The following story is a work of fiction. Apart from being based on Doom 3,
the work itself has no ties to id Software whatsoever.
No parts of the story should be used without consent.

by Nick P.

Special thanks to Tim Corwin for helping with the story and of course, Paul!

After four hours of uneventful sleep, Tim woke me up. This time, kicking was unnecessary. It seems that I had become a whole lot more weary than before this whole hell-invasion thing started. That’s not to say that it’s a bad thing. Anyway, I simple tap on the shoulder was enough to stir me up. Instinctively, I grasped at my shotgun, and luckily found it where I had left it.

            Tim went to sleep and I was left on my own accord. My mind rambled, heeding the absolute silence that hung in the air, wondering as to what demented hell-prodigy might be wandering about outside the door.

            We’d already seen all sorts of monstrosities constructed by some sick mind: the imps, the spider-things, not to mention the zombies. Though mostly human-looking, some of them still greeted us with a mouth full of unearthly fangs. And all of them had those creepy, empty, glowing eyes…

            And that big muscular thing that had smashed Frederick, its imposing visage drifted into my mind. If hell could create such gigantic, colossal leviathans, then what more could it do? Surely they could go bigger, more powerful, more enduring. Surely there was no limit, besides the imagination of hell’s engineers. It seems as we progressed deeper into the installation, and closer to the portal to hell, that we came across more and more horrible creations.

            And I had been scared senseless because of a little zombie with a chainsaw.

            The uneasy tranquillity was broken as Tim turned in his sleep.

            How much time had passed?

            I glanced at my watch. Barely 40 minutes.

            So I thought some more. How would we shut down the portal itself, assuming that we actually arrived there unscathed? After all, Frederick had said that it remained open ever after the power outage, that it drew power from some unknown power source. If taking away all of its power was not sufficient, that what was? And what will be?

            I shook my head, trying to clear it. It was the absolute silence that forced me into my world of thoughts. I wished that I could clear my mind and simply rest, awake, though still resting.

            Yet it was the thoughts that kept me from sleeping.

            What had happened to all the people that I knew? I had heard screams, but what did that mean? Were they zombified or simply killed? Or perhaps something much worse that could not be devised by my peace-loving mind?

            We had to go on. And I had to keep my head. Reaching and closing the portal was imperative, or all of humankind would suffer in the same manner as my friends and fellow marines.

            No human being should ever be forced to endure what Tim, I, and the rest of the marines did. It was not right. It isn’t right. And it’ll never be right.

            And if there’s hell, shouldn’t there also be a heaven? I mean, where is God in all of this? Shouldn’t He be helping us come through?

            Maybe He is, I thought. Maybe that’s why we have come so far.

            I stopped cold, examining my thoughts. I was never a religious guy. Had I foreseen these thoughts several months ago, I would’ve dismissed them, maybe even laughed at myself. And yet now, locked in a cellar with hell-spawn wandering about, there was nothing to laugh at. Only perhaps my naivete and ignorance.

            Alright, that’s enough, I told myself. Think about something else. Ummm… Aircars. I love aircars. As soon as I get back to Earth, I’ll take my military compensation and throw it all at a nice, red, Italian aircar. Where the hell I’m gonna get money to buy food and other necessities, I don’t care.

            A nice trip to the open outdoors, maybe some snow capped mountain, would be a nice refreshment from all of the claustrophobic Martian walls. How I’d love to smell the pine in the air, the cold draft over my face, to marvel at the distant snow-capped peaks. To chop wood, then, come evening time, to enter and light it in the fireplace. To look out the foggy window and see the snow falling whilst feeling the warmth billowing gently from the fireplace, bringing along with it the aroma of pine trees…

            One hour, ten minutes had passed.

            And my mind already felt like a pizza with all the possible toppings on it.

            I picked up my double-barrel shotgun and examined it thoroughly. It seems that I had no time before to do this.

            Frederick murmured something in his sleep. I hoped that he would soon come to. It was quite a blunder, having to carry him around. We needed his directions to arrive at the portal, and it was he who held the knowledge required to shut it down. He was important, though quite odd. It’s not a pleasant feeling to have so much resting on the shoulders of an untrustworthy individual.

