The story's really building up, so I think for a while I'm gonna step away from my usual routine of listening to chipmunks music as I write to epic music like the music from the end of the third Star Wars movie, "Time" by Hanz Zimmer and things like that. We'll see how it works out.
I really hope you're still with me and enjoying what I'm writing. If you are please be sure to read this chapter and let me know what you thought in a review or PM!
Chapter 20: The Martian Lair
Brittany's POV
I remember feeling the rover flipping over a few times, and I remember myself, my family, and whatever we were carrying getting tossed all around inside. Before the vehicle even stopped rolling, however I had already blacked out.
When I finally came to, my head was throbbing, my ears were ringing, my whole body was sore. I could hear some screaming and yelling but I couldn't make it out exactly. For a moment I had forgotten where I was.
I opened my eyes and they seemed blurry at first but they quickly recovered. Alvin was standing by the cockpit door, which looked funny to me for some reason, trying to yell at and direct everybody else. I finally realized that the reason it looked funny was because the rover was on its side. I could see the horizon out the windshield and it was vertical. I blinked and picked my head up, trying not to go too quickly.
Alvin finally noticed me and ran over to me and knelt by my side. He muttered something at me but even though I was looking directly at his lips it was too muffled for me to make it out through the headset. My ears were still ringing too much. I shook my head, trying to wake myself up, and went, "huh? What're you saying?"
The others suddenly stopped and looked my way.
"Are you ok?" Alvin repeated.
I blinked. "Y-yeah. I'm fine."
"How about the baby?" he asked.
My eyes suddenly grew so wide. I had forgotten about the baby. I clutched my stomach in a panic, looking down at it, feeling, hoping for any kind of sign of life. I didn't feel anything. "I don't… I don't know."
Alvin took a deep breath. "Well we can't worry about that right now. We have to get out of here. The rover's done with."
I nodded, scared out of my mind, and followed Alvin and the others to the emergency hatch on the roof of the vehicle. We each carried a single weapon with ammo, because that's all we could really travel fast with. Theodore unlocked the hatch and kicked it open.
Cautiously checking all angles outside with his rifle, he finally signalled to us that we could get out. One by one, we hopped out, landing with a thud on the soft Martian dust below us. Alvin went before me and helped me down, while Theo brought up the rear.
The alien we had run over laid motionless and disfigured several meters away from us. There wasn't a sign of any others anywhere.
"What now?" Eleanor asked as the wind began to pick up and dust began blowing in our faces.
Alvin pointed at the giant red rocky mountain that stood towering over anything else in the direct area. "We go through it."
"Are you insane?" Theodore exclaimed. "You want us to go through the Martians' nest… with next to no fire power?"
"Our only other option," Alvin explained calmly, "is to go around it, and be sitting ducks in the wide open where we could be easily spotted for miles in all directions. And once we're spotted, with no tunnels or anything to hold them at bay, it's game over. At least this way we'll have the element of surprise."
"Alvin's right." Jeanette suddenly spoke up.
I rolled my eyes. "Look can we just go anywhere but here. I want to get the hell away from that base."
Without wasting any more time, Jeanette began leading us in the direction of the mountain, with Theodore begrudgingly following the rest of us. All five of us trudged, guns ready in our hands, through a dust storm which was picking up and thankfully covering up our tracks behind us. The only downside was that it was becoming harder to see and move in a straight line. We had to stay close to one another. Otherwise we'd be lost, because turning on our lights was too risky. Alvin, as always, had his motion tracker ready to make sure we were clear.
The dust clouds were really picking up, pushing us off of our paths, knocking us over occasionally. But we had to stick together. The mountain got closer and closer, with no sign of us being followed. It felt like forever before we had finally made it. We were at the base of the mountain.
Alvin finally took the risk of turning on a flashlight and shining at the foot of the mountain. Our eyes widened. There was a ditch dug right underneath the mountain, wide enough for all of us to crawl through. It almost looked like the whole thing was fake. Alvin suddenly shut the light off, not wanting to risk it anymore than he had to. "I'll go first," he insisted.
None of us argued, though I held his hand until he was actually in the ditch. After which he quickly rolled underneath the rock to the other side. Jeanette followed him, as did Ellie and Theodore. I took one more look around before hopping into the ditch, ducking underneath the rock and standing up on the other side. We were all inside the mountain.
