TheEnemyWithin

When the outbreak really got started, most people died. Some managed to survive. Now they spend their days scrabbling around the ruins, searching and fighting over the discarded scraps of their once great society. Me?...I thrived. Leaning against the cooling steel of the truck's engine block I savoured the residual warmth that radiated from her now silent innards. She was an old and ragged thing. If you were strangely possessed enough to scrape off the thick layer of muck and dirt that coated every inch of her metallic skin, you might be surprised to find yet another layer of brown, this time crumbling rust, seemingly the only thing holding this ancient beast of burden together. But as old and decrepit as she was...she was mine. It had taken me days to get her back into working order, longer to gather enough fuel and supplies to make for the mountains. All so we could get away from the death trap that had become the capital city. Wait...how long had it been? Days...weeks? I no longer kept track. Time is a man made construct, a discarded tool from a world that revolved around work, meetings, wages, holidays...birthdays, concepts that no longer held sway in this new world. I peel open an unlabelled tin can, it's contents having long lost any semblance of defining shape, texture or taste, and I begin to analyse my progress. Some survivors are fascinated with weapons, everybody wants to have the biggest gun around, maybe it gives them comfort...makes them feel safe. Maybe they can fool themselves into thinking that with enough weapons and ammo they can stave off any threat, or their inevitable death. Fools... Tools...tools are the key, I think to myself, as I unfurl the dog eared and weather worn map. I place it on the ground and arrange it's accompanying brethren on it's stained surface. Compass, GPS, hunting knife, matches...these are your friends, these are the things that will save your life. Use them well and you will never need to fire a gun again. I had carried them for as long as I can remember...or at least, for as long as I want to remember. I close my eyes... Gunshots, screams...I frantically search her jacket pockets, the screams continue, she put it in here somewhere. Finally I grasp the GPS. Gunshots, closer now...They will be here soon. As I pull the small device from her inside pocket I feel something smooth and sticky come with it. A polaroid falls to the ground...the smiling faces of two young girls stare back at me. Their bright eyes and beaming smiles, almost obscured by a thick smear of warm blood. She stirs and coughs the last of the life from her lungs as she stares at the picture in front of her. I don't know if she can see it, but as the spark leaves her eyes, I swear she looks happier than I have ever seen her. The girls keep smiling... I start my eyes open... Was it a dream? A memory I'd rather forget? Sometimes I lose track, I think that's normal, I think your brain can only handle so much, I get that... But sometimes...sometimes things happen...things I can't explain. I glance at my weapon. It lies on a nearby rock, high off the ground to prevent dirt getting in its mechanisms. I'm sure it has a fancy military name, some code word or serial number to distinguish it from the countless other death machines we once created. Maybe I knew it once, but like Time, serial numbers and designations have lost their meaning to me. Now I just call it "Gun". It's heavy, it kicks like a mule, is the loudest thing I have ever heard and uses these great big box magazines that I seem to find with some regularity around military complexes. The few times I have had to use it, I have always been able to rely on it...until... I close my eyes... He sprints towards me across the open field, the gun at his hip flashes bright, leaving ghostly stars in my night vision goggles, the bullets tear up the brush around me. How can he see me? Why is he shooting?...these questions I cannot afford to ask myself. I pull the trigger and set the forest alight. Gun roars with delight at being unleashed, in this now quiet world, it sounds like hell itself has arrived. The bullets trace their way to the victim, hungry for death. They find their target. Huge gouts of blood and ragged chunks of flesh tear themselves from the attacker's body, arcing off his frame and leaving a gruesome path of gore in his wake...but somehow he keeps running, keeps firing...impossible. I stop firing when the box runs dry, 100 rounds, a trail of death in his wake...and yet somehow he is unharmed. I blink...and he's gone. I hear footsteps behind me, turning I raise my now empty weapon in reflex. He is behind me, impossible. He raises his gun and plants the scorching barrel against my forehead...I force my eyes shut. Opening my eyes once more I stare at Gun sitting on the rock... He is quiet now, I wish he could talk, I would ask him what had happened to that man, was there something wrong with the ammunition? Did he have some kind of body armour?...or was he even real? These questions fall by the wayside as I consider the prospect that my mind may be collapsing on itself. I have seen so many things, entire cities burst into flames, old trucks appearing out of thin air and raining to the ground, men who cannot die...are these things real? Are they dreams? Or are they illusions, tricks played by the dark corners of my crumbling sanity? Whatever they are, I deal with them the same way every time...I close my eyes, I force them shut as hard as I can and think of nothing...nothing. When I open them they are always gone... Sometimes it seems as if hours have past, the weather is different, it's the middle of the night where it was daylight mere moments ago...sometimes I am in a completely different location altogether... I shudder and clear my thoughts, there is no point in dwelling on all that now, it's all behind me. It has taken longer than I can remember, and I may not be the same person I was when I started...but I have everything I could ever need to make a new life form myself. Me, Tools, Gun and Truck are going to keep driving into the mountains. We will drive until we can't drive any more. Then, when we can drive no further, when we have left this world behind, we will make a new home. This dream comforts me, it calms my soul. I begin to drift into sleep...tomorrow...tomorrow it will all be over... I close my eyes... I am in a wilderness...an endless plane of featureless green terrain...I am not alone. I panic. I spin around on the spot, humanoid shapes surround me, people...faces...they stare at me with accusing eyes. Mouths open wide in torment with silent, horrified screams on their unmoving lips. My legs give out underneath me. I fall backwards into the soft earth. Glancing down, I see a mangled ruin of flesh and bone where my legs once were...I feel nothing. The people begin to scream...impossible....I force my eyes shut as they begin to tower over me, dark hands blotting out the light above, as they reach for my crippled form. Think of nothing...think of nothing...think of... Nothing... I open my eyes. something is wrong...The comforting feeling on my back, the warm steel of Truck, has been replaced by cold, damp sand. No...impossible. I sit up. I am on a beach, it stretches indefinitely across the horizon, the cold waves lapping against my heels. Truck!? Gun!? Tools!?...they are nowhere to be found. I panic. I force my eyes shut...Nothing. it's impossible...nothing...nothing... But I am still here, still on the shore... I scream...tears of rage and sorrow falling to mix with the salt water lapping around my feet. How did this happen? Why? Time passes...Hunger and thirst care not for my losses and begin to take their toll on my exhausted body. I pick myself up and begin to walk along the shore. The buzzing of flies alerts me to the presence of death nearby. Approaching slowly I spot a corpse lying face down under a bush. I work quickly...numbly. Her backpack is small...almost like the kind one would give a child to take to school... Their faces smile at me behind a curtain of blood... Blinking tears from my eyes I sling the pack over my shoulder and roll the body onto it's back. It is hard, but my effort is rewarded...an axe lies cradled in the corpse's arms. Prying it from its stiff embrace I hold the axe in my hands...cold, congealed blood makes the handle slick in my grasp... I blink... No...the blood is warm, I pull the axe from her chest, she screams...I scream. There is a pain in my gut, the smell of scorched skin...I plunge the axe into her torso once more and release it as she falls face down into the dirt. Gunshots nearby...I put my hand to my gut and feel a sharp pain, she shot me?...why? Adrenaline kicks in...Picking up her discarded gun I am surprised by it's weight, it seemed so light in her hands. As more pain begins to enter my world I begin searching her jacket pockets...where did she put it... I blink... The blood is cold...this is impossible...how long ago?...where?...I glance up at the sound of gunfire and see it...the capital. A dark silhouette looming over me. No light...no warmth...only death. All this time...all this effort, I was so close, and now I am right back here...back where it all started. There is no sorrow...no anger...only resolve. Knuckles white, I clutch the axe in my hands... "I can get it back...I can get it all back" I whisper to the corpse, my eyes locked on the shadow of the twisted city. She is silent...the life left her long ago. I sling the bloody axe over my shoulder and begin my slow, predatory walk towards the city... A polaroid, embedded in the sand, flutters in the sea breeze. The girls smile, but they are dead...the cold eyes of their mother gaze at them, but she is dead, and as I merge once more with the dark shadows of the city, I wonder...maybe we are all dead...

Yup, this just happened to me this morning, lost over two weeks of work. Mk48 Mod 0, DMR, full tool belt including GPS, NVG, rangefinder, you name it I had it. Completely broken my experience, I can deal with hackers and other players killing me, that's part of the game and I at least have a chance to avoid that, this though, when the core gameplay mechanics are this baddly broken?...it's enough to make you give up :(