Life On Helghan.
Right I'm back with the new chapter, I might take another week break after this one since the ones I have been taking have helped give me time to think of new ideas, although just a warning for everyone reading after the 10th I definitely won't be writing any new chapters for a few days because I'll be busy with inFAMOUS 2 so just a little heads-up there, I'll try to get at least one more chapter up before the 10th though, anyway enough from me lol, let's get started.
Chapter 16.
I sat on an old stool alone in a room on the second floor thinking on where the captain might be and if I'd actually manage to save him or not, the man was my friend and after what he'd done for me in the past I owed it to him to at least try, even if I didn't owe him I still would've tried, sitting up here wasn't doing me any favours so I went out into the hallway and called out to all men on the second floor to come down to the first.
I thought now was as good a time as any to brief them on my thoughts on the situation and also to take everyone's mind off the terminal boredom we were all feeling waiting for this damn storm to pass.
"OK boys I've spent some time thinking about the possible location we could find the captain in, I have no idea as to where it is or what it looks like I'm just making an educated guess but I think we're dealing with a sizeable ISA force here, not a small squad and if it is a large force then they're very unlikely to use a series of buildings as their base, especially in this environment, they'd need a place with good shelter to use as a base, something like a cave or tunnel network. If they are using either of the two then they'll be easy to fortify with almost no effort so we'll have our work cut out if we want to get inside and get the captain, that's all for now, when we arrive at the base, whether it is a series of buildings or a cave or tunnel network then I'll brief you all on the plan of attack. Now boys, find some way to entertain yourselves eh? We can't just sit here waiting for the storm to pass, I dunno about you lot but I'm fucking bored, anyone got any ideas?"
One soldier raised his hand.
"Sir I've got a pack of cards in my pocket, we could play something,"
I couldn't believe my ears, how did he manage that? 'Sneaky bastard' I thought.
"Well anything's better than this, OK private what do you suggest?"
"Texas Hold 'Em sir?"
"Hmm all right but what do we bet with?"
"How about snowballs sir, seems the only thing we've got right now."
I chuckled at this but it could be fun.
"All right, anyone who's interested in a game go outside and gather up some snow and make your snowballs."
It may be ridiculous but ANYTHING was better than dwelling on my worries and boredom.
We ended up having a lot of fun and the best part was nobody lost anything but snow so it was a fair game, we were playing for about forty-five minutes before I noticed something, I couldn't hear the wind anymore, I got up and went to the entrance to check the conditions, 'finally' I thought, the storm had finally stopped, I went back inside to tell the men the good news.
"All right boys everyone on your feet, private collect your cards, the storm's over and we're moving out."
Everyone who was sat down got up as I started heading outside, I led the men back to the area we'd been dropped off at and told them to start looking around for any signs of a trail which was gonna be fucking difficult in this snow, who knew how many storms had passed through the area erasing trail evidence before we got there?
We'd been searching for about an hour when one of the men piped up, oddly enough it was the comms bloke.
"Sir, I'm picking up a very faint signal coming from the south, it looks like a distress beacon and it's constant, I can't be sure but I think it's carrying the ISA signature sir, should we follow it?"
"Well it's all we've got to go on so I think the answer's obvious. OK men we've got something, we're heading south."
The terrain wasn't too bad, just snow, snow and more snow, we'd done twenty-five miles when we came to a sheer rock face with a small opening in it, I checked with the comms operator on the signal.
"It's quite a lot stronger now sir, we're definitely going in the right direction."
As he said that small rocks began to tumble down the cliff, and I looked up to see something that made me turn white, an avalanche was descending toward us rapidly, I shouted at the men to get through the hole in the cliff face, unfortunately not everyone made it in and I looked through the entrance to see the snow crash down onto six men killing them, I turned away and moved past the men who had made it through and made my way through the tunnels with them following, it was a natural maze and very frustrating, I told the men to stick together and NOT look for a way out, if we got lost in here there was a chance we'd never find each other again and since we'd just lodt six men that would've been bad.
Eventually we'd found the exit but were still in tunnels and we eventually came to a junction, for some reason I was starting to feel odd about these caves, I decided to go left and the men followed, we'd been walking through this one tummel for awhile until we heard something up ahead, I gave the men the sign to be on guard and slowly advanced down the tunnel and came to a corner, I looked around and saw something that turned me white again, it was a feeding ground full of dead animals that had been hunted, and the hunter was sittting in the corner eating one of it's catches, it was a fucking Jigatrope, a beast of a creature that people on Helghast most commonly compared to the yeti legend from Earth, it hadn't seen us so I began backing up from the corner.
One of the men accidentally caught his foot in of the niches in the floor and tripped, I bricked it at that moment sure it had heard, sure enough it had and let out a growl as it got up and began moving toward the corner, I told the men to raise their weapons and fire upon visual contact, I could hear it breathing raspily as it came toward the corner. then I saw it come into view and it roared at us as the men opened fire, it seemed to be shrugging off the bullets as it advanced towards us, I thought it must have a thick hide, so I decided to take it down myself.
It swung one of it's huge claws at me as I leapt up toward it's head which wasn't much smaller than my body, I grabbed it on both sides of the head then threw my body weight to one side and successfully snapped it's neck, it fell over while I was still attached to the head, after it hit the floor with a loud thud I stood on the back of it's head and jumped down to the ground.
"Right boys, the other way quick, I doubt this is the only Jigatrope in these caves and I don't wanna run into another one."
We started moving in the other direction quickly.
End of chapter 16.
Right that was interesting eh? I tried my hand at a bit of humour again with the snowball bets lol hope you liked it, and I've just been watching Star Wars and wanted to do a little homage to the Wampa cave in The Empire Strikes Back, I spent some time thinking of the creature name so I hope you think it fits, I really enjoyed writing this chapter and I'm actually happy to say it got out of hand, I'd like a suggestion for the next chapter, don't worry it's an easy one lol, do you think they should meet another Jigatrope or just get out of the caves altogether? I'm honestly not sure what to do, I mean I like the monster myself but if you don't wanna see it again fair enough so let me know, I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.