Blake stepped out of the VR pod and looked at the time. 06:32 a.m.
“Seven hours,” he said and rubbed his nose with his knuckle and nodded his head.
The bright white light dazzled as it burst through the dark curtains. His eyes became watery. There was stomping and noise coming from across the street. He could not make out what they were shouting, and Blake did not want to, anyway. He went into the living room, took the Barrett out from the safe, hung it behind his back, then pulled out a SYL pouring AOC into it and pressed the button, trying to inhale the smoke. Nothing happened. He twirled the device and saw a message pop up on the little screen: low battery. Blake went to the bedroom, got a new one, and replaced the old one. Intense smoke billowed from his lungs. He pulled the bed out, sat on it, and, with his head back, smoked for a few minutes, enjoying the process. An impenetrable fog filled the room.
Blake’s stomach rumbled, and he felt nauseous in his throat. He remembered he had not eaten in over twenty-four hours.
“Regina.”
“At your service.”
“Order me a steak and a salad.”
“On it.”
When he was in the kitchen, his eyes became blurry. His head was dizzy. Explosions sounded from the street and everything in the apartment trembled. Then shouts followed and distant crackling and the roar of gunfire. Blake heard knocking, and a memory came to his mind of sitting tied up in a chair, alone in an empty iron room covered with rust. Someone banged on the door but did not come in. Then a figure appeared out of the darkness. It startled Blake, and he clutched at the empty eye socket, throbbing with phantom pain. His hands shook, his breathing quickened, and a shortness of breath appeared.
“Fuck, not now,” he said and walked toward the bathroom.
His legs went weak, and he fell and hit his head against the wall. His ears rang. He saw a continuation of the memory, where someone loosened the ropes and began beating him in every way possible.
Blake heard a muffled sound of an explosion, as if some building nearby had partially collapsed. The floor went out from under his feet.
“Regina, increase the noise insulation.”
“It’s already at maximum,” the AI replied and added. “New information: the police asked everyone to stay in their homes and to not go outside.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Blake stood up, leaning his arm against the wall, and felt his nose bleed. In the bathroom, he looked in the mirror and saw his reflection and did not recognize himself. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes were red, his skin was white, and there were bruises under his eyes. Blood smeared a gutter tray. He pulled pills out of a closet pill case and popped them in his mouth with a toss, and chugged them down with tap water. His palms dug into the edges of the sink. The condition was getting worse.
Blake put the Barrett on the mat and went into the shower stall and turned on the hot water. He sat down on the floor, wrapped his arms around his legs, and sat like that for half an hour. When he emerged from the tub in his underwear with his favourite rifle behind him, he found that the sound of explosions had ceased, but soon after, new ones appeared.
Steps?
Blake stood still and listened. Someone was walking through his kitchen. He took the Barrett off his shoulder, cocked the bolt, and walked silently to the living room, his heart clenching with every creak of the floor. He stood around the corner and did not take his eyes off the passageway into the kitchen, where he heard the EF-312 and a whistle.
“You think I didn’t hear the water stop flowing in the shower?” said a deep, rough voice.
Blake frowned and entered the kitchen, holding the butt to his shoulder. Standing with his back to the countertop was a tall man in a military uniform. His head was smooth shaven. Big hands. Leather boots as clean as a hound’s tooth. The guest took a mug from which steam was coming out, sipped, and exhaled, smacking his lips in pleasure.
“If there’s one thing I miss, it’s green tea and whiskey.”
Blake took aim.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“You haven’t lost your touch. That’s nice. But why is there still no sign of a woman in the house?”
“I’m going to shoot.”
“You won’t shoot me in the back,” said the man, calm and composed, and took another sip of tea.
Blake looked around the room; no one else was there.
“So,” the man continued, “you want to stop having any connection with this world, am I right?”
Blake walked closer and closer to the man and answered nothing.
“Didn’t you ever get over your old man’s death, hmm?”
The barrel of the Barrett jabbed into the stranger’s neck.
“How am I supposed to turn around now?”
“No sudden movements.”
