The Only Game There Is

[Jenga]

The Only Game There Is
By JENGA

Jeremy woke to the smell of ashes.

The muted daylight through his closed eyelids put him in a gray, dreary world where ash seemed to be the only thing in abundance. It clogged his nostrils and clouded his eyes, filled his mouth and coated his skin. Unable to bear it, he swept the gray powder from his eyes with the forearm of his uniform.

As he clambered to his feet, the rest of the world trickled into his consciousness one by one, as if entering through a doorway. Jagged rubble pierced the soles of his combat boots. A hot, dry wind flailed at him, bringing the familiar smell of gunpowder and charred bodies.

When the sound of booted feet crunching on rubble reached his ears, his eyes shot open and his lethargy disappeared. Jeremy frantically groped around for his rifle as the sounds came closer. He could hear the radio chatter of the approaching Combine troopers as if they were right next to him. Jeremy was afraid that they actually were.

He spotted his weapon near a large storm drain outlet, not ten feet away. Using the remains of the fallen building for cover, he ran in a crouch towards his rifle, and his only chance. The crumbling walls hid him from view, but the sound of his feet on loose rocks and debris betrayed him.

The sounds of weapons being cocked drove Jeremy to desperation. He lunged for the open storm drain, grabbing his weapon along the way.

He crouched in the damp darkness, waiting for the Combine soldiers to show themselves, as they usually do, with guns blazing. The water running through the drain sloshed over and around in his feet, but he didn't notice. Nor did he notice the sound of footsteps shuffling through the water behind him.

Gnarled hands grabbed his shoulders from behind and threw him face-down into the tepid water. He tried to swing his rifle around, but the hands snatched them from his grasp.

Twisting around, he froze in shock and knew he was going to die. Silhouetted against the cloudy sky was the figure of a zombie, the headcrab on top making an eerily inhuman bulge.

Jeremy was very surprised to see that the zombie was toting a sack. Zombies didn't usually burden themselves with inanimate objects unless they were going to toss them at prey. So it was even more of a surprise when the zombie opened the sack and kicked whatever was in it.

It was at that exact moment that a Combine soldier appeared outside the sewer pipe. As he scanned the area, a flesh-colored blur streaked from the sack and hurled itself at the soldier's head.

The soldier's scream was filled with panic and pain. As he staggered away from the pipe, he dropped his weapon and clawed at the headcrab chewing through his helmet and into his skull.

Looking at the zombie in confusion, Jeremy found himself face to face with the visage of a man, not twisted in tortuous horror like other zombies, but peering at him in cold calculation. As he stood, the man tilted the headcrab further back up his forehead. Jeremy realized he was using it as a hat or mask, and immediately felt sick.

"Come on," the man said, slinging the now-empty sack over his shoulder. "There'll be more of them soon."

 

[Jenga]

Picking himself up, Jeremy brushed at his Resistance-issue uniform in a vain attempt to straighten it out. He glanced over at the man who had just saved his life, sporting a headcrab for a hat and Jeremy's rifle for a weapon.

"Can I have my weapon back?" Jeremy demanded, glaring daggers.

"Only if you take better care of it," he replied hotly, tossing it back with an underhand throw. Without waiting for Jeremy's reply, he pushed past and walked deeper into the pipe, and further from the light.

Checking the action of his rifle, Jeremy muttered, "you didn't have to be so rough, neither." He hefted his weapon and followed the strange figure into the darkness.

As they splashed along under the City, his curiosity overrode his common sense. The questions burst from his mouth like a geyser, endless and uncontrollable. "Who are you? Why did you save me? Where the hell are you taking me?"

For a while the man said nothing despite the barrage of questions. When Jeremy finally ran out of breath, the man said "now I know why so many of you are dead."

Jeremy's eyes reddened in fury. He aimed at the man before him and cocked the weapon even though it was already loaded, sending an unexpended round into the water. Shit, he thought, he wasted a round. The sarge would chew him out. He involuntarily glanced at the water where the bullet landed.

Suddenly, Jeremy found his face wrapped in coarse sack cloth while his hands were emptied of his weapon and twisted behind his back. He struggled, but the man's grip was like iron. After a few minutes of futile thrashing, he was pushed forward and released.

As before, the man with the headcrab hat slung the sack over his shoulder and held the rifle, HIS rifle, to his side. "I told you to take better care of this."

Jeremy was beside himself with rage. "Who the **** are you?" He shrieked. The man said nothing, merely raising the rifle to waist level. "Oh fine! You save me to shoot me yourself! That makes a helluva lot of sense!"

