Stranded 2

Decay

Time passed and I had yet to hear from the scavenger team. "I just noticed we're getting strange readings near the fuel core." Tex said pointing out several readings on her mainframe. "The ships going to start destroying itself if we dont fix it, Alright Im going to go check it out. Listen out for any chatter." I comanded "Listening." she replied not removing her eyes from the monitors. I picked up my rifle and headed for the door. "Sai!" Jessies voice called out behind me. "Im coming with you." I stared at her in confusion. "You're sure you wanna do this? What about Aleks?" "Aleks is asleep," she looked back at him "but he is fine and patched up." she looked at me with a confident look. I shrugged "Alright, lets go i need someone to watch my back anyway." I said as I turned and stepped through the door.

We walked through the morbid and dull lit hallways until we reached the elevator. We pressed down and the doors quickly shut, concealing us in the box. As we descended the lights flickered violentley and stopped "What the hell?" I said looking up at the lights. As I stared up at the light I heard something, it sounded almost like a whisper. "Shh," I paused listening for it again "did you hear that?" I asked Jessie. No reply. "Jessie?" I turned to the corner of the elevator where she sat in a curled posistion on the elevator floor. "Jessie?" I slowly reached out to tap her on the shoulder. As I reached for her my heart began to ache and I felt light headed, I was going to be sick. My heart pounding I tapped her on the shoulder. She looked up at me and stared "You promised..." she said before thick red blood began pouring from her eyes causing me to slowly walk back while aiming my gun at her. "You promised that you would get us out.." she said as more blood began spilling from her mouth, this time her teeth began falling out onto the blood puddle that had formed on the elevator floor. "You promised.." she repeated louder and louder each time as more of her began to decay, it was horrible, her hair quickly began to fall out of her head, the white of her eyes had turned a dark sick yellow, and her skin was slowly melting and decaying. I closed my eyes. "Kill her " a voice whispered "Kill her." it silentley repeated now being blocked out by Jessie. I held my head in pain and began losing my balance due to the voices filling my head. I pointed my pistol at her forehead trying to concentrate on the shot. My finger tightened around the trigger slowly pulling the trigger back before the lights began flickering on and off again. "Kill her" the voice whispered one last time.

The lights stopped flickering and the voices were gone. Jessie was standing next to the elevator doors that were opening up. I then noticed that I held my pistol to the back of her head. Realizing what I was doing I quickly lowered my weapon. "You ok?" she asked turning around looking at me "You havent said a word since we got in here." I stared at her knowing my apperance was jittery "Yeah... Im fine lets just get this over with. "Alright lead the way" she said as I passed her. I almost killed her I thought. Is the same thing Gage and Stross had back on the Sprawl getting to me. Am I going to go crazy. No, no, no I cant be. All these questions filled my head as we walked through the bloodied Apartment complex. "Sai movement on your left." I pointed my gun at a barely opened door until I realized that this was no ordinary door. "This is my apartment." I said in disbelief. "are you sure you saw something." she walked closer to the door aiming at the opening "Yeah it looked like a kid." I stared at the door

The air felt cold, colder than usual. I pressed my back against the wall as Jessie stacked up as well. I stared at her to make sure she was ready and she nodded. I quickly kicked the door in and Jessie rushed in and I followed in after to reveal an empty room. "No ones in here i thought you said-" she lowered her weapon and looked at a peice of the ground. "Hey what are you doing?" I asked. She looked back at me and back at the spot. "Dont you see it? I thought I lost it." She began walking closer to the spot "Woah!" I quickly held my hand in front of her stopping her and then I stood in front of her. "Hey you gotta listen to me here okay? whatever you're seeing its not real, Jessie." She stared at me confused "No no itll just take a quick second." She said stepping around me, bumping shoulders with me. She bent down and came back up holding her hands out as if she was holding something.. Her eyes were now blankly staring at the invisible object. "Jessie?" I asked as I heard several demonic screetches. I quickly turned and pointed my rifle into the darkness. "Fuck! Jessie!?" I turned back to her to see her holding her head in pain and swaying back and forth. I turned back around to see one of the abominations lunge towards me I quickly pulled out my dao and cut it in two but right as I did I heard more outside the door and even more in the walls "Jessie, you got to trust me here!" I yelled as I ripped my sword out of ones head, causing blood and skull fragments to fly everywhere "God damnit snap out of it!" I yelled as I barely crouched under a deadly swing from ones razor sharp arm causing it to stumble into the glass window, cracking it. "Jessica!" I said as it sprang back up cornering me against the wall, I quickly headbutted it and it stumbled back giving me a chance to shoot it repeatedley in the forehead, killing it. One violentley sprinted at Jessica and I quickly jumped in the way and began firing at it until it swung and destroyed my rifle. I quickly reached for my sword and I blocked its spike as the other one came and nicked my shoulder. "Fuck!" I yelled in pain. It swung again and I cut off its arm and when it fell to its knees I decapitated it. I was covered in blood and was running low on energy. I dont know how much longer I can hold this up. "Jessie damnit! Snap out of it!" I yelled as I blocked the door. I looked back at her as She stared down at the ground with tears running down her face as I braced the door. She looked up at me with those tear filled eyes and I saw great sorrow, pain and guilt. "You promised..." she whispered as she raised a gun to her own head. "No!" My eyes widened and all the noise was absent, my heart beat rapidly, and my vision began to blur as I lunged towards her, shoving the pistol away from her head only to hear a large bang followed by glass breaking.

