The corridor led Billy and Isaac toward the east wing of the research complex. Here, gloom and solitude seemed to coexist in eerie harmony. The faint emergency lighting and the glow of control panels bathed the space in a cadaverous gray, and the cold deepened into a dimension that could only be felt in the mind—a frost that gripped the soul. Billy felt the hairs on his arms rise in protest against his decision to press forward. The oppressive strangeness clung to his body like a thin film, suffocating him with every step.
The corridor curved ahead, ending at another doorway under which a thin strip of light spilled out. They entered yet another of the countless underground passageways of this hidden city, where fluorescent lights blazed so brightly from the ceiling that the edges of their surroundings blurred, like a sterile nightmare. Billy squinted, his eyes struggling to adjust to the sudden glare. For the first time, researchers passed them, looking as uniform as factory-built prototypes: brisk, purposeful, and intensely focused, their faces taut with concentration as if their minds were engines running at maximum capacity. They wore lab coats, face masks, goggles, and caps.
The scene dragged Billy back to his days working in the cleanroom of the solar cell factory. The sterile environment was nearly identical, though these workers likely had IQs three times higher, drew salaries from a far loftier pay scale—and tortured and murdered for their jobs.
The corridor stretched on, passing a lab for organic chemistry, a library, and a lecture hall. They had to make another turn to reach the clinical laboratory. What unsettled Billy most at this point was the presence of security personnel patrolling the hallways. Three guards stood chatting near an elevator, researchers spilling out as if freshly assembled.
"Another secret passage?" Isaac asked.
"Looks like it," Billy muttered. "Where do you think it leads?"
Isaac shrugged. "What did the old man say in the car? Many roads lead to Rome, and just as many to the research facility."
They spotted a scientist working intently at a terminal outside a control room where test subjects were being scanned and analyzed. Billy and Isaac stopped for a moment, trying their best not to look like gawking tourists but rather like researchers engaged in an animated discussion about their field. Through the glass, they could see everything happening in the room. For the first time, Billy glimpsed one of their experiments—a being whose chalk-white, calloused, and blistered feet protruded from an MRI machine.
"This is beyond horrific," Billy whispered.
When the scientist walked away, Isaac moved quickly to the terminal, hoping to uncover something useful. The interface displayed a mix of public access and a trove of data about the facility’s various sections and its infrastructure.
"So much for geothermal energy," Isaac muttered. "Look here, the underground complex is connected to the Bona Dea hospital and is clearly powered by a conventional plant."
Billy shook his head. "Nothing is ever what it seems."
Isaac continued navigating the terminal, his hands moving blindly across the keyboard.
"This is starting to look suspicious," Billy warned. "One of the guards is already eyeing us. He suspects something."
"Just give me a second," Isaac replied, forcing a look of intense concentration to match the expressions of the other researchers, as though deep in thought about a complex problem...
... And sometimes, the greatest discoveries come by accident.
"Hey, there’s a database for test subjects," he said, his excitement creeping into his voice.
"Hurry up, or we’re screwed!" Billy hissed.
Isaac scanned the screen rapidly. "It doesn’t take names," he said. "You have to enter a number for one of the GMOs. What the hell is a GMO?"
"It’s right here," Billy said, pointing to the explanation on the screen. "A genetically modified organism."
"Damn it," Isaac cursed under his breath. "How the hell am I supposed to know what number those bastards assigned to Tabitha?"
Billy swallowed hard. The cube, he thought, glancing over his shoulder. The more he looked around, the more he stood out. The trio of armed guards near the elevator was whispering now, throwing furtive glances their way.
"They’re already onto us," Billy murmured.
"I don’t care," Isaac snapped, clenching his fists in frustration.
Billy hesitated for a beat, then pulled the cube from his pocket and activated the hologram. He tried to shield it from the guards’ view, though he knew it was futile.
"Why's this taking so long?" Isaac hissed.
"I’m almost there."
"Hurry up!" Isaac urged, his voice taut with urgency.
"Here it is: Tabitha, GMO number 36738."
Suddenly, someone tapped Billy on the shoulder. He exchanged a startled look with Isaac before mechanically turning to face the scientist behind him. A lanky researcher stood there, nervously twirling a tuft of his reddish goatee, which peeked out from beneath his face mask. His tone was curt, but his words dripped with suspicion.
"Can you show me your ID, please? I’ve never seen you two before, and you look... quite suspicious."
