"Get in position," the deep-voiced soldier states to the squad following tightly at his back, keeping the barrel of his M16 aimed at the entrance. Snow quietly falls as the soft ambient sound of boots against ground keeps the scenario alive, two operatives positioning themselves on the opposing side of the doorframe, assuming the same stance as everyone else.
"Let's do this, people, nice and clean," the soldier states before firing a round into the door lock, using his left hand to push it open before rushing inwards alongside the team. The building swarms with trained soldiers as brief voices repeat "Room clear," from different positions of the building.
The rooms themselves are covered in Soviet emblems, one instance is of a hammer and sickle with "CCCP" painted above the emblem.
The slowly descending snow now transitions to a full-blown storm in an unexpected manner as the point man's eyes scan their surroundings, before landing on a peculiar sight.
A skeleton. Sitting upright in its dusty chair, papers randomly spread over the table directly in front of it. Upon further inspection, the soldier spots a diary amongst the mess and begins to read it.
"3rd of July, 1953"
He shudders in the cold as snow flies in from the open door, realising the date mentioned in the diary is just ten years old.
"Me and Mom moved into this house recently, Dad didn't like it as much as Mom though, he said there seemed to be something off about it, but I think he's just weird. My name is Jake Hollows, and I am thirteen years old. I bought this diary because Mom says it would be a good writing exercise to jot down what happens in my life. I thought that was a dumb idea, but I didn't say that to her in case Dad hit me, so here I am."
Confusion strikes the now befuddled soldier, why was the diary in English? This was a run-down Soviet cosmodrome located in USSR Kazakhstan, considered defunct after a CIA black operation team invaded and shot down a rocket seconds before it launched, causing fiery shrapnel to rain down and consequently render the cosmodrome useless. It's strange that a diary written in English and owned by a child would be found in such an area.
"4th of July, 1953"
"It's been my first night sleeping in here and it was good. The Television doesn't seem to work though, and any input results in loud, scary static that frightens me. I always think I see a face in the static, but Mom doesn't believe me when I tell her. I don't go on about it, though. I must respect my parents when they say something."
"9th of July, 1953"
"I haven't written in here as consistently as Mom hoped. She says this makes her sad, but I can't help it. When I write in this I've noticed that I feel really weird as though something wants me to stop altogether."
The soldier turns the yellowed page, noticing a weird white stain on the paper resembling rum. He reaches his gloved hand out to touch it, and loses consciousness as white dots slowly obscure his vision.
A child sits in his room as a blizzard rages outside. He's writing in a book, but stops and moves to place the pen on the table, before putting the pen down and moving to his warm bed, blowing a candle that lies beside it out, and resting on his side. Hours pass before the child realises he can't sleep for an.. odd reason; sitting up in his bed, he gradually realises why.
A rustling is barely audible beneath the floorboards of the room he's in. It's as if the sound is wafting through the many gaps in the wood. The child slowly pulls a confused expression as he sits for hours on end, listening to the sound before a loud and mechanical droning is heard, startling him and causing him to rush out into the hallway, knocking on his parents' bedroom and hastily entering.
"Mom! Dad! There's something really weird in my room!"
His unclear and panicked description offers little insight, though the sound making its own way to the room tells the tale enough on its own. The father stands up. "I'll deal with this." He moves to the room, sourcing the sound to directly below the floorboards, reluctantly kneeling down to peer into the cracks. "D-Do you see anything?" the child asks his dad.
"No, son, no I-" His speech is cut short as a hand slinks through the gap, slashing the father across the face, allowing a yell to emit at full volume as he stumbles back into the wardrobe located in the bedroom, as a wooden box falls on top of their skull, killing them instantly as blood splashes against the floor and... through the floorboards, almost like a waterfall.
"S-Son, is this a joke!?" The mother screams at the sudden array of unfolding events, grasping her son by the hand as he begins to cry hysterically. "I-I.. No!" The mom rushes downstairs, picking up the household phone and ringing the police, holding the receiver to her ear and gripping her child with her other hand.
A look of fear and dread appears on her face as the phone emits a loud buzz, causing her to throw the phone at the wall from shock and breaking it.
And then they see it.
At the top of the stairs, staring at the mother and her child as they stand paralysed on the landing. A monster, with cracked pale white skin and dark rings around its eyes, puffed up eyelids and a jaw that droops down to its collar bone, revealing a never-ending cavern of teeth that slowly close up as they near its infected and bright red puffy interior throat, its claws spiral around with fingers as long as a dog's tail, they're caked with blood and have long, what can only be described as feelers jutting out of them. It does not have eyes, just long tendrils that flail around aimlessly. Its tongue is jet black and lolls out of the creature's mouth, constantly swishing around. Its skull is void of hair or anything else for that matter.
The loudest scream the child has likely ever heard in his life emits from the mom as the creature unravels its tongue in her direction, wrapping it around her throat and dragging her roughly up the stairs as the child just watches, as though in a trance, he stares as the creature allows its throat to loosen up as a strange second mouth exits and injects itself into the back of the mother's head. What happens next is something that Jake will never forget.
His mother's facial expression turns blank, before she screams "H-help..!" as her skull begins to slowly bulge, the deafening snaps and cracks bouncing off the walls of the household as her cranium expands, the skin connecting her jaw begins to tear with a sound comparable to slowly stripping off a plaster, her eyes bulge outwards as blood pours from her eye sockets, her jaw hangs against her throat and her eyes pop out, hanging from their optic nerves as random patches of skin tear, revealing flesh, muscle and bone before she lets out one final awful scream of unimaginable agony, her head finally rupturing, bursting, or even exploding in a sense as brain, flesh, bone, teeth, blood and other disgusting organic matter fly everywhere, soaking the creature and the child, as well as the walls floor and even ceiling. The body drops down, headless and begins to roll down the stairs landing at Jake's feet.
The child suddenly bursts into a desperate sprint, unlocking the door and smashing through it as he desperately runs through the snow-covered streets, he runs and runs for what feels like years before tripping on a rock clad in snow, and he falls onto the road, yelping as his corpse smashes against the bonnet of a passing car, and his now lifeless corpse falls. The panicked yells of the driver fade away as the vision is suddenly shifted to the diary lying on the table, the monster dragging its broken body over to it and resting its clawed hand on its page, emitting a grey coloured stain on the white page before the.. flashback abruptly ends.
The soldier stands there, in shock. He peers around the room and in horror realises it's empty. He looks up to view the creature seen before, his eyes widening as it opens its mouth.
"The heart of the Soviet Empire lives on within me, its evil resides within my heart."