Nightmare

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Owain-B176 punched open his SOEIV pod, and jumped out of it and looked around the forest he had landed in, then he heard a voice from nearby:
"Where are you, Owain?"
He began running towards the voice until finding out it came from Hammond, one of his Echo squad members, along the rest of his team and fellow Beta comrades he trained with, all of them in the firefight by the Covenant Refinery on Pegasi Delta. 
“Lima here with Echo, We’re pinned down here under Heavy plasma fire! We need backup!”
“This is India, we’re on our way Lima. Hold on!” India’s team leader said as he began emerging from the cover he and his team were using.
“India, you have an enemy ghost platoon making a beeline towards your position!” Team Romeo’s leader shouted into his radio as his squad mates engaged the ghosts that remained to fight them.
“Dammit! Lima, we can’t get to you.” India hunkered back down where they were right before the Ghosts arrived to fire on them.
"I’m here, Hammond!" Owain shouted, suddenly holding his machine gun. Owain set up over the edge and began firing towards the enemy Shade turrets focusing on Lima and Echo.
“Echo! We used our rockets on the banshees but where are YOUR heavy weapons?” One of Lima’s members shouted, right beside Owain.
“Team Leader Owain had them, he’s currently MIA” Diego shouted back, firing his assault rifle over the cover soon after. Owain stopped firing and went back into cover after hearing Diego, trying to understand the situation.
“This is Kilo, we’re almost there Lima. We’ll take care of those guns!” Jericho-B257 arrived soon after with his team, and began to draw the attention away from Lima. “Lima, If you have any heavy weapons, now is the time”
Owain was confused and tried to reach for Hammond, but a very loud explosion rumbled the battlefield. Everyone except him froze in place. Hammonds's body began to char without any open flames around. "Where were you, Owain? Where was Echo Leader?” Berta and Diego began to char as well and their bodies slowly burning down into nothingness. "Y o u   f a i l e d  u s" The phrase range louder in Owain’s mind than the explosion did.
"No, no no no!" Owain dropped his weapon and started to yell and slam the ground. "No! Hammond! Guys! Come back! I did not abandon you! I swear!” He tried desperately to collect the ash that Hammond had turned into.
"Hey, Owain! Come on! Covies are assaulting Anchor Station!" Owain felt like he woke up in his team’s quarters on Anchor Nine. He quickly got up and saw it was Elio who was calling him. "Come on, the rest of VENOM need you!"
“On my way!" Owain ran with Elio, sprinting through the decks until reaching the main hanger where they both saw Covenant forces landing by phantoms and James holding them off with Hilda. Elio and Owain fired their weapons against the enemy but as the battle went on, Owain kept thinking. “I.. I wasn’t stationed on Anchor Nine, we were never stationed here.” He looked at Elio who began to walk to the center of the hanger. “No, please”. Owain’s chest felt as if it had hit the floor, he started getting desperate, he tried to grab Elio’s arm and hold him back but his hand went through him as if his body was made of smoke. All he could do was watch as the hunters dropped from the phantom again, and crushed Elio under their mass.
"It hurts, Owain. My body was a cushion for those hunters". Elio coarsely said through Owain’s radio. Owain turned to look at Elio's that would continuously crumple up, his helmet and armor becoming a third of its size and blood oozed out of the cracks in his armor as Elio dragged his body towards him. "I was still alive, Owain. You left me" He reached Owain’s feet and then lied flat on the metallic deck. "Y o u   f a i l e d   m e". Elio said before completely crumbling away.
Owain was getting desperate, he knew this was a nightmare. A horrible, accursed nightmare but he didn't know how to leave. He franticly spun around, looking for a way out.
"Do you need a way out?" This time it was Hilda and James.
"No. Oh god no. Please" Owain shook his head in desperation as he walked backwards. He tripped and fell on his back only to sit up and see that he had tripped over a dead spartan. The area then cleared up around him to show a dead dry land with damaged structures and lifeless dirt, with more dead Spartans scattered around.
"Rally Point Omega, you left before we could fight here together, Owain." James whispered. "We were supposed to all die together, Owain". Owain closed his eyes, hoping to leave the torment.
"Owain, bud. Come on. It's me, Hilda" Owain opened his eyes. He saw Hilda in her Pilot armor, but all that was left inside was her skeletal remains inside.
"Y o u   l e f t   u s" her skeleton with worms and other insects skittering on the pilot helmet moved its jaw as she said it in a rough and rotten voice. "W e   d i e d  a l o n e" James said as Owain saw his body, with blood oozing out of his right arm socket.
Owain got up and ran but wherever he ran, he kept hearing his squadmates say the same thing without ever stopping and it only kept getting louder.
“Coward.”           “Failure”              “Weak”                “Failure”              “Slow”                  “Failure”             
He suddenly woke up in a panic, restrained in a hospital bed. He looked around, seeing how the dark grey walls and floors were full of dents. He saw a nurse that still had her hand on a needle, having injected something into his IV.
“W-where am I?” Owain asked as he moved around, disoriented.
“You’re on Earth, at the Fajardo Post-Operations Treatment Center, Floor 12. You had another hallucination. Doctor decided it would be better to wake you” The nurse explained, almost as if she's had to say this before. Owain was still lost, looking around in a confused state. “It is currently 15:33, February 12th, 2554. You’ve been submitted a year ago for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as well as Psychosis after a mission on Leonis Mironis IV.” She walked to the door which opened automatically and silently.
“How… how long until I’m out” Owain said, still out of it.
“You’re recovering, spartan, just rest for now” The nurse said before leaving the room. The door silently slid closed and the lights in his room dimmed.
Category:The Weekly
Category:Tooth and Blade