Hall of Rorschachs
The lift gave a harsh clatter against the steel rails, as the cables jerked the empty container back to the ground floor. I twisted around and lunged at the underside in some pitiful attempt to latch on and ride up, or drag it back down if I must. Even if there was doubt I had the strength to hold on, I was desperate. But it was not to be, I was far from grasping the cart as it faded into the dark gullet of the chute. The clatter of the carriage grew distant as I stood in the shadows gazing up, hand outstretched. Begging. My thoughts pleading. No one was listening. I returned my focus to the short corridor with the lamps that buzzed and dim whenever a surge slid through. I was so set on getting out. Ready to say my goodbyes. I let my fucking guard down. How typical. How fucking typical.
I tried the call button beside the chutes entrance, but it required a magnet key. I recalled the Asylum, and the numerous trials I endured to locate those damn cards. I didn't believe I would stumble upon one down here, since it was 'Father' Martin that had planted them for me. God, even in death he's still giving me shitty fetch quests.
New Objective: Find another way out.
I didn't know what awaited down here, lurking. Didn't feel prepared to continue. It couldn't be worse than the twins or Trager, could it?
I crossed to the set of doors and pushed one open, and was nearly blinded by the sterile light blazing over the pristine walls and floor. Bright glaring lights, that reminded me of His cell. I blinked the dryness away as I stepped into the hall, I could detect an immediate change in pressure. Aside from the air having a dry and clinical property, I couldn't explain the sensation, but I didn't like it. Bravo for intuition.
The floor was polished and as bright and white as the cylindrical walls curved around the hall. I wasn't a geologist so my knowledge was limited, but if I had to guess I would say it was all chiseled from natural stone, from the mountain itself "…something that had been waiting for them in the mountain." What the hell was this place?
Now that I thought back on it, a colleague of mine had tried to relate a scientific matter to me concerning specific ores, and how it attributed to supernatural occurrences. Truth of the matter I had been a piss poor student, and constantly teased her as she tried to educate me. But I had listened enough.
The paranormal was a genre she was interested in, and she was thrilled to tell me about a place she visited in Colorado (not Mount Massive). Some ritzy Hotel, the Overlook I think was the name, its location built upon a cash of natural limestone. Scientific observations were utilized to support theories, that paranormal occurrences could be attributed to high concentrations of limestone in the mountain. Something in the mineral conducted electricity.
It sounded a little too fantastic to me, but here and now, I was beginning to wonder if Murkoff had premeditated these findings. Someone believed them. In that case, the Asylum wasn't target exclusively for the history or the seclusion. It was elected due to the qualities of the region itself.
Or maybe I was just tired. I looked up at the symbol printed above the next set of doors. I'd seen it before. No, not the lockers in prison block. The video the Priest had forced me to watch. That symbol was on the floor when the MHS tacticals were throttled like chickens. The atomic, molecular design? Or could there be further religious affiliation?
I pushed the doors open and stepped into a fresh scene of horror. I knew this room, and my anxiety increased tenfold. Blood streaked the floor, splattered on the white stone walls. Bullet marks decorated steel and glass in random areas, the pieces of a gun had been scattered over the floor with black splatters. Muscles and entrails glistened under the light as I moved from the doors. Red had dried to the large crescent desk fixed at the rooms center, two large screens sat behind it, bright and cheery in contrast to the stew soaking into the stone. One read Murkoff Corporation, the other sported the trinity Molecular design along with WALRIDER PROJECT in bold. And the symbol on the floor streaked with blood. That symbol was everywhere.
With a sigh, I took out my camera and filmed everything. It was giving me low battery warnings, but I had at least a half hour left if I didn't run out of power for the night vision. Unfortunately, there seemed to be plenty of light in this place.
"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Whoever finds my corpse – trust no one and tell everyone. I am not crazy. I know, I know, only crazy people say that. But I am as sane as this world allows, with a camera full of evidence. Don't call it a gospel. Call it a mockery of reason, let the world know it is Murkoff's fault. Bury these bastards with my mutilated dead body."
