I obviously don't own Half-Life or anything to do with it. I've followed
most of the story from the game, but changed a lot of things about it. I'm
not sure how closely I'll follow the game yet, if you have any suggestions
or recommendations, please tell me. I need as many reviews as possible.
Thanks,
Showan.
Half-Life
"Mr Freeman! What the hell happened in there?" The guard on duty charged up to him, panic stricken. He was shouting over the alarms.
"What happened out here?" yelled back Freeman. How much had the world outside the test chamber been affected? The noise of the warning sirens was drilling through his head now. Even the walls were shaking.
Then the wall disappeared, and Gordon once again stared into the nightmare world. This time he saw its natives up close. The guard next to him cried out in surprise, and the scene sunk away into the wall.
But the creatures did not. Four of them sat, bemused, on the ground. They were small, about the size of a human head, and had a soft, fleshy shell with tiny red, scuttling legs underneath. One of them suddenly launched itself on to Gordon's face. He yelled as he felt its limbs clutch his head. He tried to pull it off, but it was much stronger then it looked. A loud bang deafened his ears, and the crab fell limp, landing on the floor in a spreading pool of green blood.
The other three creatures attacked, crawling and leaping towards them. The guard opened fire, but the shots weren't as effective at longer range, and the crabs's pale shells swallowed many more bullets before they collapsed in blood. "Flippin' 'eck," gasped the guard. "If that's going on everywhere..." They both looked at each other, the realisation evident on their faces. "We'd got to alert the rest of the base, and fast!"
"We'll find Kenyon. He knows more then us about the whole experiment. He might know how to sort this out." Seeing the man's doubtful expression, Gordon added, "It's worth a try, although I think we're all out of our depth here." They set off at a sprint toward the survey room.
"Watch out!" They skidded to a halt, nearly tripping over the technicians's tool trolley that blocked the path. "What the heck's this doing here?" asked the guard.
"Look!" Gordon pointed. The technician was writhing around further down the passageway. "He's being attacked by one of those crab things!" The guard raised his gun, "You can't aim safely from here!" Gordon grabbed a crowbar off the trolley and ran to help the man. He had stopped moving now, and just stood, letting himself be devoured. Gordon yelled, trying to distract the crab's attention. Then the man struck out with a hand, and clawed Gordon across the face. Gordon stumbled in shock, and the man took another drunken swipe at him. He dodged, and neatly scooped the crab off the man's face with his crowbar.
The technician's head was an empty, bloody shell. A strange white tentacle stretched from deep in his neck to the underbelly of the head-crab on the floor. "That thing's taken control of him!" shouted the guard, as he caught up. The dead technician swung around to attack him, but the guard grabbed the tentacle and wrenched it out. The man collapsed to the floor, and Gordon, filled with rage and horror, stamped on the head-crab, until green blood spurted from it.
They both stood still, numb with shock at the dead man lying before them. Dead. The full horror of what that meant became painfully clear to Gordon. He knew, with deadly certainty, that before the day was over, many more would be like that. He pulled himself together. If there weren't many of the creatures, and they warned the officials quickly enough, maybe they could stop too many deaths.
"It must tap into other creatures's nervous systems." he said, after flicking the thing's corpse off his foot. "That means there must be other things on its planet for it to tap into." He fervently hoped that there weren't any of them loose in the building. He didn't think they were any more friendly.
They jogged as fast as they could to Kenyon's survey chamber, Gordon had to smash the glass out of most of the doors so they could get through. "The resonance cascade must have shorted out the power." He stopped to take his bearings. Everything seemed so different, in the dark, stinking of death and fear. He pointed to the end of the corridor: "They should be up there, just around that corner."
The door beside him abruptly exploded, and a foul, reptillian, chicken-like thing pounded out. It was surrounded by head-crabs, and it was picking them off with bursts of greenish ink from the tentacled hole that should have been its head. The guard next to him shot it , with no effect except to make the thing turn around and charge at them, firing high powered jets of gunky ink from its mouth, which was surrounded by a ring of feelers. The gunk spattered fiercely against the wall, splashing Gordon. He dodged the fire, but did not retreat as it hurtled towards him. He waited until it was only a foot away, and stabbed his crowbar straight through its body, pulling up as the weapon ripped a fatal slash in it.
