We ran harder than before now, hoping desperately to find some escape before the last of us were picked off. Claire stopped crying and concentrated on moving her feet one after the other, but it was obvious she was still holding back tears. Jason and I were also clearly hiding our grief. The tunnels and caves felt darker and more cramped as we ran through. It felt as if the bones scattered across the ground were silently calling us to join them; as if the stench of rot was poisoning us with every breath; as if each dark pool of water was a deep well of blood trying to drown us in its depths. Jason stopped in one taller tunnel, looking up at one of the walls. Claire and I stopped, too. "What?" I followed his gaze, and saw he was looking at the entrance to a smaller tunnel placed high on the wall. He looked to me. "Go, I'll make it look like we continued down this hall and make some noise while you go through up there," he instructed. "No," I muttered, shaking my head, "No, no..." He put a hand on my shoulder and his helmet disappeared. His deep brown eyes peered at mine through my visor. "This way there's more of a chance that at least one person will escape, and I want you two in a pair since you can't sneak as well," he explained. But I knew that he just wanted to give us a bigger chance of escaping, and that he wouldn't back down on this, just like Cassie. I put my hands on his shoulders, too, and looked into his eyes one last time. "Good luck," I got out weakly, nearly crying. "Good luck," he responded, then slipped his hand off my shoulder as his helmet reappeared on his head. We climbed up into the tunnel. "Good luck Jason!" Claire cried. Jason gave a small salute and scuffed up the ground a ways to make it look like a group of us had ran down the hallway, then bolted and vanished around a corner. I bowed my head for a second, thinking of Derick, Maxwell, Cassie, Jason, and all their Ghosts. If I survived I would memorialize their names in the Tower, and I knew I would think about them every day and fight the Darkness in their names. Claire and I began moving again, not encountering any Hive through these next several tunnels we turned down. After several minutes of wandering, trying to find a way out, we heard something. Gunshots rang through the halls. Jason's hand cannon. Then a yell followed in a voice I knew all too well, only to be cut off abruptly. Jason was gone. Claire sobbed quietly and wrapped her arms around me, burying her head against my chest plate. I held her, too, taking comfort in her arms as she did in mine. We sat there in the dark, hoping beyond hope that the Hive wouldn't find us and we would see the light of day again. * • • Once again we ran side by side down the halls, through the caverns, and across the bridges. I could find no reason why we didn't encounter anymore Hive accept that just maybe they were looking for us in the wrong place, but I was relieved to not be shooting through those bloodthirsty creeps. There was no way to know where underneath the Moon's surface we were or which tunnels lead out, so we did our best, choosing paths that seemed to slope upward. The only place we knew was the abyss. We came upon a massive cavern, no lights or fluorescent crystals placed to illuminate the path. The platform leading through here was narrow in comparison to most others we had crossed, only measuring several feet across, and we could barely see ahead or behind ourselves, much less into the deep black at our sides. We did not turn on our lights for fear of being seen. As we walked, I saw the surfaces of a few boulders lean out of the darkness and stop right next to the path. They were close enough to the platform to touch. As we went by a gap between two of them and I peered into the pitch black crevice, three glowing green eyes opened and met my gaze. I started back and raised my gun, Claire following suite. In the darkness of the cavern around us, dozens of sets of glowing green eyes opened and focused in on us. No, hundreds. The Hive turned on lanterns placed about the cavern, illuminating the rocky terrain and showing us that he rocks came right up to the platform all around, allowing one to easily climb up onto the level we were on. Their trap had been sprung. We gaped in horror at the army around us and looked to the owner of the first set of eyes we had seen as it stepped out from between the boulders. The large Hive Knight stood a couple feet taller than us and looked down maliciously, brandishing its huge and blunt Kleaver. Before it could swing the deadly sword I pulled out my shotgun and blasted through the Knight's thick bone armor, knocking it to its knees with blood leaking down its side. The mass of Hive surged forward at the pull of my trigger and Claire and I ran down the path, not bothering to finish off the Knight. I kept out my shotgun and Cassie used her sidearm, focused on keeping the Hive from grabbing us since they were already close. The exit was in view; once we reached it the Hive would be behind us instead of surrounding and it would only be a matter of outrunning them then. Garish faces of Thrall and Acolytes continuously lunged into view. For each one I could see their glowing eyes, glinting fangs, and bone white skin as they reached for me, only to be blasted away in sprays of blood and become distorted with the shrapnel of my shotgun shells. It was at the mouth of the tunnel that I felt Claire's hand grab my forearm only to slip down and slide off over my hand. At that I turned and saw that a Thrall had reached out its arm and caught Claire by the ankle, tripping her. She had reached out to grab me but slipped right off, and now fell to the ground. I stopped and watched in horror as more Thrall grabbed her by the legs and dragged her backwards into the swarm. "KALIK!" She screamed my name as she slid along the floor, trying desperately to reach out to me. But I couldn't reach her, and the Thrall were slamming into me, grabbing and trying to drag me back as well. With a yell I raised fists crackling with electricity into the air and slammed them down in a Fist of Havoc. The wave of devastating Arc-Light that shot out in a sphere around me cleared the Hive within several meters of me, dissolving their bodies with a flash of light and crackle of static. Yet she had been taken too far and was not uncovered by my attack nor able to be seen amongst the Hive that were now visible further back. I could only run. Thrall followed close behind me; I could hear their teeth gnashing at the air and feel their claws slashing through the space around me. But my superior Guardian physique allowed me to run faster than they could and for longer periods of time easily, so I slowly pulled ahead of the bloodthirsty hoard. After a few tunnels I came around a corner and was immediately on a bridge crossing the abyss. In the few seconds I had before the Hive caught up I looked around and spotted another bridge several meters below and a couple meters to the left of my current location. I leaped down, using my Light to slow my acceleration downward so I would avoid slamming into the ground. Ducking into the tunnel that let out into that bridge, I heard the pounding of Hive footsteps on the bridge I had jumped from and their occasional shrieks. Satisfied that I had escaped temporarily once again, I went down the tunnel. Nothing stirred in these tunnels and caverns, but now I was even more on edge, expecting Hive to jump out from every crevice and shadow in another ambush. But no ambush came. It felt like I had been wondering for a few hours before a sound besides my own breathing and footsteps came to my ears. It was distant screaming. My feet moved of my own accord, propelling me forward and turning down whichever hallways seemed to be projecting the sound loudest, therefore being closer. As I drew closer I recognized the screams, fear weighing down like an anvil in my stomach. They were Claire's screams. _____________________________ Link to part 6: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/217379081/0/0 Link to part 8: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/217379235/0/0 Master post: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/217384398/0/0