Project Power

“Name: Valor, Charlie M. Height: five feet, eight inches. Weight: one-hundred and fifty pounds. Age: twenty-nine years. Eye color: blue. Hair color: blond. Position: janitorial staff. Partner: M-632 ‘Mass.’ Initiating waking sequence.” A robotic voice drilled into Charlie’s ears as he squeezed his eyes shut. Ignoring what it was saying, he grit his teeth and forced himself to open his eyes. Bright lights flooded his senses, and it took him several seconds to adjust to the blinding bulbs that shone all around him.

“Potential for neurological decay: eighty-five percent. Playing reminder video.” Charlie, who was just beginning to adapt to the bombardment of his senses, had his attention drawn to his right, where a television was slowly lowering down from the ceiling. Charlie took a second to look around. He was in a very desolate, very small room. His body was attached to several wires and cables all over, which he promptly started to fiddle around with and tear off. For each wire he removed, an additional alarm sounded, which only served to further overstimulate him. Once he fully detached himself from the bed he was hooked up to, the alarms went silent. It was about that time that the TV finished its descent and began playing a recording. A woman in a lab coat with a large smile stared into the camera, then began speaking.

“Hello! If you’re watching this recording, it means you are a successful participant of Project Power! The splicing process may have caused minor neurological damage, and so this recording is to remind you of what you agreed to, the process you underwent, and your next steps. Understand that—” The video was cut off by a sudden blackness and silence that filled the room. Once more, Charlie’s eyes had to adjust to the drastic change. He blinked a few times as his pupils expanded to take in the faint glow of the emergency lights. He heard a crashing noise somewhere else in the building, but it was quite distant.

“Project…Power?” Charlie muttered, his first words since waking up. The name rang a bell in his head, but he was entirely unaware of any details about it. He was similarly unaware of where he was located. Carefully feeling his way around the room, Charlie eventually came across what he thought to be a door, primarily because of the slight gap between its bottom and the floor. He scoured it for a knob or handle, but was unable to find one. Standing up, Charlie realized he was out of breath, which was odd, considering he hadn’t been doing anything strenuous. Charlie leaned some of his weight on the door to help catch his breath, but was surprised to find that it opened through a simple push. Charlie nearly fell down, but managed to catch himself and find a sturdier wall to lean on.

The building he was in was somewhat chilly, which was especially unfortunate, as Charlie had woken up in nothing but underwear and a ring on his left hand. Charlie wrapped his arms around him to warm up some, but it didn’t prove very effective. Still unable to see much of anything, Charlie decided to return to the room from which he came to finish his search of the walls. If there was another door, he wanted to know about all his options. After attempting to push on the door and its refusal to move, Charlie searched for a handle and located one. He pulled the door open and reentered.

Charlie felt around some more and located what felt to be a small cabinet. He managed to open it and felt around inside, then grabbed a cylindrical object and held it close to his face to try and make out what it was in the inky darkness. Charlie realized it was a heavy-duty flashlight and, after breathing a sigh of relief, found its button and clicked it on. The flashlight’s beam illuminated the room, and Charlie pointed it into the cabinet to see if he could find anything else that may be helpful. Rather than something helpful, he was treated with a family of rats staring back at him. The rats dashed out of the cabinet and ran past Charlie, which caused him to lose his balance and fall backwards. He quickly distanced himself from the rats, frightened by them.

“Gross,” Charlie commented. He hesitantly picked up his flashlight again, now somewhat disgusted by the fact that it was probably no stranger to rat feces. Cautiously, he pointed the light into the cabinet again. Once he was sure that it had no more residents, he allowed himself to get close again and continue his investigation. Inside, he found about what he expected: dust, droppings, and carcasses of ancient bugs. In fact, he even found a deceased rat. While he would have liked to imagine that the live rats were holding some sort of funeral for the dead one, he unfortunately knew it was more likely that they were feasting on it.

Tucked away in the corner of the cabinet, though, was a set of folded clothes and black tennis shoes. They had clearly been there for a long time, as they were covered in dust and cobwebs. Charlie weighed his options in his mind for a moment, then decided he’d rather be dirty and warm rather than clean and cold. He grabbed the clothes—a set of blue jeans and a black sweater—then put them on alongside the shoes. Both the jeans and the sweater were a little too big for him, but at least he had something to cover himself with. Taking a deep breath, Charlie tried to think about what was going on. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t recall where he was or why he was there. Had he been kidnapped? He tried to think of what had happened before he went to sleep, but those memories were equally absent.

“Is there anyone here?” Charlie asked out loud. No response. If he had been kidnapped, he would expect his captor to be around, or at the very least confine him. Plus, the facilities seemed a little advanced for a kidnapping. Pointing his light back at the bed he had woken up in, it appeared all of the medical machinery attached to him was just as dead as the lights. It was a good thing he woke up when he did.

