Chapter 3: Chapter 2: A Living Nightmare
As the 15 members of Delta suited up and headed to the docking bridge, their minds raced with questions and scenarios of what happened to Camilla. Santiago's voice was the first to break the silence among the squad as they grabbed their weapons from the armory. "This don't make any sense, man…how the hell did Camilla just fuckin explode?? It can't…it couldn't have been an attack, right? Because why wouldn't we have been hit, too?!" "Calm down, Santiago." Carlos rested his hand on Santiago's shoulder, making him jump a bit. "I know we're all a bit freaked out right now, but once we get to the docking bridge, I'm sure Drak will give us all the answers. Ok?" Hearing his comrade's words, Santiago took a slow deep breath, then slowly exhaled, reaching back and resting a fist on Carlos' hand. The rest of the squad seemed to relax as well hearing Carlos' words. He had a point. There's no point in freaking out. Keeping a calm and level head was key. With that, the squad all grabbed a Pulse Rifle, a Pistol and a shotgun, then made their way to the bridge.
When they made it to the bridge, the men found the Rosé was slightly banged up, but was still working. Drak was standing in the middle of the room, many of the piloting crew trying to reach Camilla to find out if anyone was still alive, but not one signal got a response. The squad moved to stand side by side in a line, Pulse rifles in hand, the barrel pointing towards the ground.
"Men! I'm sure you're all dying to know what happened to the Former USG Camilla." Drak slowly walked up and down the line of soldiers, looking towards each of them. "Unfortunately, we don't have any answers yet about what caused the explosion in the stern of the ship. However!" Drak stood in front of the line facing the squad, pointing towards Camilla. "We still have men onboard that ship! Which means this mission has changed to SCP level priority! We are to Secure the ship from any hostile targets! We are to Contain the threat from leaving the ship! And we are to Protect any and all survivors that are still alive! Am I clear?!" All 15 called out at the same time. "Sir, Yes Sir!" "Alright Delta, helmets on! Make sure your rig is working at 100 percent! We're taking a walk."
Hearing that, the squad activated their helmets on their wrist control panel, their helmets folding out of the neck chamber on their suits, completely covering their heads. With that, the health monitors on their backs lit up, all of their health shown as 6 lights, all green. In each helmet, a female voice could be heard. "System check; health and stasis modules, online. Oxygen filtration systems, online. Magnetic Boots, online. Air pressurized propulsion systems, online. Nanomesh repair system, online. Suit systems fully operational." "Sir, systems are all good to go." "Good. Let's go Delta Squad." With that, Drak led Delta towards the docking bridge. Normally it would be able to pressurize the entrance, but in this situation, since there was no ship to connect docking bridges, the pressure room as now a simple air lock room. The men entered the room as the doors locked closed behind them. "Beginning pressurization." The room was vented of oxygen, the suits built in oxygen system activated. A few seconds later, the door in front of them opened, revealing the docking bridge reaching out into the empty void of space between Camilla and Rosé. Their Mag boots activated as the gravity disappeared, keeping the men in place. "Alright Delta!" Drak's voice came through the helmet's com link; "On my mark, we are to jump and use the jets to make our way over to the Camilla's docking bay. Once we land, weapons on the ready and keep your guard up."
The men got into position, then on Drak's mark, they all jumped and deactivated their mag boots, then used their jets to make their way towards Camilla, chunks of debris floating around in the jet black vacuum surrounding them. Once they got closer, they noticed some of the debris wasn't pieces of the ship, but bodies of the Camilla crew, their faces twisted in a frozen expression of agony, showing they were still alive when they got spaced. Others were killed in the explosion, as only bits of bodies were floating around. "Jesus fucking Christ…" "Stay focused Vega." Carlos motioned towards the docking bay, getting steadily closer; "Touchdown in 7 seconds." Vega nodded, giving one last glance towards the bodies, his stomach twisting at the sight.
