At first this chapter may seem confusing, but it'll have the explanation somewhere in the middle. So you asked for blood and gore? Well, maybe you didn't, but here it is anyway.

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A nearby supply depot exploded into a spectacular show of fireworks as a shower of hydralisk spines pierced its control room. Pieces of metal were thrown off into uncharted territory. Machine guns blazed, sending the loud clacking echoing throughout the Terran base. Sounds of organic matter being cut up by lead bullets rang with the ferocity of siege tanks as their shock cannons unloaded shells into the midst of an advancing Zerg army. Rock-hard skulls and insect-like legs scattered across the battlefield. One thing was for sure... it was a mess.

The bat-like wings of mutalisks cast grueling shadows on the bunkers, unleashing septic biological spits. Missiles exploded upon impact of these creatures, sending them crashing to the ground in a pile of barbecued flesh. Though the number of the Zerg attack force had dwindled, there still seemed to be a sea of them.

Then the inevitable happened, a bunker gave out as a fully accelerated ultralisk sent its pincers crashing into the building. At the sight of a hole in the defense, zerglings and hydralisks flooded in. The first dozen met a fiery death as flame-throwers found their targets. The firebats were soon dispatched, though.

As chaos ensued around him, Shane wondered whether he forgot to take the safety off his gun. After seeing that he didn't, a round was aimed and fired at an incoming zergling. The aim was almost perfect, striking the creature's left eye socket. Collapsing on its side, blood gushed out of its eye and it twitched every so often, then remained motionless.

Meanwhile, the outer defenses of the Terran base had fallen into flames. Zerglings sprinted through the remains of bunkers with playful hops, some stopping to take a vicious bite from the dead lying around. The second line of siege tanks opened fire, mercilessly leaving red pulps on the ground where their shells struck.

Looking up, Shane saw a single mutalisk making its way toward the center of their base. Wasting no time, he aimed his rifle upward at a thirty-degree angle and fired. The shot hit its right wing, sending the flying menace into a furious spin out of control before crashing through the top of a vespene refinery. The sight would have been amusing most other time, but the vespene gas just happened to be extremely flammable. Upon crashing into it, the mutalisk slammed into some of the supplies within, setting off an explosion. Though the explosion was not particularly large, it left a side of the base a ruin of metal.

Zerg attacks were never known for letting a mistake pass unnoticed, and they weren't going to start now. Pouring through the opened side, they made short work of many defensive structures and units. Bunkers, missile turrets, and siege tanks roared in fury as they exploded, chunks of metal flying everywhere and fires starting all around.

A loud rumbling started from his left, as he turned, a charging ultralisk came into view. It sent a gigantic sound wave slamming into Shane, a magnificent sound, if not for the fact that in a few seconds it would kill him. Realizing the dire situation, he did whatever came to mind, and that was to leap back a few feet and continued backing up as fast as he could. He watched in slow motion as the Zerg giant continued to advance at a remarkable speed for such a huge creature. There was nothing left to do but wait... for death.

A blur, and suddenly there was something between the two of them. Not that it was anything exceptional, just a small device. It popped out of the earth like a gopher and then scooted toward the ultralisk on four spiky legs. It looked useless, as the ultralisk was at least a few hundred times the device's size, but every human knew what kind of device it was. The spider mine, upon reaching its target, detonated.

The ultralisk was blown apart, its remains spread around the place like a supernova that recently exploded to leave clouds of gas around it. Shane fared a bit better, being further away, but his smaller size granted more vulnerability to the blast. His body was sent flying back into the wall of a burning building and he felt a sharp pain in the back of his skull. As darkness invaded his vision, he saw the burning command center with a monster floating above it.

The creature looked like an eagle's talon with webbing like a duck's feet. In the middle of the web, there was a face that not even a devil would love. Towering over the other flyers with at least twice their sizes, the Zerg queen barreled through the top of the structure, beginning the slow infestation that seemed all too usual.

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The first thing that came to his senses when he regained consciousness was the pungent stench of rotting flesh. Trying to cover his nose was impossible, as he felt a thick patch of organic blanket sticking him to the metal wall. He slowly opened his eyes, and instantly regretted the decision.

What surrounded him was a biological chamber, as if taken from a horror movie. Purple creep, red veins and muscular extensions of some sort filled his eyesight. In front of him, also trapped by a layer of creep, was another human, or what was left of one. Instead of a face, all that was there was a bare skull with tentacles sticking out of the eye sockets. The remainder of the body was hidden, but Shane assumed it to be in the same state.

