𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐁𝐈𝐀 ━ jason x reader.

Six

[Sand Caverns, Iraq. Thursday,
May 30, 2003.]

𝚂𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙲𝙰𝚅𝙴𝚁𝙽𝚂
𝟷𝟿:𝟶𝟺 𝙷𝚁𝚂
𝙳𝙴𝙿𝚃𝙷: 𝟻𝟻 𝙵𝚃.

Salim Othman laid sprawled out on the caves' ground, coming to. He coughed as he regained consciousness. "This is Lieutenant Salim Othman to all units. Please respond with your locations. Over." Salim tries to contact his patrol through his radio.

"Where are you? Is this damn thing even working?" He is answered by Captain Dar Basri.

"Captain? Dar!" Salim immediately loses contact with him. "Is that you? I can't hear you. Repeat your message. Over!" When met with no response, he curses himself. Rising from the ground, he examines his surroundings.

"Dar, if you can hear me, I'm in a... I don't know, some sort of cave. I'm looking for a way out. Over," Salim explains his location to Dar but isn't heard. He lowers his hand to grab his pistol only to find that it wasn't there, discovering that he has lost it. "Dammit." He groaned.

"I had plans today! A long bath, listen to a little radio, celebrate my son's birthday!" Salim quietly muttered to himself and began to explore the caves. "But oh, no, no, no, you had to come knocking on my door. "The Americans are coming," you said! And now look where we are... whatever the fuck this place is?" He blames his captain for the fact that they are now stuck here. Reaching the end of the tunnel, Salim finds himself in the huge ruins of a temple with the head of Naram-Sin's statue.

He hears gunfire from below, prompting him to raise his weapon. "Is anyone out there? Speak to me," He calls out and approaches a body on the ground to find it was a corpse of an American marine with a long trail of blood leading into a room in the lower area of ​​the ruins. "What hell visited you, my friend?" Salim grimaced.

Venturing further into the ruins, Salim made note that there were two flights of stairs — one of which was destroyed and rendered useless. As he climbs down the stairs to the bottom of the temple, a small earthquake starts. He tries to keep himself grounded on the stairs but, as he neared the end, he strived toward this goal further when noticing a crevasse in the ground. Salim then dropped his rifle into the chasm between the ruins, "Damn! My rifle."

Cutting his losses, Salim jumps to the lower area of the temple and succeeds.

Pushing himself off the grounds with an audible groan, Salim stands to his feet and persists through the ruins to examine them. "I hope these tunnels don't cave me in." He uttered. Approaching the entrance to the dark corridor, Salim hears clicking sounds in the distance. "Who's there?" He loudly whispers before tossing a flare at the end of the passageway and walks in, but then pulls out a lighter for additional lighting. He passes dozens of scratched carvings. "Zain would have loved to see this..." he comments and then reached the antechamber which had large doors.

He manages to open one of the heavy doors with a grunt and is met with more clicking sounds. "Who's there?" He repeats himself but knows he will not get a response back. Salim ignores the strange noises for the time being and pursues forward to find another corpse, but this time, it is one of an Iraqi soldier.

Upon approaching it, the dead body is suddenly dragged into the shadows which causes Salim to fall back. He gasps but then finds a pistol which, what he assumed, was from his fallen comrade. He didn't waste a second grabbing it, arming himself to replace his rifle. Standing to his feet, Salim raises the weapon towards the darkness when the creature throws the body back into the light.