There's a war raging under the earth. Humanity is losing.  Part 2
Channel: Scary Stories
Date: 2022-11-27

There's a war raging under the earth. Humanity is losing. (Part 2)

[Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/z1ywhz/theres_a_war_raging_under_the_earth_humanity_is/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

[Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/z3wzlc/theres_a_war_raging_under_the_earth_humanity_is/)

When I try to remember the fall of Delta Camp, there are two things that stand out in my memory. Only the knowledge of the truth, and Rodriguez’ mute urging, keeps me writing.

The first thing that stands out is how fast the defences were overrun. 

The other is the first time I saw one of the things from below.

Major Rogers leapt past me, gun in hand. He slammed open the door of his office and ran outside, bellowing commands. After a second's hesitation, I followed. I didn't know what was happening, but somehow, I knew that to stay in place was to die.

Running out of the door, I got my first glimpse of Delta Camp. I was in a large cavern, a hundred metres or more wide, lit by industrial lamps hammered into the high stone ceiling. Capillary tunnels and passageways led off in every direction. Each was surrounded by a mass of defensive positions - redoubts, trenches, machine gun nests, bunkers.

Dark-clad soldiers ran about in chaos, trying to reach their positions in time. A siren was wailing incessantly, uselessly.

The gunfire began without warning. Within a single second, hundreds of weapons opened up. Tracer rounds seared into the darkness of the capillary tunnels. The muzzle flashes were an insane lightshow casting deranged, jagged shadows onto the walls. I couldn't see what they were firing at -

And then I could.

That is, strictly speaking, a lie. I never saw the things that came from the tunnels and tore Delta Camp to pieces. They moved too fast, or maybe they weren't even really visible, or maybe-

I never saw them. Only shapes in the corner of my eye, only peripheral glances and suggestions.

A shadow darted out of one of the tunnels - no, not a shadow, just the memory of a shadow, the ragged shape of a crow's wing. A soldier came apart, blood spraying out of a dozen wounds, and the thing was already gone, leaving corpses in its wake.

It wasn't alone. They were not there, and yet they were everywhere. Flitting out of shadows and strobing gunfire. As intangible as smoke. As murderous as knifeblades.

I stood in the centre of this chaos, dumfounded, unable to move. It was as if my mind was frozen solid, incapable of even the slightest action to preserve itself.

A soldier ran past me, stopped, turned back. An explosion blossomed behind her, casting her as a black outline against a field of red.

"Hide, damn you!" she yelled at me, bringing her face right up to mine and screaming over the deafening gunfire. "Hide, if you want to live!"

She motioned to the side, at a wide rectangular waste container standing half-full, propped against a bunker wall. I stared at her, mouth half open, not even processing her words.

She hit me in the face, and that did it. Snapping out of my trance, I ran to the container and lifted its hinged lid. Something red and spurting blood fell against me. I pushed it away, leapt into the container, and slammed the cover shut.

And then there is no memory at all. I don't know how long I crouched in that filthy hiding place. It may have been minutes, and it may have been hours. 

The sounds of gunfire outside weakened, grew quieter, then went silent completely. Then there was only desperate screaming. And then there was nothing, only darkness and terror.

Slowly, my mind returned to me. I shivered in my hiding place, both in fear and cold. The temperature was dropping by the minute. I couldn't hear anything from outside.

Could I move? Could I take that risk?

Whatever had come out of the tunnels, the things from below... They had torn through Delta Camp in minutes. If even a single one of them was still out there, I'd be as good as dead the second I left my hiding spot.

But what if they could hear me, or smell me, crouching in the filth? I had no idea what they were capable of or what senses they could call on. 

Suddenly, the container seemed not a safe refuge, but a death trap. Every second I stayed there might be filled with danger, bringing closer things that move like butchers' knives and ragged silk...

I made my decision. To move was better than to stay put. There was only a vague plan in my mind - find a gun, maybe a flashlight, and head into the tunnels. It wasn’t much, but it was surely better than staying put.

There had to be a map somewhere in Rogers' office. I'd find it, and then risk the tunnels back to the surface. Somehow, naively, my hopes all clung to that one concept. If I got to the surface, I would be safe.

Slowly, carefully, I eased open the container's lid, wincing at every creak and groan the protesting hinges made. In the dead silence of Delta Camp, every single noise seemed amplified to impossible heights.

Finally, the l