AUTHOR: Well, here's chapter 2, hope that many people have been waiting and that they won't get dissapointed! Special thanks to TheMadHatter577 and Talos for their reviews! Getting those means a lot to me and I hope to get more in the future.
Blood.
Metal.
Fire.
The first three things Cain smelled as he slowly regained conciosness.
Explosions.
Weapons discharge.
Metal scrapping against metal.
The first three things Cain heard as he slowly regained conciosness.
A body.
Blood splatters acroos the floor.
The elevator doors opening and closing.
The first three things Cain saw as he slowly regained conciosness.
He ached all over but nothing was broken. Unfortunadly, the two marines had not survived the crash. But he couldn't let that affect him. He needed to get out of here, he was suppose to meet Harks at the museum.
Shakily getting back to his feet, Cain grabed his rifle and jumped through the elevator doors as they opened.
The situation on the streets was the same. If anything, it looked worse. As he slowly made his way down the street, carefully keeping himself hidden behind debri and wreckage, he saw more and more bodies of his species and less and less of the aliens. The majority of the human bodies were civilians, many looking like they had been beaten to death...
Do they even know the term Prisoner of War? Unless they're intend here is not to conquer, but to...
He pushed that thought out of his mind and focused on the task; getting to that museum. But it was more difficult getting there then he first thought. For one thing, since every landmark and signs had been blown up, it was next to imposible to know where he was going. To make it worse, his radio had been severely damaged when the elevator crashed and it could barely receive any kind of transmission and not send any.
He needed to find someone with a working radio quick and-
Nearby, the sounds of gunshots was heard. Gunshots from a human weapon. Other marines. With a working radio.
Cain ran towards the source of the gunshots, taking a shortcut through a narrow alley.
Cain stuck to the shadows as he slowly approached the alley's exit. The gunshots sounded closer, and over the fire he could hear something else, like a shout or a yell. But the odd part of it all was that there were no sounds of any alien weapons. Had the aliens depleted they're ammo and started using human weapons? Or worse, were there nothing but humans fighting humans?
SQUASH
Cain blinked and looked down. Lifting his right foot, he saw he had stepped into an odd blue glowing liquid of some kind. Touching some of it with his finger, he brought it up to his nose and took a whiff. It didn't seem to have any kind of smell, and for a frightening second, a thought wondered if this was some kind of alien bio-weapon of some kind. But since he was still alive and felt fine, well, fine considering that he had just survived an elevator crash, the glowing liquid must have been something else.
Wipping the stuff away to the nearest wall, Cain slowly walked out of the alley, quickly scanning the street to his left for any hostiles, then turned to the right and-
-and almost jumped when he saw an alien ship had crashed into the building just right next to him.
But the real kicker was that the ship wasin't one of the black hulled troopships, if anything, that ship didn't resemble the attacking aliens at all. Nearly half of the ship was missing, it looked a bit smaller, sleeker and had a purple colored hull that seemed perfectly smooth in areas that wasin't all banged up. There were also couple of bodies laying on the rubble outside the ship, and it was clear by just looking at them that they were not of the same species as the aliens that were now attacking. One had its head, right arm and nearly half of its chest missing. The rest of the body was covered in some kind of white silver armour, and a long, sharp looking blade was attached to the left arm.
The other body was on fire, so it was imposible to tell what it had looked like before dying. For some unexplainable reason, the smell of the burning body made Cain think of fish and chips.
Cain's thoughts were pushed asside when he spotted something glowing among the rubble. Picking it up, it was some kind of a small, blue glowing ball, the color of it resembling the blue liquid he had stepped on earlier. Cain wondered what the blue thing was, as he now saw dozens of the balls scattered around the crash-site. Whatever those things were, these new aliens had them in amble supplies.
...wait a minute. These new aliens...are they the same ones that-
BANG
BANG
BANG
Gunshots echoed across the street. It sounded close, probably just on the other side of that nearby warehouse.
