48 A Survivor's Tale and Rebirth!  

{pictures} 

survivors recount POV: 

The night was cold and black… with no warmth in the light of our trucks, and no peace within our flashlight! With a terrible smell that stunk worse than the deepest cesspits… It was then we all heard Rashad scream into the air about his precious money… It was around that time, that I was staring into the corpse of a dead monster, when a loud cracking sound screeched, and the buildings came crashing down around us! With smoke so thick no one could trust their eyes! And then I heard it… that sound that I still can't get out of my head… 

Even now I can still hear it… that awful beeping coming from our motion sensors! that… that terrible beeping… what was once so absent of sound… now fills my ears… the only sound that covers it, was the sounds of my friend's screams! to another backdrop of hissing and roars with gunfire! As the ground beneath my feet trembled green flashes and shiny metals liquid! The next thing I remember seeing was the severed head of my platoon mate, while others had tails ripped through their backs! 

But the worst one by far, had his body bitten clean in half by a monster the size of a house! I still remember seeing it as the smoke cleared by its breathing! pitch black like an ink jar, while others were redder than the blood that runs through our veins! And then I saw it, while lying on the floor…for a briefest of moments… a man lifted in the air by seemingly nothing! He kept shooting his gun wildly and shouting! 

As an invisible blade stabbed him through the chest! A blade that shined as silver as a shimmering monster came out of its camouflage! It brought the man's face to meet his, it then hissed, in what I could only describe as disgust! The monster then removed his blade from the man's gut, while tossing the body like it meant nothing… like we were worth nothing… 

Then I witnessed them digging out people trapped beneath rubble or those that were still unconscious from the building collapse… they then dragged them off somewhere… then finally… they came for me… as I lay there awestruck, the smoke slowly cleared as I saw monsters by the dozen crawl around boulders and debris… like serpents snakes they twisted around the rocks to get to me… 

In my long life as a mercenary I have been close to death many times, witnessing things I only believed to be stories… but what I saw next will forever be ingrained in my mind… for when my gun was broken and my knife thrown from my hands, all I had left was a single flare… And as I felt that red flame's warmth, the shimmering silver-red monster poked his head through the smoke light! 

so close that I can still remember the smell of its breath… It was at that point that Sir Armen saved my life! with a splash of his silver liquid that shot forward like a sharpened blade, causing the monster to go on the defensive! but how it defends itself was something no one would suspect! It used silver liquid like our master Armen! It formed a shield of pure red silver to block Armen's' attack! 

With a smile, the creature ran forward toward Master Armen! Now master Armen wasn't alone! He had others with him that hid in the shadow of the smoke… I only realized it as gunfire came from behind him amongst the smoke, but it did little… as the monster had covered itself in liquid metal! And as bullets bounced and ricocheted… I almost died a few times as bullets would fly just by my head! 

I only live because the monsters ignored me to catch up to the flickering one. while they took the bullets meant for me… but with each creature's death came the rain of burning blood and melting boulders, the hole I was in wasn't safe anymore as the fuming blood began to pool inside with me! panicking I crawled my way out praying I wouldn't get killed by bullets or taken by a passing monster. 

Luckily for me, I managed to escape with only minor burns, as Sir Armen met blades with the enemy! What an amazing fight it was! Armen showed cased, why he was our captain's right-hand man! He summoned blades from the ground to impale the unlucky monsters, he made it rain poisonous metal that swept into their cuts and skin! He used boiled metal to turn those monsters into statues! 

but in the end, he could not kill that one…the one made of red metal! As the bodies began to pile on both sides, the red silver became more ferocious in its attacks! Any man unlucky enough to get in between it and Armen was met with the same death as what Armen had done to these monsters… for the creature copied Armen's moves to the letter as it watched him kill its fellow kin. 

Men were viciously killed by raising razor spikes, the liquid rain didn't just poison its prey by liquid standards, no, they came in like needles from the sky! Our armor was as worthless as our bare skin! but nothing was as frightening as the sky! Half the sky is painted red while the other half matches the snow in tinting silver! Angered in their madness, the monsters trapped within the red light lowered their crowns with hissing voices, as the red-sliver monster glowed in its tinted silver off the glistening snow, making all the monsters by his side disappear! 

[where did they go!] screamed Master Armen as he and his man shot forward hoping to hit anything. 

Unfortunately, those were the last words I heard him say, as he and his men ventured into the red-tinted side… and much like cows in a slaughterhouse, they never saw it coming! through the red light that hid the monster from sight, death came from any which direction! men were pushed to the floor with a bitten hole through their heads, while their hearts were skewered on floating air! 

