#robert mezner
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Commissions for @boredandblank
I was given permission to post the 3 mini commissions I wrote for @boredandblank based on the PS3 game Dark Sector’s protagonist, Hayden Tenno. I was asked to used prompts from a writing meme actually, all about making him miserable basically xD Enjoy!
One: Nightmares, Can’t Sleep, Hopelessness
They were everywhere. Shadows of what were once human beings chasing him down. Metallic skin, people with the Technocyte clawing at his body while he tried to shove them all away. But they kept coming. He fired his gun, but the bullets were simply absorbed into skin that rippled like mercury.
They were swarming, becoming an amalgamation of metal and bodies, undulating wildly and without rhyme or reason. They were gaining on him. He could feel their hot breaths and fingers gripping at his clothes. No matter how many times he shot at them, they kept absorbing the blows. The mass reached his feet. He ran, not going anywhere. A chunk of the mass broke off and became Nemesis, raising its scythe-like hand and bringing it down upon his shoulder, tearing into the skin.
Hayden Tenno awoke with a start. He could still feel the remnants of the night terror prickling at his body, though the exact scene that played out in his sleep vanished quickly and he forgot what it was about. That didn’t stop his heart from pounding, his lungs gasping for air. Hayden took a couple deep breaths, and things clicked back into place. He had fallen asleep after barring himself inside a storage room, that’s right. He had decided to rest against a stack of burlap sacks. They were filled with lumps that were semi-soft, he didn’t question what was inside (although it gave off a foul odor like rotten fish). He just wanted some time to rest. It felt like he hadn’t rested for weeks.
He raised his head and put it back down. He should really get some sleep. He closed his eyes, and the Technocyte monsters appeared again, Nemesis standing tall and imposing behind them. This time Hayden went on the attack, using the weapon Nemesis infected him with to slice the other’s head off. Hayden was quick, but Nemesis was quicker. Lightning fast, its hand was around his neck and squeezing tightly. Hayden’s hand reacted instantly, flying to the clawed fingers digging into his neck and— he opened his eyes again, the weapon on his hand dangerously close to slitting his own throat. Hayden stared at it for a beat. The thought was there. A dark thought that he knew he shouldn’t be having, but was very tempting.
“Dammit, maybe I should do it-” he murmured to no one. He held the blade over his neck, letting the thought sink in more and more. Why was he doing this anyway? When he first came to Lasria, he had been so sure of his objective. Even when he was dubious about the effectiveness of the booster shot he was given, he was sure he would get the job done. As he went into his second night of being infected himself, he wasn’t so sure anymore. What was the point? It’s not like he’d be able to even get out of Lasria because of his infection, which wasn’t even his fault, dammit. It was that motherfucker Mezner, that sonuva bitch Nemesis, hell, even the CIA could fuck itself. They wouldn’t give him the antidote even when he asked for it, the bastards.
It’d be so easy to just end it…
Just one little slice and all his problems would be gone…
Hayden’s hand trembled, feeling the oddly cold and malleable surface waver and vibrate. It was pressed against his skin now. Any more and his skin would puncture and bleed. He wouldn’t feel it. It’d be over quickly. That’s what the Agency trained him for, wasn’t it? This was essentially a suicide mission and he was a pawn the whole time. If he offed himself, nobody would miss him, nobody would know…
Nadia would know. Hayden’s brow furrowed. He grit his teeth and put his hand, his weapon, back down by his side. That was the coward’s way out. Although he didn’t exactly feel like a hero either. What was he exactly? Did it matter? He hadn’t eaten anything for so long, maybe all these thoughts were because of hunger. Was that the empty feeling he felt in the pit of his stomach? Or was it the knowledge that this mission was a complete waste of time and no matter what he did, nothing mattered because he wouldn’t be able to get out of this pit?
Or maybe all these intrusive thoughts came because he couldn’t sleep. He felt like he hadn't slept in days. There was some scientific fact about lack of sleep being bad for your health or something, but was feeling like crap part of it? Fuck it, he wasn’t a scientist. Otherwise he’d be in a lab, probably studying a cure for the Technocyte disease, not in Lasria surrounded by people infected with it.
Hayden put a hand to his head and forced his eyes to close. He needed to sleep. He needed sleep but his mind wouldn’t let him. Sometimes, and this was one of those times, he wished he could feel pain. Maybe he’d pass out from it and have a dreamless night (which was as good as having a nightmare-less night). Instead he was numb. He’d been numb his whole life. Maybe that numbness moved to his heart, his brain too. Maybe that’s why he felt so out of sorts. That’s right. It was the lack of sleep talking, not him. This wasn’t him. It wasn’t-
There was a sudden violent banging on the barricaded door, causing Hayden to shoot upright. The door started to shutter on its hinges. The infected would break in soon. So much for trying to get some rest. Not like his brain was going to let him anyway.
With a strained grunt, Hayden got to his feet. The banging on the door continued. He rolled his neck, getting at least a couple satisfying pops out of it.
