Once Again

Chapter Six - All Alone

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All Alone

"Echo?" Puppet called softly into his radio. He got no answer. "Echo, are you there?"

Still, there was silence. Something was wrong.

And then suddenly, the radio buzzed and Echo's static-filled voice came through. "P-Puppet?"

"Are you okay? You didn't answer and I was worried."

"I-I can't do this. I'm stuck. I can't ... I saw something ... they ... they ... Braken was right. B-Braken was right." His shaking voice dropped down to barely a breath. "Please, help me."

"I can't help you out here," Puppet said, fighting to keep his voice calm. "You have to get out by yourself."

"I can't do it. I can't ... "

"You'll be fine. Just keep moving."

"You keep saying that, but you've never been in here! You don't know what it's like to watch someone rip a boy's guts out - "

"Calm down, Echo. You're panicking." Puppet was panicking, too. He had no idea what to do. If Echo got stuck in there, he had no way to get him out.

"Of course I'm panicking! What does it sound like?" Echo sounded like he was going to say more, but he quickly cut himself off. "Someone's coming," he whispered. "I think they heard me ..."

There was a second of silence, except for Echo's heavy breathing. Puppet found himself holding his breath in anticipation.

A man's voice suddenly came through the radio. "Hello, little boy. What are you doing up here?"

And then Echo screamed in pain and the radio cut off.

"Echo?" Puppet called. "Echo, what's going on? Echo, answer me!"

"We've killed him."

He knew it was a horrible idea, but he couldn't leave the innocent kid in there to die by himself.

He took a long drink of water, choked down a quick energy bar, and threw their things together. He left their gear where they'd been hiding and took nothing except a screwdriver - his robotic arm had been acting up, and he'd forgotten to ask Nitro to fix it. He tightened a loose screw, stuffed the tool in his pocket, and ran. He ran right up to the entrance of the Haven and forced open the doors.

Immediately, he was hit with a wave of that despair, the same deep, dark feeling Echo had felt. It almost made him stagger back, but he stayed upright and pushed forward.

The guards stared at him, and then they all grinned morbidly, perfectly syncopated, as if they were all the same person. In fact, they all looked very similar. For once, Puppet wished that Braken was with him, if only to make sure that they were, in fact, different.

"What do we have here?" the one in the lead chuckled. "Puppet? I never thought I'd see you again."

Puppet didn't recognize this man, and he didn't seem like he was going to share his name, so the Raider played along, just for a moment. "That's 'cause I was never coming back," he snapped. "You have something of mine. Give it back and I won't fight you. If you don't ... I won't hesitate to kill you all."

"The little Echo kid, or this?" The man held up a transparent crystal. "This is what you're after, isn't it? If you don't go back with it, Tristam will kill you."

Puppet knew he was right, but he didn't say anything.

"So," the Destroyer said, "which will it be? The kid, or the crystal? You take this, you go back and Tristam doesn't kill you. In fact, he'll probably praise and promote you in some way. You take the kid, without the crystal, and you take his place here at Haven."