Descriptive writing Created 18 years ago2006-05-25 12:20:39 UTC by monster_urby

Just tell me what you guys think. I'm trying to get it so that you can imagine the emotion of the situation.

?We are the last hope.?

I remember those words well. They were the last words that Sergeant O?Brien said to us as we piled out of the door of the immobilized APC. As we stepped into the torrential downpour of rain I remember hearing the scream of the guy standing beside me as he was cut down by enemy fire. I can still feel the warm blood spattering across my face as a rifle shot ripped through his neck. Guns were being fired from the front of the group in a desperate attempt to suppress the entrenched soldiers raining hell down from the gun towers. A mortar shell struck the APC behind me and the whole thing went up in a fireball, which had certainly come up from Hell itself. Metal fragments ripped through the crowd. One was so close to my head I heard it flying past my ear before it embedded itself in the back of a young infantryman in front of me. I lost my balance and fell forward onto the group. My face and hands sunk into a disgusting layer of mud, red with the blood of those who had fallen. The crowd kept moving forward as more men piled up on the ground. My rifle was trapped under something and I couldn?t shift it. I turned to see my best friends lifeless eyes staring back into mine. He had been hit in the forehead by an anti-armour round and was bleeding out of his eyes and nose. I grabbed his arm and rolled his body over towards me. His sniper rifle slid from his hand and was buried into the thick sludge as more soldiers trampled over it. I snatched it from underneath a soldier?s foot and he fell sideways. He got onto his hands and knees, his eyes wide with fear and his face covered in mud and camouflage-paint.

?Hey!? he yelled above the screaming and gunfire. ?You?ve got a sniper rifle!?

?Yeah??

?Use it.? He gestured towards the central gun tower. As he did three shots shredded his chest and he collapsed, vanishing under more bodies as they fell.

I turned back to the rifle lying in front of me. I took hold of it and examined the scope. It was impossible to see through due to the thick coat of grime, which had covered it. I turned to my right. There was a deep puddle a few feet away. The dark brown water was the best thing this harsh battlefield had to offer. Another APC was hit by a mortar shell and its occupants where hurled into the air. They came down with a mighty impact, some breaking bones and others being shot before they even hit the ground. A body landed in the pool, turning the water red as blood flowed from a gaping wound I his back.

?This is fucking hopeless.? I heard one soldier cry.

?Come on? yelled his CO ?We?ve got to get out of their firing line. Get to the base of the towers.?

They disappeared through the mist and gun smoke. I thrust the scope into the red water hoping it would be enough. I took it out and looked through it, the crosshair barely visible in the dense rain. I looked to one of the towers and noticed that its occupants were now clearly visible. I clicked the scope back into position on the rifle and braced it on top of a corpse. I took aim, right between the eyes of the gunner, took a deep breath and set my finger on the trigger.

Ive never been a fan of the novelisation of the actual fighting of war myself, 'action' prose is very hard to accomplish without it becoming 'bang splat kapow whoosh, whoops johnny trod on a mine'. Maybe you should try a third person/narrator perspective, set the story more and avoid so many short, sharp sentences. Cursing/gore are also perhaps best left out.

To aid you with this I have rewritten your exerpt in the natural selection universe, I hope you see where I am coming from.

Im going In
Combat chapter one
by Jobabob

My fingers rested nervously on the cold steel of my gun, a conflict between flesh and metal. I?d heard all the propaganda, all the ?motivational? tapes were drilled into us back at basic. But nothing would stop the fear, or that irksome feeling that this was a one-way trip. My fellow crew looked anxious, laden with apprehension and fear, silence gripped our throats and gave no voices. Out the viewport, the looming presence of the S.S.Seventh blocked out the stars, our target, and the source of the alien infestation in the area. Sure this was a routine mission, at least back at command, for me nothing was routine, it was my first, and they?d put me in the initial wave, the ?suicide company?.

My thoughts drifted to that of those already lost in this god forsaken battle. I?ve seen ships come back with a handful of the squad left, or with emotional wrecks quivering with terror and ultimate confusion, no hope for rehabilitation. How did I get into this mess? What was I doing here on this damn ship, I was stupid, this war was stupid, this wont make me a man, all I can hope for is a painless death.

The ship docked with the squeal and clang of a thousand pounds of metal on metal, yet leaving us with only the mometary jolt, a solitary reminder we were there and leaving my trail of thought to dissapate into concern. Our commander quickly ordered us to the back of the ship, home to the insertion phase gate. I?ve heard enough stories to know why in dire cases they can call them ?phase bait?. We huddled onto the pad together, now was no longer the time for nerves.

Green.

The teleporter blast hit me in the face like a leaping skulk, as soon as all feeling left my body, we were in. This was it, my first mission out of the simulator, a cold breeze from under my feet moved up through my armour to remind me this was real. Tension was high, I looked towards my squadmates, they looked back, there was only one thing on our minds, just waiting for the moment to say it, we were afraid. We all moved into some basic guarding positions based on what layout we could see, I took cover behind the main doorway.

