Chapter 2
Now THIS is living, Soldier thought to himself. A variety of military surplus weapons, two crates full of ready-to-eat military surplus rations, and a basic shelter he’d rigged together with his own blood and sweat and a military surplus EZ-Pitch tent. Miles from the civilised world, it was just him, his trusty shovel, and the elements. And those god damned Nazis. He didn’t know where...but they were out there, somewhere. They were just scared of him and especially his shovel. It was that knowledge that had kept him going all these months, scouring the forests of Poland for any sign of them, supplementing his meagre rations with any unfortunate forest creatures that happened to cross his path.
Then winter had come, and heavy snow had stopped him from moving camp like he usually would, so he’d built a snow wall around the tiny forest clearing and waited for the Nazis to come to him. That had been almost two weeks ago. He’d kept himself sane by reading Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ to an audience of snow decoys...they were damn good listeners, but never really said much.
And now, staring at the glowing logs in the crackling fire, Soldier was getting bored. He smirked momentarily, imagining one of them was a Nazi’s ugly skull, and split it clean in half with his shovel. Shadows danced on the trees surrounding him as he hit it again and again; take that, you Nazi son of a bitch! Eventually those cowardly Krauts would show themselves, and then he’d get to crack some real skulls...
“Who’s that!?” A loud crack echoed from somewhere beyond the trees. He was stiff from the cold and his empty stomach ached, but after so long without a fight, nothing could dampen his bloodlust. He gripped the shovel’s handle with both hands, looking all around him and grinning excitedly. “Alright Fritz...you finally found me. But you’d better be ready for me, ‘cause I am gonna shove my boot so far up your ass your tongue will TASTE AMERICAN SOIL!”
Soldier swung his weapon in a wide arc, lashing out at the moving shadows. Somewhere close by, voices whispered. Unseen eyes stared at him, plotting against him. Raising the shovel above his head, he charged in the direction of the sounds with a roar, slashing his way through dead and leafless bushes, pushing his way through ice-covered brambles.
It was only when he finally emerged, scratched and bloodied, that he suddenly had no idea where he was. He searched for any sign of the enemy - any sign of anything - but saw nothing but identical trees, stretching for miles in every direction. Even if he looked right behind him, to where he’d come from, he couldn’t see the glow of the fire any more. Black trees, white snow, and the moonlit night sky formed a monochrome world.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, old friend.” he muttered. The shovel’s handle felt like solid ice as he gripped it ever tighter. “COME OUT AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN, YOU MAGGOTS!” his voice echoed.
And the forest roared back at him. Without warning he was surrounded by a wall of noise, a million voices smothering him, drowning him in sound. He couldn’t even hear his own screams as his weapon slipped from his grip; he tried to run, but slipped on the snow and landed painfully on his knee. His hands clutched his ears like he was trying to pull them off his head, clawing at them until his fingers were wet with his own blood, as he desperately tried to crawl away. He’d do anything, give anything just to stop the noise. Stop the noise. STOP THE NOISE!
His vision started to blur. He was fully immersed in sound, unable to breathe through the voices bombarding him as he collapsed onto a snowdrift. The numbing cold took away the pain, far away, along with every feeling in his body. The endless trees dissipated like smoke. The forest floor simply ceased to exist beneath him, letting him fall into the nothingness below.
But at least the noise had stopped. Thank God he thought, before he blacked out completely.
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Heavy stretched his muscles as he sat up in bed, scratching himself under one meaty arm. His foggy mind drifted to the previous night’s events; he wasn’t sure why he’d been so sleepy, especially when Sascha needed his attention. She’d been working far harder than he had during their battle, mowing down BLU’s Scout and Demoman, and doing significant damage to the rest of the tiny men on their team. It had been a good day, but it was a shame it had ended so badly for his Doktor.
Smacking his lips sleepily, he mumbled “Good morning Dokt-” before he realised Medic was mysteriously absent. Suddenly more awake, he looked at his surroundings. “Doktor?”
