34 Rounds [Part 3]

Posted: Monday, 30 May 2011 by Unknown in Labels: , , , , , , , ,
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So this is it, the final part to 34 Rounds, a story that I would have never ever written if it wasn't for way too many video game hours, a few books, and some cheap action films. Enjoy!
Some parts are shamelessly ripped of stuff I've played/ seen/ read. You get a dollar if you can find the references. I'm being serious. I will give you a dollar if you find which source has inspired which part of my story. Have fun with that.
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34 Rounds

-part 3-


            We step inside the narrow elevator as the doors rattle their way open. It feels like a shower cabinet. My companion punches a few buttons and the doors slide to a close. A thump stirs the elevator into motion and we’re slowly ascending. I still have no idea how I got here or where I was last. These corridors, the guards, this man, it makes no sense. 

           I strain myself to remember something, anything. A tingling sensation at the back of my skull suddenly shoots down my spine. I suddenly realize I remember my name, “My name is …”
            “Shut up. This isn’t over yet!” my companion grumbles touching his swollen face.
            “Common man, we’re more than capable of slipping out of here.”
            “Hmmm!” he grunts in what would usually be taken as silent approval, only once more I have that same eery feeling that he knows just a little more than I do. I relax and lean against the elevator wall and cross my arms with a smile. His face is a mess, but he looks quite focused. In fact I don’t recall this guy not wearing a frown. 

            “So do you remember anything at all?”
            He took a moment, then said “The man who you said gave you orders; he addressed me as soldier when I woke up in my cell. Nothing new, could have figured that one by myself.” He lit a cigarette.
            “Those guards before … how did they catch you?”
            “ Off guard. Listen, do you have a point?” he looked at me with his good eye, the frown still on his face.
            “No, just asking. How’s your wound?”
            “Better …” the elevator jerks to a halt. And unsurprisingly we’re in another concrete corridor. A short way ahead a metallic door is rattling in the wind. That must be the way out.

            I step outside and it’s cold. The chill bites into my skin like a battle axe and I feel my fingers slowly going numb. Five minutes in this weather and you get a nose bleed, two hours and you fall down from exhaustion and get ready for the warm comfortable slumber of hypothermia. Nothing burns like the cold.

            The wind and snow make it impossible to properly discern anything. There are three barely visible walls some way away, tall and white. A few crates and a massive truck are half buried in the snow. No visible tracks. Everything else melts in the white noise around. One thing is quite clear, there are no guards. Home free!

[SFX: a soft machine gun rattle of helicopter blades]

            “Well done soldier. Your progress has been satisfactory,” the same voice from the cell is yelling in the wind through a megaphone. “Your final task is to eliminate the infiltrator, the man beside you.”  The voice dies out and the only thing left is the silhouette of the UH-60 Blackhawk floating in the storm. 

            I look at my companion. Beneath the frown his eye is examining me unblinkingly. “A soldier follows orders!” I tell myself as my hand flies to my holstered gun and knife. Before I can reach anything he grabs my hand again. Same technique; elegant and quick as lightning I can barely feel myself flying off my feet down to the icy ground. Only this time he won’t hesitate to kill me. 

            It’s simple, this type of fight. A soldier follows orders. Your loyalties lie with the commanding officer, and there is no room for friends you make along the way. And with the realization that your face is going to be leveled to the ground by an incoming boot you don’t really have time to argue about it anyway. 

            Time can slow down if you want it to. It takes practice but some professionals manage it. All noise gets muted, your vision gets fixed to the nearest threat, the cold goes to a boil in your nostrils as you prepare to act, and for a split second you’re as stiff as a lightning rod. All you feel is the most exquisite sense of flow and focus: combat high.

            I catch the flying boot with my arms. It weighs a ton, but I manage to twist and kick my opponent off balance. I roll backwards and upholster my weapons. For a split second I wait and see the eye patch fixing my gun. I fire a series of shots but they hit air as the man leaps from side to side like a leopard. 

He pulls out his weapon. A well placed shot and his gun goes flying into the white storm. He looks taken back by my shot. I squeeze the trigger again. Then comes the ominous click of an empty magazine. Out of bullets! Before I reach for a new clip the eye patch is racing closer and closer.

