The alarm sounded through the facility while I rode the elevator down. I leaned against the wall as the siren from the lockdown faded away in my decent. My security R.I.G’s helmet receded into the rest of my armor and I sighed. I had barely gotten away from those... things in the security lockdown. I hadn’t known what the scientists were up to in her but they had to have something to do with this. Their crazy experiments with the holy Marker were going too far now!

A small holographic projection displayed in front me from my R.I.G as it made a connection to somepony else’s comm system. A familiar frantic sounding buck called to me from the other side of the call.

“Radius! Where are you!? They’ve broken past the barricade and we can’t fight them off!” Screams, gunfire, and the cries and screeches of whatever creatures were attacking us sounded in the backround of the call.

“Damnit, Blue! I’m almost there! I’m in the elevator, I just need to-” I was cut off by his horrifying scream before it was quickly silenced by a sickening wet slashing noise and the growls of a monster I couldn’t even guess what it was. Soon after, only the sounds of the abominations were all that could be heard on the call.

I sighed once more and exited the comm link. Damnit, Blue was the greenest buck I ever met. But he was a good brother... There was nothing left for me in this place. All that mattered to me now was to somehow get back to the colony and warn them. Get my wife and daughter as far away from this place as possible.

With a kick, the Seeker Rifle mounted on my side reloaded, inserting a new clip of ammo automatically. I also made my R.I.G use a health pack from my inventory on me, filling the yellow holographic health bar on my back and changing it back to it’s healthy blue. On command, my security helmet extended from it’s hiding spot in my armor, sliding over my face, covering it in metal plating. The two thin slits in the armor glowed a deep blue, going over my eyes and mouth in what I once heard could be compared to “an evil smiley face” in appearance.

I changed the elevator’s destination on its console to the garage, hoping to find transport out of this hellhole. No point in going back for Blue...

After a few moments, the elevator doors opened up as I had reached my destination. I couldn’t believe what I saw. My daughter, Sunny, was at the end of the hall, smiling warmly at me as a damaged light flickered above her. The surprise to see her here in this horrible place, so far away from our home and her mother was enough, but the part that horrified me the most, that chilled me to my core was... she was sitting in a pool of blood. An almost completely skinned pony leaned dead against the wall right beside her, red and drenched in blood, one green eye open wide while the other was a black empty socket, it’s lipless face open wide in terror before it died. Yet... Sunny was unphased by the grotesque corpse just next to her. Smiling happily in it’s blood before she giggled a bit. “H-honey?...” I called out to her, my helmet echoing my voice slightly and making it sound almost mechanical.

“Come on daddy, come make us whole.” She laughed cryptically before running down the hallway.

“Sunny wait!” I yelled in panic as my daughter fled away from me, down the halls of this monster infested science facility of terror, and ran after her, cursing these cramped hallways for not allowing me to use my wings.

I turned the corner, almost slipping in the dead pony’s blood. Sunny disappeared around another corner as I rounded this one. I tried to continue pursuit but a vent exploded in front of my path. A creature jumped out of it and onto me before I could think, pinning me on my back with a blood curdling screech. I screamed in surprise as the beast loomed over me. Seeing it up close I could see it wasn’t just some creature at all. It was a pony! At least it had been a pony at one point. Now the remnants of it’s grey mane were as torn as it’s skin under its pale white hide. It’s eyes widened in rage and it’s mouth open wider than any natural pony’s could be, it’s lips removed, teeth sharpened to a point, and tentacles whipping out of its throat.

I held up my hoof and screamed again at a bloody appendage rose from its back and whipped a sharp, bone like point down at me. I raised my forelegs to shield myself from the strike right before the blade hit. I shrieked as it pierced my thickly armored fetlock and dug into my joint.

My other hoof slammed into its face repeatedly, each hit drawing more blood until, eventually, it resulted in a loud crunching sound as part of the monster’s head caved in. But it still pushed the blade deeper and roared angrily into my armored face. Another bladed appendage rose from it’s back. I raised my other hoof, praying to Ascension that it wouldn’t lead to the same result.

My prayers were answered and the monster’s blade slashed instead of stabbed, sending sparks off my armor as it glided against the metal. Without thinking, I grinded my teeth and shoved my hoof against the bloody limb until I heard it crack.

The ‘once a pony’ let out a pained wail and backed off of me, pulling its blade out of me. I cried out, tears in the corners of my eyes as its limb was ripped out of my wound, taking blood and meat with it. I clenched one eye shut and let my side mounted Seeker Rifle rotate and take aim at the creature’s head before it fired, showering me in blood, bone, and grey matter.

