//------------------------------// // 07 - Nothing's Ever Easy // Story: Without You // by Dustchu //------------------------------// ooo000---000ooo Leech Man... all of the things in here, it had to be fucking Leech Man. On the other side of the room he stood over a body of a doctor who had been slain, surrounded by the sickly dried up bodies of doctor and nurse alike... Leech Man... a writhing mess of leeches covering a human body, not only making him look more horrible then an undead could possibly look, but making it pretty much bullet proof. My gun was useless here, any weapon I had on me was fucking useless! "W-what the buck is that thing?" Rainbow hissed out from behind me. "That... is Leech Man." I gulped as Leech Man slowly but surely turned around. I watched as several leeches fell to the ground with a sickening splat noise, almost screeching as they scurried off to the underside of the desks or chairs. "We gotta go." "B-but what about th-" "I'm pretty sure if she's in here, she's already dead." I argued, backing up towards the door... not only was a horde of undead outside that door, there was an even bigger threat inside the room, one I couldn't fight unless I had fire. Hospitals weren't known for their abundance of flames. "That thing don't discriminate 'tween people." I held my handgun tight in my hand even though I knew it wouldn't do anything against the thing in front of us. Fuck, we needed to make a move! What were we going to do?! The undead monstrosity across from us suddenly turned and it didn't waste time before running straight at us. "Ah shit, out of the room, out of the room!" I cried and ran towards the door, ripping it open and back out with Rainbow trailing behind me. I'm not letting that thing get a hold of me, it'll be a cold day in hell before that happens! We rushed out into the hall again and away from the nurse's office, past bodies and turned over carts. Where were we headed? Who fucking cares, so long as it was away from that thing! My mind told me I had seven bullets left - even if I had a full magazine and some backups, no way would I put a dent in it. In the game, if I used any sort of firearm I had on me at the time against it, the rounds were completely useless, nothing worked on him. The only way to kill him... was with fire, something I was sorely lacking in right now! "Go go go!" I slipped down another turn Rainbow followed me down. I had to think fast! We needed to kill this thing, find the keycard and get the fuck out of here! "What do we do, Dee?!" Rainbow was beside me now, galloping alongside me as we rushed through the hall, passing by doors to either offices or exam and patient rooms. "We gotta get away from that thing first!" I told her as we turned down another hall leading to the stairs, swerving around a corner. We rushed for the stairs and back down to the first floor, passing by bodies and damaged medical equipment before reaching another door, one I plowed on through before shutting up tight once Rainbow passed through. We turned and kept moving, we had to get away from that thing as quickly as possible, we needed time to plan! "Ahh buck!" Rainbow was scared out of her mind, even if she didn't want to show it. I was too. I led her into one of the patient rooms - sliding inside and slamming the door shut before taking a moment to fucking breath. I gazed around the room, and thankfully there wasn't anything inside. "Heh... heh... fuck." This was too much for my heart, if this kept up I'll probably end up with a heart attack or something. Rainbow ended up turning to me and giving me a wild and scared look, her pretty eyes burning bright with that primal fear... "W-what the heck are we going to do about that thing?! I-it was covered in those things!" She stuck out her tongue, body shivering in what I could only assume was disgust. "Heh, those were leeches." Nasty little things they were. "Bloodsucking leeches, they cover his whole body and only make him stronger... nothing I got on me is going to kill him, or even hurt him for that matter." Which would be an issue... a big issue. "Shit." Now we needed to work out finding a way to fix this fucking mess we're in. "D-Dee... i-if we can't... h-hurt it, what's the p-plan here?" Rainbow gave me that questioning glance of hers... she really wanted to know whatever plan I had in mind. Did I have one? No. "I got a plan," I gulped, shakily pulling out my handgun and holding onto it... more to reassure myself than anything that I wasn't pulling shit out of my ass. "We gotta kill him." Yeah, that's a good plan, very good plan. "K-kill him?!" Rainbow sounded like she choked on her own spit. "W-wha-how!? You saw that thing!" She squeaked, face red and eyes wide, "W-we can't kill that thing!" I agreed to some degree, but that thing was deadly... and I had no intentions on letting it live if I could help it, yet at the same time I was all for leaving this hellhole and just running for it. "W-we need to take it out, Dash." I told her, looking down at my measly handgun, which was shaking - or rather, I was shaking. "We need to kill it so we can move on." The only reason we needed to kill it was because that damn thing had a keycard on it, at least in the games it did. The keycard was used to access the sewers down below, the only escape route that was left for the survivors. Hopefully we wouldn't need it, I wasn't planning on getting ourselves fucked enough to end up down there, but if shit got too bad... we might just need the card as a backup. Rainbow - bless her soul, she looked at me like I was insane, maybe I was. "A-Ahh buck... w-well how are we gonna fight that thing?!" She stood up a bit straighter and tried to look brave, but I saw the subtle tremble in her legs, the slight shuffle of her feathers and