To her left stood the dark shape of the Walrider, barely a foot away, at eye level with the giant, his skeletal hand gripping tightly around the man's wrist, who stared back at the shadowy figure with an expression Alyssa could identify with some difficulty as shock and fear on his carved flesh. Walker's breathing grew faster and even heavier than usual, she watched perplexed as his wrist was squeezed tighter then slowly pulled away from her neck, and the man rasped
"Swarm…"
The next few seconds were a terrifying blur of the giant man's screams, blood, guts and sounds of broken bones while his body was thrown against the walls, ceiling and floor by the dark figure, crashed into the servers on the side, smashed over the barrels in the corner, then finally his legs landed on the desk next to Alyssa and his upper body tossed on the floor outside the room.
She remained in place backed up against the whiteboard, stained with some of Walker's blood, her eyes wide and frozen in shock while both her legs and jaw trembled. Her heart felt like it was about to explode when the Walrider landed back down and turned towards her, but she didn't know what to do, she knew she was in grave danger, but she was petrified and beyond confused, she didn't understand why he had stopped Walker just to kill her himself. He began stepping towards her on skeletal feet, and if she didn't know any better, she'd think he was somehow draining the life out of her, she felt weaker by the second.
When he stood just one foot away, towering over her by nearly two heads, she felt the room spin, all the physical, mental and emotional trauma accumulated, especially in the past minutes, was too much for her body to handle, her legs began failing her and she started to slowly slide down the wall, over the whiteboard. She was stopped, however, when the Walrider placed both skeletal hands under her rib cage, and she whimpered then prepared for a similar gruesome death. Throwing a quick glance to the right and seeing the lower half of Walker's body made her want to break down with the understanding that she was moments away from sharing the man's fate, but as the seconds passed, nothing seemed to happen.
Instead of her flesh and bones being violently torn apart and spread around the room, she began feeling a tingling sensation below her chest where his hands were. Allowing herself a fast but deep breath in, she blinked a few times in confusion, and the tingling sensation intensified then introduced a slight pressure around her chest and abdomen. What made her more terrified, if it was even possible, was how the tingling and pressure were inside her muscles and abdominal cavity, not simply on her skin.
Suddenly, a shocking realization flashed through her mind, the stories she'd been told about people being blown up, seemingly exploding from the inside out, and she instantly became certain that would be her fate in the immediate future. Terrified at the revelation she'd convinced herself to be true, she sobbed and tried to slide away to the left, but her already weakened body was easily held in place as the Walrider pushed her against the whiteboard slightly harder, and all the hairs rose on the back of her neck when she heard a low gravelly growl come from the swarm.
Within several seconds, the tingling inside her body escalated drastically, all her muscles felt like countless ants had invaded them and began marching through the fiber, as well as under her skin. She whimpered in discomfort and fear, but it wasn't necessarily painful, and as much as it confused her, she was grateful that no pain had come, at least not yet.
In the following moments, she began feeling very dizzy and disoriented, her vision grew blurry and her hearing muffled while a slight pressure between her ears made itself noticeable. The lack of understanding about what was happening to her body with the bizarre symptoms deeply unsettled her, but she was powerless to protest, the intense tingling inside her began to slowly simmer down, yet her mind felt like it was going to black out very soon. Which, to her dismay, it really did, just seconds later.
It only felt like closing her eyes and losing consciousness for two minutes at most, though, and when she woke up, she found herself laying under the whiteboard, with no shadow man in sight. She took in a sharp breath and her eyes shot open wide as she rose to her knees, scanning the room in bewilderment.
What… happened to me? Where is the… Walrider? Not daring to think she might be safe and too scared to leave, she slowly rose to her feet and glanced around the room, it looked just like before, and not a sound was heard.
She waited, a minute, and another, then eventually realized she was just wasting time at that point, nothing seemed to happen, everything was quiet. When some of the shock wore off, Alyssa began to recognize a very vague feeling in some remote location of her mind, but the more she tried to identify it, the more it seemed to slip away out of grasp. She frowned in confusion and tried again, to no avail. Chalking it up to her mind playing tricks on her after all she had been through, she decided to discard it, yet it faintly remained in the back of her mind.
