Leon was running.

He headed down an old street from his childhood days, tearing shoeleather across a road, dodging cars, weaving in between trees and parked trucks, and constantly looking back over his shoulder.

Behind him was a giant tiger, fearsome looking, with its fangs and leg fur stained with blood. It seemed to be running slower than it should, and sometimes when Leon looked back, it felt like it was running in place, as if it were a glitched character in a video game.

But Leon felt fear wash over him nonetheless. The tiger was the scariest thing, seeming to glow red and pick up magical particles every time Leon looked back. It was a bloodthirsty, hungry beast twice his size, and it saw Leon as its next supper.

Leon ducked into an old apartment building, and hurriedly pressed buttons, trying to contact someone inside the apartment to let him in. But it was too late. The tiger wheeled towards the glass front of the apartment, and charged through the glass, looking utterly rabid and enraged.

Leon retreated backward, and before he knew it, he fell down a hole.

And kept falling.

And falling.

Leon couldn't even see light from where he fell from anymore, but as he twisted towards the ground he saw a spotlight right where he was going to land.

But before Leon knew it, he was no longer falling. He was standing in the spotlight. As he looked around, a shambling ghoul walked towards him. It resembled......someone. Someone familiar. The ghoul kneeled before him, handed him a Predator Pistol, and cried out.

"I can't take this anymore. My family's gone, and my brain's screaming at me to eat and eat and eat cause of this damn virus! Just kill me now, so I don't have to live like this!"

Leon took the Predator Pistol in confusion, and stared at the ghoul.

"JUST KILL ME NOW SO I DON'T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS!" The ghoul screamed again.

Leon raised his gun, but before he fired, a young man in a leather jacket ran towards the ghoul, hugged him, and exploded, just like what had happened to his father all those years ago. Leon shielded his eyes and turned away from the explosion, but when he looked back, he saw his father......

Leon's father Jack Hartigan handed Leon a frag grenade (Leon had somehow lost his pistol), before kneeling in front of him.

"Kill me now, so I don't have to live like this! Kill me now, Matthew! Then kill my wife! Then I won't have to live like this!"

Jack spread his arms out wide, and slowly transformed into a ghoul. Leon was paralyzed, rooted to the spot, and unable to help his father from turning. He was a ghoul now!

No!

NO!!!!!!!

As Leon stood paralyzed, another young man wearing a leather jacket walked past Leon. Leon could make out the logo of a distorted oval surrounding some type of hill on the back of his jacket, as the young man slowly embraced his father.

Leon's father then transformed fully into a ghoul, grinning at Leon over the young man's shoulder as the flesh rotted and melted off his face.

Then his head mutated into some cybernetic demon, his skin a rapidly shifting metamorphosis of blue Matrix code. The demon cried out in laughter, as Leon still stood paralyzed, unable to reach out, unable to stop anything from happening.

And then a bigger, all-encompassing explosion of white blew Leon backwards.

~~~

Leon woke up in his bedroom gasping for air.

That one was bad.

Leon had nightmares on a semi-regular basis, often based on the shards of his checkered past. The tiger chasing him through the streets was a regular one, although nothing exactly like that had ever happened to Leon in real life, and was probably just a metaphor for something else. Seeing his father explode though, just like in the trideo feed, that was common. The ghoul was a new one, based on the ghoul in Humboldt he had killed on a recent job, the one who begged him for an end to his suffering under the HMHVV virus.

Leon got up, dug through the mini-fridge set up in his bedroom, and got a bottle of synthvodka and some ice. He poured it into a large glass, and downed a stiff one.

He wasn't much of a drinker, never liking the taste of the stuff, unlike almost every shadowrunner in the history of shadowrunning. But sometimes he felt a yearning for a hard drink, or had to down a shot of something when meeting someone important in a bar, in order to "fit in" with the crowd.

Leon slugged down another stiff belt, and looked at Sylvia, still sleeping in the bed, with blankets tantalizingly wrapped around her nude form. It was one of the few beautiful sights left in the world, at least in Leon's opinion.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Unfortunately, Leon noticed Sylvia was now tossing and turning, and her brows were furrowed. She was probably being bothered by a nightmare too......

~~~

Sylvia was in a white room.

Wherever she looked, she saw an open expanse of white, spanning in all directions. It was like a room lit up with those flourescent light tubes from the 1990s, except when she looked up at the ceiling, she didn't see any light source at all.

But the room was bright. Until Sylvia looked around, and noticed darkness encroaching, from a rectangle-shaped hole that appeared in one of the walls.

Without meaning to, Sylvia walked towards it.

Suddenly, she found herself on a wide path of blood, leading through a void of sheer darkness. The blood for the path was solid and somehow supported her weight, and came courtesy of a bunch of bleeding victims off to the sides. Sylvia recognized her old tormentor Billy Bones, holding his head over the road, letting droplets of blood flow down from his severed neck onto the path. The disembodied head grinned at Sylvia. It wasn't a pretty grin.

Sylvia looked to the left and right, and saw more people she vaguely recognized. A corporate security man for Fuchi that Sylvia killed during a shadowrun. A member of the Silver Plane, a group that tried to kidnap her. Several ghouls she had killed the other day in Humboldt. A vampire she had killed in Seattle. All of them bleeding from various wounds, with the blood trickling down and forming the path she walked on.

Suddenly, the path tilted. Sylvia splatted face-first on the blood and slid down, down, down, until landing in a heap. A spotlight shined from above, and Sylvia was almost face-to-face with a ghoul. It was the leader ghoul Leon had executed in Humboldt.

The ghoul raised its tear-streaked face, and screamed at Sylvia: "JUST KILL ME NOW SO I DON'T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS!" over and over and over.

Sylvia felt her ears ringing, and covered them, trying to turn away from the voice. But the ghoul kept appearing in front of her, no matter where she turned.

Suddenly, a lithe figure wearing military armor dropped down beside the ghoul, pulled out what looked like a Fichetti 500 Light Pistol, and shot the ghoul in the head from close range.

The military figure took off their helmet, and revealed......Sylvia.

But with blonde hair, like she used to have back in Seattle, after she re-dyed it and joined Leon as a shadowrunner.

Sylvia's double grinned evilly at her, but then her hair started to turn from blonde to......green?

Suddenly, the face of Sylvia's double changed to reveal a Mantis Insect spirit. Its mandibles clicked and clacked, with mana lightining sparkling all over it. It went in to eat Sylvia's chest!

Sylvia strangely didn't feel any pain though, as the Mantis dug into her, and only heard someone yelling in the distance.

"......Sylvia!"

"......Sylvia!"

"SYLVIA!"

~~~

Finally, Sylvia woke up, gasping for air. Leon had his arms securely wrapped around her.

"You're okay......you're okay......I'm right here......it's gonna be fine......you're okay......"

Sylvia thought for half a second that this was still a dream, and that Leon was that damned Mantis trying to kill her. But then her head cleared, and she started wheezing into Leon's shoulder.

Sylvia had bad dreams often, usually about people she had killed over the years in the shadows. But this one was really bad, especially the insect bit. Insect spirits and Insect Shamans had become public enemies recently, after essentially conquering the city of Chicago in 2055. A three year effort by the Ares corporation had cleaned up a lot of them, but word coming out of Chicago was still not good, with the city descending into lawlessness and gang warfare. A few insects also had survived the Ares fumigation attempts, and were hunting the gangs and lost civvies there in vengeance. Sylvia had seen the carnage play out live on national news once, and it haunted her (and some fellow shamans and mages who also saw the footage) to this day.

Sylvia held on tightly to Leon, hoping that this was reality and not some damned dream too......

~~~

"......Insects, eh?"

Leon had switched to ice water after a couple glasses of synthvodka. Sylvia had slugged down half a glass of the clear and potent alcohol, but didn't go for anymore. She had finally calmed down from her nightmare, and was sitting with her back against Leon's stomach, and Leon's forearms draped across her for comfort.

"Yeah, and that ghoul leader you popped in Humboldt the other day."

"He was in my nightmare too."

"......So does it really bother you? To be doing all this?"

"......It didn't bother me to kill him at the time. I'd probably want the same thing he wanted. Living with that virus is hell for some ghouls. Contact of mine told me it's like you have a voice in your head, telling you to feed every time you go near a human, every time you smell their sweat, or smell their flesh. I wouldn't want to live like that."

Sylvia sighed.

"I can never get the dead people out of my head. I wish there was a better way to do these damn runs. Can't we all just get along?"

Leon hugged Sylvia tighter.

"You don't have to be a shadowrunner you know. You don't have to force yourself to be cut out for this. You can watch over the house, or teach magic to kids or something. We'll get by."

"I can't do that!"

"Why not?"

"Because I love you, you idiot! What would you do without me watching your back!? Just think of that hell hound attack, when we were raiding the cargo! If I wasn't there you would have burned to death! I get worried about you a lot, and it'd be just as bad if I weren't there, wondering if you'd come home from the latest job or not! You need me out there!"

"......I know you watch my back, and I'm grateful for it." Leon said, trying to calm her down. "But if you didn't come along, I'd just take easier jobs. We'd make it through. We could sell some gear we don't need if things get bad. Maybe we could sell a lot of gear off, and settle down here, be legit."

"You won't go legit. You need this."

Leon sighed. She had a point. She always did, in these arguments.

"Yes, I need this. I'm all screwed up. I live for those tense moments, right before the draw, or right when I'm hunting, or being hunted. Everyone has something they're good at, something they want to do, and mine is handling a pretty girl and handling a gun. Its the life that chose us. I'm sorry babe."

Sylvia tried to lift Leon's arm off her, but he resisted, and kept hanging on, hugging her, with his hands drifting lower......

"You aren't handling a pretty girl."

"Yes I am."

"No you're not!"

But Sylvia could feel a certain something between Leon's legs growing and hardening, pushing up against her lower back. Damn him, and damn his sexy forearms, and his nice fake muscles, and his sexy forearms, and his nice jawline, and his sexy forearms......

"Let me go, I need to do something."

Leon let go, and Sylvia turned around and kissed him, pushing him down on their bed and pushing his hand between her legs. They made love off and on, until the alcohol and the fatigue prevailed, and they fell into a (thankfully) dreamless sleep......