What do you want...?

These are my old stories (I know it's a bit long, but I felt linking them would ruin the continuity...heh, you can bookmark it and read it in bits if you like), I must know if you want me to continue them or not. Otherwise, to the scrapheap they go.
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Hell's Viscerous Reaches (part I)

Shaking the red dust from his fatigues and shin plates, Adrien Stromme clambered painfully up the steep steel-grate staircase. A low mechanical hum could be heard resounding in the approaching hall. As he mounted the final step, he stood before a massive frame, at least fifteen feet wide and 20 feet tall.
Cables and wires sprouted out of the walls and floor, feeding into it, in utter disarray. Only several yards away was a control box, or what he assumed to be the control box for this remarkable apparatus.

He could feel the persistent throb in his thigh as he hobbled over to the central panel...even though he had applied a poultice with the field dressing, the bleeding continued.

He lay his backpack down with an effort and gingerly placed his shotgun, chamber nearly empty, onto a nearby wheeled tray. Pausing in the near-darkness, he closed his eyes, trying to recall the basic training session for bacic mechanic operations. Regret washed over him as he opened his eyes again, realizing he remembered very little. Looking down at the control scheme, all dials and levers and implements clearly labeled in English, he knew that this was his only opportunity to leave the base. Even now he could hear the low rumblings of the lupine demons, swathed in muscle and infused with malignity. There were at least nine of them and he only had two shells remaining.

As he was only a lieutenant in the Mars-division of the Federation of Colonial Powers' military, he wasn't privy to top-secret information. However, he had heard rumors of a partnership between the highest military heads and the UAC to test a new form of inter-space transportation. This, he speculated, must be that device, though this had the look of a proto-type; not only that, but this was the area where most utilities and machines were kept in storage until the military decided whether to dispose of them or re-instate their use. Focusing his attention on the task at hand, he examined the controls closely, striving to locate some dial or switch on the vast face plate that he felt confident he could use.

In the upper-right corner he saw a small digital optic screen with a numberpad directly below it. Suspecting that this was meant to be the date-input device, he hesitantly punched in the corresponding numbers for what he recalled to be numerical form of that day's date, 6-07-2147. The internal mechanisms of the power box whirred, processing the figures he entered. He took up his backpack and shouldered it as he stepped over to pick up his shotgun. Only several minutes later, as he reached for his shotgun, the frame flared up with a blue-gray light that spilled into the walkway. It seemed to require a tremendous amount of power, because the wires were even now beginning to smolder and spark.

He looked over his shoulder, away from the luminous spectacle, and realized that the noise of this...gateway was fueling the demons' ferocity and it also allowed them to pinpoint his location. He had to leave. Now. Knowing that if he did leave through that gateway, no matter where it took him, he would not be able to come back because the stalwart beasts that craved his body would lie in wait for him or destroy the device entirely. But the concept of never coming back to the ravaged base seemed far more preferable than to be torn apart by warm, tooth-laden mouths, drenched with saliva and caked with human blood.
They were only a handful of yards away, with only four feet of steel to separate him from being rended like a beef carcass in a meat processing plant. He couldn't linger...with this final thought in mind, he stumbled under the weight of his backpack toward the dazzing light...


...His eyes were clenched shut while his body shuddered from a tingling sensation, not unlike an electric shock. Gasping for air and panicking, he inhaled deep breaths of the atmosphere, only to taste a nauseating odor that permeated the air. He sat up, his body racked with spasms of coughing, his whole body reviling the petulant stench that coursed throughout this...place. When his breathing became regular again, he attempted to open his eyes, to see where he had been whisked off to, without choice and foreknowledge.

As he opened his eyes, his skull was spiked by a throbbing pain as his vision, which was blurred and out of focus, was bombarded by an unyielding luminosity. He shook his head, hoping to right something within his brain, so that he might be able to ascertain his location. Several minutes passed and his vision improved; blinking the last haziness away, he looked upon the landscape, drinking it in. He was on a vast plain, dotted by rocks and the scorched skeletons of what appeared to be trees. Mountainous outgrowths, colored the hue of dead blood, sprouted up in a seemingly random pattern. No sun or facsimile thereof shed sunshine here. The only source of light that he could see was a massive conflagration past a distant mountain range that encompassed the entire valley. He breathed again, deeply, and attempted to determine the nature of the atmosphere.

