End Boss

by Bryan Nyaude

Darn! Who were these people or aliens? Were they another life form from this planet? Why was I always one step behind them whenever they came? I had to find them, but I just didn’t know where to start looking first. Out of the blue, I heard a loud noise, coming from the vents. Was it a survivor? No, it was way too noisy to be survivor since the racket came from something very large. The vents began to bend down, like something was stretching them from the inside. At that point, I began to run as fast as I could towards the engine room. I hopped over some broken pieces of pipe and ducked through a broken compartment wall. The fallen pieces of damaged equipment were making it hard to jolt through nonstop. I heard another roar, followed by something breaking down the vents. The floor trembled heavily, barely shaken by the fall of something large. I took a small glimpse back and saw a terror beast leap out and come towards me, at a menacing speed.

  Oh no! Where was that old man when you needed him? By myself, I was no match for a terror beast, even if I was armed with a level two weapon. As soon as the hallway split into two, I threw the first smoke canister in order to throw it off course, as I ran the other way. I took the left corridor, narrowly running over a charge compacter. Was it still following me? I stopped and took a breather as I looked back.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  It was still coming after me, despite my efforts to slow it down; it seemed I had miscounted its sense of smell, which seemed much keener than I anticipated. I quickly took out my rifle and began to fire at it, while slowly backing away, two steps at a time. The creature gnawed loudly, moving slowly with its eyes directly at me. My condensed proton bullets were doing nothing to even slow it down as they ricocheted away upon contact. Just what kind of skin did these creatures have? Did they have any weakness at all? My back hit something heavy and hard, causing me to look back quickly.

  Finally, I had stumbled upon a door reserved for emergency purposes like these. It didn’t require a password or access card, fortunately for me. I placed my left arm on it, and pried it open it with one hand while firing my weapon at the terror beast with the other. The terror beast somehow realized what I was doing and began to move faster in order to stop me. Just as the creature was within striking distance, I opened the door in time and locked myself in. Phew! Any second later and I would have been history. There were loud bangs on the door like something was hitting against it—the large door ached roughly from both angles. I felt my heart skip a beat at the thought of the creature getting inside, which was rather a matter of seconds. I realized the creature was not going to give up, meaning I had to think of a way out of this mess. The walls were made of thick steel, all around, with a small ventilation system. It would take a level 5 weapon to make a dent or destroy this room. I slowly took a long breath of air and positioned my body firmly, with one knee on the ground.

  “Just try to relax,” I whispered to myself, trying to calm down.

  Everything made of matter had a weakness; all I had to do was think. If the terror beasts had a tough skin on the outside, to shield them from the elements and other things that would like to harm them, then what about the inside? Their innards couldn’t possibly be as tough and scaly as their outside, were they? I thought back to the giant lizard, I had fought before, and realized something. It was only the terror beasts' skin that was rigid and tough; however, the inside part was a different story. Plus, the gravity on this planet was a whole lot heavier than on earth, which somehow had to affect them as much as it did us. I quickly put all the pieces in order, inside my mind, and placed my hope on a guess.

  All I had to do now was to aim accurately into its mouth, whenever it broke the door apart. No! That was easier said than done. I mean, it’s not like it was going to open its mouth and let me shoot it, was it? Odds of my plan succeeding seemed slightly less favorable. The terror beast kept banging its body against the door so hard I felt it start to crack. It was only a couple of seconds before that creature was in here. My breathing lowered while my mind became void of all other imperative thoughts. Slowly, I deployed smoke canisters everywhere and hid myself within the smoke, as I heard the door break apart. The metal door fell off onto the corridor as loud steps rattled inside. There was faint growl echoing thoroughly on all sides of the compartment. It was in here—so close to me, I could hear it snarl softly. The terror beast took a few steps around the room, hoping to sniff me out from the smoke. I wanted to cough so badly, but for my plan to work, I had to breathe extra quiet. My throat lunged at me, sending impulsive reflexes into my lungs. I wanted to cough out loudly, to expel the air from my lungs, but not yet. I held my gun closer to my face, horizontally extending it and waited patiently for the terror beast to come within range. Suddenly, it stopped moving and begun to growl out loudly in a horrible screech. I was so close to it, I almost went deaf as the sound echoed around the walls. I lost my focus and coughed as I breathed a little bit of smoke. The smoke clouded my vision and made me a bit woozy.

