((I'm surprised no one else has posted their stories yet... Oh well. Anyway, I decided to put this one up instead of the Hellspartan story.))
The sound of water steadily dripping on concrete echoed through the hallways. A beam of light shone in the direction of the noise, the holder of the flashlight breathing a small sigh of relief when he didn't see anything in the darkness.
“Damn leaks...” The man muttered, shaking his head and walking down another passageway. He stopped dead in his tracks when he heard a loud squish. The flashlight flicked down to the sole of his left boot, which he had lifted to take a closer look. A patch of gooey slime was on the floor, and it seemed to be almost as powerful as glue when he tried to tug his leg free.
A small dribble of the substance on the floor trickled from the darkness above the man's head, oozing over his ear and down his neck. He froze, then slowly grabbed the handle of the pulse magnum holstered on his leg, activating the COM at the same time.
“Sir...there has been a definite containment breach.” The man, evidently a guard, said into his earpiece. His voice wavered slightly when he said the last two words. He felt more slime drip onto his body armor.
***
On the bridge of the science carrier, the next thing the XO heard over the COM before he could reply were the sounds of gunshots and screams of unadulterated fear. He switched it off, then turned around to look the Captain in the eye. The older woman nodded to him, her lips tight.
“Set a course that takes us into the nearest star, ensign.” The XO said to the navigator. “Send a message to the UNE High Command about the breach. Lock all escape pods--”
A sibilant hiss echoed around the spacious bridge, sending shivers down the XO's spine. Someone cursed under their breath in Mandarin. The navigator slowly typed in the commands for the ship to travel with all due haste to the closest star, his hands shaking.
“It has been an honor serving with you all.” The Captain announced, her voice firm and unafraid. No one responded, because in the next instant they were all dead.
*****
A buzz of electricity, sparks flying.
The echoing of grunts of pain in a small room.
“Tell us what happened next, Sam!” A black-clad woman said fiercely, her patience having grown thin.
“He walks in the twilight, basking in our fear.” The words emanated from his mouth as he babbled in a monotone voice. “He is everywhere and nowhere at once, watching all.” He was dimly aware of the growl of frustration coming from the interrogator.
“Put him back under.”
Arguing voices.
“I don't give a damn, his mind is already damaged. I knew what could happen if I started this. Start again.”
Vision becoming blurry, swirls around like water down the drain...
*****
“Let's move it people, we have a containment breach.” The Chief Engineer ordered, pulling on a safety helmet and walking over to a console overlooking the core. “Sam, help me lock the engine down. We don't want the ship to change course.”
“Yes sir.” Sam replied, glancing around at the chaotic movements of the mechanics and engineers in the massive space. He pushed his way through the crowd, then started climbing up the ladder to the platform above.
Just as he was about to pull himself up onto the steel grate platform, he heard what sounded like a thousand people inhaling noisily at once. The Chief looked back, startled by the sudden sound. Seemingly in response, the wall facing the console exploded, the shockwave catapulting the Chief Engineer flying away like a rag-doll.
The ladder buckled and collapsed, sending Sam crashing to the floor several meters below. He felt the breath burst from his lungs, but other than that he seemed remarkably fine. He rolled over and pushing himself up, then realized that a loud tuning fork was echoing inside his ears.
Sam shook his head, and was satisfied when the ringing died down. The core room was pandemonium. Everyone was screaming and scrambling for exits, while others inexplicably fought each other where they stood until the opposition was a gory pulp.
He looked back up at the hole in the wall, and saw a looming--
*****
“NOOOO!” Sam bellowed, struggling to get out of the machine. “YOU CAN'T MAKE ME! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!”
The woman sighed, then nodded to one of the doctors. The doctor grabbed a syringe gun and injected a more powerful calming solution into Sam's bloodstream.
“Now, what did you see?”
Sam's head lolled to the side. He giggled, somewhat childlike now that the serum was taking effect. “Even if I did...remember what it looked like, I still wouldn't tell...no, wouldn't tell you...”
“Fine. Tell me what happened after that. After you escaped the core room.”
*****
Sam gasped for air as he dropped to all fours, the doors siding shut behind him. The other person in the room, Greg, started pacing back and forth. He held a magnum in one hand.
“What...are we going...to do...now?” Sam asked, still taking in deep breaths. He had never run so far and fast in his life.
“Head for the escape pods.” Greg replied, blinking quickly. “The bridge didn't lock them yet, so we still have a chance to escape.”
“But what about the containment breach? Don't you think it could follow us?”
“I have no idea.”
The world flickered and distorted for a second. Alien images and words flashed in his mind, making him groan as he felt his thoughts flow weirdly. The next second, his sight cleared, and he was able to stand and face Greg, mouth opened as he attempted to ask his friend what had just happened.
