Content warning!! -- Gruesome deaths, blood, violence, use of drugs.

***

Heartbeats. Darkness. The bells again. The cold. The fridge had gotten smaller.

Knocking at the door. The dim blue lights made his movements feel slow. He strode towards the noise, but it was like walking waist-deep in a sea of drying blood. Val made it to the door and turned the knob. The fire had already erupted. The shadow was wailing and waving its arms.

"...Oscuro! Coming... for you!"

"What?" Val said. The shadow's claws clasped around his arm. Val tried to yank it away, but it was no use. His breath got faster, and he felt weak.

"Oscuro! Project... Lambda... Run!"

Val couldn't make out what the shadow was saying, then, a larger shadow came into scene. It was immense, arachnid in nature, and swift as lightning. Val stared at the smaller shadow that kept spouting nonsense.

The larger shadow closed the distance between it and the smaller one, and swallowed it whole. Val froze, hoping not to be seen by some miracle.

It didn't work, and Val was ripped piece by piece before he could process the pain.

***

A scream in the dark. Val got up and fell off the couch, his lower back howled in pain. He grimaced and cracked his spine again, but his knees still hurt whenever he bent them. He'd wrapped himself in ice packs. The pain had faded slightly, but it was still there. Jumping off the building had been his worst idea yet.

Val got himself back up on the couch and sighed, then noticing his breath was shaky. He chuckled nervously and put the ice packs back into place, but they'd melted away already. He groaned and tossed one of them away. He felt miserable. He was no better than a wounded beast lying on the side of the road, waiting for death to pick him up.

A knock on the door startled Val, and nearly made him fall off the couch again. He got up and walked the painful trip to the door. He reached out but hesitated. He bit his lip and went back to grab the sword. He walked back to the door. His knees protested with a combination of consistent pressure and short, sharp jabs of raw suffering. His back didn't feel much better either. He felt as if he'd been folded in half even when standing upright. Val opened the door and hid the sword behind himself. He looked around but he only saw a briefcase lying at his feet. He pulled it inside and closed the door. He left it alone by the couch and went to talk to the AI he'd grabbed.

"Hey," Val croaked.

"Val," The ball said, voice icy and distorted.

"You said something about Oscuro, didn't you?"

"I did,"

Val got hair out of his face and sighed.

"What's Oscuro all about?" He finally asked.

"Authorization needed,"

"Come on..." He sighed. "Who am I?"

"Val,"

He shut his eyes and leaned back in the chair before a jolt of pain forced him to slump forward again. "...What- What am I?"

"You are Oscuro. Authorization needed,"

Val blinked and looked away from the sphere. "What can you tell me?"

"About what?"

"What is Snow Co?"

"Snow Co is a PMC specializing in defense contracts, weapon systems R&D, and peacekeeping,"

That explained why there were Snow thugs everywhere he set foot on, so he wasn't being chased by them. Or was he?

"Why can't I remember anything?"

"Authorization needed,"

"Who made you?"

"Authorization needed. A0013 is property of Lambda Inc, attempting to copy my data structures is a breach of Article 1340-C under the laws of Trademark and Software,"

The machine wasn't giving him anything helpful.

"Who wants me dead? Why?"

"Data compilation incomplete, no relevant information found,"

Val exhaled sharply and stood up, frustrated. He went back to the briefcase and opened it. It was packed with needles full of a strange violet fluid. He saw a note on top. It read:

This will ease your pain

- The Handler

Val didn't question the contents, and immediately picked up a syringe. He used the katana's lace to tie up his arm and look for a vein. When he spotted one that seemed important, he brought the syringe down, but stopped just when his skin was about to break. He stared at the syringe and couldn't help but feel he was doing something forbidden. The words from the note echoed in his mind. Val's hand was shaking.

"What are you doing?" Val grunted.

After minutes spent debating with himself, he finally stabbed the dark green vein and pushed down the fluid through the needle into his blood. He sighed and rejoiced as the pain in his joints and vertebrae was ripped away a few moments later. His shoulders sank, and the world seemed colder. Just the way he liked it. A shudder attacked his neck and he laughed. He felt something. As if nothing could get to him, he was a child playing King of the Mountain on lunchbreak, and he would always be the king. He felt that way when Vic was nearby. He looked around, but was disappointed when he didn't find him. This disappointment passed quickly though.

He sprung up from the couch and turned on the TV for background noise. The voices coming from it were melodious and... pretty. The kitchen awaited. He searched the cupboards and grabbed a bag of rice along with a few other ingredients he'd bought after stealing the AI. Another shudder went up his neck and slowly faded into nothingness around his jaw.

When he was about to put the bag on the table, he spotted two glowing eyes in the air. He shouted and dropped the bag. When he looked again, the eyes were nothing but the digital clock of the microwave.

