text: [Potentially NSFW - swearing] Originally a from /r/WritingPrompts I thought it would be long enough for here too. If this is against etiquette of the subreddit, please do let me know! ***** “Memory Lane: Relive your favourite* memory like it was today.” I chuckled to myself as I popped open the bottle and picked out a multi-coloured pill, swallowing it down with a swig of nearby water. Looking at the description on the bottle I couldn’t help but wonder what my ‘favourite’ memory was. “21, not exactly a cushy upbringing, but not scraping the barrel either, and a girlfriend of 3 years. Ha! Should be fun.” I thought, as I cycled through the immediate memories that sprung to mind; the beach holiday with my family was one of the greatest times of my childhood, but it was the beach holiday with my girlfriend that really made me a man. I laid myself on the bed and closed my eyes. I’m awake, I’m stood up, and in my hands is a rifle. I look up and see I’m in a locker room facing a closed red door. To my left is a heavily armed marine, to the right is the same. They look nervous, very nervous. Why are they nervous? Why do I have a gun in my hand? What am I doing her... BANG! The red door shook. The two marines raise their guns to the door, eyes down the barrel at the door. BANG! I jump with shock in my armour, my heart rate now feeling like it is trying to punch out of my chest. A low rumbling begins around me and the marines are looking more on edge, slightly swaying with nerves as the whole room begins to shake violently. “WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?!” I shout, only to receive “RAISE YOUR GUN SOLDI...” bang. The silence following the final subdued bang was deafening, broken by the creek of the red door as it begins to wane and bulge under the pressure behind it. “Raise your fucking gun” he whispered. “What the fuck is going on?” I whisper back, raising my gun to the door. I clasp my sweaty fingers around the trigger as suddenly the door BREAKS from its hinges and unleashes a torrent of black...things...The shooting begins and on my immediate left the marine is sliced down by the monsters. I turn my eyes forward to see enormous spindly legs extended toward me as I’m thrown to the ground, my chest pierced by the sharp legs of the monsters. “FUUUUUUUUUUUCCKKKK” I cry, the searing pain coursing through my body is unbearable as more legs extend into my body. I can’t move as I’m pinned down and can just make out a monster raising its leg over my eye. I wince as I try to turn away, but it’s too late. I’m awake, I’m stood up, and in my hands is a rifle. I look up and see I’m in a locker room facing a closed red door. To my left is a heavily armed marine, to the right is the same. “I’ve been here before” I mutter, the memory of what just happened is forever burned in my mind, I’d never been stabbed before but I’ll never forget it now. BANG! “We need to go, we need to get the fuck out of here now! We don’t have much time!” I plead with the other marines, but they stand fast with their gaze at the door. BANG! “Fuck fuck fuck fuck, oh my god I don’t want to die again”, the room begins to shake violently, my eyes rush round the room trying to find something more defensible, I begin to shake as much as the room, I can’t catch my breath. I..I just can’t I can’t. I throw my gun on the ground, but it spins around my body, attached beneath the metal plates. I claw at my armour looking for something, anything more explosive than the gun I’ve just disowned. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING SOLDIER?!” The marine on the left bellows. bang. “Raise your fucking gun” he whispered. “We are so fucked” I whisper back. The door wanes and I start shooting, the monsters explode out of the door and lurch straight toward me, pinning me down on the ground. The phantom pain I just experienced was nothing compared to the feeling of the knife like legs impaling me to the floor. The seconds of this intense pain felt like lifetimes, god I just wanted it to end. I’m awake, I’m stood up, and in my hands is a rifle. I look up and see I’m in a locker room facing a closed red door. To my left is a heavily armed marine, to the right is the same. I turn around and run, “GET BACK HERE SOLDIER!” I hear behind me as I push through the double doors of the locker room and into a winding corridor. BANG! I scramble through the maze of corridors as I hear the second BANG! Slipping on the freshly waxed floor as I go, my sweaty hands desperately searching for traction on the walls to try and pull me up. Finally at the end of the corridor is a T junction of corridors with a lift. I press the button as I hear the gunfire in the distance start, my hands shaking as I repeatedly press the button, the ground shaking as the monsters get closer and closer. Suddenly they crash round the corner of the far corridor I’ve just slipped on, there must have been hundreds of them. These nightmarish black creatures who only brought death, and I’ll be dammed if they’re going to get me again. I look right, down the T junction and see a set of double doors with people sat down behind them. I sprint toward it crashing through the doors into a Chinese restaurant, “GET THE FUCK OUT, NOW!” I yell as I shoot the ceiling, sending the occupants to the floor and to the door I just came from, through which the nightmares stampede toward me. I look forward and run toward the large pane glass window ahead of me, shooting the glass as I leap onto the frame, springboarding out of the window to a ledge on a billboard in front of me, which I grab the edge of just in time. I look down and see about 30 floors worth of air below me. My body broken, I pull myself up onto the ledge and lie on my back. The bloodcurdling screams from the restaurant become silent within seconds, as I look back to the window I just jumped from and I see a nightmare preparing to make the jump to me. “Not again, never again” I quietly speak to myself, as I roll off the ledge and fall toward the ground. I’m the one in control and I would rather die than go through this again. I close my eyes in acceptance of the end. I’m awake, I’m lying down, and in my hands is the hands of another; my eyes open to an unfamiliar ceiling with a girl who I swear I know sat over me “Wake up, you’re safe now” she says, as she kisses my forehead. She pulls away and I recognise my room, I recognise the bed I’m lying in, it’s mine; and I recognise the girl, the same girl I had just seen a second ago in my memory. “Hand me the bot..tle” the words barely making it past my lips, as one hand grabs the bottle and the other searches my body for wounds. *Favourite memory is purely subjective, Memory Lane will take the most vivid memory you have of anything your mind has experienced and expand upon it. Please note that the human brain, while researched, is not fully understood, and repression may be an important factor in your experiences.