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Forgotten Part 1
Posted By: Puberty Dragon<amethystzucchini@hotmail.com>
Date: 23 October 2005, 6:16 am


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???? Hours, April ??, 2552(Military Calendar)
Location Unkown



      The room, what he could see of it, arched and spun in many different directions, and dozens of colors blended into each other in a cascade of dull radiance. He could pick out a few shapes, a large brown ellipse swam in and out of focus and pulsed into a long reddish line. He blinked, and completely different images appeared each time. He found he could not move much of his body, his arms strained and his legs felt as though they had giant weights on them. He realized soon that his torso was covered with sticky, cold liquid and his mouth had a foul taste of copper and grass, it was awful.
      Slowly but surely his vision became less blurry and he could soon make out the gist of what was going on. A tall figure was sitting left of him, motionless, and a large machine was to his right, bright red lines flashing. He felt the cool breeze brush his back and found he could move his left hand. The air pushed with all its might but his delicate fingers managed to curl into a fist, as he felt his bones straining and his knuckles popping. He tried this again, with his right hand, but could not move it even slightly. He went back to his left arm and gradually moved his stretched and pulled muscles to his side, where his arm fell through gravity and gently tapped his thigh, which ached to the touch.
      He craned his neck, which hurt immensely, to peer down at his body. He appeared to be standing at a forty-five degree angle, with one leg that seemed to be severed at the knee. He tried to move this leg and found that, although the pain was enormous, it was only twisted beneath his other leg. He sighed in relief at this. He pulled the rest of the folded leg out, which caused his entire body to shift and the laws of physics forced his waist to contort and his legs to fall to one side. He cringed.
      After another few minutes of analysis, he found that his head and neck were probably sprained, possibly fractured, his left leg and right arm were fractured in multiple locations, and he didn't know where or who he was. With a feeling of tremendous loneliness, he fell asleep.

      He was awoken later by a muffled buzz from what he suspected was outside of the room in which he lay. His vision was back fully, but he could not move his head in any given direction more than a few degrees. Drool had seeped down his chin and neck, and both arms were at rest by his wet, cold, torso.
      The buzz continued for a few moments, pulsating in his mind, causing his aching brain to throb. It grew louder. He began to fear for himself. It grew louder once more; it was closer. Something was coming for him, he had to get up, but he couldn't. His panicked body twinged as he used all of his might to hoist himself to a sitting position. He grimaced and groaned, and sat up. The buzzing had faded now, and his heartbeat rate slowly came to normal level. His neck bones gritted and hurt as his head turned left, remembering the figure sitting next to him earlier. The figure turned out to be a lifeless body, slouched against the wall of this diagonal room. He jolted, his heart raced and he flung himself as far away from the corpse as possible. His head fell back, limp, and he sighed. He blinked slowly and looked up at the ceiling of the room. There was something written on it. He tilted his head to the side and squinted.
      CORPS.

      The drop-ship's engines sputtered and its nose lifted gradually into the air. They were gaining altitude. He sat squarely in his seat. To his right was a soldier about five-seven, with a gritty shave and crew cut beneath his helmet. He was shaking nervously. The soldier turned toward him.
      "We're set to land three clicks due east of here. Intel says El-Zee's cool, I sure hope so."
      To his left was another soldie,on his helmet was the name "Gorman." He was wielding a sub-machinegun, and was facing the other way, towards the exit of the aircraft. Gorman gulped and looked at him.
      "Hey, man, you don't look so hot."
      He felt his own face and found it was covered in sweat. He shuttered at the thought of what was ahead. The lieutenant turned to them, with a look of shock on his face.
      "We're coming up on enemy gun emplacements an' armor. Somebody grab that turret and try to fend 'em off. You, Lee, see if you can get a good shot on the gunners."
      "Intel said---" Lee said.
      "Intel ain't said shit. Now get your ass up!"
      "Right."
      The first soldier stood up and positioned himself at the machinegun set up in the Pelican. Lee took a deep breath, clicked off the safety of his rifle and stood up hastily. He walked to the edge of the dropship and looked out.
      Beneath them was a luscious forest, thick with conifers, as far as he could tell. The forest stretched out as far as he could see, and on the north horizon were large, ivory mountains. To the west, from where they had come, were more dense trees, and in the distance was a small clearing where they had made their departure. Concealed in the foliage were several large plasma turrets, manned by Grunts, the cannon fodder aliens. Scattered about was half a dozen Ghosts, the small purple alien vehicles dedicated to reconnaissance.
      The soldier on the turret open-fired at these foes, and machinegun roared as it rapidly spit out armor piercing bullets. He shook and the floor vibrated. Lee lifted his rifle to his eye and peered down the scope. At times five magnification, he could see outlines of Grunt bodies and could maintain a steady target for a short time.
       He saw close-ups of the plasma turrets, "Shades", as they were named by the UNSC, and found that the tip of a Grunt's methane re-breather supply tank was just barely visible above the violet shield of the turret. It recoiled rhythmically as it shot out great, football-sized blobs of pink plasma. They splashed heavily against the right wing of the Pelican. The whole ship shook violently as the wing caught fire.
      Lee squeezed the trigger of the sniper rifle just as the Pelican was hit, he tumbled to the side and almost fell out. A thin white bullet trail traced off far into the trees, showing he had missed.
      "Brace yourselves! We're going in for an emergency landing!" The pilot shouted out through the intercom.
      Lee regained his balance and sat in the closest seat, and gripped a groove in the wall. Outside, the forest was now a green blur and was rushing away from them. Hot pink globules of plasma flew towards him. He struggled to keep a steady grip, but his sub-conscious forced him to let go of the wall and slide down the right-side bench of seats, his arms flailing in search for something on which to latch him. He hit his head on something hard, then the hard thing became something soft and there was a great pain in his neck, and a spike of splitting pain shot through his left arm. Purple spots on the walls surrounded him with heat.
      There was a loud painful scream. Lee felt the Pelican lift up about thirty degrees, and he turned to see the lieutenant stumbling down the floor. His knees locked as they banged up against the machinegun, he crumpled outward and fell out of the drop-ship, shouting. Lee, too, began to slide out of the Pelican. He moved his good arm around and felt a hand grab hold of him. It gripped very tightly and kept Lee from falling out.
      He managed to sit back up and looked around to find his saver, the first soldier he had talked with, with a large gouge in his shoulder and leg. Blood seeped out around the charred flesh, he had been hit by plasma.
      "Engine two is out! Prepare for a rough landing!" Yelled the pilot from the intercom.
      The Pelican banked sharply to the right, throwing Lee harshly around. He crashed among the seats and everything went black.


      Lee cried out into the dark and found he couldn't hear himself.





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