I got her out Pt. 1

Like Ghost said, we're back, alive and breathing, and you know what? Not even I'm going to scoff at that, the amount of crazy shit that went on in there, by all accounts we shouldn't have been able to get out, but we did, I got her out, with Ghost's and Franky's help, I got her out and that's all that matters. Now she is the one forcing me to post here in order to continue from where I left off my previous post, which I originally objected to because who fucking cares, but as she rightly pointed out, Kristy cares, because she was pretty much leaving comments on every post of ours that originated from within The Path, so ok.

In my last post I stated that I was going to sneak out from the church that the nutjob priest offered us as a safe haven from The Paths fuckery. Some might say leaving Hannah with a nutjob wasn't a great idea, but dragging her into the unknown when she has absolutely 0 experience with The Path seemed like the worst option. As nutty as the fucker was, he has pretty much lived inside The Path for a long time and survived, and he was cognitive enough to tell the difference between normal people and The Denizens, that alone gave her more chances of survival while I looked for Franky. So those of you who are going to degrade me for my choice, tell you what, this isn't a fucking movie, I'll drop you in the middle of an unnatural hellscape and you make as many rational decisions as you can, mmkay?

So I snuck away, going through the thick, black woods that the church was sitting in the middle of. I couldn't hear any of the Denizen's whispers, not sure if it was because of all the booby traps the nutjob had set, or they were... sleeping, or something. In hindishgt, I'm kind of amazed that I myself didn't step into any of his traps, call it dumb luck I guess.

The not-so-fun thing about The Path is that time is skewered there, it can be going too fast, or at a snails pace, you'd never know though because you can't tell, anything that could help you tell the passage of time doesn't exist there: feelings of hunger, tiredness, exhaustion, you don't feel any of it, sounds amazing right? Fuck no, because in return you receive constant pressure on your ears, migraines and heavier gravity, you have to constantly put more effort into keeping your body upright. All of that fucks with you mentally, especially when you're wandering aimlessly like an asshole. I was wandering around the giant fields of black grass for what felt like an eternity, the thick black forest within which was the church long since a distant blur in my field of view.

So there I was, wandering aimlessly, sweating because the heat was unbearable, the blood, red sky radiating pressure onto my eyes. Not fun. But luckily, I had some training in The Path's use, one of the things that had always stuck in my head is to keep an eye out for anything that wasn't a part of the Forest, so basically any buildings, statues, apparently there's even a beach somewhere around here. Reason to keep an eye on those is because some believed those places were some kind of "markings", almost as if The Tall Fucker was re-creating what it would encounter in our world and thus those spots would most likely either have a way out, or could lead to a way out. So when I saw a fence sticking out on top of a hill, I naturally had to investigate it.

You know what was behind the small fence that could be easily stepped over? A fucking graveyard, a popular belief among the proxies is that within The Path you see what it wants you to see, hence why I would start mumbling to myself whilst trying to catch my breath to basically come and get me, that I got it's stupid fucking hint, so do it. Obviously it didn't, so maybe that belief is bullshit, who knows.

Some of the graves had black, leafless trees sticking out of them, some so far into the sky you couldn't see where they ended. Some grave stones looked new, some were scratched up and broken, none of the names on them really stood out to me and no wonder, this graveyard was fucking huge, seemed endless even. I wandered through it for a bit until I began to hear whispers in the distance, which didn't mean anything good, the Denizens were around the area and it was impossible to tell if they were heading in my direction. My natural instint dictated to me to turn around and get the fuck out the way I came from, bu lo and behold, even though I took only a few steps the hell and the fence that I came through were no longer behind me, instead it was a continuation of the same path I was on, with even more graves stretching out into the distance. The place had shifted and I was now stuck and lost in this graveyard.

With no other choice the next best thing to do was to lay low, the idea was that hopefully the grave stones would hide me well enough that the whispers would pass, meaning that the Denizens would move on and I could concentrate on finding a way out without the need of looking over my shoulder every few seconds. But it became very clear, very fast that wasn't going to happen as the whispers got louder and louder, usually meaning that at some point the Denizens would start crawling out from everywhere to infest the area, they could crawl down from the trees, crawl out of the ground, there was never really any way to tell where they would congregate from. I prepared my shitty revolver, my heart racing and my breath quickening, I've outran the Denizens before, never whilst fighting them though, I had no plan. I could feel their claws scratching the top of the various gravestones in the distance, their strained breathing, this was it.

