Take No Prisoners

Ok, so driving a motorbike one-handed wasn’t the best of ideas. Especially when I’m as shaky as I am today. It’s weird, I keep having out-of-body experiences, like when I try to sleep, I lay there but I feel as though I’m looking down on myself.

I’m not sure I’m well. But there’s no way I’m telling complete strangers that I don’t even like that I might slow them down. For a start, they’d dump me off my bike and leave without me. So I had to make like I was fine. But even that was hard work, it took all of my energy to drive my bike and I was pretty weak.

When Angel stopped her bright green car, I knew there was something happening. She never stopped unless it was important.

It was soon obvious why we’d stopped.

A small brunette girl stood on the side of the track road. Angel got out of the car quickly, and I stopped my bike and followed her.

I inspected the girl from a distance. She looked like she hadn’t eaten in three days, not that strong, but first impressions can be deceiving. I knew that better than anyone.

“Who are you?” She called.

“I could ask you the same question.” I stated, struggling to keep my voice at its normal pace.

“I asked first.” She shouted back.

“My name is Sunshine Suicide, and my companions are Angel of Anarchy, Dusty Sunset Voltage and Shadowed Nuclear.” I said slowly, taking a shaky step forwards.

The others must have noticed as I felt an arm on my back, keeping my steady.

“Then I am Ghosted Stardust. Where are you from?” She replied, taking a step towards us.

“I’m from Canada, Angel and Dusty are from England and Shadowed is from California. We’re headed for Battery City.” I said.

“We have a common purpose. Maybe we should join forces?” She asked carefully.

“We have no need of you.” Angel suddenly cut in.

Dusty clasped Angel’s shoulder, “Wait, Angel, it could be helpful having an extra gun.”

“I don’t see how? The four of us are plenty!” She muttered.

“Because Sunshine Suicide is pretty incapable of holding her gun at the minute, despite what she might think.”

Angel hesitated before looking back at the new girl. “Ok, you can travel with us, do you have any transport?”

She mumbled a ‘No’ and Angel groaned. “Well you’ll have to ride on the back of Sunshine’s bike. I have no room.”

I noticed Shadowed had been particularly quiet over this exchange between us and Ghosted Stardust.

“Shadowed? What do you say?” I asked, as Angel stalked off to her car, the only thing she really cared about.

“I don’t care either way. It makes no difference.” She said simply before following Angel.

I gasped as a searing pain went through my arm. But I hoped none of the others had noticed.

“Sunshine? Are you OK?” Dusty asked quietly.

I simply nodded as I was in too much pain to speak.

“Let me look at your arm?” She asked, ignoring my protests.

I let her as I knew she wouldn’t let me get away with it.

Unravelling my mock-bandage she swore under her breath at the site of the red wound, not healed and so obviously infected.

“I need to clean this. But I don’t know what good it’ll do. You need antibiotics.” She muttered, mainly to herself.

“I’m fine. I’ll go wash it myself.” I said. “I promise.”

I crossed my fingers behind my back. I was strong enough to fight off an infection. I wasn’t even positive it was infected; Dusty had a tendency to exaggerate.

I tied a new scrap of fabric round the wound tightly. It felt better instantly, though probably only because I had cut off the blood supply.

The new girl came up to me slightly nervously. “I guess I’m riding with you.”

“Sure, climb up behind me.” I replied, not giving her much attention. These people weren’t my friends and I had no interest in chatting like we were ‘BFF’s’.

“Do you like, have a helmet?” She asked.

I turned to stare at her. “What do you think? I can magic a helmet up from thin air. I was hard pressed finding a bike in the first place.”

“Well, I’m sorry for asking about my safety.” She muttered.

“Please don’t make this ride unpleasant for me. I had enough trouble with Dusty. Maybe you’ll get promoted to the car soon too.” I snarled.

I was not in the mood for kindness. My arm killed and all I wanted to do was sleep.

After driving along the one track road for a while, I knew I needed to stop. I was in precarious danger of falling asleep at the wheel. The only problem was I had no idea of how to get their attention.

I parked the bike up, and told Ghosted Stardust to help me with my bag. Inside my left boot was my ray gun. It was easier to keep it there than to carry it around all the time.

I figured if I fired it into the air they would see the laser beam... hopefully.

Doing just that I sent the beam into the sky as it was getting pretty dark and also if they didn’t see it, they weren’t so far ahead that I couldn’t shoot one of Angel’s tyres out. I might not live too much longer than that, but it would have been necessary.

Luckily they seemed to slow down.

Angel got out of the car and came over, closely followed by Dusty and Shadowed. Though I noticed it had been Shadowed Nuclear and Dusty who had been sat shotgun.

“Why have we stopped?” Angel demanded.

“I can’t drive anymore, I’m tired, and even though I’m sure you’d rather I passed out at the wheel and killed myself and our new companion, I’m not too fond of that idea.” I grinned viciously.

“Fine, we can set up camp here. Shadowed and I will keep watch.” Angel said angrily. She wasn’t happy about having to stop when we were so close to our goal.

That was why we needed the look-outs; more Dracs were posted on the outskirts of Battery City.

Angel sent me a filthy look before stalking off once more with Shadowed in tow.

Dusty came over to me once Angel had disappeared, “You can pretend all you want Sunshine, but you are going to get ill, hell, you are ill. Let me clean your wound properly!”

“Dusty, we might be allies, but we’re not friends. Please don’t bother yourself with my health. I’m sure Angel would much prefer it if I were dead. It would save her the job of killing me.” I turned on my heel and walked off.

“You are wrong Sunshine. We are friends. It’s just that you cannot admit that you have feelings.” She yelled after me.

Oh I have feelings alright. Or I used to, before this happened. I was in love once. Too bad that’ll never happen again.

“I’m tired and I’m going to sleep.” I muttered.

“Do not blame me if you die in your sleep.” She snarled after me.

“You’d think I might care? This life is a load of rubbish, it doesn’t matter to me whether I live or die anymore!” I think I had finally snapped.

I walked off quickly so Dusty didn’t see the sudden flash of a tear in my eye, a tear that hadn’t been present in my life for a while.

I set up my bed roll, and lay down under the stars. I had to admit, if this were how I were to die, it’s be a pretty nice place.

I soon slipped into a disturbed sleep. I heard voices, whispers in my head, though I couldn’t tell what they were saying t me. I heard odd words like ‘dead’ and ‘breathing’, but nothing like a coherent sentence.

I saw lights, and flashes and more voices, new voices. Voices I hadn’t heard before.

And then the pain came. I screamed loudly, though I didn’t know if the pain were real or in my dream. But I was screaming.

Just screaming, but there was no one there to save me.