Disclaimer: Dead Space is a licensed trademark of Visceral and Electronic Arts (EA). I own nothing. For entertainment purposes only. For no monetary gain. (Etc. etc...)

F.Y.I: Rated M, because its Dead Space, duh. You have been warned.

Instinct

The CEC officer found himself stumbling around in the dark, separated from his squad, after they themselves got separated body part by body part by the nightmarish creatures that had subsequently overran The Sprawl. And he was the last one alive, not because he fought them off.

No, he himself ran for his life, when he heard the screams and baying of the things out of the range of his flashlight.

When Tiedemann made the CEC re-enter the quarantine zones to search for some wacked- out- of- his- mind engineer hell-bent on destroying The Sprawl, he was signing up to kill the son-of-a-bitch terrorist that blew up the Ishimura, not this. Bodies coming back to life as one purpose killing machines were the stuff of nightmares, a nightmare that he was anything but prepared to face head-on. So when the screams started, and the monstrosities came jumping out of the darkness like demented jack-in-the-boxes, he dropped his Pulse Rifle and ran for his god-damn life as he heard the terrified and pained screams of his squad, followed by the sounds of whatever was tearing them to shreds, then followed by the deafening sound of a Detonator Mine exploding.

Then silence.

He had kept running, running on adrenaline and sheer terror for what felt like an eternity, forgetting the way back to CEC headquarters and countering the lack of direction with blind terror fueled intuition. His intuition had brought him through blood and gore drenched hallways, but nowhere near CEC HQ. No, it had brought him somewhere in the middle of some common area. All the faux-wood doors to apartments were sealed shut, locked from the inside or quarantined. Some of the doors that were quarantined looked like they were ripped open from the inside. Metal splayed open like a tin can. The hallway he found himself in was inky black and dead silent.

When he stopped running, his mind slowly began to regain its functions from the fear that took control. First order of business was to evacuate everything in his stomach. He dropped onto all fours, his visor retracted, and out came dinner, lunch, and breakfast all at once. It didn't help the images of those freaks kept popping up in his mind's eye, and neither did the blood curdling screams his now former squad made before getting eviscerated.

Hernandez, Yoshimatsu, McEnroe, Hawley, all dead, those hard-asses were turned into paste in seconds.

He heaved until nothing but spittle came out of his mouth. His head throbbed and his vision was red from the heaving. After wiping the snot and chunks off his face with his arm, he tried to activate his Holotech device and use the built in GPS system to find the quickest route back to HQ, but cursed aloud when he lifted his arm and the holographic path flickered, then failed. He then noticed there was a four-inch chunk of shrapnel stuck in the device. "You got to be fucking kidding…" he said aloud, but was cut off when he heard a noise from down the hall.

His heart stopped mid beat. The visor activated, encasing his head with light hiss as it sealed, an alarm chimed in his ear, letting him know his RIG was safe for vacuum. The hallway fell silent again, besides the sound of his shallow breaths echoing off the visor. His eyes strained to pierce the light consuming dark that surrounded him. It was so unnerving; there was usually the light din of oxygen recyclers and fans in the air ducts. But there wasn't even that, it was so goddamn silent you could hear a pin drop, bounce on the floor, and then echo.

The Officer slowly stood, the RIG clicking as armor plates adjusted to his movements as he stood straight up. His heart started to pound out of his suit, an overwhelming feeling something was about to happen began to mount. He didn't have a weapon to defend himself, he dropped it when he was scared shitless and ran. He tempted a glance behind him; maybe he could make a run for it and try and find a directory. The dark behind him didn't give any hints of anything back there, not even emergency lighting. He really was alone in the dark.

Metal clanged against metal, somewhere out of sight and far away.

The Officer snapped his neck as humanly quick as possible back to the front, where it sounded like the noise came from. There was nothing, just all consuming dark. Your just getting jumpy he told himself, someone is fucking with you that is it. His heart slowly climbed out of his throat as reason began to win over irrational fear. Then there was a loud bang, neither metal nor explosion.

