PART II
I survive as I always do.Â
By lying completely still.
In the close distance through the blackness I hear the snapping of bones and a cool wet sopping sound. I breathe exclusively through my mouth and the air tastes of metal and mold. It's familiar by now but I still want to retch. Over my back I feel the weight of another person lying completely motionless, who I can only guess is Splice, and I struggle to find breath with each intake of air beneath him. My cheek lies flat against the cold concrete, and before me I still see nothing but shadowless dark. The sound of wet crunching is close to my eyes, I can hear that much, but the motions that I guess are just feet ahead are veiled invisible. My fingers reel back instinctually for only moment as a warm liquid creeps around them. At first I think I'm dead, and that I've been found, but as the liquid travels onward along my fingers and up to my palm, I realize this isn't the Residual's touch. It's too slow, too constant to be a predator. The sound of feasting goes on and my sleeve makes contact with the advancing wetness, absorbing it up and dousing my forearm. Its warmth is appreciated and makes my stomach turn all at once.Â
The relentless march continues on and the flood puddles slow around my cheek. My breath grows haggard at this, and I'm at the verge of releasing a groan. As I shut my eyes tight to block everything out, a sharp bone-chilling crack snaps forth, echoing through the corridors, and blood splatters across my face and parted lips.
When the Residual stops eating, I do not immediately notice it. The sound of consumption comes to a halt, but I do not hear it retreat into the infinite blackness that surrounds me. I wait motionless upon cold concrete with dry blood caked across my face and torso for some time, feeling the Residual by my side, its persistent odor hanging heavy in the air. For a long while, I can feel its presence hovering over me, listening.Â
Eventually the sour taste leaves my mouth and the scent fades. I move my hand quietly through the black to tap twice in quick succession upon the body laying over me, and it stirs softly in response.
The way the body above me dismounts me in near total silence confirms that it had been Splice to lay himself over me. We waste no time speaking to one another or searching for Adineen. Instead we grope the walls of the corridor through the darkness, blind and disoriented. Our awkward movements are laborious and quiet, but I can feel Splice on the other side of the corridor shivering beneath his fear, almost as if to mirror my own demeanor. As we search along the walls for doors unbarred I feel a separation spread out between us as time rages forward and blackness persists. Â Close in proximity but far off and away in the darkness, I know both of us search the walls in a slow-moving panic with hopes that the other is the one to slip or bang against some wayward pot or hanging metal construct. This is further confirmed when my bare foot steps into the remains of Chon with a loud squelch. I freeze in place and Splice couldn't be quieter. He's still there though, waiting for some far off Residual to hear my noise from corridors away and come slithering again through the blackness to wrap me up and feed. It never comes though, and we continue our search. In front of the body at my feet I find a door that gives and I signal to Splice by clicking my tongue softly. Within a second he is at my back and we enter into the room together.
With one final heave, we finish pushing the last of our barricade into place and I allow myself to fall with my back against a wall with a sigh relief. For now we're safe, and my mind is free to return to me. I peer through the darkness and can see the vague outline of Splice laid out on the floor. Obedient, he turns over to the reset as soon as it occurs and will be up to stir me into wakefulness the moment our Facility comes back to life.
Sleep, as much as I anticipate its arrival, does not come as easy to me. My mind, cleared of fear and panic, has the chance now to settle and soon falls upon Adineen and Chon. Chon who I kicked in the back into a crashing chaos that brought that Residual down on him and Adineen who I never caught sight of during the attack. Adineen, who would release a lustful coo as I would bite into her collarbone while she rubbed the coarse skin of her palms up and down against my nakedness in the dark of resets much like this one. I remember how the motion had been awkward beneath the rough fabric that covered my lower half, but even still it made my breath waver, and I remember my attempts to return the favor. As I begin my floating descent into slumber, my mind centers on her face, and I feel a longing for her presence. Splice's steady breathing from the other side of the room comforts me and, through a concentrated effort to stave off the thoughts of him rubbing her as she has rubbed me, I am coerced into sleep.
After Splice's violent shakes to my shoulder.
After my eyes open to the return of red monochrome.
After I shed away the crackling shell of dried blood caked over my arm and face.Â
After we share Splice's smoked salmon susty vial.
After I give him his diary to jot his thoughts in as scribbles.
After I write my own down.Â
After all this I take his diary and mine, replace them in my bag for safekeeping.Â
After we prepare to continue our venture down the northern traverse.Â
I don't exactly feel rested. Quietly we remove the barricade from the door piece by piece and soon after that I am crouched to the side of its threshold with my palm gripped wet and tight around the handle just a bit above my head. The door moans slightly as I pull it open and my eyes survey the red for movement. The body I see has been moved to the center of the corridor and no longer lays pushed up against the wall. Its face is turned away from me and though it is far from intact, the pieces of it that do remain are much more slender than I remember Chon being. I step tenderly through the crack of the door and move towards the body. The hair is chopped short like all the rest of ours, but through the crimson light draped over the corridor, and the blood that stains it, I cannot discern if it is Chon's brown or Adineen's blonde. The skull from this position is odd and misshapen as well. I stare for a long time at the back of the mysterious head before Splice tugs at my wrist to press on.
