Six Months Latter. By Dax and Covax.

A long time ago there was a place on the Internet called Writer's Block. People inspired by Half-Life wrote stories, Writer's Block is where those stories were shared..

6 Months Latter is the only one I kept:

It takes place in our world in the time after Half-Life 1 and Opposing Force, before Half-Life 2. In Opposing Force there were the insectoid Race X. Perhaps Race X became Combine too...

Who knows.



Six Months Latter.
By Dax and Covax.


Jaya Stood by The Wall, passing her hand over the names she had engraved.

Vincent
Dante
Jay

There were other names, but these she had carved personally. The Memorial Wall was all that was left of Detroit’s Renascence Centre. Anyone was free to carve a name into the wall, but everyone silently agreed that only names of the heroes of the Xen War were allowed on. Jaya sighed. This place should be cleaned up, but there’s never enough time. Detroit was slowly being repaired, and now that the Xen race was gone, communications lines began to form between surviving communities.

Jaya heard the jeep coming up the road. She turned towards it, but caught a glint of something from the corner of her eye. Something metallic and... orange? She spun her head and looked towards a patch of bushes that had grown despite, or perhaps because of the Metron bomb’s radiation.

Nothing. The bushes covered an old billboard, the refection was probably light from the sunrise.

The jeep stopped at the designated parking area and the diver scrambled out. Looks like my ride’s here she thought. Time to get back to work. She put on her glove, and the vacuum seal of the modified HEV suit snapped into place.

“Commander!” the driver yelled. “Michigan Division’s located the last X-nest, C&C’s waiting your word before the perimeter’s engaged!”

“My plane ready? And is the tactical communications network online?” She asked, beginning a brisk pace to the jeep.

“Yes Mam, both counts” the diver responded.

“Good, I don’t want a repeat of New Hampshire, Race-X just loves their tunnelling network.” As Jaya got into the jeep, she took one last look at the wall.

As the jeep sped away, a lone figure stepped out from behind the Wall. He was dressed in an odd-patchwork of colours, pieces from various HEV suits, PVC vests, electronic equipment and roughly stitched leather.

Yes, they’ve done well enough without me, he thought.

The figure bent down, picked up a rock and walked over to the wall. Slowly he scratched in blocky letters.

The figure stepped back, looked at his work and nodded. He dropped the rock, and pushed a control at the side of his belt. A green glow began to envelop him. And was he was gone. When Jaya returned two weeks later she would find a new name carved into the wall:

Freeman