They finally made their way to the Docking bridge, using their mag boots to lock themselves down from floating off. They used the console in the airlock to close the doors, sighing in relief to find the controls still working. "Pressurizing airlock. Welcome aboard the USG Camilla." The doors slowly opened, revealing a sight that made the men step back in shock. The inside of the Camilla looked like a war zone. The walls had singe marks from Pulse rifle shots everywhere, deep gashes from what could only be described as some sort of blade, and blood. Everywhere. The lights barely worked due to the explosion, flickering to life for a few seconds before going back out, but for those few seconds, the lights flashed a grizzly scene for the men. The men quickly readied their rifles and activated their night vision in their helmets, aiming their rifles into the ship. "What in God's name happened in here?" Santiago's voice was trembling, trying his best to hold back his fear. Drak was scanning the room, trying to make sense of the scene in front of him. "Listen up Delta. You will split up into groups of 5. Search the ship for any survivors of our crew and bring them back here. Until we have info on what the hell happened, assume the Camilla crew is behind this, and apprehend them." Vega quickly realized something from Drak's order. "B-But sir, what about you?" Drak grumbled to himself. "I work better on my own. I'll be heading down to that research room to find some answers on that artifact. Everyone stay radio silent unless you find something important." Vega, hearing Drak's orders, was very hesitant about this. "B-But sir! We have no idea what we're up against! What if you-" Drak turned to face Vega, holding his rifle to his side with one hand, stepping towards him, grabbing Vega by the neck guard of his suit, pulling him closer. "I gave you a fucking order, soldier! Now get your shit together!" Drak pushed Vega back as he let him go, the rest of Delta taken off guard by this. "Your orders are to find the rest of your fucking squad! Are you telling me you're too much of a pussy to follow orders without having me bottle feed your sorry ass?!"
Vega was about to respond, but then a sound echoed through the ship that brought everyone's guns back up and pointing down the halls. The sound was that of someone screaming, but it wasn't a regular scream. The scream they heard could only be made by someone being attacked by someone, or something, and they were seconds from being killed. This made everyone's blood run cold. "We can't afford to hesitate, Sergeant Vega." Drak's voice was almost a whisper as he spoke. "The longer we stand here, the more lives we could have saved are lost. Understand? Now, spread out and find our crew." With that, Drak headed down the hall towards where Major Tom led them before.
"C'mon Vega, he's got a point." Carlos rested his hand on Vega's shoulder; "Besides, out of all of us, that old man is more than capable of handling himself." With his reassuring, Vega nodded, then the squad split up into groups of 5, splitting up and sweeping the ship for their missing crewmen. Vega, Nick, Jack, Carlos and Santiago were in one of the groups heading down one of the halls, their rifles up and ready. "So…am I the only one getting serious Ishimura vibes from this shit?" Nick whispered to the group, peaking into one of the rooms as they passed, seeing no one inside. Jack swung his head around towards Nick hearing this. "Hey! Keep it down, you know we can't talk about that." Vega was curious about this reaction. "What? What's 'Ishimura'?" Vega's question made the other four men look towards him in shock. "Are..are you serious?" Nick almost couldn't believe he asked that. As they came up to a four way intersection in the hall, they scanned each path, seeing the left path had Pulse rifle damages on he walls. They went down that hall, seeing more gashes and blood splatters all over. Nick eventually broke the silence as they made their way down the hall to tell Vega about the incident. "It was around 200 years ago. The planet cracker Ishmura stumbled across this thing called a Marker, some fancy Alien Relic or something like that. Turns out that relic brought aliens to the ship and killed everyone on board!" "Wait…you don't think the artifact Camilla found…" Their conversation was cut short as they came across a research room used to study the plant life of planets Camilla found, the tubes that housed the plants shattered and the floor and walls splattered with blood and viscera from some poor crewmen that seemed to be torn to shreds, bits of their bodies all over the room. "Jesus…how the hell is there this much damage? We were just here!" "Bravo Group, checking in." One of the other groups broke radio silence; "We spotted movement up ahead near the daycare. Checking it out now. Over." Carlos activated his com system. "This is Alpha Group, Roger that Bravo. Keep your eyes open. Over."