I ask him what happened to Adineen during the reset, too afraid to grab the chin of the skull below me and turn its eyes towards me.
"You kicked her down," he responds plainly, neither scared or angry or bothered by the fact. As if incapable of passing judgement.
I say nothing and leave the body there. I do not turn the face over to look into its eyes.
We find Chon dead and mangled up the way not far from where we spent the reset, confirming it had indeed been Adineen whose face I had refused to look upon. Adineen's blood that caked over on my face and arm while we slept through the reset. Adineen who I kicked in the back into the long teeth and sharpened claws of a Residual. Â
Eventually the red and black fades, and the northern traverse is lit by a softer, pale blue light. Things become less disorienting, and the regular grays of concrete and browns of aging metal return to my vision.
I ask Splice if the last expedition going this way made it far enough for the lights to change back to normal. He tells me that he doesn't understand the question.
We continue forward, but these hallways and corridors have been picked clean as well. The sleep from the reset and more natural color scheme helps me keep my head as I fall into the monotonous labor of walking and checking rooms. The Facility takes us ever deeper into its innards, turning us through itself over and over again pushing us up and down stairs for a long time. We finish Splice's other susty vial, and we're on the verge of having to eat one of mine. Both of our stomachs are growling, and soon I'll have to decide if I am to keep the whole of these last two vials to myself, refusing to return the favor of portioning out my supplies to him.
He asks me if we can eat yet, and I tell him that we must wait awhile longer. I decide that the next time he makes the request I'll tell him that we have already eaten. The Caretakers use this lie often on us to save supplies; something I only put together myself after recording feeding times between resets. Splice will believe me.
I am walking a safe distance behind him, the end of an open vial placed discreetly at my lips.
Splice's breathing is becoming labored as dehydration begins to settle in, and I am worried about Residuals hearing his stumbling through the corridors and finding us. As I increase the distance between us for my own safety, I see Splice lift his head in interest towards something in the distance for a moment before standing still. I freeze as well.Â
He stands there dull and silent, his breathing beginning to wane. I look past his body and off towards the far end of the long corridor and scan for movement. I see nothing aside from an odd white light in the distance.
Time passes more slowly or we're standing there motionless for a very long time.
Finally I whisper his name. In response he explodes forward in a full sprint and instinctively I give chase.
Within an instant I am standing over Splice, who is sitting on the floor, happily sucking at a susty vial he must have spotted from far off. I watch as he gulps it down to exactly half before turning around and passing the rest to me. I'm not hungry, but I finish it off anyway. Once finished, the two of us press on down the long corridor finding more vials and supplies to take back to the Caretakers. The rooms are more bare than usual, and I worry that we may not find enough items to fill up both of our bags. I am thankful to be wrong. As we near the light at the end of the corridor, the rooms become more and more untouched and do not seem to be pilfered as the ones from before.
I think aloud that this must have been as far as the last expedition down the northern traverse had gone before coming back to our inner-corridors. Â
Splice responds, telling me that the last expedition never returned to the inner-corridors.
"Do you know how many expeditions they've sent since the last that went down this northern traverse did return?"
He repeats that the last expedition never returned to the inner-corridors, and I give up on trying to get anymore information out of him. Instead, I turn my eyes outward towards the far end of the corridor and try to make sense of the white light at the end. It's thin, I see, vertical and thin. And also very bright amidst the dim pale blue lights that run along the low ceiling above us. Walking forward, ignoring the rooms we've yet to strip of their supplies, the light grows larger and more intense. From behind me, I hear Splice declare that his bag is full and that we should go back home. Â
Temptation is a strong force, and you shouldn't ignore its existence--denying that it's there tainting you is nothing more than purposefully turning a blind eye to your real wants--and throwing a veil over your desires doesn't put them to sleep or calm them down. It enrages and confuses them, setting them off on a path that you won't be able to divert them from. Desire retains a strong influence over you, yes, but desire left alone to operate in the back of your head unguided by your own will is wild. Unwieldy.
Perhaps I'm aware of this as I continue taking steps forward against Splice's protests. Perhaps not. My feet move me forward against my will, and I slap Splice away at his wary attempts to pull me back. He tells me our bags are full and we have to return to the inner-corridors. I wonder if he can see the light ahead.
And I mean truly see it.
--Make it out in the distance not just for what it is, but for what it may be.
