Chapter I: The Bad Day Begins...


AN:
Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Well, long time no see, y'all. How are you? I'm... irritable and overworked, as usual. Had more trouble with my interwubs. Apparently it's fixed now, but I still have no idea what actually went wrong in the first place, despite having it explained to me like eight different times in twenty different ways.

Unfortunately, I keep all my uni work, fic chapters and pretty much everything else on an online file-hosting server thing, which didn't save or corrupted or something when the internet went down originally. I've basically lost a bunch of essays and, more importantly, the chapters I'd started to build up for my four already-uploaded stories. (Two for each one, btw.). Since the uni work took priority to redo first, I've not had time to write anything new for you guys, so... yeah.

While I rebuild my stash of chapters for the already uploaded stuff, I'm putting up a few of these, just to say "Hey, I'm not dead, just hella, hella busy." They're a couple of new chapters for some of the stories from the 'planned' section on my Fanfiction .net profile. Anyways. Putting up a couple now, but I have two or three more that are very nearly done, so I should be uploading those in the next week or so. I'm dropping the Tuesday-only Uploading Thing for now, but when I'm done with Uni I'll be getting back to that.

Oh, and the Inklewriter version of The Airplane Job (a multiple choice game prequel to The Blackwell Job) will be up around then too. I'm just adding a few finishing touches to that.

This one is based on the world of Dead Space. For those of you who don't know it, it's a far-future sci-fi video-game series thing. Basically, you play the universe's most "Fuck it. Hold my beer, I got this" engineer ever, a dude called Isaac Clarke. All three games are just him seeing shit that would make normal people run screaming in the other direction, then MacGyvering tools/guns out of stuff he finds in lockers to deal with it. It's actually a surprisingly decent horror-experience, if you're into Gore and Paranoia-Inducing Jump-Scare Suspense. Personally, I'm more for the Alan Wake, Lovecraftian Psychological Horror, but Dead Space makes a fun gore-fest.

Anyways, it was a bit weird to write this one. The characters are supposed to be, like, ten years older than they are in game, so I tried to write them the same, but sort of upping the maturity a bit. For Max, that was basically just less "Umm..."-ing. I'm not sure if I got it or not, but hey, that's for y'all to decide. Let me know what you think. Plus, I suck at all things horror. I've tried to run D&D games in that genre in the past and they've never gone right.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.


Arcadia Station was a backwater trading post in a backwater system on the outermost reaches of human space. Both Chloe and me were born here, but we'd left, like, ten years ago after some... shitty things happened. We travelled around a lot, just trying to see the universe I guess. And then one day, I dunno, we sort of just ended up back here. I still have no idea how. We settled down, got jobs, started living life again.

That was five years ago. Right now, it's early morning and, in a tiny backroom of a tiny office, I was still burning the midnight oil.

I had an editorial piece on the new station security protocols (We were in favour of them, obviously. It was bad for a journalist's health to be against things our 'beloved EarthGov' wanted), plus a front page article on Unitology to finish and I'd decided the early hours of the morning was the perfect time to do so.

Glamorous life of the photo-journalist, eh?

I sigh.

What's a better word for uncommunicative? Secretive? Or... um... not talkative?

I sigh again. Those all suck.

Jeez, no wonder I keep losing at scrabble. Where did I put that dogdamn thesaurus? I minimised the article and checked around for the Thesaurus program. I frown in dismay at the pile of shortcuts scattered everywhere. Wowsers, my desktop is messy. I really should tidy it up sometime.

"Max?" A voice calls out curiously. I recognise it immediately, mainly because it's usually yelling at me to get back to work. Obviously, since this is me, this happens a lot.

I turn and grin sheepishly at my Boss, Victoria, who was standing in the door, checking her Chrono. "What the hell are you still doing here? It's nearly 4am."

I shrug, waving at the lit screen in front of me. "Just working on the new front-piece for next weeks edition."

Victoria had been pushing it at me all week. She could be very... um... 'insistent' sometimes. She'd always been like that, ever since I took the job. For every single draft I'd handed in for the last five years, it was "Come on Max, I know you can do better than this." Then she'd bin my draft and tell me "So go do better."

