A/N - Was a bit inspired by the video game "Silent Hill" for this next part, and the movie, though I have yet to see it...

Chapter 4: Shadowed

"Can we have some water?!" Sam shouted. She had resorted to standing by the door to their large cell and shouting at the guards as they marched past in their strange, intimidating armor.

Jack had been swimming in and out of consciousness for the past couple hours, and was running a fever. Janet seemed frustrated that she couldn't do anything to help him, and Daniel was trying to comfort her.

One of the guards stopped by the door and turned his helmeted head towards Sam.

"Water." Sam said again. "We need water. One of the men in here is very sick."

The guard turned and left. Sam groaned inwardly, and was just about to start shouting again when the guard returned with a large wooden bucket. He shoved it through a sliding panel in the bottom of the door then returned to his marching.

"I thought you asked for water." Daniel said, wrinkling his nose at the contents of the bucket. "This stuff smells like sulfur."

"It's probably got a very high mineral content." Janet said. She ripped a strip of cloth off the bottom of one pants leg, wetted it then placed it over Jack's forehead. "Here, Sam, watch him. I'm going to go make sure everyone else in here's ok."

As Janet moved off, Sam sat next to Jack and smoothed the cloth over his forehead. His eyes were closed, his lips parted slightly. Sam put one hand to his cheek. "Sir?" she said quietly. "Sir please wake up…"

Jack opened one eye and mumbled, "What is it, Carter? I've got a headache the size of Texas." He opened the other eye and looked around. "Where are we?"

"I don't know, Sir. But you've been out of it for a while."

"Have I now?" Jack tried to sit up, but Sam put her hands on his shoulders.

"Sir, you need to rest."

"What, are you taking over in place of Fraiser?"

"Janet's here." Sam said. "In fact…" she looked around. "Everyone's here. Everyone we couldn't account for. General Hammond, Walter, Siler…"

"You mean the whole SGC's been taken captive?!" Jack sat up, despite Sam's attempts to prevent him.

Everyone in the room turned as the door opened and two of the guards walked in. Janet and Daniel quickly scuttled back to Sam and Jack, but if they'd been trying not to draw attention to themselves, it didn't work. One guard gestured at the four of them. He said something, and suddenly Sam and Janet were being held by one guard, and Jack and Daniel by the other.

Sam looked wildly at Janet as they were dragged into the hall. "How did we get…?"

Janet only had time to shake her head, before the guards tied dark pieces of cloth over their eyes.

As the guards walked them down the hall, Sam noticed a strange sensation that reminded her of traveling through the stargate, except that she could feel the floor firmly before her feet. Only…was it curving? Sam couldn't quite tell.

The guards forced them to stop, then in one motion removed their blindfolds and pushed them to the ground.

Sam landed face down on some sort of metal grating. When she opened her eyes she realized with some confusion that it was the ramp leading up to the Stargate. Janet was on one side of her, Jack and Daniel just behind. The other three looked just as confused as Sam felt.

"SG-1, Dr. Fraiser, good to have you back."

They all looked up to see Hammond standing before them.

"Sir?" Jack got to his feet. "Weren't we just…"

"Don't worry, SG-3 got back a little while ago and filled me in on the situation." Hammond said. "I suggest you all go down to the infirmary and get checked out, then get some rest." He turned and headed back up to the control room.

Jack whirled around. "Anyone else think something's really off here?"

"Yeah," Janet agreed. "Two seconds ago we were in another dimension…how'd we get back here?"

"Yeah, and two seconds ago I had a killer headache and…" Jack winced. "Wait, no, that's still here." They left the gate room and headed up to Sam's lab, locking themselves in to prevent any unwanted interruption.

"Ok, what's going on here?" Jack demanded.

"No idea." Daniel replied. "Of course, its perfectly possible that we're safely back in the SGC now and what we saw before was the illusion."

"Occam's Razor." Sam said quietly. Daniel and Janet nodded, but Jack just looked more confused.

"What?"

"All things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the correct one." Sam explained. "What's more likely, that something was able to break into the SGC and kill most of the people, or that it was just an illusion?"

Jack scowled. "What did I tell you about things happening at the SGC? I'll give you O'Neill's Razor; the simplest explanation usually is the wrong one if it's within a ten mile radius of the Stargate."

"I agree with Colonel O'Neill," Janet said. "Something definitely isn't right."

"Thank you!" Jack cried.

Daniel was biting his lip thoughtfully. "But if this looks just like the real SGC should, then how do we tell what's wrong?"

"May be we should just try doing what we normally do," Sam suggested. "Watch out for anything that's different about this place."

Jack spent a moment contemplating his 2IC's suggestion, then nodded. "Ok, just keep your guard up. We don't need anyone else getting attacked by some freaky 4-D monster from outer space."

