The two teen boys sat on the sofa watching their favorite show. Their grimy hands dug endlessly into their bags of chips and other various junk food. Their eyes stayed glued to the screen as they watched the show. On screen a man in shredded clothes was running down a dark hallway. The entire thing looked like a dilapidated space station hallway, with rust and damaged support structures all around him. Pipes wrapped endlessly from wall to ceiling to floor. He held what appeared to be an oversized cricket bat in one had and the remains of a broken ranged weapon in the other. It looked like some kind of improvised Slingshot or a small Crossbow. He was rushing as quickly as he could. Yelling loudly the same word over and over again.

  “Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck……” you get the picture.

  The camera panned to the left to show what was chasing him. two mechanical canines with large metallic chassis and wired jaws, powered by constantly whining servos, were quickly gaining on the man. They appeared to be more old school robot than the usual futuristic SciFi sleek design you see in modern television. Animatronic in nature more than anything. Blocky in design and lumbering forward. Small whines of servos and pistons firing and retracting deafened the rest of the noises in the bleak hallway. The lumbering machines gave off sounds that drowned out everything, even the man’s screams were lost in the industrial death rattle.

  “This is it, he’s going down right here.” The first boy said with excitement.

  “Nah, Robo dogs are too easy. he’s faced one before. he’ll make it thru this.” The second boy answered assuredly “Watch”

  The mechanized beasts finally covered enough ground for the camera to be able to get both the pursuers and the pursued into a single frame. The man made the mistake of looking backwards over his shoulder to check if the way was clear, the lead canine showed no hesitation as it lunged. The man dodged to his right and swung the bat down onto the back of the dogs neck, an audible crack reverberated thru the livingroom as the show switched to an X-ray styled overlay showing the bat smashing several wire links and crushing the inner workings of the dogs neck joints, severing system connections to the lower body. The head remained active and lethal as it continued its ravenous attempts to bite at the mans feet as the body merely slumped to the ground.

  The second Robo dog saw an opening on the distracted human and lunged. The technological monstrosity sunk its teeth into the mans arm. locking down, as a high powered drill whirled to life and erupted from the dogs jaw. sending two of the four inch long screws that were in place of its teeth drilling into the mans flesh from either side of the canines robotic mouth, locking him into place.

  “Holy mother fucker.” the man screamed.

  “Told you he was screwed” The first boy said fighting thru a laugh.

  The other boy gave an angered face that said Seriously quoting with a pun

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The man started beating on the back of the dogs head and neck while the robotic menace clawed at the mans body with all four of its paws. The razor sharp claws were leaving deep trenches in his thighs. blood began pouring to the ground like a faucet left half open. the mans face was growing pale and cold. He came down on the dogs neck in just the right spot and the limbs went limp underneath him, as his body crashed to the ground, Bloody, beaten, but not defeated.

  With enough time to gather himself mentally, the man took a quick rest. Then the screen switched over to a new view. This appeared to be a POV of the man’s perception. He opened his menu using only his mind and skillfully scrolled to a specific area labeled Potions and Poultices. A mouse cursor helpfully appeared to let the audience see what the man was searching for. It stopped on what was recognized as a classic red potion with a corked top. This was The universal symbol for a health potion. He mentally clicked on it and the small five in the top right corner changed to a four.

  “Damn, he remembered to heal. A lot of Voyagers forget about there inventory this early on” The first teen stated.

  “This guy is smarter than that, I think he’s gonna make it to Tier two, for sure.” Teen two responded

  The camera switched back to the original external view of the man as the wounds on his arms and legs began to close up quickly and the pool of blood slowed in its attempts to fill the hallway with the deep crimson goo. He sighed with relief as the healing effect took over, and began working the Bat into the dogs still clamped and screwed mouth. Slowly leveraging the mouth open and tearing the screws from his arms flesh. He used another Health potion after he had finally pried the dead dogs robotic head from his wrecked flesh. he got up, looted the two dogs quickly.

  “Not even worth it, of fucking course not” The Voyager stated. “man, fuck this place.” He gestured at random with both middle fingers, barely keeping hold of his cricket bat.

  He walked to the end of the hall dragging his bat across the ground, filling the silence with the smooth scraping of durable wood on a rough metallic surface. His arms remained too heavy to pick it up again. he walked around a corner to a closed door. Pressed the button to open it. As the door swooshed open the camera switched over to a close up on his face. His eyes grew in surprise and then recognition, finally they settled on disbelief and absolute exasperation.

  “Aww you got to be fucking kidding me” he said exhausted, absolute shock and betrayal in his voice.

  The camera pivoted back behind him as four giant flying insects, something between a wasp and a dragonfly, hovered directly in front of him. They all without hesitation stung him at the same time and he dissolved into goo right there on the spot.

  “Ha, i told you he was done for.” the first teen laughed mockingly in the second teen’s face.

  “You meant to the Robo Dogs and you know it, there is no way you could have known the Cazadors would be on the other side of that door.” The second teen yelled back.

  “Doesn’t matter. I said he would lose today and he did”

  on the screen the camera circled the pile of dissolved waste with a big Blood Red text spinning over the pile that just said ‘Voyager has Fallen’.

  “Plus he only had less than a day left to make it to the next Tier anyways. He was toast no matter what.” Teen one continued taunting.

  The television switched to a new person. a woman with a short brown pony tail. Sitting on a bench in a small room, breathing heavily and staring at a door, A large thump,thump,thump came from the other side.

  “what are you Boys watching”

  A female voice came in from the other room.

  “We’re watching the Trials Mom,.” The first teen called back.

  “Well turn it off, its time for Dinner.”