Edcrab
Veteran Incompetent
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2003
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A very short segment here, but I decided that since it was so difficult to keep this updated I better post what I had rather than putting off the chapter's end for another week. I hope to add to it soon though!
“It’s not that I didn’t expect to find bodies,” Quarir croaked, “but this is just… just…”
“Morbidly violent?” Zyke offered.
“Yeah,” Quarir whispered. “I think even someone like Voln would’ve drawn the line here.”
The scene within the bunker was a textbook example of a bloodbath- although, admittedly, it’d be a very enlightened (or twisted) educational authority that exposed students to such content.
Corpses, all mutilated in a variety of hideous ways, were spread-eagled all around the control room. Dated machinery- all warped dials and broken bulbs- was strewn across the floor, mingling with the various gory remains.
Although Zyke and Pyotr were unquestionably shocked, it was nothing they hadn’t seen before- one being a century-old mutant and the other a coterminous veteran. Yet for Quarir and Nuri- who had never witnessed anything as horrific as the massacred bunker before them- the sight was muted, as if they couldn’t quite take in what had happened.
“What happened here?” Quarir asked aloud, aware of the nauseous heaving of his guts.
“None of our brethren were here to record this,” Pyotr said shamefully. “We had pressed for a Vortigaunt to be present at all bases. Had we been-”
“From the looks of things you couldn’t have done anything,” Zyke told him. “Don’t beat yourself up.”
“What I d-don’t understand,” Nuri stammered, as if her whole body was chilled despite the stuffy heat, “is why there’re so many Combine bodies too…”
And that was a mystery. The Dead Pass had come to earn its name in the most macabre of ways- bodies, some Resistance members, some uniformed CPs- had been slain and maimed alike.
“It’s not zombies,” Zyke breathed deeply, “because they’d have eaten the bodies and, come to think of it, us by now.”
“And it’s nothing to do with the Combine, b-because even they wouldn’t slaughter their own troops,” Nuri began, and then she remembered the panic of the Protectorate when the Mortar Synths laid City 11 to waste. “At least, not s-so enthusiastically.”
“What does that leave then?” Quarir murmured, counting the agents of demise off on his fingers, “How many psychotic factions are we dealing with here?”
“Particularly killers who can burn like this,” Pyotr interjected, bending down to touch a woman’s body. Her clothes had been seared to her flesh, her left side a carbonised mass of charcoal. “I can think of no Combine weapon that could produce such an effect.”
“Like I said, who then? The Combine are the only… aliens… here…” Quarir trailed off, paling.
“Plasma burns,” Zyke emoted. “The Combine doesn’t use plasma weapons, because they’re too difficult to mass-produce.”
“And the… the Arcadimaarians have fusion-pulse dispersers, and don’t see the point of plasma guns.” Quarir moistened his lips with a tongue that was trying to bond to the roof of his mouth. “So that leaves…”
“Me.”
“It’s not that I didn’t expect to find bodies,” Quarir croaked, “but this is just… just…”
“Morbidly violent?” Zyke offered.
“Yeah,” Quarir whispered. “I think even someone like Voln would’ve drawn the line here.”
The scene within the bunker was a textbook example of a bloodbath- although, admittedly, it’d be a very enlightened (or twisted) educational authority that exposed students to such content.
Corpses, all mutilated in a variety of hideous ways, were spread-eagled all around the control room. Dated machinery- all warped dials and broken bulbs- was strewn across the floor, mingling with the various gory remains.
Although Zyke and Pyotr were unquestionably shocked, it was nothing they hadn’t seen before- one being a century-old mutant and the other a coterminous veteran. Yet for Quarir and Nuri- who had never witnessed anything as horrific as the massacred bunker before them- the sight was muted, as if they couldn’t quite take in what had happened.
“What happened here?” Quarir asked aloud, aware of the nauseous heaving of his guts.
“None of our brethren were here to record this,” Pyotr said shamefully. “We had pressed for a Vortigaunt to be present at all bases. Had we been-”
“From the looks of things you couldn’t have done anything,” Zyke told him. “Don’t beat yourself up.”
“What I d-don’t understand,” Nuri stammered, as if her whole body was chilled despite the stuffy heat, “is why there’re so many Combine bodies too…”
And that was a mystery. The Dead Pass had come to earn its name in the most macabre of ways- bodies, some Resistance members, some uniformed CPs- had been slain and maimed alike.
“It’s not zombies,” Zyke breathed deeply, “because they’d have eaten the bodies and, come to think of it, us by now.”
“And it’s nothing to do with the Combine, b-because even they wouldn’t slaughter their own troops,” Nuri began, and then she remembered the panic of the Protectorate when the Mortar Synths laid City 11 to waste. “At least, not s-so enthusiastically.”
“What does that leave then?” Quarir murmured, counting the agents of demise off on his fingers, “How many psychotic factions are we dealing with here?”
“Particularly killers who can burn like this,” Pyotr interjected, bending down to touch a woman’s body. Her clothes had been seared to her flesh, her left side a carbonised mass of charcoal. “I can think of no Combine weapon that could produce such an effect.”
“Like I said, who then? The Combine are the only… aliens… here…” Quarir trailed off, paling.
“Plasma burns,” Zyke emoted. “The Combine doesn’t use plasma weapons, because they’re too difficult to mass-produce.”
“And the… the Arcadimaarians have fusion-pulse dispersers, and don’t see the point of plasma guns.” Quarir moistened his lips with a tongue that was trying to bond to the roof of his mouth. “So that leaves…”
“Me.”