“All right,” he said. “Just do nothing stupid, okay? Last time was enough.”
“What are you talking about?”
The man put his cup of tea on the countertop, put his hands up, and turned around. Blake took two steps back. First, he saw the stranger’s profile and said without a voice: “Dear Mother of God.” His hands went limp and lowered his rifle. Then the man turned in full face.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“People always said we were the same person. Now I understand why,” the man said. “Why is mother’s picture all dusty?”
A lump rolled up in Blake’s throat. A tear ran down his right cheek.
“Father?”
“Just put down my gun and wipe your face. Hey! Hey! Come to your senses. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
The man took the rifle from Blake’s hands and threw it on the couch.
“Do you want some tea?”
Blake stood. Tyriel stepped around his son and examined his exposed torso.
“You know,” he said, “I’ve never seen you like this before. God, they took your eye, and, judging by the scar, they took out your appendix, too, didn’t they? Fucking animals. Did they give you any painkillers? Yeah,” he said as he continued to examine the body, “now I see why you agreed to get rid of your entire team and your daddy rather than sacrifice yourself.”
Blake looked out the window. Red and yellow lights trickled in from behind the curtains. They blinked and faded, then again.
“Am I dead?”
“Not at all.”
“Then I’ve lost my mind.”
Tyriel sipped some tea and laughed and replied:
“I don’t even know which is worse.”
Blake sat down on the couch and tried to turn on the TV, tears welling up in his eyes and his face numb. He pressed the button on the remote, but nothing happened.
“Regina!” he shouted. “Turn on the TV for me!”
Tyriel touched his shoulder and squeezed it tightly:
“It’s just the two of us here. Do you want to know how we got killed?”
Blake’s head shook, and he could not contain his emotions. His palms dug into his temples. He tried to squeeze his head and screamed.
“Hey-hey! Boy. You’re not helping matters,” Tyriel said in a still, calm voice.
“Why is all this shit happening to me?”
He laughed.
“Apparently your pills don’t fucking help you.”
“Am I dreaming?” Blake asked and got punched in the nose and fell to the floor.
“Do you feel any pain?”
“Fuck,” he said and froze as if lost in space.
Tyriel helped his son up and sat him back down on the couch.
“You don’t know how to take a punch, huh?”
“What? What do you want?”
“Same as you, in some way. And you want to crawl into the eternal sleep capsule and immerse yourself in virtual worlds. But I don’t blame you; that’s what I would do if I were you. It helps to forget, doesn’t it?”
“I didn’t mean to kill you,” Blake said, feeling himself suffocating with emotions of fear and regret. “I said kill me, and they started torturing me. In the end, I gave up.”
“I know, son, I know.”
The sky outside the window lit up again with bright lights and then went out. The lights on the ceiling flickered. Blake looked at the time. It was twenty to six.
“I’m sick of this life.”
“Who wouldn’t be tired of it? No one wants to go insane. That’s why veterans of wars commit suicide. But you don’t see the point in that, do you? Otherwise, what’s the use of the sacrifice you made.”
“You’re talking to me with my own thoughts. Fuck! You’re just a hallucination. To continue this dialogue is idiotic. Why are you showing up now?”
Tyriel got up and went to the window and looked behind the curtain and said:
“Because in your subconscious, you try not to pay attention to one important thing. I think I’m here to remind you of it.”
“So, what are you waiting for?”
Tyriel scratched his head and asked:
“Do you have binoculars?”
Blake went into the living room, opened the safe, pulled out the binoculars, and came back.
“Look out the window.”
An immense crowd of people marched down the road. They were holding placards and flags, shouting and chanting something.
“Now look at three o’clock, the parliament building.”
Blake saw some of the laser shots that, like red tracer bullets, flew into the sky, and another part hit the windows of the houses. Apartments burst into flames one by one. Then there were several explosions in the main square. Fighter planes flew through the sky.
“Revolution?”
“The answer’s right in front of your eyes. Just throw two jokers on the table and take the bank,” Tyriel replied and waved his head down and said, “and here they have a pair of twos. Maximum.”