For the first year-ish, I'd resented the crap outta her for it. But now... I kinda just wanted to do better. Her approval had this weird effect on me, like I wanted to get it. Probably Stockholm Syndrome kicking in, but whatever. I still had a job and I'd written some pretty decent stuff.

She raises one elegantly arched eyebrow. I thought faintly that her stylist definitely deserved a raise. "At 4am?"

I smirk. Victoria seems to be ignoring the fact that she's still here too. She always was just as much of a workaholic as me. "Best time for it, Boss." The smirk turns into a happy smile as I share. "Plus, Chloe's off work at 6, we're going to have breakfast." This didn't happen a lot. Working two demanding jobs with pretty much opposite schedules meant we only really got to see each other at times when normal people were asleep.

It fucking sucked.

Victoria leans back against the bulkhead by the door and scoffs. "They've still got her on the fucking graveyard shift?"

I nodded. They did and Chloe was so irritated by it. I always had to prod her out of bed for her shift or she'd be late every time. "Yep. She's out on the station outskirts this morning."

She rolls her eyes. "Fucking ridiculous. She's been working here for five fucking years, Max. She should not still be on the fucking graveyard shift. If you want, I could call that asshole boss of hers and get her moved?" She grins wolfishly. "He's been terrified of me ever since we ran that article on the illegal maintenance bot fights his predecessor was running."

I shrug hesitantly and offer an apologetic smile. "Sorry, Victoria. You know Chloe wouldn't go for it. She's still pissed off with you after the Betelgeusian Pineapple incident."

Don't ask. You don't want to know. Seriously.

She snorts, rolling her eyes. "Chloe doesn't have to know. Just one call. Then you'd actually get to see each other at normal fucking hours."

I throw her the best warning look I could manage. I still sucked at the whole asserting myself thing. "Victoria..."

She puts up her hands, scowling off into the distance as if she could let Chloe know how annoyed she was by, like, telepathy or something. Dog, if anyone could manage that, it'd be Victoria. "Fine, fine. Chloe is too damn stubborn for her own good."

She focuses her irritated gaze back on me. "And so are you. You should be at home, sleeping." She flashes another grin, a sudden impish look in her eyes. "What's the point in a romantic breakfast with your wife if you're so tired you end up with one hipster shirt-clad elbow in those greasy waffles you're always eating." She pulls herself up straighter, putting on the Boss Christensen-Chase mask again. "Go home, Max. That's an order."

I grinned. "C'mon. Just five more minutes, mom." I batted my eyes at her and she melted before my 'quirky charm'. Direct quote, I swear. Victoria is weirdly affectionate when she's drunk. But that is... also a story for another time.

She rolled her eyes. "Jesus, Max. Fine. But if I find you here when I get in tomorrow, I'll put you on administrative leave, got it?" She glares. "Without pay."

I nodded, carefully avoiding the smile that threatened to burst out onto my face. She threatens that every time. She'd never do it. But she'd be so pissed if she thought I wasn't taking her seriously. "Thanks, Tori. Tell Taylor I said Hi."

She smiles, back to Friend-Victoria again. "Will do. Night, Nerd." With her warning given, she heads out of the office.

I breath a long-suffering sigh and turn back to my computer. Okay, Max. You can do this. Just one more hour, then I should have this done. Hopefully.


The Two Whales Commissary was the best restaurant on the whole station, in my opinion anyway. It was a little place, off in the outer sections of the station ring. I had to ride the auto-rail from the office for nearly thirty minutes to get there. So many creeps on there at this time of night, like, jeez.

I walk into the Commissary, heading over to mine and Chloe's usual booth off in the corner. I ran my hand along the dulled metal surface as I sat down, feeling the ridges and bumps of years along its surface. I grinned at the little carved "Chloe and Max 4-eva" in a heart tucked off on the wall edge of the booth. Chloe had wanted to get a plaque made, claiming the booth as ours permanently, but Joyce threatened a cut-off of waffles if she tried it, so that plan died a quick death.

A couple of seconds after I'd settled down, Joyce appeared, datapad in hand. "Well, good mornin' Max. What brings you by so early?" She grins, wryly. "Not that I'm complainin'." She looks around the nearly deserted diner. "It's nice to have a little company."

