D

by George Right

  And the place where he was now could be anything but an antiquity museum.

  The next flash sparkled ahead, snatching out from the gloom another body lying on a floor.

  The one still living cautiously approached the dead. There was no doubt that the one on the floor was dead, no doubt that he had been the one who left the blood trails. The body had writhed in a pool of blood, now dried, his back upwards, with his hands tucked under his stomach, possibly triying to press a wound.

  But this was not what made the startling impression on the amnesiac. The person on a floor was almost naked, his only clothing consisting of an improvised skirt rolled from something like a dirty oilcloth.

  Just the same. Probably even, it was the other half of his own.

  So, it means, he has regained consciousness in the same room, and went... I went along the ring to the right, and he, probably, to the left. And there THIS was done to him...

  The ice cold pierced the to the soul of the one who was still alive, like an edge which had slashed the belly of his predecessor. One small mistake, if only he had turned in another direction… But then he thought, that man may not have necessarily gone to the left. He could have gone to the right as well, but had not turn into the pass and move further along the ring.

  The nausea was rising to his throat, and the light, sharply flashing and dying away, did not assist the exploration at all. Nevertheless, it was necessary to inspect the corpse. If he hoped to receive at least a few answers and, most important, to avoid the same destiny... If it, of course, can be avoided here at all.

  He tried to turn the dead body over, but it resisted to his efforts. He thought that the blood-stained skin had stuck to the floor, so he pulled more forcefully. With a wet clack the corpse came loose from the floor and turned on to one side, and then lethargically rolled over on its back.

  The abdomen has been ripped practically from the solar plexus to the groin. Sticky gleaming bowels fatly flapped, falling out from a wound; a black slime poured down on already befouled floor. The one alive broke down, benting over in spell of vomiting. However, real vomiting did not occur. Painful spasms shook and wrenched his body, but only a thin thread of a sour saliva came from his mouth.

  For how long had I eaten nothing? flashed in his mind. But he didn't feel hunger. On the contrary, thinking about eating in such place nearly caused a new set of spasms.

  Having recovered his breath, he forced himself to look again at the corpse, now with a ruthless brightness lit by a new flash, then again becoming a hardly distinguishable silhouette in the gloom. The flashing light fixture was uncannily reflected each time in the gaping eyes of the agony-deformed face. Both the face and the breast were soiled by blood, but, without touching them, it was hard to know whether there were wounds there. However, upon a closer look the amnesiac understood that at least earlier there had been. On the skin of the dead man there were dried bandages, like on his own.

  But nobody tried to bandage the main wound, and it would have been impossible without sewing it up. He looked again at the ripped abdomen. How could this poor fellow walk in such condition?! It looked like he had to hold a tangle of falling out entrails by his own hands.

  A new flash lit up those sanguineous hands, with fingers stuck together, and a new thought pierced the brain of the amnesiac. No, it seemed that this unfortunate man had not even tried to clamp and close the wound in any way. His crooked fingers squeezed mucous loops of his own guts, and dug his nails into them. This person obviously caused himself an excrutiating pain. But why? Had he absolutely lost reason due to torment? Did he not control himself in agony? However, the reaction to a pain belongs to the level of unconditioned reflexes, even if he seized his own entrails unwittingly. He should have immediately jerked back his hands.

  Suddenly in purple medley something boggled and began to move. The survivor thought that now he would go mad for sure, if he had not done so already. It seemed to him that the intestines of the dead man had begun to live their own life and were creeping outside. At this moment the light had again gone out.

  The man jerked back in horror, ready to run helter-skelter, ramming against a corridor wall. The suddenness of this blow nearly made him fall down. He recovered balance, seizing the wall (his shoulder ached from the hit), and, having turned towards the unknown danger, he stiffened for a moment. In the resulting silence he heard a disgusting wet-sticky sound, as if someone had licked a dirty floor with a big clammy tongue.

  The light flashed again. The dead person lay in the same place without any movement, as any dead body would. The sound was shed by something wriggling on a floor near the corpse. At a glance it could indeed have seem like a spilled entrail living its own life. But it was some wormlike creature about a forearm in length, its black annulate body fatly shimmering, leaving trails of blood on the floor. At the first flash it seemed to the man that the creature was creeping directly toward him. He helplessly flattened himself against the wall, though, possibly, he could have crushed this creature with just one foot. The light went out again but, when it was lit the next time, it became clear that the creature was just creeping by, paying no attention to a panic-stricken man. As much as he could make out, it had neither eyes, nor mouth.

  That's the point, he thought. This creature had gotten into the man’s guts, and he… In an attempt to get rid of it he probably cut himself open–with the corner of this plate inscribed with the word "Hyperion." This thought made the amnesiac squirm. For a moment he imagined very clearly himself doing it. Madness, certainly... madness was trying to render such "aid" to the victim, trying to tear the creature from his own bowels, and then moreover to walk somewhere... But, probably, the torment caused by the wretch creeping in his guts was absolutely unbearable. How had it got inside? Had it crept through the mouth? Through his anus? The laughter was absolutely inappropriate, but he nervously giggled. No, most likely–like any parasite–it had gotten in as a tiny imperceptible larva. It even more asserted itself in his mind: Even if a meal would be found in this place, he should not touch it. However (one more remembrance breaking through), there are, apparently, some microscopic worms, capable of getting into the body directly through the skin.

