The pounding in my ears echoed as I ran. From above me the thick, acrid blood rained down from the wounded beast. Its eight, heaving legs strained against death. It was not desperate to fight, it was programmed to. A deep, inexplicable urge to consume and destroy drove the creature forwards.

Beneath its broken towering body I ran. My feet pounding into the blood soaked earth that glowed faintly beneath my feet. The planet was dying; these creatures were dying; and, although I did not know it yet, I was dying.

To my right Tommy raised the automatic in his arms. He held it tight as if it might escape him in one frantic buck. He was a big man, made mostly of muscle and yet that gun made him look prepubescent. The power as it fired drove his arms and steered his destruction. He gritted his teeth and fired into the fleshy underside of the crawling gargantuan. I had known the man for less than a week and yet we fought beside each other and moved as one. It sounds poetic but the reality is less so.

War is common sense. Once you’ve fought in enough of them it becomes automatic: like breathing. You can feel death chasing you and the drive to run faster takes over. You fight because you know how. You fight because it’s your only fucking option.

A burning, searing pain slashed my face. Blood. The towering bastard was bleeding on me. I wiped at my face with the crook of my arm but it did little other than spread the pain to new areas. Their blood doesn’t eat into the flesh but it sure hurts enough that you fear it might. No matter how long you fight these things you never get used to the pain of their blood. A little comic vengeance in their death.