673 - From the Depths

The Old World, UN FOB, Fort Anchorage, Admin Cave Medical Station

Dr. Sharon was at her office in the medical station settling some final details before she get transferred back to the New World when the earthquake hit. At first, it was a slight tremor, barely noticeable that quickly grew stronger. She looked up and frowned at the swinging lamps just as the medics at the station came rushing in, "Doc! Another quake!"

"You all know the drill!" She quickly replied, knowing that there would be some injuries. "Head to your assigned bunkers and posts! Go!"

Following her own words, she reached over to the side where her go bag was. The medics quickly grab their equipment and hurried off to their assigned posts as the earthquake grew stronger. Cracks could already be seen forming on some of the natural rock walls and rock dust was raining down from the ceiling. The medical station was located inside the main base cave together with the other department administration offices that ran the whole base.

Despite the engineers who dug the cave which served as the base's administration area had fortified the walls and ceiling to withstand certain attacks, it was not enough to handle mother nature. Concrete walls cracked and ceilings crumbled. Thankfully, when the Admin Cave was not fully staffed and many of the offices were already emptied as troops and staff were transferred home.

Dr. Sharon and the remaining medics hurried over to the shelter that serviced the Admin Cave. Already, the staff and marines in the area had gathered inside the shelter which was more like a more reinforced storage facility for weapons and provisions. The staff and soldiers already used to the evacuation drill were nevertheless had faces of worries and panic as the quakes this time round were stronger than before.

There were a few injured people waiting for Dr. Sharon and her team when she entered. Most of the injuries were from falling objects and treatment was quickly rendered. After a while, the shaking stopped, the marines at the hatch waited for a while longer before they popped the hatch. Outside of the hatch, the Admin Cave was in a mess. Rubble littered the area, partition walls laid shattered or fallen over and many office cubicles were in shambles.

Dr. Sharon shuddered at the thought of a cave in and being buried under tons of rock and soil. Thankfully, the engineers did a great job and there was no cave in. Some of the senior officers started organizing the marines and the staff to clear some of the debris and establish lines of communication. Dr. Sharon left her medical team on standby at the shelter and she headed towards the medical station to check its condition.

She took in the sight of the medical station in disarray and sighed. As she checked on some of the more critical medical equipment, she heard a strange scratching sound coming from the cracked walls. Pausing in her work, she sought to uncover the source of the noise when the walls before her burst apart in a shower of dust and crumbling stone. Letting out a cry of shock, Dr. Sharon stumbled back, tripping over the mess of the floor and found a monstrous worm like creature gouging on soil and rock.

It split open its mouth flap, large enough to swallow a person whole and exposed rows of swirling teeth before letting out an unearthly shriek. The wurm swirled its eyes head back and fore as if sniffing the air before it let out another shriek and it crawled out of the wall. Dr. Sharon quickly scooted as far away from the creature as possible and entered her office. Trembling in fear, she tried to make as little noise as possible as she opened her desk drawer and found her service sidearm.

Feeling the cold and heavy metal in her hands, she felt better as she hid behind her desk. Suddenly, she heard strange clicking and clacking noises coming from outside her office. Curious, she took a peek out of the door and saw several figures making their way out of the tunnel made by the giant worm. The figures looked thin and stunted, dressed skimpy and had some strange frame made out of sticks on their backs.

As they came under the light, Dr. Sharon let out a small gasp of shock. The sticks on their backs were not sticks, but were like some kind of deformed skeletal arms or bones growing out of their backs! Her soft gasp of shock was heard as the strange humanoid creatures turned their heads sharply in her direction. What further surprised her was that these creatures have no eyes!

Instead, it seemed their skulls had no eye sockets and instead had enlarged nostrils and ear holes as if to compensate for the lack of sight with smell and hearing. The group navigated their way cautiously towards her office and made clicking and clanking noises with their teeth and tongue as if communicating with one another.

Suddenly, there was a loud continuous thunderous roar that echoed through the cave, followed by shouting and more thunderous gunfire. The group paused and jerked their heads towards the direction of the gunfire and let out a shriek before they blindly charged with eerily accuracy across the cluttered floor. All this while, more and more of these strange creatures poured out of the tunnel made by the wurm.

Dr. Sharon picked up her courage and checked her revolver was loaded before she stepped out of her office. She ignored the flood of creatures squirming their way out of the tunnel and dashed across the ruins towards the shelter. Her actions did not go under notice as a fresh group of creatures heard her and they screamed before chasing after her.

Gunfire grew louder and more urgent, the closer Dr. Sharon came to the shelter. Luckily, the design of the Admin Cave was very simple, with straight corridors and clearly marked routes. She nearly tripped over the stinky bullet ridden carcass of the worm as she turned a corner and came out onto the main corridor of the Admin Cave. To her left, was the huge open doors with the warm welcome of sunlight flooding in that led out to the cove, while on her right deeper in, was the shelter where she came from earlier.

