"I should have stayed home today."
He's pulled down into the ground as blood erupts from the cracks—then he vanishes as the floor seals itself again. The blood dries up, leaving the fleshy floor eerily empty, as if the arena had been cleared for the next match…
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Hours ago…
"Are you sure this is the right way?"
"What's with the filthy flesh around here?"
The scientist is talking about the bridge they have to cross to reach their destination. The place stinks—the bridge is consumed by flesh. As they stall for time to find an alternative route, one of the scientists tries to test the bridge. He takes out a fire extinguisher, gets close to the bridge, and sprays; as he does, the flesh starts twitching…
"Hey, something's happening!"
"Interesting—the flesh is alive…"
"It's disgusting!"
"Altman, what should we do now?"
"Can we use the vents to get across to the next floor?"
As they have the conversation, the other group talks about what might happen next. Tim was worried about what might occur next. He said to her:
"This is as strange as it gets. Those spores don't feel safe at all."
"Any other way out, maybe?" she said as Zoey joined the conversation, finding something…
"I found a toolbox used for fixing circuits. Can we use it to get into the vents?"
"Yeah, but there are a lot of people here," Tim said, as she added,
"We can take people one at a time—well, the vents are strong enough—but what if people don't cooperate?" As she spoke Ryan came up with an idea,
"What about when we push a person and find out what happens next?"
All of them were looking at him as Zoey hit her head in frustration.
"Let's get going…"
He pulled Tim toward the bridge. They all looked at him from the corners of their eyes. She was worried as they both moved forward, close to the spores, as Ryan said to Tim,
"Well, you'd better wait—or try dying."
"What are you doing?"
"What I do best: gamble!"
"Wait!!"
As he crossed the bridge, he kept playing around. Tim walked by and said it was safe to cross. As people started walking by, they reached the zone, which was filled with grotesque flesh.
Dark and sticky—spores and flesh all around.
Twenty-four members arrive in the middle of a zone—a sculpted statue, carved in flesh, was mounted there. It was the Founder of Syveron, Ryan was talking with Zoey as they explored the place.
"Feels like Taco Friday here; I better get paid for this shit!"
"Unless you're dead, I'll keep your cheque."
"You sure about surviving this shit?!" she say as Tim replies,
"Yes, we can. We should be as optimistic as possible in situations like these."
As Suki goes through all the faces and the way they talk and pose, she keeps her eyes off Ryan's group—less obvious due to their interactions and motives. Pointing out their relationships and selflessness. The soldiers point their guns, scared and worried about the situation they might face.
"Sir, what should we do?"
"The whole place is sealed by these flesh walls."
"Altman, is there any way we can get out of here?"
"I don't know, it wasn't like this before."
"What do you mean? Has it changed?"
"Yes, but wait—the statue is moving…"
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An ominous male voice said:
"So many of you came? Awesome."
"If you want to escape this place so badly…then…"
The whole place started shaking, and the way they came from started shrinking. The scientists at the back said.
"Guys, we gotta move—this place is shrinking. Move forward!"
"But where?!"
"Let me show you the way, I can assure you. We treat our guests very well."
The flesh starts stretching apart into two doors. The members move in; as they get inside, the room encloses them. It was total darkness; they could see a few letters fade in as they lit up, showing the instructions to follow to escape:
Choose fast. Clock's ticking. Walk in. Or DIE.
Choose wisely. Touching flesh. Be wise. Or DIE.
A confusing riddle; they see others close by but can't hear anything. All shocked as the countdown starts, 3…2…1.
BEGIN!
"F**k! What is this?!" the scientist says as he walks back, trying to scrape the flesh. As he does, the place slowly lights up in an obnoxious green, the green vein growing.
As he tries to leave by tearing and scraping the flesh with his hands, the flesh starts consuming him; he realizes too late as it absorbs him. It was like he was vacuum‑sucked into a human‑sized plastic bag, trying to gasp for air, but soon he stopped…
Be arrogant, become flesh…
Be followers, become wise…
This noise or voice lingers around the space. Tim says, "Let's get out of this… the wise way, I guess."
She continues,
"By following the instructions."
There was an inscription written before them with two blurred lines of text.
"What is my…"
"In the bag you left…"
"What will Lev…"
"Wait. What! Stop!"
Zoey breaks in, stopping people from saying the inscriptions as if they were different things, well it was.
"So this means we all have questions of our own." Suki says.
"Well, not sure if it's a good or a bad thing…"
"The options are visible." Johnson said.
"I can't pick…" one of the female scientists said.
"What's the question?"
(nervous)
"I can't say that… it's personal. Can anyone say their questions so I can understand how to pick?"
Marlien said, pissed about the situation.
"You can't pick a single question, and without telling yours you can't ask us ours. We have the same reason, and we can't just say that just to comfort you."
Altman said,
"Who knows—sharing our questions might kill us for violating the rules."
"But!"