Over at Bravo Group, the men aimed their rifles towards the Daycare center, the areas lights flickering randomly, the daycare showing no signs of fighting. The group leader, Sam, noticed a trail of blood heading into the rooms, noticing a quick moving blur in the shadows. "Movement spotted, keeps your eyes open." The rest of Bravo group, Hammond, Phill, Rick and Thomas kept their rifles up, taking in as much info as they could when the lights flickered. They searched each room in the daycare, the group in a formation that covers all around them so nothing could sneak up on them, all the while heading in the direction of the trail of blood. As they made their way through, they heard something that made their hearts drop. The feint sound of a child crying echoed through the halls in front of them. Down the hall, there were 4 more rooms to search. Sam made a hand motion for them to spit and search the remaining rooms as he and 3 of the other men moved towards the rooms, Hammond sticking back to watch the hallway behind them. As they went to check the rooms, Thomas was moving closer to the room where the crying was heard from, the door cracked open slightly. He used his rifle to gently push open the door, revealing a room filled with toys, a carpet that looked like a hopscotch game, and in the far corner of the room, Thomas' night vision picked up a small child curled up in the corner crying. He noticed the size of the child, and figured it was around 8 or 10 years old.
"Hey there kiddo." Thomas spoke softly, putting his rifle away; "Are you ok? You hurt?" As he got slowly closer to the child, he started noticing something strange about it. The child was fairly thin, their hair was gone, and their skin was a strange color. Suddenly, the child stopped crying, causing Thomas to stop in the middle of the room, noticing the child's head moving strangely, almost twitching. "Kid? Do you hear me?" Thomas' voice started sounding more concerned, his hand slowly reaching for his pistol. The rest of the group started making their way towards the room Thomas was in, when they started hearing feint clicking sounds. They looked around, but couldn't see what could cause the clicking. "I see movement guys." Hammond whispered over their coms, keeping his rifle trained down the hall, seeing multiple small figures darting between the rooms. Rick was the first to reach the room, looking in towards Thomas. "Hey man, we aren't safe here. We gotta go." Thomas looked over to Rick, but as he was about to say something, he noticed Rick step back in shock. "What the fuck??" Rick quickly raised his rifle, pointing into the room, making Thomas look towards the child, who was now standing and looking towards Thomas, it's head twitching wildly as it suddenly pounced, letting out a loud screech.
The rest of the groups suddenly heard gunfire ring out throughout the halls, along with screaming. Carlos quickly got onto his com link and called out. "This is Alpha! All groups report! Who's under attack?!" "Charlie is clean!" "Echo here! It's not us!" Delta group is secure!" Carlos' heart started racing, remembering that Bravo group mentioned having seen movement earlier, the gunfire still ringing through the halls. "Bravo! Report! Are you ok!?"
"HEL-" The voice that came through was Sam's voice, but only for a split second. Then slowly, the hounds of gunfire and screaming started dwindling one by one, till the halls fell silent. "Bravo? Bravo report! Come in! Sam? Hammond?? Are you guys still there??" Carlos and Alpha were frozen. "Alpha, this is Charlie! We aren't that far from Bravo! We're gonna head over and provide support! Over!" Just then, more screams and gunfire echoed through the halls. "Jesus fuck! Echo under attack!! What the fuck are these things?!?" Carlos and Alpha started heading towards Echo's location, where they had the creatures from random planets to study. "Delta group, head to Echo's location! Weapons free!" They charged towards the area for studying planet life forms, the windows flashing from the pulse rifles firing. When Alpha got to the window, what they saw made them stop dead in their tracks out of disbelief.
