Ji-Min was confused about what was happening. One moment she was yelling at Jade and her team, and then she's in a crumbling room that appeared abandoned.
"Hello?" Ji-Min carefully called out, looking at the various items that were strewn about in the room.
Chairs were scattered about, some of them with bent legs or missing cushions. Tiles covered the walls, and the floor was cracked linoleum. Looking at the ceiling, Ji-Min noticed what looked like black mold large enough to indicate how long this room hadn't been used. There was a doorway leading to a dark area. The light was coming through a couple of frosted windows, making it difficult to see what was outside.
Walking over to the windows and seeing places where the cracks left behind holes, Ji-Min wondered whether she'd be able to see any clues that'll reveal her current location.
Lifting her hand to try and make the holes better to see through, a sight surprised her from her current issue. Instead of the darkened material of the suit, Ji-Min was looking at the back of her hand. Looking down, Ji-Min saw that she was wearing a plain medical gown.
"What happened to my suit?!" She thought in panic. Touching the medical gown, she asked, "Did I lose consciousness in that cave? But this doesn't appear like the Facility."
There was an intense pain from her using her right hand to pinch her left arm. From the throbbing feeling from her forearm, Ji-Min understood that she wasn't dreaming. The fabric brushing against her skin also felt real, making her feel confused about her surroundings.
Holding herself, she tried to organize her thoughts. If she was no longer inside that cave, then it was a good thing. There was a trembling of her body, thinking of all that had happened.
"Why did you have to get eaten," Ji-Min murmured, feeling a mixture of sadness and anger directed at Jason. She could feel the tears beginning to form and drip down her cheeks. "You promised...," The words became stuck in her throat.
Letting go of herself, Ji-Min slapped her cheeks. "This isn't the time to feel sorry for yourself. Let's figure out what's going on."
Moving to the window and looking through one of the holes, her eyes were blinded by the light. Blinking her eyes and trying to adjust, she soon saw a forest of trees though none of them had leaves left on the branches. Judging by how far she could see the forest top, there was a high likelihood that she was several stories up in some building. But looking off in the distance, there was no indication of civilization existing. She tried to think about where she could be, but after racking her brain, Ji-Min didn't remember a lone building in the middle of a forest.
"Could I have been unconscious for several days?" Ji-Min thought as she moved away from the window.
The crunch of glass and scattered leaves seemed to echo in the room as she moved away from the window. Looking down, Ji-Min brushed the broken glass and leaves away from her. Seeing the cracked floor, Ji-Min felt like she needed to think of a plan, but nothing was coming to mind. Doing such a minor action helped her process where she was even if it accomplished nothing.
Remembering what was behind her, Ji-Min turned to look at the doorway. The hallway looked similar to the room aside from the darkness due to the lack of light. Looking up, she did notice lights often seen in offices, where the tray had the bulb and was chained to the ceiling.
With everything around her, it was not likely that the lights were functional. This meant that going into the hallway would mean having her vision impaired.
"What else are you going to do?" Ji-Min chastised herself. She remembered all the training she did to fight those Modified Humans and tried to convince herself that she was a brave person. Being alone in a separate building was nothing compared to being inside of that cave.
Thinking about the cave made her giggle a little, but she was able to hold it down. Using one of her hands, Ji-Min held the side of her head and gritted her teeth. It was going to be a while before she would no longer have those images in her mind, but being in a new location made it better for her.
Continuing to hold her head on one side, she shuffled to the door and exited the room. With her other hand, Ji-Min stabilized herself and looked at both ends of the hall. Coming from a lighted area to a darkened one, everything seemed darker as if outside of the room was night.
"Is this the only room on this floor?" Ji-Min asked to herself, noticing the lack of light coming from outside.
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At her feet, she saw the light from outside leaking out of the room, but it was the only one. Seeing such a sight made her cautious about leaving the room.
"Come on, Ji-Min! The doors to the other rooms are probably closed. This one just happens to not have a door. Stop being a baby!" She said to herself in a stern and no-nonsense voice.
With one hand on the wall, Ji-Min walked out of the room and into the darkness. Her feet leaving the lighted area was something she noticed, a voice inside of her that said how there would be no light.
As she walked, Ji-Min felt the cold and smooth feeling of the tiles. The pattern of flat and then the quick rough line of the grout helped to get her in a rhythm. Occasionally, she would feel the sharp edge due to the tile being cracked and Ji-Min would reflexly jerk her hand away. Without her hand on the wall, guiding her and swallowed by the dark, Ji-Min would quickly place her hand back on the wall. Her heart would thud in her chest as she felt the reassurance of the wall.
Looking back, Ji-Min saw the slanted rectangular shape of light that came out of the room she left behind. Due to the place and her adjusting to the dark, Ji-Min could make out rough outlines of a couple of chairs and paperwork strewn across the floor. The white paperwork helped catch some of the light. Though as she moved deeper into the darkness, the reassurance of the light proportionately faded away.
Feeling herself shiver, Ji-Min tried to reassure herself, "I just need to find a stairway and get to the lower levels. It'll take some time, but if I go slowly, then I'll be out of here." Ji-Min jumped when her leg light tapped against something.
Adrenaline flowed through her veins as she tried to fight against the panic. With her hand that held her head, she lowered her body and used her hand to touch what she had run into. Reaching out into the darkness, she felt her hands shake ever so slightly, but soon she felt the cold touch of polished metal with patches of rust on it.
Sighing in relief, Ji-Min berated herself, "It's just a chair. Damn it, Ji-Min, when are you going to grow up?!"
Pushing the chair away from the wall, it moved a little before coming to a halt. As she grunted with effort, Ji-Min was unable to make the chair move any further.
"Shit. There must be another chair preventing it from moving." Ji-Min said in a quiet voice.
Looking back at where the light used to be, Ji-Min wished that her current predicament had happened sooner so she could see what was happening. Without knowing the shape of the chair, Ji-Min didn't want to risk trying to go over it. The problem was that she would need to let go of the wall as she went around the chair. With both hands, navigating her way around the obstacle would be necessary.
Feeling the tile, it felt like her hand refused to move. Even though the process of going around the chair would be short, Ji-Min couldn't bring herself to move away from the only sense of direction she currently had.
"Ji-Min. This is a hallway, and it isn't that wide. You can just touch the other side if you have to, so let's go." Ji-Min said to herself.
Taking her hand off the wall and reaching down the touch the chair, she slowly made her around the object. With the help of her hands, an image of the chair began to form in her mind. It was like all the other ones that she had seen previously.
Ji-Min could feel the weight of the darkness pressing against her body, making her breathing shallow and irregular. With both hands on the bottom seat of the chair, she had one of her feet probe the darkness. Feeling the wooden backrest with her foot, she stretched until she found the tile floor again.
Letting out a big sigh of relief, Ji-Min crossed over the chair and safely made it to the other side. Now that she was past the obstruction, her arms searched for the reassuring tiled wall. Taking baby steps towards where the wall was, her heart beat fast the longer she didn't feel the wall.
"Use the chair," Ji-Min said, realizing that she could just use the chair to guide her back.
Crouching to touch the chair, her stomach dropped when she didn't feel the chair where it should have been. "Where is it?" Ji-Min spoke out in a shrill voice. "It should be right here!" She adamantly said. Not wanting to think of any other scenarios.
Shuffling her feet over to where the chair should be, Ji-Min was still unable to feel the reassuring polished metal. Beginning to panic, Ji-Min started to giggling which grew louder the longer she was unable to feel anything but the dark.
As she frantically searched in the darkness looking for either the wall or chair and giggling in the dark that Ji-Min realized she wasn't the only one laughing in the dark.