Respawn: Last Man Standing

Chapter XVII: Memory

  As the team progressed, they checked the hallways the same way they've been doing. In squads of two, while having one person open the door as the other peeks inside. Ziya and Drake never seemed to ever pick the right door, as there was always a turret behind the doors they chose. However, that whispering voice in Drake's head didn't come back this time. He never got another warning from that voice he once heard, so he dismissed it as him just hearing things. The team found more food and water throughout this section of Floor 15, and more ammo, but so far they hadn't found any more weapons. After they reached Floor 15.3, the team takes another rest. As Drake sleeps, another memory from his childhood comes to mind. A memory he had lost and only just regained. In his memory, when he was young, he and Ziya were running down the street of their old neighborhood. They were going somewhere in a hurry, but Drake couldn't remember where or what for. Drake made a wrong turn, but was quickly stopped when Ziya shouted "Not that way!". Drake turned around and tried to catch up with Ziya as she says "Hurry up! We're gonna be late!". As Drake runs in his dream, memories from Pyramid kept flashing in his mind. Then he remembered the voice in his head that told him "Not that way!" as he was about to open that door. The voice sounded very similar to Ziya's voice when she was young. Similar, yet somehow very different. As memories of him being shot rapidly flashed in his mind, he woke up in a sweat. Everyone else in the team was still asleep, and he was the only one awake so far. "Just another weird dream..." Drake says quietly to himself. Drake takes a deep breath, then says "I guess there really wasn't some mysterious voice trying to warn me about that door... I guess it was just one of my memories coming back". Drake looks over at Ziya as she sleeps and thinks "I can remember you... I can see you in some of my memories, but I still can't remember who you are... why? Why can't I just remember?".

  After the others start waking up, Ziya notices that Drake was already awake, which seemed unusual to her. "Didn't sleep well?" She asks. Drake shakes his head, then Ziya says "Are you having more of those strange dreams?".
  "Yeah" Drake says, "they just keep getting weirder and weirder".
  "Well... to be fair, you came to a place like Pyramid with a serious case of amnesia" Ziya says. "Sometimes, when people can't recall their past because of amnesia, they have strange dreams that make no sense. Their mind is broken apart in like... fragments, or... shards I guess. It takes a lot of time to regain those, and you'll have to be careful, because trying to force yourself to remember will only increase the amount of stress you're putting on your brain... and being in Pyramid is probably only making it worse".
  "Right... they're just dreams..." Drake says to himself.
  "Anyways, I hope you got enough rest to move around today" Ziya says. "We've still got a long way to go before we can get out of here".
  "Yeah, I should be good to keep moving" Drake says.

  The team kept moving on throughout these floors. Luckily for them, they still hadn't seen any other teams or people on these floors, nor any sign that anyone was here before them. They could also find plenty of food and supplies as the searched through each hallway, slowly leading themselves out of this maze of bright white walls, tile floors and turrets. They made it through the next floors without taking anymore casualties. Eventually, they had reached Floor 10. Without any other teams attacking them, they were able to continue moving without any troubles. As they reached Floor 10, they saw another change in the floor's layout. The ceiling was once again as high as it used to be before Floor 15, and the paint on the wall said "10" instead of "10.1", so the team could tell that there were no longer subsections to the floors. The walls were still white, but the floors were once again concrete. The general layout of the floors looked like it did before the ghost towns. There were hills and pits, as well as concrete barriers to hide behind. However, there was now only one flight of stairs instead of two, and it was on the opposite side of this floor. The floor they stood on still had tile around where the stairs are that they just came up from. The tiles seemed to suddenly stop in a line, but none of them thought much of it at the time. However, as Drake and the others took a single step off of these tiles and onto the concrete floor, Drake once again heard that whispering voice. "Get down!" It said. In a panic, Drake didn't bother waiting to see what was going on, as he rushed behind a concrete barrier. He grabbed Ziya's hand and pulled her with, then Chris and Judy rushed behind the barrier along with them.
  "What are you four doing!?" Gerald begins to panic. "You're not planning on turning on us already, are you?".
  "What?" Drake asks. "No! I-I don't know what I'm doing!".
  "What do you mean you don't know?" Gerald asks. Suddenly, the sounds of a turret firing ring throughout the floor, as Gerald and his team were briefly shot in rapid succession. As they died, Drake and the others tried pulling their lifeless bodies behind cover until they revived.
  "How'd you know that was gonna happen?" Ziya asks.
  "I... I didn't" Drake says.
  "You just so happen to randomly take cover for no reason whatsoever?" Judy asks in suspicion.
  Drake shrugs as he nervously says "Ehhhhhh?".
  As Gerald and the others revive, Gerald shouts "Explanation, now!".
  Chris peeks around the edge of the barrier. At the other side of the floor, one the ceiling by the stairs was another turret. This one was bigger than the ones they've seen before, and this time there was no camera next to the turret. "Looks like there's more turrets" Chris says.
  "Shoot it's camera already, and get it over with!" Judy argues. "We need to keep moving! The floors are getting so much smaller now, we can actually make it out of here before running out of food if we keep up our pace!".
  "Sure, just one problem" Chris says.
  "And that is!?" Judy asks.
  "I can't see its camera..." Chris replies.
  "What does that mean!?" Judy asks.
  "That means" Chris says "I can't see its freaking camera! I don't think it has one! There's no camera over there!".
  "So what do we do from here?" Gerald asks. "Just try to run to the next barrier and hope for the best?".
  Ziya looks over at the next barrier, which was several meters away. "We definitely won't make it before getting shot" She says. "It's too far away for that, and the turrets are too quick".
  "Maybe..." Chris says as he stands up. "Maybe the camera is on the turret this time! If we aim for the turret, we might be able to hit the camera and disable it!".
  "And if you're wrong?" Judy asks.
  "Well, I'm open to suggestions!" Chris says as he moves to the right side of the barrier. He peeks around the edge of the barrier again before pulling his head back, and taking out his sniper rifle. "Now or never..." Chris says to himself. With a swift movement, he moves around the corner of the concrete barrier, crouches with his sniper rifle ready to fire, aims at the turret and fires. The bullet bounces off of the turret without doing any damage though, and Chris was quickly shot to death by the turret.
  After Chris revives, Judy asks "Well, got any other bright ideas!?".
  "A few... yeah" Chris says as he sits up, rubbing the back of his head. "Through the scope of my rifle, I did see a camera on the turret... I just barely missed it".
  "Do you want to try again?" Drake asks. "Are you going to keep risking it until it works? There's gotta be a better way than this!".
  "Like I said, I'm open to suggestions" Chris repeats. "If you've got an idea, then spill it". However, nobody responded. "Then, if nobody has any input for me to listen to, I'm trying it again".
  Chris tried over and over, dying several times, but getting back up each time. Eventually, one of Chris's bullets pierces right though a small lens on the front of the turret. The turret shut down and no longer could aim at Chris. Chris stands out in the open for a while, excepting to be shot, then feeling relief, then excitement from finally getting rid of that turret. "You got it!?" Judy asks in surprise.
  "Yeah, I think so!" Chris celebrates.
  "Nice shot!" Drake says.
  "If you ignore the fact that he missed a bunch of times..." Ziya argues.
  "Oh come on, you can't let me have anything, can you?" Chris asks.
  Ziya stands up and sighs, then says "Thanks Chris".
  "Huh?" Chris asks.
  "Without you" Ziya says, "we wouldn't be able to get past this floor... so thanks. I'm sure you must've endured a lot of pain just to take down that one turret".
  "Uh... you're welcome" Chris says as he nervously scratches the back of his head.
  "Are we... going to stand around here forever, or are we going to move?" Gerald asks.
  Chris clears his throat, then says "R-right. Let's get moving...".
  "Search the floor before we move on" Ziya says. "We need to find whatever we can to pass the next floor as well".

  The team splits up for a while, in two man squads again. Drake and Ziya find food. Gerald and Gregory found more bullets. Tyler and Micheal didn't find anything. However, when the team regroups at the base of the stairs to the next floor, Chris and Judy has found something really surprising. They've found four grenades. "Grenades!?" Drake asks, "are you kidding me? We can find explosives now!?".
  "Apparently so" Chris replies. "This is all we could find though. It's probably best that we don't use them unless we absolutely have to. This can really come in handy".
  "We've only found some ammo" Gerald says. "Mostly .357 ammo, for revolvers".
  "We came up empty handed" Tyler says.
  "We've got a couple more rations" Ziya says. "Food is becoming more common. I guess the game masters really didn't expect anyone to make it this far".
  "Considering the fact that we found grenades..." Chris says, "they probably expected people to make it this far, but have probably planned worse things for the next few floors".
  "That's why we searched for all of the supplies we could get" Ziya says. "We need to be prepared. There's no telling what's to come up next. I haven't made it this far before, so I can't tell you what's next".
  "Well, we're not stopping now" Gerald says. "I still want to see how you guys plan on breaking out of this joint. So keep up the pace".
  The team walks up the next flight of stairs. When they get to the top, there's another turret by the next flight of stairs, waiting for them to get within range. There were no longer hills and pits, but the floor was flat with a little bit of concrete debris throughout the floor and a few concrete barrier. The layout looked familiar. "Hey..." Drake asks the rest, "did the last floor seem familiar to anyone else here?".
  "A little... why?" Judy asks.
  "It kinda felt like the layout for Floor 30... didn't it?" Drake asks.
  "Now that you mention it..." Ziya says.
  "And this floor..." Drake continues. "This also feels familiar, doesn't it?".
  "It's like Floor 40's layout" Gerald says.
  "So it's not just me then?" Drake asks.
  "No, I'm afraid not" Ziya says. "I guess we get a little trip down memory lane".