Hi guys, we're gearing up for the next major arc here. I really appreciate those of you who have been sending me feedback and leaving reviews. Hearing your thoughts on things is helpful in the development of these arcs. It makes me feel like I'm not just shouting into an empty void! I put a lot of time and effort into planning and writing these chapters so it is nice to feel appreciated. That being said, I hope you enjoy!
The Doctor's smile was all Miki had to see to know she was going to have a bad day.
"Why, Miss Nomura," his grin was sickeningly self-satisfied. "I have a bit of a project for you." Miki's eyes scanned the room for a bloated body or some meaty mess that had once been human. The fact that there was no visually obvious indicator of his joy made it twice as nerve wracking.
"What is it then, sir?" Miki kept her voice friendly. Maybe he had hit his head and forgotten that he was the world's biggest jerk. The doctor walked her over to the slab wall and Miki's heart sank. The morgue had ten refrigerated slabs most of which were occupied. One of the bodies they had been processing had burst inside the slab a few days ago; bloody pus had worked its way through the cracks and slid down to the floor. The body had been investigated immediately and incinerated but no one had the time to clean out the slab yet.
"Don't give me that look," The doctor scoffed. "I gave it a precursory hose down. I don't need to you to get infected with whatever flesh eating disease Nakamura had."
Not because you care about me, of course. You did that to protect yourself from getting infected. Miki walked over to the wall of protective equipment and began to gear herself up. She put on the full-face mask, rubber apron, and rubber gloves that went up to her shoulders. This might just be enough to keep me from getting sick. It's a messy job but it's mine to do. Miki filled up a bucket with scalding hot water and mixed in the cleaning solution. She grabbed the sponge, subtly took a deep breath to steel herself, and then walked over to the offending slab. It opened with a hiss and Miki involuntarily gagged at the smell. She could hear the doctor chuckling behind her. "Let me get the fan for you," he said as he flipped the switch. Each slab was vacuum sealed but at the back a panel could slide away, revealing a fan that could suck out noxious gasses and smells for cleaning purposes. Miki slid the metal slab out of the box as far as the rails would allow and began to scrub it down. She took her time, knowing if she cut any corners the doctor would make her start over from the beginning. He ambled around the office, fixing this and straightening that, all the while his eyes on Miki. She moved from the slab to the inside of the box, cleaning as far as her arms could reach. Once she had maxed out her range, Miki climbed up on top of the slab and began to clean further inside.
There was a sudden, violent jerk on the slab and Miki was sent sliding into the box. She looked up to see the doctor slamming the door shut behind her. Inside the slab, the sound of the fan was deafening but at least Miki knew she wouldn't suffocate. "Hey!" She cried, giving the door a solid kick. Through the whirr of the fan she heard the doctor cackle. "Come on, let me out!" Miki kicked again but the door wouldn't budge. The morgue slabs didn't lock, so all Miki could figure was that the doctor was leaning his weight against the door to keep her contained. At least the slab is clean. Miki laid down on the cold metal and tried not to look at the splatter of bodily fluids along the top of the box. She still had the sponge but the urge to scrub had left with her freedom. Knowing the doctor, he just wants me to lose my composure. If I can chill here long enough, he'll get bored and leave. Miki put her hands over her ears to protect them from the volume of the fan right above her head. She lay there silently, periodically pushing on the door with her foot to see if the doctor had left.
Miki let her thoughts wander. She thought about what she would do when her shift ended, going to the mess hall, and then heading back to her bunk to decompress. Her room should have been full of other girls but statistically speaking the ratio of men to women in Otogakure was almost 20:1. They had a much larger capacity and the other girls could potentially decide to bunk up together, many of them preferred the privacy of their own space. It was spooky and ominous to Miki to have three empty bunk beds in her room but having a bathroom all to herself was a dream come true. When she had first defected to Otogakure, they had all been thrown in a large holding cell. Miki had been the only girl and there was one communal bathroom and shower. That had been the most stressful week of her life. Miki had practically starved and dehydrated herself to avoid using the bathroom as much as possible. She had only showered once, and it had been at dawn when the others were still heavy from sleep. Given her history, her present situation was fantastic. The doctor hated and resented having her around but he couldn't kill her. Miki had shown enough promise to be pulled from the chattel and elevated to her present situation. If the doctor did anything too heinous, like amputating one of her limbs or otherwise rendering her useless to Orochimaru, the doctor would pay for it. So, that meant until she was a doctor on her own, all Miki would have to worry about were shin bruises, mild burns, and occasionally being locked away in a morgue slab. Miki smiled to herself. If only the doctor knew just how pathetic these attempts were at breaking her. Do your worst, Dr. Morioka. You will never break me.