"Good hit, Mr Freeman," said the guard, reloading his gun. He shot a surviving head-crab twice, and fell dead. "Got another one." he smiled in satisfaction.
"Thanks. We'd better find Kenyon quick... Oh heck... If there're any more of those lizard things, they could be in trouble." Gordon ran, desperately. Kenyon was the one he'd been relying on to sort everything out. It was a crazy, irrational idea, but Kenyon knew more then anyone about the project. Maybe he would know some way to save the situation.
If he didn't, or was killed now, the entire Black Mesa Research Facility would be evacuated and left to these creatures, and soon they'd start to spread. It suddenly hit Gordon that he didn't know how far they'd been spread anyway. For all he knew, they could be all over America. Then help would never come.
They pelted around the corner, dreading what they would see. Four more lizards had indeed found Kenyon's survey room, and were viciously attacking the door. It was covered in emerald slime, riddled with tiny dents, and now the beasts were physically ramming it. It bent inwards under the impact, then it gave way.
"No!" yelled Gordon as the lizards surged through. He caught them up, and impaled one with his crowbar. The guard pummelled another with bullets. They leapt over the corpses and entered the room.
The stench of blood slapped Gordon in the face. Everything was drenched in it, soaked in crimson or emerald death. The two remaining lizards were going after yet more head-crabs, which the scientists had clearly been fending off. They all held makeshift clubs, aside from the three lying dead on the ground, head-crabs burrowing into their brains. Kenyon wasn't with the ones who were alive.
Head-crabs were dropping from a hole in the ceiling. The guard swiftly opened fire, killing them all before they hit the ground. Gordon slaughtered a lizard, letting the other one finish off the last head-crab before slashing its insides over the floor. The surviving scientists breathed simualtaneous sighs of relief.
"Gordon! Thank God you're here! We thought the crystal's implosion had killed you!" Gordon didn't speak. He was staring dully at the carcusses littered casually around him. "Gordon?"
"Kenyon's plan worked. The border world and ours were pulled together. You applied too much power." Gordon felt as if he would be sick. "I was sucked right into Kenyon's new universe." He shivered, but seemed to recover from his shock. "How far have these creatures got? How serious is it?"
"It could be worse than anything humanity has ever seen." Gordon turned. Kenyon was sitting in the corner, his knee bleeding freely. "I didn't expect a delayed reaction from the crystals. The resonance attraction was way too big. The portal has created what I can only call interdimensional ripples. Our space is grazing against the border world's, and we don't know how far these will spread. They will peter out eventually, but how many of those creatures will have invaded by then?"
The guard spoke. "We should contact the officials immediately. Call the military and tell them what's happened. They can come and get us out of here."
Another scientist nodded, Gordon recognised him as Joseph Cleranse. "We've tried to set up a communication, but all power's out. Bonar said he managed to, but he's not sure if they recieved it."
"Where's Bonar?" Jo pointed over to the other side of the room. A man in a guard's uniform was collapsed against the wall, his face a mangled mess and blood pouring down his body.
Gordon was silent. Then he said, "We'd better get out of here. We'll see if we can make it out of the tunnels, above ground. We'll be safer out in the desert then in here. We should take as much supplies as possible."
"Does anyone have a map of this place? I know the way to the artillary bunker, but apart from that and my patrol zone, I'm lost."
"All our maps were on the computers, and now the electricity's down. If we found our way back to reception, we could follow the arrows on the wall."
"Whatever we do, we can't afford to wait around. Heaven knows how many more crabs and lizards could suddenly appear behind that door. We'll go to the artillary room, and get some weapons. We'd best get straight out then. Any food or other supplies would put us in more danger, and probably be spoiled anyway. Do you think those aliens are edible?"
"I doubt it. They can obviously survive in air, and they have similar nervous and respiritory systems, but it's way too much of a risk."
