Opening my eyes I could see myself standing in front of the black door once more.
Two numbers painted in black on the metal surface before me. 59.
I was standing in front of S-59's containment room again.
Wait. Again? How many times have i-
a strange distorted sound caught my attention, seemingly coming from inside of the vault and I froze. Feeling a chill run down my spine I looked down both ends of the hallway, seeing nothing but darkness.
"W-Who's there?" I called out but there was no reply. Looking back at the blast door I could see it was partially cracked open, just a few inches. Some kind of black mist was leaking from the gap and I could feel my heart rate starting to climb.
Something was inside. S-59. was inside that room. If there's a containment breach then everyone will be in danger. I-i have to pull the alarm and get the containment security here. I have to run-
"Ava," a distorted voice whispered in my ear. This time I could sense the presence standing behind me and all thoughts I had before, came to a screeching halt.
"Release me…"
—-
Gasping awake I sat up in a panic. A figure beside me grabbed my arm and shrieked before trying to push away. "Ava! It's me!"
I focused on Kerian's face realizing who he was then quickly glanced around the room seeing we were in my bed.
"it's okay you had a nightmare that's all. Relax, I'm right here… Nothing is going to hurt you." he pulled me into a hug while my heart raced in my chest and I slowly came back to reality.
After a moment I hugged kerian back and he pat my head trying his best to calm me down with small hushes and words or reassurance. After a few minutes I managed to calm my nerves and relaxed into his hold.
"What time is it?" I pulled away and kerian looked down at me.
"It's late, you didn't sleep very long and the night cycle is currently going outside."
"great, so coffee is out of the question…" I huffed. "Sorry if I woke you up…"
He patted my head and a small smile appeared on his lips. "don't worry I wasn't really getting much sleep either…want to talk about it?"
Pulling my legs up I rested my head on my knees. "no…it wasn't even that scary. I think it just startled me. Nothing really happened."
He watched me intently before pulling me against him into a hug and looking me in the eyes. "you don't have to be afraid of talking to me, I won't ever hold anything against you…"
This took me a bit by surprise, did kerian think I didn't want to talk because of him? Truthfully I just didn't see any reason to talk about the dream. I mean it was silly. Nothing happened to me, I was just…
I was just…
Reaching up I held my head and tried to think about what had happened. Why can't I remember it now? It was like a word that I knew on the tip of my tongue that I just couldn't conjure. Yet no matter how hard I tried I couldn't think of it.
"maybe you'd like to take something to help you get back to sleep?" I shook my head, still bothered by the lost dream. "Ava if your worried about another nightmare, I'll be right here-"
"N-no it's not that…"
He was silent before cupping my cheek and turning my head up so I would look him in the eyes. "if you insist that everything is fine then let us go back to sleep…" I looked deeply into his eyes once more and felt the tiredness from before seeping back into my body. I merely nodded as we laid back down and he held me close, kissing the top of my head while spooning me.
As much as I wanted to figure out why I just suddenly forgot the strange dream, I couldn't fight how drowsy I felt and let myself succumb to the darkness once more.
—--(next morning)-----
Sitting in the lab I continued to inspect the sample in front of me. "Whatcha doing?" jade spoke up, distracting me from my work.
"I'm working? Something I'm pretty sure you should be doing right now…" she pouted at that comment and crossed her arms.
"I'm just taking a break, no need to get on my ass for it…"
I rolled my eyes and wrote down some notes for the sample I was inspecting. "have you checked on subject 32 at all today?"
"well…he kinda got out of containment…" I stopped writing and looked over at her.
"again?"
She nodded her head and I sighed "and I'm guessing you didn't want to catch him…"
"to be fair he's completely harmless and no one minds having him run around!"
"That's besides the point jade, we could get in trouble if the higher ups see him freely roaming without supervision!" getting up from my desk I grabbed my key card and made my way out of the lab.
"hey where are you going?!" jade shouted.
"to go find 32 and put him back!" I responded.
Walking down the halls I passed by various lab doors where many other scientists were working on their own projects. Some involved experiments with chemicals and strange samples taken from certain subjects, others were simply doing research and paperwork jotting down things they've learned about some of the anomalous entities contained in the facility.
As I walked I had to pause seeing one of the lab rooms was occupied by scientists and guards. They were all gathered around a table with a clear containment box that held a strange glowing plant inside.
As one of the scientists brushed past the box. The strange glowing plant seemed to change color, turning red, and reeling back before banging against the glass with enough force to scratch the two inch thick glass box.
The guards on standby were on high alert keeping flamethrowers ready in case the thing did manage to break free. A small slot in the side of the box was opened as they stuck a large needle to take samples from the plant. It seemed to react violently and started thrashing around the heavy duty container until they finished and backed away.