"You bastards! You monsters! You think you can get away with this? You messed with the wrong species today!" The marine fired severel more shots towards where the aliens were hiding, screaming in fury as he fired. He didn't seem to notice or care that the silver white armored aliens did not try and fire back, nor did he seem to notice that they were trying to say something, or that the rest of them were fighting against the other aliens on the other side of the ship.
Cain skillfully made his way towards the marine, taking cover behind supply crates and machinery in the big warehouse he was in. It used to belong to some mining company, but the place now had no roof, the reason for that was probably at the center of the place. A small, purple armored alien ship, roughly the size of a small transport. A glance at it and Cain saw it was the same type of ship he had seen nearby, though this one was in one piece, save for a damaged looking engine that seemed to be getting hurringly fixed by two of the silver armored aliens.
What are those things on they're heads?
The marine's pistol clicked empty and as he loaded another clip, Cain made his move.
"Marine, what do you think you're doing?" The marine turned to Cain, startled at his sudden appearance, and Cain saw in his eyes in what state he was in. He had seen it many times during the Colony War, most of it from the Bental Massacre. This marine had lost it, his common sense and rational mind replaced by frenzied fear and paranoia.
"Wh-wh-what am I doing? I'm killing the enemy, that's what!" He screamed hystericly as he fully loaded the gun and started to aim back at the aliens. Cain quickly stepped closer and grabbed his arm and pushed it away.
"Then you're shooting at the wrong enemy. These are the ones that arrived first, three days ago, remember? They are not the attackers," a part of Cain's mind scolded him for trying to reason with the crazed man, when he perfectly knew he was beyond any words. The other part simply didn't want to hurt or kill someone who was supposed to be on the same side as he.
Judging by the expression on the marine, he didn't feel the same.
"Not the attackers? Not the attackers? Just look at them! They're aliens! They're gonna kill us all! My entire unit has been whipped out! My homecity is burning and you say they ain't responsible?.! The hell is wrong with you!"
"Look, they arrived three days ago and did nothing. A diplomatic ship was send and-"
"Nothing? Did nothing? They send down probes, it was all over the news! They were studying us, finding out a weakness, the best way to kill us all!" Cain briefly glanced towards the new aliens and saw that the two seemed to be observing the exhange with the crazed marine. The fact that they hadn't taken the opportunidy to fire at them only proved his point that they weren't the enemy, though he had no intentions of pointing that out. He did, however, see that a fresh wave of the reptile looking aliens were fighting hand to hand with the other aliens.
"Just look at them, Private!" snapped Cain, pointing the fight with his left hand, "They too are fighting against the ones that have been killing us! They are on the same side as us!" But the Private looked like he hadn't heard a word of what he had said, his attention fixed on Cain's left hand.
"What the hell is that?"
"What?" Cain blinked and looked at his left hand, and saw to his surprise that he was still holding that glowing ball, "I...I don't what it is, I found it near a crash site and-"
"It belongs to them, doesn't it? You're one of them!"
"Now just wait a damn-"
The marine shot him.
Cain blinked.
The second shot made him stumble backwards.
The third made him lose his balance and he fell down on his back, still not beliving what had just happened.
He...he shot me!
I've never been shot before...
Cain blinked as the marine stood over him, his face twisted in hatred as his mouth moved, but his ears were ringing and he didn't hear a word of what he said, though his lips ended with a word he did read.
Traitor.
The marine raised his gun and aimed at Cain's head, intending to finish him off.
A large hand grabbed his head from behind and lifted him up like he was nothing. The large, blue skinned reptile roared as the marine tried to aim his gun at it, but it grabbed his arm and twisted it in the wrong direction and the marien cried out in pain. As the marine dangled in its grib, the alien brought an odd looking green device to his head and slowly ran it over his head, as if...scanning his head. But whatever the device did, the alien didn't like the result.
Cain could do nothing but watch as the alien slammed the marine hard to the ground, only to lift him up again and slam him down again and again and again. The marine had propably died in the second or third slam, but the creature continued anyway untill it was satisfied, finally tossed away the bloody pulp that was once a human's head.
