Blake felt relief swell within him as he spied Trent and another man clad in bloodied, ballistics combat armor. They were standing outside of a storage chamber. That relief began to fade, however, as Blake came closer and began to smell something truly horrific. He closed his suit's vents and a second later the hiss of his own personal oxygen supply filtering into his suit sounded. The smell lingered, however, as he, Caldwell and Connant came closer. They closed the gap between them and came to stand next to Trent and his survivor.

"So, what's up?" Blake asked nervously.

"Something's wrong," Trent replied flatly. "That smell...I've never smelled anything like it. And yet it's familiar. Something to do with the Flood, I can tell you that much. The fourth stationary survivor is inside here. Be ready." Blake nodded and raised his battle rifle. Caldwell and Connant were silent beside him. The five of them approached the door, which was large and closed. Trent hit the access button and the door slid open.

The room beyond was revealed. It swam in an awful green mist that obscured vision and gave the room an oddly muted feel. Connant and the Marine were driven back, coughing violently, by the green mist. Blake, Trent and Caldwell were protected inside their suits. Trent moved forward, heedless, even as Connant began vomiting violently behind him, back out in the corridor. Blake surveyed the room and stared on in horror.

They had come to a mess hall, a broad room taken up mostly by tables and benches bolted to the floor at mathematical intervals. Everything seemed to be covered in a disgusting, cloying green goo. It dripped from the ceilings, covered the lights so that the room was very dim and ran down the walls. It pooled on the floor and obscured the details of the room. Most horrifically of all, however, were the walls. They were covered with what had once been people.

Grotesque caricatures of human beings were pinned to the wall, suspended by the awful green substance. Almost all of them looked beyond the pale of saving. Their features were twisted in a way to resemble Flood Combat Forms, their limbs malformed. Only one sound broke the awful quiet of the mess hall. It was a soft whimpering, almost crying. Trent, Blake and Caldwell slowly approached the last survivor in the room.

He looked barely human. One of his eyes had clouded over almost completely with blood, the other was contracted almost to encompass the entire eye. His teeth had points and odd protrusions and bulges pushed out against the skin on his cheeks and jaw. He was almost completely covered in the green substance, leaving only his head exposed. It lulled gently from one side to another as he moaned in forsaken pain.

"Hey," Trent said softly, slinging his rifle and touching the man's face. "Hey, stay with me," he muttered. Some of the incoherency seemed to lift and the unclouded eye focused slowly onto Trent, Blake and Caldwell.

"Who're you?" he mumbled, his voice harsh but faint.

"Rescue team...what the hell happened here?" Trent replied. The man chuckled. It was a very ugly sound.

"They came...from the surface...overran us. Then they...took...some of us. Did things to us. Don't know what. Something not normal for Flood. I...too far gone...kill me, please." His head leaned forward again, as though the strain of holding it up was too much.

"What did they do?" Trent asked, urgency in his voice. The man shook his head gently, still looking at the floor.

"Don't know. Can't remember. Kill me." Trent sighed quietly, hesitated for just a moment, then pulled his pistol out and shot the man in the head. He convulsed once, then went slack. Trent sighed quietly.

"This...looks new," Blake said, shifting his focus to the nightmares that hung from the walls.

"Yeah, it is," Trent said quietly, looking around now, too. "I've taken on about three dozen separate instances with the Flood and I've reviewed everything there is to know about them. No one has encountered anything like this. It's bad. Very bad." Blake slowly approached one of the more twisted and transformed creatures.

It looked like a Combat Form, but...leaner, more gaunt, like it could move much faster than a regular one. And the face...he shuddered. Even by Flood standards these things were disgusting and terrifying.

"We're going to have to kill them all. If I had to guess, I'd say this was some kind of new form of incubation. The Infection Forms can burrow and transform in a matter of minutes, and to be sure, what they produce is certainly lethal. But we've all seen the Pure Forms. They take longer. These things might be a cut above the Pure Forms...or an offshoot...or something else entirely. Whatever the case, I'd rather not find out."