They saw Echo fighting what could only be described as 7 mutated and mangled human bodies. Their arms and legs looked like they were stretched beyond any normal limbs, their arms twisted and bending in ways that would shatter the bones. The hands looked like they had Scythe like blades of what looked like bone forced out of the palms. And their heads, or what was left of it, was mutilated, chunks of flesh barely connected by flaps of skin dangling from the faces. Their bodies looked like they were stretched and warped in unnatural shapes, other smaller limbs sprouting out from where their stomach would be. The rifle shots looked like they barely slowed these things down as they were slaughtering Echo one by one, their scythe like protrusions from their hands slicing right through their armor, the pain filled screams of the men being muffled by the windows. Carlos eventually snapped out of his fear induced trance, putting his rifle away and grabbing his shotgun. "Alpha! Shotguns out!! We have to save Echo!" His words shook the rest of Alpha out of it, the other 4 getting their shotguns as well, shouting loudly as they shattered the window, firing at the monstrosities. One of the creatures took a blast directly to the head, it's head exploding in a burst of blood and viscera as the body flew back limp on the floor, 2 others getting an arm or a leg blown off, while the other 4 got peppered by so many shots their torsos were pure jello. The ones with a missing limb stumbled towards the group, but were taken out by Delta group as they arrived, blasting them with while clips of Pulse Rifle rounds till they were no longer moving.
After what seemed like an eternity, the gunfire ceased, and the men could see the bloodbath that was the room. Bits and pieces of the creatures were everywhere, along with the brutalized remains of 4 of the members of Echo. The only survivor, Derek, was panicking in the corner, pulling the trigger of his gun frantically, even though the clip was empty. "What in the name of…" Delta group's leader, Frank spoke, as he and the rest of the men were completely shocked at the creatures they were looking at. Carlos went over to Derek, trying to help calm him down. But when he went to get close, the corpse that had its head shot off sprung back to life and jumped up, slicing Derek's head clean off in one swing of its blade as it started flailing around wildly moving towards the men, slashing Carlos' arm as he was caught by surprise. Carlos' scream in shock made the rest of the men look over, quickly blasting the flailing corpse with everything they had, rendering it a puddle of blood and body chunks. "What the fuck!! That think didn't have a fucking head!! How was it moving with no fucking head!?!" Nick's outburst fell of deaf ears as the rest of the group tried to process what happened, Carlos using a med kit to fix the cut on his arm, the health blips on his back being brought down to Orange now going back to green. "What the actual hell is going on?!?"
"Calm! Down!" Carlos' barking demand made the rest of the men jump; "If we panic, we make mistakes. We already lost Echo, we need to stay focused." Carlos activated his com, trying to get through to Charlie group; "Charlie, this is Alpha and Delta. Echo has been wiped out by some…creatures. Have you made it to Bravo? Are any of them still alive? Over." A few seconds passed, and he got no response. "Charlie group, this is Alpha group! Respond, over!" A few more seconds passed, and still, no response. "Fuck…" Carlos looked at the 9 men, obviously shaken up by the attack; "Ok men, we need to go check on Bravo and Charlie group. They were in the daycare area, so let's move." Frank walked over to Carlos, grabbing him by the shoulder. "Are you fucking kidding?? These things just took out a group of trained soldiers! And I'm sure as hell not gonna go out there to fight more of those things!" Carlos brushed his hand off his shoulder, pointing his gun towards the corpses of the creatures. "We killed these, which means we can kill any others that are out there." He walked over to the rest of the men, picking up one of the creatures' arms, holding it up; "These things seem to use these hand blades for attacks. If we take the arms out, there main means of killing us is neutralized." Carlos dropped the arm, moving closer to the men; "Echo was taken out because they weren't prepared for them. But now that we know what we're facing, they've lost the element of surprise." His words were visibly calming the men down, their shaking hands slowly becoming more stable; "We are soldiers trained for fighting aliens! General Drak believed that we could handle ourselves, and I'll be damned if I'll let him down! Now, we are going to rendezvous with Bravo and Charlie, and Delta Sauad is gonna show these alien fucks what happens, when you fuck with us!" The rest of the men nodded in agreement, readying their rifles and shotguns. "Damn straight, Carlos!" Nick hollered out, the rest of the men letting out a few 'oorah' calls. "Alright, Delta Squad! Let's go fuck these ugly bastards up!" With that, Delta started making their way towards the daycare center to find out why Charlie group went quiet.
