Fragged

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  Chad and Julian certainly weren’t helping with that feeling, due to the fact that they had spent the entire twenty minute drive to the bridge doing nothing but trying to convince the others that it was a horrible idea to go into Liennam.

  Not that that mattered too much for me though, the city was calling me, and not just with the promise of fun and adventure, it was drawing me in with some kind of innate song of invitation.

  Apparently I was the only one who could hear it though.

  “We can still turn around,” Julian said as he came up behind me, shifting around in the poorly made armour that he’d apparently found in the back of the bus, “there’s no reason that we have to go in there.”

  “Dude, you’ve been here for, like, two seconds,” Pete said before I could answer, “ease up on the suggestions. You’re not even in the clan.”

  “That’s just because you guys don’t have any beds,” Julian retorted somewhat playfully, “I’m sure Zoey would get me in the clan if she could, right?”

  “Mmhm, sure.” I replied dismissively, my mind far more focused on the bridge than making sure Julian felt like he was a part of the gang.

  “Look, the worst thing that can happen is we die,” Pete said after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, “in which case we go ahead and respawn and meet back up. No big whoop.”

  What Pete didn’t know was that it was a big whoop for me.

  I’d decided a few minutes prior to us actually reaching the bridge that if we died I wasn’t going to meet up with them again when we respawned.

  I wasn’t going to create another clan.

  I wasn’t going to build another base.

  I was going to shut the game down and leave it for good.

  That must sound really dramatic, but the truth was that I’d gotten kind of tired of the game and the thought of having to start from scratch honestly exhausted me.

  Although I will say that I was confident that I was going to have fun, regardless of the situation we ended up in, and I definitely wasn’t about to let Chad or Julian talk me out of rolling on in and, at bare minimum, going out with a bang.

  “Fuck it,” I said, accidentally interrupting Chad in the process, “let’s do it. Pete, take us in.”

  Chad made a few sounds of protest without actually forming any real words before accepting that we were moving whether he wanted to or not.

  One of the steggies attached to the DFB let out a long, cow-like groan as Pete put his foot on the accelerator and we started slowly rolling towards the bridge.

  “You’re sure?” Pete whispered once everyone was out of earshot, “I mean, we really can just turn around.”

  “I don’t need you throwin’ doubt my way, too,” I jabbed jokingly, “in all honesty though, I’m sure. I’m done stalling.”

  “Alright, boss,” Pete sighed as he pushed the pedal to the floor and we started to pick up speed, “let’s see what we’re made of.”

  “Chad, get the Js up the front,” I said, noticing the cars in our way, “we could use a clearer route.”

  “Already on it.” Chad replied coolly as the Js came to the front of the bus and started barrelling ahead, hitting the bridge before us and crushing cars underfoot as they thundered ahead.

  “This is gonna be fun.” Brendo chuckled.

  “Fun?” Paul practically squeaked, “This is gonna be awesome!”

  “Alright, settle down,” I said as we followed the flattened path of the Js, “there’s still no guarantee we’ll even get off this bridge.”

  “Zoey,” Miles chimed in with no small amount of condescension, “I’m pretty sure no one’s gonna waste their time guarding a bridge when they have the whole of Liennam to explore.”

  “And I’m sure you’d have thought that no one would waste their time blocking a road just to catch us,” I replied dryly, “trust me, it’s in our best interests to stay on our toes.”

  Miles clearly didn’t agree, but he apparently decided that it was in his best interests not to say anything that could potentially get him kicked off the bus, which I’d already threatened to do to Julian and Chad a dozen times before.

  Although it did seem that he had a point as we reached the middle of the bridge without any problems, Hell, there wasn’t so much as a boat floating around in the mostly dried up river that acted as a sort of moat.

  “Lookin’ good,” Pete said, sounding cautiously optimistic, “you think we might be alright?”

