Author's notes: And here I am, back after a long pause. I present to you the start of the second act of the fic. Hope you find it interesting. Nee characters, new mysteries, everything. Without further ado, here it is:

Chapter 2-1: Black Plague

There was no doubt in my mind about this. I've definitely breached the threshold of the core of everything that is occurring within this present interval of time. The hallways filled with rich history and lore are behind me now. I have become a participant in the events unfolding right before my eyes.

I've had enough time to adapt my nostrils to the presence of a deathly odor lingering in the bleak walls of the underground facility. It was very cold, enough to let me see the mist coming from my nose. Through the unnerving sounds of static coming from the lights, my ears picked up on the cries of the fellow prisoners as they were being beaten down and dragged away. I wonder how I should feel about them, for they might as well have constructed the prison and hired its staff themselves, whether they were aware of it or not.

The room didn't have a bunch of places to rummage through. There was a desk with a vice attached to it, and I found my glowstick in one of the drawers. After being stripped of all the tools I acquired along the way, I was inexplicably left the glowstick in my vicinit by my captors. I guess they thought the light emanating from it wasn't useful to them, and to be fair, I feel like it's gotten dimmer than before. There were a few metal lockers, but they didn't offer anything besides a single coin, the currency of which I couldn't recognize.

I found a vent hidden behind an empty metal shelf, its sturdy grate reinforced with four screws. The coin I found was beneficial when I used it as a makeshift screwdriver, but not before flattening it with a vice. With the grate no longer attached, I snuck through the cramp opening before me, hoping that the ducts would end up being my escape route.

I speculated upon a plethora of issues I've come to face in that moment. I believe my capture didn't involve any of the staff as its perpetrators. However, it was a man's silhouette I saw back there in the hallway, but now I can't help but feel that its existence is otherworldly, foreign to the world's known fauna. My captors are definitely sentient, and have at least some form of logical thinking, but there is something that shrieks of the vast difference between our planes of existence.

What was I going to find here? My quest started with the pursuit of my father, but the conditions suggest that the chances of him being alive were slim at best. Despite that, my curiosity is overflowing with vigor. Something happened here, something that my father was able to overcome, at least sufficiently enough to send me that fateful letter, and I was going to find out what.

On the way I stumbled upon another grate, which I wasn't able to screw open due to being on the wrong side of the vent. Still, I peeked through the bars and was met with a horrifying sight.

The lights were blinking on and off, but from what I've gathered, this was a small clinic room, harboring some basic equipment, including a stretcher. The person on the stretcher, however, frightened me with its appearance.

He, or it, sported the same proportions and shape of a normal person. His skin, however, was sickly white and shriveled, his mouth lacked lips, exposing his dry, chipped, yellow teeth. Its eyes were completely pitch black and had no eyelids. The most disgusting part of its physique was its fleshy umbilical cord, which went from his bellybutton to his back.

I moved on from the revolting sight, going further through the ducts. That's what I thought, until I suddenly found myself passing by it again. I'm sure I didn't go around in circles. I couldn't have backtracked, I never went in any direction other than forward and the grate was on the same side. Did I actually see the grate last time? Am I just being confused by this building's geometry? Am I going crazy? Either way, I have a feeling that this déjà vu moment is not going to be the only instance of my waning mind's tricks.

I eventually reached a collapse in the ventilation duct, which opened up to a section of a hall. I didn't need to look around for long to ascertain that the only way I could venture into was the other side of the collapsed ventilation ducts. Rubble was blocking me from leaving this small, confined area, which only housed a vending machine.

After staring at the vending machine for a long time, I came to realize how dehydrated I was. I didn't eat or drink ever since I left the boat, and I don't even know how much time has passed during my incapacitation. The soda wasn't going to be dispensed without exchange though, so I put all my hopes in the coin I damaged for the sake of leaving my cell.

Despite being flat like a pancake, the machine registered the coin and dispensed me an ice-cold orange soda. Not my favorite flavor, nor did I really like soda that much, but it didn't stop me from making a few refreshing sips. Fearing this might be the last of the beverages down there, I abstained from drinking it until further, a decision which proved to be useful after a brief moment.

I went back into the ducts, this time going the way I would have gone if the ducts stayed intact. Most of the routes were filled with rock and rebar, save for one, which had a warning written in red. It told me to watch my step, and by the looks of it, it was due to collapse any minute now. There was a sturdy wooden beam just long enough to cover the fragile part of the floor, so I made my way through that tunnel clutching onto the narrow beam. The floor collapsed just as I stepped off the beam. A moment too soon and I would have snapped my spine in half.