            I ready my knife. The blade cuts the wind with a deaf shrill of sharpness. Whatever I do or however quick and deadly I slash this man dodges my blows like he’s not made of flesh and bone. For a second I hesitate in my next move. It’s enough for him to catch my arm. “Not bad boy,” he smirks and burns me with his one-eyed stare but what he has in technique and finesse he lacks in brute strength. So I smash my forehead into his face aiming for his eye. He grunts as I apply a knee to his stomach. 

            He seems to go down. NO! the snake only takes me for a fool as he reverts to his full height, grabs my arm and vaults me over his shoulder. In the instant it takes him to disarm my knife hand I make another roll and run as fast as possible to the half buried truck.

            I look back. He’s vanished like a ghost. I feel the empty magazine slide in my palm as I fit the last seventeen bullet magazine in my gun. I shove the empty clip in my belt and lean out of the cover of the truck to look for my adversary. Nothing there but the cold snow and the impenetrable white wind.

[SFX: a muffed out sound, like a stone falling on ice and snow]

“GRENADE!” I vault out of cover as the safety of the truck goes flying into a thousand pieces of shrapnel. I know his eye is on me. The next thing may be my death. But before I can decide where to move a rush of footsteps charged me from behind. I turn and I see him running. “So much for your element of surprise” I say to myself squeezing four rounds and seeing him dodge behind snow covered crates. I put a few more bullets in the crates and make for the far off point of the perimeter hoping he’ll lop another grenade and give away his position, and then he’ll be dead.

            I run toward the far end corner but as I’m fording through the thick snow I feel a stinging pain in my lower calf. The hurt is the instantaneous. No blinding pain, no shock over the stumbling of my feet, only the clear cut realization that the knife I lost only a few moments ago is properly lodged in my leg.

            I crouch down and shoot a few bullets in the direction the knife came from then I feel the wound. The knife is in deep but the bone is untouched. Before I can pull the blade out another rattle of footsteps catches my ear. I point my gun and fire aimlessly. “I’m losing focus.” 

            All of a sudden I see my adversary rushing toward me like a crazed buffalo. “I know what you want. That’s it; common you bastard!” I intentionally fire off the last of my bullets and hear the finish-line click of an empty magazine. That’s it for my thirty four rounds. Now it’s going to be hand to hand. The eye patch was now coming closer and closer at a steady pace. A sliver of red on his right shoulder, “So you do bleed motherfucker!”

            I stand my ground and get ready for an attack. I grip the knife in my leg. Three meters, I feel the blood coursing out of me; two meters, a few more moments and I’ll put the knife out and shove it right in his abdomen; one meter, I thrust the bloody blade out of my leg and make for my enemy. Weary, wounded, and cold he still manages to block my attack. I thrash and slash but where one moment there’s an opening I feel the hard edge of a blocking elbow, and where I sense a weakness there’s only a strong and proportionally disappointing counter blow. 

            I stop, and he stops. Steaming we stare at each other. He says nothing but stares from under his frown, his eye patch still fixed to his face. I thrust my gun away. It’s useless now. The only remaining weapon, my knife. I can feel its weight in my hand. Will it do any good or will I be stabbed with it in the next thirty seconds? I take a moment. My opponent is stronger, and better trained than I am. I’ve been attacking him like a child attempts to tackle a lion.

            “This is my last chance.” I start at the man; knife in my left hand. He grabs my hand and tries to twist. He’s weakened. I no longer fly of my feet only to realize that I’ve been bested. Instead, the knife seamlessly slips into his reach in a meticulous sleight of hand. It’s then that I feel the cold bite of metal in my chest like a jagged splinter, just inches from my heart. “It’s over” he whispers with a sigh of near regret. And just as he’s about to twist the blade I reach to my belt, grab the empty bullet magazine and shove it deep into his eye socket crushing his temple.

            I hear a beastly scream as he loosens his grip on the blade. Hopeless and blind he dangles back and forth like a sock puppet, a steam of bloody tears flowing from the fresh wound. “Now we’re even.” 

