The Breach

Chapters

Prologue: Sergei... Dies?
Chapter 1: A Bad Omen
Chapter 2: The Carnivorous Caverns
Chapter 3: Symphony of the Dead

Prologue: Sergei... Dies?

Prologue: Sergei… Dies?

Sergei Petroski was waiting for the doc. He couldn't help but think about what had happened recently. He had been the chief security officer of the G-54 mining station. Note the word had approximately six months ago, an experimental ship named after the greek messenger of the gods, the Hermes, had arrived in orbit around planet G-54. Unluckily.

The Hermes was the first of it’s kind. It had a new and still-in-testing drive called the SW-JUMP drive. The SW-JUMP drive allowed the ship to rip a hole space, then travel through the alternate dimension created by such a tearing of the spatial fabrics, in turn allowing them to travel to star systems in weeks, when it normally would have taken months or even years.

Sergei had attempted to contact them, but his efforts had been in vain, as the Hermes never responded back. As a result, A disgruntled and aggravated Sergei went to investigate the Hermes’s silence. But nothing could have prepared him for what he had found.

While the ship had only disappeared for a week in our dimension, it had disappeared for an infinite amount of time in the other one, as temporal fabrics had not existed there. As they traveled, the crew members slowly became possessed and infected and in turn, mutated by some angelic god of yellow light and it’s race of demonic moth-like creatures.

Oh, how he could remember it all so well. How the moth like creatures he had called Corpse Flies had become parasites within the crew members bodies, and controlled their bodies like horrific puppets, and when the parasites had matured, they had changed their hosts into horrible masses of flesh, bone and chitin. Things that should never exist, not in their own right, not in any right.

Sergei had been forced to fight his way through the Hermes. Looking for any way to destroy the ship and escape. He had to warn humanity. He hadn’t had a choice. If they tried the SW-Jump project again, they might, no, they would open another Breach, and this time Sergei wouldn't be there to stop them. This time, no one would.

And everyone would all die. All because he had failed. He couldn't, wouldn't, let that happen. It meant he would surely lose the last of his family, his brother, his sister in law, and his two nieces.

Suddenly, Dr. Phillips walked in. “So, are you ready to tell me what really happened aboard the Hermes?”

No one had believed Sergei though, in fact, they still didn’t believe him. Not even his closest friends and family had been willing to believe his so called lunacy. They had all blamed him for the deaths of the crew members aboard the Hermes. they all thought he had destroyed the ship and killed everyone aboard. Despite that, he hadn’t taken a single life that hadn’t already been taken. He had destroyed the Hermes by overloading the engine, obliterating every inch of matter within the Hermes. As a result he had no proof of what had happened. At least, that is what Sergei truly believed. But Sergei was wrong, so terribly wrong.

“Oh god… you gotta be kidding me. You didn’t believe a word of it, did you doc?” Sergei asked, horrified that he might not be able to stop the SW-JUMP project. “It’s like I told you! People aboard the Hermes were possessed by creatures from another world!”

Over the course of the last six months, Poor Sergei had undergone a terrible transformation. He had become thin and as gaunt as a corpse, his plain white muscle shirt, which he had worn under his security suit, had one fit him perfectly, now hung limply off of his frame, along with his skin. His deep brown and once sharp eyes had lost most of their luster, and his skin was had dulled to a pale gray. He had dark bags underneath the sunken and haunted orbs, which were hollow portals filled with pain and fear and which begged for anyone to believe his story, to stop the horror from happening again. The most noticeable change was the loss of his most noticeable feature. His raven black hair that he had once kept military short had fallen out, leaving behind a few scraggly bits of tuff sprouting from his pale cranium here and there.

All in all, Sergei looked like a mad man. A creep, and such a demeanor was complete with his terrible story of the Hermes, which he spouted to any who would listen.

“Listen to me! The SW-Jump project cannot go on, or we’re all going to die!” Sergei tried his best to get through to the doctor, but he wouldn't listen. If only Sergei could show him… “How hard is it to understand goddammit! That things gotta be stopped!”

Dr. Phillips just shook his head. “Calm down Sergei, that’s not the truth and you know it. It’s all in your mind. You’ve been through a lot and…” But Sergei cut him off before he could finish.

“That’s bullshit doc, and you will eventually believe…Hrrrghhhrr!” Sergei gagged suddenly, lurching forward, a few lines of blood trailed from the corners of his mouth. His eyes grew wide. Something was rising up in his throat. Was he going to heave out blood? No this was something else.

Sergei finally had proof of what had happened aboard the Hermes.

“Oh my god… it can’t be!?” Dr. Phillips gasped in disbelief.

With one final shove the object in Sergei’s throat surged forward, the immeasurable force of the parasite forcing it’s way out of his body blew his eyes right out of his head, they were nothing but bits of matter and gore now, and ripped his throat apart in one fell blow. The hinges holding his bottom jaw in place snapped like twigs and the skin connecting his bottom and upper jaws tore, only to reveal more of the worm-like parasite reddish-pink flesh and purple veins within his mouth.

Yellowish matter and blood sprayed everywhere as the parasite brutally clawed it’s way forward, trying to defend its cocoon, it’s black eye darting back and forth rapidly, trying to find the aggressor that had threatened it’s source of food. Dr. Phillips ran, screaming in terror like a little girl, alarms started going off, his room was quarantined. Sergei could hear none of it, because he had already died. Despite being dead, Sergei felt a tug on his body, his very being... His soul, maybe? And then Sergei, the parasite and everything else that could be used to prove his existence was gone in a sudden flash of light.

=====

“Sergei… Sergei… come closer…” A voice called out in the darkness of the void. The voice was feminine and angelic. There was something musical about it. Sergei didn’t have to be told twice, and immediately began to make his way to the hypnotic voice. Within a few seconds, Sergei had reached the source of the voice. And his flashlight illuminated the figure before him.

A dark, gray figure sat, huddled close to the ground. It’s body was the color of ash and smoke. Wispy tendrils of darkness hung from it’s body. Each one following its own path, twisting and writhing before dispersing into the void’s own shadows. But the feature that drew Sergei’s attention was the deep, luminescent and purple eyes.

“Sergei… you did it. I always knew you would stop them in the end. You’ve been through so much. And as much as I hate to say it, you have made the ultimate sacrifice to stop them.” The figure paused for a moment before talking again.

“But this is not over. it is far from over… somewhere Sergei… Somewhere they have opened another Breach. I don’t know if any one else can stop it Sergei. You're the only creature that knows how to fight The Yellow. But I’ll give you a choice Sergei. You can stay here in the void, and rest in the afterlife like everything else, or you can stop this thing once and for all.”

Suddenly, something dawned on Sergei. “Hey! Aren’t you the ‘Commander’ that I talked to in those hallucinations!” At multiple points while he had been on board the Hermes Sergei had hallucinated about a transforming commander, who had begged Sergei to destroy the ship and stop whatever had been happening.

