6 Days A Sacrifice: The (Un)Official Novelization (Chzo Mythos #4)

Day Four

                                                                                 July 27th, AD 2189

        My eyes snapped open to the familiar view of the top bunk. That dream was so real. I'm really going insane if I'm having dreams about shooting someone, even if he is a cultist. As I left the sleeping quarters, the lack of Janine distinct, the memories of last night came back as well. The aches in my back and legs made it apparent enough that it hadn't been a dream, but where could she have gone?

        I left the quarters, stumbling and shambling down the hallway, checking rooms one by one, until a blood-piercing scream rang out. It didn't sound feminine, but it sounded distressed. I didn't know what to do with it. Honestly, after three days down here and ample death, it's hard to say I even cared. But then, I came upon the holding cell, and Canning wasn't there.

        "Canning?" My voice rang out fruitlessly, and I saw an ample splattering of blood across the cell window, his body slumped over in the corner and riddled with bullet holes. My dream, was it a dream? Or could it have been something more? I needed to find Janine, and I pushed the door open to something horrid.

        The hallway, flickering madly, as Janine swung a large knife at my head, leaving me little time to dodge. She wore an old-fashioned welding mask over her face. "Janine?" I whimpered, knocked to my feet. Janine was gone. John DeFoe had her. I needed some way to get her back. She walked toward me with the slow agility of a tarantula waiting to strike and she sliced me through.

        "AGH!" I screamed, my body thumping to the harsh cement floor of the sleeping quarters. The line between dream and reality was blurring too quickly for me to keep up. Was this real? Am I in another dream? I left the sleeping quarters and just as it had in my dream, the hallway flickered and the spirit of John DeFoe had resided in Janine. She approached me in no rush, keeping me in a demented game of cat and mouse. I circled through the Hub corridor and she kept on me relentlessly. I didn't know where I could go, what I could do, but she seemed to be quickly gaining on me. She brandished her knife in several air-wise slices, and I ducked into the first door I could find - an unfamiliar door, it didn't fit in with the rest. A hideous light blue that seemed to belong with a shed, not an underground laboratory complex...

        I was in a shed, plain and barren. Well, barren if you didn't account for the pickaxe rested on the floor, flashing blue. When I touched it, pins and needles ran up my arm. When I picked it up, it didn't seem to have any weight at all. I had it now, but I didn't know what to do with it. I couldn't fight Janine. Not only would I more than likely lose in my current state, but I wanted to get rid of John DeFoe without hurting her. I made my way back down the hallway, through the corridor, and as Janine seemed to catch up once again, I ducked into the sleeping quarters and locked the door. Catching my breath, I noticed the reflection of a light flashing throughout the room. A sickly blue, just like the pickaxe I picked up. The door at the end of the sleeping quarters, the one I was in in my dream...it beckoned me.

        This room seemed to be much like the shed. It flashed wildly, although, this time it was a retro-style kitchen. If it wasn't flashing, it may have appeared normal, until the gaping hole in the wall entered my vision. When I looked at it, there was a feeling like...like the bottom dropping out of my mind. I stood before the hole, and soon Janine entered the kitchen through the other door. I stood by the hole, and I moved through pure instinct. I held tight to the pickaxe, the breathing of the walls matching my own hurried breaths. Her steps came closer to me, and before I could form a proper thought, cry for help, beg her to come back to me...she had raised her knife. I struck the hole with the pickaxe, and she stopped dead in her tracks. We both stared into the hole, and in a shot, Janine was speared through the neck. The tall man pushed it all the way through her neck, and once more through her chest as I watched. He pulled her into the hole, and all went back to normal.

        "JANINE!" I cried after her, but it was too late. The kitchen and hole were gone. All I had left of her was a small bloodstain on the wall. "No..." And for the first time since I had been here, I began to cry. Her blood dripped down the wall, and I sank with it to the floor. I'm alone.

        Or was I truly alone?

        I wished to wake up, for this whole scenario must have been a dream.