            All around me flies back into proportion like the curtains just dropped behind me. It’s so cold. The helicopter’s blades cut the chilly air in a rhythmic cacophony. It feels like it’s been hours since I’ve heard it. The screams of pain die out as the man retreats farther and farther away, stumbling aimlessly in the snow. I reach to my wound. Hot streams of blood are flowing out in torrents. Nothing can be done about it, I’ll soon be dead. Now it’s just a matter of time.

            Soon after, I collapse on the cold ground. The helicopter flies away. “So much for extraction” I tell myself. The snow is biting at my face as I fall powerless to the ground. My eyes slowly close and a deep slumber comes over me. Nothing burns like the cold.

-          Debriefing   -

My name is Mathew. And I’m dead. I died of a stab wound (well, several) in a large court in the middle of a snow storm. I felt the life run out of my body as I closed my eyes. So … how is it that I still live?
“First sergeant Mathew, weak up!” the colonel’s voice echoed in the large room.

As I opened my eyes I found myself strapped to a table. But I remembered everything now. The experiment, the training, the drugs … John!

“How’s John?” I looked around the room and suddenly remembered the backbreaking bed I was seated on a few hours ago.
“He’s smoking in the lobby. Apparently you cost him and some of the staff, and me, quite a sum of money.”
“What do you mean?” I asked confused.
“Bets, but that’s off the record …” he explained looking for a man in a white coat. “Doctor, are the drugs still affecting him.”
“No sir, but it’s usual for a test subject to be disorientated after …”
“Alright, alright! Get him unstrapped we need to debrief.” the colonel dismissed the man in the white coat.

            I ran my hand to my chest. The wound was gone. And so was the one in my leg. It was all just a dream; a very real and quite painful dream. The man in the white lab coat unattached a few wires from my head and unlaced my arms and legs.

            “Ok soldier, on your feet and follow me!” I stood up. No hazy feeling of pretend balance, no headaches or sores, it was like I just woke up from a long dream.

We stepped into a large lobby. Many men in white coats started clapping frantically, some cheering, some just smiling. “They must be the ones who won the bet …” I tell myself. Among them was a man with an eye patch on his face: John. He took a few steps toward me; the same frown was on his face. “A bullet clip?” he asked as he started laughing and patting me friendly on the back. “Common, this wasn’t as bad as last time. Let’s go.”

            We arrived in a large well lit room. A podium was placed on the far side and the rest was all chairs and a few disgruntled looking military officials. I and John were asked to sit close to the front. “This always makes me feel like a lab rat.” John whispered leaning over to me.

            The colonel took the stand, saluted the men in the room. “The twenty third trial of the Epsilon experiment has just been concluded. We received two well trained voluntaries for this session: First Sergeant Mathew MacAlister, and Major John Crams. The experiment is a form of exercise. We sedate the subjects, link them up to the monitoring apparatus in the laboratory and chemically induce a state of controlled amnesia. A very vivid dream, that’s the best description for what the subjects experience.

            “The general task of the subjects is to escape a predesigned maze and then fight each other. We’ve varied the experiments, as you’ll see in the full report, but the general goal is to gauge the effectiveness of training within the altered state, and assess the soldiers understanding of a given command. Sixty five percent of subjects have become unstable during the process so the experiment had to be terminated. Twenty five percent exhibited psychotic behavior. Our team of scientists is trying to see if there’s a causal link between psychotic behavior and the administered drugs. Lastly, the remaining ten percent complete the course at a satisfactory level.
            “So far we’ve realized that some subjects like MacAlister and Crams almost realize the false reality. However, we keep that risk under control by inserting virtual guards, and life like scenarios. We’ll get an architect for level design in future …“ That’s where I stopped listening. It was mostly the same story I’ve known form the beginning of the project.

            The experiments we’re working well and they were using John and me between fairly large intervals of time so we wouldn’t develop any mental imbalances. There was an explanation for that one two, but I reconsidered and stopped caring. At least it paid well.

            It’s very strange, to be very certain of something one moment and then to be able to doubt and even reconstruct it in the next. During the past months I’ve felt more and more certain that this experiment was indeed messing with my mind. I didn’t have violent dreams, or sudden outbursts of uncontrolled rage. No. That was for the unlucky twenty-five-and-growing percent of subjects. What I did feel was hollow. A growing hunger.

