Chapter Text
Delicate and deliberate nervous steps down another still hallway. The air smells metallic, dry and dust-filled. Hyper awareness creeps into her confident stride, this tends to happen when separated from the others. Despite having been put through this countless times before, the noose of fear has not weakened. It is still terrifying but not as it was the very first month of becoming a brand new reagent.
She slowly opens a door, flickering the night vision on to a room of tall bookshelves centred in the middle, holding rows of textbooks and files. She takes an antitoxin sitting on a metal trolley near the door, and too the lockpick in an empty space on the closest bookshelf. Suddenly a scream of distress rings out from the hallways, she can hear running quickly approaching her. She immediately presses herself against the wall, glancing out of the doorframe to expectantly see a sprinting ex-pop. But it isn’t one of them, it’s another reagent.
She walks out of the room, the man twists and turns frantically. He clings to his head, he must be intoxicated from the gas. She knows the exasperating disorientation it brings, scrambling your thoughts into nothing but overwhelming adrenaline and spiking pain. Catching up to him, she calls to him to take the medicine in her hand; nearly pleading with him to. This will undoubtedly draw attention, if he won’t willingly use it, she’ll have to do it for him.
Just as he roughly arounds a corner, from behind she throws an arm around him, clasping a hand on his rig to stop him from moving and forces the antitoxin into his mouth, squeezing the applicator. She steps away, giving him space to steady his breathing. Against the wall he breathes in deeply, his senses returning and no longer blocked. Relief allows her to sigh, it always feels good to help somebody else out whenever she can. The testing and evaluations don’t particularly focus on teamwork, if at all; mainly individuality of each person's performance. Even so, this doesn’t deter her nature to at least try and help others. The man composes himself and walks up to her,
“Jesus, thanks for that. Fuckin’ Pusher grabbed me in the dark before I knew he was there.”
“It’s no problem, glad to help.”
She gives him a small smile, he lifts one corner of his mouth. He raises his closed fist, it takes a few seconds to register the rarely shown ‘fist-bump’ gesture. She’s almost forgotten about it, so she reciprocates it with her own hand.
“All right, now let’s get the fuck outta here. I think someone already-”
BOOM.
Warm dark red liquid, bits and chunks fly right into her face. Viscera and brain matter splatters the hallway walls, the floor and coats her.
BANG.
Another shot, more flesh of her teammate sprays all over through his torso as his body collapses. She is still, whole body frozen. A couple feet away, sauntering in from the open double doors of a wide room, the infamous son of a Mafia Don enters. Blatant swagger apparent as he comes closer, almost as if to admire his work. She moves her eyes to the killer, a satisfied grin showing his two prominent upper teeth.
“We gotta stop meetin’ like this, dollface.”
Franco says in an unusually lighter tone, unlike his natural low and solemn voice. How could he possibly know her? Yes she’s gone through his Trial many times but so have dozens of other women. Probably says that to all of them, anyway. She can feel her body again, taking steps backwards.
“Wasn’t your boyfriend or nothin’, was he?”
He kneels down, casually pushing the body over. Almost the entirety of his face is gone, loose tissue and muscle pieces hang from the open wounds. She has to look back to Franco before her stomach reacts.
“I’ll take that as a no..”
With the back of his Lupara sawed-off, he hammers down on the mouth area. Fleshy noises and cracking of bone gives her shivers, watching as he breaks up the upper and lower jaw. Digging and snapping off jagged, misshapen teeth for ammunition. Her fight or flight response resurfacing again. Many teammates have died in the same Trial as her, she’s even come across their mangled bodies, it’s unfortunately become normalised. But if that man wasn’t in front of her at that very moment, she’d be the one shot to hell and she may still be if she doesn’t move.
Her eyes fall to the floor, thankful to hastily grab a sturdy brick nearby. Wasting no time, she pulls back her arm and chucks it into the side of Franco’s face, he tumbles to the ground in a stunted grunt. She bolts through the double doors he came out from, that was nowhere close to avenging the dead man but it felt good to get a clean hit. Weaving through traps and listening out for other threats, she runs without stopping. Loud, maniacal laughter erupts from the distance behind her, the brick didn’t do anything except now she stands out like a weed in a field of grass. Blaring alarms fill the whole place, invading her ear drums.
‘Evacuate the Trial immediately’
The calm voice of the announcer relays to remaining reagents. There were three others she entered with, one or two of them had to have completed the tasks. All she needs is for them to press the button and finally get out. Not far ahead is the opening for both the exit and entrance, but she doesn’t see anyone around.
A scream takes her sight to another female reagent limping away from a giant wielding an intimidating pickaxe. A reminder beep of recharge, she unclasps the stun rig and throws it at the giant. A cloud of smoke and sparks halts the giant, immobilising them to stumble in a daze. Her feet pick up but not before intense pain surges through her skull, she is struck from the back. The consideration of others over herself has come with an ill-fated vengeance.
“You really thought I’d let you get away with that?”
Franco says, almost in a whisper-like tone. Meaning for only her to hear. The last thing she can make sense of as everything goes blank.