The Overwatch

DATE: July/ 5/ 2034…

TIME: 3:00am…

LOCATION: Nova Prospekt/Cell Block Delta 2/ Portal Research and Weapons Testing…

P.O.V: Cpl. Daniel Joseph McAllister/ Combine Overwatch/ Testing Division. Unit #: OW04235

Darkness. thats all I saw, everything was void of life, nothing moved, nothing made a sound, the only thing there was the sound of my breath. Was I dead? Was that man that spoke to me, god? If so, gods lame. I tried to move my body, and luckily, I could. I could only move my arms, my feet, and a bit of my torso. I felt as if something was holding me down. I could feel the ground below me, and the wall behind me, sitting me up. But other than that, nothing else.

Something in the back of my mind was sort of relaxed, as if it was saying, ‘I’m so glad to be out of that horrible testing room, and into this place.’ But another part of me was saying, ‘You’re not dead, you’re not dead, YOU ARE NOT DEAD.’ and that side was winning.

“Overwatch Unit #0235, U.U.T.A.P.A systems offline, radio uplink, compromised. Transhuman parameters compromised, memory database lock, compromised. Universal Union failsafe, compromised. Voice communicator/ editor, compromised. Audio and hearing aid, compromised.  Seek medical attention.” A voice spoke to me.

It was my suit, I was still alive, and I was still in my uniform. A light turned on in the shape of a circle right in front of my left eye allowing me vision to see. My right eye however did not turn on. I look outside of my mask and into the room. Everything was dark, fires poured out of the device in front of us, and giant sparks of blue and green energy arched in every angle possible. Smoke filled the air, of which I could now begin to smell, the stench of burning electronics, metal, and bodies.

The rest of the HUD began to flicker on, my weapons monitoring coming on last, I didn’t have any weapons anymore, and my health was down to 25%. I was truly lucky to be alive. Looking down at my chest, I saw something rather different.

Two giant lumps of brightly colored flesh lay on top me. There clothing was badly torn exposing bits of there body, I could see small rivers of blood running up and down there frames and they leaked, very slowly. They were in better shape than I was, but the thing is, they weren’t human, combine, or whatever.

They, they looked like small horses. Pegasi to be exact. They has wings and brightly colored manes and tails. Almost like a fairy tale. These were the things that knocked me out. Before I could get up and move them, a figure walked, or, rather stumbled up in front of me. I looked up to see a soldier standing gripping his helmet in his right hand. His blue and grey uniform blend in with the smoke and fire. But his skin stood out like a sore thumb. It wasn’t white like normal. It was tan, like a normal flesh color. The soldier dropped his mask and leaned over and picked up on of the bigger horses off of my chest reliving a huge amount of pereuse on me, and freed my left arm. I pushed the slightly more colorful on off of me and stood up as quickly as I could. But as I stood up my mask and neck connecter fell apart and fell to the ground. Up until this point everything has been quiet, but as the mask fell off, everything that could make sound, rushed to my ears.

Alarms, metal burning, gunfire, explosions, the sounds of electricity arcing, screaming, wires snapping, and cracking of support beams. I nearly screamed from the noise, but I controlled myself for I looked at my mystery soldier only to see a very different looking John staring back at me.

“Quick, grab the horse, the others are waiting for us!” He screamed over the sound of the commotion before darting off to the left of me into an open entrance from which the Lieutenant came out of, the lights flickered off and on. I looked down and spotted the horse lying on its side, it’s chest rising steadily. I leaned down and picked it up, surprisingly, it wasn’t as heavy as I thought.

Throwing it around my neck, I darted for the door to which my friend ran into, leaving behind the trashed test chamber. Entering the entrance of the hallway. I watched as John ran down it carrying the horse as the lights flickered above him. I could see red alarms flashing on either side of as they screamed for us to evacuate the area. I too began to run down the corridor giving haste to my partner.

