AN: Thanks for the great reviews guys. :D This thing's going to be about fourty chapters, so you have plenty to look forward to.
And yes, Carlos is an asshole.
The Allegiance skimmed through the water, looking almost ghostly in the midnight fog. It was commanded by a crew of twenty, mostly engineers and security. The red paint adorning its side only added to the monstrous look of the fairly large boat. Out of the silence, a storm came, a mighty storm filled with shearing bolts of lightning and deafing thunder. The waves began to gnash and tear at the Alleigiance, with lightning landing powerful and crippling blows to the stern and port of the ship. Fires spread along the inner decks from the breaches in the useless boat.
Claire was woken from her sleep in the crew quarters, as were the others sleeping in the quarters. Screams abound as the ship tilted suddenly, flinging cabinets and people backwards and off balance. Claire hung onto her bunk as she desperately tried to wake Leon, whose sleeping head was resting on her lap.
"Leon, wake up! Leon! Damn it, wake up!" She yelled, shaking his shoulders frantically.
Leon woke up with a start, looking around at his surroundings and realizing what was happening.
He grabbed Claire and shouted over the sound of the storm outside, " What's going on?" Claire shook her head, " I don't know! But we need to get out of here! Look!" She pointed to the fire that was now spreading into the crew quarters. Leon looked over at Chris and Jill, and then to the fire extinguisher on the wall. "Grab that and give it to me," Leon said.
Chris grabbed the fire extinguisher in a quick, fluid motion and tossed it over to Leon, who caught it effortlessly. He backed up a few steps, and promptly doused the fire with extinguishing fluid. Leon dropped the extinguisher and began talking, " Alright, we'll go to the lifeboats, and get out of here. The ship's sinking, and we can't risk being on it when it goes down."
" Who the hell made you leader, Mr. Agent?" Chris objected. Leon opened his mouth to retort, but Claire replied, "Listen to him, Chris. He knows what he's doing." Chris became silent.
Leon pulled on his pants and shirt and so did Claire. They grabbed their weapons hurriedly, knowing that at any moment the ship could go down. They exited out the door into a long hallway, which had red emergency lights down the corridor. It was eerily silent except for the intermittent blare of the alarms. Claire held close to Leon, gun aimed forward. After they had confirmed the coast was clear, they signaled for Chris and Jill to follow.
Jill was the last one out. She looked at the sleeping form of Carlos in his own bed. Should she wake him up to help him? She moved toward him, and reached an arm forward. She held it over his face, until she pulled her hand back and decided against helping him. He was an asshole anyway.
They proceeded down the long hallway, shocked by the huge holes in the hull of the ship as they proceeded. The air was dusty, and it smelled of fresh corpses, and something else that was familiar, but not quite indentifiable.
The ship's floor rose upward at a steep 45 degree angle. Leon managed to leap onto the bottom step of a staircase leading to the top deck with a grunt. Claire grabbed onto his foot, and Chris grabbed onto Claire's, and Jill onto Chris'.
They were in a precarious situation, the corridor was quickly filling with water, and if they had to hang onto each other for a little while longer, they would fall and die. "Shit," Leon grunted, "This ain't easy..." Leon futilely tried to pull them up, to no avail.
"Not the way I planned to die," Jill muttered, mostly to herself than to anyone else.
"It's not the way you're going to die," Chris assured her.
"You got that right, steroids," a familiar voice said.
It was Carlos.
Carlos grabbed Leon's hand and grunted as he pulled them up the metal staircase, just as an emergency light burst into dozens of tiny shards next to him, some of them digging into his arm. Slowly, painfully, Carlos pulled them to safety. He was wearing a combat vest and had an assault rifle in his hands. His hair was partially burnt on one side, and his arm was full of glass, but he was otherwise alright.
Jill was shocked. She had left him to die... "Where'd you come from? I thought you were right behind us?" Jill exclaimed.
"You didn't think that. You left me behind because of what happened at Racoon, right?" Carlos told her.
"Woah, woah, what happened at Racoon? Why did you leave him behind, Jill?" Chris questioned in a rather confused manner.
Carlos shrugged. "I'll explain later. We gotta go, or we're gonna die."
The group questioned no more and ran after Carlos, supplies firmly in hand. The ship was still moving and shifting erratically, occasionally knocking our heroes off balance. The rain soaked their clothes, and they moved faster, dodging lightning and crates sent flying by the wind. The boats were near.
Leon jumped down onto the orange lifeboat first. The others followed in quick succession.
Chris noticed something strange. "None of the boats have been used! We should wait for survivors!"
Leon replied, " If they aren't here now, there aren't going to be any!"
Leon cut the rope and the lifeboat fell onto the surface of the waves, rocking to and fro with the roaring, salty breath of the ocean. The squad watched as the Allegiance became smaller and smaller, and as it sank into the depths completely.
After a while, Claire asked the question that was on everyone's minds, but which no one dared to speak. "How are we going to get back after we save Sherry and destroy the facility?"
No one had an answer to that.
They remained silent for a long while, watching night turn into morning, and the sun shone on their predicament. Jill chewed absently on a candy bar, uncomfortably aware that Chris was staring at her.
Chris broke the silence by shouting, " LAND HO!" as a distant island came into view. There was a flurry of activity as everyone got up to look at the island ahead. "Thank god," Carlos exclaimed.
The island got closer and closer until they were in shallow enough water to walk the rest of the way. They stepped onto land and their good mood dampened as they realized they were trapped here. They unhappily shook out their wet guns and damp clothes. There was no turning back now. They had to complete the mission, and figure out how to get back when it finally came up.
For now, this was their only option. Forward.