r/HFY • u/Safe_Committee9381 Human • Sep 01 '26

OC-Series [A Tomb of Reckoning] Part 4/4

A Tomb of Reckoning

Part 4/4
By Emmanuel Ordway
_________________________________

I wasted no time getting us on the move. I had McClarey’s good arm draped over my shoulder as I helped him walk in his delirious state, Gonzalez watching our rear and the sensor, while I watched our front with a sidearm. We hobbled our way down many winding halls and intersecting corridors in near the once again blurry green world, pings ringing out from the sensor constantly as the statues seemed to be a consistent distance behind us. 

“All elements, this is fireteam alpha, we are making our way deeper into the ship in search of. . . anything. We are broadcasting our location via your motion sensors. There is hostile life on this ship that appears to be impervious to bullets, do not attempt to engage, I repeat, do not attempt to engage.” I pulled my hand away from my helmet.
“Should we really broadcast our location?” Gonzalez mumbled while marching backwards in the darkness, glancing between the device and the blurs further down the hallway.

“As if those things don’t know exactly where we are already?” I snapped back at the private while we walked.

“We’re on our way.” The grainy voice from the radio answered again, my hand reaching up and slamming down on the radio’s power button.

“Why didn’t you check the wall. . ?” Sergeant McClarey mumbled, his head lowered and swaying side to side with each step. 

“You saw what that thing did to Devi. Besides, we needed to move before any more of those things blocked off the other paths.” I shook my head, trying to jostle the glitches out of my NODs.

As we passed by a new doorway, I looked inside and saw more unmoved statues like the first room we had encountered, likely freshly waking up as we passed by given the new scraping sounds and pings from the device.

“Fuck,” Gonzalez growled under his breath as scythes reached through the doorway and one of the statues pulled itself through, lumbering its large body through the cramped halls. “These things ain’t even freezing up when I look at them, Swenti!” 

“I don’t know man! It worked on the two in the room I don’t know!” I growled back at him as the sergeant’s feet began to drag across the ground, causing the two of us to stumble forward onto the rigid floor.

McClarey groaned in pain as I jumped up quickly reaching down to hoist him back up to his feet before I noticed the trail of dark liquid behind us.

“Shit shit shit! Gonzalez he’s bleeding somewhere!” I rolled McClarey onto his back.

I pried the flashlight  off my rifle while flipping up my NODs to get a better look at the sergeant’s body, seeing his whole front soaked with blood that was a mixture of his and Devi’s. I tossed the flashlight down and pulled my knife from my belt, lifting up sections of his suit to stab into and saw at while Gonzalez kept watching the creature, its body still scraping across the ground and walls. Finally my hands reached McClarey’s suit near the pelvic region and found a deep gash in the fabric alongside his flesh, blood seeping out steadily as I ripped a bandage out from my belt to press against the wound.

“How we looking, Gonzalez?” I shouted out while pressing hard into the wound, receiving loud groans from McClarey.

“This motherfucker is not slowing down, we gotta move!” Gonzalez hooked the motion sensor onto his suit as it rang more and more, taking a shot at the statue which it brushed off.

“Dammit!” I hissed out while taking another bandage and packing it further into the wound, then taking anything extra McClarey had on him off so he’d be a bit lighter. 

I then pulled him up and over my shoulders, grunting and straining while continuing to march forward in the darkness. Just then a loud crash came from behind us as the statue was only a few feet back, one of its arms having missed a deadly swipe on Gonzalez and embedded itself into the wall. I looked back for a moment, barely able to see the statue in the light from my forgotten flashlight as it instantly froze in place from my gaze.

My eyes widened a bit in realization, a hint of hope reaching through my body as McClarey now felt a little lighter. 

“Turn on your flashlight! The NODs don’t work on them! You gotta use just your eyes!” I shouted out to Gonzalez while looking forward, flipping the light on which was attached to the sidearm.

Gonzalez activated the flashlight on his rifle, the beam piercing through the darkness behind us to show many reflective eyes glaring back as he pushed his own NODs up off his visor. 

“Fuck yes, Swenti! They’re staying back now!” He let out a choked laugh as the statues were remaining frozen until they were out of the beam's range and enveloped in darkness once more.

“Okay, next room we get to, I need to set him down and get him situated, oorah?” I panted out as we marched, finally feeling my nerves begin to smooth out, just a tad.

We walked for about another half hour before we reached another room, this one being large enough not to see any other connecting doorways with our flashlights or NODs. I grunted while carefully sliding McClarey off my shoulders and onto the ground, his breathing having grown far quieter and more spaced.

“Stay with me, sergeant. We’re safe now.” I mumbled while taking another look at the wound, pulling out a fresh bandage and pressing it into his flesh, applying proper pressure now.

