The White Warden (Draft 2)

“No… No, nonononono, let her go!”’

“...”

Edwin dropped the corpse of the woman he had just snapped the neck off, and tilted his head towards the man who had just screamed at him. As the man saw his wife’s body fall to the ground, he dropped down to his knees in tears.

“I don’t care anymore, just take me to them, please. I can’t live like this! “

“...”

Edwin turned his body towards the man and began walking towards him. The man continued crying, and as Edwin passed the dead children, the man began screaming in tears, basically planting his head on the ground.

“Hurry up you monster!”

“...”

Edwin shed a tear under his mask.

As Edwin stopped in front of him, he lifted his foot off the ground, placed it firmly on the back of the man’s head, and pressed downwards with a quick push. The man’s head buckled under the immense force immediately and splattered across the floor.

“...”

Edwin looked around the burning house, looking for any people he might’ve missed. He searched every crevice of the house, that was minutes away from breaking down, and he realized he had gotten everyone. Once he realized that, he hurried outside, so as to not get crushed under the burning debris, and once outside, the house fell down. Edwin looked back at the house.

“...”

He stopped for a moment and took off his white gasmask. He took a deep breath and looked around.

“...”

No one was screaming anymore.

He looked down at his large, white pair of cargo pants which were now pink. He looked at his white gasmask, it was also pink. He looked over his shoulder towards his back at his two large canisters, they were also pink.

“Ah sh-.”

“...”

“How dare you even say that right now?”

As he stood in disbelief and wondered where he could wash all of his now pink stuff, he felt a little droplet on his left shoulder, he shivered a little since it hit his bare skin. He looked up and realized the whole sky was covered in a ginormous grey cloud.

One droplet turned to two, two turned to four, four to eight-

It started raining. Edwin without himself noticing, smiled a bit over the rain. He then put his mask under his arm and started walking away from the house, heading towards the forest next to the village he now was in.

“Aw man, maybe I should integrate a shirt into my costume? Fuck, it gets cold in rain like this.”

“But I’ve gone with this image for a while now so I guess I can’t. Would just lead to a bunch of annoying one-liners from wannabe heroes. Like “finally became self-conscious walking around with those manboobs ayy?” like shut the fuck up asshole, like I care that im a little fat. Fucking dickheads.”

“It just gets cold sometimes walking around the entirety of America without a shirt on, like these black suspenders sure do suck up some heat during the warmer places but that’s it. “

Edwin continued walking, turning and turning on the different streets of the small village, passing one burning building after another, getting some of the debris flying towards him from the houses unfortunate enough to buckle under the burning facade. Edwindodged the wooden planks, suddenly becoming very aware of his surroundings.

“Don’t you dare flinch.”

“...”

“But I guess this rain came in at the right time anyway. Haven’t showered in a while, and my bald, pale, golf ball of a head could really use some cold rain after being trapped inside this sweaty, smoke-smelling mask for a whole day. Why does smoke stick its smell so deep into clothing anyway? Like it’s a gas? Shouldn’t it just float into the atmosphere or somethi-?”

As Edwin got lost in his thoughts, he walked into a low-hanging tree branch.

“UUUuuhhhhhhh! Why must wet leaves be so gross-feeling?? ooh, the forest, nice.”

Edwin walked off the street and headed onto the little pathway that led into the forest.

“Too bad this rain started, don’t feel like coming back here again just to burn this forest down to the ground.”

“...”

Edwin stopped for a moment, he looked down at the ground.

“...”

He looked at his hands.

“Like anyone would care about what you’re feeling, you certainly don’t.”

Edwin continued walking through the forest, passing tree after tree. Sometimes Edwin looked upwards, looked at the tree crowns, seeing the rain pushed by the wind pass through them. He felt the rain hitting his face, dripping down his shoulders, passing his stomach, and being absorbed by his pants. He breathed in, and out, in, and out.

“Nature sure is beautiful…”

“...”

no matter how much he enjoyed his surroundings.

“Too bad it is all a beautiful lie…”

He hated the feeling-,

“...”

of life.

The sun was starting to set, and the cold breeze was really getting to Edwin.

“Why does it have to be so goddamn cold, man! Wait what’s tha-?”

Edwin saw a little light to the left of him. He quickly stopped in his tracks as he realized what it was he saw.

“...”

Edwin put on his mask, made his way off of the pathway, and began walking through the trees. He walked towards the light.

“...”

As he got closer to the light, the contour of a tent started to get visible. As he got even closer, he heard a conversation from within the tent, one of them sounded quite worried.

“Why isn’t she answering my calls? I’ve been calling for about an hour now??”

“Don’t worry babe, she probably just fell asleep or something, get over here no-.”

“Shut up, Steve! My mom always calls whenever I sleep away from home, she always does. “

“Whatever Stacy! She didn’t call this one time, why is it such a big dea-. “

“…”

“...”

“...”

“Hey! Is some idiot out there! It better not be you, Richard, I told you I had a hot da-! “

Edwin shot them both through the tent door.