What he did instead was duck as a pulse round fired at him from Greg's magnum. The other man's face had gone white, and his eyes were wide and staring.
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM!?” He bellowed at Sam.
“Do what?”
But Greg didn't seem to hear. Something was very wrong.
“You bastard, I'll make you pay!” He pulled the trigger again, but Sam dodged it and subsequently tackled him to the ground.
“Greg, it's me!”
“No, you won't take me! YOU WON'T!” With that, Greg tugged his magnum out from under Sam's weight and stuck the barrel into his mouth.
“NO!”
Crimson misted everywhere as half of Greg's head exploded. Sam shakily rose to his feet, then sprinted out the other entrance of the room.
*****
Pain, intense pain.
“Tell us what really happened with Greg.”
“I already did! He went crazy and tried to shoot me!”
More pain. Screaming. Tears blurring vision.
“I swear, I told you what happened!”
Still more pain, which brought on a murky darkness.
“Heilige Scheiße... He still denies it.” The woman murmured, glancing over to her datapad. It showed security footage from the supercarrier. The image became riddled with static at about the time the hallucination would have occurred, and became more fuzzy in the seconds after that. Even though the static made it hard to see and impossible to hear, she could still vaguely tell what was happening.
Sam dropped to the ground, then slowly stood. He pointed accusingly at Greg, who raised the magnum and fired. The shot hit Sam, but didn't seem to do any damage. The man then ran at his friend, body seeming to absorb another pulse round. Sam tackled Greg to the floor, then forced the barrel of the gun into the other man's mouth and pulled the trigger.
The woman blinked at what happened next, as it definitely hadn't happened the first time she witnessed it. Sam rose to his feet, then turned around to look her in the eye through the camera. The image became less distorted for a moment as Sam grinned, beckoned to her, then turned and walked out of the room.
She shook the disturbing image out of her mind, then looked over at the horizontal form of Sam, thin but strong straps holding him still.
“Start the procedure again, please.”
*****
Sam rushed through the halls, a stitch developing in his side as he panted and slowed.
“Hey Sam, what's happening?” A voice called from through an open door on his right. “...And why do you have blood all over your face?”
“I don't have time to explain!” Sam growled, looking over for a moment to see a small group of fellow engineers standing in the doorway, consisting of Harold, Jennifer, and Christopher. “If you guys want to survive, you need to get to the escape pods with me.”
“...Okay...” Jennifer said, eyebrow raised. “But--”
“There was a containment breach. Now come on, move your asses!” Sam barked, turning to continue running. After a second of shock, the others started to follow him.
*****
“Well, looks like he's back on track.” A black-clad man standing like a monument of obsidian behind his superior rumbled.
“Yes...so far...” The woman agreed. “Continue with the procedure...”
*****
“Dammit!” Shouted Harold, not looking back to see the security officer being gutted by that...thing.
“Over here!” Sam said, pointing to an adjacent hallway. The four ran down it, breaths long since become ragged. His throat was parched, but he couldn't stop. Not for a ways.
A few minutes later, they had sealed off a bulkhead behind them and stopped in a nearby laboratory to rest. Sam's head slumped back to the wall as he leaned on it, muscles aching from the constant running for his life.
“You know Jenn, you have never looked to sexy to me...” Harold said, coughing slightly.
“Really? Because...” Jennifer stepped over to Harold, then pulled him over for a firm kiss.
“...Guys, is this really the time?” Chris asked weakly. No answer came from the couple. He looked over at Sam, who shrugged helplessly. “Seriously, what the hell are you two...” His words trailed off when the two started ripping each others' clothes off.
“...Uh...” Sam could only stare in shock. Before he knew it, something had gone horribly wrong.
Naked on the floor, Harold started choking Jennifer. She responded in kind by slashing at his face with her fingernails, drawing long bloody streaks on his cheeks and forehead. It quickly escalated as they attempted to kill each other while--
“Son of a bitch, stop it!” Chris shook himself out of his dumbstruck state and leaped at the two, attempting to pry them apart. In retaliation, they grabbed him and started to claw and bite at him.
Sam backed away slowly as animalistic snarls of rage and screeches of agony sounded, the noises seemed to reverberate inside his skull. He turned tail and ran out the doorway, trying not to look back as his former friends ripped each other apart.
*****
There was a long pause in the small room.
“Damn.” The bodyguard muttered, face screwed up in disgust.
The woman didn't say anything, merely waving a terse hand at the operators of the machine Sam was strapped into.
*****
Pulse fire lit up the hallway as Sam passed by it. He didn't look. Not this time. He could still make out in his peripheral vision a small group of guards with their backs to him firing their carbines on full auto.