He vaguely remembered falling asleep in Medic’s bed, but the lace-trimmed sheets indicated this was definitely not his Doktor’s bed, or his Doktor’s room. This was somewhere with pastel-pink walls and neatly arranged silk pillows, a fireplace in the corner, and porcelain figurines of apple-cheeked children on the mantelpiece. Warm sunlight poured in through the window; there were no windows in Nucleus, nor was there ever a room like like in any base he’d ever stayed in. It reminded him of his childhood, of his dear Babushka’s house with all its strange and delicate things that he shouldn’t touch. There was even - he sniffed deeply - the smell of delicious food from the kitchen.
He stood up, noticing his clothes were folded neatly and placed in a pile on a small wooden chair. But there was no sign of Sascha, and when he looked under the bed, the shotgun he kept there in case of emergency was gone too. His brow furrowed. Wherever he was, the place suddenly seemed more wrong than comforting, and suddenly stank of a cowardly trick by the BLU team. He cracked his knuckles, and went to open the door...he may be a Heavy Weapons Guy with no weapons, but those baby men couldn’t take away his fists.
“Good morning, mein snuggle bun~”
“Doktor...!?” Heavy found himself speechless. The door opened into a small kitchen, every surface sparkling in the early morning sun, and in the middle of it was a sparkling creature that looked a lot like his Medic. But Doktor would never wear a frilly pink apron, or be cooking sausage instead of downing his morning cup of coffee, or wearing such an overly-cheerful grin that it made Heavy shudder uneasily. Medic never smiled like that, not when he activated an Übercharge, or even when he got a lucky kill with his Bonesaw.
“Vhat is wrong, liebchen?” The strange Medic fretted, his cheeks flushing as pink as his apron, and his bright blue eyes sparkling with tears. “I am so sorry zat I left you...but you vere so tired, I just couldn’t vake you vizzout making breakfast!”
“Vell...I...” Heavy’s stomach growled loudly. He’d been so confused by his situation, he hadn’t even realised he was hungry. But he suddenly felt like he hadn’t eaten in days, and the huge pile of freshly cooked sausages looked terribly tempting.
“Oh, you are vasting avay! Come now, eat!” The Medic grabbed his arm and pulled him over to a small wooden table, and a chair that creaked dangerously when he sat in it. “I made wurst and sauerkraut - and do eat it all, Schnucki, you need to be big and strong!”
Heavy looked away as he winked an unnaturally azure eye, and heaped Heavy’s plate with mounds of cooked sausage and pickled cabbage. As hungry as he was, he still purposefully moved the sauerkraut to one side with the tiny, delicate fork he’d been given. Doktor would never forget that sauerkraut gave him gas; not after that one terrible night, he thought while shovelling more wurst into his starving maw.
This doll-like impostor Medic had failed terribly at imitating the real thing, Heavy thought. But at least he kept the food coming, bringing another plate of sausage with an unnervingly wide smile on his face. That was good, more was good...he was so hungry, he’d long since abandoned the fork and resorted to using his hands instead. More plates and more wurst came and went. And suddenly the terribly abused wooden chair beneath him collapsed, sending him to the floor, his fists still clutching his next mouthful of greasy sausage.
Heavy dropped the food, suddenly aware of himself and where he was again. How much had he eaten...? He couldn’t even remember; he’d forgotten all about finding Sascha, finding his team, finding Doktor! He got to his feet as quickly as he could, heading for the door.
“Do you not like my cooking, Heavychen...?” He turned around. The Other Medic’s sapphire eyes sparkled worriedly; Heavy could swear that they seemed to be getting more and more blue each time he looked at them. “I haff more wurst for my big, strong Kuschelbär...”
“Not now, Doktor.” The words were sour in his mouth...this wasn't right. He needed to get away from here, he needed to find something familiar in this strange place. But then his progress was halted, as he found himself stuck in the doorway leading out of the kitchen.
“Very vell, but it vill all go to vaaaa-aaaaste~!” The Other Medic answered in a sing-song voice, still cheerfully cooking up sausage and piling it onto the table almost robotically.
Heavy growled, his hands pushing against the wall either side, wood creaking and plaster cracking from his efforts. It had seemed more than wide enough just minutes before. Maybe it was the food? It made no sense, but then nothing here seemed to...it reminded him of a book the real Doktor had read to him one evening, about a girl in a blue dress who chased a white rabbit. She fell down a hole and into a place a lot like this, where everything was familiar yet strange. And as the cracks in the plaster started to spead, and his head bumped the top of the doorframe, Heavy realised with horror that this place was even closer to the book than he’d thought.