“I am Sergei. I only took that form so that you would be more willing help me stop The Other. If I had revealed my true nature, you would have been less inclined to help me.”

“Why don’t you answer some of my questions, and maybe I’ll help you with your little Breach problem ‘Commander’. First off, who and what are you really, second, who is this ‘Other.’ you mentioned?”

The Commander seemed to sigh before beginning. “Very well. You deserve at least that much… In the beginning of time and space, a race of immortal peoples were born from the very fabrics of your universe. These people were known as Elder Gods. Oberon, the one you fought, and I, Viikrae, are two such creatures.”

Sergei had a question and said as such. “So, that glowing butterfly or moth like creature that I had seen on the mountain top, that was Oberon? Is Oberon ‘the other’? You know, this really only raises more questions.” Sergei sounded quite irritated.

“If you weren’t so impatient Sergei, I might have been able to finish my explanation.”The now dubbed Viikrae huffed, slightly irritated with the interrupting mortal.

“Once, we two had traversed the universe,subtling nurturing races with promise and seeding sentience all the while, each race worshipping us, eventually we would leave to find a new race once the former was far enough along to continue advancing on it’s own. Your race was one such race. Oberon was especially fond of mankind, and after hundreds, if not thousands of years traveling the void of the universe, Oberon took a break to travel back to the cluster of stars that your people call the milky way. But when he arrived, he found that your people had forgotten about him and had found new gods to pay homage to. This saddened him greatly. Oberon began to revisit other races only to find that more of our Child Races had abandoned us. With each race that he revisited, Oberon grief grew, until insanity began to take hold.”

Viikrae paused again, this time, a look of Anguish spreading across her ashen face.

“In his now twisted mind, Oberon created a race of abominations. He called these horrendous machinations “Messengers”. He begged me to help me spread his “Messengers” across the universe, to bring our proverbial children back to us. but I refused. For in his twisted mind, he could not see what these messengers really were. Horrendous monsters. They are the creatures that you call Corpse Flies. In my absence he released his creation upon every living creature he came across. Hundreds of peoples died. Many races were turned into nothing but depraved and animalistic abominations. with each race that he destroyed his madness grew, until Oberon truly believed he was ‘the one true god’, and that every living creature deserved nothing more than to treat him a such. When I had discovered what Oberon had done, I went into a fit of rage and banished him and all of his creations into an alternate dimension, where Oberon became known to the Elder gods as The Other” Viikrae finally finished.

“And we almost brought them back. Almost. But I stopped them.” Aboard the darkened Hermes, Sergei had seen what would become of Humanity should the beings spewing forth from The Breach be allowed to roam free. This time, it would be about more than the crew of one ship. It would be Earth. It would be his brother, and his brother’s family. They hadn’t stood by Sergei when he had needed him most, but Sergei still loved what little family he had left, and he would go to the ends of the universe to protect them.

And with that thought Sergei gave a heavy, tired sigh, and then said reluctantly. “Alright. I’ll do it. It seems better then sitting in this shit hole for the rest of my life.” As he said the last part, he motioned to the Eternal Darkness around him.

“Would you mind telling me wha-” but before Sergei could finish, he was gone in a puff of ashen mist. Only the smell of rot and ruin remained.

Chapter 1: A Bad Omen

Chapter 1: A Bad Omen

While Sergei was shooting rapidly through The Void he was thinking. The former security guard was more than positive that he was having some fucked up, near death dream. He was all but laughing to himself as he thought about it. The Breach opening again? Already? But I just closed it! There’s no way it’s back!

He decided that none of this was real. Besides, the darkness felt so warm and comforting, and there was some sort of singing in the distance. He felt so peaceful, letting that warm darkness embrace him and carry him onward forever towards that wonderful singing…

But it was not his time. Not yet.

And so with that a great coldness engulfed Sergei, and the singing was replaced by the sound of screeching metal and distorted screams.

I really hate teleporting. Sergei thought with a sigh.

Without warning, Sergei appeared in some sort of dark area. He could see dust floating about, and a a few wisps of rapidly dissipating smoke-like mist. Likely residue from his teleportation. At this point, everything was quite blurry, the few noises that Sergei could hear were distorted and unintelligible.

“-t kind of place I’ll be going to?” Sergei wasn't completely sure why his body had chosen that moment to finish his earlier interrupted sentence, but what was done was done, and he could no more stop it than he could stop his heart from beating.

Sergei stumbled about in his immediate vicinity, reaching out for something to support him as he waited for his eyes to clear. Then Sergei remembered something.

What about the parasite that had “killed” him before his little talk with Viikrae? If the laws of conservation of matter were true, than that little guy had to have gone somewhere. Knowing Viikrae, she wouldn't just shove it in some random place and hope for the best. She wou-

Hey! Sergei’s hearing was coming back! He could definitely hear something. The noise sounded vaguely familiar. It sounded like… the clicking of chitin.

At this point, Sergei’s vision had mostly cleared, and now, looking about, the armor clad human saw something that he had never hoped to see again. A Corpse Fly. How it had matured so fast, Sergei would never know, but he didn’t need to know to kill it.

It's head and thorax were both coated in a layer of dark off-brown chitin, and it had a single bulbous, along with a series of clicking of mouth pieces. The softer abdomen was not chitinous, but fleshy, unlike the rest of it’s body, but instead sported a soft, pale yellow glow and a dangerously long stinger which could be used to insert a the parasite’s larvae directly into a host, living or dead, it only had two legs, but they appeared to be mantis like, made more for ripping and stabbing rather than walking. Despite all that, the feature that really drew Sergei's attention were the soft wings that greatly resembled that of a moth’s sprouting from its thorax. Both wings were a dull orange, the forewing had a black stripe running along the edge, while the hind wing appeared to have a large, yellow circle near the bottom center. While that feature was certainly the more attention catching of all of the Corpse Flies features, it wasn’t the most disturbing, The dark brown chitin appeared to have multiple indents and outlines in it that vaguely resembled the facial features.

Then the face opened, the chitin split with a wet crackling. A thin bit of paper white flesh stretched over it’s cranium, just barely covering the bundle of nerves that we call a brain. There was a vertical eye socket like opening on the upper part of it's head and something could be seen lazily sliding about within, and for one tiny moment, a mass of light sensitive nerves pushed itself to the opening and swept the room, before returning. To make matters worse, it sported a series of clicking mouthparts, and a thin line of yellowish acid could been seen drizzling out of them.

Currently, the virulent insect was squirming about on the ground. It had just happened to land on it’s back, and it was trying to right itself. Before it could do so, Sergei grabbed his gun of the magnetized, indented section on the back of his suit, mostly out of habit. The magnetic indent was obviously shaped perfectly for the gun.

