It had all started as a normal day, just a happy carefree fucking day. Birds were singing, waterfall splashing, and Christian being a dick. I never thought I'd miss the blue sky; it'd always been so plain. The once white puffy clouds were replaced with thick smoke. Black soot swallowed up everything. Flames licked at the forests edge, trees slowly crumbling under the heat. The heavy green armor splashed with red, it had collected soot and dirt. Making awful patterns on my previously clean suit. I tipped my head back until it hit the rock there. Shut my eyes trying to retrace my steps.

It was all gone so fast.

Three Hours Previous…

"Matthew! Get up! Command is calling soon!" Christian hollered, he threw a box of crackers at me and with a grumble and a grunt I rolled out of my bed. Stretched out well rested limbs before going back to put on my suit.

"The famous, 'we're only checking on you once a month' call." I mumbled back, after a few minutes my suit was on and in place. Snatched my helmet up from the bottom of my bed and began out of the bunker and across the walkway.

Christian shoved my arm, "It's an important call! Get your helmet on! This is important!"

"It's just a grocery list you know." I felt over my dark green helmet. A zombie sticker resting on the back. Pulled it over my head and latched it into place. Christian ran ahead in a huff going through the teleporter up to the command deck. Or whatever you'd call it. I followed after. Inside the buzzing room was the whole team. Four others not including myself, our leader Jay, our medic Christian, communicator Tim, sniper Bradley, and then there was me. I wasn't really, all that good at any one thing. They just needed one more person on the team. Jay always told me I was a good guard though. Tim said I was on the team because everyone else was boring as fuck.

The big computer screen lit to life. The face of our commander came on screen. Solid as stone, as always. Guy was a hard ass.

"Team Gorge 51, I trust that everything is going well there?"

"Yes commander," Answered Jay, "All defenses are up and running. Perimeter secured with no disturbances all month."

It was the same deal each time. I'd only seen an Elite once, and that was back in training. There had never been even a small disturbance in our little base. Covenant never cared to come here. It was probably because the only thing we had was some weird thing in the basement, information on where to find a key to a different building. How dumb was that? Five people to protect information. We doubled as a look-out for incoming ships as well. Even then, we only saw a Phantom once. It was a load of shit too; we called it in expecting to get some action and waiting to pull the trigger on our dusted guns. Guess what happened? The Phantom was being piloted by Spartans back to base. False alarm. Our existence on the coast was overlooked. We didn't need to be here. We should be out fighting them, being useful.

"Good-bye Commander." The screen went black; I hadn't even noticed the conversation drawing to a close. Probably because, you know, it's the same damn bullshit? Jay turned back to us and began walking out.

"We have to take a stock on the food, if we don't put through the order by tomorrow, then we wont be getting any next shipment." He nodded towards me, "You can patrol the base outside while we're working. Ok?"

"Yessir." I gave a half-hearted salute before grabbing a gun I didn't need, heading outside. Patrol meant walking around in a circle until they were done. I'd personally rather count food. After walking around our small complex twice, I sat back on some sandbags and set down my gun. Tilted my head back to look up at the bright blue sky; puffy white clouds floating by and making absurd shapes. It was a nice day today. Decided what better way to waste it then a nap? So I set a clock inside my helmet and got into a comfortable position. Eyes slid shut and dreamland overcame me.

In those dreams something was wrong though. How dark it was. How depressing. Awoke sometime later to Bradley's voice calling over the helmet's communication device.

"Hey, guys! There's something in the sky! It looks almost like a star, but I don't know."

I forced myself back up to my feet, eyes went up and all I could see was sky. So I walked around to the other side of our base as the others all chimed in.

"It's coming in fast." Bradley said.

"Hey, I don't know if it's a star Brad-" Jay began.

"It's on fire! It's a ship!" Christian interrupted.

"There's a smaller one beside it, a spec, can you see it? Is it ours?" Tim questioned.

Finally I was on the other side of the base. Eyes locked on this ship, red flames sparked up from its hull. Left a dark streak behind it. It was coming in our direction. I focused on it and finally I saw the color of the ship. Deep purple.

"It's Covenant! It's Covenant! Get to your stations!" I shouted into the helmet. I couldn't tell if they were getting to their stations or not. Because the first thing I realized was that my gun was back by the sandbags. I dashed back and ripped it up before going back around. It'd been a little too late though. The ship was on fire, burning out, crashing. It pummeled down and by some odd case of bad luck, barreled into our base. It had all happened so slowly. Yet, so fast? It was hard to piece together. All I knew was it came down and hit us. There was an explosion and I flew back and hit a tree. Had the wind knocked out of me and more. Darkness crept in and I was out. I didn't know how long. When I regained consciousness there was a ringing in my ears and a massive pounding in my skull. Eyes flew back to the base, which was in ruins. The Phantom in pieces, flames melting not only their hull but our once strong standing home. What was once living on the ship was now burning and lying dead. Burning gore. A grunt had been thrown from the side of the ship and impaled on a rock. Its insides slowly crawling down the clean rock. Smoke filled the air, crackles of the fire, otherwise silence. Pushed myself to my feet, holding onto my gun tightly.

"Hello, hello? Can anyone hear me? What happened?" all I got back on my end was static though. No one was picking up. "Hello? Jay? Tim? Hello?"

"Matthew..?" Called Christian back after a few more cries of desperation.

"Hey! Where, where are you? I'm outside, where are you?" I asked, desperate for Christian to be safe. I didn't want to be alone.

"I'm done for…I can't…fuh-find my legs. Ha, ha… I uh-always, thought ya… were-" He cut off, just never finished. I watched more of the rubble left behind collapse before he was cut off. Christian was dead. When the fire calmed down a bit I charged into the safer bits of our base. I couldn't find anyone. The control room was gone, bunker missing a chunk of it, and, most of the base leading down was trashed. There was another way down though. So, I wasn't too concerned. I crawled out through a window to get outside and saw a spec of blue out in the grass. My eyes wouldn't let me see the blood leading to it. All I saw was the blue. Feet crashed over and I fell to my knees. Reached down and lifted up Jay's blue helmet. Jay was still inside. He let out a spurt of blood that fell on my armor. I dropped his head and scrambled away, crawling back to my feet and fleeing. Didn't stop until I reached the outskirts of the woods. There I turned back to watch the flames swallow everything. I pressed up against a boulder and slid down to the ground. I missed the blue sky.