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Creations of a Madman
Posted By: Commander Demitri Wolf<evo_343@hotmail.com>
Date: 14 June 2005, 6:36 AM
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He was in a dream, people floated past and waved to him with big grins on their faces. The smiles were warm and he returned them as he floated through the large green wonderland and the sun gently warmed his face. More people were flooding in and floating past him, Hello!, they called and shook his hand, he called back and bid them farewell as even more people appeared.
Trees sprung from the ground and clawed their way up through the sky, the rolling green tundra was dotted with them the moment he dared to blink. The sun shone through the branches of the monoliths and patterns of light danced with the dark under the thick boughs.
Suddenly a flash of white light blinded him; he rubbed his blue eyes and opened them, as the tinges of pallid colour dissipated from his sight he looked at the world through different eyes. No longer were there trees stretching beyond his gaze and hugging the atmosphere, now there were towering pillars of brimstone and fire that threatened to collapse at any moment.
Where there was once serene and beautiful scenery there was a twisted hellhole that housed geysers that spat blossoming spirals of flame. Thunderbolts and lightning tore through the ground and left a blank void through which the screams of eternity echoed.
The cheerful people were no more; instead the wasteland's residents were the living, and walking, dead. They opened gaping mouths to holler but were restricted, instead a faint moan resounded throughout the open land. Their bodies were as decomposed as a deceased wildebeest that had been torn apart and left for weeks for the vultures, though even they looked too disgusting for the birds of prey to devour.
Their cloths hung off them loosely and were scorched, torn and stained with blood, and they were moving in closer and closer. The many thunderstorms raging above him dropped their deadly flashes to the ground and struck down the monsters, though like them, the bolts were closing in on him.
A stray bolt hit the ground between his feet and a small crack formed, within seconds it had formed a fissure that stretched beyond his line of sight. The split widened and engulfed unsuspecting monsters; they plummeted for infinity in a second and hit the core with a flash of red hot magma.
He swayed and closed his eyes, he looked down and saw the monsters that had fallen climbing back up the sides, their rotting hands reaching out for him, he looked up to see another one lunge at him. He ducked and fell backwards, into the abyss.
With a scream he fell down and the monster still wrapped around his waist raised a maggot infested head towards him and smirked, he felt as though a red hot poker had been jabbed through his chest and gasped, "What is death?" The monster whispered. If the dead could be confused he would be, but there was no time; a second later he hit the core.
2251 Hours, January 6, 2553 (Military Calendar) /
UNSC Deep Space Station, DSS-09
Medical Officer Doctor Mark Keidis woke in a cold sweat, he tightened his grip on the M6C magnum concealed beneath the warm blanket as his bright blue eyes scanned the room for them, but there was nothing.
They, were the people who had slaughtered everyone on the DSS-09, everyone but him. He hadn't seen them but when he awoke four days ago to find the rest of the crew dead with gunshots in the backs of their heads, and not one self-inflicted, he had to presume that there was someone else aboard.
He locked himself in the station's empty morgue, the closest place he could find that he had access to, with rations, a flashlight, an emergency kit and the gun that he took from a dead soldier's holster.
With a sigh of relief he put down the gun and shut his eyes, attempting to go back to sleep, when he heard a clattering noise. His heart skipped a beat as his left hand grasped the gun and his right the flashlight. Shining the light in the direction of the noise he called, "Who's there, I have a gun!"
A shaky voice replied, "Lieutenant Damien Madock, I am unarmed." In the beam of the flashlight a man stepped out from behind a row of shelves, "And who might you be?"
"I might be a pilot, I might even be a Grunt in disguise, but I'm asking the questions here, so you shut up unless I ask you to talk or your brains might end up sprayed all over the floor." Keidis was shocked by his own courage and clearly the Lieutenant was too.
"How did you get on this station, how did you get in here and how the hell did you get that?" the doctor asked, using the gun to point to the Lieutenant's shoulder where a blood soaked sling supported his arm.
"I was shipped out from the UNSC Michigan, for insubordination towards my superior officer, the shuttle was pre-programmed to drop me off and head back to the Michigan two days ago. By the time I found out what had happened, the goddamned shuttle had already left.
"As for getting in here, air ventilation shaft, and the sling? I took a hit from a stray bullet before I was deported, Covenant borders had attacked and I was another victim of 'friendly fire', that satisfy you, chief?" The ell-tee had an attitude, no doubt what got him extradited.
The man wore naval uniform marked with his name and fit the profile of any other young, slightly rebellious officers; in other words he wasn't the killer. Mark nodded, "Take a seat." He said and Madock slumped down on the ground, wincing from the pain in his arm, "You should let me look at that." The doctor offered and Madock gave him a look that said, So you're a doctor?
"Yeah, I'm Doctor Mark Keidis, the station's med officer. Who ever patched this up did a terrible job, you're luck you didn't loose the arm. I'll get some supplies from the cupboard and fix you up, after all, you're the only other person I got here, and I don't want you dying on me."
2359 Hours, January 6, 2553 (Military Calendar) /
UNSC Deep Space Station, DSS-09
Mark had re-applied the dressing to the Lieutenant's wound and sealed him up with Bio-foam to keep him from bleeding out. "There you go soldier, good as new." He announced and let Madock move his arm around a little.
