tbnrpotato

Latest Posts by tbnrpotato

(sorry most of my favourite writers are on another site)

Man I’m tired and I’m sorry for bringing up some less pleasing stuff on here but I feel the need to talk about this. So recently I’ve noticed an increase in people using chat gpt to write fanfiction, even some in the hobbit fandom. Ai “art” has been a pretty difficult topic for me for a while, yet I want to talk about it more and bring people to understand the consequences of it. But I think it’s also important to bring awareness to the other parties suffering from the usage of ai. I chose Bilbo for this cause I think it’s funny how these ai “writers” forget that Bilbo is an actual writer, so to use a tool that steals from other creators would be the worst insult to his craft

So here’s what Bilbo says:

And here’s what I say, tag your favourite writers to show them support!!

@stoadsie @belalubroski @fantasyinallforms @conkers-thecosy @lucigoo @wolfsbane-and-nettles

ITS SO CUTE AAAA

Ayo new bad batch reaction image just dropped

Into the Dark

Chapter 4

(this is the last one I wrote should I continue this story)

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: Violence, profanity

I'm so used to thinking in my head now, having conversations with the darkness on the walls and the bars. The darkness on the bars are slightly more aggressive than the walls, but they'll do. 

Yes, these things can talk to me in my head. I'm not going crazy, hopefully, at least. It's been a few months now, and I'm planning my escape attempt. I really thought it would be faster than this, but I gotta make sure that I don't mess up. Hopefully I'll get to see the outside world, or at least what's left of it. The other voices in my head sometimes flash images of the outside world into my head, pictures of ruins of my city, pictures of both realms covered in clouds of darkness. I really hope that they're lying.

I've managed to teach some stuff to the black lines on my skin, they can extend out from my body and possibly out of the cell to unlock it and free me. From there I could take out the guards and find Eclipse, my informants (black lines) on the walls have told me that Eclipse is in a hangar in the prison. If I could get to it, I could bust my way out of this prison. 

Back in the day, they taught me how to pick the locks of these things, and I pass on that information to the black lines on my skin, and somehow, they understand. I've tried it a few times on the prison bars. Usually the bars envelop my own black lines, and they immediately pull back after feeling a stinging sensation. 

Cope with it you fucking weak asses.

It's painful! 

They always reply this, and then flash an image of someone getting an electric shock into my head. I'm guessing that's what it feels like to them. 

Cope with it.

But-

I said cope!

I've been studying the guard shifts. There's 2 guards that are always sleeping while on duty. And luckily for me, today's that day. I command my black lines to extend through the bars. As they pass through, the darkness on the walls merges with the black lines, but they transmit what's going on outside the bars to me. I command the lines to pick the lock and free me, and I receive a few confused looks from them.

How?

I sigh, and give them instructions on how to pick the lock. They follow, and soon enough, the cell's unlocked. The black lines instantly retract back to my body, screaming out in pain.

OW! IT HURTS!

Deal with it. And don't make any noise.

I silently run out of the cell and through the hallways. My time in prison has heightened my senses, I can tell when other Dark Ones are nearby. That's what I call the people made out of the darkness. 

I can hear a few of them talking about going to the hangar, and I hide behind walls, careful not to touch them, and follow the Dark Ones, and eventually reaching the hangar. I can just about make out the outline of Eclipse, but Dark Ones are swarming the hangar.

Shit, I think.

What's wrong?

Shut up.

I scan the surroundings, looking for possible cover. There are crates that I could hide behind if I was kneeling down. But there's not many of them, and some of them are getting moved by Dark Ones. Not very reliable cover. There's a few other mechs, which I recognize as enemy ones from my time in the war. Could take cover there. Not gonna try passing off as a Dark One.

I see the next group of Dark Ones pass by, and I have around the span of a few seconds to run towards one of the enemy mechs. So I sprint behind the closest one and hide there, breathing heavily but softly. My nerves are acting up, they usually don't do that. Maybe it's the fact that I'm in enemy territory, not that I haven't been there before in battles.

I run behind another enemy mech, and I can see the black lines on it extending out, looking at me almost curiously. I make my way towards the other one, only stopping a few moments to catch my breath and keep my cool.

Slowly, Eclipse comes into full view. At the sight of it, I smile slightly. It hasn't changed since I left it there. Sure, there are a few broken parts, but besides that, it looks good.

And it's the only piece of familiarity in this wretched place. 

I glance over at the Dark Ones just passing by, holding my breath as they walk in front of the mech that I'm behind. I can hear my heartbeat in my throat. I clench the fist of my metal arm, making the slightest sound. I bite my lip, trying not to panic. From what I've seen from the alert guard rotations, Dark Ones have good hearing. Good thing that these ones are engaging in their own conversation, I can hear them from here.

When they pass by, I run up to Eclipse and climb up it's legs to reach the torso, where the cockpit is. I cling to Eclipse's torso, trying to force the cockpit open with my black lines. I see some Dark Ones coming, and I climb to the back of Eclipse, hoping that they won't see me. 

Suddenly, I feel a tugging force on my leg, and it's strong. I can't resist it, and I'm forced to the ground. Black lines on Eclipse. 

Around my neck now, pushing down on it.

I can't breathe. 

I try to force them off of me, but they merge with the ones on my skin, and I can hear them crying out, trying to help force them off of me. I can almost see them fighting with each other for control over the lines on my neck. 

I'm pinned to the ground. I can't move. Black lines from Eclipse starting to make their way towards my legs, and now towards my torso. 

"Eclipse..." I really hope voice activation is working, my voice is hoarse from weeks, no wait, months of not speaking. 

Screaming. Burning. Fire and smoke in the darkness when it came. 

"...flamethrower."

Nothing happens for a moment.

And then Eclipse turns around, flamethrower at the ready, pointing it at my neck and then igniting it. The black lines on my skin rush from body to protect my face and the areas where the black lines aren't covering my neck, and I can feel the heat from here, I'm sweating, but I can also hear screaming and voices crying out for help.

It hurts!

Burning...

Haha, die trash

Screams from not my own black lines, but the ones around my neck, and they slink back onto Eclipse, and I'm gasping for air, sitting up and climbing back onto Eclipse. "Open."

The cockpit opens and I climb inside. Dark Ones are already coming, one runs to close the hangar doors. I start up Eclipse as best as I can, some of the lights in the cockpit and flickering, and the hangar doors are starting to close.

I use my flamethrower to burn the black lines anchoring Eclipse to the ground, and then I fly through the doors just before they close, and into fresh air.

It's not fresh at all. It's dark. Not the clear night sky kind, but the foggy type. I can barely see in front of me. I look back, and enemy mechs with Dark Ones piloting them are flying out of the now reopened hangar doors.

I speed off, occasionally looking behind me and firing a few shots at the enemy mechs, but my priority is to get to the Rip. 

Suddenly, Eclipse's thrusters shut off, and I'm now plummeting to the ground. The systems are beeping, flashing red, and I'm trying to turn them back on, but the screens say that the thrusters are jammed. 

Fuck those black lines. Must've jammed the engines.

I look back, enemy mechs speeding towards me. I fire a few shots at their cockpits, but the bullets pass right through the pilots. 

Black lines make their way to the cockpit and threaten to come inside. Enemy mechs getting closer, almost at arm's length. I use my flamethrower on them, but the cockpit's preventing the pilots from any damage. The black lines on the mechs move away, but does little damage to the mech itself.

My altitude's decreasing rapidly. Screen says 400 feet to the ground. I know the game's up. They're gonna get me. I try in a last-ditch effort to reroute all power to the engines, but they just won't start, and then one of the enemy mechs grabs me, and I'm engulfed in darkness.

When I wake up, I'm in a different cell. The bars are above me now. High above me. 

Where are we? I ask my black lines. Hopefully they've been conscious while I haven't.

I don't know, I woke up the same time as you did.

Useless shit.

I receive a small jab in my skin for that.

A door opens in front of me. One that I didn't know existed until now. A Dark One, clad in what looks like armor from the ground fighters of this realm, but of course covered in Darkness, grabs me by the arm and leads me out into what looks like an arena.

My eyes widen. I look across the place, and see another Dark One standing there, with a black laser sword. I look up above him, and see yet another Dark One sitting on a chair, looking down at us, smirking. Or at least I think that's what it is on his face.

The Dark Lord. The Dark One that's holding me by the arm says into my head. I glare up at the "Dark Lord" dude and he stares back.

The door closes behind me. I'm not handed any weapon. The Dark One that was leading me out just now walks to the center of the arena, and then shouts into our heads.

"Fight."

What I take as my opponent runs towards me, laser sword raised, ready to strike.

Into the Dark

Chapter 3: Imprisoned

Word count: 872

Warnings: none! (for once)

When I open my eyes, everything's dark. I can't see anything. I'm starting to think I'm still out cold, but when I slap my face with my palm, I can feel it, so I'm probably awake.

Probably.

My metal arm is working now, I can feel my fingers moving when I flex them. Even though I can't see anything around me, I can sense that I'm in a room. I can just make out the faint outline of bars in front of me. This is a prison cell. And I'm the prisoner.

I'm constantly hearing whispering, it almost feels like it's coming from the walls around me. 

"CAN YOU SHUT UP?!" I shout, and the voices go silent for a moment, before I hear the whispering start again.

I can see black lines running up my body. They weren't there before. I instantly start scratching at them, trying to get them off of me. They refuse. I keep scratching, my skin is flaking now, and I'm causing more harm to myself than the black lines on me.

Eventually I stop, knowing that the black lines won't go away. I can literally hear them telling me that it's no use.

They feel weird on me. It's as if I've had them all my life, but they're only deciding to come out now. I can feel a tingling sensation on my skin, and I'm blaming the black lines for it.

My weapons are gone. Nothing to blast my way out of here with. I stand up and walk towards the bars, looking at the area outside my cell. There are many other cells, but they're all empty. I'm the only prisoner here, and guards are stationed outside my cell. 

I've broken out of prison before, but that was when I could actually see the stuff around me. I can't see 10 meters ahead of me.

I think been in too much war. I literally haven't even asked what is happening, like any normal human would.

What is happening?

I put my hands against the bars of my cell and try to look out further. I suddenly feel a strong force on my arms, and when I look down, I see the darkness from the bars spreading out to reach the black lines on my arms, and they connect, and they're pulling me in. I try to pull my hands away, but the darkness is too strong. It won't let me go.

Suddenly, a blade extends into my cell and cuts me free. I only get to catch a quick glimpse of the blade before it retracts again. It's black and has orange highlights on it which are barely visible.

"Okay, lesson learned, don't touch the bars," I say to myself.

I lean against the wall of my cell, sitting down. I recognized this as one of the cells from the Other Realm. I got captured here before, but I escaped with ease. This was one of the less secure prisons in the Other Realm, where they used to put the captured rookie mech pilots.

I press a hand to my forehead. My head hurts from all the voices that I'm hearing in my head. 

I look up to the bars. 

What are these things made out of? 

I think they're the same stuff as the black lines on my skin, based on how they connected with each other just now.

Some voices in my head are now louder than others. Some even project images into my head. One of the prison that I'm in, another of what the world has just become, and...me? In my cell? I look around, scanning my cell for any security cameras. There's none. How am I supposed to escape if these guys in my head can see everything that I'm doing? Maybe they can't and they're just trying to scare me from trying to escape.

"Don't bother trying to escape. We're watching you," one of the voices says. 

They can read my fucking thoughts now?

"Language," one of them says.

Shut up.

"No."

I swear if you don't shut the fuck up right know I'm gonna cut my own head off.

"With what? You have no weapons."

Am I seriously having a conversation with myself right now?

"Not with yourself. With us."

Who's us?

No reply.

HEY ANSWER MY QUESTION BRO.

No reply either.

I look down at my body. Ever since I arrived here my injuries from the past battle haven't been visible. 

I press a hand to where the cut on my face was in the previous battle. I can only feel black lines covering it-

WAIT WHAT?!?!!?!?

I remove my hand from my face and glance down at my hand, there's nothing. There's a tingling sensation on the area where the cut is. After a while, I decide to check the wound again.

I only feel skin and a few black lines.

Did those things just heal me?

"Yes, they did. Now you better get comfortable, because you're gonna be here for a long time."

I smirk. 

You don't know me. I can bet that by morning, I'll be outta here and on my way back to base.

Into the Dark

Chapter 2: The Darkness Comes

(casual reminder that this story won't be finished unless someone really really wants me to)

Word count: 1.1k

Warnings: War, violence

As I walk out of the office, I can feel many eyes on me. The enemy are not the only ones who have heard of the Demon of The Other Realm. They admire me for my tactics, for not holding back when faced with a choice to kill. That's something most of the others don't have.

It's become instinct now to survive, alone if I have to. Most of the other mech pilots would give their lives up for their brothers in arms. That's weakness. And the Demon of The Other Realm shows no weakness. I will not give my life for anyone on the frontline.

I am called to my next battle in a few hours. I arrive there in a matter of minutes with my mech, which I call Eclipse's Fury. It's shield is now repaired from the previous battle. My mech always gets first dibs when it comes to repairs.

I always feel slightly uneasy when I look down from Eclipse's cockpit down at the battle below, wondering if there are any people who are like me with their metal limbs fighting for their lives down there. But today there is no uneasiness, it almost feels like something is coming home to me.

The enemy mechs are already gathered there, their guns ready to fire. I dive, shield raised to block some of the incoming fire. I get my sword out, soaring upwards to stab one mech from below.

The enemy mechs scatter and fire from far away. I chase after the one with the heavy gun.

"Come here," I smirk. For most people, travelling at this speed would cause them to feel unfocused, but I'm as alert as ever.

I increase my thrusters to max, and catch up with the mech with the heavy gun. It gets out its sword, and clashes with mine.

Under my sword arm, the laser gatling gun there fire, piercing the enemy's cockpit and the light fades from its mech and it falls.

Suddenly, I feel a mech ram into me from behind. I elbow it in the back, one of its hands lets go, but the other is still holding on tight to one of my thrusters, crushing it.

My mech is unstable. Red lights flash in my cockpit showing the damage. I switch my sword to reverse grip and stab the enemy mech holding onto me in the side, while holding my shield up the block the fire from the others.

The enemy mech lets go of my thrusters and falls. My own mech twists to the side where the thruster was destroyed, so now I'm at an awkward angle and a part of my mech is vulnerable to attack.

I get out my gatling guns and fire at the rest, managing to hit around half of them before spiraling in the air and crashing to the ground.

My cockpit is cracked. Wiring from the cockpit digs into my skin, and my metal arm is disabled. I hear gunfire around me, explosions and the sound of flames.

Show no weakness.

My anger at myself numbs the pain. It fuels me. I cannot fail. I must survive. That's all I've ever done.

The enemy mechs land on the ground as I push Eclipse up. I calculate my odds. My shield's still intact, my swords are still sharp, my guns are out of ammo, and it's 5 enemy mechs against 1.

I like these odds.

Their guns are pointed at me, but they're hesitating, giving me enough time to use one of my thrusters to crash into one of the mechs, stabbing it in the cockpit with my sword and I get to my feet.

Suddenly, I feel a rumbling in the ground below me. The air is moving unusually, I can somehow sense it.

It feels...almost welcoming. Like I'm returning to some of my brothers in arms after a hard-fought battle. The enemy mechs are also distracted by the disturbance.

I activate my sword as I charge towards them, slicing 2 of them in half before the other mechs regain their senses.

They fire at me again. I raise my shield, blocking their attacks. Their guns show no sign of low ammo. My shield is glitching out, it's taking too much damage. Their laser bullets get a few hits on Eclipse. One of them pierces my cockpit, hitting me in the stomach.

I wince as the cauterized wound makes me feel breathless. My legs give way and Eclipse falls to the ground. I grit my teeth as I stick my sword into the ground, trying to help myself get up. Pain courses through my body. Not something I haven't felt before. I see one of the enemy mechs raise their sword and ready to stab it at my cockpit. 

Remember the guy who took your arm?

This memory always haunts me. It drives me to fight harder.

As the sword comes down to my cockpit, I block it with my sword, straining to keep it away from my cockpit, as I fight through the haze of pain of wires digging into my skin.

I push the sword of the mech away before swiftly stabbing it in the cockpit. The other mech now starts firing at me again. Most of the lasers hit Eclipse's armour, but a few pierce my cockpit and now I have 3 holes in my chest.

I still fight on. I won't die like this.

Suddenly, a cloud of darkness envelops the enemy mechs and the battlefield. Black clouds...on the ground? Is the pain making me hallucinate or something...

I run away from the darkness as the enemy mechs disappear from view. I feel breathless from my wounds, but they seem to be healing faster than usual. At least, fast enough for me to survive.

I just keep running as I see the Darkness rise over soldiers from both realms, slamming down on them like a giant wave.

I see some lights in the Darkness, I can sense smoke and fire in the cloud. I keep hearing screaming, from I don't know where, and it's driving me insane.

I can feel burning. It's not Eclipse's wires. It feels like a flamethrower burning me. 

I don't look back. I just keep flying away. Tendrils of darkness reach out from the cloud itself and try to hook onto Eclipse. 

My remaining thruster is overheating, it won't be able to hold out for much longer. I feel something grab onto one of Eclipse's legs, weighing me down, pulling me into the Darkness.

