Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee-Chapter 31: You are leaking

​I stare at the escape flask in my trembling hand. The blue liquid-like light sloshes gently, offering a coward’s way out.

​No.

I clench my jaw, fighting through the blinding pain in my shoulder. I didn’t survive ten years in this hell just to run away from a couple of academy kids on my return.

​I tuck the flask back into my belt. I have one play left.

A dirty one.

​Hidden behind the shattered pillar, bleeding and gasping, I pitch my voice just loud enough to carry over the crackling fire—aimed only at the swordsman pushing my cover, not the sniper high above.

​"Hey, swordsman," I wheeze, forcing a wet, cynical chuckle. "Your friend in the tree is a Rank-D Ranger, right? Don’t you think it’s weird he let your partner get decapitated before taking a shot at me?"

​The crunching of boots on gravel stops. The leader hesitates. His guard visibly wavers.

​I press the wound on my shoulder to keep myself conscious and keep talking.

"He aimed for my shoulder. He pretended to incapacitate me so I could kill or severely wound you. He’s going to let us bleed each other dry so he can keep all the loot from the girl with the bazooka, plus a better position in the overall rankings. You’re his bait, you idiot."

​Silence.

​Then, I hear the rustle of leather. The leader, already deeply shaken by the brutal death of his friend, looks up at the canopy.

​Just for a second.

​It’s working. Above us, the ancient mahogany groans. The canopy is still burning from Lola’s blast, the fire spreading erratically pushed by the wind. It’s not a full inferno yet, but the wet, suffocating leaves of the jungle are fighting the flames, producing a thick, choking white smoke that blankets the upper branches. Ash and embers drift down around us like dirty snow.

​My body is violently trembling. I’m losing too much blood. It’s now or never.

​I scrape my good hand against the ruined floor, grabbing a fistful of white ash, gravel, and smoldering wet leaves.

​I step out from cover and throw it straight up into the wind.

​The gust catches the debris, whipping it into a blinding, stinging cloud of smoke and grit directly in the leader’s face. He flinches, raising his arm to protect his eyes.

​I don’t have Eventide. I don’t try to strike. I just slip under his high guard and slam into his chest, wrapping my good arm and my numb, bleeding right arm around him in a desperate bear hug.

​It’s not a tactical masterpiece. It’s pure, primal desperation.

​Instantly, I realize I made a mistake.

​He is heavy. The Rank-E armor feels like a brick wall, and his physical stats completely dwarf mine. He drops his longsword with a clatter and wraps his thick, gauntleted hands around my back.

​He squeezes.

​My ribs groan. A sharp, agonizing crack echoes in my ears. I can’t breathe. My Rank-F muscles tear under the pressure. The tremor in my limbs turns into full-blown convulsions. He is going to crush my spine. I can smell his sweat, the raw sting of blood, and the leather of his armor.

​I’m going to die here. I’m actually going to be crushed to death by a cadet.

​Genuine, suffocating terror grips my throat. My vision starts to go black at the edges.

​TWANG.

​The sound of the heavy crossbow firing cuts through the roar of the fire.

​The sniper shot blindly into the smoke, shooting into the melee to save his leader. Or maybe to finish us both.

I feel the shockwave before I hear the wet, sickening crunch.

The leader’s crushing grip goes slack. He gasps—a hollow, bubbling sound—and his heavy body sags against me. I look down. The steel tip of a crossbow bolt is protruding from the center of his back, having passed clean through his chest.

Fatal.

I check my chest, searching for an entry wound. Clean.

That was a hell of a close call...

CRACK.

The escape flask on his belt shatters. The unused magic twists, erupting into that same blinding, blood-red pillar of light. It shoots straight up, brushing everything over my body, tearing through the smoke and painting the oceanic sky crimson again.

Then comes the heavy, bone-rattling sorrow of the weeping whale, echoing across the ruins for the second time today.

Somewhere high up in the smoke, a system chime rings out, followed immediately by a sharp cry of absolute panic.

Friendly fire in a party-delimited PvP zone carries an absolute penalty: Paralysis. But that isn’t why he is screaming. He is screaming because he is paralyzed in a tree, directly above a giant red beacon broadcasting "Free Loot" to the entire island.

A second later, a massive, bone-breaking THUD echoes from the dense brush sixty feet away.

The sniper fell from the canopy.

​I shove the leader’s dead weight off me, collapsing to my knees. I spit a mouthful of blood onto the gravel, my chest heaving. I blindly reach out, grabbing the unlit hilt of Eventide from the dirt.

​Lola. I have to get to Lola.

​[OXI: 104/1,200]

​I drag myself up, stumbling like a drunk through the smoke and ruins toward the monolith where I left her. Every step sends a spike of agony through my pinned shoulder and cracked ribs.

​When I finally clear the smoke, I freeze.

​The sniper is there. His legs are twisted at unnatural angles from the fall, his face a bruised, bleeding mess. But he dragged himself over to Lola.

​He has his arm wrapped around her small neck, a jagged survival knife pressed tight against her throat.

​For a moment, the world stops.

​And then, I let out a long, heavy sigh of relief.

​My knees give out. I just collapse onto my back on the cold stone floor, staring up at the burning sky, and I start to laugh. A weak, breathless, idiotic laugh.

​"Shut up!" the sniper screams, his voice cracking with panic and pain. "Shut the fuck up! Drop the loot! Break your escape flask, or I swear to God I’ll slit her throat right now!"

​I just lie there, a Rank-F rat bleeding out in the dirt, smiling at the ceiling.

​"You think this is a joke?!" He presses the knife harder. Lola doesn’t even blink.

​I slowly turn my head to look at him, my smile dripping with pure, exhausted cynicism.

​"Unfortunately for you," I whisper, my voice raspy, "you took the wrong person hostage."

​I shift my gaze to the little girl in his grip.

​"Irritating, isn’t it, Lola?"

​Lola sighs, a deep, world-weary sound coming from a ten-year-old. She wrinkles her nose.

​"Irritating," she mumbles, entirely unfazed by the blade on her skin. "And he smells like armpits."

​She raises her small hand and lazily taps the arm holding the knife.

​BIP.

​"What is that?"

​BIP.

​"What the fuck is that?" he snaps, letting her go, completely panicked.

​BIP.

​The three high-pitched, electronic chimes sound completely out of place in the ancient jungle.

​The detonation is instantaneous.

​A dry, concussive crack tears the air apart, followed by a pressure wave that slams into my body on the ground like a kicked door.

​The upper half of the sniper simply ceases to exist in a localized, violent burst of blue energy and red mist.

His headless, armless torso slumps backward onto the gravel.

CRACK.

The shattered remains of the escape flask on his belt give way. A third pillar of blood-red light erupts from the gore, piercing the thick smoke and shooting upward to join the other two in the oceanic sky.

Then comes the sound. The deep, heavy sorrow of the weeping whale rolls through the ruins for the third time in minutes, vibrating in my teeth.

I brace myself. Lola hates loud noises. If she throws a tantrum and starts firing blindly now, we are completely dead.

But she doesn’t.

Lola steps out of the gore puddle, her heavy panda-keyring bazooka case dragging slightly behind her. She stops, tilting her head to look up at the crimson lights reflecting in her large, apathetic eyes.

"The big fish is sad," she murmurs softly, her voice completely detached from the slaughter she just caused. "The soul went to sleep."

She dusts off her sleeves with a deeply annoyed pout at the mess on her clothes, then looks over at me lying in the dirt with a crossbow bolt sticking out of my shoulder.

She trots over, crouching down to poke my cheek.

"You are leaking," she observes.