            When the order to “eliminate the infiltrator” finally came they would be testing your loyalty to the chain of command, your honoring of the military service. I checked the reports on my previous performance on the same test. I always, always flinched or hesitated in some way, until a few sessions ago. I asked a lab staff member, he confirmed by showing a few graphs that supposed to be changes in brainwaves.

            You did hone your skills and all felt as real as it could. But it was unnerving to remember how you decapitated your friend with a vent grill, only to laugh about it over a beer. That uncanny feeling was digging deep inside my head and I was only now starting to question if my sanity was hanging in the balance.

            They say that only two types of people don’t hesitate when they have a gun pointed at them: professional killers and psychopaths. I wonder if anyone could really tell the difference.
           
 The End

34 Rounds [Part 2]

Posted: Tuesday, 10 May 2011 by Unknown in Labels: , , , , ,
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This is the second part of what will eventually be a three part short story. It's brilliant, funny, gritty, and unedited. You're welcome.


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34 Rounds
-pt.2-



The only noise in the long corridor is made by my footsteps. The silence weighs down like blanket of concrete and I feel unnerved. No smell, no draft, just the same dampness of a basement. It’s dark.
I wonder if the guards have found the body I left back at the toilet. That should sound an alarm. Or maybe not. Maybe that’s part of this test. I have to be more careful. My grip tightens around the gun, the knife is ready in my left hand.

I step into a very large room, looks like it’s used for storage. There are catwalks around the walls leading into separate upper-levels of the structure. In the darkness the ladders and paths staked on the tall walls give the impression of a rib cage. This place is big.

“Cigarette smoke!” I tell myself. It’s coming from one off the far of corners. I can hear my heart rate in my ear drums as I step closer and closer toward the source of the smoke. “Idiots” I tell myself reassuringly.
A fresh looking bloodstain ruins the fine dark gray texture of the floor. “Maybe it’s the same guy …” Around the corner are a series of metallic shelves packed to the point of refusal with cardboard boxes and other objects that are neatly wrapped in plastic. “That’s where I’d try to hide.” I move slowly along the tall shelves. It’s very dark, but the smell of cigarettes is all around. Wait! I can see the small ember of a cigarette tip. I quicken my pace.

The only light now is the fading red glow of the cigarette tip. I crouch down for closer inspection but something grabs my gun hand from the darkness. The strong hold squeezes like a vise and twists my hand. I drop my gun. It feels like my whole arm will come off; the next split second I’m flat on my back. Another swift blow makes the knife slide from my grip. My throat is pressed back by what feels like the sole of a boot and a bright light blinds me. It’s a flashlight.

“Hhmrrr” my tormentor gives a guttural grunt, “You’re no guard.” he says still fixing my throat with his foot. He leans in for a closer look.
“I woke up an hour ago. I don’t remember much.” I tell him as I gasp for air. I’m looking around for anything that can give me an advantage. It’s too dark to see anything and I am bested. “I saw blood earlier, are you wounded?”
“Just a scratch. I patched myself up before you got here. How many guards did you encounter on your way?”
“Four. Killed one of them and hid him in the toilet.”
“The toilet?”
“Yes, the toilet. I didn’t have time for an official burial with the armed patrols and all that.” As my eyes adjust to the flashlight I can distinguish some of the man’s features. White male, most likely heavy build considering he tossed me like a wedding bouquet, eye-patch on his right eye (“and he got me in the dark; how embarrassing.”), sharp hand-to-hand skills. “I think you can take your foot from my throat now.”
“Sure,” he says as he helps me up. “So what do you know about this place?”
“Not much. The structure looks like a labyrinth, it think it’s underground. I interrogated a guard, he said there are elevators. I’m guessing that the only way out.”
“Do you have any orders?” he looks at me with his good eye.
“Yes, there was a speaker in the room I woke up in. It said something about a test, and me being drugged. I think it should start to wear out soon.”
“I said orders …”
“My task is to exit this facility.”
“Interesting.” He says putting one hand scientifically to his chin.
“What about you? How did you get here?”
“Same. Only I’ve been around for over eight hours. I remember my past, save the last four days. It’s very strange.”
“Any way out of here?”
“The elevators need some code, or a key. There are no stairs and the corridors lead to dead ends or more storage rooms.”
“I picked up a keycard form the guard in the toilet. It should help. What about your orders?” I ask.
“Getting out is one of them. Here are your weapons,” he hands me my gun and knife, “Follow me.”

