Ch. 54: Hell's Tunnel Finale
A.N.:
Hey everyone!
I hope everyone's summer is going alright :)
I am planning to post a short story later today, but if I cannot finish it in time, Happy Memorial Day!
Read and review if you want!
As I moved forward through the station's track area with my reloaded Patten Assault Rifle at the ready, I saw Akira glancing in the direction of her enraged mother at the other end of the station with a look of mild interest despite her otherwise deadpan demeanor. Meanwhile, the dark grey floating Nightmares that Alma had summoned moved with alarming speed through the air in the direction of the the nearby hell soldiers. Though easily destroyed, the apparitions were seemingly endless in their numbers as the ripple-like portals behind the psychotic psychic remained open. As I watched the nightmarish figures and their twisted, vengeful master, I felt a sense of nostalgia.
Alma was and still is a complicated individual to say the least. The more one tried to understand her, the less successful he or she was in that regard. I myself found trying to understand her to be a foolhardy endeavor. We both love each other to the point of literally being unable to live without the other. However, even with our shared thoughts and essentially being the two halves to the same person, I was no more enlightened to what made my wife tick than a complete stranger at times.
Alma could be the most loving and caring individual that the world had ever seen. However, she was also the most dangerous psychopathic mass murderer that our cruel world had ever created. The same touch that could ease suffering could also just as easily snuff out life. While my wife truly sympathized with others and did feel sadness for the lives that had been lost both directly and indirectly due to her actions, she does not feel regret or remorse for any of the inhumanly cruel actions that she commits.
On the other hand, she does not understand me. As she has commented several times, she has seen me display the capacity to perform the most selfless acts that she has ever seen but she has also seen me display the capacity to perform the most horrendous acts of psychopathic murder that rivals that of her own. She also points out that I feel no remorse for what I have done to other human beings in the name of my job of being a soldier but I do carry the unwarranted burden of guilt for failing to protect or "save" even complete strangers. I remember the number of people that I have killed but only the general appearance of their faces. I do, however, remember every single graphic detail of the face and/or name of every single individual that has died as a result of my failure to protect them. I am a fascinating anomaly to Alma just as she is a fascinating anomaly to me.
When I learned that Armacham had personnel files on all of us, I had read her files out of curiosity. The professional head peepers employed by ATC had some interesting things to say about her. There was an older psychological evaluation that always amused me when I read it. I had read it so many times that I could recall it from memory.
Armacham Technology Corporation
Warning: The following personnel file is classified. Violations will result in the usual penalties.
Subject: Alma Wade
Psychological Evaluation: Age 6
Overseeing psychologist: XXXXX (Identity removed from record as per order of Harlan Wade)
Initial attempts to interact with subject failed to yield any kind of response. Even physical interactions (touching, placing a hand on subject's shoulder, etc.) failed to yield any response from subject. After nearly five hours of silent observation, minor psychic disturbances were registered by sensors but no auditory or visual hallucinations were reported by those present. Subject remained passive as she sat in her chair seemingly in an altogether different world from the rest of us for the remainder of the session.
Just as the initial session was drawing to a close, a member of the technical crew reported hearing various voices through the equipment but a replay failed to yield any evidence of such an event. The individual in question was quarantined overnight in a protected chamber due to safety and health concerns. However, no further incidents were reported by any of those present during the initial session. (For full incident report, see the attached file)
During the second session, attempts to interact with subject finally yielded results as she verbally responded to basic questions (name, age, etc.). However, attempts to engage subject in deeper lines of questioning yielded no results as she became silent and withdrawn once again. The session was ended soon afterwards due to several individuals succumbing to debilitating stomach pains. (For full incident report, see the attached file)
During the third session, subject became more assertive and confrontational. Rather than her usual silence, subject became uncharacteristically verbal. She demanded to know why she was being subjected to experiments related to various classified programs and refused to calm down unless we answered her questions. While not violent or otherwise antagonistic, subject was uncharacteristically stubborn and assertive over the course of the session. Program Overseer Harlan Wade reports that it is her "true" personality though he did not elaborate on what that meant. After seven hours of questioning, subject seemed to grow disinterested in both her own questions and those present in general. The session was ended shortly afterwards.