He cringed when he heard the most terrifying thing up to that point. A horrendous scream seemed to tear through the air, causing the particles to actually ripple and make it look as though he were underwater. The sound seemed to carry within it the primal sounds of terror, combining elements of every single living thing he could think of. It carried on for only a few seconds, but that seemed like lifetimes to him.
When the noise stopped, he scrambled to get to his feet, then continued racing through the halls. An explosion of force ripped through the floor ahead of him, flipping him into the air as the floor collapsed. He tumbled down to the deck below and felt something crack when he landed, probably a rib.
He got to his feet and started moving again, but he slower since two ribs on his right side were basically snapped off. He had no idea what was keeping the pain from overwhelming him, but for the moment he kept running.
Sam skidded to a halt when he entered one of the escape pod bays a short time later, and immediately made a beeline for the closest open hatch. When he reached it, he saw a security guard already inside. The man whirled and aimed his SMG at Sam, eyes wild.
“Stay back!” The guard ordered. His voice quavered as he edged further back into the pod.
“Woah wait, I just want to come with you.”
“No, take another one.”
“I can't! This is the last one!”
The guard swallowed before speaking again. “Then I guess you have to stay and die like the rest.”
Sam barely noticed the man's shadow distort weirdly. An insane grin appeared on his face before he dropped the SMG, turned to face the controls, and pressed the holographic key to launch the pod. The hatch on the pod must have been malfunctioning, because it didn't close before firing the pod into space.
The vacuum of space pulled at Sam, lifting him off his feet and at the gaping hole in the ship. He slammed into the emergency hatch before he could tumble into the void, the sliding halves closing just before any of his limbs were in danger of being sliced off. He crumpled to the floor, his side suddenly feeling like it was on fire. He also noticed that it felt a bit harder to breathe; one or both of his ribs must have punctured his lung, somehow.
Panting hard, he used a handle on the wall to pull himself upright while he thought about the next course of action. He should get down to the hangar. Maybe there was a shuttle he could use.
With that vague course of action in mind, he started off once more.
*****
“Alright, Sam.” The woman said in a slightly softer tone of voice. “Now tell me what happened when you got to the hangar.”
Sam moaned and feebly struggled against the restraints. “It...I don't.”
“Come on. It's not that hard.”
He sighed, vision fading into memory.
*****
Sam grunted as the large chunk of bulkhead fell away from him and into the hangar. He held a plasma cutter in his hands, the design reminiscent of a 21st century chainsaw. He slung the cutter's strap over his shoulder, then limped in through the gap. There were only two shuttled inside the hangar, and one was already warmed up and ready to go.
“Hey! HEY!” Sam yelled at the shuttle, waving his arms as he approached it. The door slid open, revealing a medical officer who held a small pistol in one hand.
“What?” The dark-skinned medic said tersely.
“What do you think!? Take me with you!”
“Sorry, but we're full to bursting. Can't take any more passengers.”
Sam was speechless for a second. “Surely you can cram another guy in there!”
“Like I said. Sorry, mate.”
The medic looked back inside and nodded to someone, then holstered the pistol in on his belt. He pressed a control on the side of the door, closing it. The shuttle lifted off, then started to spin dangerously. It veered up and smashed into the ceiling before turning upside down and careening towards the floor.
Sam was rooted in the spot as he saw the oncoming vehicle attempt to level out before smashing into the cold steel. It flipped, the cockpit hurtling straight at him. It slammed into him and the wall behind, shattering the cockpit window.
*****
The pain began anew. This time he actually started crying.
“I want to know the truth, Sam.”
“But I already told you...”
“Go deeper. See if he responds to this.”
The feeling of something penetrating his skull, causing immense pain. He thought he was screaming, but it may have been a trick of his mind...or a memory.
*****
Sam dashed at the shuttle door as quick as he could, mind clouded in rage. He tackled the medic and brutally twisted his head, the feel of bone crunching reverberating up his hands. The plasma cutter was pulled off his back, which he promptly activated. A blue-green cylinder came into existence and promptly went to work on sawing apart anything that was before him or otherwise attempted to hinder his progress.
When he finally reached the cockpit, he attempted to impale the pilot but only nicked the flight controls. He heard someone firing a pulse pistol behind him and felt subsequent flares of pain in his left leg and hip. That didn't stop him from bringing the cutter about and beheading the pilot.
The body slumped forward onto the controls, sending the vehicle sharply up. Sam let go of the plasma cutter and grabbed hold of the pilot's seat as the G-forces pulled down strongly. The next thing he knew, the shuttle crashed into the ceiling and started to spiral back down upside down.
Disoriented, but still aware that he needed the shuttle to get off the ship, he dragged himself towards the inverted control panel and grabbed hold of the steering yoke. The shuttle almost leveled out, then slammed into the floor. He was flung at the glass canopy, cracking it slightly.