Irrational thought took over again; he couldn't control the reflex act of shouting fuck before slamming his back against the nearest wall. Where did that come from? It sounded like it came from the hallway ahead and the passage he ran down earlier. He shot glances down both directions, hoping to see anything, anything, come out of the darkness to answer for the sounds. Then a part of him hoped that whatever was tormenting him in the dark would stay there, because he had no way of fighting it off, and he really didn't want to see what nightmarish abomination this sick funhouse had come up with. The sound of plastic grating on linoleum followed after the bang. Instead of not knowing where in the hell this noise was coming from, it sounded like it was coming from his left. He gathered what tattered courage he had left, and prepared to face whatever was coming from the dark.

His chest hurt from his heart pounding so furiously, adrenaline began coursing again. He raised the only weapon he had; his left and right hands, clenched into fists. If he was going to die, he wouldn't go down without a fucking fight.

The rolling sound got ever closer. His fists began to shake, not with fear, but from adrenaline.

The sound came to a head and revealed itself. A deep green plastic mop bucket materialized into the limited aqua blue light cast by the Officers visor, and came to a stop after bumping his left boot. The officer was struck dumb by the odd object. He started feeling stupid that he had his fists clenched up and ready to fight…A fucking mop bucket?

Now he was absolutely sure someone, or something, was screwing with him. He cursed, and kicked the bucket back into the darkness, it clattered about as it bounced down the hallway and came to a rest. He was getting sick of all the head games, he almost shouted to whatever was in here with him to come out and face him like a man.

He stood quietly for a moment, listening as the clattering of the bucket echoed down the silent corridors. And instantly regretted letting anything within earshot of his outburst telegraphs his position.

He had to get a weapon, something to at least hurt whatever wants him dead, to leave a mark on his assailant, or deter anything from attacking him again. He had to get something to do that first. He edged his way along the smooth wall to the first faux wooden door, and thumbed the access panel. It chimed, and asked if he wanted to open the door. He thumbed 'yes', but then a new chime sounded, the door was now telling him he didn't have permission to access "R. Wakowski's Residence when they are not at home."

Damn this security bullshit. After typing in his CEC security badge identification number into the holographic keyboard on the door, it changed its tone, and politely said 'Welcome officer.' The door then parted, revealing Wakowski's darkened residence. The lights sputtered on, revealing the grisly scene lay out before him. A dark skinned man with a beard laid on his back at the foot of his king sized bed, his arms splayed out from his torso, an antique pistol gripped in one hand. The top of the man's head was missing, and above the officer on the ceiling covering one light was coagulated blood and brain matter. Altman be praised! And The Marker will bring us salvation was scribbled all over the walls in blood. Christ thought the officer. These Marker- Heads are sickly devoted to their cause.

The officer noticed a blood trail leading to a closed door on the other side of the room. The name etched into the nameplate on the door was 'Tilly'. The officer grimaced, but watched the door nonetheless, quietly and cautiously reaching for the antique pistol in the rigor-mortised hand, hoping nothing would jump out from behind Tilly's door. His gloved fingers brushed against the stainless steel of the weapon when the shrill scream of the alarm clock on the nightstand next to the bed began to kindly inform the Wakowski's it was 3:00 a.m.

The cheap scares were really starting to wear thin.

Heart-rate reaching as normal as the situation would allow, he pried the weapon from the hand. It was a well preserved piece; made sometime in the twenty-first century, the maker's mark was a bird, wings spread in flight, with an ornate "R" etched into the slightly dried out wood of the handle. The name was faded, but the caliber size was still visible, it said '.44 caliber Hunter's Special.'

He had no idea what the number meant, but he was sure it must be a large caliber round. He hoped. He rummaged through the nightstand drawer, keeping an eye on Tilly's door, looking for bullets. He found half a box of rounds, and stuffed them in a side pocket on his RIG, and with a final glance at Tilly's door, turned to walk back into the darkened hallway. He was stopped dead at the front of the bed by a twisted figure blocking the doorway. It screamed at the sight of the fully armored officer, and crashed through the doorway from the hall into the apartment.

The Officer managed to shout Shit, and drew the pistol as fast as he could, and aimed at the creature as it screeched for the officer's blood.

The weapon fired. The round buried itself into the wall.

The creature tackled the officer onto the bed, on top of what was left of Mr. Wakowski. The officer was incredibly disturbed by the fact he was pinned to a bed with a dead body underneath him, and the disgusting twisted being that was, at one point, a woman. He grunted and cursed as he shoved and kicked at the creature to get it off him, its scythe like weapons protruding from the woman's hands slicing at the mattress underneath him and the body, flinging ample amounts of bed stuffing and blood into the air. He brought his right hand clenched into a fist across the creatures face. It connected with a sickening crunch, the half of the creatures face caved in from the blow. It roared out of anger, and kept pushing, its mangled face screaming and spewing spittle and whatever ungodly disgusting fluid onto the officers visor.

