The first part of Halo's horrible secret is revealed...

Dlaeni stood up and looked around. He opened his mouth like he was trying to talk, but he couldn't. All that came out was a gurgle. He gurgled some more, and then said, 'Kill me.'

'What the...' said Torbei as he stepped backward.

Then Dlaeni ran off into the depths of the cave.

'Dlaeni! Come back!' Rinyo yelled after him, but it was no use.

'What...happened to him?' I said.

'Don't ask me,' said Torbei.

More of the little infection thingies swarmed out of the darkness towards us.

'Run!' I screamed.

We ran for a bit, but the Elite grabbed us and sat us on the Ghost as he sped out of the cave. The Elite drove the Ghost to a dropship landing spot and we got flown to one of the many headquarters to rest.

At the headquarters we topped up our supplies and as we were about to leave, an Elite stopped us.

'What did you see?' he said firmly.

'What?' said Torbei.

'What did you see? In the cave.'

We went pale as we remembered the infecting thing and blobs on the cave walls.

'It ate his arm,' I stammered.

'What did?' the Elite said anxiously.

'It ate his arm and he grew tentacles. Then he ran away.'

'What ate his arm? Tell me!'

'A little blob with lots of tentacles. It attached itself to his arm and when the Elite hit it it popped.'

The Elite was looking at me so seriously it was scary. Then he whispered, 'This is the work of the Demon.'

I thought a moment.

'Who's the Demon?' I asked.

'The Demon? About seven foot tall, green armour, deep voice.'

'Oh, you mean Greeny!'

'No. I mean the Demon.'

'No, Greeny.'

'Demon.'

Then Rinyo stepped in and broke it up before it got violent. I think it was a good idea for him to break it up. Anyway, he's called Greeny.

Rinyo suggested that we should start kicking human butt again or we'd get in trouble.

We grabbed fresh weapons(if you can call a plasma pistol a weapon) and set out to the snowy fields around the Control Room. When we got to the battlefield there was just one problem. The problem was everyone was dead.

'What have the humans done out here?' I exclaimed.

Just after I said that Torbei's jaw dropped. Followed by mine and Rinyo's. The humans were also dead.

'Everything's...gone,' Torbei said slowly.

Just when I thought my mouth couldn't open any wider, it did. There was living things among the carnage. Lots of them. The bodies we thought were gone were standing up, one by one. Only they weren't normal. They had tentacles like Dlaeni sprouting out of their necks and hands and were accompanied by many other shorter ones. The shorter ones had only legs, because the upper half of their body was a giant, bulging blob. One tripped over and exploded, showering the area with the infection forms. The taller ones with tentacles I guessed were used for combat, because they were holding the guns that they had before they were infected.

'Hey, guys,' I said, 'I've got an idea.'

'Is it run like crazy?' they asked.

'Yup.'

So we ran like crazy. We screamed through the headquarters, not looking back at all. But I looked back, and I wish I didn't. A combat form aimed a missile gun at us, and fired.

The Flood have been released! What next?