Wild dogs ahead of me and bloodthirsty players behind me, neither of which were opponents I could afford to take on in my current condition. I could feel the wound in my shoulder leaking a bit, miniscule shards of light rising into the air as my health ticked down second by second.

  The dogs were whipped into a frenzy at the cacophony of noise, and instead of running away when a potential pack of predators were charging toward them, they began to dart forward towards the danger and by extension, me.

  I cleared the grass, my boots thumping against concrete and asphalt, the dogs baying for blood. I did the one thing I still could. I reached into my bag and lit some thermite inside it, pulling out even as the heat seared my hand, the discomfort making itself known as I heard the sizzling of my own flesh. I dropped it to the pavement, nobody being spared from the blinding light. Most stopped moving as the grenade sparked and hissed again and again, the dogs whining while the players yelled in shock and covered their eyes.

  I didn't wait for the effect to fade as the closed eye icon appeared to the right of my health bar along with the bleed effect, a timer counting down from three seconds. I slammed into something hard and metallic, my body flopping against what sounded like the hood of a car before I slid off to the left, a yellow indicator of the physical display showing that I'd taken some damage to my right knee. I struggled to keep moving forward, my injured body scraping against the ground, shoving myself forward with my one good leg as the blindness cleared. I'd hit a pickup truck, the back of it already flying by as I raced toward the bar.

  The dogs began barking and growling once more, though I didn't hear them coming up behind me, the sound getting just a little further away. The players I definitely heard as grunts and shouts of alarm mixed with strangled howling and screams permeating the air. I reached into my bag, hoping to buy just a few more seconds with another thermite grenade. My blackened hand found nothing except for a dull knife, the steel feeling cold despite the fact that I should've burned my virtual nerves away.

  I leapt toward one of the windows in an attempt to smash through, only to slam against it with not even a crack to reward my effort. The head on the physical display turned yellow, an icon of a head with stars swirling around it appearing even as my vision swam.

  Oh come on, that always works in movies.

  I picked myself up off the ground and hobbled to the door, trying to move as fast as I could while still remaining upright, the task feeling monumental as everything spun around relentlessly.

  Fortunately the door was unlocked and I made my way inside while the battle outside raged on. If I didn't find something in here to save my ass, then it might as well have been a decent idea to just hide in the oven and wait for someone to turn it on. I shook off the thought as I limped toward the counter.

  My health was almost halved at this point as I hauled myself over the counter and behind it. I pulled my medical kit free and emptied it out, the bottle of disinfectant bouncing once against the tiled floor. None of it was sterilized, the salt water definitely having been contaminated with something.

  The bandages were dry enough though as I dumped the disinfectant onto the wound and then hastily wrapped them around my shoulder, using two strips of duct tape to secure them. It wouldn't last too long, but now the bleeding icon at least had a timer of fifteen seconds remaining instead of just a death countdown.

  Hiding underneath the counter had allowed me this one moment to heal, but the battle outside was beginning to wind down as the players found their footing. The wound on my shoulder degraded to the same yellow as my head and leg, my health sitting at just under half when the timer ran out. I softly knocked the back of my head against a cabinet behind me.

  I pulled myself up off the ground, stuffing things back into the medical kit and then stuffing that back into my pack. The only thing I could see that even resembled a weapon was a bottle of whiskey laying on its side on the floor, and this went into my pack swiftly, a little something to celebrate if I survived.

  I found a swinging door to the back room off to the right and I took it gladly, darkness enveloping me. The barking, gunshots, and shouting all became muffled as I found myself standing in a kitchen, almost no light shining inward, metal counters all over. I pulled a lighter from my pack and flicked it on, the weak flame illuminating tile and racks of cooking utensils. I took a paring knife as a backup weapon as the battle began to wind down, the howling becoming less and less frequent. I was out of time, and if I didn't have a weapon when they came in, I was going to die.

  I grabbed a small frying pan with a rubber handle with my burned hand, figuring it might serve as a decent enough distraction as I spotted a wooden door near the back, slightly ajar. I pushed it open with my elbow as the sounds of players storming into the bar echoed into the back. Normally this would be the moment where the action hero would pop out form the back room armed to the teeth, and then proceed to defeat everyone while not suffering a single scratch. That wasn't me, my body heavily injured, my right hand burned and stiff, and without a serious weapon to defend myself.

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  I staggered into the pitch black office room with the flickering flame from my lighter showing a filthy wooden desk, papers and folders horribly degraded from age on top of it haphazardly. It was the last gamble I had, opening drawers on the left side and hoping I'd get lucky. Paper clips, sticky notes, pens, pencils, and an expired condom was all I found. The swinging door was kicked open and I flicked off the lighter, feeling my way toward the drawers on the right, opening them as softly as I could manage.

