Dying, Paul concluded, was terrifying.

He had prepared himself for it. He had said his farewells.

But as he bled out, all of his carefully prepared machismo deserted him along with his blood pressure. The pain was manageable - most likely because he was in shock, not because he was particularly tough - but the regret he felt was not. He had made so many bad decisions in his life, made so many mistakes. There were so many things that he had never done, and now would never do. All his regrets were laid bare before him.

He always thought that he would die well, stoic and unflinching. He didn't.

Paul died crying, covered in piss and blood, and he died alone.

He woke naked and shivering. Cold, rough stone scraped across his body as he rose to his feet.

The first thing that struck Paul was just how dark it was. He was reasonably sure he wasn't blind, but he couldn't see a thing. It was quiet, with only the faint gurgle of rushing water.

For a moment, Paul took in all of these sensations. The darkness, the peaceful quiet, the cool stone beneath his skin.

What happened to me? How did I get here?

And then all the terror, all the regret that he experienced in his last moments came back to him in unstoppable, crashing waves of panic and anguish.

He had died.

His squad had died as well, men and women he knew for years. Most of his face, his eye, and a good portion of his skull had been ripped off by shrapnel, and all the primal, gibbering fear that he couldn't feel because of shock now came to him in an ugly, roiling deluge. Paul didn't know how long he screamed, or when those screams stopped and turned into wracking sobs. At some point he wet himself again, his urine turning cold and clammy against the rock.

Eventually, his sobs stopped, and Paul collapsed against the ground, exhausted. He succumbed to fatigue, shivering, wet, and afraid.

He woke hours later to darkness. For a moment, panic threatened to overwhelm him again, his heart thudding in his chest and his breath coming short. He struggled to control his heaving chest, wiping away tears and snot as he tried to come to terms with his new reality.

I'm alive. I don't know how, I don't know why, but I'm alive. Is this an afterlife? If it's heaven, it's awfully dark, but it seems a little cold for hell.

Taking deep, shuddering breaths, he slowly talked himself down from a panic attack, only to notice that his teeth were chattering and that goosebumps rose from his flesh.

Paul shakily rose to his feet. He still couldn't see anything, but his left hand met a rough stone wall on one side, his fingers scratching on what felt like solid rock. Tentatively, he took a step forward, then again, bare feet finding cold stone and loose earth beneath them. Occasionally a sharp rock made Paul grimace, forcing him to step carefully. He kept one hand on the rock wall at all times, guiding him through the darkness. Paul mentally ran through the basics of survival. Shelter. Water. Fire. Food. He still heard the faint sound of water flowing, and while he couldn't take care of the other items at the moment, water seemed like an attainable goal.

"Hello?!"

"Help!"

Paul's voice was deafening to him in his surroundings, which he was quickly beginning to think of as a cavern. There didn't seem to be a breeze, and there weren't any of the sounds that Paul would expect from being outside, but the floors and wall weren't smooth as he would expect from being inside of a building. There were no replies except for echoes.

Continuing down the path, his hand dislodged a loose rock and it clattered noisily to the ground. He jumped, then pressed himself against the wall as imagined horrors reached for him in the dark. His panic mingled with his memories of his death, and he lost himself in fear, unable to move, hyperventilating and squeezing his eyes shut. It took him a score of heaving breaths before he recovered, wiping snot and tears from his face.

And I thought I was tough. Paul let out a strangled laugh.

What would the rest of the squad think of me, crying in the dark?

I guess it doesn't matter, they're all dead too.

Paul remembered his friends dying, cut apart or burned away in the battle.

If they died too, maybe they're here as well?

Paul shouted their names, but none of them answered. Paul clenched his jaw and continued walking.

He didn't know how long it had been since he began walking.

Long enough for two more panic attacks.

Long enough for him his right foot to bleed, cut open on a sharp stone, then naturally stop again as his blood clotted.

The ground wasn't entirely smooth, sometimes unexpectedly rising, causing Paul to bash his shins and toes, and occasionally dropping, causing him to stumble, catching himself on his knees and hands, which led to more pain, and more bleeding. Paul considered stopping, but grit his teeth and kept moving.

It's no worse than falling off your bike when you were a kid, you can deal with a skinned knee.

Paul's eyes strained in the darkness for any sign of light. For hours he found none, though Paul thought he now saw different shades of black.

Paul rounded a corner to see a dim glow leaking from the cavern ahead. As he approached, it grew brighter, the faint light illuminating the vague outlines of walls, ceiling, stalactites, and stalagmites.

