The Research Facility II

The darkness swallowed them whole.

Alexia's breath came slow and measured as she adjusted her grip on her katana, her body tensed for an attack that had yet to come. The emergency light flickered weakly, casting brief glimpses of the room in its eerie red glow.

Then, a noise.

A wet, slithering scrape against the floor.

[Anomaly Detected.]

The system's warning rang again, but no further details followed. That was the worst part.

"Alex, get the lights back up," Damien ordered, his voice steady despite the tension in his posture.

"Working on it," Alex muttered, his fingers flying across his tablet screen. His drone's night vision flickered on, but the moment it turned towards the movement, it went static.

"Something's interfering with my feed," Alex hissed, frustrated.

"Quinn," Alexia whispered.

"Already on it." Quinn replied, his shadows stretching out to feel ahead. But something pushed back. His eyes narrowed. "I can't feel, its's pushing back."

Alexia pulse thrummed in her ears.

Another sound.

Not just one.

Several.

The sound were soft, irregular tapping noises, like claws clicking against tile. Then the rasp of something exhaling, dragging itself forward.

There was the sound of something whispering, it wasn't in words though, it sounded utterly wrong.

A figure moved in the dim red light, followed by many others.

The silhouettes twitched, their limbs jerking unnaturally. The lab's door stood open, and beyond it, the hallway seemed wrong. The shadows moved when they shouldn't have, stretching too far, bending unnaturally as if something unseen skulked just beyond their vision.

[Threat Level: Unknown. Caution Advised.]

"Lights, Alex." Alexia said quietly.

"Almost there..."

The figure lunged.

A blur of pale, emaciated flesh, its mouth stretching too wide, filled with jagged, uneven teeth. Its eyes were black different from the green and silver eyes of the infected, they locked onto Alexia as its elongated fingers clawed for her throat.

Alexia reacted on instinct, twisting aside as her katana slashed upward. The blade connected slicing through flesh, only for the creature to keep coming.

Its mouth stretching with it jagged uneven teething aimed towards her neck, she slashed sideways, the blade slicing through the flesh.

The creature moved backwards, before moving towards Alexia again, it head lolled to the side, it neck half severed, yet it screeched and clawed at her like it didn't care.

Then Quinn's shadows surged forward, wrapping around the creature and wrenching it back. It thrashed violently, the unnatural movements sending a disturbing shudder through its body.

"So, not a normal infected or like the evolved ones," Quinn ground out. His grip tightened, his shadows pressing harder. "It's resisting--"

The creature twisted its own head back into place, its neck healing.

"--Shit."

The emergency lights suddenly flickered back to life.

That's when they saw them.

The hallway outside wasn't empty.

It was filled, with dozens of figures, they were barely human, they stood unnaturally still. Their heads snapped toward the sudden brightness, mouth stretching open in silent soundless screams.

And then they moved.

Not ran. Not stumbled.

They flickered.

One second, they stood at the far end of the hallway. The next, they were closer.

Then closer again.

Alexia felt her skin crawling, the hairs on her neck raised, and dread pulling at her stomach. Just what was it with this research facility.

"Move!" Damien snapped.

Quinn's shadows hurled the restrained creature into the nearest wall with a sickening crunch, but it was already pulling itself up again.

Alex grabbed his drone and bolted after them. "We need a way out!"

Alexia slashed at another lunging figure, her katana carving deep, but just like before, it didn't stop. Devon's hand shot forward, his ability flaring as the creatures closer to them, blackened and shriveled before convulsing and finally collapsing.

"That works," Devon muttered.

They ran, dodging past the creatures that blinked in and out of sights, their grotesque forms flickering in the harsh artificial light.

Alex swiped at his tablet. "I'm pulling up the map... this way!" He pointed to a corridor branching off to the right.

They veered sharply, slamming into a rusted door at the end of the hallway. Quinn shoved it open, his shadows forcing it wide enough for them to slip through before Damien wrenched it shut behind them.

They stood in a new room, some kind of containment chamber.

It was massive. The walls were lined with thick, reinforced glass, some of it cracked but still intact. The rows of containment pods, similar to the ones in the lab, stood eerily silent. 

Most were empty.

Most.

But at the very back, one was still occupied.

The fluid inside was murky, the figure within obscured.

Alexia felt a calling towards it, so she walked closer towards the containment pod.

Quinn being close to her tried to hold her back, but she shrugged his hand off. 

Alexia put up her palm against it, the pod was very still before it turned on, blue lights surrounding it. The murkiness of the water cleared up and in it was a child.... similar to the one she gave supplies when she went to investigate the strange anomaly that lit up the sky.