The reminiscences only able to sustain her attention for so long, Miki grew bored. She pushed against the door and found it still wouldn't budge. This is getting excessive. We aren't going to get any work done at this rate. "Dr. Morioka? I have to finish prepping that body from Lab 5 for autopsy." Miki tried to sound professional even though she was shouting over the fan. "Dr. Morioka?"
There was no response. Miki called his name again, kicking the door hard. Her hair stood up as she considered her predicament. He might have locked me up in here to leave me in here. We were supposed to be the only people on the schedule for the next three days. If he decided this is how he wants to get rid of me, people will just think it was an accident. I got locked inside with the fan on, no one could hear me, and I died of dehydration. Miki looked around at the slipshod cleaning job the doctor had done hosing out the box. Or I'll die of exposure to whatever the hell Nakamura died of.
"Okay, Dr. Morioka, you want to play?" Miki called out. "Here I come!"
Because of her petite stature, people systematically underestimated Miki. That tendency was what had made her such an excellent infiltrator. Her targets never considered that the cute little short girl could be anything but the waitress or a shopkeeper and other shinobi wrote off her combat capabilities. Miki scooched to the edge closest to the door and braced herself by taking ahold of the sides of the slab. She pressed her feet against the door, took a deep breath, and kicked with both feet as hard as she could. Whatever the doctor had used to keep the door shut gave temporarily and then settled back down against it, giving Miki a brief glimpse of freedom. What did he use, a cabinet? Miki shook her head and readied herself for another good kick to tip it over onto the floor. And I'm not going to clean it up, Miki smiled. She kicked the door, knocking over the barricade. Miki yanked herself out the door faster than the doctor could possibly react to shut her back inside.
The triumphant smile fell off her face. The doctor lie at her feet, his life blood turning black against the white linoleum floor. There was a hole in his neck that went straight through to the other side. Miki turned away, fresh bodies were always more unsettling than old ones. She looked at the table in front of the slabs. Someone had pinned the doctor to the slabs with the table and then pierced his throat with something. Miki's kicking had pushed the doctor's body hard enough that it moved the table and tumbled to the floor. She carefully stepped over him and checked for vitals, just in case. The man was long gone just as she suspected. Miki shuddered, either chilled by the sight or the fact that per the clock she had been in that refrigerated slab for almost a half hour. She had done the best job she could of blocking out the sound of the fan but now that she was out in the silent morgue her ears still rang. Miki carefully crossed from the slab straight to the phone and paged security. "Hello?" She called into the microphone. "This is Nomura in the morgue. Someone killed the doctor while I was out of the office. Is something on the loose?" From time to time, an experiment got free and went on a rampage. The morgue was isolated so it made sense something could have breezed through without any resistance. Security was probably subduing it on a higher floor. The silence stretched and Miki felt that unease returning. She pressed the intercom button again. "Hello? This is Nomura in the lab. Please respond." Miki released the button and waited. At last, there was the screech of feedback as someone picked up the line.
The sound that came through sent warning chills down Miki's spine. It was the croaking sound of labored breathing, someone with a collapsed lung drowning in their own blood. Miki had heard it enough times to recognize it instantly. She looked around at the morgue and raced to kill the lights. Something was out and it had killed the doctor and security had probably been pushed back to a defensive position. Miki stripped off her protective gear and rushed over to her locker. She shoved her lab coat inside and pulled on her padded combat fingerless gloves and strapped on her kunai bag. The veterans in the base had talked about things like this periodically happening but not since Miki had signed on. The key for success (and survival) was in finding other survivors, grouping up, and taking on the subject as a team.
Miki dropped low and pressed her ear to the door. The corridor beyond was just as silent as the morgue, which in this situation was less than comforting. She cracked the door, listened for a moment longer, and crept out into the hall. The lights were always low in the corridors to conserve power for the labs. Miki had let her eyes adjust in the dark morgue before stepping out to help ease the transition. 3-4 seconds of not being able to see leaving a lab and heading into the hallway could mean instant death at a time like this. Miki looked at the stairwell that headed upstairs towards security. If it's that bad, they may not have had time to send out an alert. Miki headed towards the opposite stairwell, towards the lower labs, to see if there was anyone to recruit. With any luck, they would all be there and they could head to security as a sizeable force. The threat level headed this way was low, as well. The labs were deeper underground and instinct always drove people towards the surface.
