Pocket Flashbang

!$&Ӥ!_, !$&Ӥ!_, !$&Ӥ!_!

I opened my eyes, it was still night, the sky was pitch black, but the little light I saw still dazzled me. Losing the ability to see was a frightening experience I’m not even going to try to describe, but finally being able to see again relieved me in a way nothing else ever did, not even still being alive after a supposed death.

I was in the same place I died in, at least it is consistent and predictable I thought, though I still didn’t know if there were any limitations, for example, a maximum number of uses like in video games with your lifes, hearths, masks or whatever you want to call them.

I got back up, all my clothes were soaking wet, and their uniform white was way more of a uniform grey now. I didn’t know where they came from or who gave them to me, but they will surely be angry when I give them back one day I thought. I walked down to the black lake once again, still wondering what happened there yesterday, no, last time. It was an explosion, but what caused it? Just thinking wasn’t going to help me so I was going to play detective for a bit.

This was the earliest I had ever been awake, it was about 4 am, so maybe there weren’t that many shadows out there yet, that’s what I was hoping, but the thought was not unfounded, after all, I had not yet encountered a single shadow in the morning. However, this would change today.

Step by step I made it to the end of the road, and to the pillar the shadow from last time set on. When I looked down at the lake, I saw something strange, the shadows, which I saw killing each other were walking side by side towards the lighthouse, four of them to be exact. When they reached the end of the bridge, which was not like the rest of it about 2 meters over the water’s surface, they leaped down and swam the final 100 meters through that black void. They walked through the front door and vanished inside the lobby of the lighthouse.

At exactly that moment four shadows walked out; I didn’t know if they were the same, but it would be strange if they were, they swam back to the bridge and climbed back onto it. They split up, every one of them going in another direction, one walked over to the spot I saw the three shadows at yesterday, so he seemed to be one of them. I waited for another hour just to make sure nothing else would happen, the one shadow that walked left was still sitting there waiting for the other two it seemed. With nothing else happening I walked down to the bridge.

It was already about 7 pm by now. I looked behind me and saw the other shadow sitting on the pillar, like yesterday looking down to the lake. I stepped onto the bridge and slipped. I quickly stood back up walked two feet and fell over I looked at my leg, it was full of blood, I must have hit it in a really bad way against one of the steel bars. Strangely I didn’t feel any kind of pain, I didn’t even notice it when I got back up after I slipped, maybe this is what suffering a traumatizing amount of pain and multiple deaths does to a man I thought and got back up anyways.

I looked to my left and saw that the shadow that waited for the other two just stabbed the first one. I slowly limped across the bridge and about 5 minutes later the third shadow had arrived and was repeatedly stabbed like last time.

The fog that rose from the abyss below me grew thicker and thicker until I couldn’t even see my hand. Breathing here felt like a smoker blowing his tobacco rat poison mix right in your face. Worse than that was that I couldn’t feel my feet mainly because of the incident earlier and I could trip and fall into the water at any point. I needed to be able to see, so I took out my lighter and I think you already know what happened

- booting #006

- repeat