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Marine Lives: 3: Arthur Ghent and the Tunnel
Posted By: Pandora Tomorrow<Mortified__Penguin@hotmail.com>
Date: 22 August 2005, 3:35 pm
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Arthur closed his eyes and braced himself for the end of the slope, where he would almost certainly crash himself against the wall at the end of it. He knew that one or two of those would be well over enough to kill him, after he had already cracked his head twice and after he had almost broken his back in the first fall. But after ten seconds he opened his eyes, wondering why he hadn't yet done so.
He was going feet first down a long, thin, steep passageway. It felt like a slide, only steeper, more uncomfortable, and with a handful of body-snatching mutants chasing after him. He looked behind him. The mutants hadn't yet jumped down, but it wouldn't be long before they did.
He couldn't see the end, meaning it was a long, long way down. He made a quick plea that it wouldn't be any sort of drop he experienced before. He looked behind again. Now there were mutants, sliding down, gaining more and more pace on him. He couldn't turn, without the risk of his skin on his arms burning through all the friction there was as he sped down and down the slope.
Looking back, he tried to think about what to do. Here Arthur was, going down at an almost vertical angle, being chased by mutants. As he was thinking he heard a crackling noise; similar to the one he heard when the shields holding the creatures in containment deactivated. He was about to turn around again to see where the mutants were when he saw a white glow appearing on the floor, walls and ceiling of the slope, The shields were on the slope, he realized, and they were activating.
He started to pick up speed. Slowly at first, but, gradually faster and faster until he was going faster than the eye could see. He couldn't breathe. He was going down with no friction, meaning sooner or later he would be going a fast as freefalling, and almost just as far down, if not further.
His heart was pumping too fast. He felt like it was going to explode if he didn't slow down soon, and there was no chance of that the way he was going. He looked behind him again. The mutants were still behind him, and still getting closer and closer, but now he was able to turn around without burning himself. He felt no friction, so he turned onto his front facing the mutants. Just as he did so, the slope narrowed, so much to the extent that the walls were right next to his shoulders, and the ceiling just abortive his head. He couldn't turn back round to his back, so he readied his powerful Battle Rifle and took aim.
The good thing he found out about firing up at something moving much more quickly down was that the shock effect was much greater, so much to an extent that when he fired his first round of bullets at the mutants, they ripped apart about twenty of the larger creatures before slamming into one of the larger bag carriers, which exploded, sending a massive force of air down and up, clearing the area up to as far as he could see of the mutants. It felt good to think that he had such a huge amount of power. This must be how the MC feels every day, he thought, and briefly imagined what it would be like if he was a Spartan Mk. II, being able to fight his way though an entire covenant cruiser single handedly, destroying Halo, and-
He felt something hot and thin slide down and past his side. His bullets. He aimed his rifle back up the slope, waiting for more of them to come down, but no more came. But he did see something at the top, closing up. It must have been some kind of blockage, preventing them from getting further, because no more mutants got any further than where he turned onto his front and the passage got thinner.
Pausing for breath, well... As much of a breath you can get when you're traveling faster than you can see down a frictionless slope, backwards , he tried to look back the way he was traveling, but he couldn't see from where he was. The passage was silent now. He couldn't hear himself traveling down the slope at all. He felt like he was getting smaller. The passageway also seemed to be getting smaller. It was getting smaller. He could feel his body slowly being pressed together, getting tighter and tighter, the wind rushing through his black hair at unbelievable speeds. But just as his body was about to crack from the pressure, he slid out of the passageway.
Into thin air.
Into a vertical drop down into a seemingly bottomless pit.
He couldn't see the end of it. Just masses upon masses of holes just like the one he came out of.
He screamed as he went tumbling down and down into the black depth that could well be his final grave. He was screaming so much that he didn't even notice the unconscious body of an armored elite, who seemed to be wearing some kind of sacred armor, fall down past him and into the void of the bottom of the hole.
All he noticed was, thirty seconds later, after his screams had tired out, when he saw three giant tentacles fly up from the ground, and hovered at the speed he was falling. He then heard a voice. A loud, deep voice, coming from the very depths of the hole. It said, "Another visitor, I am popular today!" Then the tentacles grabbed him, stopping him dead still where he was. And the sheer shock of that sudden stop was enough to knock him out cold.
All he heard, as he was brought slowly down by the tentacles, were these words from the same voice:
"This is not your grave. This is my home, but you are welcome in it."
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