Cheyenne Arroyo
Professor Simokaitis
ENG
February 14th, 2018
Weather the Storm
November 17th, 2552;
Location: Voi, Kenya: East African Protectorate
A bright blue beam of light shot into the sky, it thickens and illuminates the heavens above.
Truth did it, didn't he? No, he couldn't have activated the rings. We would have stopped him. He would have stopped him.
Lord Hood could be heard on the comms along with Miranda. It was reassuring to hear their voices. We have not lost the fight yet if they are still alive to lead us.
"What did Truth do?" Lord Hood said coughing, "Did he activate the rings?"
Miranda says quietly, "No sir, but he did do something…"
The alien artifact that lay beneath the dark storm cloud has now opened like a starfish. Above it, loomed a large glowing sphere of blue light with a pitch-black center. The sphere completely eclipsed the sun's light, leaving only the luminescence of the dark blue orb as a light source. The surge of light that was emitted from the structure must have been a shockwave that left our entire fleet helplessly drifting in air, unorganized and without power. The Covenant's flagship rises towards the blue light with the rest of the fleet following in close order.
The silence is broken by a Naval Officer speaking to Lord Hood, "Sir, we've got new contact –slipping in! It looks like another Covenant ship"
"Is it one of ours?"
"Negative, sir. They are not responding to our hails, sir".
The ship hurtles through the sky at breakneck speed. It is emitting a trail of smoke and green, rancid fumes. The ship begins to lose altitude and gets closer and closer to the ground. It crashes into the factory and there is a flash of light from the explosion. There is a silence that fills the air followed by a deep rumbling coming from the ship. A shrill screech erupts from it, causing all who are nearby to clasp their hands over their ears.
I pull out my binoculars to check out the crash site. Through the thick of the smoke a silhouette can be seen. Is it an elite? A brute?
I can make out the figure as it leaps forward from the wreckage: the skin is a greenish-gray, its right arm has whips for fingers, and— a barrage of bullets whiz past causing the creature to cry out in agony and turn around to leap at those who are shooting at it. As it faces away from me I can see that the neck of the creature wrapped around to the backside of its body.
"We have multiple contacts sir, unknown hostiles!"
"There! Over there! We're surrounded, Sergeant! What are these things?"
Lord Hood can be heard on the open channel, "It's the Flood. A parasitic ancient alien race that consumes all sentient life. To take them down, you need to shoot for the spores underneath their necks, that'll cause them drop dead. Rockets, grenades, and flamethrowers will get the job done too. For the love of God, do not let those spores touch you, marines."
What happens if they touch us? Do we die?
"Blue Team, report to southwest factory on the double!"
That was Gunnery Sergeant Hartman; myself, Mendoza, Ryder, and Butch all report to him. Before I make my way down my crow's nest I take long, deep breathes.
Focus. I just need to focus.
I sling my battle rifle over my back and holster my pistol alongside my thigh and make my way down the ladder.
"On your six, Jenkins." A hand is placed on my shoulder. It's Mendoza. She has her 12-gauge shotgun at the ready.
"Have you seen these things?"
Nodding my head, "Just one. It had tentacle hands and was able to jump a couple dozen meters into the air. It didn't even have a jetpack or anything."
"Well, looks like Butch will make quick work of them. He loved skeet shooting back home. If they get too close, I'll just blow them a new one." Mendoza chuckles as she single-handedly racks the slide of her shotgun.
We meet up with the others outside the factory near a loading ramp.
Sergeant Hartman stands up, with a cigar in his mouth and his assault rifle causally slung over his shoulder. He spoke with a calm and authoritative tone, "Our job here is to locate and extract any civilian factory workers that are still inside. If you see anything that does not look like a friendly, put a bullet where it counts. We get the civvies and then we get the hell out of this place."
"We are going to work our way from the bottom up. We're doing a full sweep of the factory. Any questions?"
Silence.
