Eli stared defiantly down the barrel of the marine sergeant's submachine gun.

'What's your name scientist?'

There was no reason to lie.

'Eli Vance, Anomalous Materials.'

'And you?'

Kleiner, like Eli, was kneeling on the ground. Eli thought he could see him shaking slightly.

'Isaac Kleiner, Anomalous Materials.'

The two scientists came upon the soldiers while searching for a passage below ground. In retrospect, encountering them was inevitable. A squad of over a dozen men regarded both of them with indifference.

Eli broke in: 'Why don't you get this over with and kill us?' he spat. 'We've seen what your people did to the other scientists below ground.'

'Eli!' cried Kleiner in alarm.

Eli's anger took the sergeant by surprise.

'I was never ordered to kill any humans. My squad was only tasked with wiping out the alien threat, and when that proved too much for us we were ordered to pull out.'

This didn't seem to allay Eli's anger. 'But I'm sure if you had been ordered to kill my colleagues, scientists who only wanted to be evacuated, you would have done it without reservation.'

The sergeant had no answer for that. He knew it was true. He changed the subject.

'None of that matters now. Both military personnel and civilians need to escape this place. We might as well work together.'

'I'm not leaving until I've found my family', replied Eli doggedly.

The sergeant didn't want to insult this man any more than he already had. He did his best to be sympathetic.

'Dr. Vance, the facility has been infested with hostile aliens for several hours now. And like you said, the military was ordered to kill scientists and civilians. It is very likely your family are already dead. We have to leave here before the final series of bombs destroy this place. We're lucky we made it this far.'

Eli kept a steady gaze and a defiant expression, though inside he was breaking apart with grief.

'I don't care. If I leave this place when there's even a tiny possibility that Azian and Alyx are alive, I will regret it for the rest of my life.'

The sergeant understood. By now he and his men had ceased training their guns on the two physicists and had helped them to their feet.

'The bombs being dropped are intended to raze Black Mesa to the ground, you understand?' said the sergeant calmly. 'When the final payload is dropped, then the few parts of Black Mesa that haven't been reduced to rubble will be.'

Here.'

To Eli's surprise, the soldier handed him his submachine gun. It was mounted with a flashlight.

'There's a bunker not far from here with a ladder that leads back down to the facility. My men and I would come with you, but too many of us have died already. It's a suicide mission, but I can see that nothing will stop you.'

Eli nodded his head grimly. 'Thank you for the gun.'

Vance turned to his friend. 'Izzy, I'm going to have to ask you to stay with the soldiers. I've put your life in danger far too many times already. With the military, it seems you'll be safe, now that they've stopped shooting defenceless scientists in the back.'

'Eli, I—'

'None of us were safe below ground, but here you can be. It's the best chance you'll get. I can't put your life in danger again. You heard the soldier, it's a suicide mission. It's something I have to do alone. If I survive, we'll meet again, I promise.'

Kleiner was anxious as always. He was torn between his mind which told him to follow the squad of soldiers, and his heart which told him to follow his friend. Eli was right, though. The sensible thing to do was to split up, for now. Eli would have to be quiet and stealthy if he wanted to survive and evade whatever horrors lay beneath the surface. Going with him would only slow him down and increase the chances of being spotted and alerting the attention of the monsters.

'Alright, Eli. This isn't goodbye. The events of today will make a great story. We'll tell it together. Good luck, and bring back Azian and Alyx safe and unharmed.'

They hugged briefly.

'Take care of my friend', Eli said to the sergeant, who nodded. 'Which way am I headed?'

The sergeant pointed Doctor Vance in the direction of the bunker with the ladder, and Eli began to move that way, the eyes of the squad of soldiers still on him.

A thought struck Eli. 'One more thing', he said, turning to the soldier. 'Gordon Freeman. Do you know what happened to him?'

Recognition flashed in the soldier's eyes. 'One of the scientists we met spoke of him. He said he was heading to the Lambda Complex. They're saying there's some way of reversing this disaster, this Resonance Cascade, though I feel it's pointless. The reaction had done its job here. He's going to try and close the dimensional rift so that no more aliens can teleport to Earth.'

'I see.'

Good luck, Gordon, thought Eli. You're the only person who can stop this catastrophe from spreading outside Black Mesa. If anyone can do it, it's you.

Eli set off, the New Mexico sun burning his neck as he walked, not that it perturbed him in the least. Eli was far too preoccupied. In a moment he was inside the bunker. The air was blessedly cool in here. The gun he carried was weighty, but it had a strap. He slung it around his back as he began to descend the ladder. On the way down he pondered what it would be like to fire the submachine gun, to kill the aliens he had been doing his best to avoid all this time. He supposed if Gordon could do it then so could he. Apparently, Gordon had used a great many weapons besides the one Eli had slung over his back. He wondered how he was able to carry them all.

He dismissed the thoughts. Going back into Black Mesa below ground guns blazing would be foolish. The submachine gun would be a last resort.