He kept cursing as the abomination kept trying to slice him in two. The officer managed to find a foothold on the creature's midsection, and pushed with both legs. His boots seemed to sink into the exposed organs there, and worst yet, two twisted little hands that he didn't notice before had grabbed his boots and stopped the creature from falling back into the hallway. He tried to kick their fingers grip from his boots, he was thoroughly disgusted and terrified by this point, and the only logical reason to wake up from this damn nightmare was to shoot the living hell out of it with that gun in his hand.

Kicking the creature gave the officer a second to recover and raise the pistol to bear, and pulled the trigger again.

The creature flailed its scythes, and by a calculated swing, or dumb luck, knocked the barrel away as the round fired. The round connected with one scythe, shattering it into a fine dust and large chunks. But it didn't even slow down the fucking thing. It barely reacted to the loss of one of its 'limbs', but it capitalized on the officers slight hesitation at the horror of not even slowing the thing down with a glancing shot. With the now broken scythe the creature pinned the officers firing hand, and with its good arm, drove a scythe into the horror struck officer.

The officer screamed out in agony as the jagged edge buried itself deep into his shoulder, and skewered him to the mattress below. The heads-up-display on his military grade RIG blared warnings in his helmet as it monitored his heart rate and blood pressure sky-rocket, the simulated 'health bar' dropped to a dangerous low red, and his suit was now informing him, calmly but sternly:

Warning! Warning! RIG breach, RIG breach, requires immediate repair before entering hard vacuum! Warning…

The creature seemed to take great pleasure in hearing the officer cry out in anguish, twisting its already broken face into a quizzical head nod, a low rumble escaped from the creatures gaping wound on its neck, where the woman's jaw used to be. It twisted the scythe in the officer's shoulder; he cried out again and started to violently cough. It brought its face mere inches from the officer's visor, its sunken red eyes reflecting on his helmet. It had its fun torturing its prey, now to put it out of its misery.

It raised its broken scythe, freeing the man's firing arm. If the weapon wasn't shattered by the officer, the creature would have brought the blade down on his helmet, piercing his visor and ending this pathetic officer's life. But the creature didn't seem to realize one of its weapons was missing. So instead of ending the officer, the now blunt instrument clanged against the helmet, denting the plates and cracking the visor's glass, and glanced off.

The officer felt the blow in full force, his head violently snapped to the side. The visor's holographic HUD flickered, then faltered, and shut down. He felt the form-fitting foam that kept his helmet snugly fit to his head uncomfortably squished against the right cheek of his face. The suit informed the wearer of; Catastrophic system damage, attempting reboot…

The officer watched as the creature examined its broken appendage with confusion, wondering why it was no longer pointed. The officer jumped at the chance, and brought the pistol to bear once more. Through the cracked view he had, he aimed at the creature's broken face as it contoured into rage at the human once more for destroying one of its weapons.

Like those old Earth vids about the undead coming back to life, zombies as they were called, could be incapacitated or killed by destroying the brain. He aimed for the vital organ, and prayed the same laws applied in the real world.

A gout of flame spat out of the dangerous end of the gun at the squeeze of the trigger, turning the creatures head into nothing but a mist of gore. The gaping hole caused by the missing appendage made a belching noise, and the creature faltered for a moment. The officer took his advantage, grunted and kicked the corpse off him, the scythe embedded in his shoulder ripped out, and followed the body into a heap on the floor of the teal colored carpet.

Ha, take that you ugly bitch! He sat up, the gun still trained on the twitching body. The RIG flashed to life in his helmet, and started listing diagnostics on the HUD, much to the chagrin of the officer, who now was blinded by code and didn't notice the creature fumble back onto its feet.

CEC—RIG suit VER. 1.1.134/Riot. Spec.

Running Diagnostic…..Complete/

Shielding/undetected

Vacuum seals/Torso: Compromised

/legs: Safe

/Head: Heavy Damage/Detected:: NOT recommended to enter space
Holotech::Military Issue V2.1.7889/…Disconnected…

WARNING! Multiple key programs unresponsive! Immediate RIG transfer required

"Fuck you!"

