Journey to Destiny

Chapter 1: The Awakening to Destiny

The first thing I remember is waking in the snowy fields of Old Russia. The first thing I felt was the cold press of the snow against my stiff body and the brisk wind rushing passed my bare face The first thing I heard was the exited beeping of a Ghost. And finally, I opened my eyes.

The first thing I saw was the blinding light of the sun in my face, which was not helped by the reflection of the snow. Once my eyes adjusted to the sun, I could see the little blue robot looking down at me with wonder in his eye.

It wasn't till then that I began to question things. Where am I? How did I get here? All questions I wasn't sure the little robot before me had any answers to. I was just about to try asking anyway when I heard a sound coming from the distance, like an explosion.

"We should go now," the ghost called out to me.

"But..."

"There's no time to explain. We have to go," the ghost interrupted. Just then I heard the sound again, except louder, closer. I struggled to move and stand up with my stiff body, but running to catch up with the ghost came easily.

"My ship is hidden in that warehouse," cried the ghost as we ran. I could see the large warehouse in the distance, covered in snow.

When we got closer, I could start to see figures standing in front of it. The ghost seemed to notice them too, as he stopped abruptly infront of me. I stopped too, nearly running into him.

"Well, there goes plan A," he said. "The Vex are blocking the entrance. Now for plan B," he turned to look at me. "Your gonna have to defend yourself if we're gonna get in there," he gestured towards the snow. I looked down and noticed the hilt of a sniper rifle sticking out of the snow. I reached down to pick it up, and as I pulled it out of the snow, I saw the skeleton of a hand holding onto it. I jumped back, yanking the gun from the hand and I watched as it flopped back onto the snow, dead.

The rifle felt comfortable in my hands, like I was used to holding one, but I had no recollection of doing so. I held the gun up to my face and aimed at one of the figures. I aimed at its head and fired. Perfect head shot, instant kill.

"If you keep that up, we might just make it out of here alive," commented the ghost. I found out later that insta-killing a moving target wasn't so easy.

We made our way into the warehouse, checking every dark corner for Vex. I kept my gun close and stayed vigilant. We gradually moved deeper and deeper into the warehouse, trying to silence all the questions stirring up in my mind. I couldn't ask them, not yet. I killed any Vex I saw, but soon, there was a swarm of them; when I turned to get one another shot me from behind.

Shots didn't hurt much due to the bulletproof armor I woke up in. Great, another question for later. A lot of shots at once, though, was another story.

"Take cover," I heard the ghost call out. I found one of the many wooden crates to crouch behind. I found that doing this made it a lot easier to shoot while also avoiding fire at the same time, so I kept the strategy in mind.

The Vex had the same idea, as I noticed one or two hiding behind similar crates, which forced me to wait until one popped their head out to shoot.

We finally found our way into the center of the warehouse where the ship was resting. I quickly had to find cover when I noticed a large Vex guarding the ship, a captain perhaps. I would have to be cleaver facing him. To many hits from him, and that's it.

I circled around him, dodging from one cover to the next, getting head shots as I went, but the Vex's energy shield made my shots make little difference.

"Here," the ghost said. "Try this." I looked down where he was gesturing to and noticed a large gun, which must have been dropped by a Vex. I slung my current gun over my shoulder and picked up the new gun. It was much heavier than than the first, which lead me to believe that it could also do more damage. I held the gun near my face and aimed it at the Vex, who was scanning the room for me. I fired, and I was right. The gun did a significant amount of damage compared to the first.

The Vex Captain quickly noticed me and aimed his own gun, but I dodged back into cover just in time.

I continued my previous routine of running around the room except with my new gun, and finally, a head shot knocked him from his feet, dead.

Quickly, the ghost and I hurried onto the shuttle. I heard the bullets from leftover Vex flying past my head as we went in. Soon, the ghost started the engine; a low humming noise was heard and I could feel the aircraft start to lift from the ground. The engine got louder as we got higher, and through the hole in the roof, blasted into space, leaving the dangers of Old Russia behind.

We were flying through space, we were quiet for a moment, until I finally decided to speak up.

"Why?" I asked. The ghost looked up at me. "Why," I repeated. "Why did you save me?" He was quiet for a moment, before saying, "Because I need you," he paused. "No. Because the universe needs you," I started, waiting for an explanation. He continued, "Thousands of years ago, the earth was alone, and at peace, until it came." There was a pause before an explanation to what 'it' wa came. "They called it, the traveler. For years it provided humanity with new technologies and weapons they had never seen before. And peace remained, until, following the traveler, came the Vex, and many others. They wanted to steal the travelers life force, and use it to take over the universe. To remake it into its own, evil image."

The ghost looked out, and saw the entirety of the traveler before us. At that point, we were hovering over a grand city on earth, bitting time for the ghost to explain. "I was created by the traveler, along with hundreds of others, to go out in search for fallen warriors, and revive them, so that they may fight again. It's what we've been doing since the beginning of the war," the thought sent an acing feeling in my stomach, the thought of hundreds of lives being taken by war, just to be revived again, to die in the war, and be revived again. Forever and ever, on an endless loop, through an endless war.

The ghost looked back at me again. "Oh, and my name is Orion. Some people call me Ori but I think that's kind of dumb but I mean..." Ori trailed off as I continued to stare out at the traveler. Hundreds of lives taken, rekindled, and taken again, for some giant orb in the sky that they don't even understand. I began to wonder how many times I could've died, and was brought back to life for this war.

"And your name is Zokan," Ori interrupted my thoughts. Zokan, I thought. It was the only thing I've heard so far that I recognized. I looked back at Ori.

"How many others have you revived before me?" I asked.

"Well actually," he said. "Your my first. I am the latest Ghost model." Which means no previous experience to fall back on. "Well, this should be fun," he said as he began to land the ship. We unboarded, and I looked out unto the grand, beautiful city.

"Welcome," Ori said. "To the last city on earth."