The Only Hope for Me Is You

“This is such a bad idea.” I sigh, we had been walking for about half an hour and already we have had to shoot of two Dracs that got on our tail and we can see the factory in the distance, we were no less than twenty minutes away.

“Gerard’s gonna fucking kill me.” Laughed Ghoul, kicking a stone ahead of him.

“Yeah…he won’t have to if we use this plan.”

“He’d probably find some sort of way to bring me back to life, then kill me himself.” I see Kobra shaking his head in the corner of my eye, he turns to me.

“How’s your arm?” he asks, looking down at it.

“Sore. Painful. Not particularly good.”

“This is the fastest route, we need to get you back and quick.”

I nod, “I know.”
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We walked the rest of the way in complete silence until we reached the factory, Ghoul leads us all behind a BL/ind van in front of it to discuss a plan. We all sit with our backs against it, listening,

“Okay guys, the only way we can do this is if we disguise ourselves as Dracs because our faces are probably all over the news right now.” He stands up, looking around the van for any oncoming Dracs and then opens the door of the van, smiling to himself as he finds lots of white one piece suits and Drac masks.

He chucks them behind him and we all grab a suit and a mask each, pulling them on. They’re terribly uncomfortable and hot, but if it’s going to keep us alive, then we have no choice.

Frank speaks again as we all zip our suits up and pull on the masks, “I know where I’m going, I’ve done it before, so just follow me, don’t speak and pray that this will work.” Ghoul turns to walk towards the door. As Kobra goes to take my hand he quickly turns back.

“And guys…don’t hold hands.” Kobra puts his hand back and I smile at him from behind the mask, which is already steaming up. It was only going to be for a little while, and I kept this in mind as we made our way into the factory.

We all walk towards the doors, being passed by a Drac each second we do. I get nodded at by one and nod back straight away, out of pure instinct. As we enter the doors I panic.

“We’re going to fucking die.” I whisper to Mikey. He gives my hand a quick squeeze before returning it to his side. The factory is huge, it looks like a normal factory but it’s fucking huge. There are stacks and stacks of the sleeping containers piled up on to each other on one side of the building, just like the one Korse has, but these are slightly different. They seem more ordinary than his.

The containers are empty, waiting for their SCARECROWS to occupy them. I look around the other side and spot the SCARECROW preparation area, travelator upon travelator of parts of SCARECROW, passing through one section to the next, each time it comes out of a section, it’s more developed than before.

I trip over a loose SCARECROW limb and Mikey manages to catch me, we both panic as a Drac approaches us.

“You okay there?” he begins, I pause for a second, I feel myself break sweat under the mask, I don’t speak, just nod.

“Sorry about that, we gotta get some bins round here eh?” he pats my shoulder, right where the burn is and I can’t fucking help wincing. Luckily, the Drac was too busy picking up the limb I tripped over to notice, and he walks behind us. Mikey rubs my back.

“You did good.” He whispers. We look ahead but see no Frank or Ray.

“Shit…” I sigh into my mask. We both start panicking again.

“Where the fuck did they go?” Mikey quietly shouts. I shrug, frantically looking around for them, but how the fuck can we spot them amongst others dressed exactly the same as them? And how can they spot us?

“We are so fucked.” I breathe, adjusting my mask slightly, it’s damp on the inside now from my sweat and breath. Mikey takes my hand; he’s spotted something. I look in the direction he’s staring, it’s a boiler room. Frank said that the tunnels were underground and most boiler rooms had hatches that lead under ground.

I nod at him and follow him, checking behind us frequently to see if anyone was observing us. They were all to busy, all the vacant from the pill to give a fuck.

Mikey opens the door and I look around us one last time before he drags me in and closes the door, our backs leaning against it, panting heavily, just waiting for a Drac to find us. But no one does. We’re safe, for now at least.

Mikey takes off his mask, as do I. We had both been sweating uncontrollably under there, as you could tell. He runs his hand through his sweat-drenched hair before turning to me.

“Okay, let’s go down here, we might find Fra-“ Mikey’s interrupted by a gun shot. That gun shot coming from directly down the hatch we were about to enter.

We both stand in shock for a moment, look at each other and then Mikey pulls open the hatch door and jumps in, not bothering to use the ladder set out for the purpose of getting down there. I jump down after him, panicking as I hear a knocks on the door we just came through.

I reach back up and close the hatch door, turning the hatch so it locks.

Mikey waits till I do so then instantly grabs my hand, dragging me towards the sound of the gun shot, the tunnels are rather wide, wide enough for us to run side by side to I catch up with him, we run hand in hand till we turn a corner and Mikey almost falls over something.

We come to a halt face to face with Ray’s back, without his mask, he’s shooting at something that’s running down the tunnel ahead of us, I look down.

Frank is laying on the floor, not moving.

“Fuck…FUCK!” I shout and fall onto my knees beside him, I rest my head on his chest and listen out for a heart beat, I get the faintest beat, “Oh thank fuck he’s alive.”

“But hurt.” Ray interrupts, placing his gun back in his holster. “Very hurt.”

I looked down to observe him more, seeing that he’s been shot right in the hip, I think it barely missed a vital organ. There was a hole going through the white suit, as well as through his vest and t-shirt, and I saw blood gushing through all the layers, seeping onto the white fabric.

“THIS WAS SUCH A SHIT IDEA!” I scream, pounding at the floor.

Soon enough, we hear shouting at the other end of the tunnels, the Dracs were coming. Mikey fumbles for the walkie and shouts down it.

“POISON GET BACK NOW. WE HAVE TROUBLE. SOMEONE’S HURT, BAD.”

I look back down at Frank, stroking the hair out of his face, placing my hand on his forhead. They’ll come, they’ll come and it’ll all be okay. Won’t it?