He reached the last rung of the ladder, then stepped onto hard concrete. His surroundings were dark, although scanty light still managed to penetrate from the bunker above, just barely illuminating the confined space he found himself in. He could just make out a fire exit door which was slightly ajar, its panic bar depressed. Some people, most likely scientists, had clearly used this door to evacuate. Swinging it open, he looked out on a sight which was almost familiar.

It was a wide open area, like many in the cavernous spaces of Black Mesa. In front of, him streaking from left to right, was the grey-steel rail which ran from one heavy steel door to another. Or rather, it would have done, if not for the fact that it had been severed and warped by a large slab of concrete which must have dropped onto it from the ceiling in one of the military's bombardments. Even if the transit system was functioning normally, there would be no passing through this part of the facility.

From his vantage point, Eli spied the cafeteria on the other side of the rail. Thankfully there was a walkway running below the rail joining the cafeteria to the evacuation door. Eli slung his weapon into his hands, wary of any movement which might betray the presence of a hostile alien.

Before the Resonance Cascade, this cafeteria was one of the most popular spaces in Black Mesa. There was a miniature cafeteria close to Sector C where Doctor Magnusson would regularly heat up his casserole in its microwave, but the cafeteria before Eli now was much more spacious. Before, there was a wide buffet with a large variety of good food, as well as vending machines and several tables. Sometimes, if he was given a longer lunch break, he would meet up here with Azian and they would eat together. Black Mesa had spared no expense with this place. They knew how to treat their employees right.

Ascending from the walkway, Eli looked at the area as it was now. It was an utter mess. Eli had grown desensitised to dead corpses over the long morning and its terrible events. There were a great many lifeless scientists, as there had been throughout the journey from Sector C to the surface. Eli noted that there were no alien corpses here, which indicated none of the scientists were able to fight back and kill any of them. The foreign entities had purged the area of humanity and moved on.

They must have been taken by surprise while having breakfast at the tables. Many were slumped in their seats, others sprawled on the floor while trying to make for the evacuation door once they had heard the alarms. Eli found it remarkable how quickly the aliens had started teleporting in once Gordon pushed the exotic matter into the spectrometer and the reaction started. It was almost as if the creatures on the other side were just waiting for such an opportunity.

Eli also noted the massive blocks of concrete rubble scattered here and there. Earthquakes weren't unknown in New Mexico, but nothing of the sort could have caused this. This was down to military explosives alone.

Eli had a vague idea of how to get back to the dormitories without the transit system and was about to follow a passage when he noticed something strange that he hadn't come across before. On the ground to one side was a pile of bones with strips of flesh hanging from them, on top of and around which was splattered much blood. Just above the pile of leavings, impossible to miss, was what looked like a rope. It was ochre-coloured, slick and narrow. Eli followed it with his eyes and saw it led up to what looked like a fleshy appendage, stuck to the ceiling like a barnacle. From the creatures he had seen all morning, his gut told him to leave it alone, there was a reason this creature was hanging directly above a pile of human remains, most likely ingested and regurgitated, but the scientist in him compelled him to investigate. He picked up a bone, still moist with blood and touched it to the rope-like appendage. It was undoubtedly a tongue. The bone stuck fast and the tongue started to ascend, the barnacle reeling it in, its teeth snapping towards the bone as it came closer and closer. Eli could easily imagine what might have happened to a hapless scientist who had run into the tacky appendage.

Now he knew what the creature was, and how important it would be not to run into one. He had wasted enough time. Now he had to look for his family.

Eli followed the path Azian would have taken when meeting him for lunch at the cafeteria. The one that lead directly to the dormitories. At one point he passed a stationary tram at a transit stop, its lights extinguished. This was the stop Azian would have disembarked from.

He continued on and found himself in the offices of Sector D Administration. Since his arrival below ground he had noticed the facility was eerily free of alien life, aside, that is, from the barnacle. He put that down to the fact that all the scientists were dead and the creatures had no reason to tarry here.

He advanced slowly, his gun in his hands, observing that many of the windows that separated offices from the steel corridor he was walking in and been smashed, either by aliens, or humans trying to defend themselves. Glancing in, he could see computer monitors still running and strip lights still filling the offices with sterile light. Presently, Eli thought he saw movement. A human figure slouching in a chair.

If there were other survivors, Eli owed it to them to come to their rescue. They had survived for this long today, it would be a waste to leave a fellow scientist here to die when the bombs began to drop. Eli silently stepped over the broad, broken window, avoiding triangles of smashed glass, his feet crunching those pieces louder than he would have liked.

His instincts hadn't been wrong. There was someone in here. Directly opposite him, facing a monitor in an office chair, was a form that appeared to be trembling a little. The chair obscured its head and body, but Eli could just make out its shoulders and arms.

'Hey', said Eli softly, not wanting to alert any nearby creatures, despite the fact he was sure they were alone. There was no response. There was something odd about the person's movements. Were they shaking with fear? Glass continued to crack and break under his feet.

'Excuse me', whispered Eli. No answer.

