Tuesday, September 16

don't bring a knife to a chainsaw fight

I gulped hard. The roar of Ramsey's saw grew deafeningly louder as she dove towards me. The sunlight hit the diamond edges of her blade as the chain rotated, making it painful to watch as I evaded her. If only I was armed!

"Dammit Ramsey!" I shouted over the buzz of the engine as the weapon missed my helmet by inches. "Don't rip the medic!"

"IVERSOOOON!" she shrieked.

Oh yes, how could I forget. Jeff Iverson, her fiancee whom she would never shut up about. The same Jeff who sent her a Dear Jane letter just before that last mission. Fuzz, MeQal and I had a long talk over whether she should have stayed at the helicarrier when we were preparing to stop that mad Spark over Hong Kong. As the medic they finally deferred to me.

I kept forgetting I was lost in memories. I screamed for Fuzz into the Marconi wired into my breathing apparatus.

"Black Hat to Gray! Black Hat to Gray! Ramsey's got the ripper on my tail!"

I winced from the scream of the blade as it dug into the rim of my helmet. The regulation Dominion headgear felt a cymbal being played by a jazz musician on my skull. The strap of my helmet felt like it was trying to garrote me before it gave way. The helmet tumbled out of sight below me as she raised her chainsaw over head with both hands.

"Take that thing off." She hissed.

"What thing?"

"On your head!" I felt the top of my head...which luckily was still there. The ice crystals were already gathering in my hair.

"My yarmulke? No! Especially not now!" I was much more observant back then. Especially after those incidents at Miskatonic a few years before. It was why they made my call sign Black Hat. It had a Star of David woven in blue on top.

Was she Jewish? I never asked. I knew she was from New York...

"Darien!" Yet another voice out of sequence in the dreamscape. My best friend from college*. Officially he had been my fencing instructor, but in our half-crazed clique we were the Miskatonic Freestyle Meelee Club.

"Remember that kendo move you nailed Chaz with?"

My eyes widened. Ah yes. The day he and Chaz and Brent appointed me the team kendo instructor we laughed so hard they threw us out of the cafeteria.

I had a utility knife strapped to my arm for cutting the cords of my parachute should I land in the trees after my jetpack failed.

"Alright...I can't get these gloves off so I need to use..." I reached for the knife. She had the reach advantage. I would have been torn in half if I went for a lunge.

Instead I hurled the blade. She reeled backwards as blood droplets erupted is a cloud around her and she lost her grip on the blade. I turned away before the chainsaw fell blade first through her...

And in the blink of an eye I found myself floating in a void.




*My friend whose name we shan't mention until he picks an avatar name later this week. -Deva

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