NightTide: The Girl With Red Eyes
Pain, Betrayal, Death?

It was hard, I forced myself to stand up. My vision blurred and I was breathing heavily, but I got up. Then I helped Elizabeth up, she had to hop one leg so she was leaning on my shoulder. I guess at this point we were supporting each other.

Elizabeth was worried about me. “Red, your wheezing.”

I didn’t care. “Doesn’t matter.”

Now she seemed angry. “It does matter! You’re hurt! I love you Red, I don’t want you to die!” Love… I don’t understand what that means…

I felt bad now. “I’m sorry… Let’s go get Jessica, I’ll be careful.” She gave me a smile, we started moving faster to Jessica.

We made it to the warehouses. We heard fighting. We got over to where it was as fast as we could… I felt sick. It wasn’t in warehouse B-3 though, it was A-6 now. I saw Jessica, she was fighting someone… Keith. Why were they fighting?

I was concerned, “Elizabeth stay here.”

She wanted to argue. “Why! I came to help to!”

I let go of her and she fell. “She’s fighting Keith, you can’t run… I might be able to if it comes to, please hide.”

She wanted to say something but I walked away. When I turned around she was gone, I guess she hid… I made sure to stay behind the large storage racks, there were gaps in-between boxes and I could watch from there. That sick feeling came back and I felt weak. I couldn’t let that stop me, I leaned against the racks and continued walking. I was finally close enough to hear them

Keith was laughing. “Seriously? You actually liked me?! Oh god that’s hilarious! Sorry, but that just a nice fuck! I’m not interested in dating a NightTide!

Jessica was upset. “Fuck you! I don’t care about that right now! Why the hell are you helping them?!”

I peeked around the corner, they were staring each other down…

Keith dropped his aggressive stance for a second. “I’m going to help my kind, I desecrated my humanity to make the world cleaner…” He reached into his mouth and pulled something out, I saw a fake setof teeth hit the ground… Keith was human… So, he was like Owen then… “Let’s end this already, I don’t feel like sticking around you NightTides any longer, it’s disgusting…” Where did this come from, I didn’t know him very well but he was so kind… Did he always harbor this hatred for us…?

I watched them go at it. Every time one of them connected a punch it I felt a shockwave… They were like gods compared to me. The racks would rattle, they were moving with intent to kill. I felt like Jessica was punching him harder then she hit me, but he kept taking the hits. She kept taking his hits as well, could they even hurt each other?

I wasn’t going to get involved in that. There’s no way I’d be of any help, I’ll only be in the way. There is one thing I could do though, replace those soldiers. If I could keep them away they would be less strain on Jessica. First, I had to replace them, I felt bad for what I did with Elizabeth… I guess I tricked her, it wasn’t intentional but I didn’t want her getting hurt trying to protect me.

I found some stairs. Maybe a bird’s eye view would help. I might be able to make it to the roof, I felt the ground shake while they were fighting. I kept having to grab the railing either from suddenly getting woozy or those two punching each other. As I got up the stairs I saw four soldiers… they were the Pathreplaceers, I guess they were watching as well; probably didn’t want to get involved with that fight any more than I did. I stood there for a second, I had my rifle and my pistol… I was trying to decide what to do… Their armor is really hard, unless I hit them in the head it wouldn’t do anything… I decided to use the rifle.

Three of them were leaning on the railing, they were lined up from the position I was in… I pulled the sniper off and tried aiming, I couldn’t hold it stead. I had to lay it on the railing to steady it… It took me a second to line it up, I waited in case they moved… They stood there talking, I couldn’t hear them; I fired… Three bodies hit the floor.

The fourth ducked, I could hear him screaming. “FUCK! SNIPER! COMMAND MY TEAM IS DOWN!”

He was on the radio… I needed to shoot again but I didn’t have my hand to pull the bolt back. I tried to reach around when a bullet whipped by me, he saw me. He was angry. There’s no way I could get him in time. I ran the other away, it was hard. I was breathing heavy, I could hear myself wheezing. I tried going down the stairs but I lost my balance and fell. It hurt, I rolled down the metal steps and smacked head on the ground.

That hurt a lot, I tried getting up, I felt exhausted… I was almost up when a boot stomped on my back.

They were very angry. “YOU BITCH! YOU KILLED MY BROTHER!” He started bashing the back of my head with his gun. Every time I went to get up he’d smack my head back on the cement.