            My mind cleared, obvious exhaustion coming back to me. The next few hours were wasted in microsleep, coming to and out for a few seconds.

            When the dreaded 4 hours had finally paused, I tapped Tim on the shoulder. He woke up and groggily glanced at me.

            “Anything interesting happen?” He asked, the question muffled by a thick yawn.

            “No.”

            “Alright then,” he said. “Let’s have breakfast and set out again. What about Mr. Frederick here.”

            “You mean Dr. Frederick.”

            “Yeah, whatever.”

            “Not much to say. He did mumble to himself at one point, though he’s been sleeping the entire time.”

            “I hope he wakes up soon,” said Tim, reading my thoughts.

*          *          *

Breakfast was nice; it filled me with energy. And not long afterward, we set out again as before. Tim yet again was bestowed the honour of carrying Dr. Frederick about while I hovered ahead with my favourite shotgun.

            We didn’t know the way to go without Frederick’s advice, though we improvised, and I must say, quite successfully. We simply took whatever took us farther underground. Frederick himself had said that the portal lay deep beneath the Martian surface. Our hopes were that he would wake up and take over all of the navigation.

I thought that our environment couldn’t get any more Spartan. I was wrong.

The corridors seemed rather empty, until we were greeted by three zombies. One of them had a pistol; the others went by unarmed.

            “Allow me,” I told Tim, my voice clearly lacking enthusiasm. I raised my shotgun and pointed it at the first zombie’s head. I fired, but then something happened that made me grin.

            It seems that the first two zombies were perfectly aligned so that the single shot I fired took off both of their heads. The third zombie spun around and quickly hid behind a large tube protruding from one of the walls. It was waiting for us to come by, setting a sort of ambush.

            But Nik Taggart is no idiot! As I came around the zombie jumped out, as I expected, mouth wide open in a roar. However, it was not human flesh it found in its mouth. Actually, it was the end of my shotgun.

            At that point, the beastie knew it was screwed.

            BOOM! Messiest explosion yet.

            “Like buying a bag of peanuts and getting a 5-Star roasted duck.” I said, recalling the two-zombies-with-one-shot scenario that played itself out a few moments ago.

            I wiped the crap out of my eyes.

            “You’re getting too creative,” Tim told me with a smirk. “That, and too cocky.” He moved ahead, Frederick at his shoulder.

            And speaking of Frederick, he gave a loud groan at that point. Tim took note of this and placed him on the ground. Slapping him in the face, Tim repeated, “wake up, wake up buddy.” This went on for what seemed to be ten minutes.

            Just when I thought Frederick was gonna have a permanent scar where Tim was slapping him, the guy pushed himself up and said, “Ow, my head.” Then, he ensued in massaging his face.

            Tim gave me a thumbs up.

            “What happened?” And so came the dreaded question from Frederick; now Tim and I had to recall all that had happened since his tiny mishap.

            “Well,” Tim began, then looked at me.

            I shrugged.

            “Ummm,” Tim continued his thought. “This big monster knocked you out. And we’ve been carrying you since. Yeah.”

            Frederick continued to rub his head. “And, uh, how do you know the way? What way have you gone? Did you somehow figure out where the portal is?”

            “No,” I said. “You said that it was far underground, so that’s where we’ve been going: underground. We haven’t really gone far since you met that gigantic thing’s hand. We had to stop and rest more often. After all, we didn’t know the exact way to go, nor were you as light as a feather…”

            “I see.”

            “Well,” spoke Tim, “I’m happy you’re ok.”

            The scientist shook his head. “One hell of a headache, though…”

            “Let’s get going,” I said. “We do not have an endless well of time. We must hurry.”

            Tim nodded, though Frederick remained at the ground, rubbing his head.

            “Come on,” I said, my voice somewhat harsher than I intended.

            He glared up at me, then slowly pushed himself to his feet.

            “Well sorry for not having any Aspirin,” I said, answering his dirty look. “But fine, we’ll go in search of some medical facility so we could find you some medication. We’ll find you your damn Aspirin while hell itself pours out of that portal.” I paused, then added, “Why if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re hopped up on some medication as it is!”

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