You would’ve thought she was a statue, the way she just stood there. Unmoving. Not even breathing. Her head slumped down, her eyes gazing at the floor beneath the visor of her motorcycle helmet. The skin on her hands, so pale and white, like she was made of paper. Paper that was diseased with rips and tears and wild scratches. And the way she held that dirty machete, gripping it so tight, like it was a part of her body.
Dim, yellowish light glistened onto the dark tile below. The button next to the words ‘Penthouse - 61’ was lit up. The silence was broken only by the whirring of the elevator and the awkward jazz that played from the speakers above.
In her mind, what she was about to do was just. Logical. Fair. The saturnine means to an oh-so sanguine end. The thought of it used to scare her. But, once she got over herself and did it for the first time, that fear was replaced with a dopamine rush. And she finally stopped questioning if it would make her any less human than she already was.
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A group of young men lounge around in a lofty suite. Most of them are laying on the couch in front of the TV, mashing buttons to see who’s the best at virtual fighting out of all of them. Some of them were off working on their slim laptops, working on designs for weapons they’d use eventually.
All of these men were unique in their own sense, but they all shared common traits. Tattoos, piercings, techwear, guns in their back pockets, and a ludicrous amount of money. But they also shared some quite bizarre traits, too. Each and every one of them possessed cybernetics— some in their eyes, some in their arms, some in their chest, some with everything you could imagine. For they had cast away the toils of flesh and bone– but, to them, it made them all the more human.
There’s a knock on the door to their hotel room. One of them yells, ‘Anyone gonna get that!?’. But everyone was far too occupied to care. He groans, and he goes to the door, his blackened cybernetic eyes staring at his friends as he does.
He unlocks the door, and turns the knob, and pulls the door towards him, expecting to see a familiar face. But the thing he saw didn’t have a face at all.
A phantom in black towers over him. A creature in baggy black clothes, gazing into his inhuman eyes with its own through the visor of a motorcycle helmet. It raised its arm, holding a machete in its hand, ready to enact justice upon the miserable man in front of it.
“IT’S THE MARIONETTE!!-”
He can’t even finish screaming, as the wraith’s blade ripped through his head like it was made out of mist. Blood fills the air. Two men make their way in front of the Marionette, guns in hand. The phantom grabs the corpse in front of it and sends it flying towards one of them, so hard that it sends the man into the wall. The other one lays fire into the phantom– or, at least, tries to. For the bullets were simply too slow to reach the Marionette, who cuts the bullets in twain with its blade, and promptly subjects the gunman to the same fate. His left-hand side fell in one direction and his right to the other.
The other man stumbles back up, his head ringing from the impact. But before he can react, the monster rushes past him, taking his head with it.
The Marionette finds itself in front of the men who were playing that game earlier, who have already gotten into position. The phantom takes a step forwards and triggers a tripwire, connected to the pin of a Shockwave Pulse Grenade. A purple aura expands from the device, sending it flying into the corner of the room. As soon as it slams into the walls, the men launch a hail of lead into the monster. Dust fills the air as it does. The storm ends as the men pull their triggers, but only the clicks of empty magazines ring through the air.
Splat.
The disembodied head of one of their comrades rips through the air, somehow faster than the bullets they’d been shooting. It blasts through the head of one of them, turning both, ironically, into red mist.
The phantom comes out once more, its clothes tattered by the bullet but its flesh unscathed. And, in a few strokes and a few seconds of fearful wails, the men are reduced to mincemeat.
Red. Red was splattered all over the visor of her helmet. Red was the new color her clothes were dyed in. Red covered her machete and dripped off of it. Red covers the floor in chunks and pools.
She stares into the floor, trying to process what she had done. The dopamine had ran off and left apathy in its place. There was supposed to be something else there instead. Guilt, maybe. But she couldn’t feel guilty. Because she was dead, and you had to be alive to feel guilt.
She begins to search among the pile of body parts she’d made. Specifically, for heads. Modern day cybernetics allowed for people to store their memories in the form of recordings taken straight from the brain. And, eventually, after a good moment of searching, she finally finds a match. She picks up the head, and clicks the button on the side. And out comes a cartridge, so tiny you could put it into your Nintendo Switch.
She strides onto the balcony, as if she’d claimed the hotel suite as her own, and leans on the railing. The sky was a navy blue, filled with scattered stars and blinking airplane lights. She takes off her helmet, and lets down her hair. It’s messy and short, but her bangs were so long that they started to cover her eyes. Her black eyes were sullen, because she hadn’t slept right in months. A small smile forms on her mouth in spite of the atrocity she had just committed.
Her brain begins to replay that memory, reminding herself of why she does this in the first place.
A warm smile.
A flutter in her heart.
A sleepless night.
A memory she could’ve lived in forever. Until those lunatics took it away from her.
“GO TO HELL!”