The door the lower labs was slightly ajar. Miki stayed low as she peeked around into the stairwell. The lights inside had gone out and Miki swore silently. There could be people lying in wait in the shadows of the spiraling stairs. She listened and heard no breathing or any creaking on the metal steps, so Miki slipped inside. Halfway down the stairs, Miki accidentally kicked something soft. She As she crouched down in the darkness, her hand searching the ground, Miki realized she had encountered another body. Steeling herself against the rising dread, Miki reached out and felt for a pulse. Instead of soft flesh, Miki's fingers found a horrid tattered wound where their larynx should be. She gasped in surprise, immediately jerking her hand toward her mouth to stifle the sound. Miki stopped herself remembering where her fingers had just been. She shuddered and took the steps more carefully, practically crawling, until she had reached the floor with labs 1-5. The lights were still on and Miki sighed with relief. Maybe the creature had bypassed this door as it had come up the stairs, the stink of lab chemicals scaring it closer to the surface. Miki rose to her full height and pushed open the door, only to have another body slump down on the other side. The nametag on the tech was someone Miki knew, but their head was gone. Miki cringed, suppressing the need to scream, as she crept into the corridor. The doors to all the labs were open. Blood and glass covered the floor, creating sparkling Rorschach patterns between the bodies. Miki could feel herself going numb as she surveyed the damage. People were pinned to walls, their limbs were twisted at horrific angles, and those with faces left all had looks of utter terror on their faces. Miki forced herself forward, approaching those with wounds that may not have been fatal. Not a single living soul was left on this floor. Miki's hands started to shake. She looked at the gore they were covered in and shuddered. Knowing it was stupid and risked exposure, Miki couldn't help herself from quickly rinsing away the mess in the sink. She dried her hands on a paper towel as the pink horror fuel spiraled down the drain.
Miki took to the stairs once again. This time she didn't bother with crouching and tiptoeing. She had a feeling that there was no point to it; whatever it was it was going to kill her or it was gone. Plain and simple. When Miki set foot through the door to labs 6-10 she was forced to pause. The carnage on this floor was much worse. There wasn't a single recognizable human form amongst the mess. Furniture was destroyed, the floor was flooded about two inches deep with water from the broken sprinkler system overhead, and ownerless limbs were strewn everywhere. It was at that moment Miki's worst fears came to her, whispering in her head. Miki faced the door that she knew had been the source of all this horror and walked towards it. Lab seven. One of the patients really went off the deep end this time. Whatever the hell that thing is in there, it finally infected someone completely. Miki pushed open the door, ready to behold chewed through restraints and bloody handprints.
Instead, what she saw drew a gasp from her lips. The glacier was shattered, as though it had exploded from the inside. Miki's eyes darted around the room and up to the ceiling, suddenly aware that whatever was doing this was not an escaped patient. It was something else entirely. Miki looked around at the carnage, the myriad of ways that life had been rend from flesh, and she intrinsically knew that whatever that something was it was not human.
Now that she was completely numb and was ready to accept death, Miki gained a razor like focus. A shinobi was a tool finely honed from years of training. In moments like this, it was easy to give way to that training and let it take over. Miki surveyed the scene more observantly and noticed that security personnel had been dispatched. Several of the more experienced of the suppression team were amongst the casualties in Lab Seven. I'm going to die. I'm scared. Miki shook her head. The thoughts had forced their way to the forefront, distracting her from her work. Once again, Miki began to take stock of what had transpired in the room. It looked like several of the techs had been close to the glacier when it gave way. They still had clipboards and pens in their hands. So, this wasn't sudden, the glacier must have been behaving strangely and that's why they called in the security team just in case it came to this. Miki looked at the security officers in the room. They had all been people to avoid. As unofficial peacekeepers in the base, that meant they had ultimate authority to do as they pleased with no repercussions. If someone pissed them off, all they had to say was that they were threatening a valuable asset or jeopardizing an experiment. Stone cold sons of bitches, all of them, with enough deaths behind their names to fill an entire cemetery each. And it cut through them like paper. What are you going to do, Miki? Valiantly record everything that's happened and make a final attempt to trap it or something? You're going to die, just like everyone else. Miki shuddered and held herself against the cold. I'm not like this. She looked up at the glacier and backed towards the door. It's still influencing me. I need to get out of here before I get to the point where I just want to die.
As Miki ran through the hallways, leaping over scattered equipment and corpses, she tried to piece together what she knew. 1. The glacier started acting weird and the techs called security, not because there was a threat but because it was behaving strangely. 2. That's why there was no alert. Security had been dispatched on a non-emergency call that went south fast. 3. Either whatever was inside is the most insanely powerful predator in creation, or it has mental manipulation power. A pervasive genjutsu, maybe, that creeps inside people's heads and either makes them submit to death or to suicide. Miki took the steps two at a time, bypassing the landings to the floors for labs 1-5 and the morgue. She threw open the door to the commons, where the mess hall, living quarters for lower ranking members of staff, the rec rooms, and such were situated. She listened and heard only the silence of the grave. There was a fire raging in the kitchens, the sprinklers flutily spraying to put it out. It had been long enough now that the pungent sickly sweet smell of death was filling the space. Miki laced her way from room to room, the body count mounting each door she opened. Every so often she checked for vitals but over time it became clear that no one had been spared. Miki noticed that the thing had been systematic, which was impressive considering how quickly the creature had dispatched everyone. Realization gripped at Miki's spine that as she moved through the floors, this creature had probably been working its way up killing everything in sight. All she could do was pray it didn't decided to come back and check its work.
