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diaryofasentimentalist · 8 months

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— always the fool (how was i supposed to see the way?)

chapter 2 // takes one to know one

[series masterpost] [01] [02]

warnings: blood and gore, canon-typical body horror mutations, lore-accurate corny leon one liner

summary: leon comes across the first survivor he's seen since entering biovance. the rescue does not go as planned. (2.6k)

The sound of a gunshot, unmistakable no matter how muffled, rings in the distance. That tells Leon that there’s a survivor somewhere. Or at least there was. He strains his ears, listening for anything that might tell him who won the scuffle.

The only thing he hears is labored breathing and the harsh squeak of metal as something bumps into a filing cabinet. From his position behind the grand oak desk, he can feel it getting closer. It walks on all fours, searching for him. Whether it saw him duck in here or just sniffed him out, he isn’t sure yet. The briefing he got on his way over was sparing with the details, and he hasn’t observed them long enough to know how they work. Whatever’s going around here is new to him, but not novel.

Damn mutants. Always the same story. Just a little different in the way they manifest.

If he thought he’d have an easier time with this mission, being dispatched to ground zero within 24 hours of the containment breach, he knows now he was wrong. The city is still safe, at least, but the entire facility is overrun. He can’t even begin his descent— a long one, thirteen stories down to get to the true center of this place— because of how many hallways are locked or blocked with debris. It would’ve been nice if they’d given him a masterkey card, but they didn’t. The assumption was, as usual, that he could figure it out.

The mutant takes another step, the sound finally close enough that Leon knows he has it where he wants it. Now. In one fluid motion, he rises and spins, unloading two swift rounds into the thing’s head. The first bullet hits the strange, throbbing mass growing out of it, and the thing unhinges its jaw, but the second has already gone through its eye and burst through its brain before it can make another sound. It falls to the floor with a heavy thump.

Leon steps around the desk, taking a moment to inspect the thing. They’re in an enclosed space and nothing else is sniffing around for him— yet— so it’s his first chance to really stop and get a closer look. From the flashes he’s seen of the others, he knows each one is slightly different, but there are a few similarities he’s starting to pick up on. Slender limbs, a visible rib cage, pale or grayish skin with dark splotches, long brittle hair that sheds easily, and little to no clothing covering the body. A few of the others also have strange masses growing out of them, like this one had in its head, but they’re always in a different place. This one also seems to have that strange translucent film growing over its face that a number of them have shown, giving it an eerie, almost blurred quality when he tries to focus on its features.

Something skitters past the door, and he’s on high alert again. No time for disgust now. Besides, he’s seen worse. Slowly, he makes his way over, peeking out down the hall. Another mutant is sniffing around, swaying and whining on occasion. Better take this one out before it notices him.

Easier said than done, though. This one is more erratic than the last. Leon frowns, trying to keep it in his line of fire, but it won’t stop moving long enough. Maybe if he could get a little closer.

He follows it down the hall, ducking into the various offices as he does. That’s all there is in this hallway, aside from some restrooms. It looks like this whole wing is dedicated to researcher needs, judging by that massive lounge with those hideous orange couches that he saw earlier. He spares each office a cursory glance but doesn’t linger once he’s sure there’s nothing and nobody hiding within. It’s tough making pace stealthily enough to get close to the thing. He takes a risk, darting from one doorway to another across the hall, slightly closer. The thing must catch a flash of movement in its periphery, or maybe it hears him, because it whips around just as he hides.

“Shit,” he murmurs, bracing himself. His fingers tighten around the grip of his pistol. It’s getting closer, closer, when a loud bang sounds, like someone throwing open a heavy door. Abandoning its search for Leon, the mutant instead forces its way through the doors at the end of the hallway, back into the ransacked lounge Leon passed earlier to access the office hall. Someone else must have entered from one of the other halls that feeds into it. “Shit.”

A scream. Leon gives chase, slipping through the door just before it closes. Sure enough, the mutant has pounced upon new prey, its victim pinned back against the floor.

“Hey!” Leon shouts, the thing whipping its head in his direction. A slimy film covers its whole face, blank milky white eyes staring at him as it opens its mouth, the film finally tearing a little to allow the saliva that had been building behind its lips to dribble down its chin. He doesn’t flinch. “I thought we were playing hide and seek. You gave up already?”

As soon as the thing rears onto its legs, its head far enough from the other person, he shoots. A single bullet right between those creepy eyes is all it takes. The carcass— or corpse? He’s never sure how to refer to the B.O.W.s that used to be human, once— collapses, and the person on the ground gives a little grunt.

“Are you okay?” he asks, holstering his gun as he strides over. He hoists the creature off of them and tosses it to the side effortlessly; maybe because of how skinny they become, these things aren’t much heavier than a normal person.

The barrel of a gun is waiting to greet him.

Instinct kicks in. In two seconds flat, he’s knocked the firearm from their hands— her hands, he can see it’s a woman now— and grabbed onto her arm. In a single motion, he flips her over onto her stomach, pinning her down with a knee and using one hand to hold both of hers behind her back while the other holds the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair.

She screams, struggles beneath him, but it’s pointless. She’s way outmatched. He isn’t even breaking a sweat, holding her down like this.

“Shh, I’m not going to hurt you,” Leon says gruffly, eyes scanning the lounge, alarmed that the noise is going to attract more of those things. “I’m here to help.”

“Let go of me!” The woman says, and although she’s trying to sound tough, authoritative, the panic is obvious in her voice. She’s scared. The realization makes Leon soften a bit.

“I will,” he says, his voice devoid of its earlier exasperation. “But you just pointed a gun at my face right after I saved your life, sweetheart, so I’m going to need some assurance you won’t do it again. Do you have any other weapons?”

The woman finally stops squirming, head sinking slowly to the floor. “No,” she says tersely.

“I’m going to have to confirm.” Hesitating a moment, he releases his hold on her head and quickly runs it down the length of her body, skimming over one side and then the other, noticing how she tenses at his touch. It must feel strange, and he knows how terrified she must be, so he tries to make it quick. Nothing. No lumps or holsters or even pockets where she could be hiding something. “Okay. I’m going to release you now, so you can sit up. No sudden movements, though, alright?”

She nods, and Leon lets go of her hands, first, which she braces against the floor. Slowly, he eases his knee off of her back, crouching as he watches her push up— and promptly lunge for the gun. She’s quick, but he’s quicker. In an instant, he has her pinned down again, this time on her back. She stares up at him with wild eyes, pushing against him as he pins her wrists above her head.

“Easy, easy,” he says, like he’s trying to soothe a spooked animal. Fuck, this is so obviously a horrible first impression. But he needs her to understand that he’s there to help. Now that he’s looking at her better, he can see she’s young, maybe just a few years younger than him, but with a youthful quality to her face that says she’s nowhere near as battle-hardened. Her white lab coat is askew, thrown open with all of her struggling, and beneath it, she looks dressed for a day out on the city, not the lab. After a few more moments of futile writhing, she finally stops again, chest heaving, still staring at him wildly. A glint around her neck catches his eye with the movement, but it turns out to be from a delicate gold chain, nothing potentially dangerous. “My name is Leon Kennedy,” he says evenly, brandishing his ID with his free hand with the hope that it'll calm her down. “I’m a special forces agent, here on the president’s orders. I won’t hurt you, but I won’t let you hurt me, either. Understand?”

The muscles in her jaw twitch as she clenches her teeth before nodding.

“Good. Here, let me help you up.” He leans back, this time pulling her with him before releasing her hands. She brushes down her clothes, straightening out her coat. The name tag comes into view. M. Hallyoke. The name is familiar. It’s the same one that was etched into the plate on the door of the office where he just killed that mutant. “What’s your name?”

It looks like she isn’t going to answer, the way she’s glaring at him defiantly. “Hallyoke,” she says finally, her voice faltering. She repeats it with a little more conviction. “Dr. Hallyoke.”

“I can read as much, doctor,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “I was wondering what the ‘M’ stood for.”

Her eyes narrow. “Malenia.”

He nods, grabbing the revolver that he'd sent skidding across the floor earlier and rising. Slowly, she follows, her body trembling almost imperceptibly, and another wave of sympathy floods through him.

“Listen, Malenia,” Leon says, not unaware of the way her eyes follow the gun as he opens the chamber. Five bullets. It must have been her who fired earlier. He slides it back into place. “You have to get out of here. There should be an exit—”

“I’m not leaving,” she interjects, a steely look in her bright eyes.

“You can’t stay here,” he says, frowning. The place is crawling with mutants, and probably hostile humans, too. She could technically be hostile herself— he has no way of knowing who in this facility is a medical researcher and who was knowingly producing military monstrosities— but he just feels she isn’t. She’s too scared, too underprepared, too… naive. Most likely, she’s just another scientist who can't bear the thought of losing years of her work. “Whatever you’re hoping to get from here isn’t worth your life.”

“It is,” she says more firmly, the fear draining out of her by the minute, replaced with a hardened resolve. Definitely an obsessed scientist. “It is my life.”

“What could possibly be more important to you than your own safety?” he asks with a sigh. Whatever sample or information she's after isn't leaving this place. He has to destroy it, all of it, but he knows she won’t take that news well, so he refrains from saying so.

“There’s someone I’m trying to save.”

Oh. Not the answer he was expecting. In spite of everything, he can sympathize with that.

“Whoever it is, I’ll be keeping an eye out for them,” Leon says. “Leave all that stuff to me. You need to—”

“It has to be me,” she says. His eyes trail over her skeptically, and she clutches the flaps of her coat, pulling them tighter around herself. Yikes. Did it look like he was checking her out? Another strike against him, he supposes.

“Where is this person most likely to be?” he asks. Clearly, she won't willingly evacuate the premises. Maybe he can get her to stay put while he retrieves this person and brings them back here so they can leave together.

“Floor B13,” she says, and his brows furrow. That’s where he was planning to go, but just getting there will be an ordeal. There’s no way she seriously thinks she’d make it in one piece, let alone back out.

“I’m heading there myself, and I’m here to escort the survivors. So why don’t you go ahead and get out while you can, so that you’re still breathing by the time I bring your friend back to you.” She opens her mouth to protest, so he cuts her off. “All due respect, doctor, you wouldn’t make it a quarter of the way with the things that are crawling around out there.”

