Must...
Run...
Faster...
Hanno was panting and warnings flashed in his HUD. He couldn't run in this heavy armor with clunky tools and weapons strapped to him; he knew that. He ignored them though, his eyes darting from rough tunnel wall to stalactite-covered tunnel roof. He had to find the bend in the way that would lead to the door.
The way out.
"Those assholes!" Hanno growled for the fifth time in the last ten minutes.
They'd left him to die. They hadn't even found anything, but they'd still ditched him down here to be ripped apart by…
Claws on stone behind him. Scrabbling and scraping along the ground.
No time to rest
Have to keep moving
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Have to find…
The sounds of scrabbling and the growls of many hungry throats were quashed by the sound of grinding gears and stone on stone.
Hanno finally rounded the corner he’d been searching for, only the see the stone door slamming shut.
“Fuck!” Hanno cursed, slamming his roughly-gauntleted fist against the door.
It wouldn’t do any good, he knew. It was more about catharsis than anything.
Anything to avoid those claws and jaws for another few seconds.
He turned, torch raised high, illuminating the hoard of misshapen bodies creeping towards him, cornered at last.
They were slowed now, afraid of the fire. But that would pass as more of them crowded into the small tunnel passage, climbing up the walls and shrieking their anticipation of their meal.
Others came behind them, bigger cousins of the Troglodytes that filled every surface. Hanno couldn’t make them out amidst the twisted, corpse-pale, talon-clawed limbs and torsos corded with unnatural muscle.
Hanno let his breath slow and his pulse calm; activating his Battle Focus. He took the stone maul from his back and held it steady in his hands, letting the torch drop to the ground and setting his feet under him properly for such a big weapon.
He was doomed, he knew. And this was his final death. But Gods be Praised he would not go down without a fight.
The first Troglodyte screeched and charged, his fellows taking courage from the leader and rushing me all at once. With all his might, Hanno swung his hammer down, meeting the charge head-on as a Warrior should.
----------------------------------------
Two minutes later and a reality away; I opened my eyes, removing the V-Crown from my head and brushing the hair off my face.
"Fuck."