He remembered that scent. When he was on guard duty in his days as a private, he had been posted as a sentry in the base's laboratory sector. On one of his duty-shifts, he recalled an accident that had occurred. A computer circuit had blown and caused a small explosion. One of the scientists had died in the blast and his corpse had smoldered until the flames were extinguished. That was the sent that pervaded the air that flowed into his nostrils...it sickened him. He rose to his feet, unsure if he could stand, and his whole body was taken with spasms of illness. His abdomen flexed as he vomited where he stood. He hadn't eaten since that morning, so the stinging taste of bile was all that came up.

Taking a moment to gather himself again, he looked to the sky and saw that it was devoid of any clouds that resembled something from earth. Massive bodies of dust-burdened smoke billowed into the heights of the stratosphere, giving the winds an unpleasant, acrid flavor. Those very zephyrs that crowded his nostrils carried screams. Screams of human beings -- he knew that they couldn't be mistaken for anything else than that.

Perhaps having stayed at the base would have been far, far better a circumstance than to be where he was...Not wanting to admit what his eyes told him to be true, he tried to deny the environment in which he stood. To close his eyes and see his wife, his daughter again. He didn't wish to be dead, but he wished he wasn't alive either. His only desire was to simply be out of existence so that he wouldn't have to confront the truth that was now so clear to him.
Slowly, his mouth dropped as the truth manifested itself within his mind and rooted itself in his soul.
..."This is Hell..."...the words forced their way past his lips.

Hell's Viscerous Reaches (part II)

It was clear that dwelling in this state of shock was going to be of no use. As if his mouth wished to mimick this thought, he uttered, "I've got to get going. Maybe I can get out of here -- maybe I can find an outpost something, someone." Over and over he told himself this, as though hearing a human voice could be enough to open a floodgate of relief over his stricken heart. With fear so tangible, he could hardly rouse himself to action. This trepidation was manifest in the environment that seemed so hostile, so inhuman...the screams were inhuman, the scent inhuman, even the very sight of this place was inhuman. As his vision cleared, he began picking up minute details, as he stood upon shaking, weary legs.

The crimson outcrops, plateaus, mountains, the lances of fiery marble that jutted out all around him were bleeding.

His mind was transfixed, his brain itself mesmerized by the ungodly marriage of flesh and stone. In the cracks and crags of the truculent stone, blood bubbled forth, a tenebrous hue of blackish-red spurting forth as if emerging from an arterial wound. To his left, about ten feet away, he heard an odd noise of moist flesh...As he stepped to the place of the emergent sound, the picture became clearer and he saw viscid, fetid-smelling intestines...bowels...emerging from a cleft in the vast promontory.

All of this, this abhorrent sight and swell that consumed his senses grasped him and flung him into the throes of illness yet again. Collapsing to his knees, he dry-heaved over and over, but his stomach would not yield. His mind, his body rejected this vile place and it's impure nature. However, when he had regained control of his legs, this episode had proven enough to rouse him to move, to leave.

His feet shuffled slowly, kicking up plumes of flesh-colored dust and small rocks, which remained suspended in the air longer than they should of, obeying laws of physics unlike any on earth. Hypnotized by the simple back-and-forth motion of one foot following the other, his eyes glazed over and his mind drifted away from the present, recalling the remaining moments before the razing of the base...
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"Lieutenant Stromm, you will be escorting Captain Marbaruk to the central lab, so as to ensure his safety in this lockdown. No unnecessary stops will be made and you will take him to the lab, PDQ. Do you understand me?"

"Sir, general, Sir!"

"Good," General Cromwell muttered. "No mistakes. This is of utmost importance as the base is under a code red state of emergency."

Stromm reflexively saluted and watched as Marbaruk leisurely stepped out of the office, well-aware of his importance to the Delta Project. As soon as they had left the administration quarters, Stromm shouted at Marbaruk.

"I don't enjoy putting my ass on the line for you. You're going to hurry. Even if you are the general's pet officer, you'll have to wipe that smug grin off your face and get going. You have no idea what kind of shit is going down here!"

"Ah, excellency," Marbaruk's Iranian accent thick,"I understand far more than you realize..."

Stromm grimaced. "Just shut the hell up and come with me. If you're behind and you get killed, I'm not getting held accountable for your need to avoid breaking a sweat."

Stromm absolutely hated Marbaruk. In fact, he hated most of the science crew that Marbaruk was the chief engineer of. Even though he was a civilian at the base, not a military careerman, Marbaruk had been promoted quickly by General Cromwell and been privy to high-security, top-access files. He despised him for his easy breaks, his arrogance and the fact that he didn't understand the first thing about military protocol.