“And you wouldn’t make it an eighth of the way with the number of blockages and locked passageways out there,” she counters. Before he can so much as tell her to let him worry about that, she speaks again. “Let me come with you.”

“No.” The proposition takes him by surprise. He shakes his head. “Absolutely not. Are you crazy?”

“Takes one to know one,” she says, nonplussed, arms crossed over her chest.

Fuck. She’s right and he knows it. Not about the crazy thing— well, maybe that too— but he’s been having a rough time trying to navigate through the building. Somehow he keeps looping through this same damn wing. That means she could be helpful. But she’d definitely be a liability. Then again, he doesn’t see how he can feasibly stop her from tagging along with him unless he physically restrains her, which he can’t exactly do with bloodthirsty mutants wandering around. Coming to an agreement willingly might actually be their best course of action here.

Oh, hell, he’s actually considering it.

“Women,” he says with a sigh. Always so stubborn. He shakes his head. As a newer agent, he might've argued longer, might've threatened legal action. But he's done this enough times to know how it's going to end. Any time spent chasing the same points around and around is time wasted, time that other survivors might not have. “Alright, fine. You lead the way, and I’ll keep you safe. But you have to stay close to me at all times, and you have to do exactly as I say. That sound like a deal to you?”

She nods eagerly, all traces of her earlier terror now replaced with hopeful vigor. It sends a pang to his heart. If she knew what she was in for, she wouldn’t look so happy right now. “Deal.”

He extends the revolver. At first, she makes no move to take it, staring up at him with her lips slightly parted. “What? You don’t want it anymore?”

“I do,” she says quickly, holding out her hand.

“I don’t know where you got this old antique,” he says, eyes scanning over the long-discontinued model, “but you should hold onto it. Don’t try to play the hero, don’t be so trigger happy. Let me handle hostiles. This is only for emergencies.” His eyes meet hers sharply, darkening slightly. “And don’t even think about pointing it at me again.”

He places the revolver into her waiting hand and watches as she tucks it into the waistband of her skirt. Seriously, not even a holster? His eyes flicker up to meet hers once more, and she nods once. “I understand,” she says, a tinge of genuine remorse in her tone. “I’m sorry.”

He nods. Truthfully, he’s not even that mad. It’s not the first time a beautiful woman has pointed a gun at him, and somehow, he doubts it’ll be the last. That just seems to be a recurring theme in his line of work.

“Lead the way, doctor.”

#leon kennedy fanfic #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x you #re fanfic #re x reader #leon kennedy #my writing #.always the fool

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dragonfirerogue-writes · 1 year

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hello helloooo, i may send this request to other authors (only my favorites tho)

could you do a wednesday addams x gn! reader where the reader can stop time but anyone who is touching them will not be frozen? so like the reader is just like "hey wednesday,(or whatever nickname they have for her) come with me for a sec" and it obviously takes a bit of begging but then they go outside in the rain or snow and the reader just grabs wednesdays hand and puts the other hand up and stops time so the snow or rain just sits there in mid air. could probably make this super fluffy

-C<3

A/N: I had a specific song in my head for this and while it's a sad song, I'm stealing the... vibe? Of the song??

Miracles in December

Wednesday x GN!reader

While snow during the daytime was beautiful in its own right, snow during the night was the most enchanting. The way the flakes reflect the moonlight gave it an ethereal look. You always loved watching the snowfall, but being amongst the precipitation as it surrounds you while suspended in the air was another experience in itself.

And you wanted to share it with someone else.

"Wednesday? My sweet torture?"

The goth hums in response, her attention mainly on her typewriter. You had been watching the snow from the large window in her room while waiting for her to finish writing.

"When you're finished, would you like to take a walk with me?"

There's a pause in her typing. You can see her thought process switch from her novel to your question. It only takes a moment before she's back to typing.

"Of course, cara mia."

You smile at the response before turning back to the window. The snow showed no signs of stopping and that was perfect. Soon, you'll get to show your lover one of your favorite experiences.

-----+++++-----

The woods were silent outside of the crunches of your footsteps. By your side, Wednesday looks around, wondering what you were up to. Eventually you lead the girl to your favorite clearing. The perfect spot for what you were planning.

"My torturous love, are you ready?

The goth just looks at you. "Hard to be ready when you're being secretive, Y/N. You know how I feel about surprises."

You just let out a soft chuckle and hold out your hand. "It's nothing too bad. Just something I wanted to share." The chill in the air bites at your bare hands, but you welcome it. "At the very least, it'll be a new experience for you."

Wednesday just scoffs and takes off her glove. She knew the premise of your abilities but was never able to view it herself. You had explained it and it was simple enough. Still wary of her visions, she hesitantly takes your hand and waits.

With her hand securely in yours, you raise your other hand and summon your power. The ring you wear as your focus glows softly and pulses out, making the snowfall slow in its descent. After a few seconds, it stops completely, suspended in time.

Wednesday lets out a small gasp in stunned surprise. The faint lights of the moon just behind the clouds reflect against the frozen flakes and it shines in her dark eyes like stars. She reaches out and touches a snowflake, pushing it slightly out of its predicted path.

"Shall we make our way back?" When your hand touches the flakes, they continue their descent. You hold your hand out and clear a path back to the academy. "It's a wonderful sight when the lantern lights come into play."

Wednesday nods and leans closer to you. With time stopped, you were truly alone and she felt comfortable enough to show a bit of affection. The two of you strolled back towards the school, hand in hand. You knew that using your ability for this long would exhaust you, but it was worth it.

When you reach Nevermore, Wednesday mentions that the snow looks like moths surrounding the lanterns. You hadn't thought of that before and smiled at the new comparison.

You sat in the quad together, enjoying each other's company with cuddles and kisses. Wednesday caresses your cheek and it nearly makes you lose your concentration. The goth just smirks and continues her affections until the snow starts falling again. You let out a sigh and flop onto her shoulder.

"You are a menace."

"And for some reason, you adore me for it."

"You're not wrong.

You two spend some time longer under the light snowfall before the chill becomes near unbearable. You spend the rest of the night together in your room, warming each other back up. When morning arrives, Wednesday lets you sleep longer to recuperate your powers and returns to her room after placing a kiss on your forehead.

You don't wake up until the next morning.

#a dragon tries to write #wednesday addams x reader #wednesday x reader #wednesday (netflix)#asks #requests

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tarabyte3 · 7 months

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I don't want to pressure you!! But I'm so excited for the next chapter of TDMUS 😫😫Please give us a sneak peek--or a hint about what's coming? I would appreciate it so much!!!

First, I'm SO glad you're enjoying The Devil Makes Us Sin! 💕 I'm ecstatic that people like this slow descent into corruption and debauchery. Second, you'll be pleased to know I'm over 3.5k words into the next chapter and it's all plotted out. I can't promise when it will be done, but I have been working on it! (Though perhaps not as quickly as I would like.)

So just for you Anon, here's a snippet from Chapter 4 (without final edits so it may change slightly in the final draft). Enjoy 😉😏

The next morning, you sleep in until a gloriously late hour. Just because you can. And because last night was emotionally exhausting—you're certain the wine didn't help. Even when you're no longer tired, you lie in bed, wrapped in the warmth of your blankets, and bask in the knowledge that you never have to go back to that office ever again.

Or speak to your mother.

You feel untethered, but not adrift. No, you know exactly which direction you're headed and now you have the freedom to do so.

Eventually you resume your search for a new bed on your phone as well because you start to think about how blissful this would have been on a comfortable mattress. With silk sheets. And a new nightgown. Oh, maybe something with lace. Or silk. Or, even better, something sheer that barely covers your ass.

You also think about how much David would enjoy all of those things.

You start off looking at sleepwear that leans more sensible than sexy, but as you begin to wonder what David would think of each one, you quickly find yourself clicking on more and more revealing pieces.

It's when you're looking at a see through, drapey number that comes off with only a clasp between your breasts that your phone buzzes with a new text message.

You grin because you wondered how long it would be before he reached out to you. Now you're absolutely certain he's keeping tabs on you and saw how racy your searches were getting. Part of you was doing it on purpose—baiting him until he couldn't resist any longer. Even if it gave him away.

Are you enjoying your first day of freedom?

"Immensely. I haven't even gotten out of bed yet." You feel very smug as you hit send because now you've added the thought of you in bed to his mental image of the lingerie.

Is that so? Sounds as though you're having a lovely morning.

Any other exciting plans for the day?

"Not unless you count a date with a book on my nightstand."

Depends on what kind of book.

"Well, there are two of them for me to choose from. One is a murder mystery. The other is a steamy romance novel." It's a lie. You have two art history books and an Amedeo Modigliani biography on your nightstand.

I see. Two very different types of thrilling.

"Exactly. On one hand, the murder mystery would stimulate my brain."

It takes a minute longer for you to get a response to that.

And what would the romance novel stimulate?

"My heart, David. What else?" You grin at your phone.

"Now tell me which one you would like best."

If I had to choose between the two, I would prefer the murder mystery.

"Of course you would. But I meant which of the lingerie you would like best. Because I know you were watching."

There's another pause.

All of them.

#asks #the devil makes us sin update #a little sneak peek #david robey #david robey x reader #x reader

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blueshistorysims · 8 months

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The rest of the summer dragged on slowly. Rebecca and Rose spent every waking moment with Giselle, aiming for her recovery. Peter didn’t know what to do with himself, so he busied himself with work, taking the more difficult cases, staying shut up in his study for most of the day if he wasn’t in Liverpool. Alexander was more than glad to help his father, learn the tools of the trade while at it.

Edeline still read her romance novels, but she had added her grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s science books to her palette, checking out medical books from the library, ignoring the judgmental stares from the librarian.

The summer wasn’t horrible for everyone. 14 year old Alexander enjoyed the last days of freedom before he and Byron would leave for secondary school. He liked going to the pond and watching all the little creatures. While he no longer tried to catch frogs, he still liked to watch them swim and jump around. The pond was small and not many people knew about it, so it became his little private corner to get away from everyone.

“Oh, I didn’t know anyone else knew about this place,” a voice said behind Alexander.

He turned, surprised, to see a girl around his age. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No matter.”

