Lost to the Madness prologue -CH2

Lost to the Madness
Draft 1
Prologue- Chapter 2


Prologue

Static burst from the speaker and a woman’s voice began to speak, at some points garbled by the white noise.
“…need help… T91567… people are disappearing …something …wrong …parasite from… below… …please …everyone’s dead… can’t hold out… longer… stop! What are… doing?” There was a scream, then the static flared up again, and the transmission ended. The man that had been listening to the message turned to the person behind him.
“See if you can filter out the static. And send a copy to Major Warshaw ASAP. He’s always said that T91567 was a mistake.”

Major Warshaw played the audio file that he had received. The glass of wine he was holding fell from his hand and shattered on the cold metal floor, its contents washing over his leather boot.
“Oh hell, they should have listened to me…” He whispered as the file ended its recital.
There was a knock on the door of his quarters and then the slab of a door opened and three people entered, a man and two women.
“Major Warshaw, I assume that you heard it too.” One of the women said.
“Of course, General Sarn. I have always said that-“ He started to say, but the woman held up a hand.
“I know what you have always said. It seems that you were right about it. But now is not the time to gloat, Major, it is time for action. I have received orders from the council. We are to go to the colony.”
“We? You and me?”
“Me, my team, you and your team. We leave in two hours. Have everything ready by then.” General Sarn turned and strutted out of Warshaw’s quarters, followed by the others she had brought with her.
Major Warshaw shook his head, then went over to his computer and sank into the leather chair and sighed.

Chapter 1: Escape
Two Days Before

“Shit, run!” I shouted as a massive dent appeared in the door. Four of the others with me, Sierra, Allison, Russ and Vince did so, but Anna stayed where she was, sitting on the floor crying.
“Anna, come on!” I said, my voice rising to a scream as more dents shook the door, soon the door would break down and they would be in. I grabbed her roughly by her arm and pulled her up and shoved her towards the others. “GO GO!!!” I screamed, though nobody but me heard it, because at that moment, the things on the other side of the door started howling, a terrible, grating scream that seemed as though it would never end.
We ran out into a hallway, I paused to hit the button on the console that would close the door, which happened to be a massive blast door, four feet thick. The blast seal began to close, but the door of the room we had just been in caved in and was launched inward, followed by the… creatures. They came in fast; one of them got half way under the blast seal, but then the seal dropped down the rest of the way, smashing the creature under it and colliding with the floor with an echoing bang. Further down the hall, another blast seal closed, triggered by the command I had entered into the door console.
Sierra stopped running, Allison did as well. Russ collapsed and Vince went to the nearest wall and vomited loudly. Anna sat down and started crying again. I stood there, breathing hard.
“What the hell were those things?” Russ asked, pointing to the thing that was sticking halfway under the door. I went over to it and knelt down beside it, one hand on the blast seal to steady myself.
“It… looks human. Kinda. Sierra, come here and look at this.” I said. Sierra was a doctor.
Sierra knelt beside me and looked down at the thing.
“Yeah… It does look human. Aside from the jaw and arms, I’d say that it was.” She was right. The mouth of the thing was a hideous sucker, with four, long, sharp teeth that were diagonal from each other. Its arms were multi-jointed, ended in six long, almost tusk-like fingers.
“Where did they come from? Whatever the fuck they are, they weren’t here yesterday!” Vince said, wiping some of his vomit from his face.
“I dunno. Then again, I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on either.” I said, standing up. Sierra stayed as she was, still examining the strange humanoid creature.
I walked over to a wall and pressed my back against it, smoothing down my shoulder length dark brown hair. I sighed, the strange events of what had been happening taking their toll on me.
“Anybody else think it has anything to do with the cavern?” Allison asked, her voice small and filled with fear.
“Yeah! All of this started after those scientists went into that cave that Dr. Shid found!” Russ said loudly.
“Keep your damn voice down!” I said, hearing a scratching noise from the wall I was leaning on. There was a door not too far away from where we had gathered.
We were silent for a moment. The only noises were from the wall and from Sierra, who was muttering to herself as she peered down at the monstrosity at her feet. Then, she touched one of the joints of its right arm. Then all hell broke loose, again. The creature suddenly moved, tearing itself from the blast seal, ripping its body in half and lunging at Sierra, its claws rending into her chest. The thing let loose a howl and sank its fangs into her neck. She screamed in pain as the creature made a strange noise, similar to the sound that Vince had made not too long ago.
I heaved myself from the wall and rammed into the thing, knocking it off of her, though its fangs stayed lodged in her throat, dragging her along with it. There was the smell of burned flesh and the thing ripped its sucker-like mouth from her throat and hissed at me, then turned away from me, using its multi-jointed arms as legs and scaled the wall behind it, dislodged one of the metal grates of the vent system and crawled in and was gone, leaving only a bloody trail that had been laid by the entrails that had been exposed when it had ripped the half of its body from under the blast seal.
