
        He awoke to find himself unable to move, his arm and legs apparently
tied down in some way. He was in a coffin-like structure set below floor
level and covered with a strong mesh gate. His head was enclosed in a 
cylinder of some kind which sealed around his neck and only allowed him
a limited view of the room above him.
        He heard a door open. Footsteps entered, then stopped. A man's voice
spoke. It was a voice he recognized, a voice he had learned to hate.
        "You have a visitor", it said simply. Then, a smaller voice.
        "Mark?"
        Oh my god, no! He thought. "Brenda!" he screamed. He struggled to
free himself, but it was no use. If only I had my other arm back, he
thought. "You bastard! What the hell do you want?"
        "Nothing." came the cool reply. "She's a very pretty woman, Mr.
Steele. I hope you two will be very happy together"
        At that moment, the two figures came into Mark's circle of vision.
He saw *him*, saw his wife, but saw the blade too late to be of any use. He
buried the blade in her neck, tossed her down and walked slowly from the
room.
        When she fell, the handle of the blade pierced the mesh as her face
came to rest just above Mark's own. Blood spurted from the wound and onto
Mark. He was so disgusted that he temporarily forgot to be saddened by his
wife's condition. He closed his eyes, as if by not seeing Brenda's pale,
empty face, he could make it all go away.
        When he opened his eyes again, the blood had stopped spurting and
was now simply oozing from the blade like a faucet with a faulty gasket.
The level of blood in the cylinder now reached his ears, and the only sound
he could hear was the sound of his heartbeat echoing through the murky
liquid, and the steady drip, drip, drip...
        Desperation seized him as the blood closed over his eyes and mouth.
He thrashed his head violently around, splashing blood onto the sides of the 
cylinder, where it rolled back down to join the reservoir. He tried to
calculate how much blood was in the human body, but the only answer that
came up was: too much. He thought about gulping down a few mouthfuls, but 
even self-preservation would not allow him to desecrate Brenda that way.
        He gasped for one last breath, and got no air, just the buttery,
coppery taste that had never seemed so final before. It was only a matter
of time before the darkness closed in on him forever.



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          Drowning in someone else's blood - the worst way to die
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Digital Dictator [Assault] '93