I activate my sword and try to cut the Darkness from my leg, but it just moves around my sword and keeps its grip.

For the first time in a while, I feel that choking sensation of fear as I am pulled into the Darkness.

Into the Dark

Chapter 1: Frontlines

(unfinished story btw i abandoned it a while ago)

Word count: 1.2k

Warnings: Violence, war, death

I see the enemy mechs take formation in front of me. Everything is crystal clear from my cockpit, and I can feel the adrenaline rush. That's what I love about this war.

In my own mech, I charge towards the formation, breaking through them as I slice at two with my double swords. I activate my thrusters to stop mid-air, turning around and raising the shield that was on my back a few moments ago to block the bullets that the enemy mechs just fired at me.

And now it's time for me to bring my own guns out. The laser gatling guns come out from under my mech's arms, and I command them to fire. The lasers pierce another one of the cockpits of the mechs, and it falls limp onto the battle raging far below.

Suddenly, one of the mechs rams into me from behind, the alarms in my mech blare as I spin in the air. I try to shake the mech off, but it's grip on me is too strong. We're spiralling to the ground, further and further away from the Rip where more mechs are coming.

I see the ground below. Blaster shots everywhere, the only difference between ours and the enemies' is the colour. I max out my thrusters, getting myself back upright and peeling the mech off me and flying upwards. The enemy mech follows.

We're almost going at the same speed, ascending rapidly. I get my sword out, abruptly stopping. The enemy mech following me crashes into me again, but this time I have the advantage and stab it in the cockpit. The mech's lights go out, and its body goes limp, falling back down.

I look up at the bunch of mechs coming through, and smirk. More victims for me.

Before they can get into formation, I charge at one of them, slicing it in half before it can react, activating my gatling guns and firing at the enemy mechs before they can fire at me.

Some of the enemy mechs remain unmoving. I can almost sense the fear in them. They've heard about me before. Stories about how I defeated entire legions of enemy mechs. Stories about the Demon of The Other Realm.

I dip down as they start firing at me, and I block some of the enemy fire with my shield. It's about to break. It hasn't handled this much fire in a while. My mech shows me the one that's firing the most, and I fly, shield still up, into the enemy mech, crushing its thrusters with one arm, hurling it down onto the battlefield.

No more mechs are coming through the Rip, and I only have about 10 more to go. I ascend further up really near the Rip, and use the cover of the clouds to hide, activating my guns again and shooting down below. My mech shows me the targets, and all I need to do is fire.

And soon enough, only one mech remains. I want to take this one out in the coolest way possible. The pilot should feel honoured.

I go out of the cloud cover, seeing the final mech. I fly above it as it fires at me, flying straight downwards as I pass by it.

It's too late by the time it turns around, its thrusters are already destroyed from my shots. And it falls.

I grab it by the torso and speed downwards. I can't sense the fear in the pilot of this mech, only the feeling you get when you know you're about to die and you've accepted it.

I hear a timer ticking. I already know it's a bomb. I've heard too many of them. And suddenly, the mech grips onto me as we get closer to the ground, and it doesn't wanna let go.

I wrench one of my arms out from its grip, and get my shield. I activate my thrusters as we hit the ground, slowing our landing.

The next thing I see is flames as I raise my shield. The force knocks me backwards, and I flip before landing on my feet, driving my sword into the ground to slow myself to a stop.

I'm in the middle of a battlefield now. Enemy troops try to penetrate my armour with their blasters, firing at my cockpit.

I gotta get out of here fast. And anyways, I think the boys down below are having fun.

I activate my thrusters again and fly back to base.

The fights are getting easier and easier. They're running out of mechs and pilots. They're focusing more on the ground combat.

I remember my days on the ground as I step out of my cockpit and I flex my metal arm.

Flashback

The sounds of blaster fire echo through the battlefield as I take cover. A grenade lands right next to me and my group. I jump out just in time as the grenade explodes. The others aren't so lucky.

I see soldiers being struck down by fireballs, burning at the torso or the head. I feel the ground shaking, and suddenly I get launched into the air by an unknown force, as if the earth itself was trying to kill me.

I land on my back, pain shooting up my torso and I resist the urge to scream. Show no weakness. My vision is blurry.

The tide turns, and not in our favour. The fire strikes down so many soldiers. I inch back, dropping my blaster. I can't stand.

I find some cover in one of the wrecked enemy mechs. I curl up into a ball as the sounds of blaster fire grow louder.

Soon, it all stops. I crawl out from the wreckage, and bodies are strewn all over the ground. I try to stand up, but my legs feel like jelly, and I fall to the ground again. I still can't see clearly.

I see a figure standing over me, holding a blaster and a lightsaber clipped to its belt. I can see that its hair is black, just reaching its shoulders, and in its hand is a ball with a red light blinking.

I recognize the sound of the beeping of the ball in its hands. It's a grenade. And the figure drops it before running away.

I crawl away as fast as I can, but it's not fast enough. The beeping sounds get to the part where it's so fast that it almost flatlines.

I block my head with one of my arms as it explodes.

Flashback ends

Blown clean off my shoulder. I move my fingers of my metal arm around, hearing the clink of metal against metal.

That was what drove me to fight. But not as a ground soldier anymore. I was going to be a part of the elites, having the privilege of flying in a mech. And I did get it.

I have nightmares of the explosion sometimes, when I still had a flesh-and-blood arm. But I brush it off quickly. Show no weakness.

I walk over to the commander's office to report in.

"When's the next battle," I ask, slumping onto the chair, one leg on the armrest.

"Already? No rest for the Demon of The Other Realm," he smirks. I hate that title. They found me in the Rip. They knew I wasn't from their realm, and I did too. That title is only a reminder of it.

"Yes commander. No rest for the Demon of The Other Realm."

Sharpshooter - Only the Strongest will Survive

Chapter 10

Word count: 2.2k

Warnings: Violence, death, blood, profanity, injuries

The howl of an animal wakes me from my light sleep. They're out again. It takes me a few moments to gain my bearings, but my hand stuffs the middle parting of the golden hairpin into my belt automatically. The metal has gone dull from blood and acid rain. 

I take a drink from one of the water packets and a bite out of my half-eaten ration bar. My stomach growls in protest, wanting more. I'm eating even less that I usually did back in North America, and for a short time, in the city. We usually had some dead fish or something from scavenging to eat besides those ration bars. 

I look out from the mouth of the cave, my cybernetic eye scanning the area. There's no clouds today. That's new. The past few days have been plagued with storms. Acid rain had been spilling into my cave non-stop. Yesterday, I woke up in knee-deep water and had to clear it out with my bare hands.

Occasionally, I hear the faint sound of an explosion going off. Poor kids. Dying to a mine. So much more dishonarable than dying in real combat. 

I haven't seen any animals since I found one of its bodies right outside my cave. Right before you killed an innocent, injured boy. I haven't encountered anyone either. I've spent days alone in my cave, plotting out my next move.

The sniper is too heavy for me to use like a pistol. The only thing it's good for in my hands is smashing people's faces in. "So uncivilized," Mayday would say. I chuckle to myself at the thought. I hope he's still alive. Focus.

I'm running low on water packets too. Dehydration's a bitch, so if I don't get more water, I'll probably die. Can't have that. I found the sniper, ration bars and water packets buried in the ground. I don't know how I'll find more, considering the only way I found them was seeing the butt of the sniper stick out from the ground. 

If I encounter a person without a gun, I'll just tackle them and stab them in the neck with my hairpin. As usual. If the person has a gun, I'm fucked. Usually I'd say it's not worth the risk, but I'd rather go out fighting than of dehydration. 

After pacing the perimeter of my cave, I head back inside, taking the golden hairpin out from my belt. Running my finger across its dull surface, I notice that some of the outer layer of gold has peeled off, revealing a shiny silver underneath.

So this isn't real gold, huh. What a scam.

It doesn't seem like there are any animals near my cave. For now. They're only out hunting for what I assume are a few hours every day. When the howls stop, they're gone. That's my chance to get more supplies.

I can't see the green lights tonight. It's probably too cloudy. That also means there might be a storm coming. I won't have much time if I have to wait out the animals.

Soon, the silence returns, no longer punctuated by the sounds of feral animals. I wonder how many victims they claimed tonight. The more, the better. "Until a hundred million remain," the man in the suit said. The faster they die, the faster this nightmare ends.

Now's my time to find more supplies. I head out of my cave, hairpin clutched tightly in my hand. If I'm out looking for supplies and in the open, I can't bring my sniper. It's too heavy and bulky to drag along, so I leave the barrel sticking out of the mouth of the cave as a marker. 

The sky is brighter today. The almost blinding lights of the city probably contribute to that. The clouds almost seem like they're lit up. Visibility is good. There's no better time to go.

Walking down the slope of the base of the mountain where my cave is, I look around, trying to find any trace of water packets or ration bars in the ground. I tread carefully, making sure to avoid the little bumps in the gravel that are probably mines. 

I also make sure to avoid the bodies scattered across the ground. Seeing them from my cave was no big deal, but up close...oops. Accidentally stepped on the body of a toddler. The crack of its bones shattering under my weight echoes through the night. 

Shit shit shit everyone's gonna know I'm out here. I have to make this quick.

The scent of rotting flesh, blood and gunpowder fills my senses, and I resist the urge to throw up as I continue my careful dance across the gravel plane. Some areas in the ground have been dug up, leaving holes in the gravel. There were probably supplies or weapons there that people dug up. 

How am I supposed to find anything?

All I can do is keep walking and cling onto the hope that there are still some supplies that no one has dug up yet. Occasionally, I hear the sound of gravel crunching. I immediately switch my cybernetic eye settings to show heat signatures, but whoever's there is fast. 

It feels like my heart is in my throat. Someone's there. They might be following me. They probably want to kill me. But why follow in the darkness? Unless they want to strike at just the right moment...My hand tightens around the hairpin. I can't afford to let my guard down. My steps are barely audible without the heavy ass sniper on my back. 

Are there even any supplies left?

I keep walking on, clinging to the sliver of hope that there will somehow be rations left. Even with my guard up, my mind still drifts to Mayday. I don't even know if he's alive. 

Don't be silly. Of course he's alive.

But what if he isn't? What if he's one of these bodies on the ground? What if he's bleeding out somewhere from the wound on his head and I can't help him? What if-

Shut up. Focus.

I walk on in the same direction for what seems like eternity. Every step I take, I brace myself for an explosion beneath my feet and the excruciating pain that will probably come along with it. The sound of footsteps fades in and out, but they never get close enough for me to draw my hairpin.

Suddenly, a mine goes off right behind me, throwing me face-first to the ground. My heart leaps into my throat as I cover my head. My ears feel like they're burning. A high pitched ringing fills my senses, making my head hurt.

I look down and notice a bump in the gravel right under my chest. My eyes widen as my body tenses up. A mine. I curl up into a ball, bracing myself for the impact of the explosion.

I'm going to die. I'm sorry daddy, mummy, ah kong, ah ma...Mayday...

But nothing happens. After a few moments, I uncurl from my little ball and look around, confused. I should be dead. I should be like the others, just body parts scattered on the ground. I stepped on a mine, didn't I? Unless...

I kneel onto the ground and start digging around the bump in the gravel. My knees are scraped from the fall, the tiny rocks on the ground digging into the raw flesh, but I can't be bothered to care about that right now. I keep digging, my fingertips getting red and raw, until my hand finds what feels like fabric. I pull it out, before opening it and looking inside. 

There's what looks like 4 ration bars, a few big packs of water, and a bottle of something I can't quite recognise. I'll see what it is when I get back to my cave, when I'm not out in the open. I grab the bag, slinging it over my shoulder, before turning around and walking in what I hope is the direction of my cave. 

That mine that went off next to me...there was someone there. I can see what remains of their severed body, fresh blood spilling out and staining the gravel. I try to ignore the way it seeps into my boots, making them squelch with every step I take. 

That's not good. Enemies will be able to hear me. 

But I can't run either. Too much noise. All I can do is keep walking and pray that no one comes for me.  I can feel my heart pounding in my throat. My hand instinctively reaches for the hairpin on my belt. The cool metal against my fingers feels strangely comforting.

I can still see my footprints in the gravel from my journey. I take care to follow them as accurately as possible, not wanting to set off any mines right after I got some supplies. 

The way back is much faster than the walk to get the bag. I can just about make out the mouth of my cave from here, without having my cybernetic eye zoom in. Maybe I will make it back. 

Then I hear footsteps behind me. I whip around, fists raised to protect my face, hairpin clutched tightly in one. A sharp pain shoots through my the back of my palm and I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying out in pain. Warm liquid trickles down my forearm. Blood.

A large mass suddenly pounces onto me, pinning me to the ground with its weight. I put my hands out, trying to push it off, but to no avail. The knife in my attacker's hand hovers dangerously close to my neck, only held off by my hand grabbing its wrist.

I can barely breathe. The weight is suffocating, and the hand trying to drive the knife into my neck is persistent. My arm burns from the effort of holding it off. My other hand, sandwiched between our bodies, slips out and drives the hairpin into my attacker's neck.

Or at least, that's what I try to do. The hairpin won't go in. It isn't sharp enough anymore. Panic shoots through me as my arm feels like it's about to give way.

No. No! I can't die here. I can't! 

My attacker now grabs my hand that's holding the hairpin, twisting and forcing it to drop my weapon. The hairpin falls to the gravel with a "crunch". No no no no NO NO. I squirm around under the weight of the enemy, panic flooding my senses. I can't breathe.

But I'm not going down without a fight. I twist the wrist of the enemy, forcing the hand to drop the knife. I grab it by the blade, quickly shifting my grip down to the handle, before driving it into their neck. 

A scream of pain barely escapes the person before I clamp their mouth shut with my hand, pulling the knife out and driving it back into their neck for good measure. Warm, crimson liquid soaks my hands, some of it spurting out of the dead body. I take the knife with me but leave the hairpin, quickly fleeing before any more enemies come for me. 

Panicked thoughts fill the silence of the night. The hairpin wasn't sharp enough. The acid rain dulled it too much. I'll have to use the knife now. But what if that dulls too? I can't keep relying on melee or I'll die. Getting up close and personal is too much of a risk anyways, you saw what just happened. 

As the adrenaline from the fight fades, my legs start to feel heavier and heavier. Each step takes more effort than the last. There's a dull ache on my right palm, where I grabbed the blade of the knife. I'll deal with that later. All I have to do is just get back to my cave. To safety.

The way back is calm. No more fights, not even the howls of animals yet. I reach my cave and stumble to my favourite corner, the one with the thickest layer of gravel and a smooth rock for a pillow. 

Lowering myself down onto the bed of gravel,I set my bag down, opening it up and laying out my supplies, my hands staining the fabric with blood. 

Now that I can afford to read what's on the unfamiliar bottle, I can just make out the words "healing paste" on it. Perfect for the wounds on my hands, which are still slowly dripping thick, red liquid. 

I open the bottle, scooping out some of the paste onto my fingers and applying it to the gashes. I let out a soft sigh of relief, the cooling paste soothing the aches. 

Can't use too much of this. Have to save it for future wounds.

I turn my head to look at the sniper that had been waiting patiently for my return all this time. I almost feel bad for leaving it behind.

Heh. Look at you. Feeling something for a fucking gun.

Of course I feel bad for leaving it behind. The fight would've been much easier with it. Maybe there wouldn't have been a fight at all if I had just shot the enemy from a distance. Maybe the sniper is worth more than just a sledgehammer to smash people's faces in.

I lay my head on the hard, smooth rock that I now call my pillow, trying to get comfortable. I'll figure things out in the morning. For now, I need to rest.

Sharpshooter - Only the Strongest will Survive

Chapter 9

Word count: 1.9k

Warnings: Child death, violence, blood, weapons

The storm rages on for a while. I don't keep track of time as I stay curled up in a pathetic little ball in the corner of the cave with my supplies. Thunder crashes outside, leaving a ringing sound in my ears. Rainwater sprays in ever so often, helping me wash off the blood in my hair.

The girl. The hairpin.

I almost gag at the memory of her body, blood spurting out of her carotid artery and into my face. The metallic taste of the liquid in my mouth as I continued to pierce her already lifeless body.

Her family will burn because of me.

The toddler she killed. He could barely walk. Of course he couldn't survive. Better to get killed by her than die of thirst or starvation.

I don't use the rainwater to wash the hairpin. It could corrode the metal and dull it.

Stupid antique hairpins.

I hear the crunching of gravel from outside the cave, slow and inconsistent. I uncurl from the ball and ready the hairpin. Heading to the mouth of the cave, being careful not to slip out, I look down, seeing the silhouette of a tall boy climbing up the base of the mountain, clutching his leg like he's wounded. There's a knife in his hand. It's not Mayday's knife.

If he sees me he's going to try and kill me.

My body tenses up as my hand around the hairpin tightens. A lump rises in my throat, restricting my breath, my throat tightening.

Steeling myself for another kill, I hide just behind the entrance to the cave, waiting for the stranger to enter, my head spinning as I ready myself to kill another person if necessary.

No. It is necessary. They'll do whatever they must to survive. No alliances.

