V-00000.8 - Blood Debt
My mood was foul as I trekked home, and it seemed to get worse with every step I took back into the city. Everywhere I looked now left a foul taste in my mouth. The people milling about the streets aimlessly trying to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives filled me with a sense of disgust. I tried to push down my revulsion to embrace calm I didn’t feel, yet it wouldn’t come. I began to realize I didn’t want to repress the feeling. This wasn’t just an emotion; I had truly come to hate these people for everything they represented.
As I made my way home, the people on the street gave me a wide birth. Not wanting to step within a hundred feet of my blood-soaked, gore-drenched form, I walked up to my door and reached into my pocket before groaning in frustration, finding it empty.
“Fuck this,” I muttered under my breath as I slammed my entire weight into the cheap door, making the frame splinter. The door flew open, and I almost face planted with it, not having expected it to break so easily. Sighing, I spoke aloud to myself again.
"Right, what was I expecting?" quality craftsmanship? Not a fucking chance, not in this shithole. Whatever I’m done with this place, get my shit, and then I’ll drop by the Reapers stash-house.”
Roaming about my apartment, I changed into fresh clothes before grabbing everything I could find of use: a few more blades with their sheaths, a pair of motorcycle gloves with metal ridges over the knuckles, joints, and backhand, my lighter, a few backs of cigarettes, and last but certainly not least, a mask made of silvery steel set into the visage of a wolf, an anniversary gift from Alice for our first year together.
I reached over to a framed photograph and pulled the Polaroid from the glass, setting it inside the mask before placing them within an old black leather pack and slinging it to my shoulder. Walking out of the apartment, I brought a cigarette up to my lips, cupping my hand over the end as I lit it. Taking a long drag, I walked down the street.
As I moved, I could feel my body already getting worse. The entire trip out of the city while carrying Alice, I felt fine, strong, and even young again, but now the walking was starting to hurt. The impact from each step ran up my feet, sending warning pangs up my knees, ankles, and into my hips, and the pain was starting to make me hungry. My mouth was filling with saliva and longing as I approached a pawn shop named Old Dave’s.
The place was a shit heap; the cursive white letters faded and cracked with its windows, and the front door boarded up layers of grime and dust clung to every available surface. It was nothing like how I remembered, and I was forced to confront the fact that things had changed since the old days; Dave was clearly gone, and this place wasn’t being used by the reapers anymore, which meant I had nothing.
Cursing loudly, I felt anger twisting its way up my spine, filling my lungs and chest with heat, when suddenly a smell hit my nose—a pungent, acrid scent. It was strong and familiar, yet I knew it was far away.
Smells like smoke; somethings on fire.
Turning I saw plumes of smoke rising a few miles away in the distance. Where I had just fucking come from, another curse escaped me as I started running, picking up my pace, intent on getting as much mileage from my body as possible before I degraded again.
Nearly half an hour later, I was home, and my apartment was on fire. Looking around, I was too late to catch the culprit, or so I thought, until my senses focused on a wet boot print on the step leading down from my door. They carried on down the street towards the industrial district.
Following the trail, I felt my senses keying onto every splash of water. No matter how faint the print got, I never had to even look for it; I just knew where it was, and once the prints faded, a scent entered my nose—a mixture of gasoline and plastic smoke.
Finally, I had him in my scope as my next lead, my only clue.
MARCUS.
Following him at a distance, I was having to keep my distance, maneuvering through alleyways and hopping fences just to keep the paranoid bastard from getting a beat on me. His constant shoulder checking was getting on my nerves, but I could afford to let him get distance on me as my enhanced senses never let him go, whether it was through sight, smell, or even feeling his remnant body heat in the air. Marcus was never getting away from me, not now.
I watched him walk up to a door on the side of an old factory building and knock his knuckles on the metal a few times. The door was opened, and some warm orange light spilled into the darkening parking lot, and Marcus disappeared inside.
My eyes narrowed as I observed every inch of the building. It was a 3-story office attached to a large warehouse with high ceilings equal to the office building's height. The building showed little wear and tear, and the windows were clean, as was most of the property.
It seems like someone’s been keeping this place in good shape.
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I stalked off into the direction of the setting sun, intent on finding a place to lay down for a few hours before figuring out how I would bring despair to the reapers. My current plan was torture, but that was more of an idea. I still hadn’t worked out the specifics, but I would sleep on it. Gods know my sleeping mind has enough nightmares to go around.
Before long I found a place to relax; it was a coffee house, one of the big chains. I flipped the siren on their logo off before pulling up my hood and covering my eyes with it. I smashed through the glass door, punching straight through it and walking in before settling down on a deeply uncomfortable booth couch and closing my eyes too tired to give a shit about anything else.
I was awoken by a titanic boom that rattled the windows of a café. The sound tore me from my dreams as I was certain God himself decided to start taking pot shots at me. Leaping to my feet, I stretched the aches out of my back while sprinting outside, and that’s when I saw up in the sky a plane passing over my head: a fighter jet, one of the older models from the early 2000s. I was able to notice with my enhanced vision.
"Well, holy fuck, I thought the system killed everything with a lick of electricity in it; I can’t believe the military got its shit together that fast.”
“Your forgetting another option. Viktor, maybe the electricity going wasn’t caused by magic straight skull fucking anything with a bit of static.”
“Possible, but then what the fuck did cause it?” I asked myself, heading down the street, getting ready for a long session of stalking so I could get Marcus nice and alone.
