Dementia (Romantically Apocalyptic Fanfiction)

Chapter 1 - Bringer Of Balloons

So when the last and dreadful hour

This crumbling pageant shall devour,

The trumpet shall be heard on high,

The dead shall live, the living die,

And Music shall untune the sky

Isolated I wandered in this desolate wasteland of snow and ice.  Were they really planning to dispose of me?  Now?  In such desperate and despondent times?  Surely they can’t be that stupid. 

Such assholes.  I thought, agitated.  This melancholy place gave me no hope for survival; bones of mutilated gargantuan beasts littered the frozen lakes and superstructures looked overwhelmingly imposing, immovable and dreadfully ominous.  Must stay strong.  Must find shelter.  I forced myself to think, my tired and achy body dismissing any further instruction.  Oh I remember the times.  The times before the Apocalypse; a global genocide of humanity.  The year is 20-something-something.  I had been born about eight years before this barren post-apocalyptic hell, so I have a slight notion what life was truly like before all of this.  Not that I had a jim-dandy childhood, given that I was kidnapped and spent most of my life in a technician’s and engineer’s lab, being poked and prodded with needles.  And then some odd years ago, I escaped and found two other survivors, Excaver and Mercado.  But then six hours ago I received the information (secretly) they had been planning to kill me.

So I packed and left.  And now, in the present time, I wander aimlessly, a bleak soul in this frozen dementia.  Time elapsed as to what felt like a year, though it may have only been a few hours, and I found myself approaching titanic sized constructions that pierced the sky and loomed over me eerily like giant radioactive rubber pants.  The pants commanded me forward and kept me going into the ruin.  Snow had began fall and covered up my boot tracks, something I was going to do earlier.  After retying my combat boots and pulling down the ear flaps on my hat, I heard something.  Not that far behind me, either.  I froze (haha nice one) and stood exactly where I was. 

I halted my breathing and didn’t move a muscle.  Once I was sure it wasn’t some poor mutated creature following me, I continued on.  But there it was again.  I quickly grabbed my Glock handgun from the holster I concealed under my trench coat and spun around, all in one fluid motion.  I had my gun pointed forward outward and my stance had my knees slightly bent, ready to burst into a run if necessary. 

“Who the hell is following me?” 

My voice boomed out and echoed, the sound waves ricocheting off the superstructures.  Nobody responded and I was getting querulous.  I stood there like that, my gun poised in midair, for probably five minutes.  After that irritating time period, I turned around and went to put my gun away when I heard voices from about thirty feet behind me.  Automatically I spun around and began shooting off like a crazed maniac, hoping to hit whoever or whatever was tracking me. 

“Ahh!!” 

I heard from behind a half crushed bridge and retreating running footsteps.  I sprinted over to where I heard the scream, gun still clutched in my gloved hand.  I saw a swish of an overcoat and began running towards it.  With both hands on the handle of the gun, I speculated whether this was an actual threat.  I came to a halt at the corner of the fallen building sized chunk of bridge.  I heard the footsteps fade away but then grow louder.  It was coming towards me.  Every nerve in my body in my body vibrated with uncertain trepidation. 

The hairs on the neck of my stood up and I began to panic; I had no idea what kind of weapons they possessed or their fighting tactics.  The sound of heavy footsteps on the concrete solid ice reverberated back to my ears and I tightened my grip on my gun.  What felt like an eternity of just standing there, my breath coming out like smoke through my gas mask, I made my move at just the right moment.  I spun myself around the corner and found myself pinning a tracker, one of them, against a flat slab of fallen bridge by the throat, my gun to his forehead.  A scarf was wrapped tightly around his neck and his eyes were tainted by tinted blue goggles and a gas mask.  He also wore a black and white jacket with the hood up.  He fought back and he somehow was able to get me into his position.  Yanking a gun out of his overcoat pocket he shoved the barrel of it to my temple.  He was stronger than me; pinning me against the slab of concrete with one hand I felt defenseless.  Something I wasn’t used to. 

“Stop fighting me!”  He shouted.  “Or I’ll pull the Goddamn trigger!” 

I felt the gun click.  The funny thing about facing imminent death is that it really snaps everything else into perspective.  The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth.  Darkness implacable.  The blind dogs of the sun in their running.  The crushing black vacuum of the universe.  And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover.  Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.  See, perspective?

            “Would you like me to kill you now?” asked the man, his voice heavy with irony.  “Or would you like a few moments to compose a memoir?”

            “Okay, well, as long as I have time.  You know, wouldn’t want rush anything,” I growled sarcastically through my teeth.  “I think my last words should be ‘Get the fuck off me’.” 

And with that, the pressure on my chest lessened and he stepped back a few paces, the snow crunching underneath his boots. 

I sighed, my breath sounding a bit like Darth Vader through my single filter gas mask.

“Does it bite?!”  A voice shouted from around the corner.

“It’s a person, Captain.  Not an animal,” the man infront of me called out.

“Snippy, I said does it bite?!” 

“It’s a person!  Not an animal!”  Snippy remarked.

I hadn’t noticed until now that the man infront of me was British.

            “Hey Snippy, do you wanna go sledding?”  A voice sounded from overhead.

All of us looked up and saw a person drifting down to the ground, his weight suspended by at least fifty red balloons.

            “Pilot?!  Where have you been?”  Snippy shouted up to him.  Just before he landed, he cut the balloons’ strings and landed, doing a somersault in the snow.  He wore a fighter jet full-head helmet with green-tinted goggles.  His gas mask comprised of a single filter on the right with a pipe that trailed down into his leather jacket.  In addition, he wore black weather-resistant pants and boots.

            “I am the bringer of balloons!”  He shouted.  Snippy sighed and I heard yet another voice as the person walked around the slab of concrete.

            “Idiots.  I’m surrounded by idiots,” he said, shaking his head.  He wore a dual filter gas mask (the same one I wore) and a parka jacket with the hood flipped up and orange tinted ski goggles, with black pants and boots.

I slowly began backing away; hoping to never see these lunatics again, but the one named Pilot noticed me.

            “Get it!” 

Only one passed through my mind as all three of the men jumped on me; why am I an It?

I felt my arms being twisted and held behind my back and my legs being pinned in the snow.

            “Get the hell off m-”

My demands were cut short as a gloved hand was clamped over my mouth.

            “Sorry, sorry, really sorry about this,” Snippy kept apologizing as they carried me away from the concrete slab.  I was able to get a hand free and from there punch my way to freedom.

Thinking they were going to roast me alive or filet me or something jumpstarted my heart and adrenaline surged through my veins.

Elbowing the one whose name I don’t know in the ribs, he dropped my legs and I freed myself from there.

Clutching my bag I ran as fast as I possibly could away from the trio.  Deep breathing through my gas mask, I valued my ability to escape even the tightest situations.

Looking back to see them just standing there, I felt confused.  But I kept running.  That is until I ran directly into something.  Or someone.