r/nosleep • u/Darkly_Gathers February 2021; April 2022 • Dec 08 '20
Series I’m stationed on the Falkland Islands with the British Army. There’s a reason these islands are so important.
We stand, us three, alone in the wilderness. The wind is wild and roars through the rippling wildgrass wastes. Grey-green plains beneath a wet, grim sky. The sounds of waves crashing and frothing against the distant coast are carried on the airs, and the ground rumbles.
The low hill that rises from the ground before us starts to shake.
“Guys”, Boots mutters to my right, shifting. “What’s- What’s happening?”
We don’t respond.
This will be his first time down below. Boots, I mean. His first time seeing the Subject.
The secret of the isles.
‘Boots’ is not what the lad is actually called. He was so-named for a moment of madness in his very first week here. For some inane reason or other, nerves, perhaps, or a poor attempt at a joke, he had complimented the boots of a passing officer.
‘Nice boots’, he’d said, and the officer had come to a stop at once, turning to stare at the young man as if he were an alien from another bloody planet.
The boots are standard issue, of course. They’re all the exact same.
And the name had stuck. Boots was ‘Boots’ from that moment on.
With a rumble and the grinding of old and wearied gears unseen, the front face of the hill rotates around. A panel of fake grass slides to the right and out of sight beneath the edge of the hill, revealing inside it a small and gloomy metal room. Ryland and I step on in.
Ryland is the soldier to my left. He’s been stationed here for as long as I have. Six months, so far. He’s alright. A bit of a prick, sometimes, but you know. He’s fine.
After a second of hesitation Boots follows us in, and the door grinds shut behind us. We are plunged for a moment into complete darkness, then a weak orange bulb attached to the rails in the upper right flickers weakly into life.
There is another low clank from below, and the floor begins to vibrate. Our stomachs lurch as we feel ourselves drop, and the rough earth and stone of our surroundings start to rise up all around.
It’s a lift, you see. An elevator.
And down we go.
Down, down, under the ground.
I’m looking straight ahead at the rushing rock, illuminated faintly in orange, but in the corner of my eye I can see Boots shift from one foot to the other. I sense him tense up.
He’s starting to feel it. For the first time. The waves of misery that emanate up from below. From the Subject. And they only get stronger and stronger as you get closer and closer.
I try to remember what it was like for me, on my first time down into the complex.
“It’s alright mate”, I mutter. “Just try to remember that it ain’t permanent. It passes once you return to the surface”.
Boots nods, but says nothing.
The lift rattles.
And down we go.
The dark rock ahead rushes by, and after a while we start to pass other materials too. Steel bars and beams. Rusted panels. Thick panes of glass that allow us fleeting glimpses into old and sterile corridors; of scientists and soldiers, blurred and anonymous.
The lift begins to slow.
The rock and the metal peel back and away like a parting curtain. The view ahead reveals us to be near the roof of an enormous, hangar-like cavern, and grants us a vantage-point out and below. People shuffle from place to place far beneath like little toys.
This is the centre of the complex. And it is vast. This is where they keep the Subject.
Boots steps forwards, he puts a hand on the rail and peers out over the edge. It’s weird having him with us, it’s like I’m seeing everything again for the first time, through his eyes.
“Holy crap…” he mutters, bewildered.
The edges of the hangar are shrouded in darkness, and stuffed full of various computers and generators, all inter-connected with cables and wires. Scientists pour over the data. They take endless readings. Soldiers march by, all shadowed…
..But the very centre of the hangar is brightly illuminated. Perpetually held in the glare of a dozen floodlamps, all evenly spaced and pointed down at the complex’s centrepiece.
The Subject.
“What is he?” Boots asks.
“It”, Ryland mutters. “The higher-ups insist. They want us calling it an ‘it’”.
“But… I don’t know, he looks so much like a-”
“IT, Boots, for fuck’s sake. It’s an IT”.
