#writing
Chapter 6: Ragnarok
Max, feeling he had enough of a break, descended down the ladder. He stared down at the ground, looking for Uncle who he expected to be celebrating, but he was nowhere to be seen. Max touched down at the roof of the building, yet he still didn’t hear or see Uncle anywhere. “Uncle!” Max shouted “I did it! I put up the transmitter!” Max waited a second but didn’t hear a response. He still saw his car, as well as Uncle’s, and assumed he had just gone to look for something. He wasn’t worried.
Max descended the final set of ladders before touching down on the real ground. He felt much more secure now that the floor didn’t rock below him and the wind wasn’t strong enough to send him pummelling down to the ground like a meteorite.
Max walked out the gate where he had come in, again feeling much safer now that he wasn’t technically trespassing, and skipped around the corner to his car to meet up with Uncle.
“Hey Uncle I did it! I put up the trans-” Max was cut off, caught off guard by the sight before him.
“Hey there, Bucket.” Dexter said with derision. Dexter was standing in the middle of the parking lot where Uncle was before, holding a bent piece of pipe that was covered in blood and chips of bone, along with his hands. Below him at his feet was a dead Uncle, who had a pile of blood oozing from a crack in his skull. Max didn’t know who this man was before him, but his execrable visage eluded that he could only be one person: the stranger.
Max took a step back, unsure of the amount of power he currently held. Dexter recognized Max’s uncertainty as a weakness and walked forward, splashing more blood on his shoes as he inched closer to Max in an intimidating way. “You think I didn’t know about your little plan? I know everything! Your little rebellion? Look where that got you!” Dexter motioned to the corpse on the floor.
Max pleaded, still walking backwards slowly. “I-I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”
Dexter laughed. “Oh you bet it won’t happen again. Because this time, I’m gonna make sure you suffer.”
Dexter screamed and ran at Max with the pipe. Max stuck up his arms to protect his head and took the blow from the pipe. Max flew back a little bit as the pipe banged against his arms, but he quickly recovered. Max used this time after Dexter’s attack to swipe his feet with his own, causing Dexter to lose balance and fall over into the puddle of blood, sending blood splashing over his face. Max then ran into the forest away from the radio tower, taking the time to comprehend what had just happened.
That was definitely The stranger, no doubt, but it wasn’t the man in the suit from before. It was a relatively young guy who looked totally different from the man before. Why would he make himself appear like that? That person didn’t seem overly threatening, and he attacked Max with a pipe? Max knew his power, he could’ve done something much more devastating with much less effort. Max also realized that he had knocked the stranger down, meaning he could now take a hit. He wasn’t invincible or untouchable as he was before. To Max this only meant one thing: He had got off his throne, and he was now fighting Max appearing as he actually was. Max had dethroned the king and challenged him to a fistfight on equal ground, and without him even realizing, blinded by his vengeful anger. Max didn’t know what, but the transmitter must’ve done something to make him mad enough to face him one on one, and he wasn’t about to lose his opportunity to get to freedom. He didn’t know when he’d get this chance again.
Just then Max heard some twigs snapping in the forest and he ducked behind a log.
“Max, where are you? How about we just talk, man to man?” Dexter beckoned out to him, trying to lure him to fight. The blood on his face and body was hardening, and his anger hadn’t diminished in the slightest. “Just so you know, your friend died like a coward.”
Max grew angry at the comment, and got up to take revenge, but crouched down lower below the log. No, that’s exactly what he wants you to do, To fight him. Max had made him fall for this trick, which is why he was here right now in such a vulnerable state, but Max was smarter than the stranger. He wouldn’t fall for the same trick. Instead he wondered why the stranger was so inclined to fight him. Max knew his strength, and assumed the stranger knew Max’s strength as well. There was no way that the stranger would bet all his revenge on a fight, there had to be some sort of backup he was employing.
Max exposed himself from behind the tree. “What is it?”