It was a sickening feeling to know that the Zerg would be so cruel as to infest another race like that. Maybe it was the thought itself, but Shane felt something within his body croak and an agonizing pain shot up his spine. It was the feeling of an organ popping. It couldn't be, could it? Was that how the infestation worked? Inside out?

Tentacles slithered out of his right shoulder; he could feel it even through the creep keeping him in place. As more tentacles made their ways out of his body, he screamed, a shriek more psionic than sonic. Images flooded his mind, images, almost endless. He felt billions of minds flood into his head, billions of memories, billions of thoughts, of wonder, hope, and hunger. A race never before seen in the Terran records showed up in his thoughts, as well. To accompany it, another thought entered him, sending an echo through his head: Xel'Naga.

Abruptly, the thoughts stopped moving in, and were replaced by an intense heat. All around him creep and muscles were engulfed in flames. His mind began to blur, but he continued screaming with more and more effort as the fire killed off the alien cells around him. The burning sensation reached the core of his being, or maybe it was something else there...

Infestation... what did infested Terran do? He managed to curse a few times as each tentacle protruding out of him broke apart, those within him dissolved. The breaking apart was so quickly that it felt like explosions around his body, to a degree they were explosions. It was then that Shane found out exactly how much damage the parasites within him did. Internal bleeding started quickly, mixing with the pain of singed flesh on the outside, it was unbearable.

The creep holding him onto the wall died off quickly, sending him falling to the floor of the command center. The wall behind him gave out as a jet of flames washed past it. Shane felt his crippled body lying facedown on the ground, his right arm no longer worked, his stomach probably had a big messy hole through it, and the other parts he could not even feel. At least the parasites were gone... right?

Strong arms gripped him and pulled him up, but he didn't care. He didn't have enough strength to care. With a final sigh of exhaustion, darkness claimed him.

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His eyes widened quickly and he sat up, bumping his forehead against glass. Surveying the area, the small, cold sleeping chamber he lay in reminded him of a freezer they used to keep dead zerglings in for later studies. A glass window above him provided some light for his eyes and he slowly looked around, careful to not hurt himself with sudden movements. A curious face stared down at him, an emerald glow in her eyes as she smiled. "Mr. Kelly, the doctor said you'd be all right. Now we've done some extra things to your body since it was so damage, I hope you don't mind."

Shane smiled back... and then frowned. Something was off. Kelly, was that really his last name?

"Mr. Kelly?" The medic asked worriedly.

"What did you call me?"

"That is your name, right? Mr. Kelly."

No. It wasn't. Something was definitely wrong, the last thing Shane remembered was that he was on a dropship heading toward a Zerg gathering, there was no Terran base there. Also, why was he using a canister rifle when he's a marine? Then lastly, his name was Shane Becker, not Kelly.

"Shane?" A distant sound registered in his head.

"Yeah, what?" He answered back.

"Wake up, you lazy pig!"

"Huh?" He blinked out of shock, but found that it took more effort to reopen his eyes than he thought. Daylight pierced the dropship's front window and into his eyes. Exhaustedly, he opened them a bit wider to see a huge figure standing in front of him. Funny how the head looked so round and the guy was so bulky...

"We're almost there! I can't believe you napped for forty minutes straight! Get those Stim-Packs ready! Hahaha."

His head grew a bit clearer and he noticed the details on the man's face. Mustache, cavity-filled teeth, and greasy cheeks met his gaze. He grimaced and turned away. A voice came from his helmet.

"Alright guys, get out there and kick some major butt!"

Oh, great... he thought, it's the cheerleading dropship pilot. That reminded him, it was almost time to die.

Die... Death... Zerg... Infestation... something hit him like a truck in the middle of the road, was what happened in the dream supposed to happen to him somewhere around there?

"No." A whispered answer entered his ear. He turned to find the ghost standing next to him.

"You know about that dream? I thought you wanted to keep your mind fresh." He shuddered as he remembered the details. The feeling... the dream even felt real, maybe it was.

"I know about it, because..." Saying nothing else, and with the dropship's hatch opening up, Corvin jumped down and out of sight.

Not understanding what the hell just happened, Shane went to the back of the dropship and grabbed his gauss rifle. Trusty old gauss rifle, not some stupid canister rifle that only fires one shot, he thought. Along with the other marines, he jumped down the hatch as well, landing ungracefully and loudly on the ground.

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In case you don't understand what the hell happened, everything except the last part is a dream. Maybe I put too much effort into descriptions, or made it too dramatic, I don't know. Comments?