''We Discovered a New Island in the Pacific Ocean'' | MAYBE THE BEST STORY I’VE EVER READ

it's time to sit back and relax with your favorite drink and listen we discovered a new island in the pacific ocean i'd rather die than go back there [Music] whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word understanding i was laying on my back in a calm and serene sea gentle waves lapped against my body in warmer sunlight shone up on my face i couldn't be quite sure just how i got here but this place seemed only relaxing in a way at least for the time a distant chirping or perhaps clicking filled the void of sound i let out a gasp and took in my surroundings the white yellow light of the sun slowly but surely faded to a muted blue tone as the rest of the sky began to darken and the water around me started to shift from a crystal clear aquamarine to a dark ugly shade of maroon radiating out from the size before engulfing my submerged and helpless body indescribable pain shot through me i knew i had to wake up wake up my eyes snapped open and i quickly leaned over to grab the television remote to turn off the channel that had apparently been playing all night it was the worst nautical catastrophe to strike the pacific even the world since the disaster that hit tohoku japan in march of 2011. over 13 000 civilians dead in 12 countries with the most severely affected locations in the state of hawaii and the insular nations of papua new guinea and the marshall islands and infrastructure damage as far away as sydney australia as the united states and several pacific nations reeled from this inexplicable tragedy i stretched back in my recliner and halted the daily stream of news that had been pouring out of my television and into my ears i had heard but not exactly listened to the variety of pundits assigning blame to various personalities and agencies the hall tsunami named after the hall islands where the tsunami first made landfall and remained plastered on my tv newspaper and internet home pages was all anyone ever talked about in the past week especially in my home of auckland new zealand the truth was not a single living soul could have predicted just why or how this event could have taken place and i was one of the few people on earth was to become privy to this knowledge i'd always known it might take a while for my masters of science in cellar microbiology to pan out but it had always been a stark passion of mine ever since my family's move out here in the middle of the largest body of water on earth and although my parents had long ago moved back to the united states i decided to stay in the islands and pursue my interest in the fascinating life forms found here products of millions of years of isolated involution upon learning of the small and harmless flightless avian species of the kiwi that provides the nickname for locals around here and comparing it to the gargantuan mower bird that towered twice as high as a man and is rumored to even have hunted human children before his extinction new zealand truly had a firm grasp on my attention as a microcosm of evolution for a variety of species across the animal kingdom even the natives of this strange and remote island were of great interest an entirely unique culture nearly wiped out from the history books when exposed to an invading force of warfare and disease my shoddy fifth floor one room apartment wasn't exactly the peak of glamour which is why i jumped at the opportunity to make something more of my meager existence no wife no kids no family very few local friends to speak of so what did i have to lose when i was contacted on november 13th with the author of a very lucrative very taciturn job regarding the whole tsunami i was working in the biology center at the university of auckland when i was approached with the offer they were americans from what i could gather same as me their presence and demeanor demanding a certain aura of respect you just don't see outside of the military or law enforcement personnel i was informed that i wouldn't be fully informed of the exact extent and specifications of the mission until i met with them at the american consulate general down the street and agreed to their conditions and i packed my bags that very night so um you're telling me the whole tsunami is some kind of supernatural event i inquired a few minutes into my briefing with the same gruff looking man who'd met me the other night at the university not supernatural it just appears to be caused by forces outside of the realm of what we consider normal what it is exactly we're not sure which is part of the reason your team will be investigating the epicenter of this event he responded in a somewhat short tone yes sir but with all due respect and i'm not sure if they informed you of this i'm a biologist specialized in cellular and microbial life marine biology is not my field of expertise you won't be examining the sea we already have a separate team that will be dispatched for that in the upcoming days after meeting up with you on the ground we've discovered a small landmass that surfaced near the epicenter of the tsunami that we've designated ul 1052 i stared at the stoic jar head incredulously contemplating whether this was some kind of hoax or not it's not volcanic in origin and it doesn't appear to be seismically active it's an ovoid-shaped island roughly 3.4 by 1.4 miles across around 3.74 square miles in land area with no significant surrounding lagoon or atom fairly flat in shape but estimated to have a sloping concave topography that rises 50 maybe a hundred feet i attempted to swallow this bizarre information that was just foisted upon my mind but we have maps and satellites and gps islands don't just appear on our planet out of nowhere i was growing noticeably more nervous and sweaty by this point well this one did he responded in a seemingly collected and unfazed tone that told me he delivered this information to many before me you don't think it's from space like an astr extraterrestrial unlikely considering we would have noticed a four square mile rock flying into earth's atmosphere an asteroid of that size would be world ending to say the least we know that it surfaced at the precise pinpoint center of the tsunami down to the decimal point we know that weather tidal patterns and ocean currents all remain relatively standard for this time of year before the whole tsunami and the emergence of the island i was at a loss for words if what he said was true it would completely revolutionize our understanding of geology and plate tectonics there can be major shifts along fault lines that cause massive changes in elevation along the sea floor and there are even cases of volcanic islands sprouting up in extremely short time periods but an island large enough to create such a tsunami simply appearing in the middle of the ocean certainly new to me and i imagine most mainstream biologists as well your flight leaves this friday at 0 500 hours you'll be on a commercial flight out of auckland to honolulu from there you'll be taking a charter flight to wake highland where you'll rendezvous with the rest of your team the navy will be escorting you and 15 other members to the epicentre miles southeast of wake island where you'll conduct your select research and exploration that's been assigned to you for two weeks after which a check of 350 000 dollars will be wired into your bank account i read aloud the nda he'd handed me at the start of the briefing the disclosing of any details of said assignment on ul 1052 or dissemination of any classified information gathered before during or after your contract is expired will result in will result in death under the espionage act of 1917 and sedition act of 1918. yep that's correct any rumors of said mission or landmass being circulated online or in the media would be denied by the us navy and air force and those spreading that information will be treated as criminal foreign assets and dealt with accordingly hawaii couldn't get to me any sooner truth be told my nine hour flight seemed to drag on forever as my heart pumped and my legs thumped in unison the entire duration of the flight out of a mixture of excitement fear and anxiety although the money was a great bonus my main motivation was possibly being part of one of the greatest biological and geological discoveries of the 21st century couldn't help but stare out the window into the pitch black abyss of the ocean that surrounded my plane and wondered just what could have emerged from his deaths i was never one to be too terribly afraid of swimming or water but something about deep oceans rivers and lakes always unnerved me ever since i'd learned about some of the more unsavory prehistoric leviathans that dwell where human eyes were never meant to view them upon arrival in honolulu didn't take me long to meet with the suits or rather for them to meet up with me nevertheless obtaining my bags after landing was still the usual pain in the earth guess there are some things even mass government surveillance can't fix he only had a couple of hours to catch up with our fellow crew members at hickam air force base before we took off but it was honestly more than enough time since there were only four other passengers on our plane much to my surprise strangely enough i appeared to be the only american or at least the only american-born member there as i learned quite quickly that the first co-workers of mine that i met singer and kikana was south african and just so happened to be husband and wife before you get the wrong idea singh began shortly after he was introduced to me my wife was actually the first to be contracted it's a good thing that i came highly recommended in the field i probably wouldn't have gotten this job singh began to ramble on over just how long and why they'd been working as anthropologists in hawaii for what seemed like ages when i decided to introduce myself to the large and i do mean large man that was sitting across from us in the aircraft hangar you must be um security i asked making eye contact with the hulk of a man no he quickly interjected with a slight eastern european accent marine biological scientist i quickly apologize for my error introduce myself and slither down into my chair in embarrassment of my somewhat prejudicial assumption that siminoff appeared to more or less laugh it off replying it's not just you little man with the glasses that can be smart or not the last of my co-workers to arrive at the hangar sofia a petite filipino geologist was also likely the most pleasant and the only one to introduce herself to me i found out she was one of the youngest members there only a couple of years older than myself at 29 and maybe i would have gone for the phone number had they not confiscated our cell phones upon entering the base it'd been quite a long time since i'd had any sort of serious relationship or interaction with the opposite sex if i was being honest with myself hey did you take a look at that simon guy sophia riley whispered into my ear when we boarded the plane it's gotta be at least six and a half feet tall it looks just like arnold schwarzenegger you know the actor there's no way he's our marine life expert i merely gave her a smile and a nod as i took my seat glad to see at least someone had a sense of humor i was informed that the rest of the crew was already waiting for us at the air force base on wake island most of whom had already charted a flight directly from the mainland united states and hence we were to depart almost as soon as our arrival on one of the most remote islands on the planet our remaining crew was just about what i was expecting for an expedition such as this including myself we consisted of two biologists three anthropologists four geologists four military personnel and survival experts and three miscellaneous experts focused on archaeology paleontology and whatever other fields the us government had deemed might be in any way tangentially relevant to our mission i think we'd all end up being lifelong friends after this astounding and groundbreaking opportunity i wasn't yet sure of but i knew for one i wasn't going to treat this as a vacation they paid us they paid us handsomely for a reason whether we were the absolute best or most professional scientist in our field wasn't important after getting to know some of the other passengers on our half-day-long naval escorts it didn't take long for me to realize that nearly all of us on this mission had one thing in common we had no families few friends and many more connections back home i was just a glorified intern when i was contacted by the g-men simenov was unemployed sophia had only just finished her master's a more eccentric anthropologist alan was participating in this strange new trend where millennials live in their vans and travel across the country most of the other crew members didn't really seem to have stable jobs from those that i spoke to and none had children this would no doubt ensure our utmost concentration and devotion to this reasonably short expedition before the next team would be brought in i knew that in the marines this kind of mentality takes months of training to achieve but hand-picking the loners and outcasts of society sped that process up exponentially for most other more integrated members of society they might hesitate before risking their life to save a member of their crew if they had kids or loved ones back home that it's if the mission even came to that point one of the archaeologists rick wouldn't stop talking about how the money he was going to make from this mission was going to fix his failing marriage with his wife back home i imagine an added bonus is that very few people will come digging in the case of any uh disappearances on the mission considering we were forbidden under penalty of death or informing any outside parties to our whereabouts for the next two weeks i had no doubt that the only reason singh had been conscripted in the first place or so that he wouldn't come looking for his wife if anything happened to her but i certainly wasn't going to tell him that it was a slightly unnerving revelation to say the least but understandable nearly everyone crowded around the bow of the ship when someone managed to peek just the smallest speck on the horizon i hadn't been sure what to think when i first heard of it but i stared slack-jawed as we grew closer and closer discovered the island was not made up of basalt or other volcanic stone like i would have expected but nearly enveloped in a canopy of green grasses washes and trees covered this spectacle of nature and had i not known better i would have thought we were back in hawaii how is there i mattered to sofia before trailing off i don't know she replied without losing her gaze towards the island clearly understanding what i was going to ask her the ship's dinghy was dispatched when we were about 600 yards offshore in cycles of four randomly assigned groupings i was somewhat disheartened to hear that sofia would be among the second group of four to be dropped off at the island well i was among the last i suppose my masculine instincts weren't entirely dead but the security team who were the first to be dispatched assured us that when they established a perimeter set up base camp it'd be just as safe there as it was on the boat they set off around 1pm that afternoon seemed like hours before the dinghy returned empty of supplies and ready to pick up the second assigned grouping i'll see you there sophia assured me as she siminov rick and another i hadn't yet made myself acquainted with clamored into the minuscule vessel and soon set up it was another 30 minutes before the next set of names were called off and naturally another 30 before the last shuttle of the day arrived malin singh kikana and i climbed in for what may not have been the most treacherous boat ride of my life but it certainly felt like it with my heart thumping away and my stomach churning at every wave i was a bit hesitant to climb ashore for one reason alone always hated the feeling of wet sand getting into my shoes but i sucked it up and stepped onto this virgin soil untouched by mankind for who knows how long maybe all of history out of all the sights i took in while wagner one of the more burly soldiers escorted us through the jungle was just how normal most of the flora appeared around us luscious green vegetation palm trees with ripe coconuts ferns that were so densely placed it made it almost impossible to see more than a dozen yards in any direction postcards didn't even look this pristine however during our short ten minute walks through the jungle i began to notice them the spires large red rocks jutting out from the surface every so often from what i could tell they were maybe four feet wide at the base and roughly 15 feet tall gradually tapering off once they left the ground colored a rather vibrant hue of orange red what are the structures for i asked while motioning to one of the spires i don't know wagner replied they were already here before we arrived they're spaced apart all over the surface of the island do you think they're natural man-made perhaps look kid i'm just here to keep you all from drowning or getting poison ivy i don't have a damn clue why this is i took a mental note that some crew members were certainly appearing to be more reliable than others and kept pace with my equipment in hand as all four of us that had just arrived on the island gazed in all this alien looking landscape as our hake ended and i set my eyes upon base camp i was pleasantly surprised with how much progress had been made in the past few hours since the first dingy was dispatched i'm used over the bizarre situation i found myself in for only a minute or two before joining in conversation with some of the other researchers sophia explained to me that although pillar or spire-like structure is made out of rock do indeed exist in nature it's almost unheard of to see them spaced out so evenly apart leading us to the only logical conclusion that they had to have been man-made as we talked i kicked around some of the barren soil around my feet a bad habit i acquired while in the field staring bewilderedly at the others but who could build such structures on a sunken island i asked the rest of the crew with emphasis on the sunken bit and this far out as well kikana suggested that perhaps some great seafaring people had populated the island generations ago only to have it sink due to shifting plate tectonics before having re-emerged after the recent whole tsunami but she was quickly shot down by the geologists who revealed it would have been impossible for an island of this size to disappear without the whole place sinking or the sea levels rising which would have heavily affected the neighboring islands as well it was at this point that i noticed that i was no longer kicking up a cloud of brown dust and debris but rather felt my shoes scuff against something solid perhaps only a few inches below the layer of topsoil i looked down and saw red stone staring back at me i reached out to touch it with my hand it was smooth hot and somewhat porous and more or less matched up with the texture found on the spires that littered the island sofia and the other geologists looked as puzzled as i was upon closer inspection of the stone claiming that they couldn't quite pinpoint exactly what type of rock it was but that it didn't appear volcanic in origin i think this answers the question of whether they're man made or not sofia chimed in much to the team's agreement but how did they fall she bent down and scraped at the red rock with a knife finding it quite easy to grind into a fine powder wow why don't we try taking one of the pillars down with a sledgehammer we could analyze the core and determine its properties and mineral components rick eagerly interjected oh ho call it i started out for all we know this could be one of the world's next unesco world heritage sites or one of the seven wonders of the world we're not sledging anything digging wasn't necessarily out of the question yet due to the relatively shallow layer of soil covering the bulk of the island and the soft porous stone found beneath it but we agreed to split up and scout out first the perimeter of the island starting the next morning and then explore deeper into the heart of the island in the upcoming weeks we'd landed on the northwest side of the oval-shaped island which was tilted at a 30 degree axis in respect to the equator splitting into teams of two each of us were to circumnavigate