Ancient Research Facility
Offshore, West of Ossyria
24th April 2042
0435 Local Time

The rank smell of ichor and blood invaded his senses as he drifted back into consciousness. For a scant few moments, he remembered nothing except that he was alive. Bracing himself against the slick metal floor, he paused as his mind stalled and restarted, a muffled rhythmic sound drumming against his skull. His body involuntarily quivered as the sound started to crescendo, becoming a psychically painful droning that made his ears start to bleed. Suddenly it was washed out as the structure around him shook violently, chips of concrete rattling onto the floor, snapping him out of the trance. Determinedly he stood up, full of resolve. Then just as fast, he dropped vomiting at the sight he just saw.

In the fractured light he saw that the walls were desecrated by high velocity blood splatter, bone fragments and liquefied organs. The annex he was in showed the aftermath of fierce combat and the remnants of the combatants, a scene so gruesome that one could imagine it coming straight out of hell. After expelling the contents of his stomach, the soldier stood up again shakily, slowly surveying the room. In one corner were the remains of what he believed was Corporal Jenkins, only identifiable through the late corporal’s trademark sunglasses, lying broken halfway across the room. A drop of water landed on his shoulder. The soldier convulsed and looked at the ceiling. It was not water, it was blood.

Strips of pale light danced over his pallid face as he sprinted down the length of the corridor. He could hear his terrified heart beating clearly, loud, urgent thuds punctuated by his sharp breaths. He could hear Corporal Jenkins’ absurdly hard footfalls several metres behind him. He choked as he realized he could not hear the beast at all. The corridor was thirty metres long, three wide and three tall, made out of reinforced concrete. The beast smashed right through a wall ten metres ahead as if it was paper.

He skidded to a halt as the beast turned, its chameleonic fur flickering briefly before assuming the colour of its backgrounds. The werewolf was two metres crouched, and a towering five when bipedal. A profoundly deep, low growl emanated from it, vibrating the diaphragm and chilling the soul. Someone had once told him, maybe the Lieutenant, that a guttural noise, around the 18Hz level, triggered a primeval fear response in humans. An instinct carried down from when first man appeared.

The soldier raised a shaky hand to smooth out his hair and stopped as he saw it was red with blood, a dark slick that spread around his skin. His fatigues were drenched with sweat but he was too preoccupied at the bloody ceiling – how could have blood gotten up there? He shuddered and turned away the sickening thought. The penetrating smell of blood shot up his sinuses and he gagged. He tried not to look at the pieces of Jenkins, a gleaming bouillabaisse of blood, meat, bones and organs. There was a mighty shockwave which almost knocked him down onto the slick metal floor. The blood slick metal floor.

Eyes dead set on the werewolf, he lashed out his left hand, arresting Corporal Jenkins’ movement as he came past, oblivious to the danger. With his right he swung up his assault rifle and fired. The tracer rounds blitzed down the foyer, pencils of yellow against the off white walls. The werewolf sprang forward, beastly, leaping off the walls towards them. All he could see was a massive blur in the air rushing them. Rounds that impacted against this phantom created spurts of discoloured blood out of seemingly thin air. Jenkins raised his flechette shotgun suddenly disappeared, knocked five metres back. He turned to look and the action saved his life. An osmium tipped claw travelling at transonic speeds smashed right down the length of his weapon showering him in splintered metals and plastics.

He staggered back and cast away his useless rifle. With its powerful grip gouging holes in the concrete walls, the werewolf propelled itself forward. A savage half tonne missile with razor sharp teeth and deadly, detachable claws. There was a hollow whistling sound and a spray of blood shot out the side of the leaping beast, causing it to smash into the wall in a shower of concrete chips and metal railing. Jenkins racked his flechette shotgun again and adjusted his sunglasses. His shoulder plate was buckled where the claw had hit him.
“I think –”
The corporal was forced right through the concrete as the beast sprang up at him. There was a scream, punctuated by rough hacking sounds and gun discharges.

