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!

I was flying. The stars all wrapped around me; the cold vacuum of space chilled me, though I remained alive. However, I had no time to ponder why my body’s pressure didn’t make me explode. This being because my speed increased, the stars twisted and warped and a large grey mass flew towards me. Or I flew towards it. Regardless, I soon paused to examine it, its silhouette massive against the canvas of space.

            The body ahead of me, though seemingly large, was actually rather small, not spherical, but rather oblong. Its greyish speckled surface bore semblance to that of a turbulent sea, frozen in time because of the innumerable craters scattered about. And behind it loomed a planet, the unmistakable red visage of Mars that whitened toward the poles.

            So I was looking at one of Mars’ satellites. Was it Phobos? Deimos? It was Phobos that had the awkward shape, like that of a potato—

            For the second time, I shot forward, towards the moon’s surface. Fearing that I’ll hit, I braced myself. Mars zoomed away and the stars disfigured themselves yet again.

            I opened my eyes.

            And then I saw that I was skimming the surface of the satellite, moving swiftly. Ahead there was an opening in the ground. My course was set straight for it.

            As I flew onward, Mars loomed ahead once more. However, its red was a deeper tone, its form more ominous and threatening.

            My eyes darted back down the canyon. It now encircled me; I flew between the chasm’s walls. And then I looked beneath.

            At the bottom was not the usual, dull moon surface. Rather, it was a fiery glowing red, unmistakably bubbling, churning lava. The molten rock swirled in beautiful yet dangerous patterns. In accordance with the flowing rock was a high-pitched sound that grew. As it augmented, I recognised it. It was the sound of thousands of human voices, screaming at once, drawing all breath from their lungs.

            The screaming grew. I tried to plug my ears, though I had no hands. I had no body. I had nothing, was nothing.

            I turned forward to see where I was going. Ahead of me loomed some new shape. It grew steadily, its ambiguous form finally taking shape.

            It was what seemed to be a gigantic human skull, though disfigured, perched atop what seemed to be a stone sphere. It was almost like a statue, a decoration. The jaw was missing, though it had some new additions. From the cracked, cream sides sprouted two massive horns, jet-black and contoured in like those of a goat.

            It grew more massive as I drew near, filling my peripheral vision. Soon, all I saw was the skull’s mouth, towards which I was headed. It had fangs, canines set among massive human teeth…

            I screamed. And my scream joined the thousands of other human cries—

            I woke up.

            And in quite a sweat, too.

            “Bad dream?” I heard Tim’s quiet voice from behind me.

            I turned around. He was sitting on one of the train’s seats, gazing somewhat dreamily at me.

            “Yeah.”

            “Same here,” he said. “Every time I go to sleep, the dream gets progressively worse. I can’t sleep anymore.”

            I nodded.

            “I’ve been thinking,” he said again mistily. “You sleep to rest. However, when I sleep, there’s so much moving, twisting… My mind is working so hard. I figure that it’s easier to rest by not sleeping.”

            “Yeah…”

            He sighed. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”

            Damn, I thought. We’re getting touchy. I was never good at this mushy stuff, the one where you had to make people feel better. It’s just not in my nature, never was, never will be. My personality (and job) doesn’t allow for it. It is this that contributed the numerous causes of my divorce. When I let some comment slip without my wanting, people consider me rude. But I’m not. I just can’t get soft and gentle. Sorry.

            “Semper fidelis,” I told him quietly. Carefully, I weighed my words.

            “Yeah,” he said, burying his face in his hands. “Well what good is honour anyway when all of humanity is about to go to hell. Literally.”

            “This is the exact reason why you should keep on, Tim.”

            He said nothing. So I spoke more.

            “We’ve come this far. We can’t give up now. And you can’t let your emotions obscure your goal, what you seek.”

            “But what am I to fight for?” he asked, finally looking up. “My friends, they’re all dead.”

            Oh crap. This was going from bad to worse.

            “Well, there’s, uh, nothing you can do there. But if you sit there like an idiot, billions more will.”

            But this did little good. I watched his reaction, his empty stare into the floor. No tears, no reddened eyes, no other Hollywood nonsensical junk. A simple stare into emptiness. And though his eyes remained focus into nothingness, his mind had gained focus. And it was this that got to him.

            “Come on, Tim. We’re almost there,” I repeated. “Don’t get all hopeless until we actually get there and see that it can’t be shut down.” Damn, wrong thing to say. I nearly slapped myself.

            But Tim laughed. “Boy, you’re a optimist.”

