Chapter 1

I was on a routine patrol somewhere in central Africa. The command said the covenant wouldn't be attacking New Mombassa since it was wiped out. I knew there would be no point, I remembered that day. I was in the outer suburbs and heard about a small fleet but I wasn't worried. It then got so blurred as if my memory was tampered with that day. I remember a ship flying above the city and hundreds of phantoms instantly appearing everywhere. With building constantly falling and cars being thrown I thought it was more like hell than Earth. We had no idea which city the covenant would attack but Mombassa was the only one even touched. Only a few thousand were able to escape before the air was too filled with pelicans and phantoms. Between our bombs and their fire I didn't know which side was causing more damage. I was one of the lucky ones who got into a pelican and was sent to a safe house for the surviving civilians. Everyone who stayed in the city died, either by the initial attack, the blast the covenant released when they retreated, or the covenant that stayed to finish the job.

I looked around, there were only ten marines with me. They too were kicking in the dust or toying with their guns. I sat down and pulled out a deck of cards, I set up a small game of solitaire. I knew that if I played for awhile it would help me relax but I had the feeling I could never relax. Earth had just settled down but I knew that something big was coming, good or bad I would've gladly welcomed it. I ended my first game in a few minutes but the next one took a lot longer and the sun was fully covered up by clouds. Rain had been a very common thing lately and I just thought it was the war messing things up in the atmosphere. I didn't really care about the rain, it always calmed me down and helped me think through things a lot better. Unfortunately, all the rains been doing lately is reminding me of Janet. Janet was the reason I hated leaving Mombassa, she lived in the suburbs that I was protecting. No matter what I did I couldn't forget her, I fell asleep wishing she was beside me and I wake up willing myself to go back to sleep so I can continue my dreams which are always about Janet.

I laid on the dirt and rock and was pleased to feel drops of rain bounce of my body. I wanted to fall asleep right there but I knew I would just be woken up and disturbed in the middle of a great dream by the other marines. I found that even though the memories of Mombassa were blurred I could still remember all those times I snuck out of my post and was welcomed into Janet's house for dinner and a few movies. I remember when I accidentally fell asleep and the captain threatened to transfer me out of Mombassa. Even though I couldn't sneak off to Janet's house I was still able to talk to her. One time she even came out to my guard tower and snuck up behind me. After kissing her for a few minutes she sat down beside me and we talked until dawn started to creep up on us and she was forced to sneak out before my replacement came. All those stolen nights kept me from seeing what was really going on around me. I've heard about soldiers who become to reliant on an object and when it disappears they're driven crazy because they can't cope. I finally understood how but this was no object, it was Janet's great smile, soft hazel eyes, lips that always seemed inviting, and her light brown hair that always smelled too amazing to believe. I always wished I was a high enough rank to figure out where the rest of the camps were. The one I was shipped to only contained thirty elderly couples shipped from the senior centers in New Mombassa.

The rain was getting heavier but I couldn't get up, something was holding me down. There was a strange pressure on my chest when I looked down I saw my shirt sinking as if there was a large foot on it. I was looking above me when a body started to materialize on top of me. It was an elite in black armor brandishing a fearsome looking energy sword. He smiled and raised his sword to strike me down. I quickly pulled my dagger out and shoved it into his thigh where the armor was thinnest. A quick growl and the elite backed off and pulled the dagger out. Blue blood poured onto the wet sand and I decided to capitalize on the moment. I dove over where I left my gun and lifted up an 8-gauge shotgun. I blasted the elites chest and watched him fall. The powerful shell had pierced straight through his armor and hit where a human heart would be. I walked up and kicked the body, it was dead.

I looked around and was horrified by what I saw. Elites were materializing behind every soldier and slaughtering them all. I grabbed a battle rifle and started shooting the nearest elite. Soldiers were starting to realize what was happening and they were attacking the invisible killers. I quickly saw that the rain was bouncing off the elites and was making them easier to see. Nevertheless, the elites were still able to slaughter many soldiers. We were so close to losing when a warthog jumped over the nearest sand dune and drove by the elites. I could see the gunner firing into the mass of invisible beasts and a few fell. I was able to use the distraction to toss a grenade into the monsters. The shock sent two flying and the shrapnel killed another one. The warthog drove out of sight and the elites turned on us. I started opening up on the elites along with the few remaining marines. They started getting closer and when they were close enough to lunge for us the warthog came back and run over the remaining ones. Another warthog pulled up and I saw it was a transport. I jumped in the passenger seat and turned to the driver.

"What's going on?" I shouted over the rain. The driver started to follow the assault warthog as it jumped another dune.

"The camps were attacked last night and the ones that survived are being taken to the safest place we can think of!" he was shouting over the rain but it was still hard to hear what he said. I looked up and noticed three pelicans flying over them. You could only see them because of the large spotlights at the front which were on full blast and pointed towards the ground.

"Where is this place?" I asked rather quietly and when the driver turned to me I repeated it much louder. He shrugged and pointed at the front warthog.

"He's the only one that knows," he said and he went back to driving. I sank down into the seat and thought of who had survived the attacks. I soon thought of Janet and wondered if she would've survived. She was tough, she probably did. As I thought this I realized that I was going to the same place that she was.

