Okay, hope you like this one. I decided keep Richard alive as well... but god knows when I might just change his fate someday. And yes, for those of you who saw my profile, the third story WILL be called Alma's Sorrow. I MAY consider continuing with a fourth sequel afterwards, which is very, very, VERY unlikely.
Anyways, huge apologies for the extremely long wait. But I had to go to one of my closest friend's birthday party, and had to buy her a present, and outside of my friend's birthday party stuff lately I got low test marks and got really pissed off about them so I just didn't feel like updating lately. But what's more important is I updated and that's all there is to it.
Enjoy.
Chapter 28: Surrounded
"Well, Dash, it was your idea to get us into this mess... any suggestions?" Richard grunted in annoyance, staring at the Replicas in shock. He fidgeted with his shotgun, probably having trouble thinking whether to attack them back or not.
"I don't know, but I guess the safest course of action would be just going back inside..." I whispered so none of the Replicas heard my plan.
We speedily jumped our way back to the cabin, and locked the door. But we heard Replicas banging on it, shooting on it, and even tried smacking the windows opened. I moved a piece of furniture to the door so it wouldn't open, no matter how powerful the gunfire was. Unless if they used an explosive, it should buy us some time to think of a way to escape safely.
"Quick, let's hide in the bathroom!" Richard planned as I also followed, and both of us locked the bathroom door as well, turning the lights on. It was weak but better than nothing...
"Alright... there's gotta be some way or something to get us out of here... those guys could blow us into bits with little to no effort!" I whispered.
"I don't know... they have us surrounded, from front to back. I can hear them on all four sides." Richard replied softly.
"Let's try contacting the squad..."
"Are you crazy? They can't kill all those soldiers out there! That's suicide!"
"Well, we could request an evac chopper..."
"The line's been jacked."
"...Damn. Well we might as well let Holiday know what's going on anyway."
I turned the comm. Link on, and waited for Holiday to respond. All I heard was static... a very loud static to be precise.
"Dash..." Richard softly called as he pointed at the direction to the bathtub...
The curtain opened... and revealed a girl that was too familiar.
Alma.
But her appearance was that of the young one that wore the red dress instead of the naked adult form that I saw sometimes.
She came towards our direction slowly... as we tried to open the door we locked. It was jammed...!!! We kicked it, we shot it, but it didn't open at all!!
"Argh!! Move, damn it!!" I cursed as I rammed on to it with absolutely no success in trying to break it open.
As Alma came close to us, we aimed our weapons, but with our nervous breakdowns and feeling extremely tense, all our gunfire missed her. Both of us ran out of clip in no time... and we braced ourselves...
But she opened the door for us instead. It was gone. Then afterwards I saw her going out. The Replicas concentrated their fire on her, but they were all killed in a matter of seconds as she simply walked past them. All that remained were bloody skeletons with clips of ammo all over the ground, as if we were in the Flanders Field during the World War.
"That was so... weird." I muttered to myself.
Why did Alma save us... when she could've simply killed us in there?
"Well we gotta move on... Holiday and Jankowski might be worried sick about us." I reminded Richard, who simply grunted in the pain he was still going through.
"Easy for you to say...!" He moaned.
"Sorry Richard... guess you gotta suck it up." That was all I could say to him as I reloaded my assault rifle.
The two of us then walked our way towards Auburn... it would be a long journey, with Replicas attempting to impede our progress. We had to make it... we were both powerful warriors.
We took a little rest after about twenty minutes of walk or so. We were at a small market place... we rested near there to think about how everyone else might be doing.
"Man, you thirsty?" I asked, as I placed my weapon on my laps.
"I'm good... at least I'm not bloodthirsty." Richard joked, wiping the blood off his wounds.
Afterwards we haven't spoken for a while... we were too tired from the battles we went through today. Besides, we had nothing to talk about at the time. Moreover, no time to chat.
"Well we better get moving... Holiday might get pissed if we slack off." I suggested as Richard nodded in agreement, and we continued our way to Auburn Area. At least we had just one more block to go... but even walking was tiring at this time!
We finally reached Holiday and Jankowski, along with SFOD-D, police, SWAT, and ATC security survivors.
"Man we've been waiting for you for... just what the fuck took you guys so long?" Jankowski blurted.
"Sorry sir, but we were overwhelmed by a huge number of Replicas..." Richard apologized.
"Well, whatever. We're all in one piece." Holiday said as he scratched his head a little bit.
"Sir, where's the Point man?" I asked... downright curious.
"There's no sign of him at the moment... hopefully he survived the crash." Jankowski took Holiday's place to reply, and pointed at the broken chopper.
"He's not dead though, is he?"
"Can't say... let's hope not. But we gotta wait for Jin too. But then those freaks are everywhere...!!"
I looked at the wounded SFOD-D soldiers all around us. They moaned, with blood all over their armour. Pretty soon they were to collapse... but most of them weren't necessarily dying either.
A few minutes afterwards a chopper arrived, and Ms. Kwon came down along with a few SFOD-D escorts. First she looked at Richard's wounds... because he came there first as I tried to help him get to her.
"He's going to be okay... but it might take some time to recover. He still shouldn't fight." Ms. Kwon recommended, "I want him and rest of the wounded men to go back to the HQ. Calling a medevac would be a risky at this point, and it'd be best if we lessen the chances of casualties."
"We would do that if we could, but the line's jacked. We gotta keep moving... and since those bastards are securing much of the city, it's best to take refuge at the Hospital." Holiday argued back, "and set an extraction point at the roof... we'll have to contact any nearest choppers nearby possible."
"But we might as well take a little break... at least five minutes. We're all dinged up if you ask me." Jankowski groaned as he showed him a rather large cut he got on his shoulder.
