Gathering Darkness✔️

Chapter 06: Rally Point

"Finally," Kane muttered.

He could see the ranger station up ahead. It had actual lights on inside of it, punching holes in the vast, rainy darkness that engulfed them. His relief was palpable. He'd been running what had happened in the basement over and over in his head, trying to parse it out, to digest all the relevant information. It was just too weird.

Hux hadn't said a word since they'd left the basement.

Kane hit the stairway that led up to the ranger's station, which was built on a rise of land and would give a commanding view of the surrounding area. A good place for a rally point. As soon as they'd neared the clearing, he'd called out over the radio, warning of friendlies coming in from the south. Goll had responded affirmatively and it had been damned good to hear his voice. The pair of them came to the entrance and stepped inside.

Like the house's kitchen, the place was a mess.

It looked like a pretty chaotic fight had gone on. Desks were flipped over, tools and office supplies were scattered across the floor. A few of the windows were broken out. Standing among this chaos was Sergeant Goll and Ross. Lara, Thompson and Diaz were still missing. Kane felt a bolt of black fear shoot through him. Somehow, throughout this whole mess so far, he'd managed to avoid thinking about Lara. Whether that was because of his attempts to keep his mind free of distractions or because he wasn't sure he could face her death, it didn't matter: he was thinking about her now. Where was she? Why hadn't she shown up yet?

"Where are the others?" he asked.

"We don't know," Goll replied. "We haven't heard anything from anyone. Something's screwing with the comms. It has to be that interference the scans picked up earlier. Have either of you seen anyone? Ross and I landed close to each other and we haven't come across a single civilian or Marine," he said.

"We...came across someone," Kane said. He'd been considering how to report this. Goll fixed him with his unwavering stare, waiting for him to continue. "We came across a house and moved in to investigate. It looked like there had been a struggle and we found a civilian in the basement. He was...he didn't seem human anymore."

Goll stared at him. "What do you mean?" he replied finally.

"He had maybe four or five times the strength of an average person," Hux said. He pointed at Kane's chestplate. "That dent is from that guy we found. He was just a guy with jeans and a goddamned t-shirt. No armor, wasn't even buff or anything. We had to put him down."

Goll didn't like that. He frowned deeply, considering the situation. "Did he say anything?"

"No, he just kind of...growled and grunted. He'd covered himself in black paint. And that's not even the strangest thing so far," Kane replied. "I've been...seeing something. A figure, a very tall figure, with multiple tentacle-like limbs. I've been seeing it in flashes of lightning and initially I passed it off as tricks of shadows, but it's persisted." He gave it to his Sergeant as straight as he could, hoping the man wouldn't think him crazy.

Goll looked at Hux. "Did you see it?" he asked.

Hux shook his head. "No...but we came across a...a painting in that house. The figure he described was depicted in the painting, so I'm inclined to believe him."

The Sergeant looked back at Kane, clearly mulling over the data. "Okay," he said finally, "I'm inclined to believe you, too, Kane. But ultimately it doesn't change our goal. This is how we're going to handle this situation: Ross and I are going to continue to the primary objective and retrieve the data core from the satellite. Kane-"

He broke off as a crackle of static hit their comms. "This is Lance...zzt...endrix, I require assistance! I'm...zzt...shadowed by someone! Over!"