the beads of sweat running down the side of her head. Rainbow, for all of her courage and bravery in the show, was scared right now, even if she didn't want to show it. It was painful to see in all honesty. "O-okay, uh..." I swallowed hard and paced around the inside of the room, trying to get my nerves under control. Everything was firing off at once, panic was beginning to settle in and I was losing my train of thought. Shit shit shit, we gotta find a way down to the basement, lead it in-what was that? I looked up at the ceiling and my eyes caught sight of the vent system, sending a surge of adrenaline coursing through my system. Fuck, I forgot he can come through there! Shit! I didn't hear anything except the clattering of the vent system... but it sounded distorted, my eyesight was off and everything was blurry, nothing felt right. I stepped back until I ended up hitting the wall, hand gripping the handle of my only means of defense. Was he in the vents? Did he follow our scent? I had blood on me, my own blood. Rainbow was injured too! What if it smelled her blood? It could be heading here now! Something muffled was speaking, yet my focus was completely fucked and I couldn't understand it - everything in front of me was blurred and only panic filled my mind. Zombies, Lickers, what if there's a Tyrant down here?! There could be, this place is hooked up directly to the Hive. My heartbeat hadn't slowed at all, my breathing was uneven and I swear I was getting lighthead- Something smacked me upside the head - the intense feeling of pain overrode everything else, anger bubbled up in me as I glared at... Rainbow? Her hoof was off to the side and she was shaky, staring at me with wide eyes and a frown. "W-what the fuck!?" I yelled at her, holding my cheek. She had just slapped me?! Her body was trembling, wings fidgeting at her sides and her eyes wide, Rainbow looked - dare I say it - scared, for some reason. "You were f-freaking out!" She said and hugged herself - as if to try and stop herself shaking. I kept glaring at her for some time - but slowly, everything was back in focus. We were in a patient room, a vent sat on the ceiling off to the side, a locker was sitting next to the window, and blood stained the sheets and pillows on the beds. I was holding my handgun, fingers clenched around the handle in a death grip. Beads of sweat rolled down my face and my heartbeat began to slow the more I stared into Rainbow's eyes. My glare softened and I dropped my gun to the ground beside me, clapping my hands against my face. "F-fucking hell..." I rubbed my face and tried to get my thoughts back. "Y-you were staring at the vents, d-dude." Rainbow whispered, teeth practically chattering. I couldn't blame her - whether it was fear or the cold, mine were close to doing the same. "J-just staring at i-it." I couldn't keep my nerves under control. My fear. I was so fucking weak. Weaker than I thought I was. "I-I'm sorry." I swallowed hard and ripped my hands away to look at Rainbow again, who was still giving me this scared look. "J-just lost my cool... I'm fine." I wasn't fine. "W-we need to kill him." "I know, you said that!" She squeaked out, voice cracking badly at the end. "B-but how do we do that?!" Swallowing my fucking nerves and trying to regain some of my confidence, I stared her straight in the eyes. "We need to get him down into the basement in one of the rooms, and burn the leeches off of him. It's the only surefire way to kill him." "C-can't we just... I dunno, f-find some other way?" She swallowed and shook as a distant siren sounded, passing by the building. Rainbow's eyes looked shifty as she moved from hoof to hoof. "Do we h-have to... k-kill it?" I just nodded - the only way to get rid of that thing was to kill it, like most monsters in this world. And not only that, but Leech Man had a card key that we might need for the lower levels - if we happen to get that far down. I'm not sure if we will, but if so... I'd like to cover all of my bases before I move, but right now I didn't have such a luxury to plan before shit got bad. Things were already as worse as they were going to get, but damn it... I needed to keep cool - losing my shit wasn't going to get us out of here! Maybe that slap was what I needed. "That thing has a keycard on it we might need to get out of here," I glanced at the door and picked my handgun back up. My nerves weren't as bad as before, the fear of the situation giving way to something that got me to stand up. "If we want to get out of here, we n-need to kill it." That thing was standing between us and the way out of here... so we would have to kill it. Gulping hard, Rainbow gave me a shaky nod and took a few breaths. "F-fine... what do we do then?" I let out a heavy breath and inhaled - I was so fucking cold, I never got as cold as I do now... I didn't like it, it was the kind of unnatural cold that seeped into your bones, that made them tremble and your muscles ache, something primal. It was hard to not act on the instincts buried in my psyche, the screaming voices begging for me to just... run and don't look back. I always thought I was tough and fearless, I guess that was never true. "We need to lead him down into the basement, there's a room where we can handle him." I explained and tucked my handgun into the seat of my pants before moving around the room. Maybe I could find something useful in here that could help us get through this - first aid, a weapon, something. All I found was a wooden broom... better than nothing I guess. "But we need some codes for the elevator to take us down." "A-alright..." Rainbow murmured, ears folding back and eyes looking up at me. "I tru-trust you." Hopefully those codes were the same as before in the game... Only one way to find out.