She shook her head slightly and ignored it then began stepping towards the door, her muscles still felt somewhat tingly and none of her strength had returned, suggesting that she was indeed passed out and rested for just a few minutes at most. Beyond the door she was met with the top half of Walker's body, which fortunately was facing away, she did not want to see his face again, but still caught a glimpse of his viscera spilled on the floor.
Before she left, however, she decided to turn around and record the strange equations on the whiteboard she had nearly been killed against. Raising the camcorder from her belt, she zoomed in on the Morphogenic Engine formula and got it on film, figuring that it must be valuable information to someone who knew what they were actually looking at and could understand it. Reaching the hallway she was trapped in before, she glanced to the right and noticed the same blocked doors from earlier, and when she glanced left, she sighed, remembering the dead elevator.
Brainstorming for what to do next, she remembered the Morphogenic Engine chamber where she assumed the Walrider had broken through the glass-like wall, and decided it was worth a try investigating the area and hopefully finding some sort of alternate exit.
She climbed over the crates and barrels blocking the path with difficulty, then took a left down the wider hallway. As she walked, however, she kept having an inexplicable feeling of being watched, something she couldn't shake off despite her efforts. A security camera caught her attention next, and she thought she understood, she assumed it was the camera filming her, until she noticed it was pointed closer to the floor and recalled it was shut down by her own hands earlier.
Trying to discard the feeling as justified paranoia after all the things that happened, she continued dragging her weak legs forward, but soon, the sense of being watched was accompanied by the feeling of a presence behind her. She swiftly glanced over her shoulder as she walked, but saw nothing at all.
The only movement in the whole area seemed to be her own, and the only sounds were the soft plops her boots would make when she stepped in blood puddles.
When she reached Wernicke's chamber though, she paused, as the door was wide open. Not only was the first metallic door open, but when she glanced inside, she noticed that so was the glass door separating the room, and the man was nowhere in sight. It gave her a feeling of encouragement, the part of her mind that still clung to the hope of making it out alive rationalized that Wernicke must know another way out and left, or perhaps a way to get the elevator working again, but then tried to dismiss the feeling, she didn't know how much more disappointment she could take, so she preferred to not get her hopes up without solid reasons.
There was no sound coming from down the tunnel that lead to the elevator, reinforcing her thoughts that it was still dead and deserted. Taking the next door past Wernicke's room, she walked down the hall where she ran for her life from Walker for the last time, and a shiver ran down her spine when she recalled what happened to the man. The memory brought back all the unanswered questions that baffled her, how was she still alive, why did the Walrider stop Walker from tearing her head off, why did he not kill her next, what did he do to her, and why in the world was the bizarre feeling of a presence behind her not going away. Once again, she glanced over her shoulder and saw nothing, so she continued on, past the cafeteria that somewhat resembled a slaughterhouse.
Alyssa felt a foolish sense of safety that she insisted she should push away but found it difficult to, since everyone seemed to be dead, including the menace Walker who had been trying to murder her just minutes after she first stepped foot in the asylum, and, the most puzzling of all, the Walrider had found her and hadn't even harmed her. Things didn't make much sense before she came underground, but all this was taking it to the next level.
When she reached the Morphogenic Engine chamber, she was relieved to see that the glass was indeed shattered, allowing her access into the room with the massive spherical construct.
Is this the Morphogenic engine?.. She cocked her head slightly looking at the mysterious machine, then glanced to the left and spotted the man in the glass bubble again, Billy, the one Wernicke insisted she kills. She scoffed, knowing full well she would never be able to bring herself to harm someone like that. If I get out, they'll come get you out of here too, I promise..
Seeing the man stuck inside the glass prison and contorted in that painful position with needles and wires stuck into his body was a hard reminder that it was not only her life that depended on finding an exit, it was also all the people that Murkoff had been torturing inside and underneath the asylum. It was far more weight on her shoulders than she was used to, but it reinforced her resolve of getting out.
There were only two ways out of the huge room, and she kicked the door on the left after it refused to budge no matter how she tried to open it. With some disappointment, she headed towards the door on the other side of the room, and was relieved to find out that it easily swung open, revealing one of the white stone tunnels with another set of doors at the end.
