HA\LF: Dead nor Alive

“Goddamn! You both are hot as fuck!” Said a guy who sat next to Archie who was staring at two ladies kissing each other in front of them.

“Can you fuck off and look the other way?” The woman glared at the guy while she wiped the saliva on her partner’s lips.

The guy giggled pervertedly then he tilted his head with a big grin on his face, “You know that we are trying to repopulate the earth, right? How about you guys spend the night after we are done with the mission? Huh? Interested?”

The woman stood up and was about to approach him but then the muscular guy stopped them both, “Alright, cut it out, both of you.”

The woman and the guy looked at the muscular guy and immediately raised their hands to show him respect.

“Let them be, and let them enjoy the time they have left before we arrived at the FalCon-1. You too, you know he likes to tease people so don’t take it personally, okay? He was joking.” The muscular guy looked at them both while he was holding the handle so he won’t fall down.

The woman nodded with understanding, “Yes, Sir.”

The guy giggled and then looked at Archie, “You nervous, Archie?”

Archie looked at him and nodded, “Yeah, my hands are cold and tingling because I’m nervous right now.”

“Don’t think about it too much, okay? You know, The world is fucked up right now but it will get worse when you entered the Fallen Continent so try to overcome your fear and brace yourself for that.” The guy wrapped his hand around Archie’s shoulder and patted him to comfort him a bit.

Archie nodded and smiled nervously, “Okay, I’ll try…”

Everyone was listening to the guy’s words and all of them went quiet immediately because they all thought the same thing.

Archie looked at his surroundings with his heart pounding really fast that his eyes started throbbing. The dark tunnel, the echoed sound of the rails, and the cold because they were under the sea weren’t helping at all, he tried to calm himself down but the more he thought about what the guy said, the more nervous he was.

Based on the muscular guy’s word, it would take them at least 12 hours to reach the FalCon-1 because they were departing from the western nation down to the FalCon-1. They already spent 11 hours on the train and the smile and laughter that were filling the train were gone, everyone was busy cleaning and checking all their equipment to waste the time and trying to remove their nervousness from their heads.

The LED lights above them suddenly turned red and that indicated that they were about to arrive at FalCon-1. Everyone stared at the red light and everyone gulped their saliva even though there was no more saliva inside their mouth. Every single one of them was nervous and scared because this mission was the second time they step their foot in FalCon-1.

“Alright boys, get ready…” The muscular guys exhaled deeply while he stared at them.

All of them nodded and stood up, Archie followed them and looked at the door with heavy breathing.

The train slowed down and the muscular guy checked everyone’s equipment for one last time from front to the back.

He cleared his throat, “No more funny business, boys. I want your eyes and ears wide open because if we make a mistake, you know the drill and I don’t want that to happen in this mission. Do you understand?”

“Sir, yes, Sir!” Everyone screamed their lungs out to overcome their nervousness.

The muscular guy walked to the front and then tapped on Archie’s shoulder, “Come with me to the front, I will need your assistance, and stay by my side all the time, do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir.” Archie nodded while he gulped his saliva.

Archie and the muscular guy stood at the front and they both looked at the rest of them.

“Do you guys remember our motto?!” The muscular guy smirked while he nodded his head up.

“If we were to fail, we have no regrets!” All of them screamed and stared at the muscular guy.

“If we were to fail, we have no regrets…” Archie mumbled as he stared at his memory.

The train stopped and the door slid open.

Everyone left the train and Archie saw everyone leaving from the other rail carriages, they were all looking nervous and scared. He saw some of them wiggling and clenching their hands because they felt the same thing as him, their hands went cold and the tingling feeling won’t leave them alone.

Archie looked at the sturdy wall in front of him and a huge steel gate in the middle, the muscular guy walked toward it and Archie followed him since he told him to stay by his side and he took it really seriously.

Archie looked back and the train left to the safe spot so when bad things happened, the train won’t be jeopardized and he knew that there was no going back from now on.

The muscular guy operated the machine and the huge gate opened so slowly.

“We need to get back to the others, Archie, let’s go!” The muscular guy tapped on Archie’s shoulder.

Turned out the steel gate was just the first layer and then another layer opened then another.

Everyone was on guard and grabbed their gun out, Archie also grabbed his gun out and pointed it at the gate.

The last layer opened and nothing in it, everyone immediately put their gun down while they sighed with relief. The muscular guy ordered everyone to get in and so all of them walked into the lift.

They all went up and it took them more than 15 minutes to reach the top, everyone grabbed their weapons out while the muscular guy operated the machine to open the gate in front of them.

This time the layer opened from the inside first, and when all the gates were opened, Archie was surprised to look at the tall trees surrounding him. He realized that they were all in the middle of the jungle and he couldn’t see anything but trees and tall wild grass.

The sound of the crickets made him more nervous because there were no other sounds than the crickets. Everything was dark and he barely could see anything because it was nighttime already in there.

The muscular guy led all the division forward, and Archie followed him from behind with the rest of them. Archie looked at the others and they were all sweating like crazy already, and he realized that he was the only one who couldn’t see in the dark so he felt lonely since he was the only one who was scared of the darkness.

More than half of the divisions went their separate ways because they had to secure the parameter for them to rest for the night. The rest of them built the tent and camp for everyone, Archie helped them and tried his best to be useful to them.

After all the camp has been set up, Archie and the muscular guy with all the division leaders were inside the camp. They were all staring at the map and discussed the intel they received about Ex-Humans, so they drew circles around the map and they believed that those areas could be where those Ex-humans lived.

“So my division will go to the deepest part while the rest of you can take one each.” The muscular guy tapped his index finger at the map while he stared at the other leaders.

All of them were discussing which area they were going to take while Archie looked at them from the side.

“Don’t forget that there was a sighting of an ExTP-4 Gen 1 in the FalCon-2 and I don’t want to jinx it but there must be one in FalCon-1 as well so I want you guys to be cautious. If you encountered that, I want you to immediately run away and gave the signal to the other divisions. We are here to capture an Ex-Human not to deal with those parasites, and our priority is our own safety than our objective, do you guys understand?” The muscular guy looked at them so seriously.

One of the leaders pointed at the map that the muscular guy will investigate, “Are you sure that you will be going there? Isn’t that close to that thing?”

“I know, that’s why I will go there since it’s the most dangerous place in FalCon-1. I’ll be fine because we have Archie here to help me make the decision and I believe in him that we will be safe with his experience in the VST exams that we all failed miserably.” The muscular guy looked at Archie and smiled with confidence.

All of them looked at Archie and nodded with understanding.

After they were done discussing their plan, everyone left the camp and went to their own division to give a short briefing leaving Archie and the muscular guy alone in the camp.

Archie approached him and scratched the back of his neck nervously, “Are you sure that I will be able to do it?”

“You will and we all believe in you. Now you should get some rest because we will be moving in the middle of the night and we should reach this area before the sun is rising.” The muscular guy looked at Archie while he pointed his finger at the map.

Archie exhaled deeply and nodded with understanding, “Okay, I will do my best…”

Archie left the camp leaving the muscular guy on his own in the camp while he stared at the map.

“I hope nothing happened to us…” The muscular guy sighed.