Doom Story and not warp token Update

2k words. I went out on a trip the last few days so i must have forgotten what the title of what i was doing was called

***

“This place was hit hard,” Andreas mused as he slid over the hood of a wrecked car. The silence was uneasy and he felt the need to break it.

“Spain got off lightly, as morbid as that may sound,” Eva replied. “Recent sightings from Berlin and Paris confirm that whole cities have been overrun. Only the ARC camps in the tundras are meeting minimal hostile presence.”

Andreas was aware of ARC’s evacuation efforts. The Coalition had hastily deployed refugee camps in the freezing landscape of Greenland and the Earth’s poles, the isolated locations giving the civilian populace a place to evacuate. Whether the demons didn’t fare so well in the freezing cold, or were unaware of ARC’s bases, nobody knew, but humanity had been forced to live within the planet’s harshest conditions as a means of survival.

If this was what one year into the invasion looked like, what would two be like? Or three? If the section’s mission here failed, Europe would fall, and humanity might not even last that long…

“Does it seem strange to you, that our dropship was the one to be brought down?” Eva asked him as he crossed an intersection. “What reason weer we the unlucky ones?”

“Karma?” Andreas suggested.

“As I told the admiral before, three unarmed ships would make a tempting target to the mortally challenged. I’ve dedicated a significant portion of my lattice to calculating an explanation, and karma is last on the list of explanations.”

“There’s no use dwelling on what’s been done,” Andreas replied. “We’re stranded, and that’s that. Hell needs to throw a bit more than some cacodemons to stop us.”

“Speaking of which, bioscanner’s picking up contacts dead ahead.”

As Andreas rounded the next corner, he hunkered, taking cover behind a wrecked truck before peering down the street. His visor tinted to drone out the glare of a fireball, the projectile cast from a humanoid stood upon the hood of a car. The imp’s bodyplan was humanoid, with several ivory spikes protruding from the backs of its shoulders, its hide an oily mixture of purple and orange flesh. A pair of beady, orange eyes were situated above a tight mouth, the lips filled with tiny needle-like teeth.

The imp loosed a snivelling snarl as it cradled another fireball in its palm, tossing it in an overhand throw. Andreas wasn’t the target, however. The imp was surrounded on al sides by a group of zombies, filling the air with their mournful wailing as they clawed and groped. They looked like humans whose souls had been sucked right out of them, and that wasn’t too far from the truth. Corruption had turned their skin into a sickly brown, the skin between their fingers webbed and wrinkly.

The group of zombies clawed up at the imp, their fingers mutated into long claws, the demon conjuring a fireball in retaliation. It scorched one of the undead in the face, the creature moaning as it dropped like a narcoleptic.

Witnessing the infighting of Hell’s forces was no surprise to Andreas. Disorder went both ways, and it wasn’t uncommon to witness entire armies of different demons fighting it out while they overran the Earth.  

He watched the imp burn another of the undead, then stepped out from cover, bringing his plasma rifle to bear. The imp was the biggest threat, so he sent a burst of bolts downrange, the demon whipping around in alarm. It wasn’t fast enough to dodge out of the way, the creature screeching as the bolts severed its arm at the shoulder, its torso tumbling off the automobile and knocking a few of the closest zombies off kilter.

Andreas checked his flanks, then gripped his rifle by the top railing, carrying it like a suitcase as he walked up to the zombies, the undead turning their glowing eyes on him. Ammo wasn’t unlimited, and he knew from experience that zombies were slow-moving even on a good day., Hell treated them as little more than expendable chaff, and so would Andreas.

He gripped the sheath holstered on his thigh, sliding a bowie knife out of the leather. When it came to hand-to-hand combat with Hell, bigger was always better.

He stepped in, driving the blade into the chest of the nearest shambling zombie, the creature gurgling in what might be surprise. He tore the blade to the left, dark blood geysering out as Andreas turned to the next zombie. There were five of them left, two going left and three on the right, possessing enough intelligence that swarming him from all sides was their best approach. One tried to backhand him, but Andreas ducked beneath the blow, his glove creaking as he swiped his knife across its knees. Its legs were as soft as tissue paper, the blade meeting no resistance in its journey, the zombie crumpling to the floor.