At that moment, almost as if one cue, the eyes of the one Blake was studying snapped open. They were completely black in nature, almost like staring into black holes, the utter absence of light. The thing issued a horrid shriek and began thrashing about violently. Blake cried out, brought his gun up and put three rounds through its head. Its skull split like a ripe melon, but it kept thrashing as though nothing had happened.

All around them the beasts woke. The sleep of reason had ended.

"Fall back!" Trent was screaming. "Fall back to the corridor!" Gunfire sounded as the beasts tore themselves free of the webbing like it was so much moist tissue paper. Blake noted with terror that the one he'd decapitated was still moving freely. He put a pair of three-round bursts through it chest and finally it flopped back to the floor. He turned and shot out the chest of another one advancing rapidly on him as he backed out.

Its chest was blown out, but still it kept coming as though nothing was wrong. He cried out in frustration and blew its head off. It flopped back to the floor, twitching violently. He realized the nature of the situation with an immediate horror.

"They've got redundant systems!" he cried. "You've gotta take out the chest and the head!" He screamed to be heard over the din of combat. From the corridor, the Marine and Connant were firing off their weapons, providing support. Blake took in the form of the creatures as they advanced rapidly on the retreating trio. They were in fact leaner, and shorter, barely topping six feet in height. Their muscles were wiry and tightly coiled, almost like steel cables. Their hands ended in jagged, wickedly curved, serrated claws and their skin had taken on a blacker tone.

One of them leaped past the gunfire and tackled Caldwell. He screamed as he was felled. Blake moved forward to help him, but almost instantly three more of the beasts fell on him. Before he was consumed by a writhing mass of claws and teeth, Blake spied Caldwell pulling the pin on one of his grenades. He and Trent bolted for the door and barely made it out as all of Caldwell's grenades went off in rapid succession.

The quartet of survivors lined up in the corridor, in front of the door, their weapons pointed inwards. Silence fell ominously. The room was now covered almost completely in a sea of smoke and green mist, dropping the visibility to zero. Trent began to move forward, perhaps to secure the door, when one leaped from the swirling smoke. It pounced and landed squarely on the Marine Trent had found previously.

He shrieked shrilly as the claws dug into his flesh, rending meat and snapping bone. Blood flew thickly upon the air, spraying the others. Trent and Blake converged their gunfire upon the beast and dropped it in seconds. Before its body had hit the floor, Trent rushed forward and secured the door, closing it.

"Holy shit," Connant whispered.

"Definitely a new breed," Trent growled. Silence began to fall, but was immediately interrupted by the radio. It crackled to life in a haze of static.

"Trent, Cohen here. We've managed to make emergency repairs to the comms network. Unfortunately, we've come as far as we can internally. It seems that there's some external damage as well, of all things. We're all heading for an airlock to get it fixed. Shouldn't take more than half an hour, forty-five minutes tops, then we can call for help."

"Excellent. Keep going, Cohen. Great job."

"We're on it." Almost before Cohen finished talking, Ryan's voice suddenly exploded onto the channel.

"Guys! Guys, something's happening to the oxygen!" he cried, his voice shot through with plentiful panic.

Trent sighed quietly. "Slow down, Corporal. Tell me what's happening. What's wrong with the oxygen?"

"Life Support has been shut off. Oxygen isn't being processed anymore. We're going to suffocate!" Trent sighed wearily. Blake felt fear rising in him. He immediately stopped using his internal oxygen supply, then popped his neck to try and relieve some of the tension.

"All right, give me directions to the atmospheric processor. Blake and I will take care of it." He turned. "Connant, can you find your way to the bridge? We aren't too far away."

Connant looked around nervously, then finally nodded. "Yeah, I can."

"All right. Hurry up and then announce yourself before you get there so they don't freak out and shoot you. Ryan, those directions?" Blake watched Connant go and made himself listen as Ryan rattled off instructions on how to get to the atmospheric processor. Luckily, it wasn't too far away. After receiving the instructions, Trent informed them that not only Caldwell had been killed, but three of the five survivors on the ship had too.

