Spinel (RHG)

Entry 12

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Base Alpha.
7/6/20XXw
Link start.
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The last man crumpled into ash, his screams cut short as he crumbled away in the claws of the wind. A agonizing din of alarms pummeled his ears and far off yells signaled the soon to be arrival of more soldiers he would be forced to slaughter.

Cuba turned tail, the snow and ash crunching under his booted heels. The wind slashed his face like tiny blades as he sprinted through the snow in the fortresses courtyard. Wrenching the door open with a clash he darted inside, footsteps echoing down the cold halls. The lights swung useless from the ceiling, voided of the power that kept them lit.

Yells and droves of footsteps followed not far behind, glimpses of flashlights reflecting off of the smooth steel walls as he took turn after turn, lost in the winding passages and catacombs that webbed the building.

The catacombs spiraled down and down into the cold earth, his heart beat like a drum as he weaved through the darkened passageways.

He took a final turn, the thundering footsteps still echoing far behind him, louder and louder as a new wave approached. A tall, vault like door stood defiant and strong. He scrambled for the handle but it only shifted a millimeter, iron against iron making a flurry of sparks and a ear piercing screech.

Cuba leaped for the button pad, desperation making him stumble as he fiddled with the key pad for a code. Panic clouded his mind, chased by a unseen enemy, not the men whom foot steps thundered and rung ever closer. Someone more. Something more.

"GET ON THE GROUND!" A voice rung like a bell off the curved steel walls, Light flooded through the tunnel passage. Cuba stumbled back, shielding his eyes from the sudden blinding light that bathed the room. Squinting he could make out countless shapes and silhouettes that stretched the room.

He pummeled the door again and again, eyes wide in fear and adrenaline pumping though his veins.

"THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING! DO NOT MOVE! PUT YOU HANDS IN THE AIR!" The voice roared orders at him but he squeezed his eyes shut in fear and pounded at the door that stood immobile and unmarked.

Cuba kept his eyes screwed shut and pounded the door of a last few futile seconds before clutching at his skull, clasping fistfuls of hair. Noise beating down like a crescendo.

A flare of fiery red pushed back the sea of blinding white, lighting the insides of his eyelids a rosy pink. Raging flames ensnared his body and his eyes flared open, flashing in inhuman sparks and the light faded from his gaze.

He arose, shaking from the ground, slowly lifting his hands from his ears.

The room lay charred and coated in ashes and carnage. melted plastic and metal mixed with the ash of human remains. Unlike his previous victims their bodies had been incinerated by the inferno, their deaths none the less excruciating agony.

It took him for what seemed like a eternity for his eyes to adjust to the sudden crushing darkness that veiled the room in a cloak of shadow.

A crater of melting metal and flame sizzled at his feet, the radius of destruction tore into the walls and floor. The metal around him glowed a radiant white, deadly to all but him who tougher its boiling surface. The dull glow of the metal barley slicing the darkness. A torn hole had been ripped from the titanium vault entrance, nothing but darkness beyond.

Cuba let out the shaky breath he hadn't known he had been holding. His body felt the last of the adrenaline seep from his bones and he crumpled to the white hot metal below. After minuets of quivering in exhaustion in the charred crater he arose slowly, body hunched.