  Just what was this beast doing now? The smoke cleared a little bit from the room, exiting into the metal corridor. I could see a shadow faintly lingering in the room. Just hoping it hadn’t seen me too, as I began to crawl towards it slowly. Wait! What was I doing? I had a chance to run and yet I was going towards this creature, in attempt to kill it? Within range, it lowered its head and growled loud and long in attempt to frighten me. Yes! This was my chance; I raised my gun and fired at its mouth. It roared in pain and ran out of the room quickly. Greatly, I was pushed back by some unknown force and fell on my back. I groaned in pain for a minute, lying still on the metal floor.

  Had I done it? No, it seemed as though I had missed by a little bit. The creature had glided out of my gaze into the corridor outside. I had injured it; however, I did not destroy the beast. I coughed out loudly as I got out of the room slowly. My body reacted violently once the smoke had left my body. I made my way towards a wall and leaned back against it, trying hard to breathe normally. It was exhausting just to hold my fear in, but I’m glad I had kept it together for so long. I balanced back on my feet once the trembling had stopped—both arms shivered heavily I was barely able to hold my gun firmly. The canister smoke seemed to have side effects I had not yet accounted for. I had a feeling that this creature was still inside the ship and I had to find it. Finally, I knew that it had a weakness and that it could be defeated with a blast to the mouth. Well, that was still just an assumption, but if my hunch was right, then I had found a way to turn the tide of this war around. There was black blood residue on the fallen door, which I could only assume was from the terror beast, leading straight towards the engine room. It was sticky and slimy, far unlike anything I had ever seen before. Since no one on earth had ever taken one of them down, we had never examined their blood up close. I quickly lowered myself and took a sample of the blood putting it into a small empty capsule. The blood stuck to the lid of the capsule like glue on paper. I placed the capsule into a secure side inside of my thigh plate pocket and carefully examined my surroundings. The walls in the corridor were still holding strong, but showed signs that something powerful had dented them.

  After one good long breath of air, I began to track the trail of blood from the injured terror beast. Without working scanners, I had no way to digitally track its movements, meaning I had to physically follow the blood residue on the floor. I lowered my stance and balanced my weight firmly into my abdomen, allowing me to stealthy make my way around the corridors in abrupt silence. Residues of blood were rarely vacant, almost making it hard to locate the direction it was moving. However, I had a pretty good idea of where the creature was going. I rechecked my weapon one last time and inserted a new extended cartridge of bullets. My heart paced calmly as l raised my weapon in the air, gazing in both directions carefully. A loud noise came from the engine room just up ahead—I quickly hurried towards a corner to hide. The door to the compartment looked torn and dismantled, like a terror beast had forced its way in.

  “What am I doing, seriously,” I shook my head, carele
ssly, realizing what I was about to do was a bad idea. My hands trembled nervously for a second at the thought of another head on collision with the creature. I cocked my head towards the door, hoping to see a glimpse of the creature. It was completely dark with no signs of life. I knew the terror beast was still inside, but did not know its exact position. “The creature is hurt; it won’t put up much of a fight now.”

  I paused briefly for a second, before moving unhurriedly towards the compartment. A sense of awareness intensified my focus, allowing me to completely zone out every positive and negative thought I had. One step at a time, I approached the compartment with my rifle extended outwards in front of me.