“Looks like I have some house guests…”
Right now, this would be Hayden’s life. Until he succumbed to the Technocyte virus, he wasn’t going anywhere outside of Lasria.
Two: Applying Bandages, Stitching Self Up, Lost and Alone
It was a stupid mistake that could’ve been easily avoided. It was a mistake that anyone could’ve made, but Hayden couldn’t afford any mistakes. And now he was clutching his shoulder, blindly stumbling through alleyways, and trying desperately to avoid being detected by anything less than human.
It started when his foot hit an empty can when he wasn’t looking. He had just put a bullet through the head of Viktor Sudek and was confronted by Robert Mezner and Nemesis. They probably left him for dead, but it’d take a lot more than that to kill him. Anyway, after he pulled himself together and unsteady on his feet, he stumbled into a can, sending it bouncing against the alley wall until rolling to a stop. The sound echoed off the concrete walls, breaking a suffocating silence and making Hayden flinch. Then it was quiet again. Until it alerted every Technocyte victim within a fifty foot radius, which was a lot more than he thought since so far he’d been lucky at not seeing any nearby. But one little clang, and the moaning and scrambling feet came from all around, heading straight towards him.
“Shit-” He tried to press his hand harder to the wound, but blood continued to seep through his fingers. That was his second mistake. After being heard and spotted by at least twenty zombies, Hayden had fired his gun at them, not looking where he was going, and backed into one. With a guttural growl it grabbed his shoulder. No, a better word would be it tore at his shoulder, because both shirt and skin were torn away from his body. Hayden didn’t notice the bleeding until he sliced off the attacker’s head with his new weapon conveniently growing from his infected arm.
“Shit-” he had muttered the same cuss word when he realized blood was now dripping down his arm. He needed to find somewhere safe to patch himself up. He couldn’t think too much about it however, since he could hear more infected quickly approaching. Damn, if only he could just patch that before-
A crash behind him made Hayden spin around. He had to get moving or else he’d probably lose his whole arm next time. Still clutching his shoulder, he scrambled as fast as he could, out of the crumbling building and into the street.
And that’s where he was right now. Panting, feeling light-headed from the bloodloss, and yet not feeling the pain of his wound. The world was beginning to spin, but he wouldn’t let himself pass out, not yet. He didn’t care where his feet took him, as long as it was somewhere he could be relatively safe.
An infected zombie stepped out from a blind corner and scared the crap out of him. He immediately sliced its head off. The headless body slumped to the ground like a sack of meat. Where the fuck did that one come from? Hayden quietly stepped over the body and found that there was a gaping hole in the side of a building, just big enough for someone with Technocyte, or him, to crawl through. Taking a chance, Hayden crouched and shimmied into the hole. It was empty, thank God. Now he could address the wound.
Taking bandages out of his pack, he tore it with his teeth. Even if he couldn’t feel the pain his wound was causing, he sure as hell wasn’t going to make it worse. He sat down hard with a grunt. Now maybe he could assess the damage- oh. He was still bleeding. Really hard. He’d have to take his shirt off first. It was ripped already but he didn’t want any threads getting stuck under his skin. He didn’t have any antiseptics either. That wasn’t good. He’d have to find some later. The place was littered with so much junk he didn’t think it’d be a problem finding something useful, right?
Hayden pressed the gauze onto the wound, feeling the skin react, but not transferring to his brain. Damn, if he was anyone else, this would’ve probably really hurt. Good thing he couldn’t feel it.
He then took the bandage and began wrapping the wound, going slowly so he wouldn’t make too much noise. The crunch of the bandage as he wrapped was the only sound in that small space, next to his labored breathing which he tried to calm.
As he continued to wind the bandage, Hayden glanced up and out of the hole he hid in. He was so busy trying to get away from the zombies chasing after him, he didn’t even bother to look where he was going. He wasn’t familiar with Lasria in the first place, all he knew was that he needed to get to the radio station, contact his superiors. He was headed in the right direction when he started out, but he took so many turns trying to shake his pursuers that he didn’t know which way was up, let alone which way to the radio tower. You’d think with a tower you’d be able to see it rising above the tops of the buildings, but luck wasn’t on his side. The city was so congested they practically blotted out the sun if the smog itself didn’t already.
Almost finished with the bandaging. Hayden was itching to get out of this cramped space. Not only did a Technocyte zombie crawl out of the spot where he was now sitting, there was only one way out, and the even more chilling thought, only one way in. What if a horde of them appeared? He wasn’t ready. He was in the middle of something. He was unarmed- well, technically that wasn’t true anymore, not with his new bio-weapon. But still. The thought of flinging his now-infected arm through more than one head… Was it even possible? While he did want to test it out, it’d be stupid to try in this hidey-hole. He needed out. He needed instruction. He needed… damn, he needed someone to talk to or else this isolation would drive him nuts.
