Arknights: When Hunters Meet (A Tacet x Projekt Red novel)

Chapter 1 - An Ode of Life and Death

I gasped for air. My flesh was burning and felt abnormal. I chocked and coughed as my blank mind struggled to remember.

The room I found myself in was dark, wet and stifling. The air was barely breathable. It came back in painful flashes that barely made any sense as I was agonizingly trying to remember how to breathe normally. This place... I stepped into this sarcophagus so long ago. Never really expecting to wake up, not really caring if I didn't. But why... this oppressive, lingering feeling of apathy? Of apathy, disgust and death. I fell out of the pod onto the wet surface, hitting my head.

-Aaah. What the Hell.

I tried to vomit, but nothing would come out. I was parched and starving I realized. I leaned against the wall. Trying to hold onto my sanity. Trying to calm myself. Gasping for air.

I closed my eyes, but there was no respite. Flashes. More and more flashes. Cities wasted. There was a war. We were dying in droves. It was a pure genocide on all fronts. Armageddon. They were butchered all around me. And then I was killing them myself. I was ending everything as everything ended around me. Slowly and for a long time I was forced to remember bits of everything. Painful memories of my life before. It was all madness. Tears flowed over my cheeks though my body was parched for that liquid of life.

''I shouldn't be alive. I'm still here only because of the damn gift.'' I thought.

-''God dammit all!'' I screamed in the darkness.

The world ended. I've seen it, I went through it. Through everything. I experienced all the worst shit I could have possibly seen. Betrayal, man against man, man against man made horrors and more. I have gazed into ugliest facets a war could have.

''They played God, and paved the road to Hell.''

''Yet I am here. I am alive still. But what is there left for me?''

''Why should I even try to live anymore? I went through it all, through the whole cycle.''

''They... are all dead. My family. My comrades. Everything.''

''And my crimes do not need redemption nor retribution for everyone is dead, and my conscience doesn't care anymore.''

''What is there left for me to even try?''

''This was supposed to be my tomb, perhaps I should make it... perhaps...''

Joshua's voice suddenly echoed in my mind as if present with me.

-What's the point? For many of us the road is a difficult one, but the path is always there for us to follow, no matter how many times we may fall.

-''I think I have fallen as much as I could where I currently am.'' I responded to the empty air, I was the only one in the room.

-You know that not to be true. The light of your brilliant mind alone cannot remove all darkness. Think on it and look in your heart. When the walls come tumbling down, when you lose everything you have. It is inevitable that you will be besieged by such dark thoughts before the light and goodness of you can make way again.

-I am not a believer Joshua, you know I never was.

-Right, you're not so certain. Fair enough, we all go through periods of darkness. Of course, in a world filled with misery and uncertainty, it is a great comfort to know that in the end there is light in the darkness. In such times we can turn to the Lord, but it's good to have friends.