Alexander’s eyebrows furrowed, and he quickly realized the girl was an old classmate of his. “Oh! You’re… Edith, right?”

Edith nodded. “I’m surprised you know my name. We never talked to each other.”

“You’d have to be stupid or rude not to know your classmates’ names after being in school with them for seven years. Do you like coming here too?

She smiled shyly and nodded. “I come here almost every day.”

“Then I’m surprised we haven’t crossed paths before.”

And so began their conversation. Alexander had never been so enamored to speak to someone he barely knew. Their conversation lasted hours, and when they decided to meet again at the same time the next day, Alexander knew this was the start of something special.

But soon summer came to an end and autumn began, meaning Edeline, Alexander, and Byron were leaving for boarding school. Edeline was to attend her mother’s alma mater, Rockridge Girls’ Finishing School near London, while Alexander and Byron were going to Willow Creek College. Every single male Walsh had attended that school, and due to the fact their ancestor, the second Duke of Feldsbury, contributed a massive amount of money, Willow Creek allowed any of his direct descents to attend the college on a partial scholarship. While world-renowned, Willow Creek was extremely expensive, and without the scholarship, they wouldn’t have been able to send both boys and still be financially secure.

They said a tearful goodbye to Rose and Giselle, who was strong enough to walk on her own now, but not yet able to travel, so they would say goodbye at the house before leaving for the train station.

Edeline and Alexander were excited to leave home, having never been out of Lancastershire while Byron was indifferent. He was the youngest student ever admitted to Willow Creek College. He didn’t know what the future held for him.

“I know all three of you will do well,” Rose said smiling, even if tears were pooling up in her eyes.

“I’ll miss you, Granny,” Byron told her.

She nodded. “Don’t worry, child. We will miss you even more.”

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justforbooks · 5 months

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Yes, it’s that time again: next Sunday the winner of this year’s Booker prize will be announced. Everyone has their favourites and it’s easy to carp about novels the judges missed, but the truth is we don’t know which ones they consider – the list of 150-odd titles is never made public and probably any number of subterranean factors determines its makeup; a few years ago I heard of at least one big-name British author, an obvious contender, who refused to be considered. And awards – now brands in themselves – seek to establish their own identities: was Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead crossed off the list after winning the Pulitzer and Women’s prizes for fiction?

One of the judges, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, recently said he isn’t comfortable with historical fiction, which perhaps had something to do with the absence from the longlist of two of the year’s most feted novels, Zadie Smith’s The Fraud and Tom Crewe’s The New Life. True, one historical novel has made the shortlist: This Other Eden (Hutchinson Heinemann), by Pulitzer-winning US author Paul Harding – but that’s no surprise: the chair of judges, Esi Edugyan, says how good she thinks it is on the cover of the book itself, published last February.

Drawing on the true story of the forced eviction of a mixed-race island community in New England before the first world war, it may have Edugyan’s vote but I think it’s a novel that’s hard to love. We follow various descendants of a freed slave as a well-meaning missionary, privately racist, attempts to spare one of them – a gifted young painter who happens to pass as white – by having him moved to a friend’s estate on shore.

At the core of what ensues is his doomed romance with his landlord’s Irish maid. But Harding relies on laboriously laid slabs of narration to generate dramatic irony as we see events from different points of view – the painter’s, the maid’s, then his family’s, confronted with her pregnancy as she visits the island in search of the painter’s past.

In his previous novel, Enon, Harding found a measure of comedy even in the plight of a father mourning the death of his teenage daughter in a road accident. Nothing to laugh about in This Other Eden, a mark of Harding’s sense of responsibility to his painful material. For sure, he wrings pathos from the injustice and horror from the climactic violence but the novel never justifies its own interest in the spectacle.

I have similar unease about Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song (Oneworld), set in a contemporary Ireland gradually riven by war between a totalitarian regime and insurgent rebels. It follows a Dublin mum of four after the arbitrary detention of her trade unionist husband. The focus is on her trials keeping the breakfast-to-bedtime show on the road amid a descent into hell, from abductions to air raids. That focus gives the novel its convincing frisson – as bombing intensifies, the protagonist’s father rings her up complaining about his neighbour’s ivy – but it also locates it firmly as thought experiment. It’s jarringly apolitical – there’s no obvious history to what’s going on – and ultimately there’s something almost obscenely decadent to its invitation to sympathise with sea-crossing refugees by recasting them as middle-class Europeans. When Eilish thinks it’s “as though some filmed transparency of a foreign war has been placed upon an image of the city”, the line catches exactly what Lynch is up to.

Still, its explosive set pieces have a visceral spell undimmed by rereading, and any sense of unease it fosters may count in its favour – whatever else it is, Prophet Song is a novel to argue about.

I preferred quieter books on the list. Kudos to the judges for spotlighting If I Survive You (Fourth Estate), a thrilling debut by US writer Jonathan Escoffery (a former student of Percival Everett, shortlisted last year for The Trees) that starts as an exploration of second-generation American identity by way of a Jamaican-descended literature graduate, Trelawny, whose morale – already battered by being second-best, at least in his father’s eyes, to his tree surgeon brother Delano – takes another hit by his graduating post-recession. He finds himself doing crazy things for money, not least being paid by a woman who puts out a classifieds ad looking for someone to hit her.

With much tenderness in the gulf between father and son, this would be a worthy winner. It’s funny, sad, always toying with assumptions about race. Don’t be misled by the opening sequence, which feels like an exercise in voice, as the second-person narration explores the contortions of internalised racism. In later sections Escoffery shines through as a first-rate scene-maker with a wicked knack for jeopardy: witness Delano’s catastrophically ill-conceived bid to retrieve an impounded cherry-picker so he can take on a job. In the title story, Trelawny winds up part of a rich white couple’s twisted sex game (and yes, this is a linked story collection, openly advertised as such on the dust jacket, a first for a prize now awarded to “longform fiction”).

Another debut that is a revelation is Western Lane (Picador) by Chetna Maroo, the only British writer here (hard not to note that she got her break from magazines in the US and Ireland). Families were clearly a hot topic for this year’s judges, but the simplicity of this book stands apart. It is narrated by 11-year-old Gopi, youngest of three daughters in an Indian family living in south London, whose father schools her in squash at a local leisure centre in the year after their mother’s death. The story evolves as she practises to compete in a tournament: the power of the novel lying in what goes unsaid between Gopi and Pa, between her and an older boy she hits with at the leisure centre, between the sisters, between her and the childless aunt and uncle in Edinburgh where she’s expected to move.

This is a beautiful tale of family – and sport. A moving yet non-maudlin novel about grief, it’s told in plain language electric with feeling, nicely catching the narrator’s incomplete understanding of her situation without making her a figure of irony. A real feat: if the metric is the ratio of number of words to emotion generated, Western Lane wins.

Paul Murray’s mighty The Bee Sting (Hamish Hamilton) is a book nearly big enough to contain the others on the shortlist, and it features many of their themes, from filial misunderstanding to civilizational collapse – or its looming shadow, seen in the ultimately catastrophic prepping of its beleaguered patriarch, a car salesman sunk by the recession, wed to the class-climbing daughter of a bare-knuckle boxer. A 650-page soap opera with a clockwork plot whose delicate mechanism you can’t hear tick: if it wins the Booker there will be a lot of delighted readers finding it under the Christmas tree.

It’s so obviously the best novel here – but will the judges talk themselves out of it? A sceptical 3,000-word review in the London Review of Books shows what might happen if you’re encouraged to think about it for too long; and remember, too, the Booker doesn’t reward the best novel of the year – not exactly – it’s more the book that survives a process that entails being read and discussed again and again over the better part of nine months.

It’s because of this that I wonder if Prophet Song will get the nod – or Sarah Bernstein’s Study for Obedience (Granta). A Canadian living in Scotland, listed this year as one of Granta’s best young British novelists, she is also winner of Canada’s prestigious Scotiabank Giller prize (twice won by Edugyan). Study for Obedience has nagged me since I read it in March. I didn’t like it then and I don’t love it now but in a list of novels about family it stands apart – an almost spectrally vague existential brainteaser soaked in 20th-century bloodshed. I can’t tell you what the novel is about, exactly, and that’s why I think it bears scrutiny. The narrator is an unnamed woman who moves to an unspecified country to take up her creepy elder brother’s affairs as a housekeeper, where her duties extend to soaping his back, and she’s permitted to watch TV only by lipreading (he says subtitles affect the play of light in the room). Strange encounters with locals never quite bloom into confrontation. Instead of drama we have discomfort and dread: between the lines lies the genocide and exile of the protagonist’s ancestors.

Trapping us in an isolated consciousness, the winding narration is full of comma-spliced caveats and double negatives that make it purposely awkward to place.

How to measure this against, say, the arrowlike flight of Maroo’s sentences aiming at the heart? I don’t envy the judges. Where they have by and large selected novels that show an uncomplicated faith in the pleasure of storytelling, Bernstein’s is the book that makes narrative a problem – the reader’s problem, some might say. But it just might be declared best on 26 November by judges who can’t be expected to spend a year agreeing with one another about how great The Bee Sting is.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #booker prize

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scruffandyarn · 2 years

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Take My Hand, I'll Start My Journey (11)

Fandom: The Mummy and The Mummy Returns Pairing: Ardeth Bay x f!reader Warnings: found family, It's ok everyone--I FIXED IT!!!, a line from the novel, <3

One more part!!!

Take My Hand Masterlist

Part 11:

You, Evelyn, and Jonathan watched the two men begin their descent .

“Evelyn, before the fighting starts, there’s--” You sighed. “I’m sorry I got mad at you and Rick before. About--” you nodded towards Ardeth’s retreating form. “None of it would have happened if I had been a little smarter about all this.”

She shook her head. “No. You were right. We overstepped.” She put her hand on your shoulder. “I want you to know, no matter what, you will always have a place with us. Whether you stay on as Alex’s governess or not. But,” she spared a small smile, glancing at the darkness the men had disappeared into, “don’t pass up any opportunity to be truly happy.”

“I--” you blew out a breath. “Thank you.”

“You are just as a part of my family as Jonathan is. No matter where life takes you, you always will be.” She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against yours.

“God, if you’re my sister now, I guess I can’t flirt with you anymore.”

