Chapter 51

Only Pinkman Can Say That

"The fuck are you?" A masked individual said, his head cocked to the side and the gun held at a very unnatural and unsafe angle.

I suddenly could not speak. I think I finally understood that life flashing before your eyes thing that old Earth stories always talked about.

It was not fun.

"I said, who the FUCK are you??" The masked crazed person said again, wagging the gun around to where it could accidentally go off at any moment.

"I-I'm just a hopeful member," I stammered and raised my hands for good measure.

"Oh shit," Boots said in my ear. "What's going on? Give me access to your point of view."

I REALLY didn't want to do that. The shared point of view gave me a strange sensation, like someone else was riding with me behind my eyes. They always told me that it goes away the more you use it but I never got over that hump. I guess we were tonight—if I didn't get my head blown off.

I gave Boots access and yep, there it was, a weight behind my eyes.

"Jesus—who the fuck is that?" He asked.

Apparently that was the question of the night.

"A wannabe member? Any idea what time it is, fucker?" He kept craning his neck to the side, it looked extremely uncomfortable.

"You're here. Why does the time matter?"

He cocked his head to the left side. I guess that meant he was thinking. Left, thinking; right, angry.

"I'm supposed to be here. You aren't." He was unsure, his head stayed to the left.

"Why are you here? Is no one else around?" I hadn't seen anyone else but I didn't have a whole lot of view of my surroundings on account of the gun in my face.

"I'm a guard, idiot bitch." His head went over to the right and the gun started waggling again.

"Okay. So no one else is in this whole world?"

"I didn't say that. Things are always moving here."

"Is there anyone still around that can help me get set up with—"

He died laughing and the gun went down as he used it to slap his knee, going comically overboard on the laughter. He looked back up, dead serious and all merriment gone. "Bitch, you can't just waltz in here and become a member. You need a recommendation first. And since you came here alone... that really makes me wonder how the FUCK you got the world address."

"Oh shit," Boots said, right in time with my own mental exclamation.

"I... I..." What the fuck did I say? My life was in a perpetual flashing state, a blender of images all spinning around the gun that just would NOT get out of my face.

"Mention the red mask," Boots said.

I had no idea how that would help me but it was the only thing I could latch onto so I just started talking. "I, uh, I met someone who had a mask like yours. But it was red. He gave me the address."

The guards whole demeanor changed. His head perked up straight and the gun was held perfectly still. "A red mask? How do you know about those?"

"Like I said... I met someone who had one. We, uh, fought together. In one of those early tournament challenges."

"Oh... yeah? So... where is he?" He looked around and I don't think I imagined it being in a nervous way.

I decided to run with that. "You know they don't show their faces much to us common people. He told me that I should join."

"Butter him up," Boots said. "Tell him..."

"He told me that if I came here around this time that one of his best men would hook me up. That's you, right?" I repeated what Boots told me, word for word, loving it the more he said.

And the guard completely ate it up.

"Oh, shucks, he said that about me?" He rubbed the back of his head with his gun. "Yeah, I'm your guy. Sorry for threatening you and shit. And the gun. Just weird to see someone come here at this hour, ya know?"

I nodded, relieved to see him put the gun back in its holster on his hip.

"So, you wanna join, huh? Well you're gonna have a hard time with that."

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Cause to join you gotta take a mask by force."

The atmosphere changed again, becoming way heavier. The guy becoming more than just a goon with a gun but a source of a sinister feeling, spilling out from him in waves.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

I wasn't out of this after all. I was going to have to fight for my life—literally—the stakes had never been higher than—

He died laughing. "I'm just kidding ya! You should have seen your face, bitch!"

My heart couldn't take this back and forth. I wanted this guy far, far away from me. But I needed him if I had any hope of getting Sam.

He wiped a tear or something from behind his mask. "Okay, okay, sorry. You wanna join. 'Kay. It's actually a bit simple. You just gotta make your mask."

I couldn't trust anything he said so I'm sure making the mask was anything but easy.

"How do I do that?"

"Center of the city. You can't miss it. I'd show you the way but, well, I'm the guard, yeah? So you're on your own."

He shooed me forward, stepping aside for the first time to reveal a giant city, living up to its name in every way. Skulls were everywhere. The buildings were either dotted with them everywhere or, some were completely made with bones, looking like they would fall over at any second but also that they'd been there for thousands of years. The whole cityscape was a mix of white and black. Before I came I expected to see a lot of blue but that was mysteriously absent.

"Well? Get going." The guard shooed me again and, though every ounce of my body told me not to... I walked toward the city.

"Good luck. Bitch. You're gonna need it." I kept walking and then, from the distance a final, "bitch," carried me into the depths of the haunted city.

#

Skull City was more like a ghost town. At least at this hour. It really did seem like all the crazy stuff happened before 5am. But, that was okay. I liked this better. It allowed me to not be TOTALLY paranoid that I was going to be sniped or attacked around every corner. Only mildly.

Boots was wildly taking screenshots, every time he did my vision went blurry, it was getting on my nerves.

"Boots, seriously, quit doing that."

