Stumbling down the hall, Gordon looked over his shoulder. All that met his eyes were darkness. Filth lay strewn across the floor, corpses and furniture mingling in a macabre display of madness. Blood was spattered across the walls, mostly dry but some still fresh. Whoever that blood had come from probably was not too far from here but he had different problems.
Turning a corner, Gordon tripped over a piece of rubble on the floor, throwing up concrete dust as he landed. Coating his gaunt face and oily hair, he looked even more emaciated than previously. A ghost, almost. Straining to stand up, he cried out in pain as his left foot collapsed under him. Sobbing, he grabbed the ankle and drew the appendage close to his body before continuing on.
Music came from the distance, a tune recognized by many children to have been raised on Earth.
"Ring around the rosies, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down," came the words, falling faintly upon his ears. Tears began to stream down his cheeks as he attempted to crawl further away from the incessant noise. Blood leaked from a menagerie of small cuts across his body, some newly formed in the fall while other reopened from earlier encounters with other 'people.' Almost blind in the darkness, lights having shut off in many sections of the facility, Gordon pulled a flashlight from his pocket, fumbling around for the switch.
Flicking on the torch, he stopped crawling, spotting a gap in the floor opening up to another level of the facility. Maybe he could avoid it down there. Sliding forward, his body crashed against the ground, jarring his broken ankle. Holding in a curse, he saw that the flashlight had rolled away from him and now shone directly at his face. Heaving his body over, he picked up the piece. It was then he noticed the music had stopped. A whimper escaped from his lips as the torrent of tears increased. Clicking sounded from the ceiling and a small thump as whatever it was landed. Curling into a ball, he closed his eyes, praying in between the sobs.
The flashlight shut off. This stopped his whimpering. No noises came from around him and he couldn't sense anything. But there was a wrongness behind him. Turning slowly, all he saw were two glowing points a scant foot from his face. A scream erupted from his mouth.
Sphinx strode away, taking once again the form of a well-dressed man, top hat and cane complementing the long coat it wore. The screams still rang behind it, the poor man's mind shattered beyond repair. Terror made it feel better. Fear was harder to come by, many having already died off in the first few hours of chaos. Sadly, it hadn't been able to take part. Power still ran to much of the facility then, limiting its movements lest he become weakened. No more.
Morphing into a shadow, it sped along the halls, scouting out for another victim, searching for a target which it would spend days tormenting. There was no fun any other way. Conversation, as well as strange, bio-luminescent light, stopped Sphinx. Floating up along the cracked walls, it crawled along the ceiling, indistinguishable from any other shadow. Below it lay two humanoid creatures, one emitting light while space seemed to warp around the other. Interesting indeed. Smiling, the shadow creature sat and waited, observing for the time being.