Jonathan’s outburst provided some much needed levity to keep you from crying. “It’s about time.”

One by one, torches began to appear in the distance. The cover of night made it difficult to discern which spot of red was which, but the torches just seemed to keep multiplying in number.

“Oh, god, there’s a lot more than fifty,” Jonathan whispered.

As the party continued its forward movement, one of the torches at the lead abruptly began heading back. “That’s Lock-Nah.” You didn’t know how you were so sure of it, but you were.

Every part of you wanted to take him out right at that moment, but you knew you couldn’t. There was no way for you to tell if Ardeth and Rick were in a good location for the fighting to start. Still, your finger tensed over the trigger.

You looked over at Evelyn.

“Go.” She nodded, as if she’d known what you needed to do before you even did.

“Evelyn--”

“Go,” she repeated. “And stay safe.”

You hoped you were able to convey your appreciation adequately through your gaze, taking off a moment later into the jungle.

Somehow, you’d managed not to fall on your way down the cliffside. You were positive, however, that with all the roots and plants you were running over, something was bound to catch your feet and trip you up.

“What the hell am I doing?”

You narrowly caught yourself from going down.

“And now you’re talking to yourself.” You huffed. “Get it together, girl. Ardeth’s going to do something stupid, like try to take that bastard on by himself.” You growled, “‘It’s because he’s bested me.’ Over my dead body.”

You were going to have to have a very serious talk with that man about his infuriating self-sacrificing nature.

All of a sudden, you could hear chittering up ahead of you, followed by a very weak, but familiar cry.

“Oh my god.”

You continued circling back behind the cultists, and were almost back to where you knew Jonathan and Evelyn were waiting when thunder began echoing through the canyon and the wind began to pick up. You could feel your companion becoming restless through your jacket that you’d wrapped around him.

“Don’t even think about it, Horus,” you chastised. “That bandage on your wing is secure, but it won’t stay that way if you start fidgeting around.”

You’d think he was glaring at you.

Shaking your head, you continued forward. “No, I’m not letting anything else happen to you. You’re too important to us.”

His feathers ruffled and he cried out.

“See, this is what I mean. You need to rest and heal and--” You caught yourself and scowled. “Do not let him know I quoted him.” You couldn’t imagine Ardeth gloating, but that ‘knowing’ smile of his was easy to picture.

When the shooting started, you broke into a run. Horus was not happy with the sudden jostling and let you know with an indignant squawk.

“I know, I know. But I’ve got to go help.” You spotted a tall tree a few feet away and hurried to it. “I’m going to put you up high, out of sight.” You did your best to climb one-handed, your other cradling Horus, still tucked in your jacket. Once you figured he’d be out of harm’s way, you settled the bundle on a wide branch. “Do not do anything stupid, ok?” You pointed at him as if you were scolding a child.

Horus let out a chirp and rubbed the side of his head against your finger.

You took that as his sign of agreement, kissed the top of his beak, and scrambled out of the tree. Then you took off again.

“Dad!”

There was shooting and screaming all around you, but you’d know that voice anywhere.

Rick’s was the next you could make out. “Alex!”

You turned in the direction of their voices when a blur of black raced past you, followed by the sounds of metal-on-metal.

“Damn it.”

Of course he just wouldn’t be able to help himself.

As soon as you came upon them, you watched, helpless to prevent Lock-Nah from kicking wide and sweeping Ardeth’s feet out from under him. He managed to roll with it, but the man in red already had his sword ready to strike.

“No!” You did the only thing you could think of and leapt forward, tackling Lock-Nah to the ground.

Your triumph was short-lived and he reminded you of just how strong he was when he threw you off of him, your back slamming against a tree.

“______!”

You couldn’t manage to respond before Lock-Nah was on his feet again. Except this time, Ardeth had the upper hand.

Their blades met a few more times when Ardeth swung his fist and caught the other man on the side of his face. From where you’d been tossed, you silently cheered as several more punches landed. Then Ardeth brought his blade down, hard, slicing him down the front. Another swing, and his throat was slashed.

“That…was for Horus.”

As soon as Lock-Nah fell, Ardeth was at your side.

“Horus--Ardeth--”

“What were you thinking?!”

“Don’t yell at me, please.” You spoke before he had the chance to. “I couldn’t let you have all the fun.”

“You’re going to be the death of me, I believe.” He groaned as he helped you to your feet.

“Oh, I certainly hope not.”

Another man in red appeared behind Ardeth when a shot rang out. Your heart stopped, then practically flew out of your chest when the man dropped instead of Ardeth. You and he both looked up to the ledge to see Jonathan nodding at you before moving to take another shot.

“Rick has Alex. You must go find them and--”

You grabbed his arm. “I’m going with you.”

“I must go to my people.”

“I know.”

He shook his head. “The creature has not been stopped and is on his way to raise the army--”

“Of Anubis. Yes, I know this, too.” You began pulling him away from the fighting, deeper into the jungle.

Only, he stopped moving, completely. “You do not understand. You will be much safer with--”

Rolling your eyes, you cut him off, yet again. “Alex is safe and I’m going with you. We are wasting time with you arguing with me.” Instead of trying to tug him further, you dropped his hand and started off. If he wasn’t going to be moved, then you’d just have to lead him. “Besides, Horus!”

He sighed in frustration, but finally began moving in the right direction.

Ardeth had just caught up to you when he suddenly reached around you and yanked your gun from its holster on your hip. He fired off two quick shots that left behind a screech and a scattering of small bones.

“The hell?”

“The creatures of this jungle that guard the pyramid.” He didn’t hand you back your gun. “They are all over this place and will kill any living thing they find.”

Dread filled your heart. “Oh, god. Horus!” You picked up your pace, knowing that Ardeth would be right behind you still.

“What?”

“I found him!” You gasped, not used to all the running that had very recently become your life.

“You found…”

You ignored your irritation that he didn’t sound the least bit out of breath. “I found Horus!” You skidded to a halt in front of the tree you’d left him in, half expecting to see one of those horrid little creatures trying to attack him. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”

Instead, you found your jacket exactly as you’d left it, still bundled around the injured bird. At the sound of you climbing the tree, Horus poked his head up, chittering away as he spotted you and Ardeth.

“How?”

You gently lifted the bundle and passed it down to him. “He must have fallen when his wing was hit, but he survived.” You hurried down. “I found him on my way to you.” You smiled as you watched him gently examine Horus, taking in the bandage you’d carefully wrapped around his wing, a look of wonder on his face. “Aren’t you happy now that I followed?”

Instead of immediately answering, he leaned down and kissed you. Caught off-guard, it was over before you could truly process and respond.

“My best and most clever friend,” he smiled, “and my sweet girl.” He reached up and brushed his thumb along your cheek. He leaned down again, this kiss much softer and slower.

Mindful of his hold on Horus, you pressed against him. As your lips moved with his, you slid your hands up his chest to rest them on his shoulders. All thought had left your mind and you focused only on what you could feel.

A moment later, Horus began chittering again, much louder than before. Begrudgingly, you broke the kiss, but found you were a little short on breath. “You’re right, of course, Horus. We’ll have more time for this once we win.”

#the mummy #the mummy returns #ardeth bay fanfic #ardeth bay x reader #ardeth bay #fanfic #scruff's stuff

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humanitys-strongest-bamf · 11 months

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...oh boy. we going with all of them? alrighty

tagged by @chaotic-on-main!!!

rules: post the names of the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! tag as many people as you have WIPs!

the levi-related ones will be highlighted in pink since i've done a lot of writing for different fandoms so

Split into folders!

"BSD AU"

"Current" - dazai x reader "mafia days" - mafia!dazai x reader "mafia husband au" - chuuya x reader

2. "First drafts" - these are all canondivergent rewrites of some toaru light novels

"agitate halation arc" "battle royale arc" "DRAGON arc" "WWIII arc"

3. "Main verse" / general - most are related or excerpts of the canondivergent toaru universe unless otherwise specified

"book 1: the darkness within" "book 3 beginnings" "condemnation of the city" "intro to soul magic" - undertale au "purge arc" "soul harvest"

4. "Main verse" / "Series 1: Science" - updated drafts of canondivergent toaru light novel rewrites

"experiment arc" "the descent" "the dark side" "DRAGON" "WWII arc actual" "Ryuuri arc" - introduces another OC "freshman arc" "the next step" "agitate halation arc" "invasion arc"

5. "Main verse" / "Series 2: Magic"

"angel fall arc" "daihaisei arc" "hawaii invasion arc" "intro to magic"

"Misc"

"ATLA" - what it sounds like. OC that is Azula's twin. mostly explores Azula's POV throughout the OG series "norse au" - had some marvel-related dream where i was an odinson and beat the shit out of hela and was like very close with loki and was the true heir to the throne or something idk dreams are weird and sometimes i'll write about them "overwatch heart thing" - idk this has something to do with genji. i dont actually remember LMAO "plot: dazai is pissed at you" - what it sounds like. ex-boyfriend!dazai x reader. gets kinda dark.

"Random AU's that might turn into something" - my AOT content! :D

"Forced Roommates AU" - modern!au levi x reader (I'M STILL WORKING ON THIS GUYS I PROMISE I SWEAR) "Main AU" - canonverse levi x reader with special abilities due to a bloodline heritage "Post-war" - where i hold the parts of Until I See You Again "rivals" - canonverse levi x assassin!reader random WIPs in my drafts: - part 2 of the modern!au oneshot i wrote for @luvjiro - oneshot with flustering levi as he's patching you up - headcanons of levi as a pet!dad - either a canonverse oneshot or drabble of levi breaking up with a reader to protect them but then the reader dies and he wasn't there to protect them - request: canon!divergent scene where reader gets turned into a Titan and levi has to hunt down beardo and feed him to her - drunk love confession - levi attempting to confess his feelings but he's horrifically drunk - levi being reluctant to ask you out on a date - depressed reader and levi comes home to her with a matcha

send me asks if you're interested! even for the non-aot ones! although some i might remember better than others idk i've been writing for a while jadkf;ljd

#: @ohmytomorrowisthursday @fscottcatsgerald @marleysfinest @prettyiwa @mrsackxrman @sixpennydame @dont-f-with-moogles @ghostlykeyes @svftackerman @thevelria @nosleepjustlevi + anyone else i forgot idk i've gotten like 4 hours of sleep in the past 3 days a;dlkfjd

#tag games

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lizzyverydizzyyo · 6 months

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D.E.A.N | Chapter 27 - Descent

Masterlist and overall summary of the whole novel is here. | Prompt on trope-appreciation-tuesdays that inspired this is here. | @whumptober-archive

Fandom : Original Work

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) (XI) (XII) (XIII) (XIV) (XV) (XVI) (XVII) (XVIII) (XIX) (XX) (XXI) (XXII) (XXIII) (XXIV) (XXV) (XXVI) (XXVII) (XXVIII) (XXIX) (XXX) (XXXI - END)

AO3

Wordcount: ± 5232

TW: Threat of Kidnapping, Slutshaming, Allusion to Sexual Abuse/Slavery, Weapon, Firearms, Guns, Light Claustrophobia, Gore

Little by little, their area of safety is getting encroached. They have nowhere else to hide. They have to run. Their charge has to survive.

