DayX

Our base won’t work anymore...

it’s overrun... something escaped -- someone

Not enough space, not enough protection, too much corruption.

I expected more discipline with those from the military but I guess

I’m being naïve...

.....that was their downfall...

A lot has been lost.............

.......Mostly hope.

....don’t know where we’re going...but...

I’ll follow him til the end of time...

.....And even after that.

Page 10

“You sure you know where you’re going?” Trish whispered, tugging her hair free from one of the screws lining the vent. They had been crawling through the dusty vent for what felt like hours.

“Yes. I’ve worked here longer than you’ve used this place as a sanctuary,” Eien said. He tapped at the vent wall with the flashlight in his hand. “Besides, we’re safer in here than the rest of the group.”

“I’ve watched enough movies to know how this will end for me...” Trish mumbled under her breath.

"Beruhig dich-"

“-I ain’t your sister. Speak English-”

“-Stop fidgeting. These vents may be strong, but it wasn’t built with two people worming through it in mind.”

“You gotta understand why I’m scared shitless.” She continued to ramble unintelligible things under her breath. Eien rolled his eyes. Even though he found the ebony woman annoying at times, Eien had long ago decided that if none of this Apocalypse mumbo jumbo had happened he and Trish would have probably been best friends.

Eien huffed. “Your husband is better company.”

“Watch it,” Trish hissed. A sudden groaning and clicking sound halted their speech.

Eerrrrrrrrr...

“Please tell me that was your stomach,” Trish whimpered. They both paused in their movement. The vent below them jolted with another groan.

"Scheisse!” Eien cried. The vent jolted again. The screws in the metal lining in front of Eien came loose before the vent went crashing downward. Both Trish and Eien gave a shriek of terror.

They came to a crashing stop right before the compartment Eien lay in touched the ground. The vent hung a few centimeters off the ground. Eien crawled out of the vent, helping Trish out afterward. They looked around at their surroundings in vain. It was pitch black. Even the flashlight couldn’t penetrate the darkness.

“Where the hell are we?” Trish asked. She looked at Eien as the slightly taller man tapped at the watch on his wrist. Three holographic displays appeared above his wrist showing different types of data and numbers that she couldn’t understand. The screens, one by one, showed a blinking ‘error’ over their display. Eien sucked his teeth.

“My COM isn’t working. Something in here is interfering with it,” he said. He tapped the device again and the screens blinked out. “We need to find a light switch.”

“I can barely find my hand in front of me.”

“We’re going to have to feel around.”

“What if there’s something in here?”

“If we can’t see it, I doubt it can see us.”

“What if it can smell us? What if it can hear us or feel the vibration of our voices or steps?”

“You need to calm down before it smells your fear.” Eien chuckled. He huffed when Trish smacked him in the back of his head.

“Boy, quit playing with me! Don’t say shit like that when it’s a high possibility.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, geez!” Eien grumbled as he rubbed the back of his head. “Hold on to my pack, we need to stay together.” Without further coaxing, Trish took hold of Eien’s backpack. The silver-blond slowly led them through the darkness, cursing whenever his foot caught on something.

“Why is it so dark? What happened to your flashlight?”

“It died.” Eien slid his hand along the cold, metal wall. There were smooth and pointed grooves along the wall, some occasionally blinked with a faint red glow. “Ah!” Eien exclaimed in triumph when his hand hit a button. The lights flashed on, blinding them in its glare.

They looked around the room, Trish with confusion and Eien with shock. The room was large. Two computer stations sat near the middle of the room, one was turned on and the other one’s screen was shattered where the vent fell and hit. Directly in front of the computer stations, there were four large vats filled with glowing green liquid. There were another three surrounding those, but they were empty -- one of them shattered by a toppled over shelf. Wires - both cut and intact- lay haphazardly across the floor and twisted around the computer stations and vats. Cabinets lined the wall - some broken and some shut tight. The shelves in the room were toppled over with their contents spilling around them on the floor. Black, grated metal made up the walls, floor, and ceiling. From where they stood, it was hard to tell where the ground ended and where the wall began. “Where are we?”

“We’re in the lab,” Eien said.

“What?” Trish whispered harshly. “Lab? This place has a lab?”

“It was a military facility-”

Trish waved her hand dismissively. “How far are we from the medical bay?”

“We’re three hallways away.” Eien looked up at the vent still attached to the ceiling. “There is no way we’re going through the vents to get there...we’re going to have to go through the.... halls...” Eien looked at the double doors on the far-left side of the room. They were shut tight. A fleeting feeling of panic surged through Eien’s mind before he settled down just as quickly. ‘Fucking hell - I hope I don’t die in here…’ Eien shuddered at the thought.

