Lieutenant Kevin DeLeglio and his squad lifted their assault rifles to their shoulders as the cargo elevator's doors slowly opened with a hydraulic hissssss. The first thing the lasers on their weapons pointed out to them was a sight of pure, unbridled horror.
The ship's crew, as well as their family members were hanging upside down by their feet, the skin peeled off, revealing the thin layer of muscles covering their skeletons and entrails. The battle hardened marines nearly threw up at the sight, especially when they saw they saw the smallest hanging- an infant, violently torn from its mother's womb, and the hole in the stomach of the victim right next to it.
"Holy shit, what the fuck happened here?" whispered one of the marines.
"Some kind of alien. But the footage caught by the cameras didn't show anything. Only a minor distortion of the light," was DeLeglio's answer.
"Well, whatever the fuck it was, I'm going to make sure the motherfucker pays. My cousin and her little sister were on this ship when the shit hit the fan."
DeLeglio scolded, "Shut the fuck up! Listen."
A slight sound, no greater than the wind, had been picked up by the Lieutenant's honed ears. After that, nothing.
"I don't hear shit." Angrily responded one of the marines. Turning around to check behind them, he saw it. It had no real shape, no proportions. All it was, was a distortion of light, the edges bleary, but the body as a whole somewhat visible. Stunned by wonder, he didn't warn his squad mates about the threat. It wouldn't have done any good anyway.
His finger gently wrapping around his gun's trigger, he saw a mysterious red light coming from one of the thing's eyes. Looking down at his chest, he clearly saw three red dots. Finally, he warned his squad mates, but not with a statement, but with a scream as he saw a blinding blue orb come out of nowhere and explode chest cavity in a cascade of guts and blood.
Turning on their heels, the other marines opened on the mysterious entity with a shower of armor piercing rounds. Not sure of where to shoot, the marines simply fired all over the room, the bullets bouncing off walls and sinking into the macabre decorations of the vast chamber.
One of them let out a soul releasing scream as a flying disc severed his forearms and left a deep gash in his skin. As he fell to his knees, the stumps that were once his forearms spraying on the floor, entrails falling through the slash in his lower body, the disc returned decapitated the hapless marine, showering the floor with blood.
The final two, the Lt. and his friend, Butch Torosky, were spraying bullets everywhere. Torosky then heard a clicking sound behind him. Turning around as fast he could, a giant spear impaled his stomach. Blood dripping from mouth, his killer then punched the side of his head, cracking his skull. He fell to the floor and choked to death on his own blood.
DeLeglio, gazing upon the corpse of his childhood friend, released a scream of primal fury and fired off the last of his rounds. When he heard the click that signified an empty clip, he stood still, frozen in absolute horror and dropped the useless weapon. For the thing was right in front of him. Turning off its camouflage, the awful sight shook him to his very core. And the thing's mask was still on. Approaching him slowly, the thing cracked its knuckles.
When it was arm's length away, DeLeglio's survival instinct kicked in, and his arm reached for the pistol at his hip. But in a blur of speed, the thing wrapped its slimy fingers around his thick neck. The last thing he saw, were the thing's eyes, yellow and filled with passion. DeLeglio's eyes glazed over, and his neck broke- loudly and violently.
Stooping over the fallen commander, the thing began the process of skinning it. It gave a clicking, satisfied with its bloody work.