On Our Side of the Forest (Short Story Compilation)

A Scream in Silent Darkness: Kroobs FanFic

A Scream in Silent Darkness

It had been about four months since I had been back to the surface. The silence tends to melt at your mind like some sick insult. You're lost. Not physically, all the hallways and doors are exactly as you could have left them. You'll memorize every single bolt that holds the doors on. You're lost mentally, craving a sense of the sun or sound. My crew and I have been down here for four months, and we still have seventeen left to go.

"Red," I turned, seeing Kyle's antlers before I saw him. The young buck studied his clipboard then looked up to meet my fiery gaze, "There's something you need to see," He was the head of knowing our surroundings. He sat in an office and recorded pings and dings and wavy things that bounced off of stuff. I was more so the "brute force" of our little, humble deep-sea vessel. I kept the peace, carried around the heavy things, fixed the machines when they went wrong.

"What, I'm not like the best one to talk to about crazy readings," I chuckled, rubbing one of my large, heavy red paws against the back of my neck. The hem of this old tank top I wore rose slightly above my belly button.

"I keep getting weird interference in one of my computers, I think I need you to take a look at it." He started back walking to his office. What else was I going to do? I followed behind him closely as he spoke about numbers and other information. It all made me scratch at my horns. I was not the best with knowing information from EVERYONE'S job. There's like twenty of us here or something. What? I was hired aboard to fix what went wrong here. Anyways, he went on a little longer and all of it wasn't overly catching my attention until he began to bring up "Something big".

"Excuse me?" We were right outside his office at this point. I had seen the stale, prison bathroom colors that stained those walls of these halls a million times. These ugly-ass fluorescent lights humming while drilling bright light into your eyes twenty-four-seven.

"If the readings are right, it would indicate something....huge....is just chilling right underneath us. Take a look for yourself!" Kyle pointed at this computer screen. Of course, it had to come from the equipment I actually knew how to use. It frequently sent out waves that came back and told us about things outside. We were constantly moving down here. Our Captain kept us on track with our deep-sea voyage of mapping the ocean floor. Who knows what could swim past us in the dark? This was like our extra eyes. It kept showing this dark mass about a mile below us. According to this, it was the size of a bus.

"It's not a glitch on the screen, that's accurate data," My large frame kinda towered over its desk setting as I studied the data the computer displayed, "Something's down there..." I swallowed hard, my body suddenly chilling to the core. My paw pads became hyper-aware of how cold the floor was. Nothing this big has ever come across us until now.

A crash jolted us from our conversation, flinging both of us towards the right wall of the office. The small deer collided into me. I couldn't tell you I felt it. He was light compared to my frame. I growled a little, my teeth glinting in the lights. Did we crash?
"What was that?" Kyle clung onto me. I grabbed my walkie out of my sweatpants, radioing into the captain.

"What happened?"

"R-r-red?" He was breaking up a little, static-filled mostly, "Something is out there," We were a big ship. A big ass ship. We could almost be considered a deep-sea base. Lights began flashing, my eyes adjusting to the awkward shift in colors. "We're taking on water, something got in!"

"Wing B is submerging," I yanked up Kyle, running through the halls as fast as my demon speed could carry me. I was quick, but the water was quicker. Once the walls gave in, we would implode. We were right outside of A-wing, and it would have to be sealed off before it went to. I pushed my body, Kyle clinging to me for life. I'd cut corners so hard my claws dug into the ground to stop the slide. I began to splash, doors popping from their henges behind us right as I slid through the door and hit the emergency button. Blackness took the outside. Nothing was left. My heart, my chest, beat rapidly rising and falling as I caught my breath. My fur was damp, My chest burned. People just died. My eyes stared out into the void of water, there was nothing but debris left now. Nothing to take back to any of their grieving families. My breathing couldn't catch up. My heart raced in my chest. I could throw up, but I jumped back as this creature latched onto the door. It beat at it for a bit before swimming off.