Her face was the last thing I saw when I died. My sister reeked of fear on that day. Not a fear for her own life, but the fear of what her death would bring to her family and friends. Something told me I would never know what she foresaw, at least not specifically. I can't imagine how her husband or child would react to the news, but all of the thoughts that came to mind were of grief.
I never had anyone close to me before, except for her. Her family never even knew I existed. When I looked into those terrified eyes, I sensed that history would state that it was her fault that she now lays there. Before even the slightest sensation of pain reached me, everything became black and cold. I am dead.
There's no way to tell how long I've pondered over that face. I suspect that the thoughts will never end, and I may drive myself mad in death. How could I have allowed that to happen?
A slight sense of tingling surged through me. Feeling returns to my body, but I don't understand why. I am dead, right? I tried to stretch my legs, but I found myself incredibly stiff. Have I just been knocked out? Will I awake in a hospital, surrounded by doctors? My ears then begin to hear a noise. All I've heard for so long is ringing, but now I can hear a voice. What is it saying?
I found strength in my muscles, and I sat up with all of my might. My eyes were still shut tightly, but the voice was becoming slightly clearer. I felt something across my chest. Whether it was my breathing or my heart pulsing I could not decide.
"Slow and steady, guardian. We don't need you destroying yourself." The voice stated as my hearing returned. I opened my eyes, and they were rushed with whiteness. A moment passed before I could finally decipher what lay ahead of me.
The car was demolished, as I expected. I took a closer look and found it incredibly rusty and dented. My head turned right, to where I expected to find my sister, but nothing rested in her seat except dust.
Venus has seen better days, from what I now saw. I'm not sure how long I've been out or dead, but I remember what this used to look like. The road was a dark shade of black, but it had a tiny bit of shine to it. Not so much to blind a driver, but enough to look pretty. There were buildings that towered like mountains throughout this city. All of them lined up and following the dozens of roads and intersections. Our car was driving out of this city. We were probably only few hundred feet from escaping the rows of buildings.
Now, the roads were grayed with grass growing through the cracks. It looked as if someone tore off easily a third of the road. Some of the buildings remained standing as the mountains they were, but even then they were full of ripped open doors and cracked glass. However, most weren't so lucky. One building, about two hundred feet from where I currently lie, had fallen over from when I last saw it. Debris from that wreckage was everywhere, but all of it was dusty.
I searched through the roads with my eyes. Cars were littered everywhere across the streets. All of them were beaten and dented, but some of them were even flipped over. Mine remained to be the only one with bullets in the seats or on the hood though.
My stiff neck turned, searching for the speaker I had heard spoke to me just moments before. Something jumped out before my eyes, and I somehow managed to jump back into the passenger seat of the car.
"I know this is a little strange. You probably have no end of questions as to what is going on. Some may include what I am and maybe how you're alive again. In short, you've been dead for centuries and a lot has happened. Most of it includes the near destruction of the human race. I am now your Ghost, and I can answer all of your questions once we get you to safety. Oh, and what is your name?"
I struggle to exit the car and stand, but I manage. "Eldrandriel. That is my name." I stated as boldly as I could towards the machine. The diamond on his screen squints, as if it's his eye.
"That is a peculiar name." the Ghost remarks. Does he know I'm lying? I push the thought away. "I've met an Ikora, Arach, Jim, Holiday, Zavala, and so on; but never an Eldrandriel. I didn't even know such a name existed."
"Judging me, are you? You don't find it a repulsive name, yes?" I ask trying to sound playful. The diamond upon his screen takes it's previous shape, and the machine turns left and then right. Its form of shaking its head, I guessed.
"We should get moving, Eldrandriel. This is fallen territory, but Vex like to make little appearances. There haven't been any guardians on this planet for a long time. I'm not even supposed to be here, according to the Vanguard. We need to get you a weapon and try to find a ship, but first you and I have to get out of the city."