It took a few minutes for me to write. My hands seemed steady at first, but when I put pen to paper, well…. Aside from the difficulty of holding my pen against my middle finger, it was almost unbearable to apply pressure to my index finger. I dated the note and leaned back to view murder and rot surrounding me while I wrote. I needed to get my priorities straight.
A few plants dotted the room, but I knew they were fake without a glance. Polished gray pillars encircled the lobby, they didn't resemble any specific mineral. Just general grade cement to support the dark blue ceiling. The far side was comprised of a glassed portion of the wall, with thick pipes behind. Water, gas, electricity, I didn't care. Beside the wall sat a short desk, out of place among the red streaks. Two chairs had been set facing one another, and two mugs of coffee still sat on the brown wood.
I averted my gaze to the opposite wall, where a purge chamber stood open to the room, black blood washed down its sides and soaking the floor. The images came back clearly as I had seen them, despite the drugs swimming through my brain at the time. I could envision the panicked militants shrieking as their bodies were ripped through the tiny crevices in the doors, and holes of the glassed in wall. One man's legs still lay a few feet from the pile of meat, a string of organs dried to the stone.
I stumbled back into the large desk and sat down on its surface. My hand touched a folder beside me, and I looked down to flip through the pages. It was nothing remarkable, nothing relevant I decided.
From the personal records of Dr. Wernicke. The Modern Prometheus Document: The Pride of Wisdom
Schrodinger Wolfram
"FRANKENSTEIN, or The Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley, published anonymously in 1818.
Chapter 23, excerpt –
"Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say."
I broke from the house angry and disturbed, and retired to meditate on some other mode of action.
Well, it appeared they created man's monster. And it hath a wraith unlike no other being in our world. I closed the folder and pinched the bridge of my nose. It was apparent I had dug in too deep, I didn't know if I could claw out of the grave I had lain in. I suppose I had one choice. Keep digging. I didn't know exactly where I was, but I had a strong estimate. I was in the Basement of the Asylum.
I looked to the security operative slumped in his chair, near where I perched. Briefly, I wondered what would become of the remains of all these people? Even if Murkoff wasn't the shady bastards that they were, it was impossible to gather up the pieces to return them to their families. The investigation?
I slid off the desk and approached the blood splattered door of the cold purge chamber. My breath hitched as I tried to inhale gently, but the pain in my rib couldn't be negotiated with. I didn't know if I could do this all over. I might need to find someplace to rest and if fate allowed, I would awaken before I died.
The door panel sparkled embers from the torn wires, probably motion sensors detecting my approach. The doors held silent, an eerie howl raised from the dark depths. I raised the NV and reassured myself there was nothing, I was alone except for the dead. The hair bristled along my brow. God, why did I put that image in my head?
I shuffled forward into the cradle of the dark. Above wires and cables ran the length of the tunnel, the walls were as they were in the entrance, chiseled and polished stone with occasional gaps that had been glassed off where additional paneling and vital equipment or systems were nestled. The camera flashed a familiar image, I tensed as static buzzed through and waited until it cleared. Nothing but shredded bodies, nothing but the secrets these people died with. I listened to the silence. For so long I was accustomed to the distant shrieks and mutter of people, behind doors I hoped to never open. Now, I was buried deep in solid rock, with only the pulse in my bones to alleviate the sterile peace.
Murkoff personnel were everywhere, lined against the walls, bodies torn inside out by a force I could never have a want to comprehend. I doubt any two were slain in the same fashion, or the method of death so violent it was impossible to replicate. As always, never footprints. But what ghost had feet?
Guts and lungs splattered up walls, I was unsettled by how fresh it appeared to be, but attributed it to the NV. Thin lines marked the floor, I knew these prints that made long red through copious puddles. I'd seen the same when I was pushed off an elevator by a lunatic. They turned when the tunnel curved, ahead light swept into the shadows. I clicked off the nightvision but hesitated to emerge. I refused to trust the helpful presence of light, but for now it was welcomed while my camera demanded a fresh battery. I dropped the old one and set the new one in. The distant clatter that echoed was a solitary thing throughout the corridor.