Stepping through and avoiding a large pool of blood on the floor and splattered on the wall nearly all the way up to the ceiling, Alyssa went past the double doors and found herself in a rather strange room. Several huge glass cylinders containing some sort of white flowing gas were connected to pipes leading out of the room and separated by a catwalk. At the end of the room, she could see the catwalk leading up some stairs and towards a glass sealed area with a number of computers and monitors displaying more numbers and images she didn't understand.
She walked around and examined the area rather quickly, which led her to the realization that there was no other exit out of the room. Her heart sunk, and she couldn't contain her shout "Fuck!" She didn't care if someone heard her anymore, the frustration and feeling of being trapped like a rat in a maze were becoming too unbearable. Unsure if there were any ways she hadn't gone yet, she decided to first go back to the elevator and hope for a miracle, hope that it would somehow work, despite being dead ever since she arrived underground, and if it still wasn't working, then search for another way, if there were any left.
After a heavy sigh, she walked back and past the broken glass into the control room before the Morphogenic Engine chamber, but then slowed to a halt once she turned the corner down the tunnel. The double doors ahead were closed shut, but she could have sworn she left them open when she came in a few minutes earlier.
Her heart picked up the pace slightly, she had enough very big unanswered questions, she didn't need such small things to start messing with her already exhausted mind. With a confused frown, she slowly began approaching the doors, but when she was just a few feet away, they were swung open, and the sight ahead froze the breath in her lungs.
Several men in the same military gear she'd seen on the dead ones before stood in the next room, with assault rifles raised and pointed right at her. Behind them, Alyssa could see Dr. Wernicke in his chair, not saying a word. Slowly, her hands went up almost by themselves as her jaw dropped in shock and trembled.
Time felt like it slowed down, and her submission hadn't seemed to change anything, the men hadn't lowered their weapons, on the contrary, to Alyssa's dread, some of them raised them slightly higher to look down the sights with more accuracy. She could not believe it, they were really preparing to open fire on her, after everything she had been through, after running and hiding for her life from insane homicidal maniacs, slipping out of a rapist's grasp, fighting off a sadistic Murkoff executive, escaping Walker multiple times, nearly getting her head torn off her neck twice, and somehow surviving the killing machine known as the Walrider, she couldn't believe this was how everything was about to end, being shot to death by a bunch of armed thugs paid by Murkoff to clean up their mess.
Her heartbeat thumped loudly in her head, then it was joined by the echoing of Dr. Wernicke's voice
"I told you it has to end here."
There was no time to protest, the next moment a bright muzzle flash and an ear piercing bang sent a shock of immense pain radiating through her body, focused in her abdomen where the bullet had penetrated through flesh and organs.
The intense agony seemed to bring time back to normal speed, but then another bullet pierced her chest, and then another, and another, and another, it seemed endless, she thought they were all going to empty their magazines in her. It took less than a few seconds, and the impact sent Alyssa falling back and landing on her side with a thud.
Some strands of hair fell over her face, but she could still see the terrifying pool of blood spreading around her body, a clear indicator that it really happened, she was just shot multiple times and she was moments from death. At first, the pain was beyond anything she even imagined possible, her body was either extremely weak or paralyzed, because she couldn't even move a finger, then she considered she might have already died.
Within a few seconds, her vision grew increasingly blurry until it faded out completely and all she could see was black, but her hearing hadn't left her yet, she could still hear muffled sounds of the people moving. The next thing she heard was particularly bizarre, a sort of breathy hiss reached her ears and what little attention her dying brain had left was sparked when the sound was followed by a familiar gravelly low growl, similar to the noise she heard from the Walrider when she tried to get out of his grasp earlier.
A muffled voice that she recognized as Dr. Wernicke's spoke in German then English, the man sounded in complete disbelief and dread
"Gott in Himmel… You have become the host."
Almost immediately, the room was inundated by screams of terror, sounds of broken bones, ripped flesh, splattered blood, and weapons firing wildly. Among the chaos, Alyssa managed to distinguish a few words "What the fuck is that?!" "Jesus Christ, shoot it!" before her hearing failed her too, leaving her in silent darkness.
With her consciousness just hanging on by a thread about to break, she only managed the realization that the pain had almost completely vanished, but the reason why that was filled the spot of relief with the unbearable emotional pain: she was moments from death, real death this time, and there wasn't a thing in the world that could stop that.