“Whoa! I wasn’t wearing this before!” Sergei said. It had taken him this long to realized that he was wearing his security suit. It was mostly a ugly military green metal, with, with the exception of his visor which was bright green. The visor was a convex, almost orb like shape and encompassed most of the front and part of the sides of his helmet, allowing his to see all around, and if one looked hard enough, they could make out brown eyes and an oblong face. On his back, along with the magnetic section for his weapon, Sergei also had a single jet like attachment. This was his booster attachment, they allowed him to jump higher, farther, or move faster, contrary to popular belief they were not jet packs, and could did not allow him to fly. He also had a built in shield generator somewhere within his suit, though it’s exact location was unknown to Sergei, it wasn’t massively powerful, but it could take a few hits for him.

Not only that but Sergei’s trusty particle accelerator rifle and his favorite knife had come with him. His particle accelerator rifle looked quite a bit like a common automatic assault rifle would. The main difference was the tiny fusion core inside, which generated enough power to expel burst after burst of dense, super-heated neutrons. Sergei’s combat knife was pretty regular, besides being nearly as long as a ruler and being composed entirely of reinforced titanium alloy. With the right tools the blade could take an edge like no other.

Without another second’s hesitation, Sergei shoved the muzzle of his rifle into the the eye like opening of the

Corpse fly, and pulled the trigger.

Wave after wave of pale yellow gore splashed across Sergei’s suit and the floor around his victim, and it's outer face instantly attempted to close around the gun. He continued to hold the trigger down until his rifle needed to recharge. Sergei moved his gone so he could see the massive holes in the corpse fly’s head, then he kicked the dead being into the air and away from himself.

Sergei realized what a bad move that was too late. You see, multiple holes in its exo-skull and having most of it’s brain turned to mush and then forced out of it’s head and onto the floor about it was not enough to kill the parasitic monstrosity.

The corpse fly instantly began to flap it’s orange wings and caught itself in the air. As soon as it had righted itself, it charged towards Sergei, it’s wings swishing vigorously through the air. Even without it’s bulbous eye, it seemed to know exactly where he was. Sergei tried to swat it away with his gun, but it darted upwards, dodging his attack. The insect lurched forward again, this time swiping at him with the pointed end of it’s leg. It hit Sergei’s shield, causing it to glow blue, and before he could react, it hit him again and again.

Within a few seconds the shields were down and and the end of it’s leg glanced off of sergei’s suit, leaving a nasty scratch on the metal. “I just got that polished!” Sergei yelled indignantly before swinging his combat knife expertly and cutting off one of the Corpse flies legs. More yellow blood painting the ground.

The Corpse fly used the spines on its remaining mantis-esque leg to latch onto Sergei's shoulder, the spines digging through metal and flesh. At the same time, Sergei drove his knife straight through the aggressive insects upper thorax. Sergei pushed against the protruding handle, trying to drive the insect off of him. Meanwhile, the Corpse fly’s armored head opened up, mouthparts clicking hungrily at his jugular, trying to mortally wound it’s prey before it succumbed to it’s own mortal wounds. Sergei Petroski had other plans.

Gripping the handle of his knife tightly with one hand, Sergei grabbed the base of the corpse flies remaining limb with his other hand, and promptly broke it off.

With Sergei’s shoulder literally ripped from its grasp, the screeching Corpse fly falls to the the ground. Sergei proceeds to stomp the monstrosities into the ground again, and again, and again, until his former foe is nothing but a soupy mess of yellow fluids, ruptured organs and shards of exoskeleton.

Sergei leaned over and puts his hands on his knees to support himself. He is completely out of breath, not to mention exhausted, and has the urge to regurgitate. Dying, then having his body reformed and thrown into another world had not been kind to the our unlikely hero.

Sergei took a moment to look around. He noticed he was inside of some ancient crypt. There were cobwebs and dust galore. Through a decent sized hole in the ceiling, Sergei noted that it was far into the night. Sergei also noted the burning wound on his back and the copious amounts of blood oozing from it. He’d have to find something to patch up his suit and shoulder later.

The newest addition to the scenery was what really caught the metal clad human’s attention. It was the symbol painted on the wall to his left, and the feeling of dread and cold ancient terror exuding from it. The symbol was painted messily, with yellow paint, and many splashes of excess yellow paint, now dried, had once oozed from the painting. It was a huge circle, encompassing some sort of butterfly like figure.

Sergei couldn't help but tread up to the massive symbol. He had seen similar paintings on the walls of the Hermes but none of them had been this big. Sergei slowly made his way over to it, before limply putting a hand out towards the alien symbol.

“No…” Sergei said completely entranced and shocked by the appearance of the familiar painting, before the tip of his middle finger made contact with the yellow paint.

Instantly a cacophony of intermingled voices and pure agony poured unto Sergei’s head. His gloved hands flew up and clumsily grasped his head at the temples, he let out a roar of agony, before he fell to his knees. He let out a second roar of pain, this one louder and longer, before collapsing onto the ground, his armored head clanking noisily on the cold, weathered stone.

Somewhere In an alternate dimension, a huge butterfly like creature composed entirely of yellow light hovered above the mountain peak’s. A huge circle of yellow light surrounded it.

It’s head was triangular, like a wasps, the point residing on the back of it’s head was full of holes, resembling a changelings legs to a degree. The creature oddly had no eyes, and four tendrils flailed endlessly where it’s mouth should have resided. The thorax had been replaced with a hollow rib cage, with a single flexible spine that connected the thorax, the stinger like abdomen, and the whip like tail.

It was Oboron.

A while back, on a human ship called the Hermes Oboron had failed to bring his children back to him, The Breach had been closed, and Oboron had wondered if it would ever open again. That thought had terrified him. Another thousand years without his children? He had been certain that he would go insane while waiting. But then another one of his child races had unwittingly opened The Breach. The race called itself a 'unicorn' and was a subspecies of a race that called itself 'ponies'.

If the mouthless deity could have frowned, he would have. For his old partner and friend Viikrae had sent her chosen champion to stop him once more. This was the same human that had closed The Breach aboard the Hermes. Why this armored human would not accept the love and light that Oboron shined down upon him, Oboron would never know.

He let out a deep, contented, and almost fatherly laugh when he noticed a small, gray tendril move slowly out of the mutilated flesh of his messenger. What he saw, that no one else would, was an immature Corpse fly. It’s beady eyes darted about and it spotted Sergei first. The larvae began by trying to work it’s way into his suit. After a few minutes of trying, it let out a bout of frustrated chitter before it fled the crypt, crawling somewhere into tall grasses of the nearby plains.

Oboron was quite happy., Soon another one of his children would be shown the way to his light.

The yellow god’s job was not yet done. There were still many more children to bring back. And if his messengers could not show them the way, then he would just have to convince them by showing them just how much he cared for them.

And then, everything would finally be the way it was meant to be, with his children worshipping him eternally, and he could guide them with his light.

Nothing could make Oboron happier.

