Carl was not happy. His career was hanging by a thread at this point. He had slept through an attempted break in and had let slip some confidential information when drunk. Yet the director of this facility was a friend of his and decided to give him one last chance. This was it, he was sent to the farthest corner of the facility to watch over the project from one of the two local madmen. Of course, it’s the one that terrifies him the most.

The two local madmen are the brother superstars of this facility. John and Jack Lavern, the most famous scientists on this side of the planet at the moment. John is the mastermind of chemical science while Jack is the pioneer of interdimensional travel. John is the creepiest fucker on the planet. The man only wears gray. He is always breathing heavily and is disturbingly skinny. Carl has never even seen his brother, but this didn’t surprise him. Jack’s lab is on the other side of the facility anyway.

Now Carl is stuck watching one of John’s newest creations with the newest stuff brought back from the other side. Not only is it extremely boring, but if he screws up this time he knows there wont be another chance and he isn’t entirely sure he wants to find out what the severance package is for what has to be an illegal facility. He shifted himself in his chair to try and regain some feeling in his ass. He had been given the midnight shift for a position that normally doesn’t have one. Carl knew that the director only did this to keep him out of trouble and out of sight for a while. But it still sucks.

Carl sat back in his chair and pulled out his smart pad. He powered up the screen and flicked around till he started a movie. There really wasn’t anything to do since no one was in this part of the building anyway so he just relaxed and sipped his mug of coffee while enjoying one of his favorite kung fu movies.

He was just getting to the good part before he heard something.

*CRASH*

*SMASH*

*SCRAPE*

*CRASH*

“SHIT!” Carl screamed as he tossed his smartpad onto the console and ran out of the door. He ignored procedure and cycled the airlock by overriding the lock with his security code without engaging the biosensors. The airlock cycled as he was freaking out, trying to figure out what the hell happened and if they would blame him for it. He was the guard but no one had come through the doors and it was impossible to get in there any other way. Carl was so worried he forgot one of the most important procedures put in place. He entered the lab without a hazmat suit. John had put up no such procedure so the director had to. John was more than happy to see what effect his creations would have on live subjects. Anyone stupid enough to come into contact with one of his concoctions deserved to be a test subject in his eyes.

He whipped out his flashlight and scanned the room with his eyes trying to find the source of the sounds he heard. He was getting more and more paranoid until he looked down and saw all the broken glass next to the table with all the disassembled robots on it. He looked everywhere but didn’t see anything out of place other than the broken glass on the floor. He approached the table and looked at all the scattered pieces. He noticed the partially disassembled device leaking black fluid and reached over. Tilted it back so the goop would stop leaking onto the table and stay in the device. Making sure to not let the black goop touch him anywhere. He decided to just record it in the log and report it tomorrow to the next guy. He was just going to say one of the scientists in there didn’t put things away properly. He returned to the airlock feeling pretty good about his handling of this situation. Until he got into the airlock and saw the space where he was supposed to put his used hazmat suit for de-contamination. With a deadpan expression he cycled the airlock and went back to his post, collapsing in his chair. The sounds from the movie played in the background but he could barely hear it. The sounds of a girl screaming “CHOSEN ONE!” in the background used to always cheer him up. He took out a report a filled it out and then shoved the matter to the back of his mind.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

‘I didn’t come into contact with any chemicals and I didn’t smell anything so I should be fine right? Besides even though I don’t know what they are working on I’m pretty sure its not gaseous. They had none of the equipment in there for that. Yeah, im fine.’

He accepted that and shoved that to the back of his mind. Picking up his smartpad he turned his attention and laughed at the guy stuck in a tiny net.

Not noticing something crawling out of his hair or the small black stain drying on the sleeve of his shirt.

_______________________

I waited until the guard was fully absorbed into his movie before leaving. I moved carefully off his head and down his back. I left the room as soon as I reached the floor and found myself in a very long and wide tunnel.

I looked around and realized I must be in some sort of bunker. I wonder how deep underground I am.

The hallways was long and straight so it didn’t take much walking in a straight line to get bored. Along the way I ended up practicing my abilities. I tested the range of my shapeshifting once again. I also tried to create a new organ inside my body. I wanted to be able to talk, even if I am tiny right now. Hopefully I can get big enough in the future to interact normally with people. Plus there was nothing else to do, so I started by trying to remember everything I could about vocal cords and how some animals talk.

From what I can remember from my life before ‘this’ I was just out of high school. I had just gotten into college, I cant remember what I was studying to be. But I remember I had a friend that wanted to be a doctor but couldn’t afford medical school. I used to help them study to try and get a scholarship. While I helped them study they would always bring up random interesting facts about the human body. Most of these facts were useless to me at the moment. I remember the last study session we had they had said something about how we were able to talk. Apparently it requires three things. Lungs, voice box and articulators. The lungs create the airflow while the voice box creates the tone and pitch. The ‘articulators’ are pretty much the mouth(Tongue, cheeks, lips) That further shape the sounds into words. I started with just a mouth, esophagus and lungs, I haven’t needed to breathe since I woke up so I have to get used to breathing again. Once I had that in place I then started creating the all the parts of the voice box. When I had everything fully formed and in place I tested it out.

“STSTTSSTSTBTSPTBPTBPSTBPSPBSTPBPSBP” All I succeeded in doing was blowing a raspberry.

I wasn’t entirely sure how to structure the muscles in my new mouth so I ended up with a bit of a lisp. The voice box that I had made tuned out to not be formed properly either. The muscles inside kept ripping and falling apart. The only thing that worked properly were the lungs I had made. I fiddled around with the organs to try and get them working. By the time I had reached the end of the hall I was so frustrated I gave up and decided to try again later. I made sure no one was coming down the intersecting hallway before walking out. This hallway had only one room that was marked ANIMAL TESTING. I looked behind me and there was only a couple doors before the hallway just ended. The labels were too far away to read and I was more focused on getting out of here than exploring anyway. I continued down the hallway with the animal testing room.

As I passed the animal testing room I started feeling sluggish. Something about this room was making me want to go in. I heard a grumble and it took me a bit to realize that It was me. Apparently, I do have a stomach. I turned and looked at the door.

And I am very hungry.