Flecks of blood dripped off his knife as Andreas angled it up, blocking a swipe from a zombie on the right, the rest closing in, clawed arms raised meekly. He was forced to give room, kicking the leg out from underneath one of them as he backed up, using the stock of his rifle like a mallet to drive its skull into the pavement.

The zombies took advantage of his distraction, one of them managing to get an attack in, its nails scratching Andreas along the bicep. His combat armour was made of sterner stuff, and the blow did little more than leave a scratch, and give Andreas a wake up call.

His blade dark with viscera, he caught one of the creatures in a savage swipe, severing its rasping head from its shoulders, morphing the arc into a follow-up attack. The zombie raised one of its arms to block, but the sharp point sliced clean through, and the zombie dropped with a sizeable hole in its nose.

The remaining zombie moaned through a teethless mouth, bringing its claws down on him despite all its dead kin surrounding it. Andreas batted the attack aside, bringing his knife in an overhead position and cleaving it across its chest.

The zombie fell to its knees, Andreas kicking it square in the face to send it falling back. Checking that the coast was clear, Andreas knelt to wipe his blade clean , checking to make sure his scatched armour wasn’t compromised, his HUD confirming it was still pressurised.

“I wouldn’t bother if I was you,” Eva said, Andreas pausing just as he was about to slot the knife away.

“What? Why?”

A ping flashed before his eyes, a vector arrow appearing on his HUD. He turned to where it was pointing, seeing dozens more shambling shapes crisscrossing the street ahead. Some of them had already taken note of his presence, their wails of alarm drawing more of them from the obscured alleyways.

“We can find a safer passage if we doubled back,” Eva continued.

“I’ve already started clearing them out here, might as well finish it off,” Andreas replied, holding his bowie knife ready as he moved up the street.

“Don’t be so gun-ho,” Eva grumbled. “Need I remind you you’re carrying three Argent Energy shards? Even a slap from a zombie could cause one to discharge.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“You literally just did a moment ago, you bozo.”

“You’re supposed to be my support, not my critic,” Andreas grumbled. “Remind me again why I keep you around?”

If she had eyes, Eva would have glared at him, voicing her sigh as she pinged his HUD again.

“According to my sensors,” she said. “there are nineteen contacts are within a fifty-meter radius. If you want to continue down this course you should get to work quickly.”

“Better,” he said, falling into a run. The street was packed with vehicles, perfect to help break up the packs of zombies making a beeline for him. He raised his knife high, sprinting into the nearest zombie, beginning to clear off the horde one at a time.  

-xXx-

Andreas struggled over a mound of rubble, his combat armour splattered with gore, making the effort slippery. The further north he went, the more destruction Hell left in its wake intensified, entire streets made impassable by the toppled office blocks.

He’d been forced to journey through collapsed buildings, the way the metal creaked ominously leading him to believe he could be buried alive at any minute, but the worst offender was the demonic corruption. He was seeing less concrete and more crimson flesh, the resin-like material gripping every other wall and ceiling, even the streets had turned to carpets of meat.  The way it pulsed as though a giant heartbeat somewhere was fuelling it disturbed him, as did the fact it seemed to wriggle beneath his boots whenever he was forced to trek across a stretch of it.

Zombies plagued the alleys between the pustules, but they were few in number, and seemed shocked to see a human navigating their territory, Andreas dispatching them like it was second nature.

The instances of peace between his encounters with the hordes were short, but not so sweet, as Andreas’ surroundings were anything but pleasant. Everywhere he looked he saw some visceral amalgamation of flesh and bone, and it almost made him impatient for the distraction the zombies provided.

It was during one of these quiet interludes that Eva piqued his attention, starting her sentence with a short bleep.

“I’m detecting a large thermal signature, bearing sixty seven degrees,” she began. “One thirty meters out.”

“Heavy or super heavy?” Andreas asked, referring to the categories of demons ARC had assigned to Hell’s inhabitants.

“Unclear, my sensors are malfunctioning. It is not moving, however, and the heat levels are off the charts, even by Hell standards.”