Charlie made his way out of the room and started investigating the outer area. There were three other rooms similar to his, all connected to the central area. Curious, Charlie pulled open a door and shone his light inside. While he had been hoping to find another person, he was less-than-satisfied with the person he found inside. In a bed that looked just like his was a bare skeleton. It laid under covers flat on its back. Although the sight was offputting, Charlie approached the skeleton and pulled back the covers. He was surprised to see that no bugs or rodents had sheltered under them, but he supposed it may be in part due to the fact that the skeleton had no meat left for them to consume.

The skeleton’s room was about the same as his in every way—aside from the fact that Charlie hadn’t woken up a skeleton, obviously. The cabinet in this room had similar clothes to the ones stored in his own. They were smaller in size, so he traded them out for a better fit. He didn’t suppose the room’s occupant would be missing them much, anyway. Additionally, there was another flashlight stowed away in the cabinet. After checking that it worked, Charlie emptied it of its batteries and kept them in his pocket should his own flashlight run out of power. Afterwards, Charlie left the room and investigated the one across from it. It was in the exact same state: a skeleton in bed accompanied by some old, dusty clothes and a flashlight in a cabinet. Charlie stole the batters and, expecting to see the same thing in the third and final room, Charlie entered. He was a bit surprised, though, to see that this room didn’t have a skeletal inhabitant. Rather, the bed was messy and empty.

“Hello?” Charlie called out. Unless the skeleton had been reduced to dust, which he doubted, it meant that someone else had to be around somewhere. Charlie listened for a response, but was interrupted when he took a step and felt a crunch under his foot. He quickly pointed his light down and spotted a rat under him. He would feel bad about it, but there were two other rats just in front of him in already-dead states, meaning he probably hadn’t dealt the finishing blow. In fact, the rats seemed to form something of a path towards the room’s cabinet. A small trail of blood solidified this idea and made its way from the rats towards the cabinet.

Charlie, against his better judgement, kneeled down and put his ear up to the cabinet. Inside, he heard scratching and crunching sounds. He assumed that the tyrannical rat king must have taken shelter within, and was feasting on its deceased brethren. By no means did he want to see the scene within but, should previous patterns persist, he could find more useful batteries inside. Charlie stood to the side of the cabinet, gripped the handle, and threw the door open. He expected the rat to run out just as it did before, but he saw nothing leave. Instead, the noises from inside the cabinet stopped.

After a few moments, the cabinet door shook a few times as several tapping sounds were made on it. Charlie backed away a few steps, but no amount of distance would prepare himself for what he saw. This thing was no rat. It was about the size of an apple and had black, beady eyes that darted around and focused on Charlie. Attached to its bottom were six spiderlike legs sparsely covered with thick, black hairs. It crawled to the top of the cabinet and got to about chest level with Charlie. The creature’s mouth was wide and covered about a half of its face. It slowly opened its mouth, which nearly doubled its size, and showed off two rows of teeth to Charlie, then bent its legs.

With a bolt of adrenaline, Charlie leapt over the bed and narrowly dodged a pounce from the creature, who hit the wall and landed on the ground. Unable to see on the other side of the bed, Charlie heard it skitter around as it righted itself, then dashed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him just in time to hear the thing crash into it. Charlie backed away from the door and gave himself a few seconds to catch his breath.

“Nope. mm-mm. Not a fan of that,” he muttered. He heard several bashing sounds as the thing tried to break through the door, but it must’ve been too heavy for it to push through. Attempting to distract himself from whatever it was he had just seen, Charlie pointed his flashlight at a doorless wall to try and get a better idea of what was going on. There was a plaque on the wall covered by cobwebs. He cleared them with his hand, then blew the dust off of it to see what it said.

“”Subjects 96-99: 96 Hermit Crab, 97 Gnome, 98 Photograph, 99 Mass,”” Charlie read. The name “Mass,” sounded familiar, the voice announcer mentioned it when he was first waking up, but he hadn’t been conscious enough to remember anything else it said. Below the four names, the plaque had one more bit of text, just three letters: “ASI.” That name also sounded familiar to Charlie, exceedingly so. Still, he couldn’t put his finger on what it actually meant.

Charlie shot his gaze in back of him after hearing a loud crash. The door containing the creature swung open and Charlie quickly beamed his flashlight all over the room to try and spot the thing, but he failed to locate it. His hairs stood on his neck, knowing that it was somewhere in the room with him. Charlie backed into a corner to ensure he couldn’t get attacked from behind, but then realized he didn’t have many options for movement. He didn’t have time to rectify his mistake, because once he pointed his light down in front of him, he spotted the thing on the ground. It opened its mouth, bent its legs, then jumped straight for Charlie’s face.

Instinctively, Charlie put his hand up to defend himself. The creature caught Charlie’s flashlight between its jaws and got it wedged in its mouth, so Charlie dropped the flashlight and, in turn, the creature. It scrambled around on the ground trying to get the flashlight out of its mouth, as it didn’t have the necessary articulation in its legs to remove it manually. The room was mostly dark, thanks to the flashlight’s illumination being captured primarily by the creature’s mouth, but it gave Charlie enough visibility to act. He ran up to the thing while it struggled on the ground and kicked it as hard as he could. It went flying all the way to the other side of the room and the flashlight forcefully removed itself from its mouth, landing on the ground and pointing towards the corner and landed in.

