Alyssa stood outside the lefthand doorway, trying not to tremble and failing miserably.
She knew what she was going to have to do. She was going to have to shuffle slowly through pitch blackness, praying she didn't accidentally bump into one of those silent monsters, and she was going to have to do it for half a floor. She'd been jumpy enough in the dim red emergency lighting with no monsters around at all.
She wasn't sure she could do this. Really, she wasn't. Now that she was here, her legs weren't working at all. She could not force them to carry her the last two steps towards the door.
They'd split up, with Sarah, Mal, Kyle and Theron going left, and her, David, and Ruth going right. They'd memorized how to get to the locked doors, and that was where they were going once she was gone. To wait for her to unlock the door. Now she just needed to go unlock it.
She was going to be sick. As she stood there, unmoving before the door, David stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, you know, you really don't have to do this. Theron's an amazing guy, I'm sure he'll pull through for us. Why don't we go to the other side and wait?"
She forced her trembling to stop, really forced it. It was a waste of energy. "That's not what I need to hear right now," she said shakily. "What I need to hear is something that'll get me through that door. We can't rely on Theron for everything, and he's already risked too much. Done too much. I need to help, too."
There was an uncertain pause, then Ruth stepped up. "Uh, well then, get in there and…um…well, just get in there! We can't do it, right? Go unlock the door for us, you…coward."
She sounded so awkward, Alyssa couldn't help but crack a smile. It wasn't terribly helpful, being so insincere, but it made her feel better.
What David said was really the best motivator. "Hey, think of what Sarah will say if you chicken out. Can you even imagine? I can't. God. And I really don't want to go wait with her. I mean, I'll go in there myself if it means I can spend another ten minutes away from her!"
The thought of going back and dealing with Sarah, silly as it seemed when faced with a blind labyrinth full of monsters, was galling. Admitting that she was too scared to help. She knew what Sarah would say.
Really? You're leaving our survival up to Theron, again? Okay, whatever. Fine. Just sit around with the rest of us. I'm sure when Theron unlocks the door, you can explain that to him. You know, if he makes it.
The words weren't so bad, but the pompous contempt was grating, even in her imagination. She knew out loud it would be worse. She wasn't sure why she cared, since her respect for the girl had degraded alarmingly quickly, but hey – nothing was scarier to most people than social pressure.
Even big, toothy, flesh-eating monsters.
She took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay. Yeah. I can do this. No worries. Just leave it to me."
She pushed open the door, half expecting one of those things to be right on the other side. Nothing met her eyes but darkness. She slipped in, closed the door, and was off.
David stood staring at the door, feeling sick, waiting for the sound of screaming, gunfire, or the light, rapid footsteps of Alyssa's retreat. He honestly wasn't sure why he'd let her go in the first place. How could he have motivated her like that?
Because our survival hinges on her getting through, he reminded himself bluntly. And anyways, she wanted to go.
Well, no, she didn't want to go. She wanted to help them. That was all.
After about five minutes, he sighed and said, "Okay, let's head over to the locked one. I'm sure she'll be there soon."
Ruth nodded, looking pale in the bright overhead strip lighting. They walked to the end of the hall, turned, then stopped. There were footsteps coming towards them.
They weren't coming from the dark halls, though. They were coming from the other group's direction. He pulled out his taser, got ready to use it, then lowered it as he saw Kyle jogging quickly towards them.
"Hey, what's up?" David asked as the tall, obviously ADHD guy came to a smooth, bouncing halt in front of them.
He was barely even out of breath, though he'd probably run all the way here from the leftmost unlocked door. "Theron said to forget trying the dark halls for now. It's suicide. We're gonna look for something that'll let us get through the locked doors. Like a welding torch or something. Where's Alyssa?"
He looked around. David and Ruth turned back to the securely closed dark doors.
"Oh," he said.
Alyssa's heart pounded as she slid slowly along the walls. She couldn't go any faster for fear of bumping into something, nor any slower lest she stall, but her muscles were jumping in terror. They were trying to make her curl up into a ball and wait for someone to come rescue her, like a kid who's gotten stuck up a tall tree and realized they were scared of heights. That, or start stumbling quickly and blindly along, grasping for light switches, praying that she'd come to safety fairly quickly.
