to make the attempt with Julie, but she really needs to apologize." You say instead. "You always were the bigger person. And I wouldn't give it another thought as far as what she said about being a mother is concerned. There's always adoption and I also know you people are really big on all that artificial insemination stuff. I'm sure when the time is right you and Heather will..." "Heather?" "Yeah, your girlfriend. Wait, you didn't break up with her did you? She seemed so nice when you brought her here for us to meet her..." "No...no...I didn't break up with her, um... so how is Kelly again?" you ask really wanting to change the subject. "Kelly? Well she's Kelly. Still one of this town's finest and doing a good job at it. Wish she'd find a better man to settle down with though. She seems to flip back and forth between these various loser guys that are so far beneath her it isn't even funny. She really could do so much better and it's not like there haven't been several good men that have made genuine attempts to woo her. She doesn't want to be tied down though and it's her life I suppose." Well now you've heard everything. You truly are in bizarro world. "You okay dear?" mom asks. "Yeah, yeah I'm just fine mom." You answer "Well enough about your siblings, how are you doing? You working on a new book yet?" "New book?" "Yeah, you started writing a new book again? I know last time you said you had a bit of writer's block. Honestly I don't know how you come up with all the ideas you do. You've written like three books already. I know I don't have the imagination to do that, but you always were creative even as a little girl." So that's what you do. You're a writer. Makes sense actually. In fact you almost want to kick yourself of why the hell you never tried your hand at it in your own reality. You certainly procrastinate enough. "I've got a few ideas in my head I suppose. Writing is never an exact science." Before you have to make up more shit on the fly, dad comes walking in. "Smells good in here already. Anyway I fixed the light and now I'm going to the hardware store, I'll be back later." "If you already fixed the light, why do you have to go to the hardware store?" you mother asks. "I have to replenish all the stuff I used." He says, but mom doesn't look convinced. "Okay I just want to go because I really want a new drill." Dad breaks down and admits. "George you're really silly sometimes when you try to make up stories." "Well it's where Suzy gets her story telling ability from!" dad remarks and pats you on the shoulder giving you a smile, which you return. "Okay, see you both later." Dad remarks and leaves the kitchen with Mom still smiling about the silliness. "You and dad seem very happy." You remark. "Of course we are. Why wouldn't we be? We're enjoying our elderly years together, we've had a successful marriage, we have three successful children that love us, grandchildren, a nice home, what more could one hope for?" What more indeed. You're still thinking about what the hell you're going to do with your own life. Despite a few major differences in your alternate self, you'd still switch places with her. She's got everything, a formal higher education, successful career, a fancy car, a significant other and most importantly a loving family. You begin to get lost in your own head, which is then disrupted by mom. "Suzy? Suzy?" mom asks. "Huh? Yeah?" you answer. "Are you really okay? You've been sort of spacing out lately." "Oh, yeah. Well like I said, I've got a few story ideas in my head and sometimes I get lost in thought." "Okay. Well I really have to go to the bathroom, can you finish cutting those carrots?" "Oh yeah, sure mom." You reply. Your mom leaves the kitchen leaving you alone with your thoughts and cutting up carrots. You increasingly become melancholy as you dwell on how things still suck for you and as you're apt to do, you begin talking to yourself. "(Sigh) Suzy, Suzy, Suzy, only you could find the negative out of the one relatively positive thing about thing about this fucked up week. Pull yourself together girl. You survived a hell of a lot worse than this. You wanted to be self-sufficient, we this is a good start. A fresh new world is your oyster and you've got plenty of opportunity..." Suddenly you hear a phone ring. It's the land phone on the kitchen wall. You walk over and nearly grab it immediately, but then you remember you're not really supposed to be here. However, you then notice the caller I.D. Suzy. You are compelled to pick up. "Hello?" you answer. "Hey. Mom? Is that you?" the voice on the other end says. You pause. You never realized that you and your mother sounded so similar before. "Yes, of course it's me honey. Who else would it be?" you say. "I dunno, you sound a little different. Might be that ratty old land phone you have though, I keep telling you to get a cell!" "Oh you know me dear, your father and I are a bit set in our ways." "Don't I know it. Ha ha! Nah, I know you guys really do try. So hey, I was just calling to let you know I'm coming a little bit earlier and I'll probably be there sometime late tonight. Like probably after midnight." "You are?" "Yes, like I said I just wanted to let you know so you guys don't get too mad when I'm knocking on your door late at night waking you up...unless you want me to stay at the town's motel until tomorrow morning. I know you guys go to bed early." It is at this moment that the dark idea your mind has been dancing around for quite some time isn't going away and is now in full bloom. If you just got rid of this Suzy, all your problems would be solved. You just have to muster the fortitude to do it... > You tell Suzy to go to the motel If you're going to do this, it's better that you do it away from the house. There is exactly one motel in this town anyway so it'll be real easy to find her. "I'm sorry dear, but your father has been a bit jumpy lately due to a recent string of burglaries. I wouldn't want him suddenly pulling a shotgun on you just because you're knocking on the door in the middle of the night. Nevermind the fact he'll be pretty grumpy anyway. He hasn't been sleeping well as you might expect." You answer. "Yikes! Well I guess maybe I should stay at the motel then, I don't want to cause grief. The Jinn Inn is still open right?" she says. "Yep, as far as I know." You answer. "Okay, guess I'm staying there. Ugh, just hate the idea of staying there due to it being so dirty looking. It's like one step up from that awful trailer park outside of town. I dunno how that place has stayed open so long." "Well the hookers in town need to ply their trade somewhere." "Mom! I've never heard you talk like that before!" She exclaims. "Well I'm not a prude dear, despite what you might think of me." "Mom, I don't think you're a prude. I know you're very open-minded. You're just usually pretty reserved with how your talk." "Well I'm full of surprises, just like you are. Where do you think you got it from?" "Hah, guess you're right. Okay then, I suppose I shouldn't really talk so much while I drive. I guess I'll be seeing you on Saturday after all. Give my love to dad." "I will dear." "I love you mom." "I love you too Suzy." You say before hanging up. You don't have much time, you have to prepare and make a plan of what you're going to do. "Did I hear you on the phone out here?" you mother says walking into the kitchen. "Huh? Oh, yeah just someone trying to sell something. They were really persistent." You reply. "I can tell, you hardly cut up any of the carrots." "Sorry, I guess I got caught up in telling them to never call here again. I should have just hung up I suppose." "No worries, I've gotten directly angry at those telemarketer types too." "Hey mom, I've got some things I left here that I want to get and I know they're probably in my room somewhere or maybe even the basement, you don't mind if I go take care of that do you?" "No, not at all. We can talk later. Let me know if you're looking for something in particular. I might know where it is." "I will mom." You head to your room to try to formulate a plan. You figure the easiest way to do this is to hang out near or around the motel parking lot and watch for a silver sports car. When you see what room she goes to, you can just blitz attack her as she's attempting to open it up and take care of her in the motel room itself. You just need to be quick. So, now that you have her, now you have to kill her. You're going to need something quick and not noisy. A knife you suppose, but that might take more than one stab unless you cut her throat or something. The bat you got from the Gray Building might work, if you smash her in the head multiple times. The thing is you don't want is to splatter a bunch of blood all over the place. The Jinn Inn might be shady and dirty enough that a few blood spots on their carpets aren't going to raise an eyebrow, but if you make it look like the chainsaw massacre, you will cause attention and it isn't like you're going to have all the time in the world to clean it up. The goal is to make the kill and replace her as efficiently as possible. Which brings you to the idea of how you're going to dispose of the body since you can't just leave a dead doppelganger of yourself in the motel room. You're definitely going to have to haul it out into the wilderness-surrounding town. Dragging it to one of the trunks of the car is going to be the most difficult part. (You still aren't sure which one you'll take) Dragging her body out might be less risky if you at least wrapped it in something; you think you saw some things in the basement that might come in useful. Once you get the body into the trunk though, you just need to drive far enough away so it isn't discovered. Even if it is, maybe you should mutilate the face so it can't be identified. Pull out the teeth? Your murder plans are temporarily broken up by your thoughts of Bobby. You didn't often speak to Bobby about his "religious practices", but in the few times you dared to ask questions, he did explain helpfully about how he went about things. You never dreamed that such knowledge might come in handy. You make a mental note of everything you might need. You grab an old duffle bag out of the closet and fill it with some of her old clothing from her drawers. You figure you're probably going to need new clothing to wear after your grim work. When you head downstairs you find that dad has returned. "Hey Suzy, where are you off to?" "Oh just putting some stuff of mine in the car, hey dad I was thinking about painting my place when I get back home. I noticed some old tarps and blankets in the basement, you wouldn't mind if I took those would you?" you ask. "Oh no, go ahead. Take whatever you might need." He says. You head to your car and throw the duffle bag in, then you return to the house and head down into the basement. You grab some of the folded up tarps and then you notice some of the old tools and other junk down here. Are you going to need an axe to chop up the body? Maybe you should take a shovel to bury it in the wilderness? You remember they stuffed a body into a luggage case in one movie... "Fuck it, I'm still not sure what I'm going to do, I better just take all this shit. Dad did say to help myself." You say and make a couple trips up and down the basement, loading up your car with tools, tape, bags, and tarps in the process. (And being to keep the shovel and axe hidden within the tarps since the last thing you need is a question about why you might need those) By the time you're done, you're about ready to go do the deed right now, but it's still too early. Besides, you can't just disappear for all day and night, your parents would wonder. You're going to have to come up with an excuse of why you're going to be gone. As you're piecing together an excuse, when you get back in the house your mom sees and addresses you again. "You going to have dinner with us in a half hour or so?" she asks. "...yes...of course. I have to leave though afterwards." "Leave? You just got here!" "I don't mean leave to go back to Security City, I just mean...well I've been in contact with a former school friend through the Internet and she's sort of been going through some tough times. I promised I'd meet up with her when I was visiting." "Oh...well I certainly understand. Who was this friend? Do I know her? Though I suppose I only ever remember Julie due to you two hanging together a lot." You very briefly blank on making up a name on the spot, however you do come up with one rather quickly. "Um, Diana. Her name was Diana Morningstar. She never came over here, since her parents were always a bit strict, but I always got along with her in school. She wasn't very popular, but I always felt a bit sorry for her so I was sort of her only real friend. Though I imagine she probably put more stock into it than I did, I mean I was still just a shallow kid at the time and wanted to hang out with Julie since we could have fun together like normal young teens. I sort of lost contact with her when her parents pulled her out of school altogether and home schooled her. I think they were religious nuts." Your mother just shakes her head. "See, parents like that just shouldn't have children. That's a shame. Well I'm glad to hear that you showed that girl a bit of kindness. I'm sure she's glad you're in contact again and will be happy to see you. You always were thoughtful." Your mother says and then mentions that you should take a spare key for the house from the desk in the front room just in case you come home late and they're already asleep. Eventually it's dinnertime and you have dinner with your mom and dad. Through a bit of conversation you do learn a little more about your "life" here and through careful weaving and quick thinking, you manage to navigate through questions you might not otherwise know the answers to. To be honest though, you're only just barely paying attention to any of it, because you're so preoccupied. While you're apparently calm on the outside, you're really a ball of nervous energy and as soon as dinner is over you nearly rush out of the house, though you do grab the spare house key for appearances. You say goodbye to your parents and leave the house. It's night, but it's still too early for her to be at the motel yet, well at least you hope that's the case since that will change up your plans of how to get to her. You spend a bit of time driving around trying to put yourself in the mind frame to do this. You can't afford to choke; this is a life or death decision quite literally. You need to do this for your future life here. The life that you deserved...but why are you so much more deserving? Didn't this Suzy work hard to get what she got even if she had a few advantages? Are you just too overwhelmed with jealousy? How can you genuinely desire to find the inner strength to kill? "For fuck's sake Suzy, you were going out with a cultist for fuck's sake and you had no problem with him killing people! Is this really all that surprising?" you exclaim to yourself. Maybe this is genetic. Maybe you take after Uncle Ed. (Who you learned didn't exist in this reality when your mom mentioned being an only child at dinner) Maybe it was your fucked up upbringing. Maybe it was your environment. Maybe there was always darkness in you and you were just too damn lazy for it ever to fully thrive. Well it's thriving now. Is it ever. You've got more motivation than you ever have before. Maybe it's because there is so much at stake. Maybe it's because on some level you actually hate yourself and by killing this Suzy, well it's like killing yourself without the actual downside of dying. Whatever the reason, you can't waste anymore time thinking about whether this is right or wrong. Your life hasn't exactly been "right" for a very long time, but if everything goes according to plan, your life will be getting there. Well at least that's how you're convincing yourself this time around. Just like you've convinced yourself of several other things this week, you succeed in convincing yourself of this too. It's getting a lot easier. You stop driving around town and finally head to the motel. You'll wait the rest of the time out in the parking lot. When you get to the Jinn Inn, it isn't quite as bad as the one in your reality, but you definitely see some shady characters popping into the rooms. You see no sign of a silver sports car though and you do take the time to check. She's not here yet so you just park in a strategic location where you can see all the traffic coming in and out. When she arrives, you'll definitely see her. Hours pass, but you never lose focus. And eventually your vigilance pays off. You see a silver sports car. It actually isn't as fancy as you thought it might be, probably was bought used, but it's certainly more than you ever had. You watch her park close to the motel rooms and then you see her get out of the car. She's dressed in casual clothing and carries a small purse, but when you watch her walk to the motel check in office, you notice she carries herself with an air of self-confidence. It's like it doesn't matter that the area she's around is shit, she knows she's better and isn't at all intimidated by the element here. It is at this moment you grab your baseball bat and get out of the car still keeping an eye out and crouching down behind the vehicles. Fortunately nobody else happens to be lingering around the lot at the moment. Hopefully it stays that way. You soon see her come out of the check in office and as stealthily as you can you run over behind more cars and get closer. You watch where she walks to and continue to keep a look out for anyone else that might suddenly pop up. You just need to stay hidden as you follow her and then rush her when she finally opens up her room. You silently thank your luck for once since she seems to not be very aware of her surroundings and only focuses on heading towards her room. "Stupid, arrogant bitch..." you say to yourself. Your stalking soon ends when you see her reach her room. It's a perfect opening too. Nobody is around and she fumbles with the keys a bit giving you time to get closer before making that mad sprint as soon as she opens her room... and then you strike. Your target opens the door and enters her room. She turns around to close the door just in time to see you up close in front of her hitting her with face with the bat. It isn't a full swing, but rather a hard "poke", but it's enough to break her nose and cause her to go falling to the floor. You quickly slam the door shut behind you and you briefly think about beating her brains in with the bat, but then you realize that will probably be messy. "You..." is all she manages to get out before you kick her in the face to shut her up. Then you pounce on top of her and after turning her over, you use the bat sideways and you press it up against her throat as hard as you can as you pull back. She gasps and struggles for her life, but it's no use, your determination to kill her is much stronger than her abilities to fight for her life. "Shhhhh...just let go....just let go...everything is going to work out and your parents won't be losing a daughter at all. Just let go...." You whisper. Soon you hear a crunching sound of perhaps crushing bones in her neck or her windpipe or something. Whatever it is, her struggle temporarily becomes more violent and jerky with her limbs attempting to flail about. It almost feels like you're riding her like a wild pony, but soon this outburst is muted and then nothing. Suzy collapses dying with her face partially in a small puddle of her blood and spital, leaving you sitting on top of a corpse's back. You eventually stand up taking in what you've done. You're hot and sweaty, but strangely invigorated. "(Whew) And I thought I was going to choke." you say and then start to chuckle at your own dark joke. Well the first part of the deed is done, now comes the more labor inducing part. Getting rid of her body. You've actually managed to keep the mess to a minimum by choking her to death, so you're wondering if you shouldn't just grab the tarps from the car, roll her ass up in them, duct tape it together and take her to the trunk. She might be your size, (Okay slightly lighter) but it isn't like you're used to carrying bodies around. While there wasn't anyone out there, the last thing you need is someone seeing you fumbling around with a body, even one wrapped in a tarp. If you wanted to play it safe, you suppose you could drag her to the bathroom and chop her up in the bathtub. It will definitely take longer and you might make more of a mess, but you could always carry her out in several pieces in that big luggage bag you brought with you. > You keep her in one piece The more you think about it, chopping her up is likely just going to complicate things. Your goal is to get rid of her body as quickly as possible and really all you need to do that is drive her dead ass to the wilderness and dump it. You probably over thought this by bringing all that shit with you. No matter, better to have it and not need it rather than the other way around. You quickly search her body, but find nothing of interest. The purse that she dropped on the floor when you smashed her in the face contains all the important stuff, but you figure you'll have to go through it when you have more time. You go to the car grabbing the tape and tarps and return to the room. So far it's still pretty quiet out there, you just hope it stays that way. You begin rolling her up in one of the tarps and then wrap duct tape around her like mummy. You then roll her up in a second tarp, which you also tape up. It's not exactly the neatest, but you believe you've got her firmly wrapped up tight. You make the effort to clean up a little bit of the blood that was left on the motel carpet, you only got soap and water from the bathroom to work with, but it isn't like you're cleaning up brains and gore so you think you're good. You sit on the bed for a little while taking a break from your task thinking about which car you want to use. You suppose it doesn't matter, though the sports car probably has a smaller trunk, then again you loaded up your own car with a bunch of stuff, so you're probably going to have to rearrange stuff to make room. You get up and using the car keys from the purse, you check out the sports car to see just how big the trunk is. After some inspection you decide that it's probably just big enough for your purposes. It isn't like it's a big body after all. You still think it might be a good idea to bury the body though, so you grab the shovel out of your car and put it in the backseat of the sports car. "Okay Suzy, let's do this." You say to yourself and head back inside to get her body. You pick up the body and it really isn't easy. It isn't like you're literally carrying "your own weight" on a regular basis, not to mention a dead body is somewhat awkward to attempt to carry even if you do have it wrapped tight. You get to the trunk of the sports car and start swearing when the body's weight begins to take its toll and you even up dropping it on the cement before you can even attempt to get it into the trunk. "Shit!" you exclaim and then quickly look around to see if anyone is watching or around. You're still in luck that nobody is around. (You guess the hookers are really busy with their tricks tonight) With some effort, you manage to pick the body back up and cram it into the trunk. Cram is definitely the correct word since you miscalculated and the trunk was slightly smaller than your thought. You actually have to lift your leg to stomp the body into the trunk before you can close it properly. When you're done with that, you go back into the room to make sure you haven't forgotten anything and grab her purse before you leave. As you start up the car and leave you figure you'll drive north of town, drag her into the woods, find a good spot and start digging a hole. You have no idea how long that's all going to take, but you imagine you'll have to come up with another excuse for your parents about why you were out all night. You figure you'll just make up something about Diana again. Never thought that bitch would come in so handy. You also figure you'll have to come back for your own car as well since it will look pretty strange coming back home with the silver one. You suppose when you finally stop "visiting" your parents you can always come back for the silver one and just abandon this one. It's all a lot to deal with still, and you're already partially frustrated and tired from all the dead body lifting. Thanks to this fatigue and the sports car going slightly faster than when you were driving the other one, you end up going past the designated speed limit in the area and misfortune strikes, you attract the attention of a hidden police vehicle. The sirens and blinking lights soon follow. You curse loudly and briefly think about just speeding up and getting the hell out of town, but you instead remain calm. You have this Suzy's ID and everything so as long as you don't act suspicious, you'll probably be fine. In fact, knowing the cops in this town, all you'll have to do is flutter your eye lashes at them a bit and you'll probably get let go with just a warning. You slow down and pull over. "Keep your head Suzy, you're in the home stretch..." you say closing your eyes and trying to maintain your cool. A tall and bulky cop soon comes out of the car and walks over to you. At first you figure it's going to be a guy, but then your heart sinks when you see who it really is. "Well, well, well, if it isn't baby sister." Kelly remarks. "Fuck." You inadvertently exclaim, losing whatever composure you were attempting to have. "Fuck? Now is that anyway to greet your big sister? I heard you were in town visiting mom and dad. What are you doing out so late breaking traffic laws?" "I'm just coming back from an old friend's house okay? And I wasn't that much over the speed limit." "Rules are rules Suzy, but then you always DID think there was a separate set of rules for you didn't you? Yeah, always the favorite getting your own way..." You can't believe this. Even in this reality, Kelly is still a fucking jealous bullying asshole to you. Some things never change. Kelly notices you're looking a little annoyed and anxious by her stop. "What's wrong Suzy? No pithy come back college girl?" Kelly asks. "Look, you win Kelly, you got me. I obviously broke the law and you got me. Just write me the damn ticket already." You remark. "Not sure if I like your tone sis...in fact you're acting a little odd. What old friend might have you been visiting anyway in this town? Figured when you moved away you were glad to leave everyone behind. Not to mention the only person I ever remember you hanging out with was Julie and I hear you're not on speaking terms anymore." "Just some girl from school days I've had contact with over the Internet. I promised I would visit her. I'm just on my way back to mom and dad's." "Ohhh, girl huh? This wouldn't be some midnight booty call for you would it? Some old secret labia-licking friend you had when you were still in the closet? I thought you had a steady girlfriend. Guess more rules that you don't give a shit about." You know you should keep your composure, but Kelly is really getting on your nerves. "Are you going to give me the ticker or not?" you ask. "I'll give you this fucking baton up your ass if you don't stop giving me shit! In fact why don't you get the hell out of the car, you're acting really suspicious." Kelly remarks. You sigh and shake your head. "Of course. Nothing is ever easy for me." you say and then you quickly turn the car back on. "HEY! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! STOP!" Kelly shouts and grabs at the wheel while you attempt to drive off. You manage to actually get a few feet before Kelly manages to grab the key out of the ignition. You punch Kelly in the face multiple times, but she's undeterred in her job of arresting you. Kelly returns your punches with a couple elbows to the face and then pulls you out of the car through the window. "You're in deep fucking shit now little sister. You just assaulted a goddamn officer of th...ugh!" Kelly grunts when you punch her as hard as you can in the crotch. It slows her down and you attempt to grab her pistol. You manage to undue the snap of the holster, but Kelly stops you from getting and further with a knee to your face. Now SHE pulls out the pistol and points it directly at you. "Suzy, I'm telling you to fucking stop or I WILL fucking shoot you!" Kelly warns. You don't stop though. Your grand plans have gone to shit once again and you're a loser here just like you were a loser in your own world. You're either going to get lucky and wrestle the gun away from Kelly, or she's going to shoot you. One thing you're not going to do is go to jail. Kelly sensing her life is in genuine danger now, ignores all the pain she's in and no longer treats you like her "sister" and starts treating you like a dangerous criminal which you actually are at this point. Kelly shoots you once in the chest, dropping you instantly. You strongly get the impression that she COULD have easily stopped you without a fatal shot, but you imagine that Kelly being herself probably saw this as a perfect opportunity. "I fucking told you sis." Kelly remarks. "(cough) I'm not your fucking sister, asshole. She's in the goddamn trunk..." you laugh while still coughing up blood at the same time. Your last moments are looking the confused look on Kelly's face before she radios for back up and an ambulance.

[Themes: modern] If you're going to do this, it's better that you do it away from the house. There is exactly one motel in this town anyway so it'll be real easy to find her. "I'm sorry dear, but your father has been a bit jumpy lately due to a recent string of burglaries. I wouldn't want him suddenly pulling a shotgun on you just because you're knocking on the door in the middle of the night. Nevermind the fact he'll be pretty grumpy anyway. He hasn't been sleeping well as you might expect." You answer. "Yikes! Well I guess maybe I should stay at the motel then, I don't want to cause grief. The Jinn Inn is still open right?" she says. "Yep, as far as I know." You answer. "Okay, guess I'm staying there. Ugh, just hate the idea of staying there due to it being so dirty looking. It's like one step up from that awful trailer park outside of town. I dunno how that place has stayed open so long." "Well the hookers in town need to ply their trade somewhere." "Mom! I've never heard you talk like that before!" She exclaims. "Well I'm not a prude dear, despite what you might think of me." "Mom, I don't think you're a prude. I know you're very open-minded. You're just usually pretty reserved with how your talk." "Well I'm full of surprises, just like you are. Where do you think you got it from?" "Hah, guess you're right. Okay then, I suppose I shouldn't really talk so much while I drive. I guess I'll be seeing you on Saturday after all. Give my love to dad." "I will dear." "I love you mom." "I love you too Suzy." You say before hanging up. You don't have much time, you have to prepare and make a plan of what you're going to do. "Did I hear you on the phone out here?" you mother says walking into the kitchen. "Huh? Oh, yeah just someone trying to sell something. They were really persistent." You reply. "I can tell, you hardly cut up any of the carrots." "Sorry, I guess I got caught up in telling them to never call here again. I should have just hung up I suppose." "No worries, I've gotten directly angry at those telemarketer types too." "Hey mom, I've got some things I left here that I want to get and I know they're probably in my room somewhere or maybe even the basement, you don't mind if I go take care of that do you?" "No, not at all. We can talk later. Let me know if you're looking for something in particular. I might know where it is." "I will mom." You head to your room to try to formulate a plan. You figure the easiest way to do this is to hang out near or around the motel parking lot and watch for a silver sports car. When you see what room she goes to, you can just blitz attack her as she's attempting to open it up and take care of her in the motel room itself. You just need to be quick. So, now that you have her, now you have to kill her. You're going to need something quick and not noisy. A knife you suppose, but that might take more than one stab unless you cut her throat or something. The bat you got from the Gray Building might work, if you smash her in the head multiple times. The thing is you don't want is to splatter a bunch of blood all over the place. The Jinn Inn might be shady and dirty enough that a few blood spots on their carpets aren't going to raise an eyebrow, but if you make it look like the chainsaw massacre, you will cause attention and it isn't like you're going to have all the time in the world to clean it up. The goal is to make the kill and replace her as efficiently as possible. Which brings you to the idea of how you're going to dispose of the body since you can't just leave a dead doppelganger of yourself in the motel room. You're definitely going to have to haul it out into the wilderness-surrounding town. Dragging it to one of the trunks of the car is going to be the most difficult part. (You still aren't sure which one you'll take) Dragging her body out might be less risky if you at least wrapped it in something; you think you saw some things in the basement that might come in useful. Once you get the body into the trunk though, you just need to drive far enough away so it isn't discovered. Even if it is, maybe you should mutilate the face so it can't be identified. Pull out the teeth? Your murder plans are temporarily broken up by your thoughts of Bobby. You didn't often speak to Bobby about his "religious practices", but in the few times you dared to ask questions, he did explain helpfully about how he went about things. You never dreamed that such knowledge might come in handy. You make a mental note of everything you might need. You grab an old duffle bag out of the closet and fill it with some of her old clothing from her drawers. You figure you're probably going to need new clothing to wear after your grim work. When you head downstairs you find that dad has returned. "Hey Suzy, where are you off to?" "Oh just putting some stuff of mine in the car, hey dad I was thinking about painting my place when I get back home. I noticed some old tarps and blankets in the basement, you wouldn't mind if I took those would you?" you ask. "Oh no, go ahead. Take whatever you might need." He says. You head to your car and throw the duffle bag in, then you return to the house and head down into the basement. You grab some of the folded up tarps and then you notice some of the old tools and other junk down here. Are you going to need an axe to chop up the body? Maybe you should take a shovel to bury it in the wilderness? You remember they stuffed a body into a luggage case in one movie... "Fuck it, I'm still not sure what I'm going to do, I better just take all this shit. Dad did say to help myself." You say and make a couple trips up and down the basement, loading up your car with tools, tape, bags, and tarps in the process. (And being to keep the shovel and axe hidden within the tarps since the last thing you need is a question about why you might need those) By the time you're done, you're about ready to go do the deed right now, but it's still too early. Besides, you can't just disappear for all day and night, your parents would wonder. You're going to have to come up with an excuse of why you're going to be gone. As you're piecing together an excuse, when you get back in the house your mom sees and addresses you again. "You going to have dinner with us in a half hour or so?" she asks. "...yes...of course. I have to leave though afterwards." "Leave? You just got here!" "I don't mean leave to go back to Security City, I just mean...well I've been in contact with a former school friend through the Internet and she's sort of been going through some tough times. I promised I'd meet up with her when I was visiting." "Oh...well I certainly understand. Who was this friend? Do I know her? Though I suppose I only ever remember Julie due to you two hanging together a lot." You very briefly blank on making up a name on the spot, however you do come up with one rather quickly. "Um, Diana. Her name was Diana Morningstar. She never came over here, since her parents were always a bit strict, but I always got along with her in school. She wasn't very popular, but I always felt a bit sorry for her so I was sort of her only real friend. Though I imagine she probably put more stock into it than I did, I mean I was still just a shallow kid at the time and wanted to hang out with Julie since we could have fun together like normal young teens. I sort of lost contact with her when her parents pulled her out of school altogether and home schooled her. I think they were religious nuts." Your mother just shakes her head. "See, parents like that just shouldn't have children. That's a shame. Well I'm glad to hear that you showed that girl a bit of kindness. I'm sure she's glad you're in contact again and will be happy to see you. You always were thoughtful." Your mother says and then mentions that you should take a spare key for the house from the desk in the front room just in case you come home late and they're already asleep. Eventually it's dinnertime and you have dinner with your mom and dad. Through a bit of conversation you do learn a little more about your "life" here and through careful weaving and quick thinking, you manage to navigate through questions you might not otherwise know the answers to. To be honest though, you're only just barely paying attention to any of it, because you're so preoccupied. While you're apparently calm on the outside, you're really a ball of nervous energy and as soon as dinner is over you nearly rush out of the house, though you do grab the spare house key for appearances. You say goodbye to your parents and leave the house. It's night, but it's still too early for her to be at the motel yet, well at least you hope that's the case since that will change up your plans of how to get to her. You spend a bit of time driving around trying to put yourself in the mind frame to do this. You can't afford to choke; this is a life or death decision quite literally. You need to do this for your future life here. The life that you deserved...but why are you so much more deserving? Didn't this Suzy work hard to get what she got even if she had a few advantages? Are you just too overwhelmed with jealousy? How can you genuinely desire to find the inner strength to kill? "For fuck's sake Suzy, you were going out with a cultist for fuck's sake and you had no problem with him killing people! Is this really all that surprising?" you exclaim to yourself. Maybe this is genetic. Maybe you take after Uncle Ed. (Who you learned didn't exist in this reality when your mom mentioned being an only child at dinner) Maybe it was your fucked up upbringing. Maybe it was your environment. Maybe there was always darkness in you and you were just too damn lazy for it ever to fully thrive. Well it's thriving now. Is it ever. You've got more motivation than you ever have before. Maybe it's because there is so much at stake. Maybe it's because on some level you actually hate yourself and by killing this Suzy, well it's like killing yourself without the actual downside of dying. Whatever the reason, you can't waste anymore time thinking about whether this is right or wrong. Your life hasn't exactly been "right" for a very long time, but if everything goes according to plan, your life will be getting there. Well at least that's how you're convincing yourself this time around. Just like you've convinced yourself of several other things this week, you succeed in convincing yourself of this too. It's getting a lot easier. You stop driving around town and finally head to the motel. You'll wait the rest of the time out in the parking lot. When you get to the Jinn Inn, it isn't quite as bad as the one in your reality, but you definitely see some shady characters popping into the rooms. You see no sign of a silver sports car though and you do take the time to check. She's not here yet so you just park in a strategic location where you can see all the traffic coming in and out. When she arrives, you'll definitely see her. Hours pass, but you never lose focus. And eventually your vigilance pays off. You see a silver sports car. It actually isn't as fancy as you thought it might be, probably was bought used, but it's certainly more than you ever had. You watch her park close to the motel rooms and then you see her get out of the car. She's dressed in casual clothing and carries a small purse, but when you watch her walk to the motel check in office, you notice she carries herself with an air of self-confidence. It's like it doesn't matter that the area she's around is shit, she knows she's better and isn't at all intimidated by the element here. It is at this moment you grab your baseball bat and get out of the car still keeping an eye out and crouching down behind the vehicles. Fortunately nobody else happens to be lingering around the lot at the moment. Hopefully it stays that way. You soon see her come out of the check in office and as stealthily as you can you run over behind more cars and get closer. You watch where she walks to and continue to keep a look out for anyone else that might suddenly pop up. You just need to stay hidden as you follow her and then rush her when she finally opens up her room. You silently thank your luck for once since she seems to not be very aware of her surroundings and only focuses on heading towards her room. "Stupid, arrogant bitch..." you say to yourself. Your stalking soon ends when you see her reach her room. It's a perfect opening too. Nobody is around and she fumbles with the keys a bit giving you time to get closer before making that mad sprint as soon as she opens her room... and then you strike. Your target opens the door and enters her room. She turns around to close the door just in time to see you up close in front of her hitting her with face with the bat. It isn't a full swing, but rather a hard "poke", but it's enough to break her nose and cause her to go falling to the floor. You quickly slam the door shut behind you and you briefly think about beating her brains in with the bat, but then you realize that will probably be messy. "You..." is all she manages to get out before you kick her in the face to shut her up. Then you pounce on top of her and after turning her over, you use the bat sideways and you press it up against her throat as hard as you can as you pull back. She gasps and struggles for her life, but it's no use, your determination to kill her is much stronger than her abilities to fight for her life. "Shhhhh...just let go....just let go...everything is going to work out and your parents won't be losing a daughter at all. Just let go...." You whisper. Soon you hear a crunching sound of perhaps crushing bones in her neck or her windpipe or something. Whatever it is, her struggle temporarily becomes more violent and jerky with her limbs attempting to flail about. It almost feels like you're riding her like a wild pony, but soon this outburst is muted and then nothing. Suzy collapses dying with her face partially in a small puddle of her blood and spital, leaving you sitting on top of a corpse's back. You eventually stand up taking in what you've done. You're hot and sweaty, but strangely invigorated. "(Whew) And I thought I was going to choke." you say and then start to chuckle at your own dark joke. Well the first part of the deed is done, now comes the more labor inducing part. Getting rid of her body. You've actually managed to keep the mess to a minimum by choking her to death, so you're wondering if you shouldn't just grab the tarps from the car, roll her ass up in them, duct tape it together and take her to the trunk. She might be your size, (Okay slightly lighter) but it isn't like you're used to carrying bodies around. While there wasn't anyone out there, the last thing you need is someone seeing you fumbling around with a body, even one wrapped in a tarp. If you wanted to play it safe, you suppose you could drag her to the bathroom and chop her up in the bathtub. It will definitely take longer and you might make more of a mess, but you could always carry her out in several pieces in that big luggage bag you brought with you. > You chop her up If you're going to do this, you need to do this right. In fact the more you think about it, this isn't going to be done in one day. However, you can get some of it done tonight if you stay focused. Sure, you're going to have to come up with a few excuses to your parents of why you were out all night, but you can think them up while you're taking care of this. You quickly search her body, but find nothing of interest. The purse that she dropped on the floor when you smashed her in the face contains all the important stuff, but you figure you can go through it more thoroughly later. The first thing you do is leave the room and head directly to the check in office. When you enter you see a slovenly man watching a tv. His leering eyes turn your way and you have no doubt he thinks you're the same woman from earlier. "Hey, I'm gonna need that room a little longer." You say. "Business that good huh?" he snorts. "Very funny, look how much for two more days?" "Same price you see on the fucking sign above my head." "Oh, well I guess I didn't see it since I was so mesmerized what with you being such a stud and all." You say sarcastically while pulling out a couple hundreds out of your pocket. You toss the money at him dismissively, but he takes it without question. "Keep the change and I don't want anyone disturbing me until its time to check out, got it? That means no house keeping ladies or shit knocking at my door." You say. "House keeping ladies? Pfft, no problem there. I got one and she barely does her fucking job as it is. If I wasn't married to her I would've fired her years ago." The man says and returns to his show. You then head to your car where you start bringing in several of the various objects you brought from the house. Takes you a couple trips, but you don't have any trouble. The motel bathroom is fortunately bigger than you expected it to be, it's also a lot dirtier than you expected it to be. Of course now you're not so much worried about making a mess so much as you're afraid you're going to catch hepatitis just being in the damn place. You lay down tarps on the floor and in the bathtub then you drag her body in. You go grab the axe and study it a bit; hoping that it's sharp enough that you won't need to struggle with the whole dismemberment task. Standing over her body with an axe is a little surreal to you, but you need to stop dwelling on how weird this all is and get on with it. "Here we go." You say and swing the axe... Chopping up the body is a mixed feeling. On one hand you're completely at peace with the deed and everything that goes along with it. The blood and gore isn't even all that bad since you've gotten a bit accustomed to that, but it's the smell that's making you feel a little sick. You actually have to stop chopping for a moment because you can't stop gagging. Eventually you just give in and throw up in the toilet nearby. Afterwards, you're more or less fine. It still isn't nearly as bad as that fucked up reality warping tentacle monster shadow abominations you had to endure during your time in the Gray Building. You never want to experience something like that again. By the time you're finished, you've got severed parts waiting to be wrapped up. You got most of the bloody mess on the tarps, so that's one less thing to worry about you suppose. You'll have to dispose of the bloody clothing you're wearing though. Getting naked, you return to your large luggage case, which you placed on the bed and open it up to retrieve all the trash bags you took along with the duct tape. The wrapping and taping is probably more time consuming than the chopping up part. You don't really have too many problems except when it comes to the torso which is not fun to deal with since it's still heavy and blood is leaking everywhere from it. Eventually you get everything in order and before you know it, you've got several body parts wrapped fairly tightly in bags and they don't seem to be leaking either. After washing your hands and arms a bit, you grab the luggage case from the next room. It takes some effort and squeezing, but you just barely manage to fit all of the parts in the case. After carefully moving the tarps to drain the blood in the tub, you then fold them up and squeeze them in too, along with your blood drenched clothing. The luggage case itself is made of solid material and you're confident there won't be any leakage, but just dragging it back into the main room takes some effort. It definitely isn't going to be easy to shove into the car trunk. Next you spend a little time cleaning up a few places where the blood spilled on the floor or splattered on the wall. Most of this was in the bathroom and is relativity easy to get rid of, though you do spend some time scrubbing the carpet a bit where you first choked her out. After you're done with all of that, you take a shower, which also gets rid of the blood already in the tub. You briefly feel a little like that infamous countess that bathed in the blood of young girls to maintain her youth. Getting dressed in a new set of clothing you brought in the duffle bag, you finally collapse on the bed not caring how filthy it may or may not be. "Ahhh...shit..." you say to yourself as fatigue sets in. You take this opportunity to go a bit through the purse now, starting with the phone. You check the time and see that it's practically getting up for morning. You figure you'll sleep here for what remains of the night and tomorrow you'll take the remains to the wilderness and find a good spot to bury them. You imagine your mom will call you at some point, possibly even waking you up. You figure you'll tell her you had a few drinks with Diana and you didn't want to risk driving home. She'll understand that even if she might not approve. You also figure you'll take the blue car when you drive. The shovel is still in that one and you might very well have to stop off at your parent's house first for some reason anyway if they really make a fuss to want to see you immediately. Better you don't have to park around the block or something just so you don't arouse suspicion. You'll definitely be abandoning the blue one and taking the silver one back when you leave town and head back to Security City though. And that's just some of what you have to do for tomorrow. You'll be able to do it though as long as you stay focused on your goals like you have been doing. As you begin to drift off, your thoughts briefly focus on Bobby. Seems weird to think of him even now after all you've been through this week. You wonder if his family lives in town? Are they still cultists or are they normal? You have no idea, there is going to be a lot to learn from this reality, but you can only dwell on "your" Bobby and what he might think. You certainly are a far cry from that "good girl" he rescued so long ago. He probably would be proud of you right now. You know he's out of your life forever now, but you still can't help feel a little sad about it. "I still wonder if being with you influenced me or what I just did was within me all along. Either way I guess if I stayed with you earlier this week...maybe...maybe... we could have made it work after all. Another reality perhaps..." you say and close your eyes. > Next day… You wake up to the cell phone ringing. You're very tired, but when you see who it is, this call isn't unexpected. "Hey mom..." you groggily reply. "Hey mom? Where are you? I thought you would've come back last night!" your mom exclaims. "What time is it now?" "It's almost noon! Are you okay?" "Mom, mom, mom, calm down. I'm fine. I just...well I drank a little too much..." "Drink? You don't drink!" your mom exclaims. "Yeah, I know hence why I've been more or less out of it. Diana was really distraught last night and she was already drinking a bit when I got over to her place. She got an eviction notice, she broke up with her boyfriend, she lost her job and just a whole bunch of other drama in genera hit her this week. She really needed a friend to speak with and well, I ended up drinking with her since she was sort of insistent and I wanted to be there for her. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I think she felt better as the night went on. Of course that might have just been the drink...I dunno...I'm sorry for worrying you though." There is a pause after you give your excuse. "Okay Suzy. I get it. (Sigh) I'm just glad you had the sense not to drive if you really got that drunk though. I do hope this isn't a habit though, I know you're an adult, but you're still my baby and I don't like to think of you as being some falling down lush." "Oh mom, that's not going to happen. Seriously, like I said, I only did it so Diana would feel better. I fully intend to tell her when she wakes up that this won't be happening again." "Glad to hear it. So when do you think you'll be home? Your father and I would still like to see you since you actually came here to visit us remember?" "I know, I'll be home in a few hours I suppose. I still feel woozy from last night. Did you need me over immediately though? Because I can do that if you want." "No, no, you take care of everything you need to over there and come over when you're feeling up to driving. Don't want you getting into an accident because you're not feeling one hundred percent." "Okay, I will be over as soon as I can though." "Alright, we'll see you then. Love you Suzy." "I love you mom." You hang up and rub your eyes a bit. "Well that's one thing out of the way. Better get on with the more important task." You say. You open up the door to your room and see a closer parking spot to your room, which is good since you really don't want to drag that case too far. You go to your car and bring it in closer and then head back to your room to gather up everything. You gather up the bat and axe (which you also wash off in the tub) and toss them in the trunk. Next, you grab the luggage case. With some effort, you drag it to the trunk and lift it inside. You're really glad you decided to chop her up, you can't imagine how awkward it would've been to carry her intact. You take your new purse and duffle bag and leave the room. You'll come back for the sports car later. The only danger of leaving it here is someone stealing the thing, but then it wasn't really your car to begin with. Believing you've taken care of everything you need to here, you start up your car and drive off for north of town. A few hours later and you're just finishing up digging a good-sized hole in the ground to shove the case in. You really think you were better off doing this in the day time since you neglected to bring a flashlight which would have made digging in the middle of the woods at night a little more difficult. You were a little concerned about some random campers stumbling upon you, or maybe some redneck hunters, but so far you haven't seen a single thing, which is good. You look at the luggage case. "Well Suzy, now is where we part ways. I wish I could say I didn't want things to be this way, but I'd be lying. You had a better life and I wanted that so I took it. Maybe that makes me a fucking sociopath or evil or something, I don't know and I don't care. All I can say is I'm going to make the most of it and not waste your life the way I wasted my life." You grab the case and shove it into the hole. "Thanks Suzy and goodbye." You say and then fill up the hole. After your deed you make the mildly long walk out of the woods and to your car. You throw your shovel in the trunk and sit in the car for a while not doing anything except resting. Digging a hole for a body is some tiring business even if it's neatly tucked in a case. You grab your new phone out of the purse to call your mom so you can let her know you'll be home soon and that's when you notice someone else has called while you were out digging. It's your "girlfriend." Apparently her name is Heather and she left you a voice message which out of curiosity you listen to. "Hey Suzy, I hope you're having a good time visiting your family. I just wanted to call though and see how you were. I know you haven't been gone long, but you know I always miss you when you're not around. Anyway, call me back when you have time. Oh and I sent you some pictures to keep you occupied when you're alone! (Giggle!)" You go through the phone and see that Heather has indeed sent you more than a few pictures. You see a raven haired girl of small physique with lipstick and eye make up wearing lingerie and making sexy poses. You have to admit, she's actually very pretty in a slightly goth sort of way. "Damn, maybe I shouldn't break up with her immediately." you chuckle. You turn the car on and begin making the journey back to your parent's house. Along the way you think about everything that's happened this week and how this is just beginning of your new life. You weren't joking about making the most of it when you said those words out loud in the woods. You meant that, well except you're not going to be making the most out of her life, you're going to be making the most out of YOUR life. While the "transformation" is far from complete, you think the hardest part is over and even if there are challenges or you to overcome, you'll succeed in surviving and conquering them. Because that's all you've done during this Hell week, survived and ultimately conquered it. > … Mirror rorriM The Future... Your siblings, spouses, children, and you all stand in your mother's bedroom. It probably won't be long now. You always knew the day would come when you'd lose her again and that day is today. While you might have been more prepared for it this time, it doesn't make it any less sad. You didn't even feel this sad when your dad died years ago and you loved him very much, though maybe that's because you always still had the tainted memory of your crappy alternate one. Your mother though in both realities was always there for you and you've never forgotten that. "Now that I've said my goodbyes to everyone...I want....I want to speak to Suzy...alone..." your mother utters. Everyone is a little surprised by this unexpected request. You are too, since you thought everyone was going to be in her room until the end. "What? But mother..." Kelly starts to say looking almost a little offended. "Kelly. Not now. Not today." Ben says with a stern voice. Kelly looks at Ben like she wants to argue, but he's about the only person that can make her back down. She does however give you the stare of death. Kelly never changes no matter what reality. She always hates you. There actually was a slightly comforting consistency when you first encountered her. "Fine. She's all yours, just like she always is." Kelly snaps and storms out the room. Ben exhales and shrugs with a slight widening of his eyes looking at you. "It's okay...I'm used to it." You say. "Alright, everyone come on let's leave these two alone to talk." Ben replies. Ben escorts his children out of the room while Julie goes up and gives you a quick hug before following them. You kiss and hug your husband and tell your daughter that you'll see them later. After they leave it's just you and mom. You pull up your chair as close as you can to the bed and sit near her and hold her hand. "I'm here mom." You say. "Yes...yes you are. You've always been here. (Cough) Even when you weren't." Your mom at this point turns to look directly at you and despite her very weak state you feel her hand squeeze yours somewhat strongly and she gives you a sudden intense look. "I know you're not Suzy...or rather you're not the Suzy I gave birth to..." she says with a tone that you've never heard before. It isn't anger or anything negative, but it is one that puts you so off guard that you get a chill down your back. "Mom, I..." you begin to sputter before she interrupts you. "Don't. I know. I've known for a very long time now. A mother always knows her own child." You don't know how to react. You look down and away from your "mother. You actually feel a little sick and you start to tremble a bit. You have never once in all these years felt bad about what you did, but now you're not so sure. You begin to sniffle and tears start to form. "Shhhh, Suzy. Save your tears for when I'm truly gone because it doesn't matter. You're still my daughter, but I couldn't go to my grave without letting you know that I knew. I also thought I'd tell you for your sake. Now (cough) I don't want to know the gruesome details...about HOW this came to be, but if its been weighing on your conscience at all, you didn't actually replace the Suzy I gave birth to anyway." This is beyond unexpected. How is it possible that she knows all this just on instinct? You look up at your mother. "My Suzy...the Suzy I knew as the daughter I gave birth to? Something happened to her a long time ago. (cough cough) Something changed soon after she went to college. I never could place my finger on it, but first time she visited I knew something was different. And it wasn't just due to experimenting with new ideas and sexuality in college. SHE was different and I KNEW she was. As I said, a mother knows, but the frequent little inconsistencies in her memories and such made it certain. Just as I learned with you." You just continue holding your mother's hand as she speaks. "But what could I do? What could I say? Who would believe such a fantastic tale? Sure this new Suzy was a little more full of herself, but she still loved me just like my Suzy did. I couldn't lose my baby daughter twice so I never spoke up. Never (cough) dreamed it would happen again though. I suppose in some ways I might have even been glad though. You replaced the one who replaced mine." Never did you ever believe that your mother knew. To learn this now is just as overwhelming as when you had to deal with the situation so long ago. "Why...why didn't you say anything before?" you ask looking up. "Why ruin a good relationship? You never disrespected me and treated me kindly. You always visited when you could and you even moved back to town with your family when your father died so you could be closer to me. You obviously loved me very much. Could I really ask for a better daughter?" your mother says with a faint smile. The feelings are almost overwhelming you at this point. You're completely at a loss. At this point your mom gives your hand another squeeze, but weaker this time. "You're my daughter. My baby and I always loved you. Never doubt that." She says. "I don't...(Sob)" you say and attempt to hold it together. Your mother's grip is becoming less firm now. "Soon none of this will matter, but before I go...I want to know a couple things..." your mother says weakly. "Of course." You reply. "What...(cough) was your other mother like?" "She...(sniffle) was very much like you. She was kind and was the only one who ever truly cared when I was growing up. I...(sob) was still little when she died...I missed her very much..." you say trying to keep from crying completely. Your mother nods. "I see...I suppose...(cough cough) that answer might partially answer my other question then..." "What's that?" "How many other Suzys were there after you?" You're silent for a moment. "Three that I know of. I think you may have even met one of them." "Mm...considering you were never replaced... I suppose...you just wanted this life more than they did then..." "It...(sob) has been a good life...(sob)" Your mother pats your hand. "And you'll still have a good life Suzy, even after I'm gone..." she says. At this point your mother's eyes begin to flutter and then shut completely and her breathing becomes shallow. You stay until the end and then sadness is completely released. You cry over your loss and head towards the door, not wishing to be in the same room with the empty shell that was your mother any longer. When you exit, your husband immediately sees had distraught you are and goes to comfort you. Your daughter has been visibly crying as well. Ben, says that he'll start making the arrangements for the funeral, meanwhile Kelly takes it upon herself to call medical personnel. Later, the drive back home is quieter, with your daughter Sally sleeping in the backseat and your husband Roger just paying attention to the road. It's been an emotional roller coaster for you today. More than you even thought it would be, but you're sort of glad your mother knew. Somehow her knowing and still loving and accepting you anyway made it just as real as how your reality's mom felt towards you. You also wonder if this means you won't have to put up with any other reality hopping Suzys any longer. That might be a little too much to hope for though, after all your life is still a good one and you have much to be happy about in the scheme of things. Your mother was right about that. Doesn't matter, you'll continue to fight for it just like you always have because now you truly have a life worth fighting for. "You okay over there honey?" Roger asks. "Yes, well no, but I guess I'm just trying to think about all the good times I had with mom. You know, focus on the positive." "That's good Suzy. I think that's a healthy approach." He replies. Roger always has been a supportive husband to you. You never would have thought you would have fallen for a soldier type before. You sometimes wonder if you and Roger ever met in another reality. "Yeah, it's odd, but I think I'm also coming up with an idea for a new book. Figure maybe I should re-channel all this negativity into something productive." You say. "Oh? What idea?" "Well I suppose my mind is still a bit fragmented for a solid idea, but I'm thinking of doing a sequel to Mirrors." "Oh, your scifi book about parallel dimensions? That one was pretty popular. I know I certainly liked it better than that one your wrote about that inbred cultist family. That one was a little too gruesome for my tastes." "Well I had to make a dramatic break from my first three books. Up until then, all people thought I could write was lesbian pirate erotica." "Hey I liked Treasure Chest. I thought it was a pretty deep love story." Roger says. "Oh I know why YOU liked it." You say chuckling a little bit and allowing yourself to feel a little better. "Well okay I liked the obvious too, well anyway do you have any idea on what the new story might involve?" "It will probably just pick up a few years after Mirror left off and I'll see how it goes from there. Like I said, it's just in the idea stages now, but whatever I come up with, I'll definitely be dedicating it in the memory of mom." "Well I think that's a very good way to honor her. She certainly has contributed to your inspiration." You nod. "In more ways than one Roger. In more ways than one."

[Themes: modern, drama, romance, humor, serious] You wake up with the sun shining in on your bedroom. You can safely say you haven't had that experience in a long time, if ever. You aren't sure what time it is, but knowing you, you probably slept through the morning as usual. Once again, you're stuck in the same clothes you've been wearing since the beginning of the week. While you can certainly shower, you'd really rather change clothes at this point so you go through your room and hope that your alternate self left some old clothes in it. After going through some drawers you find that your alternate self has about the same fashion sense as you do, meaning pretty simplistic. The clothing itself tends to be a bit brighter though as everything else seems to be in this reality and it's starting to get on your nerves. You grab a pair of old jeans and a shirt and head to the bathroom where you wash up and later attempt to brush your teeth using your index finger with toothpaste on it. The jeans and shirt are a slightly tight on you though. It's not enough that your alternate self has a happier life, but the fucking bitch is apparently a size smaller than you as well. "Oh well, I guess I'll just be that much more popular with horny guys (Sigh) ...unfucking believable..." you mutter as you squeeze yourself into the clothes. After getting dressed, you head downstairs. The first thing you see is dad on a small ladder working on the overhead light he mentioned wasn't working. You don't think you've ever seen your own dad ever fix anything. "Hey, look who's finally up. You sleep well? You must have considering it's the afternoon." Dad says. "Yeah, I guess I really needed the sleep. Where's mom?" you ask. "She's in the kitchen. Oh meant to ask you, where's that silver sports car your drive? I didn't see it in the driveway or even on the street." Silver sports car? Seriously? You own a fucking sports car? "Oh, um...yeah I decided not to drive that one here, it's been giving me trouble lately anyway. I got an older car for cheap to just drive around in; it's that small blue one outside." You say. "Oh. Okay. I just thought I'd ask. Like I said, there's been some burglaries and I was concerned that the criminals had expanded to car theft too. Probably a good idea you didn't bring it, nobody is likely to steal that thing outside." "Yeah, I suppose so." You say and head to the kitchen. "Fucking sports car..." you whisper shaking your head before you greet mom in a friendly manner. "Hey sleeping beauty is finally awake! You sleep well I trust in your old bed?" mom asks while she works on cooking something. "Yeah. Slept fine. What are you cooking." "Oh I'm preparing big batch of beef stew. I swear your father would probably not eat anything else. It will take awhile, but I can make you something before then of course." "Nah, I'm okay." You say sitting down. Your mother smiles at you and you smile back, but you don't say anything else. It's weird, you wanted to talk with her so much yesterday, but now as reality sets in that she's not really your mother, you're sort of at a loss for words and awkwardly silent. Still, you want to make the most of this time so you struggle to think of a topic without being suspicious. "So...uh...how are Ben and Kelly doing?" you ask. "Well Ben is still stationed over in Europe. Not exactly sure what he's doing over there, but it doesn't seem to be dangerous for once, which I for one am glad about. Julie and the children I imagine are glad about it too. You talk to her recently? "Not for awhile." You say which is sort of the truth. "Oh. Well I did hear you two weren't on speaking terms any longer. I hope you make up though since the pair of you were always good friends and the both of you probably said words neither of you really meant." "Wait, what?" you ask. You mother stops chopping potatoes for a moment to address you directly. "A few months ago, Ben told me that Julie told him that you got in argument with her about how she's too strict with your niece and nephew and she told you not to tell how to raise her kids. I can't remember the entire exchange of what else happened except I know she ended up calling you a dyke that won't ever know what it means to be a mother anyway and then you swore at her and hung up. While I can certainly see Julie's defensiveness about how to raise her children, I don't think it was right to say such hateful things, just because of your lifestyle choice." "Lifestyle choice?" you say a bit confused as you're attempting to process everything. "Oh right. I'm sorry Suzy. I know you were born that way. You explained it very well to your father and me when you came out years ago before graduating from college. We're just still a little old fashioned in our way of thinking and it lapses at times." You do not believe this... "But I'm not a..." you start to say, but then realize why bother correcting her? It would just confuse things for when their real Suzy arrives. "...I'll try to make the attempt with Julie, but she really needs to apologize." You say instead. "You always were the bigger person. And I wouldn't give it another thought as far as what she said about being a mother is concerned. There's always adoption and I also know you people are really big on all that artificial insemination stuff. I'm sure when the time is right you and Heather will..." "Heather?" "Yeah, your girlfriend. Wait, you didn't break up with her did you? She seemed so nice when you brought her here for us to meet her..." "No...no...I didn't break up with her, um... so how is Kelly again?" you ask really wanting to change the subject. "Kelly? Well she's Kelly. Still one of this town's finest and doing a good job at it. Wish she'd find a better man to settle down with though. She seems to flip back and forth between these various loser guys that are so far beneath her it isn't even funny. She really could do so much better and it's not like there haven't been several good men that have made genuine attempts to woo her. She doesn't want to be tied down though and it's her life I suppose." Well now you've heard everything. You truly are in bizarro world. "You okay dear?" mom asks. "Yeah, yeah I'm just fine mom." You answer "Well enough about your siblings, how are you doing? You working on a new book yet?" "New book?" "Yeah, you started writing a new book again? I know last time you said you had a bit of writer's block. Honestly I don't know how you come up with all the ideas you do. You've written like three books already. I know I don't have the imagination to do that, but you always were creative even as a little girl." So that's what you do. You're a writer. Makes sense actually. In fact you almost want to kick yourself of why the hell you never tried your hand at it in your own reality. You certainly procrastinate enough. "I've got a few ideas in my head I suppose. Writing is never an exact science." Before you have to make up more shit on the fly, dad comes walking in. "Smells good in here already. Anyway I fixed the light and now I'm going to the hardware store, I'll be back later." "If you already fixed the light, why do you have to go to the hardware store?" you mother asks. "I have to replenish all the stuff I used." He says, but mom doesn't look convinced. "Okay I just want to go because I really want a new drill." Dad breaks down and admits. "George you're really silly sometimes when you try to make up stories." "Well it's where Suzy gets her story telling ability from!" dad remarks and pats you on the shoulder giving you a smile, which you return. "Okay, see you both later." Dad remarks and leaves the kitchen with Mom still smiling about the silliness. "You and dad seem very happy." You remark. "Of course we are. Why wouldn't we be? We're enjoying our elderly years together, we've had a successful marriage, we have three successful children that love us, grandchildren, a nice home, what more could one hope for?" What more indeed. You're still thinking about what the hell you're going to do with your own life. Despite a few major differences in your alternate self, you'd still switch places with her. She's got everything, a formal higher education, successful career, a fancy car, a significant other and most importantly a loving family. You begin to get lost in your own head, which is then disrupted by mom. "Suzy? Suzy?" mom asks. "Huh? Yeah?" you answer. "Are you really okay? You've been sort of spacing out lately." "Oh, yeah. Well like I said, I've got a few story ideas in my head and sometimes I get lost in thought." "Okay. Well I really have to go to the bathroom, can you finish cutting those carrots?" "Oh yeah, sure mom." You reply. Your mom leaves the kitchen leaving you alone with your thoughts and cutting up carrots. You increasingly become melancholy as you dwell on how things still suck for you and as you're apt to do, you begin talking to yourself. "(Sigh) Suzy, Suzy, Suzy, only you could find the negative out of the one relatively positive thing about thing about this fucked up week. Pull yourself together girl. You survived a hell of a lot worse than this. You wanted to be self-sufficient, we this is a good start. A fresh new world is your oyster and you've got plenty of opportunity..." Suddenly you hear a phone ring. It's the land phone on the kitchen wall. You walk over and nearly grab it immediately, but then you remember you're not really supposed to be here. However, you then notice the caller I.D. Suzy. You are compelled to pick up. "Hello?" you answer. "Hey. Mom? Is that you?" the voice on the other end says. You pause. You never realized that you and your mother sounded so similar before. "Yes, of course it's me honey. Who else would it be?" you say. "I dunno, you sound a little different. Might be that ratty old land phone you have though, I keep telling you to get a cell!" "Oh you know me dear, your father and I are a bit set in our ways." "Don't I know it. Ha ha! Nah, I know you guys really do try. So hey, I was just calling to let you know I'm coming a little bit earlier and I'll probably be there sometime late tonight. Like probably after midnight." "You are?" "Yes, like I said I just wanted to let you know so you guys don't get too mad when I'm knocking on your door late at night waking you up...unless you want me to stay at the town's motel until tomorrow morning. I know you guys go to bed early." It is at this moment that the dark idea your mind has been dancing around for quite some time isn't going away and is now in full bloom. If you just got rid of this Suzy, all your problems would be solved. You just have to muster the fortitude to do it... > You tell Suzy to come home You can't do it. Even if you could pull it off and ignore the immorality of it, you still can't do it. If you did, you'd be taking the easy way out just in a different fashion. Besides, what right do you have to take this good life away from this reality's Suzy? You don't. "No! We wouldn't dream of making you do such a thing! You come right over, and we'll answer the door when you arrive." You say. "You sure?" "Of course I'm sure! What kind of parents would we be if we didn't let our own daughter back into the house?" "You two really are the greatest parents sometimes. What am I saying? You two are the greatest parents ALL the time! Okay, well I guess I'll be seeing you tonight then." "Suzy?" you utter. "Yeah?" she asks. "I want you to know that your father and I love you very much." "I know that mom. I love you guys too." "Just always remember that, okay? We'll see you when you get here." You say before hanging up. You have to fight back the urge to cry. "Did I hear you on the phone out here?" you mother says walking into the kitchen. "Huh? Oh, yeah just someone trying to sell something. They were really persistent." You reply. "I can tell, you hardly cut up any of the carrots." "Sorry, I guess I got caught up in telling them to never call here again. I should have just hung up I suppose." "No worries, I've gotten directly angry at those telemarketer types too." "Hey mom, I've got some things I left here that I want to get and I know they're probably in my room somewhere, you don't mind if I go take care of that do you?" "No, not at all. We can talk later. Let me know if you're looking for something in particular. I might know where it is." "I will mom." You leave the kitchen and head to your room where you close the door and break down a bit quietly. It isn't fair, but it is the right thing to do. "Well, at least I had a few more moments with her, even if she wasn't my real mom." You say to yourself. After a few moments of being sad, you finally motivate yourself to action. "Well, I might not be killing her, but I'm not above stealing from the bitch." You say and grab an old looking duffle bag out of her closet and grab a bunch of her old clothes out of her drawers for yourself. Sure they're going to be a little tight, but at least you won't have spend money on clothes for awhile and you're going to have to make that thousand dollars you still have last until you figure out a way to make a living in this world. After pillaging your alternate's room, you decide you probably should leave now. No point in drawing this out and it will be easier for you. You imagine that your visit here is probably going to leave some very strange questions for this family when the real Suzy arrives, but you really can't worry about it. Besides, you're sure that everything will work itself out anyway. Seems to have so far with this Suzy. You head back downstairs and find that dad is back home. "Hey Suzy, where are you heading off to?" dad asks. "Oh, I'm just going to put this in the car and maybe drive around town. Look up some old friends and such. Might not be back until late so I might be knocking on the door waking you up again." "What? You're not even going to have dinner with us tonight? I thought the whole point of this visit was to see us!" your dad exclaims. "It is, but I still want to visit a few old school friends I haven't seen in a long time too. I mean we'll have lots of time tomorrow and the rest of the week!" "Rest of the week? I thought you had to leave here by Monday." "Oh, yeah...well two days is still a lot of time!" you say. "I suppose...it's just...well your mother and I were really happy that you arrived a little earlier than you did since we don't see you as much anymore and we really wanted to enjoy the time we were getting with you. The extra day was like a bonus." You look a little downtrodden at dad's disappointed tone. "But I guess if you made other plans with other people, I wouldn't want to stop you." Your dad remarks and leaves the room. You nearly say something, but stop yourself. Instead you just head out the door and to your car. You throw the duffle bag in the trunk of your car and get ready to drive off... "(Sigh) Shit..." you say to yourself as you hang your head down with the key just in the ignition. You get back out of the car and head back to the house. "She's not supposed to arrive until after midnight. Still gives me plenty of time. It's not going to hurt to have dinner." You say to yourself and ring the bell. The door soon opens and dad answers. "You forget something?" he asks. "Yeah, my manners. You're right, I should be spending time with you guys. Sorry dad." You say and give him a hug. "It's okay honey." He replies and hugs you back. You pass the next few hours chatting with dad. Mostly about mundane matters, which actually don't involve any more insight into what your alternate life was like here. Doesn't really matter though, you're actually just enjoying the conversation. Back in your reality, you don't think you ever spoke more than a half hour with your father at most. Eventually when dinner is served you sit down to eat with mom too and the conversation continues. This time you do learn a little more about your "life" here and through careful weaving and quick thinking, you manage to navigate through questions you might not otherwise know the answers to. By the time dinner is over, you're enjoying your time with mom and dad so much that you put off leaving immediately after. Instead you play a few board games with them (Which you definitely never did as a child with either of them in your own reality) and continue to have more fun. Eventually the time is getting very late and you do start to get concerned that the other Suzy will arrive earlier than expected. Fortunately mom and dad being creatures of habit tell you they're turning in for the night and after a few more words, hugs goodnight and mentions of plans for tomorrow, they go to bed. You look at the time and see it's indeed getting up for midnight. You leave the house and get in your car once again. As you drive off, you notice you aren't sad. Well you're sad that you do have to leave, but you not the emotional wreck you thought you might be. Maybe that little extra time together brought closure of sorts. You certainly are more at peace with it all. You wipe a few tears from your eyes and smile. This moment of "zen" is suddenly cut short by a car slamming into your driver's side while rolling through a stop sign due to neither you nor the other driver paying full attention to your surroundings. The impact is pretty hard and given you weren't even wearing your seatbelt at the time makes it worse. Unlike the car crash you had this earlier week, you're hurt very badly and you even can't move in your current condition. As you're lying in your car bleeding, bones broken, having a hard time breathing drifting in and out of consciousness and a piece of twisted metal impaling your side you don't think a mysterious stranger with magical healing gel is going to fix you this time. You also can't help but think that this is probably the only way this week could have ended for you. Part of you wants to fight, but somehow with the last few good moments you just had with mom and dad make you actually want to let go. Why keep struggling? If you live you live, if not, well at least you had some joy during your last day. More than you might have had otherwise. Maybe you just weren't meant for this world either. You aren't sure how long you lay twisted in the wrecked vehicle for before you hear sirens, but you aren't even awake long enough to hear the ambulance sirens, let alone before anyone actually comes and helps you. You die of your wounds in the ambulance thanks to the paramedics attending to the other driver first. Who are more than a little freaked out when they first see you and the driver of the other car. The funny thing is, you never did see that it was a silver sports car that slammed into you. Somehow fitting that this reality's Suzy was luckier than you.

[Themes: modern, romance, science fiction, serious, humor] You wake up to the sound of...well you can't quite place it. White noise might be the closest thing you can think of, but that wouldn't be correct. It's like an annoying hum or buzz going straight to your head. You get up and see that the TV is off from yesterday, so it isn't that. "Jack? You hear that noise?" you call out in a groggy tone. There isn't any answer, just that increasingly annoying noise. You attempt to get up and it takes you a couple tries, not because you're naturally lazy, but more because you're starting to feel nauseous. The noise you're hearing isn't helping matters. You get up on your feet and stagger to the door way which when you get to, you lean up against and feel like you're going to puke. "Jack..." you just barely manage to shout, before you have to stop to keep from vomiting. You look up and down the corridor and find that the lights are flickering. Some are out completely. You have no idea what the hell is going on, but you'd probably be more scared if you didn't feel so sick. Mustering up all your willpower, you head to the bedroom thinking Jack might be asleep in there. Nobody there, but you can't fight the sickness any longer and you run as fast as you can to the bathroom nearly falling over in the process. You just barely manage to make it to throw up in the toilet. The lights are going nuts at this point and you notice the bathtub and sink are both on. After recovering a bit, you notice the stuff coming out of the sink isn't exactly water. It's black and tarry looking. You don't risk touching it, you just get the hell out of the bathroom. No sooner have you done this, when a sudden loud noise hits you so hard you actually stumble and fall to the floor. You wouldn't even be able to describe the sound, it's just really horrible and even though you've just puked, you still feel pretty damn nauseous. Picking yourself back up and leaning against the wall, you slowly try to make your way to the room where Jack was messing about with his radio stuff. You don't feel like you're getting anywhere though, in fact the more you walk, the more you feel like you're on a treadmill in an endless corridor. You continue on, but as you pass by rooms you can swear you're seeing weird things out the corner of your eye. You then start thinking you're seeing shit in front of you as well. Shadowy humanoid figures blink in and out existence along with the lighting. At this point the feeling of terror is becoming stronger than your feeling of sickness. The white noise is still drilling into your head, but now it's accompanied by an insane laugh, which varies in pitch and tone. When you pass the flight of stairs, you hear whispery voices beckoning you go in that direction. You're hardly enticed to do so. As you get closer to the radio room, the shadowy figures can be seen running about in the large room up ahead. As you get closer, these figures are becoming less shadowy and more "solid." These figures are starting to no longer look humanoid either. It is around this time that you notice your surroundings are becoming... warped. Walls are melting around you and you're seeing those shadowy figures in the next room starting to move in slow motion one moment and then other times you see them rapidly moving back and forth in a repetitious manner. You nearly jump out of your skin when several of these beings appear right in front of you and you get a good look at them now that they aren't so shadowy anymore. They're a mass of tentacles, teeth and misshaped features that would make any horror movie demon jealous, unfortunately this is no movie. The screeching, wailing, and gibbering are bad enough, the visual is bad enough, but the fetid smell is what puts it over the top in just vile nastiness. You see one particularly disgusting one with a mutilated face like raw meat and a the scent of a rotten corpse on a hot day, transform into something even worse looking before it opens three of its mouths to reveal its tongues which not only look infested with disease, but have ugly little faces on them. When it attempts to lick you, you turn and run only to find yourself in a wide open space where everything now looks like it's been put through a multicolored filter. You feel like you're in a rainbow void. When you look behind you however all you see is darkness save for the creatures now moving towards you. You don't run far when all of a sudden the rainbow filter disappears and is replaced by a flickering affect that you're actually back in a "real" location. It isn't the corridor though, it resembles more of a large college auditorium and in the center is a single figure sitting in a lotus position. He's bald and not dressed in modern clothing and in fact looks like he's from some sort of nerd cosplay convention. He appears human however. One thing that's about him that doesn't look human though is his eyes are completely white and not just normal "blind eyes" sort either. They're glowing pure white light. You become very disorientated as the flickering of this reality disappears and slowly just becomes a blank gray open space with more gray as far as you can see despite there not being any more walls. You see that the creatures behind you aren't following, but they definitely want to get closer. It would seem this man's presence is at least holding them back somehow. At this point you you're completely lost to as what is going on, but you approach the man if it means keeping the monsters at bay. The man suddenly speaks as you get close to him. He's not really looking at you though, more like looking through you. "You...I...don't belong here...everything changes...so many changes...been here...before...somewhere else...so much to do...bring balance...the future is beautiful...the past is beautiful...everything is ugly...corrupted...it's beautiful..." the man utters in a fragmented way and you have no idea what the hell he's talking about. "Where is Jack?! What's going on? Who are you?!" you ask trying to figure out this situation. To your horror you notice your hands and arms become weathered and wrinkled. From what you can tell, your hair has gone completely white as well. With some hesitation, you feel your face and it definitely doesn't feel smooth anymore. "Oh my god..." you utter. "...time is short...fleeting life...the others do not like this place...disrupts balance..." the man says still not moving from his spot. You then notice your hands and everything else have gone back to normal. This entire situation is very fucked up, and you don't have the faintest idea what's going on, but you hope that "Mr. Lotus" has some answers with all the cryptic shit he's spouting. "Look! I need answers! What is going on here and who are you?!" you ask again while still looking back to make sure those creatures are still staying away from you. "A footnote...forgotten... traveller...cursed...blessed...nobody... you must choose... Suzy..." the man utters. "How did you know my..." you start to ask before you're interrupted. "You must choose...the others...they come..." You turn your head and see that the monsters and the darkness are indeed starting to move towards you once again. "Choose? Choose what?! What are you talking about?!" you ask again. "You must choose..." the man says again with less of an air of indifference and more of one of authority. "What am I choosing?" The area surrounding you and the man begins to darken and now you're getting creatures starting surround you as well. "You must choose or die..." the man says again. "Alright! Alright! I choose! But what the fuck am I choosing!?!" you shout with a mixture of fear and frustration. "You'll know when the time comes..." the man says. For a brief moment your surroundings change from that of the large classroom auditorium again with the man still in front of you. The blackness has disappeared, but the monsters have not as you see several floating tentacle creatures in the room with you. They aren't quite as disgusting, but they're still dangerous and giving off that aura that's making you feel nauseous again. Just as you think you see a more humanoid figure enter the room there is suddenly a blinding flash all around you causing you to shield your eyes. Everything goes completely white, to completely black and then when you open your eyes again, you find yourself in the large front room of the building. Items are no longer neatly stack and are instead scattered about all over the place, some of them probably broken. Still completely baffled by what the fuck is going on, you look around for something to protect yourself with amongst the junk all over the floor. You eventually see a sturdy looking bat and pick it up. Upon inspection you notice the words "RUTH" on it, no doubt one of Jack's valuable purchases. Speaking of Jack you still haven't seen him, but you soon hear him. "Suzy?! Suzy? Are you here? Where are you?" you hear him call out. Sounds like it's coming from the corridor, but you don't see anyone. Maybe he's upstairs? You haven't been up there yet, but given what you just experienced, you're a little reluctant to go deeper into this place. You remember Jack said he was going to tell you something about this building before you fell asleep, well whatever that was, it's apparent that you were right that something about him was weird. Not just weird, but dangerous. You don't think you're ever going to quite get some of the images out of your head, you even feel a little different. Maybe the sensory overload has made you a bit numb rather than reducing you to a gibbering wreck. Numb or not, you still have a good mind to just walk out the front door and get the hell out of here. Maybe this was the "choice" that strange guy was talking about. > You go to Jack Maybe this isn't a good idea, but considering Jack did save your life a couple times, it seems like a pretty shitty thing to do if you just left him. With bat in hand, you head towards back to the corridor and call out to Jack. "Hey Jack! Are you upstairs?" you say. "Suzy? Yeah! I'm up here! Be careful though, there's still a bunch of weird shit going on." Not terribly descriptive or encouraging. Weird shit could literally be anything, and in this case probably is. You head towards the stairs and go up for the first time. As you going up, you have this fear that you're going to start sinking into them, that doesn't happen and when you arrive to the top, you find yourself exiting into a corridor that's laid out very much the same way as the first floor, the only difference is you're across from another set of stairs on the opposite side. You look to your right and hear some noise causing you to ready your bat, though you soon see Jack exiting room of the side rooms. "Suzy! I've been looking all over for you." He says approaching with an axe in hand. "Hey! Keep your distance!" You shout and raise your bat "What?" Jack asks as he stops in his tracks. "Sorry, it's just, well there has been as you put it, a lot of weird shit going on and for all I know you're some horrible monster. Not to mention you're coming at me with an axe in hand, though I suppose given the shit I've already encountered, you probably wouldn't have bothered to even stop." You reply lowing the bat. "Well, you probably were best to err on the side of caution. I've just spent what I believe to be an hour or two looking for you." Jack says. "I was in your living room downstairs asleep on your couch. Right where you left me last night." You reply. "Yeah, and you weren't there when I checked on you later this morning. I called out and looked in every room on the first floor. I heard your voice coming from the second floor so I went up there and that's when things started getting weird. (Sigh) and I thought this place was done with all that...should have known better I suppose..." Jack trails off, but at this point you're demanding an answer. "Jack, you've saved my life twice, but if I'm going to hang out with you, you better start explaining what the hell's going on with this place. I'm not sure what weirdness you've experienced up here, but what I just experienced downstairs was beyond weird, it was fucking terrifying." You exclaim. "I know. I know. I should have told you about this place yesterday. Well let's head into this room and talk about it." Jack heads into a room down the corridor and to the left. You follow and find that it's another living area furnished in a similar manner as the one downstairs. Jack was really like consistency. The pair of you sit and after you tell Jack what happened with you downstairs, Jack apologizes that you had to go through it and then tells you a little about what he knows of this place. Jack goes on about how he bought this Gray Building years ago for cheap and figured it would also be good to store all his stuff along with being a place he could live and thus no longer living in his mom's basement. He then mentions he went to check out the place after he bought it and right away he experienced weirdness. He said the first time he opened up the door to the place there was a jungle village inside. He mentions that upon entering the building seemed to whisk him away to this place and his surroundings completely changed. "Curiosity got the better of me I guess. However it wasn't just a jungle. I found out later when cannibals were chasing me, that I was on an island made of Styrofoam and held together by hemp rope. Barely escaped." Jack says. "What?! That's...incredibly random." You say. "That was just the beginning. Of course any right thinking person, would have just written this place off, but I couldn't help but find it fascinating. Of course I found it less fascinating the second time I went in, when I was attacked by these shadow wolf things. Barely survived that too." "Why the hell did you keep coming back here?" "Well I actually stayed away after the second time. Though after a few months, I felt drawn to the place again. I can't explain it, but as it turned out third time was the charm, well maybe not entirely, but the place started to become more accommodating. In time, I started to encounter less dangerous shit and the place became more normal, well as normal as it could ever be I suppose. Still, I was never quite willing to go all in and actually live in this place until recently and that's only because of some positive weirdness that I experienced when in this building a few months ago." "What happened?" "Well I saw a glimpse of the future and in few days I believe this world as we know it is going to start resembling Road Warrior. Of course even without seeing the future I was listening in on some pretty scary radio broadcasts before the Ground Zero corporation started cracking down and scrambling the airwaves." "Wait, you say you saw the future, like how exactly? In your head or what?" "No, it was a portal or rather a small window that opened up on the third floor. Happened rather suddenly while I was up there deciding on where I should put more of my stuff a few weeks ago. I saw Security City get nuked. The town looks like it survived, but I saw that overrun by mad people, like rabid or something. Given how the people in town have been acting and the world situation lately, I'd say what I saw was on the mark. It was then, I decide that I might actually be safer in here." "Doesn't seem like it, by the look of things." You say. "No, apparently I was wrong about that. (Sigh) I dunno, I'm sorry I got you involved in all this." "Well it's done now and it seems like I was fucked no matter what this week. So, is there anything we can do? I mean we can't really stay here I think you'd agree, but if the world is doomed like you're saying, where could we go?" "Know where there is a fallout shelter?" Jack asks. "Yes and no. My older brother made one a long time ago back home, unfortunately its entrance is a bit of a mystery now since he's dead." "That would mean going back to town anyway and with the National Guard and the rabid there I imagine it's going to resemble a warzone." "Well there has to be somewhere we can...is that snow?" you say noticing the hallway. At this point Jack stands up and you do too, both with your weapons ready as you approach the hallway where white flakes are falling from the ceiling and snow is starting to fill up the hallway. Jack looks to the left and right and then speaks. "Well I don't see anything else out of the ordinary except the snow, but I think we better get the hell out of here and take our chances with the outside world, whatever might happen to it." Jack exclaims. "Don't need to tell me twice." You say and the pair of you run as quickly as you can back down to the first floor. When you get to the first floor, you and Jack make your turn towards the large front room and that's when reality starts warping and you're getting disoriented again. "Shit..." Jack says tripping over. You go to help Jack up and that's when you see them again. Those tentacle things coming at you down the hallway, which is once again increasingly being enveloped in darkness. There's no magical bald guy around this time to save you either. 'Oh fuck, we need to move!" You say and start running towards the front room. Jack follows along. When you get the front room the lights flicker. Junk is still scattered all over the place and there is also no front door now, but TWO open doors. "What the fuck?" Jack exclaims and then the lighting gets even dimmer and soon you'll be left completely in the dark save for the illumination coming from the open doors. At glance, one door is leading to what looks to be a tropical area since you're seeing vines, trees and such. The other door is leading to a snowy area and you can even feel the cold air whipping in from that one. And those creatures are still in pursuit behind you with darkness ever encroaching. You're starting to hear them now in your head, howling, chattering, gibbering. It's madness and you need to leave now. "Shit, my head..." Jack says staggering. "Come on! This way!" you say and start heading towards the jungle. "Wait! That's a fucking jungle, and I know nothing ever good comes from entering one! Remember my first trip here?" Jack says. "Well, it's either that or the fucking artic and we're not exactly dressed for that!" you say. "I'd rather take my chances with snow than a jungle." "It's pointlessss....death...isssss everywhere...embrace madnessss and ssssave yourself... embrace usssssss..." a voice in your head suddenly interjects this is followed by hideous mocking laughter. Maybe you're getting resilient or something because you manage to keep it together. Jack isn't looking as great though which is odd since you figured he'd be used to something like this. He's having a hard time standing up and you're having a hard time keeping him from falling. Either way, you're making the decision on which way to go. > The jungle Jack may have had a bad experience with the jungle before, but you're going to have one infinitely worse you don't get the hell out of here! You don't know where you're going to end up, but you figure at least there is more chance of survival in the jungle than the tundra or artic or wherever you might end up with the snow door. Since Jack isn't exactly in a position to argue, you continue heading towards the jungle. You're almost at the door when everything goes dark. You feel like those things are almost upon you and you can only hope they stop pursuing you when you go through the door. With a boost of energy and a shove, you and Jack both tumble through the opening and into the jungle area. Soft muddy ground gets all over you both. You recover as quickly as you can, fearing that those creatures are still right behind you, but when you get up you find that not only are they not, but the Gray Building itself is gone. Nothing is behind save for more jungle. "Where the hell? Where did it go?" you say. "It's gone. We're some place completely different and who knows where the hell that building is now. Shit...my head is still throbbing and all fucked up. I still don't feel quite right. Just let me rest here a moment." Jack says still sitting on the ground. You look around and you have no idea where to go next. You look at the trees and ground and for all you know you're in the Amazon. Certainly feels hot enough and you're already starting to sweat. "Goddamn, it's hot. Jack I'm going to tell you right now, I MIGHT be taking my shirt off at some point and I can only hope you're a gentleman enough to keep your eyes at least focused on my face when you're directly speaking with me." You say. "Fuck, with the way I feel, I dunno if I'm even up for that sort of stimulation. Besides, I'm going to be keeping an eye on everywhere else given that we're in a jungle. Ohhh, I really wished you went towards the snow, I got a bad feeling about this." "What are the chances we're on another Styrofoam island?" you ask. "Well, I dunno, but it still doesn't change the fact we're in a jungle where all manner of animals, bugs and plants can kill you. I guess we better pick a direction and hope we find friendly civilization." Jack says and gets up. As Jack gets up while you look around again and decide on a direction. "Well at least you've still got your axe and I got a bat. The jungle doesn't look as heavy in that direction I suppose. Guess we're going that way." You say. "I suppose it's as good as a direction as any." Jack replies. You and Jack begin your trek through the jungle... Despite the jungle not being as thick in this direction, it's still not an easy walk. The only upside, is the canopy of the trees is at least shielding you from the sun directly. You can honestly say you don't remember when the last time you had to deal with this sort of heat. All that time spent in the cool basement has made you a little less resistant to it you guess. Jack and you continue to keep your eyes and ears open. So far you've not seen any signs of civilization, but at one point a small purple furry rodent like animal walks by and you can honestly say even with all the animal and nature shows you've seen, you've never seen something like this before. It sees you and squeaks causing you to raise your bat before it runs off. "What the hell was that?" you ask. "I dunno, looked like some sort of rat, but purple though." Jack replies. "Well don't you think a purple rat is a little strange?" you ask. "Well of course I do, but given that this is where the Gray Building sent us, is it really surprising?" "I don't mean just that though. I mean before I thought that maybe we were at least still on our world. Weird looking purple rat like creatures aren't exactly native there. Is it possible it sent us to some alien planet?" "Suzy, with the Gray Building anything is fucking possible." It's at this moment you lose a little hope. Its one thing to possibly be lost in a jungle on Earth at least there would have been a slim chance of survival if you somehow made it to civilization. The idea of being on some sort of alien planet is a lot more disheartening. "Great, we are so fucked." You say. "Probably, but we have to keep moving." "What the hell's the point? For all we know this whole damn planet is jungle and uninhabited and if it is inhabited I can't imagine the natives are going to be friendly!" you exclaim. "We don't know if this is an alien planet! I mean maybe we got transported back in time to the Mesozoic Era, we don't know what the hell sort of creatures lived back then or what color they were." "Oh, so we're in the time of dinosaurs? Yeah, don't think that's any better." Jack at this point wipes his face and closes his eyes. "Suzy, it's too hot for us to argue, but I told you I didn't want to go to the jungle anyway!" "There it is. I told you so. Thanks. Real helpful. (Sigh) Okay, look I'm sorry I'm just..." At this moment you hear a rustling noise and then a whizzing sound is heard just before blood splatters on you. Jack looks down briefly to see the top of a spear through his chest. He coughs up blood and falls to his knees looking at you the whole time. "Oh shit Jack..." you utter and then another spear just narrowly misses your head and hits a nearby tree. Then you see your assailants coming out of the undergrowth. Several small bipedal lizard like creatures armed with spears. They're not even as tall as you, but they certainty look more than capable of killing you. They hiss at you and one proceeds to finish off Jack who was already dying at that point. You turn and run in the opposite direction ignoring the fact that you're going to only get yourself further lost in the jungle, you have to escape these things. They screech and they run after you. Another spear nearly hits you and despite the very real fear of death you're experiencing, the only thing going through your mind is how you curse the day you went out to go get a real job. One day you were living comfortably in a basement and now you're running through a hot ass jungle being chased by fucking lizard aliens. You already know this isn't going to end well for you. You've been pushing the odds ever since you left the damn basement, and it's only a matter of time before those lizards get you and... Suddenly you feel a sharp bite to the side of your neck. It isn't a spear. It's some sort fauna that resembles a snake with legs. You didn't even see it, but even if you hadn't been so focused on running, you still wouldn't have seen it due to its camouflage. Then before your eyes several of these creatures seemingly blink into existence and they're all jumping on you and biting. You've just run into a nest of whatever these things are and you fall to their onslaught. The only upside is their deadly poison kills you before they can start eating you alive.

[Themes: modern, romance, post-apocalyptic, humor, serious] Maybe this isn't a good idea, but considering Jack did save your life a couple times, it seems like a pretty shitty thing to do if you just left him. With bat in hand, you head towards back to the corridor and call out to Jack. "Hey Jack! Are you upstairs?" you say. "Suzy? Yeah! I'm up here! Be careful though, there's still a bunch of weird shit going on." Not terribly descriptive or encouraging. Weird shit could literally be anything, and in this case probably is. You head towards the stairs and go up for the first time. As you going up, you have this fear that you're going to start sinking into them, that doesn't happen and when you arrive to the top, you find yourself exiting into a corridor that's laid out very much the same way as the first floor, the only difference is you're across from another set of stairs on the opposite side. You look to your right and hear some noise causing you to ready your bat, though you soon see Jack exiting room of the side rooms. "Suzy! I've been looking all over for you." He says approaching with an axe in hand. "Hey! Keep your distance!" You shout and raise your bat "What?" Jack asks as he stops in his tracks. "Sorry, it's just, well there has been as you put it, a lot of weird shit going on and for all I know you're some horrible monster. Not to mention you're coming at me with an axe in hand, though I suppose given the shit I've already encountered, you probably wouldn't have bothered to even stop." You reply lowing the bat. "Well, you probably were best to err on the side of caution. I've just spent what I believe to be an hour or two looking for you." Jack says. "I was in your living room downstairs asleep on your couch. Right where you left me last night." You reply. "Yeah, and you weren't there when I checked on you later this morning. I called out and looked in every room on the first floor. I heard your voice coming from the second floor so I went up there and that's when things started getting weird. (Sigh) and I thought this place was done with all that...should have known better I suppose..." Jack trails off, but at this point you're demanding an answer. "Jack, you've saved my life twice, but if I'm going to hang out with you, you better start explaining what the hell's going on with this place. I'm not sure what weirdness you've experienced up here, but what I just experienced downstairs was beyond weird, it was fucking terrifying." You exclaim. "I know. I know. I should have told you about this place yesterday. Well let's head into this room and talk about it." Jack heads into a room down the corridor and to the left. You follow and find that it's another living area furnished in a similar manner as the one downstairs. Jack was really like consistency. The pair of you sit and after you tell Jack what happened with you downstairs, Jack apologizes that you had to go through it and then tells you a little about what he knows of this place. Jack goes on about how he bought this Gray Building years ago for cheap and figured it would also be good to store all his stuff along with being a place he could live and thus no longer living in his mom's basement. He then mentions he went to check out the place after he bought it and right away he experienced weirdness. He said the first time he opened up the door to the place there was a jungle village inside. He mentions that upon entering the building seemed to whisk him away to this place and his surroundings completely changed. "Curiosity got the better of me I guess. However it wasn't just a jungle. I found out later when cannibals were chasing me, that I was on an island made of Styrofoam and held together by hemp rope. Barely escaped." Jack says. "What?! That's...incredibly random." You say. "That was just the beginning. Of course any right thinking person, would have just written this place off, but I couldn't help but find it fascinating. Of course I found it less fascinating the second time I went in, when I was attacked by these shadow wolf things. Barely survived that too." "Why the hell did you keep coming back here?" "Well I actually stayed away after the second time. Though after a few months, I felt drawn to the place again. I can't explain it, but as it turned out third time was the charm, well maybe not entirely, but the place started to become more accommodating. In time, I started to encounter less dangerous shit and the place became more normal, well as normal as it could ever be I suppose. Still, I was never quite willing to go all in and actually live in this place until recently and that's only because of some positive weirdness that I experienced when in this building a few months ago." "What happened?" "Well I saw a glimpse of the future and in few days I believe this world as we know it is going to start resembling Road Warrior. Of course even without seeing the future I was listening in on some pretty scary radio broadcasts before the Ground Zero corporation started cracking down and scrambling the airwaves." "Wait, you say you saw the future, like how exactly? In your head or what?" "No, it was a portal or rather a small window that opened up on the third floor. Happened rather suddenly while I was up there deciding on where I should put more of my stuff a few weeks ago. I saw Security City get nuked. The town looks like it survived, but I saw that overrun by mad people, like rabid or something. Given how the people in town have been acting and the world situation lately, I'd say what I saw was on the mark. It was then, I decide that I might actually be safer in here." "Doesn't seem like it, by the look of things." You say. "No, apparently I was wrong about that. (Sigh) I dunno, I'm sorry I got you involved in all this." "Well it's done now and it seems like I was fucked no matter what this week. So, is there anything we can do? I mean we can't really stay here I think you'd agree, but if the world is doomed like you're saying, where could we go?" "Know where there is a fallout shelter?" Jack asks. "Yes and no. My older brother made one a long time ago back home, unfortunately its entrance is a bit of a mystery now since he's dead." "That would mean going back to town anyway and with the National Guard and the rabid there I imagine it's going to resemble a warzone." "Well there has to be somewhere we can...is that snow?" you say noticing the hallway. At this point Jack stands up and you do too, both with your weapons ready as you approach the hallway where white flakes are falling from the ceiling and snow is starting to fill up the hallway. Jack looks to the left and right and then speaks. "Well I don't see anything else out of the ordinary except the snow, but I think we better get the hell out of here and take our chances with the outside world, whatever might happen to it." Jack exclaims. "Don't need to tell me twice." You say and the pair of you run as quickly as you can back down to the first floor. When you get to the first floor, you and Jack make your turn towards the large front room and that's when reality starts warping and you're getting disoriented again. "Shit..." Jack says tripping over. You go to help Jack up and that's when you see them again. Those tentacle things coming at you down the hallway, which is once again increasingly being enveloped in darkness. There's no magical bald guy around this time to save you either. 'Oh fuck, we need to move!" You say and start running towards the front room. Jack follows along. When you get the front room the lights flicker. Junk is still scattered all over the place and there is also no front door now, but TWO open doors. "What the fuck?" Jack exclaims and then the lighting gets even dimmer and soon you'll be left completely in the dark save for the illumination coming from the open doors. At glance, one door is leading to what looks to be a tropical area since you're seeing vines, trees and such. The other door is leading to a snowy area and you can even feel the cold air whipping in from that one. And those creatures are still in pursuit behind you with darkness ever encroaching. You're starting to hear them now in your head, howling, chattering, gibbering. It's madness and you need to leave now. "Shit, my head..." Jack says staggering. "Come on! This way!" you say and start heading towards the jungle. "Wait! That's a fucking jungle, and I know nothing ever good comes from entering one! Remember my first trip here?" Jack says. "Well, it's either that or the fucking artic and we're not exactly dressed for that!" you say. "I'd rather take my chances with snow than a jungle." "It's pointlessss....death...isssss everywhere...embrace madnessss and ssssave yourself... embrace usssssss..." a voice in your head suddenly interjects this is followed by hideous mocking laughter. Maybe you're getting resilient or something because you manage to keep it together. Jack isn't looking as great though which is odd since you figured he'd be used to something like this. He's having a hard time standing up and you're having a hard time keeping him from falling. Either way, you're making the decision on which way to go. > The snow Really either choice seems pretty shitty, but if Jack feels that strongly about the jungle being worse, you guess you'll take the snow (and probably freeze to death). You suppose the upside is that there are probably less deadly animals lurking about as there might be in a jungle. "You better be right about this Jack." You say, You're almost at the door when everything goes dark. You feel like those things are almost upon you and you can only hope they stop pursuing you when you go through the door. With a boost of energy and a shove, you and Jack both tumble through the opening and into the snowy area. Snow gets all over you both and it's at that point you notice there are also a lot of trees nearby, so it's not just endless tundra, which is at least a good sign that you didn't wind up Antarctica. You also recover as quickly as you can, fearing that those creatures are still right behind you, but when you get up you find that not only are they not, but the Gray Building itself is gone. Nothing is behind you save for more snow and trees. "Where the hell? Where did it go?" you say. "It's gone. We're some place completely different and who knows where the hell that building is now. Shit...my head is still throbbing and all fucked up. I still don't feel quite right. Just let me rest here a moment." Jack says still sitting on the snowy ground. You look up and while the clouds are covering the sun, it's definitely still daytime wherever you are, but with the wind making the cold even worse, you're going to have to find shelter pretty damn quick and you have no idea which way to go. For all you know you're in the Canadian wilderness or some other godforsaken place. "Goddamn, it's cold." You say. "Yeah, we need to get going, even though I'm still feeling woozy. We need to keep an eye out for everything though. I guess we better pick a direction and hope we find friendly civilization." Jack says and gets up. As Jack gets up while you look around again and decide on a direction. "Well at least you've still got your axe and I got a bat. This direction looks as good as any." You say pointing to the right. "I suppose so." Jack replies. You and Jack begin your trek through the snow... The snow actually isn't really that deep, but it's deep enough that it's not pleasant to walk through. The wind eventually dies down a bit which makes things a little better, but not by much. You and Jack are both very cold and periodically you're rubbing your hands together and blowing on them in a futile effort to keep them warm. "This is sucking so much, we're going to freeze to death out here in the fucking forest." You say suddenly stopping. "Well maybe, but we gotta keep moving. We just gotta stay positive." "Yeah, well as you might already know, positive things haven't been happening to me lately." You respond. "Trust me, you aren't only one." Jack replies. "...I'm sorry, I'm just really cold, and as brave as I'm trying to be about all this, I feel like I've already been pushing my luck all this week and I feel like this is going to be it. Like my dumb luck has run out and I'm really fucking scared of dying." You say trying to remain calm. "I know." Jack replies and puts his hand on your shoulder. It isn't much comfort, but if the end is coming soon, you could have worse company. "Come on, you're right, we need to keep moving." You say and the pair of you continues on. A few moments later, you feel like your fingers and toes have gone numb and you're even starting to get a little sleepy. Day is starting to end and night will be beginning soon. Just when you believe it's starting to look even worse than ever, you and Jack notice some smoke rising in the distance up ahead, and as they say where there is smoke there is fire. (Hopefully) You and Jack both quicken your pace as much as you can and eventually you reach the edge of the ground, which starts sloping downward from your location. In the short distance from that you see a small log cabin with smoke coming from it. Salvation, but somehow you doubt if it's going to be easy. "You know there are going to be people living there." You say. "Yeah, but I mean come on, we're freezing to death, surely they'll help us. At best they'll let us warm up before giving us directions to the next nearest town." "Jack, your optimism would actually be very charming if we weren't in the situation we're currently in." you say. "Well hopefully you'll better appreciate it when we're nice and warm. Come on." Jack says. You and Jack carefully make your way down the slope and soon you're at the cabin. You see piles of logs stacked nearby, along with some barrels. The cabin doesn't have any windows or at least none on the sides that you've seen. "Okay, so how are we doing this?" you ask. "Well I guess I'll knock." Jack says. Jack bangs on the door a couple times. "Hello? Anyone in there? We're freezing and we need help. Hello?" he says. There is no answer. You don't even hear any noise. "Maybe nobody is home after all." You say. "But there's smoke coming from the chimney, obviously there's probably a fire going on in there." Jack replies. "Well, maybe they're out hunting or something and there's a scared kid in there that was told not to open the door to strangers. See if the door is unlocked." You say. "Wait a minute, didn't you just say there might be a scared kid in there?" "Yeah and if there is, he's still going to be scared whether we're inside or outside. We need to get in there Jack, we can deal with the consequences later!" you exclaim. Jack exhales. "Well okay..." Jack says as he goes for the handle. Surprisingly it opens and when Jack peers into the dimly lit cabin, he sees absolutely no one inside. "This place is empty." Jack says. "Good, now let's get to that damn fire!" you say and push past Jack. You warm up by the fireplace while Jack shuts the door and locks it with a large piece of wood across it. He soon joins and sits down right next to you. "Oh, sorry." Jack says when he thinks he's too close to you, but you stop him from moving over. "Jack, I think we're at that point in our relationship that under normal circumstances, we'd probably be dating already. You're fine, in fact why don't you just hold me. I could use the extra warmth." Jack complies with your request and you're feeling a little warmer already. As you still trying to enjoy the warmth, Jack is still looking around the room a bit from his position. "This is strange." Jack mentions. "Really? I thought this was probably the least strange thing we've done since we met." "No, I mean this cabin, something seems very, I dunno, medieval." "Well it is a log cabin in the middle of the woods, it isn't like it's going to have the amenities of the modern world." "Yeah, but have you noticed the decorations? A shield and a sword are hanging over on that wall along with a small banner of some sort. Over there in that corner is a set of spears. There also a lot of furs just laying around." "Maybe the guy that lives here is a historical buff on top of being a hunter. You know, trying to live the way they did back in the old days." "Yeah, well I've never seen something like that either. Look." "What? That's just a deer's head...oh what the hell? That's fucking hideous looking." You say just noticing the head of some very furry creature with far too many teeth mounted on the wall. It doesn't look like anything you've ever seen on those nature or animal shows. You shiver a bit looking at the damn thing causing Jack to give you a bit of a squeeze. "Ugh, I don't want to look at that thing. What is it?" you say. "That's what I'm saying, I dunno. I mean a lot of this shit looks familiar, but seeing something like makes me less sure." "What are you saying?" "I dunno. I mean I'm wondering if we're even on our world." In all the worrying about freezing to death, you suppose it never occurred that might not actually be on Earth. "You think the Gray Building sent us to a different dimension or something?" "I have no idea, but with that thing it's not out of the realm of possibility. I mean you told me yourself you experienced reality weirdness when you were speaking with that bald guy." "Yeah, that's true...shit. We might be in some real trouble." "Well, in the chance that we are on another world, I'd say we can at least look on the bright side that we aren't going to get nuked any time soon." "Heh, always looking on the bright side." "Did it charm you this time?" "A little bit." You say with a smile. After warming up completely, you and Jack explore the cabin a little more in detail, which doesn't take too long considering it's not excessively big. Some of that exploration includes raiding the foodstuff stored in the cabinets and the actual stew that's in the hanging pot over the fire. All you find to drink is water and some sort of sweet alcohol. Jack says that's probably mead. One of the more important things you find is a small pouch of coins. A few are gold, some are silver and a lot of them are copper. You also find a few books, but they're in some sort of language you don't understand. The last thing you discover is a trap door near the bed to a small root cellar where there is more food and water stored. Looks like you might be okay if you have to stay here awhile at least. The only short term major concern is a toilet at which point Jack points that while it's possible there is an outhouse you missed somewhere in the area, you both might have to be roughing that in the cold air of nature. You're not looking forward to either possibility. You remark about how this place reminds you of something from a video game you played on your computer, which only cements Jack's view that you're possibly not on your world any longer, or at best you've been transported back in time on earth to who knows where. That thing's head on the wall seems to favor the former though. Eventually though as the night moves on, you start to get tired again, but this time you're not in danger of dying of hypothermia. It's soon pointed out that there is only one bed. "Well I guess I'll let you take the bed." Jack says. "Actually I want to sleep by the fire, I'm just going to grab some more of those furs to sleep on. You can take the bed, or if you really want to, sleep with me by the fire." You say. "Well that's no choice at all, of course I'm going to sleep with you by the fire." Jack says. "Fine with me, as long as you know I'm just using you for your warm body." You reply with a smile. "Well, just respect me in the morning." Jack smiles back. "Um, speaking of that. Do you think we should be worried that the owner will be coming back at some point?" "Probably, but if someone comes knocking on the door, it isn't like we're weaponless." "True, okay let's try to get some rest and figure out what we're going to do tomorrow." You and Jack lay down several furs on the floor and settle in to sleep. Despite this situation not exactly being the best, you both at least enjoy the closeness of each other. > Next day… You wake up feeling slightly colder than you did last night, though it's probably because the fire has died down a little and Jack is no longer spooning you. A quick look around though shows that he's still here. He notices that you're up. "Well good morning sunshine." He says sitting at a table with a candle burning. "What time is it?" you ask, not thinking. "Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd say it's still morning, maybe the afternoon. In any case it's daytime the last time I looked outside." "Oh right. No modern luxuries. Is that one of those books we found yesterday?" you ask. "Oh yeah. I was trying to read or at least understand any of it." "You a linguist?" "Eh, not really. I mean I have studied a few languages from time to time for my own reasons and in a couple cases thanks to the Gray Building weirdness I had to learn some new ones, but it isn't like I had any formal training on the matter." "You understand any of it?" "Not excessively so, but I only really started. I get the impression whoever lives here is a fur trader. Some of this book isn't doesn't really consist of words as it's a list of numerical symbols and totals. Fortunately those are universal. It would also explain the large amounts of furs piled up and this..." Jack says picking up the pouch of coins. "...I would imagine is their life savings." "So you still think we're in a different world?" "I dunno. As I mentioned I've looked outside while you were asleep, and wandered the area a bit. Not too far, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary save for trees, snow and a few white rabbits bouncing around. I mean that ugly head on the wall is the only thing I've seen so far that's out of the ordinary. I will say that the presence of books at least shows writing and probably literature exists. The coins imply some sort of economy system. So civilization here exists, but of course who knows what said civilization is like." "You said you thought it was a medieval one." "Yeah, and I'm still holding on to that belief, of course it's possible that maybe we're just in a less advanced area. For all we know there are people whizzing around in jetpacks elsewhere." Jack says and then snaps his fingers. "Oh I did see an outhouse. It's not excessively far; we just never saw it yesterday due to the direction we came from. Well that and paying more attention to wanting to get into this cabin. You'll happy to know it's not even a disgusting diarrhea sprayed mess or overly foul smelling. The cold climate probably helps on that aspect. There's even a roll of paper in there. Um, it's not exactly the softest stuff though, and you'll have to clean your hands in the snow." "Lovely. Definitely not looking forward to the experience. So you see anything else of note on your outdoor adventures?" "I noticed foot prints going from this cabin and heading towards the east. I imagine they're from the boots of the person who lives here. I've seen the same foot prints all over this immediate area, but those were going somewhere with a purpose rather than milling about taking care of every day chores around here I imagine." "Wow, you're tracker too huh? You really do know a little bit of everything." You say. "I wouldn't say I'm a tracker, I'm just sort of making guesses in the scheme of things. I just saw the prints in the snow and made the conclusion." "You think the person living here is coming back?" you ask. "I dunno. I mean it's possible, but I'm wondering if this place was abandoned. Seems like the door would have been locked. Of course the door can only be barred from the inside, so maybe that's unavoidable and there generally aren't many people wandering around here to worry about locks. Still, it seems like they would have hidden their pouch of coins better or even taken them with them. You nod and there is a silent pause in the conversation. You look back at the fire and Jack goes back to looking at the book. Probably the pair of you are wondering what the hell you're going to do now. At least you are. Jack seems like he's trying his hardest to make sense of everything and that's certainly a good thing. You can't help but think maybe you're not pulling your weight as much as you can though, it's just you don't know what you're supposed to be doing. It isn't like you've ever been in a situation like this before. So far you've just been trying to make the concentrated effort of not falling apart and giving in to despair because you get the impression no matter what happens, from here on out your life is going to be very different. "I know how to sew." You suddenly blurt out. "What?" Jack responds. "I know how to sew, I mean I haven't done it ever since my mother died, but you never forget something like that completely I suppose. My mother was the one who taught me, which is why I just sort of lost interest in it when she died." You say. "Well that's an interesting little fact you never told me about yourself when you were talking about your family before. What made you bring it up?" "Our situation I suppose. I mean I suppose at some point we're going to need new clothes. I've never sewn furs together, but I suppose I'll figure it out. I guess I just want to let you know I'm not completely useless and I will be contributing to our survival out here. I mean I'll chop wood and learn to hunt and whatever else we need to do together." "Suzy, you're stressing about this too much. I mean yes, this situation isn't the best, but trust me I'm just as worried if I'M going to be useful at all in this situation. I mean it's only thanks to all the past weirdness I had to deal with due to that Gray Building that I even have some of the basic knowledge I have of various things and a good portion of that probably isn't even going to be useful here." Jack gets up and goes over to sit with you and he takes your hand. "When it's all said and done. We're both a pair of basement dwellers and neither one of us was truly prepared for this, but we're still going to get through it. I mean I like to think I'm a survivor on some level. And you, well I think you've more than proven to be one. I know you think it's all just been luck or coincidence in that regard, but hell, maybe there's a reason. Maybe there's a reason for all this." "You think so? You believe that all this is part of some plan?" "I dunno. Maybe it's just a bunch of shit that happened. Still doesn't mean we aren't going to get through this." You look into Jack's eyes and you take the initiative and kiss him full on the mouth. He reciprocates your affection, but you're getting the strong impression that you might be the experienced one here. And then something urgent breaks up the moment. "Damn it." You say. "What? Did I do something wrong?" Jack asks. "No. That thing that I wasn't looking forward to has finally arrived." "Wha...Oh. That. Um, well did you want me to come with you?" "You're going to watch me go to the bathroom? Freak." "No! I meant did you want me to come with you to show you the way or extra protection." "I know what you meant, just joking. Yeah, I suppose you should come with me so you can at least show me where it is. Knowing me, I'd end up getting lost on the way there. Well alright come on, let's go get this over with." You say getting up. Remembering how cold it is out there, you grab a couple of the furs to wrap around you so you're at least better protected this time. You go to grab your bat, but then you think if you shouldn't take one of those spears instead. > You take the bat You've never used a spear before, so you aren't even sure if you'd use something like that effectively. Better to stick with something you're used to. Jack puts on one of the furs as well and grabs his axe and the pair of you are out the door. The sun shines down and you feel the cold wind blow. "Shit, even with these furs on I forgot how cold it was." You say. "We'll get another big fire started when we get back." Jack says. "I'll look forward to it, so which way?" "Oh to the left and then past some trees, it's not hard to find." You and Jack make your way to the infamous outhouse. You both look around periodically, but see nothing dangerous. Eventually you get to your goal and it looks exactly like you thought it would. "Well this is it." You say. "I'll be out here. Keeping a look out." Jack responds. You enter the outhouse and endure the unavoidable. Thankfully Jack makes no attempt to speak to you while you're inside. Eventually you come out and start putting your hands in the snow. Jack watches you and then goes back to looking around. "Well, wasn't as bad as I thought, I'm still missing modern plumbing though. Wish we had soap too." You say. "I guess if you want to sanitize your hands even more I suppose you could pour some of that mead we have at the cabin on them." "Will that work?" "It's got alcohol in it, I assume it can't hurt. You ready to go?" "Yeah, you see anything out here?" "Nah, just a few more of those white rabbits I always see hopping around." As you and Jack make your way back to the cabin, you and he speak on if either one of you knows anything about hunting. You of course know nothing, Jack says he's not much better, though he thinks maybe you both could start making simple traps or something, especially given that there are obviously rabbits around here to be caught. "Wish we had the Internet so we could at least look all this shit up. God, I really miss the Internet...I think this is the longest I've been without it and I suppose those days are over as well." You say as you approach the cabin. "Oh, you don't know. We're still just stuck out here in the wilderness, like I said, maybe there is Internet and hover cars somewhere else." "Love that optimism Jack..." you say chuckling and heading towards the door. "Hey Suzy, wait is that blood in the snow?" You and Jack both stop a few feet away from the cabin, you're still closest to the door, which suddenly swings open. Before you, you see a man with a good amount of facial hair and wearing several furs and clothing much more suited for this sort of weather. He's not completely standing upright, but is in a somewhat stooped position as if wounded which judging from the blood in the snow is probably the case. While it's difficult to tell his facial expression due to the hair, his eyes are wide as if he's surprised, desperate or possibly even afraid. Maybe a mixture of all three. The major thing you see however is the crossbow he's holding and pointing at you and Jack. The man shouts something at you in a language you don't understand and before you can duck or get out of the way he fires a bolt and at this range his aim is still sound. You feel the piecing object go into your heart and you fall to the ground. Jack screams your name and attacks the man who is desperately attempting to reload his crossbow. You however never know if Jack avenges your death.

[Themes: modern, humor, female protagonist, romance] You wake up feeling slightly colder than you did last night, though it's probably because the fire has died down a little and Jack is no longer spooning you. A quick look around though shows that he's still here. He notices that you're up. "Well good morning sunshine." He says sitting at a table with a candle burning. "What time is it?" you ask, not thinking. "Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd say it's still morning, maybe the afternoon. In any case it's daytime the last time I looked outside." "Oh right. No modern luxuries. Is that one of those books we found yesterday?" you ask. "Oh yeah. I was trying to read or at least understand any of it." "You a linguist?" "Eh, not really. I mean I have studied a few languages from time to time for my own reasons and in a couple cases thanks to the Gray Building weirdness I had to learn some new ones, but it isn't like I had any formal training on the matter." "You understand any of it?" "Not excessively so, but I only really started. I get the impression whoever lives here is a fur trader. Some of this book isn't doesn't really consist of words as it's a list of numerical symbols and totals. Fortunately those are universal. It would also explain the large amounts of furs piled up and this..." Jack says picking up the pouch of coins. "...I would imagine is their life savings." "So you still think we're in a different world?" "I dunno. As I mentioned I've looked outside while you were asleep, and wandered the area a bit. Not too far, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary save for trees, snow and a few white rabbits bouncing around. I mean that ugly head on the wall is the only thing I've seen so far that's out of the ordinary. I will say that the presence of books at least shows writing and probably literature exists. The coins imply some sort of economy system. So civilization here exists, but of course who knows what said civilization is like." "You said you thought it was a medieval one." "Yeah, and I'm still holding on to that belief, of course it's possible that maybe we're just in a less advanced area. For all we know there are people whizzing around in jetpacks elsewhere." Jack says and then snaps his fingers. "Oh I did see an outhouse. It's not excessively far; we just never saw it yesterday due to the direction we came from. Well that and paying more attention to wanting to get into this cabin. You'll happy to know it's not even a disgusting diarrhea sprayed mess or overly foul smelling. The cold climate probably helps on that aspect. There's even a roll of paper in there. Um, it's not exactly the softest stuff though, and you'll have to clean your hands in the snow." "Lovely. Definitely not looking forward to the experience. So you see anything else of note on your outdoor adventures?" "I noticed foot prints going from this cabin and heading towards the east. I imagine they're from the boots of the person who lives here. I've seen the same foot prints all over this immediate area, but those were going somewhere with a purpose rather than milling about taking care of every day chores around here I imagine." "Wow, you're tracker too huh? You really do know a little bit of everything." You say. "I wouldn't say I'm a tracker, I'm just sort of making guesses in the scheme of things. I just saw the prints in the snow and made the conclusion." "You think the person living here is coming back?" you ask. "I dunno. I mean it's possible, but I'm wondering if this place was abandoned. Seems like the door would have been locked. Of course the door can only be barred from the inside, so maybe that's unavoidable and there generally aren't many people wandering around here to worry about locks. Still, it seems like they would have hidden their pouch of coins better or even taken them with them. You nod and there is a silent pause in the conversation. You look back at the fire and Jack goes back to looking at the book. Probably the pair of you are wondering what the hell you're going to do now. At least you are. Jack seems like he's trying his hardest to make sense of everything and that's certainly a good thing. You can't help but think maybe you're not pulling your weight as much as you can though, it's just you don't know what you're supposed to be doing. It isn't like you've ever been in a situation like this before. So far you've just been trying to make the concentrated effort of not falling apart and giving in to despair because you get the impression no matter what happens, from here on out your life is going to be very different. "I know how to sew." You suddenly blurt out. "What?" Jack responds. "I know how to sew, I mean I haven't done it ever since my mother died, but you never forget something like that completely I suppose. My mother was the one who taught me, which is why I just sort of lost interest in it when she died." You say. "Well that's an interesting little fact you never told me about yourself when you were talking about your family before. What made you bring it up?" "Our situation I suppose. I mean I suppose at some point we're going to need new clothes. I've never sewn furs together, but I suppose I'll figure it out. I guess I just want to let you know I'm not completely useless and I will be contributing to our survival out here. I mean I'll chop wood and learn to hunt and whatever else we need to do together." "Suzy, you're stressing about this too much. I mean yes, this situation isn't the best, but trust me I'm just as worried if I'M going to be useful at all in this situation. I mean it's only thanks to all the past weirdness I had to deal with due to that Gray Building that I even have some of the basic knowledge I have of various things and a good portion of that probably isn't even going to be useful here." Jack gets up and goes over to sit with you and he takes your hand. "When it's all said and done. We're both a pair of basement dwellers and neither one of us was truly prepared for this, but we're still going to get through it. I mean I like to think I'm a survivor on some level. And you, well I think you've more than proven to be one. I know you think it's all just been luck or coincidence in that regard, but hell, maybe there's a reason. Maybe there's a reason for all this." "You think so? You believe that all this is part of some plan?" "I dunno. Maybe it's just a bunch of shit that happened. Still doesn't mean we aren't going to get through this." You look into Jack's eyes and you take the initiative and kiss him full on the mouth. He reciprocates your affection, but you're getting the strong impression that you might be the experienced one here. And then something urgent breaks up the moment. "Damn it." You say. "What? Did I do something wrong?" Jack asks. "No. That thing that I wasn't looking forward to has finally arrived." "Wha...Oh. That. Um, well did you want me to come with you?" "You're going to watch me go to the bathroom? Freak." "No! I meant did you want me to come with you to show you the way or extra protection." "I know what you meant, just joking. Yeah, I suppose you should come with me so you can at least show me where it is. Knowing me, I'd end up getting lost on the way there. Well alright come on, let's go get this over with." You say getting up. Remembering how cold it is out there, you grab a couple of the furs to wrap around you so you're at least better protected this time. You go to grab your bat, but then you think if you shouldn't take one of those spears instead. > You take the spear "Hey Jack, is that outhouse large enough to prop up a spear inside it?" "Um, I think so. Why? You taking one of those instead of the bat?" "Yeah, I was remembering something I watched once talking about how the spear was an easy weapon to learn how to use even for someone completely unskilled which is why it was used so much in ancient and medieval wars amongst infantry. I'm just thinking I'd probably want something like that with me instead of a bat if we encounter a bear or something I want to keep at a distance." Jack looks at you a bit impressed. "Well, look at you. Suzy, warrior princess over here. You said you didn't know anything." Jack says smiling. You take the spear and then look over at the shield. "Jack, help me get that shield down from the wall." You say. "What?" Jack responds. "I want to take the shield with me too." "Suzy, you're just going to the bathroom, not to war!" "Hey you said it yourself, we still don't know what this place is all about and I want to feel as secure as possible, so if that means carrying around a shield, then that's what I'm going to do!" "...alright..." Jack says and then proceeds to grab the circular shield down from the wall and then hands it to you. The shield isn't light and is made of strong thick wood; you definitely feel the weight just holding the thing. "You sure you don't want the sword too?" Jack asks. "Nah, I think this is all I can carry. The shield is definitely heavier than I thought it would be." "I really don't think you're going to need that." Jack says wrapping a fur around himself and grabbing the axe he brought with him from the Gray Building. "And like I said, it makes me feel better. Come on let's go." Upon exiting the cabin you see the sun shining down and you feel the cold wind blow. "Shit, even with these furs on I forgot how cold it was." You say. "We'll get another big fire started when we get back." Jack says. "I'll look forward to it, so which way?" "Oh to the left and then past some trees, it's not hard to find." You and Jack make your way to the infamous outhouse. You both look around periodically, but see nothing dangerous. When Jack's not looking around, he's studying you. "So you ready to fight the Persians?" Jack asks with a smirk. "I dunno, but I have to say I do feel rather empowered." You reply. Eventually you get to your goal and it looks exactly like you thought it would. "Well this is it." You say unenthusiastically. "Your shield is going to be kind of bulky, leave it out here with me. Unless you plan on getting attacked from below and if that's the case, a shield isn't going to help." "Fuck, now I'm going to be worrying about something lurking down there and reaching up to grab me. Thanks a lot!" you say and give the shield to Jack. You enter the outhouse and endure the unavoidable. Thankfully Jack makes no attempt to speak or make jokes to you while you're inside. Eventually you come out and start putting your hands in the snow. Jack watches you and then goes back to looking around. "Well, wasn't as bad as I thought, I'm still missing modern plumbing though. Wish we had soap too." You say. "I guess if you want to sanitize your hands even more I suppose you could pour some of that mead we have at the cabin on them." "Will that work?" "It's got alcohol in it, I assume it can't hurt. You ready to go Valkyrie?" Jack asks and hands you back your shield. "Yeah, you see anything out here?" "Nah, just a few more of those white rabbits I always see hopping around." As you and Jack make your way back to the cabin, you and he speak on if either one of you knows anything about hunting. You of course know nothing, Jack says he's not much better, though he thinks maybe you both could start making simple traps or something, especially given that there are obviously rabbits around here to be caught. "Wish we had the Internet so we could at least look all this shit up. God, I really miss the Internet...I think this is the longest I've been without it and I suppose those days are over as well." You say as you approach the cabin. "Oh, you don't know. We're still just stuck out here in the wilderness, like I said, maybe there is Internet and hover cars somewhere else." "Love that optimism Jack..." you say chuckling and heading towards the door. "Hey Suzy, wait is that blood in the snow?" You and Jack both stop a few feet away from the cabin, you're still closest to the door, which suddenly swings open, instinctively you put the shield up to cover yourself as much as you can. Before you, you see a man with a good amount of facial hair and wearing several furs and clothing much more suited for this sort of weather. He's not completely standing upright, but is in a somewhat stooped position as if wounded which judging from the blood in the snow is probably the case. While it's difficult to tell his facial expression due to the hair, his eyes are wide as if he's surprised, desperate or possibly even afraid. Maybe a mixture of all three. The major thing you see however is the crossbow he's holding and pointing at you and Jack. The man shouts something at you in a language you don't understand and fires, but fortunately you had the shield in front of you and the bolt is prevented from hitting your body and merely goes stops half way through the shield instead. There is the smallest pause in this encounter where you realize that you just came close to being killed again, Jack realizing you nearly came close to being killed and the man realizing he's failed to kill you. The man quickly backs inside and hastily attempts to reload his crossbow, meanwhile you don't think about your near death experience and just act. You charge forward with the shield up and the spear out. You even start screaming like you're in an action movie. Your charge is stopped when you hit the man full on. The spear sinks into his body and he cries out in pain dropping the crossbow. You attempt to pull the spear as hard as you can back out, but it isn't easy because the man keeps you from doing so by gripping the top of the shaft and the man still has enough strength to grab the knife on his side with his other hand. Fortunately he can't quite reach you and swings helplessly with one hand. Since you can't pull the spear out, you instead start wiggling it to the left and right no doubt adding to the pain as well as internal organ damage. The man once again screams in agony and lets go of the spear allowing you to pull it out. He falls to the floor. Jack who was having difficulty in getting around you before finally succeeds so he can get in closer to swing his axe down at the man on the floor. "Suzy, hang on I can...agh!" Jack exclaims as the man desperately slashes at the closest leg to him with his knife, which happened to be Jack's. This causes Jack to reel back and nearly stumble into the fireplace. Fortunately he only falls into a small pile of logs for the fireplace. You press your advantage by stepping up and attempting to plunge the spear into the man's neck, but he manages to dodge and you only hit the floor. He grabs the shaft of the spear again in an attempt to keep you from using it. He's got a weak one-handed grasp though. > You pull the spear With as much strength as you can, you pull the spear from the man's grasp. It puts you a little off balance, which is enough for the man with his other hand to swing his with the knife and plunge it into your foot before pulling it out again. You scream in pain and lose complete balance and fall to the floor dropping your spear. Jack has recovered by this point to help, but the man sits up and throws his knife into Jack's stomach. Jack falls to the floor, dropping his axe and stopped from being able to help you. Meanwhile you're attempting to recover from your wounded foot, and sit up just in time to see the man stagger and stumble over to pick up the spear. Upon seeing how severely wounded Jack is, and your own injury you begin to panic. Not enough to run, but also not enough to make the best decisions. You limp over to the man in an attempt to cave his head in with the shield, but thanks to your foot, you aren't really the fastest. The man dodges your attempt by falling back to the floor, but with the spear now in his hand, from his prone position he manages to thrust it into your side. You cry out and fall. The agony of your wounds is overwhelming now and you can barely stand it. Actually you can't stand it at all and your body feels like it's going into shock, like all the energy is leaving you. You weakly attempt to put your shield up to defend yourself when you see the man hover above you, but you don't have the strength just tears. He knocks the shield aside and finishes you off by spearing your throat.

[Themes: modern, serious, post-apocalyptic] "Hey Jack, is that outhouse large enough to prop up a spear inside it?" "Um, I think so. Why? You taking one of those instead of the bat?" "Yeah, I was remembering something I watched once talking about how the spear was an easy weapon to learn how to use even for someone completely unskilled which is why it was used so much in ancient and medieval wars amongst infantry. I'm just thinking I'd probably want something like that with me instead of a bat if we encounter a bear or something I want to keep at a distance." Jack looks at you a bit impressed. "Well, look at you. Suzy, warrior princess over here. You said you didn't know anything." Jack says smiling. You take the spear and then look over at the shield. "Jack, help me get that shield down from the wall." You say. "What?" Jack responds. "I want to take the shield with me too." "Suzy, you're just going to the bathroom, not to war!" "Hey you said it yourself, we still don't know what this place is all about and I want to feel as secure as possible, so if that means carrying around a shield, then that's what I'm going to do!" "...alright..." Jack says and then proceeds to grab the circular shield down from the wall and then hands it to you. The shield isn't light and is made of strong thick wood; you definitely feel the weight just holding the thing. "You sure you don't want the sword too?" Jack asks. "Nah, I think this is all I can carry. The shield is definitely heavier than I thought it would be." "I really don't think you're going to need that." Jack says wrapping a fur around himself and grabbing the axe he brought with him from the Gray Building. "And like I said, it makes me feel better. Come on let's go." Upon exiting the cabin you see the sun shining down and you feel the cold wind blow. "Shit, even with these furs on I forgot how cold it was." You say. "We'll get another big fire started when we get back." Jack says. "I'll look forward to it, so which way?" "Oh to the left and then past some trees, it's not hard to find." You and Jack make your way to the infamous outhouse. You both look around periodically, but see nothing dangerous. When Jack's not looking around, he's studying you. "So you ready to fight the Persians?" Jack asks with a smirk. "I dunno, but I have to say I do feel rather empowered." You reply. Eventually you get to your goal and it looks exactly like you thought it would. "Well this is it." You say unenthusiastically. "Your shield is going to be kind of bulky, leave it out here with me. Unless you plan on getting attacked from below and if that's the case, a shield isn't going to help." "Fuck, now I'm going to be worrying about something lurking down there and reaching up to grab me. Thanks a lot!" you say and give the shield to Jack. You enter the outhouse and endure the unavoidable. Thankfully Jack makes no attempt to speak or make jokes to you while you're inside. Eventually you come out and start putting your hands in the snow. Jack watches you and then goes back to looking around. "Well, wasn't as bad as I thought, I'm still missing modern plumbing though. Wish we had soap too." You say. "I guess if you want to sanitize your hands even more I suppose you could pour some of that mead we have at the cabin on them." "Will that work?" "It's got alcohol in it, I assume it can't hurt. You ready to go Valkyrie?" Jack asks and hands you back your shield. "Yeah, you see anything out here?" "Nah, just a few more of those white rabbits I always see hopping around." As you and Jack make your way back to the cabin, you and he speak on if either one of you knows anything about hunting. You of course know nothing, Jack says he's not much better, though he thinks maybe you both could start making simple traps or something, especially given that there are obviously rabbits around here to be caught. "Wish we had the Internet so we could at least look all this shit up. God, I really miss the Internet...I think this is the longest I've been without it and I suppose those days are over as well." You say as you approach the cabin. "Oh, you don't know. We're still just stuck out here in the wilderness, like I said, maybe there is Internet and hover cars somewhere else." "Love that optimism Jack..." you say chuckling and heading towards the door. "Hey Suzy, wait is that blood in the snow?" You and Jack both stop a few feet away from the cabin, you're still closest to the door, which suddenly swings open, instinctively you put the shield up to cover yourself as much as you can. Before you, you see a man with a good amount of facial hair and wearing several furs and clothing much more suited for this sort of weather. He's not completely standing upright, but is in a somewhat stooped position as if wounded which judging from the blood in the snow is probably the case. While it's difficult to tell his facial expression due to the hair, his eyes are wide as if he's surprised, desperate or possibly even afraid. Maybe a mixture of all three. The major thing you see however is the crossbow he's holding and pointing at you and Jack. The man shouts something at you in a language you don't understand and fires, but fortunately you had the shield in front of you and the bolt is prevented from hitting your body and merely goes stops half way through the shield instead. There is the smallest pause in this encounter where you realize that you just came close to being killed again, Jack realizing you nearly came close to being killed and the man realizing he's failed to kill you. The man quickly backs inside and hastily attempts to reload his crossbow, meanwhile you don't think about your near death experience and just act. You charge forward with the shield up and the spear out. You even start screaming like you're in an action movie. Your charge is stopped when you hit the man full on. The spear sinks into his body and he cries out in pain dropping the crossbow. You attempt to pull the spear as hard as you can back out, but it isn't easy because the man keeps you from doing so by gripping the top of the shaft and the man still has enough strength to grab the knife on his side with his other hand. Fortunately he can't quite reach you and swings helplessly with one hand. Since you can't pull the spear out, you instead start wiggling it to the left and right no doubt adding to the pain as well as internal organ damage. The man once again screams in agony and lets go of the spear allowing you to pull it out. He falls to the floor. Jack who was having difficulty in getting around you before finally succeeds so he can get in closer to swing his axe down at the man on the floor. "Suzy, hang on I can...agh!" Jack exclaims as the man desperately slashes at the closest leg to him with his knife, which happened to be Jack's. This causes Jack to reel back and nearly stumble into the fireplace. Fortunately he only falls into a small pile of logs for the fireplace. You press your advantage by stepping up and attempting to plunge the spear into the man's neck, but he manages to dodge and you only hit the floor. He grabs the shaft of the spear again in an attempt to keep you from using it. He's got a weak one-handed grasp though. > You drop the shield on him Thinking unconventionally and with a bit of a heft from your shield arm, you drop your shield on the man's body. He isn't expecting the sudden weight smashed into him and expects it even less when you decide to jump on top of the shield, putting more crushing weight on his wounded torso. The man bellows and lets go of your spear. He doesn't even have the energy to do anything with his other hand holding the knife. You quickly lift the spear from its original position and looking directly into his eyes, you thrust it directly into his throat and twist. The man makes sickening gurgling sounds as blood comes from his mouth and neck, his eyes bulge and his body convulses for a few seconds and then stops. Meanwhile, you're breathing heavily and just staring at the body. "Suzy? Suzy? You alright?" Jack asks. "Huh? Yeah...I just...I just killed a man. Never did that before...well not directly I suppose." You say and step down from the shield and the dead man's body. Jack limps over to close the door and then over to you. "You...you sure you've never fought before? I mean it all happened so fast, but you seemed to just suddenly go into some sort of warrior mode." "I dunno. Something just clicked inside my head. Can't explain it myself either. Maybe it was just a fight or flight response and I've been sick of running lately. This guy was trying to kill us and I had no choice but to kill him." "Well it was certainly one of those situations." "Yeah...I guess. Is your leg okay?" you say moving your shield off the body. "Yeah, It's superficial, I guess I better clean it out with alcohol and wrap it up though. I think I saw a roll of linen wrap in one of those drawers." "Looks like that's what this guy was attempting to do too because the wrap you mentioned is right there on the table along with an open jar and a big pouch. This guy was obviously already hurt when we found him. Look there." You say and point at the man who you now notice has an ugly gash on his arm that looks like some green stuff was smeared on it. You lift up a few more of the furs on his body and notice another wound on his side as well. You weren't responsible for either of those. Jack goes over to get the wrap and inspect the open jar. "I think this might be some sort of ointment. Smells awful and has the same green color on his wounded arm. This pouch looks like it has more of his items. I'm going to take a look." Jack says. While Jack goes through the dead man's bag, you decide to directly search the body. You don't find anything though except a half full quiver of crossbow bolts and his fur clothing, which you start taking off of him. "Suzy, what are you doing?" Jack asks when he sees you stripping the dead man. "I'm looting his corpse. So far this is the only set of proper clothing we have for this sort of weather. Might as well keep some of it, we can always get the blood out and I can sew up the holes later. The boots alone should be worth keeping." You say. "...well I suppose you're right. You need any help?" Jack asks. "Nah, I got it. Just patch up your leg." You say. While Jack does just that, you proceed with your task. By the time you get the man down to his raggedy loincloth, you temporarily stop to just look at the body, exhale and rub your hand over your face. "Not a pretty sight from here either." Jack says. "No, it's not that. It's the fact that I've just realized that I've been sitting here stealing a dead man's clothes and I don't feel bad about it. And even coming to that conclusion, I STILL don't feel bad about it. It's like nothing." "Well I admit, this is sort of fucked up, but he did attack us first." "The thing is though is we're the trespassers. I mean he owned this place. Probably built it with his own fucking hands. From his perspective and any right thinking person's, he had the damn right to try to kill us. I know if someone invaded my home I wouldn't like it. We just stumbled in and started going through his shit and stealing it." You say. "We needed to survive." Jack says. "I'm not debating that. I just...well...does this make us evil? Because if it does, I have to say, I'm perfectly fine with that and that's probably a scariest thing I've just learned about myself this week and the funniest too, because I can also honestly say killing this guy was one of the highest points of motivation I've ever had and that includes all the times I was running for my life this week and especially attempting to get a job in a shitty comic shop." you say. Jack doesn't respond, he just sort of looks down and then away, going back to wrapping his leg. You stand up and grab the man by his feet. "Jack can you get the door?" you say. "Yeah, and don't try to drag him by yourself, I'll help." Jack replies as he heads over to the door. "It's okay. I got it. Just get that fire going while I'm dragging his body out into the wilderness." You say. "Suzy, we're in this together. I'll help you." Jack says. "Yeah, you're right. Grab the other leg after you open the door." You respond. You and Jack drag the body into the wilderness. You make a mention that maybe you should bury it at some point, but as long as it's immediately out of sight and away from the cabin, it's good enough where it is. The pair of you then quickly make your way back hoping nobody else has shown up at your home. Which is certainly what it is now considering you just killed the owner. You're still feeling a bit numb about that. When you're back inside the cabin, Jack speaks up again. "Just for the record, I don't think we're evil." Jack says. "Well evil people don't tend to think they are." You answer with a minor chuckle. "I dunno about that, there are tons of evil bastards that revel in their evilness. I mean I'll admit I feel a little bad about what we did, but I just don't want you to beat yourself up about what happened too much. It's done." "I'm not. That's sort of my point and why I was wondering if I was evil in the first place, but you're right. It wasn't something to brag about, but it's done and there's no point in worrying about it." You close the door and bar it. "I'm a little tired. I'm going to go lay down on the bed." You say. "Okay, I'll get this fire going like I planned to do before all this happened. I'll clean up some of the mess around here too." Jack replies. You get on the simple bed, which is basically made up of straw, animal skin and furs. It's not a sofa, but it's all the comfort you're going to have in the near future. Even though you already talked about this with Jack, you still can't help but go back to it. You start wondering if there is something genetically wrong inside your head and part of you takes after your uncle Ed, or maybe if when you went through all that shit in the Gray Building you "lost" part of yourself somehow. Then you start wondering if maybe it was just a desperate situation and in such times, people do desperate things even if they normally wouldn't have done so. Like Jack said, you are trying to survive and like you said, that man was going to kill you and you had to prevent that from happening. It's as good as a rationalization as any. Jack seems to be fine with it and you are too. You sit up slightly from your position and watch Jack clean up the place and stoke the fire. It's weird to think you met this guy in a comic shop and here you are with him who knows where. You've had more adventures with him this week than you ever had with anyone else. And that includes Bobby because it wasn't like the two of you ever went anywhere. As you think on these things, your hands start to wander and you feel a lump in your pocket which you forgot being there. You half expect it to be your dead cell phone, but what it is, is the thousand dollars and the car keys Jack gave you. "Heh, I forgot these were even in my pocket. Guess we have another reminder of the old world." You say jingling the keys a bit at Jack. "Sadly, I doubt if all that cash is going to be useful here, well except for kindling." Jack replies "Well at least the keys can be a reminder of your first gift ever to me." You respond. "Great. My first gift to you was a car and a thousand dollars. That's going to be tough to top now." Jack says. "Actually I got an idea of how you might be able to match it. Jack, stop cleaning up, I want you over here." You say. "What's wrong?" "Nothing's wrong. I'm just remembering earlier that we were in middle of something, and I'm thinking we need to get back to that again." "Wha...oh..." Jack says suddenly getting it when you start taking your clothes off. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get your clothes off." You say. "Suzy, we don't need to do this you know. I'm perfectly fine waiting." Jack says. "Yeah, well I'm not. It's been a while and I haven't even been able to set time aside for splittin' the kitten so this is as much for me as it is for you. Besides, after surviving the week we've both had, I think we should have a little celebration don't you think? What the fuck else do we have to do?" you say. Jack doesn't respond, he just starts taking his clothes off a bit shyly. It's at that moment you remember the fact that he seemed a little inexperienced when you were kissing him earlier. "Jack, you don't need to be nervous around me. We can start off slow if we need to and I'm not going to judge. It's just me and you okay? Just like it's been all this week." "Okay. I just...I'm...I'm a..." "I know and it's fine, just come over to me." You say reassuringly. It isn't long before Jack and you are both on the bed naked. Just as you said, you take it a bit slow with him. Feels a little weird being the "aggressive" one, but there certainly is a part of you that's enjoying the role. You're in the middle of it, when Jack says something that makes things slightly odd. "I love you Suzy." He says. "... I... love you Jack..." you answer back. Well, maybe it isn't TOO odd, considering you're probably the only girl Jack has ever been with and spent any long amount of time with too. In fact you sort of wonder why you even hesitated to say it back, after all, you are fond of him and you've had a budding relationship with Jack all this week. You just suppose that "love" hasn't really been in your mind since you broke up with Bobby. Still, it's a nice feeling after all the shit that's happened this week. Afterwards, you and Jack hold each other and generally talk about shit that doesn't pertain to your immediate situation. There is much that will have to be done, but for now the pair of you are enjoying shutting out the outside world. Just like when you two were living in the basement. Day eventually becomes night and the pair of you turn in a little earlier than usual. > Next day… You groggily wake up and see Jack over at the table like he was the last time you woke up in this place. He looks like he's studying a piece of paper and doesn't notice you waken immediately this time. After sitting up, you call out to him. "Hey, cunninglinguist whatcha discover today?" you ask rubbing your eyes. "Oh hey, you're up. Just looking at this parchment that was in this large pouch here. It's a crude map from what I can tell." "A map? Well that's convenient. Anything good?" "Well I don't know all the symbols obviously, but I THINK this might lead to a couple towns. Some of these look like roads, I don't know though until we do some exploring." "Let's do it." You exclaim. "What right now?" "Sure. I mean we're going to have to at some point, might well start getting some of this shit out of the way." "Well okay, guess we better get dressed then." You nod and start grabbing your clothing. As much is you might like the furry boots, They're a little big on you. They're actually a little big on Jack too, but they at least fit him better, so he gets them. You both of you put on furs much like you did yesterday, then you grab your spear and shield. "I think I'll take that other spear. Seems like it worked for you yesterday." Jack mentions. "You sure you don't want to take the crossbow?" you ask. "If I knew how to use one properly, sure I'd take it. But I think I'm going to have to practice with something like that first. Seems slow to load and it won't do you any good if you're in trouble and I can't use it effectively. At least with this spear I can help you directly." "Yeah, good idea." After hiding a few of your more valuable items (Like your only pouch of coins) you both leave the cabin. "So which way should we go?" you ask. "Hmm, I'm thinking we should follow the tracks of the guy who lived here. They were going to the right before he came back. According to the map, there is a town in this direction. Or at least I think there is, guess we'll find out." "Okay." You and Jack head to the right. The occasional blood in the snow makes it pretty easy to follow them though the tracks have been partially covered by snow or stomped over already. "I'm thinking it was sort of a good thing that guy was wounded yesterday. He wasn't exactly easy to put down. I can't imagine the fight he would have put up if he had been at full strength." Jack says. "Yeah, but now I'm wondering what the hell he was fighting before he met us and how many." You respond. Eventually after a bit of traveling, you and Jack see something lying in the snow. It looks very large too. The pair of you cautiously approach. When you reach the body, you notice that it's a massive... creature with grayish blue skin and tusk like teeth. It's dressed in the barest of fur clothing and has several crossbow bolts and arrows in its body and face. You also see signs of deep cuts across its body. Next to its body is a large club, which resembles more of a broken tree branch rather than a proper weapon. However it would certainly kill someone if swung at them and judging by how massive this creature's muscles are, it looks more than capable of smashing someone's head in even without a club. The club has signs of blood on it. "Holy shit. What the fuck..." Jack says. "I think we just found what that guy was running from or limping away from rather. Must've been quite the fight." You say. "I think there is more stuff up ahead, well more blood anyway." You and Jack leave the creature's body behind and follow the rest of the blood trail noting a broken sword along the way. You soon find a second body, but this one looks human, or at least you guess it was, since the half of the head is caved in. Blood and brains are scattered about the snow. It's a pretty grisly sight, but you're long since desensitized by now. You see a bow nearby, but the body still clutches a bloody dagger in its hand. A fur hat also sits several paces away. You assume it probably was knocked off during the fight. "I guess this was his friend" Jack says. "I'm thinking it could have even been his girlfriend, smaller frame, even with the furs on I can see the chest is bigger. Long hair and from what I can tell of what's left of the face, it looks slightly female...is that ear pointed?" you say. "...yeah...that ear is definitely pointed." Jack says looking "What the hell, did we step into some sort of fantasy world?" "Your guess is as good as mine. Told you that Gray Building could have sent us any fucking where." You exhale, not quite knowing what to make of all this. "Let's keep going a bit further." You say. Jack and you press on, but you don't find any more signs of battle. You do eventually find that the wilderness ends and the edge of a road begins however. Sort of hard to tell due to the snow, but there definitely is a road here. Across the road are more trees. Sort of reminds you home that way. "Well I guess this is one of the roads, which means I guess I got something on this map correct at least. Looks like if we go south, we'll hit the closest town. Still looks quite the like a walk though." Jack responds. "Maybe we should cut the exploration trip a little short for today. Let's gather all that useful stuff from that battle scene and take it back to the cabin. We can certainly use some of it. The boots on that girl look like they would be more likely to fit me anyway and wearing something like those would be a hell of a lot more pleasant for walking around in." You say. "Okay, let's go back." You and Jack return to the battle scene and begin looting the dead girl first. Along with the furs and her weapons, you also find a nearly empty quiver of arrows and a small pouch similar to the one that the man had. You take a quick look inside and see several items for you to inspect when you're in the comfort of your much warmer cabin. When you and Jack are loaded up, you and he leave the dead woman mostly naked in the snow, much like you left the man and make your way back. Upon getting back to the body of the monster you attempt to pull out some of the bolts and arrows lodged in its body, but some are either partially broken off inside or just sunk in too deep and you're not willing to make the effort to hang around and pull out every single one. The monster itself wasn't carrying anything save for it's minimalistic fur cloth around it's waist and neither you or Jack are interested in taking it. Soon you both get back to the cabin where you drop your new loot and go warm up by the fire. The pair of you are silent as you sit, watching the flames flicker. Jack however breaks up the silence eventually. "So, you really think that woman was the owner's girlfriend?" Jack asks. "Maybe wife, I dunno how it works here. Seems like the logical conclusion though." You respond. "Just didn't notice a prominent second set of tracks around the cabin." "Well it has been snowing off and on, there is the wind to think of, not to mention animals running around. Maybe she was walking behind him so she didn't have to get her boots engulfed with snow. All sorts of reasons why you might not have noticed them. Don't worry about it. Besides, you said it yourself, you're not a tracker." "I suppose. I guess I just feel that missing a detail like that could be fatal given what we've experienced as well as seen." "Yeah, this does seem to be a pretty harsh place. Still don't know what the hell that blue gray thing was. Definitely want to avoid encountering those things though...and those." You say pointing to the ugly head on the wall. "I'll get rid of that thing later today. I know it bothers you." Jack says. "Nah, it can stay. I'm strangely sort of getting attached to Toothy over there." A pause of silence in the conversation follows before Jack speaks up again. "If that was his wife or girlfriend though, that's sort of fucked up that he just left her body like that." Jack says. "Well, it seems like that thing was still chasing him, maybe he didn't know if was dead or not and wanted to get to a place where he could better defend himself and heal a bit. He could have always returned for the body." You say. "Maybe. I just want you to know I'll never abandon you like that." Jack says causing you to chuckle. "Well that's sweet Jack, but if I already got my brains splattered on the ground and there's a hulking monster around by all means run your ass to safety. No point in both of us getting killed." You say. "I don't even want to think about something like that. I just...I can't imagine a life without you now." Jack responds and grabs your hand. "Well with as brutal as this place seems to be, you never know." "No, I can't think about such depressing thoughts. I love you too much." Jack's face displays one of concern, like he's worried you're going to die right this very second and he can't even bear the thought of you gone. It's apparent he's fallen for you a bit hard; perhaps a bit more than you've fallen for him, but you suppose it's better that he's like this rather than not giving a shit. You give him a reassuring hug. "Don't worry so much Jack, I'll try to last as long as I can in this world before the monsters get me." "No, you're going to survive. I bet you'll even survive longer than I will. You'll survive everything." Jack's confidence in you is a lot higher than your own though you have to admit, you've been doing pretty well so far. You're certainly not that "good girl" that hid from the rest of the world any longer. You have no idea what's in store for you or how you're going to deal with it, but whatever the future hold for you here, you will make your best attempt to survive and push through it. > … Eternal Mother The Future... It's a harsh world. "Number 660." Possibly more than your old one was, but you eventually learned how to deal with it. You even managed to make a proper life for yourself here despite all the trials and tribulations. You remember how hard that first year with Jack was. Struggling to survive, learning how to hunt, dealing with the elements, dealing with unfriendly people and creatures, and generally just being a "modern" person who didn't have too many survival skills to speak of and being thrust into a primitive environment. You think learning the language was the most difficult part. Jack was always a little better at it than you were. You probably still sound like a retard to some folks, but it gets the job done. "Number 661." During those early years you also ended up having to do a few things you never took pleasure in doing, but it was always it was always for survival. In those instances you were always a little better at that. Jack would definitely always support you, but then he loved you very much and would have followed you into the Gates of Hell. You suppose it did get to a point where rationalizations really didn't excuse what you did, but then you don't think you ever cared about those anyway. You were a woman who was willingly dating a human sacrificing cultist at one time after all. You smile upon thinking about your old flame. You think Bobby would have fit in very well in this world. Maybe to some extent, you did too. "Number 662." You think for a while you might have gotten a little colder and ruthless. Seemed like this was a place where the strong ruled over the weak and fuck you if you couldn't keep up. From what you could tell people here had three choices: Beg and hope their tormenters took mercy on them, which was almost never likely. Die and just roll over to accept death because it was preferable to keep living in this shitty world. Or struggle and fight tooth and nail for what little you actually did have. And in that case you either won or kept it, or you died and lost it. You know which one you chose. "Number 663." Things did change a little though when you had your first child. You never planned on ever having a family before, let alone one in a world like this one since it seemed more like a punishment than a blessing...but Jack always had a way of making you see the positive. You loved him for that. Another child followed and for a while it seemed like everything was going well. You had a loving family, a larger dwelling; you weren't struggling to survive any more. You even had another baby on the way and you didn't even mind it. Hell, you probably achieved quite a bit for a pair of former basement dwellers. You were starting almost feel "normal" or as normal as you could ever be or get in a place like this. And then just like everything in your life, it all eventually went to shit. "Number 664." While the occasional wandering ogres were certainly dangerous, they tended to stick a little further north. Other than that dead ogre you saw the first time you came here, you fortunately never encountered one in person again. The freedom fighting elves gave grief to the government, but never really made raids on civilian settlements. Indeed they tended to stay hidden. The barbarian tribes however were always an ongoing problem in Rask, but you always figured you were far enough away from them and you knew there was at least an Empire Fort in the area they would attack first before moving deeper into more "civilized" territory. Of course the Empire has always had a hard time maintaining order in this place. You suppose that was one of the upsides of living here, you didn't need to deal with the oppressive seemingly monolithic government that controls a vast amount of land here. But it was also a downside as you would soon experience one dreadful day and the fact it all happened in broad daylight does make it seem all the more horrible. A small group of seven barbarians from the Wendigo tribe suddenly attacked, possibly the most vicious of all the tribes in fact. They attacked without warning and so fast, that your two children were dead before you or Jack could even spur into action. While you and Jack had long been experienced in combat during your time here, you and he were no match for them or their numbers. Especially in your condition at the time. You sometimes wonder if a baby hadn't burdened you, you would have been able to at least save Jack. "Number 665." Before he tried to hold them off to give you time to run, you remember Jack's last words to you; Go. Our child needs to survive. YOU need to survive. You almost didn't want to. You almost wanted to meet death right there with him, but you think two things stopped you. One, your will to survive has always been stronger than your defeatism. And two, you loved Jack enough to honor his last request. You remember when you managed to get far enough away to the safety of a town; you broke down in tears and cried over him for at least a couple days. You still do sometimes. You miss him so much. Your eyes tear up a bit upon thinking about Jack and then you hear your number being called out. It's time to do this. Maybe you could look after this child, but it would be a struggle. A struggle you just can't do. Part of you feels like you're going back to your "old ways" by taking the easy way out, but you haven't come to this conclusion lightly. You stand up and make your way to the front of the long waiting room. A tired looking clerk behind a counter looks at you and the bundle you're carrying. "Name?" she asks. "Suzy McCray." You answer. "And I take it that this is the baby you wish to put into the care of the Empire?" "...Yes..." "Very well. Sign this, and you'll receive your payment." "I don't want payment." You say which causes a very confused look on the clerk's face. "Don't want payment? Well that's a first. We got some people here all the time bringing in babies. Probably stealing them in fact, but at least it's better than those dark elves do." "Well I don't want payment." "Well I'm sorry, but that's sort of a law. You have to take something." "Can't you just make sure that he'll be given a good home?" "I can't make that promise, I don't even do that process! I'm just a damn underpaid government drone. If you're so damn concerned about him, why the hell are you giving him away?" Just as you're about to yell at the clerk, another woman walks over. She has long white hair and very dark skin. She's very pretty. You wonder if this one of those svelk you've heard about. "Frieda, what's got you all flustered and generally acting like a typical monkey as usual?" she asks. "Huh? What the hell are you doing here? You slumming or something? Shouldn't you living the good life in the Emperor's Palace like my high and mighty brother?" "Jealousy is a terrible thing Frieda especially when I've spoken to Jacob on more occasions than I'd care to and I can honestly say you have nothing to be jealous about... but then neither would he. However, for your information I'm here on official business." "Hrm. Well good for you, now let me get back to my fucking job." At this point you intervene. "Look can we please get back to me?" Just as the clerk is about to say something. The svelk woman speaks out again. "Frieda. You're obviously burned out, why don't you let me take over for awhile?" "You? Working a lowly job like this?" "Sure, I'm no stranger in performing tasks nobody likes to do." "Fine by me. I'm going on a LONG break." She says and storms off leaving you and the svelk woman to talk. She smiles at you in an attempt to be friendly, but right now you just want this to be over with and you're starting to think this was a bad idea. "Don't pay any attention to her, I'm sure you have a very good reason for giving your child to the care of the Empire." The svelk says. "I don't want to, you know." You say. "I believe you. I don't think any mother truly ever wants to give up their child, but if I may ask, why are you doing it?" "It's just...(sniffle) I lost my husband and other children in a Wendigo raid and I barely have anything left. (sniffle) I can't take care of him the way I want to. I mean maybe I could try, but I just don't have the energy left in me to do it. I don't have the drive and if I do a half assed job of it and something happens to him because I can't do my fucking job, then I'm even shittier mother than I thought. I can't take another loss in my life." You say trying to keep it together. The svelk woman nods. "I see. I think I understand. So what is it that you were exactly arguing about before? I heard something about not wanting payment." "I don't, I'm not selling my baby for financial gain, I'll be fine. I'm giving him to the Empire because I'm hoping there is an off chance that the fucking government will do a better job at raising him or finding someone to raise him than I can because I'm too emotionally drained to do it any more." You say. "Well, I hate to destroy your hope, but many of the children put in the care of the Empire aren't exactly that much better off. In fact in some cases they might be worse and as for getting someone to adopt, well it's a possibility a good family will, but usually they're just passed off to anyone." "Great. So this has all been a waste of fucking time. Nice to know the Empire is fucking incompetent as well as being oppressive." To your surprise the svelk woman laughs a little. "You speak your mind. I like that. Hmm. Well, tell you what I CAN put him in the special E Wing." "What's that?" "Oh just a place where they often put unwanted babies from higher born families. Bastard children spawned by lust that would create social embarrassments, that sort of thing. Typically these children are very well looked after and special care is gone to make sure they aren't going to sweat shop owners or something equally hideous." "And he would get a good home?" "Well maybe, I should inform you though that it's still rare and if not adopted within a certain period of time the Empire still raises them directly. These children are typically raised to be officers and commanders in the military. Their training is severe, but the results create very well disciplined and skilled men and women...are you okay with your child possibly being given that sort of life?" You look down at your baby. He's been very quiet throughout all this. Hasn't cried once. Never been much of a crier really. It's odd. You begin to think about how harsh this world is, and maybe it would be best if your baby got that sort of life. At least he would be better able to survive this world. Much better odds than you can provide. You begin to sniffle and cry. You nod. "Okay (sob) okay. Do it. It's a better life than I can ever give him now. (sob)" "Very well. Let me have him." You reluctantly pass your baby to the svelk woman who smiles as she holds him. "I'm usually not fond of the way human babies look, but I have to admit, this one is sort of cute. What's his name?" "Name? Oh...yes. Well his name was the same as his father's middle name." you say and tell her your baby's name. "Hrm. Strange name, but then I've always found human names a bit weird." "Do I need to sign anything?" "Nah, I'll take care of this myself and have two of the best workers here take him to the appointed location. Contrary to the horrible lies about my people, we svelk cherish the lives of infants. You don't worry about this little one any longer, he's truly in good hands now and will either get a good home or receive the very best training the Empire can provide. You have my word and I say that as one of the Emperor's top advisors." "Goodbye." You say, tearfully waving at your baby one last time. The svelk woman holds your baby's hand up and makes a waving motion with it. You can't stay any longer and you leave the building as fast as you can. The streets of the capital are busy, but you still manage to find a secluded spot to release your anguish. You still don't know if you made the right decision, but it's done and now all you can do is hope. Eventually in time you manage to get over your loss and move on with your life. You've suffered much tragedy, but above all you've always been a survivor and you'll survive this too. Jack was right about that. as years always do and eventually you grow old. Much of the political climate changes within your lifetime, but as a fairly mundane citizen who never makes waves and knows how to keep out of the way during times of strife you're never ever in the middle of it. You spend your remaining years living day-to-day and occasionally brightening up you life by dwelling on happier times. When you finally die, it's not an important death, as you were never considered an important person. However you and your decisions probably made more of an impact on this world than anyone would ever really know. For it was your little Francis that grew up and became...

[Themes: modern, female protagonist, drama, romance, serious, post-apocalyptic] You wake up and find yourself on a small bed in a gray concrete room. There isn't much else in the room except a dresser and a lamp which is currently turned on. It almost feels like a cell except there is no door, just an entryway, which looks like it leads into a corridor. You sit up and find that you're still fully clothed, so either Jack isn't a serial killing rapist or he was enough of a gentleman to put your clothes back on exactly right after he was done and is now playing mind games with you. Your girl parts and ass don't feel sore and you don't have a bad taste in your mouth so you're guessing that you weren't violated in any way. (You hope) However the rest of your body certainly still aches from the kicks and physical abuse you took yesterday, but when you go to touch your head, you don't feel any bandages like you were expecting. In fact, you aren't even feeling any open wound that you're sure that you probably had. The side of your face doesn't feel to be scratched up either. Is Jack some sort of doctor? You check your phone which was still in your pocket to see if anyone tried to call you, but nobody has. You thought maybe Peter would have at least tried calling considering you had his car last. If you ever get back home, you can only imagine how pissed he's going to be when he finds out what happened to it. You sit in the bed for a while just wondering what exactly is going on and what you should do next. Honestly, you're drawing a blank. You had a plan, you tried to follow it and you thought you were succeeding and then it all went to shit yesterday. You're starting wonder if you're jinxed. While you could spend your whole time being introspective like you have so many times before, the fact remains that you don't know where the hell you are and where your "white knight" is. Jack seems like an okay guy, but you really don't know anything about him except that he's helped you out quite a bit which would probably make the average person feel grateful, instead it makes you a bit suspicious and this prison like interior isn't exactly helping. Still, you don't seem like you're being held captive either, so you take the opportunity to get up and leave your room. When you enter the corridor you see several other open entryways leading to more small rooms. Since the left part of the corridor looks like it ends at a solid wall, you go right. You peer into a few of these rooms as you pass by to find that they aren't really furnished, but rather hold several boxes and containers. Some of them do contain furniture; none of it is arranged in a useable way. In general everything is stacked or positioned to resemble a warehouse more than anything else. Maybe you are in some sort of warehouse, because so far the color of every walls you've seen is gray and they're concrete along with the floor and ceiling. Lights embedded in the ceiling provide illumination, but this whole place doesn't seem like a normal house of any kind, which you assumed Jack lived in, you guess not though. You pass a set of stairs leading up, so you're guessing you're on the ground floor, the way you're currently heading it looks like a large open room ahead. As you approach the large room, you start to hear noise. Sounds like it's coming from one the rooms ahead and to your right causing you to cautiously approach. You peek around the corner and see Jack occupied and messing about with some sort of large radio system along with a few monitors set up. You hear garbled transmissions, but some of it you're making out sounds military related, something about marshal law. "Well you don't need to spy on me, you're welcome to come in." Jack says without immediately looking in your direction. Apparently you're not as stealthy as you thought and Jack is very aware of his surroundings. "Didn't mean to spy, just wasn't sure who or what I'd be possibly bumping into after finding myself in a strange place." You say standing in the entryway. "Understandable. So I trust you're doing okay?" Jack asks while still messing about with his radio. "Yeah, I mean I still ache a bit, but I'm more or less fine. Hey you're not medically trained are you? Because I thought I'd have some bandages or something what with getting smacked with a brick and glass shattering on the side on my head." "Not professionally, but I used some medical gel on your wounds. Glad to see it worked well." Jack says finally turning to look at you. "Worked well? I'm practically fully healed, is it magical or something?" you joke. "No, just highly advanced...um...well if you really need to know, I shouldn't even have the stuff, but you can acquire a lot of stuff you shouldn't over the deep web." Jack says. "I see. So I take it, this is where you live? "Yeah, more or less now." "Wait, so this is where your mom lived too?" "What? Oh no. When I lived with mom, it was a regular house in town. In fact after she died, I still lived there, but when shit started getting hectic in town, I decided I better move somewhere less vulnerable so here I am at this gray building I bought years ago online. As you might have already seen, I got tons of shit stacked in rooms, told you I was a big of a hoarder." "Well it certainly is very gray, must cost a lot to upkeep it." "Not really, place sort of takes care of itself. Just never made a permanent living arrangement out of this place because...well it's a long story." There's a bit of a pause in the conversation since Jack just abruptly stops talking and starts twisting knobs and then eventually waves his hands at the radio altogether and the garbled transmissions stop altogether when he turns it off. "What are you trying to do?" you ask. "I'm trying to listen in on a military frequency. Normally I can get clear messages from Fort Timons near Security City, but I'm not having much luck. All I know is marshal law has been declared in major cities across the country. Well that and apparently Ground Zero is still offering their shelters at low low prices. Those ads are fucking everywhere." Jack replies. "Marshall law...that sounds pretty serious." You remark. "Yeah, but I can't say I'm surprised with the way things have been going in the world lately. Anyway...so what are your plans?" Jack asks. "I dunno. I've been trying to figure that out myself. I'm not having much luck either." "Well, considering how fucked up things are in town, you're welcome to stay here. Got plenty of space, food and such." It's a tempting offer. Really tempting, mainly because you don't have any idea what you're going to go, but you exhale and try to gather your thoughts. "(Sigh) Look, I'm not ungrateful for probably saving my life yesterday. I didn't mind speaking with you before all that shit went down in the comic shop. Hell, you're even not bad looking and you're obviously got your shit together enough that you own your own damn building. I'm also fairly certain you were telling the truth about not being a serial killer." "But?" Jack says predicting your lead in. "But all of this...well my gut is telling me that something weird is going on with you. I don't know what exactly, but I imagine it's complicated. The funny thing is that it probably wouldn't even necessarily bother me, but you sort of caught me at an unusual point in my life. While I don't want to bore you with my life story, but I just recently went through an upsetting break up with my first and currently only boyfriend to date a couple days ago and I'm still trying to mentally deal with that along with all the other shit that's gone on in my life." Jack continues to listen as you go on. "You think YOU were a basement dweller? At least you seemed to be doing something productive, my whole life was just coasting by and living off of other people and the most recent one was my ex. I'm fairly certain he would have done anything to take care of me had I complied, but even basement dwellers have their limits I suppose and I just couldn't make that step. All of which left me up shit's creek without a boat, let along a paddle. I'm trying to make a real effort of being self-sufficient and I sort of feel like if I stayed here I'd just be falling back into my old routine of sponging off some guy." "You wouldn't exactly be sponging off me..." Jack starts to say before you interrupt. "Jack, I think you better stop right there, if you're about to imply what I think you're going to imply. I'm not a damn whore." "What? No! I wasn't going to suggest that! I just meant I have so much that it's not like I'd mind if you stuck around. It's obviously dangerous out there and I'd be quite the asshole if I just threw you out." You just hang your head down at this remark. "Well that makes you better than my older sister, but it also makes this harder for me, because it would have been easier if you had been looking for some sort of cynical sex exchange like that." "Wait...so you WANT me to treat you like a whore?" Jack asks confused. "No! Fuck. I just...shit...I dunno what the hell I want..." you say putting your head in your hands. At this point Jack tries to interpret your complete mess of explaining things. "Okay, I think I know what you're getting at. You just got out of a relationship and you aren't really in the mood for another guy to be sniffing around you right now. You also want to be by yourself and try to make it on your own without help since you've never been truly independent your whole life. Am I right so far?" Jack asks. "Yes." You reply. "And while you aren't exactly thinking the worst of me right now, you're still wisely suspicious enough to wonder why the hell I helped you out if I didn't want something. Obviously there must be something odd about me, for all you know I've been stalking you or something." "Well, basically." "Okay, good. Now just let me explain my side of things." You lean again the side of the entryway before Jack goes into his own speech. "First, yes, I do think you're attractive and from what I know of you, I WOULD like to get to know you a lot better. I thought maybe there was something there during our nice conversation at the comic shop, but I dunno...I sort of...well let's just say I'm not exactly great at the whole asking someone out thing, so I lost my nerve and had to gather it again by leaving, and of course that's when those guys showed up. Not to mention I wasn't really planning on doing that anyway since I didn't expect to see anyone other than Jake at the register. Which brings me to the second point, I helped you, for the same reason I helped Jake yesterday, it was the right thing to do. I just wasn't so lucky with him as I was with you. I'm not saying I'm some hero, but I've always liked to believe I'm not a bad guy. So when I saw the opportunity to get you help, I did it. I assure you there was no ulterior motive." At this point Jack fishes something out of his pocket. It's keys and a wad of money in a roll. He tosses them to you and you catch them. "Do I want you to stay here because I like you? Yes, of course I would, but I can't just keep you here, if you don't want to be. You sound like you have very strong feelings about trying to make it on your own and being by yourself and I understand that. So since your car was trashed, I'm giving you mine. I'm not going to need it much longer...and no that doesn't mean I'm going to commit suicide. I just won't be needing it. As for the cash, well you'll need it more than I will too. You take them both and go live your life and hopefully it will be a good one." You're pretty speechless. You've so rarely had anyone be this cool with you and this doesn't seem to be a "nice guy" act. If it were, he would've been calling you a complete cunt the moment you told him you weren't interested. "I dunno what to say except thanks." You say "Don't mention it. Come on I'll walk you out." Jack responds Jack and you leave the radio room and enter the large open room which has a lot of boxes stacked in it's four corners. On one of the walls is a door, which Jack says, leads to the outside. "Car is parked right outside, and is in good working condition. Um, just to let you know though we're several miles east outside of town. It will be quite the drive, but you should get back to town by nightfall. Remember, I want you to know you can come back here if it looks like the town is in just complete anarchy. I...I still worry about your safety. Anyway, just knock three times on the door and I'll know it is you." "I'll certainly keep that in mind Jack." "Okay, well...good luck Suzy." Jack says opening the door, which lets in a blinding brightness. You look at Jack and then you suddenly hug him and then kiss him on the cheek. You figure it's the least you can do. Jack wasn't expecting it though; he returns the hug until you pull away. You and he don't exchange any more words; you just turn around and leave as the door shuts behind you. You get in the car, and count up the money to find that Jack has given you a thousand dollars in hundreds. Not much in the long term, but it would at least sustain you awhile. You wonder if you should head back to town or just keep driving east and try to start over somewhere else. > You drive east You come to the conclusion that there is literally nothing for you back in your hometown. Given the state it's in, it doesn't seem like there is much possibility there either and you'd be better off just trying to make it on your own. This is very new territory for you just throwing complete caution to the wind like this, but you're determined to turn over a new leaf. This is going to be a brand new Suzy and your new life starts right now. You start up the car and drive off. As you drive you keep trying to form various plans about what you're going to do when you get to the next town. First thing to do will be to get a room somewhere... or maybe you should just sleep in the car. That would stretch your money out a lot more, but you can't just do that can you? You'll need to bathe every once in awhile! Whore baths in a public restroom perhaps? As you're attempting to figure out how you're going to go about your new life, you start to get a headache just realizing how much hard work this is going to be. You turn the radio on in an effort to keep your mind occupied on something else. "...remember our shelters are the best in the world. Your family's survival is important to us, so don't settle for imitations..." "Ground Zero ads. Of course." You say. You try to find a station that doesn't seem to be bought out by this company, but the only luck you have is a few doomsday preacher type stations. Since you're not really in the mood for that either, you turn the radio off and return to silence. You continue to drive for some time. You notice you haven't even seen another vehicle on the road, which is a little eerie, gets even more so when it starts to get dark. You haven't seen any signs of civilization for quite some time, just rows and rows of trees on either side. You never realized just how rural of an area you've lived in before. Eventually the trees thin out a bit and you see a looming structure in the distance on your left. It's a Grey Building. "What the hell? Did I drive in a circle?" you say to yourself. You can't imagine that you did considering you've been pretty much driving in a straight path the entire time. You suppose it MIGHT be possible since your attention hasn't exactly been completely focused since the drive itself has been so boring, but this seems pretty damn odd. Odd or not you're back where you started and you stop your car near the Grey Building pretty frustrated at your situation. "Shit!" you exclaim and bang on the driver's wheel. You have half a mind to just continue on and go back to town, but you sort of feel like that would be giving up when really this is just a minor set back and you've had much worse ones. Jack probably has a GPS, maps or something in that treasure trove of shit he collects and he'll probably be more than willing to help you out. You just hope he doesn't see this as a "sign" that you decided to stay after all. You park along side the Grey building, get out and make your way towards the door. Remembering that Jack told you to knock three times, you do so and the door opens up. Jack isn't there at the door though; maybe he's got it on an automated system. The other thing that seems strange is that it's pitch black inside. You step just inside the entryway and still can't see shit. Not even the dim moonlight from the outside is providing any minimal illumination within the doorway. "Hey Jack! It's me Suzy! Why are all your lights ...Ungh!" you start to call out before you get smashed in the head and fall to the concrete floor. "DIE INTERLOPER! THIS IS MY GREY BUILDING!" a horrible voice screams before you're forcibly pulled deeper inside and the door slams shut leaving you in complete darkness. You try to get up to run, but a very strong force is keeping you down. You hear the sounds of a rusty chainsaw being started up followed by insane laughter. In your last moments before the chainsaw starts ripping your flesh, you realize that you've made a terrible mistake. You didn't drive in a circle and this isn't the GRAY Building. This is the GREY Building You don't understand it and you never will, but it doesn't matter, you're dead.

[Themes: modern, romance, humor, female protagonist, serious] Considering you'd rather just sit on your ass and work the register than lift boxes anyway, there doesn't seem to be much point in engaging in an argument that will lose you this job opportunity. Honestly you're just lucky that Jake is willing to hire you and isn't making advances on you (yet). Jake proceeds to show you how to work the register and the credit card machine. After a few trial runs and examples, you think you got it. The funny thing is, nobody has actually come into the comic shop yet. "See, not very difficult. So, you think you're ready to officially take the responsibility of the register?" Jake asks. "Yeah, I guess, but is it always this empty?" you ask. "No, not usually. It's about...what a little after noon now? Yesterday was slow as well, but I'm chalking it up to all the craziness going on in town, which I'm really hoping dies down soon. There is a group of regulars that should be arriving in few moments though. They usually just hang out here all fucking day, but they tend to buy a lot when they actually do decide to part with their money and not drive me up a fucking wall with their banter. However since you're working the register, you'll get to put up with them this time." "Great, can't wait." You say and sit at the register unenthusiastically. Jake proceeds to tell you that if you need anything he'll be in his office catching up on going over his financial books. He also warns you not to steal anything, which seems weird since if you were going to steal something, it's not like you'd listen to his warning. Without many more words Jake disappears into his office and you sit at the register waiting for customers to come in. While you wait you start looking at the various items near the counter and start reading through some of the comics. As time passes you continue to hear the sounds of sirens and such in the distance. Through the windows you see a couple of police officers running in the direction where you saw those barricades. A little more time passes and a short man who looks to be in his mid thirties enters. He's dressed in casual clothing and just nods at you when he sees you at the register. In an attempt to be a friendly, you smile and wave hi before he goes off to look at comics. Well either Jake was exaggerating about his customers being sex crazed assholes or this guy isn't one of the "regulars" he was talking about. You watch him for a moment as he browses and takes various comics off the shelves. He looks like he's really into comics with as many as he's taking. Eventually he comes up to the counter with a stack of comic books. "Can I just sit these here for now? I'm not really done looking yet, but I don't want to lug around a bunch of comics and possibly dropping them all over the place." The man asks. "Oh yeah sure. I guess you really like comics huh?" you say. "Heh, I suppose I look a little obsessed. I don't really come in here that much since normally I tend to buy stuff online, but this is one of those times where I don't have the luxury of waiting for stuff to arrive in the mail. So I'm loading up now that I'm here. Never seen you here before though." The man says. "I'm new. Just started today actually and you're sort of my first customer. Nobody else has come in." you reply. "Oh. Well, this is sort of an interesting day to start a new job given what's been going on in town lately. I'm betting that's why there hasn't been anyone else in here today." "Yeah, tell me about it. I wouldn't have left the house if I had the choice." "Yeah, I hear you, I don't like going out too much myself, but I've been getting better about it lately." "Same here and it still sucks, but bills aren't going to pay themselves." "I sort of got around that by being able to work at home. I used to sell and buy shit on the Internet a lot." "What, like Ebay or something?" "Yeah something like that. Buy low, sell high, that sort of thing." "I wish I could do something like that." "You can, it's not really difficult." "Eh, I'm not really a wheeler and dealer type. Besides, if I had a job involving a computer, especially one involving self employment, I'd probably just goof off and never get any work accomplished." "Well that's the beauty of working at home. You can sort of be as lazy as you want!" The man says with slight grin. "Oh I don't think you know exactly how lazy I can be." You say returning the smile. "You can't be that lazy, you're working here." "Well like I said, I wouldn't be here if I didn't have to be. (Sigh) Events however have conspired against me and here I am." "Yeah, always sucks when things out of your control put you in a bad situation. For what it's worth, sorry you're in such a bind." You didn't expect sympathy for your minor "pity party" but you'll definitely accept it. You usually aren't one to hold long conversations with random strangers, but then it's been a bit of an unusual week for you. "Thanks, so selling and buying shit on the Internet works for you huh? I suppose maybe I could do it. There's certainly already enough crap around the house that surely someone would be interested in. Obviously with as many comics as you intend on buying you're making a good living at it." You say. "Well I probably would be if I wasn't a bit of a hoarder and kept most of the shit I did buy. However, I made enough that I pulled my weight so my mom didn't kick me out of the basement of the house. Yeah, I know I'm a walking stereotype, basement dweller in a comic shop. Big surprise right?" the man remarks. You don't reply immediately, you just briefly think about how odd it is you've got so much in common with a complete stranger. "Oh, I dunno. I don't tend to judge people." You reply. "Well that's a rare trait these days. Though I suppose I'm more of a hermit than a basement dweller nowadays anyway. My mother died a few years ago and I'm not even going to be living here anymore soon. Hence another reason why I'm loading up on books now." "So wait you're moving out of town?" you say a bit surprised. "Yeah...I guess you could say that. I mean under normal circumstances I wouldn't bother, but it's getting really bad out there and it's only going to get worse." "Worse? How do you know? You don't think things will get back to normal in a few days?" The man starts like he's about to say more, but stops. Then he stumbles over some words a bit before continuing. "Um...it's just...well these things...you never can tell right? I guess I don't really know. I think I'm just rambling at this point and not making any sense. I didn't mean to talk your ear off. I guess I should get back to it and let you get back to doing your job." The man says and then briskly walks to the back of the comic shop. You nearly tell him to come back to talk to clarify what he meant and that he wasn't really bothering you, but then you think that would be a bit strange and also you don't really know this guy. He's probably a weirdo anyway; he just said he lived in his mom's basement until she died after all. You don't even know why you're even still thinking about it or him. "Christ Suzy, you're taking the break up harder than you thought. You're starting to latch on to minor conversations with complete fucking strangers. Get a grip already." You say to yourself. A sudden brick through one of the shop windows breaks up your introspective moment. You duck down behind the counter and then Jake comes out running out of his office. "What the fuck is going on out here?!" he exclaims. "I don't know! Someone just threw a brick through..." Before you can complete that sentence you hear a bunch of laughter and the shop door opening up. You continue to stay hidden behind the counter. "Did you see that shit? Told ya I could land the brick right in the middle of the O on the window!" a young male voice exclaims. "Yeah, yeah, let's just see what we got in here..." another remarks. "What the fuck do you little shits think you're doing? You just broke my fucking window! I hope you fuckers got some money to pay for that RIGHT NOW or else I'm going to be kicking all of your asses THEN I'm going to your parents' houses and kicking their asses for not aborting you." Jake exclaims. "Oh fuck off Jake, with as much as you've ripped us off by overcharging, I'd say that more than covers the cost of your goddamn window. We're going to be taking some free comics too." You hear a voice shout back. "Look, I dunno what the fuck has compelled you social rejects even THINK you can get away with this, but if you don't fucking get out of my shop right fucking now, there are going to be consequences you aren't going to walk away from." "Ohhh, so fucking scared Jake." You hear one say who from the sound of the voice sounds like he's getting closer. "HEY! Step back from the counter!" You hear someone hit the counter and then you look up to see a pimply teenager staring over at you. "Holy shit guys! Jake's got a fucking bitch hiding over here! She looks hot too, no wonder he's fucking pissed! She was probably blowing him before we came in!" he exclaims and then tries to grab your hair at which point you slap his hand away and stand up and away from the counter so you can't be molested. It's at this point you finally see the motley lot. Four teenage boys of all varying shapes and sizes. You don't know who these guys are, but if they're the "regulars" Jake mentioned, they're certainly not acting like what you expected. "Goddamn Jake how the hell you manage to pull this off? She looks way too fucking hot for you. She a whore or something?" The tallest boy asks. "Hey, you know who she looks like? She looks like that cute zombie chick." The fattest one says. "Nah, she looks more like that chick who controls all the dragons." The pimply one remarks. "For fuck's sake she's blonde not a goddamn albino, she doesn't look like either of them, the pair of you are idiots. She obviously looks like the blonde chick that fucks vampires." The tallest one remarks. "Which one, Trent?" the fat one asks. "The one that's mainly killing them too." Trent says. "I dunno guys, I thought she looked like that chick that was a private investigator..." another one begins to say before Jake interrupts their temporary distraction of comparing you to various female nerd culture figures. "SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY SHOP! I'M NOT WARNING YOU AGAIN!" Jake shouts. At which point Trent pulls a pistol out of his hoodie pocket. He doesn't actually point it at Jake, but he's definitely warning him by just showing it. Jake steps back a bit, but doesn't lose his cool. You on the other hand are really worried, especially considering you got four hormone addled teenage guys staring at you. "And I'm telling YOU we're not fucking leaving without getting our comics! Don't you know what today is? It's fucking free comic book day Jake!" "This is how you want to play this Trent?" Jake asks. Now Trent points the pistol at Jake and gives a look of less playfulness and more deadly seriousness. "I'm not fucking playing Jake, just like I wasn't fucking playing with my mom when she told me to clean my room two days ago, just like I wasn't playing with those assholes yesterday that used to give me wedgies back in sixth grade or that bitch who wouldn't go out with me even though I did a whole bunch of nice shit for her. Things are changing around this town and if you ain't changing with it, you're gonna get rolled over." Trent looks over at his fellows and waves as if he's telling them to take whatever they want. He continues to point the gun at Jake though he keeps an eye on you as well. While you're a little busy worrying about Trent and the rest, you realize you haven't seen that guy you were talking to before. You can't imagine he managed to slip out without anyone noticing. He might be hiding, but if he is, he's doing a really good job, because with the way Trent's pals are going through the store, it seems like they would have stumbled upon him by now. While they do that, Trent gets closer to Jake still holding the gun to him. "So what is the story with the blonde bitch anyway Jake? I know she can't be your girlfriend. A fat old loser like you wouldn't have one." Trent sneers, but Jake is still keeping composure. "I hired her to work the register today." Jake remarks. "Hm. I'd rather see her mouth work my dick." Trent says looking you up and down. Jake starts laughing. "What's so fucking funny?" "YOU! You're fucking funny Trent. You're calling me a loser and apparently you can't even GET a woman without holding her at gunpoint. Pfft. I don't give a shit what little emo angsty shooting spree trip you're on, but I'm not playing. I still remember when you were in here as a little kid and your ugly ass mama beat the hell out of you for shitting your pants. How you cried and cried." Jake chuckles. Trent of course is not amused and points the gun closer to Jake. "Shut the fuck up fat ass!" he exclaims. "Make me lanky bitch!" Jake says and suddenly grabs Trent's hand now that it's close enough. The pair of them struggle with the weapon and Trent begins calling for his fellows to help. While you're certainly close enough to help Jake before Trent's buddies get to him, you see the front door and wonder if you shouldn't just jump over the counter and get the hell out of here. > You help Jake Even if you made a dash for the door, you don't think you'd make it before Trent's friends would reach you, better that you help Jake. You rush over to Jake and also grab Trent's hand that is still clutching the pistol. Jake and Trent are also hitting each other, though Jake can't really get a good hit in due to the counter being in the way and Trent being tall and having a long reach. Trent maintains a vice like grip on the pistol. "Hey you motherfuckers come help me! Fat ass and this bitch are trying to get the gun!" Trent exclaims. Jake seeing that you have a grip on Trent's pistol hand, Jake releases one of his hands to try to pull Trent forward over the counter. He succeeds easily and Trent is half way over the counter, though two of his buddies manage to grab ahold of his legs and waist. Meanwhile Trent's third friend has jumped over the counter and grabbed on to you. It's mister pimple and he's more like groping you rather than just trying to pull you off of his buddy. In your attempt to get the little perv off of you end up letting go of Trent's pistol hand and while Jake still has a partial grip on it and is currently punching Trent in the face with his other fist, Trent manages to at last get his finger back around the trigger and starts shooting. Of course he's firing wildly due to getting punched in the face and still not having complete control over his gun, but unfortunately you're close enough and in the direction he happens to pull the trigger. You catch two in the chest and his buddy groping you gets one in the throat. The pair of you fall to the floor, him gurgling and spiting up blood and you struggling to breathe and also coughing up blood. You die in a bloody heap on top of some acne ridden virgin that still manages to be clutching your right tit even in death.

Your alarm goes off and you groggily wake up. Way earlier than you're used to actually. It's morning and you haven't been up this early in a long time. You're surprised you didn't just sleep through the alarm considering how emotionally drained you were yesterday. Even now, you still feel tired. You're also still pretty damn depressed. Depression combined with your type of ingrained apathy would normally make for a really bad combination of motivation, but against all odds, you actually get up out of bed to go wash up. You spend an extra long time in the shower trying to motivate yourself for the first phase of your goals today which is heading over to Jake's comic shop and getting a job. Eventually you finish up and head back to your room where you start to get dressed, thinking about one of your other possible goals which is finding a new place to live because if this comic shop thing doesn't work out, you doubt if you're going to find anything else you'd be willing to do before the week is over. Always one to seek the way of least resistance, you reluctantly call your sister Donna since she did say you could live with her and Julie. You didn't really want to go live with her and Julie though because you know it's going to be party central non-stop, but you don't have many other options. You ring up Donna several times and get no answer. You ring up Julie and also get no answer. They're probably both passed out from whatever they were doing the night before. You give up attempting to contact them today, deciding that you'll just show up on their doorstep with all your shit if you don't get this job. It's not much of a plan, but you do feel slightly better believing you have a safety net. Well you like to THINK you have a safety net anyway. With that fear partially quelled, you absent-mindedly check to see if Bobby called...then you stop... "Christ, that was stupid. Get your head straight Suzy..." you say to yourself, starting to feel bad again. You then remind yourself that you'll have to break that habit. You nearly delete his number entirely, but you can't quite bring yourself to do it just yet. Pushing through it all, you now move on to your next step of trying to convince your brother Peter to let you borrow his car so you drive over to the comic shop. You head upstairs and bang on the door to the garage. "Hey Peter, open up I need a favor!" you shout and after a few seconds the door opens up. "What the fuck Suzy? Why the hell are you banging on my door like you're the police?" Peter exclaims peeking his head out the door. He's probably naked. "Yeah, sorry to bother you with whatever currently doing at the moment, but I need to borrow your car. I'm trying to get a job." You say. "A job? I thought you were too much of a prude to be a stripper." "Ha ha, very funny. I'm not going to be a stripper, I'm going to try to get a job at a Jake's comic shop." You reply. "A comic shop? Doing what? Getting all the virgin nerds excited?" "I'm going to be moving boxes or working a register...look I don't fucking know exactly, I haven't gotten the job yet. I just know I NEED to get this fucking job or else Kelly's gonna throw me out on my ass!" you reply getting increasingly exasperated. "Alright, fine. Don't fucking bite my goddamn head off because you got problems. I've got problems of my own. (Sigh) Wait a minute." Peter closes the door and then a few seconds later opens it up and then tosses some keys at you. "Here. Don't fuck it up, and I fully expect you to put gas in it." He says and then slams the door shut. Well that was easier than you expected, but then he probably just wanted you out of the way for whatever client he has coming over. With that out of the way, you get in Peter's car and pull out of the driveway. A few minutes of driving to your destination and you now learn first hand what Bobby was talking about yesterday. The roads are a mess and the town is in fucking chaos. There are cops everywhere, as well as ambulances and fire trucks racing to their various destinations too. You're also seeing small groups of people rioting. It's like the whole town has lost its damn mind and you nearly get into an accident more than a few times. Fortunately Jake's comic shop isn't too far away, but given the town's situation you're hoping that everything there isn't going to be as bad as what you've been seeing so far. Eventually you do get to the shop and so far the place doesn't look too bad, though given that you see a police barricade a few blocks up the street, you wonder if that could all change. Pulling into the parking lot, you exit the car and enter the building. As soon as you walk in, you briefly scan the shop and find it completely empty save for a bearded middle-aged man with a ponytail at a counter staring at you. He couldn't be more of a stereotype of a "comic book guy." "Well...hello. You lost or something? The beauty salon is down the street...though I believe there was a shooting or something there earlier." He says. "Um, no. I'm here about the job. Are you Jake?" you ask. "That's me. Now what job are you talking about exactly?" Jake asks while looking at you up and down. The guy is already probably thinking several dirty thoughts about you and at this point you're really hoping this guy doesn't turn the whole job thing into some stupid line about giving him a blowjob. "The job openings I found on the internet for this place. It said you needed someone to move boxes or work the register." You say. "Oh yeah, I'm not even sure why I posted that. In this current economy I can barely afford to hire one employee and lately I'm wondering if I can even do that." Jake says. "Shit, does this mean you're not hiring?" "Well...considering you're easy on the eyes, I'm not going to say I'm NOT hiring. Besides you're the only one that's even applied so far. You'd think with all the fanboy nerds that practically live at this place one of them would've offered to fucking help me out. (Sigh) Whatever, you got your resume?" "Resume?" you ask. "Yeah, when people tend to apply for jobs they usually have one. I mean not that any of the tasks here are brain surgery, but it's nice to have some basic information." Jake says. "Oh. Well I don't have one." You reply. "Seriously? You came in here for a job without a resume?" "I didn't think I'd need one." "You didn't...alright can you give me any references then?" "Um, no." "You can't or you won't?" "I can't because I don't have any." "Jesus Christ...do you have ANY job experience whatsoever?" "No." "Do you even want a fucking job here?" Jake asks getting exasperated. "Not really, but I want to run around half naked swinging on a pole getting ogled, slobbered over and groped by horny guys for a living even less, so this place is currently my only option for my desperate situation." You say. Jake laughs at your comment. "Well at least your honest, but if you think you're not going to get ogled and slobbered over by guys here, you're sadly mistaken. You do realize this is a comic shop right?" "Oh come on, there has to be female customers that come in here." You say. "Sure, but they don't look like you and you'll probably get a couple of them awkwardly hitting on you as well. On the bright side, none of the nerds here are probably going to try to grope you. They'll be far too shy to try that. No pole swinging either, but feel free to run around half naked. I guarantee something like that would really help out business." Jake says with a smirk. "Yeah, not happening." You reply. "Didn't think I'd be that lucky. Well despite your total lack of skill, I suppose I'll hire you, I do have to ask one thing first though..." And here it comes; he's going to ask you to do something sexual and you'll be heading out the door... "Do you even read comics?" Well that was unexpected. "Well, I used to when I was little, but my older sister Kelly just kept taking them from me and either hitting me with them or tearing them up, so I didn't see the point anymore." You reply. "Jeez, that's not fucking right. You should've kicked her ass." Jake says. "Yeah well that wasn't possible, she's ten times bigger than me. In fact that's why I applied to this job, she's threatening to kick me out of the house." You say. "Hmm, sounds like a similar situation that I had with my last assistant. His mom was threatening to kick him out of the house and he begged me to hire him. He was a pathetic little worm addicted to all that anime shit. Really he was a lousy helper, but given that the one I had before him just died in my bathroom, I figured I'd give the fat little anime addict a shot." "Wait someone died in the bathroom here?" you ask. "Yeah my retarded assistant strangled himself in my bathroom while jacking off. Spent the damn day cleaning the bathroom because of it." "Uh, the other assistant didn't die in the bathroom too did he?" "Nah, he ended up marrying his crazy cousin and lives in the trailer park outside of town I think. Dunno what he does now since he never comes in anymore which is a shame since the pervert used to spend a fortune in this place." "That's...interesting. So about the job." You say steering the conversation back on track. "Yeah, about the job. I'm guessing you'll want to be working the register...what is your name anyway blondie?" "Suzy, and why are you assuming I want to be working the register?" "Because I doubt a little thing like you really wants to be lugging boxes around, I mean unless you're trying to tell me you can't do basic math." "Of course I know how to do basic fucking math!" you snap. "Okay, sheesh. Calm down I didn't mean to imply anything. So you're working the register..." Jake has still already made the decision for you about what job you're going to be doing and while lugging boxes around really doesn't appeal to you, you're still a little insulted that the option has just been taken away from you. Besides the sexist implications that you aren't strong enough to do the other job because you're female, you get the strong impression that Jake also just wants you at the register so you'll be more visible to all the horny virgin nerds that come in this place. And the more you're thinking about the fact that you'll have to interact with the public in general if you're working the register you're finding it about as appealing as lifting a bunch of heavy boxes around. Then again if you antagonize Jake over this, he might just throw you out of the shop and then you'll have no job. > You argue about your job You're sick of everyone trying to control your life. You weren't putting up with it with Bobby, and you're sure as hell not going to put up with it with Jake. "Are you just assuming I can't carry the boxes around because I'm a woman?" you ask. "What? No, that's not it..." Jake starts to say before you interrupt. "You just said a little thing like me doesn't want to lug boxes around like I'm some helpless damsel." "Look, as a businessman it's my job to match up potential employees with what they're probably going to be best at. The fact is you ARE on the smaller side, not to mention you've just told me you've never done a hard day's work in your life. So yeah, I don't think you're strong enough to do the job and not bitch about it or even get that much work done. I'd rather have you out here working the register." "You just want me out here as eye candy for the customers." You reply. "Jesus fucking Christ, I didn't realize I was hiring a FemiNazi. Are you telling me you want to move boxes?" Jake says in exasperation. "I'm not a goddamn FemiNazi and no I don't want particularly want to move boxes, but my point is you just took the damn choice out of my hands and made a stupid assumption that I couldn't do the job due to your own narrow-mindedness." Jack exhales again and rubs his face. "Are you kidding fucking me? You're arguing about a job you don't even want? In fact, you don't even want THIS job! You know how many employers would've thrown you out with that sort of shitty work ethic and you haven't even started yet! I'm fucking helping YOU out by hiring you in the first place with absolutely no skills or experience and you're giving me shit already! It's not like I'm grabbing your ass and telling you to suck my dick! I'm trying to be a nice guy here." "Given with how you're speaking to me, you're not really all that fucking nice." You respond. "Alright, I've had it. Get the fuck out of my shop. You probably think because you're pretty you can just get what you want well not this time bitch. I got enough shit to deal with, get the fuck out! Get out! Get out! Get out!" Jake yells and points at the door. "FUCKING ASSHOLE!" you shout as loud as you can and storm out the shop. Well that could've went better. As you walk to your car, several nerd types are just now approaching the store. While they're probably the sort that would've been staring at you all day if you'd been working at the shop, now they're actively avoiding you since you're mumbling and swearing to yourself like a crazy person. Your swearing continues when you're actually in the car. You bang on the steering wheel several times in frustration. "I hate my fucking life!" you cry out and begin to sob. Life just isn't fair Suzy and lately for you it's only been getting harder. All you wanted to do is hang out in your basement, hiding out from the rest of the world. Now your forced to deal with all this shit that you're just no good at and when you do try to assert yourself, you fail at that too. If you were fighting depression before, you're currently getting your ass kicked by it. It's a good thing you aren't suicidal, but the thought is starting to cross your mind. After taking a moment to pull yourself together, you think about what you need to do next. "Okay...I need to go back home. Need to pack up all the most important shit I have and head over to Julie's house." You say to yourself. With this new goal in mind, you pull out of the comic shop parking lot and intend on making your way back home. You don't get a couple blocks before you soon discover the way you came is barricaded due to an accident or something. There are ambulances and police cars blocking the way and you realize you're going to have to go a different direction. You go down some side streets and find out that they currently aren't much better and in one instance actually worse as a bunch of people have made a makeshift barricade with overturned cars and some of them are shooting at each other. You get the hell out of the area as fast as you can before someone starts shooting at you. After having to drive around avoiding barricades, downed power lines, overturned vehicles and general chaos, you begin to get even more frustrated since it's starting to look like you can't even get home. Or at least not by driving there and given the shit that's going on, you'll be damned if you're going to get out of your vehicle to walk home. "Goddamn it, I just want to get the fuck home! Fuck it, I'm just going to go to Julie's now..." you shout to yourself. It's a further drive, but considering Julie lives in a better area, you're hoping that maybe things won't be as bad driving in that direction. You soon find out that isn't the case as you're desperately trying to avoid getting into an accident every five minutes. "Seriously what the hell is going on with this town? Everyone is acting like an asshole even more than usual." You say and you're starting to wonder if there's something in the water. Turning on the radio doesn't help, since you're not getting much on it save for those annoying Ground Zero ads. "Come on, there's gotta be something about...SHIT!" you say when look up from the radio and are just in time to see a bus turning left and about to hit you. You swerve immediately to avoid being hit, but unfortunately you slam the car into another speeding car, which crashes into your passenger side at full force. You are knocked around as your car goes spinning across the street. It all happens so fast you don't even have time to panic or feel the fear of possibly dying right now. A large black truck slams on its breaks in an attempt to not hit you, which it succeeds in doing, only for your car to be stopped by lamppost instead. Thanks to airbags never working correctly when they should, you hit your head on the steering wheel hard and while you don't quite knock yourself out you definitely scramble your brains a bit and you're feeling pretty dazed. While you're still recovering, you suddenly hear knocking on your window and a voice. "Hey, miss. Miss? You alright?" You slowly look out your window and see a woman wearing glasses and dressed in business attire staring back at you. Well actually you're sort of seeing two of her and the image is still a little blurry, but that's the size of it. You unhook your seat belt and get out of the car wincing in a bit of pain as you do so. The businesswoman helps you from falling since you're still wobbly. "You're lucky to be alive, I've seen a shitload of crashes like yours since I've been driving through town today. I only just managed to put on my breaks when I saw your car spinning out of control like that." she remarks. You don't really answer her; you just turn to look at the car, which is totaled. Besides part of the front being wrapped around a now leaning lamppost, the passenger side is trashed and you certainly aren't going to be driving anywhere soon due to the front wheel area being caved in and the axel broken. You just look at the wreckage of the car silently and then start to giggle at the situation. Soon the giggling becomes full blown laughter and the woman that helped you out of the car gives you a strange look. "Are you alright?" she asks again. "Oh I'm just peachy! This has been a wonderful day!" you say laughing. "Do you know your name and where you're at?" "Yeah, my name is mud and I'm in a world of shit." You say still laughing. "Um, well you seem to be having a bit of difficulty balancing and you've got a nasty bruise on your forehead. You might have a concussion and given your laughter you might even be in some state of shock. I think it would be best if you had some medical attention." You look at the woman that's trying to help you and begin to stop laughing quite as hard and your mind starts heading back to earth again. Your head and body remind you of the pain you're actually still in. "Yeah...yeah...maybe. Shit, my head does hurt... I guess...can you drive me to the hospital?" you ask. "The hospital? Yeah, that place is sort of fucked right now. Even if we could get to it in this mess of chaos, the place has been overflowing with patients and you might be waiting a long time, if they get to you at all. I'm not sticking around in this town any longer than I need to. However, my brother is a doctor with his own private practice just outside town; he can probably check you out for free. It won't be any problem since I'm going to him right now." The woman says. Well it's either head somewhere with a complete stranger or try to make it to the hospital (or wherever) in your current condition. > You take the woman up on her offer Considering how fucked things are in town and your woozy condition, you probably wouldn't be safe walking the streets right now. This woman also seems okay; she's actually being more helpful than most would. Most would've just drove off, let alone offer to give you medical attention. "Alright, let's go." You say and the woman nods and helps you head towards her black truck. You around and see your accident isn't even being paid much attention to. Other vehicles are merely driving by and nearby onlookers lose interest. You look over at the other vehicle on the far end of the street that slammed into you. The front end of that one is trashed and the driver has gone half way through the windshield. He's a bloody mess and isn't moving. "You think that other driver is dead?" you ask. "Dunno, I didn't check on him. I just checked you first since you were closer to my vehicle. Just going by his appearance and the fact he hasn't moved I'd say it isn't good. Can't save everyone though. Come on, let's just get off the street and out of this town." She says. The woman helps you into her truck and then gets into the driver side, before you know it; she's started it up and driving off. The interior of the truck is pretty nice. Comfy seats and everything. The dashboard looks like something out of a science fiction movie. Must be a really new model. "You doing okay over there? You don't feel like you're going to pass out do you?" the woman asks. "No, not really. Still just sore mainly." You respond. "That's good. Maybe you're okay for the most part, but it doesn't hurt for you to get checked out. My name's Lilith by the way." "My name's Suzy." You say. "Didn't think your name was actually mud like you said back there. Still, sort of a strange reaction you had laughing about your car crash." Lilith says. "Yeah, well I've just been having a really bad day and that accident just sort of topped it, so I guess I just laughed instead of crying like I have been doing for the past couple days." "Hmm, you been having a lot mood swings lately?" Lilith asks. "I don't usually have mood swings at all, but like I said, there have been some major events going down in what was my previously calm life that have really fucked with my stability. I'm getting thrown out of my house, my boyfriend broke up with me, I can't get a job, I just trashed my brother's car and I have no idea what my future prospects are going to be. Things can't get much worse." "Oh they can always get worse, but yeah if all that shit has happened to you, then I guess your laughing at the car crash situation is a little understandable. Self defense mechanism and all." Lilith's inquisitive nature causes you to be a little inquisitive too. "You a psychiatrist or something like that?" you ask. "Eh, something like that. I observe a lot of human behavior for the company I work for. Usually other employees, but lately it's mostly been non-employees in relation to the company." Lilith says. "You wouldn't have any job opening at this company for unskilled labor would you? A cleaning woman perhaps?" you ask. "Heh, well I'm not exactly involved in the hiring process, but Ground Zero is a big company and we pretty much have a lot of openings for all kinds of positions. I'm sure I could find something for you." Lilith says. There's a pause as you aren't sure what you just heard. "Wait a minute. Did you just say you work for Ground Zero? That company that's been putting out all those annoying ads non-stop for the past few weeks?" you ask. "Guilty as charged. Trust me, I know how annoying those ads are all over the place, but I'm not involved that department either." Lilith remarks. "I didn't even know you guys even had a headquarters here in a small town like this one." "It's more of a small branch office really and it's so non-descript most don't even know it's there anyway. We do have a bigger place in Security City. Sometimes I go all the way out there to do my job too, but since I live just south of town it's a pretty long drive as you might expect. In those cases I usually just sleep at a hotel room paid for by the company until my work there is done." "I thought you said your brother lived south of town." "He does. We live together. It's a large house that's been in the family awhile and we did grow up there so we never wanted to get rid of it and we just decided to keep living there. Might sound a bit child like, but why move when you don't really need too?" "Hey you don't need to tell me. I wish I didn't have to move from my home. So does your brother work for Ground Zero too?" you ask. "No. I wish he did since his talents would really be useful to us, but Leslie's really not a fan of the corporate lifestyle despite the fact that I keep telling him he wouldn't even be working in a position that requires dress codes and such. Leslie's also always been a bit of an independent thinker too. He could've easily been a doctor working at a hospital pulling down lots of money, but he prefers his humble private practice. Who am I to tell him to do something that doesn't make him happy?" "Well you certainly sound like a more understanding sister than my own who is kicking me out of the house." You respond. "See, that's not right. Family should stick together. Well at least that's what I was always taught. Even when you don't agree with them, you should at least help them out, not leave them twisting. I'm really sorry to hear that your sister is doing that to you." Lilith says. "Thanks for your sympathy, but she's always hated me and I imagine my brother will too now that I've wrecked his car, though to be honest he didn't really care that much about me either. I'm sort of a black sheep." You say. "Mm. Interesting. My brother and I are sort of black sheep as well, since we're not religious like the rest of the family, but like I said, it hasn't completely ruined our generally good relationship with most of them. To be honest though my brother's personality is more likely to do that than our lack of religious beliefs." Lilith laughs. You aren't quite sure what to think right now driving with an

employee of Ground Zero. Certainly was a pretty unexpected twist of events. It's even more surprising that she's seemingly pretty nice since you've always had the idea that someone working for GZ would be on the cold and uncaring side. You're just hoping that after her brother checks you out, she'll help you out on the job front somehow. Whatever you'd be doing, it probably would pay more than a cashier at a comic shop. You and Lilith are silent for a bit while she tries to concentrate on getting out of town. Eventually after several near misses the pair of you are finally out of there. "Shit, I thought we were going into another accident a couple times." You remark. "Yeah, it's been pretty crazy in town lately. Should be relatively smooth sailing from here though." Lilith says. "How far do you live?" "Oh, not that far. We'll be coming up to it soon enough." Lilith says. "Your brother must really be a good doctor to have patients coming all the way out here to see him. Is it mostly a steady supply of the richer folks making the journey?" "Not as many as you might think. Honestly, Leslie gets more people that don't have health insurance or are otherwise on the poorer side really. People who don't have anyone to help them. As to how folks get to the place, well my brother's got a couple assistants who drive people to him and they more or less provide this service for cheap. Occasionally my brother will drive people back to his clinic himself. Like I said, he could've been pulling down a lot of money, but he prefers the more personal touch of private practice." "Well, he certainly sounds like a humanitarian." You say. "Oh he is. He is. More than you know." About a half hour passes and you see one of those old colonial houses in the distance. It's very isolated as there isn't another house in sight and you haven't seen another one since you left town. "Is that your home?" you ask. "Yep, that's it." Lilith responds. "Pretty big. Looks very old." "Oh it is on both accounts. I mean of course inside has all the modern luxuries, but I wanted the outside to still have that old charm." "Pretty isolated out here." "Yeah. It has its advantages though. Lilith soon turns and pulls into the house's extended driveway and stops the vehicle. "Well we're here, you okay to get out of the car by yourself?" Lilith asks. "Yeah. I actually don't even ache as much now and I'm not dizzy at all. I'm wondering if I've just wasted your time." You say. "Nonsense, this hasn't been a waste of time at all. I actually enjoyed our conversation on the way here. I don't really talk to many people outside of work and my brother." You get out of the truck and take a look at the house. It's even more impressive now that you're in front of it. A lot of care has obviously gone into its upkeep. You notice another car in the driveway that looks a lot less fancy than Lilith's truck. Must be her brother's vehicle. Lilith is still in the truck fumbling around with something in her purse as you continue to take in the sights. Eventually she gets out though. "Okay, sorry about that. I got so much shit in this bag I sometimes have to recheck to make sure I got everything." Lilith says clutching some keys and her large bag. "Sure, no problem." "Let's go around the back. It's quicker to get to Leslie's office that way. Just follow that path." You walk on the stone path that leads around the back of the house and Leslie follows closely behind. Along the way see a few rows of well-tended blue and purple flowers on both sides of the pathway. "Aren't they lovely?" Lilith remarks. "They certainly are colorful. I'm not too familiar with flowers though." You say. "They're called Morning Glorys. My brother though keeps calling them Morningstars. I think he only does that because that's our last name and he can't be bothered to remember a new name with morning in it." Lilith chuckles. You stop walking. "Did you just say your last name was Morningstar?" you ask. "Yes, why?" Lilith says. "My boyfriend's last name was Morningstar." You say. "Is that right? Wow, what are the odds?" You suddenly feel very uneasy. You slowly start to turn around and before you can react, Lilith grabs your arm and stabs it with a needle. She injects you with something before you can even pull away. Whatever it was is taking effect almost immediately and you're already beginning to lose your balance. "Careful, careful. Don't fall on the flowers now." Lilith says. You can't even speak; you just look at Lilith in shock as you fall on the pavement struggling to remain conscious. Lilith crouches down and stares at you, as your eyes start to close. "...now I know who you are. Bobby mentioned you to me a couple times recently when he was trying to convince us to go live in his compound. Never figured you'd be the same Suzy. (Sigh) Too bad you told me you two broke up though...guess that explains why you're not at the compound with him." You grab at Lilith, but she easily pulls away from your weak grasp. She just continues to look on at you as a scientist might look at a test subject. "...still...I suppose this might make things a little more complicated. Oh well, I guess this will just make things a little more interesting too. Get some rest Suzy, we're going to have a big day tomorrow." With those last words, you completely pass out. > Next day… You wake up and remembering everything that happened just before you passed out, you attempt to sit up immediately, unfortunately you can't due to being restrained. Your legs, your arms and even your body are all strapped down on a gurney. You can't cry out either as you have a ball gag on your mouth. You can make loud "Mmhghm!" sounds but that's about it. Your clothing has also changed. While you're not naked, you're in one of those hospital gowns. You don't feel sore or anything, so you can only hope you weren't raped during the time someone was changing your clothes. The fear of what's going to happen to you is overwhelming. A quick glance around from you position shows that you're in a plain white room with no windows. There is a light above and a chair and door to your right, but to your left gives you cause for more terror as you see a table full of surgical instruments. A lot of them don't even look like proper surgical instruments so much as they look like torture devices. There isn't much you can do except wait and attempt to stop crying though you fail in that endeavor. You just lie there thinking about how you said yesterday that things couldn't get any worse...and then they did. You think about what you could've done differently to have made your life better and most importantly avoid the situation you're in now. You then think about how at some point, either Lilith, her brother or both are going to come in and start cutting you up and torturing you to death. You're completely helpless and you wish that someone would just come in and save you from all this. The door suddenly opens and you turn your head hoping that somehow your magical thinking worked, but you only see Lilith walking in with a notebook in hand. "Figured you should be up by now. Sorry to keep you knocked out for so long, but I'm sure you can see it was completely necessary. Couldn't have you running away or anything." You turn away from Lilith who then gets closer and stares at your face a moment. "Hmm, you've been crying. Natural response I suppose given your situation. Good. (Sigh) I told my brother not to put those in here." Lilith says taking notice of the surgical instruments and shaking her head. "He probably thought it would be funny to have you even more terrified out of your mind than you already would be. I love Leslie with all my heart, but he really can be an inconsiderate asshole sometimes. Well most of the time really, anyway the main thing is don't pay any attention to those tools over there. That's not what I brought you in for." Lilith puts her notebook on the table with the tools and addresses you again. "Now. I'm going to release your ball gag since I'm sure it's uncomfortable. However when I do, I must ask you NOT to scream or anything like that. First of all it won't do any good. Second, it's terribly annoying. If we're going to have a positive relationship Suzy, it's absolutely necessary that you comply with my instructions. Do you understand?" You don't really have much in the way of choices and resisting her with no way of actually doing anything would probably just result in something bad. You nod your head compliantly and Lilith takes off your ball gag. "Are you going to kill me?" you ask. "Ah the predictable question first. Well, we're going to get to that and several other questions you might have, but we're going to be doing this my way. So while I know you're very nervous and scared, you're going to just have to wait a while before they get answered. Do you understand?" Once again you nod silently. "Good. Very compliant. We're getting off on the right foot Suzy. Now then let's get to some of the more minor concerns you might have had running through your mind while you were laying here." Lilith pulls the chair over to the table and after moving some of the tools out of the way she sits down, opens up her notebook and begins writing something in it while addressing you. "I want to first alleviate any concerns you might have had about being sexually molested while you were unconscious. I assure you I undressed and dressed you myself. And since I'm not a lesbian you were completely unharmed as far as that goes. I can see one of the obvious reasons that would cause Bobby to be enamored with you though. You're a very pretty girl with a nice body and it's obvious just by speaking with him he still loves you despite your break up." "...you...you spoke with Bobby?" you ask. "Oh yes. Called him up as soon as I got you in the house. Took awhile to reach him, but eventually I did and I proceeded to have a very long conversation with him. I wanted to know more about you and only Bobby could provide those answers what with you being unconscious and all. He told me about how you met, your general personality, what you liked to do, and all of that stuff. When I asked what exactly caused the break up, he seemed to stumble over his words a bit. He claimed that he realized he couldn't abandon the silly family traditions, but it seemed like there was more to it than that because he kept insisting it was his fault and not yours. As if that was going to change what is going to be going on over here. You want to shed a little light on it Suzy? Please be honest." "I...I (sniffle) didn't want to get married to him. I didn't want to live under the same roof as Diana since she was his ex and she hates me. I suppose...I also wasn't fond of the idea of having a bunch of babies like he wanted either. Our argument sort of spiraled from there." You answer. "Hm, interesting. So you wouldn't consider yourself a domestic woman then. I suppose I can understand that. I certainly wouldn't want to spend most of my time barefoot and pregnant and my whole life revolving around my man's needs. I don't think my brother would like that either. He gets so wrapped up in his experiments that I don't even see him for days sometimes and he'd probably be homeless and living under a bridge if I wasn't working." Lilith chuckles and continues writing. You remain extremely anxious about what's going to happen to you. "I also can understand not wanting to live with my bitchy niece either. I know my nephew probably didn't think anything of it, but I also wouldn't have put it past him to hope for some sort of three way between you all. Good for you, putting your foot down like that." All you can think is you'd willingly have a three-way with Bobby and Diana if it got you out of this situation. "Anyway when my nephew found out you were over here he practically pleaded for me and his uncle not to kill or harm you in any way. He even said he'd be over to pick you up, but I told him that was completely out of the question since plans were already in motion. Still, I love my nephew and didn't wish to cause him any suffering so I agreed that you would not come to any harm as long as you followed the rules. So there's the obvious question answered." You close your eyes silently thanking Bobby that he spoke up for you. Of course this doesn't make your fear disappear completely. Far from it, but at least you might have a glimmer of hope now. "With that out of the way, your other questions are probably what is going to be done to you. Well, before I called Bobby, my initial intention was to do some tests and study you since I wanted another subject to observe and I saw an opportunity to grab you when you nearly crashed into me. However, some things have obviously changed, but there is still is opportunity here so I'm going to take advantage of it." "...what do you mean?" you ask thinking Lilith has decided to completely twist her word to Bobby somehow. "I'm getting to that. As you might've noticed most of the folks in town have gone completely nuts. Well there's a reason for that and you're going to be one of the few people outside of the higher-ranking Ground Zero personnel to learn about it." Lilith stops writing to give you her complete attention. "We put an experimental drug in the water supply and that's what's causing most people to act the way they're doing in town. In fact we've done this to a lot of places. As bad as what's going on in town, I imagine it's even worse in a bigger populated area like Security City." Lilith says. While you're still worried about yourself, this bit of information is a little frightening for other reasons. "Wait. What? Why?" you ask. "Well there are very good reasons I assure you, but most of them probably wouldn't matter to most with any sort of so called ethical concerns on human testing. Indeed I don't even know all of the answers myself, I'm just a small cog in a big relentless machine. All I can do is tell you this, the world IS going to change very severely and very soon and it's Ground Zero's goal to try to save the human race at any cost. Our shelters aren't the only way we're doing that." Lilith says. "But how is putting crazy juice in the water supply doing that?" you ask. "Well, I'm not completely familiar with all the science involved, but it basically makes people more resilient to things like diseases, radiation, and even chemical gases. You know, anything that's likely to wipe out humanity on a wide scale when our glorious world leaders start pressing buttons. It seems like it increases strength and speed as well. Unfortunately it would seem it has a very negative effect on the mind, but that of course was an unintended side effect. However, if animal testing is anything to go by, those effects should only be temporary." "But how long do they last?" "With animals? A few weeks, but we never really got to test on humans at least not on a wide scale. There were some individual tests I believe, but those were the earlier stages of the drug and the results of those weren't very positive. Ground Zero wanted to pick a populated area to do testing on years ago to hammer out all the problems quicker, but we had an agreement with government, which kept dragging its damn feet as usual on things. It didn't help that GZ was also temporarily burdened with some incompetent leadership for a while so we didn't get to do any of this until the last minute and now this is the result. Don't get me started on the faulty elevator problems in most of the shelters..." Lilith at this point shakes her head and runs her fingers through her hair as if dismayed with how things have turned out. As she's doing this, a horrible conclusion comes to you. "Wait...am I going to go crazy too? I drank mostly bottled water!" you say. "Yes, a lot of people do these days, but most people still bathe regularly, brush their teeth and such and all that is still enough even if you're not drinking straight from the tap. As for if you're going to go crazy, well that's a matter of perspective. Given what I know about you, I have to say from a professional perspective you're not exactly a beacon of sanity Suzy, but then who of us really is right? If you were worried that you're going to start going into a violent fit of rage, I'd have to say I don't think you are since you haven't already. The drug doesn't seem to be affecting everyone in town the same way for some reason. Not sure why, but again that's why I'm keeping you around for observation. You're going to be my control subject as it were." "What does that mean?" you ask. "What it essentially means is as long as you cooperate and don't try to escape, you'll be well taken care of. I'll ask you questions, maybe do a few non-invasive tests and that's about it. If it seems you're completely fine, I guess we'll move on from there. For now though I think you should have better accommodations don't you? This room is rather spartan, I'm going to take you to a new one. Now, I could call my brother in here or just wheel you to it still strapped to the gurney, but I'd rather NOT do that Suzy. I want our relationship to be a trusting one. So, I'm going to release you from your straps, you'll follow me and you WILL NOT try to escape or anything like that. Do you understand?" Of course you're going to say yes to Lilith, no matter what, but your intentions are another matter. While Lilith seems like a reasonable lady, she's still a Morningstar and all that entails from what you know of that fucked up family. She might not be one of the chaos goddess worshipping brainwashed cultist ones, but she's obviously still not concerned with the value of human life and the only thing that's saved you is having a past relationship with Bobby and his continued feelings for you. She doesn't look tough, of course looks can be deceiving, but you're pretty desperate and you REALLY want to leave. When she releases you, you could probably easily grab one of those surgical instruments and hold her hostage until you took her car and got out of this place. You've no idea where you'd go, but anywhere would be better. > You make no attempt to escape You don't know the complete lay out of the house and you also don't really know Lilith excessively well to judge how "tough" she actually is. For all you know she's got some sort of GZ martial arts training especially given what she's revealed about what insidious practices they're doing. You also don't know much about her brother, but he's probably a damn psycho. If you threatened his sister, he might be capable of anything; you know how close the Morningstar family tends to be after all... Also, so far this week, every time you've "asserted" yourself, it's gone very badly. Might be better to at least wait a while and see if a better opportunity comes along and get a feel for this place first. Lilith undoes your straps and you're soon free. You sit up, stretch and try to maintain composure that you're not still scared about all this. "I know the first time we met you were having problems walking by yourself. You okay to do that now? Not still feeling wobbly or anything?" "I believe I'm fine. Just very nervous about all this." "Don't be nervous. As I said, follow the rules and you'll be fine. If you're worrying about catching the madness that the town has, well like I said, you're probably fine, but even if you aren't I've got a few things that might help. You ready to go?" "Yeah I guess." You say and Lilith leads you out the door. When you exit, you find yourself in an uncarpeted corridor with a few rows of doors to the left and right of you (All with very strong looking and very locked doors). It reminds you of a hospital setting; you can't help but wonder if you're still in Lilith's house anymore. "Um, are we still in your house?" you ask. "Oh yes. We're not on the ground floor if that's what you're wondering though, we're in the basement. Of course this house never had a basement this large originally. A lot of this was added on much later due to my work in GZ. Leslie nearly blew a gasket when he heard workers were coming in to make severe alterations to it, but in time he realized it had its advantages and I told him his area wouldn't be fussed with anyway. He spends a lot of time down here with his experiments you see and hates change...guess you and he have that in common no?" "What?" "Well as I said, Bobby told me much about you and your past. Said you preferred to stay down in your basement and hide away from the world and weren't a fan of change yourself. Was he incorrect in what he told me?" "...no...no I suppose he wasn't. It's true. I did spend all my time in the basement hiding out from the real world and hated change. This week has been a big wake up call that things couldn't be like that forever though." You say. "Hm, well don't despair. While things do eventually change, they can always change for the better. Here's your new room." Lilith remarks and unlocks it. The door opens up to another windowless room, but this one is much nicer. In fact it's downright cozy. There's a sofa, a bookcase with books, a TV...hell it almost reminds you of home. As enter to get a closer look at everything, Lilith is preoccupied with something on her phone. "Shit, well something came up and we're going to have to get to the questions later. But for now, what do you think to your new surroundings?" Lilith asks. "It's okay. I didn't expect to have such a fancy cell." You say. "Suzy! Don't think of this as a cell, think of it as just a regular room where you're staying until it's confirmed you're okay! Now, if you notice there is another small room off to the right. That's the bathroom where you'll find all the usual facilities. I would imagine you're probably hungry and I'll be back with some food soon. Just have to deal with something. The National Guard has been deployed in town to maintain order and apparently GZ is sending some of their people to this house as added security. They're already on their way so I'm going to have to go talk to my brother about this and make sure he curbs his anti-social behavior to a manageable level. Doesn't help that he's got those two inbred redneck assistants of his with him right now. I can't stand those assholes. He's either going to have to keep them out of sight completely or make them leave...(sigh) Ugh, anyway I'll be back soon, just make yourself at home." Lilith closes the door, which you then hear lock and you're now alone. You sit down on the sofa trying to wrap your head around all this. Never in a million years would you have thought you'd be a prisoner by your ex-boyfriend's aunt who works for the corporation responsible for all those ads on TV and apparently involves in some seriously shady practices. Makes you think about some of those crackpots that posted conspiracy theories on various sites you read. Turns out some of them weren't too far from the truth after all. The thing is, you can't even worry about something of that magnitude. For one thing, you have absolutely no power to do anything about it and second, you've got the more pressing concern about what is going to happen to you. While things are going better than you thought they going to go, you're still not seeing a good end to any of this. Your luck has been up and down this entire week and just when something good seems to happen, something equally bad happens. You don't trust Lilith completely, no matter how "nice" she's trying to be. At best Lilith keeps her word and you're not sick or infected only for her to ultimately execute you "humanely" with shot to your head. You can't imagine her keeping you alive after telling you her corporation's secrets like that. Unless of course she thinks you wouldn't tell anyone and even if you did, who would believe you anyway? The darker picture is of course she said the world was going to change very soon implying a nuclear holocaust like all the GZ ads have been harping on about. Maybe she's told you because ultimately it isn't going to matter due to doomsday. If that's the case, where is that going to leave you? Maybe Lilith will release you alive, but leaving you to fend for yourself in a blasted wasteland of which you don't fancy your chances. And these are all the best-case scenarios you're envisioning, because you don't even want to think about the worst case, which is undoubtedly going to involve you being in more pain than you could ever imagine. You have no more tears for any of this, because you're spent as far as that's concerned. You're still scared of course, but you feel like you're starting to become numb to very real possibility of death. Doesn't mean you're giving up though and you proceed to study your surroundings, taking note of anything you could possibly use as a weapon. You don't find any secret passages or vents you could crawl around in because that only happens in the movies. Eventually you take a break and lay down on the sofa, which at least is comfortable, you just wish you weren't wearing a damn hospital gown. You think about turning the TV on, but you figure it will probably just be full of Ground Zero ads. Time passes and eventually you hear the door opening up. At first you figure it's going to be Lilith, but it'

s not. Two dirty looking men open up the door and enter. One of them is huge and has a slackjawed look on his face. He wears overalls that look like they've never been washed. The smaller of the two is wearing a mechanic's jumpsuit and trucker's cap. When he sees you a big grin spreads across his face making him even creepier than the larger one. "Hoo wee! Well look at what we got here! Doc really has been fixing up this place, because that is one sweet piece I tell ya what!" the smaller one exclaims. You can only guess these must be Leslie's "assistants." You sit up immediately and try to arrange your gown to cover you as much as possible. "Didn't mean to startle ya darlin' but I'm Jed and this here's my brother Hugo. What's yer name and what the hell are you doin' in here?" the smaller one says. "My name's Suzy, and this is my room. What the hell are YOU two doing in here?" "Whoa, easy there blondie. This is where me and Hugo always go to hang out when we're on standby as it were. No point in headin' back ta town right now anyway, since it sounds like the shit's really hit the fan out there, but never mind all that, what's all this about this bein' yer room? You some new live in whore for the Doc to fuck when his snooty sister isn't putting out?" Jed asks. Jed gets closer towards you meanwhile Hugo hasn't moved from the entryway. You're feeling very threatened. "No, I'm Lilith's guest, now will you please leave my room?" you say. "Lilith's guest? Wait, you sayin' you HER whore? Well shit, I like the sound of that even better! So you ever been with a guy at all or are you strictly a pussy licker?" Jed asks with a pretty predatory look in his eyes. "The pair of you better get out of here. Lilith has made it clear she doesn't want anyone else in here." You say standing up from the couch. "Oh is that right? Well I ain't heard nuthin' about it and I take my orders from the Doc, not his snobby bitch of a sister. So I think you better just settle down blondie. In fact, I think you better start making yourself REAL comfortable." Jed says and starts fondling his crotch while still approaching you. You're steadily running out of options. About the only thing you can do now is either threaten them to the point that they back off or beg and hope they take mercy. Either option isn't likely to succeed. > You threaten them You focus your mind and try to muster up all your courage for what you're about to say next. It might very well be suicidal, but if the unthinkable is going to happen, then at least you can take comfort that you stood up to them even as scared as you are right now. "Look, you fucking inbred rednecks, get the fuck out before you get in some major shit so deep that you ain't got the hip waiters for it!" you exclaim. Jed is hardly intimidated and his expression changes from perverted leer to burning hatred. "Hugo get out of that entryway and close that fucking door. I think this little blonde bitch needs to learn I don't take orders from whores. Let alone one that isn't sucking my cock, but I think we can change that situation." Jed says. "You think that's supposed to fucking scare me?" you say and then Jed grabs you by both arms squeezing tightly. He presses his body against yours and looks down at you menacingly. "Oh I can tell you're scared bitch, I've been doing this a long time. And even if you weren't, you better damn well be. Last time I saw Doc's sister she was outside speaking with some soldier boys. She ain't gonna be down here in time to save your ass and if you think that we'll get in trouble for fucking you up, you over estimate your worth. At the most, we'll get chewed out by Doc, for pissing off his sister by wreckin' her kitty licking fuck buddy." Jed says. You just look down after Jed's response. Still holding your arms tightly he addresses you again. "What? Got nuthin' else to say? Yeah that's what I fucking thought. You fucking whores talk tough when you think you got a savior, but when the shit goes down, you shut the fuck up real quick." You start laughing and look up at Jed's face, which is now showing a bit of confusion due to your response. "You truly are one dumb ass fucktard, Jed. You keep thinking I'm Lilith's whore, or whatever fantasy YOU put in your own goddamn pathetic little head of yours. If I was her whore, don't you think I'd be dressed more like one? Look at how the fuck I'm dressed! I'm in a fucking HOSPITAL GOWN! Who wears hospital gowns? FUCKING PATIENTS! I'm her patient! I'M FUCKING SICK AND CONTAGIOUS YOU STUPID ASSHOLE!" you shout with a mixture of contempt and amusement. At this point Jed takes his hands off of you and backs off a bit. "Shit!" he shouts. "Oh what? Am I not so attractive now that you've found out I might have shit that will make your dick fall off? Come on stud, I'll make it totally worth it! I guarantee it'll be the last fuck you'll ever need." You say and start grabbing at him and laughing. Jed gives you a hard shove causing you to fall backwards. "Fuck! Hugo, this bitch has got the crotch rot somethin' fierce! Open up that fucking door!" Jed shouts. Hugo comprehends the situation just well enough to follow Jed's orders and it doesn't take long before they're both out the door. Unfortunately Jed isn't quite so stupid to leave the door open or unlocked since you hear a firm click. Of course maybe he was just so scared of you possibly getting out that he took the time to lock it. In any case you got rid of them and you're alone again. You're quite pleased that this is the first time you actually employed an assertive method this week and it worked out. Your arms hurt from Jed squeezing them though. A half hour later, you hear the door again. This time it's Lilith and she looks somewhat harried when she comes in. She's also carrying a tray of food with what looks to be meat on it and some potatoes on it. She places it on coffee table in front of the sofa and also gives you a bottle of water. She then sits down on the chair Jed was sitting in. "Whew. Sorry about that. Just one thing after another. Anyway, there's your food. It's left over meatloaf from yesterday that I heated up. Hope that's okay. We still had quite a bit left and I didn't really have time to prepare anything else. Leslie usually does most of the cooking around here anyway." You stare at the meatloaf, which doesn't look all that appetizing. The potatoes look okay though. You notice your eating utensils are plastic. Guess Lilith isn't completely trusting of you either. "What's wrong? You're not a vegetarian are you?" Lilith asks. "Um, no. Not at all." You say and poke at the meatloaf. "You think I poisoned the food?" "Actually I didn't think that, until you just mentioned it. I was just thinking of how unappealing the meat looks." You say. "Well not that this might help calm your fears, but I didn't poison or drug the food. There wouldn't be much point in it; you're my control subject after all. As for the look of the meat, well my brother's a good cook, but he's never been big on presentation, but I assure you it tastes much better than it looks. Of course you don't need to eat it. There are potatoes there." "No, I'll eat. I'm hungry enough and I don't have that much choice." You say. You take a bite of the meatloaf and it's actually just like Lilith said, it looks awful, but it does taste good. "You were right." You say. "Well I do understand the hesitation. I remember some of the meals my brother has made in the past and they looked more like something that already was digested. He's gotten a bit better with it though. Anyway, so how have you been feeling? Still no sudden mood swings or violent urges or anything I trust?" Lilith asks. "Well no, but I did have to act crazy to get two redneck assholes out of here." "Oh no. (Sigh) Jed and Hugo came in here? I told my brother not to let those assholes wander around down here picking the locks to places they're not supposed to be going anyway!" "Apparently they were under the impression I was your personal whore." "What?! Why the hell would they think...nevermind...they didn't do anything to you did they?" "No, like I said, I acted crazy. Or more specifically I convinced them I was sick and contagious. They left real quick after that." "Heh, good thinking. Explains why I saw their shitty pick up truck screech out of here earlier." "Hope to never see them again." You say continuing to eat. "Yeah well that will be arranged. I'll tell my people stationed outside to shoot them on sight if they return. I don't care if Leslie complains about it either. Besides, there's news that we all might not be staying here much longer." You stop eating for a moment. "What do you mean?" you ask. "Well as I said, the National Guard are currently stationed in town and trying to maintain order. While they might succeed, GZ doesn't fancy their chances and would rather not lose a valuable employee such as myself in the possible chaos that will spill over. So they're ready to ship me and my brother out of here to a GZ shelter, a proper company one, not the ones that have been built for the common public. It's just as well considering the reports we've been getting on the world situation." Lilith says. You take a drink of water wondering what this means for you. "When is this going to happen?" you ask. "Maybe tomorrow, definitely by Friday. I'm going to miss this house, so many good memories here especially with Leslie. I can only imagine the talk I'm going to have to have with him. Looks like he's going to have company job whether he wants one or not. Oh well, he'll get used to it..." "What about me?" you interrupt. "Well, that is the question isn't it?" Lilith says, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes. "While I haven't been able to do the tests and ask the questions like I wanted to earlier today, I'm fairly certain you're fine and you're one of those few that aren't affected by the side affects of the drug. I have a few theories on why that might be, but nothing solid. It doesn't really matter anyway I suppose at this late stage." Lilith remarks. "So...I'm free to go?" you ask. "Well, I do want to keep you for observation for one more day. I mean might as well since we might not be leaving tomorrow anyway. After that, well I suppose it's up to you. If you want to leave, you will be allowed to leave. You probably should keep in mind however, that returning to town might not be the best idea, so I'm not sure where you'd go. Do you have anywhere to go?" "Not really. I mean I don't have my phone so I can't even call anyone who might give a shit. Not that my family would give a shit of course, so I don't really even have a home at this point." "Hm, well that leads me to the other possible option, that I can probably take you with us. Might take some string pulling and calling in of favors, but if you want to come with us, you can." "Go with you? To a GZ Shelter? What would I do there?" "Oh I'm sure we could find something, no need to worry about that. You'd have to follow the rules there though. Life would be quite different, but with the way things are going, I'm sure life is going to be different anyway." You just nod silently as Lilith stands up to head back to the door. "Tell you what. Let's dispense with any more interrogation today. You already had to deal with waking up strapped to a gurney, not knowing where you were, being told that the world may end soon and that you may or may not suffer a negative side affect of a drug, not to mention those redneck rapists barging in here. I think you deserve to relax for the rest of the day and night." "So, that's it?" "For today it is. Like I said, just make yourself at home for now. This will all be over soon and you won't be a prisoner here. I'm glad you've been making this easy Suzy. That's definitely a good thing." Lilith says and leaves. Alone once again and now you've got the whole night to contemplate your situation, which has changed again. Escape is now looking unnecessary given that Lilith seems to not have any insidious plans of going back on here word. You're not even sure it would be a good idea to do so anyway now considering she mentioned GZ security are now guarding the perimeter of the house. Of course that still leaves the question of "where will you go?" While she's already warned you about town, you really don't have anywhere else. You don't even have a vehicle. You suppose you could always just risk heading back home or maybe even Julie's assuming either place is still standing. The offer to go with Lilith and her brother is just odd though. It really is an unknown factor, but if things are really getting as bad as Lilith claims, maybe you need to embrace the unknown. You spend the rest of the night pondering your options until you eventually get sleepy and drift off on the couch. > Next day… You wake up once again a prisoner, though perhaps not for long and despite everything, you're actually feeling slightly optimistic about your situation. Very slightly. You aren't sure what time it is, but knowing your usual sleeping habits, it's probably at least the afternoon. You imagine you'll be getting a visit from Lilith as usual soon so you start perusing the nearby books until she comes in. You pick one that looks interesting to you. As you're reading "Unusual Sexual Practices From Around the World" you start hearing the faint noise of what sounds like yelling or shouting. Doesn't really sound like any actual words though, more like just noises, still the sound isn't completely distinct. A few minutes later you hear something that sounds like a gunshot. You start to worry and keeping you ears open, but you don't hear anything else unusual until you hear that familiar sound of the door opening up. Fortunately it's Lilith and not someone who isn't supposed to be in here. Once again she looks a bit beleaguered as she carries in what looks to be a small medical bag and a notebook. "Um, is everything okay? I thought I heard shouting and a shot." You say. "Yeah, I imagine you would have given your proximity. You remember I said you were my control subject? Well some of the others down here aren't and they've been getting worse. My brother just put one down that was starting to break his restraints. I have a feeling the rest are going to have to be put down as well, because I don't think I'm going to bother having them transported with us when we leave, which is looking like today since shit is reportedly getting even worse in town. The "putting down" of subjects is a little concerning until Lilith immediately follows up her statement. "Relax, you're not getting shot unless you start regressing into a savage and let me guess, you've experienced no problems correct?" "Nope. Feel fine. Just a little anxiousness, especially being near people that might be turning into beasts." You remark. "Don't worry about that. They might escape the restraints, but they aren't escaping out the rooms. We made sure of that when we had this area built it had solid doors and walls. Anyway, since things are moving rather quickly now I suppose I'll just wrap up your little part in this observation which isn't going to take long." Lilith at this point pulls out a syringe and a tourniquet along with some cotton balls and rubbing alcohol. "Now I'm just going to draw some blood, not inject you with anything." "What do you need my blood for?" "Oh just need another sample for testing. I mean I already drew blood from you when you were unconscious a day ago, so this is just a follow up really. Considering you're not frothing at the mouth or destroying this room by now, I'm very certain you weren't affected by whatever exposure of the drug you might have in contact with, but never hurts to be thorough. Your arm please." Lilith has more or less been playing square with you so reluctantly you hold out your arm and after prepping it she begins to draw blood. "Ugh, hate needles." You say looking away. "Most people do. Leslie used to hate them too. Still does actually. Really odd considering he's a doctor and uses them on a regular basis...then again I suppose it's different when you're using them on other people. There we go." Lilith finishes up and you're rubbing your arm watching a tube of your blood go into another container and then placed back into the bag. Lilith then starts flipping through pages of her notebook. "So, I guess I'll be free to leave soon?" you ask. "Yes. I'll have the clothes you were wearing brought to you soon. I'm sure you're sick of wearing the gown. After that well, I guess you can make your decision on whether to go or come with us. I contacted a few high ups at the offices and they said it was fine if I brought you." She answers without looking up. "Oh. Well I guess that does open up options for me then." You say still unsure of what you're going to do. You have been meaning to ask Lilith about something she said to you yesterday though. "Hey, I was sort of wondering...what did you mean yesterday about me not being a beacon of sanity?" you ask. "Funny you should ask, since I was just about to do a last minute interview with you, so I had at least a few more things to put down in my report. Most of what I've got on you is only through observation or what Bobby told me. It would be nice if I had something directly from you. Of course as I keep complaining about, things haven't been ideal lately." Lilith finds the page she was looking for and then focuses complete attention on you. "To answer your question...keep in mind this is based on all observation and mostly Bobby's words so I'll admit this isn't necessarily an accurate assessment of your personality. No offense is meant, but here's my impression of you and why and please feel free to interject whenever you want." Lilith goes into a psychological assessment of your character and while you do fill in on some of what she might be missing and clarify on other aspects of your life, she doesn't really lose a beat in her view of you, indeed it only seems to enhance it. She starts off by talking about your introverted behavior to the point of falling into escapist behavior. She discusses that some of this is due to being the product of a dysfunctional family where you were only ever close to your mother since she was the only one that ever displayed any positive attention and when she died that was one of the major turning points of you shutting yourself off from the world and "giving up" in general. However Lilith mentions that this relationship wasn't exactly the healthiest since it placed pressure on being "good and proper" which apparently had some negative effects on not just you, but your other sisters as well. Then she mentions that while you finally broke out of this shell a bit when you met Bobby, that relationship wasn't exactly built on a stable foundation to begin with and indeed just fed into your world of fantasy on some level, with Bobby being a "Prince" whisking you away from the clutches of a "villain" (Your uncle in this case). Most of your relationship was co-dependency and enabling behavior since who would anyone that considered themselves "normal" stay with a man who doesn't just murder people, but essentially runs a cult? She then goes on to say that while she does think you did care for Bobby on some level, she doesn't believe that you were really capable of ever loving him and not because of his sister, but because deep down you're not really capable of the emotion at all. She mentions that you're so used to your own company and withdrawn that you can't even form proper attachments. Even a "non-normal" one like you had with Bobby. She finishes up by saying that while much of your personality can be explained by "nurture", there is evidence that all of the behaviors you exhibit were all just laying in wait to flourish anyway. Other members of your family have their own personality problems (Sadism, suicidal depression, narcissism, nymphomania, paranoid delusions, psychopathy, etc) meaning that it's probably all genetic on some level. She even believes that under certain circumstances you could not only be capable of great violence, but also revel in it. "But what does all this mean?" you ask. "Nothing much as far as my report goes except maybe a half assed theory on why the drug didn't seem to have an affect on your mind. I suppose for you it's greater insight on yourself, but I'd wager that given your introspective nature, you've probably already pondered all of what I've just told at one time or another. It's probably why you're not really insulted by my words, because you probably agree with everything I said on some level." You don't really have a response because what Lilith says is somewhat true. It's actually pretty damn scary how accurate she was given that all her information was mainly based on Bobby's words and the few conversations she's had with you. "Wow. Well I guess you didn't go the typical route and say I was a closet lesbian or something." You say. "Oh, no. I don't believe you're a closeted lesbian." Lilith chuckles. "You just have some repressed bisexual tendencies, but that's really a very minor point in the scheme of things. Anyway, I think we're done. I'll go grab your clothes and..." Suddenly the door opens up and you see an older man with wild hair that's completely white in color. He wears a bloody lab coat and has a pistol in one hand. You wonder if this Leslie. "Sis, you need to get your ass out here. We're under damn attack and we could use another pair of hands to hold a weapon out here." He says. "Who the hell is attacking?" Lilith says. "Who do you think? Damn crazies from town and your GZ boys aren't exactly the crack team they think they are. Just saw one of those fucking cowards run off...well before he got tackled and eaten by a bunch of those crazy fuckers." "Shit, they probably sent a bunch of fucking rookies. (Sigh) Fine, let's go Leslie. Suzy, you might want to stay here." Lilith gets up to go with her brother, and the pair of them leaves the room. You don't hear a click this time and you get curious... You get up and try the door, and find it hasn't been locked this time. They were probably in too much of a hurry to bother. You sort of wonder if you shouldn't take this opportunity to escape on your own terms, since you still have a bit of a trust problem with Lilith considering she did make a lab rat out of you. (Doesn't matter if she was "nice" about it) Of course maybe you'd be safer in here if there crazy cannibals out there. > You leave the room You're not staying in here like a sitting duck. If whatever the things are that are attacking the house succeed in overrunning the place, you'd be trapped. Better you at least get to an area where you can run somewhere else, and with any luck you'll be able to escape this place altogether. You exit the room and quickly run down a corridor where you hope you'll some stairs in that direction, because with as noisy as the other patients are, you have just as much fear that one of them is going to get out their locked rooms and attack you despite the fact Lilith says they're secure. You soon find the stairs leading up and the sounds of gunfire and shouts get even louder. You hear a lot of glass breaking as well. All the action seems like it's going on in the front part of the house, so that's where you head away from and soon find yourself in the kitchen. From the kitchen you can see a door leading to backyard. Looking out the window, it doesn't appear that any of those crazy people are attacking from this direction so that's one good thing. It also looks like the fence would be very hard to climb since it's a smooth high wooden fence. If you were planning to escape, your chances of doing it this way have decreased. Still, you also notice the tree in the yard with branches that hang over the fence. You probably could climb it and drop down if you really wanted to get away. Of course with all those things out there, that might not be the safest plan, even if they aren't coming from this direction. You also feel a little vulnerable what with just wearing a hospital gown. Then you hear the chaos going on within the house and the sounds of what you think to be those things finally getting into this place. Wasting no more time, you look around for a weapon and a nasty looking machete catches your eye. You have no idea what one of these would be doing in the kitchen, but you're taking it and getting the hell out of here. As you're opening up the door you hearing the sounds of battle getting more hectic, in fact it even sounds like it's getting closer to your location... "I'm gonna check around back to make sure none of them are...HOLY SHIT!" A uniformed man with a GZ logo on it exclaims when you turn to face him. Having no idea who you are, seeing you hold a machete in your hand, the fact that you just opened the backdoor and him being totally surprised by your presence causes him to do the only logical thing a man in his position would do. He thinks you're a hostile and immediately opens fire on you with his rifle. You don't have time to do anything except fatally catch bullets at that point. When the chaos dies down, Lilith is annoyed about losing you as her control subject, but she gets over it.