As I follow in the man’s footsteps I can help but think that he knows a little more than I do. The evasive bastard! And he’s good, better than I am. I have to be careful.

We walk stealthily across a number of identical corridors. I’m almost loosing track of where we started from. 
My companion is as silent as the constant draft that skirts along the gray walls of this endless basement. In this dead silence any noise is as subtle as a 4th of July fireworks display. “Watch out for the camera up ahead.” He whispers and points out a small box on the far side of the wall. He hugs the wall and slides along the wall until he is out of range of the camera. I follow.

We come to a tall room, it looks like a lobby. The walls are a stark red with many doors on each side and there’s an upper level. It looks very different from where we started, almost like the lobby of a hotel, only with a distinct ghost town atmosphere. “Don’t you remember where the elevators where?” I ask my companion feeling a little restless.

“I don’t remember coming to this room. Maybe we can find something around,” he starts digging in his backpack, “Take this suppressor. If you come across a guard try and find out where the exit is. Oh, and don’t stash the body in another toilet cubicle.”
“Alright, I’ll take the upper floor.”
“Good luck.” And he makes for one of the doors.

I take the stairs to the upper floor. It looks like there are no patrols. I check the rooms; they all look like poorly designed offices that would make the most boring accountant want a real job. Luckily enough one of them had a vent shaft conveniently large enough for a man to fit in. I remove the screws and carefully put away the grill.

I crawled in the dusty darkness for some twenty minutes. The only thing I could hear was the eventual tin foil pop of the shaft as I moved about. Eventually I come to another room filled with lockers. On the opposite wall from where I’m standing there’s a door. Just as I prepare to smash open the grill I hear footsteps and the door slides open. “Good” I tell myself with increased expectation.

“I got to tell you man, it wasn’t pretty. I mean fuck, his head was dangling like it was about to drop off.” One guard told the other, he looked slightly entertained.
“Shit, we better keep our eyes peeled. When’s your shift?”
“Two hours. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
“Oh, don’t be such a pussy.”

The guards are equipped with SMGs. They aren’t wearing any protective gear. They were talking about the corpse I left behind. “Pussies!” That can work to my advantage.

Before anything else happens I smash-in the vent grill with my elbow. The two are in my sight. Before they make a move I put two bullets in the nearest guard’s head. He falls to the floor instantly. The second guard get’s three rounds in the right shoulder. He drops his gun and whimpers in the corner. I rush out from the vent shaft and grab him. I put my hand over his mouth and press him against the wall. “I need you to be silent. If you make a noise you’ll look just like your friend there. Blink if you understand!”

He blinks twice.

“What are the exits to this place?”

He blinks, I let go of his mouth slowly. My knife is helping me persuade him by gently rocking on his jugular.
“There’s a tunnel far off … ohhhh God! … and and, there are a few elevators. Don’t kill me, please.”
“Elevators? Where’s the closest one?”
“You go down the stars and there’s a door at the end of the lobby. Then you make a right, the elevators are right there.”
“Do I need a key or anything?”
“Standard issue keycard. H-here, you can have mine.” He stretches out a trembling hand with a yellow magnetic card. Then I knock him out.

I shove both bodies in the venting shaft. They fit perfectly; it gives me a sense of gratification, like a job well done.

As I descend the stairs I hear commotion. The sound of feet and shuffling is all about. Then I hear “FREEZE!”

“Shit!” I tell myself, and I rush down the stairs. I turn back to where I think the red lobby should be. The noises are getting stronger. “Where is he you fuck?” I recognize the voice of an angry guard, then there’s a thumping noise, kind of like the noise you hear when someone smashes a rifle butt on your head.

I crack the door slightly just to see what’s going on. There are two guards. One of them is interrogating my companion with the use of his rifle, the other one looks like he’s taking notes.

