Breach in the Dark

A large half-crescent moon dotted the landscape before the forcefield surrounding High Charity. It was now open in the place where the Volatile Scarab's plasma beam had carved into it and half a circle formed the entrance into the dark. Voridus calmly tilted his head, gesturing to the gaping hole as the burning trees fell behind him. A squad of three brutes moved forward; the rest remained seated or standing by the assortment of Ghosts, Reavers, and Choppers they rode. They were the initial patrol sent to determine what artifacts were there to plunder. The trio consisted of two brutes wielding hammers flanking one who wielded a Spiker. They looked fearsome in their crimson and black armor. Horns protruded from their helms; one for the flankers accompanied by mouth guards, and two for the gunner, making them look more gruesome. The idea was to intimidate, and also to guard so none could easily target their faces from any angle.

Down into the dark they descended, the clunk of their armored feet against metal the only sound. The air became moist and sticky, and there appeared to be something floating in the air like dust particles. It was actually hot inside this place. Strangely, there seemed to be nothing but useless metal lying around. This ship had not been touched or disturbed since the end of the war. The atmosphere swirled toxic green as one kicked aside some of the more "worthless" parts with a clanking sound. Unnoticed, something that was immobile... moved. The shadows were constant in this place. The brutes carried no light sources with them. Despite not finding anything of value yet, they continued to look, for it was just a matter of time until they found something. High Charity had been the center of the Covenant and species from all over came to visit the "holy place" before its infestation and subsequent destruction. The capital-ship was enormous, so Voridus would not be surprised if it took them some time before they found plunder.

Tink. The spiker raised his weapon with a growl. That sound had not come from either of his companions. They scanned the shadows, hammers half raised, yet not brandished. A squeak or some bubbling, hissing sound. From behind a table. A sticky chorus of pattering across the floor. A hissing, shrieking thing raced at them. The first spike missed; the second and third got the spitting, squealing thing just as it reached the muzzle of the brute's weapon. The balloon-like creature, roughly the size of a human's torso, was pinned by the red-hot spike. It died instantly. The gunner nudged it to be sure. No reaction. All three chuckled nervously at the sudden surprise. So something had survived…after all this time... But it was nothing in the end. No monsters. The dark was getting to them. Atriox...

RRREAAAIEEEEKKKK!

The gunner growled and squinted at the curving, circular hallway to his left. Screeching, screaming, shrieking noises emanated from down it along with poison-yellow light. Then the hall to the right. More noises and light. Shadows began to dance on the walls from movement. A rustling chorus of limbs on the floor. The flankers brandished their gravity hammers. They saw nothing. All they heard was that horrible noise; while the gunner scanned for something to shoot. Where? Where?

Then he saw it and his eyes widened with unspeakable terror. His weapon arm sank down to his side and hung uselessly. All three took steps back out of fear, but were unable to look away. The gunner's weapon fell helplessly from his trembling hand. His mind had simply become overwhelmed by…fear; such overwhelming, terrible, infectious, fear. He…couldn't…they…

Sounds echoed up the entrance to the surface. Cries of panic, followed by yells of pain, cracking and snapping. Almost sounded like a fight. Voridus frowned at that and turned back towards the hole. What in the name of Dosiac was going on? The noise stopped. The silence that overwhelmed everything was nerve-breaking. The sun had risen now so that light was visibly shining on the entrance. What was happening down there? That was the thought on all minds.

A sound in the distance: dragging, sluggish footsteps; gasping, choked breathing. It sounded like one of the squad was coming back, but they were coming back far too slowly. Voridus squinted, and then grimaced at the figure. Mist pooled near the entrance, accompanied by a wave of moist heat, creating a disturbing atmosphere and shrouding the hole and blackness beyond. The stumbling figure looked almost like… A brute stepped forward to help his injured companion.

Clunk. "NO." Voridus had finally spoken, growled, barring passage with his left hand. All the brutes that were sitting rose to attention. The tone of their leader had awakened something inside all of them. He never sounded so dead serious as he did now; so grim.

The Jiralhanae that had stumbled back to the surface was now a living nightmare. His armor was breached, broken and cracked, and all could now see the truth of him. This was not one of their brothers, but a thing, a false imitation that could not conceal the ugly, terrifying reality of what it now was. The left arm ended in a three-fingered hand that was composed of resin-like substance or worse. The face and body were a living nightmare to behold. Grotesque, bloated, pulsing sacks and deformities covered the exposed skin on the infected brute. His left leg was covered in more of the gross mutations, pustules, and deformities, bent at an unnatural angle to the side with exposed bone. His face was half-hidden on the right side behind the disgusting mutations that had taken over. It sagged on the left side with the eye drooping atop tentacles the extended from underneath the socket.