She only considered for a moment long enough to hear the screaming creatures behind her before turning right and running deeper into the cave. She did not know if there were anyone outside the cave but at the shelter, she at least knew were at least a platoon or two of Marines and a couple hundred more military and civilians were at, also not to mention the store of arms.

She run down the corridor wide enough for a couple of trucks to drive side by side and spotted several marines manning a security checkpoint. The passageway was light bright enough that the marines identified her and they waved and urgently yelled at her. She panted and cursed under her breath as she knew what they were implying. Who the hell doesn't know they were being chased by monsters?

She saw one of the Marines gesturing to her left and she understood what he meant. Instead of continuing to run straight, she swerved to her left and it gave the marines the opening they needed. Almost instantly, weapons went up and the ear popping cracks of rifles opened up. Dr. Sharon ignored the damage to her eardrums and continued to pump her hands as she ran for her life.

Finally, she made it past the security checkpoint and she came to a running halt. Holding her painful sides, she gasped for air as the marines finished off the creatures that followed her. As she recovered from her run, the marines continued to fire away as more and more of the creatures appeared, drawn by the ruckus. The sergeant in charge cursed as the creatures seemed never ending. "Fall back! Madam, we need to fall back!"

"Where are they all coming from?" One of the marines asked as they fought a fighting retreat. Dr. Sharon took a quick glance around them and found more shot up carcasses of giant worms lying around and had a hunch that these worms had burrowed tunnels for those blind things. Finally, they reached the shelter hatch where more marines greeted them.

The marine officer leading the marines at the hatch gave an order and they provided covering fire for Dr. Sharon and the other retreating marines. Dr. Sharon unceremoniously grabbed a nearby marine for a spare pair of ear plugs to protect her ringing ears as the cacophony of gunfire intensified. What appeared to be hours turned out to be just minutes when the gunfire died. Before them, the smokey corridors were littered with hundreds of bodies, some still twitching in pools of blood.

"Grab a stretcher!" Dr. Sharon, seeing the lull in the battle, quickly yelled at the marines. "I want a live sample! Oh and a dead one too, preferably with an intact body!"

The flabbergast marines stared at Dr. Sharon with confusion. She felt embarrassed by the stares and quickly explained herself. "I- I just want to find out what they are!"

The marine officer nodded and snapped an order. "Do as she says!"

Bodies were cleared and the best looking specimens were picked for Dr. Sharon. She quickly directed the marines to place the bodies down at a corner of the shelter and gathered her team of nervous medics around. Without the stress of death over her head and proper lighting, she observed the bodies of the creatures up close.

The creatures had long crooked ears similar to the elves and had many deformities on their bodies. Their unhealthy looking greyish skin was leathery and covered with purplish red veins. Their bones seemed to have evolved or mutated to act as armour, protecting vital organs and their blood was a deep purplish red. What looked like bone spars or arms on their backs were actually sort of stinted wings without feathers.

The more Dr. Sharon dug into the bodies of the creatures, the more disturbed she became. Finally, stopped her gory work and handed it over to another medic. The marine officer from earlier came over and introduced himself, "I'm Major Silverstar, 2nd Marine Battalion. What are those things?"

"I... have no idea," Dr. Sharon sighed as she replied. "I have never seen nor heard of such creatures before. Have you?"

Major Silverstar hesitated for a moment before he replied, "Could they be... demons?"

"Demons?" Dr. Sharon frowned as turned her head to look at the dissected bodies.

Major Silverstar nodded gravely. "Yes, we have legends and myths of demons living in Hell. While I have never seen one, but in the olden stories, these demons come from beneath the earth."

"From hell?" Dr. Sharon's frown deepened. "While what I seen on the bodies do show them as creatures that have never seen sunlight, it is hard to accept there is a hell here."

"Hell is just another realm," Major Silverstar replied grimly. "While it is mostly spoken of in stories, no one knows if it is true..."

"Whether hell or demons is real or fake," Dr. Sharon gestured to the bodies and said. "We have a problem now... How are we going to survive this?"

"My men have scouted the rest of the Admin Cave," Major Silverstar replied. "We found over a dozen holes in the walls, made by those worm creatures. Each tunnel is large enough for any of those things to crawl through."

"For now, we have set explosives to blow those openings to seal them," Major Silverstar continued. "And we have also established contact with the Vengeance and the other shelters, except one..."

"I don't think blowing up those tunnels would help much if they can use those worms to drill their way through the ground," Dr. Sharon commented offhandedly. "But why are you telling me all these?"

"Because... Madam... You are the next highest ranking officer on the ground now..."



***** Author's Rumblings *****
I still testing covid positive after more then a week!