Not too soon after I came to a fork in the ducts. The right one was damaged, and the pipes behind the vents were shooting out a gas coolant, meaning certain death for whoever tries to pass through.

The left side lead me into a set of two rooms. I saw a door leading to a hallway and immediately approached it, only to recoil in shock at the sight of another one of those humanoid creatures passing by the door. I think it saw me, because I saw the door being slammed, but its attention was quickly diverted elsewhere, seeing as he only left the door slightly dented.

I attempted to open the door carefully, but as it turned out, I didn't even have that option. I was glad, though, since that meant the thing couldn't unlock it either. That is one door I didn't mind being locked.

The room I was in connected to was a freezer storing some meat hanging from the ceiling. Despite the cold temperature, it looked past its due date, and the strong rotten stench did not only confirm that, but made staying in the room almost unbearable. In the room was a large device which I assumed was a thermostat that regulated the coolant flow.

Since it was coolant that stood as an obstacle, I pondered on how I could tamper with the device so that the coolant flow would cease. This thermostat didn't have button that would indicate a manual setting, which meant that it had a built-in thermometer sensor. I presumed that there was a threshold at which the coolant is no longer necessary. However, there was nothing I could do to make the room cold as ice.

…cold as ice, eh? It just so happens that, mere minutes ago, I procured something like that. Not only was it a refreshing addition to my inventory, it just so happens that a mere sip would be enough to tweak the thermostat enough to stop the coolant flowing.

I poured out some of the can's contents onto the thermostat, and smiled upon seeing the mercury in the thermometer drop down. Ecstatic, I rushed to the vent and crawled into it. I had to be quick, since the drink can only stay cold so much before becoming

room temperature. In retrospect, I didn't even have to rush as much as I did, but inventiveness excited me, and my survival instincts kicked in a while ago and haven't left me since.

I stepped off the ducts into a proper, tiled corridor. The place has definitely become derelict and filthy long before my arrival. Any chances of finding a functioning part of the facility have dwindled. There was no averting my gaze from the harsh truth. I am walking the path of death, cadavers and excruciating pain following every single step.

The next step certainly didn't leave any ambiguity. A rotten stench emerged from a nearby corpse. It was a human being in lab coat, lying face down in a puddle of his dried up blood. His body was under a laser tripwire connected to a set of explosives. I picked up a note next to his right arm.

The note divulged his name, Neil Oswald. He was apparently the Chief Chemist in the facility. The note was regarding a record on one of his patients, who exhibited symptoms related to the mysterious illness which spread through these corridors. Deja vu, aural visions, hallucinations, weakness, all of these were symptoms the patient exhibited, and the last entry revealed that the patient's life was terminated with an injection.

Just as I read all of this, an announcement came through. It was an automated message, its speaker a female text to speech conversion voice.

"Today is Tuesday. Chef Carlito will now be serving *insert today's special here*, a happy worker is an efficient worker, and only efficient workers get fed."

Chaos, this place sure does feel like something from a comedy with dark humor. The amount of violence in here and all the weird sacrifices they willingly made feel like a cruel joke.

A bit of tinkering around with the trigger interface and the lasers were gone. I safely passed by the corpse and approached the cafeteria door. Just as I did, a loud thump startled me immensely, and my ears rang intensely for a brief period of time.

Still, the big door was efficient of a barricade in both directions. Next to it was a sign that said "Only trusted blood will gain access", and below it was a hole the size of a needle. I probably needed a syringe of some sort to insert the blood, but I doubted my own would suffice.

Right to the big door was a pile of rubbish, a bunch of wooden beams and metals shelves stacked on each other like fallen dominoes. I exerted a portion of my strength to push them out from there at least, and in doing so I exposed a small door at the end of it. It was clear this pile of junk was placed here to deter these monsters away, but this blocked off area might just have what I need so I can make some progress.

I ended up in a narrow L shaped corridor, with one door on its other end and three more on one of its sides. My attempt to open one was in vain, as the same electonic system that severed this place from the mine was put in place in this corridor. What they didn't predict was that someone would deliberately tamper with the electronic hatch they installed in the same corridor.

I am going to rip the hatch open and scour through the rooms for anything of use. The lack or any proper confrontation up to this point, however, makes me believe I have yet to be within danger's grasp.