The Heart Darkens

Lie of Damnation

Qala-e-naw was somewhere Matthew never saw in his life. He'd never been stationed there, never had any briefings. He heard from someone that it was a city situated in some rocky hills, and was constantly in the slums under poverty. From this alone, Matt could have an idea of what he was walking into. But when he reached the summit of a hill and looked over at the town, it was nothing like he'd ever imagined. The once normal looking village was turned into a ghost town. Smoke stacks from large fires reigned over the city, which was really the only light illuminating through an unexplainable and bizarre fog that seemingly only covered the town. It was in the aftermath of a battle to be sure, but it was up to Matthew to find out who really won.

He felt his head still burned as he stood there with his pistol out, bewildered at the unearthly feeling the city was giving out. He held the side of it while closing his eyes, the feeling giving only relatively minimal pain before fading, along with the dark room he was seeing as he closed his eyes. He was relapsing, and he felt his HPTSD would worsen more than it ever did if he didn't find a way to control it. Dr. Clarke could help if he made it back to the bunker, which was all the more reason he wanted to get in and out of the town. Still, he felt like he had no choice other than to enter the eerie place to find out whatever happened to Tunac, because it didn't look well from where he was standing. He turned on his radio to notify Sam that he was at Qala-e-naw.

"Red Watcher, come in, this is TECH 2. I've arrived at Qala-e-naw. Looks like hell out here." Matthew reported. There was just static on the other end, which was curious for him at least. "Red Watcher, come in. I repeat, Red Watcher, come in." Still no response from anyone at TECH. He didn't even get a beep signifying that anyone was responding. He figured that the fog was interfering with the radio frequencies; it had happened before in similar environments he was placed in. But it only added to Matthew's ever growing suspicion of the town.

"Guess i'm going in all alone... What's changed?" He slightly jested in a facetious manner. Although, he was about as on edge as he'd ever been against his campaign against Pestilence, so that was probably going to be the extent of his humor for right now. He made his way down the hill with his pistol raised, sliding down an inclined side of it to reach a sidewalk, scanning the area around him. Immediately, he could see one of the aforementioned fires blazing through the fog, a friendly M1 Abrams wreckage being the source. Those weren't easy to take down by a long shot, which meant whatever was here was packing some serious firepower... Or, judging by the corpses of both civilians and soldiers by it, overwhelmed it into submission. 

Matthew kept his eyes up as he walked over to investigate one of the corpses, to try and infer what it was killed by. He kneeled by the corpse of a woman lying face down and turned her over. The woman had been shot repeatedly in the front, and judging on the distance to it from another dead soldier, she was probably running... Directly at him. But it wasn't the most peculiar thing he saw. Her eyes were all black, as if her pupils had dilated to 11. Her skin was all gray as if she'd deteriorated, but the wounds were fresh, meaning she'd been recently killed. And her lips and the area around her mouth were covered in blood and strands of skin. He looked at the other soldier's corpse, and saw he wasn't killed by another, but rather he had a large and brutal looking bite mark on his neck. The behavior he'd deduced was erratic and getting a bit uncanny for his tastes. The only thing he could think of is biochemical warfare, which was Pestilence's specialty. He would continue down the street, it was better for him to keep moving at this point.

As he walked down a dirt road, he would encounter more and more corpses in the road. Every single time he saw a soldier, there were no bullets. Just bite marks. He hadn't encountered a single source of life yet. But, he was coming up on something big. A fortified building with sandbags on the roof and balcony, with a 50 cal. MG stationed in a garage connected to it. He would aim at it as he went cover to cover up the left side of the road, fearing someone still might be inside before leaning to peek into the garage. There were Taliban corpses inside this time, with bite marks as well. From the amount of cartilages he saw on the floor near the sandbags, the soldiers fought hard before they were overwhelmed. He stepped over one's body, before pushing a wooden bookshelf out of the way of an entryway of the main building and aiming his pistol inside, checking his corners.