Closed starter for @niragixpsych
It is only a flicker at first, like a stuttering game engine trying to render the environment before the walls have loaded - the textures flicker for a second until the image stabilizes.
Niragi squints, raises the rifle again, keeping the trigger down before the running idiots are fully in his sights. He told them to fucking stop squatting in the mall they had scouted out for looting, in no uncertain terms, but of course they did not listen. Stayed anyway. So the rain of bullets now is nothing but a well-earned consequence.
The guy closest to him falls forward like a sock puppet as the burst tears up the floor around him. The glass railing of the escalator bursts, and he slams headfirst into the column ahead of him, unable to dodge with the hole in his leg.
Niragi shifts his fire to the ones still stumbling, dodging, trying to slide behind whatever cover they think they can get, as if they are not dead already. The only question left is how.
It is ten points for a headshot, five for a hit, twenty for a writhing mess like the one in front of the column, twitching like a real-life physics failure.
And then it happens again.
Longer. Brighter.
A second escalator where there should be none. Half-transparent columns flickering. The floor tilting so hard Niragi has to brace. One of his own idiots screaming, only to be drowned out by the distorted voice of the game announcer.
Niragi’s head whips around, teeth clenched.
He is in no fucking game.
The voice does not stop, though, hung up on the same word, the feedback loop turning into a high-pitched beep that rings in his ears. Then the floor flips completely and he is tumbling backward, tiles breaking apart right beneath his boots, rifle slipping from his grip as he falls.
All the air leaves him in a gasp when his back hits something warm, hard, squishy.
“No weapons allowed,” the game voice booms overhead before it dissolves into static again.
Niragi groans, feeling for the rifle, then turns his head.
His body goes cold for one hot second when he finds himself looking at his own fucking face, covered in fine dust, one clean hole in its forehead. He scrambles to sit up at least. Get off the body.
Not the first time he has had to look at himself without a mirror, at least. But that asshole is immortal. So that is not him. So none of this is good.
He coughs, heart racing. Still no familiar metal and plastic under his fingers. His legs give out when he tries to stand.
His eyes adjust to the surroundings in pieces: blasted walls, the groan of steel bending right before it breaks, cables torn open, sparks flying, air thick with static, a figure in a sheep’s mask coming at him with a fucking flail.
Then his hand finally catches on a rifle.
Or the dead one’s rifle, stuck beneath the corpse.
“Fuck,” he rasps.
His chest is tight. He cannot feel his fingers when he yanks at it, but it does not move.
Not enough.
He glances around frantically for his own, but it is nowhere in sight. Just the body, the masked guy, the building crumbling around them - and him again, standing at the edge of the crater Niragi is trapped in, staring down at him like this is fucking entertainment.