They were nearing the door of the central lab, he could see a crowd of people in lab coats accompanied by heavy infantry through the double-reinforced glass windows. Marbaruk shoved his way in front of Stromm as he bent over in front of the retinal scanner. Advancing his way through the crowd of scientists, Marbaruk stepped in front of one of the heavy infantry commandos and stabbed his finger at his chest.

"I was quite disposed when I got a summons to this place. Perhaps you will inform me of why I and my colleagues have been dragged here?!"

The commando only stared back coldly.

"Insolent grunt, I'll have you busted down to private before you can even get on your knees to suck my cock for forgiveness, you ill-mannered son of a dog!"

Without a word, the commando tightened his right glove and backhanded the man, sending him sprawling into a stainless steel cart of medical instruments. This, of course, sent the remaining lab workers into a frenzy. As the door closed behind Stromm, he stopped and looked behind him.

"You know your orders, as General Cromwell said," shouted the commando.

At that moment, all of the military men reached to their pack-holster and each drew out their SAFAC-issue plasma rifle. In moments, the glare and glow of ball lightening ceased. Even though Stromm could not hear the cries of the scientists, he could smell their smoldering flesh filtering through minute crevices in the door lining. As he got ready to leave the area, knowing he should not have seen that, Stromm tried to leave as quickly as he could, not glancing over his shoulder. Shortly, though, he felt a large, heavy hand on his back, halting him. He whirled around to see one of the commandos, nearly three inches from his face.

"You tell no one. If the general finds out you know, you'll be dead. And if you don't die, your wife and son will. I'm doing you a favor...now get the hell out of here!"

Without even acknowledging what he said, Stromm walk-ran as fast as he could back to the armoury for the 0400 military personnel meeting. His thoughts were dominated by what had just happened. Cromwell wouldn't kill those men without good cause. They're too valuable -- they had to have known something more than they should have. Or perhaps they've outlived their usefulness...What the fuck is going on here...?
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...Adrien's mind shifted back to the present as he realized he was nearing a precipice with a nearby trail leading downward into the canyon that it bordered. His eyes squinted, straining to see a block of hazy figures that were at least two or so miles away -- the ash and dust was inhibiting his sight, so he unshouldered his pack and rummaged through it, looking for his X-Mag goggles. These were standard-issue light magnifying instruments for low-visibility environments, which is why they were given to all Mars military.

As he adjusted them, he looked to the spot his eyes had just a moment ago been trained on, but he could see nothing. Shit, he thought, have they, it, whatever it was spotted me? He waited a moment longer and as he did, figures came into view again as a puff of cinders and heavy smoke drifted away. Employing the zoom feature of his goggles, he saw one in particular, taller than the others...

It was skeletal almost, but it had a tight, light brown skin drawn across it's bony frame. The bulbous head had a horrifying, malicious look to it, which vaguely resembled a human's...but not quite. It stalked over to what appeared to be...a marine? A marine was kneeling before it, held by two humanoid figures with a dark brown and leathery, blemish-covered skin. Viscious-looking spikes protruded on the shoulders, chest and legs. The marine was shuddering, broken down with tears...was he going to be executed? Stromm's fist tightened involuntarily, consumed with rage.

The light brown figure walked up to the marine and held the man's head up roughly with it's left hand. For a moment, nothing happened -- the figured appeared to be simply gazing at him. He then let go and the marine stood still, prostrate. As the man crouched there, the light brown figure stretched out it's right hand, long, thin and bony and plunged the clawed finger tips into the marine's skull...The body of the man convulsed for a moment, then became still as the lifeless figure slumped to the side. The troop of figures walked about twenty feet over to Stromm's right.

Laying in the red dust was the corpse of some sort of horned beast. Almost satyr-like with deep, flesh-colored skin, it was keeled over backward, intestines splayed out for all to see. The light brown figure walked over to it and spread out his arms above the cadaver. For several moments the hands glowed with an eerie luminescance as the the figure uttered strange words...sounds...

To Stromm's bewilderment and awe, the body reversed it's decay and damage, the intestines seeped back into the abdominal cavity and the skin formed over again over the gaping wounds. The figure stood up again, shaking it's horned skull, gaining it's bearings once again.

Stromm had become so mesmerized by this whole affair, he had nearly forgotten he was a spectator. He was violently thrust into reality, however, as a glimmer of light caught the lens of his goggles and made his presence known to the demons in the cannon below. Adrien felt his resolve melt away at the atrocity he beheld as the light brown creature dashed for him, thankfully a couple miles away, and the red-skinned beast formed a glowing, emerald-colored sphere of fire in his hand and pitched it towards him. The two dark brown, spiked creatures followed suit, only with smaller, orange colored fireballs.

