The Fortress of Doom

The Fortress of Doom



What started as a normal day quickly elevated into a nightmare.

It was around midday, and I was playing with my friends in the nearby forest, as we usually do. We were busy climbing atop the branches and collecting berries for us to eat later. All in all, we were having a good time.

That is, until THEY came.

Our fun and merriment was quickly interrupted by an extremely loud and low-pitched noise. We looked up to see an enormous, metallic shape rapidly approaching us. We had no idea what to expect, as we had never seen something quite like this before. The giant metal being rested on the ground and and what we assumed to be its mouth opened, causing steam to spout everywhere. A rather odd-looking figure exited through the steam, surrounded by soldiers. "Seize them!" The figure bellowed as the soldiers captured us and threw us aboard the giant craft, which took off almost immediately. After what seemed like hours since the craft's departure, I was able to peek through the bars of the cage we were placed in and see where we were headed. We were above the ocean, headed for what looked like a giant fortress atop an imposing mountain. A giant door opened in the side of the mountain, and the craft proceeded to land inside the hangar. We could heard mechanical whining and squealing coming from inside the building, and I was able to recognize some of the screaming coming from within...

It was a group of my own kind.

My friends and I were quickly shunted to a very futuristic-looking room. One of the nearby soldiers unlocked the cage and forcibly grabbed all of us. We were placed in a vacuum tube, which fed into a giant machine that seemed to extrude all sorts of colors. As soon as we entered the belly of the machine, we were immediately electrocuted, as if to sedate us. All of us woke up feeling a little bit different...

Most notably, stronger.

We were then guided to three doorways, simply labeled as "Sectors", 1, 2, and 3. The first door seemed green and sickly compared to the other two, and I could have sworn I saw acid leaking from it. The third door was highly futuristic, similar in appearance to the location where we were first guided.

But what about the second one, you may ask?

It was our intended destination, and was perhaps the most frightening of all. This second door was red and very disturbing to look at, with what looked like an orange cat face placed directly above it. The oddest thing about it, though, was that it seemed like an immense amount of heat radiated from inside.

"You will fend him off in there, or you will meet the end of your lives." The odd figure told all of us as the red door opened, and we were brought into the area where we were to be placed on duty.

We immediately noticed that there was an intense glow beneath our feet, which seemed to be the immense heat source. In the lush environment we were accustomed to, we had never seen anything quite like it. With that, we noticed some workers operating what appeared to be large bellows, and we overheard them talking about the entity... or entities, as we heard them talk, in charge of the area. They described them as four large, floating, disembodied heads that resembled the face of the figure who had stolen us away. What gave us chills down our spines, though, was their full description. They weren't just floating, disembodied heads, oh no...

They seemed to have no noses at all, but instead, just slits, almost like a snake. Their grins displayed their large, square-shaped teeth, and every few seconds, they would spit fire, almost like the dragons we had heard stories about. All four of them were cramped inside a huge boiler, which acted as their only protection from intruders. We had never seen them, of course, but the possible images alone were enough to unnerve us.

We were made to patrol this area individually, where if one of us fell to an intruder, we would be replaced almost instantly. Unfortunately, we were being dispatched rather quickly, and when it was my turn, I saw the culprit, for only a split second, as he darted off one of the nearby walls and disappeared, only to re-appear again.

This time, I got a full glimpse of the mysterious being. He was dressed in blue, and as soon as he collided with me, almost intentionally, I felt free as a bird.

Actually, that describes me very well.

"Come on, you're free now! Go back home where you belong!" The intruder said to me, as he darted away again.

I had been freed, and as I found the exit, I noticed a sign:

"DANGER: LAVA POWERHOUSE".