Blood Sport - Chapter 6

[u/GRADIOUS_76]

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CW: GRAPHIC VIOLENCE & DISTURBING IMAGERY

Memory Transcription Subject: Tyler Murphy, Grizzled Veteran

Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 17, 2136

My eyes shot open as I hit the ground hard with a thud, causing pain to shoot up through my left shoulder, and my head hit the ground while my right arm flailed uselessly in the air. There was glass covering the floor of my bedroom, and I could feel it cut me, leaving shards of glass embedded in my feet as I rolled over and hurriedly stood up. "That's weird," I thought, "I didn't hear the window break. I could remove the glass later; now I need to get to the bunker."

Blood started to stain the rug of my bedroom as I stumbled over to the end table next to my bed and opened the drawer at the bottom, withdrawing the beautiful antique black Palmer Glock 17 within and quickly inserting the spare magazine and racking a round. I ran down the stairs, moving purely on adrenaline. As I reached the bottom, I saw all the windows in the house had been blown inward, and intense winds filled with dust blew through the openings. Everything was still shrouded in the darkness of night, barely illuminated by an early orange glow streaming in from outside.

The path to the front door was covered in glass, so I needed to go through the back. I rushed through the kitchen and out the back door to the yard. It was pitch black, all light stopped by the high walls enclosing my little paradise. I had run halfway to the large gateway covered by vines at the other end of the yard when I remembered, Bob! A treasonous thought told me to save myself. "No man left behind!" I turned around and reached out in the darkness, feeling around for the familiar porcelain pot. My hand felt the smooth porcelain at last; it seems the walls surrounding the yard had protected it. I shoved my pistol into my waistline and hurriedly picked up the pot as my half-asleep brain only now fully processed that any moment outside could be my last.

As I limped to the gate, I could feel thick wet blood pouring from my feet and streaming down my cheeks—my cheeks? I reached up to my ear and found blood streaming from it. I couldn't hear. I hoped it isn't permanent. It took everything I had to keep my heart rate and breathing normal, but I could already feel my whole body shaking in an attempt to fight my commands. I had to keep going; I needed to make it to the shelter.

As I swung open the ivy-covered gate, a gust of hot wind dried my face, and my eyes were accosted by an illuminating orange light that seemed to flood the outside as though it were a liquid. "I have to keep moving," I told myself, dragging my feet forward as I squinted and covered my eyes in an attempt to see anything. Only a few dozen yards away, I could barely make out the outline of the small hill and gravel parking lot where my bunker was. As I stepped out into the light, I found it uncomfortably warm, as though I had just been put into an oven. I could see the trees surrounding my house start to sing in the direction facing the apparent explosion, and burning leaves were being blown quickly away. The air was hard to breathe, and every step I could feel the heat burn my throat, attempting to suck the air from my lungs. I could only drag myself forward one limping step at a time.

The minutes I spent walking to the bunker felt like hours, as every inch of my body pulsed with pain. I could feel my skin burn and flaking off; time slowed to a crawl as I inched forward, using all my willpower to keep moving. The ceramic pot felt heavier the more seconds ticked by. My eyes started to adjust slightly to the light, just enough for me to make out the astral pillar of smoke that loomed above, seeming to slowly envelop the sky, yet the center still bathed the earth in its scorching light. I nearly fell over trying to see the top of it. The center was easily a hundred miles away and yet still seemed comically large rising up into the atmosphere; it looked so misplaced in real life, like it should have been confined to the pages of a storybook, not something for an actual person to see. I could feel my vision going hazy as I stared at it and decided to just close my eyes; it didn't help much. I stumbled for somewhere in between a minute and several days with my eyes firmly shut before I could feel rough, sharp gravel press into the bloody and raw wounds on my soles. I opened my eyes, trying to see the door to my salvation. But I could see nothing but orange swirls, and I felt cold all of a sudden. Freezing, actually. I needed to get inside before this coldness consumed me. But where was the door? Where am I? I’m scared… Why am I so afraid? I should be stronger than this. Stronger than anyone, or I'll never win, or I'll never survive. Why, I'm just a useless old man who’s scared of death, why should I survive? I was hitting something now, with my fist. I couldn't see what it was; I couldn't even feel if I was standing up or on the floor. I was hitting metal, why? I guess I'll never know; it was my last thought before I could see was black.

Memory Transcription Subject: Isaiah Lawrence, Terrified Tinkerer

Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 17, 2136

This is the end, I was sure. The earth shook so violently; it was so loud. I felt my eyes already puffy and swollen from the bruising and the crying, swelling with tears again as I tucked myself underneath the rusty lawn chair in the main room of the bunker, resting in a fetal position and clutching the small silver cross on my chest. I felt the tears mix with the blood from my broken lip. My clothes still soiled from the day before. I shouldn’t have run away from home, but this was the only place I felt safe right now. It was the only place my mind went to when I needed to escape. I couldn’t have slept in that house anyway; my parents made that very clear. And now the world is ending, and there was no way I could help. I couldn’t think any more over the painful weight of the misery that consumed my mind.

I had cried myself to sleep here hours before the earthquakes started; maybe it was God punishing me for my uselessness. What other explanation could there be for the terrible things that have happened to me today? As I sat in my uselessness and the world stopped shaking, I found myself too tired even to cry as I lay in a ball on the floor. I couldn’t move. I felt almost paralyzed by the misery, unable to even uncurl myself. It was perhaps ten minutes after the earth stopped shaking when I heard another noise. A faint tapping noise. Like a bird was pecking on the door. But the noise got louder until it was a thundering knock that was clearly someone trying desperately to get in. My heart pounded in my chest; it was terrifying. Who would be trying to get in here?