It slumped lifelessly over me and I immediately pushed it off, I didn’t have time to be scared. I rose to my hooves with a groan, yelping and stumbling when I put pressure on my injured joint. I really didn’t have time for this!

I was able to push myself further to the corner Sunny had disappeared down and tumbled into the wall with a curse. I looked down the long hallway now ahead of me. Sunny’s bloody hoofprints showing me the way to her. Most of the hall was darkened like the rest of the place when a power surge took out the main generators. But no sign of my filly...

I growled in frustration, not even pondering what she was doing here in the first place and injected another health pack into my R.I.G. The hurting in my hoof lightened a bit, but it still shot shocking pain through me when I put my weight on it. But I had to push on for my daughter.

I limped down the hall, groaning and cursing under my breath is each painful step. My eyes stuck on her little bloody hoofprints. Determination racing through me while I made it to the end of the hall. I rested against the wall a moment as I got to the end and continued around another corner, which lead to a door. I pressed the holographic “open” button and the door automatically receded into the walls. The room was large and had a wide pit between this door and another.

“Now entering a zero gravity testing area.” A mechanical mare’s voice informed me over the speaker system when I stepped onto a amll platform just outside the door. I looked to my side to see Sunny’s hoofprints leading along the wall and onto the rounded ceiling, back down to the door on the other side.

Relieved to get off my injured foreleg even for just a moment, I spread my armored wings and pushed myself up into the forceless room. I flapped my wings to push me toward the other door but before I could reach it, something barreled into me, sending me against a wall with a grunt and bounced back.

Both the new creature and I floated in the air, staring at eachother. It thrashed and flailed trying to reach me while I studied this one in shock. It too had the appearance that it could have once been a pony. Patches of skin was missing once more but it appeared as if it’s hind legs had twisted together into a meaty, muscley tail, tipped with a much more brutal bone like blade at the end. Its teeth extended into very long sharp fangs that jutted out of it’s mouth in a way that could only be compared to that of a snake.

As it hissed and shrieked at me, I shook my head away from the sight. My daughter was in this mess with things like these. Who knows what they could do to her if I didn’t get to her first. If they haven’t already...

That last thought pushing me away from the thrashing nightmare in front of me, turning my back on it and making my way to the door below. I followed the hoofprints through it and I exited the zero gravity testing area, immediately leading me to a larger already open door. Another mutilated corpse lay slumped against a terminal, a key card pressed between a terminal and her hoof which allowed the door to open to this area.

This body looked much more fresh than the scattered remains of the torn up, bloody piles of meat that lay inside. I glanced at the dead mare’s back to see three blood covered spikes shot into her shoulder blades. Other than that, she was fine, which meant she was a much more recent death.

I pushed my way through the messy piles of gore and overturned medical tables of what I guessed was a medical bay in pursuit of the hoofprints, bringing me back into a hallway with staticy monitors lining the walls.

I eventually made it to an elevator. It didn’t open... An alert kept popping up telling me it was jammed. But, the hoofprints led to it, so did Sunny get stuck in it? A growl from the medical bay brought my attention behind me. One of these things was in the other room!

I used my last med pack, hoping to ease the pain in my fetlock for what I was about to do. I pushed my hooves against the small opening where the door would split and go back into the wall. Moaning while pain surged through my injured hoof. But it was opening! Slowly but surely. A loud screech could be heard from the med bay, it must have heard me!

It opened enough for me to see inside the elevator shaft, lit my several red lights that ran up the sides. Another creature, one of the same ones that jumped on me from that vent appeared from where I once was. It turned to me with a loud cry before it charged on all four blood drenched hooves.

I put my shoulder into my struggle, opening it just enough for me to fit through. I quickly pushed through it just as the monster reached me, opening my wings and flying up, I had made it to safety. Or did I...? As the door tried to close once more, the zombie slid it’s bladed limbs in front of it, and pried it open once again. It shook as if it was struggling to keep it open and looked up at me with clear intent of murder in its clouded eyes.

I took aim at one of the thing’s quivering limbs that were holding open the door and fired a single shot into it. The limb severed from the powerful impact and the door closed forcefully on the beast, crushing its torso in a bloody mess and cutting off its head from the bottom of its neck and its remaining appendage, sending them down the shaft and onto the the top of the stuck elevator not far below.

