A Dark Shock v2

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Hey ho yet again amigos~

Take 2!

Edited version activate!

A DARK SHOCK.

Wyatt slowly woke to the sound of what he thought were hammers, drills, and the distorted revving of a long unused sport bike which made his black hair frizz a little. It was a strange morning. As he walked down the stairs for his morning meal, he had heard numerous explosions and three loud pops in succession which sent a shiver down his spine. The smoke from downstairs fogged his eyeglasses and its smell tainted the pajamas he wore.

“I am not quite fond of breakfast,” he said to himself, “but this morning merits a little normal.”

He listened to a rough hum sizzle away as the racket downstairs began to die down. Wyatt cooked a meal for two, because he expected a certain someone to join him that morning for a taste of his fruity flapjacks, albeit he wasn’t sure who. A woman from the basement walked into the kitchen, greeting Wyatt as a slight frown grew on his face. He knew her, but why? He beckoned the young lady to the table as he plated the still-hot pancakes.

“Alice,” he blurted, but he cut himself off.

He didn’t know how he knew her.

Alice was quite the freaky sight. She wore her long hair blood red as it shot small sparks of crimson light like a tesla coil. Her eyes were an unusually murky light blue hue. She wore a long black sleeveless dress that showed her toned arms.

“I’m sorry, Wyatt, for waking you like that. I know you just woke up.

I just had to get here…”

She collapsed face first onto her plate, her hair no longer sparked as it faded to a sinister black. Wyatt stood awkwardly and walked away, unsure what to do, down to his basement where Alice had come from. Curious to unravel the unbeknownst events that have occurred in this room, Wyatt slid open the tinted glass doors to reveal a domicile of insanity. The formerly white walls were spattered with too many colors that mixed into a putrid black, which dripped onto a dirty concrete floor. Sheets of metal and oily wires were scattered all over the floor which were etched with numerous illegible words. In the center of the room was a mechanical exoskeleton, but judging from the lack of actuation it showed, it was built to capture and restrain. Surprise, it did just that.

Wyatt was pinned, face to the wall, and extremely pained; more in his thoughts than the rest of his body. Firstly, why did this Alice matter again? Secondly, he was extremely pissed thanks to this AI strait jacket shoving his face onto some black muck. Lastly, quite literally to his thoughts, he had never felt adrenaline before and was starting to black out. He felt the wall fade away as the world spun rapidly into a completely different domain. While he was disoriented he was transported to dimension that kept him from his sanity. He felt what the world really was; dark, miserable, and meaningless. Wyatt felt he was no longer a man; he was a victim, a prisoner, and dead. He lay alone on the ground for goodness knows how long.

None of this made sense to him. Was he drugged? Was he mentally ill? He knew himself too well to randomly contemplate the world’s state. However he knew this wasn’t his world, and those weren’t his thoughts. Yet he felt as if they were, no matter how much he told himself. Someone was manipulating him somehow. He felt his memories slip from his mind, sending him into a loop.

None of this made sense to him. Was he drugged? Was he mentally ill? He knew himself too well to randomly contemplate the world’s state. However he knew this wasn’t his world, and those weren’t his thoughts. Yet he felt as if they were, no matter how much he told himself. Someone was manipulating him somehow. He felt his memories slip from his mind, sending him into a loop.

None of this made sense to him. Was he drugged? Was he mentally ill? He knew himself too well to randomly contemplate the world’s state. However he knew this wasn’t his world, and those weren’t his thoughts. Yet he felt as if they were, no matter how much he told himself. Someone was manipulating him somehow. He felt his memories slip from his mind, until he was slapped on the face.

 Snapped back into reality, Wyatt was looking straight into Alice’s murky blue eyes. He began to weep in a quiet sorrow, unable to remember what he was doing here, who he was looking at, and why his head throbbed so much. He looked down to see he was wearing a white blazer labeled Wyatt and cargo pants that seemed to be padded with armor. His hands seemed to glower with a vibrant green flame.

“Oh my,” Alice said, “whatever shall I do? I have brought this unto you and now you’ve lost yourself. I don’t understand whatever you saw either, but I know that you’ll never be the same.”

“What are you saying?” Wyatt groaned hoarsely. “Who are you? I can’t help but feel that you are lying right to my face, but I have no idea what to believe.”

An eerie silence fell. Wyatt swallowed hard and sat up to see where he was. He wasn’t in a basement at all; he was in a tent warmed by a campfire from outside. A loud roar burst out of the dark, which shocked the two. Alice bolted like a rocket and ran out with a face full of fear. Wyatt called out for her to stay but to no use. His head still throbbed as his vision faded while he blacked out.

