[[Memory Shard Transcript – Subject: Ashe Nova – Date: ERROR – Integrity: Compromised]]

  [[Analyzing…]]

  There’s no sense to dying. As I’m bleeding to death, I notice that there’s a distinct lack of answers trickling out of the golf-ball sized hole in my stomach, just crimson questions. Why me? Why now? Why is it like this? Who did this? Where will I go next? Am I even ready?

  I’m not ready; the one answer that I find in my shaking and coughing, my fingers compressing the flow in my gut. It’s hard to create good pressure on the wound with my vest on. Fat good it did for me too. I remember when the bad guys used bullets. I miss those times.

  It feels like my stomach is being ripped in half as I drag my sorry self up against a cabinet. I’ve left a nice snail trail of red across the concrete floor. I finger my lower back. Yep, the freak punched a hole straight through me like paper.

  Afflicted.

  Before I can figure out what’s what, I unclip a medi-canister from my utility belt. It squirts a cooling foam when I spray the wound in my stomach. It stings briefly, then hardens into a flexible gel. I can’t really see my back, so I spray haphazardly until I feel the coolish sting in the exit wound. That’ll stop the bleeding. It won’t keep me from dying, but it’ll keep me alive long enough to punch holes of my own into the gank that did this to me.

  Alright, now that I’ve successfully kept death waiting, it’s time for me to check my situation. Ok, Ashe, let’s start with where we are. Back office of an aquarium. Check. There’s nothing back here distinct from any other crappy office – there’s a desk that’s piled with letters and folders, on it is an incredibly outdated computer with a black mirror of screen. There’s a small trash can, cabinets, posters of fish, and a number of other details that someone who hadn’t just been stabbed by a guy with tree branches for arms. I don’t freaking know, I don’t get paid enough to explain this stuff, I just know I’m going to get him. Once I can stand. Geeze, I can’t stand. My head’s throbbing, and my legs aren’t cooperating. I’d call for back up if I hadn’t lost my helmet somewhere between here and the tropical fish exhibit, and I wouldn’t have lost my helmet if I hadn’t lost my gun somewhere in the small shark tank. You know, the sharks that are bottom feeders? Small enough that the aquarium workers aren’t as scared of a kid falling in as others, so they put less money into safety precautions there? I don’t know. Why am I thinking about this anyway… Oh yeah… I feel like I’m about to fall asleep.

  Not today.

  I yell. Not to get anyone’s attention, not because I’m mad (which I am, I’m freaking furious), but because I need the emotional thrust of screaming out my lungs to will myself to stand. And I do. I pull myself up using the desk. My insides are all scrambled. My partner will never forgive me for this, and I wouldn’t blame him. I’m just another tin-headed enforcer getting smoked by a mutant, aren’t I? A mutant that’s staring at me through a window in the office wall.

  He’s got one of those trendy new haircuts kids wear, you know, the one where the sides of their head is shaved to have zig-zags in it, and their bangs are dipping past their eye. Yes, eye, as in he only has one – the other is replaced by a cyber-optic camera lens looking thing. Other notable features? Stumble that looks like he’s worked really hard to grow out. He’s wearing a tank-top with kanji on it. He’s got cargo pants and lime green sneakers. Oh, and I forgot, his “hands” are wood-like stakes, the left one stained deep red from my blood. Halfway up his biceps the wood texture becomes flesh again. He’s only a Class C Afflicted if you’d believe that. And he’s going to kill me.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Crap.

  He screams and jabs his right arm at me. It shoots out from him like a lance and his pointed fist smashes through the window at me. I stumble out of the way. He’s too fast for me. The tip slashes my collar as I barely dodge the attack. His arm (which has become a 6-foot-long spike) punches a hole into the filing cabinet behind me.

  I don’t have any weapons, but I have my limbs. I throw my arms around the spike and yank. It’s coarse just like a tree, even smells of sap, and just as stiff. He doesn’t budge. There’s fury in his eyes as he yanks back, and his spiked arm retracts with me still holding on. My breath is snatched from me as my body flies through the broken window. I clutch onto his arm for all my life. It swings backward and I’m flung past him into a shallow tank of water. Splash. Crunch.

  Electricity shoots up my back as I’ve been smashed into a cluster of sea urchins. Their needles stick out of me like a porcupine. No chance their poisonous, right? No time to think about that. Another wooden spike is thrust at my face. I roll over the sandy habitat, squashing a sea cucumber. Sorry buddy.

  Water and sand and bottom feeders explode as the wood spike bombards the tank rapidly. I keep rolling until I’ve tumbled over the side of the display to a slick floor of tiles. I search for an escape. There’s an open doorway with a sign that says Life in the Tropics. That’s where my helmet is, and that’s where I leap. I throw myself forward around other habitats of starfish and critters, this Afflicted’s doing a great job of eliminating all life around me except myself. I really hope none of those species are endangered… there’s only so much left out there now days.

  I’m in the tropic exhibit. Colorful fish flop desperately against the flooded floor, water sloshing up against broken tanks from where I’d been stabbed through by the Afflicted.

  “Leave me alone!” The guy shouts from behind me, as I hear him running in my direction.

  First off, he’s the one not leaving me alone – but I don’t have time to quip back. I don’t wait for him to catch up. I’m hobbling as fast as I can through the ankle high water. Where’s my helmet? Where? Where?

  There.

  It bobs down an aisle on the left, a little hermit crab riding inside of it like a life raft. I snatch my helmet up. The little guy skitters deeper into the foam interior and hides behind the helmet’s visor.

  I’m still running, but I’m careful not to flip the helmet over. Can hermit crabs swim? I don’t know, but after being the reason why several other animals have died today, I can’t bring myself to dump out the critter. Priorities aren’t my strongest suit, I admit, but I’ve only ever nearly died because of my bad priority management – so I’ll change when I actually die for once.

  The cracking of branch-man’s limbs against glass and water sends chills up my spine. Every time he attacks, I’m sure he has hit me. Crack!

  I hang right.

  Crack!

  I’m in the largest part of the aquarium where there’s a whale exhibit in the center of this big circular expanse. I don’t see the whale, but I see a school of fish weaving about.

  Crack!

  There’s something familiar on the floor. I slide over a row of benches.

  Crack!

  I reach down. I’m still holding my helmet like a bowl because I don’t have time to set the crab down before –

  Crack!

  A spike whips past my face and into the giant tank. White webs of cracking glass spread out across it. I suck in my breath and brace myself for the entire thing to shatter and unleash a vengeance of Poseidon upon me.

  It doesn’t shatter – and I’ve made myself a very still target. It’s painful, having a freaking spear shoved through the back of your thigh. The searing agony and spray of your blood. The crunch of bone snapping. The realization that you’re lying on the ground again, and a very angry mutant is standing over a defenseless you, and all he needs to do is flick out his hand to end you. At least I got the hermit crab to safety. He has a very slick shell of red and white. He hobbles out of my helmet and skitters along the polished floor of this large room.

  “Sorry I squished your friend,” I say to him, not really sure if that sea cucumber and him had any relationship, but it’s comforting to pretend they may have. Ah who cares. Those two were best friends, I’m sure of it. Actually, I think that makes it worse…

  My vision blurs, and I fall into darkness.

  [[ERROR… Memory incomplete… Reconstructing… Reconstructing…]]