As she feared, she didn't even have time to say her last goodbyes to her family again, but took comfort in the fact that she'd already done that when Walker had almost killed her minutes earlier, so with one last barely noticeable exhale, she succumbed to the darkness completely and lost consciousness.
The new human host had remained in the same spot motionless for a few hours, and what little patience the Walrider had left was wearing thin. Still, he reminded himself that he waited several decades to be free, he could wait a few more hours.
She was alive, he made sure of that immediately as he dispatched the other humans, but her body had suffered significant injuries. It was nothing he couldn't fix, though it would take some time, especially until the wounds were closed entirely. He watched her from a few feet away while his nanites crawled through her injuries and brought the tissues back together, regenerated organs and sealed severed veins.
The blood loss was the biggest problem, he put back the amount that hadn't become contaminated from the filthy floor, but a non-insignificant volume could not be returned, and he had no time nor patience to stand around and purify so much blood. She would wake up soon, but she would need a lot of liquids and rest until she'd be close to fully recovered. Earlier, he had visited his previous host Billy, and when the boy saw him, he couldn't tell if the human in the glass sphere was more angry or more scared for his life, with no way to protect himself anymore, but the fact that his annoying thoughts remained in his head alone was refreshing.
Now, he waited around the new host for her consciousness to return and finally leave the asylum, the silence slowing the drain of his patience. Glancing at the human, he decided to have a closer look at how she was doing, he crouched next to her and extended an arm to her face. His skeletal hand moved the blood soaked hair strands away from her face, and then he noticed her eyes moving behind her eyelids. She was dreaming, REM sleep. For a moment, he considered peeking and checking what she was seeing in her mind, but failed to find enough interest.
As it turned out though, he certainly made the right decision in searching and finding this human in time before she escaped or was killed, since she was indeed a matching host, but the fact that she wasn't stuck in a glass sphere on life support was the most important advantage. With the holes in her lungs healed, she was breathing easily and steadily again, her chest rising then dropping with each deep inhale and exhale. Suddenly, an unconscious whimper left her, and he noticed micro movements in her face along with her eyelids twitching. Finally, she was beginning to come back.
Alyssa was confused when she began feeling pain again, if there was some sort of afterlife that she had reached, she was very disappointed to notice the discomfort and pain in her body, she told herself that you weren't supposed to hurt when you were dead, it made no sense. More so, the pain was focused around her torso again, right around where she'd been shot multiple times.
Then, a pressure in her head grew and diminished in the span of several seconds, leaving a ringing sound inside her ears. The realization that another sense came back made her consider the shocking possibility that she could still be alive, and when she tensed her body to move, the pain hit her again, increasing her faith that she was indeed somehow alive.
With difficulty, she shut her eyes tighter, then attempted to lift her eyelids. They felt like they each weighed a ton, but after she eventually opened her eyes, her vision was very blurry, all she could see were blotches of white, red, and a large black shape in front of her. A small groan left her, and she began blinking in the hopes of clearing her vision. Somewhat surprisingly, it worked; slowly, the blur vanished gradually with each blink, but when she realized what was right next to her, she almost wished she hadn't woken up.
Unable to contain a short yelp, she scrambled away, but was only able to do so for about a foot until her back hit the wall. Both her breathing and heart pace picked up drastically as she stared at the Walrider crouched terrifyingly close to her, his skeletal hands hanging over his thighs.
The pain she felt upon moving her body so quickly was muffled by the shock and fear that took over when she saw him, but those feelings were somewhat decreased and confusion set in when she heard a deep, gravelly voice echo in her head.
I'm not going to hurt you.
Her jaw dropped slightly, she knew it was the Walrider's voice, but not why or how she could hear it inside her own head. She took in a sharp breath when he suddenly rose to his feet and spoke, in the same voice, this time out loud
"We have to leave this place." In the next moment, he vanished into thin air, as if he was never there.
Alyssa barely registered the words and remained motionless, her gaze stuck in the place he used to be, still in a state of disbelief of what was happening. After some of the shock wore off, she glanced around and saw nothing to the right, but when she looked left, the room where the men that shot her were looked worse than a slaughterhouse. The gallons upon gallons of blood had spilled from inside it like a river and almost reached her own pool of blood, the sight reminded her of how she'd taken so many bullets to the torso and it puzzled her, being still alive seemed just impossible, yet there she was.
