Lance stood on a cliff, with a horde of giant insects stampeding towards him. Vile mandibles grasping towards him. Armed only with a rifle, he mowed them down. He stepped back, shrinking the distance between him and the jagged rocks below.
The barrel of his gun grew hot, air steaming itself around it as the rounds found themselves embedded into the carapaces of the monsters but it did little to slow the tide. It was only a matter of time till he ran out of ammunition. There was no way out but Lance wouldn't hug the cliffs, he wanted to go out fighting.
His rifle's last shot bore through the head of one of the aliens causing its massive body to slide on the ground through momentum. Its compatriots cared little for their fallen comrade, stepping over its body till it turned into a paste. Lance ran forward, flipping the gun and grabbing it by its scalding barrel. As he leapt into the mass of insects he could feel them crawling all over him.
Thousands upon thousands of tiny legs crawled along his bones. The sensation was met with the occasional jolt of pain; he felt as if his nerves were being dragged into completely new locations.
With a scream he woke up, everything around him did not matter, it felt like thousands of ants crawled inside his body. He scratched every centimeter he could reach. Lance's feverous scratching only came to a halt with a sudden prick in his shoulder followed by a numb sensation covering his body.
Lance finally registered his environment, it was an ambulance; though one far more advanced than he had seen. It was slick and refined, whilst also aged and bruised, what should have been flush cabinets were now dented and dinged. The bright white light that washed over him flickered out with every bump on the road.
It took him a moment to properly adjust to the light and register the two people in the vehicle to him. The first was a muscular woman who was holding him down, syringe in hand, the second remained in his seat watching him with an icy gaze.
"Well, I didn't think you'd wake up so soon. Those nanites are doing wonders Reke" The second person rifled through his pockets.
"Not in here." The first person, Reke barked back. The man lifted his hands away from his body in an exaggerated flair.
"I'm not trying to smoke, you think I'm insane?" The second person grumbled. He dug his hands into his coat, pulling out what looked like a vintage tape recorder.
"Where is my ship? Where are you taking me?" Lance asked. The numbing sensation reached his head making his thoughts not sluggish but rather distinct and detached.
"Easy there junior, you had a hell of a crash. Do you remember what happened?" The man placed the device on his lap, it began to thrum with a distinctly non-vintage wave of red and white.
Lance's mind seemed to freeze, he knew the answer to the question; of course not, the guy that did is probably enjoying a nice easy life with a system or a cheat. But he could not answer. It was as if his bodied was forcing him not to say anything.
The lights seemed to brighten to a blinding degree, the flickering only made them even more blinding. Sweat rolled down Lance's brow; the need to say something was dominating him.
"I don't remember." the words dragged themselves out of Lance's lips; his voice stilted and each word seemed to rip a bit of moisture from his mouth.
"What…did you give?" Lance tried to struggle but the numbing feeling sapped him of all his strength. The man fumbled with the device and watched it flash a bright white.
"Nothing special; helps with the scratching though. Those medical nanites are always a nightmare, I remember… No, you don't want to hear an old man like me ramble. Now where did depart from?"
Lance felt nothing as his brain seemed to analyze every possible way the simple sentence 'Where did you depart from' could mean. Time froze as Lance's mind struggle to keep up.
"I don't remember." The man did not take that well, brows furrowed he quickly pulled up his device and studied it a bright white light erupting on it.
"Reke, what are the odds he has amnesia?" The man quickly pocketed the device, Lance could tell he was making a mental note of which pocket he put it in.
Lance couldn't make out Rieke's expression in the cascade of blinding light. Whatever they had given him was making it difficult to determine what or whom he was looking at.
"Sir, he fought a Grelm and crashed a ship, it would be a miracle if he didn't have head trauma of some sort. I can't determine anything there till we get him in the hospital."
Lance could hear the man suck on his teeth. " Fantastic."