With a slight apprehension and a lot of caution Aiden slowly walked up to the huge pile, looking left and right in case he spotted anything threatening, so he could immediately bolt away at the first sign of danger. As he grew closer to the voice, he could definitely hear the sense of fear coming from whoever was trying to communicate with him.

"A-Are you there? P-Please s-speak up. Please."

Aiden hastened his steps a little, but still didn't speak a single word to the entity that spoke to him. Even if the person knew he was already here he didn't want to risk his life if he could just wait for a moment. Still moving at the speed of almost a crawl he moved to the side to check if he could see the person speaking from his new position. Turnes that that he indeed could, but only just a hand. It still was hard to discern it from other corpses surrounding it, but what discerned it from its surroundings was that it moved its fingers a little. But just to be sure he moved just a little more to the left.

"P-Please help. Please don't leave me here."

He definitely didn't want to get any closer, but for now it was the only option in this situation. Even if he wanted to reach directly to the next section, he would have to walk past this heap of bodies, so no matter what the person would see him one way or another. Well, the only thing left for him was just to respond to whoever was calling him.

"I'm here."

"Oh, thank God! Please come help me! We don't have much longer!" - the person responded with much more vigor than before.

Finally, after coming close enough Aiden was greeted with a sight of a dying middle aged man, dressed in lab robes with shattered pair of glasses on his face. How he could discern that he was dying? If anything would point to that, it would be a missing arm still spurting blood on the floor and the obvious paleness showing on his entire skin. At this point Aiden disregarded his own safety and came directly to the sight of the man.

"Are you okay?! Do you need any help?" - he asked. Quite a foolish question, but one that anybody in his situation would ask.

The man at that moment didn't reply, but just grabbed Aiden by his hands and dragged his face closer to him.

"You can't do anything here. I will die before anything could be done. I need you to inform anyone that send you here. 'Project compromised. Abort mission. Facility lost. There is nothing that can be saved. It was mistake even starting this facility.' Remember it! D-Don't forget. COUGH COUGH" At this moment the man started to cough out the blood out of his lungs.

"But I still can cover your injuries. I can sti-"

"Y-You cannot do anything. It will come before you could help me. You h-have to hurry. The exit is just down this hallway. If you run the s-specimen should not even n-notice that you are here."

"What even happened here?! Tell me at least this much!"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"To little time. RUN. SAVE YOURSELF" - the man suddenly shouted, and almost instinctively I followed his order.

I once again ran without a care about how load I was. Not looking back at the man, or the heap of bodies, or anything that this place hided from me. I run and run with a new found energy in my body, passing by more debris and puddles of blood. I now had time to wonder what had occured there. Why was there just a giant pile of bodies? Was it functioning as a supply for the monster? As a trophy of a hunt? And why didn't it smell? It should be rancid at that place, but it wasn't, not a thing. And why would the man there still be alive? It must have been some time when the outbreak happened. Shouldn't already be dead in that case? Even if he could survive, why would the monster leave the man alive? To toy with him? Then why didn't it leave more for itself? Well, no matter. He should just focus on escaping and then worry about what happened here.

After some time he finally reached the end of corridor and as the man said there was an emergency door at the end of it. But there was a small complication. There was some kind of contraption that served an unknown purpose next to it. It looked like a hole with a glove used to make tests on isolated small animals. But it wasn't see through and instead of a box it was directly mounted into the wall. The other problem was that there was no obvious door handle that could open the door.

What should he do now. The way back was obviously not accessable, because of the danger the man spoke of, but there was also no visible way forward. Should he just stick his hand into the hole? But what was supposed to happen then?

Aiden would ponder on it a little longer if not for a sudden voice behind him. It wasn't loud by any means, but in the total silence of his surroundings it was very noticeable. A wet splouching sound, like a giant disgusting snail moving.

He didn't even try to look behind himself and immediately sticked his hand into the wall. He felt a little prickle on his finger, but the pain was dimmed by the sense of dread he felt. Then a voice resounded from the unseen speaker.

"HUMAN DETECTED. PLEASE HEAD TO THE EXIT."

After it the doors opened revealing the same structure of depressurizing chamber as the time he entered here. The intensity of the voice also raised.

Aiden without a moment sprinted into the room and hit the button with all of his force. The doors behind him closed with a loud click and the process of depressurizing began. Flooding the chamber with ocean water. He could not hear anything behind himself, but it was probably silenced by all of the noice around him. Then the doors to the rest of the ocean opened.

He was free from the nightmarish facility. Aiden relished in the feeling for a moment or two, to calm his beating heart. But, unfortunately it didn't last long. He must immediately report this to his superiors, to inform them of what happened him. There could still be hope that someone else had survived there. He wasted no time coming back to the zip line he previously installed near the cliff and found his way back at the top of it. He could finally establish contact.

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Deep under the ocean's surface in the abandoned facility a curious scene could be seen. A dying man standing upright gazing at the unintresting ceiling. Near him was a reddish puddle, covering the entire floor he was standing on.

"He shall do a fine job." - the man said with an emotionless voice.

Just after he said that he fell down onto the floor, spread out as much as he could.

"Someday everyone will join." - the man said as all of his features melted away. Starting from eyes, followed by his tongue, then skin, then flesh and at the end all of his bones, joining the puddle as a part of it.

At the same time, just a few hundred meters away from the facility a man was standing facing away from it, speaking through his comms to the man he served. Everything would be normal if not for the slightest movement coming from just the back of his neck, seemingly alien, but perfectly integrated with the rest of the suit, trying to blend to the best of its abilities. A few moments later it ceased all movement, perfectly mimicing the suits surface, waiting for the right moment, for a good time.

Soon