User blog:Stormlilly/XIII. No. Not now, not ever - there is no way you'll help the - the thing that did that to your friends...

Even if they were already weakened in the first place, there's no way you'll let this thing tread on the memory of them.

Caught in surprise halfway through an excited chitter, the freak crashes to the floor as your knee crashes into it's gut-carapace. Carapace? You muse about the nature of its hard exterior skeletal structure. What formed it, what provides strength to it, what purpose it serves since you can break it so easily. Squish, squish.

Something squelches under your foot. Since you've wrested the vermin's tool from it, you can use it to pierce it's armor. It isn't making any noise anymore, so you think it's probably given up the ghost. Good. Stopping to give the no-longer-moving form a hearty kick, you scratch your shoulder and wrest the object you saw glittering earlier. A key, all right.

... You don't need this. Throwing the key over your shoulder, you spit on it, then on the prone form you stepped on and over. Anything tainted by this place should burn, though you don't have the fire to do so right now. It'd at least put your friends out of their misery.

Former friends, you correct yourself.

There's a gate - up in the highest reaches of the complex, a floor up. It was locked and chained at some point, but it appears to have been breached with high explosives. As you step out, you nearly bump into several armed soldiers, one of whom salutes you, then realizes you aren't whom he thought you were and apologizes profusely.

You explain it's not necessary - and before you know it, are explaining everything. From the accident at the party, to waking up here, to the horrors you saw. The soldiers - who all have eyes more chalky and deaded from exhaustion then any you've seen - listen raptly, before one claps you on the shoulder.

"Listen, you know more about this place then any of us. What do you say you join up for now, help us try to rescue any survivors?.."

What they're really asking is, let's kill as many of these bastards as we can. Let's make 'em pay. Make 'em bleed. You sign up eagerly, not even questioning why a military unit - an unbranded, unmarked, non-uniform military unit - would accept you without questioning you, or your background - perhaps any prior military experience.

But you don't care. Questioning isn't in order now, and it's not in order in the near future - you'll be doing a lot less of that in general.

For as you look into the green haze rising into the night air, you know your fight has just begun. But you will be a cohesive part of a greater whole. Above you, huge and vaguely defined shapes - perhaps huge birds of prey - circle like sharks. They are beautiful, but painful to stare at.

Your kingdom come.

Ending:

ORDER