The response was somber and morose. Blake and Trent began making their way towards the atmospheric processor.

As they did, a thought occurred to Blake. "Hey, Ryan. Why are you so worried about the atmosphere? This is a huge ship, shouldn't we have at least like...days of air?"

"Normally, yeah. But right now? No. Portions of the ship are atmospherically compromised, and other parts are being overrun by some kind of foreign gas I imagine is coming from the Flood. We've got about ten hours breathable air, but that's not staying stable. It's diminishing. Apparently the atmospheric processor was the only thing combating this. We need it back on sooner rather than later," Ryan explained.

"Fantastic," Trent muttered. They arrived at the entrance to the bay a moment later...only to find it locked down tight.

"Ryan, we need you to unlock the atmospheric processor bay," Trent said, sounding annoyed.

There was a pause, then, "I can't...it's been locked down in a way that I can't get past. It's some kind of special security lock. Apparently...the only way to get past it is to manually override it. At two separate locations. At the same time. Here, I'm forwarding the information to a nearby console. It should be just to the right of the doors to atmospheric processing."

Blake and Trent gathered around the terminal and studied the screen. Blake frowned. This was called divide and conquer. Trent was silent. He seemed tense. Finally, he seemed to nod to himself and straightened up.

"All right, these aren't too far away. They're both security centers. I'll take the one to the left. Blake, you got the route to yours memorized?" Blake nodded. "Good. Being a security center it should have some spare bullets lying around. See what you can pick up. And...Ryan. What's the location on that fifth survivor, still mobile?"

"Uh...yeah. He's in one of the maintenance areas of the ship, belowdecks."

"You ever get a chance to talk to him?"

"No. I tried several times. Never a response. I think he's ignoring me."

Trent was silent for a moment, then began speaking again. "Starck, you outside yet?"

"No. We're almost to the airlock, why?"

"I've got a special job for you. Talk with Ryan about the location of the fifth survivor. Find him, bring him to the bridge. And...watch yourself."

"Understood."

Trent turned to look at Blake. "You good to go?"

Blake nodded. "Yeah."

"All right, see you on the other side."

They split up then, each making for separate sides of the corridor they were in. Blake had the route memorized. He'd always been good with maps and spatial orientation. Just follow the corridor to its end, turn right, turn left, take a lift down to the next floor and the security center would be just down the way. Not so difficult. Blake hurried along, wary for Flood. He found himself left alone with his thoughts as he wandered the lonely desolation of the Erebus. He was thinking of Caldwell. Had he been satisfied with his death?

Going out under a pile of monsters with a grenade was a fairly cinematic way to go out, Blake suspected. He'd seen it in enough movies. He wondered if that was to be his fate: death on this plague ship, so far away from anything he might call home. Surprisingly, Blake found the notion filled him with more fear than it would have even a day ago. What was changing about him? Sure, the Erebus presented a pretty shitty situation, even by Yellowjacket standards, but he'd always known this could happen.

Maybe it was Trent and his job offer. Had he made one? Blake seemed to remember asking and not getting a straight answer. Did the possibility of a new job really entice him to live so? Or was it just that he was sick of the Flood after months of cleaning out these infestations. Blake understood that the burnout rate on Yellowjackets was almost as high as the mortality rate. He'd been with Echo Squad for four months and had already seen a dozen new faces since his first day. Maybe it was high time for him to burn out.

Blake reached the elevator and stepped in. He rode it down to the next level, stepped out and immediately found himself facing down half a dozen Flood. Most of them were regular Combat Forms, but there was a Lancer among them. Blake immediately sighted it and blew out its chest, sending it and its pole-arm crashing to the floor. He began to back up as he targeted and fired, targeted and fired, letting his body take over.

He managed to drop the remaining five before his ammunition ran out, but as Blake began to reload, more of them came from around the corner further down the passageway and began charging towards him. They shrieked like demons as he brought his gun up once more. However, as he started to open fire, something strange happened.