Once the scientists had their samples, they loaded the container onto a metal cart and rolled it away back to the containment room it belonged In.
I moved on and headed for the area most frequented by subject 32. He has a knack for escaping. A lot. Despite how cautious we are around the containment rooms and how thorough we are when it comes to making sure all precautions are taken for each creature. But when you have something like subject 32 who can phase through things such as metal doors, it's kinda hard to keep containment 24/7.
Luckily for us subject 32 is passive and easy to please. If we keep it satisfied it tends not to wander off or escape as much. But being the kind of creature that it is, it doesn't always cooperate and gets bored easily within its chamber. I can't blame him. I would hate being locked in the same room 24/7 too. Especially alone. Specter creatures like him don't have much else to do their interactions with the living are about the only things that would keep them happy.
Subject 32 loves attention but with so much work having to be done around here it's hard to give him the constant affection he desires. no matter how cute he seems.
I looked around the empty hall searching for signs of s-32. He likes this area because of the bunker's generator room nearby. It produces quite a bit of heat much to s-32's delight. I looked all over the place, under chairs, behind desks, inside cabinets…
"Dammit where are you?" I moved to another room and looked under some of the furniture in the lounge trying to find the sneaky little escape artist. I groaned after about the seventh time of crouching down to look under furniture and got to my feet.
"If I were you, where would I…"
A distinct meow made me freeze and I slowly turned around to see a shadowy feline creature sitting in the middle of the hallway licking its paw with bright glowing green eyes.
After scratching itself it looked up at me curio,usly with another now merow and a sweet innocent face.
I sighed and shook my head with a smile before kneeling down and holding my hands out in invitation. "There you are, you rascal."
S-32 meowed again before happily striding over to rub up against my leg only for something unsightly to take most of my attention from s-32. A trail of bloody paw prints were left behind as s-32 walked to a, as to where I saw a bloodied body laying on the floor.
Standing up I stared at the mangled corpse a few feet away, in shock while s-32 happily continued to rub up against my leg.
How- who- s-32 is a passive creature who has never shown signs of aggression so I know he wasn't responsible for this he just happened to be passing by, but why is there a body here in the first place?! Who or what did this!? I covered my mouth holding back the bile rising in my throat and closed my eyes trying to get ahold of myself.
I need to call security, I need to figure out what did this I need to-
Snapping out of my thoughts I was startled by s-32 suddenly stopping between my feet and hissing angrily at something behind me before running off in a panic.
"ava!" I spun around to see none other than kerian walking towards me. "Are you alright? What are you doing down here?" he asked worriedly.
Our eyes met as I looked up at him and I blinked a few times still trying to overcome the shock I was in before realizing we might both be in danger. "kerian! Somethings wrong there's a body-" as I turned around to show him what I had found, it was gone.
There was no body, no blood, no trail left behind by s-32. The hallway was empty and spotless. 'what?! But it was just there, I just saw it!?'
"Ava?" Kerian walked up beside me seemingly confused. "You look pale…" he reached out to touch my cheek but I shook my head and blinked a few more times to make sure the body really wasn't there.
"I thought I saw something…" I mumbled quietly.
He looked down the hall following my gaze but quickly gave up on looking for whatever had my attention, more interested and worried about me. "What are you doing down here anyways?"
"I was looking for s-32 so I could take him back to containment. But I thought I saw something and panicked for a moment. He ran off… I think you spooked him."
I looked over to kerian who's mood seemed to sour slightly at the mention of s-32. "hmph that cat is a nuisance, don't worry about it for now we can deal with it later, for now let's focus on you, you looked really scared. Are you sure you're okay?"
"y-yeah like I said I thought I saw something but…" my voice trailed off as I looked at my hands. Did I imagine it?
Looking back up at Kerian I tried to change the subject to get my mind off it. "What are you doing down here? Shouldn't you be in the ward?"
He smiled before holding up some papers. "Just dropping these off, having some mechanical issues in the ward so needed the engineers to come take a look. "
"I see…" I watched him walk into one of the office rooms and place the papers on the desk.
"If you haven't eaten yet, why don't we go to the cafe?" he walked back over to me with a sweet smile and I did my best to return it.
"Sure, I could go for a coffee."
"Alright, I'll take the lead!" he started walking back the way he came from and I hesitated, looking back to the floor where I had seen the body. But there was still nothing there.
Sighing, I turned to follow Kerian, deciding to forget about what I had seen, Unaware of S-32 watching us from a dark corner, cautiously. He slowly crept out of his hiding spot as we left the area before going about his business and proceeding to clean the blood off his paws.