No one seemed to eager to leave the safe confines of Sam's lab, however. Jack hovered by the table, while Janet and Daniel seemed to be having a silent conversation with their eyes. Sam eyed them all.

"Is this what you all would be doing normally?"

"No." Jack said flatly. He marched over to the door and opened it. "I'm going to go see if there's any cake." He headed out into the hall. Daniel and Janet followed.

For a moment after everyone had left Sam felt worry stab through her, but she quickly buried it, sitting down and turning on her computer. Maybe she could finally finish that one report Hammond had been bugging her for…

Everything in the infirmary seemed to be how Janet had left it. The only patient was Siler, who had burned his hand, but one of the nurses was taking care of him and he'd be out of there soon. As Janet went into her office, nervously looking around, Daniel lingered in the doorway.

"You sure you don't want me to stay?"

Janet turned, smiling. "I'll be fine, Daniel, really." Her eyes sparkled mischievously. "Though you are probably overdue for some of your booster shots…" That had Daniel quickly backing out of the infirmary. Janet laughed, sitting down at her desk.

She'd been working on some medical files for only a couple minutes when suddenly the fluorescent light above her head began to flicker, dimming to the pale green that was usually a warning that it was dying. Janet frowned; she thought that it had just been replaced a couple days ago.

Getting to her feet Janet stuck her head out of the office. The infirmary was completely deserted. Turning back into the office, Janet froze, staring at the corner of the ceiling.

It looked like something brown had been poured and was somehow spreading across the ceiling and down the walls. Wherever the strange shadow touched the wall crumbled and aged, becoming streaked with rust and decay. Janet's heart began pounding wildly as she backed up, away from the strange thing. A noise caused her to turn, and let out an earsplitting shriek.

Daniel had made it halfway down the hall then stopped. He turned, walked in a circle, waited for a few minutes debating with himself, then headed back to the infirmary. That's when he heard the scream.

Daniel broke into a run, almost going right past the infirmary doors. Going through them the first thing he saw was Janet backed up against a corner. Facing her was some huge, grotesque, shapeless…something. Daniel grabbed a scalpel off a tray next to him and lunged at the creature, plunging the small but resilient blade into what he hoped was the thing's neck.

Letting out an inhuman howl the creature turned, then appeared to melt into the floor.

"Janet!" Daniel rushed over, pulling Janet into his arms. "Oh, God…are you ok?"

"What was that?!" Janet said, looking up at him.

"I don't….Oh God, Janet I think we should get out of here!" Still holding Janet to him, Daniel had began backing up towards the door to the infirmary. Janet turned in Daniel's arms, and saw the same strange shadow that had been in her office spreading over the ceiling.

Jack looked up suddenly from his piece of cake to see that the commissary was empty. A second ago it had been full of chattering SGC personnel, but now not even a singly dirty plate remained on the tables.

Jack frowned. A buzzing noise above him caused him to look up and see the fluorescent lights flickering. He pushed back his chair and stood up, running to the phone by the door.

"Carter?" he barked into it, after dialing the extension to her lab.

"Yes, Sir?" came her reply.

"Is everything normal where you are?"

A pause. "Yeah, why?"

"Because something freaky is going on here and I know it's not the meatloaf!" Jack heard a click. "Carter?" He hung the phone up and picked it up again, holding the receiver to his ear. "Aww, crap."

Jack burst out into the hall as fast as he could, running to the elevators. Remembering what had happened the last time with the elevators, he suddenly changed course, heading for the stairs.

The thick metal door to Sam's lab was closed, though it looked like it had aged about a hundred years and was now rusted completely through. Pulling out his hand-gun, Jack slipped through the opening.

Almost immediately he felt the cold muzzle of a gun pressed to his temple.

"Carter?" he said timidly. The gun was withdrawn.

"Sorry, Sir."

Jack turned to look at her. In the flickering light he could see that the lab had undergone some strange, horrific transformation. Sam herself looked terrified.

"The door shut," She said, her voice shaking. "I couldn't get out…and the something started happening…Sir, I was stuck in here and this black stuff was creeping over the walls and…"

"Shhh." Jack put an arm around Sam's shoulders, pulling her to his side. "It's ok, I'm here, Carter. C'mon, let's go find Daniel and Fraiser."

They stepped out into the hall, guns at the ready. Jack was looking ahead when he felt Sam pushing on his shoulder.

"Sir, I think…RUN!"

"What?" Jack spun around. Something was coming down the hall. Something black, like Sam had seen in the lab. The lights were flickering and dimming as it went, the concrete walls crumbling. Jack didn't need any more urging, he and Sam began running as fast as they could away from whatever it was.

They rounded a corner and collided with Janet and Daniel, who were running in the opposite direction from the strange thing taking over the walls.

"Are you two all right?" Sam asked.

Janet was looking around. "We're fine…" she said, before the shadows surrounded them.