"All right, everyone, listen up," Sergeant Rico said, returning to the group of ten soldiers. "Our objective is simple. We'll cross the river — and I say "cross" — and make our way past the jungle to the abandoned city to the south. Nothing fancy, just observe the area and take any readings we can. From there, we'll make a decision on whether or not to move forward with either hostage rescue or recon."
"Sir, if I may ask — " a thin man raised his hand. "What's the probability of finding hostages?"
"We don't know that," Rico said. "But I recommend you keep your guard up regardless. Let's just be careful and move fast, okay?"
"Yes, sir." The man's face straightened up as Rico addressed him.
Rico turned away to address the rest of the soldiers. "I need four of you to cross the river and take down the gate. Then we've got movement sensors and trip wires to deal with, so I need two more to handle that. When we're done, we'll all secure the area and search the jungle."
The soldiers nodded, and two men and two women got into the wooden canoe and paddled across the river. The canoe barely cleared the river's surface, but the four slithered onto the shore and trudged straight for a decrepit metal gate leading to the ancient city through a thick jungle.
The metal gate was easily twenty feet high and covered in vines, but Rico signaled for one solider with a field pack to rush up and take care of it. The soldier pulled a piston out of his pack, flipped a switch on the back and arced into the metal gate. It glowed red hot as he continued to arc, then a retina-scorching flash of intense light shone onto the soldier's face as he pulled his hand away.
"Cover your eyes!" Rico shouted. The soldier did so and the others turned their eyes away a few seconds after the flash. Rico waited a few more seconds and threw his arm out again. "Okay! Pull!"
The soldier with the arced pack pulled the gate to the side and the four other soldiers slinged their packs onto their backs and rushed inside. They walked quietly through the ruins, looking around in every direction and taking readings with an instrument hanging from their belts. All they saw were wild plants, and they found rotting remains of human skeletons scattered everywhere. They saw signs of human activity as well, but no indication of the presence of any humans or animals.
"There's something weird about this place," one of the four whispered to another. "Look at the trees."
"Yeah," said the second soldier, who ducked beneath a tree's exposed root. "They look like plants but they're not."
"They're like – empty, I think," said the third soldier, who pulled out a knife and started hacking at one of the trees. She took a few stabs of her knife before stepping back to examine her work. "Nope, that's pretty much just a tree, but as dead as everything is, this whole place is like…"
"Like plastic?" said the first soldier, who was still looking around. "Except then we'd see animals or something. This place is a desert and everything's died. The sun's done the job."
"Hey guys!" called another voice from the city streets. It was Rico, who was rounding a corner just ten yards away. "We're about to leave. Everyone this way."
"Got it," the first soldier called back, who was running back to the corner to make her way to Rico. She stopped when she passed behind the tree she'd been looking at.
"Hang on," she said. "There's something on this tree."
The second soldier looked through the trunk at the tree's trunk. "Huh. It doesn't look like a face…"
They looked up above them, but at over ten feet up, they didn't see anything. "What the hell?" said the third soldier, who turned around and saw another face staring at him straight through the tree. A second later, the tree started shaking and the soldiers screamed.
"Everyone'd better come back!" Rico shouted into radio, which was a small device the soldiers wore around their necks. "Combat Foxtrot's secure!" he said, then pulled out his gun.
The soldiers came running towards Rico, who was only seconds away from firing into the tree when something caught his attention: movement. He dropped into a sprint, and his soldiers followed suit, but not before a small, dull silver object fell out of the tree and onto the hard ground. The soldiers heard the thump and saw the strange object through the corner of their eyes, but they didn't get a good look at it before it was swallowed by the jungle.
"Aaaand out!" Rico said as he reached the tree and took a step back. A split second later, the tree released a barrage of projectiles that all flew towards the soldiers and Rico. The soldiers ducked behind Rico and took cover behind the large holes their first soldier had made. Rico wasted no time, lifted his gun and fired three shots at the tree. The bark on the side of the tree melted and after a few seconds, a large hunk of the tree fell to the ground. "Scoundrels!" Rico cursed. He took out his radio and tossed it to the ground.
