The DOOM Chronicles

Epilogue

Kyra once more emerged from a glowering portal.

The effect of traveling between dimensions was beginning to get to her and she stepped wearily off the teleport pad. Slowly, she looked around, pistol ready for anything that might be prepared to kill her. She felt significantly more vulnerable without her suit of armor. But as she scanned the lab, hunting for threats, she found none. In fact, as she began moving around the room, which had obviously been subjected to the same conditions as the other two outposts she'd fought through, she slowly began to notice something.

That malignant presence she'd sensed almost since the second she'd set foot in Typhon Station, the haunting atmosphere that had permeated through both stations and Hell as well, was not present here. The place reeked, it looked like the set of a horror movie, it was depressing as hell, but that awful, pervasive feeling was absent. What did that mean? Had the survivors here successfully fought off the invaders?

Kyra looked at the dead scientists, the wrecked workstations, the bullet-riddled and blood-soaked walls. She had a lot to do.

With a sigh, she set to work.

* * *

The work was long, tedious, and miserable.

Kyra moved slowly through the facility, and she was at least grateful to learn that Luna Station was all one big building. No tram bullshit here. She worked her way through it, searching room by room, corridor by corridor, and...

Hardly found anything.

The demonic presence here was extremely lacking. Not that she was complaining. But whenever she wasted the occasional zombie she found lurking around, and a handful of fiends, and one injured pinky, she couldn't help but feel that something was wrong. She was missing something. But what? She kept searching, hunting for clues.

She stopped in Command Control, taking the opportunity to check out the two most important pieces of equipment: LifeScan and communications. LifeScan told her what she already suspected: yet again she was the sole survivor. And communications were busted. Refusing to be silenced any longer, Kyra set a diagnostic program on the comms network and, seeing that it was going to take about three hours to run in full, took a look at the other important features of the station. Namely power and oxygen.

Although Luna Station had been abused by the invasion, it was still intact, and she wouldn't be suffocating or freezing anytime soon. As she thought about that, her stomach had grumbled, and she realized at once how exhausted she was, how thirsty she was, how much she reeked. She had to take a piss pretty badly. But not yet. Not before she finished searching the area. She couldn't search the whole facility, but she could clear out Command Control without too much trouble. And so that's what she did, checking out every room and corridor and compartment that she could find. There were just a pair of zombies lurking, and she killed them easily.

When she was finished, Kyra hit the lockdown feature and headed straight for the administrator's living quarters. It was appropriately luxurious and relatively untouched. As soon as she double-checked it, she stripped down naked and took an hour long shower. She scrubbed away every last bit of blood, grime, sweat, and anything else that had accumulated on her body during her adventure across three moons and two regions of hellscape. She also used a full Medikit to deal with all her various scrapes, scratches, burns, and cuts.

It was the best shower of her entire life.

After drying off and dressing in a tan jumpsuit she found in the closet, (she'd find fatigues as soon as she could), she had attacked the kitchenette in the living quarters and eaten whatever she could find. Mostly it was frozen meals. She had a burger, two burrito meals, and a pepperoni pizza, as well as three cans of Mountain Dew Lightyear and two bottles of water. After sitting around for a little while, Kyra had intended to get back and resume her sweep of the facility, but she'd stood up and realized all at once that she was dead on her feet.