Episode-28: A Moment of Home

Date: November 26, 3008
Time: 07:50
Location: Low Orbit: The Academy

~Felix~

It was total blackness, a deep void from which all hope was sucked out. But yet it was littered with minuscule diamonds, glittering down upon the blue sphere. And then the light pranced forth, revealing the tiny silver building in low orbit over the planet. The sun’s radiance enveloped The Academy, dancing upon the structure’s ultraviolet ray shield.

But inside, it was dark, pitch black save for eight flashlights piercing the musty air with their artificial lights. Their heavy footsteps echoed menacingly off of the ancient walls, reverberating back into Felix’s head as hostile intruders clawing at his brain. Though he was never subject to the Nexon Dominion’s horrible tests on their Shadows, he could feel their spectral pain and suffering endured for so long.

“Quiet,” Mikhail growled as he swept the shadowed corridor in front with his FF-20 Fair Frozen. The six rotating barrels were poised, ready to pounce. “We don’t know what is in this place.”

“Why can’t Nova or Lily just scout ahead?” Maldran asked hopefully.

“Because The Academy blocks our telepathic signals. Our MP are useless here,” Nova interjected automatically as she followed behind Damiver’s wake. There was a definite quiver in her voice, and Felix knew she was suffering.

“Just around this corner now,” Mikhail mumbled to himself. The company rounded the corner and Felix shined his flashlight up, revealing a gargantuan glass domed ceiling that looked out into space. Millions of shining lights twinkled down as the stars smiled brightly down at them.

The Mess hall…

Felix’s eyes flashed to Nova, who was staring at the ground. It still scared the hell out of Felix, knowing his thoughts were never private. He scanned the flashlight over to the right, where hundreds of machines were built into the walls. Felix strode over to the nearest one and brushed his gloved fingers over the numerous buttons. Wondering if they still worked, he pushed a switch and stated, “Spaghetti and meatballs.”

Suddenly, the machine clunked to life, and seven heads whipped around to face him. Within seconds, the tray dispenser slid out, revealing a pearl dish covered with steaming hot spaghetti and meatballs. Felix almost cried from the shock, feeling his mouth salivate with hunger.

“I’ll stay here a bit,” Felix stated without a thought, “Cover the mess hall, you know?” He mumbled absentmindedly as his eyes strayed back to the pile of tomato sauce smothering the noodles below.

“Yea, I’ll stay too,” Maldran whispered and strode forwards towards the machine.

Damiver rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation, “You two and your food…”

“We’ll go into the resoc chambers” Mikhail said, ignoring the two, “You guys just be ready to evac as soon as possible.”

“Why, what’s going to happen?” Maldran wondered, his cheeks already stuffed with dangling pieces of spaghetti. Felix himself was dabbing away at the sauce that was smeared across his lips.

Mikhail stared gravely at him, then whipped around and proceeded into the darkness, followed by the rest of the company. Damiver gave the two of them one last smile of gratitude before disappearing into the shadows, their flashlights gradually diminishing down into nothingness.

“Man it’s been so long since I’ve had some good ol’ fashioned spaghetti and meatballs,” Maldran said as he continued to shovel food into his mouth.

“Tell me about it,” Felix replied heartily as he stabbed a meatball with his fork and plopped it into his salivating mouth. It was a moment of home, of good old fashioned relaxing with nothing to fear. It was this feeling that made Felix want out with all his heart. And then, his throat seized up and roared with a new thirst. “Ack! I need a drink!” Swallowing with a huge gulp, Felix made his way back to the food dispenser and pushed the button for some Maple Cola.

The grey box shook with agony as it molecularly constructed the identical replica of the real soda and placed it into the tray awaiting in Felix’s hands. But as the mechanical whirring ceased, another sound continued to buzz into his ears. Felix turned around and stared towards the entrance in confusion.

“Hear that?” Felix whispered to Maldran who was still stuffing food into his mouth.

“Wut? I dun hur nuth,” Maldran managed to sputter out, sending pieces of meat and tomato sauce spraying onto the ancient but otherwise clean table.

“Quiet!” Felix raised his G-35 Ghoul to his shoulders and took aim at the entrance to the mess hall. The strange buzzing sounded mechanical, yet organic at the same time. It gave Felix a mental picture of an oversized bumblebee in a buffet of nectar.

Suddenly everything was silenced, as if a muffler had been cast over the entire Academy. Felix could only hear his heavy breathing as his eyes strained into the darkness to try to depict whatever the hell was lurking in the shadows. His heart beat thunderously, pounding his brain with an influx of adrenaline. Then, two tiny piercing yellow orbs illuminated themselves within the blackness of the corridor.

What the sh***…

And then, the world exploded in pain, and Felix found himself somehow on the floor, his back propped up against a crackling and smoking food dispenser. Groaning in agony, his ears registered the exclamations of Maldran’s shot gun somewhere ahead of him. Felix’s eyes slid out of focus and he realized something was protruding out of his left shoulder. He groped clumsily for it, but as soon as his right fingers touched it, a searing pain shot through his skull.

“AH HOLY SH**!” Felix screamed out in anguish. The world and reality rammed back into him, and he saw Maldran crouched behind the metal table they had just been eating at, only now, it was overturned and the plate of half-finished spaghetti was shattered on the floor.

Another shot rang into the darkness as Maldran unloaded another shell into the seemingly open corridor in front of them. Gritting his teeth in agony, Felix managed to wrench the spike out of his shoulder. Fresh blood spilled down his uniform, paying no heed to the hand that was trying to stem the flow. He half crawled on the floor to Maldran’s position. Jabbing his hand into his vest pocket, Felix pulled out a white gauze and wrapped it around his shoulder. Just as he finished strapping the bandage, Maldran slammed something into his arm, and Felix felt a numbness wash over the pain.

