When the ayona joined the Peldak Protectorate in the year 850, they brought with them all sorts of new and wonderous technology. One such technology was video and audio recordings. Through copying the ayona, a burgeoning film industry began, with theaters and film companies popping up everywhere. The industry developed differently in every society, and tastes varied drastically from species to species.
Peldak films had been described as inaccessible since the first one hit theaters, but that description doesn’t go far enough to portray their strange taste in entertainment.
The highest earning film of 861 was a peldak comedy movie called “My Beautiful Wife”.
It was such a runaway hit on Peldor that it was shown in theaters on every military base in the Protectorate. A terrible combination of word of mouth and curiosity caused millions of aliens to flock to theatres and waste a half-hour of their lives.
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The comedy film opens with a gratuitously violent action scene, set during the vampire cleanup of the early 600s. Righteous peldaks are slicing through ghouls, ripping heads off, using their rifles to blast apart limbs. The special effects aren’t particularly good. The ayona have the techniques to make it look realistic, but this was the best the peldaks could offer.
There is, however, a scene where a peldak is shot in the chest. That was real, the actor actually let himself be shot in the lung, and he spent the next four weeks in recovery for his art.
The fight scene goes on, and on. Because the vampire cleanup happened on the cabella worlds, cabellan actors and actresses must play the ghouls. They would die if a peldak punched them for real, however, so the peldaks need to pull their punches and kicks to an insane degree. It screams fake.
Yet the ten-minute action scene is important for this comedy movie. If at least one character doesn’t die in the opening minutes of a film, peldaks will begin to walk out of the theater.
When the battle is over, the peldaks stand in the mud, breathing hard, broken swords clenched tightly in their hands. Then the screen fades to black.
A moment later, the screen fades back into a man’s home on Peldor. He’s wearing the same muddy clothes as he wore in the battle. The distance from Peldor to that cabellan world, Quintara, takes over two weeks in real life, but you’re not supposed to question that.
“Honey, I’m home,” the man says, out of breath. He kicks off his bloody, muddy shoes, then sets the handle of his broken sword down on a cabinet. He trudges in, dragging his left leg as there’s a bullet deep in his thigh, and he plops down on his recliner.
“Darling, you’re home!” His beautiful wife runs in, leans over the armrest of the recliner, and kisses him on the cheek.
“How was,” his eyes fade out for a moment, as his injuries have put him on the brink of unconsciousness, but he pulls it back a moment later. “How was your day, honey?”
“Well!” she shouts, sitting on the arm of a nearby couch.
The entire time she talks, she gesticulates with her arms, and her husband nods along. Every so often, the camera cuts to him as he says “oh dear”, “mh-hm”, or some other small comment.
“Darling, you wouldn’t BELIEVE the day I had. I knew you were gonna want stew tonight, so I had to head over to the store and grab the ingredients, right, and who do you think I saw? Malina! Unbelievable. I thought I told that skank not to show up in MY grocery store anymore, but I guess she didn’t learn her lesson last time. Now, I walked up to her, and we locked eyes, so she knew I was coming, but then Teodora and Helena walked around the isle, both wearing those chest-mounted baby carriers, of course. They’re just rubbing it in that I still haven’t gotten pregnant again, even though Jonatan is already off for his compulsory service. So, I walk up to Teodora and I go all ‘oh my gooooosh, how ya doing, bestie!?’ With my arms outstretched, and she’s all ‘oh my gosh oh my gosh! It’s so good to see you! I almost thought you were avoiding me!’ So, since Teodora and Helena are there, I had to be all ‘whaaaat? Noooo. Me, avoiding you? No way! You know you’re, like, my favorite person in the world.’ Then I turned my head and perked up my ears, ‘and is that Teodora I see? Helena!?’ I scooted in front of Malina to block her line of sight, ‘how have you two been?’ I was super sweet to those bitches. You know what Teodora did to me last week at work? There we were, on the factory line, and then she ‘accidentally’ tripped and threw gunpowder right in my face! Crazy. And, you know, I tried to be nice to her, I really did, but she just hates me for no reason. Every morning at work I go up to each coworker and give my best smile and say hello. Usually they all say hello back, or at least perk their ears in acknowledgment, but Teodora? She goes ‘hmh’ scrunching her face and purposefully looking away. What the hell is her problem, you know? Oh, but when I brought those donuts yesterday? You bet she was all over those. ‘Whaaat? You brought dooooonuts? Oh my gooooosh, I looooove you. I should be on a diet,’ and then she put her finger to her lips, trying to act all cute, ‘but I won’t say anything if you don’t, teehee.’ And I just wanna say ‘yeah you should be on a diet’, but of course I can’t, bluh. Have you seen Teodora recently? Let’s just say I don’t think her abs could stop a stray spear, haha. I mean, yes, of course, she was recently pregnant and all, but -oh, right! So, at the factory, Alina brought her -she was the girl who had twins by the way-, kids to work! They were crying all day, wah wah wah, complaining about their ears, and I should have gone up to her and said they shouldn’t be here. The factory is way too dangerous, and way too loud. But no, I didn’t. I just did my job and calmly, respectfully, approached her. ‘Um, sorry, Alina, but there are rules. If you want to bring your children, they have to wear the appropriate earmuffs so as not to damage their hearing. Again, sorry, I know how rough it is to care for twins when your husband is off banging aliens.’ Then she turned to me, practically snarling, and yelled ‘I KNOW how to take care my kids.’ So I was taken aback, right? Like, of course I would be. Come to find out, ‘banging’ is slang for having sex with, so she thought I was accusing her man of infidelity! I get why she was mad, but come on. We’re over three thousand years old, let’s just try to be adults, right? How am I supposed to know what the kids these days are saying, right? I just hang out with my great-great-great-great granddaughter. I don’t have time for this petty garbage. And you know, like, okay. Maaaaaybe I knew what banging was slang for. Of course I do, I don’t live under a rock. I pick up on these things through cultural, like, osmosis. But that doesn’t mean I used it in that instance! I meant banging heads! Banging bones! Cabella have those weird head things, obviously that’s what I meant… but she didn’t see it like that, she was pissed at the insinuation. But then Pola ran up. And you know me, I love Pola, she’s adorable. Such a sweet, adorable little firecracker. It really is a shame that she can’t find a husband since nobody wants her to pass on her six-foot midget genes to their children. But hey, if I was a man? …Nevermind, actually. Anyway, so I told Alina that her husband was off banging aliens, and, haha, yes, I totally did mean it like that, and then Alina got mad, and Pola came running in, ‘HEY!’ Her voice was so squeaky, and she rammed her finger into Alina’s chest, ‘don’t talk to-!’ And then Alina just shoved her to the ground haha. Poor Pola. If I could go back in time, I’d prevent myself from getting everyone in the factory to call her Poo-la for the first year she worked there. But you remember how THAT story ended, haha. I still have no idea where she got that metal pipe, but oh boy, if it wasn’t funny. Not being able to eat for a week was less so, but oh well. But right, so Malina loves Teodora, but Malina and Helena hate each other. And I mean they haaaaaaate each other. They grew up together in the same class, and loved the same boy, and Malina was the one who won in the end and married him. Problem is, Teodora and Helena are really good friends, like in a borderline, creepy lesbo way. For what it’s worth, I don’t really like any of them, but Helena is okay. The least bad of the bunch. She’s had a sad life. But then get this, Helena pushes me aside to talk to Malina, and goes all ‘oooh,’ with her hand on her baby’s head, ‘now, Helena, you know I love you, so I just have to say I’m sooooo sorry.’ Now, Malina and I are like, what? Sorry about what? Why are you being so nice? But Teodora is, like, tapping Helena’s arm, crossing her hand in front of her mouth, things like that. ‘Sorry… for what?’ And Helena barely even tried to hide her smile, what a bitch, haha. ‘For what happened to Wiktor.’ That’s her husband, the guy they both crushed over for decades, by the way. So, I raise an eyebrow, and Malina is all confused, and she starts stuttering, ‘what happened to Wiktor?’ Meanwhile Teodora is shaking her head in the background. ‘Well!’ she said it in this really bitchy tone. ‘Well! I heard it from my husband’s sister’s best friend’s mother’s husband’s neighbor’s brother-in-law’s grand nephew’s coworker’s shooting buddy’s grandfather’s wife’s sister’s son’s wife. Wiktor is dead.’ Now, naturally, that was quite a shock, and no way to hear that your husband is dead. Both Malina and I turned to Teodora, but Malina screamed ‘you bitch!’ and looked ready to tear Teodora apart. Now, that’s because Helena’s… uh, husband’s sister’s best friend’s mother’s husband’s neighbor’s brother-in-law’s grand nephew’s coworker’s shooting buddy’s grandfather’s wife’s sister’s son’s wife is Teodora. Teodora’s husband has worked in the bureaucracy ever since he got his leg blown off in a cabella ambush, but you remember that, of course. So yeah, Teodora told Helena about Malina’s husband before she told Malina. What a crappy thing to do, my mouth was open in shock the whole time as Malina cried and cried. I mean, I don’t like Malina, don’t get me wrong, but that’s really messed up. And then Helena kept going! ‘Yeah,’ she twirled her finger through her hair, trying to act all coy, ‘I heard he didn’t even die to a vampire, it was just during a cabella riot. Gooooosh, how embarrassing. I wouldn’t be able to stand it if my husband died to one of those bone-heads, instead of heroically sacrificing himself against a demonic monster!’ That was so messed up, right? Right. Well, I’ve never really gotten along with Malina, but I couldn’t just stand by, so I got in between them and was like ‘HEY! Cool it, bitch. That’s uncalled for. I can’t believe you would betray Teodora’s trust and confidence like that. She tells you a secret, puts her husband’s job at risk, and then you go and blab like this? Malina could file a complaint at the bureaucracy and get Teodora’s husband fired!’ Then, from behind me, Malina nods, she had this funny scowl on her face, and she was all nodding. Like ‘yeah, I could. Maybe I should!’ So, Teodora realizes the danger at play here, and she goes into damage control. ‘Oh, no, come on, gals, there’s really no need for that. My husband’s on probation, it’s a really nice job since he doesn’t need to use his legs, if he gets relocated then he’ll be away for years while his son is growing up!’ Malina was about to say something, but I wasn’t letting that hoe get away with it. ‘No way. You messed up bad. And you know whose fault it is? Yours. Your fault for putting your trust in her,’ I pointed at Helena. Wouldn’t you know it, Teodora’s ears perked back, and she looked at Helena something fierce! But Helena was too prideful to say sorry or take it back. So, Helena starts going off at me for butting into their fight, but I shut that bitch down! I took a step back and gave Malina a big ol’ hug. ‘Of course I’m defending my bestie. I’d step into the thick of it, no matter who was attacking her! I guess you two just wouldn’t know anything about trust and loyalty and friendship.’ Malina was nodding along the whole time, and even put a hand around my waist. So, then Teodora rolled her eyes and muttered something like ‘it is pretty shitty of you to just out me like that…’ But then Helena’s attention was FULLY on her now-former friend. ‘Don’t you start that! You’ve been bitching to me about Malina for weeks!’ Then Teodora shot back, ‘yeah! In confidence! Just venting, I didn’t want you to flat out tell her what I said!’ ‘Oh? I shouldn’t have told her what you said? Okay. Well, how about this? Hey Malina, Teodora over here couldn’t WAIT to tell me that Wiktor died. Her ears wouldn’t stop flapping!’ ‘You bitch!’ So, then they were like a second from tearing each other apart, but I moved in and grabbed their faces. ‘You’re carrying your children on your chests, idiots.’ That calmed them down a little but, teehee, they should have just set their children down and pound the tar out of each other. They could have worked through their differences by getting a black eye and a busted lip. Instead, they were seething in their hatred of each other, oooooh it felt so nice to instigate most of that. So then I went back out of the isle with Malina, and I parted ways with her basically immediately afterwards since, like, whatever. I mean, I guess I did pat her back and gave out some half-hearted sympathy for her husband. Well, I guess I did mean it. I really do feel bad for her. It was so funny to go through the rest of my shopping and occasionally hearing them scream over each other. But seriously, how hard is it to just be a good person? Can you believe she’d just flat out say that Wiktor is dead? Absurd, what a bitch. Like, Alina, right! Alina. So Alina pushed Pola down to the ground and just disregarded her, which I kind of get, but she brought her freaking kids to a busy factory! I don’t care about her situation, that’s absurdly dangerous, and they needed earmuffs. So I got in her face, ‘look Alina, I’m perfectly fine with kicking your ass in front of your kids, don’t tempt me.’ I pointed to the far side of the room, ‘go get the damn earmuffs and put them on your children, or go out that door and don’t come back.’ I knew she had a lot to say, but she kept her mouth shut and did what I said. A rare moment of clarity from her, to be honest. I didn’t expect that. But whatever. I really just want the employees to do their jobs right, following the proper safety precautions. You follow the safety precautions in the military, right? It’s simple, just follow the rules. It’s been a few decades since I last enlisted, but the basic idea is the same. Rules are put in place for a reason, and that’s all I want… Well, I also want these idiots to know who’s in charge. I’m the foreman for a reason. I’ve been working there longest, so I have seniority. Get over it, bitches. The last foreman went to join the assault against the cabella, and I had been there longest, so the position went to ME. Of course we had the conversation a load of times, but I’m really not interested in enlisting if it means giving up my position. Since, you know, I’m so competent! Darling, you wouldn’t believe it. These people are so stupid. I honestly think they just