[Writing] It Escaped (Thanks, Jeb_Kerman!)

[flying_chair]

Note: Chapters 1 and 2 were created by Jeb_Kerman, he let me continue this story, thanks a lot!

It Escaped

Chapter One: Onto the Surface

So, you\'re looking for a story. Maybe you want action, or horror. Or maybe you\'re more of a fan of adventure and romance. Whatever the case, you\'re here, seeking something to entertain you for a few minutes before you move your attention to another matter.

Well, sorry to disappoint you, but this story isn\'t like that. This is a record of true events, as experienced by myself. If you get this transmission, don\'t send anyone back to this godforsaken moon; there\'s only death left now. My name is Marcus Kerman, and I\'m still out there.

'Bzzt... Landing sequence initiated. Killing horizontal velocity. RCS thrusters activated.'

'About time...' I muttered. 'Stupid Mechjeb messed up my flight schedule. Why couldn\'t they just let me pilot the damn thing myself?' Within a few seconds, the craft had settled on the ground of the Mun base\'s landing pad. The Mechjeb\'s indicator turned from green to red, signifying that it had turned off, and I pressed the button that opened the exit hatch. A grinding noise sounded, followed by the opening of the small door.

As I climbed out of the small lander shuttle and onto the Munar surface, I was greeted by a short, relatively bulky man with a stubbly chin and glasses.

'Ah, professor Marcus Kerman,' the man said. 'I never thought I\'d see you back here!'

'Hello, James,' I replied, shaking his hand. 'Believe me, I never thought it either.' I glanced up, where I could see the slow rotation of Kerbin in the distance. It was nighttime, with my home nation of Lunus facing towards the Mun, and I could almost picture my family asleep in their home. 'I trust you brought me all the way up here for a reason?'

'Yes, of course,' James Kerman replied. He was an esteemed astrophysicist, scientist and astronomer, the brains behind the first Minmus landing and the construction of the Mun base I was now standing next to. 'Our miners have finally opened up a crack on the ground.'

This news surprised me. Several years earlier, scientists had observed that the Munar surface was made of an extremely hard stone, multiple times more so than even diamond. The earliest notice of this had occurred on the first crash-landing on the Mun, wherein the exploding shuttle hadn\'t made a single crack in the ground. Ever since, mining companies had been shipping workers and bases up constantly to try to harvest the strange material for profit. None had succeeded, even with the most cutting-edge (Excuse the pun) technology available... Until now.

'How\'d you do it?' I asked curiously. 'I thought the soil was impenetrable.'

'Up until now, yes,' James replied. 'We managed to set off enough explosives in a small enough area to break off tiny chunks of the rock, which we substituted into our drills. It worked like a charm; We\'ve got a trench three meters deep and twenty meters wide mined out already.'

'Sounds interesting,' I said. 'Have you analyzed the composition yet?'

'Well, we do know that it\'s nothing like what we have on Kerbin,' James responded. 'Just wait until you see it yourself, Marcus. It\'s amazing, and going to be worth a fortune once we get it shipped back home.'

We arrived at the entrance to the base, a giant glass dome built into one of the Mun\'s natural craters. The miracles of science had increased in leaps and bounds in the last decade or so, and it was reflected here; inside was a fully independent, self-sufficient ecosystem with air, water, and food. As I watched, a rocket took off from a launchpad located outside the dome, heading back towards Kerbin.

'Here we are,' James said as we reached the trench. Miners wandered around inside the hole, hacking away at segments of rock, while drills slowly wore away at the earth. The rocks were transported by the bucketload towards what I guessed was a processing facility.

James picked up a small chunk of stone from the edge of the trench and showed it to me. 'As you can see, it looks just like normal stone. But it\'s hundreds of times harder and more powerful,' he noted. 'Amazing by all accounts.' c

As I watched, a more hollow sound emanated from where one miner was working away. He pulled out a chunk that seemed lighter-colored than the others around it.

'I got another one!' The man said, holding it up. James walked over and took the stone.

'What is that?' I asked.

'This,' James said, smiling, 'Is why you\'re here.'

Chapter Two: Into the Rift

James and I stood in a small laboratory, looking at the glass case in which the rock from earlier now lay. As I watched, a miniature drill pierced the surface of the stone. Immediately, a dark-colored gas began to seep from the puncture, billowing out until the case was entirely full.

'What was that?' I asked, bewildered. 'Is it toxic?'

'We have no idea what it is,' James replied, looking almost as confused as I felt. 'And no, it\'s not toxic, at least as far as our tests have proven. We haven\'t made anyone inhale it or something dangerous like that. Tests so far show that it appears to be made up of absolutely no known element; just like the rock, this is something we\'ve never seen before. It looks like a gas, yes?' I nodded. 'Watch this.' James pressed a button on a handheld remote and the drill retracted from the case; once it was out of the case, it appeared to be covered in a thick, tar-like substance.