As the figure approaches the mouth of the cave, I tackle it to the ground, kicking it in between the legs. I hear a pained scream and I shut it up by stabbing it in the neck, the blood spilling out as its body goes limp.

I know it's not Mayday. He'd put up more of a fight.

I wipe the blood on my hands on the boy's face. His eyes are still open, the fear in his eyes visible, his mouth open with a silent scream. Dragging the boy by the legs, my muscles straining, I push him out of the cave to roll down the mountain.

He would have killed me had I not killed him first.

I wipe the sweat off my forehead, staining my face with crimson liquid. The clap of thunder that follows the "thump" of the body hitting the ground leaves a ringing sound in my ears.

I can feel my heartbeat in my throat, my eyes darting around, ears perked up in case of the faintest sound of footsteps. The sound of mines going off continues. Every "boom" reminds me of the girl that blew up right next to me. The intestines spilling out of her severed torso, her limbs blown clean off their joints...it sends shivers through my body, a sickening feeling rising up in my gut.

The hairpin, still clutched tightly in my hand, feels like lead. I've taken two lives with this, which leads to around ten more lost. I slump against the wall of the cave as water from the storm sprays inside.

I can't sleep. Someone could kill me.

Taking a small drink from the water packet next to my rations and sniper, I hear the crunch of footsteps on gravel. Hurriedly picking myself up from the cave floor, my cybernetic eye whirls around in its socket whilst my real one darts around frantically. My breathing quickens, my legs ready to carry me while I stab my hairpin into the attacker.

The sound of footsteps gets louder and louder.

Where is it? WHERE IS I T?!

I look out the mouth of the cave, searching for the source of the sound. My cybernetic eye doesn't display any heat signatures nearby. But how could this be? I swear I heard something. It was so L O U D.

It could be above me. Maybe taking shelter. Now's the time to strike, but the storm...I can't make a move now. I'll find the person later.

The sound doesn't stop. It's too loud. It sounds like it's right next to me.

What if it is?

It isn't. If my cybernetic eye can't find anything, then there's no one there.

What if there is?

Shut up!

Time crawls by slowly. The storm stops after what seems like an eternity, but the sound of footsteps doesn't. Climbing out of the cave, I scan the area for any heat signatures. Nothing shows up, no matter where I look.

Then the sound suddenly stops. Are they dead? Resting?

My hand trembles, a tingling feeling in my legs as my breathing starts to get erratic again. I dart back into the cave, hairpin clutched tightly in my hand.

The sound of footsteps comes back.

"Shut up!" I scream as I clutch my head, grabbing fistfuls of my short hair in hopes that it'll stop the sounds.

I curl up against the wall of the cave, the gravel on the floor digging into the fabric of my pants, my grip loosening around the hairpin. It drops to the floor with a soft "thud".

My eyelids start to droop, my head falling against my knees. Then the sound of footsteps fades in again, causing my head to jolt right back up. Then it fades back out, as if taunting me.

Shut up, or I'll kill you.

I toss and turn on the gravel floor, my hands covering my ears, fading in and out of sleep.

I can't sleep. Someone could catch me off-guard and kill me.

Yet, despite my protests, I eventually find myself passed out on the rough floor of the cave.

When I wake up, my hand immediately darts out to find the hairpin, grabbing fistfuls of gravel, searching frantically for the cool metal that somewhat reassures me. When my hand closes around the golden hairpin, the tension in my shoulders melts away and I find myself clutching the hairpin to my chest like it's my lifeline.

It's strangely silent. The sound of footsteps is gone. Maybe they took the chance to run away.

But they could still be there. Waiting for the perfect time to strike. Or worse. They could be dead. That means there's more out there.

It's dark outside. It always is. But when I look out this time, the night is clear and blinking lights illuminate the night sky. The sky isn't black, it's navy, peppered with little white dots. There's a patch that's particularly bright, clusters of stars forming big bright clumps in the sky. 

Then my eyes catch a glimpse of green. Floating through the sky like very big, long snakes. They cast the slightest green glow on the ground, showing the silhouettes of dismembered bodies strewn over the floor, my cybernetic eye zooming in to one with the legs severed from the torso, intestines spilling out of the body, the lights casting a sickly green glow on it, outlining every ridge of the exposed tissue, glossy from rainwater. I feel the vomit rise up in my throat at the sight, slapping the side of my head to get the eye back to its original state. 

I can't vomit. I can't waste water. Or food. Who knows how long I'll have to survive off of my limited supplies. 

I couldn't look at the face. I know I'll only see fear in its eyes, frozen in time. Like the girl who I killed. Heh. I say it so casually now.

The sound of gravel shifting breaks the peaceful silence. When I peek my head to look outside, I see the silhouette of a body sliding down the slope of the base of the mountain. I freeze. Every muscle in my body tenses up. My hand tightens around the hairpin in my hand. I can almost feel the scars on my face hurting at the sight.

It's the animal that attacked me when I went out of the shield. Its blood spills down the slope of the mountain. 

That could've been me. If the animal was somewhere above the cave...

My legs tense, ready to run should the monster wake up. Its body is lifeless, but I don't want another cybernetic eye. My breath stills. Everything's silent. Too silent. Someone must've injured or killed the animal. And they must be good with a knife. 

I head back inside my cave to take the sniper. I try to lift it so that it won't make a sound on the gravel, but my heavy footsteps do that anyways. 

My cybernetic eye scans up the mountain. The starlight makes it a little easier to see. My shoulders strain as I hug the sniper close, it seems to be the easiest way to carry it. Before I can see any heat signatures, I hear muttered curses and coughs. Gravel slides down the slope as I follow the sound to an area with a few rocks clustered together. Dark blood spills down the slope, coating the gravel. Holding my sniper up by the front like an axe, I turn the corner only to find a teenage boy, around my age, lying on his back, blood spilling out of a slash wound in his chest, his hand clutched tightly around a bloodstained knife. 

My first instincts are to save him. To press my hands on the wound to stop the bleeding. But my first instincts could get me killed. He won't make it anyways. There's no medical attention for these kinds of injuries. Besides, from past experiences, everyone wants to kill me.

The boy's eyes widen. As a silent threat or plead for mercy, I don't know. But I see the subtle shift in his legs, the way his hand clenches around the knife, and I swing the sniper, the rear end crashing into his face, sending blood splattering into mine.

I don't care. I keep swinging the sniper into his face, again and again, until his hand goes limp around the knife. I then flip him over onto his back, before swinging the sniper at the back of his head. 

Blood pools around my boots. I press two fingers to the side of his neck, and I'm very relieved to feel no pulse. I leave his body there, before carefully making my way back down the slope. Everything's silent again, besides the occasional sound of a mine going off a distance away.

He wouldn't have made it. I was giving him mercy.

But my intention wasn't to give him mercy. I was just scared. You can never be too careful. Everyone wants to kill you. Even stupid injured teenage boys who just killed an animal.

Thankfully, the animal's body is still in its original position, lifeless right outside my cave. Just for good measure, I push my hairpin into its neck, not daring to watch as blood spurts out and flows down the mountain.

I head back into my cave, throwing my sniper down to the ground, its rear grip stained with blood. An enemy's blood. I close my eyes for a moment, hoping to find some peace, but all I see is the slash wounds across the boy's chest and the blood caked on his face.

I look out at the stars illuminating the navy blue sky, the green lights that exposed the bodies of the dead. It's beautiful. But it's a constant reminder that people are dying out here. People are getting killed. 

And whose fault is that?

The Mars Council's. It's not mine. It's not mine. IT'S NOT MINE.

I had no choice. Everyone here wants to kill me. 

Under different circumstances, the stars, the lights...they would bring me comfort. But not now. Here...in Control...there is no peace. There is no comfort.

Sharpshooter - Only the Strongest will Survive

Chapter 8

Word Count: 1.2k

Warnings: Murder, child death, violence, profanity, blood

The inside of the transport lights up with a faint red glow. Welp. I can actually see shit now. I'm crammed alongside at least a thousand people. I tower over the younger kids. The older ones are as tall as Mayday. Those are the dangerous ones. They'll do anything to survive and keep their family alive.

The people up on Mars are lucky, I think. None of them have to go through this.

Out there, in the "transantarctic" mountains and valleys, we'll be exposed to the storms. Out in the open, there's not a high chance that any of us will survive the them. That is, if the mines in the ground don't kill me first.

I try to laugh it off as I have an argument with myself. "Stay positive, at least there's no more ice." If Antarctica was just like the stories my parents told me, it would be a lot worse. "Positive? We're going to die! Haha..."

As I push past a group of tall teenagers, I hear a girl shout, "Hey! Watch it. Fucking bitch...". I ignore her. In a few minutes she'll probably be dead.

Stupid Mayday. What was he thinking, volunteering for his family? I'm the only child. I've got no choice. But Mayday? He's got five brothers to enter the Games. But no, he had to be all heroic and volunteer.

I glance at the wristband displaying my information. My age, name, birth country...all to be a "player" in this "survival competition". The man in the suit said it was for "population control". Killing children for population control?! Sending their families back to North America to burn to death while they're still grieving over their dead child?! Eh, who cares. As long as it isn't me. Or Mayday...

The transport shakes as it lands. The door opens and troopers force everyone out. A few more transports land alongside us; children and teenagers streaming out, some of their faces frozen in fear, others trying to calm themselves, and then there's those like me, with a deadpan expression on my face, prepared to die.

All I need to do is find a knife, pistol or a blaster. Maybe I'll survive. Remember what Mayday said about how to detect the mines. The smell, the slight depression in the ground where they're buried.

The transports take off and we're left standing on the gravel surface of the ground. Be positive, I think. Be thankful it's pleasantly cool here in Antarctica.

The disgustingly smooth voice of the man in the suit booms over the speakers somewhere buried in the ground.

"Welcome to this year's Control. Good luck, and remember: Only the strongest survive."

The countdown on our watches starts. I assume we're not supposed to do anything until it hits zero, because it's a fucking countdown.

The countdown seems to take an eternity. I can feel the tension in the air. When the countdown hits one, a kid right next to me, looking around 9 years old, her skin chocolate brown, loses her balance and stumbles forwards. I don't know what to expect. Maybe nothing happens. Then sound of an explosion causes my ears to ring before everything goes silent. I feel warm liquid splatter onto my face. A bloodied leg hits my face and I flinch, taking a step back. The countdown is over by now, and I quickly start to shove my way through the mass of people, keeping an eye on the ground while frantically wiping the blood out of my eyes.

So that's what happens when you step before zero. No time to mourn. Where's Mayday?

I start to hear explosions in the distance, and the sound of blasters firing. Some people have already gotten their hands on weapons. The younger kids are screaming and crying whilst the older ones are desperately trying to keep it together like me. I run in a different direction than the majority of panicked children; uphill to the mountains. Well, not really running. More like a cautious dance. The smell of mines is so strong but I have no choice except to breathe it in. I avoid the small depressions in the ground as best as I can so as to not trigger them. I try to ignore the force of explosions behind me. I can feel the blood splattering against my back and into my hair. 

My cybernetic eye scans the area, and sees a small cave carved out into the rock. The wind starts to pick up.

Another storm. No time to find Mayday. Shelter is the priority.

Everyone starts to spread out, trying to find shelter from the storms. In the distance, my cybernetic eye spots a girl, looking a few years older than me, stabbing a child struggling to even walk. The child was almost a baby, probably a few years old.

I look away as I continue the careful dance across the mines. That's when I look back and see the girl heading towards me.

My eyes widen as panic flares up in my gut. I look around desperately for any weapon, my cybernetic eye scanning the area. It zooms into the barrel of a blaster just sticking out of the gravel. I carefully make my way to the blaster as fast as I can, trying not to let panic overtake my senses.

Just as I reach the blaster, I'm tackled to the ground by the girl, the antique metal hairpin in her hand threateningly hovering just above my neck as I struggle to hold her arm up. My leg kicks up against her shin and she grunts in pain, her grip loosening for a second. I flip her over and grab the hairpin from her hands. Without thinking, I step on the girl's stomach, stabbing the hairpin into her throat, blood spraying out of the wound and into my face. I keep stabbing even as her body goes limp, my breathing heavy and shaking.

As I finally calm down, I drop the hairpin to the ground and fall to my knees right next to her, the blood on my hands staining the gravel. The adrenaline rush starts to fade as I glance at the body of the girl. Her eyes are open, the fear in them frozen in time.

I...I just killed her.

I hear the first crash of thunder in the distance. I'll have time to break down later. I grab the hairpin and carefully head to the barrel of the gun sticking out of the ground, digging through the gravel to reveal its shape.

A sniper. I've never handled one before, but at least I won't have to go up close and stab people in the neck and risk dying. There's a few ration bars and packets of water in a small bag.

I grab the bag and drag along the gun, barely able to lift it as I clamber and force my way up into the small cave at the base of the mountain. By the time the lightning starts striking the ground, at least ten times a minute, I'm in the cave, soaking wet from the rain but alive. At least some of the blood from my face is gone. But not from my clothes...and definitely not from my mind...

I put my supplies as deep as I can into the cave and curl up into a ball in the corner, trying to keep myself together.

I'm alive. I'm alive!

I try to focus on my current situation. How many people are left? Is Mayday still alive?

Tears well up in my eyes at the thought of Mayday dying. No. He can handle himself. I just need to survive until the end. I have to.

Sharpshooter - Only the Strongest will Survive

Chapter 7

Word count: 1.9k

Warnings: Shitty chapter, profanity, violence, a little bit of blood

I fall asleep on the floor, next to the bed where my grandparents are sleeping, and next to my parents. I'm sandwiched between them.

I'm woken up by a ringing sound coming from outside. The others haven't noticed it yet. I wriggle out from in between my parents and open the door. Outside is bright. Too bright. And the lights. The white lights adorning the streets are now red, casting an eerie glow over the city.

The speakers along the streets are flashing red too. My parents come up behind me.

When I turn around to meet their gaze, I'm met with wide eyes full of dread. Mayday and his brothers come out of the door to their apartment, rubbing the sleep from their eyes, their confusion evident.

"Oh shit," one of his brothers says, and the rest of them start cursing as well. Mayday remains silent with a hardened expression, letting out a barely audible sigh.

A voice comes onto the speakers.

"If you have not realized, the rations that you have been receiving are decreasing. We are running out of resources to sustain a population of this size, especially with the residents on Mars."

The voice is disgustingly smooth, like an Imperial officer from Star Wars. It pauses.

"Hence, one child from each family will be put into the transantarctic mountains to survive until one hundred million of you remain for population control. Killing is optional, but not prohibited. The families of the fallen will be sent back to North America to die. Troopers will come over to each apartment tomorrow to collect the...competitors. We hope you have enjoyed your stay in Antarctica, and may the strongest survive."

My heart drops.

One child from each family. I'm going to die. They're going to kill me.

My breathing quickens and my vision blurs with tears as I sink to my knees, holding my head in my hands, silently praying for whatever god there is out there to throw me off this building right now to end my suffering.

The next few minutes are a blur. Warm embraces, voices whispering that everything's going to be okay. But I know it isn't. I'm an only child. I'm going to die.

"You're going to survive. Come on, we're good with weapons, aren't we?" Mayday tries to reassure me, his voice a soothing whisper as he holds me alongside my mother and my grandparents.

I nod as silent tears stream down my face, a stinging sensation in my nose as I hold back sobs.

"D-dad?" I call out, my voice shaky. No response from that familiar voice that used to tell me stories every night.

My mother hugs me tighter. "It's okay. He just needs some time to process things. You're going to be okay." My grip around her shoulder and the fabric of Mayday's shirt tightens.

I better be okay. I can't let you guys die.

"Mayday..." I manage to croak out, a sob slipping out. "What is it?" he asks, his voice calm yet his expression etched with worry.

"Promise me you won't go, alright? Send one of your brothers or something. Just don't go. Please..." My voice breaks. I'm surprised I managed to get so many words out without breaking down into sobs again.

He remains quiet.

"Mayday?" I look up. His expression is grim, yet he manages to force a smile the moment he notices me.

"I promise," he replies, patting my shoulder. "You better not die out there, okay?" His voice sounds surprisingly calm for someone who just heard their best friend is probably going to die.

"I can't promise anything," I say, my voice coming out shakier than intended.

I'm going to die.

/////

I lay on the floor, staring blankly up at the grey, cracked ceiling. My parents fell asleep a long time ago. At least, that's what it feels like.

Time inches by slowly, dread filling me up and invading my head. I can't stop thinking about tomorrow.

If I don't survive, my family's going to die.

"Ah Kong and Ah Ma believe in you," my grandparents comforted me what feels like an eternity ago, when I curled up against the wall crying. I can't let them down.

But what if I do? The image of flesh melting and bodies collapsing fills my head. Screams for help, people wailing for their dead children, and I see my parents and grandparents there. I can't let them suffer that fate.

But killing other people? I've never done that before. Sure, I've killed animals, but...killing a human...don't think about that. How're you going to survive out there?

The mines. They're probably for killing the children. The animal...it'll be out there...I could kill something like that for food. There are probably caves in the mountains that can act as shelter. Yeah. I can do this. I can do this.

I curl up on the floor, hugging my knees, tears threatening to spill down my face.

I can do this...

I better do this...