Some were pulled underground, while others were swept off their feet by powerful bursts to the ground! When all was silent but Armen standing alone surrounded by a foe he couldn't see, he realized he made a hasty decision to chase after the monsters! With nowhere left to run, Armen stance his rapier to his front as he calmed his mind… 

As silver specs left his lips, his eagle eyes stayed stern in their aggression... ready and waiting… for a special moment… and that moment came in the style of a reddish blade aiming for his neck! Although he couldn't see it, he could still sense it! Right as those blades came in at a scissor pattern, Armen lit all the silver in his body to explode out to bathe these monsters in his colors! 

And by doing so, allowed Armen to see the monster! With clear surprise on his side, Armen went for the kill! But as his rapier reached the monster's face, it broke into dozens of dazzling shards! 

I remember screaming out the words 'impossible' when I saw it happen, one must know that his rapier is made from the core of black stone that was forged in the very heart of the dwarven capital! master at their craft, they allowed Armen to be able to use the black stone with his silver metal… to fuse in perfect harmony! expensive as it was strong! for it to break so easily against this monster's head… 

still sends a shiver down my spine! then as the monster hissed in laughing joy, It tore out Armen's arms! screaming and falling back, the monster didn't let master Armen go… Instead, it bathes him in its liquid! Anyone who was there could never forget such cruelty because the monster didn't kill Armen through his boiling metal… No! it was far worse than that! Because the boiled metal wasn't meant to kill him but just to torture him! 

You see to the untrained eye one would only notice the man's screams and that his wound had closed, but that was only because the monster wasn't done with him yet! With skin peeled to bare muscles, the monster dragged Armen by the head, digging his claws into his skull, until they reached the top of a cliff made of dead humans! There the monster made Armen watch as our captain Rashad was in his own battle. 

Breder short POV: 

Through thunderous night and flashes of fire, Breder sensed Blacky on top of a corpse mountain, watching his fight! His thoughts then turned away from the man who welded a big axe like a twig and said to Vice. 

{looks like blacky learned a lot from this hunt… good… yes very good! Vice make, a note to remind me to tell him to eat his prey core! Though it pains me to lose an opportunity to make another one like him, it is best to solidify his foundation by absorbing that man's core! I don't want another unforeseen indecent!} 

A few hours ago, before the hunt: 

As Blacky lay in a mucus membrane, writhing in pain, surrounded by his sisters, Breder asks Vice: 

{what is happening to him?} 

[Beep... Boop… scanning alien. Code name Blacky…. individual results… Done!] said Vice robotically 

[Ding! Results show that 'Blacky' is currently under stress by mercury poisoning!] continued Vice 

{Mercury Poison! Is he going to make it Vice?} asked Breder 

But to himself, he thought: 

{this better not kill him! I don't think I can afford to buy him back from the system!] 

[Beep… I don't know… but the poison has reached his core… and it constantly eroding it! He should already be dead by normal standards! The only reason why he hasn't died yet is that his body is constantly being regenerated here in the nest! The rate of cellular destruction is equal to the rate at which he is healing! We can only pray for a mutation to occur or wait for him to die! I also suggest you quarantine him! For reason I'm sure you know.] replied Vice 

Understanding Vice's warning, Breder did that in which he was warned by having all his children move all the eggs by Blacky away and completely, leaving him alone in a sealed-off room made of black goo. Breder knew the horrors of mercury poisoning and he didn't want it to spread, as he could see the stuff oozing out of blacky skin! 

But while left alone, curled up in a ball, Blacky could still feel his connection to the hive, even with his flesh melting and rejoining, pain wasn't even a word that could describe what he was feeling at this moment! To him, it felt more of shame if nothing else... Shame at the thought of him always being strong to now feel so weak! So, feeble… 

To show weakness is to shame the hive… to show weakness is to be replaced by your betters! And how dare one compare him to the like of the runts of the litter! Fueled by that rage, his skin glowed and pulsed with the motion of an indigent heart! When fire burned through his door, caused by a woman who tried to save her child! 

By flame warmth his metal fused with his core! With boiled skin and blistering blood, Blacky arose in a slivery fire of molten silver! To his sister, he was terrifying as he was splendid! Coated in fire with a base of red sliver with black strung around the edges! Then came out his heated blades dripped in intoxicated! While each of his exhales came out sparkled breath! 

The humans at the fort were lucky that such a monster still needed time to control his inner turmoil… but the second hunt wasn't so lucky!