Isaac either didn’t know what to say or chose to outright ignore the pretentious young scientist. Instead, he turned back to the terminal, his fingers flying over the keyboard with purpose.
"Excuse me? Please present your identification."
Billy, sensing Isaac wasn’t going to respond, reached into Isaac’s pocket, retrieved the researcher’s ID badge, flashed it for the briefest moment, and shoved it back into the pocket. He then quickly deactivated the hologram and fiddled nervously with the cube.
"Happy now?" Billy asked, his voice tense.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
The young scientist froze for a moment, then frowned deeply. "You’re sharing a single ID, and it’s for a woman? And I’m supposed to buy that? No, I am not satisfied. Guards! GUARDS!"
He turned and waved toward the security officers, who were already rushing toward them.
Isaac acted without hesitation. He shoved the researcher to the floor and, without a word, grabbed Billy by the wrist, dragging him into a sprint.
Was it fear? Adrenaline? Or perhaps the lingering effects of the numbing, euphoric scent from the entertainment complex? Whatever it was, Billy felt no pain. His body surged with strength he didn’t know he still possessed, allowing him to keep pace with Isaac’s cheetah-like speed, for now.
Their flight was interrupted when a group of researchers emerged from a nearby door, arms laden with stacks of documents. Billy collided with them, sending papers flying in all directions like a snowstorm of data.
"Come on!" Isaac barked, hauling Billy back to his feet.
"Stop right there!" shouted one of the guards.
Luckily for them, the guards weren’t athletes—far from it. They puffed and wheezed as they pursued, evidently unaccustomed to any real exertion. No treadmills or trouble in this underground haven, Billy thought grimly.
He and Isaac rounded a corner, gaining a few precious seconds of distance. Billy rattled the first door he reached—locked.
The next, also locked.
"This way!" Isaac yelled, stopping in front of a door marked 101. He shoved it open and slipped inside. Billy followed close behind, squeezing through the door just as Isaac shut it quietly behind them.
"Did they see us?" Billy whispered, his voice shaking.
"No idea," Isaac panted, bent over with his hands braced on his knees. His breaths came in sharp gasps, his chest heaving. Then, without warning, he gagged. Moments later, Billy followed suit.
"Oh my god," Billy choked out. It wasn’t the grueling chase, his overall deteriorating condition, or the tennis-ball-sized tumor in his gut that brought on the nausea. It was the air itself. His hammering heart begged for oxygen, but what he inhaled was vile.
"God, what is that stench?" Isaac groaned, yanking the hem of his sweater over his nose.
The air was thick and suffocating, a grotesque cocktail of rotting cheese, spoiled eggs, and decayed fish all simmered together in a sealed pot for weeks before being unleashed.
It was unbearable.
But what was far worse than the smell was the sight of its source.
----------------------------------------
What unfolded in Room 101 defied any imagination of true horror. Row upon row of hospital beds lined the space, each holding a hollowed human form, sustained only by a tangle of medical machinery. Ventilators, heart pumps, colostomy bags, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation devices enriched their blood with oxygen outside their broken bodies because their lungs no longer functioned.
This room, reserved for the long-term patients, was quite literally deathly silent, though it housed nearly a hundred people of all nationalities and skin tones. Could Isaac’s wife be among them? Other than the monotone hum of ventilators and the occasional cold beep of heart monitors, there was no sound. Just the faint whisper of Isaac’s voice as he moved through the rows of deathbeds, calling out for his wife in hushed, desperate tones.
"Tabitha... Tab?" he called from the far end of the room, his voice breaking. But there was no reply. "She’s not here!" he said finally, his voice thick with relief. "Thank God, Billyboy, she’s not here. We’ll look somewhere else. But where? The terminal said she was in Room 101, but all that’s here are... living, rotting corpses. Billyboy?"
Billy didn’t answer. He stood frozen before one of the many deathbeds, staring at the grotesquely disfigured woman lying there in a semi-conscious haze.
He knew this woman.
Billy had hit her with his car a little over a week ago in the Brooklyn industrial harbor.
There was no mistaking it.
She was the same woman who had stumbled into the path of his car.
A strange déjà vu hit him, making his head spin. Or was it more like a flashback? He suddenly had the feeling that he knew this woman better than he realized. An image, like a vision, flickered to life in his mind: the two of them sitting together in a cold, antiseptic cafeteria, eating bowls of protein mush. They exchanged a glance, saying nothing.