Theodore's POV
It was deathly quiet and almost completely dark. There was a faint lime green mist that gathered here and there.
"I don't see any eggs," Alvin said, confused. I could hear him take out his flashlight.
"Don't!" I scolded him in a harsh whisper. But it was too late.
Alvin's beam of light shot on, illuminating everything in its path. We all held our breaths for a pissed off Martian to suddenly wake up and discover us, but we didn't hear a thing. Alvin shone his light all around the large dome-shaped red cave that we appeared to be in. The ditch only went up to my neck, so I could see just as easily as anybody. The floor above the ditch side had several indents and divets in it, indicating that eggs had recently been here. You could even see little pieces of cracked shell.
Suddenly, Alvin's light rested on a doorway-like opening on the opposite side of the dome as us. "That's our best bet," Alvin whispered.
"I still think we should go around," I protested. "They're never going to see us in the storm."
But Alvin didn't listen. He simply pulled himself out of the ditch and stood up. After helping the three girls up along with him, he promptly covered his flashlight with his hand. I lifted myself into the Martians' lair. The ground turned out to be soft, gooey and sticky. Like mud mixed with bubble gum.
"Yuck," Brittany said in disgust.
"Shh," Jeanette warned her as we began slowly creeping towards the opening on the other side.
Every step we took, no matter how gentle, made a gross sticky sound because of the mud. We carefully approached the exit, listening carefully for anything moving besides ourselves. Taking slow, methodical, nervous breaths. I found Eleanor and squeezed her tight as we walked, if for no other reason because it made me feel better.
Plop, plop, squish, plop, is what our footsteps sounded like, which at least made it easy to stay close to one another. We were getting closer, all the meanwhile Alvin kept his hand tightly over the flashlight.
When we finally made it, Alvin took a single deep breath and looked back at us. He lifted his light, pointed in the direction straight out of the opening, and took his hand off for a split second before putting it right back. He flashed it a couple times, revealing, nothing in that direction but solid rock. Still covering the light, he stepped out of the dome only a little bit, peeked his head around the left corner, lifted the light in that direction, and quickly flashed it again. There was no response, but it looked like a long, curvy, rocky corridor. We still heard no alarming noises. Alvin sighed again, turned in the direction of the other corner, lifted his light, and flashed it once. He didn't see anything, so he flashed it a few more times before he finally felt safe and kept it shining. It was another long, dark, curvy pathway.
"Which way do we go?" Eleanor whispered.
Alvin shined the light back and forth, the same question obviously racing through his mind. He finally settled on left. "This way."
We all followed him as he once again covered his light. The ground beneath us now felt like solid rock, instead of the ooze that was on the bottom of the dome. We each carefully stepped forward, one tiny movement at a time. Barely daring to breath. As we came up to a sharp curve, Alvin would occasionally flash his light for a split second so as to see where we were going without waking anything up. Every time he did it revealed nothing but more rock ahead of us. But it felt like we were at least going in the right direction, and better yet there was no sign of a Martian.
Suddenly, because it was tough to see in the dark, my foot hit a rock as I tried to walk. Unable to catch my balance, I fell forward and landed on my hands and knees with a loud thud that echoed ahead of us. We all held our breaths as, with the help of Ellie, I carefully picked myself back up. We didn't hear anything.
Brittany finally exhaled from relief. "Holy shit," she chuckled.
Without wasting any more time, Alvin continued leading us forward, periodically flashing his light, then quickly covering it back up with his hand. Once we had finally rounded, we could see a three way intersection about ten feet ahead of us on the left side. We approached it carefully, just as we had done before. Doing everything we could not to make a sound. We crept closer and closer with each precise step.
It felt like an hour before we had finally reached it. Alvin peeked around the corner, and I did the same. He lifted up the light down the new path and flashed it.
It was a small dome-shaped pocket of the cave, and inside were about four full-grown Martians with their eyes closed, standing on all fours, huddled close together, panting heavily.
Alvin panicked and quickly pulled the light away and covered it with his hand as best he could. We all stayed perfectly still, listening intently for any sound that would tip us off that they were coming for us. We could hear them in there, with rusty breathing, drooling, snoring. Sounded like they were asleep. They had to have been.
Alvin's breathing became slower but shakier and jittery. He lifted his foot and slowly set it back down in the direction we were going. He then lifted his other foot and put it in front of the other, desperately trying to not make even the faintest amount of noise.
