Chapter Nine: Out of the Darkness, Into the Moonlight

I glanced up reluctantly at the shooter, but no one was in sight. I immediately collapsed to my knees and moaned. I began to sob and hold Kelly's delicate hand. A bullet hole near her stomach oozed blood and a small amount of excretion. My mouth drooled saliva a bit as my eyes began to tear. I cried so hard for her. She was still dead, though.

I never thought it'd happen like this. "Oh my God!" Richard shouted. He ran from his original position, and I knew he had run off to find the gunman. I felt dizzy and disoriented. I held my eyes shut, but it didn't help. Every time I reopened my eyelids, Kelly was dead in a pool of her own blood.

"Please, help her, Sarah," I tried to say. She seemed to understand, but she just began to sob, too. I felt my eyes burn. That was when I lost control of things. I stood up, took out my gun, and made a screeching noise trying to scream. I fired bullet after bullet in the many depths of the room, yet I made sure it didn't come close to Sarah, or anywhere near the body of my lover.

I stopped firing right after I heard a crash of glass, and the obvious sound of rushing water fill the room. I slowly set my gun down, as a few streams of blue water covered the ground at my feet. The next moment of my life was the worst of all. Standing in a wet room with a tear stricken Sarah and the dead body of my girlfriend was bad, but the shrieks and screams of a released tyrant-like monster made the awful setting worse.

"Don't wait, just run!" Sarah screamed, and took off out of the room. She stopped and turned around.

"We have to go, now," she hollered at me. I shook my head and crouched down next to the slump of body on the floor. I stroked Kelly's hair briefly, but my hand was soon tugged out. "Come on!" Sarah Mick began, "You've come back for me twice, and I'm about to return the favor." I shook my head roughly again; I can tell she was on the verge of leaving without me.

The monster screamed loudly again, and we both heard its footsteps through the wall. I must have shot through the thin walling and into the glass cage of the ferocious beast. "OK. Now this is the part where you don't act so stupid and run!" she implied loudly. This time I got up and took off, never looking back at the still beautiful face of my dear Kelly.

Just as we ran through the dark, gloomy section of the odd room, something big jumped through the wall. Our hearts pounded against our hard chests. I didn't look back, unlike Sarah, who basically screamed her head off, leading the monster to us. I knew it was probably another of the Nemesis series. I helped free prisoners from a cellblock in the Phyllis Umbrella Testing facility, and there I had fought of a very shocking Nemesis type.

The thoughts raced through my skull just as the creature's feet had raced against the hard ground. My legs felt like melting butter after running through random door after another at such a grueling pace. Kelly's beautiful face smiled in my thoughts, but soon disappeared in a flash of red liquid.

I dove into the door Sarah just opened. I smashed my ribs against the floor and thought I had broken one. In seconds, our breathing slowed, but the door was rammed into violently by the beast outside.

The door bulged in, revealing marks where sharp claws had sunk into. It roared and screamed, and I found myself holding onto the screaming Sarah. "It's going to break in!" she uttered intensely. I searched the small safe room, and found another box. The box resembled the one in the Wingardom Facility we had started on with the guns packed inside.

I pushed Sarah off me and ran to the box. I thought a prayer and kicked off the top. What I saw was beyond belief. Instead of seeing herbs, guns, or even ammo. I saw a ladder leading into darkness. I slapped Sarah across her forehead to get her attention, which I succeeded at getting, and showed her my amazing find.

"After you," she said after the screaming virus carrier kicked at the door, yet again. It was on the verge of breaking off when my lower torso was down. Just as my head disappeared down the hole, the metallic door burst open and a large Tyrant-like creature with tentacles and talons started towards Sarah.

"Michael!" she shrieked. My hands shook, and my palms leaked with sticky sweat. She aggressively jumped down, scraping across the sides. She plunged into pitch-blackness with me. The only light came from the small hole many feet upward. The beastly thing screamed. I heard the steps, and the dripping sound of the liquid-like virus seeping on the floor. It was silent and motionless for a few moments, but something slowly began to slide down the hole. For a second I thought it to be another snake creature, but I soon noticed what it truly was.

"Run!" Sarah Mick shouted. I grabbed her by her wrist and took off bolting into random darkness. The things long, dripping blue virus-filled tentacles quickly began to come up on us. I felt it brush against my swaying hair viciously. It was coming close enough to dig itself into my soft neck. The tentacle abruptly stopped, no long extending.

We slowed down in fear of smashing into a wall. The once bright light had vanished, and I couldn't see my hand that I place a foot in front of my wandering eyes. "Mike? Was that you?" Sarah asked. I had no way of answering. I didn't no what she was talking. She uttered lightly, "God damn it, Mike. If that's you messing with my hair, then knock it off!"

"What the hell is she talking about?" I thought. Then I felt it, something brushed past my head, and that something screeched. "Oh, fuck! Bats!" Sarah hollered. I didn't dare fire my gun, understanding the consequences. This room we are in could have had ricocheting walls.

