I ran, I’m not proud of that fact, but what else could I do? There’re some things that you just have to fucking run from. I mean, so what if I left all of them to die? It’s not my fucking fault that they couldn’t run fast enough.
It’s still there, always a fucking step behind. I don’t know if it’s doing it to tease me, as if it’s waiting to swallow its meal whole, waiting to devour my flesh, peel off my goddamn bones; but it doesn’t matter. I have to keep going.
Alright, look, let me start from the top, I don’t need to justify things to you. We are, were, a research team. Top of the line, classified-type-shit. I wasn’t one of the researchers, didn’t know enough technical jargon for any of that, I was the guy they put in the room with the dangerous things. Not exactly ethical, or whatever, but it paid really well, so what did I care? So I manned the station, made sure all of their machines were running according to their diagnostics, fixed things up the way they taught me to if necessary.
I didn’t really know what they were doing until one of the last tests. They were…Opening something. They said I needed to know in-case something went wrong and I had to handle it. So they were opening something, and they described it like a bottle of pickles, where they didn’t really know if they were somehow holding the bottle sideways, or holding it the way they wanted to. Evidently, they had the thing fucking upside down, but that’s besides the point for the moment.
So, they were opening a bottle, something filled with an uncertain substance. I don’t know why, didn’t fucking care, I just wanted the thousands of dollars in-cash they gave me every week (free of tax; didn’t think about that shit either). Everything was fine, at first. Their trial test went perfectly, I stood in the room as a weird black dot appeared on the wall, there weren’t any flashy lasers, just a big whirring machine. I got to go home a few thousand dollars richer, and get myself a nice fancy meal, everything was great. But that’s not really what you’re here for, now is it?
Their second test went a bit stranger. The dot was red, it was a bit larger, think lollypop versus basketball type-size change. I can’t really describe what I saw in that hole. It was a pinprick, but looking at it itched. Like watching a movie at five o’clock in the morning when you haven’t gotten any sleep. Something about it just warped, the context was changed by the lack of coherency surrounding it; that’s the best I’ve got for you.
It was the third test. I walked in, signed in to the lab with my badge as was the norm; only this time they were handing me a weapon. A standard pistol, fully loaded, safety off. I should’ve turned right the fuck around, and walked out. That should’ve been my clue that things were about to go down. But no, I was greedy and fucking stupid, only thinking about the money.
This is what I remember about that day:
“Doors unlocked, you’re free to move in #436,”
The door before me buzzed, a red light above flashing green. Holding the pistol in my left hand, I pushed the door open, and walked inside. The machine was already whirring, all of its wires spooling outwards, and that small pinprick pointed at the opposite wall.
“I’m in position,” I reported, staring towards the blue tape marking where I needed to stand.
“Copy, stay on stand-by, operation commencing,”
The steady whirring of the machine grew louder, and I was left to stare towards the opposite wall, where the faintest of black dots began to grow larger. I watched as an inky darkness made itself known, spooling out as if the darkness was turning into a greedy, lapping fog. Some sort of commotion made my eyes glance towards panels of glass; the thin layer separating me from the scientists. One of the men had stepped back, and was staring towards the wall in absolute horror.
“Standard Defense Procedures necessary, take aim,”
I’d been debriefed on the necessary procedure only an hour before, by phone call, before I made it to the lab. My pistol rose up, and I aimed it unsteadily towards the inky darkness that was moving its way forwards.
“What the hell is going on?” I demanded into the radio, watching that dark hole grow larger; I gained no reply.
The sound of something wet slapping onto the floor met my ears from the obsidian graze before me. I took a step back, and the sound echoed. That was when the head pushed its way from the darkness.
It had human eyes, that was what struck me first. Piercing blue looked towards me from the front of its skull, before the mouth steadily started to open. It lacked teeth entirely, with pools of drool leaking from a mouth that better belonged on a canine. Flaps of flesh billowed out from around the gums as it let out a wet, sopping sob. Another wet slapping sound made itself known, as it took another step forwards.
Below the head of the beast, its body was split in two. Long drooping tendrils of flesh barely winding themselves together, muscles pulsing with a mucus-like membrane, and claws. I stared towards the bones of human fingers, spinning around one another, with a strange, tongue-like orifice at the bottom, sprawling itself outwards like a fucking web.
The thing didn’t move like any creature should. Each step seemed to pain it, its body pulling out of place, limbs splintering with each step. But I could see something, something lurking inside all of that ruined flesh. Something that made my gun grow still, and my finger quiver over the trigger.
It wore my fucking face, in the center of all of that skin. Each time more blood poured outwards, in the center of its body, I saw my fucking self. It screamed in silent agony, I screamed in silent agony, body being rended apart by the thing that I was trapped inside of.
What was I supposed to do? You can’t tell me you’d have the courage to shoot your own face. I stared towards the scientists, towards that window, and I pulled the trigger. It took two or three shots to shatter the glass, but when I did, I dashed past the creature and straight into the terminal room. My hand was pierced with glass from vaulting over the rim, but that didn’t matter, I started running.
My badge unlocked the room beyond, and screaming echoed out from behind me. Those sounds…The sounds that I heard coming from that room as I ran; they still haunt me. Each time that I manage to sleep, as my body collapses, I hear them in my dreams. I can hardly imagine what must’ve happened to them, but…But I have to keep running, right? I don’t think I could kill it, even if I tried.
I don’t expect you to believe me, I don’t care if you do, or if you don’t. I just need to get this out there, because I don’t know what to do. I can’t keep running like this forever, one day I’ll slip up, and I’ll find myself confronted by my worst nightmare. Maybe that’s why it wears my face in the middle of its body; maybe this is just my fate, some inevitability that’s waiting for me at the end of all of this.