"Hey. Hey. Wake up. Hey!" an unfamiliar voice urged them. They groaned and sat up in bed, rubbing their face with both hands. Wait. Both hands? Jay had their arm back! Their eyes shot open and looked down at their hands. Both of them were there! Before they could celebrate, however, they were met with a woman sitting at the foot of their bed. She wore Arctic gear and had a high-caliber sniper rifle strung to her back.
"Huh?" Jay started. They took a moment to look around. This wasn't Site-55. It looked like they were in some sort of log cabin. Somewhere cold too, they could see their breath.
"Good, you're awake. Come on. It's time we head out already," the woman spoke with an urgent tone.
"Huh? Go wher— Who are you?" they asked. She acted as if Jay hadn't even spoken.
The woman got up and leaned close to Jay, playfully pushing at them. As she leaned in, Jay was able to spot a name written in Cyrillic on her coat, which for some reason Jay was able to understand as 'Molokyna'. "Meet me out in the hall when you're ready." The woman, probably named Molokyna, stood up and walked towards the door, then exited the room.
Jay was perplexed. They had both their arms… and they could understand whatever language Molokyna's name was written in. Something was wrong, but they couldn't help but get up and walk towards the bundle of clothes that were folded up on the chair beside the bed.
They took a moment to get dressed and put on the coat. Jay looked down at the coat, noticing it had a name written on it too. 'Evervud'. Turning around to look for one more thing they felt they were missing, Jay spotted a Polaroid of themselves and Molokyna against a brick wall. For some reason, they felt as if Molokyna had given them that a while back. But that wasn't what they were looking for. Jay blinked and noticed a rifle similar to the one Molokyna was sporting leaning against the wall. They grabbed it and headed outside, where they were met with three other men and Molokyna, all wearing similar coats and carrying different weapons.
"Uh. Hi." Jay said cautiously. The men didn't turn around to face them until Molokyna nodded at them.
"Ah, Evervud, you finally awake, you layabout. There is no time for breakfast today. The cult is active near a town today." One of the men, wearing a coat bearing the name 'Kestrov', spoke.
"Yes. Let us destroy these vile cultists." They held a fist aloft in the air, only for the other four to cheer in response. Jay sighed in relief. Looks like that did the trick. The group then started heading out of the cabin and into a snowy hellscape where only wind and sleet were visible.
"Come on. We shouldn't burn daylight," Molokyna said, leading the charge. Jay followed suit, because what else were they going to do? The group marched silently through the howling gale of white snow ahead of them. They marched for what felt like hours to Jay, who for some reason decided to remain silent instead of speaking up. To add to the unusuality of it all, they were apparently fit enough to continue marching for this long without feeling exhausted. Another little victory for whatever weird thing was going on, it seemed.
Eventually, they came across a cliffside overlooking a small village. Molokyna reached down for her belt and produced a pair of binoculars, which she then put to use.
"Have the cultists gotten to them yet?" Asked the second man in line.
"It's hard to tell, Veronin." Molokyna replied. She tossed the binoculars aside and got down on the ground then readied her rifle, scoping in on the little town. She was trying to find any signs of life, but there looked to be none. Jay walked up to Molokyna's side and picked up the binoculars, then squatted to take a look around. There seemed to be no one about the village, which was strange considering they had hiked for what felt like hours.
Then, suddenly, out of the corner of their eye, they spotted something moving around the entrance to one of the houses. It was a man with a long beard and bloody robes. He looked to be barefoot as well, an unusuality in this part of the world. Jay put down the binoculars and looked to Molokyna. "I saw a cultist. Over on this side," they informed the group. Wait, how did they know what they were? Oh well, it didn't matter.
"Good eye, Evervud. I can always count on you." She smiled, settling down on the snow and getting into position. "Tchaikovsky, take Veronin and Kestrov down to the village and start clearing out the buildings of cultists. Evervud and I will cover you from up here." Molokyna motioned for Jay to get down with her, which they did, and they also began instinctively readying their sniper rifle for fire.
As the three men departed down the cliffside towards the village, silence set in between both snipers. Jay wanted nothing more than to break it but found themselves unable to do so. Eventually, Molokyna spoke up.
"You know, it is not often I say this, but I caught a look at you while you were unchanged. You look good. Very healthy."
Jay blinked. They were thin, sure, but they weren't exactly fit. They opened their mouth to speak and found themselves interrupted by Molokyna firing their weapon. They checked their scope only to see a cultist's head had exploded into a fine, red mist right behind Veronin. "Good shot," they said.
"Thanks. My mother taught me well." Molokyna released the spent casing from the chamber and readied another bullet.
"I didn't know your mother was a soldier."
"She was a sniper during the Second World War."
Sounds of gunfire started reaching the cliffside from down below. The men were laying into the cultists it seemed. Wait, second World War? That was 80-something years ago. What's going on here? Jay thought to themselves. They tried speaking again but were unable to. Suddenly, they felt trapped. It all made sense now. The men and Molokyna not responding to them. The skills. The arm.