But both of those options were fatal, so she just kept inching along, slow as a snail, hands and feet stretching out and feeling each inch ahead before devoting themselves to the movement. If she rattled a janitor's cart or bumped into a shelf with enough force, and something was within ten feet of her, she was dead.
She refused to entertain the idea of bumping into one of those things. Her mind grasped only indirectly at the thought, which was why she was keeping to the walls where she knew she was much, much more likely to bump into objects like potted plants or surgical carts. But inanimate things were survivable. Other things…probably not.
She bumped into one of the expected inanimate things about halfway down the second hallway. The first she'd taken a little bit faster because she'd been able to see nothing down it upon opening the door, furniture or monster. Upon turning the first corner, though – left – she'd clung to the wall and started forward very, very slowly again.
It felt like one of those carts the scientists used to carry their implements around, the multi-layered surgical carts. Her heart throbbed painfully as her nail tapped against it. She waited to see if anything had heard her. Nothing so far.
It occurred to her that if something did hear her, it might be a good idea to have something with which to distract it. She felt the cart for items, and located what felt like a rack of beakers. She very carefully slid two of these out, slipped them into her pocket, and slid two more out, holding onto them herself. Now if she heard something, or something heard her, she could throw one of these down the hall and hope the monster followed that noise instead of her.
She kept going again. It took her maybe three minutes to reach the next corner, and this was one of the shorter ones. At this rate, it would very likely take her an hour or more to cross the area. Still, if that was what it took, that was what it took. She would get them through this. She wasn't chickening out. She was brave.
The thought, though childish, warmed her. She slid around the corner, took a long, bold step, and her toe bumped what felt like a janitor's cart.
It rattled. In the darkness, about seven feet away, something chuckled.
Wesker sat in his chair, smiling broadly and watching the screen. Oh, this was entirely too entertaining.
Everything else was shuffled off to the side, the screens showing Kijuju, Irving, all the others. This was the one floor he'd simply been dying to see. He'd put it near the top in the previous iterations, but only a few groups had ever made it there, and one had all gone in at once, brash and panicked, and gotten themselves killed before making it fifty feet. So he'd moved it down, to give more subjects the chance to encounter it.
This was what he'd been hoping for – the puzzle as it was meant to be solved. On his infrared screens, he watched 84-A-3 creep silently down the second hallway. He'd been delighted upon seeing both her and Theron studying the maps. He hadn't expected that, upon realizing what lay in his dark halls, they would both decide to attempt it. And he'd felt a bit wrongfooted when Theron, the imagined brave one, had ducked out, while the skittish one compelled herself forward.
He watched her wistfully, almost regretfully. He knew what would happen. He'd seen her tremble outside the door. That kind of fear was a paralytic, and though she'd managed to set it aside, it would inevitably creep back into her limbs and render her…what was that word he'd always loved as a child, from Watership Down? That fictitious word he'd been beaten for using when he was seven? Ah, yes – tharn. It would render her tharn.
But for now, she kept moving. He expected her to turn back or slump to the ground at any moment, but she only froze when she encountered an obstacle. He watched as her hand traveled back and forth between the dark and her person, and he surmised she was picking up some small objects from it, no double to use as auditory distractions should she be encountered. Not the best idea, as it would rile his Pale Ones to no end, but it might work in a pinch if necessary.
He watched, amused, as she slid unknowingly and silently past the first of the creatures. He knew she didn't sense it, nor it her, because there was no change at all in her movement as she shuffled along. It likewise didn't move, merely stood stationary as it was designed to do unless it had sensed prey.
The girl had surmised correctly in her assumption that the dark globes on the Pale Ones were eyes, highly attuned to the spotting of light. She had also luckily guessed that their hearing was nothing exceptional, and also that they could not smell. They would remain in their positions, unmoving, until they heard or saw something. Then they would hunt it furiously for roughly two minutes before falling back into torpor. He wondered how long it would take for her to trigger one.
That answer was found quickly. He leaned forward slightly in his chair as the girl rounded the corner, took a large step, and bumped into a janitor's cart.
