13 Illusion of Senses

A moment later, Rothgarr woke up inside his command vehicle, sitting in the back seats. His lieutenant, Wuntwail, was riding a shotgun beside his driver. The vehicle was moving on some ancient road, now almost indistinguishable with the open ground around it, while escorted by a few number of APCs and convoys back and forth. Rothgarr rubbed his eyes. Though the car itself was of the same model as his own VIP vehicle back in his palace, nevertheless, the interior was still quite different. It was all set up to serve the practical purposes of a field commander, lacking any decorations nor ornaments that would cater to the tastes of a governor. While he was in such thoughts, Wuntwail, from the passenger seat, turned around and then began to make a brief report to his superior.

"My lord, we are now drawing near on our destination, with the estimated time of arrival being around 30 minutes. No possible threats are currently on our way, as far as the radar speaks true to its masters... Milord, are you alright?"

To his question, however, Rothgarr could not give any answer. He tried to open his mouth and say something, but yet he failed.

"Lord Rothgarr, I beseech you to tell me what ails your mind and soul alike; Is there, possibly, anything that matters to you as such?"

"It's nothing. Continue." He spoke in response, at last.

Wuntwail, now seeming relieved at his master's wellness, carried on his report. "Aye. So long as our initial intel, too, speaks of nothing but a truth to us, we will hardly face any of the hostile forces outside the facility. Yet, due to its nature as an abandoned, bio-tech laboratory of ancestery, we are still prone to encounter biohazard threats, or even a few hideous chimeras, once we breach into the place. This is definitely not one among the usual missions we have dealt with so far. I suggest we should take an extra caution for every moves we shall make there. We might even request some more men and women for this mission."

"Should there be only mindless critters, not trained enemies with arsenal at the least, waiting for us on the site then it shall be fine. We all knew in prior that we shall be exploring an ancient experimental facility with possible threats lurking inside. We have a solid plan, and are now with a team of seasoned soldiers in sturdy HEV suits; we are well prepared for this." Sir Rothgarr assured his lieutenant.

"Yes, my lord. I shall steel both my words and soul." Answered Wuntwail.

Twenty five minutes later, Rothgarr and his troops arrived on the target location. A few number of lightly armored soldiers disembarked from their carriers first. They spread out near the entrance in order to secure the perimeters. Soon after, the troops in heavy-duty protection suits, too, made it outside their vehicles. They then gathered up in front of Rothgarr and Wuntwail to wait for their masters' further instructions.

"Alright, listen well, thou proud sons and daughters of the Empire. As thou have already heard, our main goal is to secure this facility, and then locate the holo-disk buried deep inside the place, which is presumed to contain invaluable information on undiscovered techs and intelligence our ancestors left behind."

"We were told, likewise, that there shall be possible, biohazard threats within the facility, while their very nature still unknown to any of us. They shall be either the vile demons made out of ancient bio-techs, or some sort of germs and virus even the Empire's finest apothecaries could not cure. Expect anything thou can ever imagine. And I urge thee, while we are at it, to keep thy eyes open and be on the guard, lest the darkness below thy feet swallow thee whole."

After the briefing, Rothgarr assigned the half of his troops to Wuntwail's command, then had him and his soldiers take up the point. All the other light infantries were to hold their positions and secure the main entrance, in case for the emergency evacuation.

"Entry point secured. No hostiles detected so far. We're free to proceed." Said Wuntwail via his comm-link.

Rothgarr and his units, then, followed Wuntwail's group into the foreboding abyss ahead. As they passed through the checkpoint, which was abandoned countless years ago, a ruined sign with faint letters on it appeared at the bottom of the facility's monumental sculpture. Quite a large portion of it was severely rusted, leaving the letters written there totally incomprehensible. Yet, some seemingly important letters were still readable. They were, apparently, denoting the name of this very place, and could be read as following: 'X-F-22 Bio-technology and Neurology Research Facility'. However, right after Sir Rothgarr had finished reading the sequence of letters to its end, his eyesight went blurry all the sudden, and everything around him began to circle, as if he was positioned at the center of an orbit on which the whole universe was spinning. Though he did not know the cause for all these weird things happening around him, yet he tried hard to keep his sanity despite such madness. Then, his feet soon started to sink beneath the ground. He tried to get himself out of the swamp-like pit swallowing him, but he failed. The land now engulfed most of the rothgarr's body, leaving only a portion of the head above his lips. His eyes rolled desperately, searching for any form of the salvation he could ever get. A few seconds later, he was gone from where he was standing.

