Door 2 - The Wasteland

[NativeForeigner]

"Now," he began to add as he straightened up, "Please keep in mind that this virus is unlike any other. None of our medicines do a thing to affect it." he held up another vial of the substance, "This is our very best, it accelerates the healing process and mimics missing or damaged tissue (though it comes well short of replacing a missing limb), but it does nary a thing to biological agents stronger than a common infection, and even then, it's mostly your body, temporarily accelerated by this substance, that's dealing with the infection.

We can do nothing against this disease short of amputation of the damaged tissue before the infection spreads. Please keep safe, shall I take my leave?"  

[Elesariin]

Gwen swallowed, then looked down at the officer. "Yes," she replied quietly, "I suppose that would be best." However, it was worth noting that she did not sound particularly sure of herself anymore.  

[SirBayer]

Smith sneered, never turning away.

"Thank you for the offer," Juliet added, her sincerity dubious. She awaited his actual departure.  

[NativeForeigner]

Max nodded slowly, "Very well, I shall take my leave, it's been a pleasure speaking with you both, thank you for your time. I really do hope to see you again. Be it soon or a good time off, we'll welcome you anytime, regardless of whether you choose to fully commit."

He cocked an eyebrow, as though he had suddenly realized something, and pulled a handful of the vials from his pockets. He held them out to Gwen and Juliet, giving each of them six or seven each.

"I'm very sorry to say this, but you may be needing these for your soldiers soon, there's a mid-class infected that Smith must have neglected coming soon. I would remove it myself, but I'm afraid I'm needed elsewhere as quickly as possible. Be careful. And you should have a few vials left over."

Without another word, Max turned and headed through the door leading to the garage, closing it behind him.

Alastair turned to Smith for answers.

Before any could be answered, a strange silence fell upon the area, and the lights dimmed.

"s**t! Another Duke?!" a soldier suggested.

"No." Smith answered, a strange, alien sense falling over him. It wasn't anything he had ever felt or experienced before. A sensation of mixed fear, confusion, and awe grew within all in the room as the area around them began to darken, "This is something different."

It was as if they were being taken from this world to another, they felt distant from eachother, though no one had actually moved, and utterly strange and alien thoughts began to run through their heads. Everybody felt a violent chill run down their spines.

Then the world around them fell into complete darkness.

They could see each other clearly, as though everybody had their own little spotlight illuminating their presence, but the area all around them was complete nothingness.

"What...what is this?" Alastair ventured to ask. His voice sounded very distant, even to himslf, and his words echoed off of unseen walls.

Something urged him to glance at his wristwatch. The hands were going haywire, the second hand spinning quickly counterclockwise, the hour hand spinning slowly backwards, and the minute hand racing clockwise.

Juliet checked her's, a digital watch, and found it to read as the 99th second of the 99th minute of the 99th hour of the 99th day of the 99th month of the 99th year, and it was counting down.

Whispers of an unfamiliar language flooded the area around them.

in the center of everybody, candles began to flicker, illuminating a fairly large area, but still revealing only nothingness. To everybody in the room, the candles appeared to be directly in from of them, just far enough away for the individual to see the wide scope of the candles' light.

The whispering continued briefly before becoming completely silent once more.

Finally, without a sound, nine figures faded into view, all within the candles' light and side-by-side. The stood incredibly tall, towering over even Smith, and wore deep maroon robes, covering every bit of skin except for the tip of their wrinkled noses to their chins (four of them sporting gray facial hair), save for the central figure who wore a robe purest of black and who's face was completely shrouded in darkness. They stood with their hooded-heads bowed and their hands unseen, held Together in front of them and tucked into the opposite sleeves.

They simply stood, towering and silent, everyone in the room found they could not move. The figures appeared as of they were first waiting for someone else to speak.  

[Elesariin]

Somebody whimpered, sounding very much like a small child. It took Gwen a second to realize that it had been her. She was so very frightened... and as such, it took her a couple of seconds to realize that Max had mentioned A mid-level infected. Whatever these things were, they weren't what he had been talking about. She shakily got to her feet, feeling as though her nerves were buzzing. "H-hello..." She'd intended to say it loudly, but it came out in a whisper.  

