Halo: Endurance

RUMBLE

Underneath a thundering sky, David paused, catching his breath from his getaway. He swallowed back saliva as he leaned against a small brick wall set onto an outcropping overlooking the Cobalt Falls. In his crouched position, he saw no one nearby and slid down the wall until he sat sprawled out against it. He glanced down slowly before his vision set on his spoils.

Nom Nom

Fearing that he may end up being followed and forced to return the food, he began to scarf down vegetable after vegetable. He ate like a wolf who hadn't eaten in months, not worrying about the fact that they were dirty or what parts were edible and what weren't. He was disgusted by the taste, yet his mind only cared about the survival of the body, not the taste of what was going into it.

Finishing his hastened meal, he stood up to depart quietly from the area, wanting to leave before anyone identified him, but after taking a step away, he stopped in his tracks. He lurched, clutching his stomach before turning back to the brick wall with a pale complexion, "Bleughh,". The moment his eyes settled on the rushing water, David vomited up all of what he had ingested. It was a disgusting color, and as it exited the young boy's digestive tract, he seemed to only feel worse rather than better.

Sweating profusely, he lay his head and upper body onto the top of the rock wall, closing his eyes for a brief moment as he felt relief from the cold and wet surface. A sense of drowsiness washed over him, and just as he was about to give in to its allure, his eyes snapped open as he refused to fall asleep. Realizing he needed something to occupy his mind, he settled on watching the waterfall.

The boy stood there watching the vicious flow of the river, completely alone.

"This sucks," David commented to himself aloud. He had found himself repeating this statement with increasing frequency over the past months. First, he was denied access to the temporary housing unit he used to live in, and then when he realized he had nowhere to go. When he went hungry for the first entire day, and again many times after.

"Where am I going?" he couldn't help but ask himself. Was this it? Was he going to remain a vagrant forever? Someone that everyone turns their gaze away from when they walk by? No… was he going to remain a thief, some thug that had to take from others for himself without providing any form of value?

As he asked himself these questions, the negative part of him whispered that throwing himself off the waterfall would be a better alternative, less pain, it tried to sell. A quick and hopefully painless end to a life that no one held expectations of anymore. The choice was rather appealing, as it had the allure of rest behind its dark door.

Yet just as quickly as that depressing cloud came into view, it was blown off course, "There'll be another time," he recalled his mother telling him, "Everything has seasons, and so when you are feeling down, always know that even those feelings shall one day pass,". Though he had yet to find out if the saying was true, for now, David decided to keep his faith in his parents' words.

Drip-Drip-Drip

Slowly, the rain began to fall again. David, not wanting to spend the night shivering and wet, accepted that it was time to leave. He took a final look at the water that rippled with droplets across its surface, 'Some day this will change,' he told himself before turning back, though the words sounded a bit more hollow than the last time he said them.

Nevertheless, he held to the promise, as that was all he had.

CRACK-BOOM

He walked slowly, taking the stairs that led to the outcropping with caution. The rain had made the weathered stone slick. After this, maybe he could do some begging for money or food, though it was raining and fewer people were out, he bet that he would look more pitiable-

BARK BARK BARK

David nearly jumped out of his skin as he reached the top of the stairs. A wet, ravenous maw of a Cane Corso, an enormous breed of dog. It nearly jumped on him, causing him to stumble backward down to the bottom of the stairs he had just ascended.

"Easy Max! Easy boy!" David heard a familiar voice as he scrambled to get away from the stairs.

David turned to flee but froze. His stomach sank as he saw another officer blocking the path, "Don't move, kid!" This time, he knew that this voice belonged to one of the officers from earlier.

David, with a fear-stricken face, backed back to the outcropping he had just been sitting at. His mind raced, thinking of a possible out of the situation at hand.

"Give it up, son," the officer, Morgan, descended the stairs, gripping the leash on the dog tightly. He spoke with a somewhat pleading tone, "Don't make it harder on yourself. I'll do what I can to make it right. All you gotta do is come with me. I want to help you," he spoke earnestly all the while wiping rain out of his eyes as they stung.

David holding his arm in front of his face to block the downpour was almost persuaded until his partner opened his mouth, "Don't spew that bullshit, Arthur! This little shit is going down!" the man looked outraged at the boy's actions.

BARK BARK

"Cool it, Michaels!"

