12 hours

A Story by Squid

A short horror(?) story involving time travel

Rian couldn't believe it, he was going to be the first person to ever travel through time. He excitedly steeped inside the machine, a complicated mix of wires, lights and metal that Rian didn't understand.

“Alright, Rian.” came the head technician's voice over the machine's intercom, “We’re going to send you 12 hours into the future, are you ready?”

“Ready when you are, Doc.” Rain replied, the excitement in his voice barely contained.

“Engaging temporal shift in 3….2….1.”

The machine started whining faster and faster, there was a loud bang and then nothing but the sound of rushing air and a screaming that Rian was sure was just the air rushing over some hole. Then another loud bang and the rushing and screaming stopped and door slowly opened with a hiss and a rush of steam.

As Rian stepped out of the machine his excitement turned to dismay and then to terror as he looked at the scene before. The technicians were strewn about the floor, some of them not entirely whole, some not even recognizable as something that had once been human. Blood and guts were strewn all over the walls and floor. As he surveyed the room, his eyes fell on the back wall, where the head technician had fallen against the wall-- behind him, on the wall, “RUN.” was painted in blood dripping down onto his hand and arm.

“Oh, God.” Rian whispered, it was all he could manage given the sight that lay before him, then, he did what the wall said, he ran.

Rian ran for what seemed like hours but only could have been a few seconds, eventually he ended up in some part of the lab he didn't recognize. He didn’t know which way was out. The lights kept flickering on and off and on again. He made his way through the lab, passing more of what he assumed to be corpses, sometimes it was hard to tell. Sometimes, he could have sworn he saw something dart by out of the corner of his eye, but every time he moved to look, it was gone, so he just chalked it up to stress.

Every now and then, he’d find a puddle of something dark and viscous pooling around the bodies. The further he went, the more of it he seemed to find, until eventually it covered virtually every surface. The glimpses had been becoming more and more frequent, and less and less fleeting, seeming to linger for longer and longer each time he saw one.

He walked for what felt like hours, maybe even days, but it couldn't have been more than an hour or two. He was beginning to feel like there was no way out, that the dark corridors and figures in the corners of his eyes would go on forever.

Every now and then, he would hear footsteps, or breathing, he tried to call out to it, to make some kind of contact, to find some other survivor, but whenever he opened his mouth, he seized up, and couldn’t make a sound. Soon the footsteps grew louder, and louder, and never from the same direction twice, sometimes above, sometimes far beside, sometimes right behind, but there was never anything there.

Then, he saw it, he was sure this time, a hulking, twitching figure was there, right in front of him, before it disappeared into the shadows. Rian decided to head in the other direction, running as fast as he could trying to find and exit. The more he ran, the more he could hear the things steps behind him, above him, in front of him, all around him, it was everywhere. Suddenly it appeared right in front of him, melting out of the shadows as if it had always been there. Rian fell back on back and started to crawl away from the thing, but it was too fast, leaping forward and removing his leg.

Rian continued to crawl, his leg leaving a bloody, messy trail behind him. He crawled, and crawled, but he never seemed to move. Still the footsteps echoed all around him, it was only a matter of time until the thing showed up again and finished the job.

Rian layed down on his back and stared up at the ceiling, and tried to picture the stars. He had always loved stargazing, laying on his back, feeling the grass on his back, and staring up at the infinite abyss above him, interrupted only by small points of light, but now, he wasn't sure if he knew what they looked like anymore. He tried to imagine the stars overhead, but all he could see was the black, viscous substance that coated every surface. He heard the footsteps growing louder and louder all around him, but he didn't seem to care. Soon it appeared again, twitching and writhing, it looked-- in pain, like it didn’t belong here. For a moment, Rian could almost sympathize with the creature. Someone in a place completely alien to them, it was scared.

Then it’s mouth opened, a black void, teeth all arranged in rows all down its mouth, like stars, and that was the last thing that Rian saw.