Knights in Shining Armour

I've decided to call them death knights.

No particular reason. They're knights. Undead skeleton knights, but knights all the same. And while nothing about them suggests that they're knights how we usually think of them (horses, heraldry, damsels in distress), I'm not so naive as to think that every knight in history was like Sir Galahad. These knights ain't going to be finding the Holy Grail anytime soon. The only thing these fuckwits seem to want to find is my face with their swords. Or, failing that, any other part of my body.

Didn't sign up for this, I think to myself, as one of the groaning abominations comes shambling my way. Really didn't think that "join the Corps, see the world" would include seeing other worlds and killing zombie (sorry, skeleton) knights that look like something out of a DnD session. Nup. Really didn't sign up for any of this.

But at least they fall. They don't bleed, but I can still kill them. A volley of nails goes into the herald of Hell (or whatever this place is) before me, halting it in its tracks. I keep in place, not lifting my finger off the trigger until it falls to the ground, dead. Or, whatever the opposite of undeath is (or maybe it is dead? Is that the word?) It's only as I take my finger off the trigger that I allow myself to breathe. That I allow myself to take a sip from my hip flask, hoping that the waters of this place (or these places) aren't going to kill me. Only now, do I take the time to ask myself "what am I doing here?"

The sky provides no answer. That ever-shifting purple sky, where the black clouds are interwoven with the sky itself, rather than hanging there like fat sheep waiting for a plane to fly through them. This is my second world, but it still looks the same. The same sky. The same monstrosities. The same architecture that looks like it was spawned from the mind of a demented architect. I don't belong here. I'm not just talking about the anachronism of a shotgun being used against a knight (and the guy with the shotgun being the one at a disadvantage), I'm talking about everything. I don't know how long I've been in this place. I don't know if time is even a concept. Every time I return to the slipgate complex, it's as if time itself has stood still. The sun's still at the same place in the sky, the clocks are still haywire, communications with the outside world have been cut off. I have no way of knowing what's going on outside the complex. All I can do is hope beyond hope that I can put a stop to this.

Fat chance, right? I nonetheless walk up to the death knight and nudge it with my boot. It doesn't move.

"Really wasn't meant to be here," I say. "I was meant to be coordinating this operation, not plunging into the breach myself."

It doesn't say anything. Corpses don't tend to be chatty. Fuck, even the 'living' creatures in these realms only communicate in groans and hisses.

"Does that surprise you?" I ask. "Me, referencing Shakespeare?"

The death knight still doesn't say anything. It just lies there, unmoving.

"Well, get used to it. This is Agincourt, and I'm…"

I trail off. I was going to say "Henry," but it's at this point that I realize how utterly asinine this is. Second, as I reflect on what my name actually is…I…I don't…

Annie.

No. That's my wife's name. I'm coming back to her. I…yeah. Got nothing else to say. Nup. Nope. Nadda. I'm going to put a stop to this, come back home, then sleep for a week. Fuck, even longer.

Has it been a week?

I don't know. But as I move along the ramparts of this castle (least I think it's a castle) and enter the tower, seeing it stocked with everything from shotgun shells to rockets, I'm left to ask what time even means here. Was Quake planning this before we opened the slipgates? It might explain why it's (least I think it's an 'it') was able to secure so much human technology and stockpile it here. Not that I've seen any of its minions use it bar those ogres (yeah, that's what I call them, "ogres"), and they're rotten shots. It's the chainsaws you've got to look out for with those guys. Again, no idea how or why they have chainsaws, but does anything make sense in this place?

Easy answer: it doesn't. Doesn't stop me from stocking up on ammo and bandages. Got more scars here, in the past few hours/days/weeks, then I did in Vietnam, and let me tell you, even a Viet Cong here would be a sight for sore eyes. Eyes that bid me to sleep, while the whispers keep me awake. Those whispers that are everywhere. Always reaching me, even as the world lies quiet.

So quiet. The whole place is quiet. It's, like, supernaturally quiet. As in, every creature here is a minion of Quake, but nothing else exists. Like, I'm in the mouth of madness, and it keeps trying to swallow me. Like, when I walk over to the armour rack, I'm left to ask, is this by my own volition? Or the whispers in my mind, that whisper "give up. Give up. Give up."

Not giving up. I'm coming back Annie.

Not giving up, but I'm still checking out that armour. It could fit me, I think, at least if I took off my armour and downgraded to this shit. Because, yes, it is a downgrade. It doesn't stop my shotgun shells, so it sure at ain't gonna stop all the other shit that's coming my way. Don't even know why the death knights wear it, when it ain't the armour that's keeping them alive, it's their rotting, undead constitution. I mean, sure, it must help to some extent, but…am I mad?

I think I'm mad. I'm admiring armour of the undead skeletons that are trying to kill me. I'm actually imagining myself wearing it, as if I was some actual knight of old. Fighting for Camelot, slaying the beasts of darkness. How sad is it that me being Sir Whatshisname would make more sense than me…whatever my name is…fighting zombies and other monsters with a shotgun?

I turn away from the armour rack and begin to move on.

Coming back Annie…

The operation must be completed. Quake must be contained. Have to find the two…no, three other runes. And then…and then…

How long have I been here?

When does this end?

A/N

So, I've started playing Quake. It's...fine, I guess. Absolutely bonkers when you think about it, considering that we're playing as a shotgun-wielding maniac fighting everything from ogres with chainsaws and grenade launchers, to undead sword-wielding knights, to...whatever the heck scrags are meant to be. Cripes, even Doom was less bonkers than this. Course I kind of get why, given its development cycle (which is why I'm guessing that armour pickups have the sound of medieval armour, which 'inspired' this drabble in the first place), but, yeah. Even if it's basically an upgraded version of Doom, this game is weird. Given that Ranger has totally lost it by Quake Champions, I guess even Id knows that. 0_0