"I suppose so." Swallowing back a mouthful of vomit, Gordon took all the blood sodden guns and ammo packs from the dead Bonar. He shared them out equally between the unarmed scientists, and gave the guard some extra ammunition. "Well, let's go then."
Thanks,
Showan.
Half-Life
"Mr Freeman! What the hell happened in there?" The guard on duty charged up to him, panic stricken. He was shouting over the alarms.
"What happened out here?" yelled back Freeman. How much had the world outside the test chamber been affected? The noise of the warning sirens was drilling through his head now. Even the walls were shaking.
Then the wall disappeared, and Gordon once again stared into the nightmare world. This time he saw its natives up close. The guard next to him cried out in surprise, and the scene sunk away into the wall.
But the creatures did not. Four of them sat, bemused, on the ground. They were small, about the size of a human head, and had a soft, fleshy shell with tiny red, scuttling legs underneath. One of them suddenly launched itself on to Gordon's face. He yelled as he felt its limbs clutch his head. He tried to pull it off, but it was much stronger then it looked. A loud bang deafened his ears, and the crab fell limp, landing on the floor in a spreading pool of green blood.
The other three creatures attacked, crawling and leaping towards them. The guard opened fire, but the shots weren't as effective at longer range, and the crabs's pale shells swallowed many more bullets before they collapsed in blood. "Flippin' 'eck," gasped the guard. "If that's going on everywhere..." They both looked at each other, the realisation evident on their faces. "We'd got to alert the rest of the base, and fast!"
"We'll find Kenyon. He knows more then us about the whole experiment. He might know how to sort this out." Seeing the man's doubtful expression, Gordon added, "It's worth a try, although I think we're all out of our depth here." They set off at a sprint toward the survey room.
"Watch out!" They skidded to a halt, nearly tripping over the technicians's tool trolley that blocked the path. "What the heck's this doing here?" asked the guard.
"Look!" Gordon pointed. The technician was writhing around further down the passageway. "He's being attacked by one of those crab things!" The guard raised his gun, "You can't aim safely from here!" Gordon grabbed a crowbar off the trolley and ran to help the man. He had stopped moving now, and just stood, letting himself be devoured. Gordon yelled, trying to distract the crab's attention. Then the man struck out with a hand, and clawed Gordon across the face. Gordon stumbled in shock, and the man took another drunken swipe at him. He dodged, and neatly scooped the crab off the man's face with his crowbar.
The technician's head was an empty, bloody shell. A strange white tentacle stretched from deep in his neck to the underbelly of the head-crab on the floor. "That thing's taken control of him!" shouted the guard, as he caught up. The dead technician swung around to attack him, but the guard grabbed the tentacle and wrenched it out. The man collapsed to the floor, and Gordon, filled with rage and horror, stamped on the head-crab, until green blood spurted from it.
They both stood still, numb with shock at the dead man lying before them. Dead. The full horror of what that meant became painfully clear to Gordon. He knew, with deadly certainty, that before the day was over, many more would be like that. He pulled himself together. If there weren't many of the creatures, and they warned the officials quickly enough, maybe they could stop too many deaths.
"It must tap into other creatures's nervous systems." he said, after flicking the thing's corpse off his foot. "That means there must be other things on its planet for it to tap into." He fervently hoped that there weren't any of them loose in the building. He didn't think they were any more friendly.
They jogged as fast as they could to Kenyon's survey chamber, Gordon had to smash the glass out of most of the doors so they could get through. "The resonance cascade must have shorted out the power." He stopped to take his bearings. Everything seemed so different, in the dark, stinking of death and fear. He pointed to the end of the corridor: "They should be up there, just around that corner."
The door beside him abruptly exploded, and a foul, reptillian, chicken-like thing pounded out. It was surrounded by head-crabs, and it was picking them off with bursts of greenish ink from the tentacled hole that should have been its head. The guard next to him shot it , with no effect except to make the thing turn around and charge at them, firing high powered jets of gunky ink from its mouth, which was surrounded by a ring of feelers. The gunk spattered fiercely against the wall, splashing Gordon. He dodged the fire, but did not retreat as it hurtled towards him. He waited until it was only a foot away, and stabbed his crowbar straight through its body, pulling up as the weapon ripped a fatal slash in it.