I shrug, smiling back. I was always happy to see Joyce. And not just because she gave me food. "Just waiting for Chloe. She gets off work in thirty minutes, so we're grabbing breakfast before we head home."

Joyce smiles. "Good for you two. Key to a good marriage. Now, you wanna order now or are you gonna wait for my daughter the working stiff to turn up?"

"I'll wait." I check my Chrono. "She shouldn't be long. I hope, anyway..." I trail off and we both grin knowingly. "So, anything happening with you, Joyce? How's David doing?"

Joyce slides into the booth opposite me. "Nothin' new with me, Max. And he's good. I think he's handlin' the move to desk work really well." She tilts her head and smiles. "And he's learnin' to deal with the cane a lot better now too."

I smile. "That's awesome, Joyce. Glad to hear it. I know he'd struggled after the accident..." I trailed off awkwardly. Shit, I feel so fucking awkward with this stuff. I never knew what to say. "So, have you heard about the new ruling from up high?"

Joyce lets me change the subject without comment, immediately snorting with derision. "Those damn bureaucrats have no idea what they're doing..."


She heads back to work a little after six as the morning crowd comes in. I look around at all the strange, strange people who think six is a good time to be awake. Bastards. But they make fun people-watching targets, even if it is insanely early.

Chloe slides her way in at about quarter past six, pushing the door open with her elbow and ambling over to me. I glare as she walks over, whistling. She doesn't do it for long, but it's enough for my mind to grab the song and wrap my arms around it like The Captain. "Seriously, Chlo?"

She stops, eyes suddenly bulging in panic. "What? Did I do something wrong?" She looks behind her, like she knocked something over on her way in. Which had actually happened before in a museum on Sirius Nine, but the less said about that, the better.

"Dog!" I rub at my temples. "That bloody song again?" I scowl. "I'm never going to get it out of my head at this rate!"

Chloe laughs loudly, drawing a few 'jeez, shut the hell up' looks from the other patrons. "Dude, that song is hella awesome and you fucking know it."

I roll my eyes. "You're so hella wrong, but I'll let you off this once. So, how was work?"

She flops into our booth, letting all the air out of herself in one big sigh. "It was shit. Valleau spent half my shift pushing us to the fucking limit. Fuck, if we didn't need the money, I'd punch that asshole out an airlock."

I frown. "Don't you mean Push?"

"Nope. Literally. I'd punch him out." She mimes a little right hook. "Ker-pow, right in the fucking kisser."

I lean back and smile at her, tentatively tossing out a "Well, Victoria offered her help again. If you'd just..."

She scoffs, cutting me off. "I don't need the rich bitch to bail me out. Nah, I just gotta work a bit longer, and I can get transferred to another shift." Chloe had been saying this for three years straight. She'd probably say it for three more. We were total opposites like that. Chloe would fight to the bitter end if she thought she was right, but I always gave in. I hated fighting, plus I was just bad at it, so I never bothered.

I take a deep breath and try to calm down. Joyce picks that moment to appear at the edge of the booth. She always did have good timing. "Well hey there, Chloe. Good morning."

Chloe smiles, bad mood immediately disappearing. Another way we were total opposites. I continued to simmer quietly. "Morning Mom."

She pulls her datapad out, stylus at the ready. "So, what can I get you?" She smirks. "Not that I can't already guess." Mom-mode switches on. "It wouldn't kill you to get some variety in your diet y'know, Chloe."

Chloe rolls her eyes. "Okay, Mom... Jeez..."

Joyce sighs. "I know, I know, I'm sorry. You're an adult now and you can make your own decisions, but you're still my little girl too."

They look at each other for a few seconds until Chloe suddenly sighs too. "Fine." I grin, immensely pleased with the outcome. Before we left, Chloe would've never given in like that. She really had mellowed with age.

"So," Joyce manages to keep the grin off her face, but I knew she's jumping and fistpumping in the air at getting Chloe to back down. "two fruit salads to start, then the waffles?"

Chloe grimaces and forces out "Yeah. Sounds great."

Joyce laughs and heads off to the kitchen. Chloe glares at her back the entire way. When Joyce disappears through the kitchen door, Chloe shifts her eyes back to me and snorts. "Har har. Laugh it up, Maxie. Fucking laugh it up."

I grin. "Oh, I am."

