A group of men come rushing out ten meters ahead of us from another hallway, they immediately notice us. “Halt, don’t move or we’ll shoot.” They order us.

Lara tenses up and shouts at us. “Run!” Immediately pulling out her pistol and firing away a few rounds. Giving us a few seconds of a head start, she then doubles back at our heels.

They start shooting us from a safe distance down the hall, but only for brief momentary intervals. Going down different hallways to stay clear of the rounds they keep shooting at us, we can only hope that we lose track of them in this maze. Concrete occasionally spraying from the corners, we try to avoid staying the hall for longer than a few seconds. Their boots, however, echo not far behind us. Somehow they are able to stick close to us like glue, it is unreal how good they are able to track us in this labyrinth.

My heart starts racing again, the desperate attempts of escape seem slimmer every passing moment. How can they be so good at chasing? They’re still human, right? It is like they are able to follow our scent. Maybe it is time we do something different, I tell the others what to do.

“Let’s split up!” I order them.

At the next intersection, we split down three different directions. Hopefully this way they are thrown off somehow, and maybe we can then respond somehow. Our pursuers split up in three teams, one after me, one after the doctor and two after Lara. A bullet round explodes against the left of me, forcing me to duck out of the way into hallway down the right. In the end, it is all in vain, the three of us meet up at a deadend that I am familiar with.

Cummings starts shaking uncontrollably and stutters, “No, no, no. I can’t die here. My family, they need me!” He clenches [on] a necklace he has wrapped in his hands.

Lara puts a hand on his shoulder and tries to reassure him. “You’re not going to die, you will see your family in person again.”

I dart my eyes away, fully aware of what is about to happen. However, not before Lara sees my expression of guilt.

Her mouth opens but is conveniently interrupted. “Well, well, well. What did the cat bring in today? Lara Snips, and cornered no less. Seems fate has finally caught up to you.”

Lara raises her hands in the air, nudging us to follow suit. “I‘ll give you one last warning before y’all die.” She threatens.

All the men laugh loudly, clearly amused by her boldness. “How the hell are you gonna manage that?” The squad leader asks.

She shakes her head disapprovingly. “Our friends didn’t like the racket y’all made.”

He lowers his gun confusingly, “Wait, wha…” Another blood curdling scream session begins, this time from the squad leader as his back is torn open by a Ghoul atop him. His team scream in surprise and shoot at the Ghouls raining on them, shooting aimlessly all over the place.

We all duck, trying to avoid the stray bullets. Not all of us make it through unscathed. The lifeless eyes of Cummings lose their glow, a bullet-hole on the side of his head indicating he took a stray. Lara is eyeing me with fuming rage. For a moment, I worry that she will abandon me here to the Ghouls. Instead she grabs me by the arms and leads me around the fighting group. They are clearly losing the fight and stand no chance of surviving. She does not leave before grabbing a head radio from one of the dead mercenaries, though.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Leaving the bloodbath behind us, we backtrack to where we met the squad in the first place. Lara has been quiet the entire time thus so far, and that is even worse than the deadened hallways. With all of the bloodthirsty monsters there are around every bend, and an emotionless badass chick who would not hesitate for a moment to pull the trigger, I am very much on edge.

“You know,” My heart skips a beat, Lara has never been one to start a conversation. “After we get out of here, you and I are going to have a long chat before we head back to HQ. I saw the look on your face, and you knew he was going to die. So… I am willing to entertain the idea that there is something more going on.”

I nod sheepishly, unable to work up the nerve to let even as much as a squeak out.

“Well then, on our way.” She says as she plugs the head radio in place. I can hear muffled voices from the earset as she turns it on, it sounds like a bunch of maydays and shouting. “Seems we’re having trouble come our way.” She bolts off, probably expecting me to keep up with her.

Trouble she says. What kind of trouble merits her to run carelessly? It dawns on me. Not so different from before, the ground starts to vibrate and grows to be a hard tremble again. I hear the hissing roar from another sandworm again, meters behind us in another pursuit.

“This way!” Lara hollers. She does not needs to tell me twice, but her voice at least gives me more confidence.

We run through the passages until we reach the end of the hall, and this time it is not another dead-end. Metallic rungs from the wall form a ladder that leads to an exit hatch. Giving her a hand up the ladder, Lara goes up into the hole first. I follow her up through the small hole on the roof. Within moments of getting out of the way the beast crashes against the wall just below the soles of my feet. I glance under me for a brief moment, the creature futilely attempting to squeeze through small manhole. Then it starts to spasm weirdly, every one of its fibers trembling.

I yell up to Lara. “Lara, this thing is doing something weird.”

“What?” She hollers back, looking down too. “Oh crap! Move faster!” She picks up her pace, skipping multiple rungs at time.

I do the same, and follow her out of the open hatch door. The metallic door behind me clangs shut the instant I exited, and then looking back I see her jump to a side away from the hatch. I jump again even further into a thistle bush, covering my head for whatever it is that is going to happen.

A sudden loud splosh comes from the hatch, as if someone threw a slimy cup of liquid at it. Rising from my safe spot, the hatch concrete manhole was melting away like a warm slice of cheese. I shiver, knowing I would have been no more than mucky soup if I had not made it out in time. It felt oddly satisfying I made it through relatively okay, kind of like experiencing an extreme roller-coaster.

“Sandworm's acid burns through just about anything, including solid concrete.” Lara remarks from behind me, giving me a jolt.

I size her up from head to toe, she appears to be unhurt which allows me to release a sigh of relief. “You nearly…”

She cuts me off, pressing on her ears. After listening for a while in silence, she pulls out the headset and tucks them in her pockets. “Seems we have a new problem. Those guys have a hand on the only sample of the antidote, and got out of there with it successfully. My mission is now to retrieve the sample and bring it to HQ. There is no telling what the rival groups would do with this.”

I dig my hands in my palms and let out a painful long groan.

She raises a brow. “Of course, you already knew that. It is about time you spill the beans, and don’t you dare leave anything out. That is unless, of course, you don’t value your life.”

The further the movie progresses, the more I feel that this is not going to end well for me.