Tale of Lara

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Mournful morning

"Can love blossom even in these trying times?"

< I >Lara stopped for a short while to catch herbreath. She leaned onto the cold wall and attempted to get her racing heart tocalm down. Her chest was going up and down rapidly, and she felt slightlylightheaded due to the lack of oxygen. How could humans function with this lowamount of breathable air, under stress or otherwise?

When her vision cleared, Lara looked around herself. Where did she end up? She had to be somewhere in the higher levels of the facility. The corridor looked similar to the one where the fight with Sarah took place, minus the broken thick-glass paned window.

"Heh," Lara glanced at the dark staircase behind her. "I think I've made a record for climbing stairs there."

However, her verbal expression got cut short by a pair of heavy, perfectly disciplined footsteps. "Oh, crap..." Lara cursed when she heard a gun mechanism click, and an explosive shell flew above her head, missing her only by mere inches.

An impactful detonation tore the ceiling apart, and a massive shock wave ran past Lara. She gritted her teeth together and ducked to remain somewhat stable despite the air pressure trying to make her fall down the stairs and break her neck. Growling, Lara looked straight at her nemesis, marching calmly in her direction, a smoking barrel of their gun held high and ready for another shot.

There was no time to think. Downstairs awaited death, so Lara had only one option left. The hole created by the explosion proved to be a good enough escape route. Lara jumped forward and climbed with haste, using torn cables and supports. The Tubular Unit chasing her switched from grenade launcher to machine gun. They discharged their weapon in an attempt to slow Lara down. However, she was too quick even for a human super-soldier.

Lara was in blind panic mode, running up the stairs, which appeared out of nowhere and without reason. She felt a slight breeze of fresh air coming from somewhere, so whatever these stairs led to, it had to be near the exit from this hell hole.

A red door with a flashing emergency light above them stood in Lara's way after a minute of her sprinting up the stairs. She was out of breath and needed a break, but her mind told her to go at all cost. Lara threw herself at the fire exit and fell through it. Apparently, no one expected a creature weighing a quarter of a ton to use all her might to open rusty and stuck doors. Humans were so naive.

Lara quickly rolled over and got back up to her feet. She was outside, most likely on the roof of the facility. There was nowhere to go, and hardcore parkour was something Lara wouldn't even consider, given how heavy she was and how fragile the human constructs were.

Speaking of heavy things, Lara saw a glittering light inside the dark doorway, the one she had fallen through. She made a leaping combat roll just in time to escape death by an explosive plasma shell. The Tubular Unit walked out into the open, not minding the smoke or direct sunlight shining on top of their ugly helmet. Lara caught a quick glance of the abomination.

They were tall, as previously stated, and had an eerie, almost out-of-this-world vibe to them with the way they moved. Their blueish armour had a slight camouflage texture. Or maybe it was a mirage caused by the energy barriers protecting their user. The armour was full of sharp edges and made weird, mechanical sounds with each movement. Lara watched the orange visor scan the area. The helmet looked small compared to the rest of the body, even with the short fake horns growing out of its forehead. Did the humans want this thing to represent something fear-inducing? A demon, perhaps? Or a thenerian? The super-soldier operating the power armour could definitely rival one with their height.