Whumptober 2023 Themes (last 4 only):

Day 28 — Sacrifice | “You’ll have to go through me.”

Day 29 — Troubled Past Resurfacing

Day 30 — Borrowed Clothing

Day 31 — Setbacks

This story is set in the last half of 2016.

——

Mark automatically pulls down his own visor with one hand and grabs Nick’s wrist quickly with the other, pulling the half-Russian to the far side of the wall. Mark is basically putting himself between Nick and the portion of the wall nearer to Helga people. Some agents follow suit by planting their backs on the wall facing away from Helga people.

Anna and Agent Maxwell also pull down their visors quickly, but they stay put, not seeking shelter behind the wall like the rest of them. They instinctively point their guns up to start shooting.

The two sides exchange bullets for a while before Anna and Imani scurry behind the wall too. Mark is guessing those Helga bastards are also seeking cover as he doesn’t hear any shot toward the wall they’re standing behind.

“How the fuck did we forget to put our visors down?” Anna hisses. “They saw him and some of us now.”

The silence doesn’t last, of course. Someone from Helga's side yells at them.

“Give him back to us and we might consider letting some of you live!”

Nick pulls down his visor and shakes even more while inhaling deeply in fear.

“The fuck we will,” Don hisses.

As they stay quiet and do not give any response to Helga’s ‘offer’, they immediately hear another barrage of shootings. Mark can tangibly feel the machine gun ammos hitting the wall quite hard beside the loud sounds. He also hears the concrete starting to get chipped away bit by bit.

Something as strong as machine guns like Helga’s, and theirs too (although he doesn’t know if they have the same exact ones; they only had split second to see those Helga members before hiding), will eventually wear down even the strongest concrete after a while. On top of that, if they get hit on the body repeatedly once the wall gets broken down enough, their bullet-proof vests and helmets won’t do shit because they’ll be too battered.

Machine gun ammos are nothing like pistol bullets.

They can’t keep staying on the defensive like this in this spot, so Lena and Horace take turns now swiveling around the wall to shoot back.

The firings of the ammos still sound extremely loud despite their helmets’ visors being put down again and covering their heads. Nick is visibly more affected compared to the rest of them, whimpering endlessly while trying to put his hands on his ears. His mind is probably too panicked and muddled to remember that he has the bag handle around his wrist weighing his arms down, and that he has helmet on so his hands can’t touch his head regardless.

Lena and Horace step back again behind the wall.

“Fuck, what do we do? We can’t get past them,” Lena hisses urgently, “It’s too exposed and dangerous.”

Mark hears loud muffled breathing from the four of them who were just done shooting as they look at each other.

“Come oooon, you communist slut! Come with us nicely like a good boy you are… and we’re not gonna be too mean to you back in the port!”

At the disgusting sing-song voice of a different Helga member, Nick now shifts his arms to hug his own body tightly, muttering ‘no, no, no, no’. He is trembling so badly that Mark can palpably feel the shaking against his own arm that touches Nick. Mark can see those thin fingers looking pale as they squeeze his own upper arms in a death grip.

The others look at Nick, then to their right where they know that if they turn around the corner, they’ll face those Helga people again.

“We can’t let them get away either,” Horace states urgently and hurriedly as he looks back to the others, “They’re gonna tell the rest of their members that the real Bel is here.”

Mark looks at Nick, sure that the boy is crying despite not being able to see through the visor clearly. He then firmly stares at Horace.

“We gotta turn around.”

They all visibly look confused and even dumbfounded by his suggestion.

“We clearly can’t get past them here, because they’ll know he’s with us and will chase him even if we manage to get to our escape van,” Mark explains tensely, “but look,” he raises his wrist to show his watch the drags the screen to the left, seeing many pulsating dots concentrated in the center area, “if we bring them around their other members while we also mix up with our other agents, we might be able to confuse them again.”

“That’s too far, Mark!” Lena argues incredulously, “You’re just putting Bel in danger too by bringing him to the center of the battle.”

“Well, how are we going to get past them?” he retorts back, “and how are we going to keep them from snitching to the other members?”

They all immediately turn to their right again, instinctively flinching and bowing their heads down when the shooting from the other side starts. Imani and Anna swivel around to shoot back for a few seconds then return to behind the wall.

“Listen,” Mark tries again as the shooting is paused, “there are 12 of us here. Enough to protect him while we mix up in the center.”

They bow down again when the shooting starts, now with Agent Smith and Doctor Lowe attacking back. Mark doesn’t have too much time to ponder how adept the surgeon surprisingly is with his weapon before they return to their hiding position.

After that, Mark looks to his left shortly from where they came before trying to reach the back door. He then turns back to the rest of Claws.

“We can even contact Eclipse in the meantime to start being loud and making a ruckus again, so that those Helga handlers don’t know which members have the right info on Bel’s whereabouts.”

Horace tsks, conflicted and distressed. He looks back and forth between their right side where they’ll see Helga people as they turn around the corner, and their left side to go deeper into the center of the headquarter.

Unexpectedly, Doctor Lowe hisses out, “Fuck it.”

He immediately crouches-walk to their left side, basically making the choice on behalf of everybody else in Claws. They are too dumfounded and anxious to argue, so they start following the surgeon. While doing that, Doctor Lowe’s hand goes up to his shoulder to click several times on his upper vest, speaking quietly but repeatedly, “MA56 to Eclipse. Over. MA56 to Eclipse. Over.”

The physician hisses out ‘fuck’ again, clearly upset and a little bit more panicked that he can’t connect to the decoy team. Mark is sure that the surgeon and everybody else share the same concern that something might have happened to the decoy team, judging by their tense and worried body language.

Even as they crouch-walk back towards the direction they came from, they still feel and hear bullets from Helga people they faced before, seemingly starting to shoot again. It almost feels like those people know where Claws is going and are following them with their bullets.

He is unfortunately correct about that because even when they’re leaving the wall before they saw the backdoor, they feel the shots following them to their left side now.

It’s a good thing that Marcus and Agent Van Hoven are quick and well-trained enough that they can quickly pull back and push at Nick. They abruptly and effectively stop the rest of Claws—who are now behind them both—from continuing to walk. They will be going to the uncovered and unprotected area beside the wall, exposing themselves to Helga’s people’s relentless ammos, otherwise.

“We know you’re going that way, assholes! We’re not leaving until we get that bitch back!”

“Fuck,” Mark curses quietly after the yell from that Helga man.

He realizes now Claws is basically stuck behind this particular wall because those Helga members are going to shoot them anyway, whether they’re going to the right or left. It’s not helping that they might have noted how Nick is dressed and therefore can easily track him down no matter what happens.

“How do we get away now?”

The rest of Claws turn urgently to Agent Maxwell, who is now taking the rear after the turn-around. Then they look away again. They’re really all stuck here.

Helga people start shooting things again, so Mark looks towards Agent Van Hoven beside him. They both nod to each other before swiveling to the other side of the wall, now that they’re the closest to the edge this time. They start shooting back continuously until they see that Helga people are crouching again and hiding for cover.

“We need to make a break for it,” Agent Van Hoven immediately tells the rest of them with rapid breathing after he and Mark go back to hiding behind the wall, “We need to immediately go to the center now.”

Mark can tell from their body language that they don’t like the sound of that, but they dejectedly nod anyway when they realize they really have no choice. They need to confuse Helga people and get the help of other agents to protect Nick, and also to shake off Helga members from their backs who have seen Nick to make sure Nick’s delivery is safe.

“Okay, three of us—” Mark informs the rest of them while pointing at himself, Agent Van Hoven, and Don, “—will cover you all while you go there.” Mark now cocks his head to the side where there is another wall they can go to that is more closed-off. That way, they’re not exposed to Helga people anymore.

The other 8 agents nod gravely at him, and that’s all he needs to see to swivel around the wall with the other two agents. He, Agent Van Hoven, and Don are walking sideways to keep facing and shooting those Helga members, providing cover for the crouching Claws agents and Nick so that they can cross to the other side.

“Aghr,” he cries out, staggering backward slightly as he feels several bullets hitting his lower abdomen. The power of Helga’s machine gun ammos feels quite strong and painful even despite his bullet-proof vest.

He senses them pausing slightly behind him, especially Nick who is trying to stand up and touch him.

“GO!” he shouts instead, pushing them to keep moving until they’re safe on the other side.

While still walking sideways and continuing to cover the rest of Claws, he hears swearing from those Helga people, shouting at each other to fall back—accompanied by several thudding sounds of bodies hitting the ground. He doesn’t know whether they’re his bullets, Agent Van Hoven’s, or Don’s, but he feels relief and somewhat sickening satisfaction anyway knowing that some of those people are now dead.

Good. Fewer degenerate Helga members to worry about.

Once they’re close enough to the other wall they’re trying to cross, three of them follow the rest to crouch-walk behind the wall for cover. All 12 of them then continue walking further inward to the headquarter’s center, away from the Helga people they were just attacking.

It’s only now that he allows himself to feel the pain from the bullets before. He is sure that he is badly bruised under his shirt and vest, but no bleeding yet.

Which is good because there is no identifying condition or signs on his body to tell the rest of Helga's people which agent he is. Those Helga members will hopefully not be able to tell if Mark is one of Nick’s chaperone agents, so they won’t suspect the person escaping with Mark is Nick, if he has to go solo.

