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!

It was the most cavernous chamber yet, perhaps only rivalled by the warehouse where Frederick was knocked silly. Still, it triumphed. We were standing on what seemed to be a giant balcony, an enormous platform, encircled with railing to ensure some careless soul didn’t fall into the abyss below. A few gigantic cylindrical formation ran from the ceiling into the dark below us. Ahead was another catwalk, behind which lay what we sought. There it was, what we had come so long to find, for which we went through so much pain and anguish.

            The portal to hell.

            It was what I’d expected: a swirling, turbulent red colour, semi-transparent, its shimmering surface toiling in the manner of the sea. To its sides were several gigantic generators with tubes and wires lying scattered here and there, many of them leading up the metallic base of the portal itself.

            There were several metallic plates that I think were the plates that Frederick had said cooled the entire operation. However, they were unnecessary, blowing them away would do little good.

            My eyes travelled upwards into what seemed a giant tunnel that might’ve stretched all the way to the Martian surface. Following it down, it seemed to travel quite a distance downward. There seemed to be fans scattered about it here and there.

            I looked back. Centrally placed, facing the portal at a high vantage point was a cabin, as was another one to our right side. I motioned towards it.

            “That’s one of the control rooms,” explained Frederick.

            I nodded. “It’s a logical place to start.”

            So we set out towards it. But as we neared, a human figure jumped out.

            After all the zombies I had seen, I immediately recognised it as being fully human, totally unchanged. However, a malicious, hungry expression stretched over the man’s weathered face, behind his large spectacles. His face was wrinkled in a sly glare, the bends in his forehead travelling all the way back over his bald head.

            Judging from the white coat he wore, he was another scientist.

            Frederick had just enough time to utter, “Thorpe—”, when the man raised some gigantic gun and started firing.

            I had no time to examine the weapon itself, though judging by its rapid fire, it was a very heavy chaingun.

            Bullets whizzed over head in rapid succession. The three of us scattered, seeking pipes, crates, and other things as protection.

            Tim finally jumped out with my pistol and fired two shots.

            Each bullet hit one of the man’s legs. He crumpled to the ground in a heap, the chaingun escaping from his hands.

            Tim approached him unwarily. “I can see you’re not a zombie, so you’re spared that excuse. You owe us an explanation as to exactly what is going on. Go on, speak!”

            The man looked at Tim with a look of spite unnecessary for someone he didn’t even know. He said nothing.

            Tim raised his gun, pointing it at the scientists jagged forehead from point-blank range.

            “Speak.”

            “You may kill me, but I shall not cease to exist. Shoot me now, and you’ll only send me somewhere else.” He motioned vaguely towards the portal, his raspy voice echoing loudly throughout the cavernous room. “And using this, I’ll be able to come back here. And besides, I am finished, my work here is complete. All I have to do is wait for more to come through.” He then shut his mouth, apparently not wishing to share anything else.

            “I don’t think we’re gonna get any answers out of this guy,” I said quietly.

            The man threw himself forward, his bony hands grasping for Tim’s pistol.

            Left without a choice, Tim pulled the trigger. Soon, there was a puddle of blood at his feet.

            “Damn,” he said.

            “You know, why do we find all these damn scientists? Couldn’t we find some hot lady instead?”

            “I don’t think a ‘hot lady’ would be very helpful in stopping hell.”

            I shrugged. “She would be good motivation, cheering us on. A cheerleader.”

            Tim laughed.

            There was a long pause, after which, upon some silent agreement, we moved towards the control cabin. Immediately, Frederick set himself in the central chair, gazing at the numerous control panels and displays, preoccupied with the main console. Meanwhile, Tim and I hovered around him.

            After a while, a screen came up showing bunches of Xs, Ys, Zs, Ts, among other symbols, and twice that amount of numbers.

            Frederick rubbed his face thoughtfully.

            “Aw, that’s lovely,” I said. “What is it?”