After gathering both physical strength to get up and emotional strength to check out her wounds, she slowly lifted her body off the floor and remained on her knees. With a deep breath, she started peeling up her blood soaked tank top and the discovery both horrified and confused her more.
Her abdomen was sprinkled with circular but mostly closed wounds, what made her frown, however, was the small amount of moving black substance inside each wound. A terrifying thought passed through her mind that it might be an infection, and she felt compelled to try to get it out of her flesh. Just as she began poking one wound, the Walrider's voice inside her head spooked her
The nanobots are reconstructing your flesh. Don't touch them.
She gasped and quickly pulled her shirt down and looked around to see nothing, then glanced back down at her stomach. The understanding that there were machines inside her body deeply unsettled her, but then, suddenly, everything made sense, the Walrider had kept her alive and healed her wounds via the nanobots. What still remained a mystery though, was why. She didn't feel nearly safe enough to start questioning him, so she decided to leave it unanswered and try to get on her feet.
It wasn't easy, her limbs ached, her abdomen still hurt and she felt lightheaded, something she chalked up to the blood loss. When she thought about resuming her search for an exit, the dead men in the other room came to mind, she hoped they arrived underground via the elevator, so she headed off to check if it was indeed working again.
As she took one slow, somewhat painful step after another through the room where the soldiers were massacred, she reached the decontamination chamber and let out a long sigh while the doors slid closed and the gas began to flow in. During the wait, more of the shock was alleviated, and suddenly the Walrider's words came back to her, making her frown in confusion.
'We have to get out of here'? We?.. What does.. Oh good god.. As much as it unsettled her, she didn't want to dwell on it for the time being, she told herself to just be grateful that he didn't want to hurt her for whatever reasons and just get out of the asylum once and for all.
Walking down the halls, she once again became aware of a presence behind her, but this time, she had a feeling she knew who it had been the entire time. It put her nerves on a slight edge, but she reminded herself that if he wanted her dead, she would have been dead a long time ago. Before she headed for the elevator, she decided to check the room where she first found Dr. Wernicke, since it was only several meters off to the right, but found it empty, both doors still wide open.
With a light shrug, she continued the walk back to the elevator, she could not afford to spend more time on asylum grounds, whoever was left and in need of help was going to have to wait until she released the footage and the police stormed the building. Not that Dr. Wernicke, if he was still nearby, seemed innocent, she recalled how the soldiers fired upon her right after he spoke, it was obvious now that he really wanted her dead after she killed Billy, no loose ends.
After she finally reached the elevator, got in the cabin and pressed the up arrow button, Alyssa was overjoyed when it made a few heavy metallic noises then slowly began ascending. Her heart beat faster with anticipation and she almost started crying again, but for a change, it was out of relief that she was at least going to reach the surface again and be one step closer to escape. Before she got ahead of herself though, she remembered that she still needed to erase the surveillance footage of the asylum above if she wanted Murkoff to not track her down within hours.
Leaning against the elevator wall, she allowed her heavy eyelids to droop as she tried to deal with the fact that she could still feel the Walrider's presence, that time much closer, she assumed he must have been in the cabin with her, even though she couldn't see anything. As the elevator kept ascending, she had to make an effort to keep her eyes from tearing up, since the trip was bringing back the memories of when she made the same trip, but downwards, and all the ways she nearly died multiple times. The fact that she was really heading up to the surface seemed like a miracle, Alyssa didn't necessarily believe in guardian angels, but if there was any proof that someone was looking out for her, there it was, being alive after spending so much time crawling through and under the asylum then being on her way to freedom. It did feel like days had passed, she blamed that partly on the number of times she blacked out, plus the fact that without her phone, she had no way to know what time it was.
As the elevator finally reached the ground floor, it slowed to a halt and its gate opened, but when Alyssa saw the sight ahead and felt the warm sunlight on her face, her heart almost burst with joy. From where she stood, she could see above the tall reception desk ahead the top of the main entrance of the asylum, and almost couldn't believe her eyes, the doors were wide open, allowing the soft sunrise light to flood the lobby. She couldn't keep her eyes from watering and a smile formed on her face, she was so tempted to run straight out, but she promised herself she would do just that right after she wiped the surveillance footage.