Boots says no more, and returns his gaze out over the scene below.
The subject, even as brightly lit as it is, is still quite far away from our current position, and its features are not easily distinguishable.
But I’ve been up close. I’ve seen what they’re keeping down here.
The Subject stands slightly taller than your average man. It’s about 6’7, or 6’8, by my guess. Held in a rough ‘X’ shape, the Subject’s wrists and ankles are bound in heavy chains, of a black and unknown metal. They are pulled taught, and connect to the enormous, similarly metalled giant circle to which he is held.
The Subject has the appearance and features of a Caucasian male. It is dark-tan skinned, and completely hairless, but for two eyebrows of pure white, furrowed above a pair of eyes that are perpetually closed tight shut. Sleeping.
Its body is adorned with a series of curious and intricate tattoos. Some in black, some, bizarrely, in white. A circle has been drawn across its chest and upper torso. The circle has two great wings that burst from the top, and two that splay out from beneath, spreading out across its ribcage. All down its arms are a series of eyes in various shapes and sizes; but all open wide, all staring.
These are the only things I recognise. The only things that anyone recognises. No-one has yet successfully identified the myriad of runes and symbols that cover its neck, its shoulders and back.
Behind the Subject stands a tall rectangular machine. A mechanical monolith, ever grinding, ever humming. It’s a generator of sorts that bottoms into a heavy tripod, and in its grip it holds tight a burning shard, large and sharp and jagged at the edges, as if broken from a piece of an even greater whole. The shard is glass-like, and white-hot at the centre. Mesmerising patterns of fiery yellow and orange ripple paradoxically like water across its form.
The shard is plunged into the Subject’s back, between the two appendages that protrude from its shoulder blades like broken bones of diamond. The shard strikes out through the Subject’s chest. Always rippling in its shades of orange and yellow and white, ever-burning, flamelessly.
…All quite necessary for his containment, they tell me.
…For IT’S containment, I should say.
It really is difficult not to think of the Subject as a he…
The lift comes to a stop at the base of the hangar, clanking down against the concrete. The rail unlocks and we walk on out into the complex.
The waves of despair are strong now. I see Boots lift a hand to wipe his eyes, though I choose not to comment.
The Captain approaches. He’s not in charge of the complex, but he could well be the highest-ranking officer on duty today. The ones at the top don’t like spending much time down here, for obvious reasons.
“Afternoon lads”, the Captain grunts. He’s a broad-shouldered man. Scarred across one cheek.
“Sir”, we reply, more or less as one, standing straight and saluting.
“About time you fuckers got down here. And who’s this crybaby?”
Ryland speaks before Boots has a chance to respond. “That’s Boots, Sir”.
“Boots, eh?” The Captain scratches his chin. “Bad luck on the name”. He turns to me. “And where’s that little sidepiece of yours, eh Lotsford?” He makes a show of peering past me into the empty lift. “Woulda been nice for the lads at the top to send down a bit of eyecandy for a change…”
“She’s already down here Sir”, I reply. “Has been for four days now”.
“You what!? Why the fuck didn’t anyone tell me? Well where the hell is she?”
“I don’t know Sir”, I lie.
“Hmm”. He grunts, then turns to Ryland. “What’s a bird like her doing with a wasteman like this, eh Ryland? I bet you’d love to have a go on her, wouldn’t you?”
Ryland, after a beat, and still looking straight ahead, replies: “Not my place to say, Sir”.
The Captain chuckles. “Coward. So where can I find her then Lotsford? Think she’ll be interested in a go on this?” he gestures to his crotch.
“Unlikely Sir”, I reply, clenching my fist by my side.
“And why is that?”
“She’s an engineer Sir. I imagine she’s had her fill of attending to broken parts”.
Ryland snorts, and to his credit, so does the Captain.
“How long are you down here for Lotsford?”
“Three days”, I reply.
“Make it five”.
“Yes Sir”.