            “Always am.”

            But after that, I felt as if he poured some of his emotions into me; the back of my throat tightened and my mind was weighed down with consequences and events that happened and thoughts of what will.

            I tried being optimistic again. “And when we finally shut the portal down and this nightmare ends, we’ll be able to sleep again. This time is drawing near; I imagine that 24 hours after Mr. Weirdo here wakes up, it’ll all be cleared up, this entire mess. And then we go home.” However, I didn’t truly believe in those words.

            At last Tim snapped out of his sad state and back into his former self.

            “We’ll get a Medal of Honour, I bet,” he spoke excitedly. “For a service to all of mankind!”

            I nodded, though I thought it might be otherwise. We might still save Earth and be awarded some cross, but would we make it back alive to receive it?

            “Let’s hope we don’t get Purple Crosses,” I said jokingly.

Earth’s fate is a heavy burden.

            And at this point, it was settled on our shoulders.

*          *          *

Outside, the sun must’ve shone brightly, searing the icy Martian surface. However, there was no way that we could possibly know this simply by glancing at the long shafts and beams and metallic surfaces. The only gleam of light came off of the fluorescent lamps scattered about in logistical places and their reflections off of the numerous tubes and steel planes. If it wasn’t for our trusty timepieces, we would be totally unaware of the sun’s cycling.

            And it was exactly all these shafts, corridors, beams that led me to wonder. After all, the compound within which was the train that we had made our temporary residence was measured in square kilometres rather than metres. And we have been told that it was all built in 7 year’s time.

            Tim must’ve noticed my change in expression, from dreamy to sharply thoughtful.

            “What is it?” he asked.

            “I’ve been thinking about this whole place. The entire Martian base, I mean, but primarily this building we’re in right now. It’s gigantic! And the government has been telling the people that it’s all been built in 7 years. 7 years! Can you imagine the manpower, the machinery, the materials required? The government would suck tax-payers dry just to get all of this damn stuff to Mars, let alone build these giant compounds.”

            “So your saying that Patrick Leghale was not the first man on Mars? And that NASA lied?”

            “Maybe you’re right on the first part. But unless I am mistaken, even NASA might not be involved in this. They’re still honestly thinking that Leghale was first. These are government installations, and they’re not run by NASA, but by a totally different branch—”

            “Yeah, I know.” Tim interrupted. “UAC, Union Aerospace Corporation. But they’re not government-run.”

            “No, but they might have affiliations. Or maybe the UAC is just a cover-up over some government project. Perhaps the UAC is even its codename. Of course, I don’t have any factual evidence—”

            “Yeah, I’m not big on conspiracy theories.”

            “Neither am I. But the question remains: how and why did they build this gigantic place over the course of 7 years.”

            Tim said thoughtfully, “Maybe they did build it in 7 years. Maybe they did somehow muster up the money needed. But then the question becomes: why the rush?”

            “Yes, that’s a scenario—”

            Frederick groaned.

            Damn, I’m getting sick of being interrupted today. Tonight. Whatever. I checked my watch again to be sure that it was daytime.

            The scientist rubbed his head and pushed himself up. He seemed to come back to consciousness in very much the same manner as he did before. Of course, that time he had been out cold for several days. Bah, I’ve totally lost track of time.

            “What happened?” he asked groggily.

            “Well—” Tim began.

            I cut him off. Now it’s my turn to interrupt. “You had an accident.” I said quickly.

            “Accident?” he said stupidly.

            “Yes. You saw, uh,” my mind quickly facilitated a story. “Some bugs. Yes, there were some bugs, and you went to see exactly what they were.”

            “And what happened?” he asked half-wittedly.

            “You, umm, you tripped on a banana peel.”

            “A banana peel?”

            “Yes, and you hit your head.” I finished, satisfied.

            “But what was a banana peel doing on the ground?”

            I shrugged. “I dunno, all kinds of weird stuff lying around since hell started coming through.”

            “But a banana—”

            “Look, how should I know? Maybe some damn ape from hell dropped it there. Maybe some vegetarian imp. I’m telling you what—”

            “Alright, alright. How long have I been out?”

            “One night,” said Tim, with a look of mirth and amusement stretched across his face. “You have to tell us where to get off of the train. All the stations look the same to me. And the geniuses who built this place apparently didn’t bother with maps.”

            Frederick nodded and somewhat shakily hobbled towards the control cabin. Tim hung back.

            “What was that all about?”