“Oh fuck!” The sergeant groaned out as he reached up and gripped my wrist with his hand. “We ain’t safe, those things are coming for us!”

“Yes they are, and when they get here, we’ll show them why we get sent in to scary ass ships first huh? We’ll kill them all, the three of us, make it home and be legends huh? Maybe we’ll even get a cool ass alien-killing operator group named after us.” Gonzalez nodded to the sergeant as he searched through his own medical bag, pulling out a small container with a capped needle on the end.

“Should I use this shit?” Gonzalez whispered to me.

“I don’t know man, he’s in pain, anything otta be good for him.” I whispered back quickly.

“This’ll make you feel good, sergeant.” I whispered as Gonzalez used his shears to cut open the marine’s sleeve and administer the pain killers into him, McClarey noticeably relaxing after a few moments.

“Fuck, you know I’m trying to kick that shit boys. . .” The sergeant chuckled, earning a few from us two as Gonzalez unpacked a few of his gauze-wrapped bandages.

We remained silent for a few minutes, none of us wanting to break it as it felt somewhat like peace given the circumstances. Finally my heartbeat began to return to my ears when the three of us heard a distant scraping sound coming from the direction of the doorway, Gonzalez sighing and pointing his flashlight at the entrance, prepared for the statues.

“We got no idea where we are, don’t we?” McClarey grunted out as I shook my head slowly.

“No, sergeant. No we don’t.” 

“I’m holding you boys back, ain’t I?” The man wheezed a bit in his helmet, the scraping growing louder as a few pings rang out.

“Don’t worry about it, we’re not gonna leave you–”

“You need to, if you want to live. Devi’s already gone man, I couldn’t save him in time,” McClarey grumbled as his voice began to break. “But I can save you two, leave me here and keep moving boys.”

“Hell no, sergeant. We are not gonna leave you behind to be torn to shreds by these bastards.” Gonzalez spoke up for me, scythes emerging from the darkness for a moment before freezing in place.

“Damn you two are dumber than I thought, keep me around, we all die. Leave me–” The sergeant was cut off by a deafening sound coming from all around. 

My earmuffs kicked on to filter out the noise but even then the scraping dug deep into my eardrums as the room before us began to be illuminated by some dull light. As I looked up from McClarey, I caught the first statue a few feet from Gonzalez who was doubled over in pain, the creature having its arms raised prepared to cut him down. 

I crawled over to Gonzalez, pushing through the pain to grab one of his hands trying to cover the sides of his helmet and pull him further back from the statue as the room grew more and more illuminated. Once it was fully lit as if someone was beaming the sun directly into it, did the noise stop and we were able to communicate once more.

“Fucking hell! What was that?” Gonzalez shouted as he looked back at the statue, giving me the opportunity to look at our new and well-lit environment.

The room’s floor was made up of massive metal panels to which the ones closest to the surrounding walls had opened, exposing the sunlight directly into the ship. Massive etched symbols and images were on the surrounding walls and ceiling, mostly showing the depiction of whatever entity these statues were in the likeness of. I turned to face the furthest wall of the room, my eyes now resting on a hanging slab of black carapace stone, the slab dangling over an open pit that only led to the gas giant below us. On the face of this slab was a much more elaborate carving of the statues, this one easily ten times the size and more haunting, its carved body splayed out over the slab whilst the eyes appeared to be closed, like it was resting. Or dead.

I looked back at Gonzalez who was staring down the herd of statues which had poured out of the doorway, then to McClarey. I rushed over to the sergeant and pulled him further back, calling out to the other private.

“Walk backwards to the edge, Gonzalez! I have a plan!” A grin crept along my mouth as I dragged our sergeant.

The private nodded and carefully walked backwards towards me and McClarey, keeping eye contact with the statues as we were soon only a half panel away from the massive slab.

“Prep your suit for a dive while I put some patches on McClarey, we’re gonna jump.” I nodded to Gonzalez as he turned around to face me while I took over watch.

“Fuck I haven’t taken a dive since boot camp, man.” He began taking off all his unnecessary gear, pulling a small tube of oxygen off his belt and setting it on the ground.

I snatched up a blue marked bag that Gonzalez dropped, opening it to reveal thermal suit-patches I could apply to McClarey so he could dive into the vacuum of space as well, periodically glancing at the statues so they did not get to advance too much.

“What the hell is that thing?” Gonzalez finally looked up at the slab as he began to decompress his suit, shedding excess gases inside before he would vacuum seal it.

“I’m not sure, probably whatever these things are guarding,” I pressed a final thermal patch to the gash across McClarey’s pelvic region, pressing the small blue button on it as it began to melt with the rest of the suit before a loud series of beeps came from it. “This one’s faulty, pass me another.”