The wall along my right had the natural mineral trimmed away into flat walls, reinforced with cement, and steel in some areas. The metal portions were fitted with slates, or shields, that same symbol from the lobby was printed besides the shields. I stared down, the marks. Those lines went through these panels, curving around the edge. I debated the meaning as I took a deep breath and squinted my eyes.
They looked like portals or panels that could be moved. There was a set of powerful looking hydraulic hinges, but otherwise no handles or switches that could gain access. Probably wouldn't do me any good anyway. I fit my fingers along the edge testing for a draft, but judged they were airtight. Pressure sealed. This facility was dedicated to science and clinical procedures, despite the butcher of the upper floors. If there was a way out, hopefully I didn't need to access it within there. I could come back, once the rest of the Block was explored.
As I resumed on my way, something came to my thoughts, it was a bit random. In the report it was stated Billy had spoken to the Dr. Wernicke in a white room. I spun around checking the walls and surrounding surfaces. This place was pretty white. But…that wasn't possible.
I looked up and watched a camera connected to the cables in the ceiling revolved slowly, catching all the action as it happened. I glanced back at the doorway before I continued down the hall.
A Block. The large plate on the wall identified this as A Block, or the whole hall was? There wasn't much to it. I was reminded of the Cell Block's of the Asylum above – C Block, D Block. Clearly this was as a part of the Asylum as the condemned sections of the Female Ward. This didn't surprise me. But it could have been coincidence as well. I'd go with that, since I was done with the conspiracy theories.
The next set of doors had pop marks across the glass and metal, bent out in small boils where bullets had lodged. The bullets were fully visible in the glass, surrounded by the star shaped impressions that commemorate the battle. I felt the shadows around me as I huddled in the garden, the branches cracking as something swept through. That inhuman shrill. In my ear screaming as the thunder laughs, and my vision fills with white. Then I'm curled up in the room, the dry wood and cold plaster on either shoulder as I tremble and listen to the ringing in my ears. The sensation that crawls through me, I can't explain it. I've lost something, yet, nothing is amiss. I don't feel right.
I barely glimpsed the panel at my left. Morphogenic Engine. I stopped with my hand on the door and bent my head around studying the hall I had moved through. You know what? Fuck that. I can't conceive what it would look like, what exactly it's supposed to do. I don't care. I'll come back! I promise. I'll come back if I have too.
That was probably a hollow promise, but my obligations had faded since I stepped off that damn elevator. I had no luck with elevators.
A series of large canisters greeted me on the other side of the doors, pressed to the wall on my left and out of the way. The label read 'saline' substitute. That sounded kind of weird, wasn't saline a substitute? I took in details of the hall, my camera held in no specific position as I walked. The ceiling retained its natural rock, but the walls on either side resembled the interior of medical labs. This all looked like existing cave before Murkoff came along and filled it with their nightmare science. The idea brought me back to the theory of the mountains as the target rather the Asylum, and I wondered about the files I had found dating back before Mount Massive was shut down. If not for the limestone, then the isolated region was more than worth the resources to insure the quality of their uninterrupted studies.
I touched the wall on my left as I neared the doorframe. The material was metal and possibly reinforced. I don't think it was meant for militaristic operations, though they clearly took precautions for their work. For an invasion or 'terrorist' attack, a lot of good it did them.
A thin red streak slipped between the open doors I peered through, blood was spread from ceiling to floor. I blinked, staring. The air was thick with copper and rot. I was so tired of that smell, but I just couldn't get away from it. It was soaked into my clothing as it was soaking into the walls around me. I stepped inside, careful of the pieces beside the counter that had once been one or two people. Maybe three. All of them spattered over the floor, organs hung in ribbons on counters, pieces of bone scattered over metal cabinets.
