I was a scientist at Eurofins laboratory in Athens, Greece. A few years ago, I was assigned to a new task: running tests for a plausible cure for worldwide diseases such as Huntington’s disease, or cancer. I was paired up with an employee I hardly knew, as he had just transferred over to the lab. At first, I was annoyed we were put on such a task, as I was certain we would never find any solution to these diseases. For awhile we ran tests and experiments that the lab provided for us, and we never found any benefit out of our procedures. Something changed from all this yesterday. I was writing notes in my office, when my partner practically bull charged me, his eyes wider than ever. He was always quite awkward, so a situation like this startled me.
“I’m onto something. Something big. I think I found a cure.” He whispered, spitting and sweating on me from his anxious nature. “Back up man.” I yelped. “So you’ve found a cure? How big?” He licked his extremely dry lips as I questioned him. “I’ve been doing my own experiments at home, away from the lab. For years I was experimenting with everything I had to try and find a cure.”
He stared at me like a psychopath. “Go on..” I asked. “Not here.” He said. “You have to come see it for yourself. Today after work.” He slipped out the doors as I continued my notes. I was intrigued by what he could have found.
Around 9:00 PM, I pulled into his driveway. He didn’t have the house I was expecting for being such a high-class scientist. It was a shoddy, broken-down looking suburban home. His chimney had a large crack in it and his windows were barred. I knocked at his door and waited for a long time, before he finally opened the door. He was wearing a black trench coat with gloves, and black pants that made him look taller than usual. His face was beading sweat more than before, and his glasses looked like they were about explode from the pressure of his face. “Come in, quick.” He said.
We reached his damp and depressing basement, where he guided me to his lab experiment. I saw many fascinating things, but the most impressive thing was right in front of me. What I saw in the blood sample of all the disease the lab had gave us, he had manage to rid almost a quarter of them out of the sample. He had done this all by himself. “This is incredible! How did you do this?” I didn’t hear anything from him, but as I looked back at him he was frowning, and his eyebrows looked like a wasp’s stinger about to attack. His next words caught me off-guard.
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to take your fucking shoes off when you walk into somebody’s house?” I looked down at my shoes. “Shit. Sorry.” I walked back upstairs to put my shoes in front of the door when I noticed something through the blinds of his main door.
Two figures standing outside.
I couldn’t make much out, except that they were wearing those black plague masks the doctors used to wear. They didn’t approach the door, yet they were standing a few feet behind it, trying to peer through. I hid under the blinds, and tried sneaking past the door and back downstairs.
When I thought I was free, I bolted to the basement, where my partner was looking at his samples. “There’s two figures in masks at your door, I thought nobody else knew about this?” I asked him.
He looked at me calm, almost like he was angry at the same time. “No-one does, except YOU.” He thought I betrayed him. “I didn’t do this, but we have to hide now or we’re going to get fucking killed.” He pointed to a hidden cellar that wasn’t even noticeable. He had planned for this.
The door blew open upstairs and hit the ground with a hard smash. Our visitors had gotten inside. We rushed into the cellar and waited. We heard the sound of bottles smashing and liquid dripping from the table. They left as quickly as the came. We rushed out of the cellar to find his entire basement ransacked. “It’s all gone.” We had lost one of the greatest cures known to mankind.
“I have copies.” He opened the cupboards in his cellar to reveal dozens more samples. In the moment I realized something. The lab never expected us to figure out a cure. They didn’t want us to. They provided us with none of the equipment my partner had.
We quickly raced to his car and left.
“What do we do now?” I asked him.
“We flee and hide.”
“Yes, but where?”
“Somewhere remote.”
We drove for hours, when we arrived at a tiny cabin in the forest. “I’ve been preparing for this moment.” He said. “I bought this cabin when I figured out I was onto something, I knew they would come again.” I didn’t know who “they” were. “Who is coming?”
He looked at me with calmness. “They’re some sort of cultist group. They have insiders everywhere. Those people you saw at the house? That’s who wants us both dead.”
“What? How do they know about this? Why do they want us dead?”
He looked out the window.
“I don’t know, but I know they will stop at nothing to rid any kind of scientific breakthrough.” We walked into the cabin and sat on the couch, staring at the wall for about 40 minutes before one of us said anything.
“One kidnapped me and brought me to a forest like this.”
I didn’t say anything, just listened.
“About 6 years ago it was. Took me, and my family, handcuffed.”
“My wife, my son crying their eyes out in despair. Begging for mercy or the sweet release of death. They were shoved to the ground as I was held back by them. They put their fingers on my eyelids and forced them out, so I could watch.”
I shivered, in anger and in fear.
“It wasn’t one, or two shots they fired. It was about 20. And it was my fault.”
He brought out the sample.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m the first subject.”
He poured the medicine in his mouth and retreated to bed. I laid on the couch, paranoid about everything.
In the middle of the night I heard howling. Not a wolf howling, but my partner, in pain. I ran upstairs and swung open the door, only to find the thing of nightmares.
At first it was dark and silent, and I thought I was dreaming. Then I heard the most sickening groan ever, it wasn’t a normal whine, it sound like there was a spider spewing web in his vocal cords. I looked down and saw blood dripping onto the floor from his bed. I ripped the blanket off and saw his organs falling out of his body. His head had become almost dilapidated, like a rusty brick. His mouth hung open in a crooked fashion, bearing vicious teeth. His eyes shrunk into his sockets and his foot ripped off of his body as he tried to sit up.
“heeeeelp…. please.”
I’m too shocked to vomit. to do anything. I’m hiding in a cabinet. A few minutes ago, I heard the windows break. I think they’re back.
They are back. And there’s a lot more of them. I don’t know what to do.
It’s been about 10 minutes. I heard ruthless screaming upstairs, and hollow growling, like it’s right in my ear. Whatever my partner has become, surely he won’t live forever.
My partner didn’t die. I watched the whole thing. He changed. Into one of them. He became one of them.
I don’t know how much longer I have, you become one of those figures. With the masks. I’m assuming they’re all people who have made discoveries in the past. Why are they hunted?
they’re downstairs i think they know where i am
im sorry i failed you
whoever finds this please take warning
theyre oepning cabnets
they found me