I grabbed my pistol and grabbed hold of the barrel. With my other hand, I felt around for Sarah. I found her hand with my own. It was wet with what I thought was sweat. I swung the bottom of the gun around madly into the air. It whipped the hell out of a few of the flying rodents, but I could obviously tell pistol-whipping the bats wasn't going to get us far.

Before I could take off running into the unknown distance blindly, Sarah dashed ahead. Our hands were still locked, but I could sense I was slipping away from the wet, yet soft, hand of Sarah Mick.

I felt my eyes begin to adjust to the darkness slightly. The screeching of bats all around us was like millions of shrill screams. They brushed against us, but never biting or scratching. That was my biggest fear; getting the slightest nick on my flesh and skin by a viral mutated organism.

Just as my eyes were beginning to become accustom to the dark, Sarah brutally tripped over something. Her hand only tightened onto mine, and I came down roughly with her. Although, I didn't hit the ground, neither did she. We kept on falling.

For the five seconds or less we fell, it felt like eternity. We heard the crashing of waves, and felt an odd sea breeze. My eyes only open for a half second, and instead of looking down, I was staring upward at the bright moon, stars, and I thought for a moment I had seen far off nebulas.

The crashing ocean water merely felt like soft concrete. We went down low, and by the way she was kicking violently, she had swallowed a gulp of salty water. She slowly began to stop kicking and calm down.

Her hand slowly slipped away from my own. I opened my eyes for an instant and saw a bright redness floating around sadistically in the dark water. I realized the odd wetness on her hand was blood, and before I took off for the ocean top to gaze at the star night sky, I wondered how managed to achieve getting such a wound.

After seconds of harsh, intense swimming for life, I took a great breath of fresh, nighttime-air. I had my head above the water for a few moments, but I noticed something odd. "Where the hell is Sarah?" I thought, "Shit." I swam back down, but searching for the girl was nearly impossible. The water was as dark as the unusual room we were just in.

Even though my mind was flashing thoughts of Sarah drowning, something had led me straight to her. The blood streaming from her freshly opened skin upon her hand was urging me toward her. I reached through the blood, and found her bony wrist. She felt dead, but by thumping on her wrist, I knew her heart was beating.

I swam the best I could to the top, and felt the need for oxygen. I thought to myself just before I reached the top, "Shit, if I need air, I wonder what it would be like if she was conscious."

We burst through the water top and out into the night. I took in a well- deserved breath of air, and immediately began swimming as hard as possible to the shore nearby. In less than a minute I had her to the rocky ground that had a huge mountain above it. I rolled her to her back frantically. With both hands, I pushed down on her chest, forcing her lungs to let out air. I counted to three while doing it, then pressed my lips against hers and blew into her mouth. "Come on!" I thought to myself, "Don't do this to me!"

I repeated the maneuver a few times until I caught the signs of life she coughed up nasty ocean water and vomited. She began to cough uncontrollably for a few seconds. She regained her five senses, and she turned to face me.

"What happened?" she asked me desperately with wonder. I smiled and rubbed her reddish hair. I pointed to the rocky straight drop ahead of us, then to the water. She coughed and laughed at the same time. I wanted to hold my smile, but my mind flashed to the depiction of my girlfriend sitting in a pool of her own dark red blood.

The thought of the blood made me think of Sarah's wounded hand. I pointed to her hand and by the puzzled look on my face I could tell she understood. "When I jumped through that darn box with the ladder, I must have nicked my hand on the side of it. I'm not completely sure, but it's only a little scrape. Don't worry about it, Mike."

I nodded my head and looked up. I once again used my hands to signal the words I wished I had the ability to use. First, I pointed to her, and then I pointed to the top of the rocky cliff. I started to play charades and made believe I was climbing. She giggled and stated, "What a show! I think I'll be able to climb this little thing."

I smiled back at her and thought, "Little? Damn cliff looks like Everest to me!" Nevertheless, I thought of what lay ahead. When I first arrived on this island, I thought I was dead no matter what. Now the only thing keeping me going is the fact that I have something I didn't think I would. I have hope. Kelly didn't make it, but she got damn near close. I will make it.

The motivation my mind gave me was just what I needed to stay alive a few more needy hours. I started the long climb we faced by grabbing onto the side of the sea cliff. I lifted myself up with my unyielding strength. Sarah Mick began her climb, as well, just beside me.

For twenty minutes we climbed nonstop, getting further and further from the safety of the ground. It seemed like our "cliffhanging" had been going on for hours. Our hands were growing tired from the endless pain of the killer climb. We were about three quarters of the way up when we heard it.

The beastly monster we encountered earlier, just before the dark room. The tyrant-like thing was coming towards us at a slow pace from the side of the cliff. It screamed and had its tentacles flaring around violently. Its hands and feet clung to the wall tightly gripped. I could tell it wasn't very happy.

Sarah whispered, "Go. Mike, you better be a pretty fast fucking climber!"