He took a deep breath and steeled himself for the last dance. This was his final stand. The monster had stolen his friends, ripped away his love, upended his world, and soon it would be here for him. He had nowhere to run, barely anywhere to hide. He knew his chances of winning were near zero, but he wasn't giving up. The last thing he'd heard Cygnus say as he was taken to some lair or bestial den rang through his mind as he cleaned and oiled the pistol one last time, preparing himself for the suicide mission he was about to embark on.
"Good luck, V."
Cygnus had accepted his fate and had chosen to go down swinging, knowing full well that to stand against such creatures and triumph was an impossibility. He'd done it nonetheless, for them. For him. Cygnus had showed him that the creature had a weakness, had exposed it for Virgil to try and take the one shot that would kill the miserable fucking thing. He was ready to throw hands with a monster out of his darkest nightmares purely for the slim chance that he might have been able to set Virgil up to have the slightest window for victory, and though Virgil had no idea whether any of his friends were still alive he couldn't stand by and let the thing that had either taken or killed them get away with it. Not when Cyg had sacrificed so much to cast a light on the creature's weakness.
One way or the other, he would see his friends again.
The creature would come back for him, just as it had come for Cygnus a week ago and the others the week before that. Two Sundays in a row the thing had come here to find them, and there was nothing in this fucking world that was going to stop it from coming back for him. The shadowy mass with the impossibly tall smile would be back for him tonight, Virgil was sure of it. Well, let it fucking try. He was Virgil fucking Andrews, and that fucking creature had stolen his friends from him. Virgil was far past being scared or sad, he was fucking pissed. There was no way he was letting some badly-shapeshifting simulacrum of his friends best him. The thing had beaten them twice already, but three times in a row was a step too far. The third time was to be the time that Virgil won. It had to be; he wouldn't accept anything else.
The preparations didn't take long, for he thought it would be best to wait for the creature to appear once more before tearing apart the apartment, but it gave him something to do for a little while to keep his anxieties from running away from him. If he was going to face down the demon that had taken his friends then he'd need to keep all worries and anxieties in check, not to mention the fact that he would have to be at the absolute top of his game to see this through.
But, a treacherous voice in the back of his head began, Cygnus couldn't beat him even with your help. If he couldn't do it stood by your side then what chance do you stand alone?
He grimaced at the thought, then steeled himself and willed it away. None of that mattered. Sterling was gone, the Alistair twins were gone, Madison was gone, and Cygnus was gone. Virgil was the only one left, the only one who might be able to work out what happened to them. Hell, he might have been the only human left in the world.
Well if that was the case then his mind was made up for him. The monster wanted to see the end of humanity? Well, no matter the cost to his own person, Virgil was interested in showing it what the end of humanity really looked like. If the bastard wanted him to just lay down and die then Virgil was going to disappoint it with the indomitable human spirit. One last fight. One last attempt to survive.
One last hurrah to preserve the memory of humanity on this ball of mist and ivy.
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He didn't know how long he'd been sat there, waiting for the thing to show up. He knew it would be tonight, it had to be, the creatures hated daylight, so he made sure to catch a few hours of light rest before dusk fell. He hadn't been sleeping well recently, not one bit. He wasn't used to his empty bed and completely silent apartment. He was used to hearing people, hearing his friends, do something in the daytime. Cygnus and Wesley would discuss books of philosophy that they'd read, he was used to Madison teaching Sterling how to cook and bake in the kitchen, he was used to hanging out with Lyla after she'd had a nightmare and needed someone to sleep next to. He was not used to silence. Silence was frightening.
But not as frightening as the sensation he felt when hearing their voices again.
"Virgil, come on out. We're all here for you."
The creature, for it could only be that vile mimic utilising his friend's voice, spoke with the same cadence and mannerisms of Madison. It spoke in her tongue, but it was wrong, distorted somehow. It was like the creature was unused to speaking in human tongues and as such was using this as an exercise to better mould its human 'form', if he allowed himself to think of such a creature as anything close to a human.
"Virgil, I have a surprise!"
The voice sounded muffled, as though someone was speaking to him from the next room. I guess in a way it is, he thought to himself as he tipped the table over, giving himself even the smallest possible amount of cover for when this... this thing, inevitably broke down the apartment door and began its assault on his person. The thing is that it sounds further away than it should be. It sounds like it doesn't... like it can't work out how to shift its volume on command yet.
Yet. That was the keyword. It had displayed the ability to manipulate its vocal cords and change its volume towards the end of its fight with Cygnus, so it had to know how. Maybe it was just a matter of it shaking the rust off of its mimicking skills before truly 'getting into character'. Virgil had no way of knowing, so to try and theorise right now was pointless.