The man fired, and Jeremy jumped. A headcrab sailed past Jeremy's head and into the man's sack, already open to accept the headcrab into its dark folds.

"Shut up or you'll get yourself killed too soon," the man stated flatly as he slung the sack over his shoulder and pushed past Jeremy.

"Well, can I have my rifle back?" Jeremy said, not as loudly this time.

"No." The man walked on.

Jeremy weighed his choices. He was unarmed and would most probably die on his own, while this man walking away from him was definitely someone who knew how to survive in the City's hostile environs. He had saved Jeremy's life twice, for reasons yet unknown.

Sighing, Jeremy rammed his hands into his pockets and trudged after him.

 

[dedhed93]

good stuff dude keep it comin

 

[Jenga]

Jeremy had lost track of how long they marched beneath the City, their feet kicking up water and scattering the alien insects and pests residing
in the sewers, the Earth's sewers. With sadistic pleasure he stomped on a three-legged bug that looked like a cross between a roach and a worm, its neon green innards spreading through the murky water like tendrils of fog.

As he watched, three more roach-worms swarmed to his boot and, with their pronounced mandibles, snapped futilely at the tough leather of his combat boots. The alien bugs reminded him of the mythical Hydra, the creature that sprouted two more heads for each one lopped off. Exactly like the Combine, he lamented. No matter how many Combine soldiers killed, dropships shot down, or even scanners blown apart, there always seemed to be more. And the Resistance lost a man each time, men they couldn't afford to lose.

A sharp stab of pain in his foot jolted Jeremy back from his reverie. One of the roach-worms had succeeded in chewing through his boot, and red human blood seeped out among the bright green alien goo. Had any of his friends seen his face at that moment, they would've been shocked at the expression of pure hatred and revulsion that came over it. With deliberate slowness, he lifted his damaged boot, water seeping from the chewed hole, and thrust it down on the offending insect, crushing it and part of another one next to it.

He looked up at the man with the headcrab hat, the man who had stripped him of both his weapon and dignity, the man who was now peering at him with an intense expression, as if he were judging the wet, miserable man who dared call himself a soldier of the Resistance.

On the brink of a mad rage, Jeremy determinedly strode forward, intending to wrest the rifle from the man's gnarled hands no matter the cost. He had barely taken two strides when the rifle flew into his startled hands and stopped him short.

The red haze disappeared in a cloud of confusion. Jeremy looked at the weapon dumbly, then up at his antagonist.

"That's good. Anger will keep you alive." He started to turn away again, but Jeremy didn't give him the chance.

"Are you toying with me?" He demanded. "What game is this?"

The hated man continued as if Jeremy hadn't spoken. "Lock the anger away until you need it. That's the best way to survive here. Survival, after all," he said with a gleam in his eye, "is the only game worth playing."

 

[ElectricBoogaLoo]

WooT! I hope that's not the end. Now waiting for more!

 

[Jenga]

nope its not. Thanks for the feedback i kinda screwed up the title. It was the first thing that came to my mind. It should've been either Half-life: Survival or The Urban Jungle.

 

[Max35]

this is interesting stuff, keep it up, man. btw, I think the title works well with the story. Sometimes its the titles with ambigious meaning that spark more interest than a more literal one.

 

[dedhed93]

Yeah I like the title too. Also I like the way you have made the story so intriging, the lead character knows nothing about the strange headcrab man, so like him the reader is left dying to know who he is. Good stuff keep it comin'.

 

[ElectricBoogaLoo]

Boy I'm glad I'm not the only person waiting for more stuff from this guy. Hopefully our posts from him won't go unanswered. More please!

 

[Max35]

Boy I'm glad I'm not the only person waiting for more stuff from this guy. Hopefully our posts from him won't go unanswered. More please!

Meanwhile, my fanfic wallows in obscurity because no one replies *sobs uncontrollably* :bonce:

 

[jonesey2k]

keep it coming m8 :thumbs:

 

[Jenga]

"Quiet, it's coming," Nell hissed at him. Carefully, she popped her head over the window sill, casting a quick glance at the approaching Strider.

Along the room's walls, Jeremy saw the Resistance soldiers of his platoon raise and duck their heads over the windowsills of the abandoned office building, their curiosity warring with their common sense. Prairie-dogging, as their sarge called it, used to be when office workers popped their heads over their cubicle walls to talk to each other. The whole thing seemed remarkably ironic to Jeremy.

"Rocket team up," Sergeant Fishburn called from the corner, peeking out the window as he called.