As they quarreled, Johnson spoke out his question:
"Who do you love more? Caleb or Monica"
Monica, my sweet daughter, excelled in class and was always kind and honest to others. I am so proud of her as she helps in everything we do. Want to be an astronomer and I try my best to support her. She was the best daughter God has given us.
But… Caleb was my only son, he was not the brightest, he was blind and had health issues, had a really great voice. In spite of losing hope of never seeing the world, he tries his best raising Monica and no matter how hard he tries to fight back cancer, he couldn't make it.
I hate myself everytime for not being a great dad for Monica even if she said otherwise and try my best ever since. But I could never lose the love for my dead son… even if he's dead, I'll always love him the most for he inspires me to be a strong father for his strong son.
He move towards Caleb option shown in the air, as he moves the flesh tears apart to let him move forward as he ends his statement,
"Please be safe at least for your family and friends."
The number shows,
24...23 left
As the others witnessed the count, the timer appeared, showing 30 min left. Others followed later. Tim and his friends split apart while choosing their answers, excluding Ryan. They proceeded further without revealing their questions.
As they proceeded to the next stage, the inscription appeared.
The RULES are added with every next choice—kept hidden, your thoughts intact.
"This doesn't make any sense—no rules? What the…" Ryan said.
"All we can do now is follow the given rules, as they won't contradict the new ones, and figure out how to get out of here safely," Tim said.
"The one doing this can read our minds, or something like that…" Suki said. As they proceeded further and so did the others to get out of the unknown game.
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What's taking so long?
Cassandra was crawling through the vents, expecting the survivors to do the same instead of going across the fleshy bridge. She got out of the vents onto the wall-mounted seating as she reached the entry point of the bridge.
The first thing she sees is some big, skinless dogs roaming around, red-eyes and not a single shed of skin. She looks farther: a person attached to a wall of flesh, two dogs chained to his wrist. The further she looks in that dim lit place she sees the pumping vein of capillaries flowing through the wall of flesh; a dog senses her…
(woof)
All the dogs stop roaming at the same time. It was a sudden pause in the atmosphere. The person looks at her, twisting his face in typical horror fashion. Bone-chilling, jaw-breaking smiles and the dark black eyes with white socket staring at the looming abysmal prey along with all the dogs.
(Japanese)
"That lost child—bring her back!"
The dog starts chasing and barking with rageful intent as one of the chained dogs is let out. Without any hesitation, she runs from the spot, passing bodies and broken experiment zones.
Soon she is able to out stand the dogs but as she runs at full speed, she sees a guy getting close enough, able to match her speed. She tries to slow him down by pulling a desk, throwing bodies to stop him.
She finds a secret room like before and goes in, hoping to lose the chase. The guy appears right in front of her, in white Japanese attire, with a sword on his back faintly visible. He strikes her, but she is prepared. Without a shred of thought she used a small plasma beam, firing point-blank and blowing out the door. As he gets up, she escapes through the vents to another site, quick enough to end the chase. It is a maintenance zone.
As she relaxes, the suit cools down due to overuse of the source. The suit releases hot steam, bubbling the vents; pain runs through her spine.
"F**k!! Ahhh" she screams in agony.
The suit compresses her body back to normal, awakening a horrible throwback to the overuse of power beyond human capabilities.
"AHHH! It's worse than periods…" She hears a noise; it terrifies her.
"Dhan" (dropping)
Something moves; she hides beside the wall, slowly sliding down as her body can't control the throbbing cramp. She takes a peek: a six‑foot‑tall figure with blue, engrossing, elongated arms and a shrouded dark attire of a saint—a dark one—walking or floating along the ceiling. This is the worst entity to encounter, long enough to block any way to run with its menacing arms.
He looks at her; she hides, trying to get the hell away from this being. The worst part of his steps had no treble of any sort, unable to know how close he was. As he gets to the wall, no one's there. She manages to overuse her ability and get inside the locker. Grasping for breath and bearing cramps all over her body. Her body—from chest to leg, from head to toe, even places she never felt existed—burns in agony…
Was burning in agony…
She closes her eyes, praying to stay alive through this hell, to forget this pain; her brain temporarily not functioning due to the toll, and then she musters some courage to look outside the locker.
The being is staring as she stares back at him, its inverted eyes pitch‑black with a red dot at the center. He says…
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WAKE UP!
She gets up in her bed, sensing her body as if she had a nightmare, looking at the man sleeping beside her. Feeling a bit under the weather, she looks at the balcony.
In southern Romania, Bucharest is a beautiful, coastal, highly bordered private area of twenty acres, with a luxurious palace owned by her. Her exotic designer night outfit was lit by the dawn sky.
Still unable to shake a strange feeling, she goes to the next room, checks the outfits for the day, selects one, and gets showered. Unaware that it was all a…
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In the locker, the monster gets inside her, merges with the body and ends up having the exact eyes and robes attire. starts walking, mindless and consumed by the entity and walks sideways to the top inverted just as the being…
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