  I put the frying pan just over the opening, my hand that held the lighter underneath as I flicked it back on, none of the light escaping the cramped container. I would've laughed if I wasn't already terrified, seeing the answer to my prayers.

  A revolver sat inside the drawer with a small box of extra ammunition next to it. America always had guns in the most unlikely places after all. The barrel of the dark metal gun was stubby, the grip made of a polished off-white wood, all six chambers of the firecracker of a gun already loaded. Opening up the box for a moment I saw an extra six rounds ready to be loaded and shot. I flicked off the lighter, grabbing my new weapon.

  I held the revolver with my burned hand, the stiffness working in my favor as I likely wouldn't miss my targets at close range. My other hand held the paring knife, my feet sliding across the carpet toward the door in order to feel my way around, the vibrations of my boots against the carpet telling me all I needed to know.

  "It's too dark in here, I can't see a thing!" Someone shouted from the kitchen, loudly knocking over some pots which clattered against the tile, a curse being hissed out. There were some noises from outside, too muffled for me to make out as I bumped into the wall just to the left of the door. The familiar weight of a gun in my hand was comforting as I prepared to shoot whoever was stupid enough to swagger on in. My breathing was still ragged but I had finally reasserted some control over myself, the fear receding just enough that my heart no longer beat against my chest so hard, my breathing wasn't so loud, and my body didn't shake as bad.

  Torches soon made an appearance, the flickering lights of lit branches dancing off the walls. "Office room. You two, check it out" The voice I heard this time was a woman's, her tone one of authority. I shrank back into the darkness, my gun barrel pointed at what was currently empty space. I held my breath.

  The first player walked in, his gaze locked on the desk with open drawers and then toward the right side of the room. I could've killed him easily, but I waited just a bit more, keeping my eyes on both him and the second player to come in. Him I shot right through the head, turning my gun on the first player as he whipped around, pulling the trigger twice more. Two bodies shattered like glass and disappeared, curses being uttered just outside as they died.

  The gunshots were loud, though not nearly loud enough to damage anyones hearing. "You two, make sure he doesn't leave! We're gonna burn this place down around him." Another order was given, and I heard footsteps leaving.

  It was a good plan in all honesty. Instead of coming to me, why not just pin me down and trap me inside to burn to death? I moved back to the desk while keeping my gaze locked firmly on the doorway, emptying the spent shell casings and loading in three more. I put my knife away, grabbing the frying pan instead for a distraction.

  These people were clearly gamers, not professional killers like I'd dealt with before. Hell, I had a few bodies buried in the backyard, having not needed to move since they didn't have anyone backing them. I had just one more little trick to try, all of them having worked out for me so far.

  I came out into the door frame and threw the frying pan as hard as I could, ducking back into the offce just long enough for a spray of gunfire to dissipate while a very loud bang was heard, metal colliding with metal. I spun back around into the door frame, my revolver raised. Ahead of me were three players, two of which were holding knives and rushing toward me, while the third stood behind the nearest counter in the center of the kitchen, a submachine gun in his hands. The rushers were both new players in the prison outfit while the third was this hefty brute of a man, his head bald and scarred across his lip.

  A bullet for each of the rushers left them stumbling back, the impact of each round in their chests more than strong enough to stagger them. Another spray of gunfire tore through the air above me, the gunman still recovering from the perceived attack the frying pan had been for. I turned my gun to him as I lowered myself, firing a round into him as well. He fell back against the counter behind him, his gun almost falling from his hands as I strode forward, finishing off the two melee attackers with one bullet each.

  I must have looked horrifying in the flickering firelight as I leaned over the counter and shot the third player just as he tried to bring his gun back around to kill me. His arm fell limp to his side, and all three bodies shattered. I released the breath I hadn't realized I was still holding in.

  I calmly reloaded my last three rounds, eying the gun that was now lying on the ground without an owner. I walked around to it and corrected that issue, inspecting my prize. He'd dropped a single extra magazine full of ammunition which I gladly took, stuffing both items in my backpack. The submachine gun itself was incredibly light, the stock itself all rounded edges made of what seemed to be plastic, the rest of the gun very angular, a thin triangle of metal sitting just above the barrel as the front sight. The grip was connected to the stock by the same plastic-like material, the trigger being a cold sliver of metal.

  Instead of going out to deal with whatever trick the last player came up with, I searched for a side exit in the now more well lit kitchen, the smell of burning materials filling my nostrils. Randomly opening doors I hadn't seen earlier, I found the one that lead out back and onto a concrete ramp behind the building and out into an alley. Empty dumpsters and tipped over trash cans littered the area, closed doors leading into other buildings beckoning to me, promising safety in darkness.

  I knew better than to just follow whatever my insticts told me to do, walking down the alley away from the bar, my boots sounding against the ground, half empty revolver in hand. The physical display still showed several parts of my body as injured, but I would have time to heal more effectively and take stock of everything later. I could already smell the smoke coming from the bar.