#darius shaw

Darius was a newer scavenger in the Garden, at least officially, but he took to it well.  He had practiced extensively in these Gardens on his own time, after all.  It was something else being in an actual chase, running for his life amidst gunfire.  He was young, he knew, especially compared to the other scavengers he often ran into, but that didn’t mean he was any less capable than them.  

He was getting the hang of running with the others, getting used to seeing Sawbones, Ghost, and Fog, occasionally Switch or Inked whenever the former wasn’t around at all.  She stuck to herself, he noticed, but when they were together in a game in the Garden, she tended to stay nearby to grab ammo and power cores when Darius was grabbing some for himself.  He didn’t think much of it, admittedly, since the crates he interacted with came back much faster than if the others accessed them.  

There wasn’t any time to dwell on it, anyway, with the more pressing concern of evading the Hunters. This time, it was the Stalker, and Darius wasn’t convinced she had entirely forgotten about him.  As good as he was at running, he didn’t want to get into a stupid chase so soon.  She was a harder Hunter to evade, but they were able to do well with constant assisting each other.  Part of him was convinced that Ghost was getting found on purpose, and Sawbones was determined to help him out.  Even while he wasn’t the one being chased, he could feel the stakes getting higher as time elapsed.  They always did.  

They didn’t have much time left, and with Sawbones and Ghost both recovering from their constant chases, he wasn’t surprised that the Stalker came over to him and easily found him.  He just had to buy time for the others to get all the blood they needed, or for the time to run out.  He was getting better at keeping Hunters busy, but it still got his heart racing and adrenaline rushing as bullets raced by his head.  The Stalker’s precise aim, and the long range rifle to back it up, made it a special sort of challenge, but he welcomed the way it got his blood pumping.  

Try as he might, though, he wasn’t perfect and there was only so much his teammates could do to help him.  The bullets were very quickly closing in on him, only needing one imperfect turn around a corner to get a bullet tearing through his leg.  He couldn’t help crying out in pain as he went down, hoping that Sawbones or someone else could get to him quickly, or that she’d not be able to find him as he crawled to a bush.  They were so close to the end that he was fully expecting an execution to be his fate.  

“Follow me closely.”  

He was surprised, then, to see Switch helping him up, using her vambrace’s power to clone the both of them.  Once the Stalker turned her attention to the clones, Switch took off running with Darius close behind to keep up.  They didn’t get a single moment of respite as the siren and announcer’s voice called for the time elapsing.  Now to just escape the Garden.  

They quickly resupplied from a power core crate, the Stalker catching sight of them as the red threshold crossed over them and revealed them.  With his speed bolts, they could easily race to the exits, Switch using her clones to try and confuse the Hunter, crossing paths with her clones and moving as erratically as they did.  Once the exits were open, they both rolled towards it, Darius letting out a sigh of relief when promptly out of the Garden.  

“Hey, Dash.  You good?”

His attention jumps over to Switch in surprise.  She really didn’t talk to anyone, that he could tell or remember.  She pats his shoulder, her eerie mask lifted just enough to show a grin.  

“Good.  Glad you listened to me.”

He nods again at that, lowering his facemask.  

“You did save my ass, so I owe you.”  

She shook her head at that.  

“Nah, you don’t.  You make doing this a lot easier, so I can at least help you out now and then.  Least I can do for you making my job faster.  See you tomorrow.”