• S-Room •
It's been a while since Marco left Sphinx Island after his fearful encounter, and I'm sure you can understand why.
A lot has been going on since Marco's visit to Sphinx Island. He told people about his encounter, and received a lot of questions and concerns from folks who heared about Marco's first-hand account of Egghead Palace… a facitily that was built and abandoned by the World Government's Science Unit.
Marco couldn't help to think he is definitely being followed. For the first month or two, he chalked it up as paranoia. Any casual glance or half-smile from someone in his direction would set Marco off.
The first one, or rather, the first one Marco was actually able to spot, was a man in a black suit milling around his apartment complex.
He was middle-aged man, but something just seemed off about him thought Marco. He couldn't place it, but he knew this wasn't just his imagination acting up. He was awkward and out of place, not somebody who was comfortable doing his routine job.
He followed Marco around a corner, only to lose him there. When he turned back to go home, there he was. Staring directly at Marco, about ten feet behind him, with an expressionless and cold stare.
"Exploring?" he asked. That was all he said, and there was an accusing tone to his voice.
Tell me what blue collar phone jockey does that, thought Marco.
Marco guessed that's the worst part. Never feeling safe. Never feeling alone. That, and the occasional papers with World Government symbols were left somewhere for him to find, like in the mailbox or on his bookshelf.
He started keeping a running list of World Government symbols he's found.
People have told Marco about his trip in Sphinx as well. Marco knew if he say, he's going to start seeing those son of a bitch outlines. He guarantee it.
The best one by far, one that actually made me laugh because of the horror of it all, was a drawing in chalk on the side of Marco's house. He was taken aback at first, he kept an eye out for anyone responsible for this.
Written in dark blue… was a single word.
"RETRACT"
The only good thing that has come out of all this that Marco's know, is that he is not the only one who's seen something they shouldn't have seen.
One day Marco was visited by a person named Tsuru, an elderly woman who used to be a Marine bodyguard in Egghead Palace . She'd been there since way back. Marco KNEW she had a terrible story to tell.
Marco asked about Egghead Palace. She was quiet at first. Eerily quiet.
"S-Room." She croaked, a single, shaking hand placed to her cheek as if she were a little girl fearing a Parent's punishment.
She didn't meet Marco's gaze for the entire conversation.
S-Room, as it turned out, was the "SERAPHIM PREP 1" the big area Marco explored and spotted that Seraphim.
The entire area is a cloning chamber and has a long parallel row of preservation tanks, each holding a human clone. The preservation tanks were flanked on the outside by rows of embryonic tubes, where Government officials could visually watch the progression of the growth of their human clones, and spot any deformities so they can perfect their cloning process. The entire area could be watched over by a pair of catwalks that intersected at various points over the floor.
The Seraphim are upcoming Pacifista units developed by the Marines'Special Science Group with the intention of replacing the Seven Warlords of the Seas one of the Three Great Powers. They are living weapons built as clones of the people of Sphinx Island, and augmented with a lunarian blood.
"I've been in there," he explained, "There's was only one lying on the cement floor."
"No," Tsuru shook her head and covered her mouth, stifling a sob, "You've seen one of them."
The Seraphims are Pacifistas that resemble Men and Women of every age, shape, and size, adults, children, and teens of Sphinx Island.
All of them have brown skin, white hair, and a pair of black wings.
Way back then, the World Government employese would get tons of complaints about Seraphims following others around the facility. They would merge and disappear all over the area.
Then one day, someone or something sounded the alarm.
Security ushered everyone down, down, down into a shelter located in S-Room. There, they were ordered to put on masks and hunker down for the duration of the assault.
Tsuru was the only one not to enter the shelter, and felt something was off, and instead hid behind a preservation tank.
Everything was quiet for about thirty minutes, save for frightened whispers. No one wanted to die, and so they were thankful in a way for this strange measure of safety.
Then Tsuru see a group of Seraphims walking to the shelter.
Then after few seconds later, the first scream rang out.
Waves of shrieks and yelps rippled through the crowd, from one wall to the other, back and forth.
The crowd became more and more agitated until, finally, after nearly an hour of madness…
The lights in S-Room flickered…
Then died.
What followed could only be described as utter chaos. In the dark, only the wails wnd cries of the people could be heard in a massive, swelling din that bloodied the ears of all within that shelters.
A small group of Marines and a select few patrons made it out of the shelter followed the light from upstair, exiting S-Room.
Tsuru looks at the bright light from the top of the steel staircase that lead upstairs from the pitch blackness in S-Room.
Tsuru then hears no sign of the previous fray. There was only silence.
Tsuru got the cowrage and descended up the staircase.
While walking up the stairs, a voice spoke out of the darkness. The echo made it impossible to Tsuru to tell whether the chilling voice was at the end of the staircase of S-Room or if it was right behind her in the dark.
"Shut the door, dear. You're letting out the cold."
Gripped by terror, Tsuru didn't look back and shut the doors. Within days, the entire thing… S-Room, the shelter, the staircase, all of it… was closed complelety.
"They're were all down there." Tsuru told Marco, "Down there with those things."
After Tsuru finished her story she left.
Unfortunately, a few days later Marco would get word that Tsuru passed away. Accidental fall, supposedly, after getting out of bed to turn on a light.
Marco would hear a rumor that her entire bedroom was covered with Symbols of the World Government.