The soldier was panting behind his thick helmet as he sprinted down the alleyway, each heavy step leaving a small dent in the thin metal floor. His ammunition was low, and the same went for his dissipating energy. His shields could recharge if he would only stand still, but there was no time to afford it. Idling would only end in his death. The rest of the fireteam had been killed, slain by the same threat that he ran from so frantically.
A small crack in the floor caught his armored foot, and the soldier lost his balance. A loud series of sharp banging followed as he tumbled to the ground. A creaking noise echoed around him, as if it were coming from his mind. Dents had formed wherever he had fallen. The noise grew louder as the lone, frightened soldier felt as if he were suddenly heavier.
It wouldn’t have mattered either way. The floor gave way beneath his sitting figure, plunging him into darkness. Speechless, he smashed into the ground, feeling a soft organic substance under him. Fiddling with a light attached to his helmet, he tapped the bent switch. A small flash briefly flickered from the cracked lens, and just as quickly disappeared, returning to the haunting blackness of the dark. For the briefest moment of the flicker, the soldier could barely make out the brown-beige mixture that pigmented the walls, along with an occasional streak of blood, and the meaty stench it gave off. The ground made a sickening noise of flesh with every step.
Trudging through the tunnel, the soldier thought he had heard something lightly tapping along the wall. Jerking quickly towards the source of the noise, the broken light flickered again. He saw something moving, but the light went out too quickly to actually make out the source of the small scutters. Loud bangs exploded through the tunnel as he had waved his rifle, berating the walls with bullets of fear and anger. The gunfire finally stopped after four long seconds, and the flashes of light had once again disappeared, returning the tunnel to darkness.
Walking down the path blindly, the whites of his eyes were exposed. He was shivering, despite warm beads of sweat running down his scarred face. After long, fearful moments his foot suddenly hit a small protrusion on the filthy surface he had been treading through. Kneeling, a small switch was affixed to the ground, which now had the hard feeling of metal. The room dimly lit, and the soldier was ecstatic at the light he had missed so much. As his eyes adjusted, the details of an abandoned, somewhat crude bunker became visible in the dim and spontaneous flicker of the old bulbs.
The soldier found crates of food and ammunition, as well as a steel door that could easily prevent things from entering. As he looked up at the low ceiling in an emotion that could only be described as extreme relief, a shadow was cast. The tapping noise returned, but too quickly for him to react. A quick flash of beige appeared before him as a small parasite crept up his torso. In the instant shock, his rifle was firing crazily at the floor beneath him, opening small dents in the thick steel. The creature on him began to press into his chest as he felt the warm running of his own blood.
Stumbling with an inability to stay balanced, everything slowly turned black.