Nightshift 60: Main Hallway, 2-West
[from here]
Taura peeked out of the stairwell door with the first evidence of caution she'd shown all night. Everything looked quiet, but that didn't mean much of anything.
They'd met here the last time she'd come up to head into that room, and that thing had come out of the walls. She didn't want to wait around anywhere, but especially not here. She was glad they were meeting a little further down the hallway. It didn't make it safer, but she'd fought enough battles to earn a little superstition.
Every soldier had a few. Didn't matter if they were religious or so fanatically committed to the opposite opinion that it almost qualified, they gathered superstitions like an air filter gathered dust. When you risked your life every day, anything that seemed to stand between you and the darkness shone like a beacon. She'd learned to forgive her fellow soldiers their foibles quickly; and then after her first real mission she'd understood. A fussy method of attaching a helmet was both a safety measure and a ritual -- doing something the same way every time kept people from forgetting it, and every time they came back alive cemented it.
Taura peeked out of the stairwell door with the first evidence of caution she'd shown all night. Everything looked quiet, but that didn't mean much of anything.
They'd met here the last time she'd come up to head into that room, and that thing had come out of the walls. She didn't want to wait around anywhere, but especially not here. She was glad they were meeting a little further down the hallway. It didn't make it safer, but she'd fought enough battles to earn a little superstition.
Every soldier had a few. Didn't matter if they were religious or so fanatically committed to the opposite opinion that it almost qualified, they gathered superstitions like an air filter gathered dust. When you risked your life every day, anything that seemed to stand between you and the darkness shone like a beacon. She'd learned to forgive her fellow soldiers their foibles quickly; and then after her first real mission she'd understood. A fussy method of attaching a helmet was both a safety measure and a ritual -- doing something the same way every time kept people from forgetting it, and every time they came back alive cemented it.