The final warning message appeared before my eyes.
> Be advised that the Circle collapse is imminent. Relocate to the safe zone.
“I don’t like it, Jen.”
“We don’t have time for bickering, Jason,” Jennifer said, going from whispering to almost shouting. “The Red Zone’s almost on us!”
I quickly checked the map. Jennifer was right. The Circle was shrinking, the Red Zone advancing on us. It moved real fast. I remembered the first time I had encountered the Red Zone when I was looking for my girlfriend in the town of Pineapple. It moved so slowly one could easily outrun it then. But now was different. The Red Zone was bearing down on the house so fast I would have to run as fast as I could to get away from it. So Jennifer was right. We didn’t have time for coming up with another plan.
“Okay, let’s do it!”
And we got down to work. I started to toss the smoke grenades out the window. Jennifer first loaded some of the smoke grenades into the breech of the grenade launcher and joined in with the firing out the window. Her grenades arced through the air and landed much farther than mine.
Dense gray smoke quickly rose and expanded, quickly filling the field between the house and the hill.
We then darted toward the way out. Jennifer and I had barely burst out of the house when it got swallowed up by the Red Zone. We exchanged quick glances, nodded at each other, and raced in the different directions, I making for the smoke, Jennifer racing toward the pickup truck.
The thunder of the sniper rifle reverberated through the air, the heavy-caliber bullet missed me by inches.
As I burst into the roiling clouds of smoke, I heard the roar of the engine to my left. Jennifer had already reached the truck and was heading for the hill now. I wished her good luck in my mind. The sound of the engine was getting quieter as the pickup truck was driving farther away from me. But I didn’t see it, of course. Due to the smoke slowly floating in every direction, visibility was reduced to only a few feet. I put on my see-through-smoke visor on the run.
I glanced back over my shoulder to see how far the Red Zone was. I was surprised to see the red wall gaining on me. I accelerated, running as fast as I could. Since I hadn’t unlocked any skills increasing movement speed, my speed wasn’t too high. I sprinted as fast as my legs could carry me, my Stamina draining rapidly. Although my speed wasn’t all that high, I was moving somewhat faster than the red zone was. I continued to race forward through the swirling clouds of dense smoke and hoped my Stamina would last out until I reached the hill.
Suddenly a single shot rang out. The heavy-caliber round burned through the smoke and passed by my head. I wasn’t sure whether the sharpshooter could see me in the smoke or the bullet just happened to have passed so close to me.
Another bullet ripped through the air, passing so close to my head it singed my hair. It wasn’t too long before another shot rang out, the slug passing just over my head. The dense smoke masked me, but the sharpshooter could see me somehow. I was sure of it now. Probably he had used a cheat to see through the smoke. I started to zigzag my way toward the hill to present as difficult a target as possible.
As I ran on, the player fired away at me. None of the heavy-caliber rounds hit me so far, although some of them passed within millimeters of my head. I was glad to have unlocked the three Dodge skills. Between them, I had a 30% chance of avoiding being hit by enemies’ bullets. Had not for these three skills, one of the sniper’s bullets might have hit me.
Then I suddenly found myself in the Red Zone as the red, transparent wall outran me. It was moving way too fast. Since I had started to weave my way toward the hill, my movement speed slowed down somewhat. There was no way I could zigzag and sprint simultaneously. So the Red Zone had reached and swallowed me. And then it started to hurt me.
I remembered Jennifer and I being in the Red Zone at the beginning of the game. It had done little harm to us. But now was different. Since it was the final stage of the game, the Red Zone was now inflicting much more damage to me than it had the last time. My Health was draining at the rate of about 10 percent a second.
Dang it!
I delved into my bag, took an auto-injector, and used it on myself. My Health got restored, but a second later, it started to drain again as I was still in the Red Zone.
I raced on through the smoke toward the hill, timely using auto-injectors as the player kept firing away at me. All his shots missed me so far, yet one of the rounds would surely find its mark sooner or later. I was pretty sure that just one such heavy-caliber slug fired from the sniper rifle would be more than enough to take me out.
There was no telling if I would get through this. All I could do was just race forward, swerving back and forth and using auto-injectors.
Then there was an explosion up ahead. Jennifer had finally reached the hill and started firing her grenade launcher. The second explosion closely followed the first one. Jennifer kept firing almost ceaselessly. A machine gun opened up as well. Then the sniper rifle barked again. Yet none of the two weapons was aimed at me this time. The cheaters had to be firing back at my girlfriend.
Had to come to her aid ASAP.
As no one was shooting at me now, there was no point in zigzagging. I sprinted toward the hill, running as fast as I could. I didn’t even bother to heal myself in order not to slow down.
The Red Zone finally stopped moving and a message appeared in my HUD.
> Be advised that the next Circle collapse is due in 04min59sec.