"I have to document this. None of my colleagues have made it this far." He snapped another screenshot.

"Why do you keep calling them that? They're your friends, dude, it's not that serious."

"I don't know what any of them look like and half of them I haven't even heard their real voice. They're not friends. Could you look straight up please?"

I don't know why I listened to him cause once I was staring up at the moon peaking out from behind a bone tower, he snapped another screenshot.

"And whose fault is that? You all should stop being so paranoid all the time."

He laughed. "Easier said than done."

He was right. I was one to talk. Every step I took further into the city the more I feared being gunned down. But, I mean, I was in a No Respawn Zone. What did Boots and his buddies have to fear? I guess they could all think they were either working for the Admins or the Masks or User Killers. One or all, trying to silence or mislead anyone exploring the weird and wonderful world of conspiracies. That was no way to live.

But, again, I had no right to criticize anyone else's way of existing. So I stayed silent. Even held my tongue as he continued to snap pictures.

"Wait," he said suddenly. "What is that? Ahead of you, in the middle of the street."

Panicked, I looked where he said, expecting the worst: a human with a weapon or a monster. But there was nothing standing there. On the ground though, something caught my eye: a bright deep blue, sparkling.

I went over to it and as I approached I could see it was bigger than just one spot. The entire road ahead was slowly opening up and filling into a road of the same color as the blue masks.

Boots went crazy taking pictures, giving me a major headache. The sensation was making it hard to walk, too.

"Okay, dude, you gotta chill with that. One screenshot every thirty seconds, how about that?"

He took two screenshots. "Starting now."

I rolled my eyes. But thirty seconds of relief was heaven compared to the constant snapping. I continued my trek. I kept looking down at the blue, expecting it to do something bad to me but, nothing. So far. It wasn't even sticking to the bottom of my shoes.

"You should touch it," Boots said.

I shook my head. "No way."

"Come on, it's not doing anything to your feet—it'll be okay."

I sighed. But squatted down, resisting for a moment, but touching it anyway. Boots took a screenshot at first contact.

"It's... really cold. Like—ow!" I pulled my hand away.

"What happened!?"

"It was cold. But then it got so cold it burned."

"Fascinating." I could almost hear him frantically taking notes.

I stood back up and continued walking. The entire street was all blue now. And the buildings were starting to look more spread out. Whatever was at the center of this world, I was rapidly approaching it.

That's when I caught sight of someone, staring at me from one of the windows. Boots snapped a picture.

"So not everyone is sleeping," he said.

"I didn't really consider that. You think people live in those buildings?"

"I don't know. But if they do... then this group is a lot bigger than we dared guess."

I gulped and I hoped Boots didn't hear it. I walked on but that person in the window kept standing there, watching me walk deeper into the city.

From then on I kept looking up, expecting to see more people watching but, thankfully, the windows were empty. As was the street except for that overwhelming blue. The more I walked the brighter the blue got and it began leaking out of the road, onto the sidewalk and even up the sides of buildings.

Screenshot after screenshot as I looked at all that.

I was about to yell at him when he cut me off. "Whoa, look, you ahead. What is that?"

The buildings got even farther apart, but the tops of them leaned over, in a sort of Tim Burton-esque way. They leaned and curled at the tops, all surrounding something directly ahead, the center that the guard had told me about.

And that something in the middle was the creepiest thing yet: a massive version of the blue mask, stretching high into the sky, almost touching the tips of the bent over buildings. But if it had just been a copy of the masks but way bigger it wouldn't have been that bad. Instead, it was the masks but decayed. It was covered in black vines, spiraling imperfections along the surface of the skull. And in the eye sockets, blue fire burned.

I walked up to it, stopping pretty far away, as Boots went crazy with screenshots, almost making me puke. Or maybe that was the nerves. Because the worst part about the whole giant skull was the hole in its mouth, an open stairway leading down. And guess where I needed to go?

"Okay seriously dude, quit it!!" I finally shouted.

This time Boots stopped on my command. "Sorry, I'm sorry. Just... this thing is insane. Have you ever seen anything like it?"

"In my nightmares, maybe." I stared ahead at the stairs. "I really don't want to go down there."

"No shame in logging out. I've already gotten so much out of this. I'm gonna be a legend."

Great, another man using my exploits for their own benefit. I was a magnet for that it seemed.

"I'm not leaving. I've made it this far so I'm going all the way. I'll get the mask, then get the hell out of here for the night."

"Thank god, I figured you would go looking for your pet," Boots said.

"As much as I love him, I don't know how much of this place I can handle at once."

But I was lucky, I had a choice. Sam though? He was here, alone, probably in some kind of bone dungeon, scared out of his mind. But I was running on empty—if I didn't finish up here soon I was gonna have a mental breakdown and pass out from exhaustion.

I took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm going."

I walked forward. The eyes of the blue skull bore down on me, until I got too close and their light vanished over head, replaced with the skull's mouth. Inside it was partially white, like a normal skull. But those dark lines continued on inside, spiraling around overhead, leading me toward the stairs and the depths within.