  “I’m gonna go ahead and not jinx us,” I said with a smile, “but yeah, I think we might be-”

  Suddenly an explosion rocked the entire bridge, engulfing the Js in flames and forcing Pete to slam hard on the brakes as a dozen smaller detonations shook us to our cores.

  Community Population: 6/0

  “Sweet Jesus…” I muttered as the dust and smoke finally started to settle, “What the fuck just happened?”

  “I can’t say for sure,” Pete replied breathlessly as he too looked out to where the Js had been mere moments ago, “but I’m pretty sure the Js just exploded.”

  “You think?” Miles snapped, “What the fuck are we gonna do? What if there are more mines?”

  “I don’t think that’s gonna be a problem…” Paul trailed off as he came to the front of the bus before pointing out through the windscreen at something in the smoke.

  It took me a few seconds longer to see what had Paul so scared, but when I did I almost automatically let out a stunned “Back it up.”

  “What?” Pete asked, clearly not seeing what both Paul and I had.

  “Just back it the fuck up, now.” I responded more firmly than the first time as a group of players from inside Liennam came closer.

  “But we’re so-oh… Oh, okay, yeah, I get it now.” Pete said before throwing the bus in reverse, backing up about ten feet, then stopping, “Shit. They’re coming up from behind us.”

  “Yep,” Brendo confirmed from the back of the bus as he looked out through the emergency door’s window, “they’ve got some solid gear to-whoa!”

  The players had started firing on both sides of us, their bullets tearing through the bus with ease, letting us know that they definitely had armour-piercing rounds with a little practical display.

  “Right to the shooting, no questions?” Pete half-heartedly chuckled as we all did our best to get as low as possible, “Any ideas?”

  “Drive.” I replied after a bullet just barely missed me, “Just drive as fast as you can, we’ve come too far to backtrack.”

  “You sure?” Julian asked, “There are less guys back there, and we were just reversi-”

  “That was when it was clear,” I snapped, “if we’re gonna die, may as well do it closer to our goal.”

  That was a sentiment that was clearly shared with the rest of the guys, especially Pete who, as soon as the words had left my lips, slammed down hard on the accelerator.

  “What the fuck are the chances that this happens twice?” Paul laughed as we thundered along the bridge towards Liennam.

  “This is different,” I said with a little smirk, “those guys wanted payback, these guys are just arsehol-”

  I was interrupted by a pained bellow as one of the powerful rounds hit one of the DFB steggies, causing us to pull hard to the right.

  From there it was all a bit messy.

  First we smashed into a large, slightly damaged block of concrete, which turned out to be some kind of pillar that had a bunch of the bridge’s cables attached to it, and absolutely demolished it, the explosions having already done a good job of ruining the structural integrity.

  Unsurprisingly, that threw everyone but Pete to the front of the bus, but that didn’t last long as we careened off the bridge and gravity decided to be a little bit weird.

  I remember falling, falling so slowly but so fast at the same time as Pete uselessly turned the steering wheel in panic, trying desperately to try and make sure we didn’t land on our side for whatever reason.

  But, to no one’s surprise
, we stayed on course, and smashed into the water on our right side, causing us all to slam into that side as the steggies did a good job of cushioning us with their bodies.

  Boy-oh-boy was there a lot of blood, and when I saw a lot of blood, I mean a lot.

  Seriously, it was like if the pathology wing in a hospital decided to dump all their samples onto our bus.

  Playing in water, are we? Have fun! What do you mean your floaties feel like they’re filled with sand? You’re being ridiculous.

  Within a few moments we’d hit the muddy bottom of the fifteen-foot deep river, and after a quick check to make sure no one had died or been seriously injured, we swam out through the shattered windshield and to the surface.

  “Anyone hurt?” I asked as Paul, the final one of Zoey’s Fighters to come up, breached the water’s surface.

  “Yeah,” Paul replied embarrassedly, “my legs are broken.”

  “Again?” Chad laughed.

  “Shut up, dude,” Paul snapped, “this is a very serious problem.”