            “Coordinates,” he answered. “We can’t simply cut through space and time blindly. You need to know where you’re going; you need the coordinates of your final destination. That’s what these numbers are. However…”

            Tim and I looked at each other. “What?”

            “These coordinates are not the ones that my colleagues and I put into the program. These are new ones.”

            His eyes quickly darted to the computer itself. There was a disk lodged into the disk drive. Frederick tried to take it out using a variety of creative methods, though none worked.

            “I can’t take it out,” he said angrily. “And this program, the program that is feeding the coordinates to the acceleration device, can’t be shut off either. It’s like a virus.”

            “So this is the program that’s causing this?” I asked, motioning at the swirling portal.

            “Yes. Someone must’ve inserted this disk with the new coordinates shortly prior to our creation of the portal. That’s why this happened. Someone intentionally made us open a portal to hell.”

            “And I think I might know who that someone is,” I said. All three of us looked at the guy who Tim had shot moments ago.

            “But why would he do something like that?” asked Tim, as he exited the room and headed towards the corpse.

            Frederick examined the computer intently.

            “It can’t be shut down,” he said finally, demonstratively pushing the POWER button again and again. “And I don’t think it’d be a good idea.”

            I raised my shotgun, pointing it at the computer. “I can shut it down.”

            He pushed my gun away. “As I said, not a good idea anyway.”

            “Why?”

            “There is an entire procedure, run by these computers, to shut down the portal. Suddenly ceasing the computer input will destabilise the portal. This could result into a chain reaction that could destroy all of Mars. But the main problem is, the portal, and these computers, seem to be drawing their power from some energy source besides that of our own station. I fear that after shutting down the computer, the resulting explosion will keep on drawing energy from this source. All this extra energy could exponentially increase the blast.”

            “So you’re saying that sacrificing ourselves and blowing everything up is also not a good idea?”

            “No, because the explosion could grow to a level where even Earth may be in danger. Even if Earth wasn’t destroyed instantaneously, millions of large chunks from Mars will come riding on the shock wave towards Earth.¾”

            “I get the point,” I said. Damn, this was not good. “So, what do we do?”

            Just then, Tim yelled from his position on the balcony. “Come and have a look at this!”

            My question unanswered, Frederick and I set out to join Tim.

            Upon approach, I saw that he was hovering over the dead scientist’s body.

            “What?”

            Tim pulled down the cuff of the man’s shirt so we could see a strange symbol placed on the right side of his chest.

            It was a black pentagram, seemingly seared into his flesh, with odd runes and symbols placed in each triangle that was one of the rays.

            “What do you make of this?” he asked.

            “This guy purposefully did this. He wanted to open a portal to hell. And he might’ve been devising for quite a lengthy time, too.” I said, never taking my eyes from the guy.

            “What do you mean?”

            “Well,” I said, recalling my life a week or two ago, “I remember hearing his raspy voice in Briggs’ office.” Tim looked at me as if he wanted to hear more, so I continued. “I’m sure you remember the whole fireworks thing. Well, I was called to Briggs’ office, and I heard their voices inside, conversing. I knocked on the door, and after a pause and the sound of shuffling papers, Briggs told me to come in. This guy,” I said, motioning at the dead corpse, “was hiding in the closet during the length of my presence.”

            “So Briggs was involved in this, too,” he said thoughtfully. “We should’ve checked his body when we killed him, should’ve checked to see if he had the same symbol.”

            I thought for a while more. “So it all measures up this way: a satanic cult that has intentionally seeped into this scientific community changes the coordinates of a regular experiment at the last moment, so a portal to hell opens.”

            Frederick nodded.

            “How do we close it?” Tim asked, glancing at the surging portal.

            “We were just getting to that. Frederick?”

            Frederick looked at the ground. “There is one solution. It involves quite a bit of risk and danger, though it’s the only way out.” He said no more, apparently wanting to see if the words ‘danger’ discouraged us in any way.