The fourth session was the subject's most violent. Immediately upon being escorted in, she refused to sit in her chair and demanded to know why she was being harassed. Subject's Genius-Level Intelligence Quotient became apparent through her extensive and masterful use of vocabulary that she has likely obtained by processing the thoughts of the Armacham personnel that have come into contact with her. (see Intelligence Quotient Test #3440 for full report)
When ordered to comply with our demands for her to submit to our authority, subject simply smiled and then sat down in her chair. However, it soon became apparent that subject was psychically assaulting those present. Within five minutes, the majority of the staff began to succumb to her corrupting influence as indicated by their synchronized singing of the melody of the music box that belonged to the subject's mother.
It was rather unsettling to see how easily she took control of them. It was later theorized that subject was slowly breaking them down over the course of the previous sessions. The subject's intentions were revealed to not be of ill intent. Rather, it seemed that the subject enjoyed the incident and her actions as if the whole thing had been a mere childish prank. Nothing notable became of her control over the staff with the exception of making them dance in a comical manner for her. After about fifteen minutes, the subject tired of her "prank" and released the staff from her control. The staff members in question were removed from the room and were placed in quarantine for obvious health and safety concerns. (For full incident report, see attached file)
With the rest of the staff quarantined, I was left alone with the subject for the remainder of the session. Initial attempts to arouse a reaction out of her proved fruitless. As the session wore on, I became increasingly aware of a harsh ringing in my ears. The ringing persisted while it also steadily grew in intensity. When I demanded that the subject stop her games, she suddenly disappeared. I was certain that she was purposely making herself invisible to me as another "prank".
Later analysis of the recording video cameras vindicated my initial suspicions as it was clearly visible in the recorded video that the subject had not moved and was still sitting in the chair. Less than an hour later, subject became visible to me again though it was apparent that she had been amusing herself at my expense in the meantime by performing childish antics around me.
Growing tired of her antics, I admit a moment of weakness and nonprofessional discipline as I snapped about how she was never going to amount to anything or be anything other than a freak. I regretted my lack of control immediately though not because of my professional humiliation. Rather, it was due to the reaction that my outburst caused in the subject. Though it was very revealing of her personality and the best insight into who she is as an individual that I witnessed during the entirety of my time with her, I will never be able to forget the horror that I experienced in the following hours.
The subject's entire demeanor immediately changed from that of an uncaring, innocent child to that of a confident, highly-intelligent adult. "Demon" is the only word that I can use to describe what she became before my eyes. Her blue eyes became glowing orange/red eyes that seemed to pierce my very soul as her body became darker as if it was surrounded by some kind of black cloud. Fresh blood suddenly manifested upon her extremities though it was largely confined to her lower legs and bare feet. Her brown, unruly hair became raven and perfect while her skin changed to take on the appearance and texture of the finest porcelain. The child that we had been interacting with the past few days was gone. Before me, for all intents and purposes, was a completely different person whose voice and personality I did not recognize.
The look in her glowing eyes is one that I doubt that I will ever forget. Before, the subject had at least a glimmer of child-like innocence. Before, it was inconceivable that a child with such innocent eyes would have been capable of seriously harming another living creature beyond her "pranks". However, the girl with the glowing eyes and bloodied red dress was nothing short of the living incarnation of pure evil. I knew without a doubt that she could have killed me without any remorse.
What followed over the next few hours will forever be burned into my soul. It was as if the child had entered my mind and found every single wrongdoing that I had ever committed before proceeding to turn them all against me. In between these incidences, she showed me images of her own life. Her dingy cell, her daily routines of using her own waste to draw on the hard unforgiving floor, and her endless torment of tests. However, I could never determine if she was attempting to gain my sympathy or if she was merely showing me these things to teach me a kind of twisted lesson.
