This day seems to be the same; they come in and take one of us; then return them, but with a few bruises here and there. I always hear the rumors that spill into our little cage, forerunner artifacts and other such things of that nature, and whenever they start circulating around, one of us is taken. I guess they take them to the artifact or whatever it is but I wouldn't know, I haven't been taken yet.
I've lived in this cage my entire life and other than the rumors we talk about or a few old games we play, nothing ever happens here. I usually sit on a makeshift picnic table, away from the makeshift house's and away from the people. It's near the door were others are taken but surprisingly, they never notice me, they always go for the others.
A few rattles and insults from above echoed through our cage, our home. A few grunts and jackals always came by and shouted out insults in there harsh language. For the past few weeks its become a regular and annoying thing, some even yelled back in there language, usually scaring them off, but we usually pay them no mind.
A scream erupted from one of the others, a horrific scream, one that was dipped deep in crazy and insanity. It startled me for a second but I laughed quietly at this.
"Another one down" I say with a silent hiss.
When I mean I've been here my whole life, I said my whole life, I've never left this cage, and some have been here much longer than then I have.
The screamer started up again, it's scream started getting wilder and louder, hurting my ears slightly, but this time it sounded different.
It sounded feral.
I looked up from the table and looked around for that screamer. This is bad, if that screamer finally cracked then it's going to be a dangerous in here until they come in and take it away. The feral scream rang out again but this time it sound like there were more of them. I narrowed my eyes stood up slowly, I looked towards the number of small makeshift houses in search of the screamers, but I saw nothing.
Wait a second, I don't see anyone, where are they? None of the others were out in the open and the sounds of the screamers stopped completely, a sudden sound of a squeaky hinge rang out filling the air in a eerie silence. I have a bad feeling about this.
I moved away from the table and slowly sidestepped towards the door were the others are always taken and hoped that the screamers out there will hopefully stay back.
As I reached the door there was no more noises or squeaky hinges to be heard, only silence. A shiver goes down my spine, something is watching me, something... big. The suns light started to go away, fading slowly until darkness was all that remained, another shiver went down my spine.
The door behind me was the only illumination in this courtyard now, bathing everything around me in a purple glow. We're probably leaving which ever star system in the universe we were in and that always brings darkness.
I slowly raised my hand up towards the inside of my jacket, a unnatural scream echoed from the darkness. I quickly felt around my jacket in search of something I've worked on since I was little, I smile triumphantly. I griped my hand around the handle and with one firm pull, I pulled out a eight inch knife.
The knife is curved and jagged, the perfect junk knife.
More inhuman screams erupted from the darkness and the feeling like they were watching me increased.
I took a deep breath, and got in a ready stance.
"Hello" I yell out in to the darkness, hoping for a human response.
A deep growl emits from the darkness, and that growl turns into a laugh, I freeze up in fear and back up slightly.
"Goodbye" the deep voice said with that deep growl making me shiver. Several screams emitted from the darkness making me tense up, but before I could react, several spike like things flew out of the darkness.
I screamed in pain and dropped my knife as they punctured my body, I staggered back and slammed into the door behind me. A pain I've never felt before spread throughout my body making me gasp and spas. My eyes were filled with fear and pain as I looked out into the darkness, what is that. My legs couldn't take the pain anymore and I slid to the ground with a painful scream
I whimpered and closed my eyes tight as I endured the pain, but it felt like these spikes were... something else. My body was becoming stiff, and harder to move, but I braved the pain and slowly and painfully looked down at my body, my eyes widened even more.
There was at least two dozen...maybe more, brownish spikes sticking out of my arms, legs, and torso, my blood already forming a slight pool around me and bleeding through my clothes. I couldn't see much, but the skin I could see around the spikes was a ghastly yellowish brown with ooze already coming out.
I screamed again as a wave of pain pulsed through my body, that bright crimson blood came out of my mouth and I could feel it coming out of my ears. What is this. I continued to scream as the pain continued to pulse, It felt like I was being cut up slowly with an energy sword. My screams continued to pour from me as my bloody tears cloaked my face in red.
Suddenly, I fell back.
Time seemed to slow as I fell backwards, but not slow enough. My head slammed against the hard metal floor, silencing my screams. My head felt dizzy and surprisingly, the pain was gone, but as I looked up towards the ceiling with my blurry eyes, I was surprised to see a face looking right back at me. It looked quite familiar, as I stared into it's eyes, but the pain from before returned and It was to much for me to handle.
I screamed one last time, then my vision went black. The sound of shouts and plasma shots raided my ears, but only for a second for that to faded away.
_Covenant_Hierarchs_
A grim and depressing mood filled the entire camber, all three of them knew that the loss of the humans on high charity was a loss beyond any other, a loss so high that it made truth regret his actions in the past. Especially when there is only one left.
Like before, all the ships in there fleets that carried humans, all of them were killed, by the flood.
Ever since the first few instances we've watched the humans closely for any types of infection, but we never seemed to seem to catch it till it's to late.
The flood somehow found a way onto our ships and they went directly for the humans, they didn't infect anything else, not even the rats. The flood somehow found a way to lie dormant inside them, and until mostly all of them were infected, that's when they showed themselves, forcing us to kill them.
We were just going to move the humans to a safer and more secure location here on high charity, but as soon as we opened the door, a human feel to the ground with spikes scattered throughout it's body. It was surprisingly still alive so we had it moved to a high security medical facility to get treated due to it being in the early stages, but as soon as we heard the growls, we knew it was to late for the others.
The flood was dealt with of course, even finding a small gravemind which was thoroughly dealt with, but now, we only have one connection with the forerunners.
One human left.
I looked up from the ground to see Light and Darkness with equally concerned expressions on there face, both clueless on what to do. This will surly affect our covenant and when it comes to the human, we can't be so careless as have before. The right arm of my chair suddenly light up, a call from the medical facility, both light and darkness looked at me with hope in there eyes and I nodded back at them with hope in mine.
"Lets hope our human survived" I stated hopefully.
I waved my hand and a second later a hologram of High Charity's top medical officer appeared between us, it's a Sangheili surprisingly, a disgraced one at that, but that did not matter at the moment.
"How is the human progressing" I asked as calmly as I could, the edge evident if you listened close enough. He didn't answer at first making it seem like an eternity before he would answer, then he smiled.
"It lives"
The words reverberated through my head in slow motion and before I could stop myself, I sighed in relief, I looked over to see Light and Dark with relieved expressions of there own. I took one last breath and looked back at the doctor.
"Thank you exo, now whats it's condition" I asked with concern.
Exo's face seems to do a flip flop at this question making all three of us to narrow our eye's, he saw this and quickly explained.
"The infection already infected it's right leg and left arm to the point of no return and if I didn't amputate them we would have lost it, I was barley able to stop it from spreading elsewhere" he said nervously.
Darkness slammed his arm against his armrest "will it recover" he yelled out angrily, exo seemed to get more nervous but wasn't afraid to answer.
"yes it will, but it will take years before the affects of the flood wear off" he said nervously.
Light spoke up this time "is there ways to counteract it" light asked hopefully.
Exo nodded slowly "yes there is, but the material I need to produce it is very rare, even among all our planets" he said slowly
I smiled "you will get your materials exo, we will make sure of that, but if this human dies while in your care, the blame will fall upon you" I said warningly.
Exo nodded quickly with worry spread throughout his face "yes holy hierarchs" he said respectfully, and with that the hologram dissipated.
I looked towards light and dark with a smile on my face "we have much to discuss, but for now, our connection with the forerunners stay's strong".