  The moment I got into the engine room, I looked around quickly, planning to find it first, before it found me. Completely and utterly nothing stirred in my presence— silence engulfed the whole room. Broken pieces of equipment lay wasted all over the floor in retribution to the crash. The creature wasn’t anywhere in sight. One thing for sure was that it knew really well how to hide, like someone had trained it. Or was it because it was evolving into a better predator? Oh crap, the trail of blood vanished completely—like it had been wiped clean. Either way, something sure felt strange about how things were turning out on this mission. I didn’t expect to find another person living on this planet, or to find a mysterious group that took people away. I gazed up for a clear view of the compartment from the inside. The engine room was a complete mess and there were super foam residues left everywhere inside. How could this have happened? It defied logic; the ship wasn’t supposed to crash like that. Something else was afoot here. I heard a big clank from somewhere within the room and raised my gun up quickly. My body filled up with adrenaline. I turned my head in all directions, while lowering my stance for a better shot. The combination of fear, danger, and excitement was just too intense for me. The sound got more intense as I heard a loud object move toward my location, approaching from the vents above me. Within a glimpse of a second, I saw the terror beast jump towards me, with its claws extended widely in front, and its jaws lashing open.

  I wanted to take the shot, but if I missed, the beast would slash me apart with its claws. Darn! I rolled away to avoid it, and shot it a series of proton bullets on its abdomen. The bullets didn’t even phase it, as it got back up and began to blitz towards me for a second strike. I held my breath in and stood there, motionless, waiting for the perfect chance to fire one accurate round in its mouth. Once it got within range, the creature jumped at me with its mouth wide open, ready to strike me down. I fired my weapon into its mouth at point blank and shielded myself with my hands. The beast tackled me onto the floor and growled out loudly as it got up and ran out. It smashed the hull of the ship apart and ran right through it, heading towards the forest. No way! Even two bullets to the mouth weren’t enough to destroy this creature? How was this all possible? I had injured it, but not killed it. Something was not adding up, I had a terrible gut feeling that supported a new theory. On this planet, these ravaging beasts were a whole lot weaker and slower than those that appeared on earth. They were still powerful; however, not as strong as the ones wrecking the planet earth. Gravity, perhaps, played a major part in my new theory. Just what was I missing? I had all the pieces, but just couldn’t connect them all together.

  “You really are a crazy fool,” the alien man glided out of the corridor, with his hands folded in front. He barely smiled, but his eyes sparkled fiercely. “I didn’t think you had it within you to face that creature, but you proved me wrong.”

  Fiend! Just what game was he playing? I had almost lost my life and he didn’t seem to care. The unknown man moved closer to me, turning his head away to look at the engine room.

  “Why didn’t you help me?” I screamed at him with the remaining strength I had. “I could have been killed, you know?”

  “Be quiet,” he growled at me quickly. “You didn’t tell me the condition of this ship, so I decided to teach you a lesson—so next time you’d know better than to fool me. Besides, I wanted to get the main nuclear reactor ready to work. Your nuclear core needs to be stabilized quickly or you are going to explode and take this ship with you.”

  Oh! Well, that was a good point he made, but, still, he could have at least given me a hand or two. My arms ached terribly, forcing me to drop the rifle in my hands. It let out a terrible clank once it hit the ground. I looked down at it, unable to bend down to pick it up—I was fatigued beyond my limits.

  “You are running out of time,” he continued and quickly helped me up. “The nuclear core in your suit has reached its critical point; any minute from now, it will explode. Come with me right now, to the main reactor.”

  “Okay,” I panted, scuffling hard to stay on my feet.

  “You are such a pain.”

  The alien man moved closer to me and placed my left arm around his shoulder to support me. He led me through the narrow corridor, across the mess hall, towards the fusion reactor room a floor below. The door opened automatically and we made our way inside cautiously without delay. I climbed onto the metal bed and rested my weary body against it. The latches on the bed firmly clutched onto my body, stabilizing it for the armor extracting procedure. A loud beeping noise erupted, causing the armor to shut down without warning. My movements became static as all that I could move now was my head. The air became thin. Small nanomyte particles appeared, glowing heavily inside the compartment. They bloated in every direction, spreading widely like noxious gases. Smog filled the room, too, and a robot drone came down from a hidden latched door, near the fan ducts with engineering equipment. The drone had a body of aluminum alloy, with dense solid gold crab like claws as hands. Red eyes, with lifeless glimmer, looked down on me with no signs of remorse or fear. It removed my outer titanium suit shell and inserted a plug from the main reactor. This jolted me for a few seconds, but it felt like a huge weight was being released from my shoulders. The chemical components of the main reactor were fusing with the nuclear properties in the core of my suit, in order to reach equilibrium. I truly never realized how heavy my suit was until all the power was turned down. It was so heavy; I could barely move any part of my body, except for my head.

  “Almost ready,” the alien man commented from the other room. “You might want to breathe slowly because this last part is going to hurt.”

  What! What did he mean by that? Before I could ask him, I felt a tremendous jolt of electricity run down my spine. It was so strong and unbearable; I could hardly breathe. I had never felt such an extraordinary amount of pain before and it only got worse. I tried clenching my teeth and fists, but that only made it worse. The jolt of electricity finally stopped; however, my mind had been disturbed. I could hardly breathe and move as I felt helpless. Slowly, I closed my eyes, at the same time, struggling to stay awake. I had to see this through to the end, although I wasn’t sure if I had enough strength left to make that happen.

  “Your body handled it well, kid! I am surprised to say the least” he laughed from the other room, almost pissing me off. “That armor can’t be removed without hurting you. If I tried to remove it by force, I could break you sternum apart or possibly cause it to explode. I don’t know why you chose that armor, but it looks like you are stuck with it for a while. I told you it was a one way ticket based armor suit for soldiers going into enemy territory, with no chance of coming back, so I hope you understand.”

  No! How could I have been so stupid? It now dawned on me that curiosity could lead to serious consequences, if the wrong decision was made.

  “Will it still explode?”

  “No, I managed to stabilize it back towards normal radius for now. Your life is no longer in danger.”

  “Is there anything I can do to get it off?”

  “No, kid, sorry—not with the equipment on this ship anyway. But I’m going to start remaking your armor with everything; well, anything I can find. It’s going to take time, so if I were you, I would close my eyes and take a nap for a while.”

/>   Right! There was no sense in staying awake through the entire painful process, waiting for all of it to be over. The nerves in my body had become so sensitive that a slight twitch could bring unbearable pain. I slowly took small breathes of air and sighed silently as my eyes closed. It felt good to just relax all my muscles and just fall into a deep sleep.

  (Thursday 16 2992) 1416 hrs. 4 Years Ago

  “Den! Den! Come on,” Ed yelled, pulling me forward. “There is something in the school. I don’t know much about the details, but it’s really bad.”

  I pushed his hand away strongly, rejecting his words completely. I was beyond merely stressed as school was coming to an end. I gazed back at him with a face filled with anger—he looked terrified, as if something dreadful had happened.

  What did he want? We had 10 more pages for our final research project to write; it was due in one week from now, which meant we had to work even harder, to get done in time.

  “Ignore it, Ed,” I said, sounding ignorant. “It’s probably just another drill the school has us do to prepare for emergency situations. Let’s just forget about it and get back to work. If it’s really real, they’ll inform us on our com pads.”

  “You are not serious, are you?” Ed asked with frustration written all over his face. “Is school really much more important to you than your safety?”

  Hmm! That was a good question and almost hard to answer. I bit my lip, raising my eyes to seriously think about it, my hands latched firmly onto my com pad. Well, it would depend on the context of the situation. Moments later, we heard a huge explosion, coming from the pavilion, and we ducked down under the table. Everything molded onto our walls fell down as the building shook heavily. The sound of the university’s orbital gun going off finally rang fear into my heart. Okay, maybe, now it was time to panic and forget about school for a little bit.