Regardless, by the end of the final session, I was thoroughly shaken to my core. It was all I could do to maintain my professional integrity. With my sanity wavering even as I write this report, I have been quarantined along with the rest of those that she has "enlightened". I will not survive to see the conclusion of the experiments planned for the subject. However, I can only offer my feeble prayers that they will not continue.
The child that we all see is merely a façade. Though the subject is a mere child physically, she is a highly intelligent woman who understands that what is being done to her is wrong. She does not at first seem capable of hurting others but will, in fact, murder them in the most violent and sadistic manner possible in order to protect herself or those she cares about. Subject is incredibly resilient as she displays eager willingness to defend herself should she feel threatened. The more isolated she becomes, the more she will fight back. Worse, if she ever finds an individual that sympathizes with and even shares her pain, I fear that the two would become inseparable and put into motion events that we would be unable to contain or stop. If that days comes, God help us all.
While I certainly did not agree with most of what the head peeper had reported about Alma, I did agree with the idea that she became attached to people that sympathized with her plight. Moreover, I had to admit that my wife was indeed incredibly resilient having overcome all that ATC had done to her and still having enough willpower to overcome death. However, the overseeing psychologist had fallen for some of Alma's oldest but also most effective tricks. The individual's own psyche had driven itself clinically insane due to Alma's close proximity. I doubted that, aside from Alma's "pranks", any of what had been reported had actually happened. Rather, it was literally all in his or her own head.
Moving forward through the hail of gunfire, I took aim at the soldiers that had taken position on the crosswalk on the far side of the station. The soldiers had their backs to me as they fired upon the swarms of abominations. I focused my initial barrage upon the center soldier that was armed with a likely captured Squad Automatic Weapon or SAW as it was commonly identified by non-military personnel. The lightweight yet powerful machine gun was cutting down the low-health apparitions with alarming ease. I had to neutralize it.
Weathering the strong kick of my Patten Assault Rifle, I put no less than twenty rounds into the SAW-wielding soldier. The loss of ammunition was worth the expenditure as the loss of the SAW proved to be a severe cripple on the remaining hell soldiers. Sure enough, moments later a series of loud guttural growls reported the first four or five soldiers that Alma's Apparitions had succeeded in killing.
A sudden, harsh stab of pain in my head alerted me to the approach of an incredibly powerful psychic. I turned to my left just in time to see Akira lunging into my frame. I cried out in agony as her overt negative aura assaulted my very being. Whether intentional on her apart or merely my body's overreaction to Akira's proximity, I felt my body begin to burn as if it was boiling from the inside out. Crying out, I forced the dark version of Amara off of me much like I had fought off Alma in Fairport. The psychic slammed against the concrete wall on the opposite side of the tracks. As she dematerialized, she grinned at me with a manic expression that twisted her otherwise innocent appearance. I did not have time to question her intentions because before I could even reload my weapon, molten metal began to emerge out of the track bed.
With only one available method to escape the manifested molten metal, Alpha 1 and I climbed out of the trough on the right side. As I started to get to my feet, I saw one of the large rocket launcher-armed soldiers take aim at me from where it was less than two feet before me. I activated my reflexes as I started to roll to my left. My reflexes proved to be my salvation once again as the rocket-propelled warhead missed its mark by mere inches and instead flew to impact the far wall. As I deactivated my reflexes, the soldier was besieged by a steady succession of blasts from Alpha 1's Vollmer. The last thing that I saw before I turned my head to study the remaining enemy soldiers was my brother throwing the much larger humanoid to the ground.
When I turned, I saw that we had neutralized at least ten of the approximately forty hell soldiers. Alma was beginning to slowly advance on the scrambling infantry as her abominations continued to emerge from the portals behind her. Moreover, I saw that my wife's dark presence was directly influencing and changing the station around her. Akira's decayed industrial-style nightmare world was changing and taking to take on the appearance of Alma's biblical apocalypse-style nightmare world.
