"Hey, who turned out the lights?" the familiar voice echoed and repeated through the corridors.
The footsteps were getting louder as it neared the location of the archaeologists, almost as if it knew exactly where they were.
"That voice..." Mr Lux pondered.
"...It's Proper Dave!" Anita finished sounding shocked.
"But didn't he... die back in the study?" Other Dave pointed out quietly.
A small shadow started to emerge from the end of the corridor, behind the long bookcase. It slowly started to get bigger and the outline looked similar to one that they all knew.
"Hey, who turned out the lights?" the voice replayed the same few words.
River stood motionless for a moment. Her eyes fixated on the end of the hallway, at the shadow. She glared at the empty space before her through her fearless attitude; she was ready to come face-to...face with her friends' killer.
Mr Lux began to inch further down the hallway hoping that his colleagues would follow his hint at fleeing. Other Dave saw Mr Lux's actions out of the corner of his eye and he was debating whether he should follow. He was teetering on the edge of his toes, caught in the middle of helping his friends, or saving his skin, literally!
"Professor Song?... River?" Anita questioned. She was concerned why her best friend stood motionless.
"Wait for it..." River strongly responded with a hint of rage. Her hand wondered to the side of her leg to her gun holster and she gripped onto the squareness gun that sat in it.
"Hey, who turned out the lights?" an echo that grew louder with every account of the same phrase.
A white boot stepped out and into the same row of bookshelves as the others.
"Go... I'll catch up with you..." River heroically ordered as she pulled out the gun from her holster.
"But..." Anita stuttered. Mr Lux and Other Dave had already started fleeing.
"Come on Anita!" Other Dave called back. Anita sighed and reluctantly followed, she knew there was no point in putting up a fight with River. She began to run and Anita looked over her shoulder to see River marching towards the creature with her gun firmly in her hand and Anita felt a pain of guilt in her chest.
Mr Lux forced open a pair of double wooden doors at the end of the maze of bookcases and the three were outside on a balcony that led to various other rooms of the Library. It was a long stretch of concrete that overlooked the whole floor of this section. It was lit an amber-orange in the sunset that shone down on the right hand side. On the left, a long chain of doors that were entrances to other rooms such as studies, more books, computers and many more beyond anyone's imagination!
River stood anxiously for the creature to fully come out and face her as she avenged her friends' deaths; she wanted to be the last thing it sees before she killed it. The torso of the monster slowly came round the corner.
"Hey, who turned out the lights?"
"That's Proper Dave ghosting... I guess I'll be meeting his killer." She thought. Her grip tightened on her gun when she froze for a second. "Wait... if the Vashta Nerada had latched onto Proper Dave, then surely they would've killed him. So, what's coming here now?" she questioned, then re-focussed on the body that started to take shape in front of her. "Whatever it is... I'm gonna kill it!" she angrily vowed. "...And I'm gonna enjoy it!" her tone even angrier and serious.
There it was... The figure stood at the end of the hallway and it uneasily marched one large stride closer to River and the light change made its features clearer. It was a white suit, like hers and the ones that the other archaeologists were wearing. The visor was tinted and all she could see through it was black. Her eyes glanced to the intercom and one of the green lights was flickering.
"He's only just started ghosting..." River mumbled under her breath.
Her curious eyes focussed on the visor again, staring confused at it. The figure stepped forwards again with another wobble, almost as if it was drunk. The jerky movement had revealed something in the visor, a skull. But, not just a skull it was the skull of River's friend Proper Dave. He had been stripped of his flesh by the Vashta Nerada and they were able to manipulate movement inside the suit.
"...Oh god!" she breathed heavily. Her heart had frozen as she stared at the skeleton in shock.
Mr Lux led the others down the corridor and he chose a door at random to open. He shoved it open with his hand and peered around inside. A computer stood in the clean sunlight in the middle of the room; it was flashing green with a warning siren. Other Dave walked over to it watching the floor in case any unwanted shadows popped up.
He typed in some details on the keyboard and a new screen came up. "It's in sleep mode, almost as if it's dreaming..." he was puzzled.
"It is dreaming..." Mr Lux replied.
"What, how can a computer dream?" Other Dave questioned.
"Because CAL isn't a computer..." Mr Lux answered. He wondered over to a panel on the wall and he opened a small door on the side and he flipped a switch. A statue appeared in the corner of the room. The top turned around and mounded on the front was a face.
"She's family..." he added. "Charlotte Abigail Lux, my grandfather's youngest daughter."
"It's the little girl..." Anita studied the face. "...But, why didn't you tell us this before?"
"I didn't think it was important..." Mr Lux looked down at the floor.
The warning siren came up on the computer screen again and immediately, the attention of all three archaeologists directly averted to the monitor...
The skeleton inched closer and closer to River. She was hesitant, she wasn't sure if her gun would have any effect on the Vashta Nerada.
She exhaled heavily and her finger had pulled the trigger and a blue square-shaped beam shot out from the barrel and hit the skeleton in its chest.
The impact of the gun blast had shaken the Vashta Nerada all around in the suit and they lost control of it. The suit stood shaking in the corridor as the hundreds of Vashta Nerada spores inside tried to regain mobility control of the suit in order to pursue the new meat.
This gave River time to flee and find the others... if they were still alive.