'As you can see,' James continued, 'It possesses the attributes of both a solid and a liquid.'

'So why isn\'t it filling the entire room?' I questioned.

'We believe it is the specific type of rock found on the Mun that keeps the material from spreading.' James pointed to the drill, which I now noticed was tipped with the rock that had been mined from the Mun\'s surface. 'It somehow keeps the material glued to itself and unable to spread. And yet, the specific type of other rock the material is found in does not, which is why it could escape in the first place.'

'So, what does this all mean?' I asked once more.

'It means that we\'ve discovered something new. Something unknown and unimaginable up to this point. Does that not excite you?'

'Of course it does,' I replied. 'But I\'m not a scientist. Why did you call me up here?'

'Because we\'ve found something beneath the surface,' James responded. 'It appears to be a series of tunnels, all full of this gas. We\'ve sent a robotic probe in to map out the tunnels, but the gas has another strange attribute in that it seems to stop our contact with the probe. What we want you to do is go in there, get the probe out, and bring it back so we can manually find out what it mapped.'

'And how do you know I\'m not going to die from the gas?'

'I\'m not an idiot, Marcus. We have a specially-designed suit made, as well as an oxygen tank and various other goodies. You\'ll have everything you need to go get it.'

'I\'m still not sure about this,' I said, worried.

'Come on, Marcus,' James replied. 'You\'ll be fine. It\'s not like there\'s some monster down there that\'s going to kill you. We just need you to get that probe back.'

'Fine,' I grumbled. 'I\'ll do it.'

About an hour later, I was suited up in the specially-designed apparatus that James had designed for delving into the tunnels. It looked suspiciously like a normal spacesuit, but it had several Mun rocks built into the suit to keep the gas from spreading, should the suit break and let any in. I was standing in front of the entrance to the tunnels; a large trapdoor made of the Munar stone, presumably to keep the gas from getting out into the base. A guard opened the trapdoor, and I climbed down into the darkness...

...

Far away, back in the science lab, the gas, which had seemed to be still but was actually pushing powerfully on the glass chamber, finally shattered its container and began to engulf the room in darkness. People screamed but were cut off as the gas accumulated in their lungs and began to choke them.

...

The tunnels were completely dark, save for the beam of my flashlight as it swept through the air. However, the light couldn\'t make it more than a few feet before being swallowed by the wall of gas, so I might as well have been blind. Luckily the tunnels were relatively straightforward; there were no intersections or sudden drops, just a uniform line down deeper into the Mun\'s crust. All the while, the gas became thicker and thicker, until my flashlight beam could only go an inch or two before ending. My oxygen tanks had nearly run dry, and I hadn\'t seen any sign of the probe. Heck, I didn\'t even know what the probe even looked like.

'James, what did you get me into?'

Just then, my helmet began to crack and the gas began to seep in.

Chapter Three: My Escape

As the gas seeped in, I felt as if my eyeballs were on fire and they were going to explode, I felt that my whole body was swollen up. I couldn\'t breathe well at all. My lips were cracking up and it felt as if there was someone rubbing sandpaper onto the inside of my throat. I panicked. I hurried towards the door. I began banging on the mun-rock door. No answer. I decided to accept my fate (Or what I thought would be my fate back then) and I lay down on the floor of the passageway.

A few days later, I woke up. On the floor. In my spacesuit. But, the gas was gone from the passage. I felt normal. I noticed that the door was cracked up, so were the walls of the passageway! I kicked and punched the door with all my might until another few cracks appeared. It suddenly turned into dust. I picked up a chunk of mun-rock lying about on the floor and punched it. It turned into dust as well! Well, anyway I went through the door and saw the kerbals whom I had seen choke to death. They were lying there, as if they were rocks. Pale. All of them. Suddenly I thought, how come I wasn\'t dead?And how come only the MUNROCK cracks when its near the mun gas?! Maybe I thought, just maybe, the gas only knocked you out when it touched you\'re face! I quickly discarded that thought, thinking it too silly. But I was yet to learn.

I decided to get off the damn mun-base and call for help. I looked around the base, looking for a radio transistor somewhere. I didn\'t find one. I went back to the room with the door in, I thought maybe James had one. I was correct. When I spoke to ground-control, they didn\'t believe me at first, but after a LOT of persuading, they said they would send a small,10 seater space-shuttle to pick me up. They also told me that a well-equipped team would be sent there to investigate..... TO BE CONTINUED

CHAPTER 3 WILL BE CONTINUED SOON!

[Luigibro606]

I\'m glad this is being continued. Really liked the story.