As I was about to peek out and not only assess the situation but also probably to open fire, I was beaten to the punch. The sound of some kind of machine gun broke out and began to fucking shower Denizens in bullets, their guts were splattering all over the place, some of their bodies were getting cut in half and there was dust accumulating from all the bullets implanting themselves into the various gravestones, I fucking ducked as soon as I could and I could feel the pieces of the gravestone fall on me as I desperately covered on the ground, trying to stay so low I was practically trying to become one with the ground. Shit felt like I was smack dab in the middle of a fucking Rambo movie. I was a sitting duck in my position and at this rate, my cover would be reduced to nothing, I had to move, yeah, easier said than done when there's a bullet rain happening over your head, one wrong move and I could share the Denizen's fate, but I was rapidly running out of choices, so I looked around as best as I could, I needed a bigger and thicker cover and woila, just a few meters away, a musoleum. I began to crawl towards it, sound of bullets wheezing above my head, debris flying all over the place from the destroyed gravestones, the shrieks of the Denizens as the bullets tore them apart, one of said bodies ended up landing right in my way or rather it's torso did. I've seen those creatures plenty of times before, this was the first where I got a really closer look at them, their black as abyss orbs for eyes, hairless bodies with bones just barely remaining under the skin, the skin so thin that whenever you shine a light on them you can see their insides, a lipless mouth full of sharp teeth and those long claws that can rip you apart. As I tried my best to crawl over the dead Denizen, just when I was almost in the clear the fucker grabbed my foot and let out this sickening shriek, luckily for me it was drowned out by the various gunshots that were erupting in the distance, the original hail of bullets had stopped by this point, stabbed the fucker right in the face with my sword, finally killing it.

Just as all gun fire began to cease, I found myself hiding behind the musoleum, a deadly silence would begin to hang over the area, I tried my best to catch my breath as quietly as I could. Then the silence would be broken by the sound of a radio being switched on: "Honeypot. Honeypot. This is Forest Fireteam. Hot on target's trail, however lost them in section [followed by some series of numbers and letters, don't fucking remember]. Proceeding with pursuit. Over." followed by static and some chatter from the radio which I couldn't make out. Whoever these fucking guys were, they packed some serious heat, were organized and clearly, somehow knew their way around The Path, Proxies? No, hardware's too hardcore and last I checked the Proxy business had pretty much fallen apart.

Risking a peek from behind the musoleum I managed to see that there was three of them, all decked out in serious gear. One guy was a bigger fellow, was reloading a huge machine gun, whipping out a fucking bullet belt, no doubt that was the guy responsible for the massacre I just witnessed. Two other guys were average sized, one was packing a shotgun and the other some kind of assault rifle. All of them were wearing what looked like modified army gear, all black, looked like they were a part of some privately owned service or something. Whoever these guys were, one thing was clear: letting those guys see me would be an awful idea, so my best option was to just stand right where I was and wait til they fucked off, unfortunately the next sentence I heard was: "Alright, check the perimeter and move on."

Now I have no clue how big their perimeter that they were going to check was, but judging by the sound of the footsteps one of them was getting awfully fucking close. Wtf was I going to do? I was outgunned, outnumbered and most likely outclassed, I did have one thing on my side, they had no idea I was there and if one of them rounded the corner of the musoleum, my revolver would quickly make them drop dead especially at close range, then it'd be 2 v 1, I'd get a better weapon and would still be in better cover. I was just psyching myself up, most likely if it were to play out like that, I wouldn't be writing this right now, nontheless I braced myself as the footsteps got uncomfortably louder, swear to god one of them was right fucking there. Thank fucking God for the sudden wild shrieks in the distance, more Denizens and if they were shrieking, that meant they were in hunting mode and the G.I. Joe's knew that, hence why one of them yelled out: "Let's move!" and they ran off in the opposite direction.

Once the shock wore off, my body allowed itself to collapse against the wall of the musoleum and sigh a breath of relief. I stayed there for a few minutes, resting, wiping the sweat off my face, collecting my thoughts, questions were racing through my head all of which I was trying to find an answer for.

"That was close."

I nearly fucking shit myself when I heard a voice come from inside the musoleum, nearly fired off a fucking shot and yet the fucker didn't seem all that concerned over the fact that he had scared my half to death. There he was, in his white trench coat, white hat and black mask with white eyeholes, just standing there in the entrance of the musoleum, white gloved hands in his pockets. Ghost was able to track us.

"Where is she?"