By the time I knew it everything was being sucked out of the room into the void of space and me and Jessie were hanging on to the metal plated flooring for dear life due to the bullet striking the cracked window. Jessie had appeared to have snapped out of her hallucination the instant the gun fired because I could hear her muffled screaming behind me as I slowly crawled from plate to plate. As I grabbed for the next one it popped off and flew out into space revealing a vent which I quickly threw myself into and covered my head. I fell at least a whole deck and hit several objects which threw me around like a ragdoll until I finally stopped at the bottom.

"Ugh ow" I coughed as I rolled over to move out of Jessies falling path. I slowly arose from the ground and bent over to catch a breath as Jessie fell out of the ceiling and hit the ground. "You ok?" I said reaching my hand out towards her. She grabbed my hand and I picked her up off the ground. "Yeah im fine, Thanks." she said limping to the corner of the small room. I looked at my armor and saw where it was once clean and new it was now stained, dull, and dented. "Sai look." she weakly said pointing up at a doorsign that read "Fuel Core" I looked at it suprised "Thank fucking christ" I said walking through the door with Jessie. "Get me a stabalizer and a wrench from that box over there" I said walking towards the core

We quickly fixed it with little to no problems and began heading back to the bridge. "Sai, Jessie, the Montana is falling apart, and i havent heard anything from Gage, John or Nick you need to get up here now!" Tex said over the COMMs causing me and Jessie to look at each other in fear. We quickly ran as fast as the both of us could towards the bridge and when we got there we stepped through the door and stared out the bridges blast shield to behold a hellish sight. "Oh my god" Jessie said raising her hand to her mouth. The majority of the Montana was scattered and was exploding.

I ran over to the mainframe to try to secure a COMM with Gage. "Gage?" I waited and got no reply "Gage, Damnit!?" I then heard small chatter. I then heard Jessie scream in fear and I stood up to see out of the blast shield to see the entire Montana explode sending flames and debris flying in every direction. My heart sank, tears filled my eyes, and a lump formed in my throat as I tried to mutter his name over the COMMs "Ga-.... Gage?!" I waited as more tears filled my eyes. The gigantic ball of flame that traced where the Montana was now slowly disappearing due to the lack of oxygen. "G..Gage?" I whispered as several tears fell against the mainframe. "Gage?...Carter?.... John?" I waited but still nothing my heart felt as if it was slowly decaying and the tears poured from my eyes "Your gone arent you?" I asked staring at the Montanas debris.

We stood there staring at the debris searching for any life at all. He was gone. Memories of me and him shrouded my thoughts, from the first time we met, the first kiss, the first night, and then our conversations echoed in my head: "Do you think we'll ever be like that" "Like what?" "Married." There was no possible way to stop these tears. " Gage I think this is a bad idea." "Hey Stick around im full of em" I remembered his cute smile and his deep brown eyes. "Ellie, no matter what happens to me remember this, everything happens for a reason even if you dont understand it at the time... goodbye Ellie.... I love you..." I was being torn apart by my memories and I could feel the weight of it all on my heart. Everything I had left was lost now.

I sat in silence until I heard what sounded like small chatter on the COMMS.... and it sounded like Carter! I ran over to the mainframe and put on the headset "Carter!?" I yelled I heard it again but it was extremley staticy. "Bel---t w--re -re y-o?" He was yelling for what sounded like Gage! "-m c---ng ju-t -ol- on!" they were alive! I looked at the debris and the remaining flames to see a small blue line quickly moving through the debris. I could now hear them clearly "Hey watch it! watch it!" Preyt screamed "I cant steer around it!" Carter yelled "Then punch through it!" Gage comanded as the line approached a large peice of debris. "Theyre not gonna be able to punch through that." Tex yelled "Oh no! OH NOO!" Carter screamed as the line smashed into the debris.