Sierra was lying on the floor, anguished moans escaping her throat when I looked at her. Where the thing had bitten her, there was a blackened oval of burned skin that was flaking and oozing blood.
“Oh my god! What did it do to her?” Vince said, running towards us.
“It bit her. Come on, we gotta get her out of here.” The scratching noises had become a frenzy, and I suspected it was more of those things, alerted by the noises of the attack of one of their own.
Vince grabbed Sierra and slung her over his shoulders, fire fighter style. I dragged Anna back up, she was still crying and I had good reason to believe that she hadn’t even looked up from the floor ever since she had sunk to it.
“Where are we going?” She asked, wiping tears from her face
“Somewhere safe.” I said, trying to sound as though I actually thought that somewhere was safe after I had seen the monster crawl into the vent system.
“Come on, Karen!” Vince said, and I started to follow him, my arm around Anna’s shoulders comfortingly, to no avail, she kept crying.
We went to the nearest door on the wall opposite the one with the noises coming from it.
“Wait here.” I said, releasing Anna, who promptly sank to the ground. I rolled my eyes and motioned to the others to spread away from the door. Cautiously, I pressed my thumb against the opening console. The door slid open, lights flickered within, and I peered inside, immediately recoiling, pressing my hands against my mouth to stifle the scream that had rose up inside me. The room was one of the numerous labs that dotted the research colony facility here on T91567. Except that now, it was a blood-bath. Bodies littered the inside, blood dripped from the ceiling, it ran down the walls to pool on the metal floor.
“What is it?” Russ asked, moving towards me as I fell backwards. Wordlessly, I pointed to the lab and Russ followed my finger slowly, then looked back at me.
“What?”
I looked at him, incredulously. How could he say what when there had been a visible slaughter in there? I looked back at the room, and my mood changed rapidly. The lab was spotless, no bodies or blood or anything out of place in it.
“What is it, Karen? What do you see?” Russ asked, crouching down beside me. I looked at him.
“The room… It doesn’t make sense… blood everywhere…” I whispered, my voice quivering.
“Karen, there’s nothing in there.” Russ said, gently. I started to say something else, most likely more about the blood, but Russ interrupted me.
“Come on, there’s nothing wrong with that room. You probably just let the stress get to you. It could happen to anybody here, given what’s going on.” He stood up and offered his hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet. He walked into the room and the others followed him, Allison helping Anna. I lingered out in the hallway for a moment longer, then hearing the strange scratching noises, I hurried after them, shuddering as I walked through the doorway, it felt as though I had just been drenched in water. I closed my eyes, then opened them, and suppressed another scream. The blood and bodies were there again. I looked down at my hands. They, too, were covered in blood. My hair was clinging to my face and I felt blood running down into my eyes. I closed them, and when I opened them again, everything was normal again. I looked around. Everybody except Anna was staring at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing…” Allison muttered, and looked away. The others did so as well.
“Come on, we should keep moving.” Russ said, and he started walking towards a door on the opposite wall.
“Wait… do any of you know what type of lab this is?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Vince said, his voice strained from the effort of carrying Sierra. “It's one of those analyzing labs. You know, for testing rocks and shit.”
“Anything that could be used as a weapon?”
“Hmm… there should be some ore splitters around here somewhere.”
“We should find them, and Vince, find a medkit.” I said, and started opening the numerous cupboards that covered the wall that held the door behind me. I didn’t find anything in the first five, but in the sixth, I found several splitter power cells and the tool they went to. Ore Splitters are tools that sent a focused energy wave at whatever you were aiming at, sending it into the object and splitting it neatly in half, at low power settings. I hadn’t seen what they did at higher levels.
“Found one, and some spare clips.” I announced, as I placed the handful of the small, battery-like ammo clips into an empty satchel on my belt, and I maxed out the power use of the Splitter.
“I found some, too!” Allison said, rather loudly, and was immediately shushed by Russ, who was right next to her. “Sorry, there’s two more in here and an ass load of power cells, too.”
“Take everything, give some ammo to Russ.” I said, then turned to Vince. “Any luck with the medkit?”
“Nah. Not yet.” He rummaged around for another moment, sifting through the rubble that covered table he was at for another moment. “Wait, found one.”
“Okay. Do what you can for her.” I said, nodding at Sierra, who was still moaning quietly. “You’ve got more biotreatment training than any of us.” He nodded and went over to where he had left her.
“Damn. What did it do to her?” He asked himself, a repulsed look on his face as he rubbed the charred skin of her neck with a strong smelling medical pad.
“Her skin’s just falling off!” Vince said after a few moments later, making a disgusted noise in his throat.