As I watched in fascinated horror, Akira manifested before her soldiers with a blank, icy expression on her mask-like face as she starred down her mother. As the two god-like psychics engaged each other in a battle of wills, the fabric of reality in the station began to fall apart and soon the entire area was a mixture of both Akira's world and Alma's world. While I had no doubt that my other half was more than a match for Akira, I still had to get to the pair before the entire station was ripped apart at the atomic level.
Before me was the flame-laced skeletal wreck of what was once a four-door sedan. Patches of dead, grey grass were all around it and the remains of a cracked, crumbling patch of asphalt was beneath the long-destroyed automobile. As I neared the apocalypse-styled dystopian item that was born from my wife's tormented psyche, I saw three light hell soldiers appear through the thick clouds of smoke and fog that had blanked the entire station. Clearly, they were just as surprised to see me as I was to see them as I saw their bodies recoil slightly as they noticed me.
Before they could raise their Briggs SMGs, I activated my reflexes and took aim with my Patten. Using the remaining rounds of my clip, I eliminated the soldiers with well-placed and slightly lucky head shots. Following their demise, I took cover against the burning wreck while I reloaded my rifle. As I did, my heavily armored brother appeared next to me. When I looked at him, he remarked as he reloaded his Vollmer Automatic Shotgun, "Step 4: Address the environment."
I laughed darkly at the basic battlefield survival programming that Armacham had given the Replica before I said in response, "Hello environment." My brother laughed with his repeated grunts and then we left the cover of the manifest car. With our weapons raised, we proceeded through the thick fog and smoke in the general direction the last sighting of Alma.
Through the shroud came the sight of what we had to assume was the remains of the ticket booth. The structure was rusted and twisted nearly as if it was a pretzel due to the nearby clash of the powerful psychics. As we neared the barely recognizable booth, we saw five grunt soldiers armed with assault rifles with their backs to us on the other side of the mass of twisted metal and broken glass. They were firing blindly into the fog beyond the booth as the barely identifiable silhouette of abominations were visible through the choking blanket of fog and smoke at the farthest reaches of visibility.
Taking aim, I began to fire upon the enemy hell spawn as Alpha 1 retrieved a fragmentation grenade from the bandolier-style grenade rack along his armor. Not bothering with my reflexes, I quickly cut down the middle soldier and began to switch my fire to the nearest target to the left. Seconds later, the two soldiers on the right were eliminated by the ear-shattering explosion of my brother's well-thrown grenade that kicked up a thick debris cloud of concrete upon its detonation. Using the second half of my clip, I finished off the second soldier. As the final hell spawn turned with his glowing gas mask-shrouded face emitting a thick green cloud, my brother cut it down with three successive hits from his shotgun. We moved forward while I reloaded my rifle, which by then had a slightly glowing barrel from its near continuous firing.
As we moved forward, we came upon a steady stream of Apparitions that were floating through the thick fog and smoke towards sources of gunfire. Intent on getting to Alma first, we began to follow the path of the humanoids upstream to find their source. Moments later, I saw two small child-sized silhouettes that were facing each other. Despite the obvious danger, I steeled myself and continued forward towards the two figures. After several tense seconds, we finally got close enough to identify the nearest figure as Akira and the farthest one as Alma.
Between the two goddess of darkness was a collision between their two worlds. What looked as if the very ground was folded up as if it was a fault line was below what looked like a raging storm of clashing energy. The two psychics continued to silently stare at one another as their auras clashed and fought for dominance. I became alarmed as the air began to vibrate with increasing intensity as the energy began to build.
Both of the raven-haired goddesses refused to yield and the pocket of energy between them just continued to build until it finally reached an unstable mass moments later. Seeing a toppled concrete pillar to my right, I quickly moved to take cover behind it. My caution was vindicated moments later when a massive psychic shock wave thundered through the air. The refuge of the pillar somewhat shielded me from the dark red blast but I was still hit by the majority of the intense wave of raw energy. I was aware of flying through the air before the harsh psychic feedback caused me to blackout.
