by Divya Singh
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I pressed the buttons of elevators and waited for any of them to stop at this floor first. The one I pressed first arrived first, I moved towards it. I was thinking; why did I put myself at the risk of going into a quarantined place? I should have believed the data and the people. I should have trusted Larissa.
My life was too precious to be spoiled by such curiosities. But I needed the information as much as possible because I cannot lie on my bed in my cabin and wait for my next death; because without a reason there is no life and reason cannot be known by lying idle in my bed. I was beginning to reason out for my own little dangerous adventure. But at least I was out of it without having endangered myself. The risk was a bad choice but being still safe was good.
I had an understanding that the next floor was uninfected and only viable and healthy embryos lay inside which posed no danger to me until I was proved wrong.
I stepped out of the elevator on the last floor. It was as ever lit in dim orange lights. The previous time I had visited here, I was slightly feeble and was not authorized for free access. But it was different now, I was healthy and strong and duly authorized for exploration.
I was told that this last floor had 70000 embryos stored inside. I just had to stroll aimlessly and see if I can see that by myself. I walked out to the corridor, all the rooms facing each other were identical and ambiance was, all the same, it was actually hard to know where they began and where the corridors ended; alley per alley; all the same, similar rooms and same tanks. Soon the rooms became darker I feared getting lost in the dim light.
But through the light, I could see some rooms, all packed up to the roof with tanks, endless tanks. One tank had its facing towards me which read ‘Human Embryo’ and I was relieved of having found the secured storage of embryos, being termed as our future.
I decided to take a round through the next alley which would take me to another parallel corridor ending towards the lift. It was freezing and even breathing would be labored here. I thought it would be possible that I could find a little warmer corridor and extend my tour without having to flee this place from the fear of freezing. But compared to the apron the only clothing I wore that day, months back on my visit here, today I was rather well clothed, which protected me from the cold here.
I reached the end of this corridor, and took the last alley towards the parallel corridor, making it look like a U-turn, I was stepping towards the elevators which were quite far away from this place, and then I found an open chamber. This place was appropriately lit up, with lights almost white.
There were many coffin-like wooden boxes here all arranged one over the other. It was an unending array of them. I felt that they must be used for the last rites of the dead. There were many cabins in this hall, but the hall itself was mostly spacious. I saw some blood drops and footprints in blood, somewhat clumsily smeared.
It startled me and readied me for something shocking ahead. Now I was vigilant in facing anything. I had seen many things in this life; I was prepared that anything coming would not shock me into inaction. I now stepped onto a lid on the floor, reading ‘Disposal’, big enough to dispose of a car. I figured out it was meant for cremating the deceased. But the blood? It looked like it was warm and came out from a fresh wound. I was a little curious. Even the staff responsible for cremating the bodies should have cleaned that up. But because nobody would be frequenting these chambers, hence there was carelessness spilled all over.
But my last thought was flushed out, by what I saw next as I went past crossing this hall towards a poorly lit cabin. I saw an ugly head with white little sparse hair, shaking wildly, over the top of two coffins at the extreme end of this cabin. Through the insufficient light, I saw that head shake up wildly once again, humming strange and crackling noises like breaking something and laughing. I initially thought that it was some sick person, insane with pain. I saw that head shook again, but that person did not seem to have noticed my presence, this time, I saw many moles and warts in the back of the ugly head. I understood that it was some quarantined person, who could have been considered dead, but actually was not. That blood, which I looked at again, could be his. I thought his suffering must be hard to bear making him this insane.
I opened my mouth to shout out to him, but I was startled by some movement on my right side, between the two coffins kept in the right, I saw a little girl wearing a pink and white frock, also looking at that person. I moved towards her, but she seemed fine and healthy, then I stepped further towards the suffering person, he still had not noticed my presence.
I called out,“Hello!”
But then, I felt a little hand holding my right fingers, the girl had leapt up to stop me, as she nodded in ‘No’ to stop me from doing what I was doing. But she had failed to stop me and stepped back. I had by now reached close enough to look at this person, although the light was a little insufficient.
I was shocked to my core! It was not a person! It was a ‘monster’ all smeared up in blood! Blood obviously not from his sufferings, but that of a corpse he was consuming! It was a skinny woman whose thighs this creature had eaten half!
Soon enough his face lifted up to look into my eyes. Filled with moles, warts, and pus; it was like half torn apart. Yellow horrid eyes; looking now directly into mine. It wore a half white apron, all smeared in blood from the corpse he was eating.
It was an enormous creature! I was certainly not ready to face this thing, in spite of all the vigilance and courage; I stood frozen, facing the terrifying creature. He had large limbs, with big talons and outgrowth of scales and nails. No one could tell if it had fingers and toes or web-like palms and feet. He was all filled up with, moles, warts, scales, and nails. It was really the ugliest thing that I had ever confronted!
His facial skin was diagonally half peeled off from the left top of his face and hung below. He was bony and skinny in the middle. It was a matter of seconds that he leapt forward and struck me hard on my abdomen with his, what it seemed like, hand. It was not before a few moments that I realized that I flew off with the impact and hit the opposing wall of this room hard and almost lost my senses.
When I was normalizing, I felt hard pain in my abdomen and I vomited blood, my blue blood! I was hurt, badly it seemed. But it felt like I still could feel my feet and arms, so I was saved from any fracture. Damn, that blow was hard and strong. Here I was vomiting, there I saw that little girl running for her life! The monster had found her and perhaps wanted to start eating her warm flesh for the lunch.
I couldn’t allow this to happen, the girl had tried to warn me, but it was all my fault that her life was in danger now, just because of my highly overrated curiosity. The monster, I saw, was chasing her; to escape his assault she would duck from beneath his limbs. I realized the fact that it must have been strong, but it was neither smart nor quick.
I noticed a coffin in front of me, I pushed it a little, and it seemed empty. I mustered up all the courage I could and gathered it all within a moment and called out- I screamed: “Hey!!!”
The creature before me stopped chasing the girl and looked up at me. By this time, I had pushed the empty coffin towards him with all my might. It seemed to hit him as hard as I had wanted. Since he was a foot away from the wall he got perfectly pinned against the wall by the momentum of the coffin.
I did not feel like evaluating the situation further and grabbed the hand of that little girl who came running to me. Although with difficulty I succeeded in crawling towards the elevators and the last thing I remembered was calling out my Passkey. Then, I passed out.
Chapter 26: Hospitalized again! Receiving medical attention from Despondra herself!