You wake up once again a prisoner, though perhaps not for long and despite everything, you're actually feeling slightly optimistic about your situation. Very slightly. You aren't sure what time it is, but knowing your usual sleeping habits, it's probably at least the afternoon. You imagine you'll be getting a visit from Lilith as usual soon so you start perusing the nearby books until she comes in. You pick one that looks interesting to you. As you're reading "Unusual Sexual Practices From Around the World" you start hearing the faint noise of what sounds like yelling or shouting. Doesn't really sound like any actual words though, more like just noises, still the sound isn't completely distinct. A few minutes later you hear something that sounds like a gunshot. You start to worry and keeping you ears open, but you don't hear anything else unusual until you hear that familiar sound of the door opening up. Fortunately it's Lilith and not someone who isn't supposed to be in here. Once again she looks a bit beleaguered as she carries in what looks to be a small medical bag and a notebook. "Um, is everything okay? I thought I heard shouting and a shot." You say. "Yeah, I imagine you would have given your proximity. You remember I said you were my control subject? Well some of the others down here aren't and they've been getting worse. My brother just put one down that was starting to break his restraints. I have a feeling the rest are going to have to be put down as well, because I don't think I'm going to bother having them transported with us when we leave, which is looking like today since shit is reportedly getting even worse in town. The "putting down" of subjects is a little concerning until Lilith immediately follows up her statement. "Relax, you're not getting shot unless you start regressing into a savage and let me guess, you've experienced no problems correct?" "Nope. Feel fine. Just a little anxiousness, especially being near people that might be turning into beasts." You remark. "Don't worry about that. They might escape the restraints, but they aren't escaping out the rooms. We made sure of that when we had this area built it had solid doors and walls. Anyway, since things are moving rather quickly now I suppose I'll just wrap up your little part in this observation which isn't going to take long." Lilith at this point pulls out a syringe and a tourniquet along with some cotton balls and rubbing alcohol. "Now I'm just going to draw some blood, not inject you with anything." "What do you need my blood for?" "Oh just need another sample for testing. I mean I already drew blood from you when you were unconscious a day ago, so this is just a follow up really. Considering you're not frothing at the mouth or destroying this room by now, I'm very certain you weren't affected by whatever exposure of the drug you might have in contact with, but never hurts to be thorough. Your arm please." Lilith has more or less been playing square with you so reluctantly you hold out your arm and after prepping it she begins to draw blood. "Ugh, hate needles." You say looking away. "Most people do. Leslie used to hate them too. Still does actually. Really odd considering he's a doctor and uses them on a regular basis...then again I suppose it's different when you're using them on other people. There we go." Lilith finishes up and you're rubbing your arm watching a tube of your blood go into another container and then placed back into the bag. Lilith then starts flipping through pages of her notebook. "So, I guess I'll be free to leave soon?" you ask. "Yes. I'll have the clothes you were wearing brought to you soon. I'm sure you're sick of wearing the gown. After that well, I guess you can make your decision on whether to go or come with us. I contacted a few high ups at the offices and they said it was fine if I brought you." She answers without looking up. "Oh. Well I guess that does open up options for me then." You say still unsure of what you're going to do. You have been meaning to ask Lilith about something she said to you yesterday though. "Hey, I was sort of wondering...what did you mean yesterday about me not being a beacon of sanity?" you ask. "Funny you should ask, since I was just about to do a last minute interview with you, so I had at least a few more things to put down in my report. Most of what I've got on you is only through observation or what Bobby told me. It would be nice if I had something directly from you. Of course as I keep complaining about, things haven't been ideal lately." Lilith finds the page she was looking for and then focuses complete attention on you. "To answer your question...keep in mind this is based on all observation and mostly Bobby's words so I'll admit this isn't necessarily an accurate assessment of your personality. No offense is meant, but here's my impression of you and why and please feel free to interject whenever you want." Lilith goes into a psychological assessment of your character and while you do fill in on some of what she might be missing and clarify on other aspects of your life, she doesn't really lose a beat in her view of you, indeed it only seems to enhance it. She starts off by talking about your introverted behavior to the point of falling into escapist behavior. She discusses that some of this is due to being the product of a dysfunctional family where you were only ever close to your mother since she was the only one that ever displayed any positive attention and when she died that was one of the major turning points of you shutting yourself off from the world and "giving up" in general. However Lilith mentions that this relationship wasn't exactly the healthiest since it placed pressure on being "good and proper" which apparently had some negative effects on not just you, but your other sisters as well. Then she mentions that while you finally broke out of this shell a bit when you met Bobby, that relationship wasn't exactly built on a stable foundation to begin with and indeed just fed into your world of fantasy on some level, with Bobby being a "Prince" whisking you away from the clutches of a "villain" (Your uncle in this case). Most of your relationship was co-dependency and enabling behavior since who would anyone that considered themselves "normal" stay with a man who doesn't just murder people, but essentially runs a cult? She then goes on to say that while she does think you did care for Bobby on some level, she doesn't believe that you were really capable of ever loving him and not because of his sister, but because deep down you're not really capable of the emotion at all. She mentions that you're so used to your own company and withdrawn that you can't even form proper attachments. Even a "non-normal" one like you had with Bobby. She finishes up by saying that while much of your personality can be explained by "nurture", there is evidence that all of the behaviors you exhibit were all just laying in wait to flourish anyway. Other members of your family have their own personality problems (Sadism, suicidal depression, narcissism, nymphomania, paranoid delusions, psychopathy, etc) meaning that it's probably all genetic on some level. She even believes that under certain circumstances you could not only be capable of great violence, but also revel in it. "But what does all this mean?" you ask. "Nothing much as far as my report goes except maybe a half assed theory on why the drug didn't seem to have an affect on your mind. I suppose for you it's greater insight on yourself, but I'd wager that given your introspective nature, you've probably already pondered all of what I've just told at one time or another. It's probably why you're not really insulted by my words, because you probably agree with everything I said on some level." You don't really have a response because what Lilith says is somewhat true. It's actually pretty damn scary how accurate she was given that all her information was mainly based on Bobby's words and the few conversations she's had with you. "Wow. Well I guess you didn't go the typical route and say I was a closet lesbian or something." You say. "Oh, no. I don't believe you're a closeted lesbian." Lilith chuckles. "You just have some repressed bisexual tendencies, but that's really a very minor point in the scheme of things. Anyway, I think we're done. I'll go grab your clothes and..." Suddenly the door opens up and you see an older man with wild hair that's completely white in color. He wears a bloody lab coat and has a pistol in one hand. You wonder if this Leslie. "Sis, you need to get your ass out here. We're under damn attack and we could use another pair of hands to hold a weapon out here." He says. "Who the hell is attacking?" Lilith says. "Who do you think? Damn crazies from town and your GZ boys aren't exactly the crack team they think they are. Just saw one of those fucking cowards run off...well before he got tackled and eaten by a bunch of those crazy fuckers." "Shit, they probably sent a bunch of fucking rookies. (Sigh) Fine, let's go Leslie. Suzy, you might want to stay here." Lilith gets up to go with her brother, and the pair of them leaves the room. You don't hear a click this time and you get curious... You get up and try the door, and find it hasn't been locked this time. They were probably in too much of a hurry to bother. You sort of wonder if you shouldn't take this opportunity to escape on your own terms, since you still have a bit of a trust problem with Lilith considering she did make a lab rat out of you. (Doesn't matter if she was "nice" about it) Of course maybe you'd be safer in here if there crazy cannibals out there. > You stay in the room You might be reverting back to old habits, but if there is some hectic bullshit going on out there, then you want to avoid it. They can handle it and you decide to be extra cautious and block the door with a chair. You hear the sounds of gunfire above you. That isn't what bothers you so much as it's the growling and yelling that sounds like it's coming from nearby. You remember that there are other "patients" on this same floor. More time passes and you still hear gunshots and the inhuman noises. You are starting to worry that it's quite possible this house is going to be overrun by these things, and you haven't even seen one. This fear becomes even more intense when you stop hearing the gunshots and only hear the guttural noises nearby. You start to feel like you've made another bad choice. Suddenly there's an attempt to open the door only to be stopped by the chair you've propped against it. This is followed by a loud bang on the door, which scares the hell out of you. "Suzy! What the hell? Is this door barricaded?" you hear Lilith's voice shout. "Yeah...is it safe?" you ask. "It's safe in that we're not in any immediate danger, but we gotta start getting the hell outta here. Open up!" Wasting no time you move the chair and the door opens up. Lilith throws your clothes at you and you can hear those awful noises in the corridor. Yelling and banging. "Here. Get dressed and don't worry about the noises, the other subjects aren't getting out of those rooms anytime soon." Lilith says. You're not as sure as Lilith is about that, so you just get dressed as fast as you can and exit the room with her. "So what's going on?" you ask as you follow her. "What's going on is Leslie and I are heading to that GZ Shelter after he and I gather a few things. The crazies from town are spilling out from it and we don't want to be here in case another wave comes. I was hoping to have more time to pack, but I guess we can't have everything." You and Lilith get to the ground floor and finally see the house proper. It's a bit of a mess now probably due to all the running around and shooting, but obviously was nice at one time. Then you enter the front room and see several broken windows, and couple of dead bodies. One of them is a uniformed man with his throat ripped out and several slashes across his face. Nearby him is a body of a disheveled looking woman with several bullet holes in her body and head. She still has a chunk of flesh in her teeth and even in death her eyes display a crazed look. It sort of freaks you out. "Um, that guy in the uniform, shouldn't someone shoot him in the head?" "What? No. These aren't zombies. They're just well...rabid." Lilith chuckles. "Headshots aren't even necessary to kill them, though it sure as hell helps." A couple more uniformed men with the Ground Zero insignia on them walk into the room holding rifles. "Place seems to be all secure Dr. Morningstar. No other hostiles in the house or around the house." One of them says. "Good. Glad not all of you were incompetent. Wait, are you two the only ones left?" "Afraid so doctor." One of them remarks. "Oh well. Okay, I want you two to stand guard out front. Make sure there isn't another horde or whatever coming our way and if there is, run back in here and tell me immediately." The two uniformed men nod and leave out the front door which is now half hanging off the hinges. You and Lilith both take a quick look outside and see the bodies of several crazies as well as GZ security. In the driveway you see that Lilith's truck is heavily shot up and a couple bodies of crazed townies lie next to it. "Great, these assholes never learned the concept of one shot one kill. (Sigh) Guess we're all just piling into the Ground Zero van." Lilith says shaking her head. Lilith continues looks around a bit more at her partially destroyed house. "Well at least nobody has to clean this up this time. I remember the many many times I'd come home from work and I'd find Leslie had left a damn mess all over the house, much worse than this sometimes even. A lot more bodies too. Still remember the disorder he left when he was trying to write a poem for me on one of our past anniversaries. But it was such a lovely and thoughtful sentiment so I wasn't too mad...anyway have you made your decision of what you're going to do yet?" Lilith asks. You still really aren't sure and lacking an answer, you ask a question. "What would I do at the shelter again? "Well I told you, I'm not in charge of assignments, but I'm sure there would be some sort of position there for you. Ground Zero doesn't waste resources." "I see." Lilith looks at you with a squint. "You...still don't trust me do you? Don't answer. I know you don't. (Sigh) I suppose I don't blame you. Look, if you don't want to go with us you don't have to, I meant that. Still, I think it would be foolish if you didn't." "It might be equally foolish if I went with you. Who knows what the hell is in store for me in an underground shelter." You say. "True, but think on this. If I really had anything bad in store for you there, don't you think I would've just had security and my brother restrain you and take you there against your will anyway? I'm giving you a choice. You can go with us, or not. One of your problems Suzy is you don't take chances, you stick with what you think is safe and look where that has gotten you. But if safety is your main concern, I'm just going to say that staying here isn't exactly the safe option. This house isn't secure, you'll have a few days of food and water at best and if the crazed townsfolk don't come ripping this place apart again, there are always just the plain opportunists that are no doubt lurking about as well. You don't even have a vehicle to leave this place. Mine got all shot up and we're taking the other one. Do you even have a plan if you stay here?" You don't...as usual. "No." you reply. "Well I'd think your choice would be simple then. Anyway, I have to bags to pack and when I'm done, I'm going to need to know what your answer is Suzy." Lilith remarks and leaves you by yourself. You walk around the ground floor of the house a bit, just looking around. You start to form various thoughts in your head about how this place could be made more defensible. You just aren't sure if you're up to the task though. You briefly consider the idea of somehow overpowering one of those GZ security guys outside and driving off with the truck yourself, but you aren't confident that you'd be successful. You then wonder if you could successfully flirt with one of them... You head outside and speak with both of the guards while attempting to be as charming as you can. You even manage to muster up the fortitude to blatantly make sexual innuendo and such. It doesn't work. One of them is gay and the other is happily married and even if that wasn't the case, they get irritated at the fact that you're distracting them from their duty and start telling you to go away. You realize your plan isn't going to work and you give up. "Christ Suzy, some seductress you are." You mutter to yourself. This brings you back to your original two choices and both of those have the potential to go to shit for various reasons, but it's all you got. > You go to the shelter It does seem very likely that if Lilith were going to do something to you, she would've done it already. Plus you haven't given her any trouble like she wanted, so that's has to be in your favor. Also, she makes some very good points about staying here. Civilization as you know it seems to be failing hard and you aren't exactly the "survivalist" type to deal with it. Seems like it would be too late to start learning how in the final hour too, even if you had the desire. While you aren't exactly sure how life would be in an underground shelter, you can't help think that you'd be more "at home" there. After all it's just an oversized basement right? It's a risk, but it's one you feel more confident about mainly because it requires little effort on your part. You sit on one of the few non-broken chairs and wait for Lilith. A few moments pass and you hear footsteps coming up from the basement accompanied by some swearing and more footsteps in one of the other rooms. "Where the fuck did I put that fucking thing? Shit, better not have lost...oh good here it is." You hear Leslie say before he soon enters the front room where you're waiting for Lilith. Leslie carries two sizable black bags and a machete when he enters the room. He stares at you for a moment, which makes you a bit uncomfortable. "Is my sister still upstairs?" he asks, but it's more like an order due to his tone. "Yeah." You answer. "Typical. She's the one dragging me to this fucking shelter and I'm ready before she is. I swear I don't want to go to this fucking place. Let alone working there. The idea of becoming part of a corporate fucking machine is just a fucking anathema to me. Probably have some little shit bean counter for a boss telling me he wants something done at a certain time. I fucking hate shit like that. I fucking hate it. I don't like being told what to do, when to do it, or ANYTHING!" At this point Leslie begins shaking his machete in a violent manner and you see his eyes briefly roll into the back of his head like he's going to go into a convulsion. Then all of a sudden his eyes snap back and he addresses you again. "But the things we do for love right?" Leslie says. "I guess so." "Mm. Speaking of love, my sister has told me a bit about you and it's too bad you and my nephew didn't work out. Guess he'll be stuck with his shrew of a sister now. If he's smart, he'd ditch her and go for his other one...can't remember her fucking name...really quiet..." "Helen?" you answer. "Yeah, that's her. You sort of remind me of her a bit. You're prettier of course, but same sort of wallflower personality. You get molested as a child? Daddy ever make you suck his dick when Mommy wasn't around? Something like that?" "No!" you say not expecting such a question. "Hm, interesting. Would've thought you had been, especially since I heard your family was a bit on the dysfunctional side." "Well they weren't THAT dysfunctional." Leslie gives you a look of annoyance, which makes you a little tense, well more tense than when he was waving his machete around earlier. "Oh. I see. That was a shot at MY family right?" Leslie exclaims. "I didn't..." you start to say. "No, YOU know what you meant and so did I! Is that why you didn't stay with my nephew? Felt you were too good for him?" "That's not the reason, I..." "Pfft, I don't want to fucking hear it! Here I am trying to make the effort to have friendly fucking conversation with you and you're fucking insulting me! Well fuck you too bitch!" Leslie says and when you see him starting to walk in your direction you begin to get worried, but instead he storms out the front door. Just as you're recovering from that incident of Morningstar insanity, Lilith comes walking down from upstairs carrying a couple bags. "What's going on down here? I heard my brother ranting as usual. Everything okay?" she asks. "I dunno. He started talking to me and I tried to be friendly, but he took what I said out of context and got really pissed at me." "Oh. Yeah, been there before. My brother's not very good at social interaction unless that other person also happens to be an asshole. Nevermind him, you're fine. Anyway, did you make your decision? Are you going with us?" "Well...I was, but now I'm not sure..." "What? Is it my brother? I told you forget about him. The shelter is a big place! Chances are you're never going to have to interact with him again when we get there." Lilith puts her bags down and walks over in an attempt to reassure you. "Come on, you don't really want to stay here do you? Dangerous cannibals and criminal types, scavenging for sustenance, no proper toilets, I assure you Suzy at the GZ shelter you won't have to worry about any of that shit." "Well, okay." You say. "Great, ah damnit!" Lilith suddenly remarks and puts her hand on her lower back. "What's wrong?" "I dunno. It's my back. Shit. I think all that damn running around, shooting, lifting and carrying heavy things took its toll. I really need to start exercising on a regular basis. Damn. (Sigh) I hate to ask, but could you carry my bags outside, you can just hand them to those two guards if you want." "Oh, sure okay." You say. You pick up the bags and head out the door with Lilith slowly walking behind. You approach the two guards who are still standing on the porch and just as you're holding the bags out for them to take, you feel a sharp needle going into the side of your upper arm. You drop the bags and turn around in horror, clutching your arm. Lilith once again holds a needle in her hand and you're soon feeling the affects. "Sorry Suzy, but this was the ONLY way GZ was going to let me take you. I never lied though; you will be given a position to contribute to the community. You'll continue to be a test subject...though I'm afraid it will involve a little more than just questions and some blood tests this time." "You...you..." is all you manage to utter before you collapse on the ground and unconsciousness begins to take affect. You can still hear some of the conversation as you start to pass out. "Carry her to the truck and Leslie, you can carry my bags since your short temper nearly cost GZ a perfectly good subject." "Dunno why you just didn't take that bitch to begin with." Leslie remarks. "Because I wanted to see if she'd ultimately go with what was easy or actually grow as a person and make the harder decision. She failed which is why she might as well be put in a GZ experiment lab. She's obviously not a learning animal, better her life goes towards something more useful." You're out for the remainder of the day, in fact you're out of it for quite a few days. By the time you wake up you're strapped to a surgical table with metal restraints with a lot medical equipment in the room. A bright light shines overhead. Fear overwhelms every fiber of your being. You being to call out for help, but the group of masked doctors in a circle nearby don't look like they're going to be doing that. "The subject is up, chief." One of them says. "Yeah, I could tell by her screaming. Okay, let's get her started with the injections first, then I guess we'll see the reaction and go from there." The head doctor says. "Should be interesting." Another says. "Maybe. I'm just glad we didn't get that asshole Leslie Morningstar assigned to our group. Dodged a bullet on that one. Let those fuckers in C Wing put up with him and his sister." You panic, you struggle, you scream, you beg, you plead, you even call out for Bobby at one point, but none of it matters. The Ground Zero doctors begin to subject you to their experiments. You have no idea how long this goes on for. Days, weeks, months? You never see Lilith or Leslie again and your world becomes to the surgical room to the observation room. You never see the rest of the Ground Zero facility. Your body is wracked with pain and goes through several ugly changes; your mind eventually becomes broken to the point of insanity though occasionally you have moments of clarity and that's probably when you're at your worst since you're practically wishing to die. Several times the doctors prevent you from killing yourself. The doctors themselves don't really talk to you, but rather with each other like you're not even there. You do hear one mention in passing about the world being nuked, but that hardly matters given the torture you're being subjected to, indeed dying in a nuclear fire would be much kinder at this point. Eventually through all their experimentation you become little more than a wild animal. Almost like what people back in town became, but even worse. It gets to a point where you actually manage to break what they thought to be strong enough shackles and kill three of the doctors experimenting on you. Ground Zero security is called in and after enough bullets you are finally put down.

You might be reverting back to old habits, but if there is some hectic bullshit going on out there, then you want to avoid it. They can handle it and you decide to be extra cautious and block the door with a chair. You hear the sounds of gunfire above you. That isn't what bothers you so much as it's the growling and yelling that sounds like it's coming from nearby. You remember that there are other "patients" on this same floor. More time passes and you still hear gunshots and the inhuman noises. You are starting to worry that it's quite possible this house is going to be overrun by these things, and you haven't even seen one. This fear becomes even more intense when you stop hearing the gunshots and only hear the guttural noises nearby. You start to feel like you've made another bad choice. Suddenly there's an attempt to open the door only to be stopped by the chair you've propped against it. This is followed by a loud bang on the door, which scares the hell out of you. "Suzy! What the hell? Is this door barricaded?" you hear Lilith's voice shout. "Yeah...is it safe?" you ask. "It's safe in that we're not in any immediate danger, but we gotta start getting the hell outta here. Open up!" Wasting no time you move the chair and the door opens up. Lilith throws your clothes at you and you can hear those awful noises in the corridor. Yelling and banging. "Here. Get dressed and don't worry about the noises, the other subjects aren't getting out of those rooms anytime soon." Lilith says. You're not as sure as Lilith is about that, so you just get dressed as fast as you can and exit the room with her. "So what's going on?" you ask as you follow her. "What's going on is Leslie and I are heading to that GZ Shelter after he and I gather a few things. The crazies from town are spilling out from it and we don't want to be here in case another wave comes. I was hoping to have more time to pack, but I guess we can't have everything." You and Lilith get to the ground floor and finally see the house proper. It's a bit of a mess now probably due to all the running around and shooting, but obviously was nice at one time. Then you enter the front room and see several broken windows, and couple of dead bodies. One of them is a uniformed man with his throat ripped out and several slashes across his face. Nearby him is a body of a disheveled looking woman with several bullet holes in her body and head. She still has a chunk of flesh in her teeth and even in death her eyes display a crazed look. It sort of freaks you out. "Um, that guy in the uniform, shouldn't someone shoot him in the head?" "What? No. These aren't zombies. They're just well...rabid." Lilith chuckles. "Headshots aren't even necessary to kill them, though it sure as hell helps." A couple more uniformed men with the Ground Zero insignia on them walk into the room holding rifles. "Place seems to be all secure Dr. Morningstar. No other hostiles in the house or around the house." One of them says. "Good. Glad not all of you were incompetent. Wait, are you two the only ones left?" "Afraid so doctor." One of them remarks. "Oh well. Okay, I want you two to stand guard out front. Make sure there isn't another horde or whatever coming our way and if there is, run back in here and tell me immediately." The two uniformed men nod and leave out the front door which is now half hanging off the hinges. You and Lilith both take a quick look outside and see the bodies of several crazies as well as GZ security. In the driveway you see that Lilith's truck is heavily shot up and a couple bodies of crazed townies lie next to it. "Great, these assholes never learned the concept of one shot one kill. (Sigh) Guess we're all just piling into the Ground Zero van." Lilith says shaking her head. Lilith continues looks around a bit more at her partially destroyed house. "Well at least nobody has to clean this up this time. I remember the many many times I'd come home from work and I'd find Leslie had left a damn mess all over the house, much worse than this sometimes even. A lot more bodies too. Still remember the disorder he left when he was trying to write a poem for me on one of our past anniversaries. But it was such a lovely and thoughtful sentiment so I wasn't too mad...anyway have you made your decision of what you're going to do yet?" Lilith asks. You still really aren't sure and lacking an answer, you ask a question. "What would I do at the shelter again? "Well I told you, I'm not in charge of assignments, but I'm sure there would be some sort of position there for you. Ground Zero doesn't waste resources." "I see." Lilith looks at you with a squint. "You...still don't trust me do you? Don't answer. I know you don't. (Sigh) I suppose I don't blame you. Look, if you don't want to go with us you don't have to, I meant that. Still, I think it would be foolish if you didn't." "It might be equally foolish if I went with you. Who knows what the hell is in store for me in an underground shelter." You say. "True, but think on this. If I really had anything bad in store for you there, don't you think I would've just had security and my brother restrain you and take you there against your will anyway? I'm giving you a choice. You can go with us, or not. One of your problems Suzy is you don't take chances, you stick with what you think is safe and look where that has gotten you. But if safety is your main concern, I'm just going to say that staying here isn't exactly the safe option. This house isn't secure, you'll have a few days of food and water at best and if the crazed townsfolk don't come ripping this place apart again, there are always just the plain opportunists that are no doubt lurking about as well. You don't even have a vehicle to leave this place. Mine got all shot up and we're taking the other one. Do you even have a plan if you stay here?" You don't...as usual. "No." you reply. "Well I'd think your choice would be simple then. Anyway, I have to bags to pack and when I'm done, I'm going to need to know what your answer is Suzy." Lilith remarks and leaves you by yourself. You walk around the ground floor of the house a bit, just looking around. You start to form various thoughts in your head about how this place could be made more defensible. You just aren't sure if you're up to the task though. You briefly consider the idea of somehow overpowering one of those GZ security guys outside and driving off with the truck yourself, but you aren't confident that you'd be successful. You then wonder if you could successfully flirt with one of them... You head outside and speak with both of the guards while attempting to be as charming as you can. You even manage to muster up the fortitude to blatantly make sexual innuendo and such. It doesn't work. One of them is gay and the other is happily married and even if that wasn't the case, they get irritated at the fact that you're distracting them from their duty and start telling you to go away. You realize your plan isn't going to work and you give up. "Christ Suzy, some seductress you are." You mutter to yourself. This brings you back to your original two choices and both of those have the potential to go to shit for various reasons, but it's all you got. > You stay at the house Lilith's right. Your choice is simple. And that's the one that doesn't involve going somewhere with a pair of sociopaths and a shady corporation. "Safest choice my firm ass it is." You say to yourself. Lilith's psychobabble about you might've been a bit spot on in places, but it made you realize that not only is it not completely true, but that this past week you HAVE been making a concentrated effort to adapt to your surroundings. True, you haven't been successful at it for the most part, but you've survived this long in this fucked up week, so you must not be too terrible at it either. Having to fend for yourself isn't fun, but then being alone isn't exactly new to you. In any case, you still don't trust Lilith and begin looking around the house and there in the kitchen, you pick up a fairly large butcher knife. Actually it isn't a knife so much as it's a machete. One can only imagine what the hell it's doing in their kitchen, but you can take a guess. You at first wonder if you should go try to kill Lilith or something, but then you think that probably isn't the best plan. It's likely to just end in your demise at the hands of her guards or her brother. You're not some close combat expert and despite what Lilith said about you possibly "exploding into a ball of violent rage" you actually don't have so much hate for her that you want to kill her without provocation. She actually might be telling the truth about the shelter as well rather than have any sinister intent. Still, you aren't ready to take that chance either. While she has said she'll just leave you in peace if decline the offer, you still have images of someone grabbing you, drugging you and taking you to the shelter against your will. So that leaves one option. You're going to go hide. The question is where though. Lilith's upstairs, he brother is in the basement. You imagine if you hid somewhere on the ground floor, you'd get discovered pretty quickly... It occurs to you, that you could just go out the backdoor and leave the premises for a while. You know they're still in a hurry to get the hell out of here, chances are, they are not going to spend a whole lot of time looking for you, let alone looking for you off the grounds of the house. So that's what you do. You leave out the backdoor. Unfortunately the backyard has a high wooden fence so climbing it wouldn't be the easiest thing to do (And chopping it with the machete, would just cause noise) and the gate leading to the side of the house is locked. You see a shed, but you imagine that's locked as well and it doesn't seem like it would be a good place to hide. There are a couple trees in the yard and that's when you notice that one of them has a few branches hanging over the fence. The tree in question looks a lot easier to climb than the fence so you go up the tree which is slightly tricky with the machete still in your hand, but you soon make it to the branch you need to get to, drop the machete on the ground first and then drop down. And promptly land wrong and twist the hell out of your ankle as you crumple to the ground. "Fuck. Shit..." you start to curse until you stop yourself, when you hear a voice yelling on the other side of the fence. "I dunno where your blonde lab rat is, go get your guards to look. I'm trying to look for my favorite machete! I thought I had it in the kitchen, but it's not there. I'm going to check the shed." From your low angle and through the slats of the fence you can see Leslie walking towards his shed. Definitely turning back now as you're most likely in possession of Leslie's favorite machete and you really hope that this isn't going to inspire a "hunt." You crawl away from the fence and the house as fast as you can. The pain in your ankle makes standing to "limp away" a bit more painful, but your desire to not get caught allows you to fight through it. The high grass and the occasional bush or tree makes your escape into the "wilderness" slightly less nerve wracking since at least you aren't in a completely open field where if they were looking for you, you would be an easy find. Just as you think you're getting far enough away, you hear a voice call out your name in the distance. You freeze and turn your head to look behind you, but you don't see anyone. You still hear Lilith's voice shouting for you from far away, but you guess that she's just doing it from near the house rather than actively searching for you. Eventually you cease hearing her call for you and you take a breather within a cluster of trees. Actually you think if you went any further, you'd probably start going into a forest which you're prepared to do if you think anyone is actually going to come looking for you. For now though, you need to rest your ankle a bit. A few moments pass and you don't hear anything other than the occasional bird. A rabbit bounding nearby makes you jump a bit, but so far you don't think anyone is coming out this way to look for you. Still, you can't tell if they've all left yet. You decide to be on the safe side, you'll wait a little longer. No more than that though since you really don't want to get caught out here in the dark. So you wait, keeping your eyes and ears open. Really before now, you didn't realize how rural of an area you lived in. You don't think you've ever appreciated the outdoors before...and you still don't now. Time passes and still no sign of anyone heading your way. You decide they've probably left by now and it's probably safe. You ankle feels slightly better, but it still aches. As you try to keep your weight off of it and make your way back to the house, you suddenly hear rustling noise in the trees and bushes nearby. At first you think it's another rabbit, but then you see exactly what it is "Shit!" you exclaim when you see a wild looking man with an equally wild look in his eyes. He sees you and makes that awful animalistic noise you heard while you were locked away in the basement and then sprints straight for you. Fear grips you, but you know you can't outrun it with your ankle not being a hundred percent. Your only saving grace is you aren't completely defenseless. You barely have time to react by the time it lunges upon you. You manage to swing your blade and as luck would have it you sink the blade across the thing's face while its mouth was wide open. You weren't strong enough to cleave its head off, but it can't really bite you with a machete blade in the way either. Still, that doesn't stop it from tackling you to the ground, not to mention the blade is now stuck half way through its head and you couldn't really pull it out if you wanted to what with it being on top of you now. With blood spray all over you and this thing still trying to kill you, you do the only thing you can think of: You push the flat edge of the blade on your side and the handle so the machete cuts deeper into the thing's head. It makes horrible squeals and shrieks, and keeps attempting to claw at your face, blood, teeth, bits of flesh are spraying/falling on you, but you keep the pressure on until at last you successfully shove the blade all the way through and the top of it's head come off. After a bit more struggling, you get the thing completely off of you as it still attempts to kill you in its death throes. The thing continues to twitch and you're busily looking around to make sure more of them aren't coming or if the Morningstars are still around and heard all the noise. There doesn't seem to be anyone else around though. By the way this thing was dressed he even looked like he might be a camper so hopefully it was just him in the woods. You just realize you killed someone...well someTHING at any rate. You don't feel bad, since it was more out of necessity. You get the impression you might be killing more of these things in the near future, so better you get used to it now. You quicken your pace to the house though still proceeding cautiously as possible. You hug the back fence and slowly edge your way around to the front of the house and you see that the Ground Zero vehicle is gone, along with the two guards that were out front. At least that's one thing you don't need to worry about. You enter the house through the still open front door and check the ground floor and find nobody around. The place is still a mess though. You're about to check the upstairs when you see a piece of paper attached to the refrigerator with your name written in big black marker. You take it and read. Suzy, Assuming you came back here, I just want to say I understand why you ran off like you did and I probably wouldn't have completely trusted you if the roles were reversed. Still, it is a shame we didn't get to say a proper goodbye to each other. Leslie was quite angry with your theft of his favorite machete, but I talked him out of attempting to hunt you down for it. Not like we even need it where we're going. Anyway, I imagine you should have power in this house for a couple days at least. There is food and drink in the fridge and in the cupboards. You'll probably want to eat the stuff in the fridge first before the power goes out and spoilage occurs though. Not sure if you'll like some of it, but considering you liked the meatloaf, maybe you'll like what's in there. Good luck Suzy, I certainly hope your foray into being a survivalist is successful. I mean that. You're going to have to really push yourself and prepare for what is coming, but I think you've got a shot. Lilith Morningstar The other patients are still locked in the rooms in the basement. There are four of them in total and have already very likely broken their restraints by now. As I have said before, the doors should be more than enough to contain them and you should be safe from them as long as you don't open the rooms. Well that was certainly a thoughtful note to you. You sit down for a second thinking of what to do next. You thought that maybe you'd try to barricade this house up and stay here, but now you're wondering if you shouldn't just leave considering you've got four of those things clawing to get out of the basement. You to come to the conclusion that you might stay here another day tops and that's only to just search this place of anything useful and then you're heading out to well, you don't know where exactly, but you're going to continue to play this by ear. For right now though, you really need to wash up. You're covered in blood, gore, dirt and generally feel really gross. You really don't want to use the shower in that room you were in during your time in the basement of this place though. You head upstairs in the hopes of finding another bathroom and sure enough you find one. Lilith's clothes are a slightly bigger size, but you can't afford to be choosey since your own clothes are a bloody mess and it doesn't make much sense changing back into them. During all this, you continue to keep your wits about you. Still afraid that something may pop up to attack at any time. By the time you're out of the shower, night is beginning to fall. While you would've liked to have gotten started on searching the house you're a little wary of turning on the lights in this house since it might very well attract more attention than you want. You do gather up a duffle bag that Lilith apparently decided not to use and plan to use that as your container for your search tomorrow. Given that you're staying here the night, you need to secure this house as much as you can. You lock the back door and the basement door. (And trying to ignore the noises you hear coming from down there) You then shove a sofa in front of the ruined front door. It's not much, but if those things try to come in, you'll most likely hear it at least. You also realize you haven't eaten all day, so you look in the fridge and grab something that looks similar to the meatloaf you ate yesterday since you don't feel like making a decision. "Hm, Lil and Les really liked their meatloaf I guess." You say and eat the stuff in the dark. (At least you don't need to look at it this time) Tastes okay. You're up for quite awhile paranoid about every noise you hear. However, you know you can't stay awake all night despite your paranoia. You head back upstairs to one of the bedrooms and close the door. You then shove a dresser in front of it. Best you can do. You then flop down on the bed and reluctantly let sleep take you. > Next day… You wake up to the sound of a noisy vehicle outside. You waste no time in springing to your feet. You cautiously peek out the window and see a beat up pick up truck pulling up behind Lilith's shot up vehicle. You then see two familiar figures get out of the truck with one of them speaking loud enough for you to hear even from your position. "Woowee! Looks like we missed some shit going down around here! Make sure you keep yer eyes peeled! Thinkin' Doc might not even be alive anymore!" Jed exclaims. "Shit. What the fuck are those two assholes doing here?" you say to yourself. You see Hugo and Jed both carrying shotguns and going to the back of the pick up, which from your vantage point you can see a pile of blankets in the bed of the truck. Jed uncovers the blanket and reveals a naked woman tied up with ropes. She looks dirty, beaten and bloody. You can't quite tell if she's dead, but she's definitely unconscious. You then see Jed say something to his brother and points to the house. Hugo nods and you see him walk out of your view. You temporarily freeze up when you hear a knock from downstairs. You hear it several times until you hear Jed shouting at his dim-witted brother. "Jesus fuckin' Christ Hugo, are ya stupider than usual today? Can't ya see that door is already hangin' off the fuckin' hinges? Just go in, and fuckin' check the place out, then let me know if Doc's even around or not. I'll be out here keepin' this fierce one entertained." Jed shouts and you see him patting the leg of the girl a couple times. The knocking becomes a crashing sound as you hear Hugo bashing the door in and probably moving the sofa in the process. You turn your attention away from what's going on outside and how you're going to handle this situation. You think about climbing out the window and on to the roof, but that's a risky proposition. Not really so much of the risk of falling (Though your ankle still hurts a bit) but more because Jed is practically in front of you and if he just bothers to till his head up or hears you, he's going to see you and probably open fire. You look around the room and hoping maybe there is a firearm or something that Lilith didn't take, but you don't find anything. That dresser you put up against the door isn't going to last long if Hugo tries to come in here. You suppose you could just try shoving move stuff against it, but considering he not only looks extremely strong, he's got a shotgun and could probably just blast his way through. You hear Hugo stomping around downstairs. If Hugo comes up here, and you hide in the closet, there's the possibility that you could get the drop on him as he walks in. You wonder though if it might not be more advantageous to just head downstairs and try to sneak up on him now though. If he comes up and things go to shit, you aren't going to have any place to run to, especially if he traps you in this room. > You seek out Hugo Either way you're going to have to get the drop on him, better you have more places to run to, rather than just being trapped in one room. As quietly as you can you move the dresser out of the way of the door and exit the bedroom. You still hear Hugo clomping around downstairs and you actually wait around the corner of the stairs hoping that maybe if he is heading upstairs you can ambush him that way. Waiting doesn't prove fruitful though and in fact you think Hugo's footsteps are actually getting fainter. It then occurs to you, he's probably looking for Leslie and Leslie would be down in the basement. You cautiously head downstairs though you do it fairly quickly since the last thing you want is to be wrong and get caught going half way down the stairs while Hugo is going up them. After a quick look around on the ground floor and keeping your ears open you're not hearing or seeing Hugo down here. You are starting to hear Jed shouting from outside though. When you peek out the window, you can't quite see everything, but you notice Jed is clearly doing something with the woman that was in the back of the truck. You can guess what that might be given his movements and vulgar shouting. You head towards the stairs of the basement and you nearly fall down them when you're startled by a sudden gunshot coming from down there. Hugo must've just shot one of the four "patients" down there. Of course it's hard to know if he'd opened a door and killed one or perhaps it managed to get out on its own. Either way, you're going to have to be really careful. You get to the basement floor and the noise of those things is much louder. You peek around the corner and down the corridor you see two doors to the rooms open. The closest one you know was yours, so nothing in there. The second one however looks like it also has a dead body lying partially in the entryway. You see Hugo in the corridor opening up another door across the hall of the other two open ones. He isn't really paying much attention to your direction and when he steps into the other room, you make a dash for your old room and get inside. Along with hearing the banging of the creatures still locked up, you hear another shotgun blast signifying Hugo's killed another one. You figure before he opens up the next door, you run up and chop him in the back of the head. You peek out from behind the door and see Hugo exiting the room. He walks to the middle of the corridor and begins fiddling with his shotgun, as if he's having trouble with it. Just then the door across from him bursts open and one of the patients attacks him. You see and hear them struggle, growling, yelling, and everything else that comes with a life or death situation. It gets more interesting however when you see Hugo drop the shotgun as he's struggling with the patient. You waste no time and rush from your position to nab it. Hugo meanwhile is still struggling with the patient who has now bitten into Hugo's hand. You're about to put a hole in the pair of them and that's when the door to the room containing the last patient bursts open. The thing seeing that one of its "fellows" is already struggling with Hugo, it screams and lunges forward to attack you instead. You instinctively turn the shotgun towards the patient and pull the trigger, unfortunately it doesn't work which is why Hugo was fiddling with it earlier. It was jammed. Before you can pick your machete back up to defend yourself, the thing has already tackled you. You struggle for a moment, but this one is a lot stronger than the one you fought with yesterday. It soon overpowers you and its teeth are ripping your throat out and its fingers are clawing your eyes out.

[Themes: modern, horror, science fiction, romance] You wake up to the sound of a noisy vehicle outside. You waste no time in springing to your feet. You cautiously peek out the window and see a beat up pick up truck pulling up behind Lilith's shot up vehicle. You then see two familiar figures get out of the truck with one of them speaking loud enough for you to hear even from your position. "Woowee! Looks like we missed some shit going down around here! Make sure you keep yer eyes peeled! Thinkin' Doc might not even be alive anymore!" Jed exclaims. "Shit. What the fuck are those two assholes doing here?" you say to yourself. You see Hugo and Jed both carrying shotguns and going to the back of the pick up, which from your vantage point you can see a pile of blankets in the bed of the truck. Jed uncovers the blanket and reveals a naked woman tied up with ropes. She looks dirty, beaten and bloody. You can't quite tell if she's dead, but she's definitely unconscious. You then see Jed say something to his brother and points to the house. Hugo nods and you see him walk out of your view. You temporarily freeze up when you hear a knock from downstairs. You hear it several times until you hear Jed shouting at his dim-witted brother. "Jesus fuckin' Christ Hugo, are ya stupider than usual today? Can't ya see that door is already hangin' off the fuckin' hinges? Just go in, and fuckin' check the place out, then let me know if Doc's even around or not. I'll be out here keepin' this fierce one entertained." Jed shouts and you see him patting the leg of the girl a couple times. The knocking becomes a crashing sound as you hear Hugo bashing the door in and probably moving the sofa in the process. You turn your attention away from what's going on outside and how you're going to handle this situation. You think about climbing out the window and on to the roof, but that's a risky proposition. Not really so much of the risk of falling (Though your ankle still hurts a bit) but more because Jed is practically in front of you and if he just bothers to till his head up or hears you, he's going to see you and probably open fire. You look around the room and hoping maybe there is a firearm or something that Lilith didn't take, but you don't find anything. That dresser you put up against the door isn't going to last long if Hugo tries to come in here. You suppose you could just try shoving move stuff against it, but considering he not only looks extremely strong, he's got a shotgun and could probably just blast his way through. You hear Hugo stomping around downstairs. If Hugo comes up here, and you hide in the closet, there's the possibility that you could get the drop on him as he walks in. You wonder though if it might not be more advantageous to just head downstairs and try to sneak up on him now though. If he comes up and things go to shit, you aren't going to have any place to run to, especially if he traps you in this room. > You hide in this room Better to stay put and surprise attack him that way. Quite frankly if you don't get the drop on him, you're probably not going to get the chance to run anyway. You get the closet and hide in the extra niche space within it. Hugo comes kicking in the door, he wanders in and probably looks around the room first, and then you attack hoping you kill him before he shoots you. You took out one of those rabid things by yourself and that was pretty dangerous right? You can do this. You can do this. You can do this. You convince yourself as you wait in a closet to ambush a large and heavily armed retarded redneck rapist... You wait, still hearing Hugo clomping around and probably knocking shit over if the sounds are any indication. You also start hearing some shouting outside. You can't tell what's going on, but you're more focused what's going on inside. At any time, you expect to hear the sound of boots loudly stomping up the stairs, but you don't, in fact the sounds of Hugo's stomping get faint and soon you're not hearing it at all. At first you think maybe he went back outside, but then it occurs to you that Jed told Hugo to look for Leslie. And if Leslie were here, he'd probably be in the basement so that might be where Hugo went. You cautiously come out of the closet and try to listen for Hugo, but the only thing you're hearing now is Jed making "whooping" noises as well as shrieking. You peek out the window again just to see what the hell is going on. You see the girl that was in the bed of the truck now bent over the tailgate and Jed raping her. Her arms are still tied behind her back, but she's not unconscious anymore. She's obviously squirming and making the shrieking sounds you heard before. Something isn't right though, and it's not just the whole rape thing. The noise that this woman is making doesn't entirely sound...well "natural." You think she might be one of those crazies. That doesn't seem to bother Jed however, he just keeps laughing and punches her in the back of the head every once in a while to "calm" her. His shotgun is leaning up against the side of the truck. You guess he got over the idea of "catching" something. You shake your head at this fucked up situation and then suddenly you hear a shotgun blast from within the house. You then remember there are still four of those things locked up in those rooms in the basement. You have no idea if Hugo's just opened up one of the doors and killed one, or they've gotten out on their own though. You don't hear another gunshot, so you also don't know if he successfully killed it or it (or they) possibly got him. Meanwhile the shot briefly get Jed's attention and he actually stops raping for one minute, but then he quickly goes back to it and starts shouting at the crazed woman. "Hah! Sounds like my brother just put another one of you crazy bitches down!" he exclaims and then slams her face into the bed of the truck. Well it seems like both brothers are suitably distracted and divided which is the best situation you're going to get. Ideally, you'd take out Jed first and grab his shotgun. The only problem is there is no way you can really sneak up on him since his line of sight is directly in front of the house. Walking out the front door even quietly as possible and even with him in the middle of his rape of one of the rabid, if he sees you, it won't take him long to grab his shotgun and open fire. Hugo on the other hand might very well already be dead for all you know. If he is, that doesn't necessarily mean things are going to be any easier with one of those insane people or possibly more than one lurking around free in the basement. Even if he isn't dead, the same problem arises that you're going to have when you thought he might come up the stairs. Might even be harder given the corridors don't allow for many places to hide and he's going to be more alert now. Whether Hugo is alive or there are a group of cannibals eating him right now, you still feel like Jed would be easier for you to deal with armed only with a machete. You move the dresser and cautiously leave the bedroom. You continually keep looking around as you head towards the stairs. You make your way down the stairs and try to keep your head low so you don't possibly get seen through one of the broken windows. The front door is wide open and you can see Jed with the girl. Right now he's got his head down and isn't paying attention to what could be in front of him, he's too busy slamming his dick into crazy woman and keeping her from getting away from him. As quickly and as quietly as you can, you slip out the front door and hide behind one of the front porch pillars. You think if you're quick enough you could make it to hide behind the front Lilith's vehicle and then from there just crawl alongside that vehicle to Jed's vehicle, grab the shotgun and you're home free. You peek around the pillar and see Jed's still engrossed in his activity. You immediately make the attempt... Then another shotgun blast emanates from the house just as you're a the bottom of the front stairs causing you to stumble a bit and Jed to look up. Your eyes meet. "SHIT!" pair of you shout and Jed starts fumbling with his dick and pants. You MIGHT make it if you make a sprint to grab the shotgun, but then again you might not and not getting it, means game over. You've probably got a better chance if you run back into the house, but in that case you're going to be playing a game of cat and mouse with him and considering you just heard a second gunshot, it would seem Hugo is probably alive too. > You run back in the house You turn around and try to get back in the house as quick as you can. You hear Jed shout at you to stop, but you don't listen, you just to get in the front door. You don't quite make it and feel the burning pain a slug hitting the back of your left leg. Not only do you scream in agony, you also fall straight on you your face. "Stupid bitch, I told ya, to stop!" Jed shouts. You don't even look at your leg, but you sense that it may just be barely attached to the rest of your body at this point. The agony is so bad you feel like you're going to be sick or go unconscious at the same time. Against all odds you continue to try to crawl into the entryway of the house. "HEY! I SAID STOP FUCKING MOVING! Goddamnit..." you hear Jed shout and you expect to another shot, but instead you hear shouting of a different kind. You manage to turn your head enough to see Jed being attacked by the rabid woman he was violating. She's bitten him, but he's still managing to fight her off. You use this opportunity to continue to crawl away. You manage to get back inside, and you hear another gunshot followed by more swearing. Your heart sinks since that means Jed must still be alive. The combination of fear and pain is clouding your thoughts of everything save for trying to get away, but you know that's not going to happen. Your fears become reality when you're only half way up the stairs to the second floor and hear footsteps coming into the house. "I hear ya whimpering girl and I can see the bloody mess yer leavin'. Won't be half as messy though when I get through with ya!" you hear Jed shout. You soon hear him on stairs behind you. "Dunno, why yer goin' up there for, your fate is sealed sick girl. Didn't seem so sick out there when you were trying to reach for my shotgun. Bet you thought pullin' one over on me a couple days ago was really funny. Well I guess I'm the one laughing now. Since I didn't finish with my ex-girlfriend back there, guess you'll have to fill in for her. You suddenly feel a hand grip your good leg and pull hard. As you're dragged, you make one last ditch effort to fight, by twisting your body and swinging the machete you're still carrying in your hand. You manage to catch Jed's arm sinking the blade in. He yells, lets go and falls backwards down the stairs. Unfortunately with his other hand that still holds the shotgun, he pulls the trigger on it. You're hit again and it's a quick death as part of your head and brains are splattered all over the stairs and walls, which at least spares you of any further suffering.

Better to stay put and surprise attack him that way. Quite frankly if you don't get the drop on him, you're probably not going to get the chance to run anyway. You get the closet and hide in the extra niche space within it. Hugo comes kicking in the door, he wanders in and probably looks around the room first, and then you attack hoping you kill him before he shoots you. You took out one of those rabid things by yourself and that was pretty dangerous right? You can do this. You can do this. You can do this. You convince yourself as you wait in a closet to ambush a large and heavily armed retarded redneck rapist... You wait, still hearing Hugo clomping around and probably knocking shit over if the sounds are any indication. You also start hearing some shouting outside. You can't tell what's going on, but you're more focused what's going on inside. At any time, you expect to hear the sound of boots loudly stomping up the stairs, but you don't, in fact the sounds of Hugo's stomping get faint and soon you're not hearing it at all. At first you think maybe he went back outside, but then it occurs to you that Jed told Hugo to look for Leslie. And if Leslie were here, he'd probably be in the basement so that might be where Hugo went. You cautiously come out of the closet and try to listen for Hugo, but the only thing you're hearing now is Jed making "whooping" noises as well as shrieking. You peek out the window again just to see what the hell is going on. You see the girl that was in the bed of the truck now bent over the tailgate and Jed raping her. Her arms are still tied behind her back, but she's not unconscious anymore. She's obviously squirming and making the shrieking sounds you heard before. Something isn't right though, and it's not just the whole rape thing. The noise that this woman is making doesn't entirely sound...well "natural." You think she might be one of those crazies. That doesn't seem to bother Jed however, he just keeps laughing and punches her in the back of the head every once in a while to "calm" her. His shotgun is leaning up against the side of the truck. You guess he got over the idea of "catching" something. You shake your head at this fucked up situation and then suddenly you hear a shotgun blast from within the house. You then remember there are still four of those things locked up in those rooms in the basement. You have no idea if Hugo's just opened up one of the doors and killed one, or they've gotten out on their own though. You don't hear another gunshot, so you also don't know if he successfully killed it or it (or they) possibly got him. Meanwhile the shot briefly get Jed's attention and he actually stops raping for one minute, but then he quickly goes back to it and starts shouting at the crazed woman. "Hah! Sounds like my brother just put another one of you crazy bitches down!" he exclaims and then slams her face into the bed of the truck. Well it seems like both brothers are suitably distracted and divided which is the best situation you're going to get. Ideally, you'd take out Jed first and grab his shotgun. The only problem is there is no way you can really sneak up on him since his line of sight is directly in front of the house. Walking out the front door even quietly as possible and even with him in the middle of his rape of one of the rabid, if he sees you, it won't take him long to grab his shotgun and open fire. Hugo on the other hand might very well already be dead for all you know. If he is, that doesn't necessarily mean things are going to be any easier with one of those insane people or possibly more than one lurking around free in the basement. Even if he isn't dead, the same problem arises that you're going to have when you thought he might come up the stairs. Might even be harder given the corridors don't allow for many places to hide and he's going to be more alert now. Whether Hugo is alive or there are a group of cannibals eating him right now, you still feel like Jed would be easier for you to deal with armed only with a machete. You move the dresser and cautiously leave the bedroom. You continually keep looking around as you head towards the stairs. You make your way down the stairs and try to keep your head low so you don't possibly get seen through one of the broken windows. The front door is wide open and you can see Jed with the girl. Right now he's got his head down and isn't paying attention to what could be in front of him, he's too busy slamming his dick into crazy woman and keeping her from getting away from him. As quickly and as quietly as you can, you slip out the front door and hide behind one of the front porch pillars. You think if you're quick enough you could make it to hide behind the front Lilith's vehicle and then from there just crawl alongside that vehicle to Jed's vehicle, grab the shotgun and you're home free. You peek around the pillar and see Jed's still engrossed in his activity. You immediately make the attempt... Then another shotgun blast emanates from the house just as you're a the bottom of the front stairs causing you to stumble a bit and Jed to look up. Your eyes meet. "SHIT!" pair of you shout and Jed starts fumbling with his dick and pants. You MIGHT make it if you make a sprint to grab the shotgun, but then again you might not and not getting it, means game over. You've probably got a better chance if you run back into the house, but in that case you're going to be playing a game of cat and mouse with him and considering you just heard a second gunshot, it would seem Hugo is probably alive too. > You run for the shotgun You're going to be at a severe disadvantage if you run away, better to just get this over with and if you die today, then you die. Ignoring any pain you might still have with your ankle, you sprint for the shotgun. Jed at this point doesn't bother pants anymore and goes to grab the shotgun. Seeing that he'll easily beat you to it, you throw the machete at him. It's enough to cause him to jump and stumble when he thinks it's going to hit him, which is enough time to grab the shotgun, unfortunately just not enough time to shoot Jed with it. "Fuckin' bitch!" Jed says and elbows you in the side of the head. You try to hang on to the shotgun, but he manages to pull it away from you and then kicks you to the ground. You hear a racking sound of the shotgun and you don't look up. While you're certainly scared, you're angrier that you failed more than anything else. "I remember you...you were Miss sick weren't you? You don't seem so sick now. In fact you don't even seem like the crazies in town. Guess you had a big laugh about pullin' one over on me huh? LOOK AT ME!" You look up, but maintain a defiant look in your eye as Jed continues to point his shotgun at you. "Oh. Still the tough bitch huh? Well it don't mean shit and it ain't gonna change shit. Tell ya what though, I didn't get to finish up with my current girlfriend over there and as you can see my dick's still hard. Suck me off like the whore you are and MAYBE you might get a quick death." Jed says. You take a brief look at Jed's filthy dick and look back up and smile. "Jed, you better just shove that shotgun barrel in my face and pull the trigger because that's the only thing you're getting in my mouth and blowing a load in. It would at least be a lot more spectacular than what's actually between your legs." Jed's face nearly becomes red with rage. "Yer gonna WISH I blew your head off, you cunt!" Jed says and he pulls the shotgun up and then flips it around to use the butt of it smash you in the head. He's not quite quick enough though since you manage to shield your face with your hands. Still it's enough to knock you back to the ground in pain. "Where the fuck is that machete." Jed says and grabs it from the ground before approaching you with it one hand and still holding the shotgun in the other. "Been awhile since I fucked an amputee, guess we'll see if I can cum before you bleed out..." Jed in his haste to "teach you a lesson" has completely ignored the fact that he is no longer restraining the crazy woman he was violating. You see the thing recover and get up from it's previous vulnerable position. "You sure you want to do this Jed? Think your girlfriend is jealous." You say. "Wha...AGH!" Jed says and turns just in time for the crazed townie to bite Jed between the neck and shoulder. He drops the shotgun and swings the machete in an attempt to kill the rabid woman. While they struggle you scramble and grab the shotgun. Jed manages to fight off the rabid woman and finishes her off with a chop to her neck. "Aww, I was rooting for her." You say. Jed turns around and sees you pointing the shotgun at him. He doesn't look scared. "What, you think I'm scared because you're pointing a gun at me? Ain't the first time I've had one pointed at me blondie." He says. "Heh, blondie now is it? Not whore, bitch, cunt, or whatever other unimaginative name you've called me before? I may not have been doing this as long as you have, but it seems like someone is scared." "Pfft, you don't even know how to use that thing, the fucking safety is on you dumb bitch." You pull the trigger and literally blow his balls off. The kickback hurts your arm, but it's a lot less pain than what you imagine Jed is feeling right now. Jed howls on the ground in agony and you walk over near him. "Did you actually expect I was going to fall for that like in a movie? Get me to check like an idiot and give you just enough time to possibly rush me? I just heard you rack this fucking shotgun not a few seconds ago. Not to mention with the time you spent playing with rabid girl over there, I would have had more than enough time to take the safety off and that's even if this particular shotgun HAD a safety feature on it to begin with which it doesn't!" You say. Jed just looks at you with a mixture of pain and disbelief that you would even know that much about a gun. "I know, brains and beauty. It's a curse sometimes, but after this week I'm starting to get the hang of it." You say and blast Jed into oblivion. The first thing you do is keep an eye on your immediate surroundings. You, Jed and crazy woman made a hell of a lot of noise. Who knows what the hell might have been attracted. Not to mention the last thing you need is Hugo to have heard all of this and come running out. You seem to be okay for now though. The second thing you do is search Jed's body or what's left of it for keys to the truck. It's a gory mess and the only thing you succeed in doing is getting your hands bloody. You do remember seeing Hugo getting out of the driver's side, so you imagine he's probably the one that has them. "Well, he was going to be next anyway." you say and head back towards the house. Once again you enter the house with caution. You get the feeling Hugo didn't hear anything outside or if he did, he's too pre-occupied with shit in the basement. Come to think of it, you haven't heard another blast and you know there are at least two more of those things down there, then again you've been a little pre-occupied as well. You make your way to the stairs leading to the basement. You aren't hearing anything at all, which makes all the more scary. "Made it this far by yourself Suzy, you can finish this..." you say and descend. You get to the bottom floor of the basement and just looking down the corridor, you see several of the doors are open. No sign of Hugo or the "patients" though. You head down the corridor fully ready for anything about to leap out at you. You look into the first room with the door open and see nothing. In fact, this is your old room. The next two rooms obviously housed "patients." One of those patients is laying dead face down half in the doorway. The other is still in his room and hadn't even broken his restraints. You notice the next room is empty, but the door looks like it was broken open from the inside. It would seem these rooms weren't as secure as Lilith thought. It is at this point you notice splatters of blood all over the floor and a trail of it leading to the last open door which again looks broken from the outside. You slowly peek around the corner. There you see one of the patients lying near the entryway with his head twisted all the way around and blood around his mouth. His teeth are clenched in a creepy death grin and you also notice the remnants of a couple fingers still gripped in it. It would appear Hugo didn't get a chance to shoot this one. Another patient lies further in the room with its brains bashed into the floor. It also has blood around it's mouth and in this case nails too. Finally you see Hugo sitting up against a wall with his shotgun nearby on the floor. He doesn't look so great though. He's clearly wounded very badly. It looks like he's holding his stomach, which he is bleeding out of and you already know he's lost some fingers. When he looks up at you. He doesn't even go for his gun, he just stares...with one eye. He apparently lost one of those too. "HUGO HURT BAD." He says. Either he doesn't recognize you, he doesn't think you're a threat, or is too concerned about his injuries. "Yeah, doesn't look too good." You answer, Hugo still makes no move to the shotgun despite you walking in. "YOU THE SICK PRETTY LADY." Hugo says finally recognizing you. "Yeah, well I got better." "Doc's not here." Hugo at this point winces in pain and coughs up some blood. Hugo is just a retard; he probably doesn't even know he does bad things. You imagine his brother Jed has been manipulating him all his life. It might even be tragic under normal circumstances. "Sure I've seen him, I'll take you to him." You point the shotgun at Hugo who doesn't even really realize the gravity of the situation and with a mixture of avenging angel and angel of mercy you pull the trigger and put Hugo out of his misery. Probably quicker than he deserved, but it got the job done. You exit the room feeling a bit drained. You weren't really expecting to do all this the first thing you got up this morning, but you handled it about as well as you could have. It's amazing how much someone can change and what they're capable of within just a few days. You just killed two people this time and granted they deserved it, you still feel a little weird that you aren't sick about it or something. Maybe Lilith was right. Maybe you are capable of great violence without a second thought. The jury is still out on that since as far you're concerned you haven't killed any innocent people, just two people who fucked with you. In any case you're a far cry from that "good girl" who hid in the basement. Speaking of basements, you decide to check out the rest of this one since you're down here. You don't find much though except one large room that is obviously where Leslie did all his "experiments." Looks like he took most of his stuff and left a couple of dead bodies on his table behind. You don't really stay long due to the smell, which is pretty awful. You leave the basement with a second shotgun and Hugo's truck keys. You spend the rest of the day looting the house for any potential worthwhile items. The Morningstars left surprisingly a lot of every useful items behind, but then again they're going to be in a nice safe shelter so there really wasn't any need you suppose. You pack what bags you can find full of stuff until you feel you have enough. After doing that you take a break to wash up again and eat. You grab something out of the fridge that looks like lasagna. It doesn't taste like any lasagna you've ever had, but then again you've only ever eaten the microwavable kind, so that might be why it tastes a hell of a lot better. Leslie might've been a horrible human being, but damn if he wasn't a good cook. As the sun starts to go down, you wonder if you should leave or stay one more night and leave in the morning. You ultimately decide now that you're a lot better armed, you can probably afford to stay one more night. You don't know if you'll get to sleep on a proper bed again. Once again you take all the proper precautions of securing the house as much as you can and once again end with pushing the dresser to block the door of the bedroom before turning in to sleep. A little less reluctantly this time given that you have two shotguns and as well as a machete for protection now. > Next day… You wake up to the sound of a noisy vehicle outside. You waste no time in springing to your feet. You cautiously peek out the window and see a military truck pulling up behind Jed's vehicle. "Are you fucking kidding me? Is fate just determined to make my life more hell than it needs to be?" you say to yourself. You then see a familiar figure getting out of the truck and carrying a rifle. He looks around and then wastes no time in running to the house. "Bobby?" you say and then go move the dresser. By the time you've gotten out the door, you hear him downstairs kicking over the sofa in the front door entryway and calling out your name. "SUZY! SUZY!" he shouts in a panic as you hear him knocking over shit in an effort to look for you. "I'm right here and you're lucky it's just me, because anyone else would've long since blown your head off with the way you're announcing yourself by now." You say coming down the stairs. When you see Bobby, he definitely looks like he's seen better days, but when Bobby sees you he drops his weapon and his face is one of extreme elation. Like a great weight has been lifted off of him by seeing you. He rushes forward to presumably hug you and you immediately pull your own shotgun up. "Alright, stop." You say. "Wha...it's me! Bobby!" he exclaims. "Yeah, I know who you are silly, I'm just wondering WHY you're here. Who else is with you?" you ask. "Nobody! It's just me! Suzy, just put the gun down, I'm..." "I don't think so, after the week I've had I'm not too fucking keen on just putting my weapon down. Besides we didn't part exactly on the best of terms or have you forgotten?" "I know! I know! I was an asshole about that! I didn't mean any of that shit I said! I was a big fucking asshole and you were right the whole time! I should've realized sooner that you were always the one for me and that I should've made the sacrifice for you because you're completely worth it and I still love you" "And...what? You just realized this today?" "No! I realized it soon after my aunt called telling me she had you over here." "Wait, didn't she call you on Tuesday? I was drugged and held against my will by your psycho aunt and uncle and you didn't think to come here sooner?" "I...it took me awhile to sort out my feelings...I was still confused..." You can't believe this! "Took you awhile to sort out your feelings?! Confused? Are you fucking kidding me?! That's your excuse?" "It's no excuse! That's how it was! I thought there was no chance again with you given how bad we broke up! And besides, I'm sure my aunt told you how I pleaded for your life. It's probably why you're still alive." "Yeah, okay fine I'll give you that. Your groveling probably kept me alive initially, but if you REALLY wanted to come here and play white knight and save the damsel, you REALLY should've got here fucking sooner! Do you even know what the fuck I've had to deal with here for past three days?" "No, but I really did try to get here sooner! Seriously I did!" "Oh yes, sorting out your feelings and probably getting one last fuck from Diana..." "Hey! For your information I killed Diana." Well Bobby's peaked your interest enough that you lower your shotgun. "Wait, you killed that bitch?" you ask. "Well it wasn't on purpose, but yeah I accidently killed her when I was trying to leave the compound. I told her to either the hell out of the way or I was going through that gate anyway. Never believed she wouldn't move and the crunch under the tires was pretty much an indication that I killed her." Bobby replies. "That's not exactly an accident Bobby, but that's okay. That's another point in your favor." "Anyway, I ended up getting held up in town by the fucking National Guard, when both of my cousins decided it would be a good idea to antagonize them even more by firing upon them. That went about as well as you'd expect..." "Your cousins? You brought family with you?" "Wasn't exactly my idea. Two of my cousins, William and Aaron wanted to leave the compound as well, so they followed me for a while in William's vehicle. Then before I knew it, Aaron was firing at shit, which called more attention than it needed to. I parted company with them as soon as I could, but by that time I had the National Guard all over me. Crashed the vehicle and nearly got shot. In fact I probably would've gotten shot had it not been for this tight ass government official insisting I be held for questioning. Thought I was a terrorist or something." "So you were held captive by the National Guard?" "Well I was on Wednesday and for part of Thursday until the camp got overrun by fucking crazy cannibals. Nearly getting eaten was a nice change of pace of getting punched in the face and beaten." Well that explains the bruises and scratches on Bobby's face and arms as well as the condition of his clothing, which is torn in several places. "Spent the rest of Thursday just trying to get away from those fuckers and trying to make it through the town which was a warzone at this point. Wasn't until Friday night I managed to get a hold of a Guardsman's truck and drive out of there." You remain silent as Bobby at this point walks over to you. He takes your hand. "I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner Suzy, I really wanted to and I really tried. My mind was always pre-occupied with concern of if you were even still alive or not. I can only imagine what horrors you had to face here. I don't know exactly what happened here, but I saw all the bodies outside and the state of the house...and well I can guess you didn't have an easy time of it. I'm here now though and you don't need to worry anymore. We can go anywhere you want. We can run away to anywhere just like you wanted. I'm done with my family; I'm done with my religion. From the moment I knew you were being held here, I knew YOU were my family. YOU were my religion and I love you so much. You have to believe me." You look at Bobby and see in his eyes he really means all this. You stroke his face lovingly. "Oh Bobby..." And then promptly slap him. He gives a surprised look. "...you're goddamn right you don't know what horrors I fucking faced! I was scared the entire time!" You go into an exaggerated tirade about what you experienced while you were here. Not that what you really went through wasn't bad, but to be honest it sounds like what Bobby went through was probably worse in his attempt to get here and you're not going to let Bobby just think he can waltz back into your life and get you back with ease with his "hero" attempt. "...and did I mention I was nearly RAPED by rednecks several times?" "They didn't..." "No they didn't, but I had to fend for myself and I did a pretty damn good job at it. Proved to me that I have an inner strength that I never took advantage of before and when the chips are down, I don't really need anyone." Bobby's face starts to show one of distress and just before he goes into his routine of telling you more honeyed words of his love for you and begs you to take him back, you stop him by continuing to speak. "...but there also were times where things would have been a lot easier had someone had been around to help me." Now you take Bobby's hand. "(Sigh) Look Bobby, maybe all this crazy shit that's happened between us and to us is like wiping the slate clean or something. Maybe we do have a future. I believe you when you say you love me and obviously you went through a lot to try to get here to save me. But we can't just jump back into this like we were before. You're going to have to give me some time." Bobby nods. "Okay. I understand Suzy. I do." You and Bobby just stare at each other for a while. It's funny how you never thought you'd even see Bobby again, let alone reunite with him. Somehow the argument you had earlier in the week just doesn't matter anymore. "Okay, let's head upstairs to the bedroom." You say and pat his hand. "What for?" Bobby asks. "For sex duh." You say. "Sex? I thought you said you needed some time." "Yeah well I decided that some of that time involves pleasuring me. Besides, this isn't YOUR reward, it's MY fucking reward for surviving this shitty week. So I hope you're prepared to do a lot of licking." "Hey whatever you need." Bobby says following up the stairs. Doesn't take long for the pair of you to be totally into your reunification. In fact you're enjoying yourself so much you nearly don't notice the bright flash coming from the window and loud noise in the distance. "Shit that was bright, glad I wasn't looking directly at whatever that was." You say. "I wouldn't know about the light since my face was buried in your pussy at the time, I did hear the noise though." Bobby says. The pair of you wander over to the window and in the far distance you see the remnants of a mushroom cloud. Probably landed on Security City or near it. You can only guess it probably wasn't a big one. "So...they finally went and did it." You say. "Looks like." Bobby says. "Oh well, we'll be okay." "You seem very sure of that, I remember a time you would've been worrying about radiation and everything else." "Well you've been through this hellish week the same way I have and we both survived. Together I think our chances are even greater. Besides, your aunt told me GZ put drugs in the water that are supposed make people more resistant to radiation and disease and such." "What seriously?" "Seriously. That drug is what also made most people go batshit crazy. Doesn't affect everyone though and I never did get a solid answer on why I wasn't affected. Guess you aren't either." "Maybe we're already crazy?" "Probably." You chuckle. You and Bobby go back to doing what you were doing and why the hell not? It isn't like the apocalypse isn't going to still be there. Later you Bobby load up his army truck with all the stuff you think you'll need. You aren't sure where you'll go yet, but you maintain a positive attitude that you'll ultimately be fine. As he begins driving away from the house, you open up one of the Tupperware containers of food that you took with you when you left and start eating. "What is that you're eating? It looks awful." Bobby remarks. "I dunno. I think it's some sort of beef. I know it's not much for looks, but it tastes delicious though. Your uncle Leslie was a really good cook. I've never been a big food person, but I'm seriously going to miss eating from that house. I took this as a last hoorah as it were. You want some?" Bobby's face begins to look a little concerned. "Suzy, you've been eating out of my aunt and uncle's fridge? How much have you eaten?" "I dunno. I've had at least one meal a day there. What the hell else was I going to eat? I'm telling you though I'd like to know how to make this stuff, but I imagine just picking up meat from the super market isn't going to be an option anymore." "Oh you can make that stuff without needing a super market. Suzy, my aunt and uncle were fucking CANNIBALS! You've probably been eating human meat for the past three days!" Bobby exclaims. You stop eating and start looking at the meal you're eating. You poke at it a few times wondering if you're going to come across a finger or something, but after doing this for a few seconds you don't find anything out of the ordinary, and you scoop out another piece and eat it. Bobby looks shocked. "What? Still tastes good. Think of it this way, at least we know I'm willing to eat human flesh if things get tough out here in the big bad apocalyptic wasteland. You sure you don't want any?" Bobby just shakes his head and continues to drive. "Hm, more for me." You say with a shrug and take another bite. "You really have changed Suzy." Bobby remarks. "Yeah, well happens to the best of us." You say. > Love SICK Too The Future... "You know how mutants are dear, they act on impulse sometimes." You say as you sew up a shirt. "Yes, I get that, but I specifically told my congregation NOT to attack Iron Union transports! Last thing we need is the GZ corporation sniffing around this town asking questions. I'm just glad I managed to convince them to clean up the mess, even if some of them were bitching the entire time." Bobby exclaims. "Hm, well you are very persuasive when you want to be. Guess that's why they listen to you at all." Bobby just sits down in a nearby chair continuing to rant about the troubles with his "congregation." You've heard the complaints before several times and really this is just a normal routine for you both. Bobby complains and you listen to his troubles. Just part of married life you suppose. Making adjustments to accommodate your significant other's desires is another part of married life. Bobby may have very well left his "religion" behind, but the cult leader part of him never really left him. You're not even exactly sure what "higher power" Bobby believes in now, if he does at all. Personally you think he just made up some shit and managed to convince a bunch of mutants to follow him. Not that you really care. He's bringing in the loot with his little band of brainwashed mutants and it provides him with a sense of fulfillment, despite the fact he's doing a lot of complaining right now. "Bobby, you're worrying too much again. I'm sure your minions aren't the only mutants living in this town that have attacked Iron Union transports. Besides, last I heard the Iron Union is in the middle of a civil war. So even if they did find out, I doubt if they've even got the firepower to launch an attack on a place that has the reputation of being a large and extremely dangerous mutant town." You say. "Heh, well they certainly got less now. There were some nice weapons in that transport." Bobby chuckles. "See? Just gotta look on the bright side of things." You say. Maintaining an optimistic mindset certainly came in handy during those early years when it was just you and Bobby surviving on the road, drifting from place to place. Not that it was all-bad and some of it was even fun, but you and Bobby were never truly happier when you finally managed to lay down roots here in Emberville. You, of course for the reasons of comfort and security. Bobby of course still wanted a family. He had you of course, but you know deep down he still wanted to have children with you. Which also became another adjustment, but really not one you were so resistant about anymore. You just needed time like you said and eventually you felt it was the right time. "Alexander! Your shirt is done!" you shout. Your son comes in from his room. Normally he's out playing, but there are times where he just shuts himself away and reads whatever books Bobby or you find for him. It's good that he has a variety of interests. "Hey this looks as good as new." He exclaims. "I doubt that, but I did the best I could with what I had." "Where did you learn to sew Mom?" Alexander asks. "Oh, my mother taught me when I was little. Never thought I'd actually ever take it up again though, but in this sort of world, it's sort of a handy skill to have." "Hey how come you never told me about that little interesting tidbit about your life when we were first going out? I remember being surprised when you told me you had seamstress skills" Bobby asks. "Like I said, I never thought it was important until this whole world went to shit and sewing up clothes was something I had to actually do more frequently." You answer. "Did she teach you how to cook too?" Alexander asks "Hah, no. I didn't learn how to do that until much later in life and I taught myself mostly." You say. "Your mother is misremembering things again. She actually learned a lot from Mrs. Zerul down the street. Before we moved here, your mother's cooking probably nearly killed me more times than gunfire." Bobby jokes, which gets him a glare. "Hey, there were several times that we didn't starve thanks to me." You snap. "Well I think you're a good cook Mom." Alexander remarks. "Thanks son, at least someone here appreciates me. Now go out and play and try not to ruin the shirt you're currently wearing. Especially if you play with that Jenny girl." "Who's Jenny?" Bobby asks, not knowing all of his son's friends as usual. "Jenny is a cute little mutant girl with talons instead of normal nails. Last time they were playing and Alexander came home with a shirt that was beyond my sewing skills." "You sure they were just playing?" Bobby asks. "Bobby!" you say. "Hey, kids grow up fast without traditional social norms!" Bobby says. "And what exactly would YOU even know what traditional social norms are?" you ask. "...well I do know what they were even if I didn't actually practice them. In fact I'd say I'm a living example of what happens to a child growing up without traditional social norms." Bobby replies. Alexander isn't quite sure what you and Bobby going on about, but speaks up. "Me and Jenny were just playing tag that time my shirt was all ripped up, like I said." "Yes, I remember and I believe you. Now off you go, and remember dinner will be ready just before night fall." Alexander agrees he'll be careful and runs out to play with his friends. You watch him briefly from the door. "Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't be a little more protective of him." You say. "He's fine. Better he get some claw scratches and bruises now so he doesn't grow up to be completely sheltered." Bobby responds. "Yeah I know all too damn well what the dangers that can bring, especially with the way the world is now. Still, can't help but worry at times." Bobby stands up and walks over to reassure you. "Well of course you worry, you're a good mother. And here you always thought you wouldn't make a good one, remember?" "Yeah, that was a whole other lifetime ago. I can honestly say I'm glad those old days are behind us." Bobby nods and begins to caress you. You return his affection with a kiss and the pair of you just sort of hold each other for awhile. Seems surreal at times that you arrived at this point. Married, a child, and living modest home in a town mainly consisting of mutants. Though given both your family and Bobby's, maybe it makes sense you fit in better with a community full of mutants. To be honest, you think the only real problem you ever had with moving in and marrying Bobby to begin with was due to the situation with his sister Diana. You wonder if you would've done all this sooner had she never been in the picture. Oh well, no point in playing "What if" especially since everything worked out. This life is harder than your old one in several ways, but given all the new skills you learned and all of what you've managed to achieve, you're definitely a stronger and better person now than you ever were before. "Well I guess I better get started on dinner. Unless you want what Mrs. Zerul is serving down the street." You say elbowing Bobby in the side for his previous comment. "Oh yeah because hideous old women with humps on their back and scales on their face really do it for me. You know I was joking about that." "I know. You brought the groceries right?" "Yeah, just vegetables and meat though. Didn't get a hold of much else this time." "It's all I ever really need. I know you're probably tired from getting the stuff last night, but can you help me get started?" you ask. "Sure. Meet you in the kitchen." Bobby responds. Bobby heads to the root cellar and you head to the kitchen when you start your preparations. You're lucky to have the kitchen amenities you have compared to most in this town. Wood burning stoves aren't that common here, but then again most mutants don't bother cooking their food at all. You and Bobby of course aren't savages. As you're getting everything set, Bobby comes up with the groceries and sets them down on the large prep table. "There you go baby. You need me to help prep the meat?" "Nah, I can do it. Doesn't take me long." "Okay, I'm going to get some sleep. Call me if you need anything." "Will do. Thanks dear." You say and Bobby kisses you on the cheek before heading off to bedroom. You grab your machete and stare at the table. The tied and gagged naked young woman continues to squirm on the table. If she could, she'd probably scream or beg. You're guessing she was part of whatever caravan Bobby and his congregation raided. Probably the merchant since she doesn't look like a guard. That's a good thing; her meat isn't going to be as tough. This would be the other advantage of living in a mutant town: They don't frown upon cannibalism here. The young woman's eyes widen as you bring the machete down to finish her off. As you chop up the rest of the woman's body, you briefly think about the past again, specifically when Bobby's aunt was psychoanalyzing you. She certainly was right when she said you were prone to revel in great violence under the right circumstances.

You don't know the complete lay out of the house and you also don't really know Lilith excessively well to judge how "tough" she actually is. For all you know she's got some sort of GZ martial arts training especially given what she's revealed about what insidious practices they're doing. You also don't know much about her brother, but he's probably a damn psycho. If you threatened his sister, he might be capable of anything; you know how close the Morningstar family tends to be after all... Also, so far this week, every time you've "asserted" yourself, it's gone very badly. Might be better to at least wait a while and see if a better opportunity comes along and get a feel for this place first. Lilith undoes your straps and you're soon free. You sit up, stretch and try to maintain composure that you're not still scared about all this. "I know the first time we met you were having problems walking by yourself. You okay to do that now? Not still feeling wobbly or anything?" "I believe I'm fine. Just very nervous about all this." "Don't be nervous. As I said, follow the rules and you'll be fine. If you're worrying about catching the madness that the town has, well like I said, you're probably fine, but even if you aren't I've got a few things that might help. You ready to go?" "Yeah I guess." You say and Lilith leads you out the door. When you exit, you find yourself in an uncarpeted corridor with a few rows of doors to the left and right of you (All with very strong looking and very locked doors). It reminds you of a hospital setting; you can't help but wonder if you're still in Lilith's house anymore. "Um, are we still in your house?" you ask. "Oh yes. We're not on the ground floor if that's what you're wondering though, we're in the basement. Of course this house never had a basement this large originally. A lot of this was added on much later due to my work in GZ. Leslie nearly blew a gasket when he heard workers were coming in to make severe alterations to it, but in time he realized it had its advantages and I told him his area wouldn't be fussed with anyway. He spends a lot of time down here with his experiments you see and hates change...guess you and he have that in common no?" "What?" "Well as I said, Bobby told me much about you and your past. Said you preferred to stay down in your basement and hide away from the world and weren't a fan of change yourself. Was he incorrect in what he told me?" "...no...no I suppose he wasn't. It's true. I did spend all my time in the basement hiding out from the real world and hated change. This week has been a big wake up call that things couldn't be like that forever though." You say. "Hm, well don't despair. While things do eventually change, they can always change for the better. Here's your new room." Lilith remarks and unlocks it. The door opens up to another windowless room, but this one is much nicer. In fact it's downright cozy. There's a sofa, a bookcase with books, a TV...hell it almost reminds you of home. As enter to get a closer look at everything, Lilith is preoccupied with something on her phone. "Shit, well something came up and we're going to have to get to the questions later. But for now, what do you think to your new surroundings?" Lilith asks. "It's okay. I didn't expect to have such a fancy cell." You say. "Suzy! Don't think of this as a cell, think of it as just a regular room where you're staying until it's confirmed you're okay! Now, if you notice there is another small room off to the right. That's the bathroom where you'll find all the usual facilities. I would imagine you're probably hungry and I'll be back with some food soon. Just have to deal with something. The National Guard has been deployed in town to maintain order and apparently GZ is sending some of their people to this house as added security. They're already on their way so I'm going to have to go talk to my brother about this and make sure he curbs his anti-social behavior to a manageable level. Doesn't help that he's got those two inbred redneck assistants of his with him right now. I can't stand those assholes. He's either going to have to keep them out of sight completely or make them leave...(sigh) Ugh, anyway I'll be back soon, just make yourself at home." Lilith closes the door, which you then hear lock and you're now alone. You sit down on the sofa trying to wrap your head around all this. Never in a million years would you have thought you'd be a prisoner by your ex-boyfriend's aunt who works for the corporation responsible for all those ads on TV and apparently involves in some seriously shady practices. Makes you think about some of those crackpots that posted conspiracy theories on various sites you read. Turns out some of them weren't too far from the truth after all. The thing is, you can't even worry about something of that magnitude. For one thing, you have absolutely no power to do anything about it and second, you've got the more pressing concern about what is going to happen to you. While things are going better than you thought they going to go, you're still not seeing a good end to any of this. Your luck has been up and down this entire week and just when something good seems to happen, something equally bad happens. You don't trust Lilith completely, no matter how "nice" she's trying to be. At best Lilith keeps her word and you're not sick or infected only for her to ultimately execute you "humanely" with shot to your head. You can't imagine her keeping you alive after telling you her corporation's secrets like that. Unless of course she thinks you wouldn't tell anyone and even if you did, who would believe you anyway? The darker picture is of course she said the world was going to change very soon implying a nuclear holocaust like all the GZ ads have been harping on about. Maybe she's told you because ultimately it isn't going to matter due to doomsday. If that's the case, where is that going to leave you? Maybe Lilith will release you alive, but leaving you to fend for yourself in a blasted wasteland of which you don't fancy your chances. And these are all the best-case scenarios you're envisioning, because you don't even want to think about the worst case, which is undoubtedly going to involve you being in more pain than you could ever imagine. You have no more tears for any of this, because you're spent as far as that's concerned. You're still scared of course, but you feel like you're starting to become numb to very real possibility of death. Doesn't mean you're giving up though and you proceed to study your surroundings, taking note of anything you could possibly use as a weapon. You don't find any secret passages or vents you could crawl around in because that only happens in the movies. Eventually you take a break and lay down on the sofa, which at least is comfortable, you just wish you weren't wearing a damn hospital gown. You think about turning the TV on, but you figure it will probably just be full of Ground Zero ads. Time passes and eventually you hear the door opening up. At first you figure it's going to be Lilith, but it's not. Two dirty looking men open up the door and enter. One of them is huge and has a slackjawed look on his face. He wears overalls that look like they've never been washed. The smaller of the two is wearing a mechanic's jumpsuit and trucker's cap. When he sees you a big grin spreads across his face making him even creepier than the larger one. "Hoo wee! Well look at what we got here! Doc really has been fixing up this place, because that is one sweet piece I tell ya what!" the smaller one exclaims. You can only guess these must be Leslie's "assistants." You sit up immediately and try to arrange your gown to cover you as much as possible. "Didn't mean to startle ya darlin' but I'm Jed and this here's my brother Hugo. What's yer name and what the hell are you doin' in here?" the smaller one says. "My name's Suzy, and this is my room. What the hell are YOU two doing in here?" "Whoa, easy there blondie. This is where me and Hugo always go to hang out when we're on standby as it were. No point in headin' back ta town right now anyway, since it sounds like the shit's really hit the fan out there, but never mind all that, what's all this about this bein' yer room? You some new live in whore for the Doc to fuck when his snooty sister isn't putting out?" Jed asks. Jed gets closer towards you meanwhile Hugo hasn't moved from the entryway. You're feeling very threatened. "No, I'm Lilith's guest, now will you please leave my room?" you say. "Lilith's guest? Wait, you sayin' you HER whore? Well shit, I like the sound of that even better! So you ever been with a guy at all or are you strictly a pussy licker?" Jed asks with a pretty predatory look in his eyes. "The pair of you better get out of here. Lilith has made it clear she doesn't want anyone else in here." You say standing up from the couch. "Oh is that right? Well I ain't heard nuthin' about it and I take my orders from the Doc, not his snobby bitch of a sister. So I think you better just settle down blondie. In fact, I think you better start making yourself REAL comfortable." Jed says and starts fondling his crotch while still approaching you. You're steadily running out of options. About the only thing you can do now is either threaten them to the point that they back off or beg and hope they take mercy. Either option isn't likely to succeed. > Beg Antagonizing them even further isn't going to help; at this point you're better off trying to beg. "Jed, please. I'd just like you both to leave. Lilith really doesn't want anyone here and I don't want anyone to get into trouble." You say. "Oh don't worry blondie, ain't nobody gonna get into any trouble and ain't nobody gonna get hurt as long as you give in. Hey Hugo get yer big ass in here and, close that fucking door." Jed says and starts approaching you. This is not a good situation. There is no way you're going to be able to fight off both of these redneck rapists. You don't even have a weapon and they're both bigger than you. You fear the inevitable as Jed is now standing in front of you. He wastes no time in groping your body. Hugo however is still standing in front of the door staring like a gargoyle. "Aww, is little blondie scared? You don't need to be darlin'. Like I said, me an' Hugo here are just gonna have us some fun an' then we'll be out of yer pretty little hair, well unless I cum in it." Jed laughs. "Please don't..." you start to say before Jed firmly grabs your chin with one of his dirty hands. "No. None of that blondie. The only time a whore should open her mouth is when she's giving head. An' since you seem to like having it open, you can get to doing just that." Jed says and then roughly shoves you to your knees. You don't even look up, you just stare at Jed's crotch as he starts undoing his zipper because you don't even want to look at his fucking leering rape face. Jed pulls out his cock and slaps you in the face with it. "Alright, bitch get to suckin! Do a good job cause this is just the beginning and I'm sure you're lookin' forward to what I got in store for that pretty little tight ass of yours!" You have no choice. This is happening and you've gone beyond feeling scared and you're now feeling completely and utterly helpless. You get started... Your mind starts to go to another place. Or at least it tries to; the problem is Jed is so fucking repulsive in every way possible; you can't even at least begin to pretend he's Bobby or someone else. ANYONE else. Jed is pushing your head and making all sorts of grunting noises and vulgar comments in general. It's without a doubt the worst feeling in the world and there really are no words to describe how horrible this is. And it's only going to get worse given the implications that Jed is going to rape you anally. While you're dwelling on this miserable situation, something in your mind begins to change. The fear is starting to dissipate and you're starting to get angry and you start to feel less helpless... His dick is in YOUR mouth. You've got ALL the fucking power here. This might be suicide, but you can't just let these assholes violate you anymore than they already have without a fight. You HAVE to do SOMETHING. "Holy fucking shit, Hugo! Blondie here is fucking an amazing cocksucker! I think she's deep throated the whole...ARGH!" You bite. You bite as hard as you can. Even with Jed punching at your head, you don't stop biting. You bring a whole new meaning to the phrase lockjaw. Jed by this point is screaming on the floor for his brother to help him. Hugo attempts to pull you off, but all he's succeeding in doing is contributing to ripping his brother's dick off due to your firm bite on the now bloody member. You keep grinding and gnashing and the fight is now going completely out of Jed who is now just howling in pain and screaming like a little girl. And at last you manage to bite through, blood fills your mouth and as Hugo pulls you away, you spit Jed's dick back at him. "I'm the blowjob queen bitch!" you shout and start laughing as blood drips from all over your mouth and face. In between his screaming and holding where his dick once was, he orders Hugo to kill you. Hugo doesn't waste anytime in squeezing you tightly. You begin to have hard time breathing. Using the back your head you slam into his face several times and while you probably break his nose in the process, Hugo continues with his bear hug and you start to lose consciousness. "(sob)Don't fucking knock her out, I said fucking kill that goddamn biting bitch! OWWW OHHH (sob) Break her goddamn neck!" Jed screams. Suddenly the door opens up and you see an older man in a bloody lab coat. His hair is completely white and wild looking. This must be Leslie. "What the fuck are you two inbreds doing in here making all this fucking noise?! OH FUCK! You fucktards have really done it! I can't rely on you two for shit! Hugo drop that fucking bitch now!" Leslie says and pulls a pistol out of his coat pocket. "...(sob) she bit my fuckin' dick off Doc! She's gotta die! OWWWWW OHHHH (Sob)" Jed screams. "Yeah, well maybe she will, but this here's my sister's patient and you two just fucked with her results. Y'know what, fuck this I'm tired of reasoning with you two." The Leslie says and points the pistol at Jed. "Now Hugo, you overgrown retard, you kill blondie there, your brother fucking eats a bullet. I can sew your brother's dick back on, but you gotta let that bitch go cause she's my sister's patient, not mine. Now what's it gonna be?" Hugo just looks on confused while still squeezing the life out of you. "FUCKING JUST DROP THE BITCH HUGO! I NEED MY DICK!" Jed cries. Hugo finally understanding the situation drops you in a heap. You remain on the floor just coughing up dick blood and still trying to catch your breath. "Thank you. Now was that so hard?" Leslie says and then calmly shoots Hugo in the head three times. The big man fortunately falls backwards rather than forward on to you. "NOOOOO!" Jed screams. "What the fuck Doc?! You (Sob) killed my fucking brother! Why?!" "Told you, I was done reasoning with you two assholes. You have proven time and time again to be non-learning animals. Besides, Lilith's already gonna bitch at me for what you two fucktards did. Might as well do damage control now." "But you said you'd sew my dick back on if that bitch lived!" "I'm not touching your fucking diseased dick." Leslie laughs. "Fuck you Doc! FUCK..." Leslie calmly places three rounds in Jed's head, putting the redneck out of his misery. You just look on in complete shock at what just happened and try stand up. Leslie however kicks you back to the floor. You want to fight, but you're too weak at this point. Leslie pulls out a syringe and holds you down while stabbing you in the arm with it. Must be the same stuff his sister injected you with yesterday, because it works nearly immediately. "No, I don't think so blondie. Think you've had enough action for one day." Leslie says as he strokes your hair. "Oh the fun I would have with you, but I guess what ultimately happens to you will be my sister's call. Who knows, maybe you'll get lucky....SHIT!" Leslie suddenly exclaims when he sees that you're not falling unconscious, but rather going into violent convulsions. Leslie begins to look through his other coat pocket and pulls out another syringe cursing when he sees it. Meanwhile you're spitting and coughing up blood. It feels like you can't breathe and that's mainly because you can't. "FUCK! I used the wrong syringe on the bitch! Fuck! Sis is gonna be even more pissed! Shit! Fuck!" Leslies exclaims pacing back and forth. Whatever Leslie's concerns are about getting yelled at by his sister are nothing compared to the agony you're going through right now. Your insides feel like they're on fire and every major organ in your body is shutting down. By the time Lilith gets back to your room, your poisoned bloody corpse, the bodies of two dead rednecks and Leslie's poor attempt to spin the event so it doesn't seem like it was his fault are all that remain.

[Themes: modern, science fiction, drama, post-apocalyptic] You wake up and remembering everything that happened just before you passed out, you attempt to sit up immediately, unfortunately you can't due to being restrained. Your legs, your arms and even your body are all strapped down on a gurney. You can't cry out either as you have a ball gag on your mouth. You can make loud "Mmhghm!" sounds but that's about it. Your clothing has also changed. While you're not naked, you're in one of those hospital gowns. You don't feel sore or anything, so you can only hope you weren't raped during the time someone was changing your clothes. The fear of what's going to happen to you is overwhelming. A quick glance around from you position shows that you're in a plain white room with no windows. There is a light above and a chair and door to your right, but to your left gives you cause for more terror as you see a table full of surgical instruments. A lot of them don't even look like proper surgical instruments so much as they look like torture devices. There isn't much you can do except wait and attempt to stop crying though you fail in that endeavor. You just lie there thinking about how you said yesterday that things couldn't get any worse...and then they did. You think about what you could've done differently to have made your life better and most importantly avoid the situation you're in now. You then think about how at some point, either Lilith, her brother or both are going to come in and start cutting you up and torturing you to death. You're completely helpless and you wish that someone would just come in and save you from all this. The door suddenly opens and you turn your head hoping that somehow your magical thinking worked, but you only see Lilith walking in with a notebook in hand. "Figured you should be up by now. Sorry to keep you knocked out for so long, but I'm sure you can see it was completely necessary. Couldn't have you running away or anything." You turn away from Lilith who then gets closer and stares at your face a moment. "Hmm, you've been crying. Natural response I suppose given your situation. Good. (Sigh) I told my brother not to put those in here." Lilith says taking notice of the surgical instruments and shaking her head. "He probably thought it would be funny to have you even more terrified out of your mind than you already would be. I love Leslie with all my heart, but he really can be an inconsiderate asshole sometimes. Well most of the time really, anyway the main thing is don't pay any attention to those tools over there. That's not what I brought you in for." Lilith puts her notebook on the table with the tools and addresses you again. "Now. I'm going to release your ball gag since I'm sure it's uncomfortable. However when I do, I must ask you NOT to scream or anything like that. First of all it won't do any good. Second, it's terribly annoying. If we're going to have a positive relationship Suzy, it's absolutely necessary that you comply with my instructions. Do you understand?" You don't really have much in the way of choices and resisting her with no way of actually doing anything would probably just result in something bad. You nod your head compliantly and Lilith takes off your ball gag. "Are you going to kill me?" you ask. "Ah the predictable question first. Well, we're going to get to that and several other questions you might have, but we're going to be doing this my way. So while I know you're very nervous and scared, you're going to just have to wait a while before they get answered. Do you understand?" Once again you nod silently. "Good. Very compliant. We're getting off on the right foot Suzy. Now then let's get to some of the more minor concerns you might have had running through your mind while you were laying here." Lilith pulls the chair over to the table and after moving some of the tools out of the way she sits down, opens up her notebook and begins writing something in it while addressing you. "I want to first alleviate any concerns you might have had about being sexually molested while you were unconscious. I assure you I undressed and dressed you myself. And since I'm not a lesbian you were completely unharmed as far as that goes. I can see one of the obvious reasons that would cause Bobby to be enamored with you though. You're a very pretty girl with a nice body and it's obvious just by speaking with him he still loves you despite your break up." "...you...you spoke with Bobby?" you ask. "Oh yes. Called him up as soon as I got you in the house. Took awhile to reach him, but eventually I did and I proceeded to have a very long conversation with him. I wanted to know more about you and only Bobby could provide those answers what with you being unconscious and all. He told me about how you met, your general personality, what you liked to do, and all of that stuff. When I asked what exactly caused the break up, he seemed to stumble over his words a bit. He claimed that he realized he couldn't abandon the silly family traditions, but it seemed like there was more to it than that because he kept insisting it was his fault and not yours. As if that was going to change what is going to be going on over here. You want to shed a little light on it Suzy? Please be honest." "I...I (sniffle) didn't want to get married to him. I didn't want to live under the same roof as Diana since she was his ex and she hates me. I suppose...I also wasn't fond of the idea of having a bunch of babies like he wanted either. Our argument sort of spiraled from there." You answer. "Hm, interesting. So you wouldn't consider yourself a domestic woman then. I suppose I can understand that. I certainly wouldn't want to spend most of my time barefoot and pregnant and my whole life revolving around my man's needs. I don't think my brother would like that either. He gets so wrapped up in his experiments that I don't even see him for days sometimes and he'd probably be homeless and living under a bridge if I wasn't working." Lilith chuckles and continues writing. You remain extremely anxious about what's going to happen to you. "I also can understand not wanting to live with my bitchy niece either. I know my nephew probably didn't think anything of it, but I also wouldn't have put it past him to hope for some sort of three way between you all. Good for you, putting your foot down like that." All you can think is you'd willingly have a three-way with Bobby and Diana if it got you out of this situation. "Anyway when my nephew found out you were over here he practically pleaded for me and his uncle not to kill or harm you in any way. He even said he'd be over to pick you up, but I told him that was completely out of the question since plans were already in motion. Still, I love my nephew and didn't wish to cause him any suffering so I agreed that you would not come to any harm as long as you followed the rules. So there's the obvious question answered." You close your eyes silently thanking Bobby that he spoke up for you. Of course this doesn't make your fear disappear completely. Far from it, but at least you might have a glimmer of hope now. "With that out of the way, your other questions are probably what is going to be done to you. Well, before I called Bobby, my initial intention was to do some tests and study you since I wanted another subject to observe and I saw an opportunity to grab you when you nearly crashed into me. However, some things have obviously changed, but there is still is opportunity here so I'm going to take advantage of it." "...what do you mean?" you ask thinking Lilith has decided to completely twist her word to Bobby somehow. "I'm getting to that. As you might've noticed most of the folks in town have gone completely nuts. Well there's a reason for that and you're going to be one of the few people outside of the higher-ranking Ground Zero personnel to learn about it." Lilith stops writing to give you her complete attention. "We put an experimental drug in the water supply and that's what's causing most people to act the way they're doing in town. In fact we've done this to a lot of places. As bad as what's going on in town, I imagine it's even worse in a bigger populated area like Security City." Lilith says. While you're still worried about yourself, this bit of information is a little frightening for other reasons. "Wait. What? Why?" you ask. "Well there are very good reasons I assure you, but most of them probably wouldn't matter to most with any sort of so called ethical concerns on human testing. Indeed I don't even know all of the answers myself, I'm just a small cog in a big relentless machine. All I can do is tell you this, the world IS going to change very severely and very soon and it's Ground Zero's goal to try to save the human race at any cost. Our shelters aren't the only way we're doing that." Lilith says. "But how is putting crazy juice in the water supply doing that?" you ask. "Well, I'm not completely familiar with all the science involved, but it basically makes people more resilient to things like diseases, radiation, and even chemical gases. You know, anything that's likely to wipe out humanity on a wide scale when our glorious world leaders start pressing buttons. It seems like it increases strength and speed as well. Unfortunately it would seem it has a very negative effect on the mind, but that of course was an unintended side effect. However, if animal testing is anything to go by, those effects should only be temporary." "But how long do they last?" "With animals? A few weeks, but we never really got to test on humans at least not on a wide scale. There were some individual tests I believe, but those were the earlier stages of the drug and the results of those weren't very positive. Ground Zero wanted to pick a populated area to do testing on years ago to hammer out all the problems quicker, but we had an agreement with government, which kept dragging its damn feet as usual on things. It didn't help that GZ was also temporarily burdened with some incompetent leadership for a while so we didn't get to do any of this until the last minute and now this is the result. Don't get me started on the faulty elevator problems in most of the shelters..." Lilith at this point shakes her head and runs her fingers through her hair as if dismayed with how things have turned out. As she's doing this, a horrible conclusion comes to you. "Wait...am I going to go crazy too? I drank mostly bottled water!" you say. "Yes, a lot of people do these days, but most people still bathe regularly, brush their teeth and such and all that is still enough even if you're not drinking straight from the tap. As for if you're going to go crazy, well that's a matter of perspective. Given what I know about you, I have to say from a professional perspective you're not exactly a beacon of sanity Suzy, but then who of us really is right? If you were worried that you're going to start going into a violent fit of rage, I'd have to say I don't think you are since you haven't already. The drug doesn't seem to be affecting everyone in town the same way for some reason. Not sure why, but again that's why I'm keeping you around for observation. You're going to be my control subject as it were." "What does that mean?" you ask. "What it essentially means is as long as you cooperate and don't try to escape, you'll be well taken care of. I'll ask you questions, maybe do a few non-invasive tests and that's about it. If it seems you're completely fine, I guess we'll move on from there. For now though I think you should have better accommodations don't you? This room is rather spartan, I'm going to take you to a new one. Now, I could call my brother in here or just wheel you to it still strapped to the gurney, but I'd rather NOT do that Suzy. I want our relationship to be a trusting one. So, I'm going to release you from your straps, you'll follow me and you WILL NOT try to escape or anything like that. Do you understand?" Of course you're going to say yes to Lilith, no matter what, but your intentions are another matter. While Lilith seems like a reasonable lady, she's still a Morningstar and all that entails from what you know of that fucked up family. She might not be one of the chaos goddess worshipping brainwashed cultist ones, but she's obviously still not concerned with the value of human life and the only thing that's saved you is having a past relationship with Bobby and his continued feelings for you. She doesn't look tough, of course looks can be deceiving, but you're pretty desperate and you REALLY want to leave. When she releases you, you could probably easily grab one of those surgical instruments and hold her hostage until you took her car and got out of this place. You've no idea where you'd go, but anywhere would be better. > You make an attempt to escape You aren't going to stick around to be someone's lab rat only to probably get disposed of later. And you know enough about the Morningstar family that they're all a bunch of damn psychos at their core. You need to make your escape now. Lilith undoes your straps and you're soon free. You sit up, stretch and then make out like you're about to fall. "Oh shit." You say and Lilith quickly comes to your aid to prevent you from "falling." "Whoa, easy there, you o..." Lilith starts to say and then you elbow her in the face. Lilith falls to the floor and you grab a particularly sadistic looking knife from the table. Lilith is remarkable quick to recover because by the time you've done all this, she' already run to the door and opened it. "LESLIE!" she shouts before you manage to grab her hair and put the knife to her throat. "Don't move. I don't want to kill you, but I will to get out of here." You warn. "This was a very stupid thing to do Suzy. If you'd cooperated you would've gotten out of here in a few days at most. Now you've sealed your own death certificate." "Quiet! Now I'm taking your vehicle, so I'm going to need your keys. After I grab those I'll be leaving and if YOU cooperate you won't get hurt. So you better tell me where we're going and NOT shout for help again!" You say. "(Sigh) Fine. I have my keys with me in my pocket. We just have to go to the vehicle. This way." Lilith says and the pair of you leave the room. You constantly look around thinking you're going to see Lilith's brother coming around a corner, but so far nothing. Lilith tells you which way to go and eventually you're heading up the stairs. It's at this point Lilith starts talking shit again. "You're not getting away with this you know. My brother's going to stop you before you can escape and when that happens...well you think things were going bad in your life before? You're going to soon learn that they're going to be infinitely worse." "Yeah well I haven't seen him yet. I guess he didn't hear you. Probably too busy with his experiments or whatever fucked up shit you two do here. Christ, your family is fucked up." Lilith laughs. "Yes, and that apparently that didn't stop you from dating one of us." She says. "That was different!" you snap. "Of course it was. Extreme situations tend to create unusual pairings. Such as the one you and Bobby had. Although I think it was more unusual for him rather than for you given how much of a slave he is to some of my family's sillier traditions." You get to the ground floor. "Bobby saved you like some damsel in distress from your mean old serial killer uncle. Makes sense you'd latch on to him the way you did. In a way you're very much like one of those fairly tale princesses locked away in a tower, except in your case, you locked yourself away in your basement. Bobby was your Prince Charming." You continue to ignore Lilith's ramblings. "Now of course you still KNEW what Bobby was, but you willingly looked past that. Why? Was it love? No, even if you thought it was at first. If it was love you would've married him in his compound instead of being here. Was it low self esteem? Possibly. But even as introverted as you are, you're still a very pretty girl and you have to know that on some level...I mean even YOU aren't that stupid." "Will you shut up?" "Not to mention you seem to be fine by yourself. Even Bobby mentioned that you seemed to prefer your own company when you weren't with him. So where does that leave us Suzy? Why would you willingly date someone from a family as fucked up as ours? Do you know the answer?" "Shut the hell up, I don't care! Just tell me where the front fucking door is!" you exclaim. "Next two rooms to the right." Lilith is quiet again and you make it to the front door. Still no sign of Leslie, so far so good. When you open the door, Lilith once again starts getting chatty. "Since our time together is almost at an end, I guess I'll tell you the answer. You went with Bobby because deep down underneath all that apathy you're just as fucked up as the rest of us." "That's not even remotely true." "Oh, just because you were merely looking away from my nephew's murderous deeds, that somehow makes you less fucked up? That's classic enabling behavior, not to mention your co-dependency during your relationship with Bobby. Hell, before Bobby came into your life, you were pretty detached from the real world and lived in your own made up reality anyway. I'd say under a different sort of extreme circumstance, you'd easily turn into a killer like your uncle especially since from what I've heard the rest of your own family isn't exactly well adjusted either. Didn't one of them kill his whole family before shooting himself?" You press the blade closer to Lilith's throat to the point that it draws blood. "You keep talking and you're going to find that THIS extreme situation is the one that turns me into my fucking uncle, so keep fucking talking and you're going to be the first fucking victim!" Your threat finally shuts Lilith up. You make your way to the truck, still looking around Leslie, but you don't see anything. Eventually you get to the truck. "Alright, very slowly grab the keys out of your pocket. Drop them in my other hand and I'll release you." Lilith complies with your orders and as soon as you have the keys you toss her to the ground hard. You then open up the door and suddenly feel a hand grab one of your upper ankles and then a sharp blade cutting into where the tendon would be. You scream out in pain and fall on the driveway pavement. Then another hand grabs your other ankle and you feel a blade cut into your other tendon. Meanwhile Lilith has recovered and taken away the knife you dropped. She stands over you while you scream in pain. An older man with completely white and wild hair crawls out from under the truck. He wears a bloody lab coat and goes over to Lilith and asks if she's okay and remarks on her neck, she nods that she is fine. You roll over and try to stand, but find it's quite impossible with your tendons sliced the way they are. You're bleeding all over the place and the fear of what's coming next is overwhelming your physical agony. "Told you my brother would help me. I knew he would. He's my Prince Charming after all. Hm. I suppose because it's drilled into our heads when we're little that on some level we all like to be rescued. A big strong man charging in to save the day and all that chivalrous patriarchal nonsense, but on some level it's still sort of hot." Lilith says and then gives her brother a long kiss and hugs him. You try to crawl away, since you can't even stand at this point, but you don't get far. "Too bad nobody's going to rescue you now though. Should've killed me instead of holding back...but then that's always been your problem isn't it? Squandering your potential." You hear Lilith say and then what follows is a hefty kick to the back of your head. You black out. When you wake up you're firmly strapped to another table completely naked. This isn't a regular surgical table though since your legs are spread apart. "Oh...no...NO...NO!" you start to say and try to struggle free. Your voice calls attention to Leslie who was currently hovering over another body on a different table. "Oh good, you're up. I wanted you to be before I started. My sister said it was imperative that you not be unconscious for whatever I have in store for you." You start screaming for help in vain and Leslie goes over to you and starts stroking your head. "Now she did suggest that one of the things I should do is hand you over to a couple of my redneck assistants and let them have fun with you, but no. After you harmed my sister's lovely neck with a blade, I think I should have ALL the honors. I'm going to do things. Bad things and I'm going to have fun doing it and nobody is going to stop me. We'll start off slow." Leslie says patting your head. You begin to cry and for whatever reason in your grasp for hope in this hopeless situation you call out for Bobby. "Bobby?" Leslie chuckles and then moves over to the part of the table where your legs are spread open and he gets between them while undoing his belt. "I'm afraid he's not here to help you blondie. I will say that I've never considered this before, but since this is a unique situation... is my dick bigger than my nephew's? I guess you can be the judge." What Leslie proceeds to do to you next is horrible and degrading. Then it gets worse. And worse. And worse. The next day, what's left of you (which isn't much) is cooked and wrapped up for sandwiches. What isn't used for lunchmeat is tossed in the trash. And that is the story of you.

