Stepping down into the underground passage, I find myself faced once again with the grotesque creatures still feasting on carcasses. Now that I wield this surgical instrument, I felt a certain ease within myself. I stepped closer, aggravating the nearest creature. It began to lunge at me. As if the muscles in my receptors had flared up, I swung the instrument straight at the creature, slicing it in half. It's entrails spilled onto the floor along with it's now severed corpse. The other two creatures hissed at me and attacked. I backed up when another lunged, missing as it sunk it's disfigured jaws into my leg. Blood drew from the wound. I thrust the instrument down to cut clean into the creature, bringing it up and smacking the third one with its corpse launching off of the blade. The walls were showered with blood. The third creature hit the door and landed onto the floor. The crunching of small bones echoed throughout the tunnel. It let out a shrill screech. I got closer, hilt clutched tightly to the instrument and raised it, bringing it down and decapitating the creature. Its head rolled off, blood spurting from the neck area as its corpse fell flat. The instrument was coated in a crimson tone. Not much of its dull gray blade was visible now. I had no methods of wrapping up the bite mark so I let it go for now. I wasn't losing much blood from the wound after all.

Finally I reached the door. I still did my best to step over the many corpses littering the ground. There were handles built into the doors. I reached for one and yanked on it. Steam billowed out from the side as the door slid open. It was so dark and there was no light source inside except for a single dim red light in the distance. I palmed the wall nearby until I could feel a switch. Flicking it sparked a series of ceiling lamps. There was but a single room ahead of me. This area had nothing inside but I kept the instrument ready to swing. A device was connected to the doors for the other room. A single cord with a sharp needle on the end hung from the panel with the red screen. I grabbed the cord, unsure of where it would go. I tried jabbing it into my arm but nothing. I then tried my chest region. Nothing either. To take a page from my time in Manus, I then jabbed the needle into the side of my head, the needle just barely touching my brain. The screen flashed green and the doors opened up for me. Phew. I plucked the needle out. The holes left inside of my skin closed up soon enough but the bite wound still remained. Guess it's too big for my skin to conceal. I found myself in some sort of laboratory. There was a lab table with a small machine attached to the right side. A shelf lined with bits and parts. A desk with a blank terminal that had wires coming out from behind it all the way over to the machine at the table. On the wall was a tall rectangular device containing a tube wrapped up inside and a glass vial filled with blood, the device was marked with a red cross symbol inside a circle on the top portion. I wanted to see what this device was first. I grabbed the tube, examining the bronze claw at the end. I pressed it to my chest and pressed the button. The claw sunk its self into my skin and I felt my chest being opened and something entering the cavity to then start pumping blood into me. The bite mark began to seal up and the bleeding stopped. My cavity sealed shut once the claw had detached itself. Now I was feeling rejuvenated. So this device was a healing apparatus. How interesting. Nevertheless it seemed to do the trick in fixing the wound inflicted upon me by that creature. Only thing left now was to check this machine out. Judging by what I saw, someone would lie on this table and slot their arm into the machine? It was round and quite long in design. Was this designed for...?

I lied down on the table and gently set my arm down on the platform where the machine was. My wrist and the Key were in position. I leaned up to turn the knob on the machine and pressed the two buttons next to the knob before lying back down. The machine sputtered. Those circular appendages began turning. I couldn't move my arm even a centimeter. Tiny mechanical arms crawled out of the machine and started picking at the Key on my wrist; Tearing it apart and messing around with its inner workings. Each time the arms scraped its minuscule blade against my skin I jittered. And then before I knew it... The process was over. The mechanical arms retracted into the machine and the appendages stopped their rotation. I swiftly extracted my arm from within the machine and pressed down on my skin. Activating the Key popped out an alteration of its original design. Now it had become a corkscrew instead of a simple needle. This machine changed the Key entirely from within? It still looked the same. Functioned the same. The key itself was different now though. I just had even more questions. Why was something like this here? I stood back up to leave this place.