But as I ran, I began to feel different, like my body was being squeezed into my uniform, like my uniform felt smaller than normal, or it wasn’t on right. Ignoring it I continued to run, but as I counted on, more things felt off. My legs felt like they were being compressed by my pants as if they were one size too small.  Along with my arms and my shirt, my chest was also feeling the same way.

I didn’t feel like I was inside my own body anymore. Reaching John, he turned around to look for me. Seeing how I was right next to him, he pushed of a grey bar door and entered the next room. Following, I was greeted with a rather dark staging room. The lights above me shown dimmer and yellower than normal. The combine computers were all dark. Cameras that would normally be swaying back and forth, weren’t on. I saw a long red bench, big enough for the horse, I walked over to it and put her down. John had the same idea, for the other horse was placed right next to mine.

Behind us, the grey door finally, shut cutting most of the sound from the other room out. Now everything was muffled. I look around the rest of the room. The room was lined with big computers and monitors. In the middle was a giant table that held mostly papers and other documents. I walked past the bench and went up to the table leaning on it for support. But as I did, I heard the tearing of cloth. Looking down. I could feel my BDU ripping underneath my vest. Frustrated I threw off my vest and shirt with a little struggle, and inspected my body.

Looking around my body, I was in shock. My skin wasn’t white like normal anymore, It was tan, just like Johns, but maybe a little darker. I pulled off my gloves and checked my hands. They too were tan. A light hung in the corner of the room, there, in the light, was a mirror. I ran over to it and looked in. What I got back was something, completely different. I saw a robust looking man standing in front of me. A vigorous looking frame complete with a set of herculean pecs and six rigged abs that ran from his chest to his pants buckle. His arms were ripped with muscles that bulged out as viens shown proudly through his tight skin. Sweat rolled off of him and it glistened in the light making him shine.

Looking at this body was impressive to say the least, but the thing that boggled me was that, this was a mirror. That man, is me. But this wasn’t me, I didn’t look like that, from what I could remember. Never in my life has my body looked like this, not even in my dreams.

But as I continued to look myself over, not only me, but the mirror as well, looking for a trick, I finally looked at my face. After looking at it for a whole minute, I finally concluded that I was indeed, dead. There was no way any of this was real. For what stared back at me, was me, but not me. My head wasn’t bald anymore, I had a small yet strangely thick, full head of hair. A small mustache and goatee grew off my chin that connected at my mouth. My serial number was gone, it was replaced with wrinkles on my forehead.

But my eyes…

My eyes were completely different. I stared at them, and they stared back. I was horrified. The white sclera of my eyes, weren’t white anymore, instead, they were jet black, as black as the night sky, black as the deepest void in hell, and blacker than the barrel of a gun. Along with my sclera, my pupil as well was just as black. They only thing that stood out from the blackness, was my Lacrimal punctum, they only thing that is supposed to be black wasn’t. Instead, it was white.

I looked like some sort of, monster. I even terrified myself.

“I’m a Monster.” I said outloud.

My heart sank into my stomach as my skin crawled with pins and needles, my blood boiled as I continued to stare at the alien like eyes. These are not my eyes, the combine must have done this, or maybe it was the portal, but they built the portal. Why did the portal explode? Why did I survive? Who was that strange I saw? I had too many questions. Turning around rather speechless, I walked back over to John who was currently, opening another door to let in three other soldiers.

First, the one of the two twins came in, looking different with the same description I had, but he was still wearing his body armour, then the Lieutenant came in with his mask off too and his right arm in a makeshift sling. It must be broken. I wondered back over, and went to put on my shirt again, but decided not to, cause it was ripped down the back and front. Defeated, I put my vest on, along with rest of my amour.

I turned around to see all three of the soldiers looking at me.

John seemed deflated, his eyes drooped, his shoulders had fallen down, and a state of vanquish was washed over him.