"Very well... but get ready while it lasts, people."
While Ms. Kwon took care of Richard and Jankowski's wounds, I took a look around the crash site for any signs of the Point Man... and nothing showed. NOTHING! But that also meant one thing... he managed to escape. If he didn't then his body would still be at the chopper. In fact there weren't any bodies found around the chopper. Maybe everybody here managed to survive...
Then I leaned my head on a wall on the Auburn Hospital... resting it. I didn't know I was even fighting here... I could've escaped with everybody else... I just couldn't leave my family here. They were around for sure. And the Point Man was fighting too. I just hoped he didn't die... if I left I would've been gone not knowing how he was.
God must hate me... I go through this amount of misery when I didn't do anything wrong. He should've done this a long time ago. He should've made my life more miserable in the beginning so I'd know what it's like now.
If I could I would've committed suicide or allowed those Replica Soldiers kill me. But I couldn't. It just wasn't right... and I feared death too... as much as I feared my life at the moment.
"Alright people, Replicas may have us sandwiched any moment, let's get our asses inside!!" Holiday shouted as survivors staggered to the hospital... and I followed afterwards.
But nobody knew that there was no way out from there on.
As soon as everybody entered the hospital, they took a quick look around their surroundings... The lights weren't all that decent powered, but it was still good enough to be considered reliable.
"Alright people, we're gonna separate and look for ANY patients that were left behind. If a Replica or whatsoever hostiles come on your way, it's your duty to neutralize the threat. But remember, look carefully at what you're shooting... we don't want us shooting at one another." Holiday gave us the orders...
However, one ATC security looked rather nervous and went for the exit... but when he tried pushing the door, it didn't open.
"What the hell...?? Oh god, are we gonna die here??" He panicked.
Holiday didn't seem to react harshly towards his action, despite the situation we were all in.
"Those Replicas are damn clever... weakening our defences to trap us in here." Jankowski said angrily.
"We'll worry about that later. Alright people, we're gonna form groups... Alpha Team, with the exception of Dash... the remaining members should go and help ATC security, and find any hostiles in this hospital and neutralize them. The SWAT and the police force, you two look for any patients that were left here or any US army force survivors... the rest of you are another team... alright people. Let's move it out."
I was rather confused why Holiday would remove me out of the Alpha Team, but I couldn't argue back. Afterwards everyone else separated, we were soon on our own in the lobby...
"Alright guys, we're gonna check this floor. Jin, you stay here and try to take care of Richard. And Dash, we'll split up and look at different areas. Take a look at the lounge... I'll look at the doctor's office." Jankowski gave his orders and I nodded, while Jin and Richard stayed there... looking at me as if they were worried about my safety. But I couldn't stay there and comfort them...
I went to the lounge... filled with blood, broken or flipped over chairs, broken television set hanging on the wall, broken vending machines, and skeletons everywhere.
But there was a corpse of one of the doctors that probably worked here... he had a clipboard held on his hand. I picked it up and took a look at it. I couldn't really read it because on the papers there were bloody footprints on them... but from the papers piled on there a severed hand fell off.
I didn't know if I was imagining or if this was happening, but the clipboard all of a sudden lifted out of my hands and hit my forehead with incredible amount of force. It was enough to send me to the nearby wall, and drop my rifle. Then it charged at me, and I narrowly managed to avoid it as it hit the wall. I rolled sideways, and saw the clipboard float again. But luckily I actually managed to roll near my rifle. I picked it up and fired at it... it sent the clipboard to the wall and I kept pinning the thing on to it until it broke into pieces.
But that wasn't over... those broken pieces all floated and tried to cut me. I rolled out of the way and when the pieces charged towards the opposite wall. I took this time to shoot at the windows nearby. Afterwards the pieces charged at me again, and I ran towards where the broken windows were. The pieces of the clipboard charged towards it and went outside, but I quickly took this time to find a chair on the floor and put it right in front of the window. It barged the wooden pieces outside...
"Whew!"
I managed to let that out and decided to run out of the room... even a little thing like a clipboard attacked me. So what could be next... a broken vending machine flying right towards me?
I went back to where Ms. Kwon and Richard were... only to find out that they weren't there anymore. Just puddle of blood coming down from the ceiling.
"Ms. Kwon...? Richard? Where are you guys?"
Shit... don't tell me I was alone now. If something happened to them... would the certain same thing apply to Jankowski as well?
Damn it Alma... why do you and Fettel have to make my life a living hell? Stop torturing me I'm telling you!! I can't take anymore of your little childish games!!
I attempted to contact Holiday via the radio... but all I heard was static. This obviously meant something shitty was about to happen in this hospital... hell maybe in a few hours I'd be the only survivor, and eventually die off like the others probably would. And later I would have to fight through this whole mess I went through until I die.
Suddenly the vending machine nearby fell on it's own. I pointed at it and saw a strange rag doll like figure coming towards me. I moved backwards away from it, about to open fire at it. But suddenly my entire body couldn't move... I was frozen in place. And I saw the figure getting closer and closer...
Shit, whatever this thing would do to me probably did the same thing to Ms. Kwon and Jankowski.
It then put it's arms around me and I began to feel really heavy. It somehow pulled me down, but I was at least able to move again. But the grip of this creature was really hard. I tried firing at the rag doll, but the bullets just went through this thing.
"Fuck!!" I cursed as I ran out of ammo.
Then it pulled me downwards, to a place where my nightmares would deepen even more.
I played the Perseus Mandate demo last week, and I may actually consider buying the game. That Chen guy from the demo may be in this story, or the sequel, but will probably play a different role. And the main character that will be played in Perseus Mandate may ALSO be in the sequel, though definitely not in this story for sure. Anyways, R&R!
