There is a window of time to be expected for the arrival of the Abomination.
A makeshift “doomsday clock” had been agreed upon in a consensus across every survivor of Base Seven throughout the day and night. The time measured between the fall of the previous Base and the Abomination’s arrival on the succeeding one is no less than fifteen minutes. It averages out to twenty-five to thirty minutes across all Bases throughout the day, with this interval in between increasing with each successive Base. They can realistically expect an early arrival within thirty minutes of the fall of Base Eight, forty-five if they are lucky.
Fifty minutes pass.
Fifty-five minutes.
A full hour.
Nervous hope began to build up. Perhaps against all odds, they had been spared? Will it ever come? Others speculate, how will they know when it will, or if it already did? What if it already has come, and they are now forever locked in their own purgatory?
A commotion stirs, which soon becomes dismissed as a false alarm due to nervous breakdown.
Another commotion stirs, which almost gets shut down, and then another, and another, and another.
Until it is too late to deny any longer.
Anomalous occurrences began to stir throughout Base Seven. Everyone soon had to actively think against the perceived hallucinations and illusions beginning to take hold.
The air felt as though it could sway.
A shot rings out into the void, one of the expeditioners attempting to shoot at a demon spotted a moderate distance from Base Seven’s core. Was it really there? Surely confirmed sightings by multiple other troops should mean at least something.
Suddenly, as though a consequence of the shot, the ground and buildings rippled beneath them. Everything began to warp, crash, and flow like waves of the ocean, moving and contorting in all manners of physical impossibility.
A great and terrible cosmic monster coagulates from all the entangled mess of debris, wires, cables, rubble, and machinery that lay strewn across the west side of Base Seven, coming from the direction of Base Eight. This mountain of upheaval soon consumes anything it comes across, incorporating it into its ever changing and evolving form, the visual information that reaches the firing troops’ eyes registering something completely incomprehensible. It can’t be said that the monster quickly overtook the concentric rings of Base Seven, if it arrived formed from within said rings themselves.
Different arms and appendages of the monster don’t appear to be entirely consistent with three-dimensional space. Oftentimes it appeared to slide into and out of existence. What can initially assumed to be “smaller underlings” may turn out to be part of the bigger whole, nearly indecipherable from each other amidst the chaos. The mass continued to fold and flow into and out of itself. Anything that was visually decipherable emanated waves that distorted the air around it.
“It’s compromising the perimeter!”
“Throw everything we’ve got at it!”
“Saturate the thing!”
“Look out for friendly fire!”
“Screw them—we have to sacrifice to save the whole!”
The onslaught had quickly grown to surround the entirety of Base Seven. The surviving orbital defense cannons continued to saturate the Abominations, powerful guns once designed to propel ordnances into the stratosphere now pointed towards the ground. The unrelenting firepower only served to provide a barrier against the Abominations, one that had to be constantly maintained and still left cracks in its figurative dome for leaks to seep through. The sheer amount of explosions and blasts illuminate the surroundings of Base Seven as though it were daylight.
“It’s overrunning our northwest position!”
“Take what’s not being used and divert our firepower there!”
Firepower and resources began being siphoned from slower areas towards their needed position, the noise and brightness enough to vaporize any eyes and ears of those still stupid enough to not don their suits.
“What?! Yes, the southeast perimeter is just up ahead a few hundred meters from here, you’re telling—?”
Suddenly, the northwest besiegement of Base Seven seemingly dissolves. Scattered attacks here and there were picked off by cannon fire, but the sheer deceleration of the onslaught catches everyone by surprise.
Meanwhile, in the southeast, an overwhelming show of force materializes, breaking through the weakened lines completely. From the command of Base Seven’s center, one would see anomalies represented on the map as traveling almost instantaneously from one corner to the opposite.
On any other world, the level of their destructive battle would have pummeled cities, but against being besieged by the Abomination, it quickly began to feel futile.
The troops of Base Seven proceed with the only protocol they know: defend and survive.
*****
“Run, Vertan!” shouts Hilgo.
Just as the street behind him collapses into itself, Vertan makes it out by a hair. Among many, the Fifth Squad struggled desperately in their retreat, their efforts quickly overwhelmed, their senses of reality twisting and warping.
A streetlamp suddenly sways unnaturally, and with a well-timed duck for cover, they narrowly dodge the thing as it cuts a clean sweep through the surrounding buildings. Those unlucky enough to not have dodged it get their heads and upper bodies separated messily. Everyone was immediately on their feet afterwards; there was no time for breath in these blood-stained streets.
An Abomination and its accompanying demons crash onto the road in front of them, blocking the way. A defensive position could barely be organized before their side’s own cannon fire followed the Abomination, ripping up the street and surrounding buildings. A thunderous shot rings out that distorts their view for a moment.
The Abomination and its accompanying demons crash onto the road in front of them, blocking the way.
The Abomination and its accompanying demons crash onto the road in front of them, blocking the way.
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The Abomination and its accompanying demons crash onto the road in front of them, blocking the way.
Again, and again, and again.
Quickly realizing they had managed to trap it within a time loop construct, everyone immediately formed into firing position, and laid waste to the monsters. After sustained fire across all sides, all that remained were smoldering bits of debris and ash.
A short breath was collectively taken. Thunderous cannon fire continued to erupt elsewhere around them.
Steadying themselves against the pulsing ground, the Fifth Squad and other survivors continued their retreat towards the heart of Base Seven, still a few kilometers away. Their boots sloshed through the rivers and puddles of spilt blood and severed limbs as their exosuits struggled to filter the misted dead out of the air.
In the distance, a cannon falls, a mountain of machinery crushing those entrapped below.
Vertan struggled to breathe through his suit. He had come to force desensitization upon himself in order to survive these moments, but every now and then, his stomach threatened rebellion in response to what he witnessed.