“Keep looking for useful stuff.” I murmured to the others, and went over to the table.
Vince was right. I could see the blackened flakes, a strong contrast to the shiny white table.
My eyes wandered up to where the patches of slivers of flesh had originated. I shuddered. The new skin that had been revealed was a vibrant pink patch that had four jagged puncture holes at the corners of the wound, that were leaking blood that had dark flecks dotting over the surface of the drops. Vince pulled a fresh pad out of the medkit. He held the side of Sierra’s head as he began to vigorously rub the pink patch of flesh.
“Wait… move your hand.” I said, pushing his hand aside for a moment. I thought I had seen something. Vince withdrew his hand and so did I. I drew in a breath that stayed in my lungs as I stared at the pink skin, which was bulging, as though something was underneath it. And it looked like it was trying to escape.
“What… the… hell… is… that?” Vince asked, pausing in-between each word.
Before I was forced to come up with an answer that didn’t consist of the words: I don’t know, Sierra started to thrash about the table violently, her arms and legs flailing out. One of her feet collided solidly to the side of my jaw. I was spun with the blow, falling backwards, but I caught myself on the table behind me, knocking several scientific looking instruments to the floor.
Alerted by the noise, the others, with the exception of Anna, came running over to us.
I pulled myself back to a standing position and looked over to Sierra, who had started to scream, agony tearing from her throat loudly.
“Hold her arms! Someone shut her up!” Vince shouted, his voice hardly rising above Sierra’s screams. He had already pinned down her legs. Russ made to grab her right wrist, Allison, her left. I tried to shut her mouth, but quickly withdrew my fingers with a small gasp of pain. She had bitten me, hard.
“Oh God!” Allison whispered. I only heard her because she was right next to me. My fingers were dripping with blood and I wasn’t eager to try closing Sierra’s mouth again anytime soon. I hurried over to the medkit and pulled out one of the last pads and wrapped my injured fingers in it. The pad was thin, and my blood had soon soaked through, dripping to the floor. I looked back at Sierra and saw what had made Allison say what she had.
Sierra was… mutating. Her screams died down, a gurgle rose from her mouth. Her lips sort of melted away, her teeth retracted into her gums. The product of that was a mouth sickeningly similar to that which had bitten her. Her arm broke free of Russ’s hands and I saw that her fingers had begun to lengthen; there was a strange sheen to them as well. Sierra grew still, and the screaming had stopped. I hadn’t noticed, but Russ had come around the table and had pulled a now empty syringe and had stabbed it into Sierra’s other arm, which was still held by Allison. The only noises were those of our breathing and the constant scratching on the walls and ceiling. Whatever it was that had attacked us, it looked like Sierra was becoming one of them, and she had alerted the others around to our position.
I took a step closer and looked at Sierra’s hand, which Allison had released. There was a strange protuberance just below her little finger, on the side of her hand. She was growing a sixth finger, which burst from her skin right in front of my face, showering me with blood. I took a step back and would have taken more back, but the table behind me prohibited me from doing that. I brought the pad that had housed my fingers up to my face, but didn’t wipe the blood off of my skin. I dropped the pad and wiped my face with the sleeve of my jacket. The four of us continued to stare at Sierra, or whatever she had begun to become.
The metamorphosis had not finished yet, though. Before our eyes, four long fangs jutted out from the inside of her mouth in bloody spurts, and the skin of her arms was stretching, her very bones were growing at a rapid pace. Soon, her skin looked as though it couldn’t be prolonged anymore, and loud cracking noises filled the almost silence. Painful looking swellings appeared on the thin skin of her arms, what I expected were joints. Many of them appeared, on both of her arms, but not at symmetrical places. Where one new joint formed, the one on the corresponding arm formed further down or further up.
Russ raised his Splitter, adjusted the power setting as I had, and aimed it at Sierra’s head, but didn’t fire. All of us flinched as whatever had once been Sierra started screaming again, though now her voice was similar to that which had attacked her. Russ quickly recovered from the fright and re-took his aim and fired, but the monstrosity sprung from the table at the same moment and landed in front of Vince and fell over. The table was split in half by a wave of pure black energy that continued through the table, leaving a deep score in the smooth metal floor. Vince looked as though he was about to scream, but the creature rose and advanced towards him, its now clawed fingers raised above its head. Russ aimed the Splitter at Sierra again, but I slapped it down, just as he pulled the trigger. The blast cut into the floor, not an inch away from Vince’s foot. If Russ’s shot had met its mark, it would have sliced Sierra in half and most-likely continued until it had passed through Vince. Allison took a much safer approach by throwing lab tools from the table at Sierra, she… it turned to us, giving Vince a chance to make his escape. Sierra saw him begin to move and immediately turned her attention back on him, raking her six clawed hand across his side, bloody torrents gushing from the deep wounds. He fell to the ground, and Russ and I took our shots, each of them slashing through the creature cleanly. It fell to the floor in three pieces.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Allison started to repeat over and over again to herself. The three of us slowly walked to the other side of the table, to where Vince and Sierra were.