They start running again once safe from the group of Helga members they were in a standoff before, trying to find a roundabout way to go to the backyard again while mixing up with the other agents. They are thinking that this is going to work, but they see some Helga members again halfway through their run, although those members can’t see them.

“Listen,” Mark hears a static voice from one of the members’ radios, “we saw the kid there. We’re trying to follow him. There are two tall guys with a short woman and another woman who is black. If you see those people, the whore is with them.”

Uh oh. That’s not good. They’re snitching to this group now.

“Goddammit,” Horace growls, keeping his voice low still. He then instructs hurriedly, “Go faster! Don’t let them see us!”

Obviously, they do go faster, knowing that it’s impertinent that they mix with the other agents as quickly as possible.

But Lena suddenly pushes a hand at Nick again with Anna and Imani stopping abruptly. These new people happen to be turning in their direction. If Claws walked too fast and didn’t stop in time, those men would have seen them.

“You sure this lot are the ones who have our kid? We can’t see them yet,” Mark hears one of the men says to the HT he puts close to his mouth.

“Yes, I think there is also an old fat guy with a rifle attacking us before,” a person on the other side of the radio says to the Helga person using the HT, “and another really muscular guy, but not too tall.”

The static familiar voice belongs unmistakably to the man they were attacking before. Mark is guessing that man is talking about Doctor Lowe and Don respectively.

“That ain’t shit,” one man of the new enemy group spits out almost irritably, “There are other tall muscular guys and some fat ones too we saw before. These elite SWAT guys are all wearing similar clothes. We can’t tell them apart.”

Mark can palpably feel Nick sagging beside him in relief, as do the others who also sigh in relief surreptitiously.

Trying to mix up with the other agents and using the decoy team still seem to be viable options right now.

“That whore isn’t. He is wearing a deep red jacket under his vest. I saw the hood on his upper back. You can’t miss him.”

Oh shit. That’s bad. They recognize Nick specifically.

Beside him, Nick whimpers weakly, whispering ‘Oh god’.

“You need to get the rest of those pieces of shit too. They got 4 of our guys here.”

That’s really not good. They’re going to be vengeful and out for blood now.

Lena turns to lean back against the wall, breathing deeply and audibly anxious.

“We need to create distraction,” they say to the rest.

Lena waits for a while, but no one responds. They end up tsking in annoyance and frustration.

“Listen,” they start again, “See that?”

Mark and the rest of Claws look towards where Lena is pointing with their chin nod.

“Probably only few dozen meters away from the middle of this headquarter. We can all hear them, right?”

They all visibly strain their ears at Lena’s words.

Even covered by several layers of walls, they do hear other agents shooting, shouting, and running around. Mark also hears the crackling of his earpiece with so many agents trying to communicate one after another, audio relentless.

He is sure the rest of the people with him right now also hear them.

Once in a while, they also hear a booming and some screams, knowing that some explosive traps have been set off.

“You all need to keep forward there with Bel, while me and Don will go right there to the back again.”

Lena now cocks their head to the left where the unassuming Helga people are standing. Don immediately spins his head to the left almost in shock.

“What?!” he asks incredulously.

“We’re supposed to guard the backyard anyway. Might as well distract these men by going there together.”

Don, despite his head still covered by his helmet, visibly appears confused and conflicted.

Lena decides to take matters into their own hands.

They reach out a hand before the rest of Claws can process it, taking a block of chipped concrete and holding it tightly. Without warning, they throw it powerfully to the side so that it flies far out away from where they’re all hiding.

“Shit, those SWAT guys are here!”

They hear people from Helga now cocking their guns and running to where the concrete block landed.

“Come on!” Lena rushes Don.

Don falters a bit, but he finally relents and crouches to the left to follow Lena.

“Listen, you’re Bel. Remember that,” Lena says to Nick while pausing shortly with a palm firmly on his shoulder.

Nikolai frantically nods, so Lena crouch-runs again, followed by Don.

Just like with team Eclipse, Lena yells out, “Nick, come on!” although more strained and whispery, probably to make it believable that they’re really trying to secretly run with Nick.

“I hear them! There!”

The team waits for a bit until they hear shootings, presumably from both Don and Lena versus those Helga members. Mark can only hope they’re careful enough not to get hit or injured.

After that, team Claws crouch-run deeper into the middle of the headquarter.

They keep looking down to their watches once in a while, following the structure of the building with its many zigzagging walls, basically retracing their steps before they got ambushed by the first Helga group they faced previously.

Mark hears clanging of bullets hitting some concrete and metals, and he sees the people in front of him ducking even deeper with hands over their heads. Once in a while, they abruptly pause and plant their backs on a wall—noticing some Helga people near them—so that they don’t get caught. Sometimes, they have no choice but to show themselves and return the bullets.

Mark gets grazed slightly, and so do several agents in Claws, but Nick is still unscathed. Even so, their injuries can be noted, and the more they’re injured, the less effective they are in protecting Nick.

Along the route they are using, they get more and more mixed up with the other agents outside of Claws, just as they planned before, and they hiss some short information quietly to each other while they pass those agents. Some Helga people see them, and Mark notices with heart pumping even harder and faster that there are way more Helga people than they anticipated.

Before Claws started running to the backyard for their escape vehicle, the briefing agents did say that there are more Helga people coming in than what they predicted, but Mark didn’t think it’s this numerous. He tries to hold on to the fact that the chaos does seem to successfully confuse Helga people, apparent from those members they occasionally pass by and attack.

Until a group calls out, “That’s the kid! Red jumper!”

Imani pulls Nick’s wrist to drag him away, crouching fast to hide behind some desks turned over to their sides. The rest of Claws follow suit.

“I just fucking saw the kid there before! Where did they go?” they hear again from different man this time.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Doctor Lowe hisses out.

Fuck, indeed, Mark thinks.

Even if they manage to hide at the last second, he knows it’s only time before they’re discovered again.

He has no doubt now that many—if not all—Helga people know what Nick is wearing, and there is no way their plan to mix up is going to work as well anymore.

Or at all.

“What do we do?” Agent Leonard says now.

Horace slightly looks over the desk only to duck quickly as he narrowly misses a bullet shot in their way. Mark doesn’t know whether that bullet is shot by a D.E.A.N agent, or Helga person. Whether it’s a stray bullet that just happens to be shot this way, or if it’s intentionally directed here.

Horace tsks and pulls up his visor, and some follow suit. It seems that the claustrophobic space inside the helmet is making them all more panicked and not think straight.

“There is no other way now. We have to run to the back again to get to the van. We don’t have time to go round and round,” Horace says firmly to them all. “We need to get to the backup as soon as possible. Otherwise, Bel is gonna get stuck here.”

“They saw us! They know that Bel is here!”

“Yes, Doctor, but we’re already in the middle of this headquarter and we’ve mixed up again, but clearly they know which one is Bel, so it doesn’t mean shit,” Horace explains.

They all look towards each other again then at Nick who is audibly breathing and trembling even harder while gripping the medical bag so tight. He is currently keeping quiet under his closed visor, at least.

On the other side, they hear more yelling of Helga people informing their own lot about the possible whereabouts of Nick. The voices, shootings, and hitting sounds get closer and closer to where they’re hiding, as shown by their watches too with brown pulsating dots approaching their spot.

“Give me your jacket,” Robert suddenly says to Nick with an arm put out.

The others, including Nick, look at him in puzzlement.

“Give me your jacket,” he repeats more firmly, “I need to distract them so that you can go.”

“What? How?” Agent Maxwell asks, still as confused as the rest of them.

“I can pretend to be him and go with some of you to be the new decoy team.”

He can see understanding and agreement dawning on the faces around him.

“No,” Nick says firmly while slamming up his visor, now aware of what Agent Van Hoven is planning. Nick looks furious.

“Bel… that might work. We can safely deliver you to the backup team that way,” Mark now responds, more comfortable and at ease now with calling Nick something else.

“No, absolutely not. I’m not about to throw someone under the bus,” Nick states again, even more adamant. “If I’m gonna go, I’m going together with all of you.”

"Look, they already saw you. They know what clothes you're wearing," Agent Van Hoven continues hurriedly. "We can't use the original decoy plan to just send random agents to a vehicle and drive away. Helga guys aren't gonna take the bait."

Robert peeks over the desk for a bit.

“God knows where Eclipse even is at this point.”

Nick has a petulant face. He is not budging.

"I'm the only one here with body shape similar enough to become your decoy. No one else is. Right now, we need to distract them so you can get out of here," Robert tells him again, probably hoping that technical explanation will sway Nick.

Robert's head turns around a bit to see behind him again. They're still not spotted yet, but the clash is getting closer.

"But they're gonna kill you if they find out you’re false me!" Nick hisses to be quiet, although his face looks somewhat angry and aghast by the idea.

"We can take care of ourselves, all right?" Robert tries to encourage him again.

"I made that server to save my own ass and that got a lot more people hurt," Nick argues again with a determined voice, "I'm not gonna sacrifice someone else to save myself again."

Some agents—like 1082's commanding officer Agent Imani Maxwell, Doctor Lowe, and Agent Barbara Smith from 1023—hiss in frustration, while Anna massages the bridge of her nose, whispering "god fucking dammit". Angie, Horace, and Agent Harry Leonard message their temples instead. Even Mark feels irritated and impatient by Nick's idealist steadfastness while in a dire and time-sensitive moment like this.

Unexpectedly, Robert's face softens, and he talks gently.

"Listen, bud."

His expression is without a trace of the impersonal professionalism that he had before, which the other agents still sport on their own faces. Robert doesn’t seem to prefer the same approach of being forceful and unfeeling towards Nick.

"We all signed up for this. We were given an offer to join D.E.A.N, and we took it. We're trained and paid for this."

He chuckles softly then.

"And by god, we're paid a shit load of money."

Robert's dark eyes search for Nick's heterochromatic ones, serious again.

"But you didn't. You never signed up for any of this. Not even creating that server. Did you?"

Nick still seems unsure and reluctant.

"If you need to know," Robert now has one hand on Nick's shoulder with an earnest look, "this is legit the first time in my D.E.A.N career—no, in my life—that I feel like I'm doing something useful and meaningful. Something bigger than myself."

