Sinner's Run Ch. 01

Noah felt like the whole world teetered on the edge of a knife. "More than. Just let me know what I need to do."

"All I need from you..." Colleen lifted herself up, grabbing his cock and holding it still. "Is for you to stay still." Slowly, she lowered herself down. The first touch of her pussy heat was incredible, and Noah let his head flop back onto his pillows. He tensed more and more as she slid down, biting her lip. "Fuck, you're big, but I think you're just big enough..."

Then she settled atop him, her labia kissing his pelvis. Her fingers curled against his chest. "Fuck," she growled, rolling her hips a little. "Fuck, that's good."

Noah could barely sort out the sensations coursing through his body. "Warm..." he panted. "It's so fucking warm."

Colleen let out a feral growl as she leaned down atop him, her breasts swelling against his chest again. "C'mere, you." Their lips met in a fiery, impassioned kiss, almost primal in its intensity. Colleen raised and lowered herself along his length, controlling the pace at one she was comfortable with. It was all Noah could do to hang on tight and enjoy the ride.

And what a ride it was. Writhing with Colleen felt unspeakably good, his body reacting instinctively to the sensations. The clap of her butt against his pelvis filled the room, along with the slithering of his cock inside her cunny. Her pussy fluttered and clenched around him, milking him as she fucked him into the mattress. "Fuck yes," she growled, kissing him hungrily. She bit his lower lip gently, and the small spike of pain made Noah's arm hair stand on end.

He responded by reaching down and grabbing a handful of her ass in each hand, squeezing tight. Noah didn't trust his mouth with any dirty talk, so he settled for kissing her hard, letting his pants and groans be all the speaking he did. He didn't know if he was capable of speech anyway, what with the bombardment of sensations running through his body. In that moment, a part of him felt regret. He could've been feeling this every week, if he went out and played the field like Milo did. But what kind of person would that make him? If he got this frequently, wouldn't it make it less special?

Colleen settled against him for a moment, grinding her hips against his. "Feels like one of my toys," she panted. Her hair was in disarray, sweat sheening on her forehead. "Hitting me good and deep. Fuck..." Her head lolled back, exposing her neck and filling Noah with an urge to chomp down on it like a vampire.

He could feel a climax fast approaching, and tried to hiss out a warning. "It's too much," he panted. "I'm not going to last much longer..."

"Cum whenever you want, baby," Colleen cooed, adding an extra wiggle to the up and down motions of her hips. "Cum for me."

Noah let out a strangled cry. His hands tensed on her hips and pulled her down on top of him. HIs climax burst inside her all in a rush, pleasure cresting like waves in a tide pool. His breath came in ragged pants, his back arching up into her as he gave her everything he had. After what seemed like an eternity, he relaxed on the bed, his body going slack. Colleen sighed in content and settled atop him, caressing his shoulders.

A mortifying thought struck Noah. "Condom," he groaned.

"I'm on the pill, don't freak," Colleen murmured, nuzzling his collarbone.

"Oh thank Christ."

Colleen stretched, hooking her arms around Noah's neck. "Good?"

"Fantastic." Noah decided to be bold and gave her a soft peck on the nose. "I just wish I could've lasted longer."

"With practice you can." Colleen wiggled her hips a little so Noah slid out of her with a soft noise. Warm wetness seemed out of the cleft of her legs to pool on his midriff. "And with a dick like that I'm sure there's plenty of lasses out there willing to let you practice on them."

Noah laughed a little, but he wasn't entirely convinced. One woman did not an entire gender represent. Still, no reason to not enjoy this particular moment while it lasted. He enjoyed the simple feeling of holding a naked girl against him, brushing her bare back with his fingers as they made smalltalk about computer hardware for a little while. When they both began fading, they alternated taking showers before curling up on the bed together. Noah felt a pang of regret for leaving Garthex hanging. Then again, tomorrow was Saturday, and he likely wasn't going to do anything else but play Sinner's Run, so he could make it up to his online friend.

Besides, he thought as he tightened his arm around Colleen's midriff and she wriggled in contentment. I'm sure he of all people will understand when I tell him about this.

In the morning, Noah took great care not to wake Colleen up as he crept out of his room. That care was all for naught as he promptly tripped over the passed out form of Milo lying facedown in the hallway outside his door. "Motherfuck!" he yelped as he went down in a heap.

Colleen jerked awake at the commotion, her disheveled red hair sticking up every which way as she looked out at him. Milo snorted and rolled over on the floor, still solidly asleep. "Gimme 'nother," he muttered.

Noah sighed and picked himself up. "Well at least he made it back in one piece," he said.

"Looks like shite, though," Collen said.

"Come on, tough guy." Noah bent over and hauled Milo up as best he could. Which, really, wasn't all that well at all. With a bit of help from Colleen he managed to at drag Milo into his room and get most of him on the bed. "God, he reeks," Noah spluttered.

"Good thing I didn't take a shower yet," Colleen said, gagging a little as well. "I'll do that at home, though."

After throwing on some clothes, Noah drove Colleen home, following directions that she gave him. He pulled to a stop in front of an average looking apartment complex about fifteen minutes away. "Thanks," she said.

"No trouble," Noah said. Awkward silence stretched between them. How in the world was he supposed to see her off?'

Colleen smiled. "Damn, you really don't have a clue, do you?" Her tone was playful and non-judgemental.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Not really, no," he admitted.

"Well, here." Colleen leaned in and gave him another kiss on the lips. "That's step one."

Noah blinked, his head spinning. "What's step two?"

"Give me your phone." Noah did, and Colleen put her name and number into his contacts before passing it back. "I've got things to do today, but I'd like to see you again soon. Call me in a couple days?"

Noah held his phone like he'd been passed a priceless crystal goblet. "I can do that."

Colleen winked at him, then unlocked the door and got out of his car. She walked up to the door of a ground-floor apartment, waved at him, then unlocked the door and stepped inside. Noah sat there for a moment, looking at his phone screen until it dimmed and shut off on it's own.

"A couple days," he said to himself. "Sure. No big deal."

His body still tingled with memories of the night before. Noah replayed the past twelve hours in his head over and over as he drove back home, trying to observe it from every angle to determine if anything hokey was up. To his surprise, he couldn't determine anything. If Colleen had just been drunk and horny, why had she given him her number? That clearly meant she wanted to see him again, she'd said as much herself. Unless it was a test of some kind? To see if he had the stones to call her up and ask her out when she was sober? She didn't seem like the kind of woman to do that. Or was she? The sudden unease he felt put a dull edge of the pleasurable memories, and he couldn't shake the feeling no matter how much he tried.

Or maybe she was just nice and wanted to sleep with you, you dingus, he chided himself. Ever consider that?

Noah was still going back and forth as he got home and walked inside the apartment. Milo was still out of it, judging by his closed door. Noah took a shower, got some food, and went back to his computer, which was still asleep.

It was after noon on a Saturday, which meant that Garthex was probably up by now. Noah pinged him on their voice chat program, munching on a granola bar. Garthex picked up a moment later. "Big N!" he said. "What the hell happened last night, dude?"

"Milo and Colleen blew up at each other and he wound up stomping out to go get blasted at a dive bar," Noah said.

"Who's Colleen? His girlfriend or something?"

"No, he met her at a bar. After he bailed she hung out for a little while."

"Oh ho ho!" Gartex said, sounding bemused. "Did you put the moves on her?"

"More like she put the moves on me, honestly."

"Hey, so long as the end result is the same. If that's the case, I can totally forgive you for leaving me to play with randos last night."

"You're too kind," Noah deadpanned, jiggling his mouse to loosen up his wrist. "Now, it's a Saturday, we've got nothing else to do, let's win some games."

Hours passed and Noah barely noticed. Sinner's Run took his full attention, and he gave it gladly. The new Primes were out, and with them came new things to learn about the game. Both he and Garthex also kept eyes out while in game for any strange oddball things that might have been added to the map.

"Okay, Experiment chick here is so freaking good," Garthex remarked in the middle of a firefight. Her kit centered around a few mutant abilities she possessed, project a damaging cloud as well as rain biological artillery from the skies. Both abilities had low cooldowns, meaning they could be used with aplomb.

For old time's sake, Noah was playing Larka, using the big bear woman's shielding abilities to protect Garthex while he ripped squads to shreds with Experiment 32. "Yeah, she's a bit busted," he agreed. He'd tried playing another offensive character early on to compliment Garthex's team-obliterating abilities, but with seemingly every other duo they ran into running Experiment 32, he'd switched back to tanking. Larka could actually tank the crippling damage the new Prime could put out.

"Like I feel like I'm actually cheating," Garthex said as he eliminated another team with Heartseeker shots. "This is nuts. Twenty bucks says this chick gets nerfed within a week."

"I give it three days," Noah said. "Another team on me, cracked one."

"I see 'em." With a pained howl in-game Garthex's E-32 rained down bio missiles on their new foes. The damage numbers spiked up quickly, eliminating their opponents and giving them a win. "Wait, that was it?"

Noah leaned back in his chair. "Yeah, guess so."

"Shit, good work!"

"You too. I need something to drink, be right back." He got up to go to the kitchen in search of some water.

There he found Milo, leaning against the counter with a bag of frozen peas pressed against his head. "I'm not hungover, you are," his roommate muttered.

"Found you passed out in the hallway this morning," Noah said, grabbing the jug of water from the fridge and pouring a glass. "Have fun?"

"Can't remember much to be honest," Milo whispered. "What happened with that bitch from last night?"

Noah's jaw tensed for a moment. "Colleen stayed the night."

Milo blinked slowly. "With you?"

"WIth me, yes."

"Did you fuck her?"

Noah set the water jug back in the fridge with a bit more force than he needed to. "We had sex, yes."

Milo snorted, shifting the bag of peas across his head. "Figures."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

Noah scowled. "You literally told me to try to get into her pants, asshole."

"Did I? I told you, I don't remember anything from last night besides her not being able to get my motor running."

"I think the amount you had to drink was what kept that from happening."