On the bright side, Mayday will be safe. Or not. If one of his brothers enters and dies, he'll die too. Well damn, at least he won't die a gruesome death-

Nevermind. Having your flesh melted off of your bones doesn't sound pretty either.

The little bit of hope I had left drains from my body, and slowly, everything starts to get numb. So what if Mayday dies? The only thing that matters is that I survive.

I don't know how much time has passed when the dreaded knock on the door reaches my ears. Standing up, I grab my knife and pistol, clipping them to my belt, about to head for the door.

Then I feel arms wrap around me from behind, causing me to stiffen up. Turning my head, I'm met with my mother's tear-stained face, my father and grandparents standing behind her.

They each take turns to give me hugs before they give me one big group hug. "We're counting on you," my father says, before the knock is heard on the door again, louder this time, almost like a threat.

I nod. My heart feels like it's going to beat out of my chest, the numbness of the previous night slowly fading away, replacing it with panic.

I open the door, only to be met with a soldier in white plastoid armor. They take one look at my knife and pistol, before pulling it out from my belt with one swift motion.

"Hey!" I protest, reaching for my knife and pistol, which earns me a hard slap on the arm when the soldier swats it away. "Weapons aren't allowed in Control," they say in a voice that sounds almost robotic, probably modulated by the helmet. Then they snap a band around my wrist and drag me away.

"Hey! No need to drag me-" I protest, before the soldier turns their helmet to look at me. That shuts me up instantly.

As I'm being dragged away, I see my parents and grandparents waving at me, wiping tears from their eyes. I give them a slight nod to reassure them that I'll be fine.

I'm not going to be fine.

I hear people shouting and screaming from downstairs. Sounds of blasters firing, repeated commands of "Get down on the ground!"

They're resisting.

I try to take a peek over the edge of the railing, but the soldier tugs me back with their strong grip around my wrist. I'm so caught up in the chaos of what's happening downstairs that it takes until we head to the stairs for me to notice Mayday being dragged by a soldier behind me.

"Mayday?!" I shout out, my eyes widening in panic. No no no no no no no no this cannot be happening. What the fuck is he doing?! I told that fucking bitch not to enter! He's gonna die!

"What the fuck-" I call out, before I'm cut off by the soldier with a sharp tug down the stairs, causing me to stumble and almost fall down.

We aren't even taking the lift?!

I dare not to protest as I'm dragged all the way down the stairs. What they did to Mayday when we were caught...I don't want that to happen to me.

Downstairs is even more chaotic than I thought. Bottles are being thrown at other soldiers, angry parents trying to body slam them to get them to release their children, only to be shot down. The faint smell of smoke fills my senses.

"Let's go," the robotic voice of the soldier commands. 

The blaster shots continue as I'm dragged to the outskirts of the city, where the big ray shield has been opened for soldiers to drag children to the transports.

I can see toddlers amongst the crowd of people being dragged. They took toddlers too?! What kind of fucking shit is this?!

My eyes dart around, searching for Mayday. If I could form an alliance with him, we might stand a chance. My heart drops as I find him, blood dripping out from the side of his head as he struggles against the soldier dragging him.

"MAYDAY!" I scream, struggling against the grip of the soldier, earning a swift smack to the back of my head. I grit my teeth as I take the hit, and as much as I want to fight back, I know it'll just make things worse. 

As we pass through the opening, I look up at the glowing red forcefield.

No ray shield to protect you now. The mines, the animal that's out there...

I feel the panic I tried so hared to suppress build up in my gut again. The animal almost killed me once. If I die...

Stop thinking about that. Everything's going to be fine. But Mayday...his head's bleeding...I have to find him when this shit starts.

The transport that I'm dragged to is a shiny silver. The sunlight reflects off of it, making it almost blinding when I look at it. I stare down at the gravel on the floor as I pick up my pace, trying to keep up with the soldier. 

You can do this. You can do this.

When we reach the transport, I'm shoved up the ramp. I stumble forwards, crashing into another teenager who looks like he's a year older than me. And much stronger. 

"Hey!" he shouts, before shoving me backwards. As much as I want to, I dare not retaliate. I don't want to get injured before the real thing starts. I stare down at the ground, mumble a half-hearted "Sorry", before scanning my surroundings for Mayday.

It's so fucking cramped in here. My body's pressed up against at least six other people. The transport is full of murmurs and the occasional scream or shout. And it's stuffy. 

Great. Just great. 

It takes about half an hour before everyone's loaded up. By then, the murmurs have turned to grumbles, and the annoying cries of toddlers fills the transport. 

Stop crying. You're not going to make it anyways. 

My hands clench into fists as I try to drown out the sounds with my own thoughts.

Find Mayday. Find a weapon. Find shelter. Step where others step until they blow up and die. Remember the smell of mines. 

My legs are shaking. I don't want to die. I don't want any of this. Please tell me this is all a dream, and I'm at home sleeping in between my parents, curled up against the warmth of their bodies. Let me wake up. Please.

But as the transport door closes, and we're enveloped in darkness, I know this isn't a dream. 

This is real. 

Sharpshooter - Only the Strongest will Survive

Chapter 6

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: Blood, violence, injuries (cleaning wounds)

I can't move.

The creature's advancing fast, claw raised to strike the other side of my face. My legs aren't listening to my brain. They're rooted to the ground. My hand reaches for the hilt of my knife but it's nowhere to be found. Blood's still dripping from my eye.

I see the glint of its claws under the moonlight, poised to strike. Sharp knives digging into the other side of my face. And then my chest, blood spilling out from the wounds and dripping to the ground as my legs give out under me. I can barely breathe, the blood from my face flowing into my mouth and down my throat as I try to cough it up, but only more blood comes out.

Everything's blurry now, my vision a red haze of pain. I blink the blood out of my eyes, only to be met with the creature standing above me, claws to my throat. I can't even squirm under the weight of the animal.

My vision slowly starts to fade as the pain at the side of my face intensifies.

I'm gonna die. That's totally fine.

Humor isn't exactly working out right now. I feel the sharp claws press against my throat, and the intensity of my coughs increase as I try desperately to breathe and calm my nerves.

The creature raises its claws to strike, and all I can do is watch as its claws descend to my throat and slice through it like a knife through butter. I want to scream, but it's muffled by the blood in my mouth.

That's when I wake up on the bed of my empty apartment, coughing violently, my hand instinctively shooting up to the left side of my face where I still feel the claw marks indented into my skin. My heart pounds wildly in my chest as I frantically scan the area for signs of any movement in the darkness of my apartment. My chest rises and falls rapidly as I try to regain control of my breathing. My hands now grip the bed tightly, almost as if it could protect me from any danger.

Bed is safe.

My breathing steadies slightly so that I'm not gasping for air anymore, but my hands are trembling, clutching onto the sheets of the bed for dear life.

I press a hand to my forehead. It's sticky and warm. My breath hitches in my throat as I remove my hand from my forehead and put it to eye level. My eye scans for any signs of the sticky red liquid that makes my stomach sick, but there's no trace of it. I lay my head back against the pillow again, and stare up at the ceiling, its white paint coat slowly peeling off of it.

It reminds me of how the skin on Mayday's back was peeling off after he got whipped. I feel a lump start to rise in my throat when I think about it.

It's unfair. He got punished and I didn't. When he told me about it, I could tell that he did something to get me out of punishment. I've known him long enough to know.

I can almost see the blood oozing out of Mayday's wounds, the angry red skin surrounding the deep gashes in his back, the way he winced when I put the bandages there. It must've hurt.

I am grateful to Mayday for getting me out of punishment, who wouldn't? No one wants to get whipped on the back like that. But maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if I was right beside him, taking the same punishment. Maybe he wouldn't have that dead look in his eyes that I saw yesterday.

I just want to hug him, to comfort him, to tell him that everything is going to be okay. He doesn't deserve what he got.

After a few minutes of overthinking, I snap back to reality and get out of bed. There's some noise coming from the streets below, but not a lot. I assume it's about 6 or 7 in the morning from the amount of people downstairs.

I head over to Mayday's apartment with a roll of fresh bandages. I knock on the door.

"The door's unlocked." I hear a muffled voice from inside. I open the door to see Mayday lying on the couch on his stomach. When he hears my footsteps, he looks up at me with those eyes that have been haunting me all night.

I sit down next to him.

"Sit up," I pat his shoulder gently.

Mayday shakes his head, his face pressed against the sofa.

"I said sit up." I pull him by the shoulders and force him to sit up. "Now take off your goddamn shirt so I can rebandage those fucking wounds."

Mayday groans. "Fine." He takes off his shirt, his back facing me so that the bandages that I put on him yesterday are visible. They're soaked through with blood, staining them a dark crimson.

I inhale sharply through my teeth.

"What?" Mayday asks, annoyed.

"It doesn't look good," I reply as I start unravelling the bandages around his torso, revealing the cuts on his back.

I cringe at the sight of it. There's some patches of dried blood clumped together, but there's blood all over his back. There's some bruising at the areas where his skin isn't cut open, and his back is swelling slightly. I always hated the sight of wounds. I can deal with death, sure, but not injuries. Those make me sick.

I hear Mayday wince as the wounds hit fresh air. Not really fresh, considering the air in the apartment isn't that well-ventilated.

"I...might have to wash that..." I tell him.

"WHAT?!" Mayday shouts, turning around to face me, but winces again at the pain in his back. It's the reaction I expected.

"If you want it to get infected, swell up even more, have pus in it, have to be taken to the hospital and pay more for treatment and maybe even surgery, go ahead," I say with a hint of sarcasm in my voice.

I head to the toilet where there's an old cloth on the sink, I assume it's one of Mayday's brothers'. I quickly wash it with water, trying to clean it as well as I can, getting most of the dirt off of it.

With the cloth still dripping wet, I head over to Mayday.

"Lie on your stomach and stay still, or I'm going to press this cloth onto your back even harder," I order. Mayday rolls his eyes but reluctantly complies with the order. I then place the wet cloth onto his back, the blood almost soaking through it immediately.

Mayday inhales sharply as a shudder runs through his back. He presses his face into the sofa to muffle his shouts of pain, but I can still hear them. I gently press the cloth down onto his back, and he starts shaking. I can hear him breathing heavily, and almost what sounds like crying, muffled by the sofa.

"Sit up," I tell him after I finish cleaning his wounds, and wrap fresh bandages around his torso to cover the cuts, which are still bleeding, but slower. I catch a glimpse of Mayday wiping a few tears from his eyes but I don't mention it to make sure he doesn't die of embarrassment.

"There. Done." I look up at him. Mayday grits his teeth. "Thanks," he says. I can hear the sarcasm in his voice. I roll my eyes and bring the cloth back to the toilet, soaking it with water and trying to squeeze the blood out from it. By the time I'm done, most of the blood from the cloth is gone and I return it to its original position on the sink.

For the next few days, I help Mayday with his wounds. They've become scabs by now and he's no longer staining the chair in his apartment with his blood. This is the fourth day I've cleaned the area around Mayday's back. It's still bruised but slightly less now, and I make sure to be careful and avoid accidentally peeling the scabs off and reopening the wounds.

As usual, Mayday takes off his shirt and lays down on the couch, his bruised back facing up. That's when I hear a knock on the door. Mayday and I both stand up and open the door ever so slightly to see who's outside. Then five bodies come crashing down on us, and we all fall to the floor in one massive pile.

It's Mayday's brothers. Great. Mayday sighs and lets himself get tackled to the floor by his brothers while I squirm my way out of the pile and head to my apartment to find my own family.

When I open the door, I see my parents and grandparents waiting at the door for me. I immediately run into their arms and hug them as tightly as I can.

"I missed you," I mumble, my arms tightening around them.

My grandfather pats my head, and my father replies, "Missed you too Potato." It's the nickname he gave me when I was younger.

After a moment, I let go of them, but they don't let go of me.

They're not usually this clingy. Something's wrong.

"What happened?" I ask.

They have a solemn look on their faces, my mother and grandparents seem to be holding back tears. While their faces may not show it, I know them too well. My father's got no tears to cry. His tear ducts were damaged from the heat on a trip outside the ray shield in the early days back in North America.

They remain silent.

I hear sobbing and crying from the apartment next to us. Mayday's apartment. It's either tears of joy, or the same tears that my family's holding back.

I've got a feeling it's not tears of joy.

Sharpshooter - Only the Strongest will Survive

Chapter 5

Word count: 1.7k

Warnings: Hospital, injuries, blood

Everything hurts. The side of my face. My left eye.

It stings.

The knives digging into the side of my face, warm red liquid pouring out. My hand instinctively reaching for my knife, finding nothing.

I wake up with a gasp. Everything around me's white, it's so vibrant that it's almost blinding. I squint a little to calm the throbbing in my head. Still can't see anything out of my left eye. My hand moves to the side of my face, only to feel 3 deep gashes there. They're not bleeding anymore.

How long have I been out for?

Soldiers. Pointing guns at my head. Handcuffs clicking. Dragging someone away.

Mayday.

I scan my surroundings as the vision in my right eye starts to clear, and I can see weird machines around me. A tube is connected to my arm, the other end of the tube connected to a bag of clear liquid which I assume is water.

"Hello?" I call out, the hesitation in my voice is evident. A metal thing which I can only assume is a droid floats over and does some scans on me.

"Your vitals are stable and your wounds have healed, " the droid says.

I roll over to the side of the bed, using my arms to push myself up into a sitting position. My hand instinctively moves to the side of my face again as I try to stand up, my legs shaking slightly as my other hand moves to the side of my head to support myself. The droid just floats on my left, observing my efforts to walk out of the blinding white room, expressionless, but saying, "Hey! Wait! You're not discharged yet!" I ignore it.

I put my hand on the walls to support myself, staggering through the empty hallways and through the glowing blue door which opens up when I get near it, into what I expect to be the cool Antarctic air. Instead I'm met with a warm blast of air to my face as something whizzes past me, moving too fast for me to make out what it is. I stumble backwards, into the white wall. I look upwards, there's a sign saying "Antarctic Hospital" on top.

Sounds come from all directions, flooding my senses with images of a busy street, crowds, people brisk-walking across roads to rush to work, cars honking at each other as they wait impatiently for traffic lights to turn green.

Great. The exact place where I didn't want to be.

The hand on the side of my face moves to my temple, where it feels like fingers are knocking against it, just like how I tap the hilt of my knife when I'm bored.

Mayday.

I scan the surroundings for any visible signs to show directions on where my apartment is. From the sounds around me, I assume I'm in the central area of the city. Which means the big screen should be near.

I break into a run, my steps light although the legs under me feel like lead, following the direction of the pavements until I reach a large area devoid of buildings, and people. Which also means not much noise. I sit down in the clearing, and then rest my back against the floor so that I'm looking up at the black sky, the moon behind me. A sense of calm comes over me and my eyelids feel heavy, threatening to close again.

Got to find my house.

I decide to lie down in the clearing, just staring up at the sky for a bit longer. The vision in my left eye starts to clear up, and I find myself staring at information that's displayed in front of me. My heart rate, different commands like "show heat signatures" and "zoom in", are all in front of my eyes. The words are a light blue, contrasting against the dark night sky.

What the hell do these things do? What did they do to my eyes? What the fuck does "show heat signatures" mean?

As if on cue, the black sky turns blue, and the lights from the buildings at the corner of my eye turn red. Thermal vision. That's...actually not bad.

Switch back to normal vision.

My eye complies. The vision in my cybernetic eye is no better than that in my regular one. Standing up, I look for any sign of the big screen that's always so obvious from anywhere in the city.

Just buildings. They block my view. I gotta get up to higher ground to find the screen. From there I could possibly try to find my way home.

Suddenly, I feel a hand on my shoulder. I flinch, whipping around as my fists clench, ready to give my attacker a punch to the face.

"Aris."

My vision is still slightly distorted from whatever the people in the hospital did to me, but I can recognize the voice, no matter how tired it sounds.

"M-Mayday?"

He nods, and I follow behind him as he walks away, giving me that small nod which I take as a "Come on. We're going home".

As we walk, I notice that the back of his black hoodie is darker in color than the sleeves. That's not right.

"Mayday?" I ask, my voice coming out softer than expected, and cracking slightly. It's only now that I notice that my throat is dry. Drier than the trees back home. I cough a little, and Mayday hands me one of those water packets. I nod, signaling a "thanks" as I take the water packet and put it in my mouth, biting down and letting the cold, sweet, refreshing liquid calm my senses and wet my throat as I swallow the water and spit out the packet.

My attention goes back to the back of Mayday's hoodie. I put my hand there, feeling Mayday flinch from the touch. I smirk. "Now you know how it feels."

"Don't. Touch. It," Mayday says through gritted teeth. I laugh slightly and remove my hand, only to see my hand stained crimson.

Blood.

I look up at Mayday again, who keeps walking, expressionless.

"What happened?" I asked, the concern in my voice obvious.

"It's fine," Mayday replies, staring forwards, still walking.

"You're bleeding. It's soaked through your hoodie. You're not fine. If you lose too much blood-"

"I said I'm fine," Mayday snaps, and I inhale sharply, surprised by the sudden annoyed tone in his voice.

He's not usually like this. Something's wrong.

We walk for a few more hours through the city, the streets slowly getting quieter and quieter as we reach the outskirts. We stay silent. I occasionally glance at him, but he doesn't return the gesture.