We don't really talk about anything in particular, but we're both grinning the whole time. I settle my hand in my hands and let her ramble on about Trevor and Justin and their new engineering design (Which fills me with a familiar brand of terror, especially after their last big idea. I'd walked in one evening to find my chair in pieces and the toaster had been turned into a plasma cutter), how the new kid on her shift had fucked up something called a retrograde capacitor, the shitty storm coming up, self-sealing stimbolts and three-pulse-converters, and I smile the whole time.

Then I tell her about Victoria's latest baby-news, receiving much sadistic laughter in return (and the image of Victoria, up at 3am trying to get an uncooperative 1-year old to drink from a bottle is absolutely hilarious), the story of Hayden's newest conquest and how he had to climb out of a fifteenth story window when her husband got back, new station regs and the latest news from our 'benevolent' government.

We'd both be the first to admit it's not the most romantic of conversations. But it works for us. Somewhere in all that, Joyce slips in, slides two plates onto the table, and slips out without us ever noticing. We just keep talking, off in our own little world. Joyce was a frakking good waitress.

We get drawn out by a chirpy, irritating little alarm. Chloe sighs and checks her Chrono. "Shit, dude. We gotta hit the road."

We grab our plates and hurry over to Joyce at the counter, sliding the plates over to her. "Thanks, Joyce. Awesome as always."

She nods, "Thanks, kids. Have a good day.", we say our goodbyes and go.

On the way out, we stop in front of the huge exterior window that dominates an entire wall of the diner.

The view is phenomenal. The window is at a seriously perfect angle. It gives this amazing look on the system, the light of our two stars framed by a starfield in the background and the planets revolving them.

I'd gotten so many pictures out of this window. The view still astonishes me just as much today as it did before we left the station a decade ago.

We just... stand for a minute, staring out.

"Wowzers..."

Chloe snorts, then nudges me with a laugh, her usual teasing, devil-may-care grin on her face. "Come on then, Beat Poet. Give us a verse on the stars."

I snort derisively. "That's more Rachel's thing than mine, Chloe."

Chloe freezes.

Shit.

I reached out and took her hand. "Dog, I'm sorry Chloe."

Rachel was a... delicate topic ever since she'd joined the Unitologists a few months back. It was completely out of the blue and she just dropped out of contact with all of us. Chloe felt... abandoned. Not surprising, given she was basically the poster child for childhood neglect.

Woah. The Kate in my head made a shocked sound. That was so mean!

She really was though. First her Dad had died in an auto-lane accident, then I'd shipped off to another system for college, then her Step-Father had been an borderline-absentee workaholic douchebag. Then, once we'd reunited and I thought that sort of stuff would be over for her, Rachel had happened.

We'd pretty much been ignoring the whole thing, except for a few slip-ups by my dumbass self.

Her hand pulled away from mine and she took a few steps away from me, rubbing at her face. Dogdamnit, Max.

I waited for a couple minutes as Chloe pushed all the feelings of hurt and neglect back into the little box she kept them in somewhere off in the back of her head.

She took a deep shaky breath and smiled. "Yeah. Let's go. I'm fucking beat." She throws her arm over my shoulder and we head for the door.

The door swings open and we see... "Kate!"

The little mousy blonde blinked in shock at us for a second, before her face clears and she beams. "Hey guys. How are you two?"

I smile. "Good. Pretty tired, honestly. We've both just got off work."

Chloe nodded vaguely, not looking at Kate. I sighed.

Things had been a little awkward with Kate and Chloe, ever since Rachel joined her church. Pretty sure Chloe blamed her for the whole thing. Unitologists weren't shy about their religion and were always trying to encourage more people to join and Rachel had been talking to Kate a lot before she disappeared.

Kate smiled. "I get that. Things have been so hectic at the Church lately, this is basically my first break in a month."

I grimace. "Ooof. That sounds sucky."

She laughs faintly. "Its really not so bad. I'm just cranky." She clicks her fingers. "Oh, before I forget, I wanted to ask for your help with something this evening. It won't take too long, I just need a little technical expertise." She smiles at Chloe. "And you're the best I know. So, um... will you? Please?"

Chloe just stays silent for a second. Then another. Then another. I step forward, taking her arm. "Of course we'll help."

