Marathon: Musings of a Runner, pt 4

Musings of a Runner is the diary of a fictional character caught up in the pastel shoot & loot world of Marathon 2026.

Log four. I made my first few runs alone. I wanted to get a feel for this new place at my own pace. If I decided to hide in a shipping container for ten minutes, I didn’t want any lip about it. After a few goes, I opted to team up, as suggested by the little guidebooks that have been flashed into the digital space where my consciousness dwells.

Hearing the voices of the other shells was odd. Hearing my own had also been, when I muttered to myself in my first run. Their voices seem designed for human authenticity, but there’s something too intentional about it. A baked-in charm. It’s like fake frost on a windowpane.

Anyway, they didn’t talk much. Nor did I. Warnings, callouts, essential stuff only. I wanted to try an actual conversation but there was never a moment for it. The team moved fast. Maybe none of us wanted to seem like we were dallying, I dunno.

We swept through ghostly old habitats that I would’ve wanted to explore more carefully. I don’t know why, but I feel like if I keep searching these places I could find some clue to recover my memories of what exactly the hell happened to get me here. Or if not a clue, an event that knocks them loose.

The trip was short. We crossed paths with another team. Fought them. Lost. Died. Well, ‘died.’

It wasn’t the first time my shell had been killed, it’s just taken me a bit to be able to talk about it. On the one hand, it’s a relief that being gunned down or stabbed isn’t a permanent death. On the other, at least death is supposed to be a meaningful and powerful thing. Now we ride a cycle of cheap deaths stripped of meaning by their temporary, repetitive natures.

The feeling of shell death is also eerie. Shells don’t feel pain. Pain hurts because that’s how the body learned to give you an urgent message. Shells can tell you the message without the extremely unpleasant feeling. It’s like if all pain was various kinds of itch. But the mind in the shell is still human. It knows that you should be feeling pain when a handful of pistol rounds tear through your side. So at least for me, there’s a shadow pain my subconscious creates when I’m wounded down there.

I’d rather not dwell on this any more right now. Time to go die again.

Signing off.