After once again looking over every desk to check if he didn't miss anything, checking every computer with hope for more information, unfortunately for him Aiden confirmed that he indeed salvaged the place clean. He decided to hasten and try to reach the exit as fast as possible. Walking down the staircase, passing by many pieces of debris, metal fragments and few blood puddles, he once again reached the main floor.
It was as cold and as dead as before. The same destroyed furniture, fragments of walls still covering the majority of this floor's surface and nothing of importance in sight. Picked clean, you could almost say, if not for obvious damages to the whole infrastructure. But there is something odd here....
At this moment he noticed that things have changed, while he was upstairs. He couldn't exactly point out what happened, but there was definitely something missing. Like the whole atmosphere of this place was lacking one piece, that someone stole away. This couldn't be a good sign.
Looking around he tried to pinpoint what could be different about this room, anything really that could shed away his unconfortable feelings, but no matter how much he tried to, he could not spot a thing, even after staring for a while.
Standing still for several more moments, Aiden gave up on this endeavour, seeing no point in continuing wasting his time, and walked towards the gateway of this part of facility. Just when he stepped past the doors, he decided to give the room one last look before he left for the exit and turned around. That's when he finally saw what he should have spotted from the start.
The many blood puddles that were covering the bottom of the floor were completely missing, vanished in mere minutes he took his time upstairs.
Cold sweat started to run down his neck and forehead drenching him completely. His heart rate quickened to the point that he could directly hear it. His legs began to shake, so much that he almost could not stand straight. His feet were rooted to the ground and he wasn't able to move even an inch. He was petrified. Aiden felt as if the temperature dropped to negatives. He couldn't even formulate a single thought.
Standing still for as long as needed, he waited for any kind of signal that would force him to run away. Not moving, in case that whatever got rid of the puddles was still near him, or close enough to hear his reactions. Fearing that even the slightest movement would give him away. He even stopped breathing, such was his fear at the moment.
He waited and waited for what felt like hours in complete silence, broken only by his occasional gasps for air, forced onto him by his desperate body. It felt like the entire world was frozen in time, just to showcase the tension that Aiden was experiencing.
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But no matter what, nothing happened. No movement, no sound, complete dead lack of anything wrong. Not even a slightest creak from surrounding him structure. Just silence.
Slowly getting his bearings back he takes one small step behind him. Waiting some more and seeing that nothing reacts, he makes another step. And another, faster, with more energy, until it finally transforms into mad sprint towards the next area, to escape as fast as possible from the invisible danger.
Not bothering with avoiding any obstacles or not making any sound, he ran with the fervor of enraged bull, often almost tripping on pieces of destroyed objects, or even just fallen over equipment. Not even trying to stop when he reached his first intersection, he just turned left, almost running into the wall.
He finally slowed down after feeling his lungs burning and legs giving away. Not beeing able to support his weight, which in turn made him even more clumsy than before, he at last fell down by stumbling on something.
Laying down on the floor without any strength, Aiden started to see black spots in the corner of his vision. Slowly but surely, they started to encompass his entire sight.
'No! I can't lose consciousness right now! What if something is chasing me, gaining on me for every second I rest. No, I can't. I must fight back. I must...."
His mind was embraced by darkness.
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Opening his eyes the first thing he saw as he woke up was floor. Not feeling any need to stand he just continued to lay down and feel all of his strained muscles. Not even saying about the splitting headache he was experiencing. He just couldn't muster a will to do anything.
"!!!"
Suddenly jumping onto his feet, despite the pain, he looked around to check his surroundings. It was the same kind of corridor as before, the same walls, doors and debris laying on the floor. The same desolate atmosphere, sucking away at the spirit within him. And the same silence that greeted him the first time he came here.
'Nothing caught up to me, huh? Did anything even chase me to begin with? Was it just a delusion?'
Aiden asked himself, through sheer shock that nothing happened to him, while he was out cold. But then what could have cleaned up all that blood, that definitely wasn't something he imagined. Why didn't he see anything and why didn't it try to catch him even though it probably whiped out the entire station?
Sitting down, to calm down and stabilize himself, he took out some of the snacks he took from the few offices he investigated earlier and ate them like a starved animal. Turnes out that running like a maniac for an unknown amount of time really burnes the energy.
'So, a few questions answered, and a few more poppes out a moment after.'
He sits for a few more moments to be sure that he is at the peak of his strength and when he feels that he is ready to move on he stands up and checks where did he ended up in.
According to the numbers on the doors, and a few signs littering the floor he should be almost at the containment unit. Which is rather impressive, because the distance between his previous location and current one is almost four miles. He ran for four straight miles at the top of his speed and was still able to move afterwords.
The design of this facility is definitely flawed. Or they had some small vehicles stashed away to easy transportation, because there is no way that anyone could navigate through this facility without going crazy. Maybe all of the workers were enhanced in some way? Another question added to the list of this place's mysteries.