"Why out of the city?" I asked as he was beginning to float in the opposite direction. "Aren't there transport shuttles that could take us off of Venus?" He simply shook himself again.
"Fallen have most likely stripped them of anything essential to leave here, if they haven't simply been using them as place to sleep. You've been dead for centuries, Guardian. I doubt that there's anything you can recall that'd be helpful in this situation, so why don't you just follow me?"
I tried to think of something useful, but my mind has thought of nothing but my sister for centuries. Then I remembered why I came to Venus so long ago, and what brought me here.
"No, follow me." I ordered the Ghost. He gave me a look suggesting I was insane. "I know where we can get a ship to take us off of this planet." To my surprise, he didn't argue. He just let out a loud sigh.
"You're going to get us both killed, Guardian." He remarked full of doubt. I smiled smugly, shook my head, and began walking down the torn up sidewalk. There wasn't a chance anyone could've found my ship. Very few people knew about the hidden hanger bay, and I'm certain they're all dead by now. As we continued walking though, I began to wonder if these armies stumbled across it.
What kind of technology does humanity have now? Clearly we're advanced enough to bring people back from the dead. Does my government still exist? Did they create this little machine? Do these Fallen and Vex armies have technology as powerful?
A deep-pitched roar came from an object to my right. It crashed into me and knocked me off the sidewalk and onto the broken road. My arms were pinned through some cracks, and I felt as if death was reaching out to me again. I looked up and found myself staring at some sort of robot. It wasn't like the Ghost though. This robot had arms, and what I assumed to be a rifle upon it's back.
My legs were free, so I kicked it's back. The machine let go of my arms and let out a wail of pain. As it did so, I pulled it down onto the ground where I rested a second before. Quickly, I pounced on top of it and struggled to take the rifle from it's back. With it squirming so much I realized that there was no chance that I could take the rifle from it. Instead, I grabbed what appeared to be its head and began slamming it against the ground, hoping to break something essential for it to function.
Eventually, the machine stopped squirming. For half a moment, I stared at the dented and destroyed top, but I didn't loosen my grip. I then slowly turned it over and laid it upon its chest. The rifle appeared to be undamaged, so I took it.
I examined the rifle, trying to make out who manufactured it. There was only an odd symbol upon it, but it had a bit of dirt covering it, so I tried wiping it off with my hand. Blood replaced the dirt I swept off, but I noted that I wasn't injured during the fight.
"That was a Fallen Vandal." My Ghost informed me. "They're one of the types of alien races that serve the Darkness. Fortunately for us, not all forces of the darkness agree with each other."
I stared up at the Ghost. Aliens aren't real. My eyes went back to the blood upon my hands. I briefly started considering the possibility, but I pushed the thought away.
"What does this symbolize, Ghost?" I pointed towards the symbol on the vandal's rifle. He floated towards me and looked it over.
"It's the House of Winter. Fallen are divided up, much like humans used to be. This house is the only one that occupies Venus, to my knowledge, but that's still a lot more than you know."
"You mentioned something else. Something that wasn't Fallen."
"The Vex." He stated as if the thought scared him. "They're fearless and brutal machines. Their technology is superior to ours. We cannot afford to run into them today. You don't even have descent gear or training."
I looked down at my clothes. It would be nice to have something that wasn't dusty and falling apart. The thought reminded me of my sister somehow. Despite the machine's presence, I began to feel very alone. I tried pushing the thought away, but then I remembered for the billionth time why she died and how that kept her from raising her son into a good man.
A single tear dribbled down my face. I suppose that I'm still torn up over it, somehow. Not enough to get on my hands in knees and sob in front of this machine, but enough to shed a tear. I don't know if my feelings on it have just simmered down over the years or if something is keeping me together to survive. Regardless though, I was grateful that the Ghost didn't notice the tear. I don't know if I can trust it or afford to show weakness in front of it.
We continued walking down the broken and torn up roads of Venus for what seemed like hours. I had the Vandal rifle out the whole time though. That was just one alien I encountered. What would a pack of them be like?