Shortly after, Rothgarr came back to his senses. However, the situation he was put into seemed far from being peaceful. Rather, he was now among the heat of a fierce combat, where the lives of everyone underground, including himself, were in peril. All this time, Rothgarr had sought nothing else but only a peace of his mind, but alas, he was given in return the trickery of his playful and yet wicked fate. Nevertheless, there was no time spared for him to curse his own destiny; it was now the time for battle.

"Open fire! Xenon, Ophelia, get each of your squad to shoot the critters on the ground. The rest of you, concentrate your firepower on that bloated abomination in the air!" So were the commands of Wuntwail.

Each and every muzzles of guns were blazing without an exception. Xenon and Ophelia's troops were somehow managing to keep away the small, crawling monsters approaching them. Up above the critters was floating some huge, hideous monster whose bloated shape would even disgust those with battle-hardened souls. No matter how many they would shoot down those creatures, their numbers did not seem to decrease any further. The massive creature, mostly looking like a pair of bloated human cerebrums with huge eyeballs and tentacles, was the source they came from. Beneath it were hanging some capsules, each large in size enough to contain four to five people in it. Through the single passage surrounded with those capsules in circle, it kept on giving birth to its ugly children, more than a dozen each time, further adding up the endless tide of abominations rushing onto the soldiers serving the Holy Empire.

"My lord, we are somehow managing to hold them back, but we are now running short on ammunitions!" Reported one among the Wuntwail's squad.

"Keep holding them off as much as you can! This is getting worse by every minute passing. We got to come up with the way out of this dire situation fast... Damnation upon those endless swarms of vile curs!" So cursed Wuntwail unto his enemies.

Soon after seeing his allies in danger, Rothgarr tried to make a run onto his brethren's location. But yet again, he failed. He found out that both his arms and limbs were not there; they were already buried deep inside the thick shadows engulfing them. He could not move even an inch of his body. A plasma-bolt was lying on the ground near him. He somehow needed to grab it and join up the struggle out there, but he couldn't. Then, he heard Wuntwail calling out for him.

"My lord! At this rate, the enemies shall overrun us in any minute!"

Rothgarr heard him clearly. Still, he could not say anything in return.

"Lord Rothgarr, we need your assistance!"

He managed to open his mouth, but not a whisper came out.

"Rothgarr! Help us! Save our souls!"

Now, he somehow succeeded in pulling his right arm out of the shadows. Yet, he was not able to reach him, for his other arm and both feet were still tied and bound.

All the sudden, tentacles sprung out of a membrane of the monster's brain-like flesh. They soon snatched Wuntwail, grabbing his arms and legs alike, and then dragged him to their hideous master. He screamed in horror while being dragged away by the tentacles. There appeared a deep crevasse on the monster's sticky membrane, and Wuntwail, still resisting his captors, soon got swallowed in it.

Everything around Rothgarr, including his soldiers and the monsters alike, shortly vanished. With some distance between two, there left only him and Wuntwail, who was now hopelessly imprisoned in a large testing tube. Wuntwail, submerged in greenish fluid of the tube, punched and beat the transparent window around him, seeking for his friend's help. From the bottom, tentacle-like cords soon emerged and then sank into his raw flesh like arrows. Blood was everywhere in the container. Streams of fluid were soon injected through the cords, and this made him scream in utmost pain underwater. His body then started to swell up at a terrible pace; his face, limbs, and even fingers were bloating up fast. There sprang huge, sharp talons on his shoulders and back altogether, with blood spilling out in the process. His screaming was no longer that of a human; it now resembled the howling of a terrifying beast. Rothgarr could not believe his eyes and ears. Everything he perceived at the point seemed so unreal to him. He was no longer seeing his friend trapped in the capsule ahead, but was rather looking at the monster that he well knew since the past. It was Glen-gohr.