"Don't give me that shit," Milo snapped at him. "She couldn't make it work for me, so she went with Plan B."

"Oh, fuck you," Noah snapped. "I thought you'd be happy for me."

"Yes, you got laid for once, good job!" Milo clapped sarcastically, then winced at the noise.

"You know, you really are an ass," Noah said. He turned and stomped back to his room, making sure to plant his feet as loud as possible to drive Milo nuts. Then he slammed his bedroom door for good measure. He stood behind it for a moment, breathing heavily.

This was why he preferred being alone with video games. People weren't predictable, only able to do a few certain things like the Primes in Sinner's Run. The random woman who he'd only met the night before had slept with him, the roommate he considered a friend who he thought would be happy for him wasn't. Nothing made sense about that.

"Everything okay?" Garthex asked as Noah put his headset back on.

"Just fine," Noah said, his voice terse. "Duo again?"

Garthex paused for a moment, and Noah desperately wanted his online friend to press him. "Duos all day, baby," Garthex said, and Noah closed his eyes.

He whittled the rest of the day away with Garthex on the Run, finally calling it a night when his eyes began to hurt. He pushed away from the desk and went to make dinner. Milo's bedroom was dark and his car was gone, so Noah reasoned he was out drinking again. Good. Noah wanted to be alone. He made a quick sandwich out of meat and cheese in the fridge, then took it back to his desk to eat.

A few Youtube videos were already out, analyzing the new Primes. He watched them while he ate, finding himself agreeing that Iago and Quirrell were good, but Experiment 32 was on a whole other level. As he queued up another, his messenger app dinged with something from Garthex.

Somebody on Reddit already datamined some of the new files in the update, the message read. There's a couple weird things in here.

Below were image thumbnails. Noah downloaded them all and began to click through them. Most of the files in the screencaps were what he expected, directories for each character containing their model data and textures. But whoever had done the digging had found a new folder in the directory that stored the map of the Run itself. There was a new file labelled 'transfer.exe.'

Is 'transfer' that some kind of new area? Noah typed back to Garthex.

Don't think so, Garthex typed back. The guy opened the file as a text document, and it gets weirder.

Another pair of images followed. The first showed the transfer.exe document open in a Notepad. Noah narrowed his eyes at the code. It didn't look like executable script at all. Instead it was a series of letters and numbers. The second image continued the document text.

"Huh," Noah muttered. He navigated to the game's directory on his own computer, right-clicking the 'transfer.exe' file and opening it as a word document. THe code appeared before him, lines and lines of numbers and letters arranged in a pattern that made no damn sense. "Some kind of ARG?" he wondered. Some game studios had made use of alternate-reality games, or ARGs, as promotional ventures, hiding things in game data that could be deciphered using real world systems like longitude and latitude coordinates or cyphers.

Noah copied and pasted the text into its own word file and began to play with the sequence of characters, applying the usual ways developers tried to be cheeky and hide things with. He lost himself in the guesswork, looking down at his desktop clock after what he thought was a few minutes to discover two hours had gone by. A dull ache throbbed in his forehead, and he rubbed his eyes. I'm going to log off here, he typed to Garthex. Talk at ya tomorrow.

As he rose, the world seemed to shift underneath him. He was far more tired than he realized. "Colleen wore you out, didn't she?" he muttered to himself as he crawled into bed. The sheets still smelled faintly like her. Noah closed his eyes, promising himself he'd call her when he work up in the morning.

A jolt woke Noah. His eyes opened wide, staring into dense blackness. Something cold and metallic pressed against his cheek. It took him a moment to realize he was sitting upright, rather than lying down, his cheek resting against some kind of harness strapped around his body. He struggled against it, the affirmation of his confinement making his fight or flight response kick into overdrive. "Hey, what's going on?" he said.

In front of him, the number ten appeared in big, bold, red numbers. A moment later, it began to tick down, a number per second. Noah began to panic, thrashing around in his harness. "Hey! Somebody help!" he cried.

A hand grabbed his own. Noah screamed in surprise and looked to his left. He found himself face to face with a helmeted figure. "Stop freaking out," a voice rasped out of the helmet. "Nobody's going to help you but me, so we might as well learn to like each other."

"I don't understand!" Noah yelled as the countdown clock ticked down to zero. "What's going on?"

"We're about to drop, that's what," the masked figure said. "Don't shit your pants on the way down."

Before Noah could respond, he reached up and yanked a lever above them.

The pit of Noah's stomach dropped out as the floor beneath him and the masked figure disappeared. Gravity took hold a heartbeat later, and then Noah was in freefall. The sudden sensation of falling through open air filled him with cold fear, and he flailed to try to right himself. "Fuck fuck fuck!" he yelled. Which way was up? Which way was down?

Noah saw the line of the horizon, blue sky the opposite of where it should be. He flipped himself over, patting himself down for a parachute. As he did, he looked down at the ground far below him and went still.

"No way," he breathed.

"Come on, fresh meat," the masked figure's voice said in his ear. "We're landing Maritime."

Below him, dotted with peaks, valleys, varied terrain and buildings aplenty, was the battlefield of Sinner's Run.