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 Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 5:21 pm
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Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 5:25 pm
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Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 5:26 pm
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Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 5:27 pm
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 7:16 pm
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 7:17 pm
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 7:18 pm
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 7:45 pm
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 7:50 pm
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Who do you think you are?
There were alarms blaring the second Evan came back to himself, tinny shouts ordering him to pick a direction. The words were almost too loud, and nothing really made sense. It was jarring, to be so suddenly back on the island as though the past God knew how long had been nothing but some kind of waking dream. There was a disconnect, now, between reality and wherever the hell he had just been. He remembered everything that had happened, and those memories prickled beneath his skin, fighting to stay relevant in the face of whatever crisis Evan had come back to.
He didn't see the faces of the other hunters as they rushed by him, all of them focused on the mission at hand as if it was just another day, another problem to solve or monster to destroy or world to save. He stumbled blindly down a hall, and for an instant it was stark white and stretched endlessly in either direction.
Look at your shadow.
Evan couldn't help but look, and the pitch black shape on the floor wasn't his shadow. It stretched and twisted until it covered the ground, spilling up the walls and crawling over the ceiling until it all but dwarfed him. He took a hesitant step back, and it calmly followed him. Evan watched with dawning horror as the lights flickered oddly over it, making it seem like it was holding something where its hands would be.
It only hurts the once, it rumbled, its voice neatly slicing through the meaningless din and cutting its way with knowing precision into Evan's mind.
Then, as before, Evan turned and fled as though it would be so easy to leave his memories, his past, behind him. There was no escape, though, not this time; there was only a brief reprieve as he stumbled his way into his room, slamming and locking the door behind him as though it might keep the rest of the world out. It was a pathetic and childish thought--everything was already in there with him, after all.
The memory of hacking his best friend to pieces with nothing more than some scissors and his own bare hands for what was, ultimately, nothing and then, later, having his heart cut out in return--Evan latched onto that memory of pain, embracing it as though the acceptance of it might absolve him of all of his perceived sins. He paced restlessly, his hands opening and closing into fists. I killed him, I killed him, I keep killing him. I did it, I did it, why couldn't it have been me instead?
Overwhelming guilt mixed with sorrow and fear and anger to create a potent and prickly blend that traveled through him with each traitorous thump of his still-beating heart. Evan could feel it tearing him apart from the inside, like insects marching through his veins trying to chew their way out. His breath quickened at the painful rush and he stumbled, sitting heavily on one corner of the bed.
His heartbeat, mockingly steady, grew louder until he could no longer hear himself panting. He dimly realized that he was starting to hyperventilate, and he lowered his head until it was between his knees. He clasped his hands over the back of his neck because he had been taught as a child that that was what you were supposed to do to keep yourself safe when the world was shaking itself apart.
/Stop./ The single syllable was tucked inside of a low, irritated growl, a quiet clarion abruptly silencing every noisy insecurity. The sound demanded Evan's full attention and raised the hair on the back of his neck despite the lack of obvious threat in it. A moment of startling and welcome nothingness, and then, /Your thoughts are noisy and stupid,/ Gir declared.
His weapon's--his partner's--voice dragged him forcibly back into a reality where he wasn't waiting impatiently for the shade of his best friend to hunt him down and kill him. That was, quite literally, in the past; Gir was his present and his future. That was no less a scary thought, but for very different reasons. He could almost feel Gir rooting around in his mind, making his own space, becoming a larger and more prominent thing for Evan to focus on. It helped, a little, to know that he wasn't in this alone, no matter how much he felt that he deserved to be.
/Noisy and also stupid,/ Gir reiterated, uncharacteristically grumpy. Awareness started leaking in through the edges of Evan's receding panic attack. He fought to control the breathing that was still wildly out of control, and he could feel the clamminess of his skin. He still felt poised to snap at any moment.