The alien then turned its attention on Cain.
As it stood over him, Cain tried to breathe, but something was stuck in his throat. Coughing, a mouthfull of warm blood came from his mouth, it slowly leaking down his chin and neck. The alien's lips curled into a crual smirk, and it sounded like it was chuckling. It was then that Cain realised that the aliens that were attacking Edumea were not some wild savages, or a horde obeying some higher intelligence.
The aliens were killing humans because they could, they knew what they were doing and they enjoyed it.
Gritting his bloodied teeth, Cain used all the strength he had in his right arm to raise up his rifle to shoot the alien. But it flew out of his grib when it lazily slapped it away. The alien then raised an eye-ridge, as if contemplating what to do with Cain. It looked at the scanner attached to its arm, then back at him.
A sadistic smile appeared on its lips as it pulled the device away, crackled its knuckles and started to reach down for him, the glee in its yellow eyes looking like the alien was about to do something it enjoyed very much.
But just before it grabbed him, a white blur slammed into it, tobbling both over and they dissappeared out of Cain's sight. He tried to raise his head up to see what was going on, but the pain in his chest and stomach was too great. All he heard was the sounds of physical struggle and there was no way of telling who was winning.
One of the white armored aliens was suddenly standing over him. Carefully, as if not wanting to frighten him, it slowly kneeled and seemed to be looking over his wounds, though it was imposible to tell since its face was hidden behind a plate. Then a strange sound came from it, its voice sounding like it had two throats or something, but Cain didn't understand a word of it, though the voice sounded gentle and then it placed its long, three fingered hand on his shoulder, as if trying to assure him of something. A second alien appeared, its armour splattered in purple blood. But when it saw Cain, it recoiled back as if the sight was a physical blow, and it said something in its language, almost sounding...frightfull.
"What..." gurgled Cain, but only more blood came out of his mouth by his effort. The kneeling alien said something to him, again sounded like it was trying to calm him. The other one suddenly said something hurridly and pointed at something near Cain. The kneeling alien looked where it had pointed, and for a moment looked taken back. Then it reached down and picked up the blue glowing ball, turned its faceplate on Cain and said something, waving the blue ball as if that would explain it.
But before anything else happened, a third alien voice was heard, a yell that came from the ship. Both aliens looked towards the source, then at each other, the one kneeling made a gesture at Cain and said something, while the other nodded and dissappeared out of sight. As the other said something calmly to him, Cain felt the alien fingers go under his back and legs and before he could realise what the alien was doing, he was gently lifted up as if he weighted nothing, and the alien carried him carefully, though hurringly, towards their ship.
...wh-whats...ha-happening...wh...where...
His breath quickened as he felt himself starting to panic, and the shock of getting shot was dissipating, slowly replaced by the pain of his wounds. It was difficult to breathe, one of the shots must have punctured a lung, and he could feel the second bullet had gone through his stomach but had no idea where the third one had went. Getting shot at such close range, all three bullets must have gone through his body. He didn't know how long he had left, only that he had heard getting shot in the lungs would take hours to die, while a shot through the stomach was the most painfull way and equilly long. But both at the same time? It could be hours. It could be less then one.
Just before Cain was carried up the ship's boarding ramp, the last thing he saw was the sky, and hundreds of the troopships, all slowly dissappearing in the clouds.
They're...leaving?
The interior of the ship held the same alien touch as it did outside, everything build sleekly and colored in ocean blue. A low humming sound slowly rose, the ship's engines powering up. The alien carrying Cain gently placed him down and kneeled next to him, turning its head to one of its kind, giving some kind of an order before turning back to him, gently pressing its hand at one of his wounds. Cain breathed in sharply of the pain that came with that, but the alien did not ease the hand's pressure. As the alien returned and handed some kind of a big sea-shell to the other, three more entered the ship in a hurry but stopped dead in they're tracks when they saw Cain.