  "Kill yourself now." Kill yourself in an easy way before such things happen to you. This version looked even more believable than the radiation one.

  But how could "the easy way" disappear later? Why hadn't this person tried simply, for example, to slash his wrists? Too slow? But he surely suffered even longer. Nevertheless he had hoped to survive? Or was it simply the pain absolutely depriving him of the ability to think sensibly?

  Everything is useless, came to him (from behind of the wall?), an improbably depressingly-tired thought–a thought which seemed as ancient as time. Everything... is useless... there is no exit from here... even such one... And then came to him a rolling, accumulating dark wave–despair, despair, DESPAIR!!!

  The man lashed himself on a cheek to come to his senses. He stuck his teeth into his lip, until he felt the salty taste of blood. Calm down, he ordered himself. It is necessary just to keep a head on one’s shoulders and to think logically. For some reason this logical idea caused a new spasm of icy horror in his stomach. But he forced himself to knock down irrational fear and continue: "I know now about at least one real danger - articulated parasites. Is it the only one? Quite probably, the man in the bath, and the woman in the corridor–or was it yet another man with long hair?–have died of the same cause. From where did these wretches come? All from the same a biological experiment? And we... We were unlikely its organizers, as all of us appeared here without clothing. But this doesn't mean that our situations were identical. Perhaps, not all have lost their memory. This person, so deliberately walking somewhere with the ripped stomach... Most likely he knew all along where he was going, hoping to receive help there."

  Having bypassed the corpse, he continued to walk in the same direction and had soon reached, apparently, the ring center. Here the corridor br
anched, bending around the thick column which pierced the floor and the ceiling. Having approached more closely, the man saw in this column a closed door and two triangular buttons nearby. The lift? Very probable. But to use the lift when power supplies were semidead would be silly. Fortunately, by moving around the column by the left corridor the man found an exit to a staircase. The staircase was spiral; it wound around the huge cylinder which enclosed the lift column and the passes bending around it. This cylinder, obviously, was enclosed within an even bigger one, based upon the form of an external wall. Again, there were no windows here, and the illumination was made by the same light fixtures, here vertically located on the external wall. The corridor from which he had just come went into this wall, finding room between the staircase volutions. Now he could observe it from the outside. Strange architecture... Light fixtures here glowed dimly, too, but their light was not white, but reddish, making the picture ever gloomier.

  Now where? The stairs completely blocked the space between the internal and external walls, giving him no chance to see how far upwards or downwards this spiral went. The common experience, which had been not affected by amnesia, prompted him to conclude that an exit from a building, however freakish it was, should be downwards, so the man already made some steady descending steps, but then stopped. What if this whole complex were underground? The absence of windows supported such idea–especially if the project were dangerous and confidential.

  He turned in indecision. And saw on the first of the stairs, going from a platform upward, the next bloody inscription:

  "DO NOT GO THERE!"

  Now he was not so sure that these inscriptions were left by somebody hostile. Most likely it was the same victims of unknown experimenters or the accident which had overtaken them. However–he reminded himself logically–that still does not mean at all that he should trust them unconditionally. These people (whether any of them were still alive) could be mistaken, could be, after all, simply mad. Someone destroyed devices with frenzied fury, did he not? And, by the way, what had been written in the crushed laboratory–some obvious nonsense on the theme of darkness and light.

  Nevertheless, he turned again and went downwards. He nearly ran, as the staircase was steep enough, but then he decided that it was necessary to do all with care here.

  The staircase was also dirty and abandoned, like everything in this terrible place. Perhaps, it was even dirtier. Most likely in those days when all were working here, the personnel used the lift, and the staircase was intended only for emergencies. That's why its illumination was so dim.

  He passed some platforms with exits, each time stopping and listening before walking past the next door, but he decided to continue to the bottom. If there were a cellar, then he will ascend a level upward. At this point a foolish thought came to him that this downward course, going goodness knows where, by a dirty staircase illuminated by an ominous red twilight reminded him of the descent into hell. Yes, so he had remembered the concept of a hell–as well as the fact that he had never believed in it. "Nonsense," he told himself again. "Everything is absolutely material here. Even those goddamned mutant creatures." Yep, "goddamn." However, the freak arthropods and even guts-settling articulated worms were rather small for the standard hellish demons.

  At last he reached the bottom. The last platform abutted against half-open door leaves of the high sliding gate which led not into the cylinder but outside. Maybe the door mechanism had jammed in such a position, or the cause could be the deficiency of energy. The remaining gap, however, was wide enough to climb through. Behind the door it was absolutely dark.