Luna slipped out of one of the last dreams of the night. Slamming the intricately carved door behind her, Luna chuckled nervously, her face shown slightly red with a hint of an embarrassed blush. Meanwhile, from somewhere behind her, she could hear a feminine voice yell, “And don’t come back!”

It had been one of the more inappropriate dreams. certainly not something she wanted to willingly see again.

Glancing one at the door one last time, Luna visibly shuddered before trotting onwards through the bleak and dark dreamscape. Contrary to popular belief, the dreamscape was not all the nice to look at, in fact, it was nothing but black. Almost like space minus the stars.

As Luna scoured the rest of the dreamscape for anymore possible nightmares, her mind began to turn to recent events. There had been a sudden spike in violent crimes. Ponies all over equestria had begun shown up dead, mutilated, or missing, not to mention the rumors spreading about of a possible cult uprising. Many reports claimed that the the violent gatherings had been centered around the color yellow and an almost moth like creature of the same color.

To make matters worse, Luna couldn't help but wonder if the denizens of their fair nation blamed this crisis on her...

Luna had always been the less appreciated of the two Alicorn Sisters. Even when she helped to ease her subjects nightmares, they still feared or distrusted the Princess, often relating her to the dangers of the night, even though she had nothing to do with such things.

These thoughts were quickly broken when she noticed the stranger looking entrance to one of her ponies dreams. It was set into an indention. Both the indention and the door were made of metal. The door itself had a single line running through it’s center, splitting it in half. To add the the already foreboding aura about this strange dream, a single cylindrical glass object set in the top wall of the metal indention seemed to be emitting light erratically, flashing and flickering from dark to light, again and again.

The final touch, the one detail that truly gave proved that this was a nightmare, was the splashes of red fluids across it.

This was certainly no ordinary nightmare. Despite that Luna was compelled to enter it.

As the lunar deity the crept closer to the metal door, examining it for a way to open it, it emitted a high pitched squeal as both halves slid open, grating to a stop after it was partially open. Luna lept back, expecting whatever to have opened the door to leap out at her. When nothing did so, Luna crept closer to the door.

It hath opened on it’s own! She exclaimed within her head, wondering how, even in the dreamscape, a door could do such a thing, but she didn't have time to ponder it.

and with that, Luna slipped between the two halves of the door, which had opened just far enough for her to fit in.

the first thing Luna noticed was the continuous explosions ricocheting around the metal room. They were so loud, that Luna had to press her ears against her head to prevent them from bursting. She also noticed how detailed the dream was, meaning that it must have been a memory or based off of a memory.

Facing the direction of the loud explosions, Luna saw three metal beasts that resembled a minotaur. Actually their only real relation was the bipedal stance, other than that, they were completely different. The first two were made of gunmetal gray metal and had large bright blues eyes that took up most of the space on the creatures’ heads. The third creature was made of dark green metal, and had a bright green eye rather than a blue eye. The third creature was the most detailed and in focus of all three of them. Luna realized that this must have been the dreamer due to the amouf detail this creature had compared to the others and the rest of the dream, though she could not for the life of her decide what it was.

All three creatures were crouching low to the ground, while throwing bursts of magic out of oddly carved metal rods at something that vaguely resembled a spider with a vaguely pony like head that seemingly burst through the frontal area of the creature, minus a snout and the fact that it was covered in brown chitin, it’s cheeks were bloated, and it’s mouth was frozen in a perpetual scream, on the ground. To Luna, the creature looked very unnatural.

The spider like creature weaved and strafed about, easily avoiding the bursts of magic that were thrown at it. As it moved closer, it leapt forward and grabbed onto one of the gray creatures. It cried out, it’s voice was feminine, and it began to bat at the spider like creature hysterically. “Get it off! get it off!”

At the same time, the spider like creature slashed at the obviously female creature with it’s deadly forelegs, causing the blue shield that protected the creature to fade, and then disappear entirely. At the same time, the gray creature currently under attack pulled out a massive knife, and the dark green creature was running towards the grey creature with fire spurting out of it’s back in small controlled bursts. The fire appeared to aid in propelling it towards it’s comrade.

Before any of the metal creatures could take move more than a few feet, spider like creature stabbed it’s leg through the creature’s eye, shattering it. The two-legged creature let out a shrill death cry as a long, gray tongue covered in deadly barbs lashed out of the spider’s mouth. It pushed its tongue inside the broken blue eye. It whip about for a moment before withdrawing, blood began to pour out of the gray creature's head, while it gurgled sickeningly.

Luna winced, she had not expected this level of brutality and wanton violence. Nor had she expected to see such creatures. This certainly wasn’t a ponies dream. In fact, Luna was positive that these creature were behind the recent spikes in violence throughout Equestria.

She was knocked out of her stupor by a loud thumping noise. The green metal creature was nearing the smaller spider like creature. In an instant, the smaller insect noticed the larger bipedal monster and leapt towards it. It tongue ready to rip apart flesh and muscle. The green metal clad creature denied it this pleasure with a skillful slash of it’s knife, severing it’s gray tongue. Before the insect could properly react, the bipedal figure shot into the air with the fire spurting out of it’s back and impaled the smaller eight legged monster with the knife, then threw it against the ground, before landing on it’s back.

It died with a sickening crunch, it’s tongue still twitching on the bloodstained metal floor nearby.

Luna felt sick, yet she continued to stare onwards with a morbid fascination. Slowly, Luna made her way over to the deceased metal creature. She looked through the broken eye, and was surprised to find that it was not an eye at all, but instead a screen of some sort, and the metal was simply some sort of guard armor, She thought that they might have been more like the guard. Underneath it’s armor, was a creature with a head very similar to the spider like creatures head. It was mostly hairless, and had pale skin, with a small, triangular nose and flat face, It’s green eyes were much smaller than anypony that she had ever seen. The long brown mane that it sported reasserted the fact that it was indeed a female.

She could seen that the wound that had caused its death. Apparently, it’s throat had been torn apart by the insectile monsters barbed tongue

It was then that the other two creatures began to converse, in perfect Equestrian, no less. They had just finished catching their breath from the recent battle.

The surviving gray one spoke first. It had the gruff, deep voice of a stallion, but also had a hint of a particular softness to it, portraying it’s true age, it sounded like it was in it’s early to mid twenties. “Chief, what are we going do with Private Yancey? We can’t just leave her here. Those things… they’ll use her body…”

Judging by it’s voice, “Chief” was also a stallion, but it’s deeper, more controlled voice, it sounded much older. Maybe it’s early thirties? “I guess you're right, Corporeal. We’ll have to burn her body. Find me some fuel or something that we can drench her in.”

“B-burn her, sir? I really don’t thi-” But ‘Corporeal’ was cut off by ‘Chief’

“Look, do you want to stop those Corpse Flies from turning her into a Lost Child, or not? We can’t bury her on a ship, even if we could, the other Lost Children would just dig her up. We don’t have the time to try and drag her to the cargo bay so we can jettison her into space. Hell, we don’t even know where the cargo bay is! So if you want to give her a bit of peace, get some flammables Corporeal Sutton!!” By the end of his rant, ‘Chief’ was yelling loudly at Sutton. Once he had finished talking, the green figure walked to away, presumably to find some flammables.