Vince was a bloody mess. The claws had gone deep into his flesh. Too deep, because I could see the fractured ribs and pulsating organs within his body. None of us had any biotreatment training, but we could all see that he wouldn’t live much longer. Not with the amount of blood that had already pooled around his quivering body. Russ lowered the power settings of his Splitter and fired a bolt of energy waves into Vince’s head, which was neatly severed in half. I turned around and vomited all over the table.
“OH GOD NO!” Allison screamed, as the three pieces of Sierra started squirming, fleshy tendrils creeping from the horrid slashes, finding the tendrils of the opposite piece and intertwining, then slowly pulling the parts together.
The eerie scratching suddenly became a hammering upon the door, and then, there was a noise from above us, and the vent covering from above exploded down at us, and something dropped down into the room.
The door we had entered through crashed down to the floor and more of the monstrosities came in.
The three of us immediately started firing our splitters indiscriminately at the creatures, as we started backing around the table, towards the opposite door. Russ paused his shooting to boost the power input of his splitter, then continued firing. We kept firing; they kept falling out of sight, but more and more came in after them.
Allison was pounced on by what I suspect was the same creature that had caused Sierra’s mutation. I still remember her screams as the thing latched its mouth onto her belly. Russ fired one round into the creature’s side, but we knew that there was no hope for her. She had been bitten, and Sierra had changed within ten minutes of the bite.
Soon, we felt the wall on our backs, I glanced at Russ. He nodded and I quickly turned around to see the door. Russ kept firing as I fumbled with the security pad that was keeping the door from opening. I hurriedly punched in my id code and the door slid open. I went through the door, followed by Russ, who hadn’t turned around. He kept firing at the things that were pursuing us until the door slid shut. I looked around frantically for the security pad, found it, grabbed it and punched it the code for quarantine. Sirens began to unleash their song and a thick steel metal plate slid over the door.
Russ and I tore the power cells from our splitters and threw them on the ground, and quickly replaced them with fully charged ones. We then looked around us; we had entered what appeared to be the office of whoever was in charge of the lab we had just sealed.
I leaned against the wall next to the door and slid down until I was sitting. I stretched my legs out and brushed my hair from my face. Russ stayed as he was.
There was a moment of silence between us. I can’t say it was completely silent, because the creatures were still trying to get into the office and the sirens were blaring loudly.
Then, I looked up at Russ, suddenly remembering something.
“We left Anna in there…” I whispered faintly, all the blood draining from my face. Russ sort of lurched over, and I could tell he was close to tears. I started to cry quietly.
We had only just begun to fight, and already it was only the two of us left.

Chapter 2: Torn

“How are we gonna get out of here?” Russ asked, as I punched in the protocol for ending the quarantine. We could no longer hear any noises from the lab.
“More importantly, what are we going to do when we get out?” I said, slapping the pad angrily, as it once again rejected my command. “Damn it! I don’t have the right password! Only the head of the sector has the proper code.” I said, reading the little security clearance thing that had popped up.
“And who would that be?” Russ asked.
“Uh… Dr. Shid.”
“Shid? That guy who found that new cave?”
“Yeah. Look around for a name plate or something. This might be his office.” I said, then started to shift through the mess of papers that littered the desk. Russ came up beside me and did the same. Soon we found a name plate, which stated that the office belonged to one Alyssa Fain.
“Damn! This isn’t his office!” Russ said, throwing the plate across the wall.
“Wait… I saw a map somewhere…” I immediately started throwing papers aside and soon found what it was I was looking for.
“Okay, I think that this is where we are.” I said, pointing to one of the labs. “And this is where Shid’s office is.” I pointed to a room that wasn’t that far away from where we were.
“Well now. That’s great! How the fuck are we gonna get there?” Russ said, and swept his arm over the desk, knocking the papers to the floor.
“Through the vent.” I said, pointing to the vent grate that was above us.
“Through the vent? Are you crazy?!? Those things are up there!”
“I know, but if there’s a chance that I can get those codes, I can shut down the quarantine, and there’ll be a chance that we can get out of here.”
Russ shook his head. “Well, your gonna have to go alone, cause there’s no way that I can fit up there.”
“That’s kinda why I have to get the codes.” I said, then climbed on top of the desk and after lowering the power settings of the Splitter, I shot the grate off of the vent.
“I’ll be back soon.” I said, then pulled myself into the vent. It was a tight fit, but luckily, I was just thin enough to have enough room to move.
“Good luck.” I heard Russ whisper, but then I started moving forward.