[SirBayer]

"Leave now, coward," Smith hissed as Max left. "You won't save us. You won't save anyone. You'd never stick your neck out for someone else's sake, liar. Do you see that?" he added, as the room darkened.

Even after all the events, Smith's bitterness still rode down his ordinary self. "And who might you be?" Smith inquired, still holding his pistol, although it had been lowered to point to the ground. Juliet merely held the vials, contemplating. Max seemed very... deceptive.  

[NativeForeigner]

"We are the Unseen." the nine answered in unison, their voices monotonous and dull. Watching their mouths, it could be seen that their mouths only moved half the time, and even then, not synchronized with the words. They lifted their heads to be level as they spoke, though the upper half of their face remained concealed.

The black-robed figure remained with his head lowered, indicating that he was not speaking.

"We are each a representative of an aspect of Death." they went on, their eery voices carrying every which way.

Their speech was slow and deliberate, and they spoke with a certain accentuated low-key moroseness to their tone, paused often, and sometimes stressed the wrong syllable of a word.

"Nihilism." the furthest to the left answered. They went on, going in no particular order.

"Sacrifice."
"Loneliness."
"Intoxication."
"Destruction."
"Despair."
"Rage."
"Greed."

"And our center is Death." the announced in unison, probably referring to the black figure at their center.  

[Elesariin]

Gwen took a small, shuffling step backward, trying to ignore the way her heart was thundering in her chest. Death? Aspects of Death? That did not sound good. At all. "Oh," was the only response she could manage.  

[SirBayer]

"What may we do to aid you?" Smith grunted. Juliet remained silent, looking to Alastair; her glance said, 'What the heck do we do here?'  

[Dark Angel of Sol]

Orion sits in his home grading a group of projects for his AP Computer Science class. All of a sudden, he is push back through the chair. He looks up and sees his body lifelessly slumped on the desk. As he runs towards it, his body turns to sand and a wind picks it up can carries it through the door. As he follows it, the sand keeps going until it reforms in to a giant copper sphere with legs, arms and a domed head that towered over Orion. The behemoth raised it's fist which grew as it was raised until it was twice the size as him and as it was heading towards him getting ready to pound...!

Orion sprung to life on the bottom of what looked to be a ditch. Heart racing, body tense, and a sharp pain in the back of his head. Orion started to speak “Where...” The memories started coming back, he's some guest in a party he should have skipped. Stuck in some land he doesn't know. A familiar voice echoes behind him. “Hey take it easy, nice to see you awake but be careful.” The name of the voice came back to him and he said, “Hey Jack. What the hell happened? Last thing I remember was a giant rock.” Jake chuckled and responded, “Well you rolled just in time though your pistol fell out your pocket and wasn't so lucky. You rolled into the ditch and hit your head. I'm just glad the bleeding stopped. I think you have a concussion, and you need to rest. I don't know if the battle ended. It went quiet, but I don't know if there fighting inside the factory. Lie down and wait for me to get back. I'm going to check on how the fight is doing. Oh and don't fall asleep.” Orion moved over to the wall of the ditch and sat with his back against the wall and simply said, “Alright.” Jack climbed out the ditch and Orion just sat there thinking.  

[NativeForeigner]

Alastair returned Juliet's glance with one of his own, saying, "Just keep quiet."

"We have come to issue you a warning." they began.

"If things continue as they are, the very things we represent will continue to spread across your land. The lives of millions are at stake, and not merely those of this land."

"Destruction and Despair will spread beyond the borders of your land. Nihilism will rise, fueled by Greed." Destruction, Despair, Nihilism, and Greed announced together.

"Rage is and shall continue to be abundant, fueled by Intoxication of the mind, not only that caused by the disease, but Intoxication of one's own design, leaving an eternal Loneliness like no other." Rage, Loneliness and Intoxication went on, hand-in-hand.