Had that... actually happened? Was it a memory? Or were the synapses in his brain firing off at random, creating images of a past that had never truly existed?
Billy swallowed hard, suppressing the rising nausea. A tumor the size of a hand stretched from her cheek to her forehead, pushing one of her eyes partially out of its socket so it stared blankly at the ceiling, glazed over and forever open. A thin crust had formed over her cornea.
"Billyboy?" Isaac’s voice broke through the oppressive silence.
Billy had never imagined he’d see her again—especially not here. Lost in thought, he tapped the metal frame of the bed’s number plate with his fingernail, the soft clicking sound grounding him momentarily.
"Billyboy, are you okay?" Isaac had moved closer, resting a hand on his shoulder. "Billy?"
The weight of Isaac’s hand suddenly vanished. Isaac’s eyes followed Billy’s haunted gaze to the person in the bed. When he saw her, he recoiled.
"My God," he whispered, his voice hollow.
If the eyes were truly the window to the soul, then this woman had left nothing behind but an empty shell on the deathbed.
"Oh, God," Isaac murmured, trembling.
Her body was skeletal, her leathery skin hanging in loose folds as if her flesh had turned to liquid beneath. Open sores littered her body, evidence of decay.
"No, no, no," Isaac stammered. "Oh God, NO!!! Tabitha, what have they done to you?!"
Only now—spurred by Isaac’s words—did Billy snap out of his trance. He looked at the bed’s numbered plaque, his eyes widening as he read the label:
GMO 36738
What the hell does that mean? The woman he ran over was the very woman Isaac had been searching for all this time: his Tabitha.
Isaac removed the breathing mask from her face, his trembling hand brushing against her shaven scalp. "We’ll fix this, baby! I promise you, we’ll fix it! Everything will be okay!" His voice cracked as tears filled his eyes, and his facial muscles twitched uncontrollably as though jolted by static.
"I’m so sorry," he whispered. "I’m so terribly sorry. I’ve been looking everywhere for you, my love."
Tabitha muttered incoherently, fragments of sentences about a beautiful September day from a long-forgotten year.
"Don’t you recognize me, darling? It’s me, Abiem. Your husband."
Isaac stared into her cloudy iris, his fingers gently stroking her clammy forehead.
"Can you hear me? I’m going to get you out of here, and then everything will be alright."
Her voice was a collection of sounds, attempts at words, but none of it formed any meaning. Isaac hesitated, then leaned closer, his voice soft and trembling:
"It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea..."
For the first time, Tabitha’s eye shifted toward him, locking onto his tear-streaked face. Isaac grinned weakly, his expression both hopeful and devastated.
"... that a maiden there lived whom you may know, by the name of Annabel Lee."
Tabitha exhaled softly.
It was her final breath.
Billy thought, for a moment, that he saw the faintest trace of a smile on her face. Then her eye stilled, her jaw slackened, and her chest ceased to rise. The ECG flatlined, a single monotone declaring the end.
"No," Isaac whispered. "No. Tabitha."
This time, it was Billy who placed a hand on Isaac’s shoulder. But Isaac flinched away from the touch, withdrawing from it as though even the smallest connection to the living was too much to bear. Instead, he turned back to Tabitha, his trembling hands moving to disconnect the thin tubes still embedded in her veins. He reached for the first of twelve electrodes attached just below her collarbone. But as he tried to peel it off, the adhesive tore away a strip of her fragile skin.
Thick, dark blood oozed sluggishly from the wound—blood no longer driven by a beating heart, already clotting as it seeped from the open gash.
"Oh, God," Billy whispered, horrified.
Isaac froze for a moment before leaving the electrodes where they were. Instead, he carefully unplugged the wires connecting her body to the machines. He didn’t say a word as he worked.
Gingerly, Isaac slipped his arms beneath her frail, lifeless frame and lifted her with surprising ease. Her back, riddled with sores from lying in the same position for so long, rested against his arms. He held her close, his face devoid of tears now, only grim determination. Isaac carried her like a man determined to reclaim what had been stolen from him, like a knight with his fallen queen, intent on delivering her to freedom—even if freedom now lay beyond this world.
But he never made it past the door.
Before he could take a single step, the room's door burst open with a thunderous crash. Armed guards stormed in, their weapons drawn and aimed.
It was too late.
Game over.