That’s when I noticed something strange. Sunny’s tracks went down the side of the shaft, like she crawled down the wall and out the open door below. Puzzled, I followed it to the place I originally intended to go to. The garage.

The floodlights at the entrance temporarily blinded me, causing me to raise my hoof in front of my face to block the intense light.

“Daddy?” The sweet young voice pulled my eyes passed the searing pain to the silhouette of my filly just past the floodlights. My heart stopped a for a moment and I blinked, still finding it hard to believe she was here. But I had reached her, and she was safe! “Come with me daddy!” She instructed gleefully before running off further into the garage.

“Sunny, wait!” I cried out desperately. She stopped and turned back to me, hardly visible in the darkness.

“Come on!” She said once more and ran off again.

I did as she wanted and pushed past the lights and into the darkness. My metal hoofsteps echoing loudly off the concrete. The lights from my visor illuminated her bloody hoofprints, allowing me to follow. I kept seeing movement in the corner of my sight, hidden in the darkness, keeping me alert.

“Sweetie!” I called, getting tired of this game. I just wanted to get me and my daughter out of here safely.

“Over here daddy!” I found her once again, standing triumphantly next to a treaded snow transport. I smiled and made my way to her, but as I got closer pain shot through my head, causing me to groan and hold my hoof to my head. “Daddy?”

“I-I’m fine.” I told her and kept limping toward her. The pain grew as I got closer and a red orange almost static like haze pushed itself into the corners of my vision. I had to get her out of here safely. I grunted and pushed, finally reaching her.

As I stood over her, the static only got worse, now the sound of static punctured my ears loudly and I struggled to stay up. “Daddy, are you okay?” My filly frowned at me, her voice deepening in pitch for a few words.

“Y-yeah, hun, d-daddy’s fine.” I lied through gritted teeth. She flickered, one second as my beautiful daughter, the next to some horrifying pale filly like creature with dark eyes and tentacles coming from her mouth and back, hissing quietly.

Then the pain disappeared almost instantly and the static faded. All that stood before me was my daughter, staring up at me concerned. My helmet slid back into my armor and I began to inspect her more closely. “Daddy? What’s wrong?” She asked with slight fear in her voice.

I brushed my hoof over her mane, feeling it’s softness, confirming that it was really her. I smiled widely and hugged her tight, tears running down my cheeks. I was so happy to have her nice and safe. “Nothing. Nothing is wrong.” I told her happily. Embracing her for a few more blissful moments before pulling away from her.

“Can we go home now, daddy?” She smiled once more at me, beaming happiness.

“Yes sweetie,” I told her, wiping away a tear “we can go home.”

***

Sunny sat silently beside me, looking outside into the night sky as the transport trudged through the snow while I steered it to the colony of Harmony, to home. The lights of the colony shined up ahead, filling me with comfort and joy to be back with my wife and bring our filly back to her.

Sunny turned to me, still smiling brightly, but this time with slight curiosity to her eyes.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“Will you make us whole?”

At those words, the intense pain shot through me once more, this time I fell to my side on the seat, clutching my head and shout out in pain. The static returned worse than before and Sunny looked down at me, blood dripping down her eyes and out her mouth as they let out a fierce light. Still with that same warm smile. Softly, she whispered into my ear. “Make us whooooooole...”

I’m not sure what happened after that, I remember crashing and waking up on one of the colony’s streets, through the transport window. The transport itself was on its side and on top of my back. I couldn’t feel my back legs and I kept coughing up blood and glass, but there was no pain. Everything just felt odd and hazzy.

Then she appeared before me once again. Suddenly in front of me, smiling, this time without the blood and light coming from her face. She flashed between the sweet filly I knew and loved to that filly like creature, flickering like a burning out light.

“Don’t be afraid to die, daddy.” She told me cheerfully. “We’ll be back together soon.”

With that, she disappeared. I could see the filly monster running along the side of a building not far away before running into an alley. Ponies on the street began rushing to my side in panic. I raised my hoof weakly pointing into the direction the thing went, but nopony seemed to understand what I was trying to do as they tried to push the heavy vehicle off me.

My last thought was on what that thing said. “We’ll be together soon.” All I felt was grief and fear for my family for the few moments I had in life. Then...

I died.

Author's Note

I don't expect this to be great, mainly cause I only wrote this in a day. And the characters in this weren't really described in appearance because I'm not planning on making them a big part of the story They were just supposed to show what the setting will be like and what's going to go on in the story. Kind of like the beginning of Dead Space 3. At least that's where I got the idea :P