/I don't feel good,/ Gir whined, and it was almost as easy to ignore as every other time Gir had something to whimper about--which was frequently, as he was easily bored and restless and, inexplicably, hungry.
Me neither, buddy, Evan replied, somewhat surprised to hear his own voice so clearly in his head. He felt like he had been covered in razor blades, inside and out, and it seemed to him like his thoughts should reflect that.
/No,/ Gir snapped, /I mean I don't feel good./
Evan frowned, reaching with unsteady hands for the dog tags hidden safely behind his shirt. They jingled cheerfully against each other as he withdrew them, and he picked the one in the middle out. It gleamed dully, looking just like it always had--embossed with a stylized sun and Gir's full name--and if there was anything wrong with it, Evan couldn't tell what it was.
/But I don't feel good!/ Gir insisted around what threatened to become an outright howl.
Okay, okay. At any other time, Evan might have ignored his partner's whining, but now he was grateful for the distraction from his own dark thoughts. It would be too, too easy to take that tiny step backwards without something else to focus on. He summoned his weapon and frowned as it seemed to feel heavier in his hands.
"Jesus," Evan swore softly as he saw the reason why: a sturdy padlock rested on the hilt, just below the blade. It was black, with spikes jutting out randomly. Dark wisps emanated from the keyhole. Chains of varying thicknesses held in in place, winding around the hilt and the lower part of the blade in a hopeless tangle. He reached for the lock, careful not to put his hand where it might get impaled, and tugged at it by one of the longer spikes. It could have been built into the grip, for all that it budged. He moved his hand to the chains as though he might have better luck pulling them off and gasped as touching them made him feel somehow...empty.
You have forgotten something. Memories. You have forgotten something in your blind hope that this will somehow make things better.
No, he hadn't. He had chosen to remember everything--hadn't he?
But you cannot escape the truth, the reality. One day, whether you like it or not, the truth will return to you, and you will realize how much wool has been pulled over your eyes.
What truth could possibly exist that was worse than everything he had already been through?
When your heart, your core finally calls out for Revenge, I will be there.
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2014 5:02 pm
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2014 7:49 pm
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Solo: In Memoriam
It was hot in Pocatello, Idaho; too hot for the light jacket Evan wore to hide his tags and tattoos, for the pulled-down Idaho State University cap that could have marked him as a local and the week's worth of beard that he had let grow in specifically for this. He didn't want to risk being recognized by the few people he knew here, slim as those chances might be. It was worth the discomfort and the itch and the sweat to be here today.
It was easy to blend in with the rest of the solemn crowd that had come to honor their fallen loved ones during services at the memorial. Evan found himself uncomfortable and inexplicably angry with the overly religious tone of some of the speeches, and he focused desperately on that to keep himself from being moved. It was a touching ceremony, but he hadn't come here for bagpipes and flag waving and 21 gun salutes.
He had come for penance, to hurt himself on sight alone and let the pain remind him why he got up every morning. He could have done it anywhere--he did it every time he fell asleep, his slumbering mind drawing familiar nightmares around itself like an old, comfortable blanket. Being here today was more symbolic than anything, and he owed it to someone else to make the trip.
He had to wait, of course, for the actual family to visit the grave, to weep over it and plant tiny plastic flags in front of it like it was a shrine instead of a stone. His heart broke for them, and he shared in their grief, but they all thought he was dead and it was better for everyone if things stayed that way. He was, ultimately, an outsider anyway, and none of them would have even been there today if not for him.
The sun had started to set by the time the family finally left, and Evan waited a few moments longer to make sure they had really gone before making his approach. He had underestimated the amount of tokens of affection he'd have to contend with: flowers and cards and childishly scribbled pictures. It made him glad to see this memory so well-loved, as much in death as it had been in life.
All Evan had brought was a six-pack of beer, and it was shitty beer--some local microbrew that you had to have been weaned on to enjoy--but it wasn't for him anyway. That didn't stop him from sitting back against the side of the gravestone, drinking the piss-poor imitation of beer and watching the setting sun paint the decorated graves in warm, rich light.