You're sick of everyone trying to control your life. You weren't putting up with it with Bobby, and you're sure as hell not going to put up with it with Jake. "Are you just assuming I can't carry the boxes around because I'm a woman?" you ask. "What? No, that's not it..." Jake starts to say before you interrupt. "You just said a little thing like me doesn't want to lug boxes around like I'm some helpless damsel." "Look, as a businessman it's my job to match up potential employees with what they're probably going to be best at. The fact is you ARE on the smaller side, not to mention you've just told me you've never done a hard day's work in your life. So yeah, I don't think you're strong enough to do the job and not bitch about it or even get that much work done. I'd rather have you out here working the register." "You just want me out here as eye candy for the customers." You reply. "Jesus fucking Christ, I didn't realize I was hiring a FemiNazi. Are you telling me you want to move boxes?" Jake says in exasperation. "I'm not a goddamn FemiNazi and no I don't want particularly want to move boxes, but my point is you just took the damn choice out of my hands and made a stupid assumption that I couldn't do the job due to your own narrow-mindedness." Jack exhales again and rubs his face. "Are you kidding fucking me? You're arguing about a job you don't even want? In fact, you don't even want THIS job! You know how many employers would've thrown you out with that sort of shitty work ethic and you haven't even started yet! I'm fucking helping YOU out by hiring you in the first place with absolutely no skills or experience and you're giving me shit already! It's not like I'm grabbing your ass and telling you to suck my dick! I'm trying to be a nice guy here." "Given with how you're speaking to me, you're not really all that fucking nice." You respond. "Alright, I've had it. Get the fuck out of my shop. You probably think because you're pretty you can just get what you want well not this time bitch. I got enough shit to deal with, get the fuck out! Get out! Get out! Get out!" Jake yells and points at the door. "FUCKING ASSHOLE!" you shout as loud as you can and storm out the shop. Well that could've went better. As you walk to your car, several nerd types are just now approaching the store. While they're probably the sort that would've been staring at you all day if you'd been working at the shop, now they're actively avoiding you since you're mumbling and swearing to yourself like a crazy person. Your swearing continues when you're actually in the car. You bang on the steering wheel several times in frustration. "I hate my fucking life!" you cry out and begin to sob. Life just isn't fair Suzy and lately for you it's only been getting harder. All you wanted to do is hang out in your basement, hiding out from the rest of the world. Now your forced to deal with all this shit that you're just no good at and when you do try to assert yourself, you fail at that too. If you were fighting depression before, you're currently getting your ass kicked by it. It's a good thing you aren't suicidal, but the thought is starting to cross your mind. After taking a moment to pull yourself together, you think about what you need to do next. "Okay...I need to go back home. Need to pack up all the most important shit I have and head over to Julie's house." You say to yourself. With this new goal in mind, you pull out of the comic shop parking lot and intend on making your way back home. You don't get a couple blocks before you soon discover the way you came is barricaded due to an accident or something. There are ambulances and police cars blocking the way and you realize you're going to have to go a different direction. You go down some side streets and find out that they currently aren't much better and in one instance actually worse as a bunch of people have made a makeshift barricade with overturned cars and some of them are shooting at each other. You get the hell out of the area as fast as you can before someone starts shooting at you. After having to drive around avoiding barricades, downed power lines, overturned vehicles and general chaos, you begin to get even more frustrated since it's starting to look like you can't even get home. Or at least not by driving there and given the shit that's going on, you'll be damned if you're going to get out of your vehicle to walk home. "Goddamn it, I just want to get the fuck home! Fuck it, I'm just going to go to Julie's now..." you shout to yourself. It's a further drive, but considering Julie lives in a better area, you're hoping that maybe things won't be as bad driving in that direction. You soon find out that isn't the case as you're desperately trying to avoid getting into an accident every five minutes. "Seriously what the hell is going on with this town? Everyone is acting like an asshole even more than usual." You say and you're starting to wonder if there's something in the water. Turning on the radio doesn't help, since you're not getting much on it save for those annoying Ground Zero ads. "Come on, there's gotta be something about...SHIT!" you say when look up from the radio and are just in time to see a bus turning left and about to hit you. You swerve immediately to avoid being hit, but unfortunately you slam the car into another speeding car, which crashes into your passenger side at full force. You are knocked around as your car goes spinning across the street. It all happens so fast you don't even have time to panic or feel the fear of possibly dying right now. A large black truck slams on its breaks in an attempt to not hit you, which it succeeds in doing, only for your car to be stopped by lamppost instead. Thanks to airbags never working correctly when they should, you hit your head on the steering wheel hard and while you don't quite knock yourself out you definitely scramble your brains a bit and you're feeling pretty dazed. While you're still recovering, you suddenly hear knocking on your window and a voice. "Hey, miss. Miss? You alright?" You slowly look out your window and see a woman wearing glasses and dressed in business attire staring back at you. Well actually you're sort of seeing two of her and the image is still a little blurry, but that's the size of it. You unhook your seat belt and get out of the car wincing in a bit of pain as you do so. The businesswoman helps you from falling since you're still wobbly. "You're lucky to be alive, I've seen a shitload of crashes like yours since I've been driving through town today. I only just managed to put on my breaks when I saw your car spinning out of control like that." she remarks. You don't really answer her; you just turn to look at the car, which is totaled. Besides part of the front being wrapped around a now leaning lamppost, the passenger side is trashed and you certainly aren't going to be driving anywhere soon due to the front wheel area being caved in and the axel broken. You just look at the wreckage of the car silently and then start to giggle at the situation. Soon the giggling becomes full blown laughter and the woman that helped you out of the car gives you a strange look. "Are you alright?" she asks again. "Oh I'm just peachy! This has been a wonderful day!" you say laughing. "Do you know your name and where you're at?" "Yeah, my name is mud and I'm in a world of shit." You say still laughing. "Um, well you seem to be having a bit of difficulty balancing and you've got a nasty bruise on your forehead. You might have a concussion and given your laughter you might even be in some state of shock. I think it would be best if you had some medical attention." You look at the woman that's trying to help you and begin to stop laughing quite as hard and your mind starts heading back to earth again. Your head and body remind you of the pain you're actually still in. "Yeah...yeah...maybe. Shit, my head does hurt... I guess...can you drive me to the hospital?" you ask. "The hospital? Yeah, that place is sort of fucked right now. Even if we could get to it in this mess of chaos, the place has been overflowing with patients and you might be waiting a long time, if they get to you at all. I'm not sticking around in this town any longer than I need to. However, my brother is a doctor with his own private practice just outside town; he can probably check you out for free. It won't be any problem since I'm going to him right now." The woman says. Well it's either head somewhere with a complete stranger or try to make it to the hospital (or wherever) in your current condition. > You decline the offer You might not be in the best condition right now, but you're not going off with some stranger. You don't know who this woman is and with your luck she could be some psycho. "No, I'm okay. I'll make it on my own." You say. "Are you sure? You really don't look well." The woman says. "I said I'm fine." You say starting to get agitated. "Alright, alright, just trying to help. I'll go." The woman says and steps away. As the woman goes back to her large black truck, you survey the immediate area and see that your accident isn't being paid much attention to. Other vehicles are merely driving by and nearby onlookers lose interest. You look over at the other vehicle on the far end of the street that slammed into you. The front end of that one is trashed and the driver has gone half way through the windshield. He's a bloody mess and isn't moving. The first thing you need to do is get your bearings, because you don't even know where the hell you're at right now. You walk away from your vehicle, nearly falling a couple times until you lean up against the side of a building. You really feel woozy. You're starting to wonder if you shouldn't have taken the woman up on her offer. You try to ask a few people that are nearby where you are and they just brush you off. None of them offer to help you and one of them actually snarls like some sort of animal. The people in this town really have lost their damn minds. Since you don't know where you're at and you're not exactly thinking clearly, you employ a simple plan of just going in a straight direction until you start to recognize something. It's about all you can do at this point. Along the way, you get to see up close just how bad the town is getting. And it's even scarier now that you're not even within the safety of a vehicle. You attempt to maintain a low profile and hasten your pace, but it's a little difficult to do since you're limping along. Eventually you see a park a block ahead of you and instantly recognize it. It's actually the same place you met Bobby once upon a time. You sort of wish he was here right now. You think you can make it to Julie's from the park, that would probably be your best bet since you were told the hospital was sort of screwed and going home is probably a longer walk. She's probably got more than enough painkillers there anyway. With this new goal in mind, you press onwards toward the park thinking you just might make this after all. Then several gunshots ring out. You don't even know from what direction, you just duck behind a nearby-parked car. You hear shouting and shooting. You peek your head up just enough to see three armed men in animal masks running towards your direction, but shooting in the other. You duck your head back down when you see one catch a bullet to the head. From your cover, you hear another one cry out and the falling of a body. The third one however jumps over the hood of the car you're hiding behind... You freeze as the bunny masked man stares directly at you. "You'll do." He says and grabs you. You try to resist, but after a couple pistol-whips to your face, you become more limp and he picks you up. "Alright! You pigs better not fuckin' shoot or I'll blow this yellow haired bitch's brains out." He shouts holding you up in front of him and pointing his pistol at your head. In your blurry vision you can see several police officers in front of you with their weapons drawn. You've got the masked man shouting near your ear, the cops are shouting back and you just wish you weren't here anymore. The past few days have been just plain shitty and they're obviously not going to get any better. With your luck, you'll get shot and not even die right away because that's certainly how this week has been going. Well not if you can help it. You've still got some control over your destiny. "Just shoot the motherfucker." You utter and start squirming causing the criminal to start grabbing you tighter. "Shut the fuck up bitch!" he shouts. "Just shoot you fucking pigs! Look at this shithole town, do you think anyone's really going to question you if a civilian gets caught in the crossfire anymore? Just fucking shoot!" The cops at this point briefly look at each other and nod, they aren't even telling you to calm down. Maybe they already planned to just shoot anyway. Good. "Fuck this!" the masked man shouts and starts firing on the cops, who return fire immediately. You're hit several times during their shoot out with the masked man and finally something goes your way, you die instantly.

[Themes: modern, post-apocalyptic] "And Suzy is the winner of the world hot dog eating championship! Let's all hear it for our little blonde small town girl!" The announcer shouts which is followed by a roaring crowd. Not even feeling full, you wipe the mayonnaise off your lips, graciously stand up and bow for your adoring fans. The grossly fat dude on your right looks at you in disbelief and then turns away to puke in a bucket. Meanwhile the little Asian dude on your left just shakes his head wondering how the hell you could've beaten him. "I don't understand it...all my training. I glanced over at you during the contest...you...you were barely even chewing! How?" He asks. "Oh just natural talent at swallowing hot dogs I suppose." You reply humbly and wink at the audience, which continues to praise you. While you're blowing kisses at your fans, the announcer of the contest speaks again. "And as an extra special reward, our glorious host of this event, Misty will be coming soon to congratulate our winner in person. This hasn't happened in decades! Perhaps even centuries! It's all just so exciting! Oh wait...I think that's Misty now!" At this point the wind begins to pick up significantly, which is amazing since this contest was taking place in an indoor stadium. The audience seems to be going even wilder, but at this point you're getting a little concerned. Your concern becomes fear when the fat bastard to your right melts into a gory pile of goo, the Asian guy's head gets really large like in one of those anime cartoons and he screams before running away shouting about Tokyo getting destroyed by a giant lizard. You look back at the audience and see that they've begun stripping off their clothes and embracing each other in the biggest orgy you've ever seen. (Even larger than that porno you watched one time) The roof suddenly comes off the stadium revealing a dark sky with a jet black swirling hole above. "And here comes Misty folks! It's absolutely...GLORIOUS." The disembodied voice says as its pitch changes to demonic tone. You can't run, you can't even move, you just stare at this unearthly sight like a deer in the headlights completely frozen. You see the flash of a couple red glowing orbs in the black hole above you and then the wind picks you up and you're being pulled towards it. "COME TO ME SUZY. COME TO US. COME. COME. COME..." A deep voice echoes all around you which is backed up by the audience who are chanting along with having their orgy. You vainly try to struggle, but there isn't much you can do accept uselessly flail about in midair as you are slowly enveloped by darkness. Even when you try to scream, you make no sound, in fact all your senses go numb and everything goes black. You are then awakened by the ringing of your phone. At first you look around briefly still wondering if you're still levitating towards a black hole, but you breathe a sigh of relief that it was all just a dream. However, even though you're wide-awake, you still feel shaken up. Something about that dream seemed really unnerving and you usually aren't one to put much stock into your dreams. The ringing of the phone takes priority before dream analysis though, so after fumbling with it a bit you answer it. "Hey I've been trying to get a hold of you. We're you still asleep?" Bobby asks. "Yeah, are you outside the house already?" You answer. "Nah, I'm on my way over. I hope you're packed and ready to go though, because it's nuts out here. I know you don't tend to leave the house much, but if you've been out lately, you'd know it's been getting fucking crazy in town. Seriously, you'll see how fucked up it is out there when we drive through town. The cops are everywhere, groups of people are rioting, like I said, it's a mess. Okay, I need to focus on the road, there's a meat wagon picking up some bodies off the road. I'll see you soon. Love you." Bobby says and hangs up. As you take a quick shower before getting ready to leave, you think more about your strange dream. You wonder if it was some sort of subconscious thing that your mind was telling you that this move is a bad idea. You have to admit, you still are feeling very unsure about it, especially now that Bobby has told you that you're moving into an isolated compound with not just his immediate family, but a bunch of other family that could be even crazier. Still, this could just be mostly anxiety of leaving a place where you've traditionally always felt safe and lived most of your life combined with a freaky dream. Bobby did say you could leave if you weren't comfortable there, so you're trying to not to focus on the possible negatives. You try to calm your nerves the old fashioned way and think about Bobby the entire time. Exiting the shower, getting dressed and grabbing your packed bags, you finally leave your basement. You packed as much as you could, hopefully you can return to get the rest later. You head upstairs and you're not waiting long before you hear a knock on the door. Upon answering it, you see Bobby who embraces you with a hug and a kiss. "By Tiamat, I've missed your body against mine." Bobby says caressing you all over. "I never would have guessed. I have missed your touch as well though Bobby. Let me just get my bags." You turn around and bend over to grab your bags and that's when Bobby grabs you around the waist and if it wasn't for the fabric separating the two of you, he'd also be inside you. It's startling enough that you probably would've lost you balance had Bobby not been holding on to you so tightly. "What the hell? Sheesh Bobby, I nearly fell forward on my face!" "You wouldn't have, I got you. Mmm, I just can't help myself, I just..." At this point Bobby starts kissing on your neck and groping you. "Bobby, Bobby, stop. My brother Peter is still here in the connected garage. Last thing I need is for him to hear us and then suddenly walk in on me getting plowed from behind. Besides, didn't you say it's getting crazy out there? Shouldn't we be getting the hell out of town?" "Yeah, it's wonderfully chaotic out there. Like Tiamat herself has blessed this town. It really started putting me in the mood and then seeing you...well how can I not want to make love to you in the midst of all this chaos?" Bobby at this point is trying pull your shirt off over your head and you hear the sound of a zipper being unzipped, though with as excited as he is, you dare say it could just impale you through his pants. He's grunting, slobbering all over your neck and sniffing your hair and...well he REALLY wants you right now. This isn't really what you had in mind and something about the way Bobby is behaving is a bit...animalistic. He's never been that way in your other intimate encounters with him. Well not excessively so at any rate. Also, you HAVE been fighting for awhile, and it's sort of presumptuous of him to just think you're going to spread your legs immediately because you're on good terms again. Then again, this is sort of turning you on right now, and it has been awhile for you. (By something not battery operated or your own hands at least) > You stop Bobby You might be Bobby's girlfriend, but you're not his fuck toy. You're not going to just give in because he happens to be horny right now. "Bobby, fucking STOP! Seriously! I'm not in the mood!" you say and pull yourself away from his arms. At first he look hurt by your rejection, then his face turns to one of anger. "What the fuck? I thought we were back together?!" Bobby exclaims. "Exactly! We JUST got back together! I mean we got a lot of shit to talk about before we can just hop in the sack again!" "Are you fuckin' kidding...Suzy I just told you that you don't need to worry about Diana if that's what you're still on about!" "It's not just about her, but that's certainly part of it. It's about not treating me like some glory hole because your dick's hard!" "Suzy, you know that's not even the fucking case. And since when are you not into me being affectionate with you? Shit, you were probably splittin' the kitten and thinking about me before I even came over here! Now maybe YOU can turn your feelings on and off, but I genuinely missed you! Excuse me if I want to express that in a physical way!" "Bobby, I can't turn my feelings on and off, and this isn't one sided. I missed you too, but we still have things to work out before we can just continue as normal." At this point Bobby rubs his hands over his face. "(Sigh) You know what...fine. I'm not arguing with you. Play your little game. Let's just get your shit and get over to the compound." Bobby's obviously mad about not getting any sex from you, but at least he isn't pointing out how you should "give it up" because he's helping you out or something similar. Bobby grabs some of your bags and you grab the rest and the pair of you leave out the front door. Bobby silently loads your bags in the van and the pair of you gets in equally as silent. You break up the silence by mentioning how crazy the town seems as you drive through it. And it is pretty crazy. You're seeing police cars, fire trucks, ambulances and large groups of people fighting. This has to be the liveliest this town has ever been. "Wow, you weren't kidding about it being nuts out here." You say. "Yeah." Bobby says. You don't say anymore since it seems like he's content on sulking, but then he surprises you. "Look, I'm sorry for being an aggressive asshole back there. I just got overly excited I guess." Bobby says. "Well I suppose I can't blame you, I am pretty hot." You say which causes a smile between the both of you. "And I want to say, I'm really glad you're helping me out by letting me move in with you." You say. "Don't even mention it. I mean I would've wanted you to move in sooner...well anyway it's probably best we're doing this now. This compound is a lot bigger. You'll be happy to know you can have perfect solitude to yourself and not be bothered by anyone." "Nice." you respond. "And you're right, we probably do have a lot to talk about and we can do that and address all your concerns when we get there. We'll work everything out." Bobby says and smiles again with an optimistic tone. For a moment there's another pause of silence and you think about how Bobby is a pretty great boyfriend in the scheme of things. So you come to a decision. "So...you want a blowjob?" you ask. "What?" Bobby says being caught completely off guard. "Well I can see from here you're fidgeting with your man parts every two seconds while driving. That either means you got some severe issues with your underwear or you're still horny." "My underwear is fine." "Well that pretty much leaves one option. So you want one or not?" "I always want a blowjob, but now? I mean the streets are pretty fucking crazy right now and I'm trying to concentrate on the road." "Well you're not concentrating completely on the road now, because you're still groping yourself." You say. "What about all that stuff about not being a fuck toy?" Bobby asks. "Oh that was when you all over me, this is different because it's my idea." You say. "...I'm not even going to argue with your female logic, I'm just going to say yes." Bobby responds. "Smart boy." You say with a smile and slowly slide over to Bobby and start unzipping his pants. Fortunately there's enough room for your head so you aren't going to be constantly hitting the back of it against the steering wheel. Considering Bobby's pretty ready as soon as you pull it out, you get right to it and start doing what...well one of the many things Bobby loves you for. You focus on the job at hand and you can hear Bobby making some sounds of enjoyment as you really start to get into it. Any other time, this probably would've been a nice little thing for Bobby and probably a way for you to gain leverage in the next disagreement the pair of you would have inevitably had in a future about something. Blowjobs are the keystone to any successful relationship after all. However this probably wasn't the best time to showcase your dick sucking skills. As you're deep throating Bobby into ecstasy, he's having an incredibly hard time paying as much attention to the road. Normally he probably wouldn't have been an issue in this normally sleepy town, but with as crazy as the streets are right now, he doesn't see the fire truck barreling down the side street and smashing right into his side Bobby's van is hit with great force and actually topples over twice. In the process you end up biting Bobby's dick off and choking on it. Bobby is somewhat lucky in that he was knocked unconscious on impact, but he's not going to survive long due to several severe wounds and that's not even including his dick getting bit off. You're also in no condition to even move now due to several broken bones, and your last moments are gasping for breath with a dismembered dick lodged in your throat.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, supernatural, anti-hero, post-apocalyptic, serious, villain protagonist] Your fifth candle of the night burns low on your desk. The flame flickers in the cool breeze blowing in through the open window. Outside, you can hear a drunk man singing. On the floor, a half dozen books lay open. Some are taken from the University library, and some darker ones come from your own personal collection. A boy with curly hair, a pretty face, and a dull personality lays face down in your bed. He's snoring. Already, your interest in him has dwindled into nothingness. You hold a letter from your uncle Jack in your hands, with a broken wax seal depicting the crest of your family. Nephew, I hope this letter finds you well. Last week, I ascended Chapel Mount and lit a candle in your parents' name. Such a terrible tragedy, for them both to take ill so young. I trust your studies at the University are progressing well? You are a man of House Winter, after all; I would expect that you are at least as good as your professors, now. I'm writing to let you know that I've taken ill, and I expect to die shortly. Do not mourn me, for eternal life awaits me. Your inheritance is waiting for you at the family estate in Seffonshire. I trust you remember it? You spent so many of your childhood years running through the halls. The journey is perilous and long. You must hire hardy men to reach your destination. Our suffering in this life is great but it pales in comparison to our reward. Love, Your Uncle Jack. This is the third time you've read it. The words are rich with the promise of adventure, leaving a thrill in your chest each time you read them. You glance at the signet ring on your right hand. The lion stares at you with cool dignity. In your dreams, you wander through impossible vistas in the shadowed days of antiquity. [Author's Note: Winner of EndMaster's 2020-2021 Grimdark Contest! Take the role of Lord Winter, an aspiring sorcerer and the scion of a noble line that has fallen into obscurity. Contains scenes of intense gore, brutality, and sexual violence. Cover art by the talented MadHattersDaughter.] > You hire a crew to escort you. The next day, you skip your lecture on Intermediate Natural Philosophy and head instead to the docks, known to be a warren of cut-throats and sailors. With the condition of the oceans these days, mariners are often as hardy as soldiers. Under your cloak, firmly affixed to your belt, is the skull of your grandfather with two glinting gems in his eyes. It hums with magical promise as you run your hand over it. You almost wish someone would try to rob you. For a while, you wander through a crowd of stevedores and wild-eyed sailors. The sun shines feebly, barely able to penetrate the sickly fog that lays heavy on the city. The smell of salt fills your nostrils. You catch snippets of sea stories, each one disturbing in its own right. "As big as a whale it were, but covered in eyes!" "Cut Old Jeckles in half, clear as the sky it did!" "I swear by the Three, I saw the Thirsting One himself out on the waves..." You notice a dangerous looking man stepping off a galley. His wide-brimmed hat is torn, his chainmail shirt is pockmarked and clawed, and one of his eyes is missing. He wears a harness with a half dozen breech-loaded pistols, and carries a sabre at his belt. He carries a red standard in one hand, six feet in length, banner hanging limply in the breeze. You approach him. "You're, uh, accustomed to violence?" you ask. Your upper crust accent gives you away immediately. He looks at you and smiles widely. "Aye friend, me and my companions are known for our might in every harbour." "I'm looking for passage to Seffonshire." "Friend, you must be truly mad. That's across the wastes," you can tell you have lost his attention. He turns his back to you, shifting his attention to a brawny man with black skin and a scarred bald head who is carrying what appears to be an ancient statue with a cloth draped over it. "Oi! Be careful with that, Tor, you fucking ox of a man!" "I can pay. Handsomely." "Define handsomely, friend. One-Eye Frye and his Fighting Men are known the world over." You flash your signet ring. "I can pay you and your men your weight in silver." He cocks his head. "How about you start with a round of ale for me and the lads?" > One-Eye Frye and his Fighting Men You grab a corner table at the local alehouse with Frye, and he leaves instructions with his crew to come when they finish unloading the ship. He drinks ale like it's water, happy to drink on your dime. As he drinks, he regails you with war stories. ".. and there I was, surrounded by corpses on all sides. The Donkey Men were patrolling the battlefield, lookin' for wounded to rape. You ever see a Donkey, boy?" "No." "Well you know what a regular donkey is, don't you?" "Yes." "Then you should be able to picture a Donkey pretty well. Savage lot. We had been scrapping with them all night, and they fight like devils. They'll chop your head off with one of their axes right as they kick you in the cock with those hooves of theirs, and fuck your corpse for good measure. So one of these bastards is sniffing around, right where I'm laying, and I hear this god awful yell. And in comes Stitcher, with a string of grenades, yelling about how if anyone gets to rape the chief, it's going to be her. Killed a half dozen in the explosion, wounded ten more. Scared them off." The door to the tavern opens, and sunlight spills inside. A gigantic woman in layers of cloth and heavy armour enters. She wears a tattered cloth hat, underneath which her tangled blonde hair spills out. A giant leatherbound book hangs at her belt; you recognize it as The Second Tome of the Sustainer, a book that instructs the faithful on practical miracles, and a favourite of battle-healers. She also wears a morningstar with a cylindrical, spiked head. "Aye, Stitcher!" Frye says with a grin, "come and drink with us!" "If I have no choice, I suppose I'll drink with you," she says, returning the smile. She glances at you. "Who is the little lordling?" "Our salvation, Stitcher! My friend, the little lordling, needs passage, and he's good to pay for it." She squints at him. "Passage to where?" "Seffonshire," you say. She doesn't even glance at you. "Frye, that's far. We barely surv -" "We survived just fine, Stitcher. And we made it back with a haul of treasure that would make your Sustainer blush." She opens her mouth, glances at you, then shuts it. For a moment, the three of you sit in silence. "I was just telling our friend the lordling about the time you fought the Donkeys for my virtue." "You have no virtue," she says. Frye laughs. Over the course of the day, you're introduced to the rest of Frye's companions. First, you meet John Boy, a peg-legged survivalist with a thick beard, bushy eyebrows, and unerring accuracy with his gargantuan crossbow. Then there's Tor, the man you saw on the ship. He's a muscle-bound brute of a man with dark brown skin, a bald head covered in scars, and a whaler's harpoon as tall as you are. Finally, there's Crowley; a plated knight with a gargantuan broadsword, and a faded tabard that reveals his noble bona fides. You try to inquire about his background, but it's explained to you that he's taken a vow of silence until evil is purged from the world, so expect him to be silent for a while. John Boy spreads a map out over the table. His voice is as rough as a carpenter's hands. "We're here," he says, pointing at a little city on the map. You nod. You're following along so far. "Seffonshire is... here," his finger slides almost to the other end of the map. You're separated from Seffonshire by drawings of rivers, twisted thickets, and depictions of tiny devils. "That's why I'm paying you so handsomely." "No doubt. Near as I figure, two ways to do this." "Don't leave us in suspense, John Boy," Frye says after a moment of silence. "Right, right. So. Two routes, one longer than the other. We take the forest, it adds a couple weeks. Plus, all the usual forest shit; beasties, madmen, maybe a lesser devil if we get unlucky." "And the faster route?" you ask. "We take the old Lordspath. Gets us where we're going quicker, plus good line of sight. Harder to sneak up on." Stitcher shakes her head. "What's the problem with that?" you ask. "Better to stay away from the abandoned places, little lordling. Dark things are drawn there." "You're the one funding this expedition. What do you think?" Frye asks of you. "Don't fancy our chances on the Lordspath. We take the Forest road," you say. > The Forest Road It's been three days since you entered the forest. Already, the city feels like a distant memory. Spirits are high. Each night, you share ale, fire, and stories with the Fighting Men. The forest is disquieting. The trees, which have stood before the time of the Grim Harvest, seem to possess inhuman intelligences. The mist is always thick to the point of being difficult to breathe in. It's perpetually cold. You are crouched near to the ground with John Boy next to you. His crossbow is drawn. You're both staring at a muddied path with a half dozen tracks running over it. The tracks are unreadable to you, but he points one of them out. "Deer." You nod, and wordlessly follow him. Sure enough, the tracks break away from the muddle, and transform into the familiar split shape of deer tracks; not that you've ever seen a deer, but you've read enough books on the subject. You closely follow in his footsteps. Even with one leg, he moves with the practiced grace of an experienced woodsman. Soon, you come out of the mist into a clearing. On the other side of the clearing is a buck, dipping its nose in a puddle. Its pelt is shockingly clean and you can't see its ribs, making it the healthiest beast you've seen since your arrival in the wilderness. The skull at your belt hums as John Boy draws his crossbow and takes a knee. You place a finger on the skull. As soon as you make contact with the polished bone, the hairs on your neck stand up. Something is wrong. > You let John Boy Take the Shot He pulls the trigger. The drawstring slams forward, and with a heavy twang, the thick cable sends the bolt flying at the deer. It never arrives. The deer parries the bolt with its antlers, before turning its attention to the pair of you. It lets out a deafening shriek that sends you reeling into the mud. Squinting through watering eyes, you watch as the deer stands on two legs and its antlers burst further out of its head. Bone shards protrude from its body. A pair of arms burst from its shoulders, spraying blood on the ground. You dimly remember one of your father's books: Daemonology, Vol. II. This is a Form-Changer, one of the predatory demons that's roamed the world since time immemorial. John Boy draws a dagger from his belt as it charges. It crosses the clearing in an instant, and ignores him entirely. Instead, it launches a bone spike into the soft flesh of your right hand, pinning it to a tree. You reach for the skull with your other arm, but another spike hits your shoulder with such force that it nearly tears your arm off. The pain is dazzling, so intense that you cannot think or speak. Immobilized and helpless, you watch as it tears John Boy's arms off in one smooth motion. You struggle helplessly as the demon turns to you. You can only watch as it effortlessly tears five feet of your intestines out and feasts on them before your still-living eyes. Your last breath is spent on a whimper before darkness takes you.

It's been three days since you entered the forest. Already, the city feels like a distant memory. Spirits are high. Each night, you share ale, fire, and stories with the Fighting Men. The forest is disquieting. The trees, which have stood before the time of the Grim Harvest, seem to possess inhuman intelligences. The mist is always thick to the point of being difficult to breathe in. It's perpetually cold. You are crouched near to the ground with John Boy next to you. His crossbow is drawn. You're both staring at a muddied path with a half dozen tracks running over it. The tracks are unreadable to you, but he points one of them out. "Deer." You nod, and wordlessly follow him. Sure enough, the tracks break away from the muddle, and transform into the familiar split shape of deer tracks; not that you've ever seen a deer, but you've read enough books on the subject. You closely follow in his footsteps. Even with one leg, he moves with the practiced grace of an experienced woodsman. Soon, you come out of the mist into a clearing. On the other side of the clearing is a buck, dipping its nose in a puddle. Its pelt is shockingly clean and you can't see its ribs, making it the healthiest beast you've seen since your arrival in the wilderness. The skull at your belt hums as John Boy draws his crossbow and takes a knee. You place a finger on the skull. As soon as you make contact with the polished bone, the hairs on your neck stand up. Something is wrong. > You attack the Deer with Magic You yank the skull from your belt and stare into your grandfather's eyes. You point your left finger at the deer and utter a quick string of cosmic blasphemies. Frost forms on the ground around you, and your surroundings become a little darker. The deer buckles under an unseen pressure as the air around it shimmers. A second later, it explodes, showering the clearing with gore. John Boy looks at you. "Why?" he grunts. "Watch," you say, pointing at the viscous puddle that had antlers a moment before. It begins to bubble and shift like water on a stovetop. Soon, an arm bursts from the puddle, followed by another. A bloody, humanoid form begins to drag itself towards you. It resembles a man, but its mouth gapes wider than your head and its skin has the consistency of tar. A crossbow bolt tears through the creature's head, finishing it off for good. You glance over at John Boy, and he gives you a single nod. "We'd better find something else for the camp," you say. Useless at hunting, you wander off to check the snares while John Boy enters the bush. An hour later, you reunite; you with a string of rabbits, him with some kind of wild dog slung over his shoulder. "Not bad," he remarks as you both head back to camp. Your campsite is a lively place, made all the livelier against the backdrop of the deathly stillness of the forest. The fire roars from the ample dead timbre scattered around. Frye, Stitches and Tor are seated around the campfire. Stitcher stares bright eyed at Frye as he recounts the tales of his adventures. Away from the rest, Crowley, still in his armour, sharpens his broadsword; under the helmet, you imagine him grimacing. As John Boy gets to work skinning and skewering the rabbits, you sit at the fire. You relish the heat against your fingers. Only as you begin to warm up do you realize how cold the forest is. Tor hands you a cup and a wineskin. "We were just telling tales, Mister Winter," Frye says. You stare into your cup and swirl the red liquid around for a moment, before taking a sip. It's shockingly good. "Well don't look so surprised. I'm far from a well-bred lordling such as yourself, but my tastes are still renowned." At that, you smile. "Tor, tell us the story of your funny gods, again," Frye says to Tor. > You listen to Tor Talk About his Gods "I"ll need another drink to explain it to you foreign savages," Tor says. His accent marks him as a foreigner from distant lands. He enunciates every word carefully, as if terrified of being misunderstood. "My father was my tribe's Recaller, so I'll tell it as he did to me. At least, I'll try. I've forgotten some of it. In the beginning, there was nothing but Grass, Sea, and Father Sand. Grass and Sea were in love, but Father Sand would never allow such a union. So Sea came up with a cunning plan; she would wash over Father Sand, to meet her lover Grass. But when she washed over him, Father Sand turned to mud," Tor speaks low and slow. There is a moment of silence, broken only by the sounds of Crowley sharpening his sword and the crackle of the campfire. "Now, Father Sand was furious, so he cursed the lovers. 'Whenever Grass and Sea meet, Grass shall surely die!' he bellowed as he raged. Ages passed, and Grass grew lonely. So, when Father Sand was asleep, he took some of the mud from Father Sand, and fashioned it into the first men and gods," a small smile creeps across Tor's lips, "and that is why all men are dark like mud." "I should like to visit your barbarian land someday, my friend," Frye says softly. "It was gone before I was born," Tor says bleakly. Wine-drunk and tired, you retire for the night. Crowley takes first watch, as he always does. Stitcher and Frye hang back by the campfire, talking into the night, as is their custom. Tor heads to his tent, and sleeps next to his harpoon. > On the Road / Camped Out A few days later, you break out of the forest and into the countryside. What grass there is is grey and desiccated. Rolling hills comprised of soil that no longer sustains life stretches as far as the eye can see, dotted by rotted farmhouses. Old fence posts jut out of the ground like so many rotted teeth in a necrotising mouth. "There is scarcely bett'r picture, of what is lost and died," Frye says. "There surely is no sadness, like the dam-ned countryside," you finish the old saying. You never liked it, and cringe at the tortured rhyme. Frye grins. The party comes to a halt ahead of a bridge, which clearly once forded a substantial river. Looking left and right, you see the remains of a watermill and a few boats. Now, though, it scarcely amounts to more than a few rotted planks scaling a filthy ditch. "Reckon we ought to cross one at a time," Stitcher says. She goes first, followed by Tor, then Frye and Crowley, leaving you alone on the embankment. "Say, lordling," Stitcher says as you take a few uncertain steps, "I hope your books aren't heavy." "Not as heavy as your fat fucki?" your foot goes through a rotten plank, quickly followed by the rest of your body. You slam into the mud and immediately start to sink. As you struggle to arise, a piece of timber falls on your head, sending you sprawling. The mud gurgles and laps at your clothing. You struggle to keep your face out of the mud. Something seizes you with a grip as cold as ice and as strong as iron. You scream through a mouthful of mud, before a hand clamps over your mouth. You feel hot breath on your neck and smell the stench of death.You ball your hand up and drive it upwards and behind you, scoring a hit on something. You feel rotted flesh tear underneath your knuckles. You whirl around to face your assailant. You see a creature that resembles a man, but with double-jointed knees and arms longer than its body, and a mouth full of rotted fangs. The remains of a tattered pair of trousers hangs limply off its frame. You put a leg in front of it just as it leaps for your throat, holding it off long enough to grab the skull from your belt. There's no time to cast a spell. "Sorry, grandfather!" you hiss as you drive his skull into the creature's face. Dark blood coats your hands. With the creature dazed, you whisper a few dark words. Your grandfather's eyes glow. You seize it by the neck with one hand, and press the ornamented skull into its face. The beast wails in inhuman agony as its flesh sears away almost instantly. The monster tries to pull away as its skull slowly disintegrates, but you push it forward. The monster's skull simultaneously caves in and burns away. The wet, gooey mass of its brain superheats and it goes limp. Stitcher charges down a second later, mace drawn. She stops in her tracks, as Tor and Frye stumble to a halt behind her. Her eyes go to the dead monster, then to you. "You beat that thing to death? Not bad, lordling." As you push it off of yourself, a metal gauntlet closes around your arm and hoists you into the air. Crowley stands knee deep in the mud. He easily holds you in the air with the strength of one arm. For a moment, he stares into your eyes and you into his. You see that behind the helmet, the skin is wrinkled and cracked, and his eyes are milky white. You cringe in pain as his grip tightens and his fingers dig into your arm. He wordlessly deposits you on the embankment. Deciding not to correct her, you wordlessly nod as a rising tide of nausea swells in your stomach. You fall to your knees and start retching. You pitch your tents in an open field, the kind where cows might have grazed. The night is cold, drawing everyone into the flame. Crowley sits apart from the party as he obsessively runs his hands over his armour, looking for damage. His helmet makes his mood inscrutable, but you get the sense he's staring at you. "Aren't you cold?" you ask uneasily, noticing the layer of frost that's accumulated on his armour. It doesn't seem to bother him. "Best not to bother Crowley, lad," John Boy says quietly. "Is something the matter with him?" you ask, "most men wouldn't want to sit on the cold and freeze." "Most men wouldn't keep their armour on their entire lives, either," says Stitcher. "Listen here, and listen well. Crowley is among the finest of men I've ever fought with," Frye says, tossing a glance over his shoulder, "but he's not at all like you or I. I've never seen him eat or drink, and I've seen him shrug off blows that would kill a lesser man. Hell, I think they'd kill a greater man, too." "So he's unkillable. What is he, then? Some kind of mutant? Cursed?" "Don't you say that in his presence. Ever," Stitcher snaps. Frye nods. "Crowley hates magic like no man I've ever seen, and he kills demons like an archangel sent from on high. We've all seen that trinket at your belt, lordling; best you don't do any magic in front of him." "I'm paying for this expedition, Frye. I've a right to defend myself, do I not." "You speak true. I can't say I'm thrilled about escorting a mage, but it's your immortal soul you're gambling with, lordling. Crowley on the other hand..." Stitcher trails off. "He once ripped a mage's head off with just his hands." You whistle. "I'll keep it to myself, then." "Aye, lad. You will," John Boy says softly, tossing a log into the fire. You retire to your tent and sleep takes you quickly. > A Crossroads You awaken suddenly to an armoured gauntlet clamped over your mouth. Before you open your eyes, you know who it is. You reach for your skull but Crowley produces it from his belt, and waves it in front of your face while shaking his head. You stare at his armoured face. He shakes his head as if to say don't scream, and then takes a hand off your mouth. He jerks his head to the flap of your tent. Follow me. > Scream You open your mouth to scream. With blinding speed, Crowley punches you with two fists. Your ribcage is instantly sundered as his gauntleted hands tear through your body and reach out the back. For a brief second, you uselessly try to scream, but all that escapes your lips is a hoarse whisper. As the knight drags you out of the tent by the foot, your head lolls down and you stare into your own ruptured chest cavity. Your mind wanders to the anatomy lessons you received as a child. You recognize your own heart and lungs. Those two spears jutting out of you like boar tusks? Why, those must be your ribs! You feel a faint sense of intellectual accomplishment. You barely notice as Crowley lifts you over his head and rips you in half.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, anti-hero, supernatural] You awaken suddenly to an armoured gauntlet clamped over your mouth. Before you open your eyes, you know who it is. You reach for your skull but Crowley produces it from his belt, and waves it in front of your face while shaking his head. You stare at his armoured face. He shakes his head as if to say don't scream, and then takes a hand off your mouth. He jerks his head to the flap of your tent. Follow me. > You go with Crowley Lacking options, you follow the knight. In the moonlight, you can fully appreciate the man's gargantuan stature; he stands easily six and a half feet tall. His sword is the length of both of your arms put together, and he wields it comfortably with one hand. Where did they find this beast? He grabs a pitch-covered torch off the ground and thrusts it into the smouldering remains of the campfire. It ignites easily, and he hands it to you with a nod. He takes a half step away, and then turns back, and tosses something to you. It's only after you catch it that you realize it's your grandfather's skull, and he had disarmed you. > You kill Crowley Immediately You don't give him a chance to realize his mistake. The second you catch the skull, you point it at him and shout an incantation. He lunges towards you, but you strike him in the chest with a beam of negative energy. His breastplate buckles, and the force of the blow sends him reeling. He draws his gargantuan sword and holds it like a throwing axe before swiftly launching it at your head. It whips through the air at blinding speed. You narrowly catch it in a shimmering field of light. It strains in the air as you strain to stop it from cleaving your body in twain. Cracks spread through the blade and it shatters loudly. You dodge shards of metal shrapnel. Crowley seizes his opportunity, covering the distance between you almost instantly. You dive into the dirt. His fingers close around the space your skull occupied a moment before. You roll, avoiding two stomps in rapid succession. "Crowley! What the fuck are you doing?" Frye shouts, emerging from his tent, half asleep. One pistol-bracer is slung over his shoulder. Three shots. Crowley waves at him dismissively, before advancing on you. Three loud cracks resound. You watch as three holes open up in Crowleys chest. Black ichor pours from the wound. You don't give him a chance to regain his footing. With both hands, you form a sphere of withering darkness around Crowley and lift him into the air. You scream with exertion. Blood trickles from your left eye. You collapse on the ground, gasping for breath. You look up, expecting to see Crowley standing over you, preparing his murder-stroke. To your surprise, you're not greeted with an angry knight. As you stand on unsteady feet, you gaze at Crowley. His armour is rusted and buckled. His helmet has been torn off, revealing the leering skull within. His empty black eyes stare blankly at the sky, no trace of their former fury within. "Crazy bastard," Frye murmurs ruefully as he approaches the corpse. The rest of the party emerges. "And where were you lot, a moment ago?" you hiss. No one responds. Your compatriots stare at Crowley's ruined corpse, then at you. Their narrowed eyes tell you all you need to know. . You shift uneasily, and then look down at your boots. The hilt to Crowley's sword is resting at your feet. On a whim, you pick it up and turn it over. There's a small carving on the pommel. The Lion of House Winter stares at you with cool dignity. > Down a Man The next morning, you depart without Crowley. You try to speak, but you are met with stony glares. Self defence or not, you killed a member of the party. Hours turn into days. You break out of the forest, after a while. You cover miles of dead scrubland, passing dessicated farms where cattle once was kept. You are surrounded by the bones of civilization, wherever you go. At night, the light of the campfire is no longer a source of comfort. The eyes of your companions begin to take on a wicked glint. One night, when asleep in your tent, you catch Frye and Stitcher arguing. "It's not right," Stitcher says. "We're not perfect, aye, but we're not fucking bandits either." "I'll not escort Crowley's murderer anywhere. We know the Winter estate is somewhere in Seffonshire, and that's got to be where he's stashed the gold. We finish this bastard off here, and help ourselves to as generous a reward as we please." You hear the rage in Stitcher's voice. "I won't support this, Frye. I've followed you this far, but I won't let you murder the lordling." You burst from the tent, skull in hand. "You're not fucking killing me!" you snarl. Frye draws his pistols and turns. "You weren't supposed to hear that," he says. You're in a true standoff, now; you with the skull brandished, him with two pistols leveled at your head. Either could end the other in an instant. Stitcher draws her mace, and steps away from the both of you. The air shimmers as she charges the head with divine vengeance. "Calm down, both of you." "I'm not letting you treacherous fucking mercenaries do this!" you hiss. "Your insane friend tried to kill me!" "You butchered Crowley in the night!" Frye yells. His fingers tighten on the trigger. Violence feels inevitable. "Fuck you!" you yell, as you dive into the dirt. Frye's first shot misses, and the second tears through your shoulder. You scream as you fire a searing beam of negative energy into his skull. A perfect circle opens up in his head, and his spill onto his armour. Stitcher wails in grief, a guttural sound that chills your heart. "He made me do that!" you say uneasily as you back up. Tor emerges from his tent, harpoon in hand. "Stay the fuck away from me," you warn. "You killed Frye, you traitorous worm!" Tor shouts. He hurls his harpoon, but you deflect it with a well-placed burst of wind. Stitcher charges, but you hurl her against a tree with dizzying force. You strike her harder than you mean to, and her spine snaps in half. You turn to Tor, who is charging you with the fury of a lion. Before his gargantuan fingers wrap around your throat, you set his clothes aflame with a wave of your hand, and dive into the dirt. He stumbles towards you, but collapses into a smouldering wreck before he has the chance to reach you. You wonder where John Boy is. As you turn, he looses a single bolt from the underbrush. It hits you directly in the eye, piercing your brain and jutting three inches out the back of your head. You topple to the forest floor, twitching.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy] Lacking options, you follow the knight. In the moonlight, you can fully appreciate the man's gargantuan stature; he stands easily six and a half feet tall. His sword is the length of both of your arms put together, and he wields it comfortably with one hand. Where did they find this beast? He grabs a pitch-covered torch off the ground and thrusts it into the smouldering remains of the campfire. It ignites easily, and he hands it to you with a nod. He takes a half step away, and then turns back, and tosses something to you. It's only after you catch it that you realize it's your grandfather's skull, and he had disarmed you. > You follow the Big Knight The reassuring weight of your grandfather's skull in your palm grants you a sense of reassurance. "You want me to follow you?" He nods. The two of you trek wordlessly into the field. He walks well ahead of you, ignoring the comforting circle of light cast by your torch. He leads you in silence for what feels like a good few miles, before you come to the ruins of an old house. It was clearly a pleasant home in the days before the Grim Harvest. There are shattered planters in the front yard. A rusted shovel-head sits in the ground, its shaft having long rotted away. Someone was gardening. The door is wrought iron and bears the Lion of House Winter. Crowley rips it off its hinges with ease, then stands aside and motions you enter. You waver for a moment, skeptical as to his intentions. He sharply raps his fingers against his thigh-plate, and you enter the house. The smell of mould fills your nose. The second story of the house has crumbled into the first, leaving a tangled mess of timber planks that must be navigated. You step around, looking around for whatever reason Crowley sent you here. Your boot raps against something heavy and metal on the floor. You stoop over with the torch and see a heavy metal circle, five or six feet in diameter, set into the floor. It's finely engraved, but the exact details of the inscription are obscured by a heavy plank, which is wedged under a pile of debris. "Crowley, can you get this?" you ask. No response. Grimacing, you grab the plank and strain to lift it. It snaps in two. The debris shifts ominously. You look at the metal circle. It resembles a manhole cover, but made of fine materials. It bears the sigil of your family. There's a small depression in the middle. Almost instinctively, you press your signet ring into it. A mechanism clicks. An ancient mechanism grinds as the circular door slides to one side, revealing the stone staircase below. As you descend into the darkness, your grandfather's skull takes a breath. You walk down the stone steps. You hold the torch as close to your body as you can get it; a protective talisman against the consuming darkness. Each step disturbs the ancient layer of dust that pervades the chamber. Beyond you, the mechanism grinds as the door slides back into place. Someone went to great pains to keep this place a secret. You cautiously step off the stairs and enter a carved stone chamber. As you do, a half-dozen sconced torches on the wall ignite. You survey the room, and see two passages on either side; one leading left, the other leading right. Pushed up against one wall is an oak bookshelf coated in a thick layer of dust. Next to it is a leather armchair with a smoking pipe on the arm, resting in an ancient ashtray. When was the last time anyone smoked tobacco? You approach the bookshelf and blow dust off the ancient spines. It's a shockingly well-stocked magical library, containing the kind of texts you had to have smuggled into the University. Practical necromancy, soul transference, and forbidden daemonological texts of every kind. You pull a random volume off the shelf: Practical Doloromancy. It's one half-anatomy textbook and one-half spellbook, instructing the reader on the most efficient ways to inflict agony on a combatant. You tuck it into your pack, for later, along with two randomly chosen books off the shelf. You walk down the right-hand passage. You come to another chamber, smaller than the first. This is clearly a bedroom of some kind. The hard stone floor is covered in soft fur rugs. There's a fireplace in the wall, connected to some kind of elaborate venting system carved into the wall. The centre of the room is occupied by a large bed, covered with furs and quilts of all kinds. There's a pair of slippers on the floor. Whoever lived here valued comfort. There's a leatherbound book with yellowed pages left on the bedside table. You open it and leaf through the pages. It's a scientific log, detailing an iterative process in some kind of experiments over a period of years. Much of it is faded beyond legibility. Day ninety — Those fools have killed the world. It's no matter. My experiments continue. The golem can drop supplies down the chute for as long as he can get them. Lost a third subject, today. Peasant girl. The mutagens were too much and she underwent spontaneous rapid mutation. Had to burst her brain. Note to self: perform survey of most muscular subjects. Maybe the plowman? Day one-hundred-thirty — Heard a loud crash today. The estate must have finally caved in. Curious; what could be making the timbers rot so quickly? Perhaps an ambient necrotizing field effect. Or termites. With each experiment, I grow closer to making the ideal soldier. Father Leofric, that damnable paragon of honour, lasted for three days. He was the strongest yet, and the most lucid. He broke containment and I had to magically induct his nerves for a full minute for him to fall unconscious. Day two hundred — I am dying. It matters not. A sudden cough came on me in the previous month. Now I cough blood. I feel weak. But my experiment is complete. I have created the perfect man. Strong, fast, nigh-unkillable. He has survived lacerations, burns and every poison I could brew. He is as strong as I could make him. In the end, the only one to survive was one of my great and noble house's loyal knights. Sir Crowley of Ashtenford. His rage is insane and constant. He no longer sleeps, eats, or speaks, but instead struggles against his confines tirelessly. He is alone in the holding cells; all the other subjects have long expired. I will leave him in the dark. When his mind is broken, I can use my magic to rebuild it anew. If I live that long. He will serve the House admirably for when we reclaim our destiny. Only a member of our noble family can cl The rest is stained in blood and illegible. You flip through the remainder of the diary, but the pages are empty. You tuck the diary into your bag and leave the bedroom. From the antechamber, there's only one other unexplored passage. You follow it. As you walk, you think of the colossal amount of work required to dig this bunker out. You reach a fork in the tunnel. An oil-painted portrait overlooks you, bearing the likeness of some distant ancestor. It looks a little like you. You arbitrarily pick a direction and walk left. You come into a small alchemist's workshop, complete with racks of test tubes, burners and bubblers. A leather chair with straps dominates the centre of the room, the kind used by asylum doctors and barber-surgeons. Above the chair is a brass arm, sporting a hand-like appendage on one end with a half-dozen protruding needles. Dried blood covers almost every surface of the room. Exiting the laboratory, you briefly investigate the other room. It's easily the largest room in the facility, housing twenty wire-frame beds. Drilled into the stone ceiling is a gargantuan iron drum, fitted with twenty rubber hoses that snake along the floor to the beds. "Was this how he fed them?" you murmur. You're satisfied with your investigation, and believe that the bunker has no more to offer you. It's time to head to the surface. You ascend the stairs back to the surface, arriving back at the familiar metal door. The first spark of panic ignites in your breast as you realize that you cannot use your ring to open it from down here. You place a hand against the wall to steady yourself as your head spins and your breath goes short, and you hear a satisfying click. The door mechanism begins to grind, and the way opens before you. You breathe a sigh of relief. Outside the ruined house, Crowley is waiting for you. "Did you want me to see that?" you ask, staring at the armoured giant. He nods. "An ancestor of mine did this to you?" He nods. "How long ago was that?" He shrugs. "And that's why you can't speak, and why you hate magic." He nods yes to both questions. "Why haven't you killed me yet, in that case?" He shrugs. You chuckle. "Fair enough. Shall we head back to the camp?" He nods. > Leaving the Farmland With a Full Party Two days later, you break free from the countryside, leaving behind old fences and ruined farmhouses for miles of dead scrub. A jovial mood settles over the party. "Did I ever tell you the story of how I fought a lion?" Tor asks as you walk. "I don't believe you have," you say. "It was long ago, back in the sands of my homeland. My father had taken me and my brothers hunting. We found an old wagon, overturned. It was long looted, except for one thing. An intact barrel of Alfaretti Red, maker's mark and all." Frye whistles. "What I wouldn't give to have a taste of that." "So that night, my father, my brothers and I got piss drunk. And when you're piss drunk, you have to piss. So I left our campsite, and after I had gotten my cock out, I heard a roar from behind me." "I've never known a big cat to growl when it stalks its prey," John Boy interjects. "You've only known weak mainlander cats, then, woodsman. In my homeland, lions are as big as horses and roar like trumpeteers! So I whirled around, cock in hand, ready to face this beast. I've faced down many monsters, my friends, but this was unlike anything I'd ever seen. It's teeth were as sharp as swords, and its paws as big as my head. Its breath was as harsh as dragon-flame, and its mane was shaggier than Stitcher's cunt." "Oi!" Stitcher yells. "So what did you do?" you ask, masking your smile. "I did the only thing a man can do. I punched the beast square in the nose, my cock still dangling in the night air." "It's a miracle you survived," Frye says gravely. You can see the smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "It was. The beast tucked tail and ran, leaving me the victor." A low horn echoes across the plains. It's joined by another, and another, and another, until a tuneless symphony echoes across the dead scrubland. Tor and John Boy dive into the grass, Stitcher and Frye a second later. Crowley tackles you into the ground. "Wh— " Crowley clamps a hand over your mouth. Frye turns to you to raise a finger to his lips. You can see the whites of his eyes. Stitcher crawls over to you on her belly and presses her lips to your ear. "Donkeys." You nod, and Crowley releases you. John Boy slithers forward on his stomach, crossbow and hood drawn. He draws a spyglass from his pack and stares through it a moment, before returning the spyglass. He crawls back at painstaking speeds. He holds up ten fingers, then three. Thirteen. He glances to Frye, and cocks his head inquisitively, as if to say: your call. Frye nods, then crawls over to you and presses his lips against your ear as he whispers: "Listen well, lad. We're outnumbered but Donkeys are fucking cowards. We're going to hit them hard and fast and disperse the raiding party. Stick to me like glue, you understand? Like glue." You nod. "One more thing. Don't let them take you. Better for you to die fast, understand?" You nod once more. Frye rises to a crouch, drawing both his pistols. Tor readies his harpoon. Stitcher opens her holy book and gives her mace a few experimental swings. John Boy checks the sight on his crossbow, then draws a knife and places it within his teeth. You draw the skull from your belt and stare into your grandfather's bejewelled eyes; it stares back, expressionless. Over the hill, you hear inhuman brays and snorts, accompanied by occasional bouts of devilish laughter. > You stick with the Party You charge as a group. Frye lets out a battle cry and others take it up, joining their voices together in a chorus of rage. As you pass the crest of the hill, the Donkeys come into view. The beasts' name conjured quaint pastoral images of grazing animals that could not be further from the reality. The Donkeys stand as tall as a man. They wear crudely fashioned armour out of bits of metal and leather, and festoon themselves with gruesome fetishes made out of human body parts. Their legs are covered in hair and end in hooves. They have the heads of their animal namesakes, but their teeth are yellow and bloodied. Their trousers are all open, exposing their gargantuan genitals. They shriek and bray as you charge, raising their crudely fashioned picks and clubs in defiance. There are twelve of them and six of you. As your formation slams into the mob of braying devils, you hope that One-Eye Frye and his Fighting Men were worth the silver. The world instantly becomes an insane tapestry of violence and sound. Two gunshots resound right next to your head as Frye hits a Donkey in both eyes, killing it instantly and spattering its comrades in gore. They shirk from the loud noise, producing just enough of an opportunity for Tor to hurl his harpoon directly into one of their necks. A Donkey seizes him from behind as it tries to slash his throat with a dagger fashioned from an old bone. He bites down hard on its arm, before pulling on its ears so hard that they come off. It stumbles backwards, clutching its face. You watch as Tor begins the laborious process of ripping a Donkey's jaw in half, captivated by the violence. As its jaw pops and cracks, its rotten teeth begin to shoot out of its mouth. You're ripped out of the reverie as something grabs you by the hair and starts dragging you away into the grass. You try to twist and look behind you, and see a Donkey squealing with delight as it drags you away from the melee. You reach for the skull and whisper a few words, before tossing it into the grass and covering your ears. Your grandfather's jaws open and begin to scream, a wail so mournful and loud that the Donkey releases you and falls to its knees. The spell wears off in an instant, so you snatch the skull up and point it at the Donkey. It lunges at you, but not before you scorch every nerve in its body. For a durationless instant, it stares at you with wide eyes filled with hatred and lust. Then its brain boils and cooked cerebral matter comes shooting out of its eyes. You turn around and realize you've missed most of the fight. Three Donkeys are fleeing further into the foothills; you watch as a crossbow bolt pierces one of their necks, and the creature falls to the ground impotently clutching at its throat. Its comrades leave it to bleed to death. Stitcher roars jubilantly as she brings her mace down hard into a Donkey's skull. The force of the blow is so great that its eyes pop out. It stumbles away in confusion, not realizing that it is already dead. Frye stands over the last survivor with a boot on its neck. Its shrieks are piteous and defeated, that of an animal caught in a trap. He forcibly turns its head aside, and shoves the barrel of a pistol into its ear. Its sad wailing is interrupted by the crack of the gunshot that empties the contents of its head into the dead grass. "The day is won!" Frye declares, thrusting his pistol into the air. Brain matter drips down his sleeve. "Now we drink!" > Emerging from Donkey Carnage As the last Donkey's lifeblood seeps into the dirt, your hands begin to shake violently and your eyes involuntarily well up with tears. A chill passes over your skin. You have to sit down. The rest of the party joins you. Together, you sit in silence for a moment, proudly regarding the pile of slain demons that lies before you. Stitcher stands up abruptly and opens her book to a leatherbound passage. "Alright, who's injured?" "A minor scrape, my dear," Frye says, noticing a crudely made knife jutting out of his shoulder. Blood is pooling in his armour at an alarming rate. Stitcher's lips pull back and her eyebrows knit together. "You fucking idiot," mutters under her breath as she approaches Frye. "Right, Tor, be ready to pull this out. John Boy, be ready with a rag. Lordling, go fetch something to stick in Frye's mouth." Moving quick, you pull a knife from its resting place in a Donkey's eye socket. You wipe the blood and ocular fluid off on your sleeve, then offer Frye the leatherbound hilt to bite down on. "Three, two, one. Pull," Stitcher says tersely. Tor yanks on the dagger. Frye's screams are muffled by the knife. After a second of straining, the knife pops out, carrying with it a chunk of bloodied meat and sinew. The "knife" is little more than a sharpened piece of bone with metal hooks drilled into the side, making it agony to remove. John Boy stuffs a clean rag over the wound with practiced efficiency as Stitcher reads aloud from the book. Her right hand glows brightly and begins to emit a pleasant warmth as she presses it against Frye's bloodied arm. His screams subside almost instantly as his wounds heal. John Boy pulls the rag away, and you watch as his shoulder stitches itself up in real time "Thanks," Frye says breathlessly as he leans backwards, "we've a new story for the songs! One-Eye Frye the cunning and brave, shivved in the arm by a pack of rapist devils." Exhausted as they are from the skirmish, no one laughs at Frye's joke. "Fair enough." You depart some twenty minute laters, the pile of corpses in your wake. As soon as your backs are turned to the dead Donkeys, a flock of crows has gathered. You hear their squawks of delight as they begin their grim feast. As you make camp that night, you swap stories and drink, as has become the custom. As the group swaps boasts about the day's battle, Frye locks eyes with you. "Lordling, why don't you tell us about the one you took down?" You become aware of ten eyeballs staring at you. "Right, well, uh. I think I was behind you, Frye, and I got distracted watching that mad bastard Tor rip a Donkey's jaw clean off." "A mighty deed it was!" Tor declares without an ounce of modesty, earning himself a light boot in the shin from Stitcher. "And the next thing I know, something grabs me by the hair and starts dragging me backwards. I looked up, and there I saw this Donkey; spitting and raving, and fully, um, engorged. I knew I had to act fast. So I barbecued the bastard." "You did more than barbecue the bastard, I'd say. Brain shot clear out his head," John Boy remarks. Frye smiles wide, at that. "We'll make a warrior of you, yet." Stitcher raises her wineskin. "To the lordling!" Tor raises his cup. "To barbecuing bastards!" You raise your flask. "To making it out alive!" > The Journey Grows Arduous... Weeks turn into months on the road. For the most part, you pass abandoned townships and dead forests on the road. Occasionally you will find an occupied township, and trade with grime-smeared, emaciated yeomans. You start to notice some changes in yourself. You're stronger now, leaner and faster. You've grown a respectable beard, a feat hitherto impossible to you. You carry a knife alongside your skull, which John Boy instructs you in every night. You're beginning to think that the boy who left might not recognize the man who arrives at his destination. You sit on a fog-capped moor, trying to dry your socks off next to the fire. Stitcher is crouched over a pan, frying hard tack and rabbit bacon. The meat is stringy and looks revolting. "I don't see you makin' anything better," she says. She removes the rabbit from the heat and takes a nibble. "It's not so bad." You extend a hand and she tosses you a strip of meat. You devour it ravenously, then look at her expectantly. "That's it, I'm afraid. We gotta make the rations last." Your stomach begins to rumble as your mind turns to breakfast. "Where are the others, anyway? Seems like they went off hunting hours ago." Stitcher takes a ferocious bite out of the chewy rabbit meat before answering. "Ah, you know John Boy. Probably found something big and insisted on stalking it." "I wouldn't mind a spot of venison right now. What about you, Crowley?" you turn your gaze to the armoured sentinel standing at the edge of the camp. He shrugs. "Figures." "Don't doubt my leadership again, lads! Never again!" you hear Frye's good-natured scolding long before you see it happen. Stitcher smiles. Frye emerges out of the fog, beaming from ear to ear, carrying two sackcloth grocery bags overflowing with fresh produce. "How in the Hundred Hells did you come across that?" "Start frying these potatoes and onions and I'll tell you, m'boy." You eat a better meal than you've had in months, complete with bacon, fresh bread, apples and smoked fish. The meat is delicious, far more fatty and healthy than anything John Boy has caught in the wilds. You all sit in silence and gorge yourselves, save for Crowley who seems content to smell the frying bacon. "So what do we owe this bounty to?" you ask, sucking grease from your finger. "Thought I'd give this lot," John Boy jerks his finger at Frye and Tor, "a few lessons in stalking. We were following something big." "A mighty beast, no doubt," Tor says wistfully, no doubt picturing a glorious battle with a snarling monster. "And then we stumbled right upon this village. It was far and away the most prosperous village I've ever seen, certainly since leaving. Lots of farms, families, healthy-looking folk. All of it behind the biggest wall you've ever seen in your life." "Grass was too green," John Boy remarks. "That's the most remarkable part. The whole village was teeming with life, right down to the grass. Everything was alive, as it should be; like it appears in your books," he says, tossing a glance at one of your leatherbound volumes. "The mayor showed us their cattle, and their apple orchard. They had a proper inn with beer and bread and stew, nothing like the swill they served us back in the city." As Frye talks, he's met with increasing interest from the party. People lean forward, place hands under chins, eager to absorb this story that sounds too good to be true. "There's a catch," John Boy says. Frye waves a hand dismissively. "We spoke with the mayor, a man of exceptional manners, by the way, and he expressed an interest in the service of rough men. If we did him a favour, we'd be welcome for as long as we like; I don't know about you lot, but I'm ready for some hospitality." "We've still a mission," Stitcher says, "and who knows what these people are doing for their prosperity? Not even the sisters at the abbey could grow healthy apples. Seems foul magic to me." Frye looks at you. "Of course, of course. We're to deliver Lord Winter to Seffonshire. I was only suggesting we hear the mayor out, and maybe rest a spell. If you'd prefer to push on to Seffonshire, then we will. You're the man paying for this, after all." As Frye smiles self-effacingly, you feel as if he's trying to charm you into going into town. Then again, you could do with a bath and a hot meal. You gaze sadly at your wet socks. "The mission can wait. We go into town, talk to the mayor, and see what they want." You're met with a chorus of approving grunts. You spend a half hour packing up camp, then begin the trek to where the village is supposed to be. As you cross the misty, dead hills of the moor, you come across the village quite abruptly. The term "village" seems inappropriate. It is a small city. It's surrounded on all sides by an impressive nine-foot stone palisade. Outside the palisade wall is a deep trench encircling the city and filled with sharpened wooden spikes and pitch. There's only one entrance in the form of a drawbridge, which is lowered at this time. As you approach the drawbridge, you get a glimpse beyond the walls. The buildings are built wide and tall from sturdy brick. The streets are clean, and filled with people milling about. As you arrive at the drawbridge, you're greeted by two guards with spears. One of them is an older man with a moustache and a gut that's beginning to press against his gambeson. The other, a younger man, has a face spattered with acne and an almost perfectly triangular Adam's apple. "Hail, travelers!" the moustached man says with a jovial smile. His voice is deep and his demeanour pleasant. "You must be cold, coming in off the moor!" "Freezing!" Frye replies. "Is the mayor about?" "Mayor d'Harcourt is secluded in study at the moment, I'm afraid. But I'd be happy to show you to your lodgings." "Lodgings, already? He knew we'd accept his offer?" Frye says. The older guard tips his head forward. "Mayor d'Harcourt has a way of people. This way, gentlemen, my lady." Stitcher scoffs as you enter the town. It is the most pleasant place you recall being in. The sun seems to shine brighter. The townsfolk seem healthy and strong. There are artisans hawking their wares, everywhere you turn; tailors, swordsmiths and toymakers alike. As Frye begins to chatter away with the guard, you let yourself drift back in the party until you're walking in lockstep with Stitcher. "How is this possible?" she asks. "No clue," you answer. She looks around, staring at a group of laughing children like one might stare at an egg to see if it is rotten. "I've heard of such things." "I've never heard of anything like this," you say, quite honestly. "I wouldn't expect you to. In times before, folk used to do all manner of devilry to ensure the prosperity of the village. Sacrifice animals and crops, for one. Sometimes children. They'd offer them up to one devil-god or another, for prosperity, or safety from barbarians, or even something as simple as a good harvest." You're not familiar with the folk traditions of the countryside, but you're rather familiar with the notion of human sacrifice. You think back to the spellbooks you pilfered from the underground study, where almost half of the arcane rituals involve human blood to some degree. "I suppose people are unpredictable, when they get desperate," you say measuredly. She nods. "Be on your guard." When you reach your lodgings, you drop your guard almost instantly. The fat guard shows you to the local inn. When you enter, a portly, red-faced alewife is wiping a thick coat of dust off the bartop. It's empty, save for you, your companions, the guard and the woman. "Hello, lovelies," she coos as you enter, "just give me a moment and I'll fix you some nice lamb stew." "Thank you, my lady," Frye says gallantly. He sits at one of the many empty tables, doffing his hat. He winces as he leans back. For the first time, you think of Frye's age. He presents himself as invincible, but the man has to be pushing forty-five and still sleeping in wet tents and going on perilous adventures. It's no wonder his joints hurt. You join him at the table as the guard takes his leave. Before any conversation can begin, you're interrupted by the alewife carrying out trays of ale and lamb stew. You tear into it without thinking, shoveling soup into your mouth with chunks of crusty bread that you then devour, then washing it down with cold ale. "I could get used to that," Tor says as he begins to suck the broth off his fingers. Stitcher furrows her brow, but her bowl lies empty before her. You notice John Boy has yet to remove his cloak, and scans the room while he eats. Frye wipes the gravy from his moustache. Crowley, who has not sat down, stares into the distance. Your eyes begin to feel heavy. You yawn. The yawn is taken up like a battle-cry, as yawns often are. Soon, you feel bleary as the stew, ale, and bread begins to reach your stomach. You want nothing more than sleep. "What say we turn in? This Mayor d'Harcourt can send someone along to wake us," you say. You're met with four desperate nods, save for Stitcher. She furrows her eyebrows slightly, as if to say: what happened to keeping your guard up? "You worry too much, my friend. If these folk meant to eat us, why would they share their hospitality like this," Frye says. "But —" she begins. "It's fine. Besides, Crowley can stand watch," Frye says. With the matter resolved, you turn into your rooms on the second floor. It's the first time you've had your own room in some time. You pull one of your ancestor's books from your pack, and begin to flick through it. You read the disquieting, mathematical wisdom of Francisco Al-Wahad, a strange mystic famous for his idiosyncratic rituals and baffling disappearance. He claims that his wisdom was revealed to him by the Far Ones, who traveled the stars and time itself with their strange mathematics. It contains a set of detailed instructions for operating what he claims to be a "multi-headed gateway of most sublime blasphemy". Fascinating though it may be, it is not a page turner, and you fall asleep with the volume resting open on your chest. You wake up hours later, with the last rays of sun peeking through the window. You feel phenomenally well-rested. Your footsteps are lighter than you remember them being in years. As you walk downstairs, a delicious smell sends you hurtling into a distant childhood memory. It's earthy, smokey and complex. You remember. Coffee. A fantastically expensive drink, grown in the exotic ports that were hit last by the Final Blight. You find the rest of the party gathered around a table, with five mugs before them. Tor looks up as you walk downstairs. You take your seat at the table, between Stitcher and John Boy. "A kingly gift from Mayor d'Harcourt, that he sent along. Have you ever had coffee, my boy?" You shake your head. "Who was it that paid us in beans?" Stitcher wonders aloud. "Srevenika?" Tor responds. "No, that was the one who tried to duel John Boy," says Stitcher. "That was Sturgesson. Srevenika was the beans," says John Boy. Frye picks his mug up and raises a toast. "To a rest well-earned!" You repeat the toast and take your first sip of coffee. It is astoundingly bitter. You nearly gag. Seeing everyone else's obvious relish, you choke down the cup in one giant sip. The alewife enters, and glances out the window at the setting sun. "I think you'd better get on to the Town Hall, Mayor D'Harcourt would like to chat with you lovelies. Did you like your gift?" Frye stands up, takes his hat off, and sweeps it across his chest. "It was enchanting, my dear, as are you." Stitcher rolls her eyes as you all leave. You notice her fist is tightened around the grip of her mace. As you step back out into the streets, you notice that they're empty, save for a few villagers who are scurrying into their houses. It's dusk, now, and the sky is purple with the last golden rays of the sun spilling out over the horizon. Town Hall is easy enough to find. It's located at the exact centre of town. Town Hall seems like somewhat of a misnomer; it's really more of a large, multi-story mansion. It's a gorgeous piece of construction, all marble pillars and stained glass windows. You approach from behind, and you can see a large amphitheatre, dug into a hill behind the building. You guess that that's where Mayor d'Harcourt addresses his constituents. You come around to the front, and walk the well-manicured pathway through the garden up to the front door. The door is fashioned from one piece of solid oak, intricately carved with esoteric geometry that only you recognize. D'Harcourt must be a learned man. Before you can use the brass lion-head knocker, the door opens. Before you stands a well-dressed nobleman in fine robes. His hair is black and well-manicured, his fingernails are sharp, and his easy smile reveals his pointed fangs. Stitcher is the first to attack, drawing and swinging her mace at his head with blinding speed. He vanishes into a cloud of smoke, before rematerializing some ten feet behind you. "Easy, my friends!" he says quickly as John Boy levels a crossbow at his chest, "what kind of host feasts on his own guests?" "Easy Crowley!" Frye says as the giant knight steps towards d'Harcourt. D'Harcourt slowly lowers his hands. "Let's all calm down. I know, my appearance is frightful, but I promise I can explain everything, and no harm will come to you." Reluctantly, you lower your weapons. > D'Harcourt D'Harcourt whistles, and a servant emerges from the mansion. The servant is dressed in fine clothing, but his skin is deathly pale and his gaze is blank. "Terrence, lead the guests to the sitting room." Terrence wordlessly complies, leading you into the depths of the house. It's as spectacular on the inside as it is on the outside, the walls covered in rare art and gorgeous sculptures. D'Harcourt seems to be a real appreciator of portraiture, perhaps to compensate for the lack of mirrors in his house. You figure out his nature almost instantly. As Terrence leads you through the house, you lean in to whisper into Frye's ear. "Be careful, this one's a —" "A vampire, yes," d'Harcourt says, "it's an unfortunate term, but I suppose it works well enough for our purposes. I'm forced to sustain myself off blood, a fact that I cannot say I am particularly proud of." Before you can formulate a response, you arrive at the sitting room. It's a finely decorated lounge with leather couches, fine cherry-wood tables, and a softly carpeted floor. A fireplace is burning in the corner. "Please, sit," d'Harcourt says with the practiced manners of an experienced host. You comply, save for Crowley. He stands at attention, as if expecting violence to break out at any moment. "Crowley, don't piss it off," John Boy whispers. "If the gentleman is more comfortable standing, he can stand," d'Harcourt says with a smile, "I could chain myself up, if it would make you all more comfortable." "You could break through chains in an instant," you say. To this, d'Harcourt raises his hands in mock guilt. "My friends, I harbour no ill will towards the living, and I didn't mean to deceive you. The townspeople know what I am, and we live in harmony." "How do you sustain yourself?" you ask. You vaguely remember a taxonomical study on vampires that describes them as creatures of deception, hunting through social manipulation and clever disguises. "Every solstice, I accept an offering. In return, my knowledge of the arcane sciences provides the prosperous village you saw. The villagers are quite happy to trade two people a year for healthy soil, clean water, and full bellies." A moment goes by as you digest that information. "What task have you for us, then?" Frye says, breaking the silence. "I'm glad you ask. Unfortunately, I am... unable to kill another of my own kind, and another vampire has taken residence in the warrens below the town. He is unscrupulous, and kills when the fancy strikes him. Worse still, he infects recklessly. I'm worried he will spread vampirism through the village quite recklessly, and all of my work in setting up a sanctuary will have been for nothing." "And what's in it for us?" Frye asks. "As you can see, I am a wealthy man. I can pay you handsomely, and provide you with the bounty of our harvest, as provisions of our travels." "We'll do it," Frye says instantly. "You sure about this one?" John Boy asks. "I've never killed a vampire. I wonder what it's like," Tor says. Stitcher reluctantly nods. "It's bad enough these folk have to deal with one creature of the night. We've a duty to kill this beast." D'Harcourt's gaze turns to you. He glances at your signet ring. "Lord Winter, I am terribly sorry. I should have recognized a member of your most noble line sooner," he bows immaculately. "I suppose you are a man of the arcane sciences, then? If I remember correctly, the men of your family were great mages, were they not?" You nod. "I've been instructed in the mysteries since I was a lad." "Then, perhaps you would feel more at home in my library, while your companions dispatch with this menace? You travel with famed adventurers, but if you don't mind my saying so, I doubt the field of battle is the appropriate place for a scholar such as yourself." "The lordling fights well," Stitcher says. "Everyone here is free. I won't force you to come along, Lord Winter," Frye says. > You follow your Companions "I won't abandon my companions," you say, "I'll help them end this vampire." You're met with a chorus of approval. John Boy and Stitcher affectionately slap your back. "Good man," Frye says. D'Harcourt narrows his eyes almost imperceptibly. "Excellent. Since you're rested and prepared, Terrence can lead you to the beast's lair now." "We're always prepared," Frye declares. "Terrence, lead them to the lair," d'Harcourt says slowly to the pale butler. Terrence maintaining his expressionless gaze, exits the room without so much as glancing at you. You follow behind him. "Fortune smile upon you, brave ones." You exit the house, and Terrence begins to lead you through the streets. It's night, now, and the glassy-eyed Butler begins to lead you out to the hinterlands of the town. Behind the town's protective wall, there are acres upon acres of luscious pasture that would be ideal for a nocturnal man-killer to dig a warren in. "That bit about vampires not killing vampires. Is that true?" Stitcher asks as you walk. "I don't know," you admit, "I've heard of similar laws with certain kinds of devils. I'm afraid we simply don't know much about vampires." "The sisters at the abbey used to say they're born liars," she says. "That much we do know," you respond. "What's wrong with the butler?" John Boy asks, tossing a suspicious glance at your wordless guide. "If I had to guess, I'd say he's a thrall. A kind of construct, but fashioned from a human corpse." The thrall blankly points sticks a hand in the direction of the field. You can see a few holes in the field, resembling over-sized gopher holes. Tunnels, perhaps? You've never known a vampire to tunnel, but you're far from a daemonologist. "Is the creature around here?" you ask. The thrall blankly nods. Frye lights a torch and begins to lead the party forward. You approach the first of the tunnel-mouths, and look in. It's clearly a part of a much larger network. It leads down for about six feet, then joins up with another, much larger tunnel, which stretches as far as the eye can see. Tor eyes the tunnels nervously. "Fighting away from the open sky..." "I'll take the lead," Frye says, "wouldn't be right to ask anyone else to." With that, he crawls into the tunnel. He has a pistol in one hand and a torch in the other. The tunnel is so narrow that it forces him to crawl along his stomach. A few minutes later, he gives the all clear. Stitcher is next. She grunts in displeasure as she has to squeeze her broad shoulders through the narrow passage. John Boy is next, and crawls through without complaint. Tor follows after him, muttering the whole time about how it's not right for a mighty warrior to crawl through worm-infested tunnels. Crowley stares at the tunnel entrance blankly. You look up at the armoured giant. "It's not worth you getting stuck down there. Keep watch up here." He nods. You take one last look at the sky, before crawling into the warrens. You despise it immediately. There is barely enough room to move your arms. The dirt presses in on you from all sides. The tunnel seems alive, somehow; contorting and squirming in the dark, waiting to digest anything that enters. "Almost through, lad!" Frye shouts encouragingly. You will yourself to keep crawling, even as dirt enters your lungs. Finally, you burst free on the other end of the tunnel, and rejoin the others. You emerge into a tarnished antechamber, leading into what appears to be a set of stone catacombs. The bricks are ancient. You wonder why they were laid, so far removed from where anyone could possibly see them. Frye holds the flickering torch up to the entrance. Beyond the feeble yellow cone of light, there is only inky blackness. As you enter, the shadows seem to swallow you. "We've been in worse situations," Tor says uncertainly, "this is nothing to slayers such as us." "Shut your gob," Stitcher quietly hisses, "we've no idea what's listening." Frye stops abruptly. Everyone backs into each other. The tunnel fills with surprised cursing. He lifts the torch to the ceiling. "Lord Winter, what the fuck is that?" he says. You look up and squint. After a moment, you notice what he's talking about; the ceiling is coated in fleshy veins, pulsing with ichor. You shudder as the veins squirm and contort with musical recurrence. The veins are grey and pallid like a cadavre. "Could be leylines, I suppose," you say. "Are you telling me we're dealing with a faerie infestation, Lord Winter?" says Frye. "No, a leyline is... well, it's kind of like... imagine how a farmer irrigates his field. The water must flow from a central point, to get where it's going. A leyline is that for magic." "What does that mean for us?" Frye asks. "We should follow it. Whatever lives in this blasted maze probably has something to do with the leylines." With Frye's torch raised upwards, you follow the fleshy veins through the twisting corridors. The darkness is absolute and all-encompassing. Inky blackness presses on you from all sides like water at the bottom of the ocean. You march onwards in total silence, save for the scuffing of feet against the cold stone. Icy terror rises in your breast. You remember a trick from Stitcher. Three deep breaths in, and on the third, you hold it for as long as you can bear. Then, you exhale and repeat the drill until the terror is gone. All things will pass, she said. You try to fight off hopelessness as you wind your way through the catacombs. You take a left, a right, two lefts, a right... this cannot be possible. How could a maze of such startling complexity be left underground, in abject darkness. "I don't think a vampire built this..." you say quietly. The maddening journey through the catacombs ends abruptly as you emerge into a garganguant stone chamber. It is roughly spherical, fashioned from the same rough brick-and-mortar as the rest of the catacombs. In the flickering torchlight, you can see stone steps leading down into depths of profane tenebrosity. "Wait," you say, "that's impossible." "How do you figure?" Tor asks. You can hear his blade scrape on a wall as he readies it. "We didn't descend more than a few feet, back in the dirt tunnels. This chamber is gigantic. It would be sticking out on the surface." "Foul fucking magic," Stitcher mutters. "Agreed," you say. "Only one way through this now," Frye says quietly. He begins to descend the steps. The torch seems hilariously inadequate against the dark that threatens to swallow you whole. You follow close behind him. At the bottom of the stairs lies a round marble dais. Atop it is perfectly-hewn piece of black glass, as tall as a man. It's impossibly smooth and polished to a mirror sheen. The surface is decorated with delicately painted white runes. It hums with magical potential. You look up, and see that the leylines converge over the slab; a criss-crossing, writhing spider web of veins, drip-feeding magical energy to this object. For what purpose? "I think we should leave it alone," you say. Your grandfather's skull loudly gasps for air. "Agreed," Frye says, as he begins to back away. You do the same. Your heel catches on a step, and you tumble backwards. The slab begins to hum angrily, as if your presence has offended it. The runes begin to glow, searing their shapes into your eyeballs. The slab begins to shake. "Get down!" you yell, diving blindly for cover into the darkness. The slab explodes in a violent discharge of magic potential. Searing white light overtakes your vision, and your hearing gives way to ringing. > The Unfathomable Violence of Distant Planes Your ears ring. Strange lights flash before your eyes. You're falling forward, tumbling endlessly into a sea of bright light. You realize your eyes are closed, and open them. You are instantly assailed by hideous sights. Strange geometries and blasphemous constellations dance before you. You laugh and can see the soundwaves echoing from your throat. You are awash in the cosmic sea; it is strange, beautiful, alien, hostile. You realize, as all madmen do, that the world of flesh and blood, of soil and sky, is but a tiny island, surrounded by an ocean of madness. Before you lose your grasp on sanity, you slam your eyes shut and clap your hands over your ears. Three deep breaths. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Some time later, you land roughly in the dirt. You get up. Your legs shake like a novice sailor's.Your stomach rebels, and you double over and start vomiting. A few moments later, you wipe your mouth and take stock of your surroundings. You're standing in a dirt field. You estimate that there are five to six times more stars in the night sky than there should be. Blue, wisp-like clouds coat the ground like a thick blanket. In the distance, you see the outline of a city; jagged, knife-like buildings stabbing into the sky. You do a slow three-hundred-sixty turn. The field seems to stretch on forever. You can make out the strange, moving shapes of gargantuan arthropods. The creatures move at a ponderous speed, sifting through the dirt with their prehensile mandibles. You focus on one, and see it lift a human-sized figure off the ground, and gingerly stuff them into a gargantuan sack-gland on its back. Three deep breaths. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Re-uniting with the party seems paramount to survival. You wonder if one of your companions may have fallen victim to one of the giant arthropods. You wonder what the purpose of kidnapping human beings is; why take such pains to lift them from the ground, intact? You approach one of the creatures and lay in the dirt from what you deem to be a safe distance. You observe the beast for several minutes. You estimate it to be fifteen feet tall. It stands on six ponderous legs; it perennially stumbles forward. Its movements seem drunken, somehow; as if the beast is unaccustomed to its own gargantuan size, and is perennially shifting its balance so as not to collapse under its own weight. You hear a man screaming. Your eyes automatically turn to the source of the noise. You breathe a sigh of relief as you realize the screamer is a stranger. A man in strange garb cowers before the giant insect. Ponderously, it crouches down, staring at him for a few seconds with its dozens of eyes. Then, its mandibles slowly extend. It gently grabs the man by the waist. You watch in horror and fascination as its neck bends completely perpendicular to its body, and it deposits him into the writhing sack-gland located on its back. You make out other, squirming figures; other victims, perhaps? You can make out other human figures, secured in the creature's membranous pouch. You wonder if your compatriots could be contained within. > You walk to the City (alone) You walk in silence, eyes trained on the foreboding structures in the distance. The jagged buildings begin to remind you of a mouth full of sharp fangs, jutting upwards into the sky, as if some hideous creature were just underneath the surface with its mouth open. The city looms larger as you continue towards it. You begin to count your breaths again as panic rises in your breast. As you get closer, you can make out more details of the towering, hostile-looking metropolis. The buildings are gargantuan, and not fashioned out of any material you're familiar with; they look as if they were fashioned from a single piece of black iron. There are strange outcroppings on the sides of the buildings that resemble metal tree branches. As you get closer, you can see, for the first time, the people suspended from the branches. Dozens, if not hundreds of people are strung from them. Men, women, and children have all been gutted and hanged by their entrails. Each unfortunate victim is still alive. The city is alive with the weeping and wailing of the damned. In the distance, you hear the telltale crack-BANG! of a flintlock being discharged. You rush forward, and cross over the crest of a hill. Stitcher, Tor, John Boy and Frye stand with their backs to each other. They are surrounded on all sides by baying, sneering, naked men, their bodies emaciated and their skin calcified. You estimate the ghoulish horde to be around fifteen or twenty. They carry cruel, makeshift weapons; hooked poles, chains, cudgels with nails through them. A few don't carry weapons, but instead appear to have gnawed their fingers down to sharpened points. Frye fires again. The horde flinches, and backs away a few paces. You can see him holster his last, spent pistol. A few of the creatures turn, and look at you. With their attention divided, you guess that you have a few seconds to act. > Thin the Horde with Lesser Spells (alone) You fire four bolts of searing energy into the crowd. Each one hits one of the ghoul; their dry skin burns like tinder, and their ruined bodies fall to the ground. Your efforts are woefully insufficient. A wave of screaming naked bodies crashes over you. You're instantly held fast by a dozen iron grips. You are stabbed, bitten, and ripped to pieces. Your body is rended and shattered. The creatures fight over your wretched remains like chickens squabbling over pieces of grain; you watch two ghouls do a tug-of-war with a section of your intestines. A ghoul standing over you, your severed arm in its mouth. Although your body is ruined and in pieces, you are still very much alive. You can see the battle; your comrades are overtaken shortly after you. Stitcher is the last to fall; a battle-prayer is on her lips as she defends the remains of her fallen compatriots. The giant woman fights like a cornered bear until a ghoul thrusts a spear through the back of her head and out her mouth, sending her teeth and tongue shooting out the front. As soon as she falls, her corpse is simultaneously raped and devoured. You are spared the indignity of watching your own remains be further defiled, as a ghoul tears your eyes out. The last thing you see before an eternity of darkness is two corpse-like thumbs reaching into your eye sockets. As you lay in darkness, ruined and defiled beyond all recognition, you realize why the people you saw strung up in the city are not dead. No one dies here. Eventually, the pack grows bored, and moves on. When the agony fades, boredom sets in. You only have an eternity to wait.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, serious] You walk in silence, eyes trained on the foreboding structures in the distance. The jagged buildings begin to remind you of a mouth full of sharp fangs, jutting upwards into the sky, as if some hideous creature were just underneath the surface with its mouth open. The city looms larger as you continue towards it. You begin to count your breaths again as panic rises in your breast. As you get closer, you can make out more details of the towering, hostile-looking metropolis. The buildings are gargantuan, and not fashioned out of any material you're familiar with; they look as if they were fashioned from a single piece of black iron. There are strange outcroppings on the sides of the buildings that resemble metal tree branches. As you get closer, you can see, for the first time, the people suspended from the branches. Dozens, if not hundreds of people are strung from them. Men, women, and children have all been gutted and hanged by their entrails. Each unfortunate victim is still alive. The city is alive with the weeping and wailing of the damned. In the distance, you hear the telltale crack-BANG! of a flintlock being discharged. You rush forward, and cross over the crest of a hill. Stitcher, Tor, John Boy and Frye stand with their backs to each other. They are surrounded on all sides by baying, sneering, naked men, their bodies emaciated and their skin calcified. You estimate the ghoulish horde to be around fifteen or twenty. They carry cruel, makeshift weapons; hooked poles, chains, cudgels with nails through them. A few don't carry weapons, but instead appear to have gnawed their fingers down to sharpened points. Frye fires again. The horde flinches, and backs away a few paces. You can see him holster his last, spent pistol. A few of the creatures turn, and look at you. With their attention divided, you guess that you have a few seconds to act. > You cast a Single, Powerful Spell (alone) You draw your grandfather's skull, close your eyes, and try to draw from your reservoir of concentration. You can hear panting and mad laughter as they draw nearer. "Lad!" Frye shouts a warning. You open your eyes. They're inches away. You throw yourself backwards and channel as much magical energy through the skull as you're capable of. Magic courses through your body. Every hair on your neck stands up. Your teeth itch. You open your eyes, half-expecting to see the face of a blood-crazed ghoul sinking a knife into your belly. Instead, the pack is seemingly frozen in place. Before you and your assailants lies a shimmering triangle of yellow light. Unearthly energies blow through like a cold wind through an open window. The ghouls stand there, wild-eyed and shaking. You can smell the sea and hear chirping birds, in the distance. You stare into the triangle and catch a glimpse of the ocean. An instant later, the ghouls are sucked through and the portal closes. The exertion makes you weak. You pass out a second later. The last thing you see is approaching footsteps. > You wake up in the Dirt You wake up a second later, gasping for breath. You feel awful, as if you've just been resurrected from the dead with the worst hangover imaginable. "Fuckin' magic," Stitcher says. A small smile crosses her lips as you sit up. "The lordling's alive." "Starting to think this one might be invincible!" Frye says excitedly. He approaches you as he reloads his pistols with practiced ease. "Don't feel invincible," you say, "I feel like I just died." "Catch your breath for a minute, lad, then I'll tell you about my plan to get us out of here," Frye says. He stuffs his last pistol into its holster, claps a hand on your shoulder, and sits down alongside you. For a moment, the two of you stare at the city in silence. Tor winces in pain as Stitcher seals a gash on his cheek. He rubs the new scar in grateful admiration. John Boy reloads his crossbow and retrieves his bloodied knife from the dirt. You wonder if they can survive another encounter like that. "What's this plan, then?" you ask. "John Boy, tell him what you saw," says Frye. John Boy walks over as he wipes his hunting dagger on a filthy sleeve. "Frye sent me out. Couple hours ago." "How is that possible? I came over as soon as we arrived," you say. He shrugs. "Nothing works right, here. Whole place seems to be designed around funneling stragglers into the city." "That's where those spider-things are taking the people?" "Right. Saw something else, too. Two sentries on patrol. They wore hoods, weird masks. Carried rifles. Overheard their conversation. Didn't recognize some words, thought you might. Talking about planes, captives, other realms. Also talked a lot about some kind of machine." You reach into your knapsack and pull out a well-worn volume: Sacred Geometries of the Yellow Order. "Are you planning on reading us out of here?" Tor asks, walking over. He leans heavily on his harpoon. John Boy shakes his head at Tor. "That's intel." You open it to a dog-eared page. "The Yellow Order were a third-century post-Harvest order of mystics. Their leader, Francisco Al-Wahad, disappeared after claiming to unlock the secret of interdimensional travel. Some of their practical magic still gets taught, but the more esoteric stuff has fallen out of favour." "Interdimensional travel..." Frye begins. "Or, like Tor heard, travel between planes. It means the same thing. The denizens of this plane clearly know how to cross over, using that black stone we saw." "Why would that blasted Mayor turn us over to these people?" You ponder this for a moment. "They're clearly very advanced. Some of their magic is beyond anything we're capable of. Perhaps they gave him something in return? And he offers up tributes?" "What does a mayor have to gain from striking a deal with fiends from beyond?" Stitcher asks. "Think about it. What village that you know of has green grass? What about healthy cattle?" you say. "I knew there was something foul about that village," Stitcher says. "Exactly. I'd need to look at this machine to know more, but bet it runs off human tribute. In return, maybe they offer their magic to the village?" "That's how d'Harcourt doesn't get his lair destroyed by angry villagers. Few of them go missing each year. They think it's just his feeding habits. Don't realize that they wind up here." You look at Frye. "So what's the plan, here?" He ponders this, for a moment. "We try to ambush a patrol. We take them by surprise, hold them up for information. Then, we try to push forward into the city and look for the exit." You swallow your fear as best you can as you move towards the city. The screams of the damned grow louder. The inhuman metropolis comes more to life as you get closer. In addition to human screaming, you can also hear the wail of distant beasts; you recognize barking dogs and squawking chickens, and hear strange, exotic noises as well. It is surrounded by a smooth, featureless wall, formed from the same metal as the gargantuan buildings. The wall is dotted by regular guardhouses, every half a mile. Patrolling soldiers move in and out of the city. They wear leather masks that cover their entire face, with two large glass eye-plates set in brass. In place of a mouth they have a circular valve, connected by a hose to a backpack that resembles a blacksmith's bellows. The bellows wheeze and contract, pumping air into the lungs of the bearer. You circle around the city in silence, until you come across a guardhouse that seems the most remote. The guardhouse is an upraised, rectangular building set into the side of the wall. The wall facing out of the city has a section carved out, perhaps for sentries to shoot out of. Next to the guardhouse is a sort of gate, formed from rigid metal spikes that interlock with each other. You guess that the mechanism to unlock them is held inside. You circle together outside the walls and discuss a plan of attack. "Two inside. Will call for help," John Boy says. You nod. "We need to take them by surprise, and take them down fast." Tor takes his harpoon from his back and raps the head against his palm. "I'm ready." Frye shakes his head. "You'll alert them. Lord Winter, can you hold a man fast without him screaming?" You nod. "Easily." "Good. You and John Boy will slip in and clear the way." You look over to John Boy. He nods. "Hold a minute," Stitcher says as you turn to leave. She reaches down and grabs a fistful of dirt. Before you say a word, she sprinkles it over your head. "Do you swear to do good, forsake evil, and honour the gods?" she asks. You think about it for a second. "I suppose." "Congratulations, you're baptized," she says, slapping you on the shoulder. With the matter of your eternal soul out of the way, you turn your attention to the task at hand. You and John Boy crouch down low and approach the guardhouse, leaving the others a safe distance behind. You approach stealthily, crawling on your stomachs up to the firing slit. He presses his lips to your ear, then whispers: "I kill the one on the left. You hold the one on the right." You silently nod. He counts you down on one hand from three. When one finger remains, you both leap to your feet. The two sentries are taken wholly unawares. John Boy, never one to miss his mark, hits one square in the eye with a bolt. The eye-plate is instantly shattered as the bolt enters its brain, and the guard limply falls to the ground. Before the other can scream for its fallen comrade, you reach out with your mind and encase it in a field of telekinetic energy. You hurl it against the ceiling, dashing its head so hard that it loses consciousness, before dropping it against the floor. The danger gone, you wave your compatriots over to the gatehouse. For a moment, you stand outside the spike-gate, contemplating how to get in. The wall is smooth and featureless, and likely difficult to scale. The firing slit is too small to fit through. "Stand aside," Tor says as he steps forward. He grabs one of the spikes and pulls ferociously. At first, he strains fruitlessly. Then, slowly, it begins to retract. He grits his teeth in frustration and plants his feet. The mechanism breaks with a great metallic noise, and the spike easily slides back into its slot. He does the same for the other five spikes, breaking off their locking mechanisms and slamming them back into place. When his task is complete, he sits down and pants in exhaustion. Every inch of his body is covered in sweat. "This is why," he wipes the sweat from his brow, "you must always travel with a great hero." With Tor resting, you turn your attention to the task of interrogating the prisoner. As you enter the guardhouse, it is rousing from unconsciousness and reaching for its rifle. You kick it from its hands, then stomp on its hand. Underneath its mask, you hear a muffled whimper. Frye grabs it by the shoulders and hauls it to a sitting position. He presses a pistol against the guard's stomach. "What's your name?" It chatters in an alien tongue. Stitcher enters, mace in hand. "Let me end this quickly." John Boy enters the room. He says nothing, and lurks in the corner. His eyes are trained on the captive. "What's your fucking name?" Frye asks. He jams the pistol into the guard's stomach. The guard continues to speak. There's a desperation to its foreign words as its tempo increases. "It's holding out," John Boy says, breaking his silence. "What do you mean?" you ask. "Heard them talking. They speak our language." The guard raises its hands, guiltily. "I had to try." A moment of silence passes. Frye cracks a smile, then he begins to laugh. "That's a good one," he admits, before he throws the guard on the ground and begins to pummel its head with the barrel of his gun. "Stop, stop!" the guard begs. Their voice is somewhere between a man and a woman. "Start talking or I'll rip those fucking bellows off your back," Frye hisses. The guard moans pitiably. "I can show you the Machine and tell you everything, just spare my life!" Frye holsters the pistol and smiles diplomatically. "That was all I wanted. No reason we can't all be reasonable, here." The guard sits up. "This one is Rashid Ptah-Gad. To understand, properly, you need to understand the history of all the Ptah-Gad..." > You listen to Story "In the beginning, in the Time Before Time, we were, — how do you say — born, from the seeds planted by another race. They were the Far Travelers, they came from beyond the stars, and created us with their magic. We were created without the annah-ptah, though; the, thing, the..." they trail off, searching for the right word. "Soul?" you offer. "Soul, right, yes, the soul. You are a learned one, so you know that the soul is what all magic must spring from. Without it, we must rely on the magic of the Far Ones. But the Far Ones do not speak, anymore. Their magic is gone from the world. In their absence, they left us the Machine; it keeps us alive; it processes the annah-ptahim, the souls, of others, and allows us to live," they motion to the bellows on their back, "we breathe them." "Well that's all well and good, but how does that get us out of here?" Frye asks impatiently. "The Machine, the life-giver, it is connected to the, how do you say, the door that brought you here. If you can enter, and you have one who can read the maps, you can leave." Frye turns to you. "Do we have someone who can read the maps?" You answer truthfully: "I don't know." "It will have to do," Frye pulls a pistol and levels it at the creature's head. "You've been most helpful; make peace with whoever you will." "Wait!" they hiss, "the Machine will reject you!" "What do you mean?" Frye asks, finger tightening on the trigger. "It knows you do not have souls. It will not open for you. You need someone to let you in. One of my kind." Stitcher taps her mace against her hand. "Kill this freak." "I do not want to be stuck in this unholy place," Tor says. "Easy, easy," you say, "I don't think this thing is lying." "Alright, you're coming with us. One false move, and I rip that thing off your back and see what happens," Frye says. "A most charitable act," the guard says. "I am most grateful and—" "No one asked your fucking feelings," Stitcher says, raising her fist in the air. The creature flinches and raises its hands defensively. "Mercy!" Rashid-Ptah-Gad cries. "Should get a move on," John Boy says, "bound to be more soon." > Moving Through the City / The Wailing Cathedral Moving through the city is a disquieting affair. Superficially, it bears the form of a regular metropolis; it has buildings and streets, arranged in the familiar way. The buildings are far too large, though, and loom over you like the oldest pines in a shadowed, ancient wood. Every building has at least a dozen victims strung from it; their screams and wretched gurgles blend together in a symphony of pain. The streets are slick with blood and tears that fall to the ground. Rashid-Ptah-Gad leads you through the city. They move quickly, beckoning you follow with quick gestures and nervous glances. Every now and then, a patrol will pass, and they will dive into an alley. "Why do you hang your victims?" you ask them as you walk. "Their pain, it... resonates, with the machine. Keeps us alive," they say. Stitcher grimaces. "This is no place for us." After a few more minutes, it becomes clear that you're being led to the centre of the city. One building, larger than the rest, begins to stand out; it is a gargantuan metal dome, covered in spikes, with hundreds of writhing victims mounted on it. The black iron is painted red and brown by a thick coat of festering gore. As you grow nearer, the screams grow louder, into a never-ending crescendo of misery. "Is this Machine in there?" Frye asks. Your guide enthusiastically nods. "The doors will open for me. I will allow you to pass through, and then you will allow me to leave?" Frye nods. "You are lucky, thing. I would snap your neck if it were up to me," Tor says. Stitcher murmurs in agreement. You lurk in the shadows as a column of masked soldiers goes by. Rashid-Ptah-Gad stiffens, as if preparing to warn them, but John Boy gently presses his knife to their breathing-tube until the soldiers pass. The strange being scurries across the street, beckoning you follow. They lead you to the steps of the cathedral. The screams are overwhelmingly loud, and you smell the stench of rot for the first time. The hapless fools pasted to the walls are decomposing for eternity; they are festering, bleeding, wailing, forever dying but never dead. You stand in front of the cathedral, now. It is an architectural marvel, built by insane hands for a purpose you can scarcely comprehend. Rashid-Ptah-Gad scurries over to the cathedral's entrance: two colossal stone doors, locked by a gargantuan stone seal. The seal is a perfectly circular stone, and every inch of it is inscribed with geometric forms that hum with foreign magic. You recognize a few of them from Sacred Geometries of the Yellow Order. Did the author travel to this blasted place? If so, he must have returned somehow. You take comfort in this. "You know how to open this?" Frye says suspiciously. Your hostage nods enthusiastically. "Then fucking open it." The creature closes their eyes and presses a hand against the seal. The figures on the seal light up. The seal rolls to the side; as it does, you hear a hissing sound as a wispy green gas escapes the cathedral. You hypothesize that it's the same chemical breathed by the strange denizens of this place. "The door is open, your path is clear," Rashid-Ptah-Gad says. "Am I free to go, mighty ones?" "Kill it," Stitcher says. "The gods hate an oathbreaker..." Tor says nervously. John Boy shrugs and grunts. Frye turns to you. "What say you, lad?" > You kill It You conjure a flame inside the creature's skull. Their brain boils like an egg and wordlessly slumps to the floor. Their goggles crack and shatter as their head burns. Boiled brain matter seeps onto the floor through their ruined eye sockets. "I suppose that settles the matter," Frye says as you enter the cathedral. You step over Rashid-Ptah-Gad's ruined carcass without a second thought. > The Writhing Cathedral When you cross the threshold into the building, it feels as if you have entered into a world of madness and despair. The floors are slick with blood. Every available surface is covered in human sacrifices, gruesomely nailed in place with gargantuan iron nailed. Every victim is still alive; each one writhes in agony, fruitlessly trying to free themselves from their eternal torment. Their screams and groans echo off the stone floor, reverberating like a choir of the damned. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of people nailed in this way. Their blood drips to the floor like a steady rainfall. You conjure a flame to light the way forward. You move in silence through a narrow corridor, surrounded on all sides by a writhing, twisting tapestry of human agony. It feels like hours, but you walk only for a few minutes. No one speaks as you move slowly down the corridor, which feels as if it's slowly beginning to constrict around you. Something grabs your hair. You scream, and realize that one of the victims attached to the wall has latched onto you in desperation. Frye draws his sword and lops the poor soul's arm off in one smooth motion. "Help me..." they moan softly. You shake your head and move on. You come to a gargantuan central chamber. The domed ceiling stretches high above you. High above you, the seething, convulsing mass of tortured bodies seems to blend into one dreadful tapestry; it is a tapestry woven by an unknown intellect, for mad purposes. In the centre of the chamber lies the Machine. It is a gargantuan thing, composed of shifting angles and strange materials. Its movements are hypnotic; a strange dance of clicking, sliding, grinding, mechanical parts. Your grandfather's teeth begin to chatter uncontrollably. "This is wrong," Tor says. His voice cracks. "This is wrong, this is wrong, this is all wrong." "Easy, man," Stitcher says. "Can you... turn it on?" Frye asks. You can hear his courage failing in his weak voice. You can feel your own courage failing, every second you linger in this place. "I can try," you say. You pull Sacred Geometries of the Yellow Order from your pack, and flip to the dictionary of symbols. With the book in your left hand, and your grandfather's skull in your right, you approach the insane thing that lies before you. Your eyes water. You can feel your mind straining to make sense of what lies before you. You chant the sacred words. You picture the sacred symbols in your mind's eye, as vividly as you can. Your grandfather's eyes begin to emit a cone of white light into the shimmering aura of the machine. Behind you, Tor wails incoherently. The others try to comfort him. You reach out with your mind, touching the dreadful intellect that lies in the Machine. You float. You are in total darkness. The screams are muted; here, they are little more than underwater echoes. "A soul touches the Machine," a voice tells you. The voice is impossibly deep. It comes from everywhere at once, cascading through this strange corridor of unreality. "Why?" "We were trapped in this place," you explain, "and were told that you were our way out." "What place?" the voice has a ponderous, bemused quality to it. "A place where strange beings torture mortals. They say that it's to feed you." "I see. You met the Soulless Ones. They are the most primitive of the children." "The children?" "The children of the Far Ones, of course. When they left on their journey, I was left to keep track of the races they begat." "I see." "No, you do not. You cannot see, for you do not have the eyes. What is the purpose of this audience?" You think on this, for a brief instant. "I've come to ask for a favour, I suppose." "You are not the first." "Who was?" "One called Francisco Al-Wahad. He came from your land." "What became of him?" "He cast off his human form, and has learned much." "Could I do the same?" "If you so desire." > You say "I wish to ascend, and meet the Far Ones..." "So be it." You are cast out of the strange, inky netherworld and back into your body. The screams are loud, once again. They no longer disturb you. You turn to your comrades. Tor is laying on the floor, his body wracked with sobs. The sight of the Machine has shattered his mind into a thousand pieces. "I'm afraid you'll have to find your own way out," you say. Smugness creeps into your voice. Why should these uneducated barbarians be given salvation off your hard work? Before they can curse you, you drop dead. Your soul is ripped from your body with startling force. You are pulled through the roof of the cathedral. As you continue to ascend, the whole city pulls into view. You ascend even further, and begin to see the curvature of the planet. You are being pulled through the cosmos at breathtaking speed, now. Strange glittering clouds and bizarre formations abound. You can sense strange intelligences turning ancient gazes to you as you hurtle through their domains. You can sense the Far Ones, now. Awe fills your soul as your creators draw near. As you gaze upon them for the first time, you realize the truth. To them, past and future and future are nothing. They know the fates of all their children. They know all things. They are reaching out to you. You can feel your mind slipping away as you merge with their sublime intellect. Terrible and wondrous knowledge fills the vessel of your mind, pushing out everything else; humanity, ambition, love, these are paltry things compared with the great didactical bounty presented before you. The Far Ones speak to you, now. You know everything.

