“This is my hiding spot, and I’m not moving until the situation has drastically improved.“ He looks up at me, his eyes having turned into a haze by his overly thick glasses. “Now go away and don’t tell anyone I’m here!“ He’s been here for a while and he’s obviously trembling from the chilly, moist air in the huge room.
I consider my options. Thus far, I have… terminated… each and every whitecoat I’ve come upon. One 9mm to the forehead, they don’t even hear the sound of the firing pin. It is for their own good. A headcrab trying to breach the skull is not a pleasant sight, much less a pleasant feeling. I’ve seen it. Did you know they don’t kill you immediately? At first, the headcrabs only knock you unconscious with a potent sedative to get a good grip onto your head. They then proceed to carefully crush the top of the skull. It takes over ten minutes. You’ll be awake during that time. They only need access to the brain, they don’t want to destroy it altogether. My version? Quick. You will never know what happened.
But this man? He is in a tight spot, he has even retreated. But he has not given up. There’s determination in his voice. It is his platform. He is going to stay there.
Will he survive? No. But will there be meaning in his last moments? He seems to be certain there will. Who knows, as a scientist, he might even have a good time in a perverted sense. Adrenaline does wonders to the brain.
And then it clicks. The only ammunition I haven’t spent yet is for my shotgun. I can not end this man with a shotgun shell. I have never revealed my intentions to anyone I am about to shoot before the deed is done. It is impossible to hide my my plan to execute them with a giant shotgun. I kill them, but I am no monster. I do not want them to lose all hope in humanity during their last two seconds.
So I will not touch this man. How much time did my decision buy him? An hour? Two days? I will never know. It’s only fair, really. He doesn’t know how close he came to his conclusion with me beside him. He will never know. As it stands, we are equals.
With all that out of the way, perhaps you have noticed the author’s name is not familiar. It might be the first sign of your Alzheimer’s, but then again it might also be that this is my first post on this most magnificent of blogs. Hello, they call me Mythrilfan. If I have disturbed you, fear not, because I am extremely lazy and won’t post every day. Nice meeting you.
In...
hello Mythrilfan
Great post mate. Some of my fondest gaming memories come down to the interactions with Half-Life’s NPCs. They may have been identicle for the most part, and you could only give a command of “Stay” or “Follow”, but the whole idea of being in charge of their life or death was a genuine thrill. It’s probably one of Half-Life’s greatest innovations.