The lights flickered again, briefly revealing a massive hole in the side of one wall, opposite the bloodbath. With his mind clearer, the figure looked around and waded through puddles of blood to find his weapon. It was somewhere here and he hoped it was not covered in gristle and blood. Uneasy, he unsheathed two dirks from his back and advanced through the hole. He saw his rifle shredded in pieces, then saw the gun seemingly distort. Like there were gas fumes in front of it. Like some chameleon…

Level Ninety-Six: Personnel Quarters

Wolf turned off the shower and opened the steamed up glass door. His obsidian black hair wet and spiked with water dripping of the tips. He dried himself with a towel from the rack and wrapped it around his waist as he wiped his wet face. All these actions were done mechanically as his mind was preoccupied with the task set at present. Strangely there had been no confrontation with the MSND forces yet and something spooky was going on. Four proximity alarms set up by Jackal had been triggered but the security cameras showed nothing. There was a sudden rattling in the other rooms and Wolf froze, mind clear.

Stealthily, he removed a Dragon Kanzir from his sheath hanging on the towel rack and stalked across the room, nudging the door open with the cold, sleek blade of the dagger. Dim azure light filtered through the hallway, creating a surreal touch to everything. Creeping forward, Wolf heard someone or something moving about, somewhere along the hallway. He paused, waiting momentarily for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, before continuing down the foyer. A beam of white light stabbed across the foyer, originating behind the partial opened door of the kitchen. The sound again.

A step forward. Then another. A shadow flickered past the door. Three steps. Each footstep left wet, rapidly evaporating footprints on the metal floor. Wolf felt his bare feet turn numb against the coolness of the ground. More movement. Wolf steeled himself, then kicked open the door and leapt inside, Dragon Kanzir dangerous and ready.

Fox, clad only in a long, midnight blue undershirt, roared in surprise and dropped the tray of foodstuffs that she had been carrying. The aluminium tray clattered noisily on the tiled floor with its contents scattered messily around it.
“By Ossyria! Wolf!” She wailed in outrage, jumping up and down on the spot. “Don’t do that!”
Wolf, still mildly angry, did not lower the point of his dagger.
“What in the Dark Lord’s name are you doing?”
“Umm, let me see… Eating? Hello?” She sneered, gesturing at the fallen food. “We didn’t exactly have time to eat before we left did we?”
Wolf slowly lowered his weapon, embarrassment seeping into his alert mind. The adrenaline that was coursing into his system started to drop.
“I’m sorry. You should…maybe…get dressed before… you launch an attack on the pantry.” It was sounding stupid even as he said it. Wolf was too painfully aware of her long, tanned legs and the way the singlet top was accentuating her feminine features.
“You should take your own advice… Wolf.” She replied, raising an eyebrow. Wolf’s blood suddenly ran cold and he hesitatingly looked down. The towel had dropped when he had charged the door. He was what Coyote would call, ‘stark naked’. That is except, of course, for the Dragon Kanzir.
“Damn. My apologies.” He murmured, bending down to retrieve the fallen towel.
“Nothing I haven’t seen before.” She sniggered, hands akimbo.
Wolf froze, stooped. The point of a Sparta just inches from his face, materializing from the darkness behind me. Jackal lowered it and looked at Wolf in disappointment before scowling. He was fully clothed unlike the other two.
“Ossyria, the noise you were making! I thought something was up. Didn’t know you decided to make a move on Fox.”
“Shut up, no funny ideas now Wolf.”
Truth to be told, Wolf had had funny ideas about her for years. She was beautiful and sublimely sexy. But she was also of Clan Etsuko lineage the opposite of his lineage: Clan Kiyoshi. Although there was not any physical dispute between the two factions, there was a deep line of resentment and disgust going back nigh over a century. A relationship would have been tantamount to suicide and family disgrace. Wolf hated the fact. He felt a lot for Fox and longed to be with her, but it was never going to happen.
Not now, not ever.
She was Clan Etsuko, he was Clan Kiyoshi.
No way in the universe.

Level Seventy-Five: Command Module and Workstations

Lieutenant Gemina panned her helmet torch around the corner, illuminating the unforgiving darkness. Her helmet sensors recorded her pulse rate spike the highest in three years. She was edgy, her whole squad was edgy. With concise hand gestures she ordered the squad in. Recon Nez crouch ran in, AK-103 gripped tightly in his sweaty hands. Engineer Aliyah covered him and the rest fanned out behind her. So far their progress had been slow. The research facility was much larger than Gemina had expected and the contacts with the monsters were not doing any favours.
And that chameleonic werewolf ambush earlier…
She shuddered at the recount. They had just discovered the cadaver of a technician when four werewolves emerged from the main ventilation systems beneath the floor. The fight was intense and Fey almost lost an arm but Joseph’s medical skills managed to patch him up. They managed to kill three but the fourth one, as well as two of her squad disappeared. She hoped they were alive and safe.