When you cross the threshold into the building, it feels as if you have entered into a world of madness and despair. The floors are slick with blood. Every available surface is covered in human sacrifices, gruesomely nailed in place with gargantuan iron nailed. Every victim is still alive; each one writhes in agony, fruitlessly trying to free themselves from their eternal torment. Their screams and groans echo off the stone floor, reverberating like a choir of the damned. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of people nailed in this way. Their blood drips to the floor like a steady rainfall. You conjure a flame to light the way forward. You move in silence through a narrow corridor, surrounded on all sides by a writhing, twisting tapestry of human agony. It feels like hours, but you walk only for a few minutes. No one speaks as you move slowly down the corridor, which feels as if it's slowly beginning to constrict around you. Something grabs your hair. You scream, and realize that one of the victims attached to the wall has latched onto you in desperation. Frye draws his sword and lops the poor soul's arm off in one smooth motion. "Help me..." they moan softly. You shake your head and move on. You come to a gargantuan central chamber. The domed ceiling stretches high above you. High above you, the seething, convulsing mass of tortured bodies seems to blend into one dreadful tapestry; it is a tapestry woven by an unknown intellect, for mad purposes. In the centre of the chamber lies the Machine. It is a gargantuan thing, composed of shifting angles and strange materials. Its movements are hypnotic; a strange dance of clicking, sliding, grinding, mechanical parts. Your grandfather's teeth begin to chatter uncontrollably. "This is wrong," Tor says. His voice cracks. "This is wrong, this is wrong, this is all wrong." "Easy, man," Stitcher says. "Can you... turn it on?" Frye asks. You can hear his courage failing in his weak voice. You can feel your own courage failing, every second you linger in this place. "I can try," you say. You pull Sacred Geometries of the Yellow Order from your pack, and flip to the dictionary of symbols. With the book in your left hand, and your grandfather's skull in your right, you approach the insane thing that lies before you. Your eyes water. You can feel your mind straining to make sense of what lies before you. You chant the sacred words. You picture the sacred symbols in your mind's eye, as vividly as you can. Your grandfather's eyes begin to emit a cone of white light into the shimmering aura of the machine. Behind you, Tor wails incoherently. The others try to comfort him. You reach out with your mind, touching the dreadful intellect that lies in the Machine. You float. You are in total darkness. The screams are muted; here, they are little more than underwater echoes. "A soul touches the Machine," a voice tells you. The voice is impossibly deep. It comes from everywhere at once, cascading through this strange corridor of unreality. "Why?" "We were trapped in this place," you explain, "and were told that you were our way out." "What place?" the voice has a ponderous, bemused quality to it. "A place where strange beings torture mortals. They say that it's to feed you." "I see. You met the Soulless Ones. They are the most primitive of the children." "The children?" "The children of the Far Ones, of course. When they left on their journey, I was left to keep track of the races they begat." "I see." "No, you do not. You cannot see, for you do not have the eyes. What is the purpose of this audience?" You think on this, for a brief instant. "I've come to ask for a favour, I suppose." "You are not the first." "Who was?" "One called Francisco Al-Wahad. He came from your land." "What became of him?" "He cast off his human form, and has learned much." "Could I do the same?" "If you so desire." > You say "I wish for me and my compatriots to transported home." "A sensible request." You are cast out of the strange, inky netherworld, and back into your body. The screams grow loud, once again. They chill your soul. You turn to your comrades. Tor is laying on the floor, his weapon discarded, with tears streaming down his face. Stitcher is praying over him. "His mind is gone," Frye says. You walk quickly up to them. "I think I just negotiated our way out." Frye looks at you with burning intensity. "How?" An idea blossoms in your mind, planted from a seed not your own. "Get close to me." "You heard the lad! Get close!" Stitcher barks his orders and the party obeys. John Boy and Stitcher lift Tor off the floor, dragging the weeping giant towards you. The idea in your mind continues to blossom. It crowds out your other thoughts. You realize that you are no longer in control of your own actions. You watch as your hands trace a sigil in the air, your fingers followed by a streak of bright light. You listen as your mouth speaks the sacred words. A swirling, inky rift opens around you and your companions. You feel a faint sense of removed serenity as you're sucked through. When you're spat out the other side, you regain control of your body instantly. You curl your fingers in appreciation as you hit the dirt. You find yourself staring at the night sky; a wave of relief washes over you as you recognize the constellations. One nightmare is over; hopefully, no more lie ahead. You sit up. Your compatriots lay scattered around you. They wear looks of confusion on their faces. You decide to give them a moment of respite. You stand and scan the horizon. A city lies in the distance . It's guarded by great stone walls, complete with a drawbridge and portcullis. Inside the city, great domes and spires stretch up against the evening sky. A thousand plumes of smoke and pinpricks of light are visible on the walls. Beyond the city lies a great river, and along its banks you see farms. On the other side of the river, a herd of cows peaceably mills about. "We've arrived," you say quietly. "Arrived where?" Stitcher asks. She's clinging to her mace like a protective charm. "a," you say. These last months have felt like some odd dream. You almost forgot that your journey had a destination. For a time, you felt as if you were one of Famous Frye's Fighting Men. All dreams must end, however. It's time to pay your mercenaries. "We should head in," you say. "Is Tor fit to stand?" Everyone looks to Tor. He seems to have regained a modicum of composure, but he refuses to speak. Instead, he mutely stands. Frye approaches him, and moves to clap a comforting hand on the big man's shoulders; he stops halfway through. His hand hovers in the air, for a moment, before he rests it back on the hilt of his sabre. "We've seen horrors," he murmurs. You lead the party to the city gates. You're greeted by a half dozen crossbowmen on a battlement. Their chainmail gleams in the firelight, and their dark-green gambesons seem freshly dyed. "Announce your business!" one of them orders. He carries himself with the air of a leader, and his heraldry marks him out as a serjeant. "I am Lord Winter," you say, flashing your signet ring, "I've come to settle the estate of my recently deceased uncle. These are my companions." They murmur among themselves uneasily. "Pardon me, my lord. You and your companions are most welcome in the city. You will find House Winter's estate on the intersection of Copperhammer Lane and Third Street." The portcullis opens with a mechanical screech and you enter the shadowed streets. You notice a street labeled First Street. With that landmark, it is trivial to walk until you find third, and then walk until you find the intersection with Copperhammer. The streets are empty and wide. The streetlamps are bright and uniformly lit, a detail which impresses you; your home of Exxenforde has long since abandoned the practice of maintaining municipal public servants. You arrive at your palatial family home. It is a sprawling, stately manner, abandoned for some time. The gate swings open before you. Before you is a spacious garden, although the planters are long empty. A fountain-statue of a nude woman, her arms snapped off and her breasts covered in graffiti, dominates the centre of the garden. The front door to the house is one solid slab of wrought-iron, with a central receptacle for your signet ring. Cold dread trickles into your breast as you walk towards it. Your companions linger behind you. "There's evil magic, here," Stitcher cautions you. Her voice is flat. She looks up at the gargoyles above you, who leer with predatory intent. "I can feel it." "I'll get your payment from the treasury," you say. You slot your ring into the door. It clicks satisfyingly, and the door slides down into a niche on the floor. "Wait here." > Once Familiar... As you enter, you notice a thick coating of dust. You spend a few moments wandering through the mansion. You pass through a sitting room; next to the armchair lies a half-smoked cigar and an open book. You idly flip through the pages, only to find them stuck together. Has this book been resting for years? You continue wandering. Lion tapestries hang from the walls. You find it odd, to see the sigil of your family displayed so openly. It reminds you of your childhood, when your father still instructed you in the hermetic traditions. Your grandfather's teeth begin to chatter at your belt, as if overcome by familiarity. You wander through a few more rooms. The whole of the mansion seems as if it was abandoned in the middle of a perfectly normal day. As you walk through the dining hall, you notice that the impressive table is entirely furnished with plates, cutlery, and drinking goblets. A bottle of wine sits, still corked, in the middle of the table. You contemplate this mystery as you head downstairs to the cellar. Going off hazy childhood memories, you roll an oak cask aside, revealing a concealed mechanism within a brick. You insert your signet ring, and the brick depresses into the wall. A section of wall swings open, revealing the hidden treasury inside. Gold ingots are stacked to the ceiling. They are all coated in a thick layer of dust, which spills out to greet you when you open the door. Each ingot is stamped with the lion of House Winter. You grab four ingots, balance them on your forearm against your chest, and walk back up the stairs to the front door. You exit the house, and hand the ingots to Frye. "Payment for a job well-done." His eyes widen. "That's a fair bit more than we agreed upon, lad." You shrug. "The journey was more difficult than I imagined." "Aye, it was," Stitcher says, approaching the both of you. She takes a gold ingot in a gauntleted hand, and turns it over. "Still, you were a fine traveling companion." John Boy is seated on the ground with Tor. He snaps his fingers in front of the man's eyes, prompting the giant to flinch in surprise. He nods approvingly. "Still in shock. Will recover." "Glad to hear," you say. You turn your eyes to Frye. "What's next for One-Eye Frye and his Fighting Men?" "Well, we're down a man. And we've a score to settle with that bastard d'Harcourt. Think we'll try to link back up with Crowley, and mount that devil's head on a pike." "Think Crowley's still alive?" Frye snorts. "I doubt anything could kill that big bastard. What's next for Lord Winter?" "I need to settle my affairs here," you notice Stitcher's face darken. "Then, I might begin my studies again. I've learned so much of magic, though, it seems almost pointless." "Don't do it," Stitcher blurts. "No offence, lordling, but it seems like everything to do with House Winter is best avoided." "What would you have me do instead?" Frye shrugs. "You could always come along with us. A man well-practiced in the occult is a valuable asset." You ponder this, for a moment. > You abandon your Inheritance and Become an Adventurer You nod. On some level, this seems insane to you. However, you cannot deny the truth of Stitcher's words; everything you know about your family seems to suggest that something dreadful might be awaiting you in your Uncle Jack's study. "Alright," you say. "I'll come with you." Stitcher and Frye smile. John Boy grunts in approval. "One last thing," you say. "There's a generous amount of gold in our family vault. Would be a shame for it to go to waste." "Stitcher, help the lad lighten his load of finery," Frye commands. "With pleasure," she says. You spend some minutes hauling gold ingots up the stairs. In total, you take five gold ingots. You are loath to leave the rest, but more than one ingot per person would make an overland journey impossible. You spend the next few days laying low in an inn in Seffonshire. Every night, in the adjacent room, you can hear Stitcher's ministrations, as she tries to restore some measure of Tor's shattered mind. On the fifth day, Stitcher deems him fit for travel. You leave for the city gates the next morning. You walk through the early morning with your companions. The city is stirring from sleep. You pass a fishmonger wheeling his cart to the market, followed by a half dozen large rats. A feral dog eyes you curiously as you walk. "When did we arrive in Seffonshire?" Tor asks. "A few days ago. You were catatonic, so we've been pimping you out for five copper a piece." He snorts. You reach the city gates, again. "Was everything to your liking, Lord Winter?" the serjeant asks. "It was, yes." "Good. Do you expect to return to the city, my lord?" "No," you watch the serjeant try to conceal his obvious relief. The gate opens, and you and your companions leave. The open road stretches out before you once more. As you walk, Frye stops you. "Had something made for you, with the gold we pilfered from your family," he says. "Let's see it," you say. "Near as I can figure, an adventurer needs a walking stick," he says. He pulls a walking stick off, that had been cinched to his pack. "It's a fine thing, really. Hickory. Forty two-inches. And you can mount that evil fucking skull of yours on the top." You take the walking stick from his hands, and sure enough, your grandfather's preserved skull neatly screws onto the top. You point it at the horizon, and loose an experimental arc of lightning at the ground. It works just as well as holding the skull in your hands. It satisfyingly impacts the ground as you walk. You cinch your pack and shoulder it, marching into an uncertain future.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, serious] As you enter, you notice a thick coating of dust. You spend a few moments wandering through the mansion. You pass through a sitting room; next to the armchair lies a half-smoked cigar and an open book. You idly flip through the pages, only to find them stuck together. Has this book been resting for years? You continue wandering. Lion tapestries hang from the walls. You find it odd, to see the sigil of your family displayed so openly. It reminds you of your childhood, when your father still instructed you in the hermetic traditions. Your grandfather's teeth begin to chatter at your belt, as if overcome by familiarity. You wander through a few more rooms. The whole of the mansion seems as if it was abandoned in the middle of a perfectly normal day. As you walk through the dining hall, you notice that the impressive table is entirely furnished with plates, cutlery, and drinking goblets. A bottle of wine sits, still corked, in the middle of the table. You contemplate this mystery as you head downstairs to the cellar. Going off hazy childhood memories, you roll an oak cask aside, revealing a concealed mechanism within a brick. You insert your signet ring, and the brick depresses into the wall. A section of wall swings open, revealing the hidden treasury inside. Gold ingots are stacked to the ceiling. They are all coated in a thick layer of dust, which spills out to greet you when you open the door. Each ingot is stamped with the lion of House Winter. You grab four ingots, balance them on your forearm against your chest, and walk back up the stairs to the front door. You exit the house, and hand the ingots to Frye. "Payment for a job well-done." His eyes widen. "That's a fair bit more than we agreed upon, lad." You shrug. "The journey was more difficult than I imagined." "Aye, it was," Stitcher says, approaching the both of you. She takes a gold ingot in a gauntleted hand, and turns it over. "Still, you were a fine traveling companion." John Boy is seated on the ground with Tor. He snaps his fingers in front of the man's eyes, prompting the giant to flinch in surprise. He nods approvingly. "Still in shock. Will recover." "Glad to hear," you say. You turn your eyes to Frye. "What's next for One-Eye Frye and his Fighting Men?" "Well, we're down a man. And we've a score to settle with that bastard d'Harcourt. Think we'll try to link back up with Crowley, and mount that devil's head on a pike." "Think Crowley's still alive?" Frye snorts. "I doubt anything could kill that big bastard. What's next for Lord Winter?" "I need to settle my affairs here," you notice Stitcher's face darken. "Then, I might begin my studies again. I've learned so much of magic, though, it seems almost pointless." "Don't do it," Stitcher blurts. "No offence, lordling, but it seems like everything to do with House Winter is best avoided." "What would you have me do instead?" Frye shrugs. "You could always come along with us. A man well-practiced in the occult is a valuable asset." You ponder this, for a moment. > You embrace your Destiny You shake your head. "I'm where I should be," you say. You close the door on them, before they have time to try and convince you otherwise. Leaning against the door, you expect to hear a knock. It never arrives. You unclip your grandfather's skull from your belt and stare into his garnet eyes. His jaw is opening and closing rhythmically. The only sound in the house is the faint scraping of his teeth. His garnet eyes seem to glint more than usual. You walk up the stairs. You have a faint memory of Uncle Jack's study being located on the second floor. You remember being a child, clinging to your mother's legs as you watched your father and uncle argue. These memories are fresh in your mind as you approach the study. As you walk down the hall to the study, you notice that the long carpet on the floor is the same as when you were a child. You were always perplexed by the intricacy of the symbols, and the fact that the weaver had painstakingly woven mathematical formulae into the rug. You enter the study. The walls are full of artwork that disquiets the mind. The room is dominated by your uncle's gargantuan desk. He was always enormously proud of it. "Family relic, that's what it is," you remember him saying. Atop the desk is a brass cube with one face removed, revealing its complex clockwork innards. There's a large circular receptacle resting on the cube. Before fiddling with the box, you first pick up a note from the desk. Nephew, You've come so far. In crossing this barren waste, you have already shown the strength of our family. You have but one task remaining. Lay your grandfather to rest on the box, so that he may rest, as I do now. Then, and only then, go downstairs to the vault and claim what is yours. You remember how to get into the vault, don't you? Love, Your Uncle Jack You smile as you read the words. Strange as he was, your memories of your Uncle Jack are fond; his moustache tickling your cheek when he kissed you as a child; him sending you forbidden magic via courier, so that you could excel over your peers; him teaching you how to read the Glyphs of Harm, so you could always defend yourself. You place the skull on the box without a second thought. As you do, you scarcely feel the poisoned needle slide into your hand. You fall backwards into a sea of nothingness. > The Lich You remember the old times, before the People put crops into the ground. You remember when nights were cold and beasts preyed upon men. You remember how fire would scare the wolves, but not the One-Who-Walks-At-Night. No. The only thing that would stop him was magic. The font of creation itself. When men used spear and arrow, you used the power of the stars. They mocked you, at first. Now, you are the village's protector and king, and no one mocks you. You are a mighty king. Your father overthrew the previous king, after years of planning. While others know the ways of magic, your family's bloodline has always been the strongest. Your father was a giant of a man, who dismembered a whole phalanx of terrified troops with the might of the cosmos. He was also a warrior. In the end, when a knife was driven into his back, no one was surprised. You will not die the same way. You have gathered all of the wise women and warlocks you could find, and given them refuge in your keep. There, they will learn the secret ways; the ways of life and death. You will teach these ways to your son. This way, your family will always be secure. You are a man of science. Your whole life has been spent continuing the Great Work; the ancient project of your forebears. Every man of House Winter must do his part. The world is in flames, and the screams of the dying echo down into your bunker. It matters not. The work continues, as it always has. Your golem can deliver you supplies. You will die down here, away from the sun. You have made your peace with this. You are devoted to creating the perfect soldier; a beast of a man, nigh unkillable, who will serve House Winter for generations to come. You are Jack Winter. The Great Work is almost complete, you can feel it in your bones. Your brother's son, your nephew, is only five years old, but is already a prodigious user of magic. For his birthday, you presented him with the polished skull of his grandfather; he knows it only as a magical fetish, and is ignorant of his true purpose. Your brother does not understand. He grows reluctant, every day. It's understandable, you suppose; no man wants to sacrifice his child. You stand outside his bedroom. It is a trivial matter to release an infected rat, loaded with the most virulent plagues you could conjure. You hear his wife scream from within. It's grim work, but family must come first. You are all these men, and more. You are the culmination of the most powerful bloodline of occultists ever to walk the earth. You are a terrible secret, passed from father to son since time immemorial. As your heart stops, thousands of souls enter your body, filling you with unimaginable strength. Arcane power courses through your veins. You are dead, but you are immortal. You are a lich. As you rise into the sky, surrounded by a pestilential mist, your dreadful arrival is heralded by the cawing of crows. You can see townsfolk dropping to their knees. Good. They are the first to serve, but they will not be the last. Your reign has just begun.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, post-apocalyptic, serious, anti-hero] Your ears ring. Strange lights flash before your eyes. You're falling forward, tumbling endlessly into a sea of bright light. You realize your eyes are closed, and open them. You are instantly assailed by hideous sights. Strange geometries and blasphemous constellations dance before you. You laugh and can see the soundwaves echoing from your throat. You are awash in the cosmic sea; it is strange, beautiful, alien, hostile. You realize, as all madmen do, that the world of flesh and blood, of soil and sky, is but a tiny island, surrounded by an ocean of madness. Before you lose your grasp on sanity, you slam your eyes shut and clap your hands over your ears. Three deep breaths. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Some time later, you land roughly in the dirt. You get up. Your legs shake like a novice sailor's.Your stomach rebels, and you double over and start vomiting. A few moments later, you wipe your mouth and take stock of your surroundings. You're standing in a dirt field. You estimate that there are five to six times more stars in the night sky than there should be. Blue, wisp-like clouds coat the ground like a thick blanket. In the distance, you see the outline of a city; jagged, knife-like buildings stabbing into the sky. You do a slow three-hundred-sixty turn. The field seems to stretch on forever. You can make out the strange, moving shapes of gargantuan arthropods. The creatures move at a ponderous speed, sifting through the dirt with their prehensile mandibles. You focus on one, and see it lift a human-sized figure off the ground, and gingerly stuff them into a gargantuan sack-gland on its back. Three deep breaths. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Re-uniting with the party seems paramount to survival. You wonder if one of your companions may have fallen victim to one of the giant arthropods. You wonder what the purpose of kidnapping human beings is; why take such pains to lift them from the ground, intact? You approach one of the creatures and lay in the dirt from what you deem to be a safe distance. You observe the beast for several minutes. You estimate it to be fifteen feet tall. It stands on six ponderous legs; it perennially stumbles forward. Its movements seem drunken, somehow; as if the beast is unaccustomed to its own gargantuan size, and is perennially shifting its balance so as not to collapse under its own weight. You hear a man screaming. Your eyes automatically turn to the source of the noise. You breathe a sigh of relief as you realize the screamer is a stranger. A man in strange garb cowers before the giant insect. Ponderously, it crouches down, staring at him for a few seconds with its dozens of eyes. Then, its mandibles slowly extend. It gently grabs the man by the waist. You watch in horror and fascination as its neck bends completely perpendicular to its body, and it deposits him into the writhing sack-gland located on its back. You make out other, squirming figures; other victims, perhaps? You can make out other human figures, secured in the creature's membranous pouch. You wonder if your compatriots could be contained within. > You attack the Spider-Beast You take your grandfather's skull off your belt. With a sharp breath of concentration, you focus on the creature's membranous sack. You squint your eyes and grunt in exertion as you try to rend it open. Your efforts are rewarded with an inhuman squeal as the sack breaks. fluid spills all over the creature's back as a half-dozen people spill out. The creature turns towards you, and begins to lurch to your position. With a determined scream, you wrench its head from its body. It keeps coming. You sever one limb, then another, methodically hacking and chopping at the creature until at last it falls to the ground, seeping ichor into the dead soil. You approach the hapless victims who lay gasping in the soil. You don't recognize any of them. You walk up to a middle-aged man with a ginger beard, long hair, and one eye. The man lays gasping for air. Each cough discharges more viscous fluid from his lungs. He's wearing tattered cloth armour, with a gargantuan longsword slung over his back. "What is this place?" you ask. "Give me a — " he raises one finger in the air, like a shushing librarian, and violently coughs. You offer him a sip of water from your canteen. He greedily gulps at it. "Thanks," he says. "Pay me back by telling me what the fuck is going on here," you answer. "I wish I knew. Couple days ago, me and a couple mates broke into this sorcerer's library with the hopes of making off with some valuables. Walked up to this funny black rock; glass-looking thing, on a big pedestal. Next thing I know —" "You're here." "Aye. Same thing happen to you, I reckon?" "Something like it. My compatriots and I were told to investigate the lair of a monster, and we found one of the glass stones you mentioned." He shoulders his sword and begins to walk. You follow. "Everyone I've met in this blasted place has a similar story. Those things must be the way through." "I bet if we could find one, we could find our way back." "I'm sure we can. I've seen those things use them." "The big spiders?" "Ah, I see you haven't met our hosts yet. No lad, not the spiders. The wicked fucking devils who inhabit that evil city." > You walk Back to the City (Accompanied) You continue to walk with your new companion. You walk in silence, for a few minutes, eyes trained on the foreboding structures in the distance. The jagged buildings begin to remind you of a mouth full of sharp fangs, jutting upwards into the sky, as if some hideous creature were just underneath the surface with its mouth open. "The name's Thompson," the ginger man says after a minute of silence. "Winter," you say. "Odd name," he responds. "It's a family name. Surprised you haven't heard it." He shrugs. "Where ya from?" "Exenforde," you answer. "Never heard of it." "It's the largest city in the world, how have you not heard of it?" He shrugs again. Having established how little the two of you have in common, you proceed in silence for the next few minutes. The city looms larger. You begin to count your breaths again as panic rises in your breast. As you get closer, you can make out more details of the city. The buildings are gargantuan, and not fashioned out of any material you're familiar with; they look as if they were fashioned from a single piece of black iron. There are strange outcroppings on the sides of the buildings that resemble metal tree branches. As you get closer, you can see, for the first time, the people suspended from the branches. Dozens, if not hundreds of people are strung from them. Men, women, and children have all been gutted and hanged by their entrails. Each unfortunate victim is still alive. The city is alive with the weeping and wailing of the damned. "How are they still alive?" Thompson shakes his head. "No one dies here." In the distance, you hear the telltale crack-BANG! of a flintlock being discharged. "Friends of yours?" Thompson asks. You nod. He shoulders his gargantuan sword and the two of you begin to run towards the city. You pass over the crest of a small hill. The rest of the party comes into view. Stitcher, Tor, John Boy and Frye stand with their backs to each other. They are surrounded on all sides by baying, sneering, naked men, their bodies emaciated and their skin calcified. You estimate the ghoulish horde to be around fifteen or twenty. They carry cruel, makeshift weapons; hooked poles, chains, cudgels with nails through them. A few don't carry weapons, but instead appear to have gnawed their fingers down to sharpened points. Frye fires again. The horde flinches, and backs away a few paces. You can see him holster his last, spent pistol. A few of the creatures turn, and look at you. With their attention divided, you guess that you have a few seconds to act. > Thin the Horde with Lesser Spells (fighting together) You fire four bolts of searing energy into the crowd. Each one hits one of the ghoul; their dry skin burns like tinder, and their ruined bodies fall to the ground. Your efforts are woefully insufficient. A wave of screaming naked bodies crashes over you and Thompson. The big man is dragged down immediately. He doesn't have time to scream before a sharpened stake is thrust into his mouth. A second later, his guts are ripped out by eagre clawed hands. His agonized screams barely register, to you. You're held fast by a dozen iron grips. You are stabbed, bitten, and ripped to pieces. Your body is rended and shattered. The creatures fight over your wretched remains like chickens squabbling over pieces of grain; you watch two ghouls do a tug-of-war with a section of your intestines. A ghoul standing over you, your severed arm in its mouth. Thompson was right. No one dies here. Although your body is ruined and in pieces, you are still very much alive. You can see the battle; your comrades are overtaken shortly after you. Stitcher is the last to fall; a battle-prayer is on her lips as she defends the remains of her fallen compatriots. The giant woman fights like a cornered bear until a ghoul thrusts a spear through the back of her head and out her mouth, sending her teeth and tongue shooting out the front. As soon as she falls, her corpse is simultaneously raped and devoured. You are spared the indignity of watching your own remains be further defiled, as a ghoul tears your eyes out. The last thing you see before an eternity of darkness is two corpse-like thumbs reaching into your eye sockets. Eventually, the pack grows bored, and moves on. When the agony fades, boredom sets in. You only have an eternity to wait.

D'Harcourt whistles, and a servant emerges from the mansion. The servant is dressed in fine clothing, but his skin is deathly pale and his gaze is blank. "Terrence, lead the guests to the sitting room." Terrence wordlessly complies, leading you into the depths of the house. It's as spectacular on the inside as it is on the outside, the walls covered in rare art and gorgeous sculptures. D'Harcourt seems to be a real appreciator of portraiture, perhaps to compensate for the lack of mirrors in his house. You figure out his nature almost instantly. As Terrence leads you through the house, you lean in to whisper into Frye's ear. "Be careful, this one's a —" "A vampire, yes," d'Harcourt says, "it's an unfortunate term, but I suppose it works well enough for our purposes. I'm forced to sustain myself off blood, a fact that I cannot say I am particularly proud of." Before you can formulate a response, you arrive at the sitting room. It's a finely decorated lounge with leather couches, fine cherry-wood tables, and a softly carpeted floor. A fireplace is burning in the corner. "Please, sit," d'Harcourt says with the practiced manners of an experienced host. You comply, save for Crowley. He stands at attention, as if expecting violence to break out at any moment. "Crowley, don't piss it off," John Boy whispers. "If the gentleman is more comfortable standing, he can stand," d'Harcourt says with a smile, "I could chain myself up, if it would make you all more comfortable." "You could break through chains in an instant," you say. To this, d'Harcourt raises his hands in mock guilt. "My friends, I harbour no ill will towards the living, and I didn't mean to deceive you. The townspeople know what I am, and we live in harmony." "How do you sustain yourself?" you ask. You vaguely remember a taxonomical study on vampires that describes them as creatures of deception, hunting through social manipulation and clever disguises. "Every solstice, I accept an offering. In return, my knowledge of the arcane sciences provides the prosperous village you saw. The villagers are quite happy to trade two people a year for healthy soil, clean water, and full bellies." A moment goes by as you digest that information. "What task have you for us, then?" Frye says, breaking the silence. "I'm glad you ask. Unfortunately, I am... unable to kill another of my own kind, and another vampire has taken residence in the warrens below the town. He is unscrupulous, and kills when the fancy strikes him. Worse still, he infects recklessly. I'm worried he will spread vampirism through the village quite recklessly, and all of my work in setting up a sanctuary will have been for nothing." "And what's in it for us?" Frye asks. "As you can see, I am a wealthy man. I can pay you handsomely, and provide you with the bounty of our harvest, as provisions of our travels." "We'll do it," Frye says instantly. "You sure about this one?" John Boy asks. "I've never killed a vampire. I wonder what it's like," Tor says. Stitcher reluctantly nods. "It's bad enough these folk have to deal with one creature of the night. We've a duty to kill this beast." D'Harcourt's gaze turns to you. He glances at your signet ring. "Lord Winter, I am terribly sorry. I should have recognized a member of your most noble line sooner," he bows immaculately. "I suppose you are a man of the arcane sciences, then? If I remember correctly, the men of your family were great mages, were they not?" You nod. "I've been instructed in the mysteries since I was a lad." "Then, perhaps you would feel more at home in my library, while your companions dispatch with this menace? You travel with famed adventurers, but if you don't mind my saying so, I doubt the field of battle is the appropriate place for a scholar such as yourself." "The lordling fights well," Stitcher says. "Everyone here is free. I won't force you to come along, Lord Winter," Frye says. > You stay with the Vampire You stay behind with the urbane vampire. He lounges easily on the couch, staring at a wallpaper. "So tell me, how are your studies at the University?" "How did you know I was a student?" He chuckles. "I knew some of your family. Prodigious magicians, all. Terribly secretive, however." You shrug. "I didn't know any of them well." "Loneliness is the worst curse of them all, is it not?" he says. "I can think of worse curses," you say. "No offence." He laughs politely. "None taken. Mine is a dire condition." A few moments go by in amicable silence. "I have some bad news for you," he says. "What's that?" "Your friends are dead. There is no beast, there is no other vampire. I lured them into an interdimensional gateway and fed them to a curious race of pain-worshippers I encountered in my younger days. In exchange, a portion of their magic goes to sustaining our village." You're momentarily stunned by his matter-of-factness. "Why are you telling me this?" you ask, after collecting yourself. "You are a student of the arcane, are you not? I offer you a choice. Learn the arts with me, or I will drink of your blood," even as he threatens you, he still doesn't drop his courtly manners. He speaks with the politeness of a man asking if you fancy a sporting fencing match. > You attack the Vampire You close your fist and summon a crackling ball of arcane energy. You hurl the ball at the vampire's head, but he effortlessly summons a shimmering ward that harmlessly dissipates the spell. "Perhaps your bloodline is weak, after all," he says with a smile. He crosses the room in less than a second, before biting your throat with such force that it cracks your spine in two.

You stay behind with the urbane vampire. He lounges easily on the couch, staring at a wallpaper. "So tell me, how are your studies at the University?" "How did you know I was a student?" He chuckles. "I knew some of your family. Prodigious magicians, all. Terribly secretive, however." You shrug. "I didn't know any of them well." "Loneliness is the worst curse of them all, is it not?" he says. "I can think of worse curses," you say. "No offence." He laughs politely. "None taken. Mine is a dire condition." A few moments go by in amicable silence. "I have some bad news for you," he says. "What's that?" "Your friends are dead. There is no beast, there is no other vampire. I lured them into an interdimensional gateway and fed them to a curious race of pain-worshippers I encountered in my younger days. In exchange, a portion of their magic goes to sustaining our village." You're momentarily stunned by his matter-of-factness. "Why are you telling me this?" you ask, after collecting yourself. "You are a student of the arcane, are you not? I offer you a choice. Learn the arts with me, or I will drink of your blood," even as he threatens you, he still doesn't drop his courtly manners. He speaks with the politeness of a man asking if you fancy a sporting fencing match. > A True Education What does one do with an eternity? For vampires, or at least this vampire, the answer appears to be "read". D'Harcourt's library is massive. It contains every tome imaginable on history, philosophy, folklore, military strategy, and more; not to mention an impressive selection of magical lore. For the first few months, you wonder why d'Harcourt turned you. You think you know the answer: intellectual narcissism. You begin to secretly believe that he simply needed an audience for his tremendous knowledge, and that the peasants of the village were too hayseed to satiate his thirst for an audience. It's not intolerable, however. He is a scholar's scholar, and has lived long enough to be a firsthand witness of many historical events. You learn of long-distant wars, courtly gossip two hundred years out of date, fencing techniques lost to time, and military tactics so convoluted that they make your head spin. Your sorcerous abilities also grow tenfold, as he teaches you the secrets of peering through dimensions, creating thralls, magical exsanguination, and many other terrible and wondrous techniques. After a few years, his arrogance becomes of little surprise. How could one not be arrogant? A mortal soul simply doesn't have the time to study military theory, philosophy, religion, and magic in order to truly master all these disciplines. Your physical superiority is something to behold, now; you are strong, fast, and unmistakably more than human. Sometimes, your thoughts turn to your compatriots; those luckless adventurers who died, all those years ago. Are they still suffering? Does it matter? You think on this question for at least a year; your sense of temporal urgency is long gone, thanks to your unlimited lifespan. > They Must be Avenged One night, you awake from your bed with a rising sense of fury. D'Harcourt killed your friends. He has taught you much, and sometimes you even enjoy his company, but he cannot be allowed to get away with this. His manners, his sense of humour, even his knowledge of the liberal arts begins to infuriate you. He must die. One day, you cover yourself in a cloak and take a stroll through the village. You approach the blacksmith. He's a swarthy man, with greasy fingers and a long beard. "Master Winter!" he says jovially. You're well known around the village. Your condition is of no secret to the villagers, but in their minds, vampirism is somehow associated with the hamlet's prosperity; they are sheep, loyal to the shepherd, even as he leads them to slaughter. "Can you forge this into a knife?" you ask. You scatter a collection of priceless silver coins onto his desk. "What for?" he asks. His eyes widen. "I want to kill myself," you say dryly. "Do it now." You watch him heat the forge. "It needs to be a silver-iron alloy so it's hard enough to stab. At least thirty percent needs to be silver," you read a half dozen books on forgecraft in preparation for this moment. He hands you your weapon without asking for payment; his payment is his life. You grab it with a gloved hand and stuff it into your cloak, before wordlessly going back to the manner. D'Harcourt smiles when he sees you. "Be careful in the sun my friend!" he says. His concern is genuine, but it still angers you. You approach him. He frowns. "Is something wrong?" In a flash, you stab him in the chest with the silver dagger. The blade is soft and bends immediately, but the damage is done. He glances down at the blade protruding from his chest and realizes his eternal life has come to an end. "Why?" he asks. You don't answer. Instead, you watch him topple to the floor. He breathed his last breath millenia ago, but you watch the light leave his eyes. You leave the corpse on the floor, and turn to reading an ancient treatise on funerary practices of the mid-third century. It dawns on you that you are the lord of the manner, now.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, serious, anti-hero] What does one do with an eternity? For vampires, or at least this vampire, the answer appears to be "read". D'Harcourt's library is massive. It contains every tome imaginable on history, philosophy, folklore, military strategy, and more; not to mention an impressive selection of magical lore. For the first few months, you wonder why d'Harcourt turned you. You think you know the answer: intellectual narcissism. You begin to secretly believe that he simply needed an audience for his tremendous knowledge, and that the peasants of the village were too hayseed to satiate his thirst for an audience. It's not intolerable, however. He is a scholar's scholar, and has lived long enough to be a firsthand witness of many historical events. You learn of long-distant wars, courtly gossip two hundred years out of date, fencing techniques lost to time, and military tactics so convoluted that they make your head spin. Your sorcerous abilities also grow tenfold, as he teaches you the secrets of peering through dimensions, creating thralls, magical exsanguination, and many other terrible and wondrous techniques. After a few years, his arrogance becomes of little surprise. How could one not be arrogant? A mortal soul simply doesn't have the time to study military theory, philosophy, religion, and magic in order to truly master all these disciplines. Your physical superiority is something to behold, now; you are strong, fast, and unmistakably more than human. Sometimes, your thoughts turn to your compatriots; those luckless adventurers who died, all those years ago. Are they still suffering? Does it matter? You think on this question for at least a year; your sense of temporal urgency is long gone, thanks to your unlimited lifespan. > It Doesn't Really Matter Unfortunate for them, you suppose, but the lives of mortals are fleeting. You are no longer attached enough to humankind to care. The villagers in the hamlet are as cattle to you; you haven't spoken to one in a hundred years, at this point. They die so fast that there is no point in growing attached. There is also the matter of you killing them to sustain yourself, which complicates mortal friendships. You turn yourself to scholarly pursuits in an even more dedicated fashion. You read for months at a time, only stopping to feed yourself. Eventually, d'Harcourt stops bothering to speak to you. You read every book of his extensive collection, then you read them twice, then three times. You memorize them word by word, then read them all over again. Eventually, the boredom grows intolerable. Your thirst for blood is matched only by your thirst for knowledge, at this point. D'Harcourt begins to sense your dissatisfaction. "You're not a prisoner here, you know," he says one day. It's the first word he has spoken to you in years. The sound of his voice startles you. "I know," you say. Your voice croaks; you are ill-practiced at speaking. It's the last thing you say to each other for some time. His words plant a seed in your mind, however, which soon blossoms into an all-consuming obsession. You must leave. Years later, you do. You bid d'Harcourt a brief farewell, and set off into the world. For the next few centuries, you brave the abandoned cities and their libraries, rescuing knowledge from the shadowed depths of antiquity.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, anti-hero, supernatural] Two days later, you break free from the countryside, leaving behind old fences and ruined farmhouses for miles of dead scrub. A jovial mood settles over the party. "Did I ever tell you the story of how I fought a lion?" Tor asks as you walk. "I don't believe you have," you say. "It was long ago, back in the sands of my homeland. My father had taken me and my brothers hunting. We found an old wagon, overturned. It was long looted, except for one thing. An intact barrel of Alfaretti Red, maker's mark and all." Frye whistles. "What I wouldn't give to have a taste of that." "So that night, my father, my brothers and I got piss drunk. And when you're piss drunk, you have to piss. So I left our campsite, and after I had gotten my cock out, I heard a roar from behind me." "I've never known a big cat to growl when it stalks its prey," John Boy interjects. "You've only known weak mainlander cats, then, woodsman. In my homeland, lions are as big as horses and roar like trumpeteers! So I whirled around, cock in hand, ready to face this beast. I've faced down many monsters, my friends, but this was unlike anything I'd ever seen. It's teeth were as sharp as swords, and its paws as big as my head. Its breath was as harsh as dragon-flame, and its mane was shaggier than Stitcher's cunt." "Oi!" Stitcher yells. "So what did you do?" you ask, masking your smile. "I did the only thing a man can do. I punched the beast square in the nose, my cock still dangling in the night air." "It's a miracle you survived," Frye says gravely. You can see the smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "It was. The beast tucked tail and ran, leaving me the victor." A low horn echoes across the plains. It's joined by another, and another, and another, until a tuneless symphony echoes across the dead scrubland. Tor and John Boy dive into the grass, Stitcher and Frye a second later. Crowley tackles you into the ground. "Wh— " Crowley clamps a hand over your mouth. Frye turns to you to raise a finger to his lips. You can see the whites of his eyes. Stitcher crawls over to you on her belly and presses her lips to your ear. "Donkeys." You nod, and Crowley releases you. John Boy slithers forward on his stomach, crossbow and hood drawn. He draws a spyglass from his pack and stares through it a moment, before returning the spyglass. He crawls back at painstaking speeds. He holds up ten fingers, then three. Thirteen. He glances to Frye, and cocks his head inquisitively, as if to say: your call. Frye nods, then crawls over to you and presses his lips against your ear as he whispers: "Listen well, lad. We're outnumbered but Donkeys are fucking cowards. We're going to hit them hard and fast and disperse the raiding party. Stick to me like glue, you understand? Like glue." You nod. "One more thing. Don't let them take you. Better for you to die fast, understand?" You nod once more. Frye rises to a crouch, drawing both his pistols. Tor readies his harpoon. Stitcher opens her holy book and gives her mace a few experimental swings. John Boy checks the sight on his crossbow, then draws a knife and places it within his teeth. You draw the skull from your belt and stare into your grandfather's bejewelled eyes; it stares back, expressionless. Over the hill, you hear inhuman brays and snorts, accompanied by occasional bouts of devilish laughter. > You hang Back Something about the bared teeth and the lust-filled eye of the Donkeys chills your soul. Your courage fails as the others charge ahead, and you lag behind. You try to assist the party past best you can as they fall upon the Donkeys and blood and limbs begin to fly through the air. As you watch the skirmish, your feet seem to root themselves to the ground. The blood in yeour veins runs cold. Time seems to slow to a halt as you watch Stitcher cave a Donkey's head in with her cudgel. She bashes it as it lays twitching on the ground, and doesn't notice a second one behind her. It grabs her by the hair and flings her to the ground before climbing on top of her. She covers her face with her arms as it wildly slashes at her with a knife. Panic begins to rise in your breast. Have you sent these people to their deaths? You never find out. As you stand there, rooted to the spot, a Donkey hurls a stone at your head. Darkness takes you almost instantly. > Taken by Donkeys, "Taken" by Donkeys When you awake, Frye's words ring in your ears: don't let them take you. Your vision is blurred and you feel like throwing up. Something's scraping against your back ? the ground. Someone is dragging you by the foot. "Frye?" you ask blearily. The Donkey turns around and snorts at you, then continues to drag you. Nausea rises in your belly once again, and you vomit all over yourself. Everything is dark. Taking stock of your surroundings, you realize you're underground. Torches burn on the wall. Grim images of rape and torture flood your mind. You reach for the skull, but it's gone. Figures. If you had to guess, you would say that you're being dragged down some kind of mineshaft. You want to scream for help, but cannot produce more than a horse whisper. Dread fills your chest like cold water as the Donkey drags you further from the surface. "Fuck," you whisper before unconsciousness takes you once more. When you awake, your head hurts more than you can bear and your thoughts are confused. You remember a terrible blow to the head, and nothing after. You open your eyes to see three sneering Donkeys standing over you. You remember everything, now. The battle, your cowardice, and the mad look of lust on the Donkey that incapacitated you. One of them stomps on your head with its hoof. You hear a terrible cracking sound as a fracture opens on your skull. Your thoughts become scrambled as blood trickles down into your eye. They laugh and bray as they stomp you, breaking your body in a half dozen places. You are a miserable, wretched thing, now. Your feeble attempts to crawl away are met with more laughter as they drag you back in place. You think the final coherent thought of your life: I will suffer greatly before I die. Your prognostication is correct. You suffer terrible indignities for hours. First they take turns raping you. Then, they cut your fingers off. You gaze miserably at the ruined stumps that used to be your hands. You try to call for help, but the most you can produce is a pitiable moan. It feels like a mercy when one of the Donkeys stomps your head with such force that your skull caves in like a rotted pumpkin.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, post-apocalyptic, supernatural, anti-hero] Your fifth candle of the night burns low on your desk. The flame flickers in the cool breeze blowing in through the open window. Outside, you can hear a drunk man singing. On the floor, a half dozen books lay open. Some are taken from the University library, and some darker ones come from your own personal collection. A boy with curly hair, a pretty face, and a dull personality lays face down in your bed. He's snoring. Already, your interest in him has dwindled into nothingness. You hold a letter from your uncle Jack in your hands, with a broken wax seal depicting the crest of your family. Nephew, I hope this letter finds you well. Last week, I ascended Chapel Mount and lit a candle in your parents' name. Such a terrible tragedy, for them both to take ill so young. I trust your studies at the University are progressing well? You are a man of House Winter, after all; I would expect that you are at least as good as your professors, now. I'm writing to let you know that I've taken ill, and I expect to die shortly. Do not mourn me, for eternal life awaits me. Your inheritance is waiting for you at the family estate in Seffonshire. I trust you remember it? You spent so many of your childhood years running through the halls. The journey is perilous and long. You must hire hardy men to reach your destination. Our suffering in this life is great but it pales in comparison to our reward. Love, Your Uncle Jack. This is the third time you've read it. The words are rich with the promise of adventure, leaving a thrill in your chest each time you read them. You glance at the signet ring on your right hand. The lion stares at you with cool dignity. In your dreams, you wander through impossible vistas in the shadowed days of antiquity. > You reject your inheritance and pursue greatness on your own. No. You've learned too much, and your studies are almost complete. It seems a hideous waste to throw away years of studious dedication to the occult just to claim an inheritance. You awake the next morning, clutching the letter in your hand. Your companion stirs blearily in his sleep. "What's going on?" he mumbles. "Time for you to go," you say. He protests, but with a bit of effort you're able to force him out the door. You turn your attention to the letter, which still seems rich with the promise of adventure. In life, one must be practical, you suppose to yourself. You twist your thumb and forefinger and it catches flame, burning away in a few seconds. As the ash blows out the open window, it's as if the letter never existed at all. You resolve to recommit yourself to your studies, in the hopes of becoming as proficient an occultist as you can. Later, you find yourself bored. You are a half hour into a lecture on human anatomy. It is held in a gargantuan lecture theatre and operating hall. The oak floors and carved wood seats lend a certain gravity to the whole affair. In the centre of the room, the professor — a tedious, doddering old man — is dutifully dissecting a corpse. He holds each element of the body up to the light, for his students to appreciate, before dumping it unceremoniously in a bucket with a wet schlop! Next to you sits one of your peers. She's a plain looking young woman with a recently-shaved head and bags under her eyes. She bears the distinctive pallor that all aspiring occultists at the University bear. You mentally search around for her name. Sarah? No, but something like it. Selina? That sounds more like it. You glance over at her. She rolls her eyes. "Fuck this," you mouth. She smiles. "Can you get me the offal bucket?" she whispers, so softly as to be almost inaudible. "What do you need the offal bucket for?" you whisper back. "I'm working on something. Just do it, I'll make it worth your while." When the tedious lecture ends, you approach the professor, distracting him with a meaningless barrage of questions. He answers slowly, carefully enunciating so as to make himself understood; you understand none of it. He also manages to shower you with a barrage of spit. Selina flashes you a smile as she steals the bucket of meat, and some human blood sloshes on the floor. The old man does not notice. > You fetch the Bucket You step outside, into the chilly afternoon air. The buildings of the University are as old as the city itself, and the campus has a way of making one feel small under the eternal gaze of the gargoyles. Selina holds her prize, grinning. "Thanks," she says. "Don't mention it. What's it for?" "Some friends and mine, we're working on something that needs a lot of meat. Cheaper to get it here." "I take it you're not cooking a meal," you say. Suspicion creeps into your voice. Whatever magic ritual is performed secretly and requires buckets of meat, it is probably not sanctioned by the authorities. Selina smiles guiltily. "You should come join us, tonight," she says. It's a tempting offer. Your studies have begun to frustrate you, as of late. You are learning much of what you already know, and you are becoming increasingly convinced that the path to arcane mastery does not involve sitting in a classroom. > You say Yes "I'd love to," you say. "Good," she says, "come by the Fits when it gets dark. Go up to the bartender, and ask for me." You recognize the Fits; a popular short-form for Fits and Starts, a seedy pub frequented by slumming students. "I'll be there." That night, you don your coat and step out into the rain-slicked streets to make your way to the Fits. Inside the pub is a lively affair, full of drunks in various states of dress. At the tables, men play knucklebones and droughts while women of loose moral fibre hang on their arms. Ale flows like water from a spring. The air is heavy with sweat and vulgarity. You approach the bar. The bartop is a gargantuan, smooth piece of bone. The bartender is a round man, with an eyepatch, bulging biceps, a tattoo of a harpoon on his neck, and not much of a mind for stereotypes. "Looking for Selina and the rest," you say. You're not quite sure who "the rest" is, but it seems the right thing to say. He nods. "Aye, in the back," he says as he jerks his head towards a back door. "'Preciate it," you say as you head for the back. You step into a basement, and descend some narrow steps. It's dark down here, and the smell of sweat and alcohol fades away and is replaced by the smell of moist stone. You reach a thick stone door, and knock on it three times. It swings open, and Selina is standing on the other side. She smiles when she sees you, and bids you enter. It's a respectably sized cellar, but all of the casks have been shoved to one side. You recognize some of your peers, lounging on the casks. There's James, a round-faced alchemist-in-training from the year under you; Sarah, a mousy, bespectacled brown-haired girl your age, with a perennially unfinished sleeve of crude-looking tattoos, Selina, and yourself. In the centre of the room is an empty clay vessel. The outside is adorned with sacred sigils, some of which you recognize; the Ankh of Life, the Talons of the Stranger, and the First Malediction. "You know your stuff," you say with some admiration. Selina smiles. "We've been working on this for almost a year, now." James shifts fidgets nervously. "Are we sure we can tell him what we're working on?" "You don't have to. You're hosting a demon," you say confidently. "Bingo," Selina says. "You're not going to rat us out?" James says. "Wouldn't be here if I meant to," you say. "What needs doing?" Selina explains the rest to you. They have all the components, surreptitiously stored in one of the casks (this took a hefty bribe), but needed another competent occultist to actually breathe life into the creature. You and Selina will keep the link to the outer plane stabilized, while Sarah binds it to the group's will, and James keeps its physical form stable. When the ritual is done, if done correctly, the demon will be compelled to answer your questions. > The Summoning There's little time for making friends. You strike while the iron is hot, and begin the laborious process of chanting, conjuring, and above all, dumping prodigious amounts of offal and blood into the vessel. The lights in the room shimmer strangely. The chanting takes on a manic tone after a couple hours. Sweat begins to drip down your forehead. Something begins to take shape in the clay pot. Meat begins to fuse. First it grows a mouth, then three more, then a few eyes, an ear stalk, and a few appendages you don't recognize. Blood begins to spew from its mouth as the creature vomits the amniotic fluid of its blasphemous womb. "Something's wrong," James says nervously. His eyes are wide with fear. You barely mask your contempt as you speak. "Shut the fuck up, and hide your fear better." Sarah gasps in pain. You can see her visibly struggling to hold up her end of the ritual. Why are you surrounded by such fools? Selina is the only one with enough competence to not endanger you all. "Why..." the creature whispers. Blood spews from its many mouths as it speaks its first word. "Do... you..." "The connection is weak," Sarah warns. "I'm holding on as best I can." "Fuck!" Selina yells. "The dead flesh!" An idea occurs to you. "Hang on," you say. You step outside the circle, and grab a bung hammer resting on a discarded cask. "What the fuck are you doing?" Sarah asks. She begins to whimper as the psychic strain grows unbearable. Selina grits her teeth in frustration. Tears begin to stream down James' face. You can see his resolve failing in real time. You bash James' skull with the wooden hammer with such force that he lurches forward into the cauldron. "In you go, fatty," you hiss as you plant a knee on his back and shove him face-first inside. He screams as his head liquifies and a thousand hands reach out from the vessel, dragging him into the unfathomable depths of the abyss. You can hear his miserable whimpers from a thousand miles away as a fountain of gore erupts from the cauldron. "What the fuck did you do?" Sarah asks. "He saved the ritual," Selina says, smiling. She wipes blood off her lips as she stares at you in admiration. "We needed live blood," "He killed James!" she protests. "James was a fat, incompetent fuck. He served his purpose," you say. The cauldron begins to bubble. A great thing emerges from the unfathomable depths of the portal. It casts off James' gore like a spent cloak as it reveals its terrible forms. Its body is an unfurling spiderweb of eyes and arms; it clutches a sword and a trumpet. "I am Chn'magoth, the Herald!" its mouths move but its voice appears in your mind. "Say the fucking words!" you yell at Sarah. She fumbles with her spellbook. "Chn'magoth, the Herald, hear our words. We have summoned you from the Beyond, and given you new flesh. Accept our offer of blood, give us mastery over life and death, tell us the secret things." Chn'magoth's teeth chatter as it simmers with incomprehensible irritation. "I am compelled to accept," the ghostly voice says in your mind. > The Ones who Understand Chn'magoth's blessings are as numerous as they are obscene. He teaches you every spell the fools at the University have to offer. You abandon your education, finding it severely lacking compared to the bounty of knowledge you have conjured from the infernal places. Silena matches your enthusiasm. She is a sorceress as skilled in the blasphemous arts as you; you spend hours hurling firebolts at each other, summoning horrors, and learning the secret languages that afford you power over other men. You take a dozen scholars from the University, and they recruit a dozen more. Soon, you are a body unto yourselves; two hundred souls or so, referring to themselves as the Ones who Understand. You teach your acolytes some of the miraculous truths, but not too many; your primacy must not be challenged. By happenstance, you recruit a high-level nobleman into your organization, one Viscount Chevernier. He hosts you and your acolytes at his estate. The secrecy afforded by the high walls is good for ones who study the hidden facets of reality.. You stand at centre stage in a grand theatre. Chevernier was once a great sponsor of the arts, but you now use it as a lecture hall, where you disseminate what Chn'magoth tells you. Your breast swells with pride as you see your students in attendance; they stare at you with rapt attention underneath the theatre lights. Good. Let them admire your superior knowledge. The sacrifice writhes under his magical constraints. It's the same imbecile you slept with, in what feels like another night; luring him into an alley was trivially easy. Such was his profound ignorance that he barely even noticed when you put the rag over his mouth, before unceremoniously stuffing him into the back of a carriage. "With the right application of the Secret Words, you can defy even Death himself!" you say confidently. Your audience cheers as you draw an ornate broadsword with the practiced grace of a circus ringmaster. You behead him in one stroke. His severed head screams wordlessly as you trap his soul in the body, preventing his flight to the Underworld. Your students politely clap as you brandish it to the audience. You look into the head's eyes as it mouths a plea for mercy. You toss it on the floor for someone to clean up, before deciding to retire to your chambers. You retire to your chambers. Silena is there, lounging in a chair, leafing through your notes. Her hair has grown out a bit, and you have finally managed to talk her into wearing makeup and finer clothing. "It is simply not appropriate for an acolyte of Chn'magoth to look like a spinster," you repeatedly said. "Good demonstration?" she asks. "Yes," you say, a little suspiciously. You're not sure why she's in your room, but you feel reflexively irritated at her going through your notes. "Chn'magoth isn't happy," she says. "He's never happy. I gave him a whole arm the other day, what's wrong with him now?" "He wants to expand our operation," she says. Silena snaps her finger. A mummified corpse, animated with elder magic, shuffles into the room. It's still wearing the spectacles it wore in life. "Sarah, show us the meeting I had with Chn'magoth." Sarah opens her mouth and doubles over. She begins to retch. "Get a fucking tray!" you bark. Sarah grabs a discarded platter, and vomits blood into it. A second later, the blood begins to shift, granting you a view of a past event, ripped from Sarah's memories. The images are faintly distorted, like a moving oil painting. You see Chn'magoth's hideous form, standing opposite to Silena. "You must take control," the demon croons. "Kill the other one, and offer me his soul. Then, I shall teach you the final mysteries, and this plane can be ours." "I'll think of it," Memory-Silena says. The blood-memory ends. "That's a tempting offer," you say. "Why didn't you take it?" "You're not bad at what you do," she says with a smile. "Not great, but not bad." "Appreciate the compliment," you say. "Besides, I like having you around." You think about this, for a moment. > You betray Selina and Offer her to Chn'magoth You lean forward and tenderly kiss Selina. She's startled, but soon leans in and wraps her hands around your head. You slide a hand around the nape of her neck. She gasps as a claw protrudes from your finger, neatly severing her spinal cord. She falls to the ground as blood begins to spill from her lips. "Not so fast," you say. You trap her soul in her body, trapping her in a state of undeath. She stares at you. Her lips can't move, but her eyes are full of unconcealed hatred. You chop her head off and hand it to Sarah. "Be a dear and carry this for me." With your undead butler in tow, you bring Selina's severed, but very much alive, head to Chn'mgoath's cell. His physical form is rotten and emaciated, and no amount of sacrifice seems to be able to restore his health. "Chn'mgoath, I offer you the soul of the most powerful sorcerer I could find. Take this gift, restore it, and teach me your final mysteries." He scuttles over on his many-jointed limbs. He is emaciated, and his dozens of eyes are aflame with the hunger of an addict in need of a fix. You twist your hand, and the bars of his cell vanish. You toss him the head. He digs out her eyes and scoops out her brain, smearing himself greedily in the meat. Then, he places three hands on her ravaged skull, and sucks the soul from the meat. You watch in fascination as he grows plump, like a mosquito filled with blood. "Very good," he says. "You have done well, my child." "Teach me the final mystery," you say, having tired of supplication and formality. "Very well," Chn'mgoath says, "I shall honour our bargain. Drink of my blood, and you shall have power like me." He slits one of his wrists with a fang, and offers it to you. You gag as you press your lips to his fetid veins, and drink of his eldritch blood. You fight the urge to vomit. "What's changed?" you ask. "You may feast on souls, as I do," he says. "Interesting," you say. He does not have time to respond before you leap on him. You grow fangs and arms and legs and wings as you tear the demon to pieces, gorging yourself both on his meat and every soul he has ever absorbed. When he is dead and in pieces, you admire your reflection in the puddle of blood on the floor. You gaze upon your venom sacks, your hooves, your horns, and your forked tongue. You find yourself to be beautiful and terrible. You cackle in delight as you leap into the air, punching a hole through the ceiling, and flying off into the night.

Chn'magoth's blessings are as numerous as they are obscene. He teaches you every spell the fools at the University have to offer. You abandon your education, finding it severely lacking compared to the bounty of knowledge you have conjured from the infernal places. Silena matches your enthusiasm. She is a sorceress as skilled in the blasphemous arts as you; you spend hours hurling firebolts at each other, summoning horrors, and learning the secret languages that afford you power over other men. You take a dozen scholars from the University, and they recruit a dozen more. Soon, you are a body unto yourselves; two hundred souls or so, referring to themselves as the Ones who Understand. You teach your acolytes some of the miraculous truths, but not too many; your primacy must not be challenged. By happenstance, you recruit a high-level nobleman into your organization, one Viscount Chevernier. He hosts you and your acolytes at his estate. The secrecy afforded by the high walls is good for ones who study the hidden facets of reality.. You stand at centre stage in a grand theatre. Chevernier was once a great sponsor of the arts, but you now use it as a lecture hall, where you disseminate what Chn'magoth tells you. Your breast swells with pride as you see your students in attendance; they stare at you with rapt attention underneath the theatre lights. Good. Let them admire your superior knowledge. The sacrifice writhes under his magical constraints. It's the same imbecile you slept with, in what feels like another night; luring him into an alley was trivially easy. Such was his profound ignorance that he barely even noticed when you put the rag over his mouth, before unceremoniously stuffing him into the back of a carriage. "With the right application of the Secret Words, you can defy even Death himself!" you say confidently. Your audience cheers as you draw an ornate broadsword with the practiced grace of a circus ringmaster. You behead him in one stroke. His severed head screams wordlessly as you trap his soul in the body, preventing his flight to the Underworld. Your students politely clap as you brandish it to the audience. You look into the head's eyes as it mouths a plea for mercy. You toss it on the floor for someone to clean up, before deciding to retire to your chambers. You retire to your chambers. Silena is there, lounging in a chair, leafing through your notes. Her hair has grown out a bit, and you have finally managed to talk her into wearing makeup and finer clothing. "It is simply not appropriate for an acolyte of Chn'magoth to look like a spinster," you repeatedly said. "Good demonstration?" she asks. "Yes," you say, a little suspiciously. You're not sure why she's in your room, but you feel reflexively irritated at her going through your notes. "Chn'magoth isn't happy," she says. "He's never happy. I gave him a whole arm the other day, what's wrong with him now?" "He wants to expand our operation," she says. Silena snaps her finger. A mummified corpse, animated with elder magic, shuffles into the room. It's still wearing the spectacles it wore in life. "Sarah, show us the meeting I had with Chn'magoth." Sarah opens her mouth and doubles over. She begins to retch. "Get a fucking tray!" you bark. Sarah grabs a discarded platter, and vomits blood into it. A second later, the blood begins to shift, granting you a view of a past event, ripped from Sarah's memories. The images are faintly distorted, like a moving oil painting. You see Chn'magoth's hideous form, standing opposite to Silena. "You must take control," the demon croons. "Kill the other one, and offer me his soul. Then, I shall teach you the final mysteries, and this plane can be ours." "I'll think of it," Memory-Silena says. The blood-memory ends. "That's a tempting offer," you say. "Why didn't you take it?" "You're not bad at what you do," she says with a smile. "Not great, but not bad." "Appreciate the compliment," you say. "Besides, I like having you around." You think about this, for a moment. > You lead the Cult... Together You kiss Selina without thinking about it. Then, as a true romantic, you bend her over an armchair and make unsentimental love to her while a slack-jawed corpse stares listlessly into a pool of its own bloody vomit. After, you lay in each other's arms, you stare into each other's eyes, and talk about how the narrow-minded fools of the world will soon suffer under your combined vision and brilliance. The next morning, you both confront Chn'magoth. Its mortal form is decaying as its demonic essence erodes its fleshy prison from within. The air in his cell smells of plague. The offal of the many sacrifices required to keep him on this plane are strewn about the cell. "You have considered my offer," Chn'magoth says. The voice in your mind sounds faint, now, as he fades from the world. "I have," Selina says. "And I refuse." "Fool!" Chn'magoth hisses. It launches a stream of corrosive vomit at you, and it burns clean through the bars of his cell. You shove Selina back and effortlessly form a shimmering ward that disperses the bright-green spew. "You will regret this, flesh-things!" "Eat shit and die," you respond matter-of-factly. You tear his head from his shoulders, his arms from his torso, and his knees from his thighs. For a moment, the demon's composite parts float in the air, before you hurl them against the wall with such strength that they liquify. For a brief instinct, you can see his true form. It is fundamentally incompatible with this world, and the sight of it chills your soul. Its ten thousand eyes gaze at you with such baleful malevolence that for a moment, you feel as if your very essence will be ripped from your body and dragged into a realm of unfathomable violence. Fortunately for you, the sane world is incompatible with Chn'magoth's true form, and he quickly dissipates. Later, you summon your flock to the theatre. As you stand on stage, covered in blood, you begin to speak: "Chn'magoth was a false teacher. I have destroyed him, and taken his power." A stunned silence settles over the theatre. How can this be? You are not stricken down immediately, however, so it must be true. Silena begins to speak: "We know all things, of this world, and of all the other worlds too. We will lead you into an era of enlightenment, and grant you unimaginable power." "All you have to do is kneel," you say. One by one, they drop to their knees. Their hands are stretched up in rapturous awe. You can see the jealousy and fear in their eyes, but it doesn't matter; they should be jealous. These fools will be the first to kneel, but not the last.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, serious, anti-hero, villain protagonist, supernatural] You step outside, into the chilly afternoon air. The buildings of the University are as old as the city itself, and the campus has a way of making one feel small under the eternal gaze of the gargoyles. Selina holds her prize, grinning. "Thanks," she says. "Don't mention it. What's it for?" "Some friends and mine, we're working on something that needs a lot of meat. Cheaper to get it here." "I take it you're not cooking a meal," you say. Suspicion creeps into your voice. Whatever magic ritual is performed secretly and requires buckets of meat, it is probably not sanctioned by the authorities. Selina smiles guiltily. "You should come join us, tonight," she says. It's a tempting offer. Your studies have begun to frustrate you, as of late. You are learning much of what you already know, and you are becoming increasingly convinced that the path to arcane mastery does not involve sitting in a classroom. > You say No "I don't think I should," you say. She frowns. "That's a shame. I've seen some of your work, it's not bad. Lacking imagination, but not bad at all." "Thanks," you say, not quite sure what to make of the compliment. She turns, spilling a bit of blood on her shoe. Selina doesn't seem to notice. As she walks away, you wonder what kind of opportunity you may have just turned down. You tell yourself that it does not matter, and that no unsanctioned experiment would justify being expelled for blood magic or necromancy. You return to your residence, and begin to attack the pile of readings stacked on your desk. Days pass, then weeks, then months You excel in your classes, but never shake the feeling of drudgery. You advance your theoretical knowledge of magic, but learn no techniques worth knowing. You don't want to memorize lists of arcane geometrical formations, you want power over life and death, and the ability to raze whole armies. Eventually, you graduate. You are a licensed Arcanist, permitted to practice magic within the city walls. You open up a small office, and spend the entirety of your career helping wealthy scions make sure their new property acquisitions are not cursed. Although you are materially comfortable, you cannot help but feel that you have wasted your potential.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, fantasy, serious, war, grimdark] This is no way to live. Working on a barely profitable rundown farm with far too many family members to feed. It's a damn good thing you're an excellent hunter. However, lately there's even been a shortage of game to thwart your efforts. You didn't really want to be working on the farm your whole life in the first place, you wanted to see the world but when dad died, things got a lot harder for the family and you had to take over as "man" of the house and stay put. Something is going to have to change. While you'd like nothing more than to go through with your childhood dreams of becoming a traveling bard without any responsibility you don't have that luxury. Hell, you barely have time to play your lute anymore in the small amount of free time you do have. You doubt if you'd even be good enough to make a living for just yourself doing it. But you need to get away, but what can you do that won't allow you to completely abandon your mom and all your brothers and sisters? You suddenly think of the choice that many in your desperate position have thought of many times before. The army. Its not exactly ideal, but you be traveling and seeing the world so to speak. You'd also be making enough money that you could send to your family. Your own living expenses would be provided for by the army. Of course there's all that fighting that usually goes along with it that you're not to keen on. Not that you aren't a stranger to battle as their have been the occasional bandits or kobold thieves that have attempted to steal from the farm in the past, but you prefer not to fight if possible, especially not up close. The bow has always been your weapon of choice. There's also the matter of mass combat on a grand scale that usually accompanies army life. A lot different than chasing away some thieves in the chicken coop. As you're thinking about this, you also realize that there is another option. There's a small mercenary company passing through the area. They've been hanging out at the local tavern for a couple days. They don't seem to be the noblest sort from what you can tell, but fortunately they seem to have kept their revelry confined to the tavern. Who knows how they act away from "civilization" though. Still, it's something to consider. There probably is less attention to discipline and a little more relaxed on rules and regulations. You probably wouldn't be fighting in some mass land war that governments are fond of waging. Mercenaries travel a lot and tend to make more, however they tend to get hired for a lot weirder jobs, usually ones that the employer doesn't want people to know about or ones that nobody else seems to be able to handle. > You enlist in the army Well, as much as you're going to hate the whole uniform thing, you'd rather there be some sort of guidelines. The mercenaries look like a rough bunch. You get the impression you'd have to be watching your back as much as your enemies if you signed up with them. You explain your decision to join the army to the family one night at dinner. Your revelation comes as a shock. Your smaller brothers and sisters don't want you to go, your brother Mallack really doesn't want you to leave since he'll be next in line to take the brunt of the manual labor! Your mother surprises you as much as you surprised everyone else. You expected her to be the most vocal about you not leaving, but she sees that this would help out the family. She gives her blessing. Before you leave the next day with your packed belongings, your whole family comes to say goodbye to you. You almost hesitate to leave, wondering if it would actually be better for you to stay, but your mother urges you on. "Don't worry! Mallack is old enough to take over your responsibilities on the farm. He's not quite as skilled of a hunter, but he'll be able to do it. I've always known that you've had a desire to travel. The army isn't an ideal life I hope you realize though." Your mom says. "Yeah, I know, but I've thought it through." "Very well, you're old enough to make your own decisions and live your own life, though I'm glad to see that you still want to help the family as opposed to just leaving in the middle of the night." "I'll start sending money as soon as possible. I'll also try to write and visit when I can." "I know...okay, you best get going. It's still quite a walk to the capitol." You begin to leave the farm as your family wave goodbye to you in the distance. Soon you're on the road to your nation's capitol. You've been to Zal once before a long time ago with your dad when he was trying to sell some kobold eyes to an alchemist there. You remember being overwhelmed with how many people lived there and how big it was. You always did want to go there again one day; you just didn't think it would be to enlist in the army. Eventually you arrive at Zal. The place is even bigger than the last time you came here. So much has changed and you're a little overwhelmed. You don't have any knowledge of the city so you ask the gate guard who is giving a watchful look to everyone coming in and out. "Excuse me..." "Whadda ya want peasant? I'm busy! Market square is three blocks down as soon as you get inside the gate here!" The guard snaps. "No, I was wondering where I could enlist in the army." The guard seems to change his tone to a somewhat more cordial tone. "Oh I see. Well, as soon as you go through the gate, take a left, and walk two blocks. The recruiting office is on the right hand side across from a general store." You thank him and proceed, but you can't help overhearing the guard laughing to his buddy as you walk away. You don't make out all of it, but "Dumb fucking hayseed peasant." was definitely in there. At last you arrive at the recruiting office. The man sitting at the desk looks bored at first, but perks up a bit when he sees you. "Well now, this is a nice break in the monotony. Have a seat." "I want to enlist in the army." "Well of course you do son, why else would you be here? To join the Zalan Empire's best right? Okay, but before we start I need to ask you some questions just so we can get a feel of where we think you'll best serve in the Emperor's glorious army." "Uh, okay." "Good, so where are you from son? You certainly don't look like you're from the city here. You look like a farmer." "Well I sort of am sir. My family owns a farm a couple miles from the city, I decided to enlist to help my family monetarily. Times are hard on the farm." "Mmm, noble of you. Your sense of duty will also serve you well too. Any combat experience?" "Some, but nothing major I'm afraid. A few bandits. Kobolds in the chicken coop. That's about it." "Don't worry you'll learn to be a killing machine, but your past experience are more than some we've recruited. Any other talents?" "Besides farming? Um...I'm a good hunter, I use this bow all the time!" you say and show the recruiter your worn bow. "Good. Good. We can always use good marksmen. But you'll get the chance to use a better bow than that old thing you've been carrying around. What's that other thing on your back?" "Oh this? Well this is my uh lute." "Lute? Ha ha! You a bard or something?" "Well not really, but..." "You planning on charming the enemies with your music?" "Uh..." you say begin to get a little anxious. "Hah! Settle down son, I'm just messing with you. But I'm afraid whatever your musical hobbies may be you'll most likely be abandoning them. Can't be picking your lute while an angry ogre is charging at you or you're storming a castle. This is the army, not an entertainment company!" The recruiter at this point begins to look through some papers and grabs one after looking it over. "Ah. Here it is...you know how to read and write?" "YES!" you say indignantly for the first time. "Okay, okay, don't get testy. Its just most of you peasant farmer types don't. Anyway just sign here and we'll get you started on your basic training." You take the paper, and give it a pointless look over like you actually understand all the legal mumbo jumbo and sign. The recruiter takes the paper from you and then shakes your hand. "Congratulations son! You're in the Zalan Army now! The best damn one in this world!" Somehow he's more enthusiastic than you are... > It's boot camp for you! 6 months pass... Six months of the most grueling physical training you've ever had the misfortune of dealing with! However you fared better than some of your fellow cadets. Guess all that farm living paid off. You've certainly improved what combat skills you had, but your marksmanship has improved greatly. You know that Drill Sergeant Kosser has been paying special attention to your abilities. You're not sure if that's a good thing of not. In any event you're being told where your first assignment is going to be. Most of those in your group are being sent to Tulan border. Not the most pleasant assignment. The fighting is getting worse there. What started as a minor border dispute has turned into a series of battles with neither side making too much progress. Even before you joined the military you'd heard stories of the greedy king who runs the Tulan Kingdom. You heard from traveling merchants about how he allows a few demons to walk around in his lands! Utter madness in your opinion. The Zalan Empire might be a little strict on the rules and regulations, but better that than demons letting walking around, in your opinion they should all be killed on sight regardless on whether they're obeying the "law" or not, they're evil. You sit anxious on your bed in the barracks as name after name gets called off. Finally Kosser calls off your name, and you fully expect to get sent to the Tulan border. "I want to talk to you in private." Is what you hear instead. This makes you even more nervous. What's he going to do? Send you on? A mission to assassinate the Tulan King? After everyone else has gotten there assignments you follow Kosser back to his office. He sits down and speaks direct. "Alright farmboy, I'm sure you've noticed me watching your marksmanship skills. You're one of the best ones that have come in here for awhile. You have a natural talent and you've only improved it through training. It would be a blessing to have someone like you up at the Tulan border. The gods know we could use anything to help break the stalemate there." "...but?" you ask hoping that there is one. "But...your skills might be better served in a place that has a better mortality rate, yet still needs taking care of." "Where's that sir?" "Here." Kosser points to a map to a nearby location. It's the Retlad Kingdom. You can't imagine what's going on there, since as far as you know, you're Zalan is at peace with them. "Retlad? I thought we're at peace with them?" "We are...in fact rumors are saying we'll probably incorporate them into the empire in the near future. I dunno how much you know about politics out there on the farm, but Retlad is basically a bankrupt kingdom. Their dumb ass royalty spent a shitload of their treasury on building ships in some vain attempt to find more land mass on this world. Hah! Doesn't exist! We learned than centuries ago! Anyway now they don't have enough to pay for a proper military and their kingdom is being overrun by hostile Quillar tribes. They want us to help. Begging us practically and we have, but it's a pain in the ass. Quillars are fast and as their name suggests shoot multiple sharp quills at their enemies. I've seen them go through plate armor." "That doesn't sound good." "No, it's not good. The Retlad knight orders got decimated within two months of the first invasion wave. We're taking a better approach. We need to have equally quick troops that can at least match the fire power. We've sent a couple of war wizards, but most of them are serving on the Tulan border. Gunpower weapons are a little too slow for this sort of thing, so we're looking for people good with a bow. Quick enough to at least get a few shots off from a distance and run. Because hit and run tactics are what the Quillars excel at, so you'll have to do likewise." Kosser pauses his talking for a moment. You take this opportunity to interject a question. "And this assignment you say has a lower mortality rate?" "Well, we haven't sent as many people there yet, but so far we've made a little more progress there than at the Tulan border. But of course I won't say it's a safe assignment. Those Quillar bastards are vicious and merciless. Up to you farmboy. You're getting a bonus here. You're actually getting to choose your assignment. Not many that get out of boot camp get that privilege." Some "privilege" > You go to the Tulan Border You don't like the sound of the Quillars and it doesn't really sound all that much safer. You decide that at the Tulan border you'll at least be with a few people you already know from boot camp and you'll be fighting something less scary. (Or at least human) "I'll take the Tulan Border assignment sir." "Hm, I'm surprised. Hope your skills come in of some use there. Here's your first month's pay, I suggest you live it up here in Zal, for the couple of days you have off before you leave." You take the small bag and look inside. This will certainly help your family. You take a few coins for yourself and then ask if arrangements can be made to have your payment sent to your family from now on. He tells you yes, but asks that surely that you will still want some of it. You agree to just taking 10% of it. You don't need much. "Sheesh, living bare minimum huh? Don't you want to eat anything other than military rations every once in awhile?" Kosser questions again. "Nah. If I need extra food, I'll just hunt." "You know there aren't many luxuries on the border, but when a traveling merchant shows up, you might regret not having enough money. You sure you don't want more?" "Nope. I'll be fine. My family needs that money more than I do." "Alright then, family man." You exit the barracks and wander the city a bit. You find it very interesting. You sort of wish you could stay longer to take in more sights. However one thing catches your eye. A small store and in the window is a lute. Looks almost like the one you had before it was taken away from you in basic training. You haven't gotten a chance to play in six months and you'd really like to... Hey you're a soldier now, you've proven yourself. You figure you can take one personal belonging with you to Tulan as long as you keep them packed properly. You enter the store and with the little money you have you buy the lute. You spend the most of the day and the next practicing it. You didn't forget as much as you thought. You also finish up writing a letter to your family and give it to a Zalan messenger carrier. Finally the third day arrives for you to move out. A couple of officers arrive to take all of you. You're stopped though as you're picked out. "Hold up you. What's that?" "It's a lute sir." "A lute? What the fuck do you think this is? An acting company? Get rid of that thing, you won't be needing that where you're going!" "But..." "You disobeying me soldier?" "No sir!" "Alright then, get rid of it!" You sadly get rid of your lute which you never got to play and basically wasted your money on. You don't know what you were thinking anyway. You're in the damn army. You're going to be doing a lot of fighting and all of that, not playing some stupid instrument. You should've realized that the first time it was taken away from you in boot camp. You've made this choice; you need to just put these dreams of being a "musician" out of your head right now. You weren't meant to be one, and all those years of deluding yourself in between real work were just fleeting dreams of a teenager. Time to grow up. While you resign yourself to this mindset, you aren't particularly happy with it. When you get to the Tulan Border you're even less happy. Your first battle is filled with all the bad stuff that usually accompanies such things. It's definitely not a fun assignment and your only consolation is that you know your family is getting more financial aid for you doing this. After a few months, you're absolutely miserable. You don't have your music to keep your mind off of the conditions and everything is bad here. The fort you're currently stationed at supplies only the bare minimum of living, no magical back up, the captain is a real asshole and the rest of those you serve with aren't too much better. Though so many are killed everyday that you never really grow to dislike (or like) anyone that much in that department. More are sent in and more die, it's like an ongoing cycle, everyone's so expendable in this ongoing border war that gets worse with each passing month. It doesn't even come to your surprise when the day comes that you're mortally wounded while on patrol. One of the new soldiers tells you to hold on and that he'll get help, but you know he won't get any in time and it wouldn't matter anyway. As you lay dying, your only regret is that you didn't get to play music like you always wanted to, and now you never will.

6 months pass... Six months of the most grueling physical training you've ever had the misfortune of dealing with! However you fared better than some of your fellow cadets. Guess all that farm living paid off. You've certainly improved what combat skills you had, but your marksmanship has improved greatly. You know that Drill Sergeant Kosser has been paying special attention to your abilities. You're not sure if that's a good thing of not. In any event you're being told where your first assignment is going to be. Most of those in your group are being sent to Tulan border. Not the most pleasant assignment. The fighting is getting worse there. What started as a minor border dispute has turned into a series of battles with neither side making too much progress. Even before you joined the military you'd heard stories of the greedy king who runs the Tulan Kingdom. You heard from traveling merchants about how he allows a few demons to walk around in his lands! Utter madness in your opinion. The Zalan Empire might be a little strict on the rules and regulations, but better that than demons letting walking around, in your opinion they should all be killed on sight regardless on whether they're obeying the "law" or not, they're evil. You sit anxious on your bed in the barracks as name after name gets called off. Finally Kosser calls off your name, and you fully expect to get sent to the Tulan border. "I want to talk to you in private." Is what you hear instead. This makes you even more nervous. What's he going to do? Send you on? A mission to assassinate the Tulan King? After everyone else has gotten there assignments you follow Kosser back to his office. He sits down and speaks direct. "Alright farmboy, I'm sure you've noticed me watching your marksmanship skills. You're one of the best ones that have come in here for awhile. You have a natural talent and you've only improved it through training. It would be a blessing to have someone like you up at the Tulan border. The gods know we could use anything to help break the stalemate there." "...but?" you ask hoping that there is one. "But...your skills might be better served in a place that has a better mortality rate, yet still needs taking care of." "Where's that sir?" "Here." Kosser points to a map to a nearby location. It's the Retlad Kingdom. You can't imagine what's going on there, since as far as you know, you're Zalan is at peace with them. "Retlad? I thought we're at peace with them?" "We are...in fact rumors are saying we'll probably incorporate them into the empire in the near future. I dunno how much you know about politics out there on the farm, but Retlad is basically a bankrupt kingdom. Their dumb ass royalty spent a shitload of their treasury on building ships in some vain attempt to find more land mass on this world. Hah! Doesn't exist! We learned than centuries ago! Anyway now they don't have enough to pay for a proper military and their kingdom is being overrun by hostile Quillar tribes. They want us to help. Begging us practically and we have, but it's a pain in the ass. Quillars are fast and as their name suggests shoot multiple sharp quills at their enemies. I've seen them go through plate armor." "That doesn't sound good." "No, it's not good. The Retlad knight orders got decimated within two months of the first invasion wave. We're taking a better approach. We need to have equally quick troops that can at least match the fire power. We've sent a couple of war wizards, but most of them are serving on the Tulan border. Gunpower weapons are a little too slow for this sort of thing, so we're looking for people good with a bow. Quick enough to at least get a few shots off from a distance and run. Because hit and run tactics are what the Quillars excel at, so you'll have to do likewise." Kosser pauses his talking for a moment. You take this opportunity to interject a question. "And this assignment you say has a lower mortality rate?" "Well, we haven't sent as many people there yet, but so far we've made a little more progress there than at the Tulan border. But of course I won't say it's a safe assignment. Those Quillar bastards are vicious and merciless. Up to you farmboy. You're getting a bonus here. You're actually getting to choose your assignment. Not many that get out of boot camp get that privilege." Some "privilege" > You go to the Retlad Kingdom You've never even heard of Quillars before, but they still sound less dangerous than the Tulan Border, that place is only going to get worse, you know it. "I'll take the Retlad assignment sir." "Hm. Smart. Here's your first month's pay, I suggest you live it up here in Zal, for the couple of days you have off before you leave." You take the small bag and look inside. This will certainly help your family. You take a few coins for yourself and then ask if arrangements can be made to have your payment sent to your family from now on. He tells you yes, but asks that surely that you will still want some of it. You agree to just taking 10% of it. You don't need much. "Sheesh, living bare minimum huh? Don't you want to eat anything other than military rations every once in awhile?" Kosser questions again. "Nah. If I need extra food, I'll just hunt." "You know even the booze and brothel girls in Retlad aren't THAT cheap. You sure you don't want more?" "Nope. I'll be fine. My family needs that money more than I do." "Alright then, family man." You exit the barracks and wander the city a bit. You find it very interesting. You sort of wish you could stay longer to take in more sights. However one thing catches your eye. A small store and in the window is a lute. Looks almost like the one you had before it was taken away from you in basic training. You haven't gotten a chance to play in six months and you'd really like to... Hey you're a soldier now, you've proven yourself. You figure you can take one personal belonging with you to Retlad as long as you keep them packed properly. You enter the store and with the little money you have you buy the lute. You spend the most of the day and the next practicing it. You didn't forget as much as you thought. You also finish up writing a letter to your family and give it to a Zalan messenger carrier. Finally the third day arrives for you to move out. A couple of officers arrive to take most of your other fellow cadets. Mostly to the Tulan border, however, it would appear you have a different escort. A young man in loose robe approaches you. He looks like a wizard, but you wonder for how long since he seems about your age. "Hey, are you the one going to the Retlad Kingdom?" he asks "Yeah, who are you?" "I'm Wessel. And don't you dare get cute and call me weasel, or I'll have to blast you with a lightning bolt." "I wasn't planning on it." You say which causes Wessel to start laughing. "Geez, I was just fucking with you. Don't be so serious! So you ready to go?" "Yeah I guess, are you my superior officer?" "Huh? Oh no. Look I got our horses waiting outside; we can do all this getting to know you stuff on the way." You and Wessel get on the horses and ride towards your destination. It would appear that you're the only one from your group to be going, but of course you were the only expert marksman. Wessel begins to tell you more about why he's with you. In fact he doesn't really let you do much talking at all. He says he's a native citizen of the Zalan Empire, but he just graduated from the esteemed magic university in the city state of Nuro. Wessel goes on to and says that when he heard they needed a few wizard over in Retlad, he decided to volunteer to test his skills and get paid while doing it. He explains that the pair of you will be following the orders of a Captain Vhalat. Everyone knows about Nuro. It's very famous, and you always wondered what kind of magical wonders existed there, so you're eager to hear more and he's all too happy to tell you. Despite Wessel's primary focus on himself, it sounds like a place you'd want to visit one day. Eventually you arrive at the border and so far the Retlad Kingdom doesn't look very well kept. The road begins to show evidence of disrepair and the sign posts are broken. You begin to keep your eye out for a possible attack at any second. "Look! Over there! It's a village and it's under attack! Come on!" Wessel yells and rides towards the village in the distance. You try to tell him to wait, but he's already well on his way, so you ride after him. You've never seen a Quillar before, but the closer you get to the village, you start seeing humanoid creatures covered in sharp spikes running around at a fast speed which could only be them. They are indeed fearsome looking. You also see a lot of the people running from them, and even a few people dressed in protective gear similar to yours...not that its doing them much good. "Alright you prickly bastards here's something for ya!" Wessle shouts riding into the village with one hand raised in the air for a lightning blast attack. He shows no fear. You have no idea if all wizards are like this, but he's either got to be brave, stupid or just suicidal. Of course he could be all three. Up until now you always thought wizards were supposed to be meek types that didn't charge into battle and preferred to kill from afar. You guess you were wrong. > You stay with him to back him up This reckless idiot is probably going to get himself killed if you don't stick by his side. You ride quickly to catch up with him in the village, and draw your bow. Surprisingly for your first battle, you manage to keep calm and focused on the enemy. Hard to do considering the Quillars aren't the easiest of foes. They're quick and they're firing their quills faster than you're firing your bow. The problem though isn't the Quillars, its Wessel. He's having such a "good time" blasting the Quillars, that he's causing a lot more collateral damage in the process. During one of these moments, your own horse gets spooked by the incredibly close fireball blast and rears back causing you to fall off of it. You're still shaking the cobwebs when one of the Quillars unleashes more quills and hits you with several of them. You collapse in pain, as the Quillar charges at you. It doesn't kill you though. Wessel makes sure of that when he throws a bolt of lightning at it. Unfortunately the Quillar happens to have grabbed you just as its hit by the lightning. Your current pain is increased severely as the electrical current passes through your body, but not for long and your fried body eventually stops its deaths throes. Wessel has a hard time explaining that the other transfer was hit by "friendly" fire.

You've never even heard of Quillars before, but they still sound less dangerous than the Tulan Border, that place is only going to get worse, you know it. "I'll take the Retlad assignment sir." "Hm. Smart. Here's your first month's pay, I suggest you live it up here in Zal, for the couple of days you have off before you leave." You take the small bag and look inside. This will certainly help your family. You take a few coins for yourself and then ask if arrangements can be made to have your payment sent to your family from now on. He tells you yes, but asks that surely that you will still want some of it. You agree to just taking 10% of it. You don't need much. "Sheesh, living bare minimum huh? Don't you want to eat anything other than military rations every once in awhile?" Kosser questions again. "Nah. If I need extra food, I'll just hunt." "You know even the booze and brothel girls in Retlad aren't THAT cheap. You sure you don't want more?" "Nope. I'll be fine. My family needs that money more than I do." "Alright then, family man." You exit the barracks and wander the city a bit. You find it very interesting. You sort of wish you could stay longer to take in more sights. However one thing catches your eye. A small store and in the window is a lute. Looks almost like the one you had before it was taken away from you in basic training. You haven't gotten a chance to play in six months and you'd really like to... Hey you're a soldier now, you've proven yourself. You figure you can take one personal belonging with you to Retlad as long as you keep them packed properly. You enter the store and with the little money you have you buy the lute. You spend the most of the day and the next practicing it. You didn't forget as much as you thought. You also finish up writing a letter to your family and give it to a Zalan messenger carrier. Finally the third day arrives for you to move out. A couple of officers arrive to take most of your other fellow cadets. Mostly to the Tulan border, however, it would appear you have a different escort. A young man in loose robe approaches you. He looks like a wizard, but you wonder for how long since he seems about your age. "Hey, are you the one going to the Retlad Kingdom?" he asks "Yeah, who are you?" "I'm Wessel. And don't you dare get cute and call me weasel, or I'll have to blast you with a lightning bolt." "I wasn't planning on it." You say which causes Wessel to start laughing. "Geez, I was just fucking with you. Don't be so serious! So you ready to go?" "Yeah I guess, are you my superior officer?" "Huh? Oh no. Look I got our horses waiting outside; we can do all this getting to know you stuff on the way." You and Wessel get on the horses and ride towards your destination. It would appear that you're the only one from your group to be going, but of course you were the only expert marksman. Wessel begins to tell you more about why he's with you. In fact he doesn't really let you do much talking at all. He says he's a native citizen of the Zalan Empire, but he just graduated from the esteemed magic university in the city state of Nuro. Wessel goes on to and says that when he heard they needed a few wizard over in Retlad, he decided to volunteer to test his skills and get paid while doing it. He explains that the pair of you will be following the orders of a Captain Vhalat. Everyone knows about Nuro. It's very famous, and you always wondered what kind of magical wonders existed there, so you're eager to hear more and he's all too happy to tell you. Despite Wessel's primary focus on himself, it sounds like a place you'd want to visit one day. Eventually you arrive at the border and so far the Retlad Kingdom doesn't look very well kept. The road begins to show evidence of disrepair and the sign posts are broken. You begin to keep your eye out for a possible attack at any second. "Look! Over there! It's a village and it's under attack! Come on!" Wessel yells and rides towards the village in the distance. You try to tell him to wait, but he's already well on his way, so you ride after him. You've never seen a Quillar before, but the closer you get to the village, you start seeing humanoid creatures covered in sharp spikes running around at a fast speed which could only be them. They are indeed fearsome looking. You also see a lot of the people running from them, and even a few people dressed in protective gear similar to yours...not that its doing them much good. "Alright you prickly bastards here's something for ya!" Wessle shouts riding into the village with one hand raised in the air for a lightning blast attack. He shows no fear. You have no idea if all wizards are like this, but he's either got to be brave, stupid or just suicidal. Of course he could be all three. Up until now you always thought wizards were supposed to be meek types that didn't charge into battle and preferred to kill from afar. You guess you were wrong. > You circle around the village Just because he's acting reckless doesn't mean you're going to, you're going to play upon your strengths and keep as far away as you can. You ride your horse around the outskirts of the village, readying your bow the whole time. When you can, you fire at the Quillar attackers. As quick as they are, they aren't really paying attention to you and you manage to get in some good shots. A couple of head shots even. At first they don't realize where the all the arrows are coming from, since Wessel is giving them a hard enough time with the chain lightning. You're sort of glad you decided to stay on the outskirts. Wessel is having such a "good time" blasting the Quillars, he's probably causing a lot more collateral damage in the process. Eventually the Quillars start to retreat. This is when you get into a little more trouble as you happen to be right in the direction of where they're running! They still look scary and they get even moreso as they get closer. The worst has to be their shrieks. It's unpleasant to hear to say the least. You ride out of the way, but your horse isn't fast enough and is peppered by quills. You catch a few in the leg yourself and you're thrown from the horse as it reels in pain, before collapsing. Feeling the pain you scramble for cover behind a nearby rock. Fortunately the quills don't penetrate that. Most of them are content on just running away, but one straggler decides to try to get one more kill before leaving. That kill of course happens to be you. The Quillar makes its high pitch shriek as it runs towards the rock. You don't have time to ready your bow before its high jumped over the rock and on the other side of you. You quickly draw your weapon and swing it blindly as you turn around. Luckily your blade catches the side of its head, killing it. At last you collapse from the pain in your leg. While you're pulling out quills, Wessel and another Zalan soldier come to meet you. Wessel doesn't look any worse for wear, but the soldier looks very tired and obviously has wounds of his own. "There you are, lying down on the job I see." Wessel mocks. "Are you alright?" the other soldier asks. "Yeah...Agh. I've gotten bitten in the leg by a Kobold before. Feels nearly the same except these quills go in a lot deeper." "Glad you guys came when you did. We were just doing a routine patrol when these quill bastards came out of nowhere! They're getting bolder and attacking in greater number, we need more reinforcements." "Yeah, well good luck with that. The Tulan border is the primary concern. Besides I'm here now, I predict that this infestation will be over soon now." Wessel boasts. "Any...way. My name's Tylir. I'd introduce you to the rest of my squad, but they're all dead now. Even though it was the heat of battle, I couldn't help notice how well you picked off several of those Quillars with one shot. That was pretty impressive." "Thanks." "Hey! What about me? I'm the one who noticed you getting attacked in the first place! I'm also the one who saved your ass!" Wessel interrupts again, he's starting to get annoying at this point, but Tylir doesn't seem bothered by him. "Everyone did their part. Okay, since I'm here I'll take you to see Captain Vhalat, I'm sure that's who you were sent to report to, oh and wizard while your skills may be appreciated here, I'd advise you to cut down on the boasting. Captain Vhalat isn't fond of it, and to be quite honest the other two wizards we had here were more experienced and they still got killed." "Hmm, well perhaps they lacked the natural skill that I of course possess." At this point you and Tylir just roll your eyes and get moving. You travel through a couple of other villages and it's pretty depressing. You see stacks of bodies being buried in mass graves while most of other Retlad citizens look thoroughly defeated. A few look in your direction, but don't look too much, it's like they don't really expect you to succeed. Not exactly inspiring. Soon you arrive in the town of Glaf. It would appear that the Zalan contingency sent here is staying in one of the bigger Retlad towns rather than the capitol. Ryan also says that the Quillar infestation is worse around here too, so the captain suspects that whatever lair they're crawling out of is nearby and can hopefully located and cleansed. The town itself resembles a small Zalan fort rather than a proper Retlad town, as a sturdy wall has been erected around it. The people seem to look a little more hopeful though. Tylir goes on to say that he thinks that the Retlad citizens are actually starting to prefer Zalan presence especially since their on government has been pretty ineffectual about the whole invasion. The Retlad army has only focused on defending the capitol. The Retlad royals appear to find their lives more important than anyone else's. Eventually you're brought before Captain Vahlat himself. He looks up from the map he's inspecting and addresses you and Wessel. "Ah, I see the Empire has seen fit to send me reinforcements...wow, twice as many as I thought I'd get. Private Tylir where's the rest of your squad?" "Um...dead sir." "Of course. (sigh) So what's your problem private? Why is your leg wrapped up?" Vahlat asks you. "Got into a fight with the Quillars sir." You answer. "Oh?" Tylir at this point interrupts and tells of what happened. Wessel looks like he wants to expand upon his deeds, but Vahlat's appearance is a little imposing and he was already warned once, so he keeps his mouth shut. Vahlat soon addresses you again. "Well it would seem you two have already proven yourselves useful. A lot more useful that what passes for the Retlad army, but of course that isn't hard. Wizard, I certainly hope you don't intend to use this place as a chance to show off all the skills you learned in your fancy Nuro college. One of your predecessors did that as well, and as you can see he's no longer here. As for you, I hope that you can do a better job of keeping out of the way of the quills next time. Most don't get a second chance. Alright that's all for now. Our group is being housed for free at the Inn down the street. Free food as well, but don't go overboard, its being rationed. You want more food or anything else you'll have to pay like everyone else. I suggest though that you don't do any heavy carousing. This is a high alert situation and we could be going to battle at anytime. Dismissed." You, Wessel and Tylir all leave at this point. Tylir goes on to show you where the Inn is and a couple of other places, but after today you just want to rest and retire to your room early. You rest your leg and begin practicing your lute. This puts you in better spirits. 6 months pass... The Quillar invasion has nearly been eradicated. Most of the major lairs have been located and cleansed and you certainly contributed greatly to this effort. Besides your combat abilities, your tracking skills definitely came in handy a lot. You've become somewhat recognized among Retlad citizens due to your actions and the lives you've saved. The word "hero" has been used a few times though you definitely don't think of yourself as one. In your free time you spoke with the citizens, a lot more than your fellow soldiers though. A few of them even convinced you to play for them when they noticed your lute. It took a little prodding, but eventually you gave in fully expecting to get booed, but to your surprise, you got applauded instead. Your playing didn't just boost your spirits it seemed. Whenever you could you played a little bit for people in what little free time you had. Never did you think that you'd be playing for any kind of audience, let alone an appreciative one. It definitely hasn't been all sunshine though; you've seen a lot of people die. More than you ever wanted to actually. You'd made friends with Tylir shortly after your first meeting and he died only a couple months later. You'll be glad when every one of these Quillar creatures are all dead though, all they've done is cause misery. You've got them on the run now though. You're preparing for an attack on another one of their lairs, when Captain Vahlat calls everyone to see him, he doesn't look enthusiastic about whatever it is he has to tell you. "All right I'll be brief. As much as I hate leaving a mission unfinished, we're getting pulled out of here effective immediately. Major news is that Nuro has undergone a fucking disaster that needs to be put down like yesterday! All governments friendly to the City State of Nuro that can spare the manpower are to send help. We would be one of those. I hope the Retlad army is just competent enough to finish up what we started in their own country." Wessel immediately pipes up upon hearing about this revelation. "What happened in Nuro? What's going on?!" "What's going on? From what I've been told a whole bunch of your kind raised a shitload of undead and unleashed a bunch of hostile demons on the place! The entire city was overrun. Reports are already stating that small packs of demons are running around the nearby countryside. Most likely in the direction of the Tulan Kingdom. Not sure what that means with our border war with them, but I only see it getting bloodier around there. In any case, our job is to head to Nuro, before the undead start following suit. I hope you're all ready for this, because this is going to be a lot different that fighting Quillars." You look around and see a lot of fear wash over faces and rightly so. Necromancers have a bad history on your world. When you were little you still remember hearing the tales of the Great Lich Lord that existed centuries before you were even born. He almost took over the world. Those stories gave you nightmares as a kid. The possibility of having to face something remotely similar even on much smaller scale doesn't make you feel too well. > Desert the army You don't want to die and you know if you go, you will. You regret that you won't be able to help your family out financially anymore, but you really don't want to die. You pack up all your stuff in the middle of the night and sneak away from the town your company is stationed in. You figure their orders are urgent enough that your desertion won't immediately cause a full scale hunt, at least not by them. The first order of business is to change your identity as much as you can. And head to a place where you can play for an audience, but the probability of someone ratting you out is low if you're recognized. The question though is where to go. You can't linger in the Retlad Kingdom too long, in fact you'll probably have to move around. You decide your first stop will be at the Garwold Confederacy. It's a relatively peaceful nation made up mostly of Halflings and Gnomes, with lush green fields and flowers. They tend to stay out of wars and they're also known to appreciate the simpler things in life. Eventually you make a place for yourself there in one of the small villages. You make a living playing at the local tavern there. Most of the patrons sense that you have some sort of past that you're trying to hide from. But just like you thought, they don't bring it up or say anything about it and just enjoy your music. A few months pass and you're happy. You even meet a pretty Halfling girl to be with, and now you're even thinking about just settling down here, since nobody's come looking for you; however there are alarming events occurring in the rest of the world. The assault on Nuro was a complete failure. Everyone was killed from your company. It makes you glad you didn't go, but the fact that there is now an undead city state has everyone worried. It doesn't help that there was also an outbreak of demons. One particularly nasty one called Velzix has conquered the Tulan Kingdom. Due to these events a Grand Alliance of nations has been created to stop these threats. The Garwold Confederacy normally stays out of such things, but they have agreed to send a militia as part of the aiding effort. You don't worry too much about it at first, but as a couple more years go on, the war gets worse and more and more Zalan Empire troops are passing through the area. Normally you'd move on, but now you're married and you can't bear to abandon yet another one you love. You still haven't completely forgiven yourself for the first time. You attempt to keep a low profile, but one day a Grand Alliance solider passing through, sees you in a tavern and recognizes you. Apparently he's a citizen of Retlad and remembers you when you were stationed there. "HEY! I know you! Man, it's good to see ya! How did you get out of the army? I thought the Zalan Empire had a twenty year requirement plan! You still play that lute really well?" he bellows for all inside to hear. Unfortunately one of the other Grand Alliance members with him is from the Zalan Empire who's a real stickler for rules and regulations. "I know who you are too! You're wanted for desertion! I'm placing you under arrest!" You try to escape, but you don't get far. You haven't been keeping up on your physical training since you deserted, and coupled with your Halfling wife's rich cooking you're not in great shape anymore. The Zalan soldier on the other hand has been battle hardened in the recent months. He easily catches you and beats you into submission. You're taken back to the Zalan Empire in chains much to the protest of your wife, but its no use, you're going to trial. Your family is made aware of your discovery, but none of them come to try to help you. You abandoned them long ago and didn't even try to contact them; as far as they're concerned you died years ago. You attempt to explain things in letters to them, but you're never answered. Eventually you give up. The trial is brief and the judgment final. You're sentenced to death as an example of all those who would attempt to desert their duty during war. As you sit in your cell counting the days for your hanging, you find out from sad visits from your wife that things are getting really bad. Dead armies conquering kingdoms, demons running amok. You almost wonder if your execution isn't a blessing from the horror that seems to be eclipsing the world. The day comes when the noose is placed around your neck... "Any last words?" You have none; you just hum a little tune and close your eyes before the trapdoor swings open, and your neck snaps.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, fantasy, war] Just because he's acting reckless doesn't mean you're going to, you're going to play upon your strengths and keep as far away as you can. You ride your horse around the outskirts of the village, readying your bow the whole time. When you can, you fire at the Quillar attackers. As quick as they are, they aren't really paying attention to you and you manage to get in some good shots. A couple of head shots even. At first they don't realize where the all the arrows are coming from, since Wessel is giving them a hard enough time with the chain lightning. You're sort of glad you decided to stay on the outskirts. Wessel is having such a "good time" blasting the Quillars, he's probably causing a lot more collateral damage in the process. Eventually the Quillars start to retreat. This is when you get into a little more trouble as you happen to be right in the direction of where they're running! They still look scary and they get even moreso as they get closer. The worst has to be their shrieks. It's unpleasant to hear to say the least. You ride out of the way, but your horse isn't fast enough and is peppered by quills. You catch a few in the leg yourself and you're thrown from the horse as it reels in pain, before collapsing. Feeling the pain you scramble for cover behind a nearby rock. Fortunately the quills don't penetrate that. Most of them are content on just running away, but one straggler decides to try to get one more kill before leaving. That kill of course happens to be you. The Quillar makes its high pitch shriek as it runs towards the rock. You don't have time to ready your bow before its high jumped over the rock and on the other side of you. You quickly draw your weapon and swing it blindly as you turn around. Luckily your blade catches the side of its head, killing it. At last you collapse from the pain in your leg. While you're pulling out quills, Wessel and another Zalan soldier come to meet you. Wessel doesn't look any worse for wear, but the soldier looks very tired and obviously has wounds of his own. "There you are, lying down on the job I see." Wessel mocks. "Are you alright?" the other soldier asks. "Yeah...Agh. I've gotten bitten in the leg by a Kobold before. Feels nearly the same except these quills go in a lot deeper." "Glad you guys came when you did. We were just doing a routine patrol when these quill bastards came out of nowhere! They're getting bolder and attacking in greater number, we need more reinforcements." "Yeah, well good luck with that. The Tulan border is the primary concern. Besides I'm here now, I predict that this infestation will be over soon now." Wessel boasts. "Any...way. My name's Tylir. I'd introduce you to the rest of my squad, but they're all dead now. Even though it was the heat of battle, I couldn't help notice how well you picked off several of those Quillars with one shot. That was pretty impressive." "Thanks." "Hey! What about me? I'm the one who noticed you getting attacked in the first place! I'm also the one who saved your ass!" Wessel interrupts again, he's starting to get annoying at this point, but Tylir doesn't seem bothered by him. "Everyone did their part. Okay, since I'm here I'll take you to see Captain Vhalat, I'm sure that's who you were sent to report to, oh and wizard while your skills may be appreciated here, I'd advise you to cut down on the boasting. Captain Vhalat isn't fond of it, and to be quite honest the other two wizards we had here were more experienced and they still got killed." "Hmm, well perhaps they lacked the natural skill that I of course possess." At this point you and Tylir just roll your eyes and get moving. You travel through a couple of other villages and it's pretty depressing. You see stacks of bodies being buried in mass graves while most of other Retlad citizens look thoroughly defeated. A few look in your direction, but don't look too much, it's like they don't really expect you to succeed. Not exactly inspiring. Soon you arrive in the town of Glaf. It would appear that the Zalan contingency sent here is staying in one of the bigger Retlad towns rather than the capitol. Ryan also says that the Quillar infestation is worse around here too, so the captain suspects that whatever lair they're crawling out of is nearby and can hopefully located and cleansed. The town itself resembles a small Zalan fort rather than a proper Retlad town, as a sturdy wall has been erected around it. The people seem to look a little more hopeful though. Tylir goes on to say that he thinks that the Retlad citizens are actually starting to prefer Zalan presence especially since their on government has been pretty ineffectual about the whole invasion. The Retlad army has only focused on defending the capitol. The Retlad royals appear to find their lives more important than anyone else's. Eventually you're brought before Captain Vahlat himself. He looks up from the map he's inspecting and addresses you and Wessel. "Ah, I see the Empire has seen fit to send me reinforcements...wow, twice as many as I thought I'd get. Private Tylir where's the rest of your squad?" "Um...dead sir." "Of course. (sigh) So what's your problem private? Why is your leg wrapped up?" Vahlat asks you. "Got into a fight with the Quillars sir." You answer. "Oh?" Tylir at this point interrupts and tells of what happened. Wessel looks like he wants to expand upon his deeds, but Vahlat's appearance is a little imposing and he was already warned once, so he keeps his mouth shut. Vahlat soon addresses you again. "Well it would seem you two have already proven yourselves useful. A lot more useful that what passes for the Retlad army, but of course that isn't hard. Wizard, I certainly hope you don't intend to use this place as a chance to show off all the skills you learned in your fancy Nuro college. One of your predecessors did that as well, and as you can see he's no longer here. As for you, I hope that you can do a better job of keeping out of the way of the quills next time. Most don't get a second chance. Alright that's all for now. Our group is being housed for free at the Inn down the street. Free food as well, but don't go overboard, its being rationed. You want more food or anything else you'll have to pay like everyone else. I suggest though that you don't do any heavy carousing. This is a high alert situation and we could be going to battle at anytime. Dismissed." You, Wessel and Tylir all leave at this point. Tylir goes on to show you where the Inn is and a couple of other places, but after today you just want to rest and retire to your room early. You rest your leg and begin practicing your lute. This puts you in better spirits. 6 months pass... The Quillar invasion has nearly been eradicated. Most of the major lairs have been located and cleansed and you certainly contributed greatly to this effort. Besides your combat abilities, your tracking skills definitely came in handy a lot. You've become somewhat recognized among Retlad citizens due to your actions and the lives you've saved. The word "hero" has been used a few times though you definitely don't think of yourself as one. In your free time you spoke with the citizens, a lot more than your fellow soldiers though. A few of them even convinced you to play for them when they noticed your lute. It took a little prodding, but eventually you gave in fully expecting to get booed, but to your surprise, you got applauded instead. Your playing didn't just boost your spirits it seemed. Whenever you could you played a little bit for people in what little free time you had. Never did you think that you'd be playing for any kind of audience, let alone an appreciative one. It definitely hasn't been all sunshine though; you've seen a lot of people die. More than you ever wanted to actually. You'd made friends with Tylir shortly after your first meeting and he died only a couple months later. You'll be glad when every one of these Quillar creatures are all dead though, all they've done is cause misery. You've got them on the run now though. You're preparing for an attack on another one of their lairs, when Captain Vahlat calls everyone to see him, he doesn't look enthusiastic about whatever it is he has to tell you. "All right I'll be brief. As much as I hate leaving a mission unfinished, we're getting pulled out of here effective immediately. Major news is that Nuro has undergone a fucking disaster that needs to be put down like yesterday! All governments friendly to the City State of Nuro that can spare the manpower are to send help. We would be one of those. I hope the Retlad army is just competent enough to finish up what we started in their own country." Wessel immediately pipes up upon hearing about this revelation. "What happened in Nuro? What's going on?!" "What's going on? From what I've been told a whole bunch of your kind raised a shitload of undead and unleashed a bunch of hostile demons on the place! The entire city was overrun. Reports are already stating that small packs of demons are running around the nearby countryside. Most likely in the direction of the Tulan Kingdom. Not sure what that means with our border war with them, but I only see it getting bloodier around there. In any case, our job is to head to Nuro, before the undead start following suit. I hope you're all ready for this, because this is going to be a lot different that fighting Quillars." You look around and see a lot of fear wash over faces and rightly so. Necromancers have a bad history on your world. When you were little you still remember hearing the tales of the Great Lich Lord that existed centuries before you were even born. He almost took over the world. Those stories gave you nightmares as a kid. The possibility of having to face something remotely similar even on much smaller scale doesn't make you feel too well. > You stay in the army Despite your fears, you've always had a sense of duty and responsibility, something that probably won't ever completely go away due to how you grew up. You're not running away, you did join to help provide for your family after all. Before your company packs up and leaves Retlad, you write a quick letter to your family and hand it off to a messenger. Many of the Retlad citizens aren't too pleased to see you leave, but they don't really have any say in the matter, just like you don't. There isn't much talking on the trip, though, everyone is pretty silent. Wessel however is doing enough for everyone. "I can't believe something like this happened! Nuro was a beacon of enlightenment and well prepared for situations like this! I...can't believe this didn't occur without some sort of demonic influence. I'll bet that Mr. Demar had something to do with this! I remember taking his class and he was always a creepy bastard. Before I could graduate I had to take his conjuration 101 class and he didn't like me because I had made several logical arguments to as why that branch of magic should be outlawed altogether. And it's obvious by what happened recently that I was right! Nevertheless I did all the required work in the class and I still got a B! Way to fuck up my perfect record! I get the same grade as some bumbling idiot who summoned up a Nurk Beast that he lost control over and bit off someone's hand! Where is the fucking justice?" Once again, Wessel has turned the topic to focus on himself. Happily Captain Vahlat tells him to shut the fuck up. You'll be near Nuro soon and your company makes camp for the night. While all of you are on edge from what will come tomorrow, someone finally says something. "Hey farmboy, play us a song on that thing." "...what did you want to hear?" you ask, not expecting to be called to play under these circumstances. In fact it just occurred to you that you've never played for anyone in your company! You assume that they all knew that you did, but they just were never interested enough to stick around and listen to you before. "I dunno, play whatever it was you used to play for the Retlad citizens...it seemed to make them happy." You pull out your lute and take a deep breath and start playing. At first you're just concentrating on the strings and making sure you don't mess anything up, but when you look up, you can see that everyone in the camp is listening intently to your music, even Wessel. Tensions seem to have decreased. It's like a wave of calmness has struck the camp. You never believed your playing could have that much of an effect on people. Eventually the song ends and the Captain tells everyone who isn't on watch to get some sleep. He then takes you aside. "Heard your playing...damn shame that you're here. You really should be doing that instead." Valhlat remarks. "I know." "Hm. I know you joined mainly to help support your family." "Yeah, I just hope I get to see them again." "Bah, don't start talking like that. I've seen you with a bow, you pluck that thing even better than that lute. You've been in battle before and survived, I see you doing it again." "I sure hope so, its just I dunno...the undead...I've heard stories." "Yeah, everyone's heard the stories, but stories tend to be exaggerated. Now I dunno about what happened centuries ago, since I wasn't there, but I HAVE fought the undead before. One of my first assignments was taking care of some minor undead incursion in a little village. Some asshole stumbled upon an ancient scroll and started reading the goddamn words on it out loud. They look a lot worse than they actually are. Most of the time they're incredibly slow, and easily dispatched. Its mainly a psychological advantage from all the stories people have told about them that cause this quaking fear in most folks." "Well I suppose, but what about the necromancers?" "Feh, they're wizards and just like all the rest their arrogance is their undoing. Most of these so-called necromancers are half-assed ones that get killed by their own undead troops. Anyway, get to sleep; you want to be fully alert for tomorrow's battle. It still won't be a walk in the park, but it's not going to be a death sentence." You take the Captain's words into consideration, but in the back of your mind before you go to sleep, you're thinking "But they can't be that half-assed, they successfully took over Nuro..." The next day arrives and you finish your trip to Nuro and that's when you see the city for the first time. You always wanted to visit it after hearing about it from Wessel, but even from this distance it doesn't look like anything he described. "By the gods...what..." Wessel slowly whispers. The stench of death is thick in the air. You see thousands of bodies outside the city gates and they aren't lying down either. They aren't advancing either though. There just standing there like...well zombies. Your company isn't the only one here though, there are a few others awaiting orders. You see one from the Brot Kingdom and another from the Azi Republic. Thankfully there's another Zalan one as well to boost your numbers. The respective captains acknowledge each other's presence, a short meeting is made and then the inevitable comes. The attack. At first things seem to go well. All ranged troops are ordered to fire upon the enemy who are still just standing there. Arrows pierce zombie brains, gunshots destroy skeleton bones, spells blast at walls and it seems very easy. Then from the battlements of Nuro a few figures begin casting a few offensive spells of their own. It's at this point a charge is made towards the city. "When you get in range aim for the fucking wizards! Don't fear these rotting meat sacks! We're the fucking Zalan army! We don't lose!" Captain Valhlat shouts. Fine words, but they do little to uplift your impending sense of doom. It doesn't help that the sky goes completely dark while you're marching towards a bunch of undead and at the same time hoping you don't get hit by a wizard's spell. In the distance you briefly see a cleric from the Azi Republic riding a horse by himself. He appears to be calling upon some sort of holy might from whatever god he worships since a blue protective sphere appears around him. The next moment he's hit by a black ray that goes straight through the sphere and his life is gone. Not even his god could protect him. As you get closer, you see that the undead soldiers still haven't moved, but there are significantly less of them as they continue to fall from ranged attacks. However, now other undead pop up on the walls of Nuro holding bows of their own. "SHIELDS!" Captain Valhlat shouts. More of your side falls and now you're so close you can smell the death in the air. The undead troops are now finally moving to do battle with your side. You attempt to target the robed figures on the battlements, but of course it's very difficult in all this chaos and your fear. You mostly only get the undead archers. Wessel is a little more successful is downing an enemy wizard. "Ha ha! Don't you realize I graduated top of my class?!" you hear him shout. The gates of Nuro are being broken down and despite the horror you've already seen, this battle still seems hopeful. Then a black cloaked hooded figure sudden appears on the battlements. You see him merely raise his arms briefly and that's when you get the very real feeling that hope is lost. Ghostly spirits come through the walls of Nuro making worse shrieks than when you fought the Quillars. At least they were living creatures. These drain lives at but a touch and there isn't enough magic to fight the incorporeal creatures properly. You see the Brot Kingdom's company break and run, but unfortunately for them and you, your possible retreat has been blocked. All the soldiers on your side that fell have now suddenly been raised, the undead soldiers that were killed have been raised as well. You're fighting in the front, from behind and in some cases from within. It's chaos. "Shit, I'm going to die today..." you whisper to yourself. Captain Valhlat is knee deep in the dead, but this figure who's apparently changed the tide of battle hasn't escaped his attention. He points to the figure and barks orders at the top of his lungs. > You attempt to shoot the figure You're scared shitless, but somehow you manage to maintain your composure and aim for the hooded figure on top of the battlements. You let an arrow fly and your aim is straight and true, but unfortunately it's blocked by some sort of magical shield. Even Wessel's spell dissipates before it. Now you see that all hope is lost and you attempt to escape, but the precious few seconds you spent aiming your bow on a fruitless killing attempt has resulted in you being surrounded and overwhelmed. You feel the rusty steel of a sword plunge into your side, followed by extreme pain. You turn to strike down the grinning skeleton warrior who's just limited your life span. You strike a couple more corpses before you're brought down by an axe to the skull, splitting your head open and causing your brains to leak out uselessly into the now blood soaked battlefield. You fall and die, only to rise again as just another zombie drone for the growing undead army.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, serious] Despite your fears, you've always had a sense of duty and responsibility, something that probably won't ever completely go away due to how you grew up. You're not running away, you did join to help provide for your family after all. Before your company packs up and leaves Retlad, you write a quick letter to your family and hand it off to a messenger. Many of the Retlad citizens aren't too pleased to see you leave, but they don't really have any say in the matter, just like you don't. There isn't much talking on the trip, though, everyone is pretty silent. Wessel however is doing enough for everyone. "I can't believe something like this happened! Nuro was a beacon of enlightenment and well prepared for situations like this! I...can't believe this didn't occur without some sort of demonic influence. I'll bet that Mr. Demar had something to do with this! I remember taking his class and he was always a creepy bastard. Before I could graduate I had to take his conjuration 101 class and he didn't like me because I had made several logical arguments to as why that branch of magic should be outlawed altogether. And it's obvious by what happened recently that I was right! Nevertheless I did all the required work in the class and I still got a B! Way to fuck up my perfect record! I get the same grade as some bumbling idiot who summoned up a Nurk Beast that he lost control over and bit off someone's hand! Where is the fucking justice?" Once again, Wessel has turned the topic to focus on himself. Happily Captain Vahlat tells him to shut the fuck up. You'll be near Nuro soon and your company makes camp for the night. While all of you are on edge from what will come tomorrow, someone finally says something. "Hey farmboy, play us a song on that thing." "...what did you want to hear?" you ask, not expecting to be called to play under these circumstances. In fact it just occurred to you that you've never played for anyone in your company! You assume that they all knew that you did, but they just were never interested enough to stick around and listen to you before. "I dunno, play whatever it was you used to play for the Retlad citizens...it seemed to make them happy." You pull out your lute and take a deep breath and start playing. At first you're just concentrating on the strings and making sure you don't mess anything up, but when you look up, you can see that everyone in the camp is listening intently to your music, even Wessel. Tensions seem to have decreased. It's like a wave of calmness has struck the camp. You never believed your playing could have that much of an effect on people. Eventually the song ends and the Captain tells everyone who isn't on watch to get some sleep. He then takes you aside. "Heard your playing...damn shame that you're here. You really should be doing that instead." Valhlat remarks. "I know." "Hm. I know you joined mainly to help support your family." "Yeah, I just hope I get to see them again." "Bah, don't start talking like that. I've seen you with a bow, you pluck that thing even better than that lute. You've been in battle before and survived, I see you doing it again." "I sure hope so, its just I dunno...the undead...I've heard stories." "Yeah, everyone's heard the stories, but stories tend to be exaggerated. Now I dunno about what happened centuries ago, since I wasn't there, but I HAVE fought the undead before. One of my first assignments was taking care of some minor undead incursion in a little village. Some asshole stumbled upon an ancient scroll and started reading the goddamn words on it out loud. They look a lot worse than they actually are. Most of the time they're incredibly slow, and easily dispatched. Its mainly a psychological advantage from all the stories people have told about them that cause this quaking fear in most folks." "Well I suppose, but what about the necromancers?" "Feh, they're wizards and just like all the rest their arrogance is their undoing. Most of these so-called necromancers are half-assed ones that get killed by their own undead troops. Anyway, get to sleep; you want to be fully alert for tomorrow's battle. It still won't be a walk in the park, but it's not going to be a death sentence." You take the Captain's words into consideration, but in the back of your mind before you go to sleep, you're thinking "But they can't be that half-assed, they successfully took over Nuro..." The next day arrives and you finish your trip to Nuro and that's when you see the city for the first time. You always wanted to visit it after hearing about it from Wessel, but even from this distance it doesn't look like anything he described. "By the gods...what..." Wessel slowly whispers. The stench of death is thick in the air. You see thousands of bodies outside the city gates and they aren't lying down either. They aren't advancing either though. There just standing there like...well zombies. Your company isn't the only one here though, there are a few others awaiting orders. You see one from the Brot Kingdom and another from the Azi Republic. Thankfully there's another Zalan one as well to boost your numbers. The respective captains acknowledge each other's presence, a short meeting is made and then the inevitable comes. The attack. At first things seem to go well. All ranged troops are ordered to fire upon the enemy who are still just standing there. Arrows pierce zombie brains, gunshots destroy skeleton bones, spells blast at walls and it seems very easy. Then from the battlements of Nuro a few figures begin casting a few offensive spells of their own. It's at this point a charge is made towards the city. "When you get in range aim for the fucking wizards! Don't fear these rotting meat sacks! We're the fucking Zalan army! We don't lose!" Captain Valhlat shouts. Fine words, but they do little to uplift your impending sense of doom. It doesn't help that the sky goes completely dark while you're marching towards a bunch of undead and at the same time hoping you don't get hit by a wizard's spell. In the distance you briefly see a cleric from the Azi Republic riding a horse by himself. He appears to be calling upon some sort of holy might from whatever god he worships since a blue protective sphere appears around him. The next moment he's hit by a black ray that goes straight through the sphere and his life is gone. Not even his god could protect him. As you get closer, you see that the undead soldiers still haven't moved, but there are significantly less of them as they continue to fall from ranged attacks. However, now other undead pop up on the walls of Nuro holding bows of their own. "SHIELDS!" Captain Valhlat shouts. More of your side falls and now you're so close you can smell the death in the air. The undead troops are now finally moving to do battle with your side. You attempt to target the robed figures on the battlements, but of course it's very difficult in all this chaos and your fear. You mostly only get the undead archers. Wessel is a little more successful is downing an enemy wizard. "Ha ha! Don't you realize I graduated top of my class?!" you hear him shout. The gates of Nuro are being broken down and despite the horror you've already seen, this battle still seems hopeful. Then a black cloaked hooded figure sudden appears on the battlements. You see him merely raise his arms briefly and that's when you get the very real feeling that hope is lost. Ghostly spirits come through the walls of Nuro making worse shrieks than when you fought the Quillars. At least they were living creatures. These drain lives at but a touch and there isn't enough magic to fight the incorporeal creatures properly. You see the Brot Kingdom's company break and run, but unfortunately for them and you, your possible retreat has been blocked. All the soldiers on your side that fell have now suddenly been raised, the undead soldiers that were killed have been raised as well. You're fighting in the front, from behind and in some cases from within. It's chaos. "Shit, I'm going to die today..." you whisper to yourself. Captain Valhlat is knee deep in the dead, but this figure who's apparently changed the tide of battle hasn't escaped his attention. He points to the figure and barks orders at the top of his lungs. > You run away There's undead all around you, fear coursing through your body and all you can think of is escape. You see a few others following orders, but their shots do nothing. Apparently the Necromancer has protected himself behind a more powerful magic shield than the cleric you saw die had. Even Wessel's spell dissipates before it. You ignore your orders, you ignore your fellow soldiers, you ignore the attack on Nuro, and you run and you're not a bit ashamed to put your survival first. The chaos of the fighting is bewildering and you don't really pay attention to what direction you're heading, you're just making a beeline to any destination not completely filled with zombies, ghosts, and skeletons. You look back, only to see more death. The hooded figure on top of the battlements calls down some sort of death cloud that begins to envelop the area you were previously in. The screams of the distant victims are horrible. You feel like you're living a nightmare as you constantly bump into corpses, both moving and unmoving. Defensive chops with your sword do nothing to kill the unnatural creatures and only temporarily push them out of your way. It is only by sheer luck that you get away without getting killed. You run further, leaving the carnage behind. You look back again to see if anything is in pursuit, but nothing is to your relief. Still, you're not comfortable and you continue to distance yourself until you can run no further and you must stop to rest. It is at this point, you wonder what you're going to do. You wonder if going back to report to the nearest Zalan commander would be wise. Will they punish you for running away? The situation was hopeless, surely they couldn't...could they? And even if they don't, then what? Send you back in? That's definitely not appealing given what you've seen. At this point you're really regretting your decision to join the army. You wish you could just leave. You want to go home. Going AWOL back in Retlad wasn't really an option; you would've been hunted down. But now? You probably would be listed as a casualty. You could theoretically disappear and attempt to live anonymously and do what you wanted to do in the first place. Just travel and play. Your family would even be compensated for your death, but still...you'd hate to put them through the grief of it, if it isn't true. Before you ponder your future options any further, you suddenly feel a pain in your side...you look down and see that you're bleeding. Apparently you were stabbed and didn't even realize it due to the adrenaline. You're feeling the pain now though and you attempt to stop the bleeding as much as you can. Regardless of what you're going to do in the future, right now you have to find civilization to at least get fixed up. The problem is that you don't know where the hell you are. You look around for some possible landmarks, but you're not seeing anything familiar. Lacking any other ideas, you start walking in the general direction of where you think the Zalan Empire is located. You walk for a few hours and the pain is getting worse. You start thinking that you might not get the chance to worry anymore about your potential future, but a farm house in the distance gives you a little hope and you press on. You get close to the front porch and that's when you stop. The front door is broken off its hinges and a few windows are also broken. You also notice a leg lying in the grass near you. Worse, whatever did this is apparently still around judging by the loud voices you're hearing from inside. "Ha ha! Human women are such squealers! Not as much fun as elven women though!" "Oh that's real original. Why is everyone always got such a fucking hard on for elven women? Too damn fragile if you ask me." "Go fucking rape a troll girl then." "Huh. Easier said than done my unimaginative friend. I tried that once and almost got married." "HAHAHAHA! See I told you this would be more fun than following Velzix...hey you smell that?" "Yes, I did sense the smell of fresh human blood in the air. Do you suppose we missed one?" "Only one way to find out!" At this point you start to back away as quickly as you can. You can't even run due to the pain, but you try your best. Your best isn't good enough though, as the dwellers of the farmhouse have exited and seen you. And as with everything that's been fucked up today, the ones that just exited the farmhouse happen to be demons. One is a bigger brutish looking sort, while the other is smaller yet definitely still more muscular than you. "Well what do we have here? Wounded meat? I say he gets to that rock before you can catch him and pull out his heart." "Hah! I'll take that bet!" The bigger one starts to walk towards you, but will undoubtedly quicken his pace soon. > You try to outrun the demon Fear griping your heart, you struggle and push yourself to run as fast as you can in your condition. Soon something else is gripping your heart. You look down at your chest and see your bloody still beating heart outside of where it is normally supposed to be. The demon fist holding it squeezes your heart a bit first before crushing it completely before your eyes. You die soon afterwards. "Hah! I told you I could reach him before he got to the rock!" the demon laughs as he lets his arm slide out of your dead slumping body.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, serious] There's undead all around you, fear coursing through your body and all you can think of is escape. You see a few others following orders, but their shots do nothing. Apparently the Necromancer has protected himself behind a more powerful magic shield than the cleric you saw die had. Even Wessel's spell dissipates before it. You ignore your orders, you ignore your fellow soldiers, you ignore the attack on Nuro, and you run and you're not a bit ashamed to put your survival first. The chaos of the fighting is bewildering and you don't really pay attention to what direction you're heading, you're just making a beeline to any destination not completely filled with zombies, ghosts, and skeletons. You look back, only to see more death. The hooded figure on top of the battlements calls down some sort of death cloud that begins to envelop the area you were previously in. The screams of the distant victims are horrible. You feel like you're living a nightmare as you constantly bump into corpses, both moving and unmoving. Defensive chops with your sword do nothing to kill the unnatural creatures and only temporarily push them out of your way. It is only by sheer luck that you get away without getting killed. You run further, leaving the carnage behind. You look back again to see if anything is in pursuit, but nothing is to your relief. Still, you're not comfortable and you continue to distance yourself until you can run no further and you must stop to rest. It is at this point, you wonder what you're going to do. You wonder if going back to report to the nearest Zalan commander would be wise. Will they punish you for running away? The situation was hopeless, surely they couldn't...could they? And even if they don't, then what? Send you back in? That's definitely not appealing given what you've seen. At this point you're really regretting your decision to join the army. You wish you could just leave. You want to go home. Going AWOL back in Retlad wasn't really an option; you would've been hunted down. But now? You probably would be listed as a casualty. You could theoretically disappear and attempt to live anonymously and do what you wanted to do in the first place. Just travel and play. Your family would even be compensated for your death, but still...you'd hate to put them through the grief of it, if it isn't true. Before you ponder your future options any further, you suddenly feel a pain in your side...you look down and see that you're bleeding. Apparently you were stabbed and didn't even realize it due to the adrenaline. You're feeling the pain now though and you attempt to stop the bleeding as much as you can. Regardless of what you're going to do in the future, right now you have to find civilization to at least get fixed up. The problem is that you don't know where the hell you are. You look around for some possible landmarks, but you're not seeing anything familiar. Lacking any other ideas, you start walking in the general direction of where you think the Zalan Empire is located. You walk for a few hours and the pain is getting worse. You start thinking that you might not get the chance to worry anymore about your potential future, but a farm house in the distance gives you a little hope and you press on. You get close to the front porch and that's when you stop. The front door is broken off its hinges and a few windows are also broken. You also notice a leg lying in the grass near you. Worse, whatever did this is apparently still around judging by the loud voices you're hearing from inside. "Ha ha! Human women are such squealers! Not as much fun as elven women though!" "Oh that's real original. Why is everyone always got such a fucking hard on for elven women? Too damn fragile if you ask me." "Go fucking rape a troll girl then." "Huh. Easier said than done my unimaginative friend. I tried that once and almost got married." "HAHAHAHA! See I told you this would be more fun than following Velzix...hey you smell that?" "Yes, I did sense the smell of fresh human blood in the air. Do you suppose we missed one?" "Only one way to find out!" At this point you start to back away as quickly as you can. You can't even run due to the pain, but you try your best. Your best isn't good enough though, as the dwellers of the farmhouse have exited and seen you. And as with everything that's been fucked up today, the ones that just exited the farmhouse happen to be demons. One is a bigger brutish looking sort, while the other is smaller yet definitely still more muscular than you. "Well what do we have here? Wounded meat? I say he gets to that rock before you can catch him and pull out his heart." "Hah! I'll take that bet!" The bigger one starts to walk towards you, but will undoubtedly quicken his pace soon. > You stand and fight Demons are a lot faster than the undead and you're wounded, no way are you going to be able to outrun them. You turn around and draw your bow, trying to ignore your pain which is overriding any fear you have at this point. Your weakened state is causing you to have a hard time aiming. "Uh oh, better be careful, looks like this one is going to put up a fight. I'd say by his uniform that he's a soldier." "Hur hur. Good. Hey human, better stop wobbling if you're going to aim that thing properly." You miss the demon completely. "Hah! You want me to walk slower human?" "You sure you should be playing with him like that? Don't you remember what happened earlier today?" "Shut up! I told ya, that bitch musta had some magical powers because...OW!" You hit the demon in the chest, but it doesn't seem much damage. He pulls out the arrow and now begins to quicken his pace. The other demon starts to walk towards you as well. "See, I told you to pay attention." "Bah! If this is the extent of what his little pig sticker can do, I'm not concerned. Hey human, don't you know they're doing great things with gunpower these days? RAAAAGH!" The big demon suddenly charges you, and you let your arrow fly. Right in the eye. "Perfect." You whisper. The demon bellows, but it doesn't slow him down. You narrowly dodge his charge. You roll on the ground and shoot two more arrows in his back. He turns around snarling and bellowing for your blood. More arrows fly into the creature, but at last the demon has reached you and smacks you to the ground. Your bow flies from your hand, and while crawling on the ground you try to draw your sword, but a crushing blow hits you on the back. This might've caused a lot more damage, but miraculously the lute that's still in your pack "softens" the blow. The crunching of wood signifies that it's broken though. "What the fuck, that's a weird noise...what is this? HA HA HA! Hey! You gotta be shittin' me! A fuckin' lute? Check this out! He's carrying a fuckin' lute! What's a fucking soldier doin' with a lute?" the big demon shouts to his acquaintance while he holds up your broken instrument. "Don't talk you idiot! LOOK OUT!" his acquaintance shouts, just as you recover long enough to shove your sword straight into the demon's groin. You push the sword upward in an attempt to do more damage and you succeed. Blood is flying everywhere and the demon howls in pain from the grievous wound. You pull your sword out and then proceed to repeatedly stab the demon until it falls backwards on the ground, dead. You're exhausted; you used all your remaining strength killing the thing. Unfortunately the other demon grabs you by the scruff like a helpless kitten and lifts you up off the ground a few inches. He knocks your sword out of your hand and looks at his fallen comrade. "Hmm, can't say I didn't warn him. Oh well, more meat for me. This may hurt a lot..." Fully expecting the death that you've managed to avoid for so long, you once again evade it when a gunshot rings out and part of the demon's head splatters in your face. You're dropped immediately. The demon's body is still standing though. "Shoot the bastard again!" you hear a gruff voice shout and this time the next shot hits chest and the demon falls. You lay motionless on the ground, looking up in the sky when your saviors come up to you. It's a group of dwarves armed with gun powder weapons. "By the gods, get doc out here! We need to fix this man up! Hey lad, you'll be alright, don't worry...are you a Zalan soldier?" one of the dwarves asks you. "...yeah...Nuro...lost...all dead..." is all you utter before fall into unconsciousness. A few days pass before you're somewhat back to a coherent state. You find yourself in a military outpost and at this point you don't care. You're just happy to be alive. It would seem that during your escape from Nuro, you ran in the direction of the Tulan Kingdom, the dwarven scouts that found you were from a small neutral kingdom trying its best to stay out of the dispute between Tulan and Zalan, but the new threat of demons running all over the nearby countryside caused them to increase patrols. They fixed you up, but dropped you off at the closest Zalan Fort. The Zalan fort that you're in right now is called Virtue and it's on the Tulan border. It seems relatively calm though. Not at all what you thought it would be. When one of the healers comes in to check on you, you begin to ask questions which she tries to answer to get you up to speed. The Tulan Kingdom is currently under attack from the demons now. They've been assaulting the place and even gaining help from some of the evil populace there. The demon citizens there have reverted back to their "bad behavior" and thrown their lot in with the invaders as well. That doesn't surprise you. The Tulan Kingdom pulled back some of their military from the borders so the fighting hasn't been as bad and Zalan's made a little more progress during this time, but the military minds are being cautious not to over extend. There is extreme concern over the recent demon invasion, not to mention the incident at Nuro. Word has already spread about the unsuccessful siege there. The healer also tells you that a few Zalan "high ups" are eager to speak to you soon, as they want to know what exactly happened at Nuro. You're somewhat of an important survivor since as far as anyone knows; you were the only one to successfully escape that killing zone. There's also talk of a "Grand Alliance" being created to counter these new threats. While the healer talks you end up drifting back to sleep wishing you could just escape it all. One year passes... You're still at Fort Virtue and it doesn't look like you'll be leaving the army anytime soon. You couldn't have been more wrong on your belief that you'd get executed for cowardice. You got promoted to sergeant instead, which in light of the current situation, is nearly the same thing. Your promotion came after several Zalan officers spoke to you about Nuro. You even got a medal. Stories and rumors creep around about how against all odds you survived an undead onslaught and fought off a bunch of demons as well. Your past "reputation" from your time in Retlad is exaggerated as well. It doesn't help that the citizens there remember you and are all willing to add to the exaggeration. All of these stories have been woven together in such an elaborate way to make you seem like some kind of hero most likely for propaganda purposes. And you know you're not hero. In fact you try to explain you aren't a hero to people, but they think you're just being modest, eventually you give up. Your assignment at Virtue hasn't been uneventful. There's fighting, but now it's mainly demon commanded enemies rather than Tulan ones. Some demon lord called Velzix killed the royalty there, completely conquered the area and made it his realm. The border war continues under new management except now it's more than just a border that the enemy is looking to take. Your superior, Captain Eckard reminds you of Valhlat except with a different name. You suppose there is a certain "cookie cutter" that occurs within the Zalan army that causes people to act the same. You've briefly wondered if you ever make that rank, you'll act the same way. You then usually laugh at the very fact that you ever would. Fort Virtue hasn't suffered a really bad attack yet, and it's mostly skirmishes, but it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop. You routinely go on patrols and give orders which you didn't think you'd be good at, but you think back to how you used to order your brothers and sisters around and perhaps you always had a bit a leadership skill, you just didn't want it. You thought that you'd be able to at least visit your family, but of course due to recent events, you're ordered to stay put. Your family at least is getting more money from your pay increase. They even send a new lute for you after you told them of the unfortunate event that resulted in the destruction of your last one. This gives you a little pleasure in a relatively joyless assignment. All in all, you still prefer it compared to being in the unsuccessful assaults on Nuro. The Grand Alliance that was formed hasn't been too successful as every one has been a slaughter from what you've heard. You already went through that once. You don't relish the idea of going through it again. One day while you're spending your free time practicing a new song, some new soldiers come into the fort. They look like they've just seen a vicious battle and are here to restock. One of them sees you and gives you a disapproving look. It's a woman with striking good looks, but definitely carrying an air of leadership about her. Her rank signifies her as a captain...yep same cookie cutter, just a little prettier. "You there! What are you doing playing an instrument? Shouldn't you be on watch or doing something more constructive with your time soldier? And you're a sergeant? You should know better!" "I'm not on watch duty right now and..." The woman doesn't even let you finish your explanation. Other soldiers that were sitting in your area are now slowly creeping out of the fray. Even her own soldiers are creeping away. They probably know all too well of how she acts. "So? You think evil is going to wait around for you to be ready for battle? Where is your superior officer? I can't believe they would allow such a relaxed attitude around here considering the importance of this fort! If you were serving under me, I'd have you flogged for your lack of discipline!" > You point her in the direction of your captain Shrugging your shoulders you point her in the direction of Captain Eckard to which she immediately marches off to. You don't think anything will come of it though. You do your job and Eckard's always been alright with you for the most part. At most you'll get him yelling at you for getting into a conflict with a superior officer. Your thoughts are wrong however. When the female captain confronts Eckard, she and he end up getting into a greater argument. Apparently they've been minor rivals in the past and this "lack of discipline" displayed by you just fuels her arguments that he isn't a fit for commanding a fort. She eventually leaves in a huff with her men, but still arguing with Eckard and saying that she'll see that he's relieved of his command and replaced with someone more competent. Captain Eckard is also now pissed at you for bringing this on him, he takes your lute away, breaks it and tells you that you won't be playing anymore and if he catches you doing it again he'll have you whipped. A few months pass as normal, but then the other boot finally drops. Whatever connections the female Captain had she's used them, and Captain Eckard is demoted and transferred out of the fort along with some of the others who seemed to be "disciplinary problems". Guess who's name showed up on that list? You're all transferred to areas where the fighting is a lot worse. You are sent to the Nuro front much to your dismay. Once again you're fighting hordes of undead on a mass scale. Never having fully gotten over your first conflict at Nuro, your nerves and well being in general is always on the verge of breaking with each skirmish and battle. You don't even have your music to keep you in a calm state of mind anymore either. It's actually amazing you survive. You soon hear about how the Grand Alliance outsted a necromancer called Trelik from the Brot Kingdom. That makes you feel somewhat better, but that hopefulness is soon brought low when you hear about the successful attack on Brot that happens soon afterwards. A Necromancer from Nuro reportedly conquered the entire Kingdom with undead giants. Your morale is further lowered when you hear that your company is being sent to help the Grand Alliance take it back again. When you actually see the dead monstrosities, your fragile will shatters completely. When the battle commences, you're just about useless in battle. Your dumb luck also runs out and you're unable to fight or even retreat your way out of this one. The undead giants might be big, but they're also faster than what they appear to be. One of them charges into your company line which at this point is trying to get out of the way and swings his club striking several. You being among them. You eventually land several feet away from the main part of the fighting, broken and bloody. You're unable to move and just quietly moan in pain until you bleed out and die from your extensive wounds. You're not even useful for the Necromancer to raise for his ever growing army.