Suddenly, there was a noise that came from behind us. It sounded like claws scraping against rock. We heard something sniffing. Then a sneeze, or something. Then another scratching followed by more sneezing. Alvin held his breath and keeping his hand pressed over the light he lifted it up and pointed it behind us. He inhaled nervously before taking off his hand and letting the beam of light shine. It flashed onto a Martian with his furry red nose pressed directly onto one of the footprints left behind by us with the green-brown mud we had to step through. In an instant he looked up into the beam of light and let out an ear-piercing angry screech that echoed and carried throughout the entire mountain.
Without thinking, I lifted my rifle in his direction and popped him twice in the head. He managed to launch himself at us out of instinct but fell short of us onto his side. I hit him again just to be sure.
Alvin then shone his light into the cave where the other four aliens were just now stirring awake, and all five of us unleashed bullets into them before we could let them figure out what was going on. In a few moments all of them laid dead.
The mountain was coming alive with alerted and pissed off howling and screeching, only we couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from because the echoes were getting carried to us from all directions. The other four of us quickly took out our flashlights and turned them on, having them ready along with our firearms. There was no chance of being sneaky anymore.
Alvin's POV
Every single one of us looked scared shitless. We had no idea where we were going, how to get there, if we were going to find what we were looking for even if we did, where the Martians were going to come from. We felt like fish out of water, and there were dozens of hungry lions trying to eat us.
"We have to keep going," I said. "We need to make sure we got eyes in all directions at all times."
They nodded nervously.
"Let's go," I said, taking a deep breath.
We began jogging in the direction we were originally going, each of us with our guns and flashlights at the ready, twisting all around, keeping an eye and an ear out. The panicked scratching, the howling, it all seemed to be getting louder and closer. I kept pushing forward, trying my best to look fearless. In truth, I was petrified.
We eventually came up to a fork in the pathway. I flashed my light down both directions, and they both seemed to be long and empty. "Right it is," I said.
I began running down the path that I had chosen, followed closely by Brittany, when suddenly I heard an angry growl behind us. I spun around just in time to see a Martian come out of nowhere and lunge at Eleanor before any of them could follow us. The three of them backed up and shot wild and desperate rounds at the beast, but most of them missed. The creature charged and knocked Eleanor on her back before Jeanette was finally able to bring him down.
Out of nowhere, another Martian sprinted in their direction from the way we had come. Theo, Ellie, and Jean turned and began firing, but more and more began appearing. In a panic, they were forced to start backing up down the wrong path. We were splitting up. Brit and I tried to reconnect with them, but we were also under attack. I did everything I could to push forward, knowing every second meant we were getting more and more separated.
After a firefight that only lasted a few moments, Brittany finally took down the last Martian that was attacking us. We both sprinted back towards the fork in the cave. I shone my light down the path that the others were forced down. It still seemed long, dark, and empty. A few alien corpses were spread out on the cave floor, but there were no signs of chipmunks.
"Hello?" I shouted, hoping to at least hear something on the headset. "Theo? Jean? Ellie? Come in if you read me!"
I shuddered from anticipation as I waited for an answer. Suddenly, static began to buzz into my headset. We couldn't make out any voices yet, forcing Brittany and I to exchange worried looks.
"Anybody there?" I tried.
Finally, Theodore's hysterical screaming voice rang loud and clear: "Eleanor! Jeannie! Where are you guys?"
Jeanette was next, "Alvin and Brittany are gone! Let's get the fuck outta here!"
I could hear gunshots being fired frantically, through the tunnel and through my headset. I felt Brittany squeeze me as she tensed up from fear. Our breathing was getting heavy as the screaming was getting staticky. "Guy-zzzz…" Eleanor's voice chirped faintly. "C-zzzzz. Anybody the-zzzzz… zzzz-ome in! Please! Oh Go-zzzzz."
"Eleanor?" Brittany yelled. "You still there?"
But the only answer that came was static. I took a few looks in all directions. "We have to go in and look for them," I determined.
Brittany lifted her gun into a more ready position. "I'm with you."
We wasted no time speed walking through the left tunnel, lights and weapons at the ready, looking around desperately for our brother and sisters. We could still hear groups of Martians barking and screaming, though we couldn't tell from which direction because of the echo. We just had to be ready for anything.
"I don't hear any more gunfire," Brittany said in a shaky tone.
I shrugged as we continued our hurried way through the cave. "They probably got away." But neither of us really believed that.
Every few seconds I could swear I heard a scratch behind me, or a hiss to my right, and I would turn in a panic, ready to fire, but nothing would be there. My heart rate felt like it was going to kill me.
Eventually, we came up to another intersection. We could either keep going straight, which seemed to go on endlessly, or to our right there was a skinnier and curvier path. I shone my light down both directions. If I were them, I thought, I would have taken a right here to try to get the aliens off my trail.
"This way," I motioned Brittany towards the sketchier-looking trail. "Jeanette? Anybody out there?" Still no answer.
We cautiously stepped through the zig-zaggy cave, checking around every corner, checking over out shoulder every once in a while. It still felt like we were getting nowhere. Being surrounded by red rock was beginning to make me feel nauseous. As we walked deeper and deeper in, the walls seemed to shrink around me. My breathing was getting super heavy, and I was getting light headed.
"How much ammo do you have?" Brittany asked me.
"Not enough," I grunted as we walked.
She sighed. "I've been out a while."
I looked at the ground, not really being able to answer her in a way that wouldn't just scare her even more. Things weren't looking good.
After what must have been at least five minutes, we rounded one more corner. And I probably should have been more careful, as my light revealed another huge bubble of a cave. The only thing I noticed before the natural light glowing from the side opposite of us was a giant Martian, twice as big as most of the others, on its knees panting.
In a split second, I pulled back my gun, covered my light with my hand, stepped back behind the corner and pressed my back against the wall, not daring to breath. Brittany followed suit, pressing her back right next to mine.
"What was it?" she whispered.
"The queen," I replied.
After not hearing anything for a few moments, I peaked my head back around. The queen alien still had not really moved, obviously asleep. She growled, then yawned, then went back to her raspy breathing. She was dreaming. And she was surrounded by what looked like freshly-laid eggs, which were like the one Simon had taken onto the Caesar, fluorescent and see-through, with embryos visibly floating around inside. The whole place had a weird bright green mist floating about waist-high.
Carefully leading the way, I stepped around the corner, keeping my hand pressed tightly over my light, and began tip-toeing towards the light at the end of the tunnel. It was faint, probably leftover from the sunset, but it was there. Brittany followed me, and both of us kept our mouth shut, only breathing when we absolutely needed to. We dodged eggs as we walked and kept one eye on the sleeping beast at all times. Every time we would step near an egg, you could see the embryo inside twitch, almost as if they knew we were near.
Literally just as we were passing by the sleeping queen, a faint couple of gun shots echoed into the egg chamber through the tunnel we had came from, followed by the screeching of a few Martians. We both stopped, held our breaths and looked to the beast with wide eyes. Her ears perked and she stopped panting for a moment. Brit and I stared at her with legitimate fear in out hearts. She just stood there a moment, eyes still closed, before she finally yawned abruptly and fell back into a deep sleep. She must have been exhausted.
I could hear Brittany breath a sigh of relief as I kept moving forward. We were almost there. I gritted my teeth and tiptoed around the final egg that was in my way. Brittany was right behind me. I inched closer, not daring to make a sound, until finally I was at the foot of another ditch, almost identical to the one we had entered the caves through. I let Brit catch up to me knowing that she was pregnant. As soon as she had, I grabbed her by the waist, lifted her up, and set her down inside of the ditch as gently as possible. Doing my best to keep quiet, I got on all fours and joined her down there. Together, we ducked underneath the rock wall between us and the outside world. We stood up. It was still dark out, but we could easily make it out nonetheless.
The Omortson ship stood tall, almost as tall as the mountain that it had been hiding behind. The whole thing seemed massive, especially to us chipmunks. Its design looked similar to the Caesar, except beefed up as if expecting a war. A war that it ultimately lost. It looked dusty. Hopefully it could still be our ticket out of here, cause otherwise we were screwed. The cargo bay door was open, and the ramp leading up to it sat awaiting on the dirty red Martian ground.
I pulled myself out of the ditch before helping the gorgeous chipette who had made it through with me. The wind hald calmed down a bit but it was still blowing pretty strong.
"Get inside the cargo bay and wait for me there," I commanded to Brit.
She looked at me with confusion all over her face. "W-where are you going?"