the perimeter of the island and meet back at the pre-marked entrance to the base camp on the other side of the island before sundown in six hours i was assigned with that meat head wagner another shorter soldier named perez along with simenov who by now was actually beginning to grow on me sophia much to my delight singh kikana and alan we were the team that was to circle around the coast counterclockwise which at an average brisk walking speed shouldn't have taken more than a few hours that night as i was busy dreaming and fantasizing about what kind of wondrous discoveries we'd make couldn't help but experience a distinct feeling of dread in my dream dark raindrops pelted my body from the sky which had quickly shifted to a gnarly blue color slimy dark tentacle slithered across the ground in every direction wrapping around every living thing in its power i recognized that i was dreaming but the fear was quite palpable as i could feel the sensation of every drop of dark liquid hitting my skin and rolling down my arms wake up my eyes creaked open i was thrilled to discover that i was the first that had roused in the early hours of the morning when the sun was still barely peeking over the horizon but this excitement quickly dissipated upon the realization that i'd have to wait until the rest of my squad awoke i could have attempted to go back to sleep but what would be the point considering i'd have to wake up in a few hours anyways and i highly doubted that i'd be able to calm my nerves enough to get some shut eye before then anyways with that amount of time i could walk across the entire island by myself and be back before anyone noticed and it was with that thought that i quickly rationalized what i do next uh if there's anything i hate about tropical climates it's the humidity sweltering boiling stuffy humidity that makes your skin tacky and unbelievably moist in the twilight hours when stinging threat rolled into my eyes and made it nearly impossible to see i look back at the miniature flat i had back in auckland with fogness as even the sun the mud grime and insects couldn't compare to the the insects my thoughts interjected it wasn't until now 5 30 a.m trekking down the beach that i finally noticed the raucous buzzing in the worst of locations i wonder just why it had taken me so long to notice the little devils considering the creeping itching sensation i felt quickly resonating across my forearms and shins i looked down to discover a plethora of small red bumps littering my skin the funny thing is out of all the mysteries i expected to encounter on this strange little isle the common mosquito definitely wouldn't have been high on the list but i suppose if other terrestrial flora had somehow appeared on the island and it wouldn't be entirely out of the realm of possibility to assume that terrestrial fauna would as well this realization made me seriously ponder what other animalia or possibly extinct animalia one could find on this long forgotten rock it didn't take long to imagine myself getting ripped to shreds by some giant mutated gila monster while being constricted by a stealthy python before being forced down its horrible gaping gullet before my mind snapped back to reality and i dismissed these silly assumptions was my solitary daybreak hike along the beach an incredibly selfish and possibly foolish action to take perhaps the latter definitely the former but just like a child on christmas eve i couldn't help but to gorge some of my more curious instincts before the main event i picked up a small stick and much like a small child began to swing wildly at passing branches bushes and leaves imagining myself as some great explorer of old slashing through the jungle i was so preoccupied with this monotonous juvenile task that i almost didn't notice the discolored patch of water that peated out from a large rocky outcrop which i was about to pass i stopped in my path to take a better look it appeared to be a slightly lighter patch of blue water that seemed most intense near the side of the rocks rather than the open ocean in the dim light of the morning sun it made it difficult to distinguish but it didn't take me too long to realize the discoloration in the water was not caused by a reflection or something inside of it but rather by a light and it certainly wasn't coming from the sun which should which had actually risen on the opposite side of the island from where i was i cautiously approached this large stony hill jutting out into the water amused over what could cause this luminous path whose greater source still remained obscured by the edges of the rock i considered the possibilities of another intrepid explorer from our expedition who might have left a little earlier than i had bringing a flashlight with it more perhaps a small vessel that part itself beneath the shade of the rocks and still had its lights on as soon as i rounded the corner and saw what was in the rocks i threw down my stick and i ran yes yes alan you heard what i said you speak english don't you i bloated out a bit more harshly than i would have meant for it to come off my agitation was a bit unwarranted considering i was shaking my tent make awake around two hours before we were scheduled to get up but after the third time he gruggily slurred out what with his eyes half open her mouth hanging at gate i was nearly at my wit's end alan i woke up a bit early to see if i could learn a bit about the trail we were scheduled to go on today when i found this huge rock on the edge of the shoreline and in that rock facing the ocean was a cave so what he quickly responded before attempting to turn over and lazily swat at me with his hand a cave with a goddamn blue light pouring out of it that woke up his curiosity a bit even if his mind was still halfway in dreamland he finally slumped forward and sat up in his sleeping bag before replying are you sure it was from the cave only one way to find out by reading their faces some of the crew were personally suspicious of me some were curious but almost all were skeptical of my claims of a glowing phantom cave they attempted to explain my reasoning further as to why we needed to leave as soon as possible instead of at the scheduled 9 a.m look we don't know if this is some kind of natural process that occurs on this island and how long it's going to last he could have dissipated by the time we reached there this afternoon i'm not skipping breakfast she went off sad as he unfolded his arms and picked up one of our pre-packaged mres ok i'm ready to go now he corrected himself before kneeling down and picking up a second package kid you're not thinking straight let's all get our heads on right before we start breaking not only our schedule but also our protocol that smug and unreasonably calm soldier wagner assured me as he put his hand on my shoulder a bit too tightly for my liking you i proclaimed an about of nerves and excitement why haven't you radioed this in yet you need to inform the higher-ups now we don't have the proper equipment for a full cave exploration and we need to get to it sooner rather than later i for one really want to see this cave sofia pitched in who else wants to see which ecosystems would develop in an isolated cave that already lies on an isolated island lights in those caves probably means people seem quickly added are we not the only ones here on this island people island inquired eyebrow raised my money's on aliens oh my sky really was a lot stranger than i previously assumed i thought and most of the crew's facial expression mirrored my inner voice wagner you need to tell your superiors about this right now i nearly shouted as i took his hand off my shoulder and jutted my scrawny finger at his crest in a burst of confidence i didn't know i had it doesn't matter if we tell them now wagner yelled eyes ablaze they've already known about the cave since before you got here the entire camp fell silent as all eyes fixed upon the stoic muscle-bound figure look a few days before you were recruited we sent a purely exploratory scouting team on to ul 1052 and we encountered the caves directly before leaving this wasn't part of your briefing because we didn't deem it necessary information we brought the desired equipment for cave exploration he seemingly chided eyes moving around the crowd that had formed around us and besides we couldn't contact them even if we wanted to a few of the more nervous looking members let out short gasps with shock before simunov spoke up what the hell is wrong with your radios nothing the radios work just fine offshore but for whatever reason when we're within a mile radius of this place well our equipment goes haywire radios don't pick up any frequencies satellites can't transmit a jacket with most electronics it's a complete crapshoot whether they work at all compasses don't even point to north for god's sake go ahead try it for yourselves so he brought us all the way out here knowing we couldn't have any contact with our family friends or anyone singing exclaimed while glancing at his wife you knew what you were signing yourselves up for nothing was out of the question that is assuming you even read the damn paper you put your name on or you were just too blinded by the triple figure payout wagner harshly rebuked technically he said staring around the group we're all in quarantine right now nobody's leaving this island even if we wanted to so no need to get antsy and rush the mission well as red-faced and eager as i was i knew wagner was right we were to eat breakfast pack up the designated supplies and then set off for the opposite size of the island just as we'd intended since yesterday if wagner was telling the truth then the lights in those caves weren't going anywhere and neither were we for the next 14 days at least so you said it's like a glowing blue light shining out of those caves sofia huffed as she struggled to catch up to me and like the 30-pound rucksack i'd seen her packing earlier yeah almost like a neon blue but it was pretty dim maybe due to being obfuscated from the light of the morning sun we're like two minutes away you'll see pretty soon pretty brave of you to go running off without everyone she beamed oh pretty stupid she tacked on while we trust through the sand look there's the rock now i quickly pointed out this i could feel myself growing just a little bit more anxious and it wasn't entirely due to approaching an isolated subterranean landscape with completely bizarre properties i was remiss to see that wagner had since taken the lead after we left base camp but he probably didn't know a lot more about survival and exploration than i did and i felt far safer with him and siminov around and sure kikana and sophia did as well follow me it's quite shallow wagner assured us as he rolled up his pant legs and began to wade into the water closest to the rock we formed a line hugging the wall of rock as the water began to rise up past my shins knees waist and even began to lap up to my chest and rather humorously sophia struggled to keep it beneath her chin but after some time the sea floor began to rise again as we came up to the mouth of the cave is that the rock that you saw yeah simenov leaned over to ask me i don't see any lights they were here maybe the sun's just too bright at this time of day eventually we all managed to get out of the water most of us looking like we'd just taken a bath without clothes on we crowded around the entrance to the cave a circular more about a dozen feet height and perhaps that same width across however unlike earlier there were no spectacular lights flashing or shining of any kind just a dark cave with bland grey slime covering the walls likely made up of some kind of algae or fungus so kid you're done creaming your pants wagging a snidely remote we'll end it by the book and after we're done wasting our time we'll go back the same way we came and circled back around the perimeter of the island as we planned well what are we waiting for i said as i pulled out my headlamp and strobe past him let's go the first thing i noticed inside the cave was the smell an immediate acrid stench of rotten fish and a hint of something metallic which seemed to be copper iron not to mention the dramatic rise in humidity that made the musk of the cave so overpowering and it felt like i was breathing in the noxious chemicals directly into my mouth with every breath which i suppose technically was true on a microscopic level not the most romantic of locales i thought to myself glancing back at sofia who had a cloth wrapped over her mouth and nose with her hands what do you think of these cave walls i shouted back to sofia after a good 200 yards of walking the tunnel was sloped at such an angle that the cave entrance was already completely obscured behind us with no one ounce for the sun's rays able to reach us in these depths the walls i can't even see the walls or tell what kind of rock is underneath because of this junk coating everything she replied lifting the cloth only for the precise amount of time it took to say the words before covering it back up for dear life rock wall simenov retorted from behind me no i'm pretty sure that this slime is the wall simenov stops the fear in her tracks asking to see her bag she reluctantly obliged and pulled out one of the long metal instruments that she'd managed to stuff in there used for measuring rocks or something like that what its real purpose was i didn't know look he announced as he plunged the five foot metal stick into the side of the cave we stared awestruck as the instrument sank six inches then nine then a foot then went in all the way up to the point where siminov's hand was gripping the thin metal rod at least two and a half feet deep what on earth is that kikana blurted out before siminov violently ripped the rod out of the wall releasing an unexpected even to him flurry of viscous blue liquid siminoff seemed more shocked than anyone quickly jumping back before his legs and lower body could get plastered with his unknown slime it seemed exceedingly hot the steam quickly rose from the glowing puddle at his feet into our shop the wall began to ever so subtly undulate and quiver around the point of entry didn't expect that to happen did you sophia quipped wrenching the rod from his hand and wiping off the blue slime with the handkerchief she'd previously been pressing against her mouth wagner pulled out his own machete that he kept in his sheath buckled around his belt and curiously scraped it along the ground before attempting a mimicry of simenov stunt finding that the ground appeared to be made of much more solid substance than the gunk on either side of us hold on i murmured mostly to myself everyone turn off your headlamps while fall wagner retorted just do it i cried out as her headlamps went out one by one it was quickly apparent that this was no ordinary cave as we found ourselves not surrounded by the pitch-black darkness we would have expected first thing i noticed was the glow of the neon blue substance that had spurted out of the wall and pooled on the floor quickly dimming in the warm air but still glowing nonetheless then glancing all around it was easy to see that the slime on the walls we'd assumed was simply some kind of mould or algae earlier was glowing blue as well well that explains that i mumbled too starstruck to rub it in everyone's face we all gazed around the gently pulsating dimly glowing blue walls in awe even wagner the texture was difficult to describe a somewhat uneven patchwork of like giant dark blue arteries carrying what i assumed to be the luminescent liquid that had nearly coated siminov earlier along with lighter blue fibrous wiring that brushed off in every direction or coated in some kind of thick translucent gelatinous substance i told you as aliens allen said staring at the mesmerizing will be a somewhat unnerving pattern that surrounded us but this time no one bothered to disagree with him what's that sophia exclaimed sticking a finger further out into the cave with a darker spot on the ground without saying a word i swiftly switch my headlamp back on and jog the 20 or so feet down the cave toward the object that appeared to be embedded halfway into the ground with some hesitation due to the slime layer that coded not only the floor but the object as well i knelt down and wiped away the dark slight machine revealing a black round object what is it siminov repeated coming up from behind me as i frantically fought to pull it up from its cozy abode it didn't take long before i'd pulled the object out of the ground with grime and sweat covered hands and couldn't believe my eyes it was a helmet a rusty military helmet and on the side was printed only one word in faded letters spetsnaz part two spared snots siminov repeated patiently explaining to the team they were soviet then later russian special forces think of them like your u.s marines so what in the name of all that's unholy some call me a spazner's helmet doing way out in the glowing tunnel underneath the island that only just appeared on the face of the earth a couple weeks ago wagner grilled him perhaps a bit too hard considering he seemed just as confused as the rest of us i don't know man who knows if it's even real normally they don't even print words on the side of the helmet like that we've been mirroring this island like a hawk ad nauseum ever since the whole tsunami and we'd know whether some deranged russians tried to sneak past us which means only one thing looks like the russians were here at some point before us hey i interceded attempting to calm the situation let's just keep on moving obviously he doesn't know any more than the rest of us is that really important right now besides i see something else up there as well i told him pointing up about 20 feet ahead of us well i swept aside my pity for simon offu in my eyes was an unjust target of scrutiny because of his nationality and carried on down the tunnel while grasping the spetsnaz helmet to good foot away from my body not wanting to further contaminate any artifacts found here but i quickly realized that wouldn't be much of an issue my head turned towards the floor as my lamp shone upon an abundance of strange items littering the floor of the cave which at this point i was questioning whether it was even a cave at all a helmet here radio there body armor boots gas masks and more were strewn across the ground in a hazard fashion their condition was congruent with or more deteriorated than the helmet we'd stumbled across only minutes earlier and almost appeared to be digested for the helmets i saw on the ground they appeared to be irreparably rusted while the body armor and uniforms had massive patches missing or severely eaten away leaving only fibrous strings gingerly holding the pieces together whether it was due to natural degradation or some kind of chemical process seen only in this unearthly cavern i couldn't tell for sure because this wasn't exactly my line of expertise what the hell i muttered as i sifted through the remains of some god forsaken mission consisting of helmets gloves vests pants and jacket as i coughed out the foul air after my brief jog nearly gagging on its stench this far into the tunnel i called out to the rest of the crew to further investigate well winter accessories siminov muttered shuffling through the fatigues perhaps they were washed in by the time it didn't take me long to realize he was right all of the items of clothing we'd found here and there were a good amount seemed to be suited for arctic training combat and exploration well whatever it was those poor ruskies were doing on this godforsaken rock in the first place scanning over the clothing myself i quickly realized that they were in fact russian origin almost all of them were eroded or shredded beyond repair once simon siminoff was done rifling through the remains of our doom predecessors he placed what he was carrying into my arms and turned back towards the rest of the group i think we should be leaving now similar advised wiping the grime from his hands onto his shorts i second that agreed perez who was by now backing up towards the end of the pack well we practically jog back the way we came eager to escape the lost passage from hell well i wasn't all too thrilled with having to carry the artifacts we discovered the walls of the pathway seemed to be growing brighter and brighter by the second bathing our faces in the luminous azure hue while simultaneously they appear to be vibrating and undulating faster and faster i couldn't bear to look at