The brother had tears in his eyes, his arms were crossed and they shook rapidly, almost as if he was shivering. His shoulders were tucked up next to his ears as his head hung low enough to chest level, but not To low cause I could still see his eyes. Blood trailed up and down his best and suit as if he had rolled around in it in the last room. His hands covered his mouth as I could hear heavy breathing coming from behind them. The tears in his eyes trailed down his hands as they shook with a mighty rage.

“He’s dead, why, why now, just when he had a chance to live again he goes ahead and dies on me.” He said behind his hands. John turned towards him and looked at him his eyes looking him over before he wrapped his arms around the whimpering soldier. Almost automatically, The brother wrapped his arms around John and began to cry heavily as his head was buried into John vest. He shook with his breathing as the tears ran free. John put his head down on his shoulder and tried to comfort him.

The lieutenant above all the rest, had a emotion of pure shock, his face was tan like us, but seemed pale. Blood trailed down one of his eyes and made a big splatter on his assault vest, the blood was as red as his deltoid gear. His eyes slowly twitched as sweat rolled down his forehead and on to his face. His free arm was as stiff as a board and it also twitches.

After a while of pure agonizing silence besides crying, they all looked to me. And I looked back at them. Then John stepped forward slowly and carefully, placed his right hand upon my shoulder. Staring at me with his tired eyes, he spoke a single sentence.

“We are all monsters Daniel.” He stared at me as tears filled his eyes, he continued to speak as his voices hiccuped as he started to cry. His words made him sound like he was in pain.

“We have seen terrible things, the fall of our world, the destruction of all that we stand for, the murdering of OUR PEOPLE.” He screamed and shaked in rage as he stopped to take a breath. "I will never forgive those freaks."

“We have seen innocent people become soldiers in a day, their lives reduced to nothing more than a echo inside the deepest parts of their mind. They, we, never got to make this choice, but because of the Combine, everything that we ever knew, everything that we loved like family and friends are gone, dead, or converted at the hands of the Combine.”

I quickly remember everything that had happened during the war. The Combine invasion, the deaths of innocent people, soldiers and leaders alike. The rest of us getting converted into mindless drones that followed their every command without question.

John took his hand off of me and turned to the rest.

“We have suffered long enough, I will not stand by as the Combine rule over something that cannot be ruled over. My name is John Reefer Lonstein, and we are the humans of earth and I will fight for my freedom till I can fight no more.” Suddenly the brother stood forward.

“I David Joseph Johnson will fight for those who cannot, I will fight for the fallen, I will fight for my brother even though he cannot anymore, with god as my witness, I will fight for freedom!” Then the lieutenant stepped up. As he spoke, his voice had a heavy Russian accent on it.

“I have seen people die at my own hands, these hands have taken both civilian and soldier lives. Well these hands will not kill the innocent anymore, I will point these misguided hands towards freedom and victory, for I’m in control of my body now, and no one can say otherwise. My name is Chernykh Avgust Andreevich and I will fight for freedom!”

I  Looked at the soldiers again, they're tired of fighting for a cause they could not control. But, they are willing to give it a second chance in the name of freedom, in the name of Earth, in the name of the human race.

“My name is Daniel Joseph McAllister, and you all right, the Combine war machine must be stopped and freedom must return to the people. I will fight for freedom until I die or they all do!” Quickly I snapped my boots together and shot my right arm to my eyebrows as my hands stiffened to a salute. “Soldiers, will fight for Earth, with will fight for the Humans, and we will fight to bring an end to the Combine threat, now whos with me!” I screamed. The other raised there hands to salute.

“Yes sir!” Lowering my hands I turned around to the red bench. I stared at the poines that lay asleep on the bench.

“Now what to do with you?” I turn around to the others, as they too were looking. Coming up with a plan I began to instruct them on what to do.

“John go find some bangadges, Chernykh, find some water, David, go find find some Antibiotics.” With a collective, yes sir, the sprang into action.

I walked over to the ponies and knelt down in front of them. I placed my hand on the rainbow maned ones front hoofs as I rubbed it with my thumb.

“Everything is going to be okay.” I smiled as the resting body began to move.

It was waking up.