Hey everybody! I'm coming off my longest and arguably darkest chapter yet, and I'm feeling the pressure to top that one in intensity. Hopefully what I have come up with meets your expectations. As always, read and review!

Chapter 21: Light at the End of the Tunnel

Eleanor's POV

Theodore, Jeanette, Brittany, Alvin. I had not the slightest clue how I was going to find any of them. I didn't know where I was, or where they were. Every corner I turned lead me to a stretch of tunnel that felt so familiar, I swore I had been down it before at least twice. The aliens were still looking for us. I could hear them.

My Mars suit suddenly made a an alarm-type noise that made me jump. I looked around and waited with tense muscles while I assured myself that nothing had heard it. I nervously checked my systems diagnostics. The oxygen percentage that was left in my tank had become a bold red number. It read, "15%". My heart sank.

I was now thoroughly convinced that I was going to die here.

I didn't know how much ammo I had left. I wasn't even sure how to check. If a pack of Martians found me I'd have very little chance to defend myself. I had to regulate my breathing as best as I could, which made me wish so dearly that I had pushed myself harder on gym days back on Earth. Jogging through this maze of tunnels, especially being as claustrophobic as I was, was harder work than I had ever been through. Captain Megs' training didn't come close to preparing me for this.

Though it was probably just my imagination, it seemed every second the aliens were closing in on me. It got to the point that I was running just to make myself feel better, because it honestly felt like they were literally surrounding me, watching me, just playing with me.

"Alvin! Jeanette!" I tried out of desperation. "Theodore? Baby? Brittany? Si-" but I stopped myself as I suddenly remembered that Simon was dead. I shuddered, knowing how he died and knowing that I was likely to meet the same fate. It was either that or suffocating to death once my tank ran out, which honestly seemed like the better option.

I suddenly thought back to the moment where we all as a group dumped our cyanite water onto the floor of the Caesar. Alvin and I were mainly the ones pushing everybody to not quit until it was all over. That there was always a chance. I regretted that decision at this point. And I'm sure Simon did too, right in his final moments alive. I was actually strongly considering taking my helmet off and just putting myself out of my misery. I tried to estimate how painful it would be.

But then the only other alternative seemed to be letting the beasts get me. I still felt their presence all around me. They'd hiss under their breath as I ran past them, scratch their claws against the walls behind me, howl ahead of me to let their buddies know I was coming. I was afraid to close my eyes. I was afraid to open them. Blinking became something I regulated almost as much as my breathing.

But honestly, what was the point?

As I went along the path, I'd take one deep breath in, then one deep breath out and repeat that as I checked every corner, every intersection, every fork both ways carefully with my flashlight. Tears began to form in my eyes. 14%.

How the hell did it come to this? Where did this all start? Where did I go wrong? What was the last thing I said to Theodore? I don't even remember, I was in such a panic when we accidentally split up our group. I really just wanted to be able to talk to him one more time, so much so to the point that I accidentally caught myself croaking out, "Theo?"

There was no response. Not even static. My signal was completely cut off from the others'. And that was if any of them were even still alive.

Wanting to cry, wanting all of this to just be over, I sighed a heavy breath of defeat, sat down, rested my back against the red stone wall next to me, and waited for inevitability.

Brittany's POV

I walked nervously up to the ramp that led up to the cargo bay of the ship. It sure was a lot bigger than the Caesar. As I arrived at the foot of the ramp, I looked up at the opening above me. It was pitch black and not a sound could be heard coming from it.

The wind rustled past me as I stared. Working up my nerve, I took a deep breath, and forced my foot onto the ramp, then pushed myself to take another step. Inch by inch I trudged up the metal ramp, making a faint clanking sound with the boot of my Mars suit every step of the way.

It felt like an eternity until I finally reached the top. And it actually took me a few moments to get brave enough to turn my light on. The cargo bay itself was damn-near empty. Layout-wise it was almost exactly like the Omortson, except bigger scale. There were even those damn cabinets in the far left corner where Alvin was hiding those guns that whole time.

I rolled my eyes. Turning with my light, I explored and studied the rest of the cargo bay around me. There wasn't a single rover, or weapon, or tool, or any piece of cargo in sight. The only thing that caught my eye was an emergency flare gun resting on the wall very close to me, dusty and cold.

Suddenly, my mind drifted off back to the Martian lair. Or, more specifically, that little air pocket where the nest was. All of those eggs just sitting there, slowly developing into future pure-bred killers. They were all grouped up in that cave, huddled up in the fetal position in those gross slimy little eggs, surrounded by that disgusting, creepy mist. They were going to be dangerous just a few hours after they're born, but for now they're vulnerable.

My eyes were still staring at the flare gun, deep in thought. That green gas in that cave, surrounding the eggs, how likely was it that that stuff was flammable? Worth a shot? I think yes.

Theodore's POV

My handgun fired once, twice, thrice as I took out another Martian. It felt like they were all coming after me, probably because they had already gotten the others. My morale was as low as my ammo count, or my oxygen percentage, or any number of stats that would probably point to my odds of surviving being low.

I was without my Eleanor, and my only hope of living through the next hour was to find her. Or at least someone. I would be a sitting duck by myself soon.

"Help me!" I yelled. "Is anyone out there? Please, Jesus."

I kept running, not really knowing where I was running to. Each tunnel and corner was starting to feel familiar, in some weird way. But there obviously had to have been a way that I hadn't gone down yet, otherwise I would have made it out of this mountain by now.

Out of nowhere, another two Martians jumped out from an intersection that I had skipped checking behind me. I gasped, turned my body around in a split second and began firing in bursts in their direction. As I fell onto my ass, I took down one instantly, but the other one was persistent. I first hit him in his right eye, which stunned him, but he lunged at me even as I grazed his shoulder and shot a hole through his right front paw. Only when I put a whole square into his throat did he collapse forward, falling with his head landing squarely on my lap.

I grunted in pain as his lifeless skull bruised me and trapped me onto the ground. I took a deep breath and exhaled as I used all of my muscle to push him off of me. After which I stood up and brushed myself off. I had to control my breathing, but even just thinking about that only made me feel claustrophobic and gasp harder.

I had no choice but to push on in the same direction I was going. Time was runnin out. My plan was simple: run down this one straight path until I found a way out. Don't turn down an intersection or fork or anything else. If you just go straight, you have to run into something eventually, right? At least it was the best plan my oxygen,-deprived mind could come up with. So as I ran, I trusted my instinct and ignored every possible other path.

Until I passed one where, in the moment I jogged past it, I faint bit of static hit my headset and made my ears perk. I skidded to a stop and backpedaled until I could poke my head around the corner, and right at the moment I did, the static came back. It was only the slightest bit, but it meant there was another headset somewhat nearby.

"Eleanor? Anybody?"

Suddenly, the white noise faded out until there was nothing again.

"Hello?"

No response.

I groaned, shut my eyes, and began talking aloud to myself. "Don't go down that path. There's nothing there. Keep going straight. Don't turn."

I opened my eyes again and shone my light down the alternate path where the static had supposedly come from. It looked just like any other tunnel I had gone through. I sighed and, against my instinct, began jogging down it.

Jeanette's POV

No response.

"Simon, baby?"

"Jeanette?" My ears perked as his voice flooded my ears over the headset like sweet music.

Still clutching the hole in the arm of my Mars suit, I rose to my feet with a new-found sense of life. "Simon where are you? Are you hurt?"

"I'm ok, Jean. Those Martians are tough bastards though."

My entire body was filled with joy. Even as air was escaping through the hole in my arm at an accelerated rate. "Simon we don't have much time. How can we find each other?"

"I… I think I can hear your voice. I'll start coming towards you. Keep talking!"

"Ok, um… how did you get out of the Omortson alive? I was so sure you were gone."

"To be perfectly honest I'm not sure myself," was his response. "They were everywhere. Once I cleared enough of them I just kind of ran. I sprinted my ass all the way through the solar field. I saw what was left of the rover and knew exactly where you had gone."

Every breath I took was a happy one as I anxiously spun in different directions, keeping an eye out for Simon's figure to emerge from any number of tunnels. A giant smile was plastered on my face as I said, "I'm beginning to think I'm the luckiest girl in the universe."

"I'm sorry I put you through all that Jeannie. I swear to you no matter what I'm never going to leave your side again."

I continued to desperately look around with both eyes wide open for my love.

"Baby, no matter what, I'll always be there for you and I'll always love you. Just please keep that in your heart. And never stop fighting. No matter what you do do NOT quit on me."

"W-what do you mean?" I asked, thoroughly confused.

"I'll see you in another life, babygirl."

"Simon?"

Suddenly, I spun around just to have another chipmunk in a Mars suit standing there scare the living daylight out of me. I gasped and jumped backwards. It was Alvin. "Oh Jean! Thank God! Are you ok?"

But I just stared at him with a confused look on my face.

"Why did you say 'Simon'?" He asked me, eyeing me up and down.

"H-he's alive! He's here, in the caves! He was just talking to me!"

Alvin swallowed some doubt down his throat and just looked at me suspiciously.

"Simon?" I called out to prove it. "Simon? Are you there, baby? Please answer me!"

Alvin sighed, as this was obviously painful for him. "Jeanette, Simon is dead. I know that's impossible for us to swallow, but we have to try."

"No!" I screamed at him, "He's not dead! I was literally just talking to him right before you showed up!" I then turned away from him and continued yelling, "Simon! Where are you! Talk to me please!"

Suddenly, Alvin lowered his voice behind me. "Why are you holding your shoulder like that?" he asked me with legitimate concern.

I suddenly remembered the hole in my suit, and then in one instant it all made sense. I hadn't been talking to Simon that whole time - I had been hallucinating. Without another word, I fell to my knees and began to cry uncontrollably.

Alvin rushed to my side and put a hand on my other shoulder. "What is it?" he asked me.

"I… I was so close," I sputtered out through my sobbing.

"Is that a hole in your suit?" he said, suddenly able to hear the air hissing out of my shoulder.

I ignored him. I felt so drained. So lifeless. Nothing mattered to me anymore. When alarm rang three times in my suit to let me know my air was at critical levels, I didn't even flinch.

Alvin sighed. "Look we can talk about this later but we have to move. Now."

I stayed where I was, crying.

"After all of this, everything we've been through, you're just going to sit here and let yourself die? You're not even gonna put up a fight?"

I lifted my head ever so slightly at this, as Alvin's words made me think back to my hallucinations. The last thing I had heard my love say was "keep fighting". And in that moment I thought to myself, maybe he had actually been speaking to me that whole time. Somehow.

Without warning I rose to my feet and turned to face Alvin. "Lead the way."

Brittany's POV

I trudged down the ramp with a purpose, human sized flare gun cradled in both my arms. The thing was heavy as hell, but I wasn't going to turn back. I kept marching until my boots hit the filthy red Martian dust. And I didn't stop there. I kept a focus on the base of the mountain the entire time I walked, as bloodthirsty as I had ever been in my life.

I hadn't felt the baby move since the rover crash. Not even a little peep. This was the longest it had gone without reminding me that he was inside there, and to be honest I was scared I had lost it for good.

Tears running down my face, I carried the loaded flare gun forward with a deadly purpose. Red dust got kicked up behind me as I trekked my way back towards the opening in the mountain from which I had come. Someone was going to pay.

As soon as I was at the foot of the mountain, I gently lowered my gun into the ditch below and climbed down myself, trying to make as little noise as possible. I dragged it underneath the rock which was hiding the dark filthy nest on the other side. Carefully, I lifted my head to look around on the other side. The eggs still all sat there, showing off the nasty little Martian fetuses squirming inside. The ugly green mist still hung in the cave as much as ever. The mother, however, was gone.

I gulped and looked all around as far as I could see, just to make sure she wasn't here. I was disappointed at first, but then a sinister idea crept into my head. With a lowkey grin on my face, I raised to barrel of the gun up over the edge of the ditch, pointed directly at the middle of the cave. Then, holding it in its place, I slowly slid down until my back down the wall until no part of my body was protruding over the edge. I gripped the trigger tightly, still holding the gun over my shoulder. It was taking more than I thought to build myself up to go through with this. But finally I said under my breath, "you take my baby. I take yours."

And before I could think about it I was pulling the trigger. The recoil of the gun was so strong it flew out of my hands into the ditch. Out of instinct, I dove lower into the ditch for more cover. There was about a split-second delay between when I fired the flare and when literally the entire cave engulfed into flame. The green gas that hovered around the eggs had caught fire. I felt the heat intensely across my back, as I had dug my front side into the bottom of the dirty ditch. It only lasted about a second or two before the fire disappeared.

I hesitantly picked my head up, followed by the rest of my body. With wide eyes I peaked my head up over the side of the ditch to take a peak. The rock that made up the entire cave was charred black, while the green mist had completely evaporated. And the eggs, no longer see through as they were burnt to a crisp. Some of them were now in bits and pieces across the ground, probably from the force of the explosion. Smoke was rising from what was left of each of them, slowly fogging up the whole place. There was no way a single embryo was still alive.

