HOME | DD

Description

The man in hazmat continued to flee westward, sanity coming apart with each step.

It’s been seven hours since the sirens started ringing in the Singpa IAF base, prompting soldiers to empty the biohazard suite for gasmasks: the three civilian contractors were ordered inside the biohazard tent, and, almost as an afterthought, were accompanied by a sole junior officer rotated in from the TFA. Then came the almost-silence, with the occasional sub-vocal command being relayed thru the intercom - ‘boots and bots securing the perimeter, a fixed-wing UAV roaring towards the Border, the unmistakable clicking of microwave CIWS turrets rotating into expected firing angles.

Then the coughing started. It was all over the intercom, uncontrollable and getting worse, bubbling noises getting through the filters: then the soldiers started dropping like flies, the TFA officer’s shivering each time the SSIN cut a connection.

The rest is blurry: piles of dead bodies burning, hours of riding a logistic bot in the scorching heat of the suit, then marching through swamps and half overgrown roads. There was sometimes a roar overhead, unseen machines scrambling around the Border.

He does not remember where or how he loses the rest of the survivors. Still, his legs propel him westward, leaving the roads behind, marching hours until he comes across a pond of rainwater in a small clearing, the dead body of a ‘bot - a leftover from the Bangladeshi Intervention - marking a clearing in the canopy.

He is boiling inside by now, and even though a small and distant part of his brain screams against the idea, he lowers his legs into the cold water to cool off. Its hard to keep the inflated legs underwater, but he stops his hand before they could open the valve.

He is only half-awake by now, synapses and thoughts coming apart at the seams. Whatever got him slipped through the old filters and the dozen warning systems, and it's not stopping now: as he watches his reflection in the water, the man who once remembered his name stops to be.

The body is more resilient, though: by the time he starts vomiting blood, he is not there to feel it. The clumsy fingers, led by chance and instinct, manage to rip his visor as a last act, and the man that was once was falls into the water, tainting it crimson.

____________________

Hazmat suit created by:

sketchfab.com/impulsio

Direct link at:

skfb.ly/oF8A9

Description

The man in hazmat continued to flee westward, sanity coming apart with each step.

It’s been seven hours since the sirens started ringing in the Singpa IAF base, prompting soldiers to empty the biohazard suite for gasmasks: the three civilian contractors were ordered inside the biohazard tent, and, almost as an afterthought, were accompanied by a sole junior officer rotated in from the TFA. Then came the almost-silence, with the occasional sub-vocal command being relayed thru the intercom - ‘boots and bots securing the perimeter, a fixed-wing UAV roaring towards the Border, the unmistakable clicking of microwave CIWS turrets rotating into expected firing angles.

Then the coughing started. It was all over the intercom, uncontrollable and getting worse, bubbling noises getting through the filters: then the soldiers started dropping like flies, the TFA officer’s shivering each time the SSIN cut a connection.

The rest is blurry: piles of dead bodies burning, hours of riding a logistic bot in the scorching heat of the suit, then marching through swamps and half overgrown roads. There was sometimes a roar overhead, unseen machines scrambling around the Border.

He does not remember where or how he loses the rest of the survivors. Still, his legs propel him westward, leaving the roads behind, marching hours until he comes across a pond of rainwater in a small clearing, the dead body of a ‘bot - a leftover from the Bangladeshi Intervention - marking a clearing in the canopy.

He is boiling inside by now, and even though a small and distant part of his brain screams against the idea, he lowers his legs into the cold water to cool off. Its hard to keep the inflated legs underwater, but he stops his hand before they could open the valve.

He is only half-awake by now, synapses and thoughts coming apart at the seams. Whatever got him slipped through the old filters and the dozen warning systems, and it's not stopping now: as he watches his reflection in the water, the man who once remembered his name stops to be.

The body is more resilient, though: by the time he starts vomiting blood, he is not there to feel it. The clumsy fingers, led by chance and instinct, manage to rip his visor as a last act, and the man that was once was falls into the water, tainting it crimson.

____________________

Hazmat suit created by:

sketchfab.com/impulsio

Direct link at:

skfb.ly/oF8A9