“NO!” he yelled defiantly, and with one last push and a shower of rubble, he was finally free. But the next room was still as pink and frilly as the last, and the garishly coloured reclining chairs and matching couch seemed to shrink before his eyes. He was still trapped; too wide to fit through the next door, so tall that even his stooped shoulders were pressing against the ceiling. The couch buckled and collapsed under his weight as he sat down, and still his growth didn’t slow, his legs pushing furniture aside and his arm knocking pictures off the wall as the strange sensation coursed through him.
And then just as suddenly as it started, the feeling stopped. “Ees not good day to be giant man...” Heavy muttered to himself, looking at the destruction around him...he remembered how the girl in the blue dress drank something to make herself small, but the kitchen was out of the question with the Other Medic still maniacally cooking away.
He sighed, wondering if he could break through the ceiling without seriously injuring himself, when something bright red and yellow caught his eye. At his huge size, it was almost like a grain of rice, but somehow he reached over to the coffee table and picked up the Bonk up between a massive thumb and forefinger. For once, he was thankful that Scout was always leaving his things around, the tiniest drop of sweetness landing on the tip of his outstretched tongue as he crushed the can.
The effect on Heavy was immediate. He felt like he was falling without moving as he shrank rapidly, and within just a few seconds he was grinning happily, back to his normal height. Then his face fell, and a horrible feeling crept up on him as he reached Scout’s normal height. Another second or two passed and he was shorter than Engineer, and still getting smaller as he ran desperately for the door. Table legs became skyscrapers, and the distance between him and freedom grew from feet to miles as he shrank. And to make matters worse, the Other Medic was moving out from the kitchen, calling his name, footsteps shaking the floor like earthquakes. A sausage the size of an aircraft carrier fell from the plate and landed with an earth-shattering impact, the shockwave throwing Heavy around like a child’s toy.
For the first time in a long time, he felt afraid. Cracking open an eye, he realised he was so small now that grains of dirt looked like boulders, and the air grew thicker and more difficult to breathe as he continued to shrink. He could never hold Sascha, or any of his weapons again. His team was gone. And even if Doktor was here, he wouldn’t notice him at this microscopic size. But one thought still occurred to him as he grew smaller and smaller still; what would it feel like, to shrink out of existe-
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Sniper was back in that place again. Purple sand stretched out in front of him in every possible direction, punctuated only by the occasional rock or dead tree. Sure, he’d see other things out here; the occasional billabong, maybe a sand-blasted signpost still encouraging him ever forward. But they were so few they may as well not exist at all...he’d even turned around once, thought about going against the signposts. Maybe he’d end up somewhere different, actually be somewhere other than here. But the horizon behind him was identical to the one in front, bathed in the perpetual twilight of a sun neither rising nor setting, where the air never moves and the desert goes on forever.
He kicked a small rock next to his shoe, and started walking. That was all he ever seemed to do now, not like once upon a time, when he’d lived out his every fantasy in this place. He’d bagged the biggest game using only his bare hands, his body huge and muscular, his top lip adorned with a magnificent moustache that would make any sheila swoon. Just like everyone else. Like someone who didn’t need the crutch of ‘mechanical assistance’, like someone whose dad wasn’t ashamed of his scrawny, moustache-less son. If only in this place, he could be one of them, a dinkum Aussie. He could be one of the most beautiful, creative, and deadly people on the planet, not a bad joke on legs.
But times had changed, and the desert had slowly emptied as he found less need for fantasy. He'd been taught how to survive in the desert, and he’d learned what it meant to be a professional, to have a set of standards to live life by. He’d spent hours cleaning and maintaining his rifle, refining the patience and delicate movements needed to line up a headshot, a clean kill. He’d learned to love his job at the nature reserve; keeping the animal populations in check, picking off the occasional poacher, and maybe a few other people of questionable morals if the price was right. And then RED had come calling, and the last of his wild fantasies had crawled back under the unmoving sands.
