Cast Away

"What the—!?"

The tunnel beamed white. All of its lights had suddenly turned on.

"The lights?..." The passengers within the convoy were confused. Ian and Veronica, Vidia and Gian-Luca, and Midas and Venus all squinted their eyes to readjust to the brightness. Had they not been equipped with Resistors, their pupils would have burnt out and been blinded by now.

Veronica rubbed her eyes with irritation. "Why did they only turn on now? Were they supposed to be on before?..."

"I'm not sure," Midas replied on the frequency. "All Abel told me was that the tunnels were pitch black when he was being transported here. I don't know why they weren't on then, or when we first got here. But at least we're not navigating blindly anymore, right?"

"Yeah…"

Midas' shoulder was suddenly gripped tightly by Venus who sat in the back. "Midas!"

"Venus? What?"

"Something's approaching our vehicle!" He pointed out the rear window. From there, the two could see what seemed to be a bright orange vertical line of light that gradually gained distance on their moving van.

"What… is that?" Midas focused his gaze. He noticed an unnatural pattern of yellow curves that emitted the moving orange glow. Realization quickly struck him; "THAT'S FIRE!"

Midas immediately leaned in on the vehicle's microphone, speaking alarmingly into the frequency. "Everyone swerve your vehicles to the right, NOW!"

He followed up by turning the vehicle towards the right side of the tunnel.

"Huh?" Vidia replied. "Why?—"

"JUST DO IT!" Midas yelled.

Following the response, the two vans ahead of Midas and Venus all turned over to the right side of the tunnel. This left an open gap on the leftmost side of the tunnel.

Confused by Midas' suddenly aggressive tone, Ian spoke up. "So… why did we swerve to the ri—"

But as he spoke, a tall wall of violent flames blazed past the convoy, leaving behind a trail of burned ashes as it incinerated everything in its path.

"What the hell… What was that?!" Ian asked alarmingly.

"I don't know…. but it's good we avoided it. Venus was watching our rear so he saw it coming." Midas sighed of relief. He turned back around to see if anything similar was following its approach.

Gian-Luca stepped into the conversation, "Did that come from the start of the tunnel?"

"Yeah, it did."

"Do you think that could've been one of the Overseers?"

Midas pondered. "Definitely not Jophiel, since he's dead. Could be Ariel but she didn't seem to have any fire-based attacks. Chamuel is out of the question. We killed him a while ago." He stroked his chin in thought, "It could've been another Overseer we haven't encountered yet… No matter who, they clearly pose a threat. We need to drive out of here before they can catch up. Go faster!"

Midas began accelerating forwards, expecting the two in front to do the same. But they continued at their constant velocity, even seemingly slowing down.

"Guys? I said let's go faster—"

"Midas." Ian spoke a serious tone.

An odd tension was suddenly lifted. "What? What's wrong?"

"Midas there's…" Veronica stuttered. "There's bodies… everywhere."

"Bodies? What do you mean bodies?..." Midas looked out the window. Shock was instilled.

Scattering the width of the bright concrete tunnel were numerous dead bodies. Some were found to be mutilated, while others were downright skeletons. But the most noticeable trait of them all, were what they wore.

"Are those… our jumpsuits?" Vidia asked.

Midas realized the same. Every body the convoy drove past were wearing the same jumpsuits the group had been wearing.

"Don't tell me… these are previous subjects of A.X.A.?" He looked at each corpse. They all laid in the same static position, as if frozen in time before they died. While some bodies were bones, and some were rotting to the core, others looked intact, and it struck Midas with oddity. He observed their eyes; they were simply whited out, with no trace of pupils.

"What happened here?" Gian-Luca asked.

"I've seen this before." Ian shuffled through his memories. One in particular struck him;

Ian peered down through a slanted glass window. Down inside a tall circular room, an individual stood in the center of an excessive sea of light.

"If our subject hadn't already been scheduled for this cell, you could've been that person right there." Someone giddily spoke behind him.

"Hasn't even been a fully day yet, but he's already lost it. He still has a day to go!" Ian turned around. It was Overseer Raphael.

"The white light so bright would've not only taken over your entire sight, but your sanity too. He not only sees nothing but white, but is one with the white; that's what he believes."

Ian was unsettled by the confident words.

Ian then snapped back into reality, fully recalling the memory relative to this situation. "I've seen this before. Overseer Raphael showed me."

"Overseer Raphael?" Venus questioned.

"Yeah. There was a time I was supposed to be placed in the Cell of Solitude out of punishment, but one of Raphael's subjects was already in there, so I was spared."

"Wait, you mean Reed Regardius?" Midas' interest piqued.

Ian recalled one last time, a conclusive bit of speech that instilled fear into the recollective situation; "You don't wanna end up like Mr. Regardius, right?"

An odd shudder shook Ian's body. "Yeah, it was Reed Regardius. He was standing in the middle of the cell; this overly bright cylinder of white light, and he was just screaming."

"Screaming?"

"Yeah, screaming. Not even out of anger, or sadness, or any other emotion. It was just this monotone scream as if he didn't know what to scream about. He stood there clueless, and stationary, like he was in a vegetable state."

"Do you think…"

"Yes. It was the lights. Those excessively bright white lights they have all around the facility. They used it like a torture mechanism on him. And I think…" Ian looked around at the surrounding bodies. "That these previous subjects might've met the same fate, but even worse. They seem to have been left out here, reduced to a veggie-like state from the white lights in this tunnel, and left to rot and die."

"Because they were of no more use?" Veronica asked.

"Maybe. I think it was clear enough that every subject at A.X.A. was disposable, and maybe these subjects just didn't meet their standard."

"So if we didn't display enough, we could've been left out here to die too?"

"Yeah probably—"

"Some of these people aren't dead." Midas stated unsettlement into the frequency.

"Aren't dead? What do you mean? They're mutilating, and some of them are straight-up bones."

"But the ones that aren't rotten flesh and bones. Their eyes are whited, their bodies are frozen, but who's to say they aren't still stuck in their vegetative state from these white lights?"

The possibility unnerved everyone. Suddenly, as if on cue with Midas' words, one body in particular began to shake erratically. This happened behind the convoy, closest to Midas and Venus.

"That body's moving!" Venus shouted.

The body was half-mutilated, with wide rotten gashes along its arms and legs, even revealing some length to its bones.

"Isn't it supposed to be dead?" Midas asked.

The body unexpectedly stood up, unbalanced on its withering legs and muscle tissue.

"KILL ME." The body screamed.

"H-Huh!?" The two were alarmed.

The half-dead body that spoke now began sprinting towards them.