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Tonight I Walk In Anger; With Worn Shoes On My Feet (solo)
Topic Started: Nov 7 2010, 05:08 PM (195 Views)
Run4
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Iron Crow
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Jackal limped from the site of his defeat, bones aching as they ground together. He’d been staggering for nearly three days now, but between collapsing and straight-up blacking out, he’d barely made it out of the ruins. He was aiming for a plume of oily black smoke on the horizon. If it was wreckage, there could be loot. If it was a town, he could offer tinkering for medical attention. He forced himself to stand once more and stumble across the dry, hard-packed ground. His arms had long-since stopped bleeding (small mercies), but were quivering, aching heaps of useless, lactic-acid-poisoned muscle now. And would be for at least another day or two. He was caked with his own blood, spit, and even a little vomit.

He staggered again and fell to his knees, his wounded left leg sending spikes of screaming, murderous pain from his toes to his gut and back as his bloodstained jeans pulled away from the wound again and took the blood clot with it. The saturated denim immediately overflowed with red, irradiated blood. He winced, then whimpered, then crawled towards the smoke. Reduced to scrambling like a dog. That scrawny fucker and that Fish-Faced, Yellow-Skinned runt were gonna pay.

He forced himself to stand, his whole body shaking. He shuddered and lurched forwards. One more step. Now one more after that. And another. And another. And a-fucking-nother. His chest heaved and he fell to his hands and knees again, sweating from the effort of just six steps. He glowed faintly, trying to sustain himself with his own radiation. Didn’t really work that way. Only provided mild relief and killed the fruit flies on his hands. He lurched back up as he spotted the tell-tale shadow of circling Morrigan Crows. Fucking carrion birds. He stumbled on again. Soon enough, they’d start swooping instead of waiting. And that wouldn’t be good.

He wanted to run. He had learned the taste of defeat, and with it came the realisation that he was not an unstoppable juggernaut. He had learned fear again. He shuddered violently as fear caused adrenaline to course through him again. He made it almost two dozen steps before falling this time. He got up quicker. He felt the wound on his left shoulder tear open again with the violent push to his feet. Pain caused another miniscule adrenaline surge. He crested a rise near the smoke plume. Houses. Timber houses. And not a human in sight. The smoke rose from a wrecked building with a dog picking at the smouldering rubble.

He fell down the rise, rolling to a gentle halt at the back of a building. He stood and dragged himself to his feet, using the back porch as a hand hold. He stooped and retrieved his prybar and cleaver, having dropped both in his tumble, throwing them on the back porch, laying his torso on it and rolling on after them. He coughed, dragging himself to the edge of the porch just in time to spew a gutful of yellow, stinking bile out into the dusty ground. He’d long since thrown up all available food.

He stood and went to kick the back door of the house in. Failed miserably. Staggered and fell against the door, ploughing headfirst through the mouldering timber, and on into what appeared to be a kitchen, with a long-dead wood-burning range in the corner. He dragged himself to the centre of the room, drew his pistol and blacked out. Touch gave way first. Numbness swept over him, pain ebbing away gradually. Vision came next, leaving him with the howling wind and the rush of his own blood in his ears to bring him to sleep. He spluttered and went still, his chest rising and falling slowly.

He was woken by shocking pain. Followed by hearing a growl. Something twisted his leg. Trying to shred the muscle. He opened his eyes, hoping this was some nightmare. No dice. He raised his pistol and pressed the muzzle to the dog’s neck, squeezing the trigger and burning through the hound’s spine. He pried the dog’s teeth from his shin and shoved the carcass away. Once more, he forced himself to stand, trembling and keeling over sideways. He caught himself on a chair, getting a solid standing just before the chair broke apart. He staggered towards the front of the house, his vision swimming in and out of focus as the floor – no, the whole goddamn building – began to sway back and forth. Oh look. On the floor again.

Jackal dragged himself to his feet, his hands and knees shaking violently as he lumbered towards the doorway. He staggered again, falling to his knees, catching himself on the empty doorframe. He pushed himself back to a standing position, letting the room stop swinging from side to side before trying to walk. It worked out better that way. He made it to the front porch without having to stop and sit down. There was still a dog picking at the wreckage of the smouldering building. His curiosity piqued, Jackal staggered to his feet and gave a howl only a Ghoul’s mutated throat could produce. The dog high-tailed it. Good.

Jackal staggered his way to the smouldering heap – getting the telltale smell of alcohol from the collapsed wreckage as he approached. He raised an eyebrow at a half-eaten hand poking out of the wreckage. The dog was eating the dead. Jackal sighed. No harm in a little looting. He half-fell his way over to the blackened wreckage. He pulled on the hand, then began heaving timber out of the way when the arm refused to budge. Although in his state, heaving was more like lying-down-next-to-and-pushing-with-both-legs. Soon enough, he found himself in a heap on the ground next to a medium-rare body. He pushed himself to crouch as he noticed something.

