Ave, peoples!

This is the official, edited and complete, Flash Fiction project I wrote for Injoy’s Flash Fiction Class. It was definitely a new experience for me and the class was excellent. :.)- (That smiley has a goatee!)

I plan on entering “D.R.E.A.M. Unit Helth Leaguer” in the Flash Fiction Contest Injoy is doing October 18, 2013, and I wanted to know what you guys think of it!

Prepare yourselves for something that can be read before you can properly eat a candy bar without choking!

Helth Leaguer stepped lightly into the small clearing, admiring his illumined surroundings. It elated his spirit to occupy such a place of wonder and beauty.

He was in a landscape of bioluminescent life. The organic flora and fauna that the alien jungle comprised was a cosmic mass of natural life, radiating a variegation of both iridescent and non-iridescent glows produced by the chemical reaction of chemiluminescence.

Helth typically stared impartially at the drab, dull features of his  purlieu. Such a fresh and colorful scene as this brightened his outlook; it was just what he needed to convalesce and continue on.

He brushed aside a plant stalk that had a bulbous luminescent protrusion at its top as he pushed out of the clearing and again plunged into the fray of flora. The terrain wasn’t an impassable obstacle, though Helth had to ensure his movement was planned and deliberate, else he lose his footing and accidently tumble headlong into one of numerous haphazard chemical pits.

There were many dangers here, some lethal, others more decidedly of a foci to inflict pain and tormenting harm rather than simply kill. Beauty often comes with deceitful threats, and this alien jungle shared no immunity against that. A single omission could easily lead to fatality.

An out-of-place noise in the bioluminescent forest’s harmony caught the attention of Helth’s acutely trained ears. A rustling of sorts, a quiet animalistic clicking; the identifiable sound of discreet movement from above in the twisted branches.

Making it seem as though he had heard nothing, the explorer sustained an even gait, while avoiding hazards, for two miles until the noise suddenly adapted into a shrill shriek. It was then that Helth raised his attention to the upper tree branches. With only his naked eyes, he quickly scanned the surrounding vicinity.

He occupied a dense area of vegetation and towering trees—a cliff drop into a deep grotto nearly hidden by overgrown plants was to his right—to his left was the thickest flora, while the front and back were moderately clear. It was not particularly the ideal location for a skirmish.

His attention was drawn to a point behind him, in the overlying branches near where he came. His stalker had abandoned all secrecy. It cautiously lurked from the concealing shadows and revealed itself in the unsettling blue glow of a branch’s bioluminescent foliage.

It was a Nightarch Spider, a forest-dwelling arachnid of considerably larger mass than was typical of its general species classification. The Nightarch Spider belonged primarily to a family of half-shadow, half-solid creatures identified normally as “Nightarchs”. They were enigmatic creatures, and Helth, nor anyone in his line of work, knew very much about them.

Nonetheless, Helth remembered from the uncountable hours he had spent drilling the classifications into his mind that this particular type of Nightarch Spider was a Stalker type.

The Stalker hissed intensely, vehement urgency to overcome and subdue its prey evident. Helth surmised it must have  begun recently suffering from lack of sustenance and was bent on satisfying its ravenous hunger by consuming his flesh.

The explorer drew his weapon—a submachine firearm called a D.E.G. Subgun-AM5—slowly as to not entice the spider’s anxiousness to attack him.

It did not require any inclination. The Stalker fluxed into shadowlike matter and lunged forward, deadly forelimbs extended to enact a felling double stab.

Helth instinctively rolled to the left, avoiding the Nightarch Spider’s attack with a small fraction of space to spare. Upon completing the roll, he turned about, crouched, and pulled his weapon’s trigger. A burst of stunning sapphire light ejected from the Subgun’s barrel-end.

The Stalker, now solid matter again, utilized its own agility and evaded death. Nonetheless, the bolt tore off one of its lethal forward appendages from the second joint. This elicited a ghostly cry from it and the laceration spilled forth unnatural midnight-black blood.

Infuriated, the creature aggressively sprang at Helth with greater vehemence than its previous attack. He initiated three more blasts from the AM5 in an up-to-down straight arch in front of him, forcing the spider to abandon its jump. But to the explorer’s dismay, it immediately leapt sideways onto a tree’s cylinder trunk and taking advantage of the momentum, darted back directly at him.

Unable to react quick enough, Helth was barreled into by the Stalker’s armored head. The impact sent both flying in a fray of sprawling limbs and dark blood until they crashed to a halt at the grotto’s edge.

Helth’s new adversary spared no time in resuming its attack; it thrashed about, using its legs and fearsome mouth of fangs in a continued attempt to kill Helth.

Jarred, injured and covered in a pool of dark blood, Helth shifted and turned beneath his opposition to avoid its myriad of frantic stabs. If his next move didn’t end the skirmish, he would never reach his destination.

He rapidly assessed his situation and realized that his Subgun had remained connected to him even through the jostling. Immediately putting it to use, he roared with a burst of adrenaline; the weapon reacted likewise to his emotion as he pulled the trigger.

A sphere of roseate energy erupted from the weapon, propagating an aura of dazzling, passionate light. The Stalker retreated from atop its prey and the sphere of light flew unguided into the thick flora. It exploded, flames shooting forth like fiery demons released from a cage. The forest was immediately set ablaze. Chemicals reacted; the alien jungle surged a large bellow of thick, unstoppable fire in every direction.

Helth knew what was happening, and he—if for only the smallest moment—pitied the Stalker. Subsequent to the roseate energy sphere, it had involuntarily shifted to shadowlike matter in self-defense. Now, brilliant light illumined the area, and it was obliterated almost instantaneously.

The explorer punched a hole in the foliage covering the grotto and descended on one of its walls, narrowly escaping the torrent of raging flame that engulfed the area he had occupied moments ago.