“Y-yes sir…” Corporeal Sutton mumbled before reluctantly trodding after ‘Chief’.

That was the final straw. Luna couldn't handle it anymore. Violence? Gore? That was one thing. Having to burn the bodies of your friends and comrades so that they wouldn't be used against you? That was something else entirely. Something horrible and unheard of. She had faced war with Discord, but never had she seen something quite like this.

As Luna walked through the ‘ship’, (She was a bit skeptical, she couldn't feel the waves against the hull of the ship as bow cut through them, and normally, ships were made of wood.) To exit the nightmare, she glanced back. Luna could see two bipedal silhouettes through the gloom of the metal structure pouring some sort of clear liquid all over the body of Private Yancey.

The green one pulled out a small metal rectangle. He flipped the top off, and jerked his thumb along one of the gear like parts. A small flame sprouted out of the cylindrical tube next to the gear shaped part. The gray figure handed him a wad of paper, which was quickly lit on fire before being tossed onto the corpse.

Luna blinked back a few tears before turning back around, and focusing all her attention on the door to the dream as she tried to drown out the noise of the crackling flames and the thoughts of charred skeletons and strange, insectile aliens…

Luna slipped back into dreamscape, and was immediately jolted into consciousness. She knew she would have to wake her sister. This creature could undoubtedly dangerous.

Luna didn’t know just how right she was. Sergei Petroski was currently one of the most dangerous living beings in Equestria. Luckily, he was on their side.

Sergei… Sergei… it’s time to wake up… You’ve got to wake up…

The rest was gibberish and unintelligible whispers. He knew the voice was right though, for it was none other than Viikrae, the Elder Goddess.

As Sergei woke up from the dream, he once again began to take his surroundings in and the events from the night before began to come back to him. He had died in the asylum whilst being interrogated by his doctor, then he had agreed to take on Oboron's yellow blight once more, if only to save his kin from the horrible fate that it would bring to all life.

Then there was his surroundings. He had played with rocks enough as a kid to know what he was surrounded by. Blocks of weathered stone, all neatly stacked around him to form a structure. A crypt of some sort. Almost like a pyramid. He could also see the pool of festering flesh a handful of meters away, which had been created during his battle with a Corpse Fly.

And then there was the dream. That dream never happened in real life. He had never known anyone named Private Yancey or Corporeal Sutton, And he had never the possessed corpses and monsters that were spawned from them Lost Children, though he had to admit, it certainly was fitting name. Then there was that blue four legged thing watching him the whole time. It vaguely resembled something he had read about in a book packed with information about Earth before the Great Plague and the Unity War. He couldn't remember what it had called them. He figured that the creature had been a result of his damaged mind, and that he needed to stop being such a nerd and get on with his current objective.

And with that, Sergei began his trek out of the crypt and into the strange and alien world, wondering what kind of horrors he would face next.

Chapter 2: The Carnivorous Caverns

Chapter 2: The Carnivorous Caverns

An endless green sea spread out before Sergei. Every inch of it rippled and swayed with small waves in the wind, and the surface sported a slight curve almost as if it were bending down. The breeze lessened and ended, and the sea followed suite, it’s entire mass straightening out before separating into a thousand tiny blades, each one pointed towards the sky, at least partially. The sun had risen long ago in the east, casting a gentle golden glow upon everything, and the only noises were the monotonous thud of his boots and the gentle drawn-out rasping that came with the occasional breeze.

Boring, that’s what it was, at least to Sergei. any other being of intelligence would have found the scene beautiful and wild, but not Sergei. Mostly because it reminded him to much of his old military days, and that’s how Sergei worked.

Once he had fought on a planet named Sigma. Sigma IV had been mostly covered in flat expanses plains. the only difference between this world and Sigma IV was that Sigma always had a thin layer of gray clouds over the sky, which blocked out the sun. The dreary mood it had often caused had been fitting, as they were fighting in a war.

He had fought on the planet near the end of The Unity war.

What had the Unity War been? Well, Just as humanity was establishing colonies on the last of the reachable stars with habitable planets, the governments and factions of our world had decided that Earth and the colonies would be better off with a single ruling body, rather than multiple countries.

The only thing they couldn't agree on was what kind of government would rule. Many factions believed in Socialism, or Democracy, while others had more violent beliefs like Communism or a Dictatorship. These last two were also some of the first groups to launch terrorist and military based attacks on those who didn’t agree with them.

Hundreds upon thousands were killed in the first wave of attacks, not just on Earth but on the meager number of colonies they had as well. Thousands of miles of ground were scorched to uselessness, and cities were wiped from the Earth, with only the rubble of both human bodies and the structures of their cities remaining as a testament to their existence.

Sergei and his brother hadn’t lost their lives, but they had lost their parents, not to mention most of their family. What little family hadn't been killed in mass bombings that wiped cities of the surfaces of planets and other blatant attacks had died from disease, exposure, and time.

It was a terrible time, and many a soul had been shattered. Quite a few people had never recovered from watching loved ones, friends, and even strangers burn to death in the fires of war, or be crushed by falling debris. Sergei was one of those people who had never recovered, but his brother, whose name was Marx was not, mostly because he had his older brother for support, which had helped the younger human mend.

Sergei’s thoughts turned back to their original topic, his time in the military. He had been fighting for the side that had opposed communism and dictatorship. Democracy. It included countries such as the USA, Canada, and surprisingly, Russia.

Sergei had joined his the American Military as soon as time had pushed the world to his 18th birthday. He remembered the conversation he had with marx before he had set out, who had been 13 at the time.

“You're gonna come back, right?” The young boy said, his incomplete homework, which was scattered across his desk, laid forgotten in the wake of his older brother’s farewell.

Sergei stood in Marx’s room, it was fairly clean. A few articles of dirty clothing set in a pile on the floor, by his desk, set a small book case with a handful of books held in its confines. His walls were painted a red color. But none of that mattered.

Sergei sighed and looked his little brother in the eyes. “Of course I’m coming back. I’m going to go and help stop this war.” Sergei had informed him.

Marx looked away seeming a little angry. “What if you end up like mom and dad? I’ll never see you again! Then I’ll be left all alone!”

At this point in time, they still had a few relatives left other than each other, a Grandmother and a Grandfather to be exact. And the Unity War had been ongoing for about 27 years, and it had cost more lives than any war in the history of mankind.

“You’ve still got Grandma and Grandpa.” Sergei retorted. “Besides, somebody's gotta pay those guys back for what they did to us. They’ve taken most of our family away.”

