Bro, car naps hit SO much different after offing a few dudes and killing a guy after giving him hope. Not gonna lie, it felt pretty good! It was pretty funny too. Like you don't get it, killing someone for not wearing a seatbelt is something I've always wanted to do. Let this be a lesson to you lazy fucks who say the seatbelt is "uncomfortable." Say that after doing a triple axel ballerina spin inside your car as it dives into a cliff high enough to kill you but not enough to do so if YOU WERE WEARING A FUCKING SEATBELT, DIPSHIT.
Anyways.
I wake up again. Back in that same wackass dream. Y'know what, I lowkey forgot this was going to happen for some reason. Like, I've been through this like, a couple times already, but I guess going through that whole thing really just made me lose track of these kinds of things.
My eyes open to myself sitting crisscross apple sauce with all of my past corpses around me. And yes, I still use the term "crisscross apple sauce." It's a term Ellie and I kept around for years, so it just kinda stuck around. Fuck off if you think it's dorky. The only one who can think it's dorky now is me.
The familiar low red light buzzes around me, like a computer engine lightly humming in the background. Along with that, was another large bright, red, unforgiving number 17 looming in the distance off the cliffside leading to a vat of empty nothingness. Again, like, I understand that's how many times I've died. Don't need to remind me. Also no, I didn't check fully if the big cliff would kill me or just bring me back to the fucking start of the dream. I am NOT jumping down there.
I let out a long sigh as I stand up, inspecting the corpses nearby.
There's the one where Lola kicked me in the face and absolutely atomized me. Good times. Always wanted to feel her feet on my face. Whoa! Who said that?
Oh, and there's the most recent one! So yeah, I did get shot in the head. The bullet hole is right in between the glowing numbers of 1 and 7 floating in front of my forehead.
Other than that, all of the other corpses were here. They were all kind of piled in one spot though. That's probably where they killed me in the last dream I had. Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever died in a dream before... Would my body still be there?
... Curiosity never killed an immortal cat I guess.
I walk towards the pile of corpses and begin peeling them off each other one by one, some chunks of flesh in some areas that I wouldn't have expected and some blood here and there, but I've already been through too much for it to disgust me at this point.
The more bodies I pull away, the more there seems to be something glowing underneath them. I continue to drag more and more corpses away, thankfully somewhat light due to my perfect weight and I guess a little to my strength. That's when I found it. Her? Me? I'm... actually not sure what to call this. I've called all of my corpses "me" in the sense that it was a point in where I've died but... this is really freaky.
Underneath all of the bodies I find one laying face first in the ground, a number 1 in front of its forehead but its entire body red and glowing much like the huge number in the sky. I raise an eyebrow and see the body suddenly jerk, its arms pushing its upper body from the floor and turning itself towards me.
I don't think this was me when I got killed from the dream. I mean maybe it is? But at the same time, the normal number 1 wasn't one of the bodies I pulled out so... Maybe this is number 1?
It tilts its head at me, its eyes wide open, pupilless, and and giving off a faint yellow glow. I remain silent for a second.
"What the fuck are you??" My eyes squint at the weird... outline of myself? I mean. That's what it kind of looks like! It doesn't have any real defining features. It just kind of has the form of my face without a mouth, the general shape of my hair, and some indents on her that sort of implies my usual clothes which is just a white buttoned up shirt, dress pants, and shoes. And y'know what? Outline doesn't sound like a bad term for this. This is a new thing after all! I'm learning! Even though I have no idea what this does for me! It's kinda cool though...
The outline squints at me, unable to respond due to the very obvious lack of lips, tongue, teeth, and everything in between. Upon realizing she wasn't saying anything, she felt around her mouth, her eyes expressing how puzzled she was in the form of furrowing. Was she not aware what she looked like or something? Thought that was pretty clear if I do say so myself.
I rack my brain a little to try to come up with a way to communicate with her as my eyes slowly scan our surroundings. Nothing but dead bodies, flesh, blood... Oh, blood!
It seems like we thought of the same exact thing at the same exact time because she went to kneel over a body, her arm reaching out to dip her finger in the crimson liquid. After doing so, she pulled her arm back slowly, with me expecting it to be absolutely covered by blood, but no dice for some reason.
"Huh. Well, you got any other ideas?"
She shrugs. Yeah, I would've done the same thing.
I take a seat on the glassy floor below us with the outline taking another seat next to me. Both of us crisscross applesauce.
"You ever wonder why things are like this?" I say turning to the outline, again not expecting much of a response.
She shrugs again.
"Like, this is all so... well, cool,"
She nods quickly in agreement.
"But what the fuck is all this shit?" I throw my arms out towards the endless void surrounding us and the big number 17 being the main source of light in this whole dreamscape.
"Like, this has got to be connected somehow to the whole immortality thing, right? That only makes sense." I raise an eyebrow at the outline to which she again responds with nodding.
