Warnings: Slight swearing. The Marine a military man, do you really expect him to be squeaky clean? It's barely there, but it's still there.
I despise this place. It's cold, the visibility sucks, and what's worse, it's quiet. I can't hear a damn thing except my feet clanging on the metal floor. That's what bothers me the most.
A lull in battle means the enemy is dead or regrouping.
I'm on edge. There's more adrenaline in my veins now than during any fight. Where are the demons? What the hell are they planning? This uncertainty is driving me crazy.
Logically, I should be grateful for this reprieve. A rest is rare and, to most people, a welcome gift but to me rest is torture. I'm a man of action, the one too tough for hell to contain. Violence, gore, death, they don't bother me a bit.
It's waiting that I hate.
Right now I would be ecstatic if something would jump out and shoot a fireball at me, even though I'm low on ammo and badly beaten. If I were fighting then I'd at least know what was going on.
I just felt a breeze. Good, that means I'm almost outside. The room's getting lighter too, I can see the illumination glinting around the support pillars. Soon I'll be out of this dump.
But... I have to be careful.
This is the last room. There is always something bad in the last room. The easy rooms before it are harbingers of doom. Gotta stay perfectly alert, scan the room before entering, listen for any noises other then wind and my own breath... It seems clear. I just wish those pillars weren't blocking my line of sigh.
Wait, what was that? I thought I heard... Damn! Hissing, snarls, and grunts. The quick rush of air from pneumatic pumps, the clatter of bones, and a quiet maniacal cackle. How could I have missed it? They're probably hiding behind fake walls in hidden alcoves. Fine, let them come. This wouldn't be my first time slaughtering demons.
Sometimes I hate being right.
A couple steps into the room they throw down the walls and attack, quite a large group too. All right, know thy enemy. Who do I have to kill? There's a pack of slobbering Demons, so there should be a few specters around too. Those fireballs are from the Imps and the rockets from Revenants. I'm sure that sobbing Pain Elemental'll get on my nerves. It and its twenty minions.
I'll be fine. I've handled situations like this a thousand times already. I'll have them fight themselves and use them as meat shields. As long as those two Arachnotrons stay back I should be- Oh no. Damn, damn! An Arch-vile...
It's times like this I wish for a BFG.
A/N: You know how it is, you're walking along in a level, you're low on everything and it's quiet. Too quiet. You start to get tense and then, as soon as you turn around, you see a cyberdemon has found you. Boom! You're dead. That's what I was trying to capture. The point: this was an experiment for me in writing an inner monologue. Did I get it?