He was sprinting up grey, cold stairs, hunted by something. His breathing was fast and heavy as he tripped and fell, cursing. As he picked himself up, he dropped his weapon down the stairs, and continued running up it. He fell again, swearing vehemently, and got to the summit, struggling to move in the hot, humid, heavy air that encased him. He pulled out the other gun, a slightly modified Desert Eagle, and crawled to his feet, in a pillar of light coming down from the ceiling above. Things scuttled around in the darkness as he clutched the weapon tight, and then everything went into silence. Even his own breathing seemed to die. One by one, sets of blinding white eyes appeared, making the shadows deepen. His grip on the weapon grew very tight, his knuckles white. Sweat was dripping off his skin as his eyes narrowed. More and more of the unnatural eyes appeared, focused on him. None made any move to attack. And then another set of eyes, with light brown irises, appeared, close to the silver sheen of a blade. He froze as he looked into the eyes; eyes with no humanity left in them. The owner of the eyes began walking forward, and he raised the gun to attack, but there was no bullet. The gun fell from his useless hands and he pulled out a knife. The figure continued walking, into the light. The human swallowed, as the knife hovered over his wrists. And then a gun clicked and fired.
Etrius.
Etrius awoke, inhaling loudly, sweat pouring off his skin. The darkness in the room felt overwhelming as he climbed out of bed and stumbled into his washroom. He tripped as he looked for the light switch, and it took him a few second to turn it on. He held his in his hands and walked a little steadier over to the sink, and then he gazed into the mirror. His pale skin was cover in a cold sheen of sweat. His hair was long and unkempt, and he had a five o'clock shadow which had been unshaven for a few days. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and peered at himself more closely in the mirror. The extremely dark green pupils of his eyes were dilated, and his irises were only a few shades lighter. This was a distinctive eye colour among humans, maybe even one of a kind.
He had repeatedly been having dreams of suicide or horrible deaths for the past few months, after he had taken up drinking Vodka again. He tried to think back, before the drinking, to when he had tried to hang himself. All because of the position he had been reduced to. Bitter thoughts and memories flooded through his mind as he remembered. He remembered only being disgraced by his CO, but the pain had gone now and in its place was carelessness.
He didn't care for anything or anyone. He had lost his parents at a young age, to murderers. More bitter memories came as he thought back. He couldn't even remember his parent's names. But he had run away from home, across several provinces, and the local Mounted Police reported him missing, but he had just gone. A week later, he turned up at the northernmost reaches of Yukon territory, where he was found outside, freezing cold, by an Inuit family who took him in and taught him how to hunt and live as they did.
It was nearly a year later when he was told his sister, Ja'mie, was also missing. He was approached soon after by a mysterious person who would only name himself as the General. The General persuaded him to start training in special forces. Etrius quickly conformed to combat and tactics and became a superior among his fellow soldiers, who were only too glad to follow him. Etrius was transferred into another special unit made up of three other seemingly 'unique' people; Beecher, Lloyd, and finally Boomer. The team gelled and complete several missions.
However, when Lloyd went missing, things went downhill from there. Etrius repeatedly argued with the General, until he was unfairly kicked out of the team. The team disbanded, and so did Etrius' life. He became bitter, knowing he had nothing to live for. As he was about to commit suicide, his sister turned up to stop him, so then he turned to drinking. And now these dreams haunted his sleep.
He waited for the dawn, got into an old tee, jeans, and a leather jacket, and left. Perhaps the lake air would clear his mind. However, as soon as he stepped through the door, he felt a heavy object connect with his skull. The last thing he saw was the cold, snow-covered ground rushing up to meet him, before blackness claimed his vision.
