#nnnnghhh

These Silco pieces by Highkun driving me absolutely insane

Highlight version:

  She charged through the door like it’d just insulted her mother, dropped a small sack of caps on the counter and folded her arms, staring Ahzrukhal in the eye. Charon gazed ahead, watching the scene unfold in his peripheries. That was the vault kid, wasn’t it? She’d come in a few times over the past few months. Whispering to Ahrzrukhal, leaving empty handed more than once. Charon had assumed she was trying to barter a lower price on chems; he saw it often enough.    A slow, spiteful grin formed on Ahzrukhal’s face. 

  “Two thousand...?” the old ghoul rasped, his breath producing a wet rattle in his throat, “Think of all you could buy with two thousand...”

  He was teasing her. Something was strange about this transaction. She nodded, once, frowning. Charon watched his employer produce that oh so familiar square of paper, and his heart leaped in his chest, an irrational mixture of fear and panic pulling at his thoughts, though his face didn’t change. The contract always produced that reaction, even now; he didn’t understand it himself. An employer was an employer. And what else was there?   Ahzrukhal handed it to vault girl.

  “I am a man of his word... Charon’s contract is yours. Congratulations.”

  The sneer in his well wishing didn’t go unnoticed. The girl stood there as if stunned, turning the envelope over in her hands; then she turned, and approached Charon, hesitantly. God, she was so small. She opened her mouth to speak, and Charon cut her off without thinking.

  “Talk to--”

   “Oooh, no.” she smiled, “None of that. You belong to me now.”

  He blinked. He wanted to ask why. Why would a tiny vault escapee spend that much money to acquire him? But more important things ought to be dealt with first, he decided.

  “... I belong to no one,” he replied, “If you are my new employer, then I will serve you. But first, I must take care of something. Wait here.”

  It felt like a dream, and seemed like he was standing outside of himself, watching some other Charon as he made his leisurely way to the bar. How long had he waited for this? 

  “Charon... have you come to say goodbye?” grinned Ahzrukhal as he managed to tear his eyes away from a handful of caps. Charon knew times weren’t as good as they once were, but to sell him for two thousand... that was desperate. 

  “Yes.”

  Charon moved with an unexpected vitality. Customers screamed and scattered as his shotgun spoke, once, twice, blowing Ahzrukhal’s worthless brains all over the back wall, the remains of his lifeless corpse hitting the yellowing wallpaper and sliding down to the floor. Caps hit the floor in a hail of metal. Blood began to pool around his legs, staining his once-white suit dark crimson. Somewhere at the back of the bar, a lone female voice whined,

  “But I thought Charon liked Ahzrukhal!”

  He turned and met the ghoul’s eye and she shrank beneath his gaze, offering a stuttering w-well, I did!

  “Alright, let’s go.”

  “What the fuck was that!?”

  The girl stood there, paper-white and open-mouthed, horror written all over her features. Charon let out a barely audible sigh.

  “Ahzrukhal was an evil bastard. So long as he held my contract, I was honor bound to do as he commanded. But now you are my employer, which freed me to rid the world of that disgusting rat. And now, for good or ill, I serve you.”

  Was she having second thoughts? The wariness in her eyes suggested as much. But it was too late now... unless she wanted to sell him on, of course. For now, she looked at the envelope still in her hands as if she’d forgotten it was there; and she tucked it into her pocket.