  “No it isn’t,” Brendo replied with a little sigh as he swam over to Paul, “I’ll get you all patched up in no time. Anyone aiming at us?”

  “Nope,” I said after silently cursing myself out for not being the first one of us to think of that, “I’m guessin’ they think we died on impact.”

  “No way,” Miles chimed in, “they’d have been notified. We should get moving.”

  “Ah, relax,” Pete mocked, successfully hiding the fact that he was clearly devastated about losing his bus, “you should enjoy the water, have a little bit of chill time.”

  “I don’t think that’s gonna be an option.” I said as I watched chunks of concrete starting to fall from the bridge, “We need to move.”

  The guys didn’t even bother looking up before swimming as fast as they could after me, not even Paul who, thanks to his only half healed legs, was moving well slower than the rest of us.

  “Come on!” I shouted as more pieces of concrete started to fall and the bridge’s cables audibly snapped and whipped around, “Keep up!”

  “I’m trying my best!”

  I went to shout some words of encouragement, but was stopped as a massive chunk of the bridge smashed into the submarine DFB and splashed a mix of steggie offal and water.

  What? You can eat steggie meat, which means it can be called offal.

  Anyway, back on track, we were dodging larger and larger bits of the bridge as it came tumbling down, and, as much as I’m sure none of us would admit it, we all snuck a few glimpses back at the bending and snapping piece of infrastructure as it threw players loose from its surface like an angry eel.

  Made of concrete.

  And a bunch of cables.

  “It’s coming down!” someone in my group shrieked as the last of the cables finally gave way.

  My heart felt like it was about to explode and my eyes were flitting around in search of potentially deadly debris so much that I was starting to give myself a headache.

  There was a part of me that kind of wanted to stop swimming, to just let whatever was going to happen play out, but survival instinct is a bitch of a thing, so I just went on swimming as fast as I fucking could.

  We got maybe fifty feet away from the bus before, with a loud structural moan, the bridge finally collapsed, sending a massive wave our way and causing a bunch of deaths to pop up as we tumbled and struggled to keep our heads above water.

  ‘You’re okay,’ I thought to myself as I smashed into the mud at the bottom of the river, ‘just keep breathing. Wait! No! Don’t breathe!’

  I wasn’t going to drown though, no, Thren had far more interesting ideas for me and mine, and so, after what felt like an eternity passed, I was finally free to swim upwards, breaching the surface of the water with a massive, desperate gasp as the others around me did the same.

  “Everyone okay?” Pete asked as we all struggled to keep our heads above the newly choppy water.

  The rest of us replied with a mix of ‘Eh’s and ‘I’ll live’s before turning to face the massive amount of destruction we’d left behind.

  “One little bus hooked up to dinos was all it took to bring that big ol’ bridge down…” Paul muttered in amazement.

  “Well, the explosions probably helped a bit.” Chad added with an amused little huff, “But yeah that bus is… was cursed.”

  “Hey, not the bus’ fault that we got attacked.” Pete light-heartedly snapped.

  “Bigger fish, guys.” I said as I turned to face the rocky shore of Liennam, immediately regretting my choice of words as I did so, “Oh… crap.”

  Well… that’s a big fish, huh?

  Chapter Two

  As I looked at the large fin going back and forth in the water separating us from Liennam I couldn’t help but feel like there wasn’t a chance in Hell that we were going to get a break any time soon.

  “Swim!” I shouted after having to force myself not to quote Dory.

  The eel-like thing was fast though, and, thanks to all the mud being kicked up from the bridge collapse, damn near invisible until it was about to hit you.

  How did I know that? Simple, because I didn’t see the fucking thing until it had slapped me in the stomach with its massive tail and sent me flying up the river away from the bridge.

  Ha! Your armour’s been destroyed, undoubtedly because you’re a freaking idiot who didn’t take care of it properly. How right am I?

  HEALTH: 84/100

  “Shit…” I whispered to myself as the armour fell off my body and sunk to the bottom of the shallow river.