"Get the ******** off of my tombstone, a*****e."
Evan's lips quirked into the barest hint of a grin as he sat up a little, turning his head and looking up at the shadow of the man that had been his brother in everything but blood. He was nothing more than a solid black cutout in the fabric of reality, two pure white spots indicating where his eyes would be, and a filthy, rusty pair of scissors. The echoes of terror from their first encounters lingered, but were overwhelmed, at the moment, by sorrow and regret and fathomless guilt. "Figured you'd show up if I drank enough of your beer."
"Come to pour one out for me?"
"Came to pay my ******** your respects."
Evan flinched; down to brass tacks, then. He nodded, saddened and disappointed that they had reached the heart of why he was here so soon; he missed the easy camaraderie he had had with his best friend--he missed his best friend, period. "I'm trying to," he amended softly. "The only way I know how. My family thinks I'm dead. I joined this outfit so I could kill the monsters that killed you--"
"And I'm still dead, and you're still alive."
"Not for lack of trying!" Evan burst out. "I'm a week out from getting burnt to a crisp by my own ******** people, after getting eaten by some ******** sand monster. I spent eight months bouncing around the worst parts of the world to kill things Hollywood couldn't even make up! I'm doing it all to avenge you. What else can I do? Tell me, and I'll be happy to do it. I just," he trailed off, turning to look at the freshly cut grass so he wouldn't have to see the specter. "Fighting and ******** things up are all I know how to do anymore. What more do want from me?"
"I want you to die." No scorn in the statement, no anger, no spite from the dead to the living, just nothing. The shadow could have been commenting on the unseasonable warmth for the lack of emotion in its tone.
Evan shrugged and nodded, forcing down the fear that welled as he turned back and looked the shade in its empty white eyes. "Okay," he answered, just as bland.
"That's it? All it would take for you to jump in front of a train is my say so?"
Evan nodded once, jerkily.
"You listen to me, you dumb son of a b***h," the shadow snarled with a voice like rolling thunder, "you can't avenge s**t if you're dead. You think you can put a number on how many of their deaths are equal to my life? So ******** willing to die for my memory, like that'll somehow bring me back to life," it continued disdainfully. "You want to pay your respects to me? You stop going out of your way to get yourself killed, because I sure as hell didn't die so you could commit suicide by sand trap. When all of those ******** monsters are dead, then you can have my permission to die. Hell, I'll even do you the favor of killing you myself." The scissors slid open with a harsh, rusty creak that sent shivers down Evan's spine.
"It's better than I deserve," Evan agreed somberly.
"Oh, spare me your boohoo bullshit. Get over yourself. Go live your life, and don't die trying. And take your garbage with you."
"Yes, Mom," Evan replied, and the response was so achingly familiar that it brought tears to his eyes. Runt always had been the neat one. It was only something Evan had picked up after the other man's death--one way, of many, that he tried to keep his memory alive. "I miss you, man," he choked out.
"Yeah," the shadow sighed. "I miss me, too."
A heavy hand landed on Evan's shoulder. Evan fought back the instinctive shudder and let it turn him around--and recoiled as he looked not into the blank stare of his dead friend, but at the forced sympathy in the face of an unfamiliar old man. "s**t!" Evan blurted and scrambled back, nearly tipping his beer over.
"Gates are closing, son," the stranger replied, annoyance quickly replacing patience at the end of a long, busy day. "Time to get up and get out. You don't want to be trapped in here with the dead, do you?"
