A soldier was hunched over a wall, fiddling with wires as bullets flew over his head. The plan was to set this gigantic explosive off and fall back, although it didn't occur to him that he had nowhere to go.
He finished the wiring and pulled back behind cover, his body tensing as he gripped the explosives trigger. *Thud* the soldier unconsciously looked downwards as a grenade rolled under his feet.
His face paled behind his mask as time seemed to come to a crawl; a curse left his lips. "Shi-" he tried to kick the explosive away but was too late as it exploded and launched him into a wall, behind cover.
Pain. Pain covered his body from head to toe as he felt his eyes burning.
Still, he didn't let go of the trigger in his right hand even as his body was blown to pieces.
"MMM." He couldn't speak, he couldn't see, and he couldn't move. The only thing he felt besides overwhelming pain was the ringing in his ears.
"…" he stayed motionless as bullets stopped flying over his head.
'So, this is it?' the soldier – Isaac thought as darkness seemed to overtake his mind, and his body began to shut down. His breathing slowed, his heart stopped beating with its previous vigor, and his mind seemed to slump.
'Well, I'll see you bastards on the other side.' With every ounce of his will, he pressed the trigger with his remaining finger, and everything disappeared.
The pain, the ringing in his ears. All he could feel was darkness.
'This must be what death is like.' It seemed like the only possible conclusion. Him being comatose was a possibility, but you didn't survive after eating a grenade, period.
Slowly panic started to seep in; it felt like he was nothing. All he could do was think. Why could he think? He didn't know.
He forced the feeling of panic down, like he was reloading a magazine. There was no situation where panic helped, and he was trained for this. They were thought to not know fear.
After some time even the passage of time seemed nonexistent, like sand flowing out of his palm.
'A possible circle of Hell?' Isaac believed in God, and he had done many things he wasn't proud of in service of his country. Ending up in Heaven would be illogical.
[Start a new journey?]
'What the fuck?' either he was losing his mind, or he just heard a voice coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
'What do I even say, think?' He asked himself.
He saw only one path: try to answer the voice – even if it was a product of insanity.
'Yes, start a new journey?' He thought, unsure of what he was even supposed to do. The stupidity did not go unnoticed by him; one second he was fighting for his country, and the next, talking to himself.
[Affirmative]
...........................…..
Issac opened his eyes once more to darkness; he could feel something clinging to his body. He pushed the immediate wrongness of his surroundings to the side and flexed his body in an attempt to get out.
The hatch of the mind flayer pod stayed glued to its hinges like it had a point to prove, but some light did seem to pierce the cover.
"What the fuck." He muttered, everywhere he looked was covered in pulsing flesh. Things like this didn't exist; walls of flesh didn't make sense… was he in an alien ship? his brain tried to rationalize his current predicament.
Further attempts to move proved fruitless as he grunted with effort. Truly, he wasn't used to feeling so weak.
'Great. First I die, and now I'm in a chamber of flesh.' Isaac was in fact not a quitter, so he continued struggling and gazing at his surroundings.
The horrendous stench in the pod also didn't help him maintain his composure. A thought crossed his mind, 'Cry for help.' But he quickly dismissed it for its sheer stupidity.
He was positive he did not want to meet the maker of his cage.
He hoped there were no facehuggers around; after seeing this shit, he was expecting Optimus Prime to show up.
Suddenly, Isaac roared as his head thrashed involuntarily as a sensation of something squirming inside his skull made him grit his teeth and sent shivers down his spine. The pain passed as soon as it came as Isaac breathed deeply.
'Something is in my brain. Fuck. Not good.' His thoughts were simple.
Before he could gather his thoughts, the room shook as sections of the fleshy walls in front of him exploded, fortunately the pod proved useful and protected him from any strays. Isaac's eyes shook as the destroyed wall gave way to the face of a real - honest to God, fucking Dragon. It was massive, colored with a deep red as smoke erupted from its nostrils, and an armored green humanoid sat on its back.
The dragon's head turned, its slitted eyes locking onto the chamber where Isaac was caged. It opened its massive jaws, and a torrent of flames erupted, engulfing the chamber in an inferno. Isaac's brain was froze as he watched the flames engulf his cage with horror.
This time it proved useless, as the pod melted like wax with a horrifying sound after coming in contact with Dragon fire.
For a moment he was free, and in the next he too was consumed in the fire.
His hair burned away, his fats rendered and everything turned to ash. Fortunately for Isaac's mental health, he barely felt anything in the moment as his nerves were instantly destroyed.
'Death again?' a thought came to him, now a skeleton.
'Why can I see?' he thought, his eyes were ash, and his skeleton refused to burn even as the fire continued to rage.
The sight of his bare bones burning like that of a Demon was horrifying. His mind refused to process this shit and he simply passed out from shock.
Sadly, the chamber he was in didn't share the durability of his skeleton, as it exploded after coming into contact with the roaring flames.
Isaac's limp skeleton flew out of a hole in a destroyed section, as he soared through the air. The Illithid ship was now fully on fire thanks to the efforts of his Dragon friend. The air brushed past his form as the ground drew closer.
*CRACK* the ground caved in as his skeleton hit it sending dust everywhere.
It remained unbroken.