Locked In, Blood Everywhere
5 October 163 GA
I am, I was, covered in blood. I don’t…
The rock bugs. There are many of them. There must have been a colony in the peninsula, and we disturbed it. They’ve been coming out of the jungle up the hill towards the colony for what seems like weeks. The marine snipers were killing them off, and as they grew bolder the major in charge of the marines moved the one tank we have over towards the peninsula. They started shooting the big tank gun when more than one beast came out of the tree line. The sound of the heavy rail gun going off… like a hole being ripped in the sky. It vibrates your chest and….
But a couple days ago…
These things charged through the grasses with the rock bugs;
But some of them were different. Bigger, stronger… mutated. The marines had formed a defensive line. Sandbags, the tank, plus the armored vehicles they used for transport. The little ones… they’re faster. And savage. Jumping and stabbing. They moved so fast…
I don’t know how many marines died. Most of them. Maybe all. I think some of the first expeds might’ve gotten away. I think I saw some of them crawling in their black armor, but I can’t be sure. So much happened so fast.
The grasshoppers in the plains? I don’t know how, or why, but some of them joined in. Big as city buildings they used their legs to pick up the real boulders and throw them. Just like catapults from the old-Earth history books. More accurate though. Much more destructive too.
Behind them all were another species. Something… something in charge. Larger than a man, and smart. And… I don’t know how to describe it.
They could… excrete something. Spit it. And whatever they spit on… it changed. Mutated. I watched it happen to the bugs they led, and when they broke the marine lines and got inside the colony, I watched it happen to the marines.
This is what their spit did to the little ones:
I watched it happen to us.
But faster. So much faster.
The change in the alien flesh came slow, like a log burning in a fire. But human bodies changed like kindling coated in petrol. Immediate, and horrible.
Carapaces grew, arms spouted claws and faces grew eyes. In seconds friends became mindless savages and… I can’t draw what they look like. I just can’t.
Sarah and I happened to be near each other when it happened. I won’t lie, I searched her out. She had a broken leg from a giant rock thrown by the grasshopper monsters. I had to carry her. We’re locked inside the botany lab with everything powered down. There are seven of us. I don’t know how long we’ll be in here. I don’t know who will rescue us. I can hear screaming outside.
The fleet won’t return for months and the marines are all dead.
Tell Charlotte…
None of you are never going to get this letter, are you?
-Anatoly