In reality, that was only a partial truth. Sergei certainly wanted revenge, but it was not the main reason for him joining the the military to fight in this war. He figured that every soldier meant that the war would end that much faster, and the faster the war ended, the less of a chance there was that Marx or any of his other family would end up as casualties of war.

Both brothers were silent for a moment, before Sergei’s eyes softened slightly and he looked at his brother again. “Look, I promise I’ll come back? Alright…”

“You don’t know that! Mom and Dad promised that they’d always be with me! Do you see them here?” Marx snarled back, his eyes hardening in an attempt to hold back his tears,

Smart kid… Sergei thought to himself.

“I don’t need to know anything to promise you that I’m coming back alive!” With that said, Sergei stormed out, leaving his little brother to soak in his own viscous misery.

And come back alive Sergei did, he had a few wounds, either from knife fights or small bits of shrapnel. But he was alive and well, and that was all that mattered. Four years later, the enemy faction fell apart. They had began to bicker, and eventually fight, among themselves, which made them weak. Once that had happened, they quickly took down the alliance that had formed.

Sergei was suddenly jolted out of his thoughts when instead of hearing and feeling his left boot slam into the ground again, he heard and felt absolutely nothing. After that, gravity continued to carry him onwards, despite his attempts to stop.

It could be said, that at that exact moment, things began to go down hill for Sergei in a very literal fashion.

Over and over again, Sergei rolled over, slamming various parts of his body into rocks and bumps in the ground. He tried desperately to grasp onto something, but Sergei’s descent was only stopped when the ground finally evened out. As Sergei stopped rolling,grumbled and looked about for his gun, which had been knocked out of the magnetic groove on his back when he had taken his little tumble. Spotting a glint of steel, he walked towards it, and found his weapon, while falling it had caught on a large rock.

As he picked it up, he felt a slight sting on his back, and something warm and viscous began to ooze down the inside of his suit. He groaned inwardly, knowing that his fall must have opened the puncture wounds on his shoulder again. They weren’t particularly deep, but they were nasty, and could still get infected with some alien disease if he wasn’t careful.

After examining his gun for a few seconds to ensure that it still worked properly, then holstering on the magnetic section of his suit, Sergei readied himself to continue his trek, but stopped when he heard the sound encroaching footsteps. It Sounded as if there were about ten pairs of them.

That’s a lot of Lost Children…

Sergei quickly ducked behind the rock, making sure that he could not be seen by the horrendous creatures that were nearing him. We waited there, keeping his breathing still and his ears focused.

Within seconds, Sergei could see about five possessed beings. Two of them were nothing more than corpses that had been turned into puppets, while the other three were living beings that likely had corpse fly larvae acting more like a symbiote than a parasite, giving them some intelligence, but still bending them to Oboron’s will.

The first of the three, a red, four legged thing, with a horn sticking out of it’s head and multiple grievous wounds marring it’s body, was speaking to a black four legged thing with wings and a yellow four legged thing, also sporting wings They all appeared to have hair of varying colors, meaning, but Sergei took no notice. The yellow one was obviously the leader, as the more deformed and mutated ones tended to have a higher standing. One of its forelegs had been reduced to a quivering stump, and two chitinous limbs resembling scythes had sprouted from it. Each Lost Child was also dragging a bloodied body along with them in their mouths, legs (Not sure how that works, Sergei thought), or in the case of the red thing, a red aura also glowing around his horn and the corpse it was carrying. Sergei could see bundled cords of intestines dragging behind one of the unpossed corpses, and another's head had been cleaved open so that it’s brain matter slowly dripped on the ground as the other creature dragged the corpse.

What the red alien was doing confused Sergei quite a bit, the fact that Sergei could understand them also confused him, but there would be time to ask questions later.

“...Aye. Have thee given thought to what use we have for so many excess cadavers?” The red one asked squinting at the effort of talking and dragging the corpse with its telekinesis.

“I knoweth but naught. I have heard many whispers of one of the most loyal of Father’s followers rising in the deepest part of the caverns. The mighty chosen, as I hear tis’ called.” The black one said, it’s voice sounded feminine

Despite the odd wording, Sergei got the gist of what they were saying, and this ‘Mighty Chosen’ certainly didn’t sound good to him.

“Stay thy tongues, mine brethren. We must spend our focus on our current goals. I suggest that we not to question our purpose. It would beest unwise to do so.”

The red thing agreed before they continued on. As they had been moving, Sergei had been stalking them through the knee knee-high grass, he had waited for the breeze so that he could crawl after them, using the gentle wind that rustled the grass to mask the sound of the grass rasping against his suit.

Sergei had thought about charging out and killing them all. He had certainly wanted to, it had taken him a moment to clear his head and think logically. Afterwards, Sergei had devised a slightly more sensible plan. He could tail them to these caves they spoke of. If the Lost Children were massing there, there was a good possibility that The Breach was there as well. If he could get to it, he might be able to close it and head back home before anything got too bad.

After a good half an hour or so of moving through the plains, the lead yellow thing stopped and motioned towards a decent sized rock. The two corpses and the rest of the Lost Children’s eyes danced over the plains warily, still not noticing the hidden human. Once they had deemed the area clear, the Lost Children moved around the rock one at a time, each one dragging it’s corpse with it.

Within a few minutes, they had all passed behind the rock. Carefully peeking around it himself, a certain human noticed that their was a massive hole in the ground. Sergei imagined it as a spiraling whirlpool born of the very earth, for he knew in his heart that this was but the beginning of his path, and he could not turn away, even if he wanted too. This duty caused him to drag his feet towards the cavern’s entrance, almost as if it were pulling him forward against his will.

It was for this reason that Sergei decided to name the alien caves the Carnivorous Caverns, for if the living were to enter, most of you would never see the light of day again.

As Sergei climbed down the entrance to the caverns, he used various stones and pieces of wood that had been jammed into the sides to stop gravity from pulling him to the bottom. Within minutes he was at the bottom. He activated the night vision installed in his suit, a little something he had picked up on The Hermes before he had destroyed it.

Sergei nearly reached for his gun, but decided against it, realizing that the gun’s report would be amplified by the smooth, water-worn walls of the cave as it bounced about. Instead, he quietly drew his knife, and turned towards a corridor that looked more promising than the rest, mostly because of the numerous blood trails specifically leading into it.

With that, Sergei Petroski began his descent into a place that was not unlike the darkened Hermes.

A place that held as little hope as it did light.

An unknown amount of time Earlier...

Princess Celestia had been having a fairly nice dream, and while it could have been nicer it was certainly preferable to the dream that came next.

As the first dream faded, it was replaced by an intersection of corridors. They appeared to be in her castle, a strange, warped version. Most of the stone was cracked, and moss vines, and the occasional dried blotch of something red coated the walls, and three out of the four intersection were bathed in shadow. They as if you could wander into them for eternities and always end up back at this intersection.

However, the fourth intersection was flooded with a soft glow. Celestia thought she could hear some miniscule noise from deep within the corridor.