The corpse’s machinegun. He wiped the weapon with his hands. Scrawled on the left-hand-side was the battered word ”Childkiller”. Jackal’s gut tightened as he kicked the last lump of timber off the body, revealing an all-too-unburned face. Jackal fell to his knees at the sight of Ellis’ dead body, curling in on himself. He shook all over, shuddering as this strange, unknown sensation overwhelmed him.

”It’s grief, Liam,” the Jackal rasped.

He let out a low, stifled groan as his eyes burned. His vision blurred. Not anger this time. Pain. Just pain. Not physical. Just emotion that hadn’t been felt since before the Bombs. Loss. Agony. It overwhelmed him. The desert felt cold. He curled in a ball and cried unmanly tears, his gut sinking. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to be angry, but it just didn’t come. His mind didn’t seem fractured enough. Wouldn’t let him be angry. He coughed and spat, rolling to stare straight at the floor. He pounded on the timber with his good hand until the skin tore from his knuckles and he started to bleed.

No. Anger still eluded him. He resigned himself to grief and a pain he’d forgotten how to feel, blubbering on the floor of a burned-down saloon like a retarded baby. Even self-deprecation failed to spark even a little anger. It was dark before he knelt up, sitting back on his heels and staring at the darkened, empty sky. He turned to Ellis’ body and reached his pain-wracked right hand, closing Ellis’ half-open eyes and pulling him free of the heap of burned timber that had been his tomb. Jackal stood up slowly and dragged Ellis from the ruined shell, as close to the swamps as he could. Jackal lay the body down and began gouging at the dry earth with his prybar, digging a low grave before collapsing into it from exhaustion. He coughed and lay still, gathering his energy for another surge of digging as he knelt up and started loosening more earth, tossing it from the grave with Ellis’ helmet-thing.

He blacked out again, waking up sometime during the next day in a hole deeper than he could remember digging it. He carried on. Needed to be too deep for animals to disturb it. Once it was too deep for him to see out of when he jumped on his gammy legs, Jackal knew it was deep enough, chimney-stacking his way out after several abortive attempts and a near-cave-in. He had to lie down for a while to recuperate, then rolled Ellis into the grave, his head towards the Swamps. Jackal heaved a sigh and started pushing the dirt back into the grave. He needed another break before kneeling on top of the grave and saying his pitiful few words.

“Sleep soundly brother. Stand relieved, sir,” Jackal rasped, bowing forwards like the Swampers had and laying his forehead against Ellis’ grave.

He knelt back and stared at the sky.

“God, if you’re there, I know you were lookin’ away for a while. Keep lookin’ away. Tonight ...” Jackal trailed off, his voice cracking, “Tonight ... I’m sorry can’t fill my heart like one good rifle and the name of who I have to kill.”

Jackal made himself stand. It was easier. He stared into the face of a dog.

“Back for another bite, huh?” Jackal asked pleasantly, crouching and extending his hand slowly.

The dog approached sheepishly and licked Jackal’s hand. Jackal scratched the dog’s chin, behind it’s ears, then rubbed around it’s snout. He smiled at the dog for a second, locking eyes with it.

“You came back for another bite? Think I’m gonna feed ya some of what you were chewin on back in the building, huh? Well fuck you. He was my friend,” Jackal continued, finishing on a low snarl.

His hand clenched around the dog’s snout and he began glowing gently. The dog struggled, against the grip at first, then the glow. Then the pain as its gums started to bleed and the blood vessels in its eyeballs ruptured. Fatal irradiation really was a terrible, but fascinating way to die. Jackal reached his mauled left arm behind his back and drew Pig Bitch’s cleaver, slicing it through the dog’s neck and letting the blood spill over Ellis’ grave.

“Accept that as a sacrifice Ellis. Seeya around sometime. Save a place for me,” Jackal rumbled at the grave.

”Uh, Liam, isn’t irradiating things to death my job?” Jackal rasped inside his head.

”Yeah. Feels good, you know that?” Liam answered flatly.

”Revenge, huh? You know what they say. Dig one grave for your enemy, one for yourself,” the Jackal replied.

”It’s gonna take a lot more than two,” Liam responded.
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HenchmenF
 
"Anyway. Then me and CP were like "Lul, wut?" and then Run had to step in and use his e-peen as a riot baton and then Doffa sorta left."

Caleb Wolff, Level 7 Tribal Ranger. (Inventory)
Jackal, Level 5 Glowing Ghoul. (Inventory)[/align]
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Munk
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One-Man Conga Line
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So yeah, I liked this one. Got some character development and a cause for revenge. Kudos.

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1x LEVEL UP!
Andrew Hagan, Level 6, BTR: +40
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Tack Morgan, Level 3, BTR: -50
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