There was a rustling coming from a cabinet in the corner. Everyone froze, torch lights centring on the mysterious object. It shook again, as well as the whole of the floor. Lieutenant Gemina stifled a cry as she almost fell. An intense light raked through the panoramic windows before there was a bone jarring impact several floors ahead. Gemina immediately thought about Petty Officer Naz and keyed him in on the radio.
“Naz! Come in Naz. Status report.”
Silence.
“Status report, what’s going on out there?”
Silence.
“Naz! You read me? I –”
There was a tremendous explosion from the direction of the landing pad which blew out several windows, unleashing the weather’s fury upon the interior of the room. Several marines stumbled back in sheer surprise, forgetting about the cabinet. Gemina paused, momentarily sullen and decrepit.
“Feth.” She muttered to no one in particular. Another casualty to add to her list.

With astute leadership skills, she refocused her platoon on the current objective, namely finding survivors. It was becoming quite clear that there were not many. The cabinet was approximately two and a half metres tall, and had steel lining around the rim of the oak doors. Drawing her trusty polearm, Gemina used its length to open the cabinet door from a distance, learning from experience. All the marines’ guns were trained on the door, expectantly waiting for some other gene mutated monster to come barrelling out towards them. As such, they were quite surprised when a snivelling human dropped out, whimpering. Accompanying him was an acidic smell. He had wet himself.

Level Seventy-Three: Topaz Laboratory and Containment Room Four Beta

He danced out of the way, just as the osmium claws lunged out at him. He countered with his dirks that dug deep into an unseen hide. The werewolf gave another low growl and attempted to backhand him. He saw it coming and vaulted off its injured hide and onto its back. Now fighting a werewolf is quite challenging but fighting a near invisible one requires expert skill. That and sheer amounts of luck. He lurched and started to slid off as the enraged beast turned bipedal. Slamming the blades into where he thought was the neck, he hung on for dear life. Thick, pressurized blood spurted high onto the roof as the werewolf felt its neck arteries rupture. The glutinous blood painted an outline to the camouflaged beast, now making it a sickly surreal exoskeleton, writhing around in pain.

His hands, slippery with foul blood, somehow managed to pull his beloved blades back out, applying as much force as he could to break the suction of the flesh. More polluted blood jetted out, blinding him. A jerk from the dying beast sent him careering into the wall, cracking a rib. It turned on him, a ghostly fountain of blood stalking towards him, each step sending vibrations through the marine’s body. It stopped, wracked with spasms, and raised a bloody claw.

Blood decorated the hallway for four metres, an expressionistic painting representing death. The werewolf chuckled, if possible, and took a step back. It was staring down the steel wrought barrel of the flechette shotgun, gripped by his prey’s bloodied hands. Flechettes are small lightweight darts, with good penetration but have terrible stopping power. But the flechette shotgun fires dozens of flechettes with each discharge, negating the accuracy issue. In this case, the werewolf now had an eight inch hole bored right through its midriff, and a few missing organs. As the beast collapsed, the marine sighed and lowered the weapon. He heard a crackling sound and slowly stood up. The sound was coming from the annex.
“…name… how long…”
The sound was a microbead, coming from a pile of rubble near the hole. It was his, dislodged from his helmet when he had first fallen unconscious. He checked the crystal inside then locked it back in place besides his cheek. He cleared his voice and prepared to speak. That is when he finally realized that he was not covered in sweat, but drenched in blood. The corporal’s blood.
“This is Private Imppala…”

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Dialogue Transcript taken from Pvt. Imppala’s helmet
Time code: 0410.24.04.42
[Cpl. Jenkins] Ever fought a werewolf before?
[Pvt. Imppala] No, sir.
[Cpl. Jenkins] That makes the two of us.
[Pvt. Imppala] Serious? And they’re invisible…
[Cpl. Jenkins] Well, invisible werewolves, that’s GG for us.

Dialogue Transcript taken from Lt. Gemina’s helmet
Time code: 1114.03.03.41
[Lt. Gemina] I don’t know why it’s called webbing, it just is.
[Cdt. Ceyon] Well, maybe it’s called webbing because it looks like a web you dumb-nut!

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FEAR Prologue: Ambient Wonder
FEAR Chapter One: Trace Amounts
FEAR Chapter Two: Opening Suite
FEAR Chapter Three: Dust and Echoes
FEAR Chapter Four: Perchance to Dream
FEAR Chapter Five: Blow Me Away