All felt their hearts skip a beat in horror. All were standing now, hammer and gun-wielder, eyes fixated on the husk of their dead companion… but most of all on the darkness beyond. "Prepare yourselves," Voridus stated grimly placing his mouth-guard on his face, helmet extending to cover his head. KA-SNING! rang the blades of his left gauntlet, as they extended from their sheathed position. The Raiders backed up, weapons held in clenched hands. The twitching form before the entrance merely stood there. The ground began to shake. Then the thing that had been a brute screamed in an unnatural voice as the darkness behind it erupted with countless forms. Primal fear that had arisen inside all, now exploded.

The ground was instantly covered in grotesque shapes, balloon-like and spherical, all shrieking and squealing with horrific limbs flailing everywhere as the raiders desperately fought back. The Carbine-wielders struggled to bring their weapons to bear because the smaller parasites kept leaping at them. Voridus kicked one away, slashed another in two with a back-handed slice, swung around and clove another asunder. A Spiker kept firing as calmly as he could tracking a rolling form on the ground. It stayed just ahead of his shots and then "jumped" with an impossible leap into the air revealing an inhuman frame with false limbs.

Whatever this-this "abomination" was, it was not what was expected of the parasite even by its unnatural standards. It possessed a bulbous "body", supported by two long legs, and two arms ending in tentacles. It was humanoid in a faint sense. The right "arm" lashed out and snapped the single whip around the Spiker's left arm causing him to drop his weapon by pained reflex as the whip tightened. He growled and attempted to pull away. The two engaged in pulling against the other on the swarmed, writhing ground. The abomination held its ground, and a companion came flying out of nowhere and slid on the ground catching the immobile brute with its own whip on the right leg. He went down and was instantly overwhelmed by the smaller parasites as the bigger ones dragged him away.

WH-SPLAG! Voridus clubbed another of the larger forms from behind him with a backwards right fist as it charged. It flopped on to the ground and he crushed its glowing, bulbous head under his foot staining his armor with fluorescent goo. Another of those agile things had grabbed a brute's hammer in mid-swing and was straining against him. These things seemed hell-bent on pinning down or immobilizing targets for the smaller ones to infect. Voridus launched one of the blades from his gauntlet and the abomination's whip hand was severed. The hammer-wielder gave a roar and brought the weapon in a large, over-arching, one-handed swing that slammed it on the ground. The space within a 4.5 meter radius was cleared by the crackling blast of energy emitted scattering the forms around his feet, along with his his assailant. Impossibly, the injured abomination righted itself in midair and lashed out with its left limb, this one containing many whips like an untwisted collection of vines. It seized the brute by the head and gave a vicious pull causing him to groan in pain as his neck was yanked back at an unnatural angle.

Voridus had spent another blade and re-primed his gauntlet, only for his left arm to be seized by one of the abominations, and then another got him from the right. The left assailant used a tree for an anchor, while both pulled mightily against his arms holding him immobile and helpless. He looked and saw his men being overwhelmed. His soldiers were desperately fighting in complete disarray amidst the squealing, shrieking mass of parasites that kept trying to breach their armor to get at the flesh beneath. If one brute went down, the other attempted to get him back up before he was swarmed, yet the parasites were being aided by these massive, humanoid things that were isolating them. Two more brutes went down and the smaller Infectors were upon them, crawling all over.

"AAARRRRHHHH!" With a mighty roar, Voridus gave a vicious pull with his left arm unbalancing the one attacker holding him. Blades sprouted from the gauntlet at the rear near his elbow. He thrust back impaling the one and rotating as he did so to throw the other on the ground freeing his right arm. He stomped with vicious force on its head sending more yellow, fluorescent liquid spraying on to the ground. He primed his gauntlet and continued to hack and slash alongside those still standing. Those few Raiders that remained of the original pack fought on, desperation fueling their every move. Primal fear and desperation. And all the while, the writhing mass spread out from the hole and poured out across the landscape, blanketing it like their name. The sun rose upon the great nightmare of all creation released anew once more. Desperation and ancient fear were always left in its wake. The Flood had returned. All of creation was in peril once again; and soon the Ark itself would fall.

. . . . . .

"I? I am a monument to all of your sins."

"Do not be afraid. I am peace; I am salvation."

"I am a timeless chorus. Join your voice with mine, and sing victory everlasting."