The screen flickered, static crackling like a broken radio, and Reever's vision snapped to Dawnville. Morning light filtered weakly through drifting smoke, pale and thin, brushing over a town that had been broken and abandoned to chaos. Stone houses leaned at impossible angles, half-collapsed, their walls shattered like brittle bones. Narrow alleys wound through the ruins like corridors of death, and the church spire, once proud, had been ripped apart, leaving the bell tower exposed to anyone with a rifle and patience. The air was thick with the acrid bite of gunpowder and dust, heavy and suffocating, settling into every breath.
Reever advanced cautiously, Lee-Enfield raised, muscles coiled. There was a familiar hum in his veins, not of fear, but of anticipation. This was the arena where he thrived. He slipped behind a crumbled wall, peering around the jagged stone. In the alley, a shadow moved. He exhaled, steady and controlled, and fired. One shot. One kill. The enemy fell before his mind even fully registered the action.
He moved fluidly from cover to cover, bullets slicing the air around him, tracing paths he seemed to anticipate instinctively. A machine gun rattled from the church steps, and he dove behind a broken fountain just as the first rounds tore the stone around him, feeling the shockwave press into his chest. Another enemy peeked from a ruined window. Snap. Headshot. Crisp, final, clean.
Every step, every decision, was exact. He paused only briefly to bandage a shallow wound from flying shrapnel, yanking a first aid kit from his pack and wrapping the blood-stained cloth around his arm. Chaos had a rhythm here, and he moved like a dancer, evading and striking, stepping in time with destruction. One enemy charged a narrow street, and he cut them down before their footfall echoed. Another appeared amid the rubble-strewn alley; he leveled, squeezed, and the body hit the ground without a sound.
Reever felt alive. Electric, immortal almost. Every kill sang with the thrill of mastery, every bullet narrowly avoided was a whispered victory. He wasn't just surviving — he was commanding the storm of violence, teasing death with every heartbeat.
Then it happened.
A shot rang out from above, sharp, deliberate, unlike anything he had faced before. Time stretched, slow and heavy. Reever, who had been untouchable moments ago, felt control slip. The bullet tore through his skull with surgical precision. There was no warning, no hesitation, just sudden, merciless blackness.
[You have died.]
The respawn screen blinked. Reever was back near the fountain, Lee-Enfield trembling in his hands. One life gone. The rush of mastery evaporated, replaced with a cold, gnawing awareness: death here was real, and it didn't wait for hesitation. Every heartbeat felt like a countdown. He moved again, shaking, trying to reclaim the rhythm he had mastered. But instinct faltered. The flow was gone.
He fired too late, ducked too early, missed shots that once would have been effortless. Jittery movements replaced precision. He tried to force the old certainty, but fear tightened around his mind, a vice crushing calm.
Another shot. Heart. Clean. Instant. His body hit the rubble as his vision dimmed.
[You have died.]
Two lives lost. Panic gnawed at his chest. His mind screamed for escape, for survival, knowing each mistake could be fatal. He forced himself up, moving, but every decision felt sluggish, heavy, wrong. Bullets whistled past. Allies screamed, some falling, others frozen in horror. The enemy advanced relentlessly, exploiting every opening.
Reever's heartbeat thundered. Dawnville, once a playground for skill and strategy, had become a trap. Every alley, shattered window, fallen beam felt like a noose tightening around him. He zigzagged through streets, desperate for cover, searching for a moment to breathe, a chance to survive.
The church tower groaned, stone grinding and cracking, before collapsing into the square. Dust and debris rained down. Allied forces scattered, demoralized, helpless. The enemy flag rose, crimson and triumphant. Dawnville was lost, and with it, the illusion of control.
Reever dropped behind a fractured wall, chest heaving, sweat and grime stinging his eyes. Fear clung to him like a living thing, coiling through his nerves. Every shadow, every crack of gunfire, every pulse of artillery reminded him: death was here, tangible and immediate. Two lives gone. The third, the forth, and then the real, permanent death — was closer than ever.
For the first time, Reever did not move with confidence. He could not anticipate bullets, could not feel invincible. All he felt was fear, raw and unrelenting, and the suffocating weight of knowing that each choice could be his last.
Dawnville was lost. It's church laid to rumbles and waste. And for the first time, Reever understood that this was no longer just a game.