Dexter turned to Max, the bloodlust anger visible on his blood-soaked face. He smiled. “What is what?”
Max stepped closer, hiding a sharpened branch behind his leg. “What’s the backup? How do you plan to get out of here?”
Dexter wiped some of the blood off of his face. “You’re smarter than I thought, I’ll give you that. I misinterpreted your versatility and intellect.”
Max reiterated, stepping closer. “What is it? Is there a button in your pocket or something? That zaps you out of here?”
Dexter smiled fiendishly. “I’ll give you a hint. It’s the reason you or I am even here.” Dexter laughed. “You’ll never guess it.”
“I’ve had enough of your games!” Max screamed, lunging at Dexter. Dexter had seen the stick, and sidestepped Max, putting his foot out to trip Max. Max tripped and fell into the underbrush faceforward, snapping his stick and scratching up his face. Dexter took his chance to beat the powerless Max, hitting him over and over again with the pipe as Max cowered into a fetal position to shield himself from some of the blows. “You have ruined me!” Dexter hit him again. “You took away everything from me!” Dexter hit him harder, cracking the pipe a little bit. “Now, I am going to take everything from you!” Dexter screamed, hitting him one final time, the pipe shattering into a million rusty pieces, flying everywhere.
Max was in extreme pain at this point, with a broken rib and many other small injuries, but he didn’t falter in his counter attack. He leapt up at Dexter with all his remaining energy and tackled The stranger. Max screamed a primal scream, savagely punching him in the face over and over again until his knuckles split open. Dexter feared for his life and tried to say the failsafe word, but couldn’t at the barrage of punches hitting his face, even knocking out his teeth. Max didn’t hear any part of the word, blinded by pent up aggression from days of abuse. Dexter sat there, unable to speak, staring at Max. After a few seconds, Max rolled off of him, starting to succumb to his own injuries. They both layed there nearly dying in the forest, covered in mud, dirt, rust and bone.
Max felt his life fleeting, and with the last of his thoughts, he scoured his memory for anything that ticked off all the events. His grocery store outburst? The police station interview? Hell, The Vietnam war? He couldn’t figure it out. Max started to feel the darkness come over him, making him feel warm and oddly calm, and he knew he was about to die. He could barely see the forest above him, his vision becoming blurry and sluggish.
He tried to speak.
“Ch-ch…”
“Chee-es…”
“Cheese gr-ill…”
“Gr-g… grill ch-cheese…”
Max opened his eyes and saw his body in the forest, sitting lifelessly next to his nemesis.They looked oddly peaceful, and he stared at the image for a long time. “Is this, heaven?” Max wondered, it sure seemed like heaven. Then, slowly, Max looked around. He was in a room, like a science laboratory. He saw screens showing views of places he had been to, places he lived in. He saw his bedroom, a view of the parking lot at the radio station, Uncle’s dead body next to his car. Max realized this wasn’t heaven. He looked around further, seeing a large machine in the center of the room. He made out the word SIMULATOR on one side of it, accompanied by an ankh charm. It had worked! He was out of the simulation! Max stood up, but quickly fell back down into the chair, feeling woozy. His body felt different. His fingers and eyelids, they all reacted differently than he had remembered, his muscles twitched oddly and his tongue didn’t sit quite right in his mouth. His nerve endings felt more sensitive, yet he couldn’t quite describe it like that. He felt like his whole body had pins and needles. He tried to get up again and fell to the floor, but he kept crawling. He crawled over to a mirror in the corner he had seen earlier and saw something he hadn’t considered possible.
The face in the mirror, it wasn’t his. It was the face of the stranger, the man he had killed, and the one currently dying in the forest god knows where. Max hadn’t escaped the simulation, he had replaced someone. The simulation was a sinking ship, and The body Max found himself in was the only lifeboat, occupancy one.
Just at that moment the police raided the stranger’s house. They ran down the stairs, screaming at the confused Max to put his hands on his head, thinking he was Dexter, the man who stole the simulator.