From darkness, Fire!

Oscar tumbled and spun around, smacking against the sand and rocks on his wat down the slanted hole he jumped in to.

After an awkwardly long drop his movement stopped on what seemed to be solid ground but the darkness made it hard to tell.

Oscar tried to look around but the small light coming from the tunnel he just came through did nothing to illuminate the large space.

Chestnut hummed around Oscar warming his body in the cold room.

“Good thing I learned how to fall. I could have broken my neck.” Oscar said with a grunt as he stood up.

“Where the hell am I?” Oscar pondered out loud as he placed his hand on his large stomach.

His echo filled the large space and although he could not see it, Oscar knew he was in a man-made structure. And a large one at that.

Oscar activated his infra-red camera, covering the glass surrounding his head with a holographic projection of the space around him with adjusted colors based on heat.

Suddenly the general shape of the room became visible.

A large tomb with a stone sarcophagus and stone pillars holding the ceiling at a ridiculous height.

The walls seemed to be lumpy and made of an unknown material while the room had four different exits. Using the built-in compass Oscar picked the tunnel that was going as far away from the green crystal covered Giant that was waiting for him above.

As he approached the wall and placed a metallic hand on the lumpy surface of the wall a chill went up his spine immediately.

He jumped back out of reflex and retracted his hand to his chest without thinking.

He recognized the thing he was touching in an instant, even if through a metal suit.

It was human skulls.

“I DO NOT like it here!” Oscar found himself saying but he shook his head and refocused.

He stumbled in the dark, walking down the tight corridor , doing his best not to touch the walls.

‘It’s just a lumpy wall, just a lumpy wall.’ he tried to think to himself to self-sooth.

The sound of metal hitting stone echoed throughout the tunnels. Oscar knew by the volume it had to be a pretty big tunnel that collapsed after taking a huge hit from what he could only guess was a missile.

“That did not sound like the big guy” Oscar found himself saying aloud, as if the words would banish the darkness that tried to choke him.

A distant laughter echoed throughout the caves, suddenly awake from the noise of the impact.

It sounded odd. Young yet raspy, genuine but completely deranged. Oscar picked up his pace.

He wandered in the Labyrinthian halls for what felt like an age. Finding dead end after dead end. By the time the tunnel ended and opened up again, Oscar was jumpy and reactive. He thought of lighting a flashlight, but after the sounds he just heard, he was afraid of giving away his position.

The room was large enough to hold a theater inside it while the ground was covered in a mountain of bones that was bigger then some Mechs Oscar had seen.

The walls of the place were smoother, but they seemed to have inscriptions and etchings that Oscar could not read through the thermal imaging camera.

The only thing that did not look like it belonged to the place was a weird silhouette on top of the mound of bones.

It was unmistakably mechanical in origin, covered with what looked like bodies of some animals that themselves were covered in crystals around their neck, shoulder and chest.

Oscar approached the machine carefully; his spinning saw at the ready in case any of the bodies start to move.

As soon as he started to step on the mountain of bones some of them snapped immediately under his weight. Some of them definitely felt brittle, Oscar decided, while the rattle of the bones accompanied his steps.

At first, he thought it was a part of a car that somehow fell into this pace, but only when he got close, he saw it was a half torn apart Mech.

It was covered in charred remains of huge, spiked rats that seemed to have died alongside the Mechanical giant they burrowed in to.

“What happened here” Oscar said with an impressed look as he moved the bodies of the rats with his saw, trying to get to the mech carefully

“I didn’t have time with the Mech with the spear but maybe I can salvage something from this one. What do you say Chestnut, care for an upgrade?” Oscar whispered to his Mech as he started to see what he could salvage.

Oscar carefully lit the lamp on his mechs shoulders.

At first, he noticed the charred bones, burn marks and residues of fire.

The second thing he noticed was the dead rats having red crystals all over them.

The first thing he did was get the rats safely as far away from where he intended to work.

Followed by checking to see where the fire that consumed the Fallen and the Mech originate from.

“Damn, unlucky. The rats chewed through the cable feeding fuel to this flame thrower” Oscar said as he started to take the machine apart. “I hope some fuel survived; the weapon itself is in good shape, but all the tubes are chewe-“ Oscar started to talk with himself as he started to take apart the mech to see if it’s main weapon is still usable. ”Aha!”

He exclaimed as he saw three separate fuel cells, one of which was still full.

It took longer then he would have liked but Chestnuts upgrade was underway.

For the first time in a month Oscar found a discarded mech that was not guarded by some monster. He could finally get a real weapon.

Oscar was so absorbed in his work he completely missed the distant laugh returning.

He even missed it the second time.

Only when the laughter was close enough to distinguish it came from multiple laughing sources, that were coming closer and closer, did Oscar start to panic.

He closed his light just before they came shambling through the door.

They were human, almost.

Covered in red crystals and laughing hysterically with an expression of sorrow mixed with extasy.

There were eight of them. And Oscar immediately knew what they were.

One man, one woman, four kids and two elderly folks. All covered in red crystals and a desperate expression.

They sniffed the air as they climbed the bone mound towards Oscar.

And just when they got to the top, he screwed the last screw and jumped into Chestnut once again.

When they noticed him, he already had replaced any water dispensing capabilities his Mech had with something more fitting to the situation. A flame thrower.