MMOlogy

MMOlogy

…a short story of the Tesian Faith.

By: CDaws.

“They’re inside!”

The team leader reloads his weapon as I reply, “Do you want me to handle it?”

“Take someone with you!”

I tap a team-mate on the shoulder and lead her down a floor of stairs. We hid behind an object to supply cover and waited for the enemy to appear around the next corner. A moment passes as we wait…and wait. A few loud steps stumble up from the floor below as our first intruder becomes visible around the corner we’ve been aiming at. My team-mate beats me to it as she unloads a few rounds towards and through the now still corpse in-front of us. The rest of the group, now aware of our position, will not be so careless as to make themselves an easy target.

A small rifle is leaned around the stairwell wall as the shooter safely empties a clip in our direction. We remain untouched by any stray bullets as the shooter reloads. Doing so gives me enough time to find better cover than a pushed over table. While I thought I had enough time, another impatient enemy runs out from hiding to unleash their anger upon me. My team-mate quickly reacts and neutralizes the foe just after two bullets burn their way into my chest. I try to cry out in sudden-pain but my words fail to come out as anything more than a growing puddle of blood.

The last words I hear before darkness takes me are the distressed vocals of my team-mate yelling for aid. Another few loud shots of gunfire ripple the air around me as more footsteps run up from below. They have surely captured this area…and my army will fall soon after. It’s a shame we have to end this way…but perhaps hundreds of lives will go on living now that the war is soon to be lost.

1st Part

After darkness came light…such a blinding light. I soon found myself covered in a dry and cold liquid which fell drop by drop below my eyes as it crept down under my skull to fill the floor which I had been resting on.

“Hello?”

The chilled voice of a teenage girl echoes throughout my unconscious body. As the liquid became cooler, my vision once again faded into the dark emptiness of a wasted life. And as I waited for the blinding light to once again return, my face was struck repeatedly to bring my conscious self back into reality. ‘What is this?’ I thought as the side of my face was once again struck from rest.

“Who are you?” the girl asks.

Not knowing what to answer, I place the palm of my hand firmly on the wet, cold floor to lift myself from its grasp. The girl quickly restrains me back into the clutches of a concrete enemy. I was too weak to fight it…too weak to overcome my foes or breathe a word of my identity.

“Don’t move!” she says in the maiden voice of a Valkyrie.

Unable to do anything else, I lay there in patience while she continues tending to my chest. I tried to look down at what she was doing but fall back from fatigue. I was breathing heavily but felt although each breath was completely lost as more blood rushed from my throat. Why was I bleeding? A sudden pulse of nerves struck upward to and past my left eye, which forced my head to suddenly jerk. The girl’s caring hand had supported the side of my head before it could slam into the floor.

“Careful…” she says, “I can only do so much.”

And as she said that, I was placed into her arms and carried down the stairs nearby. Having been lifted from my despair, I gained vision of the world around – from the pool of blood where I had been resting, to another body near my own. With that corpse came another…and another. I know this place…this place is scared with the afterlife of war and somehow I remember being here...but how did I end covered in blood?

After carrying me safely out from that world into another, the girl lays me down onto a soft mattress where I close my eyes to rest the weakness away. Shortly after, I felt another sharp pain make its way from my chest, to and past my left eye. It had the same reaction as before and once again…the girl caught my head before I could injure myself.

“Hi.”

I open my eyes to see a bright and young angel hovering above me. I reach out to grab her hand but quickly returned to reality where the same girl as before had grabbed mine. She smiled as my vision once again returned to a dark blur. Knowing I was in the middle of a war, I stood up in search of my foes but was pushed down again by a strong wind. My muscles relaxed and I was no longer in control of my body.

I yell, “Help!” But it came out as only a soft whisper.

“…help!” I yell again; however, this time, it brought my fears instead of friends.

With no ability to run or defend myself, I tremble in a cold sweat as a wolf sniffs the back of my hair. Its breath soon prevails into a dull ringing as it circles my ear and creeps closer into vision. A few more sniffs before the wolf walks away and leaves my dying corpse to rest. I breathe deeply but safely for the first time in a while before the snarling mouth and eyes of a black wolf appear in-front my own.

“Hey!”

I’m once again startled from my dream-world as I wake into the next. This was not a dream though. The familiar face of my saviour arrives to greet.

“Bad dream?” She asks. “You’re not dead yet.”

As numbness fades, pain returns to welcome my submission. My chest cringed as a new feeling grew inside my chest. It wasn’t love…but a feeling although something, other than life, had been torn away from me. I attempt to reach but was interrupted by a girl’s hand as she returns my own to my side.

“It’s still healing,” she says in a clam voice.

“…my wounds?” I ask.

“Yes,” she relied, “I had to remove your left lung.”

Instead, I look down at the row of stitching which was still layered in puss and blood. It’s not an easy surgery to remove a lung without the aid of machinery and a second or even third pair of hands. I should be thankful to have survived; yet, I can’t help but wonder what happened to my team-mates.

“Does it hurt?” the girl asks.

The wound itself carried no pain…but missing a lung would make anyone feel weird after each breath.

“Only a little,” I reply.

Too doped-up to think of a consequence, I try to push myself towards the wall where I could at-least sit instead of lay. Thankfully, the girl watching over me had preventing my doing so… and I wasn’t too high to realize it was an act of care. So I continued to lay there in submission as a question came to mind.

“How did you find me?”

She hesitated before answering, “You found me…apparently.”

“What do you mean?” I ask as she replies,

“This used to be my home.”

A new question comes to mind as my conscience fills with guilt and self-disgust.

“Why did you help me then?” I ask.

“At first…” she answers, “I wasn’t going to help. In-fact…” she pauses.

I wasn’t sure how long it was before she continued. The drugs which had filled my body had not only stopped pain…but had slowed my perception of time as well.

The girl places a small and bloodied sword on the ground next to me as she continued, “...I was going to kill you.”

As shocked as I was, I couldn’t blame her. This world is bad enough without soldiers like me bringing war into random houses. Yet, still, I couldn’t help but notice she was now helping me as-if I meant something to her. I felt the need to apologize…but didn’t. Instead, I lay there like a fool in hopes she will forgive me some other way…but she doesn’t.