The Eidolic Void
by Dennis Mombauer
The transport touched down inside the bunker complex, and Fenton got off with the other recruits. The halls and corridors were endless, only some stretches of them outfitted with lights and ventilation, isolated from the planet’s wastelands by gates that had been welded shut.
The veterans living here told Fenton that they had orders from Command to hold this position, and nothing else. When asked, none of them seemed to care about the condition of the bunker, about the derelict equipment and the vermin scurrying around.
* * *
Fenton learned the daily routine and discovered a lot of strange things about it. No one knew what the enemy looked like, and there hadn’t been an attack for a long time; but occasionally, the bunker’s surveillance systems showed movement.
Fenton sprinted to an observation post but could see nothing, even though the screens showed red dots approaching the closed gates and vanishing on contact. The veterans shrugged and grumbled something about glitches. Since Fenton couldn’t find any hostile presence, he had no choice but to take their word for it.
* * *
It happened again, two more times. After the second time, one of the new recruits went missing in the remote hallways. The instruments showed an enemy that was nowhere to be seen in real life. If the bunker had been infiltrated, Fenton couldn’t find any sign of it.
He asked the veterans for communication with Command, to which they only repeated their standing orders to hold position, while remaining resistant to all inquiries. Fenton organized patrols with some of the other newcomers, walking for hours along the dreary corridors, once again without results.
* * *
The alarms became increasingly frequent, but no amount of tinkering and reconnaissance could explain them. The immense bunker was under constant attack by incorporeal enemies, by a ghostly army that only the sensors could perceive. And, with every wave, one of the recruits vanished.
Some of Fenton’s comrades reported blurred forms moving through the corridors, belongings displaced or clanging sounds in the distance. Fenton set up camp within in one of the surveillance rooms. The motion detectors reported movement in distant sections, then around them, finally inside the room, and everyone wondered if something alien were standing right next to them.
* * *
Fenton gathered the remaining recruits and marched to confront the veterans, who never suffered any disappearances. But the grizzled and stoic soldiers were already coming toward them in full armor: “New orders from Command. We are moving out, engaging the enemy. Grab your gear.”
It was a long way to one of the gates that was not permanently blocked, and it gave Fenton time to think, to become afraid. The portal loomed large and, when it opened, the planet’s wastelands became visible, as devoid of life as the bunker complex itself: barren and hungry.
The recruits were herded out. The veterans closed the gates behind them and returned to barracks to await the next arrivals.
Copyright © 2018 by Dennis Mombauer
