10 Chapter II The Autumn - Part 5

Locus awakened inside a warm comfortable hospital bed, the white bed sheets hugged his body snugly, something as nice as this was something that he thought he would never have in his lifespan. His eyes scanning his body, he noticed he was not connected to any kind of intravenous therapy or iv's, he thought it was expected that he would be connected to something like that. Locus couldn't remember what happened before he passed out, a vague room was the only string of memory that slipped around in his mind. A nurse was standing beside him, analyzing a sheet of paper. Her appearance was human instead of a machine, her presence was warm, and reminded him of his mother from a long time ago. She was caught by surprise by his awakening, she turned, saw him, and gently said, "You're awake!"

"It seems like it," Locus gravely replied, still recovering from his incident earlier. He tried moving up from his bed, the female nurse caught him and told him, "You shouldn't move from your bed! Please stay here for a minute, let me fetch a high ranking officer nearby to dismiss you," she replied concerningly, leaving the room to alert someone.

He stayed in bed comfortable as commanded until someone came back for him. His head began to pulse uncomfortably, he reached for his forehead to perhaps calm it down. His eyes lit up like a firework, he panicked, anxiety was beginning to overwhelm him, his vision was turning from the warm welcoming bed to him standing on an impossibly tall skyscraper, unable to escape.

"Lo...cus…." He heard that soothing voice before, from a past memory of his long dead close friend and soon to be wife, Ava. That name was the only name he loved more than anything, he would do anything to protect her from harm's way. She was cornered, about to be slaughtered by a giant Scar creature whose appearance was like that of a spider. A spherical head with hundreds of red eyes, his back consisted of twelve arms with claws on the end, ready to shred his victims.

Ava was the only word Locus could scream to her rescue as he ran to her side, he was grabbed back by an unknown shadowy force, it was holding his arms back as he felt in the moment hopeless. He watched in horror of her body being stabbed by the spider-like creature. His world was stopped, frozen in time from the tragic event. For the first time tears dropped from his eyes and unto the cold hard dusty ground.

The shadowy figure threw Locus off of the tall structure and into a dark pit of unknown. He watched helplessly as the building exploded, killing presumtully everyone inside, including his previous team members. He was being tossed into a pit of dark despair.

A faint voice called out his name from the bottomless pit, angelic hands reached out to him, it shook him up from his nightmare. "Locus!"

"Gah!" he came back to reality, "What happened? Where am I?"

"Slow down son, it's okay, you're not dead," The Sergeant assured him, holding him down.

"Tell me, why am I experiencing these nightmares?" Locus demanded to know why.

"You have post traumatic stress disorder son, it's affecting reality from the imagination. You've been resting for a couple of days now. I was beginning to be worried about you," Those words wrapped around his head like a belt, he now understood why he was experiencing such pain.

"Is my armor ready?" He coldly asked, ready to fight.

The Sergeant was surprised to see him ready to fight, he demanded he'd slow down, "Look Locus I won't force you to stay in bed and rest, but I can't afford this to happen again on the battlefield. It might happen again and cost us our lives or devestationally, yours."

Locus ignored the Sergeant's recommendation and pulled up from the bed. He took a second to regain his balance, "Let's go," Locus told him as he walked out of the recovering room, the Sergeant raced up to him and directed him to the armory.

Locus and the Sergeant arrived at the familiar armory again, everything was about the same as he remembered, nothing had really changed, other than a few missing firearms from the various racks. He shifted his attention and saw the display of his old armor made new. His eyes lit up as the detail was spot on as he hoped for, the helmet was polished clean, with the visor being the same yellow color as before. One little addition he caught on was there was a flashlight equipped on the left side of the helmet. The base body armor was a bit more bulky than he remembered, a small knife pouch was attached on the right side of the upper torso, ready to use whenever he needed it. The backside has more pointed edges to better protect himself from falling on his back, it was also designed to block attacks of various nature. The waist was nothing special, looked the same as before, just less dirty and more shiny. The legs were more packed together and adaptable unlike the old set, it had more protection than before. The boots this time appeared more extremely bulky than before. The arms had more packed parts assembled together, the gadgets were hidden from the outside armor, but he knew they were packed inside. "Look's good," he complimented.

"I knew you would like it, the team had a fun time with this project," the Sergeant told him smiling.

Locus picked up his helmet, gazed deeply at the reflection and smirked. He replied under his breath, "I bet they did."