I scanned the labels visible through the glassed in shelves. Most were filled with vials of fluids, many of which sported long, four syllable words with –ine or –phen on the end. Files were scattered over the sinks and floors, reminders for injections and progress with patients identified by numbers. I stood beside the rolling chairs and scanned over the room, debating if it was possible that materials remained that I could patch my hands with. Something actually medical, rather the spare shirt that would be waiting for me in the jeep.
Pipes twisted around the edge of the ceiling. I followed the sections around the room trying to recall something about pipes. They were pumping the recycled air throughout the facility, they had to. Couldn't risk foreign contamination. It sounded ridiculous in my head, but I preferred it that way.
Revisiting the hall, I turned left. The black stains of yet more Researchers coated the gray metal of Nitroglycerin tanks, scattered beside the wall. He was probably in the midst of transporting them when it all happened. A few tanks managed to stay on the wrecked cart against the wall. I poked into the next room, the remains of staff had all but painted the walls. I stumbled as I leaned on the door, just… everywhere I looked, the broken pieces of tissue and body parts was all over. I have to emphasize the ALL OVER aspect. I thought the Asylum itself was gruesome, but this was something else entirely.
I looked from the doors of the room, shot up by bullets, to the large tank of unmarked gas or fluid. At the other corner was a medical waste bin piled high with black bags, stuffed with unknown rubbish. It was a clear violation of sanitation, but for whatever reason Murkoff began to lack in strict policies during its final days. I was curious to what could be crammed in those bags but they sagged and were covered in unknown gunk, and the smell of residual chemicals did not encourage me. It was subtle evidence of distress, though at the time this room from a glance gave the delusion of order and regiment.
I stared up as I leaned on the autopsy table bolted to the floors center. Above, an arm hung from one of the pipes that lapped around the ceiling, dried muscle had peeled back to reveal white bone. Threads of intestines stuck to files stuffed into the shelves, the jaw of someone was lodged into the space between a drawer and the countertops edge. It looked like the fleshy tissue of the throat had remained attached.
I shut my eyes and rested my weight to my free arm, when I opened my eyes, I noted the pages that had scattered from a folder stained with blood. Under the harsh lamps the fluids looked fresh, almost new. The battery in the camera itself was holding strong, I used it to snap the pictures as I skimmed through.
PROJECT WALRIDER
POSTMORTEM PRIMATORY REPORT MM1300921
(form note: all material herein to be transcribed and revised to fit legally binding requirements of Murkoff Corp. records. See form 4083)
AUTHOR: Jennifer Roland
NOTES: My fourteenth autopsy of a Walrider patient, showing no more signs of accepting the therapy than any of the others. There have been slight gains in cell migration and morphogenesis (including effects similar to Human Growth Hormone), but nothing to suggest the stable creation of a sentient, independent swarm. So tired. Doubting my judgment. Will submit another request for leave. The psychological cost of using such far gone and further provoked patients is more than I feel I can handle.
May suggest hanging less hope on the far-flung theories of a senile Nazi and move towards using a simpler mechanical engine based on major sperm protein.
Will definitely suggest harsher chemical restraints. Murkoff Security killed patient 923 after he overcame enough tranquilizers to put down a hockey team. I'm afraid the Hormone Therapy is interacting with our chemical restraints in a counterproductive manner.
This file. This file was very important. It gave insight that had not been present in past documents. The use of words in her text made it sound like…. Dr. Wernicke was still alive.
I stared at the phrase she included which made the doctors status current, if it was not a mistake of word use. But that would make him ninety years old, at the least. I set the file down and looked upon the carnage, the violence, the death. I corrected myself. Wernicke had been alive. I couldn't imagine him surviving this. I tossed the file aside and ventured through the door, turning to the corridors end. Expulsion of gooey innards spread high on the wall, long red lines slid down before the liquid dried.
More death, more bodies that had at one time been living people. I pressed my hand to the wall as I took the right corner, avoiding the skin stretched across polished white floor. I don't know why I was self-conscious now, after I had traipsed through mounds of bodies in the Asylums halls. I couldn't even come up with a cheap theory. Every corner, I saw red and wet entrails, black skin and orange puss. The air was filled with its rancid vapor, from the methane released as the meat soured. What would they do with all these bodies? Where could you put them all?