Blake lowered his binoculars and answered:
“Until I figure out my problems, I will not get involved in others’ glitches.”
“Damn it. You’re still the same arrogant asshole, aren’t you? Nobody cares about you but yourself, huh?” asked Tyriel in a raised voice. “You don’t even have the courage to apologize to me for being a walking corpse now! By your will!”
“I will not apologize to my hallucination!”
Tyriel swung around and punched Blake in the lower jaw. He collapsed to the floor in a daze.
“Could a hallucination do this?”
Tyriel did not stop there, and said, “You selfish piece of shit,” grabbed his son by the neck, lifted him to his feet, and started beating him as hard as he could.
“Defend yourself, scum!” He shouted and punched him in the ribs, then in the eye, then in the groin, then in the knee.
Blake bent over in pain, angry. He pretended to fall again, and then he backed up and threw his father to the floor and grabbed his leg. Tyriel tried to get out of the grip, but he was having no luck.
“I’ll fucking break it if you don’t stop!”
“Since when did you feel sorry for me, hmm?”
The father twisted, freed his leg, got up and kicked his son in the ribs, then turned around and punched him in the face. Blake fell and crouched in the fetal position.
“What’s the matter with you? Do you think it was the death of your team and me that broke you so much? No. It was your soft nature that did this to you. Get up and fight, you ungrateful prick.”
Blake kept moaning. Tyriel picked him up and tossed him aside, then picked him up again and tossed him again.
“You saved yourself on that mission to turn into this? This pathetic piece of shit? I’m doubting that you lost your touch.”
Tyriel loomed over his son, pressed his hands to the floor with his knees, and slapped him across the face with all his ferocity.
“Where is your ambition, son hmm? Is it kept within the confines of one game?”
Blake snarled at his eye, grabbed his arm and broke it in a sharp and ruthless motion, then kicked him in the neck, grabbed his father by the hair, and began slamming his face against the wall, saying, “What the fuck do you want from me?” Tyriel softened the blow with his hands against his forehead and tried to get free, but Blake continued his onslaught, delivering one straight punch after another.
Tyriel tried to knock him down, but his son dodged, steadying himself until the next blow hit him in the chin.
“Before I died, your hands belonged to the angels of death, and your heart to the Almighty himself! Get up, asshole. If you can’t handle me, don’t torture the world with your existence.”
Blake spat a clot of blood on the floor and went for Tyriel. They clashed and began kicking each other until they both fell, panting and exhausted from the pain. The father got up first and punched his weakened son in the face and screamed:
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Blake.”
“Blake, Ronnie - it doesn’t matter. Who the fuck are you?” said Tyriel and kicked him in the side, but his son stopped the blow, grabbed his foot, and kicked his father’s supporting leg. He fell back on his splits and groaned in pain.
Blake, two inches from Tyriel’s face, said:
“I am a soldier!”
His father got hit in the eye and fell down, but he pulled himself together and got to his feet. His eyelid turned blue and clenched. Tyriel tried a side kick, but Blake blocked it and punched him back in the jaw, then dodged a direct kick to the head with his whole body and kicked him in the knee and extended his palm forward and delivered a final punch to his Adam’s apple. Tyriel collapsed and smiled and said with a wheeze and a groan:
“A good soldier has discipline, self-respect, an acute sense of duty to the people he protects, to the country. They try to cheat you and the people on the streets, but you can make things right.”
“What do you mean? Stop talking in riddles,” Blake said, and he heard several laser charges whiz across from his windows. Then something exploded and beeped with the sound of a siren.
A burning UAV with a container of food flew into the loggia window. It fell to the floor and exploded. Sparks flew out of it and hit the curtains, the couch, and the chairs. A fire broke out in the apartment. Blake called the fire brigade through the AI and turned to Tyriel. He was gone. The fire suppression system on the ceiling went off. The power went out, and water came pouring in. Blake grabbed the first bucket he could find and poured water into it from the sink and began to put out the fire on the curtains until the curtain rod collapsed, hitting him in the temple. Blake lost consciousness and fell, engulfed in flames.