They pass through an area of previous struggle on their way up to the bridge. An arm lies amongst the puddles and potholes of blood.
Whose arm might that have once belonged to? Vertan wondered. It was separated at the shoulder, and the hand almost completely blown off. He could even make out a tattoo as he ran past with the others. It appeared to be someone’s name, possibly close to them. Does that person know their significant one now lay in bits and pieces strewn across the streets of a distant world? Of how many others is his blood now mixed with the dirt, metal, and debris on the ground?
Vertan trips and sloshes through another puddle. How many people did he just step through?
Somehow, he felt as though he were constantly watched. Every wall, every brick, every window, every crevice seemed as though it could jump out at him. Even his suit struggled to tell, indicating threats in random places, his Daero Counter crackling and ticking profusely at the confusion—
And just like that, behind him, a wall breaks forth from its building, rushing forward to instantly crush dozens of troops onto the opposite wall. It then folded in on itself before disappearing from view, leaving behind nothing but a mess of entangled biology wrapped within and pressed against technology.
Suddenly, hellfire arrived from the skies, bombarding them with ordnance. As if comms weren’t chaotic enough already, the noise assaulted Vertan’s ears.
“Command, what the hell are you doing?!”
“We are bombarding the Abominations! What is your position?”
“Idiot! You are bombing our position!”
“Get out of there, then!”
“Cease your fire! You’re bombing our route!”
“Find another way!”
“Fucker!”
In his HUD, Vertan struggled to comprehend the scaling number of casualties and fatalities. Previous lives, hopes, and dreams boiled down to a single statistic.
The reroute alone cost hundreds of lives and thousands more casualties. But carried on, they did. Coming to a vantage point, the Fifth Squad could finally look out across the ravaged landscape of Base Seven. Amazingly enough, as widespread as the carnage, damage, and bloodshed had appeared to them on the ground, each instance of the Abomination actually appeared to be rather contained.
In the distance, chaos erupted in a faraway sector. A mass of mangled destruction, rubble, debris and people mixed with machinery began growing, shifting, morphing, as though it were a cancer cell. A time ordnance was immediately detonated, trapping the abomination in an infinite loop as hellfire bombardment quickly descended and eviscerated it thereafter. In some places it even appeared as though ground could be retaken.
For a brief moment against the terror, Vertan found himself amazed that even in the face of overwhelming adversity, people find a way to resist.
*****
The rest of the march back towards the core of Base Seven was more survivable, though more had succumbed to their previous injuries. A trail of bodies was left behind them as they moved onwards. By the time they had arrived, the once thousands strong company had been reduced to a few squads of only a few dozen individuals in total.
Coming into the enormous complex, one could see the once strong fortress cratered with collateral damage, torn and ripped up in different areas like paper. However, the structure remained standing in spite of its scars. They quickly found that other surviving platoons that had made it to Base Seven’s center had also been called upon to arrive there.
“What’s going on? We just arrived.”
“Identify your unit?”
“We’re with Eighth Company, Third Platoon.”
“Seventeenth, Ninth.”
“I see there’s survivors here as well?”
“Yes, higher command has attempted to pull back as many troops as possible, it’s a real struggle.”
“How many do we have?”
“No more than ten thousand, I believe.”
“Ten thousand?!”
“Yes.”
“What are we supposed to do with ten thousand?”
“Less than ten thousand.”
“God, what hope do we stand here, then?”
“We’re hoping to pull more back, but it’s not looking good right now. We lose just as many if not more from collateral than from the Abominations themselves.”
“Why have we come here?”
“We need to protect the pillar. That thing has a pretty nasty loophole and if the Abomination gets to collapsing it with the gateway, we’re all done for!”
“Loophole?! How does that work?”
“Man, I don’t know, I didn’t build the damn thing! I don’t know how half of anything works here, that’s just what I was informed of.”
“So we have to hold it off from reaching the pillar?”
“No, we’re worried it might already be here!”
“What—?! How? Don’t we see out there—”
“Yes, that might not be entirely it!”
“—How—?!”
“We don’t know, it comes in all different forms. As far as I know for sure, anything out there could be to distract and wear us thin. And it’s already destroyed the pillars and gateways of every Base before it!”
As the people around him continued to converse, Vertan looked around at his surroundings which instilled in him a most intense sense of paranoia. What if, for no reason, that structural beam over there leapt from its post to smash him? What if the floor waited to swallow him whole? What if the walls were watching, stalking him? What if the air itself suddenly decided to condense in pressure, crushing everyone here?
The rumble and thunder of distant fighting began to quiet and dim down. Across diagnostic boards throughout the complex, the surviving troops can tell that no more are coming to join them. Lights representing the fight occurring around Base Seven continued to dim and blink out. Casualties continued to scale.
An ominous wave of overwhelming fear suddenly washes over everyone, gripping them seemingly from nowhere, their exosuits detecting their heightened heart and breath rates. Suddenly, everyone simultaneously received the same feeling that something was there in their presence, something that they were under constant surveillance of but couldn’t see. This predator is intangible, let alone invisible.
“At arms!”
Raising their rifles, the surviving members of the Third Platoon aimed at a demon that had broken in. It appeared to be walking along a high wall that curved into the ceiling.
“It looks like one of us,” whispers Calian through comms.
“It looks like me!” whispers Etrad. “It can imitate us!”
“Can’t risk mistaking each other,” says Calian. “You have a clear shot, fire when you’re ready!”
Steadying his rifle and lining his sights, Etrad aims up towards the demon. The demon? Surely it is, it’s right there! There can be only one Etrad. Holding his breath, he makes his last adjustments before squeezing the trigger and making his shot.
The bullet kills Etrad from directly in the back of the head, instantly spreading bits of his head everywhere.
