SOTF Mini

Her hands pulled and pushed. Her eyes were stuck on hers, hidden behind dark glasses.

They were red. She was staring at Paris. "BACK OFF-"

And then they sheathed her katana. This actually stumped for a second, stopping her completely. When they jumped off the roof, she could only watch.

There weren't screams, nor broken bones. Whatever Paris used to get behind her could also make them drop without injuries. She didn't dare look down all the same, slowly stepping backwards.

At some point her breathing evened; she was sure her heart would have tried to burst out of her chest in the real world. Here, she only felt tired and dazed as she looked back at her weapon.

She ended up taking the clip off; the saber in her hands was still in its sheath. "...Oh." She couldn't help but be embarrassed as she put it back where it was.

She could have died. If she was alone, she would have been.

This thought was above all else as she looked for the closest exit, sparing a quick glance at both C and Zorin, both still armed and acting as their usual selves, but for how long?

She didn't know; she didn't care. She sprinted straight to the closest door, now cleared, and never looked back. She needed to find the others.

Amy Cassady, panicking elsewhere...

And just like that, everything is as it were. Safety flicked on again as Zorin’s arms lowered. He blinked, once, then twice. He did a mental recap; mall ninja appeared out of literally nowhere, and seemed to miss their attack. Then they fling themselves off the roof.

Then Amy retreats despite safety in numbers…

“Shit…”

Zorin stepped forward, craning his neck over the edge of the roof.

Mall ninja was nowhere to be found.

“Well. That’s not good.”

"Yeah."

...

"Kinda funny though. Paris, wasn't they? Weren't? Hm..."

He pulled his shears out. "Should we get out of here or something?"

“Yeah, kinda…”

Not really though. Zorin winced. His brain was racked with ideas, and worse; a realization he’d said out loud.

“People already bought into this shit.” Wasn’t even an hour into the school day and people just decided to kill each other. Take operation Earth or whatever glowy corpo scum government false flag plant’s word at face value. Whatever time Zorin had to figure it out before someone got hurt just shrank exponentially. He started to mumble to himself. Internal thoughts blurring into external words.

“Don’t like a lot of people here. Too entitled, too witless, too absorbed in their mediocrity; but I’m no misanthrope. There’s never been a moment where I’ve thought of killing one of them, even now. Sure, I like to fuck with them, maybe crash their game, steamsnipe them, cause them to shriek and shit and cry and break their own tech in impotent rage, but never kill them.”

Zorin turned to C. He was wild eyed, he was clearly shaken to his core.

“This is bad, like ‘I can’t spell it out enough’ bad. All it takes is one to get the idea they can play along and make it out. They only got to do it once, and then everyone gets that idea, everyone does it.”

"Mm-hm."

C never got the point of trolling. Or whatever people call it nowadays. Despite himself, he felt an irrational bit of annoyance at Zorin.

"I mean, not to be the stupid optimist, but like... a. huge chance this isn't real, and b. I don't really think one person trying to go all crazy because they were good at killing zombies or whatnot in the latest triple A video game with lootboxes means that everyone will lord-of-the-flies it out."

"And," he shrugged, "You do have a Big Gun."

“I hope you’re right. I hope this is fake so if something bad happens we can be told this is some sort of stupid social experiment. But what if it’s not? What if it’s real?”

Zorin peeked down the roof again. He didn’t know what he was up against. “If this garbage is as real as they say; you die twice. You feel what happens here, and then you feel your brain get cooked. Then if someone kills you, your friend is gonna look for revenge, maybe they get the right target, maybe not. They get someone though, and now their friends are looking for revenge, and that’s more people getting killed. Then more people join in because herd mentality.”

He glanced at his AK.

“Sure I got this, but I don’t wanna use it. I don’t want to find out if this game is real. I want to find a way out of here, I want to get us all out of here before someone gets hurt, and I want to find the bastards responsible for this, and I want to swat them the exact same time they all get three foot long bad dragon demon dicks in the mail.

That’s what I want to do; that’s what I’m going to do.”

"Dude. They aren't getting dildos. They're getting the CIA, interpol, whateverthefuck. The FBI knocking at their door. This isn't just..."

Ugh, what to even say?

"Well," he shrugged, half-teasing, "If you don't want the gun, gimme it."

"Aaaaaanyways... They probably got VPNs. But, like, ok. How are you even gonna do any of that?

His hands gripped the rifle just a bit tighter out of reflex. He didn’t reply to the idea of giving it up, not yet anyways.

“VPNs are one thing, I can get past that. We’re already on their server, I just need a way to access my own prompts and scripts. After that it’s a lot of just playing pretend and fucking with people’s heads to get the info I need, which is less likely, or prodding around and putting together the info myself. “



“All I need is a way to access my equipment, and then I can find a way to get us out of here. That’s part 1; and I can’t even think about anything else without getting my shit. Maybe-“

There were gunshots in the distance, followed by the sound of shattering glass.

“Fuck! Get back, get back!” Zorin stepped away from the edge of the roof.

“Fucking idiots, they’re already-“

Think Zorin, think.

"Should we jump down?"

...

"Wait no that's a stupid idea. Sorry."

"Yeah, no, no we shouldn't. Not as stupid as drinking the kool-aid though."

Zorin could jump if he had to. The little syringe in his pocket ensured he'd survive just about everything provided he wasn't dead instantly or too broken to reach it, but it'd be pointless to waste it like this. Better to use it for a second wind; or to bring someone else back from the brink.

He pointed towards the doorway behind him.

"The stairs are this way, we could go down there, see if anyone's hurt. Maybe scare off whoever's shooting, if they're not still there. But we got to be careful about this. There's already a mall ninja trying to chop some heads, and now we got some crackhead with a gun...

If you want to help me, you're free to tag along. I don't blame you if you wanna lie low, though."

Zorin turned around and peeked down the edge again, hoping to not take a round to the brain pan. He backpedaled and looked at C.

"This day's going by great already. Wish I could be wrong for once about these fucking idiots;"

He nodded his head towards C as he walk-ran towards the stairwell.

"Let's bounce!"

((Zorin Boddicker continued elsewhere.))

"Sure."

Nevermind the fact that this guy can blow his brains out at any moment and C would be powerless to stop him!

Seriously, though.

(C continued in, uh.... Hm. Somewhere else.)