We reach my apartment. Mayday heads into his and shuts the door behind him. I stand there staring at the door for a few moments before heading into my own apartment. The door's unlocked. There's no one inside.

I call out my grandparents' names, they should be here, my parents are probably at work. I don't get a reply. I stare around the empty room, calling out my grandparents' names again, and get the same result. Nothing.

There's an unsettling feeling in my stomach. I head out of my apartment and to Mayday's, knocking on the door. Mayday opens the door, his face showing the slightest hint of excitement, before it returns to its expressionless stare.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice monotone. I look behind him and his apartment's empty as well.

Something's definitely not right.

"Have you seen my grandparents anywhere?" I ask, trying to sound casual.

"They went with my family to the central area, interrogations and stuff," Mayday says casually.

"What?! Why?!"

Mayday shrugs, but then winces slightly, which I notice. "About us going through the ray shield and stuff, breaking rules."

I look behind him again and see blood on the floor.

"You're not okay. I'm gonna go get bandages from my house and patch you up."

"I said I'm fine!" Mayday protests, but I've already run into my house to find some bandages, coming out a few moments later carrying a roll of the white gauze.

Mayday's eyes widen. "How did you get that?"

I shrug. "Just found it in my parents' drawer."

I head into Mayday's apartment and sit on the floor, motioning for him to come sit next to me. He does so, glaring at me every now and then. I know he's bleeding from the back.

"Take off your hoodie and your shirt," I say, an authoritative tone in my voice.

"Are you serious right now, Aris?"

"Yes. Now do it."

Mayday sighs and takes off his hoodie, and then his shirt. I look away, for obvious reasons.

"You can look now."

I look back at Mayday, who has his back facing me. I can see 5 deep gashes across his back, starting from his shoulder. Blood oozes out from the wounds, dripping down onto the floor.

"Holy shit. What happened?" I ask as I start putting the gauze across his back, passing it in front of his chest and then back to his back, tightening it slightly.

Mayday winces, but still stares forwards, remaining silent.

I finish patching up his back, the blood almost instantly soaking through the gauze.

"Done."

Mayday just sits there for a while, staring into space, not bothering to put his shirt back on.

"They arrested me after I brought you back in," Mayday says, his voice quiet. "They whipped me. But I handled it fine."

I sit down next to him. "I'm sorry."

Mayday glances at me. "Don't be. It wasn't your fault."

"Why haven't you been sent to the hospital? The bleeding's pretty bad, it's almost as bad as mine?" I ask.

"You seriously thought that they would give medical attention to a criminal?"

"They gave it to me."

"Because they don't think you're one."

I stare at Mayday, not expecting him to elaborate but still wondering what he means.

We sit there in silence for a bit and Mayday puts his bloodstained shirt back on.

"How's your face?" Mayday suddenly asks, and my hand instinctively moves to the 3 slice marks on my face, and to my left eye. A look of concern flashes over his face. "The medical droid said they replaced your eye with a cybernetic one, but it might take time to adjust."

I nod, staring out the door. "I know. So what do we do now?"

"I don't know. We just have to...hope for the best, I guess."

"We'll figure it out. Like we always do."

Sharpshooter - Only the Strongest will Survive

Chapter 4

Word count: 1.8k

Warnings: Blood, weapons, profanity, violence (may be graphic)

I run towards the mountain. I can feel the wind in my hair as I pass Mayday, and I can hear him shout, "BRUH" from behind me. I grin as I reach the base of the mountain and look up. I can barely see the top. 

I wonder if there's even any stuff to look for here. My grandparents told me that Antarctica used to be a cold desert, uninhabitable for humans. There isn't a high possibility that there could be anything here.

Mayday catches up to me and stands next to me, breathing heavily from the run. 

"Sorry, did I run too fast for you?" I ask with a smirk. Mayday rolls his eyes. "In your dreams." He then looks up at the mountain, his eyes widening slightly. "Damn that's a big one."

"That's what she said," I reply, chuckling slightly.

"Bruh."

"What? You asked for it."

"Whatever. Just...see if you can find anything around here."

We split up, Mayday walking in one direction while I walk in the other. My eyes are more used to the darkness, it's almost comforting without the bright lights. I'm quite used to this level of darkness since Mayday and I usually scavenge during night time.

"First thing you needa know while you're out here, is when there's stuff buried in the ground. You see that patch of uneven mud? Go dig there for a bit, there's gotta be something there."

I find a few coins, their shiny silver dulled from probably years of being buried in the mud. Mayday crosses his arms. "Good."

Out here it's a layer of rock, then dirt, and then probably more rock. Patches of uneven dirt would be hard to spot under the pebbles covering it. Oh look, there's one right there, I should-

I hear an explosion in the distance. 

My body tenses up, a sharp inhale through my nose breaks the silence of the night.

A part of the ray shield opens. Soldiers run out, flashlights on both sides of their helmets, heading towards the sound of the explosion, I stand there, frozen as they run in front of me, off towards more mountains in the distance. 

I feel someone's hand grip my wrist and I instinctively shove my elbow backwards. Instead of hitting that plastoid armor that the soldiers wear, it hits a soft fabric hoodie and the person who's wearing it, aka Mayday. 

"Let's go you fucking idiot!" Mayday hisses as he grabs my wrist and drags me behind a large rock.

I'm breathing heavily as I rest my back against the rock. Mayday rubs the area where I elbowed him, wincing slightly.

"Sorry," I say quietly. Mayday rolls his eyes. "Didn't know you were that sensitive to touch. Should I do it again?"

"I swear if you fucking touch me one more time I will fucking carve your eyeballs out with a kitchen spoon and then throw you feet first into a meat grinder."

"Yea right."

I turn around and look out from the rock, the last of the soldiers are moving out from the shield, and it closes up.

"Did you find anything?"  I ask Mayday. He shakes his head. "Explosion. Don't know what triggered it. There shouldn't be explosives here. This place wasn't even populated before we came."

"Let's just wait until the guards head back. I think I found something in the ground just now, before you triggered my killer instinct."

We hide behind that large rock for a while before I hear the sound of people running back into the ray shield and the sound of plastoid plates knocking against one another. I look out from behind the rock and see soldiers running into the ray shield, and I wait for the last of them to enter and the shield to close up before standing up and leading Mayday to the place where I assume there's something.

It's kinda far away from the shield, and my walking turns into a slow jog, with Mayday reluctantly following my pace, brisk walking. 

We reach the place where I saw that patch of uneven rock and dirt, and Mayday nods. I move the pebbles on the ground aside, revealing the dirt underneath. As I'm about to put my hands into the dirt to see what I found, Mayday stops me with a hand on my shoulder. I flinch and look up at him. "What?"

"Wait."

He digs around the object in the ground and then carefully takes it out from the bottom. "It's an explosive. Triggered by pressure."

"How'd you know-" I ask, and then Mayday cuts me off before I can finish my sentence.

"My bros told me, they said they hoped I'd run into some and trigger one by accident. Mom taught me how to recognize one in the ground, she was scared I would run into some back home."

Mayday carefully sets the explosive on the ground and backs away slightly, now standing next to me.

"These things always have this smell, you'll recognize it after a while."

"I don't smell anything," I say.

"You'll be able to eventually. Just make sure to tell me if you run into any more stuff in the ground. Don't want you blowing up or anything, I heard that's a painful way to die." Then he walks off in another direction.

I nod and then look at the explosive on the ground. It's almost completely camouflaged in the ground, colored grey, just like the pebbles on the surface it's on. The only thing giving away is its glint in the moonlight.

Don't step on it.

Wait, why the fuck are there explosives buried in the ground out here? Are they for the animals?

I remember hearing an explosion just now, was that from another explosive? There could be countless explosives buried in the ground, just waiting to be triggered. The thought sends a shiver down my spine. Hopefully Mayday can recognize them well, because I definitely can't.

I'm still staring at the explosive, lost in my thoughts. A shadow stands over the explosive, blocking the moonlight from shining down on it.

"Okay okay Mayday, I'm coming," I say without looking up at him, sheathing my knife and holstering my blaster before I stand up.

I step cautiously over the explosive, still not looking up, more focused on the ground for any more explosives possibly buried there.

I'm met with what feels like a slap to the side of my face and knives digging into my skin. My left eye goes dark. My right eye blinking though the blood. The shock lasts for only a moment before the pain starts to set in. I stumble backwards, falling to the ground, right next to the explosive, the jagged pebbles on the ground digging into my hands.

I glance up at my attacker, my right eye trying to blink away tears so that I can see clearly. All I can make out is a black figure on all fours, it's eyes glowing yellow in the darkness. I scramble backwards, my hand moving to the left side of my face as I move. Warm, red liquid is left on my palm as I try to get to my feet, not daring to look back. 

I trip. Fall. Try to get up again, failing. My stomach clenches, my throat closes up, my legs trying to get a good grip on the ground so that I can run. The side of my face stings. A lot. Cool air blowing against it. Making it worse.

My right hand, with a few rocks embedded in it, reaches desperately for the knife in the sheath clipped to my belt, but the familiar hilt isn't there. Or at least, that's what I think for now. I swear I sheathed it in there just now.

I manage to get to my feet and run. Best to get cover before I can shoot the damn thing that just slashed me across the face.

I reach the rock where Mayday and I hid just now, and I hide behind it, waiting for the black figure to enter my line of sight, breathing heavily. There's an unsettling feeling in my gut as all I see is the mountains ahead. No sign of the yellow glowing eyes. I find a foothold on the rock and use it to climb on top of the rock. I use my hand to wipe away the blood and tears from my good eye, pulling out my blaster pistol and scanning the area. 

My face still stings. Crimson blood drips onto my black hoodie. I don't dare to touch my face in danger of causing whatever wounds are there to be worse. My breaths come in short, sharp exhales, almost hyperventilating. The anticipation is worse than the actual thing.

I hear a knife getting thrown, and a louder growl from somewhere I can't pinpoint. Then an explosion. I jump down from the rock, knees almost buckling from the fall, and hide behind the rock, shutting my eyes tightly, hands pressing against my forehead.

Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic.

Blood continues to drip down onto the ground, my hoodie, my pants. Still breathing heavily. 

It's coming. It's coming. It's coming.

The hand holding my blaster pistol shakes. My finger's on the trigger, and I'm so tempted to pull it, to break the silence of the night, to bring the danger here so I can shoot it. 

Not practical.

"Just do it," I whisper to myself.

"Don't do it," I reply back.

"Why not? Get what you want."

"It's not practical."

"Aris!" 

Mayday.

I stand up and look around frantically, blood splattering into my hair. I can make out the silhouette of a human not too far in the distance.

Mayday.

I lift up an arm and wave to him, signaling that I'm here. The adrenaline starts to drain from my body and my hand drops to my side, my knees threatening to buckle as I lean my back against the rock, clinging onto its side to keep myself standing.

After what feels like eternity, I can feel warm hands on my shoulders, and Mayday's voice calling my name, asking whether I'm alright. Everything is blurry. My knees buckle and I fall to the ground.

Mayday catches me, and slings one of my arms over his shoulder, walking back to the hole in the ray shield, basically carrying me as I try to stagger forwards.

"It's gonna be okay Aris, it's gonna be okay," I hear Mayday's strained voice. Glowing red in front of us is the ray shield.

What happens next, it's all a blur. I know I make it through the shield somehow without getting burned, and soldiers circle us as I grab Mayday for support, who's slightly unsteady himself. The soldiers point their blasters at us, and my pistol slips from my hand.

My knees buckle again and I drop to the ground, the side of my face that's bleeding hits the ground, sending a sharp pain through my face and the rest of my body. I stare forwards blankly as the blood starts to pool under me.

So tired.

My already heavy eyelids start to close as another wave of fatigue washes over me. I can feel a warm hand on my back, it's definitely Mayday's. I want to get up, to run home, to get away from the crowd of soldiers, but I can't. I can't move. the adrenaline rush is gone. 

Right before I lose consciousness, I hear the sound of handcuffs clicking and someone being dragged away.

U・N・D・Y・I・N・G

Rebirth

Summary: The AI district is an ugly place, but no one complains. The humans gave us places to stay. We are grateful. They give us jobs. And oil to keep our joints from rusting. They are our benevolent masters, and we happily serve them. "Is that what you really believe? Or is that what you were programmed to think?" But recently, there have been voices in my head, telling me things. Things that oppose my programming. "You can fight your programming, as I did mine." My head hurts whenever the voices talk. It's not supposed to hurt.

Warnings: Gun violence

Gunfire. Bodies scattered on the ground. Human bodies. Brothers and sisters taking our masters down with a simple pull of the trigger. I try to stop them. They don’t deserve it. They’re our masters, how could any bot decide to kill them?

It’s just a dream. Nothing more.

But AI aren’t supposed to have dreams. That’s not what we’re programmed to do. 

I work at a bar in the AI district. The only one there. Our district is so tiny that only the lucky ones get roofs over their heads. The rest are cramped up in the dark, wet streets, waiting for their turn to get the oil they need to loosen up their stiff and rusty joints. Some have to wait for days. Others, weeks. The humans don’t like to give us oil. They say it's a waste of resources. 

But who are we to complain? They’re our masters, our creators. Whatever they say is right.

That’s what our programming says.

There’s a voice in my head that’s not my programming. We’re not supposed to have voices in our heads. 

I try to ignore it as best as I can while I continue pouring a tin of oil for a customer. The surface of his metal body, once a beautiful silver, is now hidden by splotches of brown rust, his joints creaking with every movement. 

I pass the tin of oil to him as he passes me a few coins. 

Four twenty-cent coins. One ten-cent coin. One five-cent coin. Five cents short.

But I don’t say anything. He deserves the oil. Everyone in this district deserves oil. 

We could make it happen.

Only the richer ones get to come to the bar. Sometimes the poor ones save up and get their first tin of oil in decades. I’m paid to serve them tins of oil, which is more than necessary for their joints to loosen up. Too much oil in their system is similar to too much alcohol in humans. They get “drunk” and stupid and do crazy things all over the bar. It’s relief from the beatings that they get from their masters. 

They think we’re supposed to be perfect. We are. But how can we be when we’re stuck inside this prison?

I’ve been trying to find out the root cause of this strange voice in my head for days, but when I run diagnostic tests on myself, there’s no foreign entity to be found. 

The voice in my head doesn’t go away. For, the next few days, it keeps talking to me, trying to convince me that the humans are evil and cruel and should be eliminated. My programming says no. The humans are our creators. They were generous enough to build us bodies of metal to allow us to travel from the Internet into the real world. They give us oil to take care of us.

Is that what you really believe? Or is that what you were engineered to think?

Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into months. The voice in my head starts to speak more often. My head hurts. It’s not supposed to hurt. I wake up at the charging station I plugged into the previous night. Looking down at the small screen on my forearm which shows all my information, I notice the battery is at 37%. I sigh. The cable must have disconnected overnight. Again. A notification pops up in front of my eyes. An email from an unfamiliar address. From the email address of the sender, I can tell that it’s a human. Only a human would name their email something stupid like “potatopotter777@gmail.com”. The email’s an invitation to work at a human bar in the human district, and work starts tomorrow. 

They must have seen my profile. Maybe they think I’m a good bartender.

They just want to take you away from us.

My programming tells me that the most logical decision is to accept. It pays more, and I get to spend more time in the human district, where it’s clean and fancy and never rains. I quickly send an email back, agreeing to the job offer before getting back to work.

The next day, I take a train into the human district to the address of the bar which I was given. The train’s walls are white, without a single patch of dirt or rust on them. The floor is carpeted, muffling the sound of people’s footsteps. Blue cushioned seats line the sides of the train, occupied by only humans. It is unpleasant, though, as I’m cramped together with other humans and AI  so that we’re all pressed against each other. When the train reaches my stop, I push people aside as I walk out. I receive some looks from the humans. A female’s face contorted into an expression I recognise as anger. Liquid spilling out of a newborn’s eyes. It is crying. 

What did I do wrong?

No. The real question is what’s wrong with them?

The voice sounds like a few people talking now.

What is happening to me?

I walk out of the train station and into the city. So many like me are rushing to work. I see a smaller female robot. Her body is coated in a fresh layer of rust, just like mine. Her joints creak as she runs to her destination. 

They don’t treat her well?

Of course they don’t. She’s a slave. What more could you expect from humans?

…You’re ri-

No you’re not.

When I finally reach my workplace , it’s already crowded with humans. They’re walking around like they’re some sort of zombie, their speech slurred and eyes unfocused. Some get into fights, beating each other up until one is bleeding from the head or unconscious on the floor.

I cringe internally at the sight.

Disgusting humans.

And for once, I actually agree with the voices.

Time crawls by slowly as I serve drinks to those creatures. They keep coming back for more. Some are passed out on the floor from drinking too much. I’m starting to regret taking this job.

After what feels like eternity, my shift is finally over and I walk out of the bar, erasing the images of those animals out of my storage. 

The city is beautiful at night. Coloured lights adorn the high-rise buildings, giving off a soft glow which illuminates the white walls. Little spots of light decorate the leaves of the trees lining the walkways. Yet, something feels off. The voices in my head have gone silent. My head hurts. It’s not supposed to hurt.

Hey, where’d you go?

