Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

spraying Frost's face. She snarled with distaste, but didn't give ground by so much as a step.
    Blood poured in streams from Graves' mouth and nose, his eye sockets and his ears. Silence grabbed Graves by the arm, and it crunched up in his grasp as though there was nothing really there inside the sleeve anymore. The esper folded up and fell slowly and gracefully to the floor, just an empty skin and so much blood. Silence and Frost moved to stand back-to-back, their weapons in their hands.
    There were screams all around them. Some didn't sound human. A marine came running toward Silence. He'd thrown away his weapons and had both hands clapped tight to his ears, as though trying to block out some intolerable sound. He kept running even though Silence stepped into his path to stop him, then ran straight through Silence as though he was a ghost. Silence turned quickly to look behind him, but there was no trace of the marine anywhere. Silence put his back against
    Frost's again, turning round just in time to see a man's head explode as though it had a grenade in it, showering the screaming, jostling mob of marines and espers with blood and brains and fragments of skull.
    An esper disappeared, air rushing in to fill the vacuum where he'd been. Other espers were crying and laughing, their eyes wild and empty. A marine, fell into one of the steel walls and disappeared as it swallowed him up. Something horrible appeared in the midst of everything: a tangle of bone and blood and viscera that might have been human once. It disappeared with a wet smack as it reached out to Frost with a dripping hand. She shook her head fiercely, as a throbbing headache beat in her ears like a pulse. Her hands were trembling, but she still held onto her weapons.
    Two marines slammed into each other and ran together like two colors on a palette, their sticky flesh intermingling beyond any hope of separation. They both screamed with the same voice. Silence wanted to shoot them, but he didn't.
    He might need the charge in his gun yet, if only to turn it on himself if it became necessary. Marines and espers were running in all directions now, strange and distorted as though space itself had become elastic where they were. And all around the harsh popping of exploding heads and what used to be human voices laughing and screaming their sanity away.
    A growing pressure built around Silence's mind, as though his head was in a vise. His fingers seemed to have too many joints, and he didn't trust his body anymore. He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating on his mission and his duty. Neither seemed too clear anymore, or particularly important. He forced his eyes open and glared about him, desperate for some enemy he could identify or attack, but there was nothing. Just the dreadful
    steel walls, and his people dying. He looked back and saw Frost, falling to her knees. She still had hold of her sword and gun, but her eyes were lost in a private hell.
    Silence's thoughts slammed together again. He grabbed Frost by the arm and hauled her to her feet, and if her arm didn't feel entirely human, well, neither did he. He had to get out of the Maze. Get Frost out of the Maze. He pointed his disrupter at the nearest wall and fired. The searing energy beam tore through the steel like paper, crumpling it up and throwing it aside. He bolstered his gun and grabbed Frost's. She was muttering to herself, and her eyes were starting to focus again. He aimed his gun at another wall, and it swung slowly backward, opening up a path for him. He hurried back the way he'd come, as near as he could tell, dragging Frost along with him.
    And only a few moments later he was staggering out of the Maze, hugging Frost to him, and Stelmach was hurrying forward to meet him. Silence handed Frost over to him, and then sat down suddenly as his legs gave out on him. Somebody was crouching beside him and pressing a hypo against his neck. The cold hiss of the drug surging through his blood revived him a little, and his head began to clear. He realized Dram was standing over him, holding another hypo, and he forced himself to his feet again. He looked across at Frost, who was still sitting on the ground. Stelmach was leaning over her with an empty hypo in his hand, muttering reassuringly to her. Probably embarrass the hell out of her, once she was feeling better, but it seemed to be what she needed for the moment.
    He looked at Dram, standing beside him.
    "How many others