With no time wasted, she rushed down the hallway to the left as fast as her weakened and injured body could take her, remembering where Steele had told her what felt like an eternity ago that the security control room was. When she reached it, she felt even more delighted to see that the door was torn off its hinges and rested on the floor.
Dashing to the console, her trembling fingers reached for the buttons and began working on getting over the last obstacle holding her captive. As she typed away, her mind was already daydreaming about finishing the job, running out of the asylum, then finding her car and driving away and home to edit her footage and bring it to the police. She told herself that only after she put the evidence safely in the hands of the law was she going to allow herself the medical care and rest she desperately needed.
However, as she kept trying to erase the video evidence of her own presence in the asylum, her daydreaming was gradually subsiding and being replaced with deep concern when she couldn't get past security, it wouldn't allow her to delete a single shred of data no matter how she tried to avoid or fool the system.
"Shit!" She cursed and slammed her fist down on the console, shaking her head in dismay. This couldn't be happening, she was just seconds away from the wide open doors, yet she couldn't leave.
After a quick brainstorm, an idea she wasn't a big fan of at first came to mind, but she realized she had no other choice, it was either that or leave herself on tape for Murkoff to see and find with little to no effort. She reached for the closest place she hoped to find a hard object, which was the two lockers on the side of the room.
Disappointment and a sense of urgency hit her when she only found a coat in the first one, but a huge sigh of relief escaped her lips after opening the second one and noticing the box of tools at the bottom. Rummaging through it, she reached for a hammer, but on second thought she decided on a longer crowbar.
Without a moment wasted, she took the crowbar to the console and began hitting it with all the little strength she had left in her body. The keyboard, the computer, every button she could see and all the monitors were smashed to bits by the time she was done. After a few heavy breaths, Alyssa whispered "Trace this, motherfuckers.." then dropped the crowbar to the floor with a clang.
Feeling like a ton of weight had been lifted off her shoulders, she exited the control room and began walking right, down the hallway. At that point, she could almost taste the freedom, her smile had returned as she dragged her exhausted legs forward. In the next moment, her heart skipped a beat and her eyes widened in shock when she heard a dreadfully familiar voice speak loudly from behind
"Heeey, finally we meet again, pussycat. Where you been? We got unfinished business you and I, ain't we now?"
She swallowed and slowed to a halt, even if she still had the strength to run, she was sure she wouldn't be able to be fast enough. Turning around, her fears were confirmed when she saw a silhouette step out of the shadows and reveal Steele's smirking mug, walking towards her casually.
Alyssa bit her lip to stop it from quivering, the situation had to be the sickest joke the universe had ever played on her. There she was, with the wide open exit just past the corner, after erasing the video evidence of her presence in the asylum, about to leave with her own highly incriminating evidence of Murkoff, and then the man she had to risk getting her head ripped off by Walker in order to escape returned.
Her legs quivered slightly and felt like they were about to fail her when he spoke again "Damn, you look a lot messier than before, hope none of the other fuckers got to you first, eh, I love me some fresh mea-"
Alyssa blinked in confusion and took a step back when Steele's entire demeanor suddenly changed on the spot. He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes widened, and the smirk on his face was immediately dropped then replaced with a mixed expression of anger, frustration and noticeable fear. From her distance, she could barely hear him mumble "Fucking hell.." then her jaw dropped slightly when he swiftly turned around and ran back the way he came from extremely fast.
She watched in bewilderment as he sprinted out of sight, then took a step back and began turning back around to continue on her way outside, counting her blessings. She didn't want to question it much, the man had some loose screws, after all, she assumed his own mental issues were to blame for his strange behavior, but when she turned back and saw the Walrider towering over her just inches away, she couldn't contain a short high pitched scream as she scrambled away from him, barely managing to maintain her balance.
Steele's abrupt change of demeanor suddenly made all the sense, and she placed a hand over her chest in an attempt to calm her racing heart. When she gazed up at him, he seemed to be looking back at her, and even though she doubted he cared for civility, she still spoke gently while trying to keep her voice from quivering
"Thank you.."
In return, he didn't say a word, either out loud or in her head, only signaled with a slight head motion to the left for her to go. With no intention of disobeying even if she wasn't already planning on going that way, she continued down the hallway.