"Good hit, Mr Freeman," said the guard, reloading his gun. He shot a surviving head-crab twice, and fell dead. "Got another one." he smiled in satisfaction.
"Thanks. We'd better find Kenyon quick... Oh heck... If there're any more of those lizard things, they could be in trouble." Gordon ran, desperately. Kenyon was the one he'd been relying on to sort everything out. It was a crazy, irrational idea, but Kenyon knew more then anyone about the project. Maybe he would know some way to save the situation.
If he didn't, or was killed now, the entire Black Mesa Research Facility would be evacuated and left to these creatures, and soon they'd start to spread. It suddenly hit Gordon that he didn't know how far they'd been spread anyway. For all he knew, they could be all over America. Then help would never come.
They pelted around the corner, dreading what they would see. Four more lizards had indeed found Kenyon's survey room, and were viciously attacking the door. It was covered in emerald slime, riddled with tiny dents, and now the beasts were physically ramming it. It bent inwards under the impact, then it gave way.
"No!" yelled Gordon as the lizards surged through. He caught them up, and impaled one with his crowbar. The guard pummelled another with bullets. They leapt over the corpses and entered the room.
The stench of blood slapped Gordon in the face. Everything was drenched in it, soaked in crimson or emerald death. The two remaining lizards were going after yet more head-crabs, which the scientists had clearly been fending off. They all held makeshift clubs, aside from the three lying dead on the ground, head-crabs burrowing into their brains. Kenyon wasn't with the ones who were alive.
Head-crabs were dropping from a hole in the ceiling. The guard swiftly opened fire, killing them all before they hit the ground. Gordon slaughtered a lizard, letting the other one finish off the last head-crab before slashing its insides over the floor. The surviving scientists breathed simualtaneous sighs of relief.
"Gordon! Thank God you're here! We thought the crystal's implosion had killed you!" Gordon didn't speak. He was staring dully at the carcusses littered casually around him. "Gordon?"
"Kenyon's plan worked. The border world and ours were pulled together. You applied too much power." Gordon felt as if he would be sick. "I was sucked right into Kenyon's new universe." He shivered, but seemed to recover from his shock. "How far have these creatures got? How serious is it?"
"It could be worse than anything humanity has ever seen." Gordon turned. Kenyon was sitting in the corner, his knee bleeding freely. "I didn't expect a delayed reaction from the crystals. The resonance attraction was way too big. The portal has created what I can only call interdimensional ripples. Our space is grazing against the border world's, and we don't know how far these will spread. They will peter out eventually, but how many of those creatures will have invaded by then?"
The guard spoke. "We should contact the officials immediately. Call the military and tell them what's happened. They can come and get us out of here."
Another scientist nodded, Gordon recognised him as Joseph Cleranse. "We've tried to set up a communication, but all power's out. Bonar said he managed to, but he's not sure if they recieved it."
"Where's Bonar?" Jo pointed over to the other side of the room. A man in a guard's uniform was collapsed against the wall, his face a mangled mess and blood pouring down his body.
Gordon was silent. Then he said, "We'd better get out of here. We'll see if we can make it out of the tunnels, above ground. We'll be safer out in the desert then in here. We should take as much supplies as possible."
"Does anyone have a map of this place? I know the way to the artillary bunker, but apart from that and my patrol zone, I'm lost."
"All our maps were on the computers, and now the electricity's down. If we found our way back to reception, we could follow the arrows on the wall."
"Whatever we do, we can't afford to wait around. Heaven knows how many more crabs and lizards could suddenly appear behind that door. We'll go to the artillary room, and get some weapons. We'd best get straight out then. Any food or other supplies would put us in more danger, and probably be spoiled anyway. Do you think those aliens are edible?"
"I doubt it. They can obviously survive in air, and they have similar nervous and respiritory systems, but it's way too much of a risk."
"I suppose so." Swallowing back a mouthful of vomit, Gordon took all the blood sodden guns and ammo packs from the dead Bonar. He shared them out equally between the unarmed scientists, and gave the guard some extra ammunition. "Well, let's go then."