The change in the Pale One, which was only about nine feet away from her, was instant. Its body temperature rose rapidly, its slumped posture jerked up, and its head leaned towards the noise. He had no microphones in the hall, nor on the girl, but he could see the slight vibration of its throat as it chittered. It had heard her. It was awake.
I always wondered how people could bear to sit around wasting their lives in front of a television, he thought as the Pale One took a warming, tentative step towards her. She was moveless beside the cart, and would no doubt be torn to shreds in a moment. If this is how they feel, I must admit, I can finally understand the allure!
He licked his lips as he watched his creation advance upon its prey.
Alyssa stood stock still upon hearing the quiet, jittery laugh, but as it continued, she recognized that it was coming towards her. Maybe this one was slow, but it would hit her in moments if she stayed still. She couldn't assume that it wouldn't.
She moved, knowing that the way behind her was clear. She took a large, silent step backwards, heart hammering. She stepped back again until she found the corner she'd come around. Then, not allowing herself to hesitate, she did the only thing she could think of. She had to make it move away from her, and it would hit her if she stayed on the outer corner, so she stepped boldly across the hall to the inner corner, trusting that nothing would be in her way. If something was, she was dead.
Nothing was. She nestled into the corner, raised her hand, and threw one of the beakers as far as she could down the hallway.
It didn't shatter against the ground. Instead it hit something in the middle of the hallway and shattered on that. The something she'd hit laughed loudly and agitatedly, and she felt it beelining for her.
Then something else rushed by in front of her, and the two things collided.
When they hit each other, their chittering laughter deepened into dry, choppy rasps, and by the sound of struggling she was willing to bet they were fighting. As long as they were, she might get away with a few small noises. She couldn't stay there. She needed to move, and fast. Distance was her only hope now. So, she began stepping smartly away from the pair, straight down the middle of the hall.
She got at least twenty feet, cold white fear causing her ears to ring, before the sounds of the struggle stopped. The two things broke apart, and their noises rose in pitch back to laughter. She slowed, sank against the wall, and resumed shuffling.
She thought she'd be okay for the moment. It sounded like they'd wavered back and forth before lurching off down the hall she'd thrown the beaker. She could still hear them, running and chittering, but they were drawing away.
She wall vanished beside her, bringing her to a crossroads, unless she was mistaken. It felt like a crossroads, anyways, by the change in airflow. It seemed more open here. She consulted her memory – she'd gone right, then left – so she needed to go right. Then straight, then…then…
Then left, into the lab. And once I'm through that, I'm halfway there.
She cut across the hall and went right. Behind her, the things fell silent. She kept inching forward. This hall was kind to her, and after only about five minutes and no obstructions, she got to the next crossroad. Straight.
She crossed the way, touched the far wall, and heard something smack dab in the middle of the crossroads take a short breath. She froze. The breath was released in a quiet, chuckling wheeze, and was followed by another short breath. She did not throw the other vial. She just hoped that it hadn't really heard her.
Go back to sleep, or whatever you do when no one's around. Please…
After a minute of stillness, it went silent again. She kept shuffling, but this time she went half the speed. If she disturbed it again, it wouldn't ignore her.
She touched something cool and waxy and flat. It felt like a potted plant. She stepped out into the hall, giving it a wide berth, and edged around it, sinking back against the wall as soon as she could. Once on the other side of it, she felt marginally safer. She shouldn't have – it was a ficus, not the Great Wall of China – but any sense of security, imagined or not, was a euphoric release from this murderous fear. She took it.
She inched her way along. There was another janitor's cart – who the hell left this many janitor's carts lying around? Had there been a janitorial get-together or something? A cleaning bash? – but she touched this before bumping it, and skirted it successfully. Recalling that the next corner she needed would be on the wall across from her, and that she'd miss it if she didn't move over, she crossed. She reached the next hallmark without incident. The doors of the lab.
Halfway there. Just get through this, and you're halfway there.
She pushed open the doors with excruciating care, and hoped they were oiled regularly. No doubt they were. She'd never in her life encountered a lab where the doors creaked. High school gym doors in winter, maybe, but not labs.
The door opened silently, and she slipped in. She let it close more quickly, putting her fingers in the crack to keep it from hitting the frame, then took about ten seconds lowering it down the last centimeter. The door settled without a sound, and she stood still for a moment, catching her breath.
