The first thing that hit him was the pain.
Blinding and staggering, it was like getting hit with a tidal wave.
Forcing a groan back down his throat, he slowly got to his knees and assessed himself. One dislocated shoulder, bruising on his legs and chest, two cracked ribs, one possibly punctured lung, a dozen cuts everywhere he looked.
He'd been through worse.
Looking around at the surrounding trees he assessed his situation.
He was wounded, most likely from some kind of fall, judging by the broken branches above him. No weapons, no armor, only the Navy fatigues on his body. No idea where he was, and no clue how to get back to the ship.
Situation report: Shit.
He rose to his feet and pressed his dislocated shoulder against a tree, suddenly throwing his body weight against it, snapping the shoulder back into place.
He gritted his teeth and pushed the pain down, the way he always did, and began climbing the tree. Gaining a higher vantage point was crucial to finding out where he was.
He rose higher and higher, finally coming out on top of the canopy. Searching around, he found out his target in seconds.
A large city was off to the southeast. The odd thing was, he couldn't hear anything from it.
At this time of day, which was a little before noon, judging by the position of the sun, there should be people bustling around, cars going through streets. He'd learned to trust his augmented hearing after years of having it.
So, if there was nothing...
He shook his head, cutting off his rambling before it could begin. There could be any number of reasons why he couldn't hear anything. Besides the city, he saw what looked like a highway about two hundred feet south.
As he climbed down the tree, his nose was suddenly assaulted by the smell of rotting meat. That immediately became another thing to worry about. He hadn't smelled anything when he'd first woken up.
He jumped down the last few meters, hitting the ground with a dull thud, and looked around, his eyes spotting movement to his left.
His eyes widened.
A man was walking towards him, or rather shuffling. Baggy clothes hung off of his stick-like frame and his skin was pale. Unhealthily so. But that wasn't what drew his attention.
Half the man's face was torn off, his teeth and jawbones showing through the rotting flesh around them.
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to stop where you are," he said, speaking for the first time since he'd woken up.
The man kept walking. He was only ten feet away now.
His eyes narrowed.
No one could just walk around with an injury like that, unless they were so hyped up on painkillers that they couldn't feel anything. But in that case, they wouldn't even be able to move, let alone walk.
"Sir, this is your last warning. Stop right there and don't come any closer."
The man only sped up, his arms coming up and fumbling towards his target, his jaw snapping open and shut.
He grabbed the man's right arm and threw his fist to the point of his elbow, smashing most of the bone to paste and bending the arm almost ninety degrees the wrong way.
The thing, because he could no longer call it a man, didn't even flinch, just brought its working arm up and tried to grab at his prey.
Wrapping one hand around the offending arm and another around the thing's throat, he kept it at bay.
'How do I always get myself into these situations?'
He let go of the creature's arm and grabbed the back of it's head, his other hand coming up to rest on what was left of it's cheek, before twisting sharply.
It's neck broke with a sickening SNAP and he let the thing drop to the ground, and he watched as it's jaw kept opening and closing, like it was still trying to bite him.
He gave a small shiver of revulsion and raised his foot, bringing it down on top of the things head. His combat boot split the skull open like an overripe melon, splattering blood and brain matter everywhere.
Shaking his boot around cleared most of it off, and he began walking towards the highway, leaving the rotting corpse behind.
This entire situation was not sitting well with him.
Walking out of the woods and onto the pavement, he frowned. A sign posted on the side of the road read "WELCOME TO ATLANTA".
An four lane highway on both sides. One side was completely clear. That was the side leading into the city. The other was packed with hundreds of cars, whose drivers, by the look of things, had frantically tried to get out of the city.
"What is this?" he muttered. "Those cars are over five hundred years old and yet they look brand new." Everything was so strange. Weird monster men, ancient cars, and Atlanta being a lot smaller than he was taught.
He looked up at the sky and closed his eyes. "Where the hell am I?"
He opened his eyes and turned around to see a horse coming towards him. It's rider was a man wearing a police uniform that looked like something out of an antique store.
Then the man raised a gun that looked even older than his uniform.
"I have only two questions, Mister," he said with a hard tone. "Are you human, and if so, who the hell are you?"
He slowly raised his hands in a non-threatening manner and replied calmly. "To your first question, yes, I am human. To your second, well..." He slowly lowered his hands and then stared directly at the man, who seemed slightly uncomfortable with his piercing gaze. "... you can call me Master Chief."
First chapter of new story done. Wow, I'm just pumping these out like a...
I'm not going to finish that sentence.
Anyway, terrible jokes aside, I have been doing a lot of new stories lately, and I assure everyone, that I will continue to update most of my current stories. I just ask that you be patient.
Until next time, Wolf out.