I had to pause several times to catch my breath, though I never stopped for long. I could always hear something crawling around somewhere nearby. I kept my Splitter in hand and always shoved myself in front of passage-ways that connected to the vent I was in and threw out my arm that held the splitter, aiming down the passage. I never saw anything but darkness.
I spent around ten minutes crawling through the vent until I found another grate. I shot it out and quickly dropped out. I landed on my feet, but I immediately slipped onto one knee. The floor was slick with blood, which was quite slippery. I stood up and slowly walked out of the blood, my boots squelching and leaving red footprints. I looked around. I was in the mess hall. There was still food on the tables, though I wasn’t about to eat it, even though I was sort of hungry. The food was covered in blood and what looked like puke. I shuddered and pulled the map out of my back pocket, where I had put it before going into the vent. After a moment of studying my route, I folded it back up and replaced it into my pocket and started on my way.
I almost made it to the door, but then something stopped me, the sound of movement, followed by laughter. I whirled around, but didn’t see anything.
“Shit.” I whispered quietly, and then after one last look around the desolate, bloody room, turned back to the door. I started to punch my code into the panel, but stopped midway through it. There was a whisper, right in my ear. I turned around to see nothing, again.
“Who’s there?” I called quietly, nervously adjusting the power settings of the splitter to a higher level.
My eyes darted around, from one corner of the hall to the other, but no one was in there except for me. I started to turn back to the door, but then, someone walked past me, brushing roughly against my shoulder. I stifled a gasp of surprise and looked at the person. He didn’t seem to even notice that he had touched me.
“Hey!” I started to say something else, but couldn’t, what I had suddenly seen shocked the breath out of me.
People were eating at the tables, people who hadn’t been there only a moment earlier. There was one person at every meal that I had seen. My mouth was open in a look of disbelief. The man who had just entered the hall went over to a table that was next to the puddle of blood and started talking animatedly to the woman he had sat next to.
It couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t. These people hadn’t been there only a minute ago. That and none of them seemed to notice that the food they were eating was covered in blood, nor did they notice the blood that had pooled under the vent, or that which coated the wall in its sickly embrace.
I slowly started to walk around the room, keeping close to the walls. I had just made it halfway across the room when there was the sounds of gunfire. Shouts came from the hallway and the door opened. A man came running in, a look of extreme panic on his face.
“No! You’re not gonna take me back there! Shid’s crazy!” He screamed, and grabbed the man who had entered before him. There was a knife in the man’s hand, which he pressed against the neck of his hostage. The people who had presumably been shooting at him came into the mess hall, assault rifles raised, the barrels pointed to the man. They had security uniforms on.
“Drop the knife!” One of the security guards shouted.
“No way, I’m not the one you want! Shid’s the one who you want!”
The man pressed the knife harder against the man’s neck, blood came down in a single stream from the blade.
“I’m not telling you again. Drop the knife and come quietly!” The security guard shouted, his finger ready to pull the trigger of his rifle.
“No! I’m not going back to Shid! You don’t know what we found down there! You don’t know what it did to him! To us!” The man screamed, sweat pouring down his face, and he dragged the knife across his captive’s neck, slicing through his flesh. The man let out a gurgle, and his murderer threw him at the guards. The body knocked down two of the three guards, the third leapt to the side just in time.
The standing guard snapped up his rifle, but before he could fire, something strange happened to the man. He started shaking and fell to the ground, right where the bloody pool was. The man started to scream and he wrapped his arms around his stomach.
“What the fuck?” One of other guards had gotten to his feet and had glanced at the man they were pursuing as he helped the other guard up.
The three guards went over to the quivering man, still with their rifles trained on him. Blood was spouting from the man’s mouth and eyes and something strange was happening to his skin. It was squirming, with many bulges beneath it, similar to Sierra’s neck before she had changed.
“Damn! That’s not right.” One of the guards said, shaking his head.
“Come on, let’s get him outta here.”
“Fuck that, I’m not touchin’ him!”
“Then I’ll do it myself. Dr. Shid wants him back, so we gotta take him back.” The guard reached down to grab the man’s arm, but before he could touch him, there was a disgusting noise, that of ripping flesh, and in a mist of blood, I could hear screaming. Then, everyone was gone. I was alone again.
“What the hell happened here?” I whispered, fear making my voice shaky. I ran back to the door and punched in my personnel code and the door slid open. I didn’t ever want to go back in that room.
The hall that I had just entered was almost completely dark; someone or something had shattered all of the lights. That wasn’t the full extent of the damage though. There were long, jagged gouges running down the walls, and covering the floor.
“Fuck.” I muttered and started down the hallway, keeping close to the wall to avoid tripping in one of the deep gashes that exposed the wiring below it.
My footsteps echoed through the hall, no matter how quietly I tried to walk, my booted feet sending out dull thumps.