hate me and are looking to test my authority at every turn. Like, either they go off and do their own thing without telling me first, or they bother me for every little thing. I have a guy, Anton. Freaking Anton, man. What an idiot. His job is simple, he takes materials off the trucks and put them in their designated areas. Like gunpowder, or raw metal to twist into the bullets. So we get a truck, and it’s got hundreds of bottles worth of gunpowder, with a sealed top. Each bottle always has a label telling us where the gunpowder was mixed, and what’s inside it. You know, there’s different methods. Some gunpowder burns hotter to make the bullet go faster, some has different recipes, it’s really important to not mix gunpowder types. So as I’m in the middle of something else, since I’m always working and I never get a moment to breathe, Anton comes up to me, holding a glass bottle, and they’re around the size of a man’s head, to help the visual. Right? So he comes up and tells me, ‘hey lady,’ he never calls me boss, or foreman. ‘Hey lady, the label on this bottle is worn off. Where should I put it?’ So that’s actually a big deal. The gunpowder types look and smell all the same, and they can’t be mixed, so having no label is a huge deal. It happens all the time in transit, sometimes the sticky paper gets rubbed off, or it gets wet, it’s a whole big deal we have to solve to keep everything safe, and the procedure is complicated. But then he shows me the bottle, and it’s just the corner of the label that’s a little chipped! So I’m like, ‘come on! That’s it? You can see all the wording perfectly, why are you bothering me with it?’ He gave me some garbage logic of wanting to make sure everything was fine. Like, I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s like he was asking if he needed to report everything that could be a problem, and I’m just like… no. You see the label, you know what it is, just take it over by the rest of the things! I swear they’re just messing with me. Nobody is that dumb-well, I say that, but they’re pretty dumb. Yesterday, another idiot got his hand stuck in the press machine. You know the one, didn’t I tell you about it? You get the box of metal, you put the spark cap in the back, you fill it with gunpowder, you set the actual bullet down, and then you press the cap on, so the bullet pokes out of a little hole in the cap. When the spark cap is hit- well, you know how a bullet works. So the press machine, you have to hold the metal box in place as you stamp the cap down. I swear, every week some employee stamps his hand on accident. Or they press wrong and the bullet explodes. That one’s always fun. Just yesterday, there was a sudden bang that rang out through the factory, a heavy clang nobody could miss. There was a steam whistle to let everyone know to shut up and stop what they’re doing, and then we had to figure out what exploded. It’s always easy to see where the explosion happened, since usually the bullet flew out, ricocheted, then hit someone. Which is what happened yesterday. Bullet was forced out thanks to the fireball, it hit the top of the stamper, then ping, bounced off the metal and went straight into the guy’s thigh. He fell back, and was grunting, and bleeding everywhere. I guess it hit the artery, so everyone started crowding around the guy, had to tie a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. But then they wanted to put a bandage on it! I mean, not a small, cut-sized bandage, but they wanted to tie a bandage over it. So I had to shove those idiots off so we could dig the bullet out first. So I jammed my finger down into the bullet hole, down to the uh, a little before second knuckle, the bullet really got in there. Then I feel something hard, right? Right on the fingertip, and so I say ‘oh, there we go, that’s the bullet.’ So I’m trying to grab it, but I only got one finger in there, so I gotta try to push in deeper, get around the bullet, and drag it out. And keep in mind that the bullets are meant to compress when it hits something, and it hit the stamp machine before ricocheting into his leg, so it was more like a small, flat disk with a little bulge in the back. But I tried to dig it out, but I couldn’t, so then I shoved my middle finger in too, and all the while, the guy is shouting and a hollering about how I need to get tweezers to pinch the metal and drag it out. He was flexing his thigh muscles, and spasming, and I don’t know what was going on with any of that, like maybe he was trying to wiggle it out or something? But finally I just said ‘look. Shut up. If you did your job right, you wouldn’t be in this situation.’ But then he of course said ‘well, if you knew how to remove a bullet, I wouldn’t need to complain!’ And, okay, fine. Maybe that’s true. Someone did finally come around with the medkit and I used the tweezers to pull the little bit of metal out. Well, of course, I also showed it to him and mocked how such a small little thing could cause him so much pain. And he rolled his eyes so it was like, whatever, he’s over it. But we squirted in some of that medi-fluid stuff into the hole, sewed up the skin, wiped away the blood, then we put the bandage on, and it was all good. I did send him home though. He wanted to stay and work, but I had to put my foot down. We had to cut his pants in order to get at the wound, and it’s like, no, you’re actually not going to walk around with your skin exposed all the way up to your hip. Go home and change. Which he did. But it’s just… it’s ridiculous. These people seemingly make it a game of who can do the dumbest thing, or annoy me the most. I know it’s on purpose, you can’t accidentally be that stupid. Like, speaking of changing clothes… so this happened like a week ago. A girl came in, Blanka. Nice enough girl, not even two centuries old yet. Her face is all jacked up though. Not in like a battle injury or scarred way, but in a she doesn’t really show much expression sort of way. She might smile a little, or frown just a little, but otherwise, or eyes and mouth always convey this blank look, which is actually really fitting for her name, haha. Her ears are like five inches longer than they should be though, and that’s really cute, cause they’re flopping around, perking, they go wild. But she comes in last week, and she’s drunk! She’s stumbling around, she’s slurring her words, she almost got her hair caught in the conveyor belt! I went up to her and was like, ‘what are you doing?’ Trying to be all polite of course. She spoke, and I could smell the booze on her breath. I can’t even tell you what she said, to be honest. It was a jumble of slurred words delivered by a monotone voice. She kept trying to walk around me though, and I think she was mumbling something about needing to go to work, but she works in the stamp machine so obviously I wasn’t going to allow that. So I grabbed her by the ear and dragged her to the break room, throwing her onto the bed and sitting on her back so she couldn’t leave. Eventually she fell asleep and I was able to go about my day. But then a few hours later, she finally sobered up and came out. I actually saw a bit of emotion on her face, granted it was a grimace since all the factory noises were hell on her hangover, haha. But then I sat her down and asked what the hell was wrong with her, and she said her fertility cycle just passed, which made that the third one she’s gone through without getting pregnant, and fair enough, I guess, that sucks. But it’s not really my problem, you know? You can’t come to work drunk and, honestly, I don’t feel like I need to explain why entering a factory of all places while plastered is a horrible idea. I’d rather she just not have shown up. Or just call the factory and I’d get from your slurs and mumbles that you’re too drunk to come in. But no, she made it my problem. So then she started crying, and sniffling, and going on and on about how lonely it was not having a child around the house after her son went off and got married, and how she wishes he stayed at her house with his wife, but how the Protectorate needed peldaks to fill the colonies on the cabella worlds to finally civilize those dirtballs, and blah, blah, blah. Some people just don’t get that they’re being a nuisance, but I obviously couldn’t just tell her that she was boring and droning on. Do I need to know her first choice of names for a boy or girl? Do I need to know what kind of schooling she’d ideally put her child through? Do I need to know what she plans to give as advice when her child inevitably comes to her with questions of his or her first crush? No. But regardless, I now do. Oh, but if I get pregnant on my next fertility cycle, and we have a girl, we’re naming her Wioletta. It’s a really cute name that I’ve been obsessed with lately. If we have a boy, you can decide, doesn’t matter to me… So long as his name is Dawid. But back to the point, the best you can say is that coming to work drunk is just an absurd lack of judgement. Drinking when you know you have to come to work tomorrow is fine, to a point, but then just come to work hungover and suffer in silence. That means she drank ALL night. Her husband wasn’t even drinking with her! She got so mad about the whole situation, blamed him for not getting her pregnant, even though it’s really her fault, and then kicked her out. Not to get vulgar, but I know what goes on in her house, she brags about it all the time, and she knows it’s wrong. Every married woman knows the proper steps to ensuring pregnancy. We know when our fertility cycle begins, so like six months before the start, you’re supposed to not have sex with your husband at all. Then, for the first week of your new fertility cycle, you both just call out of work and then, you know. And it works all the time! You get very consistent results with this. And you remember last time, studies have been done about this. Import a pallet of pineapple juice from Monsoo, make your husband scarf it all down in the months leading up to the big week, and for the wife, she needs to order a bottle of keleney lotion and start applying it before bed. It’s really not that difficult to ensure pregnancy. The bigger