A voice in the corner of the balcony yells. And, before she knew it, a Shockwave Pulse Grenade sent her flying off of the sixty-first floor of the Mandalay Bay.
Her helmet flew across the sky, never to be seen again. The golden windows of the Vegas monolith reflected her fall. Her jacket blew through the wind like wings, tattered from the bullets that ripped through them. Her head tilts back, putting her completely up-side down. Her face showed dissatisfaction, but no worry.
She falls into the sand of Mandalay Bay’s artificial beach with a deafening thud. And, for a second, she stays there. That would have killed her if she were alive. But, now, it was just like diving into a pool. She raises her arm out of the sand and looks at her palm, seeing the cartridge still intact. With a sigh of relief, she stands up, and disappears into the chaos that was a night in Las Vegas.
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A stolen black muscle car sits in the heart of an indoor parking lot. One of its windows was rolled up to let in air. Next to it was a gray sedan and a white SUV. Below it was the pavement, a light gray. Above it was a red light indicating the spot it took up was, in fact, taken.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Vanessa approaches the car, and, after unlocking it, jumps into the backseat and lies down on it. With a groan, she drags her arm up and places the cartridge into a cupholder. And she almost falls asleep- but that possibility is eradicated with a high-pitched ‘Meow.’ from the front seat.
Her eyes tilt to the side to see the source of the noise– her calico cat. Vanessa promptly opens up her arms to let the cat in, whispering to it as she did. The cat obliges. She cuddles the cat against her chest and begins to smother it with kisses to its head.
“Oh, Eggyyy!... I love you, you know that? Riiiight?” her voice goes higher in pitch and she squeals a little to herself. The cat, being a cat, does nothing but meow in response.
“I’ll get you your other mom back, I promise!!!-”
A ping from her phone breaks the moment.
“Oh, what the hell.”
She gets up, and the cat climbs off of her chest and onto the other seat. She picks up her phone, and it reads,
[Meeting with hacker guy – 7:30 PM]
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A dim light shines throughout the hotel room. The whirring of the bathroom fan fills up the leaf-green walls. There’s a man on the bed, in a pair of black shorts and a gray sweatshirt. His right side lays upon the white sheets. His left arm and leg begin to drag him down to the floor, hanging off of the bed.
An irksome melody ends his sleep abruptly. The mobile phone on the nightstand right next to him. He groans a little bit, before falling off of the bed with a loud thud. He groans even more, before standing up. His long, black wavy hair covers his eyes and goes down to his shoulders. His skin is a tan brown, and is smooth. His physique resembles that of a golden age bodybuilder. But his posture was poor, his head tilted forwards. His eyes were tired and gloomy. He was like Heracles; a Heracles who worked a 9-5.
He picks up his phone, and squints for a moment.
His wallpaper is a photo of him and some friends. He was at the center of the image. In the far right of the image, his sister from another mother. They’d known each other since birth, since their dads were good friends. To the right, his ex-girlfriend. She was a good bit taller than him and had long, black flowing hair. To the left, his best friend, in a varsity jacket and navy jeans.
It was his 16th birthday party, and they’d gone to a Korean barbeque place. They all sucked at cooking back then. His best friend had somehow managed to undercook and overcook the same piece of steak. But, no matter how terrible their cooking skills were, the food always tasted good. Because they were having fun.
Everyone in that photo, barring him, was now dead.
He ignores the wallpaper, for now, not wanting to be reminded, and looks at the time. 5:38 PM. He can’t exactly remember when he went to sleep, or what the last thing he did was. He considered going back to sleep, but then, he saw a reminder on his phone--
[Meeting with client @ Del Frisco’s - 7:30 PM]
Again, he considers going back to sleep, but he knows he has a bad habit of taking too much time getting ready. So, begrudgingly, he mumbles a few curses, puts down the phone, and begins undressing to shower.
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He comes out of his hotel room, dressed in a gray suit and black tie. His hair is tied into a man bun, with curly curtain bangs over his face. Also over his face, a pair of clubmaster sunglasses with lavender lenses. On his feet were a pair of clean white Air Force 1s. The crease protectors inside made it uncomfortable to walk, but as long as he looked good, he was fine with it.
He worked in private security. He worked in helping maintain cybersecurity systems as well as outright bodyguarding. It wasn’t the job he imagined himself doing five years ago, but nonetheless, it was a good job. Technology had always come naturally to him, and the violent conflicts he’d been met with as a bodyguard had been quickly stifled.
The man walks across the hallway. His room was near the end, so he had a long way to go. An endless pattern of parallel doors surrounds him. His phone buzzes in the pockets of his suit pants. His eyes light up for a second as he takes the device and looks at its screen, engrossed in the idea of someone messaging him. Anybody. But it was just his calorie tracker app. He frowns and puts the phone back in his pocket.