Here I stood once again. Back inside of the first building I entered upon entering this district. The sacks hanging from the walls had not yet burst to my surprise. I took the Key and slotted it into the device near the locked doors and turned. A clicking sound followed with the sliding of the doors opening up before me. All this time I kept wondering why this place was covered in the crimson growth. I was about to find my answer. Inside the formerly locked room was a gaping hole in the flooring, presumably closed up as a rusted metal door was left halfway open, halted by a pulsating chunk of the growth. The tendrils poured out from inside this basement and had spread everywhere here. A few corpses were pinned to the floor and walls by the tendrils. The growth had even covered lab equipment, tables, chairs and the console connected to the basement door. The only way left to go was down. Down into the hole where the growth was sprouting. A rickety ladder descended down into the black abyss below. I lowered myself onto the ladder and climbed down. Each step down I could feel the ladder shutter and hear the creaking of the rotting steel.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The growth was all over the walls and even smaller, thinner strands of sinew wrapped around parts of the ladder. It didn't impede my progress climbing down at least. My only sources of light were small lanterns in the walls near the ladder. I could hear what sounded like wet, sloshing blood pumping through an artery system. Faint moans echoed from below. I didn't like any of this. Once I set foot onto the cold, steel floor I dreaded turning around. Just in case, I readied the instrument before turning around. I was in complete disbelief at what I was seeing.

A wide open room about half the size of the factory was completely shrouded in the crimson growth. Tendrils of all sizes covered the walls. Pulsating tumors amongst the growth were much bigger then those above on the surface. Dozens of red tubes across the ceiling were pumping blood through them down into the machine at the center of the room. What looked to be the catalyst for the growth. The machine had various gauges and wires strewn about. A single, massive postulating mess of tender red flesh had overtaken the machine. From within the flesh was a humanoid figure encased inside, hooked up to the machine via cords. The overgrown tubes were pumping blood into a container connected to the machine. Smaller tubes were inserted into the disfigured limbs of the humanoid. Its face only consisted of a single normal eye while the other had become absorbed by the flesh growth. Much of its body had been absorbed by this point it seemed. Tendrils were splayed across the floors in nearly every direction. Only a narrow path was opened for me but still required me to step over some of the growth.

I got closer to the figure. Its head could not move but its singular functioning eye began scanning me the closer I got. All around me I could hear the pulsating flesh and the sloshing blood. The moans had ceased however. What really horrified me were the many sacks lining the walls of this hive-like overgrowth. Many had burst as more of the creatures both small and larger were scattering all over the floors and climbing around the walls. When I finally got as close as I needed to be to the humanoid, its gaze was fixated on me. It's one functioning arm slowly lifted to point at me.

"One that lives?"

It spoke with a deep tone.

"Why... Have you come? How... Are you living?"

This was my first encounter with a living humanoid. And it spoke to me. I could not speak, however. So I simply shrugged and pointed at my skull, shaking my head.

"You do not know then."

It understood me.

"Do you not see? All around you... The rot spreads. One's 'experiment' and extraction of an unknown substance... Led to the birth of the rot."

Experiment? Unknown substance? Rot?

"Gaze upon me, nameless one. I do not know what you seek here... But the rot will consume you soon. You... Must have purpose... If you live while the rest reek of death and decay."

It must be referring to the corpses I keep seeing. Why am I the only one living? Besides... This thing.

"Heed my warning. Leave. Beyond me lies... A path elsewhere. The rot spreads everywhere. That device... On your wrist... Use it. The door. Leave this place. Do not... Come... Back..."

If I could speak then I'd have so many questions. But it was clear to me that this place was dangerous with all the creatures about. I nodded and started to make my way past him. While I twisted my limbs just trying to get around the rot, it spoke once more;

"My lifeline... Sever it. From behind... On the machine. Before you leave... Please..."

I turned around to see the tubes pumping blood into the machine. It... Wanted me to cut them? With my instrument in hand I stepped over to the backside of the machine. If this is what it wants... And I swung the instrument, cutting right through the tubes. Blood spilled out from the severed tubes onto the floor. Before I knew it, the creatures started to make their way towards me. A gargantuan mother with flailing tits underneath jumped from the wall onto the floor just over near where I was standing. It screeched and hissed. I began to panic and run for the door.

"Bliss... Serenity... Peace..."

The humanoids' last words echoed towards me. I took my Key and stuck it into the device and turned. The door creaked open leading down a long, dark tunnel with very dim lights. I turned the Key once more, extracted it and ran. The creatures scurried my way until the door shut, locking them inside. Even inside of here, the rot had made it's home inside the tunnel. All I could do now was leave this place for good while the scratching of claws against steel rang out from behind the closed door.