Besides, it wasn't like he didn't have more pressing concerns at the moment, was it?
"Open the door, Virgil! Let me in! It's out here with me!"
He was given a half-seconds pause at Lyla's frantic tone, but stopped himself before he did anything stupid. He couldn't open the door. It wasn't Lyla. It wasn't. No matter how much it sounded like his friends, it wasn't them. He needed to remember that. It wasn't them.
A few moments later there was a banging noise at the door, and Virgil was certain that he only had a few moments to prepare before the creature was upon him. He watched, almost transfixed, as the door burst open on its hinges. For a brief, terrible second, he felt a greater fear than anything he had ever felt in his life.
"Good luck, V."
And then the fear was gone. Cygnus had trusted him with this, and he'd be fucked before he let down the man who'd given him everything he'd ever wanted in his life. His friends too, they were all counting on him. They'd given him a life worth living, a life where he was free to be himself and not conform to the facsimile of himself he'd been born as. He was to fight, and whether he was to fall or to fly he would never dream of letting them down.
"Come on, demon." Virgil started speaking more to himself than to the monster, for he needed to bolster himself however possible and wasn't even sure if the creature understood human speech. "Come on and give me all you can! I'm a human, bitch! I'm not going to lay down and die like you fucking demons! Come on... come on..."
He finished out his whispered words of defiance, and as he reached the end of what he was saying he forced himself to look back out from behind the table. He hadn't realised that he'd done it, but almost on instinct he'd hid himself back away. No, no more. He would take cover when necessary, but not out of fear. Never fear.
He stood from behind the table and beheld, for a split second, an impossibly tall man with an impossibly tall face with an impossibly tall smile and eyes. He caught a glimpse of them for a second, no longer, and then it was gone. It was almost as though he'd only caught it in the recesses of his vision, the corners of his eyes. He squinted a little, breathing as calm and measured as he could manage with deliberate timing. He would not succumb to fear any more.
He scanned the kitchen, looking for the target, when all of a sudden he heard a scream louder and more urgent than those of Lyla earlier.
"VIRGIL LOOK BEHIND YOU!"
Sterling's voice echoed across the apartment without distortions, and for a moment Virgil thought the voice might have actually come from his friend. Of course when he turned around and saw nothing but empty space he immediately realised what had happened, and all but threw himself into a combat roll to the left. The creature sailed overhead, likely having planned on jumping as his back was turned. Virgil wasn't sure where the monster had been hiding, nor why it had planned to lunge at him. At least he knew now that the creature definitely could shift its volume once more. It meant yet another thing that he knew to look out for, yes, but at least he knew to listen for it now. What was perhaps more confusing was the way in which the creature clutched at the air, seeming confused as to his disappearance.
Virgil smiled a little at the creature's brashness and lack of tactical planning. It would take more than a cheap move like that to knock the gun out of his hands, to keep him from his friends.
Without stopping to think even for more than a single moment he continued moving away from where the creature had landed, throwing himself to the floor in a desperate bid to confuse the creature even more as it ran to cut him off in the hopes that he'd be able to scrabble back behind the table.
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At that moment there was a whispered voice in his head. It was a rasping voice, one that sounded parched from thirst.
"I'm already in your mind. I know what you fear. I am you now. Wake up, Virgil."
Speaking out loud he steeled himself, repeating the same thing Cygnus had said to them all before they'd been attacked, a time that felt like months ago despite the fact it had only been a few weeks: "Sometimes it's worth the risk.".
"Dude, leave it alone! Fucking quit it!"
He leaned out around the tipped-over table and, as the creature mimicked Wesley's voice with uncanny accuracy save a little audible static, squeezed the trigger.
There was a resounding bang, but thanks to Cyg's lessons his hands remained steady. Though he couldn't see the shadowy mass he knew for a fact that the thing was still up and gunning for him.
Six shots left. He'd better make them count more than the first.
"Virgil. Virgil, stop crying. Don't hide, Virgil. We're waiting for you. We miss you, Virgil. Come back to us, please. For us, Virgil. For me."
Something in the monster's tone shifted on the last work, and Virgil all but forced himself to look upon the figure's form once more. He hadn't even realised he'd started, but as the creature spelled it out for him he realised that tears were streaming down his face as he beheld the forms of his friends, rapidly shifting and changing in front of him to show betrayed expressions as though he were the one responsible for what had happened to them, as though it was them he was shooting at and not the monster wearing their guises. He wasn't fooled, and couldn't afford to hesitate. He had to act now. Then, as the creature shifted its features once more, and leered at him in the doorway with the face of his beloved Cyg, something inside Virgil snapped. He all but vaulted the table, took aim, and with a terrified and yet impossibly angry scream he fired off two more shots in rapid succession.