I walk inside, gently sliding the door behind me. The guards are too focused ruining my companions face. I quicken my pace as I aim through the sights. The idle guard goes down first attracting the attention of his prepotent colleague. As he turns around I put one round in his skull. I hear the sound of the gun slide in slow motion, that metallic scythe sound, then the explosion followed by the muffled cutting tone of a bullet speeding through air. My target falls dead.

My companion stares at me. “Thanks.” He says, a tinge of embarrassment in his voice.
“Hey, no worries, we’re going to be even eventually.”
He gets up touching his jaw. It looks like an eggplant was stuck to his face. “Did you manage to find anything?”
“Yeah, the elevators are close. I also got you a keycard, here,” I hand him the yellow piece of plastic, “I already have one.”
“Did you hide the bodies?”
“In a vent.”
“Good, let’s get rid of this mess.”

We drag the two guards into one of the adjacent rooms. The good part about the structure was that it was in no way lacking when it came to places to dispose of not-yet-rotting cadavers.
“Ok, we’re done here.” My companion says readjusting his eye-patch “Now show me to the elevators so we can get out of here.”
“Follow me.”

34 Rounds [Part 1]

Posted: Monday, 9 May 2011 by Unknown in Labels: , , , ,
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Since writing in parts in the new black I obviously have to get in on it. So here's a short story that I have no idea how I will conclude.

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34 Rounds
-pt.1-


I wake up on what feels like a particularly uncomfortable hospital bed. How did I get here? I open my eyes. My vision is blurry. My head feels like it’s about to split open as I sit up. I look around, my eyes half closed, my forehead throbbing with pain. I’m shaking. “I’ve been drugged” I tell myself sagaciously.

The room I’m in is three by four meters, there are no windows, the walls are covered in fine very bright white plaster (may be hollow, also the color adds to the head ache), no windows, a door, there is a table with a black gun shaped object (probably a gun) some way away from where I’m sitting. “Get the gun!” I order myself. I cannot properly stand so I sit and inspect the room further. I can hear a deep rattle coming from inside the walls. “Probably a venting system; I’m underground …” On the far upper corner of the room there’s a black speaker.

I finally get myself up. My feet feel as stiff as tram rails. I lurch myself slowly across the room to the table. “Get the gun!” I order myself. In my hand I’m holding a 9mm Beretta Storm. I pull out the magazine, “seventeen rounds, none in the chamber.” I slide the magazine back in and pull the slide.

[SFX: irritating buzzing noise followed by interference.]

I jerk around suddenly. The speaker on the wall is in my sights. “Calm down, it’s no threat to you.” Says the speaker reassuringly. “Do you remember anything, name, age, affiliation with any group or organization?”
I cock the gun and slide to the left-hand side of the door and hug the wall. “Calm down and answer!” the speaker says with a tinge of frustration. “No!” I answer as I look around for a hidden camera, anything. I see nothing. The adrenaline just gave me the focus I needed.

“Perfect. Here is the situation: you have voluntarily offered yourself to be part of an experiment. Due to the nature of this test you have been drugged. You will probably have trouble remembering anything but the training you have received for another hour or so. Your goal is to escape this facility. Your obstacles involve traps and live fire from trained personnel. You can use anything you find fit to complete your task. Friendly hint, there’s another magazine for your gun inside the drawer right under the table. Good luck!”

I grab the ammunition from the table and I make my way out of the room. The dark lit corridor I’m in has a draft, the smell is damp but there’s a slight aroma of cigarette smoke in the current. I follow the smell to an intersection. There’s a puddle of drying blood at my feet, probably five or six hours old. I find a 9mm bullet casing on the ground. “Poor bastard, didn’t have time to aim.”

Voices echo along the walls. My heart rate goes up, my breathing is steady. I ready my weapon and walk slowly toward the voices. “… the third one today … Ha! Ha!” one voice echoes. “… this is the best job ever …” another voice, “Cannon fodder, all of them.” The smell of cigarette smoke just got a lot stronger.
The corridor leads into a larger section segmented in separate rooms. The guards are all bunched up in a small chamber to my right, three or more of them. “I’m gonna take a piss …” a distant voice declares lazily. “THIS IS MY CHANCE!” and I rush leftwards by the rooms. I fly past several poorly decorated chambers, just chairs and tables. The damp smell of a basement is all about. I finally find the toilets at the far end of the corridor.