Hastily thanking him for the morphine, Felix raised his G-35 over the edge of the table and fired a few rounds into the shadows. He heard his bullets ping uselessly on the wall and clatter to the ground. In his mind, Felix thought back to the ship, how an invisible assailant had thrown him against a wall with ease. Genuine fear crept into his heart as he emptied a round into thin air.

“Felix, Maldran, what the hell is happening? I hear gunfire!” Felix’s communicator roared to life over the continuous belching of Maldran’s Spas-12XPL.

“Shots fired,” Felix screamed into the microphone attached on his ear, “I repeat, shots fired. Need assistance immediately, one wounded!”

Felix heard a flurry of swearing on the other end, and then the earpiece clicked off, ending their transmission. Cursing profusely, Felix looked up just in time to see something fly towards his head. Rolling over to the side, he heart Maldran swear loudly just as it smashed into the table, imbedding itself deeply into the metal. Shining his flashlight onto the intruder, Felix’s eyes narrowed onto a pale wood-colored spike that dripped some sort of black ooze. Not wanting to know where it came from, he pulled Maldran up and took off towards the resoc chambers where their reinforcements resided. The one hundred yards across the mess hall seemed to be more like a hundred miles.

Then, the invisible assassin roared in an animalistic manner, sending chills rushing up Felix’s spine. He heard a whoosh brush past his ear and a thud as another spike barely missed his head and imbedded itself into the far wall. Turning his rifle behind him, he squeezed off another few rounds randomly into the darkness, not caring if he hit the monster or not.

Without warning, Felix heard a terrible crunch as he ran smack into the wall. Falling down to the ground with a thud, his eyes tried to focus forwards. But there was no wall, just the empty space between him and the double doors at the end of the mess hall. That’s when he knew everything was wrong.

Felix felt himself being picked up into the air and the next thing he knew, he was lying amidst a metallic heap of broken chairs and tables. His entire body ached tremendously, as if someone was stabbing him all over. Trying to get up, Felix suddenly felt a force press down on his chest and he was pinned to the cold floor.

Then, right before his eyes, it materialized in an aurora of blue and white electricity. As the crackling died down, there stood a tall figure shrouded in a black cloak that covered him from head to foot. A mysterious persona indeed, but he was an unmistakable Shadow Ancient. In his mind, Felix knew he was dead. Memories of his life flashed before his eyes; his brain somehow knew the end was near.

Two beady yellow eyes glowed angrily down at him like two tiny balls of fire. They seemed to float in the dark shadows of the Shadow’s face like two spectral orbs. With a horrible, mechanical and distorted voice, it roared into Felix’s face, “NOVEMBER N-12491! NOVEMBER N-12491!”

“What…” Felix mumbled, still dazed from the initial crash.

“NOVEMBER N-12491!” the Shadow Ancient repeated furiously. He raised a wrist cannon and leveled it with Felix’s forehead. A red laser sight bored into his skull.

“HEY!” A sudden shout made the Ancient’s gaze snap around to his left. There was a loud crack and Felix saw the Shadow Ancient’s head snap backwards sickly as Maldran’s shot gun roared triumphantly in a halo of golden sparks. But the body never hit the floor. As it fell, the cloak disintegrated along with the entire corpse, leaving nothing as the Ancient disappeared with his death.

Right then, the doors slid open, and Mikhail and the company swarmed out, their weapons drawn. Russ rushed forwards and put his hand on Felix’s shoulder wound. Felix smiled gratefully as he felt a warmness engulf his body, leaving his shoulder good as new.

But Mikhail’s face did not share the same gratitude. Instead, it seemed even paler than usual, the lines in his face accented by the lack of sleep and infinite darkness. “We’ve been compromised,” he stated hesitantly, “Somehow Fenris has a lock on our position.” Looking around at the damage to the mess hall, he added, “Looks like you’ve met them first.”

“Hell yea,” Felix spat out angrily, “I’ve had enough of those bast***s! We have to get out of here now!”

“Our original entrance is out of question,” Maldran sighed dejectedly, “There’s bound to be more.”

“Come, I have to show you something,” Mikhail swiveled around and stepped back towards the resoc chambers.

Felix found himself shining his lights on the man-sized resocialization pods that once twisted men’s brains into the Nexon Dominion’s will. He could not start to imagine the horrors that Nova had been through as the screams of thousands of souls clawed at his mind.

Pushing past the grave death marks, Mikhail strode through another pair of doors and up a winding stairwell. At the top, he kicked open a single metal door, revealing a large room full of computer monitors and dusty machines. A small group of panels were alit at the far end of the room.

As Mikhail sat down at the chair in front of the screens, he pointed to the nearest one showing a live video feed of a familiar scene. The camera was overlooking the rooftops of a few buildings, one which had a sign bearing a large wolf’s tail. Then, Felix realized they were staring into the face of the surveillance system the Nexon Dominion had set up before their ultimate fall, making him hate the cursed organization even more.

“Know where this is?” Mikhail asked morbidly as he waved his hands over the monitors.

“Henesys… there’s the Wolf’s Tail Inn,” Felix replied quietly, not sure of what to think. But then, the door of the inn suddenly blew open, and a monstrosity lunged out. It’s mouth was covered with smeared blood that did not seem to want to wash off in the still pounding storm. The zombie looked up into the camera for a brief second, then dashed off into the distance to search for fresh blood. Felix felt his heart being torn in two.

“Yea, well I just contacted the army before I realized we were being tracked,” Mikhail stated chillingly, “They’re firebombing the city.”