Babel's Shadow

The cyberdemon was still alive.

Or at least, he thought it was, but a lot of that train of thought was based on assumptions. He assumed that the demons could be called alive, if only because there was a point in time where they stopped moving – usually after being shot enough, sometimes when he cut them in half with a chainsaw, or on rare occasions, through a combination of the two. But he didn't know if he could call them "alive." The shambling corpses that had been his fellow jarheads weren't – the way they moved, the way they sounded, the way they couldn't shoot for shit…yeah, he knew zombies when he saw them. But demons? Could they be considered alive? Or something more? Something less?

He didn't know. He just knew how to make them stop moving. Which the cyberdemon was doing, albeit barely. Which brought him to the second assumption of his thought a few seconds ago, that this thing was called a "cyberdemon." He didn't know if it had a name, and if so, what that name was. Whatever language the demons might have, he doubted it was English, and while he wasn't an expert, he doubted that grunts, roars, and screeches were in the lexicon of Latin, Aramaic, or any other antiquated language that he might associate with an Abrahamic faith. Not that the cyberdemon was doing much of that though – it was lain out on its stomach, a pool of blood spreading outwards from what had been its stomach. It was dying, or at least, entering the period where it stopped moving. Somehow, he'd survived the creature, just as he had all its buddies that he'd ripped, shot, and torn his way through. And yet now, for whatever reason, he didn't move on. He just stood there – shotgun held in bloody hands, attached to bloody arms, covered by bloody armour that bore the marks of Hell. Fire, claw, even a few bullet marks from a zombie that could shoot straight.

You shot pretty well though, he thought to himself, as his eyes met that of the cyberdemon's. Almost got me a few times.

The cyberdemon let out a hiss – did it care it was dying, or was its hatred for the meatbag before him so great that it didn't care. Heck, did any demon care? Usually they just threw themselves at him with no thought for self-preservation. So either they didn't care about dying, or worse, death really meant nothing to them.

God help me if I see you pop up again.

He didn't say the words. He hadn't said anything in hours. Or days, he supposed – he'd lost his chronometer, and fighting his way through the halls of Phobos and Deimos, keeping alive on whatever foodstuffs he could scavenge…he'd long lost track of time. Lost track of the number of times he should be dead. Had long forgotten asking "how is this possible?" How he had the strength to carry as many weapons as he did. How he had to speed to avoid even the rockets the cyberdemon had shot at him. Was it this place, he wondered – did it make him something more than human? Or something less?

The cyberdemon offered no answers. It just lay there, a broken body letting out hisses and snarls at a nearly broken mind. He tried to listen for some kind of pattern, any indications of a language.

"Why am I still here?" he murmured. He gave the demon's cheek a kit, causing it to snarl. "Got an answer for that you overgrown minotaur?"

It didn't answer. Maybe it could have said "you're here, because unless demons are born with cybernetic grafts, you're looking at proof of actual intelligence here." If it had said that…Christ, it would have been right. And if it had said "because you don't want to go any further," then it would have also been right. Because this place…he knew what it was now. He'd long since realized that the creatures he'd been fighting on Phobos weren't aliens – not unless aliens just happened to look like creatures from humanity's past, told of in whispers around the campfire when the world was young. Upon accepting that, it had taken him a far shorter amount of time to see what they were. Since that time, he'd been hoping, praying, that their existence didn't mean the existence of something else. That the 'warping' of Deimos could be explained by scientific means. That the place of human nightmare was nothing but a construct of the mind, and not a real, tangible place. And yet now, on the shores of damnation, in the arena of the forsaken, having bested the Beast…he knew the truth.

He was in Hell.

The cyberdemon continued to hiss, snarl, even spit, but he paid it no heed. His eyes were instead turned upwards. Taking up a sizable portion of the skyline was Deimos. On Mars, it had been scarcely larger than a star, often not even visible through the dust of that world. Here, it was much larger, and much closer. And much, much different. People had compared Deimos to a potato. This Deimos looked like something out of…well, Hell. Pillars of earth, shaped like spikes, were growing out of the asteroid's base, as if reaching for the surface of Hell (not stalectites, that was far too banal a word for these things). The entire asteroid glowed with an unnatural light – yellow, blue, green…If he didn't know better, he'd have assumed it was simply part of this world. This world with skies, with no sign of any star, moon, or cloud. Not red like the dust of Mars. Not red like that of Earth, with the setting of the sun. No. Just a single shroud of red, the colour of blood. Blanketing this world. This dimension. This…place. The only thing in the skies was Deimos, and the tower that he had emerged from. The black, monolithic structure that rose into the heavens of Hell, cutting through the sky as a knife might through a vein. It was taller than any man-made structure. Certainly any real one. And yet if he dared to name it, he could think of only one word that might give title to the edifice…

Babel.

Babel. The tower from which mankind had scattered, cursed to speak in different tongues. Babel, which had risen into the heavens, invoking the ire of God. Babel, which was here before him, as if presenting itself as the truth behind the myth. Babel, ever reaching through the skies of Hell, as if clawing its way to his own universe. Babel, which made him speak in one tongue, and the demons another.

"No wonder I don't understand you," he said, looking down at the cyberdemon – still alive, albeit barely. "We're in Babel's shadow."

It didn't say anything. No snarl, no hiss, no growl, no anything. Just the barring of fangs, and the blazing of fire behind its eyes.

"Well," he said. "Guess we'll have to use the universal language."

The cyberdemon didn't say anything. It didn't even get the chance, as a shotgun shell tore through its cranium, finally silencing the beast.

"Glad we had this conversation."

He'd probably said more words in the last few minutes than he had in the last few hours. Chances were if we kept going, if he walked across the hellscape that awaited him, he'd never say anything again, whether his tongue be torn out, or it be used to scream. And yet, he couldn't turn back. Wouldn't turn back. What awaited him was terrifying. But from what he'd become, this storm of meat and bone, this marine who had gone beyond the limits of human endurance…he had to go forward. Had to end it. Had to walk under the tortured skies, over the barren plains, and face demons both without and within. Do all of that with actions, not words – words that he feared that if he stayed in this place, he could never utter again. Words that, in the back of his mind, were already leaving him.

For he knew that as long as he trod this place, he would be in Babel's shadow.

And the language of this place was but in tongues.

A/N

I know the Tower of Babel is technically on Deimos (at least if one takes the timing of the mission in regards to the Hell intro text as writ), but all things considered, including its environment, seems to better fit being in Hell.