them kept my eyes focused on my feet and the bundles of soviet contraband normally i'd be fascinated by the discovery of this mould or algae-like mire that coated the walls and will be itching to give a further inspection to this as of yet undiscovered lifeform if it really was alive at all but well something about the coursing blue lines mimicking veins simply did not sit well with me and in the moment i prioritized living over curiosity [ __ ] run wagner shouted as we nearly broke into a full-on sprint sweat was now pouring off my face in buckets absolutely coating my back chest arms and even crotch mingling with the sea water that had yet to completely drive from our earliest stint through the shallows i was never one to be a record-setter for the 100-yard dash especially uphill with a backpack full of supplies and arms full of garments but the adrenaline coursing through my body made me feel light as a feather i was suddenly jolted to reality as i roughly slammed into something large and unwieldy simenov didn't even look back at me after our collision but i certainly looked up at him why'd you stop i asked moving around him to get a better look but no one responded well they didn't need to what stood in front of us was a rounded clump of bright blue goop who seamlessly melded into the walls around us the opening of the cave was sealed off so smoothly and so uniformly it was almost as if it was never even there at all it took us a few minutes of deliberation before agreeing to continue into the cavern hoping against hope that another exit could be discovered on another part of the island or whatever this place was sophia was rather adamant about staying behind alone at the now walled off cave entrance in case it opened back up again but after some convincing i managed to get her onto the bandwagon with the rest of us our retreading of the path was far more solemn and quiet than the first time around him by this point i'd already discarded what i was holding figuring our lives were more important than some soviet relics and shockingly the walls had ignited to a vibrant neon blue rendering our headlamps completely obsolete which most of us had turned off anyway to conserve battery i still saw the same strange patterns pulsating across the cavern's interior and it still gave me the same unnerving feeling when i first saw as we trotted along noticeably more jittery than at any point since we'd landed here i began to spot them deep inside the glowing translucent walls of the cavern they were what looked like small black patches strewn hazardly here and there i pointed them out first to seminar and then the rest of the crew not even bothering to speculate as to what they might be as we furthered our descent both deeper into the island and deeper beneath the surface i found out that they were not patches nor were they small as i first ascertained upon my initial glance but rather globules of free-floating reddish black objects they seemed to be getting closer and closer to the surface the longer we walked and after walking for what i estimated to be about 500 yards they were practically bulging out of the walls creating a strange and unsettling contrast with the rest of the tunnel wagner was about to poke at one of the strange dark objects embedded on the right side of the wall with his machete when siminoff grabbed his arm don't even sibenoff warned and wagner looked at him with a look of understanding on his face appearing thankful that someone had stopped him from such a reckless act whatever it was messing with the ecosystem in this alien environment was not a very splendid idea considering that the contraction of our previous entrance may or may not have been related to the acupuncture siminov performed on the side of the tunnel after another 15 minutes of walking or so the dark pockets began to peter out but we made what was possibly the most shocking discovery of the day as the walls of the tunnel began to widen out and the ceiling started to slope upwards we came upon the mouth of what seemed to be an even bigger cavern than the one we were in now the glowing blue jelly was relegated to the roof hundreds of feet above us in this massive cabin raining down light almost like an artificial sky which stretched as far as we could see the reason our vision was impeded was due to a plethora of large rocks and stone structures that expanded nearly to the edge of our eyesight perhaps further the ground also seemingly morphed from the smooth faux organic material from earlier in the tunnel to dirt and red rock nothing like that found on the surface but by far the main star of the show was the number of large stone pillars that lay across this place some standing upright others leaning on each other but most completely flat along the ground or crumbled into dust and mixing with the ash and earth at their bases and i wondered if they could quite possibly be related to the red stone spires we discovered on the surface without saying a word i ran to the lip of this new caverns entrance started a half sprint half slide down the hill that remained our only obstacle between this new mystery to be unravelled and as i grew closer it became very clear that these structures were not at all similar to those found on the surface as rather than tapering off into points near the top they appeared more as rounded columns of stone although i was still too far away to make out for sure sofia was quick behind me and by this point it completely ditched the heavy rucksack at the top of the hill although in a cloth she still carried the heavy metal instrument that siminoff had used to puncture the cave wall earlier clearly not feeling entirely comfortable with putting it back in the bag with the rest of her belongings these pillars i inquired while gesturing to the abundant stones what do you think they're made of hard to say dolomite limestone maybe she responded engrossed in the rocks and sediment deposited at the base of one particular column which was around four feet wide and as for how tall it was i couldn't begin to guess but it didn't quite reach the ceiling of the cabin the rest of the team had followed us down the embankment but their attention was set elsewhere as i could see alan picking up some stone fragments from the ground hey sting ellen shouted to where he and his wife were inspecting a rough patch of earth what do you figure of this stone here you're south african right bad known it looks to be some kind of african origin to me i mean my first guest was alien but well i guess anything's possible well hold on now just because i'm from africa doesn't mean that i know about all of african anthropology things started well allen grew closer with his friend he handed it over and the three of them began to study what looked to me to simply be a small concave stone fragment actually beyond kikana grasping in the stone in our hands it is africa egyptian as a matter of fact or at least it's based on the style of pottery found during the late period of ancient egyptian history or perhaps the ptolemaic dynasty egyptian i suddenly interjected in a voice a bit too high-pitched and squeaky than i would have liked how could ancient egyptians have made it way out here to the pacific when for all we know this island could have been underwater what's up with the columns are they egyptian too not egyptian sing trout off sliding his bare hand across the subtly ribbed surface of a nearby pillar they look um to be greek actually well at this point my head was spinning how in the world could ancient egyptians or greeks have made it to the bioluminescent cavern of the lost island in the middle of the pacific ocean i thought to myself allen spoke up and gathered us around for what he proclaimed was an important revelation that he guaranteed would completely blow our minds look he began with more confidence than i'd ever seen him wield i have a theory in i want you to take it seriously he continued with the most stern of expressions eyebrows furrowed and i squinted it's gonna sound a bit outlandish but is it any more outlandish than the things we've seen since we arrived on this island just get it out there bart wagner you see uh thousands and thousands of years ago the greeks wrote about a place like this he began plato chronicled an entire city on an island that vanished overnight i believe that this is that island and we're in that city so you're saying we're in i started before being interrupted atlantis precisely i think that if we continue snooping around here we'll find more and more evidence to support my theory everything lines up so far only i don't believe that the city sunk into the ocean i think the city sunk into the ground and then the island went into the ocean really then how do you explain the soviet fatigues winter fatigues nonetheless and what the hell is atlantis doing way out in the middle of the pacific ocean shouldn't it be in the atlantic ocean considering its name well here's what i think you can take it or leave it allen continued while beginning to pace back and forth around the pillars we all stared at him dutifully this place this landmass clearly didn't just pop into existence the other week during our nation's worst tsunami in history how do you figure it got here in pristine condition too he looked around the group and locked eyes with me in particular that's right he was moved here from somewhere else i don't think this is a natural island at all just look at that tunnel we came out of the glowing ceiling above our heads i think this place is a vessel a vessel that came from out of this world allen concluded looking somewhat satisfied with his brusque dissertation the group fell silent before immediately erupting in a squabble of accusations of absurdity on the part of alan who stood unfazed by our mockery completely contend with his proud logic singer and kekana hypothesized that perhaps the island was settled by ancient greek or roman sailors who got lost on the way to india or elsewhere in asia sofia was still occupied with studying the structures and rubble that towered over us and said that she couldn't tell how old they were due to unnatural erosion patterns but it could have been anywhere from hundreds to thousands of years old she assured us it certainly didn't look like a hoax to her start wasting your time with your discovery channel [ __ ] theories wagner cut us off this place wasn't created by aliens they does however have rusty fingerprints olive wagner ended his sentence abruptly as most of us took sight of something slithering around the pillars around 40 feet away from our circle something that could only be described as aelia wagner and perez immediately stepped forward guns raised as out from between two faded tan pillars the thing stepped or more aptly splashed out from the shadows between the duller bright blue lights shining from the ceiling and the light from our head beams we were able to make out the same reddish black blob we'd encountered cocooned in the gelatinous walls of the tunnel it had a somewhat smooth and rough surface but the best way to describe it would be if ferrofluid was being stretched in all directions simultaneously while attempting to locomote in any given direction as this curious horry creature began to sling from between the pillars we noticed it left behind a thin inky black trail in its wake and it lets out the most horrid combination of clicking chirping and scuttling noises something i found akin to nails and a chalkboard which i found quite odd since i couldn't spot a single orifice or organ on the creature with the exception of slimy black tendrils which shot out and attached to any and all neighboring objects within a foot radius around it including the neighboring pillars in the ground as it grew nearer and nearer the creature seemed to change from an amorphous ever shifting blob into a more humanoid shape albeit extremely unshapely and crude to say the least it almost looked like what a three-year-old would draw when attempting to portray their family members in the preschool art class and it would appear that the subterfuge was failing as parts of his gooey black outstretched arms began to drip down and plop onto the ground before being reabsorbed by its wobbly stumbling legs unlike in most horror movies the soldiers that were with us weren't stupid enough to attempt to contact with this dripping maroon madness or do something asinine like order it to hold we all had a common understanding that this thing was not human and likely did not have the best intentions for us wagner took the lead turning off the safety for his rifle and opening fire on the monstrosity around 10 yards with quite stellar accuracy before perez joined in their shots were definitely hitting their mark as black gunk exploded out from behind the creature peppering the wall and pillars in its wake just at that very moment it lurched forward moving quickly almost as if it was leaping across the ground in an extremely fluid motion surprisingly he went for perez first completely vaulting into the poor man's chest and knocking him and his rifle to the ground as the rest of us scattered shrieking in terror the creature stood over the down man almost as if it were inspecting him before one of the dripping fluid tendrils of god knows what snake down from his arm and directly into purse his chest clearly knocking the wind out of him and rendering him unable to even scream but something certainly did escape from his mouth just then a combination of bright crimson blood mixed in with the creature's own disgusting dark fluid with the two mingled before it became clear that the fluid was the dominant substance being released from perez's outstretched mouth all the while wagner released the rest of his clip into its sign i only managed to get a brief look at this while fleeing to the right at the tail end of the remaining crew but wagner continued to shoot with his ao quickly running out of ammunition and switching to a beretta putting round after round into where he assumed the creature's head would be at this point the creature's head lifted up from his legs victim and pointed its foe arm in wagner's direction shooting at a spray of dark tendrils directly into the top right quadrant of the soldier's face completely flooring him within seconds and sending his beretta flying out of his hand and into our general well direction against my better judgment i halted why the crew continued on running as fast as i could while the creature was distracted with hovering over its prey i sprinted towards the carnage without skipping a beat leaned down picked up the pistol and started once more in the opposite direction unfortunately gaining the creature's attention as i did so although i had a lead of a good 30 feet i knew it could cover ground fast and in a fit of testosterone fuel fury i pump my legs like an olympic sprinter knowing that this time it really was a matter of life and death if i wasn't quick enough shockingly at this pace it didn't actually take me too long to nearly catch up to the rest of the group although still at the back and i turned around and saw to my horror that the creature was now joined by two others all of them moving in that mesmerizing yet horrific manner of sliding and splashing along the ground as i witnessed the creatures swim through the air towards us in all that twisted glory between the clicks and hisses and white slaps of their fluid tendrils along the ground i heard one speaking what i could only describe at the time as nothing other than an alien language gargled out one in a horrific display said another the ending of what i assumed to be its word morphing into a distorted ungodly clicking pattern although horribly obscured i could still tell the sounds the creatures were emitting were without doubt some kind of language a fascinating or be irrelevant discovery considering the more pressing matters at hand this distraction almost cost me my life as i'd failed to notice the rest of the group splitting off it was only after a few more seconds of me blindly running forward with my eyes dead set on the abominations but i heard simenov cry out over here my friend i turned and saw that the entirety of the group had diverted into the small hole that appeared up in the wall on the right side of this gargantuan cavern i started making a beeline up the steep hill that led up to this newly discovered tunnel i spat and whined and jibbed and cursed the entire time during my ascent of the treacherous terrain lifted with gravel and stones of varying size knowing that one trip would spell out certain deaths but if i could just regroup with the rest of the crew in their newfound tunnel perhaps it could lead to some kind of safety however i paired up and saw that the entrance to this new tunnel was very quickly beginning to contract from the outside in closing in with a material not unlike that we'd stumbled upon at the entrance of the very cave that trapped us in this hell and hence my brain furiously sent signals down to my legs to drastically pick up the pace even if i already felt like they were about to snap at any second i propelled myself head first up and into the contracting opening that by now was only a few feet in diameter i almost felt like i'd look back to see oozing dark maroon tendrils grabbing my leg and dragging me back into the fray but thankfully i landed on the other side frantically scrambling deeper on my hands and knees hacking up the stench that was coating my lungs i looked back and saw that one of the creatures had shoved its head into the opening which by this time was the size of a basketball i mean the creature croaked out in the most horrific of displays i saw kikana sink and sofia clutching their faces in terror right before simenov wielding the metal rod from earlier smashed it directly into the head of this abomination sending a spray over inky gunk flying out of the hole leaving nothing but black and red residue to slide down the now solid wall of flesh that had closed us in yet another catacomb i know i shouldn't have signed up for this man alan repeated to himself pacing back and forth why on earth did i ever trust the government in the first place they probably weren't even planning on giving me a payout now i'm a [ __ ] dead man alan stop panicking and get a hold of yourself simenov shouted grabbing his shoulders and vigorously shaking him back to the moment let him stay here and rot with the aliens singh stated strapping up his boots and standing up getting the hell out of here mankind was never meant for a place like this we could still hear the things the aliens wildly screeching hissing and clicking from the other side of our only line of defense hey guys i stammered out between bouts of wheezing and coughing i don't know if i'm going completely screwy but it almost sounded like those creatures were speaking to each other like they were intelligent i stammered out i heard it too simenov assured me you are not crazy yeah alan chipped in those aliens were probably giddily chatting with each other about and which one of us looked the most tasty those were not aliens simenov insisted with a scowl across his face simulink leaned against the wall for support but immediately grimaced in disgust as i could tell that the slimy exterior of the wall was quickly oozing through his shirt and lightly coating his back man i've seen this enough times to know where this is going alan whimpered clearly letting fear completely take control of his mind at this point this isn't a movie i assured him more to comfort myself than anyone else we're not gonna die we will find a way out of here those aliens just killed our only protection we're [ __ ] alan shouted for christ's sake they are not aliens to buffoon simon of blurted out with a raised voice now noticeably aggravated oh yeah and how can you be so sure because that wasn't an alien language they were speaking siminov began as his eyes drifted to the ground it was russian help me please help me simenoff translated solemnly taking in a deep breath and pausing for a second before finishing kill me the dread was now palpable on the face of every surviving crew member especially alan although singh and kikara expressed more of what seemed to be worrying my russian is not as good as my ukrainian ever since i left my home country 20 years ago but the languages are very similar i could clearly make out the words after the fourth or fifth time they were spoken or however it was that those things were able to make those sounds well however incredulous it sounded that