Richard opened his bleary eyes. The elevator's lights overhead stabbed into his retinas. His entire body hurt. His head was pounding, and his ears were ringing. He gingerly touched his hand to his forehead, feeling some wet and sticky substance. Pulling his hand away from his head, only to find it covered in blood, his own blood, he realized in a panic.

Reaching up, Richard grabbed the elevator railing and pulled himself up onto his feet. There was a Ding as the elevator stopped.

Richard froze as the elevator doors opened. The fluorescent lights that remained overhead were flickering. The smell of blood and gunpowder perforated the room. The walls were scarred with bullet and claw marks. The ground was littered with debrie. The sound of the base's alarm washed over him like a wave.

Richard shook himself, trying to kick the fear that gripped his heart and forced himself to start walking, his laboured breathing and heartbeat echoing inside his head as he stumbled over the wreckage that littered the hallway.

A sudden scream ripped through the corridor, and Richard's heart tried to rip itself out of his chest. Thinking quickly, he ducked into a nearby room, leaving the door open just a crack as he hid. He watched as a terrified man and woman ran down the hallway toward him. Richard thought he recognized him, Jeffery, one of the janitors. If Richard remembered right, he didn't recognize the woman, but she was wearing the same janitorial uniform as Jeffery.

The two were sprinting down the corridor. Their faces were masks of absolute terror as they shot toward him.

For a moment, Richard considered opening the door and letting them hide inside with him until the danger had passed. But he hesitated, and in the next moment, he was glad he did. As one of the monsters stepped out of the shadows, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. Its clawed hands picked up the woman like she weighed nothing. Immediately began to squeeze her body, crushing her.

“KAH! KOFF!” The woman sputtered out blood as she violently struggled to escape, but it was as if she were bound to the monster by sturdy chains.

“Gloria!” shouted Jeffery. “Hold on!”

Jeff's hand gripped his necklace with grim determination before he mumbled something under his breath. His hands glowed with soft golden light as he completed his incantation.

“Heal!”

After uttering the command word, the soft light shot out towards Gloria, enveloping her in red and gold light, repairing her body and reinvigorating her spirit. However, it was not enough.

She began beating the creature's face with her fists, half-crazed. She was hitting the monster's chiten-covered form so hard she was hurting herself, but she wasn’t at leisure to feel the pain as the monster started to crush her body.

It was easy for Richard to imagine the fate that awaited her. The choking breaths, the crushing weight on her chest, before it all ended.

Gloria desperately continued her attacks as Jeffery cast healing spell after healing spell on her in a futile attempt to save her life. She tried pushing off of its head with her hand, scratching at it with her nails till they peeled back, biting it with her teeth. None of it worked, and the pressure on her torso continued to increase. No matter how much she flailed, there was no escaping the jaws that were its arms. She still fought. Even as her breathing grew more ragged and her movements began to slow, she fought for the chance to survive. All useless against the monster as it closed its hand.

CRUNCH

There was a gurgling sound, and the monster was splashed with bile and blood as Gloria vomited out her insides.

“NOOOO! Gloria!” shrieked Jeffery, his voice echoing in every direction of the dark passage.

Crunch Shlorp

The monster squeezed her between both hands, and she exploded like rotting fruit, her innards spraying across the ground in a red slurry. Richard clapped his hand to his mouth as his stomach tried to empty itself. Her head popped off and bounced off the ceiling before landing with an inglorious thud next to Jeffrey.

Splat

The monster dropped the corpse's remains, not even reacting to the gore covering its body. Instead, the tentacles on the creature's face began to drool as it just stared at Gloria's corpse with hunger.

“YOU! YOUUUU! I’LL KILL YOU! YOU, FUCK!!!!” Jeffery screamed in outrage before lashing out at the monster.

Jeffery's attacks were as utterly worthless as Gloria's. That much was obvious to Richard. Not that Jefferies' mind could process that right now. He was too busy screaming in grief and anger to do anything else.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

The monster turned to Jeffrey and moved towards him, its towering frame looming over the janitor as its clawed hands reached toward the raging idiot.

“Ah… AAAAH!”

It was over. Jeffrey had realized his folly entirely too late. He stared in abject horror as the eldritch monster in front of him reached towards him. He somehow mustered enough strength to turn around and run away but was entirely too slow. The Monster's clawed hand pierced into Jeffery's abdomen in what could only be excruciating pain.

“Urk! UGAAAH!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “GUAHH! No! NO! I don’t- Please- Argh!”