A scampering was heard. Johnson looked over to me and whispered something.. in my state I couldn?t have heard an onos scream at point blank. ?Say what?? I stammered back, my lips like jelly with my ear pressed to the wall.

Suddenly he blurted out - ?I SAID WHOS GOING TO BE THE COMMMANDER F F S!?

All I could think of was what had got into him, when the man guarding the vent shouted to our leader ?HEY COMMANDER GET IN THE CHAIR NOW!?

?NO WAY MAN, I WAS COMMANDER LAST GAME, SOMEONE ELSE DO IT?
?GET IN THE CHAIR OR ILL GET AN ADMIN!?
?FINE ILL DO IT AGAIN JESUS PEOPLE YOU ARE SO G@Y SOMETIMES!?

I had no idea at this point, random accusations and gibberish flying over the room. We were supposed to be guarding against an imminent and repetitive onslaught by the Kharaa and they stood there bickering words and acronyms I had no comprehension of, my mind wandered, and focused on that awful noise of bone on metal.

There was sound all around us, they were near. As soon as I?d heard it they were upon us, aliens from all directions charged, jumping at us, biting, screaming, it was an awesome sight, for an onlooker at least. I squeezed the trigger of my gun and let loose a metal storm upon the nearest kharaa, a few blotches on its skin and it keeled over sideways with a groan. The others fell as fast, everything went quiet. A splatter of blood landed on my right shoulder, I looked up just as a lone skulk jumped off towards a squad mate, teeth bared for attack. I jumped out the way only to hear a sickening crunch as bone met armour and flesh, at this point I just didn?t want to know.

I lay on the floor, the air ripe with the sound of heavy machinery, yet not of our voices. I made the decision to turn around and survey the damage.
Standing there, with no visible damage at all was the squadmate, unscathed with a dead kharaa lying at his feet.

The blow must have driven him into the insanity I have seen before, shouting nonsense like ?OMG GIVE ME A MEDPACK PLEASE COMMANDER (press space)? into his headset. Sometimes I think I can explain anything, till I saw a white pack with a red cross appear at his feet, the sight of a medkit. He picked it up and suddenly, just looked ?better?, the miracles of modern medicine, yet how they work may never be understood by this simple soldier.

I had began work on construction the commander had laid out for us, when I too was attacked without warning, the other soldiers had run off with screams of ?gay commander? and ?o m f g im gonna ramboooo!11?, I had no backup, my gun was holstered while I held +use, I was f**ked. The skulk tore me apart as I finished the portal, I was dead.

The most bizarre feeling of limbo crept over me, I was flying and saw the ship laid out before me, yet outside of this was an infinite expanse of nothing. As I tried to reach it my soul was thrown back into reality, I collapsed on the floor unconscious.

For some reason I felt the strange urge to continually shout 3 letter acronyms and the word 'hax' at some words and numbers slowly coming into my vision. I felt trapped, I reached out to get my gun, all I felt was lukewarm plastic, and a dreaded 'click' noise.

I awoke to find myself trapped in the pa$t, facing mirror images that were not my own and driven by some unknown force, to ch@nge histor3 for the better!. I was gonna kick SUM ALIEN BUTT Y?HAW!

I SHOUTED ?JETPACK OMG JETPCK NOW PLZZ KTHXBI!!? followed by a CONSECUTIVE Series of ONES down my MiC. ONE APPEARED ON ME AND I FLEW OFF WITH MY TEAMMATES who were there also. WE GOT TO THE HIVE and SHOT it with our new HMG PWNAGE WAEPONS AND IT WAS FUN AND THEN THE HIVE DIED.

All of a sudden there was a beeping noise in my ears, down to the bone the most irritating noise I had ever heard. I threw my headset on the floor, the noise only became louder, throbbing every vain in my head, it felt ready to explode. All I could do was empty my last clip into the pitiful obese lump that was the gorge, the last kharaa left and the bastard that started this whole mess. With its dying breath it uttered 'o.m.g... pistol.. haxor..'

AS I SHOT MY LAST BULET I HELD BACKSPACE AND FLASHED MY LIGHT A BILLION TIMES A SECOND AT HIM TO SHOW HIM HE WAS DEAD AND I LAUGHED A LOT HEHEHEHEH AND SO DID MY TEAMMATES TOO EXCEPT THE ONES WHO SAID I HAD FLASHLIGHT HAX HAHA NOOBS. SO I PLAYED WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS DOWN THE HEADSET AND THEY ALL THOUGH IT WAS MEGA FUNNY.

I heard an orchestra, a sudden charge of bow on string, building louder and louder. These mystical sounds may never be explained, but it was sweet music to my ears, it felt satisfying without knowing why, IT WAS TEH BEST GAME EVA!!!11

THE EDN!11

On a sidenote I dont actually like natural selection.

ummm, I thought he just wanted an opinion, not another chapter!
But anyways, I have a great imagination, so quite frankly, the first sentence captured me. Keep it up.

A)