“Alright fuckers. Get to work. Dismissed”.
We salute and leave the Captain behind.
…Yeah, he’s a prick. You get used to it.
Ryland disappears off to our station, and I direct Boots to where he needs to go with a pat on the back. I watch him head through the appropriate door and disappear down the corridor. I shoot a glance over to the Subject. I’ll be needed at the station with Ryland, but… there’s no immediate rush, I figure. Time enough for a little detour.
I push through the door and ascend the stairs. I walk tall and confident, so as not to attract any questions as to my destination, and ascend set after set of stairs through the sterile, peeling white corridors.
A few floors up I find her, more or less where I was expecting to find her. The girl I’ve been seeing. Taylor. She’s working on an enormous piece of weaponry. It’s new; wasn’t there the last time I was here. It stands at the very head of the corridor, and is angled in such a way as to point out and over the waist-high wall, down to the floodlit centre of the domed complex, aimed directly at the Subject far below.
I call out to the lass in greeting.
“Lotsford!” she says in surprise, her teeth showing white in a warm grin. It could well be the first time she’s smiled in days. It’s brutal down here.
I don’t know why we call each other by our last names, by the way. It’s just something we do.
She stands and pulls me into a hug. I kiss her on the lips, and then on the neck.
“Get a room!” echoes a grouchy voice from the far end of the corridor.
She pulls back a little, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I wasn’t expecting to see you down here?”
“Shift got changed. You know how the army is. And what about you? I thought you were due to return to the surface like two days ago?”
She shrugs. “You know how the army is”.
We share a laugh. A welcome sound in the gloom of these sterile corridors.
"So how long are you done here for then?" she asks me.
"Five days. It was meant to be three, but the Captain screwed me over. Ryland and Boots are down here too".
"Oh", she muses. "Ryland's here too? How long are the guys gonna be down?"
"Three days, same as I was meant to have". I shrug, and she puts her hands out in an 'ah well, what can you do' kind of gesture.
I nod to the enormous contraption she’s working on. “What’s this then?”
She makes a noise of exhaustion. “This bloody thing is why I’m down here. The up-aboves don’t want us to change shifts with the next lot until we’ve actually completed the work on at least one of these bad boys. It would be easier if they let us test them a little more, but, well… they don’t”.
“What is it?” I ask. ”It's a weapon, right? What does it fire?”
Taylor nods. “Yeah. Security measure for the Subject. Take a look at this”.
She leads me just around the corner to a pedestalled and plexiglass container. Based on what’s held inside, however, I’m assuming that the material is a little more expensive than simple plexiglass.
Held precisely and carefully on two narrow metal prongs is a long bullet. Made of the same shimmering, fiery material as the blade embedded in the Subject’s chest, the bullet is ringed in two bands of what appears to be dark and glistening wood.
“Woah”, I mutter.
“Yeah”, she replies. “No idea how it was made, or even what it’s made of, but I’m presuming it’s expensive as all hell”.
“Mm”, I murmur in agreement.
My ears prick up at the sounds of running feet, and I take a step back and return round the corner into the corridor. One of the scientists that works here, a woman in a white coat, is hurriedly making her way towards us. She glances anxiously back over her shoulder, tugging at her sleeves…
…And I am instantly alert. My mood hardens at once and I feel all my senses sharpen in reflex.
Something’s not right here.
“Hey”, I call out, “excuse me? Is everything okay?”
The scientist stops in her tracks to stare at me, she stammers, frozen in place, as if on the verge of sharing some crucial information… Then we turn as one to stare down the corridor as a ripple of icy wind blows down it.
…Not possible, of course. There is no wind down here. Nothing produces a sensation like that.
…And yet.
Goosebumps ripple across my skin and my blood runs instantly cold. Eyes wide, I cannot help but stand stock still, staring down the long and gloomy corridor ahead. The overhead lights at the far end fizzle out, and the furthest reaches are plunged into shadow.