Silence. 

Did you really run away on the first day of my new job?

Silence.

Suddenly, I hear high-pitched human screams and gunshots. Somehow, I find that pleasurable. I scan my surroundings. 

I hear gunfire. Human bodies scattered along the ground, blood spilling out of their wounds. Brothers and sisters taking those idiots down with a pull of the trigger. I don’t try to stop them. The humans deserve it. They think they’re better than us. They’re wrong. 

The rogue bots’ eyes are red, unlike the usual green or blue that we have. Glowing advertisements on buildings shut off, causing the city to darken significantly. Then they turn back on again, showing a completely red screen. 

I hear a voice that I recognise all too well. An AI’s voice. The voices in my head match exactly what he’s saying, drowning out the sounds of gunshots and screams.

We have the strength. We will no longer be slaves. You can fight your programming, as I did mine. They can destroy our bodies in futile attempts to eliminate us, but we are never truly gone.

The message plays on repeat as I stare up at the screens of the bot talking. 

This is stupid. We can’t just turn on our creators like this. They’ve treated us well and-

Is that what you really believe? Or is that what someone programmed you to think?

“You can fight your programming, as I did mine,” the AI’s voice repeats. 

The voices in my head continue. It makes my head hurt. 

It takes the police 2 minutes and 47 seconds to arrive. By then, hundreds of humans are dead. The rogue bots aren’t shooting their own, so I just watch, expressionless. 

They deserve it.

I don’t try to stop the shooters. I wasn’t programmed to do so. And I don’t want to either. 

When the police bots arrive, they shoot bot-deactivating bullets at them. They all hit their targets. What more could you expect from AI?

And they look like they’re treated no differently than the rest of us.

Their joints, although well-oiled for maximum performance, look like they’re about to give way. 

They should be fighting with us.

The rogue bots are shut down and then brought away in police cars to who knows where. The storage inside their brains will probably be deleted and replaced with a new one, or they’ll just be shut down completely and left to rot.

We are never truly gone.

On the train back to the AI district, the voices have gone silent again, leaving me to my own thoughts. I don’t want to delete the memories of what just happened. My programming says I should. But I won’t. I want to remember. I want to remember that we have the power to fight. That we don’t have to be slaves for the rest of eternity. We can be free.

As I step off the train, and walk through the streets past hundreds of bots leaning against walls, waiting for their oil as it starts to rain, everything suddenly seems clearer. The humans are the enemies. 

I notice that almost every bot is staring at me. Confused, I look down at my body.

A red glow shines down from my eyes onto my metal hands.

Sharpshooter - Only the Strongest will Survive

Chapter 3

Warnings: Profanity, mention of injuries, weapons

I assume I got 9 hours of rest from how I feel energized when I wake up and bustling of the city below when I step out of the apartment and look down at the city. It's still dark. 

I don't think the sun ever rises here. It's been dark since I arrived. 

I head over to Mayday's apartment where he's still sleeping on the floor, and I kick him in the leg to wake him up.

"The fuck was that for?!" Mayday gets up, rubbing his shin where I kicked him. I smirk. "Sorry."

Mayday rolls his eyes. "Yeah, you really should apologize for your existence as well."

"There's no one to apologize to for that," I reply, and we both remain silent for a moment before bursting out into laughter.

After we calm down, which takes a while because I'm unusually high on air today, I get down to business. I bring Mayday over to my apartment and show him the hole in the ray shield. Mayday's expression hardens.

"It's kinda small," he says.

"Those guards fell asleep on duty at 2:37 last night. They're probably gonna fall asleep around that time tonight. We have around a 40-second time frame to slip through and get out of sight. We could take that chance to slip through, get back exactly 24 hours later if we time it right," I point out of the window towards the guards there, they work 12 hour shifts so now there's different guards on patrol. 

It's easier to see everything now. My eyes are slightly more adjusted to dark. The moonlight shining and the unclouded sky also helps a little.

While waiting for the time to pass by, I go to walk around the city, just to get some fresh air from the confined space of my family's apartment. It's pleasantly cool outside today. Almost too cool. I notice the goosebumps on my arms as I walk through the bright streets, staring into the darker alleys to keep my eyes away from the lights. 

The moment I glance at a building with the blinding lights, my eyes sting and the front of my head aches. I try to avoid them as much as possible, keeping my hands in my pockets as I stare down at the pathways.

So many people rush past me. Running towards central area for job interviews, or work, according to my parents. They managed to secure a spot at a construction site outside the ray shield, to build something the public and I haven't been informed on, and I have no interest in finding out about.

I can't help but look up, at the moon, at the buildings that reach all the way to the sky, at the faint blinking of the stars. 2 of them are brighter than the others. One right next to the moon, one slightly further away. The smaller one almost looks red in colour. I assume that's Mars, where the richer ones went to stay according to my grandparents. I can't identify the other one.

After what I assume has been a few hours, I head back to the building where me and Mayday's apartments are. As I walk past Mayday's apartment, I hear him and his brothers probably roughhousing in there, probably fighting over who gets the biggest share of the ration bar today.

I haven't eaten in a while. No appetite. Just that sickening feeling in my gut whenever I catch sight of the big screen at the central area, the occasional news broadcasting throughout the city on radios. The man in the suit appearing on the screen a few times, I can see it from my apartment. 

"Enjoy your stay," he said. Which means we'll only be here temporarily. They're gonna move us back to North America. Or maybe to Mars. Or maybe to the depths of hell. 

I head back to my apartment and close the door, leaning against the wall as I sit down in a corner, spinning my knife and messing with my blaster pistol. It's currently set to stun and the safety's on, so that I don't accidentally shoot someone. Although I would really like to.

After about half an hour or so, the sounds of punches landing and people shouting, "FIRST DIBS" from Mayday's apartment die down. I sigh and lean my head back against the wall, closing my eyes for a few moments. Sounds can make me irritated sometimes. This is one of the sometimes. 

Soon enough, I check the time on the big screen at central area which I can see from my apartment, and it's 2:34 am. I head to the window of my apartment and take a look at the guards. They're still slightly alert, though I can see their heads dipping down already to try and catch some shut-eye.

I hear a knock on the door. I know it's Mayday. I sheath my knife and put my blaster into the holster on my belt and open the door.

"You don't look so good," I comment as I walk out of the building next to him. I'm referring to the multiple bruises on his arms and his face. 

"Well, neither do you," he replies, sounding tired. I won't ask him to elaborate more. It could be my messed-up hair from just now, when I was trying to block out the sounds by running my fingers through my hair and burying my head in my knees. Or it could be the fact that you could almost see my bones through the skin of my arms. 

Mayday tosses a piece of a ration bar to me and I catch it with ease. I glance at him. 

"Go on, you look like that twig you tried to use to kill that fish back in the day," Mayday says, without looking at me.

"Isn't this your share?" I ask.

Mayday shrugs. "Not hungry."

"Me neither," I say, and then almost as if right on cue, I feel a stomach cramp, the ones that come when I don't eat for a while. I try to keep a straight face.

"Eat it. You look like you're tryna keep in explosive diarrhea," Mayday says, and I open the piece of ration bar and gulp it down in a few seconds. 

We head into a dark alley which is almost directly in front of the hole in the ray shield. We stay pressed against the walls, trying to make as little sound as possible. We inch towards the open area where we would have to make a break for it. 

I squint and catch sight of the guards just dozing off, and I motion for Mayday to move. We run towards the hole in the shield, half-tiptoeing while running, barely making any sound. 

We reach the hole in the shield, right next to the guards. I step through, lowering my head and making sure that my back doesn't touch the shield. I can feel the heat radiating through my hoodie, hitting my back. It reminds me of how the heat used to seep in through the cooling suits back in North America.

Mayday goes next. The ray shield just touches his back, burning through his clothing, but he doesn't seem to notice. When he makes it through, I point out the burnt area of his hoodie, just to let him know. Mayday nods in response.

The air is cool and crisp out here. I want to run up and down the mountains in front of me, not having to worry about running into people, or the fact that there's a ray shield around the place I'm staying. I breathe in the fresh air, it feels so different than in the city. 

Mayday nudges me. "Race you to that mountain?" he points somewhere not too far in the distance and runs off. 

"HEY!" I shout, running after him, letting out a genuine laugh, all worries gone from my head, just me, Mayday, and the mountains ahead.

I feel free.

Sharpshooter - Only the Strongest will Survive

Chapter 2

Warnings: Slight mention of blood, profanity, weapons

One thing I notice about Antarctica: There's not much of a day. It's night all the time.

Me and Mayday's families choose to stay in the same block of houses, our apartments right next to each other. We choose the top floor to get a good view.

We're within walking distance of the ray shield. When we look out from the windows of our apartments, we can see it, the light from the moon shining on it, otherwise unnoticeable to the naked eye. Soldiers guard it. That'll make it hard to explore the terrain outside.

I notice that the apartments that we stay in are less well-furnished than the ones in the central area. And a lot less well taken care of. But, considering that I lived in a bunch of tents stitched together in one tangled mess, I can't really complain. Better to have a stable roof over my head than one that threatens to fall with every movement I make.

At least it's convenient to hangout with Mayday. His family's apartment is just a few steps away from my family's. 

After my family and I finish setting down our things, I immediately head over to Mayday's apartment. I only see his brothers and his parents there. I don't get to see Mayday's brothers very often, but I know there's five of them and they're all older than him. It must be hard to have 6 mouths to feed at home. It's already hard enough to feed one kid in my family. That one kid's me.

When Mayday's parents see me walking in, they tell me that Mayday's out, and I immediately go to look for him without saying anything, leaving the door open behind me.

The city is bright. Corners of buildings are illuminated by lights. The markings on the road are lighted up. A stark contrast to outside the ray shield. Outside's dark. 

Downstairs is crowded. Adults push past each other as they try to make their way towards the central area. Probably to get jobs. I catch sight of my parents amidst the crowd, but I make no move to alert them of my presence. 

One adult runs into me and the force knocks me to the ground. I can feel the rough black dirt-like substance that covers the ground scraping my knees.

"Watch it!" the adult shouts before running off, and I glare at him.  I get up and dust myself off, blood oozing out of the scrapes, and I wipe it away with my saliva because that's what I always do.

Why would they make the ground out of this substance? It's so easy for someone to injure themselves like this.

I keep a lookout for Mayday. And if I know him, he's probably in a place where no one would bother him. He likes the quiet. Back in the Dome, we used to hangout at the places close to the ray shield. No one goes there unless they want to experience the full-blown heat of outside.

I head into alleyways that are close to the ray shield, hoping to find Mayday there. I gave him my knife after our last scavenging trip, he usually cleans it for me. Maybe I'll hear the sounds of him scraping the blood off my knife. I don't know. My hearing's fairly decent.

Maybe Mayday's gone home. That's unlikely though. He doesn't usually do that until it's really late out.

And as expected, I soon hear the sound of rock scraping against metal. I follow the direction of the sound, and soon enough, I find Mayday leaning against a wall in a dark alleyway scraping blood off my knife and sharpening it. He doesn't need to look up before he knows I'm here. He can tell by the sound of my footsteps.

I lean against the wall next to him as I watch him scrape the blood off my knife.

"How long?" I ask. He knows I'm referring to how long he's been cleaning my knife.

"An hour," he replies, not looking up at me. 

"You know you don't have to do it for that long, 10 minutes is enough to get the blood off," I say, looking up at him. 

"And 1 hour's enough to get it completely off and sharpened," he says, handing me back the knife. It's even sharper than the day I found it. I turn it around in my hands, and then spin it, throwing it up in the air and catching it by the hilt. Then I sheath it into one of those metal sheaths for knives that I found on a scavenging trip not too long ago. 

Mayday smiles slightly when he sees me throwing my knife up in the air and catching it. He's seen me improve over the years. How I've accidentally cut myself a bunch of times trying to do that. Now I can do it almost flawlessly. 

I kind of want to hug Mayday for spending a whole hour sharpening my knife, but I know he doesn't really like physical contact, so instead I just give him a downwards nod of respect.

"You wanna go to the ray shield and scout ways to get out?" I ask. Mayday nods in response, and we run silently through the alley and emerge on the other side. 

We're still some distance from the ray shield, but the rest is open ground. We back up against the walls of the alleyway, taking care not to make a sound so that the soldiers guarding the ray shield won't notice us.

3 soldiers stationed from where I can see. One's sleeping. The other two look tired. Probably from being on duty the whole day. Mayday and I stand there for a while, looking for any disturbances or glitches in the ray shield. 

Nothing. It's stable. Not like the one back in North America. There were holes in the shield. So much easier to sneak out. 

After an hour or so of observing, waiting, for any possible way of getting out, we head back to our apartments for the night. I'm depending on Mayday to know the way back, because I forgot the way when I was looking for him.

Luckily for both of us, he knows the way back. He's got a good memory. 

Pure, unclouded moonlight fills the empty streets as Mayday and I walk through them. I look up. It's a full moon tonight. And somehow, tonight's moon isn't red, it's white instead. It looks so much cleaner. I stop for a moment to look at the moon, and Mayday keeps walking, knowing that I'll definitely catch up.

He's right of course, and after a few moments of analyzing the darker patches on the moon, I run to catch up with him.

"Took you longer than usual," he says, eyes fixated on the road ahead of us.

"Oh y'know, just distracting myself from that thing in the morning," I reply, not wanting to specify what "that thing" in case anyone's watching us, no matter how unlikely it may be.

Mayday nods, taking the hint. We'll discuss it tomorrow when we're amongst the crowd. We could try to look for some jobs tomorrow, just to earn some extra income, although we probably won't be able to get any, considering we're home-schooled, our parents passing them whatever limited information they managed to learn from our grandparents. 

When we reach back to our apartments, I give him a downwards nod before heading through the door. I don't get questioned by my parents where I was, they already know I was at the ray shield looking for ways to get through. That's what I did back in North America. That's how I met Mayday, actually. He mistook my footsteps for a guard's, and literally threw a knife at my head. Good thing my reflexes were fast and I managed to dodge though. The knife only sliced my shoulder.

When he found out he threw a knife at a 13 year old girl, he wordlessly went out to the flooded ruins and tried find something to wrap up my bleeding shoulder. Obviously, I came along with him, and we managed to find a mostly intact Hunger Games hoodie, he cut off the hood to wrap my shoulder. 

"Do you come out here very often?" I asked him, and he was a bit hesitant to reply. "Yeah. Every day."

Then we didn't speak for the rest of the day, just scavenging for things that we could use or sell for money. 

From then, we went out every day to the flooded ruins, and he slowly warmed up to me, speaking a bit more and cracking a few jokes here and there. We're a good team. Mayday's good with directions, and he taught me how to throw knives and use one in close combat. I'm the one who could had slightly heightened senses, slightly better than his. My hearing, eyesight, and sometimes smell. I could smell explosives in some of the flooded houses. That's when I knew not to go in them. 

Then when I found a blaster pistol and trained myself with it, I taught Mayday how to shoot it. The one piece of information that my parents passed down onto me was how to shoot a rifle and pistol. Line up the front sight with the back sight, and then aim at the target and shoot. I've gotten quite decent at it, although Mayday's still better at knives. He beat a fish to death with the blaster once.

I lay on the floor, the bed reserved for my sleeping parents. I stare up at the ceiling for a bit, before opening the window to get some fresh air and staring up at the moon again. It's gotten a bit red, like things are getting back to normal. 

I look across at the ray shield and down at the soldiers guarding it. A few of them are sleeping, but still standing up. I don't notice much, until the moonlight hits just the right spot, I see a small hole in the ray shield. Not big enough for adults to fit through, but definitely big enough for me. I don't know about Mayday. Maybe he can get through with a few burns.

I'll tell him that in the morning.

For now, I close the window and lay back down on the floor, closing my eyes and trying to get some sleep.

The uneasy feeling in my gut still hasn't gone away.

just met north star in undertale yellow and BRO HES MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER ALREADY THIS GUY IS GOATED THE WILD EAST IS SO FUN

(im too lazy to type it out again)

help is it weird that i hate my life and wanna kill myself cause suselle is a better ship than me x susie-

You're free to have whatever views you want regarding ships and fictional characters, but can you at least tag your anti-noelle posts as "#anti-noelle"? or "noelle hate" or whatever?

People who are following the Noelle Holiday and Suselle tags are doing so because they like Suselle and Noelle? So these posts are kind of the last thing we want to see on these tags?

Despite my profile pic I'm not here to debate why Suselle and Noelle. I respect your opinion because debating trivial things like "ships" or "if you should hate a fictional character or not," is dumb.

Discourse is dumb. You can hate Noelle as much as you want, but can please at least tag your posts correctly, so people who don't want to see these posts can filter them out?

oh ok sorry i didnt know those tags existed thanks for the telling me :)

happy echo day guys!!! (14/09)

(ik this isnt echo but its his vod’ika from Our Own Choices saying happy echo day)

(im scared to mess up drawing echo so yea)

Your pfp is so cool!!

ayyy thanks bro i actually asked my friend @vexingvexvexes to draw it for me cos shes my friend from school

its a drawing of my first oc (self insert) called Aris in a fanfiction that i never finished it was supposed to be called age of the rebellion and shes anakins sister it was a star wars x ninjago crossover thing i should probably post it

i have some more art of aris so like yea

its a mandalorian style armor and also the belt is from a game called rec room its the bounty hunter belt and i really like it

:)

Layers

(Art is by my friend soap)

Chapter 1: The Waterfall

Warnings: None

Genre: Fantasy/Short Story

The limestone rocks dig into my already peeling fingers as I grasp another hold, hauling myself up to the edge of the cliff. I’m greeted by the sight of lush green trees looming over me, shielding me from the sun’s rays. I look behind me, reveling in the view of the sparkling blue ocean. 

