Chapter Two: Falling (Evon)A Chapter by Tsukin ArchangelChapter Two: Falling Evon "Yo Fraiser! Get your a*s over here! You gotta see this!" "What, what?" I yelled back, just a little annoyed. Dale knew I hated small, enclosed, tight, just-waiting-to-squish-you spaces, I mean heck isn't it obvious, they're freaking death traps waiting to happen! Okay so granted I wasn't always this claustrophobic, not that I am, I mean it's more of an intense dislike that ends with me curled up in a ball on the floor but like dude, that's just a small minute detail. It doesn't matter that much, right? It's just a measly little fact bout 'lil ol' me, so it doesnt matter. Right? Right? Anyway, if it wasn't for that one incident with a Concrete Golem, later dubbed the Great Santa Monica Debacle of Third Street Promenade, I would totally be okay with following Dale up the steep rise of really unstable looking rubble into the dark shadowy corner where he was calling me from... Okay...on second thought maybe I wouldn't be. I just realized how incredibly shady that entire sentence sounded. Like "OMG, THEY'RE TOTALLY ABOUT TO DO IT IN THE CORNER!" shady. I mean he wants to show me something, and it's in a shadowy area...yah no, I'm gonna stop that train of thought now, it's beyond wrong, the dudes like a brother to me! Not that I would be opposed to doing it with another dude, or would like judge you for doing that either, like whatever floats your boat, ya know? But like he's Dale, I've known him since I was like five, and we even survived the apocalypse together! Like hell I'm gonna tap that! It would be beyond awkward. So yah the great Debacle, I won't bore you with the details just know that it involved books, something I barely tolerate on a good day, an elevator, which I might mention is like the epitome of small and tight...or maybe that would be an a*s...OKAY! TURNING OFF MY BRAIN NOW!! This is what I get for going down that entire implied butt sex with Dale tirade, now my head is stuck in the gutter. I apologize in advance if anything else dirty slips...ha...ha...out. I'll try and keep the vulgarity (is that a word?) to a minimum. Okay so yah! Elevator, books, Golem, knives (I never looked at chopped liver again after that, almost went vegan to repent...course that failed miserably, IMA MAN! I GOTTA HAVE MAH MEAT!), and thank god, one handy pyro-maniac with a flame-thrower...yah it wasn't pretty for the Golem...or really for anyone, but hey I got out alive, and I had new found respect (and I think healthy fear) of fire. I started climbing the debris, picking my way up in a way that I hoped was at least slightly as collected as Dale's (the kid might as well have been a mountain goat with how fast he scaled these things) testing each step, avoiding holes, and old steel beams, slipping and sliding my way up to the top. God it was hell. I chanced a glance behind me. Ooooh s**t, that was high. Did I mention I hated heights too? Like that had always been an issue with me, I just felt more comfortable on the ground or in the water, actually mainly the water now that I think of it, that's probably why I took up surfing...and swimming, and water polo, and just about any other aquatic sport you could think of; I'd do just about anything for an excuse to be able to be in the water. Like it was bad. Real bad, so bad that I got the nickname Merman from being pretty much a fish for two thirds of the day. My mom, bless her soul, she...she had been okay with it cause it gave me a reason to do well in school. I couldn't be on any of the teams unless I had a 2.0 grade point average, so I always found time to study. I liked to have a little wiggle room so I always strived for at least 2.5, heck before the world ended I had finally gotten it up to a 3.0 thanks to my old girlfriend Abigail. Now that girl...she was a genius. I wonder what ever happened to her, I don't think she's dead, she was much to smart for that. I mean if even I somehow managed to survive she most definitely did. There was no way she couldn't have. But that didn't matter now. School doesn't do much good when you're just trying to survive and worrying over old friends was counter productive. I still had Dale and that was just going to have to be enough, if fate allows we'll meet each other again. I was starting to get the feeling that Dale just wanted to kill me today, the whole asking me to overcome two of my biggest fears in one day was a bit much... Whatever was up there better be good, like godly good. "Whoa," I breathed when I reached the top, we were in a fallen skyscraper and even with it's now almost horizontal state we were still a good two hundred feet in the air, like holy hell, hyperventilation status much? But even still you couldn't not love the view, it was spectacular even with the old city scape utterly destroyed. Though...if I were being totally honest, I'd tell you that I actually thought it was better. More peaceful, you know? Finally after a few moments of staring I looked down and saw what Dale had called me up