Five. Four.
"GIVE HIM BACK TO ME YOU FUCKING BASTARD!"
The creature, apparently either incensed or excited at Virgil's anger and fear, sheared itself of any mask or pretences. Where once there was a changing series of faces, the faces of his friends, now there was just a lanky human-esque form with an impossibly stretched face that bordered on manic as it barrelled into the room and tore the upturned table that Virgil had been using as cover from the floor and threw it out of the kitchen and into the living room, slamming into the coffee table whereupon the solid oak dinner table absolutely shattered the flimsier coffee table into a thousand shards and pieces.
Virgil hardly even registered this and immediately darted to the side, narrowly avoiding the grasping hands of whatever the fuck this thing was. He had no desire to be rendered powerless before the entity like his friends, and no matter how much his heart yearned to see him again there was no way in hell he was letting himself be taken like Cygnus had. Whatever the fuck this thing was it had broken Cyg down mentally after it had realised he was too dangerous to attack head on, so it had taken the cowardly route and broken down his mind. That by itself had spurred Virgil's desire to put this thing into the fucking ground. No one fucked with Cygnus and got away with it, not if he had any say in the matter and air in his lungs.
He would stand and he would fight, that much he was certain of, but now shorn of cover it was time for him to find an opening and dart into one of the bedrooms where he could gather his senses once more and prepare to hear the voices of his friends in harrowing detail without clamming up once more.
"Virgil. Virgil. Virgil. Virgil. VIRGIL!"
The creature screamed his name with increasing intensity, over and over again, in the voices of his friends. It seemed like the creature was not only learning how to better mimic their voices, but also which ones affected him the most, for as the Virgil bolted out of the kitchen and into his and Cygnus' bedroom it was his boyfriend's voice that called for him repeatedly. The tone of his boyfriend's voice was fearful, almost as though he were begging for help. For all the inner turmoil that he felt, Virgil refused to give into the creature's mind games. Besides, it had made one fatal mistake.
'Cygnus', or rather the creature mimicking him, sounded afraid. The real Cyg was never afraid. Scared, yes, but afraid? Never. Cygnus was brave no matter what, never allowing his fear to overcome his senses, especially when the safety of his friends was on the line. Cygnus wouldn't succumb to fear, not if he was needed by someone else, and so Virgil knew he had to emulate that same heroism that existed in his boyfriend.
"I'M RIGHT HERE YOU BASTARD! COME AND GET ME!"
There was a rapid banging on the locked door as it bulged inwards slightly, the metal of the lock and the wood of the door itself struggling to prevent the creature's entry from the other side.
Virgil ducked down behind the bed that had once been privy to hundreds of quiet nights spent in a loving embrace, and tried to force the darker thoughts that such nights might never come again from his mind. He friends were still out there, they had to be, and he wasn't going to rest until he'd destroyed this demon and found them. Everything was going to be okay. Cygnus had spent so long protecting the group and looking after them all, but now it was all on Virgil. For what felt like the first time in his life, despite the fact he'd done it a thousand times before, he knew it would be up to him to look after their safety and care for them now. He was to be the one that kept Cygnus safe, and not the other way around. He was going to win here.
He was going to live.
The centre of the doorway shattered open, leaving the bottom of the door and the areas around the hinges and lock hanging onto the sections of wall to which they'd been attached. Even before the splintering wood hit the ground Virgil fired off another shot from his hiding place behind the bed, the spent casing flying onto the duvet. That's gonna smell like smoke, he thought to himself, in what even in the moment he was able to realise was a really useless thought to be having right now.
The bullet caught the creature square in the chest, and though it might not have done so much as slowed down the figure of the monster that had chased him through the house and was now inside of the doorway of his bedroom, as he took aim and fired the shot Virgil noticed something past the weakly swirling black mist. It was a small splotch of red, no larger than an apple, on the side of the creature's torso. It was dripping with ichor. It was hope.
There it was; he'd found the wound that Cygnus had caused the creature last week, and it looked as though it hadn't healed even the slightest bit. Good. The fucking thing would know true pain before Virgil was done with it.
If there was anything Virgil could do to kill this thing, assuming such a feat was even possible, then surely the greatest chance of such a thing was to target that wound once more. Maybe he was reaching a bit, but given what he and Cygnus had learned last time, and the fact that the wound had yet to heal on the creature, he just needed to damage the creature enough that the shadowy shielding that cladded its form disappeared, then they could deal some real damage to the thing.