The lab. It was a very large lab, and the map hadn't had a layout for it, so she had no idea whatsoever what to expect. Was it open in the middle like the last one, with desks lining the sides? What if it was more like the labs she was used to, with long counters going through the middle of the room as well as counters around the edges? If that was the case, it would be impossible to traverse it safely. She'd have no idea where one of those things might be.
No, she'd just have to hope that the edges were safe. She started along the edge, and prayed for safe passage.
Wesker watched the girl closely, his amusement having given way to genuine fascination. She wasn't behaving as he'd predicted she would.
She'd moved quickly and evaded the pair of Pale Ones, introducing to him an aspect of their character he had not been aware of before. They were not meant to fight each other, yet these two, upon being alerted to potential prey and immediately bashing into each other, had gone at it tooth and nail for at least thirty seconds before breaking apart. And the girl, rather than freezing in terror and pressing herself into the wall, and walked almost calmly down the center of the hall away from them, as though totally indifferent.
She was no longer a source of mere entertainment to him. She was steadily proving herself to be of a higher caliber.
There was a flashing on the screen beside him. He glanced over, impatient, to see the Popokarimu being released. He considered it for a moment, then turned his attention back to the Subject screen. He had no time for his SOA friends at the moment. He could review that footage later. This was more pressing to him. It was pressing because the girl was walking directly towards a Pale One in the lab. There were no less than four of them in the room, and her fingers would be making contact with this one's back any moment. When they did, she would have a split second to react.
Another step. Another. Her hand was outstretched. Another. And then…
There. The fingers made contact and recoiled, but too late. Heat was flushing through the Pale One's body, its throat was jittering with its laughter, and in a moment, once warmed, it would turn. The other Pale Ones, too, were waking to the sound of the laughter. It was not a sound they were designed to pay much heed to, but this one was far too loud, too proximal. They were all waking up.
He watched the girl step away, and found himself hoping this subject would not disappoint him.
I touched it. It's awake. They're all awake. I'm dead.
If these words passed through her mind, they were immediately quashed by the fear that surged up in her. Unlike the previous fear, though, this was not cold and white and numbing. This was a very, very different fear. It was silvery, electric, and it shot up her spine and flooded her brain with light. She moved without conscious, burdensome thought. She moved on instinct.
She stepped to the other side of the aisle she was on, and felt the surface of the counter she found. This counter was solid, so she stepped away from her killer and kept feeling. When her hand reached the edge, her fingers slipped over it to find exactly what she'd been looking for – an underside.
She crouched around the corner, hand back out to feel for a chair, and she felt one. A stool. And hardly four feet to her left, the beast was starting to move.
She felt a light feather of air caress her face as the thing's hand swiped by within an inch of it. She ducked down, sliding around the stool, and dropped to her hands and knees. Then she felt forward, traced the bars under the desk with her hands, and slipped perfectly and silently between them. But it knew she was nearby – she needed to send it away.
She had one more beaker in her hand. She tossed it blindly into a high arc to the far end of the lab.
It shattered against the floor. The lazy, chittering laughter that had been welling up in the other three monsters in the room became full-fledged hyena laughter, and the romp was on.
The stool just in front of her was bashed away as one thing shot down the alley towards the sound. She could hear them all moving around, towards the glass, and when they all reached it there was another brawl. It was brief. When it began, she considered making for the far door, but almost at once decided against it. It was too dangerous to risk making any noise.
She sat silently under the desk, and waited. The things, once their tussle was over, began tearing through the room. She heard what she imagined was their outstretched arms knocking many an implement off the counters, and as things fell around them, the noises riled them up even more. They were in a hunting frenzy.
She must have sat there for ten minutes before they started to calm down. Their laughter had carried on through the whole thing, but was now petering off. They were slowing. But because they were still chuckling, she could tell more or less where they were.
They stopped. One was in the rear, righthand corner of the room. Another on the far wall, halfway between the corner and where she suspected the door was. A third was in the aisle across from her, near the end of it, beside the door she'd come in by. The last was in her aisle, about six feet away. Why it had come to rest there, she did not know. She hoped it wasn't just because it still sensed her to some degree.
