|-NOTICE-|
Tallie has been eliminated.
|------------|
When she turned back, the sergeant was alone.
The darkness had eaten everything. Everything. She raised her palm to it, and she still isn't sure why. Now she turns her wrist with her other hand, wincing. It feels hot. Her veins course not with blood, but with steam under enormous pressure. Coursing through the same caverns she does. Well, different ones, but looking at the crumbs of garnet and the rusty red rock, and heaving on her haunches and letting out a whistle of baited breath, she cannot curb the comparisons. Blood aboil, a host revolting against foreign bodies, and a body that's a battlefield.
There is a sound and the sergeant shrinks into the wall. Boulders bat at the bones in her back, bruising beneath both blazer and blouse. She jests, she just wears vests. Her bit lip twists into a broken smile. Curious fingers–two of them–walk their own rocky terrain to the parts of her where her skin still stings, and they dip their toes into the wounds. The sergeant retracts and brings the two fingers to the lips and tilts back her head, blowing a puff of smoke into the ceiling of the cavern.
Ahead of her, is another widening in the tunnel. She is heading back to the base, back to the hold. Maybe she can lock herself up in there, and the world she is momentarily through with on the outside. She kids. The thought make her cluck a crow of pained pathetic laughter–a cry. Shocked at the sound she suppresses it to a cough, depresses her tongue and swallows her emotion like a media presser. Like talking to her old boss. Yes sir. Yes sir.
No, that's not why she's going to the hold. She want's to talk to someone. Maybe Michael went down this way too, but she hopes not. Please, let him have made it outside. This way no haven lies. The sergeant scrapes herself off the hollowed away wall and pulls the corner near like a shower curtain. Did it move or she?
It's not very revealing. All she can see is what she can't. There's darkness in that recess who knows what that's hiding. And another synonym for darkness cloaks the other corner of the space. Just what lies in wait in this darkling cave? Her hesitation reveals no new information, but she hesitates to write it off as a viable defensive maneuver. Not just yet. Not just yet.
Now.
She walks out into the open, a gust of warm air propelling her forward. Inside her boots her toes curl back. She walks, and the most haunting thing of all happens to her: nothing.
There is only a short concourse left to the base, and as she skitters under the overhang and back into perceived comparative safety, her heightened steps slow to a normal pace. Footfall echos and echos and echos ahead of her and bounces back. And back. And back. Her face mangles itself before she turns around.
Behind her, filling the maw, are eyes ablaze, teeth like glass glinting, and creatures and creatures and creatures from the cave. It is all hard to see, save for one thing. Around one of the beast's neck, tattered and poked through by the spikes that line the monster's back, are the remains of a fluorescent yellow safety vest.
|-TASK FIVE-|
The things that have been haunting you this whole time were thought to be legend. Soldiers have spoken of the "Whippets" in the caves after many of their excursions. These wolf-like creatures are devoid of fur, put otherwise look similar to giant versions of the dog breed. Sanguine bodies and long snouts, the back of their heads unnaturally bulbous. Saw blade teeth stick wildly from their rotted mouths, sometimes even growing through their own indigo lips. Their skin looks like the same jagged red and darkness the caves are carved from (or, conveniently, the cover of this story). Flesh and keratin spines lay like hair on their hunched backs. The average whippet measures about 10 feet long and 5 feet high. They can tear into you with either their teeth or their short, but jagged claws. They are carnivores, and there isn't much meat to be found at the center of the earth. In this task, these things attack you. Pretty simple. If you would like other creatures to be attacking you simultaneously, fine, but these whippets must also be in on the action. Speaking of action, that is the focus of this task. How well can you write a fight sequence? Something that is exciting, but which also provides enough detail to follow along without getting lost in the hustle and bustle.
|-WORD LIMIT-|
3000 words.
|-STAKES-|
The 3 lowest scores for this task will be up for votes. Of those, 1 will be eliminated.
|-DEADLINE-|
Sunday, November 5th, 10:00 PM EST
