Charles 1

Charles sighed. Even though he had years of expanse exploration, he never got used to the sense of danger. Not since his right hand was taken by an ant. He shook his head. That was not a memory he wished to relive right now.

Today's mission was to scout layer level two. Signs of an undiscovered expanse were in the vicinity, and Charles led his squad to scout the tunnels. Any creature they came across was to be killed, unless it was too strong or had signs of intelligence.

"Captain. Captain! Captain Charles, get out of your damn head!"

A petite woman jolted him from his head. That was Martha, his scout. She was a red-headed minx, but she did her job well. She also could get sassy from time to time. She was the best of the best, and she'd served as his scout for over ten years.

"Yes, Martha? Do you have a report?" Charles was laid-back, he wasn't worried about anything right now. After all, this was only the second main level, and nothing here should be able to threaten him or his squad. They were some of the best, and they went way deeper than this shithole.

"Reporting sir! No anomalies have been discovered, and the immediate tunnels have been cleared! All creatures were dispatched with no exceptions or injury."

Charles snorted. Hell, if one of his own got injured against some centipedes, he'd be the first to drive his boot up their ass. These centipedes couldn't even handle his finger, much less his axe. He looked up from the reports stuffed in his hands by his scout and saw her smile, like she was proud. He sighed, before patting her head.

"Alright, good job Martha. Take ten and will move on."

"Thank you sir!" Martha practically blinded him with her beaming smile. He waved her off. "Alright, get out of here. Take this break properly." "Yes sir!" She ran off, no doubt to inform the rest of the squad of the break she'd earned from him.

"Haah." Charles sighed. It was no secret that Martha was interested in him, it was the worst kept secret in the history of kept secrets. In fact, he was pretty sure everyone knew it. It was just that no one had the balls to say it to his face. They all had heard his story. Well, part of it at least.

Charles had enlisted at the tender age of just nine years old. His family had been ripped apart by rogue creatures the year before, and he had been a ward of the state until then. He went into his ten years of training with all of his youthful vigor and desire for revenge. He performed exceptionally. Top of his class for every year, kind to all his classmates, no enemies, all of that did not go unnoticed by his instructors. He marked to lead, and he trained for it too.

During his final of year examinations, an unknown V.I.P showed up, changing all of the camp's plans. Instead of his finals being a delve into the first main layer, his class was forced into the third main layer, to a place nicknamed the desert. It was a huge expanse, quadruple the size of normal ones, and he had to lead of team of twenty. The objective was to survive for one month.

The first week was tense but overall peaceful. Charles led his team to scout out an area near an oasis, but not too close, and they succeeded in making a camp with minimal injuries. The worst one was a sprained wrist, and it was from a different activity. They secured a decently shaded underside of a hill, and beyond replenishing supplies from the oasis, all they had to do was guard it. That was what turned out to be the issue.

The start of the second week was chaos. One of the guards had fallen asleep on duty, and the camp was breached right before dawn. A horde of sand snakes had overrun the eastern sector, and his group suffered several heavy injuries from the snake poison, one person even died. What's worse, the guard was the casualty, so no one could have closure or vent on the useless guard. The tension was rising, and quickly.

On the third day, Charles finally found a way to mitigate the poison, and thereby saved four comrades. So far, only one person had died, yet that day they suffered another accident. The second water collection group had suffered slight injuries at the oasis, and they lost a water barrel.

The group was treated first, then punished, but the third water group wasn't happy about having to pick up the slack. That, plus the fact that the second water group used to have the guard in it didn't help. Luckily, no fights broke out, and the rest of the week went by well, with no one dying. Someone even had a birthday, so they celebrated a little bit. All in all, the exam was halfway done.

In the third week, a split occurred in the group. Half of the nineteen people wanted to stay in the camp and defend, while the other half wanted to kill more creatures. After wall, they reasoned, it was an exam. Charles was on the defending side. No agreement was reached, and things went on as usual, until the next day. Charles was woken up to the news that the other half of the group, led by his girlfriend of three years, had left in the middle of the night. His girlfriend, Sarah, had left him a letter.

No one besides him knew what he read that day. Some say she was cheating on him and decided to tell him, others say it was some secret, but only Charles knew. After reading it, he ripped it to shreds and said not to look for the other group, as they were long gone. The camp was now down to nine people plus Charles, and so they downsized to make it more convenient and easier to defend. The week went by.

It was the final week, and at the start of it, a disaster occurred. Charles' group was woken in the middle of the night to a loud rumbling in the distance. Charles led a scouting regiment out himself and returned two hours later. This time, however, he came back with four more people than he left with. The final survivors of the other group.

It turned out that they had pissed off a group of stone elephants and had to flee. What he brought back was what was left, only four had succeeded, including Sarah. Charles never even spared her a glance, other than having her report. Time was of the essence, the horde was still after them. Four days went by with Charles and the remains of his group making hast towards the rendezvous point and running as fast as possible to escape the bone elephants.

It was the final day, and the rendezvous point was only a ten mile run away. Tensions were high, however, as they could make out the cloud of dust the signified the bone elephants. It was noon, halfway through the run that Charles stopped and told his group to leave him. They were obviously not close enough, and someone had to volunteer to try and hold the horde back. Charles was the guy, and Sarah stayed as well. They had always been the damaging duet, and no one argued, as they could over double their combat strength together.

The rest of the group resumed the run with renewed haste and reached the camp only an hour later, half the theoretical time. Panicked, they told the instructors about Charles and Sarah. The instructors, for all they were worth, immediately went forth to stop the horde. Alas, they were too late.

They first found the body of Sarah, who had been crushed to death. When they investigated her remains, they determined that she had committed suicide. The question was, where did Charles go? Why was Sarah alone? They soon spotted his tracks. Following them, they found Charles passed out among a mountain of corpses and missing his entire right arm.

It turns out that among the group of bone elephants was a group of Desert crabs, notorious for sneaking underground. Sarah had withstood the bone elephants, but it was up to Charles to lead the crabs away and handle them. As a result, the main group survived, but Charles was heavily injured, and Sarah's life was lost.