[Writing] Midnight Zero

This is a short prequel to my survival horror Midnight that kinda explains the story behind one of the characters. Although the character himself never actually makes an appearence in the game, he is the author of many of the notes scattered throughout the mansion. I attempted a new style of writing that slightly mixes up the events so the reader knows what is going to happen before it happens but is still left in suspence. Hopefully I was able to pull it off, since I've never tried it before. BTW, thanks to Raski for the character's name.

And so, without further ado...Midnight Zero.


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'This place is a madhouse!', Rasse thought to himself as he sprinted across the dining room, his heart pounding so hard that he thought it might jump out of his throat. He didn't need to look behind him to see if they were still after him; he could tell by their acrid smell that they were still in hot pursuit of their escaped prey. But he wouldn't let it come to that; not now, not after all he had been through. The door stood only ten yards away from him. Feeling a rush of adrenaline, he turned his shoulder and readied himself for impact.

Pain sheared through his shoulder as he burst through the door into the main entrance of the manor, shards of wood flying off from where the hinges had shattered. He could feel large splinters deeply embedded into his arm, but he didn't have time to worry about removing them. Rasse rushed over to the massive entrance doors, and, with his good shoulder, slumped all of his weight against them. But it was no good; the iron doors wouldn't budge.

"Come on, dammit!", he cursed as he pushed hopelessly against them. He could tell by the sounds of breaking glass that they were in the dining room behind him. He wouldn't have much time before they reached him, but there was no where else to run; with the door in front of him held fast and the monsters close behind, he was utterly trapped. Turning his back on the locked door, he readied his .45 automatic and carefully aimed it through the open doorway, waiting for the first of them to come...



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Officer Rasse Johansson looked out at the horizon from his seat on the pontoon boat. The sun shone brightly above them while the sea gently tossed the boat from beneath them. Although it was a bright and sunny day, the thought of going to Devil's Island gave him the chills. Earlier that day, Chief Henderson had given him and his partner orders to go and investigate the recent rumors of people vanishing on Devil's Island. The public had been getting a bit antsy over some recent disappearances, and thanks to some local superstition, people started to demand that an official search team be sent to Devil's Island to investigate.

Rasse sighed. He was actually supposed to be on his vacation by now, but Chief Henderson insisted that he investigate Devil's Island first. 'Well,' he thought to himself, 'The sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can get back to going on my vacation.'

Sitting across from him was his partner Allen MacIntyre. He was busy lighting a cigarette at the moment, trying hard to ignore the uneasy feeling in his stomach. Rasse couldn't help but chuckle; apparently the sea didn't quite agree with him. Turning his attention away, Rasse focused instead on the young man steering the boat. He was one of the younger police officers of the station named Miles Bickman, a naive rookie only too eager to do whatever assignment he was given. 'He'll learn soon enough,' Rasse unpleasantly thought.

Rasse sat back in his seat, and stared out at the approaching spit of land that was the cause of his anxiety. Something wasn't natural about that island...



“So, you’re going on vacation after this assignment?”, MacIntyre casually asked him as they tied the boat to the dock. Rasse could easily tell that MacIntyre was just happy to be on solid ground again and wouldn’t care what Rasse’s answer was.

“Yeah, I’ll be driving down to Memphis to visit my folks. It’s been a while since my last visit, so I think they’ll be happy to see me.”, Rasse replied.

“Lucky bastard. Chief assigned me another undercover duty to try to sniff out some drug dealer in the next county. After this assignment, I’ll be spending the next two weeks in the slums discreetly interviewing a bunch of junkies.” He sighed.

“Sounds exciting…”, Bickman piped in. “I wish Chief Henderson would give me assignments like that. After this, I have to go off to some Law Enforcement conference in Pennsylvania in Chief Henderson’s place.”

MacIntyre smirked. “Well, we wouldn’t want to keep you from your exciting case, so let’s go and get this assignment over with. Most likely we won’t find anything, but at least it will keep the public happy.”

And with that, they set off to search for the missing persons…



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Blood. Everywhere Rasse turned he saw nothing but spatters of blood; on the walls, on the floor, even on the ceiling. Smeared handprints of it draped across the wall, while sickly pools of it lay undisturbed on the floor from where it had been spilt. And lying in the middle of it all was the barely recognizable remains of Bickman. Rasse had a strong stomach, but even he could barely hold in the contents of his earlier lunch.

Devil's Island was a rather small island, but standing in the middle of it was a massive old mansion, with many rooms that one could easily get lost in. As doubtful as it was that there was anyone still in it, they were obligated to search it and had split up to better cover ground. Rasse had only been gone for twenty minutes when Bickman called him on the radio and said that he found something.

But when Rasse found him, he was already dead…



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Rasse quickly ducked under the monster's outreached arms as it made a desperate grab at him. With lightning reaction, he quickly brought his gun up to the base of its skull and fired, sickly amounts of blood soon gushing out at him as its neck blasted away from its head and torso. It staggered for a moment before its headless corpse fell to the ground in twitching spasms of compulsive animation. It was still alive, but without a brain there was no way for it to control its movement.

Rasse leaned back against a nearby wall and slow slid down into a heap on the floor. He was exhausted, nearly out of ammunition, and covered in blood both his own and not. His arm was still bleeding from where the shards of wood had flown into it, and as far as he knew there was no way off the island.

From what Rasse could make out, MacIntyre had taken the boat and headed straight back to the mainland at the first sign of danger, leaving Rasse to fend for himself. MacIntyre was never known for his bravery, but this was just a sheer act of cowardice. ‘If I ever get out of this alive,’ Rasse thought, ‘I’m going to shoot the bastard myself.’

He looked over at the corpses of the creatures he had killed. They looked like humans, but what was left of their rotting skin was as pale as ash, and something about their eyes seemed inhuman…



After making sure the bedroom was secure, Rasse locked the door behind him and barricaded it with as much furniture as he could. He would be safe in here for now. With little ammunition left and no way off the island, the most he could do was hide and wait for a rescue team to come for him. All he needed to do was survive until then.

With nothing better to do, he searched through some of the drawers of a desk that he had stacked against the door. He wanted a pen and paper so that he could write a letter detailing something he had discovered in his search of the mansion, but all he was able to find was a small notepad with only a few sheets left.

A grim idea popped into his head suddenly, and he tore off the sleeve of his shirt where it had been shredded by the door fragments. Clenching his teeth tightly, he pulled out a sliver of blood-soaked wood and quickly clamped his hand over the wound. After having survived so far, the last thing he would want is to die of blood loss.

He took the sliver in his hand as a pen, and using his own blood as ink, he began to write on the notepad:

“My name is Rasse Johansson, and I have discovered a terrible secret…”



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