Demons are a lot faster than the undead and you're wounded, no way are you going to be able to outrun them. You turn around and draw your bow, trying to ignore your pain which is overriding any fear you have at this point. Your weakened state is causing you to have a hard time aiming. "Uh oh, better be careful, looks like this one is going to put up a fight. I'd say by his uniform that he's a soldier." "Hur hur. Good. Hey human, better stop wobbling if you're going to aim that thing properly." You miss the demon completely. "Hah! You want me to walk slower human?" "You sure you should be playing with him like that? Don't you remember what happened earlier today?" "Shut up! I told ya, that bitch musta had some magical powers because...OW!" You hit the demon in the chest, but it doesn't seem much damage. He pulls out the arrow and now begins to quicken his pace. The other demon starts to walk towards you as well. "See, I told you to pay attention." "Bah! If this is the extent of what his little pig sticker can do, I'm not concerned. Hey human, don't you know they're doing great things with gunpower these days? RAAAAGH!" The big demon suddenly charges you, and you let your arrow fly. Right in the eye. "Perfect." You whisper. The demon bellows, but it doesn't slow him down. You narrowly dodge his charge. You roll on the ground and shoot two more arrows in his back. He turns around snarling and bellowing for your blood. More arrows fly into the creature, but at last the demon has reached you and smacks you to the ground. Your bow flies from your hand, and while crawling on the ground you try to draw your sword, but a crushing blow hits you on the back. This might've caused a lot more damage, but miraculously the lute that's still in your pack "softens" the blow. The crunching of wood signifies that it's broken though. "What the fuck, that's a weird noise...what is this? HA HA HA! Hey! You gotta be shittin' me! A fuckin' lute? Check this out! He's carrying a fuckin' lute! What's a fucking soldier doin' with a lute?" the big demon shouts to his acquaintance while he holds up your broken instrument. "Don't talk you idiot! LOOK OUT!" his acquaintance shouts, just as you recover long enough to shove your sword straight into the demon's groin. You push the sword upward in an attempt to do more damage and you succeed. Blood is flying everywhere and the demon howls in pain from the grievous wound. You pull your sword out and then proceed to repeatedly stab the demon until it falls backwards on the ground, dead. You're exhausted; you used all your remaining strength killing the thing. Unfortunately the other demon grabs you by the scruff like a helpless kitten and lifts you up off the ground a few inches. He knocks your sword out of your hand and looks at his fallen comrade. "Hmm, can't say I didn't warn him. Oh well, more meat for me. This may hurt a lot..." Fully expecting the death that you've managed to avoid for so long, you once again evade it when a gunshot rings out and part of the demon's head splatters in your face. You're dropped immediately. The demon's body is still standing though. "Shoot the bastard again!" you hear a gruff voice shout and this time the next shot hits chest and the demon falls. You lay motionless on the ground, looking up in the sky when your saviors come up to you. It's a group of dwarves armed with gun powder weapons. "By the gods, get doc out here! We need to fix this man up! Hey lad, you'll be alright, don't worry...are you a Zalan soldier?" one of the dwarves asks you. "...yeah...Nuro...lost...all dead..." is all you utter before fall into unconsciousness. A few days pass before you're somewhat back to a coherent state. You find yourself in a military outpost and at this point you don't care. You're just happy to be alive. It would seem that during your escape from Nuro, you ran in the direction of the Tulan Kingdom, the dwarven scouts that found you were from a small neutral kingdom trying its best to stay out of the dispute between Tulan and Zalan, but the new threat of demons running all over the nearby countryside caused them to increase patrols. They fixed you up, but dropped you off at the closest Zalan Fort. The Zalan fort that you're in right now is called Virtue and it's on the Tulan border. It seems relatively calm though. Not at all what you thought it would be. When one of the healers comes in to check on you, you begin to ask questions which she tries to answer to get you up to speed. The Tulan Kingdom is currently under attack from the demons now. They've been assaulting the place and even gaining help from some of the evil populace there. The demon citizens there have reverted back to their "bad behavior" and thrown their lot in with the invaders as well. That doesn't surprise you. The Tulan Kingdom pulled back some of their military from the borders so the fighting hasn't been as bad and Zalan's made a little more progress during this time, but the military minds are being cautious not to over extend. There is extreme concern over the recent demon invasion, not to mention the incident at Nuro. Word has already spread about the unsuccessful siege there. The healer also tells you that a few Zalan "high ups" are eager to speak to you soon, as they want to know what exactly happened at Nuro. You're somewhat of an important survivor since as far as anyone knows; you were the only one to successfully escape that killing zone. There's also talk of a "Grand Alliance" being created to counter these new threats. While the healer talks you end up drifting back to sleep wishing you could just escape it all. One year passes... You're still at Fort Virtue and it doesn't look like you'll be leaving the army anytime soon. You couldn't have been more wrong on your belief that you'd get executed for cowardice. You got promoted to sergeant instead, which in light of the current situation, is nearly the same thing. Your promotion came after several Zalan officers spoke to you about Nuro. You even got a medal. Stories and rumors creep around about how against all odds you survived an undead onslaught and fought off a bunch of demons as well. Your past "reputation" from your time in Retlad is exaggerated as well. It doesn't help that the citizens there remember you and are all willing to add to the exaggeration. All of these stories have been woven together in such an elaborate way to make you seem like some kind of hero most likely for propaganda purposes. And you know you're not hero. In fact you try to explain you aren't a hero to people, but they think you're just being modest, eventually you give up. Your assignment at Virtue hasn't been uneventful. There's fighting, but now it's mainly demon commanded enemies rather than Tulan ones. Some demon lord called Velzix killed the royalty there, completely conquered the area and made it his realm. The border war continues under new management except now it's more than just a border that the enemy is looking to take. Your superior, Captain Eckard reminds you of Valhlat except with a different name. You suppose there is a certain "cookie cutter" that occurs within the Zalan army that causes people to act the same. You've briefly wondered if you ever make that rank, you'll act the same way. You then usually laugh at the very fact that you ever would. Fort Virtue hasn't suffered a really bad attack yet, and it's mostly skirmishes, but it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop. You routinely go on patrols and give orders which you didn't think you'd be good at, but you think back to how you used to order your brothers and sisters around and perhaps you always had a bit a leadership skill, you just didn't want it. You thought that you'd be able to at least visit your family, but of course due to recent events, you're ordered to stay put. Your family at least is getting more money from your pay increase. They even send a new lute for you after you told them of the unfortunate event that resulted in the destruction of your last one. This gives you a little pleasure in a relatively joyless assignment. All in all, you still prefer it compared to being in the unsuccessful assaults on Nuro. The Grand Alliance that was formed hasn't been too successful as every one has been a slaughter from what you've heard. You already went through that once. You don't relish the idea of going through it again. One day while you're spending your free time practicing a new song, some new soldiers come into the fort. They look like they've just seen a vicious battle and are here to restock. One of them sees you and gives you a disapproving look. It's a woman with striking good looks, but definitely carrying an air of leadership about her. Her rank signifies her as a captain...yep same cookie cutter, just a little prettier. "You there! What are you doing playing an instrument? Shouldn't you be on watch or doing something more constructive with your time soldier? And you're a sergeant? You should know better!" "I'm not on watch duty right now and..." The woman doesn't even let you finish your explanation. Other soldiers that were sitting in your area are now slowly creeping out of the fray. Even her own soldiers are creeping away. They probably know all too well of how she acts. "So? You think evil is going to wait around for you to be ready for battle? Where is your superior officer? I can't believe they would allow such a relaxed attitude around here considering the importance of this fort! If you were serving under me, I'd have you flogged for your lack of discipline!" > You argue with her You've served in this army well and always done your job regardless of the shitty situations you've been in. You might not like a lot of it, but you've never complained. Lately you've been on edge about a possible all out assault of some big ass demon army that's going to attack any day now, and playing is one of the few pleasures you have to put your mind at ease. Perhaps it's a combination of this and a combination of this unwanted and unnecessary scolding that causes you to speak out of turn. "With all due respect ma'am, I am fully prepared to battle at a moment's notice and so are those under my direct command. But even soldiers need to rest, if only for a minute." The woman looks very surprised you didn't comply with her demand to see your superior officer. "...you DARE speak out of turn like that to me? I'll see you sent to the Nuro Front for that sort of insubordination! Then we'd see just how battle ready you are! How would you like that?" "I wouldn't like it at all. I barely survived the first time." You say trying not to express any fear. "...What? What are you talking about? First time?" Now you're a little surprised she doesn't know who you are considering how some of the high ups exaggerated about how you managed to survive. You explain yourself briefly and she doesn't quite believe you at first, a couple of your troops hiding nearby at least back up your claims before slinking off. "That was YOU? What the hell are you doing here? You should be leading from the front not languishing in some fort that barely sees battle!" "Doesn't see battle? We suffered a small demon raid last week! We see plenty of battle!" "What I mean is, somebody of your obvious combat and survival skills should be assigned on the front lines where you can do more good. Normally I don't question Zalan command, but this is really an oversight on their part." "Well maybe they know better than the both of us, besides this assignment isn't a walk in the fairy fields. I think we'll be suffering a grand scale attack any day now." "Doubt it. Velzix has been having a hard time keeping his unruly mob together. If it wasn't for a lot of the sycophantic Tulan citizens, he'd probably be confined to pure defense, though something will have to be done soon, reports say he's attempting to gate in more demons everyday. Not to mention that supposedly civilized demons from other nations are starting to display their true colors and flock to his banner. Like I always said the only good demon is a dead one!" This causes you to smile a bit and she very faintly smiles back when she sees that you feel the same way. This smile disappears quickly though as she continues her rant. "I wish I wasn't assigned to the Tulan Border though. I'd rather be taking Nuro back. THAT'S the more dangerous threat. The demons will kill themselves with their own chaotic and violent natures, but the undead...they've almost taken over the world before just because of one bastard that lead them. I never thought I'd see a serious threat like this in my lifetime, especially not..." The female captain at this point stops. She even looks away from you as if whatever she was going to say was just too much even for her. She seems to be a lot more battle hardened than you and probably ten times braver. You can't imagine what horror she experienced that would be worse than your own, but you don't find out since she changes the subject. "...Bah! Maybe you're right; a soldier does need to keep their mind occupied on other things every now and then. We aren't undead after all. So what's with the lute? You also a bard or something?" she laughs. "No, I think those dreams are long gone, but my playing seems to boost spirits around here a little, which can only be a good thing in this situation." "Hm. My mother was elven and she used to sing this song to me and my...brother when we were very young. It was very smooth and calming. Beautiful melody." "Yeah, most elven music is like that. When I was assigned in Retlad I learned a few elven songs from a few of the citizens there, you wouldn't happen to know the song would you?" She tells you the name of the song and you know it immediately. One of the first new songs you learned while stationed in Retlad actually. This seems cause her to momentarily revert to a less stand offish behavior. You're about to play it for her, but then a messenger comes running up handing her a note. She reads it and she's all business again. "Alright men! We're moving out!" she shouts and leaves without saying another word to you. You didn't even learn her name. Perhaps it's just as well; you'll most likely never meet again due to one of you dying on the battlefield. You go back to doing what you were doing. Two years pass... Three years since the Nuro Incident and this struggle still continues. You're still stationed Fort Virtue and you've repelled more demon attacks than you would care to count. Velzix has finally gotten his shit together completely. A unified demonic front is in full swing here and its taking its toll. Once again your skills have come in very handy in defense. You are certainly known as a demon slayer, but you still don't feel like a hero of any kind. You're just trying to do your job and survive. You save lives when you can, but you know ultimately it's a futile task as death seems to be everywhere nowadays. As bad as it is on the demon front, its nothing compared to what've you've heard on the undead front. The Necromancer has finally broken out from Nuro, and successfully attacked the Kingdom of Brot. Several undead giants demolished the area. You've never even seen a living giant and they sound intimidating. You can't even imagine an undead one. The power to raise one, let alone several is sort of scary. The Grand Alliance army didn't get there in time to stop him and as usual they were repelled when they arrived. You worry about the Grand Alliance failing to stop the undead horde. You hope it doesn't get any closer to the Zalan Empire where your family might be in danger. Sometimes you worry so much that you can't sleep, not that you do much of that nowadays anyway. Normally you play to keep your mind at ease, but tonight you go to the archery range to keep yourself focused. For a long time you're by yourself, but suddenly you feel a creeping suspicion someone is watching you... You turn around with your bow and see a pale man. He holds up his hands. "Hey now! Don't shoot! Sorry for creeping around like that. Professional habit." He says. "What? Who are you?" you demand. "Warnov. Zalan Intelligence." "You're a spy?" "Well I suppose you could put it that way. I was here to give some info to your Captain Eckard, and I also wanted to take a look around the fort. Didn't think anyone would be on the range though. Nice shooting, I know who you are and heard about your marksmanship with a bow. You're certainly doing your part with the demons around here." Despite the fact that you're talking to a spy, you feel the need to vent your feelings. "Yeah, well I hope the Grand Alliance starts doing its part. I mean what the fuck are they doing? Weren't they created to put a stop to all this shit? I mean am I supposed to worry every day if that undead horde is going to get closer to the Zalan Empire where it can threaten my family?" Warnov doesn't look offended by your words, if anything he looks intrigued. "Well, I can understand why you're venting. Trust me I sympathize. But as part of intel, I can tell you its not that easy...there were a lot of surprises that weren't accounted for. We're doing our best to rectify this situation by gathering as much info as possible. In fact, you could help us..." "Excuse me? How?" Warnov looks around and gets closer before speaking. "Look, as I said, I know all about you and your skills, why you joined, all of it. I know you don't much care for some of the propaganda made about some of your exploits. But it's important to realize that deeds like yours must be blown up a little to give common people hope that ultimately good will win the day. You may not consider yourself a hero of any kind, but your actions aren't without some of those qualities. You obviously care very much about your family, and I've heard how you try to keep the people under your command alive. Sound like heroic qualities to me. Perhaps they're on a smaller scale, but they're there. I'm betting that there's a BIGGER hero in there somewhere, just itching to get out. You think the Grand Alliance isn't doing a good job? Perhaps we can arrange something for you to be transferred into it, or maybe you'd like to take an even more direct approach." "What do you mean?" Warnov suddenly backs away. "Before we go any further. I need to know are you willing to take up the mantle of being a hero. Because if you aren't, then we have nothing more to discuss. I shall require an answer now." > You decline the offer You have to admit, the idea has crossed your mind a bit. A small part of you does wonder about embracing the whole hero image and deliberately doing grand deeds that go beyond the call of your duty. You suppose that you'd at least really feel like one if you did that. However, more often than not real heroes don't live long. You're wondering what exactly this Mr. Warnov has in mind for you and given his demeanor, his appearance and just your own feelings of uncertainty about him, you decline. You know your limitations even if others don't see them. So, no you won't be hunting down some artifact of unlimited power and then single handedly taking out a Demon Lord or Necromancer Lord in their own throne room. "No, I don't think so Mr. Warnov. As I've often said, I'm no hero. I'm just doing my job and providing for my family." Mr. Warnov looks disappointed and sighs, but accepts your decision. "Very well. This is a shame though. Despite your humble birth you seem to have lots of potential. You could've made an excellent addition to our...organization. I've also heard your lute playing wasn't bad either, we don't have any musically talented types anymore...oh well." Mr. Warnov leaves rather quickly after his last statement. Something about him seemed very odd and you're sort of glad you didn't take his offer. You go back to your target practice for awhile when you suddenly hear an alarm cry out loudly through the fort about a small demon army being sighted over the hill. "Well back to work..." you say and prepare for battle once again. Two years pass... It's been five years since the Nuro Incident and things have gotten worse. Both the Necromancer Lord and Velzix have made progress. Too much. The Grand Alliance hasn't been able to do anything except fight them to a stalemate. All three sides are looking to gain an advantage and somehow you don't think it'll be yours. The Zalan Empire has become increasingly totalitarian. It's been increasing its influence over how the Grand Alliance should be run and its strategies. Some of Zalan's officers have been transferred to become more prominent in leading and commanding the bulk of the Grand Alliance army. You're not sure if this isn't a bad idea. Bullying or not, one final voice in matters would probably help the Grand Alliance at this point. There's been some grumbling by other nations though. However it's also begun several repressive internal measures to keep itself safe. Your mom has mentioned in letters back to you of seeing routine patrols now near the farm. Talks of seizing private property for the good of the Empire are being discussed. You don't really like the sound of that, but it's not really like you can do anything about it. You can only take solace in the fact that being part of the Zalan army will at least result in your family not becoming homeless. They would probably still be able to live and work on the farm...it just wouldn't be your family's anymore. There's also talk of a draft. You don't like the sound of that either. Your brother Mallack would certainly be conscripted now. You can't imagine him dealing with the things you've had to face. You hope it doesn't come to that. Your position at Virtue is looking worse and worse each day. Parts of the fort are severely damaged, you're short on man power and you don't even have any decent wizards or healers. You've attempted to talk to Captain Eckard about withdrawing and falling back to a safer position, but he won't hear of it. This fort is NOT to be abandoned. The only good thing is that there's apparently been a small contingent of mercenaries severely messing up things for Velzix in his own territory. They must be incredibly brave or completely mad for Zalan gold to perform such a task. You can't help but think that maybe YOU would be there right along side them, if you'd joined up with that mercenary company years ago. A sobering thought. Time to go on patrol again. You gather up some soldiers and get ready. You look at all of them and wonder which ones won't be coming back this time. You look at yourself and wonder if you will. A few years ago, everyone coming back alive was at least a possibility, but now it's not even certain. You go out and change up your routine path again. Always have to be different, can't become predictable. A couple of imps attack. Nothing to worry about. Easily dispatched. You know you'll encounter worse before the day is over though. A group of Tulan "citizens" led by their demon overseer attacks you next. Made up of hapless slaves and misguided idiots who think serving the demons is going to pan out in the long run. Finally you come across something a little more unusual. A small group of dwarves fighting off a large demon ambush. They look ragged, wounded and in dire need of help. So you help them. You unleash five arrows into the head of an Eviscerator before two of your number are fried by a hellfire blast from a Flame Child. The fighting doesn't get any cleaner from there. You see another one of your members getting shredded, before a path is cleared for the dwarves to follow you back to the fort. One of their own chooses to stay behind to give the rest a chance to escape. As all of you run, a large explosion is heard followed by several yelps, howls and screams. The dwarf has blown himself up with whatever explosives the dwarves are fond of making. Finally you get back to the fort where it's relatively safe, and all you're thinking about is how you'll have to do this all over again tomorrow. You retire to your private room where you play your lute and hope you aren't disturbed by another attack on the fort. Happily, that doesn't happen, but you are disturbed by one of the dwarves you rescued earlier instead. He's come to thank you. "Hey lad, I just want to say thanks to your actions at least a few of us survived from our clan. Such as it is now. Something about you looks very familiar. Normally you humans all look the same but...ah hah! You're that lad who I saved near that farm five years ago! Looks like you returned the favor! Stagir's the name." You didn't realize it either, but then with all the fighting and the chaos you'd barely survived during that particular day, you weren't really paying attention to faces. You were just glad someone came along when they did. "Yeah...small world I guess. So what happened to your clan?" "Wiped out lad." Stagir says mournfully. "At least when you humans were fighting each other you didn't mess with us, but getting caught between the undead and demons...well it's a bit different." "The undead are that far now?" you ask. "Aye. They and the demons have been involved in skirmishes here and there. Got no problem with evil fighting evil, but it was just our bad luck that my clan was caught in the middle. The demons are evil incarnate to be sure, but the undead...I dunno. Something worse about them. In the final days, I had to kill clan members who I once called friends and family because of the fucking necromancers raising them from the dead. Some stayed behind to fight since they refused to run. They'd rather die than run from their home. Normally I'd agree, but after seeing that this was a losing battle, some of us decided that it would be better to run. After all we would just be raised again to be used as puppets of the necromancers when we die. Not even free will to choose, or the threat of a demon's whip. You just become one of them. Can't let that happen to me. Never." You know something of it, having had to do a little of that five years ago at Nuro, but actually killing undead parodies of family members would be pretty horrific. Stagir attempts to lighten the mood a bit by asking you about what you were playing before he interrupted. When you tell him, he tiches and says something about how elven songs are nothing compared to dwarven ones. You never really thought of dwarves having a musical interest before, but Stagir boasts about how they have quite an extensive musical history. He takes the lute from you and shows you a couple of dwarven songs, breaking strings in the process. His insistent singing accompanying the songs isn't exactly pleasant either. He complains about the human made strings not being strong enough to play the songs properly, but thanks you again for saving his life before leaving. Every now and then you play these songs for your new dwarven allies who have taken it upon themselves to strengthen and rebuild the fort the "proper dwarf way". They seem to appreciate it. You're a little more careful with the strings and don't indulge in the singing though. (But unfortunately for the rest of the fort, the dwarves do) A few months pass and the demon attacks seem to decrease. The strengthened fort certainly helps, but something else is going on. Eventually you're seeing less and less of them. Eventually some ragged refugees come to the fort and after a bit of babbling and thanking the gods, a few of them explain. There are a couple of conflicting stories, but it would seem Velzix is dead! He was killed by something or someone. Consensus seems to be that the mercenary leader died in battle with him though. Without Velzix's leadership the demons are fighting amongst themselves and the realm is in complete disarray. The Grand Alliance is taking steps to retake the land immediately before the Necromancer Lord gets it. The Zalan Empire in particular is closer though, so naturally YOUR nation is going to get that land first! While things may be looking up somewhat, they aren't necessarily looking up for you. Captain Eckard has orders to begin an attack immediately. You aren't looking forward to it mainly because you'll probably encounter an undead army in the process. You don't have a choice though except for what role you can serve. Thanks to your skills and rank. You can either lead troops as normal, or be part of a scouting party. > You choose to lead rank and file If its undead you're going to face you decide you don't want to get caught fighting them with only a few men to help you. Captain Eckard is a little surprised by your decision, but chooses a few others to be the reconnaissance group. Your replacements aren't as good as you might've been however. Many times they fuck up and miss a few demon bands that were fleeing from the Tulan Kingdom and ambushing whoever passed by. It's not too bad at first, but the closer you get to the capital, the more powerful these little groups are. The losses get more severe, but Captain Eckard insists on continuing. By the time you get to the capital during most of the citizens there have been so corrupted or beat down by the demons at this point that they've either sold their own souls to Hell or gone completely mad. You're attacked by them and a few of the demon hold outs. Your own ranks have been severely weakened by this point. It's during an ambush that you're suddenly hit by a fireball from a flame demon who was sitting on top of a nearby rooftop. You run around screaming and trying to put out the flames, but a couple of flying imps throw spears into your back ensuring that you lie still as you finish burning to death.

You have to admit, the idea has crossed your mind a bit. A small part of you does wonder about embracing the whole hero image and deliberately doing grand deeds that go beyond the call of your duty. You suppose that you'd at least really feel like one if you did that. However, more often than not real heroes don't live long. You're wondering what exactly this Mr. Warnov has in mind for you and given his demeanor, his appearance and just your own feelings of uncertainty about him, you decline. You know your limitations even if others don't see them. So, no you won't be hunting down some artifact of unlimited power and then single handedly taking out a Demon Lord or Necromancer Lord in their own throne room. "No, I don't think so Mr. Warnov. As I've often said, I'm no hero. I'm just doing my job and providing for my family." Mr. Warnov looks disappointed and sighs, but accepts your decision. "Very well. This is a shame though. Despite your humble birth you seem to have lots of potential. You could've made an excellent addition to our...organization. I've also heard your lute playing wasn't bad either, we don't have any musically talented types anymore...oh well." Mr. Warnov leaves rather quickly after his last statement. Something about him seemed very odd and you're sort of glad you didn't take his offer. You go back to your target practice for awhile when you suddenly hear an alarm cry out loudly through the fort about a small demon army being sighted over the hill. "Well back to work..." you say and prepare for battle once again. Two years pass... It's been five years since the Nuro Incident and things have gotten worse. Both the Necromancer Lord and Velzix have made progress. Too much. The Grand Alliance hasn't been able to do anything except fight them to a stalemate. All three sides are looking to gain an advantage and somehow you don't think it'll be yours. The Zalan Empire has become increasingly totalitarian. It's been increasing its influence over how the Grand Alliance should be run and its strategies. Some of Zalan's officers have been transferred to become more prominent in leading and commanding the bulk of the Grand Alliance army. You're not sure if this isn't a bad idea. Bullying or not, one final voice in matters would probably help the Grand Alliance at this point. There's been some grumbling by other nations though. However it's also begun several repressive internal measures to keep itself safe. Your mom has mentioned in letters back to you of seeing routine patrols now near the farm. Talks of seizing private property for the good of the Empire are being discussed. You don't really like the sound of that, but it's not really like you can do anything about it. You can only take solace in the fact that being part of the Zalan army will at least result in your family not becoming homeless. They would probably still be able to live and work on the farm...it just wouldn't be your family's anymore. There's also talk of a draft. You don't like the sound of that either. Your brother Mallack would certainly be conscripted now. You can't imagine him dealing with the things you've had to face. You hope it doesn't come to that. Your position at Virtue is looking worse and worse each day. Parts of the fort are severely damaged, you're short on man power and you don't even have any decent wizards or healers. You've attempted to talk to Captain Eckard about withdrawing and falling back to a safer position, but he won't hear of it. This fort is NOT to be abandoned. The only good thing is that there's apparently been a small contingent of mercenaries severely messing up things for Velzix in his own territory. They must be incredibly brave or completely mad for Zalan gold to perform such a task. You can't help but think that maybe YOU would be there right along side them, if you'd joined up with that mercenary company years ago. A sobering thought. Time to go on patrol again. You gather up some soldiers and get ready. You look at all of them and wonder which ones won't be coming back this time. You look at yourself and wonder if you will. A few years ago, everyone coming back alive was at least a possibility, but now it's not even certain. You go out and change up your routine path again. Always have to be different, can't become predictable. A couple of imps attack. Nothing to worry about. Easily dispatched. You know you'll encounter worse before the day is over though. A group of Tulan "citizens" led by their demon overseer attacks you next. Made up of hapless slaves and misguided idiots who think serving the demons is going to pan out in the long run. Finally you come across something a little more unusual. A small group of dwarves fighting off a large demon ambush. They look ragged, wounded and in dire need of help. So you help them. You unleash five arrows into the head of an Eviscerator before two of your number are fried by a hellfire blast from a Flame Child. The fighting doesn't get any cleaner from there. You see another one of your members getting shredded, before a path is cleared for the dwarves to follow you back to the fort. One of their own chooses to stay behind to give the rest a chance to escape. As all of you run, a large explosion is heard followed by several yelps, howls and screams. The dwarf has blown himself up with whatever explosives the dwarves are fond of making. Finally you get back to the fort where it's relatively safe, and all you're thinking about is how you'll have to do this all over again tomorrow. You retire to your private room where you play your lute and hope you aren't disturbed by another attack on the fort. Happily, that doesn't happen, but you are disturbed by one of the dwarves you rescued earlier instead. He's come to thank you. "Hey lad, I just want to say thanks to your actions at least a few of us survived from our clan. Such as it is now. Something about you looks very familiar. Normally you humans all look the same but...ah hah! You're that lad who I saved near that farm five years ago! Looks like you returned the favor! Stagir's the name." You didn't realize it either, but then with all the fighting and the chaos you'd barely survived during that particular day, you weren't really paying attention to faces. You were just glad someone came along when they did. "Yeah...small world I guess. So what happened to your clan?" "Wiped out lad." Stagir says mournfully. "At least when you humans were fighting each other you didn't mess with us, but getting caught between the undead and demons...well it's a bit different." "The undead are that far now?" you ask. "Aye. They and the demons have been involved in skirmishes here and there. Got no problem with evil fighting evil, but it was just our bad luck that my clan was caught in the middle. The demons are evil incarnate to be sure, but the undead...I dunno. Something worse about them. In the final days, I had to kill clan members who I once called friends and family because of the fucking necromancers raising them from the dead. Some stayed behind to fight since they refused to run. They'd rather die than run from their home. Normally I'd agree, but after seeing that this was a losing battle, some of us decided that it would be better to run. After all we would just be raised again to be used as puppets of the necromancers when we die. Not even free will to choose, or the threat of a demon's whip. You just become one of them. Can't let that happen to me. Never." You know something of it, having had to do a little of that five years ago at Nuro, but actually killing undead parodies of family members would be pretty horrific. Stagir attempts to lighten the mood a bit by asking you about what you were playing before he interrupted. When you tell him, he tiches and says something about how elven songs are nothing compared to dwarven ones. You never really thought of dwarves having a musical interest before, but Stagir boasts about how they have quite an extensive musical history. He takes the lute from you and shows you a couple of dwarven songs, breaking strings in the process. His insistent singing accompanying the songs isn't exactly pleasant either. He complains about the human made strings not being strong enough to play the songs properly, but thanks you again for saving his life before leaving. Every now and then you play these songs for your new dwarven allies who have taken it upon themselves to strengthen and rebuild the fort the "proper dwarf way". They seem to appreciate it. You're a little more careful with the strings and don't indulge in the singing though. (But unfortunately for the rest of the fort, the dwarves do) A few months pass and the demon attacks seem to decrease. The strengthened fort certainly helps, but something else is going on. Eventually you're seeing less and less of them. Eventually some ragged refugees come to the fort and after a bit of babbling and thanking the gods, a few of them explain. There are a couple of conflicting stories, but it would seem Velzix is dead! He was killed by something or someone. Consensus seems to be that the mercenary leader died in battle with him though. Without Velzix's leadership the demons are fighting amongst themselves and the realm is in complete disarray. The Grand Alliance is taking steps to retake the land immediately before the Necromancer Lord gets it. The Zalan Empire in particular is closer though, so naturally YOUR nation is going to get that land first! While things may be looking up somewhat, they aren't necessarily looking up for you. Captain Eckard has orders to begin an attack immediately. You aren't looking forward to it mainly because you'll probably encounter an undead army in the process. You don't have a choice though except for what role you can serve. Thanks to your skills and rank. You can either lead troops as normal, or be part of a scouting party. > You choose to scout If you've learned one thing, numbers doesn't necessarily imply safety. With all the years of patrolling you've done along with your previous actions in Retlad so long ago, you actually feel more comfortable in smaller groups at this point. Your one and only rank and file battle didn't go well. Your choice isn't surprising, if anything more people feel comfortable with you scouting ahead. As you journey further into former Tulan territory, you don't encounter too much resistance. A few demons and crazed followers here and there, but nothing you can't take care of. It also occurs to you how "planted" you've been for the past five years. While it's true you did leave the fort a lot, you never ventured far from it. This is first time you've actually traveled. Ironic, since one of the reasons why you joined the army was the possibility of traveling to interesting places. However, it seems like you only visit these interesting places after they're already destroyed. You're basically seeing the aftermath of the demon occupation. It sort of reminds you of what you'd seen back in Retlad when the Quillars were killing folks except the landscape is in even worse condition. The demons weren't content on just corrupting their mortal slaves; they were attempting to turn the entire land into their infernal realm. You can only imagine what sort of hell was going on while they were actually here. You get to a small town that's completely wrecked and seemingly deserted. Its night time and normally you'd go back and wait until morning to scout it, but Captain Eckard is insistent on getting to the former Tulan capital as quick as possible. You split up into small groups to scout the town quicker and tell everyone that if they come across anything more then they can handle, to run and alert everyone else. You go building to building not really encountering much of anything. Not even survivors. Lots of half eaten dead bodies in various states of torment though. You expect when Velzix was killed the whole realm descended into anarchy pretty quickly and the demons reverted back to their chaotic natures causing as much mayhem as possible without too much repercussion. You enter a shop with two of your other team members. You hear a creaking sound, which doesn't sound good. One of your team members goes a little further in, and it gets louder. "Step back! The floors is..." you utter and then a large portion of the floor collapses underneath him. You attempt to grab his hand, but fail and the rest of the floor collapses underneath you as well. You don't fall too far, but you definitely feel it. You recover as quick as you can and hear your other subordinate who managed to avoid falling through the floor. "Sarge! Are you alright?" Private Ramusen shouts. "Yeah, yeah private. I'm just a little bruised." "What about Gannon? Is he alright?" You take your tinder box and make a small light. You look around and see that you must be in the basement of some sort of music shop from all the instruments you see. You didn't even notice when you first entered the place, it just looked like any other ransacked shop. Upon further inspection you see a body lying on the floor. It's Private Gannon and he's dead. He didn't land in the "good way" you did and broke his neck. "He's dead." You call up to Ramusen. "Shit! He's fuckin' dead?" "Yeah private, I just said he was! Now let me get the hell out of here...fuck! The damn stairs are completely destroyed. I can't climb up, or even attempt a jump. Ramusen, throw down a rope and make sure you really secure it!" While you wait for Ramusen to complete this task, you take a look at some of the instruments. Lots of flutes and other wind instruments that don't interest you. You grab an old looking mandolin. It's definitely human design, but it seems very ornate though, must've been a specialty piece that wasn't for sale. You pluck at the strings and despite the dirt, grime, and neglect of the instrument; it still manages to produce a fairly pleasing tone. You play for a good five minutes before you realize that Ramusen hasn't thrown down the rope yet. "Private?" is all you utter, when you hear the slumping of a lifeless body, followed by a low voice. "Beautiful..." You grab your bow, when you see a dark figure loom above you. You fire, but miss due to the figure dodging quicker than anything you've ever encountered before. It doesn't help that this same figure has jumped down the hole beside you before you can blink. You're standing right before the figure now. He has a pale, but familiar face, though the blood around the mouth is new and not encouraging. He knocks the bow out of your hand, but does nothing else to you. You wouldn't be quick enough to draw your sword given what you've seen. In fact right now, all you're feeling is fear. "Almost hit me...you would've made a good addition. Maybe you could've even...no. Nobody can. This world is lost now and soon my kind won't even be around to guide your kind to combat the inevitable anymore..." Warnov says. "What...what are you talking about?" you ask unsure what's going to happen next. Warnov looks as if he could tell you more than you'd ever want to know about lots of things, but instead he just shakes his head. "Nevermind human. Telling you the whole story would not help you anyway. Perhaps it's best you hadn't joined us, seeing as I have been marked now. It won't be long before the rest of my kind are hunted down. He's really quite pissed at us, and worse, he can sense us you see...(sigh) I can only imagine what he did to poor Count Rostov..." "Who's pissed?" "Who do you think human? The Necro...I mean the Great Lich Lord of course. Oh yes. He's back...and this one isn't going to lose like the last one did so long ago." You're not following all of Warnov's cryptic speak, but if the last bit he's said is true, he's scared the hell out of you more than he has with his actions. Warnov grabs your shoulder and looks into your eyes. "I do not envy your fate human...the extinction of your species will soon follow my own. My advice to you? Live human! Live while you can, for eventually this whole world will be dead and under his complete control." Sensing that he's brought enough doom and gloom to you, he relents and steps back. "Play me a song human." He says catching you off guard. "...what did you want to hear?" you ask shakily. "I don't know...anything. Play what you were playing before." You slowly pick up the dropped mandolin and begin playing the song that you were playing before and you play as if your life depended on it, though you get the impression that Warnov has no intention on killing you. He sits quietly listening in the darkness, after finishing the song; he leaps back up through the hole. "Beautiful...such talent...such a waste..." A rope is thrown down and the sounds of feet running off are then heard. You wait a minute and then climb up the rope, taking the mandolin with you. You see private Ramusen lying nearby with his throat ripped out and thoroughly drained of blood. You're also just in time to hear other members of your group coming to your position when you exit the shop. What the hell are you supposed to tell them? Death to the world, reborn lich lords...you start thinking, what's the point of all this? Maybe Warnov was right, maybe you should LIVE while there's still time. Granted his information is spotty, but you can't help but thinking he's probably more informed on the situation than most people. You've pondered it several times before, and you've even attempted it once, but deserting is looking very desirable again. In this day and age, who's going to know if were killed or not? > You stay and inform your squad of the situation If the information that the vampire said was true, you think it might be better to inform your superiors of it so that something can be done now. It won't do any good to run off with this vital info and let them find out when it's too late and your "freedom" won't mean anything as death takes over the world. You meet up with the rest of your men who are calling out your name. They ask if you're okay and you reply you are, but you need to inform the captain of the new info you learned. When you return, you tell Captain Eckard exactly what happened, but instead of stopping to assess this new info or taking it immediately to his superior, he dismisses it! He said the vampire was probably just fucking around with you. "That vampire was probably toying with you like a cat would a mouse. He probably has your scent now, so he'll hunt and attack you later. The stories he's told you are probably just to keep your mind occupied with nonsense as well as to give us misinformation. Hell, he's fucking undead! He's probably WORKING with the Lich Lord!" "But...but it was an agent of the Zalan Empire. Agent Warnov. He..." "NO! He LOOKED like Warnov. Vampire can change their form you know! And even if it was the real Warnov, he's undead now and working for the enemy!" "Well if that's the case shouldn't we still inform head quarters immediately? He probably had lots of vital information that..." "Look, the only thing we need to do is take the territory of the former Tulan Kingdom before the undead do! THAT'S our primary concern! So I'll have no more discussion about it sergeant! Get ready to march tomorrow! We're heading for the former capitol!" You leave Eckard's tent and shake your head at his stupidity, but there's not much you can do about it now. You do decide that you're going to inform another high ranking officer when you can though. Soon the company is on the move to its destination. It gets more dangerous the closer you get though. You're getting ambushed by demon bands of them all the time. Not enough to destroy you of course, but certainly enough to whittle your numbers down. Captain Eckard gives you more troops to supply your losses, but by the time you get to the capitol, the whole company has lost at least a third of its original strength. Things don't get any better at the capital. Most of the citizens there have been so corrupted or beat down by the demons at this point that they've either sold their own souls to Hell or gone completely mad. You're attacked by them and a few of the demon hold outs. By the time you subdue and hold the territory, you're down to half of the company's original strength. Then after a few days the undead arrive. Captain Eckard's rather inept handling of things don't get any better. Instead of shoring up the defenses of the capital's gates and walls and waiting for reinforcements which were going to arrive soon, he orders an open attack on the battlefield! You are very reluctant to do this, but again you don't have any choice now. You fight and barely survive long enough to fallback when Captain Eckard calls for a retreat after finally realizing he's hopelessly outmatched. Unfortunately he's just provided more troops for the undead army, as the necromancers in charge raise the recent dead. They also start raising the dead citizens IN the city which haven't been cleared out! It's an ignoble death as you're eventually surrounded, overwhelmed and cut down by zombies and skeletons. You join their ranks soon afterwards.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy] If you've learned one thing, numbers doesn't necessarily imply safety. With all the years of patrolling you've done along with your previous actions in Retlad so long ago, you actually feel more comfortable in smaller groups at this point. Your one and only rank and file battle didn't go well. Your choice isn't surprising, if anything more people feel comfortable with you scouting ahead. As you journey further into former Tulan territory, you don't encounter too much resistance. A few demons and crazed followers here and there, but nothing you can't take care of. It also occurs to you how "planted" you've been for the past five years. While it's true you did leave the fort a lot, you never ventured far from it. This is first time you've actually traveled. Ironic, since one of the reasons why you joined the army was the possibility of traveling to interesting places. However, it seems like you only visit these interesting places after they're already destroyed. You're basically seeing the aftermath of the demon occupation. It sort of reminds you of what you'd seen back in Retlad when the Quillars were killing folks except the landscape is in even worse condition. The demons weren't content on just corrupting their mortal slaves; they were attempting to turn the entire land into their infernal realm. You can only imagine what sort of hell was going on while they were actually here. You get to a small town that's completely wrecked and seemingly deserted. Its night time and normally you'd go back and wait until morning to scout it, but Captain Eckard is insistent on getting to the former Tulan capital as quick as possible. You split up into small groups to scout the town quicker and tell everyone that if they come across anything more then they can handle, to run and alert everyone else. You go building to building not really encountering much of anything. Not even survivors. Lots of half eaten dead bodies in various states of torment though. You expect when Velzix was killed the whole realm descended into anarchy pretty quickly and the demons reverted back to their chaotic natures causing as much mayhem as possible without too much repercussion. You enter a shop with two of your other team members. You hear a creaking sound, which doesn't sound good. One of your team members goes a little further in, and it gets louder. "Step back! The floors is..." you utter and then a large portion of the floor collapses underneath him. You attempt to grab his hand, but fail and the rest of the floor collapses underneath you as well. You don't fall too far, but you definitely feel it. You recover as quick as you can and hear your other subordinate who managed to avoid falling through the floor. "Sarge! Are you alright?" Private Ramusen shouts. "Yeah, yeah private. I'm just a little bruised." "What about Gannon? Is he alright?" You take your tinder box and make a small light. You look around and see that you must be in the basement of some sort of music shop from all the instruments you see. You didn't even notice when you first entered the place, it just looked like any other ransacked shop. Upon further inspection you see a body lying on the floor. It's Private Gannon and he's dead. He didn't land in the "good way" you did and broke his neck. "He's dead." You call up to Ramusen. "Shit! He's fuckin' dead?" "Yeah private, I just said he was! Now let me get the hell out of here...fuck! The damn stairs are completely destroyed. I can't climb up, or even attempt a jump. Ramusen, throw down a rope and make sure you really secure it!" While you wait for Ramusen to complete this task, you take a look at some of the instruments. Lots of flutes and other wind instruments that don't interest you. You grab an old looking mandolin. It's definitely human design, but it seems very ornate though, must've been a specialty piece that wasn't for sale. You pluck at the strings and despite the dirt, grime, and neglect of the instrument; it still manages to produce a fairly pleasing tone. You play for a good five minutes before you realize that Ramusen hasn't thrown down the rope yet. "Private?" is all you utter, when you hear the slumping of a lifeless body, followed by a low voice. "Beautiful..." You grab your bow, when you see a dark figure loom above you. You fire, but miss due to the figure dodging quicker than anything you've ever encountered before. It doesn't help that this same figure has jumped down the hole beside you before you can blink. You're standing right before the figure now. He has a pale, but familiar face, though the blood around the mouth is new and not encouraging. He knocks the bow out of your hand, but does nothing else to you. You wouldn't be quick enough to draw your sword given what you've seen. In fact right now, all you're feeling is fear. "Almost hit me...you would've made a good addition. Maybe you could've even...no. Nobody can. This world is lost now and soon my kind won't even be around to guide your kind to combat the inevitable anymore..." Warnov says. "What...what are you talking about?" you ask unsure what's going to happen next. Warnov looks as if he could tell you more than you'd ever want to know about lots of things, but instead he just shakes his head. "Nevermind human. Telling you the whole story would not help you anyway. Perhaps it's best you hadn't joined us, seeing as I have been marked now. It won't be long before the rest of my kind are hunted down. He's really quite pissed at us, and worse, he can sense us you see...(sigh) I can only imagine what he did to poor Count Rostov..." "Who's pissed?" "Who do you think human? The Necro...I mean the Great Lich Lord of course. Oh yes. He's back...and this one isn't going to lose like the last one did so long ago." You're not following all of Warnov's cryptic speak, but if the last bit he's said is true, he's scared the hell out of you more than he has with his actions. Warnov grabs your shoulder and looks into your eyes. "I do not envy your fate human...the extinction of your species will soon follow my own. My advice to you? Live human! Live while you can, for eventually this whole world will be dead and under his complete control." Sensing that he's brought enough doom and gloom to you, he relents and steps back. "Play me a song human." He says catching you off guard. "...what did you want to hear?" you ask shakily. "I don't know...anything. Play what you were playing before." You slowly pick up the dropped mandolin and begin playing the song that you were playing before and you play as if your life depended on it, though you get the impression that Warnov has no intention on killing you. He sits quietly listening in the darkness, after finishing the song; he leaps back up through the hole. "Beautiful...such talent...such a waste..." A rope is thrown down and the sounds of feet running off are then heard. You wait a minute and then climb up the rope, taking the mandolin with you. You see private Ramusen lying nearby with his throat ripped out and thoroughly drained of blood. You're also just in time to hear other members of your group coming to your position when you exit the shop. What the hell are you supposed to tell them? Death to the world, reborn lich lords...you start thinking, what's the point of all this? Maybe Warnov was right, maybe you should LIVE while there's still time. Granted his information is spotty, but you can't help but thinking he's probably more informed on the situation than most people. You've pondered it several times before, and you've even attempted it once, but deserting is looking very desirable again. In this day and age, who's going to know if were killed or not? > You sneak off Last time you were wounded and had the misfortune of running into demons. Well you aren't wounded this time and you're pretty sure you won't be running into too many more demons. You'll be able to pull it off this time. You can't do this army shit anymore, as much as you want to help your family out, you've got to live your own life regardless of what the future holds. You aren't even worried about committing an executionable offense. You easily sneak away as you hear your men call out your name looking for you. You're glad you didn't leave too much back at the fort, except your lute, but you've got your newly acquired mandolin to make up for it. Eventually you're away from civilization altogether. While you're out in the wilderness you think about your family again, and you have to at least let them know you're still alive. Maybe you can still do something about them, after all it doesn't sound like the Zalan Empire is becoming a great place to live anymore. Perhaps you could convince them to move? It takes a week of sneaking around and keeping out of sight, but eventually you make it back home. Zalan looks a lot different; hell home looks a lot different. There was a small wooded area near your farm, but most of the trees have been cut down now. You also remember fewer patrols. Your house looks in better condition however. You guess at least your family seems a lot safer, but for how long? You knock on the door in the middle of the night and your sister Randi answers, Not too surprising as she always was a night owl when she was little. At least she used to be little. The passing of the years and she's now a teenager and grown quite a bit. You've been away so long. What does surprise you is the flintlock pistol that she's currently pointing at you! "Whoa! Hold on! It's me, your brother!" you say. "...it is? It is you!" she exclaims and puts down the gun before hugging you. "What the hell are you doing with a pistol?" "The money you sent us allowed to buy new things you know and a traveling merchant was selling this for cheap!" "No I mean, what are YOU doing with one? You'll blow your damn head off with that thing! Those things are unstable." You scold. "What are you doing home? Are you on leave?" "Uh...that's a long story. Wake up the rest of the family; I have to talk to you all." Randi complies while you step inside the house and take in its new look. Eventually your Mom enters, followed by your brother Mallack and finally your youngest brother Calwin and sister Makana. You all sit down at the dining room table. (You realize you haven't done that with your family in years) and you tell them everything. You get a lot of worried reactions. More for you than the other world impending doom stuff though. At least you know that they care. "You gotta get back to the army right now! Say you got captured by something and it took you awhile to escape!" Mallack exclaims. "While I'm sure that MAY work, I just don't want to do it...I can't take this anymore. The whole time I've been in the damn army, my music has kept me sane. I've noticed it have an effect on others as well. Never thought it would. I mean I have talent and..." "...you feel like you've wasted your life?" your mother replies. You pause for a moment. You almost want to say yes, but you can't even if you wanted to. You haven't wasted it, its just you've never really had the chance to do what you've ever wanted to do. "No...I guess I haven't... it's just..." Your mother takes your hand and speaks to you. "I know. It's not fair. It's not right. Life isn't fair and it's starting to get a whole lot less fair. I know I've mentioned it in letters to you, but the Zalan Empire WILL be taking the farm...and it's looking like Mallack's going to be drafted if things are going the way they seem to be." "But...see that's what I'm saying! We could all move! I mean of course I have to go into hiding, maybe Mallack could come with me. And the rest of you could use what money you have left and move to Retlad! It's a nice place. It's away from most of the fighting, and there aren't anymore Quillars there!" Your mother shakes her head. "You must be behind in the news, because Retlad is finally going to become part of the Zalan Empire soon, so going there to live wouldn't make any difference. The Empire can take this farm, but in spirit this will ALWAYS be ours. The Empire has said they will allow us to continue working it and living on the land and even if they didn't they'd have have to drag us all out and stick our heads on pikes before we'd leave. Your father and his father build this farm up to what it is. Our family is going to be here until the end." "That's what I'm afraid of...what about you Mallack? You're probably going to be drafted. You aren't worried about that?" "Sure I am. But what am I going to do, run? Where? From what you described you practically think the whole world is doomed anyway! I might as well take some of the undead bastards out before I go. I was getting bored of the farm anyway. Let Randi take over! Ha ha!" Your mother addresses you again. "Son, you know our family. We've always done the right thing, even if it doesn't coincide with what we want...I think you know what you have to do." And so you do. So you do. You spend one night with your family and make the most of it. You all laugh and joke, trying to put all the problems of the world out of your mind and of course before you leave you play a song for them. Eventually you hug them all goodbye and take your leave. More than a few tears are shed on both sides. > Head back to the army Now you have to figure out a plan that's going to prevent you from getting executed. You figure your brother's plan isn't exactly a bad one. Your record is good enough that you'd probably be believed. You think up a lie explaining that you were captured by a particularly sadistic vampire who was planning on draining you slowly to keep you as ongoing food. He took you to a cave in the hills where you barely killed him and escaped with your life. You would've made your way back sooner, but there were large groups of marauding orc raiders and demons escaping the ruins of the former Tulan kingdom that caused you to be extra cautious and forced you to hide for a few days. Yep, that sounds good. You head out with the plan of meeting up with Captain Eckard's company which is surely at the Tulan Kingdom now. Eventually you reach the same town you were at when you made your decision to try to leave. You find it occupied right now, it's not your company, so you're about to press on, but someone on patrol sees you. "HALT! Where are you supposed to be soldier?!" "Oh...uh..." you say getting caught off guard. You mentally curse yourself for not being more aware. "Speak up! Wow, you look a little worse for wear...what company are you with?" "I was with Captain Eckard...but..." "Captain Eckard's company? Holy shit! We thought they all got killed! The undead reached the Tulan capital first and ambushed them! But why am I telling you? You were there! You must've just barely escaped! Don't worry; you can avenge your friends, we're gathering strength to attack soon!" You don't believe this... The guard begins speaking to you excitedly and asking you how you escaped. You just continue to say you don't know, it all became a blur when the ambush occurred and how you attempted to fight, but it was just too much. The guard sympathizes and tells you that you can explain more to his captain. You notice he isn't wearing Zalan armor, he's wearing Azi Republic armor. You can only assume that perhaps this is a Grand Alliance company. Your ideas come true when you do indeed notice several kinds of troop types, though the Zalan Empire soldiers seem to be leading, as the captain is wearing the armor. Your heart sinks when you recognize her and she recognizes you. It was years ago, but you both remember. "...what are you doing here?" the female captain asks. "Last I heard you were in Captain Eckard's company. A company that was reported to be wiped out completely. Have you managed to avoid death once again? You are the lucky one aren't you?" Suddenly surrounding soldiers start to recognize you more closely. The Zalan ones especially. "Holy shit it's him! You fuckin' survived not one but TWO overwhelming undead hordes! We gotta take him captain, he's obviously good luck!" the guard says a little misguidedly. "Good luck? If you haven't noticed, only HE seems to be getting out alive on these things! I'd say he's bad luck!" someone else says. "Nonsense! I heard how he's killed countless demons with his bow! We could use someone like that in our next attack." another says. "Isn't he the guy that plays the lute really well?" A few people start arguing until the female captain speaks again. "ENOUGH! I'll handle this. You in my office now, I'll speak with you in private. And for the rest of you, get ready to move out. We're attacking tomorrow." She turns away and enters a building; you slowly follow, while everyone else disperses. When you enter the wrecked "office" she closes the door and tells you to sit down, but she doesn't. Instead she stares at you hard at you and draws her sword. "Okay Mr. Survivor. Convince me." "Convince you of what?" "Convince me that you aren't some fucking undead spy!" "WHAT?! How? I mean..." "Easy! In the two encounters you had with the undead on any major scale, you've been the only one to survive. Once, maybe. But twice? Mighty suspicious..." "But I mean...I'm not undead! Look I even walk around in the daylight, I'm not even pale!" "I didn't say you were undead, I said you were a spy. There are few of those misguided traitors that think their necromancer overlords will be kind to them, by killing them last. Madness." "But I'm not a spy! I killed..." you begin to stutter under pressure. "Yeah, yeah, you killed demons. Big deal. The undead and demons weren't friends either. What better way to be a spy than to make yourself a hero?" "But I'm not..." "You're not what?" "I'm not..." "What? More lies? Spit out the truth spy!" she demands pointing her sword at your throat. > You blurt out the truth You can't take it anymore. "I'M NOT A FUCKING HERO! OKAY!? I NEVER WAS AND I NEVER WANTED TO BE! (sob)... I just wanted to go home...(sob)" You weep for a few minutes before the captain speaks again. "Alright then what happened? Tell me the entire truth and maybe you'll avoid the executioner's axe." At this point you have little choice. You're too distraught to say anything else. You give a relatively condensed version of what happened. At Nuro and what happened recently. Your encounter with Warnov seems to surprise her quite a bit. You also go on to explain that it was high ranking Zalan officers that insisted on this hero nonsense. She believes you, like she knows something of it. "(sigh) Yeah there's a statue of my dad in the Zalan capitol...but I know better..." You don't question anymore about this quiet outburst from her since you're still too worried about what's going to happen to you. "So why did you come back? You probably could've gotten away with it." "The same reason why I joined. My family. I guess I just needed a reminder of that first hand. And if there's any hope of changing the tide of this war with the undead then I need to stand by my decision of joining the Zalan Army and making the world safer for them." Once again the captain seems to soften. She almost looks like she's going to tear up as well, but she turns away. "My family...I..." are all she says before taking a deep breath and turning back towards you, with a serious mindset again. "Alright, I shall trust your word for now sergeant, but I will be watching you VERY carefully! Consider yourself lucky for evading death once again, perhaps you do have knack for avoiding it. Let us hope that luck rubs off on the rest of us in the upcoming battle. I'm putting you in charge of the Retlad archery platoon. They'll probably like you. Dismissed." Before you leave she says one last thing. "And sergeant, don't listen to what that bizarre vampire said. We're not going to become extinct. We're going to win and survive a long time. Besides you still have to play that song for me." As you leave you feel a sigh of relief that you won't be dying just yet, but given that you're heading into battle soon with the undead, you're wondering if you just didn't postpone the inevitable. Two years pass... Seven years since the Nuro Incident changed the world into this living hell. Your time served in the Grand Alliance has not really changed much. The Grand Alliance and the Zalan Empire are basically one of the same now thanks to the complete embrace of a totalitarian system. Might makes right. Nations like the Azi Republic protested, but there was little that they could, after all Zalan has been practically defending the world by itself for the past few years. You get the impression that if this war is won; the Zalan Empire is going to throw its hat in to be a one world government. Amazing how power and conspiracy is plotted even when it probably won't happen. "Probably won't" because your superiors and political leaders are a lot more "optimistic" about winning than you are, but then they haven't had to face the horrors you've faced. And horrors are a completely accurate word. You've gotten over your fear of the undead, but it doesn't make it any easier. You're starting to lose ground. Everyday the living lose someone, the Great Lich Lord gains. It's a question of numbers and quite frankly your side doesn't have them. You sort of wish your old captain was here. She was a very good leader and inspirational, but then again that's why she was made a general and sent elsewhere. She asked you to play that song before she left though. Somehow it seemed to make her sadder afterwards. "Captain, undead are on the move, they won't be long now." One of your messengers says. "Yes, I can sense it. Here. You head back to my home. You know where it is by now, and give this message to my family. If you get back here and see undead, well get the fuck out and run back to Zalan territory." Being a captain hasn't really turned you into a copy of the captains you served in the past, but then again you didn't even think you'd ever be promoted to one. Your reign as one has been a little unorthodox as you've applied more guerilla tactics than traditional ones, but given your assignment and your background it makes a hell of a lot more sense. You're currently stationed on what remains of the Garwold Confederacy. It was a relatively peaceful nation made up mostly of Halflings and Gnomes, with lush green fields and flowers. Now it's just slowly becoming another massive graveyard and example of genocide. You've gotten to know quite a few of them and you're always amazed of how they can keep their sense of humor in the face of utter destruction. One of them actually gives you an answer. "To keep from crying." Indeed. You've been playing quite a bit when you're not battling the undead. (The Garwold citizens enjoy your playing a lot) It's gotten to the point where you don't just play anymore to keep your mind off of things, it's like it transports you to a different world. A better world. If only. You often wonder how your brother Mallack is doing. He's been stationed in a relatively safer location back in Zalan territory. You're guessing that it lowers the odds of having your mom lose both of her sons at the same time. Like it makes it any better if she lost them within any length on time of each other. You wonder if the war is going to go on long enough that by the time Calwin grows up he'll be drafted as well. If he even gets the chance to grow up. You can't think about it now. A massive undead horde is coming and there's no where left to hide. There will be open battle and you need to stay focused. You go through the whole order thing, and making sure your strategy is sound. You wish you had more wizards, but they seem to be in shorter supply these days. It's almost like they're being targeted deliberately sometimes...actually you don't think it, you KNOW that they are. You see the undead horde approach. You look through some new fangled dwarven invention called an eye piece and see something makes your job a hell of a lot worse. You don't just see the usual undead. You see fully armored Death Knights. Harder to kill than even a zombie giant. You see Blood Specters. Dark crimson spirits that can cause their victims to bleed from every orifice with their shrieks. Both of those are at the head of this horde, and this isn't even counting that you're severely outnumbered by just the regular zombies, skeletons, ghosts and the like. > You break off into a smaller skirmishing force You know that this is most likely a losing battle, but some hope might be gained, if you can somehow draw out the knights and specters and get them by themselves. As powerful as they are, they're very hard to control even by necromancers and get easily agitated by living creatures. You can't do it alone though. You take your best archers and a couple of your best wizards and mention your plan. You don't ask for volunteers, you just assign. You're in charge and you have to make the hard decisions, even if it might mean you'll die. They don't look enthused, but you aren't either. You tell everyone else to hold their ground while you and your small platoon ride towards the horde. "Ready those blessed silvers men, and you robe wearers melt those dead tin cans!" You get close enough and you unleash as many blessed silver arrows as you can at the Blood Specters. You kill a few. The wizards don't do quite as well with the knights. However, both attacks are enough. You see the Specters and Knights making whatever unearthly noises they do and begin to advance towards you far ahead of the slower yet steady moving horde. It apparent that the necromancer controlling them is attempting to bring them back under control, because they begin to squirm back and forth which gives you some more time to kill a few more during their confusion. Eventually the necromancer must give up total control because they stop squirming and advance upon you once again. You ride back as quickly as possible with the Specters and Knights in full pursuit. You didn't expect those Specters to be so fast. A few of them manage to catch up to some of your men with grisly results. You yourself almost get smacked upside the head by a Death Knight mace. When you get back in range the rest of your awaiting army deals with your pursuers. More blessed arrows fly into the Blood Specters before they can do anymore harm, and eventually the Death Knights are brought down as well. There is no time for a reprieve though, as the main horde is now almost upon you. You order a regrouping as best you can, and face the enemy, telling if possible for someone to aim for the necromancer in all of this rotting mess. Bones and limbs from both sides are broken and hacked off. A zombie skull is smashed, splashing maggots, blood and brains all over you and you're not even thinking about it. You just have a tune in your head to take yourself away from the massacre. Somehow in all of the chaos, you single out the necromancer leading this army, he stands a far piece away from the main fighting, but he's arrogant enough to be close enough for you to hit him with an arrow. And you have to hit him now. You see a Grand Alliance soldier who just took a fatal blow to the chest begin to rise... Not many arrows left and not much time, you just load up and shoot, hoping you hit the bastard. Your shot is straight and true. It strikes the necromancer in the stomach, causing him to fall back, which in turn causes the undead horde to momentarily stop their vicious attacks, giving your side a chance to turn the tide a bit. Then you shoot another arrow when you see the necromancer attempt to get back up, which turns the tide completely in your favor. Zombies and skeletons fall. Ghouls flee at the loss of leadership and any remaining undead are quickly dispatched. You don't take chances though. You walk up to the corpse of the necromancer and shoot your last arrow directly into his head and stab him a few times. You then start laughing. "If this was the Great Lich Lord, I'd be a real hero right now!" You quickly sober up from this macabre outburst when you hear shouting from some of your men and you look up. It's another horde. Just as big. You look behind you and see that your own numbers are completely insufficient. The Garwold citizens are either mostly dead or demoralized at this point. Even when you win...you lose. Having no real options, you sound a retreat to fall back to the Zalan border and suggest that the Garwold citizens do likewise as there is nothing more for them here. The Garwold Confederacy is now just one more loss for the living. The Zalan Empire won't be far behind. Three years pass... Ten years since the Nuro incident and The Grand Alliance is nearly just consisting of the Zalan Empire now, which in turn has had to adapt a siege mentality. There is no "going on the offensive" anymore. You're purely on defense. Your brother Mallack died two years ago. Transferred to a location with more fighting due to lack of manpower. Like it matters. Didn't even get to say goodbye. You can only hope he didn't become one of those things...but you know he probably did. You've been urging your family to run where it's safer, but of course they won't budge. The undead have been penetrating deeper into Zalan territory, you know it's only a matter of time before the Great Lich Lord decides to stop toying with you and makes his full scale attack. Sure enough it happens. Town after town is taken; you're pushed back further and further, and you know there's nothing you can do to stop it. An order is given to everyone to fallback to the capital and help defend it from an upcoming attack, but at this point you're just wondering if the rest of your family is still alive. > You report to the captial Everything tells you that you should go to your family, but you question if they are even still alive. You don't want to think about it really since it's starting to upset you. The thought of your remaining family being killed and turned into undead parodies of themselves, makes you not want to know if that's what happened. You wonder if they might've even fled already like you've been telling them to in your letters. It's certainly possible, even as stubborn as your Mom is, she might've taken your advice at least for the sake of the rest of your brother and sisters. You mind suddenly goes elsewhere... ...Yeah...they left already. There's no point in going to your home. It's been abandoned. They're probably all safe in Retlad by now. No need to worry. You'll see them later. Surely this attack on the capitol won't be that bad. You've survived a lot worse. You've got orders and you need to follow them, because if there is any chance at stopping this dead plague, this is going to be a crucial battle. You did join the army to help your family after all, and what better way to help them, then to ensure their future? After having this little delusion, you feel calm again. Oddly so. Even a little hopeful. You head off to the capitol with your troops. When you get there, the general attitude is pessimistic. Most people don't seem to think they're going to win. You're getting that vibe even from the generals of the Grand Alliance. You don't see why. Surely the Great Lich Lord has finally overextended all his resources now. This attack will be a failure and from here you will be able to make a counter attack! Sure it won't be easy, but it can be done. People are finding your optimism a little weird, especially those that have served under you since they know how that really isn't your personality. You don't think you've changed at all though. You just go about following your orders of making sure your troops are prepared in their defense of the south wall, humming little tunes as happy music fills your head. A few days pass and you're visited by your old commanding officer who's constantly making sure everything is in place. She looks very tired; you tell her she needs to think positive. When she asks if you're feeling alright, you just laugh and ask if she'd like to hear a song. She tells you no with a grim look. She also tells you point blank that she wants to get laid one last time before this battle. Being in the somewhat scattered mind frame that you're in right now, you ask who the candidate is. A couple hours later, you have your answer. Before you leave her room, she asks you to play a song for her after all. It's the one she asked to play before. The one her mother sang to her. As you play she noticeably begins to weep. She doesn't attempt to hide it. You stop playing and hold her until she calms down which eventually she does and composes herself. She gives no further information and simply tells you to go back to your post and to carry on as if nothing happened. You do so without pressing the issue. A week passes and the undead horde arrives. It's much bigger than anyone expected, and even worse, the Great Lich Lord himself is leading this attack. Now your mind suddenly comes back to grips with reality. The undead horde surrounds and storms the city. An attempt is made to kill the Great Lich Lord, but he merely gets back up from the hail of gunfire and arrows that strike him. Soon the gates are compromised. You order your troops to take to the streets and fight off the invading hordes with the rest of the soldiers. You do likewise, though now you're really wondering about a way to try to escape. Its no use though, the dead are everywhere butchering anything alive. You kill one walking corpse and five more take its place. In one particular brutal sneak attack, a ghoul jumps from a rooftop and tackles you. You feel a paralyzing bite as it sinks its teeth into you. Darkness soon takes you and you begin you new mindless undead life afterwards.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, serious, war, grimdark, fantasy] You know that this is most likely a losing battle, but some hope might be gained, if you can somehow draw out the knights and specters and get them by themselves. As powerful as they are, they're very hard to control even by necromancers and get easily agitated by living creatures. You can't do it alone though. You take your best archers and a couple of your best wizards and mention your plan. You don't ask for volunteers, you just assign. You're in charge and you have to make the hard decisions, even if it might mean you'll die. They don't look enthused, but you aren't either. You tell everyone else to hold their ground while you and your small platoon ride towards the horde. "Ready those blessed silvers men, and you robe wearers melt those dead tin cans!" You get close enough and you unleash as many blessed silver arrows as you can at the Blood Specters. You kill a few. The wizards don't do quite as well with the knights. However, both attacks are enough. You see the Specters and Knights making whatever unearthly noises they do and begin to advance towards you far ahead of the slower yet steady moving horde. It apparent that the necromancer controlling them is attempting to bring them back under control, because they begin to squirm back and forth which gives you some more time to kill a few more during their confusion. Eventually the necromancer must give up total control because they stop squirming and advance upon you once again. You ride back as quickly as possible with the Specters and Knights in full pursuit. You didn't expect those Specters to be so fast. A few of them manage to catch up to some of your men with grisly results. You yourself almost get smacked upside the head by a Death Knight mace. When you get back in range the rest of your awaiting army deals with your pursuers. More blessed arrows fly into the Blood Specters before they can do anymore harm, and eventually the Death Knights are brought down as well. There is no time for a reprieve though, as the main horde is now almost upon you. You order a regrouping as best you can, and face the enemy, telling if possible for someone to aim for the necromancer in all of this rotting mess. Bones and limbs from both sides are broken and hacked off. A zombie skull is smashed, splashing maggots, blood and brains all over you and you're not even thinking about it. You just have a tune in your head to take yourself away from the massacre. Somehow in all of the chaos, you single out the necromancer leading this army, he stands a far piece away from the main fighting, but he's arrogant enough to be close enough for you to hit him with an arrow. And you have to hit him now. You see a Grand Alliance soldier who just took a fatal blow to the chest begin to rise... Not many arrows left and not much time, you just load up and shoot, hoping you hit the bastard. Your shot is straight and true. It strikes the necromancer in the stomach, causing him to fall back, which in turn causes the undead horde to momentarily stop their vicious attacks, giving your side a chance to turn the tide a bit. Then you shoot another arrow when you see the necromancer attempt to get back up, which turns the tide completely in your favor. Zombies and skeletons fall. Ghouls flee at the loss of leadership and any remaining undead are quickly dispatched. You don't take chances though. You walk up to the corpse of the necromancer and shoot your last arrow directly into his head and stab him a few times. You then start laughing. "If this was the Great Lich Lord, I'd be a real hero right now!" You quickly sober up from this macabre outburst when you hear shouting from some of your men and you look up. It's another horde. Just as big. You look behind you and see that your own numbers are completely insufficient. The Garwold citizens are either mostly dead or demoralized at this point. Even when you win...you lose. Having no real options, you sound a retreat to fall back to the Zalan border and suggest that the Garwold citizens do likewise as there is nothing more for them here. The Garwold Confederacy is now just one more loss for the living. The Zalan Empire won't be far behind. Three years pass... Ten years since the Nuro incident and The Grand Alliance is nearly just consisting of the Zalan Empire now, which in turn has had to adapt a siege mentality. There is no "going on the offensive" anymore. You're purely on defense. Your brother Mallack died two years ago. Transferred to a location with more fighting due to lack of manpower. Like it matters. Didn't even get to say goodbye. You can only hope he didn't become one of those things...but you know he probably did. You've been urging your family to run where it's safer, but of course they won't budge. The undead have been penetrating deeper into Zalan territory, you know it's only a matter of time before the Great Lich Lord decides to stop toying with you and makes his full scale attack. Sure enough it happens. Town after town is taken; you're pushed back further and further, and you know there's nothing you can do to stop it. An order is given to everyone to fallback to the capital and help defend it from an upcoming attack, but at this point you're just wondering if the rest of your family is still alive. > You go to your family Really, it's the only thing that makes any kind of sense anymore. This war is lost there's not even any doubt about it. Hope is fleeting and if this is truly it, then it's going to be with the ones you did this for in the first place. Your small groups of soldiers wonder where you're going and you flat out tell them, in fact you tell them more than that. "I'm going home, and I suggest if any of you have any family you go to them as well. This is it folks, there's no happy ending here. It's been a pleasure serving with all of you." You then ride home as quickly as possible. The farm is scattered with undead. They attack and in some cases eat the livestock, while attempting to get into your house. Dead Zalan soldiers can be seen, except they aren't properly dead like they should be. The farmhouse is being attacked and you can see your sister firing her pistol at the zombies from one of the broken windows. You trample a couple of the zombies with your horse and kill couple more with your bow, but eventually you dismount and chop up the remaining ones near the farm house, since you want to save your arrows for anything potentially more dangerous. "Quick get inside through this window, the door is barricaded." your sister Randi shouts when she sees you. "No! It's a death trap to stay now! This place is lost! You all have to come with me!" you shout back, keeping an eye on the advancing zombies. "Can't Mom's hurt pretty bad. Got stabbed by one those corpses. We can't move her. Help's gotta come soon..." "NO, it won't Randi! The capitol of Zalan is being attacked as we speak! I came home to get your guys! This is the fucking end! We've lost! We just gotta..." You're interrupted when you have to cut down an advancing zombie. Your sister fires a shot at another one. Suddenly a scream from the house is heard, followed by another. That has to be Calwin, and Makana. Randi rushes from the window and you cut down another zombie before bashing the door down with relative ease. More screaming is heard along with growling this time. You look around and run down the hallway where Randi is standing motionless. She's dropped her pistol. You push her aside and see your other sister Makana dead on the floor and then a quick scan to the left and you see your mother eating Calwin. She's one of those things... You act where Randi failed and give a killing blow to the thing that was once your mother. "I'm sorry." You whisper and her blood splashes across your face. Now you're ready to get the hell out of the house, but Randi is still standing there motionless. "COME ON! WE GOTTA GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!" you shout. "Yeah...okay..." Randi says and begins to move like she's in slow motion and picks up her flintlock. You run past Randi in the hallway who's still moving slowly. "Randi get your ass mov..." You hear a gunshot behind you. Followed by the slumping of a lifeless body. You don't even turn around, you don't want to see. When you get outside, surprisingly the undead haven't become unmanageable yet, and you cut down another couple with relative ease. Your horse unfortunately has run off, you're on foot from here. You don't even know where to go. Where is it going to be safe? Nowhere, but you lack any other ideas, so you just head for unclaimed wilderness. After about a day of running, hiding and maneuvering, you're in a relatively safe location and that's when you finally allow yourself to grieve for the loss of your family. You weep. You've lost everything now. Everything you did was basically for them, and now they're all gone. You don't know if you can even continue. What would be the point? The world seems to be doomed anyway. But then after you think about it, you decide that if death is taking over the world, you're not going to make it easy. Death has already taken everything away from you except your life, and you're going to hold on to that as long as possible. You're going to live for your family and all the others that can't any longer. You're going to survive, because ultimately that's what you've always done. You've cheated death more than once already and you'll continue to do it. Death itself is going to have to hunt you down if it wants your life. After reaching this conclusion, you try to think of where you should go next. Going to any type of centers of civilization is out of the question now. You'd only have to move again, them being targets now. So it's the life of wanderer now. The question is where would be best? The forests aren't exactly safe, but you're more familiar with surviving in them. The mountains might be a little safer, but living in them is going to be a lot harsher. > You stick to the forests Running from the undead, only to die of starvation and the cold in the mountains isn't your idea of survival. You're sticking to familiar terrain. You travel further away from civilization and ultimately deeper into a large forest. You're not exactly sure of where you're at, but you know you've left the Zalan borders. You're probably in the unclaimed area north of the Retlad province. You never patrolled that far when you were stationed there, so you're unsure of what to expect. You'll certainly have to be alert though. A few weeks pass and you've got the hang of it. A few close calls with an Eberaw Hunter, but you've managed to make somewhat of a home for yourself. You mainly sleep in the trees. You get water from springs and small streams and as for food, well you always were good at hunting. You pass the time playing your mandolin and just basically keeping watch. As the days pass by though, you get the impression that someone is watching YOU. It's not any undead though. You haven't seen any in weeks. You haven't come across any living creatures of higher intelligence either, but then again that doesn't mean they aren't around... "Hello stranger. Do you like our forest?" you hear a small voice say. You look around, but see nothing. You guess who ever it is, is invisible, and you nearly go for your weapon. "Please, no need for that. You are among friends here, musical one." The voice says and then you see your unseen host appears before you. She's very small and probably only comes up to ankle. You've heard of fairies before, but you've never seen one. "Are you a fairy?" you ask. "We go by many different names. Technically I am a pixie, but if you prefer, fairy will do. We heard you playing over the weeks and I thought it was about time we told you our appreciation for it. We didn't know you big people had gifts for it. You are human are you not?" "Yes, and thanks." "So, what brings you out here? Are you a ranger perhaps? You seem to have skills about you that are useful in this environment." "No, not a ranger. Just trying to escape death like everyone else I suppose." "Hmm, you realize as beautiful as this forest is, it's not without its dangers. Death is here as well, but I'm sure you know that." "Yes, but its at least reasonable. There aren't zombies and wraiths terrorizing the place...well at least not yet..." "What are you talking about stranger?" the pixie asks quizzically, you look a little surprised yourself. "The Great Lich Lord of course. He's destroying everything, and I dunno how he's going to be stopped. I don't think he can." Your words immediately make the pixie's cheerful demeanor change immediately. "...he's returned?! But he was killed centuries ago! My clan has told the stories for generations!" "Well, he's back, or someone like him...you really didn't know? I mean this war with him has been going on for years now. Ten to be precise. Don't you leave this forest?" "You must understand stranger, we have everything we want here. There is no need to leave. We also live in illusions, what you see now, is not necessarily what is. We remain hidden in our illusions so nobody may ever harm us and we can live our lives in relative isolation. It is only on rare occasions that we reveal ourselves." "But I've heard stories about your kind being elsewhere or even in cities." You say. "Well we are not the only fairy folk you know! Perhaps the others you heard of were sprites, or brownies or even a different clan of pixies. I can only speak for my clan and as far as I know we are the only fairy folk that live in this particular forest. There are other denizens of course, but thanks to our illusions we stay safely hidden. Even the occasional human or goblinoid that has wandered in here has not disturbed us. Quite frankly, you'd be the first person in centuries that we've revealed ourselves to." "There aren't any elves in this forest?" you ask, sort of figuring that some might have retreated or made a home here, forests being their natural homes and all. Your question is met with slight annoyance. "Most certainly not! This place has been elf free for millennia and hopefully stays that way! I'll speak no more of this elven nonsense!" You don't press the issue, but up until now you figured fairy folk and elves were all friends, guess not. The pixie changes the subject since she wants to know more about this Great Lich Lord business and says her name is Qweet. Qweet tells you that she will return with the rest of her clan, as she will not reveal their home of course. In a somewhat playful yet firm tone she also warns you not to try to follow her, though as good of a tracker you are you doubt if you could anyway since she turns invisible again. While you wait, you still can't believe she and the rest of her clan don't know anything about what's going on; you almost envy them for living in blissful ignorance for the last ten years. You also feel like you've ruined things for them. Eventually more pixies return and you tell them what's been going on. They are saddened, but maintain a confident demeanor. They are certain that they will survive this plague due to their illusions. They explain that if need be they can hide the entire forest, which with the new grim information you gave them they are very inclined to do. They still have to discuss it. In the meantime they say they hope you'll stick around for awhile as they still enjoy your playing and you aren't destroying the forest. You're just glad you've met some friendly people that aren't trying to kill you. It's a nice change and after what you've been through recently, you welcome it. One year passes... Your time in the pixie forest has been relatively safe. Other than the occasional aggressive forest beasts, you haven't had to do much combat. It's been a relief. You've enjoyed the company of the pixies as well. However, your natural curiosity has gotten the better of you on occasion and you have made a few trips outside of the forest. You travel as far as the Retlad province and the first obscure village you stumble across is completely decimated, with undead roaming around. The scary part about it is this is very recent looking, which means they're starting to head your way. It'll start with the occasional zombie or skeleton wandering in. Then more will come. How long before an army arrives? Again due to your information, Qweet and the rest of her clan have made the final decision to hide their forest entirely. They tell you that they would like you to stay. You would even be allowed to see their true home. The only stipulation is that you would not be able to leave. The illusion wouldn't just hide the forest, but it would create a barrier preventing entry or exit. You can't imagine how it would look to those on the outside of the forest. Appealing to be sure, but as much as you like the company of the pixies, you don't think it will be safe to dwell in their forest for too much longer, illusions or not. The Gnomes back in the Garwold Confederacy had some excellent illusionists as well, and it didn't help them. > You stay in the forest This is probably the most satisfied you've been in a long time. Why bother running anymore? You're not going to be any happier elsewhere as you eek out an existence. This is a place where you can play your music and have a regular appreciative audience. Perhaps the pixie illusion will fail, perhaps it won't, but this is your home now. "Queet, I'm staying." "That's wonderful!" she squeaks. The pixies go through with their plan of hiding the entire forest. They explain that for everyone else it will look like a rock mass and the magic shield will prevent entry in case someone bumps into the "rock". Creatures inside will only see more forest outside the barrier and will probably be baffled to as why they can't go any further, but will probably not make any serious attempt to do so even if they could. The pixies also allow you to enter their little village. Naturally you're much bigger, but a special arrangement is made so that you can stay nearby and they build you a tree-house of sorts and provide meals and drink for you. Life with the pixies full time is relatively nice. Of course a few are prone to play jokes on you sometimes, you don't get mad about it and they usually make up for it later. A few years pass and it gets to the point where you almost forget about what's going on outside the forest since almost everyday is a pixie party filled with merriment and music. There's one particular time when there was a brief magical disturbance in the illusion, but the pixies managed to correct it. It does cause you to get concerned, but the pixies still insist that you not worry. After fifteen some odd years pass, the forest begins to signs of unnatural decay, and forest creatures seem to be dying way before their time. Some of the pixies have made comments of not feeling themselves, which is very odd since being fairy creatures they don't normally get sick. You haven't been feeling up to your usual standards either. You at first chalked it up to age, but you know that it's more than that. The Great Lich Lord's influence has finally penetrated the illusion. Death is creeping in. The months pass and the illusion begins to break down despite attempts to keep it up. At last for the first time in years you see the "outside world" again. It's desolate and bleak. The Great Lich Lord has been thorough in his conquest of the world and with this new found green patch, it won't be long before it becomes as dead as the rest of the landscape. Perhaps because they're magical creatures of nature, the pixies cannot withstand this death aura as well as you can, and they begin dying. Their illusions and happy lush world utterly destroyed. "Wh...why is this happening?" are Queet's last delirious words before she expires. One by one they all die. You weep as you can do nothing for them. Nobody can. Once again you've lost another family. You wish you'd left the damn forest long ago just so you hadn't deluded yourself and gotten so attached to the pixies only to watch them die. However, you decide that this place will be your last stand as well and you're too tired to run even if there was anywhere safe to run to anyway. You fight off undead creatures for a couple months as you attempt to survive in this now dying forest, but ultimately you're overwhelmed and killed. Sadly, unlike your pixie friends, you are not allowed to rest in peace as you wander the landscape in search of the last remnants of life to destroy in the Great Lich Lord's service.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, grimdark, fantasy, serious] Running from the undead, only to die of starvation and the cold in the mountains isn't your idea of survival. You're sticking to familiar terrain. You travel further away from civilization and ultimately deeper into a large forest. You're not exactly sure of where you're at, but you know you've left the Zalan borders. You're probably in the unclaimed area north of the Retlad province. You never patrolled that far when you were stationed there, so you're unsure of what to expect. You'll certainly have to be alert though. A few weeks pass and you've got the hang of it. A few close calls with an Eberaw Hunter, but you've managed to make somewhat of a home for yourself. You mainly sleep in the trees. You get water from springs and small streams and as for food, well you always were good at hunting. You pass the time playing your mandolin and just basically keeping watch. As the days pass by though, you get the impression that someone is watching YOU. It's not any undead though. You haven't seen any in weeks. You haven't come across any living creatures of higher intelligence either, but then again that doesn't mean they aren't around... "Hello stranger. Do you like our forest?" you hear a small voice say. You look around, but see nothing. You guess who ever it is, is invisible, and you nearly go for your weapon. "Please, no need for that. You are among friends here, musical one." The voice says and then you see your unseen host appears before you. She's very small and probably only comes up to ankle. You've heard of fairies before, but you've never seen one. "Are you a fairy?" you ask. "We go by many different names. Technically I am a pixie, but if you prefer, fairy will do. We heard you playing over the weeks and I thought it was about time we told you our appreciation for it. We didn't know you big people had gifts for it. You are human are you not?" "Yes, and thanks." "So, what brings you out here? Are you a ranger perhaps? You seem to have skills about you that are useful in this environment." "No, not a ranger. Just trying to escape death like everyone else I suppose." "Hmm, you realize as beautiful as this forest is, it's not without its dangers. Death is here as well, but I'm sure you know that." "Yes, but its at least reasonable. There aren't zombies and wraiths terrorizing the place...well at least not yet..." "What are you talking about stranger?" the pixie asks quizzically, you look a little surprised yourself. "The Great Lich Lord of course. He's destroying everything, and I dunno how he's going to be stopped. I don't think he can." Your words immediately make the pixie's cheerful demeanor change immediately. "...he's returned?! But he was killed centuries ago! My clan has told the stories for generations!" "Well, he's back, or someone like him...you really didn't know? I mean this war with him has been going on for years now. Ten to be precise. Don't you leave this forest?" "You must understand stranger, we have everything we want here. There is no need to leave. We also live in illusions, what you see now, is not necessarily what is. We remain hidden in our illusions so nobody may ever harm us and we can live our lives in relative isolation. It is only on rare occasions that we reveal ourselves." "But I've heard stories about your kind being elsewhere or even in cities." You say. "Well we are not the only fairy folk you know! Perhaps the others you heard of were sprites, or brownies or even a different clan of pixies. I can only speak for my clan and as far as I know we are the only fairy folk that live in this particular forest. There are other denizens of course, but thanks to our illusions we stay safely hidden. Even the occasional human or goblinoid that has wandered in here has not disturbed us. Quite frankly, you'd be the first person in centuries that we've revealed ourselves to." "There aren't any elves in this forest?" you ask, sort of figuring that some might have retreated or made a home here, forests being their natural homes and all. Your question is met with slight annoyance. "Most certainly not! This place has been elf free for millennia and hopefully stays that way! I'll speak no more of this elven nonsense!" You don't press the issue, but up until now you figured fairy folk and elves were all friends, guess not. The pixie changes the subject since she wants to know more about this Great Lich Lord business and says her name is Qweet. Qweet tells you that she will return with the rest of her clan, as she will not reveal their home of course. In a somewhat playful yet firm tone she also warns you not to try to follow her, though as good of a tracker you are you doubt if you could anyway since she turns invisible again. While you wait, you still can't believe she and the rest of her clan don't know anything about what's going on; you almost envy them for living in blissful ignorance for the last ten years. You also feel like you've ruined things for them. Eventually more pixies return and you tell them what's been going on. They are saddened, but maintain a confident demeanor. They are certain that they will survive this plague due to their illusions. They explain that if need be they can hide the entire forest, which with the new grim information you gave them they are very inclined to do. They still have to discuss it. In the meantime they say they hope you'll stick around for awhile as they still enjoy your playing and you aren't destroying the forest. You're just glad you've met some friendly people that aren't trying to kill you. It's a nice change and after what you've been through recently, you welcome it. One year passes... Your time in the pixie forest has been relatively safe. Other than the occasional aggressive forest beasts, you haven't had to do much combat. It's been a relief. You've enjoyed the company of the pixies as well. However, your natural curiosity has gotten the better of you on occasion and you have made a few trips outside of the forest. You travel as far as the Retlad province and the first obscure village you stumble across is completely decimated, with undead roaming around. The scary part about it is this is very recent looking, which means they're starting to head your way. It'll start with the occasional zombie or skeleton wandering in. Then more will come. How long before an army arrives? Again due to your information, Qweet and the rest of her clan have made the final decision to hide their forest entirely. They tell you that they would like you to stay. You would even be allowed to see their true home. The only stipulation is that you would not be able to leave. The illusion wouldn't just hide the forest, but it would create a barrier preventing entry or exit. You can't imagine how it would look to those on the outside of the forest. Appealing to be sure, but as much as you like the company of the pixies, you don't think it will be safe to dwell in their forest for too much longer, illusions or not. The Gnomes back in the Garwold Confederacy had some excellent illusionists as well, and it didn't help them. > You Leave The pixies have almost made you forget about what's really going on in the rest of the world...but you still know it's going on. Perhaps it's easier for them, as they have not had to experience the tragedies you've faced, but you know the destruction that's eventually going to come. You don't see any hope in their plan and if you stayed, and you still would never be able to completely relax. You could possibly be trapped as well. However, you have no wish to bring more despair to these people. Let them live in illusions for as long as they can, You wish you could. It is with great regret that you tell them that you cannot stay. They attempt to convince you to do otherwise, but you've already made up your mind. Finally they accept your decision, but insist on repaying you for all your musical entertainment. They give you a small magical amulet. They tell you it can make you invisible for short periods of time. You thank them and assure them that it will most definitely come in handy. You leave the forest and head further away from the undead plague. Nine years pass... Twenty years of surviving this living hell. Living in a cave in the mountains isn't as easy as it was in the Pixie forest, but it's probably a lot safer as far as undead are concerned. The biggest threats you've had to face are a few Cragmaws and Mountain Trolls. Once you ran into a couple of dwarves, so you assume that there may be an underground settlement somewhere in the area. You attempted to speak, but they just shot at you with their crossbows and told you to go away, saying that humans were the cause of the problem going on right now. Your use your amulet when you can as it seems that the living have been just as willing to kill you as the undead. Then again, that's nothing new. Every now and then you travel and scout around the area taking in the untainted countryside. You figure you should do it now before it's claimed eventually. The living exist here, which means death can only eventually follow. You just wonder how long it will take. Sometimes you walk along the shore that's nearby. You look out past the vast blue and begin to wonder if there are any other places out there. You briefly entertain the idea of building a boat. You know that the globe was thoroughly charted centuries ago and that this is the only continent, but still you wonder if something wasn't missed. Of course you're probably just holding on to the false hope that you could theoretically go someplace else where death wasn't everywhere. But there isn't such a place. Lately something very odd has been happening and you have no idea what it is. You could swear that the landscape has been subtlety altering itself from time to time. Not permanently, but it seems to look "wavy" or "warped" briefly. You initially chalk it up to your prolonged isolation and seeing things because of it, however you soon find out that it's more than just your mind playing tricks on you. One day after you've done some hunting and bringing your catch back to your cave, you start noticing a severe slow down in your actions. "What the fuck..." you say to yourself, except it comes out a lot slower. You don't experience for long, but the worst is yet to come. A portal opens up in the sky and you immediately feel ill. You see a creature that you've never seen before and it's huge but it feels incredibly unnatural and it definitely isn't of this world. The dead animal that you're carrying suddenly melts into a black goo like substance. You jump back and nearly fall off the side of the mountain, which now feels like jelly under your feet rather than sturdy rock. You don't know what's going here and you don't want to know. All you know is reality is starting to be seriously warped and you're ready to puke. The tentacled creature doesn't seem to notice you, it's just surveying and floating in the air as the area around and beneath it changes. That still doesn't mean it won't attack eventually when it does notice you. You immediately attempt to use your amulet, but nothing is happening. The creature or something else is nullifying your magic item. Right now you're caught out in the open, your cave is close, but you're still not sure if you can get there in time and even if you do, would you be any safer? The other alternative is to make you way back down the mountain and try to escape that way. The problem with that plan is that everything is very wobbly right now and you're not feeling very steady. > You run to your cave The creature is too big to fit in the cave if it tries to attack and you need to hide as soon as possible. You make a run for it, gagging and stumbling the whole time. Eventually you do get to the cave. You don't think the creature even saw you. You continue to fumble around in the dark cave that you call home. You can still hear weird noises coming from outside and you're desperate to drown them out as you feel like its doing something to your mind. In fact, you're feeling a little deranged. "WHAT?! WHAT?! UNDEAD WEREN'T ENOUGH?! NOW THIS?! HAHAHAHA! YOU CAN'T KILL ME! I'LL SURVIVE! I SURVIVE EVERYTHING! Who am I here? Who goes there?" You look around the cave and start seeing the rocky walls transform into writhing masses of worms. You grab your sword and start hacking away, only to fall to the ground half laughing and half crying. "You don't understand...I've lost it all...(sob) why? WHERE ARE THE GODS? WHY HAVEN'T YOU STOPPED THIS?! DAMN YOU FUCKING ALL! Ha ha ha ha!" You look into the small fire that lights your cave and see it change into a blue color. You begin to think you see faces in it. "Randi? Is that you? I'm sorry...I could still save..." You burn your hand badly when you shove it into the flames in some misguided attempt to save your sister who is not there. It's at this point; you realize you're losing your mind. You didn't survive this long just to lose that. You start trying to block out the sounds, but it's relentless. And that's when you see your mandolin on the floor nearby. Music. It always takes you to another place. A better place. You can't play it right now with your burned hand, but your music is always with you. In your mind. You begin to focus on one particular song in your head. You close your eyes think of yourself playing. The tune is nearly drowned out by the noise, but eventually the music gets louder and the creature's noise is getting quieter, until finally that's all you can hear. You have no idea how long you do this for, but eventually you open your eyes again, and everything is normal. The walls are rock, the fire is red. Your hand still hurts, but it will heal. You stay in the cave for days, unsure of what to make of all this. Ultimately you leave to explore cautiously, and everything outside seems normal as well. There is no sign that the creature was ever around. You don't know if it moved on, disappeared, or what. Did you go temporarily insane? Did all of this really happen? You do know you burned your hand, so you're pretty sure it did on some level. In any event, you never want to encounter anything like that ever again. Death almost seems preferable than complete madness. You're still shaken up by the experience for months to come but eventually you get over it. Just like you have with every other hardship you've faced. Twenty years pass... Forty years have passed and you feel death closer than ever. Old age has been taking its toll and while you're somewhat fit for your age you can't stop the ravages of time. Still, it's not just that. It's the world in general. The place has slowly become a dead world, quite literally from what you've seen during your travels. Eventually you abandoned your cave in the mountain when the dead began to congregate in the area. The dwarven settlement was probably attacked. You don't know, you didn't stick around. You continued to stay on the move. After a few years of wandering, you noticed dead trees. Not unusual in the lands of the Great Lich Lord, but you were sticking to places at least on the outskirts of his domain. But it didn't seem to matter. His influence was obviously extending. The magic in your amulet no longer works, and you briefly thought of the pixies. You know they didn't survive. Soon grass was no longer growing. Hunting was becoming scarce. Animals were dying out. It almost reminded you of when the farm was going through a rough patch, but this time there would be no recovery. You walked along another shoreline and saw fish and other sea creatures washed up dead in massive quantities. You've had to fight undead monsters at almost every turn, always having to stay one step ahead before you're overwhelmed. Even the air itself feels like it's harder to breathe no matter where you go. Right now you're very far north, where nothing ever existed save ice and snow. You're living in yet another cave, but you're pretty sure this one is going to be your tomb. You haven't eaten in days, as you haven't spotted a living creature in days. You haven't seen another intelligent living creature in years. It's very cold, and all you want to do is sleep now. You think you might have one or two more days left tops. However, you're not allowed to leave just yet... While you're drifting in and out of consciousness in your weakened state, you suddenly see a dark hooded figure by the fire. You know who it is. "So...you've come for me personally? I didn't think I was important enough." you ask. "You aren't really. Let's just say that I have a lot of free time and with less and less living now, I take a more personal approach whenever I can. Besides, given how remote this place is, I doubt if any of my necromancers could've found you anyway. That is if I hadn't killed them all." The Great Lich Lord's voice doesn't sound anything like you thought it might. It's actually not very scary at all. Almost calm. "Heh. I killed a necromancer once..." you say. "You have my thanks then, one less treacherous fool that I didn't have to deal with." "You didn't really need to come all this way you know, I think I was dying before you got here." At this point the Great Lich Lord begins walking around your cave looking at your meager possessions. He immediately notices your very worn mandolin and picks it up. "Please feel free to take it. I won't be needing it anymore." You say. "Not sure what I'd do with it. I'm not musically inclined at all. I'm pretty much only good at killing things as you can tell." "Yeah, you're great at that." "My mistress Catalina likes music though; perhaps she might find it interesting. This looks very old, where did you get it?" "Oh in a town that the demons destroyed when they lost their leader Velzix." "Hah. Demons. I think everyone was glad when I got rid of those assholes." The Great Lich Lord remarks. "That thing probably saved my life when I found it. Some weird ass vampire called Warnov wanted me to play for him. Said you were after him or something..." "Yes. Vampires weren't my favorite people. Arrogant creatures. Well they're dead now. Excuse me, but did you say Warnov?" "That was his name. Yes." The Great Lich Lord is silent for a moment and then speaks again. "I know who you are. I can't believe it's you, but I know who you are. I remember before I tracked down and killed old Warnov, he stated that he was glad he heard you play before he died. He also said that if I ever encountered you that I should insist that you play for me before I killed you. Something about your playing being beautiful or something. You also served in the Zalan Empire army. Weren't you supposed to be a hero or something?" You laugh weakly. "Mostly or something." You reply. "Hm. I wonder if you ever met..." the Great Lich Lord then pauses for a moment. "...nevermind. It's the past and that no longer matters. So can you still play this thing?" "Well of course, but..." "Good. We're leaving this place then, got a job for you." Before you can speak another word, you feel yourself teleported. > One last song... You find yourself in a very ornate yet definitely dark chamber. All manner of symbols related to death exist here. You could only be in the Great Lich Lord's tower in Nuro. You never thought you'd ever be here. The last time you were anywhere near Nuro was forty years ago and things were much different. "Welcome to Aftermath, my musical guest. As I said, I'm not much for music, but Catalina is and I'm sure she would love to hear you play. She..." The Great Lich Lord pauses again. "She hasn't been feeling well lately and I think this would help out. Just take seat in that chair over there. Here's your mandolin." This almost surreal. You didn't expect your last moments on this world to be like this. Lacking any other ideas you slowly go over to sit on the chair, while the Great Lich Lord goes to get his mistress Catalina. They better hurry up because you feel like you've done more than knocking on death's door; you're quite literally in his home. The proximity of being so close to the Great Lich Lord is speeding up your death. The Great Lich Lord soon arrives with Catalina and you look upon her. She's very beautiful. You had heard stories about her before decades ago when you were still serving in the army. She looks young, though she has to be much older. However, you can tell she's not exactly moving very fast and taking her time. It's apparent that despite her skill in necromancy that she's suffering from the effects of the Great Lich Lord's death aura. She must be powerful indeed to be able to withstand his proximity everyday. She must also love him very much to do it. You briefly think of how someone could ever love such a being, or how such a being is even capable of love. But given how you see them interact, there it is. This also starts to make you angry. Why are they allowed such a thing? They're the bad guys here. You never did anything wrong and you lost everyone you ever loved or cared about. You begin to tear up, but it's in frustration rather than sadness. All the past pain and suffering that you've ever experienced has come back to hurt you one last time. "Okay, start playing." The Great Lich Lord says. "No." you remark. "What?" "You heard me. No." "I don't think you're in any position to defy me." "Oh I think I'm in every position. What the hell are you going to do to me? I'm fuckin' dead already! You've already taken everything away from me! My friends and acquaintances died because of you! I lost my home because of you! My family and loved ones died because of you! I had to kill my own mother because she became one of your undead minions! My siblings, all fuckin' dead! All I have left is my music! And now you want me to give that away to you too? NO! I'll DIE with it!" After this outburst the Great Lich Lord replies in kind. "Insolent mortal! Do you forget who I am? You think dying will save you? Think again! I will kill you and raise you as a fucking zombie and MAKE you play for us in a pink dress if it so amuses me! Now play and perhaps that won't be your fate!" The Great Lich Lord's voice now sounds more menacing. More like what you thought, but you don't care, you've got nothing to lose at this juncture. It is at this point Catalina steps in. "I don't think that will be necessary dear. You just let me handle this. You go in the next room and cool off or something." The Great Lich Lord agrees to this and hugs Catalina, before walking off. Catalina now walks towards you. "You'll have to forgive my beloved's outburst. He goes a little over the top when it comes to me. Especially now. So much has happened. He's changed so much and continues to change even now. He doesn't express it, but I think it's always gotten to him." "I don't have to forgive shit. Am I supposed to feel sympathy? He's caused all this...and you too! How can you stand by him? You're still alive! You could probably kill him and stop this before the entire world is dead!" "Oh I doubt if I could, even if I so desired, which I don't. My feelings for him and the reasons...well the heart wants, what the heart wants. I sometimes worry about what he will do after I'm gone though. He's in great denial. He knows I cannot fight off his overwhelming aura forever. I suppose in some ways, bringing you here to play for me was some vain hope of making me feel better. And it will, in its own way..." You still can't believe that she's trying to make them out to be the victims. "Look I don't care about what the hell you two death freaks want, I know what the hell I've gone through and it's all your fault. Fuck the both of you. You haven't had to deal with the pain I've gone through." "Perhaps not. But do you think you are the only one on this world who's suffered? What makes your life and those close to you so special? Nothing. You and everyone else whoever lived on this dying world are equal. You, your family, even me. The only person who isn't equal, is in the next room. We've all lost those close to us at some point. Yes, even my beloved and he'll lose another when I'm gone. We'll all be long dead and he'll probably still be on this world by himself with nothing to do. And that, I'm convinced will be the greatest suffering of all. Life without end? No thank you. When my time comes, I will embrace it." You're very surprised to hear a necromancer say that. "My beloved cannot help what he is. For whatever reason, he was gifted with the art of death. He's become it. It's his nature. You can't be angry with a force of nature. It has to simply be." You want to argue, you want to fight, you want to bring up every moral debate you can think of, but to be quite honest you can't. Part of it is it wouldn't make any difference. Part of it is you're tired of fighting, you can't do it anymore and you don't have strength at this point. The other part is that in a way what she's said makes some sense and is correct. It also makes you think about your "nature". It was to play music. You never got to live the life you wanted, but during your lifetime, music always seeped in somehow. It always found a way. Catalina continues to speak. "Now you certainly don't have to play. That's your choice. I will make sure that my beloved does not turn you into dress wearing zombie though. It would be a shame though. You are not completely unfamiliar to me. I do have some knowledge of who you are and I have heard stories of your playing. I would like to hear it played while you still had the passion and energy behind it. The living spark that can only invoke such things." "...I'll play..." you say with a heavy breath that took some effort for you. "You will?" "Yes...what did you want to hear?" Catalina smiles. "I don't know, whatever you like I suppose. Just as long as it has a nice soothing melody." "Okay then." "Hold on, I must get my beloved before you start. I must ask though, what changed your mind to play?" "Nothing. It's my nature." Catalina soon returns with the Great Lich Lord and they both sit in their respective thrones. Catalina tells you to play, which you do so. You watch the pair of them look at each other as you play. You would appear that Catalina is pleased with her "gift". You don't know about the Great Lich Lord, since you can't see his face, but you assume that if she's happy, then he's happy. You see them hold hands and look at each other as you enter the second verse of the song. At this point you begin to close your eyes and just let the music and instinct guide your fingers. You can feel your life slip away, but it doesn't matter. You've been taken to a different place. A better place. You smile and wave to your family. You can see them all so clearly. All of them are there. You're getting closer. They're ready to accept you with open arms. Last verse. Not much energy left, but you're nearly there. You won't have to worry about anything anymore. Heart slowing down. You're with them now. Everything will be so good again. Your music has saved you one last time. One last note. One last breath. You're home. "Well, he certainly looked happier than he did earlier." "Yes, yes he did. Set his body on fire dear." "You don't want him around to play for you later?" "No, I don't think that performance could ever be replicated."