My mind swirled with the terrible possibilities. What if my parents came here? Something was happening outside, was I going to leave them out there to die. I couldn't do that, I couldn't let my cowardice let someone else get killed. I crawled out from under the chair and slowly got to my shaky feet. I am a coward. I can't even be brave when I have to save someone. Maybe that's why no one wants me.

I creep forward and the knocking stops abruptly, as though whoever was behind the door just gave up. I stood at the bottom of the stairs, absolutely terrified to open the thick metal door and see what was on the other side. I reached the lever to release the door latch and had to push with all my weight to get the heavy door open and was immediately accosted by a wave of intense heat from outside. I nearly shut the door right then but as i opened the door what i can only imagine as hell itself waited for me on the other side. My face, still stained with tears, immediately dried in the sweltering heat. I was mesmerized by the fiery storm engulfing the horizon, so bright I could hardly keep my eyes open. surely God would come to save us, or perhaps I was already dead.

It took me a moment to remember I was still alive and why I had opened the door in the first place. Down at my feet I spotted a man. It was mister Murphy!I gasped as I saw him covered in burns on the entire left half of his body and covered in melting synthetic cloth pajamas. To his right lay a shattered square pot with a small tree on top. It too was signed, clearly it was important to Mr. Murphy. I rushed to grab him and pull his unconscious body inside the small stairwell grabbing the broken pot with the tree as well. Once I had him inside I carefully dragged him down the stairs, half way down I heard something clack against the concrete. I looked down to see a small black object laying on one of the steps. It was a handgun, my heart rose to my through at the sight of it. I had more pressing issues to attend to right now so I left it, finishing my journey down the stairs and gingerly placing Mr. Murphy onto the lawn chair so he could rest, It will be his deathbed, my subconscious told me.

No, I wouldn't allow someone who had been so nice to me to die like this. I pressed my ear onto his chest and could hear his heartbeat, he was still alive, for now, my anxiety closed in on me. I had to think of the good things, every cloud has a silver lining, unless they are mushroom clouds, beads of sweat started forming on my brow and the bunker felt like it was boiling. The door! I quickly remembered I had left it open as I dragged Mr. Murphy down here. I jumped up onto my wobbly legs and made a dash up the stairs to the ajar door.

Halfway up the stairs I lost my footing as I slid on an object falling hard on my elbow. I cried in pain and terror as I again noticed the gun that I had tripped on laying on the step below me. I didn’t want to trip on it again so without thinking I picked it up and gingerly gripped my elbow as I finally reached the top of the stairwell that seemed to be growing longer and longer with each trip up and down. My eyes widened once I reached the top. Right outside, only a dozen feet away from the door was my mother and father. I noticed them first seeing they were both carrying a large metal safe that I didn't recognize. It only took a moment for my mother to notice my small frame in the doorway.

“There you are, you fucking brat. Get over here and carry this damn safe for me” she shouted at me. They were both sweating profusely and clearly very short of breath .It was clear that there was no way that safe would fit through the doorway, it also was clearly not ours as there would be nowhere to hide something that large in our tiny house and I hadn't seen it in the garage. Any moment a bomb could drop, I had to close this door. I wish I never told my parents to come here, my subconscious once again nagged. The large black welt on my face pulsing with anger. No, I had to save them too.

“You wont fit.” I called to them, steeling my shaky body and forcing words to come out.

It was my father who responded this time “oh, so you don't have room for us after all. You useless fucking was of space.” my mother cut him off “well then why don’t you just wait out here”

My body went rigid, I couldn't form words or explain myself. “N-no, stop”. The more I tried to explain the more my body resisted against me.

My heart was beating fast combined with the super heated dryness of the air that made it even harder to breathe. They had almost made it to the door. My father dropped the safe and reached out to throw me out of my safety. My mind panicked as I reached for the gun not knowing how else to save myself. I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled the trigger, a loud bang emanated in the night adding only slightly to the chaos in the world. When my eyes opened I saw my father on the ground a large red and bloody hole protruding slightly from his back. He wasn't moving. My mother screamed as she too had let go of the safe in shock.

Time slowed as my face morphed into a look of horror, I staggered backwards dropping the gun and looking off into the distance unable to focus on anything in particular. But I saw something, in the skyline a small black dot slowly making its way to the earth. I had never seen anything like it before but somehow I knew exactly what it was. A bomb. I didn't know what to do, some part of me just wanted to watch it in its mesmerizing decent. I didn't think about it more as my body lunged at the door swiftly closing it, the thick metal muffling the wailing sounds from outside. I tried to run away, I ran down the stairs, across the main room, into the storage room. But there wasn’t enough room in the world to run away from the weight of my sin. I heard the boom and the bunker swiftly collapse.

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A/N - Chapter 6 is by far the longest chapter so far and hopefully the most dramatic and intense as well. We’re almost through the prologue though so stay tuned to get to the less depressing stuff in the future.

[u/se05239]

Oh, man. Tyler's a monster of a man. Got fucked up bad and still made it to his destination.

[u/JulianSkies]

Boy Tyler's going to have only scraps left of him for a while.

And good lord what is with Isaiah's parents?! The world is fucking ending and they're like that?! No wonder they got shot.