A Curse

Halo Fanon Weekly #166: To Whom(st) It May Concern
A Curse
	The freezer door opened, and wispy white tumbles of air poured to the floor, washing over worn, steel toed combat boots. A dusty, sweaty, clammy hand reached inside, fumbling about till it found its mark. Plastic and ice rasped against the box as it was pulled from the freezer, roughly bent and slapped down on the table as the hand rummaged through it. In the scorching arid heat of the officer’s lounge, the prize within felt like no less than Excalibur itself. 
	Wood pierced plastic as the weapon was unsheathed, glistening under the sterile white lights above. The blade was long, tapered, and yellow, slightly damp from the way it was stored. And it tasted like lemon.
	The officer reclined against the table with a sigh, sticking the popsicle in his mouth, and simply enjoying the sweet, sour taste and the coolness, the relief it offered in his short break from the sweltering heat outside. He turned over the empty box with a sigh, tired eyes idly tracing over the colorful packaging. Real fruit juice, with the lemons themselves grown on Earth. The officer was born on Reach, though, he’d never seen Earth.
	Fingers brushed against a damp piece of paper on the back of the box. Brows creased, and the package was flipped over. A piece of paper, folded in quarters, was held to the box with a single piece of papery blue tape. Tearing it off, officer slowly unfolded it, setting the package back down. It was scrawled in pen by an unsteady hand, lettering slightly blurred from its time in the freezer. The officer began to read.
To the scum sucking troglodyte it definitely concerns…
	Stop eating my popsicles. It’s the twenty-sixth century, and human beings didn’t develop complex systems of communication and etiquette over the course of millennia just for you to be a thieving Neanderthal robbing me of my one solace at this godforsaken post. This is my last warning to you, you socially regressive, lobotomized, subhuman piece of garbage. I can and will contact the proper channels just to get cameras in these stupid lounges just so I can capture the sheer audacity of your animalistic antics on video, all for the express purpose of getting you demoted or reassigned so you CAN’T EAT MY POPSICLES ANYMORE. And god help you if I catch your stone-age primitive face with one of my popsicles in your mouth. I will wring your neck, break each bone in your body, submit you to torture the likes of which humanity has never seen. Your world will end. I guarantee it.
The officer shrugged dismissively, crumpling the paper up and tossing it across the room into the wastebasket, where it bounced off the rim and onto the floor. With a grunt, he trudged over to pick it up. As he leaned down to pick it up, the base wide speakers blared out deafeningly.
“THE COVENANT ARE ON REACH, THIS IS NOT A DRILL, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!”
“Fuck.”
Category:The Weekly