He shouted, waving his arm in front of his face in a futile attempt to disperse the code. Through the swarm of incomprehensible letters, he spotted the bitch stand again; blood and pus spurted from the gaping hole in its neck where its head once was. It seemed like it couldn't see; its feet stumbled on the carpet and its arms flailed madly in all directions.

Whether it was the suits lack of a skip button, the fact a movie myth didn't work, or a corpse was still trying to rip him to shreds, the fear that hadn't dissipated began to well up inside again. But it was combined with another emotion; pure, unadulterated, pissed-off anger. It wasn't like the anger he had for his basic drill sergeant. No, this was a much deeper, more primal anger. This creature's purpose in life was to kill; not efficiently, or quickly. It was designed to kill as slowly, bloody, and viscerally as possible. And the fact it targeted him, and seemed to take great pleasure in watching him squirm and scream at the agony of skewering him. And that didn't sit well with the officer. The officer staggered to his feet, gripping his shoulder in an attempt to slow the bleeding. If this thing wanted him dead, he was going to kill it first before the thing got the chance.

"You want to kill me, you ugly bastard?" The officer growled, fear being overwhelmed with the primal anger. The creature seemed to hear him, and turned in his direction. "You'll have to try a little harder than that."

The officer charged the walking corpse; adrenaline blocked the pain of his shoulder as he let out a guttural roar. The creature shrieked as the officer plowed into its torso, and carried it, scythes flailing, into the hallway and slammed it into the opposite wall. The officer still hollered curses and angry noises as the momentum of the officer slamming the creature into the wall, causing its midsection to explode, the upper half still flailed as the officer backed off and it fell to the floor. The officer was still blinded by code.

With his good arm, he flashed a rude gesture at the body, and spewed curses through the visor's external speaker. Adrenaline slowly wore off, and the shoulder ache slowly began to return. The torso squeaked, and attempted to slice at the ankles of the officer, but it was too injured to gain enough momentum to do anything but scrape the metal plates on the heavily armored boot.

"What does it take to kill you?!" He hoarsely shouted exhausted and still losing blood. The anger returned once more, with more feeling. He raised a size fourteen armored boot, and brought it down on the arm, snapping it off at the elbow, the creature shrieked. He raised the boot again, and brought it down with every ounce of strength he had.

"Fuck you!" He screamed. The creature continued to shriek. "Fuck, you, fuck, you, fuck, you!" he timed the curse with every heartfelt stomp to the bitch; chunks of the thing flew everywhere. "Just, fucking, DIE!" He stomped until his leg felt like dead weight, and the muscle fibers burned and begged him to stop. He gasped for breath; he barely could stand from exhaustion and blood loss as he stared at the bloody carnage he caused. Nothing was left of the thing but a puddle of gore.

The officer was on the verge of collapsing, vision faded in and out. Dammit, got to find a med kit…

Something howled somewhere in the dark, Followed by another, and another. A demented symphony of cries and roars built up and echoed to his ears from the dark.

Adrenaline returned to the battered man once again. He realized in his rage induced state, he tackled the creature into the pitch black hallway, and when the motion sensing lights in the Wakowski residence sensed the officer had left, the lights flicked off, and the door shut and locked behind him. He was back in the dark alone, and unarmed once again, and now heavily wounded.

The things that go bump in the night bayed for his blood.

Why did he have to get carried away? Now he's doomed, nothing left to do. Except try and run, try and find CEC HQ or a room he could lock himself in and survive until help showed up. A shadow flickered out of the corner of the officer's eye. Another howl pierced the night, a little closer than before. The officer began to panic, it sounded like it was coming from where he ran down earlier. That dictated where not to go next. Another howl, even closer than before, it made the officers blood run cold.

The visor flickered on, barely illuminating the inky black of the hallway, revealing another shadow that darted out of view, claws skittered on the hard linoleum.

The officers heart pounded in his ears, I got to move.

One final screech, and the man's legs finally listened to him, he started hobbling as fast as he could. Farther and farther away from the things that are torturing him, whatever is chomping at the bit to turn him to paste with the rest of his squad. Deeper into the Sprawl, deeper into the dark and unknown, fueled only by instinct to survive and stay away from those things. The officer kept peering over his shoulder as he hobbled down the abyss.

The skittering continued from behind…

END