“What could have done this?” I muttered quietly to myself, passing over a particularly large rend that ran from one wall to the one closest to me.
I paused, to check my map, and the moment I did, I heard it, a deep roar. Then something purely massive came tearing out of the darkness, straight at me.
For one brief moment, it passed an area that still had lighting, and I could see every detail of the horrifying beast.
Its arms were made of exposed muscle and vein, but they were much thicker than a normal man’s arms. They were as thick as the smaller side of dinner table is wide. The brutish arms, which oozed blood at the gaps between the muscles, ended not in hands, but in giant, thick spears of bone, which had most certainly caused the damage to the hallway. The head of the monstrosity was a deformed human head, with a jaw that was wide and filled with jutting teeth, and multi-faceted eyes, which were blood-red. Its body was that of a man, but without skin, and strange bony spines protruding at odd places throughout its body. The creature’s legs were long and the only part of its body that had any skin, though it was horridly stretched and lumpy. The thing moved on all fours, human-like feet and sharp bone talons.
I raised my splitter and shot off several blasts of dark energy into the revolting creature’s “flesh”, which had little effect on it, barely opening wounds on the tough muscles.
The appalling thing tried to hammer one of the sides of one of its bone spikes into me, but I ducked at just the right moment and the deadly talon ended up denting the wall instead. I fired many more rounds at the berserking horror as I ran, but to the same effect as the first time. The creature pulled its arm back to the ground and didn’t even seem to notice that I had shot it at least ten times, which was proven as more shallow wounds appeared over its body. Soon, the splitter stopped firing out energy waves, the power cell depleted of the deadly and volatile force contained within it. The atrocity was right behind me.
The breath I had inhaled was forced from my lips as the creature’s claw was pounded into my left side, flinging me across the hall, to where I collided with it, and was cut several times. I had been hurled against one of the long jagged slashes, which was edged with a razor sharp border of metal teeth. Blood began to soak into my shirt in at least three different places and my right cheek was warm with it.
I tried to run, but fell, my head spinning and my ribs exploding in a shower of agony. At least two of my ribs had been broken.
The beast began to advance towards me; I could hear the clicking of its talons and the thud of its bare feet.
Pain caused flashes of red to appear in front of my eyes as I tried to grab a new power cell from the pouch on my belt, they spilled out as soon as I opened the clasp. One rolled by my other hand, which still held the splitter and I grabbed it with two of my fingers, gripping it as hard as I could against the handle of the weapon. Then, there was a loud noise, and when I looked over, the creature had fallen over; tripping in one of the ruts it had dug into the ground, one of its feet getting wrapped in cables.
I took advantage of that, and fear lent me the strength to ignore the pain in my side and I clawed my way away from the creature, which was in a lighted area of the hallway. I sat up, still on my side and reloaded my splitter, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The shot didn’t come close to the creature, which had finally gotten to its feet, but it still hit where I had intended it to, the energy cells, which had conveniently all rolled into the same general area. I covered my head as soon as the blast started, the power cells had ignited and exploded in a large shower of shrapnel, which peppered my arms and legs, ripping through my clothes and skin, leaving small holes.
I think I heard the creature scream, but I couldn’t be sure, I had been having hallucinations not too long ago. The explosion was incredibly loud, but it seemed as though someone, not something, had screamed.
I had crawled away just enough to avoid the main part of the explosion, but he ensuing blast wave threw me back a good distance. I stayed still where I lay, maybe for ten minute before I tried to get up. I fell down as soon as I tried, my breaths escaping my lips in ragged gasps. After a moment, I tried to stand up again, this time with one arm wrapped tightly around my chest. The pain still made me want to scream and fall back to the ground, but I didn’t.
I looked over to where the mutant had been; the smoke had already cleared up, sucked into the vents, which I could hear sucking in air, the air filtration system active. It was obviously dead. I don’t even think that it could pull itself back together, like Sierra had done. It was in too many gory bits.
I slowly limped over to a wall, pressed my right arm against it and started to hobble down the hall, passing over lots of the bloody chunks, many of which were unavoidable in my current condition, and they were squished beneath my steel soled boots. It seemed that the insides of the mutant were much softer than the exterior, or maybe the grizzly pieces had been softened by the explosion. I didn’t linger on the thought for long.
After a few steps past the brutal remains, I pulled out my now battle torn map from the pocket on the back of my pants and checked it, then my surroundings. Dr. Shid’s office should be only three doors away from where I currently stood. I refolded the map and replaced it, lowered the settings of the splitter in an attempt to conserve the last remaining power cell that I had, as afterwards I checked and the rest had been destroyed in the explosion.
I could still hear the scratching of the other mutants, the regurgitators, as I had come to call them. It was everywhere, behind the walls, up in the ceiling, I think I even heard it from below the floor.