“...”

Edwin stopped to look at his gun for a moment, before reloading the two bullets. Edwin holstered the gun and opened the tent door, he looked down on the ground as he dragged their boddies out. Edwin procceded to drag their corpses towards a nearby bush. As they laid there, Edwin covered them with more leaves and mud. As he did it however, he slipped and lost his fotting for a moment, accidently looking into Stacy’s eyes.

Edwin stood there. He quickly regained his footing, but couldn’t look away.

“. . .”

It was so quiet…

“...”

Edwin started crying. He took of his mask, and fell to his knees.

“I-I’m so s-sorry. It had to be done. P-please understand.”

“...”

“Like hell it had too. They would still be here if you wouldn’t have done that, all of them would be.”

Edwin fell down onto the grass on his side, and procceded to cry for 10 more minutes.

when he finished, he got up, and climbed into the tent. He threw out the bloody sheets, and laid flat on the couple’s large, inflatable matress.

“Thank god the day is over! Finally have a good reason to lay low for a while.”

*Yawn*

“Welp, guess it’s bedtime then!”

Before going to bed however, Edwin searched in one of his cargo pants’s pockets on his right leg, and took out a bottle of eye drops. He squirted a few drops in his eyes before putting the eyedrops back in his pocket.

“Man, I sure do miss my eyelids.”

Edwin then proceeded to take off the two large canisters on his back, along with the two tubes leading out of the canisters, onto his respective knuckles.

“Huh, never realized these wriststraps held these tubes against my knuckles so hard. Made a big red mark and everything! Altough, I guess I was kinda tense today.

“...”

Edwin stared emptily at the tent wall.

“...”

Edwin snapped out of it and began inspecting his canisters.

“Mhmm mhm, no water got into the canisters, Great! I should probably get new ones though, these are starting to become a little old and rusty. Welp, lets just put a mental pin on that, can’t really do much about that right now anyway.”

Edwin placed his canisters next to the matress. He took out his flare gun.

“Didn’t have to use this today, which is a good thing. More to use on bigger crowds later. The more ways I can finish it off quickly, the better.”

He placed it to the right as well, and did the same to all of his other gear, only taking a quick look at his BW-16 hunting knife, and his colt anaconda.44 magnum. .

As Edwin laid flat on the matress in nothing but his underwear, he started dozing off.

*Yawn*

“Man, I could go for a drink right now…”

*Even bigger yawn*

“Something to just get…-

“My mind of off t h i n g s…..”

Edwin had slept for around 6 hours when his sleep was interrupted by a shout.

“Excuse me whoever is in that tent, but you have to wake up now!”

Edwin faded into consciousness, it was 5am and Edwin had a hard time staying awake.

“euuhuhe fuc- Yeah?! Who is it?”

“It’s the Wisconsin state police force, sir! We have Helicopters surrounding the now burnt down village, Arpin. Me, and some of my colleagues are now in these woods looking for potential survivors who escaped the fire. Were you sleeping in this tent during the fire?”

“...”

Edwin’s eyes faded into clarity, he was now fully aware.

“Yes sir.”

Edwin put on his mask, and strapped the canisters to his back.

“I’m terribly sorry sir. But we’ve already confirmed around 200 deaths, with no found survivors. Did you have any loved ones within the village?”

Edwin strapped the two tubes from the canisters to his respective knuckles, placing the triggers fastened at the end of the tubes, in the palm of his hands.

“No, actually. Was just passing through here.”

“Ooh, how long have you been staying here?”

“For a few days… why did i say that?! shi-!”

“A few days huh? How come you didn’t notice the raging fire just a few hundred meters away?”

“...”

“Say something idiot!”

“Sir, I belive it’s in your best interest to hurry up, we have to take you into custody for questioning.”

“Got it officer!”

Edwin got up from his mattress and began sipping the entrance open.

“wait. Just my luck! The door is a little jammed again. I really should get a new tent, shouldn’t I? Could you be so kind and help me, dear officer?”

“Eeh. Sure thing.”

The officer bent down and started zipping open the tent’s door. When it was halfway open, Edwin could see the cap of the officer, and as the officer was zipping the door open, he realized something.

“Wait, are those gun hole-?!”

The officer’s hair and hat burst out into flames. Causing the officer to fall to the ground, rolling in screams of pure agony and pain. While the officer was on the ground, Edwin got out of the tent, stood up straight, and stretched his back. During the stretch he pulled out his gun.

“...”

Edwin aimed his gun against the officers head.

“Hey! Get your hand in the air, sir!”

Edwin looked around and saw a good five officers standing in various places in the forest around him. All pointing their guns at him. Edwin did as he was told, and put his hands up, not over his head, but pointed towards the second officer who screamed at him.

He has a gun! Fir-!

Edwin shot him clean between the eyes. The other officers opened fire. Edwin fell down to the ground, his back being pressed against the grass

“Fire, hehe, a little ironi-.”

Edwin slapped himself.

“SHUT UP. Don’t you dare take this lightly!”