She continued to sit there, knowing the best way for her to get out of this now was to let them calm down completely and return to their rest. If she could do that, she'd be able to crawl out, dip around the corner, and she'd have an uninterrupted path to the door. She'd heard them run that corner several times, and none of them had bashed into carts or anything. She'd be fine.
But as she waited, the pure, perfect fear that had driven her to this life-saving hidey hold curdled. Over the next twenty minutes, it soured back into the sickening panic that made her want to stop moving and wait for help. And now that she was already stationary, it was all but locking her body down. She could feel herself cramping up in a fugue of terror, and she knew that if she waited any longer, she would not be able to move at all. Maybe she couldn't move even now.
No, I have to move. For the others. David, and Kyle, and Ruth. And Mal, and Theron, and Sarah – she supposed—
And for Ajay.
She twisted her head to the side. She twisted it the other way. Then she started curling and uncurling her fingers. She wiggled her toes. Once she'd moved every muscle she could without risking sound, she straightened out her spine minutely, reached out with a hand, and touched the floor in front of her. Time to go.
It was a long, slow, achy process to drag herself out of that cubby without making a noise. At one point her hand brushed something hard, something that felt like a broken Erlenmeyer flask, and she resisted the urge to chuck something else and duck back into her hole. The item made no noise, but it did restrict her movement. Still, she got out without touching it again.
She saw no point in standing up. She felt like she could crawl more quietly than she could walk, so she started crawling. She put a hand out and met cool floor. Then she brought a knee forward and found the same. The next hand that came forward encountered what she thought was a small piece of broken glass, probably from the flask, and then her other knee came forward. It, too, encountered a small piece of glass, and she wobbled as she repositioned herself to avoid it.
She moved forward again. Her hand brushed some large piece of equipment, and she felt a bolt of fearful frustration shoot through her. What the hell was this? Why was there so much trash—
She paled. Only now that she was out of her hiding place did she connect the dots. Those things – they'd ran around the room knocking everything off the counters. Everything that had been on the counters was now on the floors. Flasks, tools, centrifuges, pipettes, everything.
She was on her hands and knees in the middle of an auditory minefield.
David leaned against the wall outside the locked door, the one they were now counting on Alyssa to unlock. It had already been nearly forty minutes, though, and she wasn't here. They hadn't heard any screaming or gunfire, though they had heard distant laughter at once point, so it sounded like she'd startled something in there. Hopefully she'd evaded it. Theron said he was sure she had.
He was also leaning against the wall, resting casually. He was acting very aloof, not worried at all. He'd calmly explained that, since Alyssa was already in the maze – he'd expressed surprise that she'd gone in so quickly, but had had the good, classy sense not to equate her courage with stupidity – they may as well wait for her. It really had been a bad idea to risk both of them at once, when they'd only need one door unlocked, but he hadn't been thinking straight when he'd come out of the maze. He'd admitted that.
It scared David to realize that Theron was just as afraid, if not more so, than Alyssa had been. If anything could convince him that the threat in there was real, it was that. That and Theron's earlier suicide comment.
They were all resting. Theron had said confidently that it would take Alyssa at least an hour to get through, and that was assuming no major hang-ups. It could take two or three if, say, she got cornered and needed to wait for one of the things to calm down. So they'd wait there, catch a pinch of rest, and hope the door unlocked. If it didn't, they'd go on with their plan to somehow tear it down. If that didn't work, he'd go in.
You should have gone in first, anyways, David thought bitterly, but then stopped himself. What right did he have to berate Theron, even silently, for being afraid? They were all afraid. What was in there was probably the most terrifying thing he could imagine. He couldn't even play scary video games, for God's sake. He hadn't been able to make it through a third of Amnesia, the Dark Descent. And Alyssa was in there living it. How could he expect anyone, even someone like Theron, to do that at all?
But Alyssa was doing it. The thought was almost surreal to him.
No one spoke. There wasn't really anything to say. The time was ticking on. The door was still locked.
Ruth scooted over to him and tentatively laid her head in his lap. He was cross-legged, so it was probably pretty comfortable. He didn't say anything. He didn't mind. If Alyssa could face a monster-infested labyrinth of darkness, the least he could do was be someone's pillow.