I was temporarily unable to breathe as I found myself lying on my back when I regained consciousness. A dull ringing in my ears indicated that my hearing was momentarily overwhelmed. A thick cloud of dust surrounded me in my silent sensory deprived prison. The fine particles of what was likely mostly dead skin irritated my dry throat when I was finally able to breathe once again. As I attempted get to my feet while I coughed in an attempt to clear my throat, I saw a figure approach me through the cloud. It was revealed to be a light hell soldier.
It moved to stand over me to finish me off but when it got close enough, I raised my right foot and then kicked the hell spawn in the center of its armored chest. As the being recoiled back into the dust cloud, I quickly scrambled to find my rifle. I found it just to my right. Moving as fast as my exhausted, shell-shocked body could manage, I rolled over on top of it. I took possession of my rifle and then rolled back over on my back as I aimed my weapon in the direction of the soldier. Just in time, I fired half of a clip into the hell soldier as it raised its Briggs SMG to kill me.
Keeping a firm hold on my rifle's trigger grip with my right hand, I cradled my rifle as if was a baby in my lap as I lifted my back. Using my free left hand and my legs, I more or less jumped forward to get my feet beneath me. My breathing and hearing were back to normal by that time though I was still unable to hear anything specific through the settling cloud of dust. However, rest was for the weak as I saw yet another figure approaching me through the green-tinged cloud to my left.
Returning my gloved left hand to my rifle's foregrip, I rallied my still recovering body. The grunt hell spawn let out a gurgled gasping noise as it charged towards me. I activated my reflexes as the creature closed the gap between us. Upon reaching me, the soldier swung the butt of his charred assault rifle towards my skull mask-shrouded face. I recoiled back just in time for the outer edge of the butt to miss my nose by inches. Before the creature could react, I swung the butt of my rifle's stock into the side of the humanoid's head. My blow sent the creature onto its back. Standing over it, I thrust my rifle's bayonet into the creature's throat. When the soldier reached up and grabbed my rifle's barrel to hold the bayonet into its throat to prevent me from being able to retrieve my weapon, I merely sent the heel of my right combat boot into its head to kill it. After retrieving my rifle from the ash, I began to move forward through the dust cloud.
By then, the dust had settled enough for me to see my general surroundings though only about five feet in every direction. However, I was able to make out the pillar that I had taken cover behind moments before getting hit by the shock wave. Alpha 1 and Alma were not within my field of view and I did not detect any further clash between Alma and Akira. Taking advantage of the lull in the fighting, I quickly loaded a fresh clip into my rifle.
I waited for the dust to settle a little more before proceeding any further. I idly wondered who had been the dominant psychic in the battle: Alma or Akira. Though the Alma of our universe had become incredibly powerful, Akira was not an ordinary psionic. She possessed not only her own power but also the power of the Alma from her universe. Moreover, there was no telling if she had adsorbed the power of the other versions of both herself, Alma, and even myself during her conquests of the other universes.
Her exact nature was also a mystery. Alma was bound to this universe though she was keenly aware of the happenings in others. Akira, however, had been able to cross between universes. That within itself was disturbing. However, the main concern was that since Akira could do the seemingly impossible of traveling between universes, then there was no telling what else she was capable of doing.
Having reloaded my weapon, I swiveled around in search of my missing comrades. Soon, I became aware of a weapon signature that I had not heard in nearly an hour. The slow, rhythmic heavy clunking of a G2A2 Assault Rifle rattled the air from somewhere within the station but I was unable to determine where. However, the identity of the wielder was not a mystery to me. There was only one fool that would have been in that tunnel of nightmares and armed with that weapon: Point Man. The outcast reject son of Alma Wade and likely the rest of the original F.E.A.R. Team must have also made their way through the tunnel after investigating the entrance in the bunker that they had cleared. As I listened, however, I could only distinguish one telltale weapon report.