Wyatt abruptly woke to the sound of gunners, missiles, and the distorted humming of a long unused generator which made his platinum hair spike up. It was a disastrous morning. As he ran out of the tent to see what was going on, he had heard numerous bombs drop and three loud gunshots which scared the hell out of him. The smoke from the fields fogged the chipped glasses he wore and its smell practically emanated from his suit.

“What in blue blazes!” he screamed, and then he looked back down to his hands. “What in green blazes!”

He was running through a battlefield, his head throbbing yet again, shouting for Alice and wondering who would finish his flapjacks. None of this made any sense to him, but it didn’t matter much when he stood in the face of a gun manned by a robotic fiend. Wyatt found himself beating its face in before he considered letting himself get shot and to just wake from this demented nightmare. An uncharacteristic anger started burning up from below until he saw that he was burning the ground below him. He stood up and watched the gunfire fly by. The clouds above were strangely golden as they cleared to reveal multiple white orbs where the sun should be.

“Well I didn’t sleep well last night anyway,” he chuckled.

He found a man, or a woman. It was a humanoid silhouette. It was sitting in a deep crater clutching its head. Wyatt walked down the crater and sat right across the being from a respective distance.

“I know why,” it spoke. Its deep bellow echoed all over the land. It swirled its hand into a fist and smashed the ground. Time froze, and so did Wyatt, as he watched the shadow walk towards him.

“I am you Wyatt,” it explained, “I am Alice. I am everything and everyone here. This world is what I want it to be. You stubborn ‘humans’ refuse to accept me as your ruler, so you retreat into your own minds and change what you really see. Sometimes things get down and dirty, where you don’t accept your true self. You start fighting it. You start fighting me. Deep inside, you know you it is real. Nothing you can say will change it. I control everyone and not even you can overcome me.”

Wyatt let that last statement wash over in his head. He gathered himself and asked questions.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“I will not answer that,” said the soulless silhouette.

“Send me back to my world,” Wyatt persisted.

“I cannot do that.”

“Send me back or I’ll make you.”

“I’ll admit you have courage to speak to me like that. However, there is no leaving this world once I’ve got you here. This is reality.”

“This is not the real world. You’re screwing with me.”

“Are you so sure? Look at yourself.”

Wyatt and the shadow glared at each other for what seemed like an eternity.

“What did you do with Alice?” Wyatt asked. “She just bolted before I slept and now I have nowhere to go and no one to leave me.”

“Does it matter? I will kill you before you get to—“

“She went that way, didn’t she?”

Wyatt was staring at a lifeless area full of battered buildings.

“That’s the Itami Complex,” explained the being, “you can go live there along with the other scum like you. They’ve all mutated into strange power freaks. Although looking at your little burning hands of fury makes you no different.”

“Is Alice there?”

He wasted his breath. Wyatt was left standing alone in the crater.

The battle had long ended during his time-altered conversation with a shadow, so he decided to follow the remaining soldiers that struggled back. When he reached the outer gate of Itami, another large exoskeleton stood by keeping watch. After his failed attempt to hide from it, Wyatt was yet again mashed against a wall. A faint static buzzed next to his right ear, which eventually spoke to Wyatt.

“What do ye want ya blasted brute?”

“Excuse me?” Wyatt retorted.

“It gets annoyin’ when ye lil’ ogres speak English. Get yer steampunk arse outta me sight, before I cut yer head off me self.”

“I’ll have you know I’m nowhere near as ugly as that robot-doohickey. Now where’s Alice?”

Wyatt was growing impatient when all he heard was static, but when he heard the faint phrase ‘It knows her,’ he knew he was safe, sort of.

“I give ye my most sincere apologies, dear lad. Call me Wolfy.”

Wyatt was set free from the exoskeleton’s death grip and walked into Itami. Wolfy apologized about the security measures, with a slap to the face as an answer.

At night the place glowed with an eerie blackness despite all the color that glowed from everyone walking around town. As he ventured through the large grid-based city, he came upon the center of Itami; a gigantic dome patterned with gigantic runes that glow a blood red.

For sure Alice was here, and he needed answers from her.

Wyatt readied for a great sprint into Itami’s capital, but stopped himself. He took a good long look around where he stood. No one here was a soldier; they were all regular people. Like Wyatt, they were stripped from their humanity, and given strange powers for an unknown purpose. “If this shadow has got anything more than his bark, he just played with us like toys,” Wyatt thought aloud. “No wonder everyone fought this war; this shadow wants his fun while us humans want our sanity. Everyone’s scared and we have no idea who we were or what we’re worth now. It’s going to be a long blind war. Now I just have to find Alice.”