            “Well,” I said. “We’re at a crucial stage in our, eh, mission. We don’t need any hard feelings at this point. Maybe I’ll tell him after he shuts the portal down and everything. Besides, I was bored.”

            Tim laughed. “Ok.” And he went up to get the train going.

            I remained there, staring through the pointless window rather purposelessly. Besides, it was pointless for me to squeeze my train-operating-challenged self in the already-crowded tiny cabin.

            The train budged and the beams and pillars I had been unconsciously staring at began to shift. They increased speed until all my eyes sensed was a mere blur.

            And then what better to happen? In front of the blur rose, almost comically, the butt-ugly face of an imp.

            I raised my shotgun but stopped myself.

            Jesus, I was starting to see things. There was no imp.

            Apparently, I needed more sleep. And maybe a nice black coffee afterwards. Then I wouldn’t be imagining monster parades.

            Maybe I’ll get lucky and confuse Frederick with an imp, I said to myself. Even though humanity will be screwed afterwards, I think it’d be worth it.

            Agh, I was being too hard on the guy. I was just suspicious. He hadn’t really done anything displaying the possibility of him being an evil entity sent from hell to spy on us or whatever.

            I was snapped back into our sportive reality as Tim had apparently put the pedal to the metal, as they say. However, it was the brake pedal.

The train stopped almost instantaneously. Maybe I would’ve marvelled at its wonderful brakes if I my face wasn’t thrown into the sad excuse for a carpet. Needless to say, this new development didn’t work wonders for my broken nose.

            Just as I slowly pushed myself up, Tim came strolling back, talking angrily to Frederick.

            “—To tell me earlier next time. If you had, you wouldn’t have hit your head on—”

            “Sorry,” retaliated Frederick, who had come out with a large portion of his head reddened. “But what could I’ve done? I mean, I recognised it too late… I’ve never ridden this train before, as I told you. I always walked—”

            “What’s going on?” I asked, running my fingers over my nose to feel the extent of my injury.

            Tim shook his head dismissively. “Frederick here realised that this was our stop one second too late. That’s why I had to make a rather, uh, drastic stop.”

            “I see.”

            “Yeah,” continued Tim. “Mr. Scientist went flying forward and hit his head on the glass pretty badly.”

            I nodded. “Did he break it?”

            “What, the head or the glass?”

            “The glass, I don’t very much care about his head.”

Frederick looked at me with a somewhat offended expression.

            “Nah, its Plexiglas. You’d have to have a head of lead and a whole lot of momentum to do that.”

            “Hmm, I hope we haven’t inflicted any lasting damage,” I said motioning at Frederick. “It seems that ever since we found him, all he’s been doing is hitting his head here and there.”

            Tim smiled. “No doubt with some help from you.”

            I shrugged. “True.”

            Frederick was mumbling something under his breath again. I distinctly recognised the words ‘Tim’, ‘brake’, and ‘idiot’.

Alright-ee then.

            Tim gazed through the doors.

            “I couldn’t stop it on time,” he said. “The first three carts are actually already off of the platform and into the tunnel. We’ll have to exit through the last wagon.”

            I raised my shoulders. “Whatever, let’s get going.”

            We did, though we were soon stumped. When I had sealed the last wagon after beautifully removing the imp off of it, I had done so quite tightly. Maybe it’s from that adrenaline rush thing you get sometimes. Tim suggested that he put the train in reverse and back out so we could exit out of one of the other carts.

            As he headed forward, the sound of breaking glass behind him announced that I had broken through the window and crawled around the wagon, back into the platform.

            He and Frederick followed.

            “Simple solutions are always the best,” I told them.

            Something caught my eye in one of the corners of the platform. It was thanksgiving as I found a box full of shotgun shells. Thank you.

            Tim looked at me enviously.

            “Don’t worry,” I said, slapping him encouragingly on the shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll soon find something for you.”

            As we entered a corridor leading away from the platform, we noticed something. The hallway turned. All we saw was an odd reflection in the metal panels, the unmistakable dancing yellow that meant a fire.

            “There must be a fire,” Tim whispered, “around this bend.”

            “This can’t be good. There shouldn’t be a fire, there’s no way there could be a fire. Is there any way around?” I asked Frederick.

            “You want to get there the shortest way, don’t you?” said Frederick rather sarcastically.

            I was just about to express my displeasure in his tone of voice, when Tim moved ahead. Naturally, I followed, my shotgun held ready. Frederick appropriately stood back.

            Tim and I both jumped around the bend at once, our weapons held high.

            There wasn’t a fire. There was something worse.

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