There is an emergency mode in the machine on Zadie's leg. In case of an emergency where the machine will inject poison into her body, killing her instantly.
She looked at the machine, trying to decide on what she should do as the footsteps grew closer.
Her hand is still in the pocket, touching the HDD. If I am dead, they will get what they want. I need to hide this first.
They are on the top floor, it will take them at least a minute to get to her, even at their fastest speed.
The incomplete buildings always have the most floors. She laughed, pulling herself off the machine, ripping her skin and muscles.
The pain truly came when she broke the nerves connecting to the machine from her leg.
Collapsing to the ground as her vision blurred, she forced herself to crawl to the room she was in before.
Once inside, she hid the HDD in a spot at the corner of the wall where no one else can see. Satisfied, she crawled back to the machine leg.
Pressing the self-destruct button, she took pieces of the machine and began putting the pieces together until they looked familiar to the HDD she held for so long.
Crawling to the wall, collecting as many guns as she could, Zadie rested her head on the wall, keeping a lookout to the stairs, gun ready.
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"Shoot him!" The moment Horis shouted those words, everyone suddenly froze, the air growing heavy.
"I would not recommend doing that." The man said nonchalantly as their body began to tremble and each one fell to the ground.
"What is hap-" A memory flashing across his mind but he shook his head, ignoring it as best as he could.
"NO! I'M SORRY. I'M SORRY!" He heard Fiona shout, turning to her, he saw her grabbing a gun and pointing it to her head. "I DIDN'T MEAN FOR THAT TO HAPPEN! I-"
She does not seem to realise that she is the one holding the gun to her head as she fought with herself to try and get the gun away from her.
"No. No! NO!" Kyle shouted, reaching for something or someone. "Please don't. I will make everything better. I promise! Wait!"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
All around him were screams of apologies as each one began to attack the other, thinking that the other is someone else.
They fought each other, putting a gun to the other's head or cutting them with the daggers they had, or any weapon really.
"What is happening?" Horis asked, looking at the man watching everyone with a solemn expression on his face. "What did you do?!"
"Oh? You are unaffected?" The man asked, bending to his height as he stared into his eyes. He reached into his right eye and pulled out his eyeball, darkness in his eye socket as the flesh fell from the ball.
"W-what are you?" He asked, staring into his empty eye socket seeing something glistening in the darkness.
"I wonder that a lot sometimes." The man said, blue smoke steaming from inside the man's eye socket and surrounding him.
Horis began to choke before his vision blurred and his entire surroundings faded away. Instead of writhing on the ground, he is upright and staring at a pile of rubble. Smoke filled the skies as helicopters could be heard all around along with the sound of guns going off and people screaming.
He tried to turn but his body remained rooted in the same spot, his eyes staring at the rubble blankly as a bloodied arm with the hand hanging by torn muscle fibres, broken bones poking out like spears.
No. No. No. The man thought, falling to the ground once again as the person made their way out of the rubble. The rotting corpse of a young girl stared at the man blankly, head tilting to the side as Horis grabbed his gun at his side and started shooting at the person in front of him.
Her battered body falling to the ground, but she was not down long, getting up once again and relentlessly walking to him.
No matter how much the man shot at her and how much she fell, she got back up once again.
"Why?" She asked as he shot at her skull, gradually running out of ammo.
"I already said my apologies!" The man shouted, grabbing whatever he could and threw it at her. "I had no other choice!"
"You did." She said, voice sounding distressed. "You had a choice, you had an option and … you chose the safest one."
"I- I-." He paused, staring at the girl and furrowing his brows at her before his expression turned hard again. "I already apologised! Isn't that enough?"
She stared at him, disappointed as she shook her head sadly before lunging at him.
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Issac stared at the man falling back and writhing in pain, his eyes glazed over before going blank.
Taking the cigarette and the lighter from the man, he light one up and stared at the man, mirroring the expression the girl had before lunging at him. Only he felt disappointed.
"Another fail, huh?" He mumbled, gently nudging the man's body with his leg. He blew out a cloud of smoke, staring at the building in front of him nonchalantly.
No one else seemed to see it, but there is a wave of blue smoke surrounding the building and the entirety of dead people littered on the ground around him.
I still don't have proper control.
His hand brushed the tablet in his pocket as the frown on his face deepened.
Turning to the people on the ground, he clasped his hands together and bowed at them, "Rest in peace."
Bang!
A bullet ran through Issac's torso, hitting a body in front of him.
Confused, Issac turned around to see the boy he spoke to earlier holding a gun to his direction, eyes fuming with anger.
"Are you … unaffected?" Issac asked, tilting to his side as a smile formed from the corner of his lips.
"You! What are you?" The boy … Jadin asked, hands trembling as he held the gun at him. "I shot you through the lung. Why aren't you dead yet!?!"
"Oh yeah, you did," Issac said, looking at his torso, blood spreading all over the uniform he wore. "That hurt."
"You are supposed to be dead! It isn't supposed to hurt!" The boy shouted again, shooting at Issac who dodged the bullets with ease this time, walking to Jadin one step at a time. "Stay away from me!"
"Sorry kid," Issac said, right in front of him now as the gun clicked. No more bullets. "You are a rare specimen I have to have."
The boy did not have the chance to react when Issac knocked him out with a clean hit to the back of his neck.
Throwing the boy's body over his shoulders, he began to walk into the building pausing when he saw the number of stairs he has to climb.
Issac sighed. This is going to be a pain in the ass.
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Zadie shot the first few people to appear on the stairs down, switching between the guns laid all around her in rows. The first line was taken out as the others began firing at her, running for cover.
While waiting for them, she placed a door in front of her, hiding behind that to block the bullets but it did not do much as some bullets were able to come through the door.
Gritting her teeth as the blood loss from her wounds are starting to get to her head, hardly able to even lift her eyes up.
If I could just move. She thought. I would have been able to take more out. Why isn't my body sturdier?
Damn, I am going to lose the bet at this rate.
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"That looks like it hurts." She remembered Issac saying to her when she finally got the hang of walking in those prosthetic legs.
"Not as much as that does." She had remarked, pointing to his chest wide open as a pair of mechanical lungs, connected to many other machines beside the bed he laid in, rose and fell with each breath he took.
"It doesn't hurt anymore." He said nonchalantly. "This just might kill me, you know? My father told me that."
"Really? This could kill me too." She retorted back, pointing to the legs she could hardly pick up. "It is just a matter of time."
"Wanna make a bet?" he asked, looking at her with his deadpan expression.
"What bet?"
"The first one to die loses." He said nonchalantly. "And the winner gets everything that belongs to the one living."
"Fine."
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"You aren't going to outlive me, Issac." Zadie gasped, grabbing onto a gun and using that to support herself. "I am going to get that table."
As footsteps approached her, Zadie took in a deep breath and pulled out a switch from her pocket.
Peeking out, she stared at her mechanical legs as the soldiers grew closer.
Bracing her body, she flipped the switch as a bright flash of light spread throughout the room, shaking the building to its core.
The impact knocked Zadie back against the wall, making her lose consciousness as the building slowly settled.
Issac. Where are you, you bastard?