I was perched on a rooftop across from the factory that the reapers were holed up in, chain smoking both to pass the time and to calm my nerves and stop myself from just kicking in the door. I was pretty resistant to drugs of any form, but apparently even my tolerance has its limits, and apparently a pack in a half in as many hours was it.
FINALLY.
I almost shouted as I watched that jackass Marcus walking out the front door. I was hungry, and my joints were starting to creak again whenever I sat still for more than a few minutes. I was well on my way back to square one, and just watching him walk away from his friends was wetting my appetite.
I crept of the roof sliding down the fire escape, dropping the last five feet to the ground, which had me groaning as my knees almost buckled under my weight. I began my pursuit, letting my memory and sense of smell guide me after the Axe body spray-covered prick, which I was pretty sure was pungent enough to follow even without 3 extra points in sense or a tracking skill.
Catching up to him a few minutes later, I gave him no warning before I attacked. I briefly wondered how much of an asshole I was before deciding fifteen out of ten. I sprinted the last few steps before kicking hard, throwing my foot up in an arc, bringing my steel-toed boot straight up into his nuts, and hopefully knocking them so far up his throat he just restarted puberty.
Marcus silently dropped to his knees before throwing his hands up to catch himself from falling and began retching. He puked hard on the floor, filling the air with stomach acid and deciding not to say no to a good time. I circled to his left and kicked him in the ribs, throwing him sideways onto his back.
I watched him lay there wheezing and gasping, fighting for breath and strength to stand. His head turned lazily to face me, and his dazed expression focused as he took in my visage, his brain finally catching up to reality.
“Viktor you… You rotten fucker I knew it; I knew I was right to try and deal with you.
Every word seemed to hurt my old friend, so I decided to shut him up. I raised my foot high into an axe kick before spiking my heel into his sternum. Hearing it crunch ended his sentence early, knocking him out cold. A slight curiosity overtook me, so I opened my quest counter.
1/31
Guess it really does want me to kill them all.
I grabbed Marcus and dragged him back to the siren café, allowing myself a small satisfaction at the rattling sound his chest made with his breaths as I dragged him through the semi-deserted streets by his fair, and a primal part of me enjoyed the looks. I got the fearful respect I felt from the people watching who didn’t dare intervene in my vengeance.
I threw him down against a couch and rubbed my arm, massaging the pain out of my shoulder and pushing down on it to help my joints stay in place.
“Alright, let’s start painting my message.”
I grabbed Marcus’s foot and raised it up while standing on his other ankle, and when I started twisting, his eyes bolted up with a scream.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU FUCKING SOCIOPATH?”
"Ah, wonderful you're awake now, Marcus. I would like you to tell me everything about the remaining reapers, how many there are, what you're stocked with, and what y’all are up to these days.”
“And why the fuck would I tell you that, and why the fuck do you even care?”
"Oh, you know, just connecting with old friends the usual... Plus, I’m going to torture the fuck out of you if you don't,” I said as I gave him a sickly sweet smile that didn’t meet my hollow eyes, and I twisted, snapping his foot 180 degrees.
Screams filled the café; ironically, it was quite fitting considering the location. I set myself to my grim work and took a sick delight in every part of it. I was not going to forget that he played a personal hand in Alice’s death.
Hours passed and I had taken a break from the more extreme methods of torture, although truthfully I hadn’t given him the opportunity to speak in all that time either. Fortunately, he still managed to spit out what I wanted to know in a vein, hoping it would make me stop. Holding a cigarette between his fingers, I took a drag on it and let the ashes fall against his eyelids, which were screwed tight to keep the hot gray dust away from his eye.
“You’ve gotta know how much you hurt me Marcus, I always considered you a friend thought we left it on pretty good terms too, bought my way out made a nice clean break with all y’all” I put the cig out on his collar bone creating a circular burn scar which along with the others there was quickly forming a line on his neck while I unloaded my woes on my unwillingly verbal punching bag.
I lit another, cracking a small smile as he winced. “Then you show up like an asshole, by the way; I mean, I get the betrayal, you’re a dick; I get it, but badmouthing me too real douche move.” I could see his mouth twitching in hatred and fear, and a solid layer of confusion filled his eyes as well.
Taking another long drag sent more hot ash spiraling down his features.
“Honestly though I could have gotten over all of this... Well, not really, but I had someone I loved more than I cared about my rep, but you left her with that ticking time bomb; now I have nothing, Marc.”
I watched his eyes widen for a moment as the pieces finally clicked in his stupid little walnut head.
“Alice is dead?”
“Oh yeah, Marc guess you never checked up on what was happening with Adam; he slit her throat, Marcus. You made me watch her die; she’s buried up on the hill outside the old church; you know the spot, right?”
Marcus voice was suddenly far more sober and dry. “Up by the flower field?”
"Yeah, buddy, right up on the flower field... I’ll take whatever’s left of you there when I’m done with you; it really does break my heart that it was you, Marcus.”
I watched his eyes go down and well over with tears as any hope that I could just let him go and survive even if crippled, died in him. I pushed the cigs cherry into his eye, hard snuffing it out on him and listening to his muted groan as I took in his broken, mutilated form.
His left eye was swollen shut, and I’d cut off his left ear, broken most of his fingers backwards, and cut one off completely. I’d broken his feet, smashed in his knees, shattered his sternum and partially flayed him, and left a set of burns on his collarbones. Finally deciding I was done and that this would have to be enough, I grabbed a set of aprons tied together like a cloth rope and noosed him with it. I pulled up on the makeshift rope and strangled him for several long minutes before I leaned down and dug my teeth into his throat, tearing it out with a greedy gulp before drinking at the bloody fountain.