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, fantasy, grimdark] The pixies have almost made you forget about what's really going on in the rest of the world...but you still know it's going on. Perhaps it's easier for them, as they have not had to experience the tragedies you've faced, but you know the destruction that's eventually going to come. You don't see any hope in their plan and if you stayed, and you still would never be able to completely relax. You could possibly be trapped as well. However, you have no wish to bring more despair to these people. Let them live in illusions for as long as they can, You wish you could. It is with great regret that you tell them that you cannot stay. They attempt to convince you to do otherwise, but you've already made up your mind. Finally they accept your decision, but insist on repaying you for all your musical entertainment. They give you a small magical amulet. They tell you it can make you invisible for short periods of time. You thank them and assure them that it will most definitely come in handy. You leave the forest and head further away from the undead plague. Nine years pass... Twenty years of surviving this living hell. Living in a cave in the mountains isn't as easy as it was in the Pixie forest, but it's probably a lot safer as far as undead are concerned. The biggest threats you've had to face are a few Cragmaws and Mountain Trolls. Once you ran into a couple of dwarves, so you assume that there may be an underground settlement somewhere in the area. You attempted to speak, but they just shot at you with their crossbows and told you to go away, saying that humans were the cause of the problem going on right now. Your use your amulet when you can as it seems that the living have been just as willing to kill you as the undead. Then again, that's nothing new. Every now and then you travel and scout around the area taking in the untainted countryside. You figure you should do it now before it's claimed eventually. The living exist here, which means death can only eventually follow. You just wonder how long it will take. Sometimes you walk along the shore that's nearby. You look out past the vast blue and begin to wonder if there are any other places out there. You briefly entertain the idea of building a boat. You know that the globe was thoroughly charted centuries ago and that this is the only continent, but still you wonder if something wasn't missed. Of course you're probably just holding on to the false hope that you could theoretically go someplace else where death wasn't everywhere. But there isn't such a place. Lately something very odd has been happening and you have no idea what it is. You could swear that the landscape has been subtlety altering itself from time to time. Not permanently, but it seems to look "wavy" or "warped" briefly. You initially chalk it up to your prolonged isolation and seeing things because of it, however you soon find out that it's more than just your mind playing tricks on you. One day after you've done some hunting and bringing your catch back to your cave, you start noticing a severe slow down in your actions. "What the fuck..." you say to yourself, except it comes out a lot slower. You don't experience for long, but the worst is yet to come. A portal opens up in the sky and you immediately feel ill. You see a creature that you've never seen before and it's huge but it feels incredibly unnatural and it definitely isn't of this world. The dead animal that you're carrying suddenly melts into a black goo like substance. You jump back and nearly fall off the side of the mountain, which now feels like jelly under your feet rather than sturdy rock. You don't know what's going here and you don't want to know. All you know is reality is starting to be seriously warped and you're ready to puke. The tentacled creature doesn't seem to notice you, it's just surveying and floating in the air as the area around and beneath it changes. That still doesn't mean it won't attack eventually when it does notice you. You immediately attempt to use your amulet, but nothing is happening. The creature or something else is nullifying your magic item. Right now you're caught out in the open, your cave is close, but you're still not sure if you can get there in time and even if you do, would you be any safer? The other alternative is to make you way back down the mountain and try to escape that way. The problem with that plan is that everything is very wobbly right now and you're not feeling very steady. > You run back down the mountain You're having difficulty concentrating, but you decide that it would be better to distance yourself from the creature rather than trapping yourself in a cave. You attempt to head down the mountain, but you really are feel very sick and dizzy, in fact you're beginning to feel worse. The ground underneath you doesn't even feel like jelly now, you're actually sinking into it like quicksand! "What the fu..." you say before a sudden powerful wave of nausea that hits you causes you to vomit immediately. You try to stop the sinking, but it's futile and soon you've sank all the way it. Oddly you can still breathe; but the terrain has turned to worms and maggots. You can feel them crawling all over you, in your ears and every other orifice of your body. You begin to laugh insanely (while the maggots crawl all in it) since your mind has become severely warped at this point and madness has overtaken you as you sink further through the maggot mountain. You're unsure of how long this goes on for since you've lost your mind, but whatever was going on eventually stops and everything returns to normal. Unfortunately that doesn't really help you since you're still in the mountain which has returned to solid rock where you are now completely embedded in. You die instantly, putting an end to your madness.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, grimdark] Really, it's the only thing that makes any kind of sense anymore. This war is lost there's not even any doubt about it. Hope is fleeting and if this is truly it, then it's going to be with the ones you did this for in the first place. Your small groups of soldiers wonder where you're going and you flat out tell them, in fact you tell them more than that. "I'm going home, and I suggest if any of you have any family you go to them as well. This is it folks, there's no happy ending here. It's been a pleasure serving with all of you." You then ride home as quickly as possible. The farm is scattered with undead. They attack and in some cases eat the livestock, while attempting to get into your house. Dead Zalan soldiers can be seen, except they aren't properly dead like they should be. The farmhouse is being attacked and you can see your sister firing her pistol at the zombies from one of the broken windows. You trample a couple of the zombies with your horse and kill couple more with your bow, but eventually you dismount and chop up the remaining ones near the farm house, since you want to save your arrows for anything potentially more dangerous. "Quick get inside through this window, the door is barricaded." your sister Randi shouts when she sees you. "No! It's a death trap to stay now! This place is lost! You all have to come with me!" you shout back, keeping an eye on the advancing zombies. "Can't Mom's hurt pretty bad. Got stabbed by one those corpses. We can't move her. Help's gotta come soon..." "NO, it won't Randi! The capitol of Zalan is being attacked as we speak! I came home to get your guys! This is the fucking end! We've lost! We just gotta..." You're interrupted when you have to cut down an advancing zombie. Your sister fires a shot at another one. Suddenly a scream from the house is heard, followed by another. That has to be Calwin, and Makana. Randi rushes from the window and you cut down another zombie before bashing the door down with relative ease. More screaming is heard along with growling this time. You look around and run down the hallway where Randi is standing motionless. She's dropped her pistol. You push her aside and see your other sister Makana dead on the floor and then a quick scan to the left and you see your mother eating Calwin. She's one of those things... You act where Randi failed and give a killing blow to the thing that was once your mother. "I'm sorry." You whisper and her blood splashes across your face. Now you're ready to get the hell out of the house, but Randi is still standing there motionless. "COME ON! WE GOTTA GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!" you shout. "Yeah...okay..." Randi says and begins to move like she's in slow motion and picks up her flintlock. You run past Randi in the hallway who's still moving slowly. "Randi get your ass mov..." You hear a gunshot behind you. Followed by the slumping of a lifeless body. You don't even turn around, you don't want to see. When you get outside, surprisingly the undead haven't become unmanageable yet, and you cut down another couple with relative ease. Your horse unfortunately has run off, you're on foot from here. You don't even know where to go. Where is it going to be safe? Nowhere, but you lack any other ideas, so you just head for unclaimed wilderness. After about a day of running, hiding and maneuvering, you're in a relatively safe location and that's when you finally allow yourself to grieve for the loss of your family. You weep. You've lost everything now. Everything you did was basically for them, and now they're all gone. You don't know if you can even continue. What would be the point? The world seems to be doomed anyway. But then after you think about it, you decide that if death is taking over the world, you're not going to make it easy. Death has already taken everything away from you except your life, and you're going to hold on to that as long as possible. You're going to live for your family and all the others that can't any longer. You're going to survive, because ultimately that's what you've always done. You've cheated death more than once already and you'll continue to do it. Death itself is going to have to hunt you down if it wants your life. After reaching this conclusion, you try to think of where you should go next. Going to any type of centers of civilization is out of the question now. You'd only have to move again, them being targets now. So it's the life of wanderer now. The question is where would be best? The forests aren't exactly safe, but you're more familiar with surviving in them. The mountains might be a little safer, but living in them is going to be a lot harsher. > You head to the mountains Better to get accustomed to them now, since you figure you might have to live in them in the future anyway. You head further north and traverse the harsh terrain. As far as undead are concerned you're in no danger, however the mountain trolls and cragmaws living there are just as dangerous. You eventually find a suitable cave to live in. To keep yourself entertained you play your music in between your survival. It's a rough life, but you persevere for a few years. Unfortunately the day comes when a particularly large mountain troll tribe decides to finally get organized enough to eliminate you from being a nuisance. You awaken one night to see several large figures enter your cave. You spring to action immediately, which causes the trolls to laugh. This buys you time to kill at least one of them, but only one. You're outnumbered, trapped and there's nowhere to hide. The trolls savagely butcher you and even smash your mandolin over your head before you head to permanent unconsciousness. The only good thing is that trolls do such a thorough job of eating your body that not even your bones are left to be reanimated when the Great Lich Lord's influence reaches the area.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, war] You can't take it anymore. "I'M NOT A FUCKING HERO! OKAY!? I NEVER WAS AND I NEVER WANTED TO BE! (sob)... I just wanted to go home...(sob)" You weep for a few minutes before the captain speaks again. "Alright then what happened? Tell me the entire truth and maybe you'll avoid the executioner's axe." At this point you have little choice. You're too distraught to say anything else. You give a relatively condensed version of what happened. At Nuro and what happened recently. Your encounter with Warnov seems to surprise her quite a bit. You also go on to explain that it was high ranking Zalan officers that insisted on this hero nonsense. She believes you, like she knows something of it. "(sigh) Yeah there's a statue of my dad in the Zalan capitol...but I know better..." You don't question anymore about this quiet outburst from her since you're still too worried about what's going to happen to you. "So why did you come back? You probably could've gotten away with it." "The same reason why I joined. My family. I guess I just needed a reminder of that first hand. And if there's any hope of changing the tide of this war with the undead then I need to stand by my decision of joining the Zalan Army and making the world safer for them." Once again the captain seems to soften. She almost looks like she's going to tear up as well, but she turns away. "My family...I..." are all she says before taking a deep breath and turning back towards you, with a serious mindset again. "Alright, I shall trust your word for now sergeant, but I will be watching you VERY carefully! Consider yourself lucky for evading death once again, perhaps you do have knack for avoiding it. Let us hope that luck rubs off on the rest of us in the upcoming battle. I'm putting you in charge of the Retlad archery platoon. They'll probably like you. Dismissed." Before you leave she says one last thing. "And sergeant, don't listen to what that bizarre vampire said. We're not going to become extinct. We're going to win and survive a long time. Besides you still have to play that song for me." As you leave you feel a sigh of relief that you won't be dying just yet, but given that you're heading into battle soon with the undead, you're wondering if you just didn't postpone the inevitable. Two years pass... Seven years since the Nuro Incident changed the world into this living hell. Your time served in the Grand Alliance has not really changed much. The Grand Alliance and the Zalan Empire are basically one of the same now thanks to the complete embrace of a totalitarian system. Might makes right. Nations like the Azi Republic protested, but there was little that they could, after all Zalan has been practically defending the world by itself for the past few years. You get the impression that if this war is won; the Zalan Empire is going to throw its hat in to be a one world government. Amazing how power and conspiracy is plotted even when it probably won't happen. "Probably won't" because your superiors and political leaders are a lot more "optimistic" about winning than you are, but then they haven't had to face the horrors you've faced. And horrors are a completely accurate word. You've gotten over your fear of the undead, but it doesn't make it any easier. You're starting to lose ground. Everyday the living lose someone, the Great Lich Lord gains. It's a question of numbers and quite frankly your side doesn't have them. You sort of wish your old captain was here. She was a very good leader and inspirational, but then again that's why she was made a general and sent elsewhere. She asked you to play that song before she left though. Somehow it seemed to make her sadder afterwards. "Captain, undead are on the move, they won't be long now." One of your messengers says. "Yes, I can sense it. Here. You head back to my home. You know where it is by now, and give this message to my family. If you get back here and see undead, well get the fuck out and run back to Zalan territory." Being a captain hasn't really turned you into a copy of the captains you served in the past, but then again you didn't even think you'd ever be promoted to one. Your reign as one has been a little unorthodox as you've applied more guerilla tactics than traditional ones, but given your assignment and your background it makes a hell of a lot more sense. You're currently stationed on what remains of the Garwold Confederacy. It was a relatively peaceful nation made up mostly of Halflings and Gnomes, with lush green fields and flowers. Now it's just slowly becoming another massive graveyard and example of genocide. You've gotten to know quite a few of them and you're always amazed of how they can keep their sense of humor in the face of utter destruction. One of them actually gives you an answer. "To keep from crying." Indeed. You've been playing quite a bit when you're not battling the undead. (The Garwold citizens enjoy your playing a lot) It's gotten to the point where you don't just play anymore to keep your mind off of things, it's like it transports you to a different world. A better world. If only. You often wonder how your brother Mallack is doing. He's been stationed in a relatively safer location back in Zalan territory. You're guessing that it lowers the odds of having your mom lose both of her sons at the same time. Like it makes it any better if she lost them within any length on time of each other. You wonder if the war is going to go on long enough that by the time Calwin grows up he'll be drafted as well. If he even gets the chance to grow up. You can't think about it now. A massive undead horde is coming and there's no where left to hide. There will be open battle and you need to stay focused. You go through the whole order thing, and making sure your strategy is sound. You wish you had more wizards, but they seem to be in shorter supply these days. It's almost like they're being targeted deliberately sometimes...actually you don't think it, you KNOW that they are. You see the undead horde approach. You look through some new fangled dwarven invention called an eye piece and see something makes your job a hell of a lot worse. You don't just see the usual undead. You see fully armored Death Knights. Harder to kill than even a zombie giant. You see Blood Specters. Dark crimson spirits that can cause their victims to bleed from every orifice with their shrieks. Both of those are at the head of this horde, and this isn't even counting that you're severely outnumbered by just the regular zombies, skeletons, ghosts and the like. > You stand your ground You need to have a fully cohesive unit you think. "Ready those blessed silvers men, and you robe wearers melt those dead tin cans!" you order. Arrows fly towards the Blood Specters first seeing as they're your greatest threat, the wizards unleash magic attack on the Death Knights. Your side manages to eliminate most of them before the horde reaches you. Unfortunately this isn't enough. While your side fights valiantly, you're outnumbered as usual and don't really have the raw power to at least fight them off properly. Indeed that's been the whole problem with the Garwold defense. Gnomes and Halflings have never been the best fighters in a straight up battle. Doesn't take long before your dead are rising to join the enemy. You attempt to target the enemy necromancer, but you can't get a clear shot, and it won't help with the second dead army that is now heading over the hill now. You sound a retreat, but you won't be joining few survivors left as a Death Knight smashes you in the side of the head with a swing of his fail. You fall to the ground dazed and bloody. As you attempt to get up, your mind begins to fill music. A little tune to take you away from this place... You look up just in time to see a blurry outline of the Death Knight who finishes the job and crushes your skull completely.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, war, fantasy, grimdark] Now you have to figure out a plan that's going to prevent you from getting executed. You figure your brother's plan isn't exactly a bad one. Your record is good enough that you'd probably be believed. You think up a lie explaining that you were captured by a particularly sadistic vampire who was planning on draining you slowly to keep you as ongoing food. He took you to a cave in the hills where you barely killed him and escaped with your life. You would've made your way back sooner, but there were large groups of marauding orc raiders and demons escaping the ruins of the former Tulan kingdom that caused you to be extra cautious and forced you to hide for a few days. Yep, that sounds good. You head out with the plan of meeting up with Captain Eckard's company which is surely at the Tulan Kingdom now. Eventually you reach the same town you were at when you made your decision to try to leave. You find it occupied right now, it's not your company, so you're about to press on, but someone on patrol sees you. "HALT! Where are you supposed to be soldier?!" "Oh...uh..." you say getting caught off guard. You mentally curse yourself for not being more aware. "Speak up! Wow, you look a little worse for wear...what company are you with?" "I was with Captain Eckard...but..." "Captain Eckard's company? Holy shit! We thought they all got killed! The undead reached the Tulan capital first and ambushed them! But why am I telling you? You were there! You must've just barely escaped! Don't worry; you can avenge your friends, we're gathering strength to attack soon!" You don't believe this... The guard begins speaking to you excitedly and asking you how you escaped. You just continue to say you don't know, it all became a blur when the ambush occurred and how you attempted to fight, but it was just too much. The guard sympathizes and tells you that you can explain more to his captain. You notice he isn't wearing Zalan armor, he's wearing Azi Republic armor. You can only assume that perhaps this is a Grand Alliance company. Your ideas come true when you do indeed notice several kinds of troop types, though the Zalan Empire soldiers seem to be leading, as the captain is wearing the armor. Your heart sinks when you recognize her and she recognizes you. It was years ago, but you both remember. "...what are you doing here?" the female captain asks. "Last I heard you were in Captain Eckard's company. A company that was reported to be wiped out completely. Have you managed to avoid death once again? You are the lucky one aren't you?" Suddenly surrounding soldiers start to recognize you more closely. The Zalan ones especially. "Holy shit it's him! You fuckin' survived not one but TWO overwhelming undead hordes! We gotta take him captain, he's obviously good luck!" the guard says a little misguidedly. "Good luck? If you haven't noticed, only HE seems to be getting out alive on these things! I'd say he's bad luck!" someone else says. "Nonsense! I heard how he's killed countless demons with his bow! We could use someone like that in our next attack." another says. "Isn't he the guy that plays the lute really well?" A few people start arguing until the female captain speaks again. "ENOUGH! I'll handle this. You in my office now, I'll speak with you in private. And for the rest of you, get ready to move out. We're attacking tomorrow." She turns away and enters a building; you slowly follow, while everyone else disperses. When you enter the wrecked "office" she closes the door and tells you to sit down, but she doesn't. Instead she stares at you hard at you and draws her sword. "Okay Mr. Survivor. Convince me." "Convince you of what?" "Convince me that you aren't some fucking undead spy!" "WHAT?! How? I mean..." "Easy! In the two encounters you had with the undead on any major scale, you've been the only one to survive. Once, maybe. But twice? Mighty suspicious..." "But I mean...I'm not undead! Look I even walk around in the daylight, I'm not even pale!" "I didn't say you were undead, I said you were a spy. There are few of those misguided traitors that think their necromancer overlords will be kind to them, by killing them last. Madness." "But I'm not a spy! I killed..." you begin to stutter under pressure. "Yeah, yeah, you killed demons. Big deal. The undead and demons weren't friends either. What better way to be a spy than to make yourself a hero?" "But I'm not..." "You're not what?" "I'm not..." "What? More lies? Spit out the truth spy!" she demands pointing her sword at your throat. > Attempt to lie Quickly remembering the lie you thought up on the way, you sputter it out with some stress. "I...I was captured by a vampire! A really fucking sadistic one! He killed my scouting party and took me to say he was going to drain me slowly for fun! He took me to some cave in the hills and it was only by luck that I managed to kill him and escape! I would've made my way back sooner, but their were large groups of marauding orc raiders and demons escaping the ruins of the former Tulan Kingdom, so I was extra cautious and..." At this point the Captain bashes you in the head with the hilt of her sword. You fall off the chair and onto the floor. "LIAR! You expect me to believe this horse shit? I've had patrols going all through this area and there aren't any orcs in the damn area. They all fled further north long ago and the remaining demons mostly ran to the west! Not to mention the closest hills have no caves! You obviously think so low of me that you thought you could fool me OR you're just a complete idiot as well as a coward! Either way you haven't convinced me, and you're fit only for execution! You're a deserter at best and a spy at worst!" "No...wait..." are your last words before the Captain severs your head from your body.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy] Last time you were wounded and had the misfortune of running into demons. Well you aren't wounded this time and you're pretty sure you won't be running into too many more demons. You'll be able to pull it off this time. You can't do this army shit anymore, as much as you want to help your family out, you've got to live your own life regardless of what the future holds. You aren't even worried about committing an executionable offense. You easily sneak away as you hear your men call out your name looking for you. You're glad you didn't leave too much back at the fort, except your lute, but you've got your newly acquired mandolin to make up for it. Eventually you're away from civilization altogether. While you're out in the wilderness you think about your family again, and you have to at least let them know you're still alive. Maybe you can still do something about them, after all it doesn't sound like the Zalan Empire is becoming a great place to live anymore. Perhaps you could convince them to move? It takes a week of sneaking around and keeping out of sight, but eventually you make it back home. Zalan looks a lot different; hell home looks a lot different. There was a small wooded area near your farm, but most of the trees have been cut down now. You also remember fewer patrols. Your house looks in better condition however. You guess at least your family seems a lot safer, but for how long? You knock on the door in the middle of the night and your sister Randi answers, Not too surprising as she always was a night owl when she was little. At least she used to be little. The passing of the years and she's now a teenager and grown quite a bit. You've been away so long. What does surprise you is the flintlock pistol that she's currently pointing at you! "Whoa! Hold on! It's me, your brother!" you say. "...it is? It is you!" she exclaims and puts down the gun before hugging you. "What the hell are you doing with a pistol?" "The money you sent us allowed to buy new things you know and a traveling merchant was selling this for cheap!" "No I mean, what are YOU doing with one? You'll blow your damn head off with that thing! Those things are unstable." You scold. "What are you doing home? Are you on leave?" "Uh...that's a long story. Wake up the rest of the family; I have to talk to you all." Randi complies while you step inside the house and take in its new look. Eventually your Mom enters, followed by your brother Mallack and finally your youngest brother Calwin and sister Makana. You all sit down at the dining room table. (You realize you haven't done that with your family in years) and you tell them everything. You get a lot of worried reactions. More for you than the other world impending doom stuff though. At least you know that they care. "You gotta get back to the army right now! Say you got captured by something and it took you awhile to escape!" Mallack exclaims. "While I'm sure that MAY work, I just don't want to do it...I can't take this anymore. The whole time I've been in the damn army, my music has kept me sane. I've noticed it have an effect on others as well. Never thought it would. I mean I have talent and..." "...you feel like you've wasted your life?" your mother replies. You pause for a moment. You almost want to say yes, but you can't even if you wanted to. You haven't wasted it, its just you've never really had the chance to do what you've ever wanted to do. "No...I guess I haven't... it's just..." Your mother takes your hand and speaks to you. "I know. It's not fair. It's not right. Life isn't fair and it's starting to get a whole lot less fair. I know I've mentioned it in letters to you, but the Zalan Empire WILL be taking the farm...and it's looking like Mallack's going to be drafted if things are going the way they seem to be." "But...see that's what I'm saying! We could all move! I mean of course I have to go into hiding, maybe Mallack could come with me. And the rest of you could use what money you have left and move to Retlad! It's a nice place. It's away from most of the fighting, and there aren't anymore Quillars there!" Your mother shakes her head. "You must be behind in the news, because Retlad is finally going to become part of the Zalan Empire soon, so going there to live wouldn't make any difference. The Empire can take this farm, but in spirit this will ALWAYS be ours. The Empire has said they will allow us to continue working it and living on the land and even if they didn't they'd have have to drag us all out and stick our heads on pikes before we'd leave. Your father and his father build this farm up to what it is. Our family is going to be here until the end." "That's what I'm afraid of...what about you Mallack? You're probably going to be drafted. You aren't worried about that?" "Sure I am. But what am I going to do, run? Where? From what you described you practically think the whole world is doomed anyway! I might as well take some of the undead bastards out before I go. I was getting bored of the farm anyway. Let Randi take over! Ha ha!" Your mother addresses you again. "Son, you know our family. We've always done the right thing, even if it doesn't coincide with what we want...I think you know what you have to do." And so you do. So you do. You spend one night with your family and make the most of it. You all laugh and joke, trying to put all the problems of the world out of your mind and of course before you leave you play a song for them. Eventually you hug them all goodbye and take your leave. More than a few tears are shed on both sides. > You go into hiding As much as you still want to help out your family, you have to live your own life while there is still time. They'll still get money from your supposed death and they know you're still alive. You figure this will be the last time you see them though, as you can't risk contacting them anymore. The first order of business is to change your identity as much as you can. And head to a place where you can play for an audience, but the probability of someone ratting you out is low if you're recognized. You head to the Garwold Confederacy. It's a relatively peaceful nation made up mostly of Halflings and Gnomes, with lush green fields and flowers. They've surprisingly managed to stay out of most of the fighting; only volunteering a few of their militia and illusionists to the Grand Alliance. They're also known to appreciate the simpler things in life. Eventually you make a place for yourself there in one of the small villages. You make a living playing at the local tavern there. Most of the patrons know that you have some sort of past that you're trying to hide from. Some of them and the owner know that you're that Zalan "hero" that they've heard about. But just like you thought, they don't bring it up or say anything about it and just enjoy your music. A year passes and you're happy. Nobody from the Zalan Empire comes looking for you, as it's assumed you're dead and everyone's too busy fighting the undead for the most part. When the Grand Alliance armies pass through, you keep a low profile though. You even meet a pretty Halfling girl to be with. The next year isn't so pretty however. The Great Lich Lord's armies have been defeating the Grand Alliance's attempts to stop them and now those armies finally turn their attention to the Garwold Confederacy. Within a month half of Garwold has been turned into a graveyard. The Grand Alliance as well as the Garwold militia have been doing their best, but it's not going to be enough. You help defend the little village that you've made your home in and you can't afford to keep a low profile anymore despite the Grand Alliance presence (Which is now mainly made up of Zalan Empire troops) but it hardly matters at this point. Survival of the living is You make plans to leave, and to try to convince your girlfriend and your other new friends that you've made here to leave as well. You know they're all very home bound, but tomorrow you're going to really try. Unfortunately a group of Blood Specters attacks the village that night. You awaken to hear blood curling screams ring throughout the village. You look out the window and see the vile red ghosts stalking the streets. You've become too attached to these people to not help; you immediately grab your weapons and prepare for battle. You head to your girlfriend's home first, but sadly she's already been killed and completely drained of blood. You don't have time to morn as you're immediately attacked by the Blood Specter that was still lingering in the house. You manage to kill it with a couple silver arrows, but its dying shrieks alert others to your area. You slay a couple more of them as you try to look for the necromancer who has to be in the area to even control these creatures, but you can't keep your eye on all the incorporeal creatures and you suddenly feel a slight pain in your back which reaches forward into your heart as one of them thrusts its hand into you to drain your blood. You collapse soon after, only to rise later to join the ranks of the ever growing undead armies.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, serious] You've served in this army well and always done your job regardless of the shitty situations you've been in. You might not like a lot of it, but you've never complained. Lately you've been on edge about a possible all out assault of some big ass demon army that's going to attack any day now, and playing is one of the few pleasures you have to put your mind at ease. Perhaps it's a combination of this and a combination of this unwanted and unnecessary scolding that causes you to speak out of turn. "With all due respect ma'am, I am fully prepared to battle at a moment's notice and so are those under my direct command. But even soldiers need to rest, if only for a minute." The woman looks very surprised you didn't comply with her demand to see your superior officer. "...you DARE speak out of turn like that to me? I'll see you sent to the Nuro Front for that sort of insubordination! Then we'd see just how battle ready you are! How would you like that?" "I wouldn't like it at all. I barely survived the first time." You say trying not to express any fear. "...What? What are you talking about? First time?" Now you're a little surprised she doesn't know who you are considering how some of the high ups exaggerated about how you managed to survive. You explain yourself briefly and she doesn't quite believe you at first, a couple of your troops hiding nearby at least back up your claims before slinking off. "That was YOU? What the hell are you doing here? You should be leading from the front not languishing in some fort that barely sees battle!" "Doesn't see battle? We suffered a small demon raid last week! We see plenty of battle!" "What I mean is, somebody of your obvious combat and survival skills should be assigned on the front lines where you can do more good. Normally I don't question Zalan command, but this is really an oversight on their part." "Well maybe they know better than the both of us, besides this assignment isn't a walk in the fairy fields. I think we'll be suffering a grand scale attack any day now." "Doubt it. Velzix has been having a hard time keeping his unruly mob together. If it wasn't for a lot of the sycophantic Tulan citizens, he'd probably be confined to pure defense, though something will have to be done soon, reports say he's attempting to gate in more demons everyday. Not to mention that supposedly civilized demons from other nations are starting to display their true colors and flock to his banner. Like I always said the only good demon is a dead one!" This causes you to smile a bit and she very faintly smiles back when she sees that you feel the same way. This smile disappears quickly though as she continues her rant. "I wish I wasn't assigned to the Tulan Border though. I'd rather be taking Nuro back. THAT'S the more dangerous threat. The demons will kill themselves with their own chaotic and violent natures, but the undead...they've almost taken over the world before just because of one bastard that lead them. I never thought I'd see a serious threat like this in my lifetime, especially not..." The female captain at this point stops. She even looks away from you as if whatever she was going to say was just too much even for her. She seems to be a lot more battle hardened than you and probably ten times braver. You can't imagine what horror she experienced that would be worse than your own, but you don't find out since she changes the subject. "...Bah! Maybe you're right; a soldier does need to keep their mind occupied on other things every now and then. We aren't undead after all. So what's with the lute? You also a bard or something?" she laughs. "No, I think those dreams are long gone, but my playing seems to boost spirits around here a little, which can only be a good thing in this situation." "Hm. My mother was elven and she used to sing this song to me and my...brother when we were very young. It was very smooth and calming. Beautiful melody." "Yeah, most elven music is like that. When I was assigned in Retlad I learned a few elven songs from a few of the citizens there, you wouldn't happen to know the song would you?" She tells you the name of the song and you know it immediately. One of the first new songs you learned while stationed in Retlad actually. This seems cause her to momentarily revert to a less stand offish behavior. You're about to play it for her, but then a messenger comes running up handing her a note. She reads it and she's all business again. "Alright men! We're moving out!" she shouts and leaves without saying another word to you. You didn't even learn her name. Perhaps it's just as well; you'll most likely never meet again due to one of you dying on the battlefield. You go back to doing what you were doing. Two years pass... Three years since the Nuro Incident and this struggle still continues. You're still stationed Fort Virtue and you've repelled more demon attacks than you would care to count. Velzix has finally gotten his shit together completely. A unified demonic front is in full swing here and its taking its toll. Once again your skills have come in very handy in defense. You are certainly known as a demon slayer, but you still don't feel like a hero of any kind. You're just trying to do your job and survive. You save lives when you can, but you know ultimately it's a futile task as death seems to be everywhere nowadays. As bad as it is on the demon front, its nothing compared to what've you've heard on the undead front. The Necromancer has finally broken out from Nuro, and successfully attacked the Kingdom of Brot. Several undead giants demolished the area. You've never even seen a living giant and they sound intimidating. You can't even imagine an undead one. The power to raise one, let alone several is sort of scary. The Grand Alliance army didn't get there in time to stop him and as usual they were repelled when they arrived. You worry about the Grand Alliance failing to stop the undead horde. You hope it doesn't get any closer to the Zalan Empire where your family might be in danger. Sometimes you worry so much that you can't sleep, not that you do much of that nowadays anyway. Normally you play to keep your mind at ease, but tonight you go to the archery range to keep yourself focused. For a long time you're by yourself, but suddenly you feel a creeping suspicion someone is watching you... You turn around with your bow and see a pale man. He holds up his hands. "Hey now! Don't shoot! Sorry for creeping around like that. Professional habit." He says. "What? Who are you?" you demand. "Warnov. Zalan Intelligence." "You're a spy?" "Well I suppose you could put it that way. I was here to give some info to your Captain Eckard, and I also wanted to take a look around the fort. Didn't think anyone would be on the range though. Nice shooting, I know who you are and heard about your marksmanship with a bow. You're certainly doing your part with the demons around here." Despite the fact that you're talking to a spy, you feel the need to vent your feelings. "Yeah, well I hope the Grand Alliance starts doing its part. I mean what the fuck are they doing? Weren't they created to put a stop to all this shit? I mean am I supposed to worry every day if that undead horde is going to get closer to the Zalan Empire where it can threaten my family?" Warnov doesn't look offended by your words, if anything he looks intrigued. "Well, I can understand why you're venting. Trust me I sympathize. But as part of intel, I can tell you its not that easy...there were a lot of surprises that weren't accounted for. We're doing our best to rectify this situation by gathering as much info as possible. In fact, you could help us..." "Excuse me? How?" Warnov looks around and gets closer before speaking. "Look, as I said, I know all about you and your skills, why you joined, all of it. I know you don't much care for some of the propaganda made about some of your exploits. But it's important to realize that deeds like yours must be blown up a little to give common people hope that ultimately good will win the day. You may not consider yourself a hero of any kind, but your actions aren't without some of those qualities. You obviously care very much about your family, and I've heard how you try to keep the people under your command alive. Sound like heroic qualities to me. Perhaps they're on a smaller scale, but they're there. I'm betting that there's a BIGGER hero in there somewhere, just itching to get out. You think the Grand Alliance isn't doing a good job? Perhaps we can arrange something for you to be transferred into it, or maybe you'd like to take an even more direct approach." "What do you mean?" Warnov suddenly backs away. "Before we go any further. I need to know are you willing to take up the mantle of being a hero. Because if you aren't, then we have nothing more to discuss. I shall require an answer now." > You accept the offer You have to admit, the idea has crossed your mind a bit. A small part of you does wonder about embracing the whole hero image and deliberately doing grand deeds that go beyond the call of your duty. You suppose that you'd at least really feel like one if you did that. "Okay Mr. Warnov. I'll do it." You exclaim. "You sure?" "Not really, but if I'm already in the shit, I might as well go all the way with it. What do I do next?" Warnov looks around again to see if anyone is about before answering. "Well just take a deep breath, relax and uh... brace yourself!" "Huh?" Before you can react Warnov moves faster than you've ever seen anything move. In fact you don't really see him move at all before he's biting your neck! He puts his other hand over your mouth so you can't yell out and easily knocks your hand away from feebly attempting to draw a weapon. You fall into unconsciousness as your blood is drained from you at a rapid rate. Death soon follows... A few minutes later you wake up outside the fort. "Ah you're up. Sorry about surprising you like that, but I had to work quickly. Someone else could've popped up and that would've gotten complicated..." You quickly check your neck which is completely healed now, but you know what's just occurred! You feel a cold numbness throughout your body and you freak out. "I'M DEAD! I'M FUCKIN DEAD! And you're a vampire!" "Shhhh! Keep your voice down! Yeah, you figured it out. Nice detective work, now let's get down to this hero business. Though we should really get to Rostov's and talk about all this." "I'm...I'm dead! I'm one of you! I don't want to be an undead thrall for the Necromancer Lord!" "What? No, no, no, we're not... look I'll explain later, let's just..." You pull away from Warnov when he tries to help you up. You feel your reflexes are much quicker. This temporary curiousity in your new found abilities allows Warnov to calm you down. "WAIT! Just stop! (Sigh) Okay look I'll try to give you the condensed version right now. We vampires aren't on the side of the Necromancer Lord. If anything he's fucking things up for us. We like to keep a balanced order as it were. The last time we sided with some megalomaniacal necromancer it nearly resulted in our extinction. Never again. In fact we've been manipulating shit for centuries just to make sure something like this didn't happen. Somebody really fucked up in the observation department on this one!" Warnov goes on to explain that his superior, Lord Rostov will be able to explain better and in more detail, but that you have to come with him now. > You go with Warnov While this is all a lot to take in, you manage to calm down. "Okay. Okay. I'm calm, but...man this is a lot of shit." You reply. "Heh, well you did say you might as well go with it! Don't worry; it'll all be second nature soon. Okay let's go see Lord Rostov." Warnov pulls out a black cube and teleports you to what seems to be the inside of a castle. "Alright, YOU stay right here in the foyer! Don't go wandering around, I'm serious! You're not quite in the fold yet, I have to go straighten this out and explain all this to Lord Rostov. I'll be back to come get you later. Everything will be explained in full detail soon." Not wishing to piss off anyone and being completely out of your element you stay put. The foyer has enough to keep you occupied though, you begin examining many of the paintings and statues to pass the time. Soon, Warnov returns with a very regal looking vampire. You can only assume that this is Lord Rostov. "Welcome, I'm sure you have ask many questions for me as I have for you, so we'll just get right to it. We'll walk and talk on the way to the throne room. Don't worry about anyone listening. There are no secrets here." Lord Rostov says. "Okay...I..." "BUT! Remember to address me as Lord Rostov if you are going to address me by name." Lord Rostov adds with authority. You take notice and obey, though Lord Rostov has such a commanding presence that you would be hard pressed not to obey him. Your questions are typical for someone brought into the fold. Rostov goes on about how his kind have been manipulating the mortal world for centuries just like Warnov said before. Several of the known governments have at least one vamp keeping an eye on things. Apparently many high ranking political types in your own Zalan Empire are vampires! The Grand Alliance is even a tool of the vampires. While Lord Rostov goes on about this fascinating history lesson, you look at some of his "court" as you walk through his castle. Some of them are more "mortal looking" than others. Some look down right hideous. You always thought vampires were supposed to be ultra attractive, but you can see that isn't necessarily the case. When you get to his throne room Lord Rostov stops and turns to you. "So I hear you want to be a real hero eh? Well this is the place where they're made." "What do you mean?" "Why do you think most heroes are always storming dungeons and doing impossible things? They don't get those abilities without some help. The supernatural skill comes into play and dungeons aren't exactly beacons of light!" Lord Rostov laughs. "Y...you mean ALL the heroes in the world are vampires?!" "Hah! I wish that was the case. No, there are many regular mortal heroes that do their part I suppose, but if you want the really legendary ones that have done impossible deeds, well chances are there was a vampire involved. Sadly we haven't been too much more successful than the mortals in the heroics department lately." "What's been going on exactly?" "That little annoying necromancer lord, or whatever he thinks he is, has been proving to be a lot cleverer than what was previously believed. His armies have been growing in strength and I'm sure you know about the undead giant business and crushing the Brot Kingdom. What isn't commonly known is how he accomplished it. He had help from one of our kind. A loathsome outcast known as the Ghoul King. (Sigh) Should've killed him long ago really, but...bah, it's a long story. We'll deal with him when the time comes. What's more alarming is that we've sent assassins...or heroes to kill the necromancer lord and his bitch and he's somehow managed to kill all of them. I mean I can somewhat understand them being killed by that brutish demon tyrant Velzix, but a fucking necromancer? He's a fucking mortal! And from what we know of him, he wasn't even that good of a wizard to begin with!" Suddenly Lord Rostov flies into a rage, yelling and punches a hole into the solid brick wall. Many of his court, as well as you and Warnov back away. He then stops and composes himself. "My apologies to you all. It's been a trying time with upstart mortals and traitors and other annoyances. And to you, the newest member of our fold." "Uh, no need to apologize to me Lord Rostov. It's your home after all" You say which causes him to smile. "Carefully chosen words. Not overly sycophantic, yet still displaying the right subservient mindset. You should fit in very well here." "But I meant it..." "Ha ha! And honest too! You're more interesting than how Warnov described you. I have heard that you were one of those minor mortal heroes I was talking about earlier, but more interesting to me, is apparently you have talent in the musical field?" "So I've been told." "Well, play something for me! All of us!" "What did you want to hear?" "Surprise me, if you're able!" Lord Rostov sits on his throne while his court whispers among themselves and then go quiet waiting for you to play. You pull out your lute and try to think of a song that they might like. You think of an old song that once was very popular among the aristocracy. Seems like a perfect crowd... You begin to concentrate on the music and nothing but the music. You play as if your life was in danger, which you're somewhat certain that it isn't, but it doesn't hurt to play your best right now. Your new supernatural reflexes certainly come in handy as you're able to hit notes and play faster than you normally would've been able to as a mortal. When you're finished you look around the room which is still silence until Lord Rostov gets off his throne and begins clapping. Everyone else follows suit. "That was magnificent! I heard the original bard who performed that piece three hundred years ago and even he couldn't have done a better job! Warnov, this man is too valuable to make into a hero!" "Lord Rostov?" "While this man may have combat skills as you described, he is obviously a musician! Such talent such not be wasted in battle! Beautiful playing!" "While I agree he is a good musician Lord Rostov, I think we should consider the matter of the necromancer..." "(Sigh) Warnov, I was feeling good until you mentioned that mortal again! Nevertheless you are right. But still, this shall be HIS choosing. Not ours." Lord Rostov turns to you. "The decision shall be yours broodling. You may if you wish under go extensive training to prepare yourself for an encounter with that little necromancer lord. If you succeed, your name will be known, and you will become a legend. However, I can sense that such things are probably not your nature. Music is. I can see that you would be content to just play your music for an appreciative crowd. You could do that here. You could also learn songs that I have possession of, but sadly unable to play with the same spirit that you obviously have." "What about my family? And my job and all that?" "Ah, your mortal life. I'm sure Warnov will already be taking steps to explain that you have been transferred from your current assignment. Considering he's part of intelligence, nobody will ask too many questions, even if they bothered to. As for your family, they will be taken care of as you will still officially be part of the Zalan army. If you wish you may stay in contact with them through letters. Possibly arrangements can be made for you to visit them. During the night of course. But under NO circumstances will you tell them about any of this. Doing so would ruin my generous offer and be extremely bad for you. I don't think we need to dwell on such depressing things because I know you're smarter than that right?" "Yes Lord Rostov." "Good, now what is it that you would like to do?" > You be a hero While the offer of playing for what could possibly be eternity is tempting, part of you has been affected by world events and the war going on. You have come to realize that the Necromancer (and the demons) need to be stopped. If you can take an active role in that, then you'll know for sure that your family will be safe in the near future. You did do all this for your family after all, and while your path has definitely undergone a change, you're still going to put them first. Besides, you're a vampire now, you're sure that you'll have tons of time to play later if all goes well. You're definitely nervous about this decision, but you're going to make it. "Lord Rostov, I wish to begin your advanced combat training." You say. "Very well, though I almost hoped that you wouldn't. Your playing was just divine and you won't be able to play again for a long time during your extensive training time. Possibly never if you fail...but let us hope that you do not fail! It would be a loss for all of us. Warnov escourt him to the lower dungeons." "Yes, Lord Rostov." Warnov takes you into the lower dungeons of the castle just as Lord Rostov commanded. Warnov tells you that this isn't going to be easy and that you better condition your mind to almost a pure instinctive level because you could very well die in training! Finally you reach a large barren room with a pair of large doors on the far end. "This is it. Just keep an eye on the large door over there and well, brace yourself!" You half expect to get bitten again after hearing those words, but instead Warnov quickly steps out of the room and locks the door leaving you alone. The large doors on the other side of the room start to open. And you just realized that you don't have a weapon... A year passes... You survive your rigorous training. You have fought all manner of dangerous beasts with and without weapons. (And feasting on their blood for survival) You have undergone pain you didn't think possible even in your new undead state. You're definitely a better killing machine than you were. You were allowed to write letters to your family which were overlooked first by Lord Rostov of course to make sure you weren't saying something you shouldn't. You barely know what to tell them except keeping your lies to a minimum about your supposed new job with Zalan intelligence. You have dedicated and conditioned yourself to combat so much that you don't even think about music. You briefly wonder if you've "lost" something, but you then dismiss such things as you must focus on battle. During this time you have been informed that the Necromancer Lord as well as Velzix have grown in power. Lord Rostov says though that he believes the demons will pose no serious threat if a concentrated effort can be made on them by the mortals. However, for that to happen, the Necromancer Lord must die and that's where you come in and what you've been training for. However, you won't be going in by yourself. A band of "heroes" will be necessary for a job like this. You are told you will meet the others in a small abandoned village bordering on the Necromancer's Domain. Another vampire takes you there with the aid of a black teleportation cube. This is a one way trip. You're not coming back unless you win. That and the fact that the black cubes can't possibly be allowed to fall into enemy hands. There you meet the others. They look unimpressed with you, but you're a little surprised to see one of them. She's very well known...a "hero". "You're Deliah the Deathdealer! You fought at the battle of Azark and you also retrieved the Celestial Sword! You're a hero! I didn't know you were..." "Didn't they tell you all this shit when you started training? Sheesh, we gotta get paired up with some broodling..." a brutish vampire interrupts. "Quiet Gorax! I'm sure he was, but meeting a legend is a lot different from basking in their glory in person." Deliah replies. "Gorax!? Gorax the Mighty? You were a barbarian king that held back the orc hordes over a hundred years ago!" you say in amazement. "Huh, fat lot good that did me. I can't take any credit for of my deeds today and barely anyone remembers my past deeds except some useless tribal shamen that now cower from the undead hordes in the Drozz Plains. Feh! Back in my day such men would not allow mere ghouls run them off their lands! I don't know why Rostov won't allow me to go in, seek out, and just chop off that retched Ghoul King's head! He's partially to blame for this mess!" "Oh you know Rostov, he has his reasons. Besides, if we take out the Necromancer lord, the Ghoul King will probably be our next assignment." Another vampire says in a bored tone. This one looks like he was once a Halfling. It almost makes you laugh to think of a vampire Halfling, but there he is. You don't know who he is or was, but given the other two, he was probably important at one time. "So are you ready to go broodling? Or are you going to stand there with a dumb look on your face?" Delilah asks. "Uh sure, let's go!" The trip into the Necromancer's Domain is surprisingly quick and uneventful. You attempt to make conversation as you can't help now but be curious about your companions, but all of them are less than talkative and forthcoming. Deliah eventually takes you aside harshly. "Look broodling, we've got a job to do. A fucking dangerous one at that! We all need to be in focus and not concentrating on anything else! So keep your damn questions to yourself and if you happen to survive this encounter THEN perhaps you may get a little more information from us and our fascinating history. Until then, stay in the fucking dark!" The rest of the trip is silent. At last you reach the city of Nuro and easily scale its walls and onto the battlements while remaining undetected the whole time. This is a lot different from what it was when you arrived here as a mortal. That memory still gives you a bit of pause. You remember how scared you were back then. "Hurry up broodling! These walking corpses might not be able to detect us, but the Necromancer will soon! We need to get the advantage as soon as possible! Gorax, Wally you go through the front of the main tower. I'm sure you two can handle that. While whatever guards rush to defend their master, me and the broodling will scale the tower and go in through one of the top windows. "You sure about that Delilah? Would you rather I go with you than some broodling?" Wally asks. "Yeah, but if I leave him with Gorax he'll probably get killed in the fighting and be useless. At least if he's with me, he can serve as an extra body for the Necromancer Lord to draw his attention to." "HEY! I'm right here y'know!" you exclaim indignantly which causes Deliah to smack you in the face hard. You didn't even see it coming. "Shut the fuck up! You'll draw attention! Look if we pull this off just maybe you'll come out of this alive. I need you to take care of the Necromancer's bitch anyway. She's probably up there with him. Now let's do this!" The plan is set into action. Gorax and Wally make their presence known immediately jumping off the battlements and into the courtyard while yelling at the top of their lungs. "Intruder! Protect the master!" you hear a scratchy voice yell in the distance, while you and Delilah sneak around, jumping onto the rooftops and attempting to avoid the main fighting force. A few flying shadows try to stop you, but they're easily dispatched with your bow and silver arrows. Delilah looks glad that you aren't entirely useless and you and her proceed to scale the walls. "I can't believe this place isn't more protected." You say while climbing. "Heh, he's got his troops all spread out and mostly on his borders, plus he's grown more arrogant and confident. That will be his undoing." She replies quickly. "Funny I was about to say the same for you bloodsuckers." A voice says causing the both of you to look up. A raven haired female leans over the nearby window above Delilah and blast her directly in the face burning it off with a beam of light. You certainly weren't expecting a necromancer to cast any sort of spell like that! You then see Delilah fall...and get impaled through the chest by a weathervane. A fucking weathervane. Unbelievable. You attempt to scale the wall to the nearest window under you and just barely get out of the way of the lady necromancer's next spell. You have no idea where you are in the tower, but you can hear fighting going on outside and a couple of hearty roars which you can only guess is Gorax. A quick scan would indicate that you're in some sort of library. You cautiously proceed and decide that finding stairs that lead up would be the way to go. You just hope you're ready to take him on and his mistress. As you make your way through, you fight all manner of undead sentries: Wraiths, ghosts, skeletal warriors, etc. During one of your moments of hiding a couple of wight guards run by talking in a hoarse tone. "The big one and little one are dead! We must find the last one! Quick Quick!" "Yes Yes! The master must be protected!" You come to the very real feeling of having been in the position before...all alone, surrounded by hostile undead, and in Nuro... Your resolve breaks a little and you wish that you weren't here. You want to go home. Eventually you push yourself forward, but somehow fear has crept back into your own dead heart. To your credit you do reach the top of the tower, but the Necromancer's mistress once again surprises you. A ray of light sears your face off and destroys your vision. You fall to the cold stone floor in extreme pain and can only make out blurry images. You see a blurred black hooded figure approach. You can't see his face, but this could only be who you think it is. You attempt to reach for your sword. "More assassins? I swear something is going to have to be done about these bloodsuckers. The Ghoul King's kin are really starting to get on my nerves. These ones weren't even a challenge. What are you doing bloodsucker? Don't you know that's futile?" The Necromancer Lord unleashes a ball of flame that engulfs your body, putting an end to your undead existence.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, fantasy, war] While this is all a lot to take in, you manage to calm down. "Okay. Okay. I'm calm, but...man this is a lot of shit." You reply. "Heh, well you did say you might as well go with it! Don't worry; it'll all be second nature soon. Okay let's go see Lord Rostov." Warnov pulls out a black cube and teleports you to what seems to be the inside of a castle. "Alright, YOU stay right here in the foyer! Don't go wandering around, I'm serious! You're not quite in the fold yet, I have to go straighten this out and explain all this to Lord Rostov. I'll be back to come get you later. Everything will be explained in full detail soon." Not wishing to piss off anyone and being completely out of your element you stay put. The foyer has enough to keep you occupied though, you begin examining many of the paintings and statues to pass the time. Soon, Warnov returns with a very regal looking vampire. You can only assume that this is Lord Rostov. "Welcome, I'm sure you have ask many questions for me as I have for you, so we'll just get right to it. We'll walk and talk on the way to the throne room. Don't worry about anyone listening. There are no secrets here." Lord Rostov says. "Okay...I..." "BUT! Remember to address me as Lord Rostov if you are going to address me by name." Lord Rostov adds with authority. You take notice and obey, though Lord Rostov has such a commanding presence that you would be hard pressed not to obey him. Your questions are typical for someone brought into the fold. Rostov goes on about how his kind have been manipulating the mortal world for centuries just like Warnov said before. Several of the known governments have at least one vamp keeping an eye on things. Apparently many high ranking political types in your own Zalan Empire are vampires! The Grand Alliance is even a tool of the vampires. While Lord Rostov goes on about this fascinating history lesson, you look at some of his "court" as you walk through his castle. Some of them are more "mortal looking" than others. Some look down right hideous. You always thought vampires were supposed to be ultra attractive, but you can see that isn't necessarily the case. When you get to his throne room Lord Rostov stops and turns to you. "So I hear you want to be a real hero eh? Well this is the place where they're made." "What do you mean?" "Why do you think most heroes are always storming dungeons and doing impossible things? They don't get those abilities without some help. The supernatural skill comes into play and dungeons aren't exactly beacons of light!" Lord Rostov laughs. "Y...you mean ALL the heroes in the world are vampires?!" "Hah! I wish that was the case. No, there are many regular mortal heroes that do their part I suppose, but if you want the really legendary ones that have done impossible deeds, well chances are there was a vampire involved. Sadly we haven't been too much more successful than the mortals in the heroics department lately." "What's been going on exactly?" "That little annoying necromancer lord, or whatever he thinks he is, has been proving to be a lot cleverer than what was previously believed. His armies have been growing in strength and I'm sure you know about the undead giant business and crushing the Brot Kingdom. What isn't commonly known is how he accomplished it. He had help from one of our kind. A loathsome outcast known as the Ghoul King. (Sigh) Should've killed him long ago really, but...bah, it's a long story. We'll deal with him when the time comes. What's more alarming is that we've sent assassins...or heroes to kill the necromancer lord and his bitch and he's somehow managed to kill all of them. I mean I can somewhat understand them being killed by that brutish demon tyrant Velzix, but a fucking necromancer? He's a fucking mortal! And from what we know of him, he wasn't even that good of a wizard to begin with!" Suddenly Lord Rostov flies into a rage, yelling and punches a hole into the solid brick wall. Many of his court, as well as you and Warnov back away. He then stops and composes himself. "My apologies to you all. It's been a trying time with upstart mortals and traitors and other annoyances. And to you, the newest member of our fold." "Uh, no need to apologize to me Lord Rostov. It's your home after all" You say which causes him to smile. "Carefully chosen words. Not overly sycophantic, yet still displaying the right subservient mindset. You should fit in very well here." "But I meant it..." "Ha ha! And honest too! You're more interesting than how Warnov described you. I have heard that you were one of those minor mortal heroes I was talking about earlier, but more interesting to me, is apparently you have talent in the musical field?" "So I've been told." "Well, play something for me! All of us!" "What did you want to hear?" "Surprise me, if you're able!" Lord Rostov sits on his throne while his court whispers among themselves and then go quiet waiting for you to play. You pull out your lute and try to think of a song that they might like. You think of an old song that once was very popular among the aristocracy. Seems like a perfect crowd... You begin to concentrate on the music and nothing but the music. You play as if your life was in danger, which you're somewhat certain that it isn't, but it doesn't hurt to play your best right now. Your new supernatural reflexes certainly come in handy as you're able to hit notes and play faster than you normally would've been able to as a mortal. When you're finished you look around the room which is still silence until Lord Rostov gets off his throne and begins clapping. Everyone else follows suit. "That was magnificent! I heard the original bard who performed that piece three hundred years ago and even he couldn't have done a better job! Warnov, this man is too valuable to make into a hero!" "Lord Rostov?" "While this man may have combat skills as you described, he is obviously a musician! Such talent such not be wasted in battle! Beautiful playing!" "While I agree he is a good musician Lord Rostov, I think we should consider the matter of the necromancer..." "(Sigh) Warnov, I was feeling good until you mentioned that mortal again! Nevertheless you are right. But still, this shall be HIS choosing. Not ours." Lord Rostov turns to you. "The decision shall be yours broodling. You may if you wish under go extensive training to prepare yourself for an encounter with that little necromancer lord. If you succeed, your name will be known, and you will become a legend. However, I can sense that such things are probably not your nature. Music is. I can see that you would be content to just play your music for an appreciative crowd. You could do that here. You could also learn songs that I have possession of, but sadly unable to play with the same spirit that you obviously have." "What about my family? And my job and all that?" "Ah, your mortal life. I'm sure Warnov will already be taking steps to explain that you have been transferred from your current assignment. Considering he's part of intelligence, nobody will ask too many questions, even if they bothered to. As for your family, they will be taken care of as you will still officially be part of the Zalan army. If you wish you may stay in contact with them through letters. Possibly arrangements can be made for you to visit them. During the night of course. But under NO circumstances will you tell them about any of this. Doing so would ruin my generous offer and be extremely bad for you. I don't think we need to dwell on such depressing things because I know you're smarter than that right?" "Yes Lord Rostov." "Good, now what is it that you would like to do?" > You be a musician This is all you've ever wanted. Just play music. You'll be able to do it now for all eternity if possible. You'd be a fool to turn down such a chance. "Lord Rostov, I wish to play music." Lord Rostov smiles at your response. "Ah yes, I was hoping you'd chose the way of the artiste rather than the warrior. Your talents will be better served here. In the meantime you will be shown to your new room. Ladies, I think you two should escort our new bard. Don't have too much fun, you've got a performance tomorrow!" You are escorted by a couple of female vampires to your room. They say their names are Glasya and Natasha. They seem to make a fuss over you on your way there which you don't find completely unwelcome, but you're still getting used to the whole idea that you're a vampire just like one of them now, despite also being excited over getting to play music on a steady basis with no hindrances. The two vampiresses get even friendlier with you when you get to the room. Natasha begins to take a more aggressive stance and kisses you as the pair of you get on the bed. As the two of you are undressing, Natasha who is on top of you nods to Glasya who leaves the room. Ten minutes later as you're fully engaged in physical pleasure, Glasya enters the room again with what looks to be a captive human girl. She doesn't look very old either. Probably a teenager. Her mouth is gagged so she can't scream out properly. "Wha...what's all this?" "Shhhh, your passage to true vampirehood..." the Natasha says continuing to grind into you. The human girl is dragged over to the bed with fear and tears in her eyes the whole time. Glasya draws out a blade and holds it to her throat. "Would you like me to cut now or would you prefer I prolong the fear? Perhaps remove her gag first so that you may hear her screams? Or maybe you'd even like to sink your teeth into her yourself?" Glasya asks and licks the side of the young girl's face. "What? Shit! No wait!" you say stopping Natasha, and sitting up. "I thought we were just having some fun here! Not killing young girls!" "Why do the two need to be mutually exclusive? Broodling, you have been favored by Lord Rostov, I suggest you count yourself lucky and get with the program...besides you're one of us now, you will need to feed on blood to survive." Glasya says with a frown. You look at the girl and you shake you head briefly realizing what else it means to be a vampire. "Alright, alright, I got it. But can't I like feed on animals first and uh work my way up or something?" "Squeamish broodling! You will take the blood of this girl or Lord Rostov will hear of this weakness! While he may be impressed with your music abilities, he will not tolerate weaklings!" Glasya continues to scold. "Besides, why do you care whether this...mortal lives or dies now? You do not know her and you are now superior to her in everyway. It's your right..." Natasha says while kissing on your body." You don't really have any choice in the matter. You almost curse yourself for getting yourself into this situation. You stay silent for awhile and then speak. "Very well. Slit her throat, but do it quickly." You say. "(Sigh) Very well." Glasya replies disappointedly. The young girl's throat is slashed and blood sprays over you and Natasha who greedily opens her mouth to catch it. Glaysa tosses the girl's dying body onto your chest and begins to undress as well to join you and Natasha in this blood feast. The night is definitely long, memorable and decadent. A little piece of you has "died" namely the vestiges of morality. A few months pass and you don't even hesitate anymore. You enjoy the blood as well as your playing for Lord Rostov's court. A year passes and you've become completely oblivious to the worsening of the "outside world". (Which you don't even think about since you're so rapped up in your own pleasures) Each day the Necromancer Lord and Velzix get stronger and you stopped worrying about your family's future. You don't even write to them anymore. You've become so corrupted in such a short amount of time its actually amazing. Another year passes and you're basically a hedonist. This is what Lord Rostov's "secret fortress" is all about for the most part. Sure there's discussion on what should be done about the outside problems, but pleasures of the flesh and blood are mainly the orders of the night. You don't even realize it, but you ARE literally a "leech" now. All vampires have ever done is leech off of the mortal world. Sure there are the "active ones" but there are far more hedonists. Ironic that the ones who choose to be professional killers, assassins or "heroes" tend to still retain more of their mortalhood. Lord Rostov eventually mentions in passing that he's finally come up with a perfect plan to kill the Necromancer Lord. He's managed to come to some sort of deal with that old outcast The Ghoul King to betray him sometime in the near future. The goal is to lure the Necromancer Lord to the fortress itself and kill him directly. Again you could really care less, and you've become little more than just another hedonist in Lord Rostov's court. Lord Rostov has it all figured out, you don't need to worry. You're safe in this little "world." A few months pass and the plan swings into action. One night while you're playing for the court as usual a loud noise is heard in the foyer and the sounds of shouting and crashing is heard. Lord Rostov takes a few of his concubines and tell everyone else to stay put, though everyone is a little curious. Even you. You go back to playing a little bit and things are starting to return to their "original state" since everyone figures Lord Rostov has the matter well in hand. Soon another noise is heard which sounds like the shrieking and screaming of multiple people. Everyone for once goes into a battle mode to rush to Lord Rostov's aid. A deformed and ugly creature runs into you, while you're trying to wrap your mind around this chaos. "Get outta my way broodling! He's gonna kill us all! I've fucked up...heh, but at least the rest of you fuckers are going to die!" he growls at you while desperately looking for a place to hide. You don't know what to do, but suddenly you feel a presence overcome you. Like someone is controlling your mind. This isn't even like Lord Rostov, its even more powerful and its growing stronger... You continue to hear the screams of vampires as you can't help but approach the way to the slaughter. You see vampires killing each other in the hallway! How is this possible? But you know why, it's HIM... The Necromancer...or whatever he is now has managed to enforce his will even over vampires. You see him in the distance. He's not even dirtying his hands killing all of you himself. You can feel his loathing for your kind and then you're completely pulled into his domination. "And now little blood leech you shall join your brethren..." you hear him whisper in your mind. Another vampire suddenly punches you in the back of the head. You attempt to get up, but then feel a foot to the face followed by a sword going through your back. At this point you feel a something you haven't felt in a long time, fear. Then your head is ripped off in the ensuing bloodbath. Later after total victory has been achieved, the Great Lich Lord burns your body along with the rest of the truly dead vampires.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, war] You have to admit, the idea has crossed your mind a bit. A small part of you does wonder about embracing the whole hero image and deliberately doing grand deeds that go beyond the call of your duty. You suppose that you'd at least really feel like one if you did that. "Okay Mr. Warnov. I'll do it." You exclaim. "You sure?" "Not really, but if I'm already in the shit, I might as well go all the way with it. What do I do next?" Warnov looks around again to see if anyone is about before answering. "Well just take a deep breath, relax and uh... brace yourself!" "Huh?" Before you can react Warnov moves faster than you've ever seen anything move. In fact you don't really see him move at all before he's biting your neck! He puts his other hand over your mouth so you can't yell out and easily knocks your hand away from feebly attempting to draw a weapon. You fall into unconsciousness as your blood is drained from you at a rapid rate. Death soon follows... A few minutes later you wake up outside the fort. "Ah you're up. Sorry about surprising you like that, but I had to work quickly. Someone else could've popped up and that would've gotten complicated..." You quickly check your neck which is completely healed now, but you know what's just occurred! You feel a cold numbness throughout your body and you freak out. "I'M DEAD! I'M FUCKIN DEAD! And you're a vampire!" "Shhhh! Keep your voice down! Yeah, you figured it out. Nice detective work, now let's get down to this hero business. Though we should really get to Rostov's and talk about all this." "I'm...I'm dead! I'm one of you! I don't want to be an undead thrall for the Necromancer Lord!" "What? No, no, no, we're not... look I'll explain later, let's just..." You pull away from Warnov when he tries to help you up. You feel your reflexes are much quicker. This temporary curiousity in your new found abilities allows Warnov to calm you down. "WAIT! Just stop! (Sigh) Okay look I'll try to give you the condensed version right now. We vampires aren't on the side of the Necromancer Lord. If anything he's fucking things up for us. We like to keep a balanced order as it were. The last time we sided with some megalomaniacal necromancer it nearly resulted in our extinction. Never again. In fact we've been manipulating shit for centuries just to make sure something like this didn't happen. Somebody really fucked up in the observation department on this one!" Warnov goes on to explain that his superior, Lord Rostov will be able to explain better and in more detail, but that you have to come with him now. > You try to escape All of this is too much for you to handle. You know you're dead, but you still feel afraid. You don't know what to make of any of the shit Warnov just said and you don't care, all you want to do is run away from all of this. You take off running in a random direction with a confused stated of mind, not really knowing what is going to come next. You're so overwhelmed by confusion and fear that you don't even notice how much faster you're actually moving. You aren't paying attention to too much of anything until you feel Warnov tackle you to the ground. Warnov quickly snaps your neck so you can't move and looks a little mournful as he crouches near you. "I'm sorry human. I should've known better. Not everyone is meant for the gift. It is with great regret that I must now kill you. Such a loss...for both races." Warnov pulls out a silver blade and jams it into your heart before cutting your head off and putting an end to your short undead life.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, war] This is no way to live. Working on a barely profitable rundown farm with far too many family members to feed. It's a damn good thing you're an excellent hunter. However, lately there's even been a shortage of game to thwart your efforts. You didn't really want to be working on the farm your whole life in the first place, you wanted to see the world but when dad died, things got a lot harder for the family and you had to take over as "man" of the house and stay put. Something is going to have to change. While you'd like nothing more than to go through with your childhood dreams of becoming a traveling bard without any responsibility you don't have that luxury. Hell, you barely have time to play your lute anymore in the small amount of free time you do have. You doubt if you'd even be good enough to make a living for just yourself doing it. But you need to get away, but what can you do that won't allow you to completely abandon your mom and all your brothers and sisters? You suddenly think of the choice that many in your desperate position have thought of many times before. The army. Its not exactly ideal, but you be traveling and seeing the world so to speak. You'd also be making enough money that you could send to your family. Your own living expenses would be provided for by the army. Of course there's all that fighting that usually goes along with it that you're not to keen on. Not that you aren't a stranger to battle as their have been the occasional bandits or kobold thieves that have attempted to steal from the farm in the past, but you prefer not to fight if possible, especially not up close. The bow has always been your weapon of choice. There's also the matter of mass combat on a grand scale that usually accompanies army life. A lot different than chasing away some thieves in the chicken coop. As you're thinking about this, you also realize that there is another option. There's a small mercenary company passing through the area. They've been hanging out at the local tavern for a couple days. They don't seem to be the noblest sort from what you can tell, but fortunately they seem to have kept their revelry confined to the tavern. Who knows how they act away from "civilization" though. Still, it's something to consider. There probably is less attention to discipline and a little more relaxed on rules and regulations. You probably wouldn't be fighting in some mass land war that governments are fond of waging. Mercenaries travel a lot and tend to make more, however they tend to get hired for a lot weirder jobs, usually ones that the employer doesn't want people to know about or ones that nobody else seems to be able to handle. > You sign up with the mercenaries You're not sure if the formal military life is for you. If you joined up you wouldn't be able to readily leave. You figure if you don't like life as a mercenary or it isn't working out for you, you can leave freely. You explain your decision to join up with the mercenary company that's currently passing through. Your revelation comes as a shock. Your smaller brothers and sisters don't want you to go, your brother Mallack really doesn't want you to leave since he'll be next in line to take the brunt of the manual labor! Your mother is a little apprehensive about your decision. You half expect her to say no, but she understands that you're doing this for the good of the family. She gives her blessing. Before you leave the next day with your packed belongings, your whole family comes to say goodbye to you. You almost hesitate to leave, wondering if it would actually be better for you to stay. Your mother approaches you. "You don't have to do this you know. We're doing just fine." "Yeah, but things would be easier if this family had more money." "Hah. Things are always easier with more money son, but you don't need to go and get yourself killed for it." "Yeah, I know, but I've thought it through." "Very well, you're old enough to make your own decisions and live your own life, though I'm glad to see that you still want to help the family as opposed to just leaving in the middle of the night." "I'll visit and return with whatever my pay is whenever I can." "I know...okay, you best get going. I think the mercenary company was leaving today." You make you way to the local tavern and catch them just as they're getting ready leave. A lot of them look hung over. "Hey wait up..." you say in a slightly loud tone, causing one mean looking mercenary to snarl at you. "Shut the fuck up yokel! Shit, I got a splitting headache and it hurts like a sonofabitch." "Sorry. Are you the leader of this company?" "Leader of these dickheads? Naw. The Boss is actually visiting his family in the Zalan capital. We're going to meet up with him now and I suggest you get the fuck outta our way and not waste anymore of our time!" "But I want to join you guys." The mercenary you were speaking to looks at you then looks at a few of his buddies and begins to laugh louder than your voice which previously annoyed him. "HAHAHA HAHAHA! Y'hear that fellas? This yokel wants to join us! Thanks a lot, I needed a good laugh, now go fuck your pigs or whatever it is you farm types do." "But I'm serious..." "Serious? Farmboy, this is a man's job and not for the fuckin' weak. You ever even use a damn weapon?" "Yeah! I got this bow and this sword! I'm a really good shot!" The mercenary still looks unimpressed. "Uh huh, yeah well you ever kill anyone, hell you ever kill ANYTHING? And I'm not talkin' about any of your livestock you might've slaughtered. I mean something sentient." "Well yeah, I've killed Kobolds that were trying to steal chickens from the..." The mercenaries begin to laugh again. "Oh shit, you are priceless boy! My sister can kill fuckin' Kobolds and her only talent is whoring." "Haha got that one right, Dimitri." Another one of the mercenaries agrees. Suddenly the laughing stops. "What the fuck did you just say Fermeli?" "Uh, I was just agreeing with you...c'mon don't take it like that! I mean you said..." "Ain't about what I said, it's about what YOU said! You called my fucking sister a whore! You ain't getting' away with that shit." Dimitri draws his sword and stomps over to Fermeli who is trying to get one of his buddies to help him, but everyone else is backing away from the fight. Dimitri takes advantage of Fermeli's state of panic and slashes him good with his sword. Fermeli cries out in pain and begs for forgiveness. Dimitri looks like he's going to finish him off, but then turns to you. "You want to join hayseed? Kill this piece of shit then." "Huh? I mean..." you utter in confusion. "Did I stutter pig farmer? Kill this... AARGH FUCK!" Fermeli has now taken advantage of Dimitri by shoving a dagger into his leg and scrambling to get up "Yeah! Take that! How's that feel?" Fermeli taunts and draws his own sword in an attempt to kill Dimitri At this point you unwisely step into the middle of this fight. "Hey hold on, the pair of you are even now..." "Fuck off pig farmer! You want some of this now? Yeah, let's see how much of a killer you are!" Fermeli says who doesn't look frightened of you at all and heads in your direction. "Hey wait I don't wanna..." You barely dodge his sword swipe to your head. You roll out of the way and quickly grab an arrow and shoot it at Fermeli with your bow, hitting him square in the neck. Some blood spurts out and a surprised look on his face is displayed and then he falls dead. You've killed him. You've never killed anything before that wasn't a Kobold or livestock. You feel weird. In the meantime Dimitri gets up and pulls the dagger out of his leg and looks over at Formeli's body. "Heh, maybe you are a killer after all pig farmer. Well it seems we got an opening now. Take whatever he had as your own. You killed him, you earned it. Welcome to the Chimera Mercenary Company!" While you MAY be in, you're not necessarily sure if you want in. This may be a bit too much for you. > You join anyway You know this isn't going to be easy and you're going to have to be tough, but you remember that you're doing this for your family. You quickly search Formeli's body, which didn't have that much to begin with. "Heh, he always was a broke bastard. Spent all his money on gambling, I'll miss taking his money that's for sure. Alright then, you'll probably be wantin' to take that sword of his since it looks in way better condition than your rusted hunk of iron. Your bow seems to do the job just fine though. His armor too, and hurry up, we gotta meet the Boss! He's got another job for us no doubt." As you're stripping off some of the armor, Dimitri notices something on your back. "What...what the hell is that boy? Is that a fuckin' lute? Haw haw! What the fuck are you doin' with a damn lute? You think that you're some sort of bard or something? We ain't got need for such things boy! Get rid of it!" "No, it's mine." You defiantly say. You wonder if this show of "courage" has gotten you into a whole mess of trouble that you don't want, but fortunately it doesn't. "Heh, he kills one shithead and now he thinks he's a tough guy! Alright pig farmer keep your sissy lute. But its just more weight for you to carry and you better not be falling behind! Come on men let's go, the Boss is waiting for us. You too lute boy!" Dimitri exclaims and limps off. You briefly thought about telling him that he better keep up with his wounded leg and all, but you know when to stop. And so your mercenary life begins. A year passes... You're currently back in the Zalan Empire on a break in between missions. While most of your "buddies" are drinking up their pay and spending it on whores you take this opportunity to visit your family and give them your payment and spoils of battle as usual. You think about how much you've traveled and experienced. Not all of it good, but then killing is never pretty. Some of the jobs are very straight forward: "There are some orc barbarians on the borders that have been pillaging our lands, kill them." And you don't have a problem with it. Other missions start falling into the "gray" area. Your last job involved some Azi Republic senator hiring the company to take out some secessionists that wanted to form their own country. It wasn't clean and it definitely wasn't fun. The secessionists actually had a reasonable complaint about leaving the Republic, saying that it was corrupt and that their representatives didn't care about them. But being a mercenary means you don't take sides for moral or ideological reasons, you do it for money. It's not just that though, some of the things that have been done...well you can't say you're too proud of it. Granted, you've never actively engaged in some of the less moral and outright criminal things that your mercenary comrades have, but you certainly know about them and it almost makes you feel like you're guilty of it as well. As for how you cope with some of this stuff, you tend to keep to yourself and play your lute which has oddly made you a little more accepted. Seems there are more than a few music lovers in the company. Even the Captain doesn't mind you indulging in your little hobby. The Captain is a huge man who you know gets a pleasure from killing and mayhem. He's spent a lifetime doing it. In fact you have a hard time believing he even has a family that he goes to visit. Who knows though? Perhaps he is different with them. (You've been working for the Chimera Company for a year and you still don't know what the hell his real name is, mainly because everyone only seems to address him as "The Boss" or "Chief" or in a more formal tone "Captain") You spend the time with your family and tell them of some of the things you've seen and exciting places you've been to, of course never going into too much detail about the darker side of things. Your brothers and sisters enjoy the tales as usual. Your Mom senses that there is probably more to them, but she doesn't ask too many questions. She does always asks if you're okay and says that you don't have to keep doing it, but you always reply that you're fine and that you're just a little tired that's all. When your time is done you say goodbye to them and meet with the rest of your company at the Zalan capital this time. Its odd, but things seem to be even more chaotic than usual around here. People are rushing around and an air of concern seems to be pervading the city. The guards are telling people to calm down our there will be martial law and you hear something in passing about an attack on a city. You don't really listen because you're in a hurry to meet up with your company which you find mostly hanging out in a tavern as usual. Dimitri sees you and speaks. "Ah, it's our own fuckin' bard ! How's my favorite string plucker? (Hic!) You have trouble getting into the city? Heard the guards have been cracking down on security." "No, but what's going on? The city seems to be in a state of panic." "Fuck yeah it is! What you didn't hear?" "No. What happened?" "Fuckin' undead happened my pig farming friend! A whole shitload of them took over the the city of Nuro! Can you believe it? Fuckin' Nuro! That place was supposed to be unconquerable! Heh! (Burp!)" Dimitri says without the slightest bit of worry. "UNDEAD?! What the fuck? Nuro!? How?!" "Fuck if I know, guess some rogue wizards got hooked up in that necromancy shit hardcore. Musta been some demonologists there too since we heard reports of demons too. Not the supposedly civilized type either, they're the rip off your head and shit down your neck kind." "...there's fuckin' rogue demons in Nuro too?" "Of course not, they all escaped and are now running around in the countryside, heard they're heading for the Tulan Kingdom." Dimitri says taking another drink. You're having a hard time digesting all this yet the rest of your comrades are still drinking and partying like nothing is wrong. Your Dad had once told you tales of a being called the Great Lich Lord that existed many centuries ago who nearly killed the world. Scared the hell out of you then and it doesn't make you feel too good now. "Isn't this concerning to you?" "What? Shit no! Just means more work for us and that also means more loot! Ha ha! You could get more loot to buy a new lute! Ha ha ha! (Hic!)" "But this is the fuckin' undead! I mean..." "So? Stop bein a pussy! I've fought some undead before, when I was lootin' a dwarven tomb. You just chop their heads off like everything else, shit ain't that hard. They just tend to smell worse...well maybe not worse than trolls. Anyway I'm sure the fucking governments will take care of this shit as quick as possible, you know how politicians don't like dead taxpayers, in the meantime we need to take advantage now while the conflict is hot!" No sooner has Dimitri said this little bit of wisdom, when the Boss steps in the doorway. He's as nasty looking as always, but this time he looks even moreso than usual. "Alright you useless sacks of goblin shit. We got a new job. This one just came across rather unexpectedly. Ran into a Dwarven representative and we're now in the employ of a Dwarven Clan, near the southern Tulan Borders. With the occurrence of this Nuro incident, they're expecting some shit to spill over into their lands and they want some extra help. This is pretty surprising since Dwarves aren't known to pay for mercenaries, let alone the likes of us." The Boss tell you all. "The Tulan Border? Oh fuck that place is a meat grinder! There's no profit to be had anywhere near there!" Cal pipes up. "Well you can just pick up your panties and get your pansy ass back home and stay there then! The dwarves are paying well and that's the job. Take it or get the fuck outta my company!" "Excuse me Captain, but weren't there reports of demons running through that area?" you ask. "Yeah so? That's why we're going over there most likely, but be fucking prepared for any damn thing. Maybe even undead...who knows if my...if those necromancer bastards started spreading their plague yet. We leave tomorrow." You think on this fucked up situation and seriously reconsidering your career choice. > You leave the mercenary company Nope, you're not doing this. This is suicide in your opinion. You have no idea what to expect and it sound a lot more dangerous than anything you've ever faced. Instead of leaving with them the next day, you go back home. You don't worry about anyone coming after you, but you know you won't be welcomed back into the company again, and you wouldn't want to anyway. When you get back home, your family and mom in particular ask what happened, you explain it and say you don't want any part of that life. You apologize that you couldn't go through with it, but your mom looks more relieved than anything. "Well son, I'm just as glad you didn't go get yourself killed over there anyway. You'll be helping us out plenty just by working on the farm like always." You're glad to hear that. Over the next couple days you fall back into routine again. You still wonder about the future though and you briefly consider the army plan again, but given your short lived experience with mercenary "life" you don't think you're cut out with battle on a regular basis. Plus the Zalan Empire is currently on heightened alert and battle ready status with this Nuro Incident and all. You resign yourself to the farm life. You play your lute to yourself (and family) when you have the time to do so. It's a simple life. Two years pass and things have gotten worse. The Necromancer Lord (as he's become to be known) has expanded, even to the point of taking over the Brot Kingdom. The Tulan Kingdom has been totally conquered by a demon army. A Grand Alliance of nations has been formed, but so far they don't seem to be making much progress. Meanwhile life on the farm is a little harder. Your youngest sister Makana becomes gravely ill during the winter months, but there's not enough money to pay for a healer and most of the clerics have been summoned to battle with the undead or demon hordes. Sadly she dies making the overall mood of the farm a little more depressing. You don't even play anymore, your enthusiasm for music died along with the grim realities setting in. Another three years pass and things are down right miserable. War is everywhere. The Demons have been taken care of, (You heard your former mercenary captain died in battle with their leader Velzix) but the undead are stronger than ever. Reports even speak of the Necromancer Lord becoming The Great Lich Lord "reborn". To make things worse, the Zalan Empire has been becoming increasingly tyrannical. In order to help with the war effort they've started bringing back the draft and the talk of ceasing private property to be used for the good of the government. While they say owners will be able to live and still work on their lands and businesses, it will be owned by the Empire. You know it's only a matter of time when you get a knock on the door by Zalan army troops coming to take you and your brother Mallack away to the army and your family's farm. Another two year pass.... You're on the eve of battle in a land known as the Garwold Confederacy although it's steadily becoming a giant graveyard now. The undead hordes have been sweeping relentlessly across the entire landscape. Your own company has had to fall back several times. Morale is low. Not that yours was high to begin with. You don't even know how you've survived this long. While you had some battle experience during your time with the mercenary company, it still hasn't prepared you for the horrors you've seen. The undead...you'll never get used to fighting such emotionless creatures that are the embodiment of death and all that's unnatural. You briefly wonder if your brother Mallack is alright where he's stationed, but it hardly matters at this point. Battle comes as it always does and you are not so lucky this time. Horrible and powerful creatures known as Blood Specters and Death Knights utterly destroy your side. You fall to undead blades and chilling touches only rise up and join them in their goal of global genocide.

You know this isn't going to be easy and you're going to have to be tough, but you remember that you're doing this for your family. You quickly search Formeli's body, which didn't have that much to begin with. "Heh, he always was a broke bastard. Spent all his money on gambling, I'll miss taking his money that's for sure. Alright then, you'll probably be wantin' to take that sword of his since it looks in way better condition than your rusted hunk of iron. Your bow seems to do the job just fine though. His armor too, and hurry up, we gotta meet the Boss! He's got another job for us no doubt." As you're stripping off some of the armor, Dimitri notices something on your back. "What...what the hell is that boy? Is that a fuckin' lute? Haw haw! What the fuck are you doin' with a damn lute? You think that you're some sort of bard or something? We ain't got need for such things boy! Get rid of it!" "No, it's mine." You defiantly say. You wonder if this show of "courage" has gotten you into a whole mess of trouble that you don't want, but fortunately it doesn't. "Heh, he kills one shithead and now he thinks he's a tough guy! Alright pig farmer keep your sissy lute. But its just more weight for you to carry and you better not be falling behind! Come on men let's go, the Boss is waiting for us. You too lute boy!" Dimitri exclaims and limps off. You briefly thought about telling him that he better keep up with his wounded leg and all, but you know when to stop. And so your mercenary life begins. A year passes... You're currently back in the Zalan Empire on a break in between missions. While most of your "buddies" are drinking up their pay and spending it on whores you take this opportunity to visit your family and give them your payment and spoils of battle as usual. You think about how much you've traveled and experienced. Not all of it good, but then killing is never pretty. Some of the jobs are very straight forward: "There are some orc barbarians on the borders that have been pillaging our lands, kill them." And you don't have a problem with it. Other missions start falling into the "gray" area. Your last job involved some Azi Republic senator hiring the company to take out some secessionists that wanted to form their own country. It wasn't clean and it definitely wasn't fun. The secessionists actually had a reasonable complaint about leaving the Republic, saying that it was corrupt and that their representatives didn't care about them. But being a mercenary means you don't take sides for moral or ideological reasons, you do it for money. It's not just that though, some of the things that have been done...well you can't say you're too proud of it. Granted, you've never actively engaged in some of the less moral and outright criminal things that your mercenary comrades have, but you certainly know about them and it almost makes you feel like you're guilty of it as well. As for how you cope with some of this stuff, you tend to keep to yourself and play your lute which has oddly made you a little more accepted. Seems there are more than a few music lovers in the company. Even the Captain doesn't mind you indulging in your little hobby. The Captain is a huge man who you know gets a pleasure from killing and mayhem. He's spent a lifetime doing it. In fact you have a hard time believing he even has a family that he goes to visit. Who knows though? Perhaps he is different with them. (You've been working for the Chimera Company for a year and you still don't know what the hell his real name is, mainly because everyone only seems to address him as "The Boss" or "Chief" or in a more formal tone "Captain") You spend the time with your family and tell them of some of the things you've seen and exciting places you've been to, of course never going into too much detail about the darker side of things. Your brothers and sisters enjoy the tales as usual. Your Mom senses that there is probably more to them, but she doesn't ask too many questions. She does always asks if you're okay and says that you don't have to keep doing it, but you always reply that you're fine and that you're just a little tired that's all. When your time is done you say goodbye to them and meet with the rest of your company at the Zalan capital this time. Its odd, but things seem to be even more chaotic than usual around here. People are rushing around and an air of concern seems to be pervading the city. The guards are telling people to calm down our there will be martial law and you hear something in passing about an attack on a city. You don't really listen because you're in a hurry to meet up with your company which you find mostly hanging out in a tavern as usual. Dimitri sees you and speaks. "Ah, it's our own fuckin' bard ! How's my favorite string plucker? (Hic!) You have trouble getting into the city? Heard the guards have been cracking down on security." "No, but what's going on? The city seems to be in a state of panic." "Fuck yeah it is! What you didn't hear?" "No. What happened?" "Fuckin' undead happened my pig farming friend! A whole shitload of them took over the the city of Nuro! Can you believe it? Fuckin' Nuro! That place was supposed to be unconquerable! Heh! (Burp!)" Dimitri says without the slightest bit of worry. "UNDEAD?! What the fuck? Nuro!? How?!" "Fuck if I know, guess some rogue wizards got hooked up in that necromancy shit hardcore. Musta been some demonologists there too since we heard reports of demons too. Not the supposedly civilized type either, they're the rip off your head and shit down your neck kind." "...there's fuckin' rogue demons in Nuro too?" "Of course not, they all escaped and are now running around in the countryside, heard they're heading for the Tulan Kingdom." Dimitri says taking another drink. You're having a hard time digesting all this yet the rest of your comrades are still drinking and partying like nothing is wrong. Your Dad had once told you tales of a being called the Great Lich Lord that existed many centuries ago who nearly killed the world. Scared the hell out of you then and it doesn't make you feel too good now. "Isn't this concerning to you?" "What? Shit no! Just means more work for us and that also means more loot! Ha ha! You could get more loot to buy a new lute! Ha ha ha! (Hic!)" "But this is the fuckin' undead! I mean..." "So? Stop bein a pussy! I've fought some undead before, when I was lootin' a dwarven tomb. You just chop their heads off like everything else, shit ain't that hard. They just tend to smell worse...well maybe not worse than trolls. Anyway I'm sure the fucking governments will take care of this shit as quick as possible, you know how politicians don't like dead taxpayers, in the meantime we need to take advantage now while the conflict is hot!" No sooner has Dimitri said this little bit of wisdom, when the Boss steps in the doorway. He's as nasty looking as always, but this time he looks even moreso than usual. "Alright you useless sacks of goblin shit. We got a new job. This one just came across rather unexpectedly. Ran into a Dwarven representative and we're now in the employ of a Dwarven Clan, near the southern Tulan Borders. With the occurrence of this Nuro incident, they're expecting some shit to spill over into their lands and they want some extra help. This is pretty surprising since Dwarves aren't known to pay for mercenaries, let alone the likes of us." The Boss tell you all. "The Tulan Border? Oh fuck that place is a meat grinder! There's no profit to be had anywhere near there!" Cal pipes up. "Well you can just pick up your panties and get your pansy ass back home and stay there then! The dwarves are paying well and that's the job. Take it or get the fuck outta my company!" "Excuse me Captain, but weren't there reports of demons running through that area?" you ask. "Yeah so? That's why we're going over there most likely, but be fucking prepared for any damn thing. Maybe even undead...who knows if my...if those necromancer bastards started spreading their plague yet. We leave tomorrow." You think on this fucked up situation and seriously reconsidering your career choice. > You stick with it You're in this now and you can't stop just because it's looking tough. You got your family to think about. You're staying. However you do, do something slightly out of character, you spend what little money you have on a whore for the night, mainly because you're a lot less sure if you're going to come back from this mission. The next day you're on the job. The march to the dwarven lands is mostly uneventful, though the fighting between the Zalan Empire and the Tulan Kingdom is still going on their borders which even skirting around, still manages to find your company. The Boss takes advantage of straggling Tulan soldiers that have fled battle. The butchery isn't uncommon, after all, nobody will know and the Zalan Empire will just be blamed anyway. Arrival in the Dwarven lands is met with caution, the Dwarves obviously know of the Chimera Company's reputation and a small group of them motion the Boss to just talk to him directly. A deal seems to be made and the Dwarves leave to go back to their underground home. The Captain now addresses all of you. "Alright, apparently there HAVE been demons running all up and down and through the area. The Dwarves are preparing defenses in case they try to invade underground; apparently they consider their underground city takes precedence so their main force is there. However they still have plenty of mines above ground and not nearly enough dwarves to defend them all. Now its been said the demons have been heading toward the Tulan Kingdom, but a lot of them still have been fucking around here and generally wrecking shit for the fun of it. Collapsing even the sturdy mines of the dwarves on their heads seems to be amusing to them. So our goal is to make things bothersome enough for them that they'll leave the dwarves alone and go elsewhere." The Captain spits on the ground before continuing. "We're going to split up for this assignment and take different mines in the area. Watch your fucking ass. I don't think any of you eunuchs have fought any demons before, but I have and they're utterly fucking ruthless. Forget all that shit about some of them being civilized. They're about as civilized as damn Quillar, but a lot more intelligent. The chaos that is in their hearts is always there and these ones are the complete embodiment of it. And for fuck's sake DON'T stay near any explosives! The dwarves are always using shit like that in their mines and demons have a tendency to have fire throwing abilities. It's probably the reason for all the easy mine collapses." The Captain takes out a map. "One more thing. While I know the common thing to do on our assignments is to take advantage of things. We need to play this one completely fucking straight! Do NOT fucking do anything that's going to piss off the dwarves! If you do, we don't get paid. We don't get paid. I'm going to get pissed, because we're getting a lot for this one. And assuming the dwarves don't kill you, I certainly fucking will. Alright now I'm going to assign you according to this map." You and a few others (Including Dimitri) are assigned to the Karzac Mines where you make your way to after some climbing which fortunately isn't too far off ground level. The dwarves there regard you with suspicion immediately. "Oh great they're here. Alright, let's set the ground rules. I'm head miner Morri and I'm in charge of this place! Don't even think about trying to steal some loose bars of silver that you might find lying around. You do it, and your skull meets an axe or mining pick! Got me?" "Stand up when you speak to me." Dimitri laughs. "Yeah, make yer jokes human, we'll see if the demons will appreciate that humor when you're meeting them face to face." "Demon, pah! Just one more thing for me to kill, people make a big deal about them. I've seen how they fall in line and become law abiding citizens just like anyone else when beaten down." "Yeah and those same civilized ones will kill you when they get the chance. Didn't you hear the Captain?" you say. "Yeah well he's got a tendency to be over dramatic; he probably picked that up from that fine ass elven bitch he's married to. Besides who DOESN'T try to kill you when they get the chance? They aren't anything special. Their race just has a tendency to have assholiness come natural to them." Morri interrupts the pair of you. "Hey if you two morons are finished, I'm about to tell you the fun part of this job. There are demons already in this mine." "What?!" "Oh yeah, bunch of those fuckers as we speak. Seems we got the fortune of one sneaking in here and decided to have her spawn in the deep reaches of this mine. The only good thing is these types don't seem to be interested in collapsing the mine, however they're trying to turn this place into some sort of fucking demon hive or something. We've been trying to eliminate them, but of course it's slow going. We need to get them before they start breeding more though. So we're splitting up..." "Here we go again..." Dimitri says. Morri assigns at least a few dwarves with each mercenary. You, Morri and Dimitri make up the last one. The demon hunting in the mines is actually a very "mundane" job. They certainly are horrible looking creatures and very vicious, but after the first few times, you get used to it. These particular demons have an insect like appearance so maybe that's why these behave the way they do. They aren't very tough in the scheme of things, but like Morri said there do seem to be a lot. You can't use your bow like you want to either due to the cramped mine conditions. Demons aren't really the problem though, the problem is Dimitri. After one of the harder battles, Morri is attempting to catch his breath. Dimitri notices the very large silver deposit you're next to and the silver that's just there for the taking. He quietly whispers to you that you and he should waylay Morri and take some of the silver. Leave his body to be munched on by a wandering demon. Who's going to know? You're not really for this plan and you say no, but Dimitri begins to argue and Morri notices the both of you. "I'm not doing it! The Captain said..." you exclaim. "Fuckin' pussy!" Dimitri says pushing you. "Hey hey hey! Not doing what? What are you two on abo..." Dimitri takes the opportunity of distraction and hits Morri in the face with silver bar that he lifted off the ground earlier. " Ugh! Bastard dog you'll pay for this treachery!" Morri utters falling to the ground. "Come on, this is your last chance to be a man and help me pig farmer!" Dimitri says as he goes to finish off Morri. > You help Dimitri You hate yourself for this, but you feel you don't have much choice, if Morri lives he'll certainly tell everyone and then you won't get paid which will probably result in your death by the hands of the Boss. You raise your own weapon and help kill Morri. He doesn't die easy, but Dimitri finishes him off before he can put up any sort of meaningful defense. Breathing hard and smiling at you with blood on his face, Dimitri laughs a bit. "Heh heh, knew you'd see the light, lute boy! Now come on, let's throw his body in that left passage. I think I heard some of those demon roaches chittering down that way. Let's just make sure we're not around eh? We got a lot of silver to load up on!" You don't take any of the silver actually, you're still worrying and not feeling right about this whole situation, of course that just means more for Dimitri. You don't even think this half assed plan of Dimitri's is going to work. You and Dimitri are going to look mighty suspicious meeting up with the other dwarves without Morri, and trying to conceal a shitload of silver, though Dimitri claims everything will be fine. Everything goes less fine when you start to realize that Morri was the one who was leading you through this mine maze. Neither you or Dimitri were paying attention to the directions mainly because you were on the look out for demon attacks and fighting them off. Eventually you're attacked by more of the demons as you proceed to get lost. You and Dimitri get into an argument and begin to blame each other (Though it really is his fault) You both get angry and come to blows, you however get the advantage, not being weighed down by silver. You leave his body for the demons. You however don't get too much further. The demons seem to be coming out in more force and you're wounded many times. You get scared and confused and you know you're a dead man when you see Morri's body being eaten by several of demons. You've gone in a complete circle and now you're hearing that demon chittering from everywhere. A valiant effort is made by you, but you can't fight them all. Eventually you are overwhelmed and eaten.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, grimdark, war, serious] You're in this now and you can't stop just because it's looking tough. You got your family to think about. You're staying. However you do, do something slightly out of character, you spend what little money you have on a whore for the night, mainly because you're a lot less sure if you're going to come back from this mission. The next day you're on the job. The march to the dwarven lands is mostly uneventful, though the fighting between the Zalan Empire and the Tulan Kingdom is still going on their borders which even skirting around, still manages to find your company. The Boss takes advantage of straggling Tulan soldiers that have fled battle. The butchery isn't uncommon, after all, nobody will know and the Zalan Empire will just be blamed anyway. Arrival in the Dwarven lands is met with caution, the Dwarves obviously know of the Chimera Company's reputation and a small group of them motion the Boss to just talk to him directly. A deal seems to be made and the Dwarves leave to go back to their underground home. The Captain now addresses all of you. "Alright, apparently there HAVE been demons running all up and down and through the area. The Dwarves are preparing defenses in case they try to invade underground; apparently they consider their underground city takes precedence so their main force is there. However they still have plenty of mines above ground and not nearly enough dwarves to defend them all. Now its been said the demons have been heading toward the Tulan Kingdom, but a lot of them still have been fucking around here and generally wrecking shit for the fun of it. Collapsing even the sturdy mines of the dwarves on their heads seems to be amusing to them. So our goal is to make things bothersome enough for them that they'll leave the dwarves alone and go elsewhere." The Captain spits on the ground before continuing. "We're going to split up for this assignment and take different mines in the area. Watch your fucking ass. I don't think any of you eunuchs have fought any demons before, but I have and they're utterly fucking ruthless. Forget all that shit about some of them being civilized. They're about as civilized as damn Quillar, but a lot more intelligent. The chaos that is in their hearts is always there and these ones are the complete embodiment of it. And for fuck's sake DON'T stay near any explosives! The dwarves are always using shit like that in their mines and demons have a tendency to have fire throwing abilities. It's probably the reason for all the easy mine collapses." The Captain takes out a map. "One more thing. While I know the common thing to do on our assignments is to take advantage of things. We need to play this one completely fucking straight! Do NOT fucking do anything that's going to piss off the dwarves! If you do, we don't get paid. We don't get paid. I'm going to get pissed, because we're getting a lot for this one. And assuming the dwarves don't kill you, I certainly fucking will. Alright now I'm going to assign you according to this map." You and a few others (Including Dimitri) are assigned to the Karzac Mines where you make your way to after some climbing which fortunately isn't too far off ground level. The dwarves there regard you with suspicion immediately. "Oh great they're here. Alright, let's set the ground rules. I'm head miner Morri and I'm in charge of this place! Don't even think about trying to steal some loose bars of silver that you might find lying around. You do it, and your skull meets an axe or mining pick! Got me?" "Stand up when you speak to me." Dimitri laughs. "Yeah, make yer jokes human, we'll see if the demons will appreciate that humor when you're meeting them face to face." "Demon, pah! Just one more thing for me to kill, people make a big deal about them. I've seen how they fall in line and become law abiding citizens just like anyone else when beaten down." "Yeah and those same civilized ones will kill you when they get the chance. Didn't you hear the Captain?" you say. "Yeah well he's got a tendency to be over dramatic; he probably picked that up from that fine ass elven bitch he's married to. Besides who DOESN'T try to kill you when they get the chance? They aren't anything special. Their race just has a tendency to have assholiness come natural to them." Morri interrupts the pair of you. "Hey if you two morons are finished, I'm about to tell you the fun part of this job. There are demons already in this mine." "What?!" "Oh yeah, bunch of those fuckers as we speak. Seems we got the fortune of one sneaking in here and decided to have her spawn in the deep reaches of this mine. The only good thing is these types don't seem to be interested in collapsing the mine, however they're trying to turn this place into some sort of fucking demon hive or something. We've been trying to eliminate them, but of course it's slow going. We need to get them before they start breeding more though. So we're splitting up..." "Here we go again..." Dimitri says. Morri assigns at least a few dwarves with each mercenary. You, Morri and Dimitri make up the last one. The demon hunting in the mines is actually a very "mundane" job. They certainly are horrible looking creatures and very vicious, but after the first few times, you get used to it. These particular demons have an insect like appearance so maybe that's why these behave the way they do. They aren't very tough in the scheme of things, but like Morri said there do seem to be a lot. You can't use your bow like you want to either due to the cramped mine conditions. Demons aren't really the problem though, the problem is Dimitri. After one of the harder battles, Morri is attempting to catch his breath. Dimitri notices the very large silver deposit you're next to and the silver that's just there for the taking. He quietly whispers to you that you and he should waylay Morri and take some of the silver. Leave his body to be munched on by a wandering demon. Who's going to know? You're not really for this plan and you say no, but Dimitri begins to argue and Morri notices the both of you. "I'm not doing it! The Captain said..." you exclaim. "Fuckin' pussy!" Dimitri says pushing you. "Hey hey hey! Not doing what? What are you two on abo..." Dimitri takes the opportunity of distraction and hits Morri in the face with silver bar that he lifted off the ground earlier. " Ugh! Bastard dog you'll pay for this treachery!" Morri utters falling to the ground. "Come on, this is your last chance to be a man and help me pig farmer!" Dimitri says as he goes to finish off Morri. > You help Morri You've had enough. You're not going to help OR stand by for another immoral act performed by your "co-workers". It's bad enough that it goes on, but that doesn't mean you need to let it, if you can do something about it. You run Dimitri through the back with your sword, he yells out in pain, but still manages to swing his armored fist to strike you in the face. You fall to the ground. "Fuck...lute boy...goin...down...pig fucker..." he wheezes as he attempts to step towards you only to fall to his knees. At this point Morri has recovered and cleaves Dimitri's skull in with his axe. "Bastard." Morri then looks at you. "Heh, I guess you must be one of the few with a conscious in the company eh?" "I guess so." You reply. "Or perhaps you knew it would be better if I lived so you could find your way out this maze?" "...Actually I hadn't even thought about that. I just...just couldn't let him kill and rob you like that. Seen it too many times." "That a fact? Well tell me son, why the hell are you hooked up with these bunch for then?" "Money to help the family...besides it's not that bad." "Okay, if you say so. However, this little incident is going to cost your company. We warned your captain that if any evidence of treachery occurred, we weren't paying him shit and this deal was off!" "But can't we just keep this secret? I mean..." "Secret? Fuck no! Look, you're not a bad person, but you're hanging out with bad people. The only reason why we hired you in the first place is because you ARE effective and you're about the only mercenary company insane enough to do a job like this. But a deal's a deal. You captain apparently doesn't have control over his men like he thinks, because I'm sure he warned you all." "Yeah, but everyone will probably blame me and my life will be in danger!" "...well...I'm sorry about that, but that's the price you pay for the company you keep...look I'll tell you what, because you helped me, I'll take you back to the entrance and you can leave. Should at least give you a head start. Hell, maybe I'll even tell them you died before this happened. You could then just hide out and stay out of sight without even anyone looking for you." Not knowing what to say next you just agree and ponder your possible future. The way back to the entrance is uneventful as far as demon attacks are concerned. You don't know what you're going to do. You'll have to go on the run or at least relocate regardless of what Morri tells everyone. And if he mentions the truth, then your family may well be in danger. You imagine that if the Boss couldn't get to you, he may very well take it out on your family. You feel sick and upset. You wish you hadn't chosen this path. All you ever really wanted to do was play your lute, not fight demons or anything else really. You follow behind Morri in a daze. You're surprised that he doesn't insist that you walk in front of him, but then that's probably because he trusts that you're not a murderer. You also realize you recognize this part of the mine and could probably find your way back from here... You shake your head and take a deep breath. "Hey Morri." "Wha...glagh! An arrow goes right through Morri's mouth and out the other side of his head. He gurgles obscenities while trying to raise his axe towards you. Another arrow goes through his eye. He ceases his struggle. While you solved the problem of Morri telling anyone, now you have to cover your own tracks, then you hear a sound you never thought you'd be glad to hear. The chittering of those insect demons and a bunch of them are coming right behind you. You pull the arrows out and run as quickly as you can to the entrance leaving the demons to feed upon Morri's body. The thought crosses your mind to just leave anyway. Maybe they'd think all three of you got eaten. However, you run into another group during your dash to the mine entrance. "Where the hell are you running off to?" a mercenary asks. It's Cal. You come up with a lie quick. "(pant) Shit! We got fucking ambushed! (pant) Barely fucking escaped! (pant) Dimitri and Morri are dead! Probably eaten! And the rest of those demon fuckers are heading this way!" "What?! You cowardly fucker, you just let Morri die?" one the dwarves says angrily. "It wasn't my idea! I tried to help him and Dimitri, but they just came in force, I don't even know how I escaped!" Your story is a little suspicious, but thanks to the demons, you're covered. They didn't leave much for the dwarves to find. However, you're not looked favorably on by the rest of the dwarves for the rest of the mission. Your fellow mercenaries don't really care one way or another. It's part of the job and Dimitri wasn't well liked so they could care less if he died or lived. You on the other hand are still not feeling so great about yourself. The longer you're part of this company the more you're starting to think or be more like them. You hate it and you'll be glad when this job is over. A few months pass and the contract is over. The "problem" isn't completely gone, in fact there's reports of some undead wandering in the area now, but the Dwarves are growing more weary of your presence, hand over your payment and tell you to leave. They say they can handle anything else themselves. It's quite a lot this time. Best job you've had. Upon your return to the Zalan Empire you buy yourself a new lute. It's your "reward". The rest of it goes to your family who of course are eager to hear about your tales as usual. You don't tell them that many this time. You just try to take your mind off your "job" by asking them more questions this time around. When you're alone you play your new lute, trying to emulate a couple of the songs you overheard the Dwarves engage in when you were there. You never knew they were musically inclined; it's a shame you had to kill one to protect your future. You're still debating on whether or not to give up the mercenary life, but you see how much it's helping the family out, so you decide to stay and put up with it. After your "break is over" you go back to the job as usual. Three years pass... Four years have passed since the "Nuro Incident" and things have gotten much worse in the world. The Necromancer Lord conquered the Brot Kingdom, A demon lord called Velzix conquered the Tulan Kingdom, both are expanding and a so called Grand Alliance of nations doesn't seem to be doing much good against either of them. The Chimera Company was recently hired by the Zalan government. Due to your past battles with demons, they decided you would be good to put on Tulan Border which is still a bloodbath, but instead of fighting the Tulan Kingdom, the Zalan Empire is fighting Velzix's hordes. It's not an easy assignment or very pleasant, in fact it's got to be the worst job you've been on. You company is assigned to make commando raids and sabotage shit to keep the demons fairly unfocused, while the Zalan Empire's real armies try to make progress into Velzix's realm. Currently you're making your "camp" in small abandoned village in enemy territory where you have to fight the occasional demon patrols. Why the Captain took this job on for the company is beyond you. Nobody really knows why. The company in general has been taking more dangerous jobs in recent years. Ever since the Nuro Incident actually. While it's always been known he's not a man to shy away from danger and has a love of battle, there's a lot of talk within ranks that he's got a death wish. The only "good thing" about this assignment, is that the chance for usual Chimera Company wicked acts are much lower. There's not many "innocents" in a demon realm. As you think about things, strumming your lute in an abandoned general store by yourself. You hear someone speak. "Pretty good playing. Wish my kind appreciated some of the more subtle things in life sometimes." You turn your head and see a demon! He's not very tall and is "dressed up". He must be one of the "civilized" demons who realigned themselves with their demonic natures and flocked to Velzix when he took over the Tulan Kingdom. He doesn't seem hostile, but you drop your lute and draw your weapon, before you can yell a warning, he speaks again. "Wait! Before you go warning your friends, I should warn you that there is a very large group of my fellow kin surrounding this village. You kill me and they'll attack and quite frankly I don't fancy your chances. However I got a deal for you that can be worth your while. What can it hurt to listen to me? You can always kill me afterwards." > You listen to the demon You aren't sure about this, but you let him speak. "Speak demon, but make it quick!" you demand. "Ah, glad you're willing to be reasonable. Name's Big Red by the way." "Get on with it!" "Very well. Your company and everyone in it is doomed to the infernal planes when they die I'm afraid. You captain's deeds alone make him one of the most sought after souls in Hell. He used to be much worse before he got married, but ah well; women often make men weak like that." "Yeah? Well not me." "Heh, yeah you too. I understand that you're probably the most moral person in it, but this whole company has been targeted by Hell and Hell gets what it wants." "Well Velzix isn't..." "Velzix? I'm not talking about Velzix! Velzix is just another demon with big dick complex. If I trust my judgment he's not going to last another year in his current status, he'll probably either be dead by one of you mortals or that little Necromancer. (Sigh) Wish I'd known about him sooner, things could've been a lot...different." Big Red sees that you're getting antsy so he gets to the point again. "Anyway, seeing as you're all doomed to Hell, I figured it would be nice if I got direct credit for bringing you there. Bringing in evil souls yourself is one of the few things makes Hell all worth it. You get all sorts of perks. However, if I just call in the reinforcements now to have you guys get ripped from limb to limb, I won't get direct credit. The souls will just be gathered wily nily and then I gotta argue with the fucking collectors and lawyers and all that other shit about who killed who and who gets credit which will probably just result in nobody getting credit and doesn't help me out at all." "Barring that you're saying that I'm doomed in any case, I fail to see why I should help you." "Well that's why I'm coming to you with a deal. I can see you're not a bad person, you just serve a bad master, and he's the one I really want direct credit for. The rest of you are just a bonus and you in particular aren't even worth that much given your tendency towards good." "So what is it you want from me exactly?" "I want you to take out the sentries and distract your fellows for as long as possible while my boys sneak up on this village and strike with as little resistance as possible. To sweeten this deal, I'll try to tell my boys to not target you while you try to escape the mayhem. I'm not making any promises though, killing rampages among my kind encourage indiscriminate killing. You'll be on your own; however it gives you a small chance for survival and by agreeing to this plan it gives me direct credit as the mastermind of this cunning plan. Getting other demons to kill isn't any kind of feat, but employing a mortal to help is looked upon as more favorable. So do we have a deal?" Big Red offers his hand... > You make the deal It sounds like your only chance for survival, slim though it may be. In some ways you'd like to be out of this company and who are you really betraying? From what you've seen the company is little better than the demons. You're sick of all of this, the fighting, the demons, the company, all of it. "It's a deal, but make a damn good effort for your kin NOT to target me, AND not to go chasing me either!" "Okay! Sheesh, you're mistrustful. You just make sure you do your part." Big Red says and shakes your hand. You both exit the abandoned store and you look for where most of your fellows are located. The village square of course. You know there are look outs in each of "corners" of the village. You sneak about the village like an assassin and ready your bow. You take out each sentry in relative silence with your skillful bow shots and drag their bodies into a nearby house. Now nobody will raise an alarm too soon. You then head to the village square and begin interacting with some of them. They find it odd since you're usually keeping to yourself, but they enjoy your playing so they don't mind it when you do that. Your Captain on the other hand comes out from the house he's set up in and is wondering what all the commotion is. He gets angry. "What the fuck are you idiots doing? We're fucking deep in demon territory and you're all making enough noise to attract a damn army of them." "What difference does it make? They got patrols that have come across our location before, so they know where we're at." You remark." "The difference is that I want you fuckers to be alert and focused if we get attacked, not getting drunk and dancing to music like some fucking sissy elf!" "Aren't you married to an elf?" you say still playing and backing away from the Captain's reach. He's almost in shock that you'd speak to him in such manner especially since you never usually speak too much in the first place. "You, pig farmer are really pushing my patience tonight. If I didn't need all the people I can get for this job, I'd kill you myself!" "Shhh! I think you better shut the fuck up lute boy." One of the other mercenaries whispers. "Why? We're already in fucking Hell, who gives a shit how much noise we make?" You defiance gets worse and finally the Captain draws his weapon to shut you up. At this point you call him a pile of orc shit and run. This causes the rest of the mercenaries to get out his way as he charges at you. Some of them also give chase, but most just stay out of it. Fortunately at this point the demons have finally gotten into position and strike. Most of the company is so bewildered by what has occurred between you and the Captain that they're unprepared. Your Captain immediately stops his pursuit of you when a particularly large demon jumps on top of him from one of the rooftops. He fights it off with the help of some of his men, but you see more coming and continue to make your escape. As you run away from the village, a few demons pass you by and don't attack, looks like Big Red kept his word. To a point. Big Red suddenly appears in front of you. "Thanks friend, now for your reward!" he says and then puts his fist through your chest which kills you instantly. You don't know how much time has passed, but you eventually hear Big Red speaking to you. "Get up, I need your word." "Huh?" you say in a daze. "Did I not get you to distract the Chimera Company in an effort to collect all their souls?" "Huh? Yeah..." you continue to say in a daze. You start shaking the cobwebs and see that you're in a completely different place. A very bad place. Big Red and another much bigger demon are talking. You see the rest of your Company in the distance, naked and in chains. The entire landscape is very barren, has a reddish hue and its uncomfortably hot. "Okay, you'll get credit for all these souls." "Hang on, I want to keep this one, he has certain talents and he did allow all this to happen." Big Red says pointing to you. "Very well...that's your right. Just sign there, and there, okay. Let's load these sorry souls up!" Big Red looks pleased with himself as the souls are taken away. "Come on, I'm going to take a break." You feel compelled to join him, but you still have questions obviously. "What the fuck man?! I'm in Hell!" "Got it in one. Excellent detective work." "But...But the deal! You broke the fucking deal! I don't belong here!" "No I didn't. I said my fellows wouldn't harm you, not that I wouldn't. Besides YOU made a deal with me, which damned you in the first place. You definitely belong here." The reality of this situation has now caused a massive amount of fear within you. You're in Hell and there's no escape from it! You can't even attack Big Red, he's got a permanent magical hold on you from causing him any sort of harm, though you probably wouldn't be a match for him anyway. You collapse on the ground and feel defeated. Big Red stops, but he doesn't get angry. "Now what is your problem? I just saved YOUR soul from being eternally tormented by my superiors. They'll probably be eating them and shitting them out only to eat them again for who knows how long. Not a pleasant process." "But...but what are you going to do to me?" you ask. "You? You're going to play for me at my home in the Blood Hills. Trust me, its not nearly as bloody as the name makes out." "Play?" "Sure. I said you played pretty well, and I do appreciate such things. Music is one of my hobbies other than the whole soul collection thing of course. I've got sheets of music from lots of places; I can't play worth a shit though. The claws don't help either. Now come on let's go." You are finding this very odd, but you don't feel as bad now. You're Big Red's slave, but given where you're at, things could be a lot worse. You'll at least get to do something you've always wanted to do. Play music without hindrance. You wonder about your family, but there's little that you can do for them now. You just hope things work out for them in the living world. Big Red's home isn't some giant castle, but a moderate sized house. The inside is decorated with grisly trophies, which you guess can only be considered demonic art. "Sinthinia! I know you're here! I can smell your scent!" he calls out. A sexy female demon comes out of one of the rooms. You can't help but stare, she barely acknowledges you at all though. "I've been waiting for you Big Red, so did the deal go down well?" "Well, it could've gone better, but it was still a good haul. So how is it really going with Velzix?" "(Sigh) He's probably going to lose as predicted. I can sense it, anyone with half a brain can. That whole world is going to eventually become a graveyard, I know it. And the undead are no fun. That's why I've come back here." "Well my house is your house. Let's put some music on shall we?" Big Red points to you. "You, go pick up that mandolin over there and start playing that something on those music sheets I got set up. Sit over there and continue playing until I say stop which won't be anytime soon." Once again you feel the need to comply. You do exactly as Big Red commands as he and Sinthinia head to a bedroom. He then stops to turn to you. "Oh, I don't know if you realized it at the soul market, but your Captain was NOT there. You know why? Because he somehow managed to fucking escape death! Now I could blame the idiots that were working for me for allowing him to escape, but I figured since I got you anyway, it would be more fun to blame you. Enjoy playing music for all eternity!" he says as Sinthinia giggles and they close the door. You don't quite understand that remark until you begin playing the mandolin. You begin to feel excruciating pain all over. Your mind is tormented with negative emotions causing you great distress as well. Big Red has made it so your greatest love which is music causes you pain. And you can never stop playing. All you can do is suffer.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy] You aren't sure about this, but you let him speak. "Speak demon, but make it quick!" you demand. "Ah, glad you're willing to be reasonable. Name's Big Red by the way." "Get on with it!" "Very well. Your company and everyone in it is doomed to the infernal planes when they die I'm afraid. You captain's deeds alone make him one of the most sought after souls in Hell. He used to be much worse before he got married, but ah well; women often make men weak like that." "Yeah? Well not me." "Heh, yeah you too. I understand that you're probably the most moral person in it, but this whole company has been targeted by Hell and Hell gets what it wants." "Well Velzix isn't..." "Velzix? I'm not talking about Velzix! Velzix is just another demon with big dick complex. If I trust my judgment he's not going to last another year in his current status, he'll probably either be dead by one of you mortals or that little Necromancer. (Sigh) Wish I'd known about him sooner, things could've been a lot...different." Big Red sees that you're getting antsy so he gets to the point again. "Anyway, seeing as you're all doomed to Hell, I figured it would be nice if I got direct credit for bringing you there. Bringing in evil souls yourself is one of the few things makes Hell all worth it. You get all sorts of perks. However, if I just call in the reinforcements now to have you guys get ripped from limb to limb, I won't get direct credit. The souls will just be gathered wily nily and then I gotta argue with the fucking collectors and lawyers and all that other shit about who killed who and who gets credit which will probably just result in nobody getting credit and doesn't help me out at all." "Barring that you're saying that I'm doomed in any case, I fail to see why I should help you." "Well that's why I'm coming to you with a deal. I can see you're not a bad person, you just serve a bad master, and he's the one I really want direct credit for. The rest of you are just a bonus and you in particular aren't even worth that much given your tendency towards good." "So what is it you want from me exactly?" "I want you to take out the sentries and distract your fellows for as long as possible while my boys sneak up on this village and strike with as little resistance as possible. To sweeten this deal, I'll try to tell my boys to not target you while you try to escape the mayhem. I'm not making any promises though, killing rampages among my kind encourage indiscriminate killing. You'll be on your own; however it gives you a small chance for survival and by agreeing to this plan it gives me direct credit as the mastermind of this cunning plan. Getting other demons to kill isn't any kind of feat, but employing a mortal to help is looked upon as more favorable. So do we have a deal?" Big Red offers his hand... > You decline the deal Fuck this. He's lying and even if he isn't, making a deal with a demon is never a good idea. You've heard the stories and you've seen the former Tulan "citizens" that debased themselves just in order to live to serve their demon masters. It never ends well. If you are going to the infernal realm when you die, you're still not going to be helping anyone to take you there! "Well, let me think about it....HEY THERE'S A FUCKING DEMON ATTACK COMING!" you shout at the top of your lungs. You're pretty sure at least one person heard you. "You asshole!" Big Red growls and lunges at you which you dodge out of the way and just focus on getting back to where most of your company is making camp, yelling the whole time. Upon hearing your warning, everyone scrambles for battle. You can hear the demons bellowing in the distance. They'll be here in force soon. You quickly climb on to the village rooftops and ready your bow as the demon hordes advance all around you. The battle wasn't as hopeless as Big Red made it seem like it would be (He must've ran off as there was no sign of him) however, the Company does take more than the usual casualties. One of the mercenaries starts to openly complain. "This is just fucking retarded! Why the hell are we doing this shit?" Cal complains. "You know the score; you don't like it you can leave." The Captain says calmly cleaning off his sword. "Yeah and then I don't get paid, which is when by the way? We'd all like to know when this contract is over! You never did tell us!" "Oh that...indefinitely." "WHAT?!" almost everyone exclaims. "Look, would you sissies calm the fuck down? We got a break coming up in a few weeks. We go back to the Zalan Empire to get paid, rest, re-equip and whatever else they got there, but after the break we go right back out here. Possibly even deeper." At this point the whole company is turning against the Captain, he doesn't look worried though. "Are you fuckin' kidding me? You're expecting us to go deeper into this shit? You're practically asking us to stand in the middle of Hell!" "Dunno why you're protesting, we're all going to the real infernal plane anyway when we die, might as well get used to it. Look, take it or leave it, I don't give a shit. If you want to stay, go ahead. If you want to leave now, go ahead. If you want to leave after you get your pay, go ahead. But I'm sure you know by now, if you leave don't come back ever." The Captain says and goes back to the abandoned home he was staying in. This comment by the Captain makes you think back to Big Red's little speech, you start wondering about your future while everyone begins talking amongst themselves about what to do next. A lot of them are saying the Boss has lost his mind and is being suicidal. You can't say you disagree. In fact you're not sure you want part of this anymore. Your family might need the money, but what good are you dead to them? A few weeks pass and your company makes its way back to the Zalan Empire. You get your payment. Almost feels like you're in the "real army" given the formal nature of it. After you get your pay, you're on your way home where you intend to stay, much like many others are planning to do. However, you bump into the Captain who speaks to you. There's a hint of alcohol on his breath. "So can I expect you to stay on lute boy?" he asks bluntly. "Erm...well, no Captain. I'm sorry, but going deeper into demon territory is suicide." you reply.. "Probably right, but who wants to live forever?" "Well I'd like to at least live past the next year." "Hah! So you wish to die an old man in your bed?" "Sounds about right." "Then why did you take on such a dangerous line of work in the first place?" "My family needed the money." "Ah yes, you are one of the few in the company that has one. One of the fewer still that actually takes care of them...an honorable pursuit. I can respect that." You're surprised to hear the Captain praise anything that seems honorable. "I have a family that I take care of too you know." "Yes, I know you are married." "Yeah...but my daughter is a captain in the Zalan army. She's stationed on the Tulan border as a matter of fact. She might even get transferred to the Grand Alliance army. Don't know yet." He says with a hint of pride in his voice, though he tries his best to conceal it. The Captain is just full of surprises. You now know that this isn't some simple death wish, but that he's taken the job to help her out in a way. You don't know, but can only imagine what growing up with a dad like him was like. You unsure of how to reply so you just follow up with something. "Um, that's great Captain." "Yeah, it's great. Got a son too...he's...a wizard. He's a fuckin' disappointment... y'know you look back on your life and you wonder what you've accomplished and it doesn't mean shit in the scheme of things, at least not when the world has one foot in Hell and the other in the grave. But still you struggle and fight right? You still remain true to your nature." "Sure I guess so." You say wondering where the Captain going with this. The Captain sighs heavily. "I guess I'm lucky...killing and battle are in my nature. I get to do it every fuckin' day and it never seems to be enough, even after all the years and changes... but I bet you didn't want this shit right? You probably wanted to just play that fuckin' lute of yours right? You got a gift and its being wasted due to events out of your control...but you still play that thing when you can. It's in your nature. It's also in your nature to help out your family because you care about them." "I suppose it is." "Yeah, nature...it's a fuckin' bitch." The Captain now looks directly at you. "Look I'm not gonna beg ya, but you're one of the best men I got in the damn company, and I'd rather not lose you, so I'll appeal to your nature. What's going on in the world today is some fucked up shit. Quite honestly I don't think it's going to end well for any of us, but you struggle and fight anyway. The financial aid that you're providing for your family pales in comparison to what you're doing in the long term. You're making the world safer for them so that they might be able to live. We got the Gates of Hell on one side and Death's Door on the other and both of them need to be fucking closed. I don't know if that makes us the so called good guys now, but all I know is if there's an active way I can protect my wife and even help my daughter then I'm gonna do it. What are you going to do?" The Captain then leaves you without saying another word. Some pretty deep words for a man who you never saw as compassionate in anyway. He does make a point though. Lately what has been going in the world is pretty bad and you wonder if not fighting today will just mean putting off fighting tomorrow. > You stay in the company You might be a fool, but the possibility that the Captain knows what the fuck he's talking about can't be ruled out. If killing demons now is going to make life a little safer for your family in the future, then you probably should be apart of that. Same with the undead if it comes to that, though you're hoping that you don't need to. Fighting demons is bad enough, you haven't even fought any undead and the stories that your dad told you and that you've overheard others tell still makes you dread the day that you'll actually have to. For now though you're going home to spend time with your family and tell them all how much you love them. One year passes... Five years since the Nuro Incident and you're deep in the heart of Velzix's Realm. Guerrilla hit and run tactics and sabotage have greatly angered Velzix causing him to divert forces where he might use elsewhere. You've even managed to sneak into his fortress a few times to sabotage his goals of creating a permanent open portal to the Infernal Planes. Something nobody wants except the demons. It's odd, but the Chimera Company has been turned from an example of "thugs for hire" to "Heroic warriors" by the Zalan government, but then the Zalan Empire has always been a bit heavy on propaganda. The fact that the company is directly working for it, makes any politician that was remotely involved with the idea of hiring you in the first place to milk it for all its worth. The real truth however is what's currently of the company is made up of the suicidal, desperate or the insane. You're not sure which one you are at this point, but in the eyes of the public, you're a hero. (Surprisingly Cal is still there for all his past complaining) The Captain has been telling tales of his past life a lot more lately when sitting around the campfire. He talks about the people he's killed, the women he's raped, and the treasures he's plundered. Most of the stories you've only heard about in rumor from others in your Company, but hearing them come from the Captain himself makes him sound even more rotten. You're sure glad you didn't know him back in the "old days". He doesn't seem to show any remorse, though he doesn't really talk about it gloriously either. He just tells them as a story to pass the time between fighting, much like you do with playing your lute. Every now and then he tells you to play something specific. Some elven song that you've never heard before, though apparently he really wants you to play it since he gives you a crumpled piece of sheet music containing its notes. It's a not a complex song for an Elven one, but it still takes you a few weeks to learn it completely. It would probably take you less time, but there's the demon fighting that sort of gets in the way of practice. The first time you play it, the Captain, closes his eyes and begins to smile. You think that's the first time you've ever seen him do that. Others in the Company are amazed as well. With his eyes still closed he begins to speak of his family and how beautiful his wife is and how when he first met her it was love at first sight. He then speaks of his daughter, and how proud he is of her. Her battle skills have gotten her a captain's position in Grand Alliance army. He hopes that she has many victorious battles and kills all those that stand before her without mercy. He is silent for awhile as you play...then he speaks of his son is much harsher tone. "A disappointment...a fucking disappointment. Fucked up somewhere...wasn't hard enough on him. Now look at this shit we're in...demons, undead...fuck it. If I'm bound for the Infernal Plane for bringing destruction to the world then I'm gonna give those bastard demons a good reason for torturing the shit outta me when I get there. Namely by killing a shitload of them and fucking up their plans as much as possible. Just hope my necromancer spawn is eventually there right beside me getting tortured as well." You temporarily stop playing at this outburst by the Captain. Others in the Company are looking and whispering to each other. Did he just allude to what you think he did? "What he fuck are you doin'? I didn't say stop playing!" You quickly return to playing and nothing more is spoken of it. As it happens the song is one of the last things you play. Your lute is destroyed in a battle a couple days later. You curse as one of the few things that took your mind off this shitty place is gone. You just hope you live long enough to buy a new one. A few more weeks pass and what wasn't spoken of, makes an appearance... Two of the lookouts run back to the main camp one day and rush into the Captain's tent. You can hear them babbling something about son, and death and doomed. You then hear him yelling at them to shut the fuck up and speak clearly. The rest of the Company starts to pick up there weapons as if expecting something to go down and you follow suit and that's when you look in the direction where the sentries ran from and see a lone hooded figure. None of you don't know how to react. Every instinct in everyone is telling them to attack, but the aura of power and fear he's giving off is very strong. Almost paralyzing. Just then the Captain comes out of his tent and speaks. "Boy, you gotta a lot of balls showing up here before me. Didn't think you had 'em either. Figured you'd be hiding in some tower somewhere." "Yeah, well sometimes you have to do things yourself." Weird. He doesn't sound at all like you thought he would. > You attack now You know who the hell this is, it's the Necromancer Lord. You're never going to get a better chance than now to kill him and put an end to some of the madness that's going on. You muster up all your courage and quickly raise your bow. "No! Wait you dumbfuck..." the Captain yells trying to stop you. You arrow flies straight towards the Necromancer Lord, but it doesn't even reach him, a magical shield causes it to bounce off harmlessly. However your actions cause the Necromancer Lord to react defensively and he unleashes a ray of pure black energy which drains you of your life force entirely.