Before he knows it, he’s at the elevator. The metal doors stand in front of him. He’s seen doors identical to them a million times. It’d become uniform for him to press the button and wait for the elevator to rise or fall to his floor. After a few seconds of waiting, they finally open. And he goes in without thinking.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
He doesn’t like having to talk to people. It always feels awkward. Everytime, too, it feels like he’s messed up in some way. But, no matter what, it’s still something he has to do.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
He hated attention. Because then, people had expectations of him. And everytime he always fails to meet these expectations.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
He felt at his best when he was alone. When there was nobody in the world except for him. Because then, he couldn’t disappoint anybody.
He puts in his earphones, so that he doesn’t have to listen to the sounds of his breathing anymore. It was a habit. He always thought his breathing was too loud and bothersome, so maybe, if he just didn’t focus on it, it would go away.
The sounds of jazz fill his head as the elevator doors open.
The lobby, as to be expected, was crowded. People coming to check in, people coming to check out. People coming to eat, people going to the pool. And, out of all of them, he was the only one wearing a suit. He muttered a curse to himself and then speed walked out of the building.
It was that time of day where it was too dark to see the sunset, but too bright to see the stars. Not that you’d be able to see the stars, anyways– pollution nowadays was at an all-time high. An awkward navy blue filled the sky.
Fortunately, it doesn’t take too much time for him to find a cab. It stops in front of him. He opens the backseat door and hops in. And, before the driver can ask, he says,
“Del Frisco’s, please.”
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Vanessa’s black muscle car pulls into yet another parking lot. This one was just right next to Del Frisco’s. The steakhouse had a very strict dress code, and she was pretty sure that her jacket filled with sand and bullet holes wouldn’t cut it. Which is why she had a suit in the trunk. She hadn’t worn it since prom five years ago, but it was the only thing she had. They had frozen her bank account when she ‘died’. She’d been ‘living’ off of stolen groceries for the past few months. Despite that, though, she never stopped being hungry no matter how many Walmarts she broke into at the dead of night, and no matter how much she ate.
She grabs the bag she’d stuffed all her clothes into and hops into the passenger’s seat to change. It’s an awkward process. The slightest clue on how to tie a tie doesn’t come to her, so she just stuffs it back into the bag. The car door opens as she tries to put a shoe on. She almost falls out before grabbing onto the steering wheel and reeling herself back up. Eventually, she comes out of the car, and once again goes to her trunk. This time, to bring food to that calico cat she loved so much. She picked up that sack of pet food like it weighed nothing, put it on the passenger’s seat, and tore it open. A few brown pebbles of food spill out, and even more do when the cat hops onto it to feast. It mewed to thank her.
“You’re welcome~.” She sings to it. Vanessa rolls up the car window before closing it. “Stay safe, Egg!~”
As she walked across the street, memories came flooding into her. Memories she’d had in the suit. She’d only worn it once, but it was one of the best days of her life. After all, she got to see her love in that silky white dress, as beautiful as ever…
A ping from her phone shut down her nostalgia. She puts the phone up to her face-
[Unknown]
[I’m here. Gray suit, black tie, long hair. Purple sunglasses. You?]
she replies,
[black suit, no tie, white shirt]
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He stands next to a palm tree, checking his phone.
“Seriously, no tie?...” he thinks. His client must’ve dressed up late. Who forgets a tie, going to a place like this?
The lights reflect off of his sunglasses. The man’s head perks up, trying to eye anyone of that exact description. Lots of black suits, but they all had ties. And they all had dates, too. He doesn’t blame them– this was a great place to go if you wanted to impress someone. But he wouldn’t bring anyone here, himself. He wouldn’t bring anyone anywhere, really. He thought love was stupid.
“Hey.”
A familiar voice whispers out to him. Rough, coarse, and tired, but still recognizable. The words that came from this voice had always been a little honeyed, no matter what they said. But that soothingness only unnerved him more.
He was afraid of meeting people from his past in the first place. After all, he’d failed them so massively that most of them cut him off years ago. And he didn’t wanna hear the insults he’d get, and he also didn’t wanna walk by them and start reminiscing. But, this was worse than that. Because, for starters, that voice belonged to his ex-girlfriend. And, secondly,
His ex had died eight months ago in a fire.
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There’d been a certain tinge of nostalgia to that guy, before Vanessa called out to him. His build felt familiar, his hair color like someone she used to know, and she could’ve sworn she knew someone who slouched like that.
It’s only when the man turns around, with a pale look on his face and sunglasses hiding the fear in his eyes, that Vanessa realizes why he felt so familiar.
Her eyes widened. She wouldn’t know how she would feel if she met someone she knew, considering the state she’s in. But she wasn’t expecting it to be relief. Especially when it came to Jack of all people. They left each other on horrible terms and hadn’t talked ever since.
Memories blast through them. Memories they wanted to leave behind, both good and bad, because lingering with them would only make the both of them cry.