Chapter 6: SCP-3288; Part 6, Talons In The Darkness.
Iron cast his tired eyes over the bodies of The Fell Borns. The blood still wet and gore still steaming.
"well... at least I can forget about that fifty quid I owed Steve..." he said with a sigh, scratching the back of his hooded head. Jester gave him a look of disapproval.
The way ahead was silent. A dark abyss await for the Mandrakes.
Stone hewn away by primitive tools made the corridor that they stood in. The sides jagged and sharp, the team kept to the centre of the walkway, leaving their fallen comrades behind. Top felt eyes on him, but he couldn't see any.
Pull it together!
He walked some more, Iron behind him and Jester behind Iron. The night goggles seemed darker, their vision seemed to be failing him.
Shit.
The Corridor bent to the right at a steep angle and ventured down in to more blackness.
"How dull. A bit of colour wouldn't hurt! Well... unless it was red... then, I suspect it would hurt." Joked Jester.
"Shut the fuck up." spat Top harshly. His eyes began to water with the strain of trying to see through the failing goggles. The team moved up in silence, the darkness devouring more and more with each step.
Around the corner, the cave seemed to stop with a slight shadow.
A door!
Top almost allowed himself a smile when he saw the arched outline of the door. Increasing his speed slightly without giving off any noise, Top reached the door first and listened.
Nothing.
Jester came to his side and did the same. Listened.
Nothing
Iron approach and stood a little away from the two listening men. They stood for a few minutes, just listening. Iron paying attention to the way they had just come from, The other two listening to the other side of the door.
"OK, sounds clear. Breach" Said Top finally, satisfied the room at the other side of the door was clear. The Baron came through here and must have fled further on.
Iron stepped forward and slowly opened the wooden door. It creaked a little, but the sound echoed through the blackness. The team froze, listening again.
Nothing.
Iron stepped forward and stopped suddenly.
"Contact?" Asked Jester in a whisper, Iron didn't answer. He just stood there, half through the door.
Jester and Top listened some more, hoping to hear what had spooked Iron. That's when Jester looked down and saw a deep black liquid spilling from the bottom of Iron's boots.
"The fuck is that?" he asked placing a hand on Iron's shoulder, the sound of metal sliding slowly through wet meat came from Iron as an blood stained clawed hand came away from his chest. Iron collapsed to the ground.
A dark figure retreated into the darker shadows.
Top and Jester in the confusion of Iron falling, the sudden removal of his insides and their failing goggles turned on their weapon mounted flash lights. The light bathed the immediate area in front of them in a white harsh light. The walls beneath their feet turned to tile as they walked into the room. The white walls decorated in well cared for paintings and marble pillars at various points around the room. The hall that they had entered was vast, roughly twenty meters in width, but too far for the light to reach the end wall.
Whatever killed Iron was in this room.
Jester and Top checked left and right. They missed the dark skinned figure easily clinging to the marble walls directly above them on top of the door. If they looked, without the light, only the crimson claw would have given the thing away.
The two remaining Mandrakes advanced into the dark hall, lights flicking from pillar to pillar, searching the shadows for the invisible hunter, but finding none. When they reached about twenty meters down the hall, the door they entered through slammed shut. Both Mandrakes turned with their lights, only catching a blurred glimpse of the dark skinned thing above the door as it moved with such grace and speed, Top fired three bullets and Jester fired two. Their weapons hissing as the rounds left the barrels.
Missed.
The Shadow thing disappeared in to the shadows again.
"Fuck." said Top in a hushed voice of annoyance.
Jester kept his eyes and rifle down towards the door where they had last seen the thing, Top advanced further up the corridor slowly, with Jester walking backwards with him. A dry feminine chuckle came from farther down the hall, past the darkness so dark it resembled more of a void abyss than a shadow. "Definitely an Empress." said Jester over his shoulder, "Nothing moves that fast except one of those things." agreed Top. The hall continued with portraits of variously disfigured faces and twisted bodies that the team assumed to be 3288 members from the past. Mouths too wide, too many sharpened teeth, one eye drooping half way down the cheek. Only some had the typical crusty crystalline skin that was usual with the 3288's condition, and then, Top paused as his eyes adjusted to the door at the end of the hall, his heart quickened its race to its final beat as he also quickened his pace, but then he heart fell as he saw the portrait above the door. An ebony skinned, slender figure in a white pin striped frock coat and a soft seductive smile stared out from the oil painting, one arm folded across her chest and the other arm in an upright position, long and thin talons creeping out of the top of her fingers instead of nails. her Index talon was resting upon her full red lip, as if tasting something on the end of the murderous finger.
Top and Jester both took the painting in, acknowledging Iron's killer. "Now we know who to kill the slowest." said Jester through gritted teeth, Top nodded in agreement, both not seeing the silent and slow moving shadow next to the door. Talons gripping the handle softly and soundlessly turning the latch. The mahogany door opened quietly and smoothly, just enough for a thin body to slip through the gap. The first they noticed it was when the Shadow had gone and the door closed itself and the latch clicked shut.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone