Renascentia - Run 3D Render, Digital Artwork by RedSpartan

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Renascentia - Run

3D Render by RedSpartan

She stepped to the doorway, hovering a moment with uncertainty. She scanned up and down the hallway, searching for signs, indications of how to proceed. The way she had come had yielded little information apart from the fact that this seemed to be a residential section for station personnel.

So, she thought, left it is then.

She gripped the pistol in her hand tightly, comforted by its feel but aware that it had little firepower against anything significant. It was doubtful its bullets would even penetrate armour at close distance, and the creature below, whatever spawn of hell it was, had sounded large. Any base like this would have an armoury, but chances were it may have been cleaned out during the evacuation. She would have to take that chance and hope that luck might smile down on her. She hadn’t felt lucky in a long while, not since that fateful night when she’d first made landing on this cursed rock. She felt it was time she was owed a little.

She turned to her left and began to walk, but as she rounded a corner and came to a T-junction, a short flight of steps leading down to another water covered corridor, she found that good luck, even of the moderate kind, was the last thing the universe had in mind for her. To her right, hidden by smoke and the haze of red overhead lights came a noise, familiar and stomach churning. Something was approaching along the hallway, something that growled and snorted and smelled like death, rotten and putrid. She was already at the bottom of the steps, ankle deep in the rancid water. She eyed the top of the stairs, debating her retreat, but instinct was already backing her away from that option. She stared intently at the swirling smoke, its eddies the colour of blood in the light. Moving slowly backwards, gun raised, curious but petrified at the same moment, she frantically weighed her options. Pipes ran along the top edges of the corridor, and she surmised they would have funnelled steam or gas during the facilities operational days. With the power still on, perhaps they still did.

The thing came on, its slithering steps getting alarmingly louder, its growl like breathing turning her blood to ice. She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw a clear path ahead, albeit with the occasional abandoned crate or barrel, none of which she noted seemed to be of the type to hold firearms.

And then it was there, a nightmare stepping through the veil of smoke. In the mere seconds before she turned and ran she beheld a distorted, bloated body held up by disjointed and nonsymmetric legs, muscular but still somehow flabby and glistening like fish slime. Two arms reached towards her, between them what appeared to be head comprised of nothing but oddly human looking teeth, but far too large and numerous to be held in any head she recognized. The thing stopped, reared up and roared, issuing a stench from its mouth that would have turned fresh meat bad in an instant.
She knew the gun in her hand would do about as much damage as throwing one of the small cans that floated amidst the detritus at her feet.

How fast? That was the main question that popped to the forefront of her brain. How fast could this monstrosity move on those disjointed legs in the confines of these corridors? Her only hope was to outrun it. She was low on ammunition but she knew she had to take a chance and possibly slow it down. As is suddenly began to lunge toward her she fired the gun at the pipes on either side of the ceiling and was rewarded with a sudden explosion of scalding hot steam straight at the monsters head. She didn’t give herself time to discover if this would be some kind of deterrent or hindrance to the thing.

She just turned tail and ran.

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Summoner's Decarabia-Mutation for the creature. Got to say his stuff is really good and gory and perfect for this part of the story. Need to save my pennies if I'm to use any of his other incredible creations.

Thanks as always for taking a look, and to those who are faving my work - much appreciated.