3 a.m. The rain in the city fell sharp and blinding, like an interrogation lamp. The streets were empty, only the puddles occasionally rippling—as if mocking me, the hunted "nightmare host."
I hid on the top floor of an abandoned shopping mall, leaning against a rusty billboard that read: "The Future Belongs to Hard Work and Dreams."Ironic—my future now belonged only to migraines and running for my life.
"What's the plan?" Karl panted, his face a cocktail of anxiety and a bizarre excitement, like this was the first time in his life he got to play the protagonist.
"What else? Fight with no retreat," I said, lighting a cheap cigarette that nearly made me cough up a lung. The phrase sounded glorious in novels; in real life it just meant no money, no medicine, no bullets, and no friends.
We'd been declared public enemies. The TV portrayed me as the world's top disaster—more dangerous than a virus, more laughable than a clown. The news ticker read: "Nightmare Host—Terminate on Sight." Even the street food lady could recognize me on TV, muttering: "Doesn't look like a bad guy… just looks unlucky."
Unlucky—that was my biggest crime.
Our "arsenal" was a joke: one nearly empty energy pistol, an iron pipe Karl ripped out of a toilet, and a bag of expired painkillers.
"Maybe we… surrender?" Karl tested.
"Surrender? Then let them crack my skull open, pull out the nightmare fragments, and burn them on live TV? Maybe with circus music playing and the crowd clapping?" I sneered. "Might as well smash my head open now—save them the trouble."
Karl went silent. He wasn't stupid—just used to finding exits in ruins. But this time, there was only one exit: smashing through a wall, headfirst if needed.
So we turned the mall into a cheap death trap: broken wires hanging in the elevator shaft, fuel barrels stacked at the stairwell, nails stripped from old crates hidden behind the billboard. The setup looked like a failed art installation—the only audience would be the armed squads sent to kill us.
That night, I dreamed.
I was just an ordinary man again—squeezing into the subway after work, buying discount dumplings, watching shows at home. No one called me "host," no one wanted me dead. But at the end of the dream, the elevator doors opened. Inside, a dozen men in black aimed guns at me, politely saying: "Good night."
I woke to the roar of helicopter blades. A searchlight pierced the dark like a giant cold eye, locking onto the building.
"They're here," I said.
"They're here," Karl echoed.
We exchanged a look—two gamblers who knew they'd lose, but shoved the last chip onto the table anyway.
The first wave stormed up. When they kicked the fuel barrels, flames erupted, scattering them like fireworks. Karl, wielding the toilet pipe like a fallen knight, actually smashed one soldier off the stairs.
I fired the energy pistol. The bullet traced a purple arc, slamming into a helmet. As he collapsed, I laughed—not because I was winning, but because despair had somehow made me a better shot.
But for every one we dropped, three more emerged from the shadows. Their armor glinted like humorless ghosts.
"We can't hold them!" Karl roared.
"Who said we would?" I pressed the hidden switch. The billboard tore free, crashing down on soldiers descending from ropes. Metal crunched, bones snapped—the world itself let out a grim chuckle.
The battle was a cheap comedy show—chaotic, bloody, ridiculous. Fire mixed with rain, painting the ruins like a stage from hell.
Eventually, they pulled back. Not because they feared us, but because wasting more ammo on two lunatics wasn't worth it.
The helicopters lifted, leaving wreckage and smoke.
Karl and I collapsed on the rooftop, bloody and broken—two rats left behind.
"Did we win?" Karl rasped.
"Win my ass." I laughed until tears stung my eyes. "At least they didn't take my brain today."
The night wind cut like knives. Everything felt absurd, like a black comedy with no audience. The world preferred the bloodier version on live TV.
And me? I lit my last cigarette in the ruins, waiting for dawn.