Instantly, almost as though they'd hit an invisible wall, the charging Combat Forms stopped moving. Not a sound was made. They seemed to be looking up. Blake risked a cautious glance upward, but he could see nothing, just the ceiling and ventilation grates. He began to get nervous. Suddenly, an echoing roar, unlike any he had heard thus far, sounded. It was so loud it caused cracks to run down the nearby windows. The Combat Forms turned and ran, sprinting down the corridor and disappearing around the corner from whence they came.

Blake swallowed nervously. He began make his way hurriedly towards the security center. Something was nearby. Something incredibly dangerous. As Blake neared the center, he suddenly began to feel thick reverberations. He recognized what it was immediately: footsteps. Something was overhead, on the next level, walking around. Walking closer. Blake slipped into the security center and the footsteps stopped.

Blake let out a small sigh of relief and fired up the security center. The room was small and mostly empty. The battle had come and gone here, leaving the weapons lockers cleaned out. While he got into contact with Trent and waited for the system to boot up, he scavenged a few scattered magazines for his rifle.

"I'm here and uh..."

"Yes?"

"There's...something. Something big on the next floor up. It's huge, it must be. And it...ah...it scared away the other Flood."

Trent was silent for a few seconds. "Just fantastic. All right, let's just get this done with. Are you ready?"

Blake moved into position, then pulled up the lock subroutine.

"Yeah. Ready. Finger's on the button."

"All right. On 'go'. Three...two...one...go." Blake pressed the button. There was a slight pause, then a positive sound. "Okay. It's open. Meet me back at the atmospheric processor and...hope you don't run into whatever that big thing is. We're going to have to burn this whole ship."

Blake thought it was a good idea. He was beginning to really loathe the Erebus. Even the name spoke of ominous foreboding. He hurried out of the security center and began making his way back to the lift. They would fix the atmospheric processor, then the comms array, then call for help and-Blake glanced up as he heard a curious groaning sound. He realized that a portion of the ceiling was very damaged and it seemed to be buckling, almost, as though there were some great weight on it-Blake's eyes widened and he dove forward.

The ceiling exploded downwards, spraying the corridor with metal fragments like shrapnel. Blake barely dove out of the way and scrambled to his feet as something enormous landed in the corridor with him. He turned and risked a glance. Then wished he hadn't. Whatever it was, however it had been made, it was enormous. It had to hunch to fit in the corridor properly. It was roughly humanoid, in the sense that it had limbs and a head and a torso.

But that's where the resemblance ended.

The beast reached for him with arms of blackened flesh, tight with muscle that rippled beneath the flesh and spoke of horrific power. Its fingers ended in hooked claws and its face...Blake had seen a great deal of nightmare-inducing terrors before, in his time. But this thing's face had almost certainly come from the depths of hell itself. It had no eyes, no nose, simply a mouth. A perfectly round mouth that took up the entire face, the interior of which was ringed with jagged, bloody teeth that spun like the teeth of a chainsaw.

Blake bolted, not even bothering to try and fight it. How was he going to get away? The beast issued a marrow-freezing roar and started off after him. The only thing that kept it from getting to him immediately was its sheer size. It wasn't meant for corridors such as these. Blake spied something up ahead, the corridor beyond him was ringed with something and he remembered what it was: a pressure door.

It was thick and solid and could be activated in the event of an atmospheric compromise. He rushed towards it, running faster than he ever had before, and broke the emergency seal. He began rapidly pressing the button, knowing that this would have to work. He couldn't outrun this thing forever. Blake let out a tremendous sigh of relief as the pressure door slammed down into place between them. The monster let out another nightmarish roar and slammed into the door. Blake leaped back from it, suddenly wondering if it was going to work.

The beast slammed into the door once, causing a huge dent to appear. A second time, a second dent. A third, a fourth. Blake prepared himself for the worst. Then, nothing. A few seconds of tension-soaked silence passed, then the sound of receding footsteps was heard. Blake let out another sigh of relief and decided it was high time to get back to Trent. He turned and began hurrying down the passageway.