Finally, I burst out of the Red Zone and a few seconds later, I was out of the smoke. Right in front of me loomed the hill. I raced up the grassy slope, using the auto-injector on the run to restore my HP. I heard the roar of the machine gun interspersed with the sharp single barks of the sniper rifle. The two cheaters were firing at Jennifer who was somewhere on the other side from the hill. Although I could hear the sound of the echoing gunfire coming from above, I didn’t spot any of the cheaters yet.
Halfway up the slope, I made out a figure crouching in the undergrowth next to a tree on the top of the hill, his back to me.
> Name: Vladimir
> Level: 20
The player held the sniper rifle, aiming down the scope at what would be the pickup truck somewhere on the other side from the hill. The mere sight of the player trying to hit my girlfriend enraged me. I raced up the slope as fast as I could, not bothering to climb quietly. Not that it mattered anyway since the roar of the machine gun ceaselessly belching lead and flame masked my footsteps.
When I made it to the top of the hill and got within a few yards of Vladimir, he got aware of someone behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw me. He instantly rose to his feet, whirled around, and tried to bring his sniper rifle into play. He was too late since I had already aimed for his head.
The player had a full-face combat helmet on, but it didn’t help him at all. I stroked the trigger on the shotgun and the weapon kicked in my hands. The player took a load of buckshot to the face. The helmet cracked and the player’s head exploded in a shower of bone and brain matter.
I wasted no time darting across the top of the hill until I saw the other player.
> Name: Mikhail
> Level: 20
He was in front of me, and to my left, standing at the edge of the hill, his machine gun aimed down the slope. He neither noticed me nor heard the blast of the shotgun over the roar of his machine gun. I didn’t see what he was aiming at, so I ran forward across the top of the hill until I reached its edge.
I looked down and saw the pickup truck. It had smashed into the trunk of a tree some time before, a gush of black smoke coming from the damaged engine compartment. I also saw Jennifer. She was running away from the ruined car as Mikhail kept pouring fire into the vehicle.
One of the bullets chewed into the gas tank, rupturing it, and the pickup truck blew up, the fireball engulfing the car and expanding in every direction, the remains of the veh
icle flying every which way. Luckily, Jennifer was a safe distance from the truck by that point and went unscathed by the blast.
Never letting up on the trigger of the machine gun, Mikhail shifted his aim toward the running Jennifer. Before I could do something to help her out, one of the bullets struck her, whipping her around and bringing her down.
“No,” I yelled in sheer terror.
The player heard me this time. He turned and saw me. I whipped my shotgun up and fired at him, but none of the pellets hit him, for he was standing too far away from me.
He cut loose with a long burst aimed at me. I instantly whirled around, ran across the top of the hill, and took cover behind the tree Vladimir had been crouching at. Unfortunately, there was no cover nearby except for this tree.
Mikhail kept firing, his rounds chipping bark from the trunk. I glanced at the log and saw that there were three players in the game, which meant that my girlfriend was still alive. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Yet my own life was on the line. A hailstorm of lead burned through the air, ripping the flora apart, shredding bark, and ripping leaves. The player had been ceaselessly shooting for like twenty seconds by now, yet it didn’t seem like his machine gun would run dry anytime soon. He might have employed some cheat for infinite ammo.
Then a slug hit the tree and sprayed bark in my face. I first thought it was just some stray bullet, but then I saw geysers of dirt burst up next to me. I realized the player was walking around the tree, firing his gun endlessly. I started to move in the other direction, keeping my back to the trunk. However, it wasn’t big enough to protect my whole body. One of the slugs clipped my exposed shoulder, taking about ten percent of my Health.
I heard the distinct crackle of Jennifer’s assault rifle coming from somewhere very close. My girlfriend must have climbed atop the hill and was now firing at the player. Yet Mikhail didn’t pay her attention at all. Instead, he fired away at the tree, eager to deal with me first.
I wasn’t sure as to how far he was from the tree. Probably he was close enough by this time. I decided to take a risk. I leaped away from the trunk and darted around the tree. I had guessed wrong. Mikhail was still beyond the range of my weapon. I started to run around him as he kept sending a steady stream of devastating fire in my direction.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Jennifer. She stood behind Mikhail, firing burst after burst at the player. Dozens of bullets tore into his back. He wasn’t wearing any body armor at all. Jennifer had already dumped into him at least one whole magazine. He should long since have been dead. But he wasn’t. He had clearly used cheats to get not only infinite ammo but also infinite health. I had no idea why the anti-cheat software hadn’t detected him yet.
I blasted away at the player on the run. Most of my buckshot missed him, yet some of the pellets cut into his body without any visible effect.
Mikhail was unleashing a torrent of bullets in my direction. I swerved left and right as I ran toward him. Some of the bullets struck against my body armor, dealing damage to my character. I was pretty sure he would kill me long before I got within firing range to deliver a shot to his head. I wasn’t even sure if a shot to the head would kill him, but I was going to try it anyway since I didn’t know what else I could do.
I flicked my eyes toward the UI to check how many HP I had left. Every time a bullet hit me, some of my Health was taken away.