"I mean at least this is a little bit more bearable now that I have someone to talk to. Kind of like talking to a brick wall, but y'know." My hands prop my torso up as I lean back, my eyes locked on that big number 17.
Man I'm bored. Really wish there was actually something to do here, but I guess I kind of have to wait to wake up to do anything. Seriously. Whoever made this dream place really needs to add some kind of entertainment here! Who came up with this bullshit idea of just having absolutely nothing but your dead bodies around and weird, digitally versions of yourself? What a load of horse shit.
The outline and I spent the rest of our time in the dream playing chopsticks and rock, paper, scissors. What the else are we supposed to do? Play I spy? Alright, I spy something with my little eye that's dead, has a wolfcut, dead, wearing a white button-up, dead, covered in blood, and very very dead. Oh my gosh! You got it! It's one my many corpses in this absolutely yawn-inducing hellscape. I'd rather watch paint dry on growing grass.
Thankfully, the dream didn't last too long and I woke up. You know that feeling you get sometimes when you take a nap and all of your senses are completely fucked over and you're drenched in sweat? Yeah, I got that.
While I slowly open my eyes I see a tall figure lumbering over me in the dark outside of my car door.
"AH!" I shriek and draw one of my pistols, firing at the person's head. They tilt their head to the side and grumble.
"Perhaps not waste ammo on supervisor. Yes?" Russian accent.
"Fuck. I knew it was you too." I yawn while wiping the corner of my eye with the pistol's barrel. My senses come back to me. It was pretty dark out with the sun beginning to set, covering almost the entire empty parking lot with the shadow of the large building we saw on the drone footage and the plan schematics. The building was made out of dark metal, indents on all walls making this sort of wavy pattern on it. Following a ladder upwards, my eyes made contact with the huge glass roof over the whole place.
"I thought you guys said it would take a few hours. Why the hell is it so late?" I say as I groggily stepped out of the car.
"Chrissy suggested to let you rest. You'll need it." The big man says as he walks to the trunk of the SUV. I follow him back and Chrissy is inside the huge open space in the back of the car, slipping 6 or so knives in the straps on her thighs. Along with that were 4 mini-uzis equipped on the sides of her body underneath her top set of arms and her legs. Last but finally not least, she had a long sniper rifle slung over her back. Not that one she used in the shooting range though. I'm like 99% sure it's illegal to fire that at a living human being anyways.
"Good evening, sleepy head!"
"Don't call me that, skank."
"So, listen! I know you don't like a whole lot of gear other than your two handguns, buuut..."
"The Woman" reaches towards a side of the trunk which had a bunch of different weapons hoisted up on it as well as some other stuff that I can't identify.
She grabbed a few things I can't identify.
"Seriously?"
"I'm sure you'll like them! So these..."
Chrissy grabs my arms (which honestly, what am I supposed to do to stop her?) and slides on two braces that covered around a third of my forearm starting at my wrist.
"come with hooks so you can cock your guns without having to let go of the other one! And it also has magnets that work with these next things..."
She straps two rectangle-shaped compartments to the outsides of each of my thighs. Looking down the three sets of holes that are at the top of them, they were filled with magazines fit for my pistols. They were a little heavy, but not too bad honestly.
"Alright, fine. I'll bite. How does this work?"
"I told you you'd like them!"
"Fuck up."
"So those two thingies on your wrists have magnets that can pull out a magazine from these other things if you need it! Look,"
She grabs my arm again and angles it so the inner area of the bracelet hovers over one of the holes. Just like she said, the underside of a magazine inside the compartment sticks to the brace, pulling it out in the process.
"..."
"Eh? Eh?" She says with a grin.
"Okay, I'm impressed. Thanks."
"Yay!" She stands up and hops in place a little. Hey, I know when I'm beat. Plus what am I supposed to do? Deny these perfectly good gadgets laid out in front of me? I might be pissy, like, all the time, but I'm not an idiot.
"By the way, what's up with that guy?" My eyes wander over to Drake who was leaning against the other side of the car, his hands covering his head as he slouches forward. Sure, the guy is always slouching and acting mysterious in the first place, but I've never really seen him like that before.
"Oh..." Chrissy's mood instantly drops down at the mention of Drake. Her mouth closes shut as she glances over to his general vicinity.
I raise an eyebrow at Pavul, who refuses to say anything. Just crossing his arms and looking grumpy as always. He nods towards Chrissy, seemingly giving her the go-to.
"Well..." She squints almost as if she's unsure what to say despite being the one elected to do so. "Let's just say Drake has..."
My eyes pan over to him as she talks. Some bone spikes begin to grow underneath the sleeves of his arms and the clothing on his back, piercing through some of the fabric as his chest rises and falls rapidly. Blood drips out from the edges of the spikes, his body shivering from each one protruding from his body as if these ones weren't intentional and were rising due to some bad reaction. The more I looked at him, the more I got that feeling coming off of him. Bloodlust. But much similar yet different to when Pavul was about to punch me, it had an underlying sense of fear behind it. Does he have...
"Some history with our target."