Hayden decided his patch job was good enough. It was getting darker and he needed to move. The more he stayed put the more thoughts got to him. And that didn’t do him any good.
Three: Unsteady, Falls Trying to Leave Room, Pounding Headache
“The Black Market can supply you with weapons, in case you-” Yargo Mensik gestured towards Hayden’s arm. “Run out of ammo.”
Hayden also looked down at his arm and flexed his fingers. Yargo sure talked a lot.
“You can find Black Market in certain marked manhole covers, the symbol looks like this-” Yargo began to draw a crude picture of some type of flower. He passed it to Hayden, who reluctantly took it. He squinted as he tried to figure out what it was supposed to be. Yargo shrugged. “Forgive my artistic skills, they are lacking. The symbols on the manhole covers look like lotus flowers. You know what lotus flower looks like, yeah? Good, good. Find these, and the black market will take care of you… for the right amount of rubles, of course.”
Hayden was tempted to roll his eyes. “Thanks.” Every time he had to kill someone, the meager amount of rubles they had on their body was pathetic. If he was going to get anything upgraded, he’d have to kill a lot more people. And despite having done it so many times before, it just didn’t sit right with him. These weren’t soldiers he was killing. They were once human. They had lives, as crappy as they were having to live in squalor. Wrong place at the wrong time. He pushed back his chair to leave.
“Oh, one more thing, Agent Tenno.” Yargo slid a clean bandage across his desk. “You best change that one you have on your shoulder. I give this one to you, since I know the scraps you find around here are dirty at best. Patch yourself up before you go.”
Hayden reached out to grab the bandage, his head suddenly becoming dizzy. He shook it. “Thanks, but I’m kind of in a hurry. I’ll do it later.”
He stood up to leave. The room spun. He must’ve done it too quickly, all the blood was rushing to his feet. He put his head in his hand.
“Are you feeling alright, Agent Tenno?” Yargo raised an eyebrow. He leaned forward in his chair.
Hayden grit his teeth. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” Obviously he wasn’t fine. He couldn’t feel the pain, but maybe that wound was worse than he thought. No, he was imagining things. He couldn’t have lost that much blood when he was attacked, right?
“Maybe you should sit down for a moment. You don’t look too good.” Yargo’s words expressed concern, but the tone of his voice was flat, like he was stating that it was cloudy that day. Hayden shook his head, and that little movement set off a sudden pounding like he’d never felt before (because in all honesty, he hadn’t). What the fuck was this? What was going on? Yargo was standing, leaning over towards him.
“I think you should sit.” It was no longer a statement of concern but an order. Who did he think he was? Yargo was a sleeper agent, he wasn’t even activated. For all things considered, Hayden was talking with a run of the mill old man from the area who didn’t know anything.
“I have to go-” Hayden turned again to go, Yargo not stopping him this time. He took one step. Two steps. He was almost to the door when the dizziness and pounding headache became unbearable. Hayden lost his footing and fell to the floor. He tried to put his hands out to stop himself, but his wound had made him weak and his arms crumpled before his face hit the ground, not soon after the rest of his body did. He felt the impact, knew it was bad by the sound of his shoulder bandage ripping, but the pounding headache was all he could focus on. Why wasn’t Yargo saying anything? Or… or was he? Through the constant thumping of his own pulse in his head and the loud ringing in his ears it was hard to make out anything else.
“—and, Agent Tenno?”
Yargo’s voice was muffled, like it was underwater. Hayden let out a constrained grunt. Stop talking, I can’t hear you. Did he say that out loud or was he thinking it? He didn’t know, he could only feel the pounding. But Hayden suddenly felt his arm being gripped and his body hoisted up. The room was still spinning. Through all the ringing and pain, he could feel himself being walked back across the room. Each step sent a vibration shooting up through his leg and body, rattling his still-pounding headache. He kept walking though, even if it was more a shuffle at a snail’s pace. His legs hit something solid and he crumpled into the chair he was just sitting in.
“Give me that bandage, I will do it myself.” That was Yargo, his voice finally penetrating through the pounding. “I have some vodka too. You look like you need something strong. Set your head right.” There was a clink, a pouring, and Hayden felt glass press against his good hand. “Here. Drink up.”
Hayden took the glass filled with the clear liquid reluctantly, sniffed it to make sure he wasn’t being poisoned.
“You think I would poison you? I am on your side. Now drink.”
Hayden felt pressure on his shoulder before pulling, the sound of bandages crusty with dried blood being torn away and pulling on his skin. He downed the shot. It burned his throat and stung on the way down, but it managed to clear his head a little. It wasn’t pounding so much. He held the shot glass aloft and jiggled it to get Yargo’s attention.
“You want another shot, Agent Tenno?” Hayden could hear the smile in his words. He grunted.
“Be a pal and top me off, Mensik.”
#commission#written commission#writing commission#boredandblank#hayden tenno#dark sector#yargo mensik#nemesis#robert mezner#suicide tw#knife tw#violence tw#blood tw
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