for, feeling a grin slowly etch its way across my face, my fears temporarily forgotten. "Dude this is the jackpot." "I know right, Julius is gonna wanna hear 'bout this," Dale said slinging an arm over my shoulder, his brown eyes shining in anticipation. "You sure it's Adamantium?" I asked. "Hell yeah man, I already scanned it before I called you up here, I know how much you hate hieghts dude." Dale tapped the scanner on his wrist, a 3D image popping up as he did so. I quickly read the stats and nodded, everything about the rock's composition matched, the ratio of diamond, titanium, radiation levels, carbon, gold and plain old rock were all standard. I may not have looked it, most people thought I was just some kinda dim surfer dude, it really annoyed me when people assumed that, but when it came to geology and marine bio, I always excelled. Like a lot. Like to the point where I was able to tutor Abigail instead of the other way around. It was one of the few times I actually felt smart. So anyway, when it came to Adamantium patrols I was your guy. "Sweet," I adjusted the air purifier and goggles on my face, then checked to see how much more power they had. Crap. A little over an hour. "Okay, call Dante and Trent over, tell them we found the motherload, we're gonna need the extra muscle if we wanna transport any of this before we're breathing acid." "Got it man, you get down there and start gettin' those rocks gathered 'kay?" I nodded and grinned at my fellow partner in crime before raising my hand and giving him our secret handshake. It was nice that Dale and I survived together, I don't know what I would have done if not for the awkwardly built, chill, chocolate skinned, curly haired brunette in front of me. Probably something stupid and regrettable. We smiled and Dale turned to send a message to the other two in our patrol. "Hey Firebug and Lightninglad, we found the jackpot..." I tuned the rest out and stared at the gorge before me. Well s**t, that was high. Now I'm just hypothesizing here but most likely, due to the way tectonic plates had moved, it made a deeper depression in the earth on this side than the other. It's probably why there was so much Adamantium right here instead of anywhere else. I sighed and gulped, this side was steep as well, steeper than the one I had just climbed but virtually smooth, so getting down would be easy, just slide; the black full body leotard looking things we wore only looked like they would be ripped going down, but it was in fact created to be flexible and strong enough to withstand any cutting from just about anything but Andamantium or diamond. The only thing you had to worry about was the impact, it may protect you from cuts but it still hurt like a b***h to be shot at point blank range in the chest. Trust me not a fun experience. Grumbling to myself I settled on my butt and pushed off, sliding down the decline a lot faster than I would have expected. Hey, never said I was good at geometry, that sin cosine s**t went right over my head, that would have been Abigail's field. Landing in a heap on the bottom of the depression I chanced a glance upwards, fixing my eyes on the top. S**t. It was definitely too steep to get back up without rock climbing tools. "Yo! Dale! Dude! Don't come down here! You can't get back up!" I shouted up at him, my voice echoing painfully off of the rock around me. Dale turned and I think he nodded but it was hard to tell and I didn't want to waste any of my battery life using the binocular feature on my goggles just to make sure he understood. I just had to hope he did. Turning I grabbed a few of the precious stones I had slid down here for and began to look for a way out. From where I stood it looked like I was going to have to try going around, but the question was: Should I go left or right? Left would have been the most obvious choice since that would get me back to camp faster, but that would be a waste of time. Probably. Dale and I had scoured that side already and if there had been an opening we would have seen it and totally avoided going through that whole rock climbing adventure. Great, that left right, the unmapped territory. "I'm gonna go try and find a way out!" I yelled up at Dale, "You head back to camp and gather a rescue party in case I can't get out!" Dale peered over the edge at me and I saw his head bob up and down slightly in response before he turned and dashed down the other side of the mountain of debris. Okay. Let's get moving. I quickly shrugged off my pack and placed as many of the shining bronze rocks I could inside of it, taking out my gun and strapping it to my belt instead. Now I wished I had brought some supplies with me. Never again shall I leave without the most basic essentials, you know, food, rope, extra batteries, first aid kits etc. I wouldn't have been so worried about the situation I was in otherwise. But oh well, what's done is done, I just had to hope I could find my way out within the hour. If not...well...things would start to get really interesting. Fatally