those things those unholy freaks of nature could make a cheap miracle of a language an actual human language i had to believe it since i'd heard it for myself but those things i began they're not human there's no way they could be maybe not anymore but i think this answers our question of what happened to the missing crew the soviets ziranov replied i nearly hesitated back there when it almost came through the hole after us once i heard it speak we began walking down the tunnel by this point by looking at siminov's face even in the thick humid air and radiant blue lights that surrounded us i could tell that he was completely drained of any color and i'd take a guess that if i had a mirror that i'd see the same in my own face sofia was practically clinging on to us more so siminoff than myself be careful not to stray more than a couple of feet away after that horrific display that we'd witnessed you really think it's them i inquired what could possibly turn a man into an animated massive petroleum plus we saw them in the walls earlier i'm sure you noticed that they still could be aliens alan shouted from ahead of us but both of us ignored him seeing the serious psychological toll this experience was having on it i'd noticed a distinct bend in the trail we'd been walking on for the past couple of hours and it almost seemed to circle back around i'd seriously hope that we weren't just being led in circles or going further into this nightmarish realm siminov was still grasping the large metal instrument he'd used to secure our first act of retaliation on the creatures while i tucked wagner's beretta into the front of my waistband which i have to admit was remarkably uncomfortable despite what television shows would have you believe after rounding a particularly sharp bend in the path an opening to another cavern was quickly becoming clear only this one was definitely not the same one we just left since i'd estimate that we were a good 20 or 30 yards deeper underground than when we first started walking although smaller the layout to this cavern was very similar to the former and similarly i immediately spotted more stone structures only these were far more recognizable as actual buildings and had less damage done than the ones from above we cautiously poured out from the tunnel rapidly missing whatever false sense of security it provided for us and peered around the ruins i spotted a glimmer in the dim blue lights being emanated from the ceiling and saw much to my surprise that it was a machete i can't believe there's more greek structures here singh stated somewhat lost in the moment this has got to be the most fantastic anthropological discovery in the history of the world well i'm not gonna lie discovery isn't really a huge concern of mine right now i quit back at him reminding him of our so precarious situation and that's when i spotted it a large figure around 50 feet away in the ruins wearing those familiar tan and green military fatigues i dashed over and confirmed my suspicions when i saw a disheveled wagner leaning away from us against a large stone wall i couldn't believe he was still alive wagner holy [ __ ] i shouted astounded by what i was seeing the figure then turned to face us revealing a scene that can only be described as a living nightmare holy [ __ ] man i repeat it only the tone and emphasis of my words expressed an entirely different attitude than before the upper right portion of wagner's face had bloated to extreme levels you wouldn't expect to see outside of an emergency room thick black veins ran up and around the new growth on his head trailing down to other parts of his face neck and lord knows where else his eyes have taken on a cloudy sheen but i could still make out bloodshots glare only instead of red veins they were closer to black in color matching that found on his face dark fluid leaked out of every orifice leaving trowels of shadowy liquid smeared across his face hands and uniform and what parts of his skin i could see that weren't covered in bulging black veins or the oily substance took on the power of a corpse jesus wagner what happened to you where's perez perez perez who wagner horsley replied before getting his bearings oh a little guy they grabbed him already but he's fine the rest of the group would approach now their heads cocked in confusion only with terrified expressions plastered on their faces as well clearly overshadowing the puzzlement what who who took him anyways has anyone seen my car keys wagner droned on completely ignoring my questions seemingly in a daze oh my arm has been killing me i really think i gotta see my doctor he interrupted his own sentence after being wrapped up in a raucous coughing fit ending by wiping his mouth with his sleeve leaving a trail of black ooh smeared across his face wagner we're gonna take you to see a doctor i promise but first we have to get off this island ireland he rasped in a quizzical manner no no no i came back from the island weeks ago his face suddenly took on a look of extreme confusion what are you guys doing in my house anyways well the man had positively lost his marbles i thought not knowing whether he was ever going to be okay again wagner pushed himself away from the wall and opened his mouth to speak but instead of words a volley of reddish black tar came pouring out of his mouth like he was a freshman who had too many beers at his first house party it pulled on the ground at his feet and wagner lifted up his face to take a look at us peering down and noticing what i was holding in my hand i can't speak for the others but i was certainly at a loss for words hey kid wagner started what are you doing with my machete at the end of his sentence morphed into a rapid clicking sound as he attempted to eject the words from his vocal cords i immediately took a step back in shock what happened to me he let out his black slime drooled down his lips and added to the shimmering puddle taking a cue from the rest of the group i slowly started backing away with my arms outstretched in a defensive posture wagner stay right there we're going to come back with some help for you okay sirinov stated in a lie so obvious i wondered why he even bothered in the first place hey don't go i don't feel very good was all he was able to get out right before another jet of the same reddish black fluid shot out from his mouth in an impressive display of projectile vomiting which i had to swiftly part my feet away from to keep from getting soaked wagner stop i ordered as he slowly stumbled after us in a drunken manner although i could tell that he wasn't completely incognizant as of yet you need to stay here you can't come with us right now i don't think it's safe for the rest of the crew no you no you have to get me out here please wagner wailed as his voice quickly deteriorated into a garbled mess of clicks and chirps almost sounded like a human being attempting to imitate a cicada on a warm summer night he reached his arms out towards us and i noticed the oozing black blemishes that littered his skin underneath the sleeves of his arms i knew for a fact that i wasn't letting him anywhere near me i looked over to the group and saw that without a word sophia had already taken off and i motioned for the rest to follow her and once more we began our sprint through this cursed place i didn't know how long my stamina would last or how long my body would put up with this before it collapsed under sheer exhaustion but that was certainly a preferable option to the alternative wagner or at least the thing that used to be wagner screamed at us running after us in a fury the black tire dripping from his body like sweat off a star athlete i dodged and ducked my way through the remnants of this lost civilization something i'm sure alan would equate with the urban practice of parkour and worse could not express the absolute terror i felt knowing the infected wagner was only feet behind me in this subterranean maze of horus the very last words he sent to us while chasing us through the darkness of the ruins have stayed with me ever since don't run away don't run away wagner screeched a rather pitiable tone the most disturbing aspect of it was that he didn't seem to be angry or violence for aggressive he only seemed to be absolutely terrified like us and i imagine in an immeasurable amount of pain and suffering dar ran away darrow he was abruptly cut off as i turned around to see him trip over a stone column that lay flat along the ground he broke his fall with his forearms but his face still smacked against the dusty ground sending a wave of black ooze splattering onto the floor from his face almost as if someone dropped a carton of milk as he crashed to a halt in his own mug i saw that it seemed as if his right arm had actually broken off halfway down revealing nothing inside but the very same gunk and slime that the creatures we saw earlier were made of which somehow kept the arm attached in one piece despite its mangling even though the thread of wagner seemed to have been dealt with on its own we continued running and i knew that i for one was merely seconds away from gagging and expelling the contents of my stomach i carried on with a combination of fear and disgust and terror and guilt but i rationalized to myself that there was nothing we could do for wagner at this point with any luck we lucky few could escape these underground deaths with their lives and never visit this island again in fact i planned on staying away from islands altogether in the future maybe moving somewhere nice inland like montana or wyoming here sophia shouted from the front of the group pointing at another tunnel entrance in the side of the cavern it couldn't have been any worse than trying our luck in the greek city with the half-dead plague man so i hedged my bets and then entered after them we'll send a retrieval mission for wagner once we get out of here i panted out to the group trying to justify our monstrous actions right now our priority should simply be to get out of here and let the world know what we've seen but it didn't seem like anyone was absorbing my words as i saw that once more they'd all come to a halt shortly in this tunnel against him enough let out the first time i'd heard him speak in his mother tongue they gathered in a half circle facing the wall huddled around something that seemed to be of great interest or at least interesting enough to briefly forget about the oozie-fired wagner i could tell that they were shocked by their expressions but at this point i assume that nothing could truly terrify me more than anything we'd seen already but i was wrong what what is it i asked while coming up from behind him and partying them aside so i could get a better look i took one look once i was inside the tunnel and nearly dropped the machete i was still white knuckling from before in the wall was a large black cocoon comprised of that all too all-too-familiar reddish black slime with tendrils and a patchwork of other fibers stretching out in all directions although buried under a few feet of the translucent slime that comprise the tunnel walls in these depths i could still clearly make out what lied in the center of the hellish mass the bloated and butchered face of perez gazed out from the substance's embrace his mouth fixed open in a noiseless scream and glazed over eyes bulging out of their sockets part three we're going to die down here aren't we kikana stated more as a matter of fact than an inquiry while her husband attempted to comfort her die i thought or something far worse than that despite being submerged under what i would assume to be anaerobic fluid incapable of being breathed in by human lungs i could see that perez's mouth was still ever so slightly moving up and down almost too slow to be perceived i could tell that he was struggling to speak and glancing at his hands i saw his fingers twitching slightly in the blue coating he must have been in an inhuman level of discomfort and suffering he's still alive i spoke up and slowly approached his not so permanent resting place i pulled out wagner's beretta with a shaky hand pointed it directly at the man's face which expressed nothing but pure terror and agony aboard the trigger sending a bullet flying directly into his skull and out the other side sending out blood and law bits of skull and black goon mingling with the other contents of the wall i began to turn away after my horrific but necessary decision to put the tortured soul out of his ministry when i caught a second look at the mass out of the corner of my eye the black clump was now visibly writhing and vibrating first only slightly and then more vigorously with black slimy tentacles of ooze sliding up and over perez's still blindly spasming face filling in the cavities of his mouth nostrils ears and even eyes this process continued until anything that could even remotely hint to the fact that what was once inside that wall was a human being was lost and all that remained was a black mess not unlike the ones we'd encountered earlier in the initial tunnel i don't think that her retrieval mission is going to be fruitful at this point simenov bluntly stated and the rest of the crew solemnly agreed let's keep moving i exhaled in the dank tunnel filled with a stench of rotten meat and fish with a metallic aftertaste it almost seemed like the further along the tunnel we walked the more the temperature raised it was easily 90 degrees fahrenheit on the surface directly before we started our exploratory voyage and i'm not sure if it was just the humidity but down here it felt easily to be 15 or 20 degrees warmer than that the air nearly felt like there was a fine myth suspended throughout it due to the extreme humidity whenever i wiped away sweat from my forehead especially the region around my eyes it seemed like a new layer had formed before my hand even returned to my side i almost considered removing my shirt or other layers due to how disgustingly wet and dirty i felt from the inside out but i didn't want to expose any more of my bare skin to what other horrors may be lurking down here in the dark after another 20 minutes of travel through this particular tunnel i checked my watch and found it hard to believe it had only been a few hours since we'd first entered into this abyss it felt like a lifetime if so many horrible things had happened to us in such a short time frame from when we arrived who knew if we could even have survived an hour more down there or possibly even days since that was when the next queue was scheduled to arrive the tunnel had an obvious upward slope unlike the last two we traversed and i just now noticed the physical toll all of the adrenaline and sprinting had taken on my body in the last couple of hours as i felt my muscles burn with lactic acid but i knew that resting even for only a few moments could be death in this place i almost sighed in defeat when we came upon an entrance to yet another large cavern knowing that whatever was in here probably meant nothing more than additional running and terrors yet to be seen but i quickly deduced that this was most likely the same main cavity that we'd escaped the creatures from which held the bulk of the ruins we'd seen so far those things could still be lurking out here sofia said her nails digging into simonov's arm i'd rather face an army of those before i could look at wagner's distorted face for even one more second very taught it and at the time i truly meant it wagner's fate as well as that of perez was something which sent shivers up my spine even in the disgusting hot wet muck of the tunnels to lose your life to die even to die horrifically was one thing but the transformation and total loss of your humanity was not so easily grasped this was the opposite of brain death as rather than the body remaining intact or the mind melted away into oblivion the body was hijacked and rendered useless to the host while the mind was taken along for the ride a helpless passenger in his own body turned prison we were clearly on the opposite side of the massive cavern however as i didn't recognize any of the terrain around us most of the ruins this side actually looked to be in much better shape four buildings were visible from where we exited the cave and can't be described as anything other than what you'd see in a textbook describing some of the cities of ancient greece or the mediterranean they asked the south african couple as our resident anthropologists what they thought some of these buildings might have been used for well that one there with the arched entryway was like a public bath house kikana pointed out as we walked through the ghost town that one there that's nearly formed pieces was likely a temple used for the worship of the gods it was as we passed this open face that i noticed some crude lines etched into the ground in front of this long abandoned temple on the ground chiseled into the rocks one word stared back at us vernatus even though i didn't know much about ancient greek culture or history i was still somewhat competent in phonetically pronouncing different scripts from around the world vanatox i stated inquisitively what's that well literally translated it's a greek noun meaning death but thanatos is also known as a figure in greek mythology depicting death what like hades a second ruler of the underworld i inquired that explanation making a lot of sense to me considering where we were no not like the other gods more of an anthropomorphized version of death similar to the grim reaper depiction as we see today sin corrected me seemingly pretty eager to get a word in so what they were praying to it or something hoping that death would spare them in this godless corner of earth amused over to the group maybe simenov said while crouching and running his hands against the rough stone on the ground thousands of years in the making but maybe i find it more likely that they were praying for death to take them before something else did we had positively no clue on where the hell we were heading or what we were doing in the middle of the subterranean ruins but needless to say we were shocked when another haggard figure came stumbling out of the darkness the bioluminescent ceiling had dimmed to a dull presence some time ago and we'd switch back to our headlamps so the moment my light shone upon the intruder i immediately pulled out the pistol i had in my waistband and pointed it at the figure before realizing that it was indeed a fellow human at least for now who are you i shouted not yet lowering my gun from chest level wait wait he shouted back defensively raising his arms above his head my name's rick i was on your boat rick the archaeologist alan spoke out for the first time in a while what are you doing here where's the rest of your group i'm the last one rick frantically murmured lowering his hands to shield his eyes from the light of six headlamps directed at him on full power we need to go now whoa what happened i probed we found a cave about 10 minutes into our walk across the island we went in to investigate but we were attacked by these things these disgusting [ __ ] creatures rick shouted as he came nearer and i lowered my gun yeah we saw the same things i bellowed those slimy dark red things that move like a liquid across the ground so the rest of your team they're dead no he wrote his voice amplified by fear and dread now they didn't kill them those things somehow for some reason i don't know they picked up the other seven they shoved them into the goddamn walls his voice was now quivering with every syllable and i noticed the trembling throughout his arms and legs i tried to go back for them but i had no choice they cut off the opening we came out often when i look back the crew were all coated in that same liquid screaming out to me even while we still shoved into them right at that second we all heard a sickening crunching popping sound and looked to see that a slimy black tendril slipped out of rick's midsection we shone our lights behind him to behold a very large creature nearly 10 feet tall it had penetrated his lower back and exited his stomach with his arm before pushing him aside and approaching our group i immediately went for my gun pointing it towards the thing and pulling the trigger but nothing happened i knew the clip wasn't empty as i checked multiple times on our most recent hike but my unfamiliarity with firearms and the chaos that was playing out made it almost impossible for me to properly assess what the problem was i turned and looked to see that the mega creature had traps