I was thinking of how we could steal some more good memories out of this war when a pelican above us was illuminated in a green blast. As I looked up I saw five purple trails carving through the sky. The back hatches of the two remaining pelicans must have opened because a few seconds later two machine guns were firing into the air. A purple explosion meant that one of the banshees had been hit. The gunner on the warthog in front of us started firing into the air as well but he was quickly forced to duck behind the gun when a ball of plasma almost hit his shoulder. One of the passengers on the transport had a rocket launcher and he fired it into the air. The banshees scattered but the rocket pieced through the rain and swerved to chase one of them down. After a short wait a blast signaled that the rocket hit its target. The three remaining banshees flew away and the marines cheered. The two pelicans dropped the loads they were carrying and dropped the men it needed to fill them up.

A few minutes later there were two more assault warthogs with us and we were charging through the sand. The only opposition we met was a very unlucky group of brutes that were mowed over and we had fled the scene in a matter of minutes. I was rather sleepy by the time we crossed five more dunes and I silently let myself doze off. I was hoping I could slide into some of my amazing dreams but I was completely shocked at what was awaiting me.

I was walking into a camp and was happy to see who was there. I was rushing through looking for a checkup that could tell me where Janet was I looked for hours but was unable to find anything except for marines and survivors I had no will to meet. When I was just about to give up looking I heard a lady counting people.

"1-2-3-4- where's Janet?" the lady said as she turned from face to face. I perked my head up in interest.

"She was killed when we were running towards the van," a man said in a shaky voice. I quickly jumped up and ran over to the people.

"Are you talking about this Janet?" I asked as I held up a picture of Janet. The lady who was counting surveyed the picture through glasses and then looked straight into my face and nodded.

"Are you family of hers?" the lady asked while not separating her gaze from mine. Without thinking I nodded and the lady's eyes started to tear up.

"I'm so sorry, she was a very sweet woman," the lady said as I backed away and ran toward a bed. Before I reached the bed everything turned black and I had an odd feeling in my gut. The air started to come back and a totally different scene started to assemble itself.

I was in a church filled with men in tuxedos and women in black dresses. I saw a wooden coffin with gold handles and a black lid. The priest was standing behind a podium with a golden cross on it. I desperately looked around to find out who's funeral it was and I soon saw a picture. It was, of course, a picture of Janet but the picture itself looked familiar. I pulled the picture of Janet out that was in my pocket and saw that it was an exact copy. The picture showed me and her standing beside each other and smiling into the camera. I remember now that it was my brother who took the picture and developed it for us. That was another reason for keeping the picture because my brother died two days after he developed this photo. I could feel tears stinging my eyes so I quickly looked up at the priest.

"Let us now pray for the soul of Janet but also for the man in the picture for he was shot yesterday in a conflict with the infamous covenant. May there rest in peace in our lords paradise and may they stay locked in eternal love," I could clearly hear what he was saying but I couldn't believe it. As cheers of amen roared throughout the crowd I jumped to my feet in disbelief. The red carpets of the church were turning to lava that was glowing and the preachers black cloaks soon turned into fur. He sprouted black wings and his legs quickly turned into hooves. Horns could be seen on top of his head and his skin turned a fiery red.

"Welcome to hell!" he roared as the grievers in the funeral soon turned into tortured souls reaping their punishments in eternal damnation. I looked around and Janet was standing beside me. I tried to touch her just so I could see she was real. I found she was solid and I looked into her eyes. They were the same shade but they seemed distant. I hugged her and my hands suddenly went through her. I looked into her face and saw that it was a silvery color. She was crying and I couldn't stand it. When I reached my hand up to brush the tears away my hand went through her. Her white face looked right at me and I looked into her eyes which were getting hard to see because she was fading away. I could feel myself sobbing but I couldn't stop. I had no need because she was all that mattered and she was slipping away from me.

"How could you do this to us," she said through a shrill voice that hurt my ears. I tried to stop crying so I could see her better but the tears kept coming.

"I'm sorry!" I screamed over the tortured voices of the departed souls. All I cared about was her and she was leaving me.

"I tried my whole life to stay with you and now because of you we're spending eternity separated," she said coldly, I tried to yell at her. I wanted nothing more for her to know how much I loved her but before the words came to my mouth she was gone. My knees gave out and I fell to the charred ground. She was gone and I couldn't do anything about it. Never again could I see her face. As soon as this thought rushed into my mind I jumped to my feet and dug through my pockets. I was still wearing my tuxedo so the picture must be there.

However, what I pulled out was not the picture I expected. I looked down and saw a horrid scene. A soldier was laying on his back with burn marks down his body. His shirt had fallen off from the massacre that happened to his body. I thought this was my own body but when I looked down I saw my brothers face, twisted into a look of pure agony. I quickly through the picture into a boiling red lake but soon two more appeared beside me. I grabbed them and tore them to shreds. I felt a weight drop into my pocket and when I reached in there and pulled it out their were four pictures in my hand. I gasped and dropped them to the ground. Soon hundreds were falling out of the sky and everywhere I looked I could see my brothers face in pure pain.

I sat up and hit the edge of my head on the dashboard of a warthog. I was still on my way to the camp and the driver was looking at me.

"You okay?" he asked, I looked at him and nodded with relief. Then a horrible thought hit me, what if she was dead.