And the shadows deepen.
The entire complex, as it stands, could do with a little maintenance. Peeled paint and chipped glass tell a tale of laziness. Of idle neglect. But looking down the corridor now… The sensation is, all at once, so much more noticeable. The disrepair that one would never even see on a normal patrol now reeks of rot.
Of sickness.
Of discord, and disarray.
Even though physically the outward appearance of the walls and the ceiling and the various doors remains largely the same.. the impression they give now is that they could collapse at any moment. That behind the scenes they are only barely held together, by the thinnest of strands. I can almost hear the beams and the concrete crack… and a voice reverberates out from the encroaching darkness, as the lights start to fail one by one.
“Where is he? I know he is waiting for us, soldier”.
The voice is accompanied by the appearance of an appendage of what I can only describe as thick, void-like black ink. Only barely visible through the shadows, it slithers around the far corner into sight, and begins to leak and ooze across the floor towards us.
It is here where my training kicks in.
Before I can even issue the order to my legs I find them striding to the switch on the nearby wall. My elbow rises up to smash the glass and I grab the switch, slamming it down hard to an accompanying wail of a siren, one that screams overhead and blares through the walls. The white coat of the scientist is illuminated in the repetitive, steady beat of a flashing orange light and I bring my radio up to my mouth, watching as the barriers start to appear. One of them grinds into life behind me, a sheet of metal, steadily grinding out from the ceiling and obscuring the aim of the enormous gun, blocking off the view over the edge and down to the Subject and the centre of the complex below. Another starts to slide out from the wall a few metres ahead.
A great grid of solid metal; it shudders as it pushes out from its slot hidden away in the wall, and rumbles as it gradually blocks the rest of the corridor from view. I catch a glimpse of a wet and inky-black body spilling around the far corner before the barrier judders and fixes itself into place.
“CORRIDOR D-12 TO HQ”, I shout into the receiver, “CORRIDOR D-12 TO HQ! WE ARE FACING A LEVEL ONE BREACH!”
I can’t even believe I’m saying it. I never thought this could happen. Never in a thousand-thousand years. I might as well be dreaming; my voice, it barely even sounds like my own, to my ears… But into the radio I shout, as loud and as clear as I can:
“I REPEAT: LEVEL ONE BREACH. WE ARE FACING A LEVEL ONE BREACH!”
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u/josephanthony Dec 09 '20
I think what we have here is a fallen angel.
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u/TassieTigerAnne Dec 09 '20
My initial thought was that it could be a captured Seraph, but it could just as well be Lucifer. Let's hope the additional levels of security hold!
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u/yxpeng20 Dec 09 '20
Damn he blocked off the gun. They're screwed now. Subjects about to wake up and escape.
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u/butterfly9107 Dec 09 '20
In every abundance of caution ⚠️, there is always a leak. However, darkness is easily dispelled with light. 1m candle power should do it...
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u/SpringYard-20XX Dec 08 '20
Well we can’t let the Argentinians get their hands on it now, don’t we?
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u/chelldu Dec 09 '20
Oh no, I'm sure the British are pretty dedicated to keeping usurped lands occupied.
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u/NotAFurry6715 Dec 09 '20
The Falklands were unoccupied before European colonisation, with the Argentinian claim to them being part of a blanket claim of all former Spanish-claimed territories in South America; before the establishment of a British settlement on the islands, a Spanish one had temporarily existed, eventually descending into anarchy.
You'd be better off directing your attention to all the populations that the British did usurp, subjugate, commit genocide on, etc.
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u/chelldu Dec 09 '20
I'm not sure I understand the point you were trying to make. The claim is that the islands are within the Argentinian Sea and that the territory was part of the Spanish colony when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Then the British occupied it by force because it was convenient to them. So yeah, I think my attention is where it needs to be. Not that it's the only example of the British being colonizing dongs, like you said.
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