of fear in one of the corners of the ruins and i quickly took off after her fumbling to grab my machete and place the gun back in my waistband at the same time sophie was all i managed to get out before shamefully tripping over my own two feet sending my arms and legs splayed across the ground projecting my gun into the air in front of me careening several yards before sliding across the dusty ground and coming to a halt by some miracle we kind of managed to slide all the way to sofia's feet and thankfully the girl had the wherewithal to grasp the weapon pointed at the thing that slunk ever closer by the second although her arms were so badly shaking that i feared the gun might loosen from her grip entirely as she struggled to make eye contact with the abomination severe they shouted after her shoot it pulled the trigger but the poor woman remained frozen in terror not able to make a sound or movement of any kind the things stomped towards her letting out all manner of terrible clicks and hisses and words so garbled i doubt even simenov could have understood them i desperately wanted to run over and rescue her like all the brave heroes would do in the movies but i lamented that there was simply not enough time and the odds were dangerously stacked against me here seeming off bellow towards her while waving his arms desperate to intervene sophia throw me the gun sofia glanced quickly towards him and then fixed her eyes on the creature which was only a few feet away now this filthy dripping vines were already snaking their way across towards her in that moment i could have sworn that time slowed down in that cave she looked at the gun switched off to safety and her eyes met with mine placed the barrel of the dark m9a1 beretta directly to the side of her head and pulled the trigger i stared in horror as bits of bone brain and blood blasted through the air painting the walls behind them in the ground with her viscera likely the first time in thousands of years that they'd tasted fresh blood my jaw hit the floor i was sick of running by now the sophia's corpse slumped the ground against the wall with her head missing a fourth of his exterior i charged the monster i screamed out in rage and misery while holding up the machete knowing that most likely my fate would be much worse than the young woman who now lay dead in front of me but it was my time to face my fears i raised up the machete poised for a hit while the creature was still preoccupied with inspecting sofia's lifeless corpse and swung down with all my might on the left side of where i guessed the creature's neck to be to a shock the machete almost seemed to cleave cleanly through this portion of the thing swiftly exiting its body coated in tar and striking the stone wall to my left side now i had its full attention and it turns its head up to face me but undeterred or possibly in a desperate move of self-preservation i swung the machete towards its neck again this time at an angle that aimed to swipe through the entirety of its massive neck while i still had the chance this time there was certainly a fair amount of resistance when the machete was around halfway through but i yanked and pushed with all of my might sending a spray of black and red goop flying towards me but i was quick to dodge much to my own surprise the creature buckled and began to collapse while his now headless body started to flail wildly sending chunks of its flesh in all directions near and far before falling to the ground with a combination of a splash and a thud as i peered down at the nightmare fuel after taking a few steps back i noticed that the black tile was quickly beginning to lose shape and become more of a liquid than when it was in motion and it pulled over to the side revealing a half-dissolved corpse of a man by now silence had once more taken over this strange environment and the rest of our group approached while glancing down inspecting the body inquisitively similar off using the metal rod to poke the headless corpse hidden underneath and allen wiping off some of the black goo from his face while coming from the side you killed it allen led out in a sigh of relief his face as flabbergasted as mine was i inspected the body closer now that siminoff had flipped it to expose its front the body of the man that had once been human was still clearly recognizable as such but badly distorted and mutated by the contagion his arms and legs were twisted to outrageously gangly proportions and although his skin looked pale and dead large black veins left a spider web pattern across his body with large patches of skin missing revealing the tile-like substances presence throughout the course i went up to approach the roughly decapitated head when i saw that its features were nearly wiped clean replaced instead with a clump of flesh that almost looked like the inner organs of the skull had exploded outwards but i could still make out an upper and lower jaw that were unnervingly still slowly moving back and forth although no words escaped siminov met my gaze and approached the head immediately plunging the metal into its skull and quickly pulling it out which halted the movement of the jaw he was mouthing thank you seminar informed me she stood back and regrouped with the rest of us now that's taken care of i began starting to somewhat regain my exterior composure let's get back to the subject of just what the hell these things are that i do not know simenov stated to me before looking at the rest of the group but i think i finally figured out what this place is when we first arrived siminov began our crew discovered the orange red colour of the surface beneath the soil and foliage plus the spikes made out of the same material connected to it that littered this place in a perfectly symmetrical pattern i think we can all agree that they are most likely not man-made we all looked up at him with puzzled looks on her face curious as to where he was going with his revelation when we came across this cave i'm sure i was not the only one who noticed the neon blue color of the liquefied jelly in the tunnel surrounding us or the smell no kidding alan butterdin that stuff could put an elephant down no not that smell the metallic copper scented odor it's most likely caused by a chemical compound known as hemocyanin that also explains the blue color of everything around here okay i started not quite sure where he was going with this wherever we are now how it coordinates on earth it seems unlikely to me the island was always attached to it i think it's safe to say that ancient greeks didn't travel the earth only to colonize a sub-aquatic subterranean cavern that they would have had no possibility of knowing about i think the island moved you thought my ideas were stupid alan blurted out clearly not buying similar speech how can an island move on its own genius because it's not an island siminar explained it's a living creature and we're inside of it at this very moment we all looked around at each other with various facial expressions confusion fear mourning dread so what you're saying is that we're currently in the belly of one gargantuan turtle alan mockingly suggested no no it's not a turtle similar corrected him judging by the red carapace spiny surface-like specules the elevated temperature the blue vascular system caused by the presence of hemocyanin i'd take an educated guess that we're actually in a rather ancient form of crustacean a crab we're in a giant freaking crab like when i order my sifu play back home that's possibly even more asinine you expect me to believe this garbage there are tens of thousands of different species of crustaceans some are microscopic others are monster sized i'd imagine that this specimen is tensor more likely hundreds of thousands of years old judging by what i've seen my mind was immediately drawn back to the native species of my adopted home in new zealand two avian specimens the kiwi the size of a small dog and the mower the size of a small home sing spoke up if what you're saying is true this goes against all darwinian evolution how could a species even grow to be so old or large a few generations would stretch back millions of years well who said it have to have grown this way over a few generations plenty of species of both marine and terrestrial life are indeterminate growers and plenty others are functionally immortal under the right conditions theoretically speaking they don't stop growing they don't die the species that mutated under the right conditions might be able to grow indefinitely especially in the ocean where it wouldn't have to support its full weight like it would on land that is as long as it was full of large hollow pockets of air to keep it buoyant he concluded gesturing around at the cavern we were in couple that with the phenomenon of deep sea gigantism i have a feeling that this is no ordinary crustacean the wheels began to spin in my head as i looked up to simenov he was the team's marine biologist for a reason after all if anyone knew what he was talking about when it came to this subject it was him the armillaria soldiers is a fungal colony in america several miles wide that have spawned from one single specimen from thousands of years ago that simply never stopped expanding some species of crustaceans like the spiny lobster even have special organs to identify and interact with electromagnetic fields a kind of sixth sense that oh that explains the electrical malfunctions and issues regarding the radio encompasses i interjected yes that's right well what about the ruins sing insisted why would an ancient greek civilization build their city in the center of a nightmarish mutant crustacean i don't think that they did simenov continued i think alan was right about them building it on the surface back when this entire place was in the middle of the aegean sea and possibly quite a bit smaller most crustaceans and other animals with an exoskeleton go through a phase called malting it's basically when they shed their outer layer in order to grow a new one to better fit them when they increase in size i think their entire village may have sunk into this creature's body upon one of its malting sessions all those thousands of years ago okay alan said still somewhat incredulously i'm still not buying that the crab island isn't an alien but even if it isn't what are those slimy creatures that have been making our lives a living hell this past day and that's when it suddenly clicked for me my microbiology research finally being put to good use they are leukocytes i clarified to the doubting man but my revelation just left the rest of the group more confused than before i'd said it we have them in our bodies as well me and you white blood cells normally they're produced in the bone marrow but here i think that they came from the exoskeleton and were distributed throughout the body by the vascular systems we've been walking through whenever we entered this unholy place we triggered its immune system we're the pathogens here these life forms however awful are just doing what they're evolved to do so it evolved alan began to kill humans it evolved to take care of any and all foreign bodies invading its system that may be hostile to its survival which in this case just happens to be us but correct me if i'm wrong doctor the last word alan put emphasis on having a somewhat snarky tone white blood cells destroy invading pathogens they don't do whatever it is these things do to people well it's acting almost like a white blood cell and a virus i stated somewhat winging it from here on out i don't know how but it appears to take control of the host body to use for reproduction like what we saw with perez or hijacks the nervous system and controls the body like a puppet using the brain and spinal cord as its makeshift nuclei well that's one hell of a white blood cell alan muttered as he walked over to the now stagnant pool of dark liquid with the mutilated and mutated corpse looking down in disgust sometimes simenov stated in a melancholy tone standing over sophia's corpse death really is the better option he briefly knelt down to place a hand on her shoulder before closing her eyes and grabbing the beretta that was still clutched in her petite lifeless hand quite the riveting theories gentlemen kikana half-heartedly congratulated us but i can't think of a better one right now but let's get out of here before we end up as the meek core of another of those leukocytes like our friend over there singh was still muttering to himself on how ridiculous it was that they were all located in the organs of a mountain-sized crustacean while alan never stubborn to the bitter end still tried to argue that perhaps the crab had come from outer space wait i told her i have just one more thing to do i walked over to some of the ruins and followed a trail of blood gore and black slime over to where rick's body lay motionless face down with my right foot i lifted up on his shoulder flipping his body around revealing that the guru had already coated his face and chest and was radiating out of his nose eyes mouth and the hole in his gut where he was punctured by the tendril his eyes slowly opened and he looked up at me his mouth opened slightly in an attempt to speak between shallow breaths but all that escaped was that familiar creaking and clicking sound i could tell however he was continuously mouthing only two words my wife my wife my wife no one deserves this kind of end i'm sorry i stated in a melancholy tone his body began to twitch rapidly as i brought the machete down onto his neck and after i cleaved through the spinal cord it ceased entirely but his facial muscles still let out uncontrollable spasms until seminars brought the rod down into his skull proving that not only did the neck have to be severed but the head had to be destroyed as well to ensure permanent death hey sing initiated to the two of us that guy said his group came from another opening on the other side of the island right well with any luck maybe it's still there and maybe these threes went and buggered off somewhere else with any luck i repeat it averting my eyes from the man we just bludgeoned and carved to death we had done it as a favor a merciful gesture to placate his soon-to-be eternally suffering soul but the action still sat heavy on my heart that as well as the horrible choice sofia had made earlier if only i'd known the creature's weakness beforehand perhaps she would still be alive but we can't change the past we have to keep on pushing forward which is exactly what we did in those subterranean depths we figured we'd stick near the perimeter in order to scout out more openings in the sides that may have led us to an opening to the outside world on the northeast quadrant since we assume the southwest quadrants opening might still be closed from earlier wandering through the remains of what was perhaps the world's most famous lost civilization was not nearly as riveting as i would have hoped for in more favorable scenarios although the sights truly made for an awe-inspiring scene that evoked emotions that hard to put in words although what lay to our side appear to be mostly just a collection of rubble caved in buildings in half destroyed columns it was quite marvelous to think that at one time this entire city was possibly a central point of greek culture bustling with activity on the surface before its untimely demise but one thing that plato got wrong was that rather than sinking directly into the ocean this city sank into the very ground beneath it before the entire island sank into the ocean soon enough hey i called out jogging to keep pace with the stoic man so you believe the island was previously the last city of atlantis more or less correct i wouldn't exactly call it that but sure in theory maybe simenov replied keeping a healthy stride at the front of the pack maybe one day we'll find out for sure if we get out of here to tell the tale that is and people don't peg us as lunatics who lost their minds after a tragic expedition i consciously agreed with him that it would definitely be difficult for anyone to swallow said information had they not experienced what we had in this place well what do you figure of our infected soviet crew i continued i get that they might have been sent on a covert mission and forgot about decades ago but what's with the winter attire jackets parkers fur gloves it just doesn't make any sense for the climate around here back in soviet times he began clearly having trouble getting the words out the government did many horrible things to its people and kept many secrets from the public quite a bit more than your governments in the west i'm afraid there are reports of strange happenings in the arctic and siberian region of russia where tens of thousands of people would disappear after their forced deportation you think this island may have been that far north perhaps perhaps not it doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility for soviets to have sent prisoners here to explore before sending in the special forces i'm guessing that once the spetsnaz had entered one of these holes on either side of the island and experienced the rapid rise in heat and humidity we've seen here they might have discarded their cold weather garments before going any further god if that's true then these poor souls have been imprisoned in the leukocytes down here for decades some horrors i think even soviet government was not entirely prepared to deal with may i remind you of the number of record-breaking atomic tests the ussr conducted in arctic territory you really think they were trying to rid the earth of this thing obviously that's just my theory we may never know for sure but where do you think this place even originated from i questioned eager to get another perspective on the subject how could it survive in so many diverse environments and ecosystems why don't you ask alan simon of answers the guy's always got one half-baked idea what another hey alan i shouted out to him while he trailed behind do you think this island is due to radioactive waste released by american mutating harmless species into giant monsters or was it the alien's retribution on humanity for our treatment of mother nature but we both burst out laughing at that one while allen merely grumbled and scuffed his feet along the ground in a fit after a couple of hours of walking through the lost city without incidents it seemed like spirits among the group had increased significantly although we all remain cautious it was for that reason that when we started spotting more openings into various tunnels we approached them slowly and weren't so quick to enter as we have been earlier some of them seemed promising and others were obvious duds such as the tunnels that immediately sloped downwards deeper into the beast or some led to chambers that completely boggled the mind such as when i spotted a massive room with large expanding diaphragms littering the walls or another one where blue liquid viciously sloshed back and forth however eventually we knew we'd found our mark when we started seeing the clothes and personal effects of our former crew we approached this hole with the utmost suspicion rick's warnings echoing in our heads and it's somewhat ironic but when we were greeted with the fate of our comrades we were met with a mixed feeling of both relief and dread various instruments devices and packs were strewn about the entrance of this tunnel but by far the most horrifying aspect was the cadavers that were suspended in the walls a few yards into this one i looked with disguised and pity in my eyes when i saw the familiar faces of my fellow crew members suspended in the gelatinous substance as nearly half of them had their eyes peeled open pupils violently darting around as black veins snaked across their skin and flew its seep from their pores i knew there was almost nothing we could do to help them at this point but i still felt a pang of guilt walking past especially when one particular member wrenched his body so hard that he actually managed to move one of his suspended arms an inch or two before more tendrils embedded themselves in his body and dragged him deeper into the translucent depths i couldn't help but look away at that point this must be rick's tunnel i said as we walked farther in we'll be out of here in no time we marched in a line up the tunnel that we thought just might be our saving grace i was filled with nervousness and excitement when i saw the walls begin to light up around us it certainly made it easier