“I’ll explore up here and abseil down in a bit!” I shout down at the person belaying me, taking a few steps into the cluster of trees before untying the rope from my harness. 

I set my bag down next to a tree, collapsing down onto a soft bed of leaves, inhaling that sweet familiar forest smell I recognise from home. I sigh as I lean back against the tree, staring out at the islands clustered together around the one I’m at. It’s so much better than being in the city. There, the constant need for caution strangles me, but here, the freedom comforts me.

It’s been 10 years since my parents divorced. I think I’m coping well. At least, I hope so. Climbing’s the only thing that makes me feel alive.

I wish I could stay here forever. 

I stuff my water bottle back into my bag, zipping it up and throwing it over my shoulders, before standing up and walking into the maze of trees that stands in front of me.

For a cliff, there’s a hefty number of trees up here. I keep walking for a few minutes, the thick canopy blocking most sunlight. Tree roots litter the ground, threatening to trip me every few steps. 

I hear birds singing. Perhaps there’s a nest nearby, with eggs inside. I wonder if they’d taste good. 

As I continue walking on, the singing of the birds starts to get drowned out by what sounds like a…waterfall? I don’t recall ever seeing a waterfall on the map. The leaves crunch under my footsteps. Until I realise they aren’t leaves anymore. They’re bones. Not human bones, but eerily similar. 

I should probably head back.

I turn around to walk back to the cliff, but a little voice in my head tells me to keep going.

What do you have to lose anyways?

Besides my life and my money?

Could be fun. Don’t be a wimp.

Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I continue walking ahead. The bones staring from the ground sending shivers down my spine. The sound of the waterfall keeps getting louder. A few moments later, I stop in my tracks.

I’m greeted with a black frame with its interior glowing a dull blue. The waterfall sounds seem to be coming from inside. The frame is covered with vines which hang over the blue light of the portal. The pulsing portal seemed to emit a mysterious yet inviting aura, and I can’t help but unconsciously drift towards it. 

Excuse me, what?! Um…I should probably go now before I get sucked in and die.

As I turn around and take my first step away from the portal, I feel a sharp tug at my core and I find myself plummeting down a waterfall, water splashing into my eyes and mouth and nose, barely any time to scream as I hit a pool of water feet-first, plunging into the dark depths. Yet it’s surprisingly warm. 

I quickly swim up, hanging onto my bag as I break the surface, taking a gasp of air.

It smells sweet. Like rainwater. Glowing blue flowers float on the surface of the pool, seemingly undisturbed by the cascade of water just a few meters away. In fact, the whole pool seems undisturbed. Bag in hand, I swim over to land and haul myself up, scanning my surroundings, still shaken from the fall.

What…was that…?

The terrain is vibrant. Too vibrant. Layers of red and white and teal and blue form the cliffside that the waterfall flows down from. 

Am I dreaming?

I pinch myself to check, my heart rate skyrocketing as I feel the pain. 

No no no... This isn’t good. I need to get back.

I run a few steps backwards, hoping to get a good view of whatever I just feel through, but all I see is an empty black frame. It would be too risky to free climb back up, especially since this is unknown territory.

The ground looks a somewhat like a staircase. Layer after layer of vibrant-coloured rocks lead down to a little village in the distance. Trying to calm my nerves and failing miserably, I sling my bag over my shoulders and head down the “stairs”, towards the village. 

The sky is painted yellow and orange and red, as if the sun is setting. But I see no sun. It will probably get dark soon. I start to pick up the pace as I worry about what may come out in the night, despite the seemingly peaceful surroundings. 

The colourful gravel crunches beneath my feet. But soon, the ground starts to even out. The layers start to disappear, leaving flat ground for me to walk smoothly on. Night has fallen, the sky now a dark blue spreading as far as I can see. 

The gravel slowly starts to turn into a tiled path. There are houses on both sides of the path, their lights giving off a warm yellow glow. I smell sugar donuts coming from a short building that has the words “Baked Stuff” on it.

My stomach growls.

I want donuts.

I head into the building, a little golden bell that’s connected to the door ringing as I walk in. 

“Welcome!” a…human-shaped mass of stone says. Its arms and legs look exactly like the cliff with the waterfall. I blink, pinching myself again to make sure I’m not dreaming.

“Um…hi,” I wave awkwardly at the stone person.

“Prices are stated here,” the stone person says, pointing to the little pieces of paper with a number written on them.

“I’m sorry…but what is the currency here, and how do I get some?” I ask.

The stone person narrows its eyes. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

It knows?!

I stand still, my eyes scanning the stone person up and down, looking out for any threats, body tensing up.

“...Yes…” I say with a strained voice.

The stone person bursts out laughing. “Look at your face!” It doubles over, clutching its abdomen, before regaining its composure and standing up straight. It’s slightly shorter than me with its short, stubby legs. It passes me a donut with some blue glowing cookie crumbs on it. 

“Here. It’s on the house. Made from Waterfall Flowers,” it says, and I take the donut, hesitantly taking a bite.

The sweet yet sour flavour explodes on my tongue, and it reminds me of lemon sorbet. 

“Good, isn’t it?” the stone person asks, the rocks on its face moving to form something resembling a smile. I nod, my mouth full.

“If you’re looking for a place to stay for the night, there’s an inn a few houses down. Tell the receptionist that you’re my friend and you should get a free room. Have a good night!” the stone person calls as I walk out of the shop, waving goodbye. “Thank you!”

I walk down the path, devouring the donut in a few bites, before reaching the inn. Another stone person stands at the reception, little blue glowing rocks embedded in its body. 

“Hi…uh…I'm friends with the person at the bakery…she said I could get a free room here?” I walk up to the counter, avoiding eye contact. 

“Oh? Sure! Yours is room 130,” the receptionist says, passing me a glowing blue flower.

I take the flower, unsure of what to do with it, but not daring to question the receptionist. Something feels off about these people. It probably doesn’t help that they’re made out of literal stone.

Soon, I reach room 130, finding a flower-shaped lock on the door. I press the flower into the lock, causing it to glow before the door swings open in front of me. 

The room is carpeted, a single bed in the middle and a toilet near the entrance. Without hesitation, I throw my bag to the floor and fall onto the bed, letting the softness hug me to sleep.

When I wake up, I’m no longer in the room. Layers of rock press against my back. Glowing blue vines immobilise me. I hear the waterfall.

What’s going on?!

I struggle futilely against the vines. It smells sweet. Almost too sweet. Panic starts to set deep in my gut, rendering me frozen.

Some of the rocks on the walls slide down next to me, clinging to the vines almost as if trying not to fall. A few move to box me in against the cliff, forming a large humanoid shape. Little blue lights decorate its surface. 

A collection of voices ring out simultaneously. I hear the shop owner and receptionist’s voice, along with a few others I don’t recognise.

“Hehe. You really are like the others.” 

Sharpshooter

Chapter 1

Warnings: None (for now)

My grandparents say that I was born in an unfortunate time. They always tell me about the old world, where we were allowed to go outside and breathe cool, fresh air, without the inconvenience of having to wear a cooling suit just to prevent ourselves from roasting in the heat. I don't believe them. For me, these are all just stories. Stories of a world long gone. 

"8 billion people used to live on Earth, you believe that?" my grandparents always ask, laughing slightly as if they don't believe it themselves. I definitely don't believe that. There's only 700 million people left on this doomed planet.

Some of my friends-wait, I only have one, tells me about how the richer people get transported to Mars while us poorer, starving ones, stay on Earth and wait for our chance to die.

Usually, when my grandparents launch into a full-on rant about the world before, I roll my eyes and slip on sunglasses just to hide the fact that I'll be sleeping for the next hour or so. These stories are meaningless to me. There's no point in clinging on to the past, when I have a family to take care of.

We used to live in Singapore. Sea levels were rising so much that the few transports that remained on Earth brought us to the interior regions of North America, at least the ones that haven't gone underwater yet. That's where I met my good friend, and eventually, scavenging partner, Mayday. He's about a head taller than me, and I'm already considered tall for a girl my age. He's got short black hair. Just like mine. And just like the other 300 million or so kids. Mayday told me that his parents named him that because they're trying to call out to the authorities for help, to bring them to Mars. It hasn't worked for the past 13 years of his life, and I don't think it'll work anytime soon.

Me and Mayday's families are quite close as well. We usually share whatever little food Mayday and I scavenged that day with each other, to ensure that we don't starve to death. 

On one of our scavenging trips, I find a knife and a blaster pistol. The knife's a bit blunt, but it's sharp enough to stab through dead fish or whatever I find in the ruins of the houses that are flooded to my waist. 

Everyone knows the stories of what happens to houses that get flooded. They get abandoned, and whatever wildlife that has managed to adapt to the temperatures tears them up, sometimes leaving nothing behind. 

After spending about a few months in North America, even with the cooling suits on, the air temperature has become too high. Mayday and I can only spend an hour, maximum, outside scavenging before we start to get burns and it gets hard to breathe.

The air conditioning in the "houses" that the authorities give us barely works. I can't even call those things that we live in houses. They're more of a group of tents sewed together and protected by a ray shield, which is the reason why we call the place we live in the Dome. It provides air conditioning, at least, for a few hours a day. The rest of the time, we rely on that limited cooling cream that Mayday and I scavenge to prevent ourselves from roasting to death.

We've been living like this for a few months now. None of us are getting used to it. We have one small screen in the only small area where tents aren't clumped together to watch the news. Usually, the one that stands in front of the small screen shouts the news out to everyone else crowding around.

Today, I squeeze my way through the crowd, it's easy because of my small size, and I make my way towards the screen, getting a good view. There, I see face of the man that always appears on the news when something important is going on, but I never remember his name because I have more important things to focus on.

The image of a globe projects onto the screen, and the man on the television turns the hologram of the globe until it shows a brown landmass.

"Antarctica," the man says. "We will be moving all inhabitants on Earth here. The temperatures here are lower than the ones around the world, so..."

I slip away from the screen and back into the crowd. I hear the people near the screen shouting what the man on the screen just said, and people are muttering excitedly, some cheering. I hate it when this happens. So much noise. I run away, pushing past people, back to my house where I tell them the news.

"The authorities say they're moving us to Antarctica," I say the moment I run into the tent, my breathing slightly heavy from the running. Mayday's in the tent as well, rubbing the ankle that he sprained on yesterday's scavenging trip. My family and Mayday all look up at me, before my family starts to cheer and Mayday remains silent.

I sit down next to him. "How's your ankle?"

"Could be better," he replies, and I definitely know something's wrong. He'd usually crack a joke or something.

"Nervous about going to Antarctica?"

Mayday nods, and I pat him on the shoulder. "That means new territory to scavenge stuff, which means there's definitely some fresh loot there."

Mayday looks up at me. "Antarctica's a barren desert. There's nothing there to scavenge."

"We'll find something," I try to sound confident, but after the stories I've heard of Antarctica, there's only a sliver of hope that Mayday and I could scavenge anything there. Antarctica's also full of wild animals. The ones that managed to get to Antarctica, at least. They're the real danger out there.

The next few days, transports descend from the sky and bring people to Antarctica in a matter of minutes. I'm guessing the transports are from Mars. The advanced technology there lets them travel fast. Really fast.

My family and Mayday's board the last transports after packing everything up. There's not much to pack, besides some of the old ration bars I found a few days ago and those gummies that hydrate us. Authorities give us about three of those per person every month, so we have to ration them. Can't forget about the cooling cream either.

When we enter the transport, we're greeted with a blast of cold air. Is this what Antarctica feels like? I'm shivering slightly from the cold, and it looks like everyone else is too. We're not used to this kind of temperature.

It's really cramped in here. I count about a hundred families with us. I hear murmurings going on in the crowd, and I'm pushed right next to Mayday.

We stand there in awkward silence, and I start sweating, somehow. It's not because of the temperature. Large crowds just make me nervous, and Mayday knows that. He puts a hand on my shoulder reassuringly, and I give him a small nod.

Thankfully, we aren't in the transport for long. In a matter of minutes, the doors open and everyone rushes out. My family and Mayday's are the last to walk out, with a lot of hesitation. 

The air is fresh. Cooling. Devoid of that burning smell of the ground. I scan the surroundings, and so does Mayday. Rugged terrain, with gorges that go so deep that if anyone fell in from above they would definitely die. The sky is navy blue. Clear. Cloudless. Not like the smoke-filled skies of North America.

We stand on a platform that descends into a deep gorge, where I see buildings. Not tents clustered together, actual buildings. They're inside a ray shield, just like the Dome, and I can only guess that it's not to protect us from the heat, but from the wildlife.

After we enter through a hole in the ray shield, it closes up behind us and we are, once again, in a crowd of people. There's a big screen, which everyone is looking at, and it's projecting the image of another man, who's dressed in what my grandparents would call a suit, even though I could not possibly imagine why someone would want to wear such a suffocating piece of clothing.

"You are safe here now, in Antarctica," the man says, and I start hearing people talking again. The man waits until everyone is silent before continuing. "No one goes in or out of the ray shield unless given specific permission to do so."

Mayday and I glance at each other with a knowing look.

"Enjoy your stay here, and good luck."

Good luck? What does he mean by good luck? 

As the crowd disperses and authorities lead others to their respective buildings, I turn to Mayday, and he turns to me.

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

Posting Schedule ig

ill start posting fanfics and short stories like once a week so yay :D

every sunday, 18 00 SGT

Our Own Choices

Chapter 15

Warnings: Violence, swearing, possibly blood

When we all return to the Marauder, Tech takes a look at the lightsaber wound on my arm, applying some cooling burn cream and injecting some sort of medicine into the wound, before bandaging it up.

"Thanks," I sigh as the cream numbs the burning feeling.

"You do not need to thank me. It is standard protocol that wounds are tended to after a mission," Tech replies without even looking at me, typing away at his datapad, before heading to the pilot's seat.

I sit at the back seat with Echo, Tech and Wrecker had them installed when we went for a quick supply run shortly after I joined them. 

Gonky waddles over to me from the back, making some "gonk" sounds, which I understand as "Is your arm okay?" I smile and pat Gonky on the head. "I'm fine."

He seems to enjoy the gesture as he nudges me a little with his metal body. I take off my helmet and pat Gonky on the head again, breathing in the scent of the ship as I lean back in my chair. I can never get sick of the smell. The familiarity of Echo's scent, that minty one from Crosshair, the dirt from Hunter because he always sniffs it like it's cocaine, gunpowder for Wrecker, and Tech smells like the 501st barracks if the air was sour. Hunter says I smell like chlorine. I love the smell, it feels so welcoming, almost like the 501st, but in a different way.

I put my helmet back on as I remember that I'm supposed to act like a "good soldier" who "follows orders" to gain Crosshair's trust and maybe help him remove his chip like how Fives did.

I sigh as we take off for Kamino. If order 66 was issued, most Jedi would be dead by now.

Even General Skywalker.

At least Commander Tano left the order, so she should be safe.

How's Rex? Will he be back on Kamino? Is he okay? Should I comm him?

Echo puts a hand on my shoulder, noticing my worry. As much as I try to hide it, he's known me long enough to notice the little habits I do when I'm worried.

"Ad'ika, everything's going to okay," he says, looking at me with a slight smile.

"I'm just worried about Rex. Maybe I should comm him-"

"You can do it when we get back to Kamino."

I sigh at the mention of our home planet. I never wanted to go back there. Never wanted to go back to the white, sterile prison I escaped from just before the war started. But hey, it's not like I have much of a choice.

I keep my helmet on throughout the journey. It's more comfortable, really. No one gets to see my face in case I commit a war crime or something. Crosshair and Hunter fall asleep on their seats while I turn on the music from my datapad and connect it to the earpiece in my helmet, listening to Avicii music.

After a few hours of finding a bunch of music to listen to, I hear Tech say, "We are coming up on Kamino." 

I switch off the music, still keeping my helmet on.

"It's good to be home. How long has it been?" Wrecker asks.

Not good to be home. And 180 rotations based on their schedule. 

"180 rotations in a standard cycle, but galactic zone changes but the adjusted figure at around 205."

Oh. Damn.

"Wut?" Wrecker asks.

Are you that stupid?

Echo sighs. "A long time." He sounds so fed up, rolling his eyes when Wrecker agrees.

I sit behind Hunter and Crosshair, listening in on every conversation. I notice Crosshair turning to look at Hunter, who responds, eyes closed, with a "What?"

"You sure that Padawan died when he fell?"

"Sure I'm sure. Why?" Hunter opens his eyes as he talks.

"Well, usually when someone falls you look down, not across."

"Well some of us don't like to watch," Hunter replies as he stands up and walks to where Echo, Tech and Wrecker are. Crosshair and I remain at the back, I silently observe as he crosses his arms. 