"To go get the others," I said.
"No!" She protested. "Don't leave me!"
"Brittany we literally can't leave without them," I argued, rolling my eyes.
"Take me with you!"
"No! It'll be quicker if I go by myself. Besides, I'd never forgive myself if any harm came to you."
"Please don't leave me alone… I can't deal with being alone right now." Tears were beginning to form in her eyes.
I sighed. "Please. Do it for me? Think about the baby, Brit."
Her eyes sunk to the ground. "I'm just scared Alvin. What if you never come back? What if none of you come back?"
I pressed the glass of my helmet against hers. "Try to fly that thing out of here by yourself I guess," was the best I could come up with. "It's all you can do."
Jeanette's POV
I had lost them. I had lost all of them. Alvin. Brittany. Theodore. Eleanor. I had no idea where even a single one of them was. I jogged through tunnel after tunnel, aimlessly choosing directions to go, constantly looking in every direction to make sure there wasn't a Martian ready to pounce. I could hear them all around me, howling, hissing. They sounded close but I had no idea which direction they were coming from. I wanted to cry because this truly felt like the end and it was such a terrible way to go.
I almost went right past it, but I came across a crevice in the wall to my right. Almost like a big mouse hole. I got on my hands and knees and shined my light down it. It was straight but tiny. Not big enough for me to walk through. So, I put my gun and my light in front of me and began to crawl. Being careful with my Mars suit, I inched my way through, trying to get to the other end which I could see was several meters away.
Without warning, I heard a Martian growl behind me. He was staring right at me, with cynical looks in his eyes. The alien wasted no time in getting on his belly and pushing himself through the crevice in my direction.
"Shit," I cursed as I picked up the pace, crawling on my hands and knees while the Martian was furiously dragging himself behind me on his belly. And he was making up ground. Realizing I wasn't going to win this race, I grabbed my gun, spun around as well as I could, and fired a couple shots in the beast's direction. One of them hit his shoulder, forcing him to stop for a moment and grunt in pain before pushing himself harder. I was trembling so hard that my finger missed the trigger. Finally I was able to put two right in his skull, just before I heard another one right behind him. I could hear his belly scratching against the ground as he pulled himself towards me, letting me know for sure he was there with that awful hiss.
I panicked and kept crawling as fast as my limbs would carry me. I was gasping for air all the way until I finally made it out of the crevice. I turned back in the direction I had come, only to see just in time that the Martian had caught up to me. After attempting to pull his body out of the crevice, he took a wild swipe at me with his right claw. And he connected, right on my left shoulder. I fell backwards in shock and began taking shots wildly in his direction with my eyes closed. I kept firing until my gun was clicking from being out of ammo. I opened my eyes to find the alien lifeless with multiple bullet holes in its head.
But my satisfaction was cut short when I noticed the hole in the left shoulder of my Mars suit, leaking air at an alarming rate. I quickly used my right hand to try and plug it up, which seemed to do ok but I could still hear air escaping. This was not good, as it basically meant my time was running out. Fast.
Ok, I began talking to myself. Don't panic. Do everything you can to keep your hand over that hole. You still have some time, you just have to find the shift. Remember, breathing's going to start getting harder and harder so keep it to a minimum. Also with the Martian air getting into your suit, it probably won't be long before you start getting weak and hallucinating. Just stay focused, girl. You got this.
I began walking in the same direction I was going, because might as well. I ditched the gun, as it was only dead weight with no ammo. If another Martian found me, that would have been a wrap. I was at a windy section of tunnel, and I had no idea where I was in relation to the mountain, where I should go, where anybody else was, where the way out was, or if the Omortson ship would even save me.
Suddenly, as I rounded a corner, I heard a faint but all-too familiar voice eek out into my headset: "Alvin? Jeanette? Anybody out there? Anyone at all?"
I stopped dead in my tracks and my eyes widened both from shock and from happiness. "Simon?"
WOAH cliffhanger! That was chapter 20 everyone! Hope you all enjoyed! Crazy to think I've written 20 of these suckers.
Anyways I want to hear EVERYONE's thoughts, opinions, theories, etc. on this chapter and on this story as a whole in a review or PM so please make sure to leave me one. Also be sure to hit that follow/fav button if you haven't already to get notified whenever I post anything.
I'll catch you all in chapter 21! Till then stay strong!