Adrien put the goggles away, hefted his pack and retreated, all the while, his fevered mind demanding what he should now do...

Hell's Viscerous Reaches (part III)
In mid stride, he stopped running while his body pitched forward with the inertia of his sprint. Adrien’s legs would not obey the commands of his frantic brain, urging him to flee. Even now, he could hear the snarls and howls issued forth from the slavering jaws of the pursuing fiends. Unable to fathom why he was paralyzed, Adrien began to panic.

He could hear them getting closer, even the unholy terrain below him trembled with their terrifying approach, their ravening malice further befouling the already putrid air. Now they were within sight of him, only two hundred feet away, emerging from the lip of the canyon they strode rapidly toward Adrien…

…Without warning, a deafening thunderclap accompanied by a brilliant light erupted in the skies, the shockwave from this vast eruption rolled across the unsightly terrain. The auric force obliterated the twisted rock formations, incinerated the skeletal trees, charred the soil and rocks while the rock embankments, now shattered, spewed forth blood and entrails. All the while, Adrien stood as he had, umarred, untouched and whole. His pursuers shrieked in pain as, one by one, their skin was shorn by the blast, their muscles and viscera exposed, undulating still, and began to burst. The creature’s very frames shook and convulsed as their flesh-denuded bodies were warped and perverted by the crushing pressures of this unseen power. After several minutes of excruciating contortions, the demons’ exanimate carcasses collapsed to the ground, crumpled beyond recognition.

Adrien perceived that the intense force that had just razed this expanse had departed. Nonplussed, his bewildered mind attempted to piece together possible reasons for this extraordinary occurrence that had surely prevented his death. He was sure a death in Hell would have set his soul wandering for the rest of eternity. The very idea chilled him. Noticing that he still no longer had control of his legs, he began to grow infuriated. He realized, however, that he could still control his torso. Exasperated, he pulled the shotgun from it’s holster in his pack and attempted to pry his legs loose, somehow, from their invisible roots that fed to the ground to no avail.

“Goddamnit, what the fuck is going on here?!” Adrien snarled. “I’m sick of this shit…I want to find someone, a human being. Isn’t their a single fucking human being in this shit hole?”

As he gingerly slid his shotgun back into the pack, he began to cry. He cried tears of desperation, of fear, of desolation and torment. Each bead of salty water slid down his whisker-covered cheek and into his mouth. It was now that he realized how absolutely hungry he was, and thirsty as well. Remembering that tonight, if time still applied in this Godless place, was supposed to be his sixth year anniversary with his wife, Jenna. Even though he couldn’t remember what tradition required him to get her for a gift on the sixth year, he simply bought her what was called a “communion box”. It was supposed to allow a person to connect with God via neural impulses and holographic images projected into the retinas with a direct hotwire.

While Adrien lost himself in recollection, his legs began to move, involuntarily…first the left leg, then the right. He couldn’t stop this incomprehensible locomotion. Slowly, he was making his way toward the canyon; he shuffled past the still-smoldering corpses of the demons, which had earlier pursued him. The bodies twitched violently. Blood oozed from the mangled mounds of flesh and bone, not a coherent feature amongst them all.

“What the fuck was that…that did this…?” Adrien whispered, as he was carried further to the mouth of the canyon.

Only several yards separated him from the brink. He could see into the canyon and realized that it was at least three hundred feet to the bottom. His feet stopped moving – he was at the very edge. Looking down, he noticed several lance-like protrusions rising from the floor of the gorge.

“…this doesn’t make any—“ Adrian was cut off as his legs, of a will not his own, sprang back and pitched him forward into the depths of the chasm…before he had plummeted half way down, his vision faded along with his consciousness…

Hell's Viscerous Reaches (part IV)

*To be worked on, by request*

I request you to work on it!

Meh, I hope there'll be more of a response yet, otherwise I'll be compelled to trash the stories.

gimme a weekend dude, I dont have time to read it now :P I'll read it on saturday ort friday. :P

Job said:

Meh, I hope there'll be more of a response yet, otherwise I'll be compelled to trash the stories.

I request you to work on the story because upon reading your story I got the satisfaction and happiness I usually feel upon reading an episode-story, but still felt a flicker of curiosity as to what could possibly happen next. Being left on a clinghanger is like suspence, there's an awkward silence and then you die. I do not like cliffhangers but I like the story so to complete my withered soul I implore, command and plead that you finish your story.
Hows that.

It's a well written story. I definitely would like to read another episode. I wanna know what happens next!

I'll work on the story as soon as my school schedule lightens up (which'll be soon if I've anything to say about it).