The brakes hit just at the last moment before the giant metal box crashed at the surface. It jolted Keith slightly free of the metal railing he gripped tightly before he assumed this was his final day.
Resuming both hands on his shotgun, he aimed at the door waiting for it to open. Looking up at the LCD display, he noticed the level number was gone.
The doors opened slowly, and the first thing that exited the door, was the barrel of his shotgun and the tactical flashlight beneath the barrel. It was completely pitch black, and it smelled rotten – horrible. The smell infiltrated Keith’s nasal passages, but his stomach remained stable.
Flicking the light on, it emitted a high bright beam to allow him to see a far distance. It was a hallway, with doors on both ends. The walls were partially covered in a slick black colored substance. He dared not touch it, although his curiosity wanted to override his common sense.
The floor was carpeted, using the most cheapest kind of flooring possible, so it seemed. Keith knelt down to feel the flooring, and the rug was rigid and flat. He used his flashlight and aimed it at the floor to notice if the flooring was opened up, falling down a hole that leads to who knows where – and what fate lies before him down it – would be quite scarier than this.
“So, do you like our humble home?” The deep voice returned and taunted Keith from the speakers.
Keith didn’t reply, and slowly stepped forward with the shotgun ready.
“Now he has nothing to say?” The voice taunted.
“Smells like your sisters rancid ass, other than that, I’m digging the atmosphere.” Keith replied.
There was a thud.
Keith turned around behind him, aiming the shotgun down near the entrance to the elevator, the way he came. Quickly scanning each door to see where that came from.
“NOW THAT WASN’T VERY NICE LANGUAGE, KEITH!” The voice yelled into the microphone, exceeding its input decibel threshold as it crackled.
The thud hit again.
And then a door burst open as something – or someone – burst through it.
It gurgled and roared as it ran towards Keith down the hallway.
Keith got a good look at the incoming threat. It was missing both its eyes, leaving empty sockets in the skull. The skin was sloughed off where it’s clothes didn’t cover. The hair was half gone. It wore a blood stained lab coat with an ID badge dangling from its right breast pocket. No pants, and a terribly ripped shirt under the lab coat. The teeth it bared weren’t human. Drooling it’s mouth is where the gurgling was originating from.
“I assumed you liked dicks! He does too! And he’s going to rip yours the fuck off!” The voice yelled into the microphone again.
Keith fired his shotgun twice in rapid succession, blasting flesh and bone matter from its chest across the floor and the walls. The unidentified being fell to the ground in a bloody mess as it hissed and huffed its last breath.
Kneeling down to see what was left of the ID tag, it had a red border around it, written with “Restricted” in white lettering. From what his shotgun didn’t destroy, the facial photo remained but the name was obliterated.
It was once a human being.
“Why did you kill our friend Doug here, Keith?” The deep voice returned.
Keith looked over the entire body.
“What the hell is this place?” Keith asked himself out loud.
“You should know! You’re the asshole guarding this place! Don’t you know shit?” The deep voice stated.
Keith pressed forward, stepping over the bloody remains of Doug at his feet. He flipped the shotgun over to reveal the bottom, and shoved in two shells to replace the ammo he expended.
Two more thuds echoed out in front of him.
“You’ll find plenty more of us down here!” The deep voice spoke again. “And maybe you’ll find your…missing security guard…”
* * *
The disfigured person sat in an office chair, facing several stacked screens, watching Keith’s every move. His skin was severely damaged all over, but his blue eyes were bloodshot.
“We are what’s left of a division, abandoned by the very same fucking government you work for, when things went wrong and our funding was immediately cut. They left us to die down here, thinking that our accident would erase what we have done.” He watched Keith proceed down the hallway, looking behind him and in front of him as he scanned his area.
“But we are very much alive, you see, just like Doug. BEFORE YOU SHOT HIM!” the disfigured person in the office chair exclaimed.
Two more doors burst open and the figures sprinted at Keith as the figure behind the desk watched Keith get attacked by his co-workers.
* * *
Keith didn’t hesitate and fired his shotgun aiming higher than center mass, taking their heads completely clean off from the slug rounds that were used. Their lifeless corpses littered the ground, also oozing the black slick substance that graciously coated some of the walls.
One of them was what he believed was a female, and one was male, neither of them had any resemblance of intact clothes as the material was mostly torn away.
“Got any more tricks up your sleeve?” Keith asked.
The disfigured person talked into the microphone. “Maybe I do, if you stick around long enough!”
“You know what? On second thought, maybe I’ll head back upstairs, grab a snack, heat up some ramen, call for backup.” Keith replied back.
“You’re stuck down here, dipshit! I disabled the elevator. No one will find you.” The deep voice laughed before cutting off the microphone.
“Guess I better come find you then.” Keith proceeded down the hallway, and came up to a solid door at the end of the hallway, reaching down with his hand to turn the knob as it unlocked and revealed a staircase – going down.
Keith didn’t want to wonder how long it would take for him to find his captor, get the help he needed to level this place, and call it a day. Instead he focused on pure survival, and fighting his way through until either he lived – or died trying.
Story Time 