Halo ODST: Hellfire

Hell Jumpers

For a moment I could only see darkness, I felt cold and numb, almost as if I was dead. Maybe I was maybe I wasn't, perhaps somehow I had died back at that base and wasn't able to make it...I wasn't able to fulfill my dream or make my parents proud. At least I'll be able to join them very soon, don't worry Mom...Dad...I'll be seeing you soon. Before I could fall deeper into an eternal sleep, I began to see a sliver of light. It was only so small, but a part of me told me to keep pushing and walking until the light became brighter...until...

"He's awake, go get the Admiral, tell him he's awake!" A voice said. I opened my eyes very slowly, being blinded by the light and seeing all the surroundings were blurred. From what I could I saw a blurred figure standing next to me, until my vision started to slowly come back to me. I was strapped in a bed with medical equipment next to me, and tubes going in my body with some bandages on me. I moved my body, trying to get out of the straps not knowing where the hell I was.

"Where am I?! What is this place?!" I yelled, trying to break free of the straps but the Medical Officer attempted to hold me still, trying to get me to remain calm. Once more, I began to yell and scream, struggling to break free from the straps.

"Get off of me, I said get the hell off of me you bastard!" I said.

"Sir, you need to calm down,  I'm trying to help you!" The Medical Officer exclaimed as he continued to hold me down.

"I said take your hands off of me!" I yelled once more.

"That's enough Grayson!" A voice said as I heard footsteps coming in the room. I looked up at the figure, it was a middle-aged man with silver hair, wrinkles on his face, and wore glasses on his face. I looked at his uniform, seeing it was orderly dressed as if he were a high ranking official.

"Who are you?" I said, the man looking almost familiar as I tried to sit up in the bed.

"Fearing others can be your greatest weakness but striking fear in others is your greatest strength..." The man said, glaring at me in the eyes. My eyes widened as I heard those words, the words I once heard when I was a kid.

"Uncle Braun?" I said, looking stunned.

"Vice Admiral Braun." The Medical Officer said interrupting me, making sure to correct me.

"What...how...what happened to you?" I said sitting up more from the medical bed and looking him straight in the eyes. "I thought you died...2 years ago."

The Vice Admiral walked back and forth in the room with his hands behind his back calmly, creating a small smirk on his face. It looked as if he was recalling a certain memory that seemed almost many years ago, a very tragic memory. He looked back at me with a distraught look on his face, "Yes...to others I may have died...but through all those years of isolation and loneliness in the endless void of space, I still survived." 

"What do you mean? What exactly happened?" I said, now intrigued trying to sit up straight, but the Medical Officer insisted that I still laid down. As the Medical Officer tried to lay me back down, he looked at the Admiral shaking his head. "With all due respect sir, that is highly classified information, I don't think you should..."

"It's alright, Louis, he's my nephew." The Admiral sighed, "He needs to know." He rubbed his beard, debating if he should tell his nephew the horror he went through. The horror he had experienced with the Covenant, those devilish evil alien monsters. 

"About 2 years ago, I was leading a expedition to a certain unknown area to a system the UNSC has barely even discovered. However, there were rumors going around about suspicious activity there and how many ships were deployed but never returned from their voyage. So, the UNSC sent my frigate "The Phoenix" and my crew to investigate. Little did we realize that we had ran into a death trap, those bastards were waiting for us, as to what they wanted I still do not know." The Admiral brushed his beard, trying to recall and grasp the horrors and memories him and his crew experienced.