The crunch of broken glass, the hiss and crackle of electricity, and an otherwise suffocating silence welcomed Emily back to reality. Her head thundered as her eyes flitted open, taking in a blurry and confused scene around her. Slowly, she put her hand to her skull, feeling it covered with blood, which wouldn’t have been so bad if it had stayed on the inside.

She groaned softly as she groped around in the darkness for something to help her to her feet. She found nothing but debris and broken shards of glass that dug painfully into the palms of her hands, making her wince. It wasn’t pleasant, but it distracted her from the thunder in her head, enough that she was able to wobble her way to her feet.

The room was wrecked. The chairs that had filled the room, had been blown to pieces and scattered with the shards of glass from the broken mirror. In the middle of the room, covered in detritus, was the crumpled form of the telepath who had saved her life. She was dead, there was no doubt about it. She’d taken the full force of the blast from Glitch. Even with her powers, it seemed too much for her. Emily hoped she felt it. It was the least she deserved.

Turning to the door and not bothering to look back at the destroyed room behind her, Emily shuffled her way unsteadily out of the room. She couldn’t think straight, the pain pulsing in time with her heartbeat beating back anything coherent. She wasn’t sure where she should go. Rather than worrying about coming up with a plan, Emily chose a direction at random and went. The halls were dim, illuminated only by the faint glow of the backup lights. What had Glitch done? Emily didn’t know. She didn’t want to think, it hurt too much.

Instead, she plowed on, not even sure if there was an end to the path she’d chosen. What would she do if she found the exit? Would she even be able to open it? Emily thought about that idea. She tested a door nearby, grasping the handle and giving as firm a push as she could in her off balance state. It swung open easily, and Emily couldn’t help but shrug. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. It didn’t make any sense to lock everyone down whenever the system went down. She imagined dozens of people trying to scrounge to survive because there wasn’t enough power to operate all the systems, how quickly it would devolve. It almost brought a smile to her face.

She kept going, vaguely hoping that she could find the exit and be free at last. She watched the numbers on the doors tick by as she passed them. There were a lot of them, slowly going down with each one she passed. She was so focused on her task that she barely noticed when her foot suddenly collided with a solid object, striking it with a loud metallic clang. The sound reverberated down the empty hallway with an ominous tone, snapping Emily out of her reverie and causing her to tense up nervously.

She shrunk down her profile as much as possible, desperately searching the darkness for a place to take cover. There wasn’t any, nothing except the battered metal object she’d struck. Looking closely at it she realized it was a door to one of the many rooms in the facility, crushed and crumpled as though it were a mere tin can that someone had casually discarded and then stepped on.

Emily had no idea what had torn the door off its hinges, and she didn’t care to find out. Anything that could muster that kind of force wasn’t anything she needed to tangle with. She moved to skirt around the object in her way when something caught her eye. Painted in now chipped white paint on the front of the door was its number, four-one-one.

Rushing hurriedly over the door, Emily flung herself into the room beyond. Everything hit her at once, the darkness of the room, illuminated only by crackling sparks from destroyed electronics, the crunch of broken glass and something sticky underneath her feet, and the shattered tank in the middle of the room. The freak had escaped. With it was a long dark trail of what Emily assumed was blood leading out the way she’d just come.

She didn’t know if it was the creature’s blood; she didn’t care. She wanted to leave, to get out of there and never look back. She turned back toward the doorway, ready to continue her escape, only to find herself staring directly into the perpetually calm face of her handler.

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She jumped as they locked eyes, and briefly Emily wondered what to do. Before she could do anything, though, the man placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. Slowly, he raised a hand to his lips and motioned for her to stay calm. That was difficult as, beyond the man’s face and his gentle grasp on her shoulder, she could see his muscles were bunched and tense.

Without saying anything, he motioned for Emily to follow and made his way toward the door, only looking back to see if she complied. She did. The two of them slipped wordless back into the hallway, where the handler began to head back the way that Emily had come. The going was slow, cautious, and the handler frequently stopped to peer hesitantly around blind corners and through shuttered doors. This didn’t make Emily feel any better. The man always had an unflappable air about him, but now he was constantly looking over shoulder as though he was worried something might come out at them at any moment.

She wanted to bring it up to him, to ask him what was going on, but she didn’t dare break the precious silence. Silence kept people alive. Instead she just followed through the gloom, hoping her guide wasn’t leading her into the jaws of the enemy.

Occasionally, as they went, Emily felt as though the texture of the tile floor was off somehow. Like it wasn’t smooth polish that she’d grown accustomed to, but was now marred somewhat by tiny claws that had scraped against the surface. She also thought, occasionally, that she heard a sound coming from several of the rooms like the low moaning of someone in agony.

Then, it became obvious. Long thin grooves gouged into the walls, began to appear. A dark substance was smeared along the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling. It was sticky to the touch, clinging to their shoes as they walked. All of this was followed by a low noise, a deep throated growl that echoed throughout the compound, seemingly coming from everywhere at once.

Both of them froze when they heard it, every muscle in their bodies tensing, ready for combat. Nothing came. Instead they were merely assaulted with the constant noise, droning from every pore of every corridor. They had no choice, they had to press on. With each step they expected an attack that wouldn’t come. Instead, the cacophony only grew louder, crescendoing into a roar that shifted and swirled around them; never becoming truly solid.

They went on like that for what felt like ages, the sound pressing downward on them and increasing the already immense pressure bearing them down. Then, suddenly, the handler stopped. Slowly, his hand trembling, he pointed toward a blurry splotch at the end of the corridor they were following. Emily slowly processed it as a lone door, the exit. Just as the gears clicked in her mind, her handler spoke.

“Run.” He commanded sharply, crisply, authoritatively.

Emily nodded and bolted toward the hazy object. She shot down the hallway, grinning broadly as she realized freedom was finally in her grasp. She almost let out a laugh until a dark mass seemingly materialized out of the haze. It was small and indistinct in the gloom, and she didn’t have a chance to wonder what it was, or where it came from. It slammed into her, jolting her off her feet. She slammed into a nearby wall, entangled in a sudden mass of scratching claws and moving appendages. The growl that had pressed down on them for so long boiled over, filling her mind and body; suffocating her.

Emily flailed, trying desperately to extricate herself from the freak that so viciously ripped at her flesh, trying to kill her. It was futile, there was no hope. Emily was sure of it. She was going to die, she was too weak to defend herself. It was over.

A powerful fist grabbed hold of the creature, glowing with a burning red light. The creature squealed in pain, writhing and slashing at whoever held it. The smell of burning skin and boiling blood filled the air, as Emily heard the authoritative voice of her handler shout to her again.

“RUN!”

Emily didn't need to be told twice. Scrabbling to her feet, she hobbled her way toward the door as fast as she could. Screams and grunts of pain filled her ears as she ran, slamming herself into the door and flinging it open. She didn’t look back as she barged through it, plunging herself into the light of a streetlamp illuminating a pristine row of buildings and an otherwise abandoned street. Still staggering from her wounds and swimming through rivers of pain, Emily pressed into the night and away from the nightmare behind her. Off in the distance, she could just make out a light, flickering on the horizon, and Emily couldn’t help the feeling that welled up inside her as she saw it; hope.