Mist

Poisoned

I cover my mouth and shut my eyes. I keep banging on the grate with my free hand. Everything smells putrid and the metal around me turns red. The grete turns a brownish color and is hot to the touch. The gas subsides again. I open the grate and push myself out. I cough out yellow liquid. I put pressure on my bleeding neck wound.

In this new area, a bunch of well dressed aliens are fighting Service Soldiers. I limp in and punch one square in the face. They stop fighting and jump towards me. I yell, "You want to know my name?" They look confused as they lunge at me. I punch them in the face. They fly to the side of me and land on the ground. I spit out some blood and proudly say, "It's fist, and it's on your face." They get back up. I regret my decision.

They lash out at me. I jump to the side. A Service Soldier runs up and kicks them. He repeatedly shots them with a pistol. The other Service Soldier is being eaten alive, flailing and crying out in terror. We lift up the alien and toss them behind us. They make a loud thud, but rise up. The Service Soldier standing next to me readies his pistol and I bring out my shotgun.

The alien lunges at us. We fire as much as we can when it's airborne. The alien dies mid-air and falls on me. I land on the ground and groan. The Service Soldier, which is a stout alien, lifts up the creature and tosses it to the side. He extends his small arm out to me. We rush to the Service Soldier who was being eaten. Red blood creeps out of tooth marks in their. They're dead.

The Service Soldier gets down on both knees and stares at the corpse for a while. I shake the soldier. It looks up at me and hands me this box. I inferer what it does. I place it on the giant gun. I press the only button on it. My visor flashes a countdown from one minute. The alien is still on their knees. I grab them and yell, "Get up!" They don't budge. They look at me and takes off their mask.

40 seconds. They have a human-like face with large eyes dripping bright silver liquid. They're crying. "It's okay, he's in a better place."

33 seconds. They look at me and say, in a broken voice, "They were my friend. I can't go on without them. I can't just leave."

25 seconds. "I'll be your friend now. I won't leave you. I promise."

20 seconds. They stop crying, look up and say, "Serious?"

"Serious."

15 seconds. I grip their hand and pull them up.

10 seconds. I point to a place where we can jump to.

6 seconds. It jumps.

3 seconds. I jump and shoot my mountain jumper.

0 seconds. I look at the large explosion underneath me. I turn at the alien and they're also staring down. "How long did you know him?" I say.

"Only a few days..." says the alien.

"I never got to met it...." I say, trying to think of moments I had with this alien.

They face me, shake their head in grief, and say, "I love it because the odds that he would have met me, the odds that us two beings, whom never seen each other, would have a talk and enjoy each other like we are brothers, the more I think about it, the more it makes me love him. Now, those odds are dead. And I'm left in the average statistics. I will never mend this broken heart." I scoot a little bit further and try to come up with something to say, but silence seems to be the best thing.

We're called to another area to regroup. I cover my neck wound with a cloth to stop the bleeding. I'm feeling weaker by the second. The alien helps me along the way. Roars and explosions echo around the empty Warship. The aliens in the Warship know we are here, but we managed to explode all the objectives. The Warship isn't functional. I have no doubt that we are plummeting to the ground.