The four soldiers that made up the rocket team moved to the wall from the center of the room, exchanging places with those watching for the Strider. Their rocket team was divided into pairs, one shooter and one loader. The loaders laid the rockets out on the floor, ready to reload after the first shots were fired. If they lived that long. The shooters would try to do as much damage as humanly possible, which seemed to be very little these days.

The sarge slowly raised his rifle at the Strider four hundred meters away, even though he and everybody there knew it had a zero chance of doing damage. Still, the entire squad followed suit. "Wait for my signal," Sergeant Fishburn ordered.

The Strider stomped closer, its warp cannon dangling limply between its legs like a flaccid penis. His squadmate Nell had remarked on that once. "You know, those things are well hung. If it wasn't a three-legged, fifty-foot alien hell-bent on killing us. I'd have dated that thing."

"So what's the difference between it and every other guy you dated?" Another trooper had remarked. They had all been joyously drunk that night. Good times.

Jeremy stared at her grim, determined visage. She definitely wasn't thinking of dating it now. The Strider was now barely two hundred-fifty meters out. The tension rippled through everyone like a gust of wind. Rifles were tucked closer in, safeties were switched off, eyes narrowed over rifle sights. The impact of the monster's footfalls shook the dust from the ceiling, adding another coating to an already ruined room and
its occupants.

He wanted to throw his rifle down and flee from the room, the building, the City. He wanted to go back to his studio apartment, back to a time where the word City had no capital letter and didn't precede a number.

The sarge opened fire.

Every thought of escaping he had entertained vanished in bursts of gunpowder. He threw everything into pulling the trigger time and time again, casting bullets at the horrible freak that dared cast its shadow over his home.

Rockets streaked into the Strider from multiple buildings, drawn to it as if pulled by a wire. Explosions bloomed on its skin, scattering chunks of armor and gobs of fluid everywhere.

"Reload!" The shooters yelled over the din of chattering rifle fire.

Bleeding and injured, the Strider fired its smaller repeater cannon at the building across from Jeremy's. Tracer fire strafed at it, shattering glass and cratering concrete. The screams from across the street told him that many of the Strider's rounds found their mark.

"Ready," one of the loaders yelled as he slapped the shooter's helmet, signaling him to fire. Rockets lanced out from the surrounding buildings once more, though noticeably fewer.

Explosions rippled across the Strider's body, and as it finally fell crashing to the street it seemed to be emanating a deep moan, as of crying out in anguish at its defeat.

The room erupted in cheers as Jeremy and his platoon watched the Strider's demise. Amidst the cheering a recognizable voice cut in, teeming with urgency.

"Fall back! Fall back!" Lieutenant Berger rushed in to the room, bloodied and without his weapon. "Two more striders came in from behind! We're pulling back to the rally point! Go!"

Organized chaos ensued as the rocket teams gathered their gear and the rest of the platoon scrambled for the exits. Jeremy saw Nell reach the door when she disappeared in a flash of blue light and a cloud of dust and debris.

When it settled, he saw the towering figures of two Striders side-by-side, warp cannons charging for the next volley. His squadmates were either splayed out on the floor or crawling in a daze. Jeremy realized that he was crawling on all fours too, trying to reach safety, wherever that may be.

He had just gotten a grip on his rifle when Sergeant Fishburn appeared in front of him, dragging the Lieutenant by his arms. "Wallace!" The Sarge yelled at Jeremy. "Get out of here! Now!"

"But-" Jeremy tried to protest and gestured at the unconscious -or dead- officer.

"I'll take care of the LT. Hook up with the others!" He gave Jeremy a kick in the rump for good measure and started running. Jeremy was quick to follow suit.

As Jeremy ran to the undamaged portion of the building, he noticed a bluish light at the edge of his vision, followed by a booming thunder, as if someone had just dropped a two-ton block of stone just a foot away. His vision turned gray as ash, and he felt himself falling... no... flying...

He awoke with a start, eyes flying open and choking down a scream. There was a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and saw his lifesaver and antagonist standing over him.

"You've had enough sleep," he said. As he turned away Jeremy noticed that the man wore a military fatigue jacket. The name patch was ripped and threadbare, but he still make it out: Soren.

"Soren," he said to himself out loud, finally finding a name for the man.

Soren stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Did you say something?"

Feeling bolder, he asked, "Soren. Your name?"

The man said nothing for a while. He closed his eyes.

"Once," he said emotionlessly.

 

[Jenga]

Merry Christmas to all and to all good frags! :farmer: