Chapter 4- First Blood

Chapter 4

It’s foggy again, though I could see through it a lot better. There was the dark man once again with his same old piercing eyes. This is getting frustrating, I keep having these dreams and I don’t know why, or even who this guy is. Suddenly he opens what’s supposed to be his mouth again, and though I expected hearing my name again, instead he said. Life. For some reason my heart began to burn when I heard this, the pain piercing every section. Then the man turned his back on me, and left.

It had been 3 days on the road now, with absolutely nothing to do… The vehicle was cool and all from the outside, but on the inside it was cramped and hot… But at least Ken is here, I still can’t believe he got into the same squad as I. I had confronted him about this and he merely said that running this squad required a lot of planning and tactics, all of which he had the ability to set up. He also apparently pulled some strings, that smart bastard. Anyway, most of the days were spent like this. I’d wake up, say hi to everyone (I always woke up last.) It was always Mike or Sam at the wheel with Ken, Jess and Kate always sitting in the back talking about nearly anything. Ah Kate, even in the darkness she seemed to radiate with her own source of light. She is so beautiful… Um… Anyway… After eating my meal bar (stale and more disgusting then anything) and drinking a glass of water, I’d usually join them in the back talking about our lives. The only story that was really interesting though was why Kate became a field doctor. Apparently her mother and father were field doctors too, but they died from some new disease. Kate was devastated… After that story we all sat in silence for awhile… I was the 1st one to react, and I decided that a hug was best. It was exactly what she needed at the time… But when we aren’t talking about ourselves, I’m usually just sitting in the front of the vehicle looking at the environment, which I have to say is pretty amazing in comparison to normal Earth. All the plants were roughly the same size, except maybe a little bulkier, but it was the color that caught my attention. There was so much color everywhere that when I first saw it I thought I was having an acid trip! But other then that it was boring as all hell… I swore that if something didn’t happen soon then I’d go insane… My wish was soon granted.

After another boring day of travel we finally came to our checkpoint, which was a good mile ahead of everyone else. All but Mike got out and praised the freedom to stretch, but of course all good things must come to an end… My first assignment… It was simple, walk a mile NW, and found out what is there, as it was a blank spot on our map. After a quick snack and grabbing my equipment, I was off. The forests on this planet were about the same as Earths, ignoring the colors and the nose bleeding smells that filled the air. I was told of them before hand, but no amount of mental preparation could prepare me for that… I’d just have to get used to it. I just continued on the path, nothing interesting happening… When finally I came upon the area, it was a wide open area filled with- Nothing… Nothing at all… This was a waste of time… But none the less I jotted down all that I needed too and had a quick job back to the vehicle. This went on for a full week… I’d run to an area, find jack shit, and then run back… It was boring as hell. Supposedly I was really helping them, but I still felt that it would be more helpful to actually shoot the enemy… But Ken didn’t even know exactly where they were.

One day I came upon an area and I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was an alpha, casually lying against a tree, taking a nap. I turned slowly to sneak away, but a stupid bird cawed and woke him up, very quickly he stood up and charged at me! I reached to pull out my pistol but he already rammed his fist into my gut. At that point I was on the ground gasping for breath, trying to reach my knife, but this guy just kept stomping on my back! Finally remembering what to do I roll to the side, shooting jolts of pain down my back. The other guy was laughing at this point, which made me furious. On my hands and knees I finally grasped the hilt of my knife, and in one quick motion I had my knife in his chest. He wasn’t laughing long after that. With a dead alpha on the ground and my hands smeared with his blood, I dropped my knife and retched onto the ground. This was the 1st man I have ever killed, and even though it was an Alpha, I felt horrible.

After I recovered I wiped my hands and knife on the ground and walked back to the others, my head on fire with pain… When I got back to the vehicle both Ken and Kate came rushing out, wondering what happened. After I told them my story Kate ran inside for some medicine and Ken just held me… He tried telling me how it would be ok, that this is war and some must die… But it didn’t make me feel any better…

I quickly learned that my life would soon revolve around death. After that encounter Jess came with me everywhere. Though I felt a lot safer with her around, she always walked… I spent half of my time looking back to see how far behind she was, the other half was spent waiting for her… Anyway, everywhere we went always had one or two of the Alphas there. Jess would dispatch of them fairly easily, we’d get the info we needed. Then we’d go back… This went on for a month… By this time I was used to seeing Alphas die, even though I still didn’t like it. But at least one good thing is that I haven’t been having any dreams recently, which is at least something I can keep my mind off of.

Then all hell broke loose. We were finally ordered to regroup with the rest of our army, which took at least 3 days (not entirely sure, hard to see the sun through the slits known as windows.) We finally made it there, and the battle had already started… Trees were ablaze, bodies littered the ground, and the smell of seared flesh was heavy in the air. But instead of feeling sickened, I felt a rush of adrenaline. It felt really strange, I never felt this way about a fight before… We were told to stay in the forest and tell of enemy movements, but I wasn’t needed, since we were already there. This made me angry! I should be out there killing the enemy! Not stuck in this steel cage playing with myself! So without thinking I grabbed my Automatic and opened the hatch. The others didn’t notice in time. A few bursts were already fired off before they could even stop me, but by this point, it was too late. A squad of Alphas saw us… They had begun firing at us from the cover of our dead comrades before I could react. But surprisingly I wasn’t pulled back even then. I had Jess by my side, killing them one by one.

After they were killed she tried bringing me back in, like always, without saying anything. I wasn’t going to, I needed to kill… The urge was too great… At this point I started firing upon everyone and anyone on the field. That got their attention. But instead of firing back, they got into more cover and continued the battle. The bastards! How dare they ignore me! But then I could see why… High in the sky was some glowing red ball, no idea exactly what it was, but it couldn’t be anything good. It was coming straight for us. I turned back to our transport just in time to see Katelyn at the door, staring at me, and then the bomb. The last thing that I saw and heard were a flash, and cries of pain. After that, I blacked out…

Chapter Finished^^