FATAL WOUNDS

FATAL WOUNDS

FATAL WOUNDS

OVERALL HEALTH XP DANGEROUSLY LOW

Cole winces as he marches through the hallways, gun drawn. The chain wounds are doing their damage with every single step.

Orion doesn't speak much after the memory access of the woman and the end of the world.

The two just keep going through the dark depths of the ship, in a never ending cycle without time or light.

After a time of climbing and clearing and sliding, Orion signals that it is time for a break.

Cole sits as Orion looks through drawers and cabinets and storage lockers, eaten by time and water.

He puts a few things in his bags, while tossing the others. All business.

Cole watches Orion. What did he see? How did he survive? What did he lose?

As soon as Cole is about to ask, Orion nods that it is time to go.

They start again, and after some time, they find the sticker again of the pods. The two nod in approval, and keep going through the ship's maze.

The two heroes find themselves at the end of a hallway that is partly submerged, with nowhere to go.

"Lights off! Now!" Orion hisses sharply.

The two click off their lights, and a strange emergency green light hums at the end of the hallway, above the water.

"Why'd we do that?" Cole asks.

"Look," Orion says, pointing.

Cole squints his eyes into the darkness and the green light, looking at the hallway partly submerged before them.

Then, he sees it.

A fallen creature.

Swimming back and forth at the end of the hallway.

Like a deformed fish man, going back and forth in a fish bowl or tank, aimlessly.

The swimming creature disappears back into water, then comes back in the same time span, like a toy on a string.

"What's it doing?" Cole asks.

"It's a guard," Orion says, staring intently.

It is horrifying.

A hallway that breaks down into the cold sea, under a burning and probing horrifying green light, with a monster just waiting for someone to put their feet into the water.

"What do we do? I can't even tell if we are up or down?" Cole asks, looking around.

"We could backtrack and climb, but we might be going further into the water line, or farther away from where we need to go. The pod room. Do you think there would be multiple entrances to it?"

"No," Cole responds with some authority. "It's one way in, one way out."

Orion nods. "That's what the room I found was like."

"So, I guess we're swimming. Maybe we can negotiate with them," Cole chuckles.

Orion frowns and shakes his head. "We don't play with hell."

The former soldier pulls his pistol and aims it into the dark green light and the water underneath it. He pulls the trigger.

The gunshot is deafening in the burrows of the ship.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The flash makes Orion and Cole blind briefly, and they shake their heads and ears from the agony of the shot in a metal bowl.

But then, all is still.

"Nice shot," Cole finally says, and they take a step forward to go for a swim.

The water explodes as the fallen creature jumps from the submerged hallway in a supernatural leap.

It flies through the air, screaming with its sharp talons and teeth, with the horrible green light bouncing off their fried and damned skin.

The monster fish man slams into Cole, knocking him down the hallway, his body violently colliding into the pipes and vents sticking up out of the ground.

Cole winces and yells in pain and agony at the blows, and can barely move once the violence has stopped. His display is full blood red and throbbing.

Warnings that he cannot clear flash.

GOING INTO SUPPORT MODE

LOW LIFE MODE

REST OR RAISE XP

REST OR RAISE XP

XP

XP

The creature, about Orion's size, turns to him, and whacks his pistol out of his hands.

Orion pulls a knife from his belt in a quick counter and swings it at the creature, back and forth.

The fallen creature swings and ducks each swing of the knife, then screams and kicks Orion, sending him into the ceiling, and back on to the floor in one full swoop.

As Orion tries to recover, the fallen creature then opens its huge mouth, with rows and layers of teeth, and bends over to bite the dazed soldier in half.

Cole leans up, in pain and agony, and raises his pistol with shaking hands. The display starts to clear up.

XP points drop and rise in a constant battle of numbers.

Cole fires into the creature with his pistol multiple times. The fallen is hit with the numerous shots, pieces breaking off from its body.

The creature yells from the wounds, and turns from nearly biting Orion in half and walks, bloody and wounded but still alive, forward to Cole in a mad rage.

Orion's knife is still in his nearly broken fingers, and the shadow of the creature walking away from him is shaded by the green light.

With that advantage, Orion spins the knife in his finger and plunges it into what ends up being the foot of the fallen creature, nearly severing it.

The fallen creature turns upward to scream, but Cole lifts his pistol and empties the clip into it's head, the deafening shots going off over and over in the small hallway.

The creature falls back, then slumps over dead into the water, and disappears.

Cole then slumps over on the ground, and slowly crawls towards Orion.

Orion himself leans himself against the wall, breathing deeply. Every muscle and bone and vein and particle seems to be screaming in discomfort.

Cole finally gets to Orion and leans himself against a wall as well, across from him.

The two nod a thank you to each other for saving one another.

They then both slowly look towards the horrific water waiting for them.