Sublevel 12

Domison ground his jaw as the elevator beeped ever lower, mind-numbing elevator music droning from a speaker in the top left corner of the descending room. 'This is it,' he thought, 'the belly of the beast.' His eyes flicked over to his commanding officer, taking in his worn visage. A deep scar worked its way across his cheekbone and down over his top lip while salt and pepper scruff played across his chin and cheeks. This man had saved Domison's life, and he would be damn sure to not let his commanding officer down. Finally, the elevator came to a stop and the music clicked off, a robotic voice filled the small room, "Arrival at sublevel 12." The doors slid silently open. Immediately Sam cut to the left while Domison took the right-hand corridor. "Clear" both men intoned at almost the exact time, before looking at each other.

The walls around the men were oddly shaped, they were wider towards the ceiling, appearing almost like an upside-down triangle that clipped through the steel grate flooring. In fact, as Domison looked down, he saw that the walls did connect below him, finishing the triangular shape. Dotting the angled metal walls were windows looking into several rooms. When he caught a glance of what was inside these rooms it immediately caught Domison's attention. 

"Sam.... what is this place?" Domison asked as he allowed the veil of tactical hardness to drop slightly, taking in the oddly shaped hallways and windows dotting the walls. There were dozens of rows of upright containers filled with what looked like a thick, black liquid behind the windows. The corridor seemed to wrap back around and connect making a full circle, but every six sets of windows would be broken by a singular hallway. These hallways all lead to the same place, a cavernous room at the center of everything. In the center of the large chamber sat a huge chunk of organic material inside an even bigger glass-looking tube that extended up from the floor almost reaching the ceiling. As they both approached, Domison found he could not take his eyes away from the huge chunk of, what he could only describe as, sickly black flesh.

"No idea kid," Sam responded, continuing straight to the center of the room. He began placing explosive charges along the glass that held the rows of upright containers, facing the charges towards the center of the room. Once they were all placed, the older man set them all at a thirty-minute timer.

It started almost imperceptibly at first, but Domison began to notice a buzzing noise building up from somewhere. He looked around with a look of slight confusion on his face, but he couldn't seem to locate it. Eventually, he returned his gaze to the enormous fleshy bit housed within the central tube. As soon as his eyes landed on it, the buzzing began to increase in volume. He scrunched his eyelids slightly at the oddity in the middle of the large chamber.

Soon the buzzing and sounds grew and started to become a low rumble. It sounded at such a frequency that Domison was sure he could feel the vibrations down into his bones. After several moments of the building noise, Domison called out, "Sam, are you hearing anything? I can't tell if this buzzing is just my tinnitus kicking in, or if something is off here." At the odd look the man shot at him, he began to assume it was just the ringing caused by many years of shooting firearms in close quarters coming back to haunt him. Shaking his head, he returned his gaze to the central containment area, observing the fleshy mass once again.

This time he couldn't seem to make himself look away, and before he knew it his feet were planted before the glass. From this distance, Domison could feel a faint vibration seeming to come from the fleshy chunk behind the barrier, which he now realized was about 2 feet thick. He closed his eyes and pressed a glove-laden hand against the glass, feeling the vibrations running through it. The low rumble began to build again at such a small rate, he almost didn't realize it was increasing in volume.  Something was odd about this thing they were keeping down here and Domison could just faintly feel a pull. It was as though something was tickling the back of his consciousness, drawing him ever closer.

"Dom!" A hand clapped hard on his shoulder, and the man realized he had his cheek pressed up against the glass and he was panting slightly. "Keep your head in the game. I don't know what that thing is behind there, but it's making me feel uneasy and it looks to be doing worse to you. I would stay away from it." As Domison looked over to his commander, he caught a shine in his eye he hadn't ever seen before. After a moment of puzzlement, he realized it was fear, genuine fear.

Normally Sam would not have let Domison off that easy for blanking out in the middle of a mission, but something was wrong here and they could both feel it. "See if you can get any access to information regarding what that might be. As far as I can tell on observation alone, the black liquid in those containment units is linked to whatever is behind that glass. If we can find out what it is, fine. If not, this seems like the best place to set the charges. So whether or not we can figure it out, the charges should be adequate, it'll go boom."

Sam broke away and began digging through piles of paper and handwritten notes. This archaic setup took Domison by surprise. After an extended glance, he realized that no computer monitors were blinking with information and no access ports for cerebral jack-ins. There was no advanced technology at all. There was just paper strewn across table after table. "What the hell..." Domison muttered under his breath as he began to rifle through the ancient record keeping as well. As he shuffled through, he began to rub absentmindedly at a point right behind his right ear, as though the soothing motion would make the incessant rumbling plaguing his eardrums go away.

Hundreds of pages were lying about the table he had chosen and he couldn't seem to make sense of anything. Debriefs on deep space exploration missions, piles of notes around what looked like organic chemistry? He couldn't make sense of any of it, but after 2 minutes of rifling through Domison suddenly halted, his hand a hair's breadth from the next page he had picked out from the mess.

"Pieces of the Abyss..." he muttered under his breath as he read the title of the page splayed beneath his fingers. As soon as the words had left his mouth he felt a deep tug and his eyes flickered to the contained mass. It felt like there was a deep part of his mind that was being forcibly turned towards that thing, lurking behind the glass. Domison could feel his heartbeat thudding against his armor-wreathed chest. The rumbling began to resolve into an ever-increasing guttural growl. Domison thought he could make out the faintest notes of whispering as well, though it was not a language he could comprehend. 

The growling and whispering grew several octaves at once, and his hair began to stand on end. The sound was DENSE, DEAFENING, and UNRELENTING. Everything else started to fade out and his vision tunneled onto the thing lurking behind the glass. Before Domison knew what was happening, he was before the container again and his palm was pressed up against the cool surface. He didn't even realize he had removed his glove, but... it didn't feel like it mattered. Nothing mattered other than sinking his hand into fleshy mass. He almost felt like an addict at that moment. He just had to get whatever it was and roll its fleshy mass between his fingers. The guttural noise he heard all around him was almost unbearable. Somehow he knew if he could just touch that thing, it would all stop. He felt as though he was on the edge of understanding.

Domsion felt two large hands shove him from his left shoulder. "Focus Domison, I set the charges! We have to get out of here, it's been twenty-five minutes already! Whatever that thing is, it is going to be gone soon. We should be too unless we want to join it in whatever hell we're blasting this building to!" Sam's gruff voice broke through the muddiness of Domison's thoughts and he peeled his eyes away.

The younger man shook his head slightly, as though to forcibly clear his mind, "Yes sir, let's get the hell out of here." But as soon as Domison said it, it was like the world froze. He couldn't move and it didn't seem like Sam could either. There was an oppressive force in the room, pressing down from every side and the only thing he could do was shift his eyes. He felt small and so very exposed like he had as the naked child pushed onto the stage at the auction house. But this time, it wasn't a room full of greasy pointing fingers and beady metallic eyes, pinning him into place. It was a singular, exponentially more unnerving force. Even worse, it didn't seem to want him to leave and the growling pressing against his eardrums was growing more intense.