I didn't reach the doors in my path. I had to stop and lean on the wall, gazing at them. Doors and more doors. What would be behind them? My liberation at last? I didn't care, I had to lie down, rest. The ache in my skull was unbearable, if I took one more step I would fall. I couldn't go on like this. I just kept seeing bodies and faces, images I couldn't explain. What was I seeing? I wasn't even hiding in the shadows. The shapes were no longer trapped in my camera.
The room spun, I kept myself from stumbling with my hand on the wall as I lowered down. There was a shallow slant beside the floor, I propped my good side on this to keep the pressure off my ribs. I kept the camera in my right hand and set it beside me. I wasn't planning on sleeping, just needed to give myself a chance to cut the ache. The floor was cold but it felt so good to lay my head against it. It didn't even matter how bright the bulbs were above, I could turn my face into the collar of my coat and shut my eyes.
Almost at once I felt my mind descending into a thick blanket of sleep. I tried to stir from the tempting lull, but I couldn't resist. I was surrounded by the corpses of dozens of unnamed scientists but I didn't give a damn, it was too hard to stay conscious. I escaped the pain, I escaped the world, and I escaped the cold halls churning in my mind.
As I felt my body slip into the illusion of safety, a painful spasm shot up my spine. I was paralyzed. The sensation was horrible, my muscles locked up and I couldn't will them to relax. It was as if the concept of mobility was ripped from my brain. I was a prisoner in my body, fully capable of detecting the environment around me but unable to react to it. I felt the camera in my hand as I slowly regained consciousness, but… I remained unable to rip free of the powerful vice that had seized my chest. It was too painful to do anything less pathetic than cringe. I whined as my ribs shifted in my side and gagged. I was suffocating! My eyes open drunkenly, dots whirling in my vision as my brain craved oxygen. I saw something. A dark shape leaning over me, staring into my face.
I barked out a terrified sound and swung my arms out, clipping the wall with my left hand as I thrashed. I scrambled over the floor struggling to escape thin air, until I was pressed back into the doors. I stared wild eyed, disturbed and gasping for air, despite the odd tickle in my chest. There was…
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The lights blazed down as fierce as when I had dropped, my head pulsed the same as before. No change. There was no demon here.
The sharp sting returned to my finger as I recalled, I'd just smacked a stone wall with it. I clutched the shaking hand to my chest, and curled my other arm around it and barred myself in with my knees. I sat for moment fighting to forget the pain, while my filthy pants soaked up red drops.
"Nothing is here," I whispered. "Just a nightmare." My voice rattled against the walls, impossibly loud, overpowering briefly the dull buzz that hung over me. I uncoiled and trusted weight on the bleeding hand to push me upright. My body was uncooperative but my mental brawn won over.
I shut the door behind me and scanned the long corridor ahead. To my eyes it just went on forever. Probably wasn't too far off. A thick pipe extended overhead, I saw no other visible wires and took this might have been the main electrical. Beside it metal cabinets jutted from the walls, though the natural stone work remained in this tunnel, along with various protrusions. Additions, such as flues were burrowed into the rock on either side, and another thick gray pipe extended along the ceiling.
Electricity was in the air, I could feel it like the hum from a television when you first turn it on. But it's forceful, charged in the empty space but not in the walls themselves. Maybe it was the lamps overhead. I set my hand on the gray pipe testing the vibrations but felt none. I ignored the marks of blood I left behind, as I walked and swayed around the huge tanks. Many stood my height but none held clear labels, just a serial label printed on the metal top.
The sides of the floor were marked with caution strips, and other more descript warning lines marked the floor every few feet. I skimmed over the large pipes bent and twisted along the corridor walls, of what they transported I couldn't say. Looked like aqueducts, but I doubted this. Pallets stacked high with bags and covered with a blue tarp, had been abandoned in the hall. I tried to peel back the plastic cover and record what was beneath but the material was thick. I also lacked the patience. I slipped over the top rather crawl around.