Jeffery struggled weakly, crying and desperately begging for salvation. Richard wanted to turn away, but he couldn't.

CRUNCH

Richard stared in horror as the creature pulled his insides out of his backside. Jeffery's body was ripped in two, his corpse falling apart onto the ground with a sickening wet sound before going limp. The monster showed no signs of empathy. Instead, it allowed its tentacles to descend from its face and began lapping up the gore of two people. Richard dared not to move or even breathe as the creature ate the slurried remains of his co-workers.

Richard didn't know how long he waited, watching the monster eat his coworkers. He felt like he had been there for hours as the monster ate his former colleagues. Finally, it made soft clicking noises as it turned and walked away from the bodies. Even then, Richard's heart couldn't stop pounding at some point during the entire ordeal. He had pissed himself in terror, but he had hardly even noticed.

Eventually, he got up the courage to leave the supply closet he had been hiding in. Even as he stood up, Richard couldn't stop shaking his hands and refused to stay still as he rushed down the hall. He tried not to notice how their remains were glowing green as he made his way to the security office.

The room had been just around the corner from where Jeffery and Gloria had been eaten. At first, Richard had hoped to hide out in the officer until help arrived. But that hope was dashed as he turned the corner. The security office reinforced door had been ripped off its hinges. Regardless he still moved inside. There was a body on the floor. One of the guards had placed his own pistol in his mouth and had pulled the trigger.

Richard turned away from the body towards the only tablet computer on the entire base with a connection to the outside world.

Sitting down at the magnificent desk, Richard selected the encrypted communication application and selected the call option. He had to call someone, anyone who could help them. Only to feel his heart sink even lower.

Alert!!! Error 434 Detected

We are unable to establish a live feed at this moment due to [Local Weather].

Would you like to send a Video Message?

Y/N

WARNING: Current response time is currently estimated to be [Twentynine] hours.

Richard was about to select yes when he heard soft clicking noises. Immediately images of the monster sprung into his mind, and he dropped to the floor, hiding under the extremely well-crafted desk.

His heart pounded in his head as he hid underneath the massive desk and held his breath. Heavy footsteps approached him. one of the monsters entered the room. Its massive eight-foot frame was semi-humanoid, except its body was covered in a thick black chitin armour covering almost all of its dark green body. Each of its six fingers seemed to be made out of one-half of a lobster claw. Its head was like a squid. It had an elongated tubular head with large eyes facing forward. Two of the ten tentacles hanging from where its mouth was supposed to be were much longer, slender with rows of suckers with toothed rings.

Richard stared at the creature on the monitor mounted on the wall across from him.

He held his breath as the monster walked into the center of the room, its feet and claws were covered in blood. For a terrifying moment, the creature simply stood there doing nothing. Then its two primary tentacles shot outwards smashing the security monitors with a ferocity that almost caused Richard to scream.

As the screens were destroyed, the shattered glass rained down as the monster ruined the facility's security system. with two heavy steps, the monster picked up the security guard's corpse with its clawed hands before turning around and leaving.

Richard didn't know how long he hid under the desk, not daring to move as his heart raced before finally getting up and pressing the yes button. A red light turned on, indicating the start of the recording. Grabbing the tablet, he pulled it under the desk with him as he tried to stay out of sight.

"This is Richard Guardsell, Botanist of the Bureau of Paranormal Activity, Station THX 1138. We have been breached. I repeat, the station has been breached. They tore through our defences in an instant. They already occupy the base there, just hunting us down at this point. We had no idea what was on the other side of the portal. Doctor Lake and Puck promised us everything would be fine."

Richard realized he was crying. He didn't want to die.

"Tell my family I love them. Honey, I love you. I'm sorry, I wish I had taken a teaching job at ---"

Before Richard could finish his sentence, he felt something wrap around his leg, yanking him into the air. Richard screamed as he realized the lurker had snuck up on him and had used its tentacle to lift him up into the air. He realized he was going to die and fell into a true panic.

In his panicked flailing, Richard dropped the tablet.

"GUAHH!”

The screen that he had just been working on smashed onto the corner of the desk, its screen shattering into a hundred tiny fragments, and with it, any hope Richard had fled his body.

"No! NO! NO!!!"

Richard's mind snapped as the last vestiges of hope and sanity evaporated. He screamed obscenities and nonsense as the monster pulled him out of the room and into the living nightmare that was his world.

As he descended into madness, he missed the message on the cracked screen of one of the remaining monitors.

Message Sent!