"That's what I thought. Now get locked and loaded marines, we're going into a hot zone, so weapons free."
A collective "Oorah" was voiced by all of us and we proceeded inside the building. The electricity was shot but some of the back-up generators powered a couple of lights. They would flicker on and off, so we had to rely heavily on the flashlights at the end of our guns. The giant crates were halted on the conveyer belts that were lined throughout the building. The sergeant held up his fist and we all stopped dead in our tracks.
Here it comes.
He motions for me and Ryder to cover the left flank and Mendoza and Butch would cover the right. We were all in position, ready to go at a moment's notice. We heard footsteps coming from ahead.
"H—hello? Is anyone there?" A frightened voice says.
"Stand down marines. It's a friendly."
Mendoza makes her way to comfort the factory worker, "You're alright. We're UNSC marines, are there any other survivors here?"
"There are twelve of us on the second floor in our break room. We boarded it up after we heard the explosions. We knew you guys would come!"
The worker puts his face in his hands and continues to breakdown. The sergeant has had enough and motions for us to move on and finish the mission.
"Alright, enough of the waterworks, let's get a move on."
We begin walking in a tight formation with the civilian in the center to protect him from any danger that may lurk in the dark.
*click click*
"You hear that?" Mendoza says as she points her flashlight up the stairs.
Mendoza makes her way upstairs. She stops for a second.
In a hushed voice, "Contact. Dead ahead."
Mendoza leads the way, with each step she takes she does so without making any noise. She moves like a tiger on the prowl. She shines her light on the figure just meters away from her. But before Mendoza could even react the figure lunged towards her. It long whips just like the creature I had seen before. It strikes Mendoza and sends her flying against the wall.
"It's a flood combat form! Take that son of a bitch down, marines!"
We start spraying bullets into the alien, but it seems unfazed and continues to rip right through us. It makes its way to the sergeant and slams him up against the wall. The sergeant pulls out his pistol from its magnetic holster and unloads his magazine into the creature's face. With each bullet fired, chunks of the face go flying but the creature is still unwavering. It shrieks loudly into the sergeant's face, but he remains composed. A vent cover shoots loose and flood spores gush out from it. There are hundreds of them.
"Don't let those sons of bitches latch onto you! If they do they'll—"
The flood combat form drove its tentacles straight into the sergeant's chest causing him to hack up blood.
"Sergeant!" I cry out
I try and make my way towards him, but the wave of flood spores cut me off. I spray bullets into them, but they keep on coming.
"Get—get it off me! Get it off me! Don't let it turn me into one of them!"
It's the sergeant crying out for help. His cool demeanor had been shattered to pieces. He was now begging for his life and I was there, helplessly watching. We were all surrounded and cut off from one other. We could do nothing to help Sergeant Hartman. Flood spores surrounded his body and were burrowing their way into him. He was screaming frantically and trying to break free, but it was already too late. The spores moved away from him and focused on the rest of us.
"They keep on coming!" Do these things ever die? We need to get the fuck out of here!" Mendoza shouts.
"I need some help over here! I'm running low on ammo! Gah! There are too many of them!" Ryder says as he is forced into a corner.
I rush over to assist Ryder and start popping the spores with everything I've got. By any and all means.
*click*
"Shit. I'm out of ammo!" Ryder pulls out his knife and starts swiping away at the incoming flood spores. One latches onto his arm, but he quickly smashes it against the wall. I start shooting at the spores trying to latch onto his feet and we both make a run for it to the others.
"Have you seen Butch?"
I shake my head and search the room for Mendoza. She's still ahead of us so we make our way over to her.
"Somebody order bar-b-que?" Butch shouts as he throws a propane tank into the flood.
"Quick, get down!"
We drop to the floor and shield our heads. Butch shoots the tank and fire engulfs the room, taking the flood spores with it. We get back to our feet and scan the area for any other spores.
Nothing. Good.
"You boys alright? Looked like you needed a hand back there Ryder." Mendoza chuckles.
