Doug The Courier's Last Job

As Doug stared out into the abyss, fresh from the hospital, he began to have flashbacks of his last experience in the bottom of the abyss. The heavily armored inhabitants, his mission to return to his home, and them beating him to near death. He was only a courier and he had only been gone for… he had no idea, but it was long enough for his home to collapse into the abyss. He stared down into it, and sighed a breath of hopeful exasperation. He had went and gotten a shotgun. Double-barrel, over-under, and it was his grandfather’s. He knew trading it off was a bad idea when he traded it off, but he decided to go ahead and do it anyways. He was equipped with his grandfather’s shotgun and a 9mm submachine gun that had the words “Tech N9ne” crudely scrawled into it.


As Doug began his descent into the darkness of the abyss, he remembered something from the last time. It had it’s own weather system at the bottom, and the storms were viscous enough to tear skin from bone and the inhabitants seemed to be used to it. He grabbed his head wrapping and his goggles and continued on, gripping them and the shotgun tightly. He came across a group of the inhabitants. They were foul, and disease ridden. Weathered even. He tried to sneak past them but they seemed to almost pick up on his scent. They attacked and leapt at him with incredible force. He blasted them with his grandfather’s shotgun and pressed on. He was amazed he could pull the trigger that time, but he figured that him getting ass handed to him and barely leaving alive last time was reason enough to pull that trigger. He continued down the hillside, trudging further and further into the darkness, his heavy boots creating heavy footsteps, his body armor lightly clanking it’s plates of kevlar together creating a beat along with the sound of his heavy boots. As he mercilessly shotgunned the inhabitants and made his way down into the darkness of the abyss, he began to feel slightly more comfortable and decided to hum a little tune along with the beat he was unintentionally creating. He made it to corner where a weathered voice seemed to hiss, “CENTURION!!!”, and the local inhabitants scattered past him, seeming to completely ignore him. He kept pressing forwards, because he had a mission. He had to retrieve something from his home. He was nervous, he was shaky, and if the inhabitants were afraid of this “Centurion”, then he had more than enough reason to be afraid as well.


As he crept around a corner a heavily armored drone type of thing with visible gatling guns hummed and buzzed around the corner. He remembered them from growing up here. They were once the security and protected everybody, including his friends. He remembered his father used to make them at the local factory and that they actually had an “off” switch. He attempted to evade detection and wound up having to flee as the terrifying drone, hovering around with massive gatling guns, began to pursue him firing thousands and thousands of bullets at him in a matter of seconds. He ran and ran but the drone continued to pursue him. He was in the darkness of the abyss now, and could only see the lights the drone gave off in the darkness. He quickly put his goggles on and wrapped his head in his head wrapping and flipped on the thermal vision on his goggles. He could see the heat from the drone’s turbines in the darkness. He managed to sneak past it and wound up walking into a body. It was large. It was breathing heavily. It spoke in a deep, unweathered, almost soothing voice, “Do you recall this place?” and Doug looked up at the giant presence, unsure how to respond and just gave it a puzzled look. The giant looked down at him and said, “Follow me. I will guide you for a short while. I do not know one who does not know their own history, but one who does not know their own history is doomed to repeat it. You are searching for home, yes?” and Doug just looked up at the giant, dazed, and nodded. The giant scooped Doug up and tossed him over his shoulder like he was a ragdoll. The giant carried him, Doug, still confused at what the hell was going on, decided to ask the giant a question. He asked the giant, “Who are you?”, to which the giant responded with, “I am under the employ of a greater power. One who wishes to remind you of the destruction you caused here.” and Doug was only even more confused. Doug asked him what the hell he was talking about and the giant responded with, “You truly are blind and lost now, aren’t you?” Doug looked puzzled.


The giant quickly tossed him over the top of a wall. It was dark. Too dark. The giant yelled over the wall, “Find the heat signature, kill it, and bathe in it’s blood. It will allow you to gain it’s adaptations. Do not die to it though!” and Doug was quick to find the heat signature as it charged at him and knocked him to the ground. He shot it once. He missed. He shot it again, and missed yet again. He pulled out his submachine gun and just unloaded it into the darkness. He killed it and took it’s blood and began wiping himself down with it. The darkness seemed to turn to daylight as he wiped himself with the strange creature’s blood. He quickly saw movement in the corner. He was in his old neighbor’s backyard! His neighbor had a dog that was named, “Lucy” she was still alive! Doug scattered to befriend the dog, and Lucy was quick to accept him as a friend. Him and Lucy maneuvered through his neighbor’s backyard and made it to the gate. He opened the gate up only to be greeted by the giant again. This time he could tell who the giant was. The giant was a man who he noticed lived across the street from him before the neighborhood fell into the collapsing earth. The giant looked at him and asked him, “Who are you that you do not know your own history?” And Doug told the giant, “I’m only here to get my mother’s ashes. She wanted to be sprinkled out over the grand canyon, and I am headed there for my next package. Please just allow me to retrieve her ashes and fulfill her final wish.” To which the giant responded by swinging his massive fist and clubbing Doug on the back of his head with his closed fist. Doug hit the ground and was in pool of his own blood. The giant muttered, “How far the mighty fall…” as he walked off and crept back into the darkness. As Doug lie there in a pool of his own blood, slowly dying, it registered to him that he was in a fairly grand canyon. It wasn’t an abyss, it was a canyon, and he would be damned if he died in his old front yard and not next to his loved ones. He crawled and pulled himself into his ruined former home, noticing his mother’s urn broken on the floor with a note mixed into the shards of broken ceramic that were once his mother’s urn. The note read, “I know what is to become of home. It was obvious when the military began moving in and digging into the fault line. There is no grander canyon than one where your heart is. And home is where your heart is. Please just sprinkle my ashes in the house and leave the house to return back to nature along with my ashes. This is my final request.”


Doug picked up a piece of ceramic from his mother’s urn and decided the house would never return to nature as long as the giant remained living down near his home. He picked himself off the ground and crept up behind the giant. He slit the throat of the giant and muttered, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” and laughed a wicked laugh as he began the long journey back out of the abyss with his newfound canine companion named Lucy, and the inhabitants grouping up and chasing them out of the abyss.