(no subject)
I re-wrote it. Fatties.
Antarctica, June 30th, 2771 C.E.
In the pitch-black gloom of his tiny apartment, the outlaw kicked himself back to his senses, fumbling under the moldy old pillow for his knife. He just barely clutched the handle into his fingers before spastically falling from his cot to the icy concrete floor. Picking up a sign of movement, the projection clock shot the time onto the ceiling, granting just enough light to scan the room.
Terror sizzled in the outlaw’s consciousness, still fresh from the infernal oven of a nightmare. He slashed the blade he held at nothing, blinking and squinting his smoke-dried eyes harder each time. Every time he opened them the air felt like sandpaper; but every time he closed them the horrific images bombarded him again and again until he choked and coughed and tried to swallow enough air to scream. But as he curled up and wept in desperation, the cold air penetrated him ‘til he shivered harder and harder and finally welcomed himself back to the safety of reality.
Now clearly visible under the dim light of the projection clock was the emptiness of his room. Everything was the way he left it, his gun resting fully-loaded with the safety off on his bedside table. A chair with an empty whiskey bottle pressed behind the back rest sat pushed up against the only door into the windowless room. If someone had slid the door open, he knew the bottle would have fallen and shattered, waking him instantly. He could even just barely make out the strand of his own hair he’d spit-glued to the door’s opening point. No way in hell could anyone have come in here without him knowing.
Satisfied, the young man clapped, and the power came on in the room. The overhead lighting panels illuminated slowly to avoid blinding him, and the time display shifted to the wall above his bed. From the looks of it, he’d slept four hours. Too long, he thought. Oversleeping was a luxury the outlaw couldn’t afford anymore; there wasn’t a man in the known universe who didn’t want him dead, after all, and if the wrong people found him there was no telling what kind of sick games they’d play with him before they even bothered lending an ear to his pleading for the coup de grace.
Now he was sorrier than anyone for what he’d done, of course, the young man knew he had a debt to settle with God when he eventually bought the farm. Unfortunately that just wasn’t enough to satisfy his enemies. When the time came for his end (and he figured it sooner than later) there would be nothing he could do to escape the wrath of God. But for now he had to trust that he was still alive for a reason, and until he figured it out he’d gun down every self-righteous son of a bitch who came to claim the price on his head. It wasn’t any way to live, but it was all he had. If his enemies came for him it didn’t matter if they were cops or feds or bounty hunters or even the corporate espionage branches he used to work for; he’d show them no hesitation and no mercy. He’d shoot at them until they didn’t even look human any more, he’d slice them open from pelvis to sternum and strangle them with their own guts.
He stood in the mirror and told himself all of this, over and over again until the tears no longer welled in his eyes and he stood up straight, his spine steeled and his heart colder than the frigid air of his barely-heated room. I ain’t no statistic of interstellar crime. I ain’t nobody’s instrument of murder no more. I’m Nikolaus Archer, and I will not be made an example of on this day or any other. He gripped the pendant of Solomon’s Seal around his neck, and prayed. Forgive me, o’ Lord, for what I done and what I am. Amen.