Butch does a headcount and notices that the sergeant is missing.
"Where is he?"
We look to each other, and then to the ground.
"I tried to get to him… but there were just too many. I tried… I—" I clench my fist and start to shake from anger.
Mendoza places her hand on my shoulder. "Its alright. There was nothing that could have prepared us for what just happened. Let's just finish the mission and get the hell out of here."
There is a silence that fills the room.
"Wait a minute. Where is the civvie? And where is the sergeant?" Butch begins to wander around in search of the sergeant.
"He was over… there." I say pointing to the wall where Hartman was pinned against.
"Shit. He's not there." Ryder exclaims. "Maybe he was fried in the blast?"
"No, the blast wasn't that strong. He's got to be here somewhere…" Butch continues to search for the sergeant.
*aaachkk* *click click click*
We turn around and see the sergeant and the factory worker. They have both been turned. The sergeant's head was hanging by sinews. His flesh was rotten, and his mouth was agape. He had his rifle in hand, pointing towards us. The spore planted itself right where his heart would be. Its tentacles had red little finger-like things sticking out of them and would twitch as if they were detecting movement in the air.
"Sergeant, its us. It's your team. Put the gun down."
The sergeant's mouth lets out a guttural screech and charges at Mendoza. She fires three rounds into him before he drops to the ground.
That was too close.
"Holy shit that thing is fucking ugly." Ryder says as he kicks the head off. "Do me a favor guys, if I ever look like that, just put a bullet between my eyes. Yuck."
"So, you want me to do that now or later pretty boy?" Mendoza says as walks over to the body.
In one quick motion the sergeant swoops Mendoza's leg and gets on top of her. He points his gun at her and fires seven rounds point blank into her face. Another figure comes rushing into us.
"It's the factory worker, he's turned into one of them!" Butch tackles him head on but drops like he just hit a brick wall. I sling my rifle over and squeeze the trigger, but it gets knocked away. I quickly reach for my pistol but get kicked away. The infected worker lets out a thunderous screech and flails his arms into the sky.
No, no. This cannot be happening. I have to get out.
Flood spores come pouring out from every room and crevice. I look over to my left and see a spore attached to Ryder's face. He's struggling to get it off and I can hear his cries for help ringing in my ears. I don't know what to do and just freeze. Butch is in front of my being attacked by the sergeant and the worker, they tore off his left arm and were bringing him down with their tentacles. He was shouting in anguish, and he looked to me.
"Please…" he reaches out with his arm. "Please kill me. I— I don't want to be like them. I—" before he could finish talking a spore dug its way down his mouth. I watched in horror as his body began to shake uncontrollably.
He turned in a matter of seconds.
Run. I need to run. I have to hide and get away. Now.
I make my way down to the basement inside a closet.
I— I didn't have a choice. I couldn't save them. The sergeant, Mendoza… they were all infected. I had to run, I had to hide. It was the only way to make it out alive. I could see it… crawling … sliding around beneath their skins! Oh God!
Author's Note
This is a fan-fiction I had recently come up with straight out from the Halo Universe. If any of you are familiar with the video game franchise you will understand some the parts that I pull from the lore. However, for my story I tried to give life to a character whom you find while playing through the game. It is a marine who you encounter when the Flood land on Earth. The marine has some great dialogue and I chose to write about what he experienced that led him to how he was when you find him in game (very much like the final sentences in the story). I have never written a fictional story in a creative writing class before, only plays and poems. So, I thought I should try and focus around dialogue since that is what I am more familiar with. However, this is an extremely rough draft and as I am writing this sentence I am thinking of ways that I can change it up. Any and all feedback is welcome so please share your thoughts.
Questions
Where should I have shown more rather than tell?
Is the story confusing to follow?
More description/imagery?
Should I try and develop the characters more? If so, how? Which ones?
Confusing dialogue?
Parts that were entertaining?