to see and was arguably quite the strangely most beautiful spectacle but it might have been a bad omen of things yet to come just as when we entered we trotted along the path silently which made it much easier to hear the clicking and scuttling from behind us first quite subtle something akin to a whisper across the room or slight breeze in an open field but pretty soon it became extremely apparent that we were being followed i heard a patch of footsteps and what sounded like splashes of thick liquid on the ground behind us when we were around 50 yards into the tunnel but i was unable to view just what was following us due to the gradual but consistent elevation of the tunnel despite this i instantly knew what was in store for us if we didn't put pedal to the metal immediately and haul ass out of there come on everyone run now my whisper shouted at the remaining crew we took off at a decent pace knowing that the creatures that were behind us would give up anything in order to have a taste of our plump red flesh although the terrifying aspect is that there was nothing personal regarding this chase the leukocytes were simply an extension of the immune system of the animal kingdom they didn't distinguish between who and what they were consuming and assimilating they had no emotions or personalities or memories or so i thought this time i ran not for my life but for my death i sprinted and pushed myself like i never had before so that i may one day have a peaceful normal death perhaps of cancer a car accident hell even being murdered was preferable to this twisted fate of living death being used as a puppet for an advanced single-celled organism that saw you as nothing more than a hollow vessel or means for propagation no death didn't scare me but that truly terrified me our passage quickly levelled out to a more flat landscape but unfortunately i still saw nothing but darkness out in the distance which is when i realized that we'd been underground for so long that it was actually past dusk in the outside world a world that it felt like i hadn't seen or felt or smelled or experienced in a lifetime due to the traumatic events of the past day we sprinted all the way to the end when simonov stopped in his tracks a few dozen yards away from the exits simenov i shouted after him what are you doing we can't let those things follow us up to the surface he shouted back to me if they chase us up there we'll be as good as dead it's only a matter of time he pulled out the same metal rod that he'd held when we first entered the caverns and with both hands this time plunged the instrument into the side of the cavern which let out a minor rumbling noise and brief flash of light he stood around for a few seconds as if he was waiting for something to occur but when it was evident that his little stunt was unsuccessful he went to pull out his makeshift weapon when he and i both noticed that the cave wall had already completely consumed the rod which by now was already buried several feet into the gelatinous wall by then i could tell that both of us had already noticed the literal wave of leukocyte monstrosities pouring down the relatively narrow hallway barreling towards at dangerous speeds siminov we have to go one now siminoff reached into his waistband once more this time pulling out a beretta aiming it at the wall and emptying all six bullets from the rest of the clip with round after round exploding through the blue translucent material and sending chunks of vascular tissue flying in all directions once simonoff had exhausted the full extent of the magazine he threw the pistol to the ground and began to sprint towards the exit which by now was already beginning to collapse both to our amazement and horror by now we could plainly hear the noises being emanated by those things such as a barrage of clicks hisses moans gargles and most terribly the voices only this time they weren't in some garbled foreign tongue but in a language i could easily recognize because when i look back many of the things that are joined in the charge were my former co-workers please come back one pathetic voice pleaded from out of the blue tinted darkness we won't hurt you said another that i soon recognized as wagner don't leave me here please pleaded a pitiful fellow whom i recognized for a brief conversation on the boat as much as it hurt me i knew that whatever value as members of the human species these things once possessed it was now irrevocably revoked a motion for siminov to pick up the pace knowing that his window of escape was very quickly collapsing and that the leukocytes were hot on his trail quickly gaining ground on the large man who was by no means a terrific sprinter by the grace of god simenov was able to barely squeeze through the quickly contracting hole but not before i saw black tendrils shoot out and latch onto the sides of the portal while siminov was completely through i grasped my machete firmly in both hands and blindly plunged it into the small hole that remained where the opening once was driving the machete into something solid on the other side mirroring seminars action from earlier in the main cave the machete stuck fast in the head or whatever it was of the creature that lay beneath the black ooze i was unable to pull it out in time before it fell backwards into the tunnel taking my machete with it letting out nothing but shrill piercing shrieks as it did so as the fleshy outside walls of the cave began to close so too did the dim blue light from its interior as well as the clicking and chattering and moans and screams of anguish from inside which began to fade away locked inside forever where mankind would hopefully never tread again part four i was alive i had survived i'd avoided death and the non-death provided by the leukocytes and being human nervous felt so good i took in a long deep breath of the cool night air and thought that i might weep after being confined to that nightmarish realm for so long after taking in lungful after lungful of the relatively crisp ground-level air i could finally start to feel clean and pure again at least on the inside as my clothes were still coated in tacky blue flesh sea water sweating even a bit of blood from hacking into rick's neck earlier and killing him a mercy kill i had to remind myself although under any other circumstances dredging herself out of a cave sopping wet in the middle of the night would be a rather miserable experience for us this was a cause for celebration and everyone there was in a rather joyous mood with the exception of alan who either remained too thunderstruck to make conversation i was far more traumatized by the day's events than i thought i did not feel like i was only in there for a day it felt like months maybe even years it was as if i'd forgotten everything else in the interior of that accursed creature was all that i was familiar with i didn't think i'd ever be able to touch a crab or lobster again in my life maybe even staying away from seafood altogether i know our contract doesn't expire for another 12 days i started while we trudged through the ocean to get back to dry land but i think it's time for us to go home i got an affirmative from everyone there with singh and kikana embracing in relief and exhaustion first simonov stated let's get back to camp see if there's anything there that can help us get the hell out of here allen initiated staring at the ground with his shoulder slouched they knew what this place was nobody told us now alan calm down i attempted to reassure him they sent us here to die he continued more defeated than i've ever seen a man in my life no no actually they they didn't send us here to die they sent us here as guinea pigs just to see what would happen well you uh may or may not be right but right now the people who send us here are the only way for us to get out of here as well so in the meantime just keep your mouth shut and stay vigilant and once the cavalry comes to take us home you'll be a third of a million dollars richer and nobody you know will be the wiser but i couldn't help be upset as well but i knew that short of whistleblowing and moving my life to a foreign country like russia or china in the footsteps of snowden the truth about what we saw and what we'd experienced in the past few days along with the history behind it would likely never make it to the public eye and the bulk of our crew was lightly killed or left for dead in vain it was an unthinkable reality but one i knew i needed to accept if i wanted to maintain any semblance of a normal life i tell them the truth in my debriefing warn them never to come back to this place again take my cash prize and then retire somewhere in the middle of a desert as our feet thudded against the wet sand of the bank i knew that this wouldn't sit right with me anytime soon maybe even for the rest of my life there were images that simply can't be unseen implications that just can't be so easily forgotten who knew how long the remains of our crew would be tormented down in those deaths that damned soviet expedition seemed like they were cognizant for decades after their initial infection and assimilation maybe this was a permanent fate dante's tenth level of hell that somehow escaped from the nether realm and made it to our reality ah get a hold of yourself i reminded my brain it's just nature it's just an animal there is no good and evil here still the thought of having my own bodily faculties ripped away from me one by one while my mind was slowly eaten away with something i just couldn't shake how long would my mental fortitude resist before i gave in against the overwhelming pressure of the leukocytes infection it's ironic but the trek through the beach around the forest this time around felt so incredibly alien to me almost as if i didn't belong there or that this was an unfamiliar environment after having formed a lifetime of scarring memories from a new car only a few hundred feet beneath us passing next to iconic looking palm trees a beautiful surf forming in the distant ocean the cleanest clearest purest water i think i've ever seen in my life the only thought to describe them that went through my head was deceit how could such a pristine and luscious environment be harboring such inhuman terrors beneath its surface even though we'd already exited that unholy cavern i could still smell the same stench of blood rot and copper not entirely sure whether it was from the clothes on our backs or whether it had just been permanently etched into my brain once more making it back to the familiar side of base camp was an odd sensation seeing the empty tents discarded supplies and human waste littering the area if only the bulk of the team had known yesterday that this was the last time they'd ever see it again the last time they could even see the sun again even i began to miss its clean rays and warmth completely opposite to the dank humid mask and foreboding blue light of the tunnels seeing kikana simonov spoke up after we arrived in the heart of the camp you two can sleep in your old tent you set up the other day the rest of us will clear out some others so we can all have our own place to sleep hey i might want my own place to sleep too kikana replied sarcastically judging by the stench that's coming off this man she said while playfully pushing sing aside yeah yeah sing smacked why don't you give me a bath then in this place dreamhorn buddy okay come on guys i interjected before it could get too graphic let's just all get some sleep and tomorrow we can try and formulate a plan to get off this carapace why not now siminoff inquired it's only a few hours past dusk i didn't really see any reason that we couldn't stay up another hour before hitting the sack so i obliged alan i called out to him as he continued walking with his back turned to us where are you going but by that point he'd already ducked into one of the open tents quickly zipping up the flap behind him ah whatever we'll continue without him he'd probably just want to bank on an alien spacecraft coming to evacuate us out of here yeah we're probably right to just let him be singh replied his mind probably snapped after that young woman off to self earlier thank god i didn't get to look at that all well i might have now seem enough cut him off we know the radios here don't work so we won't be able to call for help but perhaps there might be some kind of signal fire we can make in the upcoming days to call for rescue they'll see the smoke and know that something went wrong well what if they don't care that something went wrong i rebuffed what if alan was right and that was a plan all along seeing what kind of horrendous things would happen to us here and then study the aftermath later well could be true probably one of the things that guy said that i agree with but what choice do we have i believe i heard wagner say that the navy vessel is parked only a couple of kilometers offshore if the fire is big enough it'd be impossible to ignore well we um could try building a raft might be better to try and get out to them rather than them come to us kid this isn't a tv show building a sustainable raft that won't kill us all might take longer than it would to wait for them to come here on their own see an offspring sing added it would certainly take longer to gather and assemble the pieces to a five-man raft than it would just to burn it all but we have gasoline fire starters and even some compound fire logs to get things going well um unfortunately i lost the machete back in the caves i lament it i don't see any spare axes or blades around here so looks like we'll just be scavenging for driftwood or extra large sticks and brush sounds like a plan siminoff concluded well good night sleep tight don't let the soviets bite after crawling into my old tent with my former tent mate alan seemingly having chosen a new one at random i stripped off my clothes for the day settling in on top of my sleeping bag and reminisce for the day's events it became impossible to close my eyes for a second before experiencing them all all over again our wagners bloated and misshapen heads the face of perez and the others locked inside the fleshy vessels of the beast sophia's beautiful face right before it was shattered to pieces by a nine millimeter bullet i guess i'd never really be able to wipe those memories from my brain no matter how hard i tried i curled up in my tent arms wrapped around my legs even in the dark my eyes were open to their widest i thought i might never be able to sleep again but despite my mind's best efforts the sheer physical toll of the activities throughout the day finally hit me and close my eyes just for a second there's a smell of fish and copper wafted into my nostrils my eyes shot open with a startling feeling i was unable to quite make out my surroundings yet due to my blurry eyes being crusted over during the night that's what frequently happened after a night of restless sleep but i was able to make out the fact that it was morning or at least brightening up outside i felt a marked rise in humidity and wiped the back of my hand over my forehead before shaking it to the side and sending several droplets of sweat flying to the ground i rubbed my eyes and looked around still not quite able to tell what time it was being rather shocked considering it felt like i'd only just gone to sleep after some time i sat up and looked at my hands only to notice a strange blue glow coating them not the yellow rays of the sun that i was looking forward to oh could it be could it be i was back in the slush something loud rang out from afar and i shot to my feet looking around and finding that i was not standing in my sleeping bag in my cozy tent but on some dusty stone ground with pillars and rubble as far as i could see everything had a strange muted tone to it but i could tell this was definitely in the belly of the beast once more i looked back down at my bare feet and legs to see that beneath me chiseled into the rock was the same massive pattern of lines and shapes that i'd seen in front of the temple the [ __ ] i murmured sheepishly this didn't make any sense to me i'd escape the catacombs was i dreaming what was my escape retreat there was definitely a less than lucid atmosphere here every footstep sounded like i was underwater and i was filled with a general sense of unease my feet dullly thudded across the earth stepping over shards of rocks pebble and rubble but it didn't hurt i didn't feel much of anything actually however one feeling that definitely floated up to the surface was curiosity when i saw a group of shadowy figures standing in the center of the ruins a dozen yards in front of me hello i sheepishly called out to the huddle mass one of the smaller figures nearest me began to turn around i slowly began to process what i was seeing to my extreme bewilderment sophia's face met with mine as she awkwardly slouched to the side her head cocked at an angle almost out of curiosity she took one step forward and i was able to register the small gouge on her left temple and the massive chunk of flesh missing from the side of her head exposing pinkish red brain matter covered in a thin black coating severe they stammered out incredulously you're alive with what seemed like incredible fortitude sophia took another step towards me clearly lacking the basic vestibular senses related to a normal sense of balance in your average human why did you do this the creature that i assumed to be severe aggressively probed this is your fault sofia don't come any closer it was what i wanted to command out now but instead in my panic all i could verbally muster was sophia now the rest of the group would become aware of my presence and turn to meet my gays and i saw faces all too familiar from the past couple of days wagner and many others from the other team that had entered through the opposite side of the island even perez was easy to identify by the clean black bullet hole in his forehead sofia stared at me intently with a look of disgust and hatred in her eyes what the hell is going on i thought to myself not only her but the rest of them started their shuffled towards me before wagner broke out in a sprint leaving a trail of gunk in his wake no please i whimpered measuring my options i took one final look at sofia who i now had put her hands on her knees hurling a spray of black ink onto the ground in a stream so long i wondered when it would end creating the same sloshing sound i'd heard from earlier wake up i bought it upright in my tent feeling an uncomfortable layer of sweat built up on my face with not a single breeze in sight to cool it off good god what a nightmare i rubbed my eyes with my fingers and let out an audible groan i had absolutely no idea what time it could have been but i figured i'd try and get some sleep before daybreak anyways i made my head back down onto the pillow closed my eyes and attempted to float back into dreamland preferably a more agreeable dream this time the sound of a stream of liquid splashing against the ground followed by violent wretching soon filled my ears ah this was no dream after all i thought i jumped up unzipped my tent and prepared to face whatever new obstacle lie out there in the night elena alan what's happening simanov exclaimed rushing out of his tent he was just as startled as i was by the situation given that he emerged with nothing but a tank top and board shorts allen was hunched over near a large palm tree about 20 feet outside the borders of our camp alternating between clutching his stomach and head and letting out an audible growl of pain that i heard as soon as i opened my tent flat they left us here to die they left us here to die alan chanted in a somewhat monetary and rhythmic manner but as he repeated the phrase it became more more erratic and emotional i shot simon off a glance and we both briefly went back into our tents in order to grab a couple of handheld flashlights before rushing over to allen's position what we saw when we reached him was a ghastly sight to say the least allen's eye sockets looked like they'd sunk a good inch and a half into his face with his eyes themselves being played by bloodshot black veins as our lights panned down we noticed a black secretion dripping from his mouth and off his chin following the trail of contaminated spittle to its logical destination a shallow pool of bile at least two feet across lay beneath the man and more alarmingly bright red liquid coated up to his forearms on each limb alan where's singh and kakana who he asked genuinely confounded oh you mean