Orange Arrow Up

Don't even look at it. Don't check the stats. Just… pick it up. You know the sound. You know the light.

There it is.

---

Woke up in a dust storm, wallet thin, ammo low

Got a white-rarity pistol and a whole lotta nowhere to go

First kill was a bandit — piece of junk, common drop

Second kill was his brother — still trash, but I couldn't stop

Third kill, something clicked. A sound I can't unhear.

That little chime that whispers, "you been missing this, my dear"

Now I'm chasing that first high, that legendary gleam

A parasite that tells me that the violence has a theme.

I don't fight for justice. I don't fight for pride.

I fight for that split second when the rarity decides

To paint the loot beam orange, to make the minimap ping

To make me feel like something more than just a hungry, desperate thing.

---

Orange arrow up — dopamine flood

One more boss, one more skull, one more kill in the mud

Orange arrow up — don't care 'bout the cost

Another legendary I'll use for an hour then toss

Orange arrow up — I can't feel my hands

But the beam just hit the ceiling and I finally understand

I'm not a hero, I'm not a god, I'm just a rat in a machine

Pulling levers for the color that makes me feel clean.

---

Inventory's full of guns I swore I'd never replace

Got a corrosive Maliwan with a scope I never even placed

Got a Jakobs shotgun that I farmed for fourteen hours

Got a shield that makes me immortal — if you call this life a power

I abandoned three side missions, let a settlement burn

'Cause the radar said a loot tink took a left at the turn

You think I'm proud? You think I don't know what I've become?

A hollow thing with hollow goals, a finger on a gun

But when that beam hits vertical, when that orange splits the sky

Every choice I didn't make, every face I let die

Gets quiet. Just for a second. Just enough to let me breathe.

Then I'm reloading the save file 'cause I need another.

---

You ever open a chest and feel… nothing?

Like the color was right but the soul was wrong?

Like you'd climb the mountain just to find out the view was a painting?

Yeah. Me too.

So you close the chest. You fast travel. You load the next map.

You tell yourself the next one's different. You tell yourself it's not a trap.

You tell yourself you're chasing power, freedom, something real.

But you and I both know…

---

Orange arrow up — I'm already dead

Just a corpse with a trigger finger and a voice inside my head

Orange arrow up — say it back, say it clean

"I am nothing but the color between red and green"

Orange arrow up — one more time, one more lie

Tell me this is why I'm living, tell me this before I die

That the next one will be different. That the next one will be peace.

That the orange arrow's pointing to a version of me released.

---

…It's a corrosive Maliwan. Double projectile. Annointed. It's perfect.

I'm never gonna use it.