Eventually I stopped making friends. Mason died in my arms on Asmara after one of the snake-headed Covenant Elites speared him along with ten other ODSTs with his energy sword before I got off a near point-blank shot with a missile launcher. I found Mason lying among the debris; I could smell his seared flesh. He looked up at me with glassy eyes and asked for his mother, then coughed up blood and just . . . stopped being.-chpt.5 pg.130