The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 16: They Will Repent

When Kyra snapped back into reality again, she found herself at the beginning of a long room atop a platform. Stairs led away from her and she had enough of a view to tell that she had absolutely made the right call in not running from those damned skeletons. There were a good dozen hostiles in the area with her, spread out along the length of the rectangular room she was in. Mostly they were zombies, but she caught sight of a few pinkies stomping around as well. And they all recognized her right away. A chorus of roars went up as the zombies opened fire and the pinkies began coming towards the steps that would grant them access to her.

She aimed her shotgun and fired almost without thinking.

Although she missed the zombie by a hair, she did end up hitting one of the dozen and a half or so weird metal barrels that she vaguely recognized that were scattered across the room. It was one of the loudest mistakes she'd ever made, and a pretty lucky one. The second the slug shell connected the with metal drum, it straight-up exploded into a green cloud. And then the one next to it did as well, and the one next to that.

Within seconds, the entire lower section of the room was engulfed in green explosions, and she saw the monsters coming apart at the seams, being blown to bits as a result. She found herself laughing as she bore witness to the totality of destruction she had wrought with a single shotgun shell. The explosions went on for about fifteen seconds and when the toxic dust had finally settled, all she could see were pulpy, gory remains splattered all over the place. Now that the room was clear, Kyra took a moment to actually study it.

The Blood Labyrinth, it seemed, was constructed of that same pale green brick she'd seen earlier, with floors that vaguely resembled asphalt. Or maybe she was thinking of something else. The platform she had appeared on featured the gateway and one ugly fountain. It dominated the center of the raised area she stood on: an octagon of green brick with a rectangular pillar in the center. Each side of the pillar featured a really hideous face sporting curling ram horns, and blood spilled out of the mouth in a continuous deluge, where it pooled in the octagon and then ran out one side, traveling down a little stream that bisected the center of the room, terminating in a pool farther on. A pool of blood that was now littered with floating bits and pieces of monsters.

It seemed, she surmised as she kept looking, that the UAC presence here was a bit stronger. One corner of the upper tier sported a pair of bunk beds and a trio of workstations were pressed up against the wall, cabling running from them to the gateway. One of the chairs in front of the workstations was still occupied. A scientist sat in it, well, leaned in it really, his head to the side, a large crater in his temple from where he'd shot himself. She turned away from the corpse, finishing her sweep of the upper area.

The only other thing of note was a window cut into the left side of the room. That bloody light was spilling in through it. Reluctantly, she moved closer and looked out the window. The view was on a fucking blood pond maybe twenty feet down. There didn't seem to be any way into or out of it, save for the open ceiling, and the walls, which were nearly as high up as her present location, were made of more green stone and were crawling with thick gray creeper vines that twitched and spasmed periodically.

Turning away from the sight, she moved over to the stairs and began moving down, making her way along the little blood creek. As she got down onto the lower level, she saw that the creek didn't actually end in the pool. It was simply redirected, coming out the right side and going over a fall through a narrow hole in the wall near the floor. Near that hole was another window. She heard an unfortunately familiar hissing sound coming from beyond, as well as more gurgling. Peering through it, she quickly switched to her assault rifle.

There was a large room beyond and a flotilla of flying skulls were buzzing around overhead a trio of fiends. She immediately started popping the skulls as fast as she could, given that they were absolutely the most dangerous threat. The fiends shrieked and began hurling fireballs at her, but she sidestepped and ignored them best she could as the skulls started making beelines for her. She burst the last one, spraying the area with bleached bone, just before it managed to reach her, then she quickly turned her rifle on the fiends and put them down with quick bullets to the head. Letting out her breath in a long sigh, she reloaded and kept going.