Even with the chaos of screaming and shooting and all kinds of ruckus in the background, Mark doesn't expect to feel the same softness displayed by 1034's deputy's face, and the same hope that all of his training—his informal training with Jackson his whole life, and then his formal ones with D.E.A.N—will bear fruit. That he is doing something right, for once.

"You're the key to bringing down Helga, doesn't matter with D.E.A.N or whoever else. You want that, right?" Robert asks with conviction on his face now, "destroying Helga so no one is getting hurt by them again and they can be held accountable?"

After a while, Nick gives the smallest nod, almost imperceptible to Mark.

"You're more important than any individual agent here," Robert continues, "than me."

He waits a little until Nick looks more receptive to his sentiment and words.

"So give me your jacket, and let us do our job, okay?"

They all wait with bated breaths for a while, seeing whether or not Nick is going to be convinced, so they can't help sighing deeply in relief when Nick starts to take off his helmet, unzips his bullet-proof vest, and pulls up his jacket. He hands it to Agent Van Hoven before putting on his vest and zipping it up again while putting on his helmet.

Everyone here is already wearing similar fitted cargo pants, so that's not a concern.

"Good," the 1034's deputy says again, his professionalism back on his face.

The light-brunet haired man immediately lifts his rifle strap from his shoulder and puts it down. He then takes off his helmet too before unzipping and shedding his own vest to quickly pull Nick's jacket over his head and his body. Right after, he wears his helmet and his vest properly again, then he pulls the hood of the jacket completely out from under the vest to make sure it is visible from afar.

"This is gonna hide my light hair so they will believe I'm you," Agent Van Hoven now explains while pointing at the helmet covering his head.

“Who’s coming with me?”

Agent Maxwell crouches just ever so slightly to Agent Van Hoven, as does Horace and Agent Maxwell’s own deputy.

Angie is about to join, but Horace pushes his hand on her shoulder.

“You’re our best driver and paramedic. You need to go with him.”

Angie then nods and crouches closer to Nick instead.

“As planned before, Doctor Lowe will go with Bel no matter what,” now 1082’s commanding officer is the one instructing, “for medical protection and…” she looks slightly at the rifle slung over the surgeon’s shoulder, “… other forms of protection.”

She then turns to Horace and Anna.

“And at least either 1056’s commanding officer or the deputy too. So that will be you, Agent Basset.”

Anna nods too and follows Angie.

All of them turn to Mark without saying anything. They know automatically that he won’t leave Nick even if he is dragged kicking and screaming.

So Agent Smith crouches to Robert instead.

Since Robert's rifle is already taken off when he was wearing Nick's jacket, he now shoves it towards the dark-skinned woman.

"Imani, hold this for me. Those bastards aren’t gonna be convinced if I'm suddenly good at shooting them," he explains again to 1082's commanding officer.

She simply nods, but Nick doesn't seem to like the idea.

"How are you gonna protect yourself?!" he cries out quite loudly, earning a glare from the rest of them.

"Don't worry about it. They’re not gonna injure me as long as they’re still convinced I am you,” Robert says hurriedly, pulling out the sleeves and the hem of the jacket too, making it even more of an obvious metaphorical beacon. “Besides, Agent Maxwell, Agent Leonard, and Agent Smith are more than enough to make up for my skill. As I’m sure Agent Fernandez is too."

Agent Van Hoven turns to Nick shortly to lightly say with a wink, "And I'm pretty crafty, believe me."

Nick still looks disapproving, but the deputy pulls down the visor of his helmet, effectively cutting short the conversation.

"Pull down your own now and go."

Agent Van Hoven instructs with muffled voice to several of the agents who have their visors up. They all follow Robert’s command, then lift themselves to half-crouch. The team for second decoy is turning to the left where they’ll leave the safety of the desks’ cover and out into the open, now preparing to commence their plan and basically jump into the headquarter’s battle area, while Nick's chaperone team turns the other way.

Unexpectedly, Robert turns around again and holds Nick's shoulder quickly.

"I'm really sorry about this," he says with regretful voice.

Before anyone can process it, he turns around again, saying "Come on" to the rest of the second decoy team. It's not until that team is far enough into the actual battle area that the chaperone team realizes what Robert means.

As the chaperone team starts to crouch away slowly, Mark sees Agent Van Hoven's right arm going to his front to pull out a rectangular device, which he assumes is from 1034’s deputy’s front pocket under his vest and Nick’s jacket. Mark doesn’t think he saw the deputy holding it before.

He then sees Robert raising his arm as high as possible, and suddenly, there is a recording of Nick's voice being played really loudly for several loops before he lowers his arm again.

"Please don’t touch me, don’t hurt me, please!”

Mark is in too much adrenaline rush and urgency to get Nick to safety that he doesn't have the time to feel pissed. He doesn't have enough space in his brain to fully process that Agent Van Hoven—or anyone at all—has decided to record some of the audio from Nick's molestation footage.

"Hey, that's his voice!" he hears someone yelling with a voice that Mark knows doesn't belong to one of the D.E.A.N agents here.

"That fucking whore!"

"He is going there, I see him!"

That's his cue to push Nick and crouch-run faster with the remaining chaperone agents.

“Go, go, go!” he rushes them from behind them.

He’s desperately hoping the second decoy team is effective enough to basically draw out most of Helga people to the middle area and away from the back, because he doesn’t know how else they will survive with only 5 people here.

He might have seriously fucked up previously by suggesting going back to the middle of the headquarter and converging with the other agents, so now this is their very last plan in their arsenal.

It has to work.

***

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) (XI) (XII) (XIII) (XIV) (XV) (XVI) (XVII) (XVIII) (XIX) (XX) (XXI) (XXII) (XXIII) (XXIV) (XXV) (XXVI) (XXVII) (XXVIII) (XXIX) (XXX) (XXXI - END)

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supreme-leader-stoat · 2 years

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wait are you saying ring of power is trash because of the diverse cast or bc its Amazon? bc apparently a lot of critics are being racist af about the casting than anything else

Because it's Amazon (especially given that earlier Amazon was using their ownership of IMDb to scrub any negative reviews regardless of validity or content), the creators have made pretty abundantly clear their disregard for the source material ("Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote," "But that was then, this is now and we’re telling the story now"), poor treatment of stunt specialists, really bad props and costuming (the elves especially), throwing out established characterization and timelines, dwarven women not having beards (yeah yeah it's a bit of a silly thing to gripe about, but we Tolkien fans are nothing if not devoted to detail), just the general vibe of trying to turn this into the next Game of Thrones instead of letting it be its own thing, etc., etc., the list goes on.

I'm not 100% happy with the casting, but that's probably the most minor and ultimately inconsequential of my criticisms, more rooted in a love of source material accuracy than anything else. If we were talking about a fantasy story in a setting rooted in African mythology, I think it'd make sense to want Black actors to portray it. If we were looking at something like The Stormlight Archive being adapted, I'd probably want most of the major actors to be Polynesian and/or Arabic, since that's how the Alethi are described as looking. This is a setting inspired by European mythology, so for accuracy's sake it makes sense to me to cast actors of European descent. If I thought the show was actually making an earnest effort as an adaptation in other regards, it's a divergence I'd happily roll with, but taken with everything else it just comes off as one more instance of not caring about the source material except as a vehicle to promote what should have been a wholly original story to begin with.

#like I don't doubt that there's people being racist #because this is The Internet #but I'm not about to let Amazon use what has so far accounted for a vast VAST minority of any criticism I've seen directed at this show #to paint over the rest of this show's detractors #who on the whole I think have very valid reasons for being disappointed #like this isn't just a Tolkien thing #everyone deserve better than having their favorite stories churned out into superficial adaptations by people who don't care about them #all so megacorps can make a quick buck

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twst-drabbles · 1 year

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anon said:

I personally love your yandere and eldritch horror au. I really like the fresh feeling of your Yuu's personality, its uncommon but needed. Your writing is great ! Its engaging, even though it kind of goes straight to the point, it doesnt use too short or dry sentences, but it also doesnt use long repetitive paragraphs. I find it very nice to read. As for yanderes, I just love your take on them, specially since you write from their point of view (thats also something else i like! That its usually the characters pov and not Yuu's) I can read their messed up feelings without it feeling too cliche or repetitive. Like from what ive read, yanderes usually share the same thought process and it gets boring and ooc eventually. You make them very unique and satisfying in my opinion.

(I'll keep you on anon as asked.)

Yeah it is different compared to a novel style of writing. I do occasionally try to linger in the moment but it ends up spanning over 800 words, which tumblr does not like and cuts me out of the search system. I like seeing my stuff in the main tag, like seeing my painting in a gallery.

Hehehhehehe the head of yandere's are all a mix up of emotion vs morality and it's nice to see who would lean towards which side. It's like observing a parasite borrowing into someone's brain and all they can do is either fight it or let it kill them with bliss. I like yanderes who's whole thing is to keep you happy, keep you you, you know? But yes I don't like having each yandere have the same thought process, I want to see that descent into madness, into parasitic indulgence. I want to see their minds break. It brings me joy.

#admin

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nyroom · 1 year

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Coffins of Glass and Mako - Chapter 1

It was a miracle that, after bleeding out on Midgar's doorstep, Zack Fair breathed again. Now he has to acclimate to a world that has left him behind.

However, there are drawbacks to playing God. Cloud is about to learn that the hard way. [A03 Link] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3]

After all of the hardships he’s been through, peace seems to be a novel concept. Could a world like theirs ever truly be at peace? Could someone so visibly cracked and broken relax into the monotony of life? The more the days went by, pushing the geostigma crisis farther and farther into the past, the more Cloud could believe it.

Yet although he had made peace with his ghosts, it did not magically make him okay. The cracks running through his person were still wide and yawning. Some days, he felt as though even getting out of bed would shatter him completely.

Tifa was there for him on those days. She seemed to know exactly what he needed without him vocalizing it. He wanted to repay her someday, even if he knew how she’d react. She’d never accept payment. Not for this.

Still, there were some days where even Tifa couldn’t penetrate the dark storm hanging around Cloud. On those days, the only thing he could do was get out of everyone’s way and find a nice quiet place to sit and think. Tifa would sigh, hands on her hips, and remind him to try and come home in time for dinner. He always tried.