Of course, if he was able to get in close and shoot at the pre-existing wound
"BEHIND YOU!" Sterling's voice called out again from the creature's maw, frantic and desperate. Virgil refused to let himself be phased, to fall for the same trick twice, and so kept his gaze tracked on the monster at all times. He didn't look away, waiting for the strange and malevolent beast to make its move and rush towards him
As he closed his eyes for the briefest possible moment he just about caught the rush of air in front of him as the creature lunged forward. Snapping his eyes back open and with a swiftness that surprised both the creature and himself, he ducked under the blow aimed at his face and managed to place his gun against the creature's wounded spot. In the split second before he pulled the trigger once more there was a noise of whined pain that sounded like Lyla after she'd found her brother passed out on the hard kitchen tiles with bruising on his sides from a collapse, but he didn't let the creature play on his emotions any longer than it physically took him to snap his finger down on the trigger twice.
The gunshots, seeing as the gun had actually been pressed against the creature's wound, struck hard and true. In an instant the creature fell to the ground, screaming in five voices out loud as another screamed inside Virgil's head, writhing and kicking about ineffectually on the floor. Virgil's hand shot back from the recoil, the price he payed for the awkward angle at which he'd had to hold the gun to press it into the creature's open wound and the lack of a good stance he'd been able to get in since he wasn't willing to risk taking that second if it meant that the creature might be able to realise what he was doing and get out of its way.
The creature, for its part, writhed on the floor and screamed in the tongues of five humans and six monsters whilst Virgil nursed his wrist for a moment and adjusted his hold on the pistol so that he could fire properly one last time.
One bullet left. Make it count.
Virgil cocked the hammer of the pistol and aimed it at the creature's forehead. With a look of disdain he pulled the trigger one last time, delighting in the squirming and screaming of his foe as the bullet hit its skull. Yes, Virgil was out of bullets, but he'd done enough damage to the thing that it was now taking real damage. It was feeling real pain.
Looking at the little red spot that had appeared on the creature's forehead as a result of that last shot he raised his right foot and, with all the force he could muster in his combat boots, brought his foot down again and again. Once, twice, three times, and the little red spot grew wider. Four, five, six times, and the creature's writhing stopped as the screaming went mute. The red spot grew wider still, now encompassing most of the creature's forehead. The two impossibly tall eyes looked glazed over, a far cry from the terrifying intent Virgil had seen in them just thirty minutes ago, and for the briefest moment Virgil actually felt a little pity for the monster.
Then he realised that his friends were gone, and the pity vanished.
Seven times. Seven gunshots fired at the creature, and seven forceful stomps on its head. That's what it took to kill this thing, along with the prior wounds it had taken in the fight against Cyg. On the seventh time Virgil raised his leg and brought it down on the creatures skull there was a sickening crunch followed by a cracking sound, and his foot went right through the monster's head. It felt absolutely disgusting, all blood and brains and viscera, but Virgil didn't care. The fucking thing was dead, and that was all that mattered. He brought his foot down on the creature once more as if to make sure it was dead, but he really didn't need to. The voices had gone silent, the dread in the air was no more, the lights were on again, and the stench of rotting wood and sulphur was gone. The thing was dead, and Virgil was alive.
Now he just needed to make sure his friends were alive, and to hope beyond hope that they hadn't been harmed by whatever foul fucking things this strange and malevolent entity had put them all through since it had taken them. He didn't know where exactly to look, but he did have a pretty good idea; this creature had only started following them after they'd looted the hospital, right?
Hopefully, if that was the case, that's where he'd find his friends.
Hopefully.
He didn't have much hope left at the moment, even if the thing was dead. Still, he was Virgil Andrews, and until he knew what had happened to his friends he wouldn't fucking rest. He would find them, and he would help them, and they'd carry on surviving in this post-apocalyptic landscape just as they had before.
Well, maybe not exactly as they had before. It seemed like a supply run or two to a couple of hunting shops or gun vendors might be in order in the coming days, not to mention what he expected would be some very intensive firing drills and lesson from Cygnus.
Oh, and repairs to the apartment. Two doors were broken open and the coffee table had been busted beyond all repair. Cleaning as well would need to take place, because fuck him if it wasn't a damn mess at the moment.
Right now he needed to find his friends however, and he wasn't in the mood to sleep first. Dawn would break in a few hours and he'd make his move, but he didn't think he'd be sleeping tonight.
No. Tonight he'd keep vigil and clean the black and red ichor off of his clothes and skin, then at first light he'd find his friends.
They had to be alive. They had to be.
He wasn't sure what he'd do if they weren't.