The next thing he knew, the glass had shattered and he had tumbled out. He was bleeding from many glass wounds, and his left leg was pinned by the shuttle's nose. He choked down his pain, then yanked himself free. A scream of agony echoed around the hangar.
Sam wearily looked over at the second shuttle. He had to escape. Dimly, his mind drifted to the shuttle stuffed full of other people, and the blood that wasn't his on the clothes he wore. He pushed them out of his mind, his reasoning telling him he had no choice. He nodded, then worked on crawling to shuttle.
“Five minutes until impact with neutron star.” The female announcer voice calmly said over the intercom. The engines must have been damaged somehow, as at full power they would have hit the star far sooner.
Sam started pulling himself along quicker, not wanting to stay on the ship when it hit the star. His bloody forearms encroached at the sides of his narrow tunneled vision, each bringing him half a meter closer to the second shuttle.
At last, he was crawling up the ramp and into the main interior. He quickly maneuvered himself to the left and into the cockpit, where he pulled himself up and into the pilot's seat. He started the launch sequence and switched it to autopilot, as he didn't think he was coherent enough to fly the shuttle well.
A few seconds later, the shuttle lifted into the air, then roared out the hangar. Meanwhile, Sam had grabbed the medkit next to the seat and grabbed the small metal container of nanite injection. The needle extended with a small shickt when he flicked a switch on the side.
He wheezed as his lung became even more filled with blood, and he tasted copper in hiss throat and mouth. The container spun as he reversed his grip on it, then stabbed the needle into his side. The nanites immediately went to work on sealing the wounds and replacing the ribs, but the pain rendered him unconscious.
***
When Sam awoke almost a half hour later slumped in the pilot's chair, he felt that his still painful side was mostly healed. Unfortunately, the nanites deactivated after a set time; they weren't like the military kind, which lasted for years inside soldiers.
He also felt that his bullet wounds had been partially healed, and his crushed leg seemed to be on the road to recovery as well. He sighed, relieved he had survived. He set up a distress beacon to ping any ships in range, alerting them to his presence.
Then, he heard something shift behind him. He closed his eyes briefly, then slowly swiveled the chair around to stare at--
*****
Sam started crying uncontrollably this time. “He was there...I couldn't even escape Him... HE WAS THERE!!!”
The woman looked back her bodyguard. The muscled man shrugged in reply.
“There was no one else with you, Sam. We found you nearly comatose inside the shuttle.”
“No no no nonononono...you don't understand... If He doesn't want to be found, you won't see Him.”
“...Who is 'He', and what does he do?”
Sam started cackling, his voice becoming shrill. “You brought this upon yourselves. We awoke Him by tampering with the artifact. The one you ordered us to study.”
“How...how do you know about that?” The woman's voice sounded scared.
Sam merely continued to giggle darkly.
The door dented inward, causing everyone but Sam to whirl around. It was roughly fist shaped, but no human could dent that reinforced tungsten door. And yet dent again it did. The room actually shook slightly from the impact.
“What is that? What is that!?”
“I told you...you brought this upon yourselves.” Sam continued to laugh maniacally.
The blows came faster, more dents forming in the door. Everyone backed away, as if a meter or two of added distance would protect them better than the superhardened door. After about the fifteenth metallic crunch, the strikes upon the door ceased.
The bodyguard with a pulse SMG drawn stepped forward, eyes focusing with laser intensity on the door. Everyone heard the sound of countless people inhaling as one. The bodyguard barely had time to widen his eyes in surprise when the door shattered inward. He fell to the floor, blood spraying out from the wounds the tungsten fragments caused.
Sam started laughing as He entered the room. The female interrogator screamed in horror before choking on something and falling to the ground. The others in the room followed suit, crimson painting the walls as their bodies were flayed apart.
Sam had a crazed grin on his face the entire time.
Even long after he had been ripped to shreds.
What you gave us instead was more of a quiet chiller, which worked just as well because it was quite honestly so well-written. In the beginning of the story I seriously wished I could be Howard experiencing that place because you described it so well. The only reason Style isn’t a five is because you didn’t do anything fancy enough with the actual format of your story, it was just a bunch of plain paragraphs.
And not only that, but not all of our contestants were able to receive a fair Final Score due to confusion on behalf of the judges. First of all, Kill only got two scores, probably because he mentioned that he was doing this “just for fun”, but still it would at least have been nice if you guys could have graded his work instead of pretending it didn’t exist. And also, a couple of you neglected to grade Saber’s story, likely because he was banned. But notice how we graded Dart’s story anyway despite him being banned too? So Saber should have gotten equal treatment. It looks like he would certainly have been a serious contender for the top spot too. 