He knew it hurt her, being unable to help him in these moments. He wished he could make it easier on her. He wished he wasn’t so fucked in the head.

Before geostigma, he’d find himself cooped up in the church, licking the wounds of his grief and weakness. Now, he’d take Fenrir and just drive in whatever direction he fancied. He could almost imagine that he was outrunning his turbulent emotions; that if he drove fast enough, they’d never catch up and consume him. Sometimes, it worked.

This time, there was something else calling for his attention. Currently in the middle of nowhere, Gaia knows how many miles from Edge, Cloud straddled the idle Fenrir. Lush greenery surrounded the dirt path he had been traveling, threatening to swallow it whole. He had a feeling that it’d soon be impossible to navigate on his bike; if he wanted to continue, it would need to be on foot.

This wasn’t what stopped him, however. To the right of the path, the ground sloped up into a gentle hill, stopping right in front of a large waterfall. At the edge of the hill, a moss covered railing guarded against what was no doubt a steep drop off. From his current vantage under the trees, he couldn’t see the top, let alone the bottom.

Honestly, he wasn’t really sure what it was about it that had caught his attention. Perhaps it was the feeling of tranquility that smoothed over his frayed senses, rushing the negativity away down the waterfall. Perhaps it was the desire to find something - anything - to distract him from the solemn feelings of loneliness lurking at the corners of his mind. Either way, he found himself kicking the kickstand of Fenrir up and dismounting, curiously drifting towards the railing.

He had only made it halfway there before making a critical misstep.

Instincts honed from memories both real and fabricated tensed his muscles as he ascended the hill. Yet Cloud went oblivious, his mind eons away. Had he been paying attention, he would have noticed the ground under his feet growing firmer as he went along. The foliage wasn't hiding grass and dirt under his boots, not really.

It's only when an ominous metallic creek sounded under his feet that Cloud finally tuned in to what his body had been trying to warn him about. He glanced down, halfway through his next step, and realized too late his mistake.

It happened too quickly for his mind to process. One moment, he’s walking through a dense, peaceful forest. The next, he’s being plunged into a dizzying freefall as the ground gave way with a deafening snap. Fingertips grazed the edge of the newly formed hole, hoping to stop his sudden descent, yet as usual Cloud’s skills fell too short.

All he could do was squeeze his eyes shut, brace himself, and hope to Gaia that he didn't break his neck on impact. Tifa would never forgive him, nor would Aerith when he met her in the Lifestream.

Luckily, he didn't break his neck. In fact, he didn't break anything at all. Though he did hear something break as he crashed into the ground with a cacophony of noise, a cautious flexing of his limbs proved that everything was where it was supposed to be. He blinked the stars from his eyes, squinting up at where the sunlight peeked through the hole. How far had he fallen?

Far enough that he couldn't easily climb back out again, that was for sure. Cloud sat up with a groan, rubbing the back of his head, and glared moodily at the hole. Great. This is what you get for going off the beaten path. He should have turned back when the path became unnavigable.

Though it was tempting to sit and stew in his self pity, doing so would not get him out of here any faster. With great reluctance, he shoved his moodier thoughts to the back of his mind and allowed his cadet training to kick in. First thing’s first: assess the situation. Where was he?

As his gaze lowered to survey his surroundings, his blood ran cold. Nowhere good.

Green bubbles blinding his senses, seeping into every pore, choking him, drowning him, burning him from the inside out.

No, he wasn’t - he wasn’t there. Cloud steadied his breathing, unclenched his muscles, and looked again upon the clear tanks lining the back wall. Cased in mako, each tank held a monster of some kind, none of which resembled those that roamed the ground above them. They thankfully remained still, seemingly dormant. Cloud would not need his sword just yet.

Under him, papers were strewn in a disorganized mess on the now broken table he seemed to have landed on, some having escaped to lay on the hard floor below. In the dim light, Cloud couldn’t make out the contents - not that he really had any desire to anyways - but he noticed the words “FAILED” stamped on several in angry red letters. He jerked his gaze away, resting on a bookshelf that stood against the opposite wall. It was easily the neatest thing in this mess of a Shinra lab.

An abandoned Shinra lab, Cloud reminded himself. If not for Shinra ceasing to exist, the heavy dust particles drifting through the air proved that no one had stepped foot in this place in what was likely years. There would be no guards pointing guns at his head, nor any scientists waving syringes in his face. Cloud was safe. Cloud was free.

Breathe in, breathe out.

This lab would need to be dealt with at the appropriate time. For now, Cloud needed to find his way out of here. There must be a way back to the surface somewhere; an elevator, a ladder, something. The sooner he found it, the sooner he could leave this unpleasantness behind.

Cloud picked himself up off of the broken table, checking to make sure his sword was still strapped to his back. After all, though the monsters in this room didn’t look like they’d be causing any problems, their presence alone meant this area was dangerous.

Once satisfied, he moved on to the next order of business; pulling out a battered flashlight that he had salvaged from the slums. A decommissioned Shinra lab was unlikely to still have running power, and it’s not like he could count on more person-shaped holes filtering in natural sunlight. He clicked it on, waiting patiently as it sputtered to life. Hopefully the battery will hold.

Settled, he ran a rough hand through his hair and expelled a forceful breath. There was no time like the present to get a mosey on.

Whatever was out there, Cloud was as ready as he’d ever be for it.

As it turned out, this particular lab was a labyrinth of dusty corridors and rusty catwalks. The more Cloud wandered, the less clear it got where an exit would even be. How did the scientists get around without getting lost?

Though any monster he encountered was safely locked behind mako tanks, Cloud wished there was something to fight to break up the quiet, dilapidated setting. It would be a welcome reprieve to meandering through a waking nightmare. Instead, he found his eyes drifting across each tank’s panel as he passed, unable to help reading.

Project Z-BLHD452 - FAILED

Project Z-SAH719 - FAILED

Project Z-DTHCLW400 - FAILED

Not one panel with an occupied tank was free from the “FAILED” marking. That must have been why the lab was abandoned: whatever this Project Z was, it clearly wasn’t a viable use of Shinra’s resources. Still, why leave them here? Why not neutralize them? Cloud himself was living proof that escaping a lab was possible. Abandoning this lab with their specimens unguarded was like burying a ticking time bomb.

Exactly the kind of stupid, reckless mistake that Shinra would make. That was why the Turks had existed; to clean up this kind of stupid mistake. Cloud huffed out a harsh sigh and pushed it from his mind. Shinra was gone. Their mistakes weren’t his weight to carry anymore.

A heavy, metal door at the end of the hallway caught his attention. This was much more secure than the other doors he had passed through. It seemed like a good candidate for “exit” to him. Rolling his shoulders, he braced himself and slowly heaved the door open inch by agonizing inch.

Sunlight filtered through the broken wall of the room beyond the door, the foliage from the outside having creeped in and made its home among the various instruments. Much like the first room he had landed in, this one had a desk with various papers covering its surface. A large closet was also tucked against the wall opposite of the hole, vines having crawled up its side.

However, the centrepiece of the room was easily the large mako tank near the back centre wall. Though it had nearly been overtaken by the moss that covered 80% of its surface, he could tell that the glass peeking through it was thicker than the other tanks in the other rooms. The base of the tank seemed to have escaped the moss, and Cloud’s heart dropped into the soles of his feet as he caught sight of the specimen within.

From under the moss, tanned human legs floated in mako, visible from the knee down. Its bare feet were manacled together at the ankles by thick, metal chains. Pieces of something floated alongside them, too small to discern. Much like the monsters in the other tank, it seemed like the person locked inside was dormant; asleep or dead remained to be seen.

Another human experiment. Of course, why would Cloud think he was the last one?

How long had this person been down here, rotting away while their friends and family mourned them? Were they a civilian caught in the crossfire? A prisoner of war? Another poor Shinra employee who saw too much? The possibilities were endless, considering who he was dealing with.

He clenched his shaking hand into a fist, willing his anger to stagnate. No, he wouldn’t allow the cycle to perpetuate after Shinra’s death. He would free this person himself, if nothing more than to give them the decency of a proper burial. He would not let them be left to the whims of the inevitable recovery crew, who would no doubt dump them into a ditch like trash to be forgotten.

Cloud set to work tearing at the moss with his bare hands, discarding clumps of it at his feet. He worked from the base up, little by little uncovering the person. Eventually, he could see the person’s thighs, hips, and arms.

As he worked, he kept a running tally of what he could observe, attempting in some way to humanize what was most likely a dead test subject. It was more than the scientists would have done. It was more than what was done for him.

The person was a man; tall and muscled. His hands were hidden behind his back. Cloud would guess that they were manacled in a similar fashion as his ankles were. His tan spoke of someone who lived down south, maybe in Costa del Sol. A few scars - not surgical in nature, thankfully - marred the man’s skin and spoke of a hard life.

Yet as Cloud got to his torso, those scars became more numerous, leaving precious few inches of skin untouched. He felt his hands beginning to shake once more.

The scars were bullet holes.

In hindsight, he couldn’t say what went through his head at that moment. His mind had gone blank as he stared at the man’s chest, feeling the phantom memory of rain pelting his back. He felt dizzy. His ears rang. Nausea bubbled in his stomach.

Cloud reached up and tore off the moss covering the man’s face.

Wild, spiky hair spread out like a halo through the mako, framing attractive features that had gained the attention of men and women alike. Though his eyes were closed and his face was slack, Cloud could still vividly recall how his bright smile shifted the cross shaped scar cut into his cheek.

He staggered back, legs giving out on him and sending him down onto his backside. What he saw wasn’t real, it couldn’t have been. He rubbed his eyes as harsh as he dared, blinked several times, and even dug his nails into the flesh of his cheeks, yet the vision before him remained. He repeated the process, just to be sure.

His best friend in spite of all odds, the man who had carried him across the continent to his own detriment, the one who had died for him…

He was Project Z: First Class SOLDIER Zack Fair.

#nyroom writes #cloud strife #zack fair #zakkura #clack #final fantasy 7 #final fantasy vii #not sure how happy i am with this but if i keep editing it i will never finish it #first final fantasy fic wooo

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