[flying_chair]

I\'m glad this is being continued. Really liked the story.

I liked it too.

[sss]

Ascens not gonna like your sig! XD

[flying_chair]

Ascens not gonna like your sig! XD

Yup.

[flying_chair]

A bit of chapter 3 has been added!

[Anomalous_Matter]

Hmm... I like the new chapter, but it could use a bit more length and detail to it. Also, the sentences seem a bit cut off and short - in places you could combine multiple sentences into one. But I like the general idea, and I can\'t wait to see what you do with this story

[Jeb KerBoom]

Note: Chapters 1 and 2 were created by Jeb_Kerman, he let me continue this story, thanks a lot!

It Escaped

Chapter One: Onto the Surface

So, you\'re looking for a story. Maybe you want action, or horror. Or maybe you\'re more of a fan of adventure and romance. Whatever the case, you\'re here, seeking something to entertain you for a few minutes before you move your attention to another matter.

Well, sorry to disappoint you, but this story isn\'t like that. This is a record of true events, as experienced by myself. If you get this transmission, don\'t send anyone back to this godforsaken moon; there\'s only death left now. My name is Marcus Kerman, and I\'m still out there.

'Bzzt... Landing sequence initiated. Killing horizontal velocity. RCS thrusters activated.'

'About time...' I muttered. 'Stupid Mechjeb messed up my flight schedule. Why couldn\'t they just let me pilot the damn thing myself?' Within a few seconds, the craft had settled on the ground of the Mun base\'s landing pad. The Mechjeb\'s indicator turned from green to red, signifying that it had turned off, and I pressed the button that opened the exit hatch. A grinding noise sounded, followed by the opening of the small door.

As I climbed out of the small lander shuttle and onto the Munar surface, I was greeted by a short, relatively bulky man with a stubbly chin and glasses.

'Ah, professor Marcus Kerman,' the man said. 'I never thought I\'d see you back here!'

'Hello, James,' I replied, shaking his hand. 'Believe me, I never thought it either.' I glanced up, where I could see the slow rotation of Kerbin in the distance. It was nighttime, with my home nation of Lunus facing towards the Mun, and I could almost picture my family asleep in their home. 'I trust you brought me all the way up here for a reason?'

'Yes, of course,' James Kerman replied. He was an esteemed astrophysicist, scientist and astronomer, the brains behind the first Minmus landing and the construction of the Mun base I was now standing next to. 'Our miners have finally opened up a crack on the ground.'

This news surprised me. Several years earlier, scientists had observed that the Munar surface was made of an extremely hard stone, multiple times more so than even diamond. The earliest notice of this had occurred on the first crash-landing on the Mun, wherein the exploding shuttle hadn\'t made a single crack in the ground. Ever since, mining companies had been shipping workers and bases up constantly to try to harvest the strange material for profit. None had succeeded, even with the most cutting-edge (Excuse the pun) technology available... Until now.

'How\'d you do it?' I asked curiously. 'I thought the soil was impenetrable.'

'Up until now, yes,' James replied. 'We managed to set off enough explosives in a small enough area to break off tiny chunks of the rock, which we substituted into our drills. It worked like a charm; We\'ve got a trench three meters deep and twenty meters wide mined out already.'

'Sounds interesting,' I said. 'Have you analyzed the composition yet?'

'Well, we do know that it\'s nothing like what we have on Kerbin,' James responded. 'Just wait until you see it yourself, Marcus. It\'s amazing, and going to be worth a fortune once we get it shipped back home.'

We arrived at the entrance to the base, a giant glass dome built into one of the Mun\'s natural craters. The miracles of science had increased in leaps and bounds in the last decade or so, and it was reflected here; inside was a fully independent, self-sufficient ecosystem with air, water, and food. As I watched, a rocket took off from a launchpad located outside the dome, heading back towards Kerbin.

'Here we are,' James said as we reached the trench. Miners wandered around inside the hole, hacking away at segments of rock, while drills slowly wore away at the earth. The rocks were transported by the bucketload towards what I guessed was a processing facility.

James picked up a small chunk of stone from the edge of the trench and showed it to me. 'As you can see, it looks just like normal stone. But it\'s hundreds of times harder and more powerful,' he noted. 'Amazing by all accounts.' c

As I watched, a more hollow sound emanated from where one miner was working away. He pulled out a chunk that seemed lighter-colored than the others around it.

'I got another one!' The man said, holding it up. James walked over and took the stone.

'What is that?' I asked.

'This,' James said, smiling, 'Is why you\'re here.'

Chapter Two: Into the Rift

James and I stood in a small laboratory, looking at the glass case in which the rock from earlier now lay. As I watched, a miniature drill pierced the surface of the stone. Immediately, a dark-colored gas began to seep from the puncture, billowing out until the case was entirely full.

