The First One - A Changed Story

/ RECORD 5 /

The next room was, if I didn't simply misread the huge sign above the door, some sort of offices. Luckily my japanese isn't as trash when it comes to reading, and luckily one of the main points we went over were back in school were workplace names. Whatever it was, the next room was filled with boxes. Out of sheer curiosity, I opened them up to see their contents. Most of it was just scientific rubbish such as glass containers and microscopes, but from the few things I actually obtained that looked remotely useful were in a box tagged as "SECURITY" in both english and japanese.

- A jar with a tag reading "Beast Fodder", it had some sort of grey paste inside, yet another tag in the bottom of the jar reading "Nutritious. Somnifere. Consumable by anyone" before a long list of ingredients.- In a case that simply read "ZZZ Dart" were four small capsule-like objects with a clear white liquid, which brings me to the next object...
- In the same case was some sort of gun, I'm no gun expert, but I could notice some odd things right away. First off, the bullet cartridge was part of the gun, second, there was some sort of opening in the top that allowed placing a single bullet at a time. I tried placing one dart and it fit perfectly. Not gonna be too useful for melee, but it's gonna come in handy if 1. I ever find actual bullets and 2. they fit into this weird gun.

After that, I took a glance around the room and came across some sort of rule board, right near it was a sticky note with an arrow pointing to the floor, there was some sort of casette player with a tape inside, white liquid in the bottom of the object, I'm pretty surprised people still use casette players to this day. The tape was once again the voice of Mizuko, her voice much more serious than in the last message:

"Kennybear? It's me, Mizuko. You really shouldn't have come here. I'm pretty sure I left another message saying that you should rather stay put on the warehouse, I'm sorry if I didn't. You have to turn back now. Only the maintenance team, me, Docsy and Matt know how to get around the offices safely. Sit back in the warehouse before one of those wolves open the door and realize you're here.

Although... Knowing you got here, to not disappoint you, I'm gonna go out of my way to tell you something interesting, but please take this record player, pause it, then take it to the warehouse before continuing the message, I don't want you to get hurt..."

Sad to be unable to follow Mizuko's will, I paused the tape for a while, performed some deep breaths and pressed play once again. { "...What am I even doing...?" } I muttered to myself. { "...If only you were here, you'd help me get out of this mess..."

"Well, here's some things you must know. Knighty had some sort of weird behavior over the past days, in the few tests that were made with him, the subjects... lost it. I don't know how to explain it, but the subjects' brains fried the moment Knight possessed them. The staff were planning to sacrifice him if I couldn't prove that he wasn't deficient... And I decided to choose you as a test subject, I was desperate, okay? Knight was beginning to lose it and consider me as a possible host regardless of how many times I told him that I wasn't on the menu. Just recently I talked to the little guy about what not to do when I release him to you, so if he turns the tables and fries my brain instead... It means that I failed as a mother and a wife, your future wife, to be precise.

Anyways, Kennybear... Just... be safe, okay? People should arrive in sunrise, at the time there's only about 14 staff members, but that should be enough for you to encounter one at some point, and when you do, make sure to dGVsbCB0aGVtIHRoYXQgSSdtIGluIHRyb3VibGUgYW5kIHRvIGdldCB0aGUgZG9jdG9yIHRvIG1ha2UgbWUgYSBjdXJlLiBUaGF0IHNob3VsZCBiZSB5b3VyIHRvcCBwcmlvcml0eS4=

Mizuko's message is nothing but garbled electronic nonsense past that point, something must've jammed the tape, and knowing there was white goo in the player, I can already pinpoint it to those small goo underlings.

Insecure of whatever my next move should be, I took some time to meditate things. That Knight monster has my lady and a plan they want me to see fulfilled. I barely remember Mizuko saying this creature's assimilation can be reverted someway, but until I find out how, there's not much that can be done. My only lead so far is the fact that Mizuko has been insisting for me to talk to a staff member.

And then, I heard an explosion from far away and all of the lights shut off. After a while, I could hear a voice speak something in japanese, surprisingly, this time also came another voice in english Text-To-Speech as well. "Reserve energy is inefficient. Warehouse Capsule 1 will be released as safety mechanism in 10 second, 9 second, 8 second..."

Engrish aside, after counting to 8, the voice distorted to the point of earrape before shutting off. I'm sure as heck I'm not gonna get any sleep tonight. The lights came on again, flickering between poorly-lit and bright LED bulb intensity every 10 seconds or so. This sudden change of pace cued me to keep on moving. I can't make a plan without even knowing the situation I'm in.