She beams. "Fantastic. Meet me at Hampton just after 9 tonight. Thank you so much." She heads past us into the diner. I elbow Chloe. "Hey. You ok?"

She gives me a blank look, then smiles absently.

I sigh. Damn it. "Come on, Chlo. Let's get out of here."

We head off home and go straight to bed.

Not like that! You dirty-minded people! Jeez.


We find Kate standing next to an open door on Hampton, the Command Tower looming up behind us.

She grins and rushes over to us as we walk up. Now, Chloe and I had like a foot height difference, but Kate still managed to hug the shit out of both of us at the same time, wrapping her arms tightly around us. "Thank you so much for helping with this!" She lets go and takes a couple steps back, instantly going back to the calm and reserved front she usually put on. "I know you're not part of the flock, but the fact you're willing to help is very appreciated."

She turns and heads back over to the door, waving us over when we don't immediately follow. "Come on! We've not got long."

Chloe and I share a look. I shrug, she nods, and we head in. I feel strangely apprehensive as the door slides shut behind us.

About five minutes down the corridor, we hit a t-junction. Kate stops, looks both ways, then pauses. She sighs. "One minute. I know it's around here somewhere." She clicks open her RIG, watching as it quickly plots a route through her map of whatever Unitologist facility we're in.

When it's done, she takes a sharp left and skitters off down the corridor, leaving me and Chloe to trail after her.

We catch up as she reaches another solid door at the end of the corridor. She opens it in a second, crosses a room with a single desk and one of those pretentious fountains rich-corporate people always have, and takes a door in the far corner into another T-Shaped corridor.

I catch a couple of voices coming from the corridor to our left. Kate suddenly stops, listening for a second, then quickly opens a door and slips inside. I frown. "Uh, Kate?"

She turns, calm smile still on her face. "Yes?"

"Why are we hiding in an office?"

She shakes her head in that 'oh, aren't you ever so silly' way that some people do when you don't see something that seems really obvious to them. "We're not hiding, Max. Those are the devoted, praying for the ceremony. We can't disturb them, so we'll stay here till they pass."

I don't know how she's going to hear if they do, this door is really thick. But, whatever. We wait for a few minutes until she's satisfied, then we get moving again.

We take the corridor the voices came from, then two rights, down a long corridor, another right, then across a room filled with desks, but no people, and then a left until Kate stops suddenly in front of a large double-door. It's a security model, like the one we have at the front of the office to prevent break-ins. You could shoot one of these things with a rocket launcher and it wouldn't crack. Wowzers. What the hell are they keeping in here?

Kate taps the open button, raising a screen on her RIG and scowling when it flashes orange. Locked. She fiddles for a few seconds and the orange turns to blue as the door slides open, revealing a control room of some sort.

Kate immediately heads in, motioning us to follow yet again. What the fuck have we agreed to do here?

The room is pretty big. Bigger than I was expecting, anyway. It's like twice the size of our apartment, but that's not really saying much. The wall opposite is a huge transpari-steel window. Jeez, whoever built this place believed in serious overkill. Who were they expecting to try blow their way in here? Then again, these guys are Unitologists.

The walls to our left and right were lined with a crapload of consoles and screens, all showing some coded screensaver. Between us and the window was another line of consoles, but the screens there were showing this green shape. It looked like a big pillar of some sort. Probably a Unitologist symbol, I guess.

Kate goes straight to this console and taps in a code. The pillar-symbols disappear and the standard computer desktop appears. She turns to Chloe with a smile. "This is where I'll be needing your help please, Chloe."

Chloe sticks her hands in her pocket and, with one last pissed-off glance at me, ambles over to Kate.

I wander towards the window and stare out as Chloe and Kate fiddle with the console. There was this huge warehouse, almost completely pitch black except for these glowy red lines going up a huge pillar in the middle of it. Maybe the symbol again?

I peer at it through the glass, trying to make out more of it. I... there's a whispering..? I try listen closer to it. What is it saying?

I...

Kate appears at my shoulder. "Max?"

I blink. My hand was up, pressed against the window. I lower it, pulling it close and rubbing the knuckle with my other hand. "Uh, wowzers... What was... Did you...?" I pointed to the window.