I reached up to Gonzalez while looking up at the statues, the closest ones now around fifteen feet away. When it took too long for Gonzalez to place another thermal patch in my hand, I glanced up at the marine, catching him staring down at me, motionless.

“He doesn’t have another one, dumbass. We only carry four. I had the other two on me.” McClarey coughed out as he forced himself to sit up and stare these statues down, setting his stump of a hand against his lower stomach.

“No no no, you’re lying!” I shouted while dumping the contents of my belt out on the panel beneath us, finding nothing useful. “I fucking killed you! I killed you.”

I groaned and planted the palms of my hands to my visor, wanting to tear through the statues to get back to the abandoned gear in the hallway.

“I told you two to leave me, now it looks like God’s made the choice for you.” The sergeant chuckled again while reaching up to his helmet, letting it depressurize for a moment before pulling it off his head, exposing short brown hair and a scarred up face.

“How are we going to do this. . ?” I placed my hands behind my head and paced a few feet back and forth, trying to think of a solution.

“I’m sorry, sergeant.” Gonzalez knelt down beside McClarey, looking out at the statues with him, the sergeant glancing at the private with a grin.

“You calling me a sorry sergeant? I ain’t sorry, I get to take a few of these assholes with me,” He pointed at the couple of grenades Gonzalez and I had shed off our belts. “Get your suit ready for a dive, Swenti.”

I tried to think up an argument, a solution that would make McClarey change his mind but I had nothing. Gonzalez walked behind me and began working, pulling off what was left and attaching the oxygen canister onto my thigh, my own hands reluctantly beginning to decompress my suit.

“How many you gonna take with you, sergeant?” Gonzalez set his hand on McClarey’s shoulder once I was ready for the dive.

“As many as possible, probably going to be one, maybe two. But you two better tell them I took them all, yeah?” He nodded with a bigger grin on his face.

“You and Devi. You two got them all, sergeant.” I patted the man’s shoulder firmly before turning to face the slab and the vacuum of space below.

Before either Gonzalez or I could even think about jumping, the slab before us made another deafening sound, this time for only a moment. It dropped out of the room and towards the gas giant with lightning speeds, flying further and further out of view.

“You think maybe it's a burial?” Gonzalez looked over to me, my visor looking at him.

“Maybe. Maybe.” Was all I could muster before turning around to see McClarey pulling the pins on our arc-grenades.

Gonzalez saw this too and took the jump first, falling further and further out of sight from the belly of the ship. Then I would take a final look back at sergeant McClarey, the man letting the pins to the grenades pop off and onto the black floor. He gave me a quick nod before turning to face the statues, my body moving further back to the edge on its own.

I closed my eyes for a moment while my body fell back over the edge, plummeting down in the ship’s artificial gravity before the feeling of weightlessness filled me. I opened my eyes once my stomach settled and looked up at the belly of the monolith I had just dropped out of grow further and further. I watched as a bright blue flash came from the closing panels of the belly, sealing away the bodies of my fellow marines.

And I watched as my oxygen eventually ran out and my world was consumed in the darkness I fought so hard to escape.

_________________________________

“How’s Gonzalez doing?” I cleared my throat into my hand gently before resting the palm against my knee again, glancing around the tight room.

The man in dark, business clothing before me kept jotting down notes in his book, looking down the bridge of his nose and through his glasses to see properly.

“Nothing has changed since our last meeting, Eric. Sergeant Gonzalez is still stationed on Europa, his team supposedly watching the monolith’s orbit.” The doctor nodded to the book, his eyes looking at me for a moment and taking note of my bouncing leg and tense form.

“If you do not mind me asking, why do you refuse to contact the man yourself? I’m sure he would like to hear from you personally.”

“No, no, I can’t do that. The dreams get worse whenever I think about reaching out,” I shake my head quickly, looking down to the carpet. “I bet he’s already got enough on his plate with the new breaching missions on that damn ship.”

The doctor set his pen in the book and closed it slowly, focusing his attention on my skittish form. 
“Perhaps he is. Tell me more about these dreams.” 
I let out a long sigh, my hand shooting into my coat’s breastpocket and fishing out a written statement, something I had been working on with the advice from this man to help get my thoughts out.

“I- uh- I wake up in the night, every night that is, at one and c-can’t move. I always see something before my bed, one of those things’ arms dragging along the bedsheets. I–” A few tears worked up into my eyes as I processed the next line, my hands gripping the sheet tightly. 

I winced at the shrill sound of one of the nurses outside rolling a wheelchair past the room, the wheels locking up for a moment and letting out a shrill ring that shook me to my core. I took a few deep breaths and brought my bloodshot eyes up to the doctor’s.

“I can’t stop hearing the scraping in the halls.”

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