I shuddered and started walking again.
“Shid’s office should be on the other side.” I whispered, then crossed the hall. After that, it didn’t take me very long to find it. I didn’t have to worry about my code not being able to open the door, a thought I had been harboring for a while now. The door wasn’t in the place it should have been. It was, instead, sprawled out near the other wall of the hall, dented and bent.
I stood to the side of the open door frame and checked the status of my splitter, which was displayed on the side of the barrel. It was still at near full power. I drew in a deep breath, which sent a flurry of pain through my ribs, and went into the office.
It was a typical office, or at least typical of the two I had been in today. There was a desk in the middle of the room, with a random assortment of papers stacked neatly in two piles in the middle of it. There were two chairs in front of the desk, one behind it. Aside from that, and a small bookshelf on one of the walls, the office was empty.
I immediately rounded the desk, set the splitter on it and sank into the chair and began my search. I found nothing but memos and supply requests on top of the desk, the latter marked rather oddly with the word “lies”.
There were two large drawers on either side of the gap in the desk where a chair could be slid into it and one above the gap. The only thing I found in the two drawers on the left was more memos and supply requests, which were dated back twenty days, the same time that the new cave was found below the surface of the planet, marked with lies. I took out one of the marked papers and read over it. Someone in Lab 7C was asking for more medical supplies, due to an elevated number of lab accidents. I folded the paper and put it with my map. I wanted to see what Russ thought of it. In the top drawer, I found three things, two of which were very out of place in an office. I found what appeared to be diary of some sort, with many papers sticking out in-between the pages. The other two things I found were a hand gun and a spare clip. Frowning with the wonder of what they were doing here, I took all three things out.
I flipped through the notebook, I was right, it was the diary of Dr. Anthony Shid. The first few entries were uninteresting, dated about a year ago, just talking about how he had just arrived and had already been promoted to lead archeologist for cave exploration. Around twenty days ago, it was mentioned in an entry that Shid had found the entry to a new cavern and that he had found some artifact of an ancient civilization in it. After that entry, Dr. Shid started to write about hallucinations and how he thought that the artifact had caused. He began to write about things he called “the hunters” that haunted his dreams, twisted things that he thought were once human. It seemed that he had been having nightmares about what was happening now. Later entries were about how the rest of the team that had accompanied him into the cavern were becoming increasingly insane and had been confined to the medical bay. One of the last entries, dated four days previous to the current date, described an incident that seemed to be my hallucination that I had experienced in the mess hall. After that, the rest of the pages in the journal were blank, he had abandoned it and his office. I closed the diary, but opened it to the back, where the majority of the loose papers were kept. I only had to go to the second sheet before I found his personnel code, 1015FRD.
“Yes!” I exclaimed softly, shoving the paper back into the book. I stood up, placed the diary and handgun clip into the pouch on my belt that had previously been the home of the power cells, grabbed both firearms and left the office, though I first cautiously peeked my head out and looked around before entering the hall.
As I started to walk into the hall, I stopped to survey the scene of the explosion I had caused. The floor where it had happened was a charred crater, with jagged edges of metal surrounding the rim. I drew closer, and could see that the crater was close to a foot deep and I could see the blackened ends of the numerous cables that ran under the floor. I continued on my way.
It was only when I had already passed by the mess hall door that I realized that something was missing. I turned back and retook the details of the hall. It took me about a minute to realize what was wrong. The gory chunks of the mutant were gone, only its blood remained, which had begun to dry.
I remembered the fleshy tendrils that had reunited the pieces of Sierra’s body, but I still felt that the mutant was dead, well beyond a second resurrection. A feeling of unease filled my body. Maybe there was something else here, aside from the Regurgitators and the massive creature, the Berserk. I could feel the presence of something even more wrong than the two creatures I had already encountered.
I shuddered, the feeling of unease growing, and I immediately started off to the lab that had been quarantined, which should have just been around the upcoming turn in the hall. Around the corner stretched another hallway, which was completely dark, the gouges from the Berserk continuing as far as I could see. I was glad that I only had to spend a few moments in that dank corridor. The door to the lab was only a few feet within, and I soon covered that distance and observed the door, or rather the thick steel slate covering it. I punched in the command for ending the quarantine, then punched in Dr. Shid’s code. The steel shielding slid back into the floor and the door behind it opened.
I stepped slowly into the lab. It was empty of anything living, aside from myself. The lab was completely empty, no bodies or even blood for that matter. There was no trace of the fight that had taken place earlier, aside from large gashes that had been left by missed shots. I looked around for any trace of Anna, but there was none. She was gone. I certainly hoped that she had somehow escaped, though I didn’t really think it was possible, given the emotional state she had been in. It was understandable, given what had happened to her. She had seen her fiancée slaughtered right in front of her only an hour before we had actually seen what it was that wanted to kill us.