that foreign couple they're fine he placed a bit too much emphasis on the last word of his sentence almost as if he was trying hard to cover up a lie okay where are they i pressed desperate to get some closure on the matter here he stated as a matter of fact you can speak with them yourself he raised his bloodstained hands and without skipping a beat reach down behind some shrubbery and picked up kikana's lifeless corpse by the back of the neck with his left hand as easily as he would lift a wooden puppet seeing her lifeless face and gorsuch chest i couldn't help but briefly avert my eyes and feel vomit rising in my throat before regaining my composure and seeing alan plunge his right hand or whatever it was that used to be his right hand directly into the cadaver's throat black veins bulged on his arm as the dark and necrotic flesh of his arm began to meld into her neck i could see fluid clearly being transferred from one body to the other kikana's eyes shot open almost immediately and she let out the most gruesome heart-wrenching blood-curdling scream i'd ever had the misfortune of him her face twisted in a visage of pure agony torment and fear before allen wrenched his hand out of her neck and threw her body aside alan you sick [ __ ] i shouted to the deranged man is this the infection taking over or were you always a psychotic son of a [ __ ] alan seemed unmoved by my harsh words in fact he glanced at me almost quizzically like he was confused as to why i would even be upset in the first place they wouldn't leave me alone he informed us i was only minding my own business here in the park they simply wouldn't quit talking and talking you almost seemed to chuckle at this as if it was some humorous quip we just laid upon us i was still too flabbergasted to respond and merely stared straight at him in fear and disgust can you believe they thought that oklahoma was an island alan bellowed out while grasping his stomach as he let loose a bout of laughter only a serial killer could accurately reproduce there's not an island anywhere near here i don't think i've been on an island in my life actually this was followed by more disgusting chortling and belly clutching although i suppose the latter action was partially caused by internal pain in that area alan i stated as calmly as i could look man you're just sick you're real sick and you don't know where you are okay the infection's just making you see what you want to see i extended my arms in a placating manner but alan seemed to have been taken aback by this gesture oh jeez he sighed so i could make out a visual eye roll another crazy just mind your own business okay buddy maybe you aren't swear used to think you are negotiations were failing me and i could see that the leukocyte had already twisted his mind beyond repair in that moment i quickly thought of my toes formulating an idea that might just placate the delirious man long enough for simenov and i to make our move now alan what i'm going to say is going to sound very strange and i know it's going to be a lot to take in right now but just trust me that i'm telling you the truth i hope to god that my attempt would be a fruitful endeavor we know that you were camping in an oklahoma state park in your van but you're not there anymore he narrowed his eyes and let out a series of loud wet cops something happened to you recently and you're taken to this place oh you wouldn't remember at least i don't expect you to but i can assure you it did happen alan seemed a bit more intrigued if anything at this point simenov looked at me worriedly alan you're on an extraterrestrial spacecraft right now it's formulated to appear like a familiar natural environment on earth to you but i promise you're a long long distance away from home i prayed that he would believe the fast that i was trying to sell him in the heat of the moment he lowered his head briefly before glancing her so alan began spitting out black saliva at the sudden exhale hear aliens and you kidnapped me here no no allen we're not the aliens are you alien scumbags alan retorted i'll never be your guinea pig you're not taking me anywhere alan's brow furrowed in rage as his arm stretched downwards exposing another layer of blackened flesh underneath as he took a step forward alan you need to cut it out right now simenov stated before he was abruptly cut off by the sound of bones snapping and joints cracking as allen's forearms began to distort themselves into monstrous caricatures of their former selves twisting and stretching into roughly hook-shaped appendages ending in blunt points with the entire thing coated in the dark slime his hands and fingers were still visible but madly deformed and nearly unrecognizable almost looking more like talons or claws than human hands alan granted and groaned in clear physical pain the entire time but after his grotesque transformation he glared at us with anger and satisfaction as the parasite that had taken over his body altered it into a deadlier machine was he even fighting it at this point similar move it i called out to my last remaining ally the ukrainian muscle man sprang into action at once fortunately just a second before the now corrupted allen charged at us wildly swinging his newly mutated arms in a downward swiping motion towards us from where i was standing i saw simenov was able to dodge a thrust by allen's right arm by mere milliseconds but the barrage of slashes seemed utterly relentless i knew i certainly couldn't withstand something like that if it were directed towards me simenov picked up a heavy metal case that i recognized as one of the kits used by the archaeologists and chucked it with all his strength towards the infected allen smashing into his face and knocking him to the ground sending a spray of black and red mist flying from his mouth and into the air floating around for a brief few seconds before settling down and releasing into the surrounding atmosphere i covered my mouth just in case not wanting to be infected with any spores that may potentially be contained in any aerosol spray such as this from an infected host siminov and i scramble back towards the camp rustling through supplies and empty tents looking for anything to use as a makeshift weapon my eyes drifted to a small fancy looking claw hammer that was hung up that was hung up on a hook by a nearby tree most likely left behind by the archaeology team it didn't look like a super formidable weapon only being around six or seven inches long but it was certainly better than nothing considering it had a metal end siminov was still ransacking the closest tent out of desperation when i noticed alan get up by stretching his arms up from the ground and latching onto some low hanging branches and shakily returning to his feet allen's face was even more of a shocking sight than before the heavy metal case most likely struck him with the force of a bowling ball and the left half of it was now completely devoid of skin showing black sinew and cracked teeth as he opened his mouth to let out that god awful clicking sound i saw a wildly flailing tongue spitting out bits of black flesh and gunk unlike before allen's eyes were not blood shot with black veins but now completely coated in the dark oily substance giving them a disturbing monochromatic appearance with siminov being the closer target allen used his arms as momentum to propel himself towards the tent attempting to sink his claw-like hands into his neck but right before he could i let forward screaming i sunk the hooked end of the hammer directly into allen's skull causing his head followed by his entire body to jerk to the side and slam into some computer equipment that was set up siminov looked at me with a look of momentary thanks before fully exiting the tent and revealing that he come up empty-handed there's nothing in there he shouted in the panic and let's just try and bash his head in i replied clearly not thinking that clearly quick while he's still down and with that admittedly idiotic premise i rushed towards the downed allen but he was a lot quicker than i'd anticipated and with the same fluid motions i saw expressed by some of the fully transformed leukocytes from the caverns he weaved his way along the ground almost like an insect avoiding a stomp i just delivered to the ground where his head was only milliseconds earlier alan's body contorted itself in an extremely unnatural position making itself upright once more and i could now clearly see the folly of such a hasty and brash decision to charge such an unpredictable and inhuman creature the thing that used to be ellen reared back its claw hand ready to dig in the flesh on my head neck or chest god i hoped it would be quick i thought feeling utterly defeated i raised my hands in front of my face to shield from the attack which narrowly missed merely grazing my sleeve when i heard siminov screaming at the top of his lungs i looked over my shoulder to see the crazed ukrainian sprinting full speed with a large rock in his hand which he brought up and over his head before slamming it down directly into allen's mutated mole this time the sound of a solid object striking alan's mug was more of a sickening crunch rather than the wet slap of the metal case and he immediately dropped like his strings were cut siminov straddled his body pinning his arms down with his knees before slamming down the rock again this time higher up on his dome closer to the forehead releasing more of a popping sound as black red and pink gore burst out of the skull and painted the ground in a demented display siminov slammed the rock down again and again not ceasing until allen's head was 100 vacant from his body appearing as if it was never even there in the first place then simenov stepped off the mutated corpse and walked a few feet before putting his back to a tree sliding down to meet the jungle floor are you all right i called out to him rushing up to meet him yeah yeah i'm fine he huffed out clearly a physical and emotional wreck as i approached though i spotted a circular inch-sized incision in siminov's shoulder an incision that was already leaking black pus along with its crimson red blood your arm i pointed out him yeah he got me good but i should be fine didn't hit anything major no i explained in a melancholy tone you don't understand alan only got a little bit of that gooey [ __ ] on his face and he'd already completely lost his mind within hours simenov's expression immediately dropped his eyes averting away from my face and turning to glance at the infected appendage you're sure he asked in a low voice but i'm sure he already knew the answer i only needed to let out a short nod before siminov groaned and strained to lift himself up off the ground and start walking towards my general direction whoa man what do you do i began before cutting myself off and turning a sim enough wall directly past me he was heading back into the forest while he couldn't exactly tell where he was going until i saw him crouch in the brush and lift up a small body by its arms that i quickly recognized as kikan the thick fluid was by now already building up in her system and it almost appeared as if she was weeping black tears as the substance leaked out of her eye sockets siminov propped her up against a tree before turning back and doing a bit of searching before he found what he was looking for and jogged over and picked up sings corpse from the brush as well putting it next to his deceased wife what are you doing i asked these bodies they have the same infection as alan simonov panted out as well as myself i'm going to get them as far away from here as possible before they turn maybe back to the cave we first entered you don't have to i do it's only a matter of time before they're walking around wanting to make you the newest member of their hive i'm sure you understand why i have to go with them by now black veins were visibly protruding from siminov's right arm radiating out from his initial point of infection you can still get out of here he softly spoke fortify yourself at the camp or make your way to the beach well wouldn't look very good if anyone saw you dragging dead bodies through a deserted island in the middle of the night i joked attempting to lighten the mood although i wasn't quite sure why considering this situation i won't be dragging them kid he cracked a slight smile and with both arms hoisted singing over his uninjured left shoulder and did the same to kikana over his right and stood up on shaky legs i looked at him in shock clearly i had greatly underestimated his physical prowess it's okay buddy i don't feel a thing he smiled to me i wondered how i think he'd be so chipper at a time like this knowing his fate was all but set in stone at this point just make sure they don't send anyone back for us he said turning back for the final time as he strode into the darkness of the forest simin off i shed it after him thank you but by this point he didn't even turn around knowing that he had a mission to accomplish and i knew mine as well to get the hell off this island and tell the world about this place nda's be damned my entire body felt completely alien at this point i sat in a chair at base camp staring at my uncontrollably shaking hands gently massaging each one in an attempt to calm my nerves my ears perked up because i heard a voice come from within my vicinity i could tell that it wasn't too far from camp and i was immediately put into a fight or flight response mode once again i jumped my head around from side to side before i heard the same muffled voice this time able to pinpoint its location i jumped from my chair and bolted across cam opening the flap of a nearby vacated tent to see absolutely no one inside but i did spot a small black device on the ground it took me a second to recognize it as a handheld radio but radios don't work on the island do they i picked it up turning up the volume and pressing it to my ear wagon wagner are you a voice called out from the other side before being overshadowed by a wave of static i pause for a second before realizing this might just be my brief window for a ticket to end my torment in this place i pocketed the radio and ran as fast as i could into the jungle i emerged from the tree line minutes later to find myself staring at the exact same beachfront we'd encountered the other day when we first arrived when i felt that i'd traveled an adequate distance i put the radio to the side of my head and pressed the button to send a message hello i received an answer back quite quickly with far less interference this time hello wagner what's your status report we need your debriefing for ul 1052-b wagner's not here right now i replied here's my status report this place is held what who is this how did you get a hold of this radio look you've got to get rid of this island just do what you have to in order to wipe this place off the face of the earth make sure no one ever comes back here again holy hell man what are you talking about exactly what i told you this place i took a deep breath and exhaled before continuing his straight up evil irredeemable in every way tell the president or general or whoever it is that sent us on this mission to just nuke this hell hole already where's wagner i heard the voice desperately call out what about perez can you give the radio to him hello help i was too defeated to make exhaustive arguments and logical points to the man on the radio and i knew i would resort to a comprehensive rant on the events of the past couple of days anyways i knew he'd think i was crazy i would definitely find it suspicious if the only guy answering the radio was convinced that the rest of his crew was dead or mutated and preferred death over an extraction plan i dropped the radio into the sand and listened as the muffled and frantic voice on the other end was gradually drowned out by a sea of static before fading out altogether i was so wary and sapped of energy that all i could do was drop to my knees and fall backwards letting the back of my head smack against the wet sand with a dull though i was done fighting i took a quick glance at my watch only to see the hour and minute hand were both spinning around wildly at an extremely atypical speed making it impossible to tell just what time it was or how much time it elapsed must be more of the island's old tricks as the gentle waves lapped against my feet in an almost soothing motion i let my eyes drift close ready to be evacuated or drowned or blown to smithereens by a hydrogen bomb anything to get away from this island the palms of my hands sank into the wet sand the last thing i felt before drifting off was a bright light shining on my face which i could still register through my closed eyelids as a pale blue color i opened my eyes and took in my surroundings i was in the caves once more right back where i'd been when i drifted off earlier dear lord not this again i thought to myself looking up to the light blue ceiling and around at the dusty brown ruins not another dream well i thought i might as well make the best of this find out why i'm having these recurring waking nightmares maybe i'm not yet at peace with what happened to the rest of the crew and that's when i heard it voices voices in the distance i picked myself up off the ground and started jogging towards the commotion that was taking place in the vicinity i had to only walk a short distance before i rounded a corner and spotted what all the fuss was about i saw two large unfamiliar men vehemently arguing with each other bathed in the blue light from the ceiling with the rest of the group gathered around attempting to alleviate the situation or perhaps they were just speculating but whoever they were they seemed to be professionals carrying packs and cases and instruments not unlike the ones that our group had brought oh thank christ i thought to myself normal people but before i had a moment to introduce myself for asked just what they or i were doing down here the group of half a dozen individuals took off in the other direction dodging and weaving their way through the ruins i started after them immediately struggling to keep up wait i stammered the words fumbling out of my mouth please please come back help me after a few minutes of chasing through the ruins i saw the group and my fellow survivors dash into a nearby tunnel and i momentarily stopped thinking i could take the time to get my bearing straight now that i knew where they were headed i expected to feel winded and exhausted from being locked in a dead sprint for a decently long amount of time but i couldn't feel much of anything at all actually wake up something wet slid down my arm and i looked down at my hand to see a small drop of ink rolling down my index finger i rotated my hand over so my forearms faced downwards and inspected the sight jet black veins ran parallel all along pale dead skin what the [ __ ] my thoughts were racing where was i what happened to the team what happened to me why can't i wake up [ __ ] wake up but this time there was no escape an indescribable surge of energy shot through my body my feet march forward violently on their own without any input i looked in abject and complete terror once i saw my legs being driven by their own devices shambling and stumbling as inky liquid began to seep out from seemingly every pore of my body oh no no no no no this can't be happening my mind started to panic i'd escaped i was waiting for rescue they were supposed to take me with them out of this place oh what the [ __ ] what the [ __ ] i let out in quick shallow breaths not quite enunciating all the syllables in my struggle as my body moved with a will of its own how long have i been down here days weeks years i glanced down my quickly elongating and malformed limbs as the skin stretched and talked giving me my first bout of indescribable pain and revealing underneath rotting blackened flesh consisting of ligaments tendons and muscle along with that familiar black goo my face finally lifted itself up on its own to meet those i've been uncontrollably pursuing i saw frightened faces wide eyes and large mouths gaping in horror and i screamed holy [ __ ] the epilogue my alarm blared in the darkness i slowly peeled over my crusty eyelids and struggled to reach the device slapping my hand around blindly in the darkness before honing in on the sound and finally putting an end to the obnoxious noise pulling myself up and into a sitting position i switched on the lamp at my bedside and glanced up at the clock on the wall 4 30 am my 15 by 15 foot room on the