Tales From Babalangion

The Beast Under The Ice

Ah, making it big. That feeling when you finally make it to your goal. But do not be blind, a chance for greatness isn't always a chance for greatness. If your oblivious, you may find your shot at greatness, to lead to you moment that changes your life for the worse.

The Beast Under The Ice:

"ID badge please" the guard said. I hand him my key card and he scans it and hands it back to me, I then head inside to start my new career as a biologist for a facility in Alaska.

"Welcome Dr. Hanscom" a voice says to my left. I turn around to see the supervisor who reached out to me for this job. His name was Smith Carters, I had only met him once before on a zoom call for an online interview.

"Pleasure Dr. Carters" I say with a wave, "and please call me Nancy"

Dr. Carter then smiled and responded with, "Please I have everyone call me Smith, but let me show you around before we get on to work stuff." He says while walking down a long hallway. It's a bright white which I thought to be very doctor office-like. As he shows me around, we meet the occasional scientist or guard working and switching shifts. I absently realize that the ratio for guard and scientist is very one sided.

"Why are there so many guards here Dr. Cart-er I mean Smith" I inquire while almost forgetting to call him Smith.

"We do very vital research here, which has caused a few incidents involving some very messy situations." He says then proceeds to point out the room and hall numbers as well as the names for each wing, so I don't get lost.

"This place looked smaller on the outside" I commented

"Oh, well my higher ups have some good builders at their disposal." He tells me "Most of the place is under the surface of the ice, but that is mainly the lab area." That's weird, why not build outwards instead of doing a pricier operation just for the same function. I think.

"Well, here's your room, enjoy and don't forget your shift starts at 3:00." He says opening a door and stepping out of the way.

"Thanks, see you then." I say closing the door, after putting my stuff away I see a window that looks out onto the ice to the north. "Huh good view." I say to myself as the check the time 2:50. Time for work, I sigh as I pull my lab coat on. I quickly walked in the halls as I made my way for the labs which were on floor 3 sub-quarter 4 Red Wing. Which just my luck is the second last floor down, and I am on floor 2 sub quarter 2 Blue Wing. One of the farthest wings from the labs.

"So much for convenience" I mutter as I walk down the long winding stairs. Something in the air feels wrong, like you left a building all night with no ventilation to the outside. Plus, the air is colder than one would expect as Smith told me how big the heating systems are to keep the facility warm. I get to the lab doors and swipe my key card to get in and then I see a scene of absolute carnage. Chairs, desks, and equipment are all overturned and the doors and windows separating the individual labs from the hallways are all torn off or broken. I hear a call in the closest lab to my right and look in to see Smith in the corner of the room.

"Nancy!" He calls out "You need to get out of the labs, get to floor 1 sub quarter 7 safe wing." He yells

"What are you talking about?" I ask while walking into the room. Upon getting closer I see he is holding a gun in one hand. "Why do you have a gun?" I ask a bit surprised

"There is no time to explain, get out of the labs!" I hear a crash and see someone else running in. It was the head of security Jackson Walker. He was limping slightly and was bleeding from a cut on his head.

"Doctor Carter, Doctor Hanscom you need to leave" he whispers quietly. Then something I would never forget walked into sight. I shouldn't say walked it. It was more a lunge, a large thing with six long thin arms ending in sharp points. Its arms looked as if someone cut it's hand off and sharpened bone to a spear like point. I could only see a long dagger like tongue jutting from its vortex of a mouth stab into Jackson's neck before the arms also stabbed him and dragged him into the darkness. I screamed a scream that even hurt my ears.

"Come on" Smith said "Hurry" He got up and started limping to the lab doors. Not wanting to be far behind the guy with a weapon in a hallway with a monster roaming it. We got through the doors, and they started closing just as a loud shriek emanated from the farthest down lab. We then hurried up the stairs as fast as we could with Smith's limp. Once we finally got to the first floor we rushed to his office, and he slammed and locked the door.

"What was the thing?" I ask, on the near brink of panic.

"The Parasitic Skeleton" he says as if that explains everything.

"You see Nancy," Smith begins "I discovered these things and decided they need to be terminated." He says as casually as saying he is going to get a snack. I still was confused about all of this.

"We were trying to find a way to kill this one when it breached containment and killed everyone else. The reason I brought you here was to see if you could be a recruit for my cause."

"Well, that's all fine and dandy, but what about that thing!?" I ask

"As I've mentioned, we call it the Parasitic skeleton, it's a large skeleton form shadow with six arms and a tongue that function like a mosquito's nose. But it doesn't just drink it drinks other liquids as well and after it drains a victim it uses the flesh to make some large structure. It's not clear what it is but we believe it is from a different dimension as we first found it in a lost city under the ice in a sealed tomb for at least a million years. After translating text from the tomb, the people who found it called it a god like species which is trying to bring more of its kind. The structure it builds is about finished but..."

"Wait a second, time out" I interrupted "There are more of it?"

"Yes, and last we saw the portal was almost complete." He answers somber "The body's from today will be enough to finish it, but they can't stand low temperatures which is why we didn't try to move it to a more secure facility." "But they also don't need food or air or water." They just drain victims to build more muscle mass and nondrained bodies don't work. Then suddenly the door is ripped of its hinges. I see the so-called god entity standing in the doorway but as it walks forward, I see it is stooped over. It stands upright after getting through and I see it in all it's entirety. It is at least 12 feet, and its face is literally a swirling vortex of black save for the small hole for its tongue. Its torso is thin with long and sharp rib like structures poking from its thin skin, its legs are black like the rest of its body but with some white strips on it. Then I see where the muscle mass goes. There is a tube attaches to the back of its head and behind it is a large fleshy mass with an array of different bones inside the clear bubble. I see bones from humans, animals, and things I have never seen before. On the sides it has long skeletal arms dripping with blood and other fluids, and finally I see the worst part. A large human head comes up from the flesh on a thin tube, but it's not really human it has longer sharper teeth in greater numbers and eyes that are black with bright red pupils that seem to glow and the eyes drip blood that is filled with shreds of skin. And on closer inspection the head is smaller too with flesh and blood on the teeth. Then the head moves very slightly, and more skeletons attached to flesh come into the hall, but these ones have smaller flesh bubbles and less developed heads on them. These observations are pointless as the main one lunges and then tears into Smith, arms and tongue sticking into to him making a sickening slurping noise and he shrivels up before he can even scream. I cry as the ball of flesh's head turns to me as the arms on it move it to me. As it gets closer, I can hear voices calling to me. Smith, Jackson, and the other people I briefly talked to when I got here. I cry as the skeletons move towards and I scream as the feel the arms go into my chest and the tongue goes down my throat as I inhale to scream again. I wake up in some weird water, I move around to the edge of a bubble, and I look out to see a man running as a girl is being stabbed with seven weird stick looking things. I then remember what happened and I look at my surroundings to see smith and a bunch of other people looking out to.

"I was wrong Nancy," Smith said, "there was a reason they build muscle mass." I look to see we are not in the facility anymore; we are on a poorly lit city street at night. It looks like Paris, and I see once the SCP is done with the girl it grabs the boy and covers his mouth with an appendage until he is knocked out. Then I realize what Smith realized.

"They build it to withstand the cold."

It is clear? Being a fool and taking on what you can never understand is a thing only a bumbling jester will do. So dear reader, pray you are as wise as you no doubt see yourself.