Krieg sits atop the headquarters in Sanctuary, perched on the roof and staring at the moon. His buzz axe lays at his side, and he is lost in thought. The large H in the sky is glaring back down at him, obstructing an otherwise beautiful view. The stars are shining, and a beautiful blue glow falls over the town in the darkness, bathing everything in the night.
I’ll never say that everything’s alright.
Krieg sighed. It had been 10 years today. 10 years since...the experiments had begun. That day marked the end of any sort of normal life he may ever have. He had lost his family to the slag testing, first. His father burned from the inside out in front of his eyes, and his mother died in his arms, a broken and fragile shadow of her former self. He had to bury them himself under a pile of dead, post-experiment Skag corpses to hide the bodies from the Hyperion scientists, should they be exhumed for further research.
His sanity came next. As soon as Hyperion had realized his biological chemistry was a perfect match for the testing, the needles came. The surgeries. The experiments. The...the slag. The nasty, toxic, volatile, burning slag. There wasn’t much more on Pandora that was detested more than the by product of Eridium, or the junkies that thrived on it. And Krieg was both; his blood pumped with the chemicals, and he could barely function without it. He had no choice. Hyperion had done this, as well.
As the pain progressed, his mind was stripped away. Molded into something else entirely. Another psyche developed. A disgusting, violent individual. One that could hardly keep his hands out of blood. Born of a violent rage against those who wronged him, and whose sole purpose was murder.
And here he sat. A Psycho of large proportions, sitting inside a resistance that he was barely welcomed in to. The citizens of the town feared him. The other Vault Hunters barely understood him. Even here, he did not truly fit in. There would be no difference if he was gone. No one would notice.
Krieg peered over the edge of the roof, and down towards the balcony of the Headquarters building. Bright red hair shown in sharp contrast against the dull blue backdrop of the town. He smiled beneath his mask, remembering how they met. How she helped him. How she cares...Lilith had always been there. She had always listened, helped with his dependency, been there when the others left him behind.
“FiRe LaDy.” He murmured softly to himself. But it didn’t last.
That voice. No, stop it. Don’t start this again.
You are unlovable. You are a junkie. You are madness. You are blood.
You will never. Ever. Be free.
Krieg drew back to his seat on the roof top, and ripped his mask from his face. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he stifled back any kind of sound he may make. He slammed his fist down onto the roofing of Sanctuary, before kicking his Axe over the side and into an alley. He looked down to the beaten, weathered mask in his hand with hatred.
He couldn’t stop it. A sob ripped from his lips as he dropped the mask. It slid down the roof to the balcony, where it fell with a clatter. He sat with his heads in his hands, body shivering from the truth.