I tried to smile, knowing full well what I had just done, but instead the rollercoaster of emotions just kept running through my whole body. It made me want to throw up, but if I wanted to do that I had to make it back to the ship first.

Alvin's POV

Jeanette followed me as I was almost completely sure I was leading us the way I had come. We couldn't waste time looking for anyone else, or risk getting lost. She was almost completely out of air.

"Just don't think about it," I urged her.

She nodded, still clutching her shoulder tightly as she ran behind me, knowing not to speak.

We hit an intersection where we made a sharp left. A dark figure in the distance suddenly stopped dead in its tracks as it noticed us. I gasped and in a split second, raised my firearm in its direction and pulled the trigger. It clicked without firing, reminding me that I was completely out of ammo. But a clicking sound at the other end took me by surprise. I raised my flashlight in the figure's direction to see Theodore using his hand to shield it from his face.

My eyes widened. "Theodore! I could have killed you."

He smiled at me and raised the pistol in his other hand for us both to see it. "So could I."

I sighed. "You're dry too, huh?"

"Sure am," he chuckled as he jogged towards us. As soon he was close enough to me he attacked me with a loving hug. "Thank God I found you."

I hugged him back but quickly broke away. "We don't have much time. Jean's oxygen is falling fast."

Theo eyed Jeanette up and down and obviously noticed her clutching her shoulder, which mysteriously seemed to have mist arising from it. "Do you know the way out?"

I smirked at him. "Who do you think I am? Follow me!"

Eleanor's POV

Seven percent. The end was coming, I could feel it. I could only hope that it was going to be quick and painless. I was still on my ass, my back pressed against the cold, hard red cave wall. My eyes full of tear water as I stared up at where the sky would have been.

The fact that I was going to die in this awful place only made it worse. At the very least why couldn't I have just pulled myself out of that rover and just sat there? At least then I would be able to see the stars right about now.

Wait, maybe not. I checked the clock on my suit. And nope, it was daytime now. The shorter Martian days had really been throwing me off. But at least I would have been able to see the sun.

Suddenly, static filled my ears which made them perk. I could hear some high-pitched words being muttered, but they were muffled from bad reception. But after a few seconds it was gone, nothing. And I knew that if I didn't jump on this opportunity to at least see someone I loved one last time, that I would regret it in my dying moments.

I shot up to my feet and began running in the direction the signal had come from. "Wait! Stop! I'm here!"

I kept running, still not getting a signal. I was running so hard that I was out of breath in no time, but I kept chugging my feet along anyway.

"I'm here! Don't leave me!" I screamed. "Oh God, don't leave me!"

But finally, my body gave in. I couldn't run anymore. I fell to my knees, hunched over, gasping for air, cursing my fat body for giving up on itself.

Suddenly, static filled my ears again. And it got stronger and stronger until I could hear voices again. I picked up my head, filled once again with hope. Theodore's sweet words finally broke through the bad reception: "Ellie? I can hear you! Come in!"

"Here!" I shouted. "I'm here!"

The signal was getting stronger. I could hear Alvin say, "She's this way! Over here!"

I was still breathing so heavily but I didn't care. "Where are ya guys?"

"Eleanor!" My eyes widened as I suddenly heard Theodore yell at me from behind. I turned just fast enough to see him sprinting at me, and I only had enough time to open my arms as he wrapped me up and lifted me with a huge teddy bear-like hug.

He held me up in the air as I whispered, "I missed you."

"I can't believe I found you," he whispered back.

Alvin and Jeanette were right behind him. "There isn't much time," Alvin interrupted. "It's great to see you Ellie, but we desperately have to get Jean to the ship."

I shot him a shocked look. "You found it?"

Suddenly, the echoed screams and shouts of Martians began to intensify and get louder. It was tough to tell from which direction, but they were either getting closer, their numbers were growing or they were all finally aware of our location. Or a combination of the three.

"Ok," Alvin said, ushering us in the direction they had come. "We need to get moving. No more chit chat. Move it!"

Hey everyone! Sorry that chapter took so long to get to you guys! I just took an extra couple days to read over it and edit it because I really wanted to make sure it was perfect.

Any thoughts, opinions, comments, constructive criticism, be SURE to let me know in a review. As always your guys' input on this story is extremely important to me and trust me when I tell you I take it to heart. And also if you haven't already make sure you hit that follow and/or fav button so you can get the notification when I update the story. That way you won't miss a thing!

I'll see you in the next chapter, baby! ;)