Desperation

A story about desperation in the heat of combat.

Desperation

 

I rushed towards the attacking Super Mutants, brandishing a shotgun. They roared, and green gas spilled out of their maws. I discharged the shotgun when I was just three feet from them, trusting the upgrades I had installed to work. One of the Mutants was immediately decapitated and the other had his arm nearly torn off by the special buck I had loaded my shotgun with. More from shock and insult than anything, the remaining Super Mutant charged me, and I blew a soccer ball-sized hole in his chest.

As the other Mutant fell, I stared at their corpses with distaste. They were no prettier with heads than they were without them. They were ten feet tall behemoths of destruction, with puckered orange skin and horribly twisted faces. They usually wore nothing, and thankfully, the mutation they had undergone had seemingly removed any reproductive organs. However, they still seemed to be able to mate somehow, as they multiplied like rabbits. They were sentient, but only in the loosest sense of the word, and they most often wielded nothing but their bare hands. That was usually enough.

Suddenly, what seemed like a small bomb exploded behind me and I went tumbling through the air, cursing my luck. Incredibly, I managed to land in a way that didn't break my neck, and I rolled to minimize the impact. I turned around and, with the same smooth movement, injected myself with stimpacks, which healed my burned skin.

What I saw made me pale with fear.

What I saw was a coalescing mass of gruesomely meshed green flesh, twitching and convulsing with seemingly no pattern or control. There seemed to be three heads, and each one was spitting acid. The middle one disgorged a large, glowing orange globule of saliva that flew with unerring aim right at me. I realized what it was just in time, and I jumped out of the way, slightly propelled by the explosion.

I drew my rocket launcher and fired a rocket at one of its heads. It impacted upon what seemed to be the side of its head, and for a while the creature was still, its heads obscured by a cloud of smoke. Then I heard a terrible screaming sound and the cloud was gone. I looked and, to my surprise, though soot stained the side of its head, it looked no more damaged than it had before I had fired.

I pointed my wrist-mounted scanner at the beast. "Creature identified as Mutant Hydra," said the scanner cheerfully. "Recommend immediate evasion. If evasion is impossible, recommend immediate hiding in a ditch and crying."

Too busy to admire the scanner's creators' twisted senses of humor, I ducked behind a rock and considered my options. Apparently, the scanner gave no ways to kill the thing, so I had to improvise. I pulled out a stun grenade and, ducking from behind cover, I hurled it at the Hydra. It detonated upon hitting the beast and one of its heads seemed to go limp. Taking advantage of this, I fired another rocket and this time it flew inside the limp head's mouth and exploded, showering me with fist-sized lumps of gore.

By this time the creature had recovered and screamed at the loss of its fellow head. Both remaining heads fired a rapid stream of acidic globules, forcing me to duck, dodge and sometimes flat-out sprint. To avoid the acid, I had to run directly underneath the beast. There I discovered four grotesquely shaped legs that I--

"Honey, it's time to go!"

"What, Mom?" I said, distracted.

"Time to go now, honey, save your game and sign off!"

"Aw, Mom--"

"Now, honey!"

Grumbling, I paused my game and saved, then I removed the disc from my Xbox 360 and stared at the game cover. Fallout 3.

 

End.

Author's Note

I know this isn't really what happens in Fallout 3; it was, however, inspired by it. What do you guys think?