Celestia decided to make her down the hallway, as there appeared to be no other path to take. As the princess of the sun grew closer, the noise becoming louder and in turn disturbing rather than mysterious. It could be said that he noises themselves were deformed.

Up ahead, she could see that the hallway stopped and split off into two additional corridors. One on the left and one on the right.

After a few minutes of walking, Celestia was much closer to the source of the noises, narrowing its location down to somewhere around the hallway.

Celestia cautiously trotted her way up to the turn, and peered curiously around the corner. Instead of finding more stone floors and walls like she had expected, she had found what could have been, at a first glance, the end of reality.

It was not, in fact, the end of reality, just the beginning of another world entirely. Here, the hallway ended abruptly, seemingly eaten by some unknown force. It opened up into an endless expanse reddish cracked stone, and appeared to defy the laws of physics. Pieces of the stone constantly broke off and floated away, while other chunks slammed into the ground and seemed to refuse with it’s original mass upon contact.

It was an unnerving sight, and it reminded Celestia all too much of Discord's chaotic magics.

Taking a cautious step, and moving slowly to avoid the hectic landscape, Celestia began to trek across the seemingly infinite dream world, and walked along the shifting ground for what seemed like an infinity before she saw a massive mountain, and she could make out some sort of eerie tune resounding across the strange landscape. She could only make out the first three lines, the rest was lost to hear ears.

High up above, upon the mountains peak,

The one true god does sit and weep,

For his lost children, he does seek,

Whoever was singing the song, it sounded as if it were originating from the mountain. Celestia decided to move to the mountain and see who was singing.

When she was a few hundred meters from the base of the mountain, Celestia could make out some sort of huge winged creature on the top. Before she could call out to it, the singing stopped.

A booming laugh resounded through the barren wasteland. It wasn’t ominous, nor did it sound evil, but instead had an angelic and delighted sound to it, like a father who had seen his foals for the first time in months.

The huge figure began to descend from the mountains peak. As it moved closer, it’s strange form became clearer.

It was a Moth. A huge, deformed Moth, it was encased in yellow light, and was as grotesque as it was angelic and god-like.

“There you are little godling. I’ve been looking for you every where…” It paused for a moment, it’s musical voice was enticing.

Celestia was nearly ready to reply with a question of her own, when she felt a massive weight press down upon her consciousness. It felt similar to the dark magic's others had once used to try and overwhelm her mind.

At first, she was sure that she could fight it, but the harder she fought, the harder it became to resist the strange force. The massive moth creature spoke again. “Why do you fight me? I bring you nothing but kindness…”

Celestia was reaching her limits. The force was so powerful and ancient, that nothing could fight against it in a normal fashion. Her mental barriers began to crack, and Celestia worried that her consciousness would be shattered. As her defenses began to crack further, she felt an immense pain within her mind, and she began, despite that she continued to fight.

“The pain you feel is nothing compared to the reward…” The figure said again.

The pain became unbearable, and she could no longer stand it, she let out a shrill cry of agony, before the force suddenly retreated.

“There is a disturbance… we will continue this another time…”

And then, just as suddenly as the dream had come, it was gone. Celestia pried her eyes open. She could feel the rapidly fading pain of the creature’s probing conscious, now, it was now more than a memory. Celestia could also hear someone distantly calling out to her.

‘Twas nothing but a dream…

“Celestia, dear sister! Awake from thou troubled slumber!” Her sister, who’s voice she recognized, yelled out. It sounded quite distressed.

Just as Luna’s voice had done seconds ago, the world around Celestia came into focus, the sights became clearer, the noises became louder and more decipherable, She could finally disassemble the textures into the the various items Celestia could feel on her fur.

She shakily sat up in her bed, looking at her sister, fighting an internal battle to recompose herself.

“Celestia, art thee well? We hath heard thee howling like a newborn foal in thy sleep!” Luna asked worriedly.

“We are well sister.” Celestia told her sister, trying to convince Luna as much as she was herself. “‘Twas but a dream that bade me ill. It bothers me no longer.”

“We art glad.” Luna responded, seeming to turn her head away slightly for a moment before continuing with the real reason that she had entered Celestia’s bed chambers so early in the morning. “It is possible that We hath discovered the source of our recent troubles. During the performance of our royal duties, We Hath come across a stranger dream than most.”

“How so?” Celestia inquired softly, a warm smile on her mouth.

At Celestia’s prompting, her sister went to to describe how the aforementioned dream had been inside a giant metal ship. She described its appearance and it’s dark state in great detail, then she described the two-legged figures fighting the strange spider-like entity, and how one of them, the green armored one, had been the dreamer.

“How hath thee gleaned that this entity is the harbinger of the troubles that plague us as of late?”

“We hath said no such thing! Only that I may hath found the source of such ill fated events. We believe that this creature holds intimate knowledge of what is causing such an increase in violence. We hath come to thee because We believe thee would be able to help us locate this entity…”

Celestia thought for a moment, her face neutral and unreadable. Than an idea crossed her mind

“If this creature is capable of using strange magics like you described, then We knoweth of a spell that divine the location such energy signatures. If you will follow Us.” Celestia stretched her wings, before she stood up and headed towards the entrance to her chambers, before trotting off down the hallway, her sister in tow.

They nodded to guards ponies, and the few servants who found themselves awake at this hour, who curtsied in return, not many had awoken from their sleep, as the morning was still young, and only a few of their servants had been trained to work during the ample hours of the night.

Deeper they strode into their domain. Celestai studied the walls thinking of her recent dream. What could it have meant? Was it as much an omen as the dream her sister had located likely was?

Before long, they could ponder no longer, as they had arrived at the royal archives, an area full of scrolls, both ancient and young.

Celestia shifted through the texts, careful to magick any dust clouds away that seemed to appear from the more archaic collections. Luna waiting anxiously nearby, hoping that what they needed could be found sooner rather than later, and in turn, the answers to this rapidly growing puzzle that plagued her.

After quite a few minutes of searching Celestia unraveled a scroll, she quickly refreshed herself on the needed steps of performing the spell, before she turned to her sister, “We cannot guarantee that the being we seek will be within range.”

Luna nodded, “So be it then, Inaction will prove to be the greater evil.”

Celestia deployed the spell to it’s fullest range. Unexpected as it was, she felt could feel something strange and faint, almost as if it were being muffled underneath something. Taking note of the location the spell returned in her mind, somewhere dark, surrounded by ageless stone walls which had been worn into a smoother texture by years of water.

It was a cave.

As Celestia released the magic, she turned to Luna, who was watching her expectantly. “We hath located your creature. It is in some sort of cave, though We could not discover exactly where it resided. We will must study maps to gain the knowledge of it’s true surroundings, but first, we must perform our duties…”

Both trotted towards the entrance to the archives, Luna and Celestia ready to lower the moon and raise the sun respectively.