It hurt. “Stop! Please stop!”

It made him angrier. “You expect me to show mercy! You just fucking killed my brother!” He kept hitting me. I stopped trying to get up… He finally stopped hitting me and started crying… I couldn’t see straight, there was blood coming out of my head, and there was a person behind me that wasn’t going to be merciful… He cried for a while, I could still feel the place shake with those two fighting…

It made me feel bad. I wanted to save Jessica but I ended up killing someone’s brother… It’s an odd time to be feeling sorry for what I’d done, it was too late. I could get up and try shooting him, or I could hope he leaves me be… Not likely, I jumped up and pulled out my pistol, I shot at him… I missed every bullet and fell back down, I couldn’t see straight so I guess I can’t shoot straight either. This time I was lying on my back…

I saw his shape walk up to me, he grabbed my neck and lifted me up… “Fuck! You!” I felt burning sensation in my stomach, it wasn’t a gun… It was a knife… he just stabbed me! He pulled the knife out and went to stab my chest; I tried to stop him. I was holding him back, I had to use my bad arm or he would have stabbed me immediately. My arm was on fire, my head hurt, and my stomach was burning; everything was going wrong. I don’t know how long I was holding him there, he had tears streaming down his face and I probably looked like a bloodied mess. I held him away long enough for him to get frustrated, he pulled away and got on top of me. He threw the knife to the side and started punching me… I couldn’t stop him from doing that, I would shield my face and he’d punch my stomach, I’d try covering my stomach and he’d punch my face… His punches hurt but with what just happened to my arm this wasn’t really comparable.

He eventually stopped hitting me… He was breathing heavily. “How?! How the hell are you still alive!?” He hit me one last time before screaming in frustration… The fighting between Jessica and Keith stopped… I think they heard it. Before I knew it, Jessica flew through the rack next to us… Did Keith throw her? She landed just to the right of us… The guy was frozen, was he scared… I wasn’t sure what to do, I closed my eyes and turned my head to the right… I heard Jessica get up, then I felt this presence. It was immeasurable anger… Rage…

I think she saw us. “GET OFF HER NOW!” I heard the guy scream and then bones cracking… Did she just break his neck?

I opened my eye and I saw her holding his limp body… His neck was twisted around, she broke his neck… I gave up, if she wouldn’t have saved me… Before she could do anything, Keith ran up punched her in the gut, she wasn’t ready for it. I saw her spit up blood she started guiding him away from me… I came to help her but ended up saving me… I’m useless!

I got up, it hurt to move but I needed to do something. I searched the guy, he had a grenade on him, I grabbed it. I used my stump to try and stop the bleeding in my stomach. They were about fifty feet away from me, most of the racks had fallen over by now. They all seemed to fall away from them. I pulled the sniper off my back and pulled the lever back, it had another bullet ready. I tried to replace something to lay it on, there was a hunk of metal that I laid it across. I pointed it towards Jessica and Keith, they were moving around a lot and my I was struggling to look straight… I sat there maybe two or three minutes before an opportunity came had just split off from each other. I shot, I watched the bullet rip through Keith’s throat… he fell backwards.

Jessica looked in my direction and screamed “BEHIND YOU!” I looked behind me and it was the Pathreplaceer.

I couldn’t react fast enough, he grabbed me by my head and lifted me up. I couldn’t see his palm was covering my eyes. I heard Jessica run up, then a grunt and a crashing noise. Did he toss her to the side?! How, she’s so strong; there’s no way he was that powerful!

He started talking to me. “Red, you haven’t failed to disappoint… I always knew you were stubborn. Having your hand violently remove, beaten, stabbed, shot multiple times; you keep on going. They said you were resilient, I guess they weren’t wrong.” He squeezes tighter on my head.

It hurt to the point I could feel my eyes rolling back. “STOP IT HURTS PLEASE!”

He sighed and squeezed tighter. “I don’t want to kill you… But you are our enemy now, I gave you an opportunity to come back, you refused. Even if I were to show mercy now you’ve killed many of our soldiers. You’ll be sent to death regardless, I can at least provide a quick one.” He squeezed tighter, I heard a cracking noise and felt myself losing consciousness.

I couldn’t do anything. Jessica couldn’t save me. If I was going to die it would be on my terms. I pulled out that grenade and pulled the pin. The Pathreplaceer gasped and there was an explosion, then I didn’t feel anything.