Suddenly, with great invisible force the ship entered a planet's atmosphere; with that Cortana burst into action, beginning to dislodge the Master Chief from his cryo-sleep.
UNSEAL THE HUSHED CASKET
Awakening the Demon now? You're too late.
The voice haunted her, it sounded familiar. Too familiar. Cortana thought, shuddering at the memories. Visions of horrible tortures displayed in her mind.
"IT WAS THE COIN! I WANTED TO PROTECT YOU-KEEP YOU SAFE!" A loud, deep gruff voice shouted at her. Tentacles began to wrap around the ship and drag it further into the planet. The voice...it had that multiple voice effect, it sounded like a thousand ghosts. Cortana screamed. The Gravemind was alive! How? In the meanwhile, Master Chief Petty Officer 117 was laid in a grassy field. Another kid was next to him. He turned towards her and smiled.
"You ever wonder what it's like up there?" "Where?" "Maybe...Someone up there is watching us down here." "I guess...Do you think we'll ever meet them?" "I hope so." He looked back up into the stars, taken aback by the vastness of it all. Life. The whole universe stood in front of him. Thousands of planets all screaming his name.
Chief! Chief! Chief! Chief! "...CHIEF WAKE UP!" Cortana shrieked at the top of her voice, the ship was only minutes away from landing. The Master Chief's eyes opened. He shot to a standing position instantly, ignoring the vast pain brought on by such a quick movement after thawing. He clenched an assault rifle from the weapons rack next to his cryo-chamber and aimed it around, looking for an enemy. He floated around in zero gee, looking around, panicked.
"Chief, the Gravemind! It's still here!" A female voice cried out to him. He instantly recognized it. Cortana, his companion through so many battles; the reason he was still alive today, flashed in front of him, she appeared to be very stressed. Suddenly the ship gave a lurch, knocking the Chief into a wall. "Talk about an awakening." He said, looking up at Cortana. She didn't have time to answer before a loud crash could be heard on the other side of the corridor, but as the Chief looked he only saw black; it was too dark to see anywhere beyond a few yards. Chills were sent up his spine by deep-bellied growls coming from the darkness; as a genetically advanced soldier, he never had felt fear...until he met the Flood. Another growl sounded, it sounded like it could have being either breathing in his face, or isolated at the back of the ship.
Where is it?
The answer soon came, a Flood Combat form jumped out of the darkness with a loud roar, clawing through the air to get to and rip apart the SPARTAN; luckily his reflexes hadn't been dumbed down by the cryo-sleep and he managed to dodge it, but his rifle was knocked away in the process. The Combat Form latched onto the chief's body, locking him into close-range melee. The Master Chief was always obsessed about winning; it was in his nature since he was as young as five; so he wasn't going to be beaten by a rotting corpse! The Master Chief had been trained by the UNSC in melee combat, and once battled three of the UNSC elite soldiers known as 'Helljumpers' and killed them; but this Combat Form proved to be even more of a challenge; it's slimy, rotten body was practically unstoppable; hell it didn't even need oxygen, because until the Infection form controlling it, which didn't breathe, was taken out, it would still attack.
The fight raged on, both bodies were taking hits; the MJOLNIR Mark VI armour actually dented from a blow on his arm. He ducked under a punch aimed directly into the middle of the faceplate and kicked the form in the chest, and was lucky to see that his kick was aimed just right so that the Flood couldn't stop itself from floating out into space, no matter how much it flailed because the kick managed to propel it right through the middle of the doorway, just out of reach for the form to grab onto anything. It gave out a growl before floating out of the ship.
The Master Chief floated in complete silence, apart from the loud pants he was breathing. He looked outside for a second, but noticed that the ship was still being drawn in by the Gravemind into this unknown planet, there was no way out.
"Thirty seconds until we hit the planet." Cortana said, breaking the silence, the Chief then felt the gravity shift as they entered the atmosphere, he fell to the floor with a thud, he stood up rubbing his head. A loud gruff voice laughed.
"I am your shield. I am your soul." It shouted, the voice of Mendicant Bias was mimicking in perfect time.
Suddenly, a loud bang followed and the Master Chief was knocked out cold, submerged into complete darkness.