This Facility may not be the labyrinth of infinity I've imagined it to be.
And my haunted dreams may be memories from a past after all.
I'm standing at arms reach away from the chipping green paint that lays weathered over the closed double doors composed of heavy metal. Aged since resets from far before my time, the two slabs of tired steel stand tall over me--menacing and silent. Between the doors, that sliver of light persists, deafening in its brightness. I try my best not to look directly into it, as doing so leaves me disoriented and unable to make out the details of the corridor.
I feel possessed now, hypnotized, and Splice shouts a loud protest as my hands lay over the doors, each metal slab flanking the slivered light.Â
The Facility breathes silently in response, and I can feel it taking a moment to find us.
The shout is soon followed by a series of clashing metals and clattering Facility supplies being tossed about from far far down the other end of the corridor. I turn my head only enough to catch through my eye's corner the sight of them.
Residuals. More that I can count. Their slender bodies slithering up along the corridor's concrete floor like a rushing of water, moving through one another like threads passing through a basket. The sight of it makes me feel like lead, and I see Splice in the foreground frozen in time, his eyes pierced with terror, hoping that the oncoming wave will wash over and past him like warm bathwater. I turn back towards the doors and know what's on the other side. Fearful anticipation creeps up from my gut and I start to push. First softly; then, as the metal door squeals in defiance, harder. I dig my bare feet deep into the concrete, my toes spreading apart as I try to grab hold of some sort of traction from below. I can hear the breathing from Splice's nose begin to increase in pace and volume as the odor starts to push down on us.Â
I say something to Splice along the lines of finding a barricade to lock himself away within.
I can feel the skin on the tips of my toes begin to tear, and a rancid taste fills my mouth. I can feel trickling at my back and I start to scream. I replant my feet and give one final heave of my body into the sliver between the two doors. A metal screeching fills my ears and I cannot tell if I am dead.
The doors open and I am purged by a blinding light.
Outside there is nothing but white, and I turn back and over and left and right as I try to search through the searing flashes before me to find my vision. The odor persists now, but an odd draft takes it and brings it back in some sort of cyclical movement. My eyes, no matter how much I try to command them to open, burn at any attempt. I roll about the uneven surface below, covering myself in thick dust as panic settles in. The ground out here is warm, and I try my best to steady my breathing and hear my surroundings. As I finally find calm and my writhing comes to a stop, I wonder why the Residuals haven't wrapped themselves around me.Â
I can make them out not far from me. Hear their bodies twisting and turning over and through each other like wet rubber. Their closeness makes me freeze, and I lie completely still, fearful of rolling myself into their nest. Very slowly my vision begins to make its return, and I begin to parse through the whiteness to make out shapes.Â
First, on the ground before me, brown shrubs and orange stones.
Then, further out, an immense wall of blackness towering high above me.
I regain my footing and rise to my feet, which look up to me from the dusty ground worn and torn against the bright light.
I stare in silence at the black wall for some time before I can make out what it is.
As the whiteness dies down and I'm able to keep my eyes open, the blackness stops staring back and I'm able to discern the meaning of the wall that stands ahead.Â
The Facility, I realize, as I move my head from left to right, watching its walls stretch both ways for distances much further than I would ever care to venture. I take a few steps back looking upon the impossible black box dropped here in the middle of some windy dustscape and wonder how far I now stand from the inner-corridors.
The green doors remain open as well. Within, sitting behind the edge of where the bright light of this outside can reach past its threshold and into the Facility, I can see shining shadows moving like snakes, their long rows of silver teeth flashing glares at me from moment to moment. I look past the heap of Residuals in hopes to catch a glimpse or sign of Splice, but all I see is blackness. I remove his diary from my bag and place it in the dirt for him before I turn around to see what I already know is there.
There's a memory saved away, deep within the sprawling complex that is my mind. A memory or maybe a dream, I can't be sure which, but I can hear it like a far off echo begging me to listen.Â
In it I'm looking over the Landscape. Seeing its true scope.Â
The fields that surround our Facility on all sides for endless distances.
I remember those four-legged beasts with shadows so large. Hulking shoulders lined with muscles striations and thick sheets of desert-bronze fur rolling atop their galloping backs. I remember their fangs big as men snarling from behind the thick flaps of meat that made up their mouths.Â
I remember watching them roam below me in packs, tracking down through the tall thickets of dried underbrush some other, equally-ferocious monstrosity that had been dealt the bad hand of living just beneath these feline behemoths on the food chain.
I remember the thick mist of red that soared out in a heavy plume from the smaller beast's gouged neck and stomach. Those streaks of crimson splaying themselves against the arid plains over the muted sounds of dying whimpers.
And lastly, I remember praying with futility to turn around and go back from where I came.