Doom - Evil Unleashed 2.8

[dsm]

The Shores of Hell – Part 8

-

This scene caught me totally off guard.

I found myself materialized inside a small room with slime-covered marble walls, surrounded by grim decorations – dead goatmen hanging on the walls. There were four corpses on the walls surrounding me. Each of them had had their belly torn out and a huge slimy, green wound could be seen where their belly had been. What caught my attention in particular were the scratches in their skin, which clearly had been made by something even bigger than those goatmen. A chill went down my spine.
What could be powerful enough to kill four goat freaks like that? Cold sweat broke out on my forehead.
At the center of the small room was a short, gray metal pillar. There were four red buttons on each side of the pillar. I could see that those were once man-made, but they were currently in an infected state. I pressed one of the buttons and I heard a scraping sound behind me. I spun around fast as lightning. A small staircase to one of the walls with a dead goatman had been raised as well as the wall itself, revealing a passage to another room.

It was probably best not to press the other buttons as I didn’t want to risk being surrounded by whatever was waiting on the other side of the walls, so I stepped into the room, looking around cautiously. Straight ahead was an opening leading out to a large courtyard.
I noticed a heavy grunting sound, but I couldn’t place it, because it made echoes. I heard a deep snort and then silence. I peeked out into the courtyard and saw a group of those floating skulls. Looking to the other side, I found a similar group of fire skulls.
I noticed several pillars in the courtyard and I realized that the courtyard probably surrounded the building, from where I came from.
My Heads Down Display informed me that my plasma rifle was almost fully charged, which comforted me as I knew that I would be well equipped to deal with whatever terror was inhabiting this tower.

I leapt out of hiding an let loose a stream of burning hot plasma, evaporating a few of the skulls.

A deep otherworldly roar, echoed out from somewhere in the courtyard. The hoarse roar made my blood freeze in my veins. It sounded as if the roar came from everywhere at once.

I dropped down behind the pillar. My breathing was beginning to be difficult to control. I felt my heart pounding like never before and the sweat of fear ran down my face.
The sanded ground beneath me began to shake rhythmically and I realized that something big and nasty was heading my way and that the weight of the thing made the ground itself tremble beneath its feet. I could also hear it now – a rhythmic clomp-clomp sound of heavy feet, almost like marching soldiers, except that there was only one thing making the sound and that it was very heavy.

I clenched my teeth and leapt to my feet as I could feel the thing close in on me. I leapt out of hiding with a loud battle cry.
I froze in my tracks.

Moving steadily towards me and towering several meters above the ground was a huge, slightly goat-like monster – the biggest thing I had yet encountered. It had two horns protruding from the sides of its massive head; they both curved forward and looked very sharp.

It had a hole in its stomach through which I could see a mess of wires and intestines. Its skin looked as if the monstrosity was shaped out of rock – even though its skin color was the same as that of a human. Its left leg was substituted with a mechanical steel leg, complete with a solid-looking metal hoof. The creature was incredibly muscular – as if it was carved out of pure muscles.

The thing stopped a few feet away from me and raised its right arm – or rather the mechanical crane, which was supposed to be its right arm. I saw what looked like some sort of big metal box with a barrel fused to its robotic crane-arm pointing straight at me.

This was the moment where I reacted. I ran out of the way, just as the ground exploded where I had just been standing. I felt the force of the explosion behind me. One blast would definitely kill me.

I hid behind yet another pillar, trying to settle my insane heartbeat and myself. I looked at my plasma rifle. Since this thing was cybernetic, there might be a chance that plasma energy could cripple the thing easily, as it could mess up the internal circuit of the monster’s robotic parts. Disabling mechanical machinery was the kind of stuff that plasma weapons were extremely capable of.

I ran out of hiding, spraying plasma pulses at the approaching cyber-monster. The hot plasma sizzled and exploded on the creature’s enormous chest with bright flashes.
The monster growled with a deep rumbling sound and opened fire. Three rockets shot out of the cyborg’s “gun hand” and flew straight at me.
A rocket launcher! I thought as I leapt away. That damn thing has a friggin’ rocket launcher and it’s able to use it!
To my disappointment, my weapon had had little effect on the creature. A deep, annoyed growl from the creature had been the only result of my attack.
I could hear it approach my position. I rushed out of my hiding spot pumping energy cells into its open belly, while I ran in between its legs. The thing roared angrily, and fired explosive rockets in all directions, but it was too confused to fire in the direction where I actually was. I rounded a big marble block, one of the corners of the “elevator” building, with marble pictures of a big goat-like face, different from the smaller, yet still big goatmen, which I had already seen marble face pictures of.
Orange flowers of destruction erupted behind me as I threw myself behind the block.

I had hoped that shooting at the exposed mess of wires and intestines had yielded some results, but those wires were apparently protected against plasma somehow and that horror’s own intestines were seemingly made of something extremely solid. Also, the skin had to be very strong if it could withstand so much burning plasma. Then it dawned upon me that the monster might as well be magically protected, as I knew that only few materials could withstand several hot plasma pulses for this long.

A chilling screech behind me made me turn around and pull the trigger of the plasma gun. Another flying skull evaporated a few feet away from me. “Damn, these annoying things are here to make life a bitch for me too!” I swore out of the side of my mouth. I had forgotten that I had already encountered a few of those ghostly skulls here and that more of them might be around.

And indeed more of them were around, as I saw a small group of them approach from a doorway in the building. I ran towards the door, while blasting the skulls to oblivion.

