I’m thankful to you reader, for having found my story. I am also sorry that you have decided to read it. I write this story not to bring fame nor fortune to me, not as a warning, but as a punishment. I must recount this tale in writing so that I should relive my greatest failure for as long as anyone should know of it. This is my burden to bear and I will carry it until the gods look down upon me and remove me from history.
Before I became the crippled husk that must write this story, I was a very bold man. I would battle man and beast with little hesitation, trek through the most treacherous of terrains, and speak however I felt to who ever I wanted to. The only thing I would shy away from was my heart. I believed that there was no woman I could love, but not for lack of want. I had tried to find the love that I had heard others speak of, but I never felt my stone heart warm to another. Until the day that I saw Her. The definition of beauty, a goddess amongst mortals. Adelaide. With a face that could outshine the sun and a voice that put birdsong to shame, I knew that she was the one that I had been waiting for. Despite constantly being tongue tied around her, we became fast friends. We went on adventures together, we discussed everything under the sun, we knew eachothers deepest secrets. But I was never able to take the next step. No matter how close together we grew, there was always something stopping me from asking her for her heart. I believe it was my fear that I could lose it all, not just to be rejected, but to never again see the face of my beloved Adelaide. What I fool I was. To have graced the heavens and fallen back to the darkest pit would have been better than having never known her light. But my punishment is not to write of my fearful heart, it is to relive my greatest failure.
A great evil had decended upon a town, whether it was from a god or devil no one knows. I was a part of the containment team who had been sent to destroy it. I set off with my unit to face against the creature that threatened normalcy. We approached the house in which the creature had disappeared into. I still remember the smell of the grass and the feel of the breeze as we prepared to break down the door and clear the house. I can recall hearing my newest cadet puking from the stress of his first mission. I can still hear the screams of my Leutenant as that thing devoured her head.
Timeline Divergence
We had blown the door off its hinges only to find a grotesque hive-like mess inside. The smell and sight of partially transformed civilians was enough to cause even me to vomit. Only Lieutenant Spute had kept her composure. While the rest of us wiped our chins, she took up a defensive position facing the kitchen. A slight scuffle had happened in that direction so we had all prepared to light up whatever had been morphed inside this flesh hellscape. That was when it happened. Whatever had started this nightmare had been busy reproducing and it wasn’t happy to see us. A flood of these spider things rained down from the ceiling and latched onto the heads of my soldiers. I watched Cadet Dengin turn his rifle towards his own face and paint the wall with his brain. Cadet Murphy tried to run outside and I had to put two rounds into her before the problem could spread. I prepared to order a napalm strike but a large millipede-man hybrid slammed against me, throwing me against the wall and destroying my radio. I prepared to die but it wasn’t me the abomination had been meaning to attack. It threw Leutanent Spute, Adelaide, across the room. I watched her rifle fly out of her hands and the light fade from her eyes. I could do nothing except crawl away. I locked myself in what seemed to be an untouched bathroom and cried for the first time in years. I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. I waited for Death to approach me and offer his cold embrace. But no solace would be presented. I faded between madness and sanity for an unknown amount of time until, finally, I was ready to sacrifice myself for the memory of the only person I could have loved. I burst out of my sanctuary and filled