Rain pattered the scuffed windows of my coffin apartment, its faint inconsistency tugging me awake. It smelled like ozone, or what I was told ozone smelled like. The low hum of my unit's nuclear-powered generator accompanied a steady rushing of wind outside. Dim orange strips lit portions of the tiny confinement but seemed to conceal most remnants of dinginess.
My chest ached. It was as if dozens of arrows were simultaneously pulled from my heart, their flaming heads retreating into the black corners of my room. If I blinked I could almost make out E's all-but stoic face. Almost. It was black now, torches turned to neon and war cries to stale buzzing. The rain was a nice comfort, even if it was made of poison.
The featureless ceiling above me ignited in a brilliant vista of golden wheat fields rippling in an invisible breeze, and my room exploded in light. I squinted to adjust to the intensity of it. Words fizzled into existence, and my heart skipped a beat. "Up yet?" they said.
I rolled my head, my neck crunching like dry cereal, and neon lines displayed the time: 10:47. Whining creaks left my body with each minor movement. There must have been a leak somewhere in the roof, as the slab cot I lay on stunk with cold moisture.
"How about lunch? Meet me at Suzie's in ten." The text and wheat field dissipated, leaving me in abysmal black.
* * *
Her lips glistened like polished rubies as she gorged herself on grease-soaked cheeseburgers and fries. Erika's blonde locks blinded me as they reflected the blazing sun outside the rustic 50s-style diner we sat in. I wondered if it was always so bright before, or if it was just me.
"You gonna eat that?" She jabbed at my untouched meal as she scarfed down another mouthful. My nose still retained the pervading odor of rain.
"Nah. Want it?" She nodded while humming excitedly as I pushed the plate to her side of the scratched plastic table. "I didn't sleep so well."
"Bad dream?" she mumbled between bites.
I half-shrugged.
She slid her clean plate away and made room for the second, but took a break to address me, looking me straight on with blue-silver eyes shimmering wide. It was difficult to make eye contact due to the radiant yellow light bouncing off her face, but it was even harder to look away. "You can tell me."
I shifted in my seat and gazed lazily out the window at the corn field which engulfed the diner. The corn kernels looked as big as my head, and their stalks twisted and flowed around each other in a spiraling web. Not a cloud in the sky. "I'm just a little paranoid I guess. I mean, what if they find out? I can't go through another stim again."
"They're not gonna find out. Besides, it's just government propaganda they're shilling."
"So you think things were better before the war?" I almost forgot where we were, in a place far away from the outside world. In this peaceful little diner, it was easy to escape the horrors of reality.
"Who cares how good or bad things were? Things are - well - different now, so we gotta make do with what we have."
"Yeah, you're right." I stole a cold french fry from her second plate. It tasted like nothing. I tried concentrating, and an inkling of savoriness touched my tongue. Then my appetite grew, and I reached for another.
"Was that your cat by the way?"
The question caught me by surprise. "What?"
"The black one. It was kinda cute, even with all the blood and everything."
My tongue caught in my throat, and I almost choked on half a fry.
"Never mind," Erika said. "So where do you wanna go next?"
Before I could answer, the windows of the diner exploded into millions of glass shards, followed by fragments of plastic and concrete ejected from the wall of the diner. I was knocked half-unconscious, but Erika sprang to her feet, backpack slung around one shoulder, and she dragged me to the back of the crumbling countertop. Tearing her bag open, she handed me a clunky piece of gray steel before taking a second one out for herself.
"How'd they find us?" I grunted.
She bobbed her head, a coy grin forming on her lips. "That may have been me. But look on the bright side - you wanted more action. Here it is!"
A cacophony of screaming neon bolts erupted in all directions, turning the glass block walls into crusty carbon. Electronic shouts echoed commands in encrypted speech. The diner quickly filled with a pale haze, and my lungs dried from inhaling it.
Erika popped up and evaporated one of their heads with her massive revolver, chunks of flesh and ceramic helmet crashing to the once spotless tile floor. Putrid alien curses perverted the air.
I shivered. She was right, I begged for violence, though I was loath to admit it. Then, steeling myself, I pulled the slide of the pistol I was given and inspected the round inside; its bright red tip pierced the dim smoke like blood on snow.
"Sharp enough?"
I chambered the round and leaped over the counter, blasting fed goons into oblivion in a flurry of metal death. Orange lasers zipped and careened in a frantic dance; some managed to singe my tattered olive jacket, only to collide unexpectedly into a fed on the other side. Erika joined the fray, eager not to let me outkill her. She latched onto one of them whose back was turned, and with some unnatural strength, she broke his neck with a single flick of her arm, while simultaneously doming another with her revolver. The rest we mopped up within seconds. The few who survived their wounds were bound together and doused with cooking oil from the kitchen. Their immolated bodies squealed long after they had perished.
Smoke and ash billowed above as we left the all-but-demolished restaurant. "You going to rebuild this place?" I asked.
Erika wiped the sweat from her temples. "Easier to program a new one. Next time I'll - "
A lone fed stood among toppled corn stalks and a reaper's starcruiser. He was clothed not in pious white, but shredded robes of midnight-stained black, plates of fiendish titanium jutting out at odd angles. His fingers extended into razor blades that clinked against his slender arms which folded into an impatient pretzel. The vizor covering his face reached over the back of his head, creating a dark orb without any hint of where the eyes may be.
"Another. Great," Erika's sarcasm matched her hubris. She languidly met the barrel of her iron to the globed head of the calm reaper in front of us. He remained still, save his fidgeting claws. A plume of gas and sparks flared out of the revolver, yet only a tiny scratch emerged from the man's helmet. "What? I could've sworn I made this-"
The tiniest of swipes of the man's forefinger cut Erika short. She coughed and clutched her throat as red seeped from the gaps in her fingers. She fell to the dusty earth, furiously gasping for breath. She tried saying something, but her vocal cords had been slashed like harp strings. I dropped by her side and tried to keep the blood in.
"No, Erika!"
The man glided effortlessly towards us. I was stunned. She couldn't die. She just couldn't. It wasn't possible.
The reaper took the finger he used to sever Erika's neck and shushed me. A moment later, the visor that hid his face cracked with a venomous hiss and swung up and around, stopping halfway.
Two thin green eyes peered through the black. Unblinking, they fixated on me, ignoring the girl drowned in a lake of crimson. A hand scraped the ground, clacked with metal, and raised the blood-drenched revolver up to meet my eyes. My heart stopped. I waited for the click, bang, burning full metal jacket. I waited to meet Erika on the ground, crumpled together in an endless death cuddle.
But nothing.
The reaper flipped the gun on its side and held it toward me. The green cat eyes blinked once as if to convey some cryptic message. The eyes waited, emotionless and cold as if to say, "Your turn."