“Was that…Hermit Crab?” Charlie asked no one in particular. If the four names on the plaque correlated to the four rooms, and if he was Mass, then the thing attacking him certainly didn’t look like a Photograph or a Gnome. Charlie realized he had been holding his breath, so he allowed himself to exhale and relax his muscles. His brain started working on what exactly the thing was. Why would it be grouped in with three humans? Did it eat the fourth human’s skeleton? Most importantly, why was Charlie himself called Mass?

Charlie’s muscles tensed up again as he heard a familiar skittering sound coming from the other side of the room. The flashlight was useless to him, pointing into a corner and providing virtually no light. Charlie put his hands up to guard himself, then felt a sharp pain as what felt like a hundred tiny razors latched onto his hand. Charlie screamed as his hand was enveloped in pain and warmth, then hit it against the wall as hard as he could. He did this several times, trying to kill the beast without thinking too much about what was actually attached to him, but despite his efforts, the thing just didn’t seem to let go.

Ignoring the fruitlessness of his prior attempts, Charlie kept bashing the thing into the wall. He did this enough times that it finally fell off of his hand and, through a stroke of luck, he managed to locate it with his foot and stomp it out. He stomped on it several times, and continued doing so until he was certain that it couldn’t be alive anymore. He determined this using the fact that the crushing sound that it made at the start had turned into more of a sloshing one, along with the fact that it wasn’t moving anymore. Charlie ran towards the flashlight and bent down to pick it up. Strangely enough, when he tried to pick it up, it was as if his hand moved straight through the flashlight. He tried again to no avail, then used his left hand to pick it up. Ignoring whatever just happened, Charlie sprinted back to where he had been attacked and pointed the light at the ground. As he expected, his attacker had been reduced to little more than a stain on the ground, and his once nice-looking shoe was covered in red. Charlie leaned against the wall and caught his breath before raising his right hand, which he admittedly wished he hadn’t done.

Stifling a scream, Charlie realized the reason he couldn’t pick up the flashlight with his right hand: it wasn’t there. He pointed the flashlight at the deflated mess that was the Hermit Crab, kicked around in it and, sure enough, he found his hand inside of what was once the Hermit Crab’s mouth, mangled and battered by his own attacks on the creature. The most unbelievable part, though, was how little pain he was in. He assumed losing a hand, especially now that he knew it was gone, would be incredibly painful, not to mention deadly due to the amount of blood that should have been pouring out of him. Upon closer inspection, though, only a trickle was coming out, and the blood was clotting incredibly quickly. Charlie, in disbelief, touched the clotting blood with his attached hand, and to his surprise, it felt as if he were just touching part of his wrist.

“This is messed up,” Charlie said. He watched as the blood continued clotting, slowly taking the form of a hand. Once a red base was completed, it started filling in with various internal parts: bones, ligaments, veins, arteries, and eventually, it covered itself with skin. The whole process took about five minutes. Charlie turned his hand back and forth—it looked like it was never missing, besides a few bloodstains scattered on his wrist. Charlie was in awe, to say the least. He should be dead, and here he was with a new hand. Then, Charlie’s stomach started to growl and he was overcome with an intense feeling of hunger. He gripped his stomach and tried to ease the pain, but he felt as though he were starving. Almost against his will, his eyes darted to the deceased Hermit Crab on the ground.

“Absolutely not,” Charlie told himself. His stomach, though, protested his mouth by growling even louder, and the hunger pain increased as well. Charlie sat on the floor and tried to comfort the aching, but it wasn’t going anywhere, and for some reason, it didn’t take him as much convincing as he thought it would to start inching towards Hermit Crab. Once he was within arm’s length of it, he was unable to stop himself from grabbing onto one of its legs and shoving it into his mouth. He chewed furiously through its tough exterior to reach the soft meat within, and it tasted…absolutely heavenly. Charlie couldn’t believe it, the thing tasted like a well-seasoned steak. It was slightly chewy, but he could get past that to ease the pain. Charlie picked the Hermit Crab clean, leaving it as a pile of broken bones on the ground. Although he still felt somewhat hungry, he stopped short of eating his own lost hand.

Again in disbelief, Charlie sat there thinking about what he had just done. The Hermit Crab, at least to him, was a completely unknown creature. It could be harboring any number of strange diseases, and beyond that, Charlie hadn’t even cooked the thing. He would have felt worse about it if it hadn’t been for the insatiable hunger he had just been feeling. It was like he lost control of his own body, like he turned into some sort of animal that was only concerned with survival. Charlie looked at his hands again, now covered in the blood of Hermit Crab. Again, he glanced at his old hand as his stomach remained somewhat unsatisfied by its meal. He shook his head and forced himself to stand up and move away.

“What is going on?” Charlie asked. Once more, he scanned the walls and found a fifth and final door, this one perpendicular to all the others, and a lightless exit sign above it. Pursing his lips and taking a deep breath, Charlie walked towards the exit sign and pushed through the door. If he was going to find any answers, he couldn’t stay there.