Before I could investigate further, I became aware of the approaching small child-like figure. I turned my entire body to face the individual as she drew closer. I prepared myself in case it was Akira rather than my wife. To my immense relief, it was Alma that emerged through the settling clouds. I smiled slightly in both relief and happiness that she was alright. Sensing my thoughts, she teased me with an alarmingly tired tone, "Was the big tough soldier worried about the damsel in distress?"
I scoffed before I remarked, "Please, you're no more a damsel in distress than Aristide was a misunderstood victim."
Alma smiled darkly despite the weakness in her glowing eyes before she said as she placed her tiny right hand against her child-like chest, "Yes…I do cr-crush the stere-stereotype of the pitiful female vic-victim that is all alone and scared until the big male hero comes to sa-save me like a knight in shining armor…do-don't I?"
She moved closer and then suddenly wrapped her arms around my midsection. As my wife buried her head into my armored chest, I released my left hand from my rifle and then moved it to gently caress the soft contour of her lower back. As I held her gently, I asked, "You okay?"
She gave off a small noise as she pressed her face into the rough fabric of my Kevlar Vest before she pushed herself away from my frame enough to look up at me and reply, "I've been better…I'm fine though Michael."
Motion drew my attention to the figure in front of us but I did not feel threatened due to the identifying singular glowing narrow eye of Alpha 1's ceramic ballistic mask. By then, the dust had settled enough to allow the main details of his armor to be visible even though he was a good five feet from our position. Even still, I grimaced just looking at the appearance of the Heavy Trooper's armor. How my brother was able to so easily weather the punishment that he absorbed was simply beyond me.
With a large number of hell soldiers still all around us, I gently pushed my loving partner away as I gave her a simple glance. Understanding my unspoken comment as though it had been her own, Alma nodded without hesitation. Five figures closed in on us from the left and were soon revealed to be three grunts armed with assault rifles and two light soldiers armed with Briggs SMGs.
I turned to face them as I brought my rifle up and activated my reflexes. Meanwhile, a black aura enveloped the goddess of darkness next to me as she glanced in the direction of our assailants. My brother quickly moved forward with his Vollmer raised. Taking aim at the middle target, a grunt with its back turned to me as it fired its assault rifle back towards the other end of the station, I fired fifteen rounds from my Patten. As the creature burst into a cloud of ash, I snapped my aim to the grunt that was to the right. After I cut down yet another enemy combatant, I deactivated my reflexes and started to reload my rifle.
Meanwhile, two thick nightmarish tree roots suddenly manifested on either side of the group. Before my eyes, the animated nightmarish tentacle-like roots assaulted the hell soldiers with merciless brutality. The right root wrapped its length around the entire frame of the nearest soldier as if it was an anaconda before crushing the creature into powder. Meanwhile, the left tentacle whipped the nearest soldier across its gas mask shrouded-head. The savage strike succeeded in completely removing the humanoid's head from its body. Having reloaded my rifle, I took aim at the final soldier. However, before I could cut the hell soldier down, Alpha 1 ripped apart the hellspawn with four close range hits from his Vollmer.
Despite our small victory, I mentally sighed. I was running low on ammunition for my Patten. If the high-powered 7.8mm round used by my assault rifle was having difficulty with taking down Akira's soldiers, then I could only imagine the ammunition expenditure that our allies were being burdened with. This was insane. If this kept up, we would be down to sharpened sticks and stone clubs in no time. We needed something more powerful. The small diameter but high velocity rounds used by the majority of the world's small arms was not going to cut it here. Even Sparta's own armament was struggling against the unnaturally resilient creatures at Akira's disposal. Worse, now the dividing line between the supernatural and natural worlds was rapidly crumbling into oblivion. The description of "cute" came to my mind as I compared the killing capacity of our small arms to the inhumane brutality of the beings found in the supernatural world.
Unfortunately, at this stage of the offensive against Akira, it was too late for a large-scale rearmament program. It was simply logistically and practically unsound for such a monumental attempt. However, perhaps we could find some other way to solve the issue. After all, in all the long history of human warfare, one tragic fact was consistently forgotten by even the greatest of military minds. "Good enough" weapons won wars, not "wonder weapons".
The siren call of wonder weapons was almost inescapable. However, the fact of the matter is that wars are like a business. In a business, the overall output revenue must always be markedly greater than the overall input expenditure. Wars are no different. History was filled with fantastical engineering marvels that captured the imaginations of succeeding generations but, in the end, were nothing more than dreams; not realistic solutions to a problem. Such was the brilliance, ingenuity, creativity, and willpower of human beings that even the most farfetched pipe dreams could be made reality. However, dreams have costs and, most of the time, these costs are too much to bear.
Armacham had fallen into that trap as well. They ran their international, billion-dollar business into the ground for the pipe dream of "psychic warfare". Even if Alma had not rebelled with such determination, the reality was that the whole endeavor was doomed from the beginning. Change and progress was inevitable but that progress could only succeed in the long-term if it was gradual.
There was some dark comedy in the whole nature of war. Human beings and the planet we call home slowly change superficially over time. Time itself slowly corrupts the very identity of reality until it is unrecognizable. However, there is one thing that never changes. War never changes; only the means and reasons for it.
Moving towards the sound of Point Man's gunfire, I pushed such concerns to the back of my mind. There was no time like the present after all. We had traveled no less than forty yards before we encountered a pair of retreating soldiers. One was a grunt that was armed with a SAW and was heavily laden with spare ammunition. The other was a scout that was armed with a Briggs SMG.
This time, the creatures were facing us and were able to open fire upon us before we could cut them down. Before their demise, the SAW operator scored no less than five solid hits on me in center mass. The high-powered rounds easily punched through my Kevlar Vest and underlying ballistic plate. My vision clouded over with red momentarily as my beaten body fought against the pull of the eternal black abyss. I was pumped full of adrenaline thus I failed to feel the maddening agony of having five holes punched through my vital organs. However, I knew full well that my wounds should have rightfully killed me on the spot. Once again, the medkit that I had in my equipment pack proved to be my salvation.
Shaking off my brush with death, I took point as we continued towards Point Man. Finally, moments later, the dust settled enough to allow an unhindered view of the entire station. The warped reality that had been forced upon it was gone. Instead, the station was back to its previous hellish appearance. The large number of Akira's soldiers had been neutralized and Akira herself seemed to have returned to the surface following her draining battle with Alma.
I was shocked to see the solitary Point Man moving towards us. The other members of his team must have finished clearing their assigned bunker while the First Origin Prototype entered the underground tunnel alone. I did not see a source of light on his person and I doubted that his flashlight or other sensitive electronic devices were working properly due to the massive amount of supernatural interference down in the tunnels. A chill went down my spine as I realized that what had taken the three of us working together to get through, Point Man had been able to get through alone without the protection of a source of light.
However, he had not escaped the hell tunnels unscathed. A nasty, bloody gash ran from his left shoulder across his chest through the thick combat armor that he wore down to his right hip. I heard Alma gasp slightly as she saw the wound across her son's torso. Reaching forward, she gently touched a spot on the wound with her tiny right hand while a motherly expression of concern was shamelessly displayed on her normally emotionless façade.
Alma and her first son had always had a troubled relationship due to his ability to keep her out of his mind and his own instinctive caution. As a child, this drove a wedge between mother and son despite the mother's innocent and honest intentions. Later, when the two were finally reunited, it could not have been under worse circumstances if it had been something out of a Soap Opera. Alma truly loved her son regardless of how many times he had pushed her away and tried to destroy her. Meanwhile, Point Man did not appear to want to cause harm upon his mother. In the time that the two had spent together following their proper reunion, they had made tremendous strides to undo the damage done to their relationship.
I smiled slightly as I saw the bear-like man lean into his mother's touch. After a moment, the gash vanished. As he glanced towards me, I remarked with a lighthearted tone, "Glad you could join us." The former F.E.A.R. Operative gave me the slightest of nods in response. Turning towards the exit to the station, I addressed my comrades, "Follow me. We've got a Command Bunker to neutralize."