"You idiot," He chuckled. Val collapsed on his knees and barely felt the impact. He smiled and saw that the bag of rice had ripped, but he didn't care. He fetched a pot and dropped it noisily on the floor. The sound bounced around in his ears in a fascinating way, and he found it to be beautiful, just like the echoes that came from the TV at the living room. He picked up the grains and then something caught his eye: a single grain a bit too far from the small pile in his hand.

"One... Two, three. Four, five, six..."

Val was amused. He hadn't considered how many grains of rice could fit in his hand. He placed the grains on the floor carefully, took off his jacket, and threw it at the couch.

He got back to counting the rice carefully, then dropping the grains in the pot. One by one, not daring to skip a single one.

"74, 74, 74..." He repeated under his breath, as he poured the rest of the rice on the floor. He then resumed his count, and he wasn't a single bit bored. He hummed the theme song from the movies he'd watched with Vic as he counted, and he wished he was there with him.

"I'm on 143! Are you proud of me?" He said out loud, as he kept counting grain by grain. He wasn't even halfway through when he heard footsteps, and for the first time, he was alarmed. This feeling was amplified as well, and it was a hundred times more horrible.

He leapt up and put on his jacket, donned his sword and picked up the briefcase in less time than he'd taken to drop the pot to the floor. He double-checked if he had everything and then he grabbed some cash from the bag, stuffing his pockets full of it. He whistled as he walked toward the door.

Then, the door exploded in a thousand splinters. He didn't flinch at all. The katana was airborne in no-time. And it went right through a humanoid silhouette's neck, before Val lunged forward and retrieved it. He drove the blade through a leg and an arm; seeing a red half-liquid half-gas explode into spirals mid-air. And he was delighted, however, he didn't show it. It was too easy. Bright beams of light rushed past him, making the air boil. Val deflected two of the beams with the sword, and the blade became of a bright orange color. He noticed the steam that came out of another man's neck as he slashed forward. Val raced through the hallway and cut down three more men. He didn't have a care in the world.

He leapt down the stairs and kicked a guy that was going up, in the chest. The man dropped his rifle and fell to the bottom of the stairs. Val gracefully jumped down the flight of stairs and sunk the blade in the middle of the man's torso. A gurgle emanated from their throat, but it was silenced when Val twisted the blade and brought it up through the man's skull. He kept running. He indeed was playing King of the Hill, and no one would take the title of king from him.

He went out into the street and somehow, no lasers hit him as he ran on open terrain. Rain fell down hard on the blackened pavement. Blue and red shone through the raindrops, flooding his view. He kept running, and he realized no one was shooting at him.

"Where'd he go!?" Someone yelled. The scream lingered in the air, getting more distorted with each playback.

Val laughed loudly as he ran directly at the man who'd asked the question. When the man realized he was coming, it was too late. He let out a shriek of pure panic as Val slashed him down diagonally. He hadn't felt that much alive in ages. As he'd finished the men upstairs, he went through the ones outside twice as quickly. The air smelt of salt, blood and acid. He wiped his blade on his pants and put it back in the saya before he ran away from the scene. He wished Vic could see him. He kept running in the rain, whenever he went people stared. He liked the attention. He didn't know if it'd been mere seconds or hours since he'd slaughtered all those people, and he didn't care.

"Hmm. Funny word... 'Slaughter',"

And he kept running through the city until sunrise.

***

Val's knees gave out under him and he crashed down on the floor. His legs were burning, his breath was ragged, and he felt seconds away from passing out. He was drenched in sweat and blood. A wave of horror washed over him. He let out a hoarse scream through his shredded throat, and the tiredness made it worse. Whatever he'd been on had worn off, and he was now dealing with the tiredness, the pain, and the horror all at once. All in an unseen corner of the big city.

The earpiece was ringing. He didn't know it was even ringing. He pulled himself together and breathed.

"Where the fuck have you been? I've been trying to get through all night!" The Handler yelled. Val removed the earpiece and distanced it a bit so it wouldn't blow out his eardrum. "Do you have any idea what you've made me do!? An entire police patrol, dead! By your hand no less,"

Val kept quiet. He was still staring at the dried blood peeling off his hands. His head hurt, black on white flashes interrupted his reality. His right ear rang nonstop. He vomited.

"I've spent all night trying to get to you just as much as I've been busy keeping your little stunt from reaching the news. You've endangered our entire organization!"

"And?" Val shouted. He felt like dread.

"Did you learn nothing from the courier incident?" The Handler said menacingly. "How stupid can you get!? I gave you the vials and what do you do? Plunge a whole needle in one go! What the fuck did you expect? And now you've been flushed. Do something like this again and you're dead, you hear me?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just send me to another hellhole would you?" Val hissed. The Handler's voice boomed in his ears. And he hated it.

"You've also went and lost the AI I figure. Stayed back at your place,"

"Guess so, it wasn't much use anyway,"

The Handler hung up, and Val scoffed. So he had the audacity to hang up on him after all that. He leaned against the hard concrete wall and let himself cry freely. After all, no one was there to watch him cry.