21 September, 2552
UNSC Forward Operating Base – Installation 04
P!F*^C W#alla%ce A&. Je@nki!ns POV
Darkness doesn't frighten me anymore. Not after what I've seen. Not after what I've become.
I can still see.
I can still think.
I just can't move.
I'm a passenger in my own skin. Limbs twitch when I don't want them to. Muscles clench and stretch like meat being pulled by butcher's hooks—except the hooks are inside me. There's a pain that doesn't stop, doesn't fade, doesn't even slow. It just… is. Like breathing. Like gravity. I know I don't look human anymore, I can feel it.
But I still breathe. Somehow.
They said I should've died down there.
Hell, I wish I had.
We were sent in light—standard recon sweep. Sergeant Johnson, always the damn pillar of calm in a firefight, damned things seemed unable to catch him. Mendoza cracking dumb jokes. Bisenti, Kappus, Riley… all dead now. Torn apart. Consumed.
We were looking for a Covenant weapons cache, buried deep in some kind of Forerunner structure. At least, that's what Command thought it was. Leonidas had raised hell when Keyes said he wanted to come along—thank God he won that argument. The Captain stayed behind. The rest of us went down.
Straight into Hell.
It started quiet. Sterile, cold, metallic. A tomb with working lights.
Then came the doors. Sealed from the inside. We forced them open. That's when we found the Covenant—dead. Torn apart. Melted. Chewed. Hollowed.
We thought it was some new tactic. We didn't understand. Not yet.
The monsters waited until we were deep in that place.
They came fast. All claws and flesh and screeching spores. They burst from the walls, the vents, the corpses. They moved like water, like fire, like they knew.
I remember Mendoza's scream.
I remember the sound Riley made when they got into his suit.
I remember Johnson shouting for us to fall back.
And then I don't remember anything.
Now, I'm here. In a cage.
Literally.
Behind thick alloy bars like some caged animal. Only I'm not the only thing in here.
Something… else shares this body.
It lets me watch. It doesn't let me sleep. It doesn't let me speak. It plays with my nerves. Sometimes it twists my arm the wrong way. Sometimes it opens my mouth and lets out a laugh I didn't want to make.
I've screamed inside my skull until I couldn't think anymore. That just seems to amuse it.
There's a glass observation window to my right. I can see her through it.
Dr. Catherine Halsey.
UNSC's miracle worker. The one who made the Spartans. The one they called the mother of monsters. Now she's standing there, cool as ice, observing me like I'm just another broken equation to solve. I wish she could just help me instead.
Sometimes, she speaks into her recorder:
"Subject continues to display pre-infection cognition. Neural degradation appears delayed due to prior cortical enhancements. Possibly partial integration failure due to weakened flood infector. Flood form has stabilized around the spinal cord. Subject retains reactive neural patterns. This is… unprecedented."
I wish she'd just kill me.
Or talk to me.
She never does.
She talks about me.
To her, I'm a specimen.
To me, she's the last human face I'll ever see.
She called it the Flood.
I've heard the word a dozen times from her lips, always clinical, always cold. Capital F. A proper noun. Not just an infection. Not just a parasite. Something ancient. Something designed. A weapon, maybe?
I can feel them. All of them. The others.
They're close.
Not just physically—I can feel their thoughts. Not like words, more like hunger. Echoes of memory. Images from Mendoza. Screams from Bisenti. Kappus whispering prayers. Covenant cursing as they breathe their last. They're part of me now. Or maybe I'm part of them.
Sometimes, the Flood lets me see what it remembers.
Sometimes it forces me to watch them die all over again.
_______________
I don't know what day it is. The lights never change in this room. Halsey comes and goes. Marines keep their rifles trained on me from a perch above. They flinch when I twitch.
I don't blame them.
They shouldn't be here.
I shouldn't be alive.
But I am.
And until this parasite finishes whatever it's doing inside me, I get to keep watching. Keep feeling.
Keep praying that maybe—just maybe—this ends.
I hope the others didn't feel this. I hope Mendoza died fast. I hope Bisenti's brain shut down before the pain started.
But deep down?
I know that's a lie.
I know they're still in there, too.
So I wait.
And I think.
And I scream where no one can hear me.
And sometimes, just sometimes, I see Dr. Halsey glance at me for longer than usual.
Maybe she sees it too.
The part of me still in here.
Still fighting.
But not for long.
_________________
Cold.
Then heat.
Then… nothing.
Then everything.
Muscles twitch. Not mine.
They're not mine anymore.
I'm still here.
I think.
Pain.
Dr. Halsey. Needles. Probes.
She thinks I can't feel it.
But I can.
It's the only thing I still can.
Twitch.
Left hand.
Tap tap tap.
Tap–pause–tap tap.
Morse.
...S...O...
She sees it.
Eyebrows arch. Glass shimmers.
She leans in.
Watches.
Records.
...T...H...E...Y...
Coming.
They're coming.
Below.
The catacombs.
Old tunnels.
Carved by things that weren't human.
Covenant used them.
Flood use them now.
TAP. TAP. TAP.
Last warning.
Last fight.
Last breath.
I remember—
Blue sky.
Mom's hands.
A dog?
What was its name?
Christmas.
Snowflakes.
Warm cider.
My sister's laughter.
I had a sister.
I did, right?
Fading.
Slipping like smoke through fingers.
My fingers?
No, not mine.
Noise.
Outside. Screaming.
Flamethrowers?
Roaring fire.
Crack of rifles.
I can hear them.
The others.
They scream in my head,
then stop.
She got it.
She heard me.
The Flood is burning.
The base is holding.
My message got through.
Pain gone now.
No cold.
No heat.
No light.
No thought.
Just…
Peace?
I don't remember my name.
But I died happy.
Flames consume me.