Paul never knew that seeing light again could be such a relief. He let out a breath that escaped his lips half as a sigh and half as a sob. Stumbling toward the faint glow, Paul almost didn't notice the skittering sound of claws on rock as the noise grew closer.

He froze, listening to the light tapping of footsteps. They grew louder than before. Panic rose from Paul's gut again, before they suddenly silenced. Paul let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He was about to move forward again but stopped. The footsteps began again, but this time much quieter. Slower.

*click*

*click*

*click*

*click*

Paul could tell the steps were coming closer. Slowly. Methodically. As if whatever was making the noise was trying to be quiet. Like it was stalking something. Like it was stalking him.

*click*

*click*

**click click click click*

Paul’s panic overwhelmed him, his imagination creating a myriad of terrors in the darkness, all ready to rend him.

He tried to convince himself that if he hadn't just died, if he wasn't naked, if he was wearing his Colonial Guard uniform and holding his rifle, maybe then he wouldn't be paralyzed in terror.

A small part of Paul's mind tried to rationalize with the suffocating fear, trying to beat it back.

It's probably something harmless. There's no reason to be afraid when you don't know what it....

The sounds of claws on stone rose in volume and four red glowing eyes sped toward him, interrupting Paul's inner monologue.

Paul didn't wait to see what creature the eyes belonged to. Fight or flight mode triggered, Paul emphatically chose "flight".

He turned back the way he came, hurtling into the darkness. The footsteps followed, and fear urged him faster.

He fled into pitch blackness, moving at a full sprint and careening off of cave walls he couldn't see. Paul kept running.

He felt the divot in the tunnel floor too late to correct his stride. His leg over-extended and bent obscenely beneath him, and there was a profound wrongness in his leg as a bone snapped. Paul tied to stand, but his leg folded beneath him. The skittering footsteps grew even closer, and Paul struggled to move, leveraging himself up on his hands and his uninjured leg. He tried to crawl, dragging his lame leg behind him.

Paul screamed as he felt a weight thud onto his back. He had an impression of bristly fur and a musky odor before sharp claws ripped away at his naked skin. Paul wrenched his body over, wrestling the creature off of his back. It leaped away and then back toward him. The beast’s four glowing red eyes were close now, and they were all Paul could see in the darkness. Sharp teeth snapped at his neck, but Paul wrenched a forearm between his neck and the descending jaws. The creature bit down hard on his arm. Paul screamed again as jagged teeth scraped against his bone. Rear claws raked into Paul's stomach, threatening to disembowel him. Paul punched desperately with his free hand at one of the creature's eyes, but only landed a glancing blow on the side of its head.

The creature released its bite on Paul's forearm, and Paul heaved the beast off him. It made a small cry of pain, then scrabbled toward Paul again. Paul sat up and tried to meet it with a punch, but the creature turned its head away and lunged toward Paul's neck. Paul frantically tried to shield his neck again, but the beast's teeth were already there. A moment later, the creature ripped his throat out.

He batted feebly at the creature as it fed on him. Moments later his limbs stopped obeying him and fell limply at his side.

Oh fuck, not again.

Consciousness fading, he was a barely aware of the messages that seemed to play across the back of his eyelids.

*Processing Death*

*Alpha Level Implant - Beginning Reconstitution Process*

*Error: Previous Reconstitution Process Incomplete*

*Error: Species Not in Database: No Species Traits Set*

*Error: Species Not in Database: No Species Skill Template Set*

*Error: No Class Assigned: No Class Template Set*

*Error: 2nd Reconstitution Failure - Beginning Emergency Implant Reset*

*Beginning Species Diagnostic - Mining Subject Memory*

*Estimating Technology Level of Host Species*

*Error: Technology Level Out of Normal Bounds*

*Overriding - No Technology Restriction Found on This Species in Database*

*Estimating Magic Affinity of Host Species*

*Error: No Magic Affinity *

*Overriding - All Species Must Have Non-Zero Magic Affinity Assigned*

*Assigning Primary Attributes*

*Assigning Secondary Attributes*

*Assigning Tertiary Attributes*

*Reconstituting Earned Skills*

*Error - Skills Earned But Not Assigned Due to Failed Reconstitution*

*Assigning Skill: Nightvision 1*

*Assigning Skill: Survival 1*

*Assigning Skill: Pain Tolerance 1*

*Assigning Skill: Sprinting 1*

*Retrying Reconstitution Process*

*Reconstitution Process: Success*

If a creature wasn't taking bites off him while the messages flashed through his brain, he might have even paid attention to them.