Mist

The Stench of Death

Unluckily, I didn’t die in the battle on that once white field. I’m a P.O.W, along with 200 Vendetta and Service Soldiers. Time for torture! I’m injected with an alien formula that makes human skin grow rapidly, even grow around objects on the body including clothes. Unity, in their beautiful act of kindness, tear off my armor after my skin grew around it. When they tear off my under-armor, I feel only pain.

You know those little pieces of skin that from by your fingernail? Its existence doesn’t hurt so bad, yet your natural reaction is to pull the skin off. Most of the time it’s pulled off like it's nothing, but sometimes when you pull it off, more skin goes with it. Before you know it, you rip off most of the skin around your finger. And you feel that finger pulsing with pain and slightly bleeding. Well, imagine that pain, but all across your body. For 8 hours.

I’m ‘fortunately’ placed in a cell the size of a small table with 80 Service and Vendetta soldiers. We’re cramped and complain. Some have been through injections, which makes them really angry, so there are fights all around. A few species have mouths that can bit off limbs, so it's getting pretty crazy. I am not having a fun time.

I make my brain think of something else. A seven centimeter stab wound highlights my lower abdomen. Bruises polka-dot my body from bullets hitting my armor. I don’t fight the pain much. I try to go to a happy place with all the adorable things of the universe. It helps slightly. I’m punched in the face by a blood-covered alien. I smile and say. “Happy place...” in a cracking voice. I remember I’m naked. This torture thing really sucks. Everything in here is naked.

The door behind me opens and 80 people try to run out. I’m knocked on the floor. I try to protect my face while things step on me and I think of that happy place. I hear these weird shoots and electricity shoots through my body. I jump up and jump around the empty room. I look through the doorway and find a lot of bodies lying on the floor with smoke coming out of most. I feel jittery and in pain. I think of multiple happy places. I put a smile on my face and my hands on my hips. I'm going to stay confident.

I see one alive body in the room with me. It's a human, very pale and strong, like he could fight everyone and still have enough energy to fight more. He seems to be signaling me to come closer to him. I approach and he whispers in a foreign voice, “This place was built in a day.”

“Thanks,” I whisper back as sarcastically as I can.

“No, buddy.” He mummers, “These sons of bitches Warriors,” under his breath.

He continues, like nothing happened, “It means this place is made formulaically, so we can easy break out.”

“Okay... how?”

“Just follow my lead. And don't talk.”

I whisper “What's your name.”

He grunts, “Serdityy. And you just failed the only rule I gave you.” He shakes his head and continues, “These Unity idiots are keeping the humans because they think we have ‘information’ about the non realem mission.” I nod in agreement, but I have no idea what that mission is or why they think I have that information.

We peek outside the room, where two Unity aliens check the dead bodies. He whispers, “I made that mission up and used your stupid Warrior language to make it sound real. I told them that every human has the information to a huge plan to take out all of Unity. And these Unity idiots ate every piece of shit I gave to them.”

The Unity soldiers spot us and shoot at him. He jerks quickly to the left and a weird slow bullet fly passed us. The guards run after him with their fists in the air. He grabs their hands and twist them. They scream in pain and I start to think this seems too easy. One of them has this odd blue sword and looks like he's gonna stab Serdityy. I sprint up and punch it in the face. He flies out of Serdityy’s grasp.

I grab the blue sword and hack at the guard while Serdityy beats the holy heck out of the other one. The guard looks pained when I strike it. I grab the guard's helmet and rip it off. It's a lizard-like alien that looks so sad. I kick it in the face and while it's on the ground I start beating this thing over and over again. This is the happy place that helped me the most.