The Grey Chronicles Part One: New Declaration of An Old War

Chapter 28: The Death of a Star.

Calx Urbs complex, Satus Pyrotus Six, June of 7434 AL.

The cramped tunnel opened into a massive courtyard, sixty meters wide and a hundred meters long with a flat ceiling set fifty meters up. Lines painted neatly on the concrete floor marked parking spots for tanks and trucks and other vehicles. However, the vehicle depot was not clean and neat; the tanks and ATVs were strewn across the room, most of them flipped over, and several were ripped in half. There was a massive hole in the concrete floor, twenty meters across in the very center of the room. Salem and his rabble of ex-prisoners slowed down, stopping several meters from the hole.

Salem stepped towards it slowly, holding his shield up to eye level to protect himself. His fingers flexed, holding the handle of his sword lightly, but with a firm grip. Sweat beaded on his palm and soaked into the leather grip, and his curiosity overpowered his fear, driving him to look over the edge, into the hole.

The hole descended six floors straight down, all the way to the research and development lab. All around it were chunks of solid concrete where they had been blasted upward. Rebar suspended several pieces of concrete over the edge of the hole, one even had a truck balanced precariously on it. Salem didn't know what the other floors held, but upon closer inspection of the hole he could make out claw marks around its edges; he didn't want to stick around to find out what had made them. He wondered just how many floors up the bombs had blasted through, so he looked up to the ceiling. He didn't find another hole, but what his eyes found made his blood freeze and his heart pound in fear.

A massive scaled monster clung to the ceiling, directly above the hole in the floor. It had six legs, a reptilian body, and three heads. The beast above looked like something straight out of a child's nightmare, with claws the length of a man digging into the concrete ceiling and a tail ending in a spiked club. The creature was thin, but well-muscled with scaly skin and a row of spikes running down its spine. Two pairs of closed eyelids sat on the front of each of its heads, and the monster in its entirety must have been forty meters long. The Stonehaaryns had designed a fairy tale monster; they'd created a dragon.

Salem was frozen in fear, the breathing of the monstrosity sounded like the bellows of some ungodly furnace, and all around it were hundreds of writhing, slimy cocoons. The creature had been released from its prison by the bombs and had made a nest on the ceiling of the depot. It had laid eggs.

He shook himself out of his paralysis, an icy shiver shooting down his spine like an arctic waterfall. He turned around silently, and stepped gently back to Arabe, careful to remain silent. Arabe looked confused at his friend, his eyebrows raised in concern.

"Salem..." Arabe started, stepping forward.

"Silence!" Salem snapped, quietly but sharply, "Look up, and remain silent. No matter what you do, make no sound. If you do, all of us are doomed."

Arabe was still confused, but he cast his eyes to the ceiling. His eyes widened and his legs locked in fear. "B-by the Gods..."

"Remain silent, follow me," Salem whispered the order, but tried to make it loud enough for the entire troop to hear. "Make a single sound, and I will kill you. Follow me, files of two."

Salem shook Arabe lightly to break him out of his trance and motioned for him to follow. The older man nodded and wiped cold sweat from his forehead before following his leader. Salem picked his steps carefully, following a winding path through the wreckage, around the hole to the door on the other side of the room; it a massive blast door, four times as large as any they'd already encountered, Salem was willing to bet it was the exit.

The entire army was silent, the only sounds they made were the shuffle of feet on concrete and the hushed breath of frightened soldiers, but these were easily drowned out by the monster's breathing. Salem was on edge, he could feel the heartbeat of the creature on the ceiling, so strong that it vibrated the floor. The monster's pulse was slow and rhythmic, like a gargantuan drum beating a sluggish cadence. Sweat dripped down Salem's neck, soaking his uniform. His armor suddenly felt much heavier, as if the monster above was bearing over him, it's gaze turning his legs into lead. He could feel a thousand eyes locked onto his back, waiting for him to make a mistake. He felt like he was on the trapeze, with only a thin pole between himself and an endless plummet to his death, one mistake and two hundred lives would be snuffed out by the creature above. The stress and pressure was added weight on his shoulders, and he felt like Atlas had dropped the sky onto his back.