Inside the room I saw the ruined remains of a marine. Moving closer, I recognized the marine as Moore. Her legs had been blown off, doubtless by the cybernetic terror outside, and she wore a terrible expression of fear and agony on her lifeless face. I found her rocket launcher loaded with a few rockets a few feet away from her and some more ammunition for the weapon on her corpse.

I had just equipped myself with Moore’s rockets when I heard the heavy ‘marching’ of the “cyberdemon” drawing closer to my position. I made a run for the nearest pillar outside the building.

I had almost reached the pillar when an explosion rocked the pillar and tore out a huge chunk of marble rock. The marble piece fell down and almost landed on top of me, but my instincts reacted before I did and made me throw myself aside. The force of the heavy marble piece pulled my legs away beneath me and the plasma rifle left my hand. I saw as the weapon flew in a shallow arch before landing a good distance away from me with a metallic clatter.

Looking up, I saw the huge monstrosity towering above me. It stopped. I rolled behind the pillar and onto my feet, stumbling as my equipment made it difficult to perform a proper roll, and only just avoided the explosion of the rocket that the cyborg creature fired at the ground. However, the force of the explosion sent me to the ground again. Luckily, my armor vest kept me safe and the blast didn’t send me into view of the gargantuan beast.

Leaping back behind cover, I quickly prepped the rocket launcher, launched a few rockets at the terrible goliath and ran for the next pillar.

I stepped into view, launched three rockets into its ugly mug, blinding it briefly and moved out of the way. My last attack had blinded it briefly and it hadn’t seen me run past it and drop down behind a pillar behind it. Peeking around the marble pillar, I noticed how it looked around with its evil, burning eyes. Searching. Trying not to make a sound, I waited until it had turned its back on me. I noticed how the monster opened and closed its enormous, clawed right hand. Its claws were a disgusting poison-green color and seemed razor sharp. It growled with a deep rumble, which I felt rather than heard. It swept the area with its burning gaze again. Then it roared in frustration. A terrible sound from another world, which made the ground shake beneath me.

When nothing happened, it turned its back on me. I leapt out of hiding and sent as many rockets into its back as I could before it turned. It roared with pain as several explosions scorched its back and it turned around.
Aiming at the hole in its stomach, I constantly pumped rockets into the thing, while running right past it, avoiding the rockets which it sent at me. I ran across the courtyard, zigzagging between the pillars and rounded another marble face block.
I heard an inconsistency in the otherwise rhythmic sound of its marching hooves and as I peeked around the corner, I noticed a few blue sparks from the hole in its stomach.
I smiled broadly as I realized that the thing was badly damaged as I couldn’t help noticing that it was limping and that it bled from several open wounds.

I stepped back and waited for the monster to round the corner. A few of its rockets hit the ground at the corner and exploded in fiery flashes. The monster apparently tried to clear out the ambush, but thankfully, I was several feet away from the explosions.

As the “cyberdemon” stepped around the corner, it was immediately met with explosive rockets. I aimed at its belly, because that was clearly its weak spot. It roared in pain and frustration and sent a few missiles at me to no avail. I had learned its weaknesses and had taken over the fight. Hit-and-run tactics seemed to work on this beast. Unfortunately, I had just run out of rockets, so putting some distance between me and the gigantic thing was probably the smartest move now.

-

Having run away from the creature, I managed to get to my plasma gun again and quickly picked it up. I was glad to see that the gun hadn’t been damaged. I could hear the monster's marching hooves, but couldn’t tell where the sounds were coming from.

The thing suddenly rounded the corner a few feet behind me. Getting a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye, I spun around and pumped energy cells into its belly, when the monster suddenly let out a deep, agonizing roar. Before I realized that I had won, the monster disappeared in a flash of several small explosions. Its body shriveled up, and metallic pieces were strewn everywhere. I threw myself to the ground, trying to avoid the flying metal.

All went silent.
I raised my head and saw that all there was left of the once horrific monster was now just a bloodstained hoof and a pool of stinking red blood.
I had done it.

I slowly rose to my feet and looked at the remains with satisfaction.
“Have a nice trip to Hell, freak!” I said aloud.

I put down my weapons, except the plasma rifle, which I kept on my back, and mounted the tower’s “elevator” building. There were lots of cracks in the wall so it wasn’t too difficult. When I reached the top, I stood up and looked around.

“No…” I whispered.
“This isn’t true!” I cried in despair. “This can’t be happening, this must just not be happening. This place doesn’t exist!”

I could see what lay below Deimos from where I stood and what I saw was immensely terrifying. A whole plane of torment. I saw blood-red smoke rise from several enormous cracks in the unbelievably unfriendly landscape of sharp, spiked rocks hundreds of meters below Deimos. Several mountains were carved out and shaped as skulls and I noticed whole seas of burning rock and fire or of a red liquid which looked like blood. What I was looking at was indescribably terrifying and evil.
No human had ever seen this horrific sight and returned alive to tell about it, but I instantly knew what this forsaken place was. The sight was enough to instantly strip me of my courage. No human soul had ever escaped from this place…at least not that I had heard of.

I was looking at Hell itself.

...

[JavaGuy]

Encore.

[Insomniak]

Indeed, a good story...

BTW, was there ever a 2.9 story?

[dsm]

Insomniac said:

Indeed, a good story...

BTW, was there ever a 2.9 story?

Uhh?
This is 2.8 so if there was a 2.9 it would come AFTER this one. Are you referring to the secret level? If that's the case then I'll have to remind you that I don't write a chapter for each level - I wrote two chapters just for E2M4 because there were some important events that took place there.
Besides, I don't take secret levels into consideration in my story, sorry.

But there wont be a 2.9 story - the next episode will begin with the next chapter.