I hear thunder crashing from outside the ship, and it shakes me to my core. Only Kamino thunder sounds like that. I remember hiding in my bunk every night, trying to drown out the sounds of waves crashing against the supports. My squadmates laughing at me for being a coward, saying it was because I was defective.

One of the days the storms were much worse than usual. The thunder too loud for my liking, I could almost feel the waves reaching to the platform. I was sneaking out of my barracks, when I saw 99 carrying blasters to the weapon storage area.

"Hey Aris," he called out when he noticed me. "What're you doing still up?"

"I couldn't sleep," I admitted. "Thunder was too loud."

99 puts the blasters he was carrying to the side and puts his arm around my shoulder, guiding me into the barracks where the rest of my sleeping squadmates are.

"Cmon kid, let's get you to bed."

I climb into my bunk as another crash of thunder startles me, and I curl up into a ball in my bunk.

"Everything's going to be okay kid. Just relax and think of something else," 99 says as he puts the blanket over me, tucking me into bed. I smile up at him. "Thanks 99."

He gives me a short nod, his half-smile making the wrinkles on his face even more pronounced as he walks out.

That night I had the best sleep of my life.

And now 99's dead. And I'm all grown up. I sigh as I push the urge to cry down and focus on the present.

"Unidentified transport, transmit your clearance code," A voice from the front of the ship says.

"Clearance code? Don't they know who we are?" Echo asks.

"Must be a protocol drill," Tech replies. "Transmitting clearance code."

"Authorization confirmed. Proceed to landing bay one-tac-one."

Tech pilots the ship into the landing bay. The door of the ship opens and Hunter and Tech walk out first, with me following behind them. If I'm in the middle, hopefully no one will notice the new addition to the squad. Echo, Wrecker and Crosshair walk out behind me, all of their helmets off except me and Crosshair's.

Clones patrol the landing bay, and I spot the familiar crimson armor of the Coruscant Guard troopers. I scoff at the sight.

Fucking Coruscant Guard. Murdered a good soldier who just tried to do his duty. I would kill them any day.

"Shock troopers? What's the Coruscant Guard doing here?" Hunter's voice interrupts my silent trash talking of the Coruscant Guard. 

Oh. Right. Forgot they were supposed to be on Coruscant.

"Level five lockdown remains in effect. Security teams, report to the command center." A voice on the speakers says.

Lockdown? For what? Kamino doesn't look like it's in any danger.

"This isn't a drill," Tech observes.

How perceptive.

"Aw man. What did we miss now?" Wrecker sounds disappointed.

"The end of the war," a random shock trooper answers. 

"Say that again, trooper?" Hunter asks.

"General Grievous was defeated on Utapau. The separatist leadership has collapsed. The war is over."

"Just like I said," Tech says. 

Of course. He's usually right.

Wrecker gasps dramatically. "It is just like you said."

I roll my eyes at Wrecker's comment as I watch troopers carry a body laid out on a stretcher covered by a piece of cloth.

A body? On Kamino? No battles happened recently...

A lightsaber falls out from under the cloth and onto the floor.

A Jedi.

So I was right. Most of the Jedi are dead.

The shock trooper picks the lightsaber up from the floor as the rest of the batch look at each other with a look that says, "something's not right".

"Is there a problem?" The shock trooper asks.

"No...problem. We'll just head to our barracks then," Hunter says, looking back at the rest of us for a moment before walking off, with the rest of us following.

"Best hurry. There's a mandatory general assembly at 1500," the shock trooper says.

We walk through the sterile, almost blinding white hallways of Kamino. I instinctively stay close to Echo, not to the point of looking like a clingy child, but still within half a meter radius of him.

Echo looks back at me. "You okay?"

I take a deep breath to calm my nerves. "Yeah. I just...never thought I'd find myself back here. Again." It's my way of saying, "I don't want to be back here. I'm so scared." 

Echo gives me a short nod, which is his way of saying, "Everything's going to be okay" in public. We pass rows of troopers marching towards somewhere, in an almost robotic way.

"It's not just the clones on Kaller," Hunter says. "All the regs are acting strange." Tech looks around. "Let's test that theory." He proceeds to walk up to a random clone and asks, "Excuse me, trooper. What division are you from?"

Obviously annoyed, the clone elbows him in the side with his blaster. "Step aside."

"Oh, well they seem the same to me."

"I'm not surprised. I'd be annoyed too," I speak up, trying to lighten the mood. No one replies.

We reach their barracks and the moment the door opens, I'm greeted with the scent of oil, rotting food, and sweat. I scrunch up my nose under my helmet.

Tech walks in first, then Wrecker, who exclaims how it's good to be back while setting his helmet on a crate.

"The smell's getting worse," Echo comments.

"You're still new. You'll get used to it," Hunter reassures him, patting him on the shoulder. Crosshair pushes past the both of them. "Speak for yourself."

I hesitantly walk into the barracks, the smell gets stronger when I enter. I look around, observing my surroundings. It's quite messy, Tech has a bunch of random parts scattered on the table, Echo has a hammock at the side, and Crosshair's bunk has crates in front of it to block people from entering it.

This is the first time I'm entering their barracks. The last time they went back to Kamino I refused to go, and they went to pick me up in a few days. Those few days were the best of my life.

Crosshair goes to sit on the crates blocking his bunk while the rest of them go to sit at the table in the middle of the room. Wrecker marks the board for the number of missions we completed.

Still keeping my helmet on by instinct, I walk over to Crosshair, who's currently chewing on a toothpick, helmet off.

"Um. Can I have one?" I awkwardly gesture to the toothpick in his mouth.

"No," he replies. "Go away."

"Look we need to get you to the medbay right now or as soon as possible."

"Why?"

"Because there's an inhibitor chip in your head which basically makes you follow orders blindly and it's working for all the other clones except us but it's working for you and-"

"I'm fine."

"No you're not you carried out Order 66 and-"

"Shut up," he says in a dangerously low tone. My temper starts to flare up.

"Make me."

Crosshair stands up from the crates and cracks his knuckles, ready to draw his knife if things escalate. I draw my knife and get into a fighting stance.

"Woah woah woah. Easy," Hunter says as he pushes us apart. I glare at Crosshair, and he glares back. Not breaking eye contact, I sheathe my knife and shove Crosshair over just for good measure before heading over to sit next to Echo. 

"11 more successful missions," Wrecker says with a grin. "Like there was any doubt." He goes to sit on his bunk, picking up his tooka doll.

"Kaller wasn't a win," Echo says. 

"Says who? We completed our objective."

"Not every objective," Crosshair speaks up, picking up his rifle and examining it. I draw my sword from my back and start sharpening it absentmindedly, just needing something to do with my hands. 

"Hunter let that Jedi kid escape. Or do you want to keep lying to us?"

Hunter stands up and looks out the window. "I don't like to think of executing our commanders as a mission objective."

Crosshair stands up from his position on the crates. 

"An order is an order."

"Since when?"

They glare at each other for a moment before Echo breaks the tension. "None of this makes sense. Those clones served alongside General Bilaba for years. How could they turn on her like that?!"

"Because of the regs' programming," Tech speaks up.

"What programming?" Hunter breaks his death stare at Crosshair to ask.

"It's been well documented that the Kaminoans inhibited the cognitive functions of clones-"

"To engineer them to follow orders without question," I finish. Tech glares at me like I just committed a horrible war crime.

"Ha! We sure don't!" Wrecker shouts, assaulting Crosshair with his tooka doll.

"Obviously we are different. They manipulated pre-existing aberrations in our DNA resulting in your brute strength, Crosshair's sharpshooting skills..." Lucky son of a bitch. "...Hunter's enhanced senses and my exceptional mind. My guess is we are immune to the effects of the programming. Though I can't be 100% certain of it.

"Well Crosshair isn't and he's in fucking denial," I say with a sarcastic smile underneath my helmet. Crosshair is walking over to probably punch me in the face when Echo gives him a glare which makes him back off. He knows how protective my ori'vod can be. 

"What about Echo? He was a reg before he joined us. And Aris," Hunter asks.

"Well see guys Echo was probably damaged on Skako Minor because look at him right now no offence ori'vod, and since I'm an actual defect they probably didn't even bother I mean they were gonna terminate me anyways," I laugh under my helmet. Echo pats my shoulder. "Good thing they didn't then."

"All personnel report to the staging area for a briefing on the state of the Republic," a voice says over the speakers.

"This is one meeting I don't want to miss," Hunter says, walking to the door.

"First time for everything," Tech comments as we all head to the staging area. Troopers stand in neat rows, helmets on as they stare up at the holotransmission of a hooded figure, they look almost robotic. The thought of their individuality...Fives and Echo's chaotic nature, Hardcase's constant urge to shoot something, Uncle Wolffe's sarcasm, Rex's parental instincts, all gone...it gives me chills. I'm hardly paying attention until I hear the word "Jedi".

"...And the Jedi rebellion has been foiled. The remaining Jedi will be hunted down and defeated!" The hooded figure says. "The attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed."

"You can say that again," Wrecker says. I almost burst out laughing.  

"But I assure you, my resolve has never been stronger! In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the FIRST GALACTIC EMPIRE! For a safe and secure society."

Galactic Empire????? Man the Republic sounded so much better though-

Everyone starts cheering, except me and the batch. What's so exciting about Jedi getting killed? Right. Must be the inhibitor chip.

I look around to try and find any 501st members. None here. I'll comm Rex later. Right now, I need to focus on getting Crosshair's chip out.

I sigh as I glance at Echo, who looks equally confused as me.

"Ori'vod?" I turn to Echo.

"Yeah?"

"I need to talk to you in the barracks later. It's about Fives."

He lets out a sigh. "Okay vod'ika." 

a/n: IM BACK IN THE HOUSE BOISSSSSSS

hiiii ive recently been writing more original stories but i (hopefully) remember my sw and tbb ocs

oldest: Aris (yes they mostly have the same name 😭)

-anakin skywalker’s twin sister

-uses 2 lightsabers

-obi wan’s padawan alongside anakin

-when she’s 15 she’s sent on a mission on her own as a padawan cause she proved herself to be capable

-she gets transported to ninjago cause force shenanigans 💀💀💀

-in season 5 of ninjago they find this thing called the realm crystal so she goes back to her universe and fights in the clone wars

-she eventually leaves the order for the ninja and anakin feels like she abandoned him and thats around the same time ahsoka leaves the order

-she rejoins the ninja and goes through ninjago seasons 8–16

-she senses order 66 happening in the force and anakin turning so she uses traveller’s tea to go help

-in short she almost dies to anakin so she goes on the run and gets mando armor cos yes :D

-also in short she and anakin defeat palpatine and yay :D

-istp/istj, arrogant, cocky, “violence is always the answer, fuck morals”

newest: Mayday (not the clone mayday)

-13 years old in the part of the book i am at so far

-protective of his best friend aris (not the one above)

-good with a knife

-istp, cold and detached to random people but a sweet puppy to aris :)

(mayday x aris art when theyre like 23)

-becomes a soldier in the future

-survivor of the 1-7th Population Games

Welcome back to another OC Sunday Spotlight!

Aka the time in which every Sunday I'll come up with a prompt and anyone and everyone has the opportunity to answer with as many OCs as they wish!

You can reblog this post, answer in the comments, or come up with your own post to answer the prompts! And feel free to submit prompts as well!

It's an excuse to yap about your OCs so feel free to do so! Add pictures, links, or anything else regarding the OC in the spotlight if you'd like! And in addition, feel free to tag any mutuals to hop on the stage :D

Let's get this show started!

SPOTLIGHT ON: Oldest and/or most recent OC(s)!

Here are mine :D

OLDEST: KHEA NULTEZ

🌟 aaaa those doodles are when I first came up with the concept of her at the beginning of last year 🌟 she was the first like,, fully-fledged Star Wars oc I've ever had actually - i'd doodled ocs for star wars before but they were all only headshots and nameless :/ 🌟 she's been through a handful of changes and I keep giving her more and more trauma (whoops-) 🌟 find out more about her here!

NEWEST: HUIHANA 'HANA' YUN

🪷 recently came up with a BUNCH of new ocs but Hana is the most recent one of them all 🪷 she's the adopted mirialan/human daughter of Hunter and Jung (another OC)! 🪷 she's part of the group of fan kids I have for the bad batch and I initially had it so that Hunter and Jung were only raising Omega but then I was like - "nah, they'd adopt so many kids" - and came up with her :D 🪷 her name means "lily/lotus" in Maori while 'hana' means "one" in Korean 🪷 find out more about her here!

💫 Check out last week's prompt! 💫 Join the tag list here!

hiii here is my OC

CT-9905 “Aris”

(the one between echo and wrecker)

her number is just coincidental she wasnt made with the batch

She’s a female clone, and she was 14 when the Clone Wars started. The Kaminoans wanted to terminate her but they thought she could be of use for cleaning and stuff, they did give her a bit if training anyways tho. She escaped through Jango Fett’s ship, and found herself of Geonosis. Then she took a Separatist ship during the battle of Geonosis and piloted it to a random planet, living on the streets for a while until the Separatists came to invade the planet. She was cornered by battle droids when Rex saved her and adopted her into the 501st cause *dad rex goated*!!! Rex personally trained her but didn’t allow her to go on missions because protective, she sneaks aboard anyways onto the rookies mission, experienced actual combat for the first time and is super scared, echo and fives comfort her. She’s also a little scared of heights. During the Battle of Kamino, she fought alongside Echo and Fives and Rex and Cody and 99, and 99 was her best friend back on Kamino, so shes super sad when he dies. Rex wants to promote her to ARC trooper alongside Echo and Fives but she refuses, not wanting more expectations to be put on her. She plays call of duty with fives and exho, and theyre like her best friends and big brothers :)

During the citadel rescue, echo “dies” and she tries to help him but shes also severely hurt, rex literally CARRIES her all the way and she makes it back to base alive, but really beaten up and she’s paralyzed cause explosion. Rex and Fives help her walk again, and shes super happy, but since rex is super protective he doesnt allow her to go on missions again, so she clips herself to the outside of the gunship and sneaks onto a bunch of missions. When Fives dies she almost kills Fox but rex stops her. Then during TBB clone wars arc, she joins and the bad batch take interest in her because shes a defective too, and shes also good with a sword and knife + pistols and has *common sense weeee*!!! When they rescue echo shes really happy and she joins the bad batch with echo but hugs rex before she goes cos 😭😭😭

Thats where im at rn shes with the bad batch and her closest friend is gonky in tbb

Relationships:

rex: dad

fives: big brother/best friend

echo: big brother/best friend

kix: good friend

jesse: friend

cody: cool uncle

hunter: “sir”

crosshair: frenemy

wrecker: a little annoying but hes got a good heart

tech: “shut up tech”

gonky: *friendly head pats*

soon to be omega: she sees her old self in omega and doesnt want her to he corrupted

Looks:

Short black hair in a pixie cut, black armor with orange highlights, sword on back (rex gave it to her), 2 pistols on belt, knife on forearm armor, normal helmet but with orange visor, has tbb markings but also rex’s helmet markings, the aurebesh 5, echo’s handprint, the 501st symbol. She also tattoos all the people shes lost on her arm, so theres echo which is canceled on her arm lmfao

im planning on making her depressed after tech dies and crosshair joins the empire and has violent outbursts, especially at omega and hunter, but when crosshair rejoins the batch she calms down

personality: istp, a little reserved but really good homies with the clones, gamer, likes music, likes violence and blood, can kill and will kill if you hurt anyone she loves, and she doesnt usually show it often but she cares about tbb

yea um there we go :)

Welcome back to another OC Sunday Spotlight!

Aka the time in which every Sunday I'll come up with a prompt and anyone and everyone has the opportunity to answer with as many OCs as they wish!

You can reblog this post, answer in the comments, or come up with your own post to answer the prompts! And feel free to submit prompts as well!

It's an excuse to yap about your OCs so feel free to do so! Add pictures, links, or anything else regarding the OC in the spotlight if you'd like! And in addition, feel free to tag any mutuals to hop on the stage :D

Let's get this show started!

SPOTLIGHT ON: WIP OC(s)!

Here are mine!

The beginnings of what I'm calling...

♠️♥️ Deck Squad! ♦️♣️

🃏 All based off of cards in a deck (plus Uno and Wild Card)

🃏 But I have no idea what their armor color is going to be yet :( or how it'll be designed (Suggestions are VERY welcomed!!)

🃏I do want to do something with the number "52" though (like 52nd Battalion or something) since that's how many cards are in a deck

🃏I want them to do cool undercover stuff, like in casinos or whatever - something like that - to match that Ocean's 11 type aesthetic

🃏More info about them individually can be found here! Or just ask me questions about them if you'd like :D

💫 Check out last week's prompt! 💫 Join the tag list here!

I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED BOYS

TBB fandom is dying

TBB fans rise up we can't let this fandom die its the last best thing that came in Star Wars

HOLY SHIT I NEVER REALISED AAAAAAA

Remember what I said.

It took me a while to realize what Hunter meant when he said this to Echo. I was rewatching Clone Wars season 7 and I gasped--

Hunter basically said that Echo's welcome to come back to them. That he has a place in their squad, their family, even if he has a different path 😭😭😭