'What was that?' I asked, bewildered. 'Is it toxic?'

'We have no idea what it is,' James replied, looking almost as confused as I felt. 'And no, it\'s not toxic, at least as far as our tests have proven. We haven\'t made anyone inhale it or something dangerous like that. Tests so far show that it appears to be made up of absolutely no known element; just like the rock, this is something we\'ve never seen before. It looks like a gas, yes?' I nodded. 'Watch this.' James pressed a button on a handheld remote and the drill retracted from the case; once it was out of the case, it appeared to be covered in a thick, tar-like substance.

'As you can see,' James continued, 'It possesses the attributes of both a solid and a liquid.'

'So why isn\'t it filling the entire room?' I questioned.

'We believe it is the specific type of rock found on the Mun that keeps the material from spreading.' James pointed to the drill, which I now noticed was tipped with the rock that had been mined from the Mun\'s surface. 'It somehow keeps the material glued to itself and unable to spread. And yet, the specific type of other rock the material is found in does not, which is why it could escape in the first place.'

'So, what does this all mean?' I asked once more.

'It means that we\'ve discovered something new. Something unknown and unimaginable up to this point. Does that not excite you?'

'Of course it does,' I replied. 'But I\'m not a scientist. Why did you call me up here?'

'Because we\'ve found something beneath the surface,' James responded. 'It appears to be a series of tunnels, all full of this gas. We\'ve sent a robotic probe in to map out the tunnels, but the gas has another strange attribute in that it seems to stop our contact with the probe. What we want you to do is go in there, get the probe out, and bring it back so we can manually find out what it mapped.'

'And how do you know I\'m not going to die from the gas?'

'I\'m not an idiot, Marcus. We have a specially-designed suit made, as well as an oxygen tank and various other goodies. You\'ll have everything you need to go get it.'

'I\'m still not sure about this,' I said, worried.

'Come on, Marcus,' James replied. 'You\'ll be fine. It\'s not like there\'s some monster down there that\'s going to kill you. We just need you to get that probe back.'

'Fine,' I grumbled. 'I\'ll do it.'

About an hour later, I was suited up in the specially-designed apparatus that James had designed for delving into the tunnels. It looked suspiciously like a normal spacesuit, but it had several Mun rocks built into the suit to keep the gas from spreading, should the suit break and let any in. I was standing in front of the entrance to the tunnels; a large trapdoor made of the Munar stone, presumably to keep the gas from getting out into the base. A guard opened the trapdoor, and I climbed down into the darkness...

...

Far away, back in the science lab, the gas, which had seemed to be still but was actually pushing powerfully on the glass chamber, finally shattered its container and began to engulf the room in darkness. People screamed but were cut off as the gas accumulated in their lungs and began to choke them.

...

The tunnels were completely dark, save for the beam of my flashlight as it swept through the air. However, the light couldn\'t make it more than a few feet before being swallowed by the wall of gas, so I might as well have been blind. Luckily the tunnels were relatively straightforward; there were no intersections or sudden drops, just a uniform line down deeper into the Mun\'s crust. All the while, the gas became thicker and thicker, until my flashlight beam could only go an inch or two before ending. My oxygen tanks had nearly run dry, and I hadn\'t seen any sign of the probe. Heck, I didn\'t even know what the probe even looked like.

'James, what did you get me into?'

Just then, my helmet began to crack and the gas began to seep in.

Chapter Three: My Escape

As the gas seeped in, I felt as if my eyeballs were on fire and they were going to explode, I felt that my whole body was swollen up. I couldn\'t breathe well at all. My lips were cracking up and it felt as if there was someone rubbing sandpaper onto the inside of my throat. I panicked. I hurried towards the door. I began banging on the mun-rock door. No answer. I decided to accept my fate (Or what I thoight would be my fate back then) and I lay down on the floor of the passageway.

A few days later, I woke up. On the floor. In my spacesuit. But, the gas was gone from the passage. I felt normal. I noticed that the door was cracked up. So were the walls of the passageway! I kicked and punched the door with all my might until another few cracks appeared. It suddenly turned into dust. I picked up a chunk of mun-rock lying about on the floor and punched it. It turned into dust as well!Well, anyway I went through the door and saw.....

CHAPTER 3 WILL BE CONTINUED SOON!

You should make that into a book! And also, when are chapters 4+5 coming out?

[Anomalous_Matter]

Not sure it would be much of a good book, really; I\'m decent at short stories and things where I know most of the details I want, otherwise I get hit really hard with writer\'s block and it\'s hard to continue. I am glad Lolnewb is continuing it, though.

[flying_chair]

Continued a bit \'o\' the ol\' Chapter 3.

[Plaatinum Aerospace]

I did enjoy this work of literature.