Chapter Four: Darkness Falls

The squad sat around the small campfire, watching the smoke disappear up into the night sky. Terry was already up to his shoulders in a sleeping bag, talking to Morse and Jack. "The game'd be over now." He said grimly. "I swear to god if we lose…" He trailed off.

"Hey, Jack." He said. "What scares you the most?" He asked. The man looked at him, "Dauper winning the Cup." Terry grinned. "Too right, mate." He turned to Morse, "What about you."

Morse simply stared into the fire as she put on a mock posh voice. "The destructive nature of the human condition." She said, causing the others to chuckle. "Always so philosophical." Jaxx said. "What about you, Terry?" She asked.

"Castration. You?" Jack, Tommy and Morse laughed at his answer as Jaxx thought of her fears. "Lemme see…" She said. "Spiders. Definitely Spiders. And, um…. Drunken flirty bastards." She added. Jack sat up and turned to her. "Well imagine drunk-spider-bastards; that'd be a nightmare for you, eh?" He joked.

"What does the Sarge fear?" Tommy asked. "The Sarge doesn't fear anything, do you?" Morse asked. Colin barely answered, staring off into the night. "Have you heard of Private Westbrook?" He asked.

Terry sat up, interested. "Oh, aye I have. Big bloke, in the old squad, right?" He answered. Colin nodded. "For all you others, he was in an old squad with me and Jaxx. He used to have a picture of his wife in his top pocket." He explained. "Said it was so that 'His heart would always be closer to her.' He used to say. Well back in 844, we were on an expedition that winter. Abnormal Titan came out of nowhere and screwed up his Maneuver gear, sent the poor bastard face first into a tree. After we killed the titan, turns out he'd been impaled on the branches, -dead, of course-."

The entire squad was hooked. "It was a horrible sight, but one thing really got to me. One of the branches had skewered through his heart, literally pinning it to the picture of his wife in his pocket. I guess you could say he got his wish one way or another." Colin grimly said.

The camp was in silence as the others looked on in awe. Jack raised a flask. "To Westbrook." He said mournfully. The others did the same "To Westbrook." They all said. The squad was then silent for what seemed like ages. Until Terry spoke up again.

"Anyone hear 'bout how that titan fella who blocked up Wall Rose?" He asked. "Well, I used to live there and that, and there was this geet-huge boulder at the end of the street, like. I hears he goes full titan mode, walks up to it, picks up the bloody thing and blocks the hole in the wall with the tosser." He said, trying to recreate the scene for them to see.

Morse looked at him. "'course I heard about it." She said. "Turns out the expedition Smith is leading is actually to use him to block up Wall Maria." Terry gawped at her, "You what?" he asked. "I'm telling the truth." Morse said. "That's a load of Bone!" Jack butted in.

"Could you all shut up!" Colin raised his voice. "Get some bloody sleep!"

Meanwhile, several miles away, Captain Shepherds' squad had set up their camp. One of the soldiers stood on watch, looking around at the surrounding forest with a pair of binoculars. He could hear the wind rustling the distant leaves but there was something else making sound. It sounded odd. Like footsteps.

The soldier spun round in time to see something strike him. Blood spattered on the rocks behind him as the man collapsed, his face almost completely ripped off.

_
Unexpected?
Anyway, bit more background info. The character of Terry is obviously supposed to be Geordie, so a lot of his slang may be lost on readers who aren't British and hear similar talk frequently, so I've kind of exaggerated it a bit to give him a bit of character.

Anywho, Chapter Five'll be out soon.