They just stood there until the kneeling alien noticed them and yelled something at them. Two of them slowly walked to the seats opposite Cain, they're faceplates never looking away from him, while the third made an odd gesture, bowing with its hand in front of it and with the other behind it before sitting down as the ramp closed.
The alien opened the shell, containing some kind of green stuff, the strong odor of it almost making Cain's eyes go watery. It picked some up with its fingers, said something to Cain and then smeared it on the stomach wound.
Cain opened his mouth to scream, but choking sounds came instead. That didn't stop the alien from smearing some more of that green stuff on the rest of his wounds, and Cain gritted his teeth as the ship lurched. Cain's vision suddenly darkened, and somewhere deep in his body, he started to feel cold. Weak.
He was dying. He could feel it. It was a feeling he had never experienced before, and yet he knew that was what he felt inside him.
The aliens should have just left him there, what could they possibly do? Did they belive they could somehow save him? Or was that even the plan? Had they something else in mind? Study? Diception?
The ship started to shake as it rose high in the sky, and the alien mumbled something and stood up, looking like it was about to strap itself to one of the seats. At that moment, an uncontrolable fear struck Cain, right into his soul.
No!
Cain's right hand suddenly found a new source of strength, as it grabbed the alien's hand before it could walk away. It slightly flinched, as if surprised and looked down at him.
"...don't...want to..."each word took a hellish effort to whisper, as his his throat felt like it was on fire. But he forced himself to say the words anyway, "...die...alone..."
Few people knew their darkest, deepest fear. Not the kind of fear of spiders or rats, but the one that reached deep into the depths of the mind, that shook the very soul. After finishing training and spenting a month in the Colony War, a mission to infiltrate a small outpost that went horribly bad, had made Cain realise his.
To die alone.
He knew asking the alien to stay with him was absurd, since it probably didn't understand a word of what he had said, for one thing. But maybe it understood the gesture of what he had said, or berhaps, it too just somehow understood because both were soldiers. Whatever the reason, the alien actually nodded and stayed with him.
And removed its helmet.
Its skin was dark-bronze colored and the eyes were bright gold. When Cain had first seen these new aliens back at the warehouse, he had assumed that those things on their heads were simply a part of their helmets, but in truth it was a part of themselves. And as it spoke, the jaw split in two and deep voice came from it, sounding like it had two throats and somewhere at the back Cain's surprised mind, he thought that the alien face resembled a lot like a fish, for some reason.
The ship shook again as it took a sharp turn, and Cain could hear explosions come outside. He noticed for a second a bright flash in the room, and as he slowly raised his head, he saw that the ramp had a window, giving a view of Edumea as they broke orbit.
It was on fire.
...what...
The surface was beeing bombarded, but the explosions...it was too big to be nuclear bombs, or any kind of explosives Cain knew of. Then what was-
Suddenly, a large asteroid appeared in the view and crashed where the Hillsbrad Mountains were.
"...no..."
The sound was so small, like a child's, and only when Cain's hand covered his mouth did he realise it had come from him.
But then, the worst part appeared.
Nearly the size of a moon, burning brightly like a minature sun, it came towards Edumea at an impossible speed, and hit the planet. The flash momenterily blinded Cain's eyes, but when it returned, cracks had appeared across the planet as it looked like it was about to explode from the inside.
"NO!"
Cain rose up screaming, reaching towards his homeworld as if trying to stop what was happening, while the alien grabbed him and stopped him from rising up any further.
"GET YOUR STINKING HANDS OFF OF ME!" He struggled, yelled, punched and spat at the alien, but it remained its firm grib on him. The pain of the bullet wounds was nothing compared to the anquish, anger and despair raging inside him, and when the ship entered hyperspace, the last thing Cain saw of Edumea was half of the planet exploding.
Cain sat there frozen, his hands still up after trying to reach the window. Slowly, the alien pushed him back down, but Cain didn't notice, instead he just layed there, his eyes wide as he stared up into the ceiling, his mind in a totall lockdown.