  And on the right half of the gate one more inscription had been made in the same way and manner: "DO NOT THINK." What was it suggesting that he not think about remained a riddle as part of the door was hidden by a wall. The man tried to move the heavy leaf, but he might as likely pull on a cliff. All right then, as it is clearly known, appeals not to think about something simply result in just the opposite.

  He stood for a while, listening, sniffing the air–nothing fresh, the same musty abomination of desolation as everywhere else here. At last, working up the courage and clasping his only weapon–the tablet with the acute angle–he pressed himself through the gate into the darkness.

  The faint hope that any automatics would turn on the light remained futile. If ever such automatics existed here, they did not work now. Should he return and look for another way to the outside? But what suggested to him that such a way existed or that it would be more safe?

  He stood a little longer, hearing in the darkness only the fast terrified beating of his own heart, and then, reaching forward with his left hand and groping the floor with his bare feet, he nevertheless moved forward.

  After several–seconds? minutes?–he was not sure that he could calculate time correctly in such conditions, though he already understood that he was in a really large room, his fingers having touched a wall. The wall was dusty, but under the dust the smoothness of plastic or some similar material was evident. He moved to the right, sliding along the wall by his hand, came across some vertical metal bar, and bypassed it, before his hand again fell into emptiness. He went forward, until his hand rested against a next obstacle.

  At first it seemed to him that he had been keeping the direction, but having looked back at a moment ago, he had not seen the doorway gap through which a light from the staircase should seep–neither there, where he expected to see it, nor anywhere. With growing trepidation he understood that he was wandering in a labyrinth and had already moved far from the entrance. And, maybe, the emergency illumination died out completely. What a damned place is this! Why would there need to be a labyrinth here?

  He tried again to knock down the panic by shear will. It is possible to find a way out of any labyrinth. It is necessary to just go always along the right wall... or along the left one, the main thing is to choose it once and not change this decision once made. But when he tried to follow this principle, he found that he was walking around a huge cube. The principle works only for topologically connected labyrinths–provided he remembered correctly what topological connectivity was.

  In despair he rushed forward, crashing in the darkness against the next wall and began to punching it. Based upon the sound, the wall was very thin (it even slightly caved in under his blows), and behind it there was an emptiness. He tried to cut the wall with the tablet corner, but, while thin, the barrier turned out to be too firm.

  "It is not a labyrinth," he thought. "It is a warehouse, and I am wandering between containers!"

  This discovery, however, had not much improved his situation. He still had no idea how to get out from where he was in complete darkness–even again to the staircase, let alone to the outside. He tried to shift the next container in his path, but it was, of course, too heavy. Or maybe the issue was that metal bars which he periodically encountered probably served to fix containers on a place. Had he understood it it or just remembered it? That's not important! The bars! The warehouse was obviously not full, and the containers, apparently, weren't placed in a strict order, but the bars should stand at equal intervals and, most likely, form a rectangular grid. So if he went from one bar to another, counting them, then...

  Suddenly something round rolled under his foot, and he almost fell down. He heard it, having turned out from under his foot, trundle on the floor in the opposite direction. What was it? Some small cylinder–maybe just garbage. Nevertheless he made some steps toward the sound, then went down on all fours, putting the tablet down momentarily, and began to rummage the floor with his hands–carefully, in order not to push whatever it was again. Where are you, you little bastard? Aha, here!

  He felt his find. A smooth circle on one end, and something like a button on the side. Could it be a flashlight? He pressed the button, and a soft light flashed in his hand, lighting up suspicious dark stains on the floor and the wall of the next container with a lengthy number. Luck, luck at last!

  He sprang to his fe
et, immediately receiving a blow by something long and firm on the head. A flash sparkled in his eyes, and he powerlessly tumbled down on the mucky floor.

  Having come round, he lay for several seconds, stupidly looking at the flashlight which lay nearby and continued to shine. The beam, almost parallel to the floor, quite vividly illuminated all the dirt and dust. The top of his head ached, and he thought for certain there was quite a large lump. Then it hit him like a bolt of lightning: he should not be thinking about his head, but instead about the one who has struck him! But everything was still silent and it did not seem as though anybody was going to attack him again. The man very carefully turned his head and saw several pipes almost directly above him. They were not too thick, about two inches in diameter, with one end going into a wall of the nearest container. This wall seemed not to be solid, but perforated. He took the flashlight–still no one hindered him–and, having shone the light on the container, saw that it was indeed perforated. Then he sat up on the floor and moved his eyes and the beam to the opposite side, wishing to understand where the pipes led. At that very same moment he caught his breath in horror.

  The beam of light tore from the darkness a silent figure, standing closer than two meters from him. The figure was dressed in (a shroud, it seemed to him at first) a white lab coat (apparently its only covering) and stood motionlessly, with its head inclined to the left shoulder in an unnaturally angle. Long black hair completely hid the face. The hands hung powerlessly. On deathly pale naked legs and feet ran streams of blood, coming from under the coat, but now dry.