"Sounds like they're having fun," Jay said unwillingly. This wasn't them speaking, but someone who had their name and talked like them, even looked like them to an extent.
"Are you having fun, Evervud? It's important to me that everyone in Red Storm enjoys their job." Molokyna said, not moving her eye from the scope. Jay stayed scoped in as well, looking for an enemy to hit. Not too long after, they spotted a cultist crafting a flesh abomination from his fallen brethren.
"I am. And I got this one." Jay fired a bullet, which hit the cultist through the throat. He spurted blood like a fountain and fell over the corpse of his brother. Jay felt horrified. Even when they did have both arms, they didn't like firing weapons. They were loud, scary, and the recoil was enough to rip their arm off. But this body felt used to it all. This body they were forced to be a witness within.
"That's good," she replied, taking another shot at a cultist running down at Kestrov with an axe. His face promptly exploded and Molokyna smiled. "I love to see a job well done."
"I know you do, dear Molokyna."
"Dear? What's this, Evervud, don't tell me you have a soft spot for me?" Molokyna laughed.
"And if I do?" Jay felt the tension between these two. They felt like they had been working together for a long time, and exchanges like these were routine for them. If it weren't for all the violence and killing going on not even 500 meters away from them, they might have even found it endearing. Oh, and the whole being trapped in the body thing was also a turnoff too.
Molokyna laughed again. "I suppose it can't be helped, can it? I am pretty good." She took another shot, but this one was blown off course by the wind and dinged against the side of a house. Tchaikovsky managed to turn around and take out the cultist that was approaching him in the nick of time. "Do you think they're all feeling extra humiliated that they're being killed by a woman and a, uh…." Molokyna stopped herself, unsure of how to refer to Jay.
"I told you, I don't feel like either work for me." Jay found it amusing that the Soviet girl boss was touting her girl-bossness to them, but again, they were more concerned with being trapped in the body of this person, Being John Malkovich style.
"Sorry. I respect you, Evervud, even if you are most unusual."
"Mhm." Jay rolled their eyes internally. It wasn't the first time they'd heard that.
"So now that I know you have a soft spot for me, what are you going to do? Take me to the cinema?" Molokyna took another shot, this time hitting a cultist in his left eye.
"A woman like you? I prefer to take you to the heart of the cultists' territory so we may fight our way out of there."
"I like the way you think."
The men down below had completely taken out the group that had taken over the village. The celebratory cheers of men, women, and children could be heard as they ran out onto the streets after being liberated from the church. Jay and Molokyna remained scoped in, just in case one of the cultists decided to get back up again.
"You know, it almost feels unfair that we don't get to partake in the celebration." Molokyna sighed.
"Well, we're right here. We can celebrate with each other."
"Don't be gross, Evervud."
"Oh please. You know that's not me. I meant we can drink a little. I have some spirits tucked away in my pack."
"Haha, that sounds more like—" Molokyna removed her eye from the scope only to spot a titan of a man behind Jay. He held his hands up high, casting a spell down at them. "DZHEY! LOOK OUT!" She screamed, taking her rifle and swinging it over to face the man. She fired a shot, which grazed his shoulder, causing the sickly red magic to just barely miss center mass on Jay's host body just as they were about to look over at Molokyna.
Jay the concept felt pain accumulating in the stump where their right arm used to be. Jay the person (Or Dzhey, as they had just come to learn) and Jay the concept both screamed in agony as Molokyna took another shot, this time hitting the hulking man square in the heart. He tumbled backward, squirming slightly as his blood stained the snow red.
Molokyna stood up and ran over to Jay, who looked up at her from the snow. Their right arm had been completely destroyed; if the spell had hit their center mass they would have been evaporated. Jay the concept could feel that Molokyna rarely ever panicked, and this was the first time Dzhey had ever seen her like this. Slowly but surely, Jay began to feel like they were fading, fading away…
"Don't worry about me. I'll live."
Jay awoke to the sound of the Site's Reality Anchors powering on and an announcement over the intercom: "SITE-55 IS CURRENTLY UNDERGOING A LOCALIZED REALITY FAILURE EVENT. NON-REALITY-RELEVANT PERSONNEL ARE ENCOURAGED TO TAKE SHELTER AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTION. THIS MESSAGE REPEATS. SITE-55 IS—"
Oh, whatever. They could probably sleep this one off. Localized reality failure events were pretty common around here anyway. Jay turned over in bed and repositioned their pillow to cover their ears as they drifted back off to sleep, not noticing the little Polaroid picture of Molokyna and Dzhey standing against a brick wall sitting on the nightstand.
This was written for RomCon. Big thanks to Chickadee42 for lending me their character. Please check out their take on this interaction here! (Will update when posted!)