There was nothing left now except the flickering shadows of memory, and the occasional inner demon stalking him in the corner of his eye. He kicked another rock spitefully, remembering when he'd first camped out in the bush. If only he hadn't eaten the wrong bloody kind of mushroom, or cactus or whatever the hell kind of vegetation he'd naively stuffed down his starving gullet, maybe he'd be able to have normal dreams. Or at least he’d be able to control where his subconscious mind ended up. The beach would be nice, maybe...still bloody sand everywhere, but at least there’d be the sea, for a change.
“Hmph. Anythin' other than bloody desert would be noice.” he grumbled, giving a particularly oddly-shaped rock a good, sharp kick. It rolled a few feet, leaving a long and wobbly trail in the sand. Sniper followed it at a jogging base, ready to give it an even harder kick, when the slightest of sounds made him stop and look down. The desert was silent, it’d always been silent. The only sounds here were ones made by him, or by figments of his imagination, and he couldn’t remember imagining a deep crack up the side of the rock. He knelt down for a closer look, and the crack grew and widened as he watched in awe.
“Wot...?” he gaped as something defiantly green appeared against the purple background...a tiny sprout, unfurling a pair of round leaves. He hadn’t imagined this, so where could it...? His hand shaking, he reached out to touch it. And the desert exploded.
Sniper threw his arms over his head to protect himself from the sudden showers of sand. All around him, spreading out in every direction, plants of all types burst from the parched earth. Trees groaned like ghosts as they rose fully-formed from the desert, branches sprouting leaves and growing heavy with ripening fruit. Vines snaked their way along the ground, spiralling around the new tree trunks and hanging from the flourishing canopy. Flowers of every colour burst from their buds and filled the air with sweet and enticing aromas. By the time he opened his eyes again, he was stood in the only patch of bare sand, surrounded on all sides by a dense, living forest.
“Holy dooley...” Sniper said breathlessly as he looked at everything, all around him. Had he, had his mind done all this? He’d been thinking of the beach, but this...this was literally like nothing he’d ever dreamed of. And looking down, he could see the rock - or seed as it turned out - that had started it all. What had once been a sprout was now a slender stem with long ribbon-like leaves, crowned with a flower that seemed to beckon to him with its psychedelic colours and a smell that reminded him of his mum’s baking.
“Well aren’t you a beaut.” He smiled, his fingers wrapping around the base of the stem. But what he wasn’t expecting was for the flower to grab him back, leaves wrapping around his wrist and pulling tight. “What the bloody hell!?”
The plant pulled his arm forward, bringing his fingertips closer to the desert soil. And Sniper screamed in fright as his fingernails twisted bizarrely, trying to bury themselves in the soil until he finally escaped the thing’s grasp. Gasping for breath, he stared at his hand...the nails looked brown and gnarled, like claws. And worse; his fingers were starting to itch, the skin turning into dry, cracked leather. He didn’t know how this was happening, how he could have suddenly lost control over his dreams and let this nightmare creep in. All he knew was he had to escape it.
He drew his Kukri - always by his side, even here - and started clumsily hacking at the vegetation to clear a path. But like the mythical Hydra, even more leaves and stems grew to replace their fallen brethren. The blade split a hanging vine in half, thick sap splattering his arm. Immediately a terrible numbness overtook the limb, the Kukri falling from his paralysed fingers, smothered by the growing vegetation as soon as it hit the ground. He screamed again as green leaves sprouted from his deformed fingers, the skin up to his shoulder hardening into bark, freezing the limb in place. As he tried to move his left arm, he found it was almost fully transformed already, scrawny twigs ripping through his shirt sleeve.
Sniper’s heart pounded in his chest. He tried to run, but found himself literally rooted to the spot. Tendrils that were once toes wormed their way out of his boots, plunging deep into the ground as he pulled and tugged uselessly. Climbing plants twisted their way around his legs and up to his chest, his ribs stretching and twisting into branches that tore gaping holes in his shirt. This really was a nightmare; he’d almost forgotten what they felt like. But he couldn’t feel much of anything any more, his head now permanently turned upwards, staring helplessly at the night sky as the bark crawled up his neck.
His breathing slowed and stopped, his cries of terror silenced as his mouth became just another hollow in another tree. His eyes were the only part of him still human now, darting back and forth as he continued to scream inside his own head. Wake up. Just wake up. Oh God. Someone. Please. Help me.