As Delta made their way towards the daycare, they encountered more of the creatures. As they fought more, they noticed their limbs were far weaker than their torsos. After a little while, they got to the daycare area, only to find a massacre, bodies and pieces of creatures everywhere, as well as the dead bodies of Bravo and Charlie group. "Fuckin hell…" The group checked the bodies of the creatures, noticing they were different than the ones they fought. Santiago, after checking the creatures, stood up and stepped back slightly. "My god…these bodies are…are kids!" The group looked towards Santiago, then slowly back, realizing the horror that he just revealed.
Just then, the group heard feint clicking noises, snapping them back as they all aimed their rifles and guns forward, each soldier facing a direction to cover all angles from the daycare. "Guys? How many kids were on this ship?" One of the soldiers asked as the clicking grew louder. "At least a few dozen." A sudden loud shrieking call echoed through the halls, the clicking stopping as the men facing the halls leading away from the daycare saw something crawling towards them. "Eye on hostile!" Just as the soldier called they out, they saw what was crawling out as it made it's way into the flickering light. What they saw was the top half of a mutilated body, the arms stretched out more than the last monstrosity and from the stomach down was what looked like a long tail made out of intestines and bone, the tip ending in a large sharp blade. The head looks like it was nearly ripped off the neck, the lower law turned into jagged tusks. Before the men could open fire, the creature sprung up on its hands, holding its entire body up and charged forward with unnatural speed, jumping at the soldiers and gripping one of them firmly with its claw like hands, whipping its tail around and stabbing the soldier wildly, taking the other soldiers by surprise. "Holy shit!" They quickly tried smashing the creature with the butts of their guns, but it jumped off the now dying soldier and landed on the wall, crawling away with the same unnatural speed as the other soldiers open fired at it, the bullets seeming to do nothing as it disappeared down the hall and into the vents. "What the fuck ARE these things?!?" "Oh shit…Jacobs!" 3 of the soldiers rushed over to Jacobs, the soldier that was attacked, multiple massive holes pouring out blood from the stabbing of the monster. They tried using their med kits to heal him, but sadly, they could only watch as he slowly bled out. "…the fuck…what the fuck…What the Actual FUCK IS GOING ON!?!" Frank's panic outcry was answered by more of the same shrieking calls as they looked down the hall, seeing dozens of the monsters with scythe blades moving down the hall, their bodies twitching as they saw the squad, letting out blood chilling screams as they rushed towards them. "GIVE 'EM HELL!!" Carlos screamed out as he unloaded with his shotgun, the rest of the squad letting out loud roars, unloading their rifles and shotguns at the charging hoard. Aiming for the limbs and heads, they were able to reduce most of the monsters to spatters on the walls, the sheer number of them forcing the squad to slowly back down the hall away from the daycare. Although the numbers of the creatures were dwindling fast, they kept charging the squad. "Carlos! We can't keep this up! We need to get to the armory!" Frank called out, one of the creatures grabbing onto him, the mangled face of the monster roaring as it raised its blades to attack. Vega quickly smashed its head with his gun, knocking it off of Frank, both men blasting its limbs off, splashing their suits with blood. Now down to only a small handful of the monsters, Delta was slowly able to gain the upper hand, taking the last few out with well aimed shots.
After the last one was killed, the men nearly collapsed to the floor. "Christ, how are there so many of those fucking things??" Santiago tried to catch his breath, checking his ammo, not liking how low he was. "No clue, but Frank is right. We need to find the Armory, and fast." The rest of the squad checked their ammo, seeing they were dangerously low on thermal clips. "Anyone remember where Tom said the Armory was on this ship?" Jack looked behind him, then back to the squad, pointing his thumb over his shoulder; "Cuz I really hope it's not in the back half of the ship." The squad all let out exhausted chuckles, each agreeing they'd prefer dealing with the outside than being in here. After a few seconds of rest, the men agreed to try and find the armory to get more ammo. Carlos used his visor to check the layout of the ship. "Ok…looks like the armory is…back towards the plant life research room. If we watch our steps and keep our eyes peeled, we should be fine." "All the way back there?? There's no way we could make it back!" "Nick, think about it. We just came from there, so chances are there isn't going to me more. Plus if there Are more, just pop their heads so they can't see us! Then we can ammo up and finish them off!" The squad was hesitant, but they were running out of options. They needed ammo to survive, and they were running out of men. "Plus, we need to get back to our boys. They have ammo, and…and we need to get their tags." Hearing Carlos say that, the squad just nodded. They could at least get their tags to bring back for their families.