"Thanks." Madock replied and moved his arm in some simple callisthenics, "So you wanna tell me what the hell happened here Doc?" Mark sighed heavily and set down the medical instruments in his hands.
He looked up at Madock with tired blue eyes, "I woke up on Tuesday and found everyone dead, that's all there is too it." The Lieutenant asked why he was locked in here then, "Someone killed them, they could still be out there, I've tried to contact someone but all I get is static."
"Fair enough," the Lieutenant said, subtly reaching for the magnum lying on the ground behind them where the doctor had left it, "well it's been great talking to you doctor."
Keidis looked up again, "What do you mean, where are you going?" he asked inquisitively as Madock grabbed then gun and jumped to his feet, he kept it pointed at the doctor.
"Damien, what the hell are you doing, put the gun down." A disgusted look came over Madock's face.
"You did it!" he yelled, "You shot them, you killed them all!" Keidis looked fearfully up at the Lieutenant and shook his head, "You can't lie to me Mark, you can't lie to yourself; you know you did it!"
The doctor was reaching into his pocket for the second pistol when Madock shot him, once in the left shoulder, he let out a cry of pain and Madock shook the gun violently, "Sit still, just tell me why you did it and I'll let you go!" Again the doctor only shook his head and pleaded with the deranged man that he didn't do it.
"You're the only one left; there is no one else on this station, what does that mean? It means that you did it!"
Mark was terrified by now, the Lieutenant kept the gun pointed at his face and the yelling wasn't helping him either, he whispered something and Madock asked loudly what it was, "I said suppose it was you!" he yelled back.
"I'm not the only one on this station, you're here too." He grabbed the pistol with his right arm, drew, aimed and fired a single bullet into Madock's injured shoulder before the maniac could react. He dropped the gun and in an instant Keidis was on his feet with the gun pointed at Madock's head.
"The tables have turned," he announced through gritted teeth, the pain in his arm unbearable, "Now tell me who you really are."
Madock looked up at him with a blank expression and remarked, "Shoot me, for I am you and you are me, with my death comes yours."
"What are you on about, who the hell are you!" Mark yelled at him, but all the madman did was grin. Mark backed up and slumped down against the wall, he turned the gun and fired ... right into his own chest.
"Then now you shall share my death!" he called to Madock who was crawling over to the other side of the morgue, behind the rows of cabinets. A drowned out call flooded over to him as Madock the memory, along with its creator-the tortured mind of a madman-ceased to exist.
"What is death?"
1132 Hours, January 7, 2553 (Military Calendar) /
UNSC Deep Space Station, DSS-09
"I got two more stiffs up here Sam, we can stash them in the morgue now, just let me clear it." Commander Hamish Morgan of the UNSC Emergency Response Team slid his ID card down the morgue's electronic lock, with a ping the door unlocked. "The Captain said that SatCOM have been picking up a weak signal from this room since Tuesday afternoon, one voice talking." He kicked the door open.
Activating the flashlight on his MA2B, Morgan proceeded to scan around the room, "All clear Sam...wait, hold that." He spoke softly into his chin mike as the light fell over a blanket, he inched the glow upwards and discovered a solitary man staring right at him.
"Jesus," he muttered, "Are you alright? Can you hear me?" the man stared straight ahead, as if in a trance. Morgan approached him and holstered the gun; he crouched next to the man and removed the ID hanging around his neck.
Waving a hand in front of the man's eyes he reached for a small bright torch in his pocket and chucked the ID back to his partner, Lieutenant Commander Samuel Edwards. Shining the light in the man's eyes yielded no response, "Name's Mark Keidis, M.D., I'll check if there's anyone else here."
Morgan placed a hand on Mark's shoulder and finally his head tilted towards him, but it didn't stop, it rested on his chest and he fell forward. Slowly Morgan took the blanket from the man and sighed, "He's dead Sam, looks like he shot himself, guess we found out who did it."
Edwards came back from behind the cabinet and shone his gun mounted light at the body, a gun was rested in his right hand and a small splatter of blood decorated the wall he was propped up against.
"But he's also been shot in the arm, that can't have been self-inflicted; there was someone else here." A shiver went up his spine as he thought about it; Someone shot the doctor, and then the doctor shot himself.
"Hey Morgan, you better come and see this." Edwards called, he had returned to behind the cabinet, Morgan stood and followed him. Edwards was standing over what looked like a pool of blood, floating in it were several blotches of some white frothy substance; Bio-foam. "Check it out."
He pointed towards the wall; a trail of blood ran towards it and stopped, as Morgan raised his flashlight to the wall he saw bloody handprints and a pair of medical scissors lying on the ground.
Etched into the wall and painted in blood was a question that Morgan and Edwards would remember and ask themselves for the rest of their lives.
Edwards whispered something that Morgan couldn't quite hear and then turned to his partner, "There's no body, it was all Keidis; it was all in his head." Sam wished that he could believe the words he had just said, but knew he never would.
Mark Keidis' bright blue eyes opened and gazed at the world around him, it really was hell. Before him was the desolate wasteland of his dreams, this is where he would spend an eternity alone.
But he wasn't alone, for Madock was there with him; Keidis raised a gun to the young naval officer's head and smiled, "Death?" The sound of a gunshot rung loud, followed by a thud, "Death is only the beginning.
-CDW
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