Mist

Old Friends Replace New Ones.

When I wake up, I can't feel, see, or hear anything. I lay there for a bit until I have the energy to crawl towards the armory. I want to die. I want to die right now. I want to forget about this forever. I don’t want to kill. I want to mine, make money, use that money to buy things I don’t need buy that will make me happy for 3 days, and I want to have a family. The normal blissful life where we follow the man but we are happy in the end.

There's no end to war and death. Nobody will win. Aliens from all waring councils joining together as friends to get a material that I found. I will never be important to this war only a person who started it, and will die in the middle of it.. So I want to die. If life will never come back, I want to die. I stand and limp towards the armory. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

I quicken my pace. What do I love? The armory is in sight. Why does loving kill me? I open the door to the partially destroyed armory. I hate loving. The Skyflair is laying down near a dead body. I pick it up and as tears roll down my face. I run outside and climb to the roof of the armory. I scream. I aim at the contraption heading towards me. Its metal blades twist and rub against each other, I scream again. It shoots out a bright light almost like a comet, burning my eyes, as the light flies up the middle of it, causing it to slow down, the explosion flies from its mouth, erupting like a volcano, puking out smoke and ask only to inhale it, the snake shakes as each section of it erupts. I lean over, feeling my aching body giving way to the pain and fall to the ground. I look at the white cloudy sky move like a ocean wave. A white flower petal swims through the win.

Eventually, I stand and climb down from the armory. I head towards the known crash site and try to find survivors. Lumps are prominent under rubble and things cut in half stick out here and there. I search for anything with life. Something’s wiggling in the distance. I walk towards it.

It’s a figure impaled by large metal piece. I barely recognize the pile of flesh twitching. Then, it faintly speaks, “Is that you, Nobis?” I approach slowly and see its eyes. They’re Funky Killer’s. My heart grows heavier. I feel destroyed. “How... are you?” I manage to say. It looks at me and tries to smile from its matted fur from the blood oozing from its face, “I'm doing good, but you? Please stay great. We need more people like you.”

It reaches into its mangled pockets and brings out the purple knife. It shoves the knife into its heart and twitches for a split second. The mangled flesh of Funky Killer was gone. I pull the purple knife from his heart and walk away. Death on the ground. Lifeless bodies. Who were just trying to survive.

I turn my head to find six figures all huddling a few hundred meters away. I walk towards them and see they’re trying to pick up a piece of building. They’re part of Service. They all look devastated. As I get closer, I can see weird fingers poking out of the ground and dark spots around the area. The Service Soldiers keep trying to lift, but to no avail.

Once I reach them, they see me and signal to help. They’re bloodied, a few even impaled, but they’re all trying to lift this rubble. A human in the group falls on their knees, covers their eyes, and lays down in fetal position. I don’t say a word, but I notice a weapon that looks like it’s been tossed aside. It’s the weapon used by the dark creatures.

I crouch down near the struggling Service Soldiers. Through a little slit I can see what's under the rubble: the dark creature. It’s covered in odd colors. It looks happy, despite its legs being tangled and most of its body is cut off. It spots me and smiles. The robotic voice plays in my head, slightly distorted, “I.HOPE.THAT.YOU.WILL.VIEW.ME.DIFFERENTLY.LOVE.LIFE.PLEASE.”

I grab the rubble and try with all my might to lift it. I start to scream as I clinch every muscle to get the strength to pull it off. The human Warship, a octahedron with a flat front and back, large cannons on the side and on the front of it flying near us plays an intercom, “All Unity aliens will be shot. Service and Vendetta Soldiers will be brought to the newest base in Mist.” Some human soldiers walk into the city, pointing their guns at every alien. Us humans are moved into carrier ships. Aliens from Service have to walk. A human says to me, “I never thought I could make friends with an alien, then that friend dies. The times are definitely changing,” …

We’re brought to a small plastic looking base in a part of Mist I haven't heard of, the terrain is flat, small white trees poke out slightly. I’m in a bright room that I’m told is a medical ward, and see two familiar faces. Como and Pulchra stand in front of me smiling. I hug Como and shake hands with Pulchra. I feel happy I get to see these people at least. Como starts to tell the story of what happened right after the invasion of the Unity base:

“After we lost you, we regrouped and ran towards another part of Mist where a whole bunch of Service dudes where. They were called Squad Six for some reason. We learned their plan to follow the contraption and try to trap it in a city nearby called Vagientem. The city was recently cleared of Vendetta soldiers and controlled by Unity.”

Como stares at Pulchra and mouths some words, Pulchra nods and laughs. Holding her hand close to her face to prevent her from laughing more.

“So, me and the Blackcoat presumed you were dead, until we got message that a group of rouge dudes were going to that city. We also got word that the human fleet was here, but the battle stands 10 to 1 with Unity ahead and focusing all its attention on Mist, which confused humans. As a result, Service allied with Vendetta and are sending an even larger fleet to take down Unity once and for all. We talked to the commander of the human military and made a plan to destroy the snake thing as well as a large warship that is one of the main suppliers of reinforcements.” Como grabs a water and drinks the whole thing. He clears his throat and says

“A small force along with the Warships ventured into the city to take down the Unity line. But, no one planned on the snake thing being so powerful and going after Service and the Warship was supposed to explode before it hit the ground. Because of the lack of planning, everything was falling a lot until somebody used a skyflair to shoot down the contraption thing called The Eater, which made everyone’s day. On the sad note, 80% of all our troops, including your weird group, died after the warship touched the ground, 3% because of the contraption and 1% from the actual battle. But, me and the Blackcoat didn't die!”

Pulchra says, “Welcome to Squad Six.”

Como whispers “Squad six for the win.”

I look at them, confused. Pulchra laughs and highfives Como and misses slightly  Pulchra looks at me and smiles brightly, “So, here's the deal: you weren’t injured much, but you slept for two days. We drew stuff on your face, but also got you gifts!” I look at my bedside table and find a low quality holographic video of a bear dancing and get better soon bounces around it.

I say a happy “thank you” and grab a mirror. I have words written all over my face,  including “doof” and “Como put you in a coma.” I smile at them and they laugh a lot. I sit in the room all day and Como and Pulchra talk to me and I finally feel real happiness.

I learn a lot about Pulchra, She has a bunch of stories because of her life in the Blackcoats and Como just has stories of him shooting large guns at small angry animals. The Blackcoat is very sweet and silent mostly, afraid of contact with large groups of people. Como is similar, but also has a side of him that doesn’t care, so he's fine with it.

I'm the most outgoing in the group, but have the most boring stories. I try to make them funny and Pulchra laughed a lot while Como only laughed a bit. At the end of day, Como leaves and Pulcra brings out a book. She looks at me and says, “I'm going to read you a bedtime story, but first, I’ll tell you why we had to meet the way we did. Well, me and my squad all wanted something stronger than a Blackcoat tank. When we learned about a Redcoat tank, I searched for a Redcoat, found you, and knocked you out because Redcoat I.D. is the only way the tank turns on. So, thank you... for getting knocked out. I don’t think we would’ve survived otherwise.” she says awkwardly

We chuckle and she opens the book to start reading. It's a story about two people in the K.M.K era falling in love at the end of the 2 thousand year war. I fell asleep quickly, happy in an odd way.