The door to the lab office opened, I whirled around, newly discovered handgun pointed in the direction of it.
“Shit, Karen! It’s me!” Russ said.
“Sorry, you all right?” I asked, lowering the gun.
“Yeah. Nothing happened while you were gone, well aside from me almost shitting myself when I heard an explosion.”
“I caused that. The things that we saw aren’t the only mutants here. There was this huge one, the splitter barely did anything to it. I ended up blowing it up with all of my power cells.” I explained.
“Damn.” He replied, then looked at my face, where my blood had finally scabbed on my cheek. “Are you alright?” Russ asked, concerned.
“That thing was really strong. It broke some of my ribs and cut me up pretty bad.” I said, then sat down on one of the lab tables. “Plus, I got hit with some shrapnel during the explosion.” I pointed to the holes that covered my pants at random spots.
“Fuck.” He said, shaking his head. He went over to the first aid kit, which was where Vince had left it. He tossed it over to me, I more or less caught it, wincing with pain, the motion had sent a twinge of pain through my ribs. I set the kit down on the table next to me and got off of the table. I looked through the supplies contained within the box. There were two medical pads left, a bottle of pain killers, three of which I swallowed, another syringe of what I thought was what Russ had injected Sierra with, and a fat roll of bandages.
“Russ, I’m gonna go into the office.” I said, picking up the kit and leaving my firearms on the table.
“Why?”
“I kinda want some privacy while I bandage up.”
“Oh. I’ll stay out here, stand guard.” He said. He sounded nervous, though I couldn’t think of a single reason why, as he had proven that he had nerves of steel during the attack that had ended with the quarantine. I didn’t ask him what was wrong though, just wanting to clean myself up.
I entered the office and closed the door. After setting the kit down on the desk, I took off my jacket, which was now tattered and blood-stained and dropped it on the ground. I doubted I would wear it again. I took off my shirt, cringing with the pain it brought. I was right, the Berserk had broken two of my ribs. I could see the bones poking at my bruised skin. Gritting my teeth to prepare for the upcoming agony, I picked up the roll of bandages, which had a self adhering side, to prevent the slippage of the bandages. I tightly wrapped my chest, uttering only a single gasp of pain. I put my shirt back on, feeling the tight fabric pressing against the bandages. My ribs did feel better, but they still hurt like a bitch. I slid out of my pants, grimacing at the amount of blood that had dried on my legs. I checked the medkit, but there was nothing I could see that could help me remove the metal that had embedded itself in my legs. I wrapped bandages over wherever I saw blood then put my pants on and refastened the clasp of my belt. Then, I could feel the pain killers start to work, and my pain was numbed to the point that I barely noticed it. I took a moment to smooth down my hair, then grabbed one of the pads from the box and rubbed it on my cheek, where the cut was, then scrubbed my arms, from my shoulders to my wrists, removing all of the dust that had covered them during the explosion. Then, I rejoined Russ in the lab.
“Okay now, what are we gonna do now?” I asked as I recovered my gun and splitter.
“I don’t know. Maybe we should try to find others. Maybe we aren’t the only humans who survived.” Russ said after a moment, a thoughtful look on his face.
I sat on the table again, immersed in deep thought. Then, an idea hit me.
“I think we should get to the comm. center, we could send a broadcast to the rest of the colony, letting anyone who’s still out there that we are still alive. Then, we could go to the docking bay and get the hell outta here.” I said.
“Yeah, we should do that.” Russ said, and his look of nervousness had been replaced with what looked like suspicion. A silence settled between us, though I wasn’t sure why. Russ continued to stare at me.
“What?” I asked after a moment.
“What do you mean ‘What’?” He asked, much too fast.
“Your expression. What’ bothering you?”
“Nothing. We should get moving.” Russ said, and I realized that he was right.
“Okay, let me check my map first, we should know where we’re going.” I said, pulling out my map. I traced out several possible routes to the comm. center, there were two, and I called Russ over to ask his opinion on which way he thought we should go.
“I think we should go along this hall, then cut through the plaza, then through lodgings.” He said, dragging his finger along a third path I hadn’t noticed. His suggestion was sensible, as it was shorter than any of the two I had found.
“Alright. Let’s get a move on.” I said after I had shoved my map into the one of the pockets on the back of my black pants. Russ checked the power settings on his splitter and I popped out the clip of my handgun and made sure that it was full, then replaced it. Both of us ready, We stepped out into the dark hall. The feeling of apprehension almost overwhelmed me as it returned. Something was watching us, something that we couldn’t see. I looked over to Russ.
“I feel it, too.” He said. My anxiety must have been showing on my face. I attempted to quash the discomfort, without success, as we started to walk.