"Doom" by Abraxas 2010-02-28
The Marine had been warned about the severity of life on Mars yet a thousand hyperbolic madmen could not convey the truth that only experience was capable of.
He was a man trained by war, with a skill sharpened through years of service, and, now, knee-deep in the insanity that mastery saved his life skirmish after skirmish. The zombified corpses of civilians. The treacherous fallen soldiers. The monsters of hell. All infesting the UAC complex.
Any other man might have fragged it but someway, somehow, he knew he stood between the demon's evil plot and the earth and so he stayed alive...to fight...until they took his last breath away.
Meandering through passages, deep, dark corridors, he knew he was trapped within hell. There was just no end to it. Caught, as a fly to a web. Every moment. Every step. Seemed only to bring him another tick of the clock closer to doom.
The sarge's voice broke through the communicator and instantly he jumped into a corner under a vent. Fuck, he growled. The sarge always seemed to know the worst time to call. He listened through the static, eye and weapon at the ready. He caught the last few words of the message - then continued.
The Marine sat alone and listened. Gods, that was the worst of it. The sights was enough to drive a man insane. The sounds, though, failed to be caged by words. It was hell.
Then he discovered a PDA. It belonged to a Beatrice Algernon. She left a log. He needed to hear it. Why, he did not know, to forget the sounds, to connect - imperfectly - with another. Shit! It would be deferred - he was almost caught off guard - beyond the doorway was a universe of fear and it was coming.
END