so. I tried to suppress the shiver that ran down my spine as I thought of the state those who didn't have a mask on for more than five minutes ended up in. Let's just say it's not pretty, and agree to never bring the topic up again. Replacing my bag on my back I began heading down the path I had chosen, hopefully there would be a less steep incline that I could climb out of without having to travel too far down. I was already going to have to double back as it was. I checked my battery life, fifty-five minutes, that...that was really worrisome. The batteries were solar powered, which you might think "Great! You can charge your battery anywhere at any time!" but no. That's not how it worked. See the battery could be recharged, and relatively quickly too, but the problem was, you couldn't be using it and charge at the same time. Call it a design flaw, or a prototype, but until Julius comes out with an updated version of the system, we were stuck having to return to base every three hours or lugging around extra batteries. So you can't be too surprised that I was just a tiny bit anxious. If you do the math fifty five minutes to backtrack over two hours of walking didn't really sound like good odds and I'd really prefer not having liquefied lungs. I sped up my pace to a steady jog, glancing to my left every few seconds, but found no immediate exit. After five minutes of even pacing, I was A) Beginning to get whiplash from turning my neck so often and B) Really starting to worry, I was down to fifty minutes of battery life, if I spent too much more time looking for an exit I might as well give up, I'd never make it back to camp in time. My heart lodged itself in my throat, thoughts wandering to the exposed. Of there decrepit forms. Mushy insides, decayed and wrinkled skin, brittle to the touch like fragile sand paper, eyes sunken in and shriveled up like raisins. Oh god. Please don't let that happen to me. It totally wasn't helping that almost every corner had at least one such body on it. I shivered, some of them looked fairly new from the looks of it. You couldn't really be surprised by that fact, especially not now. I mean, what did you expect? It's not like there where anymore sanitation workers, or coroners, or anything else like that. The world had ended for everyone at the same time the same moment, there wasn't anytime for mass bonfires to get rid of the bodies, and there isn't enough supplies to do so now, so...they just stayed there. Rotting away. Waiting to become nothing, or to come back as an Animate. I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone. I sighed, what I wouldn't give to be playing so Call of Duty Zombies right now, or maybe Halo 4...though heck, what did I need a console for, my life was C.O.D now. Just without the comfort of knowing that if I lose you still can try again. God, I wish this was all just a dream, a horrible, awful, traumatizing nightmare, one that would leave me talking to Abigail and wondering what the hell was wrong with me, but I knew that wasn't the case. Some of the things I'd seen...the things I had done...there was just no way for me to imagine them. I wasn't that sick to come up with that. I kept going, and as I did so things became less and less familiar. See I had never lived in L.A., I grew up in New York, Queens to be exact, and had only been to this city a few times in my life, once for swim team championships, and twice to visit my biological dad, Leonius Fraiser, at his summer villa in Malibu. During all three occasions I had never ventured farther than Culver City, Santa Monica and West Hollywood, so this side of town was totally unknown to me. None of the street names were ringing any bells for me and honestly, that was probably a bad sign considering that meant I didn't know how to connect from point A to point B. My ADHD made it really hard to focus on any one thing for too long and trying to remember street names just wasn't gonna get any head time today...god sorry that sounded wrong. Just great, another set of hell to worry about. I rounded another corner and stopped, jumping into the shadows as quickly and quietly as I could, silently cursing my luck. Of course I'd get stuck with the most problems during dire circumstances. Like hello, I was Evon f*****g Fraiser, of course they'd wanna get some from a bad a*s like me... Okay so lies, I really wasn't that important but just for the sake of my sanity I'll say that's the case. That and pretending I was the protagonist in a video game just made everything easier. If I believed it wasn't real then I could do what I needed to in order to survive. Kill if I had to. In front of me was a wall of Animate. Gross, diseased, rotten from the inside out. Corpses that should have just been left in peace but have now been called for some dark purpose. The Animate shuffled along, groaning in agony as their old bones were forced to work again. Shriveled eyes lolled from sockets, arms dropped off their owners, legs blew away to dust. Oh god and the smell. I resisted