“Fuck that! This place is crawling with footsloggers. Let’s get what we can from the lab and leave.”

Eien gave her a pointed look before gesturing at the vent. “How do you s-” He paused a moment, interrupting himself then smirked. “Did you just call them foot-”

“Fuck you,” Trish hissed. Eien laughed and shook his head.

“Carl would have a field day knowing he got someone on board with him. But back to what I was saying - you have another idea on how to get out of here?”

Trish said nothing as she walked about the room. She stepped up to one of the vats and placed a hand on it. Eien watched her only briefly before bringing his attention to the large computer hub in front of him. He logged into the terminal, a bright blue kite flashed across the screen welcoming him back to KLIA. His attention was only brought back to Trish when she began speaking again: “Eien, what the hell is in these giant test tubes?”

“They’re called vats. Experiments -- the scientists were attempting to find a cure for the infection. I can’t tell how far they got,” Eien replied. Trish and Eien’s gaze met briefly before the silver-blond went back to tapping away at the holographic display on the computer station. “This is why I couldn’t use my COM...”

“One of the vat things is broke,” Trish said, gaining Eien’s attention immediately.

“What?” Eien followed Trish’s gaze to the shattered vat. “What label is on there?”

“Experiment S09SDAX5.” There was a slight pause where neither Trish nor Eien spoke; the only sound that could be heard was Eien’s fingers flying across the console. “What was in it?”

“We need to leave...now."

“That’s what we’re--” She halted mid-sentence. Eien shot his gaze up at her, his brows creasing in worry.

“Trish? Patricia?” She didn’t respond. Instead, she made a garbled noise as blood bubbled from her mouth. Eien’s eyes widened. ”Trish?” He took a step back when she jolted forward. She stopped short of hitting the ground and that’s when Eien took notice of the three tentacle-like appendages protruding from her back. Eien followed the limbs with his eyes to its source -- something behind the broken vat. “T-Trish?” Eien slowly walked back towards the exit.

Trish’s body lifted up off the ground, the tentacle-like appendages bursting through her front, spraying blood in their wake. A low growl pulled Eien’s attention away from the gory scene to the massive thing coming from behind the vat. The creature was a hulk of a person. Its enormous head was nearly sightless with little to no skin to speak of. It had one red eye, half-covered by smooth muscle while the other was covered entirely. It had dagger-like teeth with an underbite that can only be called orcish in nature. It looked like a creature that stepped out of a horror flick. It growled low, its eye set solely on its feast.

The creature quickly drew Trish to it and opened its mouth wide before taking a large chomp. Eien promptly turned his gaze away as the creature snapped its jaws down on Trish’s body, severing her head and shoulders from the rest of her body. Eien could hear the crunching of bones and the squelch of blood as the creature chewed.

Eien quickly made a beeline for the door, tripping on loose wires, tubes, and even his own feet as he went. When he got to the door, he was horrified to find the power to the console was dead. No matter how many times or how hard he jabbed the open button next to the door, the console continued to show a blinking red “ERROR” across its projection.

The creature’s growls were getting louder, its feasting drawing to a close. Eien peeked over his shoulder. The creature was looking at him now, slowly stalking towards him. Eien pressed his back against the double-doors and stared on in horror as his death approached. “Oh fuck...no...” he whispered silently.

skskskskssssskskksksskskssksoskskskskkskkks

It was nothing but a whisper of air, but he heard it. As the creature got closer, the whispering got louder but stayed unintelligible. Eien whimpered and turned his head away when the beast leaned into him. The whispering stopped. Eien chanced a peek up at the creature. It was still staring at him. Its mouth suddenly opened and Eien clenched his eyes closed.

A warm, wet sensation made his eyes snap open again. A long, slimy, slippery appendage -- a tongue, its tongue-- slipped out of its mouth and was now gliding across Eien’s skin. Eien shivered in disgust as the tongue moved from his neck to his cheek. The creature pulled its tongue back into its mouth before standing up straight.

This is it, Eien thought miserably, I am going to die here the same way Trish did.

A jarring, loud creaking jolted Eien out of his dark musings. He looked up and to his surprise, the creature was pulling the double doors open. The creature got down on its hands and knees and scuttled away in the blink of an eye. Eien took a sharp intake of breath. For something as large as that-- it moved like a lizard. Eien looked over at the other two empty vats.

“What the fuck just happened?” Eien asked the empty room.

S H I F T . . . . . . .