Evan shook his head slowly, reluctantly cleaning up his empty bottles. "Guess not," he answered, surprised to find that he half meant it. He gave one last, long look at Runt's tombstone. It didn't look any different now than it had when Evan had finally worked up the nerve to approach it. There was nothing to indicate that the dead had risen, that a deal had been struck somewhere between guilt and forgiveness. This was not, Evan knew, Runt's final resting place. That would come later, when the only thing left to kill was himself. "Be seeing you, buddy. One way or another." |
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:33 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:54 pm
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:04 pm
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Solo: Forget Me (Not)
Evan was--angry was not the right word. It was in that vein, but calling what Evan felt at Chel's betrayal anger was like calling the surface of the sun merely warm: woefully, painfully, laughably inadequate. His wrath was almost tangible, a hard knot in his chest so sharp-edged it could have cut its way out. It wasn't a sensation that was unfamiliar to Evan, but the crystal clarity of it was startling. It seemed to be all that existed in the world. Evan couldn't remember the last time he had felt anything so strongly; there had always seemed to be a veil between himself and his emotions, coloring all of them with an overwhelming need for--
The concept seemed to slip through the holes in his mind, in his memory. He let it go. What Chel had done could have gotten someone--hurt. Someone could have gotten hurt by her disloyalty, and not hurt like she had hurt him, her stab in the back in just the right place that he would never be able to pull the knife out by himself. It would bleed and bleed and bleed until--
And it was a shame, really, that he had to waste such pure, intense emotion on something like anger. It only stoked the flames higher, threatening to consume him from within. It burned away the relief that all of them had come home some degree of injured, but otherwise safe. Even his inexplicable hatred of the monsters they had faced turned to ash and dust. His ribs hurt, his heart hurt, but he was otherwise okay. He clung to his anger like a lifeline, relieved to feel--anything.
--
It was always so hard to find a comfortable position to sleep with injured ribs, but it had been a long, long day, and finally exhaustion won out. When he slept, he dreamed:
He was in the desert, and it was hot. Not the desert they had just come from, but a different one, full of rocks where there should be sand.
He was in the desert, and it was hot, and being in his gear wasn't making it any better.
He was in the desert in the back of a Humvee in the middle of a boring, routine patrol listening to Saunders tell what he swore up and down was the filthiest joke known to all mankind. He had turned in the front seat to tell it to Evan and Runt, deliberately excluding Trujillo, who was driving, because Trujillo had punched him in the face last week after Saunders had made some casually racist remark. No one had said a word against it because everyone wanted to punch Saunders in the face, but Saunders was still sulking about it like a little ******** girl. Evan knew he should have told Saunders to shut the ******** up and face front because they were on patrol, dammit, but nothing ever happened on patrol because they were in the middle of the goddamn desert and anyway, it just would have Saunders pout even more.
This was familiar. Evan's dreams typically started this way. He never had liked Saunders--no one did, even though they would all take a bullet for him just like he would take a bullet for at least most of them. He was an a*****e, but he was their a*****e.
"And so the pig came out of the barn, and--no, wait, the pig went into the barn," Saunders said, trying to keep a straight face. Evan rolled his eyes and glanced at Runt, who was smiling in that vacant way that meant he wasn't actually paying attention--usually the best course of action when it came to Saunders and his bizarre, disgusting, and often offensive sense of humor. Eventually Saunders reached the punchline, which--surprise, surprise--wasn't at all funny, muttering, "Well, ******** you guys, too," when no one laughed, turning back around in his seat to glare out of the windshield. They made it through the rest of their patrol without further incident, finding no trace of their target, which probably didn't exist anyway. Still, it didn't hurt to be too cautious.
No, that wasn't how it had happened. They had had smooth--nonproductive--patrols in the past, but something about that stupid, stupid joke was somehow significant.
"And so the pig came out of the barn, and--no, wait, the pig went into the barn," Saunders said, a stupid smile on his face that Evan wanted to smack off. Suddenly, a muffled explosion and a high-pitched whistle cut off whatever Saunders had been about to say. The four men froze and then, as one, threw the Humvee's doors open and launched themselves out of the vehicle. |
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:11 pm
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