Without finding a single survivor, Miki headed up the stairs. She skipped the next floor; it was only used when Orochimaru was on site. It held his private quarters as well as offices and accommodations for his highest-ranking staff. No one on site had a card key to get inside so it would be impossible for anyone to have taken refuge in there. That meant Miki was headed for the bi-level that contained both the surface entrance and security. The only sound she heard once she cleared the door was the echoing of her own footsteps. As she approached the security room, the smell of blood and metal began to fill up the passage. Miki braced herself knowing whatever she would find ahead, it would not be pleasant.
As Miki approached the scene, her dread grew until it was difficult to physically force herself forward. She could tell from fifty feet away that there were at least three men skewered to the wall with what looked like some rebar that had been exposed in what looked like the most destructive fight of the century. Part of the ceiling had collapsed, water pipes were gushing all over the place, and the walls were covered in impact craters and knives that had missed their mark. Once again, the creature had left no survivors. Remembering the person who had been gurgling into the intercom, Miki grabbed the keycard off one of the skewered guards. She used the card to let herself into the security office. A solitary guard had apparently slipped in during the chaos but he had already been mortally wounded. The man had bled all over the desk before slipping out of the chair onto the floor. Miki looked up at the wall of security footage and let out a sigh. Of course, this thing destroyed the cameras. It yanked people out of lockers and out from under beds. Its intelligent enough to cover its tracks. Miki plopped down on a chair in the corner and rested her head against the back. Most of the time it was easy for her to write off what was going on the village. "It's none of my business," She would say. After all, Miki just did what she needed to survive. One day she would elevate herself to a position of where she had some modicum of freedom and could really chew on the ethics of it all. Right now, though, she had to pause and wonder what they had all gotten themselves into. Miki was physically and emotionally exhausted. She had seen so many bodies in such horrific shape that she couldn't help but feel sick and afraid. In the moderately protected security office, ha, as if a door could stop it, Miki pulled her knees up to her chest and tried to steady her breathing. This thing could probably smell or sense fear.
The guard had bled all over and shorted out the phones. Miki wasn't about to wander back out into the base, so she decided if help didn't come by nightfall she would wait until dawn in the office. If help still hadn't arrived, Miki would find a phone and hole up with some supplies. If she couldn't get ahold of anyone, she would just grab some stuff and get the hell out. Let's deal with that if it comes to it. Miki put her head between her knees and waited.
…
After what seemed like an eternity, Miki was stirred from her stupor by the beep of the card reader. She held her breath in suspense as the door swung open. The sight of Kabuto should have been a comfort but somehow Miki couldn't completely dismiss the idea that he had killed everyone. Kabuto scanned the room. Once he laid eyes on Miki, he chuffed and shook his head. "You finally did it," He said as he stepped over the stiffening guard's body. "You killed everyone else in the building, so I guess that makes you 'Employee of the Month' by default." Miki watched him cross the room. Once he was in front of her, he bent forward so their foreheads almost touched. "I never took you for such a go-getter, Nomura. I mean, when we say there's competitive pay, we don't mean we add your victim's salaries to yours."
"Shh," Miki grabbed his collar. "It might…It could still be around here." Kabuto took pried her fingers off his collar and held her wrists. "What, Miki?"
"The thing," Miki hissed. "It…it was whatever the hell was in that glacier. It killed everyone, and when I say everyone, I mean everyone. It pulled them out from under beds, ripped them out of lockers, and then set fires and broke cameras to cover its tracks."
Kabuto smiled at her but Miki recognized the look in his eyes as less than friendly. "Then how did you survive?" Miki sighed knowing that it was worthless to lie to protect her image. Kabuto would be more upset if she tried to deceive him- he would know instantly- than it was for her to have been locked up. "The good doctor thought it would be funny to imprison me in one of the morgue slabs," Miki explained. "He turned on the fan. I guess that was enough to cover the fact that I was in there for whatever this thing was."
Kabuto thought about it for a moment, his vicelike grip still tight on her wrists. "I suppose that adds up. If I were going around killing people I wouldn't be checking morgue slabs." He let go of her hands and stood up. "Today was your lucky day, I suppose. Unfortunately, I don't believe Orochimaru sama will be so understanding that you allowed such a powerful asset to escape without resistance."
Miki tensed up. There was no such thing as getting a pink slip in the Sound. Orochimaru had murdered people for preparing his tea incorrectly. She had no idea what was in her future but she figured it would probably be on par with whatever the monster would have done to her. "That being said," Kabuto squared off with her. "Just remember that this is for your own good." Miki looked up with just enough time to see his fist coming for her face.