She shakes her head. "I didn't see anything, Max." She smiles. "Come on, we're nearly done."

I smile back and follow her over to the console, where Chloe is still fiddling with something. Kate rubs her hands together, almost jumping up and down. I grin, it's so cute how excited she is. Even if it is a weird Unitology thing she's excited about, I'm happy for her.

Chloe suddenly pulls back out of the console with a grin. "And..." She pushes a button on the console.. "Done!"

I scream in shock as every light in the room goes off and the console sparks. I can't see anything, but I can hear Chloe's breathing next to me and that's enough for me to focus on and try to calm my ratatatat-ing heartbeat.

"Uh, Kate. What the fuck just happened?"

"I..." Kate sounds shocked. "I don't know! This wasn't supposed to happen. We've got to get out of here. Now!" The alarm in her voice seems to push Chloe into moving. I can't see her move, but the whirring clang as the door opens again lets me know what she's done.

"Then lets fucking get out of this creepy-ass place, okay?"

There's a few beeps and Chloe's Maintenance RIG lights switch on, blaring like the beacons of Gondor through the darkness around us. Kate and I both work our way over to her, trying not to trip over the pile of wires and electronic shit Chloe left all over the floor.

Reunited, we dash off down the corridor, staying as close together as we can. There's like, maybe ten feet of visibility at most, so we're blind if we get too far from Chloe. I grin. Heh. Now she really is the light of my life.

We must've taken a wrong turn somewhere, because we end up in a cafeteria we didn't see on our way in. There's still no-one around, but the room is trashed. Trays, tables, benches are scattered all over the place. There's... Oh, dog... There's blood all over the walls. I can almost taste the iron in the air, the smell is so strong.

There's a door on either side of us. One is busted, sliding open and closed with crackles and sparks. The other is closed.

We all just stop for a minute, taking all the destruction in.

"What..." Chloe starts, but trails off, mouth open and lost for words. I know the feeling.

I just shake my head. "We've got to get out of here."

She and Kate both nod numbly and we carry on going.

We get halfway across the room, stopping instantly when a klaxon sound blares across the room as the station intercom crackles into life.

We stare up at the little speaker mounted up towards the ceiling. "Uh... This is Director Jetson." He sighs, and a round of gunfire goes off in the background. "I'm declaring a code black emergency under protocol..." There's another round of gunfire and the intercom crackles with static. "...uck this corporate bullshit. Listen to me. These things, whatever they are... shoot for the limbs. Shooting the head doesn't seem to work." There's a howl and screaming from the intercom. "...od, they're here! They're he..!" Another round of gunfire. "..ill it! Kill it!"

The intercom goes dead.

We all stare up at it.

Well, shit.

Kate immediately bolts across the room for the other door. She's out of the room before me and Chloe can even blink. "Kate!" I shout, running out after her. "We've got to stick..." I stop instantly and Chloe thuds into my back with a muffled "Whatthefuck!"

I turn and hiss "Shutupshutup!"

There are two... things in the room with us and I know instantly that they're the cause of whatever happened in the other room.

They're just... They're just... Fuuuuck. Just looking at them scares the crap out of me, so I do what I always do when I'm scared. I retreat from the situation and look at it like I'm staging a picture. All professionalism and detachment. The world through a lens.

Okay, I can do this. Background first, then the subject.

I take a look around the room. There's almost nothing in here. Luckily, the walls seem to be clean. Or, cleaner than the last room, anyway. The furniture has been ripped up and pushed against one wall.

I take a deep breath.

Now onto the subjects.

Whatever they are, they're not human. They're tall and do look vaguely like people, they're even wearing scraps of clothes, but they're... not. Lame finish, I know, but it's the best I've got. They've got the same sort of shape as us, but... it definitely wasn't human. Instead of arms, it had long blades, like scythes, extending up from the shoulders. Its real arms were folded in, fused to the torso.

The blade-arms were covered in blood.

The creatures are hunched and shakily standing over by one end of the room. Both of them are facing away from us, towards an open doorway there, so I can't see their faces. They're both growling quietly.

And Kate is about halfway between us and them.