You might be a fool, but the possibility that the Captain knows what the fuck he's talking about can't be ruled out. If killing demons now is going to make life a little safer for your family in the future, then you probably should be apart of that. Same with the undead if it comes to that, though you're hoping that you don't need to. Fighting demons is bad enough, you haven't even fought any undead and the stories that your dad told you and that you've overheard others tell still makes you dread the day that you'll actually have to. For now though you're going home to spend time with your family and tell them all how much you love them. One year passes... Five years since the Nuro Incident and you're deep in the heart of Velzix's Realm. Guerrilla hit and run tactics and sabotage have greatly angered Velzix causing him to divert forces where he might use elsewhere. You've even managed to sneak into his fortress a few times to sabotage his goals of creating a permanent open portal to the Infernal Planes. Something nobody wants except the demons. It's odd, but the Chimera Company has been turned from an example of "thugs for hire" to "Heroic warriors" by the Zalan government, but then the Zalan Empire has always been a bit heavy on propaganda. The fact that the company is directly working for it, makes any politician that was remotely involved with the idea of hiring you in the first place to milk it for all its worth. The real truth however is what's currently of the company is made up of the suicidal, desperate or the insane. You're not sure which one you are at this point, but in the eyes of the public, you're a hero. (Surprisingly Cal is still there for all his past complaining) The Captain has been telling tales of his past life a lot more lately when sitting around the campfire. He talks about the people he's killed, the women he's raped, and the treasures he's plundered. Most of the stories you've only heard about in rumor from others in your Company, but hearing them come from the Captain himself makes him sound even more rotten. You're sure glad you didn't know him back in the "old days". He doesn't seem to show any remorse, though he doesn't really talk about it gloriously either. He just tells them as a story to pass the time between fighting, much like you do with playing your lute. Every now and then he tells you to play something specific. Some elven song that you've never heard before, though apparently he really wants you to play it since he gives you a crumpled piece of sheet music containing its notes. It's a not a complex song for an Elven one, but it still takes you a few weeks to learn it completely. It would probably take you less time, but there's the demon fighting that sort of gets in the way of practice. The first time you play it, the Captain, closes his eyes and begins to smile. You think that's the first time you've ever seen him do that. Others in the Company are amazed as well. With his eyes still closed he begins to speak of his family and how beautiful his wife is and how when he first met her it was love at first sight. He then speaks of his daughter, and how proud he is of her. Her battle skills have gotten her a captain's position in Grand Alliance army. He hopes that she has many victorious battles and kills all those that stand before her without mercy. He is silent for awhile as you play...then he speaks of his son is much harsher tone. "A disappointment...a fucking disappointment. Fucked up somewhere...wasn't hard enough on him. Now look at this shit we're in...demons, undead...fuck it. If I'm bound for the Infernal Plane for bringing destruction to the world then I'm gonna give those bastard demons a good reason for torturing the shit outta me when I get there. Namely by killing a shitload of them and fucking up their plans as much as possible. Just hope my necromancer spawn is eventually there right beside me getting tortured as well." You temporarily stop playing at this outburst by the Captain. Others in the Company are looking and whispering to each other. Did he just allude to what you think he did? "What he fuck are you doin'? I didn't say stop playing!" You quickly return to playing and nothing more is spoken of it. As it happens the song is one of the last things you play. Your lute is destroyed in a battle a couple days later. You curse as one of the few things that took your mind off this shitty place is gone. You just hope you live long enough to buy a new one. A few more weeks pass and what wasn't spoken of, makes an appearance... Two of the lookouts run back to the main camp one day and rush into the Captain's tent. You can hear them babbling something about son, and death and doomed. You then hear him yelling at them to shut the fuck up and speak clearly. The rest of the Company starts to pick up there weapons as if expecting something to go down and you follow suit and that's when you look in the direction where the sentries ran from and see a lone hooded figure. None of you don't know how to react. Every instinct in everyone is telling them to attack, but the aura of power and fear he's giving off is very strong. Almost paralyzing. Just then the Captain comes out of his tent and speaks. "Boy, you gotta a lot of balls showing up here before me. Didn't think you had 'em either. Figured you'd be hiding in some tower somewhere." "Yeah, well sometimes you have to do things yourself." Weird. He doesn't sound at all like you thought he would. > You Wait You know who the hell this is, it's the Necromancer Lord. Even if you are fast enough to get a shot at him, you doubt the arrow is going to connect. He's probably got all kinds of magical shields to protect him for whatever it is he's here for. You begin looking for your best route of escape and slowly start backing away. The Captain on the other hand speaks directly to his son. He doesn't even show any fear. They speak for a moment and things get very tense, you're about ready to run, but things take a sudden turn for the very strange. The Necromancer Lord has proposed a temporary alliance to assassinate Velzix. The Captain is hesitant about this at first, but an agreement is made on payment and he accepts. The Captain then informs all of you in more detail of what's going on. "Alright men, we're gonna go storm the Gates of Hell and close those fuckers for good. My...son there is going to provide magical support. He's also going to be providing a shitload of money for this job. The stipulation is we can't tell ANYBODY about this shit. I'm fucking serious. Word gets out that we were working with the fucking Necromancer Lord, we'll all be hanged, regardless of so called heroic deeds of killing demons. We're all in this together and there ain't no backing out, because this deal is made. And if you think you're gonna step out on me now, that ain't in the plan. I'll just kill you and have my son raise your undead ass to help us anyway!" "What?! You just decided this for us?" Cal exclaims. "Yeah? What of it? I've ALWAYS made all the decisions for your dumb ass! It's why YOU'RE still working for me, because it's lucrative! This ain't gonna be any different. Plus we get to take fucking credit for killing a damn demon lord. Think of all the pussy you'll get from that fucking fame eh? Now stop bitching and let's go!" You can't say you're enthusiastic about this, but it would appear you have little choice in the matter. As you travel to Velzix's fortress you overhear some of the conversations the Captain is having with his son. A strained relationship to be sure. They make a lot of cutting barbs to each other, each criticizing the other for various things. It's obvious that they can't stand each other, but are a lot more alike than either one wants to admit. It makes you glad when you encounter the occasional demon skirmish on the way, since it at least it decreases the tension and possibility that the Captain's son is going to finally lose his temper and kill everyone due to his father's words. Eventually you arrive without any more problems. You enter Velzix's fortress through the secret way that was discovered long ago. "Dumb ass demons, we've been using this entrance for like a year now and they still haven't caught on!" the Captain remarks to his son. You make good progress in the fortress and then... "There they are, just like Velzix said they would be!" a demon guard shouts. "Haven't caught on yet huh?" the Necromancer Lord says, looking at the Captain. "Quit yer bitchin' and start doin that death magic thing!" You proceed to do battle with the demon and mortal guards that attempt to stop you. The Necromancer Lord starts to raise the mortal guards after they're killed, but it begins to unnerve you though when the Necromancer Lord starts raising your own fallen dead. Pretty soon it's just the Necromancer Lord, the Captain, you, Cal and a bunch of corpses fighting off what seems to be an endless supply of Hell's own. You begin to wonder if Velzix already got that portal working. As you get closer to Velzix's inner sanctum even the undead troops are being decimated at an alarming rate. You've been wounded several times and extremely tired. You don't want to think about any of this, even in the heat of battle you start to take your mind elsewhere with a tune inside your head. "Fuck man! We're gonna die here!" Cal screams as he attempts to fight a horned demon which has obviously got the advantage over him. You feel a demon blade in your back causing you to fall to the floor. At this point nothing but music fills your mind; bloodshed and battle surround your prone body. "Fuckers are without end! Come on! Raise these fuckers and let's go!" you hear the Captain yell followed by "Hah, no lying down on the job anymore Cal!" You're not quite dead yet though, and the Necromancer Lord and his dad aren't waiting around so they continue on quickly leaving you behind. As your life force ebbs and more demon guards run past your body, you don't know if what you did was worth it or even the right thing. All you know is you did what you could and hope your actions may have made some sort of difference and increased the chances of your family's future well being. You then smile. You'll see them again someday. "Yeah...I believe that..." you allow yourself to think as you die. Big Red was wrong about your fate. There was no Hell, just peace.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, serious, fantasy] Fuck this. He's lying and even if he isn't, making a deal with a demon is never a good idea. You've heard the stories and you've seen the former Tulan "citizens" that debased themselves just in order to live to serve their demon masters. It never ends well. If you are going to the infernal realm when you die, you're still not going to be helping anyone to take you there! "Well, let me think about it....HEY THERE'S A FUCKING DEMON ATTACK COMING!" you shout at the top of your lungs. You're pretty sure at least one person heard you. "You asshole!" Big Red growls and lunges at you which you dodge out of the way and just focus on getting back to where most of your company is making camp, yelling the whole time. Upon hearing your warning, everyone scrambles for battle. You can hear the demons bellowing in the distance. They'll be here in force soon. You quickly climb on to the village rooftops and ready your bow as the demon hordes advance all around you. The battle wasn't as hopeless as Big Red made it seem like it would be (He must've ran off as there was no sign of him) however, the Company does take more than the usual casualties. One of the mercenaries starts to openly complain. "This is just fucking retarded! Why the hell are we doing this shit?" Cal complains. "You know the score; you don't like it you can leave." The Captain says calmly cleaning off his sword. "Yeah and then I don't get paid, which is when by the way? We'd all like to know when this contract is over! You never did tell us!" "Oh that...indefinitely." "WHAT?!" almost everyone exclaims. "Look, would you sissies calm the fuck down? We got a break coming up in a few weeks. We go back to the Zalan Empire to get paid, rest, re-equip and whatever else they got there, but after the break we go right back out here. Possibly even deeper." At this point the whole company is turning against the Captain, he doesn't look worried though. "Are you fuckin' kidding me? You're expecting us to go deeper into this shit? You're practically asking us to stand in the middle of Hell!" "Dunno why you're protesting, we're all going to the real infernal plane anyway when we die, might as well get used to it. Look, take it or leave it, I don't give a shit. If you want to stay, go ahead. If you want to leave now, go ahead. If you want to leave after you get your pay, go ahead. But I'm sure you know by now, if you leave don't come back ever." The Captain says and goes back to the abandoned home he was staying in. This comment by the Captain makes you think back to Big Red's little speech, you start wondering about your future while everyone begins talking amongst themselves about what to do next. A lot of them are saying the Boss has lost his mind and is being suicidal. You can't say you disagree. In fact you're not sure you want part of this anymore. Your family might need the money, but what good are you dead to them? A few weeks pass and your company makes its way back to the Zalan Empire. You get your payment. Almost feels like you're in the "real army" given the formal nature of it. After you get your pay, you're on your way home where you intend to stay, much like many others are planning to do. However, you bump into the Captain who speaks to you. There's a hint of alcohol on his breath. "So can I expect you to stay on lute boy?" he asks bluntly. "Erm...well, no Captain. I'm sorry, but going deeper into demon territory is suicide." you reply.. "Probably right, but who wants to live forever?" "Well I'd like to at least live past the next year." "Hah! So you wish to die an old man in your bed?" "Sounds about right." "Then why did you take on such a dangerous line of work in the first place?" "My family needed the money." "Ah yes, you are one of the few in the company that has one. One of the fewer still that actually takes care of them...an honorable pursuit. I can respect that." You're surprised to hear the Captain praise anything that seems honorable. "I have a family that I take care of too you know." "Yes, I know you are married." "Yeah...but my daughter is a captain in the Zalan army. She's stationed on the Tulan border as a matter of fact. She might even get transferred to the Grand Alliance army. Don't know yet." He says with a hint of pride in his voice, though he tries his best to conceal it. The Captain is just full of surprises. You now know that this isn't some simple death wish, but that he's taken the job to help her out in a way. You don't know, but can only imagine what growing up with a dad like him was like. You unsure of how to reply so you just follow up with something. "Um, that's great Captain." "Yeah, it's great. Got a son too...he's...a wizard. He's a fuckin' disappointment... y'know you look back on your life and you wonder what you've accomplished and it doesn't mean shit in the scheme of things, at least not when the world has one foot in Hell and the other in the grave. But still you struggle and fight right? You still remain true to your nature." "Sure I guess so." You say wondering where the Captain going with this. The Captain sighs heavily. "I guess I'm lucky...killing and battle are in my nature. I get to do it every fuckin' day and it never seems to be enough, even after all the years and changes... but I bet you didn't want this shit right? You probably wanted to just play that fuckin' lute of yours right? You got a gift and its being wasted due to events out of your control...but you still play that thing when you can. It's in your nature. It's also in your nature to help out your family because you care about them." "I suppose it is." "Yeah, nature...it's a fuckin' bitch." The Captain now looks directly at you. "Look I'm not gonna beg ya, but you're one of the best men I got in the damn company, and I'd rather not lose you, so I'll appeal to your nature. What's going on in the world today is some fucked up shit. Quite honestly I don't think it's going to end well for any of us, but you struggle and fight anyway. The financial aid that you're providing for your family pales in comparison to what you're doing in the long term. You're making the world safer for them so that they might be able to live. We got the Gates of Hell on one side and Death's Door on the other and both of them need to be fucking closed. I don't know if that makes us the so called good guys now, but all I know is if there's an active way I can protect my wife and even help my daughter then I'm gonna do it. What are you going to do?" The Captain then leaves you without saying another word. Some pretty deep words for a man who you never saw as compassionate in anyway. He does make a point though. Lately what has been going in the world is pretty bad and you wonder if not fighting today will just mean putting off fighting tomorrow. > You leave the company Whatever the Captain is "going through" doesn't involve you. You've got your own concerns. If the world events get so bad that they reach your doorstep, then you deal with it then, but risking your life to the extent of going deep into the heart of demon territory isn't what you signed up for. You head home and tell your family that it's permanent this time. You explain your reasons and apologize that you won't be bringing in all the extra money like you used to. They aren't mad though, your mom is actually relieved. "Well son, I'm just as glad you didn't go get yourself killed over there anyway. You'll be helping us out plenty just by working on the farm like always." You're glad to hear that. Over the next couple days you fall back into routine again. You still wonder about the future though and you briefly consider the army, but you're a little weary of battle on a regular basis now. You resign yourself to the farm life. You play your lute to yourself (and family) when you have the time to do so. It's a simple life. Another year passes and things are getting bad. War is everywhere. The Demons have been taken care of, (You heard your former mercenary captain died in battle with their leader Velzix) but the undead are stronger than ever. Reports even speak of the Necromancer Lord becoming The Great Lich Lord "reborn". To make things worse, the Zalan Empire has been becoming increasingly tyrannical. In order to help with the war effort they've started bringing back the draft and the talk of ceasing private property to be used for the good of the government. While they say owners will be able to live and still work on their lands and businesses, it will be owned by the Empire. You know it's only a matter of time when you get a knock on the door by Zalan army troops coming to take you (Especially you given your prior battle experience) and your brother Mallack away to the army and your family's farm. Another two year pass... You're on the eve of battle in a land known as the Garwold Confederacy although it's steadily becoming a giant graveyard now. The undead hordes have been sweeping relentlessly across the entire landscape. Your own company has had to fall back several times. Morale is low. Not that yours was high to begin with. You don't even know how you've survived this long. While you had lots of battle experience during your time with the mercenary company, you'll never get used to fighting the undead. They are such emotionless creatures that are the embodiment of death and all that's unnatural. You briefly wonder if your brother Mallack is alright where he's stationed, but it hardly matters at this point. Battle comes as it always does and you are not so lucky this time. Horrible and powerful creatures known as Blood Specters and Death Knights utterly destroy your side. You put up a more valiant effort than most, but eventually you fall to undead blades and chilling touches only rise up and join them in their goal of global genocide.

You've had enough. You're not going to help OR stand by for another immoral act performed by your "co-workers". It's bad enough that it goes on, but that doesn't mean you need to let it, if you can do something about it. You run Dimitri through the back with your sword, he yells out in pain, but still manages to swing his armored fist to strike you in the face. You fall to the ground. "Fuck...lute boy...goin...down...pig fucker..." he wheezes as he attempts to step towards you only to fall to his knees. At this point Morri has recovered and cleaves Dimitri's skull in with his axe. "Bastard." Morri then looks at you. "Heh, I guess you must be one of the few with a conscious in the company eh?" "I guess so." You reply. "Or perhaps you knew it would be better if I lived so you could find your way out this maze?" "...Actually I hadn't even thought about that. I just...just couldn't let him kill and rob you like that. Seen it too many times." "That a fact? Well tell me son, why the hell are you hooked up with these bunch for then?" "Money to help the family...besides it's not that bad." "Okay, if you say so. However, this little incident is going to cost your company. We warned your captain that if any evidence of treachery occurred, we weren't paying him shit and this deal was off!" "But can't we just keep this secret? I mean..." "Secret? Fuck no! Look, you're not a bad person, but you're hanging out with bad people. The only reason why we hired you in the first place is because you ARE effective and you're about the only mercenary company insane enough to do a job like this. But a deal's a deal. You captain apparently doesn't have control over his men like he thinks, because I'm sure he warned you all." "Yeah, but everyone will probably blame me and my life will be in danger!" "...well...I'm sorry about that, but that's the price you pay for the company you keep...look I'll tell you what, because you helped me, I'll take you back to the entrance and you can leave. Should at least give you a head start. Hell, maybe I'll even tell them you died before this happened. You could then just hide out and stay out of sight without even anyone looking for you." Not knowing what to say next you just agree and ponder your possible future. The way back to the entrance is uneventful as far as demon attacks are concerned. You don't know what you're going to do. You'll have to go on the run or at least relocate regardless of what Morri tells everyone. And if he mentions the truth, then your family may well be in danger. You imagine that if the Boss couldn't get to you, he may very well take it out on your family. You feel sick and upset. You wish you hadn't chosen this path. All you ever really wanted to do was play your lute, not fight demons or anything else really. You follow behind Morri in a daze. You're surprised that he doesn't insist that you walk in front of him, but then that's probably because he trusts that you're not a murderer. You also realize you recognize this part of the mine and could probably find your way back from here... You shake your head and take a deep breath. "Hey Morri." "Wha...glagh! An arrow goes right through Morri's mouth and out the other side of his head. He gurgles obscenities while trying to raise his axe towards you. Another arrow goes through his eye. He ceases his struggle. While you solved the problem of Morri telling anyone, now you have to cover your own tracks, then you hear a sound you never thought you'd be glad to hear. The chittering of those insect demons and a bunch of them are coming right behind you. You pull the arrows out and run as quickly as you can to the entrance leaving the demons to feed upon Morri's body. The thought crosses your mind to just leave anyway. Maybe they'd think all three of you got eaten. However, you run into another group during your dash to the mine entrance. "Where the hell are you running off to?" a mercenary asks. It's Cal. You come up with a lie quick. "(pant) Shit! We got fucking ambushed! (pant) Barely fucking escaped! (pant) Dimitri and Morri are dead! Probably eaten! And the rest of those demon fuckers are heading this way!" "What?! You cowardly fucker, you just let Morri die?" one the dwarves says angrily. "It wasn't my idea! I tried to help him and Dimitri, but they just came in force, I don't even know how I escaped!" Your story is a little suspicious, but thanks to the demons, you're covered. They didn't leave much for the dwarves to find. However, you're not looked favorably on by the rest of the dwarves for the rest of the mission. Your fellow mercenaries don't really care one way or another. It's part of the job and Dimitri wasn't well liked so they could care less if he died or lived. You on the other hand are still not feeling so great about yourself. The longer you're part of this company the more you're starting to think or be more like them. You hate it and you'll be glad when this job is over. A few months pass and the contract is over. The "problem" isn't completely gone, in fact there's reports of some undead wandering in the area now, but the Dwarves are growing more weary of your presence, hand over your payment and tell you to leave. They say they can handle anything else themselves. It's quite a lot this time. Best job you've had. Upon your return to the Zalan Empire you buy yourself a new lute. It's your "reward". The rest of it goes to your family who of course are eager to hear about your tales as usual. You don't tell them that many this time. You just try to take your mind off your "job" by asking them more questions this time around. When you're alone you play your new lute, trying to emulate a couple of the songs you overheard the Dwarves engage in when you were there. You never knew they were musically inclined; it's a shame you had to kill one to protect your future. You're still debating on whether or not to give up the mercenary life, but you see how much it's helping the family out, so you decide to stay and put up with it. After your "break is over" you go back to the job as usual. Three years pass... Four years have passed since the "Nuro Incident" and things have gotten much worse in the world. The Necromancer Lord conquered the Brot Kingdom, A demon lord called Velzix conquered the Tulan Kingdom, both are expanding and a so called Grand Alliance of nations doesn't seem to be doing much good against either of them. The Chimera Company was recently hired by the Zalan government. Due to your past battles with demons, they decided you would be good to put on Tulan Border which is still a bloodbath, but instead of fighting the Tulan Kingdom, the Zalan Empire is fighting Velzix's hordes. It's not an easy assignment or very pleasant, in fact it's got to be the worst job you've been on. You company is assigned to make commando raids and sabotage shit to keep the demons fairly unfocused, while the Zalan Empire's real armies try to make progress into Velzix's realm. Currently you're making your "camp" in small abandoned village in enemy territory where you have to fight the occasional demon patrols. Why the Captain took this job on for the company is beyond you. Nobody really knows why. The company in general has been taking more dangerous jobs in recent years. Ever since the Nuro Incident actually. While it's always been known he's not a man to shy away from danger and has a love of battle, there's a lot of talk within ranks that he's got a death wish. The only "good thing" about this assignment, is that the chance for usual Chimera Company wicked acts are much lower. There's not many "innocents" in a demon realm. As you think about things, strumming your lute in an abandoned general store by yourself. You hear someone speak. "Pretty good playing. Wish my kind appreciated some of the more subtle things in life sometimes." You turn your head and see a demon! He's not very tall and is "dressed up". He must be one of the "civilized" demons who realigned themselves with their demonic natures and flocked to Velzix when he took over the Tulan Kingdom. He doesn't seem hostile, but you drop your lute and draw your weapon, before you can yell a warning, he speaks again. "Wait! Before you go warning your friends, I should warn you that there is a very large group of my fellow kin surrounding this village. You kill me and they'll attack and quite frankly I don't fancy your chances. However I got a deal for you that can be worth your while. What can it hurt to listen to me? You can always kill me afterwards." > You attack him You don't waste time, you just attack! Unfortunately the demon is more than he appears and easily dodges your attack. You don't have time to turn and react again when he's tripped you up and put his fist in your face causing your nose to explode into a mass of blood. You're dazed. "(Sigh) And here I thought you were the reasonable one of this bunch. Nevermind." The demon says. He follows up with another fist to your face. This one goes through your head killing you instantly.

[Themes: grimdark fantasy, war] You're not sure if the formal military life is for you. If you joined up you wouldn't be able to readily leave. You figure if you don't like life as a mercenary or it isn't working out for you, you can leave freely. You explain your decision to join up with the mercenary company that's currently passing through. Your revelation comes as a shock. Your smaller brothers and sisters don't want you to go, your brother Mallack really doesn't want you to leave since he'll be next in line to take the brunt of the manual labor! Your mother is a little apprehensive about your decision. You half expect her to say no, but she understands that you're doing this for the good of the family. She gives her blessing. Before you leave the next day with your packed belongings, your whole family comes to say goodbye to you. You almost hesitate to leave, wondering if it would actually be better for you to stay. Your mother approaches you. "You don't have to do this you know. We're doing just fine." "Yeah, but things would be easier if this family had more money." "Hah. Things are always easier with more money son, but you don't need to go and get yourself killed for it." "Yeah, I know, but I've thought it through." "Very well, you're old enough to make your own decisions and live your own life, though I'm glad to see that you still want to help the family as opposed to just leaving in the middle of the night." "I'll visit and return with whatever my pay is whenever I can." "I know...okay, you best get going. I think the mercenary company was leaving today." You make you way to the local tavern and catch them just as they're getting ready leave. A lot of them look hung over. "Hey wait up..." you say in a slightly loud tone, causing one mean looking mercenary to snarl at you. "Shut the fuck up yokel! Shit, I got a splitting headache and it hurts like a sonofabitch." "Sorry. Are you the leader of this company?" "Leader of these dickheads? Naw. The Boss is actually visiting his family in the Zalan capital. We're going to meet up with him now and I suggest you get the fuck outta our way and not waste anymore of our time!" "But I want to join you guys." The mercenary you were speaking to looks at you then looks at a few of his buddies and begins to laugh louder than your voice which previously annoyed him. "HAHAHA HAHAHA! Y'hear that fellas? This yokel wants to join us! Thanks a lot, I needed a good laugh, now go fuck your pigs or whatever it is you farm types do." "But I'm serious..." "Serious? Farmboy, this is a man's job and not for the fuckin' weak. You ever even use a damn weapon?" "Yeah! I got this bow and this sword! I'm a really good shot!" The mercenary still looks unimpressed. "Uh huh, yeah well you ever kill anyone, hell you ever kill ANYTHING? And I'm not talkin' about any of your livestock you might've slaughtered. I mean something sentient." "Well yeah, I've killed Kobolds that were trying to steal chickens from the..." The mercenaries begin to laugh again. "Oh shit, you are priceless boy! My sister can kill fuckin' Kobolds and her only talent is whoring." "Haha got that one right, Dimitri." Another one of the mercenaries agrees. Suddenly the laughing stops. "What the fuck did you just say Fermeli?" "Uh, I was just agreeing with you...c'mon don't take it like that! I mean you said..." "Ain't about what I said, it's about what YOU said! You called my fucking sister a whore! You ain't getting' away with that shit." Dimitri draws his sword and stomps over to Fermeli who is trying to get one of his buddies to help him, but everyone else is backing away from the fight. Dimitri takes advantage of Fermeli's state of panic and slashes him good with his sword. Fermeli cries out in pain and begs for forgiveness. Dimitri looks like he's going to finish him off, but then turns to you. "You want to join hayseed? Kill this piece of shit then." "Huh? I mean..." you utter in confusion. "Did I stutter pig farmer? Kill this... AARGH FUCK!" Fermeli has now taken advantage of Dimitri by shoving a dagger into his leg and scrambling to get up "Yeah! Take that! How's that feel?" Fermeli taunts and draws his own sword in an attempt to kill Dimitri At this point you unwisely step into the middle of this fight. "Hey hold on, the pair of you are even now..." "Fuck off pig farmer! You want some of this now? Yeah, let's see how much of a killer you are!" Fermeli says who doesn't look frightened of you at all and heads in your direction. "Hey wait I don't wanna..." You barely dodge his sword swipe to your head. You roll out of the way and quickly grab an arrow and shoot it at Fermeli with your bow, hitting him square in the neck. Some blood spurts out and a surprised look on his face is displayed and then he falls dead. You've killed him. You've never killed anything before that wasn't a Kobold or livestock. You feel weird. In the meantime Dimitri gets up and pulls the dagger out of his leg and looks over at Formeli's body. "Heh, maybe you are a killer after all pig farmer. Well it seems we got an opening now. Take whatever he had as your own. You killed him, you earned it. Welcome to the Chimera Mercenary Company!" While you MAY be in, you're not necessarily sure if you want in. This may be a bit too much for you. > You go back home If this how it was on your first day, you'd hate to think about if you had to deal with this on a regular basis. "Uh...no, maybe I was wrong. Bye." You say and quickly take off. "Heh, pig farmer don't have no stomach for it...Dibs on Foremeli's shit!" you hear Dimitri yell. When you get back home, your family and mom in particular ask what happened, you explain it and say you don't want any part of that life. You apologize that you couldn't go through with it, but your mom looks more relieved than anything. "Well son, I'm just as glad you didn't join up with that lot anyway. You'll be helping us out plenty just by working on the farm like always." You're glad to hear that. Over the next couple days you fall back into routine again. You still wonder about the future though and you briefly consider the army plan again, but given your short lived experience with mercenary "life" you don't think you're cut out with battle on a regular basis. Plus the Zalan Empire is currently having really bad border skirmish with the Tulan Kingdom right now. You resign yourself to the farm life. You play your lute to yourself (and family) when you have the time to do so. It's a simple life. A year passes and a terrible incident occurs at a far away city known as Nuro. A group of rogue wizards summoned an army of the dead to take it over. They also summoned a lot of demons that have broken free and running rampant now in the Tulan Kingdom. It's all far away from you, but something like this is pretty serious. Necromancy and Demon summoning is strictly forbidden throughout the land. Meanwhile life on the farm is going the same as it ever did. Hard sometimes, but manageable. Another two years pass and things have gotten worse. The Necromancer Lord (as he's become to be known) has expanded, even to the point of taking over the Brot Kingdom. The Tulan Kingdom has been totally conquered by a demon army. A Grand Alliance of nations has been formed, but so far they don't seem to be making much progress. Meanwhile life on the farm is a little harder. Your youngest sister Makana becomes gravely ill during the winter months, but there's not enough money to pay for a healer and most of the clerics have been summoned to battle with the undead or demon hordes. Sadly she dies making the overall mood of the farm a little more depressing. You don't even play anymore, your enthusiasm for music died along with the grim realities setting in. Another three years pass and things are down right miserable. War is everywhere. The Demons have been taken care of, but the undead are stronger than ever. Reports even speak of the Necromancer Lord becoming The Great Lich Lord "reborn". You remember hearing tales by your father of such a being that existed centuries ago. They scared the hell out of you then and the fact that you're living in a time where he's returned makes you feel doomed. To make things worse, the Zalan Empire has been becoming increasingly tyrannical. In order to help with the war effort they've started bringing back the draft and the talk of ceasing private property to be used for the good of the government. While they say owners will be able to live and still work on their lands and businesses, it will be owned by the Empire. You know it's only a matter of time when you get a knock on the door by Zalan army troops coming to take you and your brother Mallack away to the army and your family's farm. Another two year pass... You're on the eve of battle in a land known as the Garwold Confederacy although it's steadily becoming a giant graveyard now. The undead hordes have been sweeping relentlessly across the entire landscape. Your own company has had to fall back several times. Morale is low. Not that yours was high to begin with. You don't even know how you've survived this long. You didn't even have that much military training when they threw you into you first battle a year ago. It was a terrifying experience and you still have nightmares about it. The undead...you'll never get used to fighting such emotionless creatures that are the embodiment of death and all that's unnatural. You briefly wonder if your brother Mallack is alright where he's stationed, but it hardly matters at this point. Battle comes as it always does and you are not so lucky this time. Horrible and powerful creatures known as Blood Specters and Death Knights utterly destroy your side. You fall to undead blades and chilling touches only rise up and join them in their goal of global genocide.

[Themes: fantasy, action, war, fantasy] In a monastery deep in the mountains, Brother Samuel mulls over the scattered parchments on his desk. The lone candle in the center offers little light, but Samuel is used to reading in such circumstances. The mug of mead helps with eye-strain, at least that's what he told himself. Earlier in life Samuel might have complained at the project in front of him, but with age comes a sense of responsibility along with a greater appreciation for tasks that didn't stress his aching joints. Brother Samuel lifts the mug to his mouth only to discover the contents empty. "Bah, one of these days I'm going to get a bigger cup," he mutters to himself and rises from his seat. As he moves, his plain robe sways in the air as if drapes hung over an open window. With one hand around the mug, and the other grasping his walking cane, he exits the monestary's library. The simple gray stones lining the hallway appear black, except for the small area around the lit torches, not that Brother Samuel required sight to navigate his way around. The silence of the night is disturbed by the steady tap, tap, tap of his wooden cane on the stone floor. Samuel enters the kitchen to discover it's not empty. A young girl with bright blonde hair is on the floor with a bucket and rag. She scrubs at the floor, purposefully, ensuring every inch of the floor is spotless. "Child, what are you doing? It's the middle of the night," Samuel asks. "Brother Trevor said I need to scrub every inch of the kitchen to atone," she answers. "Brother Trevor can lick a slug. Children need their sleep," Samuel replies. She girl laughs. "Ew!" "What are you atoning for?" "Complaining." Brother Samuel begins to answer when he hears a noise from outside. Was it from within the monastery walls? No, the sudden crash wasn't muffled or distorted at all. It had to have originated in the open air. The girl hasn't returned to scrubbing, which means she heard it too; it wasn't just the mead. "Go back to bed, girl. I'll handle Brother Trevor in the morning," Samuel quietly speaks. She nods and leaves the kitchen. Brother Samuel places his empty mug on the counter and heads to the outside door. This time, he walks upright without the use of the cane. The open night air stings Brother Samuel's wrinkled skin. The full moon illuminates the surrounding grassy hilltops. Trees sprinkled on the slopes cast dark shadows, creating pockets of darkness. No bandit had come close to the monastery in years. Even criminals were smart enough to keep their distance. If they weren't, they learned quickly. Subtle movement on the hill catches his eye. The night air suddenly felt much colder. Drawing on a lifetime of training as well as several cups of mead, Brother Samuel calmly walks towards the movement. Nearing the origin of the movement, Samuel suddenly feels the presence of someone, or something. Then he sees it. A boy lies collapsed in the grass. His clothes are tattered and several deep scratches line his arms and legs. His skin appears dark, although closer observation reveals it to be dirt. Brother Samuel approaches the boy to check for signs of vitality. His fingers check for a pulse. It's there, but barely. As Samuel leans to pick the boy up, a chill runs down his spine. He feels another's presence. Samuel slowly brings his gaze up in front of him. A figure, masked in shadowy wisps, stands unmoving before him. Two crimson eyes peer through the darkness directly on Samuel. "You'll not harm the boy, shade," Brother Samuel speaks. He activates the divine magic seals on his cane for emphasis. The wood begins to emit holy light infusing its strength through Brother Samuel's body. The shade doesn't react. Then Samuel begins to hear a slow, resonating laugh. The laughter isn't audible, it feels as if it originates and echoes within Samuel's head. In a swirl of black mist, the shade vanishes into the night. The mocking laugh begins to slowly subside within Samuel's head. Samuel scoops his arms under the unconscious boy and lifts him from the ground. "You're safe now, child," he whispers to you. [Author's Note: There is no escaping our nature. It simply exists. The voice within me, the one that causes me to commit terrible deeds, burns a low ember. Still, it remains, always present, always looking for fuel to burn. It wants to escape. I feel its lust. It wants to devour. This day is no different. I must battle the darkness within. Author's note: In various sections, you will be given the option to view a simultaneous event happening in the story. While not directly affecting you, the reader's path, they may create a more cinematic feel to the story. Originally written as the last page for Sixteen Words, I hope you enjoy my full adaptation of Contemplation.] > Chapter 1: Childhood When I reflect upon my childhood, mixed emotions rise. On one hand, I appreciate the strict devotion of the monks. They knew who they were, which is more than could be said for the average person. On the other hand, a sinister, underlying ideology tainted their religion; the monks would only accept infants without any worldly or familial experience. I imagined my arrival to the monastery to be a result of loving parents wanting a better life for me. It was a good lie to believe at a young age. The monks accepted me, even though I was much older than an infant. That fact alone made me different from my peers and hurled me straight to the bottom of the hierarchy. The lie I told myself about my parents was one of the things that kept me going. The monks were zealous in their beliefs, not allowing impurities of the body and mind to affect their training. I'm grateful for the discipline instilled in me at a young age. It made things easier. Not that it was an easy life. Rising before the sun to train, only to spend the daylight hours training even more, wasn't an easy life. Habits are hard to break and the monks broke all of mine early on. My training became much more than lessons in discipline; it became a way of life.

[Themes: fantasy, fantasy, war, action] > You Continue "Form one!" Rows of children move in unison, reacting to the teacher's instruction. Their feet step at exactly the same moment creating a single, thunderous clap. "Form two!" The bodies shift their weight to the side and powerfully weave their hands into a defensive position. Upon movement, the bodies breathe out at exactly the same time. "Form three!" The bodies turn to their left and let loose a series of punches and kicks. All except one. You turn right instead of left. The rest of the children break out in laughter over your mistake. "Acolyte. Stay!" Brother Trevor commands. "The rest of you are on meal prep." As the room empties, you stand still, ignoring jabs from your passing peers. You stand stiff, unmoving, for fear of upsetting the Brother even more. When the last of your peers exits the room, Brother Trevor addresses you. "I know you did that on purpose," he spits. "Did what?" you ask. Your answer is met with a backhand to your cheek. "Don't play dumb with me, acolyte. You may not know it, but we have watchful eyes everywhere. I've seen you flow through the forms flawlessly." "I just messed up is all," you answer, rubbing your cheek. Your answer is met with another strike knocking you to the floor. "Admit it," Brother Trevor growls. He begins to walk towards your fallen body. > You admit it You feel the ground shake with Brother Trevor's footsteps as he stomps towards you. Just before he arrives, you speak. "Ok, fine." "Fine...what?" he prods. "Fine. I did it on purpose. I thought it'd be funny." "Well it wasn't," Brother Trevor answers. "One may not reach enlightenment if they are focused on being funny, rather than being disciplined." You nod. "Instead of repreminding you, I have a better solution." Your eyes begin to widen at your good fortune. They quickly melt once he continues. "You'll be given extra training hours before sunrise and before you're allowed to sleep. That should instill the forms within your practice. Now go before I add cleaning hours on top of that." You sprint out of the room so that Brother Trevor cannot make good on his warning. You're moving so quickly that you don't notice the girl in front of you. You both go flying to the floor, and the folded laundry she's carrying scatters all over the floor. "Damn it!" she exclaims. "Sorry," you mutter, helping her to her feet. "I'd watch your language if I were you. The monks don't like bad words." "I heard Brother Samuel say it once. More than once actually," she replies, curling a strand of bright blonde hair behind her ear. "Me too. But he can get away with a lot more than me," you say. "Hey, I didn't see you training with us. How'd you get away with that?" "This," she spreads her arms wide at the mess of clothing on the floor. "And I train with the advanced students." "You do? Can you teach me?" you ask. "Help me with the laundry first and then ask me," she replies. > Later that day... A flurry of fists thump into your chest. You attempt to block, but each blow keeps you distracted from the next. Her foot follows the series of punches, sending you sprawling to the ground. Still balancing with her leg outstretched, the girl, Kassi, laughs at your misfortune. "It's a good thing Brother Trevor is making you train more. You could use it." Unanswering, you pull yourself up and raise your arms defensively. Still smiling, Kassi lunges forward. You cover your face with your hands and hug your elbows in tight to protect your torso. Still, somehow, her strikes find their mark. One left hook finds its way to your temple temporarily stunning you. "Give up," she says, holding an aggressive stance. "Never," you reply, still holding your defensive posture. Shaking her head, she steps forward for another series of attacks. This time you're ready for her. Covering your head and torso, you wait for her offense to begin. As she lets loose another combination, you drive your weight into her. One of your arms underhooks hers, and the other wraps around the far side of her neck. Shifting your hips below Kassi's for leverage, you complete the "head 'n arm" throw and land on top of her. Before she can recover, you toss the underhooked arm aside and press your head into the base of her arm, pinning it against the side of her neck. Connecting both hands together, you begin to squeeze. Your arm around Kassi's neck and her own arm pressed against the other side cuts off her air flow. "Kassi, tap out," a male voice echoes across the training mat. You look to see Brother Samuel, although you make sure to keep the choke first. She struggles, gritting her teeth. She tries to strike, but in your dominant position her attack is ineffective. Eventually, her struggling begins to fade. "That's enough, child," Samuel says walking across the mat. You release the choke and allow Kassi to sit up, or at least you allow her to. She lies on the mat unmoving. "She's always been a stubborn one. Devoted, but stubborn," Brother Samuel comments. He kneels down beside her unconscious body and closes his eyes. After uttering words you cannot comprehend, he places his palm on her forehead. Blue light softly glows from the small crevice between his palm and her head. Her eyes burst wide open, and she sits up suddenly. "Jerk. We were training, not fighting for real," she addresses you. "I saw an opening and I took it," you reply. "You leave yourself open during your attacks—" "That's enough you two," Brother Samuel interjects. "You're both right. I think you should continue to train together. Kassi, you're one of our top acolytes. It's almost unheard of for someone your age to train at the intermediate level. You could teach a lot to our friend here. In return, you'll get more experience with a physically stronger opponent." Your face breaks into a wide grin at the implication you're stronger than her. Brother Samuel turns your direction. "And you, the newest of the acolytes could stand to improve as well. Raw strength will only carry you so far. There's always someone stronger." > You talk to her After Brother Samuel leaves the room, you turn to Kassi. "Sorry if I took it too far." "It's fine. I just don't like losing. Especially to the outlaw," she answers. "Outlaw?" you question. She sighs. "That's what some of the other kids call you. Since you aren't one of us." You understand her meaning. The other kids were brought to the monastery from birth. Your history was unknown to them, and more than a few children near your age were turned down. They don't understand why you're allowed to stay or why Brother Samuel has taken such an interest in you. Part of it could be jealousy, part of it could be the nature of kids. Perhaps a bit of both. Changing the subject you ask, "How'd you get so good with your forms?" "Brother Trevor always had it out for me. A lot of extra time in the practice room, I guess. You know I'm related to the Grandmaster, right?" "No. I thought we're not allowed to have relations." "Grandmaster didn't. His sister did and she brought me here." "Where's she now?" "I don't know, I've never met her." "Oh." "I'd stay away from Garth if I were you," she says suddenly. "I think he has it out for you." "I think he does too," you answer. > Months later... The blindfold around your head prevents you from seeing your footing. You stand on a series of narrow wooden beams. The beams are lifted several feet from the ground. It wouldn't be a fatal fall, but it'd definitely leave a mark.. Focusing your mind, you try to imagine the placement of each beam as you hop between them. Upon each successful landing, you let loose a series of strikes from the practice sword in your hand. As you're no stranger to the balancing structure, you keep your mind highly aware of which beam you're on. Not all the beams are separated evenly apart, and you've witnessed more than a couple unlucky acolytes misjudge their position. Your mind is focused on the task and— "Are you ready for the Grand Melee?" Kassi asks running up to you. You lose your balance for a split-second and shakily bring your arms to a "T" shape to regain it. Realizing you're broken from the meditative state, you remove the blindfold and hop down from the balancing beams. "You interrupted my practice," you comment. "You wouldn't be able to do that if it wasn't for me teaching you," she replies. "Fair enough." "So...the Grand Melee is coming up. Do you know which event you're entering?" "Not yet. What about you?" "Unarmed combat, of course. I won it last year." "I didn't enter last year," you point out. "True. Enter it then. Unless you're scared." "Remind me again, what are the different categories?" "Unarmed combat, form mastery, and dueling." "Tell me more about..." > Unarmed Combat "Tell me more about Unarmed Combat," you say. A smile lights up on her face. "It's easily the most fun category." "Yeah, and?" you prod. "And they pair you against an opponent in the ring. The winner moves on, the loser doesn't." "Is it striking only?" you ask. "No, of course not. Anything goes really. Except attacks on the eyes." she replies. "Do you think you'll enter?" > You enter Unarmed Combat "I'm going to enter the Unarmed Combat competition," you say. "Your funeral," Kassi replies. "Just don't lose before I can teach you another lesson." She leaves you alone to practice. You slip the blindfold back on and pull yourself onto the beams. With each hop and technique you practice, you imagine facing an opponent in the unarmed competition. You imagine, specifically, each of your peers in front of you and their tendencies. Then, you imagine the counter. An overaggressive striker leaves himself open to a takedown. A grappler looks to grab hold of their opponent, best not to throw many kicks and give them an opening. Brawlers want to drag you into their chaotic mess. Similarly, a disciplined, but inexperienced, fighter might be lost in the chaos and forget their well-practiced techniques. You lose yourself in the practice until a bell rings, signaling dinner, drawing you out from the trance. > Meanwhile... Brother Samuel hadn't told anyone of the shade's appearance, except for the Grandmaster himself. Deep down, the shade's interest in the boy frightened him. He had the feeling it wouldn't be the last appearance to the boy. The boy's past is a mystery, and ordinarily he would have been turned away from the monastery. Though he didn't show it, Brother Samuel could tell the Grandmaster took special interest in the boy as well. Samuel knew the Grandmaster before he earned the title. Only the Master of Archives could share the same boast. Brother Samuel reaches his destination: the Grandmaster's private study. The heavy oak door is reinforced with steel, barring unwanted entry. Samuel knows there are other deterrents to keep thieves or renegade monks out. He closes his eyes to focus on the seals. Magic flows from his open palms dispelling the deadly traps. He takes a coin from his pocket and looks at the door's keyhole. He whispers into the coin, and the object transforms into a key. He unlocks the door and flips the key into the air. After several flips in the air, a coin lands into his open palm. "Still got it, old man," he whispers to himself. The door swings open revealing a room lined with bookcases. There isn't a single bare wall. As his presence is detected, torches light up illuminating the entire room in their blue glow. Samuel places his cane on the center table and begins to search for the book he came for. "You shouldn't be here," a voice projects from behind him. Brother Samuel turns to see a white glowing light. The wisp, the Master of Archives, shines disapprovingly. Not many would be able to tell an approving shine versus a disapproving one, but Brother Samuel is not unaccustomed to the one before him. "You know I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important," Brother Samuel replies. "Why not come with the Grandmaster? You are among the few he's invited in," the wisp answers. Samuel hesitates. He knows the wisp will relay his words and actions to the Grandmaster. "I'm searching for a tome on dark magic. Specifically, on the origins of shades. The Grandmaster is far too busy to help me look for a book." "We have plenty of history books in the main library." "This one is not among them." "What makes you so sure?" Samuel takes a seat at the center table. He'd been standing too long without his cane. He breathes out an exhausted breath. "Because I've checked. I've spent years carefully working through all the volumes we have in the library. It's not there." "Very well, follow me. I shall inform the Grandmaster of your intrusion. No doubt, he will reprimand you for your actions. I am no guardian of knowledge. I exist to further it." Whatever punishment the Grandmaster gave, it would be worth it. Brother Samuel rises from his seat and follows the wisp down the hall of books. The white glow from the Master of Archives, in combination with the blue torch light, casts sinister-looking shadows from angles of differently shapen books. The two arrive at a small section of the bookcase wall. The Master of Archives circles in the air for a moment and then flies directly into the wall. The light vanishes instantly, leaving Brother Samuel alone in the blue. Brother Samuel stands still for a few moments and then begins to feel uneasy. The thought pops into his head that the wisp could have let him into a trap. He checks the hallway for movement. Nothing. Suddenly, the bookcase swings open and Samuel is face to face with the wisp. "It's a lot harder to open a doorway without arms," the wisp says. Brother Samuel frowns. "I don't remember you being funny. Maybe this is a trap," he comments. The Master of Archives ignores him and flies down the dark staircase. Brother Samuel does his best to follow quickly. The narrow staircase leads into an even narrower hallway and finally to an open room. Several single-bodied cells are against the sidewalls. Samuel gulps and tries to ignore them. The wisp leads him through rows of cells before arriving at a series of pedestals, five of them arranged around a summoning circle. "The tome is here?" he asks. "In a manner of speaking," the wisp replies. "Approach the middle pedestal." Brother Samuel does as he's instructed. On top of the pedestal lies an open scroll. Samuel instantly recognizes the spell's intent. "By the light, I'm to call him to this plane?" he wonders aloud. "Such knowledge is too dangerous to be written." "And summoning the dead isn't?" Samuel retorts. "Very well. If this is the only way." Brother Samuel silently reads the scroll, softly moving his lips as if pronouncing the words. Satisfied at his ability, he speaks the incantation. Nothing happens and he repeats it again. Still nothing. Finally, he shouts the incantation. Black mist begins to swirl at the circle's center. It begins low and then slowly builds in density and rotation. As quickly as it appeared, the mist dissipates. A lone figure hunches in the summoning circle: Ragar the Unbroken. His skin loosely hangs from his bones, completely absent in many places. The few strands of black hair that haven't fallen out completely dangle near the edge of his shoulders. The left side of his mouth is completely rotted away. "Why have you called me from the abyss?" Ragar snarls. "I seek knowledge on shades," Brother Samuel answers. "Knowledge that even the lowliest necromancer would have." "Shades! Don't insult me, monk. I have no love for petty sorcerers, but even less for devotees of the light." "You will tell me the knowledge I seek," Samuel commands. He holds out his arm in focus. Blinding light fires from his open palm searing Ragar's cheek. Ragar grimaces in pain and attempts to resist. The magic seals surrounding the summoning chamber amplifies the divine magic. The ray from Samuel's palm grows brighter. "Tell me what I seek!" Samuel shouts. A piercing screech projects from the summoned spirit echoing throughout the room. The intensity grows with the ray's brightness. Suddenly, the spirit collapses. The screech, now silent, leaves behind a soft ringing in Samuel's ears. "Very well," Ragar the Unbroken utters. "Ask your accursed questions and release me." "I've crossed paths with a shade and—" "Then you're lucky to still be alive, monk," Ragar interrupts. Samuel warns him with a look and continues. "Shades are the spirits of the dead in possession of a living being. Is there a reason a shade would be interested in another being? A boy." "It is not uncommon for the spirit to search for a more powerful host. There is a fine line between choosing to possess a strong host, and being destroyed in the attempt. If the spirit grows too ambitious, they may find themselves facing a being too powerful. That's why shades primarily inhabit sorcerers who overstep in their search for powerful magic. "I came across a boy being pursued by a shade. I do not understand how the boy resisted its possession. "Are you sure he resisted?" > You Continue "I am sure he resisted the shade," Brother Samuel says. "That is your concern, not mine. Release me, monk, I have answered all of your questions," Ragar the Unbroken replies. "I am not finished with you yet," Samuel begins to reply. "Oh, but you are finished," Ragar the Unbroken cuts him off. It's at that moment Brother Samuel notices a break in the summoning circle. Ragar the Unbroken strides through the magic seals, gazing intently on Samuel. The monk begins to draw on the magic infused in his cane, but Ragar is quicker. Shadow magic fills the air cutting Brother Samuel's ability to breathe. The magic hangs heavy as if the monk is dragged further and further underwater. Ragar fires a shadow bolt directly at Brother Samuel's chest. Unable to move in time, Samuel closes his eyes preparing for the end and...nothing. He blinks his eyes open to find a hooded figure beside him. "Fool!" the Grandmaster shouts while maintaining the protective shield around the two. The medallion around his neck emits a bright white light. Ragar the Unbroken fires several more shadow bolts towards the monks. Each is absorbed through into the shield. Brother Samuel sees the Grandmaster's eyes squint slightly in concentration, then his eyes turn the same pure white emanating from the medallion. The Grandmaster expertly weaves his arms forward. The energy absorbed into the shield begins to redirect into a ball firing straight towards Ragar. The blast explodes into the wall sending chunks of rock to the floor. In the aftermath, Ragar the Unbroken is nowhere to be seen. "Is he dead?" Brother Samuel asks. "Yes, for centuries," the Grandmaster replies. Brother Samuel's gaze meets the Grandmaster's gray eyes. "I'm sorry. I had to know," he breaks the silence. The Grandmaster places his hand on Samuel's shoulder. "My friend, I do not blame you for seeking truth. You were foolish to seek it alone. Come, we will speak on this later. The king's emissaries will soon be arriving for the Grand Melee." > The Grand Melee The day of the Grand Melee has finally arrived. The weeks since your talk with Kassi has been spent preparing for this day. The event takes place on a nearby mountainside. Halfway up the rocky slope, a section of the mountain jettisons out as if the top portion was cut cleanly off. The result is flat-topped overhang, which overlooks the surrounding hills. Many monks trek to the area for prolonged meditation, but today it was meant for combat. A lifted stage lies in the center of the plateau. The structure is built to be a little smaller than the practice room mats. The stage stands several feet from the ground and has no railing. In each of the melee's categories, if you fall, you're automatically disqualified. You stand next to Kassi in the ready room, although it's more a roped-off enclosure than room. "Who's that next to the Grandmaster?" you ask her. Next to the hooded elder stands a man dressed in an armored dark red robe.The crimson robe is reinforced with light plate in several key areas. A sizeable, yet nimble, breastplate is attached to his front and back torso. His shoulders are protected by layered pieces of metal. There doesn't appear to be any armor from his waist-down, with movement prioritized over raw protection. Two short swords hang on his back. Brother Samuel stands near the two. He notices your stare, and gives a friendly wink. "That's the king's emissary," she replies. "You don't know about the emissary?" You shake your head. "During every melee, the King sends a man to scout for warriors. Once a year, one of us is recruited to serve the King." "He taking one of us?" you ask. "Of course. The King protects our borders and in return we help protect him." "I didn't know that," you comment. "You haven't been here long. Don't worry, he only takes the top warrior. You'll be with us for life," she answers. You reply with a nasty, but playful look. Movement catches your eye. Your gaze is drawn to center stage where Brother Trevor begins the announcements. "Welcome brothers. The time of the Grand Melee is upon us. This is a time where we put our disciplined training to the test. Without trial, we cannot fully understand our strength. The good King Aeric has sent his man, Seth, to observe our progress. This is a time where—" "Fire!" a monk near the plateau's edge yells. The cliff's edge becomes crowded as the mountain's inhabitants rush for a viewing spot. From within the monastery's eastern wall, a pillar of smoke rises through the air. Like ants spewing from an anthill, soldiers pour over the surrounding hills charging towards the monastery. Large flaming projectiles fly in the air, their siege constructs hidden by the hills. "Is this the 'protection' King Aeric offers?" one of the younger members questions. "Quiet yourself," the Grandmaster interjects. "We have not been overrun in a thousand years. I'll not allow it to happen now." The Grandmaster steps to the very edge of the cliff. The mountain wind carries his robe as if a cape behind him. His arms move through the air as his lips speak the spell into existence. An outline of a door appears just off the cliff's edge. "Step through the portal. We must protect our home," the Grandmaster directs. "Lucky for us, King Aeric's emissary is here to help." One by one, the monks step out over the cliff into the portal. The way their bodies disappear reminds you of dropping a rock into a pond. Seth walks to the portal with his hands on his hips shaking his head. You could imagine his thought: "today of all days..." Finally it gets to your turn. You begin to step forward and feel a hand stop you. You turn to find Brother Samuel. "This day has come sooner than I expected, child," he speaks. "What do you mean?" you inquire. "Since I brought you in, I knew you were not destined to live a solitary life. I never did tell you about the night I found you." "What happened?" You see his face darken, even more than the surrounding monks who were off to battle. He speaks in a softer tone. "Great evil follows you. I thought you'd be safe here. I don't know why it wants you, but it's coming." "I— I don't understand," you manage to say. "You don't have to understand. Stick to your training, and it will guide you through. Now go! We must defend the monastery." On his final words, Brother Samuel gives you a gentle nudge towards the portal. Hundreds of feet in the air, you take in your surroundings. The hills in front are littered with soldiers. Smoke rises now from several locations in the monastery, your home. There is but one path in front of you. > You take the portal Chaos. The portal takes you into the monastery's courtyard. Arriving, you quickly dodge from a flying spear. The bodies of the invading soldiers are beginning to completely cover the courtyard floor. You breathe a sigh of relief when you don't see any fallen monks. The monks appear to be fighting well, but the sheer number from the mountainside is too many to count. Through the doorway to the main hallway, you see Kassi engaged with several soldiers. Their armor is nowhere as neat as Seth's, if you could call it armor. It's more like rags, with some areas of reinforced leather, than actual armor. The long hair and unkempt beards of the invading soldiers make them seem more animal than man. They fight with the same savagery that you've seen in your encounters with woodland creatures surrounding the monastery. Not wasting any time, you rush towards Kassi picking up a scimitar from one of the savages. Solely focused on Kassi, you impale the closest invader from the back. The sudden rush of blood and fallen ally alert the others of your presence. Savages on either side of you swing their swords at your head almost simultaneously. Dedicated to your training, you instinctively bend your torso backwards. Two blades fly harmlessly overhead. Recovering upright, you slash one's throat and gouge a deep cut through the other's chest. Now that you've drawn the attention of the others, Kassi picks them apart one at at time. She's only armed with a small dagger, and you realize she's fighting as if unarmed, the dagger striking the killing blow. "Are you ok, Kass?" you ask. "You're seriously asking me that? Don't forget who taught you everything you know," she says confidently. "Ok, sorry I asked. What should we do?" "I saw Brother Trevor and Seth head towards the library. If anyone knows what to do, it's them." You make your way through the hallways, fighting off soldiers whenever they come near. Though you are well younger, the soldiers fight with little technique. Their swords moves as if through water. You stick to your training and finish most with a single counter. A slight redirection of their sword leaves them vulnerable to the killing blow. You do not hesitate, even though it is your first time in real combat. You do as you are trained. After several turns, you arrive to the library's double doors. The library is normally kept spotless, but the inside looks like a hurricane hit the room. Books, bookcases, and bodies cover the floor. In the center of it all, you see Seth. King Aeric's emissary appears to be unfazed by the battle and fights alone, no monks by his side. His red armor looks freshly made still, and then you realize the entire robe is blood-soaked; it's just hidden in the red color. His twin short swords work magnificently together. They glide through the air removing limb and whole heads for those who get too close. He notices you and Kassi and begins to fight his way down toward you. Arriving near you, and still fighting off several enemies, he shouts. "There are too many of them. We must regroup at Aeric's keep. Gather all who you can and let's flee this place." "No, we will not abandon our home," Kassi states. "There's no time to argue, girl! Let's go!" Seth begins to whisper into a ring on his finger and punches his fist to the ground. Waves of flame fire from the position and sweep into the surrounding soldiers. Kassi screams at the collateral damage. The books in the area instantly light up and the fire begins to spread. With the fire spreading, you exit the library following Seth. Seth leads you back through the hallways, although in the opposite direction of the courtyard. After a series of twists and turns you end up in the meditation sanctuary. Rows of mats line the open room. A sizeable shrine sits in the center, covered with religious trinkets and sacred flowers. There are no signs of the battle here. Seth walks up to the shrine and examines it. "I never enter a building without an escape plan. Ah, here we are," he comments. Seth bends one of the candlesticks near the shrine sideways and pulls another towards him. As he stands back, a low rumble begins from the shrine. Scraping heavily, the top of shrine starts to move to the side. You can see a short staircase from where the shrine used to lay, leading to an underground passageway. "We must make for King Aeric. If the western border has collapsed, we must inform him," Seth says jumping down. "Come with me. It'd be best to have monk acolytes accompany me to answer any questions." "We can't just leave. The others need us," Kassi replies. "All is lost. We can only hope to avenge them. If you decide to stay, you will be choosing death. "I'm not going," Kassi firmly states. "What about you?" Seth asks. "Answer quickly, we haven't much time." > You go with Seth "I'll go with you," you say. "What!" Kassi yells. "Fine, go ahead and leave us. You were never really one of us anyway." "You don't mean that," you answer. "Enough talk, kid," Seth intervenes. You attempt to give Kassi a hug, but she backs away. You notice her eyes beginning to tear up, but she turns and runs before they can fall. Sounds of the battle echo into the meditation room. The soldiers have almost made their way to your position. "Come on, let's get out of here," Seth breaks the silence. You follow him down the short steps into the narrow tunnel. There isn't any visible light, so Seth pulls a candle from beside the shrine and takes it with you. You march along in silence and near darkness. The occasional rat scurrying by is the only change in setting. After a few hours, the tunnel begins to incline slightly and you feel a subtle breeze. By now, the candle has long burned out. You follow behind Seth with your arms in front, grazing his back for direction. You keep your steady pace until he stops, suddenly, causing you to bump into his back. "Here we are," he utters, more to himself than you. A single rope hangs down in front of you. Looking up, you see a glimpse of a round opening way above you. It must be at least twice as high as the monastery's walls. "Are you sure this is safe?" you ask. "More safe than staying within the monastery walls," he answers. "I'll climb first. Once I get to the top, I'll shake the rope. We better go one at a time just in case. Don't worry, kid. If it holds my weight, it'll hold yours too. Try to use your legs as much as possible to keep your grip from tiring. Alright, see you at the top." You're left alone in the dark, save for the small light above you. Now that things have settled a bit, you finally have time to think about the events that just happened. How could an entire army show up almost out of thin air? Kassi said King Aeric was supposed to protect the monastery. Why didn't his army show up? Then it hits you. Everyone you know is dead. Kassi, Brother Samuel, even Garth is gone. You are alone. The rope begins to shake signaling your turn. You take a deep breath and begin to climb up. Your new life was about to begin. > Chapter 2: War Refugee The discipline instilled in me at a young age was the main force behind my success. Others, perhaps, were more naturally talented than I. Not to say I wasn't gifted; I definitely felt suited for this life, but my unwavering devotion to the practice set me apart from others. There were times in my early life I wished for a different fate. Life is hard enough without constant physical stress. Each time those thoughts would rise, I would force myself back to my practice, back to my true being. The fact is, those thoughts were born of my lesser, weak-willed nature. My training is meant to suppress the weakness inside. Seth was not a father figure, at least not in the same way I viewed Brother Samuel. With Samuel, I could tell he had my best interests in mind. Seth's motivations were unclear, though they mostly revolved around himself. I wonder if his influence guided me to a better path. If you do not understand the influence others have on your actions, you are like a ship without a navigator. I studied the actions and motivations of those around me and introspectively meditated on their affect. I do not allow impurities into my system and that includes the impure actions of others. > The War Room "Another unsuccessful breach!" "Ha! Those empire dogs are all bark, no bite." "We should not be overconfident. We have nowhere to run should the empire find a way inside." "This keep has never been conquered. The walls would hold firm even if the Emperor himself shows up." "And what of the nation's people? They are at the mercy of the Empire." "They must understand our position. The storm of the empire must be weathered before any counter-attack can be mustered. They must endure." The throne room of King Aeric is ablaze with news of the most recent attack. For more than a decade, the Empire's troops have tried, and failed, to capture the nation's capital. King Aeric's keep sits at the top of a mountain. It's a nightmare for the king's mobilization, but even worse for attacking armies. The keep sits at a high enough elevation that Aeric's mages can easily pull the moisture in the air into drinkable water. The magically created food is an acquired taste, but it's definitely better than starving. "It's been long enough. We should start on the offensive!" "We should not decide hastily. One wrong plan could ruin us all." The room again erupts in debate. In the past years, you've become accustomed to the ale-empowered arguments of Aeric's war council. You imagine Brother Samuel would enjoy these types of debates. The thought brings a tinge of sadness to your mind, but you quickly focus on your breath to clear the emotion. "Psst." You turn to see Estella, one of the apprentice mages. Her red curls stick out from behind the column. "What is it? We're in the middle of a meeting," you whisper, backstepping towards her nonchalantly. "Can you break away? I need your help with something." > You Stay You take your original position in the council and notice Seth giving you a look. He doesn't hold it for long, though, apparently just wanting you to know he's aware of your absence. You give him a slight shrug in acknowledgement. "So, Seth, can the raid be successful?" King Aeric asks through an ale-filled beard. Seth pulls a stray hair from his armored robe. "Of course, my king. The Emperor's troops have gotten lazy in the past few years. I'm sure they're just waiting us out until the Empire can free up more troops for a grand-scale siege. Right now, they're content keeping us walled in. I'd be surprised if they're even running drills down there." Another man, wearing the same colors as Seth chimes in. "Still, we must not act too hastily. If surprise is our best ally, we'd be foolish to squander it at an inopportune time." King Aeric addresses the new speaker. "Mordecai, you've remained quiet until now. Tell me what you think." The man, Mordecai, looks around the room. His long hair tied behind his head melts into the top of the robe. You can tell he hasn't shaved in quite some time, despite the lack of full beard. Even though he wears the same robe as Seth, the attire of King Aeric's inner circle, his personal upkeep is well the opposite of the clean-cut Seth. "I say patience, my king," Mordecai says. "Let the Empire waste resources and manpower sitting at the bottom of our mountain. Eventually there will be a time to strike, but I'm not so certain it's now. We can last here for many years." Seth shakes his head in disagreement but doesn't speak out. "I will make a decision in the morning. Dismissed," King Aeric says, picking up the jug of ale. The council members bow to the king and crowd towards the door. Seth makes straight for you, pushing aside an elderly advisor. "You, boy, follow me," he says and exits the room, not waiting for your reply. The elderly advisor that was gently guided off course raises an eyebrow at you as if to say you better get going. You chase after Seth. > Following Seth Seth strides quickly through the castle hallways. You follow at the same pace a distance behind him. You know he prefers to walk in silence, so there's no point in running to catch up to him. He leads you down a familiar path; you arrive at the castle training grounds. The room is much more luxurious than the practice room in the monastery, though that is the case for nearly every room in the castle. It is a castle, after all. Various weapons line the room, neatly placed on racks. Cloth towels are folded in the corner to wipe down sweat and equipment after use. It definitely made for a less musty smell than the practice room in the monastery. Something about the place felt fabricated, almost too orderly. Your brief experience with combat already revealed the chaotic nature of war. Keeping the place where you train for battle clean feels a little wrong like untrained nobles in extravagant armor. Seth, still silent, pulls two wooden swords from the wall. You expect him to toss one to you, but instead, he charges forward weaving the swords into an attack pattern. You dodge a swipe near your head, and block closely followed second with your bracer. Immediately, you push Seth back with a kick in order to gain some distance. Seth gathers himself and goes on the offensive again. He arcs the practice blades low and swings high. You roll to your side and pull the nearest training weapon from the wall. A staff. You spin the staff in front of you to feel the weight and balance of the weapon. Then you hold it in a defensive position, readying for Seth's next attack. "Good, you've learned to adapt. Remember when I first brought you here? You danced around the room like a ballroom dancer. Running only guarantees your survival for a short while," Seth says. "Short while? It's been ten years," you reply, thinking of the monastery. "That is why we must strike!" Seth pleads. "You can only remain defensive for so long. Eventually, and it will happen, the castle will be overrun. I'm not going to sit here and waste away. I'm gathering a small attack force. I hope you'll join us, kid. Meet me back here at midnight if you're in." Seth drops the two wooden swords on the floor, not bothering to place them back on the wall. He exits the training grounds. You're left alone to decide your course of action. > You meet at midnight Seth hasn't steered you wrong yet. True, he isn't a typical role model – he breaks far too many rules to call him that, but his loyalty and devotion is unwavering. Those, truly, are what you try to imitate. His actions may be questionable at times, but his character never is. Still, you understand your role. Seth is the teacher and you are the student. It is your duty to follow his instruction – and leadership. You finish training by meditating on the task ahead, visualizing the upcoming battle. Once night falls, you return back to the training grounds and find Seth along with others. "Glad you could make it," Seth whispers. "There's a window of sorts that's our way out. Hope you enjoy a good climb." You follow him through the castle hallways, tip-toeing, moving as quiet as dozens of men can. The south end of the castle faces sheer mountainside. Your way out isn't really a way out; it's more like a fool's errand and Seth confidently writes it at the top of his "to do" list. One of the men with you has knowledge of various traps along the way and disables them with ease. The "window" looks more like an empty doorway. If not for the deadly traps along the way, you'd think the opening to be an accident waiting to happen. You peer out the opening to view the landscape. It's too dark to see the ground. While extremely high up, you can see jagged pieces of rock sticking out from the mountainside serving as natural hand-holds. One by one, members of the raiding party cautiously lower themselves out the window. "Good thing it's dark, otherwise this'd be a terrifying view," someone beside you comments. The wind takes most of his words away from you. You find it's not a difficult climb as long as you preserve your energy. Not knowing how far you needed to go is reason enough to save your strength. The unknown enemy below only adds to it. Everything seems to be going fine and then a piece of rock crumbles from the mountainside, sending one of the men screaming to his death below. He desperately reaches out for a hand-hold or someone to catch him. His hand finds your shoulder, pulling you from the rock. After several seconds, your body hits the ground. You don't feel a thing.

[Themes: fantasy, war, fantasy] Seth strides quickly through the castle hallways. You follow at the same pace a distance behind him. You know he prefers to walk in silence, so there's no point in running to catch up to him. He leads you down a familiar path; you arrive at the castle training grounds. The room is much more luxurious than the practice room in the monastery, though that is the case for nearly every room in the castle. It is a castle, after all. Various weapons line the room, neatly placed on racks. Cloth towels are folded in the corner to wipe down sweat and equipment after use. It definitely made for a less musty smell than the practice room in the monastery. Something about the place felt fabricated, almost too orderly. Your brief experience with combat already revealed the chaotic nature of war. Keeping the place where you train for battle clean feels a little wrong like untrained nobles in extravagant armor. Seth, still silent, pulls two wooden swords from the wall. You expect him to toss one to you, but instead, he charges forward weaving the swords into an attack pattern. You dodge a swipe near your head, and block closely followed second with your bracer. Immediately, you push Seth back with a kick in order to gain some distance. Seth gathers himself and goes on the offensive again. He arcs the practice blades low and swings high. You roll to your side and pull the nearest training weapon from the wall. A staff. You spin the staff in front of you to feel the weight and balance of the weapon. Then you hold it in a defensive position, readying for Seth's next attack. "Good, you've learned to adapt. Remember when I first brought you here? You danced around the room like a ballroom dancer. Running only guarantees your survival for a short while," Seth says. "Short while? It's been ten years," you reply, thinking of the monastery. "That is why we must strike!" Seth pleads. "You can only remain defensive for so long. Eventually, and it will happen, the castle will be overrun. I'm not going to sit here and waste away. I'm gathering a small attack force. I hope you'll join us, kid. Meet me back here at midnight if you're in." Seth drops the two wooden swords on the floor, not bothering to place them back on the wall. He exits the training grounds. You're left alone to decide your course of action. > You wait for the King's direction As much as you look up to Seth, King Aeric holds ultimate authority. You decide to wait for the King's command instead of joining the rogue raiding party. Besides, King Aeric was going to decide in the morning. You hope Seth holds out for a least one more night, but you're doubtful. Once his mind is made up, there's not a thing anyone can do. Alone in the training grounds, you begin to flow through your forms. You lose yourself in the practice until nightfall. You rise early, as you do most days. The castle is ablaze with news of Seth's rogue party. They still haven't returned, despite the sun starting to rise. Late raiding parties are never a good sign. A typical raid needs to hit hard and hit fast; a prolonged skirmish hardly ever works out for a raiding party. While you're sitting cross-legged cooling down from your practice, a group of soldiers march into the training grounds. They part, allowing Mordecai to walk through. "Did you know about this?" he questions. You peer one eye open. "Yes." "Take him," Mordecai directs. You uncross your legs and stand, preparing for the two approaching guards. You swat away their attempt to shackle your wrists, and instead clasp the iron yourself. Mordecai escorts you to the throne room, where King Aeric sits, looking quite unamused. His look towards you is sobering, the same could be said for his bodily condition, something you aren't used to seeing. His fist slams down on the throne's arm rest. "Damn it, refugee, why didn't you stop them?" he spits. "My king, I have a realistic understanding of my skillset. I could hardly stop Seth on a bad day, let alone an entire group of men." "You know what I mean, monk. They could have been stopped if you said something," King Aeric says. "Seth and his men have chosen their path. It is not my place to decide their fate," you say. "No...but it is my place to decide yours," King Aeric answers. "You are hereby banished from this castle until you return with Seth or proof of their defeat. You have served me well in your short time here, and that's the only reason you aren't meeting the axe. At least this way, you have a fighting chance and will possibly do something useful. Now go!" Aeric's men allow you to pack your gear, along with several days of rations, a huge kindness in your opinion, before leading you to the southern end of the castle. The narrow bridge to the front gates lies on the north side. The south is sheer mountainside. "What'd you expect? We can't just open the front gates under siege," one of the guards aptly points out. You remove a portion of your rations from your backpack. "Here. Dinner's on me. I'd rather pack light than risk the fall," you say. The man grabs the food with a smile. "I'll put it to good use." Losing the grin, he adds, "In all seriousness, I hope you return. You're a good kid and an even better fighter. Hate to lose you this way." "You and me both," you say, shaking his hand. > The descent The backdoor out of the castle isn't really a door. It's more like a window. In fact, it is a window, scarcely used since it's missing glass and is large enough that falling outside wouldn't take much. A wrong step into the three-inch-from-the-ground window sill, and you're plummeting down the rocky slope. You poke your head out to view the landscape. While the climb is steep, the rocks are jagged, leaving a fair amount of hand-holds for climbers. The seeming break in security would have you worried if not for the disarming of several traps along the way. Any intruder would be meet with death -- though not so swift, depending on the trap they sprung. You tie your longsword to your pack to prevent it from falling out and begin the climb. "Don't look down, don't look down," you quietly repeat to yourself. The wind carries most of the words away from you. You find the climb isn't too difficult, though you're careful to preserve your energy. The last place you want to lose muscle strength is on a cliffside. The irony pops into your mind as you continue to climb; for whatever reason, fate seems to have you climb towards Seth. You definitely prefer the rope. A few meters down, you see a piece of cloth hanging on a sharp rock. The dark red piece must have come from Seth's robe. You were going the right way, though to be fair, down feels as good a direction as any. Several minutes later, you come across a series of broken-off rocks. You slow your descent as you imagine the surrounding area might have loose hand-holds as well. Just as your arms start to exhaust, you eye a ledge of sorts. The jutting rock couldn't be more than five inches long, but it works well enough for you to stand on, leaning your back against the rock wall behind you. You rub your arms to get the blood flowing and roll your wrists a few times. It's here that you finally look down. You're not too far up now, probably a few hundred feet, still not a height you'd survive falling from. The mountainside transitions into a thick forest. The tree-littered hills roll off in the distance, with only a few mountains poking up overhead. If you weren't inches away from death, you'd enjoy the view. Satisfied at your arm strength, you continue the journey down. When your feet finally hit the ground, you breathe a sigh of relief. You take a brief glance at the rocky pathway. The castle is a tiny dot in the distance, barely visible through the sunlight. A crumpled body lies not 20 feet from where you're standing. A victim of the climb down, his body looks freshly dead, though it's harder to tell with several bones sticking out from the skin. The man's face is unrecognizable. You search his body for anything useful and come up empty. Whatever things he was carrying is long gone. A few broken branches alert you of activity in the area. Upon closer inspection, the grass is smashed in the same area. It had to be the raiding party. You take off in the forest towards the tracks. > The forest The tracks in the forest are easy enough to follow. The raiding party didn't exactly spend time, well, covering their tracks. Plus, covering the footprints and broken branches of a group of men takes time. The party was designed for destruction, not clean-up. The tracks lead in the general direction of sieging army, but then suddenly move east. You stoop down to examine a smudge in the lightly grassend forest floor. A bootprint; a man's boot, obviously, but the angle of the print is what alerts you. It looks like someone squashed a bug. More likely, the result of a pivot. The deepness of the print shows it was made with a fast moving foot or the boot-wearer was carrying several hundred pounds of weight. You assume it's the former. Then, you see it. Blood. > The previous night... They were coming. Seth ducks from an arrow fired towards his head. How did they know we were coming? His twin blades dance in unison, taking apart the feeble defense of the young-faced boy in front of him. One blade lands in the boy's stomach and the other finishes the job at his neck. Seth is troubled, not by the gathering Empire soldiers in front of him, but how the hell did they know he was coming? The darkness of night should have protected them from being seen. They moved quietly, no one should have heard them. And yet, the Empire was ready, prepared for his assault. Nothing ever goes your way, huh? Better for the kid to have stayed. Better for him to live. Seth grits his teeth and engages the next soldier. How did they know we were coming? > You examine further Blood. Lots of it. Too much for one man. The ground shows more imprints and what looks like a drag mark. Several arrow shafts lie broken on the ground, some firmly planted into tree trunks. Your senses sharp, something alerts you of another's presence. A man stands, unmoving, behind you. You turn to face him, noticing the craftsmanship of his bow; it's unlike any you've seen before. It's not extravagant. It's a simple design, really. The quality of the wood is what draws your attention. Smoothly bent and shaped, the bow is of the finest quality, befitting of a king's weapon. The man's youthful face is centered by a thick black moustache. Two gray eyes return your stare, seeking your intentions. "You're not with the Empire," he states, part questioningly. "I am not," you confirm. "What happened here?" "Ambush. The king's men were caught unawares." Strange. They shouldn't have known Seth and his raiding party were coming. You voice that to the man. "Well they did. It was a slaughter, save for one man." "Which man? Where is he?" you ask. "The man with two blades. He's recovering back in my home." "Take me there." The man, Richard, leads you through the forest, taking many paths that are naturally hidden by the overgrowth. You can't imagine the Empire could follow your tracks, Richard expertly hides any sort of disturbance you create along the way. The Empire would have to burn the entire forest to reach you, a disturbing thought considering that was a very real possibility. "What's your role in all this?" you break the silence along the way. "What do you mean?" "In the war. You're no friend of the Empire, yet you don't seem aligned with Aeric either." "The 'King' and I have our disagreements, though I'd rather see him on the throne than an Imperial puppet. I was part of the King's Rangers -- well, technically still am, but I'm on somewhat of an extended patrol in these parts." "Do you encounter many Imperial troops?" you ask. "Not this far out. For the moment they seem content staying to the roads. I fear that won't be the case once the castle falls. Ah, here we are." Richard pulls what appears to be a thick fern from the ground and tosses it to the side. The space opens into a series of cascading boulders underground. Large round stones create a natural staircase leading down. Richard goes in first, directing you where to step. He explains some of the stones are decoys, and stepping on the wrong one would send you to your death below. As you descend into the sanctuary, you cover the entrance with the fern, blocking out any sort of natural light. > The underground village From behind a hidden crevice, Richard reveals a torch and lights the tip. Flame bursts into the dark cave, sending shadows dancing on the walls. Upon reaching the bottom, a single tunnel lies directly ahead of you. The tunnel leads further into the cave, and eventually it opens into a spacious cavern. Several huts line the walls, constructed and stacked into the stone. Richard extinguishes the torch and places it on a metal ring near the edge of the cavern. The entire area is lit with several green flames. The magical light provides more than enough light to fill the space, and shines the village in its viridian glow. "This one's mine," Richard says, pointing towards the smallest of the huts. "Quite a nice village you have here," you comment. "There's not many of us -- a good thing, too, since this place would be unmanageable with a high number. This is the place for people who have no home, no king, no Emperor." "Who leads them then?" you ask. "We lead ourselves," Richard answers with a smile. Richard swings open the door to his hut. More green light pours from within. It's a simple place, filled with solid wooden furniture. In the corner, a man lies in bed, a woman sponging his forehead. She turns at your arrival, surprised only for a brief moment at your presence. Her eyes glisten in the green light, sparkling against the bright blue as if gentle waves. "More company, Richard?" she sighs. "At least this one's walking." "You don't mean that, Sarah. Our guest is banished from the territory until he learns information from this man. The King's orders," Richard says, placing an arm around Sarah to calm her. "I don't mean to intrude," you say with a slight bow. "This man, Seth, is important to me. He practically raised me since..." you trail off at the end, not wanting to divulge your history at the monastery. "We understand," Sarah says. "I'm sorry for my reaction. Make yourself at home. I'll bring you some tea." You approach the bedside to assess the Seth's wounds. A large bloodstained bandage is bound across his chest. A similar one is wrapped around his bicep. His normally clean-shaven face has a light beard. Funny, you always assumed he shaved his face bare because he couldn't grow a beard like the rest of King Aeric's men. His two short swords hang, sheathed, on a chair nearby. Seth's eyes are closed, and the rest of his face shows signs of dampness. Cold sweat. Not a good sign for a man recovering from battle wounds. "I see you made it, kid," he speaks in not more than a whisper, eyes still closed. "I didn't have much of a choice. I'm glad to see you're still alive," you respond. "Just catching up on some long-needed sleep. The castle quarters were getting a little tight for my care." "Rest up then," you say. "You can fill me in when you next wake." > Days later... Days later, Seth manages to rise from bed. Through a mouthful of Sarah's wild rice soup, he says, "They knew we were coming. I don't know how, but they knew. We turned the corner and they were there. A whole battalion of them." He fills his mouth with another spoonful. "I tried to fight them off. Luckily, Richard here is pretty handy with a bow. Nice timing too." Richard sits to your left, his hand wrapped around a small cup of tea. He finishes the final gulp and refills the cup. "I'd been tracking the Empire's movements for days. Had to make sure they didn't venture too close to this place. I recognized Aeric's men at once. The crimson robe, the one only close members of Aeric's soldiers wear. Took down a few of them and extracted Seth in the confusion." "Any ideas on how they knew you were coming? Is there a traitor within King Aeric's ranks?" you ask. Seth shakes his head. "Doubt it. It'd be too difficult to pass messages in and out of the castle. Even if they just used signals, someone would catch on. It's a sizable castle, but everyone's in the know." Richard chimes in. "This is the first I've seen Imperial troops wander off the main roads. Venturing off into unknown territory is usually something they avoid." "Then what? Random chance?" you input. "Perhaps the Empire is looking for other ways into the castle, rather than the main gate," Richard says. "Is there one?" you ask. "Not that I know of," Seth answers. "Unless they want to climb up sheer mountainside." "Or somehow hatch a litter of wyverns," Richard jokes. "That'll be the day," Seth laughs. Turning the conversation back on track you say, "So where does that leave us? King Aeric banished me until I return with news of your raid. We must return at once." "I wish we could, kid. I don't fancy a climb back up sheer mountain just to receive a punishment and get locked inside a sieged castle. We're better off staying in the open and taking the fight to the Empire." "But it's our duty." "Don't speak to me about duty! We're out here because of our duty and loyalty to Aeric. I'm willing to protect my king by any means necessary -- even if that means disobeying a direct order from him in the process." "What do you suggest we do then?" you ask. "Hit 'em fast, hit 'em hard," Seth answers. > In an Imperial tent It could have gone better. Then again, it could have gone a lot worse. One thing's for certain: their information was spot on, even if it came through mysterious origin. The Imperial captain in his tent pulls the stained white and gold armor from his chest. He places it on a wooden dummy and pulls a wet rag from a bowl beside it. He washes the bloodstains away from the elegant armor, shining it clean for the next encounter. He'd been in many platoons led by captains with little care for their armor, or their men for that case. He will be different, though. The Captain pulls the headband from his forehead, letting his wavy brown hair fall in his face. No, he would be better than the shit-for-brains leaders he's served under. The first step is looking the part. Easy enough. The second step, the one that will dictate the lives of his men, is a lot more difficult. "I can do that for you," a girl's voice meekly speaks from the back of the tent. The Captain turns, forgetting Mira, his assigned "servant" is there. She stands behind him, hands clasped in front of her waist, her short "servant" dress revealing the entirety of her legs. She looks at the Captain with a pair of hazel eyes waiting for his reply, and likely his hands. "That won't be necessary, Mira. I prefer to do it myself," the Captain speaks. "If you have nothing else more pressing, I could use a drink though." Mira grabs for the pitcher of wine and pours it into a goblet. She offers it out for the Captain to take. "You can leave it on the table for now. Pour yourself one while you're at it," is his reply as he focuses most of his attention on cleaning his armor. Mira pours a second cup, but doesn't drink from it just yet. She waits until the Captain finishes his work and picks his own cup from the table. "To the Empire's victory," the Captain salutes, clinking the two cups together. "Long live the Emperor," Mira replies with less zeal. She takes a sip from the cup. The flavor bursts on her tongue like a bite into a fresh apple, by far the best drink she's ever tasted. "Sorry we have to drink this horrid stuff. It's all that's available now. What I would give for a glass of brandy from the capital city..." the Captain says, mostly to himself than to Mira. "No matter. We will make due with what we have. Such is the way in conquest." "Mhmm," Mira agrees not sure what to say. "Finish your cup, now. I can tell you enjoy it," the Captain says. "It's my job to read people, you see. I must know the intentions of my soldiers, but more importantly, our enemies. I can tell you don't like it here. I can also tell you don't have any ill-will towards the Empire, except maybe towards unsavory characters. It's ok, I realize not all in our leader's employ follow his divine plan. I think the same way. Pour yourself another cup, now." Mira does as she's commanded. "Good. Now enjoy yourself. I have to handle a few Imperial matters, but I'll be back soon. Make yourself comfortable. I can tell that you and I are going to get along nicely, Mira," the Captain says, smiling, and getting from his chair. He pours the remainder of his cup into Mira's. "Thank you, Captain... Wren," Mira says as he leaves. > You hit 'em fast, hit 'em hard "There's where they camp. It's not too far from the road, but they're a lot closer than I'd like them to be," Richard says holding a branch down for you to see. You count maybe twenty tents set up in a circle. White and gold armored sentries patrol the outskirts around the structures. "There's not that many of them. I say we sneak within their ranks after dark," Seth says. "Are you that quick to return to bed? There's too many for just us three, even with a surprise attack," Richard answers. "You've never seen the kid in action," Seth replies. "I'm telling you, we can manage this." You observe through the makeshift woodland window. Twenty tents, probably more than three times that in head count. It doesn't feel like the best way to mount an offensive strike. You can tell Seth is eager to strike -- he wants revenge for his men, but there must be a better approach. If they somehow separate their number, your chances of success significantly increase. "We're better off if they divide their force. Even if they're just split into two groups, our chance at success doubles," you say. "I know these woods better than anyone. I'll draw as many as I can from the camp. You two play clean up. Sound good?" Richard says. You and Seth nod. "Good. I suggest you rest up before night. You'll need all of your strength, especially you, Seth. Those wounds have barely healed." "I'll be fine. Don't get yourself killed. I'd hate to obligate myself to that pretty wife of yours, Seth answers. "Heh. Sarah'd likely finish the job these Imperial soldiers failed to do if you tried." You kneel in the dirt, taking in your surroundings. You breathe in the fresh forest air and visualize the upcoming battle. It will be dark. You will use the cover of night to strike hard, quick, not spending too much time in one area. Likewise, it will be harder to see reinforcements coming. Still, there will be much confusion in their ranks. You imagine your technique, your practice. You've flowed through the forms countless times physically and mentally. The upcoming battle will require acute focus from both aspects of your training. > Nighttime It's time. The sun has recently set, and a layer of clouds dampen the moon's brightness. The conditions couldn't be more perfect besides possibly a fog. Richard scurries off, bow in hand, to travel to the opposite side of the camp. You didn't exactly know what the signal would be, but he said "you'll know it when you see it." Minutes pass. You watch the steady, clockwork sentries walk back and forth. Their steps seem timed like they are calculating each step with the second. Typical Empire, sacrificing the mind of the soldier for their rigid structure. They're nothing more than dogs learning a few tricks. "It's almost time. Get ready, kid," Seth whispers, his two blades at each hand. You rise from your kneeling position and slide your sword from your scabbard. It's familiar hilt fits in the palm of your hand better than any glove could. It's an extension of your own physical body. You feel its weight and guide it through the air with ease as if your own arm. Then, time slows down. The corner of your vision fades in like a collapsing tunnel. Darkness overtakes, save for a single point of vision. Seth's face melts away, the skin loosely falling from his face. His eyes turn into two running waterfalls down his exposed cheekbones. His teeth grind together, screeching, sending shivers down your neck. The pressure between his top and bottom teeth increases, sending chips of tooth flying in the air. The laughing subsides within your mind, allowing your vision to come back. Seth's hand waves in front of you searching for some sign of life. "You ok? You went dark there for a second. It's normal to be nervous. I am, too, if I'm being honest, but we're better than them. They're no more than farmers conscripted and dressed up all pretty. I'd be surprised if their captain even has half the training we have." "I'm fine," you say shaking the image of Seth's skull from your mind. "I'm focused on the task at hand." "That's my boy. I think it's time. Look." Two small fiery comets shoot across the sky and land in the encampment. From wherever Richard is hiding, his flame arrows land true. The fire instantly expands on the canvas and spreads to nearby tents. Men begin to shout and you see multiple bodies rushing from their tents to find some way to extinguish the spreading flame. Then, you see three, four bodies drop. The arrows lodged in their fallen bodies are like flags claiming territory. Soon, the Imperial soldiers identify the direction in which the ranged attack is coming from and start to mobilize that way. Not waiting for Seth's command, you half-run, half-walk in a crouch towards the camp. Your steps are silent, not that the Imperial soldiers would hear you over the commotion. Your blade eats into an unsuspecting soldier, sliding in and out before he can react. The body drops quickly, unmoving, as you search for your next victim. Your mind draws back to your childhood, the day of the massacre. You were powerless to stop the attack, even with yours and Kassi's offensive. You dropped many soldiers that day. Now that you're of age, many more will fall this night. Then, you were limited by childhood. Even with your extensive training, a prolonged battle against adult strength would eventually be futile. Your hand grips tighter around your hilt. You're no longer limited, burdened by lack of years. You feel strong, powerful, the Imperial soldiers before you might as well be children. You strike them down easily as if they were. > Meanwhile... Captain Wren's lips kiss down her neck to meet the warmth below. His callused hand grips a breast as his mouth meets her firm nipple. She moans, softly, an inescapable sound that only

excites Wren even more. His hand grabs harder, massaging quicker and with more passion. She wants him, he knows it. He could have had her either way, but this is better. Effort from both parties: that's the way he likes it. His hand moves between her legs and finds it wet, ready, waiting for him to enter. All in good time. He is just getting started. "Fire! Captain! We're under attack!" The shout rings through his canvas tent like a bucket of cold water. A hulking, tanned man enters through the tent flaps. Captain Wren sighs knowing full-well he's needed elsewhere. Rexxus wouldn't barge in otherwise. "Counter-attack, Captain. Sorry for the intrusion." "Not needed, Rexx. Mira here is simply helping me sleep." At her mention, Mira pulls a blanket over her exposed breasts. She notices Rexx looking down and realizes the blankets didn't cover everything and quickly corrects the action lower down. Rexxus coughs, showing a little more embarrassment than she would have thought from an Imperial soldier. Maybe it's due to the fact he was caught looking. "If you're going to interrupt me, don't just stand there. What's going on?" Captain Wren speaks, throwing on his light set of armor. "Archers from the west. A small group judging by the amount of arrows fired. Some of the initial shots were flame-tipped," Rexx answers turning back to business. "Any others?" "No, sir." "Not yet, you mean. There are always others." > You cut them down Another pitiful Empire soldier attacks with lackluster technique. You easily parry the blade aside and slice at his open throat. A soft gurgle, and then he drops. Before his body hits the ground, you engage the next in line. They attack, halfway armed, some missing sections of their armor in attempt to mobilize quickly. Even if they were fully armed, you doubt they would put up much of a fight. Some reek with booze, others stagger under the influence of a stronger substance. They're unprepared, untrained, and you make them pay for their lack of discipline. To your left, Seth is a whirlwind of fury and blade. While full sweeping attacks, complete with jumping, are inadvisable for a prolonged skirmish, you can't help but admire the technique in action. The attacks are swift and unconventional, even if they do require a tremendous amount of physical effort. You take the opposite approach, not moving your sword more than you have to. Instead of deep lunging thrusts, you slide in and out of range the exact amount needed. There is no showmanship, only the task before you. After dropping two more Imperial soldiers, you find yourself face to face with a tall, hulking frame. Upon seeing the threat in front of him, the man raises his tower shield, covering all but his eyes. His tan skin illuminates the two white white eyes peering at you like two diamonds on black velvet. With a short grunt, he attacks, pushing you off balance with the tower shield, and following up, quickly, with a swipe of his battle axe. You block the axe, but not how you would have liked due to the shield bash. The full force of the axe absorbs through your sword into your arm, sapping some of your strength. The man's jaw clenches in determination as he attacks again. This time, you use your mobility to avoid the attack and side-step away. If anything's clear from his initial attack, you can't win a head-to-head battle, so you change your strategy in order to draw the tank of a man into your fight. His battle axe swings towards your head, but you're already just out of range. Immediately, you test his defenses, lunging forward and picking a high to low series of strikes. One of the strikes pierces his defense staggering him down to a knee. In his vulnerable state, you kick the shield from his grasp, from using it as a crutch to remain standing. Imitating Seth's sweeping motion, you spin allowing your sword to gain momentum from your body. The blade cuts through the back of the man's exposed neck, collapsing him face-first into the dirt. > Aftermath "Well done, kid. Glad you're on our side." You turn to see Seth holding a bloodied man by his brown wavy hair. By the man's armor, you assume, rightly, he's he one in charge. While the man looks distressed, he's not in panic, unlike most would be in his position. He must be in charge. "I thought we'd have a little chat with our friend... Wren was it?" Seth says, twisting the man's face up to meet his. The man, Wren, does his best to nod. A figure emerges from the dark, Richard, leading a woman bound at the hands by rope. "Caught her trying to escape. She looks harmless, but we don't need her telling another Imperial battalion we're here," he says. "The more the merrier," Seth answers, shoving Wren into a nearby tent. You, Richard, and the woman follow closely behind. Seth straps Wren to a chair in the center of the tent, hands behind the backrest. Richard stands near the tent entrance holding the bound woman as if a parent watching a child's leashed pet. "Let's get started, shall we? How did you know we were coming? How did you know to ambush us?" Seth asks. Captain Wren spits blood from his mouth to the ground beside him. "We have an...unconventional informant." Seth's right fist meets the Captain's jaw. The woman screams, revealing the fact that she knows Wren. "Mira, don't worry. They won't hurt you. I promise," the Captain speaks, eating another fist from Seth for not answering his questions. "Alright, alright. I'll tell you. I know how these things go. There's a shaman, a man that speaks to spirits. He approached me, giving knowledge to an upcoming assault. I thought he was just a crazy old man, but sent a force on the off-chance he was correct. There's something...strange about him. Something powerful, mysterious, like you want to find out what it is, but then again, you don't." "You're saying a shaman gave you battle plans? I thought you Imperials were more distrusting than that." "I've served under bad leadership, leadership that doesn't listen or take advice from others. I promised myself I would be different." "Where is this shaman?" "I don't know. He appears in a mist of black smoke with gnarled staff at his side. He leans on it, always, because his back is crunched like he's caring a heavy burden. A dark hood covers his face. His voice is otherworldly, it's like a projection from behind the veil." "Well, this has got us nowhere," Seth answers. Suddenly, your vision tunnels again. The black edges focus on a single target. Mira. You're unable to speak. It's like an animalistic instinct taking over, compelling you to move, to act in survival. You hardly notice Seth drawing his dagger against Captain Wren's throat. A voice inside your mind speaks, echoing, resounding within your core, fading in and out, loud and quiet. Richard notices your strange advance, and holds a hand out. "Whoh, now. Are you ok?" You push past him, and slide your sword into Mira's chest. A soft laugh, more of a slow chuckle, escapes through the thin gap between your lips. Richard drops to a knee to catch the falling woman's body. Seth whirls around to see the commotion. "What the fu--" he starts to say before seeing Mira's blood dripping from the point of your sword. Control is back. "I...uh. I don't know what happened," you say, looking down. Richard and Seth exchange looks, unsure how to handle the situation. Seth walks to you and places a hand on your shoulder, comfortingly. "It's alright. If we let her go, the Empire would spare no expense to find us. It's better this way," Seth says, sending another look to Richard. Visibly unhappy, Richard drops the leash end of the rope, no longer needing to hold Mira captive. Giving your shoulder one last reassuring squeeze, Seth exits the tent along with Richard. The image of Seth's melting face comes back to your mind. > Chapter 3: The Shaman There is a darkness within me. I feel it, growing, wanting to consume me completely. My training is what I rely on to combat it. Each day I rise before the sun, disciplining my body and mind for the upcoming battle. I've come to realize there are little certainties; the battle is the only exception. I must be at my sharpest each day. I know it will come. It wants full control, and sometimes it wins. My defeat only spurs me to greater heights. I learn, recognizing its tricks in order to stave them off next time. Mira's death was the first time I experienced complete, and utter, defeat. It was like watching the experience out of my own body, unable to act, unable to cry out. I'm not prideful enough to say it doesn't scare me. After all, who wouldn't be frightened by an unknown power, an unknown force potent enough to take over oneself completely? I study my actions, along with the times the voice appears. There must be a pattern, there must be a winning strategy. There always is. I wonder what happened to Kassi after I left with Seth. Often I think about her. She was my only friend, along with Brother Samuel though he was more in the mentor, father role. Did I leave her to die? No, she had the same choice presented in front of her. She could have escaped along with me. If she met her end that day, it was her decision, not mine. I wonder if anyone escaped that day. Death was inevitable if we stayed. The Empire doesn't take unnecessary risks like leaving highly trained warriors alive. Part of me feels bad for leaving Kass, but I cannot think that way. We each act to the best of our ability, and the outcome is no one's fault, really. It's just the way things are. > A band of freedom fighters It finally happened. It was only a matter of time. King Aeric's castle was finally taken by the Emperor. The rumors speak of a squadron of wyverns leading the assault. Wyverns! They were supposed to be extinct. The Empire is a great beast and nothing is out of her reach. Seth was right. If you had stayed in the castle, you would be dead along with King Aeric and his men. Not that you had a choice in the matter -- Aeric had banished you, after all. You find yourself at a crossroad. You've won countless small battles against the Empire. Each time, another Imperial command replaces the one before. The resources you oppose are seemingly endless. Yours, on the other hand, is dwindling. Richard left years ago, returning back to his village. The act didn't surprise you. He had only helped to drive the Imperial soldiers from wandering too near to his family. You've become a small band of freedom fighters, outcasts, renegades, wanderers with no place to call home, led by Seth. You're close to discovering the location of the shaman. The first real lead in months checked. What would originally be considered tribal superstition, fits Captain Wren's description of the shaman. By chance, one of the Imperial transports you set upon were carrying prisoners, tribal members from the Yssar Plain. Their stories tell of a crumbling castle, haunted by an evil spirit. One of their tribe supposedly saw the dark spirit, cloaked in black, commanding the elements, before sprinting back to the tribe, but not before abandoning the buck he had hunted. The tribe ridiculed the man, stripping him of his honor for running in fear. The crumbling castle as your destination, with your band of freedom fighters, you head to confront the shaman and strike a deadly blow to the Empire. > Ekk'a's hunt Ekk'a crept silently forward, his sun-weathered hand tightly around his crude bow. The hunt had taken him far away from the tribe, too far, but the buck would be his. He would return to his people with enough meat to eat for several days. It was his duty to provide for his people. His light barefoot steps don't snap twigs or rustle fallen leaves. They're quiet, born of a lifetime of practice. At the age of ten, it was the tribe's tradition to send a boy coming into manhood into the wilderness, alone, with only a week's worth of supplies. They could return in a month, any attempt to return earlier would be met with shame on the entire family. The tribe had no place for weak men. Ekk'a's thoughts always return to his rite of passage, even now, almost twenty years later. He spent most nights shivering in the cold, unable to start a fire due to the attention it brought. Several boys were sent out at the same time, and it wasn't uncommon for infighting to occur. After all, a knife to the back is easier than tracking your own hunt. The thought brought a slight smile to his lips. Some of the others took the easy approach. Ekk'a didn't, relying on his prowess as a hunter to survive. He was strong, born of a family of warriors. Taking the easy approach would be dishonorable to their tradition. Through two tree trunks, Ekk'a spotted his prey. The buck is young, although still much larger than the average doe. Its antlers rise from its head like branches of a stream. The buck's head lifted for a moment, sensing the air. Too late. Ekka's arrow fired true, landing squarely in the buck's neck. One arrow was not enough to drop it, and it took off into the forest, a cursing Ekk'a following. The trail of blood and broken branches led to the outskirts of the demon. Ekk'a knew he was getting close, but his buck would soon drop. The amount of blood loss clearly showed he would find it collapsed, breathing its final moments. If he had the Earth Mother's blessing, it would find it soon. Then he saw it. The demon's ruins. A crumbling castle, overgrown with grass. Large stone blocks scattered in the surrounding field. The front gate is simply an open arch; the actual gate has long fallen from its place. It's inviting, welcoming in newcomers to walk into the deteriorating walls. Ekk'a spotted the fallen buck not 30 feet past the arch. Notching an arrow at the ready, Ekk'a stepped through. The breeze whispered to Ekk'a. Soft voices, more of a lightless murmur, carried on the wind. His footsteps took him from the warmth of the sunlight into the chilling shade of the open archway. Despite the chill, Ekk'a felt a bead of sweat run down the side of his face. Still holding the bow ready, he wiped the sweat with the back of his forearm. He was almost there. His hunt would be complete. Just when he arrived at the fallen animal, a flock of crows fly out from a nearby gap in the castle, filling the air with squawking and flapping of wings. Ekk'a instantly ducked, and fired an arrow, dropping one of the birds. Ekk'a suddenly felt another's presence. Mimicking the buck, his head lifts, searching for a sight or sound from another. His eyes found a gnarled staff, propping up the hunched body of a shadowy figure. The figure's dark hood is open, and yet Ekk'a can't see the face underneath. It's black like a cloudy night blocking the stars and moon. It seems we have a visitor. The demon's voice projected from behind the veil. It's the mix between a low growl and raspy, labored breath. Each word is articulated to perfection, slow and deliberate. Ekk'a fired another arrow at the demon. To his disbelief, the arrow flies harmlessly through the figure and bounces from the opposite castle wall. You are not him. Bring him to me. The gnarled staff pointed Ekka's way, burning a symbol on his forehead. Ekk'a didn't know who "he" was, but he abandoned all thoughts of what was honorable or not. Ekk'a ran, retracing the trail of blood, the mark of the demon displayed for all to see. > The crumbling castle "We should be close now," Seth comments from the head of the group. You travel single file through the forest, guided by directions from the tribal member. There are twenty of you (give or take), dressed in varying colors from previous allegiances. The company of freedom fighters doesn't have the well-coordinated march or attire of Imperial soldiers, save for the few that defected, but when it comes to battle coordination, there are few that can stand with you. It's not hours of drilling that guides you, it's battle-hardened soldiers with the instinct for war. Those that joined the company lacking the instinct didn't stay long. Anyone who wanted to oppose the Empire could join, only ones with an aptitude for combat stayed. From behind a tree, a man steps out, silent and stern. The cloak at his back rises high, covering the lower half of his face. "It's just through here. The forest opens to clearing. The ruins are there. No sign of activity." "Good work, Horne. Keep an eye on the perimeter. I'd like some sort of warning if others will be joining us," Seth answers. The man, Horne, bows his head slightly and disappears back in to the forest. Even with your years of training, you barely hear his footsteps. Horne's ability to melt into his surroundings are almost supernatural, a ghost silently watching from the outside. "What do you think we'll encounter in there?" one of the men behind you speaks, though not too loudly. "It doesn't matter," you answer. "Our task remains the same. This shaman has proved a valuable asset to the Empire. Striking him down will be a significant blow to the beast." "Do you think the castle is really haunted?" another asks. Before you can answer, another man chimes in. "It's just tribal nonsense. They pray to the earth and worship the sun. I bet the 'demon' is nothing more than a rogue sorcerer taking refuge in the ruins." "Even if that is the case, taking down a caster is no easy task, especially in his home. Who knows what magical traps and surprises lie in wait," you say. "No easy task? What would you call that business in Leifhelm then? Or the Imperial mage in Felgrown Keep? And the conjurer in Vern?--" You cut off the man before he can continue. "Past success doesn't promise future victories. In each of those cases, it may have been my blade finishing the task, but every man here played their part. Keep your blade sharp..." "...and your mind sharper," the company echoes. "Leadership suits you," Seth whispers, too soft for the others to hear. "You would have made a fine commander in the king's army." "No use in thinking about that now. Look, there are the ruins," you whisper back, eyeing the crumbling stone and scattered rocks in the overgrown grass. The archway, where a gate once sat, lies open, inviting you in, promising safe shelter. The voice appears in your mind. You shake it off, using your breath to focus on the present moment rather than the internal whispers. The demon awaits. > The demon's castle The company strides into the castle's interior. Several gaps in the walls allow you to see the forest surrounding the structure. An entire tower lays shattered on the ground, its stone blocks spread out like a fortune teller's seeing bones. The overgrown grass rises to your mid-thigh making the journey slow as you scan the ground for buried stones, but more importantly, traps. The main door to the castle has far deteriorated past usefulness, leaving the entrance wide open. Seeing as there is not another way in, you enter the ruins. Darkness. Sparks fill the lightless interior igniting the hand torch. Not every man holds one, but the torches are positioned well throughout the line of men to illuminate each man's vision. Fallen braziers line the walls, along with crumpled tapestries. "Travel slowly. We don't know what awaits us," you say to the company. You signal to move forward. Suddenly, the castle halls fill with a slow, resonating laugh. Dark shadows fly above you, not more than a blur. The torches extinguish simultaneous, leaving you in darkness. You hold your weapon out, defensively, but do not aimlessly swing for fear of striking an ally. Not everyone holds the same resolve, and you hear the clash of swords along with cries from those wounded. "What madness is this?" you hear Seth's voice speak. "Die, Imperial dog!" a man shouts. "Mama? No don't hurt mama no more!" "Shut your fucking mouth. Bleed. Bleed. Fucking BLEEED!" It's then that you realize the mental attack taking place. Each member of the company is seeing a vision, an illusionary attack on their willpower. The world fades in and out, sound gets louder than quiet. A pair of hands grip your throat and forcefully pull you in the air. Your face is close to your adversary, and you faintly see the features of Seth, his eyes narrowing as they meet yours. "Ragar!" he spits. "The Unbroken will never return." You twist from his grasp, but don't attack just yet. "Come to your senses! Can't you see it's nothing more than a trick?" you plead. "I will do what I must to end the lineage. I hoped the rumors weren't true," Seth answers with the swing of his swords. Though dark, the sound of the blades traveling through the air kicks your instincts into gear. You instantly step backward, ducking and covering your face. The twin swords swing just above your head, sending a rush of air to your face. "What rumors do you speak of? It's me! I've faithfully followed you ever since the day of the massacre," you say. "Silence, demon," Seth says tackling you to the floor. You hit the ground hard. Too hard. The decaying castle floor gives way to your impact. You tumble through darkness in a storm of wood, stone, and ceramic. You land, getting the wind knocked from your lungs. A crash and groan nearby alerts you that Seth has similarly hit the bottom of...wherever this is. An unseen force pulls your body in the air as if a rope was tied around your waist. The room bursts with light. Magic lamps lining the walls turn on, filling the room with their crimson glow. Your body floats up higher, then shifts vertical allowing you to see. Seth's body lies unmoving on the floor, a large boulder rests on his lower half. You're in an armory. Shelves of swords, battle axes, spears, and shields span the entire room. Your eyes scan the room for the unseen assailant. They find a gnarled staff, a wrinkled hand gripping it tightly. Do not fear me, child. From beyond the veil, the voice speaks from underneath a dark hood. The red shadows cast by the lamps outline the entire hunched figure in a sanguine glow. "You speak as if ally, yet your actions speak otherwise. Who are you?" you say, still suspended in the air. I do not expect you to discern. Instead, I will show you. > ... Prince Ragar strides through the castle hallways. His dark hair, tied at the back of his head, bounces with each step. Soldiers bring a fist to their heart as he passes by, and in return, Ragar gives a slight nod of appreciation, more in habit than actual gratitude. The news on his mind is most troubling, too troubling for him to give full attention to the guardsmen. Treachery, by King Osborne's most trusted advisor no less. No, Prince Ragar did not have time for the common soldier. He swings open the double doors to the castle's chapel and sees his target by the main altar, surrounded by dozens of lit candles, most of which are bathed in melted wax. His target remains focused on the altar, leaning on a gnarled staff, and dressed in ceremonial white. "Lorthander!" Ragar shouts. "You will answer for your crimes against the crown." Ragar's target turns, pulling the hood from his head, revealing his face. Wrinkles span his cheeks. Horizontal lines, evenly spaced apart, rise from his eyebrows to hairline. His green eyes sparkle innocently, not moved by the apparent threat before him. "What crime would that be, my prince?" Lorthander speaks through his raspy voice. "Necromancy and forbidden rituals. The King has outlawed dark magic of any kind," Ragar says, drawing his sword. "I urge you to come in peace. You've been like an uncle to me, ever since my birth. Don't make this harder than it already is." "Step to the altar, prince. See what I see," Lorthander answers. "Everything I do, I do for the lineage of your father, of you, Prince Ragar." Eyeing Lorthander cautiously, Prince Ragar takes the steps to the altar. He holds his sword in front of him, searching for signs of deception, ready to strike if Lorthander proves enemy. "The scroll. Read it," Lorthander rasps. Prince Ragar looks to the piece of parchment laid on the altar. A long strand of dark hair falls loose from the tie behind his head, covering his eye. His lips mumble incoherent words as he finishes reading the scroll. "No, it can't be," he whispers. "It's true, my prince. Your father, King Osborne is using dark magic to preserve his life, the lives of refugees sacrificed to lengthen his lifetime. Funny, and you were ready to put me to the sword for the exact same thing." "Well -- this could be falsified. How do I know this to be true?" "I perform the ritual myself. You are right, my prince. I take part in rituals of dark magic at the command of the King, your father. Care to see the proof for yourself?" Prince Ragar nods. "Very well, then. Follow me." Lorthander grips the staff and walks towards an angelic statue. Every other step sends an echo in the room, caused by the staff hitting the floor. Prince Ragar walks closely behind. At one marble sculpture of a seraph, Lorthander closes his eyes and speaks words of the incantation. The wings of the seraph, stretched out, close in as if preparing for take-off. The sculpture fades into nonexistence, revealing the staircase underneath. Lorthander motions for Prince Ragar to descend, and the prince confidently steps down first. The bottom of the staircase opens into a large room filled with rows and rows of cages, far as the eye can see. Lorthander waves his fingers illuminating the room in red light. To his horror, Prince Ragar sees that most of the cages are filled with people. Their bony wrists hang pinned against the cells in a "T" shape, which only draw more attention to their lack of nourishment. Each prisoner is on the verge of starvation, and not even a loin cloth covers their shame. The prisoners are naked, dying, and don't even react to Lorthander and Prince Ragar as they've given up hope. "What new evil is this?" Prince Ragar whispers. "The command of your father. He was very strict about not gathering kingdom civilians, but war refugees? That's another matter," Lorthander answers. "My prince, I do not like it. I wish I could stop it, but I'm faithful to the throne. I hope things will be different when you're king...if Osborne ever dies." Prince Ragar, realizing Lorthander's message speaks, "Am I destined to forever be a prince, always at my father's heel? It's not right. It's not natural." "Then the kingdom is worse off, not having you as king. I've known you all your life, prince. You would make a great king." "I will make a great king," Prince Ragar affirms. "My father's atrocities must be stopped." "Are you the one to stop him? The King is powerful, and the hammer at his side is deadly." "I don't know. I must." "My work for your father revealed another ri