Frerard Oneshots | (finished ig)

Like embers in a dying fire

It was just a fire.

A dying fire at that - the last embers dancing, throwing themselves into the wind and spiralling down, creating patterns of red yellow and orange - but a fire all the same.

He knew what that should mean, it should mean that there were a group of zone runners nearby. He knew this because there were still glowing embers.

Embers meant it was recent. Recent meant they were close.

He knew that he should be pulling his BL/Ind issued ray gun out of his holster. He knew that he should be getting on the back of his bike right now, and he knew that he should be alerting the rest of his crew about this, he knew that it would make the bald man proud.

He knew that he should be doing these things, and yet he wasn't. The gun stayed in his holster, his bike stayed parked the hundred or so yards away, and his crew remained unaware.

Because something was stopping him. Something inside of him was telling him not too, and so he didn't. Instead, he sat down on the sand by the fire and simply watched the embers float around.

He wasn't even sure why he wanted to make the bald man proud. He wasn't sure of anything anymore. Anything aside from the fact that in this very moment he had given up. It had been grey for so long, he had been in a fog - asleep. His thoughts weren't his own, and, for a while, he hadn't cared.

But the colour was starting to come back to him, as he watched the embers glow; fighting to survive in a losing battle. The colour was coming back, he was waking up, his thoughts were becoming his own and he was so tired. He was so tired and oh so angry.

The last part of his subconscious that still belonged to the bald man was screaming at him to do something about the fire - to get up and tell them so they could hunt down the zone rats that had left not that long ago, but instead he felt his body slump down lower next to the dying fire. He didn't want to do this anymore. It was wrong, so very wrong - what he had done. He had killed people just because the bald man told him too. He had been given no other reason for it - but it was the only reason he'd needed.

The fire was well and truly dying now. What was once wood and old magazines was now nothing but blackened char and grey dusty ashes. The only light came from the small glowing embers - somehow still fighting for survival, and the moon.

He was tired. He was fed up. But most of all, he was angry.

He felt his hands lifting themselves to the back of his head. He felt them grab a hold of the mask that had bound him to the bald man for so long, and he felt them tug, watching as the wretched thing finally came off his head.

For a moment, he was shocked. Surprised at his actions, but the more he looked at it the more he realised how much he had truly despised the thing. It looked just like every other drac mask. There was no sense of originality, no sense of who he was, just a copy and pasted drac template onto every single one the bald man had created.

Who even was he? Who was he before the mask? Did he even have a name?

He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember no matter how hard he tried - he remembered nothing before the mask, before the mask and the bald man. He may not have known who he was, but he sure as fuck knew that he wasn't going to be a minion in the bald mans twisted plans any longer.

He felt another surge of anger, nothing but pure uncharted rage sweep through him, filling every pore and coursing through his veins - and it felt amazing. He glared down at the mask for the final time before tossing it into the small fire pit, giving the embers something to latch onto; to grow and thrive once more. A second chance, if you will.