"Eldrandriel, I've got an abnormal reading here. It's few hundred feet above us, two buildings down." The Ghost informed me, with much surprise in his voice. He floated right beside my face with his eye squinted again. "You knew about this somehow, didn't you?"
We've arrived. I ran pass the two buildings and towards the skyscraper. The doors were already ripped off, so I cautiously walked inside with my finger right next to the trigger of my rifle. My Ghost was only a few meters behind.
The building was laid out to look like it was an office building for some rich company. At one point, there were cubicles on every floor and everywhere you looked, with a chair and a computer for each one. The other side of the room used to have a pair of elevators that could take you up to every individual floor in the building, except for the basement.
What I now saw were torn up cubicles, and flipped over chairs. There were hardly any computers left, and the ones that were here were all damaged beyond repair. I had to climb across a dozen flipped over cubicles before I made it to the other side of the room.
My Ghost shot a ray of light upon the up button for the elevators, trying to activate one of them. He shook his head. They too were broken or without power. My eyes flickered toward an exit sign across the hallway, just above a door. I walked over to it and opened the door beneath it.
To my surprise, there was an intact staircase that goes all the way to the top of the building. We only had to travel up seven floors, instead of the dozens that this skyscraper easily had.
The door for this floor had an intact hand scanner on it though. This room held my ship. I placed my hand upon the scanner, allowing it to verify my identity. A green check mark appeared on the screen, and I brought my hand back. Slowly, I wrapped it around the handle of my rifle and kicked the door open.
My eyes quickly shot left and right. There appeared to be nothing more than a room riddled with filing cabinets, but I knew there was much more to it than that. There were easily a hundred cabinets here, but I remembered which had the right file. I went to the ones that contained files that started with the letter "v."
I opened a cabinet and pulled out the file titled victory. The sound of engines starting back up echoed throughout the room. Filing cabinets sank beneath the floor, leaving everything flat but the Ghost and I. The ceiling opened up, and the ship slammed down upon the floor.
"Can you make it fly?" I asked the Ghost, praying it would work. He turned towards me and nodded.
"I can make anything work." He stated with complete arrogance. That attitude of his is starting to get on my nerves. If he keeps it up, I might begin to wish I was dead again.
Several deep-pitched roars echoed from the floors below. The Fallen heard the racket and were coming for us. I ran towards the door we came through and slammed it shut.
One of the walls slid down, revealing this room's true purpose as a hanger. The ship's engines roared and it began lifting into the air. I ran towards my one chance of survival, but a loud bang echoed throughout the room and an object knocked me to the floor.
My back was pressed up against the ground, with what I could only assumed to be the door on top of me. I managed to slide it off and sit up. My rifle was nowhere to be seen and I knew they were right there. All of the sudden, I looked down and saw some of myself disappearing. There was a white line traveling upwards from the bottom of my body, disappearing whatever got below it. I closed my eyes, preparing for the worst.
The ship's engines roared again, and I found myself instinctively opening my eyes. Instead of lying on the ground where I was, I was sitting upright in my ship's seat. I turned my head right towards the window and saw a dozen vandals amongst one monstrous looking Fallen. I guessed it was their leader.
He raised his weapon and yelled something out in their tongue. They then all began firing at my ship. Before I could even reach the flight controls, the ship launched itself out of the skyscraper.
"Don't worry, Guardian." The Ghost's voice echoed throughout the ship. "We're heading to the last safe city on Earth."
We exited the atmosphere of Venus and entered slipspace.
"If you're tired, you can get some rest." The Ghost stated sounding a little concerned for me. This caught me a little off-guard. He was just showing off how he could fix anything and that he was my superior in terms of knowledge, yet he now appears to care for my wellbeing. What an interesting little machine I've come across.
I simply shook my head to his question.
"I've rested for centuries." I began to say. "What I need now are answers."