            “Go on.”

            “The only way I see it is to go through the portal, to try to shut it down from the other side, from hell itself.”

            There was a long silence.

            He continued. “It could be a suicide mission, if it becomes necessary to blow all of their machinery and equipment up. As I explained to Corporal Taggart here, the resulting chain-reaction could be catastrophic. But if this is done from the other side of the portal, the explosion will only affect hell. The portal would be shut down, but the ones who did this would not come back.”

            “I don’t like it,” I said finally. “But I see no other way out. I am willing to be a martyr.”

            “So am I,” said Tim in his most determined voice, though I sensed a note of fear in his tone.

            “And I have no choice,” said Frederick. “I understand how this whole thing works, I need to be able to run through the possible solutions.”

            “Very well then,” I said. “Do we go now?”

            Frederick closed his eyes. “Wait about a minute. I’m sure we all need a minute before we commit to this suicide act.”

            I agreed.

            And we sat down, thinking to ourselves, recalling all that was and fearing all that will be.

            Vague and random memories from my childhood came to mind, that gradually progressed into adulthood. As the memories became more recent, their detail increased. I remembered enrolling into the military. First day, second day. Joining the marines. Getting ready to leave for Mars. My parting speech, the one that pissed off Briggs.

            Briggs. He had been in this since the very beginning. As much as I had despised him before, now it doubled. Not only did he want to ruin our lives, but those of all of humanity. Many times had I referred to him as evil, but I never really thought it literally true.

            My eyes darted about the room again. This place wasn’t built for random experimentation. It was clear that from the very beginning, when the first foundation to this entire complex was built, it was done so with the intention of developing this portal technology. Such a gigantic room couldn’t be casually assembled for this experiment. This had been a goal since the very beginning, from whenever it was built, whether it be seven years or more, as Tim and I suspected.

            I thought about Tyler and Mexican guy. About all the other friends and family back on Earth. I had already adapted with the thought that Tyler and Mexican Guy were gone, and it was a heavy one. And my friends and family on Earth didn’t weight on my heart too much, either. Why? I hadn’t seen them in person for years, their meaning to me, valuable as it might be, was lost.

            As I realised this, I knew that I had little to lose but my wasted life.       

            I was ready to do so.

            Tim’s voice broke the silence. “Let’s go,” he said.

            We all stood up silently and started heading towards the edge of the balcony, from where a catwalk twisted around and circled to the front of the gate itself.

            I lingered, slowly lumbering after them, my mind still buzzing with activity, bits of information, small memories.

            I saw Tim pick-up the evil scientist’s heavy chaingun and sling it over his shoulder. He busies himself with examining his newfound joy.

            Just then, Frederick flew into the air.

            Now what?

            Tim spun around.

            It seemed that some invisible force had grabbed the scientist by the foot and lifted him into the air; he was now dangling by one foot, his remaining leg and arms wildly flailing into the air, grasping at something that didn’t seem to be there.

            “Help!” he shouted.

            I raised my shotgun.

            But then Frederick spun around in the air, and went flying across the room until he came in contact with a large metallic wall. His body crumpled to the ground. Though his face was hidden, the blood that pooled around his head announced that he was dead.

            An invisible monster.

            Tim fired several rounds helplessly at where he thought the invisible entity was, though he didn’t enjoy a lot of success.

            “Come on!” he shouted, and we both sprinted towards the portal.        

            Did it follow us?

            I don’t know. Tim stepped through the portal first. And he was gone.

            I looked around, feeling as if I was seeing the last of our world. I never thought that I’d miss the cramped metallic halls of Mars.

            What had happened to everything? Someone had taken everything in the universe and dumped it upside-down.

            I head a pair of heavy steps coming towards me on the catwalk.

            Right.

            My eyes gazed at the turbulent red surface, somewhat hesitantly. But I knew what I had to do.

            I stepped through.

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