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dlthedescent · 4 years

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FIVE: ALL EYES

It was a small gasp when Crane woke up.

His lungs pounded heavily like he had risen back from underwater, holding his breath for far too long. A disgusting taste of bile on the tongue even cemented him to bolt off the hard cold floor. Christ! You didn’t kill an innocent person, Kyle!

But the end of the dream rooted itself deep into his brain. He had turned to the woman and jumped onto her like an animal, claws digging into her shoulders. Hazel eyes stared back at him. Terrified. Horrified. There wasn't any time for her to scream when he dove down and ripped out her throat-

Stop!

Again, his empty stomach revolted. Crane swallowed and tried to keep it in. Gain control. He did no such thing.

Then he remembered again. The uncomfortably grinding feeling of...claws on his face when he wiped off the sweat from his forehead. It was a sudden jolt, as if an infected was with Kyle in the same space as he was but no. Disappointedly, no.

It was his body. This body. He was still the zombified Kyle Crane from yesterday.

It wasn’t a dream. How he really wished it was...

Once the reality sunk in again, he observed the small space he slept in - realizing he was in the back of an ambulance, which then reminded him of one important thing.

Right. Stab wound.

His body must have taken a toll for him to lose consciousness before the wound could have been patched up. But he patted down on his gruesome abdomen and couldn’t find the hole. There was something but it was like there never was a wound to begin with - only what was a web of black pulsating veins on the spot the shiv had been driven in.

“Yeah...” he groaned mentally. Waking up to find the wound closed up without stitches didn’t settle well for Crane. At all. “Totally not creepy.”

But at least he survived the night.

And that thought kicked him in the shin - his new undead life wouldn’t be ending soon. But he couldn’t take the more drastic measure to shorten it. Not when his feet were grounded and he still had one responsibility to do.

He was here to stay for another day.

“Maybe that lady slept better than me…” he thought. Because he felt awful. Sluggish. His body felt incredibly heavier compared to last night, where he felt as light as a feather. Crane mentally had to fight his own sleep deprivation. In his half-sleep state, he dragged himself over to the doors-

Suddenly, his right claw felt a horrid burn.

“Garmph!” Crane scrambled far into the back of the van, the panicked impact nearly shaking inventory off its shelves. Something also hit him on the head. “Ow.”

The feeling wasn’t as aggravating as the UV lights last night but it certainly felt similar. Like putting a palm on a hot stove.

“Right. Sunlight.” Great. Terrific. Wonderful. Any more shitty problems fate would like to give him? “This keeps getting better and better.”

Now, he truly comprehended why some infected never came out during the day. A Volatile could easily fry up like an egg on the sidewalk by staying out for too long.

So go back to sleep.

Crane shook his head furiously with a vocal growl, even attempted a slap to his face. “C’mon. Stay awake.”

He had a goal, remember? The woman in red was a time bomb - anyone who had the pathogen would wind up transformed from between hours to days. And that was if she hadn’t taken Antizin.

Moreover, if the lady was to go to a populated place… That would be a grisly outcome.

Crane took his stance, his determination powering him from going back to slumber. He could stay in the van all day or he could leave and bite down on the agony.

It was now or never.

CLANK!

The ambulance’s back doors burst open and the Hunter was off. The blistering was everywhere on his skin - enough to be considered as the worse sunburn he had ever felt. With whatever raggy clothes he had on his back, Crane tried to pull his collar and some folds over, as a desperate attempt for some personal cover. It was all in vain but he kept on running, getting off the overpass and diving into the shade underneath it. Unfortunately, it ended as a crashland for him, the guy who could easily traceur the highest buildings without fear. The dew-covered grass beneath his skin or the overpass' shadow didn’t help relieve the burn.

“God…” He bit down with muttered groans to combat the pain. This time, though, it was gone as quickly as it came.

Was this how it'd be for the rest of his new life...?

Crane pushed himself up but with a struggle. Onwards were windows of sunlight streaming down, creaking through any gap the sun could find around and through. It would be a long and difficult path back to the construction site with what limited shade he could see and find. Which would have been a three-minute walk for a human on a clear, less-hostile day.

Fate found another thing to shit on Crane.

A heavy sigh came out of his mouth. The things he did for people…

He pressed on, against the power of daylight. No matter how many times he got little burns or the voice in his head telling him to sleep, Crane pushed forward.

Despite the slight heaviness logged into him, he was just as agile as...well, a normal runner. He didn’t have the insane velocity from last night. Sure, Crane could use the weird...tendrils coming out of his hands like Spiderman. But that would mean smoking himself on the skyscrapers like beef jerky.

There was another disadvantage he immediately noticed once he stepped out of the ambulance: his vision was shit in the day.

It was an exaggeration. He could make out his world decently - able to see twenty feet in front of him but with a bit of shortsightedness unless he focused hard - and there were absolutely no orange skeletons he could see. But that came back at him as a setback when Crane arrived outside the construction site safehouse - not a sign of one specific skeleton inside the trailer. Only the evidence that someone had left: the pushed Volatile corpse and the footprints heading out the gate.

“Great. Now, where did she go? ” Crane snapped irritably.

The nearest place she could have gone was that Junction location. And he was off again under the shadows of the abandoned buildings.

"Please don’t turn into an infected inside that warehouse.”

Continuing on made Crane study his own eyesight again. He was wrong about it being shitter - more like the perspective was warped thanks to the sun. It couldn’t make its decision on what he should be seeing. He saw colors in one way but as for the ‘orange skeletons’…

Well, he couldn’t figure out how to describe them but he tried anyway. In their places, their orange glow wasn’t as vibrant as they were last night: just faint blurred-out shapes behind walls. Now and then, he would spot those faint orange shapes moving on two in the distance.

However, if he was a little closer, his eyes could make out what those shapes were. For one example, a pack of runners off near the west end he spotted, high on the roofs and a mile away. Normal human beings rushing to find supplies in the day. The only thing obvious was the faint orange glow inside the torso area. In each of them.

Pulsating.

Like a heartbeat.

It gave Crane the creeps. He’d prefer the skeletons over this daylight vision. It helped disconnect the matter, as harsh as it sounded in his head.

Soon, he found the Junction at the end of the uphill street. Of course, he didn’t walk in. That would be suicidal. The safest way was taking to a vantage point across the street. Away from people who could shoot him down on sight.

The oddest thing he realized as he stepped into the skeleton structure of a silicone factory was the feeling. Crane had been there before. Even the sheltered perch at the topmost part of the scaffolding looked recognizable as he glanced at the overview of the Junction.

He had been watching from up there. Waiting for something. Someone. He would be lying to himself if he pretended it didn’t irk him. Maybe this was a spot that his other self had used - to hunt. How often did he use this spot back as a feral monster?

Crane pushed the queasy thought away, grimacing to his next problem. He did see the blotchy shapes inside the Junction. But which one was the woman?

“This is going to be a needle in a haystack.” For all he knew, the red-jacketed woman might have gone elsewhere instead of the main safe haven. Maybe she was already dead-

Klunk!

The rooftop door at the Junction opened. And out of it came the familiar flashy-red jacket.

Story continues on at these Links: AO3 and FFN.

#Dying Light #Dying Light Game #dyinglight #DL: The Descent #fanfiction #dying light fanfiction #five #dying light fanfic #Kyle Crane #Mad Jack #ocs #fanfic #Prologue Arc #Dying Light: The Descent

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