GateWalker Book 1

Chapter 1 (In Progress)

Chapter 1

Trask

A blinding light and a scorching heat washed over me. The comfort of home was gone. A nice warmth had turned into a searing heat. My lungs ached with every breath and the painful green light vanished from around me. My momentum carried over and sent me flying into what appeared to be a piece of debris. The quiet tranquility with only the hum of a computer I had known only moments ago was shattered by the sounds of gunfire. Soldiers in what seemed to be inhumanly heavy armor moved with something of a lurching grace towards their foes. These foes seems to be three-legged machines that groveled through the red sandy wastes in a blinking motion with every step. They would vanish and appear a small distance away before stepping and repeating it.

Another brilliant green flash came in the air, some distance above the ensuing battle. A scream came from it just as a blonde haired girl fell out of the portal and smashed into the battlefield below.

"Help me!!" she shouted helplessly as gunfire from the machines raked near her feet.

With what I would later consider as a lapse of judgement, I stood and tried to help the girl. Before my feet had even moved one of the armored men had grabbed my shredded collar and tossed me aside like a ragdoll into more debris.

"You wanna die kid?" he yelled before firing his weapon once again and trudging forward in the deep sand.

"Help us!" I said to him, hoping for aid.

Before the man could respond, an orange portal appeared on his armor. Out of the small flash came some kind of blinking device.

I had never seen so much blood before. The man nearly detonated in his armor from the concussive force of the blast. It sent viscera out of his helmet and a spray of blood from both of his guns as his lifeless armor collapsed in a bloody heap, only to be consumed in seconds by the shifting sands.

I turned my head and tried to resist throwing up from a combination of the site of the man's death and the chokingly toxic air.

"Fuck-," I muttered as I watched as more of his allies were gunned down.

Another scream came from the girl that brought me to my senses. I stood on unsteady feet and ran the short distance between rubble piles to her.

"You okay?" I yelled over the orange and green firework storm of weapons fire that rang out around us.

The girl was bleeding from a wound in her leg that seemed to have happened from her fall. She winced and tears welled up in her eyes. I put pressure on her leg to halt the bleeding and looked at the girl.

"What's your name hon?"

"Mia," she told me.