The guard is very careful at making as much noise as possible. I can hear him trotting across the corridor passing all the rooms I just passed. He’s in no hurry. He just stepped inside one of the adjacent toilet cubicles.
“Oh yeah, here it comes …”

[SFX: pissing sound]

He comes out of the cubicle. I grab his arm and twist it behind him; he bends like a stripper as I fix my arm round his neck, with my right I bring the muzzle to his temple. “In five seconds I’ll let go of you. If you move I put 3 pullets in the back of your head.” I let go and take a step back, the gun pointed at his head.
The guard is now facing away from me, he is scared. Probably has something to do with me having a gun to his head. “How many of you are inside that room?”

“F-f-f-four.”
“Good. Weapons?”
“SMG standard issue and c-c-combat knives. One or two grenades.”
“What’s the way out of this place?”
 “I d-don’t know. The corridors are like a maze, but there are elevators.” He suddenly turns and tries to disarm me. I knee him in the testicles. As he falls to his knees I hit him in the face. He falls flat and tries to run. I grab his head as he gets up. The neck gives way with a sickening crack and he falls to the floor. “Not done with my questions sadly.”

I place the corpse neatly on one of the toilets. The knife the guard had will make for better conversations later, if any.

A Challenger Appears!

Posted: by Aron Kadar in
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Thank you my dear friend for you rather engaging introduction. Once I managed to suffer my way through your endless and pointless blabbering, I decided it was high time I showed how to do this whole blogging thing right. That was... um... about two weeks ago. Well, quality work takes time, and I realized that if I want to contribute to our joint abomination with something that actually has at least the slightest amount of literary value, I better make sure that I take all the time and effort possible to make sure it's not going to turn out to be some illegible and uninteresting piece of writing. Like, say, yours.
     All right, to tell the truth, I was too busy doing the pointless shit I usually do during my weekdays (giving blood, helping the elderly and trying to reverse global warming), but hey, I could have spent all this time on developing my first story. At any rate, here it comes: my first instalment to our horrid and misbegotten lovechild:

Misadventure on the Green Planet

                        It all happened during the first days of our semester. Me and my friend Zlad have just arrived to the Green Planet as transfer students; I still remember the excitement I felt during our first walk on the streets of the Capital City. I have to admit that – judging by the brochures and informational tapes I saw about the planet – I was expecting something more... different. The truth was, however, that we could barely differentiate between the inhabitants of our new homeworld, and Planet Earth. People seemed a bit more relaxed, open-minded, and friendly, but it was too early to draw judgement, as we only met an insignificant fraction of the planet’s population.
            At any rate, we had a great time. Until the incident, that is. A few days after our arrival we decided to pay a visit to Delta Park, which was supposedly a must-see for everyone who set foot on this world. Returning space-farers often mused for hours about the unique kind of peace they found there while lying in the grass between the gigantic pine-trees, listening to the bumblebees (that were quite larger yet more lazy and peaceful than their counterparts on Earth) buzzing around, and the mellow tinkling sound of the delicate streams flowing between the carefully placed rocks. We decided it was high time we checked with our own eyes if those myths were true. For safety measures, we put some of our beers (it was I who accidentally packed it into our luggage before leaving Earth, but we were quite happy about finding it out) into our bags.
            Delta Park lived up to its premise. The majestic trees, the warm breeze on our skin, the clean laughter of the little children who ran around carelessly all made us forget about our worries concerning our studies. We enjoyed some light-hearted conversation or just the mere sight of the warm and welcoming colours of the park, and were gulping our beers with apparent pleasure. I still sharply remember the moment when I noticed something strange on Zlad’s face: a glimpse of confusion and surprise crossed it for a brief moment and, as I followed his gaze, I noticed two seemingly enraged policemen advancing towards us.
            “Oh, you’re now in trouble, boys” the one with the beard said “You don’t wanna know how big trouble you are in. IDs. Now.”
            “What seem to be the problem, offi...”
            “IDs. Now.” Interrupted the bald cop Zlad, raising his voice perhaps just a bit more than it was necessary.
            So we showed them our IDs, and let them search us thoroughly, still not having the slightest idea about what was going on. One of the cops mumbled something into his walkie-talkie. I couldn’t understand what he said, but I thought I heard the word ‘junkies’. They gave us our stuff back (except the beers which they put into little plastic bags, and took with themselves) and prompted us into a police car. They weren’t too gentle while doing so. When we tried to ask them what we did, they told us to shut up. Things were looking bad.
            By the time we got to the police station, the last remaining morsels of our moral were methodically trampled into nonexistence by the policemen. Even though they refused to tell us the exact cause of our detainment, they just wouldn’t stop talking about what scum they believed us to be for corrupting the society.
            So in a cell we were being put, Zlad and I, and we spent about three hours there, between some tattooed or toothless, but generally smug-looking criminals without the slightest conception of why we were put there in the first place. When we tried to talk, we’ve been hissed or growled at by the policemen; it was apparent by the way they looked at us that we must have done something horrible. After seemingly endless hours of waiting, we’ve been collected and urged to see the sergeant on duty.
            When we’ve been left alone with the morose-looking man with freckled skin and eyebrows so thick that smaller birds could have nested in it without any problem, he looked at us for long-long seconds with barely concealed disgust.
            “Well, boys,” he said eventually “From Planet Earth as I heard, yes?”
            As it turned out, we were not the only ones in a similar situation. In fact, there were dozens of students every year from our homeworld who happened to commit the same misdemeanour. Since the politicians of the Capital City got fed up by these “shameless attempts to spread moral decay and ideological corruption”, they decided it was high time they began properly punishing those who did not obey the regulations regarding this serious issue. Namely the consumption of alcohol.
            “Why, of course it is illegal!” said the sergeant, answering our surprised inquiry, “It is one of the most dangerous substances known to man. Destroys your liver, your kidneys, your stomach, teeth, brain, all that in no time! And you haven’t even thought about your personality, your family, your future. Great job boys, way to wreck your life at such a young age!”
            When we started protesting, pointing out that we merely had two bottles of beer each, he laughed out in a rather cynical way.
            “That is how you all begin” he said, smearing his mighty eyebrows with a greasy thumb “A glass of beer first, then a bottle of wine, a few shots of vodka; hardly any time has to pass until you start off every day with some booze and, eventually, you catch yourself stealing your parents’ money just to get your hands on some cheap liquor. I’ve seen such stories, plenty of, and let me tell you: there’s no happy ending.”
            When we pointed out the fact that we’ve been actually happily consuming beer for ages without it turning us into raging alcoholics, all we got from him was an annoyed snort.
            “That’s what all of them says,” he said “That’s what all of them says. Think you have control over it, don’t ya? Well, my friends, you are badly mistaken to believe that you can decide when you want to get off this ride! One beer, that’s all it takes, mark my words. That’s all it takes. What were you dumb-wits thinking, drinking in public, in front of children? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” he was doing a great job at infuriating himself, I had to admit it “What kind of ideas do you think you are planting in their little heads? I’m sorry, but I just can’t let you go around destroying the moral backbone of our society. Next time do what every law-abiding citizen does here: smoke a spliff instead. Idiots.”
            So that’s how we became criminals. They took our fingerprints, our mugshots, and locked us in for two months. Needless to say, that resulted in our studies coming to an abrupt yet inevitable end. We couldn’t wait to leave the god-forsaken planet behind us for good.
            I still remember how it was our very first thing after arrival to visit the first pub we saw and get drunk like there was no tomorrow. We went on some brutal drinking-sprees with Zlad in the following years, but in a strange yet unpreventable way our friendship faded in the course of time. Somehow that joint experience made something click; nothing was the same any more. Before long, we discontinued our drinking nights – which became more and more reckless with time – and barely heard of each other since. The last thing I heard about him was that he had one of his kidneys removed and, as a result, he had to spend half a year in some austere public clinic. Serves him right, for all that mindless drinking he did recently...
            As for me, I gave up the idea of getting a degree, and became a car mechanic. Not that it’s the best job I can think of, but provides me with enough to drink my worries away from time to time. Speaking of which, I think it’s time I stopped writing right now. All this rambling about past memories made me quite thirsty. I just need a small sip of something, nothing more...