The kid in front of the officers gripped the top of the stone wall, acting as a railing. His back was against the wall, and he began to accept that there was no escape this time. At least no escape in a conventional way…

Seeing the shifty movements of the boy, the angered officer took a step forward. David spotted the approaching danger and jumped up onto the top of the stone ledge. Glancing over his back made his hair stand on end. It was a steep drop down a rocky cliff before he reached the river water which flowed into the waterfalls. He knew he could make it into the water, but he really didn't want to jump.

GRRRRRR

"Damn it Michaels hold off!," the other officer shouted at his partner, "Can't you see he's scared!" the man Arthur then turned back to the boy. But by then, he knew that the kid's mind had been made up. Between the constant rain pitter-pattering around and on him, the growls of the Police's K9, and the looming thought of something like prison or jai,l David had decided to take his chances. 

And so he jumped.

He leaped from his spot into the pouring rain towards the flowing river. In an instant, his body jerked down, going full throttle towards the crust of Sagasso. His veins felt as if they were on fire as he lost his breath, feeling as if his heart had leaped out of his chest once he had jumped. With each passing moment, he felt his velocity gain as the air ripped through his ears, traveling like a torpedo dropped by an old plane. David was glad that he was too paralyzed with fear to feel the initial impact of the water.

"NO!" shouted Arthur as he ran to the stone barrier. His eyes were wide with shock as his heart plunged. Even his partner Michaels couldn't help but curse, "Crazy little shit," as he followed Morgan to the wall. The pair could only watch in horror as the boy took a plunge into the water and didn't come back up.

Below in the water, the body of the boy was tossed to and fro in the water. Smashing against stones being drug along the bottom of the river. Cuts, scratches, and bruises piled on while he only managed not to drown due to quick breaths during the times he bobbed up and down. Of course, that was until he found himself in a free fall again, being carried off the overhang heading toward the pool at the bottom with his front oriented towards the sky. And the 'boy' David was never seen again in a public setting.

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Over the next few days, a search group of Ardennes officers led by Sergeant Arthur Morgan and various other department resources searched the surrounding area of the pool that David was believed to have fallen into and the waterway it fed. It was unknown if the boy had gotten out of the pool, as the heavy rain had completely washed away any scent or tracks that could have been followed. Keeping that in mind, they only searched within three miles of each bank, going the seven-mile length of wilderness that it ran through.

After weeks of searching, the task force was forced to give up and end the search. Besides running out of real estate to search (caused by the 7-mile length running into a Nature Reserve owned by the UEG for research), it was also an accepted fact that the boy was most likely deceased by this point in the timeline. Considering that the boy was, for all intents and purposes, a criminal and the fact that they believed they did their due diligence, the Ardennes Patrol Squadron wrote the boy off as deceased and remains unrecovered.

In the years to come, the two officers on patrol that night would have to come to terms with the belief that they were the primary causes of a young boy taking his life at the Cobalt Falls.

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{Pov Switch}

It was dark.

It was cold.

It was…wet?

"BLEUGHH" Bursting out of the water that I jumped into, I fell onto the muddy shore.

Cough-Cough

I threw up water as I lay with just my upper torso out of the water. I pressed the side of my face into the soggy land as I felt tired, "Ah," I strained to pull myself up.

A few moments passed, and eventually, I stood up, 'What happened to my shoulder?' My arm ached with pain as I began to drag myself forward. I grabbed my shoulder, trying to stop some of the pain that surged with my limping steps.

Just as I got myself over the berm, I stumbled, collapsing onto my belly, incapable of standing up again, "N-Not yet!" I stammered out in exhaustion, "It's not over yet," I told myself as I began to drag myself along the wet grassy dirt. Words couldn't describe how happy I was that it had stopped raining.

Looking in the distance ahead of me, the moonlight reflected a bright orange object ahead of me, 'If-If I can just make it there, I can survive,' I don't know why, but something told me that if I could just make it to that orange object, I would be fine.

And so with that one thought, I gathered up all remaining energy and strength I could muster and used my good arm to pull myself towards my goal. I inched forward over what felt like an eternity. Razor blades seemed to scratch at my body and the side of my face, but I continued tricking myself in order to reach my only hope.

Finally, with a last pull before my body gave out, I reached my destination, and the bright orange object came into view.

"Flowers?" I asked. As I slowly drifted off to sleep, the last thing my mind captured was the image of an orange rose, the same one I had planned to give to Mom. My head rocked over, and I let out a deep breath before finally closing my eyes.

"I miss you, Mom,"

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