"Sacrifices have been made, and must continue to be made." Sacrifice concluded.

"Unless you wish for this fate to be, changes must be made. It is not one's fault, but the fault of all. You have been warned." they all picked back up before falling completely silent once more.

*

Several minutes later, Jack returned, hailing Orion, "It seems like it's all clear, let's go."  

[Dark Angel of Sol]

Orion got up sluggishly and he slowly climbed out the ditch. When he got to the top, Jack said, “Hey can you walk?” Orion replied in sarcastic tone, “Hey I got out the ditch on my own, didn't I? Besides, I'll be okay after I walk it off.” Jack replied with a hint of concern, “Just be careful, there are somethings you can't walk off.” Orion just shrugged as he and Jack walked towards the factory.  

[NativeForeigner]

The figures began to fade from sight, indicating an end to their visit. After the others had faded, all that remained was Death. The candles all went out simultaneously, enveloping everyone in complete, albeit brief, darkness before the factory began to fade back into view.

Before a moment was given to discuss what had just happened, there came a ruckus from the rear of the factory, it was the sound of bashing against thick steel followed by the sound of grinding metal.

There was brief pause before the bashing continued, this time from the wall between the factory floor and the garage. At the second bash, the wall cracked, and with the third, a hole crumbled, large enough to allow the hideous creature behind it to pass through.

The creature was a dark, sickly brown, its skin rough, lumpy, and occasionally oozing brown fluid from seemingly random pores. The creature consisted of a massively-muscled torso sitting upon four thin, long bird-like legs with bone spurs jutting downwards from the back of the knees far enough to touch the ground when its knees were bent. It didn't appear to have any feet.

On its chest were two, large eyes, the left about the size of a softball and the right the size of a tennis ball. The irises were yellow and the pupil of the left was large and round, whereas the right pupil was slitted. Several limp tentacles of varying sizes protruded from where its head should have been, or rather was, giving the vague idea of hair.

Its right arm was large and club-shaped, with several fleshy, spike-like protrusions dotting it in a random matter. Its left arm was much thinner, appearing to have been sucked up by the mass of muscle that was its torso. It came to a rather unnerving point. Upon sighting Smith and the others, its left arm began to slink from its socket, exposing it as a much longer limb.

It began to scuttle further into the factory, its eyes darting from person to person. As it reached the center of the floor, the center of its torso, just below its eyes, split apart, revealing what could only be describes as a large, sideways mouth with countless serrated teeth lining it. From this mouth erupted a terrible, bloodcurdling screech as it charged towards Smith with sudden speed, knocking aside a stray soldier with its club-arm as it went.

Juliet's magazine: 24/24 (SMG) [0]/ 12/12 (Glock26) [3] | 20/20 (Five-seveN) [4]
Alastair's magazine: 36/36 (AR) [1], 12/12 (SIG) [4]
Gwen's magazine: 10/12 (HG) [1], 5/5 (Rifle) [4]
ROUS: 6/6 [?]
M82: 8/10 [?]
Smith's Men (1): 8  

[Elesariin]

Gwen stared for several seconds, too shocked to manage a sound. Then, when the thing charged Smith, her mind kicked into overdrive. She didn't care how good Smith was-- there was no way that he could handle something like that all on his own. Quickly, she checked to make sure that her rifle was loaded and tried line up a shot, her hands surprisingly steady. She was aiming for one of the eyes-- whichever looked easiest to hit. If she managed to line the shot up, she fully planned on taking it; even if she missed, the thing might turn its attention to her, giving Smith a chance to blindside it.  

[SirBayer]

Smith leveled the ROUS at the charging monster, relieving the gun of all its ammo, before preparing his sledgehammer to meet with the monster violently.

His mind was slightly off. "It is not the fault of one. If that was truly Death..." Perhaps there was some truth to what he said, but what?

Juliet stared at the creature, deciding to not engage for now, allowing Smith to handle it, if he could.

His men did not do the same. They all opened fire wherever they had an angle, attempting to aim for any point on its body.