Judging by the layout of this tunnel, I could deduce this was not a main wing but dedicated to temporary storage hall. Plans in the schedule might have included park the pellets in a more particle space, but that was before the shit storm hit. Or this was another example of a lapse in protocol. I winced when another thought hit. Files existed that made note on the cutback in staff costs. The man I had seen playing the piano. Had he been a patient?
I jumped when the camera sputtered, the noise echoed from the chiseled walls. Damn it! That scared the shit out of me! I held it away as the visor cleared, and continued walking. The files would be corrupt, I decided. But I could still salvage them, I had equipment for that. My shoulders shook on the thought of reviewing what I had recorded. The sounds I made when I ran from Trager. It didn't even sound like me. Was that really me?
I said that allowed, and paused to glance around wondering if it was I that had spoken. I barely began walking when I noticed to my left, a window. I skid to a stop and backed up. A window! Transparent hand prints of red stained the surface, but beyond that sunlight. Sunlight! From the outside! It was all clear golden sky, rolling hills. No more storms filled with monsters shrieking with the thunder! The outside world was still out there. It was waiting just for me.
I was staring into a militaristic hangar, a few vehicles parked under the steel structure ceiling, the walls stretched around appeared reinforced. Most important of all, there was no sign of life, no movement. Just equipment, materials, large barrels of god knows what. And that beautiful sunlight washed across the military jeep wedged in the doorway. If I was viewing it from the correct angle, no one was going to close that door unless they packed some powerful explosives. Or, had the key to the jeep. I held the camera up and filmed what I was seeing, while trying not to get too close to the Plexiglas. There had to be— Ah. Over there! Far right wall, lit up like Christmas. A purge gate. From the distance and discoloration of the window, I couldn't validate if it functioned or not. But it didn't matter, it was the first entrance/exit I had come across. There didn't seem to be any difficulty in dismantling those purge gates though. How did I get over there?
I tracked the hall that continued before me, with my eyes. If I had a map, no doubt it'd have an arrow indicating this way led to the exit. Large blue barrels sat in my path, I could view traces of blood on the walls just beyond them.
Directly behind me, another set of doors clear and featureless. Above the frame a green bulb, indicating they were unlocked? I stared into the white hall within, while my mind hunted for escape. I had visions of myself entering that small hall and an alarm going off, a steel shutter lowering like in some James Bond film and me stuck inside forever because I just couldn't let go.
Or maybe I was afraid to? Could that be it?
The doors parted automatically upon detecting my movement, the plastic panels issued a soft hiss as frigid air swept out. I paused in the entrance, not doubting my fears, whichever ones I had. I debated turning away and just leaving, working on that gate and my inevitable freedom. But I really couldn't have too much evidence.
I said that once before. But maybe I was right. I was afraid.
The short hall was cold, the air crisp, fresh. One of the two doors was left open, which explained the drop in temperature. It was a small room filled with freezers, all below zero temperatures. I stepped around the right side trying a few of the doors, but they required access codes through key panels. At the left side of the room a door had been smashed, the locking mechanism no longer active allowed numerous clear vials to spill across the floor. Whatever the contents, they had dried and converted white limestone into varying shades of iridescent. I kicked a few away with my foot and listened as the glass crinkled as I turned. Along the back wall of the room sat lesser refrigerated cabinets, the contents exposed through foggy glass.
Beside them, a dry erase board. I stood before it, my camera giving its usual complaint as I waited patiently for it to quiet. It was some form of chemical engineering algorithm, exponents and a formula function I did not recognize. All in blue marker, except for the title at the top, which was a simple label written in black.
Morphogenic Engine
I must apologize for the content of these chapters. I love them, but they feel sort of repetitive and I'm not key on the details, describing the labs. How many different ways can I describe white walls covered in blood, and our guy has a fucking migraine and is experiencing seizures and scared out of his mind? Again, thanks to peeps for read and reviewing. Will post the final chapter soon
PSA disclaimer - Red Barrels reserves rights.