Suddenly the lights cut out, immersing Eli in darkness. No doubt the generator had died. Eli froze. He stopped moving and making noise, and now he could hear clearly what he had not noticed before. It was crunching. He had taken it for the sound he had been making with his feet, but now that he was still he could tell that it was coming from the person in the chair.

His blood running cold, he switched on the submachine gun's flashlight, flooding the small office with cold, white light. He reached out a hand to the back of the chair, swivelled it around, and took a step back. Slouched in its seat was a humanoid figure, but the first thing he noticed was what had appeared in the glass jar just after the resonance cascade had started. The crab creature. It seemed to be feeding on its human host, blood running down and soaking its lab coat. Eli had seen a similar creature only once, dead, part of the slew of dead creatures which followed in the wake of Gordon Freeman.

Sensing his presence, it ceased its crunching and lurched to its feet. Eli stumbled back, falling onto broken glass and cutting his hand. He was up in an instant, pointing his light at the zombie. It didn't move like a human. It could not see, but must have been able to hear, because it lolloped towards him.

Eli realised in a flash of insight that if there was one zombie here there would undoubtedly be others, so firing his gun and alerting them would be a bad idea. Eli kept silent, and in doing so, he noticed another sound. The soft and distressed crying of a human being. It grew louder as the zombie shambled forward, turning into distraught, terrified, pleading wailing.

'Help, God, help me!' Eli made out. Under this blood-soaked exterior, there was a human being.

He had heard enough. He had seen the underside of the crab-creature earlier and knew it was fastened to its host with thorny teeth, so pulling it off with brute force would be futile, but he couldn't leave this person the way they were. He trained his gun on the top of the headcrab and fired. The alien flew off of its host, spraying green blood everywhere Eli could make out with his flashlight.

The body dropped to the floor and Eli encroached upon the corpse's head and found that the host was no longer living. Fangs had clawed deep into its skull. It appeared that the forcible removal of the crab-creature had caused the death. The aliens would not permit the rescuing of their hosts. Once you were possessed by a headcrab, despite the living hell you would experience as a host, your life was over.

The thought of Azian or Alyx enthralled by these creatures briefly clouded his mind. It made him feel sick, and ever more desperate. He shook the thoughts from his head. Imagining such things would not help him or his family. He must continue on as if they were still alive, waiting for him somewhere.

These were his thoughts in the seconds following the gunshot. For a brief moment there was silence, but as he had predicted, there were more zombies than the one he had just put out of its misery. From the myriad offices of Sector D Administration there came the sound of movement, quiet at first, then a growing cacophony of distressed sobbing coming from all directions.

The lights hadn't switched on again. For all Eli knew, it would stay this way. He was deeply thankful that his gun had a flashlight attachment. All he could see was a cone of white light in front of him, but it was much better than nothing.

Finding the door, Eli exited the office as quietly as he could. Luckily, the zombies made noise, and he could tell roughly where they were. He was about to think how fortunate he was that they were slow, when he heard a noise unlike that of any creature he had heard before. It was a long, low moan. Then in the distance came an insistent, gurgling, growl that grew louder and louder in pitch. Eli had never before heard something so panic-inducing. He threw the light from his gun this way and that, trying to determine where the noise was coming from. He finally realised it was echoing from a certain hallway, and he trained his submachine gun in that direction just in time to see a fleshy, emaciated creature scrambling toward him at great speed. It let out a blood-curdling scream, diving at him through the air. His heart in his mouth, Eli let out a burst of fire from his gun, bullets tearing through the creature's unprotected flesh and bone.

The corpse crashed into Eli, the momentum from its jump knocking him off his feet and throwing him to the floor. The creature stank of decaying meat and blood. Thankfully, it was dead, but it had covered much of Eli's lab coat in its gore. He pulled it off of him and discarded it. Recovering his gun from the floor which he had dropped in the collision, he pointed its light at the deceased zombie. It was not like the others. Its body was as gaunt as he had thought it had been, ribs showing clearly through the chest, scrawny limbs, and long fingers tapering into sharp points.

He didn't have time to tarry here, scrutinising the creature as Isaac Kleiner probably would have wanted to. The sounds of approaching zombies continued to echo off of the corridors between the offices, though luckily, none of them seemed to sound like the abomination he had just killed. They were being drawn by the gunfire. He swore to himself he would make an extra effort to remain quiet.

He hurried as silently as possible in the direction of what he hoped was Sector D's exit. He had only been through here a handful of times, when he, Dr Kleiner and a handful of other colleagues were called here for meetings with Dr Breen. He found that the darkness made the place unfamiliar. Shadows of bins and knocked over chairs loomed as he hastened himself along, momentarily thinking they were zombies or some other menacing alien, causing him to stop in his tracks until he could confirm that they were nothing dangerous.

Finally, he came to Sector D's exit. Directly opposite its double doors Eli spotted a signpost against a wall. Something he had never noticed before today. They pointed in several directions, one of which read: Level 3 Dormitories.