Waking Nightmare; a Halo Fanfic[PG-16]

[Spartan919]

Okay, this is my first fanfic, so bear with me. Please give positive CnC, and don't post without giving justification for your review please.

[spoiler=Prologue: The Nightmare]

Why can’t I feel any pain? There should be pain, shouldn’t there? I should feel something, shouldn’t I? I’m pretty sure I should be feeling something. So why can’t I feel anything? There should be a burning, a slicing, a…a…a something, shouldn’t there? I know that I’m not dead, and I know I’m not fine, so where’s the pain?

 

I push with my hands, pushing my head up off the ground. I have to see if there is something wrong with my body. But when I see, I am confused. My legs…my legs are missing. Why are my legs missing? I didn’t…didn’t do anything to them, did I? I try to remember what may have happened that could have caused my horrific dilemma. Was it a bomb? A grenade? A rocket? But I just can’t think straight.

 

The memories flood back, rushing in like a great dam just burst. I was standing in the area of affect of a Wraith tank. I tried to dodge a blast, but I reacted too slowly. I felt nothing, nothing except a searing pain at my knees. I continued firing at the aliens in front of me, watching as my fellow soldiers, my brothers, ran ahead of me. They ignored me, to enraptured by the fight to worry about a fallen, likely dead, soldier. Then...then I think I must have blacked out.

 

Then it comes: a pain, a terrible pain that starts at my legs, or what’s left, and works itself up my body. It is the pain I remember feeling before I blacked out. And as the pain comes, I see something else: a Brute, drool dripping from its fanged mouth…no, not a brute. It’s a Brute Chieftain, wearing an honorific headdress, and wielding a massive gravity hammer. It raises the hammer above its head, and brings it down on my head.

 

“Aaaaaagh!”

I bolt upright, and turn my eyes cautiously, first one way, then the other. I’m in my bunk, in the barracks on Reach. The wind ruffles my hair, and I shiver; it is then I notice that I am drenched, head to toe, in glistening sweat. It was just a…a nightmare. I run a hand through my hair, and sigh. I watch my breath condensation, noting the cool chill in the air. Turning my wrist upward, I see that it is only 0200. I lie back down, but try not to fall asleep. I can’t fall asleep. Not with that nightmare hanging in my mind, not with my heart beating against my chest.