The hatred was all-consuming. It crackled over every nerve and every pore, filling the void with a pulsing, red, searing fire. Over V's thumping heartbeat came another sound: footsteps. Solid boot treads on metal flooring in time with the drumbeat of her hatred. Her vision cleared, threads of digital red glitter peeling back, revealing patchwork shots of the environment around her.
A metal floor. Filthy concrete walls. Low ceiling. Dull-wattage lights, flickering and humming like demented bees, too loud, too loud. The hallway swirled and tilted, and V staggered, falling against a pile of rotting cardboard and trash. She shoved off again and tried to snarl out a curse, but the hatred choked her, locked her jaw, filled her mouth with red, bitter bile. She felt like her eyes were on fire, like her bones and muscles were so tight all it would take was one little poke to completely unravel her.
Everything swam. It hurt to breathe. But as V's foot squelched on something underfoot and the whiff of rotting garbage flared up her nose, a thought cut through it all.
Wait... Where the hell am I?
And then came a strange sensation of something... knitting together. Something... merging? Something weaving into her mind. Something... shared.
Hatred could be shared.
Everything began slipping away. Stretching. The digital red glitter that had blossomed to let her begin to comprehend what was around her closed back, turning into a swirling spiral that sucked the breath from her lungs. It felt like she was being sucked down, down, down.
She must be dreaming... right? There was no other explanation. There couldn't be any other explanation for the sudden, strange way her body felt, cold and taut with hate and something else. It felt... wrong. Too angular. Too... sick. Lopsided. Missing something.
It was a dream. A nightmare. An all-too-real dream, one of those you swore was real life until the moment your eyes popped open.
A dream... all a dr-
Her hearing came back to her. Off in the distance was a thump, thump, thump that sent pulses through her vision. Everything glitched, skewed, then snapped back into place. She didn't recognize where she was. Everything was so strange, so-
A drea-
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WARNING: SYNCHRONIZATION TEST IN PROGRESS
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RELIC SYSTEM LOG
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HOST SIGNAL: ACTIVE
ENGRAM SIGNAL: ACTIVE
CONTROL PRIORITY: UNRESOLVED
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INITIALIZING NEURAL SYNCHRONIZATION...
LOADING...
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INITIAL SYNC COMPLETE
PLAYBACK INITIATED
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He hated this damn place.
Hated the damn smell of trash and piss and spilled beer.
He drank the good stuff tonight himself, and he could feel it boiling in his blood along with the speed. It did little to ease his nerves as usual, though. Tonight, it just amped him up even more. He stumbled a little, catching himself on the wall. The concrete hallway of the concert venue spun suddenly, and for a moment, his optics seemed to glitch.
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Cyberpunk 2077: V
FanfictionA Nomad abandoned by her own clan, V vows to forge her own path in life by leaving everything behind and seeking new beginnings in the glittering Night City. At first she thrives on the friendship and support of her friend and brother, Jackie; but a...
