Shadow's Sacrament

Chapter Two: Confrontation

Shadow's Sacrament

By evolution-500

Genres: Horror/Mystery

Feedback: Always welcome

WARNING: This story contains violence, coarse language, mature themes and disturbing imagery. Reader discretion is advised.

Disclaimer: "Quake" is a property owned by ID Software. I do not own any of these characters.

Chapter Two: Confrontation

"I could not help feeling that they were evil things- mountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyss. That seething, half-luminous cloud-background held ineffable suggestions of a vague, ethereal beyondness far more than terrestrially spatial; and gave appalling reminders of the utter remoteness, separateness, desolation, and aeon-long death of this untrodden and unfathomed austral world."

- H.P. Lovecraft

The Ranger listened to the chanting that echoed as he crossed a forest of gothic arches. He heard the thump of a large drum, followed by guttural howls.

The hell's goin' on?

From the sounds of the racket, it almost sounded like a celebration of some sort.

Probably celebrating an early victory.

He tightened his hands around the barrel and handle of his shotgun.

Bastards may have won the battle, but the war was far from finished. So long as he was still breathing, nothing's finished, and these chuckle-fucks were going to learn the hard way not to count their slime-covered eggs before they hatched.

* * *

He moved deeper into the shadows, his weapon drawn and ready, his trigger finger itching for a target to shoot.

It had been half an hour(?) since he heard the chanting and followed in its direction, trying to locate the source, but sound, just as time and his sense of direction in this place, was incredibly skewed. At times he would hear it distantly, then just a few feet away. On a couple occasions, he would hear the chanting behind him, some of it spoken in the voices of his dead friends, his wife Annie, his children. There were times where he heard the chants spoken in his own voice, catching him completely by surprise, making him wonder at times if he had been speaking without even realizing.

Other times the language started to shift from English to French, then to Latin and what seemed like other older styles before becoming garbled animalistic rasps and snarls, to something so inhuman that the Ranger couldn't help flinching.

The whispers and sounds came from every direction at once, some so close that he could swear they were just standing just a foot away.

One voice whispered directly into his ear, causing the Ranger to let out a startled shriek as he violently whipped around and fired his weapon, the blast of his shotgun echoing and ringing. Staring shakily at his surroundings with terror-filled eyes, the Marine swallowed as he searched for hostiles, some hint of a disturbance or presence, his heart pounding loudly and painfully through his ribs, the whispering gone.