The Sacrifice: The Watcher Series Book Three (First 50 pages)

Chapter 4-MUTATIONS

Chapter 4—MUTATIONS

At some point during my prayers—or maybe pleadings would be more accurate—I fell asleep.  Gabriel wasn’t exactly chatty, not that he ever had been, but I found this new level of silence frightening.  I wished I could delve into his head and know what he was thinking.  I woke when the car decelerated and turned onto what sounded like a dirt road. Within a few minutes, we stopped.  I dreamt of Morpheus and the expression he had on his face when I saw him above the maze.  I was finally able to put a word to the look on his face: unnerved.  I unnerved him.  I wondered if I had been the only person to discover his presence in a dream.

I got out of the car and followed Gabriel into what looked like a dilapidated barn.  Dust rose from his footsteps as he trudged in before me.  Gabriel stepped in front of a faded metal silo, about six feet in width, at the corner of the barn. He pressed a button on the front of the control panel and looked upwards.  I followed his gaze and noticed a small camera in a knot of wood that framed the structure.  I would never have noticed it if he hadn’t pointed it out.  After a moment, there was a metal clicking sound, and the front of the silo popped open.  He slid his hand into the crevice and pulled it open. 

“Ready?” He turned and looked at me, his face blank of any expression.  I nodded and walked into the opening. 

Once I stepped into the circular space, Gabriel moved in behind me and closed the door.  Blue LED lights came awake the second the door clicked shut, and the platform started moving downwards. 

Gabriel turned around.  “It is safe to take the helmet off.”

I unbuckled the chin strap and lifted the helmet from my head, tucking it under my left arm and looking at him apprehensively.  I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t put into words what I was feeling.

His non-expression softened, and he placed his hand on my shoulder.  “We will find a solution.”

I nodded.  The elevator stopped, and the door opened.  He dropped his hand to his side and turned to face the opening.  We must have been a hundred or so feet down, as the coolness of the earth seemed to emanate from the walls. 

Everything in the structure seemed to be made of cement, stainless steel or glass, capped with a rough rock ceiling.  It appeared that we were in some type of natural cave that had been converted into a research lab.  A small lobby greeted us with sterile-looking white chairs and a wall of thick glass with two sets of doors.  The main lab was just inside the second entrance.  There were two smaller rooms partitioned off in the far left and right corners. In the room on the left I could see people in white, lab-type clean room suits with goggles and long green chemical gloves.  The one in the far right corner was dark.  The center section had rows of tall tables with stainless steel tops that you would see in a science lab. 

A tall, blonde woman with safety glasses looked up excitedly from her work and beckoned us to enter.  She took off the glasses, tossing them on the work table as she walked over to the inner doors of the entrance and buzzed us in.  We stepped through the first set of doors, and once those closed, she buzzed us into the second set.  There was a piece of parchment paper taped to the door with the words, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here” in calligraphy.  I recognized the reference; it was the inscription over the gateway to hell in Dante’s Inferno.  I would normally find it funny…but not today.  I saw Gabriel read the sign too.

Once inside, anxiety welled up inside me and I moved stiffly.  Gabriel put his heavy hand back on my shoulder.  “Beth, this is Aleria…Aleria…Beth.”

She looked at his hand on my shoulder, then at my face, and smiled, but there was confusion in her expression.  I held out my hand in greeting: “Nice to meet you.”