  I was at least a hundred feet away from the guys, all of which were panicking like crazy as the water dino thrashed around looking for a fresh target.

  Well, except for Pete who, being the only one smart enough to pack a knife, was slashing at the dino every time it came anywhere near him.

  I have to be honest, I probably should’ve thought to arm myself with a knife and taken the responsibility as leader to tell the others to do the same, but how was I supposed to know that we’d end up fighting in a waterway?

  Excuses out of the way, I finally managed to pull my eyes away from the whipping dino and the flailing men long enough to realise that I was free to swim ashore.

  Doing my best to search for potential enemy players as I swam, I scrambled for the shoreline and pulled my DMR off my back.

  It was difficult to take aim, mostly because, while it was slowly healing, the blow to my gut had caused a strange sort of haziness to cloud around my vision.

  I eventually managed to get my aim clear though, and within a few moments had started taking shots at the dino.

  +1 Firearm Skill

  Firearm Skill: 34/100

  Level Progression: 170/250

  There was little hope that I’d actually take the thing down, but I was confident that, if I shot at it enough, it’d turn its attention away from the guys.

  A few seconds and about a dozen rounds later and I was proven right, the creature snapping around to face me with its fin before swimming towards me as fast as it could.

  The guys didn’t waste any time in questioning what was going on, and used the opportunity to swim to the Liennam shore, where they struggled to get up onto the slightly more rocky section of the river’s edge.

  At first I thought I was in the clear and that the dino had absolutely no hope of getting me, but as it failed to slow down once it was within a few feet of the shore I realised I had to run.

  Thank fuck that I did, too, because almost as soon as I’d turned my back on the water and started for the steep, rocky hill that led up into Liennam the beast from the river launched out onto the shore, splashing me with water and causing the ground beneath my feet to shake.

  I barely made it onto the first set of rocks, and I maintain that was only because I made a concerted effort not to look behind me, but as I made my way up I kept having to dodge snaps at my feet and clawed, reptilian hands swiping at my body.

  It
was only once I’d managed to get most of the way up, with no small amount of slipping, that I hazarded a look below me.

  The dino wasn’t eel-like at all, in fact it was closer to what I’d describe as a komodo, and, based on the creature’s glowing green eyes, it wasn’t even a dino.

  I was right about to question why I hadn’t gotten some kind of description or snarky warning when, out of the blue, the creature flickered, snarled, then disappeared.

  “What… in the everlasting fuck… was that?”

  Chapter Three

  Following the confusing disappearance of the weird dino thing, I’d crouched down behind the brick wall that separated the city and the footpath I was on and started towards the guys, who were so stunned by what we’d all just seen that they didn’t even realise that they were in full view of a million potential shooters.

  What? I’d rather be paranoid than dead.

  “Get down!” I hissed once I was close enough that I didn’t have to shout, but they didn’t hear me, “Dipshits!”

  That got their attention, and, upon seeing me, got them to crouch down behind the wall.

  “Unobservant dumbarses…” I muttered somewhat playfully, “You okay, Paul?”

  “Yeah, yeah, Brendo finished patching me up just before.” Paul replied distractedly, “I’m sorry, did no one else see what just happened? That thing just fuckin’ vanished.”

  “We all saw,” I said as coolly as I could, “let’s just move on and focus on getting into the city.”

  “I don’t know…” Chad trailed off, “Your armour’s gone, and that attack on the bridge just showed how ill-equipped we are, and like Paul said, that dino just disappeared. That kinda says to me that we shouldn’t be stickin’ around.”

  “I concur,” Julian added, “what happens if that thing suddenly appears again in the city?”

  “Guys, chill,” Pete interjected, “we’re fine, we just gotta get Zo some armour and we’re good to roll, anyone carrying extra?”

  “I’m sure those guys from the bridge collapse would have some solid shit,” Miles replied with an oddly helpful tone, “want me to go check?”