Before they could do any such thing, a pegasus Guards Pony suddenly burst through the doors, he was panting heavily. He wiped a few fat beads of sweat away with his hoof before he gasped out, “My lieges!” He gave a quick bow before he continued on, his tone urgent, yet respectful. “A terrible series of events hath befallen the city of Roame!”

The gasping pegasus, doing his best to keep his composer in his current state, held out a scroll out a scroll, sealed with wax and all, with a shaking hoof.

“Celestia gently levitated the scroll out of the pegasus’s hoof, before she told him, “Go, rest and refresh thyself.”

“As you wish.” He bowed once more before trotting off at a much slower pace than he had arrived.

At the Guard was leaving, Celestia broke the seal on the scroll, then unraveled the piece of untimely news. Celestia quickly read through the scroll message, then she looked at her sister with a grave expression chiseled onto her face.

“We must take leave of our original intentions, for Roame has sent us a terrible plea for help, and We am afraid that we hath no choice but to respond.”

Sergei grumbled and kicked a rock. If only his old military squad mates could see him now. Wandering through a cave with only a gun, a knife, a below-military grade combat suit, and a half-baked plan. They would laugh at him. Which would drive him forward, of course. He would continue his mission, if only to prove them wrong.

Despite that thought, hopelessness was growing within Sergei at a steady rate. The caves seemed to wind endlessly, and every other tunnel seemed to be a dead end, a drop off, or loop back into the main sections. The worst part was the number of tunnels and caverns branching off of cavern he had managed to wander into. There were more than he could count.

His exhaustion was beginning to overtake him, he would have to rest soon/ It felt like it had been hours, if not days since he had entered this mysterious and endless maze encased in stone. The only thing keeping him awake was his thoughts of how in the hell he was supposed to actually close The Beach, should he find out it was here. He couldn't just collapse The Breach with his bare hands, as appealing as that sounded.

When he had been aboard the Hermes, he had only been able to close the Breach by reversing the effects of the SW-jump drive, which had caused it to reabsorb the energy that had been needed to open The Breach. Afterwards, the Breach had closed, but the Re-absorb of the energy had proven too much for the SW-jump drive, and it had overloaded, creating a super-massive explosion, he had escaped before hand, using a shuttle to move away from the ship and back towards the G-54 mining station after he had overloaded the drives.

Sergei sighed tiredly, doing his best to be cautious. You never know when some yellow freak will pop out of the wall and eviscerate you.

As if on cue, a chittering sound echoed of the smoothed walls of the cave, startling Sergei, and nearly causing him to punch the stalagmite where the noise had ricocheted off of it and into his ear.

He let out a shaky breath as he turned about in circles, looking for the source of the chittering. The darkness would have been disorienting if he hadn't had the night vision enhancements.

Must have been my imagination playing tricks on me… or maybe some of Oboron’s “famous” hallucinations. Sergei thought with a chuckle. Even on an alien world full of, well, aliens, Oboron was still trying to drive him ape shit crazy.

Sergei restarted his trek into the cave. This time, he was even more cautious, continuously checking over his shoulder to make sure nothing was following him.

Within a few more minutes, he heard the noise again. Quickly hiding behind a nearby stalagmite, Sergei could make out the chittering the noise, along with the clicking of chitin against smooth stone, and two pairs of armored foots steps.

Deciding to peek around the edge of the stalagmite, Sergei saw three creatures. The first was a wingless, hornless and armored quadruped. It’s horn was glowing with an unnatural sickly yellow light, and it’s unsteady gait gave away its position as a possessed corpse. The next entity that Sergei easily make out was a corpse fly. It’s scaled wings making a gentle swishing noise through the air. The third and final member of this mismatched party had been nearly impossible to see with at Sergei’s angle. It was a snake-like creature, nearly as thick and as long as a typical human arm. It dragged itself slowly along, it’s body hissing as it’s flesh rubbed against the ground. The things chest had been splayed open, and a few of it’s ribs had been modified to act as hooked limbs, which it was using to drag itself forward.

The quadruped creature seemed to sniff the air for a moment before grunting to the other creatures and turning in Sergei’s direction. Sergei watched as the four-legged creature shambled over to his hiding spot with a lazy sort of slowness that only a possessed corpse could achieve. Once it had reached the stalagmite, it cautiously peaked around it, before letting out the beginnings of a strangled growl, but Sergei reacted quickly and grabbed it’s muzzle, silencing it, before pulling it forwards towards him, with his other hand, Sergei pulled out his combat knife and jammed into the base of the lost child's skull, avoiding it’s oddly shaped helmet, along with a few other places, cutting off the larvas connection to the brain, killing both the lost child and the corpse fly larva instantly.

The corpse fly and the other thing were making there way over to Sergei’s position, and he knew that he would only get one shot at this. As the corpse fly neared Sergei, he leaped out of his hiding place, launching himself after the corpse fly. Sergei managed to grab onto it’s right limb, but fell onto the grooved floor of the cave. The corpse fly screeched in alarm before throwing a few wild blows at the human with ti’s left limb.

Meanwhile, Sergei was working on standing up. The smaller serpent like creature was attempting to hook onto Sergei with its strangely shaped limbs, but his shield was preventing it from doing so. He tried to stomp it, but his struggle to keep his grip on the corpse fly prevented him from doing so. He heard a light crunch as he half stepped on it, before the side of his boot sent the monstrosity flying into the nearby wall. It let out a wet popping noise of sorts before it hit the ground. The blow had opened a ghastly and pale lesion on it’s side, and yellow fluids oozed out. It dragged itself off, leaving a trail of quickly drying fluids behind. Meanwhile, Sergei had managed to pin the corpse fly down with one foot. Two of his hands were looked around it’s head, which was continuously trying to open the chitinous layer around its head, so that it could bite at Sergei, but the human’s grasping hands prevented it from doing that.

With a twisting jerking motion, Sergei pulled up and pressed down with his foot, causing the corpse fly’s head to partially separate from the rest it’s body. Sergei repeated the previous motion, causing it’s head to come the rest of the way off.

The human let out a deep breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding as he gently dropped the corpse flies head on the cave floor. Meanwhile it’s body writhed violently on the ground. It’s wings flapped to know avail, tearing themselves as the battered the ground, and it’s body dragged itself in every direction, with no purpose. It was only to plant one last larva in in a corpse, only following the instincts Oboron had planted within it. If only it could have gotten it’s body to work right.

The Corpse flies movements slowed and it’s life left it. But Sergei Petroski payed it no heed. He stared at nothing silently. Drinking in one deep breath after another. Not thinking, not wondering. If he thought too much about all these things, he risked losing his mind more so than he already had.

Then, sighing, he looked down at the trail of pale yellow blood, realizing he’d have to follow the other lost child if he were to stop it from warning the rest of its brethren.

Clenching his fists and grunting to himself, Sergei began to sprint after the creature.

Chapter 3: Symphony of the Dead

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