Andreas began to move towards the heading, Eva creating a vector arrow on his HUD shortly afterwards. The bearing brought him away from the coast he’d been using as his guide, the ocean obscured behind the rubble and gore, but as long as Eva was around he stood little chance of getting lost.  

After a quick job, he turned round the corner of a building into an alleyway, noting the ground here started to slope upwards, as though some growth deep below was bulging the concrete. The hill obscured what lay beyond, the vector directing him over the hump. Andreas got down onto his belly, and started to clawl up the slope cautiously, the howling wind picking up as he neared the apex.

The hump terminated like a cliff edge, twisted lengths of rebar stretching out of the concrete like fingers, the metal brown with rust. He put a hand on the edge, disturbing a pocket of dust, slowly exposing his head to what lay beyond. He was looking out over a giant crack in the Earth, the blemish sinking a good twenty meters below street level. The lefthand side of the crack had formed right through the middle of some sort of motel, half the building having crashed into the depths while leaving the other intact, plugging the ravine with piles of wood and glass.

The crack stretched on into the next street, growing deeper and wider with distance, its bed lined with whole fleets of cars that had happened to be in the way when it had formed. As his eyes scanned over the ravine’s further reaches, he noticed a splash of colour, and he used his visor’s built-in cameras to zoom in on the object.

Sitting in the ravine’s depth was some sort of organism, the top half of it forming a crescent shape, the pointed corners protruding with ivory fangs, forming the illusion of a maw. At its base was a nest of snaking tentacles and tubes that resembled guts, the wriggling appendages snaking into the surrounding rubble. It was grotesque to put it lightly, but that wasn’t what had caught Andreas’ attention.

Suspended just above the mouth was a portal, the ovular breach in reality cradled in wisps of lightning. It was about the size of a beachball, its dark innards taking on a foggy quality, as though it was trying to screen him from whatever horrors lay within.

“Gore nest,” Eva said, watching the feed alongside him. “That explains what’s messing with my sensors.”

“Don’t see any demons,” Andreas mused as he looked about.

“They don’t guard nests until they need to,” Eva replied. “No mortal would be stupid enough to get close to one, no offense to you personally, Seargent. I know what you’re thinking, Andreas,” she added after a moment. “Cut that thought right his instant.

“What?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

“I’ve been analysing your behaviour since even before I was plugged into your suit, Seargent. When you put that helmet on, I can see what neurological pathways you’re using, and can deduce your thought process from there. Knowing when you’re making an unneccesry risk has become second nature to me”

“I think it’s fully necessary,” Andreas replied. “Besides, I’ve destroyed gore nests before. Remember Panama?”

“You had a whole platoon to back you up!” Eva shot back. “And even then, there were casualties. This deep into enemy territory, who knows what kinds of things will come through that portal if it’s disturbed…”

“You worry too much,” Andreas said, shouldering off his pack. “Just relax.”

“Relax? Did I give you too much stimulant back at the crash site or something?” she asked. “Just how exactly do you plan on taking down a nest all by yourself? I hope you don’t plan on just walking up and punching it, but knowing you…”

He reached into his pack, pulling out a paper parcel the size and shape of a protein bar, a letter and a number stencilled on one of the faces. He held it up to the visor so Eva could see it, and he could almost imagine the AI frowning at him.

“Ah yes, as if the Argent shards weren’t enough to worry about,” she lamented.

“Timed demo charges,” he announced proudly. “One of the marines packed enough to level a building. I’ll plant some down there, get to MSD, then boom.”

“And what about all the demons that’ll come crashing down on our heads?” Eva countered. “We’ve been going mostly unnoticed so far, I’d prefer it to stay that way.”

“By the time the dust settles, we’ll be well on our way,” he assured. “You’ve seen what happens when a nest goes up, those zombies will be too flummoxed to organise a search party.”

“One explosion won’t flummox Hell,” she mumbled. “However, considering what demon types we’ve seen thus far, your plan has some measure of credence, assuming you run like Hell, for lack of a better word.”

“We’ll be fine,” Andreas assured, placing the plastic explovives pack in the pouch before setting off down the slope.