> Health: 176/515
> Health: 123/515
> Health: 96/515
> Health: 44/515
Finally, I was within firing range. I darted to the side, stopped, and whipped my shotgun up as the player started to readjust his aim toward me. As I put his head in my iron sights, two things happened one after another.
First, a message appeared in the log.
> The anti-cheat has detected a cheater and prevented him from using cheats.
Simultaneously, I squeezed the trigger and Mikhail’s eyeballs burst in a revolting spray as the buckshot ripped through his skull, blowing most of his brain matter out the back of his head.
Then, a second later, the player disappeared without a trace and another message emerged in the log.
> The player Mikhail has been kicked from the game for using cheats.
Just to be on the safe side, I glanced at the log and saw that there were only two players in the game now. I dropped the shotgun to the ground since there were no players to shoot at anymore.
Another message appeared.
> Be advised that the Circle collapse is imminent.
This time, the game didn’t say that we should relocate to the safe zone. Reason for this was clear––there was no safe zone now. I looked around to see the huge circular red wall, which was shrinking quickly, closing in on the hill from every direction. Judging by the speed with which the Red Zone was advancing on us, it would take about a minute for it to swallow up the hill.
I pulled a few auto-injectors out of my bag and used them on myself to top off my Health. I then turned and started striding toward my girlfriend. Then something unexpected transpired. Instead of pulling an auto-injector from her bag and healing herself, my girlfriend dropped the assault rifle, drew the pistol from the holster on her right hip, and trained the gun on me.
“Stay away,” she said.
Jennifer was the last person in the whole world I expected to aim a gun at me. It was so surprising I continued to walk toward her.
“Jason, stop,” Jennifer screamed taking a few steps backward herself.
I came to a halt.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Why are you aiming at me?”
Jennifer held the pistol in both her hands, making no attempt to holster her pistol.
“Drop your gun,” she ordered.
I had already discarded the shotgun. A moment later, I realized that she meant the pistol in my drop leg holster. I pulled the handgun out and tossed it away. I was unarmed now. Not that it bothered me. I wasn’t going to fire at my girlfriend no matter what.
“You gonna shoot me, Jen?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then why are you aiming at me?”
Jennifer said nothing.
“Put the gun away, please,” I said. “Then heal yourself. We need to die together to cause the glitch your ex told you about. That was the plan, right?”
“There’s no such a glitch, Jason,” Jennifer said quietly. “Not anymore. I lied to you. Sorry. Steve told me that the developers had fixed this glitch a long time ago.”
I just stared at her for a couple of seconds.
“So he told you that there was the glitch, but then it was fixed, and despite this, you decided to play the game anyway?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t get it, Jen. Why? Only one player can win the game, so why would you––”
“Jason, there’s no time to explain,” she interrupted me.
I quickly looked around. Jennifer was right. The Red Zone was quickly closing in on us from every direction. It had already started to swallow the slopes of the hill. We had about ten seconds before the Red Zone swallowed up the rest of the elevated land.
“Jason, I’m so sorry,” Jennifer sobbed.
I looked at her and saw tears welling up in her eyes.
“I love you,” she said.
Suddenly, I realized what she was going to do.
“No,” I yelled as I burst into a run toward her. “Don’t do this, Jen!”
Although only ten yards separated me from my girlfriend, there was no way I could reach her in time. Jennifer put the pistol under her chin and started to put pressure on the trigger.
“Jen, don’t,” I yelled as I continued to run toward my girlfriend as fast as I could.
Looking at me, tears streaking her cheeks, Jennifer squeezed the trigger. The pistol barked once and the bullet ripped through her skull, killing her instantly.
Suddenly, everything in the game started to slow do
wn, including my character. Before I could reach my girlfriend, my movement speed got reduced to a crawl and then I got frozen midstride. I couldn’t move at all.
A message appeared in my HUD.
> Congratulations! The game is over! You are the last player standing! You won!
The message lingered before my eyes for a few seconds and then everything went dark.
Epilogue
I took a quick survey of the one-story house in front of me. It looked little different than the other buildings lining both sides of the street in this affluent residential neighborhood.
I then started to walk toward the gate, swung it wide, and strode toward the entrance door to get inside. There were lots of security cameras, motion sensors, and other security devices around the property. Yet all of them got unworkable by the jammer in the pocket of my jacket, which the private eye had lent me. The same went for the electronic door locks, which was why I had no trouble entering the house unhindered and undetected.
Thomas Morrison was seated in his motorized wheelchair, staring at the monitor screen in front of him.
“What the heck,” he said as he spotted me out of the corner of his eye.
A moment later, he recognized me. His eyes went wide. “You!”
“It’s nice to meet you in person, Tom,” I said. “Or you prefer to be called Vic Morgan?”
“How the heck did you find me?”
“Given how much you told me about yourself after I defeated you the first time in the game, it wasn’t all that hard to find you. And I won the game, remember? You can’t help but be aware of this because you’d been watching Jennifer and me fighting the two cheaters all along. So the million dollars the developers gave me was more than enough to hire a good private eye to find you.”
The Last Player Standing: A Dystopian LitRPG Novel Page 20