Etrius awoke in confusion, to see white walls. Chains bit into his wrists, and he got up in fury. The smell of his cell was too clean for it to be a regular prison. He scanned the walls for a sign of a door. It had been incorporated into the design, but he could still see it. Etrius stepped back as it opened and a guard entered. "You need to follow me, sir." Etrius reluctantly obliged, remaining in silence as he followed the guard through corridors. Guards and scientists walked around the ultra-clean place. Everything was too clean, too new. Was this some big government secret? Etrius though disdainfully.
The guard opened an oaken door into a dimly lit room, and Etrius walked in. The door shut and Etrius stood silently. And then a thick American accent spoke. "Ah, Etrius. Long time no see. Retirement made you soft or something?"
Etrius recognized the voice of the General immediately, and his mouth went into a thin line. "You do realize I could break these damned chains as easy as you're neck?" Etrius' tone was clipped; he could barely keep the contempt out of his voice. The General sighed inwardly, and said, "Yes, but they were to see if you'd co-operate or not." Etrius narrowed his eyes at where the General was sitting, behind a desk in shadows. Blinds covered the window to Etrius' right, filtering pale light through. The General's face was masked in shadow and he had a slowly smoking cigar in his right hand, documents under his left.
"What do you want? What the hell is this?" Etrius breathed slowly. "Same old Etrius, eh? Straight to the point...OK, I guess I'll level. I've been having some...problems, Etrius." "Is one of them yourself?" Etrius said sarcastically. The General beat down the taunt and said, "Ever since you left, there hasn't been a single man reliable for those missions you're notorious of; infiltration and escape."
Etrius shot a wintry glare at the general direction of his former CO. "You know I'm retired. I don't do this shit anymore." The General remained impassive. "You don't have much of a choice, Etrius."
"Oh, believe me, I do." His tone was heavy with emphasis.
"You are the only man in this one."
"This shit again?" Etrius said, remembering something.
"I'm serious, as always." The General stressed. "Do you believe in...different dimensions?" The General added. A silence hung between them, which the General shattered. "For a long time, theories of parallel universe have existed. These are places where the laws of physics and nature aren't necessarily the same as our Earth."
Etrius rolled his eyes and said, "Someone's been to crazy town..." but something caught in his mind, something about the way the General spoke. The General continued, ignoring Etrius' outward disdain.
"Last month, a team of Norwegian and American scientists discovered a way into a parallel dimension. This newly discovered universe is a dark, deserted place, and we don't know why, or what happened. After months of searching this...world, one helicopter spotted what appeared to be..." the General inhaled his cigarette and his pale blue eyes were lit for a second. "...A Castle." Etrius sighed dismissively. Castles were the ancient constructs of the British, French, German and Italian people, where they lived and died.
"The team, they never made it back out. They were Special Forces Recon team, and we received comms from one individual named Doctor Faustus, but the communication was distorted. So I recruited you to find out what exactly lies behind those walls...and to collect the Artifacts." Etrius exhaled. "I am not some goddamned archaeologist. Stop wasting my time." On the surface, Etrius wasn't interested at all. But deep inside him, something stirred. With the dreams he had suffered of late, he was also intrigued by what lay within the Castles. Even if it meant your own death? Etrius fell into silence.
"We don't have to fight over Earth's last natural resources. No one has struck oil for decades. Devastation is being spread, tension is snapping and humanity is suffering. Cities in the southern States and in the UK are flooded. Did you notice it was unnaturally cold, Etrius? The northern hemisphere is dropping in temperature as storms ravage the upper and lower atmosphere. People in Scandinavia are freezing to death in a matter of an hour. The Inuit and Tupi people are migrating south. And in the southern hemisphere, deserts are spreading and oasis' are drying up. Normal volcanoes are forming into super-volcanoes that are on the verge of erupting. Long dormant volcanoes are already spewing out insane amounts of lava already. Earth, is dying, Etrius." Etrius froze.
"My superiors are in the belief that an Ancient culture used the Castles to house a resource power, and this is why the land is so barren. This power is humanity's last hope." The General said quietly. "Your team will be brought in imminently, Leftenant Commander."