Chloe and I share a look. I can see the gears whirring behind her eyes as she tries to think through everything. She's not panicking though. I still don't know what happened to Chloe while I was away at College, but whatever it was, she's using it to keep her shit together now. She starts suddenly, and points back to the monsters.

I turn and look back at them. They still haven't moved, but Kate... She's starting to edge away slowly from the monsters, step by step. Chloe elbows me and points. There's something on the floor, right in her path. It's so dark, I can't even see whatever it is, just a sort of red-lit outline illuminated by the emergency lighting. Shit. Kate is still staring at the monstrous things, she's going to trip on the thing!

Without thinking, I start to creep forward. I've got to stop her, warn her, do something!

A sudden shrill scream echoes around the room. The two creatures immediately roar and charge... in the other direction! They head through the door on the opposite side of the room, hunting whatever poor soul was screaming before. I shudder and push the thought out of my head. Right now, me, Chloe and Kate are the priority.

I rush forward and grab Kate, stopping her from tripping, and we run out the other door from the room, ending up at a crossroads. I turn to Kate. "Which way?"

She checks her map again and points. "That way."

I nod. "Right. We've got to be close to getting out, right?"

She returns my nod. "Uhuh. This'll take us back to the corridor we came in through."

Well. That's convenient. Damnit, Max. Don't look a gift-horse in the mouth, especially when there are monstrous things looking to rip you to pieces and redecorate the walls with your fucking insides!

Ok, so panicking more than I thought. My breathing quickens suddenly and rapid-fire images flick through my head of the blood on the walls, the smell in my nose, those things' arms through my stomach tearing me to... Oh dog, oh dog!

Chloe appears in front of me and grabs my shoulders, shaking me. "Come on, Max. You heard her. We're hella nearly out, right?" That's directed to Kate, who frantically nods. "Yes, yes!"

Chloe looks back at me. "See? We're gonna be fine. So, keep your shit together, 'kay?"

For some reason, that last question pulls me out of it. Chloe was always good at getting to me when I'm like this. I push the images down, determined to ignore them. I can do this. I can do this. I nod. "I'm okay."

Chloe beams. "Hella good. Now, come on!"

We turn and dash down the corridor Kate indicated. There are so many screams around us as those things rip and rend and tear and thrash through everything and everyone they can find. I can barely keep myself from vomiting as we see more and more horrific shit with every step. Everything in my head is just going round and round the one unavoidable fact I'm trying desperately not to think about, numbing myself to everything and just keeping on running.

We're going to die here.

A loud curse from Chloe pulls me back to reality as she suddenly swivels and turns back to the horrors we just left. "Fucking Run!"

The fear and urgency in her voice bypasses everything and I do as she says, barely catching a glance of the horde of monsters that've seen us, or caught our scent or something.

They howl, a sound of pure and endless hunger, then charge after us. We run.

I can hear Chloe swearing behind me, just throwing out a stream of curses. "Fuckfuckfuckshitfuckohgodfuck." Kate is quiet next to me, just concentrating on running from those things.

One foot, then the other, then the other.

You can't be clumsy now, Max. "You trip, you will die" I repeat, over and over in my head.

We ran and ran and ran until we got back to the crossroads. I started to slow down, trying to work out which way to go, but Kate shot past me straight on, so I followed her. She was the one with the map, right?

"Run! We're almost out!" Kate screamed back to us.

I could hear the monsters howling and the thunk-thunk-thunk noise as they charged after us. Chloe was somewhere behind me too, but she was keeping up. And hella more importantly, keeping ahead of those things.

We ran into a large-ish room. This one had a door in each wall, both blocked by hastily arranged furniture, and a massive glass ceiling above us showing the EarthGov logo. Dog, we broke into an EarthGov facility? Wowzers, we're so screwed.

Kate was a little ahead of us, so she made it through the last door first.

We were right on her heels and about to make it, but then the door slammed shut. We ran up, slamming the open button. It flashed orange. Fuck, locked! Chloe pounded on the door. "Kate! The door locked behind you! Kate!"

The door intercom crackled. "One People, One Mind, One Purpose." Oh... shit... "Altman be praised."

We turned around to see three of the bodies in the room with us writhe, with those weird sword-arm things starting to sprout. The other three monsters were still coming too. "Oh, dog..."

That's when I knew this was gonna be a hella bad day...