the urge to barf. The scene was sick. Twisted. Demonic. I fought down my temper. Just a game, just a game, just a game. I told myself. It's a recon mission and with only forty minutes left of air you watch to see what the Animate are doing. Those are your new orders. Orders you will follow to the end. I crouched down and pressed myself to the wall, blending in with the darkness around me thanks to my outfit and stared at the scene. The Animated were moving forward, towards some exit in the side of the wall that was moving in the opposite direction of me. I smirked. Bingo! My ticket out! Or...s**t no. There was like fifty of them and uhm lets see, one of me with only ten bullets with me, there was no way I could get them all unless I was some gun god, which unfortunately I was not. F**K! I just noticed something else, something that made me stand up and risk sending Dale a message. The Animate, were headed in the direction I was heading. That meant camp, that meant trouble, that meant moving out ASAP. We didn't have resources to spare trying to get rid of these nuisances. We had to keep our bullets for recon and boundary skirmishes with other Renegade groups in the area. Silently I tapped the com-link on my wrist and called Dale. Slowly a video image of him fizzled into view in my goggle lens and I knew it connected. I was almost worried I was too far from camp to get a signal. "Yo dude, what's up, how much air you got left?" Dale asked a tad frantically. I guess he figured I'd only message him if I was on my last legs...which I kinda was, but not as bad as he probably was thinking I was. Wow. That probably made little to no sense but I think it did so I'm going to leave it. "Thirty nine minutes, and dude look," I whispered, turning on my frontal video feed, "A whole freaking army of Animate headed in the direction of camp. You gotta go tell Julius." "Whoa man, you sure that's headed our way?" A new voice asked. A tall blonde and annoying kid came into view? Trent. I rolled my eyes. "Yes I'm sure." I growled out. "I'm not an idiot I can read a map." "Okay, okay man, just saying, no need to get worked up if you weren't." He put up his hands in a placating gesture and I just made a face. Trent was one of those blonde guys who fit the one hundred percent surfer dude stereotype that people would try to lump me in with; like he was the kid who would say things like "gnarly" and "hang ten" and had a bit of a leader complex. He refused to take advice or orders from others and always wanted to be in charge, it's why he hated going on patrols with me cause, let's face it, I was more qualified to make decisions than he was in this instance...or really any instance really. "Anyway I'm gonna head a little farther down, see if I can find a way around them where I can cut 'em off, but yeah hurry your asses up and get to camp." "Aye, aye Captain," The three other boys grumbled. I grinned. "Good." Then shut off the link, didn't need to lose any more battery life on that. Taking a breath, I readjusted my back on my shoulders and kept moving, flitting in the shadows, giving the Animate a large berth. God, how I wish I had just tried to plow on through the corpses, I had, had a knife with me at the time; when I ran out of bullets I could've switched to that. But that's not what I did. I went around them, taking the tactical retreat. And closer to the meeting that would change my life forever. I say I wish I could change that moment. It's a lie. I wouldn't choose anything different if it meant even a minute with Nicoli, but that's neither here nor there. Like I say, what's done is done, the past is set in stone, all that's left to change is the future. And that's where I'll put my efforts. Finally I put enough distance between me and the Animate but that didn't matter now. I only had thirty minutes of air left. That damn call had drained more battery life then I expected. There was no way I was going to make it back to camp in time. I choked back a sob and blinked tears out my eyes. I'm not usually the emotional type, but hey, thinking that I was on my death bed warranted just a few stronger emotions than I would usually feel. Well if I was going to die, I wanted to die with a smile on my face. I would find some secluded place where I could rot in peace and maybe Dale would find me and give me a proper funeral. I mean...a...a guy could hope right? I glanced up at the sign next to me, Hollywood Blvd, that name sounded familiar. I walked to the sidewalk and felt myself grin. Ah, of course, this was the street with all the stars on it. I looked to my left, that meant that those abandoned buildings over there where the Chinese Mann and Kodak Theatres, and the building in disrepair next to me was the El Capitan. I stepped back a few steps to the middle of the sidewalk and looked up. I had always wanted to come down this way with my dad, you know cause it's a tourist spot, and to well, bond with my old man, but he never would. He thought it was a waste of time, that seeing some buildings, or some movie at one of these specific theatres was stupid, he'd just take me to one closer, like the Archlight. I scoffed, that really wasn't all that closer than here. The memory filled me with a sense of melancholy, my smile taking on a slightly sadder quality, but I quickly pushed it aside. The memory was good but it wasn't good enough. I was going to die one hundred percent happy. I'd die with thoughts of Abigail, and surfing, and video games, and Dale, and my mom and step dad on my mind. All the happy times, all the moments before...this. I stared up at the building in front of me. Half the front face was gone, sunken in and lopsided, strewn about as rubble on the ground, if power still went through the city, I could imagine the lights flickering eerily in the overcast light. Sad looking tinsels fluttered in the air uselessly, once a bright vibrant green, now a muted dirty color, a color perverted by the air and earth around it. I sighed, and smiled to myself, even in its sad broken state the building was still beautiful. Of course that might have just been because I had never really seen it in front of me before, but I'm pretty sure I had a good idea from the pictures I'd seen. An old newspaper rustled by, taken hold by the wind, and it swayed in the air, trying to break free of its bindings, trying to leave this place behind. Well good for you little paper, at least someone can go somewhere. Smiling sadly I spun where I was, and felt a laugh bubble within me. Twenty more minutes, twenty more minutes of sad, sad, joy. Twenty minutes left of life, and then five minutes of liquefying hell. Maybe I should just shoot myself before then. Maybe that would be better than the torture about to befall me. I gripped the gun strapped at my waist subconsciously. I'd deal with that when I'd get there. Suddenly, I heard something thump to the ground in front of me and I stopped my spinning. What the hell? I crept closer to the sound and looked down. A mask. A purifying mask, different model, less advanced then my own, but definitely one of the breathing apparatus's that all the Renegade's had in common. I picked it up. This one was from Victoria's gang of misfits, but what would one of them be doing way out here? Was she looking for a fight? If so, why would the kid drop his mask, they needed that to survive. Quickly I backed away from the building, mask still in hand, and looked up. On the roof of the building, a good one hundred feet in the air stood a figure, a boy I think, standing precariously on the edge. What was he doing up there? Suicide? "Hey!" I shouted up at the kid. "Hey! Get down from there! I've got your mask!" The kid didn't hear me or just didn't care, but I got no response. "S**t," I mumbled to myself and turning on the binocular feature on my goggles. Almost immediately my vision was engulfed by the view of a short black haired teen, wearing nothing but a black jacket, a middle gray shirt with a faded tri-force symbol on it, and loose black pants. Strapped to his side was a medium sized blade, barely big enough to be considered a dagger in a sleek black sheath, a pistol attached to his leg, and a startlingly crimson piece of cloth around his waist as a belt that made the boys already pale appearance seem even paler. Almost sickly. The boy's eyes were trained ahead, but even from my angle I could see the wisdom in them. The hurt. The pain. The look of a man vulnerable in there last moments, when they don't think no one's looking. I gulped, I had a horrible feeling I knew what was going to happen next. "Kid!" I shouted again. "Don't jump!" He jumped. The boy sailed through the air, for a moment looking like he was flying, suspended in animation, but then gravity took over and he quickly plummeted down. I stood shocked and transfixed in horror as he fell. He landed with a bone crunching thump. Oh my god. I just saw someone kill themself. And I'd done nothing. Splat! The sound of flesh against solid rock jarred me from my stupor and I ran over to where the kid lay. "Hey kid, wake up, are you okay?" I whispered turning him over on his back. The boy looked even younger and peaceful laying like this, skin unblemished...without a trace of blood or bruise...skin still faintly warm to the--wait what? I made a face and looked closely. Yeah. Nothing was wrong. The kid looked just the same as he had when he fell down, which...was impossible. A fall like that should have killed him. Broken his bones. Mangled his brains. Crushed his lungs. But he looked A-Okay. I gulped and rested to fingers on his neck, searching for a pulse. B-Bmp! B-Bmp! B-Bmp! He was alive! He wasn't dead...he was...staring up at me. "Hey dude," I said. "Sup?"
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Tsukin ArchangelPalmdale, CAAboutHmm let's see~ I'm 20 (wow I've had this account for a long time) I'm a poet I'm a story writer A singer An amateur Voice actor An anime enthusiast An avid gamer 100% Unadulterrated Me! I wri.. more..Writing
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