As they made their way back to the plant life research area, the men slowly made their way towards the daycare to get the fallen squad members' dog tags. To their relief, they didn't come across any other creatures, besides the ones they shot, and they were sure to be on guard on the corpses. When they made it to the daycare, they noticed something strange. The corpses of the creatures littered the floor, but the bodies of Bravo and Charlie group…were missing. "What the hell? Where did there bodies go??" That question made their blood run cold. "Maybe…maybe the group that stayed with the researchers had survivors? Y-Yeah! That's gotta be it! They must have retrieved the bodies." Even though they knew that was doubtful, they knew that was the better thought to have. Except they noticed something. The guns still on the floor where the bodies were, along with large splashed of blood that seemed to have footprints that started from the blood and walked off. Feeling a chill run down their spines, they decided to make their way back to the plant research room, knowing the clips in the guns would barely be of use.
Again, they made their way back without a single encounter. But the lack of attacks only fed the tension they felt. Once they made it to the plant research area, they decided to double check the map. "Ok…ok it looks like we just need to follow the southern hallway and it's the 3rd door on the right." Carlos took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. He thought to himself 'Get to the armory. Get ammo. Survive.' over and over. Delta started with 35 men, and now it's down to at least 9. The men got into formation to keep all directions watched as they made their way down the hall. The hall's lights flickered randomly, but the men went down, focusing on getting to the armory. With their minds focused, they passed one of the rooms, seeing no need to check. But as the last man went passed the door, there was suddenly a loud screechy cry, followed my an explosion, knocking the men a few feet down the hall, collapsed on the floor, their ears ringing from the loud sound. As they slowly recovered from the shock, the men that were in the front looked back to see, to their horror, 2 men were reduced to bits of body parts all over the place and 3 others were wounded. They tried to quickly pick themselves up to get to the wounded, when something moved out of one of the doors. It was another creature, but this one was the most mutilated they've seen. It's entire lower body seemed to twist and meld into one long grotesque looking leg shaped limb, one of its arms was stretched to be the entire length of its body, and the other looked like it was a giant glowing pustule sack from the elbow down. And it's head looked like it was split clean in half! Before they could react, the creature made the same screech sound they heard seconds before as it leaned back and swung the giant pustule arm around and slammed it into the ground next to the 3 wounded men, causing it to explode, knocking the 4 men in front back again, the wounded men now joining their comrades as body parts all over the hall. With their ears ringing and unsure what's going on, the 4 men quickly got to their feet and ran down the hall towards the armory, hearing more screeching cries as they passed other rooms and got into the armory, hitting the doors button to close it behind them. They looked down the hall to see 3 more of those glowing armed monsters stumbling towards the room as the door closed.
When the door closed, the lights flickered on, lighting up the armory in its entirety. The 4 surviving men collapsed in the room, removing their helmets as 2 of them, Santiago and Jack, vomited, the sight of their comrades being blown to bloody bits in front of them becoming too much for them. The other 2, Vega and Nick, looked at each other, their faces full of shock and disbelief at what just happened. Vega and Nick were close to the door when the first attack happened, when they felt someone push them. One of the 3 wounded…was the man that saved their lives. They watched in horror as the second monster killed him, along with Frank and Bill. They looked at their hands, trembling as they came to realize that Carlos sacrificed himself to save them. The 4 men were safe now, but the cost was weighing on their shoulders. They were starting to believe there was no chance of finding any survivors. They were stranded, alone, in a living nightmare.
To be continued
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone