The sun's rays reddened as he walked down the street, and in the distance, he heard the cries of the awakening Kryll. The street itself was dark, the buildings each side of the car-clogged road cast their shadows above him, the only light coming from ahead of him. The vehicles on the road were rusty and useless, only there as dying decorations to a once live city. The buildings around them looked the same to him, none particularly interesting. Each was cracked and crumbling, the windows all gone and furniture within bloody and shredded. There were few bodies, but none recent. The road was cracked in many places, creating a mosaic-like effect.
"Over there!"
As Ashford raised his Lancer rifle, he followed Lloyd's pointing finger. It led towards a dark spot in the middle of the road. Ashford felt like kicking himself for not noticing. The spot was a hole, around eight feet in diameter, and seemed to travel downwards into a dark abyss. The underground walls were perfectly formed, and looked quite smooth. Upon the walls, a transparent mucus flowed, the liquid slightly tainted with a light green glow. There were no vehicles near it, but there were tyre marks formed nearby, implying that the vehicles that had once existed had fallen into the dark pit. It gave Ashford a strange feeling of vertigo.
"An Emergence Hole," Lloyd muttered, his right hand gripping his Boltok Pistol tightly, his knuckles turning a dying white colour.
"When did it appear?" Ashford asked in awe.
"I don't know," Lloyd responded, kicking a stone down it, listening as it collided several times against the hole's wall as it descended. "I think it was here all this time. We just didn't notice it."
"Bullshit!"
Lloyd looked at Ashford and raised his eyebrows. "Call it what you want, that's the closest thing to the truth we have. If it was recent, we would have heard it!"
Ashford shook his head, but did not respond. He knew it wasn't possible, but at the same time Lloyd was right. Those things weren't silent, and the tyre marks around it weren't fresh.
"We should destroy it," Ashford finally answered, feeling his stomach churn as he stared down the hole, an entrance to an entirely different place.
"With what?" Lloyd retorted. "It would take more than a grenade to take this thing down." He shook his head at Ashford, and stepped back from the hole. "We should just leave it be."
Ashford sighed. He was right. There was nothing they could do about it right now.
AAARRRRGGGHHHH!
The scream caused Ashford to stumble forward, and it was only due to Lloyd's hand grabbing him that he didn't topple into the hole head first. However, it didn't stop his spare Lancer ammo clip from slipping from his pocket and deep down into the beyond.
"Damn!" he cursed, flying backwards as Lloyd threw him back. He fell in a sitting position, and wrestled himself to his feet to aim his Lancer in the scream's direction. "What was that?"
Lloyd's Boltok was pointed in the direction also, his hand shaking wildly. He gulped, and answered Ashford with a wavering voice. "I think something found the others..."
Shit! Ashford thought. This wasn't good. He had temporarily forgotten about Lodwick and Reed when he had seen the hole, but now his priorities returned. He felt a shiver down his spine, but tried to ignore it. It was no time to get freaked out. He needed to be fearless, and prepared. Also cautious. He couldn't forget cautious.
God, he hoped he wouldn't forget cautious!
"Let's move," he muttered, and ran silently in the direction of the scream, Lloyd following closely behind.

It had taken them ten minutes to reach the building. It had been an uneventful run, with no Locust in sight. He had felt them watching, but it seemed they weren't intending to kill them. Not yet.
Leaning against the building's wall, Ashford turned to Lloyd.
"This is where it came from. That scream. Seems to be an old warehouse."
Lloyd leaned away from the wall, only to have Ashford slam him back against it.
"Don't move!" he hissed, wanting to hit the medic for his foolishness. "If anything's in there, it'll see you. We need to play this cautiously."
Yes, cautiously. Without it, they may as well be nude with bullseyes painted on their chests.
"Are you sure?" Lloyd asked, looking sceptical. "It seems too quiet here. No sounds of combat, or sounds of victory, for either side. It's just not normal."
"The Wretches know about the Kryll as much as we do," Ashford whispered. "They may be primitive, but they aren't stupid. They'd find somewhere nice and light to survive the night. Besides, this is the only area we can go. It's getting dark, and sooner we are inside, the better."
Gripping his rifle, Ashford slid his body across the wall, inching towards the door. The door was swinging back and forth, opening up to the old warehouse. The hundreds of boxes inside were piled up, but seemed to be caving in on each other. But it was the trickle of dark red blood flowing towards him that had Ashford readying himself. He could see the lights inside flicker from his view at the side of the open door. The light shown him the shadows of the boxes, and of another figure. The figure was distorted and unfamiliar, yet it gave Ashford a familiar sense of fear and anxiety.
Ashford leapt in front of the open door, and stepped back at what his eyes registered. Hidden under some boxes was Joseph Reed. But it wasn't the same Joseph. This Joseph's face was shredded, the only things intact being one eye and a piece of his cheek. This Joseph's hands were no longer there, just bones with strands of flesh reluctant to let go of their original owner. This Joseph had a hole where his crotch was, and its legs were torn off, now laying across other sides of the room. This Joseph's large stomach was now open, its organs messily removed, with its blood vessels streaming out like morbid confetti paper decorating the hole in his torso. This Joseph was dead.
Behind him, Ashford heard Lloyd approach and gasp.
"Is that Joseph?"
Ashford nodded. "What's left of him."
Lloyd approached the body, and leaned next to it. Ashford watched carefully, his mind picturing Joseph's skeletal hand shooting out and choking Lloyd, cursing him with the shredded remains of his tongue.
"God," Lloyd gasped, holding Joseph's destroyed face in his hand. "They bit out some of his teeth too. The gums are shattered." He blinked hard, and turned to Lloyd. "I just hope he died instantly. The very idea of him taking all these injuries alive just-" Lloyd shuddered, and glanced around the building. "So where's Lodwick?"
"Beats me," Ashford replied, and aimed his rifle as a pile of boxes fell. There was something still around. "But I have a feeling we'll find out." He looked at Lloyd. "Stay here."
He turned away before Lloyd could reply, and stalked deeper into the room, walking through the maze of boxes. A noise started to get louder as he moved on, the noise sounding like a machine trying to crush something hard.
No, not a machine. Teeth. Like teeth chewing bone.
Crap, it got Lodwick too, he thought. Well, it's not going to get away.
Ashford approached the noise. It was underneath a pile of fallen boxes, and well hidden. A foot in front of the pile were two fingers.
"Damn," Ashford whispered to himself, and moved closer to the pile, the noise continuing to chew.
He was now next to the pile, the boxes moving slightly as the noise continued. Ashford prepared himself.
One.
He felt sweat trickle down the back of his neck, as hot as Joseph's blood. But he had to go through with it. He was too close not to.
Two.
A voice in his head urged him to flee, but he ignored it. The voice got louder.
Three.
Ashford reached into his pocket, and fished out the photo of his wife and son.
Four.
Studying it, he smiled grimly and kissed it tenderly.
"I love you," he muttered to the smiling pair, frozen in their moment of happiness forever captured in one small, flat square. He slipped it back into his pocket, and the voice was gone.
FIVE!
With a hard kick, Ashford booted one of the bigger boxes off the pile, and pointed his rifle towards the shapes in front of him, ready to fire.