God, he hoped she came out soon.
She was back to standing. She didn't know how to handle this. The entire floor seemed to be coated in broken glass and clunky instruments. She had to balance herself on the counters while her foot reached out to quest for a clear spot. It was taking five or six tries per step to get it right.
She got maybe three feet in as many minutes, then hit a patch where she honestly could not find a single clear spot in leg's reach. If she tried stepping farther, she'd overbalance and make a noise for sure. But she couldn't go any other way. She'd have to pass within two or three feet of one of those things. She smoothed her hand back over the counter, and—
The counter.
Her eyes widened in the dark, and she felt under the desk again for a cross-bar off the floor. She found it. As carefully as she was able, she stepped on it, braced herself on the desk, and heaved herself up. She met empty tabletop. Those things had swept everything off the counters, so now the counters were bare. She had a straight shot to the door.
At least, she hoped she did. No telling what kinds of fixtures might be on these counters, sinks or cabinets or such. And she'd have to pass within a few feet of the thing from her aisle. Still, nothing for it. It was this, or the alley of broken glass beneath her. That in mind, she started crawling.
She went slowly, but felt nothing. After a few moments her hands touched paper, and she carefully avoided this. If her palms stuck to it, it would lift with her, flutter to the ground, and that would be as noisy as an avalanche. And she wouldn't be ducking under the desk this time, not without making a boatload of noise.
Her knee came down on a pencil, and her face scrunched up in discomfort. That hurt. But she kept it quiet, and continued crawling.
A cold chill entered her as she came to understand that the thing in the other aisle was now right next to her, likely a yard or less away. She slowed down to a snail's pace…then sped up to normal again. It was just as risky to stay near it as it was to just keep moving. This close, it might be able to hear her breathing.
She kept going. And going. And going. The minutes bled together, the reaches and touches bled together, the steps and paces bled together, until it felt like she'd been crawling through that lab forever. The hallways seemed impossibly long ago, and the lit halls might have been from another lifetime. Maybe this was her brain's way of adapting her to the fear; putting up this false barrier of time, telling her that safety was an illusion, something that had belonged to someone else a long time ago. It wasn't a real prospect now, so she may as well get used to it. Because she wasn't going to be getting any safer any time soon.
Her hand reached for the next open counter space and touched nothing. She rocked forward on her knees, drew back, and paused to see if anything had heard.
Silence. Nothing.
She turned herself around and lowered her feet over the edge until she hit the same kind of cross-bar she'd stepped up on. She used this to brace herself as she stepped down to find clear floor space. Blessedly, there was more over here. She found some right away, took two wide steps forward – and touched the door.
She was amazed. How had she gotten there so quickly, so easily? Was this room really over? She opened the door very carefully, mindful of things it might scrape against, but touched nothing.
When she slipped it closed, she felt a decidedly bothersome knot of fear in her chest release. Compared to that room, the halls ahead wouldn't be terribly bad at all. Still bad, still scary…but not as bad, not as scary. She just had to take it slow.
Secure in her slowness, she started on again. Left, straight, right, straight, left, left, right.
Easy.
Wesker watched the girl traverse the rest of the halls with relative ease. At one point she drew the attention of another Pale One, but she'd very luckily been beside a dispensary. She'd ducked below its counter, and the Pale One had rushed back and forth past her, arms skittering over her, for two minutes before calming – fortunately, behind her. She moved on with no further issue.
She passed another five without notice going down the longest hall, the last one. Then she got to the end, turned right, and touched the far doors. The light on the other side would shine through, alerting everything nearby, but the locks on the doors would keep them out. Indeed, she stepped out, his Pale Ones shot towards her, and before they even got close she'd closed and locked the doors. Then she leaned against the wall and began sobbing.
He watched this, mulling over the girl in his mind. This trial had been designed to test courage, the ability of his subjects to act in the presence of intense fear. Not only to act, but to act slowly, methodically. Against all odds, she had exceeded his expectations. He truly could not have asked for a more exemplary showing.
Her knees gave out, and she sank to the floor. She continued to weep. When she was done, she stood up, went to the door, and unlocked it for the others, permitting them passage to the next trial.
He was pleased.
OoO
Merry Christmas Eve :)