base was a little more than a hovel but was definitely a luxury compared to the barracks most of my men had to sleep in every night truth be told i didn't much care for the air force base here in guam but i was more or less stranded here until our assignment on ul 1052 was completed but who knows if it would ever be completed after what they saw i strapped on my boots back on my belt and opened the door to the outside world immediately being met with the bright lights of the hallway shining in my eyes with the artificial white light of the underground facility not quite matching the natural light produced by the sun i shielded my eyes for only a second or two waiting for them to adjust before i strode forward passing a few other abodes that were similar to mine passing some of the soldiers who were stationed on guard duty they acknowledged my rank before stepping aside and allowing me further into the cold insulation that i called home for the past two weeks stepping through the metal swinging double doors i geared myself for the first decontamination checkpoint as i was sprayed down by workers in hazmat suits with a fine mist of some chemical compound that even i wasn't fully aware of what was in it after being confirmed sterile and passing through i picked up the standard issue cm6m respirator and strapped it onto my face i always found it to be a bit stuffy but it still gave a far higher degree of visibility than other gas masks it was much easier to apply and discard girl we're ready for you now a young man said to me before handing me a clipboard and gesturing for my signature at the bottom of the page after signing i carried on through the facility going through three more decontamination stations before finally arriving at the large solid metal door that was now only one of two different physical barriers between myself and the asset sir did they inform you of the situation in full lieutenant forrester inquired squinting at me through his partially fogged up respirator yes sir i'm well aware i responded although to tell the truth i don't think i could ever fully grasp the information that had been foisted upon me in the last 48 hours i wasn't entirely up to date on the condition of the asset it was two days ago that i was made aware of the full extent of the mission of ul 1052 which was rather shocking considering it was nearly three weeks now since the first team had been dispatched after two contracted teams of 23 crewmen in total had gone mia 16 on the first crew and seven on the second a cdc hazmat division with an entire military platoon as an escort was ordered to investigate what they uncovered was one of the more shocking revelations of my career in the armed forces let's begin he informed me pulling open the door and entering the chamber i was told of the horrific discoveries the cdc crew had uncovered while in ult 52b the designated code for the second discovered entrance into the interior of ul 1052 but when taking a look at the asset that sat before us across the one-way glass i still felt sweat starting to form my eyebrow and could tell that my heartbeat had jumped a few beats per minute the young man if you could call him that was slouched down in the chair and nearly unrecognizable as a human being in many aspects his hands were strikingly elongated and i noticed bone fragments jutting out from the tips of his fingers his hand and arms had large patches of skin missing or torn apart revealing black striated muscle tissue the face of this creature was another sight entirely as not only were the upper and lower lips completely absent which which judging by the ragged way the flesh was torn i can only assume herself inflicted by his own incisors and jet black pupils ring by dark veins stared at the ground an extremely dark red almost black substance was smeared across his body forming streaks across his skin stemming from his nose eyes the size of his mouth dripping onto the floor in a small but steady stream his chest huffed up and down as he took in short ragged breaths with his labored breathing greatly agitating the monitoring equipment and tubing attached to his arms neck and chest how did you get him so docile i asked lieutenant still remarkably uncomfortable in his presence from the stories i'd heard he'd managed to infect not only four members of the secondary crew that had been sent after them but also got to three of our hazmat guys before finally being subdued they told me that his arms seemed almost fluid-like in motion as they weaved and pierced the skin of the men in the hazmat suits it was only a matter of hours before they too started to experience the same symptoms they didn't think it possible at first that he actually could have been apprehended but after striking him in the head from behind they were able to quickly get him in a hermetically sealed chamber after a week of study by one of the base's neuroscientists he concluded that the pathogen had taken hold of this young man's body wasn't a pathogen after all rather the process in which the substance was causing cellular decay and binding to different receptors in the nervous system it was actually more similar to a cell we've been pumping him full of mechathorin and based solution as per dr chan's instructions forrester informi it's normally used in cancer treatments but in this case it seems to significantly reduce the rate of assimilation of the remaining human cells and restore some mental faculties of the subject so you're using it to cure him no no there is no cure substance ul 1052 b12 can't be fully exhumed from the human body because it bonds with the host on the cellular level and fundamentally alters the dna of the cells we can delay the transformation and even give back some more rudimentary faculties to the infected but it's only a matter of time before their last i look once more of the poor soul i saw trapped in his own body in front of him without external stimuli it appeared that he mostly had control over his thoughts and actions as i saw him glance around the walls and even look at his wrist in an action i assumed to be instinctual from when he had a watch but this was about to change three weeks ago this certainly wasn't what i'd had in mind when i thought of debriefing the crew i still couldn't believe that this was the same young man i'd recruited from the university in new zealand he seemed like such a bright young lad what a pity i thought watch the lieutenant spoke as he gestured to the call button on the control panel he pressed the small red button releasing a quick barrage of static before leveling out but this was immediately followed by a creaking and distorted howl being transmitted back from the interior of the chamber as the young infected man twisted and convulsed involuntarily and attempted to thrash his arms about despite them being shackled to the chair by the wrists with half inch wide steel chains i took a step back out of instinct and placed my hand on my sidearm but forrester reassured me i does this every time we start a session just be patient lieutenant informed me leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head being in the military we'd all seen some [ __ ] over the years but i couldn't believe how nonchalant he was over this whole thing and i think he could read the shock on my face through my mask don't worry we've been interviewing him over the mission for 78 hours straight now without incident if he could have escaped i'm pretty sure he would have done it by now yes sir i acknowledged but 78 hours why is the debriefing period taking so long every now and then the crazy bastard starts screaming and trying to break out of his restraints he's told us most of what happened to the crew or at least what he thinks happened but he's slow going at this rate half the time he's convinced that he's healthy and begs us to let him out of here before he gets infected how does he or it speak like so for us to point it out pressing the call button and leaning into the microphone subject p2709 confirmed to us the status report of your mission the man who i was now beginning to see more as a thing shuffled in his chair before cocking his head and squeezing his hands which made a sickening crunching sound sounding like a combination of bugs shattering and knuckles cracking what he let out next sent a wave of fear and anxiety coursing throughout my brain and a shiver down my spine mission stages she moved on he let out in a combination of choking wheezes spaced out by a series of inhuman clicking and chattering noises his face was twisted in pure agony as i saw he struggled to maintain control of even the smallest facial muscle the tears and scratches on his face opened up and were exposed to the air once more due to the immense strain in this area sending black and red pus flowing out in some droplets don't send me back please he pleaded with us which was the first time i could visually see any kind of genuine human emotion on his face but it wasn't an emotion of pain agony or hatred it was fear i couldn't believe what i was seeing from the wounds and deformities seen on this specimen it was unbelievable that he was still alive let alone talking and screaming you're not going back to this island forrester assured him before cutting the intercom and this time reaching for his pants and fumbling with his radio through his clumsy gloved hands what are you gonna do with the subject i ain't quiet knowing full well that it may be above my position on the chain of command to know for sure we're going to take a tissue sample and send it to the last for further study he said before picking up his radio tuning the frequency and pushing the button to send a message ah we're ready to escort subject p2709 to the incinerator and decontaminate the room i felt a little better knowing that the suffering kid was soon going to be put out of his misery for good but still couldn't help but feel extremely unnerved by the sight in front of me knowing that this could happen to anyone on the globe was remarkably disturbing didn't know commander robert wagner all too well having only met him a handful of times before the mission but knowing that he was likely wandering around the hundreds of feet underground in that unholy place made me truly pity him and the rest of the team what do you think happens if these leukocytes ever escaped from containment i questioned the lieutenant finally averting my eyes from the abomination in front of us the infection caused by contact with leukocytes doesn't seem to halt or reverse even after being extracted from ul 1052 chang informed us that normally white blood cells only survive outside of the body host for a very limited amount of time but in this case the organism seems more than willing to grow spread and infect new environments why haven't these things escaped containment on ul 1052 before if the subject's assertion is true it's been around for thousands of years well we have no idea how it responds in different ecosystems or with different species which is why the tissue sample will be useful but from what they reported in those caves with what happened to the rest of the crew he trailed off i looked back towards the containment room as i heard the hiss of the airlock i saw two of our men in level a scba hazmat suits enter from the side and walk forward before the doors closed automatically behind them the subject judges head up from his restraints and took a glance at the guards who just arrived i saw black lines starting to form and protrude on his neck and forearms don't worry son it'll be over soon i interjected into the might before disconnecting it once more wanting to give at least some comfort for the soul that was trapped in the subject's body as well as possibly keep him calm enough for our men to properly do their jobs without incident the men approached slowly with trepidation not wanting to stumble in their stuffy suits or cause panic in the subject but i could still see that he was visibly trembling what almost seemed like weeping dark fluid was starting to seep out of his tear ducts in the size of his mouth and run down his face which would have been alarming had i not been assured that the chamber we were sealing him in was 100 percent airtight the same technology used by nasa in their spacesuits still i could read warrior etched across the guards faces they began to pull out the tubes wiring another monitoring devices from the subject's body and looked at each other in preparation to give the signal to begin extraction from the chair and into the mobile chamber i was staring intently at the subject when i saw him make a quick jerking motion of his head up from the ground and looked directly at me even though it was one-way glass and he simply mouthed two words which although i wouldn't have been able to hear since we had disabled calms i still recognize from reading his lips at least what was left of them what he said i'm sorry with this strange action my brow furrowed and i pressed my face as near to the glass as i could with my mask on struggling to get a better view as i saw that the skin on his arms seemed like they were putrefying and rapidly decaying in contrast to the pale skin displayed earlier this part of his body began to darken a grayish and then nearly blackened tone all this taking place in the span of one or two seconds i then saw the subject struggle against his restraints on his arms even though he knew there was no way he could break through them but rather than bursting his chains i was shocked to see that the metal cuffs were actually sliding through the black and red flesh of his wrists cutting off his hands entirely now that his arms are free the subject immediately turned to face the guard on his left sending his right stump upwards in a fury directly up and into the double layered mask of the unsuspecting man which although formulated to be chemical and puncture resistant didn't seem to have much gift to it at all before tearing and letting in the new stream of black fluid and gore which flew directly into his face knocking him to the ground although only a few seconds had elapsed and it took my mind even longer to realize what had happened the lieutenant had already sprung into action slamming his fist down onto the emergency lockdown button we sent an even larger array of locks and security measures into place on the outer doors of the chamber and activated an alarm blaring throughout our level of the facility the red light flashed across our faces in waves and although i couldn't hear much of anything through the glass i could still tell for a fact that the men in there were screaming at the top of their lungs i saw the man on the right thrashing wildly at the door with his back turned to the subject who had one of his quickly elongating stumps arched up aimed directly towards his lower torso oh it's a good thing those doors are locked from the outside all those morons would have been contaminating the entire base forester coldly stated as i gazed back at him mouth the gape the surviving guard desperately pounded the door before turning and directing his attention towards the one-way glass giving us one last look of hopelessness betrayal and understanding before a dark tendril punctured his abdomen below his rib cage sending a spurt of blood and blangu ejecting from his mouth and into the interior of his mask thankfully blocking his distorted face from our vision sir i granted her the lieutenant the subject the subject had already managed to wrench himself out of the restraints entirely and was now limping over to the glass with one of his mutated appendages already pressed against it he began to pound and thrash and beat against the glass with all his might which from his perspective probably looked like he was beating against his own reflection the viewing portal that lay between us and the things by no means in any danger of breaking the glass was over three inches thick around half that of a porthole on a deep sea submarine and at a hardness level rivaling that of iron i felt fairly confident that we were quite safe from harm behind it we could barely hear the dull thumping coming from the other side of the glass and the black smudges and streaks that were left across its surface by the subject's flailing arms were starting to obscure outside i had no idea how we were going to deal with this mess in front of us honestly wondering how it could get any worse when two soldiers burst into the interrogation chamber from behind us lieutenant sir we have a containment breach you're needed topside immediately one of the more frazzled soldiers shouted through his mask clutching his m16a2 rifle the situation's under control we have the asset contained forrester shouted to the man grabbing him by the collar and pointing to the enraged beast that was only inches away from gouging our flesh out and infecting us yes sir but you don't understand the soldier huffed out his face as red as a tomato and sweat dripping down his face under his mask subject p2709 is not going to escape get a containment crew down here and we'll clean up this mess negative sir the containment crew is occupied the other one the bigger one p2705 he got out he handed us a video monitor that i recognized from viewing the camera feeds on the bass and we watched as a large muscle-bound man with a wild expression black eyes long twisted arms and black veins running across his body i could do nothing more than turn to the talent in shock most likely with the same look of bewilderment and fear that he had on his face and mata so we've been breached in a defeated tone but forrester was speechless his eyes were still locked on the chamber in front of us where subject p2709 was still pounding on the glass but now joined by two other figures one of their faces covered up by the spray of black and red gunk on his interior visor the others face an unrecognizable pop of flesh after his beating how had they turned so fast i thought to myself they'd describe the mental and physical transformation process taking minister hours on ul 1052 i took hold of the tablet from the lieutenant and grafted in my own shaking hands flipping through feeds but i was now unable to locate p2705 or any other base personnel in the now gore-stained underground corridors that is until the very end which was a live surface level view dozens of shambling figures burst out of the facility and began to stream out onto the base leaving a dark trail visible behind them on the monitor [Music] oh my god oh my god oh my god what on earth did you think of that one wasn't that just the most incredible story and perhaps the most plausible explanation for atlantis and the disappearance thereof than i've ever heard wow that one truly was brilliant well i thought so anyway let me know your thoughts feelings and anything about the subject of this story in the comments section below the video but i thought that was brilliant and although that is one self-contained standalone story there are more episodes to come of the effects of this strange phenomenon on the rest of the world so if you liked it please let me know and i'll continue this as a series going forward well as you can imagine i'm absolutely knackered after that it's taken me three or four days to record that and i hope you think it was worth it but until next time my dear friends very very sweet dreams and bye bye thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this story today really means a lot to me and to the author of the story of course well you want to know more about me i'm pretty much everywhere on social media you can find me on facebook twitter instagram you can download my music on soundcloud um i've got a patreon if you feel like throw me a dollar or two very much appreciated and of course on reddit i have a place where you can leave stories if you want me to read one that you've written well hoping to see you all again very soon till then sweet dreams you

Channel: Dr. Creepen

Views: 584,374

Keywords: dr creepens vault, dr creepen, nosleep stories, creepypasta, scary stories, asmr stories, best horror stories, nosleep horror, creepypasta horror, We Discovered a New Island in the Pacific Ocean, pacific ocean, dr creepen vault, mysterious island horror stories, atlantis horror movie, scary stories told in the rain, scary stories told in the dark, scary stories told by youtubers, fall asleep to these scary stories, new islands in the world, long creepypasta dr creepen

Id: 4pyi6KYuXag

Length: 189min 15sec (11355 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 20 2020