concern is getting pregnant too many times in a row, and messing up your organs. The safest ratio is getting pregnant once a century… but screw that. The ideal ratio is getting pregnant twice in a row, and then holding off for 60 years. That gives your children a cool older and younger sibling, while basically ensuring your organs don’t get all twisted and worn. Three pregnancies in a row is fantastic for the kids, but that’s… that’s pretty dangerous. I’ve known some girls who, luckily, didn’t destroy their wombs, but their livers were so squished that they couldn’t handle alcohol anymore, and their colons were jacked up that they needed to wear diapers for a few decades. Four times in a row, God forbid five times, that’s when you’re gonna need some major intestinal surgery to fix the mess you made of your gut, and you’re probably never gonna have kids again. We’re smart, unlike a lot of these dummies out here. Two kids every century, about 20 years apart. Very simple, big family potential, plenty of time to add rooms to the house for a giant, fun, multi-generational home. By the time 300 years pass, you’ll have six kids, maybe four grand kids, and with luck, even a great grandchild. I feel like some of these women are just a little too baby obsessed. Not that there’s anything wrong with that in and of itself, but they’re obsessed to the point of ruining their capacity to have more children. How many are we going to have in a thousand years? What’s the math? That’s like 20 children… I dunno, like 40 grandchildren, and probably even more great-grand kids, and probably some more even further down the line! Forget about just a big house, that’s an entire village! Oh, haha, and I’m not even considering their wives and husbands, that’s an insane amount of family! But just think, you and me, moving out to the interior of Peldor, or maybe even get a plot of land on one of those cabella worlds, and just starting a village with nothing but our family. Then it grows into a town and stuff, but you’d be the Patriarch of the family! I’d be the Matriarch, of course, and every year we’d have a big feast with everyone attending. A family reunion of sorts! Then you and me would sit back at a nice table, overlooking all our kids talking, laughing, horsing around, everyone would take the time to come over and say hello and give us a hug… AAAGH, I don’t wanna wait a thousand years! I want that now! Patience SUCKS. Ugh, and then it’s gonna be really sad if any of our kids die. Well, when they die. It’ll have to happen eventually. On one hand, I want to die before our children do so I don’t have to deal with it, but on the other, I… I do want to be there for everyone else, and make more. But, of course, if the option was me dying, or any of our children dying, of course I’d jump in front of the bullet! Not even a question. To be honest, part of me wishes I could keep our children home forever, not send them out on their compulsory service, never let them join the military, none of that. I realize they obviously can’t because that’s immoral, and they’d probably end up killing someone, but it’s nice to imagine my sweet little angels never being in a position to be hurt. Like, what’s going on in the cabella worlds? A vampire is out and about? That’s crazy. Imagine being okay with sending your kid out to go deal with that mess. I realize that I’m at home while you and everyone else is out there, fighting hard to protect a bunch of ungrateful tail-heads, but someone’s gotta make the bullets! Imagine fighting a horde of ghouls with no bullets..! Oh, but look at me, prattling on and on. How was your day, sweetie?”
The camera cuts back to our protagonist, sitting in the chair, bleeding, clothes ripped from ghouls swiping at him.
The film hard cuts back to the battle seen earlier, showing new footage of him pressing the barrel of his pistol against the forehead of a cabella-mannequin, then pulling the trigger. Fake blood and bone chunks splatter everywhere, one large piece flies back and hits his forehead
The film cuts back to the home, slowly zooming in on his face as his eyes lose focus.
Another hard cut to the battle. The camera is low, pointing up at the husband as his face is drenched in sweat and blood and grime. His jaw twisted in effort as he swings his rifle like a club, smashing the shoulder brace against someone on the ground. Over and over, several hits in a row as more bright red paint splatters everywhere.
Back to him sitting in his chair. He’s breathing through his nose, slowly and deliberately, and he’s shaking.
Returning to the battle, he has his boot on the back of a cabella-vampire’s neck and is pulling the head-tail with all his might as his comrades charge in around him, engaging the endless tide of ghouls. “DIE YOU BLOOD-SUCKING FUCK!” He screams at the top of his lungs as he finally rips the tail off, revealing the rebar that kept the prop in place.
He’s sitting in his chair, for just a moment.
Then he perks up, coinciding with the camera cutting to a dozen feet back.
“My day was okay.”
Then his wife jumps in to give him a big hug.
FIN.